The B-Masters Cabal

It takes more than the flu to put me down.  Hell, it takes more than a brain stem stroke.  Which means that a chunky wanna-be Max Schreck wandering around Romania trying to be the Angel of Death in Talisman (1998), yet another late ’90’s Full Moon production, really doesn’t send me screaming, you know?  That’s because what hasn’t killed me has made me stronger.  So there.

Dharem-Veer
Dharam-Veer is a movie designed to thrill, and it succeeds on all of the intended levels, as well as on many levels that probably weren’t so intentional. In addition to the thrill of watching its spectacular musical numbers and beautiful stars, there is the singular thrill that comes from seeing combinations of color and fabric that will likely never be repeated in human history. Adding to Dharam-Veer‘s singularity is the fact that it’s pretty much guaranteed to be the only place where you can see a special effects shot of a horse jumping over a castle wall that is at once so patently phony and so hauntingly compelling. Even if you could find any of these elements in another film, the chances of that film also starring Sheroo The Wonder Bird are slim to none.

What’s more fun than Richard Chamberlain and Patrick Swayze put together??

 Anyone here seen this? I’m looking at you, Keith Allison!

Don
For much of the film, Don alternates between more modern dress — slick slim-cut suits, hooded sweatshirts, and so on — and an array of garish shirts from the “Amitabh ’78” collection. But the crowning achievement is the innovation of the “inner tie,” a brightly colored tie worn around one’s bare neck rather than around the shirt collar, and then tucked into the shirt itself at the neck (or, if you have a chest like Shahrukh, a couple inches down from the neck, where you finally get around to fastening some buttons). I know, I know! It sounds absolutely ludicrous, and it is. Go on, try it. I did. See? You look like an idiot, don’t you? But look at Shahrukh Don. That’s right — it looks awesome on him. How is this possible? We mere mortal men will probably never know.

New stuff at 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting:

The Mad Genius (1931), in which the deja vu may actually give you seizures if you’ve already seen Svengali…

The Serpent’s Tale (1993), in which there are vampires and ancient scrolls and a loony cult and an evil multinational corporation and an insurance fraud scam, and it all kind of makes your corpus callosum ache…

Seven (1995), in which the killer isn’t the most flamboyant character in the film for once…

and…

The Silence of the Lambs (1991), in which he most assuredly is.

… one too many times./I tripped over the Ottoman/until I lost my mind.”

And that curiously-appropriate Dead Milkmen lyric brings me to Badi, the “Turkish E.T.”, one of the most appalling attempts at family entertainment I’ve ever had to suffer through.

The Turkish love for masked superhero movies spills over into Saturday Matinee serials as The Mysterious Doctor Satan is plundered and transformed into The Deathless Devil. The 1940’s Copperhead runs headlong into 1970s Eurospy territory with wanton villainesses and, sadly, the near-Lovecraftian horror of an Odious Comic Relief in a Sherlock Holmes outfit. Who will kill the Copperhead first – DOK-TOR SEY-TAN’s indestructible keeler robut, or Bitik, the rubber-mugged horror Holmes? That…. would be telling!

Posted even later than Ken’s, but still on the 29th… I, too, am legal and yet remain an outlaw!!!!

Tarkan, the Turkish soldier of Attila the Hun raised by wolves, fights Vikings, a giant, a treacherous ‘Chinese’ woman, a big rubber octopus, and logic in general in Tarkan vs. the Vikings. The end of the month hasn’t technically occurred yet, and my roundtable piece is up. I’m legal!

SANTO AND BLUE DEMON VS. THE MONSTERS
After this initial orgy of monster mayhem, the rest of Contra los Monstruos unfolds as a rapid series of vignettes in which the monsters, the evil Blue Demon, and the green-faced zombies, in various combinations–though most frequently as one large and unruly group–attack Santo and try to kidnap Gloria, leading in most cases to a chaotic monster-on-wrestler free-for-all. (Seriously, if anyone was entrusted with the job of fight choreographer for Contra los Monstruos, that person took a very Free Jazz approach to his or her craft.) First evil Blue ambushes Santo in a lovers’ lane where he and Gloria are making out in Santo’s car (Santo really gets quite a lot of action in this movie). Next Santo takes on the Cyclops in an awesome scene in which Santo, after finding his usual hand-to-hand techniques ineffective, picks up a piece of wood and starts repeatedly clubbing the Cyclops on his big rubbery head. This is followed by an all monster attack on Otto and Gloria’s home–a scene that is most impressive for how the negligee-clad Gloria, fending off The Vampire’s attack, somehow manages in the course of her life-and-death struggle to put on underwear.

And in other news…

Jet Set Cinema takes a look at Space Patrol Orion, Some Girls Do, Fantomas, Naked Runner, Assault on a Queen, and Teptress of a Thousand Faces.

Shrimp Chips investigates Mad Mission, Fantabulous, Payback, Breakheart Pass,   Love and Bullets, Invisible Dr. Mabuse, Return of Dr. Mabuse, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, Song Bird, I The Jury, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, and well — more than I can recount here.

And while Todd and David have been busy keeping the Film sections fresh, I’ve been farting around with the Leisure section with visits to the Prehistoric Forest near Sandusky,  the haunted Hotel Monte Vista in Flagstaff, the mine fire ravaged town of Centralia, and some notes on buying one’s first pair of rock climbing shoes.

(Yes, yes, I know: it’s İstanbul, not Constantinople. But I too have been a long time gone, so there you have it.)

Büyü (2004)

What would you expect from a movie currently rated by IMDb users as the 22nd worst film of all time? Would you expect a thoroughly average, occasionally inspired horror flick? Hmmm?

You would?

Well then, dear reader, one of us is nuts. My entry in the Turkish Roundtable has me wondering if I’ve completely lost my critical standards.