Predator: Badlands

Predator: Badlands (2025)

85% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 222 reviews)

Runtime: 107 minutes

Directed by: Dan Trachtenberg

Starring: The main human you see is Elle Fanning, of course

From: 20^th Century Studios

My apologies for not posting this last night; life happened. I didn't see anything last night anyhow. This time tomorrow night, I'll be caught up on everything, promised. Now, onto the review:  

I don’t even want to read the fan fiction of Dek and Thia!

No, I don’t read fan fiction, period; rather, it’s the idea that I know some people will go wild over the two leads in this film as there are some out there who “get excited” about monsters. I don’t get it myself but perhaps I’m just too vanilla. In any case, the majority of the Predator films that have been made weren’t that good, in my eyes. I would be happy to just stick with the first two. I’m tired of property mining and the deluge of sequels that won’t seemingly ever stop-point noted, I still saw this film as the idea of finally getting to see the home world of the Yautja-a percentage have had this desire for decades-and the promise of new ideas piqued my interest.

After seeing Badlands, I could quibble, and not even in a pedantic fashion. My comment that there should have been at least a little less humor is valid, in my eyes. The story isn’t that complicated, although the idea of following a “runt” member of the alien species w/ something to prove who teams up with a human android is of course a “safe” choice for mainstream audience acceptance. That is much more preferable to me than Alien: Romulus-that not only was irritating due to the constant reminder of much better films from the past, the movie itself was just rotten.

In contrast, Badlands told an underdog story of sorts as Dek the Yautja has to prove himself; the method of achieving this task is to kill a giant creature no one has been able to stop. He soon meets Thia, a synthetic from… well, you can probably guess which direction they went in. The highlight of the film wasn’t the action, although that was typically enjoyable. Rather, it was the Death Planet where much of the movie is set. Creativity abounded with the variety of different creatures on display, in addition to the assortment of different ways the planet will attempt to kill anyone.

Another highlight was the rather unique score from Sarah Schachner and Benjamin Wallfisch; I was won over when hearing the movie’s theme and there’s a sound best described by me as “Gregorian monks chanting into a talkbox!” Of course, this is far different from the first two movies and even Prey. I can at least like all four despite and because of their variances. Also, I’ll give my props to Elle Fanning-I did not fully respect her game. No, I’m not referring to the hormone-induced reactions that some have done in reference to her the past few months!

Christiane F

Christiane F. (Christiane F.: Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo) (1981)

Runtime: 131 minutes

Directed by: Uli Edel

Starring: Natja Brunckhorst, Thomas Haustein, Jens Kuphal, Rainer Woelk, Jan Georg Effler

From: Several different West German companies

In my first of two reviews posted tonight, I viewed quite the harsh but great movie: 

Well, this was a downer. I have known of Christiane F. for years but the lack of legal streaming availability in the United States meant that it was the Criterion Channel (the original German-language version, not an English dub that evidently is terrible AND out of sync) adding this to their platform last month which allowed me to finally check out one of the best movies out there in the category of “This is what will happen if you get addicted to heroin. Please don’t even try heroin!” Trainspotting had some moments seared into my brain but now I can say the same for this picture.

The picture is arguably even more horrifying than Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream-this was based on a real-life girl, Christiane Felscherinow. She was a bored 13-year-old in West Berlin who did become addicted to heroin as an early teen. Christiane is a huge David Bowie fan who starts going to the fashionable Sound nightclub, wearing makeup to appear older. She befriends misfits who are drug addicts. The film takes its time so we get to know the titular character & her scenario before her first hit of H.

She uses pills and acid before that fateful moment, which was after a Bowie concert. He himself re-creates that moment, singing Station to Station at a concert. She is warned by junkies not to try it but because she wants to be closer to a boy… H is not romanticized in any way; users are appropriately strung out, dirty locations are visited, and there are unflinching looks at them shooting up & the acts they perform to afford the drug.

In the first 45 minutes, the mood is more fun as Bowie songs are heard-as they are from his albums when he lived in Berlin, meaning they are great tunes, likely underrated as they aren’t the ones you hear on retro stations. After that, the mood is much more somber. The cinematography is suitably bleak, appropriate for a movie where real-life junkies are seen as extras.

The cast was mostly first-time actors; as the lead, Natja Brunckhorst is great. She’s the one that had a subsequent career in cinema. Christiane F. feels so authentic and real, it may fall into the category of “great films I may never see again in full.” This does have an opioid withdrawal scene which arguably is the most painful ever committed to celluloid—no small feat. To paraphrase a mutual, the movie is an unvarnished look at addiction.

After watching the film, I was taken aback that Christiane Felscherinow is still alive today. I was surprised when the reading of her Wiki article began—by the end I was more astonished.

Support Your Local Gunfighter

Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Burt Kennedy

Starring: James Garner, Suzanne Pleschette, Jack Elam, Harry Morgan, Joan Blondell

From: United Artists

Imagine Support Your Local Sheriff, except with much more yelling.

Early this year, I viewed then reviewed Sheriff, a film that was watched during my teen years in the 90’s then never again for almost 30 years. That was a fun comedic Western filled w/ many famous faces and James Garner exhibited his typical amiable charm. Two years later, some of the same cast & crew came together for this film, which shares similarities and character archetypes but is not a sequel.

This time, instead of impersonating a sheriff, Garner impersonates a legendary gunfighter in the town of Purgatory. Purgatory is a town not only filled with a pair of feuding mining camps looking for the mother lode, he meets a young lady w/ a hair-trigger temper ironically named Patience. Garner’s Latigo Smith (what a name) becomes involved-no spoilers on what you’ll be reminded of, although you could guess if you’re a genre fan.

Gunfighter is good, but not as good as Sheriff. This is due to the story, the humor, and the increase in characters yelling at each other. Personally, volume doesn’t always correlate with humor. Still, laughs were present and the cast full of famous faces was an asset: Garner, Suzanne Pleschette, Harry Morgan, Marie Windsor, Joan Blondell, Jack Elam (not so surprisingly to me, the highlight), Kathleen Freeman, Grady Sutton, and the uncredited star as the real gunfighter. This actor was well-known in the genre at the time.

The movie is still easygoing and features cartoony fates for the villains so if you like old comedy/Westerns…

 

I Watched a Pair of Bad Movies

One was a revisit, but I'd recommend that you experience neither.

First was 1968's Sympathy for the Devil, an alleged documentary from douche canoe Jean-Luc Godard: 

Is it fair for me to rate a movie I shut off in disgust before 20 minutes were even completed?

Me and Jean-Luc Godard... Breathless and a few other of his early films were viewed. I liked all of them-until Alphaville. There's a smug, intolerable piece of crap. I was happy to not see anything more from a D-bag who devolved into anti-art nonsense and was a massive A-hole to boot. However, on a messageboard a few days ago, someone brought up them seeing Nouvelle Vague, the new Linklater joint concerning Godard and the making of Breathless. A short discussion of the director was had.

Besides that, I love The Rolling Stones so the idea of seeing them create the eponymous song from gestation through completion sounded fascinating. If the film would have just been devoted to seeing them create various songs on the Beggars Banquet album-a tremendous album, it is-that would have been neat. So would have been what I presumed this documentary was focused on from basic description: a juxtaposition between a song concerning Satan/Satan's atrocities committed through history with the turmoil of the late 1960's.

What we got instead: I saw some moments in the studio, which were neat. Otherwise... it was an unseen narrator delivering passages from an unknown work, something that made zero sense without any context-there were brief moments where random people were spray-painting words on random walls. However, what made me tap out and give up on this pretentious crap: a LONG scene at a junkyard.

We see what were apparently Black Panthers (reading the Wiki article on the film explained that... it also informed me I made the right decision in not seeing this to completion) reading more random narration-including a text that was horribly racist-doing random things in a junkyard, then random white women in white robes show up, and literally lie down like they're dead... honestly, my life is just too short to tolerate this insufferable garbage-remaining in a state of constant annoyance just to see “the good parts” if the rest was absolutely worthless like this was. Reading on Wiki that there's a long section in a “pornographic bookstore” which included comic books, two random people held hostage, and... ahem, Nazi pamphlets and everyone doing the Nazi salute. Sigh...

The hope is that somewhere, someone created a supercut containing just the scenes of Mick, Keith, and the rest in studio; I wasn't going to constantly hit the fast forward button. There is so much worthwhile still for me to view in the years ahead; this includes French directors new to me and those I've seen little of but wish to do a deeper dive on. To be frank with everyone, there were previous occasions in the past dozen or so years where I've bailed on a movie and never discussed it here-no, what they were won't be made public.

My annoyance level was so high at viewing not even 20 minutes of something that should have been awesome if done by someone who doesn't have their own head stuck so far up their own hindquarters... that is why I ranted & raved here. If others get much more out of his anti-art puffery, that's excellent, go right ahead. Going in different directions and not having to tolerate “difficult” directors like him is better for my cinematic tastes.

Second was a revisit of 2018's The Predator: 

This movie is in fact bad if you don’t watch it with an enthusiastic audience like I did one random August night in 2018. While not described in my original review for the movie, the crowd laughing along with all the humor was an asset in my rating being “OK” despite the crux of that review being devoted to complaints over the film. Judging by one random tweet recently stumbled upon, at least one other person was w/ a raucous crowd at their screening, enhancing the experience—an opinion shared by more than one person on Letterboxd.

Seven years later, a streaming viewing at home accentuated the flaws. Before the release in ’18, The Predator was fraught w/ controversy. More than several reshoots plus the scandal over Olivia Munn rightfully aggravated over learning that director Shane Black hired a convicted sex pest to act in a scene with her… the die was cast and the mood was sour for people even before they gave it a shot.

Well, even divorced of that, The Predator is a crummy motion picture. The plot is a complete mess; the reshoots made it even more incoherent. The idea to focus on comedy was quite the misstep, especially when the “comedy” usually landed w/ a thud. The Goof Troop that teamed up with our lead Boyd Holbrook were especially dire, but this was full of repellent characters.

Thomas Jane’s character had Tourette’s; evidently that was seen as still OK in 2018. A number of unfortunate decisions were made, especially focusing on a boy played by Jacob Tremblay who has autism & the Predator race (Yautja) thinks that people w/ autism are an evolved version of humanity! Many people w/ that affliction felt insulted by that plot point for reasons too numerous to elaborate upon.

Other nonsense occurs and truthfully, that is not worth elaborating upon either. Jake Busey has a small role as the son of the character his dad Gary portrayed in Predator 2, but it was meaningless. Those that haven’t followed me for long, you should know that the “modern humor” and all the vulgar language didn’t sit well with me. It completely falls apart in the final act, where many of the reshoots were inserted.

No one will be faulted by me for liking or even loving The Predator. After all, I have modern movie biases that are controversial and sometimes really against the grain. In this case, though, many don’t like The Predator either. However, if the gory moments are a big deal and the humor did tickle your funny bone, go ahead and be a fan. My opinion of the franchise: the original is an all-timer, the second is pretty good, and I guess Prey was fine. Otherwise… the rest I’m happy to never view or even think about again. Who knows what my opinion of the new Badlands will be.

 

Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans

Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans (1987)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Jim Wynorski

Starring: John Terlsky, Monique Gabrielle, John La Zar, Toni Naples, Maria Socas

From: New Horizons/Aries Film International 

Incredibly silly nonsense, this was… yet after viewing the 2025 Deathstalker remake, I learned that was more in line w/ Duel of the Titans than the original, which I now know is correct. The director of this was Jim Wynorski; naturally, not only are there plenty of topless women and a gratuitous scene of women mud wrestling, humor is at the forefront. Yes, the acting and storytelling are craptastic, but I’m sure that is not at the forefront for those viewing a goofy send-up of the sword & sandal genre.

Deathstalker teams up with Reena the Seer-actually, Evie the Princess-to do battle against an evil sorcerer… is there any other kind? Jarek created an evil clone of Evie, you see, to put on the throne as he banished the real Evie. Stalker and Evie engage in adventures & misadventures as they journey to the castle and overthrow that SOB. Now, the movie technically is pretty bad as already mentioned; Monique Gabrielle isn’t a master thespian by any regards yet was still amiable in dual roles. John Terlesky isn’t ripped and tanned like Rick Hill was in the role. On the other hand, Terlesky was a better actor. In addition, John La Zar as Jarek was the best in terms of acting craft.

Some won’t care for a massively mindless picture like this-no hate will be cast their way. At least last night, I was able to laugh with and at the movie… the simple dialogue, the overall DIY nature, the odd score that nevertheless works, the long scene where Stalker gets his butt kicked in a wrestling ring by the tall lady who wrestled as Queen Kong in GLOW. The role of women in this sequel has aged far better than in the original-the Amazon tribe are painted with a positive brush. There’s only one short scene where men force themselves on women-a far cry from all the sexual assaults in the original. There is more than one wisecrack over Deathstalker having an erection! Don’t worry, the movie plays it lightly instead of in a gross fashion.

Heck, there’s even a blooper reel during the end credits-those elicited some chuckles. Those that like 80’s B-action might have a ball w/ Deathstalker II.

 

Witness to Murder

Witness to Murder (1954)

Runtime: 83 minutes

Directed by: Roy Rowland

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, George Sanders, Gary Merrill, Jesse White, Harry Shannon

From: United Artists

My first movie for Noirvember, but not the last that’ll be observed during November. The film was a DVR recording from a TCM airing way back this past March; what captured my attention was the two leads: Barbara Stanwyck & George Sanders. The scenario will also remind you of an all-time classic-Witness had the misfortune of releasing only a few months beforehand.

Babs witnessed Sanders strangling a woman in his apartment through the window of her apartment during the opening credits-Murder wasted nary a second in starting the plot. He hides the evidence so the police don’t believe her story, events happen, law enforcement believe she’s a “hysterical woman” (thankfully, that plot device wasn’t as insulting as you might presume), he manipulates the scenario to get away with murder, etc. She befriends police Lieutenant Gary Merrill, a predominantly TV actor best known for All About Eve. Note that Sanders portrayed an unsuccessful author… and an ex-Nazi! 

This detail can’t be avoided any longer: Witness to Murder is no Rear Window. That is not a massive slight as it can be argued by many-me included-that Window is one of the best of all time. Aside from a lengthy sequence that perhaps should have been truncated, the movie was a pretty good time. Stanwyck, Sanders & Merrill all perform quite well in their parts. The finale is rather bold & unforgettable.

However, it was the cinematography from John Alton which was the standout. A veteran of films like Raw Deal, T-Men and The Big Combo, naturally the movie looked great-not just the interplay between light & shadow-the images always setting the mood. Witness to Murder is worthy of a shot for genre fans.

 

The Lost World (The Silent Version)

The Lost World (1925)

Runtime: 102 minutes

Directed by: Harry O. Hoyt

Starring: Wallace Beery, Bessie Love, Lloyd Hughes, Lewis Stone, Alma Bennett

From: First National Pictures

It was overdue for me to return to the era of reviewing feature length films from both the Golden Age of Hollywood and the silent era, which I haven’t done in the past several months. This was a DVR recording made from a recent Turner Classic Movies airing. I hadn’t seen this before & a 100th anniversary is a good reason for a review. Of course I haven’t read the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel before but to clarify, this is the full film and not the truncated version that was the only one available before various elements were combined together to finally present a complete print after all those decades. Flicker Alley and Lobster Films were behind that restoration.

The film can be seen as the old-timey version of a blockbuster. Wallace Beery (accompanied by a spectacular beard and even more spectacular head of hair) is Professor Challenger, who decrees that he found dinosaurs in the jungles of South America-however, there’s the little problem that he offers no evidence of this. His presentation in London doesn’t go well; that said, several people volunteer to accompany Challenger on his return voyage. There’s action, adventure, drama, a few scares, romance, some laughs involving a capuchin monkey, a Missing Link… for those that have only followed me in the past few months, I’m happy to bash modern blockbusters. Well, The Lost World was a lot more appealing to me than most modern blockbusters.

This regrettably has a blackface supporting character; the intertitles also reveal this white dude w/ shoe polish on spoke in a stereotypical dialect; aside from that and pacing that isn’t always on-point, overall The Lost World was a pretty good time. Naturally, the stop-motion effects from Willis H. O’Brien are still breathtaking a century later. Plenty of dinosaurs are seen walking around, flying about, or fighting w/ each other. Those aforementioned effects are the highlight although the story did entertain. One person on the journey is looking for her missing father, another was challenged by his love to do something brave, and yet another is doing it for scientific reasons, etc.

The Lost World isn’t boring; those that enjoy silent adventures stand a good chance of thinking this was an unforgettable journey. The finale was an obvious inspiration for an all-timer from the early 30’s.