jwtfanning

After seeing a trailer for this being re-released I was rather excited that a long-lost art film "gem" that I missed may be available to all but unfortunately it's really a slog.

Believe me, I do love a fantastic & weird art film, especially from the past. It's a backbone part of my character and overall self, but through the years I've had many experiences with these arty films that absolutely just has me going "My god that was boring..". "Flaming Ears" unfortunately fits among those experiences.

The main credit here is that indeed a lot of the low-budget aesthetics are quite cool in that early-90s-fringe way where a lot of people wanted desperately to be away from the 80s but hadn't settled into the odd atmosphere of irony mixed with nihilism with an air of desperation that would basically define the decade (at least as far as I'm concerned). Another interesting aspect is its primarily lesbian context which basically just is "there" and doesn't get exploited in a cheap or cliché way. Unfortunately, the "just being there" aspect is basically the whole film in general.

It's rather impossible to do much of any kind of synopsis of this film's plot/story or general ideas. Most of it meanders around one claustrophobic scene to another of vague conversation and what we guess are alliterations to something though it's always hard to tell honestly what that is. The problem I think is that the movie keeps feeling like it is trying to say something and basically keeps not doing so. I had high hopes for the outré weird factor after the opening sequence of a strangely dressed woman roller skating around a warehouse full of furniture where after zig zagging around some closets pours water (or gas maybe?) onto a classic-looking bureau/dresser and proceeds to have "sex" with it. I thought "OK, now we're getting somewhere", yet that was pretty much the only kind of intriguing "weirdness" in the film. The rest of it just coasts along, mostly getting stuck in vaguely Dadaistic conversations and awkwardly slow pacing.

In the end, check it out if you're curious and maybe you'll see things I've missed. Of note to experimental music fans is in the involvement of Austrian sound artist/composer Curd Duca, who shows up as music & lighting assistant as well as a driver, interestingly enough.

I'm a long-time aficionado of classic Eurotrash films, which generally means a time period between the later 60s until the middle (and occasionally later) 80's. It was a kind of odd twilight period for many things, but especially for the weirder/ridiculous and yes trashy side of films in Europe (where I live, though am not from but moved to because of a number of reasons... the legacy of trash was a big factor though!). The Israeli/German production "Die Pinups und ein heißer Typ" ("The Pinups and a Hot (Guy)") fits right in the timeline and fully encompasses what I love about this.. well, not "genre" but it sort of is in its own way. This really was just meant to be a normal type of "film" but ends up with the "trash" tag as it generally is a bit exploitative and technically a "mess", but in SUCH the right way that it goes into another category than it originally expected.

I'll do a brief overview of the plot as it's pretty simple, basically this down-on-his-luck German songwriter guy named Fredy (Sascha Hehn) really wants to have a hit and decides he wants to have a girl-group make it happen for him. He recruits various misfit girls (who are all randomly American though somehow just in Germany because.. whatever) to be in the group. His main hit he really wants to make happen is honestly the worst song of the whole movie (though by the end of the film it finally gets a better version done of it), "Where Are You Now Number One". After failing at getting audiences to care, Fredy and the other main guy Rolf (Moti Giladi) decide to go "New Wave" to make the girls seem "hip" and "now". This becomes the best decision they could have made, especially for us as viewers, because this is when the film really kicks in (around the 40 minute mark). When the girls get their new wave makeover they bust out one of the best songs of the film, "New Wave Lover" (which is one of the alternate English titles of the film), this song is GOLD. Totally catchy and I keep rewatching it rather frequently. Same goes for a song that shows up a bit later with the girls going full-crazy for the performance of the song "Neon" which is fantastic. Both songs are absolute highlights, in addition to the other big heat number "Money & Love", which is more minimal (the lyrics are just 2 words). Also noteworthy are Moti Giladi's impressions of various people, including Billy Joel and amazingly Amanda Lear!! Of course there's a tacky trans-joke made about her but that was sadly typical of the time.

Anyway, to cut a long story short Fredy is an oddly difficult guy and for reasons that aren't particularly clear blows up at the girls rather often and this becomes a problem later on. I won't give spoilers but I don't think it necessarily matters. The main things to care about are the musical numbers anyway, I've honestly just gone back and replayed the 3 hottest songs over and over. I'd suggest trying to search for the actual album "The Pinups" and wonder where all this somehow went wrong and never actually got anywhere it seems. Perhaps there had to be a large number of years for it to be lost and rediscovered to be appreciated, which can often be the case. Still, I think it's totally worth watching!

I'm rather surprised I'm the first person to review this one ever, but I'm quite happy to do so! "Les Poneyttes" is one of those films that anyone who's into European ultramod style films of this time period (like say, one of my all-time favourites "Modesty Blaise" to name but one) will absolutely be ALL over. Every scene will have kitschy vintage aesthetic lovers literally drooling. The hypercolor-painted Ferrari featured in it alone is something people would probably fight over to own, as is a lot of the fashion in it as well (I'd totally rock the side-buttoned velvet purple-then-orange suit donned by Hubert Wayaffe on any special occasion).

It's a tough film to peg down as far as categorizing. It's irreverently semi-humorous in its overall approach but it's not a "comedy". It's not completely heavy handed or quite serious enough to really be considered a "drama" though that probably is the best tag for it in the end. It's got a lot of that "French arty" film touch to it but much more pop art than like Truffaut or so, though it does play around a lot with existential philosophy in its own way. I'd say it's much more a "societal commentary" film with a bend towards the music and fashion industries as well as the struggle of financing such things. The plot is also rather tricky to describe/decipher, basically it's about the main character Max Torp (Hubert Wayaffe), who's a kind a "jack of all hip trades" kinda guy, running a fashionable magazine amongst a couple of other side hustles such as a pirate radio station and a club. He's somewhat confusingly involved with this rich old school bourgeois American lady played by Arlene Dahl (who speaks decent enough French with an American accent actually) who bankrolls his endeavors but eventually gets into a heated fight with him and cuts off the money supply. His big client/buddy is Johnny Hallyday, who was really hugely famous in the French speaking world as a singer (he's basically like the French Elvis and was one of the best selling artists in the world). Johnny shows up a few times and most noteworthily croons a quasi-psychedelic tune whilst being entirely done up like a bronze statue.

In the end it's a pretty entertaining bit of business despite losing some steam as it wraps up (the ending is real "meh" honestly). Primarily laudable for its aesthetics above the plot and whatever message it may have wanted to convey other than "life can often not work out like you'd hoped it would". At least it looks good while attempting to do so!