Electrophantasia

I have been trying to review every movie I see in short little Twitter reviews, and now that I have a whole bunch I thought I’d just collect them all here. Obviously, Twitter requires that every review be very brief and to the point, and I know I don’t always succeed at the form, but for the most part I like what I’ve done. It’s an interesting experiment, anyway! Of course, you can also follow me (Owozifa) if the idea intrigues you at all. Or you even give a crap about my opinion.

My scale goes like this:
5 – Loved It!
4 – Really Liked It
3 – Liked It
2 – Didn’t Like It
1 – Hated It
0 – Is this a movie or a psychological experiment?

The Reviews!
The Creeping Terror (1964) – 0/5 – Oh lord. MST3K made it funny, but this is a real bomb. Gratuitous narration of epic.

Kraa! (1996) – 2/5 – Didn’t utilize its characters or giant monster as well as it could. Points for alien cabbage with Italian accent.

Meet the Baron (1933) – 3/5 – Sexist and racist comedy of the 30s. Three Stooges in it. German accents are good funny, always.

Decadent Evil (2005) – 1/5 – Vampire movie where the creepiest thing was horny guys. Decently shot, but didn’t rise above trash.

Super 8 (2011) – 4/5 – I can’t really say why I liked this movie or that it didn’t have glaring flaws, but I’ll let them go this time.

George and the Dragon (2004) – 3/5 – Somehow this didn’t suck. It was ridiculous and corny, but it was ENTERTAINING. Why Patrick Swayze?

The Great Land of Small (1987) – 2.5/5 – WTF? No, seriously. WTF? Slimo, gold dust, Quebec, magic hobos, man dog, juggling. WTF?!

Ran (1985) – (5/5) – Class A tragic historical drama. Blood might be thicker than water, but that doesn’t stop the letting of it for power.

Where Eagles Dare (1968) – (5/5) – Nazi fortress in the snow is blown up by tons of TNT. Absolutely ridiculous plot twists. I loved it.

Source Code (2011) – (3/5) – Time travel plot holes! It was still a fun watch, though just a tidge cheesy at the end. I’m a fan.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) – (4/5) – I’m not sure the movie always knew what it was doing, but it made me think about stuff.

Green Lantern: First Flight (2009) – (4/5) – I’m pretty picky about super hero movies, but this fully entertained me. Cool origin story.

Ernest Goes to Camp (1987) – (4/5) – There’s just something about this movie that’s better than it has any right to be, knowhutimean?

Tremors II: Aftershocks (1996) – (3/5) – Slightly better than the original. Fun new monsters. Has older person romance, which is different!

Joe Kidd (1972) – (3/5) – This is a fun standard Clint Eastwood western, but the film feels like it meanders a bit and the plot is abandoned

Tremors (1990) – (3/5) – Certainly not the greatest monster movie, but the characters are fun and the setting is neat. Overall good.

Ratatouille (2007) – (5/5) – There’s a rat in the kitchen! Cool and a little different feel than usual. I like rooting for the under…rat.

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) – (3/5) – Giant octopus attacks San Francisco. There’s a new breed of woman!? Includes awkward romance.

Dreamscape (1984) – (3/5) – Dennis Quaid invades your dreams! This had fun moments, and was mostly inoffensive, but not as awesome as hoped.

Kelly’s Heroes (1970) – (4/5) – Liberating France while stealing Nazi gold. Why not? Long, but every movie needs a hippie tank commander.

High Plains Drifter (1973) – (5/5) – Clint Eastwood welcomes you to Hell. Entirely unpleasant and yet great too. One of the best.

Pale Rider (1985) – (4/5) – A little silly but still great. Didn’t like the girl.

I was very excited when I heard The Maltese Falcon was coming to Blu-ray, and didn’t waste much time in purchasing it.  Thanks to Amazon, I was also informed The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was coming out, so I figured I might as well make a double feature of it.  After all, it has Humphrey Bogart starring and was also directed by John Huston.

The film is about two American drifters in Mexico, trying to scrape enough money together to return to the United States.  At a boarding house they meet an old man that tells them tales of gold prospecting in the mountains and the riches that can be had for those willing to take the risks.  Soon enough, the two seek out the old man again and together they set off for the bandit-filled wilds of Mexico to try to make their fortune.  The one thing that ends up being more dangerous than the bandits, however, is their own greed.

I have to say that I wasn’t sure what to expect out of it.  I had definitely heard more about The Maltese Falcon, probably because it seems to be the more popular film.  I think it might be my favorite Bogart film that I’ve seen.  When you’re dealing in films like The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The African Queen, that’s a rather heavy claim, but I make it nonetheless.  There was just something inherently dark and frightening about it.  In the entire two hour running time, I never once felt comfortable.  I can certainly see why it’s not as popular a film.

The reason I think it’s a great film and the reason I think it’s an uncomfortable film are one and the same.  It’s a movie about the evils that normal people are capable of.  I think it’s important when we see evil to try to understand how and why it happens, rather than simply dismissing it as the result of “other” types of people that are obviously just flawed in some way.  If you can never entertain the idea that you yourself could commit evil, then it’s all too easy to justify your actions.  The characters in this film vehemently assert they are good, decent people at the beginning of the film, but by the end we see they’re only human after all.

Have a few more movies to list, bringing me pretty much up to date for the last couple months.

Transsiberian (Blu-Ray)
This is a sort of mystery/thriller that takes place on the Trans-Siberian Express. I love this sort of stuff, so it’s no wonder I loved this movie. Trains are just plain fascinating, and the setting outside the train makes it even more so. Some have said the plot is confusing, but I got through it just fine. I tend to not ever get confused in movies. Probably a side effect of watching so much crap; my brain just starts to fill in the blanks itself after a while. In this case, though, I’d say any confusion is the fault of the viewer and not the film. Pick it up if you have any love for a bit of classic mystery.

Iron Man (Blu-Ray)
This is definitely one of my favorite superhero films. As a general rule, I’m not that big of a superhero fan. I’ll admit that even if it does damage to any nerd cred I have. Maybe I shouldn’t say that, because there are a few superheroes I do enjoy a lot. I think one of my problems has always been a super hero attitude. Many of them share a sort of superficial sense of justice, often accompanied by a severe amount of angst. The best thing I can say about Iron Man is that it manages to keep a sort of emotional depth with a very unconventional super hero character. I think the character and performance of Robert Downey Jr. makes this a movie everyone should see.

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D (DVD)
In some ways I regret buying this movie. It’s actually rather mediocre. There are two main reasons I bought it. The first is that it (at the moment, anyway) offers a 3D version of the film and glasses to watch it with. This is the first movie I’ve ever viewed this way, and it might very well be my last. I’m not a huge fan of it, to be honest. Watching with those glasses on made me ill. The second reason was I got a free yo-yo with it at Wal-Mart, which I have since managed to break. It’s not a bad little movie, really. I just wish the home 3D experience was a little better. As a 3D movie with some cheezy fun, it excels. Without the 3D, it’s still a fairly entertaining B movie filled with decent CGI.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms & Them! Double Feature (DVD)
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is another Ray Harryhausen film, and a sci-fi classic. The acting is mostly not good, but the monster is one of my personal favorites. It’s definitely a somewhat silly and cheaply made movie, but it has a homemade charm to it. Thankfully, Harryhausen was able to work with better overall movies later on. This one still holds a special place in my heart despite all that, though. The other film, Them!, is one I haven’t even seen yet, so I can’t comment on it. I had the choice of buying The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms separately for more money, or the two of them together for less. No brainer, there. I’ll just add that I hear good things about Them! from others, and it is also a sci-fi classic.

Miracle on 34th Street (DVD)
This movie actually has a connection with the last one I mentioned. The actor who plays Alfred, the Macy’s janitor, also shows up early on in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms for a tiny role. The only reason I noticed him in that movie is because I’ve always been rather fond of his character in this one. Alfred isn’t a huge part of the movie, but I think he’s one of the little touches that makes it special. This movie is special. I would probably say that it’s my favorite Christmas movie, especially because it’s essentially about more than Christmas. I think this is an important point because Christmas should be about more than Christmas. I might have to write a bit more on it when Christmas actually rolls around. Oh, and stay away from the colorized version included with the DVD. Ish.

Krull (DVD)
Krull is a classic of our time. It’s just a fun, zany movie in that sword and sorcery genre that seems forever tied to the 80s. You have your barbarians, your magician, your flaming horses, your aliens, and a dozen other random things. What more do you want? Fine, I’ll throw in a weird throwing weapon that goes “boing” and a resolution that defies all logic. Just as it should be. I got it for like five dollars at Wal-Mart too.

Go forth and love movies.

So hey.  Yeah, the month of October was kind of a wash.  I’ve been busy, geeze.  To break out of my not-postingtude I’m just going to go over some of the movies I’ve recently acquired and briefly what I think of them.  This will probably cover about the last month and a half.  Remember, in all cases these are movies I chose to buy so for the most part they get pretty high recommendation from me.

Speed Racer (Blu-Ray)
Here is a movie that has been critically panned. I’m here to tell you that I at least think it’s pretty grand. It is a Speed Racer movie. At being that it is about as perfect and pure as I could have ever hoped. It’s been hard for me to place exactly why I find it so appealing, but part of it is just the raw joy and energy of it. Many people will tell you it’s all special effects and no substance, but the true heart of the movie lies in the excellently executed melodrama. Perhaps I use that word “melodrama” in my own particular way, but I mean nothing bad by it. We need those every once in a while. Perhaps the closest film of recent memory that I can lump in with Speed Racer is Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which was a much more successful film with the critics. Something that baffles me, because I thought it was much more of a mess than Speed Racer in many ways. Maybe creating ludicrous fantasy in an alternate dimension created entirely by computer went out of fashion in the last four years. (And don’t get me wrong, I quite liked Sky Captain.)

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (Blu-Ray)
I will make no mystery of the fact that I love the films of Ray Harryhausen. I grew up on them like many kids. Stop motion animation is a very distinctive art, and his movies have some of the best ever put to film. This is one of my personal favorites because it has such a high sense of adventure. It’s a hard thing to quantify in any real way. It’s just a classic kind of adventure film with some of the best execution ever achieved. The color photography is also impressive, especially considering it was the first time Harryhausen had ever worked with color. You’ll notice some blurriness introduced by the process, but for the most part the ancient techniques used still work today. Animation in general feels like somewhat of a dying art. Stop motion even more so, despite any recent attempts to revive it. I’d pick it up if you can; it’s a piece of history.

Sleeping Beauty (Blu-Ray)
This is probably my favorite of all the classic Disney films. Many people point out that it has problems, but so what? The backgrounds are astounding, the animation is stylish, and the music is classic. I’d definitely grab the Platinum Edition while you can, because it is pretty amazing. The restoration is practically pixel perfect. Just pause the movie at any point and your TV is a temporary painting. The special features are not too shabby either, and include a wonderful half-hour short called Grand Canyon, which contains some really artistic nature film. I’ll probably have to do a longer article on this sometime later.

Rodan & War of the Gargantuas (DVD)
The latest in an awesome series of Toho DVDs being put out by Classic Media. The people behind these discs are definitely fans of the material. The movies are classics of the Japanese giant monster genre, but perhaps the third unsung star of the set is the Godzilla documentary they put together. After having trouble getting licenses for Godzilla documentaries on the previous Godzilla DVD releases, they decided to film their own, and it is pretty spectacular. Great interviews with the people behind the scenes at Toho, including the three major suit actors for Godzilla who share some stories of working in that environment. The documentary clocks in at 70 minutes, and is probably worth the price of the DVD set in itself. The set isn’t very expensive, and definitely packs in the value.

Touch of Evil 50th Anniversary Edition (DVD)
Film noir by Orson Welles. It’s movies like this that make me feel sad that Welles got to direct so few movies in his life. This DVD edition is a particularly excellent presentation, too. It has lots of extras and includes three entire different versions of the film. Touch of Evil had some problems in the editing process, and Welles wrote a dissatisfied memo to Universal with improvements that could be made. The guidelines in the memo weren’t followed until very recently, and the main version of the film on this set incorporates the suggestions to the best of modern ability. Obviously nothing new could have been shot, and some of the original work had been lost. I watched it and never felt like it was pieced together, though. Indeed, I do think many of the changes were an improvement. Some of it is, funnily enough, quite similar to the editing issues that Blade Runner would have decades later. The set also comes with a replica of the memo Orson Welles sent, if you want to read it. I thought that was a particularly cool extra.

Stay tuned, more to come shortly.

You know, writing these things is difficult.  It’s difficult for me to get up and just do it.  That’s partly why I’ve been doing it in the first place.  I need practice at motivating myself to write.  It’s nice to do it in this informal venue where I can type an intro like this and get away with it, because man it got me going.  When you don’t want to write, nothing better for actually getting you to like a short rant about how you don’t want to write.  It’s crazy that way.

So how about that movie The Road Warrior?  That’s actually just the name they retitled it with when they brought it to America because they wanted to distance it from the original Mad Max, which this movie was a sequel to.  I’m sure somewhere on the internet is evidence of people getting far too upset over what the title of the movie is.  If one of you is reading, I’m going to use the American title throughout this.  Just a warning so if that really grinds your shit, you can leave.  Okay.  Now that we’re alone…

The Road Warrior is an Australian production directed by George Miller.  Despite great success and directing all three Mad Max films, Miller hasn’t really done a whole heck of a lot.  He produced and wrote the screenplay for Babe, which I’ve always thought was a fun movie.  He also produced and directed Happy Feet, which is a little odd.  Those are the three main things he’s worked on, and not much outside of that.  Seems like somewhat of a short resume for the director of one of the most celebrated action movies ever made.  It’s also quite probably the most famous Australian film ever.  It does seem he’s directing the new Justice League movie to arrive in 2011, so I’m looking forward to that.  As long as the future of The Road Warrior doesn’t come true first.

The movie takes place in the very near future when most of society has broken down due to war and energy crisis. (eek) Max lost his family to a biker gang in the first movie, and now wanders the wastes of central Australia looking for gas and trying not to die. All he wants to do is be left alone, but due to circumstances beyond his control he might not get that chance.  It’s a great movie and you should definitely check it out.  As usual it’s on Netflix and available wherever fine movies are sold.  Or whatever.

Spoiler-Time to begin the fun.

At some point I’m glad I can’t get too in depth, because I think if one analyzes anything too much it’s not really a good thing.  However, I do wish I had some notes on this movie so I didn’t have to speak in broad generalities as much, but I’ll do my best with two recent viewings under my belt.

I almost shouldn’t need to tell you about the amazing stunt action sequences in this movie.  They’re just a tidge famous at this point.  The whole movie is basically one big chase sequence, and it ends in fantastic glory with the final oil tanker bit.  It’s even more impressive for the way it was done.  All stunt driving at actual speed and not a bit of green screen in the whole mess.  With all of that going on they managed such detail in a production with such a low budget.  All the vehicles used were fully functional, and every prop had thought behind it.  It probably helped that the setting was post-apocalyptic so everything could and should look like crap.  For an example, though, of the detail just look at Max’s clothes.  He’s missing one sleeve on his jacket because they cut it off in the last movie to tend to his arm after it was run over by a motorcycle.  Similarly he wears a leg brace because he was shot in the kneecap in the previous film.  It amazes me to no end that little things like that were kept consistent between films when most films can’t keep their stuff straight between shots.

Indeed, I would say it’s the detail of the film that puts it at a place above many other action films.  The detail and the quiet moments.  There are quite a few of those quiet moments, because there really isn’t that much talking in the movie.  Most of the stuff is communicated visually, and it’s extremely well done.  The scene with the Gyro Captain and the dog fighting over the dog food can is one instance I can think of.  The entire relationship between Max and the Feral Kid is another.  Neither of them speak in those encounters, and yet there the relationship is.  Formed with nothing but a hurdy-gurdy playing “Happy Birthday” and some facial expressions.  That’s great filmmaking.  (Yes I had to look up what that thing is.  I wanted to call it a music box, but I knew that wasn’t right.)

The other thing I loved about the movie was the great cinematography.  It’s not often in action movies that you can get these great wide open shots.  Some of the locations they shot this on were quite scenic.  The sky seems to go on forever at times, and gave me a sense not unlike how I felt standing in the Gobi Desert.  Since I have the movie on Blu-Ray and don’t know how to screencap it, I’ll substitute one of the pictures I took there.  I can do that because I’m in charge, you see.

I have a general weakness for that kind of stuff, as evidenced by the number of pictures I have like the one above.  I appreciate that the film takes time out from the chases to be so visually interesting.  Not just in the settings, but in the costumes and the characters we meet.  Without much dialogue everyone has to be unique to look at so we keep track of who they are, and they do that very nicely.  Though she never has a name, even in the credits, it’s not hard to know who “The Warrior Woman” is.

So there you have it.  It’s a great movie and I’d say it’s a definite must-see.  One last bit of advice is, if you have the ability, seek out the Blu-Ray of the movie.  I’ve seen it so many times on TV and once or twice on DVD, but none of it can touch what they’ve done on the Blu version.  I think these older movies are benefiting more from the format than the new ones, sometimes.  With the new ones with great DVD masters it’s sometimes more subtle about where the improvements are.  A side-by-side comparison will reveal exactly what’s up, but eyeballing it usually just tells you it looks better somehow.  With this movie, even though it has been probably nearing on a couple years since I last saw it, I knew instantly that this version blasted the others with a shotgun.  They must have cleaned up the original print.  I hope this is a sign that the HD market will inspire more movies to get a restoration job that they probably should have already gotten.  A bad print may fly on DVD, but on Blu-Ray studios have to do some work.  I can’t see as that’s a bad thing.

Next up will be the start of my ravings about Godzilla, so watch for it.  Catch you later.

I think at the end of the last post I made some promise about covering a good movie next.  Well I sort of lied and I sort of didn’t.  In any event at the time I didn’t mean to lie.  Regardless, let’s get this over with.

The Day Time Ended was produced by Charles Band, who is responsible for the Full Moon line of B movies.  I actually enjoy quite a few of those, so I’m not entirely surprised that this was a lot better than my usual crap.  It was directed by John Cardos, who’s main accomplishment seems to have been directing the 1977 horror movie Kingdom of the Spiders with William Shatner.  I’ve never seen that movie, so I can’t really vouch for the credentials, but it was nominated in the Saturn awards for Best Horror Film.  That might count for something, I suppose.  My gut feeling is the main appeal of this film comes from neither of those people, but rather the special effects crew.  The major name here seems to be Paul Gentry, who has worked on a myriad of things including Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Lost.  The vibes I got from the effects work in The Day Time Ended most echoed Laserblast and the Josh Kirby direct to video serial/series/thing, both of which he worked on.

It’s hard to summarize the movies for which I question the existence of a cohesive plot, but I try anyway.  The movie centers around an extended family on vacation in a solar-powered house in the desert.  All kinds of strange things begin to happen, and the movie follows the family as they try to puzzle out just what’s causing all the weirdness around the house.  That’s basically it.  It’s not a bad little movie, in my opinion, and you could do much worse, believe me.  It’s available on Netflix and Amazon.  If you’re buying, I’d suggest checking out the “Time Travelers” boxset by BCI Eclipse, since it comes with three other movies and I hear the video quality is better than the standalone DVD anyway.  Not really worth my time to check it myself as I own all the movies contained in various other sets.  For the record, I watched and capped the standalone release put out under the “Cult Video” label.

Now I get to do the spoiler thing.  Cover your eyes children, it’s not pretty.

The movie begins with some semi-ominous narration that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but hey.  The family is introduced, they get to the house, and then the fun begins.  The little girl of the family, Jenny, gets a pony because her grandpa is awesome like that.  While she’s hanging out with the pony and possibly contemplating making it look even cuter through some heinous machination, a green,  glowing pyramid shows up and the pony disappears.  Relatively unphased she asks the pyramid politely to give her pony back.  And it does.  I gathered from this movie that the pyramid was a decent sort.

Various alien objects go zooming about the place, generally causing all sorts of fear and confusion among the adults, but delighting the lone child.  Another movie was obviously necessary to let us know how dumb we are not to listen to our kids when they tell us craziness.  This generally goes on for pretty much the length of the movie.  One of the best parts is a random scene where two stop motion creatures duke it out in front of the house.  Later on one of these creatures gets an especially funny scene where they knock on the door before menacing the grandmother.

The funny moments and interesting special effects really are the reason to watch this movie.  The characters and plot were only so-so.  There’s no way I can call much of this movie bad because I’m more-uh-”cultured” than that.  I know from bad.  My only regret is the plot didn’t make a tidge more sense so the ending didn’t feel like it happened out of the blue.  The characters’ reactions vary from smart to stupid to way too smart.  For an example of that last one you need look no further than the Grandfather’s cryptic line, “You know what this is, don’t you?  It’s a time warp.”  How does he know this?  His grandson says, “I don’t even know what that is.”  Grandfather sagely replies, “Maybe none of us do.”  I sure don’t, grandpa.  I sure don’t.

I said before that the special effects were quite enjoyable-and they are.  The only downside is they weren’t blended into the film very well.  This is especially noticable in one matte painting shot where the line between actual footage and painting is so glaringly obvious it hurts.  Very little effort seems to have gone into matching the live action and painted parts of the image, even right down to the colors.

They use a tricky technique of finishing parts of the set in matte painting, but don’t follow through with actually making it believable.  For examples of excellent uses of this technique look no farther than the older 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and fellow 80s movie, Blade Runner.

The ending hurt because it didn’t make sense.  I wanted it to make sense.  I felt it could easily make sense.  It didn’t make sense, though.  After being horrified the entire movie, the whole family suddenly stops being horrified with such suddenness that I was given cinematic whiplash.  The mother appears at the end talking like she knows all what’s what.  “I know what’s going on and everything’s going to be all right.”  I wish she’d let me in on it if she knows what’s going on.  Alas she doesn’t tell, and we never find out.  They go off to live with aliens or some such thing, and that’s the end of the movie.  My own little lingering question is simply:  What happened to the pony?  I thought they took all the horses with them at the end, but there’s no sign of the pony after the beginning of the movie.  I can only conclude a clay monster ate it.  Poor pony.

Since it’s not really either bad or good, it’s hard for me to figure out how I stand with this one.  I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it, but it just doesn’t reach that last little bit into the low tier of good movies.  I’d still check it out, if only for the fair number of laugh out loud moments and fun late 70s/early 80s effects.

I’m going to try to write up something on The Road Warrior next.  I might not get to it before starting in on my Godzilla stuff, but I’m going to try.  I’m all set to start the Godzilla series, but after writing this I need to take a bit of a break.  I also need to eat something today.  You people and your demands (who?) have kept me away from sustenence long enough.  Jerks.

Continuing on our obscure vein, we have this inexplicable film.  I’m going to start this tale with a trio of screencaps that show faces made by the cast of War of the Planets that probably reflect some of my own as I viewed the film.

As you can see it goes something like this:
Step 1: Confusion, Step 2: Horror, Step 3: Madness

Before we get to far into the discussion and I must throw up the spoiler warning (even though I find this particular film impossible to spoil), I would like to give some brief plot summary.  However, it is beyond my capacity to do so.  I shall instead turn to what it says on the back of the box, which I think is kind of what happened.  Mostly.

“Mike Leighton and his team of astronauts land on an alien world and agree to help its population battle a cyber entity that has taken control of the planet.  The planet is on a collision course for Earth that will spell certain disaster.”

I can’t vouch for that last collision course part, because I honestly don’t remember that factoring into the plot anywhere.

SPOILERS AHEAD.  This is your standard spoiler warning.  Anything beyond this point will reveal plot information, and in this movie’s case–big deal.

Two and a half minutes into this movie and I was confused.  That’s before the opening credits even ran.  When they did I was in for a treat, as there are some grand names here.  I’m not sure what it is about bad movies, but they seem to always have more than their fair share of funny names.  We have Max Bonus, who is surely a high scorer at the arcade.  Then there is A. Belly, who I imagine to be somewhat of a rotund personage.  Finally, there’s Charles Really, who really shouldn’t have gotten involved with this film.

As far as I’ve ever been able to tell the beginning has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, and seems to take place somewhere in the middle of the chronology, which makes it all the more confusing.  The movie really begins with what seems to be a random act of violence, after which the perpetrator is called a barbarian and then given command of a ship.  Okay.

Now we’re in space.  Somone is going for a space walk.  As this guy puts on his suit he remarks that as long as he’s going outside he’ll pick up some whiskey.  I guess this is funny because there’s no whiskey in space.  Har har.  During the space walk one of the most WTF moments of the movie occurs when for about 5 seconds and no longer a little song with vocals pops up.  No song like it is ever heard again.  Wow.  Our spacewalker is repairing something, when the captain finds out that he’s alone and chastises him, warning that if something goes wrong there’s no one to help him.  On cue, some battery acid leaks onto his space suit.  The captain informs him that he has exactly three minutes before the acid eats through his suit and he dies in the vacuum of space.  What an amazingly exact calculation considering the circumstances.  I must remember that acid + space suit = 3 minutes to live, no more and no less.  During this entire scene the man is groaning in terrible pain.  Why?  I guess because of the acid.  But if that’s so the acid would be inside his suit and he should already be dead.  Nevermind this.

Soon after this incident the crew receives strange signals from somewhere.  One woman remarks, “What the hell, what does it mean?”  Those perfectly echo my feelings on this movie.  They send the message back to Earth where the supercomputer known as “Wiz” (cute) decodes it.  How Wiz can do this, I don’t know, but it does.  It says that the signal is being sent by an alien force that “knows all” and it must be destroyed.  Okay.  So they send the ship to do that, I guess.  Can’t have those alien forces knowing all and shit.

The captain of the ship hates all machines.  Most of his lines in the movie are spent repeating this fact.  He initially resists the computer-recommended course of seeking out the source of these signals, but eventually he ends up accepting the mission.  They get to the planet where the signals are coming from, and after remarking that the atmosphere appears to be frozen, they walk out of the spaceship without space suits or even a warm jacket.  What follows is a fever dream consisting of mad robots, a race of Gollum-esque people, and a bunch of people dying who I’m not even sure what their names were.

I have a pretty high tolerance for bad movies, and this one tested me.  The average person would probably want to stay far away, but for the select few I still recommend a viewing if only so you can maybe explain to me what happened.  The original film was Italian and named Anno Zero – Guerra Nello Spazio, and a horrendous dub job might have greatly contributed to the confusion.  At the very least it’s not the worst movie I’ve seen.  I may get the nerve up to write about that one sometime later.  I’m planning on writing about a good movie tomorrow, so watch for it.  See you.

Now here we have a definite fulfillment of my promise to do a bit of obscure now and again.  If you’ve actually heard of this low-budget film from the 1930s, then I’d wager you are one of few.

Condemned to Live was directed by Frank R. Strayer, whose major achievement in life seems to have been directing a long line of movies based on the comic strip Blondie.  We won’t hold that against him too much here.  We’re loving that way.  The only other notable thing I can seem to gather about the cast and crew is the man playing the lead role, Ralph Morgan, is the brother of Frank Morgan who played the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz.  Cool beans.

I quite enjoyed this little movie with its 1930s horror ways.  As you can see from the screencaps I took (bottom of article), you have your vampire bats, your hunchbacks, and your angry mobs with torches.  What more can you want?  Most of the sets and costumes were actually re-used from the higher-budget Frankenstein pictures to save money, and it was done to good effect.

The plot revolves around a small European town of unknown geography in which a strange series of murders has taken place.  Young girls are having their throats torn out in the dark.  Grisly.  Rumors are spreading around the town that a giant bat is swooping down on people in the dark and carrying them off to its cave nearby, where the bodies are then found.  Professor Kristan, the learned man who the village people always turn to for help, is at a loss to explain the incidents and believes the stories might be true.  David, a young man in the village, doesn’t believe it’s a bat at all, but rather a man performing the hideous murders.  What is the truth?  Who will be the next victim!?  I love this stuff.

Now we are entering spoiler territory.  I will try to put a warning of this variety any time I do this for anything no matter how old.  It’s almost useless for this movie because the plot summaries I’ve seen pretty much give the entire thing away, but at least I can have the decency to warn people.  I should also say if you want to pick up this movie to watch before continuing it is on Netflix and Amazon.  Anyway, to spoilertown.

What I think I really enjoyed about this movie was how it doesn’t have a real villain.  There is no monster, just a poor man that can’t help himself.  It also plays a bit with outer appearances and what people expect.  The entire village becomes convinced at one point that Zan, the Professor’s servant, is the murderer simply because “no good ever came from a hunchback.”  The movie takes parts of Dracula, werewolf lore, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame to make something new that I’d say works successfully.

As we come to realize fairly early in the movie, the murderer is actually Professor Kristan, who has been plagued by headaches and blackouts as of late.  People aren’t dumb, it takes only one or two murders for many of the people close to him to either find out or get suspicious.  What makes it all the more heartbreaking is the Professor is really and truly a nice man.  His mother was bitten on the neck by a vampire bat just before he was born in Africa, and that’s what lead to his current sorry state.

The great tragedy is many of the murders could have been prevented if Zan had simply told Kristan right away what was happening, but with the best of intentions he kept it a secret and tried simply to stop further incidents from occurring.  Unfortunately, he only succeeds in the final attempt on the Professor’s fiancee.  I know it might seem kind of silly, but it felt just a bit refreshing to see a horror movie where everyone acts pretty straightforward and smart.  Usually only dumb people populate movies in this genre.

The movie is only 67 minutes long, and that allows a brisk pace.  The ending was quite sad when Professor Kristan finally realizes what he’s done during his blackouts, and runs to save Zan, who is about to be burned by a mob in the nearby caves.  Once he arrives, he announces to the mob that he was the murderer and they watch in shock as he throws himself into a crevasse.  Perhaps even sadder is Zan, who loved his master very much, jumps in after him.

Is it great cinema?  I don’t know.  I think it had a lot of heart on its side, though.  Especially when compared to some of the movies I’ve seen.  Anyway, once again I feel this post was a little lacking somehow, but I’ll probably always feel that way.  All I can do is try to do better next time, I guess.  See you next time.

I saw Wall-E last night at the theater.  Now, I believe that everyone is perfectly entitled to their opinion.  You don’t like Speed Racer?  That’s fine.  You want to actually enjoy some bad movie, that’s fine too.  I do that lots of times.

Based on my experience last night I can tell you two things, though.  First, I think Wall-E is one of the greatest animated films of any kind ever made.  It ranks up with the movies that I think are the best Disney has ever done.  Second, if you don’t like this movie (and there are those who don’t) then that is your right.  It is also my right to lower my opinion of you.  I’m not going to argue about it, as such things are an exercise in silliness.  How many times have any of you ever seen someone’s opinion changed as a result of an online debate?  My current tally is zilch.  No, I’m just going to shake my head sadly and know that your kind and the movies previewed before Wall-E deserve each other, and I guess that’s just fine.

Everyone else, go see this movie especially if you like science fiction.  It’s actually an amazingly good science fiction story.  And if that auto-pilot wasn’t a sly nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey, I’m a rabbit.

Well I kind of implied that I was going to do a second thing on Hellraiser, so here goes a quickie.

I think I gave a pretty clear idea of what my reaction to the first film in the series was back in my original post.  Going into the second film I had both the experience of the first and some knowledge of the movie under my belt, so I wasn’t very surprised.

On the whole, Hellraiser II: Hellbound is an interesting beast.  This time around Clive Barker gave the director’s chair to someone else and simply acted as producer.  As such, the movie is a fair bit more conventional and straightforward in its presentation.  It also seemed to move along at a much faster clip.

I think what I really enjoyed about the film was some of the visual aspects.  When the characters get to “hell” or whatever, there was some rather fun matte paintings and architecture.  Other than that the film is fairly uncomplicated, and actually didn’t have as much payoff as I would’ve hoped (the girl didn’t find her father, which was a bit of a let down to me.)

Overall I’d have to say the first film was a better film, but the second was more entertaining.  I think that works.  Maybe.

I also saw the third Hellraiser, but I didn’t care for it much.  It tried to be a little too silly and then wasn’t silly enough to actually make it okay.  The Cenobites used weren’t nearly as well-designed as the originals and their relatively short screen time at the end was mostly doing the menacing slow walk.

And that’s all the Hellraiser for now.  Probably not as interesting as the first post, but eh.  We shall endeavor for better next time.