Caliber 9 (1972) Blu-ray Review

caliber 9 bluray

I’ve got a terrible sinus headache, and I’m utterly exhausted from work, but I’m dedicated to fulfilling my goal this week of posting multiple things per day. Luckily, I still have a backlog of things I’ve reviewed for Cinema Sentries and not posted here.

And here we go.

Caliber 9 is a terrific Italian Poliziotteschi that blends plenty of action with a hard-hitting political message. It’s from director Fernando Di Leo and he never lets you down. It also has Barbara Bouchet and if you know her you know it is worth watching.

You can read my full review over at Cinema Sentries.

Goodbye & Amen (1977)

goodbye and amen radiance blurayt

When I was a teenager and first beginning to truly love movies I sent off for a movie catalog. I saw an ad in the back of Rolling Stone or Spin or some such thing and I wanted to see what type of films were available outside of my little small town. What I got was a Xeroxed copy of a copy of a copy of some typed-out list of films. I think there were occasionally pictures and there were definitely some synopses of the films.

I didn’t buy any of the movies, or rent them, but I was endlessly fascinated by that catalog. Here were all sorts of films, hundreds of them, that I’d never heard of. I think they were mostly cult films, foreign films, low-budget B-movies, the type of films that I now love, but it opened up this idea that there was a cinematic world out there, just out of reach that maybe someday I could explore.

I mention this because I think of young cinephiles now. How literally nearly every film ever made is available to them if they know how to look. How sites like IMDB and Letterboxed and countless others give them information and recommendations for all sorts of films in every genre imaginable. What an amazing time it must be for them. I mean it is an amazing time for me, but I can’t imagine how awesome it must be for kids just now discovering movies.

I am, of course, a huge proponent of physical media. While I certainly stream my fair share of movies, nothing quite beats sliding in a disc and pressing Play. One of the things I love about all these boutique Blu-ray companies is that they regularly supply me with great films I never knew existed.

Goodbye & Amen is one such film. It is an Italian thriller about a C.I.A. agent living in Rome with plans to start a coup in some African country. But his plans are thwarted when one of his agents starts shooting random people and holds a couple of people hostage in a hotel room.

It is well-shot, and directed, and is an utterly enjoyable watch. You can read my full review over at Cinema Sentries.

Bring Out the Perverts: What Have They Done To Your Daughters? (1974)

what have they done to your daughters poster

Italian Cinema was dominated by two genres in the 1970s – the Poliziotteschi and the Giallo. The Poliziotteschi was a particular type of crime drama that is noted for its gritty, down-and-dirty take on police work featuring loads of violence and action sequences, highlighted by corruption at the highest levels. Gialli were murder mysteries featuring graphic violence, hyper-stylization, overt sexuality, and wild soundtracks.

What Have They Done To Your Daughters? is an interesting blending of both genres. Plotwise it is very Poliziotteschi as it follows the police as they try to catch a killer and are then pulled into a child prostitution ring with ties to the upper echelon of the city’s political sphere. Stylistically it is mostly gritty like a Poliziotteschi, and it features a couple of terrific chase sequences, but it also has a few stylish Giallo-esque moments.

There is also a black-gloved, motorcycle helmet-wearing, hatched-yielding psycho going around hacking people to death, and a few moments of sleaze where the camera lingers on naked female bodies (one of which is supposed to be a 15-year-old girl – the actress is of age – which makes it particularly gross).

I cover the basic details of the plot in my old review of the Arrow Video Blu-ray release (which you can read at Cinema Sentries) so I’ll skip them in this write-up.

I mostly really dug the film this go-around. I think I enjoyed the Poliziotteschi elements more than the Giallo. The story is good, the investigative elements are interesting, and the action sequences are top-notch. It is not unusual for this type of crime drama to dive into underage sex rings, but it still grosses me out, especially now that I have a young daughter. And this film gets a bit skeevy in that area.

I did dig the hatched-wielding killer, but like, why is he running around in a motorcycle helmet (other than the film keeping us from seeing his face I mean)? It is especially weird since the cops figure out who he is fairly early in the film (it is the guys who hired him that remain a mystery).

Overall, a very enjoyable cinematic experience.