Also one with a has-been athlete, for those of you who can’t get enough of sportsball guys making asses of themselves. A bunch of other stuff, too, as you can see:
Blood and Black Lace (1964), in which eating disorders are the least of these models’ worries…
Destroyer (1988), in which I call your attention to the frigging laser sight on the jackhammer in the poster art, which sadly has no basis in the reality of this feeble little film…
The Evil Eye (1963), in which an obsession with paperback murder mysteries occasionally comes in handy…
Hercules (2014), in which Herc isn’t the son of a god, and never really fought a monster, but the movie somehow turns out okay anyway…
The Man from Beyond (1922), in which Harry Houdini’s plan to carve out a new niche for himself in the movies continues not to pan out…
Snowpiercer (2013), in which an impressively international cast, crew, and creative team deliver a timely piss-take on Atlas Shrugged…
and…
The Warriors (1979), in which a street gang’s commute from the Bronx back to Coney Island manages to pack in as much danger and adventure as the Great Wanderings of Odysseus.
#1 by lyzard on August 24, 2014 - 9:54 pm
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So really this should have been the “I Feel Kind Of Bad For Doing This, But—” Roundtable? 🙂
Clearly we need Ken to post. I’m very sure he doesn’t feel the least bit bad about what he’s doing…
ETA: Excellent call adding Houdini to the mix.
#2 by The Rev. on August 29, 2014 - 9:37 am
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Hey, you’re back! Yay Will!
I notice the main page for Braineater’s down as well, although if you look for a specific review, you can use the direct link to it. Which means he’s probably still working away, poor guy.
On to the movies…
I caught a part of Destroyer once. I seem to remember Alzado’s hands coming through a wall to kill a guy, and that’s about it. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
I’ll have to see about Snowpiercer; I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a theater showing it.
I’ve had BaBL on the list for a while, but I’ll have to put The Evil Eye above it and watch that first.
I love The Warriors. One of my favorite midnight movie showings back in Omaha was this one. Everyone had a great time, and you could tell the attendees were there to enjoy the movie rather than mock it. The timing on the whole crowd chanting, “CAN YOU DIG IT!?” every time it was said was so perfect you’d think it was planned.
#3 by Alaric on August 29, 2014 - 12:01 pm
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Yay! You’re back! With a bunch of reviews to distract me when I have a lot of stuff I need to get done!
#4 by Jen S 1.0 on August 29, 2014 - 5:18 pm
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I loved Snowpiercer, with its story of Calvinistic doctrine being subverted to a capitalist vision, and the way that, as a fable, I was much more prone to excuse logical lapses and overall absurdity then I would in many other sci-fi films.
(The only one that bothered me *SPOILER*:
At the very start of the film, Jamie Bell’s character is following Chris’s around as he performs various duties, going on about how he can’t remember the smell of steak even though he remembers eating a steak once. But at the end of the film, during Chris’s monologue about how he came into his present position, he says he was, let’s say, responsible for Jamie’s character since he was an infant. If Jamie’s been on the train since infancy in the tail section, when and how would he ever have heard of a steak, much less eaten one?
#5 by RogerBW on August 30, 2014 - 4:17 pm
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Welcome back!
The Man from Beyond: Good Lord! It’s The Mummy, ten years early! Though I too suspect Howard would rapidly notice that whichever big city it is he’s taken back to had moved on in a hundred years. I suppose narratively speaking he has to be (re-)introduced to The Girl before he’s aware that she’s long dead, but even so.
The Evil Eye: I’ll have to look into this. I love transitional films that aren’t quite sure what they’re trying to be.
Blood and Black Lace: I’m not a huge giallo fan, and I hadn’t made that particular Krimi connection before. Thanks!
The Warriors: always feels to me like another distinctly seminal film, but somehow it gets forgotten, perhaps because most of the imitators weren’t American.
Destroyer: Yes, that Anthony Perkins. Gosh. I’m getting Galaxy Quest flashbacks. I’ve always felt that anything else which fails can be comedy, but comedy which fails is nothing at all.
Snowpiercer: I wasn’t sufficiently familiar with Randianism to spot the parallels, but the film did seem to me a bit too self-consciously mythic for its own good. And for all those lovely scenes with Ed Harris, the message in the end does seem to be “you can put up with society as it is, or you can destroy it completely, nothing in between”.
Hercules: if pseudo-1980s-barbarian films is what it takes to get escapist filmmaking away from endless franchised superheroes, I guess I’ll take it.
#6 by Ken on August 30, 2014 - 10:25 pm
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Isn’t this a roundtable triple? Harry Houdini, Lyle Alzado, and Dwayne Johnson.
#7 by The Rev. on August 31, 2014 - 12:33 am
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El Santo is free to disagree, but based on his review I don’t know that he will. In my opinion, Dwayne is actually not too bad as an actor. Is he fairly limited in his range? Up to this point, yes. Is he good in that limited range, though? Yeah, he is. (The one thing that has surprised me is that I don’t think he’s been in a non-kids’ comedy, because the man can be quite funny. I enjoyed his hosting of “Saturday Night Live” years ago, and in fact it was his sense of humor that was a big part of his rise to fame in the wrestling world.) I know the movies he’s been in haven’t done that well for the most part, but unless I’m mistaken his performances generally aren’t seen as the issue. The ones I have seen would bear this out.
No, if he’d wanted a triple with a pro wrestler as one of them, he’d have included a Hulk Hogan movie (in fact, I’m very surprised no one chose him). There’s a reason he hasn’t been in a movie, outside of a couple of cameos, for many years. It would also be a much more dramatic contrast. There will never be another wrestler with the kind of success he garnered throughout his career, and he was never even that good in the ring. I haven’t watched wrestling in years, but I’m told he can still bring audiences to their feet when he walks through the curtains. On the other hand, while I’ll admit I haven’t seen all of his movies, the few I have were outright atrocious and he was part of the reason. He appears to be able to play Hulk Hogan and that is it. Dwayne Johnson may not be Laurence Olivier, but he can damn well play something other than “The Rock.”
#8 by Supersonic Man on August 31, 2014 - 11:58 am
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Generally speaking, wrestlers don’t really count as non-actors. They’re just limited actors. Some more limited than others.
#9 by ronald on September 1, 2014 - 11:27 am
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The title “Destroyer” reminded me of the title “Carnage for the Destroyer” which reminded me of “Knight of the Peeper,” a movie which (apparently; I’ve never seen it or the other two) pitted a mortal slasher against a supernatural slasher. That sounds (to me) like it might be reasonably entertaining (not GOOD, of course, just *entertaining*). If any reviewers are open to requests, well, there’s one. 🙂
#10 by PB210 on September 1, 2014 - 7:59 pm
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Quick note on Blood and Black Lace; the Blank, Dick Tracy’s foe, debuted in 1937, long prior to this film.
#11 by PB210 on September 1, 2014 - 8:04 pm
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Incidentally, the Blank’s true identity? Frank Redrum. The Blank’s formal name of Frank Redrum long preceded any Shining use of the surname.
#12 by ronald on September 2, 2014 - 12:46 am
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BTW, just to be nitpicky re “Snowpiercer,” per Wikipedia (so, you know…), William Hickman “only” killed two people (which was more than bad enough, of course), so he technically doesn’t qualify as a serial killer.
#13 by Patrick on September 3, 2014 - 2:54 pm
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http://thehistorynetwork.org/march-of-the-ten-thousand/
mention “The Warriors” thematcially as the best movie based on Xenophon’s “March of the Ten Thousand”, also known as “The March Up-country” or “Anabasis”.
#14 by blake on September 9, 2014 - 12:19 pm
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El Santo, have you considered subjecting yourself to the universally-hated Renny Harlin HERCULES film that also came out this year, if for nothing else than as a comparison with this one?
#15 by El Santo on September 9, 2014 - 3:39 pm
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I completely missed that there were two competing Hercules movies. I shall have to look into this…
On a related note, I had originally hoped to cover the Rock’s Hercules in conjunction with the Steve Reeves and Lou Ferrigno versions, but when the time came, I just had way too many balls in the air. (And I ended up dropping four of them as it was.)
#16 by maggiamith on March 15, 2022 - 4:41 pm
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Doesn’t Snowpiercer have a happy ending ? A hungry polar bear is about to enjoy a two-course meal.
Trackback: As Promised, a Roundtable Review Without a Has-Been Athlete!
Trackback: As Promised, a Roundtable Review Without a Has-Been Athlete!
Trackback: As Promised, a Roundtable Review Without a Has-Been Athlete!
Trackback: As Promised, a Roundtable Review Without a Has-Been Athlete!
Trackback: As Promised, a Roundtable Review Without a Has-Been Athlete!
Trackback: As Promised, a Roundtable Review Without a Has-Been Athlete!
Trackback: As Promised, a Roundtable Review Without a Has-Been Athlete!
Trackback: As Promised, a Roundtable Review Without a Has-Been Athlete!
Trackback: As Promised, a Roundtable Review Without a Has-Been Athlete!
Trackback: As Promised, a Roundtable Review Without a Has-Been Athlete!