PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 339

I'm back on YouTube looking for Science Fiction movies I haven't seen before. There's plenty to see and I'm watching them by streaming them through VLC Player so I can avoid the commercials and ads that pop up. I can also turn up the speed and with some of these movies it's the sensible thing to do. There's no telling how long these links will last.

The nice thing about films by The Asylum is they are usually pretty short. Road Wars is 80 minutes and that's more than enough to get through. They've mixed the Road Warrior (lacking Fury Road) with zombies in their post apocalyptic world. There's a group of survivors that live in a little camp. One of them gets bite while on a routine  mission and his girlfriend keeps him tied up and sneaks him back onto camp. Some guy wonders by who's got no memory of the troubles. They think he might be immune for little or no reason. The script is kind of weak. Besides the zombies, or night runners, there are groups of living humans that need killin'. The baddies trap some of the gang in a building and try to steal their car. Lucky it has a bomb in it. The baddies know the immune guy and they've also kidnapped the gang's other truck.

The have a low budget battle in the desert and more people die because when it's the apocalypse it doesn't make sense to work together. The survivors of the battle get back to surviving but they don't do very well. There's some more story with the mutating virus but it's hardly worth mentioning. They have a fairly nice looking film but there isn't much of a story, and you're going to be familiar with the story points. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone really, it's The Asylum, you don't need to see their work. Instead watch the movies they copy. Even the crappiest of the movies they rip off, they're better than anything The Asylum puts out. The movie gets a 2.6 on the IMDb and out of 200 voters they get 16 tens and 74 ones. You can sure tell how many of the film makers, or their pals, voted.

Death Race 3: Inferno is a 2012 film that continues the Frankenstein story from the 2008 remake and the 2010 sequel. I can hardly keep up with all the new movies but I had wanted to see this film. I'm still a big fan of the original Death Race 2000 and I liked the 2008 remake. The screenplay is Tony Giglio from a story by Tony and Paul WS Anderson. It's directed by Roel Reiné, who directed the 2010 sequel and the recent The Man With The Iron Fists 2. Most of his other work doesn't seem like stuff I might be interested in. DR3:I was released straight to video.

Dougray Scott plays a creepy billionaire who brings the Death Race TV Show to other prisons so he can have a death race each week. The first race is in the Kalahari desert. Of course  Dougray changes all the rules and Frankenstein can't get out of the race after winning his 5th race. If Frankenstein wins he dies. Dougray is a worse psychopath than some of the drivers, he's free and he's rich.

Dougray makes the female navigators fight to the death, the last 10 standing are the ones that get to go on to a chance to die in the death race. I guess he figures they must have a big supply of gals that he can waste some. Dougray's show producer is a vicious bloodthirsty woman who doesn't always agree with his choices. She wants the death and destruction to keep the show going and she thinks some of Dougray's choices are going to upset the viewers. The race goes on and there's more vehicles in this race than were running in the whole of Road Wars. They zoom all about the desert smashing and bashing and shooting their guns and rockets. They pick off the other teams one by one. The race goes into a Kalahari shanty town. When Pretty Boy makes a run for it the producer sends a big ass missile right after him. No matter that civilians are near by. It's a tough world, in the future, especially when you're poor. That's the end of day one.

Danny Trejo gets a knife wound and he meets a nice nurse who's a big fan, of his penis. There's a tiny bit of gratuitous nudity but hardly enough to mention. Day two continues with more driving in the desert. Cars crash and smash and the only lady driver looses her car but takes out another driver before getting run over. The race is back in town and the people aren't very happy with the collateral damage. They riot and some of the criminal gangs attack the production. This time Danny gets a ticket out of the movie. Day three of the race Frankenstein pulls out all stops and heads for the finish line. Dougray goes nuts and tries to kill Frankenstein. No one helps him when Frankenstein shows up. There's a happy ending for Frankenstein and partners. Not so much for Dougray but he was a nasty piece of shit and he deserves his fate.

It was all fairly enjoyable but not quite as tasty as the 2008 remake. I had wanted to see it and now I have. The nice thing about watching them on YouTube is I didn't have to waste any of my Netflix rentals, the library failed to stock the films for some reason. If you saw the others you know what to expect and this is right in the same vein. I'd watch it again but wouldn't need to pick up a copy.

Elves 41075 The Elves' Treetop Hideaway

I wanted to finish up the rest of the Elves series but I've been busy. I think after this batch I'm going to take a break posting about sets for a while. I haven't bought much of anything of late, partly because not much interests me, and partly because I've reached a bit of saturation. I have mostly enough parts to not need more of certain kinds and sets come with lots of extra bits that I don't always have a use for. Because of what I was building for the comic con I wanted the Elves sets for the leaf parts, big plates and some of the figures.

41075 The Elves' Treetop Hideaway is a 505 piece set and it's 50 bucks. That's just over a dime each with the tax added. It's a great set for colored pieces, there are 40 different colors, including all the transparent parts. You get to make a couple of tree houses and some landscaping around them. It's all very colorful though I would prefer if the trees were one solid color and actually grew up around the house. They look like they had their tops sawn off and houses built on top. Here's the description from the Brickset site:

Go on a journey through the magical new universe of the LEGO® Elves with Emily Jones!

Enter the magical world of the LEGO® Elves with Emily Jones. When wandering in her grandmother’s garden she suddenly finds herself transported through a magic portal to a Treetop Hideaway in a whole new universe. Explore the surroundings with Emily as she realizes that she’s no longer in the human world and meets Azari Firedancer and Farran Leafshade, the Fire and Earth Elves. Make Farran climb down the magic ladder and show her around his extraordinary home. Cook carrot soup over the fire for them to eat while Emily explains that she needs to get back home, and the Elves promise to help her. Send some food up to the treehouse in the magic bucket lift for Farran’s panther cub Enki before they all meet up with the Water and Wind Elves – Emily will need their help too! Includes 3 mini-doll figures: Emily Jones, Azari Firedancer and Farran Leafshade, plus Enki the panther cub.

• Includes 3 mini-doll figures: Emily Jones, Azari Firedancer and Farran Leafshade, plus Enki the panther cub
• Features a magic portal, parting leaf curtains, magic ladder bridge, bucket lift, sofa bed, table and stools, and a secret compartment
• Accessories include 2 juices, carrot, 2 apples, bag, letter, magic potion and fire and earth power icons
• Help Emily Jones discover and learn about the magical universe of the LEGO® Elves
• Open the leaf curtains to let light into the Treetop Hideaway
• Find a letter from the Wind Elf in Farran’s secret compartment
• Set off with Emily and her new elf friends on their quest to help send her home
• The Elves’ Treetop Hideaway measures over 6” (17cm) high, 9” (25cm) wide and 4” (12cm) deep
• Go to LEGO.com/elves to discover more about Emily Jones and the magical universe of the LEGO® Elves
• Collect all the LEGO® Elves models to find the 4 magical keys and send Emily Jones back home to the human world

 

There's 24 plant parts in the set, you can see most of them up there. I did like the colors of the parts and used all the different colors that came with the Elves sets for my part of the group build at the Comic Con. Here's a link to the pictures in my Flickr album. I really liked the green plant stem with 6 stalks. I used all I got. There's 110 parts in dark red. That's one of my favorite colors and I've gotten a nice pile of parts to use someday. I used the big 8 by 16 and 16 by 16 plates as bases on my part of the group build. People use them for Micropolis too. I do like the new fence part in sand green. There's a pearl gold one in another set. There are some nice printed parts and a sticker sheet that comes in two versions. I got a set about a month and a half ago and a couple more a couple of weeks after that. I have got both versions of the stickers. Here's what they look like.

   

The one on the left is on white paper and the one on the right is a transparent sheet. You can see that they are quite different. The transparent is the one I found in the two sets I got later. That should give you a good indication that I liked the set and thought it had a nice assortment of parts that I wanted. I'd certainly want to get a couple more but only on clearance at this point. Doubtful that's going to happen. The Friends sets sell super well and this is probably going to do the same. The Friends sets aren't on sale or clearance very often. That's one down and a couple more small ones to go.

Friday Night Movies 530

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne is a 1981 French and West German film with Udo Kier. It's was called Docteur Jekyll et les femmes by the producers and Blood Of Dr Jekyll in it's US release. Walerian Borowczyk is the writer and director of this odd little adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I didn't know anything about Borowczyk but a film critic called him a "genius who also happened to be a pornographer" and Terry Gilliam said his short animation Jeux des anges 1964 was one of the ten best animated films of all time. I saw that short and there's no way I would put it in any ten best films list.

Guests arrive at the engagement party for Dr Jekyll and his lovely fiancé Miss Fanny Osbourne.

"Fanny Osbourne" was the name of Robert Louis Stevenson's real life fiancée , who was so shocked by his original draft of The Strange Case of Doctor Jeckyl and Mr Hyde that Stevenson threw the manuscript into the fire and wrote a completely different story. - Wikipedia.

After the party had been going along one of the guests, a young woman is raped and murdered. More deaths follow as the Doc keeps unleashing Edward Hyde. He uses a special powder in a bath to transform. He needs a second powder to drink to reverse the transformation. Hyde kills pretty much everyone at the party and then transforms back with the special powder. His fiancé takes the powder even though there's not an antidote. Jekyll joins her in monster town and they run off, humping happily, in a hansom cab.

It's an odd little film with a cruel vicious Hyde who has a giant plastic penis he keeps using to rape people to death with, gender is no issue, he rapes men, women and children with glee. Not a film that I would need to see again but it was interesting enough to sit through once. It's unpleasant but not Salo: 20 Days of Sodom unpleasant. Reminds me there are other better films to watch. Joe said he would be sure to like our second feature more than the first.

I know I liked Nightbreed The Director's Cut better than our first feature. It was recently restored for a Scream Factory release last fall. The original movie is from 1990 but I didn't see it until the following year. The movie is based on the short story by Clive Barker who's the writer and director. The original release didn't sit well with the producers and they had it changed, Barker has always wanted his first cut to be seen but the studio didn't want to spend any money on it. Here's some back story on the changes from the Wikipedia.

The Cabal Cut

In 2009, Mark Miller, co-head of Barker's production company, Seraphim Films, helped track down the missing footage that was cut out of the director's cut of Nightbreed.Miller discovered, after talking to a production executive at the studio, that the footage was never actually lost but readily accessible. When asked, a studio executive said that there was not a big enough audience to warrant the studio spending money on a new, extended cut of the film. A VHS copy of Barker's 145-minute version of the film's mid-1989 workprint was discovered. It did not feature any of the re-shoots of Decker's murders. An extended 159-minute cut version, from another VHS found in July 2009, was premiered on March 27, 2010 as part of the HorrorHound Weekend in Indianapolis. This new version adds almost a whole hour that was cut from the theatrical release, including a musical score and more animation. In an interview, Barker said that he hopes to bring back Danny Elfman "and give us just a little bit of extra music for it."

In early 2012, Russell Cherrington, a senior lecturer in film and video production at the University of Derby, created a composite cut of the film using the footage found on both VHS tapes as well as a DVD then recently released by Warner Archive Collection, Warner's made-to-order DVD service. This version is the most complete version of Barker's film available and has been dubbed The Cabal Cut. The cut runs 155 minutes long and was shown at that year's "Mad Monster Party" in North Carolina with actors Craig Sheffer and Anne Bobby attending.

The "Mad Monster Party" projection of the Cabal Cut led to a renewal of interest among fans, especially on the Internet. A new petition was created and social networks were used to raise awareness for the extended cut and to encourage producers to release it. This would be colloquially known as "Occupy Midian", a term coined by actress Anne Bobby.

Shout! Factory restoration

On July 19, 2013, Barker announced via his official Facebook account that The Cabal Cut would be released on DVD by Shout! Factory through its horror dedicated label Scream Factory. This was confirmed during a Scream Factory panel at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con, a deal finalized by President David Robinson at Morgan Creek and Executive Producer Michael Plumides, just minutes before the announcement. It was later confirmed to be a brand new director's cut that uses the footage and not the full Cabal Cut.

Shout! Factory announced The Director's Cut Blu-ray in July 2014, with details following in September, with a release date for October 28, 2014. This version, overseen by Clive Barker, will run twenty minutes longer than the theatrical version and contain forty minutes of new and altered footage. Shout, with Warner Home Video, were able to locate the original film elements in the Warner archives to newly restore the sequences. Barker stated, "when Scream Factory told me that they found the Nightbreed film footage, I was gob-smacked! This is the ultimate validation of choices made by myself and Mark Miller all the way back in 2008." Shout announced a Special Edition Blu-ray / DVD combo pack and a 3-disc Limited Edition Blu-ray, containing a booklet and the theatrical cut. The Limited Edition almost quickly sold out of its initial 5,000 units when pre-orders began for it, Shout ordered another 5,000 units for popular demand. This director's cut is available on Netflix Instant Streaming.

I hadn't seen the original for a while, I did buy the DVD when it got cheap, that was a few years ago. I liked the old version well enough and thought the new version was a step up in story telling. There's more to the story and it makes a bit more sense, there's more David Cronenberg as the evil psychotherapist, there's a music number that might have been better cut and there's a couple of short animated bits that were interesting.

The story is about a guy, Craig Sheffer, who has some bad dreams of a place called Midian which is the home of monsters. He's been seeing that evil psychotherapist who's played by David Cronenberg. Craig's dating a gal named Lori, played by Anne Bobby, who sings in a bar. The Doctor tells Craig he's killed people but Craig can't remember any of it. The Doc is really the one who's done all the killing. He wears a mask while he does his dirty business. Craig gets tossed in jail where he meets a man who mentions Midian. They escape and head to the town. Midian turns out to be a cemetery in the middle of nowhere. They meet some of the monsters and Craig gets bit by one. The Doc is following with the police and he tricks them into thinking Craig's got a gun. The police act like they do and Craig gets tossed into the morgue. He revives and returns to Midian. We learn more and he's inducted into the group. The Doc follows with a gang of thugs and cops. There's a bit of a battle, lots die, and things get sorted out somewhat. It looks like there could be a sequel but it's unlikely that there will be one at this late date. I enjoyed the movie and the 120 minute running time didn't seem overly long. I'll probably want to see this again.

OSS 117: Lost In Rio 2009

OSS 117: Lost In Rio is a 2009 French spy parody that's set in 1967. The French title is OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus which translates to OSS 117: Rio doesn't respond anymore. The Wikipedia claims it's a reference to the 1930s film F.P.1 antwortet nicht which translates to F. P. 1 doesn't respond. Not quit the same but there you go. F.P.1 antwortet nicht is a 1932 movie about a floating airplane landing platform in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It was the last German film for Peter Lorre and Curt Siodmak.

 

Jean Dujardin plays French spy OSS 117, Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath and Louise Monot plays Dolorès Koulechov, an Israeli Army officer. Hubert is sent to Brazil to pay off an ex-Nazi for a list of French Nazi sympathizers. Some Mossad agents want the ex-Nazi so they can put him on trial. Hubert joins with Dolorès to bring the ex-Nazi back themselves. They encounter a lot of goofy characters: an ignorant American spy with a filthy mouth, a pack of naughty Nazis, a slutty gal spy, the nutty hippy nephew of the ex-Nazi and some Mexican Luchadors. OSS 117 isn't much better than some of them. He's pretty misogynistic and racist, yet he's not hateful, it's more he's totally clueless. He's not much of a spy but he causes a good bit of chaos.

I don't think I enjoyed this one quite as much as the first one but I still got a few laughs, and several snickers, from it. There are plenty of references to James Bond, Matt Helm and other spy films. It's a great looking movie, the clothes, the sets and the production are all very 60's. There's plenty of nice locations to look at and a fair number of gags. It's a movie I would want to watch again.

The Three Stooges Meet Hercules 1962

The Three Stooges Meet Hercules is a 1962 film written by Norman Maurer and Elwood Ullman. Maurer is the producer and Edward Bernds is the director.  Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Joe DeRita are the Stooges and in this film they travel into the past to meet Hercules. That's Samson Burke hefting Larry, he's a Canadian body builder and wrestler. He competed in the 1948 Olympics and appeared in several movies and Magnum PI. The Wikipedia says it's the guys most successful film. It did $2,000,000 when it was released and it cost $420,000.

 

The guys are working at a drug store. One of their customers is a young man who's trying to invent a time machine. Quinn Redeker plays the scientist Schuyler Davis and Vicki Trickett plays his girlfriend Diane Quigley. The Stooges pitch in and somehow make the time machine work.

The 5 of them wind up in ancient Greece and accidentally help King Odius defeat Ulysses. The King has designs on Diane but she's not interested. The guys get the idea that they might be changing history and free Ulysses. The King has Schuyler and the Stooges chained in a ship as galley slaves. Schuyler gets really strong and eventually they get in contact with Hercules. He helps them rescue Diane and mete out some punishment.

It's a good sword and sandal movie parody and I got a fair bit of enjoyment out of it. There's the usual Stooge wackiness, some action, and a fair number of jokes. Some are funny. I'd watch it again. It's part of the 6 movie set I bought a bit ago. I'm working my way through it.

The Three Stooges Go Around The World In A Daze 1963

The Three Stooges Go Around The World In A Daze is a 1963 film that was written, directed and produced by Norman Mauer. They were still doing well after their recent surge in popularity from their shorts being on TV pretty regularily and the film made a million bucks at the box office. Fifty years later people are still watching it.

The guys, Moe, Larry and Curly Joe, get involved with Phileas Fogg III, the great-grandson of the original Phileas Fogg when he attempts to circle the globe in 80 days. The man challenging him is a con man who wants to frame Phileas for a bank robbery. Taking a trip around the world is enough trouble but imagine what it would be like with the Stooges in tow. They get into the usual Stoogigans and some countries can't get rid of them soon enough. At one point they get caught by the Communist Chinese. They attempt to brain wash the Stooges, it back fires and the interrogators get turn into Chinese Stooge clones. the Chinese put them on a boat in the ocean to get rid of them. The manage to get back to England on time, with a bit of help here and there, and the baddie is revealed. There's a bit of romance for Phileas and some smacks for the Stooges. Just the way they like it. It's all pretty silly and about average for a Stooge film. I enjoyed it while I was watching it. Since I already have I'm guessing I'll be getting around to watching it sometime in the future.

The Twilight Zone S4D3

I had almost forgot to watch some more of the 4th season of The Twilight Zone. I'd been busy with other things and a big glut of stuff from the library. The shows are the hour long ones and there are three on each disc.

Jesse Belle  February 14 1963

Written by Earl Hamner Jr and directed by Buzz Kulik. James Best is a farmer named Billy-Ben who plans to marry Ellwyn but Jesse-Belle has her own plans for him. Anne Francis plays Jesse-Belle and Ellwyn is played by Laura Devon whom I had seen recently in Chamber Of Horrors. Jesse-Belle goes to see the local witch and gets a love potion. The witch tells her the potion will turn her into a leopard all night and she drinks it anyway. What Granny Hart didn't tell her was that the potion will also turn Jesse-Belle into a witch. She steals James away form Ellwyn but things don't go so well and that serves to remind that people shouldn't have any truck with witches. I hadn't seen this one for a long long time and I sort of remembered the plot. The story is ok and there are good performances from all the actors. According to Buzz Kulik the leopard was the problem. He wasn't very good at following direction. I was sad to read that James Best passed away last month. Extras are good interviews with Earl Hamner Jr, Buzz Kulik and Anne Francis, an isolated score by Nathan Van Cleave and a nice video interview with Anne Francis.

Miniature  February 21 1963

Written by Charles Beaumont and directed by Walter Grauman. Robert Duvall is a rather distant guy who spends his lunch hours at a museum for the 60 cent lunch. The cafeteria is closed one day and he wanders into a room with a miniature doll house. He sees the wooden figure move when it's not supposed to. Soon after he gets fired from his job for being a square peg who doesn't fit in. The next day he sees more movement in the doll house but strangely doesn't go see a doctor. Rather than take a job with his brother-in-law he visits the doll house again and again. The guard asks him why he's there for 5 hours and his sister, played by Barbara Barrie, follows him. She sees him at the doll house and later sets him up with a girl. He's only got eyes for the gal in the doll house. He breaks down at the museum and they send him to a shrink who's played by William Windom. Robert acts cured and he gets to come home. Soon as he gets a chance he runs off to the museum. His family call William and they all go to the museum. They  can't find him but the security guard sees a male figure in the doll house. He doesn't say anything. I didn't remember this one at all and it's one that I thought could be better as a half hour episode. Extras include an audio commentary with William Windom, an isolated score by Fred Steiner and color scenes from the syndicated version.

Printer's Devil  February 28 1963

Written by Charles Beaumont, adapted from his story The Devil, You Say, and directed by Ralph Senensky. A small town newspaper is fading because of a bigger paper muscling them aside. Robert Serling plays the editor and Pat Crowley plays his girlfriend. The paper is heavily in debt, things are grim, then his linotype operator quits. Despondent, Robert plans to jump off the local bridge but he's interrupted by the arrival of Burgess Meredith looking for a light. He turns out to be a linotype operator and reporter. He's got some ready cash to help get the paper get rolling again. He comes up with some big stories that scoop the new paper. Burgess offers Robert more newspaper power in exchange for his soul. Never something good to do but Robert signs. Things start to go bad and Robert has to think his way out of the problem. I sort of remembered this story and enjoyed it quite a bit. Nice interesting characters with good actors making the most of a pretty good script. Extras include a short but good interview with Burgess Meredith and an isolated score.

I keep thinking of hitting these disc more often and I might have the chance with the library choking on some shows I want. I must have 8 things sitting with a good long wait before they hit my hands. That's the way that goes.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mystery Series 1

 

I watched the first series of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and really enjoyed them. It's an Australian TV series that first aired February 24 2012. Two series have aired and a third is running right now. The series is based on Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher novels which aren't something I've read. I see there have been 20 of them since 1989. Phryne Fisher is played by Essie Davis and she's quite a character. It's 1928 and Miss Fisher is a highly modern woman who decides to become a detective in Melbourne. She doesn't need the money, she just want to have some adventure. She drives like a madman, flies planes and carries a gold plated revolver. She has a series of lovers and isn't much interested in settling down with a man. The last war is still on everyone's minds and it's still affecting the characters one way or another. Miss Fisher joined French women's ambulance unit during the war.

She's got a title and some cash so she when she returns to Melbourne gets a nice big house, a butler named Mr Butler, a couple of handymen named Bert and Cec, a companion named Dot and a teenager named Jane. They all pitch in and help with the detecting. There's a police Detective Inspector named Jack who isn't that keen on Miss Fisher's investigating but he comes to appreciate her help, at least occasionally. His constable Hugh is a young fellow who takes a fancy to Miss Fisher's companion Dot. The wonderful Miriam Margolyes appears occasionally as Miss Fisher's Aunt Prudence. She's great in everything I see her in.

 

The production recreates the 1928 Melbourne and it looks great. They use CGI to fill in the past and augment it with plenty of wonderful costumes and cars and props. The murders are as varied as the stories though most of the victims are shot or stabbed. Miss Fisher gets around so she winds up in all sort of interesting or posh places. There's a story set in a Turkish Bath that involves a cocaine smuggling ring and abortion, another has a death in a dance hall and one was set in a circus. It's got a nice level of humor with the drama though it gets a bit dark near the end when Jane is kidnapped by a crazy man. I enjoyed all 13 episodes and have the 2nd series on queue at the library. I bet I'll enjoy those too.

Science Fiction Sunday 338

I watched a couple of Science Fiction movies from YouTube today. I was going to dig through the films that I have on DVD and see what I haven't blogged about before but this seemed easier. That was the original plan for Science Fiction Sunday, a chance to revisit some of the films that haven't been watched in a while. That changed over time and finally it was Doctor Who all the way down.

At least, I told myself, checking out some films on YouTube would be a way of seeing something new. Turns out not to be the case. I streamed the films from YouTube through VLC player to avoid the commercial breaks on one of them. I can do some easy screen caps when I want to and the streaming content can be played at 1.5 speed when things get dull. Sometimes wasting real time on a film isn't much of a good investment of that time.

Hunter Prey is a  2010 indy SF action film directed by Sandy Collora who co-wrote the script by Nick Damon. Collora plays the part of the bounty hunter that shows up part way through the movie. I hadn't heard of Damion Poitier who plays Centauri 7 or Clark Bartram who plays Orin Jericho but I had heard of Erin Gray who plays the computer that communicates to Centauri 7. She was Wilma Deering on the Buck Rogers In The 25th Century TV series.

It's all shot in the Baja desert on the RED Camera. It's a great looking place and that camera is a really great camera so they get some interesting images. The CGI that goes on top of those images is mostly pretty good. The copy of the movie on YouTube looks nice, these screen captures are from it, and I can only think the DVD would be better though I doubt if I will find out.

Centauri 7 is part of a group of Sedonians that are searching for an escaped prisoner on a desert planet. Their chip has crashed and their orders are to find the prisoner alive. The military are sending an extraction ship for them. The prisoner turns out to be the last human, Earth was destroyed by the Sedonians, and he wants some revenge. He's got the coordinates of a cloaked ship that is heading for Sedonia. It has enough exploding stuff to wipe out the planet. The Sedonians want to get that info from him so stop the ship.

It's a cat & mouse game while Orin leads the Sedonians across the desert planet. He picks them off one by one and finally it's only him and Centauri 7. That bounty hunter, played by the director, shows up, captures Orin for a bit, then gets shot dead by Centauri 7. The two duke it out one way or another until all the story is revealed. It was interesting enough to watch and it's well enough made. You can find out on YouTube by clicking on the link in the title. The ending is a bit ambiguous but there you go. It's not something I'm going to be thinking much about once I put down this last period.

 

Cyberjack is a 1995 film directed by Robert Lee. I hadn't heard of him, mostly he's an assistant director, and I have seen hardly any of the stuff he's worked on. Eric Poppen is the writer and I hadn't seen any of his other work. Michael Dudikoff is a cop who's chasing after a criminal named Nassim. The villain is played by a fan favorite, the late Brion James, and he gets the drop on Michael's partner. Even though he has a clear shot to Brion's head he didn't shoot and his partner dies. Brion shoots him and leaves him for dead. Years pass and the cop is a janitor at a company that's developing a magical computer virus.

Nassim and his gang come to steal the virus. The scientist, Doctor Royce, who developed the virus and his daughter Alex are at odds. She works in the same lab and she's the love interest for Michael. He meets her just before the baddies come calling. The head of the company wants to sell the virus to a client but it has some issues. It can get out of control and kill everyone. No matter says Daddy, I'll be famous if it works. Sadly, he'll only be famous as one of Nassim's various victims. He's a pretty brutal villain and his gang is made up of psychos the likes of which you've seen better portrayed in other movies.

 

Once you strip away the vague futuristic clap trap the movie is a Die Hard clone with little much of anything going for it, except for Brion James. While he's a great villain most of the time, here he's about average. Mind you he's still entertaining but I can't say as much for the movie. It's pretty much below average and there's nothing much to recommend. It does gets pretty silly at the end but there's nothing amazing about it. You can see it on YouTube in the link above and waste some of your time or be sensible and give it a miss.

Friday Night Movies 529

Zombeavers is a 2015 horror comedy directed by Jordan Rubin. He wrote the script with Al Kaplan and Jon Kaplan. It didn't do well at the box office, grossing $14,947 but it wasn't in that many theatres. Hopefully it will do some business on DVD and cable. It's a pretty typical plot, three female college students wind up in the woods with some dangerous beasties. The young women drive to a cottage by a lake with a beaver dam. They fill us in on Jenn's boyfriend issues. Before they get there a truck has an accident and a barrel of chemicals gets plopped into the lake. The barrel leaks on the beaver dam. You know that's a bad thing. The gals are settling in at Mary's Aunt's cottage but they aren't happy about the no cell coverage. The three planned an all girls weekend. Jenn is all upset that her boyfriend was kissing some other woman at a bar and she wants to be away from him. The girls go along to keep her company, though Zoe isn't much of a friend. She gets her boyfriend to bring the other two gal's boyfriends up to the cabin. Oh, well, it's just more victims for the beavers to gnaw on. And it sucks if they bite you, you become an undead werebeaver, growing a tail and giant front teeth.

That's Mary, Zoe and Jenn. Zoe's the only one who gets her top off. She's the most annoying one of the bunch. There's the usual running about and screaming with chemically enhanced beavers chomping their way through the walls and floors of the cottage. One by one the characters fall to the chomping teeth. There's a few jokes mixed in with the blood bath. Some were funny but many weren't. The boyfriends were a tiresome bunch and I didn't mind them getting chomped down on. The neighbors get caught up in the zombeaver invasion and they don't get much fun out of that. Not a great movie, watchable, good for a laugh or two. Probably won't bother with it again.

Mortdecai is a 2015 Johnny Depp film that was directed by David Koepp with a script by Eric Aronson. It's based on a novel called Don't Point That Thing At Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli. He wrote 4 novels and part of a fifth before he died. The fifth was finished by someone else. The Wikipedia says the novels have been compared to PG Wodehouse and shady art dealer Mortdecai's man servant Jock Strapp is the fun-house mirror version of Jeeves. I'm curious, being such a Wodehouse fan, and I put his novels on my library queue. Wodehouse certainly had his share of shady characters, they often make for good comedy.

There's Paul Bettany as Jock and Johnny Depp as Mortdecai. Mortdecai has just grown his new moustache and that causes some issues for his wife Johanna, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Ewan McGregor is Inspector Alistar Martland and he has a thing for Johanna. Jeff Goldman is rich art collector Milton Krampf and Olivia Munn is his naughty tramp of a daughter Georgina. He wants Mortdecai's fancy Rolls Royce and poor Mortdecai is dead broke, he owes £8,000,000 in back taxes, so he's tempted to sell the car. His latest sale just went horribly wrong and now Asian crime boss Fang is after him. There's a rumored lost Goya and Mortdecai wants to get a cut of that sale. The Inspector is snooping around and he wants Mortdecai to use his contacts to find out the poop on the painting. Other interesting parties surface looking for the treasure. There's plenty of fights and gunplay but no one get too badly hurt. There's plenty of sneaking about and double dealing. That's one valuable painting and it's supposed to have secret bank account numbers, filled with Nazi wealth, on the back, making it doubly valuable.

It didn't do well at the box office, it got panned by the critics (13% on Rotten Tomatoes) but as often is the case I'm not on the same wavelength and I enjoyed it. It gets a 5.5 on the IMDb and I wouldn't put it much higher than that. It's very British, that could be why people didn't cotton to it, but Mortdecai is a very British character. It seems like it's a heist comedy film from the 1960's, like The Pink Panther or Topkapi. I found Mortdecai entertaining in his way and he's certainly less bumbling than Inspector Clueless in TPP. The other characters are all fairly goofy and broad but they fit the film. It's all very colorful and there's lots of pretty locations to look at. The movie doesn't take itself seriously so why should I. I laughed at plenty of jokes and situations that others must not have. I liked it more than anyone watching tonight and I would want to see it again.