PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 777

Color Out Of Space sees Richard Stanley return to feature film making after a long absence. All he'd made were documentaries since he got fired from The Island Of Dr Moreau back in 1996. That's a movie with some major issues behind the scenes and the final product didn't turn out worth seeing.

What's worth seeing are Richard's two best movies, Hardware and Duct Devil. I've not seen his only other feature film Brave, it just didn't seen like the sort of movie that I would want to watch. I've seen the documentaries that were included with the nice multi disc set of Dust Devil but they weren't of any real interest to me.

HP Lovecraft wrote the story The Colour Out Of Space back in 1927 and part of the story is set in 1882. Richard and Scarlett Amaris wrote the screenplay which they've set in the modern day. Some Lovecraft fans are digging the adaptation. I haven't read that story since I was a teen and don't remember a thing about it. I remember more of what happened in Die Monster, Die. That was a 1965 adaptation that I watched not too long ago. It's much less effects based than this new adaptation.

Nicholas Cage and Joely Richardson are the parents of three kids and they've moved into the country to get away from the big city. When the meteor falls they might have wished that they stayed there but things move so fast that they didn't have time to reflect before the nasty alien shit pretty much fucks them to death. Not much hope going on here. I liked parts of the story but other parts made me bored. I'm debating getting the movie but I'm not sure I want to bother with it again. I'm just not a big Lovecraft fan. There's talk, by Richard Stanley, of a Lovecraft trilogy of films, The Dunwich Horror might be next. I would be more interested in that. I liked the 1970 version with Dean Stockwell.

Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity is a 1987 Full Moon picture written and directed by Ken Dixon. He adapted the Richard Connell story The Most Dangerous Game somewhat poorly. It might be the reason that it's Ken's last movie, it was his 2nd feature, after his 1975 movie The Erotic Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe. That was retitled Bangin' Friday in my imagination. Ken directed 4 documentaries that feature unconnected clips from horror and SF films, one devoted to gore, one to nudity, another to violence, the last to zombies.

Two women, prisoners in a space prison, escape in a ship only to have trouble, they are forced to land on a planet. They find the place a bit of a jungle but manage to find the one house. A guy named Zed lives there, he takes them in and then hunts them. Cindy Beal and Elizabeth Kaitan are the space prisoners, Elizabeth seemed familiar, she was one of the three leads in the 1988 comedy Assault Of The Killer Bimbos. That was a fun movie, not great, but fun.

Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity is fun and kind of entertaining, it's just well below average. I gave it a generous 4 but haven't got much interest in getting a copy.

Inglorious Bastards 2 Hell Heroes

Inglorious Bastards 2 Hell's Heroes is an Italian sequel to 1978 film The Inglorious Bastards. Both are heavily patterned after The Dirty Dozen but neither are as good. It's packaged with three other Italian War movies, four movies all on one disc. It gets better. All are full screen pan and scan with so-so quality video. Apocalypse Mercenaries is a 1987 film, dubbed into English, with Japanese subtitles burned into the image. You can't shut them off, same goes for War Bus II, an 1989 movie also known as Afghanistan: The Last War Bus. The last movie is the 1986 film Bridge To Hell.

Most of them have an American star to help sell the movie. Miles O'Keeffe and Fred Williamson in Inglorious Bastards 2: Hell's Heroes, John Vernon in War Bus II, and Andy J Forest in Bridge To Hell.

All have groups of Allied soldiers behind Nazi lines to tackle a mission. They shoot the shit out of the Nazis, slowing down only to blow up more Nazis. Then there's plenty of walking about and hiding from the Nazis. Even those bastards seem to know that you can't shoot all the Nazis at one time.

None of them are particularity good but they do blow up a lot of stuff. It was only $4.95 over at Hamilton Books, more on Amazon, but hardly worth that. Doubtful that I'll watch them all again.

Dr Benderfax 1997

Dr Benderfax is a 1997 mad scientist comedy that was written and directed by Tom Hosler. It's his only movie and he has 11 total credits for it on the IMDb. I saw it on Amazon Prime and it follows a lot of the MS themes. Older MS onto a new process at his lab, young scientist coming to work for the MS because he admires the man's work, a bit of romance for the YS and a bit of rumpy-pumpy for the MS's assistant. Everything falls apart along the way and some poor saps get killed. Nothing was overly clever but there were a few good jokes in among the yakkin'. I wouldn't need to see it again or have a copy.

Some Will, Some Won't 1970

Some Will, Some Won't is a 1970 remake of Laughter In Paradise. Larry Schwarz wrote the screenplay and Duncan Wood directed. Larry is a veteran script writer working mostly in TV. I haven't seen most of the shows he wrote for but I have seen the episodes of Carry On Laughing! he wrote, as well as the one episode of Space: 1999. Larry wrote very few movies and some of them are in The British Film series, I might get to them someday.

It's the same story, four varied relatives get a task from the deceased. Do it or no money. Ronnie Corbett, Thora Hird, Michael Horndern and Leslie Phillips play the four. Wilfred Brambell Dennis Price, James Robertson Justice, Arthur Lowe and Barbara Murray are some of the cast members I knew. Not as funny a script as the original and the characters aren't quite as likeable. I still got a laugh or two and I was glad to have added it to my collection.

Laughter In Paradise 1951

Laughter In Paradise is a 1951 British comedy with a story and screenplay by Michael Pertwee and Jack Davies, direction by Mario Zampi. Michael is older brother to Jon Pertwee, he's related to a bunch more Pertwee's who work in the entertainment industry. He started writing with the 1938 movie The Man With 100 Faces, he continued turning out scripts and plays until he passed away in 1991. I didn't recognize a lot of his work through the late 50s but after that he had some notable films like Make Mine Mink, The Mouse On The Moon, Strange Bedfellows and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. He worked on a lot of TV shows including The Saint, Adventures In Paradise, Danger Man, Secret Agent, The World Of Wooster and The Persuaders!.

Left to right we've got Ernest Thesiger, Guy Middleton, Alastair Sim, Fay Compton and George Cole. Ernest is the executor of the other four's recently late relative, he calls them all in for a bit of good news, they all get a big payout but there's a catch. They have to preform a certain task to get the dosh. Guy is a hound for the ladies, he has to marry the first unmarried women he meets after the reading. Fay is a mean old snob who treats her servants poorly, she has to take a job as a servant for 28 days. Alastair writes crime thrillers, he has to get arrested and jailed for 28 days. He's attempts at shoplifting are pretty silly. George is a timid bank clerk, he has to hold up the bank manager and get hold of his keys for 2 minutes. They all have a mix of success and failure in their attempts.

There's a whole pile of other actors I'm fond of, Hugh Griffith, Joyce Grenfell, John Laurie, Leslie Dwyer, Colin Gordon and Audrey Hepburn in her second appearance on film. She had appeared in a 1948 Dutch film for 43 seconds.

The script is fun, active and full of gags. There's a bit of melodrama and a nice ending. The public liked it when it came out, the Wikipedia tells me that it was the 4th most popular film at the box office for 1951. I was glad for a look and I'll watch it again. I got it part of an Alastair Sim collection from the UK.

Science Fiction Sunday 576

Aniara is a 1960 Swedish TV movie that's based on the 1956 Aniara poem by Harry Martinson. It's been turned into a science fiction opera Karl-Birger Blomdahl and Erik Lindegren. It was preformed several times in 1959. The TV version was directed by Arne Arnbom. There's a 2018 adaptation that I haven't seen.

The story is about a spaceship that is transporting people from Earth to Mars. It has a collision with an asteroid and winds up lost in space. It's a very minimalist production, there are only a few sets, you can get an idea of them from the pictures. Sadly there seem to be very few images available online and the download I found crashes VLC Player when I try to do a screen capture. The download has English subtitles. I found it a hard slog, it helped to speed it up a bit. There's not a lot of story exposition, between the singing bits there is a good bit of dead space with nothing much happening. There's also a good bit of interpretive dance. I thought the concept was interesting, I liked the costumes and sets, the opera style is of little interest to me, though I have liked bits of opera music from time to time. Glad to have seen it, I'll keep the download but it's likely I won't bother to watch it again. You can read about the poem and see the TV movie in the links in the titles above.

Astro is a 2018 SF movie directed by Asif Akbar, he wrote it with Bernard Selling. It's about a rich guy's space program, Alexander Biggs is working with some ancient aliens from another dimension. They've built a space craft and taken it into space, they returned with a captured alien that has the DNA of a guy named Jack, a guy that Biggs knew from his Army days. Biggs wants to know how that DNA got there and he goes after Jack. There's plenty of running about and stuff you'd expect in a low budget SF movie, lots of yakking and walking through corridors. It goes on and on and I was not liking it much at all. Especially when it ended on a cliff hanger. I speed this one up too. I'm getting to old to waste time on this sort of thing. Don't watch it. I found it at Dollar Tree for a buck, I'll keep it to remind me that I wasted that buck. I won't watch it again, out of spite.

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.

Left Right And Center 1959

Left Right And Center is a 1959 British comedy. The copy I have is in the Alastair Sim Collection from Studio Canal. Sidney Gilliat and Val Valentine wrote the original story, Sidney wrote the screenplay and directed. Sidney's old pal Frank Launder is the producer. There's a great cast, Patricia Bredin, Eric Barker, Russell Waters, Hattie Jacques, Ian Carmichael, Richard Wattis, Moyra Frazer, Alastair Sim, John Sharp, Gordon Harker, Bill Shine and an uncredited Sidney Gilliat.

Patricia is the Labor candidate and Ian is the Conservative candidate. Ian's rich uncle, Lord Wilcot, is played by Alastair Sim. He's only in the movie for a few scenes but he's highly entertaining. He's turned his big house and grounds into a tourist attraction with all sorts of activities going on. Activities with a price tag, tea shop, gift shop, anything to make a buck. He's the one that sets it up for Ian to run for office. Ian's a bit of a wet blanket and hardly ambitious but he goes along with the scheme even after he finds his uncle only helped him because he saw a way to make more money. Gordon Harker plays Lord Wilcot's butler.

Both candidates have a team that's working to get them elected. Eric Barker heads up the Labor team and Richard Wattis heads up the Conservative team. Both are excellent as professional campaigners, fighting an uphill battle with amateur candidates. Ian and Patricia do all the wrong things and eventually fall for each other. Eric and Richard take to colluding with each other to get their rivalry back on track. It all works out in the end, at least for Ian and Patricia. The political machine grinds on. I had a laugh. The set has been quite entertaining so far and there's still a couple to watch.

Midnight Man 2015

Despite it's dubious gimmick I enjoyed Midnight Man for the most part. It's a 2016 crime comedy with Will Kemp as an assassin that doesn't feel any pain. His genetic disorder is the part of the gimmick that I have mixed feelings about. The movie makes out that he's a top assassin and that his GD is handy when Will's caught and tortured. I kept thinking if he's such a great assassin why is he being caught and tortured. Of course, the plot flip is that he loses that ability, now he's got to spend the rest of the movie getting beat up and yelling from the pain. It's almost like they thought of that first and then built the script on that premise. Director DC Hamilton wrote the script with Brinna Kelly. They have a fairly fun script and, other than that bit of a quibble about the pain thingy, it turned out to be a fun, violent and bloody knockabout with nice parts for William Forsythe, Vinnie Jones, Brent Spiner and Doug Jones. I got the DVD for a buck and that was well worth it. I might never get around to it again but that's OK, it was only a buck.

Top Of The Form 1953

Top Of The Form is a 1953 British film directed by John Paddy Carstairs. It's based on an original story by Anthony Kimmins, Val Guest, Leslie Arliss and Marriott Edgar. The screenplay is by John Paddy Carstairs, Patrick Kirwan and Ted Willis with additional dialogue by Sid Colin.

In a story that has some similarities to the Will Hay comedy Good Morning, Boys in that a bookmaker hides out from some baddies by pretending to be a professor at a boy's school. Ronald Shiner plays the bookie and he's not quite as entertaining as Will to me. Much of the action is set at the school with jokes about school, exams, bookmaking, that sort of thing. There's a trip to Paris that sees the students in the casinos and getting in the middle of a plot the steal the French Crown Jewels.

Some of his fellow staff and students are played by Alfie Bass, Anthony Newley, Howard Marion-Crawford, Richard Wattis, Kynaston Reeves, Martin Benson, Harry Fowler, Gerald Campion, Ronnie Corbett and plenty I don't know. They did a good job and I got a laugh or two. Glad I picked it up.