Verdict
Summary
Full Moon fans who are ready to see where the entire Full Moon line began can now own #0 for their Full Moon collection with their new release Last Foxtrot in Burbank. As I said, it’s pretty much unwatchable, but I’ve got to say that the transfer looks amazing in gorgeous, sparkling high definition and in widescreen, no less. I’m not exaggerating by saying that this might be the best-looking Full Moon release on Blu-ray so far. It’s worth it to watch and listen to Charles Band talk about the film in his lengthy video introduction before the film, and there are bonus trailers as well.
Plot:
A woman rents a room next door to a total creep and loser, but they “foxtrot” every day, all day anyway.
Review:
Jeanne (one-time only actress Sherry Denton) arrives in “Burbank, France” in the early ’70s, and she rents a room in an apartment complex next door to a manic depressive loser whom she immediately begins having passionate and weird sex with, every day, all day as if it’s both of their sole occupations. The loser in question is Paul (Michael Pataki, perhaps best known as one of the evil Russians in Rocky IV), who almost seems like some sort of displaced performance artist, always aping Marlon Brando, or in some cases Humphrey Bogart or Edward G. Robinson, sometimes just to himself, mumbling to himself or to whomever will listen. The first time we see him, he’s standing under a bridge, mumbling and gawking at nothing. Is he sane? Maybe. Maybe not. But by some miracle, he captivates the very attractive Jeanne, and he’s got her under his spell. They spend hours and days in the nude together, bathing each other and slathering butter on each other. It’s a wonder Jeanne can stand this guy, but she laughs at his weird jokes, and he gives her a tour of Burbank in a way that she’ll always remember. The final scene has them in a dive bar, dancing, except she’s topless because that’s normal. Right?
Shot on a lark to spoof Last Tango in Paris, Last Foxtrot in Burbank is a close to unwatchable film from first-time filmmaker Charles Band, who would go on to a very prolific career as an exploitation king, but the movie was so bad that he literally destroyed all trace of it – all prints and ads – hoping that it was gone forever. By a miracle, the negative was found in the UCLA film archives more than 45 years later, and now we get to see just why Band wanted the film obliterated. I don’t think he’d mind at all me saying that the film is close to irredeemable because it’s true, but it serves as some kind of document of a moment in time when a filmmaker without any talent (yet) could take a wild swing and miss completely. If this is what was required to get Band on track to the path he ended up taking, then so be it. It’s absolutely awful – not funny, no real narrative to speak of, and very poorly conceived (it was edited by John Carpenter!) – but I’ll give it a single star because co-star Denton is absolutely lovely to look at and appears completely nude throughout the entire film. That’s worth a star!
Full Moon fans who are ready to see where the entire Full Moon line began can now own #0 for their Full Moon collection with their new release Last Foxtrot in Burbank. As I said, it’s pretty much unwatchable, but I’ve got to say that the transfer looks amazing in gorgeous, sparkling high definition and in widescreen, no less. I’m not exaggerating by saying that this might be the best-looking Full Moon release on Blu-ray so far. It’s worth it to watch and listen to Charles Band talk about the film in his lengthy video introduction before the film, and there are bonus trailers as well.
