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Reviews
The Brasher Doubloon (1947)
B movie Raymond Chandler
This is the lowest budget of the Philip Marlowe movies. I guess The Lady in the Lake didn't do enough box office the previous year so someone decided to go cheap with this one.
It is still pretty good though I first thought George Montgomery was too young for the role. He was in his thirties at the time so this case may be on the earlier side of Marlowe's career as a PI, not long after being fired from the DA office.
Seeing Conrad Janis in this was a big surprise considering how much of his work I stumbled across on 30 to 40 years after this was released. I have a Nancy Guild Bowman trading card which makes seeing her in this kind of funny to me. She was just starting out in movies and mostly quit after a handful of roles but she turned up in a trading card set as a new up and Comer with the likes of Jane Greer, Ann Blyth and Yvonne De Carlo.
The story makes this movie worth seeing. The plots have all the usual twists and turns but I didn't expect the conclusion. Classic Chandler.
Not the best remembered of the Marlowe movies, not so well distributed I guess maybe the cast(I prefer Montgomery in the role to Bogart who is always Sam Spade from Maltese Falcon when he plays a PI.)
The Devonsville Terror (1983)
Overrating this because it was made in Wisconsin
Ulli Lommel was like the Rainer Werner Fassbinder of horror movies. He must have learned Fassbinder's exhaustive work ethic first hand. I mean 66 directoral credits. Ridiculous amount.
To me, this film is a large budget companion to The Demons of Ludlow directed by Bill Rebane in the same location. Both have similar plots, but this one is derivited of the Demons movie. This movie gets better remembered because it clearly has a larger budget and some Hollywood acting talent which Demons lacks. You'll see the same actors in smaller roles because they are still pretty good but they aren't Donald Pleasance or Robert Walker Jr either.
The production values are better too making for better effects. Lommel no doubt had better financial backing but he also had loads of experience making these films.
Generally, the story is a bit slow and some of it doesn't quite make sense to me like why what starts the revenge push does it? Surely other things happened over the course of 300 years.
The.most unsettling thing about this movie is the actions of the locals and how vague they are in dropping hints of what's to come. Their intended victims never had a chance. If the point of view were switched to one of the victims, this would be as intense as the Wicker Man.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988)
Developed a love for low budget cheese but maybe that's not a good thing
I mean, I ask someone out for a date, she asks what will we see thinking it's new or in the movie theaters, I have to kind of lie about what I feel like watching. I might be feeling like seeing Alien Contamination, Cataclysm, Teenage Zombies, both versions of Dracula Vs Frankenstein or Scum of the Earth. This show sort of splits the difference. In the past not even MST3K riffing was enough, I was threatened with "you'll never see me again if we watch that s--- (Blood Waters of Dr Z) again", yes we broke up over a year later. Yes that episode is still great (movie has an amazing opening, truly). They all are great eventually. Some are instant classics but some take some time for the viewer to get to like because the movie isn't your cup of tea. For example, I never enjoyed giant monster movies so the Gamera, Godzilla and Gorgo episodes didn't do anything for me for a long time. Still never warmed up to Quest of the Delta Knights but people love that one.
The people who hate this show or think anyone can talk over a movie and crack jokes at how bad it is are wrong. This is a comedy show done by professional comedians, jokes written by professionals beforehand while watching the movie a few times. The jokes are scripted and the delivery and timing need to be perfect which it often was to generate a laugh. If you are sitting with other people and watching something like Mutiny in Space, or Body Fever, you're not thinking like a comedian. That's the difference so the people thinking anyone is that creative are wrong.
There's been attempts to keep this format alive since the shows original run but the fan made attempts at the format and formula I appreciate the most though they never had the resources or time to do many. One called Incognito Cinema Warriors and Mystery Fandom Theater 3000 (they somehow matched the delivery style of the original show too). I believe they were local comedians as well and the jokes were definitely scripted.
In recent years Frank Coniff and Trace Beaulieu tour performing live as The Mads as a two people version of Cinematic Titanic which had multiple people from the show riffing on movies again (something born from the 2007 writers strike I believe). There is the MST3K reboot which I only saw a few episodes of and it's OK (not a big streaming guy, it's better seeing this live), and of course Rifftrax which features the final lineup of MST3K from the 90s and has been working for about 20 years. Alot of hit or misses there but what can you expect after 20 years of doing it?
Basically if you're into this style of humor you already know all about this anyway, if not or feel the need to defend these movies, then it's not for you. I developed a fondness for these movies through this show and do watch things like Night Fright, The Yesterday Machine, Zontar, Brain Machine and Curse of the Headless Horseman without the riffing.
The Prisoner: Fall Out (1968)
If you want to watch James Bond, go watch James Bond!
I found this series finale fascinating, truly unique with a story saying something about the people who watch the show than the story telling a conclusion. The point is there is no way out and no end until we all end. Even that is subjective, all allegories are which is why this isn't a spoiler.
This show ended almost 60 years ago and it has the most memorable end of any British action adventure series in the 60s. Avengers comes close in my mind considering where they end up but that was a tiny clip in the epilogue of a story about people being buried and disappearing in their grave. Imagine if this finale had Donald Pleasance doing a Blofeldesque appearance as #1. How many times have we seen good guy vs bad guy scenarios? How dated are these stories today? Even villains from Batman and Bond movies have excuses made for them these days. If it's not someone who goes nuts while being used as a guinea pig for biological warfare, it's some guy who was born in prison and sentenced to life from birth despite doing nothing but being born. Just the bad guy doing bad things is dated. THIS EPISODE IS NOT. It still defies description and no one has since dared to repeat anything like this.
Alot of this episode is truly mad. Instead of secret ominous corridors underground, we see jukeboxes playing Beatles music, during the episode's finale Carmin Miranda can be heard briefly. It becomes an insane surreal vision. Explaining more might give too much away but insanity can be felt in this. Characters singing endlessly or suffering a uncontrolled laughing jag. Kenneth Griffith is like an MC dressed as a magistrate, officials wearing heavy white robes, further disguised behind masks with distorted Goyaesque faces. Inexplicably there's a rocket aimed for space too. A bizarre scene is set. So strange that I don't even know who is having the fever dream imagining it, us or them.
No one has the kind of guts to do something like this. It deserves a 10 out of 10 and if you didn't fall into the trap set by the average espionage movies and shows of the time, affecting your expectations, you'll find it to be perfect too. You don't even need to view it more than once to pick up the little clues that led me to draw my initial subjective conclusion about it.
Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)
Alot of twisted fun in this one.
This Death Wish is like the 3rd installment to me in that it gets downright funny at times. Unlike the 3rd one, alot of the humor is intentional. Robert Joy plays a hit man most goofy replete with dandruff. Michael Parks looks to be having alot of fun playing the murderous bad guy. If you did a poll, I think you'd find most actors have more fun playing the heavy in a story.
The only actor who doesn't seem to come across so well is Miguel Sandoval. He didn't have alot of great scenes to do which is unfortunate to me because he is a great actor.
The revenge kills are gimmicky and bizarre instead of Paul Kersey just shooting bad guys. There isn't a convoluted plot like in the 4th movie. It's pretty standard but with dark humor laced into it. The series needed that. It's not a movie for everyone but none of this franchise is.
Funny Ha-Ha: Commander Badman (1974)
He just wanted to do bad (sort of)
This Funny Ha Ha episode is like a prelude to Idle's Rutland Weekend Television. David Battley and Henry Woolf appear in this and it's bizarrely comic. Battley an aged boy wonder accomplice to Badman and Woolf as a really bad escape artist. Idle writes and narrates and there wouldn't be either this episode or RWT without Idle..
The story is deliberately goofy. Commander Badman learns that law enforcement are not remotely interested in arresting him for anything. So badman and his accomplices seek out a crime to commit (within reason of course). Nothing too wild like jaywalking in Piccadilly Circus or storming a football field during a match but something criminal.
It's a fun watch. Light Entertainment and worth searching out as is Rutland Weekend Telelvision Both have slipped through the cracks of many people's memory. Frankly anyone alive to see this when it was first broadcast are getting on in their years but if people are still listening to old rock music, they can watch old sketch comedy too. Once upon a time, it really was funny. Imagine that!
Monty Python's Flying Circus: Mr. Neutron (1974)
John Cleese's lone appearance in Season 4.
I tried mentioning that in trivia but they never posted it. John Cleese plays the director or voice coach of a couple of scenes in the episode. These are segments on film. The first features Idle's character in the Yukon saying "OK" flatly and Cleese storms in as the director telling him to emphasize the O more.
Second appearance is Cleese doing the same thing with Palin's American general character but gets yelled at for his efforts.
Cleese is credited as writer throughout this final season but he appeared in none of the episodes except these two short cameos in film segments.
Overall Season 4 is probably my favorite. It's a shorter typical 6 episode run for British television. The other seasons had 13 episodes better for international distribution. I get the sense that the writing was deliberately pushing the boundaries more than previous seasons. The Party Political Broadcast episode is just.....crazy. Michael Ellis with his pet ant Marcus, and the Golden Age of Balooning and my personal favorite, The Light Entertainment War. Mr Neutron is a great one too. I periodically breakout in song because of it. I start singing "MY MISTAAAAKE, I HAVE MAADE MY MISTAKE. WHAT A DREAAADFUL MISTAAKE, THIS MISTAKE THAT I'VE MADE, MY MISTAAAAKE!"
Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)
Kudos to the acting
I don't consider Hubert Selby Jr's work easy to film. I didn't care for Requiem For A Dream and I didn't think too much of this one either. Both stories have a black comedy feel to them but then they slap you in the face with a rotted fish. It's the same with the books for me. He did a kind of William Burroughs grounded in realism instead of drug induced madness. Both writers work comes off as shock value for the sake of shock value. Thomas Harris's books sometimes went down that road too (killing a man by shoving an eel down his throat? Come on now..). Sensationalism in text.
Last Exit to Brooklyn does succeed in bringing out both of those elements darkly comic and near horror that are in the book but I feel the script fails to bring the different stories together well. In a sense, it is like Woody Allen's Radio Days which leapfrogs beautifully from storyline to storyline that never connect directly but the narration brings the storylines along well, the comedy helped too. Last Exit has neither.
I can imagine people watching this through once because others reference it and they were curious. (My introduction to it was an episode of Inside the Actors Studio). Then maybe revisiting it for the acting.
De la part des copains (1970)
Better than its rating suggests
This movie has been available via Public Domain transfers on dollar bin dvds for years. If you wanted a cheap action movie, you got something like this in one of those bins. That was my introduction to this movie and it was almost impossible to cut through the dark grainy transfer to get interested enough in the movie to watch it much less enjoy it.
Times have changed and even PD movies are getting a AI upscale face-lift and now this movie can actually be enjoyed. This is only in the last 4 or 5 years but this movie was out on those dvds for decades. I think that knocked the rating down because this is actually a pretty good Bronson movie from the era.
It's got an interesting script from one of the best writers of the time, Terrence Young directing which is usually great and seeing James Mason play a character like this is kind of fun to watch. Amazing how well the British do American Southern accents. I know I can't manage it not living in either place.
This is worth watching if you see it remastered. Studio Canal or Kino Lorber did the remastering. The latter even released a polished version of the sci fi/spy movie Dimension 5. They always do a fine job. Without the remastering, you might enjoy some of the action sequences and car chases but you won't get into the story. That's the downside of cheap transfers of these old movies. If you already know the whole story or there's not much to know (like Ed Wood movies) then it's OK. Not so much with something that gets a little involved plot wise. I still can't follow those early 60s Hercules movies because of that.
The Specialist (1975)
I suppose they thought they had a present day Chinatown on a budget
This movie......it tries to be an intriguing thriller regarding local politics but it mostly is sitting around and waiting for the plot to get going which it seems to never do. The story isn't interesting enough on its own to have so little action keeping the viewer engaged and there is very little action. I know they show production stills of Adam West in character pointing a gun but I can't remember much besides vague footage shot in a planned suburban community and a court.
Frankly, the only scene I remember clearly since last seeing this is a slow-motion shot of a window being broken. That's about it. It's lousy and best not remembered much more clearly than I am remembering it now. This came out shortly after Chinatown was a big hit. At its heart that was a story about corruption in local politics like this movie but they have nothing else in common.
Wholly Moses! (1980)
It's no Life of Brian
Nor is it Brooks History of the World Part 1. This came out in between the two and as historical spoofs, it's pretty weak except for Dudley Moore. Moore is pretty good and his performance reminds me of a Lenny Bruce skit. In the bit, Christ comes back but Moses refuses to return. Why? Because Charlton Heston was 6'3" and he was 5'1" and he's vain! Dudley Moore can't be much taller than Bruce describes in the bit and Moses had a funny line or two in the bit so seeing Moore almost bring that bit alive just by being cast and his usual funny self keeps this from being a complete waste of time. There's better historical spoofs. Python is a hard act to follow but Brooks manages it. This one mostly falls flat..
The Milpitas Monster (1976)
Meatballs meets the Monster
I hated this movie the first time I saw it. I mean I really hated it at the time. Now when I watch it, I th8nk the only thing it needed was Bill Murray and it would've been better than Meatballs.
Imagine a movie like Porkys, Meatballs, or Losin' It but with a big monster in it instead of the naughty bits. That's what this is. The humor is about on the same level as the big budget stuff churned out later in the early 80s and the special effects are on par with other low budget sci fi movies. To their credit at least they tried to make special effects, Invasion from Inner Earth just used colored smoke bombs, red lights and creepy voices on the radio for their strange invaders.
Movie stars no one. If they managed to get anyone, it would be something special now. Now it's about as obscure as it gets. If viewed in the proper spirit, this movie is pretty great.
Rutland Weekend Television (1975)
Incredibly good
This show is fantastic. Loaded with humor and alot of it is spoofing pop culture of the time. Something Monty Python did not do. Hardly at all anyway.
Rutland Weekend Television manages to mock, Linda Lovelace, Ken Russell, the movie Tommy,Ann Margaret and The Who (via a great spoof by Neil Innes) all in a single skit. Another mocks 70s rock shows and bands. Hawaii five-O, Elton John, Johnny Cash, George Harrison even shows up to lampoon himself singing a pirates shanty in place of My Sweet Lord. The first episode of the 2nd season is also the first we see of the Rutles
There's also plenty of Monty Python's Flying Circus type skits such as the Ill Health Food Store, the poor continuity sketch, prisoners escaping under priest robes, military personnel disguised as carrots, shrimpo (oh-la-la) and if you've seen Python you basically get the idea.
A cut above even Monty Pythons Flying Circus is the inclusion of Neil Innes singing a song or two per episode. The cast is great including Idle with David Battley, Henry Woolf, Gwen Taylor. Terence Bayler and Innes who also appears in the skits. Granted you need to know alot of British TV at the time to recognize the cast. Aside from Idle and Innes, David Battley and Henry Woolf are perhaps the easiest to spot elsewhere. Woolf had a memorable role in Doctor Who's The Sun Makers. He was also in Marat/Sade as one of the inmates and did an early version of the one man show Hancock's Last Half Hour. Woolf plays Hancock in Australia leading up to an including the moment he decides to take his life. Gwen Taylor appears in The Rutles film and has a very active career on British TV and even returns to sketch comedy on the newer Tracy Ullman show.
Highly recommended. The show is described as being low budget but its no less low budget than other British tv shows of the time. They do manage decent production values considering the budget. This has the same format as the original SCTV in that a single half hour episode is meant to represent a single broadcast day. In fact they might've got the idea from watching this show since RWT debuted a year and a half before SCTV.
Città violenta (1970)
Fine Italian Actioner
This is one of the few movies where Charles Bronson is starring and he is definitely no hero. It's like The Mechanic in the sense that no one is a good guy. Everyone is different degrees of bad. That's the only comparison it has with The Mechanic. The story is far more complicated and Italian productions always seem to go a little too far with things to increase their marketplace.
This was my introduction to Italian action movies courtesy of Anchor Bay/Blue Thunder DVDs. The story has a great 1940s film noir feel to it. Italian movies always follow trends established in Hollywood but this type of story predates the film noir revival by 3 or 4 years. Film noir type scripts became common by the mid 70s. If it wasn't outright period pieces like Chinatown or Farwell My Lovely it was movies like Walking Tall, Framed, The American Friend and The Big Sleep remake. Set in the then present day with scripts fitting the genre. I can't think of any Hollywood movie doing this in 1970. They were doing swave detective stories like Tony Rome and cop movies like French Connection and Bullitt. Only film noir they made in the 60s were The Killers remake and Point Blank (both with Lee Marvin). Neither started a trend.
Sure this movie has its fair share of action and also has a great car chase. Like all Italian movies the dialog is all dubbed but Bronson, Ireland and Sevalas did their own dubbing and not some voice actor. Dubbing was always necessary in these movies because Italian productions rarely used sound recording equipment on location to keep costs down.
Recommended viewing. Italian action movies became a big thing throughout the 70s but this was the first one I saw and is still my favorite. The one with Oliver Reed is a close 2nd.
The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)
Ironically, this film probably did alot of business.
As a B feature at a Drive-In, this movie is perfect. Clocking in at under an hour, with Tor Johnson doing Tor Johnson things, I can see this getting distributed extremely well despite the odious quality of the picture. I mean, how else could Coleman Francis make two more movies after it?
This movie has a reputation based mostly around its name like Mars Needs Women or Night of the Lepus. It must be interestingly awful based on the title alone.
There's so much bad that it's hard to sum it up briefly. The location is bleak and miserable. The family in crisis mostly look confused than in terror as you'd think they would be caught between the scientist turned monster and the dimwitted paratroopers hunting him down..why they shoot at a little guy who looks like he has the same build as Woody Allen, I have no idea. I guess he got hired for his running ability. Anyway, they're not tue sharpest characters in the movie and I am fairly certain they're not actors either. The movie is nearly all narrated which makes it even worse. Dry and dismal and yet it must have sold really well. How else did Coleman Francis get the money to make Skydivers and Red Zone Cuba after this???
There's some really good low budget stuff from these old days but this isn't it.
Eischied (1979)
Good show. Bad timing
This show might've been a major hit if it came outn6 or 7 years earlier. By then the airwaves were loaded with detective series with one word titles, the name of the main character. You had Kojak,Columbo, McCloud, Cannon, Bannchek, Bronk, Mannix, that one with Robert Blake playing with a bird and the few multi word titles also based on title characters like Barnaby Jones and McMillan and wife.
Detective dramas like that were just about everywhere in the early to mid 70s but by 1979 they were all gone and the most successful of them had JUST ended. Then came Eischied when these dramas were morphing into near night time soap opera fare but retaining a gritty hard edge to them. This show debuted just before Hill Street Blues and not long before Miami Vice. The viewing audience was moving away from shows like this. The one hour dramas were much more heavy on action. The A Team and Hunter retained an audience but not Tue Devlin Connection or Eischied.
But being removed from the time this neglected show aired, it stands up well. Joe Don Baker is an underrated actor. He succeeds at bringing his characters across well to the point where you don't think it's Joe Don Baker as a cop, Joe Don Baker as a hit man, Joe Don Baker as a private eye,Joe Don Baker as Senator McCarthy,Joe Don Baker as the fictionalized Babe Ruth in The Natural. Watch Framed and Charley Varrick some time to see what I mean. The first two parter mini series is excellent and Eischied debuts as a very rare made for TV antihero. American television did not make main characters like that. It would be about 20 more years before American TV dramas started having antihero main characters. That also makes this show a product of the wrong time. It was either too late or too soon. They did strip away the antihero aspect of the character for the series as the other reviewer noted and they turned it into a typical cop drama for the early to mid 70s.
It still had some good shows and the mini series that started it is great. Revolutionary for American television at the time.. Britain started having antihero main characters 12 years earlier with Callan but the US was far far behind them on that until Dallas and that initial miniseries. The network or producers decided to not continue in that direction but it probably wouldn't have helped considering when it aired. The interest in the viewing public then wasn't what it is 10 years earlier or what it is now with just about every character in dramas doing good, bad or very bad things.
Tracking these down to watch might not be so easy but maybe they're hiding on a streaming site.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The first poetic sci fi movie
What makes it poetic is the lack of exposition informing the audience of what they see and why it's significant. 2001 reshaped how sci fi movies would be until around the mid 70s (the best being Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris, a story about a kind of living death in space. The complete opposite message this story tells). There is not a single line of dialog spoken during the first 20 minutes and the final 30 minutes. The dialog when there is dialog mostly centers around the monolith and later the interactions between HAL and the astronauts but the monolith is not verbally explained because no one in the story yet knows its true significance.
The monolith is there at the birth of the human race, as humans grow and evolve, they develop the technology and ability to discover its existence. Discovered, the monolith emits a radio signal directed toward the direction of Jupiter and drifts off in that direction. As technology advances to allow humans to follow it, the advances bring about their own destruction, alone, the final astronaut on the mission to pursue it learns that the monolith will bring about the rebirth of mankind. The strange journey he experiences is within the monolith itself. So the monolith is there for the beginning, the middle, the end, and the rebirth of the human race. The book takes things a little further but the movie ends there. None of this is explicitly stated in the movie but we see it and the music and the visuals make it poetic instead of a typical science fiction movie. The choice of music alone tells the story completely. You have the loud familiar music of Strauss at both the birth and rebirth, the waltz as humans evolve and the requiem at the start of the mission to Jupiter where all but one die.
The movie is beautifully shot, some of the gimmicks used much of the final 2 hours still hold up well for the viewer.
The Graduate (1967)
This movie has nothing to do with love
On the surface you may think it does but the image of the couple on the bus at the very end with somber music playing proves this isn't a love story. Elaine and Ben don't really love each other. They merely rebelled against the generation before them and they rebelled mostly out of directionless boredom. That's what this movie is really about, boredom. Mainly Ben's.
We meet Ben, fresh from college, doing nothing. He floats in a pool while his father drones on about career options. He's not listening, he has no direction, no plan and is bored.
Then the big plot point of getting seduced by Mrs Robinson. He does this because it's different. Something to alleviate the bordeom. It's also something his parents wouldn't like. That excites him.
Then Ben meets Elaine. They are friendly with one another but the more Mrs Robinson demands Ben stay away, the more he thinks he's in love with Elaine. Elaine being of Ben's age has the same boredom issues as Ben. She feels pushed into a marriage because she is. Ben, the bored college grad with no plan screams for her in the church. Amid the screams and anger of the older generation, he steals her away, fleeing in a bus. Then, we see them. Laughing at first because they left everyone behind angry and upset. The people on the bus blankly stare at them. They don't smile, frown, nothing. There's no emotion from them for Ben and Elaine to react to. The on lookers don't care. Ben and Elaine never once touch each other on the bus, there's no kiss, not even a hug, but Ben gets his cold dead eye stare again looking straight ahead as the depressing "The Sounds of Silence" starts playing. And we leave them much as they were at the start of the movie. Still bored, still rebelling against the older generation out of boredom, together at the back of the bus but sitting apart like two strangers who never met. They still have no direction except wherever the bus takes them. Then that's it. Credits.
Where is the love in this story? Why wouldn't they drift apart in two to three weeks once they started to get bored with each other? You are left feeling that process already began.
Shriek of the Mutilated (1974)
I LOVE the score!!
For a movie that clearly lacks any kind of serious budget, it has an excellent score mostly composed by Bohuslav Martinu. Typically low budget movies have a soundtrack that's canned. You'll hear the same music from old Twilight Zone episodes (Kingdom of the Spiders) or the same music used over and over in multiple films by the same director (Larry Buchanan and Bill Rebane), this is all classical and it feels like it was composed specifically for this movie. Even though it wasn't, it all still fits so well. None of this score pops up in other movies, just some familiar parts of these compositions later re-recorded by others. The music is the reason I revisit this movie alot. If it's not the score it's Hot Butter's version of Popcorn, also great.
As for the movie, the twist did get me the first time I saw it. Maybe I'm the only one who ever said that about this one but my introduction to it was a Retromedia triple feature set and I expected a typical monster movie. Instead I got something that made me feel queasy by the time it was over.
That is a compliment since I was entertained enough to stick with it. The pacing is pretty good compared to other low budget horror movies from this era. The acting isn't so hot but that didn't bother me much and besides the quality of the acting of some is part of the plot in a way.
Anyway, love the very involved score. Doubt I'd ever be sitting through this without it. I try to imagine if it had no score and just these scenes going on and the brutal attacks happening with just the sound effects for each scene but it would do nothing for me.
Night After Night with Allan Havey (1990)
Watched it religiously.
That is until it got moved to well past my bedtime. I was a freshman in high school when that happened and I wasn't about to wake up in the middle of every night to see it (I'll go to my grave never knowing how to program a VCR). I did wake up to catch the last episode (no school that week) thought the format changed to a studio audience instead of an audience of one but it turned out to be the crew sitting in for the end.
The show hit all the right notes for quality entertainment. It was sort of intimate like listening to an old Jean Shepherd show on the radio. There was no major audience reactions or show bands led by the Vivino Brothers, it was scaled back (no doubt do to budget issues) but that works to its advantage. The show when I watched never had to compete directly with late night panel shows anyway. The news was usually on when this was. If anything was spent it was on the quality of the writing staff, Nick Bakay and the host Allan Havey who almost seemed to have instinctively perfect timing. Even if he didn't say something outright funny on it's own, he knows when to drop the comment at the right time. The humor also tended to be very dry and often based on strange stories instead of one liners.
On top of that, Havey was an excellent interviewer and got many good guests. I remember Tupac Shakur being interviewed promoting Juice, Bill Hicks looking somewhat sickly and guant but no less funny incorporating some of his jokes into the interview. He was promoting his latest comedy album, even the legendary script writer Dennis Potter was interviewed. Interviews that were thorough and entertaining.
This show is long gone now but it lives on in memory and I've seen the scaled back format used again since (Seth Meyer's show was almost like this during COVID) but the people making Night After Night mattered the most.
I think the only thing I enjoyed about The Informant was seeing Allan Havey playing a role and remembering this TV show while seeing him on the screen. I was remembering a news segment he did from Night After Night about a pet owner passing away suddenly at home and the dogs in the house began eating the corpse. Havey mentioned how guilty the dogs looked in the photo for the article. It's the only laugh I had while sitting through that movie. My date thought I was nuts.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)
This entire genre is played out.
It's pretty bad when a movie gets me thinking ALL superhero movies have run their course. It's not a stretch to think that after The Flash, Marvels that last Ant-Man and this failed to make any real impact on anyone. I guess it will take studios a couple more years to realize the public just might be moving on from people in tights trying to be entertaining but failing to accomplish that.
Shazam! Was a fun comic. A tongue in cheek superhero who stumbles into his powers and never really changes the personality he always had. A good excuse for light hearted entertainment and the comic was successful for it. So any comic that had a successful run must have a movie made now, right? Heck, unsuccessful comics get movies! Ant-Man was the superhero reject in the 60s and 70s because the comic didn't sell well. How many movies does that have? 3. Who asked for that???
Anyway, what we know about Shazam! Was explored fully enough in the first movie. That was a good one. This one is a caricature of that one. The CGI is flashy and sound effects are noisy enough to try and distract from noticing how mediocre the story is.
I know people cite politics for a reason alot of these movies aren't resonating with the public like the better ones already made in the past 15 years but I think it's market saturation and fatigue on the part of the viewing audience. How many more new ones are we supposed to care about before we just feel like rewatching the good ones that started this craze?
Trampa mortal (1972)
Aka "Sisters of Death"
This is a pretty typical low budget horror movie for the early 70s with twists and turns leading up to a surprise ending. You'll see alot of that. If it's not Terror at the Red Wolf Inn with cannibals or Legacy of Blood with deaths following the reading of a Will, it's mysterious invitations to a cult meeting years after a tragic event occurred regarding one of their members? Were they summoned by one of the members? A relative of the slain? Both? Neither? They almost all have a twist ending. One of the few that didn't was Invasion of the Bee Girls now that I think about it...
This has a really small budget but that works to the advantage of these types of movies. It gives them a grainy unnerving feel with every ugly frame.
It's pretty well acted and moves along at a good pace despite the fact that these sorts of stories do tend to drag.
Not half bad for the genre. Not sure why they only have the one title listed for it. I know it as Sisters of Death.
12:01 PM (1990)
Chilling.
Kurtwood Smith is a really good actor and this is proof enough. The script is excellent and Smith's performance draws you right into what life has become for Myron Castleman. A living hell.
The idea of a time loop was later reused for Groundhog Day and by these same filmmakers 3 years after this came out. I vaguely remember seeing the feature length movie called 12:01 but the focus is not so much on the science behind the theory as it is in this. The theory is matter and antimatter colliding which causes a perpetual loop in time which was formed over the length of time of the collision. Everything made of matter relives the time in that loop and nothing more. Myron is one of the few (only one he meets anyway) aware of the fact that everyone is trapped reliving the same 59 minutes.
It's a dark sci fi story. No romance or comedy. More like Kafka.
Space Mutiny (1988)
Monster A-Go-Go for the 80s
For those who don't know Monster A GoGo was an abandoned film project by Wisconsin based filmmaker Bill Rebane who favored making Sci fi/horror films. This film project, originally titled Terror at Half Day was abandoned because the union crews ate through the entire budget before production ended. The result was HG Lewis buying that abandoned film footage from a producer, adding some film inserts, narration and making a mess of a film with a lousy ending summed up with a telegram.
Here, Space Mutiny has the same problem for different reasons. A director that left the project, gets replaced and the film becomes completely mangled in post production by mass editing. Dead characters reappear in scenes, additional footage shot with attractive models dancing in slow motion around balls, a story about a mutiny where the mutineers who only risk getting blown up by their own actions with the people they rebel against. A love story is sort of thrown in with motivations changing without explanation and a twist ending in a warehouse. Who doesn't like to play spaceship in a carpet warehouse? Reminds me of me in a furniture warehouse/show space pretending to watch TV on the cardboard set while floating on a waterbed when I was 7.
Movies like this do have an appeal about them for me. I do not expect anything truly good but I do find entertainment in them anyway. I give it credit for not being really slow or boring (worst problem with low budget movies) like something R. O. T. O. R. Maybe something like this would've been handled better when drive-ins were still around but by 1988, they were marketing movies this cheap for direct to video distribution with less of a financial turn around. That means less incentive to invest time on them. Granted drive-ins were thriving when Monster A GoGo was released but there was far less to work with on that than what they have here.
Better Call Saul: Breaking Bad (2022)
Not worthy of the praise.
9? After sitting through this entire series with a Saul Goodman who had no relation at all to the one created in Breaking Bad, they end all the loose ends in the Better Call Saul series by episode 9 of this 6th season then clumsily, write Kim out to set the stage for this Saul Goodman closer to the one from Breaking Bad turning up in this series. How does that make sense? It's like the show creators admitting they made a terrible goof and in a rush created this fan service mess.
None of it works. I wish they made a stand alone version with this character and have the events not relate to what happened in Breaking Bad at all. Why not? It comes across as a parallel universe story line anyway where everyone looks older earlier in their lives! LOL!