Filmed in vibrant color with authentic period detail, a salute to old-fashioned exploitation films.

| Jun 16, 2020

The result is very praiseworthy and each shot in the movie can be framed as a poster.

| Jan 24, 2020

Fans of 70s sexploitation films will feel as though they've stepped into a time warp as they observe the impressive production design.

| Mar 30, 2016

Anna Biller's 1970s-styled sexploitation parody Viva may at times come too close to the real thing, but there's a welcome delight in the film's unapologetic and total submersion into cheap thrills.

| Mar 30, 2016

You don't need to have seen the movies [Biller is] paying cheeky homage to in order to enjoy Viva. But afterward, you'll probably want to.

| Mar 30, 2016

The movie wears out its welcome long before it meanders to a close at 121 minutes. But as a kinky costume party it's watchable, if only for the smutty sex scenes and Biller's bold pop-art decor.

| Mar 30, 2016

Does Viva work if one doesn't get the joke? By and large, yes. It's still full of wonderful characters, there's the occasional quip reminiscent of Russ Meyer at his finest, and the sets are spectacular.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 30, 2016

There is barely an out and-out gag - and certainly none that's funny - in the whole two hours of deliberately bad acting.

| Original Score: 1/5 | May 17, 2009

Viva lasts a staggering two hours (the audience does the staggering) and it doesn't merely end up an embarrassing bore, it gets there within a couple of minutes of the opening.

| May 17, 2009

Reported parallels with the Marquis de Sade's Justine just don't wash. It's more like Russ Meyer, except the jugs on view aren't as big.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 16, 2009

The plywood acting's pretty funny, as is the coy sex; what amazes is the beautifully lurid, near-fetishistic set design. At two hours, it's an in-joke over-indulged, and it's so camp the camera's practically winking, but minor cultdom beckons.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 15, 2009

At an epic two hours the stilted dialogue and eye-scorchingly oversaturated film stock threaten to test the patience. But as a self-conscious exercise in kitsch graverobbing, 'Viva' succeeds.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 15, 2009

Great retro design, but as comic satire this isn't so much soft-focus as out of focus.

| May 15, 2009

It's the sort of attention to detail that would be admirable in a short film. But in a film that plays out at two hours it's unendurable. Paying ironic homage to bad cinema doesn't suddenly make it good.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 15, 2009

Where her film lets itself down, though, is it's simply not funny; you assume that a certain kind of hipster audience may be tickled by all this, but the laughs will be as forced as those that bray out of the screen at all too regular intervals.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 15, 2009

At two hours it's basically an extended sketch stretched to feature lengh and by the end the vibrancy of the never-seen-in-nature colours are reaching migraine-inducing proportions.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 15, 2009

For all its garish aesthetics, sly feminism and wall-to-wall nudity, writer/director Anne Biller's camp-com is almost too much of a good thing, outstaying its welcome at a paint-drying two hours.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 15, 2009

Bums and bosoms are in abundance, although there's not enough plot to go around, meaning you'll feel every minute of that two-hour running time.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 15, 2009

The film is the cinematic equivalent of greeting cards which poke fun at beehive-haired wives getting slippers for their pipe-smoking husbands, with a rude word inserted in a speech bubble. Not funny.

| Original Score: 1/5 | May 15, 2009

The acting is as subtly, drolly bad as it needs to be. The hairpieces and cheesy background muzak compete for the honour of perfect finishing touch. At two hours Viva is a mite too long. But summer is here: give genius its leash.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 15, 2009