Archive for the ‘Philippines’ Category
For Your Height Only (1981)
I was worrying that this was starting to turn into a respectable “cinephile” blog, getting full of accepted arthouse masters, so this evening the only solution was to go mad in the Philippines. This is an enormously special film in many ways, and while the jury may be out as to just how intentionally funny the film was meant to be, it is nonetheless stellar entertainment. I mean, a James Bond spoof starring a 2’9″ little person (seriously, could anyone have invented Weng Weng?) in the “Agent 00″ role, how can you go wrong? And then factor in the period fashion, the ludicrous dubbing, the even more ludicrous dialogue, the disco dancing, the “are you a sexual animal” scene… the everything, really. I can’t think of any conventional standard by which you could really say this is a good film, and yet it is kind of magisterial nonetheless. I mean no irony whatsoever when I call this film a treasure of world cinema; after all, there really is nothing else quite like this film (not that I’ve ever seen) in world cinema—with the exception, that is, of the two other Weng Weng movies I’ve seen.
