The French filmmakers behind The Outside Man may have filled their movie with American stars and American locations, but the movie as a whole is unquestionably French.
Archive for category New Reviews
Four years before the movie The Running Man was released, the French released The Prize Of Peril, which uses the same basic idea as the Schwarzenegger movie.
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In which vampirism-as-disease runs a red light and collides violently with vampirism-as-delusion.
And as is the case with most such accidents, the results are horrifying, but you just can’t look away…
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[NB: NSFW. Boobies. Also some blood, but mostly boobies.]
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Liz Kingsley is the insane genius behind And You Call Yourself a Scientist!
Devil Story / Il était une fois le diable (1985)
It’s not very often you run into a movie that is so epically terrible that you come away convinced it’s trying to destroy its entire genre. But then again, there aren’t any other films like Devil Story. The first (and only) horror film by a director who’d specialized in tacky comedies, Devil Story is so obvious and unapologetic in its shortcomings that it’s hard to believe it wasn’t made that way intentionally.
Director Bernard Launois’s occasional flashes of competence only make the situation worse. It’s been called the French Plan 9, but it’s really in a category all by itself.
Beautiful Alien Yakuza Jerks
Jan 30
Oops. Lost track of time. Let’s get caught up with where Teleport City stands so far in 2015…
THE GREAT BEAUTY Arts and entertainment journalist Jep Gambardella has a problem. Standing in the middle of the swanky pageantry of Roman nightlife at the age of 65, he feels more than a bit foolish and, as a result, lost. When first we meet him, it is amid the thumping techno and drunken revelry of a lavish rooftop party that seems initially that it should be the purview of 20-somethings cutting loose in Ibiza. But through it all strides Jep, resplendent in his stylish suit but feeling increasingly out-of-place amid such bacchanal… |
SPACE: 1999 – ONCE MORE WITH FEELING Other than the long wait since the end of season one, there was little in “The Metamorph,” the first episode of Space: 1999’s second season to clue you into just how much had gone wrong with the series, and how much more wrong was waiting on the horizon. Certainly, some things had changed. For starters, there’s a new theme song and someone must have found a box of colorful orange and blue jackets in a closet somewhere, because everyone has started wearing jackets. Alphans have also started wearing ID badges with their name and photo on them because…in a confined space for years with three-hundred or people or so, I am sure it was awkward for Koenig to still not know “that one guy’s name.” So he issued the command for “Hello My Name Is” tags to save everyone discomfort at parties. |
SPACE: 1999 – ALIENS ARE JERKS Space: 1999 taught me two valuable lessons. The first is that space is depressing and best represented by the color taupe. The second is that, with few exceptions, aliens are jerks. At least in the first season, Space: 1999captures malaise, chronic low-grade depression and inertia perfectly. Moon Base Alpha itself is unsteerable. It is filled with people who have survived mostly by evaluating their situation and accepting it. Charleton Heston would not last long on Alpha—he would blow up the moon when he attempted seize control of his destiny and the moon by attaching engines to it. As the moon exploded, Commander John Koenig and Dr. Helena Russell would silently turn to one another in a final affectless, unspoken admission of their love. |
COLOSSUS AND THE AMAZON QUEEN Since you can’t really expect subtlety in the action of a peplum film, you shouldn’t expect any subtlety from the comedy or the self-referential jokes. Taken for what it is within the confines of the peplum world, this is a clever film that plays off the gender clichés already emerging in the genre. The ladies of sword and sandal films almost never do anything other than get rescued, swoon, faint, engage in erotic tribal dancing, or make strange proclamations and predictions. The important stuff, like throwing rocks at monsters, plotting dastardly schemes in the throne room, and pushing over columns, is left up to the men. |
BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR & HUMANITY II: DEADLY FIGHT IN HIROSHIMA I’ve been sitting here trying to think of an adequate way to describe exactly what it is that Sonny Chiba does and wears in this second film in Kinji Fukasaku’s highly enjoyable, highly influential Battles without Honor and Humanity series of films that delve into the world of organized crime and the role it played in rebuilding post-war Japan. The closest I can come up with to summarize the acting display by Chiba is to say that you should try to imagine William Shatner and Jimmy Walker being merged into one creature, which the director then instructs to “stop being so subtle.” |
Keith Allison is the chief Bacchanologist at Teleport City.
Cowboy criminals
Jan 28
The Blake Edwards movie Wild Rovers is one of the most underrated westerns to come out of the 1970s.
While Pink Angels isn’t the worst biker movie I have seen, it is definitely the strangest. Not because of its core premise – a different kind of biker gang – but the way this premise is executed.
The sci-fi thriller Xchange compensates for a low budget with a smart script, skilled direction, and effective acting.
In the far-flung future of 1940, the world is divided into two superpowers which, due to the activities of agents provocateurs, are being driven daily ever closer to all-out war.
The only hope for the world is the influential and increasingly powerful Peace League, which dedicates itself to preventing the declaration of war…whatever it takes…
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Liz Kingsley is the insane genius behind And You Call Yourself a Scientist!For my last update of 2014, I remember one of the greats:
Knives of the Avenger (1966), in which we contemplate what to call a Western about Vikings. A Northern? A ryer? A drakenskif opera?
5 Dolls for an August Moon (1970), which was Bava’s own pick for his worst movie ever…
Lisa and the Devil (1973), which is my pick for his most eccentric movie ever…
Rabid Dogs (1974), in which Bava spreads his wings only to have the perch collapse under his feet before liftoff…
and…
The House of Exorcism (1975), in which Bava and producer Alfredo Leone resort to truly desperate measures in the hope of recouping some of Leone’s Lisa and the Devil investment.