In Fingerprints Don’t Lie (1951), a forensic investigator for the police drastically overstates what his evidence proves, and then spends the rest of the movie furiously backpedaling while trying not to look like he’s backpedaling. That’s what it seemed like to me, at any rate. (Notice: Sid Melton warning.)
To Liz, with Love…
Sep 4
OK, on the face of it, not a movie that Liz in particular would seem to be interested in, correct?
Ah, but look closer my friends….
That’s right, Albert Pyun is now such an industry giant that he gets to “present” movies made by other directors!
This is a proud day for world cinema.
The shame, the shame…
Sep 3
In a case of form and content matching each other all too well, technical difficulties prevented me from posting my Roundtable Review on time this month. Er, last month. And no: not all the technical difficulties got solved. But the longer I wait to post, the deeper the shame…
Anyway, I thought I might have some competition for the most embarrassing revelation in last month’s roundtable. Ha! Not even close. In fact, I found this entry so humiliating, I decided to do it as a podcast. That way you’d have had to suffer listen all the way through before you even found out what the title of the movie was! Diabolical, yes?
Actually, in the event, this podcast turned out to be a podcast about why the original podcast didn’t get, umm, podcasted. It features many layers of meta-embarrassment. But hey — if I’m going to tarnish my own reputation, I might as well do a thorough job of it!
Over the years, I have come across a variety of family movies that paired children with animals. I’ve seen several “boy and his dog” movies. I’ve seen a “girl and her reindeer” movie. I’ve seen a “boy and his bear” movie. I’ve even seen a “boy and his dolphin” movie. Just recently, I saw a movie that paired a boy and a… seal? I personally never thought seals had the stuff to be in a movie like those other examples before I saw The Golden Seal, but here’s the movie all the same. Read and see if it gets my seal of approval.
The premise of The Secret Kindom (1997) is this: There’s a kingdom chafing under the grip of a totalitarian leader. This kingdom is under the sink of a house in New Orleans, and is discovered by three children while their parents are away.
Really? This got made? Seriously?
HA! Made it again!
Aug 31
It’s still August, and my review is up. Hey, you wait to the last minute and then spend an entire weekend watching a piece of crap like Starcrash. (Believe me, the photo above makes it look a LOT more enjoyable than it really is.)
So what’s Starcrash like? See that guy in the roundtable banner above? Yeah, that’s what pretty much what I’ve been doing for the last 72 hours. You’d think there’d be more entertainment value in blue-skinned aliens, starship battles, space amazons, space cavemen, robots, Caroline Munro in a variety of bikinis, David Hasselhoff…
OK, maybe not David Hasselhoff.
Shame and other things
Aug 30
There should be no trouble guessing ahead of time which review is my roundtable entry; it’s the one you’ve heard of.
The Black Torment (1964), in which Brits rip off Italians ripping off Brits whose cultural ancestors pretended to be Italians…
Deep Red (1975), in which I am a contrary bastard…
The Ghost of Rashmon Hall (1947), in which we discover that some fool actually made a movie of a Bulwer-Lytton story…
A Place of One’s Own (1945), in which James Mason is awesome, and everything else sadly isn’t…
and…
The Rocking Horse Winner (1949), in which we see a whole new side of D. H. Lawrence.
Killing Mannequins
Aug 30
Luckily, I was only minoring in film studies, so I am still able to wring considerable joy and entertainment out of even the most insipid crap — or out of the most pretentious experiments (except for that one video where it’s just a shot of a stereo speaker with some guy talking about misunderstood communications as the speaker is slowly buried with sand, until what he’s saying can’t be understood at all — I get it; a noble message — did it need to take so long to deliver?). Finally I got to sit down and watch Werner Herzog films, all the old epics I missed, silent films I’d always wanted to see. I even learned to love Godard and the French New Wave. But a man only has so many hours in the day, especially when he has to devote a substantial amount of his time to solving murder mysteries in exotic locales while wearing a tuxedo and armed with nothing but a flashlight and boundless wit. So there still remain substantial gaps in my resume, even within the genres in which I consider or am consider by others to be something of an authority. And in some cases, the films I have not seen in those particular genres aren’t just major films; they are the films. The cornerstone. The one everyone should see and from which all intelligent discourse flows.
Case in point: I love Mario Bava movies. I love giallo. And while making a claim for any film as “the first giallo” will only degenerate into an unresolvable debate akin to naming the first punk rock band, a lot of people tend to agree that it’s Mario Bava’sBlood and Black Lace — which I’ve never seen.
SANTO VS. THE INVASION OF THE MARTIANS
The leader of the Martians, Argos insists that from now on they all speak Spanish because the country they are going to invade on the planet Earth is Mexico. Why Mexico? Maybe they like Corona? Before landing, the Martian’s announce their intentions by interrupting television broadcasts around the world. Initially everybody thinks their television is on the fritz but slowly the Martians come into view. The leader announces that they are from Mars (naturally). Then states:‘Instead of using your scientific advancements to better humanity, you Earthlings use them for your own destruction. When you wage war with conventional weapons you are the only victims of your ambition and selfishness. But with the discovery of nuclear energy and your mad experiments with the atomic bomb, you are on the verge of destroying the entire planetary system.’
The Martians want all the governments on the planet to accept total disarmament; eliminate all borders and adopt a unified language. Next they want a global government established, which does not discriminate based on colour or creed, and finally and most importantly, Earth has to give up war forever. If these terms are not agreed to, the Martian will annihilate everybody on the planet.
Earthlings, being as cynical and self centred as we are, dismiss the transmission as a comedy skit.