PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 30

It's been a poor month for new movies. 1. That's all I had seen so far this month, now I have two more to add to the list.

Our first film was Ultraman Cosmos vs Ultraman Justice The Final Battle. It was a fan subtitled bootleg borrowed from some guy who borrowed it from another guy. That's why I don't lend stuff out anymore. Here's a site that explains the movie, I wasn't paying attention when they were going over the plot exposition. There are some monsters, building crushing, explosions, and not much else of interest. The aliens blow up pretty good. Still, I couldn't get interested in the characters, it's just another in a long series of Japanese fighting shows starring guys who expand and shrink to battle size-changing monsters. This one has been going on for 40 years with a whole plethora of Ultramen punching and kicking for your post school tv viewing pleasure. Or at least, the viewing pleasure of young Japanese children.

Frightmare was new to me, as is the director Peter Walker. Greg brought it, he said there's a book about Walker's explotation career. I don't care. Hopefully the book is more interesting than the film. The book about Andy Milligan was much better than anything he ever put on film. Frightmare is about a murdering wife with a taste for human flesh and her enabling husband. She kills and he helps where he can. After 15 years in an asylum they are cured, released and settle on a farm. Then the killing starts again. There's some gore but no nudity in this 1974 disappointer. The characters are mostly annoying and I didn't care for any of them. The story plods along until near the end when things get more exciting.

So, all in all not a very good pair to add to the list of movies seen.

Bats-man

A couple of new release tuesdays back was a very Batman week for new dvd's. Besides Batman - The Motion Picture Anthology 1989-1997, which contains the previous 4 bat films, there were two more releases. Batman Begins and the 1943 Batman serial.

I saw Batman Begins a month ago at the Riverview. I really enjoyed it, and thought the dvd would make a nice new addition to the Batman section of my film library. Two discs, a 72 page dvd case size comic book, and the added bonus of a great 3-D wiggle picture of Batman and some swirling bats. I liked Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and the rest of the cast was really fun to watch. Many nice moments from Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, Katie Holmes as some girl, Micheal Caine as Alfred, Liam Neeson as that fighty guy, and whoever that guy was who played the Scarecrow. Morgan Freedman is always the bomb.

I still haven't watched either of the two Christopher Nolan film I have on dvd, Momento and Insomnia. I been meanin' to. I am interested in Following, Nolan's film before Momento. Just too many to see, and my movie viewin' for October sure done took a nose dive. I was watching too many tv dvd's, well, mostly Dead Like Me, now 4 complete run-throughs, and Wonderfalls.

I did watch Batman Begins on dvd yesterday and liked it all over again. The extras on the movie disc are few, a trailer and the MTV tankman parody. The second disc is loaded with lots of extras, unfortunately hidden in the pages of an interactive comic book. That format really sucks. You have to look for hidden icons on each page to get to the featurettes. There is a menu to get to each featuette but it's at the end of the comic. I guess I should have read it first.

The 72 page mini comic wasn't anything to write home about either. The first Batman story, nice and small, and a couple of modern ones that I wouldn't bother to read, one of which is only a section of the longer piece. I might be interested in reading some of the Batman comics of the 50's but that's mostly nostalgic. I recently saw a 50's reprint book of Superman and there were some stories I vaguely remember reading. At least some of the art panels were familiar. I liked Wayne Boring from that period, his characteristic way of drawing Superman is very memorable. The cover on this collection is by Curt Swan and George Klien. Swan was a good Superman artist.

Batman Begins sure looked good, they spent the money on nice sets and great locations. Iceland pretending to be Asia, huge studio sets in England pretending to be America, Chicago pretending to be Gotham City. It's all good, and there are some nice featurettes to tell you how they did it.

I didn't think that the 1943 serial The Batman was very good. The 1949 Batman serial was released on dvd a few months back and that's the one that I thought I had seen back in the late 60's at the Lyceum Theatre in Winnipeg, but it wasn't. It was the 1943 serial. I recognize the Museum of Japanese War Horrors. That wax museum turns out to be the entrance to the hideout of The League of the New Order. That group of fifth columnists should be called the League of Incompetent Petty Criminals. Even with a radium powered destructo ray they can't win. J. Carrol Nash is the Japanese Dr. Daka. He recruits criminals to betray the US and take over when the Japanese win. You know how that turned out. I thought when I saw the 1949 serial that I was just having a bit-o-forgetfulness. And that Batman is pretty forgettable. I thought 1943 Batman was just too goofy and Alfred was just a goof. It did make me laugh out loud on occasion but I don't think those laughs were put there by the filmmakers. The box cover art is much more dramatic than anything in the serial. I don't remember them ever getting into the air nor looking so cool, nor being so yellow.

Friday Night Movie 29

Our first feature was the Luc Besson scripted Unleashed, titled Danny the Dog overseas. Directed fairly well by first time director Louis Leterrier, who also directed the recent Transporter 2. Jet Li plays Danny the Dog, he's an enforcer for the very criminal Bob Hoskins. He wears a collar around his neck, like a dog, which is pretty much the way he's treated. He lives in a steel cage in the floor of Bob's office, a children's alphabet picture book his only companion. He's been dominated and trained by Hoskins since he was a child. Danny's been turned into a personality lacking pit-bull, once the collar comes off the punching and kicking and biting starts. After a bad accident, Danny, thinking that Bob is dead, staggers off and is befriended by Morgan Freeman and Kerry Condon. There are pianos involved. But, unfortunately, Bob didn't die and he returns to Danny's life. Pulling Danny back into his circle of evil, Bob sets him up in a death-match at the local underground fight-to-the-death club run by a rich weasel faced pompous git. There's some more fighting as Danny fights for his life and saves the day so Kerry can have her piano recital. Jet does a pretty good job acting in a more serious role. There's some good fighting. I liked the fight in the tiny space. Morgan Freeman is great as usual. Not a bad piece, it drags a bit in the middle where Danny is coming to terms with his new reality, but makes up with a slam bam ending.

Our second feature was the new unrated dvd of Land of the Dead, George Romero's latest zombie film. I talked about it last June 21 and I liked it all over again. I couldn't tell what was unrated but the movie is 6-7 minutes longer than the theatrical cut.

TV's been callin'

I've been busy watchin' tv. I watched the whole Dead Like Me series three times in the last month. I like it more each viewing. I am just finishing up Wonderfalls, the series that Bryan Fuller did after Dead Like Me. I don't think it's quite as good as Dead Like Me. It's missing the swearing. I wish it had some swearing. His next project is Amazing Screw-on Head, based on a Mike Mignola comic, in which a Civil War-era secret agent with an extraordinary special power serves under president Abraham Lincoln. Due next year.

In my mailbox some people (mostly Gary) sent some crap to look at. Thanks. Here's a site that has all the scripts to the Monty Python series. Gary also sent this link to a site that has all the Mad covers on it. There is a book out with all of them printed in it.

Bruce sent a link to a Richard Powers site. Powers is pretty cool. He's one of my favorite sf cover artists, and one of the few abstractionists that I might actually look at with any regularity. I have never been a big fan of the abstract. I like illustration better, but Powers I like.

Gary sent a link to the python that ate an alligator and exploded. Yuck. And a link to a cool article on fish-bots. Here's a creepy looking hoodie and an great Audi commercial with Escher backgrounds. Gary also suggested Gizmodo, a gadgets site, and an article on the Smurf bombing PSA. Here's an article on a Harry Potter influenced Weasley style clock. This is really cool, as is this site for strange products.

Well, Wonderfalls is done. Tomorrow I can rejoin the first season of Joan of Arcadia, already in progress. I have been enjoying it for the most part. It's a little more like a drama than the shows I normally will watch but I like the characters. I wish there was more swearing.

Friday Night Movies 28

Joe and I started watching Star Wars, the very first feature, and Greg showed up half way through. What can you say about Star Wars. I did like the dvd transfer on the new set that came out last year. It sure looks good. I don't have a problem with Lucas changing the movie as he goes along. It's not worth getting upset about, especially since the damn transfer looks so great.

After Star Wars we watched The Duel. I have seen this several times and I can hardly ever remember what it's about. Well, it's about sword fighting. The Saint of Swords asks Snow, the God of Swords for a duel, on New Years Eve, on top of the Palace in the Forbidden City. Hong Kong heart throbs Andy Lau and Ekin Cheng play the duelists. Andy Lau has been in over 120 movies since 1981, but he's a singer so he's doesn't have all that much time to work on films. Nick Cheung plays Dragon 9, an officer in the Royal Guard. He's great pals with Snow and does not believe that the recent murders are his work. Although the box makes the movie look rather serious, it's really a New Years comedy with lots of lowbrow jokes going on, directed by Wong Jing. There is the annoying, but cute Princess Pheonix, madly in love with The Saint of Swords. She's childhood pals with Dragon 9 and now they are on different sides. There are some other subplots going on and but it all has a sort of happy ending. I always enjoy watching it but for some reason it's so forgetable. It's not a great movie but it's fun.

Friday NIght Movies 27

Dolls, our first feature, was directed by Stuart Gordon and released in 1987. It's a nice mixture of humour and gore, topped off with a smidge of bad acting. Oooh. A horrible couple and the husbands cute, perceptive 7 year old daughter are travelling in the English country side when their car gets stuck in a rutted road. Oh, no. It's raining and dark, so they don't notice the big old house just off the road, UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE. Auuuuhhh. Their desire to escape the rain overcomes their fear and the family breaks into the basement, making enough noise to get themselves discovered by the gun-totting old couple who live there. Eeeee. They offer the stranded family some food, only to be interruped by two punk chicks and a doofesy guy who still likes toys. Eeeooowww. Luckily the house is filled with dolls, and maybe elves. Aaaauuuuggghhh. After the food, each victim guest is shown a room. Oooohhh. Then the killing starts. Yea.

First to go, one of the horrible punk chicks. Her crime, knocking the dolls off of the mantlepiece. Her fate, beaten to death by dolls. She's dragged off in front of cute little Judy, and who's going to believe a little kid in the middle of the night. Not her horrible dad and even more horrible step-mother. Perhaps the nice Ralph can help, and unbelievingly at first, he does. More carnage as the dolls get down to their revenge business. Hey, what about the old couple, what the hell are they up to. I ain't tellin', that's the best part. Guy Rolfe and Hillary Mason, who play the old couple and Carrie Lorraine, who plays little Judy, are the best actors in the movie. Ralph, and the parents are ok but the punk girls are so terrible I was rooting for a nasty. Everyone is playing so broad at times, it's a wonder that people could even be scared by this at all. Killer dolls seen to scare some people according to one of the IMDb message boards. Not me, I was just laughing, and I might even pick up a copy of this one day.

Waxwork, our second feature is a 1988 film written and directed by Anthony Hickox, and it's mixed bag of things. Joe said he enjoyed it more than he thought he would but it wasn't as good as he remembered. I too saw it years ago but I don't remember anything about it at all. A couple of college girls get invited to a midnight sneak preview of a new Waxwork museum by curator David Warner. They bring two guys including our hero, played by Zach Galligan. As our characters step into the displays they are transported to the fantasy and murdered. Zach and the cute but gummy Debroah Foreman escape. Sperhauk thought she has too much gum showing when she smiles. Our couple find help from Patrick Macnee, Zach's relative Uncle Exposition. He tells them that once the displays are finished all the evil will be unleashed on the world. They have to stop it. More people are sucked into the displays and murdered. There is a level of of homage going on here, but often it is obscured by the so-so filmmaking. Kind of like a Hammer film, kind of like a Universal monster film, kind of like an Italian horror film. There is a big fight at the end that has to be seen to be believed. See, it really does drag on that long. Generally, the whole movie drags on too long. Dolls is nice and compact at 77 minutes, but Waxwork at 100 is bloated. I had picked this up because Waxwork II has Bruce Campbell, albiet briefly, and it was 6.99. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for and the quality is fair but not great and the movies are full screen. There are no extras at all. Still, it made me laugh.

Dead Like Me

I finished the second season of Dead Like Me and was sad to see it end. There is no third season, but it did end well. I got to thinking about the series and how the two seasons blend together into one long story. Kind of like a book, in two nice volumes, lashishly illustrated in beautiful full-color. The story starts with our main character transitioning violently to her new life and ends with her final understanding of her new role in the world. What more can you ask for in a good story. Heart? Yup! Comedy? Yup! Drama? Yup! Death? In a-bun-dance! Let me stick a fork in you, I think your done.

Dead Like Me is a story of death and the acceptance of same. Our main character George Lass narrates her story, commenting on the world around her and her place in it. She's 18 and angry and innocent and sarcastic. She's great. And so wonderfully played by Ellen Muth. On her first day at her new temp job she's killed by a flaming toilet seat from the Mir Space Station. "Shit," is all she gets to say before there's a hell of an explosion. Her front page death results in a new nickname, toilet seat girl. At her death site she meets Rube and Betty, grim reapers. They explain things a bit, take her to her autopsy, her funeral and fill her in on her new calling. She's the replacement for the reaper who reaped her just before she died. The reapers job is pretty simple, find the person who is to die at the specified spot and time and pull their soul out before they die, thus saving them from the pain of their death.

George works in the External Influence Division, death by misadventure, murder, suicide and the like. Rube turns out to be her boss and he's played by Mandy Patinkin. I can't even begin to tell you how good he is. Rube doles out the daily death post-its at Der Waffle House and the reapers reap the souls, guiding them to the next ethereal station. Rube and George are joined for breakfast every morning by Jasmine Guy, Callum Blue, Rebecca Gayheart (Betty in the pilot and the first three episodes) and Laura Harris (all the rest), all reapers, all characters. The casting is brilliant, everyone works hard and the writing gives everyone some wonderful stuff to work with. There is a secondary subplot involving George's family and their dealing with her death. Again great casting with Cynthia Stevenson as George's high strung mom, Britt McKillip as her cute-as-a-button, but kind of weird younger sister, and Greg Kean as her dad. I can't forget to mention the great trio of supposting characters. Christine Willes plays Delores Herbig, as in her big brown eyes. She's such a great character, so many layers, and perfect foil for George who,  now looking like different person, returns to Happy Time Temp Agency looking for work. Crystal Dahl plays Crystal the Happy Time  receptionist, and at Der Waffle House Patricia Idlette plays Kiffany the waitress. All these ladies are great and while their parts aren't big they steal many scenes.

George has a hard time adjusting to the new life, she's not exactly a team player. She constantly complains about being dragged into this new situation without any choice. Over time she comes around and by the end of the series she's accepting of her calling and her new family. It's the getting there that's so much fun, there's a lot packed into the 45 minutes episodes. Rube's reapers are a pretty fun bunch, there is lots of violence and enough comedy mixed in with some nice sentiments and heartfelt stuff. There's a ton of swearing, and you know how motherfuckin' much I like that. The shows look great, good direction and photography, and some wonderfully elaborate death scenes, often played for comedy. And black comedy at that. Often it's stunningly beautiful, and while remaining one of the most wonderful meditations on death you could ever see, it continues to move you back around for a joke or two. I wish the series hadn't lived such a short life, and that's part of the lesson of the series, life can be short. Tell the best story you can before you leave. They tell an exceptional story, enjoy it while you can.

Friday NIght Movies 26

Both movies tonight were made in England but that's about the extent of their simularity. Xtro, our first feature is a 1983 horror film, which I remembered as being somewhat gory and very moist. I saw it on video tape sometime in the mid-80's, and people were excited about it. I even had a copy at one time but I taped over it. I purged a lot of movies from my collection over the years, expecially after going to recording stuff at SP instead of EP. A simular pogrom happened after I switched to recording stuff in stereo. I had seen Xtro was out on dvd but hadn't planned to buy it. Sperhauk did, now I don't need to.

A young boy and his dad are at the family cabin when aliens come and scarper off with dad. Mom, who does not believe the whole alien abduction story, hooks up with a photographer who can't act. Three years later dad returns in the form of a crappily built alien suit. He attacks and rapes a woman, impregnating her. When she gives birth a few hours later it is to a full grown man. Dad's back to human form. I forgot what happened to the alien form, I think it just died. More stuff happens, some weird murders, sometimes not so well directed. There is an especially annoying scene involving clowns. This is a pretty gooey movie. Lots of viscus bodily fuction stuff, and cocooning. One of the reasons this movie has gained some fans, lots of egg laying. Dad has really returned to Earth to pick up his son and after being turned into nearly fleshless corpses they leave for the alien planet. Makes no sense, but there you go. Mom watches them go, she's been impregnated and is all fucked up. She returns to the apartment to find it painted all white now, with a black panther walking about. She's killed, not by the panther but by a face hugger type alien which bursts from an balloon egg. The soundtrack, by the director, is very annoying at times. I won't need to watch this movie again.

Eat the Rich I will watch again and again. Always in my top 100 movies. ALWAYS! This wonderful labor comedy is about class stuggle and cannibalism in England. Alex, a waiter at the very exculsive resturant BASTARDS, gets fired and after being homeless for 2 days leads a small civil uprising that starts and ends in bloodshed and jokes.  There are lots of cruel jokes in this movie, and there is the eating of the Prime Minister. With chips. There is a secondary plot involving double agents who are trying to remove Nosher Powell from power for their bosses in Moscow. Lemmy, the lead singer and bass player of Motorhead, plays Spider, the main sidekick, and his band supply a lot of music for the soundtrack and they all appear in the movie. There are a ton of cameos in the movie. Here's the cast list. Written by Peter Richardson and Pete Richens, and directed by Richardson. Richardson, a Comic Strip member, also wrote and directed The Supergrass and The Pope Must Die.

Nosh, an all-in-wrestler, is now the Home Secretary, and as he says he can't even type. I love the character of Nosher Powell, he's a womanizing, hard drinking, gleefully punching cockney hardman. Nosh is wonderfully played by Nosher Powell, check out his filmlist at IMDb. He's bigger than life in his lime green suit, a wonderfully flawed character, loved by the public and the press in the movie and loved by the fans out here in the real world.