antoniomt_2000

OK, I'm a big John Waters fan and like any 'Waters fan, I managed to obtain one of his early films.

Even though slightly long and very boring at times, It has a JW signature written all over it and is a must for any of his fans.

Next point - My main problem with this movie - The pointless animal deaths at the start...Several Chickens are beheaded by a masked man and is obviously to shock the audience by stating that this movie is gross and very 'Trash like'. I don't buy it, and I found this extremely offensive and cruel. And since I am a Vegetarian and completely against (and opposed to) animal cruelty in real life, I find it even more disturbing that someone would want to do it for their art...its completely inexcusable and literally boils my anger.

John Waters has gone right down in my estimation as I didn't think he would be like this...If the chicken decapitations were used from stock footage of a slaughterhouse than this would be slightly acceptable (I emphasise on the word 'slightly' as I am against any activity of such sort).

As soon as I watched the opening of 'Mondo Trasho', my complete admiration for 'JW and his anti-Hollywood statements' had vanished because he can shock and gross out audiences without resorting to animal deaths/cruelty.

I cant seem to find an official site for JOHN WATERS but I would like to email him personally and give him my thoughts on this matter.

So, if your aim is to shock and offend...then you have done it John...but at the cost of losing respect from your film fans.

And remember John, You are a filmmaker and an artist.... not a barbaric low-life who tortures animals for exploitation.

What has this world come to.....I sincerely do ask ?

At nearly an hour long this documentary takes us Dans La Peau De Jean-Claude Van Damme (under the skin of...). We see him talking with his agents, film industry folk and some other stars, we also get to hear what his wife thinks of dedicated film profession and why he is such a good family man. He also tells us about how he worked with Chuck Norris, met Jackie Chan in HK for five minutes (while Van Damme was still unknown) and how hard it was to break into the film industry. He even admits he has done some very bad movies in his time, but states there are some very good ones as well.

This was only shown on french TV back in 2003 and has french language only (no English subtitles). I managed to obtain a copy (without knowing francais, and it was very hard to follow). About two months later I managed to obtain a copy which did have English subtitles (some fan had translated the language) and the picture quality was grade A (salvation at last...thank you).

A truly excellent documentary indeed.

I can agree with one of the reviewers on this page but I do not agree with the other one.

I managed to see this film subtitled and I enjoyed every minute of it. I love the perfect precision Godard has over Piccoli. Evertime Picolli speaks, Godard interrupts and overwrites his information with with a more profound and articulate meaning - thus leaving Piccoli anxious and frustrated, this happens quite often - absolute genius.

Also, Its really funny to see the workers (of the place the documentary is set) getting asked about trivial information on the golden age of cinema - they literally don't have a clue. I know this is a reconstruction and you can obviously tell that it is staged but it reconstructs how ignorant some people are, only knowing names like Arnold Schwarzenegger & Madonna and only hearing of films such as Pulp Fiction (because of its mainstream violence) and 9 1/2 Weeks (because of it's mainstream nudity) and how these films are publicised just because of their so-called content. This Documentary also tries to rule out the forgotten french cinema (golden-age that is) and it's true - Godard's part in the first 1/3 is worth seeing alone.

but overall, this was very interesting and anybody interested in french cinema (or cinema in general) should try and see this.