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Black Demon

Even if you like movies in the style of a crummy Syfy original, this movie still isn't very fun. It's got a corny environmentalism message that's ironically got some good pieces to it. The film just never really manages to be entertaining.

I want to give credit to the writers, the actors, and the camera work though. It's not... IDK. It's like all the pieces for a decent film were here but they never came together. The movie is an odd case of the whole being less than the sum of its parts.

I watched 12 Angry Men again. That film rocks hard. It shows citizenship, courage, and a universalist view of things, beyond petty little individual experiences, identities or other private little stories. A film that can be watched over and over and over.

I was also sick, so I watched a whole lot of X-Files , a little bit of M*A*S*H (the show, never liked the film. German dub version because a.) back then they did funny things with translations and b.) no laugh track.) and quite a chunk of What We Do in the Shadows (the tv show). Pretty funny.

Prehistoric Women aka Slave Girls

Stop!

Hammer Studios Time!

Yes it’s Sunday. I’ve done me shopping. The laundry is on. Washing up can wait, until I realise I need something for cooking me dinner. So naturally, it’s on with a bit of Hammer, from that big boxed set they did. And it’s one I’ve not seen before.

Being Hammer it is of its age with, actually not that bad representation of African tribal rituals. I mean, I doubt it’s terribly accurate, but it’s not outright racist. Just…cack handed.

Anyways. Main lead is arseing around in Africa, as you do, and offends the locals so naturally he has to be sacrificed. But then he almost touches their idol, time freezes, a solid rock wall opens up, and he buggers off. Only to run into…..the titular Prehistoric Women. Presumably a (very, very lost, given their skin tone) Amazonian type tribe.

I must say, for Prehistoric Women? They’re remarkably well groomed. But so far not very talkative. However I did enjoy who I presume to be the boss sticking a tenpenny one up the Hero’s bracket, knocking him out cold. Fortunately they do of course speak English. Handy, eh?

So, the blondes are slaves to the brunettes, and only one brunette can speak. And apparently, the blonde’s men are no longer men. Maybe they turned into PlayStations, who knows. I expect we’ll find out.

Suffice to say it seems The Hero may well be getting some death by Snu-snu.

This really isn’t terribly good. But I’ll see it through.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Blimey. Queen Brunette must be on a helluva dry spell. 0-100 on “oh go on, I’ll let you share my throne and co-rule”

If only the prehistoric women and the 12 angry men could get together, everyone might end up a lot happier.

It was awful. Truly awful. Hammer you need to take with a pinch of salt with your tongue in your cheek, but this was just crap.

Now on to Fear In The Night, a Hammer take on psychological thrillers.

Our lead is attacked by someone that appears to have a prosthetic arm - or at least she knocked off a prosthetic arm during the struggle.

It’s then revealed she’s recovering from a nervous breakdown of some six months prior. This of course sets up whether she was hallucinating etc.

Her husband (who I though was Roy Cropper out of Corrie at first, but definitely looks like he reeks of stale cigarette smoke) picks her up, to take her to the cottage that comes with his new job at a boarding school. A boarding school run by Peter Cushing - who has a prosthetic arm.

Various odd things have happened so far, including our lead overhearing a Latin lesson, only to find no pupils in the room.

And we’ve just met Joan Collins, who I think is Peter Cushing’s wife.

I have my suspicions as to what’s going on, but to the film’s credit, I wouldn’t say anything is exactly telegraphed.

I’m rather enjoying this!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So I was…..mostly right. But rather than the film being obviously written, it’s more a general familiarity with the wider genre.

This is definitely worth a watch!

Citizen Kane

First of all, this is a classic for a reason. Watch it.

We just watched it after spending a day at Hearst Castle, the real life Xanadu, soaking up the real story. This movie hit really hard because of that. It’s a masterpiece made to take down a living legend. No wonder Hearst was pissed. If the rumor about the origin of the nickname “Rosebud” is true, this was one of the ballsiest movies ever made.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Now on to Fear In The Night, a Hammer take on psychological thrillers.

I've seen a lot of Hammer but I'm not familiar with that one so I'll have to add it to the queue.

Reefer Madness

My young adult room mate was taking a class on drugs and behavior, and this movie got a call-out. Knowing that I am prone to the occasional bad film, they asked me about it. Not only had I seen, I knew where we could watch it. So we did.

As for the movie. Hey, it was 1936! What did you expect?

One refreshing bit, the conservative stance on the topic was to.... wait for it.... it is so refreshing..... educate people on the danger!

 Easy E wrote:
Reefer MadnessAs for the movie. Hey, it was 1936! What did you expect?

Wasn't there a musical remake not that long ago?

 Ahtman wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Reefer MadnessAs for the movie. Hey, it was 1936! What did you expect?

Wasn't there a musical remake not that long ago?

Yes, but it is longer and I did not watch that one.

Starship Troopers

First, know that I’ve not read the book. I only know this movie, it’s sequels and the animated series.

But what a great slice of satire. Not quite the level of Robocop (which has many, many levels I’ve praised before) but good enough.

I think my favourite scene is when Johnny has taken over command of the Roughnecks, and is addressing the Noobies.

See, throughout this film, we’ve once again been asked to accept 20 or 30 somethings as high school kids. That was the fashion at the time, and to be expected.

But in that scene? The noobs are noticeably younger. Actual teenagers. Fresh faced and ready to die for citizenship. And I think it can be taken a couple of ways.

First, it’s a way to show how Johnny and the vets have matured over their adventures. They’re adults now, grown and experienced.

Second? It’s a sign of just how badly the war against the bugs is going, because these are literally child soldiers. All we have left to throw into to the meat grinder.

Lovely slice of sci-fi nonsense. Also….Dizz….

Police Assassins (aka Yes, Madam!)

A Hong Kong action/comedy flick about two Policewomen kicking a lot of butt.
The plot is basically only there to string together some fight sequences, and the ending is fairly abrupt and unusual (Although that just seems to be a quirk of the genre), but the fights are rather good.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Starship Troopers

First, know that I’ve not read the book. I only know this movie, it’s sequels and the animated series.

But what a great slice of satire. Not quite the level of Robocop (which has many, many levels I’ve praised before) but good enough.

I think my favourite scene is when Johnny has taken over command of the Roughnecks, and is addressing the Noobies.

See, throughout this film, we’ve once again been asked to accept 20 or 30 somethings as high school kids. That was the fashion at the time, and to be expected.

But in that scene? The noobs are noticeably younger. Actual teenagers. Fresh faced and ready to die for citizenship. And I think it can be taken a couple of ways.

First, it’s a way to show how Johnny and the vets have matured over their adventures. They’re adults now, grown and experienced.

Second? It’s a sign of just how badly the war against the bugs is going, because these are literally child soldiers. All we have left to throw into to the meat grinder.

Lovely slice of sci-fi nonsense. Also….Dizz….

Starship Troopers is a brilliant film. Satirizing the book is the only rational approach to it's unrelenting 'guns are great, soldiers are great' message where Rico can only have a relationship with his dad once he outranks him. Showing the ludicrous nature of the book is what elevates the film, showing a hideous race that has bred warriors to exterminate those it perceives to be lesser beings. And some bugs.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything that's been said about Starship Troopers. I also read the book, which is just an entirely different beast altogether. The book has some interesting bits, but is rather clearly Vietnam In Space, plus some hard sci-fi. All well and fine, but it was a very good call to make the film entirely different.


I watched Police Academy. It's bad. No further news. Well. I finished the third season of What We Do In the Shadows, and it's rather fun. Also watched Garth Marenghi's Darkplace for the 500th time, because it has to be done every few months.

Can't Stop the Music (1980) is quite the mess. And weirdly long. I mean I guess musical films often can be longer if you approach it in a way that you take a regular film and add musical numbers. I have to say though... the YMCA scenes are impressive. I alo now know that the biker surely was the best singer out of the group, followed by the policeman (either the one in the film, or the actual one, doesn't matter.).

In a weird coincidence, this, just like Police Academy, stars Steve Guttenberg!

I have a soft spot for ‘Police Academy’ even if only a few jokes are really funny (the id parade is a favourite).

Can’t Stop the Music has some good tracks but the plot is wafer thin, even for a light musical. And nowadays you can wonder at the future of one of the non-singing stars.

Last Voyage Of The Demeter

Or: Dracula has his cruise ruined when his packed lunch escapes and he has to go self catering.

Based on a section of Bram Stoker's book, Demeter details the fate of the crew carrying Dracula from Transylvania to England.

Given the "crew trapped on board with a creature" nature of the story, Demeter will perhaps inevitably draw comparisons with the first Alien movie. Sadly, this isn't a comparison that does it any favours.

Overall, it's a solid film, but I think it suffers from the fatalistic nature of the events. Unlike Alien, the outcome is already certain, the book is over a century old at this point. Unlike something like, say, Titanic it doesn't really succeed in making the story entertaining enough to make the journey to an inevitable conclusion feel worthwhile.

It's not all bad though, performances are decent throughout, the creature design is pretty good, and mostly well realised and there are moments that really illustrate how genuinely evil Dracula is, mostly thanks to the dispensing of any element of the "Victorian Gentlemen" trope and total focus on the beastial side.

Probably worth a watch this one, but wait for streaming.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Overall, it's a solid film, but I think it suffers from the fatalistic nature of the events. Unlike Alien, the outcome is already certain, the book is over a century old at this point. Unlike something like, say, Titanic it doesn't really succeed in making the story entertaining enough to make the journey to an inevitable conclusion feel worthwhile.

IMO this movie missed its golden ticket by not leaning hard into anti-nihilism.

Why fight the inevitable? Why resist fate? feth you that's why!

A similar movie to this, that is better imo, is Blood Vessel. Fun film for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. A bit goofy but in the fun sort of way.

@MarkNorfolk: The plot of Can't Stop the Music was pretty incomprehensible to me. But the whole thing had a rather positive vibe and looked colourful, which always makes things more watchable. But the length of that film..

@Azreal13: I saw a preview of that film and it kinda intrigued me. Funnily enough, I read up on it on wikipedia and the fatalism was very much pointed on there as well.The film sounds kinda interesting though.

I guess it suffers a lot from the same kind of issues as Rogue One, you know the end state and you know that in any way changing the end state is beyond the scope of the film.

It's additionally further handicapped by a significantly more limiting premise.

What's there is fine, it just never really overcomes the fact that it's literally lifted from a few pages in the middle of a much longer story.

Spin Me Round

The store manager for a Italian Restaurant Chain is rewarded by being sent on a special training session in Italy with the company's billionaire founder and a few other top managers.

Things are not what they seem, and this retreat is much darker than it seems. Hijinks ensue.

Pretty sure this movie is intending to skewer the whole idea of romantic movies where a lowly serf gets to fall in love with a member of the royalty. However, it is not really played for laughs. I did find the culmination of the typical end of a Romance movie to be a nice little turn.

The moral of the story is Active Listening is pretty important.

I would not recommend anyone go out of their way to find this one.

I recall RLM really liking that movie, but it just doesn’t sound like a good time to watch.

Disney's Strange World

Watched this last night while grinding Starfield things. It seemed on theme, but wasn't (which... was sort of fitting after all).


This wasn't, despite my expectation, Space Family Robinson. It isn't set in space at all.

It's just weird. It didn't really hold my attention well, as it turned from its nominal topic to the difficulties between fathers and sons and the inability to just have a fething conversation.

Also, something something environmentalism and living in harmony with your world or whatever. Which seems hard when your world seems actively invested in people not exploring and also hands you unlimited power generation for no apparent reason.

So its kind of mediocre, overall. The only thing it does well is being shockingly diverse for a Disney film and not commenting on it, just treating it as absolutely normal and not worth exposition.

Whiplash

A young man is mentally and emotionally abused by his teacher in the circle of abuse on screen. There is also some jazz drumming.

Imagine if a movie was written where a wife is abused for not cooking a meal right, over and over and over again. She escapes, but purposely comes back to the abusive husband. The movie ends with her making a 5-star Michelin rated meal for her abusive husband who is finally satisfied with her efforts.

That is this movie, but with drumming. It is apologetics of the highest order for abusive treatment and Social Darwinism. From the themes and message this movie is crap. The film is justifying an out-moded approach to social hierarchy and power dominance in the guise of performance. It is total and utter tosh brimming with Alpha-Male fantasy and self-justification. Repulsive.

However, some really good acting from the Farmer's insurance guy.

Dragonheart

Pretty decent movie with a distractingly dated CGI dragon. For good or bad, Sean Connery gets a lot of dialogue that could easily fall into “You’re the man now, dog” territory.



Krull

One of the great 80’s fantasy movies. I can’t be objective—I love it.

Matrix Ressurrections

Imagine creating a seminal bit of cinema. Then two very dodgy sequels.

Then returning to the scene of your crime a couple of decades later only to poop out, and I do mean poop out, a bloody awful movie so bad, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a fan fiction. And not the good, thought provoking fan fiction.

Booo and piss.

The best part is when it pisses on the whole idea of doing another one in the first place, in the actual movie.

It pretty much lays out exactly what happened behind the scenes and why this one even exists.

Meta-fun!

Doctor Sleep

Follow up to The Shining, both book and film. I enjoyed it and, at the very least, it doesn't harm the originals. The True Knot are certainly a terrible group that deserve the audience's ire. Looking a bit on the differences between the book and film really show how well the filmmakers were able to honor both the Kubrick film and the King book. As a film it is very well made and shot but not quite on the level of Kubrick's original but I don't think that was ever really an expectation. Being about something thematically, in this case addiction, helps make it an above average horror film.

Saw someone say it wasn't a horror movie but a thriller and I don't agree. Horror doesn't mean "jump scare" or slasher film, or torture porn. Like the original it is much more about atmosphere and the implications of these kinds of people and things going on in the background of the world. Sure you might not jump as much because of startling noise but you'll probably think about it more long after the movie is over.

Van Helsing

OK. So this is a favourite of mine. But I accept it’s sadly not quite the full shilling.

I wouldn’t even call it a “guilty pleasure” because there is plenty to enjoy here. We have some solid actors chewing the scenery. The monster makeup is good, with even the CGI still holding up. Even the plot is surprisingly coherent given how much they jammed in there.

In a sense, this is almost an Avengers movie before the Avenger. A bold if ultimately flawed attempt to have lots of characters in one film, without taking a run up first.

It’s a shame it didn’t work. Because if it had, it could easily have linked up with the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies, and spared us the God Awful Tom Cruise Mummy Film, a film so utterly awful it strangled a whole franchise in its crib.

Van Helsing was a film so joyfully stupid I’m surprised it wasn’t a mega hit. Everything from the over-the-too Dracula to “I want to liiiiiiiiive” Frankenstein to the horse carriage making the Speed bridge jump was so bad it’s good gold. My favorite part of the movie is: every scene in Dracula’s lab has this one minion ugnaut thing on a wheel contraption suspended from a cable pedaling around the ceiling. That’s all he does! He pedals around and around!