Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

"White Christmas" (1954)
Two song-and-dance men (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) romance a pair of singing sisters (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) as they prepare for a big show to help save their former Army general's troubled Vermont resort.
This old fashioned holiday perennial is impressively staged and schmaltzy in all the right places. I've never been a particularly big fan of musicals but I have a soft spot for this one.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Silent Night, Deadly Night 3:  Better Watch Out!" (1989)
A blind girl with psychic powers is part of an experiment attempting to "connect" with a comatose "Ricky," the Santa Claus psycho killer from the previous movie. Naturally, this turns out to be a spectacularly bad idea, as Ricky (now played by Bill Mosely, aka "Chop Top" from "TCM2") awakens and follows her to her Granny's house to crash their holiday celebration.
This cheap looking slasher flick is competently made, but the bizarre plot, sub-par acting and sluggish pace don't come close to equaling the exploitative mean streak of the original or the total absurdity of the 2nd film.
Followed by two more DTV sequels which wisely left the "Ricky" character behind in favor of new Yuletide themed horror stories.

[Rev. Powell]

SOULEYMANE'S STORY (2025): A desperate Guinean refugee in Paris tries to raise money for fake documents and memorize an elaborate cover story he thinks will get him asylum status. Ultra-realistic look at a shady underworld of refugee exploitation; it's a good trick to make you sympathize with Souleymane even though he's planning to commit fraud. 3.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Heavy Metal Brittania" (2010)
Cool BBC-TV documentary about England's role in developing the sound of heavy metal and their part in it becoming a worldwide musical phenomenon. Features great vintage clips and photos plus commentary by members of Sabbath, Priest, Maiden, Diamond Head, Saxon, Budgie, and more. Long time 'heads probably won't learn anything new but it's a nice trip down metal memory lane nonetheless.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Why Should the Devil Have All The Good Music?" (2004)
The 2003 Cornerstone Festival provides the backdrop for this documentary on Christian rock and its struggle to be taken seriously by the "mainstream" rock scene. Interviewees include members of MxPx, Living Sacrifice, the OC Supertones, Five Iron Frenzy, Stryper, and many more.

[lester1/2jr]

Fat Freddy's Cat - My college room mate was a born again Christian and played bass in a Christian emocore band called Pedro The Lion. He was friendly with the guy from Sunny Day Real Estate who were, like Pedro the Lion, not exactly my thing but undoubtedly talented. I genuinely did like The Danielson Famile, a very strange Pixies/ modest Mouse type band actually made up of a large family. He was kind of a jerk though, if we're being honest.

edit: ^ the roomate was the jerk

[FatFreddysCat]

Fat Freddy's Cat - My college room mate was a born again Christian and played bass in a Christian emocore band called Pedro The Lion. He was friendly with the guy from Sunny Day Real Estate who were, like Pedro the Lion, not exactly my thing but undoubtedly talented. I genuinely did like The Danielson Famile, a very strange Pixies/ modest Mouse type band actually made up of a large family. He was kind of a jerk though, if we're being honest.

A guy from Pedro The Lion and the Danielson Familie are interviewed in this doc, haha. I'm an 80s hard rock/metal guy so they're not my cup of Java either.

Right after watching that doc, YouTube suggested this "related" one, so I watched it too. Saw a lot of the same people in it...

"The Cornerstone Festival: 20 Years and Counting" (2003)
A documentary tracing the history of Cornerstone, the annual Christian music & arts festival, from its humble beginning with a handful of bands playing in an Illinois cornfield to the massive, sprawling multi-stage event it is today. A cool history lesson with commentary and memories from dozens of musicians.

[M.10rda]

LIL' ABNER (1959):
My annual holiday visit to a less-remembered mid-century musical pays dividends again - LIL' ABNER is a real eye-popper. Based on a comic strip, it's as garishly colorful as a cartoon with oddly shaped humans and physics-defying choreography to match. Capp's original material is seen as a satirical forerunner to BLOOM COUNTY and DOONESBURY, and that DNA survives onscreen. The indigent, leisure-loving hill people of Dogpatch, Arkansas are threatened with abrupt eviction from their homes in order for the US military to use their "utterly worthless" community as a nuclear testing site. Yes (I know, you're shocked to read this), this film's federal government is callously indifferent to the suffering of its own servile constituency; the corporate wing of the military-industrial complex is eager to swoop in and exploit that suffering, even resorting to homicide to insure its profits; and the targets of this malfeasance (the eponymous Abner Yoakam and his family and neighbors) are too busy preserving their hermetic gender norms and celebrating past glories of the Confederacy to do anything on their own behalf except salute on command. This isn't the subtext of LIL' ABNER - it's the majority of the comedic text (plus a large serving of romantic farce).

Yup, the essentially forgotten LIL' ABNER still hits in 2025, particularly when contrasted with hoary perennial audience favs like OKLAHOMA! and GREASE. I've long loathed both of those crowdpleasing musicals - for their books more than their catchy scores. Unlike those tone-deaf dinosaurs, LIL' ABNER seems entirely aware that it's about terrible human beings reifying monstrous attitudes and toxic traditions, and it leans into that bit. The film's biggest showstopper is a paean at the feet of a statue commemorating General "Jubilation T. Cornpone", beloved hero of the Confederate army, who the cast cheerfully acknowledge as a wholly inept fool, coward, and charlatan. A later song focusing on the state of Washington politics offers more or less universal criticisms of American governance, but then adds a single verse (lyrics by Johnny Mercer) vis a vis how "both" Democrats and Republicans are equally complicit in mismanagement. This probably seemed like an agreeable/impartial disclaimer in the 1950s, but it's aged well, and today resonates as exactly what disconnected voters in the middle of nowhere tell themselves in order to maintain their complacency.

The other major draw of LIL' ABNER is its cast. After stealing the show in GUYS AND DOLLS, third-billed Stubby Kaye is handed the keys and basically drives the entire show here as "Marryin' Sam", a slick yet sympathetic traveling preacher who sings the lead in most of the songs and never wears out his welcome. Abner is played by Elvisesque Peter Palmer, who is agreeably inert as a performer but really makes a visual impression as the unnaturally large title character - he looks about a foot taller than everyone around him, excepting his statuesque teen love interest Daisy May. Ubermensch Abner and organically grown Daisy May would/will make some real purdy babies. Actress Leslie Parrish is just about as hot as blondes get in my book - like Margot Robbie/Elizabeth Banks hot. Stella Stevens (in what must be one of her earliest roles) plays Daisy Mae's rivel for Abner's affections. Stevens' performance is weirdly understated (particularly for this material) and Stevens is also unusually overdressed... but most oddly of all, traditionally blonde Stevens is a redhead here. I dig it, but it isn't enough to trump Parrish's earthy charms.

There are three actors, though, who leap (literally) onto the screen as if straight from the newspaper strip. As Abner's Mammy, Billie Hayes (best known as TV's "Witchie-Poo") appears entirely animated by hand-painted cel artists. Presumably a former gymnast, Hayes struts, gesticulates, and hops 3 feet off the ground like a living cartoon. Her physical abilities are at least approached by Al Nesoro (who would later play one of the bad guys in SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS), a tiny Harry Shearer-type in an enormous green zoot suit whose feet move inhumanly fast. (The obviously ethnic villain "Evil Eye Fleagle" has magical powers to trick and confound, and seems instantly if non-specifically objectionable.) However LIL' ABNER's most incredible special effect is 5'11" Julie Newmar (the original "Catwoman") in high heels and a tiny bodice, playing a proto-fembot. She dwarves the tiny male chorus dancers that surround her - sincerely appearing twice their size. Newmar does justice to a character named "Stupefyin' Jones" as she is truly stunning. Forget the slinky human Catwoman - she should have originated the role of Wonder Woman.

4/5   
I didn't even mention Robert Strauss as a creepy gun-toting hick, the Jerry Lewis cameo, or perhaps the film's best gag, which involves the tiny husbands of Dogpatch being transformed via magic potion into studly Adonises who are eternally young, physically fit, and beautiful... but wholly disinterested in women.      What a movie!

[lester1/2jr]

Fatt Freddyscat- The first Sunny Day Real Estate album is really impressive. It was where modern emo began and probably should have ended.

[M.10rda]

THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII (1935):
This draggy excuse for some climactic SFX mayhem demonstrates how little big budget Hollywood spectacles have changed in 90 years. I guess charitably you could say that bet-hedging screenwriters in the 21st century would find a way to have Mount Vesuvius erupt in the first half-hour and then deliver another 60-plus minutes of frantic escape attempts, but then (depending on the producers) maybe not. This picture could more accurately be titled THE LAST FIFTY YEARS OF ROME BEFORE THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII and it somehow manages to incorporate Christ's trial before Pilate (which iirc didn't even take place in Italy or Rome proper let alone Pompeii) so I guess if you want to turn your action/disaster flick into a referendum on Christian mercy, you will.

A guy I've never heard of named Preston Foster who has a Will Ferrell comedy perm starts off poor but nice and then gets rich and becomes a bit of a louse, which drives a wedge between him and his teenage son, who is something of a first-century hippie. Dad has a return-to-Jesus moment though when the son gets thrown into the arena but is saved not by the bell but by a close-up of the kind of baking soda-eruption you used to make in grade-school science class. Women barely seem to exist in this world, as perhaps makes sense for what is more or less a gladiator movie. The large sausage party supporting cast includes John Wood, Edward Van Sloan, Louis Calhern (quite out of place), both Alan Hale and Jason Robards Seniors, and Basil Rathbone as Pontius Pilate, who come to Google it washed his hands of the Crucifixion about 46 years before the destruction of Pompeii, so really his pivotal involvement in this plot seems like a stretch... 

Vesuvius doesn't even erupt and destroy the city until the last 12 minutes. This is actually the second "destruction of Pompeii" movie I've seen this year... the first was a silent that also took forever to get the party started though when it did, the destruction was brilliantly directed. This version just throws its money at the screen like a Bruckheimer/Bay picture. You know what? I'd still reckon it's worth watching (provided you don't mind liberally exercising your FF button). I never cease admiring early 20th century miniature FX combined with full-scale practical chaos, much of which naturally looks entirely hazardous to the actors. At one point the ground collapses under or near the feet of half a dozen extras and they all fall in - vertically, not horizontally like you would if you were intentionally throwing yourself. All a viewer can do is shake their head in wonder and foolishly hope no one was harmed.    So much for the Christian mercy messaging! (Actually, Foster's final onscreen act - a touch of Hodur-ism - is every but as (justifiably) spiteful  or vengeful as it is heroic - and cheers to that!)

3/5
Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack (say that five times fast) who also directed the more consistently entertaining MOST DANGEROUS GAME and KING KONG! He sure knew his Mayhem, though.

[indianasmith]

THE ANACONDA (2025) Took my daughters and son-in-law to see this movie tonight and laughed harder than I have at any movie in a long time. Jack Black and Paul Rudd absolutely carry this far-fetched tale of amateur filmmakers battling a giant snake in the Amazon delta as they try to remake the 90's classic.  Not a lot of scares but a ton of laughs!  5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Nightmare Beach" (aka "Welcome to Spring Break," 1989)
Spring break festivities in a small Florida town are threatened by a motorcycle-riding psycho killer in this bizarre Italian/American blend of '80s sex comedy and giallo/slasher thriller. It literally feels like two different movies stapled together. Given the setting, there's lots of T&A and the cast includes some familiar B-movie faces like John Saxon and Lance Le Gault. It's junk, but it's watchable junk.

"Nightmare City" (1980)
A radioactive spill turns city dwellers into burn-scarred, blood sucking mutations. A TV reporter (Hugo Stiglitz) and his wife attempt to get to safety before the city is completely overrun.
This totally ridiculous Spanish/Italian "Dawn of the Dead" knock-off is one of my favorite cheesy Euro-horror movies. It doesn't make a lick of sense but it's tons of action packed, gory fun!

[FatFreddysCat]

"New Year's Evil" (1980)
A new-wave rock radio DJ (Roz "Pinky Tuscadero" Kelly) is hosting a live New Year's Eve countdown broadcast, which is interrupted by calls from a psycho killer who promises to murder someone at the stroke of midnight in each time zone. Eventually, of course, he comes looking for her to become his final victim of the night.
A pretty "meh" slasher/murder mystery, not terrible but I've also seen far better.

[indianasmith]

STAGKNIGHT (2007)
Wrapped up the year with this absolute stinker.
Low budget British horror/comedy about a paintball team taking one of their members to a country lodge for his bachelor party.  The thoroughly unlikable crew runs afoul of a resurrected medieval zombie knight who is protecting a cauldron that holds the secret to eternal life and riches or something like that.  Pretty dismal. 2/5

[M.10rda]

Wake Up Dead Man. A Knives Out Mysteru (2025)
 there is no antagonist. In an ordinary murder mystery, there is always the threat that the killer will strike back and/or murder again to prevent getting caught. Here the protagonists are never in any jeopardy or under pressure.
People seem to like it, though.

WAKE UP DEAD MAN (2025):
I guess it's a controversial opinion, but I thought this was easily the best of the three star-studded KNIVES OUT holiday events and found it to be (besides a nearly perfect murder mystery) an extremely compelling character drama. This one boasts Josh Brolin (who currently has won 2025 after starring in the two best new films I've seen this year), the always magnificent Kerry Washington, Mila Kunis, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Thomas Haden Church, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, and the Great Jeffrey Wright. There's also an actor who I thought (in lieu of opening credits) was Jamie Bell in a career-best performance but is actually named Josh O'Connor, who manages to match Daniel Craig's intensity and conviction for 2.5 hours. Craig himself has really settled into the role of Benoit Blanc, at last making him a three-dimensional character as well as being typically entertaining to watch. The same might be said for series auteur Rian Johnson, whose work is totally assured without ever slowing to an expository crawl (at least imho) or overreaching into occasional clownishness, as might have been said about some of his previous efforts.

Also, as I know Rev. Powell is both a fan of the original KNIVES OUT and of Tom Waits, I'll mention that this film closes with one of my favorite Waits tracks.

As for one of Dr. Whom's key criticisms... [LIGHT NON-CLIMACTIC SPOILERS] ...It's true that there is less threat of mortal or physical danger here than in the two previous films (though not none). From an analytical perspective, the term "antagonist" need only refer to the force that opposes the protagonist/s in pursuing their objective, and indeed those forces are in effect in WUDM. But besides this splitting of hairs, I appreciate Whom's criticism as it made me reflect upon an element that causes me to more deeply admire WUDM, as I will explain (with ongoing light SPOILERS) as follows...

Ayn Rand (who wrote one Christie-ish whodunnit and one courtroom/homicide drama) once said she had to discontinue writing murder mysteries because anyone who'd read and understood her philosophy of Objectivism  would always instantly be able to identify the culprit. Among her other uhhh quirks, Rand saw murder as a pragmatic, even constructive act, thus only the strongest and most admirable protagonist could commit such an act in one of her stories.  After the first socially tinged KNIVES OUT and the more broadly satirical GLASS ONION, it's clear that Rian Johnson is, like Rand, an author of extreme principles, if probably oppositional to Rand in most ways. In the KNIVES OUT universe, the culprits are always "antagonists"... corrupt, callous, and/or outright evil characters whose general motivation is to make life less pleasant for the rest of the world. In order to complicate the mystery, Johnson fills his casts with such objectionable figures. In counterpoint, it's difficult to ever seriously suspect the second lead in these films of being the murderer - though WUDM does tease occasionally the idea, for funsies - because if one of Johnson's principled protagonists had committed a murder, they would do exactly what O'Connor's does in this film when he thinks he's somehow guilty........ they'd promptly turn themselves in. In the world of Benoit Blanc, it isn't just the crime that makes a character the Antagonist - it's the cover-up and the motivation. [END LIGHT NON-CLIMACTIC SPOILERS]

There are huge stakes for O'Connor's character, besides potential death, and for Benoit Blanc, too. Those stakes are legal but more importantly moral, ethical, and spiritual. Also, in its limited scope, WAKE UP DEAD MAN is concerned with the soul of the Catholic Church (whether you care about that, as O'Connor does, or you could care less, like Blanc and myself) and the United States of America. (I realize that viewers living in Belgium or elsewhere may be indifferent to that one, but I'm stuck here.) Thus Johnson's mere murder mystery seems at times closer to a philosophical treatise - but more engaging than those by Rand.

Great way to end the Movie year = 5/5

I am now won over and will eagerly await a new Blanc/KNIVES OUT mystery every 3 years as long as Craig and Johnson want to make them. (If Johnson runs out of novel celebrity guest stars he can always start recycling them, as he does each film with Noah Segan.)