From the preamble to the Grindhouse Releasing 2-disc DVD of Cannibal Holocaust (1980), after a couple of paragraphs of blather about the First Amendment:

What you see will definitely shock you and offend you. Nonetheless, it should be viewed as a disturbing historical document of a bygone era of extreme irresponsibility which no longer exists, and, hopefully, will never exist again.

Right. A company called “Grindhouse Releasing” sells this edition of “the most banned movie ever made” purely as a historical document. Practically in the public interest. Sure.

Man, when you say to yourself, “I need to do some light reorganization of my A-Z indexes,” it sounds so simple. until you remember that there are like 800 reviews, and the indexes have to be rebuilt lovingly by hand. Plus, that unfinished review of Heavy Metal 2000 is STILL all that’s waiting for me at the end of the tunnel. Luckily, Todd is there to pick up the slack:

RANI MERA NAAM

If Rani Mera Naam is any indication of Rowdy Rani’s content, I can very well understand what Doss meant by that “100 percent action” distinction. Because, in contrast to the typical “masala”-style films of its era — which incorporated action as just one part of a larger stew of genre elements — Rani Mera Naam offers its viewer a steady stream of under-cranked fistfights, shootouts, vehicle chases, and stunts from pretty much its first frame to its very last. Although, as the 70s progressed — and especially in the aftermath of Amitabh Bachchan’s introduction of the badass, “Angry Young Man” screen archetype — mainstream Indian films became increasingly action oriented, I imagine that, as early as 1972, a film like Rani probably struck its audience as being fairly novel.

What can I say?  House-painting sucks up one’s free time like nothing else except possibly booking a tour.  Be that as it may, here– at last– are my contributions to the 10,000 B.S. roundtable, plus an unrelated review of a film that I’d have been better off not to catch by happenstance on cable TV one evening:

Conquest (1983), which is a barbarian movie that kind of wants to be a caveman movie too…

Ironmaster (1983), which is a caveman movie that badly wants you to assume that it’s a barbarian movie instead…

The Pumpkin Karver (2006), which is a slasher movie made by people who apparently hope to convince us that Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning really wasn’t quite so bad after all…

and…

10,000 BC (2008), which is a caveman movie that turns into a barbarian movie in the third act.
 
 
 
 

The Stitcher (2007)

It always amuses me to see a schlock slasher flick that proudly declares across the back of the box that it’s “Inspired by True Events.” Well, yes, I suppose that’s true, in the sense that every fiction ultimately has its inspiration in someone’s experience, however far imagination may remove it from reality. But a more proximately honest declaration would be, “Inspired by Every Unambitious Friday the 13th Clone Ever Made.”

FEAST II: SLOPPY SECONDS

“Feast II” has monsters, topless biker babes, and midget luchadores. I should love this film, but I don’t.   *SIGH*

The reason I dislike this movie is that it tries to be edgy, disgusting, and outlandish like the first film, but goes too far. It’s a distasteful collection of vulgarity that wore my patience to the bone.

Lesson Learned:
Never perform CPR on someone who died of explosive dysentery.

Evil Aliens is a movie that has clearly been inspired by the early films of Peter Jackson, definitely Dead Alive, but also movies like Bad Taste and Meet The Feebles. It should have been a movie that I would have picked up right away at the video store, but it wasn’t. When I first saw it and did research on it, I came up with reviews from a number of folks who said it was a bad rip-off of Peter Jackson. So I left it alone. But as time went on, I started to uncover an equal number of reports from other people who said that this was a good homage of sorts. The fact that there was so much disagreement about the movie intrigued me, enough so that I decided that I had to judge it for myself.

Baseline Killer (2006) serves as my introduction to incompetent ultra-schlock director Ulli Lommel.  I had not realized how blissful my ignorance was until I allowed it to be snatched from me.

Oh yeah, for some reason I never made a Teleport City Facebook page. Well, it was rainy all weekend so I made one instead of finishing my review of Heavy Metal 2000. Look for it under Teleport City or http://www.facebook.com/pages/Teleport-City/10150120194230453

Max Allan Collins’ one-man play Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life delivers. You get the feeling that, even if other characters were present on stage, they’d be practically unnoticeable beside Ness.