Archive for category New Reviews

And he did it HIS way

Bad, Black and Beautiful! The B-Masters' BaadAsssss Roundtable

Death JourneyWhen the blaxploitation craze dried up at the major Hollywood studios, Fred Williamson kept chugging along by making his own star vehicles, Death Journey being one of them. It’s more often than not silly and inept, but it’s all the same a lot of fun to watch.

Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

Deadly Art of Survival

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Teleport City’s roundtable contribution is in effect:

das6DEADLY ART OF SURVIVAL

Amid the ruin and confusion of 1970s New York, a group of (primarily white) young artists, freaks, punks, and weirdos decided they were going to become movie makers, the cinematic branch of No Wave, new wave’s slightly stranger, more chaotic sibling. At the same time, uptown and in The Bronx, a group of (primarily black and Hispanic) young artists, freaks, dancers, and weirdos were pioneering a creative lifestyle that would become known as Hip Hop. The two scenes intersected frequently, and when no wave film maker Charlie Ahearn was stopped by a group of black kungfu students who wanted to know what he was doing with a movie camera, DEADLY ART OF SURVIVAL was born. It’s more interesting as a historic piece than an actual film, a fascinating (to me) cocktail of punk, New York, black culture, martial arts and the role kungfu films played in black urban life, and a celebration of a dude who was being paid in pizza but was still willing to get kungfu kicked into the 1978 East River.

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Keith Allison is the chief Bacchanologist at Teleport City.

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Well… it’s a REAL movie…

UFO's Are RealThe documentary UFO’s Are Real attempts to convince viewers that we are not alone in this universe. And no, I didn’t make a typo with the title – there’s an apostrophe in the title both on the video box and in the opening credits, and it’s just the start of many problems to be found with this documentary.

Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

Teen scene

Seven Minutes In HeavenJust before hitting it big with Labyrinth, future Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly starred in the teen movie Seven Minutes In Heaven. Despite the suggestive title, it’s actually a sensitive and thoughtful drama that both teenagers and older viewers will enjoy.

Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

Not much to see here

Love At First SightDan Aykroyd probably wishes that no one sees the Canadian movie Love At First Sight, which happens to be his motion picture debut.

Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

Not exactly the update I promised…

A bunch of reviews that refused to get written combined with the emergence of an obsessional new project to render my usual B-Fest roundup both irrelevant and impracticable.  Still, a couple of the projected B-Fest reviews were sufficiently well advanced to be worth resurrecting once I got back into the swing of things:

 

Attack of the Puppet People (1958), in which a startlingly good Bert I. Gordon movie is undercut somewhat by insisting upon sci-fi when it ought to be straight-up fantasy instead…

Drunken Tai Chi (1984), which is a charming light comedy about assassination and post-traumatic stress disorder…

Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962), in which the makers of Reptilicus return to Denmark to rework The Angry Red Planet

The Lair of the White Worm (1988), in which Ken Russell decides that an obscure Bram Stoker novel could use a little extra sex and blasphemy…

The Lost Missile (1958), in which an unconscionable orgy of stock footage gives way to an unexpectedly bleak and sober meditation on the end of the world…

RoboCop (2014), which didn’t suck anywhere near as much as I thought it was going to…

and…

Thomasine and Bushrod (1973), which wasn’t supposed to be the blaxploitation Bonnie and Clyde, but inevitably gets passed off as that anyway.

 
 
 

El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.

A mean and gritty western

BandidosYou have not been getting enough pasta in your cinematic diet! To remedy that, track down Bandidos, a spaghetti western that has real spice in the sauce.

Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

A good High Priest is hard to find

Ahem.

This was actually supposed to be my second entry in the last Roundtable, but when I lose a DVD somewhere in the house, it stays lost…

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THE MUMMY’S GHOST (1944)

In which John Carradine is sent to Mapleton, Massachusetts, to clean up the mess made by Turhan Bey, and ends up fouling the nest even more thoroughly.

Meanwhile, Kharis decides that he’s had enough of High Priests interfering in his love-life…

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Liz Kingsley is the insane genius behind And You Call Yourself a Scientist!

Hitchcock in space

LifepodThe movie Lifepod takes Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat and gives it a sci-fi twist. It’s an interesting idea, but director Ron Silver is no Hitchcock.

Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

A Yahrzeit Candle for Tío Jess

Reviews for the Anniversary of Jess Franco's Death
Yahrzeit? OK, OK, so Jess Franco wasn’t Jewish. That’s OK: neither am I. Still, this is the one-year anniversary of his death, so in his honor I’m posting reviews from two of the last — how shall I put it? — unambiguously good years of his film-making life.

1965
Miss Muerte/The Diabolical Dr. Z — often called Franco’s best film.

1966
Cartes sur table/Attack of the Robots — Franco’s first movie with Eddie Constantine.
Residencia para Espías/Golden Horn — Franco’s last movie with Eddie Constantine, who really looks better in black & white.

Will Laughlin is the Braineater.