Silents and more at 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting :
The Airship Destroyer (1909), in which Great Britain’s answer to Georges Melies predicts the military applications of powered flight with eerie accuracy…
American Psycho 2 (2002), in which a bid to turn one of the more pointed satires of the last ten years into a long-running horror franchise meets with all the success that such a project deserves…
Black Mama, White Mama (1973), in which Margaret Markov and Pam Grier look way better in matching, ass-length prison smocks than Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier were ever going to…
J’Accuse! (1919), in which a ponderous wartime soap opera ducks into the nearest phone booth, and comes out wearing something even more surprising than tights and a cape…
Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973), in which American International achieves the seemingly impossible a second time…
and…
Weird Tales (1919), the forgotten great-grandpappy of everything from Dead of Night to Tales from the Dark Side: The Movie.
#1 by Blake Matthews on August 10, 2008 - 4:16 pm
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So are you going to review the “Blunchblack of Blotre Blame” next time? 🙂
#2 by Baron Scarpia on August 11, 2008 - 1:21 am
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American Psycho 2 has one of the silliest scripts I’ve ever come across. Have you ever seen interviews with the director, El Santo? It’s one weird trip into fantasyland, I can tell you.
#3 by MatthewF on August 11, 2008 - 3:25 am
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“so that they could go on cranking out ever cheaper sequels for the next fifteen years, just like those fuckers who make the Witchcraft movies”
You don’t have to watch them you know….
#4 by lyzard on August 11, 2008 - 3:41 am
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Feh. Who let this weirdo in?
#5 by El Santo on August 11, 2008 - 7:20 am
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“Have you ever seen interviews with the director, El Santo? It’s one weird trip into fantasyland, I can tell you.”
No, I haven’t. What sort of fantasyland are we talking about here?
#6 by KeithA on August 11, 2008 - 8:53 am
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These reviews may have finally pushed me over the edge into buying that Melies box set (and demanding that someone do the same for Booth), which has been on my very long short list for a while, right next to those Houdini films.
#7 by Baron Scarpia on August 11, 2008 - 11:57 am
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Well, to give you a taste, here’s a quote –
‘Our PSYCHO (Mila Kunis) is AMERICAN (her character, as she’s from the Ukraine) – TOO. That’s the connection – AMERICAN PSYCHO, TOO. You’re a psycho, I’m psycho, she’s a psycho, he’s a psycho – Wouldn’t you like to be a psycho, too? ‘
But my favourite quote is the following, explaining why the film was a direct-to-video release –
‘You can save your money and rent a film that is ONLY AVAILABLE at the video stores. It’s almost like we’re letting the consumers get an advance preview by bypassing the theatres completely. I’m looking forward to the upcoming months. I feel the film will find a huge audience without a theatrical release.’
Would it be appropriate, do you think, to start making comments about having bridges for sale? The entire interview is at http://www.joblo.com/arrow/index.php?id=618.
Incidentally, Keith’s comment about his ‘short list’ has got me wondering. What’s the ratio of owned-to-rented (or borrowed) films you watch? I get the impression you all have stacks and stacks of films lining your houses whilst I’m mainly dependent on online renting. I don’t have the cash to do otherwise.
#8 by lyzard on August 11, 2008 - 5:05 pm
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All 782 min of it.
EEP!! Including a tinted print of A La Conquete Du Pole that is 31 minutes long!!!! Better start saving those pennies….
#9 by Baron Scarpia on August 12, 2008 - 1:25 am
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El Santo, you can find one interview at http://www.joblo.com/arrow/index.php?id=618.
This talk of wish lists has me wondering again – what ratio of purchased films to rented films do you watch? I have this impression of people with stacks and stacks of films lining their walls whilst I simply have a stream of movies coming in from online rentals and lendings from friends.
#10 by PCachu on August 13, 2008 - 10:45 am
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“[…] who can divest himself of his remaining residual dignity faster — William Shatner or Adam West?”
Well, I, for one, have enjoyed how Adam West has made a new career of playing various permutations of parodies and tributes to himself, from BTAS’s “Gray Ghost” (tribute) to Kim Possible’s “Fearless Ferret” (parody) to Fairly Oddparents’ “Catman” (slapstick parody). But I’m just in it for the giggles, really.
(Plus, in its own way, the Fearless Ferret was actually a riff on Batman Beyond, complete with Will Friedle playing the same role in both shows.)
#11 by Nathan Shumate on August 13, 2008 - 9:45 pm
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Baron,
I’m mostly a slave to my screener stack these days, punctuated by my twice-annual Video Binges, our regular Cabal roundtables, and of course my love/hate relationship with anything touched by the hand of Charles Band.
#12 by lyzard on August 13, 2008 - 10:15 pm
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I’m a compulsive collector (both a buyer and a recorder), to the point of absurdity: it all passed the “Not If I Live To Be A Thousand” stage some time ago. But I get pleasure out of owning them. I rent also, but mostly to catch up with TV shows I’ve retrospectively decided are worth my while.
(Never watch TV when it’s on, of course: too busy watching the movie I recorded that I couldn’t watch live because I was too busy watching the copy of the movie that I missed the first time because I was too busy watching the DVD that arrived unexpectedly……)
#13 by El Santo on August 14, 2008 - 7:48 pm
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“What’s the ratio of owned-to-rented (or borrowed) films you watch?”
These numbers are just slightly off (I apparently missed three titles while doing the initial tally), but they’re close enough. Of the films I’ve reviewed, I taped 388 (39.7%) off of cable TV, rented 244 (25%) from various video stores, owned 201 (
#14 by El Santo on August 14, 2008 - 7:55 pm
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Crap– let’s try that again, with me not hitting the button prematurely this time…
Right, so I taped 388 (39.7%) off of cable, rented 244 (25%) from various video stores, owned 201 (20.6%) through various channels at the time that I reviewed them, borrowed 77 (7.9%) from friends, saw 62 (6.4%) in the theater, and watched 1 (0.1%) online. Note, however, that I have since acquired a number of movies that I did not own at the time that I reviewed them, and that my to-be-watched pile has climbed dauntingly into the triple digits (largely due to me picking up four of those Mill Creek 50-packs).