Aug 4
The indie movie Me & Will definitely has its heart in the right place, so much so there was a large part of me that wanted to recommend it. But ultimately there was a larger part of me that saw its weaknesses.Here’s what went up last night at 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting:
Army of the Dead (2021), in which what happens in Vegas damned well better stay in Vegas…
Crocodile (1979), in which Sompote Sands evidently couldn’t quite complete the shift of gears between ripping off “Ultraman” and ripping off Jaws…
Devil’s Express (1975), in which Brooklyn karate gangs battle each other for dope-pushing territory and an ancient Chinese demon for the fate of humankind…
Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), in which screenwriter Daniel Farrands attempts to revitalize a floundering, superannuated slasher franchise by reconfiguring it as an “X-Files” clone…
and…
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), in which the studio walks that back with a quickness after the original cut gets curbstomped by preview audiences.
Also, I’ve finally grown sufficiently embarrassed of some of the reviews from my first few years of operation to rewrite them practically from the ground up. So far I’ve identified a dozen reviews in need of such treatment, and I expect I’ll discover a few more before I’m through. Here’s the first installment on that project:
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), in which Hammer Film Productions were just trying not to get sued, but accidentally touched off a revolution in world horror cinema…
Die, Monster, Die! (1965), in which American International Pictures entrust Daniel Haller to do for H.P. Lovecraft what Roger Corman had already done for Edgar Allan Poe, but the venture doesn’t go nearly as well…
and…
First Man into Space (1958), in which an also-also-ran British studio perfects the art of impersonating cheap American crap.
El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.
Jul 15
What makes The Siege Of Firebase Gloria stand out from most other 1980s Vietnam War movies is its good script, professional acting, and its ability to deliver a great amount of very intense action.
Apart from its once in a lifetime cast (including Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Cameron Mitchell, David Caruso, Neville Brand, Ralph Meeker, and Larry Storch), about the only interest to be found with the drive-in movie Without Warning are some striking resemblances to a major Hollywood studio movie released seven years later.Jun 25
Just a look at the poster art with its captions gave me an idea that I would be in trouble when actually watching Mixed Company, but I was still unprepared for a “family movie” that turned out to be unbelievably vile and reprehensible. For once, the notoriously draconian Ontario Board of Censors made a sane decision.
If you are looking for cinematic insanity, Mad Mission 3 (a.k.a. ACES GO PLACES 3) is just what the doctor ordered, especially since this insanity happens to be extremely entertaining with its mix of bizarre comedy with some outrageous action.
Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.I began a whole lot of reviews during that year or so when I never posted anything, but they all seemed to fall apart on me about a page in at best. One of the things I want to do this year is to finish as many of those as are worth salvaging. Not everything in this current update falls into that category, but I’m sufficiently satisfied with the ones that do to feel confident that the project is worth pursuing further:
The Blood of Heroes (1989), in which not even the end of the world can save us from organized sports…
Frankenhooker (1990), which makes me oddly nostalgic for urban blight…
Hello, Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987), in which all your darkest suspicions about would-be prom queens are confirmed…
Homoti (1987), in which rank opportunism and nonexistent intellectual property laws are for once insufficient to explain a painfully cheap Turkish copy of a Hollywood blockbuster…
and…
The Sword of the Barbarians (1982), in which it turns out there’s a limit to even the Italian appetite for throwing good money after bad.
El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.
Jun 3
I really thought I would like Man Of The East. It was a spaghetti western with comedy, and had Terence Hill, so how could it go wrong? But there are exceptions to every rule.May 27
If you’d rather not read the almost two thousand words of my review, a summary of my feelings about The Pride Of Jesse Hallam can be simply summed up with two words: “Very good”.And with this post, I have already doubled my annualized update frequency as compared to 2020.
First up, help yourselves to the All-You-Can-Keep-Down Seafood Buffet of 1989:
DeepStar Six (1989), in which the poor, sad bastards on the ocean floor are setting up an undersea missile base, and the weird thing they find is sort of like a giant mantis shrimp…
Endless Descent (1989), in which the poor, sad bastards on the ocean floor are trying to rescue the crew of a vanished submarine, and there’s no frigging end to the weird things they find…
Leviathan (1989), in which the poor, sad bastards on the ocean floor are silver miners, and the weird thing they find is the result of an experiment by the Soviet Navy to turn their special forces troops into gill-men…
and…
Lords of the Deep (1989), in which the poor, sad bastards on the ocean floor are scientists trying to develop undersea habitats for a post-apocalyptic humanity, and the weird thing they find is a colony fishlike extraterrestrials.
And then we have the usual rather random miscellany:
Crimes of Passion (1984), in which Ken Russell accidentally makes a full-on 90’s-style Erotic Thriller several years early, just by getting Ken Russell all over a mid-80’s neo-noir…
The Video Dead (1987), in which watching TV really is as bad for you as the pundits always said…
War of the Colossal Beast (1958), in which Mr. B.I.G. brings back Mr. Big…
and…
The Wraith (1986), in which the Crow borrows the Car from Satan in order to hunt down Toecutter from beyond the grave.
El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.