blenderdumbass . org
Reviews
by Troler
Free Software fundamentally misses the point. It fails on a practical, ideological, economic, and political level. Let’s examine precisely how (in a slightly different order for the purposes of presentation).
6 Minute Read
"I like you"
↩ Reply
"That's very sweet of you <...>, I like you too"
↩ Reply
"I mean, I don't like many people"
↩ Reply
Seldom do I eat the same food twice, reread a book or even rewatch a movie. Barely do I ever want to rewatch the movie as I am watching it. You did not misread, not after the ending, but during the actual viewing. If you somehow didn't read the title, the movie in question is Robert Mulligan's Summer of '42.
↩ Reply
I came across it when I was reading Quentin Tarantino's review of 40s nostalgia pieces. What piqued my attention was the radiating love and affection for the picture and his knack for collecting film prints ("if you haven’t seen Summer of ‘42 projected in an I.B. Technicolor 35mm film print, you haven’t seen Summer of ‘42). I set down at the middle of the night and saw something I cannot unsee. Neither did the audience in 1971, since this slice-of-romance film about horny teenagers beat Dirty Harry and even Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange in the box office. To say it was impactful is an understatement.
↩ Reply
What was it that caught the attention of the viewers? Well, it was sex of course! Imagine this, the Sexual Revolution has swept the United States, arguing that all this restriction on sex is making people grow into perverts. The tidal shift of demographics, as brought by the Baby Boom, resulted in American cinema unshackling itself. This change is known as New Hollywood. In 1971 Robert Milligan was one of these crazy New Hollywood men. At a budget of a million (lead actress Jennifer O'Neill says it was 8 million) created relatively simple movie. Simple, yet effective. To a point where it deeply touched Kubrick ("climax of the film is quite simply one of the most devastating sequences I’ve ever witnessed (apparently Kubrick felt the same)". Do not take Tarantino's word for it, watch what Wendy is watching in The Shining
↩ Reply
The story follows a group of 3 ragtags Oscy (Jerry Houser), Benjie (Oliver Conant) and Hermie (Gary Grimes). All of them are a trio of lusting adolescents. They are at a stage where they want to have sex yet paternalism laws do not allow them to. Naturally that gives the same results as boiling water with the lid shut down. A good bit of the half of the movie is about teenagers being stupid bunch of horny bastards. There Hermie falls deep in love with Dorothy (Jennifer O'Neill). Hermie is 15 and Dorothy is in her 20s (the actor was 22). There is this Licorice Pizza scenario. The movie corrupts the audience into believing the relationship between a teenager and a woman is okay. WW2 is in the background: you have soldiers strolling the town, Dorothy sending her husband to France, radio broadcaster talking about the war. It is in the background... until it is not. The movie is set during 1942, it is a nostalgia piece after all. The Dorothy observed is meeting this 15 year old, while her husband is out fighting Nazis. At one point she buys flowers, keep that in your mind, it will be relevant later. For a good part of the film, the focus is on the "Terrible" trio and their quest to get laid.
c:2 ↩ Reply
Since the budget of the film was not that high (a million), it resulted in quite simple camera arrangement. Most shots were done out-doors, resulting in less expenses on props. Since the emphasis is on the characters, the shots are done using wide lens. The movie actually becomes quite a bit darker as it progresses. I mean, literally darker. First scenes are bright, moving with life of the beach-goers. Later on you have the shabby "Terrible trio" hut, movie theater, sex during midnight. As mentioned before, it being a movie from 1971, sex in movies was still taboo. Robert Mulligan is corrupting the audience by having a scene where teenagers actually fuck during the middle of the night. None of it is displayed on the screen. It was distributed by Warner Bros. in 1971 after all.
↩ Reply
The music composed by Michel Legrand is nearly non-existent. It starts in the beginning, with the showcase of the important places throughout the movie and resumes only at the end. Upon the rewatch, the beginning slide-show made me tear up.
↩ Reply
The love between Hermie (Herman) and Dorothy (Dorothy) was, by the words of the screen writer Herman Raucher, "had effected a strange relationship". Herman, in a way is a romantic, similar to Steven Spielberg. For him love is more than just putting his sausage into girl's scissors, as did Oscar, who in character, was closer to Luc Besson with his pussy-curse. Naturally having Dorothy's husband was murdered in France, meant "she was alone on an island and drinkin’ and playing their favorite song and in walks this kid and <...> She just thought I (Herman) was him". Powered by mourning, she danced, danced with Hermie (Herman) to their favorite song and went to bed with a 15 year old kid. It was Dorothy's way of curing herself from the trauma. She was alone on island with no-one except that strange Hermie (Herman). The flowers she bought few days ago were thrown out. The vase was left empty. Not even water was present in it.
↩ Reply
30 years later, after the film was released, the writer received "numerous letters from women claiming to be Dorothy". One of them stood out, it had Dorothy's handwriting. The letter mentioned, she had remarried and was living in Canton, Ohio. She was intrigued what effect did she have on Herman. The letter was ended with these words: "The ghosts of that night 30 years ago are better left undisturbed."
↩ Reply
Tell me @BlenderDumbass , are you willing to do a psycho-sexual analysis on one horny teenager and a miserable widow?
c:3 ↩ Reply
Fin.
↩ Reply
0
Find this post on Mastodon
The somber tale of Summer of '42
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/18/Summer_of_%2742_POSTER.jpg)
Troler
👁 16 💬 109
Sex and love are hard to miss on present block-busters. Even topics such as love between a child and an adult are discussed. In early 1970s and before it was hard to find films delving into such topics. A nostalgia film of that. The movie may start out light-hearted, it went deep so to make the illustrious Kubrick cry.
#Summerof42 #1942 #JenniferO'Neill #GaryGrimes #JerryHouser #RobertMulligan #HermanRaucher #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Terminator 2: Judgement Day is James Cameron's Leon: The Professional
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5e/Terminator_2-Judgment_Day.png/250px-Terminator_2-Judgment_Day.png)
Blender Dumbass
👁 13 ❤ 2 💬 1
Ever since Piranha II James Cameron shown his friendship with Luc Besson. Both directors are obsessed with marine biology, both are obsessed with strong female characters and both have a strange fascination with the youth. Luc Besson's Leon, The Family and Arthur films have strong child characters in some rather fucked up situations. James Cameron with Aliens, Terminator 2 and the Avatar franchise does the same thing. But have you ever thought how similar both the Terminator and Leon actually are?
#terminator2 #terminator #leon #jamescameron #lucbesson #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Superman 2025 has not enough Hawkgirl
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/32/Superman_%282025_film%29_poster.jpg/250px-Superman_%282025_film%29_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 11 💬 2
I love Isabela Merced. Ever since I saw her being this absolutely amazing girl in Michael Bay's Transformers 5 where there isn't enough of her either, I was a fan. I even genuinely tried to like Madame Web because of her part in it. And so it was rather disappointing to see how little screen-time she has in the new 2025 James Gunn film Superman. In case you didn't understand the title, she plays Hawkgirl.
#Superman #DCU #JamesGunn #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Gone in 60 Seconds ( 1974 ) is an enjoyable mess
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/0c/Gone_in_sixty_seconds_1974_movie_poster.jpg/250px-Gone_in_sixty_seconds_1974_movie_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 15
Watching the Nicolas Cage and Jerry Bruckheimer remake made me extremely curious to see the original Gone in 60 Seconds. And let me tell you that, the film is impressive when it comes to the shier production value H. B. Halicki ( writer, producer, director and star ) put into this film. But on the other hand the film is very hard to follow.
#goneinsixtyseconds #hbhalicki #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Basic Instinct 1992 is Verhoeven trying to be De Palma who is trying to be Hitchcock
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f9/Basic_Instinct.png/250px-Basic_Instinct.png)
Blender Dumbass
👁 15 💬 2
It is known that the best films from Alfred Hitchcock were done during the days of the code. The restrictions on nudity and graphic violence gave us iconic Hitchcockian moments like the shower scene in Psycho, where Hitch pulls of a totally kosher psycho-sexual ejaculation of ultra-violence. When the code gave way to the MPAA rating system, Hitchcock didn't really know how to react, producing mediocre films, giving way to directors like Brian De Palma who stepped into his shoes, to give us, more-modern Hitchcockian thrillers like Dressed To Kill. But by the end of the 80s, as De Palma stepped down from this Hitch-immitation role, and before Robert Zemeckis ultimately took this title with his 2000 film What Lies Beneath, there was also Paul Verhoeven and his psycho-sexual thrillers, like 1992 Basic Instinct.
#BasicInstinct #PaulVerhoeven #SharonStone #MichaelDouglas #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974 or the pioneer in ultraviolence
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a0/The_Texas_Chain_Saw_Massacre_%281974%29_theatrical_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 19 💬 2
If today we have a lot of films to choose from when we want to shock ourselves beyond believe: from barely serious, yet distrusting films by Eli Roth through intense hyper-violence by Coralie Fargeat or depressing looks at the world by Lars Von Trier all the way to deranged films like The Serbian Film, in 1970s you had probably only one true contender for such a level of derangeness. And it was the Tobe Hooper's 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
#TheTexasChainSawMassacre #TobeHooper #Horror #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Is Dracula 2025 the ultimate Luc Besson film?
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/27/Dracula_2025_film_poster.jpg/250px-Dracula_2025_film_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 17 ❤ 4 🔄 1 💬 7
Just a year ago we had Nosferatu by Robert Eggers. A truly horrid type of a horror film, based on the story of Dracula. A real cinematic treat for the fans of horror. But then suddenly in 2025 Luc Besson was just like... "Hey, I also made a Dracula movie". At first I was skeptical about it. Why would Luc Besson care about some horror tale? But after finally seeing it I must tell: This movie has more to do with Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein than Nosferatu. And I am not just talking about Christoph Waltz here...
#dracula #lucbesson #CalebLandryJones #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
The Disappointing Impressiveness of The Sugarland Express 1974
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/97/The_Sugarland_Express_%28movie_poster%29.jpg/250px-The_Sugarland_Express_%28movie_poster%29.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 10 ❤ 3 🔄 1 💬 4
Steven Spielberg's first true theatrical feature film The Sugarland Express didn't make much money. It was a minor success since with the budget of just 3 million dollars it was able to gather 12 million in box office. But it is nothing like his next film Jaws, which on a budget of just 9 million made a whopping 495 million in box office. Yet with all that said The Sugarland Express is still a very interesting movie to try to take apart.
#theSugarlandExpress #sugarland #spielberg #stevenspielberg #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Caught Stealing 2025 is a bit dark for a comedy, but way too bright for Aronofsky
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e6/Caught_Stealing_poster.jpg/250px-Caught_Stealing_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 15 💬 3
Vincent D'Onofrio pops up on my radar lately. I somehow get attracted to the same movies as the actor, which probably means that I need to review Full Metal Jacket by Stanley Kubrick, where D'Onofrio had his, probably, most iconic role. In any case D'Onofrio played an Ashkenazi Jewish gangster motherfucker in a Darren Aronofsky 2025 film Caught Stealing. Something that I had to see, just based on the absurdity of it.
#CaughtStealing #DarrenAronofsky #ZoeKravitz #AustinButler #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
The Lunacy of Buckaroo Banzai
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Adventures_of_buckaroo_banzai.jpg/250px-Adventures_of_buckaroo_banzai.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 10 ❤ 3 💬 1
Few films come close to the shier amount of WTF moments as the 1984 W. D. Richter film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. The best way to describe this film is "WTF". Let me explain.
#BuckarooBanzai #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Crimson Tide 1995 is a stupidly smart movie
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/ff/Crimson_tide_movie_poster.jpg/250px-Crimson_tide_movie_poster.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 182
Before Jerry Bruckheimer was obsessed with telling all his directors to be like Michael Bay and before Don Simpson had passed away. The duo of Simpson and Bruckheimer were obsessed with Tony Scott, the director of such classics as Top Gun, Days of Thunder and Enemy of the State ( which coincidentally were all produced by Jerry and Don, apart from the last film, which was produced after Don's passing ). But Tony Scott didn't only work with the duo. For example in 1993 he made a film not produced by Jerry and Don called True Romance from a screenplay of Quentin Tarantino. Which makes Crimson Tide the second collaboration of the two
#CrimsonTide #TonyScott #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Con Air 1997 is Bayhem! but Rick-Rolled
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Conairinternational.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 12 💬 2
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer didn't only work with the legendary Michael Bay. He worked with other legends too, like Tony Scott and in the case of Con Air Simon West who directed the Rick Astley music video Never Gonna Give You Up. Yet probably due to it being the first collaboration of Bruckheimer and West ( because it is West's directorial debut when it comes to feature films ), Bruckheimer steered him a bit to copy a style of another director he worked with. Michael Bay.
#conair #nicolascage #simonwest #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
How Cuarón builds tension in Children of Men
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fc/Children_of_men_ver4.jpg/250px-Children_of_men_ver4.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 12 ❤ 2 💬 2
2027 is around the corner and thank God babies are still being born. That is not the case in the 2006 Alfonso Cuarón film Children of Men. Children of Men is bleak and depressing. It is without hope. Without hope, that was lost, long time ago, because children are not being born anymore. The world has gone to shit. The world has gone to shit because there are no children. There are no Children of Men.
#childrenofmen #AlfonsoCuaron #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Star Trek 2009 is when you mix Spielberg with Michael Bay
![[thumbnail]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/29/Startrekposter.jpg/250px-Startrekposter.jpg)
Blender Dumbass
👁 12 💬 1
I have a soft spot for J. J. Abrams. His masterpiece Super 8 inspired me greatly to develop film-projects when I was a teenager. But his 2009 other masterpiece Star Trek ( together with 2009'th other Sci-Fi masterpiece Avatar by James Cameron ) is what pretty much started my obsession with space movies.
#startrek #jjabrams #film #review #movies #cinemastodon
Powered with BDServer
Plugins
Themes
Analytics
Contact
Mastodon