Another theater-heavy update for what’s shaping up to be a theater-heavy year, this time including reviews of a couple first-run films along with one last B-Fest straggler and something I caught in revival:
Delicatessen (1991), in which some French eccentrics see the funny side to the end of the world…
Demonic Toys (1992), in which one of Hell’s less competent devils tried to incarnate himself, but got stuck haunting a toy warehouse instead…
Dirty Ho (1979), in which a tricky prince blackmails a thief into becoming his bodyguard…
Dune, Part Two (2024), in which a messiah is the last thing you want running loose on your planet, even if you don’t belong to a clan of colonizing tyrants…
The Five Deadly Venoms (1978), in which murder mysteries play very differently when they’re resolved by frenetic kung fu fights…
and…
Immaculate (2024), in which forcing a woman to carry a clone of Jesus is just as much a dick move as forcing her to mother the Antichrist.
El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.
#1 by dawn on May 1, 2024 - 6:52 pm
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Positively the best description of Immaculate Conception I have ever heard.
When I started reading the review, I wondered if I should make a comment about ‘actually, no, that’s not what Immaculate Conception means’, only to find out you beat me to it. Thank you for that.
It’s almost as common a misconception (sorry) as FrankensteinNoWaitYouMeanthe Monster.
#2 by maggiesmith on May 2, 2024 - 11:20 am
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It didn’t occur to me, when I saw Delicatessen , that it was supposed to be a post-apocalypse story. I don’t really remember much about it, except for the Rube Goldberg suicide devices.
#3 by ronald on May 4, 2024 - 12:25 am
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(apropos of very little)
Full Moon Entertainment has the distinction of being one of three low-budget film companies (the other two are Troma Entertainment and the rather straightforwardly named Low Budget Pictures) known not only for having something approaching an interconnecting continuity in its films but for having films that feature characters that can reasonably be called “super-heroes.” Tragically, not one of those companies took the opportunity to hop onto the Cinematic Universe train. It could have been a concept whose time had come: The Low-Budget Blockbuster. Oh well. Full Moon at least brushed against the concept with the 2018 comic book miniseries “Dollman Kills the Full Moon Universe” #1-6.
#4 by El Santo on May 4, 2024 - 12:51 pm
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It wasn’t for lack of trying on Charles Band’s part! Like, one of the Full Moon projects that got scuppered in an early phase of pre-production by the breakup with Paramount circa 1994 was something called Legion of Doom, which would have teamed up Dollman, Doctor Mordrid, the Wade Franklin Mandroid, and Franklin’s assistant, Benjamin Knight (who was rendered transparent in the Mandroid sequel, Invisible) to battle… well, I don’t think the film made it as far as deciding that before the plug got pulled, but I’m sure it would have involved a pack of wee little monsters somehow.
#5 by ronald on May 4, 2024 - 6:29 pm
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Interesting, although it’s hardly to Full Moon’s favor to have somehow missed that the name “Legion of Doom” was claimed LONG ago. 🙂 As you probably know but others may not, the Full Moon Universe is also known as the Bongy Westphall Universe (in honor of Tommy); it used to have an article on Wikipedia outlining exactly how, and how many, Full Moon films connected to each other. That’s vanished from Wikipedia (not “significant” enough, I suppose) but I’m sure it can still be found elsewhere. As noted, there was also a comic book miniseries which is also in TPB.
Coincidentally enough, both Troma and Low Budget have fictional settings (Tromaville, New Jersey and Bonejack Heights, New York) whose real-life (i.e. filming) locations are only a few hours drive from each other (I’ve been playing around with the idea of the low-budget super-hero blockbuster for a while now…). In a less complicated world, that would IMHO be enough of an excuse for a super-hero team-up movie but, of course, copyright laws would render any such fun notion unworkable. AFAIK Full Moon’s only full-fledged fictional city is Pahoota, California, much too far away for an easy connection to the theoretical fun. Besides, Californians and Jerseyites? Talk about unworkable…
Kind of related, I’m not sure what happened to the setup that the ending of “Brightburn” hinted at. I’m also not sure there are any other “just regular” film studios who have interconnecting super-hero narratives but there might be.
(I just at the moment don’t have any in particular to say about the most recent reviews, sorry about that. Perhaps before too long.)
#6 by Alaric on May 22, 2024 - 6:21 am
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Does Warner Brothers actually have a trademark on the name “Legion of Doom” in terms of movie titles, though?
#7 by supersonic on November 1, 2024 - 1:28 am
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I haven’t seen Villeneuve’s Dune movies, but they do look cool, and I guess it’s cool to see someone throw a clearer spotlight on the deconstructive aspect of the story. But it sounds like he overcooked it, making both Paul and Jessica overt supervillains, and made significant story changes to bring that about. Herbert never made anything that obvious. Even by book four, when Leto II is a literal monster who has imposed the most smothering tyranny of all time, it’s always ambiguous whether he’s being an oppressor or a savior.
It’s clear now that Paul Atreides was the main inspiration for Eren Yeager. But Isayama-san, being a master of twists and reveals, didn’t let that show until the story was 90% over.