Announcement:
I am sick to death of horror/thriller posters that use some variation of “Some secrets are better left buried” for the tagline.
Thank you.
Even though it’s a Kushner-Locke kidvid, it’s not shot in Romania; that’s something to cheer right there. Instead of being the standard watered-down sci-fi/fantasy storyline, it’s an adolescent espionage caper, meant to be the adolescent version of the Mission: Impossible films (this is before the Spy Kids and Agent: Cody Banks franchises hit the theaters). There are even signs that it was meant to be the kickoff of a series. Does this mean that this production breaks out of the pattern of unambitious, lowest-common-denominator suckage that characterizes most of the Kushner-Locke/Charles Band productions of the late ’90s?
Cool fool at school
Sep 16
It’s back to school time… well, yeah, I know that school started up again over a week ago, but who hasn’t been late to school? Anyway, the right movie to review for this occasion seemed to be one centering around school, so I dug up Making The Grade, a teen comedy produced by those mischief-makers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus that also has Judd Nelson in his film debut. Andrew Dice Clay also pops up along the way. Surprisingly, the movie ends up being a lot better than you might think. It’s a school comedy with class.
I said in my review of The Last Man on Earth (1964) that any film version of Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend must must must have a commanding performer in the lead role, because that performer will be alone on screen for roughly half the movie. Charlton Heston is the epitome of the commanding performer, whatever you think of his acting ability — from what I’ve seen, he played one role extremely well, that of “being Charlton Heston” — so I suppose it makes perfect sense (or perfect Hollywood sense, anyway) to change the movie around to show him off best.
August was a brutal month, but we’re emerging from the workload and getting back on track.
If there is any problem with High Kick Girl, a low-budget karate fest from Japan, it’s that it’s a terrible movie. If you can overlook that one flaw, then High Kick Girl is pretty decent. However, even if you can’t get over the fact that this movie is a study in incompetence due to inexperience, it’s still possible to wring from the mess a healthy degree of respect for what they were trying to do. Alas, if only good intentions always resulted in good movies. The dream of High Kick Girl was to take the Japanese martial arts movie back from the fumbling hands of CGI-heavy fantasy films and boob-heavy sexploitation stinkers full of AV idols flopping about and calling it karate, and return the martial arts film to the stewardship of people who actually care about it. And make no mistake — I thoroughly believe that everyone involved with High Kick Girl genuinely cares about martial arts and making good martial arts movies. They just aren’t capable of doing so, at least not yet.
Here’s the question. How can you take a story about Confederate bushwhackers versus Union troops in Missouri in the end of the Civil War, add the plot engine of a forbidden romance between a pretty bushwhacker and a Yankee captain, through in a murderous renegade Cherokee… and still have it come out boring?
For the answer, I present to you Renegade Girl (1946).
To be honest, I am very tired of most animated movies that come out today, filled with characters that SCREAM at the top of their lungs and make endless wisecracks and pop-culture references. That’s why, when I am in the mood for an animated feature, I usually look for something different. I picked up Cat City not that long ago, because the way it presented itself promised that the movie would be different than your typical American animated features. For one thing, it was an animated movie from Hungary, the same country that made Hugo The Hippo. Although that movie was awful, it was at least different, so I was pretty sure I would at least get something like that here. But after watching it and writing my review, I’m now prepared for an avalanche of hate e-mails from Hungarians.
A rogue comet causes every machine on the planet to revolt against Mankind. ATMs can only display insulting messages, but tractor-trailers are capable of doing a lot more than calling surprised bank customers bad names.
Review Snippet:
I would much rather run into a murderous can opener than a psychopathic self-propelled lawnmower, while any variety of mobile woodchipper means that my butt would be heading for the closest vertical rock formation. Granted, once I climbed to the top of that, my next problem might well be a swarm of RC helicopters. I’d still rather my last moments recreate the epic finale of “King Kong,” vice a random scene from “Woodchipper Massacre.”
Lesson Learned:
Whoever said that the pen was mightier than the sword was never on the wrong end of a machinegun.
Take that Gamera!
Aug 30
Man, I just could not find a bad ABC Movie of the Week. (Well, OK, there was The Last Dinosaur, which is actually a cousin to this movie. But I reviewed that years ago.) So instead, let us don our breathing gear and flippers, whereupon we may witness the bizarre melange of elements to be found in the Bermuda Depth.
Rosemary's Exorcist
Aug 28
Now, here’s a peculiar thing: two films with an almost identical premise; but as they must have been in production at almost the same time, and debuted within weeks of one another, it seems unlikely that one could have ripped the other off – even though one of them is an Italian horror movie. Both were produced within the long shadow cast by The Exorcist, but owe almost as much to Rosemary’s Baby. Both feature a happy marriage experiencing an improbable pregnancy; a pregnancy that is unnaturally accelerated, and accompanied by revolting eating habits and violent personality changes in the mother-to-be. Both mothers contemplate an abortion, only to have the baby itself fight back. So far, so similar. Then we hit a T-junction. One film blames it all on the aliens; the other blames it all on the devil.
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