VHS Tapes Have I Known: The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977)

Although my movie collection is overwhelmingly DVD, I keep a few VHS tapes around. I'll be devoting some space to them sporadically.

The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977)
Director: Marty Feldman
Starring: Michael York, Marty Feldman, Ann-Margret

I could spend hours discussing this highly underrated comedy, which begins with Marty Feldman destroying a 1940s-era Universal logo and maintains the same level of zaniness from there. This is the first of Feldman's two outings as a director (the second being In God We Tru$t) and if he doesn't have the surest hand in controlling his material, there's a certain delight in the fact that the whole affair is so uncontrolled. Feldman's approach is clearly inspired by Mel Brooks, particularly Young Frankenstein. Like that film, it's a loving parody of a particular kind of classic movie, in this case the old Foreign Legion chestnut Beau Geste (in one scene, Marty Feldman has an argument with footage of Gary Cooper from the 1939 version).

To protect the family's prized Blue Water Sapphire from his scheming (and unreasonably attractive) stepmother (Ann-Margret), Beau Geste (Michael York) absconds with the jewel and joins the Foreign Legion in Africa. Digby Geste (Feldman) soon follows, and together they attempt to survive an insane commander (Peter Ustinov) and attacks by the Arabs (lead by the genial and cheese-tastic James Earl Jones).

Much of the humor derives from the relationship between Digby and Beau, who we are told are identical twins (although Digby notes, "Somehow Beau was much more identical than me. "). Beau is apparently too handsome, courageous, and wonderful to feel pain, so Digby feels it for him (which leads to all the expected jokes). Digby is unreasonably devoted to Beau and Beau is... well, reasonably devoted to Digby. Beau's more interested in honor, adventure, and being buried at sea (even in the middle of the stinking desert).

Feldman's approach to humor is very much of the "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" variety and, admittedly, many of the jokes seem to be coated in teflon. Feldman's desperate willingness to please, however, maintains a continuity between the groaners and the belly laughs. Once you've become as accustomed to the film as I have, even the dumbest jokes (like the grinning Jack T. Ripper with the severed arm in his medical kit) take on a certain charm. Comic turns from folks like Henry Gibson, Trevor Howard, Terry-Thomas, Roy Kinnear, Ted Cassidy, Burt Kwouk, and Spike Milligan (as the ever-devoted and terribly senile butler, Crumble) keep the movie lively and entertaining throughout.

What's more, you can actually watch the film right now without the benefit of VHS (and in widescreen) thanks to the fine folks at Hulu. Check it out.

Incidentally, there was another version of Beau Geste made after this, in the form of a 1982 miniseries, but Feldman's film is the last cinematic outing of the Geste brothers, so the title still holds.

Movie Cities I Love: Vienna in The Third Man (1949)

After a showing of Wolverine on Saturday (no great shakes -- Hugh Jackman is charismatic as always, but the plot made very little sense), my girlfriend had to run an errand, so she left me at Barnes and Noble to wait. It probably wouldn't have been her first choice, since I have a tendency to tarry excessively in any shop with a DVD section, but there's not much she could do about it. By the time she came to pick me up, I had worked myself into a properly self-righteous froth about the store's ghettoization of the horror genre -- stuck in an out-of-the-way corner next to the bargain discs. Such tyranny would not stand!

Well, okay, it would stand, but I would shove it lightly in hopes that it had a severe inner ear condition.

Anyway, as we walked out, my chagrin turned to joy when I spied the Criterion Collection Blu-ray of The Third Man. Now, ask me what my favorite film of all time is and the answer will vary from day to day, but lately it's been a pretty solid 50/50 split between Carol Reed's mystery-thriller and His Girl Friday (1940).

Of course, I've been on a "DVD diet" lately, curtailing my propensity to add to my gargantuan movie collection. Plus, I already owned the older Criterion disc. There had to be a way around this, of course. "It's okay to buy the Blu-ray of a movie I already own if it's my favorite movie of all time right?" I asked my girlfriend. My girlfriend, in her infinite wisdom, shrugged, knowing full well that if I was set on talking myself into this, I would do it no matter what she said.

Which brings us to the body of this post. I did, in fact, buy the Blu-ray and while it's not as impressive an upgrade as I'd hoped, I still fell in love with post-war Vienna, the real "third man", all over again. The beautiful architecture, the cobblestone streets, the very climbable piles of rubble, the narrow passages just perfect for the manipulation of shadows and light -- all of these make the Vienna of The Third Man one of my favorite movie cities.

Nine years, ten months, and twenty-one days on...

Classic-Horror.com is fast approaching its tenth birthday/anniversary (well, Classic-Horror, anyway -- the domain didn't come into the picture until a year in). It started out as a poorly coded section of an otherwise disposable personal site on Angelfire and has since mutated into the beast it is today.

I have mixed feelings associated with the occasion. Certainly, there's a sense of accomplishment. With the invaluable help of the best writing team a horror film site could want, I feel like the last couple of years have been key in solidifying what Classic-Horror is all about and where we fit in the broad landscape of horror on the Internet. Of course, the site continues to evolve. It always has and it always will, partly because I'm an inveterate tinkerer, partly because any project started at age sixteen will have identity issues built into its foundation, but mostly because that's just how the Internet works. It's part of the fun.

There's a strange melancholy mixed into the reverie, however. Ten years is a long time for anything and for a guy like me whose whims flit about like a pixie on a cocaine binge, it's occasionally rough. I am not the most organized or responsible guy on Earth. I've let down plenty of PR firms who've sent me screeners that I've proceeded to ignore. There's been correspondences I've let slide and interviews that I never transcribed. I feel that I let down Classic-Horror's readers with our entirely inconsistent posting schedule. I always refer to it as "my other job," even though I'm about to remove the ads and thus the (rather meager) revenue stream. I put about forty hours a week into the site, as well as the forty-five to fifty I clock in at my "real job."

Mind you, that's just how I am. My play is work. Always has been. I have tried the relaxing thing, but I wind up starting another project, sometimes before I'm even aware I've done so. Plus, I'm an autocrat by nature; I have the worst time delegating responsibilities (and I'm constantly thinking of new things to add or change or redesign).

Sometimes I wonder what other areas I could be applying these energies to. My cinematic knowledge is ridiculously unbalanced -- there are so many non-horror movies I have yet to see, others that I've seen but have yet to really appreciate. I've written some moderately clever things about some great horror movies in my time, but can I expand to other genres?

Even staying within the genre, there are other avenues I could explore. I'd like to write an article for Video Watchdog or Rue Morgue at some point. I'd love to have a book on horror published by McFarland. Given how often I hover around their booth at San Diego Comic-Con every year, I probably owe them something.

Also, for a variety of reasons that don't bear mentioning, I never finished college. I have just a year and a half on a Bachelor's in Cinema and Comparative Literature from the University of Iowa. I'd like very much to see that through at some point in my life, even if I'm terrified of the notion at the same time.

If you're with me so far, you're probably thinking one of two things right now:

1. "Can't you do both Classic-Horror AND (study other cinema / write a book/ go back to school)?"
2. "You sound miserable. Why don't you quit Classic-Horror so you can (study other cinema / write a book / go back to school)?"

The first one is easy to answer, the second one... not so much.

Can I do both the site and another project and do them sanely? No, not really.

Y'see, when I do something, I do it full-on. Everything else must fit in whatever spaces are left. It's probably a coping mechanism from the years when my severe ADHD and mild depression went undiagnosed. It's also partially a personality thing; moderation is not my strong suit. Once I stopped having a structure and a goal associated with this blog, for instance, I pretty much forgot it. When I was working on this blog regularly, however, I squeezed out all the time I needed for things like cleaning my apartment, socializing with friends, and general "staying-sane-now" downtime. My girlfriend damn near held an intervention.

So... can't I just drop the site?

...are you CRAZY? Quitting Classic-Horror at this point would be tantamount to shutting it down. That would be throwing ten years of hard work down the drain, not to mention some fantastic writing from the C-H team.

I could only conceivably drop even part of my commitment to the site if I found someone as obsessively detail-oriented as me to share in the daily duties. Preferably this person would be more interested in the business side of the website, because I completely fail there. They'd also be sensible enough to say, "Don't you think we have enough on our plate?" The major kicker, however, is that they would have to be someone that I trust implicitly and I don't come by that sort of thing easily. Plus, Classic-Horror being the major time commitment that it is, even if I did trust someone enough, they'd have to be willing to put in all that time for nothing but the satisfaction of a job well done. That's not exactly something I can put an ad out for (believe me, I've considered it).

Plus, for every occasion of angst the site has brought, I've had twice as many moments of giddy joy: meeting and interviewing genre personalities, corresponding with horror experts, having published authors contribute reviews to the site, and seeing Classic-Horror reviews quoted on DVD covers. I've been interviewed by the Chicago Tribune, had a letter column debate with Roger Ebert in the Sun-Times, high-fived Wil Wheaton while geeking about Motel Hell, and even attended an honest-to-gosh Hollywood movie premiere. These are moments I wouldn't give up for anything.

So in case you're wondering, Classic-Horror is not going anywhere anytime soon. There's still whole swaths of horror history we haven't covered and I still have things I want to say.

I occasionally wonder, though, if another ten years will be worth the effort. Something, I think, will have to give eventually. I just hope it isn't my sanity.

Having a "Shape" Moment

I've taken to walking the last mile to home from the light rail. It's a good time to collect my thoughts (or, more frequently, make another go for the high score on Bejeweled). There's one lonely stretch of the walk that's always a bit disconcerting -- walking along the half-mile of yellow concrete that marks the boundary of the country club. Not only is the walk visually monotonous, but it's also poorly lit and there's occasional cul-de-sacs from which any nightmare might leap.

Tonight as I walked along, a quarter mile in and a quarter mile to go, I heard a laugh some distance behind me. I noticed it particularly because of its unusual range -- it began high and ended low. I also noted it because it wasn't a laugh of mirth, but of mischief. I turned and looked behind me. There was no-one there. I thought. I didn't see anyone and yet it felt like there must have been. I turned again and although the scenery did not change one iota, there was clearly another person trailing me by about half a block. I had seen them the first time, but somehow I failed to register them as a person.

Somehow, this caused me to think of John Carpenter's Halloween, a film unsurpassed in its ability to create tension from the absence of its villain in a shot. I recalled being fourteen years old, having just seen the movie for the first time, and imagining Michael Myers was there every time I didn't catch him out of the corner of my eye. It's a powerful movie, one of my favorites, and it's good to know that it still has a hold on my overactive imagination on a brisk April night.

All Hail the Quad!

I'm prepping a post on Alan Parker's Angel Heart (somewhat slowed by the fact that I returned the DVD to Netflix before realizing that I needed to write said post), but here's a diversion in the meantime.

I'm working on a minor update to Classic-Horror.com's design at the moment and I've been looking to poster art for inspiration in how to lay out the site's header. For the pure dimensional resemblances, I've gravitated towards posters that use the British "quad" design -- 40 inches wide by 30 inches tall (standard American posters are 27 inches wide by 40 inches tall). Clearly I'm not going to use that exact ratio, but the best examples of this type of poster are great lessons on how placing static words and pictures on a horizontal canvas properly can create a dynamic feel.

Here's some of the neater quad-style posters I've run across in my research:





















Some of these posters come from Wrong Side of the Art, a fantastic cult cinema poster blog.

A Change in Name and Direction

As the complete lack of posts in the last week indicates, I've decided to put aside The Great Unwatched in its current incarnation. The final clincher came when I tried watching Godzilla vs. Mothra last Tuesday and failed. I don't think I actually saw more than thirty seconds worth, although I heard the movie from start to finish. I was just too busy working on other projects.

This blog isn't going away, though. It's just not going to be focused on The Great Unwatched exclusively. Instead, I'll be posting general movie geekery at a more relaxed pace, while still doing occasional Great Unwatched reviews as a regular feature. Given the change, I've renamed the blog to "Cinema Geek" (which is easier to remember given the URL) and whipped up new header image. I'll be cleaning up the tags and the sidebar content over the course of the week to reflect the new direction.

The Great Unwatched: Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)

Director: Shusuke Kaneko

Runtime: 105 minutes

I really do have an excuse for the sudden barrage of Godzilla movies. Classic-Horror.com is running a Godzilla week in May and I want to make sure I'm fully up to speed on kaiju flicks. Stop judging me!

Sporting what must be the longest English-language title in the entire Godzilla series, Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (or GMK as it will appear in the rest of the review) takes a more mystical approach to kaiju, which makes a certain amount of sense, as Japan has always had a tradition of the supernatural. Here, Godzilla, while still a product of nuclear radiation, is also positioned as the living retribution of all the souls killed by the Japanese in World War II. Defending the Japanese homeland against his incursion are three Guardian Monsters: Baragon, Mothra, and making his first appearance as a full hero, King Ghidorah.

One interesting thematic thread introduced by director and co-writer Shusuke Kaneko is that Japan has largely forgotten Godzilla in the forty-seven years since the original attack (like the rest of the Millenium series, GMK is a direct sequel to 1954's Gojira that ignores the interceding films in the series). Some people believe him to be a myth, others fail to understand the destruction he brings (there's one scene where a local official becomes excited at the tourist trade that might come in if Godzilla attacked his village). Even when Godzilla does show up, the weight of the situation isn't immediately understood by all. For instance, a news helicopter team "reports" on the showdown between Godzilla and Baragon as if it were a wrestling match. However, they are repaid for their irreverence when Godzilla throws Baragon through their ride, killing them. Kaneko's message is that classic trope repeated in social studies classes the world over: those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

Since Kaneko is using Godzilla and the other monsters as a means of social commentary, the human element is strong in GMK. The main human character, Yuri Tachibana, works for Digital Q, a low-rent video outfit that produces "docu-dramas" that sensationalize the supernatural for easy profit. Desperately to produce something of substance, Yuri gets her chance when the monster attacks begin. She dives furiously into the job of researching the monsters, then, as the final showdown begins, she risks her life to document it for future generations. Her drive to study the past and document the present gives the film a sense of hope that the cycle of history may yet be broken. Yuri also has the distinction of giving one of the few speeches in a Godzilla film that actually made me choke up a little.

The monster battles themselves are workable, but the suits seem a little cheaper than some of the others in the Millenium series. Godzilla's gone through a redesign to make him more "evil" -- he's the tallest that Godzilla has ever been, his eyes are fields of pure white and his gaping maw is brimming with razor sharp teeth. However, he also appears to have something of a pot belly, which somewhat negates his menace. Baragon's suit looks ridiculous and rubbery. King Ghidorah and Mothra come off the best here, looking classy and snazzy for the new millenium.

Worth the Purchase: It's a different sort of take on the Godzilla mythos. I kind of dug it.

--

Unrelated to this flick, I've been having some doubts about this project. While I am watching more films in my collection, it has been pointed out to me that I tend to overload myself with responsibilities. In addition to this blog and Classic-Horror.com (which is, in itself, a full-time job), I also work 40-50 hours a week in the IT industry, I work on "fanvids", and I have a fairly active social life. In the midst of all of this, I have a tendency to forget important things like keeping my apartment tidy, taking out the garbage, and cleaning my poor cat's litter box. Thank goodness I don't have spawn.

On the one hand, if I cut some of the fat from my life, I could devote more time and effort to the things that are the most important to me -- my girlfriend, my niece, my not-being-an-utter-slob. I could also raise the stakes on the quality of writing at Classic-Horror, write more biographies for our Masters section, and come up with some more in-depth features.

On the other hand, this has been a great place to stretch the writing muscles without having to run a full marathon. Plus, I'm seeing more movies than I would normally. I'm going to think about it over the next week or two. Until then, I'm not going anywhere.

PS: The Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards have been announced. Check 'em out.

Stats: 30/401 movies watched in twenty-seven days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: February 19, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

Weekend Viewing

Watched Suddenly, Policewomen, and Las Vegas Lady over the weekend.

No reviews on these, although I may have to go back and revisit Suddenly at some point.

Stats: 29/401 movies watched in twenty-six days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: February 18, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

The Great Unwatched: Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)

Director: Masaaki Tezuka

Runtime: 88 minutes

I must be in a kaiju state of mind. Actually, I was having a really craptacular day yesterday and I needed to clean the apartment (partly as therapy, but mostly because my place would embarrass a college freshman in its squalor), so giant monster fights were good for checking in and out as I worked. One of the nice things about the so-called "Millenium series" of Godzilla films is that they tend to be standalone stories, sequels to the original 1954 film but no other Godzilla films (although they are also occasionally connected a few of the non-Godzilla films from the 1950s and 60s). Without a lot of heavy continuity to worry about, you can jump right into the story, such as it is, something you can't really say about the Heisei series of the 1990s.

I picked Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, despite the fact that it wasn't on this month's list, because it has the second-highest rating of all Godzilla films on the IMDb, bested only by the original Gojira. It's easy to see why. I actually didn't get that much cleaning done, because I was really drawn into the story here. For one thing, they admit (as not every Godzilla movie has) that the original monster who trashed Tokyo in 1954 was definitively killed; the Big G here is an entirely different creature. In fact, the utter destruction of Original Flavor Godzilla is a plot point. The Japanese government has retrieved the skeleton and built a weaponized Godzilla robot to deal with the giant lizard threat. The mecha, named "Kiryu," is piloted by Akane (Yumiko Shaku), who is trying to prove herself after a moment of panic in an earlier battle with Godzilla caused the deaths of several of her fellow soldiers. Her second chance is made more difficult because Kiryu's bones seem have a memory -- a memory of rampage.

The effects, while cheesy, were still light years beyond the standard "suit-mation" antics of the 1960s. Godzilla's still a guy in a lizard costume, but it's a fairly intricate rig now, with extra work put in to make it look very very menacing. The monster battles are backed by CGI (kaiju movies are one area of film where CGI support is more than welcome) and although it's not completely dazzling in terms of technical prowess, it's used fairly effectively.

Action sequences are fairly kinetic for the most part, with a bare minimum of "monster standing still in order to accept attack" moments that have been hallmarks of past kaiju flicks. Tezuka doesn't let the film drown in the human element -- it spices up the non-Godzilla scenes, but he knows why we're here. We want to see giant monsters destroy things and there is plenty of that. As Godzilla movies go, this is one of the best.

Worth the Purchase: Yes.

Stats: 26/401 movies watched in twenty-three days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: February 13, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

The Great Unwatched: Gojira (1954)

Part of: The Godzilla Collection (Classic Media)

Director: Ishiro Honda

Runtime: 98 minutes

I'll be doing a full write-up for this for a special Godzilla event on Classic-Horror.com in May, so I'm going to refrain from saying anything here. However, I am working on something related to the movie that I will post here a little later.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it, it's a classic of the giant monster genre, yadda yadda yadda.

Worth the Purchase: Yes.

Stats: 25/401 movies watched in twenty-two days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: February 11, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

The Great Unwatched: The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

Directors: Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel

Runtime: 63 minutes

For such a short film, this one packs a wallop. Filmed alongside King Kong (1933) and utilizing many of the same sets (and two of the same actors), The Most Dangerous Game is a pretty brutal little horror film for its time. Surviving a shipwreck, big game hunter Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea) washes up on the private island of Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks). Zaroff is a hunter, too, but his quarry isn't lions or jaguars -- it's people. Soon Rainsford is put in the position of prey, protecting not only his own life but the virtue of fellow castaway Eve Towbridge (Fay Wray). The pair have four hours to evade Zaroff, his henchmen, and his vicious hunting dogs.

Screenwriter James Ashmore Creelman remains fairly faithful to Richard Connell's short story, even taking whole lines of dialogue verbatim. He does make some concessions to common Hollywood wisdom, adding a damsel in distress, which adds a sexual kink to the character of Zaroff that's not apparent in the female-free story. Creelman also strikes all references to Rainsford having fought in World War I (likely because McCrea turned thirteen just two weeks before Armistice Day), a change which removes some (although not all) ambiguity from the protagonist's moral high ground.

Banks makes for an intimidating villain, partially due to his "give it all" performance, but also because of a physical aspect of the actor's features. Half of his face was paralyzed in World War I, giving one of his eyes a perpetually crazed look. It serves the character of Zaroff well -- there's always a madman there, even when the other half of the face is being genial. And when both halves match... well, watch out.

A surprisingly brutal pre-Code trophy room scene, great pacing, and a phenomenal score by Max Steiner add to what is highly enjoyable flick. If you're in the market for thrills, be sure to pick up the Criterion Collection DVD, which boasts a very informative commentary track courtesy of Bruce Eder.

Fun trivia #1: co-director Ernest B. Schoedsack is a native of Iowa, just like your humble blogger.

Fun trivia #2: This is only the first adaptation of Connell's short story in the project. The other is Bloodlust! starring Robert Reed of The Brady Bunch.

Stats: 24/401 movies watched in twenty-one days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: February 9, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

No Film Tonight

The best-laid plans, right? I usually stop by the Fair Trade Cafe on Monday nights because it's a quiet place to get some work done and the best damn barista in the Phoenix area is on shift at that time. Never mind that she's also my sister. I'd still swing by if we weren't related; her coffee is that good. Anyway. Tonight I cut my visit short by a couple hours so I could come home and watch not one but two movies (or watch two versions of one Godzilla film).

However, due to unforeseen circumstances, no movies happened. That's just how it goes sometimes. The project and this blog are secondary (or even tertiary) considerations and while I strive to watch a movie daily, sometimes I have to put that aside.

No progress report tonight, either. I'll just be sure to catch up tomorrow.

The Great Unwatched: Help! (1965)

Director: Richard Lester

Runtime: 90 minutes

I can safely blame Tim Lucas for this one. About six months ago, he pointed out a fire sale that Amazon.com was having on the deluxe box set of Help! -- something like an 80% savings. Not bad, especially considering that the box (which usually goes for $120) contains a reproduction of Richard Lester's annotated (read: scribbled on) shooting script, a hardbound commemorative book with production notes and exclusive photographs, a poster, and eight lobby cards. Oh yeah, and the movie and its special features disc. Those are kind of important. The same deal is going on, actually, to a slightly lesser degree -- just check Amazon's sellers page for the outfit "warehouse_deals." I can report that my own set arrived without any of the issues in their description.

As for the film itself, I can safely agree with many other critics who have pointed out that it's silly nonsense. I can agree even more with fans of the film that find the silly nonsense to be, at least, inspired nonsense. Richard Lester is a director I have a lot of respect for and his work with The Beatles in this and A Hard Day's Night shows a man who completely grasps the pop mystique of the Fab Four. Just look at the differences between AHDN and Help!, films made within a year of each other, which can be a whole era in the life of a pop band.

A Hard Day's Night had the boys chased around like mad, with screaming fans around every corner. Now, a year later, they've settled in; they're far more likely to have busybody housewives discuss them from afar than to be mobbed. AHDN is plotless -- a madcap day in the life of the most popular band in the world, before anybody's quite figured out what to do with these four moptopped lads from Liverpool. In Help!, a plot (although admittedly not much of one) asserts itself, and the boys have to play keepaway with a special sacrificial ring that's become stuck to Ringo's finger. Now there's structure, a way to align the band with standard conventions, even if they have a tendency to play fast and loose with said conventions. Actually, the elements of the plot actually reverse the first point of the paragraph -- The Beatles are still getting mobbed in Help!, but now it's from people who want something from them and/or who are against their music and what they stand for (the opening credits involve a religious cult throwing darts at a film of the band performing the title song). Still, there's nothing quite so sublime in Help! as the "Can we have our ball back?" bit from AHDN (which I've helpfully embedded below).



Comparisons aside, though, it's clear that everyone involved is having a lot of fun. Richard Lester maintains enough control on the shenanigans that they do not become tedious, but not so much control that he takes the fun out. He leaves in plenty of room to riff on things like the James Bond series, British labor unions, and even basic cinematic conventions like intertitles (there are many, many intertitles in this film and nearly all of them funnier than they have any right to be). If there's a major complaint here, it's that we don't get a strong notion of each band member's individual style and personality. Oh, it comes through in pieces here and there, but at points they seem more like a hive mind of jocularity than four independent minds.

I really dug this film a lot, so I should probably thank Tim Lucas instead of assigning blame. Except blame is more fun.

Worth the Purchase: If you don't know my answer, then Ringo isn't the only one who needs help.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've just started Scott Allen Nolan's book on Boris Karloff and I'm looking forward to a fascinating read.

Stats: 23/401 movies watched in nineteen days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: January 21, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

Intermission

Check out what I just posted on the wall of my bedroom:


When there's no more room on the walls, the posters shall walk the Earth

The Great Unwatched: The Dark (1979) and Carry On Emmannuelle (1978)

Part of: Shriek Show's Mutant Monsters Triple Feature (The Dark), Grindhouse Experience Box Set (Carry On Emmannuelle)

Directors: John "Bud" Cardos (The Dark) and Gerald Thomas (Carry On Emmannuelle)

Runtime: Roughly 90 minutes each

Two pieces of crap. The Dark is at least amusingly produced; its failings stem largely from post-production tampering and a lack of a coherent plot. Then again, what do you really expect from a movie about a homeless alien space monster with laser beam eyes that's produced by Dick Clark (yes, that Dick Clark)?

Carry On Emmannuelle, on the other hand, squanders an opportunity to give a proper send-up of the whole sexplotation genre. Instead, we get a bunch of entirely too tame sex jokes presented as if their mere sexuality was the funny bit. In short, it's a movie made by adolescent minds with no appreciation of the sheer subversiveness of which the true adolescent is capable.

The Great Unwatched: Mean Frank and Crazy Tony (1973)

(I'll just be blogging as I go today and do the stats after the last movie. )

Part of: Grindhouse Experience Box

Director: Michele Lupo

Runtime: 85 minutes

Mean Frank and Crazy Tony is a nutty little crime-comedy from Italy, one I probably would not have watched without this project. It'd be a shame, too, because I had a lot of fun with it.

Tony (Tony LoBianco) is a small-time Italian crook who wants to make it big. Frank (Lee Van Cleef) is a big-time mafioso in town to sniff out whoever's been selling him out to his rival, Louis Annunziata (Jean Rochefort). Circumstances land them in jail together, where the earnest Tony earns the hard-bitten Frank's trust by saving his life. Tony hatches an audacious escape plan so that Frank can exact revenge. Soon this mismatched pair are in France, headed to Annunziata's frozen fish processing plant, with half of the French police force in pursuit.

What makes this film entertaining is that's equal parts Tony being crazy (that is, highly excitable but also incredibly clever) and Frank being mean (no-bullshit and violent as hell). For as goofy as the parts about Tony are, there are some surprisingly nasty bits of violence where Frank and the mob are concerned. That dichotomy just adds to the film's overall charm, however.

Worth the Purchase: Yes, especially for the new take on the phrase "sleeping with the fishes" at the end.

Movie Marathon!

As my girlfriend and I had very limited time together this weekend, we chose to spend it out and about. When we did end up in front of the boob tube, we watched some Dark Angel Season 2, mostly because we're both big fans of Jensen Ackles. Go figure that we end up watching the two episodes he's not in that season.

The result is that I didn't get to anything on the list yesterday, which is a bit of a problem since I usually do at least two a day on the weekends. So today it's time to do the only sane thing. I will become the Marathon Man.


Is it watched? Is it watched?

Er... maybe not the Marathon Man. Maybe just a guy doing a movie marathon. I've stacked up the remaining titles on this month's list and I'm just going to pull one out as the last one ends.



Which will get watched? Depends on my mood. Expect a full report tonight or tomorrow.

Stats: 19/401 movies watched in eighteen days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: March 10, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

The Great Unwatched: Don't Deliver Us From Evil (1971)

Director: Joël Séria

Runtime: 103 minutes

First of all, I love Mondo Macabro. They release some of the most bats**t, oddball foreign horror out there and they do it with a full complement of special features and damn fine transfers. Plus I just love their clip reels. Pure concentrated WTF.

Moving on. I was surprised to discover that this movie was inspired by the same murder case that informed Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures. Don't Deliver Us... is definitely a looser adaptation, though. There's the same obsessive relationship between the girls, but they're more drawn to acts of mischief and "evil" than anything. Also, interestingly, the narrative focus is on the more forceful of the personalities (in Heavenly Creatures, the opposite was true), which does leave the other half of the friendship rather underdeveloped. Otherwise, though, this is an excellent film made by a strong, deliberate director who utilizes the beauty of the French countryside and the general ugliness of his male actors (most of whom play would-be rapists) to great advantage.

I was watching this to review it for Classic-Horror.com's 666th review, but I don't feel it really fits. I'll probably skip down the list for something a bit more demonic.

Worth the Purchase: Yes.

Stats: 19/401 movies watched in seventeen days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: February 17, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

No Review Today

Unfortunately, extreme tired took hold of me before I was able to finish Don't Deliver Us from Evil (something, I should note, that was no fault of the film, which I'm quite enjoying). I'll try to finish that up tonight before my girlfriend comes over and we go out dancing.


"Boogie shoes, motherf**ker! Do you WEAR THEM?"

In other news, my long-gestating Vampire Circus review has just been posted over at Classic-Horror.com. I'm not entirely happy with it -- it wasn't so much finished as given up on. I'll probably pull a George Lucas later and add in some paragraphs that should've been in there initially.

Stats: 18.6/401 movies watched in sixteen days.
Currently Projected Completion Date: February 3, 2010
Completion Date Goal: February 25, 2010

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