These Kushner-Locke kidvids shot in Romania need to be assessed the same way that home appraisers assign value to a home; in addition to an objective assessment of the specific movie’s merits, you have to compare it to its comparable surroundings and see where it fits in in the community. In this case, The Excalibur Kid’s nearest neighbors are Teen Knight (1998) and Johnny Mysto: Boy Wizard (1997), produced by the same people under the same conditions, all three of them dealing with modern teens transported back in time to medieval periods. Johnny Mysto and The Excalibur Kid even have an Arthurian flavor in common. Compared with these other likely suspects in a lineup, The Excalibur Kid comes off pretty well. But I would have to say that see The Excalibur Kid after Teen Knight and Johnny Mysto is the only way to make it look good.
Archive for August, 2010
Hmm, someone should put those things into one movie.
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NAKED KILLER
It’s easy to dismiss a film like Naked Killer. But, to me, it’s only the subpar exploitation films that give sex and violence a bad name, while the ones like Naked Killer put sex and violence back on the pedestal where they belong. Rather than the nihilistic sleaze-fest that one might typically expect from the Cat III genre, Naked Killer is a film that rages with vitality, and offers about as good an example as I can think of of cinema’s unique ability to show us a vision of our waking world merged with that of dreams. |
SEVERED: FOREST OF THE DEAD Severed is a great title for this movie. Not because of anything that it has to do with the movie — honestly, I can think of better titles. No, it’s perfect because it describes the way that it was just tearing me apart inside to watch this film. My frustration stems from the fact that this movie could have been truly excellent, and instead crapped it up with derivative idiocies and poor choices, making it a movie that I can at best offer a neutral recommendation on. “Yeah, sure, I guess you could watch that.” |
The spirited exchanges between the hero and the villain are a treat, and the atmosphere is great, but what makes this movie special is the demon. It is a truly memorable addition to cinema’s museum of monsters.
Review Snippet:
The key to John’s dilemma is understanding the rules governing Karswell’s demon. Back in 1957 you could not walk into a bookstore and buy a copy of “Summoning Demons for Dummies.” Heck, you still can’t. I even searched Amazon.com for the title. In that same nether vein, John also couldn’t Google “demon parchment Karswell” to look for answers. The Internet had not been invented. 1957 is so incredibly far in the past that Pong hadn’t been invented yet (and we all know how useful Pong is).
Lesson Learned:
80% of England is covered by wallpaper; 95% of which is ugly, 50% hideously so.
Spelling B
Aug 7
Aaron Spelling produced a staggering number of television shows during the course of the 70’s. His productions included iconic TV series, like “Dynasty”, “Charlie’s Angels”, “Fantasy Island” and “The Love Boat”, as well as some of the best-remembered (if not necessarily the best) TV movies, including Crowhaven Farm, The Daughters of Joshua Cabe and The Boy in the Plastic Bubble . Not everything he touched turned to television gold, but even some of his less successful productions are still memorable (does the phrase “Football — you bet!” ring a bell?).
1978’s Cruise Into Terror is one of the misfires. The script seems like somebody stuffed an issue of the National Enquirer in a blender… but the formidable all-star cast makes the resulting mess much more entertaining than it has any right to be.
The gender jungle!
Aug 5
Of course, the ‘70s were a decade frought with Meaning anyway – new wisdom, new paradigms, discovering one’s self, getting in touch with one’s inner child/mystic/mother-in-law/what have you. What could have been (and was surely meant to be originally) a mildly engaging suspense yarn became a pseudo-drama, painting a picture of societal tensions present in the minds and op-ed columns of the sensitive intelligentsia at the time. Not bad for a Monday Night Movie on ABC.
A drama with fangs
Aug 5
How good is the suspense thriller Venom? Well, actor Klaus Kinski chose to act in this film instead of taking an offer from Steven Spielberg to appear in Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Though on the other hand, I also found out Kinski made this choice not for artistic reasons, but for financial ones – he was offered more money to appear in Venom. Yet Venom manages to be a very good movie, suspenseful and filled with tension. It also regards its audience as being smart instead of dumb. And with Oliver Reed clashing with Kinski throughout the movie, you know you are going to get your money’s worth from that alone.
Bad touch!
Aug 3
No, it’s not more sexual harassment at a comic book convention. Instead, we take a break from TV movies to watch some Saturday morning TV cartoons. Come see what happens when the Superfriends find themselves projected into books of classic–not to mention public domain–literature, and face being trapped forever in a FAIRY TALE OF DOOM.
There’s also still time to get in on the debate about which Bennet sister would end up marrying Solomon Grundy, by the way, although Mary seems to be running away with it.
I’m taking a break from the obscure and the unsubtitled, to review one of the best-remembered TV movies of all time:
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)
Sure, there are far scarier things on television these days… for instance, I’d rather be locked in a house with three murderous demon-imps than with the cast of any reality TV show. But when it comes to sheer craftsmanship, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark can withstand comparison to almost any movie on the big or small screen.
It’s AYCYAS! – where too much is never enough!
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one:
The flight-crew and passengers of a commercial airliner are stricken with food poisoning, and the only hope of a safe landing lies in the hands of a helicopter pilot who hasn’t flown in years, after a traumatic experience in Vietnam…
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