Jabootu's Bad Blogging Dimension

At the AFM....

2006-11-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

I used to do a snarky run-down of the cheese flicks being hawked at the annual American Film Market conventions. However, this year Variety is not listing plot synopsises to go with the titles, so what's the point?

However, good news for giant monster buffs. The Korean director who made the not-that-great Reptilian has scrounged up an amazing $70 million bucks (to give you a comparison, the recent Toho Godzilla films have generally cost about $20 million) to make D-War, a shot-in-English with American actors (Robert Forster, Jason Behr) flick in which dragons and such attack Los Angeles. The still look pretty spectacular, and although the film still needs some work--Variety reports that the cut shown at AFM will feature "90% of the f/x work complete"--hopefully it will draw enough interest to finish the work and maybe, just maybe, get some sort of theatrical release over here.

Probably not, but one can hope.

Darabont gets all Mist-y...

2006-11-09T10:33:00.000-08:00

Director Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption, Green Mile) is in pre-production on what will be his third Stephen King adaptation, and his first horror one. He’s been talking about basing a film on the novella The Mist for a while, but seems to really have gotten things into gear, indicating that filming could start as early as February.

In an interview with Chud.com, the director was quoted as following:

“[The Mist] is going to be a really quick project; it’s very low budget, very fast, not unlike what Danny Boyle did in 28 Days Later, which I found very inspiring in terms of, hell, just go out and make a movie and have fun with it…It’ll be a pretty fast and furious narrative, really. And I’m certain the shortest film I’ve made to date."

King’s short novel is one of his most overt homages to the ‘B’ monster movies of the ‘50s and ‘60s, and it completely makes sense for this to be a comparatively low-budget, short and punchy film. Of course, all of Darabont’s theatrical films have, in fact, been pretty lengthy. Hopefully when he says the film will be his shortest, he’s talking around 100 minutes, and not something around two hours long. I've been a pretty consistent proponent of the idea that modern's overstuffed genre movies would be well served by being shorter, and maybe this will start a trend.

New on DVD (11/07/06)...

2006-11-08T10:31:00.000-08:00

Rather than movies, for me the exciting DVDs of the week are TV sets.

First is the hysterically funny (if, at only six episodes, extremely short-lived) Police Squad. This is the series that led to the films, and all the best gags were stolen from the program. Not only is the show funnier than the films, but it doesn’t feature O.J. Simpson, so I can watch it without being weirded out.

Camp fans, meanwhile, will swoon with delight to see the typically horrible and stilted ‘70s Saturday morning live-action program Ark II hit the shelves. Brought about as an excuse to use those moronic tri-wheel trucks from the movie Damnation Alley, this show centered on a team of unitarded (and just ‘tarded) do-gooders--along with, naturally, their similarly attired chimp (!)--who roamed an ecologically blighted future American whilst teaching people Valuable Lessons. Al Gore, call Ted Turner, and get this show remade on the double!

Other TV DVDs this week include Beverly Hills 90210 S1; The Complete Harveytoons Collection (not quite complete, actually); Doctor Who: The Hand of Fate; Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani; Grounded for Life S4; JAG S2; MASH S11; She-Ra Princess of Power S1; West Wing S7

As for movies:

First, Warners is going nuts this week. First, it’s releasing a large series of triple movie sets, all at cheap prices. I’m not going to go through all of them, but genre fans will enjoy the chance to get all three of the Larry Cohen It’s Alive movies for around $10.

Warners is also packaging a large selection of their pre-existing actor/actress/director sets, each of which themselves collect up to ten films. For not much more than $400, you can get the Mega Signature Collection, bringing together sets featuring Hitchcock, Bogart & Bacall, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Liz Taylor, Errol Flynn, Garbo, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, John Wayne, Judy Garland, Hepburn & Tracy, and Ronald Reagan. That’s got to be nearly over 125 films covered there. Wow!

Even more amazing is the Warners Mega Collection, which supposedly (although I doubt it) DVD Pacific is selling for $1,400, in lieu of the $4,250 suggested price. Maybe so, though, because Amazon has listed it for $1,900. Anyway, that set features 198 separate DVDs.

Meanwhile, hardcore film buffs will also want to keep in mind Criterion’s Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films, of 50 of the truly greatest movies ever made for about $600. If I didn’t already own a bunch of the Criterion discs covered, I’d have agnonized over buying that set myself.

Other titles this week:

Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York Costas Mandylor (the poor man’s Michael Pare) and Alexandra Paul of Baywatch fights…well, you know.

The Chairman is a cold war suspenser starring Gregory Peck as a spy in China with a bomb in his head. You know, just in case.

The Blue Max stars the A-Team's George Peppard as a WWI flying ace.

Fallen Idol: Criterion Collection Classic suspense tale about a butler put in danger during a murder investigation by his young charge’s hero worship of him.

The Fountainhead Gary Cooper (?) stars in this Ayn Rand adapation.

It’s Alive Collection All three of the killer baby movies.

James Bond Collections More even lavisher sets of the Bond films, for those who don’t mind double (or triple) dipping or didn’t buy them the first time. Warning, the sets are not in ‘order.’

Jungle Girls Pack (Diamonds of Kilimanjaro, Golden Temple Amazons, Amazonia) Three sleazy Euro jungle flicks. Jesse Franco Alert!

March of the Wooden Soldiers Beloved (by me, anyway) adaptation of Babes in Toyland, with Laurel & Hardy as workers in Santa’s toyshop. A great, very weird, movie.

Poison Ivy Collection All three of the dangerous skanks movies, including turns on Drew Barrymore and Alisa Milano.

The Seduction Camptacular (I have to assume) ‘80s stalking-murder drama starring the great thespian Morgan Fairchild.

Shockwave "Killer military robots run amok." When will they learn? Stars Michael Dorn (ouch) and Alexandra Paul of Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York.

Wordplay Another in a growing list of well received documentaries featuring some sub-culture or other; pro bowlers, Scrabble enthusiasts, spelling bee contestants, serial cinema attendees, compulsive collectors of 8-track tapes, etc. This one covers Will Shortz, the storied crossword puzzle editor of New York Times and his acolytes.

Stuff...

2006-11-07T10:29:00.000-08:00

The next Hannibal Lector movie, Hannibal Rising, is a prequel to the previous books and films. Notably, Anthony Hopkins is not involved. It will be interesting to see if people remain interested in the character sans the actor.

Weirder is that the novel the movie is based on will hit shelves only two months before the film is released. Author Thomas Harris worked on the book and the screenplay at the same time, which is kind of funny, because I think it took him like ten years to write the first sequel to Silence of the Lambs, when such a book was truly being slavered after.

For the trivia minded, this will mark the third actor to play the role; Brian Cox (as Hannibal “Lecktor”) in Michael Mann’s Manhunter, Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Red Dragon, and Gaspard Ulliel as the young Lector in Hannibal Rising.

For the record, I’ve seen Silence and Manhunter, and that’s it.

Disappointing hundreds of millions of rabid fans, no doubt: “By playing a superhero in Daredevil, I have inoculated myself from ever playing another superhero. ... Wearing a costume was a source of humiliation for me and something I wouldn't want to do again soon." – Ben Affleck. Following that logic, but the way, he’d never appear in a movie again, period.

Meanwhile, superhero films remain hot—no doubt helped by the recent breakout TV series Heroes—although the blah results of the latest Superman and X-Men movies (not to mention how awful Ghost Rider looks) indicate that it may, maybe, take more than another hopefully rousing Spider-Man movie to get things going again.

We’ll find out soon. The next Fantastic Four movie is out this summer, and there’s no reason it couldn’t improve on the lackluster first entry. So anyway, 2007 will see Ghost Rider (probably sucks), Fantastic Four 2 (probably decent), and Spider-Man 3 (hopefully terrific). Another sort-of, comic book movie, and a potentially fabulous one, is 300, a film about the Spartans at Thermopylae, as adapted from a Frank Miller graphic novel of the same name.

Meanwhile, there’s another Batman movie in the works, currently set for 2008. That will be a busy year. The summer of 2008 has already been staked out for an Iron Man movie—starring a well-cast Robert Downey Jr.—and a second, presumably more crowd pleasing, Hulk film.

Going more in an action direction, the sequel will pit the Green Goliath against his long-time comic book adversary The Abomination. Whether they will bother trying to bring back the actors from the first movie, like Eric Bana, remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, although Wonder Woman was originally meant for a 2007 release (apparently Marvel and DC are alternating years), it hasn’t even been cast, yet, so even if it does get made, that would probably come out in 2008, too. Superman will be returning to the screen again too, via the lead actor and director of Superman Begins, despite that film’s disappointing box office. I assume that film is looking towards a 2009 release date.

Anyway, all of those 2008 films—Batman, Iron Man, Hulk, Wonder Woman—could be pretty good. I figure if two of them manage to be so, that will be about all you could hope for.

Robert Downey Jr., by the way, is pushing himself as a comic book fan as a kid, and says he actually went after the role of Iron Man, but “To tell you the God's honest truth, I'd thrown them all away for [DC WWII war comic character] Sgt. Rock.” (!!)

Downey wisely admits, though, that he fits Tony Stark a lot better than the beefy Rock. By the way, let me again say I’m thrilled that they cast an actor in his early forties to play Stark, and not some kid. He’s also indicated he would be available for sequels, should they be warranted. Presumably Downey’s at the age where he’d like to pull in a few major paychecks while he’s still young enough to star in mainstream movies.

Iron Man will also be featured in an animated original film being released to DVD in January, followed later in 2007 by an animated Dr. Strange film. Presumably Iron Man will be voiced by the same actor who played him in the two earlier Ultimate Avengers movies.

Speaking of Spider-Man 3, CBS is supposedly set to run a commercial/preview trailer for the film this Thursday. No time has been announced, but presumably it will air either during (or between) Survivor and CSI. A trailer (maybe the same thing) will also be available on-line that day.

Brundleflying Networks leads to typically tragic results…

2006-11-07T08:57:00.000-08:00

The merge of the WB and UPN networks into the CW has failed to bear fruit to a bizarre extent, presumably because ‘CW’ is a retarded named for a network.

In any case, an article in the Nov 10th issue of Entertainment Weekly notes that the combo network is pulling only as many viewers as the demised WB or UPN pulled each on their own, meaning their former aggregate ratings have dropped nearly in half. Moreover, the revenue gleaned by the CW is actually $35 less than the WB brought in, albeit quite a bit more than the UPN pulled in.

That seems counterintuitive, to say the least. Merging the two networks allowed the CW to cherry pick programming to create one, presumably superior, entity. However, as the stagnant ratings indicate, the CW has basically maintained the audiences of many of its shows, and not garnered many of the viewers newly at large from the new lack of a fifth broadcast network.

In other words, the viewers that were watching UPN’s programming instead of the WB’s, and vice versa, have gone elsewhere. This has left the CW with pretty much exactly the same ratings of the shows when they were on the previous two networks. In hindsight, this perhaps doesn’t seem surprising, but the fact that the CW supposedly merged the best/most popular programming of both networks should have meant at least some uptick in the CW ratings.

Instead, ratings for veteran series are largely flat or actually lower. 7th Heaven, formerly the most popular show on either the WB or UPN, finds its ratings down nearly 30%. (Perhaps viewers took to heart the fact that the show was ending, as was the original plan.) Gilmore Girls is also down nearly 20%. Critical fave Veronica Mars has seen a meager 2% rise in its ratings, which, considering the show was long considered on the bubble for cancellation, does not bode well for its continued existence.

Things haven’t been helped by the utter routing of the combo network’s new programming, shows so obscure—The Game, Runaways—that frankly I myself hadn’t even heard of them. Runaways has apparently already been canned, after only 3 episodes.

Of course, the experiment is but a month or two old, so there’s still time for the CW to pull itself together. One really major hit—as when the fledgling Fox Network came up with The Simpsons nearly twenty years ago—might be enough to ensure it’s existence. Stranger things have happened.

It Came From Netflix! The Last Voyage (1960)

2006-11-06T08:06:00.000-08:00

Robert Stack was already a veteran of the proto-Disaster Movie genre by the time he appeared in this, via his earlier role as a panicking pilot in John Wayne’s 1954 The High and the Mighty. Oddly, he failed to be called upon during the Disaster Movie heydays of the 1970’s, save for an appearance as the captain of another endanger passenger liner, this one threatened by a bomber in the 1975 TV movie Adventures of the Queen. Immortality was assured, however, when he was cast by the Abrahams/Zucker team for their classic genre spoof Airplane!

The Last Voyage is a nifty entry in the shipwreck genre, which prior to this was mostly stocked with various films about the Titanic. One advantage it has over its oft-bloated ‘70s cousins is that it focuses on but a few characters instead of a larger, ‘star’-studded cast, and just moves. The film is a brief 90 minutes, and from the opening (and ongoing) narration by the ship’s Third Mate, which confirms the doomed fate of the SS Claridon (just in case the title didn’t give things away), events move at a pretty quick clip, more or less in real time.

We open on the Claridon, a still luxurious but aged liner only a few trips away from being consigned to the scrap yard. We briefly meet some of the main characters, including the ship’s patrician Captain Adams (George Sanders), and a vacationing family, Cliff Henderson (Stack), his wife Laurie (Dorothy Malone), and their seven year-old moppet Jill. Other names in the cast include Edmund O’Brien as Second Engineer Walsh, and (yay!) muscular Woody Strode—who spends the entire film shirtless and seemingly oiled down—as a crewmember. Strode's role here is quite a bit bigger than he usually got, and that's all to the good.

Early on the ship’s engine room catches fire. They manage to put it out, but Walsh’s request that they stop the engines for in inspection is vetoed by Adams, who is more worried about arriving back at port on time. Needless to say, given the nature of the film, this is a bad idea. First, the initial fire has traveled up a flue and set an upper deck on fire. Worse, when one of the boilers begins overheating, they learn that several of the safety valves have been fused. Despite their valiant efforts, a huge explosion rips its way up through every deck of the ship.

While the Captain tragically continues to dither, the situation grows worse. Eventually, however, it becomes apparent the ship is going to sink. However, there’s a hitch for our featured passengers. The explosion ripped through the Henderson’s cabin. Even after a tense sequence as Cliff attempts to save his young daughter (caught on a slight ledge on the opposite side of the now floorless chamber), there’s the fact that Laura is pinned down by a heavy piece of wreckage. With the crew obviously having its hands full, Cliff must find a way to free her before she drowns in the sinking ship.

That’s about it, but it’s all in the execution. The film is well enough made that, despite the fact that we know the Claridon is going to sink—that’s what the whole movie is about, after all—I still found myself somehow hoping that the crew’s efforts would save the ship. Aiding immensely is the fact that the movie was shot on a real ship, the French passenger liner Ile de France. They actually flooded some of the ship during the sinking scenes, and except for a very few shots, the transitions from the real ship to the presumed miniatures and studio sets are seamless.

It weird to me how Hollywood seems to have so much trouble making films like this anymore. The Last Voyage is no classic, and certainly by today’s lights some of the acting is a bit wooden. (We are talking Bob Stack here, after all.) However, it’s a cleanly efficient effort, one that sets fairly modest goals and then manages to hit them all in an entirely professional manner.

I wish they still made movies like that.

The Great Books series...

2006-11-03T11:22:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading the non-fiction book The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe and The Invention of Murder, by Daniel Stashower. It's a very readable tome examining the sensational murder of Mary Rogers and its aftermath. After the crime remained unsolved, Poe eventually wrote a story (with names and settings very lightly altered) in which his pre-existing sleuth Auguste Dupin--literature’s very first detective character--solved the crime, using Poe's own formulated solution to the real life mystery.

This is a very good effort, briefer than many such (300 pages), and written well enough that the pages fly by. Stashower manages to cover and integrate such topics as the murder; its attendant cast; Poe; the then at best nascent criminal justice system; the period's often-scurrilous popular press, and other topics without overwhelming the reader. A very nice job.

This remains my favorite passage so far: The following morning, a local farmer named James McShane came across [a prostrate fellow] sprawled facedown, sobbing in the wet grass. The smell of alcohol hung in the air. To McShane, this could mean only one thing. "My dear man," he said, "are you a Frenchman?"

There's been a trend lately to use real life historical figures as protagonists in mystery series. As the inventor of the detective story, Poe naturally ranks among these. Most notably, he has been the subject of several suitably baroque mystery novels by Harold Schechter, which have affectionate fun with Poe's overwrought and dramatic personality. These books tend to join Poe up with some other historical figure, such as Davey Crockett or Kit Carson or, most recently, a young Louisa May Alcott.

Buffs will also want to check out the recent and rather more serious The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard, which features Poe helping solve a string of murders while a military cadet. (An even younger Poe, meanwhile, is a less instrumental character in Andrew Taylor's An Unpardonable Crime.) The adult Poe, meanwhile, searches out a killer in Randall Silvis' Disquiet Heart, itself a follow-up to Silvis' earlier Poe mystery, On Night's Shore.

All of these books are worth a look for mystery and/or Poe fans.

It's a miracle, really...

2006-11-03T09:47:00.000-08:00

Tonight a theater up north is playing Jaws at midnight. (Luckily I have a friend up there who will loan me her couch, sparing me a two a.m. drive home.) That's a film I haven't on a screen since it was first out, and then only once. I did see Jaws 3-D in a theater, but that's not quite the same thing.

Those conversant with my review site will probably be aware that Jaws is one of my favorite films, so obviously I'm very excited.

It Came from Netflix! Plague of the Zombies (1966)

2006-10-31T10:08:00.000-08:00

One of the things that makes horror such a sturdy genre is that a lot of the classic monster archetypes act as obvious and handy metaphors for the darker aspects of the human condition. Vampires touch on issues of spiritual corruption and sex (and, in the modern Anne Riceian vamps, on a narcissistic ‘youth’ culture gone mad). Frankenstein explores hubris and unintended consequences. Werewolves and Dr. Jekyll touch on the dark side lurking in every human soul.

Modern zombies dwell on the profound fear of conformism and lost of individuality. (They also focus, to a lesser extent, on the terror of loved ones suddenly turning against us.) Traditional zombies, however, of the voodoo persuasion and generally not the flesh-eaters of today’s films, take that a step further. The original zombies were the result of souls captured by voodoo rites, leaving the victim’s shambling corpse a literally mindless tool of their master. This is slavery of the most direct kind, and thus the traditional zombie film was often a critique of capitalism exploitation. See White Zombie and I Walked with a Zombie, among others, in which the dead are used as the ultimate sweatshop workforce.

Plague of the Zombies, one of the more obscure Hammer horror films, proved to be cut from this cloth. Added to this is a nice additional critique of class differences there, at least back in the day of the aristocracy.

Sir James Forbes, a prominent physician and medical teacher, receives a letter from a former student, Peter Tompson. This relates the fact of a mysterious plague affecting the small Cornish village for which Tompson is the resident doctor. Forbes’ independent minded daughter, Sylvia, pushes for a visit to Tompson, as her friend Alice is now Tompson’s wife.

Along the way Sir James and Sylvia run across some fox hunters. Once they have arrived in town, they see the hunters again, this time running their horses through the middle of a funeral procession. This causes the coffin to be thrown down an embankment, pithily establishing the simmering contempt and loathing the working class villagers and the upper class hooligans have for each other.

The fox hunting hooligans prove to be the ‘guests’ of the local squire, Clive Hamilton. Despite the spate of deaths, lately, Tompson has been unable to obtain Hamilton’s permission to conduct autopsies on the bodies. Meanwhile, the townspeople are turning against Tompson too, who’s a convenient scapegoat due to his education and outsider status.

In the end—and I really don’t think this ends up enough as a surprise to qualify as a spoiler, although you may skip ahead if you wish—we learn that Hamilton and his toughs are using voodoo (imported from Hamilton’s travels in Haiti) to raise the village dead and work them in his tin mine. Meanwhile, Hamilton’s turns his attentions toward Sylvia…

Plague of the Zombies is a movie I hadn’t seen before. It probably didn’t get as much airplay because it lacked Dracula or Dr. Frankenstein. Moreover, it’s one of but a handful of Hammer horror pictures that doesn’t feature Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee in the cast. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the film, which is definitely in the high second tier of the studio’s horror entries. This movie should really be better known, and hopefully more folks like me are checking it out now that it’s on DVD.

All the strengths of the Hammer films are on display here. A lean, strait forward plot with escalating narrative drive. A fine, atmospheric and insistent score by house composer James Bernard. And while neither the story nor the characters are all that ‘original’, they are brought to live with admirable professionalism. As is usually the case, it’s less the assorted elements of the film that ensure its success, it’s the quality of the execution that wins or loses the day.

A special nod to a very good cast. Sir James is probably the richest character here—had Cushing been available, he undoubtedly would have had this role—and is extremely well played by Hammer regular Andre Morell. At first Forbes seems a typically stolid and stuffy upper class sort. However, he soon reveals both a strong moral seriously as well as a wry sense of humor. I’ve said this before, but it’s also nice to see a film where the lead character is an actual adult, and here a middle-aged one, at that.

Especially nicely judged is Forbes’ relationship with Sylvia. He often displays annoyance at his daughter’s headstrong forthrightness (and nicely, is occasionally actually irked by her), but both he and she knows it’s an act. The respect and affection the two have for each other is palpable.

Sylvia, for her part, also is a character—the plucky heroine—who could have been a rote cipher and instead actually succeeds in seeming a real person. The scene where her terror at being nearly raped subsequently turns to a quiet rage is entirely believable, and credit should be given to actress Diane Clare here. She’s one of the better Hammer heroines.

Veteran character actor John Carson does a nice work with Hamilton, who actually isn’t quite as deftly limned by the script. Carson did tons of British TV work, and was most familiar to me as the more benign Dr. Marcus in the similarly superior and offbeat Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter. Meanwhile, Michael Ripper, who seems to be have in every single film the studio ever made, has a slightly bigger role than usual here as the village constable.

Tech credits, per usual with Hammer fare fro this period, are very good. The location shooting for the exterior scenes lends a nice expansively that works well with the typical sumptuous-on-a-budget sets the studio was known for. John Gilling, who also helmed the similarly rural-set film The Reptile the same year, provides nice, unobtrusive work here. The make-up for the zombies is rather good, although the ambitious climax requires rather obvious masks for them that don’t mesh well with the earlier scenes.

All in all, a very nice piece of work.

Marvels both good and ill...

2006-10-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

Marvel Comics is in the new this morning. On the one hand, some of their superheroes are to be honored on U.S. postage stamps, as the classic DC comic characters were recently. Several of the featured characters are the usual heavy hitters--Spider-Man, The Hulk, Wolverine, Silver Surfer, Iron Man, The Thing, Captain America--but there are a couple of b-listers (Daredevil, Namor), a character presumably only included because of a recent but already forgotten movie (Elektra), and...Spider-Woman? Really? Spider-Woman? Over, say, Thor? Luke Cage? Ghost Rider? Ant-Man? Weird. I can really only assume they wanted some female characters in their for whatever reason. However, the Wasp or the Invisible Woman would have seemed better choices.

Moreover, Spider-Woman really gets two stamps. The set includes a stamp for the featured characters, and then a separate second featuring a classic comic book cover of their respective series. (Except that Wolverine gets his own stamp, while the X-Man cover stamp features the old team before he joined.)

The stamps can be seen here (click on the small image).

As also reported at Cinescape.com, there is far stranger Marvel news afoot:

"According to the Hollywood Reporter, Marvel Comics has partnered with CBS' daytime soap opera Guiding Light to produce an episode in which a character is zapped by an electrical current and becomes infused with superpowers, including the ability to levitate and to conduct electricity.

The episode, set to air Nov. 1, involves the show's Harley Davidson Cooper character, played by Beth Ehlers. As part of the deal, Marvel will produce an eight-page insert for some of its top comic titles that involves Marvel characters descending on Light's fictional town of Springfield to determine whether the new superhero is friend or foe.

"Joining forces with Marvel is such a natural fit for us because comic books and soap operas have so much in common," said "Guiding Light" head writer David Kreizman."

Er, yeah.

It Came From Netflix! Devil Dog, Hound of Hell (1978)

2006-10-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

Devil Dog is another fondly remembered made-for-TV horror film from the genre’s golden age, although this one played on CBS, not the ABC of Movie of the Week fame. It actually premiered on Oct 31st, so it’s certainly appropriate Halloween viewing. It’s just good, campy fun.

Following closely in the pawsteps of such films as The Omen (the large demonic dog of which may have inspired this movie), DD is a pretty typical TV flick of that vintage. Except for lighting that may be a shade too light, it’s a thoroughly professional production, made back in the day when the studios had unit dedicated to churning out films for TV’s insatiable maw. Like the B-movie units of old, the films generally produced were generally derivative and budget oriented, but solidly put together.

Some Satanists go to buy a bitch—a real one—to be impregnated. They then perform a rite that rather hilariously is the analogue to when Satan impregnated Rosemary of Rosemary’s Baby. Two of the Satanists are played by familiar faces. Their leader is Martine Beswick, who starred in Hammer cavemen films like One Million Years BC and Slave Girls. Most famously, she played Ralph Bates murderous distaff alter ego in Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde. Popular character actor R. G. Armstrong, meanwhile, also played a Satanist in the extremely good Race with the Devil. Satanists were all over the place in the ‘70s.

Anyhoo, the Satanists arrange a quick demise for the pooch of a typical ‘70s TV family, and then substitute one of the demon-quickened puppies. (Again a rip-off of The Omen.) Wife Betty and the children, Bonnie and Charlie, quickly take to the dog.

Less thrilled is Maria, their inevitable Knowing Ethnic maid. (Minorities are closer to nature and have simpler faiths than us smug whites, and so typically more aware of the Eeevil.) As soon as she appears wearing a cross, you know she will oppose the hellacious hound and also probably act as the first victim of a (admittedly bland) series of Omen-esque deaths. And so she does, going up in a gout of flame in her bedroom. When the family returns home that evening, I was dying for someone to breathe in deeply and observe, “Hey, something smells good!” Sadly, no one does.

The father, Mike (TV movie staple Richard Crenna), soon begins to suspect something’s wrong when the now-grown and quite handsome German Shepherd stares at him and nearly makes him jam his hand into the whirring blades of his lawn mower. However, he shrugs this incident off. (!!) The lawn mower wasn’t working, by the way, so apparently the dog powered it via an infernal combustion engine.

Sorry.

So the dog takes over the children and Betty, the latter of whom gets all slutty and apparently actually starts sleeping with other men. The three start holding Satanic rituals, and worse, start getting all uppity with Mike. Eventually he tries to kill the dog, but bullets don’’t work. So of course he flies to Ecuador to seek out a Wise Old Man living in a cave. Because, you know, all Wise Old Men live in caves. Even on Mars. (See Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.) Luckily Mike just happens to be one of the rare people blesses with Power of Good or some convenient crap, leading to the inevitable showdown with the Doggie of Doom.

Highlights include the Marmaduke dog next door who’s freaked out (and eventually disposed of) by the then puppy-sized Satanic Shepherd; some truly hideous wallpaper that really is the scariest thing in the film; the son using his new Satanic clout to win the Student Council presidency at his elementary school; and the wife showing her new bad side by tempting Mike into sex in the neighbor’s pool. Of course the use of slo-mo and glowing eyes to make the dog look Eee-vil are just the icing on the cake.

The cast sports even more familiar actors than those listed above. Crenna, Rambo’s boss, presumably needs no intro. Wifee is played by Yvette Mimieux, once Rod Taylor’s Eloi girlfriend in George Pal’s The Time Machine. She starred in number of TV and drive-in movies (Hit Lady, Jackson County Jail), and the year previous had joined Bo Svenson as the lead of the MTV Yeti flick Snowbeast.

The young daughter is played (pretty badly) by Kim Richards, a veteran kiddie actor who most famously starred in Escape From Witch Mountain and its sequel Return to Witch Mountain. Notice that, for whatever reason, Richards is the chosen actor to get a "starring" credit on the DVD box art. Is she really more famous than Crenna?

Anyway, her telepathic brother in the Witch Mountain movies was assayed by the young but busy Ike Eisenmann, who again plays her sibling here. One of the films numerous funny parts is that despite the film skipping over a year (to allow the dog to grow up), neither kid of course looks at all taller or older. Weirdly, as adults Ike and Kim returned to their Witch Mountain roles in 2002's The Blair Witch Mountain Project.

One of the miscellanious victims is played by busy TV actor Ken Kercheval, who starred, among other shows, in Dallas. Veteran movie actor Victor Jory (over 180 IMDB credits) played the Old Man in the Cave. Meanwhile, Devil Dog was directed by genre vet Curtis Harrington, and he provides a clean, unobtrusive style to things. He sort of made a specialty of MTV horror flicks, with titles like How Awful About Allan, The Cat Creature, Killer Bees and The Dead Don’t Die.

It Came from Netflix! Petrified (2004)

2006-10-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

This film answered some questions I’ve been asking this month as I watched a parade of solid low-budget horror fare from the ‘70s and ‘80s. To wit, why our the modern equivalents of these films, the DTV movies that pack the video stores each week, and the Sci-Fi “original” movies, so inevitably poor? Not that you’d expect greatness from films like that, but how about some solid, halfway decent efforts?

Well, veteran B-movie maestro Charles Band reminded me that there are still such movies. (I hadn’t even been aware that Band was still making films, but apparently so.) Ones, again, that aren’t really ‘good,’ but are at least somewhat well-crafted, and have a sense of fun regarding their own limitations. Band might not be the Roger Corman of the 21st century, but he’s probably as close as we’ve got right now.

Petrified is the sort of film I can really only recommend (and then with provisions) on the basis of having personally kind of liked it. Certainly I cut the film a lot of slack, and other viewers may not be so tolerant. And it’s not something I’d buy and put on my DVD shelf. Still, it was a satisfactory rental, which was exactly what I had hoped of it.

For an example of things that didn’t bother me (but might bother another), the film is very short. In fact, although it officially runs about 70 minutes, it’s really about an hour, since the combined opening and closing credits must last about ten minutes. However, I’m always gassing on about how the cheesy but fun sci-fi movies of the ‘50s were immeasurably aided by their similarly short running times. Add 20 minutes to many of these, to reach the seemingly obligatory 90-minute running time of today’s cheapie features, and many of these would become unbearable. So, no, a short running time doesn’t bother me.

Our subject wastes no time—as you expect, since it only boasts an hour of actual movie—depicting some crooks meeting up to conduct a shady deal with an antiquities buff. The featured artifacts include a coffin-shaped box, so we immediately get that something bad is about to happen. Sure enough, after collecting their money, the thieves murder their client, and then attempt to murder Buzz, their go-between. Buzz manages to escape. Not long after, a monster bursts from the coffin and sucks the life from the two remaining crooks. Well, that’ll learn ‘em.

Buzz, who scampered off with an artifact in tow, breaks into a seemingly deserted clinic and phones for a ride. Soon after he bumps into an attractive woman, Helen. It was here that, if I didn’t fall in love with the film, I at least got a little crush on it. Asked what sort of clinic this is, she replies, “It’s a facility to cure those with severe cases of nymphomania.” (!!)

I mean, c’mon, how old school can you get? Monsters and nymphomaniacs? That’s pretty much the whole package right there.

It’s with this, though, that the movie will lose a lot of other potential audience members. Somebody like Fred Olen Ray or Jim Wyrnowski or those folks who make those faux-lesbian movies that star Misty Mundae would take this concept and run with it.

However, Band instead proves he’s really old school by largely ignoring the opportunities to pad out the film with several girl on girl make-out scenes. Indeed, he kind of cheats the whole ‘nympho’ thing altogether. There’s a little of that, provided with just a soupcon of T&A. Not much, however, and after the first such scene we never really get another. Again, this sure to irritate many, but I found its hucksterish reticence sort of quaint, even charming.

Instead, we follow the monster as it stalks around the clinic, threatening and killing the various stock characters, all while the film manages to take things fairly seriously and yet still wink at the audience once in a while. This is aided a lot by the actors, who like the film itself aren’t really good, but can at least deliver a line and hit their marks. Still, compared to the stiffs you often get in those aforementioned Sci-Fi original movies, these guys look like the company at the Old Vic.

Production-wise, I’d say that production-wise, the film comes across on a syndicated TV-show level. One thing I really liked is that the monster—a long-dormant outer space beastie wrapped up in mummy bandages (!)—is realized not with CGI but with a good, old fashioned mask. And a pretty decent one at that, I must say. Kudos, chaps. There is CGI, but its generally used for various lighting effects when the monster sucks the life out of people, and its sparing use is another plus.

One of the only times where you really have to call a penalty on the movie is the end of the film. Buzz and Holly meet up with an FBI agent who’s been trailing behind them the whole movie, and the woman has a clearly much shorter haircut than she did the rest of that ‘evening.’ Holly, too, looks different, as if she lost weight or something in her face between the time the main shooting wrapped and this epilogue was filmed. (I’m hoping it’s that, and not that she got plastic surgery or something.)

Presumably they realized that they needed at least a little more running time to get to the point (about an hour) where they could even call this a feature, and shot this wrap-up scene months later. In any case, the blatant hairstyle change particularly is pretty hilarious.

I also enjoyed the way they played the guy who runs the clinic. I was expecting some sort of garden-variety villain, but instead he’s (in the best tradition of crap movies) a fairly benign mad scientist who believes the secret of eternal youth is to be found from the heavily sexed. (!) He’s given all the standard gobbledygook to say regarding his theories, and again given the film’s bizarre lack of actual sexual content after all this buildup, I can only assume Band was having the audience on.

Again, I’m not promising something here. I’m just reporting that I had a pretty good time with this film, and that even its faults were of the sort that I actually embraced. Would you feel the same? Got me. If you’ve got an hour to spare—and maybe a six pack sitting by—maybe you’ll find out some day.

By the way, as the eight minutes (!) of end credits began to roll, I wondered how they found enough names to stretch things out that long. I actually had been planning to joke that my name would now be added to the list, just for having watched the movie. It turns out I wasn’t far wrong. In the midst of the credits, we cut to Charles Band himself during a tour he made of the country, showing some of his films in various theaters and selling various Full Moon-inspired toys, like ones based on his Puppet Master series.

In this clip, Band promised the theater audience that anyone who bought $100 of Full Moon toys and DVDS and whatnot in the lobby would have their name added to the credits of this (then upcoming) movie. And so he apparently did, as perhaps several hundred ‘executive producer’ names begin to scroll by. Smart guy, that Band. Not only did he sell more merchandise, but he ensured that at least 200 people would buy the DVD for this movie!

Order Godzilla DVDs ASAP!!

2006-10-25T10:32:00.000-07:00

In a year replete with terrific cult movie DVDs (Brainiac, Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare), one of the best is Classic Media's swank "Gojira" DVD, which boasts for an extremely reasonable price both the Japanese and heavily altered American cut of the film, commentaries, documentaries, a booklet and one of the nicest packages I've ever seen.

Classic has had two more Godzilla DVDs lined up, for the first two sequels, Godzilla Raids Again, and Godzilla vs. Mothra. Both sets will again feature the original Japanese cuts (in Scope, where appropriate), as well as the American dubs. Extras are also included in each set.

These discs were due on Nov 7th, but have been delayed from general release until next spring...

BUT...

The DVDs can still be ordered directly from the site, and they will be mailed out on Nov 7th, months before they hit other venues. The discs are already being offered at a decent 25% discount ($15, instead of $25), and moreover, GOOD THRU THIS FRIDAY, there's a code that knocks $5 off the $5.50 shipping charge:

GRAMOTH1

Or, good until Nov 2nd, if you order both movies (as I did), this code:

GRAMOTH2

knocks $6 off the order. So you save even another buck.

Just enter that code during the order process.

Chances are the discs will be even a bit cheaper next spring, but $15 a shot is a very good price. Frankly, I also just want the company to know people are excited about these discs, so they keep on doing more.

If at first you don't succeed...

2006-10-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

"Nobody knows nothing," screenwriter William Goldman once said about the movie business. And he's right. My first reaction to hearing that Keanu Reeves was going to star in cyber-sci-fi movie called The Matrix was, "Good grief, doesn't anyone remember Johnny Mnemonic?!" (On the other hand, my fears were belatedly at least partly justified by that film's two sequels.)

Anyhoo, Nicole Kidman and the new Bond, Daniel Craig, are filming The Invasion (recently changed from The Visiting), the lastest in a long, long line of remakes and knock-offs of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Again, one must ask, "Good grief, doesn't anyone remember The Stepford Wives?!"

However, The Invasion is being produced by Joel Silver, who also produced The Matrix...

Here's hoping he can catch lightning in a bottle a second time. Because if he doesn't, there are going to be a lot of fingers pointing out there, and for good reason.

NBC to go to more reality and game show programming...

2006-10-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

Much consternation is going on right now due to the fact that NBC is cutting $750 million dollars from their budget, and that this means that there will be less scripted programming on the network next year, and more reality and game shows, which is a lot cheaper.

I have to admit, I don’t know what the problem is, aside from a certain snobbery regarding reality shows. True, most of them such, but so do most scripted shows. And entries like The Amazing Race and Survivor still hold their own, quality-wise, with the best of network television. Meanwhile, while some are stupid and go off the air quickly, some of the recent gameshows (Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Deal or No Deal) have been fairly ingenius.

While these critics moan that the networks don’t allow shows they like to stay on long enough to find an audience—which some shows have, but certainly not a huge amount—the fact remains that the producers of scripted shows are shooting themselves in the foot, like today’s movie stars, by charging too much for their product at a time when (again like movies) the concept is generally more important than the ‘star’ power.

The critically-acclaimed but poorly-rated Friday Night Lights, for instance, supposedly costs over $2 million an episode. A more notable case in point is perhaps this season's most lauded series, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Frankly, the only reason this show hasn’t been cancelled yet is that it would lose the network a tremendous amount of face. This was the program that the network spotlighted and blathered on about the most in the pre-season, with the connivance of the critical community.

As I’ve noted in the past, the problem isn’t that Studio 60 isn’t a good show, it’s that it does nothing to bring in audience members who haven’t particularly cared for producer Sorkin’s previous two series, The West Wing and Sports Night. Until Sorkin can figure out a way to stop making niche programming—and it seems likely that The West Wing featured the best setting for his style of fantasy politics and soap opera, one that will be hard to top—it remains entirely possible that he’ll never attract a mass audience again.

The real problem, therefore, is that NBC is paying $3,000,000 an episode (about $75 million for a whole year's slate) for a show that is almost designed not to draw a mass audience. There will be much wailing and snide asides about how the non-viewers were too stupid to ‘get’ the program, but whatever, the fact remains that Studio 60 has shed additional audience share every single week. Sooner or later, NBC will have to bite the bullet and cancel the show.

What’s interesting is how often this happens. Making the Studio 60 debacle even more notable is that not only did NBC redo their entire prime time schedule to protect the program after it’s originally scheduled timeslot was shaping up as too competitive, but that it providentially got a tremendous break from ending up being placed after the show that actually is what Studio 60 was promoted to be; the season’s breakout hit. That program, of course, is Heroes.

There’s probably an interesting book to be written on how programmers keep getting these calls wrong, and that supposed toss away shows, that often just barely got on the air, are the ones that really hit it big. [Actually, that book has been at least partly written. See below.] This makes one wonder what potential mega-hits didn’t make the airwaves in favor of 'star'-laden flavor of the month programming that quickly, and expensively, died on the vine.

The X-Files was pretty much entirely ignored by Fox and the critics in favor of its lead-in, The Adventures of Bronco Billy. (That was a good show, don’t get me wrong. But it was ‘supposed’ to be the hit, not The X-Files.) Same thing with CSI, which only got on the air at the last minute, and was scheduled as an afterthought to run after the supposed slam dunk hit that year, an expensive redo of The Fugitive. Like Studio 60, The Fugitive was kept on longer than was really justified because the network had made such a big deal about it.

In any case, as market fragmentation continues, the real answer for the makers of scripted TV shows, the stars and writers and producers and everyone involved, is that they will have to start making these shows cheaper if they want to avoid being replaced by the American Idols and the Deal or No Deals. Either that, or the networks will have to get better at figuring out which shows are in fact going to draw big enough audiences to justify such expense. And those audiences are going to get harder to get as time goes by.

In any case, anyone who is interested in this sort of thing should definitely check out the recent book Desperate Networks, which covers one year of programming amongst the various broadcast networks and reveals that every one of the biggest shows of the last several years; Lost, American Idol, Desperate Housewives, CSI, etc., just barely got on the air. It’s a great book, and a fascinating look into one of the most influential businesses in America.

Good remakes and bad...

2006-10-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

NBC has reportedly ordered a treatment for a new Bionic Woman series, with the redo being sheparded by David Eick, an executive producer of the recent Battlestar Galactica. This is good news, as one would hope that Galactica’s success would auger a slew of remakes of actual failed shows and movies from the past, instead of the often moronic attempts to refashion something that really worked well in the first place. Bionic Woman was certainly not as bad as the original BG, but it could definitely be improved upon. In contrast, look at the recent Night Stalker redo, which got about everything wrong, turning veteran newshound Kolchak into a hot hunky youngster, saddling him with a hot female sidekick, giving him a tragic backstory so as to establish a through-line of the new series (all like four episodes of it), and, worst of all, all but eliminating the humor that defined the original series.

Oh, and make sure Max the bionic dog stays.

New on DVD (10/17/06)....

2006-10-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

The TV set of the week is the classic suspense series Alfred Hitchcock Presents S2. I’m not sure people get what a good deal these old shows are. Network programs used to run for nine months, with replacement shows during the summer. So this set features 39 episodes (to today’s 24), and each one is probably five to seven minutes longer, content-wise, because they used to run a lot fewer commercials in prime time.

More TV sets this week include:

Big Love S1; Charmed S6; CSI Miami S4; Flavor of Love S2; Le Femme Nikita S4; Murder She Wrote S4; Starsky & Hutch S4; That ‘70s Show S5;

The movie selection of the week is the Boris Karloff Horror Flicks Collection. The second Karloff-themed DVD set this month; this features one very good historical suspenser (with Boris as twins!), two mad scientist movies and a spoof co-starring Peter Lorre. The titles include The Black Room, The Man They Could Not Hang, Before I Hang and The Boogie Man Will Get You.

The Astaire and Rogers Ultimate Collectors Edition offers an astounding array of movies for only $70 to $80, depending where you buy it. Consolidating two smaller sets, it features the documentary Astaire and Rogers Partners in Rhythm; along with ten films: The Barkleys of Broadway, Carefree, Flying Down to Rio, Follow the Fleet, The Gay Divorcee, Roberta, Shall We Dance, The Story of Vernon & Irene Castle, Swing Time, Top Hat.

Feast Apparently the winner of one of those Project Greenlight shows, this purported super-gorey monster pic has been getting tons of favorable fan press, like this year’s also little-seen Slither.

Final Days of Planet Earth Sci-fier with Campbell Scott and Daryl Hannah. How are those careers going, folks?

Frankenhooker Beloved grue & sex comedy from the ‘80s, by the maker of the similarly revered Basket Case. There’s junk, and there’s great junk. This is great junk. Sort of Re-Animator meets Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.

The Omen This year’s redo of the ‘70s Son ‘o Satan flick.

Rest Stop Hostel USA, it looks like.

Satan’s Schoolgirls DTV stuff from 2004 that apparently pays off in the gore and T&A departments. I assume the title is sufficiently self-explanatory.

It Came from Netflix! Mutant (1983)

2006-10-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

Mutant, a.k.a. Night Shadows, is a film that efficiently synthesizes a number of horror movie tropes popular in the 1970s; the American Southland as a place of menace (not too surprising a notion, as that’s where Jimmy Carter came from), evil corporatism, cover-ups by the Powers that Be, contagion and fatalism.

Indeed, the whole feel of the film is so of the ‘70s that it was only the use of air bladder effects during the monster transformation scenes—popularized by 1981’s The Howling and ubiquitous for several years thereafter—that made me think this might have been made at a later date. The ‘70s-ishness of the film is probably due to the fact that the ‘star’ members of the cast (Wings Hauser and Bo Hopkins), and more importantly the director (John “Bud” Cardos), had cut their B-movie teeth in the previous decade.

We open with a classic stalk ‘n’ kill sequence, signally immediately that folks are being killed by something or someone that leaves the victims’ flesh smoking. That established, we cut to our main characters, Josh (Hauser) and Mike. Two brothers from up north, they are taking a driving vacation in order to spend some time together.

Josh is kind of wild, Mike is the opposite. To get Mike’s goat, Josh starts driving like an idiot and attracts the attention of—what else—a crew of violent Southern rednecks led by one Albert Pogue. A chase commences, and Josh’s car is driven off the road. Their car disabled, the brothers hike into a small nearby town to seek a tow truck. There they run into Pogue and company again, and only escape severe physical harm via the intercession of Sheriff Stewart (Hopkins). Stewart is not very sympathetic, however, and orders them to get out of town the next day.

Interestingly, both brothers attract trouble, but in manners according to their personalities. Josh takes stupid risks (as long as he is in charge, as when he’s driving), while the more naïve Mike is the one who persists in—to Josh’s mind—baiting the locals. Having found one of the bodies earlier, Mike keeps attempting to convince Stewart of this. Josh, aware of just how tenuous their situation is, and frankly not really caring about the corpse, wants him to shut up until they are safely out of the vicinity.

After bunking down for the night at a local B&B, Josh heads back into town to seek a mechanic. Instead, he meets pretty young school teacher Holly. The town itself is increasingly deserted, meanwhile, due to a rapidly spreading illness. The unwitting Stewart and his one-time lover Dr. Tate (Jennifer Warren) end up closing in on the truth from one end, while Josh and Holly do so from another angle.

Things are progressing quickly, however, Before they much have time to figure out what is happening, the majority of the town’s population has been killed or zombified. Come nightfall, the town’s few remaining humans find themselves fighting for their lives against a horde of mindless killers.

Cardos ably captures an evocative sense of place, along with a nice, ‘70s-esque naturalism. Hauser, for his part, is a weird dude, both in looks and demeanor, sort of a younger Bruce Dern-type. Given this, he generally played villains rather than heroes. Here, however, his non-movie star looks add a further feel of reality to the proceedings. The rest of the cast is solid, too, and looking at a lot of the DTV junk churned out today makes you wonder when it became so hard to get a bunch of decent actors together for a low-budget movie. Perhaps it’s just not a priority any longer.

As with Cardos’ earlier Kingdom of the Spiders, things soon take on an apocalyptic turn, albeit not on quite so broad a scale. Sadly, it’s at this point the movie starts to stumble. They quite evidently didn’t have the time or the budget to really capture what they were going after here. This manifests itself in, for instance, some blatantly phony-looking action scenes. At one point Hauser fends some zombies off with a wiggling rubber ‘tire iron’. It also becomes all too clear during the film’s extended climax that fight choreography was not much of a priority.

More damaging is the ridiculously exaggerated look of the zombies. These sport the sort of heavy gray greasepaint and fright wigs that wouldn’t be out of place in kid’s somewhat ambitious 8mm monster movie. The level of the aforementioned air bladder effects, meanwhile, quickly establishes that Rob Bottin had nothing to do with this movie. In both these matter, less would have been significantly more.

Still, most of the things a film can provide on a limited budget—good direction and acting; a tight, at least serviceable script; decent characterization—this one delivers. Moreover, I can honestly say the movie caught me off honestly guard more than once, and that’s not something that happens overmuch.

Starting as an actor and stuntman, John ‘Bud’ Cardos remains a name to conjure with for B-movie fans of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Aside from directing one of Bill Shatner’s better turns in the demi-classic King of the Spiders, Cardos helmed incredibly fun crap like Outlaw of Gor, and sheparded as best he could the legendarily troubled production of (1979’s) The Dark. For whatever reason, he basically dropped out of the movie business altogether in the early ‘90s.

Wings Hauser is a busy character actor, best known for playing scary psychopaths in such films as Vice Squad. Unsurprisingly, he has also done a ton of episodic TV work. He continues to do such work, as recent appearances on Monk and House, M.D. attest.

Bo Hopkin was another reliable and busy actor trolling the B-movie and TV show waters (he has over a 120 credits listed on the IMDB), specializing in tight-lipped violent types. Like Hauser, his face rather than his name would be familiar to TV and drive-in movie buffs of a certain age. He appears to have retired as of 2003.

Although not quite as prolific as Hauser or Hopkins, Jennifer Warren was also a busy actress through the ‘70s and ‘80s. She appeared in a mix of low-budget theatricals, TV shows and TV movies. Several of the latter were genre oriented, such as the 1976 Jaws knock-off Shark Kill, and 1981’s Alien knock-off The Intruder Within.

Watching B-movies of the ‘60s through ‘80s always make me wonder. At what point did low-budget fare stop being often pretty good movies with a few obvious limitations, and become just lazy, nearly unwatchable junk?

Sigh.

Sitcom(mon)...

2006-10-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

Although, as I’ve noted on this blog before, I’m not really much of a TV watcher anymore (The Amazing Race is currently the only show I watch every week), I gave a look to 30 Rock last night. That’s because it’s a sitcom with three funny people from SNL; Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan, doing a show about a fictionalized SNL. The reviews haven’t been great, and sadly, I have to concur. I’d call the first episode intermittingly funny.

The main problem was tone. 30 Rock is a ‘one camera’ show, meaning it’s shot with the now dominant format of the roving camera, and usually sans laughtrack (Arrested Development, The Office, Scrubs, Malcolm in the Middle, My Name is Earl, Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc.), rather than the traditional ‘two camera’ set-up, where shows are mostly shot on sets, with the action cutting from two or three more or less standard camera positions. These shows are more likely to feature laughtracks (Everyone Loves Raymond, Two and a Half Men, etc.)

In essence, the show doesn’t yet seem to have a firm idea of how ‘wacky’ it wants to be. The opening establishes what seems to be one of the Tina Fey character’s ‘comic’ traits, which is that she hates cheaters. When a guy cuts in front of a long line for a street hot dog vender, she’s the only one to complain. (In New York?!)

In the end, rather than let the guy ‘win’, she buys the guy’s entire supply of hot dogs* and passes them out for free to everyone but the cheater guy. As she walks through the streets handing out hot dogs to weirded-out pedestrians, a parody “Mary Tyler Moore Show”-type theme plays behind her. To ‘justify’ this, it turns out the song is being sung at the rehearsal of a sketch for her latest show. By the way, part of the problem with the show’s premise is that it’s SNL-knock off show supposedly runs in primetime. Er, no.

[*By the way, how much does a hot dog cost from a New York street vender? Fey says she spent $150 on the wieners, but even after passing out a passel of them walks into work with a box load of at least 50 more hot dogs.]

Fey is, as she actually was on SNL, the show’s head writer. The writing staff includes the Slob Proletariat White Guy and the Effete Intellectual Black Guy. Meanwhile, Fey learns that Alec Baldwin, in reward for creating a hot selling convection oven (NBC is owned by GE, and to prove their independence the show features a lot of Letterman-like jabs at the company), has been promoted to the position of President of East Coast Programming and Ovens, or something along those lines.

Blah blah. Long story short, Fey seems to be looking for her footing as the straight woman to the reliably hilarious Baldwin (easily the best thing about the show so far) and the perhaps literally crazy but popular black comic played by Tracy Morgan who joins the cast of her show.

30 Rock has a lot of room for improvement, but it's capable of it, I think. If the show never gets better than its first episode, it will be quickly forgotten. However, it’s often the case that, when you go back and look at the first episodes of a long-running show, you end up thinking, “How did they start like that and end up like this?” I’m hoping that’s what’s in store for this program.

Still and all, just when you’re beating on the faults of this show, you see something as dreadful as 20 Good Years, the show that premiered following 30 Rock, to remind you how bad a sitcom can be. I didn’t watch the whole thing—who could?—but it’s the sort of show so soullessly bad that it literally depresses you to watch it.

Apparently all the thought about the show went dead after they had hired John Lithgow and Jeffrey Tambor to star. Once you have stars like that, I guess, why bother actually make even a halfway decent show. (On the other hand, I always thought Lithgow’s 3rd Rock from the Sun sucked too, and that ran for years.) Lithgow is a madcap, over the top surgeon who decides at 60 that its time to live every day to the fullest, while Tambor is his Judge best friend, a timid fellow afraid to make even the smallest decision. They’re the original odd couple!

I’m not kidding about getting depressed watching this show. Am I the only one who gets a queasy feeling when you can actually see every rote punch line coming in advance?

Lithgow (I’m paraphrasing): “We’ve only got 20 good years* left! We must live life to the fullest!”
Tambor: “Right!” Quaffs the drink in his hand. He is racked by coughs and ends up ‘comically’ doubled over.
Tambor, recovering: “What was in that [drink]?”
Lithgow: “Alcohol.”
Tambor: “Wow!”

Sigh. Tambor, really? From Arrested Development to this?!

[*Wow, he said the title!]

It Came from the DVD Shelves! Return of the Vampire (1944)

2006-10-11T06:45:00.000-07:00

Bela Lugosi played Dracula thousands of times on stage, but only twice onscreen. The first time was in 1931’s Dracula, the film that kicked off Universal Studio’s famous series of classic horror movies. After that, though, Universal handed the role off to John Carradine (pretty good) and Lon Chaney Jr. (woefully miscast). Lugosi was 66 years-old by the time he was allowed to assay the role on film again, in 1948’s Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.

During the interim, however, Lugosi played Dracula-like vampires and pseudo-vampires in many other films. Return of the Vampire, made by rival studio Columbia, was the film that most heavily resembled Universal’s (and Lugosi’s) take on Dracula, to the point where a lawsuit must have at least been contemplated.

As with Universal’s The Mummy’s Tomb, Return of the Vampire was one of the few movies from this period to play with the idea that these monsters were immortal. The film opens in the London of 1918, and for the first fifteen minutes events very closely follow the events of Universal’s Dracula. Only minor details have been changed to keep Universal’s lawyers off their, er, necks.

A girl (basically Mina Harker) is in the sanitarium of Dr. Jane Ainsley (a female Dr. Seward), suffering from a mysterious case of anemia. Ainsley calls in an older colleague, Dr. Saunders (the Van Helsing analogue), who declares the situation the work of a vampire. This is Armand Telsa, a Romanian investigator of the occult who centuries earlier had become one of the undead. He’s in London now, and using mind-controlled underling Andreas (i.e., his Renfield) to serve him.

When Tesla’s original victim dies, he turns his attention to Saunder’s eight-year old granddaughter, Nicki. (Nicki is also a playmate of Ainsley’s slightly older son, John.) Saunders convinces Ainsley of Tesla’s existence, and they track down Tesla’s coffin and drive a metal spike through his heart. They are almost stopped by Andreas, but Tesla’s destruction frees him.

As you can see, only minor changes have been made from the events in Dracula. Dr. Ainsley is a woman instead of a man. The vampire is dispatched with a metal spike rather than a wooden stake. Most noticeably, Andreas is, for no real reason, a talking, non-feral werewolf. (!!) Only with Tesla’s destruction does he become a normal man again.

Twenty-three years later, the Blitz hits London, and Tesla’s body is disinterred. Two woefully unfunny comic relief cockneys remove the spike before reburying him (thinking it a piece of bomb shrapnel), with obvious results. Tesla stalks the land once more, and tragically, the weak-willed Andreas is again brought under his spell. Meanwhile, the vampire seeks vengeance against Jane, and also to claim the now adult Vicki as his undead bride.

The film moves along steadily as is necessitated by its 70-minute running time, albiet often via a series of plot-advancing, if credulity-straining, coincidences. Even so, the action is often torpidly paced, although not as much as the London scenes in the 1931 Dracula. What it comes down to is that a majority of the film's characters are pretty dull. When they are holding the screen, viewer interest tends to flag.

The film has its share of outright goofiness, too, especially the pointlessness of Andreas being a werewolf who never really acts like a werewolf. (Of course, the real reason he’s a lycanthrope is so that his furry visage could be featured on the film’s poster art.) Even when he’s jumped by a pair of cops, Werewolf Andreas escapes by pasting one of them with a haymaker (!). Even funnier is that in nearly every scene featuring Werewolf Andreas, he is carrying a neatly-tied bundle of Tesla’s laundry. (!!!) So much for a vampire’s clothes being supernaturally clean.

Despite all that, though, the sub-plot featuring the tragically ensnared Andreas sub-plot is quite affecting, and easily the best part of the movie. Much of the credit for this must go to the fine, understated performance by actor Matt Willis.

The adult Nicki, meanwhile, is played by Nina Foch (who played a werewolf—an actual four-legged one—in the same year’s Cry of the Werewolf, another film I’d like to see hit DVD). Foch is OK, being about as good as one can expect given the slightness of the writing, but she is at least highly beautiful. (The woman playing Jane Ainsley must have thought so too. She has a disconcerting habit of putting her hand upon Foch’s, er, chest.)

The rest of the cast is pretty lame, though. The comic relief is generally painful, and several of the characters, including Jane, Saunders and a Scotland Yard Inspector, are played with several helpings of British reserve too many. Given the nature of what we’re dealing with here, their placid demeanors become increasingly comical.

The film belongs to Lugosi, naturally, although he doesn’t have a huge amount of screentime. Still, his presence here, playing Dracula in all but name, definitely earns the movie a place in horror film history.

Several plot devices here, meanwhile, were to be recycled in later Dracula pictures. The Count killing a man and then assuming his identify occurred also in The Return of Dracula (1958) and the hideously bad but hilarious Billy the Kid Meets Dracula (1966). Dracula seeking revenge by striking at his target(s) through their children was the plot of Hammer’s Taste the Blood of Dracula. Meanwhile, Dracula reestablishing control of a former Renfieldian servant to advance his agenda happens again in Dracula, Prince of Darkness.

Tech credits are decent, with heavy use of the fog machine to help obscure some obvious, if suitably gothic, sets. The film was directed by Lew Landers, a journeyman director who helmed over 150 films (!) in his career. Notably, he had earlier directed Lugosi (and Karloff) in Universal’s The Raven (1935). Landers brings an occasional touch of flair to the proceedings, but mostly is merely efficient.

Return of the Vampire is available on a bare boned DVD. The presentation is solid, if not sparkling, although it’s good to have the film available after decades of relative obscurity.

Still viewers out there, if they are interested...

2006-10-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

As we all know, TV viewership is way down, especially for the broadcast Networks. However, the recent ratings reveal that there are viewers still out there, if only there's something on they want to watch.

Admittedly, the numbers for even the top shows only equal mediocre ratings from the heydey of the Big Three Networks, but it's notable that the top two shows of the last two weeks run directly opposite each other. Since the beginning of the new season, Grey's Anatomy has beat CSI, then CSI (barely, but still) beat Grey's Anatomy. But the point is, the two largest audiences last week were watching two different shows running in the same timeslot. Not even counting ABC and Fox, an aggregate 47 million viewers were watching TV at this time on Sep 28th.

Thursday nights continue to hold good news for the networks. The number seven show that same night was Survivor, which ran against the week's number nine show, Ugly Betty. Together, the programs were watched by a combined 33 million people.

ABC must be pretty pleased. It's top ten shows that week, unlike CBS's mostly aging line-up (Survivor, CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York) are all either pretty new or brand spanking new (Grey's Anatomy, Desparate Housewives, Dancing with the Stars [editions of which help both the number four and eleven spots that week], Ugly Betty). CBS, meanwhile, is still strong. Aside from basically splitting the top ten shows, it was more dominent in the top 11-20 slots. However, I do notice that Lost isn't mentioned, so presumably that show hasn't started its new season yet, giving ABC yet another big, and newish, gun.

One-time ratings king NBC, meanwhile, only has Sunday Night Football in the top ten, along with two shows tied for number eighteen among the top twenty programs.

It Came from Netflix! Dead Birds (2004)

2006-10-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

During the Civil War, some Confederate soldiers bring a gold shipment to a town bank for safekeeping. However, a gang of outlaws shows up and kills everyone in sight and absconds with the gold. The group includes leader William (Henry Thomas, for those who still follow his career), his younger brother Sam, former slave (I guess) Todd, William’s squeeze Annabelle, and the scruffier and less trustworthy Clyde and Joseph.

They flee to an abandoned plantation house William learned of whilst recuperating from a battle injury (in, it must be said, an all too realistically grungy medical tent). The man who gave him the information later died, and William hooked with the man’s (maybe) fiancée Annabelle, who had been nursing the two. The plan is to stay in the house overnight and then flee to Mexico the next day.

However, the house and surrounding farm is a Bad Place, as was indicated when the group was apparently attacked by something that resembled a skinned albino mystery animal. There are other omens, including a dead bird (which was the only such one I noticed, anyway, despite the title). Meanwhile, Clyde and Joseph are planning a double cross.

Needless to say, the rest of the movie involves the characters getting picked off one by on by the ghosts / demons / whatevers. There’s also a backstory explaining why the place is haunted, although frankly it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Also, I think there turns out to be a revenge plot in there somewhere, if I was following things.

Obviously one problem is that a gang of murderous bank robbers is not the most sympathetic of protagonists. They try to separate the ‘good’ bad guys (loyal, loving among themselves, progressive on racial issues, guilt ridden from killing a kid amidst their general bloody slaughter) from the ‘bad’ one (bigoted, treacherous), but really, I couldn’t get that aroused concerning their fates. There’s also a whole Treasure of Sierra Madre thing that I didn’t really felt went anywhere.

Despite the overall narrative confusion and shaky characterization, however, the fact remains that the film is pretty creepy. That went a long way for me, although ‘creepy’ is to some another word for boring, since by its nature it includes a lot of build-up. I also admired the fact that the pace of the film is fairly stately, as befits something set in the past. The world just didn’t move that fast a hundred (or even fifty) years ago, which is why films like Pearl Harbor and Fly Boys give me gas. Here the time period is evoked pretty effectively, and that goes a long way.

In the end, this proved a better than average rental. Unlike a lot of the DTV stuff that floods the horror shelves these days, Dead Birds is actually a real movie, with actual acting and good dialogue and decent direction and all that sort of thing. I could probably have done with a little less CGI, and the ghostly kids who suddenly manifest monster faces is not exactly fresh by this point, but all it all it’s solid stuff. It might have worked better at an hour’s length, but considering the sheer crap out there, you could certainly do a lot worse. And I should note that while I considered the film basically a ‘three star’ picture, others revere it a lot more.

The director, Alex Turner (who sadly has not made another film in the two years since this one) provides a commentary, and there’s a cast commentary too. I didn’t have time or, frankly, the interest to really give them a listen, but it’s nice to have them for people who like the film more than I did.

New on DVD (10/10/06)...

2006-10-10T06:51:00.000-07:00

Sadly, no TV horror program offerings this week. Hey, did you ever check out that American Gothic set that came out earlier this year? That’s definitely worth a look.

In lieu of a horror show, my spotlight TV set of the week is Scrubs S4. This is a very, very good sitcom that just never caught on the way it should have, although at least it’s stayed on the air.

Animation fans, meanwhile, will want to check out the goofy nostalgia snarkfest Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law S2, as well as the rather less ironic Defenders of Earth Vol. 1, a Filmation series that brought together a number of their licensed characters, including the comic strip hero the Phantom, Flash Gordon and Mandrake the Magician.

Other television offerings this week include The A-Team S5; CSI S6; Everyone Hates Chris S1; Magnum PI S5; Numbers S2; Simon & Simon S1; and Three’s Company S8.

Film wise, the horror pickings are rather more profuse.

The big Kahuna this week is definitely Hollywood’s Legends of Horror Collection, a set of six essential but rarely seen horror films of the classic era. These include Doctor X (Lionel Atwill)/The Return of Dr. X on disc one, The Mark of the Vampire (Lugosi) /The Mask of Fu Manchu (Karloff) on the second, and Mad Love (Peter Lorre, and the set’s clear highlight) and The Devil Doll on the final one. Even Humphrey Bogart makes an appearance, and as a monster! All but one of the films feature commentary tracks from well-known horror buffs. To say this set is worth the $30 asking price is to damn it with faint praise. This is one of the year’s essential buys, along with Brainiac, Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare and Gojira.

Meanwhile, there’s The Exorcist, the Complete Anthology, which for around $30 rounds up an impressive array of material, including, of course, a legitimate contender as the Worst Movie Ever Made, and pretty much hands down the Worst Sequel Ever Made. Includes The Exorcist (original theatrical version and the longer “Version You've Never Seen” reissue); The Exorcist 2: The Heretic and The Exorcist 3, along with the two prequel stories, by two different directors, of Dominion and The Beginning. Several commentaries and documentaries, etc., add to the value. Sadly, Exorcist II is bereft of such notice. Boooo!

Another noteworthy offering of the week is The Aztec Mummy Collection from Brentwood, featuring The Attack of the Aztec Mummy, The Curse of the Aztec Mummy and The Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy. Meanwhile, The Wrestling Woman vs. the Aztec Mummy was put out by Something Weird/Image a few years ago, so you should grab that to complete your collection.

Brentwood also continues its bargain Crypt of Terror double feature line with three more offerings:

Crypt of Terror: Don’t Panic / The Demon Rat Dubbed Spanish movies featuring, respectively, a ouiji board and giant killer rats.

Crypt of Terror: Lord Shango / Embryo Voodoo movie and the ‘70s sci-fier starring Rock Hudson and Barbara Carrara.

Crypt of Terror: Prime Evil / Brain Twister Immortal devil worshippers and mind control gone awry.

The proto-slasher Black Christmas gets a Special Edition. Which is good (although it’s not a film I am especially interested in), as the previous “25th Anniversary” release offered nothing in the way of extras. This version, in contrast, lards on a documentary, trailers and two commentaries, including one by director Bob Clark, and another with stars John Saxon (cool!) and Keir Dullea. Also included is a horror TV episode starring Saxon. Hmm, I guess I’ll have to give this a look after all. Both discs offer the movie in ‘standard,’ though, so I guess that’s how it was intended.

Speaking of slashers, Don’t Answer the Phone (from Rhino, so don’t expect much in the way of extras or great presentation) gets a disc today. Being afforded a much more lavish treatment is Don’t Go Into the Woods, with a documentary and two director commentaries.

Those with a taste for the exotic, meanwhile, might want to check out Eastern Horror Four Movie Set, featuring Vampire Resurrection, Devil Shadow, Calamity Of Snakes & The Devil's Box. Pretty good for $15.

Several more DTV horror entries this week. I’ll have to put Scott Foy into my dead pool for next year, because surely this stuff must kill him sooner or later.

5ive Girls: Hot Catholic school girls fight a demon, or something. Supposedly disappointingly short on T&A (another reason the ‘70s ruled), and sure to embarrass fans of Ron Perlman, who appears here.

8th Plague: An ancient Evil is set free in an abandoned prison and threatens the world. Has gotten some good (if not great) reviews from fans who like some gore and such.

Other horror entries include Skeeter (embiggened mosquitos), Superstition (1982; evil witch) and Horror Rises from the Tomb. Meanwhile, the really not bad Charles Band Subspecies films are collected in Subspecies: The Epic Collection. Then there’s Tiki: “A Hawaiian girl gets revenge on evil schoolmates with the help of a killer tiki.” Take that, Bradys! Meanwhile, check out Witchery: “David Hasselhoff, Catherine Hickland and Linda Blair investigate an evil witch in a haunted hotel.

Non-horror offerings this week include:

Bikini Girls from the Lost Planet. Directed by Fred Olen Ray, ‘nuff said.

Cinderella 2000 is a futuristic sexploitation flick made by Al Adamson back in 1977. Is it sexy? Again, it was made by Al Adamson.

The Bing Crosby / Fred Astaire Christmas classic Holiday Inn (in which Astaire amusingly plays a cad) gets a well-deserved special edition. This is the movie that introduced the song White Christmas, and is in my opinion a much superior film to the movie that bears that song’s name. Two documentaries and a commentary are included in what looks to be a pretty good package.

Too Cool for School: The John Hughes Collection bunches together Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Some Kind Of Wonderful. (Where the hell is The Breakfast Club?!)

The five films in the Trancers series starring Tim Thomerson and (for a while) Helen Hunt are collected in the Trancers Box Set.

Meanwhile, long after the Pirates of the Caribbean films have seen the release of every lame little pirate movie from the days of yore, the genre’s one authentic classic, the Wallace Beery version of Treasure Island, is finally hitting DVD. About frickin’ time.

It Came from the DVD Shelves! Terror is a Man (1959)

2006-10-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

Producer / director Eddie (credited here as “Edgar”) Romero was born in the Philippines in 1924, and is fondly remembered by horror and B-movie buffs for a series of sleazy horror films he produced and often co-directed in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Terror Is a Man was his first such effort. As a neophyte, it’s perhaps natural that Romero cribbed from one of the most famous horror tales set on a remote, verdant island; H. G. Wells’ oft-adapted novel The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Shot in typically atmospheric black and white, and in an era that wasn’t conducive for the gore and tits he was later known for, it’s yet obvious that Romero’s exploitation instincts were already firmly in place. The film thus opens with a William Castle-esque text card. This warns that one scene is so shocking that it will be signaled with a bell—shades of the more famous ‘Horror Horn’ from Chamber of Horrors—and helpfully suggests that “the squeamish and faint-hearted close their eyes” at this juncture.

As usual with the period, the film doesn’t waste much time. The opening shot (under a bad superimposed ‘fog’ effect’) shows a dingy floating towards an island shore. Two men pause from combing the beach, and discover an unconscious man in the boat. They carry him off, but pause first as an ominous animal howl sounds elsewhere on the island.

From there we meet our limited cast. The marooned sailor is one William Fitzgerald, the man who saved him is Dr. Charles Girard. Girald has a statuesque blonde wife, Frances; a violence-prone henchman, Walter; and a few servants, sexy island girl Selene and her young brother Tiago.

Fitzgerald recovers, and of course gradually uncovers the Awful Truth: Girard is conducting surgical and chemical experiments in accelerated evolution. His subject is a panther that years of work have gradually transformed into a quasi-man. However, the beast, unsurprisingly terrified and bewildered by what is happening to it (and, in the best tradition of deranged henchmen, regularly tormented by Walter), periodically escapes and uses its still be-clawed hands to wreak murderous havoc.*

[*The make-up is minimal, and the film is smart enough to swath the creature in mummy-like bandages in order to disguise this. Even so, one evident marker of the beast’s origin, along with the clawed hands and cat-like whiskers pushing out from its bandaged face, are a pair of pointy little cat ears. Had Gerard made a cat-woman instead of a cat-man, and kept not only the ears but the tail, he presumably could have gotten himself a lot more funding, from Japan if nowhere else.]

Terror is a Man (the title refers more to Girard, presumably, than his piteous if murderous creation) is a quite good example of how solid execution is more important than a novel concept or characters. The dialogue is consistently efficient and interesting, which is especially helpful in that the movie can be a bit talky in-between the monster bits.

Meanwhile, a cast of talented actors (ah, the days in which the casts of horror movies were made up of, you know, adults), along with a script that ably limns the characters, avoids plaguing us with what could easily have been a tiresome parade of the usual stereotypes; the mad scientist, his neglected, frightened but sympathetic (to the ‘monster’) wife, the stolid hero, etc.

One element that clearly marks this as one of Romero’s films is the air of open sensuality. Westerners, especially sailors, have for centuries been enraptured by island populations of handsome people who were quite casual about sex. This sexuality marks Romero’s oeuvre, with naturally greater explicitness as the years went on. Even here, however, Selene is portrayed as Walter’s mistress with a frankness that is a little surprising, given the production date.

Moreover, Frances’ wishes to get off the island are motivated not only her fear, but by the lack of attentions she’s been getting from her work-obsessed husband. Fitzgerald, naturally, is instantly smitten with her, and (again for the time) is surprisingly quick to make a clearly sexual move on her. “I’m not lonely,” she replies, rebuking his overtures. “I’m frightened.”

However, we know that this is not entirely true, given an earlier scene where she—unknowingly watched by the then at-large monster—writhes alone in her bed in erotic frustration. Later, though, after spurning his advances, she watches Selene go off with Walter one night, whereupon she finally breaks down and seeks out Fitzgerald for a little release.

The end of the film is especially interesting. (SPOILERS!)

The monster, badly wounded, is aided by Tiago (which is kind of weird, given events, although it plays into the idea of the creature as an innocent victim.) The kid apparently—I’m not sure why this isn’t directly shown, perhaps they shot it and the film didn’t come out—ships the seemingly dying beast out in the small boat the similarly incapacitated Fitzgerald arrived in. It’s a nicely bookend to the beginning of the film.

However, assuming Romero was already thinking in terms of sequels, this climax also calls to mind his later Beast of Blood, the second of two films centered on the creature who became known as the Chlorophyll Monster. The Monster is apparently destroyed at the end of his first outing, but the sequel begins with the creature springing from a lifeboat and gruesomely slaughtering the crew of a freighter. It certainly seems possible that Romero was already thinking of a sequence like that with the end of this movie, and merely filed it away until he had a chance to use it.

(SPOILERS OVER.)

As noted, things are definitely helped by a good cast, who in underplaying their parts manage to ground them with a nice sense of reality. The budget for the film was obviously small, but the interior sets are pretty good (if obviously still sets), and the authentic jungle / island exteriors lend the film an expansiveness not often found in films of this nature.

I watched the film on the old Image DVD. Much of it is quite sharp (as only black and white is on DVD), although some of the exterior night scenes are noticeably washed out. Moreover, the sound is pretty poor. These faults probably are inherent to the film itself, although it would have been nice if Image had provided subtitles, given the weakness of the soundtrack. Wellspring later put out another DVD version, utilizing the same print and featuring supposedly better sound. That disc is cheaper, as well, and features a couple of extras, so anyone seeking to pick up the film should probably go with that version.

Fitzgerald is portrayed with quiet conviction by genre veteran Richard Dix, who has a sort of William Holden thing going. He invests his character with a natural intelligence and curiosity, so that his obstinate investigation of Girard’s work seems motivated more by his nature than the necessities of the plot.

Dix is best remembered as the star of When Worlds Collide, and played Lamont Cranston, the Shadow, in The Invisible Avenger. He also appeared in a lot of genre TV shows spanning several decades, including Lights Out (several episodes), Tales of Tomorrow, the original The Outer Limits, Project UFO and Automan. He played Adm. Fitzgerald—no relation, presumably—in "The Mark of Gideon" episode of the original Star Trek, and appeared in another episode, "The Alternative Factor", as well.

Girard, meanwhile, is equally well assayed by the suave Austrian actor Francis Lederer. Lederer had, presumably unknown to himself, achieved a low-grade immortality the year before this by playing the Count in 1958’s Return of Dracula, a similarly efficient low-budget film that was one of the first to bring Stoker’s character to then modern America.

Lederer apparently actively resented being in movie, thinking it beneath him as a classical actor, although again it’s the one that he’ll always be remembered for. (And, indeed, he would play the Count again in The Night Gallery segment “The Devil is Not Mocked.”) Thus is the passion of the horror movie community, who never forget a credit. Happily, Return of Dracula itself is scheduled to hit DVD in December.

Lederer’s work here is equally good. Girard is clearly nuts, but it’s a quiet nuts and all the more credible for it. We all like a guy who just goes for it and chews up the scenery, but Lederer’s performance here matches the understated tone of the rest of the movie, and helps to sell it in a surprisingly credible manner.

Director Gerardo de Leon was a mentor to Eddie Romero, and directed and co-directed (with Romero) many of Romero’s horror films, including Blood Drinkers (1966), The Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968), Brides of Blood (1968) and Curse of the Vampires (1971). Mr. de Leon passed away in 1981.

Eddie Romero found his commercial niche, as noted, in a series of increasingly lurid horror films. His most memorable creation by far was the green-blooded and grotesque “Chlorophyll Monster,” a beast that gained notoriety from drive-in fans for his tendency to dispatch his victims in what was for the time an extremely gory fashion.

In the course of making his films, Romero worked with several work-seeking American actors (Patrick Wayne, Sig Haig, Angelique Pettyjohn), much as genre filmmakers in Japan and Europe did. One-time teen idol John Ashley was his regular star, and the two made eight pictures together. Ashley apparently prepared for such assignments with roles in earlier works such as Frankenstein’s Daughter and Larry Buchanan’s The Eye Creatures.

It’s too bad, really (although many others will obviously disagree), that Romero’s later films went so enthusiastically in the blood ‘n’ babes direction. Terror is a Man proves that he could easily have emulated Val Lewton instead of Al Adamson.

It Came From Netflix! Blood and Black Lace (1964)

2006-10-05T10:10:00.000-07:00

Blood and Black Lace (a.k.a. Sei donne per l'assassino) is Mario Bava’s first color horror movie, and an obvious transition piece between the campy tone exemplified by the period’s West German ‘Krimis’—a slew of goofy crime movies ostensively adapted from the books of Edgar Wallace—and the heyday of the Italian Giallo genre. One of my favorite B movies, The Bloody Pit of Horror, also is such a mid-range piece, although Bava’s movie packs a bit more punch.

Bava scholar Tim Lucas, who provides the disc’s commentary track, hails Black Lace as “the first body count movie.” (Although surely And Then There Were None deserves some credit.) Fittingly, this was actually indicated by the original Italian title, which translates to Six Women for the Murderer. In the wake of this film, the Giallos would quickly adopt a more naturalistic and serious tone, as well as a much greater explicitness in graphically portraying baroquely sadistic death scenes.

In other words, they predated and predicted the Slasher genre, albeit while exhibiting much better art direction and an arguably even greater disdain for story logic. Bava again pioneered the trend towards gore effects with 1971’s Twitch of the Death Nerve (a.k.a. Reazione a catena), which more than doubled Black Lace’s victim count and definitely upped the ante in terms of lovingly depicting horrible deaths. The gag of two lovers being impaled simultaneously during the act of sex, copied by Friday the 13th Part 2 and many other movies, originated in that film.

Yet if the murders in Black Lace are not particularly graphic, several of them remain surprisingly brutal and cruel. At the time the movie must have freaked out many, even when more heavily edited as its American release was. For more squeamish folks such as myself, this is at least partly mitigated by the film’s aggressively overt artificiality, again a trademark of the Krimi genre. This begins with the film’s opening credit sequence (apparently changed for the American release), which features the large cast introduced one by one, named as they assume winking poses.

The setting is a fashion house, which allows for a ready supply of beautiful victims. The first such is quickly dispatched by a man in a black trench coat and fedora, who wears a tight flesh-colored fabric mask that renders his head eerily featureless. (Comic book fans will note the resemblance to the Charlton / DC character The Question.) It turns out that the victim had an incriminating diary, however, the appearance of which kicks off a resultant chain of gruesome murders.

Being an early example of the breed, Black Lace actually provides a credible Whodunit element. (Actually, as least as far as I can tell without having seen many of the classic later Giallos, the identity of the murderers in those films were afforded more weight then the usually perfunctory and slapdash revelations of same in the Slasher movies of the ‘80s.)

Along with the often eye-rollingly exaggerated mugging of the cast, surfeit of red herrings a brassy jazz score, Black Lace again could easily be mistaken for a particularly mean-spirited Krimi. Lucas, meanwhile, notes that those films had solely been filmed in black and white, and only begin putting forth color entries (The School Girl Murders, The Creature with the Blue Hand, etc.) in emulation of Bava’s picture.

Among the cast and an obvious suspect (among zillions) is Cameron Mitchell, whose voice is dubbed by a different actor on all three of the soundtracks, the American, the French and the original Italian. Even with the latter it’s clear that all the dialogue was looped in post-production. The American language version, meanwhile, employs the vocal talents of voice actor Paul Frees, instantly identifiable to fans of both ‘50s sci-fi movies and Saturday morning cartoon shows.

Also on hand Lucianno Pigozzi, known as the “Italian Peter Lorre” for his strong resemblance to that actor, and who last caught my attention as a murderous henchman in the wonderfully goofy whodunit / lycanthropy epic Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory.

I really love this era of filmmaking, and the campy elements—such as the strident bum bum bum! music cues that follow such lines as “It’s cocaine!” and “Isabella kept a diary”—easily get me past my general antipathy towards nasty death scenes. This isn’t sheerly lunatic enough to rival my enduring love for The Bloody Pit of Horror, but it’s pretty good stuff none the less.

The VCI special edition DVD of the film features a second disc with extras (including the alternate American and French opening credit sequences) that I didn’t’ t bother renting. Still, it’s a handsome package and, despite the galling lack of an anamorphic widescreen presentation, clearly represents VCI’s bid towards the specialty genre market served by other companies such as Blue Underground and Anchor Bay. They were wise to bring Bava fanatic Lucas on board, and his commentary, albeit scripted and hence a bit robotic, is astoundingly informative on the actors, Bava and Italian genre films.

Regarding acid...

2006-10-04T14:51:00.000-07:00

Comments were posted under the Black Pit of Dr. M review (below), as to the general availability and use of acid. This reminded me of my friend Andrew Muchoney's learned remarks on The House on Haunted Hill, as part of one of his scholarly B-Fest recaps:

"The next film on the agenda was House on Haunted Hill, starring Vincent Price. In this film, Mr. Price invites a group of people to stay overnight at a mansion-house legendary for its tragic history of bloodshed, promising a large sum of cash for anyone who stays -- and survives -- the night. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this moving-picture drama is the presence of an acid bath in the basement of the mansion, covered with a crude wooden trap-door. Although many persons observing the film likely noted some irregularity in accoutering a mid-Twentieth Century home with a large acid bath, few are probably educated enough to realize that such baths were commonplace comforts to North American homes of the late Nineteenth Century. Indeed, the most remarkable status-symbol of Colonial-era homes of the well-to-do North American bourgeoisie were their beautifully ornate basement acid baths, often incorporating such whimsical motifs as fish or sea-nymphs spouting gentle geysers of acid. The most famous of such acid baths, of course, is that found in the wine cellars of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, noted for its austere melding of classical architectural forms, its clean lines, and its lethal acid fumes.

Indeed, archaeologists have recently speculated that the fabulous Roman baths constructed by the Roman Emperor Caracalla in the early Third Century, A.D., were not filled with water at all but rather with thousands of gallons of acid; according to such experts, this would help explain the severe erosion sustained by the structure over the last two-thousand years or so, as well as the increasing depopulation which caused Rome to rely ever more heavily on foreign mercenaries to defend its extensive borders. In any event, acid baths became less and less prominent over time, probably due to a few careless persons ruining a generally beneficial resource. At last, rising acid bath-related insurance costs, and a corollary impetus toward consumer safety, caused the very few acid baths remaining in the 1960s to be drained and filled with murky piranha-infested water.

I believe that I have elaborated enough on House on Haunted Hill; therefore, I shall now turn to the next feature of the evening...."

These, and other erudite observations on a variety of topics may be found here. I strongly recommend this article.

It Came from Netflix! Squirm (1976)

2006-10-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

Squirm is a fun, fairly typical Revenge of Nature flick, from back in the ‘70s when the genre was in its heyday. Killer Animal flicks generally fall into one of two categories, the Single Killer Animal as exemplified by Jaws, and Multiple Killer Animals, ala The Birds. Insect and arachnid movies unsurprisingly tend to fall into the latter category, and Squirm is no exception.

This is a pretty standard ‘70s independent horror movie, which is not intended as an insult. Like most such, it was actually shot on film, makes good use of a distinctive setting, and is written, directed and acted better than most of the equally low-ball fare made today. There’s a reason Roger Corman’s reputation rests as much on his glory days as a producer as his salad days as a director.

The ’70s was also an era, being just past the worst of the Civil Rights struggle, when the South was viewed as a viper’s nest of not only racism but evil cops, xenophobia and inbred hillbillies. There is a little of that here, although only the asshole town sheriff, a Charles Napier-type, is really exaggerated much.

We open with some title cards indicating (falsely, of course) that this is Based on a True Story. Georgia gal—who perhaps slavers on the Southern accent a bit too much—Geri is eagerly awaiting the arrival of big city quasi-nebbish Mick, her prospective new boyfriend.

Meanwhile, her small, insulated town of Fly Creek is pounded by hurricane-level storms. These topple an electrical tower*, and the downed power lines start dumping thousands of volts of juice into the wet ground. As everyone knows, electricity will drive worms up from the ground (true), while all turning them into screeching carnivores (maybe not so true).

[*The tower falling over is clearly a stock shot from another movie, and in the commentary track, director Jeff Lieberman notes that it was from the original Ocean’s Eleven.)

Mick arrives, and is greeted warmly by Geri, with interest by Geri’s pot-smoking kid sister Alma, with polite trepidation by Geri’s emotionally unstable widow mother Naomi (who as played perhaps strays a little too much into Tennessee Williams territory), and with growing hostility by their neighbor Roger. Roger is the film’s most interesting character, the half-witted but hard working son of an abusive worm farmer.

Presumably in love with Geri since an early age, he obviously sees her as the one bright thing that can make his life better. (He hopes to marry her and help with her antiques selling business, rather than take over his father’s hated worm farm.) His resentment of Mick is certainly understandable, and although Geri obviously pines for better things, it’s also clear that given time Roger would have a real shot at marrying her. The problem, of course, if that this would represent a perhaps dreary compromise for Geri at the same time it would be a best case scenario for him.

Mick’s obvious, er, city-ness also quickly draws the suspicions of the townsfolk, and he has soon run afoul of the aforementioned town sheriff. Even so, Mick’s attention is soon drawn to the human skeleton (stripped of connective tissue but still articulated, needless to say) that pops up and disappears. In the face of the sheriff’s hostility and indifference, he attempts to solve the mystery himself. The cause, needless to say, is a gigantic number of now man-eating worms. They hate the light, but night is quickly approaching…

This is no classic, but it’s solid stuff, and like many films from that period is surprisingly naturalistic. The characterizations are also, per the era, more nuanced than normal. Geri is clearly excited by the relative sophistication Mick represents, but she still likes Roger even as she grows increasingly wary of his obvious interest in her. At the same time, she takes advantage of the poor guy, and even flirts a bit with him at one juncture.

Mick is the smart city slicker, and generally a pretty solid protagonist. However, it’s notable that once he gets caught up in the mystery, he casually abandons an obviously unwilling Geri, leaving her alone with Roger so that the latter will be distracted while Mick searches the worm farm.

As noted, Roger, who can indeed be thuggish and frightening, at the same time never completely loses our sympathy. His life sucks, and his desperate clutching at of Geri remains understandable throughout. Maybe he would have turned violent in any case, but as portrayed he only does so after he goes through quite a lot, including a nasty worm attack.

Hell, even the stereotypical sheriff is mostly a blowhard dick rather than a menace.

The budget obviously allowed for only so much (although they do drop a real tree on a wing of the heroine’s house—the commentary confirms that the addition so destroyed was, as I assumed, fabricated for the movie). We only get period small worm incidents until the big finale, when the massed, flesh-eating mounds of worms roll through town like the Blob. The massed worms are represented by not entirely convincing mountains of rubber ones, although a few brief nasty encounters earlier on are aided immensely by the special effects artistry of a young Rick Baker.

In the end, this is a pretty good movie somewhat hampered by budgetary considerations. It would be interesting to see it remade with a bit more cash (the hinted-at eradication of Fly Creek could certainly be portrayed more epically), although the inevitable heavy use of CGI effects does temper one’s enthusiasm somewhat.

As noted, director Lieberman provides an often entertaining and informative commentary. Lieberman at one point made a bit of a name for himself, with genre fare like this, Blue Sunshine (also 1976) and Just Before Dawn, but he hasn’t done much since the latter’s release in 1981.

If Lieberman sounds a bit shrill about the film’s apparent (I guess) lambasting on Mystery Science Theater 3000, it’s at least understandable. Despite it’s flaws, Squirm is entirely too good of a movie to warrant such a thing. He also spends a lot of time pondering what might have been, since (according to him, anyway), the main three parts were quite nearly played by Kim Basinger (Geri), Martin Sheen (Mick) and Sly Stallone (Roger [!]).

I also liked his story about how a TV station once mistakenly played the movie in black and white, and he actually liked the film’s climax better than way. Per his urging, I turned off the color on my TV for the film’s final fifteen minutes, and you know what? He’s entirely correct.

[Side note: Try watching The Nightmare Before Christmas in B&W sometime. It's neat!]

It Came from Netflix! Misterios de ultratumba (1959)

2006-10-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

The latest release by the already invaluable CasaNegra, available under the American title of The Black Pit of Dr. M (more on that in a bit), MdU is a corny but straightforward and quite fun Mulligan’s Stew of a movie. It feels like the result of one of those round robin stories, where one guy starts a story, and another adds to it, and so and so, with the tale getting wilder with each new addition.

The film opens upon a decrepit, spider-web strewn courtyard, as narration informs us that we are about to see a tale of doom. From there we flash back to meet the tightly wound and quite obsessed Dr. Mazali. He’s leaning over the deathbed of his colleague Dr. Aldama, and reminding him of their pact. Whichever one of them dies first is to return from the afterlife and help the survivor uncover its secrets.

Even as Aldama is receiving a nicely atmospheric funeral—the highlight of which is when his coffin is opened just before burial (!), and his corpse is greeted with an ominous blare of music (“Look! There’s a dead guy in this coffin we’re burying!)—Mazali is using a medium to contact the guy. Aldama indeed makes himself known, and offers Mazali the chance to visit the afterlife and return to life afterwards, albeit at some horrible price. Mazali agrees, setting in motion his elaborate fate.

From here the plot veers wildly around. A man is seen at the weirdest nightclub I’ve ever seen, watching a dance patterned on the blowing-streamer dream ballet between Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse in Singin’ in the Rain. The main dancer, Patricia, is shocked when she sees him, and flees. She’s been seeing him in her dreams, and vice versa. Moreover, Patricia is the daughter of Aldama, who she never knew, and his ghost appears to her, and….

Really, this thing is just nuts. But in a good way.

Eventually all these characters and many more come together in Mazali’s sanitarium (the deserted locale seen in the beginning of the film), where Aldama or Fate’s machinations continue apace. One thing I learned is that when you run a place for the violently, homicidally insane, and take them into your examining room unsecured, you probably shouldn’t have loose bottles of acid lying around on top of the medicine cabinet.* Also, if all that stands between you and a potential horrible death is the tune emanating from a music box, you might actually want to prop up the lid or something.

[*At one time acid was held to have useful properties in terms of blob-proofing one's laboratory. However, the efficiency of acid and other caustic liquids in this regard has been demonstrated to be negligible at best.]

As you’d expect, Mazali gets what he asked for, but ends up wishing he’s been a little more precise in the details. In the end we get murderous maniacs, a disfigured killer, a fellow rising from the grave, and many other interesting elements.

This is a very stylish little flick. I can’t agree with Frank Coleman (CasaNegra’s founder, and provider of the disc’s commentary track), who labels this a masterpiece and the equal of any of the classic Universal horror films (!), but it’s quite neat. I’d put Curse of the Crying Woman, also out via CasaNegra, above it, but that’s a very good movie indeed, if not a great one. Still, this is a great addition to what is quickly becoming one of the most impressive horror DVD lines out there.

The film looks terrific. This a real plus, given the level of the art direction, which for a low budget equals the best of Roger Corman’s Poe series. The actors mostly play everything straighter than you see in many Mexican horror movies, so the camp value is downplayed, even with the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink nature of the script.

One sadness is that there is, unlike most of CasaNegra’s offerings, an English language dub track to go along with the original Mexican soundtrack. In this case, the Americanized version, again The Black Pit of Dr. M, seems to be lost. Coleman makes a good case that the film might not have been dub and released here by K. Gordon Murray, the man known for the vast majority of such fare, and that this might be why the American version has become so elusive. Still, even sans the American track, this is definitely something fans of old-fashioned gothic horror might want to take a look at.

New to DVD (10/03/06)...

2006-10-03T06:32:00.000-07:00

Some interesting TV collections coming out today, although the sort of thing that will annoy people who have been picking seasons up piecemeal.

Since this is Horror Month, we’ll start with The Twilight Zone Complete Series Collection, which happily includes all five seasons of the program, and is made up of the recently released “Definitive Collections”, remastered presentations with nifty extras. A stupendous 28 discs is included in a set that will cost you about $200, which is much less than the price I was paying for the individual seasons when they first came out.
(?~#&$@#&$#@$&@#$&)

The complete run of The Greatest American Hero also hits shelves today, in a tin collector’s box with a cape (!) and “a battery-powered reproduction of the show's infamous guide book.” (!!)

Harvey Toons The Complete Collection is a four disc set featuring such second-grade characters as Casper, Little Audrey, Herman and Katnip and Baby Huey. Still, running a stated 200 minutes, there’s no way this could be in any way “complete.”

Other TV sets available today:

Andromeda S5; Baywatch, Collections 1 & 2; Commander in Chief V1 & V2; CSI New York S2; Medium S2; Penn & Teller Bullshit S3; Planet of the Apes TV Series; Stargate SG-1 S9

As for movies, we’ll start with, again the horror stuff, although it’s a slow week. Expect more to come as Halloween nears.

My film of the week is The Norliss Tapes, a 1973 TV pilot movie by Dan Curtis that was obviously intended to launch another show just like The Night Stalker. The movie is very similar to the Kolchak movies, although they do lack the humor those films are known for. Still, a very nifty flick, and it’s great to see stuff like this emerging from TV vaults. There’s a lot more where this came from.

Another essential buy is Super Inframan, the long-awaited widescreen presentation of the insanely fun Hong Kong film that is the ultimate statement of stuff like Ultraman and Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. Everyone should have this in their movie collection.

Abominable is a Bigfoot movie with Lance Henriksen. His last Bigfoot movie, Sasquatch, was just OK, but Scott Foy over at Dread Central surprisingly gave this movie a very good review, so you might want to check it out.

The Blood Trilogy collects three previously released Herschell Gordon Lewis gore films in one set; 2,000 Maniacs, Blood Feast and Color Me Blood Red. Not my bag, but three films for well under $20 for those so interested.

X-Men The Last Stand The third and possibly final X-Men movie, in numerous editions.

Clouds starting to part...

2006-10-03T06:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I've got my car towed to the garage last night (thanks, AAA), so at least some progress has been made. Now if it would only stop raining long enough for my roof to get fixed. Not today, I guess, as we're due for more major storms this evening, much like the ones that blanketed the Chicago area last night. Still, just a bit more water damage and hopefully the roof will finally be done and I can start paying that bill off.

Also, if all goes well, the garage will have the part I need and I'll get the car back tonight. A bill under $200 would be nice, too. I don't have $200 at the moment, but it would be better than $400 I don't have. I have putting stuff on my credit card, but it is good to have it when you need it.

Ah, well. I shouldn't let all this keep me from basking in the fact that Dusty Baker is no longer the manager of the Cubs.

Speaking of horrors...

2006-10-02T12:50:00.000-07:00

I attended the final Cubs game of the season yesterday. (Admittedly, had I known my car was going to crap out this morning, I might have spent a bit less in the process. Oh, well.) That was one of several games in September, and on October 1st, I had bought tickets to back in February. I was harboring, you see, the delusion that the mighty Cubs might play better this year than they had in 2005.

In fact, they played worse, helped mightily by an injured Derek Lee, one of several hobbled key players. In the end, our major 'triumph' was to barely avoid losing a mind-boggling 100 games. Instead—whew—we only lost 96, in one of the most pathetically weak divisions I’ve ever seen.

Despite all the tickets for the year being sold over the first weekend they were available, each September game at Wrigley saw thousands of empty seats, a fact I can attest to first hand. Each empty seat told of a fan who didn't want to bother seeing this team play, but couldn't find anyone to buy, or even take for free, the tickets they had in hand. I was in that boat myself, several times.

Hopefully this sounded a warning bell. The Tribune company already had the money for these unused tickets, but concession sales must have taken a huge beating from the absent fans. Meanwhile, perhaps someone figured out that an irate fan base, agitated further by last year's World Series victory by the hated White Sox, might actually decide not to procure as many tickets next year. There are also theories floating around that the Tribune Company intends to sell the team. If so, they will want a very good year to help pump up the price.

Although the sheer stupidity of such an act seemed to defy all concepts of logic—no, wait, that’s exactly why I thought it was a slam dunk for this exact team—I remained convinced that Dusty Baker, an excuse-making, race-baiting, overpriced buffoon, would be rehired for another term after his contract expired yesterday. I never really changed my mind until, amazingly, Baker’s boss’ boss, Andy MacPhail, announced his (forced) resignation right after yesterday’s game.

MacPhail has overseen the franchise for a dozen years, and mostly rotten years at that. His loss of job is richly deserved. In any case, Baker too is hitting the road, no doubt to be quickly hired by another team and thus able to avoid eating too much into that sixteen million bucks he bilked us out of over the last four years.

However, another author of our woes, General Manager Jim Hendry, remains in place. We can only hope that he realizes that his ass is on the line (and possibly, just maybe, he wanted to pursue bigger players over the last several years, but was blocked by MacPhail), and that he spends whatever funds the Tribune allots wisely and well. Here's one hint for Jimbo, though: If you decide to take a flier on constantly injured players yet again, make sure this time that you actually get backup players for when they inevitably go down.

In any case, major changes have occurred within about 18 hours of the final game ending, and we’ve many months to sit back and see what else occurs. However, for my own part, this year has finally given me a hard, cynical shell, and it's going to be difficult for the Cubs to win my favors again, unless major changes continue to occur.

Now, if you’ll excuse, Lucy is holding out that football, and I’m pretty sure I’m really going to get to kick it this time…

Boo, hoo, my life is so hard...

2006-10-02T08:55:00.000-07:00

I had intended to hit the road running on the blogging front today, and to do lots of horror movie reviews this month in honor of Halloween.

However, this morning I went out and my car was absolutely dead. Didn't turn over, or anything. This after a battery of recent car repairs, and my leaky roof finally in the process of getting fixed this week. I was pretty much busted before this latest problem, so now I get to go into actual debt getting my car fixed, again.

So when I eventually wend my way home tonight, presumably via some kind soul here at work, I'll have to call AAA and get my car towed in to my garage, and take it from there.

Anyway, I feel sort of morose at the moment, and if there is a temporary decline (like that doesn't happen anyway) in my blogging, that's why. Hopefully in a few days my spirits will be back up again.

What a wimp. God forfend my life ever really takes a turn for the worse.

Tony Stark, makes you feel, he's a cool exec, with a heart of steel...

2006-09-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I never really thought Iron Man would actually become a movie, but when Jon Favreau was hired to direct, things looked more solid. Now Robert Downey, Jr. has been hired to play Stark, and so the promised 2008 release looks pretty certain.

Downey isn't necessarily the first name that would pop into someone's head, but here's some things on his side.

1) I actually like the fact that he's older. Stark is a man of the world, and shouldn't really be a youngster like Spider-Man or even Bale's Batman.

2) Downey, of course, can actually act.

3) You don't need a big name in a superhero movie. Tom Cruise's name has been attatched to the project forever, but (his current career woes aside), why pay a guy $20 dollars when you can get an actor for half that and put the rest of the money on the screen? In superhero movies the character is the star, not the actor.

4) Downey's signature drug problems, assuming they are actually under control at this time, play into Iron Man's backstory. Back in the '80s, Iron Man was the first superhero to be a full-fledged alcoholic. Presumably they'll be running with this thread now.

Anyway, while Iron Man's not my favorite character, he is a classic Marvel guy, so here's luck to them. Meanwhile, they supposedly are still working on that live-action Avengers movie. I can't imagine it actually happening in a million years, but it's hard to think of anything much cooler than making Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk (the upcoming sequel) and Thor movies, and then bringing all three actors playing them together for an Avengers movie. It would be just like the comics.

In other superhero news, Spike TV's Blade series will not be brought back, but the ratings for the first episode of NBC's Heroes were very strong, easily whipping CBS's sitcom duo, Two and a Half Men and Old Christine. Of course, that doesn't mean viewers will keep watching it, but it's a good start.

Us & Them

2006-09-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

Caution: Spoilers on old-ish movies Just Cause and Narrow Margin.

I think a major part of what separates me (and probably you) from other, perhaps more ‘normal’ movie viewers, isn’t so much that we’re ‘smarter,’ but rather are more instinctively analytical. For instance, a lot of TV dramas back in the day were heavily formulaic, and you could usually tell what stage things were going to be at by being aware of whether you were at the 15, 30 or 45-minute commercial break. Other people, however, don’t seem to so readily pick up on these sorts of plot mechanics. On the other hand, there are weird football rules that I'm never going to pick up on, while my brother has a violation pegged well before the ref calls it.

I can think of two incidents in which a friend (the same one, actually) got pissed off at me because I noted something that I was amazed to discover she hadn’t discerned. Again, believe me, I don’t think this is a sign that I’m more intelligent than her, but rather than we probably just think in a different way.

In Sean Connery’s Just Cause (a film so aggressively mediocre that I thought the actually title was the answer to why they made the movie; Just ‘Cause), Connery is a law professor and anti-capitol punishment activist—see the beginning of the film for a classic and hilarious example of how Hollywood portrays conservatives, with Connery besting debate opponent George Plimpton as an obvious William F. Buckley surrogate with ridiculous ease via a point that wouldn't even slow the real Buckley down—who takes on the case of a black man who may have been railroaded to a date with the electric chair.

Connery sure enough discovers sound evidence to this effect…by about 50 minutes in (as I remember it). I instinctively turned to my friend and said, “So the guy is guilty.” She responded what do you mean, and confused, I pointed out the obvious fact that if he’s found to be ‘innocent’ with half the movie left to go, it can only be to set up a plot ‘twist’ where he was in fact guilty. She hit me for ruining the rest of the film for her, while I was bewildered at how anyone could not find that just entirely obvious. (Again in terms of old cop shows, it’s like if somebody is already arrested at the 15 or 30 minute mark, you know they’re innocent, because there’s still so much time left.)

Meanwhile, in the tepid thriller Narrow Margin, Gene Hackman is a DA trying to keep a murder witness alive on a train trip. However, there’s a mystery assassin on the train. At one point, this attractive woman that Hackman had previously flirted with came back for a third appearance. I turned to my friend again and said, “Well, she’s the killer.” Again, amazingly (to me, at least), my friend asked, what do you mean. I explained the only other suspect the film had given us was this guy so patently suspicious that he had Red Herring written all over him, and that moreover there was no reason for this other character to keep popping up over and over again unless she was going to ‘surprisingly’ turn out to be the killer. Again, my friend hit me.

I’ve learned to shut up since then, at least until the movie is over, but it’s too late. For better or for worse, my friend has become at least somewhat more analytical, as it’s hard not to continue noticing bad scripting and such once you’ve started doing so. I’m not really sure I’ve done her any favors by that, though, considering that modern films are clearly aimed more at the passive viewers.

Almost new on DVD (09/19/06)...

2006-09-27T11:03:00.000-07:00

Since I was out of town last week, here's some stuff that came out a week ago Tuesday:

The big news of the week was the release of the second half of the second season (officially the “S2.5 edition”) of the superlative Battlestar Galatica revamp. This show finally does what folks have been suggesting for years; instead of re-making something so perfect in the first place that the redo is bound to be inferior, take something that didn’t work right bad in the day and fix up the damn thing. Maybe a new program called Extreme Makeover: Bad Movie & TV Show Edition would help.

Celtic fantasy and Heath Ledger fans, meanwhile, will want to check out Roar: The Complete Series, a short-lived Fox series from several years ago.

Also available: Bob Newhart S4; Criminal Minds S1; Gilmore Girls S6; Hart to Hart S2; He-Man and the Masters of the Universe S2; King of Queens S6; The Unit S1

On to movies:

The Boris Karloff Collection Three disc set featuring The Black Castle, The Climax, Night Key, The Strange Door, and Tower of London One very good movie, (at least) one pretty good historical suspense flick and the chance to see several obscurities definitely makes this worth $20.

Brain Damage The follow-up film from the Basket Case guy. As such, a monumental gore alert must be issued.

Concorde Affair Weird sounding ‘70s Euro suspenser with Donald Pleasance, Dennis Hopper and Joe Cotton.

Day of the Cobra Another of the Italian police dramas that followed in the wake of Dirty Harry. Genre star Franco Nero headlines, and is here teamed with Sybil Danning (!).

Elvira’s Movie Macabre: Doomsday Machine Several b-movies are being put out this week under Elvira’s label, but this Jabootu classic is the essential buy. From what I understand, you can watch the film with cut-in Elvira ‘jokes’ or without.

Inner Sanctum Mysteries Features Calling Mr. Death, Weird Woman, Dead Man's Eyes, The Frozen Ghost, Strange Confession, and Pillow Of Death. Six highly generic but enjoyable films, all lasting about an hour, and starring Lon Chaney Jr. The Inner Sanctum was a suspense radio show, for all you cultural illiterates. The best of the series is Weird Woman, based on the same novel as the far superior later Burn Witch Burn (and when the hell is that coming out on DVD?), and if nothing else, you can’t go wrong owning a film called Pillow of Death.

Jigoku: Criterion Collection A gross Japanese horror flick gets the Criterion treatment.

Quiet Cool ‘80s over the top actioner that was a cable TV perennial back in the day. It thus involves, of course, drug lords. Stars the great James Remar and Jared “The Sea Serpent” Martin.

Spirit of the Beehive: Criterion Collection Another foreign fantasy film, this one from Spain.

Tomie Collection A five disc set presenting a complete series of Japanese horror flicks, about (shock) a spooky and murderous schoolgirl’s ghost.

Virgin Witch ’70s Euro nudie supernatural flick, of which there were quite a few.

Ator!

2006-09-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

I'm sure the four people who stop by this blog saw this at the main site, but Pam & Steve at Gangrene Widescreen invited me to add a few comments to their Ator the Fighting Eagle review. My additions were lame, but as usual, their review is absolutely terric:

GW's Ator Review

Meanwhile, of course, my 'few comments' grew like kudzu, so I've posted my review in conjunction with the GW one:

Jabootu Ator Review

Thoughts on Studio 60 and Sorkin...

2006-09-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

I watched 60 Sunset Strip, or whatever, last night. I’m sure for Sorkin fans it’s like stepping into a warm, comfortable bath. However, as someone who was never much of a fan of the guy’s work, I can’t say it offered much that was new to win me over. In fact, many of the elements feel like simple rehashes, and if I didn’t like them when they were new, I unsurprisingly found them worse the third time around.

Feel free to write off my complaints because of my conservative leanings, and it’s true that Sorkin’s ongoing attempts in all his shows to write ‘conservative’ characters are hilariously patronizing and completely off the mark. However, while I find such material predictably irksome, it’s really his incredible smugness that turns me off. Sorkin’s characters have as much a tendency to moral superiority as any of his cartoonish Christians are supposed to have, and that’s the element that’s always turned me off.

However, this excerpt from a blog dedicated to Studio 60 does suggest that part of the show’s appeal to Sorkin’s longtime fans does indeed derive from its preaching to the choir:

”[Actress] Sarah Paulson as Harriet Hayes was someone I heard a lot of people complain about...And she isn't all over this episode but I sort of see the problem…Paulson seems too mature and, I'll be frank, too intelligent to play this part…Paulson just isn't convincing as a conservative, I guess the problem is. Now, I say this as someone who can not stand conservatives, Paulson should probably feel honored by this but I just am not sure she was right for this role.”

When Sports Night came out, it was lauded by lots of people. I checked it out, and while it was indeed smartly written, it was also (to me) unbearably pompous. Each episode I saw literally ended with a Big Lecture from one character or other, in the face of which the character’s opponent would inevitably crumble. These always struck me like those fantasy conversations teenagers dream up in their heads, in which they force some icon of the Adult World (parent, boss, teacher) to admit that the kid is morally and intellectually above them in each and every way.

Part of the problem was that I was already addicted to a Canadian show called the Newsroom, which was far more cynical and had no heroes of any stripe. Sorkin’s programs are chock full of sacred cows, and I’ll admit that gives me gas. I honestly think I’d have had about the same reaction if his incessant preaching had been conservative, but admittedly, maybe not.

West Wing seemed the same show as Sports Night, although at least the White House setting made the pompousness a little more natural. However, now we’re back to a TV show setting, and it’s the exact same thing. Maybe the show will do well, but again, I certainly don’t think it’s going to bring in many viewers who didn’t watch Sorkin’s previous two shows.

Again, many of Sorkin’s dependable riffs are increasingly threadbare. Like many liberals, Sorkin doesn’t seem to like [conservative] bloggers much. One character notes in dismay, “I like authority.” (In terms of ‘official’ gatekeeper media outlets like the New York Times.) I found that a pretty amusingly reactionary position for a ‘liberal,’ although it’s an opinion I’ve seen on lots of left-wing sites. However, if the position is at least something you can argue about, the tired japes about bloggers being “people in pajamas” and “surrounded by cats” seem like lame, already age-old stereotypes from some grumpy old man. That’s smart, with-it writing?

[To be fair, although it goes by without comment, there is a funny scene where Perry holds a writer’s meaning and is solely pitched a succession of skits by different writers, all based on the idea that President Bush is Stupid. I did think that was pretty funny, if only because such sketches are so stale after six years of them.]

The manifold attacks on conservative Christians, meanwhile, seem even more tiresome, especially five years after 9/11. Really, are conservative Christians really America’s biggest problem right now? I honestly think Sorkin is trying to stir up controversy and publicity with this stuff. The early episodes have spent a lot of time talking up this sketch Perry wrote called “Crazy Christians.” It’s supposed to be brilliant, but if it is, why doesn’t it have better title than that? I mean, “Crazy Christians?” There’s a knee slapper.

One main character—the Matthew Perry guy—earlier broke up with the love of his live because she appeared on the Pat Robertson show. That seems insane to most of us, I think, but was justified because her doing so was, as he says—and he really does say this—like attending a Klan rally. Anyhow, I don’t think stuff like this will provoke more than yawns. First of all, Robertson hasn’t been anything but a fringe figure for decades now. Second of all, ho hum, a TV show attacking Christians. Whatever, dude. I look forward to Perry later getting equally uptight about somebody invited Al Sharpton to be on the show. Certainly Sharpton is at least as loathsome as Robertson, right?

Even the show’s big plot device, the Last Minute Brilliant Sketch Idea That Saves the Day, is wearisome, being—get this—a parody song set to the tune of I’m the Very Model of a Modern Major General. Gee, that’s fresh.

Anyway, for those who like Sorkin’s stuff, have fun. I’ve never been one of those people who think people who don’t like stuff I do are dumb or something. I’m one of apparently few Firefly fans who doesn’t blame Fox for the show’s failure. To my mind, there just weren’t a whole lot of people who fell into the Space Western demographic. What’ya going to do?

In contrast, a letter printed in this week’s Entertainment Weekly snidely opines that Sports Night failed because the average viewer was “not intelligent enough” to appreciate the show. Well, maybe. (Although West Wing did fine for a number of years.) Or maybe in the Age of Seinfeld a show that demanded it was About Something each and every week just grated on the nerves of many. Or, conversely, perhaps a sitcom set at a sports news cable TV channel wasn’t very appealing. Who knows?

Anyway, while I’ll probably occasionally drop in here and there, I think I’m more likely to find the SNL-derived Tina Fey sitcom more up my alley.

New on DVD (09/26/06)...

2006-09-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

This week’s TV sets [S=Season, CS=Complete Series]

The Batman S2; Benny Hill Set 5; Book of Daniel CS; Brotherhood S1; Chris Rock Show S1&2; Daniel Boone S1; Daniel Boone S2; Dick Tracy Complete Animated Series; Ellen S4; Ghost Whisperer S1; Mama’s Family S1; One Tree Hill S3; Riptide S1; Teen Titans S2; Thriller S1 (British show, not the old Karloff hosted series, sadly); Voltron 1 Defender of the Universe

Movies:

Brentwood, which used to put the crappiest pd DVDs out there, has refashioned itself into a company hawking a huge and distinct variety of double feature imprints, including horror (“Crypt of Terror”) and more general exploitation fare (“Starlite Drive In Theater”). At the very least, their wares are usually decent, and allow for tons of very obscure films to be made available at cheap prices, with the double features usually selling well under ten dollars. This weeks offerings include:

Crypt of Terror: Land of the Minotaur / Terror Two Euro horrors from the ‘70s. The first film revolves around a pagan cult and features Donald Pleasance and Peter Cushing. The second appears to be a supernatural slasher type affair.

Starlite Drive-In Theatre: Madmen of Mandoras & The Devil’s Hand MoM was the film later padded out and released as They Saved Hitler’s Brain. Both (!) versions of the film are provided, with MoM supposedly having the better presentation. The Devil’s Hand (not, as previously indicated, Bride of the Monster) is a satanic cult movie starring Robert Alda.

Starlite Drive-In Theater: The Pom Pom Girls/The Van Two ‘70s Animal House-esque sexploitation flicks.

VCI, meanwhile, offers a “Movie Bad Girls Double Feature”, featuring Sins of Jezebel (1951) and Queen of the Amazons (1953). If this line continues, some great camp might be forthcoming.

With Halloween approaching, several well-known horror films are getting special edition releases.

Most notably, Universal has dipped into the classic monsters well again to offer two-disc “75th Anniversary Editions,” the latest re-issues, of the 1931 Dracula and Frankenstein. Each set features the film; the Dracula set again (I think) offers the discrete Mexican version as well; along with the attendant extras from the older releases; and some new stuff, including a second feature commentary for each film.

Dark Waters The Spanish horror flick gets a two-disc special edition.

The Dead Zone SE

Dust Devil The Final Cut 5-disc (yes, five discs) HD “final cut” the cult horror pic, a reconstruction of the original and longer work print, three of the director’s non-related documentaries, a commentary, making-of featurettes, production diaries, deleted footage, interviews, comic-book, CD soundtrack and more.

Nightmare on Elm Street Special Edition

Pet Semetary Special Edition

Street Trash: Special Edition Two commentary tracks, two-hour long making-of documentary, the original 16mm short version and more.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Ultimate Edition (The original film.) This is from the fine folks at Dark Sky Video, and hence should be a pretty solid package.

Beowulf & Grendel Stellan Skarsgård is King Hrothgar is this retelling of the olde classic.

Frankenstein, El Vampiro Y Compania IN SPANISH ONLY, NO ENGLISH SUBTITLES Mexican remake of Abbott & Costello Meets Frankenstein. Famous Monsters used to talk about this one back in the day, but nobody had actually seen it.

Frankenstein: The True Story Interesting revisionist (despite the title) retelling of Shelley’s novel, made for TV in the ‘70s. Stars James Mason as Frankenstein’s mentor, Michael Sarrazin as the Monster, and Jane Seymour as the would-be Bride.

Hands of Steel Simply hilarious Italian ‘80s sci-fier, due to be Jabootuized one of these days.

Highwaymen In the wake of the Traveling Wilburys, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings formed the Country supergroup. This features one of their concerts.

Magical Mystery Tour Infamously awful, barely watchable Beatles TV special. Dreadful.

Munsters Two-Movie Fright Fest The theatrical feature and the much later TV movie.

Night of the Werewolf One of Paul Naschy’s endless werewolf movies, albeit via a new DVD imprint promising spiffy presentations of Spanish horror flicks.

Vengeance of the Zombies Another disc by the above mentioned Spanish horror line.

RIP Mickey Hagritay

2006-09-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

Mickey Hargitay died last week at the age of 80. He lived one of those extraordinary lives that only seem possible in the 20th century. Born in Hungary in 1926, Mr. Hargitay fled his homeland to avoid compulsory conscription in the Soviet army. Inspired by Steve Reeves, the bodybuilder and star of myriad Italian Hercules movies, Hargitay became a bodybuilder himself, and won the Mr. Universe title in 1955.

Hargitay was a beefcake extra in a Mae West revue when he was spied by his natural torso-mate, Jayne Mansfield. They became an item and married, having three children before divorcing six years later. Three years after that, Mansfield died in a horrible car accident. Fittingly, in the golden days Hargitay co-starred with Mansfield in his own Italian Hercules movie, The Loves of Hercules.

Hargitay starred in many amusingly cheesy movies, including the rather inert hero role in the hilariously sordid Lady Frankenstein. He also grappled with Robert Conrad in an episode of The Wild Wild West. However, his trademark role will always be his deliciously over the top emoting as the Crimson Executioner in Bloody Pit of Horror, one of those dead perfect little B-movie gems, the sort of thing that when you find it, makes the dive through cinematic dreck year after year suddenly worthwhile.

Arnold Schwarzenegger aptly enough played Hargitay in The Jayne Mansfield Story, a telepic starring Loni Anderson. Sadly, he did not have a scene in Hagritay’s Crimson Executioner get-up.

Having (like Schwarzenegger after him) made a fortune in real estate and other investments, Hargitay eventually retired from acting in the mid-‘70s and lived what we can only hope to have been a rich and happy life. He did live long enough to have briefly appeared opposite his daughter Mariska Hargitay in an episode of her TV series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and to see her win an Emmy for Best Actress in a Dramatic Series for that program.

Rest in Peace, sir, and thank you.

Back in town, and new DVDs...

2006-09-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

Came back to work this morning, where I have my packages sent. Two new DVD sets had arrived.

One was the first of two Boris Karloff collections coming out for Halloween this year. The Boris Karloff Collection features runs for about $20, and features five movies. Night Key is a suspense/mystery movie rather than a horror film, and pretty obscure. The Climax features Karloff in his first color movie, with Boris as a fashionably dressed killer. The Strange Door, a period piece, also features Charles Laughton as a baddie nobleman--ensuring a lot of scenery chewing--and Karloff as his frightened but basically good guy servent. I haven't seen that one, but it sounds a lot like another film featured here, The Black Castle, which is a pretty good suspense yarn about another evil nobleman and with Karloff as a doctor under his sway. The prize of the set is the first version of Tower of London, with Karloff as a bald executioner in Merry Olde England. Basil Rathbone stars as another murderous nobleman, and a young Vincent Price makes an appearance. Price would play the Rathbone part in a remake years later.

The packaging is pretty neat, with the discs seated in a slipcase. This features a small illustration of a nattily dressed Karloff from The Climax, while his large 'shadow' is a die cut, under which we see his visages from the other movies featured here. The interior disc box is nicely illustrated, and the films are on three discs. One of the discs is seated over a second one, however, leading to worries about scratching. Still, Cool stuff.

The second set is the (currently) Best Buy exclusive Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection. That's a bit much, but the collection is very nice. The Mole People is the one marginal title, but hey, mole people monsters. Monster on the Campus is a fun man-into-caveman movie with laughable 'science' galore, and a terrifically amusing scene with a mock-up giant dragonfly. The Monolith Monsters is an extremely neat little sci-fier about growing rocks that threaten mankind. Really, it's a pretty good movie. Tarantula is the most well-known big bug movie after Them!. Finally, there's an authentic classic, The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Best Buy is selling this for only $20, so you can't beat the prize, although some are still grumbling about the lack of extras. ISM, certainly, is worthy of a deluxe re-issue with commentaries, etc., someday down the line. The three discs are in a folder like the one for the Karloff set, again with one disc seated atop another. The plastic semi-transparent slipcover is pretty neat, but the cover art, featuring a generic screaming woman, is quite lame. There are some really good movies here with recognizable titles, and they would have been better served to spotlight the original poster art to differentiate this from all the zillions of public domain schlock sci-fi sets out there.

Update: 24 hour horror marathon schedule now complete...

2006-09-23T16:15:00.000-07:00

These, barring problems, constitute the feature motion picture line-up of the 24 hour horror movie marathon being held at Chicago's Music Box Theatre on Oct 14-15, noon to noon. If they do run the movies chronilogically (which I'm not yet certain of), this is will be the correct order as well. No times have been announced, but I've broken things into two hour slots as a very rough guide until official times are decided. Note that this fails to work towards the end of the bill:

(Noon) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

(2:00 PM) The Bride of Frankenstein

(4:00 PM) It Came From Outer Space (In 3-D)

(6:00 PM) Masque of the Red Death

(8:00 PM) Let's Scare Jessica To Death (The film's director, John Hancock, is scheduled to appear at the show.)

(10:00 PM) Deep Red (Argento)

(Midnight) Piranha (Director Joe Dante scheduled to appear at show.)

(2:00 AM) Zombie

(4:00 AM) Friday the 13th Part 2

(6:00 AM) An American Werewolf in London

(8:00 AM) The Thing

(10:00 AM) Night of the Creeps

(11:00 AM) Homecoming / Episode of the Masters of Horror TV show. Dante is, again, scheduled to make a personal appearance at the show, although whether during the Piranha slot, or here, or both, is unknown.

Folks have chastized me for my stated plans to leave before Night of the Creeps plays. However, now that the schedule has been majorly rejiggered, I really have to re-think my plans. Depending on how my ass is holding up (and if, as last year, I attend solo), I might stay through for Piranha, although frankly I'm not an Argento buff, to say the least. Too bad about The Thing, particularly.

Night of the Creeps is probably still out, though. The problem is that there's no easy way to get downtown and stay there that late, given parking regulations. Even if I take the El and buses down to the theater, I can't park my car in any of the El lots that long.

We'll see.

FURTHER INFO HERE.

Off to Kentucky...

2006-09-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

Family vacation time, as I head south to meet up with some of my kinfolk. Back about a week from Monday, so I don't want anyone to become alarmed at the sudden, abrupt termination of the phenomenal torrent of posts this blog has become renowned for.

I'm hoping to do better in October, when I plan to do a mess of horror movie blogging. In the meantime, everyone--all four or five of you--have yourselves a damn fine week.

24 hour horror movie fest, Chicago on Sat, Oct 14th...

2006-09-13T06:28:00.000-07:00

Last year Chicago's historic Music Box Theatre, a classic '20s movie house gorgeously refurbished a few decades ago, ran a 24 hour horror film fest for Halloween. Apparently they will be making it a yearly event.

Running from noon on Saturday, Oct 14th until noon on the following day, the fest is a goofy event with lots of audience participation, etc. I didn't stay the whole 24 hours last year, and won't this year. There are parking issues for those who so stay(you basically have to find a new spot for your car in the wee hours, although I imagine it's not that tough to do so). However, I'm an old man, and anyway, once the films start getting overtly gory, I lose interest.

That's why it's great that they run the movies-basically-chronilogically, starting with the oldest film and moving on through the decades. And at $25, if you stay for only the first six or seven films (or the final six or seven films), you can't say you haven't gotten your money's worth.

This is a tentative line-up, and will probably be added to:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (with live organ accompaniment)
Bride of Frankenstein
It Came from Outer Space
Masque of Red Death
Homecoming (Joe Dante personal appearance; this was his episode from the Masters of Horror TV show)
The Thing (Carpenter's)
Let's Scare Jessica to Death

-An Exhausted Ken Leaves-

Deep Red (Argento)
Night of the Creeps
Zombie
Friday the 13th Part 2

More details here.

This week on DVD (09/12/06)...

2006-09-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

A pretty weak week.

TV sets of the week: Diagnosis Murder S1; Dick Cavett: Hollywood Greats; Grey’s Anatomy S2; Las Vegas S3; Moonlighting S4; Office S2; Roseanne S5; Smallville S5; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles S4

Movies:

Colin Farrell: Superstar Collection I really only noted this because, you know, how often will any human being type “Colin Farrell” and “Superstar” in the same sentence? Not often, I’d think, especially after Miami Vice. This is the ludicrous example of star inflation I’ve seen in a while. Meanwhile, a number of actors at least more worthy than Farrell of being called a superstar—Nick Cage, Michael Douglas, Cameron Diaz—are getting similar sets called “Celebrity” Collections today. On the other hand, calling Farrell a ‘celebrity’ is not much less exaggerated than calling him a ‘superstar.’

Crypt of the Vampire (click for disc review) Chris Lee went to Italy and Germany in the ‘60s and made a batch of movies. This is an Italian vampire flick. Many of these in the English language versions feature another actor dubbing (!) Lee’s voice. Basically, Lee, and other actors as well, would often do the roles in whatever the native language was, and refused to re-loop the entire film in English too, since that was sort of like giving two performances for one fee. So absurdly in the English dubs another voice would supplant Lee’s stentorian tones. Not here, at least.

Great Yokai War (click for disc review) Modern take on the Japanese “Yokai”, weird monsters and spirits featured in several older Japanese films.

Has Anyone Seen My Pants / High Test Girls Released on separate discs, these are examples of the sort of Euro soft-core nudie/sex films you often used to see during ‘late nite’ cable slots on Showtime and such. Generally a bit silly and thus, arguably, more fun than similar American product, these are for those who want better production values than you get in the sort of Misty Mundae stuff released today. (Actually, Mundae isn’t making those anymore, I think. I’m sure somebody has carried on with those, however.) Joe Bob Briggs noted that High Test Girls—aka Six Girls at a Pump, Gas Pump Girls, etc.—features “excellent dubbed moaning” and “83 full breast exposures.”

Laurel & Hardy Collection V. 2 A-Haunting We Will Go, Dancing Masters, and Bullfighters. Three lesser films of The Boys, but still, Laurel & Hardy. Now about a friggin’ set of all their short subjects? Seriously, WTF.

Murder ala Mod / The Moving Finger A very early De Palma murder film, typically violent, and an unreleased murder flick as a co-feature.

Mutant Wings Hauser and Bo Hopkins try to survive a town full of folks turned zombies following toxic waste exposure.

Star Wars, the Real Ones Finally, the original unaltered cuts of the first three films, begrudgingly included as ‘extras’ with Lucas’ universally adored redoes. (Please read last bit in very sarcastic voice.)

Teen Terror Collection Bundles at a cheap price Teen Doll (Brit JD flick), Teen Monster (horrible, but funny, monster Western) and Teenagers from Outer Space (typically funny cheapie ‘50s sci-fi).

Look out old Safari Jacket Wonder Man is back!

2006-09-07T07:26:00.000-07:00

I've talked before about my love for a handful of second banana Marvel superheroes (Ghost Rider back in the day, Luke Cage*), and included Safari Jacket Wonder Man in the roster. As noted, I really never liked any of his other looks. He was a glowing energy being for a while. Yawn. And he's also had a simply dreadful parade of 'superhero' costumes, all of which featured a retarded looking giant 'W' on his chest. As if to make him look especially bad, in the late '80s and '90s these horrible costumes were mated by giving Wonder Man a mullet. Yuck.

[*As I noted at the time, one link among these three is that they didn't have elaborate superhero costumes. Ghost Rider was a motorcycle stunt guy, and wore blue leathers. Luke Cage wore a yellow silk shirt and black slacks along with boots. Wonder Man again wore a red safari jacket over tight black pants and the requisite boots as well. In other words, compared to Spider-Man or Captain America, these guy comparatively wore street clothes.]

But now the classic, golden Wonder Man of Yore is back. Check this out. [If you click on each separate page, they appear in a new window, and can be blown up via the icon in the right right hand corner to a huge size, allowing you to really enjoy the extremely good artwork.]

You can't miss the cameo by another beloved character either, who once was part of the Marvel Universe.

Aiiiieeee!!!

2006-09-06T08:57:00.000-07:00

Since I haven’t gotten a chance to look at any of the DVDs that came in last week, I feel even more pressured now that my next batch has arrived. And I should point out that financial constraints have me buying much less than I used to. However, after a slow couple of month, a slew of essential stuff has come out in the last week (and is due in the next month: The Universal Sci-Fi Collection, two Karloff box sets, the Legends of Horror Collection, etc.). And believe me, I am skipping titles I definitely would have once picked up, like the new 3-disc Seven Samurai edition from Criterion.

Anyhoo, here’s what’s next for the waiting list:

The Brainiac: One of my favorite movies ever, bar none. A beautiful transfer, and worthy of three watchings…once in the original Spanish, once in the K. Gordon Murray dub, and once with the commentary. Ai Carumba! Time necessary: 4 hours.

Godzilla (Gojira): Wow! This is the most gorgeous package I’ve seen in a while. Stunning. Both the original Japanese cut of the first Godzilla film, never even available in this country before on video, and the American re-cut and Burr-ized version on the second disc. With two audio commentaries (one for each film, and very good sounding ones), new documentaries and a booklet. Again, this set is beautiful! And under $20! Buy it! Buy it! The same company is releasing more Godzillas in the coming year. Awesome. Time necessary: Six to seven hours.

Arrested Development Season Three: TV’s biggest loss since Futurama went off the air. I purposely skipped the final episodes when they were broadcast, so I could watch them on DVD. Before I get to these final 13 shows, I’d like to re-watch the first two season. Tick tock, tick tock. Time necessary: Say, six hours, along with time to rewatch around 40 previous episodes.

100 Years of Horror: A 26 part history of horror movies, not chronological unfortunately, but with subject-oriented episodes (Werewolves, Bela Lugosi, Giants and Dinosaurs, etc.) Hosted by Christopher Lee. I never saw this show, so I don’t know how good it is—although it seems to have a pretty good fanbase—but over 12 hours of content for around $13! Time necessary: 12 and a half hours.

And I have no time over the next couple weeks to even get started. Sigh.

Sacre bleu! Faire attention le dauphin!

2006-09-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

"La vengeance est le mien!"

Will Jean Reno fill in for Richard Harris?

Brest, France - For several weeks, an enraged dolphin has been terrorising the French Atlantic coast, attacking boats and knocking fishermen into the sea, French media reported on Wednesday.

"He's like a mad dog," complained Hneri Le Lay, president of the association of fishermen and yachtsmen of the port of Brezellec, in Brittany.

"He has caused at least €1 500 damage in the past few weeks."

The dolphin, who has been named Jean Floch, has destroyed rowboats, overturned open boats, flooded engines and twisted mooring lines.

Worse, two fishermen were knocked into the sea after the dolphin overturned their boat.

"I don't want to see any widows or orphans," Le Lay warned. "This could end badly."

Seriously, is there any other country that could be terrorized by a freakin' porpoise?

Just stuff...

2006-08-31T09:42:00.000-07:00

Star Trek TOS is receiving the George Lucas treatment, as the series will re-issued on DVD with cleaned up CG special effects. These will be syndicated to TV, too. If that’s your bag, you may want to wait until the new shows are released on high def. On the other hand, purists (and collectors) may want to grab the original versions, in case those are written out of history ala Lucas.

Another veteran dies as Glenn Ford, star of Happy Birthday to Me (like all veteran Canadian actors--Bill Shatner, Leslie Nielsen, etc.--he appeared in a slasher film because a certain Canadian presence afforded producers Canadian government funding back then) passes away at the age of 90. RIP, sir.

Joseph Stephano, who wrote the screenplay for Hitchcock’s Psycho and also was the creator of the original TV show The Outer Limits, has also passed on. Both seasons of The Outer Limits are available on DVD, and at pretty cheap prices, too. Pick them up or put them on your Christmas list.

By the way, while it was an intelligent and generally well put together show, I just could never get into the new The Outer Limits. Pretty consistently, the endings of the stories were just incredibly dark. That might not have been a problem in itself, but the original OL was such a conversely optimistic and humanistic (in the good sense) program that this tact always seemed like a betrayal.

While I’m on that topic, one episode of the new show in particular drove me up the wall. It [Trial By Fire from the 2nd Season] featured an alien armada incursion approaching Earth, and the pressure on the newly sworn-in President of the United States to either launch an attack on it or not. (Pressure from saintly wife was for no, pressure from HOTHEADED MILITARY TYPES was yes.) The plot cheats were incredible, as the aliens kept doing suspicious things, like knocking out defense satellites, but always in ways that could, possibly, have just been accidents. The annoying thing was (again given the show’s general prevalence for dark endings) that it was obvious that no matter what the President decided, it would be the wrong answer. Since we’re talking Hollywood here, I predicted the wrong decision would be to fire the missiles, and of course I was right. Only two countries at last fire on them, us and the Soviets—that’s the show biz idea of being politically ‘evenhanded’—and at exactly that moment an alien communiqué is finally decoded and we learn that (surprise) the aliens are peaceful. However, despite stopping the missiles without harm, they still retaliate, and the President has several minutes to appreciate the fact that his actions have doomed Washington DC (Moscow gets the same treatment) and its population to complete obliteration. What a suckfest. Later, Cinefanfastique did their yearly series rundown for the show, and I was appalled that this insanely manipulative episode was given their highest rating, four stars. Apparently the author liked the ‘message’ about ‘MILITARY BAD.’ I don’t know, maybe if the episode pandered to my politics I would have liked it, too. I don’t think so, though.

Boy, does that The Covenant movie look like it sucks, or what?

This is most probably going to be the last week you can see Snakes on a Plane in a theater. What’ya waiting for?

A lot of formerly lost footage (alternate cuts, etc.) from John Carpenter’s original Halloween have shown up. Get ready for the upteenth Special Edition DVD for that movie, although at least this one will have some new stuff to show us.

My name is Ken B., and I am a DVD addict...

2006-08-30T09:14:00.000-07:00

I’m so broke, and yet I keep buying DVDs. It doesn’t help when DeepdiscountDVDs had a recent sale. At least one of these titles (And the Screaming Starts) I bought only because Netflix doesn’t carry it. I’ve never seen that particular movie, so I bought it, although I’ll probably re-sell the DVD on Half.com after giving it a look.

Even so, you can’t complain about the amount of bang for your buck…which is both a blessing and a curse, budget-wise. Here’s what I got in this order:

And the Screaming Starts ($11): Amicus Brit horror with Peter Cushing. Two commentary tracks, one with the director and the female lead, the other from male lead Ian Ogilvy.

Creation of the Humanoid / War of the Planets Double Bill ($11) Two movies, drive-in intermission ads, trailers.

Day the World Ended / The She-Creature double bill ($8.50) Two movies, Day in letterbox format. (She-Creature, sadly, is full screen.)

Prince of Space / Invasion of the Neptune Men ($11) Two movies, drive-in programming, trailers.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare ($14): Jabootu classic with newly remastered (!), high-def transfer from original 35mm negative. Commentary with director John Fasano and star Jon Mikl-Thor. Documentaries and ‘music’ videos, and intro and afterword from Mikl-Thor.

Roger Corman Puerto Rico Trilogy ($12) Three movies restored from 35mm elements, Last Woman on Earth, Creature from the Haunted Sea and Battle of Blood Island. Films “hosted” by Roger Corman. Letterbox transfers. Trailer, additional footage shot for TV versions. Commentaries for each film (none featuring Corman, oddly enough.)

Viking Women and the Sea Serpent / Teenage Caveman double bill ($8.50). Two movies, sadly with ‘standard’ full-frame presentations. Teenage Caveman apparently suffers badly due to this. Lionsgate is going to have to do better than that, even for such a bargain price.

With free shipping and no tax, that was about $75 for a zillion hours of content and a huge array of oddities. Not bad.

Things aren’t going to let up anytime soon. I already have on order the third season of Arrested Development, the already fabled two-disc Godzilla/Gojira DVD, Brainiac, the 11 hour documentary series 100 Years of Horror, and the Best Buy exclusive, five movie Universal Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection.

Add to that the upcoming Legends of Horror Collection and the two Boris Karloff box sets, the next two Classic Media Godzilla movies due out in early November, and things look to remain expensive for another couple of months.

This week on DVD (08/29/06)

2006-08-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

Some essential stuff today.

The TV highlight of the week is definitely the third, short and final season of the lamented Arrested Development, destined to be one of the great sitcoms of all time. If you haven’t worked your way through the series yet, now you can.

Also of note is the appearance of the brilliant cartoon series The Tick (as opposed to the short-lived live-action series based on the same character, also available on DVD). Sadly, apparently some episodes are missing due to rights issues.

Meanwhile, there’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 Set 10 (Godzilla vs. Megalon, Swamp Women, Teen-Age Strangler, and The Giant Spider Invasion)

Other TV shows this week:

[‘S’ = Season; ‘TCS’ = The Complete Series]

Andy Griffith Show S7; Astro Boy Set 2; Blackstar: TCS; Desperate Housewives S2; Ellen S4; Nip/Tuck S3; Stephen King’s Desperation; The Tick 10th Anniversary Edition; Will & Grace S5

In movies, this week sees one of the major releases of the year as all-time Jabootu favorite The Brainiac (El Baron del Terror) hits DVD via the exceedingly fine folks at CasaNegra, a new line releasing eye-poppingly remastered Spanish horror films in their original language. The company’s two previously releases also included the hilarious K. Gordon Murray English dubs, and I can only fervently hope that’s the case here too. In any case, there is a commentary track and other goodies. Seriously, at around $13, you can’t afford not to own this disc.

CasaNegra also releases The Black Pit of Dr. M today.

Lot’s of stuff for ‘80s nostalgia freaks today, including special editions of Some Kind of Wonderful and Pretty in Pink. (What, no Breakfast Club?) Meanwhile, the “dancers escape from the Soviet Union” action / dance flick White Nights gets a SE too, and features some great moves by stars Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov. The Wizard is a video game movie about, uh, two young kids traveling cross country to play at a Nitendo video game contest. (Yes, really.) Stars Fred Savage, Beau Bridges and Christian Slater. They don’t make ‘em like that, anymore. Also out is the Betty Russell skin flick / romantic comedy Tomboy, fondly remembered by many guys from this period. You can add that to the recently released My Tutor and My Chauffer.

Anonymous Rex is a TV adapation of a book series featuring surviving human-sized dinosaurs in hiding from us humans via holographic projectors and disguises (really), merged with noir-ish private detective stories. Stars Daniel Baldwin, Faye Dunaway (We’ve come a long way from Chinatown, huh, Faye?) and Isaac Hayes.

Chuck Norris Collection (Delta Force 1 & 2, Missing in Action 1, Missing in Action 2&3)

Crypt of Terror: Night of the Bloody Apes/Curse of the Doll People Nice transfers of two Mexican horror flicks, the first as reviewed at Jabootu.

Double Indemnity SE: The Noir classic.

Galaxina: The last film of the murdered playmate Dorothy “Star 80” Stratten, a sci-fi comedy co-starring Avery Schreiber.

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death is a well-regarded ’70s suspenser.

Maximum Action: 9 Deaths of the Ninja/Killpoint Budget double bill of two memorably cheesy flicks.

Savage Cinema from Down Under (Marauders; Defenceless; Sensitive New Age Killer): Supposedly for the strong of stomach, three intense Australian thrillers.

Shock: ‘40s suspense stuff starring Vincent Price, and thus worth seeing.

Starlite Drive-In Theater: Malibu High/The Virgin Queen of St. Francis High BCI, a DVD company with a reputation for bad-looking DVDs, seems to be recasting itself. They are releasing tons of old movies with better transfers, and have started several lines of budget double bills to do so. The Crypt of Terror and Maximum Action lines noted above are also theirs. From the IMDB description, Malibu High really sounds like something.

This Island Earth: Fun ‘50s sci-fi extravaganza, that introduced “The Mutant,” a favorite amongst fans of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.

Cool beans...

2006-08-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

The other day I opined to someone that you don't see director/actor match-ups the way you used to, ala John Wayne and John Ford, or Jimmy Stewart and Anthony Mann or Alfred Hitchcock; or Hitchcock and Cary Grant. I attributed this (along with lots of modern Hollywood's other ills) to the fact that movies are cranked out the way they used to be. Old time stars in their prime used to make two or three movies for every one a modern star might make. Tom Cruise is a pretty busy actor, and he currently has 35 movie credits. Jimmy Stewart had nearly a 100, Henry Fonda more than a 100, and Cary Grant nearly 90. John Wayne had nearly 175. (Admittedly, a lot of those where quickie oaters he made before hitting the big time with Stagecoach, although he made 80 to 90 movies after that, as well.)

However, there was at least one modern, long-running director / actor collaboration I forgot, that of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. They are now preparing to make their sixth project together, an adaptation of (apparently) Steven Sondheim's musical Sweeny Todd, about a murderous barber who cut his customer's throats--in the musical, he's given a motive for this--and the woman who then disposes of the bodies by making them into meat pies and selling them to the locals.

Really, that sounds right up Burton and Depp's alley, assuming the musical part works out all right.

It Came from Netflix: The Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938)

2006-08-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

This was the second of the eight-picture Mr. Moto series I watched, and part of a four-movie set recently released series DVD. (Hopefully the other films will follow soon.) After the first film (Think Fast, Mr. Moto), I kind of gave up on the idea of watching the films in order, since I doubted there was much continuity between them. The Mysterious Mr. Moto proved to be the fourth film in the series, per the IMDB, and there was indeed little to suggest that I had missed anything by not watching the second and third entries first.

The good news is that there is no evident deterioration in the series between the first and fourth film. If anything, it improves on the first film in many ways. The budget is still quite good, if not inappropriately extravagant, as indicated by the scenes in an English pub. This set is quite a bit more elaborate and far better stocked with extras than it would be in a cheapie movie (such as the later Charlie Chan movies). The Mysterious Mr. Moto might be the fourth Moto film churned out in less than two years, but obviously the people behind it were still interested in making good pictures.

By now, as I assumed after seeing the first film, Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre) has become a bit more standardized as a character. He is indeed at this point a cop with Interpol rather than a private citizen, and less prone to kill people left and right. Even so, it’s clear that even if Moto was created following the success of Charlie Chan, in both print and in film, the characters are much different.

Whereas Chan is basically a classic detective of the Sherlock Holmes / Ellery Queen mode, Moto is more of a spy-type character, working undercover, wearing disguises, and engaging in physical combat on a regular basis. Moto is really more of an action lead. And while he does the ‘quiet, sedate Oriental’ thing, much like Chan, it’s clear that in Moto’s case it is entirely an act, meant to make an advantage of the way whites tend to underestimate him because of his race. Whenever another character, especially a white, in on the screen with him, Moto is always smiling and obsequious. When he’s alone, however, the mask be can seen to slip, even if only briefly.

Running a lean 61 minutes (who lethargic modern movies seem when watching these old programmers!), the fourth entry in the series actually improves in several ways on the original. First, Moto is much more the focus of things, and conversely the obligatory romantic leads are given much less screentime than the couple in the first film. (I have to admit, the fact that I found the female lead quite attractive probably helped too.)

The film opens with the escape of two killers from Devil’s Island. However, one of the escapees is in fact the undercover Mr. Moto, who has helped convict Paul Brissac (familiar character actor Leon Ames) escape so as to get into his confidence. Back in London, Moto learns that Brissac is part of the League of Assassins (or something of the sort), and that they are targeting pacifist industrialist Anton Darvak. As usual, the ‘mystery,’ which in this case involves the secret identity of the group’s leader, is perfunctory at best, and easily figured out. (The way that the guy allows his identity to be learned is also just silly, as it involves him for no real reason revealing himself to his henchmen for the first time.)

The real reasons to watch the film are to see Moto in action, playing in the middle between the killers and the interfering local cops, dodging numerous attempts on his life, and as usual engaging in a pretty good judo scuffle at the end of the movie. Kudos again to the stunt work, as even with my practiced eye and intent to spot the change, I could usually just barely tell when stuntman Harvey Parry was substituted for Lorre.

The DVD for this film, again available (as of now) only as part of the first Mr. Moto set, also features a short documentary on director Norman Foster, who directed and scripted six of the eight Motos. Foster had a long career as a director, including a lot of TV works on very popular shows like Batman, The Green Hornet and Disney’s manic fad-creating Davy Crockett. This was a well put together piece, although I was disappointed at the way it sped past his involvement with the Moto series.

It Came from Netflix! Equinox (1967 / 1970)

2006-08-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

Art house DVD specialists Criterion have occasionally dipped their toe into low budget genre films in the past, putting out highly nifty editions of films like Fiend Without a Face and the original The Blob. Recently they returned to those waters with a great two-disc edition of the drive-in classic Equinox.

Equinox was no doubt deemed worthy of the Criterion touch for two reasons. First, the original version of the movie, a basically homemade affair (that obviously inspired Sam Raimi’s similarly scraped together The Evil Dead) was the work of several young men who went to have impressive Hollywood careers. The film’s director Dennis Muren does visual effects work on films like The Hulk and War of the Worlds, and has been nominated for many an Oscar for his work, and has taken home the award an astounding seven times.

Second, the theatrical version of the movie was shepherded by producer Jack H. Harris, who also did The Blob and did a commentary for Criterion’s DVD of that film. Since they obviously have a good relationship with the guy, it’s kind of a no-brainer to showcase other of his films.

Aside from Muren, helping with original Equinox’s impressive special effects were Dave Allen and Jim Danforth. Both are well known to genre buffs today, especially as some of the last practitioners of stop-frame animation, which is heavily featured in this movie.

The guys were fittingly brought together through Forry Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine (Uncle Forry does an intro on the DVD), and decided to make a movie. The result was Equinox…A Journey Into the Supernatural. In this, four friends, two men and two women, go to the remote mountain cabin of a college professor, only to find that he’s been messing around with things Man Was Not Meant to Know.

Aside from eye-popping monster f/x, especially from guys who were basically amateurs, the film presages the sort of fatalism that really gripped the horror film generally following the next year’s Night of the Living Dead. The end result was an amazingly ambitious effort for a bunch of youngsters working with a $6,500 budget.

The film lay about for a while, before producer Harris scooped it up and had it reworked for a theatrical release. Marvelously, the Criterion set features both films, so that you can contrast them. When I started watching Harris’ version, I was at first upset to see another director credited for what I assumed would be but a gloss on Muren’s original.

However, it is in fact a completely different film. 95% of what was kept from the original version was the special effects scenes. Otherwise, the original small cast was rounded back up, and the rest of the movie was completely reshot. The major change is that the supernatural forces now have a malign personification, in the form of a sinister forest ranger named Asmodeus. That alteration really helps give the film some narrative momentum, although some of the scripting and character motivations were tightened as well.

In the end, both versions are pretty good and well worth watching, but Harris’ is, in fact, more professional. It is kind of funny how the actors (including a young Frank Bonner, who went on to sitcom immortality as the crass Herb Tarlek on WKRP in Cincinnati) look obviously older, despite returning for Harris’ version only two or three years later.

I haven’t rented the second disc yet, which features a bunch of documentaries and other bonus materials. However, the first disc has both versions of the movie, and also commentaries for each. Muren, scripter Mark McGee Danforth comment on the original, while Harris (a hilariously bluff old school showman with a plumy Don Pardo-like voice) and Jack Woods, who wrote and directed the theatrical version, reminisce about that movie.

Those interested in buying the set will also get a thick booklet about the movie(s). This is essential stuff for any monster movie buff, and again especially important due to the obvious influence on Raimi’s Evil Dead movies.

Snakes on a Plane!

2006-08-16T07:20:00.000-07:00

This is a testament to the power of Snakes on a Plane. I talked two of my fuddy-duddy friends, Tech Master Paul and his wife Holly (and she was an especial coup) into napping Friday after work and then hitting the 12:30 AM showing at our local Woodfield theater. I figure the sort of retards that would stay up until 12:30 to see Snakes on a Plane on opening night constitute exactly the sort of audience I want to see the movie with.

[I also opined that probably the purest way to experience the film would be to buy your ticket, get there early and grab good seats, wait until the title appeared on the screen, stand up, applaud, and leave. Because really, the rest of the film after that point it largely superflous.]

By the way, we went to see Pirates 2 last night, and in the lobby the theater had a standee ad for SoaP that was in the cartoon style of an airplane emergency manual: "If bitten by a poisonous snake, please alert the nearest flight attendent." If the movie is half as hilarious as that ad, it will be awesome. I stared at that thing for a good five straight minutes, and think I was literally crying at how funny it was. Then, when we left after the movie later, we saw a bunch of 16 year-olds spot it and have the exact same reaction (like Paul, one girl immediately took a cell phone picture of it). If kids that age are excited about the movie, too, it's going to make huge money.

And really, is *anyone* a better match for this movie than Samuel L. Jackson? I think not.

Two more days.

It Came from Netflix! Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937)

2006-08-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

Mr. Moto initially was more or less a Japanese knock-off of Charlie Chan, whose print adventures were hugely popular in The Saturday Evening Post. Author John Marquand helped feed the appetite for inscrutable oriental adventurers by creating Mr. Moto, originally a civilian crime fighter and later an international police officer.

In time, a gigantic number of Chan movies began to be churned out, starring several actors and produced at several studios (with shoestring poverty row company Monogram taking over the series after it lost most of its box office luster). In the end, I think there were something like 42 Chan movies made over a roughly twenty-year span.

Naturally, several knock-off characters followed, resulting in such sights as Boris Karloff (!) playing the Oxford educated Mr. Wong in five cheapie movies. A somewhat more upscale series, however, featured German émigré Peter Lorre as Marquand’s Mr. Moto. Lorre at first was pleased to play a good guy, rather than his trademark sinister characters, but tired of the increasingly perfunctory entries as he was forced to grind out eight Moto movies over the next two years. Nor were things helped by Lorre’s then chronic efforts to kick his morphine addiction. On a later picture, a director asked Lorre how he managed to keep churning out the (to him) desultory Motos. “I was on dope,” Lorre replied. He wasn’t kidding.

Think Fast, Mr. Moto was the first Moto movie, however, and Lorre was still in a good humor about it. The German actor, with his lisping European accent, was an odd choice to play the Nipponese Moto (although Warner Oland, the best of the Chans, was Swedish), and probably was mostly cast because of his diminutive size. Lorre forwent make-up such as fake eye-folds, moreover, and relied on his size, performance and a pair of wire rim glasses to sell his character’s ethnicity.

The first movie plays Moto a bit mysteriously, and it’s not until the end that his good guy status is confirmed. I assume later on in the series he became a more standard sort of cop, ala Chan. However, if Chan was a fox in the Columbo mold (or vice versa, actually), Moto is more of a cobra, waiting passively and then suddenly striking with deadly effect. Moto probably kills more people in this movie than the gentle Chan did in his 40 movies put together, assuming he ever actually killed anyone. Indeed, at least once Moto more or less just murders a guy, even if the latter had it coming. Moto certainly brawls more, being a master of Judo, and is apt to don elaborates disguises and going undercover.

Another difference is that while Moto assume assumes a Chan-like humbleness, he seems (perhaps due to Lorre, who knew what it was like to find himself surrounded by Americans) to be more playing at it than Chan did, and seems alternately amused and annoyed at how his race has him treated by blustering whites.

The plot, about a smuggling ring, is the normal piffle, and way too much time is spent on a typically boring romance between two typically callow leads. An odder note is that the villains are played by actors at least now more associated with comedy. The ringleader is played by Sig Ruman, who played a foil for the Marx Brothers in several of their comedies. His chief henchman, meanwhile, was played by an actor best known for his comic mugs. Sharp-eyed viewers, meanwhile, will spot J. Carrol Naish (House of Frankenstein) as a shopkeeper early on.

The first Mr. Moto, at least, is a fun way to kill an hour, and indeed the eight pictures all clocked in at around 60 to 70 minutes. Viewers with a horror of exaggerated ethnic characters obviously might want to give these a pass, but if you can get past that aspect and enjoy old detective movies, you might want to give these a look.

A first box set of Motos, with the initial four films, has just come out on DVD. They have been extensively cleaned up, and look pretty good for ‘B’ flicks from this period. The DVD for Think Fast, Mr. Moto also features a documentary on Harvey Parry, the stuntman who did all the rough stuff in lieu of the delicate, awkward Lorre. For what it’s worth, he was a great stand-in for Lorre. Despite looking for the insertion of a stuntman (and in a near crystal clear digital picture) during the fight scenes, I couldn’t always tell when one was being used.

Busy, busy, busy, busy....

2006-08-09T14:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry, folks, more blogging (and a few late responses to comments--Stay alive, Marty, I will find you!) tomorrow...hopefully.

It Came from Netflix: Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein

2006-08-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

Three films entitled (among other things) Dracula vs. Frankenstein were made between 1970 and 1972. Actually, that wasn’t the original title of two of the movies, as they were European, but all three were released at some point under that title to American theaters and drive-ins.

The first and best of these—and this is ominous—was a Spanish flick starring a depressed looking Michael Rennie as a space alien and the ubiquitous Paul Naschy as not only his trademark character, Waldemar Daninsky the werewolf, but the Mummy, a manqué Dracula figure, and the “Franksollen monster.” As was often the case with Naschy’s films, the premise proved a lot more exciting than the actual result. On TV the movie tended to play under the title Operation Terror. (Surely somebody is readying this for a DVD release somewhere?)

The second, and second best of these—and that’s definitely an ominous statement—was the infamous 1971 Al Adamson flick starring (*cough*) Zandor Vorkof as Count Dracula and John Bloom as the Frankenstein Monster, along with support from J. Carrol Naish, Lon Chaney, Jr., Russ Tamblyn, Anthony Eisley and Greydon Clark.

Now, Adamson’s film is an all-time stinker, and I would have been highly dubious about the prospect of another film with the same title actually being worse. However, my doubts were assuaged when I saw the terrifying words, “Directed by Jesus Franco.”

Even that, sadly, proved insufficient warning, as Dracula vs. Frankenstein (a.k.a. Dracula contra Frankenstein, and now out on DVD as Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein, presumably to differentiate it from Adamson’s picture) is easily the most torpid Franco film I’ve seen. Admittedly, I’ve seen but a handful of Franco’s nearly 200 (!!) movies. However, when you’re talking about films like The Diabolical Dr. Z, Future Women, Orloff Against the Invisible Man and the like, there shouldn’t be that much room left for more boredom.

It turns out there was. Lots and Lots.

I fear describing the movie, since nothing I can write can fail to make the film sound more interesting and watchable than it is. It seems beyond the ken of Man that you could pack Dracula, the Monster, a mad scientist, a hunchback, several sexy female vampires, and even a werewolf into an 80 minute movie and yet invoke nothing from the viewer but utter boredom. Well, here’s the proof.

Let me put it this way: The movie moved so slowly—and I mean that literally, in that the actors and ‘action’ movies at a consistent snail’s pace—that I watched nearly the entire film at double time by employing the first of my DVD player’s fast forward speeds. And as anyone familiar with my cinematic tastes knows, I’m hardly a novice at watching fundamentally boring movies. However, this one broke me. There was no way I was going to watch this at ‘regular’ ‘speed,’ despite the already (seemingly) brusque 80 minute running time.

Even reducing it down to nearly 40 minutes (maybe 50 minutes in total due to the occasional drop down to regular speed), the movie still moved slowly, and remained a chore to watch. Now, you might think, “Hey Ken, if you watched the film in fast forward, you couldn’t hear the dialogue. Is it really fair to judge a movie like that?”

As it turns out, the answer is yes. See, although the disc has literally no other extras, it does provide subtitles, and on my DVD player those still play at 2x speed. However, I nearly never needed to slow down to actually hear the dialogue (or read it) when so alerted, because there’s like five minutes of dialogue total in the whole damn thing. I’ve seen silent movies with dialogue cards that featured more dialogue than this movie did.

Even Franco-ites, and God help us, there are some—will be perplexed by the complete and utter lack of nudity (despite amble opportunities) or eroticism or gore of even the most elementary sort. However, one of Franco’s trademarks is on display: Literally hundreds of pointless and ill executed zoom shots.

Seriously, this film sucks. Stay away.

Gibson, rapists & Communists...

2006-08-07T07:33:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've allowed my political stances to play much of a part in my blog postings, but the recent Mel Gibson affair does raise some questions.

Without defending in any way Mel Gibson’s horrific and genuinely disgusting anti-Semitic remarks (I can only hope for the state of his own soul that the sober Gibson truly is as ashamed of his tirade as he says he is), I do have a couple of questions.

1) For those calling for him to basically be tossed out of the Hollywood community, how many of them voted for Roman Polanski to win an Oscar for The Pianist, and how many of them have no problem with John Landis or Victor Salva continuing to make movies? Surely molesting/raping minors and being responsible for the negligent deaths of an adult and two children is a worse moral offense than even the most appalling verbal tirade and/or deeply held racist beliefs.

2) I realize to an extent this is apples and oranges, but if it’s OK to argue that Gibson should be cast out of the community—in other words, kept/discouraged from making movies—for believing, as he obviously does at some (hopefully unconscious) level, that Jews are evil or whatever, what is the big problem with the film community shunning Communists back in the ‘50s? Being a Communist back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, the heyday of Stalin and Mao, was certainly at least as morally disgusting as being anti-Semitic, isn’t it?

If the general critique of the Blacklist is that one should never be ‘persecuted’ (in this case, lose his job) for his political beliefs, shouldn’t Gibson fall under that protective umbrella as well? At least Gibson has apologized (hopefully sincerely) for his sins. How many of the Hollywood Ten or their ilk (since the vast majority were in fact card-carrying Communists, let’s not get sidetracked into discussions of those who were innocent) have ever presented themselves as anything other than heroes and martyrs whiling dodging entirely the moral dimensions of their beliefs? Meanwhile, Elia Kazan and the like are still hated by many in the filmmaking community.

By the way, I'm sure that Gibson will continue to make movies, and that his career will basically continue on based on his box office popularity (meaning that the public does indeed, in the end, have the final word).

RIP Robert Cornthwaite

2006-08-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

BOB CORNTHWAITE [FAR LEFT] IN THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD.

Far too many veteran actors, including Jack Warden, Mako and Red Buttons have passed away recently. However, I hadn't even heard about the passing of Robert Cornthwaite, on July 20th at the age of 89.

Although Mr. Cornthwaite has well over a hundred film and television roles listed on the IMDB, he acheived immortality with his first credited part, as the seminal misguided scientist Dr. Carrington (the originator of the "they're techologically superior to us, so they must be morally superior to us, too" school of thinking) in Howard Hawks' The Thing from Another World. Frankly, if he had stopped there, he never would have been forgotten.

However, he was just starting, and as recently as 2005 worked in the sci-fi spoof The Naked Monster (as, fittingly, Dr. Carrington--thus the role that made him was his first [credited] role, and his last as well). In the meantime he appeared in several movies and dozens and dozens of TV shows.

Genre fans should keep an eye out for him in the films War of the Worlds (1953), The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and Colossus: The Forbin Project. (Cornthwaite also helped dub the American cut of Reptilicus!). As well, eagle eyes viewers might spot him appearing in such TV shows as Maverick, The Rifleman, The Untouchables, Thriller, The Twilight Zone, The Andy Griffith Show, Perry Mason, The Fugitive, The Munsters, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Get Smart, Batman, The Monkees, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The FBI, the pilot movie for The Six Million Dollar Man, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Laverne & Shirley, Murder She Wrote and several billions others.

RIP.

It Came from the Longbox! Marvel Presents (Wolverine) #42, 1990

2006-08-04T06:46:00.000-07:00

Marvel Comics Presents was an attempt at anthology book, allowing for stories starring characters who either didn’t have their own books, which were generally anchored by a lead story featuring an immensely popular character to help pimp sales. Each issue would feature four different eight-page stories, usually chapters of some larger narratives. When one tale was wrapped up after several issues, another adventure starring (generally) a different superhero would begin.

To help draw fans to the comic book stores on a regular basis, this book was published every two weeks, a rarity in the history of the comic book. (DC Comics had a similar book at the same time, which I think actually came out on a weekly basis, but I don’t recall what that one was called.)

Since I grabbed this comic at random from one of my many moldering comic boxes, I don’t really remember what the overarching storylines were like. So I’ll be reacting to them like someone who picked up the book for the first time and was just sticking his toe in.

The first tale is Chapter Five of a Wolverine story. Wolverine was like the hottest comic book character in the world back then and Marvel pimped him mercilessly. (Unlike the Punisher or Ghost Rider in later years.) The Chapter is entitled “Village of Blood!” and the overarching story seems to be called “Black Shadow! White Shadow!” Marv Wolfman wrote it, and John Buscema drew it.

We open on Wolverine (in his neutral brown costume that followed his traditional yellow one) standing in the middle of a horse stampede. A dialogue box seeks to brusquely set the scene for newcomers: “Not just anybody can get trampled by stampedin’ horses somewhere in the middle of China.” Given the dropped ‘g’, I assume the box represents Wolverine’s narration.

Wolverine extricates himself from the stampede, of course, and lands near some Asian people, two men and a woman. They call him “Patch” (complete with quotation marks—which are used every time, and thus gets pretty tiresome), which I vaguely remember was Wolverine’s then alias in the Pacific Rim.

The party moves on and soon comes upon a razed village. In the middle of the destruction is a big black blobby shape, unsurprisingly the Black Shadow. One of the guys with Wolverine has some grenades, and pulls the pins and jumps into the monster. SKRBLAMMOOOOO! (That’s what it says.) The Black Shadow is unaffected. “H-how could you let him die like that?” Mai, the woman, asks Our Hero. “There’s a look in some people’s eyes that says they’re already dead,” Wolverine responds. Whatever, dude.

Then the White Shadow (no, sadly, it’s not Ken Howard) appears, a blank white figure to match the Black Shadow. The two creatures tussle, but not before Wolverine scoops up Mai and runs off. “Wants us out of here,” he notes of the White Shadow. “I agree.” If you say so.

The Shadows trade blows and then disappear, leaving behind a wasteland where the village formerly stood. “Black Shadow made a bad mistake leaving us alive,” Wolverine promises. Big talk from a ‘superhero’ who spent eight pages not being turned into paste by horses, standing by as a companion committed suicide, and finally running away from a donnybrook.

(By the way, I know Asians are comparatively short, but how come Wolverine looms over everyone? He’s 5” 3’. And yes, that’s his official height, according to the Marvel Handbook.)

Grade: Lame!!

The second story stars Wonder Man*, a venerable second banana member of the Avengers going all the way back to his first appearance in Issue #9 back in 1964. Wonder Man was a dying guy granted a temporary reprieve and god-level superstrength by Thor’s Asgardian enemies the Enchantress and the Executioner.

[*Wonder Man is one of those b-level heroes, like Luke Cage (whose profile has admittedly risen since Brian Michael Bendis adopted him) and Ghost Rider, who has always been a favorite of mine. However, I really just like him during his ‘safari jacket’ stage, as his ‘superhero’ costumes have been uniformly dumb. Thus I was highly comforted by the news that a new Avengers title being started soon would feature the “leisure suit clad Wonder Man.” (Again, though, it was a safari jacket.)

Actually, now that I think about it, the three heroes I mentioned all were maskless and had costumes that were basically street clothes, although superhero boots were usually added. Ghost Rider has a costume (and a blazing skull head), but it was just Johnny Blaze’s performance leathers that he wore during his motorcycle stunt act. Wonder Man had slacks, red boots and a matching red safari jacket, along with sunglasses. Luke Cage wore slacks, boots and a yellow silk shirt, accessorized by a chain and metal headband. Maybe it was the (comparatively) costume-less look that drew me to these characters.

Sadly, the Wonder Man featured here is the one with a mullet and one of his numerous bad superhero costumes featuring a big red ‘W’ on the chest.]

Trojan Horse Wonder Man managed to join the Avengers (there weren’t a lot of superheroes back in those days), and led them into a trap. However, he reformed at the last minute, saved the Avengers, and apparently died. Years later he returned, having undergone a transformation into basically a walking fusion reactor. He was gun shy due to having already ‘died’ once, but otherwise had nearly Thor-esque levels of strength and invulnerability. Wonder Man has been an off and on member of the Avengers ever since.

As we open this tale (Chapter 5, “She Belongs to Me,” of the story “Stardust Memories”) we see fellow Avengers Iron Man (in damaged armor) and The Beast (Wonder Man’s best pal during this period—in entirely groovy news, he will be reunited with Wonder Man in the new Avengers book) looking around in bewilderment. Apparently in the last episode Wonder Man had just disappeared before their eyes.

Wonder Man appears before none other than the Enchantress herself, who, being the Norse Goddess of Sexy, is wearing a very skimpy swimsuit. Apparently Wonder Man is in her thrall again, and it was he who attacked and smashed up Iron Man’s armor.

This established, we cut to Janet Van Dyne, a.k.a. The Wasp, another old school Avenger. The Enchantress wants Janet, for some reason, and has sent Wonder Man after her, albeit while mystical disguised as Janet’s estranged husband, Hank Pym (a.k.a. Ant-Man, Giant-Man, and a zillion other identities.) Janet is indeed thrown off by “Hank’s” appearance, and eventually the two start tussling. Finally the confused and tearful Wasp falls into her ersatz husband’s arms, where she is squeezed into unconsciousness and delivered to the Enchantress. It’s all part of another evil scheme to destroy the Avengers. I don’t have the following chapters, but I’m assuming the plan ultimately fails.

Grade: Eh, OK. You better know your Avengers backstories to have it make any sense, though.

In the next tale, “The Establishment,” we cross the pond for a single chapter short starring Union Jack, sort of the UK version of Captain America. Since he’s a fairly obscure figure even to Marvel maniacs, we get a backstory recap. This explains that the current UJ is Joey Chapman, a second generation Union Jack, newly following in the footsteps of the recently deceased original one who fought in World War II. He’s a Cockney bloke, as is revealed by his painfully rendered phonetic dialogue: “Run. An’ I wanna ‘ear yoor lungs suckin’ air.” Seriously, that’s one of his dialogue balloons.

UJ appears between some Bobbies and a gang of hooligans (all wearing Margaret Thatcher masks!), but to the surprise of the police attacks them, so as to allow the rioters to escape arrest. “The people of Great Britain should reserve the roit to express their views, especially if they don’t agree with the bloody Queen’s upper class snobbery!” UJ opines to the understandably pissed off cops.

We learn that Joey is buddies with the vandals (although they don’t know his of his superhero secret identity), and himself a rabid hater of Thatcher. This is an interesting idea, having a hardcore political leftie take over the mantle of a formerly traditionalist superhero. However, with only eight pages to work with, things quickly take a lazy turn when Joey learns that his buddies are planning to trash the estate of…none other than the deceased Lord Falsworth, the original Union Jack. Well, that certainly throws things into stark contrast, doesn’t it?

“I knew the boys had been vandalizin’ property, but it was just Tories they was hittin.’” Joey muses. Now, though, they aren’t attacking people with different political views than Our Hero, but the home of someone he personally has an attachment to. So obviously he’ll intercede. He intercepts the vandals, and after laying a little hurtin’ on them, teaches them a valuable lesson by pointing out Lord Falsworth’s tombstone, which is conveniently close at hand.

“Wot you’re foitin’ for is roit an’ true,” Union Jack concedes, “an’ you should foit for your stake in loife, but you can’t do it by hurtin’ the past.” Actually, ‘progressive’ politics are, in fact, largely based on tearing down the past. Sorry UJ, you should probably think this through a bit more.

And thus the novice Union Jack has learned an important lesson, that committing crimes against people is wrong, even if the victims are conservatives. (Originally things ended with Union Jack breaking into a rendition of “With a Little Bit of Luck,” but sadly they couldn’t fit this into the eight page limit and it got cut.)

Grade: A for effort, C+ for result, but take away part of a grade for UJ’s accented dialogue. C-.

“Armed & Dangerous” stars The Daughters of the Dragon, a pair of female PIs who were then part of the supporting cast in the (Luke Cage) Power Man and Iron Fist series. (The story is written by the series’ then regular writer, Mary Jo Duffy.) Colleen Wing, a Caucasian high-level martial artist, is at a circus hearing about a prospective job. Her partner, not yet on the scene, is a blaxploitation, Pam Grier-type ass-kicker named Misty Knight. She carries a .44 Magnum and furthermore has a bionic arm.

Anyway, somebody is trying to bring down the Vandenburg Circus. The ladies’ job is to find out who, and stop them. The employer takes this all very seriously. “The spirits of all our ancestors—a hundred generations of circus folk—would rise up in shame if we yielded to terrorism,” he claims. (Really? His family has been running circuses for the last two thousand years?!)

Meanwhile, Misty is finally introduced, seen undercover as the living target in the circus’ knife throwing act. Hilariously, since they only have eight pages to tell the ‘story,’ Colleen here just turns to the owner and basically says, “The bad guy is your brother, the knife thrower.” See, if either brother dies, the other inherits the entire circus. Anyway, this express-line unmasking leaves three pages for ‘action’ stuff involving the more or less superpowered Colleen and Misty capturing a rather inept knife thrower and his cowardly clown (really) accomplice.

Sadly, I don’t have the next week’s story at hand, which I imagined involved Misty and Colleen dealing with some kids who run their bikes across the road over the objections of the duly constituted crossing guard.

Grade: Snort.

It Came from Netflix! Negadon: Monster from Mars

2006-08-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

The 30-minute short film Negadon: Monster from Mars is another of the seeming flood of independently-made movies being produced by folks with a love of old monster movies. Some of these are outright, if affectionate, spoofs (Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, Destination: Mars), some are instead comparatively straight recreations (Stomp! Shout! Scream!). Negadon falls firmly into the latter category.

Made in Japan, Negadon is unsurprisingly a nod to the Toho giant monster movies of the classic “Showa” era, by which I mean the ‘50s and ‘60s. The extent to which this is true can be ascertained by looking at the poster/DVD box art, which copies the insanely busy and colorful poster art style employed by the Toho sci-fi movies of the '50s and '60s.

Referencing several of these, notably Atragon and (not to surprisingly) the original Godzilla, Negadon is set a couple of decades in the future. A terraforming mission to Mars reawakens a monster—sort of bio-mechanical beastie with range energy weapon capabilities—who comes to Japan to wreak the usual sort of havoc. There follows a pretty fun if predictably futile attempt by the military to deal with the situation.

Following in the footsteps of the previously referenced Atragon and Godzilla, the only hope for Mankind lies in a secret weapon held by a man who refuses to use it. In this case, the weapon isn’t a flying submarine or oxygen destroyer, but your classic giant robot (commanded, of course, from an interior compartment).

The man who controls this device is former industrialist Seiji Yoshizawa. There’s a reason for his decades’ long fall into abject despair, but why ruin it? In any case, he’s finally roused by this chance for redemption, and finally deploys his creation to stop the marauding invader.

Negadon’s most distinctive feature is that it’s entirely CGI. As usual, the humans don’t look as photorealistic as the rest of the show (including the monster and robot), which can be distracting. That said, the animation here is pretty amazingly good, include formerly problematic effects like rain showers and such. In the end, it’s a showcase for how much better and more accessible such technology is getting, with Negadon being the work of 11 people who spent 2 and a half years on it.

In other words, within 10 years, and maybe a lot sooner, we may indeed get to the point where a couple of people, or even one, with the proper level of enthusiasm and commitment, can craft themselves a pretty spectacular movie in their garage. At the other end of things, DVD and streaming Internet will provide the distribution mechanisms. This will be a boon for genre buffs, with films being made by people who love the same things, and aren’t constrained by the sort of compromises required by a film that needs to draw an audience of tens of millions of people. Random pixels are a lot cheaper than Tom Cruise.

Due to the short running time, the story is necessarily condensed. It probably could have been fleshed out a bit more, but on the other hand there’s nothing wrong with a piece that moves. Some might be disappointed by the comparative lack of screentime awarded to the monster and the robot, but what’s there is cherce. And even with animation, special effects-laden action scenes require more money and effort than scenes of two humans talking. Moreover, the monster stuff is pretty spectacular, and worth the wait.

In any case, any fan of giant monster movies should check this out, and for two reasons. First, because it’s good stuff and you’ll enjoy it. Second, because the amount of work and effort these guys put into this, along with the fact that they did a good job, deserves a half hour your time.

Negadon: Monster from Mars is available for rental from Netflix, or can be bought from the usual web vendors for around $12. The disc also features a pleasing array of 'making of' materials of those interested in such.

New on DVD this week (08/01/06)

2006-08-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

No really big TV set news today. Probably the most interesting release is the first season set of the ‘60s “Wacky Maid” series Hazel (imagine The Brady Bunch if the show had been built around Alice as the main character), and say what you will, but it didn’t star Fran Drescher.

Other sets this week include Curb Your Enthusiasm S5; Dallas S5; The Girls Next Door S1; and Good Times S6.

Also not a huge week for movie releases, and even much of these are TV movies. Still, you need the slow weeks now and again to pay off your credit card before that next wave of awesome, must-buy releases hit the shelves.

10.5 Apocalypse was the recently telecast mini-series sequel to 10.5, and even lamer.

Alice in Wonderland 1985 TV is a better bet for camp fans, a 1985 TV ‘event’ produced by Irwin Allen (!) and starring such luminaries as Steve Allen, Scott Baio, Ernest Borgnine, Beau and Lloyd Bridges, the recently deceased Red Buttons, Sid Caesar, Carol Channing, Imogene Coco, Sammy Davis Jr., Patrick Duffy, George Gobel, Eydie Gorme, Merv Griffin, Sherman Helmsley, Ann Jillian, Arte Johnson, Harvey Korman, Steve Laurence, Karl Malden, Roddy McDowell, Jayne Meadows, Donna Mills, Pat Morita, Robert Morley, Anthony Newley, Louis Nye, Donald O’Connor, Martha Raye, George Savalas, John Stamos, Ringo Starr, Sally Struthers, the also recently passed on Jack Warden, Jonathon Winters and Shelley Winters. Whew!

The Black Hole isn’t the old Disney schlock classic, but rather a recent Sci-Fi Channel flick (uh-oh) about an electricity monster. Stars Kristy Swanson and Judd Nelson (!).

Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein is directed by Jesus Franco. That is all.

The Gambler: The Adventure Continues… is another TV movie about the card player who knows when to hold ‘em, and knows when to fold ‘em. As usual with this series of movies, it’s packed with familiar faces from old TV shows.

I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer brings back the murderous Fisherman, this time as an undead, unstoppable killing machine. Wow, where do they get their ideas? I still like the original title better, “Hey, You Kids, Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten What You Did, Like, What Was It, Seven or Eight Summers Ago! Because I Haven’t!”

Mr. Moto Collection Volume 1 Four films from the series that saw Hungarian Peter Lorre playing Japanese detective Mr. Moto. Think Charlie Chan with more Judo.

Putney Swope Rad, “Give it to the Man!” time capsule race comedy from 1969, about a *gasp* black man being accidentally put in charge of a Madison Avenue advertising agency. Socially relevant wackiness ensues. Directed by Robert Downey Sr.

Severed: Forest of the Dead An evil foresting company (zzzzzz) does, well, evil stuff, and soon loggers and environmentalists (ha!) have been zombies. Well, in the case of the environmentalists, they become *meat-eating* zombies.

Warning Shadows is a 1923 film that was influential in the German Expressionism movement.

Musing on The Descent...

2006-07-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

I wasn’t entirely surprised that American distributor Lion’s Gate has altered the bleak original ending of the British horror film The Descent for it’s theatrical release here (starting Friday). I’ve seen the film, and frankly while I’m pretty much a purist, I don’t believe their edits will really alter the tone of the film much. I think I know what they’re going to do, and if so, it lowers the Bleak-o-meter by a pretty small percentage.

However, I do find it weird given the television ad campaign. The TV commercials are doing everything they can to suggest that The Descent is in the torture porn tradition of Saw and Hostel, two films heavily named in the ads.

My initial problem with this is that I’ve seen The Descent (via a PAL DVD Joe Robin of Opposable Thumbs had procured), and it’s not a gore film. It has gore, but anyway going in expecting fountains of grue is likely to be disappointed, I think. Admittedly, maybe the gore that is there comes across more vividly on the big screen. Even so, I’m a bit of a wuss, and while I can’t imagine sitting through Saw or Hostel (partly for pure nastiness, if nothing else), I had little problem with The Descent. Well, actually, one scene came close to really freaking me out, but it didn’t even have any violence in it, much less dismembered limbs or whatever.

Still, if you’re trying to attract the sort of crowd that went to see Saw and Hostel, why would you bother to edit the film to make it even marginally less disturbing? My only guess is that they realized that the film was so intense that it they believe it will satisfy the hardcore gore crowd, while being a good enough film to please people like me, who aren’t really interested in gore for gore’s sake. In this particular case, they may even be correct. Even so, I find the campaign misguided, and seldom do you really maximize box office receipts by misrepresenting the film via its ad campaign.

In any case, anyone even remotely interested in horror films should go check this out, as indicated by the movie’s astounding 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com.

At the Box Office

2006-07-31T06:18:00.000-07:00

The year’s one genuine mega-hit, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, finally ceded the number one position at the box office this week. And that’s the correct way to put it. Nobody took the box office title away from Pirates, but rather the latter surrendered the crown due to old age.

The ‘winner’ was Michael Mann’s Miami Vice update, which took in a comparatively paltry $25 million. Given that box office totals now generally fall by half or more from the first weekend to the second (and that the studio will only receive a percentage of that $25 million to start with), it will take a very strong foreign take to justify the films $135 million budget.

Pirates fell to second after three weeks in first (the most this year), collecting a still sizable $20.5 million, for a current domestic total around $360 million. It is now Disney’s highest grossing movie ever, which considering they spent $450 million to film the second and upcoming third films back to back, must be causing some sighs of relief at the House of Mouse. Pirates is now the 11th highest domestic grosser ever, and seems certain to sail past the current number ten, The Passion of the Christ, which topped out around $370 million. By the end of thing, Pirates is likely to grab over $400 million of box office swag.

Teen comedy John Tucker Must Die came in third, with $14 million. Monster House fell to fourth, gobbling up another $11 million for a $43 million total so far. Meanwhile, the premiering The Ant Bully was more anthill than mountain, drawing a puny $8 million in its first frame. Moreover, cartoon movies continue to flood the market, with Barnyard joining Monster House and Ant Bully in theaters next weekend.

Things look bad this summer for Warner’s. Poseidon is perhaps the summer’s biggest flop, Superman Returns failed to soar to expected box office heights (falling out of the top ten this week with a $185 million total so far, and hence being dramatically trounced by Pirates), while Ant Bully and Lady in the Water die on the vine. The latter saw it’s feeble first weekend box office decline by a woeful 61%, garnering a highly lame $31 million total after two weeks. In comparison, The Village had drawn $86 million by the same point in time, and Signs nearly $120 million.

Further humiliating filmmaker Shyamalan is the fact that his movie is unlikely to end up drawing the $50 million already brought in by the awful looking Little Man. Meanwhile, the surprise hit The Devil Wears Prada is losing steam, but after having cracked the $100 million mark. Finally, Clerks II drew another $4 million, for a near $19 million total. However, with a production budget of $5 million, the film’s already in the black.

It Came From Netflix! Decoys (2003)

2006-07-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I watch a horror or sci-fi movie that makes me wonder why a picture with even moderately entertaining qualities so often seems surprisingly superior to much of its (especially) DTV brethren. Decoys is a film like that. On it’s own, it’s a decent, technically sound timewaster with the nice moment here and there. Even with such modest attributes, however, it’s still quite a bit better than a lot of such stuff I’ve seen. Something’s terribly wrong when a film that should be a C+ (which is fine, as sometimes that’s what your in the mood for) is more like a straight B when you grade on a scale.

Sort of a horror/comic knock-off of Species (about ten years too late), Decoys is the story of Canadian college student Luke. He considers himself quite lucky when two gorgeous fellow students, cousins Lilly and Constance, appear in the dorm laundry and hang all over him. However, when he ends up hiding in their closet (don’t ask), Luke learns that he’s maybe not so lucky after all. He’s more than a little nonplussed when one of the hotties sprouts a bunch of tentacles out of her chest.

Among the film’s good points is that this all occurs maybe ten minutes in. When you watch these sorts of things, you generally know what the movie’s about before you pop it into your DVD player. Therefore there’s usually little point in dragging out the ‘mystery’ portion of the film. (Of course, it’s a venerable tradition. Back in the ‘50s, we often waited half an hour to ‘learn’ that, say, the menace of The Deadly Mantis was a giant Mantis.)

So they don’t waste our time. There’s a prologue about a student finding some flash frozen corpses, but again, once we get to Luke the main points are established pretty quickly. The girls are aliens, they dig extreme cold (hence Canada), etc.

Things were looking grim, I admit, as we then moved into a highly cliché-ridden section of the film. Luke can’t convince his friends of what he saw. Luke has a beautiful ‘tomboy’ friend who he thinks of as one of the guys but who is not exactly secretly in love with him. Luke’s best friend and roommate is a virgin desperately trying to get laid (although this is ultimately handled better than you’d expect).

Most tiresomely—we all have those certain clichés that set our teeth on edge—there’s the boneheaded police detective (played by The Sentinal’s Robert Burgi) who wants to nail Luke for the deaths. That’s a plot thread I always find extremely wearisome, especially when it depends on the cops being morons. Sure enough, in this case the cop apparently fails to follow up several obvious leads while focusing on Luke.

Luckily, though. things pick up a bit after all this. While there’s nothing new under the sun, the filmmakers do manage to throw in a nice couple of turns here and there. For instance, the aliens are not only “sympathetic” (i.e., killing at least for a reason rather than just general orneryness), but they eventually become actually likeable. And I found it funny how human they are, to the extent that Constance even has a bit of a “Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!” jealously sort of thing going on with Lilly. And when they rush a sorority, it seems less like an attempt at human camouflage than because, you know, they want to join a sorority.

The thing that struck me the most is that everyone in the film can act. I mean, they aren’t going to be handing out any Oscars here, but the level of acting is at least as good as your average episode of a WB teen drama. This again raises the question of why competent to good acting throughout an entire cast is so often a rarity in these things. Look at the casts in the majority of those Sci-Fi Channel Premiere movies. They’re awful. Certainly these guys here couldn’t have had that much more time or money to work with.

Then there’s the main premise. While a total cliché, it’s hard to say aliens beguiling horny partying college students with the promise of hot sex isn’t a workable plan. Not everything the film tries works, but when there are so many movies where nothing works—and I’m not even talking about the sort of dreck Scott Foy specializes in these days, but films that actually hit theaters, like the recent and quite dismal When a Stranger Calls remake—you take what you can get. The acting is good, some of the jokes are actually funny, some of the plot twists actually are sort of surprising, the special effects are at worse serviceable, etc.

If one thing keeps this movie from getting good reviews from many (check out the IMDB comments), it’s in failing to satisfy those hoping for a T&A and gore fest. Indeed, the film’s pretty mild. There’s a little nudity, if not much, and no gore to speak of. So if you’re looking for a Species knock-off with all the sex and violence of Species, look elsewhere. However, if you’re looking for a film to add to your weekend stack of five for five dollars rental movies, you could certainly do worse.

Unsurprisingly, a sequel seems to be in production. Chances are that one will be far worse.

It Came from Netflix! The Intruder (Forgotten Terrors!)

2006-07-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

WARNING! FOR THE LAST TIME, IGNORE THE DECEPTIVE DVD BOX COVER ART!!

This is the third feature found on Retromedia’s recent “Forgotten Terrors” DVD. As with the first two features, The Intruder isn’t a horror movie, but rather a murder thriller. We open with a passenger liner bobbing on a stormy sea (portrayed with a model shot that, as is often the case from this era, somehow both cheesy and impressive at the same time). On board, a brutal murder has occurred, and a bag of diamonds—also the MacGuffin in the disc’s first movie, Tangled Destinies—is missing.

The plot gimmick here is that the ship sinks—I really didn’t get why—and the passengers and crew end up stranded on a nearby island. (It wasn’t until I saw the lifeboat that I figured out The Intruder was actually the name of the ship they were on.) The cast includes the normal array of stereotypes, including the blithe hero, the sweet heroine, the sassy dame, the comic drunk, the detective, the stalwart captain, etc.

The detective—none too bright, as is often the case in these things—suspects the wrong man, of course, and another murder or two occurs as things progress. Meanwhile, the island has a hairy, maddened castaway on it, along with a wandering gorilla. (!!) Several fully-articulated skeletons are also stumbled across, because, you know, that’s all spooky and stuff.

As silly as you’d expect, this is a typical programmer, but certainly watchable, at least for fans of old movies. If you are such, you're sure to recognize actor Arthur Housman—even if not you don’t know his name—who made a career out of playing the exact sort of humorous drunk he portrays here.

Housman got to play zillions of drunks because after he established himself as Hollywood's go-to inebriate because he generally only appeared in a scene or two. The star of the movie would enter a bar and bam, there was a blurry-eyed Arthur Housman. Aside from features, Mr. Housman also appeared in lots of short subjects, including some Laurel & Hardy comedies.

It is fun to look at his IMDB credits, though, and see "Drunk" appear about fifty times. After flirting with such roles as "First Communist" in 1938's Youth Takes a Fling, Mr. Housman came into his own the next year, appearing as, variously, "Drunk next to Grandma"; "The drunk"; "The Drunk"; "Jonathon, a drunk"; "Drunk in Barroom"; "Drunk on Train"; and, mostly tellingly, "Drunk".

Busy character actor Mischa Auer, meanwhile, plays the castaway, and actor William B. Davidson, who appeared in over two hundred movies (!), plays the detective.

None of it makes much sense, but hey, it moves, and at about 60 minutes there isn’t much time for it become boring. The sound quality is worse than the other movies on the disc, however, so you’ll probably have to really up the volume to make much of the dialogue out.

Thanks to Retromedia for putting out such obscure fare, and at a bargain price, with the four movie set widely available on the Web for under $15. Let’s hope sales justify further such collections.

[Note: Assuming anyone is keeping track (or even reading these reviews), they will note that this is the third movie of four in the Forgotten Terrors collection. I sent it back at that point, because the last feature is Dead Men Walk, a George Zucco vampire film. The print on the Forgotten Terrors DVD looked typically lame, and I own the old Roan DVD, which presumably offers a far better presentation. So I'll probably give it a look, but from that source.]

Coming to a DVD shelf near you...

2006-07-27T07:46:00.000-07:00

Warners has announced the fourth annual Looney Tunes Golden Collection, due out in November. No word yet on what ‘toons will be featured. Hopefully Foghorn Leghorn will finally, I say finally, get his due. His due, son. Are you listening, boy?

Schlock sequel fans will be pleased to hear that Beyond the Poseidon Adventure will be available on 8/22.

The loooong awaited Police Squad: The Complete Series (what, all six episodes?!) will street in November. The show was a dozen times better than the movies, the first of which was pretty good. (Although all the good gags were stolen from the show.) Plus, no wince-inducing O.J.! Whew! Seriously, this is an essential buy, and you could do worse for Christmas than to buy a dozen sets and just hand them out to everybody you know.

BCI has began and will continue to unleash a slue of Saturday morning (mostly) cartoon fare. Needless to say, the most interesting stuff is the worst. (You know you live in strange times when there’s going to be an Ark II Complete Series set.) Dig this:

Already released: The Best of She-Ra: Princess of Power, Flash Gordon: The Complete Series, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Season Two, Volume One, Prince Valiant: The Complete Series - Volume One and Ultraman: Series One, Volume One.

Coming over the next year or so: Blackstar: The Complete Series and Space Sentinels & The Freedom Force: The Complete Series (both 8/22), Defenders of the Earth: Volume One (10/10), Groovie Goolies: The Saturday "Mourning" Collection, A Snow White Christmas and Journey Back to OZ: Special Edition (10/24), She-Ra: Princess of Power - Season One, Volume One, Ark II: The Complete Series, Ghost Busters: The Animated Series - Volume One and Dungeons & Dragons: The Complete Series (11/7), Mission Magic: The Complete Series and The New Adventures of He-Man: Volume One (late 2006), Space Academy: The Complete Series, The Cat Pack: Waldo Kitty & Fraidy Cat - Volume One, Prince Valiant: The Complete Series - Volume Two, She-Ra: Princess of Power - Season One, Volume Two, Defenders of the Earth: Volume Two, Zorro & The Lone Ranger: Volume One and The Legend of Bravestarr: Special Edition (early 2007), Ghost Busters: The Animated Series - Volume Two, Snow White: Happily Ever After - Special Edition, The New Adventures of He-Man: Volume Two and Jason of Star Command: The Complete Series (Spring 2007) and She-Ra: Princess of Power - Season Two, Hero High: The Complete Series, The Legend of Bravestarr: The Series - Volume One, The Ghost Busters: The Complete Series (live action), Zorro & The Lone Ranger: Volume Two, Fabulous Funnies: The Complete Series, The Legend of Bravestarr: The Series - Volume Two and The Secrets of Isis: The Complete Series (Summer 2007).

Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein sounds intriguing…until you see that “Directed by Jesus Franco.” In any case, it’s out next week.

It Came from Netflix! The Phantom (Forgotten Terrors)

2006-07-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

Warning Again! Continue to ignore highly deceptive DVD box art!!

The second movie found on Retromedia’s “Forgotten Terrrors” DVD is another Old Dark House thriller called The Phantom. The film opens with a criminal mastermind called the Phantom escaping from prison just before he was due to be executed.* As with the collection’s first film, Tangled Destinies (see below), things then move pretty much solely onto obvious sets, although this movie sports more of them than that one did.

[*How does he escape? He jumps from a position atop the prison wall—what the hell was he doing there?—onto the roof of a train passing right next to the prison (!), whereupon he is then picked up by a airplane. This is clearly stuff taken from another movie, probably an older, silent one.]

The Phantom threatens the District Attorney*, whose daughter is Ruth, a society page reporter who unknown to everyone else is in a relationship with wannabe newshawk Dick, while Ruth is in turn loved by her boss at the newspaper, Crandall. Will Crandall bow to her wishes and give Dick a job, so that they can marry, or will he attempt to sabotage the couple. Will he prove to be the Phantom, or working for him, or merely a red herring?

[*For no reason, they bother to establish that the current DA is not even the one that sent The Phantom away, but still the Phantom is out to get him. Huh?]

The police send some cops to watch over the DA’s house, but a man breaks in anyway. After way too much rigmarole, this proves not the Phantom, but Dick, who is a typical quipping, callow smartass like many of the heroes in these things. Ruth, however, is atypically a bit of a shrinking violet. Surprisingly, the heroines in a lot of these skid row cheapies were surprisingly feisty.

Not Ruth, though. It’s hard to take her seriously when she at one point has the killer at pointblank gun range and fails to shoot him purely because he’s putatively so terrifying. (He being a cackling hunchback dressed in a black cape and wide brimmed fedora, like the Shadow, thus obscuring his face. He, needless to say, maneuvers through a series of hidden passages, giving a variety of characters the willies when they see a wall panel swinging slooooowly open.) The killer actually escapes being shot this way by yet another character, and later the heroine faints completely upon being again confronted by him.

The trail somehow leads—tight scripting isn’t the hallmark of these things—to a mysterious sanitarium run by a mysterious doctor. The latter provides the sole note of actual ‘horror’ here, since he proves to be, if not a fully mad scientist, then certainly a quite irritated one. Naturally, he thinks Ruth the perfect subject for his next experiment. Eventually, of course, the Phantom is unmasked, Dick ends up with his job, and he and Ruth end up in each others’ arms.

There’s a lot more going on here than in Tangled Destinies, but the film is crippled by the most painful Odious Comic Relief character I’ve seen in some time. (And I just saw Bobby Van in The Navy vs. the Night Monsters.) This is Lucy, Ruth’s maid, who is of the ‘Comically’ Cowardly Servant school, and who basically spends the entire movie sniveling and starting and shrieking and shying at the smallest thing. Worse, she has a high-pitched, quivering voice that positively drove me up the wall, acting and sounding like a Betty Boop who had spent the last ten years being tortured by that guy from Saw in a basement somewhere.

Lucy gets a horrendously large amount of screentime, and adding insult to injury, proves the girlfriend of Shorty the chauffer, who is similarly given to the vapors. He’s the other character, by the way, who at one point has a gun stuck right in the mystery killer’s face and yet is too terrified to pull the trigger. Still, as annoying as Shorty is, he lacks that hideous voice that Lucy has, and so one wishes him merely killed, instead of horribly and painfully killed. Add to that list a ‘comic’ craaazy patient at the Sanitarium, who ‘hilariously’ sports a comic opera Swedish accent.

As you’d expect from an obscurity of this vintage, the image and sound are both soft and scratchy. Still, the fact that it still survives at all is a bit of an wonder.

Coming soon to DVD...

2006-07-26T06:37:00.000-07:00

Warners has been farting around with this title for a few years, now, but has finally officially announced the long-awaited special edition of Forbidden Planet. Two of them, actually. The cheaper of the two (which should easily run under $20 at vender prices) is an eye-popping bargain, the sort of package that allows you to replace the old, barebones disc--as I will--without getting too irate about it. I mean, damn, an entire obscure Robbie the Robot movie is included as an extra!

The Forbidden Planet: 50th Anniversary 2-Disc Special Edition (SRP $26.99) features anamorphic widescreen video (mastered from newly restored film elements) and newly-remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Extras include additional scenes and rare "lost" footage (known in select circles as “The Saucer Footage"), excerpts from The MGM Parade TV series, a pair of later programs that feature Robbie the Robot (the 1958 MGM feature film The Invisible Boy and the Robot Client episode of MGM's The Thin Man TV series), 3 documentaries on the making of the film (including TCM's original Watch the Skies!: Science Fiction, the 1950s and Us, and the all-new Amazing! Exploring the Far Reaches of Forbidden Planet and Robby the Robot: Engineering a Sci-Fi Icon), and a gallery of Sci-Fi film theatrical trailers.

The more expensive Ultimate Collector's Edition, meanwhile, will include the 2-disc SE DVD release in a tin case, along with a collectible Robby the Robot replica with moveable limbs, a reproduction lobby art card portfolio for Forbidden Planet and The Invisible Boy, and a Forbidden Planet original theatrical poster mail-in offer. The MSRP for this one is $60, so figure to pay $40-45.

The details for the 8-disc The Christopher Reeve Superman Collection are out, with a promised street date of 11/28 (aimed at Christmas, obviously) and a MSRP of $80. Four of the discs are dedicated to the first movie, with two discs for each of the subsequent ones. (Including, yes, Superman 4: The Quest for Peace.) Moreover, all 17 of the classic theatrical Fleisher Superman cartoons are included as part of the four-disc part, remastered and supposedly looking better than ever.

The Superman 4 set includes a screenwriter's commentary. It will be interested to see how candid he is about the film's awfulness, especially since much of it must be laid on Christopher Reeve himself. Does anyone want to say anything bad about this guy, even if its true? Time will tell.

Meanwhile, the long-awaited and never seen Richard Donner cut of Superman II (he was fired and director Richard Lester brought in) will be released *separately.*

For full details on the zillions of documentaries and other stuff in the set, check out the appropriate link at the invaluable Digitalbits.com.

In less rarified news, a company named Code Red has announced the previously unavailable (in this country) uncut version of the '70s Italian Exorcist/Omen/Rosemary's Baby knock-off Beyond the Door. The disc is scheduled for some time in 2007.

Meanwhile, the good folks at Dark Sky continue to impress, announcing a remastered, drastically ungraded disc of The Devil's Rain, featuruing a director's commentary, and a double bill DVD of two obscure Brit films, Blood of the Vampire and The Hellfire Club.

New on DVD this week (07/25/06)...

2006-07-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

Tons of TV sets out this week. I’ll take a flier and say the two most essential are the first seasons of Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. Both of those were really terrific shows, and I’ll never forget this exchange from the PatB pilot, which saw them working undercover as elves in Santa’s workshop:

Pinky: Brain, the reindeer are inviting elves to join them for a party at Donner's house.
Brain: Hmm, somehow the idea of joining the Donner party is unappealing.

Other new TV sets include All Creatures Great & Small S6; Bill Cosby Show S1; Boondocks S1; Bridezillas S1 & S2; Invisible Man S2; JAG S1; Le Femme Nikita S4; Laguna Beach S2; Miami Vice S1 & S2; The Prisoner Complete Series (Re-release); Punky Brewster S3; Rawhide S1; Seven Swordsmen Complete; Tales From the Crypt S4; Three’s Company S7

[Scary thought: The release of the seventh season of Three’s Company indicates that thousands of people bought the first six seasons.]

On to movies. A possible Brave New World is presaged in a couple of DVDs being released this week. Choose Your Own Adventure: The Abominable Snowman is a DVD version of the old paperback kids books where you are invited to make decisions and events branch off depending on your choices.

More ambitious (albeit striking even further at the idea of a movie as a set piece of work) is the DVD for Final Destination 3, which includes a feature allowing you to basically drive events in the way the Choose Your Own Adventures stories do. You pick what the film’s characters do, and apparently in some cases thus decide if they live or die, or perhaps merely decide how gruesome their deaths are.

Frankly, this sort of thing is usually hashed out first in porn films. And maybe it has been. If not, a Choose Your Own Porn Adventure series seems a natural.

Other items of possible interest:

Dark Sky Films, which has quickly established itself as a name to be reckoned with in the cult movie field, releases three British horror movies today, including the gruesome ghost movie And Now the Screaming Starts, the anthology film Asylum, and the assuming werewolf/ten little Indians combo The Beast Must Die. The discs include commentaries and other sweetmeats.

Anatomy of a Psycho is an early ‘70s Brit psychokiller flick.

The Bogie & Bacall Signature Collection offers classic film buffs special editions of The Big Sleep, The Dark Passage, Key Largo and To Have and Have Not.

Covert One: The Hades Factor See if you can figure out what’s wrong with the following description: "Stephen Dorff and Mira Sorvino are part of a secret agency sent on missions for President Angelica Huston."

Dogs is a Day of the Animals knock-off with predacious pooches. David McCallum stars.

Two-disc special editions are now available for the horribly lame Halloween 4 and the downright atrocious Halloween 5. Different strokes, I guess.

Halloween: 25 Years Later is a two-disc set of documentaries and other extras on the series.

Hammer the Film Noir Collection offers six dark, black & white crime films from the period before the studio basically decided to focus on horror movies.

Komodo vs. Cobra Run, Scott Foy, run!

Scorpius Gigantus Keep running, Scott!

Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace / The Speckled Band is a cheapie DVD offering up Chris Lee’s German Holmes movie, along with a very old Holmes feature with Raymond Massey as the Great Detective.

Succubus is a Jess Franco movie. You’ve been warned.

Super Chiller Blood o Rama is a collection from Image featuring Claw of Terror (psycho killer with a hook for a hand; an idea recycled in Night Game), Black Mamba, Movie House Massacre and The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (Christopher Lee).

War Gods of Babylon/War Goddess is another Image double bill of Italian Sword & Sandal films.

The Will Rodgers Collection brings together the films of a guy who was once the country’s biggest, most beloved star.

It Came from Netflix! Tangled Destinies (Forgotten Terrors)

2006-07-25T08:14:00.000-07:00

WARNING! BOX ART IS *HIGHLY* MISLEADING!

Fred Olen Rey’s Retromedia DVD brand has recently released “Forgotten Terrors,” a single-disc collection of four extremely obscure (well, one of the titles is only pretty obscure) films from the early ‘30s.

The first of the movies, all of which last about an hour, with two flicks on each side of the disc, is 1932’s Tangled Destinies. This indicates that Retromedia is guilty of pulling a bit of a fast one--again, check out the box art--as neither Tangled Destinies, nor two of the other three movies, are in fact horror films. They are rather (more or less) Old Dark House murder thrillers.

In our first feature, thirteen (bum bum bum) passengers and crew members of a commercial air flight—this must have seemed like a fairly novel plot devise back then—are forced to land in the middle of nowhere by a violent storm. They seek refuge in a nearby deserted house and make themselves at home. Here we meet the broad collection of types that will make up our cast: The sassy actress, the professor, the minister, the amiable lowbrow mug (a boxer, who’s main line is “Can I help?”, which he says at about a dozen junctures), the pretty young heiress, the sharpie, the stalwart pilot, the lawyer, the rigidly polite yet inscrutable Chinese fellow, etc. The main character, it turns out, is a feisty old woman.

Anyway hoping for a carnage-laden Ten Little Indians sort of affair will be severely disappointed, as in the end there’s but one murder. The McGuffin is a bag of diamonds, and soon one character reveals that he’s a detective. Meanwhile, the cast moves around the three rooms they spend most of the film in, making soup in the kitchen, repeatedly going down into the basement to change fuses whenever the lights go out (which happens quite often), etc.

The latter is part of how pronouncedly cheap the film is, with its paucity of sets, awkward blocking and frequent blackout scenes. (In fact, they don’t even play music under the opening title cards, but instead dub in and loop some plane engine noises!) No doubt this was shot in less than a week, and it shows.

One certainly can’t say much for the mystery or suspense elements—let me put it this way; I saw the film like two days ago, and had to really think in order to remember who the killer was—much less the typically limp comic relief material. And, as is usual in this sort of things, nobody at any point much acts like a real human being. Even so, I thought the movie a genial way to waste an hour.

The characters are the usual collection of clichés. Per tradition, the official detectives are markedly ineffective at their jobs. Instead, it's the old woman* and, in a bit modern viewers will appreciate, the automatically ‘suspicious’ Chinese guy, who actually do more to solve the crime.

[The 'old woman' is clearly actually played by a much younger woman—or maybe a man, with a dubbed voice—in makeup and a gray wig. This was so apparent that it was distracting, since you were wondering if that would prove true of her character, too, and 'she’d' prove to be the killer.]

Even at under an hour, this movie is slowly paced and talky, and one’s tolerance for cheapie films from that period will dictate whether you find it pleasing or insufferable. The presentation is pretty mediocre, especially in the outside nighttime scenes that open the film, when the characters’ faces are surrounded by a hazy white halo. This is probably because they used overly bright klieg lights to light the scene.

Still, for viewers of a certain age, such as myself, this is how we remember such fare looking back in the day when we watched stuff like this on our 20-inch black & white TV sets. Again, though, these sorts of movies are definitely an acquired taste. Even so, for the sort of people who would be interested in watching material like this, the fact that the movies are even available is enough to satisfy.

It Came from Netflix! Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964)

2006-07-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Folks familiar with my reviews might recall that I consider bad comedies to be generally unwatchable. If the definition of a ‘bad’ movie is one that fails at what’s it trying to do, the reason why becomes clear. Bad horror movies try to scare you, and fail. That’s funny. Bad dramas try to tug at your heart, and fail. That’s funny. Bad comedies try to make you laugh…and fail. That’s not funny. Probably the most widely adopted ‘bad movie’ phrase to emanate from the Web is Dr. Freex’s coinage of Odious Comic Relief. Again, monster suit with visible zipper, bad and funny. Unsuccessful stabs at comedy…. not so much.

Still, if there’s one era (at least for me) that produced bad comedies whose failings remain somewhat amusing, it’s the ‘60s. I speak in particular of the last gasp of the vaudevillian style of purported ‘wacky’, anything-goes comedy. Films like The Fat Spy and Arch Hall Jr.’s The Nasty Rabbit attempt to sell a brand of shtick that even at the time was woefully antiquated. Because of this, the sheer flop sweat freneticism of their antics can, if one is in the right mood, provide a form of entertainment, if few belly laughs.

3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt falls directly into that category. The film stars Tommy Noonan (playing a nerdy character named Tommy Noonan) as an unemployed actor in Hollywood. At the state unemployment office—the site of the film’s first really lame gags—he meets successful stripper Saxie Symbol (ha ha!), as played by Mamie Van Doren. It should be noted that while Doren doesn’t come anywhere near good here, neither does she appear to have completely given up on acting in the way she does in her final movies like Navy vs. the Night Monsters and Women of the Prehistoric Planet .

[The gag that reveals where the movie is going takes place at the unemployment office. A seated woman is being told by a supercilious caseworker that she has run out of unemployment. She asks about worker’s comp. He replies that her condition doesn’t warrant it. She stands up, and naturally proves to be heavily pregnant. “Why not?” she retorts. “It happened on the job!” What sells it, though, is the jump cut to an extreme close-up of the caseworker, who has assumed a desperately unfunny ‘Oh, no, Mr. Bill!’ expression.]

Saxie takes Peter back to her ludicrously palatial house, which she shares with two male housemates, Joe and Bruce. After several supposedly farcical scenes in which Peter thinks they want to hire him for sexual shenanigans, he learns that they instead want to hire him to see a prominent psychiatrist, Dr. Myra Von, for them.

They can’t afford her rates (despite living in a palace) separately, so the idea is that Peter will use his acting skills to impersonate them in turn, splitting up his hour appointments into thirds and presenting each of their various problems and symptoms to Von. As you can imagine, extremely lame wackiness ensues. For the record, Saxie hates men. Handsome male model Bruce hates women, who are always trying to paw him, and steals from them. Joe, an alcoholic car salesman, just hates people in general. They are, in case you failed to ‘get’ it, the “3 Nuts” of the title.

Tommy accepts the job, because otherwise there wouldn’t be a movie, and hilarity ensues—well, not really—as the housemates keep him up all night relating their various backstories and such. The next day, Tommy sees Dr. Von, proceeds to act out (with accents and all) his employers’ personalities. Von and her bald mincing male secretary are delighted, thinking Tommy is a split personality that they can ride to professional stardom.

The film is probably best remembered today because of the accompanying Playboy photo shoot featuring Ms. Doren’s assets. (Returning the favor, a Playboy magazine is featured as a prop in a key scene.) Weirdly, the main film is in black and white, while ‘sexy’ inserts, mostly involving rather unrevealing (and sadly ‘musical’) strip acts by Van Doren, along with one bath scene where she does give the audience what they presumably came to see, are presented in color. Presumably these were made so boldly separate so they could be easily removed when the film played non-adult theaters.

Anyhoo, Tommy’s performances end up being telecast on TV—don’t ask—and become a public sensation. However, he becomes increasing uncomfortable with the fraud he’s committing. Take it from there.

For what it’s worth, the film doesn’t have high regard for psychiatrists. Von is mostly taken with the opportunities for professional prominence Tommy seems to provide. Her secretary listens in on the sessions (so as to provide an opportunity for some of the most jaw-dropping mugging facial expressions I’ve seen in while). Von is later blackmailed by another shrink, who further misdiagnoses the ‘nuts’. Luckily, two of the roomies are cured by Tommy himself, who is the only one who figures out that stripper Saxie is (Guh-huh!) a virgin who “just needs a man,” and that male model Bruce just needs a woman who he’ll have to chase after, rather than the other way around. (Joe? I guess he’s just screwed.)

The weird, semi-obscure cast is of interest to the sorts of people interested in weird, semi-obscure casts. Let’s put it this way: The film features a purportedly exciting ‘star’ cameo by actor Anthony Eisley (Dracula vs. Frankenstein, The Mighty Gorga and a zillion more) as himself. He grimaces in the foreground as Noonan and Van Doren carry on the scene behind him, and seems most likely in the film because he lost a bet of some sort.

Van Doren probably needs no introduction. Noonan, meanwhile, proves basically a taller, 10% more macho version of character actor Joe Flynn, of TV’s McHale’s Navy and Disney’s The Boatniks. He played Marilyn Monroe’s nebbish of a boyfriend in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and rode that bus for a while, playing similar roles against manqué Monroes like Von Doran and, inevitably, Jayne Mansfield. The latter film was Promises! Promises!, also available on DVD via VCI.

Alvy Moore, later famous as Mr. Kimble from TV’s Green Acres, pops up eventually as a lawyer. He is given a special ‘introducing’ credit despite having already appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows! Meanwhile, if I’m not mistaken, the TV technician with the Playboy magazine is ‘Little’ Jackie Little, a small fat comic of the sort who appeared at strip clubs and in nudie shorts. Dr. Von, meanwhile, is played by Ziva Rodann, best remembered as the obscure villainess Queen Nefertiti, sidekick to Victor Buono’s King Tut, on a two-part episode of the Adam West Batman show.

The Golden Age of DVD....

2006-07-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons this is the golden age of DVD is that studios are finally getting the fact that you can make a pretty good profit from assembling obscurities that might not have much appeal individually, but at one aggregate low price attract an audience. Horror and sci-fi fans in particular are reaping the fruit of this, because we tend to be obsessive and hence vote with our wallets. The great thing is that this means that every terrifically obscure material is being made available.

Take for example the recent The Lon Chaney Collection, which actually features works of Lon Chaney Jr. Horror fans, and I count myself in this number, do indeed tend to be obsessive. Although he doesn’t have the cachet of a Lugosi or Karloff, Chaney is well known to horror buffs, who in turn would in many cases be interested in seeing Chaney’s less known, even non-genre, work, if we’re not expected to overpay for the privilege.

So the fine folks at Image scooped up the comparatively well-known Chaney junk classic The Indestructible Man and used it to anchor the set. (It helps that, although the film is available in a zillion crappy public domain editions, this offers the best, if not pristine, presentation of the movie.)

The rest of the features aren’t even horror films, but horror buffs tend to want to see everything, and many of us are interested enough to spend a few hours watching someone like Chaney even in non-genre material. Thus along with Indestructible Man, the set collects the adventure movie Manfish, along with some TV work. One is an episode of an old show called Lock Up, in which Chaney plays a malign sheriff. Another is a TV episode entitled The Golden Junkman, in Chaney’s plays a symphatetic immigrant junkman who returns to school to try to win the respect of his Americanized and apparently snotty sons.

Now, that’s some narrowly tailored material. One ‘well-known’ genre film, one unknown adventure movie, and two stand along TV appearances. I have to admit, even I would not be interested enough to buy this set, even with it selling for under $15. However, I was interested enough to rent it from Netflix, and I cheer it’s existence. Even if this isn’t my personal exact brand of obscure material, if this is available, maybe stuff I’d be more interested in (say, the poverty row horror films of Lionel Atwill or George Zucco) will be similarly released.

And that’s on the low end of the spectrum, along with stuff like the harmless but marginally interesting (even to me) collection of ‘30s murder melodramas Image released recently under the title Forgotten Horrors. However, the bigger studios are jumping in with bigger guns, but again in collections offering terrific bang for our consumer buck.

Warner Brothers is the giant of film collections, offering top-notch presentations of everything from musicals to gangster movies, boxed into sets of numerous films for little money and offering tons of extras to boot. This Halloween will see the release of the “Hollywood’s Legends of Horror Collection.” In the bad old day of VHS, even if these films had been available (and most never were), you got one short film with bad presentation and on a clunky format for $20. The six films Warners are offering in this set would have therefore run you over $120 with tax. And if you’d bought them all those years ago, chances are the tapes would by now be unwatchable.

Instead, with some vendors offering the set for as around $30, you get six horror films of the classic era, titles ranging from pretty good to at least one outright brilliant feature. The six titles offered here include Doctor X (Lionel Atwill), The Return of Dr. X (Humphrey Bogart as a vampire!), Mad Love (starring Peter Lorre, and the best film in the set, worth the price of the entire collection by itself), Mask of Fu Manchu (Karloff), The Devil Doll (Atwill) and Mark of the Vampire (Lugosi). Moreover, Doctor X will be presented in its original two-strip Technicolor, and all the transfers have been remastered. Finally, genre experts will provide commentaries for at least five of the films! Damn!

I’m especially exited by this set because a) I’ve never even seen Devil Doll, and we fans love to notch off another title, b) I haven’t seen Doctor X nor Mask of Fu Manchu since I was a very wee tyke, c) because Mad Love is a classic film that demands to be on DVD. And now it will be.

Then, as if that’s not enough, just today word came out that Sony has announced an "Icons of Horror Collection" of Boris Karloff movies the actor made for Columbia, including The Black Room (Karloff as twins!), The Man They Could Not Hang, Before I Hang, and The Boogie Man Will Get You. The latter isn’t that great, but it’s a woefully hard to find horror comedy with both Karloff and Lorre. And you won’t have to pay for it separately now, but as part of a set. They haven’t announced a price yet, but I’m assuming we’re talking well south of $30, and even $30 would be a pretty great bargain.

This is one of two new Karloff sets out for Halloween, by the way, as Universal is releasing "The Boris Karloff Collection" featuring Night Key, Tower of London, The Climax, The Strange Door and The Black Castle. This should retail for around $20, as will another collection featuring the “Inner Sanctum” suspense series Lon Chaney Jr. made for the studio.

DVDDrive-in.com, which announces sets like these, has news of zillions of other obscurities due to be released soon either as stand along movies, including the upcoming Paul Naschy Collection DVDS to be released by BCI Eclipse; the same company’s new line of genre and drive-in movie double features; CasaNegra’s essential new line of Mexican horror films, featuring both the original language tracks and the comical K. Gordon Murray dubs; Classic Media’s new editions of several early Godzilla movies, including the original Japanese version of the first film, and the first DVD release of Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster; a set of Peter Lorre’s Mr. Moto films, and much, much more.

Indeed, the only problem with this embarrassment of riches is finding the time to watch it all.

Blackenstein (1973)

2006-07-21T07:32:00.000-07:00

A few weekends* ago I was down in Texas hanging out with Sandy “Call of Cthulhu” Petersen and Chris Holland of Stomp Tokyo and some of the Jabootu message board crowd, watching movies and stuff. Before the general get-together on Saturday, Sandy (who was kind enough to put me up at his house, which aside from nocturnal raids by roving ferrets is a very nice place) went through his vast video holdings, and produced 1972’s proto-blaxploitation horror flick Blackenstein.

[*This report is late because I returned with a cold, which turned into a bad cold, which turned into one of my regular bouts of bronchitis, so I’m only now with the help of anti-biotics really back on my feet.]

Inspired, no doubt, by the success of 1972’s far superior Blacula, Blackenstein (which on the fairly lame DVD print is actually entitled Blackenstein The Black Frankenstein, lest we don’t ‘get’ it) revolves around young doctor and with-it sistah Winifrid. We meet her as she accepts a research position at the mansion/private experimental clinic of elderly and surprising-good-white-guy medico Dr. Stein. (I don’t think they implied that he was descended from the Frankensteins, as Steins usually are in these things, but I may have missed that part.) Stein kind of looks like the older Dick Van Dyke, but sadly a show called Diagnosis: Mad Science apparently wasn't in the cards.

Stein is experimenting with…some damn thing or other. This allows for limb replacements, and one guy who looks like a Turkish Kojack has had his lost legs replaced with zebra legs. (!!) Why? Uh, again, I wasn’t paying that much attention. I mean, could there be a good reason for that? Also, for no real reason other than to set up an obvious shock effect later in the movie, there’s an old woman kept young by a secret formula she must have a shot of every 24 hours. Three guesses where that goes.

Winifrid just happens to be in love with bitter Viet Nam vet Eddie, who just happened to have had his limbs blown off in the war. Stein brings Eddie to his house and they start work on replacing his lost arms and legs. To keep his trunk from rejecting these new limbs, they develop a formula based on Eddie’s own DNA.

Unfortunately, Stein’s assistant Malcolm (also black; this film didn’t really have the blaxploitation race politcs down) falls for Winifrid. When she rejects him, he seeks revenge by screwing around with Eddie’s DNA formula. The result, naturally, is that Eddie periodically turns into a black version of the old Frankenstein monster. The funniest part of the movie isn’t that he develops the standard ridge brow (nor is it even the guy with zebra legs). It’s that when Eddie transforms he also seems to spontaneously manifest a standard Frankenstein outfit, including tight black sweater, ill-fitting suit coat and built-up platform Frankenstein boots. That’s a hell of a DNA formula, I must say.

So Blackenstein (The Black Frankenstein) staggers out periodically into the night and gruesomely murders people, along with (I think) a dog. At first his prey is restricted to folks who have wronged him, but eventually he just moves on to the standard whoever is around sort of thing. He tends to disembowel his victims (gee, thanks), and then holds the entrails up in front of his face. Maybe he’s supposed to be eating them; I couldn’t really tell.

So at first Eddie has no memory of his crimes, and nobody else knows what’s going on. Luckily I guess all the blood and body parts disappear when his Frankenstein suit turns back into Eddie’s pajamas. Yet whenever there’s a full moon (I think, maybe he changes every night), Blackenstein (The Black Frankenstein) staggers forth and commits mayhem. Of course, he moves incredibly slowly, waving his arms around in front of him like the old Frankenstein Monster (although that was only during the period when the Monster was supposed to be blind). However, via the miracle of offscreen teleportation—not to mention victims who naturally refuse to just run away when they have the chance—he kills any number of folks, including two middle-aged white people whose sex scene is easily the most unsettling thing in the movie.

There’s also a long stretch of a horribly unfunny black comic doing standup at a nightclub. For what it’s worth, the clothes of his inexplicably convulsed audience do provide some genuine laughs. Then the film teases us when the comic goes outside for a smoke. Sadly, though, he isn’t killed by Blackenstein (The Black Frankenstein) but merely witnesses his latest rampage.

Finally there’s a big climatic murder spree, as Blackenstein (The Black Frankenstein) sloooowly meanders around up and down staircases and kills pretty much everybody in Stein’s house except Winifrid. For some reason he’s bullet proof (Malcolm unloads a revolver into his chest at point blank range, to no apparent effect), but not canine proof, and in the end Blackenstein (The Black Frankenstein) is literally torn apart by a team of police Dobermans. I’m sure that resonated with lots of viewers, especially given the then recent images of Southern cops setting vicious dogs on black protesters.

Blackenstein (also known as Return of Blackenstein—huh?) is in no way good, but it does provide a fair amount of amusement. Probably the funniest single moment in the film is when Eddie arrives at Stein’s house on a gurney. Despite purportedly being legless, his legs and feet are clearly visible thrusting up under the sheet covering him.

You can also add this to the list of horrible movies (Dracula vs. Frankenstein, etc.) to which prop guy Kenneth Strickfaden lent the mad scientist laboratory equipment he created for the original Universal Frankenstein back in 1931. I’m not sure why Strickfaden’s baroque electrical arc generators would aid in limb graft operations, but then, I’m not a scientist.

Just as a warning, some may be turned off by the explicit (if poorly realized) gore and, naturally, some gratuitous boobage.

This week on DVD...

2006-07-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

The top TV set of the week is the fondly remembered sci-fi/comedy/Western series The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. The set includes the first (and last) season of the show, which starred Bruce Campbell. Brisco County played on Fox on Friday nights at 7:00 CST. Critics and media prognosticators pegged it in advance as a likely smash hit, although probably not enough to help out the new show slated to play right after it. This program, starring two unknowns, was deemed by almost all as not likely to last more than a month or two. It was a little thing called The X-Files.

Meanwhile, Campbell fans will also get the chance this week to pick up Jack of All Trades: The Complete Series, a syndicated comedy/action piece with Campbell as an inept Zorro type.

Other television sets out this week include Amazing Stories S1; Carnivale S2; Bill Bixby’s The Incredible Hulk S1 (this includes the previously and separately available pilot movie); Masters of Horror (various episodes); the cartoon show The New Adventures of Flash Gordon: The Complete Series, Pretender S4; and, yay!, the first season of the original Ultraman series.

My movie suggestion of the week is, unfortunately, only available as part of Warner’s Film Noir Classic Collection 3. Perhaps at some point in the future it will be available on its own, but for you to see it you have to buy the entire set ($35 at Amazon for five movies and a feature length documentary on six discs, with audio commentaries for each movie and a short subject collection, etc.). Either that, or you can rent the film separately at Netflix. You got to hand it to Warner’s, they continue to put out terrific box sets that give you a mighty big bang for your buck.

The exact movie of which I speak is producer Howard Hughes’ His Kind of Woman. To be clear, this is one of those pictures that isn’t really a great film, but which you just might fall in love with, warts and all. I did, years ago. In sum, its one of those movies where all the parts might fail to gel together, but it doesn’t matter, because some of the parts are so damn cool. It’s a goofy mélange of film noir, bad nightclub singing (courtesy of star Jane Russell), hipster slang, bucco violence, homoerotic S/M imagery, some genuinely hilarious comic relief, and even some light sci-fi elements.

To know if this is a movie you might be interested in, here are the two most important facts about it. First, it stars Robert Mitchum, who has never been cooler than he is here. You could probably chill a beer just by placing it next to him for a couple of minutes. (Moreover, he and Russell seem to be engaging in a titanic battle of massive torsos.)

Second, the comic relief is provided by Vincent Price, who loved doing pure comedy and rarely got the chance. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone who more obviously was having an outright blast being in a movie. If you are at all a fan of Price, this is a simply essential watch.

As noted, His Kind of Woman is only available via Netflix or other rental agencies, or as part of the Film Noir Classic Collection 3, along with Lady in the Lake (the weird Philip Marlowe movie where the entire film is shot from Marlowe’s POV!), Border Incident (directed by Anthony Mann and starring Ricardo Montalban), The Racket (a fun and tough early Mitchum police melodrama) and On Dangerous Ground, along with the other stuff mentioned above.

7 Mummies: DTV horror junk starring Billy Drago and Danny Trejo.

Amazing Mr. X Turhan Bey is a fake medium in this well regarded 1948 thriller.

The Cavern Another of the recent ‘monster in a cave’ movies. If you’re going to see only one, wait until The Descent hits theaters later this summer.

Lucha Libre Double Feature: Features the Blue Demon and four other wrestlers vs. evil super-midgets flick The Champions of Justice, along with Blue Demon and Santo in Mystery in Bermuda. Spanish with English subtitles.

Dr. Mabuse The Gambler Any fan of early cinema should check out this 270 minute (!) silent German expressionistic classic by director Fritz Lang, which introduced one of the cinema’s greatest supervillains. A nice package put out by the fine folks at Kino. This replaces an earlier incomplete version of the film previously released by Image. (Which is still worth owning for the David Kalat commentary track. Still, if you get only one, get the Kino edition.)

My Chauffer/My Tutor Two lame but fondly remembered ‘80s sexploitation flicks.

Roadhouse A new special edition (!) DVD. Still, only one disc? I thought it would be bigger.

Roadhouse 2 The recent, Swayze-less update.

Some Like it Hot Two-disc special edition of the all time comedy classic, starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe.

Sybil: Famous TV movie with Sally Fields as the titular schizophrenic.

Tough Guys Collection: Another wonderful Warner Bros collection. Features Bullets or Ballots (cop Edward G. Robinson vs. gangster Humphrey Bogart), City for Conquest (boxer noir with James Cagney), Each Dawn I Die (prison flick with Cagney and George Raft), G-Men (Cagney as lawman), San Quentin (Pat O’Brien, Bogart) and A Slight Case of Murder (gangster comedy with Edward G. Robinson*). 6 discs, with commentaries, featurettes, shorts, cartoons and more.

[Hopefully Larceny Inc. will be featured in a future set. In that comedy, gangster Robinson and two associates open a luggage store next to a bank to commit a robbery, but unintentionally find the store a great success.]

It Came from Netflix! Track of the Cat (1954)

2006-07-20T06:17:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to overstate how popular Westerns were back in the ‘50s. The film studios churned them out like crazy, from prestige, star-driven fare to zillions of low-budget, generic oaters. Moreover, the genre dominated the primetime schedules of the nearly monopolistic Big Three networks more than crime shows do now.

Filmmakers were finally starting to feel their artistic oats by then, and the ‘50s saw the first examples of the ‘adult’ (what we would call revisionist) Westerns. The first and some of the best of these resulted from a partnership between director Anthony Mann, then best known for his tough Noir crime films, and war veteran actor James Stewart. The first of these was 1950’s Winchester ’73, followed by several other such films.

An offshoot of these were the art or psychological Westerns, which were more than revisionist, and generally hostile to the values of the mainstream Western. Way ahead of the trend was 1943’s The Ox-Bow Incident, a film decrying mob violence and lynching. (Such an unusual film was probably only possible because of the support of star Henry Fonda, who made liberal films like The Grapes of Wrath back in the day when liberal films actually had something useful to say and artists took authentic risks in making them.)

The Ox-Bow Incident was directed by William Wellman from a novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Eleven years later, Wellman returned to Clark’s work as the basis for Track of the Cat. Sadly, I must admit, I found the film a little too ‘psychological’ and too little ‘Western.’

Shot on obvious, even purposely theatrical sets, Track of the Cat revolves around the Bridges Family. It’s winter, and resentments abound. Father is a drunken letch (a rather lame running gag involves all the places he’s hid the bottles of booze his wife seeks to deny him), Mom is a bitter old Bible-Thumper, and spinsterish daughter Grace despairs of the fact that she didn’t flee the suffocating family embrace back when she had the chance.

More central to things are the three Bridges son. The leader of the family is bullying alpha male Curt (Robert Mitchum). He’s so dominating both physically and in his drive and personality — remember, we’re talking Robert Mitchum here — that even would-be rebeller Grace can’t really stand up to him. He’s the apple of his parents’ eye, moreover, leading to even more estrangement amongst the other siblings.

Arthur is the kind brother, and sporadically attempts to run interference between Curt and Grace and younger brother Harold (Tab Hunter). However, Arthur is also sort of a ‘head in the clouds’ sort, and thus ultimately an ineffectual counterweight for the more driven Curt. Harold, meanwhile, is the youngest son, and crippled by indecision. This is brought to a head by his coming marriage to Gwen, which is opposed by Mom — bitter Bible Thumper, remember? — and Curt, who refuses to cede part of the family’s holdings to Harold and dilute his own power.

Meanwhile, a panther is stalking the livestock. (Annoyingly, everyone in the film calls the panther a ‘painter.’ Even is this bit of pronunciation is accurate to the time period and setting, it’s highly obnoxious to hear throughout the film, and its seemingly employed dozens of times.) The family’s ancient Indian servant Joe Sam warns that it’s a devil cat, but naturally Curt strides forward to kill it. Three guesses how that ends up.

Sadly, the cat plot is afforded little screentime. Instead, we are mostly stuck in the claustrophobic house watching the family rip into each other. This is a film I wanted and expected to like, but frankly I found it ‘arty’ in the bad sense. What it has to say isn’t nearly as interesting or daring as the filmmakers think it to be (and I think this would have been largely true even at the time), and the effect is of watching a bad stage play that’s entirely too in love with itself.

The end ‘meaning,’ that one brother was too hot to survive, and another too cold, but the last brother was just right, seems way too little to hang an entire movie on. Moreover, modern audiences will probably find Gwen’s attempts to get the indecisive Harold to Act Like a Man (she secretly smiles with satisfaction when he starts bossing her around) either comically out of date or downright offensive.

Meanwhile, after the opening scenes top-billed Mitchum all but disappears for most of the movie. I’d be surprised is he has ten minutes of sceentime in the final three-fourths of the film. Even worse, in the end we never actually see the cat, an attempted artistic flourish that even director Wellman apparently regretted. (This according to his son, who participated in the DVD’s extras.)

There is, in fact, supposed to be a real cat. However, since we never see it, and given the rest of the film’s arty tone, some confused viewers thought it was meant to be an imaginary manifestation of Curt’s Id or some damn thing.

Aside from the artistic problems with not showing the panther, I also wonder if maybe Wellman regretted the financial impact on the film. I don’t know that this film didn’t do well at the box office, but having seen it, I’m assuming so. One can imagine a disappointed viewer telling his friends, “Well, Mitchum’s barely in the movie, and 90% of it involves people yakking at one another, and, oh, yeah, you never even see the damn panther mentioned in the title.” I can’t imagine such word of mouth had people running to buy tickets.

To be fair, many people still seem highly impressed with this film, and some even consider it a minor classic. All I can say is that it didn’t do much for me. It was the kind of movie that I grew increasingly impatient with, waiting for it to do something.

The art design is pretty interesting, and that’s not meant as a back-handed compliment. The film is shot in color but the design palette intentionally makes the movie look nearly black and white; to emphasize the dreariness of the characters’ lives, presumably. The one notable exception is Curt’s blazing red jacket, a mark of his unavoidably overbearing presence. (Is this where Spielberg got the idea for the girl’s red coat in Schindler’s List?)

However, but that’s really about the best I can say for this. If you’re a student of experiment cinematography, and maybe you our, the film is probably worth a look just on that front.

On an odd trivia note, ancient Joe Sam, under so much make-up that his face is immobile, was played by 27 year-old Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer. Yes, that ‘Alfalfa.’ He died in a bar shooting over a $50 debt just a few years after this.

It Came from Netflix! Ring of Fear (1954)

2006-07-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

Plot: A psychotic war veteran seeks murderous revenge at the Clyde Beatty Circus.

Well, this is the most weird-ass movie I’ve seen in a while. An asylum inmate with a weird manner of speaking (I eventually figured out he was supposed to have a thick Irish accent) is appearing before a psychiatric review board. His appeal is denied, albeit not for any apparent good reason. However, this was 1954, so if three stuffy white guys say the patient is nuts, he must be. And sure enough, they’re right. He quickly escapes and knocks out a guy, dressing the fellow in his clothes and throwing him under a train. This, naturally, leads the authorities to believe that the escapee is dead.

Our antagonist is subsequently revealed to be one Dublin O’Malley. (Just to let you know, he’s the Irish guy I referred to earlier.) He’s soon skulking about the Clyde Beatty Circus, where he once worked. O’Malley—did I mention he was Irish?—has a beef against Beatty. Dublin—a Son of the Auld Sod, you know—is also obsessed with his old girlfriend, a trapeze artist now married another man, and mother of a cute young daughter.

Using a blackmailable old drunk named Twitchy (!) as a surrogate, O’Malley arranges for a death or two, and a couple of near misses. Beatty himself narrowly escapes a grisly demise when a doctored training rope parts and a tiger nearly gets him.

Beatty calls on his old friend, Mickey Spillane (!), playing ‘himself’ (!!). (Mr. Spillane passed away this week, so let's tip our porkpie hats to him.) Spillane, of course, was the author of the amazingly popular, not to mention lurid, Mike Hammer detective series. Indeed, Spillane’s next film role, nine years after this, was playing Hammer in The Girl Hunters. Given the porkpie hat and other affectations he employs here, it won’t surprise many to learn that there’s not much variance between the two performances.

O’Malley now officially appears at the circus, after the aforementioned incidents and thus removed from suspicion for them. He reclaims his old job—the current guy has an accident, presumably also O’Malley’s work—and Dublin continues to plot his revenge. Then we get a lot of…stuff. Lots of circus performance footage, Mike and a detective pal casting suspicious glances about, O’Malley freaking out his old girlfriend, etc.

I don’t want to blow the ending, but let’s just say that O’Malley is seen throughout the movie tormenting this one ill-natured tiger …oh. I guess that kind of blows the ending. Sorry.

What a bizarre movie. It pretty patently only exists because somebody thought, “Hey, it would be exciting, not to mention economical, to shoot a movie with Clyde Beatty’s circus as the backdrop!” That’s clearly where things started, and everything that followed was apparently considered a mere bunch of details. Just a bit over 90 minutes, the film is all over the map.

There’s at least a full half hour of circus stuff, including of course long segments of Beatty's admittedly amazing big cat act; occasional bits of O’Malley’s deviltry; some (comparatively restrained) ethnic buffoonery provided by Pedro Gonzolez, here playing the same sort of Lovable Mexican Comic Relief figure he assayed in the classic John Wayne movie Rio Bravo. (Ring of Fear, actually, was made by Batjac Productions, Wayne’s independent film company.)

The cast has quirks too. Aside from the “playing themselves” Beatty (stiff) and Spillane (eh, OK), Pat O’Brien shows up. O’Brien is best known for appearing opposite Jimmy Cagney in a bunch of classic gangster movies, and was last seen on these pages in Billy Jack Goes to Washington.

Since this was made in the ‘50s, lots of folks that appeared in ‘50s sci-fi movies are on hand. (This in the same way that seemingly every young actor or actress in the early ‘80s appeared in a slasher movie.)

· Sean McClory, who plays O’Malley, was Col. Kibbee in the giant ant epic Them!

· Marian Carr, who plays the object of O’Malley’s perverse affections, was the female lead of the dismal Lon Chaney Jr. flick The Indestructible Man.

· Her husband in the film is played by the beefy John Bromfield, star of Revenge of the Creature and Curucu, Beast of the Amazon.

· ‘50s sci-fi mainstay Kenneth Tobey (who, hey, also was in Billy Jack), sadly appears for but a minute or two. Mr. Tobey starred in The Thing from Another World (he was the Air Force officer hero), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, It Came from Beneath the Sea and The Vampire.

Things I Learned: If you run an asylum for the criminally insane, you shouldn’t let trucks park under open patient walkways.

Summation: If you ever wanted to see Clyde Beatty and Mickey Spillane hunting down a psycho-killer at the circus, this is the movie for you!

Truer Words Dept.

2006-07-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

"I know there are some people who love cinema who don't get [Jess] Franco's work..." Tim Lucas, Video WatchBlog.

It Came from Netflix! Emperor of the North Pole

2006-07-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

One of the last great ‘70s action films has finally hit DVD in Emperor of the North Pole. Like many of that decade’s ‘car’ movies (The Driver, Vanishing Point), Emperor basically concerns a man who uses a mechanized vehicle as a tool to escape Society’s insistence on control and order. In those movies the vehicles were cars, in this, a train.

Although not quite as abstract and on-the-sleeve metaphorical as The Driver—in which the anarchy figure is known simply as the Driver and his antagonist the Detective—the Great Depression-set Emperor again features a markedly skilled anarchy figure in the character of A Number 1 (the always great Lee Marvin), sort of a legendary super-hobo. He ends up taking on the murderous order figure Shack (Ernest Borgnine), a railroad captain well known for killing any bums who try to ride his train. Indeed, when we first meet Shack he ambushes a tramp who had the temerity to jump his train. Shack smashes him in the head with a heavy metal hammer and causes the guy to slide under the moving train, cutting him in half.

Chances are that in the end these two were bound to face off, if only to prove who is king of the hill. Here, however, their meeting is forced by Cigarette (Keith Carradine), a young punk hobo who challenges A Number One’s prominence amongst their set. Cigarette follows A#1 onto Shack’s train for a short run, and almost gets them killed. They escape with their lives, but Cigarette boasts of riding Shack’s train, leaving out A#1’s part in things. This enrages Shack, and gets A#1’s dander up. The stage is set for the two men to finally directly contest each other.

One nice thing about the movie is that there really aren’t any good guys in it. A#1 is, when all is said and done, a bum and a thief. If he looks like a good guy, it’s only because Shack is such an outright evil figure. Borgnine goes to town in the role, and it’s a perfect fit for him. Aside from maybe Joe Don Baker, nobody does pure mean as good as Borgnine. He not only kills the tramps who try him, but does so with glee.

As you’d expect, the cast is enough reason to watch this film alone. Marvin is worth watching in anything, Borgnine is terrific here, Carradine is pretty good himself, and there’s a raft of familiar character actors on hand, including Vic Tayback, Charles Tyner (if you hired Lee Van Cleef when you needed a human rat, you hired Tyner when you needed a human weasel), Simon Oakland, Sid Haig, Elisha Cook Jr., Matt Clark and more. Sometimes it’s not even the face you recognize. Hearing one guy, I was like, “Ah, it’s the Narrator of The Wacky Races.” (Actor Dave Willock, in case you’re interested.)

None of these guys gets much screen time, though. That’s reserved for the three leads. You might not think you could wring enough suspense out of a small train to last two hours, but they go a good job. This is at least partly because they actually pace and pause inbetween the action scenes. Sometimes Shack succeeds in driving them off, but A#1 and Cigarette keep coming back for me.

This despite Shack vicious and inventive cruelty. At one point the bums secrete themselves in the metal struts under the movie train. In response, Shack lowers a metal plumb weight he's tied onto a line. The heavy object smacks around as it comes into contact with the ground, jumping up and threatening to pulp the trapped hobos. This is a wince-inducing scene.

For all the exploding buildings and worldwide disasters we get these days, they just don’t make ‘em as exciting as this anymore. Anyone looking for a good double bill might want to go with the similarly Depression-set Hard Times, with an absolutely terrific Charles Bronson as a bare knuckle boxer.

The newly released disc features a nice print of the film in widescreen (yay!), although the accompanying commentary by some boring academic is pretty worthless, as he even gets facts wrong and stuff like that, and spends way too much time yakking about his ill-formed theories on what the film 'means.' Seriously, they couldn't have gotten Borgnine or Carradine to do a commentary?

Now if they would just put The Naked Prey out on DVD…

It Came from Netflix! The Witch's Mirror

2006-07-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

CasaNegra is a new DVD imprint dedicated to releasing Mexican horror movies of the ‘50s and ‘60s, featuring high quality transfers and the original Spanish language tracks. While films in the Santo wrestling series have gotten such presentations in the past, this is the first attempt to deal fairly with films that have amused American drive-in audiences and B-movie junkies for decades, via the comically dubbed versions seen here from producer K. Gordon Murray.

This month saw the release of their first two discs, The Witch’s Mirror and Curse of the Crying Woman. August sees The Brainiac. It’ll be interesting to see how much the original language track of the latter mitigates against the manifold goofiness of the Murray version. One suspects some, but not much. Too much of the weirdness is inherent, I’d think.

The Witch’s Mirror is a pretty typical Mexican horror movie, by which I mean it’s massively overstuffed. Actually, it’s sort of two movies spliced together, and indeed, each part takes up also precisely one half of the total film’s running time.

The first half features a middle-aged witch named Sarah, who is introduced warning her beloved godchild Elena that she (Elena) is soon to be murdered. Standing before the titular lookingglass, Elena is overcome to learn that she will be killed by her much-loved husband, Edward. Sarah, meanwhile, seeks intervention from Satan. She is warned off, however, as Elena’s death is already in the books.

Elena is (I guess) so distraught that Edward would seek her death that she goes ahead and knowingly drinks up the poisoned milk he serves her. Sarah, unable to save Elena, instead focuses on seeking revenge. When Edward brings home new wife Deborah—his passion for her being his motive for bumping off Elena—Sarah plots the woman’s doom, as the mechanism that will bring the most pain to Edward. (It should be noted that Deborah is basically entirely innocent, and thus the cruelty of her fate seems a bit much.)

Sarah soon starts orchestrating various supernatural spooky happenings. The climax of these culminates in Edward accidentally setting Deborah on fire. (Whoever the briefly-seen stuntman was, who runs past the camera literlly engulfed in flames, well, he certainly earned his pesos that day). As a result, Deborah is left with horribly scarred hands and face. Sarah crows at her success.

That’s pretty much exactly the first half of the movie. The second half is significantly weirder and goofier and much more in line of what we think of as representing Mexican horror. Edward, we learn, isn’t just a doctor, but a mad doctor. He decides to restore Deborah’s looks, with a glowering Sarah just as determined to impede him. Thus the movie quickly becomes a strange, florid mix of Eyes Without a Face and Burn, Witch, Burn.

The second half of the movie is pretty gory by the standards of the day, with Edward lopping off the hands of various females and such in his quest to restore Deborah to mint condition. The second half actually makes the first half look staid and logical, as we quickly veer from standard grave robbing antics to the rather improbable addition of a woman found buried alive.

In a way, it’s a shame Edward never becomes aware of Sarah’s antagonism. A film pitting supernatural revenge against mad science would have been pretty interesting. However, Edward remains ignorant throughout, and Sarah is able to accomplish her ends without overmuch effort.

Although obviously hindered by the low budget and vigorously fantastical plotting of all these things, the film does move quickly enough to entertain. And, to be fair, the low-grade camera tricks and so on employed by the director do occasionally lend an honestly spooky note to things. Certainly the image of Deborah moping about in her lumpy, head-covering bandages is a fairly memorable image.

Moreover, despite not mitigating much against the tendency towards overacting, the original language tracks do allow the films a bit more dignity than the generally hilarious (and presumably near verbatim) Murray dubs. Mexican horror films tended to be somewhat more surreal than American genre movies, although it could be equally argued that they were just less concerned about being constrained by logic.

Even novice fans of the genre like myself will notice décor and props used in other movies from the studio, notably The Brainiac. The musical score also is largely the same as the one employed in that film.

The full frame presentation of the film isn’t quite pristine, but is it surprisingly good, and quite possibly the movie looks better here than it looked originally in the theaters. We are also treated to the K. Gordon Murray soundtrack (which occasionally goes back to the original Spanish for scenes that Murray had cut out), and a commentary by a guy conversant with the genre.

This mostly consists of the biographies and filmographies of the actors and filmmakers, and since they tended to be involved in a lot of these, I’m not sure where future commentaries will go. Other than that, the track consists largely are a fairly lame array of comments about weird props in the background and the like.

Summation: Not a bad way to spend a dark and stormy night.

It Came from Netflix! Full Contact

2006-07-11T09:33:00.000-07:00

This stylish, albeit hardly groundbreaking Hong Kong actioner, benefits from the direction of Ringo Lam and moreso from starring the eminently and effortlessly cool Chow Yun-Fat. As is typical for this sort of thing, the character material is as overstuffed and operatic as the action stuff.

Motorcycle-riding Thief with a Code Godfrey (Yun-Fat) makes the mistake of teaming up for a job with Honorless Thief Judge. Judge is a homosexual, by the way, although I wasn’t sure whether than was supposed to have any larger significance. The latter’s lack of ethics is established in a pretty neat opening robbery sequence. Judge (who manifests weapons via magician slight of hand tricks) and his lead henchpeople, Psycho Steroid Case Madman and the latter’s Psycho Nymphomaniac girlfriend Virgin, nastily murder several folks in pursuit of their goal.

The robbery Godfrey later joins in comes off well, but the double cross is in (duh). In the resultant cars chase, Godfrey’s partner is killed. Worse, his cowardly friend Sam is forced to shoot Godfrey, lest he himself be killed by Judge. Afterward, because this is a Hong Kong action movie, Judge blows up the entire house Godfrey is in. Even so, despite losing some fingers, Godfrey naturally survives.

After that, naturally, it’s just a question of what happens between now and the end of the movie when Godfrey reaps his vengeance on Judge. This mostly involves Godfrey learning to shoot again (after losing the aforementioned digits on his shooting hand), and then popping up in a suitable mysterious fashion until he's ready to make his play.

However, because he’s a Good Thief, Godfrey is more motivated by guilt than bloodlust. Judge killed an innocent family in attempting to murder Godfrey. The only surviver was a young woman, and she was badly burned when their house was blown up. Therefore Godfrey’s primary goal is to obtain a large amount of money from Judge before killing him, to pay for the woman’s care. (Shades of John Woo’s The Killer.)

The most interesting element of the movie is the character development of Sam. Although racked with guilt for betraying Godfrey, the formerly sniveling weakling has come into his own as a stylish and tough member of Judge’s gang. He has even successfully wooed Mona, Godfrey’s lover, as both he and she believe Godfrey dead. (Mona, of course, doesn’t know of Sam’s unwilling part in her boyfriend's supposed demise.)

Again, this movie isn’t going to set the world on fire, but it delivers the goods. I personally could have used less of the film’s trademark “zoom along with the CGI bullet” effects. To be fair, though, this was made in 1993 and thus was at least somewhat less tired back then. Moreover, the film is pretty hard edged and sleazy, enough to probably surprise people more familiar with the Hong Kong flicks of a Jet Li or a Jackie Chan.

Pretty good, if not great.

It Came from Netflix! SOS Iceberg

2006-07-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

Leni Reifenstahl died in 2003, at the age of 101. Most infamous as the director of Nazi propoganda films, especially Triumph of the Will, Ms. Reifenstahl was the subject of an amazing three-hour documentary entitled The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl. If you haven’t seen it, check it out, it’s extraordinary.

Reifenstahl’s lengthy life can be cut up into segments. Early on, before making films for Hitler, she was a movie actress in post war Germany. She was known for starring in a series of ‘mountain movies, ‘ an apparently popular genre in that country featuring actors performing feats of unassisted mountain climbing and the like, portraying dangerous physical acts by actually doing them.

SOS Iceberg is a similar film, made by the same director, Arnold Fanck. This one concerns a search party seeking a lost scientist in the wastes of the Arctic. Recently released by Kino on DVD, we are treated to both the English and German language versions of the film. Rather than a simple redubbing, the English version is an entirely different cut of the film featuring unique footage.

The German version lasts about an hour and a half. We open in the aftermath of a mission to explore the remote glacial regions of Greenland. During this, scientist Karl Lorenz went missing. His partner, Krafft, is called before an investigating board. He testifies that he and the rest of the team conducted a thorough search before the passage of time and the coming break up of the ice forced them to admit that Lorenz was dead.

Krafft is therefore shocked when evidence is presented proving Lorenz was alive just a few days ago. Apparently he snuck off to explore a region he had always wanted to investigate, but which was far from the locale they were scheduled to go. Because of this, Krafft and the others were searching the wrong area entirely.

Hella, Lorenz’s wife (Reifenstahl), is relieved by this news. Krafft, however, is pissed. Lorenz’s selfishness in secretly running off has not only damaged the goals of their original mission together, but has made Krafft look like a cowardly rat for leaving Lorenz out there alive. Now the whole area is disintegrating with the coming of spring, but an almost manically driven Krafft gathers the three other mission members and travels back to search for their errant colleague.

As with the mountain movies, the real thrill here—and it continues to fascinate—is in watching actors struggle against Nature in a very real and dangerous looking manner. Krafft and his crew find Lorenz’ trail and follow along it, despite this meaning that they must hop from one floating and continuously melting piece of ice to another. Several times the actors fall into the frigid waters, and I don’t care if help was available just off camera, there’s no way they weren’t putting their lives in some jeopardy here.

Eventually the crew finds Lorenz, although the scientist has (I think) lost his legs to frostbite. However, in the end they are all stranded on a floating iceberg, which has broken loose from land. Drifting ever south, it is melting and falling to pieces under them. Meanwhile, the stranded men begin going mad from lack of food and water, not to mention the horror of their plight. For her part, Hella, who proves a pilot, flies an alarmingly fragile looking prop plane through the icy wastes searching for the party.

As I indicated, I assumed the English version to be substantially the same, but it wasn’t. It’s shorter, yet opens with quite a lot of footage taking place both before and during the initial exploration mission that Lorenz sneaks off from. This involves almost all of the same cast from the German language version, who film these scenes in English. This seems odd, as the German version sports so little dialogue as to almost be a silent film. Dubbing it would surely have been easier.

The English version is more concerned with the humans and offers a straighter, cleaner storyline. However, the superior German version features more of what we came to see, simply amazing footage of puny man struggling first to dominate, and then simply to survive, implacable Nature.

Great stuff.

The rest of the year for the Cubs...

2006-07-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

Assuming that woefully failed manager Dusty Baker (and presumably at least some of the coaches) is, in fact, finally to be shown the door--and GM Jim Hendry is making noises to that effect--it’s time to set down in stone what the team goals should be for the second half of what is already one of the worst seasons of Cubs baseball ever. Which is saying something.

First, it is essential to acknowledge that we will, under no circumstances, be in the race for a post-season slot. This is obvious, so both we the fans and the team should all be comfortable acknowledging it. (The fans, in fact, have proven more than ready to concede this. Hell, we've been screaming it for months now.) It would be a downright miracle if we could get back up to .500, much less win the wild card.

Hendry needs to sit down with whomever he hires to fill Dusty’s shoes, whether we’re talking the new long-term manager long term or simply an interim guy, and emphasize that his job is about nothing other than preparing the Cubs for a more successful 2007. That’s the only profitable course remaining for a team mired this far into the depths of the standings. With players like Kerry Wood gone and off the payroll next year, big changes are in store. The rest of the year should be about mapping out exactly what we will have and what we will need to acquire.

In sum, the number one job (and two, three, four and five jobs) of the new manager has to be PLAYING THE KIDS. We should see as little of Wood, Niefi, Mabry, etc., and as much of Murton, Cedano, Marmol, Guzman, Pie, whoever, as possible.

Hendry and the new manager have to sit down with the kids and tell them explicitly that there is no pressure to win anything at this point. Instead, they should relax and play to their abilities, and most of all, work on improving their fundamentals. They should be told that they won’t be judged on the second half win totals (which in any case almost have to be better than the first half’s), but on aspects of the game that have not be emphasized under Dusty: Plate discipline, on base percentage, and keeping your head in the game and not making the incredibly boneheaded miscues we’ll been witnessing nearly every game.

Let them know that there’s no need to pressure to win that day’s game. The idea is to see day-to-day and long-term improvement, not (as Dusty would no doubt call for) to strive to battle their way back to a pointless .500 record. If they follow this plan, their win rate will improve on its own. The new manager must have regular one-on-one meetings with the players, many more team meetings to keep everyone on the same page, and re-instigate daily game practice.

Some are asking what it will profit us to dump Dusty at this juncture, rather than letting him manage to the end of the year. The answer is, because it is literally impossible for him to manage the way I’ve described. He didn’t care about long-term betterment of the team when he knew his job was secure, much less will he when he knows he’ll be gone next year. Rather than a slow, patient, tough focus on team improvement, we’d hear the same stuff about “putting the best guys out there to win today” and guff about how “these veterans have earned the right to play.”

It’s time we stopped worrying about the player’s “rights” and focused on the team. The fans are calling for a youth movement, and for good reason. If we’re going to watch the team lose—and again, I can’t see how they wouldn’t in fact win more games doing this—then it’s still better to do so while also getting the chance to evaluate the team’s future. Winning two or three more games total makes little sense if it means holding off until next year the essential, grinding scutwork this team requires to rebuild. If we start now, we’ll be in a much better position to hit the ground running in 2007.

New on DVD...

2006-07-05T07:53:00.000-07:00

Not a lot new on DVD this week, perhaps because of the holiday.

The big news this week is the release of the recent revival of one of the world’s most beloved sci-fi series, Doctor Who The Complete First Season. Its street priced at an exorbitant $100 (bastards), but can be found for around $65.

Other TV sets this week include Alice: TV Favorites, and Charlie’s Angels S3.

Plan 9 From Outer Space is out in a new edition, including both the original B&W and a (blech) colorized version. However, Mike Nelson provides a commentary, so there’s that. There’s additional Ed Wood content (home movies, commercials), but don’t get rid of your old Image DVD, which contains the brilliant feature length Flying Saucers Over Hollywood documentary.

Meanwhile, the original Little Shop of Horrors is getting the same treatment (Nelson commentary, etc.)

The Matador is a black comedy with Pierce Brosnan trading off his Bond image to play an aging hitman experiencing a mid-life crisis.

‘80s softcore fans will be pleased to hear that two of the decades pivotal sex comedies, including the obligatory “high school guy hooks up with hot older chick” flick, are hitting disc in My Chauffer (with Valley Girl’s Deborah Foreman) and My Tutor (Emmanuelle’s Sylvia Kristal). The films are available separately or in a pack.

The Horror, the Horror...

2006-07-04T18:51:00.000-07:00

I was just flipping around the TV stations during a commercial break. As I surfed past the local WB affiliate, I saw an ad for Living with Fran. Living with Fran?! Did anyone know that was still on the air? How is that possible?

Destroying an entire TV network might seem an exaggerated price to pay to make sure a Fran Drescher show is banished from the airwaves. But is it? Is it really? I'd say the death of a UPN is a small price to pay.

However, as insane as it sounds, Drescher could get another show. It's happened before. Therefore, I bring you a warning.

Every one of you reading this blog; tell the world. Tell this to everyone, wherever they are: Watch the TV listings, everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the TV lisings.

Happy Birthday, Lance Henriksen...

2006-05-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

I name drop Lance Henriksen’s moniker quite a bit, usually in despair that someone isn’t giving this fine actor better roles. (I remain flummoxed particularly that the producers of Deadwood, a show that seems to specialize in casting well-known character and B-movie actors—Brad Dourif, Jeffrey Jones, Keith Carradine, Ricky Jay, Titus Welliver, Peter Coyote, William Sanderson, Powers Booth, Alice Krige [and that’s just the first season!]—hasn’t found a part for this guy.)

The gravelly-voiced Mr. Henriksen popped up in several early James Cameron films, and played the hero in the director’s first, Piranha II: The Spawning. Henriksen was Cameron’s initial choice to play the killer robot in The Terminator, and purely in story terms, would have been a lot more logical choice than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Instead, Henriksen played one of the cops slaughtered in the raid on the police station. Perhaps his biggest sci-fi role was as the android Bishop in Camerson’s Aliens.

Henriksen remains best know for his genre work, and his horror and sci-fi credits are extensive: Mansion of the Doomed, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Damien: Omen II, The Visitor, Nightmares, The Terminator, Savage Dawn, Aliens, Near Dark, Pumpkinhead, The Horror Show, The Pit and the Pendulum, Alien 3, Super Mario Brothers, Man’s Best Friend, and many more. Sadly, though, as noted above, he now generally appears in tepid DTV fare.

However, if he is best know for his genre work, Henriksen has also appeared in his share of more mainstream movies: Dog Day Afternoon, The Right Stuff, Prince of the City and The Quick and the Dead. He also played the villain in two very fun action flicks, Stone Cold and Hard Target. Like most character actors that have hung around long enough, Henriksen has worked for the best of directors (Cameron, Spielberg, Philip Kaufman) and the worst (Albert Pyun).

Probably his signature role, however, came via fizzled TV wunderkind Chris Carter, who followed up The X-Files by casting Henriksen as the lead character, Frank Black, in the highly anticipated Millennium. (Which also starred another actor much like Henriksen, Terry O’Quinn. The latter has had rather more luck, lately, as one of the stars of TV’s hottest show, Lost.)

The show ran for four years, and had some great episodes. However, the ratings never were as high as they could have been, and this led to tampering with the program’s basic storyline with each new season. They never found the right mix, and eventually the show was allowed to die. Carter and Henriksen later provided an elegiac coda to the series when Black later appeared on an episode of The X-Files.

Mr. Henriksen is one of the few actors working today—Tony Todd being another—who in another era (pretty much anything through the ‘70s) had the chops and charisma to have become an old-school horror star. Instead, the breed seemed to die with Donald Pleasance, mostly because most schlock horror now is direct-to-video stuff rather than theatrical releases. As well, this product is far more boring and cookie cutter than it used to be. As objectively bad as the poverty row fare churned out by Bela Lugosi and (to a lesser extent) Boris Karloff back in the ‘30s and ‘40s, at least that stuff retains a certain charm about it.

Sadly, however, Henriksen has lately been in stuck in mostly tiresome cheapies generally only elevated by his own presence. When Alien vs. Predator is the biggest title on your résumé for the last ten years, something has gone horribly awry. While both Henriksen and his fans must be at least pleased that he continues to work steadily—he has four films listed as being in pre-production on the IMDB, including two Pumpkinhead sequels, and 40 credit listings since 2000 alone—one could certainly wish the actor was getting the sort of roles worthy of his talents.

Mr. Henriksen is 66 today. Someday he will no longer be with us, and people will look back and mourn that his talents were so tragically wasted over the last decades of his life.

Things you learn on the Internet...

2006-05-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

From Macleans.ca [the website of a Canadian newsweekly magazine]:

"Maddox is a master at a certain kind of writing -- the combination of mock anger and fake pomposity -- that has flourished on the Web: the deliberately bizarre, floridly written rant that attracts attention for dealing with subjects that are too weird or obscure for "conventional" publications. These online writers like to give an absurd spin to mainstream subjects; Maddox devoted an essay to explaining the best methods of suicide, including "Eat a tub full of beans" and "Headbutt the sidewalk." Other times, they deal with obscure pop culture: Canadian Ken Begg, of jabootu.com, writes tens of thousands of words analyzing bad movies like Pia Zadora's The Lonely Lady..."

Of course, there was always the editorial written following a blog comment I wrote somewhere:

"A response to one Ken Begg, Catholic Martyr."

(I should note the the author of this editorial seems to have somewhat randomly assigned to me many political and social opinions that I do not hold, and that I don't believe were inherent in what I wrote.)

Ken Begg, Catholic Canadian!

DVD misc...

2006-05-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

I'm sure anyone who cares has heard this by now, but George Lucas has already caved to fan pressure (and maybe he intended to all along--$$$$$$), and later this year the first three Star Wars movies will be available in two disc sets with the original, unaltered cuts. And yes, Han will again shoot first. The other disc will contain the altered versions.

Fox, who happily seems to be growing a spine in terms of ignoring the politically correct crowd, is releasing a four movie set of some of the best Warner Oland Charlie Chan movies in June, but has also announced a four movie set of Peter Lorre Mr. Moto films. (Fox dithered on releasing these films, fearing complaints, but the fact they invested $2 million remastering the entries in both series probably won the day.)

I just hope these sell. Unlike Warners, who has packaged zillions of box set--the Val Lewton one, for example--that give you huge amounts of movies and extras for a very small price, Fox continues to perhaps overcharge for their sets. Both the Chan and Moto sets, again featuring four films each, retail for $60. You can probably find them for around $40, which in the days of video would have been a good price, but now that's a tad high.

Let's take Amazon. They are pre-selling the four-disc Chan set, with four movies and a scattering of extras, for $41. Meanwhile, the Val Lewton set costs $48 at Amazon (and can be found elsewhere on the Web for about $42), and features eight films, many of them authentic horror classics, along with a feature length documentary on Lewton and six full commentary tracks by recognized genre experts, etc. If you're the kind that would actually listen to all that (and I am), you're getting three to four times as much bang for your buck.

Fox will also release the 1946 murder thriller Shock, in which Vincent Price is a headshrinker who finds himself in charge of an amnesiac patient he realizes saw him kill his wife. Not a classic, but anything with Price is worth a look. John Stanley (presumably the author of the Creature Feature Movie Guide) provides a commentary.

Nightmare Before Christmas back for Halloween....in 3-D!

2006-05-03T07:06:00.000-07:00

Cool news, as this is maybe my favorite film of the last twenty years. Moreover, the sets and puppets really would seem to lend themselves to this sort of thing:

"Disney has staked it's claim to the Halloween weekend as The Nightmare Before Christmas prepares to roll into theaters on October 20, 2006. The movie will be digitally remastered and shown in 3-D, making it the second re-release of its kind for Disney (Chicken Little was the first).

"When visitors came to visit the set of The Nightmare Before Christmas, they were always amazed by the intricate sets and beautiful puppets -- that they actually existed in miniature. It was disappointing to see this effect lost on film. By remastering for 3-D, I hope that some of this magic can be captured and shown to the audience in a way they've never seen before," said Henry Selick, the The Nightmare Before Christmas director.

The Nightmare Before Christmas was originally released in 1993, grossing over $50 million domestically. The October release figures to be at digital theaters across the country. Chicken Little's re-release played at over 80 locations and The Nightmare Before Christmas figures to greatly surpass that amount.

Word has it the 3-D glasses handed out at each screening will collectible rather than standard fare."

It Came from Netflix! Return of the Blind Dead

2006-04-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

El Ataque de los muertos sin ojos is the second of Amando Ossorio’s Blind Dead series, albeit more of a remake of the first film than a sequel. From what I gather, the next two mpvies are like that as well. In other words, the four pictures are pretty much discrete re-tellings of the same story, with no apparent continuity between them.

As before, the Blind Dead are Templar Knights who returned from the Crusades having learned dark occult secrets. Terrorizing the Portuguese village of Buazano (as opposed to the first film's Spanish village of Berzano), they sacrifice maidens to buy themselves immortality.

However, this eventually riles up the townsfolk, who capture the Templars and make to burn them alive. The Templar leader boasts that they will return from their graves to seek revenge. In response, the villagers burn out their eyes, so that should they return, they couldn’t find their way.

[This origin is rather different than the one presented in the first film, in which the Knights were executed by the Church, and lost their eyes not to torches but to ravenous crows.]

Cut to the modern day Berzano. It’s the day of a merry annual festival celebrating the killing of the Knights, who are burned each year in effigy. Fireworks technician / man o’ action Jack has been hired to provide a little extra kick. In town, he meets Mayor Duncan and Vivian, Duncan’s fiancée. It turns out that Vivian is an old flame of Jack’s, and that she arranged to have him hired in hope of hooking back up with him.

Meanwhile, the town freak, who happens to be the caretaker of the Church and the local cemetery, has decided (apparently) to wreak his revenge by rousing the Knights from their sleep. In contrast to the first film, this requires a blood sacrifice, allowing for more naked boobies and some nasty but not very convincing gore effects. The Blind Dead indeed rise, but repay the caretaker with naught but a facial wound.

They attack two lovers, but the woman escapes when she rides off on one of the Templar’s horses. This is a reprise of a scene in the first movie, and again, it doesn’t make the Templars seem all that impressive, especially since this film establishes the horses as being ghostly too. Why a phantom stead would obey a human is beyond me.

Eventually the Templars hit town, and there is some bite in seeing them mow down the partiers celebrating their demise. The Knights get more screen time in this one, although that may arguably diminish them a bit. They remain pretty spooky, however, even if there are times when you wish their victims would just run past the slow-moving creatures rather than back slowly into a corner, screaming and waiting to be hacked to bits. Even so, their unhurried implacability remains unsettling.

As in the previous film, quite a few people are killed here—well into the dozens—and things end up with a group besieged in a stone building. The Mayor proves pretty despicable, and pulls one of the rummiest stunts I’ve seen in a long time in his quest to escape. Meanwhile, when a child is at one point put into peril, it has a bit more kick than usual, since a young kid was killed in the first movie.

The Templars definitely seem less powerful in this one. Several of them appear to be ‘killed’ over again. (If you can destroy them with flames, why not toss a couple Molotov Cocktails at them? They even give the characters a small supply of gas at one point, but they never employ it.) The Knights’ super-acute hearing, sharp enough in the last film to hear the heartbeats of potential victims, doesn’t seem to come much into play here. And finally…well, that’s that end of the movie, so I won’t say too much about it.

This one is better than the first film, if only because it’s a bit shorter and moves a bit faster. Still and all, and despite being a fan of mood and atmosphere in my horror movies, I do find myself employee Ye Olde Faste Forward Buttone while watching these.

Compared to the first film, this one is rather gorier, and there’s probably a bit more nudity. (Which isn’t very erotic since it’s usually mixed with gross violence.) From the stills included in the DVD extras, it seems likely that they filmed a lot more nudity than we see here, too, including some full frontal stuff. This was presumably shot for those foreign markets that permitted such material. Meanwhile, the somewhat abbreviated American dubbed version, included on the disc, edits out some of the gore.

It Came from Netflix! Murder She Said (1961)

2006-03-24T12:00:00.000-08:00

Back in the ‘60s, the camp thing got very popular. The James Bond movies were very campy (and the myriad of knock-off Bond stuff, from the zillions of movies to the merely billions of TV shows, were generally even more so), the Europeans were churning out zany, over the top superhero films, crime melodramas, schlocky sci-fi and insane westerns, and of course we had Batman, the TV show.

Camp mixed in well with black (as in tone, not as in race) comedy, and the Brits especially were good at mixing murder and mirth. Thus you had a ton of successful comic whodunits, including a batch starring Terry Thomas. One author much represented in this trend was Agatha Christie. Unlike her countryman Edgar Wallace, whose baroque novels inspired a gazillion outrageous West German ‘krimis’, Christie’s books worked in this regard because they were conversely so blank.

Her novels were puzzle books, in which ingenious solutions to the crimes were the point. No one ever read her books because of their depth of characterization. This might explain why one of the world’s most popular authors, working in a genre that was extremely popular in movies up until maybe twenty years ago (the whodunit), found her work so seldom represented in film.

Aside from a few very obscure Poirot films made back in the ‘30s, Christie’s work was adapted only a few times, and these were books that didn’t feature her detectives. One book, Ten Little Niggers (changed, for obvious reasons, to Ten Little Indians in later editions), became the basis of the classic And Then There Were None. Ironically, the mystery element in this novel was very weak, and the film completely rewrote the solution, so successfully that the numerous film and TV remakes stuck with the movie’s storyline rather than going back to Christie’s.

Her other prominent film prior to the ‘60s was the extremely fun and tricky courtroom/murder mystery Witness for the Prosecution, as directed by Billy Wilder and starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton (who would have made a great Poirot, actually). Ironically, this was adapted from a stageplay Christie wrote, and not one of her books.

Because she was so light on characterization, her two primary series detectives, Miss Marple and the Belgian Hercule Poirot, were pretty much left open to interpretation. In the ‘60s, this led to many adaptations that emphasized humor as much as homicide.

Poirot was easily the more exaggerated character of the two, and thus lent himself to this sort of thing. Performers who played the blustering Belgian during the ‘60s and ‘70s include such essentially comic actors as Tony Randall, Peter Ustinov and, in a rare humorous turn, Albert Finney. (Zero Mostel almost joined the list, but that project was scrapped.) Ustinov played Poirot in three movies and three further telefilms, and was the actor most associated with the part until David Souchet made the part his own during a long British television run.

While it took a while to find a suitable Poirot, however, the movies immediately found the exact right actress for Miss Marple in Margaret Rutherford, a stout, pugnacious, downright bulldogish old Englishwoman who sort of looks like how you’d expect Jon “Dr. Who” Pertwee’s mother to appear.

She first played the Jane Marple here, in 1961’s Murder She Said, which was so immediately popular that she assayed the role in three quickly made sequels, and then cameoed as Marple in the much loopier Tony Randall Poirot film The Alphabet Murders. Happily, the four Marple mysteries, which are all delightful, have just come out in a DVD box set.

Murder She Said acts as an introduction the character, and indeed was alternately titled Meet Miss Marple. This is clearly Miss Marple’s first case, and thus we meet her supporting cast for the first time too, such as her platonic admirer Mr. Stringer (played by Rutherford’s husband), and the oft-bemused Inspector Craddock, who admired the old gal nearly as much as he was driven to distraction by her.

Miss Marple is riding a train when she witnesses a murder on another train passing opposite. (The killer’s face, needless to say, is obscured.) She reports the incident, but the police can find no evidence of a crime. Convinced that she is right, Marple investigates herself and finds a spot where she believes the body may have been dumped. This focuses her attentions on a nearby manor house, and in her determination to find the killer, she takes a job there as a maid.

The house, needless to say, abound with suspects, and naturally a couple of more bodies make an appearance before the case is closed, with Marple nearly being one of them. The solution is OK, but not great, as only one of the three killings really can be tied specifically to the proffered murderer. (By which I mean, the others could have been assigned to any other cast member equally well.)

It’s Marple’s interaction with a bunch of equally eccentric characters that really sells the film, of course, and that remained the hallmark of the series. Although the films are tongue in cheek in terms of characterizations (and more so in the later movies), the mystery elements are played pretty straight, as they should be. Modern audiences will probably find this perhaps a bit twee and slow moving, but should one acquire the taste for them they are marvelously entertaining.

The DVD for Murder She Said includes the trailers for the four films as well as the ‘60s Ten Little Indians, the first remake of the vastly superior And Then There Were None. Anyone who likes a good mystery should definitely check the latter out. The Murder She Said trailer, meanwhile, drolly includes the theater audience as a character in the movie. After Marple witnesses the murder in the train, she turns to us and says, “Did you see that? They probably won’t believe us.” It’s pretty funny.

Another memorable element is the movie's jaunty harpsichord score, a whimsical piece that became the theme music for the entire series.

Ms. Rutherford was a few years away from winning a plethora of awards for her Grand Dame supporting role in the hilarious 1964 Richard Burton/Liz Taylor soaper The V.I.P.s, for which she one the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Rutherford couldn’t make the show, and ironically her award was accepted on her behalf by Peter Ustinov), as well as a Golden Globe, among other laurels. She became Dame Margaret Rutherford upon being awarded a DBE in 1967.

Awesome Godzilla DVD news...

2006-03-24T07:06:00.000-08:00

Per DVDdrive-in.com:

"You may have already heard that they plan to release a 2-disc set of the original 1954 GOJIRA with the 1956 American version, GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS on September 5th with a SRP of $21.98. But on the same day, the company will also unleash a multi-disc set (6 or 7 discs, depending on the amount of gathered extras) which will include GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN, GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA, GHIDRAH THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER, GODZILLA VS. MONSTER ZERO, GODZILLA’S REVENGE and TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA. The set will include the American versions, as well as the original Japanese versions with English subtitles, and all titles will be remastered in anamorphic widescreen (except in the case of the original film and RAIDS AGAIN which will be full frame), and are promised to look pristine. There will be number of special features, including commentaries with Terry Morse Jr. (son of Terry Morse who wrote, directed and edited KING OF THE MONSTERS) and Patricia Saperstein (daughter of Henry Saperstein, head of UPA). The multi disc set has a SRP of $69.98. Classic Media assures us that the films will look spectacular and that these releases will satisfy even the most diehard Zilla fans!"

It should be noted that a couple of the films in the box set, Godzilla Raids Again and the essential Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster, have never been issued on DVD before. (At least not in America.) And the opportunity to get the others with both the American and Japanese versions is fabulous, not to mention the promised extras.

It will be interesting to see if the "American" versions are the dubbed versions seen in this country, or are instead the separate "International" dubbed versions offered on Sony's DVDs. I have nothing bad to say about Sony's stuff, but as a kid who grew up on the (real) American versions, it would be great to hear the familiar voices I heard as a child on these rather than the unfamiliar International casts.