PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 498

We watched the BluRay of the 1988 remake The Blob. I hadn't seen it in a long while. It's written by Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont and directed by Russell. A meteor hits the earth and a pinkish goo comes oozing out. A poor homeless guy has first contact. He doesn't like it. Kevin Dillion is a bit of a motorcycle riding punk. He gets into trouble and the local sheriff doesn't care for him. Kevin is fixing his bike when the homeless guy tries to cut off his goo covered hand right in front of him. When the homeless guy runs off he's hit by a car driven by a young man who's on a date with Shawnee Smith. They all take the homeless guy to the hospital where the goo kills him and turns into a larger blob. More of the pink goo travels into the sewer system of the town and it starts killing people left and right. Soon the town is in an uproar. Kevin and Shawnee run about trying to stay alive while the blob is gobbling up the citizens. They also hold the key to getting the blob under control so I'm rooting for them. Men from a secret government organization show up and claim it's some for a plague. They push people around and do stupid things. They turn out to be the source of the pink goo. It's a virus that was sent into space where it mutated. That part of the plot is the part that I didn't care that much for when I first saw this in 1989 and I'm still not too happy with it. Joe Seneca is the head guy and he has some of the worst dialog in the film. He's ruthlessly keeping the secret of his project and he doesn't care how many people he kills. Luckily for me he gets slurped up by his own creation. It was more fun to watch than the last time I had seen it. It scores a 6.3 on the IMDb and that's about where it should be.

Our second feature was the 1964 British horror film Witchcraft. It's produced by Robert Lippert, written by Harry Spalding and directed by Don Sharp. It's US DVD release was in 2007 and it was part of the  Midnight Movies series from 20th Century Fox. It's packed with the movie we watched last week Devils Of Darkness. I was lucky to find it, and 4 other Midnight Movies, at the Family Dollar for 4 bucks each. Lon Chaney is the head of the Whitlock family. He's totally angry with local developer Lannier, and his partner Forrester, for bulldozing the Whitlock family plot at the cemetary. Lon refuses to move the graves after the cemetary was given over to deveolopment. Forrester is tired of waiting and he decides to go ahead with the bulldozing. The Lannier family live in the old Whitlock house. The Lannier ancestors had taken it from the Whitlock family in the 17th century. Vanessa Whitlock was a witch who had been buried alive during that same time period. When the bulldozers do their bulldozing her coffin is uncovered. Out pops Vanessa and she's all about getting her revenge on the Lanniers. She warms up with Mr Forrester, drowning him in his bath. To complicate things, Lon's daughter and Lannier's younger brother have fallen in love. Lannier's sister is killed when she drives her car off a cliff. The police are puzzled. Lannier's mom is the next target and she nearly dies. More crazyness is uncovered as Lannier's wife is lured down into the Whitlock family crypt. The Lannier's have a struggle to defeat the nasty witch. I enjoyed it, it may not be perfect but it's a good solid film. At 79 minutes there's not much time to waste on anything that doesn't carry the story along. There's usually  something going on to watch, a good villain, some nice locations and sets. I certainly feel I got my money's worth from this double movie DVD. I'd watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 497

Piranha 3DD was our first film tonight, it's the 2011 sequel to the 2010 remake. Danielle Pannabaker is the nearly half owner of a water park. The 51% owner is her step-dad, played by David Koechner, and he's a right sleazy wanker. He creates an adult pool section of the park with water-certified strippers. There are plenty of boobies to be seen. He's also dug an illegal well and tapped into the underground lake were the piranhas from the first movie lived. Those piranhas were destroyed, except for some eggs, which are hatching now. Some farmers, Gary Busy and the director's dad Glu Gulager, find their cow in the river and it's bloated with gas and piranhas. They disappear out of the film right quick. Some other victims suffer some snackin' and one poor gal skinny dipping in the lake has a piranha swim up her lady parts. Unfortunately she doesn't notice which is particularly hard on her boyfriend's boner later that night. Chomp, scream, chop! Poor guys favorite thing is lying on the floor, severed by his own knife wielding hand. The water park opens and the piranha make a special guest appearance along with David Hasselhoff playing himself. The movie is directed by John Gulager who directed the Feast trilogy. He does a pretty good job moving the story along. It's a short movie, only 70 minutes, followed by 12 minutes of outtakes and gags mixed in with the credits. There's plenty of mayhem, gore and boobs. The production values are pretty good, there's some ok locations and the water park isn't too bad looking. The story is pretty much your standard horror script, two of the three writers wrote the Feast films and several of the Saw sequels, where people fight monsters for their lives. There are some gags though it's pretty black at times. It's fun enough but not as good as the first movie. It only scored a 3.8 on the IMDb but I think it should be higher than that. There's nothing too original about it but I enjoyed watching it anyway. I would see it again sometime but I wouldn't spend any money on a copy.

 

Our second film was the 1965 British vampire film Devils of Darkness. The IMDb says it is the first British vampire film set in modern day. William Sylvester plays Paul Baxter who is on vacation in Brittany. You might remember William from Gorgo, 2001: A Space Odyssey or plenty of US TV from the 1970s. The little town in Brittany is controlled by a local vampire Count Sinistre, played by Hubert Noël, and his blood cult. One of Paul's party is killed while he's spelunking. We know he'd found the coffins of the Count and his gypsy wife Tania, played by Carole Gray, and the Count had chomped his neck. Paul finds a bat talisman that really belongs to the Count. The Count wants it back but Paul has hidden it fairly well. When another lady drowns Paul gets suspicious. He has the bodies sent back to England where they are stolen.

 

Back in Blighty Paul meets a pretty young model working for his friend . The Count has designs on her. He tells his wife that the girl is going to be a hostage to get the talisman back but he wants her for his new wife. Paul's place is broken into and the police come round. There's some detecting and the model is put under thrall of the count. The Count has holed up at the house of Paul's friend who has a nice subterranean place for the count to park his coffins and hold his rituals. Things don't go well for the vampire and his crew and the model gets rescued. It's kind of slow but I found something to keep my interest through the movie. I enjoyed it for the most part but some people fell asleep. It scores a 4.6 on the IMDb and it should be a bit higher. You can watch it on Daily Motion and figure out for yourself. The link is in the title.

Friday Night Movies 496

Warm Bodies is a 2013 romantic comedy about zombies. It's a Post-Apocalypse future and all the living are existing in a walled off part of some fairly large US city. The wall keeps out the corpses and the skeletons who roam the streets searching for humans to feed on. The corpses are the closest to looking like humans. The skeletons have gone around the bend and peeled off all of their skin. One corpse, Nicholas Hoult as R, has a bit of a brain and he narrates the movie. He can't remember his name but he has a few human traits. He lives at the airport and uses a plane for a home. He collects records and plays them. Rob Corddry plays R's zombie friend Marcus. John Malkovich is the head of the human's and he's a gung ho military guy who shoots first and doesn't bother with the questions.

Teresa Palmer plays his daughter and she's part of the medical recovery team. They go outside the wall to search for medicine and other supplies. Dave Franco plays Teresa's ex-boyfriend and Analeigh Tipton is her friend and teammate. The team is on a raid when they are attacked, Dave is killed. R eats his brains and gets abit of his memories. He falls for Teresa and saves her from the other corpses and puts her in his plane. His feelings for her changes something in him and makes him more alive. It effects the other corpses but not the skeletons. The rest of the movie is trying to find a way to keep Teresa's dad from killing R when they bring this change to him. Things turn out ok for the corpses. Things don't so as well for the skeletons, the living and the corpses team up and blast them. It's a bit more romantic comedy than zombie movie but it's a different take on the zombie film so that is something. It's fun for the most part but I wouldn't need a copy for myself but I'm glad to have seen it.

Our second feature was the BluRay of the 1994 John Carpenter film In The Mouth Of Madness. Michael De Luca wrote the script and Carpenter directed and wrote the music with Jim Lang. As the movie opens we meet Sam Neil, he's violent, loud and trusted up in a straight jacket. He tells the doctor in the asylum, David Warner, the story that put him there. Sam is an insurance investigator. He's having lunch when a man crashes through the restaurant window and tries to kill him with an axe. Luckily the police blast him mid-swing. Later Sam visits a publisher, Charlton Heston, who has a claim. His most popular horror writer Sutter Kane, Jürgen Prochnow, is missing. Kane's written a series of novels about a fictional town called Hobb's End that has some Lovecraftian type things going on. The manuscript of the 6th book hasn't been turned in yet. Sam works with Kane's editor, Julie Carman, to find the writer and book.

Sam finds a clue in the covers of Kane's books. The red-lined sections of his books form an outline of New Hampshire. Sam and Julie head off and somehow wind up in Hobb's End. It turns out that Kane's novels are the key to opening the door that releases some monsters that will take over the planet. Who does that? Crazy people. The rest of the movie is spent pushing Sam over the edge. David Warner doesn't believe his story but the next day the Kane movie opens up and the world goes to hell. I had seen the movie a few times but it had been a while so I had forgotten a good bit of the details. It's a good descent into madness and monsters. The movie moves along quite well, there's a good cast and a good script. It's a bit gorey and there's a fair good bit of weirdness. The BluRay looks and sounds great. It didn't get a great reception when it was released but now it scores a 7.4 on the IMDb. I think that's about where it should be.

Friday Night Movies 495

Our first feature was the 2013 Frank Pavic documentary Jodorowsky's Dune. Alejandro Jodorowsky is a Chilean-French director who attempted to adapt Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune in the mid-1970s. He hadn't actually read the book before he told his producer that he wanted to make a movie of Dune. Unfortunately Jodorowsky's idea of making a movie wasn't anything that people with money to make movies could understand. Frank Herbert said of the script "It was the size of a phonebook." The money people couldn't figure a way to make some cash on a 14 hour science fiction art film. Not being a commercial film, it never got made.

The documentary takes a brief look at Jodorowsky's early career in theater and film. Before Dune he'd directed Fando Y Lis, El Topo and The Holy Mountain. El Topo is credited as the first midnight movie hit but none of his movies were big money spinners. Still, he got about $10 million to make Dune. His idea was to make a movie about a prophet in a story that would be important to the citizens of the world. He got some "warriors" to help him. Chris Foss for space ship design, Moebius and H R Girger to design the settings and costumes, and Dan O'Bannion for the special effects. Those same guys would work together again on Alien. The film credits the unmade Dune as influencing some films that came later. Mostly they mention the films that those same artists had worked on. Certainly the publicity from working on Dune would have made the artists better known to Ridley Scott who hired them to work on Alien in 1979. Moebius did 3000 black and white story board drawings and they were printed, bound with his color costume illustrations, and sent around to the studios to drum up interest. Greg had just seen a copy of the book in a book store somewhere.

It's an enjoyable documentary, there are plenty interviews with Jodorowsky and he's fairly entertaining. They interview Chris Foss, Michel Seydoux, H. R. Giger, Nicolas Winding Refn, Amanda Lear and Richard Stanley. Nicholas and Richard are directors who didn't have anything to do with the Jodorowsky film but they're pretty certain that the movie would have been ground breaking and mind blowing. I'm rather more doubtful, the film makers had a grand cinematic experience in mind but they didn't have the money or the ability to make it.

 

Our second film is the Japanese BluRay of Godzilla 2000: Millennium. It's a bit longer than the US version and the movie has different dialog. Here's a bit about it from the Wikipedia:

There were two English dubbed versions of this film. As is standard practice for Toho, the film was originally dubbed in Hong Kong for use in Toho's international version. A few lines from the international dub can be heard in the theatrical trailer for Sony's theatrical release, although the film was entirely re-dubbed by Asian-American voice actors (Schlesinger deliberately made this choice because he did not want the characters to sound like they were "from Wisconsin."). Only one line from the international version ("As long as the beer's cold, who cares?") was used in the re-dubbed North American version. Toho apparently prefers the North American version so much that the international version has never been officially released anywhere in the world.

Tristar Pictures licensed Godzilla 2000 for theatrical distribution in North America. It would be the first and only Japanese Godzilla movie since Godzilla 1985 to be released in North American theaters. Mike Schlesinger, who supervised the North American release and adapted the script, said, "It (Godzilla 2000) was such a spectacular success in Japan, we decided it was worth taking a shot, maybe the time was right for Godzilla to come back to theaters." Sony spent approximately $1,000,000 to re-edit and dub the movie in English, and an addition $10–12 million to market.

The English dubbed version of the film runs 99 minutes - eight minutes shorter in comparison to the 107-minute Japanese version. Most of these were minor edits done to improve the pacing, and the sound design of the movie was completely re-worked. J. Peter Robinson composed some new music meant to supplement Takayuki Hattori's music. The dubbing has a somewhat humorous, tongue-in-cheek tone to it, apparently in homage to Godzilla dubs of the 60s and 70s, with lines such as "Great Caesar's Ghost!", "Bite me!" and "these missiles will go through Godzilla like crap through a goose!". Some fans have criticized the English dubbed version of Godzilla 2000 for camping up what they perceive as a "serious" movie; however, Toho and Takao Okawara approved all the changes to the film in advance, and various amusing sequences throughout the story (such as people comically surviving Godzilla's rampage early in the film) establish a light-hearted tone and make it evident that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. In an interview in Video Watchdog #71, Schlesinger noted that people in real life tend to speak humorously; he also felt that giving audiences some intentionally funny dialogue would make them less inclined to laugh at the monster scenes, which were supposed to be taken seriously. Originally, the film ended with the words "The End?" in cartoonish lettering, but Mike Schlesinger and Toho rejected that. "The End?" was removed from later home video and television releases. The ending was mistakenly retained for the out of print Spanish-subtitled VHS of the film.

Maybe more than you might need to know about Godzilla 2000: Millennium. I've seen it several times now and it still holds up fairly well.

Friday Night Movies 494

Up first is Iron Sky Director's Cut. I'd seen it, a few weeks ago, but I didn't mind watching it again. Greg hadn't seen the movie at all and a couple of the other fellows hadn't seen the longer version. You can read my 2012 post about seeing the movie for the first time and the 2014 post about seeing the Director's Cut. You can see the early work of the Producer and Director here.

Our other movie was a crappy film about a virus outbreak in a government building called The Terror Experiment. The DVD company packaged the individual DVDs from single releases in a four pack of zombie movies that, so far, seems to be making a liar of the packaging. A terrorist explodes a bomb in a building and it unleashes a chemical agent that infects people and makes them irrational, frightened and angry. They try running away and attack anyone who gets in their way. So you have some people in the building that aren't affected and a bunch that were. Then you have the cops, firemen and federal agents all hanging around outside. C Thomas Howell plays the Captain of the firemen, Judd Nelson is a Government man and Robert Carradine is some kind of scientist. Jason London plays the guy who's wife and kid are in the part of the building that have been infected. There's plenty of characters with different personalities who get picked off one by one. Most of them can't act very well so that's a mercy. For us, not the characters. The script isn't very good, crappy dialong and stock scenes. The CGI is fair to poor, the sound awful, and at 82 minutes they find time to be dull. Not something anyone needs to see. You should avoid it.

Friday Night Movies 493

The Lords Of Salem is about witches and they aren't the nice kind like you'd find on Bewitched. Rob Zombie wrote, produced and directed the movie which is set in the town of Salem. As the movie opens it's the 1600s and we see some witches strapped to chairs and burned to death by Judge Jonathan Hawthorne. In our real world past he was the son of one of Salem's early founders and power brokers and he did try witches and put them to death. In the movie the head witch, played by Meg Foster, puts a curse on the women of Salem before she dies. We jump ahead to modern day and Sheri Moon Zombie, wife of Rob, is a DJ at one of those obnoxious radio stations that plays sound effects and comical nonsense over everything the djs say. She's part of a trio of djs with Ken Foree and Jeff Daniel Phillips. Some will remember Ken from The Night Of The Living Dead and Jeff was the caveman in the Gieco commercials. Sheri lives in an apartment building, the caretaker is played by Judy Geeson who was in To Sir With Love with Sidney Poitier and Lulu. Sheri gets a record from the band The Lords Of Salem. There is a lot of vinyl in the movie, not sure why. The Lords of Salem is the name of the coven that were burned to death. The music gives Sheri hallucinations which she thinks is just her being tired. When she plays the record on air it puts other female listeners in a trance. Bruce Davison is the movie's witch expert, he appears on the trio's annoying radio show where he hears the record. That doesn't turn out to good for him when he starts digging into things. Judy's sisters, played by Dee Wallace and Patricia Quinn, come calling and it turns out they're witches. Their plan is to get Sherri ready to bare the devil's baby and it's a good plan. It's all very Rosemary's Babyish when it all plays out. I enjoyed it more than I was expecting. I'd only seen the first Rob Zombie movie, The House Of 1000 Corpses and that movie is just a gore splash with little story. This, Rob's fifth movie, has a story and it's better made than his first. Some of the fans of his previous work don't seem to like this change in style. I suspect because it's a much more mainstream horror movie. It reminds me a bit of Italian horror films and Joe said it reminds him of John Carpenter's work. I'd agree with that too. It's not going to appeal to everyone but I think Rob is getting better with 4 other movies under his belt.

Tam Lin or The Devil's Widow is Roddy McDowall's only directorial work. By comparison he has 261 acting credits in his 60 year career. The movie was made in 1970 and it stars Ava Gardner, Ian McShane, Stephanie Beacham and Joanna Lumley. Ava lives in a big country house in England surrounded by young adults. It's all rather bohemian and modern decadent. Since it's 1970, everyone has nice Carnaby Street fashions. Ava and Ian have something going on but he falls under the spell of the local minister's daughter. The minister is played by Cyril Cusack and his daughter is played by Stephanie Beacham. The triangle damages Ian's thing with Ava, especially when Stephanie turns up pregnant, and Ian wants to leave. Ava has it in for Ian now, she tells him she's going to kill him, she's got the power to do it. Ava's accountant, and main creepy guy, has a list of other dead men she used to love. Best stay away from women like that, huh. There's a lot of time spent in Ava's nice house setting up Ian's fall from grace. It's kind of slow moving at times and there are lots of long shots with pretty scenery but little story action. I did like the location shots in and around Innerleithen Scotland. Roddy does a fair good job directing but occasionally he has a visual idea that doesn't work too well. When Ian and Stephanie meet by a stream the movie becomes a slide show with silly face mugging. The story is based on the old Tam-Lin legend, using several of the main story elements. It's not great but it's not awful either. It scores a 6.4 on the IMDb and I'd give it a 6 but not a 7.

Friday Night Movies 492

Our first film is a 1966 Japanese film called The Magic Carpet here in the US. In Japan it's called 怪竜大決戦 or Kairyū Daikessen or The Mystic Dragons' Decisive Battle and it was something we had watched June 26 2006 at a Friday Night Movie night. We saw the pan and scan AIP version on a Retro Media disc and it wasn't that good. This version is a bootleg fan-subbed version from a nice letterboxed source. The movie is a 1966 tokusatsu kaiju/ninja fantasy film from Toei Company that was aimed at the younger crowd. Though it's packed with fighting and killing from one end to the other it's actually pretty bloodless for the most part. There are a couple of musical numbers too. Toei made plenty of kid tv and this is a lot like that. It's an adaptation of the Japanese folktale, Jiraiya Gōketsu Monogatari or The Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya.

Lord Ogata is the head of the Oumi Kingdom which is attacked by the corrupt general Daijo Yuki and his evil ninja scumbag Orochimaru. They kill the Lord and his wife but their young son, Ikazuchi-Maru, is taken away by retainers. He's raised by an old hermit until he's a handsome young man. That's when Orochimaru finds out where Ikazuchi-Maru is and comes looking at them. There's plenty of fighting and magical stuff. There just aren't enough monsters, just two, and they only appear in the beginning and the end of the film. There's a knock down castle breaking fight at the end of the movie that pits the dragon and the turtle against each in Ikazuchi-Maru's father's castle. I enjoyed it pretty much, I'd watch it again.

Our second feature is The Eagle Shooting Hero, a parody of Louis Cha's novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes. It's a 1993 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Jeffrey Lau and produced by Wong Kar-wai. The film was said to be caused by the over-budgeting of Wong Kar-wai's Ashes of Time. In order to cover up the cost of the yet unfinished film, the director decided to use the whole cast to shoot a "quick-and-dirty" film for show during the Chinese New Year, a period for Hong Kong film industry to harvest cash. - The Wikipedia. I'm not fan of Wong Kar-wai, I never cared for any of his films, but I have seen a few by Jeff Lau that I enjoyed. He followed TESH with The Bride With White Hair and A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora's Box There's a ton of fairly well known Hong Kong stars: Leslie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Carina Lau, Kenny Bee, Veronica Yip, Jacky Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Ka-fai and Joey Wong. It's a got a pretty complex story with lots of people coming and going. There's plenty of jokes and a lot of them are pretty broad. At 112 minutes it's a bit long but I still enjoyed it. I had seen it ten years ago and had completely forgotten the story and what went on. Worth a look for those that might like a silly comedy of the Asian kind.

Friday Night Movies 491

A pal of Mike's gave $100 to the film makers behind The Late Night Double Feature and they passed along a copy of the DVD. The double feature is made up of 2 short films that total 85 minutes. X, The Fiend From Beyond Space is about a spaceship that picks up an alien. He's a mean one and he nearly kills the whole crew. The Wall People is about a guy who's kid is abducted by an alien. He tries to save his kid. The movie is the work of Minnesota film maker Christopher R Mihm and that's nothing for the state to be proud of. He makes parodies of black and white 1950's science fictions films with the intention of making them bad so people will laugh. I think he does a crappy job of recreating the 50's type of film. His basic plots are pretty good story ideas and they would be the kind of thing you might actually see in a 1950's sf film but the execution is mind bogglingly awful. The acting is nearly non existant, we've got mediocre actors trying to act bad, and we suffer. We were a sad lot after we sat through the whole film. We watched his 2013 film The Giant Spider and didn't care for that either. You're better off watching those real 1950's films.  

Votes	Percentage	Rating
8	42.1%	10
1	5.3%	9
3	15.8%	8
1	5.3%	7
3	15.8%	6
0		5
0		4
0		3
1	5.3%	2
2	10.5%	1

Arithmetic mean = 7.5.  Median = 8

Don't let the 7.5 on the IMDb fool you, someone is screwing with the scores. As you can see 8 people gave the movie a 10 and that out of 19 votes. Almost all the scores are above a 6 and that's just crazy stupid. IMDb members, go fix that, I already did my part, I gave the thing a 3 and that was being generous. When I saw The Giant Spider last year it scored an 8.5 but now it scores a 6.6 which is still too high.

Our second feature, The Battle Of Pussy Willow Creek, scores a 5.8 on the IMDb and that's a little more reasonable. The 2010 movie is written and directed by Wendy Jo Cohen even though the film says it's credited to Grace A Burns in the opening titles. Wendy Jo has several tv documentary producing credits listed on her IMDb page so it makes sense she might create this parody civil war documentary. The story is about the lives of 4 people who were responsible for the northern victory at the little known battle of Pussy Willow Creek. There's an opium-addicted gay Colonel, an aging Chinese launderer, a nerdy escaped slave, and a one-armed teenage prostitute. They all work together to defeat the secret division of British troops. The style is influenced by Ken Burns with lots of sound effects, voice overs, interviews and picture scanning. There are plenty of graphics, old pictures, drawings and live footage of the areas the battles were fought. It's got a fanciful story with some silly material and a good number of clever jokes. It's a 95 minute movie that mostly kept my interest but it slows down about the hour mark. I did laughed several times out loud. I'd recommend to those that like a bit of a laugh. It certainly stands head and shoulders above our first film.

Friday Night Movies 490

 

Our pal Ryan sent along a copy of The Golden Bat. It's a 1966 Japanese film called 黄金 バットor Ōgon Bat. The Wikipedia says: it's a seminal Japanese superhero. The character was created by writer Ichiro Suzuki and illustrator Takeo Nagamatsu in 1930. Ōgon Bat is considered to be the first Japanese superhero. Originally debuting in kamishibai (paper theater), Ogon Bat is considered a precursor to later superhero characters such as the Japanese Kamishibai character Prince of Gamma (debuted early 1930's) and the American comic book characters Superman (debuted 1938) and Batman (debuted 1939).

The paper theater goes back to the 12th century with monks using it to teach morals to children with stories. The story teller would tell the story and change the pictures in the little wooden stage accordingly. Kind of like a picture book for children. In Japan there was a revival of the art that started after WWI and lasted until tv became popular in the early 1950s.

There's not so much seminal about the 1966 Toei film but it is a fun bit of noisey action and alien battling. It's directed by Hajime Sato from a script by Susumu Takaku. Sonny Chiba stars as the head of an organization that investigates an island that has risen out of the sea. That's Sonny up there with the beard. The older man is the group's head scientist. The young man is a newly recruited member and the woman is one of the group. The island turns out to be a part of Atlantis. They find a sarcophagus with the Golden Bat inside. The air revives GB and he's a hoot. The Golden Bat laughs uproariously and he's great at fighting and flying. His costume reminds me of Mexican wrestlers and the action in this film is often as poorly executed as those Mexican movies.

   

Out in space an alien called Space Killer Nazō is heading to the Earth. He has a big metal claw for a hand and big ears. That's him up on the left, on the right are his underlings Jackal, Piranha and Keroido. Nazō's ship is a giant screw that digs through Earth's crust as easy as it flies through space. He wants to destroy the humans and their planet. He's sent a small planet to the Earth and it will crash into it in 10 days. the old scientist and Sonny have invented a death ray but they need the rarest mineral in the universe to make a lens. Sonny and his crew have a hard time with the alien invaders who have superior technology. Lucky for him the Golden Bat is totally capable of kicking Nazō's ass. There's plenty of running about and some fighting. Most of the fighting isn't very good but it made us laugh. The underlings are a fun lot too, especially Keroido, who's particularly maniacal. He's worth the price of admission easily.

When it was all done we were still laughing. I'd recommend it but sadly the movie isn't readily available. We saw a fan subtitle bootleg that might have come from a source like this. I wouldn't think it's worth 20 bucks, it's cheaper to Bit Torrent it, apparently there are copies out there.

 

There was a 1967 Japanese cartoon based on the character. There's an episode on YouTube. I like the bike riding toy.

St Trinian's 2: The Legend Of Fritton's Gold is the 2009 sequel to the highly popular and successful 2007 St Trinian's film which was a reboot of the popular 1950's series. I really liked the first film and finally the second popped up on NetFlix. The directors of the previous film, Oliver Parker and Barnaby Thompson, are back. The script is by Jamie Minoprio with additional material by Jonathan M Stren.

Rupert Everett is Miss Camilla Fritton, the head of St Trinian's Girls School. As the film opens we see the girls returning to the school for the new year in their own styles. The local police are scared of the girls and with good reason. There's not much higher learning going on, most of the lessons are rather better for a life of crime or stint with MI6. Talulah Riley plays Camilla's niece Annabelle Lealla Fritton and she's the new Head Girl at St Trinian's. The girls learn of a special ring that an ancestor of Miss Fritton left behind. It points to a secret treasure worth millions of pounds. The movie is a race against a villainous David Tennent. He's head of a bunch of twats secret club that doesn't like women. He wants the treasure and he has a grudge against the Frittons. An ancestor of theirs had robbed David's ancestor's ship 420 years ago.

The girls band together to fight David's invading henchmen but he gets the ring they have. There's a second ring and you need both to find the location of the treasure. The girls have some clues and the hunt is on. There's plenty of gags and physical humor. The girls are great and there's a nice variety of types, emos, chavs, posh toddies, goths, nerd and plenty more. Colin Firth, an ex of Miss Frittons joins the team. He steals the ring David has and the girls score the second ring. The action moves to London where the girls have a flash mob dance to cover Anabell, and some of the other girls, slipping away to the Globe Theater. It's where the treasure is. David's right on their heels and briefly he has the upper hand but pirate girls always win over little weasels. Especially in the movies. I laughed a lot but I'm totally in love with the girls of St Trinian's and their defense of Anarchy. It's a nice bit of silliness and girl power that gave me a big smile. I'll certainly want to see it again.

Friday Night Movie 489

Our first feature, Killer Bees, is a terrible Japanese film about some girls who go camping and get attacked by killer bees. It's a hat trick of tediousness, dullness and boredom. There are 7 girls and a chaperon. They park their van a long way from the camping spot. We have to walk with them as they prattle on and on about things teen Japanese girls like. Then nothing happens for a while, except for that prattling on and on. Eventually a bee shows up to do some stinging. He picks off the girls one by one, putting them into shock which is followed by death. Reminds me not to go into the forest. There's nothing to recommend about the movie. How anyone would enjoy it I can't imagine. Avoid at all costs.

Sadly our second feature, Alakazam The Great, isn't much better. It's the US version, produced by AIP, of a 1960 Japanese animation called Saiyuki. That cartoon is adapted from Osamu Tezuka's manga Boku no Son Goku which adapts of the Chinese novel Journey to the West. The original Toei animation is fairly well done and attractive in places. It vaguely follows the original Chinese story, softening it for children. You can see it at the above link but there are no subtitles. They can be downloaded and attached to the film someway. If you find out how, let me know. The US adaptation looses all connection to the actual Monkey King story changing the names of all the characters into something completely different, Buddha becomes King Amo. I can sort of understand that, no one in the US would have known about that story for the most part and a lot of people wouldn't want their children to be watching a story with Buddha in it. The US version has some good voice talent. Frankie Avalon sings the songs for the Monkey King but MK's talking is voiced by Peter Fernandez. The voice of Disney's Winnie The Pooh, Sterling Holloway, provides the narration. Other famous voices included Jonathan Winters, Arnold Stang, Dodie Stevens, & E.G. Marshall. None of them make the film worth seeing. I'm not sad that I saw it, I'm curious about adaptations of the Monkey King and would have watched it to see what they did. Now I have, I can move along to the next thing. You too, move along, move along, nothing to see here.