Fresh Fruit from the Garden of Murder

New Junk, clearly floundering, no cohesion

2007-12-21T17:43:00.000-08:00

1. THE INTRUDER WITHIN 2.BEYOND CONSPIRACY (ABC) 3. THE MIST 4. VACANCY 5. MODIFY 6. ASSIGNMENT OUTER SPACE 7. LOOKER 8. GOODBYE UNCLE TOM 9.DAVE ATTEL: MR MISERABLE

12/17/07: Cannibals and jungle stuff

2007-12-17T09:05:00.000-08:00

Since last post I have seen:

HEARTS AND ARMOUR
EMMANUELLE IN AMERICA
NO END IN SIGHT
FIDO
RESCUE DAWN
EMMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS
EATEN ALIVE!
MASSACRE IN DINOSAUR VALLEY
DEATH SHIP
ADVENTURES OF HERCULES
GALAXY OF TERROR
DEMON OF PARADISE
GOLDEN TEMPLE AMAZONS
DIAMONDS OF KILIMANDJARO
MAN FROM DEEP RIVER
DIRTY SANCHEZ; THE MOVIE
ROMANCING THE STONE
HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA

2007-11-30T13:57:00.000-08:00

DEATHSTALKER (Sbardellati, 1983) ... This response to CONAN THE BARBARIAN is the perfect realization of the 'sword and sorcery' genre and knows precisely that its audience is young men aged 13 - 22. Nary a scene passes that an excuse is not found to render an actress at least partially naked, and lots of dudes either take their shirts off and flex, or chop off heads. Usually both. But seriously there is a TON of female nudity in this movie. A LOT. IT has more nudity than a 70's Corben comic! I can see why it was on Cinemax so often back in the day. Also I wonder why I never watched it, maybe my standards were too high. Its not super good or anything but its budget is pretty high especially in comparison to other attempts to mimic CONAN. There's some cool gladiator fighting with a lot of extras and a giant set and oh yeah did I mention all the boobs yet because there are a LOT.

MURDER IN SPACE (Stern, 1985) ... I broke one of my self-imposed rules and wound up fast-forwarding through this POS starting at about the 50 minute mark. Note to self: stop watching Steven Hilliard Stern movies because they suck ass. This one does at least, good grief, what a boring load of nonsense. All hopes of getting a cool detective picture set in the confines of a spaceship are dashed before the damn opening credits are finished rolling and the viewer realizes this movie has no budget and a corresponding lack of ambition to boot. DULL DULL DULL and not even Michael Ironside can save it although he tries. I dig Wilford Brimley but honestly his Quaker ads are a lot more compelling than this snoozer. I figured since it was a mystery, they'd recap who the killer was at the end, so I FF'd to the last 15 min and lo and behold I was treated to a TON of flashbacks --- of scenes from earlier in the movie! Man I hate that, what a waste of time. Worked out pretty well for me this time however, they totally spelled out who the killer was, so no complaints. (You know you are in trouble in a movie when the high point of interest is spotting a Canadian character actor from early Cronenberg pictures.)

MEGAFORCE (Needham, 1982) ... An absolutely MIND BENDINGLY BAD FILM. And never has it been so easy to point the guilty finger at so obvious a culprit: the star, Barry Bostwick. And when your movie is directed by the same guy who made CANNONBALL RUN that's really saying something. Everything about Bostwick is offensively, intensely, wrong. First of all he looks like an utter fool in that stupid jumpsuit and beard and sky blue headband. He looks like a gay aerobics instructor! Which isn't entirely his fault but he seems to really "own" the role and anyone who agreed to be photographed that way deserves the blame regardless of seamstress. Add to this his silly heroic posturing and smarmy "it'll all come out in the wash" 'tude and you just want to scream. Mind you he isn't exactly surrounded by talent here. Michael Beck is astonishingly lame in his fake "cowboy" getup and accent, almost to the point that he rivals Bostwick on the Scale of Intolerability. But we soon forget this contest when confronted with the misogynistic treatment of the female character (singular; Persis "I'm a soldier not a diplomat" Khambata), who Bostwick allows to train with the men but then refuses to let her go on the mission because he worries she'd distract him, and SHE STAYS AT THE BASE WILLINGLY as a result! Some soldier. The icing on this stale hardpan cake is the stunningly inept special effects so proudly achieved with model rockets (!!!) and cheap bluescreening that they get big, fat, glowing credits singling them out in the opening titles! When the trumpeted "sky diving" sequence finally rolled around I wanted to stab my eyes out. Seriously. Eye-stabbingly bad. Henry Silva as the bad guy was pretty funny though.

ELIMINATORS (Manoogian, 1986) ... Ugh ugh UGH. It made me wish I had 2 sets of eyes so I could stab them REPEATEDLY. This will go down as the movie that made me exercise more discretion while renting. And I've seen Nazisploitation movies! Its almost not worth describing except as a warning like in ALIEN. Miserable garbage. Miserable PG-RATED garbage to boot. Its sole source of amusement is seeing just how many disparate tropes could be crammed into one single picture. Here's a laundry list: a TERMINATOR/ROBOCOP sympathetic cyborg, a cocky, selfish pirate-type reminiscent of Han Solo, a cute talking robot filling in for R2D2, some cavemen, some Romans, a fucking NINJA, a lesbian river guide with a shotgun, 2 mad Japanese scientists, and a chick from STAR TREK so the nerds can at least beat off to the side of one of her boobs. It did however feature an admittedly cool tank-like contraption that replaced the cyborg's legs, turning him into a KILLING MACHINE! But since this was PG he was more of a WOUNDING MACHINE!!! Still, this robot thing honestly did look pretty cool, and the producers could easily have just stuck with it alone and had a more interesting piece on their hands, instead of this piece that had me checking the bottom of my shoes while it played because I thought I smelled shit the whole time. Terrible, terrible, awfulness. AVOID.

CREATION OF THE HUMANOIDS

2007-11-28T16:53:00.000-08:00

The previous 2 days' fare ...

CREATION OF THE HUMANOIDS
WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS
CONQUEST
SCREAMERS

Whew!

17 movies since the last post

2007-11-26T14:02:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving break afforded me a lot of time to catch up on the "to watch" pile. I saw these films in the past week or so ...

LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (Wiseman, 2007) ... Watched it a couple of times. I dig it. The unrated version is silly. Its just a lot of digital blood squibs and a whole bunch of swear words delivered via ADR while Bruce's face is away from the camera. Unneccessary.

WARRIORS OF THE APOCALYPSE (Suarez, 1985) ... Really entertaining and hilarious ROAD WARRIOR clone about a band of Warriors (of the apocalypse) who all try and outdo each other with the size of their shoulder pads. Soon the plot gives way to a garden of eden in danger from some techno wizards who shoot lazer beams out their eyes at each other. See? ENTERTAINING. Oh yeah and the immortal pygmies who get killed over and over throughout the movie are worth your time too.

TAKE A HARD RIDE (Margheriti, 1975) ... OK Margheriti western w/ Fred Williamson and Jim Brown (showing surprising acting chops) and Lee Van Cleef. A couple of good set pieces including a very cool scene w/ a machine gun mounted on a moving wagon!

INDIO (Margheriti, 1989) ... Fair Margheriti action stuff notable for the presence of Francesco "Rhah" Quinn from PLATOON. Pretty much a RMABO clone with lots of jungle action and guerilla stuff, including an awesome bit where Francesco sets a booby trapped palm tree for an attacking helicopter. Brian Dennehy is actually really good in this as the JAWS-inspired ruthless land developer.

TIGER JOE (Margheriti, 1982) ... Second in Margheriti's "Vietnam trilogy" has likeable gun runner David Warbeck up against a bitter North Vietnamese army. And how odd, a flamethrower scene :) Surprisingly bereft of Margheriti's signature miniature work until a train explosion near the end.

TORNADO (Margheriti, 1983) ... Downbeat third "Vietnam trilogy" entry is fairly grim stuff and left me feeling a bit cheated seeing as how all its big action scenes were lifted from THE LAST HUNTER. Most of the original material is just DEER HUNTER prison camp stuff but at least the hero manages to steal a big bulldozer for some shenanigans near the end ... Hilariously all the "American soldiers" are seen wearing Italian camoflage uniforms, but at least they all manage to dress the same this time, which is more than can be said for other Italian "Vietnam" films. Spoiler: hero dies in the last few SECONDS from a stray bullet fired from offscreen. War is hell!

THE BIG ALLIGATOR RIVER (Martino, 1979) ... Foxy Barbara Bach menaced by a toy alligator in a fish tank. Kinda fun when you realize its ripping off first JAWS and then KING KONG 1976 of all things! Mostly though its fucking stupid.

NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES aka ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH aka HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD (Mattei, 1980) ... I though this one was gonna suck but I ended up enjoying it. On the surface (and especially in the trailer) it doesn't so much seem like a ripoff of the 1978 DAWN OF THE DEAD as it seems like Dawn of the Dead ITSELF. A bunch of SWAT dudes in blue uniforms shooting up a tenement block riot and then menaced by ghost-faced zombies, all accompanied by the Goblin music from DOTD. Shortly though it distinguishes itself and becomes something of a combination of DOTD and Fulci's ZOMBI. The zombies here are "pure" zombies, exactly the same look and bahaviour as Romero zombies. This is one of the very few zombie movies that seems totally faithful to the mythos and if you can watch it as a companion piece to Romero's original, you might be surprised. I can't believe how many times over how many years I have seen and passed on this stupid video and now I regret it.

THE SEVEN MAGNIFICENT GLADIATORS (Mattei, 1983) ...
RUSSKIES (Rosenthal, 1987)
DELTA FORCE COMMANDO (Ciriaci, 1987)
DEMONOID (Zacarias, 1981)
THE BARBARIANS (Deodato, 1987)
FIREBIRD 2015 A.D. (Robertson, 1981)
STORM OF THE CENTURY (Baxley, 1999)
SUPERSTITION (Roberson, 1982)

Oh good Lord ... RATS and WHEELS OF FIRE

2007-11-15T14:30:00.000-08:00

2 movies I can't be bothered to write about.

RATS (Mattei, 1984) was boring and stupid and I felt sorry for the rats.

WOF (Santiago, 1985) was a transparent imitation of THE ROAD WARRIOR with nary a single original idea in its empty head, and if you told me it was comprised entirely of B-roll footage from ROAD WARRIOR itself that was rejected for being boring, I'd believe you. I think the female lead's topless screen time greatly outweighs her clothed appearances, and the film feels mean and misogynistic as a result. I did, however, like the final stunt. But in a movie comprised entirely of "action scenes" and stunts (and topless victimization), that's not saying too much.

Stuff from 11/4 that needs addressing

2007-11-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD (Worth, 1983) is an extremely silly movie but at least it has Robert Ginty in it. Pretty much a ROAD WARRIOR ripoff only the lead character is even more of a selfish asshole than Mad Max. I actually got angry at the character for being such an asshat all the time. Plus he drives a stupid motorcycle that talks, which is an odious enough idea already, but its voice is something of a valley girl "Simon" that repeats grating phrases like "Tubular, dude!" three times in a row.

THUNDER WARRIOR (DeAngelis, 1983) is a FIRST BLOOD knockoff with an Indian in the lead role which is kinda cool I suppose, even if Mark Gregory isn't exactly a Native American. Charmingly silly and having no pretentions towards anything other than showing slow motion explosions and reminding the audience of other films (especially BILLY JACK), I dug it, and Gregory, God bless his talentless heart, is a scream in almost anything.

FINAL MISSION (Santiago, 1984) has to be one of the most riotous movies ever seen. I think it is more successful in copying FIRST BLOOD than Adrian Lyne was remaking PSYCHO in 1998. Oddly it gets off to a start setting up the familiar narrative of THE PUNISHER, ie, battle-hardened Nam vet returns home only to have his family murdered by the Mob, upon whom he swears vengeance that he carries out post haste. Somewhere near the halfway mark our man Deacon stumbles across the crooks who offed his family, conveniently all in the same car, which he blows up. I had to check my watch because surely this movie was not less than an hour long. But I needn't have worried, because sooner than you can say "two for one" Deacon is targeted by the (now dead) villain's Local Yokel Sherriff brother for disturbing the peace (amongst other offences likely to include 'civil apocalypse making') and before he can apprehend his target, Deacon has stolen from a shop window a fully-loaded M60 (in the movie they call it an MG 82) and proceeded to blow the living shit out of the whole ville. Did I mention the shop window had a fully loaded M60 on display? Soon the Sheriff has rounded up a posse of local militia and chased Deacon into the mountains where some guerilla warfare stuff happens. Honestly you can just FF a half hour at this point and cherish your memories of FIRST BLOOD because the 2 films play out almost the same, complete with an 11th hour appearance of Deacon's old C.O. from Nam who tries to talk him off the mountain. Luckily for us the screenwriters were feeling cranky and threw in a wonderfully apocalyptic "Chinese Connection" ending that ends with Deacon unloading his weapon straight into our FACES. This movie was frankly awesome and bolstered by a bizarre score that veers from plodding to frantic but is always atonal and sounds like it was composed by a cat.

BROTHERHOOD OF DEATH (Berry, 1976) I rented mostly for its Namsploitation elements, which did not disappoint. Sometimes I wonder if I watch Nam flicks to make myself feel smart when pointing out all the innacuracies in uniform and weapons. Whatever, pleasure is where you find it I guess. The Nam sequences are a real hoot and all the guys run around with big hair and mustaches and the like and wear outdated duckhunter camo from WW2. Their chief lesson learned seems to be "the best defense is a good offense" and we spend the next hour waiting for them to get around to applying this lesson in their battle with the local Klan chapter. A great deal of time is gobbled up with a failed attempt at a voting drive in attempts to get a seat in congress to challenge Whitey but when this goes tits-up we get to some solid fun with our boys ripping the Klan a new one, only like, in the dark, so its hard to see what's going on. I was glad for all the white sheets at least but our heroes sadly offered no contrast with their surroundings.

YOR THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE (Margheriti, 1983) is silly claptrap from start to finish but it has big fake dinosaurs that bleed a LOT and also Corinne Clery in a teeny little cavegirl outfit. Reb Brown is a prancing fawn in this whose mullet apparently substitutes for any need he has for a shirt. Frequent buffalo shots of both sexes keep the proceedings snicker-filled for its target audience which appears to be 12 year old boys who did not see CONAN because it was rated R. A riot.

TREASURE OF THE AMAZON (Cardona, 1985) ... What can I say about this, except that it BLEW ME AWAY! What a total surprise. I bought it solely because it was on sale for a dollar and had a "why not" moment. The cover is lousy and looks like a cheap knockoff of ROMANCING THE STONE complete with buff shirtless bozo and prostrate bimbo hanging on to his bronze thigh while behind them a bas relief of a monkey statue vomits diamonds all over the place. I figured I'd put it on as background noise but in short order it had my full attention, especially when Stuart Whitman cuts a native guy's thumb off for pickpocketing and then throws him over the side of a boat to the alligators. Lots and lots of high adventure follows and the movie refreshingly and shockingly does not skimp on the gore. Heads are lopped off repeatedly and sometimes require more than one chop (!!!), and one guy is eaten alive by crabs who pull his eyes out!!!! Underneath all of this is an unbelievable "love" story between Whitman and a girl young enough to be his granddaughter but it all turns out to be a double-cross for her to make off with the treasure once he finds it. More twists and betrayals follow and the ending had me clapping in honest glee. This is truly one of the better Jungle Action Ripoffs (JARs) and Whitman's beard is very impressively groomed throughout.

Catch up time

2007-11-14T20:27:00.000-08:00

On the weekend of 11/11/07, a 3-day, I watched:

THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR (Clouse, 1975), BOUND TO LOSE (a Holy Modal Rounders doc), TRANSFORMERS again, just to seal that 'hell' deal, SLIPSTREAM which has Mark Hamill and a ton of references to Blade Runner, SEARCH FOR THE GODS with TV's Kurt Russell which until now was a lingering title on the shortest of my "video search lists" and that I got for only 2 bucks, SKINHEADS w/ Chuck Conners, a violent and exploitative thriller with an earnest performance by the lead skinhead that's unmissable, but so odd that I still can't decide if its genius or crap, CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE by Margheriti who I have grown very fond of recently, its about Nam and zombies and one guy's name is 'Charles Bukowski,' THUNDER WARRIOR 2 by DeAngelis, which features a Indian lassoing an attacking helicopter amongst other feats of buffoonery and has the single most inexplicably bizarre nonsequiter ending I have ever seen, and which its sequel THUNDER WARRIOR 3 utterly fails to address, although it does have John Phillip Law in it, but is lethargic and uninvolved and seems entirely unneccesary, and being one of the priciest tapes I have bought or rented lately, kinda sucks, FINAL EXECUTIONER, an Italian postnuke picture that was forgettable but for Woody Strode in a supporting role as a noble ex-lawman yearning for order, and finally, just for grins, the special edition of RETURN OF THE JEDI which went down damn easily this time thanks to being a markedly better film in comparison to almost everything that preceded it this month.

***

Monday I caught Margheriti's INDIO 2: THE REVOLT, which as expected, was perfectly accessible without having seen part one. Punchy Marvin Hagler 'stars' and his efforts to clearly enunciate common words should be commended. First hour seems draggy but is punctuated by a handful of cool parts mostly involving miniatures exploding, but the last half hour is balls-out mayhem and fighting that redeems all that came before it. At one point the villain cropdusts a village of fleeing natives with ACID (!!!) and shortly thereafter Hagler punches his fist through his chest (!!!!!!!!!).

Tuesday was the time for the "Incredible Lou Ferrigno" in HERCULES by Luigi Cozzi, and as I told a friend, this film will only make sense to you if you are a little kid or a crazy person, the only people who won't have a hard time buying that bitchy gods sit on the moon and plot our fates. Ferrigno recoils like a frightened girl when struck and one wonders what he thought the director was saying half the time. Just when you thought you couldn't laugh any harder, Hercules punches a bear into orbit like Wolverine in X Men #108.

Chased this one down with WAVELENGTH which honestly was just a kinda lame copy of ET and STARMAN and maybe HANGAR 18. Although to be fair I enjoyed the witty dialogue and curmudgeonly Keenan Wynn can usually be counted on to keep a movie bearable at the very least. Weird score by Tangerine Dream isn't their best but gets extra points for using a ton of whalesong which always sounds cool.

Tonight's features began with OPERATION NAM starring John Wayne's son Ethan, who as an actor isn't fit to smell even his father's shit, but if I let a little bad acting ruin my day I should probably kill myself now and get it over with. Anyway this turned out to be a pretty dynamite little piece of junk from Fabrizio "Thunder" DeAngelis, and while the rescue-the-Nam-POWs plot isn't terribly original, the movie manages to deliver some good shocks and good performances (mainly from John Steiner and Christopher Connelly) and seems uncommonly committed to its subject matter. Kept moving by a good score and lots of "yeah, right!" action, I give this one five Nape Strikes.

And finally we have another fun, if lesser Margheriti work, JUNGLE RAIDERS, one of the many Jungle adventure movies that followed in the wake of ROMANCING THE STONE and INDIANA JONES, which this film imitates in equal measure but to lesser effect. Except for all the stuff about the substitute "Short Round" kid with the talking pet cobra, that was something else. Another big finish for Margheriti in this one too with plenty of miniature mayhem and lots and lots and lots of stuff blowing up (SBU). Plus, yet another flamethrower-on-a-something from Mergheritti, this time a big bulldozer. Intermitent attempts at a jovial tone with silly 'comic' music grate the nerves with their unfunniness but as long as the movie shoots for 'adventure' its fairly solid, if panderingly PG-13 viewing.

More TREASURE! And some horrid crap

2007-11-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS (Baldi, 1983): I can't remember if I ever saw this in a theatre. I have vague recollections of dragging my poor Grandfather to see it and being horribly embarassed by by it even though I was only about 14 or 15 ... But these "memories" may only be "anticipations" I had because on some level I knew it was a crap film and that I was doing Graddaddy a huge disservice by making him watch it. Maybe I only saw it on cable. Who cares. Its stupid. Awesome cover art though. Check out the scan. And by the way that scene really isn't in the movie. The majority of the "action" involves a handful of "adventurers" using mountain climbing equipment to traverse the ceiling of a temple and rip off some sort of treasure from a cult. To pad the film we cut to the cult and its rituals that drag on and on. Then we cut back to these freakin bozos dangling from ropes and trying not to touch the floor and other such nonsense. I think the whole temple explodes at the end. Like I said, crap. Still, much amusement is to be had from the obvious enthusiasm the filmmakers had for their super-cool 3-D camera. What seems like hours of screen time are gobbled up with actors pointing any objects they can find straight into the camera for "that 3-D effect." They stick all kinds of stupid shit in your face, candles, spearguns, knives, torches, rocks, and a whole bunch of mountain climbing equipment including coils of rope. What lamebrain said to himself, "Hey let's exploit this 3-D technology by shoving coils of rope in the audience's face." At least near the end we get some stiff snakes striking at us and an assortment of Indiana Jones-type temple traps that jut out at expected moments. Lots of darts and flying daggers and bats on strings. A guy who looks like Jeffery Jones gets stabbed by a limp sword trap and it's fun to watch his wound disappear between shots. Other laughs are had by seeing star Tony Anthony (Doesn't that make him Tony Tony?) dangle inverted from his rope and watching his hair hang in his eyes and his face swell up and turn red. He looks truly uncomfortable and its all for naught because it looks silly. If you seek daft and tedious nonsense this is your E-ticket to satisfaction.

***

SEARCH AND DESTROY (Fruet, 1979) plus THE GLOVE (Hagen, 1979): Last night's double-feature came pre-packaged as an "experience" complete with concession-stand ads and admonishments against smoking in the theatre ("do it in the lobby!"). I guess because GRINDHOUSE was such a huge money-maker and people yearn for similar experiences at home. I KNOW I DO!

Anyway SEARCH AND DESTROY is a decent if somewhat uneventful early "Nam vet" actioner with Perry King being stalked by an old ARVN rival of his that got jacked in Nam and has a big chip on his shoulder over it. Movie gets of to a start in the tone of a slasher flick with a faceless killer offing random dudes we quickly discover were all in the same platoon together 10 years earlier. In short order the mystery is revealed and we pretty much wait for the Killer Gook to motivate Perry to get off his ass and finish what he started back in the war. Although a bit tiresome and shot without much flair, the theme and tone are very satisfying and really push the whole "this war just never ends, does it" thing. Middle act feels tepid as it lacks the mystery of "who is the killer" and feels by-the-numbers, but third act is a doozy when Perry breaks out his old Swedish-K and takes the fight to the aggressor. Perry convinces good-humored cop George Kennedy to shadow him as he uses himself for bait to draw the bad guy out, but when the cops prove ineffective, Perry chases the killer into the woods and shoots it out with him and the cops can do little but tell the populace they "have the fighting contained." Film goes out on an anticlimactic, quiet note that honestly was a great decision and benefitted the film as a whole, as it was completely unexpected.

THE GLOVE is another affair altogether. If the star hadn't been John Saxon I don't know if I'd have made it all the way through. Its always nice to see Saxon, especially given a lead role, even in nonsense like this. The whole thing feels like nothing more than a TV pilot film about an everyman bounty hunter (Saxon) behind on his child-support and saddled with nickel-and-dime jobs that get him nowhere. Music, framing, pace, location and conveniently-expository voiceover all lend to the impression this was a potential series that never got off the ground and was dumped on the Texas drive-in circuit out of desperation. Its even the exact length of a "2 hour" pilot film that could be chopped in half for syndication. I'd have called it SKIP TRACER and put a 70's style announcement over the start saying "tonight's episode: THE GLOVE."

The plot concerns big fat Rosey Grier beating the tar out of a bunch of ex-prison guards for reasons unknown, and using a big metal "riot glove" to do it. Strangely this glove seems capable of knocking car doors off their hinges and flattening roofs and panelling but every person he beats with it survives the affair (although pictures of the victims humorously elicit incredulous gasps from characters who ask if the people pictured are alive or dead). Now if we could have just focused on this plotline the movie would have been more tolerable than it turned out. Instead we meander through Saxon's life as a two-bit hustler with a penchant for "making sucker bets" and seeming incredulity over why his ex-wife is mad at him for not paying child support "for six months." This balding sad sack smells easy street one day when the bounty on Rosey's head is announced to be 20 grand, so after an unrelated series of grabs by Saxon (an old lady, a dude in a butcher shop, a gay guy), the plot restarts in time to give Rosey a backstory (Jazz buff, cool guy) and shove him and Saxon face-to-face in a climactic fistfight that ends in a draw. Fate intervenes in the form of a near-forgotten earlier subplot and Rosey gets offed after all by a rival bounty hunetr putting the squeeze on Saxon for a cut of the reward. This jerkoff is satisfyingly beaten to death in a surprising frenzy of racial violence by the residents of Rosey's tenement, one of them using a mop to break his neck! Then there is a fade to black (clearly to accomodate a commercial break) and the deneument voiceover wraps things up in a nice ribbon plotwise. I honestly expected an announcer to say "next week on The Glove, special guest star Bill Bixby."

While not an utter washout, THE GLOVE is pretty dire. Its spiced up a bit by a hilarious theme song and an even more hilarious "performance" by Joanna "Blade Runner" Cassidy who is very hot in a MILFy kind of way but bereft of dramatic talent in any form. I think Keenan Wynn shows up as a Bail Bondsman in one scene and was probably disappointed the series never took off and provided him with his cameo-of-the-week paycheck. End credit music makes the viewer think he has been watching some kind of weepy romantic melodrama, with lyrics about the "power of love" and such. Back in the day I predict theatre owners suffered a rash of slashed seats after this one.

"How to sell your soul (TRANSFORMERS)" plus stuff I watched lately

2007-11-04T09:25:00.000-08:00

Things I watched this week.

BLACK CAESAR
WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD,
THUNDER WARRIOR,
FINAL MISSION,
BROTHERHOOD OF DEATH,
DEADLY PREY,
YOR THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE,
ENDGAME,
THE GATE,
TREASURE OF THE AMAZON ....

Plus the surest way you can sell your soul: watch TRANSFORMERS and like it. And maybe plan to watch it again the next day. God I am so ashamed. The only thing I can think of is that I have lowered by standards so far that propagandistic and evilly conspicuous consumption monster has 'transformed' into a rather pleasant, if kinda knuckleheaded DVD spectacle.

DEADLY PREY!

2007-11-01T09:11:00.001-07:00

DEADLY PREY (Prior, 1988): I honestly think this box art speaks for itself. Its very truthful. You get EXACTLY THIS for about 85 minutes. Only at the end this guy chops the villain's arm off and then beats him silly with the wet end and then scalps his dead body. I love the title graphic, it makes it look like the movie is called DEADLY OPREY. "Tonight, live from the Grand Old Deadly Oprey!"

Hilarious FIRST BLOOD ripoff in which every single character dies except the main guy, who runs around barefoot in cutoff jean hotpants and a blonde ape drape. The plot feels like a bunch of interns wrote downs action movie cliches and then the director pulled these out of a hat to decide what order they would be shown in. Lots of flexing biceps, shooting from the hip, shitty ill-informed "military" formations, male bonding, dying words, running through the woods, swearing of vengeance, yelling at the sky, cast attrition and the like, throughout. An amazing and satisfying affair. If you ever get the chance to steal this from a Hollywood Video, do so.

SCARECROWS plus THE CHILDREN 10/31/07

2007-10-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

SCARECROWS (Wesley, 1988): Something of a diamond in the rough, and undiscovered treat! I'd never even heard of this thing until it was released on the same day on DVD as THE BURNING. Kind of a post-ALIENS military horror flick. Plot has on-the-run Spec Ops thieves fleeing in a stolen airplane with $3 mil in loot. One guy stabs the others in the back and bails out over the sticks with the money and the others must land and pursue him. Trouble is, there are spooky SCARECROWS hanging (har har har) around, intent on replacing their lost body parts with new ones gleaned from the cast. Attrition follows.

Movie manages to drum up a high level of tension and atmosphere and after a dodgy first half filled with too much wandering and seeking we finally get a decent gorefest with lots of chasing and a fairly quick clip. Lots and lots of unexpected dismemberments and beheadings and the like. Plenty of weapons fire and a high percentage of night vision shots which must have seemed tres moderne in 1988. Best sequence involves the team acquiring their traitorous ex-buddy only to discover his entrails have been removed and replaced with all the filthy lucre ... Which is odd considering he is still walking around and whatnot. Not even dismembering him shuts him up and they have to put his head in a freezer!!!

THE CHILDREN (Kalmanowicz, 1980): God how I loathe drive-in fare from the years 1976-1980, mostly because everything I've seen from that era just feels made for TV, only with the added bonus of a couple bare boobs and a few swear words like "hand job" such as heard in this one. It was a real struggle resisting the urge to fast forward through this one but since I doubted there would be any "good parts" to fast forward TO ... I just stuck with it. Super lame and dated affair has a bunch of little pukes with Dorothy Hamill haircuts getting irradiated and hugging their parents to death, resulting in scary papier machiee fright masks and yellow smoke that looks noxious. It does have some admittedly awesome child death scenes, including one blown off a flight of stairs by a shotgun blast, and several of them get their hands chopped off by a Samurai sword whose presence may have been motivated but it escapes me now just how it got there. Anyway the hand-chopping looks UTTERLY PHONY but at least the notion is cool. This movie is pretty much CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED, only lame. The kids look like they are having too much fun "being in a movie" and blow near every take with those damn fool grins of theirs. I was happy when they all died instead of getting some bogus eleventh-hour cure. Nope, just kill em. I'd been saying that all along!

Lots of stuff seen in the last couple weeks!

2007-10-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

If I ever want to be committed to an asylum, I just need to show people the kind of "I can't make up my mind" schizo movies I watch ... Here's a few I recall seeing of late.

1. ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL (Zwigoff, 2006), Funny when satirizing the pretentiousness of the artistic impulse, lame when trying to be a serial killer farce. Last half is too dark and plot-heavy, first half, breezy and hilarious. Its not that I don't "get it," I just don't like it.

2. WAR BUS (Baldi, 1985), Italian-produced Nam flick about soldiers escorting refugees through Vietnam to safety in an armored school bus. Sadly the film is almost too good ... Its not laughably stupid, but its also not got enough "oomph" to make it memorable. Still, solid actioner played rather straight. Plus, its Nam. Always a good thing.

3. WAR BUS COMMANDO (Ciriaci, 1989), apparently an attempt to seduce viewers into renting a sequel to the "FAMOUS" War Bus, but in reality not related. Not set in Viet Nam, shares none of the characters, I don't even think its got the same crew. Still ... it does have awesome cover art, and stars Mark Gregory from Bronx Warriors! Movie is set in Afghanistan which leads one to believe it is a response to RAMBO III. One thing it shares with War Bus is that it isn't quite crazy enough to be laughable and not awesome enough to really be recommended. Standard actioner fare but Gregory is always a treat.

4. ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX (Castellari, 1983), sequel to BRONX WARRIORS, even better than the original. Gregory on board again, as is his amusing voice dubber. Henry Silva chews it up and spits it out, amazing performance as the bad guy, makes one forget Vic Morrow in the first one ... No Fred Williamson unfortunately, but you do get lots and lots of guys in space suits (!!!) burning people alive with flamethrowers. Wow!!! Gregory wallows in the well-worn trope of the .38 pistol that never runs out of ammo and blows up whatever vehicle he can hit more than once and scream at. Truly bad ass Italianism.

5. ONE DOWN TWO TO GO (Williamson, 1982), directorial effort by Fred Williamson, muddy plot about Hard Black Men trying to collect a gambling debt. Stellar cast wasted in tepid proceedings that go nowhere. Jim Kelly given little to do but "be injured" and be a maguffin that the other guys avenge. Richard Roundtree starts out being the main character but disappears when Fred shows up half an hour in, after the padding of a Karate Tournament wraps up. Boy is that a long first act, too ... Whew. Fred is awesome as usual and has great lines like "You might be an expert in Kung Fu but I'm an expert in Gun Fu!" Jim Brown plays his stout confederate and they take on shady white criminal types. Ludicrous shootout at the end is reminiscent of satirical similar scenes from I'M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA and POLICE SQUAD; good guys on one side, bad guys on another, spaced about 15 feet apart, neither side with cover. WTF! It was staged like a game of PONG. Sorry Fred but you blew it.

6. PLANET TERROR (Rodriguez, 2007), its awesome, but you know what its about already. Praising this is about as unique as saying "I dig air" or "Food will satisfy you if you are hungry." Why bother. Watched it twice, plan to purchase.

7. 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK (Martino, 1983), a solidly entertaining example of post-nuke Italianism, provides abundant cheap thrills for all lovers of THE ROAD WARRIOR, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, and SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. Michael Sopkiw is a champion car gladiator in the post-nuke wasteland until he gets compelled to ESCAPE INTO NEW YORK and retrieve the last fertile woman on the planet. Oh yeah it also anticipates CHILDREN OF MEN, I forgot that part. Anyway he infiltrates NYC, runs afoul of a tribe of rat eaters (who despressingly kill rats onscreen in true 'I don't give a shit' Italian fashion), and eventually stumbles onto the object of the search who is in suspended animation in a glass coffin and a sheer nightie (thus the R rating). Oh yeah but not before also encountering, I shit you not, a bunch of evolved monkeys who want to put him on trial, yes that's right, this even knocks off PLANET OF THE APES! The always fun George Eastman plays the leader of the monkey gang and turns into a good guy and eventually the whole affair turns into a big chase in a station wagon. I love the literal-minded Italians and their 'imitation cinema,' if they don't imitate the themes, they at least provide the same cars from the more-famous movies.

8. INVASION FORCE (Prior, 1990), it might as well have a title card at the beginning stating "We made this exclusively to sell to late night cable and less-discriminating video stores." Monumentally cheap and dumb and by-the-numbers, almost as bad as those action scripts I wrote as an undergrad. A grand total of one recognizable face, Richard Lynch probably annihilated the budget just by showing up, but the movie survives as a result. Amusingly the film seems to be trying to coat-tail INVASION U.S.A. (itself a ripoff of RED DAWN) by promising a "renegade Army Colonel" played by Lynch (who starred in Invasion USA) leading terrorists in a homeland invasion. Sadly their plans prove as insipid as their inspiration (which if one recalls was a couple of old pickup trucks painted black, and a LAW rocket launcher that was repeatedly firable and used on that stronghold of America, the suburbs). Invasion FORCE has a motley crew of ill-equipped douches "parachuting" (read: jumping in from frame left and rolling around a bit) into the strategically-important middle of BFE, USA ... Quite literally out in the woods East of L.A. Their "army" is rarely seen more than five-in-a-row, their "General" seems not to be aware that he goes on every single mission but does nothing, and they all (surprise) get their asses handed to them by a film crew shooting an action movie with BLANKS. Then out of nowhere Lynch is blown up by a C-4 charge and one wishes the same level of mayhem had been present throughout, as opposed to a limping final gag designed to push the audience out of the theatre with a smile on their face even though the film definitely never saw the inside of ANY theatre. Sad sad sad, and criticizing it makes me feel like I kicked a sick puppy.

9. AMERICAN COMMANDOS (Suarez, 1985), one of those pictures that really makes sitting through the other junk worth every minute, is an amazing thing of beauty. This movie's all OVER the place! It promises an appearance ('performance' is pushing it) by Chris 'son of Robert' Mitchum and none other than John Philip Law!!!! I bought this for one penny on Amazon but having seen it I can honestly say I'd have paid a thousand times that much for it. This one is three, AT LEAST three, movies in one. It starts out as a knockoff of DEATH WISH (although at this point it probably thinks its ripping off THE EXTERMINATOR) with Mitchum hunting down and vigilanting the thugs and 'junkies' who killed his family. This plotline runs out of steam at the half hour mark so in come some CIA spooks who conscript Mitch into undercover service to infiltrate the Golden Triangle in Vietnam and destroy the heroin network at its source! Mitch hooks up with war buddy Law (now a spook of a different kind and mixed up with Interpol) and they gather up the old platoon and start blasting on gooks again. But this time they're going to WIN, and for insurance they bring along a truck from THE ROAD WARRIOR and a motorcycle with a KNIGHT RIDER theme that shoots rockets!!!! As they tear ass along the road and blow fools up left and right, I kept wondering when they were gonna quit jerking around in SoCal and get to NAM already, but then I saw the extras in the paper Coolie hats and blue jeans and hysterically realized they'd been in NAM for most of the movie! (Boy there sure are a lot of California license plates in NAM). See this at all costs. Law is awesome and honestly has more chops here than I have ever seen, plus he gets to yell and shoot a machine gun from the roof of the truck and blow up the same "village hut" about ten times in the course of an hour. I loved this movie.

10. HIGH VELOCITY (Kramer, 1976), actioner has mercenaries Ben Gazzara and his bugfuck partner Paul Winfield trying to rescue raving corporate chief Keenan Wynn from unnamed South American terrorists. Nationality of the extras is hard to pin down as they appear to be a mixture of Mexicans and Fillipinos, with maybe one Vietnamese thrown in for good measure. Strong performances and a bummer "Wild Bunch" tone of last-mission-blues highlight this nihilistic, unknown piece. Amazing ending is perfect for a post-Watergate, don't-trust-the-man, I-did-it-my-way film intent on making the viewer feel guilty about being privileged and white and American. Carries an astonishing "PG" rating one could only find in the 1970s where apparently the print had to come down and actually kill the audience in order to get an "R."

11. THE PRIZE OF PERIL (Boisset, 1983), a real French stunner about the ultimate game show where the contestant fights for his life. The source novel for this predates King's RUNNING MAN and this film predates the Arnold film as well. An insistent score keeps things moving along nicely and the hero is likeably frantic in that what-have-I-gotten-myself-into kind of way. Like King's novel, the contest is uncontained and takes place in the city streets as "Hunters" track down the contestants and then grinningly pose for pictures with their corpses. Michel "Diabolik" Piccoli predates Richard Dawson as the always-cheerful host who happily hands out "a thousand dollars" to contestants' widows and congratulates them through their sobs on their windfalls. Runners must simply survive a set time limit to win, but our main guy breaks the rules and eventually starts fighting back in scenes that made me cheer out loud to the dismay of my cat. Very satisfying stuff, feels kind like NETWORK if Friedkin had directed it for Roger Corman.

12. THE LEGEND OF N!&&ER CHARLEY (Goldman, 1972), "Blaxploitation Western" with early performance by Fred Williamson, sadly little more than a curiosity piece based on the inflammatory title.

13. THE SOUL OF N!&&ER CHARLEY (Spangler, 1973), sequel, a big step forward from the previous entry, bolstered by the theme that young children worship Charley as a superhero whose reputation has spread across the lawless west as a fearless do-gooder who will stomp Whitey if need be. Fred even gets Whitey's woman in this one, despite his penchant for attempting to perform emotions instead of just look cool and smoke all the time like he does in his later movies. He's kinda weepy and self-righteous here but at least there's a big bloody shootout near the end and the tone is rather grim despite the misguided efforts to appeal to a younger set. I guess the makers knew that even with an "R" rating, the target audience would probably not be leaving the kids at home so why not entertain them too while Mommy makes out with her new boyfriend.

10/10/07: BRONX WARRIORS, Italian Cop stuff too!

2007-10-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS (Castellari, 1982)

FINALLY got to see this all the way through ... Pretty much worth it too. Not a great movie by any stretch, but most definitely hilarious and worth seeing again.

Things got off to a rocky start, but it was my fault, as I mistakenly was expecting things "to get started," but after about 40 minutes I accepted that there really wasn't any plot to follow. "Its just a lot of stuff that happened," as a wise man once said. A series of events. I'd call it a character piece, but that too would be inaccurate, unless character TYPES were considered (Bad Guy, Hero, Cop, Biker 2). Its a lot of fun seeing not-dead-yet Vic Morrow cackle maniacally and "be evil," and unmissable to see Mark Gregory try out those fancy "walk masculinely" lessons he got on set. (Spoiler: they didn't take.) High point is Fred Williamson in his role as "Duke of New Y ... er KING OF THE BRONX." Come to think of it, the whole thing is just a knockoff of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, which is weird because the DVD is marketed as a "Post Apocalyptic" movie but there is no apocalypse to speak of. But Fred has some good moves in this and has a costume that is reminiscent of Cyclops from the X-men, so that's cool. Plus, atypically, he gets killed at the end, a rarity.

Hysterical dialogue results in lines like "That sounds like a pile of shit from my asshole!" and "You are the biggest son of a bitch in the world!"

Most of the production design and costumes are far above-average here, but that might be because ROAD WARRIOR hasn't come along yet and gayed-up costume design thereafter. Not that this movie lacks gayness in any way. One of the main dudes looks exactly like Freddie Mercury, and his tear-stained death scene in Gregory's arms is a thing of beauty. Female lead is window dressing for the straight kids in the audience, as Gregory pays her lip service as being "his woman" but shows little real interest in her throughout. Shocking ending results in majority of the cast buying it in the 3rd act, and Gregory perfuncorily drags Morrow's grappling-hook-impaled body through the streets Mogadishu-style behind his motorcycle, while most everybody else is dead. Strangely, there exists a sequel, cleverly titled ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX, which would seem imperative.

***

Other movies viewed recently, in my "Italian Cop" visitation:

STREET LAW (Castellari, 1974): vigilante picture, knockoff of DEATH WISH starring Franco Nero. Nero is a stud, make no mistake, and gets a lot of props for doing a lot of obviously-dangerous stunts, most impressive being outrunning a Mustang in slow-motion. Very nice. Great bloody ending reminiscent of the sniper scene in FULL METAL JACKET. One guy gets impaled by a forklift. Hey! That's Italian!

THE BIG RACKET (Castellari, 1976): Fabio Testi gets rolled down a hill while stuck inside a car. Amazing scene. Italians are crazy. BRAVO! Hilarious dubbing refuses to include swear words and constantly substitutes the word "diddly" for "shit," resulting in corkers like "I'm going to beat the diddly out of you!" and "You dirty basket!" Otherwise, standard cop fare laced with sadism typical to the era, genre.

CONTRABAND (Fulci, 1980): I might end up buying this one. Astonishing stuff. Typical of Fulci, rape, torture, and bloody mutilation strain the seams, leaving little room for anything else. Revenger has Fabio Testi seeking the rival gangsters who killed his brother in an attempt to take over his cigarette racket and use it to smuggle "drugs" instead. He's having none of it and Fulciness ensues. Utterly gorgeous lead actress maintains her dignity until the third act when the bad guys kidnap her and rape her up to motivate Testi to quit, but they end up motivating him instead to WALLOP THEIR EVIL BUTTS. With a shotgun. Fucking awesome, highly recommended.

Tonight: anticipate 2019: AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK. Might just play Star Wars Battlefront instead though.

10/8/07: INVADERS OF THE LOST GOLD, NEW BARBARIANS, DEADLY MISSION,CODENAME WILDGEESE, RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS, DEATH DIMENSION

2007-10-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

10/5 - 10/8/07 weekend incl. INVADERS OF THE LOST GOLD!

Got to write these down before I forget I ever watched them!

1990 THE BRONX WARRIORS, actually only got to see about 15 minutes before the damned DVD stopped playing ... Looked good though, can't wait to see the rest, especially considering Fred Williamson seems to die at the end, and that is something of a rarity. Also looking forward to seeing more of the lead "Mark Gregory," who is impossibly swishy and flamboyant.

NEW BARBARIANS (Castellari, 1982)

... not to be confused with NEW GLADIATORS! Lots of great violence in this ROAD WARRIOR ripoff ... Fred Williamson shoots Rambo arrows into dudes' necks and their heads explode! There's also a gun that shoots explosive bullets causing fake torsos to blast apart every now and then. George Eastman plays a warlord who later turns out to be some kind of militant gay who 'subjugates' post-nuke refugees by sodomizing them (!!!). The rest of the movie seems to be a contest as to who can sport the biggest shoulder pads. Seriously. Its crazy. What function to those serve? The people wearing them look like extras from the 1980 FLASH GORDON!

DEADLY MISSION (Castellari, 1978)

... really great Italian WW2 actioner starring ... a guy whose initials are FW. Turns out this is actually INGLORIOUS BASTARDS under a different title! Thrilling knockoff of DIRTY DOZEN only this one has a bevy of naked German frauleins shooting MP40s in one scene. Top THAT. This movie deserves a lot more written about it but I can't be bothered. Turns out I had a copy for years under a third title, GI BRO!Loads and loads of groovy model work.

Speaking of model work ... CODENAME WILDGEESE (Margheriti, 1984)

... is really exceptionally entertaining. Its up there with GOLD RAIDERS as my most-satisfying 25 cent purchase. Ernest Borgnine spends the majority of his scenes looking tired and sitting down. Lee Van Cleef does not look well at all and they couldn't even show him getting in or out of a helicopter ... I guess he needed a little help. They just pan over and he starts to walk away from the cockpit like he just got out of it. Anyway, totally NOT a sequel to THE WILD GEESE ... Although it does have mercenaries in it. Totally awesome set pieces with miniatures, one sequence with a gravity-defying sports car driving ALONG a tunnel wall, the other a real showstopper with a fragile-looking helicopter attacking a camp and raining napalm down on Klaus Kinski's head! Seriously ... AWESOME ending.

RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS (Deodato, 1983)

... Disappointing. Very silly and uneventful knockoff of THE ROAD WARRIOR by Ruggero Deodato. I still can't quite suss out what the plot was all about ... I think Atlantis raises, but then a bunch of biker trash attack our band of heroes, and I couldn't quite decide if Atlantis was controlling Earthbound bikers to do bad things, or if they WERE Atlanteans, only appearing on "Earth," or if our heroes were supposed to be ON Atlantis??? Whatever, it was stupid anyway. Awesome box art though. It looks like Ryan O'neal dressed as up Rambo!

DEATH DIMENSION (Adamson, 1978)

DEATH DIMENSION, "starring" Jim Kelly and his afro, delivers incredible pleasure to lovers of truly awful, awful films. It stinks of cheapness from beginning to end, and has all the production value of a Chest Rockwell movie. I honestly do believe they had a limited amount of film stock because they seem to have been perfectly fine shooting everything in one take, including the fight scenes (which could REALLY have benefitted from some editing and choreography ... and people who can actually fight). I mean its just shockingly stupid and lame from the get-go. Harold Sakata, amusingly credited as Harold "Odd Job" Sakata (which is sorta like always reminding the audience that Russ Tamblyn was "from West Side Story"), is painfully slow in his fight scenes where he is shown "beating up" Kelly ... Which is confusing as he is obviously a very strong and musclebound kinda guy. His arms look like barrels! Seriously, he's huge. But man, S-L-O-W. What's supposed to be a climactic throwdown ends up resembling two old men playing charades. Its real sad. There's a big fight too with a helicopter menacing a cable car, and a couple guys shoot uselessly at each other with .38s across the gorge between them! What a freakin waste of time. I won't even describe the last minute ... Must be seen to be believed, but let's just say it involves 1) another .38, 2) a Piper airplane, 3) stock footage of an explosion, and 4) hasty editing. And then Jim Kelly does a flying kick into the audience's FACE! Take THAT, audience!

INVADERS OF THE LOST GOLD (Birkinshaw, 1982)

The creme de la creme of shit jungle action flicks surely must be INVADERS OF THE LOST GOLD (aka HORROR SAFARI!). "Part CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and part RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK!" exclaims the box, but this is a LIE. Although the distributor can be forgiven this transgression, as deception would seem the only viable way to get this stinker out of the warehouse. Which, of course, makes it AWESOME. OK not really. Again "starring" Sakata, he is joined by an aged and wobbly Woddy Strode and a boozy Stuart Whitman. You know you are in trouble when the best performance comes from STUART WHITMAN of all people. Story involves inept adventurers trying to recover lost Jap gold from its jungle hiding place, each one dropping dead at the merest hint of danger. One guy gets eaten by a crocodile but the effect is achieved ENTIRELY through editing (and is super lame). Another guy falls off a rope bridge but when we see his body laying there it looks like he only fell about 6 feet. One bozo gets bit by a snake. And Laura Gemser is rewarded for showing her cute butt and boobies by spontaneously dropping dead for no given reason. Its utterly bizarre and one is forced to wonder if she did not simply leave the set one day and the director decided to try and depict a death scene (which does not work at all and seems incongruous), with other characters later pondering "what happened to her?" No explanation is ever given and it remains a mystery. Topping matters off is the fact this is hands down the single worst print of a film I have ever seen, PERIOD, and continuity questions are muddied further by the possibility we could just be missing a few vital, revelatory frames (which does seem to be the case with Gemser's bathing scene, which skips around a bit any time she threatens to turn around and reveal more than PG-rated nudity). This print is a NIGHTMARE, dirty, nay, FILTHY, and scratched up throughout, missing the ends of sentences and littered with jumpcuts and myriad arcane scribblings that must have meant an awful lot of something to a score of international projectionists. Several frames have big "X's" through them, some have squiggles, some have squares drawn in random places ... Its bizarre and mystifying. I loved it, especially the process of trying to decipher just what was occurring (whenever "action" accurred that is). Hell, at one point I was convinced Sakata had just died, but it was just some other guy instead. Scenes shift exposures back and forth, creating the impression of moving from day to night and back again, and the music swells at some of the lamest and most uneventful occurences.

Lost gold? This movie is PURE gold.

10/3/07: NEW GLADIATORS

2007-10-12T13:34:00.000-07:00

NEW GLADIATORS (Fulci, 1984)

No surprise, Lucio Fulci's NEW GLADIATORS is kinda mediocre. It gets off to a decent enough start, has a good cast, great locations (when they use them), and some fun model effects work. Good premise too, involving competing networks attempting to one-up each other by providing the most bloodthirsty shows they can. One does "Kill Bike" which should be self-explanatory (hint: it involves bikes, and killing) while the other does "Battle of the Damned," a recreation of the classical gladiator theme of forcing convicts to fight each other in an arena.

Sadly, there really isn't enough gladiating in this thing. The second act gets sidetracked early on trying to imitate ROLLERBALL's subplots of supercomputers and warring corporations ... Apparently nobody infomed Fulci that 1) ROLLERBALL was not exactly a big hit, and 2) its subplots were likely to blame for this. Still, when the fighting gets going, its very satisfying, and there's plenty of bloody mayhem on hand even if the editing leaves things a bit muddled at times. Its hard to tell really what the rules of engagement are ... But who cares when a guy gets decapitated while riding a motorcycle!

Oh yeah, Fred Williamson is in it. Boy we don't see him around too much do we. He has a cool scene during the big motorcycle chariot race at the end where an opponent gets dragged behind a bike and Fred takes the opportunity to shoot the poor schlub with a flamethrower (!!!), and his charred smoking corpse does a couple more laps as a bumper accessory. Gotta love Fulci.

Movie gets a lot of points for also imitating BLADE RUNNER, another famous commercial failure that makes one wonder where Fulci was getting his intel from. Most of the BR details are surface only ... Lots of "future" cityscapes with video screens on buildings and shot with fake-looking models, flying cars that look like Spinners, even a dorky "happy ending" where the main guy and gal drive off to sunnier climes from the always-dark metropolis! End credit music stolen from BR too ... And we wonder why the Italian film industry isn't around any more ...

10/3/07: VIOLENT CITY

2007-10-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

VIOLENT CITY, made in 1970 by Sergio "Big Gundown" Sollima, and starring Charles Bronson and his smokin hot wifey Jill Ireland and her body double, was not released in the States until 1973, in order to piggyback THE GODFATHER. Known in this form as THE FAMILY, it was (as typical) cut by about 20 minutes ... And if judging the recent Blue Underground DVD is any indication, I probably would have preferred the shorter one! The majority of the cut scenes are unnecessary character scenes that belabor certain points ... Namely that Chuck Bronson is A VERY HARD MAN. But do we really need to see a spider crawl across his hand for five minutes to get this point?

That being said, the movie is freakin GREAT. Really wonderful Morricone score permeates almost the whole thing, and it is filled with crazy violence that is beautifully staged and artfully shot. It reminds one of POINT BLANK meets THE KILLER, the latter mostly because both films involve a hitman named Jeff who falls in love and wants to go straight. It also recalls DAY OF THE JACKAL with its patient attention to the process of paid assassination.

The movie is punctuated by lengthy showstopping action set pieces ... A car chase at the beginning (and obvious inspiration for a scene from DRIVER 3 if you ask me) climaxes in a sadistic fiery gunbattle ... The shooting of a race car driver results in his car catapulting off the track, through a brick wall, and into a populated street!!! The finale in an elevator reminds us of both Hitchcock and Argento in equal measure. Oh yeah and did I mention that Jill Ireland is an uber babe? Too bad her body double got more screen time than she did ... A real shame.

10/02/07: MORE QUARTER PLUNDER

2007-10-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

BONUS! Here are some of the movies I got for a quarter a couple weeks ago ... The ones I've watched at least. There's tons I haven't viewed yet!

MAD DOG (Grieco, 1977): Alternate title for Helmet Berger-starrer aka BEAST WITH A GUN. Yummy Marisa "Diabolik" Mell costars and provides an awful lot of Fan Appreciation. Incredible, delirious music compliments a sadistic streak a mile wide in this one. I adore movies where the main character is an unredeemable slimebag. And a rapist and murderer too!

SHOOT (Hart, 1976): Weirdo Canadian psychodrama with Cliff Robertson who has a rather unhealthy romantic relationship with guns. The scenes where he oils his rifle are straight out of a gay porno. A bunch of yahoo hunters stumble across another group of yahoos in the woods and mutually open fire on each other, seemingly out of frustration over no deer in the area. "All dressed up with nowhere to blow" seems to be the theme. Remainder of the film has our group's escalating paranoia driving them to seek a rematch, only with vastly superior firepower. Trouble is, they suspect the other group is doing the same. But ... are they?

THE FINAL OPTION (Sharp, 1982): British actioner about the 1980's terror-busting SAS! Lots of Bond franchise talent on-hand give this one the feeling of a more sober Bond without all the shenanigans. More of a sedate espionage thriller, but featuring a knockout climax based of the true Iranian embassy siege in London in 1980. Dig gas masks and MP5s? See this.

THE PARK IS MINE (Stern, 1986): the 80s saw this Tommy Lee Jones Nam-vet-on-a-righteous-rampage flick on seemingly unavoidable heavy cable rotation. The thing was as ubiquitous as those awful Old Navy ads with Morgan Fairchild from a couple years back, you just could not stay away from it. Of chief appeal is the film's attempts to make Jones affable and sympathetic when for all intents and purposes he is little more than a pissed-off emasculated White Dude tired of being pushed around by not only The Man but also his Ex Wife. Its difficult to endorse his tactics of mining Central Park and shooting up cop cars with an AK and terrorizing NYC into broadcasting his whining manifestos over all channels. Jones frequently plays it for laughs in attempts at levity but there is no escaping the fact that he is an outright terrorist with no perceivable goals except to "not take any more shit for 72 hours." When he finally gets arrested (but not before an honest-to-God VIET CONG mercenary is dispatched in attempts to 'neutralize him,' the film's strongest sequence), he declares victory at having met his goals. Congrats dude, now go to jail for the rest of your life. Bizarre. (Super Ultra Merit Points to Yaphet Kotto for being an amazing actor in this one.)

10/02/07: VIGILANTE

2007-10-12T13:26:00.000-07:00

VIGILANTE (Lustig 1983)

I guess this is some kind of classic, if Lustig is to be believed. Although there is something a bit suspect about a director pimping his old movies as "special editions" through his own damn video label. Still, the film retains a great deal of sleazy power, and more than compensates for several leaps of logic with heaping helpings of grim nihilism.

Basically, this is a knockoff of DEATH WISH. Robert Forster's family gets attacked, leaving his wife traumatized and young son six feet under (and likely buried in a Ziploc baggie judging by the mess the killers make). Outraged at a crooked judge who gives the crook a suspended sentence, Forster throws a fit in court and gets sent to jail for contempt. It seems a bit severe to send a guy to the pen for being upset over his son's murder, but here we are anyway. Forster serves his time and avoids a few toughs who want to "build a deck in his back yard," and Woody Strode gives him a hand. Meanwhile the amazing Fred Williamson is leading a gang of vigilantes who kick six shades of shit out of all the purse snatchers in the hood, and when Forster hits the streets again, he joins up with them.

Interestingly, Forster turns out to be even more hard-nosed than the other vigilantes, and when faced with one of the hoods that hurt his wife, he just up and shoots him in the chest, as his compatriots dazedly look on (probably muttering in their heads "fucking hardcore, man"). Forster proceeds to wipe out the rest of the gang and winds up in a great extended car chase with the dude who shot his kid, who he chases up a water tower and then coldly tosses to his death below. The final and most amazing scene has Forster blowing up the crooked judge in a parking lot and then just driving away --- THE END. Wow.

Allegedly Lustig was forced to add an ending crawl to this scene in order to get the movie released in some countries; it had to state that Forster turned himself in out of guilt and is now in jail. LAME.

Highlights include Forster and Williamson's bang-up performances, the Strode cameo, and an appearance by Joe Spinell as a bent lawyer on the take who pays off the judge. Music by Jay Chattaway, and kudos to him for making it sound like some kind of wild spaghetti western half the time.

9/28/07: WALKING THE EDGE, WHITE GHOST

2007-10-12T13:24:00.000-07:00

The trend of forgotten amazingness continues. Last night's fare exceeded even the wildest expectations ... Managed to cram in two features wholly unconnected to each other: Robert Forster in WALKING THE EDGE and William Katt in WHITE GHOST.

WALKING THE EDGE (Meisel, 1983)

EDGE is a brutal revenger about a trodden-upon cabbie/numbers runner who snaps from the pressure and goes on a murder spree after his best friend is killed to death by Joe Spinell and a power drill. It probably has a lot to do with Chinese hottie Nancy Kwan who is on the lam in his pad (after killing a few mobsters of her own) but won't put out. Best line in the movie: "They were Goddamn shooting at me ... with fuckin' bullets!"

WHITE GHOST (BJ Davis, 1988)

GHOST is an amazing collection of Vietnam war film cliches that defies description. Just take one part RAMBO, two parts UNCOMMON VALOR (so long as one of those parts is Reb Brown), a couple pinches of THE PUNISHER, and then blend it with PLATOON and you almost have a good idea what to expect. And that's not even touching the TARZAN elements of the story. Amazing stuff. William Katt has a mullet in this one.

Tonight's fare seems likely to hold the extended DEATH PROOF, GORDON'S WAR from 1972 starring Paul Winfield, and a Russian bootleg workprint of the new Cronenberg film (!!!). (Special thanks to YOU-KNOW-WHO.)

9/25/07: THE ANNIHILATORS

2007-10-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

Another in my series of reactions to "The Great Action Movie Quarter Plunder of 2007."

THE ANNIHILATORS (Sellier, 1985)

I wasn't sure I was gonna make it through this one, after the opening crawl informs us we are in "Vietnam" but its clearly just the woods outside L.A. somewhere, and all the soldiers are wearing modern Woodland camo. I somehow got it in my head that "if a film isn't going to take period detail seriously then I ain't gonna watch it," but luckily I got over myself and was treated to the modern marvel that is THE ANNIHILATORS. Briefly, this is a post-FIRST BLOOD, post-DEATH WISH Nam-vets-turned-vigilantes quickie about four war buddies trying to clean up the crime-ridden streets of wherever. L.A., I guess. And along the way they learn important lessons and such.

I bought this one on the strengths of Christopher Stone being in it. He's the guy in THE HOWLING that turns into a werewolf after bonking that babe by the campfire. You know the one. He's also the "Stone" part of Dee Wallace-Stone, the lady who played Elliot's mom in E.T. (and also the main actress in The Howling, which is where they met, I guess). But I digress.

THE ANNIHILATORS is filled to the rim with people who quite simply deserve better. Stone as the leader is a lot of fun to see in a lead role, even if its this silly business. Its always nice to see him in anything because he never drags a project down with a bad attitude (as any lesser man would if he found himself in this kind of movie). The rest of the group are a who's-who of stars who always seem to elicit the reaction of "Really? No kidding!" whenever I mention they are in it. Check this out (and bear in mind these are supposed to be BATTLE-HARDENED NAM VETS): You have Gerrit Graham (Beef from PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE), tying really hard to dial down the femininity; Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs (Washington from WELCOME BACK KOTTER of all things!) taking things really seriously; and what amounted to some kind of casting coup at the time, Andy Wood (from RAMBO as the box proudly declares), whose acting style seems to be "looking a lot like David Bowie, only sleepy." It took me most of the movie to realize that Wood's part in RAMBO was as one of the P.O.W.s! So technically, yes, he was in RAMBO. Kinda.

The movie is loaded with the kind of toxic inanity that would fell a less-committed viewer. Technically inept, filled with obvious and shoddy bounce card work, poor framing, and incoherent editing, the whole thing truly is kept afloat by the eclectic, if underappreciated cast. By-the-numbers story has us fast-forward from "Nam" to the present day of 1985, and the murder-by-meat-tenderizer of one of the old platoon members by baddie Paul Koslo (the dirtbike guy from OMEGA MAN). Revenge must surely ensue, but not before another 86 minutes passes. During this time the vets decide to train the neighborhood residents in self-defense tactics that seem to all rely on hitting people with brooms and then kicking them in the nuts. No one seems to really catch on too well because many more muggings and beatings occur throughout.

Sadly, the grim tone set by the first few minutes dissipates into intermittent attempts at feel-good camaraderie and shows-of-unity that seem inspired by stuff like LEAN ON ME or STAND AND DELIVER, but luckily we are still treated to amazing sequences of Washington's Kung-Fu "prowess" (so good its all in slow motion!), the vets' capture of an ice-cream truck filled with heroin they ALL (!!!) taste to identify, and Graham's noble sacrifice to save a baby from crossfire, replete with mumbled, unintelligible Final Words. (I was astonished they had a straight take of this scene to include in the movie.) In between these high points the viewer can keep himself amused by figuring out how the filmmakers decided to indicate agedness in the characters (hint: it involves white shoe polish in the beard), and revisiting the scene where the vets train the populace that if they are in trouble, they need only give out the secret signal of "rapping hard on something 3 times," which these bozos apparently feel the need to PRACTICE DOING. WTF!

The cast's straight-faced earnestness really makes this thing. Sure, its an enormous POS, but oddly endearing in an embarrassing lowbrow kind of way, and watching these guys see it through to the end is sorta like watching all the slow kids finally finish a 5 mile run a couple hours late. Its how you play the game, man.

9/20/07: GOLD RAIDERS

2007-10-12T13:20:00.000-07:00

GOLD RAIDERS (Chalong, 1983)

So about a week ago I went to this video store and they were clearing out their old VHS movies for a dollar. I selected one tape and the clerk tells that "these are a dollar each, but for 2 dollars, you can have as many as you can fit into a grocery bag." GOLD RAIDERS, dear friends, is one of those movies. I don't know how much the .17 cent price tag colored my opinion of it, but this was the surprise of a lifetime, or at the very least, the surprise of an evening home alone in front of the TV.

Holy smokes, amazing movie. Made in Thailand around 1984, this seems to be trying to cash in on RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, what with the silly title and its jungle adventure theme. But all similarities end there, and what the viewer can expect instead is one of the kookiest, most bugf*ck movies EVER MADE. Apparently the filmmakers were deathly afraid of boring their audience, so went to any lengths whatsoever to avoid this ever happening, and when they ran out of their own ideas, they had no trouble borrowing a handful from other, debatably better, movies.

Plot involves token anglo CIA dude (Robert Ginty) and his crew of intrepid Thai adventurers trying to recover some spook gold lost in a plane crash. Along the way they are distracted by an array of the craziest subplots ever committed to celluloid. One sequence involves a fishing trip where these Thai dudes chase and kill a giant fake fish with spears, which plays like a rather cut-rate JAWS extract (and serves no narrative purpose whatsoever, except perhaps to stress that they are REALLY good at fishing for monster fish). Later, while recovering boxes of LOST GOLD from a lake, the heroes are attacked by speargun-wielding scuba divers, and suddenly we find ourselves in the middle of THUNDERBALL ... replete with fun James Bond knockoff score! Furthering the Bond fetish, Ginty later reveals what he's been lugging around in a crate the whole time, an attack motorcycle "that runs on a crystal chamber and never needs gas," but still manages to smoke and fume like its on its last legs. This is no ordinary jungle attack crystal-powered motorcycle, though ... This one has what appears to a pup tent rolled up on it and attached to a frame, so when it is driven off a cliff, the tent unfolds into a hang glider! (And just wait until they attack an enemy camp with the half dozen missiles mounted on the handlebars!) For whatever reasons, the training wheels mounted on the sides are never addressed.

Another wonderful sequence involves a cave system infested with vampire bats that are about 3 feet wide and look like they were left over from FRIGHT NIGHT. Oh. My. God. And don't forget the bit where Ginty drives the super cycle over a gorge while balancing on a thin steel cable! SO TALENTED! I can see why the CIA recruited him because he is UTTERLY DOPE.

What else, what else ... Well, there's the Thai commando who looks a lot like Wayne Newton, who manages to keep his hair feathered even after scuba diving ... There's the hilarious dubbing that makes everyone sound like they are in the same room together, somewhere in Canada (judging by the accents) ... The insistence that the Thai characters, even though dubbed and with Western accents, still use their Thai names, one of which seems to be "Porn" ... The impulse to go all DIRTY DOZEN on us and kill off half the cast in the last 5 minutes, but not before holding off an entire Communist army by blocking one road with a tree stump ... There's even some legitimately good throat-slashings and bullet wounds, and one scene where a dog steals the prosthetic leg of the Communist general and he has to hop around on one foot during the firefight (!!!). Wrapping the whole affair up nicely are the hilariously illegible end credits, written in a hazy yellow and superimposed over a cloudy background scene, and then transferred in the wrong aspect ratio! All while a montage plays that shows all the dead characters' death scenes again! SIMPLY AMAZING.

I can only hope the other selections in my bag are half as good. I have high hopes for THE GREAT SMOKEY ROADBLOCK and THUMB TRIPPING doesn't look half bad either. Although I am thinking a return visit might be in order because I think I saw a copy of FIVE FOR HELL in there somewhere ...

8/23/07: RUNNING MAN, CLIFFHANGER, CAPRICORN ONE

2007-10-12T13:18:00.001-07:00

THE RUNNING MAN is a surprisingly good movie. Sure its kinda campy, but it tries real hard to please. As kitschy as some of the costumes are, nobody treats it like a joke unless the scene calls for it, and the supporting cast really gives it everything they got. Especially Richard Dawson and Yaphet Kotto. Maria Conchita-Alonso, not so much ... She's a little shrill here, always rattling off inane Spanglish asides even though nobody else in the movie understands Spanish. Who is she talking to? God?

CLIFFHANGER continues my revisitation of Stallone. Fucking awesome adventure movie that still holds up real well. Probably Renny Harlin's best movie which also kinda makes it his only good movie. Wait, he directed THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT. That one was good so he's got 2 decent ones. Which almost acquits him for CUTTHROAT ISLAND. But not quite. That one was kinda like shitting yourself in public on a reality show, nobody forgets that shame. Anyway, Cliffhanger is just dandy, if a bit telling of the "early 90s vibe" with the attention paid to "totally extreme" snowboarding culture. At least the 2 XTREME guys get shot up halfway through. Which is nice. Michael Rooker is a great character here, he's a bit of an antogonist for Stallone, but the movie wisely has him suffer a bit at the hands of the baddies, and we soon start to root for him. Janine Turner ... CUTIE PIE. The whole thing is a fabulous 90s blockbuster, R-rated as it should be, very bloody, filled with profanity ... Great stuff. And probably the most amazing trailer I have ever seen!

CAPRICORN ONE again last night. Saw this with my Grandmother as a 10-year-old, and have abiding positive feelings of it as a result. I still think the climactic helicopter-cropduster chase is one of the most thrilling sequences ever filmed, even if it kinda strains credulity that an exhausted, starved, and dehydrated James Brolin could hang onto the wing of a plane as it does barrel-rolls and loops and canyon dives. But whatever. If its credulity you seek, avoid this one. Being a bit more critical-minded last night, I found a lot of it very hard to swallow, especially Elliot Gould's friend who gets "disappeared" after stumbling onto the conspiracy. This entire subplot just doesn't really work at all, and implies a conspiracy so far-reaching that to hold water it must involve, among others, NASA, several magazines the friend has subscriptions to, the friend's apartment leasing office, the post office, the utilities company, and just about anyone who ever saw him or spoke to him. Why is Gould the only one to notice his absense? What about the guy's co-workers or friends outside work? What about his parents? His credit card company? His neighbors? And is the woman now inhabiting his apartment "for the last year" in on the conspiracy? (She'd have to be; but Gould can't quite grasp this.) Gould even says "I've been here a hundred times" to her, yet asks he to confirm her address and apartment number. Why bother if he's really been there so often? That lady has to be a stone-cold expert pokerfaced LIAR to be able to look him in the face and tell him UP is DOWN and have him pause even a moment to consider it. Yet, the movie has him look for "proof." So yeah the movie's logic isn't very bulletproof, but like RUNNING MAN, its heart is what it relies upon to get the job done. It is SO post-Watergate, it isn't even funny. Its the paranoid thriller at its apex or nadir, whatever you prefer, but when the good guys finally blow the lid off the whole thing, you can't help but cheer. Great stuff.

8/21/07 WEEKEND FARE

2007-10-12T13:16:00.000-07:00

Here is your update. Because you really want to know what movies I watch.

This weekend and this week seem to be all about 80's action. A few weeks ago I couldn't get enough slashers ... And then, well, I guess I found out that I *could* get enough. So to get away from the killing and awfulness, I went into a period of standup comedy. Comics watched include: Dave Attel, Patton Oswalt, Lewis Black, Joe Rogan, Doug Stanhope (the inheritor of the throne of Bill Hicks), and unfortunately, Dane Cook, who is a spastic meathead and isn't funny.

Somewhere in here I decided it would be a good idea to see RAMBO 3, as I don't recall having seen it since it came out. Its a bit of a mess with a lot of good bits but no "flow." Most of it seemd kinda pieced together and sure enough, I looked it up and discovered that the original director was fired early on, and the movie was finished by, you guessed it, the 2nd unit director. IT REALLY SHOWS. At the very least, its Eisensteinian in its editing.

Next up was ROCKY IV, mostly just for Dolph Lundgren, who I am rather fond of. So on the same day I also watched UNIVERSAL SOLDIER and I COME IN PEACE, which is so damn good they are waiting for a format better than DVD to release it on. I made do with an old VHS tape that promised it was "Digitally Remastered!"

With Dolph out of the way (but nagging urges to spin RED SCORPION still lingering), I caught RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II again, and OH MY GOD, this is an amazing film. I realize I am stating the obvious, but something hit me about the sheer genius of Rambo re-fighting, and winning, The Vietnam Do-Over. What an amazing character for the 80's and Reagan, to re-address our military shame, shift the blame, kick ass, then nutsack the wimp bureacrats who "wouldn't let us win" the first time. Fucking RAD. Plus, Rambo goes it ALONE, a solo hero borne of the "me" 70s, rescuing the 80's ... From the 60's. Utterly incredible. Although I am still trying to figure out how Rambo was able to fire the door guns and the missile pods while still keeping the chopper aloft. I guess the same way he was able to drive the tank at the end of RAMBO III while also steering, turning the turret, firing the forward machine gun, and firing the cannon. And then reloading. All while in motion! You'd HAVE TO BE a hero to be able to do this stuff.

So with Stallone in a string of all-winners, I figured now's the time to catch COBRA, another one I've not seen since it was cable when i was a teenager. What a goofy movie. And let me tell you, it is SO 80'S. Oh. My. God. Maverick cop who "bucks the system but gets results?" Check! Lead female a vain model? Check! Poses with robots? Check! Hero has idiosyncratic period fashion but no uniform? Check! Viewer wonders "how's this guy still a cop?" Check! Now, I'm not one to point the "suck" finger at a movie with STALLONE on the cover from the EIGHTIES that I rented VOLUNTARILY. And to be fair, it didn't really suck, so much as it was just kinda cliched and silly. I could have stood a lot more of Cobra pushing random street thugs around and tearing their clothes and telling them to "clean up their act" and a lot less of Cobra looking at stuff through mirrored sunglasses and taking Brigitte Nielsen on dates. I admit it, I think its funny when the hero cop exceeds his authority and abuses his power to enforce the status quo. I mean, THAT'S COMEDY.

Oh yeah, pretty good car chase in this one. And the villain seems like he's from some horror movie, not an action flick, and dies the most spectacularly sadistic death since Seagal threw that guy with a broken back down an elevator shaft in MARKED FOR DEATH!

WORST. MOVIES. EVER. 8/27/07

2007-10-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

These are movies I actually sat through in a theatre. I've seen far worse on video --- the list would be epic. Add to the list your choices and reply!

In no particular order:

1. STAR WARS: EPISODE ONE: When its not being a soulless fake-a-thon, its juvenile, convoluted, and loaded with dire acting.

2. BATMAN AND ROBIN: even under the influence, I thought this was a horrible mess. Too many characters who go nowhere. Clooney plays himself as Batman at a costume party. When Arnold is the best thespian on board, look out.

3. MATRIX: RELOADED: I described it as "Episode One Bad."

4. TOMB RAIDER 2: uneventful and meandering. Angelina Jolie punches a shark underwater.

5. THE CROW 2: kinda ruined my opinion that "if it has Iggy Pop in it, it's gotta be good."

6. HIGHLANDER 2: When Sean Connery can't save you, you're really in big trouble. What up with all the aliens?

7. GODFATHER 3: Sofia Coppolla.

8. STREET FIGHTER (VAN DAMME): Raul Julia as a kung-fu super-villain?!

9. THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW: run from the cold weather! (And the fake dogs.)

10. TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME: I still don't know what its about.

11. TRANSFORMERS (BAY): your opinion might differ if you enjoy Mountain Dew and Xbox and GM cars.

12. THE ISLAND (BAY): Dear Michael Bay, please make R-rated movies again, your PG ones kinda suck without all the tasteless violence.

13. GODZILLA (US VERSION): and I own all the Japanese ones on DVD.

14. HOOK: I should've trusted my instincts on this one. Thankfully, it has faded from memory.

15. MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN: When Abbott and Costello make a better Frankenstein movie than you, stop directing movies

BOOGEYMAN, VANISHING POINT, no I am not schizophrenic

2007-10-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

More movies 7/23/07

More under my belt ...THE BOOGEYMAN (1980). It's crap. Ludicrous plot involves vengeful spirit using fragments of a mirror to possess people and make them kill. Starts out ripping off HALLOWEEN and ends ripping off AMITYVILLE HORROR. And hold on a sec, but all three of these have been remade recently!

After this is a repeat of VANISHING POINT (1971). I got the soundtrack recently and wanted to see this again. Amazing stuff. Go read all the ludicrous comments on IMDB from pissed-off boneheads who only watched this because it got name-checked in DEATH PROOF and got mad because they didn't "get" it (so therefore it must surely suck).

Oh yeah and I still haven't finished all of HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. Its just too miserable-sounding ... Don't want to finish, but know I must ...

MOVIE SURVEY 7/23/07

2007-10-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

Movie survey!

I cribbed this from Ross' regular blog, and he cribbed it from elsewhere, so I guess now its in the public domain ... Here goes!

1) Favorite quote from a filmmaker
"But Roger, don't you want to see the piranhas eat her breasts?" (Joe Dante to Roger Corman during FX test for PIRANHA)

2) A good movie from a bad director
DIE HARD by John McTiernan. Let's face it, McTiernan ... SUCKS. And yet somehow, he made PREDATOR and DIE HARD.

3) Favorite Laurence Olivier performance
That Nazi Hunter in BOYS FROM BRAZIL.

4) Describe a famous location from a movie that you have visited (Bodega Bay, California, where the action in The Birds took place, for example). Was it anything like the way it was in the film? Why or why not?
Lots of Twin peaks locations in Washington state. The trestle bridge from the pilot film was EEEERIE ... Just like the movie. The Double-R Cafe? Not that impressive. And LOTS of Peaks-inspired graffiti in the john. Disappointing.

5) Carlo Ponti or Dino De Laurentiis (Producer)?
Dino, NO QUESTION. C'mon --- ORCA! THE WHITE BUFFALO!

6) Best movie about baseball
BAD NEWS BEARS. Just amazing. I still maintain its *actually* about America in Vietnam.

7) Favorite Barbara Stanwyck performance
I don't think I have ever seen one.

8) Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Dazed and Confused?
FAST TIMES. Duh. Because Dazed doesn't have Phoebe Cates!

9) What was the last movie you saw, and why? (We've used this one before, but your answer is presumably always going to be different, so…)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, but I didn't finish it yet. Its boring and stiff. I've been watching a lot of slasher movies. Sadly, the last film I finished was FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN. It was better than I'd been led to believe; EVERYONE warned me, when asking for it, that "it sucked." So my expectations were rather low ... Even so, it was kinda lame.

10) Whether or not you have actually procreated or not, is there a movie you can think of that seriously affected the way you think about having kids of your own?
Maybe ERASERHEAD or KIDS. Definitely KIDS. Little bastards!

11) Favorite Katharine Hepburn performance
Since THE AVIATOR doesn't count, I'm just going with ON GOLDEN POND.

12) A bad movie from a good director
TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Hate this POS. Incoherent junk. First 1/2 hour is pretty cool though.

13) Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom-- yes or no?
Hell yeah! That's some sick stuff. Anyone who says "yes," seek out MEN BEHIND THE SUN, that's right up your alley I promise you.

14) Ben Hecht or Billy Wilder (Screenwriter)?
Huh?

15) Name the film festival you'd most want to attend, or your favorite festival that you actually have attended
I don't hink too highly of festivals ... Its such a crapshoot. I always end up seeing such junk, and its too much effort and close proximity to nerds to end up seeing junk.

16) Head or 200 Motels?
Neither. Who wrote this thing?

17) Favorite cameo appearance
David Bowie in YELLOWBEARD.

18) Favorite Rosalind Russell performance
WHAT. THE. FUCK.

19) What movie, either currently available on DVD or not, has never received the splashy collector's edition treatment you think it deserves? What would such an edition include?
There's really just too many to note. And frankly, just give me the movie and the trailer and I'm good. Everything else is gravy, and usually, kinda lame. That said, Sam Peckinpah's CONVOY is really amazing to me, and isn't available on any "real" Region 1 DVD release.

20) Name a performance that everyone needs to be reminded of, for whatever reason
Michael Caine in BATMAN BEGINS is the emotional backbone of that film and I wouldn't have watched it as many times were he not in it. He is so dedicated as loyal and long-suffering Alfred! You really feel that Bruce would never have survived emotionally without Alfred. Amazing performance.

21) Louis B. Mayer or Harry Cohn (Studio Head)?
sigh ... old movies ... whatever ...

22) Favorite John Wayne performance
He gets killed at the end of THE COWBOYS. So ... THE COWBOYS.

23) Naked Lunch or Barton Fink?
Barton Fink by a landslide. Naked Lunch has some really dodgy FX that always ruin the flick for me. And I still don't quite fully "get" Barton Fink, so that must mean it is for smart people.

24) Your Ray Harryhausen movie of choice
JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS is really impressive.

25) Is there a movie you can think of that you feel like the world would be better off without, one that should have never been made?
TRANSFORMERS. Its bad for America and bad for the world. Its not even a movie, just a big advertisement that you have to pay to see. Total crap.

26) Favorite Dub Taylor performance
This thing was written by a nerd who wants everyone to realize how informed he is. Well, take that, nerd! I am leaving it blank! REPLACE WITH: FAVORITE DICK MILLER PERFORMANCE:
I love Dick Miller. Basically anything he does is just great. Coming to mind is Murray Futterman in GREMLINS, the occult book dealer in THE HOWLING, and the gun salesman in THE TERMINATOR.

27) If you had the choice of seeing three final movies, to go with your three last meals, before shuffling off this mortal coil, what would they be?
BLADE RUNNERSEVEN SAMURAI and THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (just for good luck)

28) And what movie theater would you choose to see them in?
Assuming I was not in prison and limited to the prison cafeteria and an old 16mm projector ... The Wonder Theatre in San Antonio, long since demolished, but what the hell, I saw everything there: STAR WARS, BLADE RUNNER, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, even EVIL DEAD 2! Failing this, the Woodlawn in San Antonio ... where I saw everything else. For a dollar!

July 22, 2007: SLASHERS

2007-10-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

Currently watching HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (1980). Melissa Sue Anderson won't get naked, you can tell by the editing. Nobody leaves just a bra on that long in a slasher. When its on that long, it ain't going anywhere. 2 weeks of slasher movies, spurred by the hilarious BEHIND THE MASK. ... So far, selections include:

GRADUATION DAY,
HELL NIGHT,
THE FUNHOUSE,
THE PROWLER,
MADMAN,
TERROR TRAIN,
PROM NIGHT,
THE BURNING,
MY BLOODY VALENTINE,
STUDENT BODIES,
SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE,
SLEEPAWAY CAMP,
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2,
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII,
SLEEPAWAY CAMP 2,
TED BUNDY,
PUMPKINHEAD,
HALLOWEEN II,
JUST BEFORE DAWN,
BLACK CHRISTMAS,
FREDDY VS. JASON,
TRAUMA ...

There may be a couple more in there as well. Bear in mind that the canonical selections are not present because I've just seen them enough already. Although some of the above titles, esp. FREDDY VS JASON, I can't seem to ever get enough of. So basically this is just a "recent spins" type of list.

CURRENT READS:

ESSENTIAL TOMB OF DRACULA (VOL 1)
JUDGE DREDD: COMPLETE CASE FILES (VOL 1)
THE DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER by Stephen King
SPLATTER MOVIES by John McCarty
FILMMAKING ON THE FRINGE mostly for the Joe Dante interview
GRANDE ILLUSIONS by Tom Savini

CURRENT MUSIC:OLD GODZILLA SOUNDTRACKS by Ifukube Akira
VANISHING POINT SOUNDTRACK
SOUNDTRACK TO THE BURNING by Rick Wakeman
WAR OF THE WORLDS by Jeff Wayne...

Think I am on a Prog Rock kick recently. Now seeking old Rick Wakeman tracks ...

VALLEY OF THE WOLVES: IRAQ ... Diary of a bootleg

2007-10-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

A review of a bootleg DVD, July 5, 2007.

VALLEY OF THE WOLVES: IRAQ is a movie I doubt will be released in the States. It is the movie version of a Turkish soap opera about gangsters, and in the film, the main characters go to Iraq. I think they are on the lam or something, but its never explained. These guys run afoul of Billy Zane, a profiteer who fosters conflict amongst the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Turks, whatever, because it keeps commerce moving. He also sees himself as an "agent of God" doing the Lord's work, which I found very interesting as it cast the conflict over there as a conflict between faiths. Its easy to see how it got the rep of being 'anti-american' but you hear that term bandied about whenever any sort of criticism is voiced. It is extremely critical of the American *presence* in Iraq. "Is not the Western Capitalism the boss of you soldiers?" one guy asks.

I don't want to get on the Apologist's bandwagon or anything, but I found this "hotly debated" movie to be rather inoffensive unless you are some kind of psycho reactionary who can't deal with criticism. Plus its little more than a B-movie at heart, lots of silly one-shot-with-a-pistol-kills-a-guy-in-body-armor stuff ... Its basically Rambo from the POV of the Other Guy, and just as silly. Sure, American soldiers are shown in a negative light, but there are narrative steps taken to make it clear that the 'bad' ones are renegades, and there are even a couple 'good' ones on hand to question their (bad) orders. Zane himself is shown as a man motivated by faith but after crossing so many lines in his life, he has lost the way of the Good Man and doesn't know how to stop doing Bad Things. I liked his character. There are suicide bombers in the plot. An Iraqi wedding gets shot up near the beginning and loads of innocent folks are killed by the renegade soldiers. Grieving survivors decide to kill more Americans in revenge, but their actions are denounced by the Islamic holy dudes as fuel for the fire.

It reads kinda like True Lies reads. "The bad guys are Arabs but not all Arabs are bad; see, we have a good one on our side, and the Bad ones are acting alone." Only flip it and replace "Arab" with "American" and you are kinda there.

The Americans are criticized mostly for being meddlers and interlopers and tools of capitalism. Not for being 'evil.' Ultimately the movie seems to argue that if there were no US presence, these troubles would be lessened, but a continued presence just leaves more opportunity for people to exploit the conflict to their own ends --- a capitalist impulse.

Its neither great nor terrible. It *is* intriguing and provocative. Horribly innacurate in terms of military uniform, equipment, strategy, structure and tactics. And all the US dudes die like punks from one stab wound, one bullet wound, etc. About as realistic as a video game, tag-you're-it.

DOLPHIN, SAW 3, BLOB '88, other stuff

2007-10-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

Summer brings with it the realization that I have a lot of free time on my hands, and that means I get a lot of books under my belt and watch a boatload of movies. On Sunday I managed a three-fer and watched DAY OF THE DOLPHIN, DAGON, and EDMUND, and marvelled at the curious coincidence that DAGON and EDMUND were both directed by Stuart Gordon!

Last night was another double-bill (which are rarely thematically organized; my rommate must think me schizophrenic). First up was the 1988 remake of THE BLOB starring Kevin Dillon (who nowadays everyone exclaims "FROM ENTOURAGE!" even though to me he's more "FROM PLATOON!"). No particular reason for the choice, except that I had been kicking it around idly for a few days and it seemed like a good idea. Sadly, and with a small amount of throwup in my mouth, I realized it was pan and scan. Still, an impressive amount of blood and gore on display, and lots of characters get blobbed that are really surprising. Amusingly, the guy who gets top billing in the credits is the first to go. AWESOME.

My second feature was the obligatory studio-fare-I-couldn't-be-botherd-to-see-in-the-theatre-but-for-free-who-cares DVD, SAW 3. Now, as a viewer, i really have to exhaust all my options on the New Release shelf before I even notice a SAW DVD sitting there. Still, it happens. A SAW movie is like the last girl left in a bar on a lonely Friday night, its 2:20 am and you just drained the last drop of the last drink and your standards are lowered just enough to say "yeah, whatever."

So yeah, I said it: I have seen both SAW movies. Hell, at this point I have seen all three. This is sorta like saying YEAH I GOT THE HERP, WHAT ABOUT IT BITCH? or maybe THIS ONE TIME I ATE DOG FOOD AND LIKED IT. But once it slips out of your mouth you damn well better stand by it unless ridicule is something you enjoy. So anyway, SAW 3 is better than dog food. It is fantastically sadistic, unpleasant and vile, so, points for that. Plus, it is really confusing, which must mean it is for smart people. So, more points. I had a harder time identifying characters in SAW 3 than I did during THE THIN RED LINE and that's saying something.

But going back to my earlier observation of weird coincidences: Bearing in mind that I rented these 2 films totally independently of one another, who can name the strange coincidence of what both THE BLOB and SAW 3 have in common? No fair cheating on IMDB now! That would not be sporting!

Old photos that make me look really, and I mean REALLY, white ...

2006-11-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

God I love these. Nothing says "anglo 1989" like a MINISTRY concert shirt!

A New High Water Mark

2006-07-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

I have been exposed to some seriously disturbing video lately. I thought I had seen it all, but apparently I was wrong. Which is really saying something if you know me. I saw this nondescript video box at my fave store and it had a home made cover on it declaring bluntly AUGUST UNDERGROUND. The title sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn't place it. My friend at the store said he watched it and didn't care for it. So I looked it up and discovered it was a serial killer movie in the style of "fake snuff," shot on video like Blair Witch involving torture and killing. So clearly, I had to rent it.

Its some sick-ass shit. The "cameraman" follows his lunkhead friend around and videotapes all manner of depraved goings-on --- kidnapping, home invasion, torture, murder, dismemberment, et al. The whole thing is degraded several video generations to make it look like a bootleg tape, something forbidden (never mind that I rented it at a shop). Its all quite vile and unpleasant and so shrill and offensive that I was actually embarrassed to watch it with my roommate home, so I kept the volume down low and closed my door (further lending to the illusion of contraband). Its ugly and gruesome and challenging, and if you've ever seen HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER or MAN BITES DOG, imagine the vilest segments from those films shown on a loop for 70 minutes, and you have a fair notion of what to expect from AUGUST.

So, obviously when presented with the opportunity of viewing the sequel, MORDUM, I could not resist! But I should have suspected something when it was offered to me in hushed tones and it was revealed that the shop did not even have a display box for it; it was literally in the back room and available solely by explicit request. I WAS RENTING SOMETHING TRULY FORBIDDEN, and couldn't wait to get home and watch it.

I have now seen a VOMIT PORN.

Jesus H. Christ! I did not know such things existed. Now, I am certain there are some less-discriminating viewers out there in imaginary-readerland, those of you who might not really care to draw a line between "fake snuff" and slasher vid and porn, rolling it all up in a rotten depravity burrito and force-feeding it to Satan's willing thrall ... Me, basically. But trust me: I don't ever really go for "the real stuff." I am all about illusion here, kiddos. Vile and disturbing illusion on occasion, but fakery and trickery are the rule of the day. I like to see the envelope pushed and I have admiration for any who can trick me, even for a moment. And to be honest, YOU CAN'T FOOL ME. You just can't. But if you can be so convincing as to make me identify with a more-gullible viewer, if you can make me think that a less-cynical viewer might be convinced he is watching a REAL EVENT, well, you have my appreciation.

But some things just can't be faked. Or to be more precise, though they might be fake-able, when you see them, you know that the actor (or, the performer if you will) went ahead and just "did it" for real. Sometimes in a movie a guy just takes a whizz and there's no reason to doubt it's veracity. Or when you watch "Jackass" and say to yourself, "Yep, that dude just got his ass knocked out cold." Sure, it can be faked, but sometimes, why bother?

I'd argue that in the case of MORDUM, someone went a bit too far in the "realism" department. Maybe they THOUGHT they were making a "fake snuff film," but what they ended up making was, at least in part, a "real porno." Somewhere in the course of production these people captured "performances" that, regardless of the participants' knowledge of the overall falsehood of the situation, are nevertheless quite genuine in what is actually depicted. Sort of like in a porno, you can ACT like you know know this person, you can FAKE that you love them, but what is REAL is your boner going into their orifice, what is REAL is the nudity and the sweat and the jizz. In MORDUM, the "captives" might be acting like they are scared and in terror, but you really just can't deny that their captor just laughingly threw up all over them, and then made them vomit in response by shoving a finger forcefully down their throat.

DUDE, WTF!!! I thought I was renting a horror movie!!! Now admittedly I was half aware there might be corpse-f*cking involved, but nobody told me I was in for vomit follies. Color me shocked. Which is truly a rare thing indeed. Mission f*cking accomplished I guess, for all the good it does me. Its like that guy said in "8 MM," "there are some things you can't un-see." Too right. Too bloody right.

Bitter scooter girl and fashion anxiety

2006-07-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

Just a few amusing things to happen to me lately ...

Today I am riding my bicycle to work and I come to a corner that I need to turn right on. A girl on a scooter rolls up on my left and cuts across the bike lane to turn right --- in front of me. Now, I am not too concerned, but for the fact that she cut it kinda close and I had to slow down to let her pass --- but then she has the nerve to glare at me over her shoulder (in motion, mind you) and yells BIKES HAVE TO STOP TOO!!!! as she tears off down the street. An appalling display if you ask me. She wasn't even wearing a helmet, didn't stop at the sign, and cut from the left lane across the right to turn, and *I* am the bad guy? OK whatever you say, Honey.

Oh yeah and she was wearing those asscrack jeans and gave me a nice view. Mybe she was on the rag, who knows.

Then the other day I was riding my bike down the street (OK, the sidewalk) and I came up to a red light and stopped. There were people standing at the corner bus stop and it was a tight fit, but they made enough room for me to walk past straddling the bike (thank you). But the kicker was the little girl, maybe 3 years old, who looked up at me and waved and said ... something. Then she said it again and I couldn't help but laugh; she was saying "Trick or treat! Trick or treat!" to which her mom was embarrassingly correcting her, "No honey, not trick or treat." This is the kind of thing that makes a guy seriously question his fashion sense. To the untrained eye, I was basically dressed up for Halloween. Great.

THE CULPEPPER CATTLE COMPANY: definitive Nam western

2006-06-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

My Mom HATED this movie in 1974 during a "Summer Youth Cinema" series sponsored by my elementary school ... For $2 we could go see whatever we wanted in the series on Saturdays during the Summer break, and since this was rated "PG," and a Western, we opted in. I was 6 years old. 90 minutes later she was fuming over all the gruesome bloodletting, but after viewing the DVD last night, I suspect she was none too pleased with the lack of any moral center, abundant profanity, absence of "heroes," and the generally gritty and unpleasant tone of the thing.

Needless to say I now love it! Its a wonderful time capsule of a time in America when our own ideals and previous successes were being tested in Vietnam, and pop culture, especially established genres, were reflective of this time. Together with John Wayne's THE COWBOYS, we see a previous location of American Honor and Success, The "Western," turned on its ear to show instead growing doubts about our own worth and integrity, and serious fears about the corruption of our youth. In CULPEPPER, we are shown an idealistic young man yearning to find a place in a traditionally (in terms of cinema at least) honorable profession of cowboying. When finally accepted into this world, he finds it completely at odds with his previous vision, and is confronted with ugly truth after ugly truth, and has to grow up fast. I'd suggest this is an allegory for the US Military experience of the Vietnam era, where John Wayne can recruit you, but Sam Peckinpah is your Sergeant. Big difference. Gone are the heroic ideals of the classic Western, the polished spurs and men of integrity, replaced with unwashed scoundrels who'd sooner fight amongst themselves than show charity or mercy to people in need.

The final shootout, while abrupt, is a home run in terms of the Cynical Seventies, where our scruffy anti-heroes FINALLY decide to make a stand for a worthy cause, only to be cut down in a hail of bullets and left unceremoniously to rot in the sun by the very people they were fighting for. Is this an allegory for the indifference of the South Vietnamese towards US aid? Or perhaps it symbolizes the apathy of the US war machine towards young men fighting for a cause that is half-fueled by wishful thinking and imagination? Either way, it is a shocking and poignant end to a gritty, funny, and very realistic film, and regardless of your own conclusions about relevance, it remains a great, if underrated, Nam Era Western.

Steal this post

2006-06-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

This dump's been dead for a while, so here is a little something to dust off the cobwebs. A Gay-ass film survey!

1. Name your favorite animation film.

Just one? Please. Its kind of a toss-up between AKIRA, GHOST IN THE SHELL, and the latest APPLESEED.

2. Name the Sexiest Scene.

PORKY'S or I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE

3. Favorite action scene?

The L.A. shootout in HEAT is pretty amazing.

4. What movie do you consider a guilty pleasure?

STEALTH. I just love it! I watch RED DAWN a lot more than I should, too.

5. Favorite Foreign film?

Good grief. Impossible to answer. Today I'll go with CHOPPER from Australia, or England's BLOODY SUNDAY. But I watch a ton of Italian, Japanese, and Brit films, so its difficult to lump all that stuff together. Its also uncomfortably Nationalist!!!

6. What movie could you watch continuously and never get tired of?

BLADE RUNNER or FULL METAL JACKET.

7. What movie could you not finish even if you were paid to watch it?

Anything by Godard. Yuck.

8. Favorite Muppet/Puppet film?

STRINGS. Its Dutch. Fucking amazing! Close second is MEET THE FEEBLES.

9. What is your honest opinion of Citizen Kane?

Great cinematography, but I wish it was more like the first and last couple minutes where you get to see all his crazy stuff being catalogued. I always felt that could be a great setup for a TV series, where each week you see the story behind some arcane object found at "Xanadu." But honestly the movie doesn't really do it for me, even though I recognize its innovations ... I find it rather dull.

10. Favorite Madonna movie?

That one where she gets beaten to death with a hammer. Oh wait, that's a fantasy of mine, sorry. A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, then.

11. Favorite Film score?

STARSHIP TROOPERS!!!

12. Best period piece?

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

13. Stephen Dorf or Christian Slater?

I like Dorff b/c he was Deacon Frost in BLADE. But Slater has HEATHERS under his belt, so its a tough one. And Dorff didn't make HARD RAIN, did he?

14. Jennifer Love Hewitt or Rachel Leigh Cook?

Are you asking who I'd rather have sex with? I guess Jennifer. She has very round assets. I don't know who the other one is, so it's kinda like asking me "Do you want the TV, or what's behind door number three?" And they open the door and its like a coupon for Pizza Hut.

15. Corey Haim or Corey Feldman?

I dunno, they were both in THE LOST BOYS, so it must be a tie.

16. Best argument to keep having rock stars in movies?

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH.

17. Best remake of a film?

DAWN OF THE DEAD was better than it had any right to be.

18. Best remake of a foreign film?

SOLARIS. Because its in English and less than fours hours long.

19. Favorite Apocolyptic movie?

That would be ApocAlyptic, my darling. And I'll go with THE DAY AFTER, even though THREADS is better.

20. Best documentary?

GRIZZLY MAN.

21. Best movie with a color in the title?

BLACULA.

22. Best historical event turned movie?

BLOODY SUNDAY is incredible. And I am rather fond of JFK.

23. Terry Gilliam or the Coen Bros?

The Coen Brothers, but they have a lot to answer for after THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE and THE LADYKILLERS. Gilliam hasn't done anything for me since BRAZIL, and I tried REAL HARD to like FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS.

24. Richard Linklater or Mike Judge?

They are both really nice to me whenever I see them *NAME DROP* but Rick has a lot more out there to choose from. Then again, I *do* rather like Beavis and Butthead cartoons, so its a tough call.

25. Woody Allen or Mel Brooks?

Mel Brooks, *except* SPACEBALLS, which frankly, sucks. But BLAZING SADDLES and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN are undeniably hilarious. And Woody's never had a thing to say to me.

26. Most artsy-fartsy film you hate but everyone seems to love?

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Its lousy, and predictable. "Kids have lots of fun with drugs, kids form plan to parlay drug money into a career, then kids ruin lives with drugs when plan doesn't work out. The End." LAME LAME LAME

27. Most underrated Spielberg movie? ( Even if you hate Spielberg.)

A.I., without a doubt. People don't see its brilliance. Sure, it has some rough spots (like the horrible Dr Know sequence), but Gigolo Joe is totally awesome, as is Teddy!

28. Favorite cameo in a movie?

David Bowie in YELLOWBEARD. Although Quentin being shot in the face in DESPERADO is pretty cool.

29. Most Underrated Director?

No idea. I guess I'll have to say Robert Zemeckis, because I like a lot of his movies, but people always seem to scoff at him. Its probably just because he's successful. But hey, I happen to *like* FORREST GUMP and CAST AWAY!

30. Most Overrated Actor/Actress?

Will Ferrell. But people seem to accept this now. For about 5 minutes he was really funny. Now I am just tired of him.

31. Best comic book adapation film?

BATMAN BEGINS.

32. Quentin Tarantino or Takashi Miike?

Miike, easily. Quentin needs to get off the pot and make some good movies. That are ORIGINAL this time.

33. Disney or Warner Bros.?

I don't see Disney making the first MATRIX or THE EXORCIST.

34. Favorite Film Noir?

THE BIG SLEEP or RED ROCK WEST.

35. Favorite Sports related film?

THE LONGEST YARD w/ Burt Reynolds. And ROLLERBALL.

36. Favorite Book Adaptation?

BLADE RUNNER. Because it pisses off Philip K. Dick fans. And technically, ORCA THE KILLER WHALE is an adaptation of FRANKENSTEIN, so its again, a tough call.

37. Gus Van Sant or Jim Jarmusch?

Van Sant made LAST DAYS but Jarmusch made STRANGER THAN PARADISE. I'm gonna go w/ Van Sant because he seems to be doing things I like LATELY, and Jarmusch has not.

38. What scene made you cry the hardest?

When Bright Eyes dies at the end of WATERSHIP DOWN, or when Jin-Tae dies to save his brother in TAE GUK GI.

39. Favorite religious themed film?

OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT

40. Favorite Sidekick?

Short Round from TEMPLE OF DOOM.

41. What is your favorite movie line?

"Ignore him. He's just a scribbler with too much drink in him." (THE THIRD MAN)

42. What film artist (director, actor, screenwriter, whatever) has the least deserved good reputation? And who would you replace him/her with on that pedestal?

Alfred Hitchcock. Yaaawwwwwnnn. Replace him with anyone. Replace him with fucking Uwe Boll, I don't care. I'd rather watch HOUSE OF THE DEAD than VERTIGO any old day.

43. The scene you most wish you could have witnessed being filmed?

Lobby shootout in THE MATRIX. I bet it was loud as shit.

44. Name a movie that inspired you to walk out before it was finished.

I walked out of THE WILD BUNCH, but only because I'd seen it plenty of times, and the print sucked. STAR WARS EPISODE ONE "inspired" me to walk out, but I didn't.

45. What is your favorite movie poster/one-sheet, or the one you'd like most to own?

I really want an original DANGER DIABOLIK. But I already have an original THE KILLER and GODZILLA VS THE SMOG MONSTER. Top that.

46. Jeff Bridges or Jeff Goldblum?

You don't see Jeff Goldblum in LEBOWSKI, do you?

47. Grace Kelly or Ava Gardner?

Neither. They're both dead. Are we still talking about sex?

48. Most imaginative screenplay?

ADAPTATION is pretty good, and I liked PRIMER and THE FINAL CUT an awful lot.

49. Best buddy film?

BAD BOYS II.

50. And finally, what film do you feel affected/affects you the most?

Well, BLADE RUNNER is so provocative in so many ways, so I'll have to go with that. But seeing THE KILLER in a theatre in 1989 really changed my ideas of "what cinema was all about." It literally BLEW MY MIND that such a film could exist, and I feel confident saying "it changed my life!!!"

Mention this add and get $1 off

2006-05-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

Deleted by author.

Ultimate Avengers, Ultimate CRAP

2006-03-06T14:29:00.000-08:00

The glowing praise heaped on this atrocity must be from paid Marvel shills, because this "film" is a DISASTER. At best it is "a missed opportunity" at making even a passable film, at worst it is just plain God-awful. And BORING. And really and truly lousy-looking. With terrible voice casting and writers who may very well never have read a Marvel comic in their life. DON'T BE FOOLED if you are on the fence or unsure of the level of quality involved. This is nothing more than a cheapjack attempt at selling DVDs to suckers who think THE ULTIMATES is the best thing out there. Well --- this is no ULTIMATES. Not even close. The producers can dance around questions relating to Hank Pym's spousal abuse (absent), or the Hulk eating people and being a horndog (absent), or Janet's clothes falling off when she shrinks (absent), but what it all boils down to is an embarrassingly inept piece of drivel that at 70 minutes is about 3 times too long, and that's only because in the last 10 minutes there is a big bloodless fight.

Now don't go getting your panties in a wad about "critiquing something for what it ISN'T as opposed to what it IS." Sure, I am dissapointed that the name "ultimate" fished me in. But even if this project merely veered off-page a bit in order to get a PG-13 doesn't excuse the astounding level of amateurism on display. Its got everything: lame aliens, lamer spaceships, herky-jerky animation outclassed by even the laziest episode of GI JOE, an Iron Man who sounds almost exactly like "Satan" from South Park, a Hulk who speaks in complete sentences, and characters who move as if a splintered broomhandle were inserted in their posteriors. Utter drek from start to finish. I actually found myself admiring the sound mix, in a desperate move to hold my attention just a little further.

There are a few high points, but in this context, that isn't saying much. There are a handful of nonthreatening scenes that look a bit like panels from the comic. Oh boy. The WW2 preface plays out in a similar manner as the comic, only lacking in gravitas or spectacle. Hank vs Hulk is peppered with a couple fun lines of dialogue. Hulk vs Thor features one shot that seemed like it gobbled up the entire animation budget, as the characters actually move and flow in an almost-believable manner. Hank's costume looks like Bryan Hitch designed it. Oh, and the DVD box art is very nice as well.

But ... are these things worth enduring the rest of this misery for??? You be the judge. Just don't say you were never warned. Hardcore completists will want to spin this at least once, but it will be a chore. If you've never seen much animation, you may like this. If you are a parent, this a dream-come-true for inoffensive hero action to babysit your nerdlings with. But if you are looking for anything even remotely resembling THE ULTIMATES, or something satisfying on any level other than camp, stay well away from this.

"Clueless"

2006-02-15T09:03:00.000-08:00

Ok here is a bit of context for my story today. This is an email I sent someone yesterday afternoon, regarding my friend J, who I have been spending a lot of time with in the last few weeks, who sought me out aggressively after being absent from my life for almost 10 years, who sent multiple emails and looked me up in the phonebook and told me what a great voice I had and how she couldn't wait to see me again, who cried openly with me during sad movies, laughed hard at my jokes and asked questions about my life and was thoughtful and kind and appreciative of my being a gentleman, but remained frustratingly obscure and conflicted about whether I was being courted or just passing the time.

I had asked my friend J out on Sunday, asked if she wanted to eat dinner with me on Tuesday, and she accepted. So, great. But come Monday morning she calls me and says "I had no idea it was Valentine's Day!" She then gives me a big spiel about the service industry, and how no waiter wants to work on Valentine's, and how "every restaurant will be super crowded," how we'll not get seated on time, etc etc. She made it sound like a huge drag. So we dropped the plan. Now, EVEN THOUGH we still have plans to "do something" tonight, I really do NOT want to entertain company at my pad, cos it is wrecked, and also cos [my roommate] is there and I really don't feel like being eavesdropped upon. So I guess we'll hit the pub but I ain't paying another $72 tab that's for damn sure. I was just bummed out that instead of being flattered that a guy asked her out on Valentine's, she seemed to take an overly practical approach and did not seem to really notice the good stuff, only what a drag it would be. I want some recognition that I tried to make someone happy. I know she isn't trying to be insensitive or be snotty about how "it isn't good enough." But I think maybe fairly soon I'll need to ask the question, "Hey, I like you, but ... are we going anywhere with this?" Because I don't feel any kind of "date vibe" off this girl, but for the life of me I can't sort out why she'd go to such troubles to see me so often!!! She lives an hour away but wants to have dinner in the middle of the week? WHY? If she wants to hide from life by working overtime at [corporate coffee chain] and going to Church ... Why spend time with ME? I am not a "safe friend." I am a single guy who looks to change. So why hang out with me if you don't "like" me? (Hell, maybe she just isn't 'romantic.' This could be the case.) I am just all tied in knots and that gets me really anxious and depressed. I am also very disappointed in myself that I am reacting so strongly to things involving a girl. Its very stereotypical of me and I really do not like that about myself, as I feel it makes me look weak. This is a HUGE factor in why I have been so single for so long. I just fall to pieces and I don't want to be that kind of guy for a girl. I need someone who can openly appreciate that I am simply human with a few needs, needs such as "Maybe needs to be recognized as a suitor a little more explicitly." Because I can't live like this. I can't devote tons of time to someone if they "just want to be friends." I can handle being friends; I just don't spend too much time with the ones I have now, you know? I have things I need to do, just regular "Lee stuff," and I don't want to miss out on those things if I have simply been "wishful thinking" about a woman who is bored and wants some male attention. You want to know a secret? When I feel good about this gal, I get all sorts of crazy ideas in my head. Ideas like, "How important are action figures to me?" or "Maybe its time to buy a house instead of rent" or "I might look better to a woman if I got my teeth cleaned" or "how much does a KIA car cost cos its not fair for a woman to drive me around?" You know --- grown up stuff. Settle down stuff. Change my life for the better stuff. And then I get cancelled on ... on Valentine's Day. Argh. Maybe it *is* just a resistance on her part to "a stupid over-commodified holiday." Fine, I can get behind that. I am more sentimental than that, but I can still accept that attitude. No problem. Its just that ... Well, It would have been nice for her to say, "But it was nice to be asked out anyway." (And then I chastize myself for expecting independent human beings to conform to my desires. Ha!)

Well, after last night at the pub I guess I got my answer. Still feeling a bit numbed, like after you get punched, or hit by a car, and you are afraid to move lest you realize you are broken somehow. But at least the event itself has passed, and there is a perverse relief in at last knowing where you stand, even if its not standing at all, but lying in the road, uncertain, throttled, waiting to feel.

A few beers loosened her tongue and a few direct questions and honest statements of my own feelings got me where I was headed all along, and that's nowheresville, but hey, they know me here. Apparently I am "really good company" and while I accept this about myself as true, I also must accept that to continue to spend time around J is to continue to deny my own needs and desires. And it is very hard to say this to a friend when she smiles as big and flattered as she can when you tell her that all you want is to make her feel special and that enduring a lot of bullshit on Valentine's was a small way of demonstrating that she was indeed dear to me and more special than anyone else.

So I feel at the least that I gave it my best shot, and was rather articulate about how I felt, and that a great reflief to me as well, because I couldn't just carry that around with me. But it looks like the shelter of a career in a coffee shop and a life devoted to [a fictional metaphor] win out over what I can offer, which sounds more self-pitying than I would prefer, as one cannot force love or attraction, and I don't want anyone to compromise for me, either. But really I knew it was over when J said "I know plenty of people who have led happy and productive lives and never wanted for a mate," and while I knew she was referring to herself, and her resignation that she would never be able to devote herself to a real relationship, I felt also she was somehow trying to reassure me that a Solo Career wasn't a Bad Thing.

Maybe I'll be able to count my blessings. Maybe I'll be able to say "How long, Lee, would you have put up with a life guided by the Church, a willfull self-deception?" Maybe I'll say "How long, Lee, would you have lasted until you realized you really did not respect the corporation J has attached herself to, and how she ignores the exploitation and lack of concern it has for her?" How long would it have taken me to grow weary of her repressed pining over a man who broke her heart, twice?

But maybe I'll torture myself with thoughts that I would have grown to respect and understand these things that are alien to my life. Maybe I'll dig needles into my skin remembering that I was willing to compromise my lifestyle in favor of a richer partnership filled with challenges, not obstacles? Or perhaps I will reach a good place where I am OK with making compromises, because it is part of co-existence, and I'll use this ability to my advantage in the future? Who can say.

But in finality, in a purging, perverse, ironic and unsettling note of closure, I will relay this tidbit: when we were leaving the pub, the bartender says, hey, how about a mint, and he offers a jar of those little Valentine's heart-shaped mints, and I say, that's stupid, he thinks we are a happy couple leaving for the evening, because we have smiles on our faces and laughter in our throats, but these are from the euphoria of honest exchange and truth, not romance, but I take the damned mint anyway, and he says, Read it! Read it to us! So I do, and I laugh at the odds of getting the message, and I laugh at what fate put that mint in my hands, on that day, at that time, and I show it to him, and he looks puzzled, as if he didn't know mints like that existed, but I am laughing anyway so he smiles with me, and then J says, "What does it say," and I mutter something about truth, and smile, and I show her, and her heart won't let her be less honest in her reaction, and she just looks at it a little blankly, and sees the truth around her, sees the "meaning" and the "guiding hands" she is so fond of seeking now, and reads the words printed clearly and placed in my care, printed on happy pink candy:

"Clue Less."

I bit into it, ate it. And when J dropped me off, I said, smiling, "See you soon," and she said, "Definately," and we both felt like liars for the first time, and when I was going to sleep, I was thinking of her, and saw her on a boat, a little boat, like a rowboat, and she was standing up in it alone, and had a hand raised in greeting, or farewell, and there was a fog in the air that seemed light, but as she drifted away, waving, the fog was thicker than it seemed, and she just faded into it.

For a lousy day, a lot of cool stuff happened

2006-02-09T14:18:00.000-08:00

God I feel like ASS today. I must be hung over but I fail to see how or why. I think somebody slipped me a mickey! All day long I have pondered why I can't remember certain scenes from LOST last night, which I made a point of sitting and watching and paying attention to. 3 scenes specifically I don't remember AT ALL. People have told me about them, and I seriously suspected I had turned off the TV before the show was over, but I clearly recall the final scene! These other scenes occurred before the last scene I saw, so WHO KNOWS. I must have had a waking blackout or something. Scary. It doesn't take me like 5 whole minutes to go in the kitchen and get a drink ... Good thing I tape LOST, huh!

Anyway, was thrilled and tickled to see my name in the local paper THE CHRONICLE. Have a look:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2006-02-10/screens_DVD.html

AWESOME! I got quoted! I love me. Thanks Spencer!

Another bad ass thing is that I finally reeived my DVD of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST! This is the sickest film ever made, it rips your eyes out, throws Tabasco on them and then shoves them back in, only in the wrong sockets, so you're all confused and insane after. The film is really difficult to watch. No pleasure to be had in this one. But afterwards, you realize you are changed, and will never be the same. How good a thing that is is still open to debate.

EDIT: Ok its a new day today. The mystery of LOST is solved. I *did* turn it off prematurely. Which SUCKS, but at least I can dismiss those fears of sleepwalking or being Tyler Durden. I was really freaked out that I had a memory gap. Turns out I am just stupid. Thank goodness. On the other hand it still sucks cos I didn't tape the part I missed :(

Say, anyone got a copy????? Screw you then!

Quitcher bitchin and keep yer pants on

2006-02-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

OK, more than one person has complained (or more accurately, "observed") that I have not posted in a while. While most would consider my closed trap a blessing, others are into pain it would seem. Or, simply have too much time on their hands. So let's talk about NAZI CANNIBALS!!!!

Ha ha, fooled ya. Today its DUNE.

My man D and his girl Friday, I mean, his girl E, graciously hauled my good-for-nothing ass out to Target the other day, ostensibly to buy some socks, but while there I took advantage of the last remaining copy of the new DUNE disc. One cannot return home with only socks in one's bag lest one become bored with one's ensuing evening.

Thankfully I was in a most gracious mood and feeling very excited to see the "Long Version" of Dune that I had not viewed in more than a decade (and on TV to boot). And I must say it now: pity on those who have only seen the long version, because it SUCKS DOG BALLS. The whole thing seems to have been edited by a blind man without the use of his arms and using only a roll of masking tape to join the scenes. Other than "make a quick buck," I fail to see why this was released in the state its in. FX in the added shots are unfinished, causing characters' eyes to change color back and forth. There is a painful prologue using hideous "paintings" and dreary voiceover to get the viewer up to speed. The paintings seem rendered by High School students who must think "science fiction is BAD ASS." Just really unimaginative stuff, pictures of robots and laser guns and stupid buildings with obvious signs proclaiming stuff like THE SPACING GUILD. The movie is burdened with repetitive dialogue, pummelling the viewer with exposition, and strangely bereft of many a cool FX shot from the regular release. Also missing is any material deemed offensive by network standards, such as when the Duke spits on Paul's mother, or when Paul hallucinates his burning hand, or his sister's premature delivery, or when the Duke pulls the servant's heart plug out. Why this footage could not be re-inserted is a mystery. I mean, we are a PAYING AUDIENCE now, not some TV freeloaders! If anything, this version is WORSE than I recall it being. Music cues are misplaced, denying some of the cooler scenes in the film the intended impact. Most notable is Sting's first appearance, but the music doesn't come in until he's well into the scene, and seems extraneous at that point. A great deal of the new scenes were very obviously cut for pacing concerns or simple Unforgivable Badness. And yet, here we are.

I feel this long version's greatest strength is reminding the viewer that Lynch knew what he was doing after all. Dune is Lynch's most coherent film, despite what critics would have you believe. Most 'critics' are fans of the book who attack the film for what it failed to present from the novels, not for HOW the film portrayed the events that made it onscreen. (You'll find that book fans prefer the TV version because it has more information, while film fans prefer the theatrical version because it is a Lynch film.) In any case, after watching this abortion of a film, I spun the theatrical cut, and was simply knocked over by its supereriority in every regard. In an ideal world, there would exist a version that is dominated by Lynch's vision, but peppered by the good bits from the cutting room floor that actually work. Like Thufir Hawat's death! Who knew he died??? That seems important to me. Plus I just get a kick out of seeing Sting milk a cat. They just don't milk enough cats in films these days.

Whew! Made it!

2005-12-02T08:36:00.000-08:00

Still alive. (See post below.)

It's a strange day today

2005-12-01T08:27:00.000-08:00

Can you feel it? Something is wrong. Today's the day I watch my back. Gonna pay close attention to motorists, and avoid people at work who might wish to exercise "authority." It's that kind of day; when you're too dependent upon others to get things done, when nothing works as it should and all tossed objects fall just short of the trash, and doors don't close all the way even though you gave them a proper shove. Today's the day the mail is late and the computer works slow and you run out of hot water in the shower. Today's the day you least need interference but since everyone else feels ill at ease, they'll be coming to you all day long to take care of their troubles, never mind your own. I don't have a lick of confidence in anyone today. Today's the day I'll lose my temper, today's the day I'll waste on other people's problems, today's the day everyone will be at the breaking point --- probably right around the time I'll need to ride my bike home, and everyone will be speeding in their big trucks and swerving into the bike lane "because I am in the way." I can feel it. Today's the day no-one replies to my emails. Today's the day I can't finish typing my sentences because I'll be interrupted at every turn.

Ebonic rap translated into uptight Cracker

2005-11-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

I DID NOT WRITE THIS. It remains funny as hell, however.

This paper was turned in by an Oakland High school student who received the highest honors at the school district’s Ebonics translation competition.

Assignment: Please translate the following Rap song lyrics from Ebonics to standard English.

Artist: Notorious B.I.G.
Album: Ready to Die
Song: One more chance (remix)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lyrics:

First things first, I poppa, freaks all the honeys
Dummies - playboy bunnies, those wantin’ money
Those the ones I like ‘cause they don’t get nathan’
But penetration, unless it smells like sanitation
Garbage, I turn like doorknobs
Heart throb, never, black and ugly as ever
However, I stay coochied down to the socks
Rings and watch filled with rocks

TRANSLATION:

As a general rule, I perform deviant sexual acts with women of all kinds, including but not limited to those with limited intellect, nude magazine models, and prostitutes. I particularly enjoy sexual encounters with the latter group as they are generally disappointed in the fact that they only receive penile intercourse and nothing more, unless of course, they douche on a consistent basis. Although I am extremely unattractive, I am able to engage in these types of sexual acts with some regularity. Perhaps my sexuality is somehow related to my fancy and expensive jewelry.

Lyrics:

And my jam knock in the Mitsubishi
Girls pee pee when they see me,
Nava-hoes creep me in they tee pee
As I lay down laws like I lay carpet
Stop it - if you think your gonna make a profit

TRANSLATION:

I enjoy playing my music loudly on my car stereo. Apparently, women enjoy this also because they become sexually aroused when they see me driving. Oddly enough, when I visit the Native American reservations, some of the more sexually promiscuous Indian women attempt to seduce me in their homes. Their intent is to divest me of my earnings. Such actions are unacceptable.

Lyrics:

Don’t see my ones, don’t see my guns - get it
Now tell ya friends Poppa hit it then split it
In two as I flow with the Junior Mafia
I don’t know what the hell’s stoppin’ ya
I’m clockin’ ya - Versace shades watchin’ ya
Once ya grin, I’m in game, begin

TRANSLATION:

Understand this fact: you can have neither my money, nor my weapons. I suggest that you inform your peers that we engaged in violent sexual acts. Currently, I am rapping with my associates, the Junior Mafia. I’m having some difficulty understanding why you refuse to approach me. I am attempting to make eye contact with you through my expensive glasses, and as soon as you respond with a smile, I will approach you.

Lyrics:

First I talk about how I dress and this
And diamond necklaces - stretch Lexuses
The sex is just immaculate from the back I get
Deeper and deeper - help ya reach the
Climax that your man can’t make
Call and tell him you’ll be home real late
Let’s sing the break

TRANSLATION:

I prefer to open the conversation with light banter about my wardrobe and jewelry, then I like to discuss my collection of expensive cars. This is more than enough to convince you to have sexual intercourse with me. I am able to insert my penis further into you when I enter you from behind. Furthermore, you will be able to reach orgasm. I understand this to be a problem with your current sexual partner. He needn’t be concerned about your whereabouts. Please phone him and inform him that you won’t be home for a while. By the way, please sing the chorus of the song for me also.

Lyrics:

She’s sick of that song on how it’s so long
Thought he worked his until I handled my biz
There I is - major pain like Damon Wayans
Low down dirty even like his brother Keenan
Schemin’ - don’t bring your girl ‘round me
True player for real, ask Puff Daddy

TRANSLATION:

Your current love interest no longer wishes to hear your fabrications about the length of your member. After I had sexual intercourse with your woman, she became enlightened as to the proper way it is supposed to be performed; violently and immorally. It would be in your best interest to keep your woman away from me as my sexual prowess is very strong. If you are unconvinced, ask Puff Daddy.

Lyrics:

You - ringin’ bells with bags from Chanel
Baby Benz, traded in your Hyundai Excel
Fully equipped, CD changer with the cell
She beeped me, meet me at twelve

TRANSLATION:

Despite the fact that you attempted to win her at her doorstep with bags full of expensive clothes and a car (the lower end model Mercedes Benz which you financed by signing over your current vehicle) containing an expensive stereo and a cellular phone, your woman has contacted me through my pager indicating that we should rendezvous at midnight.

Lyrics:

Where you at? Flippin’ jobs, playin’ car notes?
While I’m swimmin’ in ya women like the breast stroke
Right stroke, left stroke what’s the best stroke
Death stroke - tongue all down her throat
Nuthin’ left to do but send her home to you
I’m through - can ya sing the song for me, boo?

TRANSLATION:

You, on the other hand, jump from job to job, barely able to maintain payments on the Mercedes Benz you purchased for your woman. Meanwhile, I continue to engage in sexual intercourse and commit lewd osculatory acts with your women. My only remaining option is to request that she leave my home and return to you because I have reached orgasm and no longer have a need for her presence.

Lyrics:

So, what’s it gonna be? Him or me?
We can cruise the world with pearls
Gator boots for girls
The envy of all women, crushed linen
Cartier wrist-wear with diamonds in ‘em
The finest women I love with a passion
Ya man’s a wimp, I give that ass a good thrashin’

TRANSLATION:

The ultimate decision rests with you. Whom do you choose as your sexual partner. I can take you on cruises around the world. I will dress you in the finest jewelry and footwear. You will be envied by women worldwide in your fine clothes and jewelry. There is a special place in my heart for beautiful women. I will defeat your man in an altercation because he is effeminate.

Lyrics:

High fashion - flyin’ into all states.
Sexin’ me while your man masturbates.
Isn’t this great? Your flight leaves at eight.
Her flight lands at nine, my game just rewinds.
Lyrically I’m supposed to represent.
I’m not only the client, I’m the player president.

TRANSLATION:

You will be dressed in finest clothes on the runways of Paris. I will fly you to every state to shop for fine clothes and jewelry. You will enjoy sexual intercourse with me and your man will be forced to pleasure himself through manual stimulation. What a life! I’ll return you to LaGuardia in time to catch your 8 o’clock flight. The timing is perfect because I have scheduled a date with a second woman who arrives at the same gate at 9 o’clock. I’ll seduce her in the same way that I seduced you. I rap well and I am a positive reflection of my home town. Not only am I a sexually deviant, misogynistic, immoral, wealthy, male prostitute, but I also sit on the board of directors of the organization that governs others of my kind.

Idolotry of the hilariously flawed

2005-11-10T11:30:00.000-08:00

OK so its been like forever. Here's a tissue for you. OK feel better now? Let me rub your back.

Yeah yeah, so I haven't posted in a while, big deal. And its not that I ran out of things to talk about. Its more like I felt too many eyes on me. Too many people have access to this blog and I was going through some personal stuff that occupied more forebrain, and that was what I *wanted* to write about, but I didn't dare put it out there for all to see.

Girls, let that be a lesson to you: please don't get my attention, or you risk wrecking my ability to write. SOULLESS CREATURES!

So lessee here ... What's the news ... First of all, I'd like to bid adieu to LOST's "Shannon." SEE YA, SHANNON. Don't let the palm tree smack your ass on the way out. What a waste of a character. My roommate said, "Man, they really hate the spoiled rich brats on LOST, don't they." Yes. Yes, they do. And thank goodness for that. (Maybe Jack is next. DIE!)

Went to a comic con this weekend for the first time in forever. Quite the refreshing getaway I have to admit. Managed to meet an idol of mine, the artist Tim Vigil. Sadly, even though I have been a follower of his since 1988, every single person I tell about meeting him goes, "Who???" I guess his star has kinda fallen, public-wise. But I just read his latest comic and damn if he doesn't still have "it" going on. I think professionally he was just too stubborn to survive at the top. He is a very uncompromising artist. And by "uncompromising" I mean that he drew images that printers refused to handle and "otherwise civilized countries" felt worthy of banning from their shores. Hell if I had kids I'd probably hate him. Or fear him. His images corrupt. I dig that in a big way. I am so jaded and desensitized that it takes really graphic and awful things to get me going. Hell, I even bought some trades of his work at the show and it wasn't until last night that I even noted "hey, on the cover is a guy getting chopped in half and his guts are shooting out." I just kinda "saw" it when I bought it, but I realized last night that I am also just USED TO IT. This may be a sign of turning into a serial killer but hopefully not.

Still, even though he is reduced to self-publishing and drawing naked superheroes at cons for a living, I totally respect and admire the guy. He never sold out. Even faced with career blackballing, he just gave everyone the finger and turned up the heat. Oddly, he seems not entirely aware of his situation; he even expressed incredulity that DC comics wasn't interested in publishing a Batman book he is drawing. When he showed it to me, the first few pages were astoundingly good, and I wondered who in their right minds WOULDN'T want to publish it. It was awesome, very gothic and iconic, dark Batman and Joker stuff with that "Vigil flair" to it. Of course then I turned the page and there was a 2-page layout of the Joker getting his knob polished by a guzzling Harley Quinn, and I just looked at Tim and asked him straight up: are you high or something? I mean, *I* would buy and read that story. It's irreverent and even disrespectful and inapproriate. Offensive and lewd and prurient, sophomoric and juvenile. But really hilarious and nervy. I love transgression! "They don't return my calls," he laments with with the tone of one truly confused. Too funny. Its like performance art or something. I don't think he's drawn a comic in ten years that doesn't have a dick in it somewhere.

Funnier than breaking your toe on a table leg

2005-10-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

http://waxy.org/random/video/shining_redux.mov

Thought for the day

2005-09-28T09:08:00.000-07:00

Isn't it funny how the people who can improve your day can just as easily wreck it with seemingly the same amount (or lack) of effort?

Yeah, HA HA HA

YUCK; Feeling Lonely Today; but at least I am not being eaten by sharks

2005-09-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

And yes that's the kind of teeter totter I go through sometimes. Even last night I was marvelling at what a great mood I've been in the last week, and wondered when it would swing around, and it looks like maybe today's the day. I must have sent like 4 emails yesterday and I got no replies, and even though its totally petty I still kinda go, aww, poor me, so sad, blah blah blah ...

So let's talk about sharks.

Who has seen BLUE WATER, WHITE DEATH? Yeah, that's right, NONE A Y'ALL have. Cept for me. And it rules. Made in 1971, when apparently Great Whites were infrequently-photographed, it has a bunch of (apparently) famous divers (and a folk singer) tooling around the world looking for trouble in the form of the famous MAN EATER. And I can't tell you how many times I yelled at the screen "You fools are crazy!" These clowns kept getting out of their cages to "swim amongst the sharks." While they are feeding. With blood in the water. I'm sorry, but did someone just say 'death wish?' Maybe it s a WHITE DEATH wish!

This kind of thing just really floats my boat. I like all those fakey shark movies like DARK WATERS and MEGALODON, but the REAL DEAL is just so damned primal. A shark seems like some inescapable attack engine. Its one of the few things that truly frightens me; I just don't know what I'd do if I ever found myself in the water with a shark. More than likely, I'd just die of fright. Well, maybe. Maybe pee my pants first. The thought is just so utterly horriffic that I can't really get my head around it. I can imagine being mugged (scary). I can imagine getting set on fire (not fun, really hot). But being IN PROXIMITY to a shark, never mind being actually ATTACKED, is something akin to pondering the edge of the universe. It seems beyond reality, something so awful and unknown that you pray you never really know any more about it. So I got my fingers and toes crossed on this one folks. Dear God: keep Lee away from them damn fine killing machines of yours. He's a bit ascairt of em. Something about their Dedicated Objective, their lack of Reason, their Focused Malevolence, or, even scarier, a total void of any GooD OR Evil, just impassive savagery.

Brrr. Kinda terrible, really.

But the movie's really something special. The print I got is so ragged-out that it reminded me of some old unknown Kung Fu movie. Its so scratched and dirty, filled with sprocket damage and jump cuts, you'd think it had been dragged by a truck. It's a rare thing of beauty. A testament to its coolness --- its been shown A LOT. "Where" and "to whom," who knows. But somebody showed this guy some love over the years. Mostly stagey, with piles of rehearsed dialogue, and punctuated by infrequent renditions of sea-themed folk songs, it comes dangerously close to being kinda silly, but the whole time you get the feeling they are just winding you up for the payoff. And it comes, in spades. In fact, there are PLENTY of payoffs. The ugliness of a whaling vessel, the gruesome appetites of sea-based carnivores, the flat-out oddball life forms that populate the seas ... its like a National Geographic special on Crack. When the sharks appear you can hear the childlike glee in the divers' voices, as if they weren't actually in the very presence of the grim reaper himself. Their post-swimming dialogues are even more flummoxing. "You just have to keep a general air of well-being about you," one says. "You have to just tell yourself that you aren't in any danger, otherwise you'd go crazy," another says, after having miraculously kept his cool in a swarm of these devils. Just astonishing.

You know all of that stock footage you always see of shark attacks? THIS IS WHERE IT CAME FROM. This is the original, the progenitor. Heck, one of the divers is that guy you always see photos of, well, photos of his ravaged body at least, the one where you really have to wonder if you are looking at a cadaver, because the guy seems like he's just BARELY HANGING TOGETHER. How can a person's body be so savaged and still survive? And yet, here he is, blithely "amongst them" again, like some sad victim of Stockholm Syndrome who can't draw himself away from this mysterious being who holds the key to mortality in its grasp. Or fins or whatever. Just amazing. I don't even call it 'bravery.' And it isn't 'foolhardiness,' either. Its like faith in God, even though you know God can take you at any time. Maybe its more like being in the presence of God. Whatever it is --- it's something undefinable, something I don't ever plan to explore.

I'll just watch it on TV, thank-you-very-much!

***

Oh, and by the way, my day got a lot better :) There's people in the world that can really do that to you, without even knowing or trying, they can just turn a lame day right on around and you go home smiling.

NOTE TO SELF

2005-09-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

Lee, nobody reads your drivel. So maybe you might wish to consider just cutting loose a bit. Censoring curse words? Why? If nobody reads it, nobody can be offended, right? This is a serious existential crisis I have on my hands here. I need to determine an audience, but I think I am my own audience. Either that or I suck so fuckin bad that people are embarassed to admit they've read this shit. Hm.

Anyways, what did I watch this weekend?

1. DEADLY PREY; hilrious ripoff of FIRST BLOOD and RAMBO. A little bit gay if you ask me. The star runs around in teeny tiny cutoff hotpants the whole time. Cool ending though. He kills the shit out of EVERYBODY.

2. DARK AGE; recently shown at QT6! An Aussie JAWS starring a bigass crocodile. Rather well-made and interesting throughout. Croc looks kinda fake, but aside from this I was into it. Does NOT go in predictable directions. Refreshing turnabout in the middle has all the protagonists trying to SAVE the croc from poachers, and relocate him as opposed to destroy him! Great little movie.

3. CHUD; or maybe its C.H.U.D.? Silly 80's monster drek. Daniel Stern is awesome, however, as the impassioned soup kitchen owner out to expose the toxic-waste-dumping-in-New-York conspiracy. John Heard also gets the job done. Script is actually somewhat witty! Unfortunately the movie falters a bit and fails to resolve much of anything. A truck blowing up serves as the big finale. Yawn. Note: early appearance by John Goodman as "Cop in Cafe #2."

4. GO TELL THE SPARTANS; early Nam flick that everyone has heard about but hardly anybody has seen. Its not real hard to come by or anything. I guess when I think "Burt Lancaster" I don't get images of "Barnes and Elias" in my head. Its OK I suppose. Not too much suckage to be fair; the majority of it seems to have "made for TV" production values, but the last 40 minutes finally gets going with a big firefight and all the great "the kid's got a grenade" nihilism that makes Vietnam so exciting. Great supporting cast! Craig "Body Double" Wasson is the idealistic Charlie Sheen character who volunteers, but by the end is so disillusioned he just goes home. Marc Singer is the Exec Officer, all piss and vinegar before THE BEASTMASTER turned him into a big fat gay icon. The guy who plays "Palmer" from THE THING is a crazy Psy-Ops dude, and the Chinese guy from KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE is the hard-bitten native tracker with a penchant for torturing "communist peoples." Oh yeah and "Chew" from BLADE RUNNER (aka "Lo Pan" from BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA) is on-hand to make pithy statements and also make The Noble Sacrifice. Come to think of it, its kinda funny how many known Chinese actors are playing Vietnamese here. Then again I've seen a few Nam flicks shot in the Phillipines and those dudes tend to read Mexican, so I guess Chinese is at least a little bit better.

Feel free to not comment, bitches!

10 Things That Suck

2005-09-15T11:02:00.000-07:00

1. People who *still* use the phrase "one of those movies that's SO bad it's GOOD!" as if it were even the slightest bit original.
2. People who talk on cel phones while driving. Stupid under any circumstances, but the ones that *really* get me are the ones that turn left or right while on the phone. MORONS!
3. People who turn right on red when the signs clearly state not to. Double points if on their cel phones.
4. People who come to a stop in pedestrian crosswalks. And then glare at you when you walk too close to their faggy new Benz.
5. People who talk on their cel phones in public places, like the Post Office or a Pizza joint. STFU bitch!
6. Cel phones in general but that's just my jealousy talking :(
7. Members of your own family that steal from you. How low can you get? I thought I knew the answer as a teenager when I had to deal with a cousin who'd steal from me. I thought that was pretty low. But then he would rob my grandparents in order to pay off drug debts. THAT was pretty low. But then this was topped by a cousin of mine who stole a lot of my collectibles from storage --- on THANKSGIVING! But even this was still not as low as a "person" can go. I know a girl (if human terms even apply) who stole her mother's entire life savings --- AND her retirement money. Simply astonishing. It does indeed SUCK.
8. Anyone who thinks it is politically insightful to call someone "a liberal" as if it were some sort of insult.
9. Anyone who thinks it is politically insightful to argue that "Hitler was bad." Really? No shit? What a challenging, thought-provoking notion! (These people also probably tell their friends about all the air they breathed yesterday, as if it were some grand revelation or something.)
10. People who don't reply to blogs they read. They suck almost more than anything.

Stage fright in dreamland!

2005-09-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

OK dreamtime now. Last night in a dream I get cast in a major role in a high school stage production. Except its like this enormous production, with gimbels and moving light rigs and musical numbers and stuff. At first I'm all flattered, like WOW, I am an actor! But as time drags on I kinda lose interest and I never really study. Oh yeah and I am my current age as well, not high school age. So its like the day before premiere and I feel guilty as I've never told the director she should replace me cos I really don't know my lines or anything. So I start cramming but I can't remember anything at all. She tells me "not to worry about it," and I kinda go crazy, like "what do you mean?" And she says, well, "Its just a high school play." She doesn't seem to care that obviously, hundreds of thousands of dollars are invested in this, and I stand an almost guaranteed chance of wrecking the thing. Again, she says, "nobody cares, its just high school." And I'm like, yeah, "but its not about the high school or even the play, its about ME, looking like an ASSHOLE on stage in front of thousands of people." She says "hey, just fake it, say the main idea." After reading the pages I have again, desperately trying to figure out what the main idea is, I realize all my scenes have been read in reverse order! Then I realize that I don't even know the plot! So the "main idea" is completely lost on me! I don't think I ever actually made it to the stage, but I was on dangerous ground there for a while ... Especially considering that apparently without ME, there was nobody. So the play may not have gone down at all. Great. I betrayed all my dreamime classmates. Oh well. Bloody primadonnas. Where was my understudy anyway???

The 10th Victim (and the 11th, 12th, and 13th too --- the audience)

2005-09-12T11:21:00.000-07:00

OK this is a seriously overrated and under-entertaining movie. To all of you who said "its a lot like DANGER DIABOLIK," I kindly invite you to go f*ck yourselves. Although to be fair, I suspect that these same individuals may not have seen what this movie desperately wishes it was: Jean-Luc Godard's ALPHAVILLE. And anyone who knows me knows that I passionately loathe Jean-Luc Godard (who most famously got me the stinkeye from a video store customer when I told her that "Jean-Luc Godard is anathema for those who like entertainment.") In any case the movie is for the most part unremarkable. Unless you count the oddly prescient future fashion of Showing the Ass Crack, Ursula Undress keeps the movie solidly in mild-PG territory with the awkwardly-posed "loose shirt" routine that prohibits any other fan appreciation whatsoever. (An audience member was heard to remark, "What, you'll get 'em out for the cannibal movie, but not this piece of crap?") Marcello Mastroiani marks his debut to my eyes in a sluggish role better suited to Udo Kier (or, at the very least, Klaus Kinski). The movie's "pop" sensibilities positively PALE in comparison to DANGER DIABOLIK; hell, classic STAR TREK is hipper than this. For God's sake, Adam West's BATMAN is groovier. Mired in ponderous dialogue meant to evoke sympathy for middle-aged men contemplating bachelorhood vs matrimony, the entire affair is a tedious bore from start to finish, except for a minute sampling of bits that seem to have inspired AUSTIN POWERS. Which is no damn classic either.

As usual, the reparte of the audience was a bit more choice than the movie itself. Best bits were the roundtable denigration of Jean-Luc Godard when my man Paul said that CONTEMPT, boring and pointless as it is, is basically "the RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK of Godard films," with "Jack Palance's death as the truck chase." I assume this is funny as I've never bothered watching the piece of shit. I thought it was a Fellini film.

Luckily the viewership of THE 10TH VICTIM (which, by the way, had its premise ripped off almost verbatim by the superior SERIES 7) were afforded the opportunity of an unwasted evening with the near-genius VICTORY THROUGH AIR POWER, a gorgeous 1943 Disney propaganda film urging the adoption of an Air Force and "Super Fighter" planes to defeat Japan. Devoid of the racism in most wartime propaganda, we do get a heaping helping of the fetishization of Japan's impending destruction. While the Incendiary Bomb is lovingly detailed as if it were nothing more than a cool fireworks display, more conventional bombing is rendered in protracted sequences of destruction and annihilation, chiefly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor is depicted. You'd think it was a Mobile Infantry recruiting film for the assault on Klendathu! Also on the menu this evening was the classic DER FEUHRER'S FACE, starring Donald Duck --- as a Nazi! Its so obvious! Why didn't *I* think of that!

Other items viewed this weekend: ENTOURAGE (Season One), a series so devoid of tension that it kinda reads as a Hollywood fairy tale. Entertaining enough, I guess, but I found myself more interested in the suporting characters than the leads, because the supporting characters have actual TROUBLES in their lives. Its kinda boring watching pretty rich people decide which Rolls to buy or what cute girl to f*ck.

Well, KINDA boring :)

Some changes!

2005-09-08T15:34:00.000-07:00

OK, now you can respond EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOT REGISTERED OR HAVE A BLOG. So you truly have no excuses. (But do me a favor and at least make up a silly name so I can get a laugh. Or, use your real name so I can come punch your clock if you talk too much shite.)

Also, you'll need to go thru another "word verification" step before you respond. This is to prevent automated spam. From douchebags. (Apparently non-automated spam is still possible, but at least it will also be from douchebags, and I can tell them so, instead of insulting a low-grade AI.)

PS if I find out you have read my blog but never replied I will kick your ass. I mean it --- ass kicking in your future. Foot-to-ass genre incoming. Sore Bottom genre is imminent.

It has been suggested ...

2005-09-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

... that I consider abandoning the "Nazisploitation" genre in favor of the "Lesbian Matricide" genre. Opinions? Because I don't know if I can ever get enough tits, ass, and swastikas. I mean I may as well just go to sleep forever because all the fun would then be gone.

Weekend's bounty

2005-09-06T12:44:00.000-07:00

No time for effluvient prose today my little dummies, just the facts. What did I watch this weekend!!! Bet you can't wait!

THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN: Hilarious from start to finish. Really glad I saw this in a theatre. It was nice to hear lots of people laughing together!

GUNSLINGER'S REVENGE: Abysmal Italian western made in 1998 starring --- brace yourself --- Harvey Keitel and David Bowie! But its so lousy I can't even begin to describe it. Avoid it at all costs, unless, like me, you just like seeing David Bowie do *anything.* Like feign a Texas accent and pretend to be an outlaw and wear anachronistic sunglasses and an earring. Although I should qualify "anything" by saying "well, 'anything' so long as 'anything' does not include 'getting shot by the village idiot.'" Which is what happens. What a letdown. Terrible film. Bowie kicks ass.

ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (remake version): I was really on board with this movie. Its exciting and pretty and has a great cast and a ton of surprises. The cast attrition happens in completely unexpected order. Characters die that I felt had a free pass from day one. It truly tricked me! For such a consistently entertaining b-movie, its sad to report that the ending is completely anticlimactic. I was like "Hey wait! Y'all ain't done yet! Come back it's not over!" But alas, it was. Too bad. Maybe they just wanted to leave room for a sequel. But up until the very end it was pretty good! You could do a lot worse (see previous reviews).

BLACK HAWK DOWN: gave this one a spin last night. Holds up really well. People complain about Ridley Scott's track record and say he has "only 2 truly good movies, ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER." But ya know, I really dig GLADIATOR and I have to say that BHD is a damn good movie too. Plus its funny to see Orlando Bloom in his whopping 3 minutes of screen time and Ewan McGregor perfecting his American accent before wowing us in THE ISLAND. Maybe Ridley just makes a HANNIBAL every few years so his other movies look really good in comparison? Didn't see KINGDOM OF HEAVEN yet but I really want to now.

BEYOND JFK: THE CASE FOR CONSPIRACY: Just got a wild hair and wanted me some Kennedy. Its hilarious to see Gary Oldman carry on about how "Oswald didn't have a shot" and Kevin Costner call Jim Garrison a "true patriot." Otherwise, a kinda boring puff piece designed to promote Oliver Stone's movie.

Aside from this I mostly just watched a lot of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (SEASON 4). When Jeff's wife calls Larry "Mr. Jew Face" I thought I was gonna choke to death laughing. Oh yeah and Cheryl David makes marriage look like something not so bad.

Ladies and gentlemen ...

2005-09-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

... I get lonely sometimes with no replies. C'mon, just register, you don't have to maintain a blog or give a CC#, your profile can have no info in it if you wish ... And then you can share your pearls of wisdom with the other 2 dickheads who actually read this thing. Won't that be GREAT?! Sure it will! Plus you can cook up noxious aliases and masquerade as deviants if you so desire. This way I can play the "who the f*ck is that" game!

Jesus Christ, Spencer, that was a stupid movie. Thanks!!!

2005-09-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks a bunch for SHARK ATTACK 3: MEGALODON! What a piece of crap. I loved it. But for the life of me I can't figure out why someone can't make a *decent* shark movie. Why are they all so corny? And why do they all rip off JAWS so blatantly? That movie was made like 30 years ago! We've all seen it! We know when you are ripping it off so stop pretending! Anyways MEGALODON is really cool. Yeah its filled with stock footage that has been seen 1000 times before; but at least MEGALODON digitally alters this old footage to make something original out of it, even if they repeat the same shot like 3 times, only with a different object being swallowed each time. That, and the always-welcome unnecessary nudity managed to liven up what was essentially another notch in NU IMAGE's belt of hackneyed, predictable straight-to-video knockoffs. At least they are CONSISTENT. I'm pretty sure RAGING SHARKS is a NU IMAGE production.

Oh yeah, you were right: MEGALODON does have what is the single-most inappropriate seduction line EVER in cinema. I about fell out of my chair. I loved the cast, too. I can see the call sheet now: "Do you look like Tom Cruise, only with worse teeth? Are you a blonde with tight abs but a so-so face? Can you say things like 'it's coming back!' or 'we're sinking?' Then come on down to our next non-union, shot-in-Mexico MOS production called SHARK SOMETHING."

WHITE NOISE starring Batman and THE FORGOTTEN with Clarise Starling II

2005-08-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering, WHITE NOISE is crap. Really crap. Crappity crap crap crap. Maybe about as silly and pointless as THE FORGOTTEN with Julianne Moore. Both films start out promisingly enough. Both are ambiguous in the first acts as to whether the supposed "supernatural events" are even occurring or if it is all a sham perpetrated by less-than-benign characters. But somewhere in the turning point from first to second acts, the scripts veer into the preposterous and basically show you their asses for the next 60 minutes of your life.

NOISE never ever seems brilliant, but it is at least serviceably intriguing for the first half-hour or so. Grieving widower Michael Keaton is approached by a slippery stranger named Raymond who claims to be receiving messages on de-tuned radios and TV sets from Keaton's dead wife. Keaton seems willing to buy into this story after hearing some vague static-filled recordings of someone saying his name. He then meets fellow-griever Deborah Unger who has also been reeled-in by Raymond to listen to tapes of her dead husband. The whole setup seems ludicrous enough to be nothing more than a cruel con pulled on a mournful man, with Raymond and Deborah Unger as the perpetrators stringing him along. Thus endeth the promise of the film.

The movie quickly lays its cards on the table for all to see, and even though the hand is played, it expects us to continue looking for the next hour. Turns out there are GHOSTS! And evil malevolent SPIRITS, too! We know this because Raymond gets his ass killed and Deb and Mike join their formidable forces together to go watch Ant Wars on channel 2 and listen to some Noise Rock. What a bunch of bollocks. Mike quickly figures out his dead wife is guiding him to endangered people who need his help. He dutifully follows her every word until he winds up in the hands of a serial killer who has been killing people like Raymond. But stop the press --- the killer is being guided by 3 "evil spirits" bent on ... something. They are never really explained. Mike has his ass handed to him by 3 CGI ghosts who break his legs and toss him to his death on some rocks. Then the cops kill the serial killer, providing for a tidy explanation of the murders that have occurred in the narrative.

Never has a horror movie filled me with such ... well, not-horror. Bemusement? Passive apathy? This is one of the least affecting movies I have ever seen. Not a single scare to be had. Loads of crummy acting. Very shitty CGI. Flaccid direction and canned music. I'd ultimately call it 'unremarkable' if not for the previous few paragraphs illustrating the opposite.

THE FORGOTTEN is a similar failed enterprise. It, too, deals with a grieving character, which is a neat device, as a person suffering from traumatic loss is very vulnerable and subject to any degree of delusion. You'd think a readable script could come from a character who might be slightly off their nut but we don't know for sure. It seems like this could work, right? But I suspect, nay, FEAR that somewhere in the creative process, a decent script existed for both of these films, but was quickly re-written to "make them more clear." THE FORGOTTEN gets off on the right foot by having everyone around Julianne insist she *is* delusional. Freaked-out over the death of her son, she can't move on. She's in therapy and she's a wreck. When photos of her son start to disappear from her house, she accuses her husband of trying to force her to forget, which seems grandly paranoid but at least interesting. Then we get a real doozy tossed in our lap --- her therapist informs her that her son was actually stillborn and she has created his entire life and even his death to help cope! At this point I'm really on board. Its just crazy enough and atypical enough for me to be able to brag to my friends that I "saw a cool movie that actually did not have dinosaurs or car chases in it."

But believe me, a few dinosaurs could really have helped. But instead we get aliens. I know what you're saying; you're saying some variation on "What the F*CK?!" But yeah its aliens that took her kid. Extraterrestrials whose existence is asserted to us as true, with no ambiguity. I could at least tolerate Julianne *thinking* aliens took her kid; but to be expected to *buy* this horse puckey is a bit much. We are even treated to a spooky T-1000 type of alien who gets run over and such but suffers no harm. We get scary UFO's in the clouds, and people sucked up by blue beams and stuff. Its all exactly like it sounds. It plays out very predictably with her joining forces with a grieving father who has crawled into a bottle to forget his daughter's "death." She dries him out just in time for him to get abducted himself. Then she confronts T-1000 alien and bests him in a game of will, "proving that you cannot sever the bond between mother and child" and whatever. Then everything is put back the way it was, all the kids are returned, the clock is turned back, yadda yadda yadda. What a stupid f*cking movie.

Not to be indelicate, but both these movies are dumb pieces of sh*t. I never expected genius but I certainly did not expect the ending of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL to be copied almost verbatim for essentially their full running time either. Here's a question for Hollywood Slumptown: do you think we're a bunch of retards? Because there is more reward to be had with a toilet seat cover than either of these two movies provides. At least one of these things protects my ass from other peoples' ass germs. Then again, I *did* sit through both of these movies, and I distinctly remember that no gun was at my head. So hell maybe we *are* retarded. But PLEASE, Hollywood --- if it has to be dumb, at least blow it up at the end. Is that too much to ask?

Random events composed of minor hits and near-misses

2005-08-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

Time to clear some of this stuff off my Brain desktop. Just a lot of silly stuff that happened.

I was at a red light on my bicycle the other day. A young Asian woman was standing there as well. I decided to turn right, but as I began to move, so did she, but she was facing a different direction and practically walked right into me. We both abruptly stopped but she was so startled that you'd think I'd stuck a gun in her ribs. Her arms were waving around like a swarm of bees was attacking, and she shrieked some foreign-tongued curse, likely about my ancestors or some such thing. I apologized, but quickly just left. I felt kinda bad. Also she was wearing this big face-shield thing, like a sun visor, only it sloped down to cover the entire face, and shaded like sunglasses. So I don't know if she was Asian or just unintelligible.

Again on the bike. Passed a bus stop where a fat, grizzled bum-looking guy was sitting. I hear as I pass, "Get a haircut!" I turned around to see him looking at me and I couldn't help but laugh. I mean, I haven't been told that since the 80s. And by a stinky old BUM no less. A thousand responses went through my head, each one making me laugh at my own genius-style of humor. I wanted to go back and just confront him, lay into him verbally with "Take a bath!" or "Get a job!" or "Buy a car!" or "Get off welfare!" or some other such thing. But you know, he had this big-ass black dog with him. With a rope tied around its neck. And I figured it could only end in tears. Either I'd get mauled by this big mutt, and then I'd call Animal Services and it would get put down; or, the damn thing would KILL me, or rip my balls off; or, we'd get into such a row that cops came; or the dog catcher would come and take the animal away for not having tags or something. Basically I was weighing the dog's life against my own amusement. I just kept riding.

I went tubing for the first time last weekend. I had a ball. And I am not an outdoorsy guy AT ALL. Nor am I too fond of water, especially water with Wild Animals in it, like sharks, or crocodiles, or those parasites that swim up your urethra and they have to chop your dick off to get them out. No thank you. But it was fun. Having gotten a weird sunburn once before at Lollapalooza 1994 (big red ears that hurt like sh*t), I liberally applied sunblock throughout the day, but I guess the water managed to wash it off in key areas. So I got the Weird Sunburn AGAIN. Tops of my thighs, where my shorts were rubbing, and the tops of my feet and ankles too. Now my feet look like the 2 new newest members of THE X-MEN. I also managed to cut my arm from elbow to wrist by falling down a small set of algae-covered steps. A friend of mine noted that I "sure am accident prone," especially since about 6 weeks ago I couldn't shut up about this bee that stung me between the eyes and made my face swell up so I looked like Marv from SIN CITY. If I do leisure activities apart from watching TV I tend to f*ck myself up. So hang-gliding is out I guess.

Well, thank goodness for that!

2005-08-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

From IMDB:

Michael Lynton, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, vowed that from now on, his studio will be making "only movies we hope will be really good."

... And they weren't already doing this? Oh well, no time like the present I guess.

Makes me feel just a little bit more normal

2005-08-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

OK, confession time. I kinda like action figures. I don't call them "dolls" nor do I address them by name or have tea parties. But I do dig them and am rather attached to them in something of a "creator" way. Oh my God, I'm having a breakthrough here. Maybe not. Anyway, have a look at the following site. (Which I have to stress I have NOTHING to do with.)

http://www.still-lovers.com/

The Rob Zombie ouvre

2005-08-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

I want to talk about THE DEVIL'S REJECTS but after watching HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES I feel I need to discuss them both. They do walk hand-in-hand but let's face it, one arm is longer than the other. REJECTS, I would almost venture, is something of a masterpiece. But I wonder --- is it because its predecessor was such a stupid piece of shit that it just looks good in comparison? And is it really keeping in character for me to actually criticize a movie for being shitty? I could chase my tail for days on this topic.

REJECTS is just a damn fine piece of drive-in filmmaking, and is so good in fact that I find myself at a loss to really want to write about it. There are already countless favorable reviews out there to be had, and what can I say even remotely witty or original that would add to the already-deafening praise? Wait, I know! A knuckleheaded comment from IMDB! I DID NOT WRITE THIS! IT'S JUST SOME POORLY-RAISED INBRED PUKE OF A KID WITH INTERNET ACCESS:

"Inapropriate for children under 15, and it is NOT a horror movie! "

Okay. I am staying with my Aunt and Uncle in MA, and we decide to go see a movie. My two younger cousins go to see "Must Love Dogs," and me and my other cousin (13) want to see "The Devil's Rejects." We go into the theatre and the lady says that we need an adult to go into the showing room for "The Devil's Rejects." My Uncle decides to stay so that we can watch this movie. I told him the rating it got on this website and we went into the theatre expecting a "horror" movie. Before we went, I went on iMDB to check the rating. However, I made a mistake, I did not check the content and what it was about. I read the very brief description which said about the people that go on a killing spree. I figured it was a horror movie about some "devil's rejects" that went on a killing spree, and they would be like "scarily" killing people not just going around like a gang. That said, we see the very beginning and think that it is kind of inapropriate, but we stay thinking that it will turn into a "horror movie." After 40 minutes, we decide to leave as it starts to get VERY inapropriate. In this 40 minutes, it said "****" (not sure about the censoring rules on this site) about 100 times, along with many other curses, very strong sexual language, a lot of nudity, a sex scene, and the violence. The violence can be handled, along with some nudity and some cursing, however, EVERY OTHER LINE HAS THE "F WORD." And in this short time, there was not just some nudity, but a good quality time of it. About the "R" rating. This says "Under 17 requires accompaniment of an adult." What does this solve? I am still seeing the same thing? What is he/she supposed to do? Cover our eyes and ears whenever there is inappropriate content? My 11 year old cousin was going to watch this movie with us... It is NOT okay for an 11 year old to see what I saw. I believe that this should be rated "NC-17" simply because the "R" rating simply does not solve anything. Technically, a 7-year old could watch this movie, as long as her mom came in with her. Young children are very influential, and would copy a lot of what she saw in this movie. Since this was a "horror" movie, I figured the worst would be some language, and a lot of violence since it was rated "R." But this movie went overboard. I believe that there should be a rating where you must be 14 to see a movie, none of this "accompanying" business. It does not help. If this was not a "horror" movie and was rated "R," I would have looked into detail and to what extent and why it was rated "R." Now to the horror part -- I was not scared ONCE (in the 40 minutes). Aren't you supposed to be scared in a HORROR movie. What is horror? A gang going around killing people? Usually in horror movies, there is some tension and fright. This should be defined as an action movie. I do not care if it got somewhat "scary" after the 40 minutes. If in the 40 minutes there was no horror, it is NOT a horror movie. Well, I have learned to always check WHY it is rated "R," and if a movie says "horror," it doesn't have to be. Always check what a movie REALLY is.

... Which all reminds me of how flummoxed I am that this movie exists, much less secured wide release to major theatres. I mean, it is just plain evil. The snotnosed punk above, and most especially his "11 year old cousin," have NO BUSINESS seeing this movie, not becuase it is violent (although that's a good enough reason for me), not because it has "the F-word" (again, reason enough for him to suffer through Snow Dogs or Herbie or some other such drivel instead), or even that it has a lot of nudity (come to think of it, what the bloody hell was his uncle even thinking). The true reason that kids should not see this movie (and conversely why it is a work of genius) is that it celebrates and deifies vicious psychotic murderers and simultaneously encourages the audience to do the same, all the while condemning (sorta; I hope) any reasonably intelligent viewer for being a sick enough fuck to do so. Its seriously just one of the most God-damned things I have ever seen (and that comment may indeed be literal for all I know). I guess to sum it all up, the reason this ain't for kids is that it never actually feels "ambiguous." If it even *has* a moral compass, Zombie has stuck a magnet underneath it. The movie is overtly on the side of the killers and celebrates their "freedom," even though this freedom seems to be from law, morality, and even humanity. So basically it is a love song for psychopaths and, loathe as I am to agree with Dingleberry above ... Its kinda inappropriate for 11-year-old girls I guess.

The cast is uniformly on FIRE! Zombie has filled his frame with the most impressive roster of old character actors I have ever seen. I think this movie stars everyone EXCEPT Dick Miller ( a shame really --- what, was he in Aruba that month?). Bill Mosely turns in his best performance since TX CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (coinfession time: that's all I know him from), and is maybe the scariest, most demonic presence in memory, while freakishly being able to sell a joke with the best of them ("Yknow, I do believe I can still smell your wife's pussy stink on my gun! Hope it don't rust the barrell."). My God. Between Bill Mosely and Helmut Berger, I feel like my life has changed this month.

William Forsythe delivers a DeNiro-calibre grindhouse performance, all creased-brow and heavy-breathing, while somehow restrained by, of all people, Rob Zombie. Sid Haig is, well, Sid Haig. God bless his pockmarked greasy little heart, he's not exactly a good actor, but he more than makes up for it with commitment, enthusiasm, and presence, and a willingness to do ANYTHING to sell the moment (although I suppose more credit is due to Ginger Lynn Allen for being willing to fuck Sid Haig than to Sid Haig being willing to go nude for a sex scene). Sheri Moon Zombie'c chief asset is on display throughout the picture. Let's just say that after seeing said asset about 1/2 dozen times, I don't think her character "Baby" is too fond of undergarmentry.

The movie is filled with indelible, memorable sequences. and very often manages to hit notes of such visual clarity and power as to almost approach "beauty" status. Its poetry, written in bruises, punctuated by screams.

HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES is another animal entirely. Probably its most impressive achievement is that it inspired a better movie a few years later. Its not uniformly bad; in fact, after having seen REJECTS, I found myself utterly glued to the screen as CORPSES spooled out. The characters are all there, but the performances haven't quite gelled yet. Well, except Sid Haig, who has been gelled for about 30 years now I guess. Mosely is present, as is Moon, but Zombie hasn't quite made up his mind what movie he is making at this early point. This is CORPSES chief failure, as it attempts to be about 8 movies at once, and as such has no focus or unity or consistency. Part slasher, part camp pastiche, part haunted house, part zombie, part monster, part dark character study ... All crammed into 90 minutes. It doesn't feel efficient; it feels truncated, like a recap of a season of TALES FROM THE CRYPT.

It works for me, but only in terms of a post-REJECTS viewing experience. Kinda like STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE is only enjoyable because it shows what led up to STAR TREK THE WRATH OF KHAN. Its not so hot in itself; but intertexturally its damn compelling, akin to reading the flawed first draft of your favorite novel.

The seeds are planted here. Lingering, slomo shots ratchet up the tension as the camera cranes into the sky ... Stock shifts and format changes keep the viewer off-balance but visually engaged ... The characters manage a mordant sense of humor that, when not veering into parody or camp, is genuinely funny.

But the movie goes too far, too often. Filled with explicit gore, little is left to imagine, which is a strength exhibited by REJECTS. CORPSES revels in showing you the exposed scalp or rendered flesh of the victim, while REJECTS leaves you to ponder just what effects that slashing razor are really having. Performances are rarely reeled in. The travelling teens at the beginning are a bunch of stupid, hammy dolts, punched out of a paper doll book called "Stereotypical Jackasses." Not once did I feel a single note of sympathy for their pain (which could very well be tre point; I *wanted* them gone). The script feel like the love child of a first time director ... Oooooops! But I just can't stand it when characters quote poems or Bible verse as they kill a victim. Who does that?! I know I don't.

Still, virtually all of this criticism would be less acute were it not for the final act of the movie. This thing doesn't just derail; it smashes through the screen and kills the audience. Events start to pile up that have no relationship to each other; characters appear that are unidentified but seem to have some relevance to the plot that is never specified. Apparently the last 10 minutes involves a major villain (or two) chasing the final survivor, but we are never quite sure if the villain is who he appears to be, what his relationship is to our, ahem, MAIN CHARACTERS, where he came from, what he wants or is doing ... Nothing. We get a couple of, let's face it, MONSTERS chasing a girl around. Hell, there's even some reanimated zombies in one scene, but they are quickly forgotten about. Its messier than Otis Driftwood's last 5 victims combined.

But still, I am happy for the existence of HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES. I may even buy the DVD! There is spirit to be had, and enthusiasm, and love of film. Its kinda like seeing your new child take a few lovely first steps, then crash to his knees. In broken glass. You're like, wow, that was great for a minute, I wonder how far he'll get next time. I can't wait to find out. With DEVIL'S REJECTS, those scars are well-healed, and the child not only walks, but thunders around on a riding lawnmower with a bottle of whiskey in both hands, looking for squirrels and woodchucks to fertilize the lawn with.

It was like a banquet of filth

2005-08-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

I saw a boatload of fine films over the weekend. Dunno if I can cover them all but maybe I can at least remember the names. Lessee here:

1. THE DEVILS (Ken Russell)
2. THE BATTLE OF RUSSIA (Frank Capra)
3. RAGING SHARKS! (some Nu Video bollocks)
4. WHITE SLAVE
5. THE NIGHT PORTER
6. THE DEVIL'S REJECTS

THE DEVILS was the "uncut" version. Since I've already seen it I don't know how interested I am in discussing it. Let's just preserve the comment my man Paul made: "The part where Jesus gives the nuns mustache rides? That was new."

RAGING SHARKS is about as inane as the title implies. 50 bucks says the original script had a title too sophisticated for the target audience, probably something like DEEP TERROR or SQUALUS INFERNUS! But then the producers were like "No, we need to make it clear what they are getting .... RAGING SHARKS!!!" Its basically a total ripoff of THE ABYSS but for some reason wants you to think it is a total ripoff of DEEP BLUE SEA. Personally I'd have gone with the former since its a better movie, but they likely went with the latter since it was more violent, and more recent. And yes I do believe that this is the level of thinking that went into this thing. The trailer and jacket art insist this is a movie about RAGING SHARKS that beseige an underwater research station. What is *never* indicated in publicity is that before the opening credits crawl, giant spaceships and aliens tinkering with "science" suffer some sort of accident, and the "science" falls to earth. WTF?!? I thought this was a shark movie. But it starts out like STAR WARS. Then a storm comes (Abyss) and the station is cut off from the surface. Then some RAGING SHARKS come and cut all the air hoses and stuff. Then a scientist guy says things like "Inriguing!" and later "Fascinating!" Then also he says stuff like "I don't believe it!" and also "This isn't possible, I've never seen anything like it!" The crew fall all over themselves finding excuses to venture outside and get consumed by the RAGING SHARKS. A spooky accountant who had arrived earlier turns out to be a "Black Ops Agent" and serves as the villain (like Michael Beihn in the Abyss). To spice things up, a lot of stock footage attacks some unpaid extras on a beach. Eventually we find out the RAGING SHARKS are "protecting" a cold fusion fuel source that resides in the alien's "science thing." How and why are never addressed. At a certain point near the end, events begin to unravel that suggest the production has run out of funding. Key shots seem to be missing and explanations for certain results are never explained. For instance our hero, trapped in an underwater alcove by a RAGING SHARK, asks a submarine to fire a torpedo at the shark, even though it means his death. He survives without a scratch, and just shows back up on the underwater base. Finally at the end the aliens arrive and as lovely classical music plays, our hero and his wife (you know --- like in the Abyss!) await their eminent demise by romantically seeing that life exists outside our solar system and whatever. Everything explodes. For whatever reasons our hero survives AGAIN and swims away from the explosion in full scuba gear DRAGGING HIS DROWNED WIFE behind him (cough --- Abyss --- cough). Then the evil accountant floats up! I shit not! They must be on the ocean floor but there he is like he's swimming in the deep end of his pool. He looks a bit menacing, but then a RAGING SHARK comes out of nowhere and eats him (even though the RAGING SHARKS are off the hook for guard duty at this point). Cut to the freakin' SUBMARINE, UNDERWATER, and some swabbie goes "I didn't think sharks knew how to knock," and they OPEN THE HATCH and let Hero guy in ---- WITH HIS DEAD WIFE'S BODY, which he quickly resuscitates (sound familiar?)! I have no idea how fast you have to be to catch up with a submarine but I bet its easier if you aren't dragging a dead body behind you. This is, for all intents and purposes, the end.

For everything RAGING SHARKS is, one thing it is not is boring. I'd not be irresponsible enough to call it "impressive," but it damn sure moves along at a decent pace, and is ridiculous enough to be completely entertaining. Well, if you are a complete jackass, that is. Enjoy.

On to WHITE SLAVE. Not much to say about this except that yes, it *is* a cannibal movie I have never heard of. Yay me. If you've seen one cannibal movie (and I use the term loosely, allowing for incorporations of "Jungle" movies), you are either a fan for life or well and done with the entire genre. You are also more than familiar enough with the tropes of the cycle as to not require me to explain anything to you about what to expect. Let's just say that you'll get what you paid for with this one. The lead actress manages to stay topless for 99% of her screentime, which feels a little dirty as she is supposed to be an English High School student! Its like watching a seedier version of WALKABOUT only not lensed all that well. The movie plays around with form a bit a la CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST in that some of the scenes are depicted as being "real," while others are "recreations based on real events." Kinda nifty I guess. Lots of really lurid gore abound. Piles of decapitations, but no actual cannibalism. Some animal violence, but for once it is relatively innofensive, and depicts a leopard stalking and attacking its prey (a deer and a monkey). Call me a psycho but for once I actually liked the footage as it seemed rather real and not necessarily sadistic, more like just harsh jungle reality. It is also not very graphically shown. That leopard is a real badass though! I wouldn't want to tangle with him. A very efficient killer. No suffering here, people. He takes these animals down and WHOMP, out go the lights. For a jungle film, WHITE SLAVE is definitely low-key (well, comparatively), and features an honest-to-God romantic subplot! It kinda felt like LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Only, made in 1985 for like 50 bucks.

NIGHT PORTER. Hell, what can I say? Its THE NIGHT PORTER already. Pretty good movie. Not sleazy enough or cheap enough to get too much lip service here I'm afraid. Charlotte Rampling plays "innocent but curious teen" to a freakin TEE. It suits her well. She also wears a Nazi Officer's cap better than most Nazi Officers. Its pretty much about an SS Officer having an obsessive affair with one of his old detainees before they both get knocked off by other, assumedly "more evil," SS fugitives. Shot, scored, and performed far too well to make fun of, its easy to see how this movie inspired countless Italian wannabes shortly after its appearance. Amazing how NIGHT PORTER, THE DAMNED, CALIGULA and SALON KITTY could inspire such a flourishing barrel-bottom cycle of movies each successively attempting to out-Nazi and out-sleeze their predecessors.

Thank you, NIGHT PORTER. Thank you.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS.

Let me just say one thing: after seeing it, I am Speechless.

Strangely enough ...

2005-08-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

... I saw a movie last night that I halfway enjoyed, despite my expectations. BATTLE FORCE! aka THE LAST BATTLE from 1978. Following my trend of watching Helmut Berger movies, I managed to confirm that he was actually present in this one before I put it in. Its a modest little Italian WW2 movie that seems to be imitating "epic" WW2 movies popular at the time, like A BRIDGE TOO FAR. Unfortunately for Umberto Lenzi (hilariously credited here as 'Humphrey Longan'), he seems to think that those films' monstrous casts, meandering stories, and multiple-to-the-point-of-absurdity subplots were actual selling points, and not contributors to their demise. At least he has the sense to bring it in around 100 minutes and not the "popular" 3 hours. Good call. (Although it does still feel pretty damn long.)

Twinkling with big stars like Henry Fonda and John Huston (who more than likely also shot TENTACLES on the same hot Italian weekend in 1978), and featuring a pretty decent supporting cast with Stacy Keach (AGAIN!) and my man Helmut Berger, the movie also benefits from a pretty solid voiceover by none other than Orson Welles. Which serves to elevate the proceedings a bit higher than the modest budget would otherwise be capable of doing.

Filled to the brim with inappropriate vehicles for the time and place, it still succeeds on a dramatic level, mostly from a better than average script (featuring genuine Irony and also Poignancy!) and a pair of pretty good performances by Keach and Berger as German soldiers in the Africa Korp. The "Last Battle" of the title is an orgy of stock footage and 180-degree-rule violations, but it provides enough sense of chaos and confusion, however unintentional, to create some tension. Keach goes out like a soldier, when his position gets overrun and he chases a Brit tank on foot with a tellermine, only to be shot in the back as the tank explodes. A pretty cool ending I must say. Crotchety old Huston delivers a funny line, sitting blithely in a ditch as gunfire rattles and bombs explode, dust and debris scatters around him, and he yawns and stretches and asks his young, terrified companion if he wouldn't rather "go somewhere with some action."

Not a classic, but surprisingly enjoyable in a low-rent way, if you are a fan of anyone involved, they very thankfully don't embarrass themselves. (And by 'embarrassment,' I'm thinking of all those straight-to-video movies that Rutger Hauer has made.)

SITH translated into gibberish.

2005-08-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

Yeah like it made sense the first time around. Check it:

http://americaninlebanon.blogspot.com/2005/07/backstroke-of-west.html

What's even funnier is that all the linguists get into fits about 'proper English' in the commentary section. The horror!

And now, back to business. CANNIBALS!

2005-08-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

Managed to choke down a heaping helping of MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD. I had originally passed on this one in a major way as its stars were just too well-known. I mean, URSULA ANDRESS? STACY FREAKIN KEACH???? How hardcore can a movie be with stars like that? I mean I just don't see Ursula Andress eating raw snakes or Stacy Keach getting his dick cut off. Which are two elements I fully expect in a cannibal flick, let's face it.

Well thankfully this *is* a legit cannibal movie, replete with 'content' similar to the above-described, just not involving the lead actors. Let's see, we get pig-f*cking, masturbation, castration (is it castration if the balls are left on?), and even a groovy crocodile attack where a guy gets his arm eaten off.

And despite all this, the movie manages to still be a tepid, boring YAWNATHON. I didn't reant a movie called MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD to see people TALK.

We are also treated to LOTS of snake-eating, and TONS of animal-on-animal violence. Now please don't misunderstand: (I'm putting on my serious cap now) I am a big animal lover. I'm not a vegetarian but I like pets of all shapes and I certainly don't enjoy seeing real animals get hurt. This was a major shocker for me when I first saw CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST because I just did not expect there to be slaughter scenes with real animals. Maybe that sounds perverse (and what on this sordid page isn't), but HUMAN violation is perfectly fine (and even required) by me in a horror movie, but NOT animal death. No matter how gruesome or realistic, nothing you say can convince me that the human deaths are in any way "real." (I'd never want to see a snuff film.) But animals? Listen, I know what these Italians get up to. I know they don't have access to "the Italian Stan Winston." So its basically Faces Of Death time for the monkeys and turtles in a cannibal flick.

And MOUNTAIN delivers on this vile trend in spades, only in a weird way it is sickly funny (if you are totally desensitized that is). The animal stuff in this movie is so OBVIOUSLY engineered for the PURPOSE of gratuitous violence that it becomes comic, especially after watching the interview with the director later on wherein he insists all the animal action was "happenstance" and "coincidence." Sure, whatever. You "coincidentally" had your camera set up at the very moment a snapping turtle fights an alligator. Or when a boa constrictor eats that little monkey (truly disturbing). As the documentary points out, the director is flat-out lying, as you can very clearly see some kind of travelling matte effect obscuring a rod or stick that shoves the little monkey into the jaws of the snake. Stacy Keach must list this movie at the very top of his resume I guess.

Back to the narrative proper. Ursula Andress remains frustratingly clothed for most of the film. One time early on she changes her shirt. Big Deal. Then near the end she gets naked and natives smear paint all over her, but then its back-to-the-clothes time, sorta begging the question, "what was THAT all about?" Poor Stacy Keach gets killed off so unexpectedly an hour in you truly expect him to pop up later on claiming to have just been unconscious, but alas, he never does. (And atypically for a cannibal movie, he is not eaten or dismembered, he just falls on some rocks. See? What'd I tell you about big stars in these movies?)

Towards the end we get almost all of the censor-worthy elements in one long montage, apparently attempting to show "an orgy of sex and violence." One nameless gal pleasures herself, another anonymous fellow is liberated from his manhood, a really big hairy pig finds ecstasy in the loving arms of a guy wearing a stupid-looking wig, and Ursula's brother gets disemboweled and eaten. Then she and some other dude escape on a log in the river. Great.

OH YEAH, the only reason I rented this in the first place was because freakin IMDB said it starred HELMUT BERGER as Ursula's brother!!! But it doesn't. What a ripoff! I TOLD YOU, big stars never do anything cool in Italian movies! They are just slumming and taking advantage of the free travel. Ever see TENTACLES? Henry Fonda, John Ford, Shelly Winters, Bo Hopkins ... ALL SURVIVE. Bleh! Boo! What's the point? The only people who ever give it up are the Ensign Redshirts you've never heard of.

God, I love Italian movies, I really really do, bless their little hearts.

Terrific. Spam on my blog. Wanker.

2005-08-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

"Jake Sebastian," do please go die. No, really. Die. Gunny Hartman voice: "Disappear, scumbag!"

A retraction

2005-08-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

It seems I was wrong in my earlier statement that I "finally saw my first Nazisploitation film."

What I meant was, I finally saw my first "knockoff" Nazisploitation film, because clearly ILSA SHE WOLF OF THE SS and SALON KITTY are "legitimate" movies. (rolls eyes at self)

And no I have no idea where I draw the line, and I'm not going to devote any more time to thinking about it.

Last night I did not watch, but at least started, what may very well be the most insanely-titled movie OF ALL TIME! How can you *not* be curious about a film called ... get this ... CALIGULA REINCARNATED AS HITLER?!? My word. Anything to make buck a guess. I didn't get too far into it as it seemd like it was edited for content. A lot of jump cuts and nonsequiturs. But I might give it a further spin later.

HILARIOUS credit sequence and cover. This is a 70s movie from Italy, but the cover and credits were clearly filmed very recently, really juicing up the fetishistic 'appeal' of Nazi iconography by having one of those collagen-injected sluts ... oh, sorry, I mean MODELS ... pose in various outfits 'inspired' by SS uniforms. She seems kind of dazed and unaware of what she is doing, and her lips are so pouty and swollen she looks like she is having an allergic reaction.

The rest of the movie I didn't see enough of to responsinbly write about. Perhaps tomorrow.

God forgive me Part 2

2005-08-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

OK, last night I managed to endure the entirety of SS HELLCAMP! Upon reflection, I think a more apropos title should be SS BULLSHIT WASTE OF TIME CAMP! Yuck! Here's a sampling of witty comments from IMDB:

" just another tasteless, dull, haphazardly and carelessly slapped together Euro-sleazefest "

"Seedy and boring"

"Historians will hate it, Genre fans will enjoy it."

"Totally vile"

"Snooze alert"

"So much to offer, so little delivered"

That last one sums it up nicely. At the risk of irreparably incriminating myself, I knew I had something wrong with me when I found myself growing weary of all the war and combat scenes, and wished the movie would get back to the business at hand, namely the goings-on at the HELLCAMP! Jesus, this movie made the previous night's fare (SS EXPERIMENT LOVE CAMP) seem infinitely preferable in almost every regard. First of all, this thing is dull as a bag of hammers. Just leaden beyond belief. And its chief offense (which some will find arguable) is not its subject matter, but the PROMISE of subject matter RARELY delivered. I thought I was gonna get an SS torture flick but the damn thing is mostly concerned with Italian partisans. Dude WTF! How hard (or expensive) can it be to shoot a movie on one set, whose most expensive (and, ironically, most desirable) prop is a cheap nude actress? Give me a break. Genre fans lament the film's scarcity but they should truly learn to count their blessings for having missed this one. "Snooze alert" indeed.

In its favor, the lead actress is most assuredly easy on the eyes. She reminds me of an ex girlfriend of mine, just lovely. Which probably explains why it felt so natural to see this actress parade around in a Nazi uniform. It felt very accurate to my memory. But, she wears it well, and if the gimmick had not already been pioneered in ILSA THE SHE WOLF I'd say it was something special. Alas, not so special.

There is also some extremely mean-spirited and nasty-minded gore, mostly involving ingestion or mutilation of ... ah ... people's "areas" ... but it is all so ham-fistedly and ineptly executed that you don't ever really get much of a charge out of it. If that's your bag, that is. I'm still not sure what's in my bag, but I'll let you know once I find out. Join me, will you? Let's open it together.

Boatloads of flacid male nudity this time around. Yay. Endless combat scenes from other movies clumsily edited in. A really cheap-ass model plane drops bombs on people at the end. I'm struggling here people, help me out. Ah, to hell with it. I can't remember any more good parts. This movie sucks. Do I dare explore the uncharted territories of ELSE FRAULEIN SS? It would appear to currently be my last available option in this virulent strain of unpleasantness.

That is, until SS GIRLS comes out. (sigh)

God forgive me

2005-08-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

... But I finally saw my first "Nazisploitation Film," SS EXPERIMENT LOVE CAMP! (And doesn't that title sound like a Japanese music video compilation?) Basically, the premise of this member of the subgenre of "Women In Prison" films of the 70s is that a lot of women "prisoners" (never identified as Jewish, or ANYTHING for that matter) are taken to "a camp" (also never identified as a CONCENTRATION camp, its just called a "medical camp") and have "love experiments" performed on them. Luckily a bunch of mustachio'd, sex-starved soldiers from the Eastern front are available to lollygag around in their barracks and kill time until they have to ... ahem ... help with the experiments.

Let's face it: even the title of this movie is offensive, and guaranteed to make any clerk think you are a deranged pervert if you rent it. I read a really funny review that said "the most offensive thing about this movie is that it trivializes the Holocaust." Which isn't funny in itself but the flat manner in which it was stated sure is! But in truth, an outrageous title like this conjures up far more atrocious content in the imagination that the filmmakers can ever hope to deliver. And they don't even try, really. As with other WIP films, the basic setup is mostly an excuse to get a lot of fair maidens naked and then take showers. No, not THOSE KIND of showers! Real showers.

Oh, Sweet Jesus. Should I even go on? Ah why not.

Movies like this beg to be ridiculed, and this one does not skimp on content worthy of ridicule. From a purely historical point of view, the uniforms are hilarious. At least they are almost all actually "SS" uniforms, although they are all early-war period with bottle green collars and ...

HELLO? Is anyone even reading this?

The funniest uniform is on the main character, who sports a nice looking tanker's outfit, although it is clearly Heer/Army, and not SS. I think its a self-propelled gun crew uniform with the Totenkopf tabs on the collar. But this is not SS! WTF is this guy doing at this camp? I'm fairly certain that the film's producers raided the local costume shop for "anything German" and this is what they got. Its not a bad-looking outfit; its just got the wrong guy inside of it. Also this camp seems to only have one guard. Not only is he clearly overweight, he seems to be posted EVERYWHERE. Every time the location changes, there he is, watching the door. Its awesome.

Anyways, blah blah blah. Near the end of the movie, a plot almost develops. Seems the camp commandant got his balls eaten off by a Russian peasant girl a few months back, and he wants some new ones. So he has the doctor perform the "world's first testicle transplant" using the main character's manhood(s) as raw materials. Not content with using the endless parade of nude woment to justify it's rating (or lack thereof), the movie features the surgical procedure in close-up, and in color. Ew. I think they used mountain oysters as props. Let's hope so.

Camp Commandant proceeds to have an orgy to fill out the last 10 minutes of the movie, before Main Character Guy finally gets wise to what has happened (don't ask) and leads an armed uprising along with the women against the Commandant and the guards. "How ya been doin' with my BALLS!" he shouts, in the best line in the whole picture. Finally, the poor Commandant "ironically" suffers the same fate AGAIN at the hands of the irate women, and then everyone gets killed WILD-BUNCH style (only, not cool, and stupid). But, I kinda dug the whole nihilistic ending.

So I guess next up at bat is going to be SS HELL CAMP, which I hear features stock combat footage. Yay! Plus I expect to grab BEAST WITH A GUN, starring Helmut Berger of SALON KITTY fame, just to bring the last few nights full circle again.

And yes I am writing this strictly for people who know WTF it is I am talking about, ha ha.

The rest of you SUFFER, worms!!!

(evil laugh, fades out)

Snoring neighbor: SEE YA

2005-08-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

Homie moved out unexpectedly yesterday. Thank goodness! (Although he did take all the plastic deck chairs with him, including MINE). What the hell? That's like taking the ice cube trays with you. Who does that? At least he did not dig up all the cool potted plants that are actually planted now in the garden.But anyway, here's to getting a new neighbor who is quieter. PLEASE GOD, no more rockers, sports fans, teenagers, drummers, etc. A nice, old, single, man. Like my previous neighbor, a huge movie buff, a 68-year-old single guy, the sweetest dude ever. Who unfortunately dropped dead. What a bummer.

That was a strange thing. Here's this nice old guy who was genuinely gracious and generous. He'd loan me piles of videos whenever I wanted and I'd do the same. We'd chitchat and I'd program his VCR for him. This guy smoked like a chimney and one day gets himself put in ICU with a heart attack. I went and visited him and he tells me they found lung cancer too and can't do any heart surgery on him. We don't really discuss it much after that. So he comes home and I notice he has more family around more often, getting him groceries and stuff. He mentions to me something about how some 'hospice' is helping him out, but I have zero idea what this is. I'll always regret turning down his invitations to come visit at this point. I didn't know that a hospice is something that helps make you more comfortable when you are dying. I just thought it was care for folks who couldn't afford it. So one day i notice these 2 people going in and out of his apartment for a while. Kind of odd. Turns out he died a couple days before at his sister's house. It was really quick apparently. He just coughed real deep once and that was it, like snapping your fingers.

So then his nephew and niece show up and pack up all his thousands of videos. I watched them do it and they didn't seem to know really much about movies. It was more a chore for them. I mention that a few of my tapes are mixed in there but they can't find them and ask me to write them down, which I do. In the back of my head I keep hoping that they'll say, " ... why don't you take whatever you want, he'd have wanted you to have them instead of just dumping them at the Salvation Army," but they never do. A few days later my tapes are left at my doorstop in a paper bag with no note.

I hope nobody ever dumps MY stuff at 1/2 Price Books or the freakin' Thrift Shop. All my comics and videos. Hopefully they'll go to people who will dig them and keep them alive or whatever. Maybe I should just sell everything now so nobody ever has to treat my collections as "a chore."

Nah! Let 'em freakin WORK. Break a sweat, bitches! HA HA HA!

But, while I am waiting ...

2005-07-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

... here is a hilarious quote from an Amazon review for Timothy Hines' WAR OF THE WORLDS. An obviously fake one, too.

"Unlike today's cartoons with their "hip" humour, their doe-eyed panty-flashing Japanese wiccan-harlots, and their cynical disregard for conservative family values, there's absolutely nothing in H.G. HEINZ'S WARS OF THE WORLDS that wouldn't find solace within the deveoping mind of a five-year-old."

Man, that's gold.

... And that's why Myspace and Friendster SUCK ASS

2005-07-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

Because after all the time I put into it, what was I left with. Sweet fuck-all! Yes I am in an extremely pissy mood here today people. In fact, I'm giving it 24 hours --- one lousy day --- and if I don't see some sonovabitchin replies here, I am changing the blog addy and it will forever be a F***ING PRIVATE JOURNAL. I ain't sharin' shit with nobody and I'll just content myself with being like that dude shut in his room writing blog entries all day and night from that comic HATE by Bagge. If a fictional character can derive sense of purpose and self-satisfaction from that activity, I am sure a real guy can as well. IN SPADES!

So y'all are on freakin notice yo. Post or perish.

"If WW2 was an RTS" or some shit like that

2005-07-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

OK I did not write this but its still funny as hell.

If World War II Was an RTS

If World War Two had been an online Real TtimeStrategy game, the chat room traffic would have gone something like this.

*Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.*
*Eisenhower has joined the game.*
*paTTon has joined the game.*
*Churchill has joined the game.*
*benny-tow has joined the game.*
*T0J0 has joined the game.*
*Roosevelt has joined the game.*
*Stalin has joined the game.*
*deGaulle has joined the game.*
Roosevelt: hey sup
T0J0: y0
Stalin: hi
Churchill: hi
Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks!
paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks
T0JO: lol
Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u,cool?
Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever
Stalin: cool
deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help
Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy
Roosevelt: i dont got **** to help, sry
Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: stfu
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys
deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO
T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol
Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u
Hitler[AoE]: wtf
Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now ugot a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of theworld retard
Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path
Stalin: WTF u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE
Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol
benny-tow: haha
benny-tow: hey ur losing ur guys in africa im gonnaneed help in italy soon sum1
T0J0: o **** i cant help u i got my hands full
Hitler[AoE]: im 2 busy 2 help
Roosevelt: yah thats right ***** im comin for ya
Stalin: church help me
Churchill: like u helped me before? sure ill just sit here
Stalin: dont be an arss
Churchill: dont be a commie. oops too late
Eisenhower: LOL
benny-tow: hahahh oh sh1t help
Hitler: o man ur focked
paTTon: oh what now biotch
Roosevelt: whos the cripple now lol
*benny-tow has been eliminated.*
benny-tow: lame
Roosevelt: gj patton
paTTon: thnx
Hitler[AoE]: WTF eisenhower hax hes killing all my sh1t
Hitler[AoE]: quit u hacker so u dont ruin my record
Eisenhower: Nuts!
benny~tow: wtf that mean?
Eisenhower: meant to say nutsack lol finger slipped
paTTon: coming to get u hitler u paper hanging hun cocksocker
Stalin: rofl
T0J0: HAHAHHAA
Hitler[AoE]: u guys are fockin gay
Hitler[AoE]: ur never getting in my city
*Hitler[AoE] has been eliminated.*
benny~tow: OMG u noob you killed yourself
Eisenhower: ROFLOLOLOL
Stalin: OMG LMAO!
Hitler[AoE]: WTF i didnt click there omg this game blows
*Hitler[AoE] has left the game*
paTTon: hahahhah
T0J0: WTF my teammates are n00bs
benny~tow: shut up noob
Roosevelt: haha wut a moron
paTTon: wtf am i gunna do now?
Eisenhower: yah me too
T0J0: why dont u attack me o thats right u dont got noships lololol
Eisenhower: fock u
paTTon: lemme go thru ur base commie
Stalin: go to hell lol
paTTon: fock this sh1t im goin afk
Eisenhower: yah this is gay
*Roosevelt has left the game.*
Hitler[AoE]: wtf?
Eisenhower: sh1t now we need some1 to join
*tru_m4n has joined the game.*
tru_m4n: hi all
T0J0: hey
Stalin: sup
Churchill: hi
tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff!
tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES
Stalin: d00d gimmie some plz
tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple
Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets
T0J0: wtf is nukes?
T0J0: holy ****holy****hoyl****!
*T0J0 has been eliminated.*
*The Allied team has won the game!*
Eisenhower: awesome!
Churchill: gg noobs no re
T0J0: thats bull**** u fockin suck
*T0J0 has left the game.*
*Eisenhower has left the game.*
Stalin: next game im not going to be on ur team, uguys didnt help me for ****
Churchill: wutever, we didnt need ur help ne way dumbarss
tru_m4n: l8r all
benny~tow: bye
Churchill: l8r
Stalin: fock u all
tru_m4n: shut up commie lol
*tru_m4n has left the game.*
benny~tow: lololol u commie
Churchill: ROFL
Churchill: bye commie
*Churchill has left the game.*
*benny~tow has left the game.*
Stalin: i hate u all fags
*Stalin has left the game.*
paTTon: lol no1 is left
paTTon: weeeee i got a jeep
*paTTon has been eliminated.*
paTTon: o sh1t!
*paTTon has left the game.*

Look out! Tintorera!

2005-07-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

So I "watched" TINTORERA last night ... More like "scanned through its interminable blandness," really. TINTORERA is a movie I'd heard about recently while masochistically seeking out JAWS ripoffs in old video shops. I'd managed to keep down GRIZZLY, TENTACLES, and even GREAT WHITE, but from what I had read, TINTORERA was gonna be difficult to stomach ... IF I could find it. It was the "IF" that I took as a challenge, and yesterday I came across a Mexican DVD of the "25th Anniversary Edition!!!" The verdict?

Its lousy. I mean, I didn't expect anything BUT lousy, but I at least expected a movie subtitled "Killer Shark" to have a bit more sharks killing in it. But mostly it was a lot of vacation resort footage and some (OK, a LOT of) naked underwater swimming. A LOT. Susan "Dirty Mary" George gets top billing but doesn't show up until 1 hour and 5 minutes in. At precisely 1 hour 35 minutes, she exits. And there's still about an hour left to go. Also we never find out why everyone keeps saying she's "English" as she very clearly is not. At least she gets to show a little fan appreciation in her scant screentime. Thank you, Susan.

The rest of the movie seems to be about gigolos at a Mexican resort. Either that or a paid advertisement for Speedo briefs. "Speedo: Day, Night, Whenever!" (Although to be fair to my lady readers, it should be noted that the Speedos get doffed about as much as the bikinis, if you are into that 70s tan line/white butt kinda thing.) A friend of mine recommended a drinking game where you take a swig every time someone says, "Let's swim naked to the boat!" Unless you can really hold your liquor, I recommend against this game. If you plan to make it through the entire interminable 126 minutes, I suggest you drink every time you see a shark instead. That way you can still drive home sober.

To be fair, the location photography is just lovely. If this were a promotional video for a hotel, I'd want to go there. Everyone manages to share drinks right around dawn, or sunset, when the light is JUST RIGHT. People go swimmming in crystal clear waters. A LOT. And the whole joint is jumping with loose women willing to shed their clothes at the slightest provocation. Aside from the TINTORERA, it looks like a really nice place to go on holiday. And boy do we get an eyeful.

I suspect the movie was funded and cast in much the same way as SHOWGIRLS. With that movie, it seemed rather obvious that the entire production was just as excuse to go to Vegas and do tons of coke and screw everything in sight. Oh yeah and shoot a movie when there is time. Story? We'll think of something. Actors? Are they good looking and naked? Fine, good enough. TINTORERA feels very similar in it's, ahem ... "verite" approach. "Everyone drink and dance! Don't look at the camera! And LOSE THAT BATHING SUIT, YOU!"

Utterly devoid of pacing or tension of any kind, the movie does have a couple of things in its favor (accidentally, no doubt, but hey, they're on film and the producers were wise enough to include them, so let's give a little credit). A couple of the rare shark attacks are quite grisly, and the water is so damn clear and/or the lighting so bright that one really sees what's happening, viscera and entrails and all. Cool! One guy gets his legs bitten off and the shark eats his head. Later on a shark attacks a group of drunken revelers in the night surf and I swear they used a real shark to simulate the action (not that they ever went to the trouble of making a fake shark for the movie, opting for stock footage and shitty associative editing instead). Although I bet this real shark was also real dead and being dragged through the water on a rope by an offscreen boat. But whatever, it looks convincing enough, and out-of-place enough in this otherwise unremarkable "Cinemax After Dark: Latin Edition" movie to stand out in my memory.

Susan "Three's Company" Barnes and both of her naked breasts make brief appearances. Basil "Robocop" Poledouris surprisingly provides the music. (I guess we all have to start somewhere.) Both have their names misspelled in the credits.

Hoping to avoid that empty feeling of having wasted an entire night on crap, I washed TINTORERA down with a belt of the old JURASSIC PARK 3. (And when JP3 starts to seem "really kick ass," you know the previous feature left a bit to be desired.) But in all honesty, I like JP3 because it doesn't pretend to be anything its not. This is a movie about people being chased screaming through the jungle by dinosaurs intent on eating them. THAT'S IT. Pure and simple. Its 90 minutes of running around frantically. Its like the Indy 500 except the other racers don't pass you they just swallow you. A lovely film. Take the grandparents.

Oh yeah one last thing. I saw HITCH HIKE this weekend. Great little 1978 thriller. It deserves more space than I'm gonna give it. Let's just say that its the only movie I have ever seen where the villain gets shotgunned by a buck naked former Bond girl. Naked shotgunning! Why can't this be its own genre?

I wish I had no neighbor sometimes

2005-07-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

My neighbor and his girlfriend aren't the best folks to live next to. He's alright I guess. So is she, if a bit cold. Not too friendly. But this dude has got a snoring problem that won't quit. I swear it keeps me awake at night. And it kinda defies reason, too. I mean, I breathe in a regular rhythm, so I'd assume one snores in a regular tempo as well? But this guy, its a rhythm all right, but just really disjointed. Kinda like free jazz. And it sounds, frankly, UNNATURAL. Last night between 3:20 and 4:20, I lay there listening to this racket, and all I could think of to compare it to was a dog playing tug-of-war on a big rope. Like "GGGGGr, RRRRRg, guh." Then wait a few seconds, and "GGGGGrg, RRRRgh, gugh. Guh." Who the hell takes 2 breaths, then holds them, then takes 3 or 4, then waits a few seconds, and takes another pair? Its bizarre.

Last night it was accompanied by knocks on the wall. I think he must have been tossing around and bumping the wall, but for comfort I pretended it was his neighbor on the other side telling him to keep it down.

More than once he has woken me up with another weird snoring sound, but through the wall it sounds a hell of a lot like he 's repeating "I don't know" over and over, really fast. "Idonno, idonno, idonno, idonno, idonno." Too strange.

Often the two of them will fight really loudly. Usually around 3 in the morning, on a Thursday. (For some inexplicable reason, in Austin, Thursdays are just the "first Friday" of the weekend. Bars are really busy on Thursday night.) But they'll come home really late, and sometimes just lay into each other screaming and yelling all sorts of shit. A lot of the time he calls her "a liar." He kinda browbeats her, seems to very often verbally assault her about character isssues, tries to overwhelm her. Just really loudly. But she's no saint, trust me. What a set of pipes on this girl. I guess everyone needs to vent sometimes, and most every time I ever see her she's all mousy and quiet, but get a few drinks in her and make her mad, and KABLOOEY. Really shakes the foundations. One time I felt really sorry for her. She must have gotten some really terrible news on the phone, because out of nowhere she just starts wailing. "NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO, why, why? WHHHYYYYYYYY?????? AAAAAAAA!!!!!! NNNOOOOOOO!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" Then she started banging on the walls and it really felt like she wanted them to fall down. BOOM BOOM BOOM! "WHHYYYY???? AAAAAA!!!!!!!" Then maybe stuff like, "I wanted to see her!" Hell, I don't know. It was really disturbing.

And all of this stuff, always, the middle of the night. So you kinda wake to it "in medias res," all dreamy and sleepy, and there's this horrible mayhem going on like 3 feet from your head. Insane.

Mmmmm ... Wire ... (drools)

2005-07-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

OK so I go to see Speilberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS for the 3rd time the other day, and since its at the Alamo I figured might as well get a burger. So I'm watching my fave movie when I feel some kind of FOREIGN OBJECT in my mouth, and first I though it was a sliver of bone, then when I touched it I had this fleeting thought -NEEDLE- that was very unsettling. But I think it was more of a paper clip that went through a meat grinder. I mean, it wasn't TASTY or anything, but I was a bit relieved, considering the alternatives.

And boy I have never seen a manager more willing to placate me than on this day. I bet he would have bent over in the men's room if I had asked him to. He was really quite nice and dedicated to making it right. We got the bill after the movie and it just said "$0." So basically I got 1 1/2 burgers, 2 orders of fries, a bucket of beer, an order of chips and queso, AND a slice of chocolate freakin' cake, for NOTHING. Well, nothing but a piece of wire in my burger, so the deal is only a good one in retrospect. Still, when I factor in that I used passes for our tickets, and did not drive, I had a pretty good day's entertainment for very little investment. REMEMBER THE ALAMO I guess.

(And yes I left a tip. It wasn't the Staff's fault I got a Metalmouth Surprise, hell, it wasn't even the Alamo's fault, it was the damned meatpackers.)

I'm not really political ...

2005-07-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

... but I sure do know an asshole when I see it. And these douche bags blowing up London need to have a few Black Cats shoved up their foreskins (and in front of their mothers), given enemas with Mexican drinking water (then made to drink the expulsion), and then have splintered bamboo poles inserted VERY ROUGHLY into their anuses. STRIKE THEM CENTURION!!!

Monday

2005-07-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

What did I watch last night (and this weekend)?

Uwe Bolle's ALONE IN THE DARK, a buttload of THE SIMPSONS, and CUT-THROATS NINE. (oh yeah and THE INCREDIBLES)

AITD has an atrocious reputation and as such, I felt it was required viewing (anything to make myself seem smart). Unfortunately it wasn't anywhere near as awful as I'd been led to believe. It really seems more like a movie that was screwed around with so badly in post that it lost touch with itself and the release date kinda crept up on everyone. It's chief failure is that it treats the audience like a bunch of numbskulls. There is a text crawl at the beginning longer than the entire first STAR WARS trilogy combined. It must go on for 5 minutes, AND is accompanied by a voiceover (in case us idiots can't read). The problem is that the text includes nothing that is not revealed in the first act of the film! Adding to the film's problems is the equally redundant voiceover by Christian Slater, "explaining" what's occurring before our very eyes ... Sheesh. But other than this, the movie is just a sort of b-grade monster flick with a lot of CGI creatures and gunfire (always nice). There are a handful of grisly deaths that are most impressive and the cast is inoffensive (except for Tara Reid who is just awful in everything I've ever see her in). Hell, I even LIKE Steven Dorff! Anyways, not recommended, unless other choices are completely absent. Sorry guys, better luck next time.

CUT-THROATS NINE, "the most violent Euro Western ever made," was surprisingly good. My man Paul said it left him "unimpressed," but after watching it last night I suspect he viewed it under the same conditions I did years ago: with one eye open and expecting a Die Hard-like pace. Fast-moving this flick is not. However, thematically its most excellent. Its about this chaingang being escorted by a vengeful lawman (or something; he has a gun) over mountains after their wagon crashes. He is convinced that one of these cons killed his wife in years past. Soon they all realize that their chains are made of gold and the scheming and cast-diminishment begins. There is something so sublime about a bunch of convicts suddenly becoming almost romantically attached to their shackles. Also the movie is not short on violent, grisly images. Apparently these shackles have no keys (its never addressed) so whenever somebody dies, its out-with-the-machete time, and off-with-the-foot time as well. This thing is gorier than a Fulci zombie flick, chock ablock with stabbings, burnings, torture, rape, dismemberment, etc. Narratively it is also most surprising. The lawman (and his daughter) have the tables turned on them about halfway through, and are taken captive by the convicts during a snowstorm. Chained up in an old cabin, the lawman has to watch as his daughter is raped by the whole gang (!). You're sort of sitting there stunned, waiting for his escape and eventual revenge against these scumbags. Then they set the place on fire and leave him in it, and you're like, "Man, get out of those chains, escape, do something," then suddenly we jump cut and see his BURNED-UP, EYE-DRIPPING CHARRED CORPSE in the fire! Holy shit!!! The "hero" just got killed right in the middle of the movie. Which left me wondering who the hell I was going to identify with for the rest of the movie. The daughter? Kind of in shock and ineffective. The convicts? The hell with them --- they're rapists! There's really only one candidate, a con who was knocked out when he tried to prevent the others from committing the rape. By default, he is our "good guy," or at the very least, our "best" guy. The major problem to anyone paying attention to the plot is that logic just does not hold up from this point forward. As long as there was a guy holding a gun on the cons and driving them forward, there was reason to stay alive and together. But now, without any law, or mutual need or respect, when the opportunity presents itself, there just really isn't any reason for any con NOT to kill one of the others. They all hate each other, and the fewer survivors of the trek there are, the more gold there is. And its not like they are shouldering some common burden like the Ark of the Covenant or anything. Yet at one point, our guy surreptitiously strangles the man in front of him, and when the murder is discovered, the main bad guy says, "You're worth more to me alive." But --- why? A) this guy wants to kill you, B) you'll move faster with fewer guys on the chain, C) you don't have to share the girl as much, and D) you'll get more gold at the end of the day. JUST SHOOT HIM! And yet, he does not. So gradually the daughter falls in love with the least-offensive con. Blah blah blah. They manage to separate their chains by laying on railroad tracks. For some reason they stick together (except for one guy, who wanders off in the woods and is driven mad by the spectre of the dead lawman). Eventually everything comes to a head and during a fight, the Less-offensive criminal is stabbed in the back, at which time it is simultaneously revealed that he is the murderer of the lawman's wife!!!! Except in the flashback, he doesn't just stab the woman, he shockingly DISEMBOWELS her. My Lord! Then he kinda dies, but is cradled in the arms of the girl, who apparently has no idea that he GUTTED HER MOM. Bizarre! Finally, she and the two remaining convicts are shacked up in a cabin, and she finds some dynamite, and quietly lights a stick of it, and then calmy sits down with her beau as she and the others are blown to smithereens and the movie ends. Wow!!! I can't think of a more nihilistic movie. So, hooray for CUT-THROATS NINE. (Good luck finding it, ha ha.)

Later, we will discuss the Case of the Ghost at His Own Birthday Party, and the Wireburger Surprise.

My review of the C. Thomas Howell WAR OF THE WORLDS

2005-07-14T14:21:00.000-07:00

As a self-described WOTW "completist" I was compelled to rent this thing by merit of the title alone. My reaction is similar to the Mr. Show episode "Coupon: The Movie," where everyone excitedly proclaims, "I got THAT over with!!!" While not utterly devoid of merit, it reeks of by-the-numbers opportunism to capitalize on the superior Spielberg version currently in theaters. Howell does a remarkable job of keeping a straight face throughout, and the plot keeps pace well with Wells' novel, but ultimately the film just begs the question of "What's the point?" Other than a handful of modern slang words ("assclowns," "ginormous"), and a severely truncated first act, it brings nothing new to the burgeoning sub-genre of "War of the Worlds adaptations." FX are of the desktop variety and might seem impressive in a fan film being used as a pitch for another, "actual" film, but here just seem cheap. (Although it should be noted that after seemingly endless lengths of "Howell walking" scenes, one starts to yearn for more FX, no matter how crude.) Peter Greene, second-billed as Howell's brother, is introduced and dispatched in the same brief scene, prompting this viewer to wonder what he got paid for his afternoon's work, and if he still has heroin problems. Busey fares slightly better, as his whopping two scenes are at least spread out over the narrative, adding the tiniest bit of resonance. (Also worth noting is Busey's hilariously foul mouth, something of a high point for me.) The female lead shows a bit of "fan appreciation" early on, but is otherwise useless, as is Howell's strangely androgynous son. Most of the action seems to occur either immediately before our heroes arrive, or just after they leave. Often it sounds as if a battle may be occurring just out of reach of the camera's lens. Pretty much the most exciting scenes are those featured on the DVD box art, but alas, neither image actually makes its way into the film itself. This WOTW might not be a total disaster, but it is rather unimpressive, and I found myself far more entertained by the trailers for other Asylum movies at the beginning of the disc. JOLLY ROGER seems to be a bloody ripoff of THE FOG, only with strippers, and ALIEN ABDUCTION, sporting one the blandest titles I've ever heard, features a very appealing lead actress with apparently no secrets to hide about how she looks without clothes on. Bravo, lass.

Number twos ...

2005-07-14T08:39:00.000-07:00

What'd I watch last night? JAWS

Yeah I've seen it a million times, but that WAR OF THE WORLDS has really got me goin,' and I wanted some more Spielberg. Some of the dialogue is so excellent. I love it when the Mayor says he "doesn't want that little Kintner boy spilling all over the dock." EW! I find it hard to believe this movie is rated PG. I mean, A LITTLE KID GETS EATEN. And a dog (offscreen). And a boat or two. And a Quint.

What'd I watch recently? DIRTY MARY, CRAZY LARRY and DANGER: DIABOLIK and RACE WITH THE DEVIL

Peter Fonda is such an ass in DMCL. Susan George is no picnic either, but Fonda is such a misogynistic jerkoff that he pretty much deserves her. In fact the whole cast is so hateful that when the apocalyptic ending comes, its really no tragedy. Still --- GREAT MOVIE! 1974!!!! Best year ever! RACE is also good. Plays kinda like ROSEMARY'S BABY meets THE ROAD WARRIOR. Fonda is less-of-an-ass in this one. I think he and Warren Oates may have been a bit drunk while shooting this. They both look kinda glassy. DIABOLIK is a gem. Another one I've seen a hundred times. Some of Morricone's best scoring. I think John Philip Law probably lost 20 pounds, having to wear that leather/vinyl catsuit the whole time.

Once I dressed up as BATMAN for a short film project. It was one of those BATMAN RETURNS costumes made of rubber, with the big-ass nipples and whatnot. GOOD GRAVY WAS IT HOT. I was sweating so profusely down my chest that the P.A. had to wipe me down before every take. Finally some gal came over and very quietly we cut up some maxi pads and glued them all under the mask and the cowl to absorb some the moisture. I smelled kinda like perfumy underpants.

So, think twice about dressing up as Batman, its not very fun. Although running around in a big cape is kindof a kick :)

My first blog, aren't I swell?

2005-07-13T09:12:00.000-07:00

Yadda yadda yadda. Y'know, I only started this account so I could post on Leah's. But I'm sure I'll come up with something "world-shaking" to contribute. Someday. Although I have no plans to ever go to Iraq (fingers crossed), and those are the only blogs I ever really read. Hm. Anyway, more later. Oh yeah go see WAR OF THE WORLDS. Its rad. Ignore the last 60 seconds. Its crap. Everything else is incredible.