svbell

This film took me by surprise - I confess I was expecting yet another low-budget-low-interest indie flick, but Kisses & Caroms doesn't fall in such category.

This independent gem tells the story of a girl who setup a threesome with her ex to show him she's still the best. Perfect excuse to make a sex film, right? Well don't worry it goes far beyond that, and the film explores with humor and no boundaries men vs. women somewhat tumultuous relationships.

The cast deliver an outstanding performance, making their characters to be believable, and thanks to well-written dialogs and effective storytelling, Kisses & Caroms is a pleasure to watch. Add to this a great production value, sexy babes - including cult icon Ginger Lynn Allen - and topped with a great score, all this will make you wonder if the film is truly a low-budget production... Kisses and Caroms is guaranteed to keep you away from the Fast Forward button of your remote control.

If you've ever seen this french, made-in-Canada movie, you know what I mean. Basically a documentary on Canadian and European comics and graphic novels authors, disguised as some thriller / comedy as Jean-Louis Milette plays a villain who wants to conquer the world, and by asking private eye Michel Rivard to investigate the comic art industry and its influence on the civilization, Mr. Zolock tries to compute the collected data and find a way to rule the world.

But this film IS a documentary. It runs for around 70 minutes, and I'd say 98% of the film is composed of interviews of European masters of the 70s and 80s. Some interviews are conducted in public areas, while many of them are right in the artist's studios, so we can enjoy seeing them at work.

The list of the visited artists is too long to be mentioned here in full, but these include Yves Got, Enki Bilal, Jean Giraud / Moebius, Jacques Tardi, Albert Uderzo, Hugo Pratt, Gotlib, Franquin, Philippe Druillet, Reiser, and J-C. Mezieres. It is very interesting to have the insight view of each of these folks about their own work. To know what they really think about the graphic novel market, some surprising numbers when talking about sales (as long as we put them back in context in 1983), and what they think about what makes an adult comic or a kid's comic.

Definitively worth watching, just for the enjoyment to see these masters in their creative environment. There is a number of comic-related movies made in the US, but as far as I know, this one is the only film dealing with European artists.

sv

I have seen this giant spider movie when I was a kid, and boy did it scared me back then! I have been lucky enough to find a former rental recently, and after sending big bucks to the seller, I thought that maybe, after all those years, I would find it's absolutely crap and not worth the $50 I just sent. As a matter of fact, when I got the tape I did found it is crap, yet strangely it is as creepy as it was when I saw it decades ago. Characters are poor, but funny. Dialogs are pointless, but they fit the characters. Special effects are lame, but music and sound renders the images quite effective. So bottomline, even at $50, I definately do not regret this purchase, and the movie sits in a very good position on my video shelves. Furthermore: I am looking forward to have, hopefully, one day, a clean DVD release of that superb B garbage!