Track the Films You Watch (2009)

Thanks for the 30 for 30 comments Michael. I still haven't had a chance to watch Muhammad and Larry or Without Bias. Looking forward to The Legend of Jimmy the Greek this week.

Martin, I have The Girlfriend Experience on the way from Netflix and I was a big fan of Bubble. It either made my top 10 list of that year or was just outside it.

"Tooth and Nail"  - 3 / 10

Hmmm....
A barmy post-apocalyptic plot that has all civilisation virtually destroyed in no time at all because the electricity has run out.
This sudden lack of lack of twinkly lights, PC's, DVD players and HBO is so bad that many humans turn to cannibalism (despite there being rather a lot of animals in the world) and as the survivors try to stay survivors...these cannibal sorts roam around picking them off one by one.

After an effective enough start the tiny budget starts to show, the silly script starts to scream at you about how silly it is and the few good bits in the film start to drown in the rising boredom and general ho humness now swamping all before it.

Despite Michael Madsen playing one of the cannibals he actually appears in only 2 scenes and then without the other cannibals.
Vinnie Jones also appears in only 4 or so scenes and again, he is either alone or with only one other cannibal chum.
Obviously this was because the budget only stretched to having these guys there for one day or so.
Jones is hammy rubbish, Madsen is...er...Madsen again and is soon dispatched in a crappy way.

The fact the cannibals (to keep the meat fresh!) only kill one person at a time adds a certain sadism to the proceedings as those left at the end of a particular grocery trip know they will have to go through it all again the next night when the ribs have all been eaten.
But this methodical way of doing things also means that a dull repetitiveness sets in, not helped by some bad acting and small scale of the set-pieces as it's almost all set in a few deserted rooms and corridors with only 2 or 3 people on ever on screen.

Gore wise it starts off very well with a nasty throat slicing and an exceedingly sadistic axe attack (with Madsen enjoying himself!), but after that there is very little gore and little real bloodshed.

A late twist is also ineffective as quite frankly it seemed blindingly obvious ages ago, so the film is playing catch-up to its audience which is never good.
A weak finale rounds things off badly.

Could have been okay...ended up not.



"The Invisible Man" (1933)  - 7 / 10

Universal's groovy, pretty faithful, adaptation of HG Wells' story of the same name still holds up on many levels.

The FX are still damn good and effective, with no wires on show for the many moving objects, and the clever (and damn hard) invisible man effects are also fine...with the Black and White cinematography ensuring that the ancient matte work looks great thanks to none of those typically awful colour problems.
Hell , look at the truly dire matted Alien FX (a green hued blob on a wall more like) in "Alien 3" to see how even decades later colour problems could ruin many a matte shot.

Away from the great FX we have a fast pace, some great sets, a brilliant support cast of whacked out and theatrical local yokels (with the great Una O'Connor in top camped up form as the shrieking landlady and a top 'comedy cop' performance by E.E. Clive) and a wonderfully mixed brew of slapstick comedy, black comedy and out and out nastiness.

And it is Claude Rains who superbly utilises this mix of horror and humour.
Wrapped in bandages or quite simply not there at all Rains has only his commanding voice to make an impression. And he does.
His psychotic rants, mad cackling and comic singing as he causes mayhem all help to essay one of the most whacked out and downright nasty characters in any film ever.
Something I think people tend to forget.

Today, we mostly think of an invisible man as a purely comical creation or a good guy figure.
Add this to the fact that a man you simply can't see is somehow not as scary or visually impressive as a werewolf, vampire or man-made monster and the character has been rather pushed aside when we talk about great screen villains and threats.
But in reality...The Invisible Man is by far the most deadly figure in any 'Universal' horror film!
A couple of dead yokels or local wenches? Small fry!
Dracula, The Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster are novices in death dealing!
The Invisible Man racks up a body count of...wait for it...122!
By the time he has bashed in heads, rung necks, pushed people of cliffs, sent a man (who screams in a genuinely unsettling way) crashing to his death in a runaway car as well as derailed a damn train...he's bumped of 122 human beings!
As such there is real sadism in the film, as the laughing killer routinely kills people with psychotic glee.

A few plot hiccups (a guy is murdered and next we see that the national press is reporting the murder in blazing newspaper headlines and yet the scene of the body being carried out of the room comes after this press coverage! Must have started to smell a bit!) fail to hurt the film to any degree and in fact the great dialogue given to the Invisible Man is so memorable it bulldozes everything else out of the way.

The embracing of the violence and mass death that is constantly on occurring, when added to the great FX, wonderful cast and generally effective black comic styling, ensures that "The Invisible Man" has dated less than many other 'Universal' horror films and still retains a genuinely horrific edge.

This is quite uncanny, Martin! I almost acquired this one just yesterday...before being informed by its "supplier" that the film had no accompanying English subtitles.

Actually, I've watched the film twice so far - in Hollywood via a DVD-R rental (Janaury '06) and in London via a theatrical screening at the National Film Theater (January '07) - but, given that it's only one of 2 Bunuel films (the other being 1951's DAUGHTER OF DECEIT) that I don't currently own in some way, shape or form, I'm eager to lay my hands on an English-friendly copy. That or else I ought to start brushing up my French again! 

Incidentally, almost as reparation, yesterday I also came across another rare but intriguing film with the beautiful Lucia Bose` - star of CELA S' APPELLE L' AURORE (1955) and former Miss Italy of 1947; that film was Marguerite Duras' NATHALIE GRANGER (1972) that also features Jeanne Moreau and Gerard Depardieu. Actually, I also have another highly-desirable title of hers in my collection - Jorge` Grau's BLOOD CEREMONY aka THE LEGEND OF BLOOD CASTLE (1973) - that I should really have watched during the Halloween Challenge but didn't manage to fit it in! 

But, frankly, after watching (and dissecting) 110 movies in 31 days, I'm simply chilling out at the moment. Plus, I'm also still reeling from the bat-shit craziness of STRIDULUM aka THE VISITOR (1979)! Come on...bring out that long-promised SE DVD, Code Red!


P.S. Am I the only one having trouble editing my posts - where I only manage to have access to the text after several frustratingly fruitless attempts? 

"Rosemary's Baby" - 6.5 / 10

Hack about 10 minutes out of this and things would improve in leaps 'n' bounds.

There are too many repetitive scenes and events and the whole Satanic plot (if it exists...but I think by the end we are meant to realise it is indeed real)seems rather flawed and long winded in execution.
The plan of the all powerful Lord of Hell has to rely on the complete consumption of a chocolate mousse?

And although I like John Cassavetes he is never, ever, anything other than rather unlikeable and suspicious. With his endless forced smirks and bursts of rage you never, not once, feel this is a trustworthy guy and innocent Husband. He seems to be on the wrong path (indeed the left hand path! LOL!) from the start.
It would indeed have been far more effective (and fascinating) if the clean cut, likable, Robert Redford (who was originally up for the Husband role) had taken the part.
As quite frankly to have had a "Barefoot in the Park" style Redford be exposed as pimping out his young wife to Satan would have been a real shocker...and completely unexpected to a virginal 60's audience.
With Cassavetes though, you think he's up to something as soon as he appears!

This aside though, Polanski has delivered a surprisingly engaging Satanic slow burner that has some engaging characters and a nice air of sinister mystery and dark conspiracy.
Mia Farrow is just the right side of twee and does a great job later on as her character's natural shrewishness valiantly tries to fight back against the all powerful witches plotting against her.

I have to wonder why this still rates an '18' in the UK though. A nicely bloody body aside (and I'm still not sure why and how this character died either...her existence in the plot seems rather strange and unexplained) we have nothing else at all except some mild nudity, Halloween costume Devil claws and the most sedate rape ever filmed.
This is '15' material.

I still refuse to see this as a real classic in 2009 and I put it far behind "The Omen", but it does hold the attention for the most part, is well made and directed and delivers a stonking finale.
Edited by 42nd Street Freak - 11/7/09 at 3:09pm

Out of

Turistas 1/2
Terrible

Initiation, The 1/2
Fun slasher

Orphan 1/2
The type of slick, well-made, predictable (bar the twist) Hollywood horror film that has become increasingly rare.  It features two stars with a respectable reputation, a monstrous villain and a good climax (love Farmiga's final line).  My only complaint is that it is unnecessarily long but I really enjoyed this one.  However I do not think it will stand up to a rewatch. 

Besieged
Mysterious Bertolucci effort is annoying in places (what is with all the jump cuts?) and beautiful in others.  The film is deliberately obscure in its storytelling (what exactly did the composer do for his maid?) and doggedly unpredictable in its delivery (some of the events that occur seem random).  As befits such a film the ending is ambiguous.  However the film has haunted me since I saw it and I already want to see it again.  The music is a treat for those who enjoy classical and African music.

A Severed Head 1/2
Some funny lines (and a great credit sequence featuring dolls of the main characters) but the characters are not worth caring about.

Year One 1/2
Atrocious comedy that seems to have been written by immature 13 year olds.  Even my 15 and 13 year old kids hated it.

Saw VI 1/2
I missed out on IV and V but this seems like more of the same for the series.

Mysterious Skin 1/2
Ascent, The 1/2
I group these two films together because they created a similar reaction in me.  Both are emotionally exhausting and tough to watch in places and because of that I do not imagine myself returning to them any time soon.  Mysterious Skin is a story of child sexual abuse and the different consequences it has for two boys.  The film is sensitively handled with a range of believable characters and scenes - Joseph Gordon Leavitt in particularly is fantastic as the gay hustler.  I particularly like how the ending just occurs organically - it is not calculated to be happy, sad, cathartic, preachy or anything else.  It is just the natural end to the film - you can read into it what you want.  This is highly recommended if you can make it through two or three of the tough scenes.

The Ascent is a Soviet film from 1977 that I had not heard of until it turned up on TCM a little while ago.  It is a harrowing story of Russians fighting Germans during harsh wintry conditions in the Second World War and focuses on two particular soldiers who get separated from their squadron.  The two meet various villagers, engage Germans, hide and eventually get captured.  At that moment they face a crisis of conscience that each deals with in a different way.  The story moves inexorably to its devastating conclusion with long static takes in the harsh landscape and religious overtones.  And again, like Mysterious Skin the ending is just perfect. 

I've always thought it was one of the films most closest to "perfection" that I can think of. I wouldn't change a thing, personally, and I consider it one of the very best horror films ever made.

Really?
Well, I always respect your views Joe............You're just wrong.  

Seriously though...
What do you think of Redford being cast instead?  
I still think to a new audience when the film opened that having Redford would instil instant trust and likability to the Husband and also provide a real unexpected shock when his true involvement is revealed.

I think it would add greatly to the film.  Cassavetes seems like a weasel from the start.
It's a fascinating thought.

As I said, I wouldn't change a thing. And that includes Cassavetes, who's great in this.

I agree with Dave in regards to the husband.  It's just way too obvious that he's a piece of shit.  I think Cassavetes was a fine actor but someone like Redford could have brought a lot more to the role.


All of the false starts in terms of my son coming has kept me driving to the hospital more than actually watching movies.  I did catch my 21st Dylan show last week and I'm not 100% certain that he is either God himself or he sold his soul to Satan.  I love his rough voice, which fits his blues music just fine but I never thought I'd live to see the day where that rough voice was crystal clear and featured him walking with a mic in his hand singing as if he were Sinatra.


Garbage Pail Kids Movie, The (1987)
 

Rodney Amateau
 

I must admit that I was seven years old when this movie came out.  I was a fan of the cards and I remember begging my mother to take me to see this on opening day, which she did.  A couple of my friends went along and I still remember the sold out crowd of pre-teens laughing and having a blast with the film.  I believe I watched it a couple more times when it first hit VHS but I haven't seen it since....until this latest viewing.  What did I think of the film twenty-two years after being a kid who loved it?  Well, it was the pits.  It really shocked me to re-watch something I found entertaining as a kid and I know that saying that many kids never grow up but thankfully I did.  Now I'm not going to sit here and put this film down for being disgusting, vile or featuring "ugly" jokes because nothing here offended me today.  What I will put down is the entire screenplay, which really makes one scratch their head because the story is so bad that you can't help but wonder if any real attempt was made to come up with something good or if this was just thrown together to make some quick cash.  The story pretty much as the Garbage Pail Kids coming to the aid of a weak boy (Mackenzie Astin) who might just be getting taken advantage of by a girl (Katie Barberi) he has a crush on.  I think the biggest problem with the screenplay is that it tries to tell too much story in regards to the GPK and this wasn't needed.  The cards told us all we needed to know so the film should have just stood back and delivered the goods that the cards did.  Valorie Vomit, Ali Gator, Greaser Greg, Nat Nerd, Windy Winston, Messy Tessie and Foul Phil are the kids here and most of them never really get to dig into their "tricks" from the cards.  Valorie Vomit, for one example, only does her thing once at the end of the movie.  Now, a lot of parents back in the day would have said that's a good thing but every generation has its thing that parents object to and this was one from the 80s.  The performances are all pretty brutal with Astin not delivering anything and Barbieri delivering a really, really bad performance.  You do have the costumes by John Carl Buechler who previously did the film TROLL and would later do FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII. While watching this horrid movie I couldn't help but smile at thinking back at some of the cards and passing them around class in the school.  It's a real shame that this film didn't do anyone any good but I can't help but wish that a real R-rated remake would come along and really do things right.

When Time Ran Out... (1980)
 

James Goldstone

Irwin Allen had a string of disaster hits but things started to fall apart with THE SWARM, which was followed by the questionable BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE.  The final nail in the coffin came with this truly embarrassing work that managed to get several Oscar-winners cashing a check.  What we basically have here is a reworked version of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE where a group of people must try and reach safety after a mammoth volcano goes off.  The dummies stay back at a hotel, which we all know if going to kill them while the smart ones, led by Paul Newman, must try and reach safety across the island.  Not only do we get Newman but the cast includes William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Jacqueline Bisset, Edward Albert, Alex Karras, Burgess Meredith and Pat Morita.  I've heard that a majority of these stars were under contract to Allen for one final picture so that might explain why they put their name on this mess but of course it could be because of the paycheck.  Either way, this disaster film is a complete disaster from start to finish and I must admit that I'm very happy to have only watched the 108-minute version on the DVD.  I had previous seen the extended version but the shorter version is always going to work best because of how bad the film is.  For starters, the story is pretty much a straight rip of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and features many of the same plot points including Meredith's character filling the shoes of Shelley Winters' from that film.  We get Newman doing the Hackman role and we even have Borgnine playing a cop here.  Even if the story wasn't so poor, the real shock here are the special effects, which are pretty bad.  The blue screen is so obvious especially in scenes showing off the volcano.  Just check out the tidal wave sequence, which is a real head scratcher because we don't see very much of it and what we do see appears to have the actors standing still and someone throwing a bucket of water on them.  The director doesn't have any luck at building suspense even though we get three extremely long and at times laughable sequences.  One happens towards the start of the film when three men, including Newman, go down in the volcano.  Another happens during the tidal wave but the biggest and most questionable happens at the end when all the survivors must walk across a bridge that is falling apart as lava flows beneath it.  This should have made for a great sequence but instead it goes on so long that you can't help but lose interest and hope that people start falling.  The performances are among some of the blandest that the great cast have ever turned in but, according to legend, apparently Newman started up his Newman's Own brand with the money he made off of this.  In the end, this is certainly one of the worst disaster movies out there but fans of the cast and genre will probably still want to check it out just so they can talk about how bad it is.

 

JFK: 3 Shots That Changed America (2009)
 

Nicole Rittenmeyer, Seth Skundrick
 

Extremely entertaining and at times brilliant documentary from The History Channel.  Spread over two episodes totally just over three hours, this documentary doesn't use a single talking head but instead shows us the history of the Kennedy assassination via actual broadcasts from the president arriving in Dallas to where we are today.  Every bit of the footage is shown in the order that it originally aired and this includes showing us clips of "As the World Turns", which was interrupted to announce that the President had been shot.  The first episode takes a look at the first forty-eight hours, which had our President killed and then his assassin killed.  Part two then takes a look at everything that has happened over the years from countless debate to the Oliver Stone movie.  The first half of this documentary is downright brilliant as it gives those people who weren't around in 1963 a chance to see how the world got to hear the news.  I thought the film did a masterful job at building up suspense even though everyone certainly knows what happened.  Seeing the old broadcasts was incredibly interesting as was parts of the speech Kennedy gave just an hour before his death.  We also get a lot of wonderful footage from the Dallas Police Station and of course the news of Oswald being murdered.  What I found so fascinating is that conspiracy theories were already building up in people before the official word was released that Kennedy had died from the injuries.  This here certainly fuels the second part of the film, which is rather obvious in its one sided nature in showing that there must have been more than one person involved.  I thought the film lost some of its power during the final few sections just because it is so one sided.  This might be due to the fact that a majority of people over the past two decades feel that Oswald didn't act alone.  There's stuff here that could be debated but the real reason for anyone to watch this film are for all the scenes that deal with the hour before and after the assassination.  I'm sure many buffs have seen this stuff before but seeing them in order and showed the way they originally were is quite haunting and it really makes one understand what it must have been like when someone first heard the news.  I wasn't born until 1980 yet watching this stuff really made me understand everything my parents or grandparents told me in regards to their memories of hearing about the events.  Fans of history will certainly want to check this out but I think even those not all that interested in the event will probably find themselves caught up in the drama.
 

I actually think Rosemary's Baby is the weakest of Polanski's "apartment horror trilogy", but man, it would be so much shittier with Robert Redford in it.


The Day the Mercedes Became a Hat (Blu-Ray) - The one thing that really struck me was how much the plot thread about the two young boys was a ripoff of Satyajit Ray's short film Two. It's a pretty obscure thing, but I felt that Mira Nair might have seen it. Afterwards, I watched Nair's introduction to her short, and sure enough, she cited Ray's work as an inspiration! Knowing that I was one of a very small handful of people in the world who would recognize the similarity gave me a great deal of smug satisfaction. Far more satisfaction than Nair's film, which is a rather inelegant look at South African racial tension. The acting seemed a bit subpar, as well. Rating: 5


Migration (Blu-Ray) - Another Nair short focusing on a social issue, in this case AIDS. Again, it's very clumsy and obvious. The performances are decent (I gather most of these actors are big Bollywood stars) but the plot is incredibly predictable. And even in India, the subject matter seems incredibly dated... condom education in 2007? Rating: 4


Monsoon Wedding (Blu-Ray) - When Criterion announced they were releasing this movie, the members of criterionforum.org had a collective hissyfit about it. That's because they're all smug douchebags whose respect and enjoyment of a film is inversely proportional to the number of people who are aware of its existence. Yes, this is fairly lightweight stuff, not breaking any new ground, rather formulaic, and all conflicts are easily wrapped up in minutes. But it's a very fine feel-good movie, with some charming performances, catchy music, amusing situations, colorful art direction and some heart. Is it a filmic masterpiece? No, but it's not a blight on the world of cinema either. I enjoyed it. Rating: 7


The Devil's Eye (rewatch) - A rather bland comedy from Bergman. It's watchable and sometimes dryly amusing but never laugh-out-loud funny. The most interesting thing about it is its premise: Satan sends Don Juan to Earth to rob a young woman of her chastity, with unexpected results. It just doesn't come off as funny, and the comments on love and religion and punishment aren't all that insightful. The movie plods along, barely maintaining interest and desperately in need of some sort of spark. Bergman didn't particularly want to do this picture, and it shows. It does a breezy, effortless quality to it, however, and at least doesn't seem as forced and awkward as All These Women. Rating: 5


Veronika Voss - A beautifully shot homage to classic noir, evoking traces of Sunset Boulevard, The Third Man and maybe Gaslight. It's a compelling, swiftly-moving story of a sports journalist who gets involved with a washed-up actress. The high contrast black & white photography, liberal use of unusual wipes and striking musical choices are the highlights. I enjoyed watching it, but like a lot of Fassbinder, by the end I felt like "well, that's that". I think he manages to make his films very distinctive, but they rarely catch hold of me. I suspect that there's a lot of subtext that I'm too dense and/or lazy to pick up on. I'm not good with subtext, to be brutally honest with myself. Rating: 7


Lola - This isn't on the TSPDT list, but it's in the same box as Veronika Voss, and besides, I wanted to watch all the Criterions at some point anyway. I'm well aware of the fact that lately my viewing habits have been almost entirely dominated by revisiting personal favorites and checking items off lists. Believe me, I do want to stray off the beaten path a little more, I just feel an obsessive need to conquer these lists first. Again with Fassbinder, I really didn't connect with this film much, and actually found it a bit dull. The color scheme was dazzling, and the plot was mildly engaging, but the themes and characters didn't resonate with me at all. Lola is sort of a take-off on Marlene Dietrich's character from The Blue Angel but she just isn't as captivating. Although I wanted to see how the story would progress, I really didn't give a damn what happened to any of these people. Rating: 6


North by Northwest (rewatch, Blu-Ray) - Okay, okay, I give in. I still think this one is a little silly, requires a bit too much suspense of disbelief, and has kind of a bland leading lady. But it's undoubtedly an edge-of-your-seat, supremely entertaining thriller. Although I have a personal preference for Young & Innocent and The 39 Steps, it's probably the most elegantly constructed and finely-honed manifestation of Hitchcock's "wrong man" motif, with just about every scene being a classic. It's especially intricate in its handling of information; what the audience knows, what the characters know, and what the characters know or don't know what the other characters know. I still wouldn't rank among my favorite Hitchcocks, but there's no denying its charms. The Blu-Ray looks fantastic, but the new featurette on Hitchcock has an amusing flaw. No doubt due to rights issues, it completely omits his Universal films... not a single mention of Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, or The Birds, instead focusing entirely on his Warner Brothers movies and a few of the public domain ones. Watching it, you'd think I Confess and Stage Fright were cornerstones of his career. Rating: 9


Crash - Cronenberg's films (even his boring gangster movies) are always psychologically complex, and this is no exception. He seems to be taking it to the next level, even indirectly dismissing his earlier fixation on simple body horror as "a crude sci-fi notion". As is often his modus operandi, he takes human behavior to absurdist extremes to reveal unpleasant universalities. Don't we all kind of get off on car crashes? Spader plays a filmmaker, the characters recreate Hollywood car wrecks, and the excitement of the chase & crash scenes themselves makes the viewer implicit. There are other themes explored as well, some of them rather undeveloped, but they make interesting food for thought. Of course, a lot of it is terribly silly, but most Cronenberg is. Rating: 8

Spent the last few days watching some movies... some well known and some low-budget. Titles in Red is first time viewings.

11/05 -- Shutter (US Remake)
11/06 -- Ghost Rider
11/06 -- Vampire Conspiracy
11/06 -- My Bloody Valentine
11/07 -- The 7th Victim
11/07 -- Autopsy
11/07 -- Bimbos BC {Zero}
11/07 -- Roxy Hunter and the Mystery of the Moody Ghost
11/08 -- The Uninvited
11/08 -- Killer Story
11/08 -- I Dream of Dracula

Michael, it sounds like a documentary that I'd like to watch. I remember that day in 1963 so well. I was home sick with the mumps so even though being a little girl, my eyes were glued to the tv set that whole weekend.

I'm sure The History Channel will eventually play it again.  They usually show all their documentaries over and over. 


The review below will be my last one as a non-father as they ended up taking Dylan yesterday at 1:27pm.  Seven pounds, ten ounces.  I got the call around 10am so I was having a panic attack not knowing if they were going to take him or not but I stayed pretty calm throughout the entire "taking" aspect.  The doctors and nurses kept warning me not to look down at them cutting my girlfriend open, which I just had to smile about since I was use to seeing that type of stuff via countless movies.


Observe and Report (2009)
 

Jody Hill
 

Mall security guard Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogan) gets his big chance when the girl of his dreams (Anna Faris) gets flashed by a pervert showing himself to various women.  Ronnie goes around the real Detective (Ray Liotta) but in the end he might just have a few too many screws loose.  The term "black comedy" has been around for decades now but I think this is a case where a film is just too dark for its own good.  I guess you could call this a comedy spoof of TAXI DRIVER but the darkness is still all over the film and I'm sure many will be repulsed by the type of humor here.  We have date rape, various sexual assaults and our hero is a truly disturbed individual.  More times than not I'd tell someone to lighten up but the final twenty-minutes of this thing takes such a weird and dark turn that I was really scratching my head and wondering what the director was going for.  We see Ronnie finally have a breakdown, which results in him taking on an entire police force and getting his head crushed in.  While watching this I certainly wasn't laughing but I was trying to figure out what all of this was suppose to mean and nothing came to me.  We get a spoof on the TAXI DRIVER speech but the laughs really don't come.  The entire film is pretty much hit and miss.  We'll get an extremely funny laugh but then about five other jokes that fall flat on their face.  I think the biggest problem is the screenplay, which doesn't seem to know what it's trying to do and in many ways the film keeps going off in various directions.  At one point the film is about Ronnie and the girl of his dreams.  It then forgets her and looks at him becoming a cop.  It then forgets that and deals with him and Liotta's character.  We then have various supporting players that come in and out for no real reason except to support that scene, which really doesn't have any connection to anything else happening.  I did enjoy some of the dark humor like Rogan kissing the girl with puke on her mouth and the drunk mother bit was done for some nice laughs.  There were several scenes that had me laughing hard but in the end there weren't enough to really keep this thing moving at a good pace.  What's worse is that the film runs a mere 82-minutes without the end credits so there are just too many misses.
 

Congratulations on baby Dylan. How your life will change. Children are a blessing.

I've said it before but I think this movie will develop a small but rabid cult following. If only because the disturbed sociopaths of the world will love it since they'll get to see a person like themselves onscreen. Personally, I found it funny at times (the climax is one of the funniest things I've ever seen) but it's a really dark movie that is tough to enjoy. I have to give Seth Rogen some credit too for doing a very dark movie when he could have taken a pay day and done another stoner role.

And it's not really date rape as much as a sick joke.


Warning Spoiler! Click to show

CONGRATS  MICHAEL!!




"Drive-In Massacre" - 1.5 / 10

At a California Drive-In cinema someone is taking a swing at the audience with a Katana sword and lopping vital body parts off.
Two Cops (Steve Vincent and Bruce Kimball) are assigned to the case and proceed to make a complete hash of tracking the killer down as the body count grows.
Is it the nutty Janitor?
Is it the teen hating Drive-In owner who sports an outrageously large black cross?
Is it……

Welcome dear reader to the world of really, really bad films.
Bad films, really, really bad films, are actually a pretty rare event with ‘worst movie ever made’ descriptions for example being strewn around with disgraceful negligence aimed at films that are not remotely that.
But now and again you do indeed happen upon one of these rare beasts, a truly bad film with almost no redeeming values of any kind and that, when it finally ends, you hate with a vengeance for wasting those precious moments of your too short life.
“Drive-In Massacre” is one of those films.

 

The Director would go on to make “Insatiable”, the late in the day, 1980, hardcore porn vehicle for Marilyn Chambers. It seems that he found his true calling and level three years too late to save us from a different kind of shafting here though.

It’s one and only real positive aspect is that it certainly delivers (Cop investigation aside…more below) a very pure Slasher film aesthetic early on, more so than “Halloween” and certainly more than “Black Christmas”, a good 3 years before this type of Slasher film would truly gain popularity as the 80’s dawned.

 

As such the few killings on show tend to play out like your classic 80’s Slasher death scene, far more than anything seen before (the closest before this came from 1974‘s "Silent Night, Bloody Night”) and at least the first two deaths are suitably graphic, bloody and nasty, with only the cheap FX diluting the effect.
A decapitation where we see the head actually slashed off and a lingering death via sword through the neck open the film very nicely.
And sadly they also close it. As from now on we are in the den of that beast…the dreaded…truly bad movie.

 

As mentioned, the deaths are few and far between and nothing ever comes close to those first two murders, a sword in the back is all we get to actually see the rest of the gore consists of a few messy aftermath shots.
As such we are left with endless dialogue exchanges, which would be dull enough without the pitifully dire sound recording to contend with.
It sounds like the actors were in an attic while the sound guy was in the room below, desperately trying to capture their muffled words. It’s truly horrendous.

 

The worst dialogue offenses occur during some tediously long police interview scenes with a mentally challenged, ex sword swallowing, Janitor (Douglas Gudbye) where muffled dialogue is once more the order of the day of course but is even more annoying here as these great blocks of speech are actually explaining half the plot and naming and describing possible suspects.
So I guess we should pay attention to these drab sequences, but quite frankly it hurts the brain to even try.

 

Another abuse of the ears comes from the horrendous musical score which seems to someone hitting two sticks together while falling on top of a Casio keyboard.

The entire Police investigation is boring actually, with the two dull Cops mumbling questions to various suspects before walking away and repeating it all once again somewhere else.
The questioning is so drawn out and repetitive that the film almost turns into a Police documentary in fact.

No thanks! I want a horror film please.
Or perhaps this is all a clever plan on behalf of the makers. They may have put in these great slabs of tedious drabness, of repetitive nothingness, so if the film was ever shown at a Drive-In the 'kids' would have plenty of down time to make out!
Perhaps these God-awful scene are a sexual public service.

The extended investigation is so damn useless as well and opens up gaping plot holes.
If people are being murdered every night at the same Drive-In...how can they fail to catch the guy?
How come the Drive-In is even allowed, after these first murders, to carry on operating so normally in the first place?
And how come so many people still decide to go at all, given the wide publicity about the murders? Are we really meant to believe that so many people want to risk being butchered, cheap thrills or not?
Given the setting and et-up then this type of Slasher film can only really be set during one night. As quite frankly the place would be closed down and deserted after the first two sets of killings.

The fact that the entire Police operation simply consists of two middle aged, overweight, Detectives pretending to be a courting couple (complete with one of them dressed in a woman's dress and hat!) means that we have to conclude that the Police took the investigation as seriously as the filmmakers...which is not very seriously at all.
The residents of this California town should ask for a tax refund!

For a film called “Drive-In Massacre” the drive in atmosphere is mortally compromised by never seeing the screen (except for one brief scene near the end), and as such we only given (yet more) muffled speaking in the background to portray the movie being shown.
We also see very little of the ticket and concession buildings, so we lose all that trashy, neon flecked, junk food razzmatazz that was so much part of the Drive-In experience.
The cheapness of the whole enterprise also shines through in the fact that we see no one else at the Drive-In (all the cars seem empty!) except the would be victims and/or the Cops.
As such this stranding of the cars away from the actual Drive-In screen and atmosphere makes it feel like the movie should have been called simply "Car Park Massacre".
It seems this is a regular problem with Drive-In set movies, as even the more up-market horror film "Ruby" lacked any real visual Drive-In aesthetic,
As such it is perhaps "Targets" that remains to this day the ultimate Drive-In based movie.

With a lean running time, of roughly 70 minutes, it becomes almost suicidal for the screenplay (co-written by George ’Buck’ Flower, no less) to concentrate so much time the aforementioned Police questioning scenes and general walking around doing nothing passages, let alone to then have an entire stalk and chase sequence based on an obvious red-herring suspect, who we have never even seen before.
This machete waving loon rants and creeps for a good five minutes before the two dullard Cops show up to partake of a badly handled action/shoot out scene that has nothing at all to do with the Drive-In killings in the slightest!
This sequence has a nicely black-comic punch-line, but it's the wrong thing to concentrate on at this time in such a short film.  
In fact this concentration on the inconsequential happens with only 5 minutes of the film left, a time when the film should really be ratcheting up the tension and scares in the actual plot the movie is meant to be about!

 

And as for the big finale?  Holy Hot Dogs, what a confused non-event!
As such, despite a promising opening, we are left with a truly foul pile of putrid matter masquerading as a horror film that serves less purpose on God’s green Earth than a eye burrowing parasite in an African watering hole.

It may have been one of the first true examples of the Slasher sub-genre that would get honed to perfection a few years later…but being the first crap example of something that would get much better is hardly a triumph to shout about.
Avoid.

Capsule reviews of what I've been watching lately.

Dragonwyck (1946) 

Had recorded this for Oct. Scary movie challenge but ran out of time. Both Vincent Price and Gene Tierney were great and the atmosphere suitably gothic.

 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008) 

Watched this one with my twin granddaughters. The three of us loved it. Little Abigail Breslin is an amazing little actress. Loved her since I saw her in Signs. If you like Nancy Drew type stories, this one with a kid reporter, than you will like this.
 
Orphan (2009)

This story had the typical twist ending which was totally surprising though I thought the girl during the movie was alittle mature for her age. Makes one re-think adoption.  The make-up job on the young actress was amazing. 

Trigger Effect (1996)

Mediocre effort about the psychological effects of a black-out on a group of yuppies. Moral of the story is that in adversity we're pretty close to our animal cousins. 

Transformers 2 (2009) 

My son brought this over for us to watch. Not as good as the first one but for me not the train wreck that I expected. I found myself enjoying this despite the noise and some silly scenes. Wall to wall robots but I didn't expect anything more in this type of movie. 

The Proposal (2009) 

Enjoyable romantic comedy that was totally predicable as many of these types of movies are. Both Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds are appealing but Betty White as the grandmother stole the show. Watched this one with my brother who seemed to like it even more than me. He's one of those rare men of my acquaintance that loves action and horror and also romantic comedies. A keeper for sure. 

Uncle Silas (1947) 

Creepy movie about a totally evil guardian terrorizing a young innocent girl. I was surprised how creepy this movie was for its time, and how despicable Silas, son etc. were. Silas's niece was played by a young Jean Simmons who was 17 at the time. I use to read stories like this and gothic romances when I was a pre-teen and this is a good one. 


Magic in the Water (1995)

Not a bad movie for it's type but it does get overly sentimental at the end. My granddaughters were bored having seen movies that were alot more magical. 

Walk All Over Me (2007) 

This one is alot more complicated but in a nutshell, it's about a clutzy girl, always in trouble, who pretends to be a dominatrix in order to obtain money. This is a black comedy with a couple of interesting scenes but it becomes dull quite quickly. I'm sure it sounded like a good idea and might of worked with better acting.
 

 The Others (2001) 

This is a movie I keep coming back to over and over despite knowing the twist. There's just something hauntingly beautiful, no pun intended, about this movie. Though I had started to suspect that all was not right the first time I saw this, I was surprised at the full extent of the reveal. With its atmospheric settings, this is one of the better ghost stories out there.



 

Edited by PatW - 11/10/09 at 12:40pm

Hey Michael -- CONGRATULATIONS! I can't believe it!! Make sure you start Dylan (Dylan Elliott - good name!) on movies ASAP!    

You'll Find Out (1940)

I just watched this only for the first time, and I liked it. Much better than I thought it would be, and I have avoided this film for my whole life. I even had it recorded off AMC since around 1989 and I've never bothered with it. What a mistake. This was my first exposure to Kay Kyser, the famous '40s band leader/comedian, and he was okay. He agrees to bring his orchestra (including the annoying Ish Kabbible -- but the less said about him, the better) to a young girl's 21st birthday bash at a spooky mansion. Unfortunately, three criminal masterminds (Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Bela Lugosi)are on hand to try and kill her.

Karloff, Lorre, and Lugosi were all quite good in their parts, I thought. They worked together well as the three bad guys and I was surprised that there were actual horror trappings in this film: a lot of thunder, lightning, and mystery. It's more of a comedy/mystery with a few musical numbers strewn about. The main trouble is that it's a little too long at nearly 100 minutes, but it had the right mixture for a good time. 


The Strange Case of Doctor Rx (1942)

Easily the worst Universal "horror film" I've ever seen, and it makes previous candidates of mine like SHE-WOLF OF LONDON, THE FROZEN GHOST, and JUNGLE WOMAN look like thrill rides alongside it. Hell, I'd even watch LIFE RETURNS again over this one; at least that's bizarre enough in its badness and resembles an Our Gang short in spots. DOCTOR Rx doesn't make one bit of sense, with nothing going on but talk, talk, talk, and feels like it goes on forever despite that it's only just over an hour. The cockeyed plot seems to be about a series of murders against criminals who got off, committed by a mysterious doctor. Shemp Howard and Mantan Moreland are mixed up in all of this, but they don't even offer anything fun in the comical department. Anne Gwynne had always been the cutest Universal gal for me, but despite all her pep here it's all for naught. And Lionel Atwill is just wasted. The only somewhat decent thing I can say for this turkey is that it was semi-interesting to see Patric Knowles cast as an insensitive jerk for a change, and the 3 measly minutes we spend in Dr. Rx's laboratory with a chained gorilla is a tad unsettling ... even though I can't for the life of me see how it fits into the rest of this picture! A wretched movie.

Congratulations, Michael! For a large part of your forseeable future you're probably going to be some combination of frustrated/tired, so when you get a chance, a quiet moment, whatever, make sure you realize how enjoyable it all is and how much fun the little guy brings you.  Best to you and the family.   

I was getting worried though when you went on about them 'coming to take the baby'!


"This Film is not yet Rated" -  4 / 10

Firstly, I agree that some of the MPAA  decisions are stupid, the appeals system is a total disgrace  and their is obvious bias as far as homosexual sex goes compared to hetrosexual sex as far as ratings go.
Also yes, violence gets through where even some of the most basic sex and nudity wont.
And it is silly about members of the MPAA not being known and yes I don't much care for religious people being included (though you don't have to be a priest to have strong, even loony, religious views anyway).

But as far as the actual ratings go I don't see what point the film is trying to make.
If trade mags, newspapers, distributors, stores and cinemas won't take an 'NC-17' film...that has nothing at all to do with the MPAA.
Blame all of the above.

If the argument is that a film got an 'NC-17' in the first place..then that argument only works as far as fairness goes.   But if the film was indeed rated 'NC-17' fairly then what has the MPAA done wrong?
One film maker was even happy her film got an 'NC-17'.  It was only when she was told about the attitude of the trade mags, newspapers, distributors, stores and cinemas that she became unhappy!

So what, scrap the 'NC-17'? 
OOPS!  Not too good that, as the very reason the 'NC-17' even exists is because film makers were moaning about their films having to be cut to get an 'R' and/or being hit with a dreaded porno 'X'.
So instead of an 'X' the MPAA created the 'NC-17' to add a legitimate rating chance for a film so it would not have to be cut but also not carry the stigma of a 'porn rating'.

But then, it is absolutely nothing to do with the MPAA if all of the above people and organisations still decided to treat the new 'NC-17' just as badly as an 'X'.
It's not their fault.

So what to do? 
Go unrated?  Well then you can't blame the MPAA for anything.  You avoided them.
But guess what?  All the same people and organisations that refuse an 'X' or an 'NC-17' also refuse an unrated film!
So even with the MPAA never being involved and as such are then blameless...you still can't get your movie shown!

So what do the film makers want?  For everything to simply get an 'R' and never have to be cut?
Okay...works for me.  But it does not work in the real world of business or general society.
If all films of an adult nature get an uncut 'R' then the 'R' will itself become another 'NC-17' and then 'R' rated films won't be accepted by all those same people and organisations either.

The hard fact is...if genuine, fairly rated, 'NC-17' content was simply given an 'R' then that content will be criticised for being in an 'R' film.
And then when more films with genuinely explicit content also get an 'R' then the general public and all the organisations will take against it.
The same mindset, morals, values, beliefs that condemn an 'NC-17' film to the dustbin will still all be there when the exact same 'NC-17' film now gets an 'R'.
Hell, one director even moans about his film getting an 'R', not moaning that it doesn't.
So it seems even getting an 'R' is not always acceptable.
Would an 'R' rated film (still amazingly lenient compared to a UK '18',  seeing as any age can go as long as a parent is there too)  about real soldiers fighting in Iraq really be hurt by that 'R'? 
Would a 'PG-13' really boost the box office where such a film is concerned?
And really, what has this got to do with the MPAA if they gave a rating that other film makers are hoping to have, while others moan about getting it?
Either it's good to get an 'R' (as those hit with an 'NC-17' seem to be saying) or it is not.  Make your minds up.

So what next?  NO ratings at all on anything?  How would that work? 
You have to have a guide to a film's content.  Or else little Jimmy will be seeing rape and torture for his 10th Birthday trip to the cinema as no one knew what the film contained.
You have to have a guide to content.
And even if you overhaul the MPAA, ditch the secrecy, stop the rampant bias and dubious pulling of strings...You would still have to have someone that rates films.  And what rating that film gets will still effect how it is treated.

So yes, aspects of the MPAA need exposing and tackling to change them...But ultimately the war will only ever be won when the real problem is tackled and the real culprits fought...and that is the studios, trade mags, newspapers, TV station and cinemas that are prejudiced against 'NC-17' in particular and certain content in general.

And at least America has (especially vital now in the Internet shopping age) something the UK does not (as all DVD's must also be rated like all cinema films)...and that is getting the fully uncut version of the film out there and seen via 'unrated' DVD's.
It matters little if stuffy 'Blockbuster' won't take unrated DVD's as there are now plenty of other stores that do...and the massive choice of Internet stores (that take all and everything) means that it is as easy as breathing to get your film seen by millions of people in its uncut form at good prices.

And let's face it..Today a cinema release is quite simply not that important to a great many films.  And many film makers themselves know this.
Where even if they did get an 'R' the appeal of the movie is limited or cult in nature and so it would only get small cinema showing anyway. Probably costing more to put on than would be taken at the box office.

Nowadays most films (unless a huge blockbuster hit) make their money on home market DVD sales/pre-sales and worldwide DVD sales.
And they make FAR more than any small cinema release ever could, and they can make it via an 'unrated', MPAA free, release.
And as bigger TV's, better home sound systems and higher quality transfer technology gets cheaper and more common the real value of an MPAA approved cinema release dwindles away anyway.

I also dislike the way the film seems to go as 'moral' and judgmental as those it is critical of as far as violence goes.
Yes, I agree that it is stupid and wrong not giving a film an 'R' because it showed pubic hair while a film that showed a guy getting his brains blown out does get an 'R'
But I get a nasty taste in my mouth when the violent scene itself is looked down on, maligned and has dubious 'it's dangerous to society' accusations thrown at it!
It seems personal bias against some things is as much part of the makers of this film as it is with the MPAA.

As such, in 2009 at least,  I just can't find the enthusiasm the makers of "This Film is not yet Rated" get at following some middle-aged Mother or Father down the road to a diner, to catch a glimpse of their face and learn their name,  as they feverishly declare..."I THINK WE'VE FOUND A RATER"!
And quite frankly I'm even less interested in the personal life of the PI following them in the car, while they act like they're in "The French Connection" and about to find out who the head of the crime syndicate is. 
And no amount of stupid 'action music' can make footage of a lesbian Private Investigator, who made the mistake of getting married to a guy once (I need to know any of this why?),  following someone as they go to eat some chicken for lunch remotely interesting, let alone exciting.

We have some good points made, we have some interesting visual comparisons where gross bias has been displayed and it's always interesting to hear from the likes of John Waters, Matt Stone and Kevin Smith,  but quite frankly much of this film is uninvolving, unimportant and dated terribly by DVD, Internet and home viewing technology that relies not one tiny bit on the people in the MPAA, or where they go for lunch.

 Oh yes...Despite that long-winded waffle about "This Film is not yet Rated" I actually forgot to mention the most annoying and biggest flaw in the thing...The sensationalist theories and general nutters they use to put them forward.

The main culprits here are the accusation that the MPAA are behind the U.S. Army not giving help to films that are critical of the U.S. Army! Please! I think we can in fact assume that the U.S. Army itself is quite capable of saying 'we're not going to help you slag us off'.
MPAA or not!

The most farcical, indeed utterly mad, point that is made (these supposedly enlightened film makers find people to use and arguments to make that make them sound as bad as the nutty "This film is to blame" and 'Marilyn Manson is Satan" brigade) is that because the MPAA supposedly have a hand in the Military not helping out with movies critical of the Military...AMERICANS HAVE BECOME MORE WAR-LIKE!
What drivel is this? What utterly unproven by any fact at all in the film drivel IS this?

And not only is this basic point (is it even worthy of being called a point!?) garbage but the most basic of movie knowledge, old and new, shows this point to be made on completely false theories.
Since Vietnam there have been COUNTLESS Hollywood/American anti-War, anti-American, anti-Military, anti-Pentagon movies.
Bar "The Green Berets" you'd be hard pushed to find a 'Nam film that isn't indeed some or all of these!

So where is this non-stop pro-Military wave of movies since the 70's that have, according to the loonies in "This Film is not yet Rated", warped Americans into being war like animals?

And as for now...Again film makers have had no problem getting made a few dozen utterly anti-war, generally anti-American Military, movies concerning Iraq!
In fact the sheer amount of them makes it look more like a Saddam backed propaganda campaign.
All got funded, equipped, made, rated and released...Despite the shadowy MPAA having fingers in shadowy pies.

Such blatantly false, generally mad, content does this film no good...And finding out that a 'RATER' is called Joan, is married with 2 kids and hides a spare dildo under the wash basin... does not change that.

The Fourth Kind (2009)  

It was probably a mistake for me to even bother seeing this, as I am no believer in the existence of aliens, or "alien abduction" mumbo jumbo. But I saw it last night with my wife and our two very serious friends, who DO believe in ghosts, UFO's, aliens, psychics - you name it. I didn't realize going in that this was not just a "pretend" movie scenario, but rather some sort of self-professed "true story" with "actual video footage". By using occasional split-screen effects, it incorporates supposed "real video footage" along with actors, as it relates a story from Alaska in the year 2000 about unexplained circumstances that centered around a phsychologist called Abigail Tyler. She treated several patients who also experienced the same strange phenomena that she herself did, and this ultimately resulted in her husband dying and one of her children becoming affected.  

As a skeptic I thought it was ridiculous. I thought the "real video footage" was a load of staged malarkey too, just a marketing gimmick. And IF this doctor Tyler who's featured in interviews throughout is indeed a real person, then she's off her rocker and is better off picking dust off a padded cell somewhere. Very coincidental too, isn't it, that any time something "revealing" occurs on camera, the "real" video footage that attempts to capture it just magically and conveniently screws up and distorts - every time! As we left the theater, my wife (who pretty much shares my opinion) kept exchanging glances with me as our two friends (who, as I've said, are True Believers)  tried to explain to us how the aliens are "smart" and deliberately block us from getting a clear camcorder view of their activities. My wife, unlike me, mostly kept silent and to herself -- but I told them I thought it was a bunch of nonsense. One of our friends quite seriously said to me "well, maybe you've already been abducted before but don't know it".

I suppose people will all have different takes on the authenticity of this sort of thing. Even though I wasn't buying any of it, as a movie itself it wasn't unwatchable. 

Hey - congrats Michael.  Best to you and your family.

Michael, congrats on the son! His first name is the same as my middle name (mine comes from the poet Dylan Thomas though).

Thanks to all.  Everything started off well for the first two days as all he did was eat and sleep.  I thought parenthood was going to be a breeze but then last night around 10pm he decided to wake up and keep me up until six this morning.   After 28 years of insomnia, I finally get that taken care of now it appears I'm going to need it again.  Everything seems to be fine as he's 100% healthy, eating more than what someone his size should, the only time he cried was when they cut his thing and he seems to be enjoying his first few days here.  He had a lot of firsts within a short ten-minute span, which just happened to come at a time when his mom was out getting tests done so I was all alone with him.  I survived the whole ordeal and caught most of it on camera.  I'm amazed at how great those lesser moments are and it was quite remarkable when you first hear him cry. 

I'm sure I could go on and on with countless stories but I had better get back to the hospital.  Thanks again for the good wishes now just cross your fingers that he doesn't have me up all night again.

Didn't Bob Dylan take his last name from Dylan Thomas? Bob's real name is Zimmerman.

Hey Michael - I'm glad you didn't name your new son Zimmy Elliott!

Ouch.  Well, wouldn't you?

Congratulations, Michael.


Edited by Sandro - Yesterday at 7:53 pm