PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 779

Missing Link is our first film, it's an animated adventure story with a Sasquatch that came out last year. Other than the rather strange caricatures of the people and critters it was entertaining. It's written and directed by Chris Butler who wrote and directed the 2012 film Paranorman, and wrote the 2016 film Kubo And The Two Strings. I enjoyed Paranorman but haven't seen the other. Before he was a director Chris worked in the art departments of Mr Bean: The Animated Series, Tarzan 2: The Legend Begins, Corpse Bride, The Tale Of Despereaux and Coraline.

There's a great cast doing the voices: Hugh Jackman, David Walliams, Stephen Fry, Matt Lucas, Zach Galifanakis, Tim Olyphant, Zoe Saldana and Emma Thompson. Those were the ones I knew. Sadly, they the people didn't rush into the theater to hear them and the film couldn't spark enough attention to help out, the film grossed $26 mil WW on a $100 mil payout. No one likes seeing such poor sales figures.

Hugh plays Sir Lionel Frost, who dreams of finding a missing race of creatures and telling the world but he's dogged by his lack of ability. He so wants to be a famous explorer and join the big knobs at the Society of Great Men. In reality, it's just a bunch of bell ends and none so knobby as Lord Piggot-Dunceby, played by Stephen Fry. Sir Lionel gets a letter from someone in Washington State USA who has seen a Sasquatch, he sends a plaster cast of the foot. Lord P-D doesn't believe it but takes a bet from Sir L that would let Sir L into the club if he finds the creature. Secretly Sir P-D sends a scumbag, played by Timothy, to get rid of Sir L.

It's a fairly entertaining romp that takes us from London to Washington State, where we meet a missing link who wants to be called Susan. Then it's onto Santa Ana California where they reluctantly let Sir L's old girlfriend join the expedition to the Himalayas in search of the Yeti. There plenty of travel and some action. The scenery is pretty, the movie is very colorful. There's some humor but many of the jokes bring smiles instead of laughs. I did laugh out loud a couple of times and I grew to like the main characters. I'll watch it again, fortuitously someone has given me a DVD of the film, so I can.

I bought my own copy of Captive State, I got the Blu-ray on clearance for under 4 bucks. It's a 2019 SF movie about a settled alien invasion, it's ten years on and there's a revolution brewing. Erica Beeney and Rupert Wyatt wrote the screenplay with Rupert directing. Rupert has directed 4 other movies, Subterrain, The Escapist, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and The Gambler. I've only seen one of them, ROTPOTA, and I wasn't that keen.

I'm not too keen on Captive State, there's a core of a good story there but the film lets me down in little ways. I didn't like the music much and the soundtrack is harsh and unattractive. It might be used to augment the horrible stuff going on the screen but it doesn't help, I just kept being annoyed by it.

I did like the plot line following the rebels but there's way too much family drama mixed in there. John Goodman plays the head cop in Chicago like he was a big slab of grumpy ham. The sons of his late ex-cop partner are mixed up with the rebels. There's a plot to attack the aliens and the older brother returns from the dead to help deliver a bomb to the aliens, angered the aliens send in killer aliens for some revenge. There's another deeper plot going on but it seems to take forever to get to the end. That payoff is off camera and that was very disappointing. Everyone in the room complained. It's overly long on top of that, 110 mins, and parts of it just poke along. Disappointing but I'll probably keep the BR for now.

Friday Night Movies 778

A Journey To The Beginning Of Time is a 1955 Czechoslovakian children's film by Karl Zeman. It's called Cesta do praveku in it's homeland. It's mix of live action and animation tell the tale of 4 boys trip down a river to the ancient past. In the present one of the boys has a trilobite fossil. He talks to the other boys, wishing he could see them live. The boys get a boat and sale into a cave that is a door to the past. They encounter all sorts of dinosaurs before they get to the time when trilobites lived. 

The movie was repackaged for US TV back in 1966. New footage was added and that version is available on the new Criterion collection of three of Zeman's films. We watched the original film. It looks better than you might expect a film from the Czech Republic of the era to look though it is a bit muted color wise. The kids have a fun adventure along the river of time and we know they got aback OK because the movie is a memory of one of the boys looking at the log book they made on the journey.

I enjoyed it enough to want to see it again so I when I got home I went looking for a copy and ordered one. I'll look forward to the rest of the films. You can read a much beefier review of the Criterion set here. It was George's review that made me interested in the set but it was 80 smackaroonies on Amazon last month so I was hesitant. It's dropped to $68 now. I found one that was $58, shipped to me, over at Deep Discount. It started at $58 but had a $5 off coupon, a benefit from signing up to their mailing list, and there's free shipping with an order total over $40. Bosh, order in, now to wait.

I wouldn't need to see Altitude again. It's a 2010 Canadian thriller that's really like an extended Twilight Zone episode. Almost the whole 90 mins have the cast packed into a small airplane travelling through a supernatural storm. The TV industry calls episodes where all the cast are stuck in one room a bottle show, this must be one of the most efficient. The whole movie cost $3.5 mill and a lot of that went to the CGI. It's fairly dripping off the screen. Sadly there's some awful characters and their annoying dialog that really bring down the level of enjoyment. Once the ending happens, well, I wasn't giving a shit at that point. Wouldn't need to add it to my stack of stuff, even if there is a nice big monster in there somewhere. Saved me some money.

Friday Night Movies 776

Tai Chi Hero is a 2012 Chinese action comedy directed by Stephen Fung. It's a jazzed up fantasy about the creation of Tai Chi. It's a mix of melodrama and martial arts. The action sequences were choreographed by Sammo Hung. It's the sequel to Tai Chi Zero, which I haven't seen. They do give us a bit of a recap at the start of the movie. Now the action takes place in a village that's going to be destroyed for a railway line. The zero from the first movie is now getting married to a member of the Chen family, it's the only way he can learn the family style without bringing disaster to the village. Disaster comes anyway as the village is attacked by the scumbag in charge of the rail expansion. He's got it in for the Chen family himself. Peter Stormare plays Lord Flemming or "Flamming" as he's listed in the credits. He's as atrocious character, much like his atrocious British accent. I sure wasn't sold on the movie, the melodrama parts were dull but I did like some of the action scenes. By the time it was done I was pretty much thinking I wouldn't need to see it again.

I've seen Dinosaurus! more than once but I do like movies with big monsters. The movie has two decent stop motion dinosaurs and the fight between the T-Rex and the steam shovel is OK. It's from 1960 and when I saw it back in 2017 the DVD was $54 on Amazon. Now there's a DVD for $14 and a Blu-ray for $20, the later is what we watched. The movie looks pretty good but it's still about an average production.

I do like the two posters above. Sometimes the foreign posters are more entertaining than the US versions. The movie is fairly entertaining, buoyed up by the stop motion dinosaurs, dragged down a bit by the average script. I'm debating the purchase of the Blu-ray. There are some extras that sound interesting.

Friday Night Movies 775

First up is the 1995 SF horror film Xtro 3: Watch The Skies. We watched the new Blu-ray, there were two previous DVD releases but the last one was 15 years ago. It's got a script by Daryl Haney and direction is by Harry Bromley Davenport. It's a British film and it seems to have nothing to do with the other two films. This one takes place mostly on an island off the coast of the US. Even though it's only 200 miles from shore it's supposed to be forgotten about or some such nonsense.

Robert Culp appears briefly as the General that sends the marines to the island. He tells them that there had been a munitions dump there during WW2. They  need the marines to sweep the island for forgotten bombs and other explosives so they can build a refueling station there. The marines are a mixed bag and hardly marine material. Still, they're really just there to get picked off one by one once one of the more useless marines accidentally lets the alien gets out of his concrete block house. Then it's all yelling and rushing about in the woods.

It's the least interesting of the series and should have been included with the other two in a three pack. Hardly worth buying when it's just so mediocre. You can see for yourself by clicking on the link in the title.

I hadn't remembered seeing Ninja Apocalypse before and had to sit through it again. Me so sad. Here's what I said just shy of two years ago.

Ninja Apocalypse is a 2014 post apocalypse movie that people are saying is a ripoff of The Warriors. They've certainly used that script as a template, big rally, assassination of the leader, blame the Lost Clan, chase them to their home base. It all takes place underground but it's the same idea, just with swords and some magical ninja powers. Sadly, it's nowhere near as good as The Warriors. Watch that instead. It's so much better. More fantasy than SF.

It didn't get any better the second time.

Friday Night Movies 764

Turbo Kid was fun the second time around. I liked the movie so much I ordered the 3 disc Blu-ray and DVD set. We watched the Blu-ray, it looks very nice.

Fantômas Vs Scotland Yard is the third of the Fantômas trilogy and it came out in 1967. It's directed by André Hunebelle and the screenplay is by Jean Halain and Pierre Foucaud. The trilogy is based on a series of novels by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. I've read the first two Fantômas novels and they were entertaining enough. The books have more complicated stories and Inspector Juve is a much more intelligent and capable character. The third movie has Inspector Juve acting even more like an idiot than the first two films. I got tired of him about half way in.

Fantômas has decided the tax the rich. He'll kill them if they don't pay up. I didn't think there was anything much wrong about that plan. We wouldn't miss any of the rich and when Fantômas decided to add criminals to the mix, I didn't see that as a problem. The criminals and the rich sure did. Since Fantômas is a master of disguise he can be right under your nose without you suspecting anything. Sure enough, both groups spill the beans right to the heavily disguised super villain.

Juve travels to Scotland with Fandor and his girlfriend Hélène and Juve's assistant Bertrand. Lord MacRashley is being threatened by our villain and he's called together a lot of his rich friends who are in the same predicament. They plan to capture Fantômas so they don't have to pay his tax.

 

The criminals get together after they are told they too need to cough up some of their ill gotten gains. Their plan is to capture Fantômas, kill him, and pretend he's still alive so they can still collect the tax from the rich. Great plan. Too bad, they just told it to a disguised Fantômas. Now they need to get punished. Our super villain is a harsh man. If I ignored the Juve nattering the movie was watchable but less interesting than the previous two. It's too bad but I'd still watch the trilogy again.

Friday Night Movies 763

Mega Time Squad is a 2018 New Zealand film about the effects of magical time travel. It's written and directed by Tim Van Dammen. Some dumb guy named John is in Shelton's gang. John and another gang member decide to steal some money from a Chinaman. The problem is that money was meant for Shelton. To top that shit cake with some whipped creme John's partner in the robbery turns John into Shelton. Now John faces death at the hands of Shelton's crew. Don't be like John.

John had also stolen a bracelet, a magical bracelet that sends the wearer back in time a few seconds. Comes in handy when you want to get the fuck out of there. With it he manages to escape from Shelton and his crew. The bracelet comes with a curse, the action of meeting yourself will call a demon and kill you both. John blunders about, skipping back over and over again, he winds up creating a whole gang of himself. Even as part of a group John isn't clever enough to keep some of the John's alive. He's got the Chinese gang after him as well as Shelton's crew. Lucky for John, none of them are competent. Lucky for us, the script is clever and the actors capable. There's a nice bunch of laughs and some bit of gore. I enjoyed the heck out of it and put a copy of the Blu-ray on my Wish List.

The Banana Splits Movie is a 2019 horror film that brings the Banana Splits out of retirement to murder people. It's directed by Danishka Esterhazy, the script is by Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas. Danishka is from my old home town of Winnipeg. I haven't seen any of her other films. Jed and Scott write together a lot, mostly stuff for kids, some Scooby-Doo videos, Paris Hilton My New Best Friend, R L Stine's The Haunting Hour and Celebrity Deathmatch. I've only seen a few episodes of the last show. The film is American but it was filmed in Capetown South Africa. It appeared on the SyFy Channel last October. I don't have cable anymore so I didn't see it there. We watched the DVD from our local library.

In the film reality, The Banana Splits TV show has remained on the air for ages. We visit the set with a little fan named Harley and his dysfunctional family. They have tickets for the recording of the show but only Harley is really happy to be there. His mom is nice but his stepfather is a jerk, his brother is nice but introverted. Tagging along is Harley's classmate Zoe, she's filling in for Harley's only friend who is sick. Just before the show starts the producer finds out the show is being cancelled and this is the last recording. We soon find out that the Banana Splits are all robots, their creator gives them a reprogramming and sends them out to the stage. Things start to go wrong and off stage the robots kill staff members, after the recording ends, the robots start to kill the parents too. The kids are all herded into a space and the show continues.

I enjoyed the movie when it started but about an hour in I was losing interest, once you get past the Banana Splits characters being killer robots there's not that much out of the ordinary about it. It did pick up a bit nearer the end but I didn't put it on my Wish List. I might want to see it again sometime, but who knows.

Science Fiction Sunday 562

Turbo Kid is a 2015 Canadian, New Zealand and US post-apocalypse movie that made me laugh out loud 3 or 4 times. It was the totally wacky gore effects that had me guffawing , they were great. Three people, François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell, share the writing and directing credits. They wound up with a fun story about the post-apocalypse. They have a great sense of humor.

Munro Chambers is a young man living in the wastelands. There's a sort of community nearby, he scavenges to survive, trading with a man in the village. There don't appear to be any cars about, everyone rides bicycles. Munro's a fan of the Turbo Kid, he finds a comic and then the Turbo Kid's suit with it's still active weapon gauntlet. He also runs into Apple.

Laurence Leboeuf plays Apple, Munro runs into her in a playground, she follows him home and he decides to let her stay. She's odd, no doubt about it, but there's a sort of a reason. She adds a nice bit of humor to the movie.

Michael Ironside plays warlord Zeus, he like to torture people, he makes them fight in his arena. Hardly anyone survives the fights, if they do, he kills them anyway. The corpses of the dead are placed in a water reclamation machine and Zeus sells the water. No one will miss him when he's gone.

All the stuff going on is the usual sort of thing you'd expect in this sort of movie, it's just got a nice bit of a skew that makes me smile and occasionally laugh out loud. I saw it on Amazon Prime and put the DVD on my want list.

I wouldn't bother watching Global Meltdown again, it's a 2017 Canadian film about the end of the world. A bunch of people in a small town have to evacuate and they enlist the help of Michael Paré, he's a survivalist loaner who has a radio. Two news people from the west coast bring news of massive damages to cities there. They see a news clip of San Francisco being covered in water and hear that the rest of the places the TV people flew over where the same.

The town grows too dangerous and they head into the mountains where it's likely to be more stable. Society breaks down in two days and Michael goes full on cannibal. He gets more rabid and murderous, especially after joining up with some other scum.

It was going on for a while and I was thinking it was about average and watchable but nothing special. It took a downward turn when the conspiracy guy showed up. Then it was all preachy and annoying. I got to the end and didn't much enjoy it.

Friday Night Movies 762

Rurouni Kenshin was our first movie, it's a 2012 Japanese film and the first of a trilogy. It's set in the early Meiji period, western ways are moving in, the samurai class are reduced to vermin who can't even own swords. Kenshin is a young man who had been an assassin but grew dissatisfied with the life after the Bakumatsu war. Now he wanders about helping people who have been wronged.  He joins forces with a young woman who is being driven out of her martial arts school by the local opium baron. He's such a creep I could hardly spend any time with him and not want to slap the ugly haircut right off his sniveling rat face. It's a typical baddies pushing the locals about. I liked that part of the story OK but was less enamored with the melodrama lifestyle of the main character. There's a lot of scenes that could be trimmed and the movie shortened. It runs 135 minutes and seemed a bit padded. I liked it well enough but I'm not sure if I'll see the rest of the trilogy.

Spacehunter: Adventures In The Forbidden Zone was our second movie. It's a 1983 SF film with Peter Strauss, Ernie Hudson and Molly Ringwald. It was originally 3D but it's only 2D on the Blu-ray it shares with Krull. I don't remember ever going to see it in the theater.

I hadn't seen it in a number of years. It's directed by Lamont Johnson, Stewart Harding and Jean LaFleur wrote the story, David Preston, Edith Rey, Daniel Goldberg and Len Blum wrote the screenplay.

Peter is a spaceship salvager who hears of a big reward for the rescue of some women who've crashed on a planet. He has to fight his way across the wastelands to get the job done. Molly is a local who helps and hinders him. Ernie is a space soldier who's there to find the women too. They run into a bunch of typical post-apoc types, marauders, nomads, mutants, amazons and a dragon.There's some action and big props. It's not great but it's fun. I might pick this up, I haven't see Krull in a while and I don't seem to have copies of either.

Bigfoot's Wild Weekend 2012

Bigfoot's Wild Weekend is a 2012 Bigfoot comedy directed by Jeff Murray. He c0-wrote the story with Dearborn Murray, Ryan Ramos gets the screenwriting credit. It's a low-budget movie with a nice Bigfoot. He just wants to party with the locals, he's totally willing to share their beer and weed, as opposed to ripping their heads off like you might normally see in a Bigfoot movie. It's not a gory film.

There's been a Bigfoot sighting and a tabloid reporter gets sent to the small town, he offering a big reward for the capture, dead or alive, of Bigfoot. There's plenty of hillbillies doing stupid things. Lucky for them they don't all wind up dead. There's some nudity, girls in bikinis, some of whom doff their tops, and some strippers in the local bar. There's plenty of activity in the woods but not enough jokes. I did enjoy the sign below. I can't say why it made me laugh out loud. No spell check in the woods, I guess.

Only 217 people have voted on the IMDb, the average is 2.6, I think it's a bit better, people seem to hate it, 38% of the votes are a 1. I gave it a 5, it's really more a 4. The IMDb lists 7 reviews for the movie, 2 are a 10 and 5 are a 1. One guy, he voted the movie a 1, said he nearly ended his life and it took him 37 hours to recover. Some viewers are made of sterner stuff. It's nothing great but I wound up liking the film maker's sense of humor. I'd watch it again.

Sword Of Vengeance 2015

Sword Of Vengeance is a 2015 British film set in 1066. It's dark, dirty and filled with stabbing and bashing. Nothing much to recommend it for, there's way too much of that quick cut fighting for me and when that isn't going on there's plenty of slow motion. Nearly everyone's covered in mud and most of them die. Lucky for me the Blu-ray was only a buck at the local Dollar Tree. Quarterly they have batches of DVDs and BRs in for the deal of the week. Most of the movies are a few years old and often not that great. Like this one.