La Celestina (1996)

This is the second time in a week I have run into DVD censorship. In the case of The Intended, chunks of nudity had been snipped from the film. In the case of La Celestina, the frames are all there, but all the pubic hair has been blurred out!! As with The Intended, the censorship of La Celestina is a tragedy for celebrity nudity buffs, since the sexiest Spanish tootsie, Maribel Verdu, performed one of the sexiest scenes ever performed on camera. She asks an old witch-lady for advice with her "woman's problems," whereupon she is subjected to a gyno exam. A young man, watching in the wings as part of the witch's plot, is so inflamed by the sight that he jumps upon Verdu. She is perfectly happy with the situation, and they engage in an incredibly hot sex scene, one of the fifty best of all time.

This is a film version of one of the first novels ever written, the Spanish-language La Celestina (pub. 1499). Although almost nothing is known about its author, this work alone makes him an important literary figure who predated the works of Cervantes by a century. "La Celestina" is generally considered to have ended the medieval period in Spain and thus to have jump-started the Spanish Renaissance, and the Celestina character has subsequently become a literary archetype. As Wikipedia points out, "The name Celestina has become synonymous with procuress — especially an old woman."

Typical of the period, the story is a melodrama. A nobleman is in love with a chaste maiden.  To assist in the matchmaking, his two man-servants enlist the aid of a scheming old witch/madam called La Celestina. Her conniving produces the desired results: the maiden falls in love with the nobleman. Their joy is short-lived, however. Trouble soon begins when the nobleman rewards Celestina for her efforts but slights the servants. When the two men demand just compensation from Celestina, she refuses and they kill her. Celestina's friends blame the nobleman, and ... well ... tragedy ensues. The whole mess ends with the now-defiled maiden, having lost her beloved, throwing herself from the battlements of a castle, but not before making a long, dramatic speech to her mother below. Not content with ending the story with one long monologue, the author has the maiden's father, after having nearly made it to the top of the castle in time to save the girl, shout his own post-climactic monologue from the rafters downward to his dead daughter and aloft to heaven.

What can I tell you? It was a different age. The people of the time thought this was some major league entertainment, and it was widely enjoyed by the six people in Spain who were literate in 1499, five of whom were monks, the other being the author, Fernando de Rojas ...

 ... unless he was dictating to one of the monks.

The filmed 1996 version features some of Spain's top performers, and was nominated for seven Goyas. Tellingly, it did not win any Goyas, and was not nominated for Best Picture, nor for the screenplay or direction. Four of the nominations were for visual presentation (costume, set design, make-up, cinematography) and three for performances. Think costume melodrama.

The DVD presents the film in an anamorphic widescreen rendering, with the audio in flowery old Spanish and the subtitles in flowery old English. The DVD transfer is not especially good, and there is a significant problem with motion blur and interlacing.  The only saving grace of the DVD is that the special features include a promotional short which includes some of the Maribel Verdu nudity without the pesky censorship.

Although this interpretation of the story probably lacks the subtlety which the original author might have conveyed, I would have enjoyed the experience if the disk had been uncensored with a better transfer. I can't recommend this DVD, but I probably would recommend the film itself with some enthusiasm if somebody would issue a solid transfer without the blurring.

Maribel Verdu (movie) Maribel Verdu (uncensored special features) Candela Peña Penelope Cruz (no nudity, but very close)

 

Other Crap:

Movie Reviews:

Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format. Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.

"And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself"

And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself (2003 TV) tells a true story of how Pancho Villa allowed a movie company to film his battles, both for the cash he required, and to improve his US image. Big oil interests in the US had much to loose if the Mexican revolution was successful, and their anti-Villa fight was led by William Randolph Hurst in his papers. Villa even went so far as the allow the movie makers to change is battle plans for better camera angels.

Antonio Banderas was terrific in the role of Villa, and Eion Bailey was also good as the Mutual Film Company producer. After the first film was booed in theaters as being hard to see, and making Villa look rather clownish, Bailey tries to convince Villa to allow a second film, this time, a seven reel biography, using some scripted scenes, and actual battle footage. Villa feared intervention from the US, and needed an image upgrade, and so agreed. His daughter was played by Mutual Film Starlet Alexa Davalos.

Davalos and Bailey became an item during the filming. The movie was released to rave reviews, but Bailey had fallen out of love with Villa over a very cruel incident. Unfortunately, that film is presumed lost.

Alexa Davalos, and Rita Lopez Carrasco as Villa's girlfriend, both showed breasts in very dark sex scenes.

HBO pulled out all the stops on this one with a huge budget. The cinematography was excellent. What sells the story, however, is its very uniqueness, and some excellent performances. IMDb readers say 6.6. This is a C+, and one of the better made-for-TV movies I have seen.

Alexa Davos Rita Lopez Carrasco

"Survivors Exposed"

Survivors Exposed (2001) is a parody of Survivors, with six women to spend a month on a deserted island with the show host. The entire running time consists of the host hitting on the girls to break up scenes of nudity and implied girl/girl sex. This looks like a VHS conversion.

Tonight, nudity from Aimee Sweet, Alexus Winston and Aria Giovanni.

All 6 women end up doing full frontal and rear nudity. Tomorrow, the rest of the images and the review.

Aimee Sweet Alexus Winston Aria Giovanni

For today's contribution we travel to Holland and uncover three actresses in one movie. This we achieve in De Jurk (1996; The Dress), a delightful movie rated a deserved 6.9/10 at the IMDb, in which the lead role is actually a dress.

The competently made film narrates the things happening to several women who end up with that same garment. The movie is available on DVD in The Netherlands but has no English audio nor subtitles. My clips come from German TV and that is the audio you can hear in the following nine clips.

• Ricky Koole, in a triple B performance, is wearing the aforementioned dress but not for long as an intruder forces her to take it off, yet does not force himself upon her as you might assume in these 4 clips. (1, 2, 3, 4)



• Ariane Schluter shows breasts and buns when a bus driver attempts to rape her and later on in bed in the apartment of some old but lucky codger in three clips. (1, 2, 3)



• Lamenting, maybe because ignored by the IMDb in this film, Maike Meijer goes bottomless in two clips while refusing to service Tony, according to the guy in the clips just another human being but in another shape. Oink, oink. (1, 2)  

Three more women in the nekkid-fest that is Hollywood Sins.

Lots of exposure from Kim Dawson in two sport-humping scenes, one with a guy and one with Mia Zottoli. Kim was 36 or 37 when she made this film and while she would not be a candidate for a Barely Legal film, she carries her age very well. Same terrific all-natural body.

Dee Summers, former pornstar from Puerto Rico, does the lesbo friends thing with Victoria Karina (who I will get to a bit later this week).

And Filipina, Tess Broussard strips and boffs some guy. Tess has a wonderful exotic face and the makings of a terrific body but somewhere along the way she decided that implants would be a good idea. Well, I've become as much an expert on hooters as any other faithful reader of the Funhouse and it seems to me that those beauties ought not to have a square surface or a right angle anywhere. If they have one that's bad. If they have both, you got yourself one miserable set of implants. Tess has both. She should sue.

So for some good news: The gynocam comes for a bit o' work with each of the gals. Ain't life sweet?

Kim Dawson "Hollywood Sins"

Dee Summers "Hollywood Sins"

Tess Broussard "Hollywood Sins"