Recent Viewings, Part 2

[zombie no.one]

THE KLANSMAN

OJ Simpson's movie debut. he's in this quite a lot, but doesn't say a lot. (I was surprised to find out he was an actor before he did sports? assumed other way round)...

trashy and low budget feel despite starring Lee Marvin and Richard Burton. made in '74 but looks more '64!

I was thinking "nothing like this could ever get made today, it's way too racially non-PC", but then I remembered DJANGO UNCHAINED, so maybe yes it could

[indianasmith]

SMILEY FACE KILLERS (2020) Loosely based on a theory that around 45 drowning deaths of college aged men in the 1990's thru the 2010's were actually the work of a serial killer or killers, this movie is about a grad student who keeps getting creepy messages on  his phone and winds up becoming the latest victim. A decent idea poorly executed - it's slow-moving and the killers' motivation is never explained.  2.5/5

[lester1/2jr]

The trombone thing was way weird. Especially how the killer had no clue how to actually play it.

[M.10rda]

THE KLANSMAN

OJ Simpson's movie debut. he's in this quite a lot, but doesn't say a lot. (I was surprised to find out he was an actor before he did sports? assumed other way round)...

trashy and low budget feel despite starring Lee Marvin and Richard Burton. made in '74 but looks more '64!

I was thinking "nothing like this could ever get made today, it's way too racially non-PC", but then I remembered DJANGO UNCHAINED, so maybe yes it could

I'm the last guy who should offer sports trivia to anyone, but I'm also from Buffalo and it's hard to filter out all the football talk around here (since this city has precious little else going on). Anyway, OJ was a football player (for the Bills!) before he was an actor... he was first drafted in '68 or '69 iirc. He continued to play through most of the 70s, even after he was appearing in movies (presumably he was on set February through July or something). BTW Buffalonians will name-drop celebrity associations all day and night until said celebrity does some embarrassing crap and then this region develops amnesia instantly. Happened w/ OJ, Harvey Weinstein, Alec Baldwin... you name 'em, we'll claim 'em until they get charged w/ some major felony.......

Anyway, THE KLANSMAN! Yeah, it stars Marvin and Burton, was directed by a veteran director of the James Bond films, and written by Sam Fuller, and its production values look about on-par w/ Ted V. Mikels' low-low budget BLACK KLANSMAN from '66, and it's just about equally as classy, too. Feh!

[FatFreddysCat]

"Black Mama, White Mama" (1973)
Two lady prisoners -- one white (Margaret Markov) and one black (Pam Grier) escape from a hellish women's prison in a Third World banana republic.  Naturally they hate each other's guts at first, but since they're chained together at the wrists, they eventually have to learn to work together to avoid re-capture while a gaggle of gun toting mercenaries and revolutionaries chase them all over the island. If any of this plot sounds familiar, that's cuz it's basically a re-tread of the Fifties flick "The Defiant Ones," with lots of nudity, cleavage and cat fights. An entertainingly trashy, ultra violent combo of the blaxploitation and chicks-in-chains genres.

[claws]

I'm a sucker for Charles B. Pierce. The original TOWN TDS and LEGEND OF BOGGY terrified me as a (very) young child too and somehow those primal experiences still stick w/ me and I continue to get creeped out by these very cheap, sometimes goofy films as an adult. Pierce does have a puerile streak yet he also has a deft hand for establishing a highly credible, eerie atmosphere w/ his location cinematography and sound design....... and both of these films have a handful of authentically disturbing moments.

Like Bigfoot, the Texarkana Moonlight Murders are 100% real...      ...Even the bit about about the knife on the trombone is based on a real assault. 20+ years before the Zodiac Killer, too. Makes one wonder. Well, makes me wonder anyway.......

I didn't expect much when I watched Legend of Boggy Creek for the first time back in rental days. It was rated G but had quite a few creepy and eerie moments. That one scene with Bigfoot emerging from the dark was genuine scary, and stuck with me for a long time.

[Rev. Powell]

CORNER OFFICE (2022): Orson, a peculiar man somewhere on the spectrum, tries to fit in at his absurd corporate workplace ("The Authority"), but finds that he can excel when he works alone in the abandoned corner office--a room his co-workers insist doesn't actually exist. You see what they were going for in this character study/satire, but despite a dedicated performance by John Hamm, it stays so low-key and workmanlike that it never cuts loose and has fun with the premise. 2.5/5.

[M.10rda]

CORNER OFFICE (2022):
a peculiar man somewhere on the spectrum, tries to fit in at his absurd corporate workplace
but finds that he can excel when he works alone in the abandoned corner office

By God, it could practically be the unauthorized M.10rda biopic!  

[M.10rda]

FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (2023):
8+ hours so had to watch over a few nights leading up to Halloween... I just don't binge like I used to. Anybody else see this? No spoilers here, though the first episode immediately spoils much (not all) of the remainder of the series, and yet, to the credit of writer/director Mike Flanagan and co-director/cinematographer Michael Fimognari, enough mystery remains pertaining to the hows and whys of the fait accompli fatalities to more than hold my interest. On the other hand, Madame 10rda was turned off by the first episode but begrudgingly kept watching to appease me (bless her) and quickly got sucked in and stuck it out happily until the end.

It's tough to maintain excellence over 8-12 hours and Flanagan's track record, though impressive, isn't perfect. I think HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and MIDNIGHT MASS both have exemplary passages that are as strong as almost any five-star feature, but also are saddled w/ some really clunky bits. (For me, HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR was more clunky bits than excellence...) FOTHOU is probably Flanagan's crowning effort so far in terms of consistency... it's long and often dialogue-driven, w/ long stretches at times between the suspense and horror elements, but it usually looks nice, Flanagan's writing is a lot tighter than in was in MASS, and most importantly, the ensemble acting keeps it compelling throughout.

Bruce Greenwood (where's he been?) has never been better and should just get mailed an Emmy right now. Kate Siegel (aka Mrs. Flanagan), overtaxed in MASS, is really impressive here and leaves you wanting more, not less. A lot of strong supporting work by unknown (to me) actors like Ruth Codd, Willa Fitzgerald, and Malcolm Goodwin. And Carla Gugino, always pleasing if short of revelatory, will surely never have a better showcase for her talents, here playing half a dozen characters (ala Peter Sellers) refracted through a prism of immortal evil.

I want to mention one more element of FOTHOU that emphasizes Flanagan's slow evolution towards that better part of valor, Discretion. In a series where even an economically employed Siegel has to repeat the same Poe in-joke no less than three times for inattentive viewers, and in which nearly every major plot point is comprehensively explained and resolved by the end of the finale, there is also Mark Hamill, silently sneaking in and out of a handful of scenes per episode, usually delivering less than a few dozen words per appearance, but establishing a more iconic and far more complex, even sympathetic, character than any other he's ever played, certainly including Luke Skywalker. According to my math, there is exactly one reference in FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER which is never explained nor resolved - Hamill's rescheduling request to a henchman regarding dinner w/ an amusingly named friend - and that throwaway seems to contradict Hamill's climactic confession to Gugino near FOTHOU's end. In an exhaustingly plotted and mapped out gothic epic, that tiny inconsistency - as puzzling, infuriating as the calendar in the hardware store at the end of ZODIAC - becomes my single favorite detail, and the remarkable Hamill as Arthur Gordon Pym becomes the heart of this commendable project.

4.5/5

[Dr. Whom]

Once upon a Crime (2023)

When Cinderella and Red Riding Hood go the Royal Ball where the prince will choose his bride, they come across the corpse of the Royal Hair Stylist who has been brutally murdered. One of the people at the ball must be the culprit. Can Red Riding Hood's Sherlock Holmes like powers of deduction crack the case?

Brought to us by Yuichi Fukuda, who also gave us Hentai Kamen and the Gintama live action adaptations, this is as silly as you would expect. It is not as much fun as it could be, though because it is mainly people standing about and talking. Some action scenes would have been welcome. That being said, if you like anime style silliness and pretty girls in over the top princess costumes, it is watchable enough.

[lester1/2jr]

The Alpha Test (2020) - It's a bit of a s**tshow, but an entertaining one. The title would indicate sci fi but its much, much more of a horror movie. In fact, the sci fi aspect is so generic and ridiculous it's actually incredible. The acting is often script run-through level but it has enough "Orphan" style ridicu-camp that it's actually compelling.

The plot is a futuristic home assistant robot goes awry as it tries to understand human beings and yadda yadda.

Imagine if you had a roomba and it started attacking you. Why would it do that? and why don't all the other roombas in the world do that?

Lots of violence and craziness for sure, but no sex what's up with that?

4/5 getting back to our bad movie roots here.



edit: why would a company make a robot that looks like a dystopian hellscape thing

[indianasmith]

FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (2023):
8+ hours so had to watch over a few nights leading up to Halloween... I just don't binge like I used to. Anybody else see this? No spoilers here, though the first episode immediately spoils much (not all) of the remainder of the series, and yet, to the credit of writer/director Mike Flanagan and co-director/cinematographer Michael Fimognari, enough mystery remains pertaining to the hows and whys of the fait accompli fatalities to more than hold my interest. On the other hand, Madame 10rda was turned off by the first episode but begrudgingly kept watching to appease me (bless her) and quickly got sucked in and stuck it out happily until the end.

It's tough to maintain excellence over 8-12 hours and Flanagan's track record, though impressive, isn't perfect. I think HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and MIDNIGHT MASS both have exemplary passages that are as strong as almost any five-star feature, but also are saddled w/ some really clunky bits. (For me, HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR was more clunky bits than excellence...) FOTHOU is probably Flanagan's crowning effort so far in terms of consistency... it's long and often dialogue-driven, w/ long stretches at times between the suspense and horror elements, but it usually looks nice, Flanagan's writing is a lot tighter than in was in MASS, and most importantly, the ensemble acting keeps it compelling throughout.

Bruce Greenwood (where's he been?) has never been better and should just get mailed an Emmy right now. Kate Siegel (aka Mrs. Flanagan), overtaxed in MASS, is really impressive here and leaves you wanting more, not less. A lot of strong supporting work by unknown (to me) actors like Ruth Codd, Willa Fitzgerald, and Malcolm Goodwin. And Carla Gugino, always pleasing if short of revelatory, will surely never have a better showcase for her talents, here playing half a dozen characters (ala Peter Sellers) refracted through a prism of immortal evil.

I want to mention one more element of FOTHOU that emphasizes Flanagan's slow evolution towards that better part of valor, Discretion. In a series where even an economically employed Siegel has to repeat the same Poe in-joke no less than three times for inattentive viewers, and in which nearly every major plot point is comprehensively explained and resolved by the end of the finale, there is also Mark Hamill, silently sneaking in and out of a handful of scenes per episode, usually delivering less than a few dozen words per appearance, but establishing a more iconic and far more complex, even sympathetic, character than any other he's ever played, certainly including Luke Skywalker. According to my math, there is exactly one reference in FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER which is never explained nor resolved - Hamill's rescheduling request to a henchman regarding dinner w/ an amusingly named friend - and that throwaway seems to contradict Hamill's climactic confession to Gugino near FOTHOU's end. In an exhaustingly plotted and mapped out gothic epic, that tiny inconsistency - as puzzling, infuriating as the calendar in the hardware store at the end of ZODIAC - becomes my single favorite detail, and the remarkable Hamill as Arthur Gordon Pym becomes the heart of this commendable project.

4.5/5

Absolutely loved this show!!!  Sucked me in from the very first episode.

[indianasmith]

Saturday Double Feature:

SOME NUDITY REQUIRED (2023) - This was a pretty funny little sendup of the film industry.  Despite the titillating title, there's less than a minute of actual nudity in the film (lots of skimpy costumes, though).  An aspiring actress named Allie keeps getting passed over for roles because she refuses to get naked. Finally she takes the plunge, but only gets cast in dreadful B-movies. So she and her boyfriend decide to write a film of their own - but when he gets funding from a major Hollywood player to make the movie, will he compromise his artistic vision for cheap thrills?  And will Allie still get the starring role?  This one had me chuckling in multiple scenes.  4/5

EVEN LAMBS HAVE TEETH (2015) Two best friends on their way to work at an organic farm for the summer get kidnapped by small town goons who chain them inside two boxcars and charge the local men to have their way with them - including the local sheriff!  When they finally break free, the two BFF's decide to go on a vengeful rampage against every man who abused them while they were chained up.  Some creative kills and great lines make this a fun revenge tale; not nearly as gritty as LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT or I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE - I didn't feel like I needed a shower after watching it.  You pretty much wind up cheering for these two victims turned avengers! 4.5/5

[Rev. Powell]

DALILAND (2022): A young art intern lucks into a job as Salvador Dali's assistant in his declining years, as the painter throws elaborate orgies in between painting late-phase masterpieces. Ben Kingsley as Dali and Barbara Sukowa as the horny Gala are fine, but it's surprisingly lifeless, given its eccentric subject. Interesting historical fact, though: Dali and Alice Cooper hung out in the 70s, even though neither got what the other was doing (they bonded over passion for partying). 2.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977)
When Russian and British nuclear submarines begin mysteriously disappearing, James Bond is paired with a lovely Soviet counterpart (Barbara Bach, who cannot act but has stellar cleavage) to track them down. Their search takes them from Egypt and Italy to the bottom of the ocean, where crazed supervillain Stromberg wants to use the subs' nuclear missiles to destroy the surface world.
This elaborate production was the biggest 007 flick since You Only Live Twice a decade earlier, and it was Roger Moore's best outing as Bond.