movies for sleepless nights

The "Van Triple Feature" at Cinefamily

2010-09-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

This summer I took a lengthy and much needed road trip along the west coast that took a little over a month and put 5000 miles on my auto. I got to see a lot of friends that I hadn't seen face to face in a long time, which was great. Thankfully none of my "bros" "iced" me nor did they make me kill a kitten. I did accidentally commit possum murder but it's ok, I believe he was a neo-con. I've been back a few weeks now and have finally worked up the enthusiasm to write something. I don't believe I will be able to catch up on everything I've seen the past few months, so I will try to post some highlights and then get back to business as usual. I do suffer from being lazy though. The cinematic experience that sticks at the most was the aforementioned Van Triple Feature which served up The Van (1977), Mag Wheels (1978), and Supervan (1977). It started amiably enough with a little slice of cheese known as The Van about a (you guessed it) a van! Nerdy Bobby thinks that all he needs to get laid (or attempt a hundred different date rapes) is a custom van. But not even a sweet ass van can overcome Bobby's grating personality and annoying face. There are some shenanigans with the cool bully (also in a custom van, 'natch), a race, nudity, a bad ass song, and Danny DeVito as Bobby's boss at the car wash. Things really got truckin' (hehe) with the second feature Mag Wheels. In this trash masterpiece we have the kick-ass girls in their custom trucks squaring off with the town douche bags in their custom vans. This confounding cinematic treat shifts from wacky scenes where nerds are spanked, to several attempted rape sequences including a 12 on 1 scene that is resolved with with some old fashioned racism when the only Asian girl happens to know kung fu and takes out all dozen a-holes at once. The ending is so hilariously awesome I won't spoil it but the crowd did jump to their feet cheering. "She's all right!!". So you'd think that after sitting through two of these inept mind-scramblers you would be rewarded with the greatest of all van movies, Supervan! I mean, this thing looks like a spaceship and on the poster it's shooting lasers! Alas, it sucked. There is a laser shooting scene but it's too little too late. After the opening where the hero saves the female lead from an attempted gang rape! (oh those wacky seventies) the film meanders it's way to a custom van show where it becomes a mondo film to fill out it's run time. My partner in crime, Nick, fell asleep pretty quickly (no surprise to me based on other movie outings with Nick, hehe), but I was totally jealous that I couldn't fall asleep. Mag Wheels is avaible on a 4 film DVD set from VCi but under the title Summer School. The other two aren't worth finding.

8/10 for the evening overall

Repulsion (1965)

2010-06-27T03:11:00.000-05:00

Dir: Roman Polanski
Criterion Blu-ray

I had seen this film when I was much younger and it did leave an uneasy impression on me. I happily picked up the Criterion Blu-ray release for it and finally got around to watching it and when it was over I thought my head would explode. This is one of the best horror films ever constructed. As I watched it I had a since of deja vu, like it was a half remembered nightmare. The film stars Catherine Deneuve as a young woman working in a beauty salon and living with her older sister. She is unlike any protagonist (save maybe Carnival of Souls 1962) that you would find. She seems to live in a daze, is completely afraid of men, and is both vulnerable and tough. Polanski is a master of keeping you on your toes, keeping a sense of dread that lingers long after the film ends and also makes the viewer as paranoid as Ms. Deneuve's Carole . He also uses some bizarre dream imagery to scare the bejeezus out of you. This is a truly unque film that let's the viewer draw their own conclusions about the world this character inhabits. Deneuve is perfect as Carole, the cinematography is exactly what's needed to tell the story properly, and I don't know about Polanski as a person, but he can direct the crap out of a horror film. Criterion's Blu-ray release is packed with making of extras and looks stunning. A must have.

10/10

Youth in Revolt (2009)

2010-06-27T02:48:00.000-05:00

Dir: Miguel Arteta
Sony Blu-ray

Here's a film where Michael Cera gets to play a typical Cera role (which frankly I don't mind) and also gets to stretch by being the bad boy alternate persona. He stars as Nick Twisp, a geeky boy that knows a lot of pretentious factoids but is unsuccessful with the ladies. He then meets his dream girl, Sheeni, who happens to know even more about the things that Nick is into and is obsessed with the French. So Nick invents the alternate version of himself named Francois and starts doing dangerous things to when her over. Things go wrong, of course, hilarity ensues. It's not much different, plot wise, from a million other teen comedies where nerds try to get laid. The difference here is in the details which border on being too precious but can mostly be overlooked or forgiven as the film provides enough entertainment and cameos to get you to the end. The real crime is the absolute waste of Zach Galifianakis who deserved much better.

6/10

Cry of the Owl (2009)

2010-06-27T02:34:00.000-05:00

Dir: Jamie Thraves
Paramount DVD

This is based on the Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name and stars Paddy Considine and Julia Stiles. It follows Considine as an awkward man that is in the midst of a divorce and trying to transition into a new job far from the city he was living in. While in this new rural setting, he spots Ms. Stiles through her kitchen window and starts watching, only because she looks "so happy". She catches him peeking one night and the two become friends and quickly into more than that prompting her to dump her boyfriend. As the story unfolds we realize pretty quickly that everyone in this story has a mental problem of some sort and maybe Considine isn't really the problem at all. When the film started I had an unsure feeling about it, there was something about Considine's performance that seemed off (and I generally love this guy's performances), but he does settle into the role and I realized that the style of the film matched the content fairly well. By the end I had bought into it and was quite affected by the end result. It's not a perfect film but surely an interesting one that I would be glad to revisit.

8/10

Avatar (2009)

2010-06-26T22:07:00.002-05:00

Dir: James Cameron
Fox Blu-ray

If you haven't already seen this or don't know what it's about, then you care even less than I do so don't worry about it. It was exactly what everyone says it is no matter who said it and what it was. It's a big science fiction movie with lots of colors. The only insight I had was that I felt like it was inadvertently about our societies addiction to video games and how we're so unimpressed with our selves we're using avatars of our own everyday to escape reality, or it's about the environment, your call.

4/10

Pirate Radio (2009)

2010-06-26T22:00:00.000-05:00

Dir: Richard Curtis
Universal Blu-ray

This should have been way better than it was. It's set in the sixties in England, follows DJ's at a pirate radio station playing some of the best music ever made, and stars a handful of likable actors (Chris O'Dowd, Nick Frost, Rhys Darby, Phillip Seymour Hoffman). But to my dismay, the film is a disconnected arrangement of scenes that go nowhere, full of characters that are more caricatures, and feels oddly mean spirited in it's attempts at humor. The "drama" of the story comes from a fuddy duddy (Kenneth Branagh) who can't stand that rock and roll music (much fist shaking) so takes it upon himself to shut down rock radio forever! But these rebels outsmart him at every turn, well not really, they just stay on the air and then are all rewarded with women, seriously. And by the way, not based on anything remotely historically accurate, just a weird ass fantasy. Please to avoid at all costs.

2/10

The Internecine Project (1974)

2010-06-26T21:39:00.000-05:00

Dir: Ken Hughes
Scorpion DVD

A forgotten thriller Starring James Coburn as an agent that must erase some loose ends from his past and comes up with a convoluted plot to take care of them in one night. The first act is a bore and filled with so much machismo that I thought it was a comedy, but when we finally get to the heart of the story it becomes pretty gripping. The convoluted plot in question is certainly the only reason the film got made and if you have any interest in seeing it I wouldn't want to spoil it. Hughes (director of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang !) doesn't seem concerned with keeping his audiences attention and relies too heavily on the script, probably the reason the film isn't more well known. Worth a watch but don't be in a hurry.

5/10

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2006)

2010-06-26T21:20:00.000-05:00

Dir: Mary Jordan
Arts Alliance DVD

Puppies and personal problems have detained me from pontificating about moving pictures, but now I will attempt to get back on track and thank you for your patience. This is a fascinating documentary about a man, Jack Smith, that should be considered an important part of the counter culture in New York in the early sixties. Through his own self destructive nature he has been able to barely hold on as a foot note in this important era of avante garde artists that changed the landscape of the art world forever. If he is remembered for anything now, it is his experimental film Flaming Creatures. A sort of fever dream of sexual taboos mixed with Hollywood melodrama. Writer and fellow filmmaker Jonas Mikas took it upon himself to champion the film and made sure it was seen in as many places as possible. This made Smith angry and claimed his film was stolen from him but Mikas, and others, claim that he never saw any money from it’s exhibition. Smith’s next film, Normal Love (1963) was never actually completed so that it could not be stolen. Smith would show the film but would edit it live and change the music so that no definitive piece existed. In itself this is a fascinating concept but takes on different meaning when you take into consideration why it was shown this way. A few years later Andy Warhol would latch onto some of Smith’s ideas and use them to propel himself into art super stardom. This didn't help Smith's perception of the world and he seemed to fall further from accessibility as an artist which is, on one hand, a shame but on the other makes him far more interesting than his peers. It's certainly not an uplifting story but definitely one worth knowing. The film is made with a no apologies approach that Smith is a genius that was treated poorly by those around him, but even a little research would suggest that that is only half the story. That doesn't take away from the fact that Smith's films and his photography are pretty incredible works of art.

8/10

Hardware (1990)

2010-05-31T21:43:00.000-05:00

Dir: Richard Stanley
Severin Blu-ray

The film starts with a nomadic cyborg looking fella wandering the desert and salvaging robotic junk. It cuts to an urban setting where Dylan McDermott and his partner are going to visit a junk dealer. It feels that though, despite his budget limitations, Stanley is creating a large scale post-apocalyptic world. The rug is pulled out from under us when we are introduced to McDermott's girlfriend (Stacey Travis) and her claustrophobic apartment where the bulk of the film actually takes place. Living across from Ms. Travis is a gross perv that watches her and calls her bad names while he abuses himself. McDermott brings Travis a robot head, seen in the opening, for her "art" (art is highly in demand after the apocalypse). The Head builds a body and goes homicidal. The perv gets caught in the middle but mostly it's just Ms. Travis battling a robot in an apartment. Not the worst premise but kind of a let down if you were expecting something on a larger scope that the beginning would suggest. The premise isn't really the problem though, the script was written by an angry thirteen year old and directed in the style of a Nitzer Ebb or Ministry video. A pretty juvenile film and it's surprising Stanley has such a cult following today.

3/10

Bigger Than Life (1956)

2010-05-31T21:13:00.000-05:00

Dir: Nicholas Ray
Criterion Blu-ray

Nicholas Ray? Check! Criterion? Double check! Bigger Than Life ? Not so much. In the film, Ray takes on high melodrama in a story about a teacher (played sweatily by James Mason) that gets addicted to Cortisone pills. The bad part? Cortisone makes him insane!! Hilariously insane in fact. He becomes even more of 50's creep by calling his wife an intellectual inferior, belittling everyone around him, and eventually deciding he needs to sacrifice his son to God by stabbing him with a pair of scissors. No shit. It takes roughly seven hours to tell this story, or maybe it just felt like it. There is a half hour interview with Ray from the late 70's on what looks like a cable access program. I wondered if that was the real reason Criterion released the disc is because they had no other titles to attach this extra too.

4/10

MacGruber (2010)

2010-05-31T20:42:00.001-05:00

Dir: Jorma Taccone
Theater

I watch "Saturday Night Live". It was born the same year as me so I have always felt a connection to it, even when it was bad. So I was certainly aware of the MacGruber skits, which are nothing more than mini MacGyver parodies, but never thought of it as the breakout character on the show. After seeing a feature length film, that opinion holds up even more. The idea was to take these sixty second videos of Will Forte's racist, homophobic action hero and put him in an over-the-top tribute to 80's action films. The problem is that the film is confused on what it wants to do. It's never action packed enough to be an action movie but it seems to shy away from being truly ridiculous and delivering on the comedy. It flirts with being outlandish and offensive but each time it sets it up, it just fizzles out. It also relies too heavily on homophobia to get an uncomfortable laugh out. I was also disappointed in the lack of SNL or even just comedian cameos. I wanted to like but have to say that there is definitely a reason it bombed at the box office.

3/10

Daybreakers (2009)

2010-05-31T20:32:00.000-05:00

Dir: The Spierig Brothers
Lions Gate Blu-ray

Recently I have complained about the lack of ideas in the details of sci-fi films. Most are just shoot-em-up action films wrapped in a sci-fi setting. In Daybreakers we get nothing but ideas (vampire cars with cameras and no windows, congealed blood in coffee, school zones starting at 2am for the kiddie vamps, etc..), or mostly what-ifs. The premise? What if there were more vampires than humans? The food supply would diminish and the blood suckers would search for a blood substitute. Why didn't they just call the folks over at True Blood? (sorry) Enter Ethan Hawke as a vampire scientist thats trying to create a synthetic blood but to no avail. He's a sad, guilty vampire and he happens to meet some human rebels that are on the run and are trying to cure vampirism. One of their members in Willem Dafoe who used to be a creature of the night but became human again because, wait for it!, he was exposed to the sun and water at the same time!?!?!?!?!? Uh-huh. So Hawke tries to recreate the accident in a controlled environment, bad guys come, good guys win etc.. The film starts with promise as it seems like it's being taken seriously and is sort of a refreshing take on vampires in the face of all the other vamp flicks we've been getting lately. The film loses it's way when Dafoe shows up playing it up for yucks and the idea of turning him human is just embarrassing. It's definitely a step in the right direction from the brothers previous outing, Undead (2003).

5/10

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

2010-05-31T17:20:00.000-05:00

Dir: J. Lee Thompson
Fox Blu-ray

In the final entry we see the beginnings of the first entry in the series. The Ape City is starting to take shape under the leadership of Caesar (MacDowall again) and humans are being used as slaves to teach the apes knowledge. We see the three factions, the war like gorillas led by General Aldo (Claude Akins), the orangutans represented by Virgil (composer Paul Williams) and the familiar chimps. There is also a cameo by John Huston! (his voice anyway) as the Lawgiver. The plot has Caesar, Virgil, and a human, MacDonald, go to the ruins of a human city that is underground looking for something left by Caesar's father. They are spotted by the mutated humans that live there and are followed back by these war mad nut cases. While gone, General Aldo stages a coup to take over so he can kill all humans. He almost kills Caesar's son, named Cornelius! (he's his own father's father!) trying to cover his tracks after Cornelius over hears his plans. Caesar returns and the mutants attack closely on his hills. Aldo declares martial law and all heck break loose. We end with a violent and bloody conflict and the stage is set for part one. This makes the series a spectacular, circular tale that ends at the beginning and it must be applauded for this heavy sci-fi approach. While the films aren't perfect, they compliment each other well and I was glad I watched them all in a row. Ape shall not kill ape!

7/10

Planet of the Apes 40th Anniversary Collection (Planet of the Apes / Beneath the Planet of the Apes / Escape From / Conquest of / Battle for) [Blu-ray]

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

2010-05-31T16:56:00.000-05:00

Dir: J. Lee Thompson
Fox Blu-ray

Part four of the franchise is set in an austere dystopian urban future and picks up with Cornelius and Zira's baby all grown up, he is also played by MacDowall. In this future all the dogs and cats died so people did the natural thing and took on chimps as pets. These pets turned to slaves as people's distrust in the grew and they became more intelligent. Only one can actually talk though, the future ape that everyone thought was killed in Escape..., he is posing as Montalban's slave and renames himself Caesar. Human and ape relations get pushed to the brink and Caesar leads an ape uprising against all humans. It is of course the humans own faults that apes rise up to be the dominant species through their own fear and prejudices. MacDowall does a great job of portraying Caesar differently than Cornelius. In this he is a seething, angry young man as opposed to Cornelius' worrisome, analytical mindset. This is by far the most violent entry and turns into a war picture at the end with plenty of seventies red movie blood. The film does a fine job of bridging modern society into the world of the first film without hitting us over the head with obvious references.

7/10

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

2010-05-31T16:40:00.000-05:00

Dir: Don Taylor
Fox Blu-ray

Here we get a departure from the first two films and find the tables turned. In this outing the apes are the outsiders as Zira (Kim Hunter), Cornelius (MacDowall is back), and Milo (Sal Mineo) somehow figure out how to work a spaceship and use it to travel back in time to around the same year that Taylor first left out on his mission. THey are captured and taken to a zoo until they reveal they can talk. Hunter yuks it up by making monkeys (sorry!) out of some scientists. Then a shocking tonal shift happens when a gorilla chokes Milo to death in a cage! After that detour, Cornelius and Zira become celebs, Zira gets pregnant (from Cornelius, the movie is strange but not that strange), some sleaze ball gets her drunk and she reveals that the world blows up in a few thousand years. This starts mass hysteria and while most people believe that killing Cornelius and Zira would be wrong, they all agree that forcing them into an abortion will save the human race from talking apes in the future! The apes go on the run, Zira has the baby, and they meet Ricardo Montalban who owns a circus that happens to have a baby chimp of their own. You can probably guess what happens there but it leads to a really disturbing scene that is fairly unbelievable. This is certainly the strangest of the entries as it shifts from comedy to despair with little warning, it is a nice set up for the more ambitious sequels to come.

5/10

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

2010-05-31T16:11:00.000-05:00

Dir: Ted Post
Fox Blu-ray

From the social commentary that was Planet of the Apes, we take a sharp turn south to the sci-fi geekiness that is the low rent sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Not long after Taylor (Charlton Heston) and his team left earth, three more astronauts were sent on the same trajectory to follow them. And why wouldn't they? It also makes sense that they would choose Brent (James Franciscus) to lead up the mission since he looks like Heston only two feet shorter. In fact, in one of the better moments, Dr. Zira actually mistakes Brent for Taylor. Brent goes through a lot of what Taylor did only condensed and less interesting until he finds an underground city inhabited by telepathic human a-holes that worship a nuclear bomb, But not just any nuclear bomb, the ALPHA BOMB! This thing can destroy everything on the planet and if the apes find out about their existence they have to use it. Makes sense. While in the underground city, Brent finds Taylor (Heston actually reprises his role) and the two take on the psychic baddies (including Victor Buono credited as "Fat Man", I won't mention what Don Pedro Colley was credited as). *SPOILER ALERT* But they fail and the Earth actually gets blown up which is kind of bad ass. Kim Hunter returns as Zira as does Linda Harrison as the Mute Nova, but even though Cornelius is in the film they couldn't coax Roddy MacDowall back for this installment. He would return for the next three however. This one is a major disappointment following the original but is still fun in it's own nerdy way. This disc contains a documentary specific to the film and some stills galleries.

5/10

Planet of the Apes (1968)

2010-05-31T15:36:00.002-05:00

Dir: Franklin J. Schaffner
Fox Blu-ray

I remember liking the original Planet of the Apes but realized I hadn't seen it in years. I also couldn't remember anything about it's four sequels so when I saw it on sale for $50 dollars I couldn't resist picking up this Fox Blu-ray box set. Now let me talk about the box itself for a moment. It may be the nicest box set I have ever laid eyes on. While the Blade Runner pops to mind because of it's coolness, it's frankly a cheap plastic toy (still awesome though). The Apes set however is a beautiful coffee table book filled with outstanding photos in a slip case that just happens to hold five discs in the interior cover. This is worth owning for even the most passive of Ape fans.

That being said, let's discuss the first film. Four astronauts, led by Charlton Heston, are sent form (then) modern day Earth to what they believe to be another planet. It takes a few thousand years to get there and when they crash land they find that one of their companions was killed in transit. The remaining astronauts wander the lifeless desert in search of water and civilization. They come across a speechless, neanderthal type of humans scrounging for food but are almost immediately attacked by a group of intelligent apes riding horses and shooting guns. Heston is captured but is also rendered speechless because he was shot in the throat. While in captivity he meets a more progressive ape named Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter) and her husband Cornelius (Roddy MacDowall). They are amazed by an "intelligent" human and try at all costs to protect him from the religious zealot that is not only the "Keeper of the Faith" but the "Minister of Science", Dr. Zaius. This fact is not lost on Heston's character as he points at that the one man (or ape) should not be able to hold both positions. The good guys are captured, an escape happens, and the final showdown occurs. What sets the film apart is solid directing and an excellent script co-written by Rod Serling. In fact, the script still has relevance today with it's stance on zealots that don't want to believe in evolution still having a voice forty years later. I am sure that at the time he would never have guessed that human intelligence hasn't evolved much. Schaffner plays up the frustrating aspects perfectly, he sutures you in and makes you want to punch some of these apes in the mouth. And then there's Heston. He gives one insanely over-the-top, toothy performance. I have to wonder if he read the script before committing to the project or maybe he just didn't care. But when he yells "It's a madhouse, a madhouse!!" I jumped off the couch cheering. The ending is now famous of course, I won't mention it here on the off chance you haven't seen it, but I am also referring to Heston's characters ending. What is often over looked is what happens to the apes that help him. Frankly it's far more depressing and truer to real life unfortunately. It really is a science fiction master piece and strangely was released the same year as one of the other great achievements 2001: A Space Odyssey and the two couldn't be more different in style.

The disc is packed with extras, including two commentary tracks and behind the scenes footage. The transfer looked excellent on my 1080p plasma. Highly recommended!

9/10

Lives of Bengal Lancer (1935)

2010-05-31T14:49:00.000-05:00

Dir: Henry Hathaway
Universal DVD

Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone star as Lieutenants in the British army in this action film set in India. It's quite a long set-up until we get to the main plot which concerns itself with a new arrival (Richard Cromwell) getting captured by insurrectionists and the Cooper and Tone putting their personality differences aside to go and rescue him. The film is solid on all fronts but nothing out of the ordinary, and it does suffer in the pacing department in spots. Kathleen Burke shows up in a small but important role. If you're looking for some light adventure, then here you go.

7/10

Terminator Salvation (2009)

2010-05-31T14:29:00.000-05:00

Dir: McG
On Demand HD

I have seen all the entries in the Terminator series but must confess that I have little to no attachment to them. What the previous films did succeed at that this newest entry doesn't even attempt to do, is have ideas. Even if they were just heady, nerdy sci-fi ideas, there was something there with at least the slightest attempt at social or political subtext. With McG's (seriously) attempt at a reboot (yawn) the audience gets two hours of things shooting bullets at each other. There are no cool ideas, the action is staged without flare, it's never fun, and it has nothing to say. What we're left with is some really good looking special effects that at the end of the day you won't remember at all. The movie is never bad per se, it just sits there lifelessly. It attempts to tell the story that we hear about in all the other films, so we know how it turns out making the movie a big "so what?".

3/10

Angel Face (1952)

2010-05-24T22:56:00.000-05:00

Dir: Otto Preminger

Warner Bros DVD

It's always great to see characters in a film that are as smart if not smarter than the audience. That's the biggest impression Angel Face left on me as I watched it again. It's an excellent femme fatale story that begins when paramedic Frank (Robert Mitchum) meets Diane (Jean Simmons) on a call to her house. Diane's step-mother almost died from an accidental (?) gas leak. Diane becomes smitten with Frank so she follows him and insinuates herself into his life. She finds out that Frank has a girl, she tries to scare her off, used to be a driver, she gets him a job as a chauffeur, and wants to open his own garage, so she tries to get a loan for him. Frank goes along with most of it but never buys in completely like a chump. Diane is just able to pull him in in such a way that he can't escape. To give away too many more details would take away from the enjoyment of the film, but I will say that I loved how everything that would normally be kept a guessing game to the audience is spelled out for us and we're still captivated on what will happen next. The final act ventures into The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) territory but not in a distracting way. Top notch film making from Mr. Preminger. The single disc is from Warner is no longer in print but it is still available as part of the Robert Mitchum Collection Box Set.

9/10

I Drink Your Blood (1970)

2010-05-24T22:17:00.001-05:00

Dir: David E. Durston
Grindhouse Releasing DVD

Where to start with this convoluted plot? At the beginning you say? A group of traveling satanist/hippies/rock band/acting troupe (?) are having a ritual in the woods in praise of their all mighty dark lord. One of the members invited a local girl to watch, it impresses the chicks, and the other members don't like that none so they brutalize her and live her for dead where she crawls back to her small town. The town is even smaller due to some construction happening and budgetary restraints that would have gone to pay extras. The satanic hippies' van breaks down and the closest place for help is, you guessed it, the same backwater burg. They walk in and buy some meat pies and are told that they can stay at the abandoned hotel. They mess with a guy from the town and make nuisances of themselves. The first girls kid brother figures things out and gives them meat pies filled with rabies. The rabies and some LSD gets the party started proper and everyone goes nuts! Yeah! It's as sleazy and gross as you might imagine or want it to be but it's also very well shot (by an uncredited Joe Mangine) and directed for the basement priced exploitation cinema that it is. It was famously re-titled because it was paired with another movie that had absolutely nothing to do with it called I Eat Your Skin (1964). In fact, the ad guy that came up with the title is briefly interviewed on the disc along with some of the actors and the director of the film. It's certainly not a masterpiece but I've seen far worse exploitation dreck from the era.

5/10

Iron Man 2 (2010)

2010-05-24T21:43:00.000-05:00

Dir: Jon Favreau
Theatrical

Let's play catch up! To show just how far behind I am, I will admit to seeing this at the midnight screening the night before release. Big mistake, it will probably be my last midnight expedition to the theater ever. Stop talking and/or texting people! And no saving seats for your ten friends! Anyway, the film didn't exactly salvage the night itself. The overblown sequel to 2008's mostly competent and entertaining super-hero action outing tries to repeat every note of it's predecessor and fails. Downey Jr.'s charming and smart-ass Tony Stark turns into a middle age cry baby that pushes everyone in his life away and then miraculously saves the day and gets the girl without ever changing or learning a lesson. Go ahead and be assholes kids, you'll still win in the end. The script has Iron Man fighting a bunch of other Iron Mans (Men?) led by Sam Rockwell and a lethargic and mumbling Mickey Rourke. Scarlett Johansson shows up to push a button and let's her stunt double get the best action sequence. Gwyneth Paltrow is back so there can be a woman in the cast with some dialog. In all it feels like little to no effort was made to put together even the most basic action film as there are hardly any action sequences and the story is just patched together. The entire film is in the trailer. Scratch that, there are some scenes in the trailer that aren't in the film that actually look more interesting. But we do get to see Iron Man trying to scratch records at a party! Really this is just an advertisement for the Blu-ray disc and the upcoming slate of Marvel films that will hopefully be better.

2/10

Tokyo Sonata (2008)

2010-05-16T22:40:00.000-05:00

Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
E1 Entertainment DVD

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is mostly known for his strange, esoteric horror films like Kairo (2001) and Cure (1997). In recent years he has delved into more normal Japanese horror territory with films like Loft (2005) that are a little more accessible and recognizable as "J-Horror" as it's been dubbed (you know a pale girl with black hair in her face). With Tokyo Sonata Kurosawa leaves horror behind for a story about a modern Japanese family that is falling apart. The father is a mid-level salary man that his just been laid off and is trying to hide it from the family. He has no discernible skills and even goes so far in an interview to say that he will do any job at a company even though the interviewer keeps asking him what talents he has and what job he wants. He can't answer at all and asks if he means karaoke when he's asking about skills. Certainly a comment on the modern business man whose only talent is making money. His wife is unappreciated and ignored and more intelligent than she's given credit for. The oldest son wants out so badly he has decided to join the U.S. Military and ship out to the Middle East. And the youngest son is awkward at school and just wants to take piano lessons which his father won't allow. He uses his lunch allowance to secretly pay for lessons upon finding out he may be a child prodigy. Things keep deteriorating from there until everyone gets a head-scratching moment that at first seemed out of place until I remembered I was watching a film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. I felt watching it that Kurosawa was influenced to make the film from another Japanese master that he does not share a name with, Ozu. The film felt like a modern take on Ozu's quiet and reserved films dealing with similar subject matter. I had felt that Takashi Miike's Visitor Q was almost an attack on Ozu, at the very least it was an Anti-Ozu film, but this one feels more like a tribute. A beautiful and quiet film that reaffirms how interesting Kiyoshi Kurosawa can be.

8/10

The Lovely Bones (2009)

2010-05-16T22:07:00.001-05:00

Dir: Peter Jackson
Paramount Blu-ray

Speaking of an over-reliance of computer generated effects! Peter Jackson goes out of his way to insult your intelligence by creating a rainbow filled, candy colored heaven in a movie where a little girl is raped and murdered. This is quite possibly the most painful viewing experience I have had in a decade. It is based on the novel by Alice Sebold about a teenage girl growing up in the suburbs in the seventies. She lives a perfect existence until some creep down the street (played sweatily and completely over the top by Stanley Tucci) drags her in to an underground room and kills her etc.. Thankfully the scene is not very graphic which is a complaint in the Entertainment Weekly review! Seriously! After that her "spirit"? drifts between the real world and her own heaven so she can narrate the next four hours or however long this thing took. In the real world her happy family (Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz) begins to fall apart until her younger sister uncovers the culprit. I will now give the requisite spoiler alert because I would like to mention the ridiculous retribution bestowed upon Mr. Tucci's fiend. After eluding capture and driving to who knows where, Tucci tries to pick up another young girl at a cafe. She turns him down and then he slips off a cliff where his completely computer generated body gets bounced around and mangled by the rocks below. Yeah for random justice. One of the worst devices in writing is when you are supposed to find closure in a completely random event that was not set in motion or directly effected by a main character in the story. This is sloppy film making and a pointless exercise in futility. It's impossible to figure what exactly Jackson's intentions are here. Is it to establish that he believes in a Christian heaven? That pedophiles are bad? That violence can destroy a family? He never clearly sets out to explicitly say any of these things but infers all of them no matter how obvious they might be. The final product just flops between being obnoxious and lifeless.

1/10

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (2009)

2010-05-16T21:46:00.001-05:00

Dir: Terry Gilliam
Sony Blu-ray

This movie will be forever over-shadowed by the fact that it contains pieces of Heath Ledger's last screen performance and that his part was finished by Johhny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law. Gilliam was able to pull this off because of the structure of the story. Christopher Plummer plays the titular character that roams around with his Imaginarium, his daughter (Lily Cole), and two assistants. They invite people to take part in the Imagainarium which is some sort of illusionary paradise created by the participants deepest desires mixed with the Doctor's mystic abilities. It seems that everyone that enters the contraption has a similar fantasy that looks like a computer generated, Looney Tunes fever dream. After they meet Ledger's character Tony, he is played by a different actor every time he re-enters, a clever enough solution but it can't stop you from thinking about the behind the scenes circumstances that led to this decision. To give the story conflict, Tom Waits plays a devil character that enjoys betting on people's souls with the Dr. and the devil is there to lay claim to his daughter's soul on her upcoming birthday. They enter into a new wager so the good doc may save his daughter and Ledger's Tony is a wild card that may not be as altruistic as he seems. The problem with the film is that the story makes enough since that there are unanswered questions and it's not incoherent enough to be interesting. Gilliam's reliance on computer generated images is disheartening as well, the scenes with hand-made, practical sets looks much better and give the film an air of originality that immediately disappears when the cartoons pop in. And when we finally find out Tony's real story, it's so dark and cynical yo can feel how out of place it is and you're not sure whether to laugh or be outraged. It's not a terrible film but the script seems half-hearted and borrows heavily from Giilliam's other films.

5/10

Murders in the Zoo (1933)

2010-05-12T20:40:00.000-05:00

Dir: A. Edward Sutherland
Universal DVD

This is part of the Universal Vault Collection that was made available to purchase only through the Turner Classic Movies website. It was clearly a response to Warner Brothers vault collection that produces DVDr's on demand for films that would not sell well in retail stores. I expected the discs to come in a bare bones package and the discs themselves to be on the purple-backed DVDr, so I was pleasantly surprised when I received (after a couple months of waiting) a very nice box with five silver discs. Each disc containing a lesser known Universal horror film with what promotional material from the original release that could be found added on as special features. First up is Murders in the Zoo, which was the only film not actually produced by Universal and the only pre-code film in the set. It's about a big game hunter (played by Lionel Atwill with a psychotically jealous streak when it comes to his wife (the striking Kathleen Burke). The film opens with it's most gruesome image, a man with is mouth sewn shut, so don't expect too many more shocks after that. There are plenty of murders though as Atwill uses various animals to cover-up his homicidal tendencies. He even tries to off a young Randolph Scott who works at the zoo. It's a good movie but unfortunately a good portion of it's very short run time is used up by the "comic" relief of top-billed Charles Ruggles who plays a press agent for the zoo that's afraid of the animals! How wacky. It's definitely not the reason to buy the set but certainly not a deterrent either as it's one of the only films currently available with Ms. Burke in the cast.

5/10

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

2010-05-11T23:53:00.000-05:00

Dir: Guy Ritchie
Warner Blu-ray

My mental image of Sherlock Holmes is someone who is refined, a little up-tight, slightly arrogant, and super intelligent. With Ritchie's re-imaging of the classic character, you get pretty much exactly what you expect, none of those things. This Sherlock is disheveled, a brawler, a smart-ass, and through most of the film he has hard time figuring out a mystery that is as easy to put together as a 20 piece puzzle. Here Holmes is turned into every other modern day hero only the setting is different. Downey Jr. does a fine job and Jude Law is more than capable as his sidekick Watson, but everyone else is there to fill screen time. Mark Strong is a one note villain that does nothing in the way of menace, and Rachel McAdams is so stiff and lifeless you have to wonder why Holmes would have any interest in her at all. The film is neither good nor bad really, it just makes you wonder why it was made at all.

4/10

The Flesh Eaters (1964)

2010-05-11T23:39:00.000-05:00

Dir: Jack Curtis
Dark Sky DVD

This was a low-budget New York based production and is considered by some to be the first gore film. Don't let that mislead you, were not talking buckets of Lucio Fulci red carnage here, but there are a few surprisingly graphic attempts at disembowelment. The film takes place almost exclusively on, what we're told is, a small island off the coast of New York. A charter plane carrying a movie star, her assistant, and a world weary pilot, is forced to land there because of a storm. The three castaways find that a German (you know he's evil, he's German!) scientist conducting some sort of furtive experiments there. They soon find that the water surrounding the island is filled with flesh eating bacteria that leaves nothing but a classroom skeleton if you get close enough to it. Half way through the film a way-out-there beatnik gets stranded on the island (for more victims) and the scientist uses him to conduct the final stages of his master plan. The movie, though sometimes silly) is actually a well paced and cleverly written tale of horror. The screenplay comes courtesy of Arnold Drake, mostly known as a comic book writer and the co-creator of two of my faves, The Doom Patrol and Deadman. Strangely and off topic, director Curtis went on to voice Pops Racer in the American re-dub of the Speed Racer cartoon. He handles the special effects very well, most of the creature and effects shots are pretty effective. The Dark Sky DVD looks great and offers the added "Nazi Experimentation" sequences as a bonus feature.

7/10

The Snorkel (1958)

2010-05-11T23:19:00.000-05:00

Dir: Guy Green
"Icons of Suspense" Sony DVD

There's not many familiar Hammer names or faces (except for Jimmy Sangster on writing duties) associated with this rather typical thriller. The opening is pretty striking and does the job on suturing in the audience, but the rest of the film, while well made, is a pretty predictable cat-and-mouse affair. It's the story of a man (Peter Van Eyck) that may have possibly killed his wife's former husband. Her young daughter turns up when the woman is killed and says that she saw everything that happened to her father and believes the new husband also killed her mother. From there it is story of trying to convince the girl she is wrong while she fights to prove herself right. Technically there is no mystery here at all, the audience is in on everything from the start, but it's still a decent watch. The most interesting thing is that reportedly after the success of Psycho (1960), Sangster was asked to write several mysteries that were known at Hammer as the "mini-Hitchcocks", and while this film feels like it would have fit into that vein, it was made two years before Psycho was released.

6/10

Cash On Demand (1961)

2010-05-11T22:56:00.000-05:00

Dir: Quentin Lawrence
"Icons of Suspense" Sony DVD

Oh sweet lethargy, how I would loathe the if not for the apathy. So, I watched this a while back as I was very excited about a new Hammer Films box set but I will finally pontificate upon it. This is probably my favorite film in the "Icons of Suspense" set. It's the story of an uptight jerk of a bank manager (played to perfection by the great Peter Cushing) whose small English town bank is robbed by the clever and suave Andre Morell. The entire film takes place in the bank and the story is played out in real time (remember how that was all the rage in the late nineties?). No violence is necessary, only a war of words as Morell fleeces the bank right before Christmas while the vault is full of payroll money. The concept isn't too far removed from The Desperate Hours (1955) but is played with more dry wit and a valuable lesson learned. It's a perfect example of what a filmmaker can accomplish when relying on the written word and great performances over a budget and major set pieces. The fact that you get five other films in the set makes it a must have purchase.

9/10

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

2010-05-01T19:03:00.002-05:00

Dir: Quentin Tarantino
Universal Blu-ray

I have a hard time watching Tarantino films and I blame it all on him, of course. I was a teenager when Reservoir Dogs came out and frankly I loved it. Then I read an article in Film Threat Magazine comparing the film to Ringo Lam's City on Fire. I still enjoyed the movie but I was hooked. It was the first issue of Film Threat that I purchased, because of the Reservoir Dogs story, and it opened a whole new world for me. City on Fire was screened at midnight in Dallas (where I'm from) not long after I read the article by a guy who would bring in a new Hong Kong film every weekend. I started looking for more foreign action films, which led to action and exploitation films through out the ages. It also introduced me to new friends that I would have for over a decade now. The other film from that period in my life that would play an important role in my cinematic development would be Hal Hartley's Trust which led me down similar paths. As Tarantino made more films, I was becoming more educated. Now I only see his films as a series of references to things that we both enjoy. I am constantly being taken out of his movies by the use of sound cues from other films or character names borrowed from directors and actors that we both admire. Inglourious Basterds is certainly no exception as the title itself refers to a film that I have seen several times (the first being under it's alternate title G.I Bro!). The other problem is that I'm constantly wondering if there are references I'm not getting, and should I? All that aside, I also have just found most of his films lacking in some of the very basic things that make a good film. There lack of narrative cohesion make every film feel like a greatest hits of remakes. However, With Inglourious Basterds, QT seems to be trying to overcome his decencies making for what I believe to be his most successful film to date. Now don't take that as a glowing endorsement, the movie still has it's problems with pop culture references, but we're getting close to something here. The story takes place in WWII and is not exactly about a group of Jewish-American soldiers that hunt down Nazis and violently kill them. In fact that story is hardly explored at all and takes a back seat to the story of a young Jewish woman (Melanie Laurent) who is hiding her true identity and is now running a cinema in Paris. A young German soldier is taken with her and insists and screening a propaganda film that he stars in at her cinema. All the highest ranking Nazis will be there prompting a plot for revenge and a way to end the war. This story is the most intriguing and could have sustained a great 90 minute film, unfortunately we needed another hour added on and a movie star so Brad Pitt leads the Basterds as they (really violently) terrorize Germans along the French Country side. The Basterds themselves have very little dialog and relatively minimal screen time. The biggest and most talked about parts go to Cristoph Waltz (his openeing scene is fantastic) as a Nazi "Jew hunter" and Diane Kruger as a German actress working as a double agent. Also look for a rather ridiculous cameo by Austin Powers. The movie could have been much better than it was had it had more focus on one particular story and it's geeky ending undermines anything the film could have been.

5/10

Buy this instead.

St. Trinian's (2007)

2010-05-01T18:21:00.000-05:00

Dir: Oliver Parker & Barnaby Thompson
Sony DVD

It took two people to direct this? Here's an attempt to relaunch the British St Trinian's film series from the 1950's/early 60's about school girl that get involved in horse racing and other such illegal activities all in the name of tomfoolery. This movie is a chore to watch. The filmmakers do nothing to hold the viewers attention. The main draw here for most would be the cast members that have gone on to be more famous (Gemma Arterton, Russell Brand) or if you just want to watch Rupert Everett embarrass himself in drag. Let's not forget about Colin Firth slumming it either. A tedious and over-long bore.

2/10

The Man Who Never Was (1956)

2010-05-01T18:05:00.000-05:00

Dir: Ronald Neame
Fox DVD

A World War II film of a different kind, this one shows absolutely no war footage. It's a true story about a plot by the British to try and fool the Nazis into thinking that they would be attacking Greece instead of Sicily. Clifton Webb stars as Lt. Cmdr. Montagu (the screenplay was based on Montagu's novel) whose come up with the idea to mislead the Germans. We follow the plan from it's conception to execution and then into the Nazi efforts to confirm the information. Everything is told in great detail with no questions left unanswered. There are some moments that are probably played for dramatic tension, but everything works. The film could be considered a bit dry but it's thoroughly engaging with Neame's no-nonsense approach to the story. Gloria Grahame also stars, in one of the only color films I have seen her in, as a friend to Montagu's secretary that unknowingly plays a huge help in the plan. The DVD is bare bones but certainly worth watching.

8/10

Goodbye Gemini (1970)

2010-05-01T17:46:00.002-05:00

Dir: Alan Gibson
Scorpion Releasing DVD

Cheers to Scorpion for getting titles like this and Girly out on DVD, unfortunately this one has a lot be desired in terms of enjoyable viewing. It's the story of fraternal twins, played by Judy Geeson and Martin Potter, that appear to be sheltered and a little too co-dependent. They meet a guy named Clive that looks to corrupt the duo by introducing them to party and drink and ultimately giving brother Julian over to some enthusiastic trannies that that quench his secret desires. He uses the photos from the encounter to try and blackmail Julian but things go awry. Michael Redgrave plays an older official type that is curious about the twins after seeing them around. He tries to help out sister Julian before finding out she may be involved in a murder. The story meanders here and there and Potter gives an over-the-type performance that at times is difficult to watch. Gibson directed three films for Hammer but none are looked upon very well. He's a competent visualist but lacks a lot in the storytelling department. The disc has commentary by Geeson but I did not finish listening to it. She sounded a bit uptight or maybe even upset. Her presence in the film is really the only high point though.

4/10

The Car (1977)

2010-04-23T18:09:00.001-05:00

Dir: Elliot Silverstein
Cinemax HD Broadcast (or Actionmax or Thrillermax...)

A week on vacation and a week of recovery, I know everyone (all 2 of you) out there have been clamoring for more posts! I actually watched this the night before I left to go out of town but didn't have time to post some musings, so here go. The Car is a well managed horror piece about a driver-less car that indiscriminately runs people over. James Brolin stars as a single father of two and one of the town's several police officers that is on the hunt for the sinister auto after it comes blazing through town with a pile of bodies in it's wake. Things get personal when it kills fellow officers and eventually hunts down Brolin's girlfriend, who had provoked it, prompting the rest of the police force to get explosives expert and wife-beater Amos (played by recognizable character actor R.G. Armstrong) to help dynamite a cliff wall on top of the demonic ride. Thankfully we never get in to too much of an explanation of what the car is, just some vague assumptions on the part of the characters that might care about that sort of thing, mostly these guys just want to blow it up. Another plus is Silverstein never let's The Car steer (sorry!) towards camp. The material is handled seriously although I would have like to have seen it more efficiently handled with a shorter run time. An overall enjoyable viewing experience though with a good horror tale that was refreshing in the sense that it never went for gore or shock, but tension. Strangely, I came across the movie because I had just read an article about Anton LaVey and his involvement with films in Screem Magazine, and then noticed this was airing, is Satan trying to tell me something? Ahhh yes, time for the oil change.

6/10

Stop Me Before I Kill (1960)

2010-04-10T00:36:00.004-05:00

Dir: Val Guest

Sony DVD: part of "Columbia's Icons of Suspense: Hammer Films" set

Hammer fans rejoice! Grover Crisp at Columbia has brought us six previously unavailable Hammer thrillers on DVD this week. The set features six films on three discs, all in proper aspect ratio, and with their original trailers. Sadly there are no other special features, but I'm not complaining. First up in the set is the film Stop Me Before I Kill, also known as The Full Treatment, which has Hammer regular Val Guest's name all over it. He wrote, produced, and directed the film, in fact at the beginning it says a "Val Guest Production", but does not say a "Hammer Films Production" anywhere. The movie is about a race car driver (Ronald Lewis) that is involved in a terrible accident while on his honeymoon. His wife (Diane Cilento) is thrown from the car, but they both survive. The opening shot is incredible showing the dashboard in tight close-up and then pulling back to reveal the wreck and it's various details while jazz blares from the car's radio. It's so good I watched the opening again right after the film was over. We then jump ahead one year and Lewis is finally healed and ready to get back in to the world, physically anyway. Mentally he is an unstable, temperamental time bomb ready to explode on everyone. They go on holiday where they meet a psychiatrist who finds them fascinating and wants to help. Lewis' identity has been taken from him as he is now afraid to drive which was everything he knew. He now feels impotent and most of his temper is directed back at his wife in violence. He realizes that he is volatile, hence the title, but doesn't believe in all the psychological mumbo jumbo. He doesn't trust the good doctor at all, but is there a reason? It's a fine thriller that has no horror or sci-fi elements at all and makes me wonder if that's why there is no Hammer logo at the beginning. It's fairly predictable, but Guest is a very skilled director that brings some nice visual touches to the picture. It's interesting to note that the film I had just watched prior to this, Sadist With Red Teeth, had a similar plot device at it's center, with a mental health professional dealing with a man that had been in a car accident and strange that films came out on DVD so close together. I had seen two of the films in this set before, and liked them much better. I'm hoping the rest of the set will be on par with those. Either way, the set is a must have.

6/10

Sadist With Red Teeth (1971)

2010-04-08T23:45:00.003-05:00

Dir: Jean Louis Van Belle
Mondo Macabro DVD

The main feature on Mondo Macabro's recently released two-disc set, this a new-wave influenced vampire film about a young man that was in a car crash that killed a friend. We start the film with the young man being released from the hospital and he believes that he is becoming a vampire. This belief is being reaffirmed by the hospital's psychiatrist who, for unknown reasons, wants this transformation to happen. The idea really takes shape when the man sees a scene form JLVB's earlier film, Forbidden Paris, about a man who believes he is the last vampire. This and other concepts in the movie work really well and are pretty exciting conceptually, the film though meanders a bit too much and the overall feel is one of improvisation. I'm not sure the film really has very much to say, it is, though, an interesting take on vampire mythology. The print looks great and there's a 30 minute doc on JLVB rounding out the disc.

6/10

Forbidden Paris (1969)

2010-04-06T20:51:00.001-05:00

Dir: Jean Louis van Belle
Mondo Macabro DVD

Director JLVB (as he's named on the disc) has been recently rediscovered through some festival screenings of his film Sadist with Red Teeth, which is the main feature that this disc is sold with. This movie was made a few years before that one and is part of the "mondo film" trend of the late sixties, which were essentially bizarre travelogues where oddball humans and strange stories were photographed and then a narrator would describe the action we're seeing (not always truthfully). These stories were presented as fact but it's pretty easy to see through the ruse on most of them, particularly with these films as several people from Forbidden Paris are seen in Sadist with Red Teeth which is a fictional tale. As with all mondo films, the vignettes are hit and miss, the real stand outs in this one for me were "Hairdresser of the Dead", where a man cuts the hair of a corpse while the family, including a smiling child, watch, and "Hitler Club", where a bunch of Neo-Nazis paint a woman and scream at her and then march around in a circle in a room the size of a closet. The worse part, and frankly one to skip, is having to see a taxidermist stuff a lady's pet dog in full detail and then add a pre-recorded voice box. This disc, again part 2 of a set, has an introduction with JLVB.

4/10

Sadist With Red Teeth / Forbidden Paris (2pc) (Ws Sub)

Girly (1970)

2010-04-06T20:29:00.000-05:00

Dir: Freddie Francis
Scorpion Releasing DVD

Originally titled Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly, this is about four psychopaths that live in a huge dilapidated estate and lure men back to the house to play games with them until they "send them to heaven". Each person in the house has a specific role (based on their names) but we never find out the truth about the relationships. In fact we never learn anything about motivation or back story which is quite a strength for the film. It plays out as a sort of black comedy but thankfully it's straight faced enough to not become a parody of horror films. The trouble begins for the quartet when they bring a man back to the house after they convince him that he accidentally killed his girlfriend while he was drunk. But once the "new friend" starts to settle in, he begins to manipulate the three women in house and tries to turns everyone against each other. Vanessa Howard gives a real stand out performance as Girly, it's too bad she only did a handful of films. The only real problem with the film is it suffers from some pacing issues in the second half. Once we figure out where this is going, we want it to get there. The disc has an interview with writer Brian Comport and an archival audio interview with director Francis. Kudos to Scorpion for getting this on DVD with such a good transfer and the care it deserves.

7/10

Kitten With A Whip (1964)

2010-04-06T20:03:00.002-05:00

Dir: Douglas Heyes
TCM broadcast

This is another frustrating example of, "Why doesn't the main character just do this..." as in something logical. The answer, of course, is that there would be a much shorter film if that happened. In this case the people we want to reach through the television screen and slap are Ann-Margaret as a bi-polar sociopath that happens to climb in the window of John Forsythe, a successful business man that wants to run for office, and then forces him to help her. She's on the run for escaping juvie and injuring a guard. She gets Forsythe into more and more ridiculous situations that end with stabbings, smuggling fugitives over the border to Mexico, and a fatal car crash. Peter Brown stands out as a philosophical criminal with some pretty entertaining dialog. The movie is available as part of the Universal Vault collection from Amazon, but I can't attest to the quality.

"You're nothing painted blue!"

5/10

I Sell The Dead (2008)

2010-04-06T01:45:00.002-05:00

Dir: Glenn McQuaid
Lion's Gate Blu-ray

Let me preface by saying that I love period horror films, particularly Hammer, and I believe that I have seen every film based on the true story of grave robbers Burke & Hare, so I was really looking forward to this film about two resurrectionists (played by Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden) that find themselves in over their heads with the supernatural and a rival gang of grave robbers. The final product didn't live up to my expectations however as the film gives it a real effort but ultimately finds it has no real story to tell. The movie's narrative is based around a conversation that Monaghan is having with a priest (Ron Perlman) before he is to be executed. So the movie is just a series of flashbacks with way too much exposition. And in one of the more convoluted sequences, there's a story within a story within a story! I don't believe that this was a direct reference to The Saragossa Manuscript though. Another story is so silly it's just disappointing and involves (SPOILER ALERT!) the duo finding a Communion like alien buried in an unmarked grave. The filmmakers do a good if not great job overcoming their obvious budget constraints with some inventive use of comic book style stills, but the final product feels lifeless.

3/10

The Informant (2009)

2010-04-06T01:25:00.001-05:00

Dir: Stephen Soderbergh
Warner Blu-ray

This is true story (or so we're told) of a man (Matt Damon) working for a large food additive company that is afraid of getting fired so he concocts a huge lie based around corporate espionage that leads to more lies that ultimately leads to Damon blowing the whistle on the company he works for to the FBI for price fixing with competitors. This man is both a moron and a genius. He's a well educated manipulator that doesn't know when to quit, or shut up. The film is good for a few chuckles but never achieves or really strives for laugh-out-loud funny even though several comedians cameo through out the film. Visually it looks like a Soderbegh film with orange and blue lighting prominently on display along with hand held camera work. Tapping Marvin Hamlisch to do the score sets the mood perfectly for the tone and pace of the movie. It's fine that Matt Damon put on weight to play the main role, but what about all those chubby actors out there that need a break? This isn't one of Soderbergh's best but it's good for a viewing, it just may not stick with you long afterward.

6/10

How To Train Your Dragon (2010)

2010-04-06T01:04:00.000-05:00

Dir: Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders
3-D Theatrical Viewing

Animated films have really hit a comfort zone these days. There is a formula that I see that keeps getting repeated and it works just about every time. Take a quirky, oddball boy, have is father be the opposite of him and a widower, mix in a tough, smart girl, and then let the boy prove everyone's expectations wrong and change the way they think. You hit all your bases so all you have to do is pick the setting. An island in need of food, a panda that learns kung-fu, or vikings fighting dragons. Now I like vikings and dragons, so I'm in. Jay Baruchel plays Hiccup, the boy, Gerard Butler is his father, and America Ferrera as the tough girl. Battles are fought and lessons are learned. The animation is top notch computer generated fare, the story is safe, and there are plenty of comedy stars rounding out the supporting cast. Formula achieved. The only thing I didn't understand is why the grown up vikings were Scottish?

8/10

Jennifer's Body (2009)

2010-04-06T00:52:00.002-05:00

Dir: Karyn Kusama
Fox Blu-ray

Is there anything worse than watching fake teenagers pretend to be hip and say things like "indie rock band"? No. And that's exactly what you're in for with this painfully dull wanna-be cult film that tries way too hard to make you think it's a subversive classic. It helps that if you make a horror comedy to try and include at least one if not both of those aspects. Megan Fox is simply embarrassing as the twenty five year old high school senior that is possessed by a demon and kills off her classmates to gain energy. There's nothing new or exciting happening here, the story is no different than a million other straight to cable quickies. It was the kind of experience that you want your friends to be in on so you can make fun of what you're watching, but if you are viewing it alone, you feel embarrassed and are constantly afraid someone will catch you. I don't even want to put a pic up.

1/10

The Tiger's Tail (2006)

2010-04-04T18:08:00.003-05:00

Dir: John Boorman
MGM DVD

So chronologically I jumped ahead a quarter of a century but I never pretended to have a method. This is one of four films that Boorman has made with actor Brendan Gleeson, who stars here as a successful developer in Ireland. One day while sitting in traffic, a man wipes down his window, and it looks like a disheveled version of himself. He loses sight of the man but sees him pop up a few more times before he is led on a chase into a muddy area where he gets stuck and the double races back to take his place. The film that follows is more of a meditation on self, in an existential sense. It asks the question of who we really are other than who we pretend to be. The details of the plot could actually be rather frustrating if taken at face value as it's peppered with logic problems and moments where you'll ask "why doesn't he just do...?" While I was intrigued by the premise, the movie has an uneven flow to it, some supporting characters get too much screen time, or not enough if we were supposed to be more concerned with them. And quite frankly there is a scene with Gleeson's wife (played by Kim Cattrall?) and his double that can't be construed as anything but rape and feels sorely put of place here. The final scene comes across as a strangely compromised happy ending where everyone wins. While it had things about it I liked, I ultimately just couldn't recommend it.

4/10

A quick note about Boorman fest: As I write this I have not seen anymore of his films but have watched plenty of other things I need to catch up on writing about. I will continue with a few more selections and then move on to another subject (any suggestions?). I felt that I got a very good sense of what kind of director Boorman is and hopefully pointed to those things without being repetitive. I hate to generalize, but with most artists it seems like their best work is their earliest, when they still have an energy to them you just can't fake.

Excalibur (1981)

2010-04-04T17:47:00.005-05:00

Dir: John Boorman
Warner Bros. DVD

With Excalibur, Boorman attempts to tell the story of King Arthur, his father Uther, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table in two hours and twenty minutes. Here is where the problem lies. Several of the plot lines feel rushed while some scenes seem to linger past their expected time. It gives the movie a feeling of being both briskly paced and overly long. While I believe Boorman did the best he could with making a film that encompasses so much story into a 140 minute run time, this obviously would have benefited from a Lord of the Rings style trilogy treatment or editing the film down to just focus on one part of Arthur's life. The staging of the action is fine but never amazing and I have to question the decision to shoot the film in 1.85:1 as opposed to 2.35:1, it makes the experience too confining and not very grand in it's approach. It's a good film that could have been great. It's certainly better made and more serious than the rash of fantasy films produced in it's wake in the early eighties, but it's also not as fun. Of course being fun wasn't the goal, but a few of the performances are so over the top, it's like the actors only reference to the material was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. These moments are few, but I think it proves that Boorman is at his best when he tells a very specific story with minimal characters. An approach like that to this story would have been very interesting.

This is one of the oldest DVDs I own, I believe it was released in 1999. The film is certainly due for update in the quality department on home video. Hopefully there is a high definition transfer in the works.

6/10

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

2010-04-04T17:28:00.004-05:00

Dir: John Boorman
Netflix streaming

So I was pretty enthusiastic about the first four films in my Boorman fest, unfortunately that all changed with the Exorcist II. The film has a pretty bad reputation and it certainly is far from perfect, but to Boorman's credit he does try and do something completely different from it's predecessor. This is probably the main reason for the disdain, the movie is the exact opposite of The Exorcist. While the original is tense and claustrophobic, this one opens the story up to the entire world, specifically to Africa where James Earl Jones plays a former victim of the demon. In doing this, we see that the world the film resides in, demon possession has nothing to do with a Christian mythology. This also opens the door to bring a rather silly subplot about mental telepathy. The story picks up with Reagan (Linda Blair) the child possessed in the first film and now a few years older. She meets a new priest (Richard Burton) at therapy who wants to know what Reagan remembers about her experience. This leads to world travel, psychic binds, and demon possession. The film is pretty lite on horror and overly long. I can only imagine that Boorman agreed to make the film after Zardoz because he felt like he needed a hit, but that's just speculation. I hate to dismiss the film outright, there are some interesting ideas going on in it, it just never clicks.

3/10

Point Blank (1967)

2010-04-03T21:52:00.007-05:00

Dir: John Boorman
Warner Bros. DVD

Revenge, obviously a theme that strikes a nerve with numerous people as it is the subject of several films. It can be contributed to the fact that we've all felt wronged at some point or another and the country collectively felt wronged in the late sixties and into the early seventies, hence the amount of revenge thrillers being produced during the time. But revenge has never been as poetic and stylish as it is in Boorman's Point Blank. This is a film I have always been very fond of but haven't sat down to watch it in years. Thankfully the movie lived up to my memory plus some. From the second it started I was completely captivated, like I was watching it for the first time again. The story cuts back and forth showing us glimpses of a job gone wrong with Lee Marvin & John Vernon and shots of a determined Marvin walking down a long corridor, his ominously loud footsteps permeating the soundtrack. This sets the stage for Marvin's tale of being double-crossed by his partner and his wife and now being on the path to get back what's his, $93,000. Keenan Wynn plays a mysterious figure that helps Marvin down the road to the men he must deal with to get his cash. Vernon is convincingly slimy and menacing as the double-crosser in one of his first major screen roles. Angie Dickinson plays the sister of Marvin's double-crossing wife and is, well, perfectly cast as the woman everyone desires. Boorman brings a bubbling energy to the narrative that is constantly seething, just ready to explode in short bursts of artistic violence. Not only are the visuals and rhythm of the film skillfully manipulated by the film's director but, like the line readings in his other early films, the dialog is delivered in such a perfect way that it made me giddy. The film is based on one of Donald E. Westlake's "Parker" novels, although the main character here is named Walker. The same story was remade by Mel Gibson in his film Payback, which Boorman had nothing nice to say about the film or it's star saying "He seems to think he's Lee Marvin. Except he's two feet shorter. And about one third the talent." The disc has commentary with Boorman and film director Steven Soderbergh whom I presume is on it because his film, The Limey, seems directly inspired by this one, but I have yet to listen to it. I have to say that I would consider this one of my favorite films of all time.

10/10

Hell In The Pacific (1968)

2010-03-31T23:06:00.004-05:00

Dir: John Boorman
MGM DVD

Even though this is my third entry on the films of John Boorman, I've watched 6 so far and the main thing I can say about his early films is that they are about genre deconstruction. Every film is technically a genre film; Zardoz is sci-fi, Point Blank crime, Deliverance a thriller, and Hell in the Pacific is a World War II movie, but with those broad genre tags you would have no idea what kind of film you were actually about to see. With Hell in the Pacific we're not even explicitly told that it is set during WWII. This is one of the many strengths of the film as we are never given any real information on anything. The story begins with two men, Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune (what a cast!), stranded on an island with shredded uniforms and nothing else. Their relationship starts contentious enough with the two trying to kill each other over some fresh water. The attempts are half-hearted enough and after some back and forth power plays, the two start to form a bond for mutual survival. I am always interested in films that can express drama and tell their story without relying on dialog. This is a prime example as the only two characters in the film don't speak each others language and there is never a foolish attempt to magically make them understand one another. My only complaint is the very abrupt and silly ending that I would have to imagine was not Boorman's idea. The only special feature on the disc is an "alternate ending" that I now imagine in my mind to be the real ending. The disc is not anamorphic, which is quite a shame, it's also one of the only early Boorman films that he doesn't provide audio commentary on.

8/10

Zardoz (1974)

2010-03-30T21:20:00.003-05:00

Dir: John Boorman
20TH Century Fox DVD

It seems that Zardoz doesn't have the best reputation. That's fair enough, it's not a film for everyone. I do believe it provides insight into Boorman's personal predilections more than any of the other films I have watched up to this point. The story takes place in the distant future where civilization has been divided into two factions. One group are the intellectuals who have discovered how to become immortal and the other are simple folk that are being exploited for labor and population control by the actions of one immortal who poses as the god named Zardoz. What we learn is that the workers aren't as simple as they seem and the immortals aren't very happy living forever. Sean Connery leads the rebellion against the desensitized, deathless, philosophers that are manipulating him and, rising from a pile of wheat, kills the man he believes to be his God. This sets Connery on a path to discovery that his religion is all make-believe and only he can set the world right. I think it would be easy to dismiss the film just from the outfit that Connery wears, but it's ultimately a rewarding watch due to it's lofty ideas and deconstruction of organized religion. The effects are a product of the seventies but frankly I prefer them to a lot of modern tricks. The visuals are outlandish and add to it's cult movie appeal. Thematically, it fits in nicely with other films in Boorman's early work as we follow a man on a singular mission, even if the mission here is pretty grand.

8/10

Deliverance (1972)

2010-03-29T23:34:00.004-05:00

Dir: John Boorman
Warner Bros. Blu-ray

Firstly, I am about a week behind in writing this entry. This stems from a combination of laziness and design. I had decided to go with a unifier and chose to re-explore the films of John Boorman. I just watched the movies he made from 1967 - 77 (minus Leo The Last) and thought it was a good time to start putting my thoughts down. I started with Deliverance because I wanted to see the Blu-ray transfer and it had been too long since I had watched it, it looks fantastic. As for the movie, I believe that sometimes a moment in a film can overshadow the entire piece. I am, of course, referring to the "squeal like a pig" moment. The scene is often referenced and joked about and sometimes by people, whom I believe, haven't even seen the movie. This really is a testament to it that it can become part of the popular consciousness. The scene itself though, if we may get right to the elephant in the room, is utterly terrifying. Boorman's direction is patient and non-exploitative. As a viewer we feel just as helpless as Jon Voight and Ned Beatty do as these demented hillbillies terrorize and abuse them. So now that I've jumped right to the obvious moment, I will start from the beginning. In case you haven't seen Deliverance, it is about four friends that go on a rafting trip in the backwoods in the deep south before the woods are destroyed by developers. Voight plays the everyman, Beatty is the smart-ass, Burt Reynolds is the man's man and the reason for the trip, and Ronny Cox is the amiable, moral center. We find out through natural dialog and the subtle shifts in the actors' performances all we need to know about their characters so Boorman is never force feeding us information and nothing ever feels like exposition. Everything about Deliverance is about giving the viewer just enough, we're trusted to ascertain what's happening. There is almost no score during tense moments so we are never manipulated by an outside presence. Once the journey has gotten us to the harrowing scene I already mentioned, the film shifts to a feeling of paranoia. Our heroes fight back, but are never sure if they are in the right. Like many of the other films that Boorman made at this time, these men have to accomplish one very simple task laid before them, survival. It's a pitch perfect movie that is brilliantly composed and paced. It's an essential film that everyone should see.

10/10

Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009)

2010-03-28T21:55:00.002-05:00

Dir: Betty Thomas
Theater

I have kids! We start this one off with the Chipmunks on a world tour showing off that they are international super stars. The tour ends with Alvin accidentally injuring their guardian/manager Dave (Jason Lee). He is stuck in a hospital bed for the rest of the film making it an easy payday for Mr. Lee. His wish though is for the Chipmunks to go to high school like normal kids (?) so they travel back to the states where Dave's cousin (Zachary Levi) ends up having to care for them because of some wacky events. So once in school, they are asked to join in a music competition that, if they win, will give $25,000 to their school's music program. Now my question is, why don't the Chipmunks just give the school the money or play a benefit show? If they win (and why wouldn't they?), isn't that just stealing money from another deserving school? Am I over-thinking this? Probably. The Chippettes (female counterparts) are introduced, there's some conflicts to over come, David Cross is back, it all ends up like you'd expect. My kids liked it.

6/10

Bank Shot (1974)

2010-03-28T21:49:00.002-05:00

Dir: Gower Champion
MGM HD Channel

I would be pretty excited to see a heist movie from the seventies, starring George C. Scott, and based on a novel by Donald Westlake, that is until you told me it was a comedy. This is a fairly miserable experience with Scott hiding behind giant eyebrows and a lisp bumbling his way through a low rent bank job, or Bank Shot! It has wacky music and silly characters just full of personality quirks, yeah! The story would probably work quite well if taken seriously, this one's prime for a remake if you're looking for such things.

2/10

Quantum of Solace (2008)

2010-03-23T16:08:00.002-05:00

Dir: Marc Forster
MGM Blu-ray

I was skeptical of this latest installment in the Bond franchise, mainly due to the involvement of director Forster. I am not a big fan of the director's films and couldn't understand the choice to follow up something as exemplary as Casino Royale with such a lackluster helmsman. The film starts almost immediately where it's predecessor ends with Bond driving away from some baddies while having Mr. White tied up in his trunk. It's at this point I wanted to give up on the film, the editing is so rapid that I had no idea what was going on. I thought I was headed for seizure-ville, but I struggled through and was pleasantly rewarded. I didn't feel like this chapter lived up to what was set in motion with Casino Royale, but it was an enjoyable yarn with Bond delving deeper into the secret organization that has not only infiltrated the governments of the world, but also does business with them. At the same time, he is seeking revenge for the death of Vesper from the first film. I had lots of little problems along the way, particularly in the use of almost every character that is on Bond's side, and I didn't like the idea of equating the villain to an Eco-friendly energy company (an energy company sure, but aren't there enough opponents to the environment that we need to scare people with attacking an Eco-conscious one?). Overall worth seeing but hopefully the next outing will be a step up.

6/10

Moon (2009)

2010-03-22T00:34:00.005-05:00

Dir: Duncan Jones
Sony Classics Blu-ray

I knew just enough going into this one to be surprised by the intricate plotting. The need to knows are that Sam Rockwell plays a man, named Sam, that works alone on the dark side of the moon mining Helium3 for energy consumption on Earth. He has a three year contract that is about to come to an end. His mind starts to play tricks on him, and that's all I will say. Jones' feature film debut is a confident, restrained work of intelligent sci-fi that is worth multiple viewings. It would be hard to buy anyone else in the main role besides Rockwell who pulls off the the nuances of his character with ease. The film looks outstanding, from the production design to the cinematography. It is also worth mentioning the score as one of the better ones I have heard in recent memory. So really I have nothing to do but gush over this one.
The Blu-ray looks impeccable, as you'd expect, and it includes two commentaries and Jones' short film, Whistle.

9/10

PS - Matt Berry has a small role!!

Short Night of Glass Dolls (1971)

2010-03-21T23:35:00.003-05:00

Dir: Aldo Lado
Anchor Bay DVD OOP

Lado shows some impressive use of composition with his directorial debut. The story starts promising but ends up being a little sleepy. It starts with a corpse being wheeled in to the morgue, but we can hear the internal voice of the dead man narrating the action. He doesn't appear to be dead in his mind and throughout the movie , non one can understand why the body hasn't began to get cold. We see the man's story told in flashback sequences, he is an American Journalist in Europe who is investigating some secret society. His female companion disappears and this leads him deeper into the mystery. Since he starts the film as a stiff we kind if know where the film is headed, but it's a mostly interesting ride there. This is part of the now out of print "Giallo Collection" on Anchor Bay, but it doesn't feel like the average giallo in plot or style.

6/10

Satan's School For Girls (1973)

2010-03-18T02:17:00.003-05:00

Dir: David Lowell Rich
Cheezy Flicks DVD

This is about what you'd expect for a made for TV movie produced by Aaron Spelling and with a salacious title it couldn't live up to. It's about Pamela Franklin's Elizabeth whose sister seemingly kills herself. Elizabeth doesn't believe it so she goes undercover at the art school where her sis was attending. There she meets Kate Jackson and the other girls that the title is probably referring to as well as a jerk teacher and a smooth talking "cool" teacher, guess who the bad guy is? Exactly. Not only is he the bad guy, turns out it's Satan. Yep, Satan has hit on some hard times and now teaches art. The movie is light on terror, and Satan for that matter, and while I wouldn't call it bad it is 100% forgettable.
The print isn't very good, there is some damage, but you won't really care.

3/10

Vigilante Force (1976)

2010-03-16T13:03:00.007-05:00

Dir: George Armitage
MGM HD Channel broadcast

Armitage has always been an intriguing figure to me. He seemed to be on the path to filmmaker stardom during the seventies being one of Roger Corman's guys from that period. He wrote and/or directed a handful of interesting exploitation quickies, including Gas-s-s-s, which I've always found to be bizarrely appealing. But after 1979, he seems to have disappeared until 1990's Miami Blues and then retreating again until 97's Grosse Point Blank. I can find no biographical information on the man, so we have only his work to ascertain any info on him. Vigilante Force is the story of a small town that has recently opened it's oil reserves due to the pending energy crisis. There is a huge influx of new people into town, all oil field workers that have overrun the town with illegal goings on and violence that has scared not only the townsfolk, but the police as well. The town leaders get together and decide to hire a (you guessed it) Vigilante Force to deal with these rowdy roustabouts. They decide to turn to the devil they know, and ask respectable citizen Ben (Jan-Michael Vincent) to hire his troubled brother Aaron (Kris Kristofferson) to lead the force that will make the town safe again. Aaron, it seems, grew up causing an awful lot of trouble around town and then went off to do "three tours in 'Nam", now Armitage has brought in the country's treatment of vets and our dependence on oil into what could have been a routine actioner. Aaron brings four of his buddies along and gets results immediately. Unfortunately for the town people, Aaron has other plans in mind. He soon replaces the illegal gambling with his own people and also uses them to shake down local business owners for protection money. He goes too far by killing the people that get in his way and this prompts Ben and the other townies to create their own (say it with me) Vigilante Force. At this point the films almost becomes a heist movie, but the plot is foiled as Ben's force launches an assault on Aaron's. It's a well paced film with just enough political undercurrent to not hit you over the head. The action is mostly well staged for the limited budget and Armitage's script is often clever and witty. Besides the two leads, both of which work perfectly, there's a good supporting cast that includes Victoria Principal, Bernadette Peters, Paul Gleason, a bazooka, and a cameo by Dick Miller.
Hopefully MGM has plans for a DVD release, the print looked excellent. I would love to hear an Armitage commentary on this as well.

7/10

Fearless Frank (1967)

2010-03-16T01:10:00.002-05:00

Dir: Philip Kaufman
MGM HD Channel

Jon Voight stars as the title character, in his feature film debut, in this oddity about a hillbilly that is killed by gangster and then brought back to life by a mad doctor. The doctor also imbues him with Superman-esque abilities so he may fight crime. The film is told in a comic strip style with a narrator and over-the-top villains with names like "The Rat" and "Screwnose". It starts off interestingly enough even though it's playing to a rather broad sense of humor, but too soon do the trappings of it's non-exsistent budget prove to be detrimental. It's hard to buy super-heroics with the same two camera tricks over and over again. The story is thin and the characters become grating pretty quickly. This would have worked as a student film, but too have to sit through 90 minutes is tedious. I am glad to have caught this on the MGM channel as I don't believe it is available on any other resources currently. This probably isn't one Voight would like to remember but I would like to hear Kaufman's thoughts on the film.

4/10

Alice In Wonderland (2010)

2010-03-16T00:46:00.004-05:00

Dir: Tim Burton
Theater in 3-D

My first reaction to seeing Burton's idea of Wonderland was to presume that he was embarrassed to make a movie about it. It takes far too long to get there and when we do, it's a drab depressing place where no one is fun, colorful, absurd, or amusing. They're not mad cuckoo, they're mad pissed off. My presumption was validated when we learn sometime after the half-way point that we are in "Underland" and Alice had the name wrong all this time. Pass. This version of Alice has her at the age of twenty and betrothed to some bore of a lord. For no good reason she follows a rabbit down a hole and we see the cast of familiar characters mentioned in Lewis Carroll's books. But as I mentioned, these guys hate being alive and all shop at Hot Topic and listen to Fall Out Boy. It seems some war is going on between the two queens of "Underland" (puke again) and Alice is prophesied to kill the Jabberwocky and end the Red Queen's reign, this is more Narnia than Alice. Depp, as the Mad Hatter, tries to occasionally channel Ed Wynn's lisp from the animated film by Disney but at other times sounds like a character from Trainspotting, Anne Hathaway does her best to annoy the crap out of you with grand hand gestures, and Crispin Glover is in it but his head looks strange attached to a computer generated body, or at least I think that's what was happening. By the time the end comes I was already rooting for the Jabberwocky to eat everyone, but when I heard Christopher Lee's voice come out of him, I thought my dream would come to fruition. Alas, nope. While the film can be seen as pro-woman, Alice leads the battle in armor and vorpal sword in hand, it's still boring and depressing. Disney just recently had success with a pro-female take on the fairy tale (see: Enchanted) that was both fun and exciting. As a big Wonderland fan, I was hugely disappointed.

2/10

Extract (2009)

2010-03-16T00:28:00.002-05:00

Dir: Mike Judge
Miramax Blu-ray

I have to assume the intent of this film was to be a comedy. Unfortunately this story of a guy (Jason Bateman) that runs his own flavor extract company, is utterly depressing. While Judge created something in Office Space that most working people could identify with, he does the exact opposite here. He's made his protagonist wealthy and successful whose biggest problems are a wife (Kristen Wiig) that's not "in the mood" enough and an annoying neighbor. These things are enough to get Bateman to take drugs from his burnout buddy (Ben Affleck) which sets off a chain of preposterous events (including Clifton Collins Jr losing a testicle, see it is a comedy!) that threaten to ruin his already unhappy existence, but don't worry, I think the ending was supposed to be considered a happy one. Mila Kunis shows up as a con woman, J. K. Simmons plays Bateman's grumpy partner, and Judge himself makes an obligatory cameo towards the end of the film in a role that looks like most probably ended up on the cutting room floor.

3/10

P.S. - Worst, one-sheet, ever!

Gentlemen Broncos (2009)

2010-03-15T01:30:00.005-05:00

Dir: Jared Hess
Fox Searchlight Blu-ray

I'll start with the positive, I love the story of this film. It is about a young science fiction writer, played by Michael Angarano, who has been home-schooled by his widowed mother. He goes to a writer's camp for kids so he can meet friends and get feedback on his stories. While there he meets two other writers his age that ask to buy the rights to his story "Yeast Lords" so they may turn it into a no-budget video feature. He also meets his literary hero, played by Jemaine Clement, who is secretly struggling to write his next novel so he steals "Yeast Lords", changes some names, and sells it as his own. All the stories collide as the novel and the film gain popularity and Angarano's character starts to lose it while the others gain notoriety by bastardizing his creation. I also love the idea that we see the stories inter-cut with the three different visions of the same story, and Sam Rockwell plays the lead in both. But it's only conceptually where the film actually works. What should have been at least a good movie borders on the unwatchable with tons of fecal jokes, vomiting jokes, and "quirky" stereotypes that are more disgusting than watching a snake relieve himself on Mike White (a scene in the movie). This sort of precious filmmaking walks a very fine line between being alright or failing miserably.
I wasn't all too impressed with the Blu-ray image on this Netflix rental and there are no special features at all.

2/10

The Chase (1946)

2010-03-14T23:58:00.004-05:00

Dir: Arthur Ripley
VCI DVD

This starts off as a routine enough crime thriller with Chuck Scott (Bob Cummings) finding a wallet on a busy street. He checks the wallet and sees a lot of cash inside. He's broke and unemployed and decides to treat himself to a big breakfast. At this point he feels a little guilty and decides to return the wallet and the rest of the dough to it's rightful owner. This path leads him to a shady character named Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran) and his nefarious henchman Gino (played by the great Peter Lorre!). Roman is so taken back by Scott's honesty that he hires him as his new driver. Now Scott meets Roman's depressed wife Lorna (Michele Morgan) and the noir part of the story really kicks in. Lorna convinces Scott to help her flee to Cuba and the two fall in love but Gino and Roman are onto them. At this point I would like to let you know that I would consider the rest of this a *spoiler alert* even though I'll try not to give too much away. At this point in the story, the second act, we see the two love birds in Cuba trying to escape to South America. Of course things go wrong and Scott is framed for murder. He tries to clear his name but ends up going on the run from the law. Then at the beginning of the third act, the story takes us back in time to fill us in on what was happening during the second act, but from different perspectives, all very clever and forward thinking with it's attempt at non-linear narrative. But what really makes the film jarring is the fact that the movie has a completely different ending for the third act then it did for the second! At the time of watching it I admit to being utterly confused, but after meditating on the piece, I have to applaud it for being a completely original Film Noir. The easiest interpretation would be to dismiss part of it as a dream sequence, but there's no way to tell which part would be the dream. The film's made better by the fact that it is left open to the viewer's own interpretation. It's based on the Cornell Woolrich story "The Black Path of Fear" which I have yet to rad but am certainly curious as to how the two relate to each other.
This is part of a Noir double feature, along with Kiss Me Dead, released from VCI a few years ago. The original production company for the movie is "Nero Films" and the surviving print isn't in the greatest shape but certainly watchable. The man in charge of the restoration also provides audio commentary and I tried listening to it to hear if there was any production history given, but I had a hard time sludging through it as the man came across as painfully nervous. I'll get through it eventually but that night wasn't the night.

7/10

Dead Snow (2009)

2010-03-12T01:45:00.004-06:00

Dir: Tommy Wirkola
Netflix streaming

There are plenty of zombie movies coming out these days, but only one with NAZI ZOMBIES! (maybe there are more, who knows, but how many from Norway?). Wirkola doesn't try to reinvent the wheel here but does succeed in making a fun splatter pic where some college age friends head to a cabin in the snow and awake a horde of undead Nazis that want back their dirty Nazi treasure. Once the action kicks in, you can expect some pretty clever death sequences and it's always nice to see people work with practical effects (although some of the gore looked like it was computer generated). It just would have been nice to see any effort at all put into the characters, one is (of course) a movie geek, but we don't get much more info than that. This will certainly appeal to gore fiends and I had more fun watching this than Zombieland.

6/10

Dangerous Seductress (1992)

2010-03-12T01:31:00.003-06:00

Dir: H. Tjut Djalil
Mondo Macabro DVD

Well I had a little bit of hope for this one seeing as it was directed by the man who brought us such exploitation classics as Mystics in Bali and Lady Terminator (particularly Lady Terminator, a highpoint in eighties import cinema!) and the opening sequence(s) lived up to my expectations. Unfortunately, things turn south from there. After a car chase/shoot-out and the resurrection of an ancient evil female spirit in stop-motion gore, we shift gears to a woman with big-time problems at home, a REALLY abusive fiancee. She runs off to Jakarta to live with her model sister and becomes possessed by the evil spirit. It forces her to start killing men. Her fiancee tracks her down, you can figure it out. There are some fun practical splatter effects but the story drags, and drags, way too much in parts. Some highlights include animated lightning covering naughty bits and some d-bags that try to get lucky in a meat packing plant (symbolism?). I guess that at the age of 60, Djalil just lost his passion. The Mondo Macabro disc is excellent as always with tons of features and a great transfer.

4/10

Ponyo (2008)

2010-03-12T00:37:00.003-06:00

Dir: Hayao Miyazaki
Disney Blu-ray

I loved this one in the theater and it lost none of it's impact on a second viewing at home. This is a retelling of the The Little Mermaid but only as the Japanese master of animation Miyazaki could do. In this modern day version, the mermaid is replaced by a goldfish (to be known as Ponyo) with magic abilities. Her father is an underwater wizard that once upon a time was a human, and her mother is an ocean spirit. Ponyo runs away to the surface world where she meets Sosuke, a little boy whose mother works at a senior center and a father that is a boat captain. Sosuke finds Ponyo on the shore and promptly puts her in a bucket of water. Sosuke cuts his finger and Ponyo licks the blood. This triggers the narrative as it gives Ponyo the ability to become human and solidifies the bond between the two. Her father pursues her in one of the most imaginative scenes, he has a giant contraption strapped to his back that he has to use to pump ocean water wherever he walks. He does get Ponyo back only for her to escape again and become a little girl that goes to stay with Sosuke and his mother which leads to their grand adventure. One of the great things about the film is the adults' willingness to accept magic just as easily as children do. Miyazaki can create bizarre worlds that have little explanation of their own rules but the audience can still buy into them completely. It's a world of child logic that strikes a chord inside anyone willing to watch. I also found the viewing experience interesting in the sense that it was the first time I noticed my three year old daughter get invested in a story with genuine concerns for what was happening to the characters.
The Blu-ray looks incredible with this hand-drawn, candy-colored world leaping off my screen. A must-see!

9/10

True Grit (1969)

2010-03-12T00:14:00.003-06:00

Dir: Henry Hathaway
Turner Classic Movies broadcast

Admittedly, I am not the biggest fan of John Wayne. However, it's pretty easy to see why he won an Oscar for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in this film as he is leaps and bounds better than the rest of the cast, most of which recite their lines like they're reading them from cue cards for the first time. The film seemed more dialog heavy than it probably was just for the simple fact that every line reading was painful on the ears. The direction is uninspired with poor staging and a made-for-tv look. I was completely uninvolved with the story line which is no more than an excuse to force a pro-death penalty agenda down the viewer's throats. It follows a girl whose father is murdered in cold blood and she goes out to find the most violent Marshall and a hangin' judge. It's a sad situation that has no effect because the girl is so grating on the nerves. Frankly I'm surprised that this one has a favorable reputation at all.

2/10

Black Dynamite (2009)

2010-03-09T02:55:00.003-06:00

Dir: Scott Sanders
Sony DVD

The spoof/parody film is a tricky one. More often than not, I am less than enthused by the final product. It takes a real love for what you're spoofing mixed with genuine comedy skills to pull it off and I feel that comedy in itself is one of the most difficult things to pull of anyway. Therefore, I go in to situations like Black Dynamite, which pokes fun at the "Blaxploitation" films of the seventies, with low expectations. So I was happily surprised that those expectations were not only met, but far exceeded. It stars Michael Jai White (who also serves as co-writer) as Black Dynamite, a Vietnam vet, ex-CIA agent bad-ass, that decides to clean up the streets after his brother is killed and uncovers a national conspiracy, led by the ultimate seventies villain. He puts together a team of stereotypes, that includes Arsenio Hall and Tommy Davidson, and takes on the man. What makes the film work is the the approach. The cast takes on the material with a straight face which always plays better than shtick. In fact the comedy leans more towards something like "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace" than I'm Gonna Get You Sucka. It's also evident that there is a real love for the films that are being parodied as there are direct lines of dialog said verbatim from some seventies classics. The second act might be a tad too long but the final act makes up for it. The DVD has commentary and a look at the Comic Con panel moderated by Elvis Mitchell.

7/10

"I threw that shit before I came in the room."

Crank: High Voltage (2009)

2010-03-09T02:38:00.003-06:00

Dir: Neveldine/Taylor
Lionsgate Blu-ray

Urgh, what to say? Frankly I knew going in that this probably wasn't going to be a film for me, but I'll give most anything a shot. I was mainly interested in this because I had read that it was influenced by some of the more insane Japanese cinema of recent memory, and while I can see that the men behind this had probably seen the films of Shinya Tsukamoto and Sogo Ishii, I can't see that they got anything out of those viewing experiences. The works of those men are certainly non-conventional and oft times disturbing, but they still have something personally going on within them, even if it's not clear to the audience, Tsukamoto in particular, they're trying to work something out. The makers of Crank 2 just see disturbing and offensive imagery mixed with break-neck editing, therefore we get a film here that has absolutely nothing to say or do. There's not even much of a story to relay here. It's about Jason Statham chasing and killing a bunch of people to get his heart back. While I do appreciate the absurd, absurdity enough does not make the meal. The finished product here just feels like endless video game sequences that are constantly jumping around and contain such constant racism, homophobia, and misogyny, that those things lose all meaning. It leaves you numb and bored, counting the seconds until you're free to stare at a blank wall.

2/10

In A Lonely Place (1950)

2010-03-09T00:11:00.003-06:00

Dir: Nicholas Ray
Sony DVD

This may not be one of Bogart's most well known films, but it is one of his best. Bogey plays a temperamental Hollywood screenwriter named Dix Steele who's violent nature and disdain for the studio system makes him a difficult guy to like and consequently hurts his career. He's given a chance to adapt a novel that he's not too enthusiastic about, so he invites a hat check girl that has read it to come to his apartment and tell him the gist of the story. He's none too impressed and sends the girl home with some cab fair. The only witness is a new neighbor looking on from her balcony, Laurel Gray (played by Gloria Grahame). It turns out that having a witness is important as the hat check girl turns up murdered a few hours later. The police begin to hound Dix and call upon Ms. Gray for info which brings the two closer together. They begin dating and she also gets him to start writing again. Dix is a man possessed working on the adaptation of the novel he was not that interested in but we gather he is changing it drastically. Things would be just fine except for the police that keep questioning Dix, trying to pin the murder on him. Ray occasionally to make us question Bogey's innocence and throws in a few other suspects, but the mystery is more of a background story to the main narrative which is really about the very specific details of this relationship between Dix and Laurel. It's a brutally honest portrayal of a couple dealing with their own insecurities with Dix's manifesting themselves in outbursts of shocking violence. It's really summed up beautifully when Dix's agent says to Laurel, "You knew he was dynamite, he had to explode sometime". Ray shows great restraint in not going into too much detail about his character's pasts, we know all we need to know and he never fabricates some simple excuse for Dix Steele's behavior. Gloria Grahame is absolutely perfect as the street-wise lady that can be vulnerable with her man one moment and tough-as-nails with the cops the next. The photography by Burnett Guffey is textbook stuff, a veteran of almost 100 films by the end of his career, this guy is someone to study. I'm particularly fond of his use of key lights around Bogey's eyes when he gets into a crazed state. The ending of the film could go one of three ways, and Ray is smart enough to know that there was really only one good choice, and he makes it.

10/10

Blue Collar (1978)

2010-03-08T01:50:00.004-06:00

Dir: Paul Schrader
ActionMax HD Broadcast

After writing four films (including Taxi Driver), Schrader made his directorial debut with this film that's part heist movie and part indictment on the unions and big businesses that were exploiting the workers at the time. It stars Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto as assembly line workers at an auto plant. Times are tough and it's hard to make ends meet. The employees get no satisfaction from the union and no help from the company as it seems that they are bitter that the union exists, it's a vicious cycle to keep the working man down. Pryor needs money for back taxes, Keitel needs it for his daughter's braces, and Kotto needs it for partying so one day when Pryor is in the union office one day, he sees their safe and comes up with a plan to break in and take the cash. Things don't go according to plan and the trio finds themselves in a conspiracy that is well out of their depth. It's a well made film, until the last shot in which Schrader proceeds to beat us in the skull with his point, that tells it's story in a natural and captivating way. It's also pretty depressing and Schrader does a good job in creating protagonists that are not always sympathetic if even downright unlikable at times but the three leads give top-notch performances.
The DVD that was released on Anchor Bay a few years back in now out of print. There has since been a DVDr version officially released that can be purchased through Amazon but it doesn't contain the commentary track or any special features from the previous edition. This broadcast in HD looked pretty good and would be a fine Blu-Ray release.

7/10

Two-Minute Warning (1976)

2010-03-04T01:23:00.005-06:00

Dir: Larry Peerce
5 Star Max HD broadcast

First off, let's talk about the cast! We have a collection to frazzle the brain with this ensemble starring; John Cassavetes, Charlton Heston, Beau Bridges, Gena Rowlands, Martin Balsam, Jack Klugman, David Jannsen, and Walter Pidgeon! So what brings this group of TV actors, indie auteurs, and NRA members together? A sniper at a football game. At an event that I surmise was supposed to be the Super Bowl, a man with a rifle is spotted by a blimp cam on top of the scoreboard. We never see his face but he does have his own music cue that sounds similar to that of a movie slasher and we get plenty of close-ups of his disgusting finger nails. The narrative cuts between this unseen baddie and the lives of the people his actions will effect, a gambler, a young family, a couple trying to figure things out, and the policia, Heston of course. After the sniper attacks a maintenance man, Heston must call in the Swat team, led by John Cassavetes. Some macho posturing occurs, ninety minutes pass, then the shit goes down. It's a fine thriller that tries to break into Altman territory (scarily enough) with camera movements that leave one conversation for another in midstream to give us a natural feel and a sense of urgency. There's actually one incredible sequence where everyone in the video booth watches helplessly as the sniper attacks in such a way that the crowd can't see. The main problem with the film is how much time we spend seeing the lives of the various spectators, but it's both shocking and unintentionally hilarious to see Beau Bridges back hand one of his kids in public, ah the good ol' days. It's also interesting to see Heston ask the killer where he got his gun with such anger, you know that's acting!
Universal released this on DVD over a decade ago and it's now out of print. The HD broadcast from Cinemax looked pretty good and I couldn't tell that framing was too tight even though it was presented 1.85:1 and the movie was reportedly shot 2.35:1.

6/10

The Silence (1963)

2010-03-04T01:04:00.004-06:00

Dir: Ingmar Bergman
Criterion DVD

This may be one of the best looking films I've ever seen. Bergman and cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, really knew how to utilize black & white film. It's certainly an asset that helps to draw the viewer i to a very vague situation about a woman, her ill sister, and her co-dependent son, Now it's true that all children are dependent on their parents, but here Bergman suggests a woman that has manipulated her child into only being comfortable with his mother for her own selfishness and insecurities. Their is also a lot of animosity with the sisters and how the boy fits in with their lives. Bergman keeps dialog to a minimum and never lets you in on the exact circumstances of the story. A sequence where a series of tanks roll by in silhouette let's you know something about the time and region the story may take place in. There's plenty of symbolism for the loss of innocence and the familial strife that you'd expect from Bergman, but ultimately I felt a little too detached from the film at it's conclusion making it a lesser effort for me. But it's still Bergman so there's plenty to be had from the film, I just wouldn't start with this one if you haven't had much exposure to him yet.

7/10

The Last Frontier (1955)

2010-03-04T00:50:00.004-06:00

Dir: Anthony Mann
Sony DVD

Anthony Mann has made some great films over his career and I am particularly fond of his westerns. This one however had escaped my attention and after watching it I can see why. It's about three trappers (Victor Mature, James Whitmore, & Pat Hogan) that get caught in a skirmish between the military and the local "Indians". The Natives want to run any white men out (and who can blame them?) since the military's arrival. They take the three trappers furs, horses, and guns and send them on their way, but this raises the ire of Victor Mature who decides that they should sign on with the military as scouts so they can earn some of the money back that they lost. His two pals, particularly James Whitmore's Gus, aren't keen on the idea but go along anyway. As soon as the join, Mature becomes a childish wild card that lashes out at everyone, what did this moron expect? He gets caught up in a love triangle, there's a few battle sequences, the end. The main problem with the film is Victor Mature. He seems out of place every step of the way, from his look, his ever-present smile, and his cadence. It doesn't help that his character is never likable, ever. Whitmore is great and has some of the best moments in the film but hardly a reason to sit through the whole movie. A real disappointment but mainly because of Mann's previous track record.

4/10

Whiteout (2009)

2010-03-03T00:32:00.005-06:00

Dir: Domenic Sena
Warner DVD

I read the comic when it was released and was certainly impressed with it and particularly it's writer, Greg Rucka. I've since become a fan of Rucka's comic book writing and, if nothing else, am glad he collected a paycheck with this film adaptation that works hard to ignore all the things that made the source mataerial interesting. Let me say, I don't normally complain about movie adaptations being unfaithful to the source material. I prefer to like or dislike the movie based on it's own merits. So looking at Whiteout by itself, it's a mundane, predictable thriller with one dimensional characters, loads of red herrings, and a flat ending that doesn't end soon enough. A lot of the major plot points are kept intact, but the details that made the story fresh are typically missing. The story is about a U.S. Marshall (Kate Beckinsale) stationed at the South Pole. A murdered body is found and that starts a series of murders that she must investigate. Along the way she meets a UN Agent played by the bland Gabriel Macht (in the book this character was a female British Agent, but this way we get a suspect and a love interest rolled into one!) and uncovers a ludicrous plot to smuggle a canister out of the area that was found on a downed Russian plane that's been in the ice for fifty years (why a Russian plane was doing flying over the South Pole is a mystery for the ages). Beckinsale isn't bad but it's hard to buy her as a U.S. Marshall. There's absolutely nothing new or interesting about this one making it one to skip, but whether you see it or not, you'll never think about it again.

3/10

He Ran All The Way (1951)

2010-03-02T01:03:00.004-06:00

Dir: John Berry
SIFF Theater

Unfortunately the festival ended early for me and with more of a whisper than a bang. I had seen this on Turner Classic Movies before and had completely forgotten about it until around the five minute mark. The movie stars John Garfield (his last film ever) as a crook that gets talked into robbing a guy carrying payroll money. Things go south and his buddy is killed and Garfield kills a cop. He's paranoid and sweet talks his way into Shelley Winter's life where he takes her and her parents and little brother hostage. But not hostages in a way that you would think or that even makes since, they're hostages that are allowed to leave! As long as one stays with him, the rest can go to work, school, etc.. It's pretty frustrating to watch these characters with so much freedom not be able to come up with a way to overpower or out-think this one hood. It makes the film feel like a twenty minute television episode that's been stretched out to feature length, but that length is only 70 minutes. Every character is utterly unlikeable making it hard to judge the performances because you want them all to get shot. To it's credit there are a few really great scenes where we get a glimpse of Garfield's loneliness or a particularly nice moment where the little brother attacks Garfield but, all in all a lackluster affair that doesn't end soon enough.
The film is note worthy for having almost everyone involved in it getting blacklisted, the reason it is Garfield's final film.

4/10

a P.S. - special thanks to Colin & Holly for hosting me over the weekend, thanks for the hospitality! or the horse brutality

The Mob (1951)

2010-03-02T00:25:00.003-06:00

Dir: Robert Parrish
SIFF Theater

Generic title? You bet, but the film was a lot of fun to watch. A bit more light-hearted than a typical noir and more action packed. It stars Broderick Crawford as a cop that goes undercover to infiltrate water front racketeers and find an elusive killer boss named Blackie Clegg. He meets a fellow named Tom Clancy (Richard Kiley) along the way that gives some good advice but also appears to know more than he's letting on. There's some fist fights, gun play, broads, gags, you name it. The movie tackles the same subject as On The Waterfront would a few years later, but I have to say that I probably prefer watching The Mob.

8/10

Cry Danger (1951)

2010-03-01T18:42:00.003-06:00

Dir: Robert Parrish
SIFF Theater

Well I meant to finish writing about my festival experience some time ago, but stuff happens. So, I will pick up with the second night's opening film, Cry Danger. The screenings are brought to us via the Film Noir Foundation in an attempt to raise money so that they may restore prints of classic films that may otherwise be lost forever. Last year's festivals and donations went to bringing us this outstanding, well-paced indie produced by star Dick Powell and marked the directorial debut of Parrish, and it is well worth the money they spent. The only remaining film source was from Powell's personal 16mm print which they used to strike the 35mm one used at the exhibitions. Powell plays Rocky Mulloy, a man who is just let out of prison after serving five years for a crime he didn't commit. During his trial he kept stating that he was out drinking with a bunch of marines that were about to ship out, while the supposed crime he was involved with was taking place. Five years later a marine steps forward to corroborate his story and Mulloy is released back into the world. He is met by the arresting officer and his alibi, Delong (Richard Erdman at his sarcastic best). Once the copper tells Mulloy he'll be keeping an eye on him and takes his leave, Rocky turns to Delong and asks him who he is and what he wants. Delong is hoping that Rocky will split some of the stolen dough from the robbery with him since it was never found by the police. The two become fast friends and rent a trailer together to stay in while Rocky looks up the guy who frames him and a buddy's wife, his pal also went to prison on the robbery charge. He gets tangled up in some more trouble as he tries to get paid and clear his friend's name. Parrish was working with another script that was punched up by Bill Bowers that is smart, quick, and full of memorable dialog. It would be hard to choose, but I would say this was my favorite film from the ones I saw.
The Film Noir Foundation is doing great work to keep classic films alive, so I will mention their website in case anyone feels like supporting the cause.

http://filmnoirfoundation.org/

9/10

Larceny (1948)

2010-02-25T00:16:00.003-06:00

Dir: George Sherman
SIFF Theater

A fast paced film about con men that are trying to swindle a war widow out of money by building a phony war memorial. It features a top notch cast lead by John Payne, Dan Duryea doing his best at being Dan Duryea, and Shelley Winters in one of her best performances ever as Duryea's girlfriend that is secretly with Payne. The story is incredibly tight even if it's slightly predictable. Working with a script by Bowers, Sherman has very little to do to make this one a home run, but helps it along by making a quickly paced picture. Like many other noir leads, John Payne came from a song and dance background which helps him to be a sympathetic bad guy. Fun fact: Payne was apparently the first person to buy the rights to James Bond novel and planned on playing him, obviously this wasn't to come to fruition. A travesty that this, along with most of the others at the festival, is not available on DVD.
Another great print and presentation to end the first double feature, and I had a better seat since some of the audience left.

8/10

Pitfall (1948)

2010-02-24T23:33:00.004-06:00

Dir: Andre De Toth
SIFF Theater

The first film shown this year at the Noir City Film Fest and the first of four that featured the writing of Bill Bowers, the revelation of the experience for me. While Bowers' name wasn't credited on every film or it was a shared credit, there was no mistaking his witty, rapid dialog. Not only was it some of the most memorable writing I have seen in a long time, it just wasn't clever for it's own sake, all the dialog was character specific. The story of Pitfall follows an insurance man (played by Dick Powell who also produced in a successful attempt to change his image) that is bored with his routine. He meets Lizabeth Scott's Mona Stevens and is smitten. He decides to break the rules of his job and also withholds some key information from her, like that he's married to Sue (Jane Wyatt) and has a son. To complicate matters even further, Raymond Burr plays a private eye that is obsessed with Mona and is a violent goon with a sadistic streak. What set this apart from alot of others in the genre, was the fact that Lizabeth Scotts' character would normally be portrayed as the femme fatale that gets Dick Powell into all kinds of trouble, but here it is the opposite. Once Mona Stevens finds out Powell's insurance man is married, she immediately ends the relationship, it is Powell's bad decisions that forces the action. If I had any complaints, it's that De Toth tells the story almost exclusively in medium close-ups and a lot of the conversations look like a tennis match of back and forth editing.
The print looked great and the whole presentation was excellent with Eddie Muller introducing the movie with tons of great info.

8/10

The Big Combo (1955)

2010-02-23T22:54:00.004-06:00

Dir: Joseph H. Lewis
Image DVD OOP

I actually watched this about a week ago, but the next day I left for Seattle for the Noir City Film Fest, so I never got a chance to post anything on it. I had seen this one before and was very fond of it, I was glad to see my memory and opinion of it held up well. Cornel Wilde plays a cop that has it out for Richard Conte's Mr. Brown, a guy with a lot of money and power, and Wilde wants to know how he got it. Wilde is willing to do just about anything to catch Conte up to no good, but has had almost no success over the years. His boss is ready to pull his budget and he tells Wilde to move on. Wilde finally gets a chance at Conte when his dame, Susan, attempts suicide and says a little too much in a weakened state. (In an interesting side note, Susan is played by Jean Wallace who herself attempted suicide twice in the 1940's and then later went on to marry star Cornel Wilde in 1951, the two stayed together for thirty years.) A name Susan gives is enough to uncover a murder plot to keep Wilde's character going. Conte is pitch perfect as Brown delivering a powerhouse of a speech to a boxer he has interest in that sets the tone for the film and tells you everything you need to know about his character. The most memorable scenes, however, involve Brian Donlevy and his hearing aid, just watch it. Lewis is best known for Gun Crazy (1950), but in many ways, I prefer this film. Gun Crazy is often cited for it's association of sex to violence, with The Big Combo, Lewis hints at a desire to explore homosexuality as it has been cited that two supporting characters, played by Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman, seem to be in a relationship. Even though they are muscle that kill for Mr. Brown, they are shown as being a fiercely loyal duo with a suggestion of a positive coupling, making the film all the more interesting.
The movie is available from at least three sources, I have only seen the Image disc. The transfer is solid if not perfect and the other two are from Geneon and Alpha, this makes me believe the reviews I have read that state that this is the only edition worth watching. There are no extra features and the disc is out of print, but if you're interested in this one or already a fan, I would pay the extra for the Image disc.

8/10

Night Train Murders (1975)

2010-02-16T01:53:00.003-06:00

Dir: Aldo Lado
Blue Underground DVD

In general, I think horror films are made for escapist viewing. They provide a sort of catharsis for things we internalize and can help us overcome fears. Audiences tend to laugh at violent moments, often to relieve tension, and at the end of the day, we feel safe and head off to bed. Lado's Night Train Murders does absolutely nothing to support this generalization. This is often mentioned as Euro sleaze and does contain sequences that are most definitely sleazy. But to write this film off as mere exploitation is to do it a great disservice. While it's not a movie I would recommend, to anyone!!, it just may be the most effective movie of it's kind ever made. If you're familiar with Bergman's The Virgin Spring or Craven's The Last House on the Left, then you can tell where this film is headed from the start. We see two thugs mugging a Santa and causing chaos intermingled with two young girls heading home for the winter break so obviously the two duo's are on a collision course. The variation on the story is that it takes place on a train and that the two thugs are just that, hoodlums. That is until they meet an educated, affluent, middle-classed woman that feeds her own depravity by directing the boys into increasingly disturbing acts involving the college girls. What makes the film both repulsive and impressive, is just how shockingly competent a director Lado is. Not once could you possibly laugh or make a joke about what is happening on screen. In this respect it is the exact opposite movie that Last House on the Left is, which may be the most incompetent movie ever made. Director Lado states in the interview accompanying the film, that he has never seen Craven's film and doesn't mention Bergman's at all! If this is true, it makes Craven's film that much worse. Now the film follows all of the same plot points, including the ending where the villains accidentally run into the parents of one of the victims. Revenge is exacted, but not in such a way where we as the audience feel satisfied, merely the futility of the situation. Lado flips our own wants and expectations by making the real villain the middle-class, where the woman on the train and a well-to-do gent, that passes by and participates in the horrible deeds, are the real reason for all the violence but feel and act that they are above being held accountable. We never get true justice, just more senseless violence. Credit certainly has to go to Lado for getting his point across but the final piece is incredibly difficult to watch. As I stated, I could never recommend this to someone, but if you're in to remakes of The Virgin Spring, then don't pass this one up.
The difficulty in watching the horrendous violence perpetrated upon the girls makes this one difficult to assign a numerical rating too, so I'll give a slight cop-out and just drop it in the middle.

5/10

Quest For Fire (1981)

2010-02-16T01:36:00.003-06:00

Dir: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Fox Movie Channel

I have always been fascinated by films and filmmakers that could create story without the use of dialog. Dassin's Rififi and Svankmajer's Conspirators of Pleasure come to mind as two of the best examples. This film certainly would fall into this category as their is no spoken dialog that is recognizable. In case you're unaware of this one, it's about a clan of cavemen that lose their fire to another more primitive looking clan and then must send three of their own on a, you guessed it, QUEST FOR FIRE! Everett McGill (Big Ed from Twin Peaks!) and Ron Perlman star as two of the neanderthals that must avoid saber-tooth tigers, fight other cro-mags, and tame woolly mammoths on their journey for precious flame. Where the other films succeed is in their ability to tell a gripping story and create tension without the need for words at all. Quest for Fire's story is so easy to follow, that aspect of the film is not all that interesting. The more interesting thing is that novelist Anthony Burgess was brought in to create the cavemen's grunts. It's certainly not a bad movie but at some points can't help but feel like an overly long gimmick.

5/10

Pigs & Battleships (1961)

2010-02-15T21:56:00.005-06:00

Dir: Shohei Imamura
Criterion DVD

This is the story of Kinta, the lowest man on the Yakuza totem pole in a town built around the largest American Naval base near Tokyo in post-war Japan. Kinta's job is to take care of the pigs, whose fate and ownership always seem to be in question. Kinta's girlfriend is Haruko. She wants Kinta to run away with her and get a low-paying but respectable factory job some where so they can leave this life of filth and crime, where Haruko's own mother pushes her to be a prostitute or mistress to an American officer. Kinta, however, wants no part in a factory job and yearns to be a band manager or pimp, as these things are held in higher regard by his peers. Imamaura portrays the Americans as brutes and morons that have no concern for the Japanese people while the Japanese are portrayed as petty, bickering back-stabbers that can only aspire to more fruitful lives of crime. Haruko is the only main character with a sensible head and even she makes some decisions that she must persevere through before taking matters into her own hands. This is a recurring theme with Imamura and one of his best traits, his ability to create women characters that can overcome their situations. Imamura is a masterful director that can inject a bit of dark humor into these depressing situations without undermining the intent. Things are so bad for these people that what else is there to do sometimes except to laugh? The title Pigs & Battleships can be taken at face value but is also a metaphor for how the Japanese are being treated. They are actually trying to buy food scraps from the battleships to eat. Imamura frames the scenes in village, and chose to use a telephoto lens in close-ups, to give a real sense of claustrophobia, like these characters are living in pens themselves.
This disc is part of the Pigs, Pimps, and Prostitutes set from Criterion and I believe it's essential viewing. This disc has an hour long documentary on the director from French television and an interview/ analysis about his specific film with critic Tony Rayns.

8/10

A Serious Man (2009)

2010-02-14T22:43:00.003-06:00

Dir: The Coen Brothers
Universal DVD

Once upon a time, the Coen Brothers seemed like a mischievous secret to me. They made the kind of films that grandparents couldn't understand and geeks could quote til you wanted to vomit. With A Serious Man, I felt like I was watching a movie by guys that got old and lost their sense of absurdity that made them so unique. Gone were jokes about video artists and in their place were jokes about draining a sist or getting high at a Bat Mitzvah, yawn. The movie concerns itself with the destruction and re-construction of a Jewish family in the late sixties. The characters are all pitiful, pathetic, and selfish. It has been said that the film is semi-autobiographical. If that's true, this may be one of the most depressing films of all time and truly an exercise in cynicism. All this sounds like I really hated the movie, but mostly I was just disappointed in how uninvolved I was at every moment. It was like breathing or drinking water, totally forgettable.

4/10

House of the Devil (2009)

2010-02-14T22:30:00.003-06:00

Dir: Ti West
Dark Sky DVD

One of the better horror films I have seen that was made recently. I assume that it appealed to me because it was intended to look like it was made 30 years ago. It's modeled after the low budget and made-for-tv horror films of the late 70s/early 80s. The film stock is grainy, there's use of zoom lens, it opens with a rock/synth score, and everyone has feathered hair. This may sound like a joke but thankfully nothing is ever played for laughs and the film never delves into parody. It's most definitely a love letter to an age gone by that was replaced by overly edited, grimy, and ultimately boring, gore fests. This isn't to say the film is perfect, while I found it charming that not much happened in the first two thirds, I have to admit that certain scenes tended to drag. The villains are played by the awesome Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov, but I would have like to have seen them used differently in the movie's finale. It was an enjoyable one time view but nothing I would hurry back to. I am more intrigued by West as a filmmaker than most young directors right now though, and that's something.

7/10

Out Of The Past (1947)

2010-02-14T22:12:00.003-06:00

Dir: Jacques Tourneur
Warner DVD

I'm leaving for Seattle soon to go with some friends to the Noir City Film Fest programmed by Eddie Muller, so to prepare my mind I decided to watch a few classics before I go. Out Of The Past certainly qualifies and is surely one of the text book examples of Film Noir. It has it all, stark black & white cinematography, a convoluted story heavy on the flashbacks, the femme fatale, and some of the snappiest dialog ever written. It stars Robert Mitchum as an ex-private eye that gets pulled back into his former life when a past associate recognizes him pumping gas in a small town. He gets Mitchum to go see the boss, Kirk Douglas in one of his first roles, so he can make up for some past indiscretions. Most of the film is set in Mitchum's former life as we learn all about his previous relationship with Douglas and Douglas's deadly dame played by Jane Greer. It all comes down to some tough talking and double crossing with a downbeat ending you'd expect from the genre. Tourneur is a masterful director that can use staging and camera placement perfectly to convey the characters relationships and their connections to the past that they can never leave behind. There's a decent but dry commentary on the disc by James Ursini. If you're looking for a place to start with Noir, look no further.

9/10

Radio On (1980)

2010-02-11T23:42:00.005-06:00

Dir: Christopher Petit
Plexifilm DVD

A meandering story about a D.J. named Robert (David Beames) who drives across England to find out what happened to his brother. The film starts with a camera slowly moving through a "flat" to the sounds of David Bowie's "Heroes" and finally stopping on a shot of someone's feet in a bathtub. It then cuts to Robert opening a package and four Kraftwerk cassettes (The cassette was an ancient device that was used to transport music, they were magnetic tapes encased in plastic and needed another device to play back the recorded music. Ask your parents about it sometime. *editor's note*) with a note that says "Happy Birthday, Brother". Robert then starts on his road adventure meeting several characters along the way including a Scottish Army deserter, German immigrants, and Sting. The movie is close in look and tone to Wim Wenders Kings of the Road. Wenders is credited with associate producer on the film so no surprise on his influence on it. The movie belongs to a very specific sub-genre of road picture that seemed to only exist in the late seventies and early eighties. A time when young film artists were trying to reconcile the existentialism of the 70' with the cynical consumerism of the coming decade. The film is beautifully summed up with the final shots of an old English sea-side town lingering casually as Kraftwerk's "Ohm Sweet Ohm" plays.
The transfer on the disc is excellent showing off the beautiful black & white photography. The chapter stops are named for the songs that play over the particular scenes denoting just how important the music is to the experience of viewing. The only feature is a 24 minute look at the locations shot around 1999, twenty years later, with Petit and Beames on hand.

8/10

Shadow of the Cat (1961)

2010-02-09T02:25:00.005-06:00

Dir: John Gilling
DVDr

Although the name doesn't officially appear in the credits, this is usually cited as a Hammer Films production. The cast includes Hammer regulars Barbara Shelley and Andre Morell, the crew includes several familiar Hammer names, and it was shot at Bray studios. The film itself though does not have the feeling of the studios output at the time and certainly doesn't measure up to Gilling's other horror efforts of the time. George Baxt's script borrows heavily from Edgar Allan Poe without giving him any credit. It's about a man (Morell) who doesn't care too much for his wife and talks the servants into killing her and hiding the body. They plan to pass off a new will leaving everything to him, to the authorities so he can cut out his wife's favorite niece (the Shelley character). Problems arise when the murder is witnessed by the woman's cat who then begins to torture everyone involved by clawing them, terrorizing from the shadows, just generally acting like a jerk. Morell then calls in some shady relatives to help him dispose of the cat alas, to no avail. It's fairly easy to guess what happens from there but Gilling does a fine job of pulling out some tension when necessary. Unfortunately, there are some moments of lightheartedness that stand out in a bad way. Frankly I felt the film was more tolerable without the Hammer logo as I would have expected more.
The print on this DVDr is washed out and has several moments where it looks damaged. It's still easy to tell what's happening but no one would mistake this for an official release. A station identification call number pops up a few times in the corner from what looks to be a regional channel in North Carolina (maybe?).
Thanks to Colin for sending this my way.

6/10

Maidstone (1970)

2010-02-08T23:52:00.004-06:00

Dir: Norman Mailer
DVDr

This is one of the three films that novelist Mailer made in the late sixties. I would say made over directed and wrote as that implies a certain familiarity with how a film will look and feel and this is anything but. The movie is shot cinema verite with fast paced editing and follows an American version of Fellini named Norman Kingsley (played by Mailer, who else?) that decides to announce that he may run for president and at the same time starts a film that will push the boundaries of sexual taboos. The film jumps between Kingsley directing his opus, people questioning his credentials, and meetings of a secret society that are wondering if he should be assassinated. Rip Torn plays Mailer's half-brother, Rey, who leads the Cash Box, a group of "intellectual knuckle-draggers" (paraphrasing) that Kingsley surrounds himself with. Mailer's ideas seem prophetic at this point as he questions the difference between celebrity and the politician. The notion of a film director becoming director was obviously an absurd idea to show what kind of egomaniac would rise to such power, how could Mailer know that a mere decade later the American people would elect an actor as President? As the films "story" comes to an end, Mailer breaks down the fourth wall and addresses his cast and crew directly trying to explain what he hoped to achieve by making the film the way he did. It's never explicitly said, but I would guess that no script was used as everyone's dialog seems to flow naturally and Mailer keeps talking about wanting to get at the truth on film, unlike Hollywood films which he says is "only one man's version of the truth". *SPOILER ALERT* As the movie comes to an end actor Torn takes this message to heart and attacks Mailer, not the character, with a hammer square in the head and drawing blood. He screams that Kingsley must die to end the film correctly. The two men then wrestle in one of the most shocking scenes I have ever witnessed. Mailer bites Torn's ear and they punch and gouge at each other as Mailer's wife and children approach. His wife starts screaming and the children start crying. This stops the fighting but the scene continues on as the two men whisper insults to one another so no one else can hear them. If the scene was faked, kudos to them.
The disc I have is a DVDr with non-removable French subtitles and the number 12 appears in the bottom corner making me think that this aired on French television. The quality is certainly passable, I would like to see an official release with Rip Torn commentary though.

7/10

Zombieland (2009)

2010-02-07T02:17:00.005-06:00

Dir: Ruben Fleischer
Sony DVD

I imagine that the script for this movie started with a single gag. It happens at about the one hour mark and only takes a few minutes from set-up to punchline. Everyone loved this gag so much that they tried to write a movie around it. What followed was an endless string of meaningless jokes that really have nothing to do with the matter at hand, zombies. In Zombieland (and in case you forget the title it's said aloud about 27 times) zombies are really inconsequential. The disaster here really could have been anything. It would appear the film was made by people who had been told about zombie films without actually having sat through one. Many a lazy reviewer compared this to Shaun of the Dead, to imply that this was America's answer to that film. Where Shaun... succeeds as an homage to the genre with many visual and verbal references that come across with real reverence, this movie fails miserably. It does nothing to play with the trappings of the genre. And to take this on it's own merits it fails as well. While it makes no bones (sort of speak) about being a comedy, I found every joke and every attempt at humor to be utterly corny and lifeless. This movie is the antithesis of the the phrase comic timing. The four characters we're introduced to are merely caricatures, it's a world where men are sentimental cry babies and women are connivers or "bitches" as they're refereed to in the script on more than one occasion. It's a movie where slo-mo is a substitute for style. If this is life after the zombie holocaust, I would rather be food.

1/10

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace WIth The Sea (1976)

2010-02-07T01:39:00.005-06:00

Dir: Lewis John Carlino
Image DVD OOP

A film about a single mother, Anne (Sarah Myles), raising a troubled pubescent boy, John, who loves ships and belongs to a secret society of boys led by Chief. Chief is a sociopath that bullies the boys into seeing the world the way he does. It's a bitter, cynical viewpoint that places all adults as compromising liars. The thing that Chief hates above all things appears to be not staying true to one's own nature. This is exemplified in a scene where he gets the boys to drug a house cat so that Chief can dissect it and pull out it's still beating heart. The film seems to want to place the blame solely on an absence of male or father figures in the boys' lives. A male presence is only introduced once Anne meets Jim (Kris Kristofferson), even though some of the other boys mention their fathers, they are never shown. When Anne first starts dating Jim, John seems pleased. He holds the sea and all things connected to it (such as sailors for example) as something that is perfect and untouched. Trouble really begins when Jim quits being a sailor to stay with Anne and John and the boys take this as sign of weakness. The movie could have been an interesting exercise in human nature but feels more like a lifetime movie of the week. The soundtrack drips with a sickening sentimentality and Sarah Myles gives a pained performance as the pitiful, clueless widow. There are a few moments of horror and cringe worthy sexuality that let's you know it wasn't made for television, but the overall look and feel would have you think otherwise. Seeing that this was based on a story by Mishima and that it was the from the writer of Seconds (1966), I had rather high hopes for the film that were not met.
The DVD is long out of print and there are no special features at all. There's a wait on Netflix but I was still able to get it in fairly quickly. I would suggest starting there before purchasing a copy for the $50 collectors price tag.

3/10

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

2010-02-06T03:25:00.005-06:00

Dir: Wes Anderson
Theater

Yes, yes, a rarity in my life that I saw something in a movie theater, but it was something I could drag the kids too. And often when you hear about or discuss a movie with other parents, someone usually says, "it was a kid's movie, but there were jokes for the adults in there to keep us interested". I would have to say that the exact opposite is true for Anderson's first foray into animation. This is a film for grown-ups with just enough jokes thrown in for kids to keep them interested. That and a box of Nerds. The story is about Mr. and Mrs. Fox who are living the free and easy life as bird thieves until they find out they are going to have a kid. They retire and Mr. Fox goes to work for the paper and Mrs. stays home to raise their insecure son. Fox has all the worries of a modern adult, mortgage, money, success, a father's desire to see his child succeed, but mostly, he deals with the fact that he wants to be seen as "fantastic" by everyone in his life. He hits a sort of fox mid-life crisis and returns to his former life of crime by planning and trying to pull off some heists on the local farmers. This, of course, goes badly and he calls too much attention to the local wildlife. The farmers come hunting and are willing to destroy anything to get to the fox. Mr. Fox has brought down a punishment that effects his friends and family all because he could not accept his modest, happy home life. He desired too much. A (if you will) fantastic message in today's society where most of the population seems to be clamoring to appear on TV for no discernible reason. Fame without achievement or talent is the flavor of the day and Mr. Fox must lose his tail and almost everyone around him to discover this valuable lesson. To just be happy with what you have. It's a stop motion film and The Wind in the Willows is really the first and only visual comparison that immediately comes to mind. It evokes the feeling of someone that grew up in the seventies but doesn't directly reference anything in particular. Anderson has come along with his use of music since Rushmore. While he does find a way to work in songs from the sixties, it never feels like a continuous advertisement for the soundtrack CD. This is another example of what an unusually strong year it was for what are considered childrens films, along with Ponyo and Where the Wild Things Are, one of my favorite movies of 2009.

9/10

The Trollenberg Terror (1958)

2010-02-03T02:18:00.005-06:00

Dir: Quentin Lawrence
Image DVD

Even though the cover for this one calls it The Crawling Eye, the opening credits identify it as the longer Trollenberg Terror cut. The screenplay (written by Hammer Films prolific Jimmy Sangster) packs a lot of characters and multiple sci-fi elements nicely into it's 84 minute run time. It's about Ann & Sarah Pilgrim, two sisters that do a psychic stage show who are traveling to Zurich on holiday. On the train they meet Forrest Tucker (a U.N. scientist) and when they get to his stop at Trollenberg, the telepathic sister Ann (soon to be Disney star Janet Munro) gets some sort of psychic flash that draws her off the train. Tucker helps them to secure lodging and it's soon discovered that some decapitated bodies had been found. A local scientist tells them about a radioactive cloud that's been hovering around the mountain. Whatever lives in the cloud is calling to Ann as we find out that people with her abilities cause a threat to the monster. Not much info is force fed to us, just theories that may or may not be true, an intelligent choice. When the Eye is revealed toward the end of the film it's genuinely scary even though prolonged exposure gives the low budget away. The movie was an early episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" but don't let that make you think that it's only a camp fest as the film is never played for laughs.
It's certainly a must for sci-fi and horror fans from the "Silver Age" with quite a pedigree. A year before this was released, Forrest Tucker had just appeared in a very similar film for Hammer, The Abominable Snowman, and Jennifer Jayne, who plays sister Sarah, went on to write the screenplays for Tales That Witness Madness and Son of Dracula under the name Jay Fairbank.
The print is perfectly acceptable and presented anamorphically. There are no special features worth mentioning but there is a German DVD out with audio commentary by John Carpenter who sites the film as an inspiration for The Fog.

8/10

Shadowman (1974)

2010-02-01T21:03:00.006-06:00

Dir: Georges Franju
J4HI.com DVDr

Franju will probably be best remembered (and deservedly so) for the incredible Eyes Without A Face (1960). Unfortunately this one doesn't match the artistry he showed in his more famous work, probably the reason it hasn't been officially released in the states, but it's still enjoyable to watch. The movie starts with a butler going to visit an old woman who he was told could help him steal secrets from his boss. The old woman however, is the Shadowman in disguise and the secrets in question supposedly lead to the treasure of the Knights of Templar, a treasure highly coveted by this master thief. The Shadowman tortures and kills the man for the secrets but to no avail. He then uses a never ending array of disguises, gadgets, kick-ass female sidekick (Gayle Hunnicutt) henchman, and zombies(!!!) to figure out where the secrets and/or treasure is. All this leads to the big logic flaw in the plot, if he has all this money, including a London branch he mentions in one scene, then why does he need this particular treasure? So, let's forget about that. It's a comic book type film with a bit of the Wallace Krimis thrown in but doesn't achieve the pace or shear fun of Bava' Danger: Diabloik. There is however, exploding remote-controlled taxis, lots of creepy masks, an awesome spring-loaded knife shooter (that reminded of the Episode of The Equalizer with Adam Ant), and a big showdown between the Knights Templar and a bunch of henchman. In an interesting side note, Shadowman is played by Jacques Champreux, a screenwirter and the grandson of Louis Feullade who created Judex, Fantomas, & Les Vampires and directed over 600 films in the silent era.
"Just For The Hell Of It"'s print is more than acceptable for a gray market disc. The original image was probably more saturated with red and there is, of course, some fuzziness that can't be helped, but you can see and hear everything just fine.

7/10

Pandorum (2009)

2010-02-01T20:52:00.003-06:00

Dir: Christian Alvert
Anchor Bay DVD

In the beginning, there was much to like about Pandorum. It opens with Ben Foster (everything he does looks like he's going to pop vessels, and I appreciate that anger) waking up in a sleep chamber aboard a space ship. He's alone and can't figure out where everyone else is. His memory is very slowly coming back to him and only in pieces. The n Dennis Quaid gets out of the chamber next to him and he is also having memory problems. The film slowly unfolds as the two try to figure out what there mission was and where they are. Pretty cool so far. They figure out that they were transporting 16,000 people to a new planet that can sustain life because Earth is a goner. As Foster explores the ship, he discovers that it has been taken over by mutated cannibal types that wear bone armor. Here endeth the cool part. If the film could have stayed with the eeriness of the empty ship as these two try and figure out what's going on then I think we could have had the makings of a sci-fi classic. At this point the movie deteriorates into an action/horror film that does deliver on jumps but loses the freshness and originality of the first act. There are still plenty of twists that I won't give away and it's worth a watch if it's the type of thing your into.

6/10

Whip It (2009)

2010-02-01T20:42:00.003-06:00

Dir: Drew Barrymore
20th Century Fox DVD

Drew Barrymore's directing debut about a teen girl (Ellen Page) growing up in a small town near Austin, TX who is trying to find her own identity. She does so in roller derby. From that description you should be able to see the entire movie play out in your mind. Her dad's cool, her mom's not. She's on the underdog team that rallies back for victory. She meets a punk rock boy, etc.. Yes it's full of heart and everyone understands each other in the end, and it hits every beat it wants to. And in doing so, Barrymore has created the safest film ever made involving counter culture. Not a horrible watch, just forgettable.

5/10

Fireball (2009)

2010-02-01T20:29:00.003-06:00

Dir: Thanakorn Pongsuwan
Lions Gate DVD

Finally a movie about underground, full-contact basketball! But more than that, it's a movie about class struggles as the rich use this concept of "Fireball', which is basketball with no rules and the first team to score wins, to keep the poor down. It's a poignant tale of the working class as they, well not really. It's just an excuse for guys to beat the crap out of each other. Since Ong-bak was released there has been a steady stream of imitators coming out of Thailand with knees to the head and fists to the throat. That's fine, unfortunately this one is shot on handy cam and will certainly induce nausea in those inclined towards motion sickness. The story is predictable and there's an edit every 1.5 seconds, but it's forgivable if you're into brutal kung-fu and basketball. So if this sounds appealing at all, grab your Dramamine and check it out. Or don't, your life will be pretty much the same either way.

4/10

Decoy (1946)

2010-01-31T22:38:00.004-06:00

Dir: Jack Bernhard
Warner DVD

If you were to watch the short fluff piece that accompanies the movie, you would probably think you were in for a real treat. A forgotten cult classic if you will (how something can be forgotten and a classic, the world may never know). What you would actually get is one of the silliest, clunkiest film noir I have ever seen and as an added bonus, tons of fake diabolical laughter. The absolutely ridiculous story follows a gold-digging sociopath, played by the overly animated Jean Gillie, whose boyfriend is about to die by gas chamber and only he knows where four hundred thousand bucks they stole is hidden. She then gets the clever idea that she can find a drug that will counteract the poison gas and a doctor that she can seduce into reviving the guy. Guess what, both of those preposterous things happen! She also enlists another gangster type to help finance this scheme so they can grab the 400k for themselves. So, in the best scene in the film, the dope doc revives the dead crook a la Dr. Frankenstein, and the guy rises his fists to the sky screaming, "I LIVE!!!". Now if only the film had gone full sci-fi at this point and he would've become a zombie or C.H.U.D. then we would be talking about a certifiable classic, but no such luck. The convoluted story has our guy and gal crook talk this guy into getting plastic surgery and writing a map for where the money is in case he dies. After he agrees and writes down directions, they shoot him immediately, hysterical. The rest of the movie is filled with typical double-crosses as everyone tries to get the dough. Made by one the poverty row studios, this was probably picked up by Warners as a supporting feature, it's interesting that it is included on the same disc as Crime Wave since the screen writer of Decoy was one the stars of that movie, Ned Young (a victim of the Communist Blacklisting as well) and one hopes the only reason they were paired together since they have nothing stylistically or thematically in common.

2/10

Crime Wave (1954)

2010-01-30T13:20:00.007-06:00

Dir: Andre De Toth
Warner DVD

An excellent noir film that starts with three escaped cons (Ned Young, Ted de Corsia, and a very young Charles Bronson) that are knocking over gas stations and diners, just stealing small bits of money so that they don't call too much attention to themselves. The first robbery we see them on turns out to be the last as a motorcycle cop pulls up while they are emptying the register. One of them shoots and kills him and gets shot in the process. They split up, giving the injured man some money to pay an underworld doctor, and hope to meet up later. The film now weaves in between the story of the escaped cons, an ex-con Steve Lacey (Gene Nelson, who went on to be a prolific TV director) that has been on the straight and narrow for years, and the dogged pursuer Det. Lt. Sims (Sterling Hayden) whose willing to do just about anything to catch these cop killers. The introduction of Sims shows just how intelligent a filmmaker De Toth is. He waits for an appropriate moment in the film to reveal who was the biggest star at the time, and when he is introduced, we see him milling about in the background of the crime scene. He doesn't come bursting onto the scene calling attention to himself, but when it comes down to business he dominates every scene he's in, because he's Sterling Hayden! The desperate men all meet up at the unsuspecting Lacey's home and pull him into a bank robbery where he is supposed to help them escape the country. Cinematography is top notch, the writing is tight with just the right amount of character beats to get a sense of who these people are in an economical running time, and the performances are solid all around.
The disc is part of a double feature with Decoy which was written by the actor Ned Young who played the con who gets shot in this film. There is audio commentary by Eddie Muller and James Ellroy. It's available in the Film Noir Box Set Vol. 4 or sold as a single disc double feature on Amazon.

8/10