I went to the store last night hopeing to pick up Frankenhooker and The Ghastly Ones, but they didnt have either of them, so i got Reefer Maddness, which i had never seen before. I just heard that it was a b-movie classic, so i picked it up, hopeing for something special. We got to my friends house and we poped it in and started to watch. 9 minutes thru my friend Nick turns to me and says, "this movie had better pick up." And i agreed. It was SOOOOO slow. It took FOREVER for something interesting to happen, and then when something DID happen, it was only for a few seconds. It was just TEASING me. So i patiently waited. Nick got bored and drove home. Nicole is now passed out on the bed and Im watching it alone now. Some cool stuff happened, but like I said, it wasnt very long until the extremely bland diolouge came in.
This is a 1 slimer. MAYBE 1 and a half. Thank God its only a little over an hour.
Quote from: Isaac on May 06, 2007, 09:54:53 PM
Watch the colorized Special "Addiction" from 20th Century Fox. Not only is the colorization campy enough to make the film more entertaining than it originally was, you have Mike Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 doing the audio commentary. :thumbup:
As much of a 'when hell freezes over' moment that it may seem, I gave you a karma point. Very helpful information. :thumbup:
Just curious, did you pick up the original Reefer Madness or the musical remake that came out about two years ago?
Quote from: Skaboi on May 07, 2007, 08:08:00 AM
Just curious, did you pick up the original Reefer Madness or the musical remake that came out about two years ago?
the original 30s one.
Ah youth. Such patience you lack.
There are multiple versions of the original floating around as well. Some of the dollar-bin VHS/DVD prints are missing the actual murder, which makes things even more confusing. Haha. But it is important to put this film's badness into perspective. It's not like they purposely set out to make a schlocky masterpiece. This was just another piece of the propaganda machine, never really meant to survive through the season. That's why this is considered such a classic.
And while I positively despise colorization, I must agree with Isaac that for the purposes of this film, it is really entertaining.
Speaking of colorizations, does this ring any bells: I have a VHS print of the silent Nosferatu that isn't really colorized, but each scene's hue is shifted to a random base color (so it'll be blue, then red, then yellow, etc). The film was "scored", using the term very loosely, with really lo-fi 80s metal music without any consideration to the scene's pace. I used to keep this on a constant loop at the video store because it was so strange. Has this been released on DVD?
QuoteI have a VHS print of the silent Nosferatu that isn't really colorized, but each scene's hue is shifted to a random base color (so it'll be blue, then red, then yellow, etc).
Actually the practice of tinting silent films was popular when they were originally released. I'm sure NOSFERATU was tinted for its initial run. This is why some 'film authorities' complain about the night time scenes in this film being so bright in black and white prints; in the original version these scenes were tinted a rich hue of blue and looked like night scenes. Apparently relatively few films were originally released in the silent era in 'plain' black and white; most had some tinting of some kind. Even in the sound era many 'black and white' films were originally release in sepia-tinted prints. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) isn't in black & white and Technicolor - it's in
sepia tone and Technicolor. :smile:
Many restored versions of silent films also restore their original tinting. Seeing a correctly tinted silent film can be a jaw-dropping experience.
Some films were even 'colorized' by hand frame-by-frame. These early 'colorized' films look amazing, particularly those of animation pioneer Winsor McCay.
Some prints of FRANKENSTEIN (1931) were tinted green - "The Color of FEAR!". :drink:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5c/Achmed1.jpg)
THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED (1926) - Tinted
(http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/handtint-x.jpg)
THE LAST DAYS OF POMEII (1926) - Hand Colored
Amazing caps, Raffine. I heard of these techniques back in college, when I had to write a piece on Murnau's "Nosferatu", but I don't think I've ever seen caps before.