Amorous (2015/Film Movement DVD)/Chasing The Muse (2014/Artsploitation DVD w/Exhibition (1975))/Don't Make Waves (1967/Filmways/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)/Steam Room Stories: V. 1, 2 & 3 (2015/Cinema 175 DVD Set)/The Voyeur (1994/Cult Epics Blu-ray)

Picture: C/C/C+/C/C+ Sound: C/C+/C/C+/C Extras: C-/D/C-/C/C- Main Programs: C/D/C/C+/C

PLEASE NOTE: The Don't Make Waves DVD is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

There are many ways to mishandle sex in media. Here's 5 of them...

Joanna Coates' Amorous (2015) wants to be a cutting-edge sex film about two couples (all four turns out to be bi-sexual, for worse, not better) who go to a secluded house to eventually (surprise?) have all kinds of sex. Despite a few promising moments and scenes, this all gets stupid very quickly and I was stunned at how bad, un-sexy and forgettable this turned out. Sloppy, dull and unoriginal, there's nothing to love here. Yawn!

A trailer is the only extra.

Jean-Francois Davy's Chasing The Muse (2014) is worse, one of the worst releases on the subject of the erotic EVER by ones of its greatest hacks EVER, but Davy is now old, dirty and fat, yet money, phony lines about loving women (while buying and sexually exploiting them) and taping it is captured here as the total exercise in prostitution it is as he consistently talks about lover and art. The extremely long 101 minutes has zero art to it, Davy is an embarrassment to the human race and this plays like an extended endorsement and approval to beat, sell, exploits and torture young women as part of sexual slavery in Europe and surrounding areas. Cynical and pathetic.

If that was not bad enough, Artsploitation has included a restored edition of Davy's older disaster called Exhibition (1975) where the XXX business in Europe is profiled via an 'actress' who is one of the unsexiest in the history of the industry. He likes her, but her body's not that great, her personality awful (as in a scene with a younger guys who she manipulates oddly in a sort of hatred of men/sex with men, confirmed in the end when we find out she is a lesbian) and is another cynical, unartistic, unsexy mess I remember seeing decades ago and really disliking. Thus, Davy (who should go to jail for life!!!) has always been perpetually miserable and this double feature solidifies it. Avoid at all costs!

There are no extras and we will not count the older film disaster.

Alexander MacKendrick's Don't Make Waves (1967) is a would-be comedy with Tony Curtis getting constantly distracted by sexy young women on the beach (shot in very racy (and sexist by most standards) ways, even for 1967 and especially today whether you're politically correct or not) though he also meets a slightly older sexy woman (a very miscast and badly-used Claudia Cardinale) he has also become interested in. Sharon Tate shows up as another beachgoer, Robert Webber is involved with Cardinale's character, Joanna Barnes is here as the comparatively less sexy gal and bodybuilder David Draper is comic relief in a film with no laughs and a plot that is all over the place.

What is this film about? The Byrds sing the title song to colorful animated titles to set the tone, but the film never develops one. Curtis' character is supposed to be a fish out of water, but only because he's from the East Coast? Despite the curios, interesting cast, hoped for possibilities, sadness about Tate and Curtis re-teaming with his Sweet Smell Of Success director, we land up with an oversized, silly sitcom where anything sexy is phony and nothing works. An odd film indeed, this is one of the duds that started to permanently ruin Curtis' star status. Too bad, because with a rewrite and new ideas, this could have been something at least watchable.

A trailer is the only extra.

Steam Room Stories: V. 1, 2 & 3 (2015) is not good, but the Cinema 175 DVD set is the best entry here by default despite having no sex and only being about gay male subject matter with a few constant jokes going for it. A collection of on-line skits, gay men (picked to look good, so this is highly unrealistic to begin with and the makers know it) meet in a steam room and discuss, debate and occasionally argue a subject, idea or about another guy or star figure. It serves its audience, but very narrowly, so it gets very thin very quickly. Yet, but not being angry, hostile, exploitive, cynical or hateful, at least its consistent in some kind of quality worth your time if interested. It was all an often predictable blur in the end, but I as an audience member was not being condescended to and on this list, that's a plus.

Extras include bloopers, unaired episodes and a live cam tie-in top the show here in an extended presentation.

Tinto Brass' The Voyeur (1994) may have a few sexy frames, but it is one of the director's lesser and less memorable works all based on the idea (more played out here than it ought to be) of people turned on by looking at others having sex, et al. Too bad the sexiness of the women vary and the men are more boring than usual. Brass' style is here and the women can look good, but this makes Caligula look ambitious. For fans only.

Extras include a Photo Gallery, HD trailers and 2007 Brass interview on the film, et al.

The visuals also give us a clue to the quality of things, so the 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer in Voyeur should be the best performer here, with a print that can show the age of the materials used, but the video transfers looks like it is from an old HD master. With detail issues, flaws, some halos and even a little staircasing, was this a 1080i master or even 720i? Not good. Therefore, the anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Waves is able to compete with its MetroColor being consistent enough and though the print can also show its age, it is not a bad watch.

Unfortunately, the anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Amorous and 1.78 X 1 image on the rest of the releases are softer, more detail-challenged and have more motion blur than expected. Muse, for all of its supposed boldness, digitally covers the sexual parts of the women it pretends to celebrate, furthering its phoniness. Room adds fake steam to all of its shorts, ruining its image quality.

As for sound, the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Muse and 2.0 Stereo on Room are the best, but barely and by default through the makers simply not botching the sound too much. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Amorous and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Waves and Voyeur are weaker than expected, so be careful of volume switching and high playback levels. The older monophonic films would benefit from some restoration work.

To order the Don't Make Waves Warner Archive DVD, go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

https://www.warnerarchive.com/

- Nicholas Sheffo