Injustice can be….pretty unjust.
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one:
The flight-crew and passengers of a commercial airliner are stricken with food poisoning, and the only hope of a safe landing lies in the hands of a former fighter pilot who hasn’t flown in ten years, after a traumatic war-time experience…
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Jul 23
Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl
“However, it must be said, that the climax is everything you’d expect from a film as weird as this. I don’t want to give too much away here, but I have to talk about one sequence. I can’t help it, and this sequence, in some ways, truly encapsulates the film. During the battle, Vampire Girl disappears up a tower. Frankenstein Girl has to follow her. So, producing a power drill, with a Philips-head screwdriver bit, she detaches her arm, which is holding a knife. Then, she reattaches the arm and the blade onto her head. Her arm and blade begin to spin like a helicopter propeller until she lifts off and flies after her quarry.”
The Great Jesse James Raid (1953)
Thanks to the continuing resentment in the South after the Civil War, James was hailed not as a common criminal but as a symbol of indomitable South’s-gonna-rise-again spirit and a frontier “Robin Hood,” even though he always left out that “give to the poor” part after robbing the rich. Dime novels filled with fanciful versions of his exploits were popular even when he was still alive, and upon his death he became the subject of a full-fledged martyr’s mythology. Jesse James the murderous bank robber had become in the public mind Jesse James the champion of the oppressed and symbol of the fading frontier. America wouldn’t mythologize its contemporary criminal element to the same degree until the days of Bonnie and Clyde.
Jul 22
Well, it’s that time of the month again… time for me to update my site with a new review. This time it’s an Indonesian movie about a Red Visitor from Down Below: Mahluk dari Neraka (“The Creature from Hell”, 1994), a direct-to-video movie that truly deserves its obscurity. It’s not easy spotting such rare films; finding this one took some heavy spotting indeed.
In spite of its short running time, the movie is padded about as much as possible. Padded maximally, you might say. Maxi-padded, in fact. Throw in a narrative with irregular flow, and you’ll see why this flick has a not-so-fresh feeling.
Jul 22
One thing I can’t understand is why makers of B-movies these days seldom venture into the western genre. Yeah yeah, there is the obvious fact that audiences these days don’t seem to be as hungry for westerns as they were a few decades ago… though as I’ve pointed out before, there have been significant turn-outs the few times a good western has arrived in theaters these past few years. And westerns made-for-cable have been delivering solid ratings during this period as well. Plus, the western genre offers many advantages for those often cash-strapped B-movie producers. For one thing, there’s thousands of acres of magnificent landscape with little to no hassle to get permission to shoot on. Not only can Mother Nature can look like a million bucks and instantly increase the look of your movie, but you are often far away from nosy union representatives as well. Scenes that take place in towns? No problem; there are still some old western town sets standing, and with few westerns being shot these days, it’s likely you can rent them cheaply. And some incidentals like period clothing can be reasonably replicated or found cheaply as well.
But what about essential personnel, like directors or (most importantly) actors with at least a passable amount of star value? In the case of The Shooter, they managed to round up a respectable number of B movie stars: Randy Travis, William Smith, Andrew Stevens, and Robert Quarry. Oh, and Michael Dudikoff as the hero gunfighter. As for the director, they got the infamous Fred Olen Ray. Getting the picture now?
…but if you fight, you MUST win!
And GALLANTS (2010) does just that
In an industry that doesn’t really feature seniors as anything other than background characters or cheap comic relief (“Oh, look — they’re having Betty White curse again”), and seems to worship at the altar of youth, Gallants never allows it’s older cast to be presented as novelties. Yeah, for long time fans, seeing Bruce Leung, Chen Kuan-tai, Lo Meng, and Siu Yam-yam in action once more is a treat, but the movie would betray its own theme if it allowed itself to simply get by on nostalgia alone. The writing-directing team of Clement Cheng, Kwok Chi-kin, and Frankie Tam don’t have much experience between them, but they work hard to make Gallants heartfelt, honest, and witty, and something much more than a crass exercise in exploiting yesteryear. Like the cast, the crew puts everything into trying to make this movie good. And just like it does for the character sin the movie, that unwillingness to compromise, or to take the easy route, is what makes Gallants such a tremendously enjoyable movie.
Monday July 19th SUPER CHEESE DAY!
6:00 AM The Manster Have you seen this one? You’ve got to!
7:15 AM The Killer Shrews
8:30 AM Wild Wild Planet Essential, utterly insane ‘60s Italian sci-fi!
10:15 AM War of the Planets Same deal!
12:00 PM THE GREEN SLIME! It on TCM, so it will undoubtedly be LETTERBOXED! Set your Tivos or whatever!
1:45 PM Soylent Green
Then, if that sort of thing is your bag:
3:30 2001: A Space Odyssey
6:00 PM 2010
Oh, and King Kong, the Hunchback of Notre Dame (Lon Chaney) and Seventh Seal are on tonight.
Sure, you’ve seen just about everything in Sam’s Lake (2005) in previous “spam in a cabin” slasher flicks, but at least it all seems sincere. That counts for something, right? Right?
The problem with this movie is not that it is science fiction, nor that it is horror, nor even that it is a comedy. The problem is that it is also a musical. Its budget is a problem as well. Cub scout troops have bigger budgets than this film.
Review Snippet:
The best part of the film has to be Abdulla alarming a number of stout female customers with his unorthodox meat processing methods as he sings about being the “Big Meat Eater.” I almost got into the movie, and then the women (who are about as attractive as sacks of potatoes wearing granny blouses) all start rubbing their necks and chests.
Damn you, film! What do you want from me? Disgust? You’ve got it! Suffering? Present, in abundance! My blood? You…actually, you cannot have that. I need it
Lesson Learned:
Beef is an adhesive.
If spending my life bogged down in a morass of Jaws rip-off killer animal films from 1977 is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
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ORCA (1977) (revised)
Dino de Laurentiis’ attempt to outdo Jaws succeeds about as well as his earlier attempt to make us forget about Willis O’Brien’s handiwork. This outrageous exploitationer runs the gamut from the indefensible to the indescribable, piling lunacy on top of lunacy in its tale of a thick-headed Irish fisherman being stalked around the wilds of Newfoundland by a crazed and homicidal orca.
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(In bandwidth news, I have mostly shaken off my harassers; although they still seem to be hitting me occasionally despite me taking down all their targets. I guess it’s still a work in progress.)
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