PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 782

Stay Out Stay Alive is a 2019 horror movie playing on Amazon Prime. Dean Yurke wrote and directed. It's his first writing and directing work, he's mostly been in the digital side of things, working on effects for some of the biggest genre pictures from the Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel Universe, Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean franchises and many more.  SOSA is a much smaller picture than any of those, supernatural horror in the Yosemite woods with a fair bit of CGI to help out.

Five annoying 20 somethings go on a camping trip. I didn't recognize any of the cast except for Barbara Crampton, she plays a forest ranger. The 5 are a couple of couples and the older sister of one of the women. A small earthquake opens the entrance to an old mine and the older sister falls down the short shaft. She gets trapped by a boulder and she's there all night. She had gone off for a walk and two couples went to their tents. The next day it's hard for one of the women to get the sister and he boyfriend to search for her. Those two are a real treat to be around. They find her and try to release her. No go.

One of them finds some gold while poking around. Gold fever kicks in and things go downhill from there. As they dig into the mine they unleash the spirits of the Native Americans who were murdered and buried there back in the gold rush days. The spirits appear as animals or shadow figures and the CGI that does it is fair to good. The earthquake footage was fairly good too. What wasn't much fun was the annoying characters. I think it's barely average, mostly because it's such a familiar story with little to elevate it. Good to have seen it and not have bought it. Well, on DVD, I'm paying for AP and not getting many things shipped to me right now, so it's good to get something out of the monthly fee.

Attack Of The Southern Fried Zombies is another from AP. It came out in 2017 and Christian Hokenson, Mark Newton, Stephan Stromer and Daniel Wood wrote the story, Christian wrote the screenplay and Mark directed. It's set in Charleston Mississippi during a blues festival. One of the big draws are the rival meat pie vendors. Timothy Haug plays a crop duster who's working for one of the meat pie makers on the side, during the day his latest job is spraying a new herbicide on kudzu. The kudzu doesn't like it and it starts turning the dead into zombies somehow. At first it's just one poor guy but it soon spreads and the zombies invade the festival.

The characters we meet are a wide range of southerners, mostly done up for a laugh, some are fun and some are less so. The acting is all over the place and so is the dialog. You'd think with that many of them working on the story, there would be better dialog. Be nice to have better jokes too.

Once the murderous horde descends on the festival it's run or be killed. Some folks escape but many are slaughtered. The physical make up is only so-so and so is the CGI used for gun shot hits and explosions. There's no money here. I enjoyed a fair bit of it but I wouldn't need to see it again.

Comic Books!

I don't follow the big companies in comics like DC and Marvel but I'm curious how things are going down in the comic book store world. Other than popping in to see my local curmudgeon I don't even go into other comic book stores but once or twice a year. Sadly, I rarely buy anything, other than a sale item. I'm just not interested in collecting comics in general and specifically on paper. Other than a few Disney titles from IDW, Uncle Scrooge, Duck Tales and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, I don't buy much else, other than the Hellboy titles. Disney titles like Tangled or Frozen, that sort of movie tie in product, just aren't worth the money to me. Sadly there isn't even a Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck title anymore. IDW and Dark Horse put out occasional reprint collections of Mickey and Donald stories from overseas.

 

Fantagraphics has license to reprint collections of older material, their Carl barks Library and Don Rosa Library collect some of the best comic stories out there. Those titles and their Disney Master series come in nice attractive hardcovers with well printed artwork. I have the original comics of some of that stuff and these are better printings. I have some digital comics from Amazon or Comixology and they also have a nice image. You can resize it and read a page at a time or double click on the first panel and read it a panel at a time. Nice technology. I have a lot of scanned comics off of public domain websites and while they have good images they aren't all jazzed up like the pro-product.

 

Back to the present day and the death knell of the comic shop. There are a number of comic YouTubers, some are more interesting than others, some are nightmares to watch. The guy at Nerdrotic, Gary Buechler, used to have a comic shop, now he talks about what's going on in the industry. He's less hyperbolic than some of these guys and he aggregates material from all sorts of comic blogs I'm never going to read.

At the best of times things can be tough for an Indy comic shop. Many live hand to mouth on small margins. On top of the forced shut down, Diamond, the big comic distributor, just announced that they aren't going to accept new books from anyone. They also aren't paying their vendors what they owe, citing cash flow problems. The comic companies all send their books to the comic shops through one distributor. That company has no money and is closed. Comic shops have no income and there isn't much by way of help from the big companies. It doesn't look good for them. Part of the pressures of having a small business in the modern world. Glad not to have much invested in the new comics every Wednesday, though I still like getting the few Disney and Hellboy titles that come out.

LEGO 60248 Street Sweeper

Though I'm not much of a fan of the LEGO City theme I do like the occasional vehicles. 60248 is the latest in a series of small street sweepers. Target had a 20% sale and I picked up the $10 set.

You got 2 pair of wheels, a pair of blue gears for front sweepers and a pair of bright blue brushes, all turning. I like those brush parts, especially the green ones from the Mixels set. I see there are red ones but they are pricey on Bricklink.

I like the green garbage can and those bottom arches might come in handy sometime. It's a decent looking vehicle with a good nondescript minifigure. Glad I picked one up, better that it was on sale.

The New Maverick 1978

The New Maverick is a 1978 TV film with James Garner reprising his role as Bret Maverick. The script is by Juanita Bartlett and direction by Hy Averback.

It was a pilot for Young Maverick, starring Charles Frank as Ben Maverick. Ben is the son of Beau, who was played by Roger Moore. I didn't care for Ben much at all and that saves me 25 smackaroonies. I was waffling on buying the DVD set, now I don't have to wonder, it's off the Wish List. I did buy, and have to watch at some point, the follow up series Bret Maverick. James Garner reprises his role as Bret in this 1981 show. It only lasted the one season of 18 episodes.

The New Maverick is pretty much the same old Maverick. The story is a typical Maverick story but not as good as one of the best ones. Bret and Ben meet up for the first time in many years. Ben is owed $1000 by Bart and he figures Bret should give him the money. Bret won't pay up so Ben steals it from Bret's secret stash. They are a weird family. Bart is played by Jack Kelly, who only appears near the end of the movie.

The local big shot rail man colludes with a scummy guy to steal some gattling guns from a train. The train big shot has political ambition, his idea is they steal the guns, hide them, and he finds them. Thus gaining some cred with the locals. The Army offers a reward and everyone fights over that. It's more complicated than it should be, the story lines keep bumping into each other. It looks nice but it's not going to get my attention any time soon. So far I'd just watch a few favorites from the original series and skip the rest.

Monsterland 2016

Monsterland came out in 2016 and it's the work of more film makers than I care to list. It's an anthology film with a framing story about a guy who's caught up in a zombie outbreak. He takes refuge in a theater that's still running the film, has some popcorn, sits down and watches the short subjects.

It's a plethora of monsters, big and small, each from an Indy film maker, all different. Didn't like that monster, here's another right soon. Same with the production values and acting. I certainly think more of them were fun than not. The movie does have a fairly decent sense of humor and I had a few laughs. I'm going to get back to this at some point. I see there's a sequel, doubt I'll see, it gets poor reviews on the IMDb, maybe if it's cheap enough. I'm sure I've purposely bought worse films.

The Blood Rose 1970

The Blood Rose is a 1970 French film about a crazy artist who winds up causing several deaths. Claude Mulot is the director and he wrote the screenplay with Jean Larriaga and Edgar Oppenheimer. None of their work seems familiar, no matter, there's no time to watch it anyway. The Wikipedia says it's an unofficial remake of Eyes Without A Face. I saw that back in 2005 but don't recall anything about it. Other remakes of EWAF are The Awful Dr Orloff and Corruption. I've seen the latter but missed the former. Someday, maybe.

An artist bring his fiance to his crumbly chateau. At his gallery show the fiance's head is pushed into some fire by the artist's ex. She lives but her face is badly burned and the plastic surgeons say the skin is too damaged. Artist guy forces a disbarred plastic surgeon to help him by blackmailing the guy. They kidnap a couple of women for their faces but they die in the operation. The sister of one of the women arrives at the chateau and nearly becomes the face transplant. The big climactic scene sees most everyone dead.

It's about average, I wouldn't say I'd need to see it again, I certainly wouldn't buy a copy on DVD, I did save a download from YouTube.

Night Birds 1930

Night Birds is a 1930 British crime film directed by Richard Eichberg. Richard is German and started directing in 1915. Most of his work was in Germany but he occasionally worked in other places, I see one film made in Finland and a couple in Denmark. Whirl Of Youth was made in the US in 1927 and the following year he made Pavement Butterfly in the UK. The film was filmed in both English and German. Other than this film I don't think I've seen any of his other work.

It was written by Victor Kendall with some additional dialog by Miles Malleson. I can't say I recognize any of the other 28 writing credits that Victor has. He worked steadily form 1929 to 1939 and then he seems to disappear, his date of death is unknown. I know Miles from several films as an actor and writer, he appears in the film in an uncredited part. He worked from 1921 to 1965 and passed away 4 years later at age 80. He has 138 acting credits and 47 credits on the IMDb. As an actor he turns up in some good number of films I've seen. Horror and mystery genre fans should know him from the 1959 The Hound Of The Baskervilles, the 1935 The 39 Steps, Peeping Tom, The Brides Of Dracula and Horror Of Dracula. Comedy fans should know him from The Man In The White Suit, The Importance Of Being Ernest, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Captain's Paradise, I'm All Right Jack and Call Me Bwana.

Hoodlums hold up the rich at a dinner at a man's mansion. Jack Raine is Sergeant Harry Cross, that's him in the pictures above, one with Frank Perfitt, he plays a Scotland Yard Inspector who's Cross's boss, and the other with Eva Gray, she plays Cross's wife Mary. We get a bit of family drama mixed in with the crime detection, neither is very serious. The IMDb says it's a crime drama but there's sure a lot of gags. There's a dance number near the beginning and a big stage play with music near the end. There Sgt Cross faces his foe high above the stage, you can see the actors pointing up above. I enjoyed it and I'd watch it again someday.

Science Fiction Sunday 581

PSI Factor is a 1980 film from Robert Emenegger and Allan Sandler. I've only got two more films by the guys after these two. They wrote the concept story, Steve Posner wrote the screenplay and Bryan Trizers directed. It's an alien encounter film with Peter Mark Richman as a scientist and Gretchen Corbett as his girlfriend. Mark records an audio tape of the encounter but no one seems to really believe him. The higher ups take the tape and unbeknownst to Mark switch it out in a cover up. Mark suspects that when he hears the doctored tape. He talks Gretchen into stealing his file from the lab. They get caught but escape. Then there's a lot of running about as the couple try to get in contact with the guy who had Mark's job previously. Turns out the file has info on the scientist's alien encounters. As Mark and Gretchen drive around they keep running into the aliens. They are an annoying ball of flame that toys with the couple and their chasers. No one seems to get hurt. Mark and Gretchen meet up with the scientist and find out more about the aliens. It was a bit better than the films that Robert and Allan direct, I gave it a 5 but it's barely average.

The Perfect Woman is the second of the Emenegger and Sandler productions today. It's a burden but I'm stuck here anyway. It came out in 1981 and Robert and Allan wrote and directed the movie. Fred Willard is the King of an alien planet, the council believes he needs to get a bride and have an heir. The aliens have space travel and they receive Earth TV. Fred is a big fan of Earth TV and Earth women. He sends his trusted minions to get him an Earth woman. they come up with Joanne Nail and she's just what the King wants. Of course, he's a shallow guy and the alien planet is a good bit backward when it comes to women's rights. Joanne stirs things up with her more modern thinking. They'll get over it and eventually there's a happy ending. The core story was alright and the cast was certainly better than the usual Emenegger and Sandler production, Peter Kastner, Barry Gordon, Cameron Mitchell, Marie Windsor, Rudy Vallee, Ronnie Schell, Barbara Minkus and Paul Keith. The problem was the script and the production values. I didn't really have any good jokes. Not so good when you're trying to make a comedy.

Friday Night Movies 781

Karel Zeman's Invention Of Destruction is the first movie up tonight. It came out in 1958 and it's packed with two other Zeman films in a 3 Blu-ray set from Criterion. It's loosely based on the Jules Verne novel Face au Drapeau or For The Flag/Facing The Flag. It was released in the US under the name The Fabulous World Of Jules Verne and did very well.

The movie is made to look like the original line engraved illustrations in the original Verne novels. It mixes animation and live action, most of the backgrounds are drawn and the people and props inserted where needed. Some of the props are physical and some are two dimensional drawings that people slip in between. It looks pretty interesting. I'm impressed by the set designers and decorators.

The story is about a mad millionaire and his submarine. When he's not out plundering ships in his submarine he's home in his castle in the middle of an old volcano. There he's working on a large cannon to help with his plundering. One engineer escapes and gets picked up by the fleet looking for the pirates. Before they get away they are attacked and sunk. The engineer is back to on the island soon enough. He continues working against the mad man.

The film looks great. I liked it and would watch it again.

I can't say the same for the second movie. I Am Alone is a found footage virus movie about a survival reality show star called Jacob who is out on his own during the outbreak of some sort of zombie making plague. His footage is found by the CDC who see a guy surviving the virus and hope to figure out why. They don't have Jacob but they do find Jacob's cameraman. They show him the footage and ask him to see if there's anything he can help add to the story. We spend a lot of time with Jacob in the woods, it's all rather dull, even after he's attacked and bitten by a zombie. These are the slow shambling types. Eventually most of the footage is watched and there's a big ass open ending. I hardly cared by then. I wouldn't need to see this one again.

Canada's Worst Handyman Season 2

Canada's Worst Handyman Season 2 is about the same as the first season. Five hapless amateur handymen, two are women handymen, bash and crash their way to the end of the series and one of them is crowned the worst Handyman in Canada. The jumped to 9 episodes, from season 1's 7 episodes, and it was a bit of a stretch. They went to 8 in the 3rd season and 7 in the remaining three seasons. This time the contestants are building sheds and other projects. The shed's have to be a certain size and only one of the contestants made them shorter than the max allowed roof height. They later had to take their sheds out of the build ares and the door is only 9 foot 2 inches. One had had her shed nearly 12 feet tall. I got a few laughs as a sped my way through the series on YouTube.