PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 775

Mutant Blast 2018 Written by Fernando Alle, Adrián Cardona and Alex Duda, directed by Fernando Alle. A postapoc movie from Portugal. Released in the US by Troma.

A hungover guy wakes up from a party to find someone has drawn a mustache on his lips and a penis on his chin. If that wasn't annoying enough, a secret government organization has accidentally released some of it's failed experiments from their super soldier program. The failed experiments are infectious and eat human flesh but they aren't zombies. No matter.

Our guy goes out for a look around and runs into a lady soldier and one of the more successful super soldiers. The lady soldier accidentally shots the super soldier in the head. She blames our guy for it but it's her gun in her hand. While our guy and the lady soldier are heading for a rendezvous the secret organization blows off some nukes. Instant mutants appear and our guy isn't immune to the mutating power of the bombs.

Still our guy's better off than a lot of the blast victims, the lucky people die, the unlucky ones mutate. Our guy's left hand falls off and a rat grows out of the stump. Then things get crazy.

I thought it was a good laugh and several of them were out loud. Very much the sort of movie Troma is famous for, plenty of gore, jokes and weird characters, just funnier and better made than a lot of their product. I'd recommend it to the sort of movie fan that likes those kind of movies. You can see a nice 1080p version on YouTube in the link above. According to the director the Troma Blu-ray is a few seconds off when playing the subtitles. That would be annoying, the YouTube video is fine and looks great.

Last Sentinel 2023 Written by Malachi Smyth and directed by Tanel Toom. Found on Amazon Prime. I was disappointed to find Amazon is going to start inserting commercials in their free with membership movies. It doesn't surprise me one bit. I'm already down on the service because it doesn't offer variable speed playback. It's hard to watch crappy movies at normal speed.

The movie is a boring bottle story about 4 people on a outpost way out at sea. They shot the tower scenes in one of the Redsand Towers Sea Forts in the ocean off of Kent in the UK. It's 2063 and the world has become submerged in water. There are only two small continents poking out of the ocean. Of course they are fighting with each other.

Most of the movie is the 4 people falling apart. They aren't clever and they've been having issues dealing with their situation. There's a twist at the end that you can see coming. Dull and uninteresting. Don't bother with it.

Friday Night Movies 975

The Young Master 1980 Written by Jackie Chan, Edward Tang, Lau Tin-chi and Tung Lu, directed by Jackie Chan. The second film directed by Jackie and the first at Golden Harvest. It's the 5th film in the Criterion set. The Blu-ray has the 106 min cut. Most of the previous US releases are of the 90 min international cut.

Jackie's brother Tiger is kicked out of kung fu school for cheating and Jackie goes after him. Tiger falls in with some scum who set him up during a robbery. Jackie has a series of adventures and fights that end with a big battle with the robber who set Tiger up.

There's all sorts of action, like a lion dance, and plenty of stunts and fights. Golden Harvest gave Jackie a good budget, nice sets and plenty of extras.

There's an info packed commentary by Frank Djeng.

My Lucky Stars 1985 Story by Lo Kin, Barry Wong and Cheuk-Hon Szeto, screenplay by Barry Wong, directed by Sammo Hung. The 6th and last film in the Criterion set.

Jackie is a cop called Muscles, he gathers his childhood friends to help him catch a yakuza crook in Japan. Sammo Hung plays Kidstuff, he's let out of jail to round up the old gang. They spend a good bit of time doing that. Eventually they meet up with the cop in charge of them. He's framed them with a bank robbery and forces them to work with Muscles. Sibelle Hu plays their handler Inspector Woo, she's nicked named Poison Ivy. They take a good long bit of the movie playing pranks on her. She should have punched them more.

There's a nice mix of goofy comedy and action. It's not all fighting, there's a nice car chase with a jump over a truck. There's not enough Jackie. He shows up at the start and then doesn't show up again for another hour. There's plenty of nice locations for the action. I especially liked the fight in the haunted house ride at the fairgrounds.

All the movies in the set look fine and there are some extras for most films.

Murder Is Easy 2023

Murder Is Easy 2023 Adapted from Murder Is Easy by Agatha Christie, screenplay by Sian Ejwunmi-Le Berre, directed by Meenu Gaur.

A new Agatha Christie adaptation from the BBC. It's a 2 part story set in 1954. A Nigerian man meets a woman on the train to London. She tells him of some murders in her town, the coroner turned in an accidental death verdict but she's not convinced. Neither is the Nigerian, at least until the poor lady is struck by a car on the street. Soon, the bodies are piling up like cord wood. 

It's a well paced story with plenty of characters and nice locations. Good cast, well dressed.

Science Fiction Sunday 774

Island Zero 2018 Written by Tess Gerritsen and directed by Josh Gerritsen. A below average predator from the deep film that barely has an SF element. This is Josh's first film. His second film Magnificent Beast, released in 2022, is a documentary about pigs, it's got no ratings on the IMDb and I'm not planning to watch it.

Back at Island Zero. Some people live on an island off the coast of Maine. Strange deaths start happening, fishermen disappear from their boats. The ferry doesn't come one day and everyone is on their own. Food and fuel are quickly running out. A scientist has been studying the area. He has a bit of data but it turns out the novelist on the island is way ahead of him. The novelist is really working for a terribly boring and incredibly overused plot point.

Novel guy is part of a secret organization that's been studying some deep sea creatures for several years. The creatures are invisible to the naked eye. The secret organization want to weaponize the creatures. Personally I'm way tired of the secret evil organization with it's own agenda and total entitlement. Much over used. If you watch this sort of film in quantity then you've seen it all before. There's nothing new here. Move along.

Occupation 2018 Written and directed by Luke Sparke, additional dialogue by Felix Williamson. An Aussie alien invasion film that falls well below average.

Aliens come and invade, plenty of fighting in the woods. Boring beyond belief. Crappy CGI.

I found both on Amazon Prime for free with membership. At least I didn't have to pay any extra. That would be insulting. Another thing that's insulting is the 62% of the votes are a 7 or up. Someone has flush pockets.

Friday Night Movies 974

The Fearless Hyena 1979 Written and directed by Jackie Chan. The 3rd and 4th films in the Criterion Jackie Chan set.

Jackie plays Hing-lung, the lazy grandson of Pang-fei. They live in a small village. Hing-lung gambles and fights. Grandfather wants him to keep their fighting ability secret. When Hing-lung meets the sifu of the Everything Clan he's offered a job at the school. The sifu is looking for a new school name and Hing-lung suggests his fighting style, the exact thing that his grandfather warned against bandying about.

Of course, a baddie sees the name and tracks Pang-fei down. Hing-lung comes home to find his grandfather beaten to death. He has to go through the usual sort of training and fighting in order to defeat the baddie.

There's a fair bit of lowbrow comedy and slapstick going on. I got a few laughs but not that many. I did like the chopstick fight over lunch. I thought Jackie dressing up as a lady was some what amusing but didn't think that him dressing up as a cross-eyed handicap man is the sort of thing I want to see. The training sessions were lengthy as was the big fight at the end of the movie.

The only extra is a commentary by Frank Djeng. It was interesting and Frank spoke fast.

The Fearless Hyena II 1979 Written by Lo Wei and directed by Chuan Chen.

A not very funny auctioneer that had Jackie in it before he left Lo Wei  to go to Golden Harvest. After Jackie leaves, the film makers use Jacky Chung as a double. They use clips from The Fearless Hyena and Spiritual Kung-Fu.

No extras on this one. I know I'm be embarrassed to talk about it myself.

Emoh Ruo 1985

Emoh Ruo 1985 Written by Paul Leadon and David Poltorak, directed by Denny Lawrence. An Australian comedy about home buying and BBQs.

A young couple buy a house in a new development only to find that it's a lemon. There's plenty of larrikin good humor, though I don't think it lives up to the poster's claim that it's The Funniest Aussie Movie Ever! I thought it was about average as a comedy. I did like that BBQs saved the day for the young couple. You can check it out on the Internet Archive. You might get a laugh or two out of it.

Temptation Harbour 1947

Temptation Harbour 1947 Adapted from Newhaven-Dieppe, also known as L'Homme de Londres or Affairs of Destiny, a novella by Georges Simenon, screenplay by Rodney Ackland and Frederick Gotfurt, directed by Lance Comfort.

 

A British crime film that's heavy on the drama. Robert Newton plays the night signalman on the rail line into the docks. One night he sees a fight on the docks, one man falls into the water with a case and the other man runs away. Robert jumps into the dark water to save him. He fails but retrieves the case floating on the water. He takes it back to the signal shed and discovers it contains £5000. That's his daughter Betty in the picture above, she's played by Margaret Barton.

When Betty steals a bit of kidney from the butcher shop she works at Robert admonishes her for making a weak excuse. His honesty will soon take a beating as he skips going to the police with the case of cash,it gets worse after Simone Simon enters the picture.

 

William Hartnell plays the baddie. He wants that case back. After failing to find it at the docks he starts poking around the area. It won't take him long to start suspecting Robert. There's a bit of cat and mouse as Robert tries to elude him. Things don't work out well for  either of them.

It's got a decent story, a good script and it's well shot and presented. It's a good reminder why Robert Newton is still a favorite with me. It got a 7 from me over at the IMDb. You can see a 1080p copy on YouTube. See link above.

Science Fiction Sunday 773

Babylon 5 Blu-ray Box Set 2023

The newly arrived Blu-ray set of Babylon 5 arrived more than a week ago. I've only watched two discs so far. First was the pilot movie The Gathering. It's pretty much the same as on the DVD releases. Sad, but that's what there is. The second disc contained the first 5 episodes of season 1. They are much nicer looking and they aren't cropped to widescreen like the DVD sets were. The images are nice and clear. I don't have a good enough sound system to know how much better the sound it.

I wish the set was packed with extras but it doesn't look like it. There's a trailer for The Gathering and another for The Road Home on The Gathering disc. There's nothing on the first disc of Season 1. There's nothing on the box indicating any extras, there's no booklet or any other kind of razzmatazz you'd expect for a nice Box Set, there's no mention of extras on Blu-ray.com. I'll be keeping my old DVDs as they have some good extras.

I didn't care for the plastic disc holders either. I took all the discs out of the Box Set and put them in paper sleeves. So much easier to handle. I even made a stiff paper box for the discs to sit inside the hollowed out case. Fits fine and the discs are easy access.

The new Doctor Who Blu-ray Box Set has the same cases, I really don't like them. Luckily none of the Doctor's discs were loose or scratched. I understand they could have shaken loose in transit, especially if they were carelessly put on the hubs, but I don't see it happen with a lot of the sets I get. In the B5 set the discs were one per hubs. The Doctor Who discs were one disc or two per hub, a lot of the twos were loose. I'd say 6 or 7 out of the 54 discs. Lucky for me Blu-ray discs have that protective coating and the couple of scuff marks buffed right out.

I'm going to watch these a bit at a time but this will be the only post about the set. I'm not sure I'll bother with SSF after this week. I'm certainly not going to post a lot of pictures anymore. Typepad has been having a lot of issues uploading pictures of late. I don't need that frustration. I might go back to watching crappy SF movies on Amazon Prime. That'll either get a bit more out of my AP membership or make me more frustrated.

Friday Night Movies 973

Half A Loaf Of Kung Fu 1978 Written by Jackie Chan and Tang Ming-chi, directed  by Chen Chi-hwa. The first of 6 older Jackie Chan film in the new Criterion release Jackie Chan - Emergence Of A Superstar.

Jackie plays a guy called Jiang in this kung fu comedy/parody. Jiang fails to get a job as a bodyguard and takes a job as a handyman. He finds out quickly that the place is home to an evil witch. Of course, he peeks into her room, after people have told me to steer clear. He gets spotted by the witch and she wants him dead for interrupting her snake ceremony. Jiang manages to escape and goes on the run.

In the nearby woods, Jiang is witness to a fight between two kung fu masters. It's a fight to the death, in this case, both men die. Jiang takes on the identity of the good kung fu expert and takes the body of the bandit to the town council. There's a 500 tael reward. Jiang will get beat up by the sister of the good kung fu expert because his kung fu is pretty darn poor.

Jiang gets involved with some people who want to move goods from one town to another. Three groups of baddies, including the evil witch, team up to attack the caravan. They believe the rumors of a great kung fu treasure hidden in the chests. Many many die before good triumphs.

As a kung fu movie it's does fairly well, I'm just not as fond of the long drawn out fights and training sequences that were popular at the time. Things were improve in the 80s. As for the comedy part, some of the jokes work better for me than others. The comedy is pretty broad and there's plenty of slapstick and some fart jokes.

Casting Jackie in roles that might have gone to Bruce Lee or other more serious action characters just didn't gel with the audiences back then. Giving Jackie more control, first over the action and later the script, gave him a chance to find his style and the audience liked what they were seeing. In just a few years he was one of Asia's biggest movie stars.

FOUR-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• 2K digital restorations of Spiritual Kung Fu, The Fearless Hyena, Fearless Hyena II, The Young Master, and My Lucky Stars and high-definition digital restoration of Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• Alternate stereo and 5.1 surround Cantonese soundtracks
• Classic English-dubbed tracks for Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, Spiritual Kung Fu, The Fearless Hyena, and Fearless Hyena II, plus an English-dubbed alternate track for Fearless Hyena II
• Contemporary English-dubbed tracks for The Young Master and My Lucky Stars
• New audio commentaries for The Fearless Hyena and The Young Master featuring Hong Kong cinema expert and producer Frank Djeng (Enter the Clones of Bruce)
• Interview with author Grady Hendrix (These Fists Break Bricks) about actor-director Jackie Chan
• Archival interviews with Chan, actor-director Sammo Hung, actors Michiko Nishiwaki and Hwang In-shik, and more
• The Young Master promo reel from the 1980 Cannes Film Festival and deleted scenes from the film
• Interview from 2005 with Hong Kong cinema critic Paul Fonoroff about producer-director Lo Wei
• NG shots from The Young Master and My Lucky Stars
• Trailers
• New English subtitle translations
• PLUS: An essay by Alex Pappademas
  
  New cover by Kyle Baker

I'm looking forward to the Frank Djeng commentaries. Frank was the guy behind Tai Seng Video back in the 90s. I rented 100s of their VHS tapes from the nearly dozen Asian rental companies scattered around the Twin Cities. The only thing about the set I wasn't impressed with were the Kyle Baker illustrations. He's got the action poses but fails in the face.

Spiritual Kung Fu 1978 Written by Pan Lei and directed by Lo Wei. The second film in the Criterion Box set.

A more traditional kung fu film produced under Lo Wei's own company. This film and Dragon Fist were temporarily shelved as Lo's company was running out of cash. Lo loaned Jackie out to Seasonal Films where he acted in Snake In The Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master. Both films were directed by Yuen Woo-ping. He'd go onto direct many big hits in the genre, including Magnificent Butcher, Dreadnaught, Iron Monkey, Tai Chi Master and Wing Chun. He was even more active as a fight and stunt choreographer. The popularity of the Season films were enough to convince Lo he should release the two films he had on hold. It wasn't enough to keep the company going and it folded soon after. Jackie signed on with Golden Harvest.

Jackie is a student at a Shaolin Temple. He's the guy who's always in trouble and not that good a fighter. The night he falls asleep on guard duty the temple is robbed and an old fighting manual is stolen. The techniques in the book are banned because they are so deadly. The only manual on how to fight those styles has been missing for 1oo years. Sad, where's your back up Shaolin monks?

Jackie is punished and has to guard the haunted library. Lucky for him a meteor shower releases 5 ghosts from the manual, The book has been hidden in a crack in the wall all this time. Jackie gets trained up by the ghosts and becomes a good fighter. He sets out to find the thief.

The action scenes are more interesting than a lot of the films of the time and despite it's more serious nature the gags are slightly better than the the previous film. Both were fun to watch and I'm looking forward to getting into the rest of the box set.

The Sixth Secret 2022

The Sixth Secret 2022 Written and directed  by Mart Sander. I watched it on Amazon Prime, free with subscription. An Estonian film in English set in Britain about 1938.

It's a murder mystery involving a seance and plenty of double crosses. Some people meet for a seance that's supposed to reveal people's secrets. A dozen people sit down but some of them leave. A young man dies but it's all a trick, several people are murdered, most of them off camera.

The characters have accents and some of the actors are better at that then others. The main actors aren't too bad but the dialog they have to say isn't that good. There's a good bit going on in the script, perhaps too much, especially when it comes to all the double crosses.

It's said to cost €60,000 and it looks it. There's the one big main set, a few flashbacks in small rooms, and some mediocre CGI. It's often touted as horror but there's nothing horrific here but the main characters. Despite the seance there's nothing supernatural, except the ghosts who've been voting the IMDb score up. I haven't seen such tampering in a while.

Over 81.3% of the votes are 7 or up. I was generous and gave it a four, deserved a three. The reviews are mostly tens. Here's a favorite.

Gordon Bleu, not hot dog 5 July 2022

Normally I would give this film something like 8, but I'm a bit surprised by the lower rating. This is indeed a gordon bleu and it seems a lot of low rates come from the hot dog munchers. The problem is that you would need to know your classic cinema to understand, let alone enjoy this flick, which parodies several films from yesteryears. If you only watch recent teenage action films, give this one a miss.

 

Back to me: It made me laugh when I read that. I might take that guy more seriously if he knew it was cordon bleu. Oh well, I've wasted too much time on this as it is.