PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 997

Alicia En El Pueblo De Las Maravillas 1999 Screenplay by Aldo Busto Hernández, Luis Felipe Bolaños and Daniel Diaz Torres, directed by Daniel Díaz Torres. A movie about the social state of Cuban in the 1980s that alludes to Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland but isn't an adaptation of the book. It was considered controversial when it came out and was banned in Cuba 3 days after release.

Alice travels to a small town where she has some weird and disturbing things happen to and around her. It's a horrible filthy town that's home to failed officials. Like Alice in the novel Alicia gets caught up in local activities that hardly make any sense to her.

It's a satire that's rather confusing if you don't know much about the country and the era. I had to read the Wikipedia page to get details that the movie didn't always provide. You can watch the movie and decide for yourself, it's not a great copy but it's watchable. There's a DVD on Amazon but it's not worth $15.43 to me, plus tax. I'm not likely to watch it again.

Pig 2020 Story by Vanessa Block and Michael Samoski, screenplay and direction by Michael Samoski. It's his first film. I normally avoid a drama but I'll make an exception for Nicolas Cage on occasion. 

Nic lives in the woods with his pig, they hunt truffles for a living. They sell them to Amir who sells them to fancy restaurants in Portland. One day Nic is attacked  and his pig stolen. The movie has Nic travel around with Amir and it leads to some trouble for them.

They locate the scummy crack heads that stole the pig and learn it was taken to Portland. They travel to Portland where a whole lot of story is heaped on our plates before they find out what really happened to Nic's pig.

I enjoyed the film and would watch it again.

The Card Player 2003

The Card Player 2003 Story and screenplay by Dario Agento and Franco Ferrini, directed by Dario Argento.

A serial killer is kidnapping women in Rome. He sets up a web based card game with the police, if the killer wins the victim is tortured and murdered on screen. When a British citizen is murdered the authorities send a cop to help in the investigation. He works with a woman who's not well respected by her male colleagues. The team does well and eventually figures out who the killer was.

Generally watchable but lack luster, not better than average. As uninspiring as the poster above. I wouldn't need to watch it again.

Keeping Mum 2005

Keeping Mum 2005 Written by Niall Johnson and Richard Russo, directed  by Niall Johnson.

Maggie Smith comes to work for Rowan Atkinson and Kristin Scott Thomas as their new housekeeper. She fails to mention that twenty five years ago she killed her husband and his mistress, went to jail and has just been released. She handles some of the family problems swift blinding violence.

It's rather droll and amusing. I got a few laughs from it but it might be a while before I'd need to see it again.

The Hunted 2003

The Hunted 2003 Written by David Griffiths, Peter Griffiths and Art Monsterastelli, directed by William Friedkin.

Tommy Lee Jones is a retired Special Forces trainer and Benicio del Toro is one of his students. Tommy gets asked by the FBI to hunt down Benicio who's been killing citizens. He's killed so many people for the government that he's got PSTD. Some hunters set him off and he slaughters them all in a run through the woods. 

Benicio gets caught and Special Ops guys take him away to kill. He can't go to trial as he knows too much. Benicio escapes after killing all the agents. Tommy goes after him and eventually the pair fall off a waterfall. They battle to the end and Benicio isn't the winner. Tommy goes home.

It's about average for an action film. I bought a DVD cheap somewhere, I usually like Friedkin and Tommy Lee, I'm likely to rewatch it again sometime but not before a couple of Friednkin's earlier movies.

Friday Night Movies 954

Gore From Outer Space 2001 Directed by Hirohisa Sasaki.

I though I hadn't see the movie before but when I looked it up on the IMDb I had voted for it on 6-17-14. I looked it up on my watched movie list and sure enough it's listed as being seen on 6/6/14. It was an earlier FNM night. I gave the movie a score of 7 on the IMDb which means I liked it more that time than this time. I'll try not to watch it again.

The Return Of Captain Invincible 1983 Written by Steven E de Souza and Andrew Gaty, directed by Philippe Mora. I don't recall seeing this but it was out at a time I used to go to the theater more often.

It's an Australian superhero musical comedy with Alan Arkin and Christopher Lee. There's a new Blu-ray out from Severin, that's what we watched.  The original poster is on top and the cover to the Severin release is below, conveniently labeled. I don't care for the Severin cover much at all. The movie I have mixed feelings about, I enjoyed the parts with Christopher Lee as the villain but many of the scenes with Captain Invincible weren't as entertaining. I'm not that happy with the songs for the most part and many of the jokes fall flat. It did poorly at the Australian box office, grossing $55K on a $7mil cost. Another one that I was happy to see but I doubt I'd watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 924

Overlord 2018 Story by Billy Ray, screenplay by Billy Ray and Mark L Smith, directed by Julius Avery.

On the eve of D-Day a plane filled with paratroopers is headed for Germany. Their mission is to take out a radio jamming tower. The plane is shot to pieces and heads for the ground, only a handful of men survive. They fall into the woods near the town where the tower is, four of them make it to the town where they are befriended by a local woman.

Strange things are going on in the church beside the tower. Turns out the German's are experimenting on people and have developed a serum that brings the dead to life. There's plenty of Nazi fighting once they get into the town. They barely survive the mission but some of the guys make it back to the US lines. They don't tell the commander what was there, preferring to hide the German's experimenting.

The opening airplane sequence gets pretty harrowing for the men, bullets and shrapnel tearing the plane up. It slows down once the survivors get to the ground then it picks up once they get situated in the town. The last act is mostly all action and some of it was pretty good. There's nothing really original here but they do well with what they have. The film didn't do that great at the box office but it's gotten a lot of fans on streaming services.

I thought it was odd that there was a black man in the paratrooper squad but the Wikipedia says he was a member of The Triple Nickels which was an all black squad. The paratroopers are supposedly made up of men from other squads. It's just not well explained in the film. One of the actors said in an interview it was about finding good actors rather than being historically accurate.

Other than that annoying bit I enjoyed the movie. I'd even think about picking up a copy if I see one cheap enough. I'd watch it again.

Max Havoc: Curse Of The Dragon 2004 Written by Irina Mishina, directed by Albert Pyun and Isaac Florentine. Albert directed the film in Guam and Isaac directed 10 mins of new content that added David Carradine and Richard Roundtree. Isaac said in an interview he'd declined screen credit because he didn't feel it was fair to Albert.

Mickey Hardt plays Max Havoc, an ex-kickboxer who ended his career after killing a guy in the ring. Max became a professional sports photographer and he's in Guam for a hotel publicity shoot. He visits his old trainer and friend Richard at his antiques shop. They agree to meet up after Max gets his work done.

On the beach Max meets a couple of sisters and gets a date with one of them. Back at the antique shop Richard gets a visit from a thief with a jade statue she's stolen from David Carradine. Richard gives her some money as a loan and she says she'll be back in 24 hours to get it back. Richard sells it to the older sister, she an old friend of his, and she finds out it's worth a fortune. She wants to use the money to fund the younger sister's medical schooling.

Trouble is, the real value to David is not in it being a piece of rare jade. It's been made into an urn for the ashes of the former leader of the Black Dragons. It's a secret crime club that David now heads. He wants those ashes back, he sends his minions, they find the thief and that leads to Richard's shop. Richard refuses to give up the buyer and the minions leave him and the thief dead on the shop floor.

Max gets in the middle of all this trying to save the sisters from the Black Dragons.  The older sister is a horrible person who's only interest is the money that the jade will bring. She puts everyone in danger, eventually leading to the Black Dragons kidnapping the younger sister. I was disappointed that the older sister made it to the end of the film.

Eventually it all comes down to a battle between Max and David's main fighter. Max wins, the younger sister is freed and David agrees to let them all alone. David gives them an ancient katana that he gives to the sisters to fund medical school.

Sadly the film isn't very good. It gets a 3.4 on the IMDb and that's not far off from what I was thinking. There is a sequel with Mickey and Dean Cain, click the links to watch. I'll get to that sequel at some point, or I wont. 

Friday Night Movies 906

Nobody 2021 Written by Derek Kolstad and directed by Ilya Naishuller.

Bob Odenkirk has a shit life until he runs into some scumbags on a bus. He beats some men nearly to death in some bone crunching action scenes. One of the badly damaged thugs is the younger brother of a Russian gang lord. That guy wants some payback, he sends his right hand man to Bob's house. Right hand man brings a few friends. Bob locks his family in the basement and kills most of the intruders before being tasered. Turns out Bob has a past life where he killed people. Bob escapes and goes after the Russian with a bit of help from his father and brother.

An entertaining story with a decent cast and a high body count. I like seeing the baddies get trashed. It starts a bit slow but once the action kicks in it's punch, bang, stab, boom all the way to the end. I'll want to watch it again.

Lethal Force 2001 Written, produced and directed by Alvin Ecarma. It's Alvin's only film and that's not surprising. It's not very good. There's a bad script, no actors, mediocre gore and piss poor action scenes. The only good thing about it was the running time, only 70 mins. Seemed longer. Not one I would need to see at all.

Friday Night Movies 887

Alien Private Eye 1989 Written and directed by Vik Rubenfeld, he was also the casting director and film editor. It's his only movie, the IMDb lists him as one of the creators of the TV show Early Edition, he's credited with writing one episode. I never watched that show more than a handful of times, so it's doubtful that I saw his episode. Up until right now the movie has only been available on VHS. You can see a poor copy on YouTube, see link above. The movie looks much better on the Severin Blu-ray.

The story revolves around the possession of a special disc that fell to Earth. A crook figured out it was a drug dispenser and he's been selling the highly addictive product in LA. An alien private eye is on Earth, he helps a woman being mistreated by some thugs and winds up in the middle of a mess. She's got one half the disc and the crooks have the other half.

There's plenty of chasing about with a few punch up and gun fights. Sadly they're so ludicrously staged. The car chase and subsequent crashes? Embarrassing. The whole movie is like that. Clumsy script and inept cast. Makes a combo for laughter. Sadly Vik's intended humor isn't cutting it. All in all a good film to have seen but one that wasn't as enjoyable as one might have hoped. Not going on my To Buy List.

Tokyo 10+01 2003 Written and directed by Higuchinsky. Another one that I won't be adding to my To Buy List. It's a comical sort of parody that people doing IMDb reviews think is of Battle Royale but it seems more like it's parodying The Running Man. The filmmakers make references to BR in the beginning of the film but that soon falls by the wayside as the contestants start running about. Was The Running Man released to long ago for the commenters to know about. Could be but who knows. Hopefully, I'll have forgotten about the film be tomorrow.

Eleven criminals are drugged and fitted with a poison timer bracelet. They wake up in a warehouse in a shitty part of town. They have 11 hours to get to the Baron's mansion. Then they'll be safe, they'll win a cash prize, get their record wiped clean and the poison dispensing tracker bracelet will be deactivated. A lot to play for.

Most of the contestants are pretty annoying and I didn't care much for them. In fact it was nice to see them get picked off one by one or in a small group. There's plenty of running about and yelling but not much else going on of interest. The poor DVD mastering didn't help either. Ultimately it was disappointing and not one I need to see again.

Friday Night Movies 852

Treasure Raiders 2007 Story by Alexander Nevsky, screenplay by Alexander Izotov and Alexey Overchuk, directed by Brent Huff.

A befuddled action story involving a search for the treasure of the Knights Templar. It spends too much time being other movies and doesn't spend the time on being a good treasure hunt story. It's National Treasure, The Fast And The Furious and any random cops versus drug smugglers movie, all blended up and made weaker for it. The drug and street racing subplots don't add anything to the treasure hunt and eventually take up so much time that they have to set up a sequel that never comes along. A good screenwriter would have split the drug and racing from the treasure hunt and had two stronger stories to work with.

We really watched the movie to see David Carradine. I'm never going to see all of his films and I'm not even going to bother trying, there are too many. This was one of 13 roles he played in 2007, he was alright and it was a fairly decent part. He's part of the Knights Templar story.

It's a rather lackluster movie, Huff is not a good action director, his car chases were rather dull. I did like Nevsky, he might have been better used by a better director. I wouldn't bother picking up a copy.

That's one of the move interesting voting patterns that I've seen on the IMDb. Almost 60% of the votes are a 9 and it still gets a 2.7 as a final score. I smell a rat, comrade.

Beyond Dream's Door 1989 Written and directed by Jay Woelfel. I didn't recognize Jay's name but I have seen a movie of his, Trancers 6, the only one of his 9 other features I had seen.

This is a movie about nightmares intruding into people's waking reality. The guy in the blue shirt has a nightmare monster chasing him in the real world and he brings it to other people so they can be murdered too. There's plenty of monster chasing the victims and I did like the monster for the most part. The film is ambitious but generally it's below average for me. I wouldn't need to see it again.

Friday Night Movies 833

A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop 2009 Screenplay by Shi Jianquan and Xue Jianchao, directed by Zhang Yimou. It's a remake of the Coen Brother's film Blood Simple.

Everything centers around the noodle shop in the middle of nowhere. The desert is beautiful, with rows of brilliant pastel colored hills. The people in the noodle house aren't quite so beautiful. The old man is the owner, his wife buys a gun, her lover is worried. The lover works at the noodle shop, the owner pays a soldier to kill the lovers. Of course, it all goes wrong, quite nicely, and it was fun getting there.

It's a nice adaptation and I liked the more humorous take. Glad I took a chance and bought the DVD, I'll hopefully get to watch it again someday.

Dog Eat Dog 2016 Based on the Edward Bunker novel of the same name, screenplay by Matthew Wilder, directed by Paul Schrader.

Nicolas Cage is a crook out of jail, he hooks up with William Defoe and Christopher Matthew Cook. They are absolute scum. They get hired to kidnap a kid, they screw it all up and everyone dies. Since it's a Paul Schrader film there's some onscreen jiggery pokery. The last several minutes are annoying. What am I supposed to make of that. Paul's inner brain and I don't get along.

It looked pretty good for a fairly low budget film. It was shot in Cleveland over 25 days with a crew of recently graduated film students. It didn't do well at the BO. Critics were mixed and it has yet to break 5 on the IMDb. I kind of feel 5ish, if it had been more original, I might have liked it a bit more but these aren't interesting individuals and I've seen their story over and over. I'll still keep the DVD, I might want to watch Nicolas and William chew some scenery.

Immortal Demon Slayer 2017 Director Derek Kwok co-wrote the screenplay with Hai Huang, Hezai Jin, Fan Wenwen and Henri Wong, they adapted Jin's book Wukong Biography. The movie is called The Tales Of Wu Kong in China and it's another Monkey King movie. It's supposedly set 500 years before Sun Wu Kong goes to war with the Heavenly Kingdom.

There's a long complicated plot involving a lot of people, some of them have powers of one sort or another, hardly any of them are on the same page. There's plenty of action, romance and murder. Good reminder, humans and gods don't mix, someone always winds up dead, and it isn't that immortal guy.

I enjoyed it for the most part and would watch it again. I suppose I could have a Monkey King marathon. That would take a while, I know I've got six Monkey King films, I think there's at least another. Oh, well, some other day.