The B-Masters Cabal

THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT
As with Kevin Connor’s other adventures based on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land that Time Forgot is low-budget and crammed with tons of really awful special effects. In 1925, Harry Hoyt and Marion Fairfax’s silent film version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World became the first “lost world” movie, and it was said at the time that the special effects work of Willis O’Brien (who would later go on to do the effects for the original King Kong) were so good that audiences at the time would be completely fooled into thinking the film was a documentary with actual footage of actual living dinosaurs. I don’t know how many people did believe the dinosaurs were real, but it’s safe to say that the effects in 1925 were far better than the effects we see in 1975. The Land that Time Forgot isn’t quite as bad as, say, Mighty Gorga bad, but they are pretty terrible.

I just spent two nights at the Nilbog Invasion, the tribute to Troll 2 that took place (is still taking place, actually) in the shooting location, Morgan, Utah.  You can catch my recaps here and here.  (Say — is that something spelled backwards?)

Note: What I wrote isn’t really a review, but if you need more details, you can check out the Unknown Movies’ review.

Teen Sorcery (1999) does have one thing going for it: the utter lack of imagination with which head cheerleader Mercedes wields the dark power of the “Devilstone.”  Somehow, the vapid and petty uses to which she puts her magic in making lives vaguely uncomfortable around Pilgrimtown High School strikes me as terribly realistic.  Still not a good movie, though.

So I’ve been unofficially running a theme for the summer called “Oceans Against Us,” celebrating the many ways in which the vast majority of the Earth’s surface can rise up to give us trouble. Whether it’s facilitating attack by giant squid or serving as a highway for pirates, the ocean is a terrible and mighty force. What can we mere mortals hope to pit against it?

How about Blue Demon and El Santo?

Santo Vs. Blue Demon in Atlantis
Ten years into his film career, Santo had already faced off against zombies, witches, mummies, mad scientists, vampires of both the male and female variety, hatchet-wielding ghosts, homicidal table lamps, and Martians. So it was only a matter of time before the denizens of Atlantis got to the front of the queue. When that time came, Santo would also find himself mixing it up onscreen for the first time with one of his greatest adversaries from — and I use the term advisedly — the “real world” of lucha libre. And just who would that adversary be? Well, I could try to be coy about it, but the journalistic specificity of Santo vs. Blue Demon in Atlantis‘ title would render the effort redundant.

PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER
So someone at England’s Hammer Studios, possibly Anthony Nelson Keys or Michael Carreras, walks up to screenwriter Jimmy Sangster and says to him, “Jimmy, old boy, we want to make a pirate film, and we want you to write it.” Sangster, fresh off the astounding success of his scripts for Hammer’s most famous films — Horror of Dracula, The Mummy, and Curse of Frankenstein, among others, excitedly agrees. It’ll be fun to bring the Hammer style into the realm of swashbuckling pirate movies. Sangster’s mind is undoubtedly already formulating a story when Keys and/or Carreras adds, “Only here’s the thing: we don’t have any money for a boat, so don’t write a script that features a pirate ship.”

It’s a bumper issue of Et Al., featuring everyone from Laurence Olivier to Chuck Norris, and from Bette Davis to Melody Anderson; but all the star-power in the world means nothing compared to the fact that at the last, Lyz is driven to – ulp! – defend the Odious Comic Relief….

Numb (2006) is a dystopian tale of futuristic drug addicts.  It’s also a self-conscious indie film, which means that it’s shot in black and white, and features scenes out of chronological order with characters talking to each other about what a craphole the world has become.  Welcome to the future!

Hero: The Love Story of a Spy
The film as a whole is an interesting variation on the spy film that I am used to. I am not prepared to say it’s a bad film, because it has a lot of good elements. By the same time, I can’t call it good, primarily because of it’s excessive length, and it’s attitude towards Pakistan. Sure, in the real world India and Pakistan have their differences, but presenting the conflict as a violent cartoon, and justifying it with some clumsy jingoistic speeches, isn’t the way forward. I think you’ll have to make up your own mind about this curiosity. It’s a strangely affecting film, that lingers in the memory long after you’ve watched it –– well, certain scenes anyway. If you’re a spy fan, there is a lot of ‘classic’ spy imagery. If you’re a Bollywood fan, there’s certainly enough hip shaking and shimmying to please on that level too.