PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 930

The Ghastly Love Of Johnny X 2012 Written by Steve Bingen, Paul Bunnell, Mark D. Murphy and George Wagner, directed by Paul Bunnell.

A musical SF comedy that's filmed in B&W to make it look like a 50s SF film. It's the last film appearance of Kevin McCarthy. It took ten years to film and Kevin died two years before it got released. It was the lowest grossing film of 2012. It ran in two theaters for a week, it's weekend gross was $86 and the week total came to $2,436.

Johnny X is an alien who's banished to Earth as a punishment. Some woman steals his Resurrection Suit and Johnny goes after her. They get involved with Reggie Bannister in a roadside diner and wind up at his house. They use the Resurrection Suit to give life to a dead singer. The story is mixed in with the musical numbers. Some of the songs ground the movie to a halt. In fact, it's mostly entertaining when there's no singing going on.

I didn't hate it but I wouldn't bother with seeing it again. Thanks to the local library for saving us from buying it.

The Dark Sleep 2012 Based on a Lovecraft story Dreams In The Witch House, written and directed by Brett Piper.

A horrible woman gets her ex-husband to give her a house. She moves in, only to find there's supernatural things going on. There's a lot of yelling from the annoying woman. We were all hoping a monster would get her but it never happened. The annoying woman travels to another dimension, some of that was sort of interesting but not a lot else was. In general it was mostly disappointing and not something I would need to see again.

Friday Night Movies 912

Blade Runner 2049 2017 Based on characters from Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, story by Hampton Fancher, screenplay by Hampton Fancher, directed by Denis Villeneuve.

Ryan Gosling is KD6-3.7, he's a blade runner for the LAPD, he's also a Nexus-9 replicant, nobody likes him. KD6-3.7 lives in the large LA sprawl and hunts rogue replicants, he retires them. It's a pretty crappy future, most everything is smog bound and it rains a lot. After KD6-3.7 retires a protein farmer a box is discovered on the property. It contains the remains of a replicant that died in childbirth. KD6-3.7's boss thinks this could be a bad thing to let the public know about, he wants the child found and destroyed.

Kd6-3.7 runs about getting into one scrap after another. People are dropping left and right. There are a number of factions interested in the child and the reproduction rights of replicants. The Wallace Corp is the main villain, the CEO has his pet psycho, a cold hearted murderin' lady. KD6-3.7 finds Rick Deckard in Las Vegas. No one goes there, it's all sand and radioactivity. There's a bunch of fighting when the psycho lady turns up, more people get killed, Deckard gets kidnapped and KD6-3.7 is left for dead. He's not. He sets off on a rescue mission.

It's quite a long movie, 164 mins, and there's a lot of slow moving stuff goin' on but it didn't drag too much. There's usually something to see but that future sure looks miserable. I mostly liked the movie but not as much as the first movie. I'd be curious to see a sequel. I see there's a TV show set 50 years in the future coming out from Amazon.

Massacre Gun 1967 Screenplay by Yasuharu Hasebe and Ryūzō Nakanishi, directed by Yasuharu Hasebe. Hasebe made a good number of films for Nikkatsu  including the Stray Cat Rock series.

Joe Shishido is Ryūichi Kuroda, a yakuza hitman and the eldest of three brothers. That's his brother Eiji on the right and Saburo on the left. Eiji is a yakuza and Saburo is an up and coming boxer. Boss Azakawa orders Ryūichi to kill his girlfriend. He goes home all miserable, Saburo tries to comfort him but fails. He's young and ignorant, he goes to Azakawa and confronts him. Saburo's going to quit boxing for him so Azakawa has both his hands broken. When the other two brothers find out things get out of hand and nearly everyone dies.

It's a familiar story, yakuza vs yakuza, high body count, little learned. The Arrow Blu-ray looks really nice. I'd certainly watch it again sometime but it's no Tokyo Drifter.

Blood For Blood 1971 Screenplay by Hideichi Nagahara, directed by Yasuharu Hasebe. Another Nikkatu gangster film by the same director as the film above.

Joe Shishido is a yakuza who gets out of prison after 5 years. He returns home to his old gang is being squeezed out by a couple of the local gangs and a gang from Tokyo. It's a blood bath as the rival gangs kill each other in vivid color.Hardly anyone gets out of this alive.

The film looks nice but the story is only about average. No matter, it's still one I'd watch again.

My Grandpa Is An Alien 2019

My Grandpa Is An Alien 2019 Story by Irene Krcelic, screenplay by Pavlica Bajsic and Branko Ruzic, directed by Marina Andree Skop and Drazen Zarkovic. Mostly Croatian produced family SF film.

A young girl finds out her grandfather is an alien when a robot show up in the their area. The girl and the robot have to rescue her grandpa after he'd been kidnapped by aliens. It's pretty standard fair nearly ruined by a farting robot who raps. There's also an engine the grandpa has invented, it's powered by farts.

The girl and the robot bond on their adventure and the story comes to a good ending. It has some fairly good jokes and some poor jokes. I enjoyed it but not enough to want to bother with it again.

Dark Light 2019

Dark Light 2019 Written and directed by Padraig Reynolds. Another freebee on AP.

A mother and daughter move into the family farm after the father died. The mother hasn't seen him in a long time. Some weird stuff happens and the daughter is kidnapped by some sort of subterranean race. They live in tunnels below the farm and suck the life force from humans to survive.

Much of the movie is the long battle the mother has with the critter. There's a few people killed and a disappointing end. Nothing new and exciting, below average story wise, about average for the presentation. Wouldn't need to see it again.

The Vast Of Night 2019

The Vast Of Night 2019 Written by James Montague and Craig W Sanger, directed by Andrew Peterson. James Montague is a pseudonym for Andrew Peterson. Andrew started his own film company in Oklahoma and made commercials and corporate media. He financed this film on his own to the tune of $700,000. It won an award at Slamdance Film Festival and was picked up by Amazon Studios. I watched in on Amazon Prime. It's in the free section.

Fay's a 16 year old switchboard operator, she hears a weird noise over her radio while her friend Everett is doing his show. She calls him to let him know what's happening, he plays the sound over the radio, looking for anyone who might know what it was. A man called Billy calls in and tells a story about his days in the military. Billy was assigned to a project out in the desert with a bunch of other men he did not know, the men dig a big hole which something large is buried in, the men are sent home and told it was a big secret. On the flight back Billy hears that sound over the radio.

The story goes on for a long time as more and more bits of info are revealed. It's got a good bit of suspense and an interesting story. It kept me interested to the end. I would watch it again. I gave it a 7 on the IMDb.

Shockwave: Countdown To Disaster 2017

Shockwave: Countdown To Disaster 2017 Written by Blaine Chiappetta, Rafael Jordan and Ari Novak, directed by Nick Lyon.

A secret government military group has developed a device that creates earthquakes of great magnitude. It's been set off and there's only 2 people who can stop it. a used to be married couple that are experts in some sciencey thing. It's a race against time and the earthquakes get more and more frequent.

It's all pretty much familiar, I don't mind that so much but there's not much here that gets the film to average for me. It scores a 4.2 on the IMDb and that's about it for me. I saw it over on Amazon Prime. Trying to get a random SF movie in to keep up with more current product. At least the product that gets put in the free with Prime section. A lot of the movies don't stay free for long. Not that I think I'm missing anything when they do.

Friday Night Movies 891

Ilya Muromets 1956 Written by Mikhail Kochnev, directed by Aleksandr Puusko. A Russian fantasy film that was released in the US under the name The Sword And The Dragon. Sadly, it was released released in the US by Roger Corman and he chopped 6 to 7 mins out of the film. It was the feature film in episode 617 of the 1994-1995 season of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I'd seen that version several times over the years but not since around 2005.

Ilya Muromets is a big guy who lives in Kiev. He's been unable to use his arms and legs since he was a child. He has to watch some Tugars raid his village. The local men are killed and the some of the women are kidnapped to be entertainment for the Kalin. Some travelers cure Ilya and give him a big sword they'd gotten from a giant warrior.

Ilya sets off to Kiev to help fight the Tugars. On the way he captures a monster. On arrival he presents it to the Knyaz Vladimir the Fair Sun and pals up with a couple of other warriors. Vladimir has an advisor who's selling out the country to the Kalin. He gets Ilya put into prison for 10 years. Ilya's wife and son are kidnapped and sent off to the Kalin. The son is trained to be a warrior, he's also not given any info on who his father is, eventually father and son are pitted against each other. The pair bond when the son finds out Ilya is his dad.

There's even a dragon to fight. The sets are expansive and there's plenty of extras in the battle scenes. The story is a bit draggy but it's entertaining for the most part. Not sure I would need to buy the DVD.

The Blackout: Invasion Earth 2019 Written by Natalya Dubovaya, Ivan Kapitonov and Svyatoslav Podgaevskiy, directed by Egor Baranov. 

I had watched this before and have linked that post in the title. I found it as entertaining and still think it's kind of draggin' in the 2nd act. Parts of the movie are impressive but most of us were disappointed in the ending.

Friday Night Movies 882

Benny Loves You 2019 Written, produced and directed by Karl Holt. It's a British horror comedy about a murderous puppet with Karl playing the main character.

Karl still lives with his parents, he's a toy designer who's having a poor time at work where he's not coming up with interesting toys. On his 35th birthday his parents are killed in a freak accident, nearly a year later he's about to lose the family home because he's crap at his finances. He's never had to survive on his own because he stayed at home with mom and dad. Karl is a big loser at work too, he's fallen so far in the company the owner fires him. He then hires him back for a low level job with a big pay cut. Loser that Karl is he stays on.

While packing up he's convinced himself he needs to adult up and he decides to throw Benny, his favorite toy as a child, into the bin. Benny becomes a homicidal murder machine, starting with all of Karl's stuffed toys and then grinding up the neighbor's cat with a lawnmower. Karl calls the police and they come by, they think he's been stalked by someone but they can't find any evidence of a break in.

Benny kills the estate agent and Karl has to clean up and hide the body. The police turn up to pick up a camera they left there. More and more people are killed and everywhere Benny goes turns into an abattoir. For no reason that any of us could understand Karl hooks up with his co-worker. Most of the other co-workers are killed when Benny is taken to the office by that co-worker. Benny can't stand anyone but him getting any of Karl's love so he tries to kill her. Lucky for them the local coppers save their lives and help cover up Benny's murder spree by blaming it on one of Karl's co-workers. It's OK he was a pretentious twat and no body liked him. Besides, who would believe it was a puppet anyway.

The movie struggles to be funny, many of the jokes fall flat. I found it predictable and I'm usually pretty blase about that sort of thing. It could really have used a punch up in the script department. I think Karl is a better director than he is a writer. He made a decent looking film that cut together pretty well. I did get a few laughs out of it, Benny was usually entertaining. I don't feel I need to see it again but I was glad to have seen it. That Benny doll above is about $35 on Amazon. A little too much for me but I like it.

Bleeding Steel 2017 Written and directed by Leo Zhang. I bought a copy of the Blu-ray because I like to have Jackie Chan movies. I don't keep up with him though, I'm usually playing catch up. I see from a quick scan on Amazon I need to order a few more Jackie films. I'll have to go check the IMDb and make a list so I don't miss any. I'm not sure I'm that interested in the mountain climbing movie.

Jackie is a cop with a dying daughter, he's on his way to the hospital to be with her but police work interferes. He gets involved with a massive fight with a grotesque costumed villain called Andre and his black leather clad henchmen. They're after Doctor James and his metal heart. There's a big battle and Jackie blows up the villain. Jackie is lucky to be alive but he finds his daughter has died.

Thirteen years later we meet some other characters in Sydney Australia. Turns out that Jackie's daughter didn't die, she received the Doctor James metal heart and magical cell rejuvenation serum. She's grown up in an orphanage and doesn't know that Jackie is her dad. More costumed villains show up, the baddie from the big explosion among them. There's plenty of action as Andre tries to kidnap Jackie's daughter. He wants her blood for a transfusion.

The action scenes are big and noisy, there's plenty of bullets flying, high tech pistols blasting, explosions and people jumping around and punching each other. There's a big fight on the roof of the Sydney Opera House and you really get a good view of the roof tiles. Sadly the script is so poor that it lets the movie down. It's filled with nonsense and cliches, it lacks any good humor. The dubbing isn't very good either. I bought my copy from Hamilton Books and it's the Canadian edition. It only has English or French audio, the US has a Mandarin track. I put that on my Amazon Wishlist. It might be worth the tenner.

Beyond White Space 2018

Beyond White Space 2018 Written by Ryan Colucci and Clay McLeod Chapman, directed by Ken Locsmandi. It's a US Hungarian production, I can't find much about that mix, as in, who done what. I did read that the director is an effects guy, He's worked on a lot of stuff since 1995, I've seen a good bit of it without knowing who he was. The writers have mostly written short films.

The script takes a lot of inspiration from Moby Dick and Chinese dragons. The ship in the movie is used to harvest space bugs for cash. On their latest trip they encounter a giant space creature. They had a good haul this trip but that was stolen by some space pirates. The captain  convinces the crew that they should go hunting for the giant space creature. They don't know that he was offered a huge pile of cash by some crooks for it, nor that it killed his dad. 

There's plenty of spaceships and space, some fist fights and some space battles, a giant monster and plenty of melodrama. The Captain and his brother are at odds, the couple humping in the cargo bay find out they're having a kid, there's an old space rat, a pretty cook and an introverted space mechanic. This trip the crew is joined by an inspector who brings her own emotional baggage. There's plenty going on, at 93 mins there's hardly any time to deal with any of it. 

I still enjoyed a good bit of it. I thought it was about average, nearly worth a 5 on the IMDb. I watched it on Amazon Prime, it might be other places. I wouldn't need to see it again.

A-X-L 2018

A-X-L 2018 Written and directed by Oliver Daly. The film was funded by Kickstarter, there was a 2015 short as a proof of concept. The feature flopped at the BO, making $8.5 mil on a $10 mil budget, and this is Oliver's first and only feature film. At least so far. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page but he has an IMDb listing.

Some smug overconfident guy called Andric is head of a robotic dog project for Craine Systems. It's a military project. One day the dog runs off and a young dirt bike rider called Miles finds him hiding in the desert. The dog is programed to pair with it's soldier. All the soldier has to do is press the remote. Miles presses the remote and the dog is his new killing machine pal. It's not that kind of movie, no one gets killed. It's a teen action film with a big CGI robot dog who's more interesting than the teens. That's kind of sad in a way.

The critics didn't care for the movie much, it does better on the IMDb where it scores a 5.3. The main complaints I see in the comments are it's clumsy, derivative and forgettable. Sadly, valid complaints. There are certainly many better man robot films. I didn't care much about the characters but I did like the dog some. The CGI on the dog was quite good but I didn't buy the design. Perhaps I've seen too many General Dynamics videos. There's really nothing original in the film. The villain is so much like a thousand other smug pricks working on secret military projects. I gave it a 4 on the IMDb, I noticed I was bored during some parts of the film, mostly the teen melodrama, there's a rival on the dirt bike track, a girl to fight over, and some dad business I could do without. Still, another SF title on the list. Someone was nice enough to pass the DVD along to me, I'll keep it, don't know if I'll get to see it again.