PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Final Master 2015

The Final Master is about what dicks the martial arts schools of Tianjin were in the 1930s. Grandmaster Chen comes to town to open a Wing Chun school. The local schools aren't interested in his southern style but there's a rule Chen challenges. If his apprentice defeats 8 schools he can open the school. Of course, the local school cheat to defeat. They kill the apprentice and then threaten his girlfriend. They are a despicable bunch, hungry for power. They even kill one of their top martial arts guys in order to frame Chen. Before Chen leaves town he defeats the best of the best. They let him go.

It's a nice looking film, plenty of nice sets and costumes, and good actors to wear them. It's a bit heavy on the drama and the fights are usually short and quick. It's not my favorite type of Martial Arts film, too serious, but it was still pretty good. I saw it from Netflix and wouldn't bother picking up a copy, unless I can find one cheap. I wouldn't need to be getting back to it anytime soon. I need to watch some of my old favorites first.

Whistling With Red Skelton

Red Skelton made three movies in which he plays the radio detective The Fox. I've seen the series a few times over the years. I first saw them on Turner Classic Movies back in the 1980s. You can Video On Demand copies on Amazon for about 25 bucks. Kind of pricey but typical of the VOD service. Sometimes it's worth the price, sometimes not. I have copies from TCM and the other day I downloaded pretty nice copies from the internet. I hadn't seen the series in a while so I thought I would take a gander.

Whistling In The Dark is the first and it came out in 1941. The movie is directed by S Sylvan Simon who would also direct the 2 sequels and Red's 1948 The Fuller Brush Man.

Whistling In The Dark started as a Broadway play, with the same name, by Laurence Gross and Edward Childs Carpenter. The play was adapted into a 1933 movie with Ernest Truax. I haven't seen that but would like to, Ernest is an old favorite. The 1941 film has a screenplay by Robert MacGunigle, Harry Clork and Albert Mannheimmer, with Eddie Moran and Elliott Nugent supplying some uncredited material.

Red plays Wally Benton, a radio writer and actor, who writes the scripts and plays the detective on The Fox radio show. Ann Rutherford, on the left, plays Red's girlfriend Carol in all three movies. The other lady is Virginia Grey, she plays the sponsor's daughter. She's got something for Wally and his agent gets him to date her so they can keep their sponsor. Red goes along even though he plans to marry Carol when the movie starts. Veteran actor, and another favorite of mine, Rags Ragland plays Sylvester Conway. Sylvester is the bad guy's chauffeur and he's a bad man. Rags would return in the sequels.

Conrad Veidt plays the baddie, he kidnaps The Fox and the two gals, in order to force the radio detective to develop a plan for a perfect murder. Red and the gals have to figure out how to escape Conrad's clutches. Red supplies a pretty good plan but he's got bad luck and the poison is on it's way. They trick Sylvester into helping them save the day and the baddies get catch and sent to jail in the end. It's all goofy fun. There are plenty of gags and Red's style of the slapstick. Some of it's a bit corny, but that was the time.

Whistling Is Dixie came out in 1942 and the script was by Nat Perrin and Wilkie Mahoney. The Fox is overworked and needs a vacation. Carol thinks Wally needs to get married. His boss gives him a couple of weeks off. Wally does want to marry Carol but before they can leave her friend requests some help and the couple head to Georgia.

Carol's old friend Ellamae, played by Diana Lewis up on the right, gets the nearly weds into a mix of murder and stolen Confederate gold. Rags Ragland plays Sylvester Conway and his brother Chester.

There's plenty of running about and yelling. I like that sort of thing. Red and the gals manage to keep from getting murdered and catch the crooks. I enjoyed it again. Like the first movie, this did well at the Box office.

Whistling In Brooklyn came out in 1943 and Nat Perrin wrote the script with additional dialog from Wilkie C Mahoney and some uncredited material from Stanley Roberts. Real Brooklyn locations, like Ebbets Field, Prospect Park, the Manhattan Bridge and Flatbush Avenue were used in the movie.

Wally Benton, The Fox, and his girlfriend Carol have their impending nuptials interrupted once again. This time Chester, played by Rags Ragland, gets Wally in trouble with the police. Henry O'Neill plays Inspector Holcomb, he thinks Wally might be the serial killer he's after. William Frawley plays Detective Ramsey, Ray Collins plays Grover Kendall and Mike Mazurki plays a thug. Leo Durocher plays himself and some of the Brooklyn Dodgers play assorted baseball players.

It's a pretty fast paced bit of business, plenty of running about and noise, slapstick and other gags. Like the others, I've enjoy this every time I've seen it. I was a big Red Skelton fan when I was a kid but lost interest when I was older. In the 80s I started watching his movies and enjoyed those more than the TV show. I've managed to gather copies of many over the years and I still watch them once in a while.

I thought it was interesting that the three movies rate very close on the IMDb and they all have a low number of votes. WITD scores a 6.9 with 681 votes, WID scores a 6.8 with 405 votes and WIB scores a 6.9 with 410 votes. I guess they haven't been watched by that many people except on Turner Classic Movies. I gave them all a 7 and that score seems to be the most popular vote for all three movies.

30478 Santa Claus

There's a nice little Creator polybag in the new Christmas crap in Target's seasonal area. It's 30478 Santa Claus and it's got 74 parts for $3.49 plus tax. It makes a rotund Santa and three presents.

Western Wednesday 34

A four pack of Roy Rogers movies today. Island View Entertainment is another of those public domain packagers. All the movies on the disc were Platinum releases first. I wouldn't be surprised if IVE is the same people behind the scenes. They both are in Chaska, a local suburb. This is volume 25 of 30 in the Cinema Classics series.

Jesse James At Bay 1941 Roy plays two parts in this retelling of the Jesse James legend. He's Jesse and he's a good guy. Gaby Hayes plays the sheriff. The local banker has a plan to legally steal the land from the locals. There's a couple of plucky lady reporters that mix into the story. Roy and Gaby will put a stop to the banker's plan and Roy will get one of the reporters. The end of the movie was shot at Vasquez Rocks.

Night Time In Nevada 1948 Roy is a rancher who's herd of cattle are missing. He's also working with Andy Devine, who plays the sheriff. It's set modern day and there are many cars as there are horses. There's a baddie who first kills his partner in a gold mine. The partner left the baddie in charge of the trust fund for his daughter. Then he steals Roy's cattle stealing. He'll soon get his. Roy and Andy sing Rock Candy Mountain.

Rough Riders' Roundup 1939 Roy and the Rough Riders are after stage robbers that smuggle the gold into Mexico. They have their own ghost town to hand out in. There's plenty or riding and shooting in this one. There's also a gal who's being cheated out of her fortune. Roy lends her a hand too.

Silver Spurs 1943 Roy works for Jerome Cowan, the son of an old friend, the guy is a big dick. John Carradine is his pal, he's got a eye for the ranch, and he's got a plan to kill Jerome. Roy gets framed for the murder. Between songs Roy tries to keep out of jail and figure out who framed him.

All were pretty entertaining but I'm a bit of Roy Rogers fan. You can check out any of them on YouTube. There's plenty of other Westerns on site.

Grimm 2003

Grimm is a 2003 comedy from the Netherlands that hints of the Brothers Grimm story Brother And Sister. It's set modern day and has a nice dark edge too it. A family has fallen on hard times, the father takes his two grown children into the woods and leaves them there. The mother put a note into the son's pocket telling him to go to see his Uncle in Spain. The brother and sister immediately turn to crime and have a bit of an adventure, leaving a body or two behind them, as they steal their way to Spain, only to find their Uncle has died. The sister marries a surgeon, the brother doesn't like him, there's tension in house. There's even more when the brother finds out that the surgeon wants his kidney, the surgeon's sister needs it.

The surgeon drugs the siblings, the sister gets locked up, after the organ harvesting the brother is dumped in a ditch. Lucky for him he's alive. The sister escapes and gets reunited with the brother and the movie is only two thirds over. More chasing and running about follows and there's a bit of a happy ending. I found it entertaining and worth the look. There's plenty of nice scenery, the movie is filmed in the Netherlands, German and Spain. In Spain the bits near the end are shot in an old American Western town that has appeared in plenty of Westerns. The interview with writer director Alex van Warmerdam he says that Laurence Of Arabia was shot near that location.

I got the DVD from Netflix and I might want to have a copy to see again but it appears to be out of print and a bit pricey online. Might turn up used cheap, you never know.

The Blood Drinkers 1964

I found a copy of The Blood Drinkers for cheap and bought it. It's a 1964 Philippine horror film that was directed by Gerardo de Leon. I never heard of him before and the same can be said for the guy who wrote the story, Rico Bello Omagap, or the guy who wrote the screenplay, Cesar Amigo, either.

Kind of a standard vampire story, villagers, mansion, vampire, you get the drift. It's pretty low budget for the US but in the Philippines that sort of money can buy a lot more. The actors are mostly passable and the bald headed head vamp has a good look. It's touted as the first color horror film in the Philippines but not all the movie is in full color, much of it was shot in B&W and tinted red or blue. It's fairly well shot and the sets are fairly good. It's enjoyable but my attention would wonder occasionally. You can see it on YouTube in the link above. I doubt I'm going to get back around to it but I only paid a couple of bucks for it, so I'm not out much.

Science Fiction Sunday 467

Independents' Day is a 2016 SF film from The Asylum and it scores a stunning 1.9 on the IMDb. Sixty-five percent of the votes were a one. I gave it a 1 too.  I should have given them a one two punch but who's got the time to run out to LA for some old fashion vengeance. I'D is running on Amazon Prime and I thought I'd watch it to use some of my memberships perks. It was made and marketed to cash in on the release of Independence Day: Resurgence. For some reason I haven't seen that yet. I just put it on my Netflix queue, we'll see what it's like in a few days.

The alien invasion in I'D has the rather poorly rendered CGI aliens arrive and tell the Human's that they're going to be moved off the Earth because they're violent thugs. Any human's that don't make it onto the transport ships by a certain date will be exterminated. The aliens will then terraform the planet for themselves. Supposedly the human's will have a new start on a new planet. The aliens load the human's on their transport, suck the blood out of them and then toss the lifeless bodies into space. Some human's fight back and as you might suspect they beat the aliens. 

The production is the typical low budget stuff with lots of scenes shot on green screen. The 500K budget seems larger than a lot of their budgets. The script is weak and the actors fair to poor. It's often from these low budget films that actors get their first credits. That might be the best thing about the movie, what I was seeing on the screen made me bored. Not something to recommend to anyone, the only thing I got out of it was another name on my Watched Movie List.

It's the same for my second feature from Amazon Prime. Moontrap Target Earth scores higher on the IMDb, a 2.4, than the previous movie but I thought it was a worse movie, at least story wise. It has about half the votes and 45% of those were 1s. It's does have a nice robot but most of the CGI is pretty piss poor. The story is about finding an artifact that might turn out to be valuable. A young couple, both scientists, go to work for a mysterious guy called Richard. He's got a henchwoman kills people. After he's done with the couple Richard sends henchwoman to  murder them. The annoying girlfriend survives and seeks vengeance. She fails. Richard is ready to kill her but it turns out she has some mysterious connection to the artifact. After visiting the artifact it activates and she winds up on the moon in a dissatisfying ending. The script is weak, and rather amateurish. The red robot on the moon is fairly descent but it loses some marks for it's lack of movement, especially after the lack luster battle with the blue robot on the moon. Another movie that isn't worthy to be part of my collection.

Friday Night Movies 658

We watched a movie and it's sequel tonight, not something that happens that often. The first movie was Dear God No! and it came out in 2011. It's a low budget Indy film written and directed by James Bickert. I hadn't seen any of the direct to video movies he's done already, though you can see his 2000 film  Dumpster Baby on YouTube.

Dear God No! is about a gang of murderin', rapin' bikers, called the Impalers, who have a new policy of leaving no witnesses during their crimes. That kid in the picture, he couldn't outrun a bullet. The Impalers scumbag ways cause such a stir in the area, hardly anyone likes nuns getting raped and murdered, that the head of the local biker association tries to reign them in. Two of the Impalers are his sons and they decide to stab their Dad as an answer to his request that they cool it. That pisses off the local biker gangs and they're on the trail of the Impalers.

After a series of fights the Impalers take over the cabin of a ex-Nazi mad scientist who has an interest in mutations. He's got one in his basement. It's a mighty Sasquatch like beast that rips the head off everyone he meets, unless he tears them in two. The bikers had hoped for a quiet place to hole up, maybe have a bit of rape and murder, but they get a monster that beats their asses.

It's not a great movie but mostly it was entertaining. There's a bit of it that gets fairly nasty as the bikers rape a pregnant woman and rip out her baby. It just underscores the need to rip the heads off those scummy bikers. There's a fairly good sense of humor and some good gore. The script is fairly good and Bickert captures the look and feel of a 70s biker film well enough. I could use less of the fake film damage that is applied to the film. It's quick moving and doesn't flag too often. I was happy to have seen it but it's sure not for everyone.

Sadly the 2016 sequel, Frankenstein Created Bikers, is a bloated, ponderous behemoth that needs some editing. At 125 minutes it's a good half hour way too long. It slows down so much at times that the movie seems like it's 3 hours. The story picks up where the first movie ends. The ex-Nazi Mad Scientist didn't die from the hail of bullets and his burning house collapsing on him. He manages to resurrect nearly everyone from the first movie but things aren't going to well. Everyone's mad at everyone and they stop the movie to complain to each other. That part of the dialog was sure poor, all the good will from the first film was squandered by the tedious characters yakkin' away. At least he didn't add all the fake film damage. In the 5 years between films writer director James Bickert has improved in his ability to put images on screen but his writing has suffered. He needed someone to tell him it's way too long and uninteresting. After awhile a lot of the characters sounded the same. Too bad, I liked that first movie well enough to consider the Blu-ray of FCB, it has the first movie as a bonus, but the lack of fun in FCB has put me off. I'll settle for the copy of DGN! that's on YouTube right now. You can find it in the link above but beware it's not for the squeamish. Both movies are the kind of movies that are going to offend someone.

Lazer Team 2015

Lazer Team is a barely average SF comedy about an alien invasion. Humans on earth are expecting help from some aliens. They are sending a powered combat suit for the Earth champion to wear in the fight against another alien race for the right to Earth to survive. Four idiots find the suit before the army and wind up with one part of the suit on each guy. Now the Army wants them to fight the alien champion. There's a few laughs but not too many. Not something I would bother with again now that I've seen it.

Trailer Park Boys Season 6

The 6th season of Trailer Park Boys came out back in April and May 2006 and there were 6 episodes. While I was in Winnipeg last month I was sad to see a segment on the local news about the death of John Dunsworth who played Mr Lahey on the program. In season 6 Mr Lahey turns his life around in order to get his own back on Ricky, Julian and Bubbles. He actually get reinstated in the police. I can't imagine that will last. Julian has some luck this season, he's made some money selling home brew in prison, he buys a trailer and works on fixing it up. Ricky doesn't do much to getting his life turned around but he manages to stay out of jail this season. Bubbles does well with his kitten sitting service and Sarah, Cory and Trevor have opened a "Convenients Store". There's a problem with a chicken but that all works itself out and Trinity graduates grade six. You need your grade six. I got a few laughs and was sad there were only 6 episodes. Lucky for me, there are 5 more seasons to go.