Some day, I’m going to not lag behind in these things. But that some day is not this day, and so let’s play a bit of catch-up with recent reviews.

Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec Adele Blanc-sec is highly enjoyable adventure cinema, and if you’re a fan of any of the other titles mentioned in the review, specifically Tintin(either in print or film), the Sherlock Holmes movies, the Amelia Peabody Mysteries, or The Parasol Protectorate books, then you are going to find yourself comfortably at home with Adele Blanc-sec’s loony blend of action, archaeology, supernatural beasties, whimsy, and gentleman mummies with proper manners. I hope Besson gets another movie in the series made, even if he’s only producing. There’s too much left untapped and this one was too fun to just let it be.
Lady Dragon I was quite looking forward to Lady Dragon. For one thing it has the remarkable Richard Norton, who has traded blows with Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung on a few memorable occasions, as the bad guy. For another the film seems to be quite popular with other Cynthia Rothrock fans. On top of that the other three Cynthia movies I’d reviewed so far had lulled me into a false sense of security by all being enjoyably cheesy. Little did I know that a scant 90 minutes after popping this DVD in, I’d feel so soiled as to be contemplating a two-day shower. In battery acid.
Drive Ultimately anyone who likes action should come away from this movie with a big grin plastered across their face, before they rewind it to watch those jaw-dropping fight scenes again and again. It’s been a long time since a Hollywood studio managed to release anything as entertaining as Steve Wang‘s little movie, and given that the world is kung fu mad right now this is the perfect time to see it. I guarantee it’s a Drive you won’t regret taking. And yes, I know I deserve to be punished for that final pun…
Hero Dream Hero Dream is one of the sleazier Cat III action films. In fact, it’s so sleazy and so packed with full frontal nudity and cameras lingering on female pubic hair that it seems almost illegal for it not to have at least co-starred Charlie Cho. Cho must have been busy making twenty other sex films the week Hero Dreamwas made — provided they bothered to take an entire week to film Hero Dream. If they did, it certainly doesn’t show. There seems to have been absolutely no effort at all to come up with a script, giving the movie a very prevalent “we’re just making up scenes as we go until we hit the 85 minute mark.” What effort did go into the movie was spent almost entirely on making it as dense with nudity as possible, with a small bit of effort reserved for finding the absolutely most atrocious shirts and ties for Chin Kar-lok.
The Warrior & The Sorceress It’s a shame that the material can’t live up to the cast; for a movie that runs only 77 minutes, so much filler and repetition really isn’t a good idea. A couple of the fight scenes are OK — Anthony De Longis knows his stuff, sure enough — but the best one is at the end of the movie by which time I was struggling to stay awake. The whole thing is too generic and too dull to linger much in the memory, and probably only merits interest because Carradine is the star rather than Rick Hill, Pietro Torrisi, Miles O’Keefe or whoever. Of all the Conan rip-offs, this… is one.
China O’Brien 2 I still remember my first exposure to China O’Brien 2. It was in the form of a trailer on the rental tape ofChina O’Brien that played right after the movie ended. “Hmm,” my teenage mind reflected, “it looks exactly the same as the one we just watched.” And that was that. Despite my freakish and possibly legally actionable obsession with Cynthia Rothrock, I’d never actually seen the sequel until a couple of days ago. And though my intellect has been transformed over the years by intense studies of art, literature, science and Internet porn, my naive observation back in the early 90s turned out to be spot on.

While the subject matter of Dog Soldiers – highly trained soldiers encountering a relentless pack of werewolves – may sound howlingly bad and predictable, I can happily report that the end results are done with a good amount of smarts as well as a number of thrills and chills. And topped off by some effective black humor. This is one B movie that without doubt should have crossed into the mainstream.

NOTE: From now on, I’ll be updating with a new review every ten days instead of every fourteen days. See you again sooner rather than later!

They’re better than all right. They’re the Rising Generation, and they’ve got guts. Yours. And they’re ripping them out even as we speak…

We Are What We Eat (2012) is a short zombie film written and directed by Sam Toller, a 16 year old film-maker from the UK. It’s being premiered at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth in Seattle on Friday April 27, 2012, at 11:00pm (Toller isn’t even the youngest director represented in the Festival’s Late Night Horror Show, which I find a very encouraging sign). You know all the times I’ve moaned that every kid with a camera and a bucket of fake blood thinks he can make a zombie movie? Well, I will never make that comparison again… because it turns out there’s at least one who does it pretty well.

Unfortunately, I can’t make it to the show myself; but if anybody’s in the area and has a chance to attend the Late Night Horror Show, please post your impressions in the Comments.

Oh — and that sound you hear in the distance is Mary Whitehouse shrieking in Hell.

Although The Unknown Movies doesn’t have to follow any Canadian content laws, I review the occasional Canadian movie so that The Powers That Be won’t notice a lack of Canadiana on my site and subsequently pass a law that would force me to review Canadian movies more frequently. If you have seen as many bad and/or unwatchable Canadian movies as I have, like Crossover, you would understand my fears.

THE MUMMY’S TOMB (1942)

In this surprisingly effective sequel to 1940′s The Mummy’s Hand, Lon Chaney Jr replaces Tom Tyler under the bandages.

Set thirty years after its predecessor (kind of), The Mummy’s Tomb finds Kharis and the new High Priest of Karnak travelling to Massachusetts in order to inflict some long-delayed vengeance upon the desecrators of the Princess Ananka’s tomb. Aided by the stubborn incredulity of The Authorities, Kharis swiftly racks up an impressive body count—only to once again become the victim of his High Priest’s inability to keep it in his pants.

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Playing a bit of catch up

GANDAHAR Laloux and the French team ran into a number of issues working with the North Korean animators. For starters, there were the boobs. Like Fantastic Planet, Gandahar contains plenty of naked flesh, blue though it may be. It wasn’t so much the nudity itself that caused the Koreans to pause. It was the melon-size breasts. The animators, sequestered as they were in their workers’ paradise, couldn’t really grasp the concept of women’s breasts being the size of basketballs. Actually, they probably had a point.

RAVENHAWK Ravenhawk isn’t a movie that is going to convince a Pyun hater that he has talent, but if you are like me and have an easygoing ability to roll with Pyun’s peculiarities, Ravenhawk makes for a pretty pleasant tale of violent revenge and punching William Atherton in the face.

Also, I’ve retooled the Teleport City Blog to be a bit more active, mostly with posting ridiculous photos, pulp art, and probably lots of photos of Edwige Fenech and Louise Brooks, so if you want to waste a few seconds of your time, have a gander: http://teleport-city.com/wordpress/?cat=2059

Even if you are not a fan of Euro westerns like The Deserter, you’ve got to admit that this particular one has a hell of a cast. Included in the cast are Richard Crenna, Chuck Connors, Ricardo Montalban, Brandon De Wilde, Slim Pickens, Woody Strode, Albert Salmi, Patrick Wayne, Ian Bannen, and John Huston – whew!

CHILLERAMA

I have a sort of bad movie spider sense, but this time my super powers totally rickrolled me. Parts of this anthology movie are absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately, the brilliant parts are smothered by loads of sexual jokes and toilet humor. I laughed some, I cried some, I rolled my eyes a lot.

Review Snippet:
The fourth and final movie is “Deathication” which mocks the memory of William Castle. The purported director introduces the film, and threatens that it will scare people so much that they will befoul themselves with excrement. It only lasts for a short while before ending due to events taking place at the drive-in, but it packs plenty of s**t into those the few minutes. Ever want to see a man experiencing projectile dysentery? Well, you’re in luck.

Lesson Learned:
Jason Voorhees is Jewish.

More proof that 2011 was not my friend: this film has been sitting on my hard drive, waiting to be reviewed, for 14 months…

So—a little belated SCIENCE IN THE REEL WORLD:

THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR (1936)

This early scientific biopics finds Paul Muni blazing a trail that would later be followed by Edward G. Robinson, and shaking off his type-casting to play Louis Pasteur; a role that won him an Academy Award for Best Actor.

Focusing upon Pasteur’s battles have the “germ theory” of disease and his work in the development of vaccines accepted, the film is a slightly frustrating simplification of the scientist’s career—but is nevertheless historically important as the first production of its kind.

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Actor David Carradine must have had a good working relationship with movie producer Roger Corman, because Carradine appeared in close to twenty movies produced by Corman. It would also explain why in Crime Zone, Carradine not only acted but also sat in the associate producer’s chair. The fact that Carradine had two jobs to do on this movie may explain why he appears onscreen in just a few brief scenes, which is one of several problems the finished product has.