Signals From Left Field: Wheels On Meals (1984)

When I was a wee lad, I saw Jackie Chan in 1981's Cannonball Run and immediately became a fan of his infinitely kinetic, often comedic style of martial arts.  I'd use my limited resources to see him in other movies, like 1980's The Big Brawl, which I didn't see until the mid-80's.  The 90's rolled around, and I somehow got in touch with a VHS rental-by-mail company which predated Netflix by several years.  They had a great international catalog, and lo and behold...there was Jackie Chan and a wealth of his films from the 1980's, when he enjoyed a hugely successful run as one of a wonderful action-comedy trio.

As a child, Chan attended and studied at the Peking Opera, where he met Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao.  The three were fast friends in the grueling school, learning among other things, how to use their martial arts and gymnastic prowess to the fullest.  They moved on into film, first as extras, then as marquee stars, directors, and choreographers.  The 1980's were probably their busiest and most prolific, as they churned out hit after hit.  They made films separately, but when they worked together, that was where the box office magic happened.

Their chemistry was as undeniable as the differences in their styles.  Chan was the guy with the moves, and was the lead face in nearly every work they did.  Hung was the chubby guy with the incredible comic timing and deceptive quickness.  Biao was the smallest and the most acrobatic, using flips and lightning-fast moves.  Where they were different in their styles and appearances, the influences were the same:  classics like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin were evident in the trio's mannerisms and stunts.  They mixed martial arts with old school slapstick comedy and created a run of wonderfully whimsical movies during the 80's like Project A, Dragons Forever, and the Lucky Stars series.

One of the surefire staples of this period was Wheels On Meals (aka Kuàicān Chē, Spartan X, and Powerman among other titles), made in 1984 and directed by Hung.  It's considered a favorite among classic Hong Kong action film fans not only for its obvious goofiness, but for the thrilling fight scenes, especially the climactic battle between Chan and real-life martial arts champion Benny "The Jet" Urquidez.

The plot is fairly simple and full of gags.  Thomas (Chan) and David (Biao) run a food cart in Barcelona, Spain.  During the day, they sell burgers and egg rolls in a popular plaza, and by night, they train in martial arts.  The fighting skills come in handy when they have to run off a motorcycle gang terrorizing the plaza.  When visiting David's father in a mental hospital, they're smitten by Sylvia (Spanish actress Lola Forner), the daughter of a woman David's dad falls for in the hospital.  They run into Sylvia in the city, where she turns out to be a thief, posing as a hooker to rob men.  However, there's more to Sylvia than meets the eye.  Private detective Moby (Hung) is looking for her, as are some guys with more sinister motives.  Seems Sylvia is the long-lost heir to a massive fortune and a local crime boss, Mondale (Pepe Sancho), wants to force her hand over the goods, preferably by marriage.

After the boys rescue her a couple times, Sylvia joins them, working as a waitress for their food cart.  Eventually, Mondale sends his big boys (Urquidez and yet another real-life champion Keith Vitali) after Sylvia and they manage to kidnap her.  The good guys can't let this happen, so they stage a daring rescue in Mondale's castle stronghold, taking on his henchmen and engaging in some tremendous martial arts battle, including the one I mentioned between Chan and Urquidez.  While that is truly one of the best martial arts battles to grace the screen, you can't take away from the final fight between Biao and Vitali, involving many flips, plush furniture, and a pineapple as a weapon.

If you get a hold of this sweet little film, don't be put off by the dubbing.  It can be excruciating at times, to be honest, but it's a very small price to pay to watch Chan, Biao, and Hung work their magic.  The movies they made brimmed with eternal optimism:  we will beat the bad guy and we will win the day.  The jokes and gags are light-hearted and hammy.  The fights and stunts are breathtaking, and they were an important component of Hong Kong cinema for years.  Wheels On Meals exemplifies those qualities and adds the beautiful scenery of Barcelona into the mix.  And yes, the draw is the Chan-Urquidez main event, a physical, sometimes brutal, sometimes funny controlled brawl.  There are highlights within the highlights, such as Chan's character using positive thinking to change his style, tickling as an offensive weapon, and a kick by Urquidez that literally blows out some candles (which I understand was not a trick).  Speaking of chemistry, Chan and Urquidez also battled in the wonderful Dragons Forever and that was a show-stoppers as well.  They just work so well as foes.

If you only know Chan from his Rush Hour movies or more watered-down Hollywood releases, or Hung from his short-lived but fun American TV show Martial Law, then you really should treat yourself to Meals On Wheels, or any one of their 80's heyday movies.  They're a blast, and may have you pulling a ligament trying to imitate their moves.

Not that I speak from experience.

Now enjoy the amazing final fight scene:

Radio Days (1987) The Power of Nostalgia

On the rare occasion I get back to my hometown in Cadillac, Michigan, I always stop by G & D Pizza to get what may very well be the best slices of pizza I've ever had. The taste of it takes me back to the mid-1980's when it was enjoyed as a lunch during school days or a late-night snack run during the weekends. Many memories from those days - good memories - are peppered with G & D pizza slices. If I eat them while listening to say, Dokken or KISS (which Cadillac has a connection to during the 1970's), then the nostalgia goes into overdrive.

The five senses can easily trigger nostalgia, and some more than others. The sense of hearing is one qualifies as one of the top triggers. Come on, admit it: you hear a song that played during a time in your life that was a big, red pin on your memory map and you get chills. Or you get sad. Or angry. Or you swoon. Everyone has a song - or even a whole soundtrack - that holds a place in their past.

In 1987, Woody Allen wrote and directed a fond love letter to the radio's golden age, the slice-of-life film, Radio Days. It stars a huge cast, mostly as the family which serves as the basis of all the vignettes and asides. A very young Seth Green stars as Joe, who is the narrator (Allen) as a boy. It might as well be Allen himself, but he does serve the stories up on a fictional plate. He lives in a crowded household with his parents (Michael Tucker and Julie Kavner), his aunt and uncle (Renee Lippin and Josh Mostel), their daughter (Joy Newman), his grandparents (William Magerman and Leah Carrey), and another aunt, the lovesick Bea (Dianne Wiest). The movie spans the years 1941 through New Year's Day, 1944, before television had come along and the greatest home entertainment you could get was on the radio.


There really is no plot to the movie, rather a series of short stories and vignettes. The older Joe as narrator reminisces about life as a young Jewish kid in Rockaway, New York, and how radio was central to the daily lives of different characters. He talks of how radio influenced him and led him to "collect" stories about the radio business, which results in the parallel story of naive, heavily-Brooklyn-accented, wannabe-radio star Sally White (Mia Farrow) as she struggles to achieve fame.

Sally's story takes her from being a cigarette girl in a nightclub to a witness to a mob murder, but her ditzy personality and hometown charm convinces the mobster (Danny Aiello) to help her out in a very funny scene. Just before her big break, Pearl Harbor is attacked and her fame will just have to wait. She shuttles from job to job before taking elocution lessons, which lead her to be one of the posh radio stars enjoying the very same nightclub at which she started. It's a sweet, often funny journey that makes you root for the never-say-die Sally.

Wallace Shawn voices The Masked Avenger

Much of the film is ranges from sweet to funny. Joe tells the story of how his desire for a Masked Avenger (voiced by Wallace Shawn) compartment ring leads him to a "life of crime" by keeping the proceeds his Hebrew school instructed him to collect to help support a new state in Palestine (indeed, Israel would be formed about seven years later). This gets him in huge trouble, as expected. Joe talks of his Aunt Bea and her search for love, included one hefty fellow trying to get fresh before he's scared off by radio reports of Martians landing in New Jersey. Songs remind Joe of specific memories, such as his cousin dancing to Carmen Miranda's "South American Way" or his first time kissing a girl he liked or attending a movie at Radio City Music Hall.

However, there is one very poignant scene devoid of narration and entirely chilling. When a little girl falls down a well, people from all walks of life stop what they're doing and listen. Not watch, mind you. They listen. The rich, the poor, men, women, children, everyone is glued to their radios. And when it's over, it can be summed up when the father, who had just been spanking young Joe with a belt for a chemistry set accident, holds his son close as life solemnly moves on. It's a brilliant, beautiful scene tied together only by the voice of the radio reporter on the scene.

While I tend not to gush over Woody Allen, I will not deny his place as one of the great directors. I have always believed him to be a fantastic craftsman. Radio Days is a movie I can watch anytime; it's comfortable and yes, nostalgic. I was not a kid in the 1940's, although I feel that way some mornings. But Allen paints such a gorgeous picture of New York life during the heyday of radio, that it's one of those stimuli that prompts me to wonder what it would have been like to have lived then.

When you watch the movie, it's fun to play "spot the star." William H. Macy has a wordless role as one of the performers with Sally when news arrives of Pearl Harbor. Jeff Daniels makes an appearance. Diane Keaton has a cameo as a nightclub singer. Also take a look for Mike Starr (countless films, such as Goodfellas and The Bodyguard) as a burglar in the beginning, Don Pardo as a game show host, Tito Puente as a bandleader, Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm) as a communist neighbor, the late Rebecca Schaeffer as the communist neighbor's daughter, and several others you'll just have to spot yourself.

It's a sweet-hearted movie, a definite love letter to 1940's radio and 1940's New York. It's funny, poignant in parts, with genuine love for the characters. It speaks not only to the power of radio and the spoken word, but to the strength of nostalgia, and how long-gone performers and certain avenues of artistic expression will live on in the memories and minds of those who promise to remember them.

Now me, I'm hankering for a slice of G & D pizza and a music block by Def Leppard...

Signals From Left Field: Big Trouble In Little China (1986)

From Left Field? Just like many of the films I'll discuss, many of the choices I make might come "from left field." I like quirky as much I as like cake, and that's a whole lot, so I hope you enjoy my look at cult, semi-cult, and whatever movie strikes my fancy at any given time. And away we go with my first choice...

When I first saw John Carpenter's underrated gem of an action-comedy-martial arts-fantasy flick, Big Trouble In Little China, I was a student majoring in Amateur Party-Attending and Alcohol Consumption at Central Michigan University, circa 1987. It was a Saturday night, and I stumbled into my dorm sometime after midnight. Merrill Hall was good about having movies to watch in the commons room on Saturdays, and as my eyes adjusted to the non-smoky, bright interior of the dorm lobby, this is the wondrous sight they saw:



The stunning alley fight that establishes the line between good and evil, and puts our hero Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) in the thick of the strangest adventure that involves magic, demi-gods, and modernized Chinese mythology - that was it...I was drawn in and would never leave this movie's warm and goofy embrace.

Big Trouble In Little China is director John Carpenter's true cult film. Halloween may be his incredible debut and a study in suspense that would make Alfred Hitchcock jealous, but this 1986 tribute to true adventure and Hong Kong action films didn't fare as well at the box office. You'd think it would've done better, as nearly everyone I know loves the movie. But, in reality, it's just that my closest friends and I tend to like the same movies, and so when I ask a "movie non-buff" if they like it, I usually get a shrug and/or a blank look. Halloween usually gets more of a response.

"Seinfeld, four!"

Haven't seen it? Here's a quick rundown: egotistical yet philosophical trucker Burton and his buddy, Wang Chi (Dennis Dun), run afoul of local bad guy David Lo Pan (James Hong) who turns out to be a cursed demi-god in search of a Chinese girl with green eyes so that he can become human again. As a result, Jack loses his truck and Wang loses his girlfriend to Lo Pan and his admittedly kick-ass henchmen, the Three Storms who possess the names and powers of rain, thunder, and lightning. Enlisting the help of a group of good-guy warriors and tour guide/sorcerer Egg Shen (the great Victor Wong - you've seen him in Tremors), Jack and Wang storm Lo Pan's vast underground world to rescue Wang's girlfriend and intrepid reporter Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall, thankfully pre-Sex In The City). What follows can be described as John Wayne meets the dark side of Oz in a crazy battle underneath Chinatown.



Big Trouble In Little China always reminds of me what it's like to have fun watching a movie. You could describe the film as "good dumb fun," but really, there's nothing dumb about it. The hero is immensely likable, the villain is appropriately over-the-top, and the pure fantasy facets of the movie tell you screw reality and sit back to enjoy the ride. It looks good; there's a rich palette of colors, enhanced by neon and bright but unobtrusive special effects. It sounds good; Carpenter's minimalist score - as usual - fits with the action on the screen, and the whooshes and crackles of the battle scenes cartwheel out of your speakers.



One of the little details I loved about the movie is the hint of a wider world than we actually see. Yes, there's the actual story, but there are strong clues that this battle of good (the Chang Sing gang) and evil (the Wing Kong gang) has been raging for centuries. And not only the battle itself, but the characters as well, especially Egg Shen and Lo Pan.

When discussing his search for a green-eyed woman, Lo Pan remarks "There have been others, to be sure. There are always others, are there not?" Maybe there have been other adventures, other heroes that have thwarted Lo Pan with Egg's help. Hmm. We definitely know Egg and Lo Pan have crossed paths before, and Egg isn't just a lovable, kooky local magician. When Lo Pan tells the Three Storms that Egg is leading the band of heroes, the Storms give each other a fearful look. Egg apparently already has either faced them, or has carved out a reputation for himself battling other demons. And there's a telling exchange between the two adversaries during the climactic battle scene, as they battle to a magical stalemate, and Lo Pan brags, "You never could beat me, Egg Shen."

When a movie, no matter how much in the "big dumb fun" niche it is, stirs the imagination of my childhood and causes me to dream up my own continuing stories (I always called mine More Trouble In Little China - don't judge)...then it will win my heart. Big Trouble In Little China won my heart in 1987 on that post-party, not-entirely-sober Saturday night in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, and has kept it for 23 years and counting. Although Carpenter has made a number of my favorite films, such as the aforementioned Halloween, They Live, Prince of Darkness, and The Thing, this movie - this true definition of a "romp" - remains my favorite of the bunch.

"ROMP!"

Enjoy, and remember to bring the popcorn.

The Great Unwatched: Bava, Argento, Cronenberg

There are two goals to my Great Unwatched project. The first is to see some films that I might not otherwise give the time of day to. The second is to finally experience movies I should've watched a long, long time ago. This weekend, I focused especially on the latter goal, filling in gaps in the filmographies of three of my favorite horror directors: Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and David Cronenberg. I even made a special effort to watch some of their non-horror offerings mixed in with the usual fright flicks.

Film 1: Hercules in the Haunted World (1961, Mario Bava)
Bava's second (credited) turn as director is a fascinating tale of swords 'n' sandals with a bit of Christopher Lee thrown into the mix. Hercules (Reg Park) journeys to Hades to retrieve a mystical stone that will save the life of his lady love, Princess Deianira. What our musclebound hero doesn't know is that his girlfriend's wicked uncle (Lee) is machinating to use Deianira's blood in a ritual to make him immortal. Hercules in the Haunted World was Bava's first opportunity to show what he could do with color and he really wows. The scenes of hell in particular show his visual mastery. Reportedly Bava used a few movable walls and a handful of columns to form every interior set in this film, resorting to visual trickery when he needed it to look like he had more. He creates an expressionistic peplum film, which works best when taken as a visual feast hung on a loose plot.

Film 2: Erik the Conqueror (1961, Mario Bava) 
An unofficial remake of Richard Fleischer's The Vikings (1958), Erik the Conqueror (also known as The Invaders) tells the tale of two Viking brothers, separated as children when their village on the coast of England is pillaged by the vicious Sir Rutford (Andrea Checci). Eron (Cameron Mitchell) is raised by his Nordic brethren. Erik (George Ardisson) is adopted by the Queen Alice of Scotland (or Britain, depending on whether you're watching the movie dubbed or subtitled) and grows up to become the Duke of Helford.


What struck me about Erik the Conqueror was the care taken that neither Viking or English were portrayed as villainous or unsympathetic. Both sides are caught in the cycle of violence known as history, occasionally manipulated by Sir Rutford to achieve his own ends. Certainly the Vikings are portrayed as more brutish and violently-inclined, but they're also largely honorable, honest people. The English are more cultured, but they are given to subterfuge and, in the case of Sir Rutford, outright treachery. 

The best sequences, visually, take place in the Viking's headquarters, a large cave where Bava's colored gels run wild. The centerpiece of the set is the giant gnarled tree from Hercules in the Haunted World, which looks magnificent in this new context.

Overall, however, the film isn't that interesting, unless you're really into vikings.

Film 3: Fast Company (1979, David Cronenberg)
It's certainly possible to read a lot of Cronenberg's prevalent themes into Fast Company, most notably the intersection of man and technology and the betrayals of corporate America. However, I think it misses the point to a certain extent. This is Cronenberg working in established drive-in fodder territory for the first and only time in his career. He sticks pretty cleanly to the rules by providing a story with clear heroes and villains, plus the requisite amounts of sex and action. William Smith plays Lonnie "Lucky Man" Johnson, a race car driver in his twilight, doing the drag race circuit under the sponsorship of FastCo Oil. When FastCo betrays him (through their corporate liaison Phil Adamson, played by John Saxon), he strikes out on his own. Adamson uses every trick in his book to make sure Lonnie's cars never reach the finish line. Fast Company is slow-moving (ironically) and takes forever to get around to its central conflict. Cronenberg really only breaks out of the mold during a surprisingly brutal climax that kills off two characters and seriously injures a third.

Film 4: Inferno (1980, Dario Argento)
I still don't know what I feel about this one. Certainly it's the most beautiful Argento film I've ever seen. However, the plot is a huge wad of happenstance, with very little rhyme or reason. In some places it seems to want to emulate the structure of its predecessor, Suspiria, but it lacks a character like Susie Banyon for us to relate to. I'll admit that I was already starting to get a little burned out at this point in my marathon, so I might not have given Inferno the due it deserves. Next time I watch, I'll do it properly -- well-rested, with all the lights out, and the soundtrack up loud. Until then, I can't really give a strong opinion one way or the other.

As a bonus to my general theme, however, Mario Bava did some uncredited effects work for the New York segments of the film.

Film 5: Rabid (1977, David Cronenberg)
Rabid is much more in line with Cronenberg's general oeuvre. Marilyn Chambers emerges from experimental surgery with a retractable phallus in her armpit and a craving for blood. Those who she feeds from become blood-crazed zombies. Cronenberg expands on the themes he first posited in Shivers, with disease as a catalyst for societal breakdown. Moving outside the confines of a single apartment building into the city of Montreal, Cronenberg is able to analyze government and public responses to an outbreak of irrationality. Meanwhile, on a parallel track, Chambers is just trying to survive, oblivious to the effect her feeding has on her victims (and her victims' victims). Unfortunately, Cronenberg never manages to blend the external outbreak narrative with the internal vampire one, so the film gets narratively and thematically confused at times. Cronenberg would do better in later films by keeping his focus on a single character navigating through the chaos, as in Videodrome.

Film 6: Phenomena (1985, Dario Argento)
Not a lot to say about this one, except that it was the last film of the night and it didn't do much to grab hold of my already shaky attention. As a sidenote, at some point I may write an article tracking Argento's treatment of Daria Nicolodi's characters throughout their collaborations, as it does seem he gets more brutal with her after they broke off their romantic relationship.

My original plan, incidentally, had been to watch Four Flies on Grey Velvet, but my bootleg (purchased before Mya Communication announced their official DVD) was nearly unwatchable. Very disappointing.

"If we walk without rhythm, we won't attract the worm." - David Lynch's DUNE

At one point during Dune (1984), I forgot which David was directing. When the giant space slug slithers to the front of his special case and starts talking out of a vaginal mouth, I thought, "Yeah, this is totally Cronenberg." I didn't even realize the mental gaffe until I was preparing this brief blog post. David Cronenberg had no part in David Lynch's adaptation of the classic Frank Herbert novel and Lynch's been known to employ genital imagery from time to time (hello, Eraserhead). This has nothing to do with the rest of this post. Actually, the rest of this post has nothing to do with the rest of this post. Consider it largely a bunch of unrelated thoughts attracted by vibrations in the sand of my brain.

• Netflix Instant Watch only offers the theatrical version of Dune, which is David Lynch's, ah, preferred version. That is to say, he hasn't utterly disowned the theatrical cut, as he did with the three-hour television version. To put metaphorically, he's more apt to take a punch in the face than a kick in the balls. All available versions of the film have been tampered with to one degree or another and none seem to meet Lynch's ultimate vision (although he admits, "it's not like there's a perfect film sitting somewhere waiting to come out"). Still, I'm curious to see the longer cut, if only because it might clear up some confusion that the theatrical version must bear for being only two hours (and change) in length.
  
• It's kind of crazy how long Alicia Witt and Virginia Madsen have been working in movies. Witt was eight or nine when she filmed her part as Paul Atreides creepy little sister.
  
• I wish I had not been eating a brownie bite during the "bug juice box" bit.
  
• There's a lot of sci-fi visual gold in this movie, which largely makes up for its flaws as a story. I'm referring to the shield suits, the bluer-than-blue eyes, the sandworms (oft-imitated, never matched), and the aforementioned space slug. Still, it all feels very 80s.
  
• The ever-present thought narration gets tedious, especially since much of it communicates emotions or concerns already apparent from the thinker's facial expression.
  
• Sting says little, acts less. In one scene, he wears even less than that.
  
• Holy crap I had no idea how much random phrases and concepts from Dune (be it book or movie) had infiltrated pop culture. I always thought "the sleeper must awaken" was a Cthulhu thing. Whoops.
  
• The pain box sequence is gnarly and disturbed, even after having seen Don Coscarelli do it in Phantasm.

In conclusion, WTF:

The Great Unwatched: Nail Gun Massacre (1985)

Directors: Bill Leslie and Terry Lofton

Runtime: 90 minutes

I bought this one soon after I read Adam Rockoff's Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (an excellent book that I highly recommend). Rockoff's dedicated analysis made me realize that perhaps I'd given the slasher genre short shrift. For whatever reason, I didn't actually watch Nail Gun Massacre at the time I bought it, which is probably a good thing. It would have simply reaffirmed my earlier position that slashers are dross.

This is the kind of movie where you can hear the camera in the background, where the shooting script likely said, "push in on naked boobies," where somebody's grandma has to fill in as the shop clerk and read her lines off a script on the counter. This is the kind of movie where a random red herring is mentioned but never actually explained, where the killer's lame wisecracks are drowned out by the even lamer musical score, where the crime-solving authorities couldn't deduce their way out of an empty parking lot.

In short, this is the kind of movie where the vast majority of people involved never worked on another movie again, so at least there's something to be grateful for.

Worth the Purchase: It hurt more than a little.

Stats: 18/401 movies watched in fifteen days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: January 24, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

The Great Unwatched: Trancers (1985)

Part of: The Full Moon Archive Collection

Director: Charles Band

Runtime: 76 minutes

After Dollman, my girlfriend won't watch any more Full Moon action movies with me. I don't really blame her, all things told, since it was a pretty rotten film. Trancers, made some six years before, has the same concept (cop from a futuristic society comes to present-day Los Angeles to defeat sworn nemesis) and even the same star (Tim Thomerson). However, it's a vastly better movie. Why? There's almost no padding. It's just 76 minutes of action with some humor tossed in the mix for good measure. Plus, there's zombies. You really can't go wrong with zombies. Especially Santa Claus zombies. Thomerson is in his element here -- playing the tough guy for laughs, much as he did nine years earlier on the short-lived sci-fi comedy series Quark. It's weird seeing future Oscar-winner Helen Hunt as an 1980s rocker girl facing down low-budget sci-fi menaces. Mind you, this isn't remotely a good film. It's just a pretty decent way to kill 76 minutes without a lot of thought.

One note about the presentation on the DVD. Shamefully, Full Moon has chosen to present Trancers in the worst way possible. It's clearly transfered from a video master instead of the original film elements. Shame shame.

Worth the Purchase: It'd be worth more if this received a proper transfer.

Stats: 17/401 movies watched in fourteen days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: January 20, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

The Great Unwatched: The Stuff (1985)

Director: Larry Cohen

Runtime: 93 minutes

Didn't think I'd have time to catch one of the unwatched today, seeing as I was going to a midnight showing of Watchmen (a pretty good film, all things told, which I might review in full tomorrow). However, I tossed The Stuff in my laptop bag just in case. It turns out that when you're stuck in a movie theater for a few hours before the show even starts, it's the perfect time to watch a movie.

Larry Cohen's The Stuff is a weird little satire of consumerism by way of The Blob. Cohen clearly has a lot he wants to say, but the message gets lost in a melange of technical effects and convoluted plot movements. When the paramilitary force is introduced in the final act, you know Cohen's lost control of his movie entirely. Still, it's funny and more than a little strange and it's definitely a Cohen film, which means...

Worth the Purchase: Yes!

Stats: 11/400 movies watched in nine days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: January 17, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

The Great Unwatched: Pumpkinhead (1988)

Director: Stan Winston

Runtime: 86 minutes

Nothing to say really. Fairly atrocious dialogue and paper-thin characters. Lance Henriksen, however, rocks. A lot.

Worth the Purchase: Given that I've bought this twice now (the first time I failed to notice that it was full-frame), no, not really.

Stats: 10/400 movies watched in eight days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: January 10, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

The Great Unwatched: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

Part of: Friday the 13th: From Crystal Lake to Manhattan Box Set

Director: Tom McLoughlin

Runtime: 86 minutes

I'll admit, I had fully intended to get some work done while this played. However, I couldn't ever seem to find a decent time to stop watching and pick up my laptop. McLoughlin seems to get the appeal behind Jason Voorhees. Not the appeal behind the Friday the 13th films, mind you, which have a very generic sort of draw in that, up to this point, they'd been fairly rote killfests.

No, McLoughlin gets Jason as an urban mythological figure, a modern antihero. He's the beefy guy that the action hero goes up against in the film's longest fight scene, the one that seems to shrug off all direct physical assaults, often with a look of "oh please stop annoying me with your fists." The kind of guy who's usually only be defeated through ingenuity and sneakiness, except now he's in a movie where those two traits are in short supply and there's no Chuck Norris to send him back where he came from. McLoughlin essentially took what Jason had come to represent within the pop cultural zeitgeist and made it canon -- what was once a seemingly unstoppable killer became an utterly unstoppable killer, thanks to a borrowed plot element from Ghost of Frankenstein and a helpful dose of inexplicable zombiedom. Then he stirred in a winking self-knowledge of both Jason's new icon status (the James Bond pastiche right before the title) and the horror genre in general (the "Karloff's" store).

It's a surprisingly entertaining film -- more entertaining than it has any right to be, given that its the sixth film in a generally mediocre series. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks -- or at least give the old tricks a little more shine and sparkle.

Worth the Purchase: Yup.

Stats: 9/400 movies watched in seven days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: January 1, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

The Great Unwatched: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

Part of: Friday the 13th: From Crystal Lake to Manhattan box set

Director: Danny Steinmann

Runtime: 92 minutes

I think I'm beginning to see the appeal behind the slasher genre. It's not that the films are particularly noteworthy in and of themselves so much as they're comforting. For your money, you get a fairly strict structure (kids do stupid things, maniac kills them) that challenges filmmakers to make the required parts more and more outrageous in order to maintain audience attention. If you ignore the plot (typically idiotic) and character "development" (rudimentary and telegraphed), you can focus on the real draw: creative special effects. The 1980s were like a buffet of proof-of-concepts of better ways to fake killing somebody.

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning boasts the highest "kill count" of the series; some are very inventive and others are rote. Most of the effects involved are well-executed, but there are a few instances here and there where they get ridiculously cheesy (the most unconvincing throat slitting in cinema, for instance). The movie really doesn't suffer for the fact that the rampaging psycho is a Jason Voorhees copycat and not the "real" Crystal Lake killer. Personally, I don't understand the vitriol directed at this entry. It's not really any better or worse than its immediate predecessor, The Final Chapter (how's that for a misnomer?). If you want a bunch of people playing pretendy-fun-dead, some amount of gore, and the standard quota of naked breasts for an R-rated film from the mid-1980s, the fifth Friday film isn't a terrible way to go.

Worth the purchase: Worth seeing at least once, but I probably should've just Netflixed it.

Stats: 2/403 movies watched in 3 days
Projection for Completion: October 21, 2010
Goal for Completion: February 25, 2010