PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Hell's Kitchen Season 6 US

Season 6 of Hell's Kitchen has Gordon yelling at some new contestants. The show aired back in 2009 and there is a quarter mill on the line. The guy who won didn't get the head chef job, he got a line cook job and left after a while. Most of the rest of the chefs are still working in the food industry with varying degrees of success. There's the usual challenges, rewards and punishments, and the big service for the guests of Hell's Kitchen. Why mess with a formula that works so well.

Portrait Of Alison 1955

Portrait Of Alison is a 1955 British crime drama that's based on a BBC TV series of the same name. The 6 episodes came out in February and March of 1955 and the film came out December 30. It came out in the US in 1956 under the title Postmark For Danger. The IMDb lists it by the US name and the Wikipedia uses the US copyright, it's something that happens quite a bit. The play is by Francis Durbridge, it was adapted for the screen by Ken Hughes and director Guy Green. Francis wrote a lot of TV episodes that I haven't seen. Ken wrote and directed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I've hardly seen any of his other work, though I did recently see Heat Wave and The Case Of The Red Monkey. The only other movie by Guy that I have seen is The Snorkel. I thought that was fairly good and creepy.

That's Terry Moore and Robert Beatty. He's an artist who's brother is a reporter. The brother is killed and Terry is supposed to have been killed too. When she turns up it gets Robert thinking something fishy might be going on. Some someone is killed, then another, then someone commits suicide, the bodies are stacking up. There's some crooks and stolen diamonds, a blackmailer, and a bit of romance. William Sylvester, William Lucas, Terence Alexander and Henry Oscar were the cast members I knew.

A good story told well, I was glad to have seen it. I'll certainly watch it again someday.

The Breaking Of Bumbo 1970

The Breaking Of Bumbo is a 1970 British comedy. Andrew Sinclair wrote the 1959 novel, he wrote the film's screenplay and directed. It's the first directorial job for Andrew, he'd follow that with Under Milk Wood and two others I hadn't heard of before. The Breaking Of Bumbo had a preview and did really poorly, because of that it wasn't released in the theaters, in 1975 it aired once on the BBC, since then, it's only occasionally played on TV. The 2013 Network DVD seems to be the first time it appeared on video. It's only got 55 votes on the IMDb so hardly anyone has seen it.

It's an early film for Richard Warwick and Joanna Lumley. Before TBOB Richard was in three films of some note, Franco Zeffirelli's Romero And Juliet, Lindsay Anderson's If..., and Richard Lester's The Bed Sitting Room. I saw all three in the theater and the latter two were quite different from my usual fare. I saw Romeo And Juliet on a school trip while I was in high school and the other two after I had graduated. Warwick continued to act in movies and TV until he passed away in 1997 at 52. TBOB was the third film for Joanna, she had small parts in Some Girls Do and On Her Majesty's Secret Service. She's still going strong in her 70s.

Richard plays Bumbo, he's in the military, he's been assigned to the brigade of Guards, the red coated guys with the big fur hats you see around the palace. It's a made up brigade for the movie. He meets Joanna and is easily swayed by her beauty. Bumbo is a naive idiot. Joanna's pals are counter culture types and they have anti-war thoughts. He tags along and their protest gets put into the paper. He gets yelled at but continues seeing Joanna. She loses interest in him. He tries to get his men to protest against the war, he wants them to drop their rifles on parade. His plan fails and the movie ends with him unconscious and being dragged back into the barracks.

Poor Bumbo fought the system and failed? Who cares, he was an idiot. I didn't care for him and I was hard pressed to find anything I liked about the rest of the characters. As a comedy it's lacking humor, as social commentary it's clumsy and dull, the dialog is awful at times, the film is often flat and static. I did like all the London scenery. I didn't like some of the bits that were loud and made no sense. The song over the opening credits is really poor. I wouldn't recommend the movie. Here's the trailer.

Midsomer Murders Series 21

I watched the new series of Midsomer Murders on Daily Motion. I'll pick up the DVDs when it comes out. There's murders galore in four new stories over 8 episodes. Murders set in the world of dance, doll houses, bees and fishing. I enjoyed the stories and thought they were about the same as the last series. I'd watch them again someday.

Science Fiction Sunday 566

Ascendance is a tedious 2017 SF film about the end of the world. I watched it, and the other films mentioned here, on Amazon Prime. It's made in New Zealand and it's written and directed by AK Strom. It's absolutely dull and uninteresting and they fail to use the New Zealand countryside to any advantage. Much of the movie is shot in some sort of bunker and there is a lot of stock footage. A young woman has some dreams about giant meteorites hitting the world and she gets visited by an Angel that's played by the director. He's no real help and the movie goes nowhere in it's journey. Well, just down into the bunker. I joined the third of the voters that gave the movie a 1 on the IMDb. Thankfully I'll be forgetting this soon enough.

Legends From The Sky is a 2015 film written and directed Travis Holt Hamilton. A battle scared soldier comes back to his home to find his grandfather's land has been taken over by the government. A spaceship had crashed on the farm and his grandfather is supposed to be dead. Edsel Pete plays the Navajo soldier, it's his first film role and he's a bit wooden, it kind of works for his character, a depressed soldier with survivor's guilt. Most of the other actors are amateur and they vary in talent. I often liked the characters despite the actor's flaws.

Edsel has been seeing his grandfather in his dreams and believes he's still alive. Edsel starts digging into his grandfather's disappearance with the help, or hindrance, of some of the locals. He finds there is a secret organization of Seekers and Watchers, people with supernatural powers. The guy in charge of quarantining the grandfather's land is aware of that and he's looking for something in the desert. He's got a sad backstory. Boo hoo.

The movie moves along fairly briskly as the various people chase about the desert. Some of the scenery in the South West is quite nice. Eventually the goodies and the baddies come together and there's a big light show with good coming out on top. Nice.

The film is fairly well made, despite the uneven acting and script. I did like the way they worked the Native legends into the film. You don't see many films with Native actors and that's kind of interesting in itself. I liked it better than a lot of the SF I've been seeing of late but I don't know that I'd need to go buy a copy for myself. Maybe if it turned up in one of those Mill Creek multi movie packs.

I tried watching The Bestowal but could not get past the first 15 minutes. It's just two people talking in a room. A guy is going to kill himself and a woman comes to talk to him. The IMDb says it's an inter-dimensional being but I never found out, I was too bored with them to continue listening to them blather on.

Malefica is a 2017 fantasy adventure short that turns out to be continued. Annoying. Still, that might save me time in the long run. I don't have to be disappointed by a feature length film. It's about a guy who goes into the wastelands to kill a powerful witch. There's not a lot of detail despite the good amount of blather going on. I was starting to speed it up before it was half over. Looks fair but lacks any flare.

Friday Night Movies 766

Tammy And The T-Rex was the first movie we watched. It's a 1994 movie that happened because director Stewart Rafill had a South American theater owner come to him with an offer to make a film with an animatronic T-Rex. There was no script and there was a time limit on the project, the T-Rex was headed for a Texas park and they only had a couple of weeks with it. The story, written by Stewart and Gary Brockette, took a week to write and they worked on the script as they shot the movie. Surprisingly it turned out better than it might have.

It was shot as an R film but the gore was cut from the first release in the US. We watched the new Vinegar Syndrome uncut DVD. Some of the gore effects are better than others. Occasionally one made me laugh. Good thing, the movie is a comedy. It's an early film for Paul Walker and Denise Richards, they play high school kids in love. Trouble is Denise has been dating a jealous monster named Billy, he kidnaps Paul and leaves him in a wild animal park. Paul gets mauled by a lion and winds up in the hospital. The mad scientist, played by Terry Kiser, steals him. It's all a bit clumsy that whole bit of business, Paul doesn't look like he was mauled, the explanation for it is weak at best. The director was constantly asking people for their input to make the film better as they were making it. I guess he didn't get the best advice.

Terry puts Paul's brain in the T-Rex model and it runs off. Paul kills Billy and some of his gang, other poor saps get the chomp too. Paul and Tammy are reunited but they still have to fight off the crazy mad scientist and the police. The T-Rex model is destroyed but Tammy keeps Paul's brain in a dish. She's on the look out for a new body. I liked the ludicrousness of it all, there were some funny jokes, most of the actors did a fair to good job. It was the weak script that was most annoying. I might want to see it again someday but I doubt that's going to happen, the Blu-ray is $35 and I wouldn't want to pay that.

Executive Koala is a 2005 Japanese film by the same director, Minoru Kawasaki, that directed The Calamari Wrestler, The World Sinks Except Japan, Kaiju Mono and The Monster X Strikes Back: Attack The G8 Summit. That's the films of his I've seen, they are comedies but they're more funny weird than funny ha ha. There's always the chance that some of the jokes don't translate to English very well. EK is the same way. It's about a koala that works in an office. He's man size, wears a suit, that's him on the DVD cover. No one seems to think this is anything weird, his boss is a rabbit. The police come and interview the koala about his girlfriend. She's been killed. Is he a suspect? He has trouble with blackouts. Maybe he did do it? More story elements are introduced that confuse the koala. He has a couple of fun dream sequences. Eventually we kind of know what happened. I was more interested in the story at first but about 2/3 of the way through my mind was wondering. I never got back on track. I would download the movie but not buy the DVD. That way if I never watch it again, I didn't waste any money on a DVD I never watched. I have enough of those, thank you, very much.

 

The Ghost Goes Gear 1966

The Ghost Goes Gear is a 1966 British pop music comedy starring the Spenser Davis Group, Acker Bilk, The Lorne Gibson Trio, The St Louis Union, Dave Berry, The Three Bells, and The M6. I knew of the first two but the rest are all strangers to me. There are a lot of numbers in the movie. They're all pretty short but the movie is only 79 minutes and there's barely any time for the story that supports the music.

The manager of the Spenser Davis Group is the son of Lady Rowthorpe. She's broke but she owns a haunted manor. The son works for the cash to help keep the estate afloat. The band comes to visit and suggest charging the public for a look around. Maybe they'll see the ghost. Another idea to attract crowds is to have a pop concert. All the talent above show up and there's oodles of lip synced singing.

Hugh Gladwish and Roger Dunton wrote the thing and Hugh directed. They do a good job getting something to look at up on the screen but they fall short on the story. I wanted to like the movie more but the haunted house story is weak, the jokes are weak and except for Spenser and Acker, the rest of the musical acts are kind of weak too. They aren't awful, they're just bland. I never laughed out loud but I snickered a couple of times. I found a copy online, there's a DVD on Amazon UK but it's £28 and there's only the one. I'm not getting that. You can see the movie, or download it, by following the link in the title above. I just wish it was better.

Hell's Kitchen 5 US

Hell's Kitchen Season 5 aired in 2009 and there were 15 episodes. There are 16 contestants of various talents, some of them had their signature dishes spit out by Chef Ramsay. That's often made funnier with a clip of the chef extolling their dish or talent. The lady who came from a buffet dining place didn't do so well. The cooking instructor who hadn't ever trained as a chef got told to fuck off back in line. He's a hard guy, that Gordon, he doesn't take any shit from anyone. He's arrogant but he's got the chops to back it up. I just read the other day he's made about $62 mill this year. That's from all the TV work and his many many restaurants. The cooking challenges and services are about the same. I've started speeding through some of those later in the season, they are often all the same. Cooking is only slightly more interesting than watching golf or tennis. I like the yelling and swearing more than the cooking. I do like looking at the dishes in the challenges but often I wouldn't want to eat them. It's perfect viewing when I want something to make me laugh and don't want to keep a plot in my mind. I watched many of the series so far while I was sorting through some LEGO.

The Gaunt Stranger 1938

The Gaunt Stranger is a 1938 British film that was released as The Phantom Strikes in the US. It an Ealing Studio's picture and it was directed by Walter Forde from a screenplay by Sidney Gilliat. It's based on a 1925 novel called The Gaunt Stranger by Edgar Wallace. That was revised the following year and renamed The Ringer. Forde had adapted The Ringer in his 1931 film of the same name. I have a copy of The Ringer in my Amazon UK wish list. I'll order that when it comes to the top of the list. Could be a while. The IMDb lists a 1939 BBC TV movie but I can't seem to find it anywhere online, the IMDb listing has no votes, same for the BBC's 1946 TV movie. No matter, there's still plenty of other Edgar Wallace adaptations to watch. More than I'll ever see, just counting the ones still available, glad I'm not trying to be a completest. A quick YouTube search will turn up dozens of them, Wallace is pretty popular in Germany for some reason.

The Ringer is a criminal, he was believed dead but he returns to England to get some revenge. Criminal mastermind Maurice Meister is the guy The Ringer is after, Maurice must die. Inspector Wembury has been assigned to keep Maurice among the living. He doesn't like Maurice and the CMM doesn't want him in his house or life. Wembury has the help of another criminal, Sam Hackett, who knows what The Ringer looks like. There are plenty of entertaining characters and they have some fairly nice sets to play around in. I enjoyed this better than many of the Edgar Wallace adaptations I've seen. I know I'll be watching it again before long, it's part of a collection of Ealing films that I have a plan to get watching at some point.

Dad's Army - The Lost Episodes

Dad's Army was one of the BBC TV shows that had some episodes go missing when the original tape copies were recorded over. Sometimes episodes are found but so far they haven't turned up. I've heard the episodes before, there are audio copies included in the British Complete Box set of the show. That, like this new DVD, is only available from the UK, it's not playable on regular Region 1 DVD players in the US. There is a best of DVD available in the US but it's only a few of the 80 episodes.

The three Lost Episodes have been recreated from the original scripts by Jimmy Perry and David Croft. The DVD with the episodes came out November 25 in the UK, it took a couple of weeks to get to me, I watched it today. I was highly entertained. They do a great job recreating the sets, props and look of the show.

The actors they picked are pretty darn amazing as the characters from the show. Kevin McNally, Robert Bathurst, Kevin Eldon, David Hayman, Mathew Horne, Timothy West and Tom Rosenthal play the main characters. Here's the original cast below.

I find the show funny and likeable. The stories are simple plots with fun dialog and great actors that make the characters come alive. I enjoyed their company and hope to do so again some time soon. It's one of the most beloved sitcoms in the UK. It's been in constant reruns since it was new. When the show was originally broadcast the peak audience reached 18 million. That's about 30% of the population tuning into the same show.