Mingo Movie Reviews
Rousing musical score.
Must have for Matsumoto fans only!
Fun series with a lot of flawsAs with most Matsumoto, "Queen Emereldas" is heavy on melodrama. "I am.....Emereldas (accompanied by a fierce wind that blows cape in a dramatic fashion.)" His work is pretty firmly Science Fantasy rather than Science Fiction. Spaceships are re-conditioned pirate ships with flags blowing in a non-existant wind as they sail the silent seas. Weapons are based on archaic swords and heavy dragoons. "Queen Emereldas" has all of these Matsumoto touches in spades. Honor and strength matter more than plot, and every scrappy kid has the right to be a man. The orchestral music is sweeping drama.
On the flaw side, as with "Harlock Saga," "Queen Emereldas" has a hard time with computer animation and cel animation. The two styles mix together jaringly. For some bizarre reason, the DVD switches to French about 2/3 of the way through. With a remote control it is easy enough to switch it back, but it is strange that this error got through on a professional DVD.
Storywise, "Queen Emereldas" assumes you are up on your Matsumoto. There are no introductions made for characters like Tochiro or the mechanoids. Backstory is never filled in. Someone not familiar with Matsumoto's previous work would be very confused and disappointed by "Queen Emereldas."
Still, with so little of Matsumoto's work available on DVD, each crumb dropped from the table feels like a feast. It's a fun series and I enjoy it in spite of it's flaws.
oddly homophobic story of gay loveWhat I find insulting about this film is that the boys never say the "gay" word, but they express their hatred of "maricones" quite often. I don't mind the director trying to pretend that gay history and culture don't exist, but it is offensive to tell a story about same-sex love that simulataneously preaches hatred of gay people.
'Nico and Dani'up for routine--'I got a secret, I gotta tell somebody,' independent films have to offer. Teenage crushes are usually more exciting
to watch because younger people are more opened minded about sexuality than most adults. I think that is why not too many adults appear in the movie.
The movie gives you insights like if someone was narrating their diary to you of what happened one summer and not leaving out those 'juicy details'your younger sibling was dying to read,and the emotional rollercoaster ride that goes with this age group.
It has good cinematography values; interesting/private conversation topics between best friends; and uptempo music from the country it was shot in--Spain and beautiful it is.
thoroughly enjoyable
oddly homophobic story of gay loveWhat I find insulting about this film is that the boys never say the "gay" word, but they express their hatred of "maricones" quite often. I don't mind the director trying to pretend that gay history and culture don't exist, but it is offensive to tell a story about same-sex love that simulataneously preaches hatred of gay people.
'Nico and Dani'up for routine--'I got a secret, I gotta tell somebody,' independent films have to offer. Teenage crushes are usually more exciting
to watch because younger people are more opened minded about sexuality than most adults. I think that is why not too many adults appear in the movie.
The movie gives you insights like if someone was narrating their diary to you of what happened one summer and not leaving out those 'juicy details'your younger sibling was dying to read,and the emotional rollercoaster ride that goes with this age group.
It has good cinematography values; interesting/private conversation topics between best friends; and uptempo music from the country it was shot in--Spain and beautiful it is.
thoroughly enjoyable
Food of Love DVD ReviewCertainly NOT a typical gay-themed film filled with quirky, offbeat sidekicks. What a relief!
Shot entirely in Spain, which stands in for San Francisco and New York, the first half of the film is very visual. Some of the stilted dialogue can be attributed to the all-European cast and their "American" accents.
The DVD transfer is a little grainy, but it is in letterbox format. Some great interviews with the cast and director are included as extras on the DVD.
FOOD OF LOVESecret and Lie No. 1. Eighteen-year-old Paul is turning pages for turning-forty pianist Richard (played by ghoulish Paul Rhys). Sparks fly. Richard suggests they go out 'for a drink' after the concert, but the two are thwarted by Paul's hyper mother hovering about and shrieking. Paul was asked out 'for a drink' by Richard's manager Joseph prior to the concert. The viewer does not yet know that Richard and Joseph are lovers -- and neither does the hapless Paul.
S&L No. 2. Paul is vacationing with his mother in Barcelona and meets Richard once again. The older man has him in bed within five minutes by way of the obligatory back-rub. Afterwards, in a rare moment of truth, Richard asks Paul if he made a mistake by hopping into the sack with him so quickly, but spoils it by adding that he assumed Paul just wanted sex when he came to visit! Richard does not tell Paul that he has a lover back home, even when it is obvious the inexperienced boy is falling in love with him.
S&L No. 3. Richard and Paul begin a one-week stand. They have dinner each evening with Paul's histrionic mother (Juliet Stevenson doesn't leave an ounce of scenery anywhere). She has also taken a shine to Richard and, having sent Paul out sightseeing, sets out to seduce him. It doesn't work, of course, but her ghastly flirtation does succeed in making the pianist flee the country. He returns to Joseph in New York without a word of explanation to poor Paul.
S&L No. 4. Paul is in New York attending Juilliard. He has begun an affair with yet another older man, Alden (even more troll-like than the others), who just happens to live in Joseph's building. Joseph spots Paul in the elevator and immediately begins to seduce him with an invitation to a party, a treasured LP, and a date to the Berlin Philharmonic. But, even when questioned about all the pictures of Richard in his apartment, Joseph still does not let on that they are lovers.
S&L No. 5. One surmises, from all the hemming and hawing going on, that Alden and Joseph have been involved in the past. So, by now (mind you, we're less than half-way through the film) all four male protagonists have slept with at least two of the others! Paul and Joseph have slept with all three. Only the neurotic mother has been excluded from this sexual merry-go-round, not that she didn't try. A rather savory Freudian stew, I'd say -- ever mindful of mixing my metaphors unduly.
S&L No. 6. Paul, while sleeping with every man over forty in the film, is totally closeted as far as his mother is concerned. Unfortunately for him, she happens on some private reading matter while snooping through his suitcase at Christmas, promptly hops on a plane to New York to save him, and acosts Richard and Joseph. The cat's finally out, but don't think the lies stop there. Ever clever, Joseph assures Richard that shameless Paul came on to HIM, that he's probably in cahoots with his mother, and they must be gold-diggers! Quick thinking is an invaluable asset to a good agent. After this final fiasco, Paul's mother fills him in on Richard's marital status, which at last explains the whole film -- and his needless suffering for the last hour and a half -- to the luckless lad.
The best part of this high-flutin' pot-boiler, to be sure, is beautiful Kevin Bishop as Paul: collegiate, adorably preppy (in Burberry from head to toe), lovely body, and sweet -- most of the time. When confused by the inexplicable behavior of everyone around him, he can become a tad truculent. I mean, who wouldn't?! Deserves but three stars. The extra is for pretty, put-upon Paul. He really earns it.
promising and intimate, yet . . .Manipulation and secrecy drive "Food of Love". Everyone has his (or her) own agenda of desires and uses everything to get what he wants. No one is up front with anyone. Caught in the middle is semi-hunky 18-year-old Paul (perfectly played by Kevin Bishop, an aspiring concert pianist who turns pages for turning-forty pianist Richard Kennington (tall, ghoulish Paul Rhys). Sparks fly across the keyboard during the performance, but they are thwarted by the young man's hyper mother hovering about.
They meet again in Barcelona. For Richard it's lust at first sight. He seduces Paul with the obligatory back-rub leading to bed inside of five minutes. Even so, the love scenes are intimate, quiet, and well-done. Paul announces that he is in love on the spot, and gazes at Richard with his startling eyes. He gets his first lesson in life when Richard suddenly and coldly abandons him without a word of explanation, and returns to his lover/manager, Joseph, in New York. It was, apparently, just a one-week stand for Richard. Paul's wise old Russian piano teacher tries to cheer him up by telling him that great artists are like vampires. Oh, I almost forgot: Paul's mother falls for Richard, too. It is, perhaps, her ghastly flirtation that drives him away.
Their orbits collide again six months later when Paul attends Juilliard. He's pretty busy in New York. He watches a classmate get a big manager (Joseph). He has an affair with one older man and sex with another (Joseph). It is suggested by their evasive demeanor that Paul's older man and the ubiquitous Joseph have a history, too! Paul's mother shows up to 'save' him from Richard's clutches. But nobody ever fills poor Paul in on the machinations that are driving his life, and affecting his music.
As a graduate of Juilliard in piano, I found Ventura Pons' film (his first in English) a vivid reminder of the musical demi-monde in New York with its thinly veiled artistic Darwinism.
The photography throughout is stunning, but the disc itself has some strange flaws. The soundtrack is ever-so-slightly out of synch, and is at times overly loud while at others barely audible. Still, it's a nice little movie. Should probably get one less star, but I had to throw in an extra for the Three B's: (beautiful Kevin) Bishop, Barcelona, and Brahms.
matsumoto's universe is vast in one sense that there are many players, but it's also very small -- the major players are clones of each other. Emeraldas is the tall, stark, lone privateer, forever voyaging the Sea of Stars, haunted by the memory of her lost love, Tochiro. Umino Hiroshi (even the character names are getting all to familiar), played by Hayashibara Megumi is the young boy, destined to become great man and builder; a mirror of Emeraldas' lost lover. And you have the leader of the Afressian forces, a person of opposing political views, but of the same spirit as our lead heroine.
This series does bring one new item to the table -- the anime character designs faithfully capture the gnarled look of the minor players, most notably of Le Law, the grizzled old stowaway, and the crew members of the ill-fated freighter.
Even more impressive is the score -- a fully orchestrated piece, which exudes a grandness of scale perhaps better suited for a full-length motion picture. The opening theme's haunting vocals is a more modern version of what we've heard before in the Harlock series, and like its predecessors, it will stick in your memory.
But perhaps even more disturbing than the recycling of old ideas is the outright borrowing of scenes from other films, most notably the showdown between Emeraldas and Eldomain, a scene unabashedly lifted from Batman: The Movie, where Batman, on board his Batwing, faces off against the Joker. This is one series that needs more than a cosmetic upgrade to make it of any worth.