Change Your Image
seth_milligan
Reviews
Zeitgeist (2007)
As manipulative garbage it's great. So is a Pepsi commercial.
I watched about 3/4 of it tonight before I had to turn it off. There are some things that are true but I found the presentation to be just as manipulative as the actions of the "elites' they were admonishing. I asked myself more than once, "what if they inserted the word Jew every time they said banker?" Yes, some things they said are true, but many facts are dubious and strung together out of context while excluding others that might inconveniently contradict or cast doubt on their message. I have never been a fan of conspiracy theories, although I will readily admit some that I've come across are dead on. If what this movie says is correct, we're all f**ked. I won't dispute many of their assertions because they are probably right, however, the methods employed in compiling the narrative and images were very reminiscent of other propaganda films I have seen. That makes their message seem contrived and false, whether or not it actually is. One thing I noticed is their choice of villains and heroes. They didn't mention that Charles Lindberg was an alleged Nazi sympathizer but they accuse FDR of starting American involvement in WWII because his family was in banking. It almost seems like the argument you might find in some mid-west militia-man handbook. The pace of the images was fast enough to suspend rational processing of what they were saying, eventually I didn't think I could keep watching without either being brainwashed in some way or just blowing it off. Contrived and manipulative, yes. Wrong? I can't say, but I hope it is. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you. The producers shouldn't try and convince audience members that they are being secretly enslaved by presenting unsubstantiated and misleading information in rapid fire sequences presented without context. I liked the first part.
Salon Kitty (1976)
Best Nazi Eploitaion Film Ever
By any measure the best production in the Nazi exploitation genre available on DVD. Beautiful, lush cinematography and a provocative script make this one of Tinto Brass' finest films. Andy Warhol described Brass as Italy's best AND worst director, its easy to see why with this movie. While it contains all the prerequisite elements one would expect it manages to rise above mere sleaze, not there is anything wrong with sleaze I might add. It is the Citizen Kane of Nazi exploitation. Not necessarily what might be considered erotic, see Brass' Cheeky! or The Voyeur for titillation, it stands above the crowd creatively and artistically.
The Girl from S.I.N. (1966)
the extras are the best part
Something Weird Video released The Girl From S.I.N. along with Henry's Night In as a double feature DVD. Both movies deal with invisibility and as with most Something Weird releases half the fun is seeing the 60's in a different light than Leave it to Beaver. Both moves deal with invisibility and the extras include a Chevrolet training film where a salesman deals with Mister X, an invisible customer(this extra was the only feature on the disk worth watching). These movies can be fun, on the other hand, they can be terrible. They were skin flicks shown in movie houses run by seedy characters in bad neighborhoods. Sometimes these can be done well, considering their budgets and other times they were just for the money without any creativity. The Girl From S.I.N. has no dialogs, a narrator is the only voice in the film, and is boring from start to finish, I found myself falling asleep a few times. There is NO plot and the Pace is slow, slow slow. this could have been a ten minute short but was stretched out with lots of non-nude dancing and uncomfortable silences. I love Something Weird and, like I said, the Chevy commercial extra was cool but otherwise this is a disk to skip.
The Stabilizer (1986)
uniquely bad, even for Troma... but fun
Anyone who will pay to see Troma movies knows, and appreciates, what they are going to get. Having said that, I didn't think it was possible to make a movie this bad, and still be compelling. I found myself watching just to see how much worse it could get before the end. First off, it's an Indonesian action movie with an American main character who looks and acts like the bastard son of "Taxi"'s Christopher Lloyd and Rambo. He puts posters of himself dressed up like Sly's "Cobra" all over the place and even has a custom built firing range (with action-posed cutouts of his greatest enemies)in Jakarta although he's in the CIA and has just arrived days earlier. There is a lot of action involving gun-play(no muzzle-flashes on those M-16s, only sound effects), motorcycles(that bust through walls), karate(where no one makes physical contact) and even some sex(where all the actors are ugly). The main plot of an epic like this should at least be reasonably plausible, but not here. It involves the world's most dangerous drug cartel going all out to find a "drug detector device". Why would they need it? That is never revealed, why not kill drug-sniffing dogs? Makes no sense, but, it is taken seriously. The actors are to be commended because they really seemed to think this movie would make them all famous and tried hard to "act". Best line? "Now dance to your grave you dirty whore!" Best scene? Rambo jumps onto flying helicopter, pulls machine gun out of baddie's hand, let's go, falls, shoots helicopter as he's falling, helicopter blows up, cut to mannequin thrown in water. F**king genius! If you can't appreciate trash, don't watch it. If you can, it's awesome. One last thing, did I mention it was directed by the three Punjabi brothers?
Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)
might have worked waaaay off Broadway
As many others have stated, this was a great idea that could have been cool if it was done right, but it wasn't. I can't really understand how any reviewer could say it was a classic or even approaches B status. The movie looks like a bunch of pale, goth, Ottowa Junior College Acting School rejects collected their spare change, stole a crappy home video camera and decided to make a movie. The problems? It's not remotely funny, I didn't even crack a smile(and I really tried to find something done well enough to laugh at), the music is 80's crap sub-par techno, there is no creative camera work, the acting sucks, they speak English but they dub it anyway, the actors have no martial arts skills, Jesus has no special abilities and needs a Mexican wrestler to protect him, vampires in the sun who can rip a cross out of Jesus' hands but are killed by stakes through the right lung? Man I could go on, but if you still want to waste your money after reading this go ahead. Just in case you didn't get my point, this movie is not a funky B movie, it's a flunky student film which somehow found a distributor.
Baberellas (2003)
not worthy of a good "B" rating
I rented this movie because I like the main actress, Julie K. Smith (she's getting older and won't be making many more movies so every one counts). The title "B-movie Queen" is batted around a bit too loosely but she definitely qualifies as one of the 90's best. Too bad she's being offered sub-par flicks like this. Special effects are not supposed to take up most of the time in one of these movies for the simple reason that they cant afford anything good. However, the directors of this flick seemed to think that they were making the next Star Wars.They also tried to cash in on the title of Jane Fonda's classic "Barbarella" and fool buyers into thinking it was some kind of parody, it's not even close. I did chuckle at two or three scenes but most of the time I just felt cheated. Not funny, sexy, erotic, interesting or worthy of more than a curious look. I would really be kicking myself(hard) if Julie wasn't in it. As it is, this movie is only worth watching if someone else is paying or you're really, REALLY bored.