Posts tagged “watchallthemovies”
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Watch All The Movies, Part 8:Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet
"Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet" is a Roger Corman-produced remix of a Soviet Union film; given the times, I'm really quite curious how this happened. Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue make an appearance, but other than them it's five Soviet actors and a robot that (as my wife pointed out) sounds like David Byrne does in "Burning Down The House".
I'm just going to come out and say that this is a much, much better review than anything I can write.
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Watch All The Movies, Part 7:Three The Hard Way
"Three The Hard Way" is a 1974 film that came in a four-pack of "Urban Action" films. I've watched the other three already, and of all the cheap films I've bought these are the ones I've enjoyed the most.
For an entertaining film, the plot is pretty dark: a group of white supremicists have come up with a plague that kills black people. Before they can unleash it, though, three supremely bad-ass brothers are on the case: a record producer producer, a Chicago businessman, and a kung-fu master. (They're also backed up, at least for one scene by three equally bad-ass sisters who for some reason enjoy torturing bad guys while topless.) There are explosions, really odd slo-mo kung fu puctuated by drawn-out groans, gun fights, crooked cops, and bad guys who sneaking into a hospital room to kill a witness using a cherry picker. (Er, the sneaking is done with the cherry picker, not the killing.)
This movie is way, way above the others I've watched so far. It may be cheesy and full of it's time, but it's well made and entertaining. It had a budget and it shows.
Random things:
- There's a long, drawn-out Wikipedia article on the film, its stars, its director, and its role in black cinema.
- The number of machine-gun wielding bad guys taken out by wonderfully accurate pistol shots is, um, suspicious.
- All the 70s action film cliches are here: kung fu, vehicles that catch on fire and explode for no discernable reason, dynamite, stunt men wearing what look like parkas as they catch fire and roll around on the ground, cars rolling off cliffs, shrieks and cries of people falling off roofs...about the only thing not here is quicksand.
- The racists celebrate the (supposed) success of their plan by throwing a party, which features Budweiser, waltzes and buffets (ambrosia salad has a starring role). Speaking as a white person, I can attest to the accuracy of this depiction.
- I started this movie last week, then put it aside in favour of more sleep; thus, it's a coincidence that I'm finishing this on the night of the 2016 Oscars. Not sure what to make of that, but there you go.
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Watch All The Movies, Part 6:This Is Channel Zero
I picked this up years ago at, I think, HMV in Vancouver back when there were still record stores (ask your parents); apparently the release date was 1997. It was a "video magazine", and I've got it on the original VHS, baby. It starts with a (sigh) couple of bicycle couriers robbing a office that apparently is run by A LARGE AND EVIL MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATION:
The half-time show, "99 Year Phone Call", is a, um, performance piece? --wait, sorry, "post-modern culture jam" about the Y2K bug as a metaphor for, uh, fear and video editing and stuff; it's like watching a community theatre production of a William Gibson novel.
But these are the easy targets. There are a lot of interviews with people discussing corporate ownership of media, economic fairness and the FCC (among lots of other things). It wanders, but I suppose reflects the magazine format. Overall, a lot of this reminds me of the essays I wrote for English class in high school: they wander, they dance around, and they bring up lots of questions, but come to few conclusions. They don't like TV, but maybe it can be used as a way to, you know, liberate the people. (That is, as long as they believe the right things....one of the talking heads points out that giving people video cameras to make their own media is all well and good, but they're likely to only remake what they've already seen.) There are lots of Chomsky and MacLuhan quotes, painful-to-watch skits (op cit.), and gratuitous scrolling text, jump cuts and repetition of the words "control", "corporations" and "governments."
I would have been all over this once upon a time. (Obviously not enough to actually watch this, since I never made it past the first twenty minutes until now...) I'm still broadly sympathetic to the concerns outlined here. But I have such little patience anymore for the cliches they wallow in, and the lack of citations for anything they assert. (Yes, I know it's video. I don't care: sources or GTFO.)
Amusingly, the name Channel Zero is now being used by a Canadian media company that owns Bloomberg TV Canada and several adult film channels. Also, at least a few of the people involved in this are listed in LinkedIn.
Like so much of what I suspect I'll end up watching this year, it's available on archive.org
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Watch All The Movies, Part 5:Bloodlust
This week's movie is 1961's "Bloodlust", written/directed/produced by Ralph Brooke. It's yet another adaptation of "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, which is the great-grandaddy of all those hunting humans tropes.
Four young people, while out on a boat, go to an island they shouldn't; one falls into a pit, and they're rescued by Dr. Balleau, the be-goateed, be-smoking-jacketed owner of the island, and his be-striped-shirted henchmen (who resemble rather tough French mimes). Back at his mansion he explains that he's developed a taste for trophy hunting, and brings exotic animals to the island with his pots of cash.
But are animals enough? No, they are not. Case in point: his wife and a drunken friend make an appearance during this explanation, and of course it turns out that they're having an affair. Knowing that their host knows that they know he knows they know, they decide to help the kids escape. Hijinks (by which I mean MAN HUNTING) ensue, but not before Dr. Balleau displays -- rather ostentatiously, I might add -- his human trophies, set up in an underground cave, to his horrified visitors. They get a chance to leave the island...if they can avoid being MAN HUNTED by Dr. Balleau. I won't spoil the ending, but that's because I did not finish it. Sue me.
Robert Reed, better known as the father from the original "Brady Bunch" series, plays one of the kids trapped the island. Wilton Graff played the be-smoking-jacketed hunter of humans; he did a crapton of TV roles as a character actor. Ralph Brooke did more than a dozen bit parts in movies, mostly uncredited, in 1945-1946; after that, he broke into B movies as a writer, producer, production manager, and finally director...then died at the age of 43, just two years after "Bloodlust" was released.
The DVD is from the good folks at Digiview Productions, which has a Tripod fan page (remember Tripod?) and a slightly more informative page on Wikia. Like a lot of other budget DVD producers, they released a lot of movies that were in the public domain...but they screwed up, and released a copy of the 1954 animated version of "Animal Farm", which was not in the public domain. They got sued, lost and promptly filed for bankruptcy.
Like I said, I didn't finish this -- but that's not reason for you not to give it a try! The Internet Archive has generously made this available to you; they do lots of good things, so please consider making a donation to support them.)
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Watch All The Movies, Part 4: Ants
This week's feature is "Ants", a 70s movie-of-the-week:
It had that feel when it started up...the music (that SEVENTIES OMINOUS SYNTH haunts me from my childhood. I'm not kidding about that. There was a movie I saw when I was a kid about mind-controlled people that I thought starred Michael York but now I can't track down; anyway, it was freaky as hell and had THAT SEVENTIES SYNTH. ...Wait, where was I? Right...the music), sure, but also Suzanne Somers, who I don't think I've ever seen outside of televsion. It's also got Brian Dennehy, Myrna Loy (!) and Brian Casey, a character actor I recognize from about a thousand different angry-figure-of-authority roles.
The movie leads off with a hard-working construction worker, working on an expansion to a century-old resort hotel, getting attacked by ants that are drunk on industrial-strength pesticides. ("Modern poisons are so complicated," sighs a lab worker.)Then there's the hitchiker sleeping rough on a nearby beach, who convinces the blond, muscled lifeguard to let her grab a quick shower. Then there's the hotel owner who doesn't want to sell the hotel, being pursued by the greedy developer who wants to knock the place down to build a casino. Then there's the uppity hotel manager who likes rough trade with the bearded construction foreman, who in turn is trying to figure out why his employee died. Then the super-ants come back, attacking a tow-headed kid who's collecting bottles for the money, because he needs to take care of his divorced mom; they jump him in a dumpster (no, really). I think the only plot element missed was a hooker with a heart of gold.
The ants go FULL-ON METAL ATTACK at this point ("The ants are climbing fast! Call the police, the fire department, anybody! We need as much help as we can get!"). Suzanne Somers gets eaten by ants, or something. Everyone holes up on the top floor of the hotel, while the lab tech advises them to dig a trench, fill it with gasoline and ignite it ("Containment by fire! Tell them I'm on my way!"). Brian Dennehy finally shows up as the local fire chief who bears the terrible responsibility of LARPing Leiningen Versus the Ants while horrified townspeople watch.
The finale: we're down to the last three survivors (two good buys and one bad guy, so you know who's gonna flip out). They're holed up in the attic of the hotel, staying perfectly still and trying not to provoke the ants. ("They're basically non-aggressive!" says the lab tech over a radio. That's right, it's just like every airplane disaster movie ever, and they're being talked down to the ground.) In order to keep still, no matter how much the ants climb over them, they breathe through rolled up cones of wallpaper held to their mouths. It looks for all the world like they're smoking the world's biggest, most amateurishly-made joints, particularly when the room is flooded with insecticide by hazmat-suit wearing rescuers.
The executive producer was Alan Landsburg, who not only had > 50 movies-of-the-week to his name, but produced a biography of the Kennedys that got a standing ovation at the '64 Democratic National Convention. Interesting career path....
The DVD was made by Direct Source Special Products, which a) sounds like either a mail-order sex toy business or a CIA front, and b) apparently went bankrupt in 2009. Court paperwork offers this snapshot:
The Company's business consists primarily in selling and distributing music CDs, DVDs and videos and focuses on a market niche within the music industry selling as well as repackaging low or modest priced motion pictures and non major labels music discs. In the past year, the Company has experienced a sharp and long term decline of their sales and reported significant losses. Management attributes this declient in sales volume to various factors, in particular to both legal and illegal downloads of music and movies....
Fifteen employees were laid off, and the company "pursued negotiation efforts to recover inventory located in the United States". Guess selling Kids Mix Sing The Hits of Elvis wasn't viable in the long run.
This film was also known as "It Happaned At Lakewood Manor" and was filmed in Qualicum Beach, BC. (I look forward to a future pilgrimage to Qualicum College, which stands in for the resort hotel.) Huzzah for the BC Film Credit!
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Watch All The Movies, Part 3: Crash of the Moons
"Crash of the Moons" was released in 1954 as three parts of a long-running serial; it has since fallen into the public domain. I picked it up years ago on VHS, but now it's available from the Internet Archive. Since I like cheating, I watched it that way.
It's not bad for a 1954 SciFi serial, but it definitely ticks all the boxes: handsome lead, vaguely Einstein-ish scientist, pretty actresses in short skirts as haughty Space Queens, aliens with names like Cleolanthe (the haughty Space Queen in question) that look exactly like humans, a tow-headed child actor, and incomprehensible SciFi gibberish (the phrase "atmosphere chain" gets repeated about 23 times during the film.)
Fun facts:
- The film was skewered by the good folks at MST3K.
- The director, Hollingsworth Morse, went on to direct episodes of the Dukes of Hazzard and Daughters of Satan.
- Sally Mansfield, who played spaceship navigator Vena Ray, was obliged by her contract for the series to not marry; lead actor Richard Crane was obliged not to divorce his wife. (At least, so says Wikipedia, which we know is never wrong.)
- Scotty Beckett, who played sidekick Winky, went through the canonical child actor parabola.
- The VHS copy I have was made by the good folks at Madacy Entertainment; we also have an album of cover songs by The Countdown Singers, their in-house cover band.
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Watch All The Movies,Part 2: Ninja Death II
"Ninja Death II" and "Ninja Death III", packaged by EastWestDVD.com, were picked up long ago at a dollar store for $1.99, and remained unwatched until today. There are lots of reviews of these films, but this one is mine.
"Ninja Death II" starts off with wonderful cheesy 70s music playing while ninjas bounce on a trampoline in front of a spotlight. Then there's a ninja in -- no word of a lie -- a gold lame suit:
He's apparently named Tiger Y. Then there's another ninja wearing a metal mask:
...fighting another ninja whose main skill appears to be sweating:
Then there's a flute player, who I can't find a picture of but who rounds out the 70s theme nicely. A guy practices Kung Fu by a waterfall, then he swims with a woman and writhes in pain while the woman laughs merrily. There's a brothel, because brothels maybe? There's a mother who dies to save her son but then isn't dead after all. There's a chicken-eating scene that is positively obscene. And it goes on from there.
If that sounds half-assed and disjoined, it's because it is. At a rough guess, this appears to be at least two and possibly as many as twelve separate movies edited together incoherently. IMDB claims this was directed by Jospeh Kuo, who seems to have made a ton of movies and been a pretty major figure in Taiwanese cinema. (Among other things, he directed Mystery of Chessboxing, from whom the Wu-Tang Clan got the name for the song of the same name.)
Top quote: "Just keep your concentration on your mind."
I don't have Part I around, but fortunately you can watch all three online c/o the good folks at Archive.org. Having gone through Part II, though, I honestly don't know how much difference this would have made to the story. I will be honest: I did not finish Part II, and will not be watching Part III; this is heading straight to the Sally Ann.
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Watch all the movies, Part 1: Black Rage
I have a habit of buying movies, the cheesier the better. But I also have this habit of never, ever watching them. I've decided to fix that this year. My plan is to watch them once a week, and write 'em up here...and then give them away to clear space on the shelf.
First up is "Black Rage", which according to IMDB is also known as "Charcoal Black." I picked this up years ago in a Value Village, or maybe Army & Navy. It's a VHS tape (ask your parents, kids) from the good folks at Front Row Entertainment.
Side note: I'm pretty certain Front Row Entertainment shot their own photo for the cover; the folks on the cover does not in any way resemble any of the actors in this film.
Other side note: This film was also released as "Charcoal Black" and, in Australia, "Catch the Black Sunshine":
The plot is simple enough: Two slave brothers, one black (played by Chauncey "Lord" Westbrook, a jazz guitarist) and one black albino named Sunshine (geddit?) (played by a Rutger Hauer lookalike, which is basically the whitest sort of person you could possibly find), find a treasure map. The overseer (played by Lurch!) tries to steal it from them. They run away, so Lurch hires a drunken, rage-filled bartender to help catch them. Hijinks ensue.
Memorable bits? Not many. The theme song, "Catch the Black Sunshine" sounds like Nina Simone in an echo chamber if you squint (ear squint?) but is apparently Mel Carter. During the chase scenes, disco kicks in -- but with a harmonica and somehow a polka feel. There's an extended scene in a backwoods moonshine joint with more insane cackling than I've ever heard outside a Russ Meyer film. (My wife's comment on this film: "It's like a low-budget Russ Meyer, but with pretensions.") At one point the runaway slaves, hungry and exhausted, spend ten minutes stealing a chicken and a bicycle, then lose both in the swamp; the music, obviously sourced from Movie-Music-4-Cheap, switches to something out of Benny Hill.
This tape (I said ASK YOUR PARENTS) has waited, stuffed in a milk crate in the corner of our bedroom, for a long, long time to be viewed in its entirety. It will now be set free. Fly free, Black Rage. Fly free.
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