Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Rev. Powell]

JOHN LILLY AND THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE (2025): The story of Lilly, who began as a serious scientist studying dolphin communication but, driven by experiments with isolation tanks and LSD, gradually drifted into fringe theories (believing himself in contact with the extraterrestrials of the titular office). Lilly is a fascinating character (he was the basis for the scientists in Mike Nicholls' THE DAY OF THE DOLPHIN and Ken Russell's ALTERED STATES); this nonjudgmental documentary by Michael Almereyda and Courtney Stephens covers the bases. 3/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Zombie Holocaust" (aka "Dr. Butcher M.D.," 1981)
An anthropologist and a doctor investigate crimes involving cannibalism in New York hospitals. This somehow prompts them to travel to a remote island in the tropics, where a mad doctor has been experimenting on the natives, turning them into zombies.
Silly, sleazy Italian splatter schlock that doesn't make much sense but the gross out effects are impressive.

[M.10rda]

THE RED SPECTRE [LE SPECTRE ROUGE] (1907):
My fourth (?) Segundo de Chomon flick. Like his other ones, it's "real" horror, at least by the standards of the silent era. Letterboxd has a brief description of the plot which would have one believe that this 8-minute short has... a plot. I dunno about all that - what I saw was a guy in a skeleton costume and devil horns performing a magic act w/ three female assistants. But - even if that's all THE RED SPECTRE is - it's very impressive.

De Chomon's special effects are quite cool in LE MAISON ENSORCELEE and to a lesser extent in some of his other shorts. However THE RED SPECTRE is all FX. It's as if de Chomon watched some Melies and promptly called for a beer-holder.  At first all of the "magic" in RED SPECTRE is the standard jump cuts and dissolves and even good ol' Ed Wood wires lifting stuff in the air. Then de Chomon starts running film backwards, which is still a good trick in the era of David Lynch. But then at last, the final couple of "tricks" performed by the Spectre involve either on-camera projection and/or reflective surfaces (almost early green screen) and/or double- and triple-exposures, and........ by the end, I was ensorcelled indeed by "tricks" I couldn't quite explain in a nearly 120-year old film.

If you like movie SFX, this is one you ought to check out.    4/5

[Rev. Powell]

WHEN THE SUN STANDS STILL (2024): A man's stepdaughter mysteriously disappears in the woods. This arty paranormal mystery does a good job of suggesting cosmic mysticism on a minimal budget, but will prove too slow and obscure for the average viewer. Available on Fawesome. 2/5. 

[Rev. Powell]

WHEN THE SUN STANDS STILL (2024): A man's stepdaughter mysteriously disappears in the woods. This arty paranormal mystery does a good job of suggesting cosmic mysticism on a minimal budget--Mark Richards' experimental electronic score carries a lot of that load--but will prove too slow and obscure for the average viewer. Available on Fawesome. 2/5. 

[Dalmatian Bobby Samaritan]

Blonde Savage (1947) - I liked this throwaway sort of jungle adventure thingy. A macho guy and his wimpier, wisecracking sidekick make their living doing missions and so forth in Africa. They get a big paying job that ends up being a huge headache, but it helps the macho guy meet the titular savage. Lucky for him, she wears her hair like American women in the 1940's, so it'll be an easy transition to western civilization if things work out. All they have to do is exchange her loincloth for a pointy boob dress. Or will he stay and fashion himself a he-loincloth?

Amazing what people could do back in those days without cell phones and advanced communications schools. Thinking of 1940's movies I was thinking about the Gary Cooper movie "Pride of the Yankees" where he supposedly plays as the ill fated Lou Gehrig. I used to like that movie back in the day. But now I really can't stomache it. And it is not because Lou Gehrig dies. I don't think Gary Cooper looks anything like the real Lou Gehrig. Or even acts like him. Plus when you watch sports and all you are thinking about how some player is eventually going to die of some uncurable disease. To me that is not the impetus of why you get into or care about sports. I feel like the whole premise of that movie was kind of insulting. So yeah I don't like it. My parent's generation thought it was one of the best movies ever made for some reason.

Exchange loin clothe for a dress — woah. Easy there killer! Uh so is this actor — I mean he is obviously not Errol Flynn? Or is he. Who is the one holding the hottie? Looks to me like he some is Poor man's version of an Errol Flynn. Like the big armed swashbuckling type. But yeah. My guess is that there were some babes back then I don't know why there wouldn't have been. And no matter how they dressed. Probably some good looking women too back in the Cro Magnon era! Have you ever thought about that Lester? I have.
Seems like I remember some Lucille Balle movie like this where she was in some jungle area with these extreme boring guys. And all I remember was some strange awkward moment in the jungle where she was sitting with these despondant looking guys and finally Lucille Balle breaking the ice (in her usual sardonic and funny charismatic way) "You guys don't care much for women do you?"


Hey lester it might be kind of hard to beat this one. If you are talking about 1940s movies. Frankenstein looks like he is about to break his back! Heavy load.

[Dalmatian Bobby Samaritan]

WHEN THE SUN STANDS STILL (2024): A man's stepdaughter mysteriously disappears in the woods. This arty paranormal mystery does a good job of suggesting cosmic mysticism on a minimal budget--Mark Richards' experimental electronic score carries a lot of that load--but will prove too slow and obscure for the average viewer. Available on Fawesome. 2/5. 

Wow. You posted this twice! You must really like this movie. Usually as a rule I don't like any movies or books that has the word Sun in it. Hopefully this movie will break that slump. Anytime I see the word Sun it reminds me of one of my best friends who in High School said, "I hate the Sun. The Sun is my enemy."

Actually there is supposedly some scientific truth to that. They are saying that humans and the way we are designed it is almost as if we came from somewhere's else. Other than Earth. Because we develop Skin cancer (like the Sun is something almost alien to us.) Yeah I know it is still considered a star. But whatever. I am definitely starting to favor those cloudy days more and more. And I like my eggs sunny side up. But that is not a movie. A movie has never ever convinced me that it can merge well with eating and food. And the closest that a book has got was the one called How to Eat Fried Worms.

I have yet to see any Hollywood movie match that by the way. I think the closest they have got are those hackers movies. But eh. Skeet Ulrich is some kind of computer genius? Or Jonny Lee Miller? Ok. In Bitcoin I trust I suppose. Now I know why Frankenstein is breaking his back while trying to hold or carry Llona Massey in the picture above. He knew that this was all coming.

[lester1/2jr]

Special Needs Revolt (2024) - I enjoyed this quite a bit even though it's a TROMA product. At it's best, it evoked Howard Stern's wack pack circa late 90's (Crackhead Bob, etc). Other times, the overt silliness is a little much and at nearly 2 hours, its long for this kind of thing. It's very openly anti Donald Trump, which would have annoyed me a few years ago, but I can't say it does now. The jokes and politics aren't particularly clever, though.

Specials needs people (openly called r*tards here) live in a house and have shenanigans until "Donald Kreuger" gets elected POTUS and starts putting all weirdos into concentration camps. It's up to Down Syndrome laden Billy to lead a band of wheelchair bound, black, trans, etc misfits to take him down, while also making sophmoric remarks and having bodily function humor.

I've said it ten times before, but I don't watch many comedies so this was a nice change of pace. The lead guy is the real selling point. He flubs as many of the lines as he successfully delivers and it's even better when he does. Again, it's extremely silly and a bit long but how can you resist the title/ concept?  I apparently couldn't.

5/5

The trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9q6ZO1EyZU would probably be enough for most people.

[M.10rda]

CARRIE (2026):
I'm a big admirer of DePalma's original - I maintain the prom sequence is better than anything Hitchcock ever directed - but it has one flaw and that's the goofy final scene. Likewise I'd probably rate Mike Flanagan's new 8-hour CARRIE a 5/5 if it wasn't for....... the ending! (Not the prom scene, mind you, which is nowhere near as virtuoso as DePalma's, but it's fine.) As I've complained about other serialized projects elsewhere, CARRIE would appear to be a self-contained mini-series (like Flanagan's last four very good or outstanding mini-series) until the very end... where it appears to tack on some ephemera in order to presumably justify a second season.  I wish Flanagan had learned from his previous successes, though those were all @ Netflix and this one's @ Prime, and maybe Prime insisted on CARRIE being an ongoing. For the sake of discussing these eight hours, I'll treat it (optimistically) as a mini-series w/ some unnecessary crap shoe-horned in at the end.

First, this isn't scary in a "horror" way. That's fine, DePalma's isn't really scary either. However, Flanagan and his collaborators are more interested in expanding and justifying the unhealthy and malevolent behavior in the source material from a broader, sociological perspective. And that....... is rather frightening!

All of the acting is strong and two performances deserve special commendation, particularly in support of the mission statement. The first is Alison Thornton, giving as hollow-eyed and terrifyingly affectless a performance as is imaginable as Chris Hargensen - a deeply traumatized character whose profound trauma in no way begins to excuse her extraordinary acts of conscienceless evil. The other (superior) performance is from Samantha Sloyan, who has made a cottage industry for herself playing really bad people in Flanagan's longform films, and who here essays Margaret White. The big revelation in this CARRIE is that, at nearly every turn, Sloyan and Flanagan make choices to illuminate how the infamous Margaret is not only not the villain of the piece - but her instincts are, somehow, usually 100% right about almost everything. Some of her language and much of her frame of reference is all wrong, as it comes from her late husband, who clearly traumatized Margaret and Carrie as much as Chris Hargensen's dad traumatized her. But Margaret's concerns about the school environment that Carrie is thrust into, and all of her efforts to address the lapses of administrative judgment in that environment, are entirely just. Catastrophically, though, Margaret ultimately fails to see her daughter as a victim instead of just one more predator.

The great triumph of Flanagan's adaptation is that it updates the uncertain morality of King's first, early 70s novel to the deeply fraught mid-2020s. The result is a clear - though in no way uncomplicated - conflict between two powerful forces: the sociopathic malice of Chris and Billy Nolan on one side and the inherent yet finite compassion and decency of Carrie White on the other. For much of the eight hours, Margaret's (admittedly compromised) morality seems to oversee this tug-of-war between (in her words) the "light side" and the "dark side" - yet there are external influences trying to thumb the balance. There is a voice in Carrie's head (the frustrating though necessary "Emmaline"), edging Carrie to do things that at first seem just and sober, then eventually seem - uh, excessive even by my loose standards! And, as is made clear in the final minutes of CARRIE, there are even larger and darker forces of influence operating in the world that eclipse Margaret's simplistic vision of divinity. (That's about the most generous defense I can mount of that last-minute plot contrivance.)

Flanagan's wife Kate Siegel helps w/ directing duties and also appears in the misconceived set-up to a second season that I hope never materializes. Per acting honors I'll also mention Tim Bagley, moving as the guidance counselor; Matthew Lillard, continuing a redemption arc he started 9 years ago in TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN, as a perfectly incompetent/feckless principal; and (fellow TWIN PEAKS alum) Heather Graham plus Gil Bellows, popping in briefly to do good character work. Mark Hamill (excellent in Flanagan's HOUSE OF USHER) has a one-scene cameo and Carla Gugino is apparently a voice somewhere.

4/5    Compelling and thought-provoking - basically flawless if it had ended right on the close-up of the eye watching two figures escape the collapsed house (and chopped off the last 8-10 minutes).

[M.10rda]

Post-script to the above:
I did recall a criticism I had (initially) about something that happens in the first hour... though over time I realized this wasn't a flaw so much as reflective of the (non-specific, mid-western?) setting.
I teach/have taught in New York State. I would venture to say that every school (on Earth) is flawed/has some problems. In fact I've worked in two of the absolute worst/most-flawed (charter!) schools in my region.
However, in retrospect of CARRIE's whole 8 hours, I'm grateful to say that what happens in Hour 1 during a lock-down wouldn't happen in any school in my part of NYS.
Furthermore, the pervasive issue w/ social media and cell phones in/during school (that plagues the cast for most of the mini-series) wouldn't happen anymore in NYS....... thanks to our Governor and Legislature, who banned all cell phone/personal device use in school/during school hours. (And thank God!)
And, finally, if what happens in Hour 6 outside the school happened in NYS....... there would be no Hours 7 or 8! That would be the end of the story and of Matthew Lillard's character. 

Just adding these disclaimers as a reflection of how this piece of art/media actually made me feel grateful for NYS schools and NYS law. Your mileage in your part of the country may vary.......