Sleepaway Camp

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Runtime: 84 minutes

Directed by: Robert Hiltzik

Starring: Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, Mike Kellin, Robert Earl Jones

From: American Eagle

For the next month or so I’ll probably be doing mainly horror reviews, if not entirely. To start that off, here’s a flick you may have not heard of before, but amongst some circles, it’s infamous due to its ending. Of course I won’t reveal it for you if you don’t know it; it can easily be found online after some Google searching; but, you probably don’t want to be like me and find out what the ending was THEN track down the movie, which is what I did in the late 90’s. I’ll just say that the ending is a twist ending so out of left field and bizarre, not even M. Night Shyamlan could have come up with it! It’s definitely an odd little movie at times… or rather, most of the time.

The movie is about Ricky (Tiersten) and his cousin Angela (Rose). They are both raised by Ricky’s mom… more on her later. Those two youngsters go to camp. Now, they are young teenagers for the most part at this camp, except for the leaders and camp counselors, of course. As Angela is extremely introverted and acts oddly at times, she gets targeted by the other campers, and Ricky is always eager to defend her honor. Suddenly, incidents happen and people get killed, usually in pretty twisted and nasty ways. Who’s responsible for it, and just what is the twist ending?

I’ve given a bare bones summation of the movie, but it’s much more than that real brief synopsis. This movie, which I got for 5 bucks at K-Mart due to it being on sale, is something I watched last night for the first time in years. The DVD version, by the way, has some real brief moments cut out, but it doesn’t really affect anything so I’m not going to carp about it.

I still enjoyed it, and I was surprised I didn't remember how bad the acting was (not that I'll complain about Robert Earl Jones and his small role, and yeah, his son is exactly who you think it is), or how much homoeroticism was present; I know, that's a rich comment if you've seen the movie already, but some parts I honestly did not recall. But, I at least got a laugh out of it.

Sure, the movie isn't good on a technical scale, but it's wildly entertaining. I mean, there's a cook who I'll call Pedobear Chef and he's with his fellow kitchen workers and he sees a bunch of campers run by and he refers to them as "baldies" and "chicken" and how do his buddies react? Why, they laugh it up, as if it was ok for Pedobear to say this while working with a bunch of kids! Then there's the awesome Mel character, at least in his 60's and he has some sort of thing with one of the camp consolers, who may not even be 18! Then, there’s the fact that Angela lives with Ricky as the beginning of the movie is her and her brother with their dad, and there’s a boating accident with Angela being the only one surviving. Well, there’s a flashback later on where we see that their dad is a homosexual, romantically laying in bed with another man! Out of the blue, just like that. What a bizarre script.

But, there's stuff that's not so twisted which made me laugh. I.E., Kenny, the 20-something kid who's supposed to be a character half that age who wears a sweet, sweet mullet and dons a great Blue Oyster Cult t-shirt. There are some great shirts on display, believe me.

There's one other thing I do have to admit. The character of Ricky's mom (and Angela's aunt)... personally, that woman terrifies me even more than Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees! I don't want to commit libel here, but that woman makes me wonder if she was always a woman in real life or not! You know, a tranny or a transsexual. Honestly, that’s the impression I get. That wouldn't be too surprising given that... well, you know what I mean if you've ever watched this before. Even ignoring that aspect, the way she acted was so just... well, off, it was really unsettling. It's as if she was an alien trying to act in a movie after having observed human beings for a short amount of time; it’s the strangest thing, and something is just not right there.

Still, if you can track it down, it’s not a bad 80’s slasher to watch and enjoy, despite how strange it is. I’ll be back Saturday night with a review of a new horror movie that will be released tomorrow. As there are FOUR of them which fits this description (no kidding, four horror movies coming out the same weekend), it will be one of those, I promise. The month could be filled with reviews, depending on various factors. You’ll get at least a few reviews in October, I promise you that.

Fear City

Fear City (1984)

Runtime: 96 minutes

Directed by: Abel Ferrara

Starring: Tom Berenger, Billy Dee Williams, Jack Scalia, Melanie Griffith, Michael V. Gazzo

From: Zupnik-Curtis Productions

Here’s an obscure movie with a nice cast that’s been talked about on niche messageboard threads for awhile now. It also is VERY sleazy and originally 20th Century Fox was going to release it but they dropped it due to how sleazy it was, and it got a minor release instead. Put in the fact that I just saw it earlier in the week on IFC HD (yep, I’m still getting the Showtime stations for free, and I have no idea why) and it caused me to change things around and what I referenced the last time as the movie I was going to review… it’s pushed back and I’ll talk about this movie instead.

A few days ago I was flipping around the channels and I saw that this movie was on the Independent Film Channel, and as I get that channel in HD too, I watched it in that format, and as I have a feeling that this will never be on Blu-Ray (I’d love for it to be a so far unreleased unrated version, but just in its R-rated version I doubt it will be in that format), I was happy to see it in 1080i.

The movie concerns a “talent agency” (re: place that sends out strippers to clubs in sleazy Times Square, back before it was cleaned up) who ends up having some of its girls attacked/murdered by a karate-using serial attacker who looks like Mark Wahlberg playing Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights playing Dirk’s Brock Landers porno character. I mean, they dress similar and both use martial arts. That was a good comparison that I stole from elsewhere. Unlike Mr. Landers, though, this unnamed character slashes his victims with a razor and with the first girl, he cut off two of her fingers with shears. Yep, it’s this kind of film.

One of the leaders of that talent agency is Rossi (Berenger), an ex-boxer. We’re reminded often that he’s an ex-boxer due to his killing of his opponent in the ring during one fight. Also looking to bring down this villain is cop Al Wheeler (Williams), who hates strip clubs and the talent agency that gives them the girls. You get to hear Billy Dee utter quite a few ethnic slurs, mainly against Italians. Rossi also has to deal with his girl Loretta (Griffith) who is the most popular “lady” in the area.

Like I’ve said, this is a really sleazy movie. You get to see quite a bit of Griffith nudity, and it’s not a body double. This was a surprise to me… but a pleasant surprise! You also get a lot of topless girls, which wasn’t a surprise to me. It’s pretty dark and dreary, so some comedic lines from Gazzo were sorely needed. Not to be crude here, but I’ll mention the funniest one, as it’s popular on said messageboard. Referring to an ugly stripper that he was given by the agency, he stated, “She’s so ugly she hurts my eyes! She couldn’t give a hard-on to a rapist!” To be perfectly honest, she was rather scary-looking…

As for the movie overall, like I said it’s pretty dark and dreary. It’s not boring at all, but for whatever reasons it doesn’t fully come together. I briefly mentioned a similar movie called Vice Squad recently. I didn’t review that but I’ll say that it was better. I know that some have critiqued the villain in this movie as not being much at all. I mean, not only was he never named in the film, but he wasn’t even listed in the credits and literally, I can’t find any site online that definitely states what his name is! No kidding. I don’t think he was as bad as some people think, but aside from stating that he’s against trashy women and that’s why he’s attacking them, he’s just there, and him doing martial arts is just a quirk. Vice Squad’s Ramrod, though, is definitely more menacing, charismatic, and terrifying. So, this movie isn't too shabby but Vice Squad is the better motion picture in the "crazy person targeting seedy women" genre, even if that movie doesn't have a boxing vs. martial arts showdown in the finale like this does.

I have to admit that at least the opening-and closing-credits song is pretty catchy and also fits well for the movie. It's David Johansen's New York Doll.

I'll be back Thursday night for one least review in September.

You Only Live Twice

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Runtime: 117 minutes

Directed by: Lewis Gilbert

Starring: Sean Connery, Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama, Tetsuro Tanba, Donald Pleasence

From: Eon/United Artists

Here’s a James Bond movie where people are divided on how to rate it. Sure, you could do that with many of the movies in the franchise, but this is one of those where you could really do so. Some people really love this and rank this highly (my mom has mentioned to me before this is amongst her very favorite in the series), but others have ranked it much lower. Really, it seems like each person can rank the movies in a different way and no two lists will be the exact same. I’m exaggerating, but no list you could really argue is “wrong” in any way. How do I rank this one?

This Bond takes place mainly in Japan. After Bond fakes his death (explaining the title) he gets involved in a SPECTRE plot where they steal spacecraft from both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.; each think the other is behind it and nuclear war may start. SPECTRE is doing it for the sake of an unnamed country-most likely those damn Chinese commies-and Bond has to try and figure this one on his own and then stop it. He does it in the colorful country of Japan (even back in the late 60’s, Tokyo was a city filled with many flashing lights). Blofeld himself is leading things first-hand and for the first time you get to see him in full form. Pleasence makes for a memorable Blofeld and his outfit and facial scar obviously were the inspiration for the Dr. Evil character.

This one does stand out for being quirky. It has an interesting (or rather, odd) pace and plot at times. That is why on a messageboard once, a poster mentioned his pet theory that when Bond fakes his death at the beginning, it was an actual death instead and what you see past the opening credits is an after-life dream that Bond has. Given what I just said, it isn’t the worst theory in the world. I mean, the script is from Roald Dahl, of all people. You’d expect oddness from the guy who wrote the novels Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and The Witches.

Speaking of odd, it wasn’t until just recently that I discovered that Connery had one of his fights in the movie (a wild affair in an office involving furniture being thrown around) with the pro wrestler known as Peter Maivia (his only film role); his grandson has had a much more prolific career. Yes, I’m referring to The Rock himself, Dwayne Johnson.

The movie is big in scope, with giant sets, plenty of action, a lot of intrigue, and it’s usually pretty entertaining, even in its quirkiness. As I find Japan to be an interesting country (well, not its more strange things, such as purchasing used women’s panties in vending machines, hentai, or anything of that nature!) I enjoyed looking at how it was back then, and it makes for a nice setting.

BUT… one part tanks things and that’s why I would have to rank it below Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger. There’s a plot point which takes up way too much time... at least it felt like it, even if judging by total time it didn't. I know it’s sort of a spoiler but it has to be said. Somehow, they came up with the idea of Bond taking up a disguise by *having him play a Japanese man*. That is correct. He has surgery and all that, and even gets married to a native woman. Problem is, he does look different from usual, but big Scottish Sean Connery does NOT look like an Asian man at all! It totally torpedoes all momentum and it’s like a black hole; not even a huge finale-involving NINJAS!-can help completely save it. What a shame that is too. It otherwise moves at a nice pace and I would rate it highly if it wasn't for that ridiculous plot point and how momentum hit a brick wall.

I'll be back Friday night with something that's not a Bond movie at all, but it's still European cool.

Thunderball (My 100th Movie Review)

Thunderball (1965)

Runtime: 130 minutes

Directed by: Terence Young

Starring: Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi, Luciana Paluzzi

From: Eon/United Artists

Yes it’s true, this is the 100th movie I’ve talked about on here that I’ve given an official review to. I don’t have too much else to say about that topic except to note it as a bit of trivia.

Now, I’ve finally started back up on reviewing all of the Bond movies. The last one I did was way back in June. My bad for putting that on ice for so long. I gave strong reviews to the first three in the series; will I do the same for this one? Before I move on, I do have to bring up how this was originally a script done by Ian Fleming, Jack Whittingham, and Kevin McClory. From the early 60’s up to today, Mr. McClory has feuded with the official Bond franchise. The script was going to be the first Bond movie but it didn’t work out, so Fleming turned it into a book in the series instead. Then it became a movie. A lot of shenanigans went down and they made this movie after Goldfinger. More shenanigans happened after that and that’s why the feud has taken place for almost 50 years. Trust me, you don’t want to hear the entire story. Anyhow, that’s why this movie was remade as a Bond movie but not an official one in the early 80’s with Connery in the lead as Never Say Never Again. Me, I’ll always say “never again” to watching that film! It’s pretty awful and totally low-rent. Trust me, never view it.

As for this movie, SPECTRE returns, Blofeld still the leader whose face you never see. Their plot is to steal a pair of warheads and use it as ransom to get some phat cash, but of course end up using the warheads anyway. After the opening with Bond in France (you can tell it’s set there by the number of distinctive Citroen vehicles around), most of the movie is set in the lovely Bahamas. As they filmed on location you’ll be able to enjoy their scenery. The person who sets SPECTRE’s plan in motion is Largo (Celi), so you get to see Bond interact with the eyepatch-wearing villain. Also, you get to see Bond with some of Largo’s ladies, such as Domino (the attractive Auger) and Fiona (Paluzzi).

That’s about it for the plot, and well, I’d rank this in the bottom half of the Connery Bond movies(I don’t include Never Say Never Again in that, as it’s not an official Bond in any sort of way by my standards); that’s not really a bad thing and overall I wouldn’t say it’s a bad movie, per say. The scenery looks nice, there’s a good amount of exciting action (there is quite a bit of people getting killed by harpoons and spears!), the acting is fine, there are some great quips and one-liners, and adjusted for inflation this is the highest grossing Bond of all time. Yet, the reason why I rank it where I do amongst the other Bond movies that Sean did is that it’s too long at over 2 hours and it tends to drag a lot. Some things should have been shortened. Also, things get pretty goofy at the finale. Some of those special effects (not the underwater photography; there’s a lot of it here and it’s nice to look at, but that’s one part which drags at times) look pretty bad in 2010 and characters start acting differently just because the script tells them to. So, that’s why. It’s not a bad movie overall-as I’ve said already-but…

In an interesting bit of trivia, the theme song to the movie is by Tom Jones, and it's what you would expect of an old Bond song. However, someone else also submitted a song. It was none other than Johnny Cash. If you want to know what that song would have been like if it was played over the opening credits of this movie, go here to YouTube and view what one person put together.

I'll be back Tuesday night and this time that is a promise that will be kept.

Check Back Friday Night

Due to some changes in my plans (like going out to eat earlier tonight), a week where I did more than expected-not too much note-worthy, but still-and me being dead tired right now, my next review will be Friday night and this time I promise it'll be up.

Machete

Machete (2010)

71% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 110 reviews)

Runtime: 105 minutes

Directed by: Robert Rodriguez/Ethan Maniquis

Starring: Danny Trejo, Steven Seagal, Jessica Alba, Jeff Fahey, Michelle Rodriguez, Robert De Niro

From: 20th Century Fox/Troublemaker Studios

Yep, here’s my review on the movie based upon one of the “fake” trailers for Grindhouse, the movie that not nearly enough people saw on the big screen back in ’07, but I guess not enough people got the concept or what it was about. I did, though, and I was happy to see it on the big screen AND at a drive-in in a ghetto part of Tampa. Good times. As this movie is doing better at the box office, maybe people saw the two movies separately on DVD and thought that they needed to see this on the big screen… but that’s just a wild guess. I am happy that finally, sometime soon on Blu-Ray will be the full Grindhouse experience, with the two movies and the fake trailers. That is buys.

So is this movie, I say. I know that some people out there have criticized this and The Expendables for various reasons, and that’s all well and good. I’m just disappointed that they felt that way and they didn’t get into the spirit of the film and just sat back and had a good time, and instead were critical. This is a good and trashy old time at the cinema. If you’ve seen the fake trailer to this (all of the clips you get to see in the movie) then you know the basic plot. Machete (Trejo) is a Federale from Mexico and he gets hired by a mysterious man (Fahey) to take out a Senator. Suddenly, someone shoots him and it was a setup by Fahey. Machete gets revenge and in a very memorable way. Out of that 3 minute trailer, they managed to craft a feature film that explains everything, and it works in a great sleazy fashion.

Not to spoil too much, but it revolves around the Senator (De Niro, delivering a wacky performance), illegal immigration, a drug lord south of the border, played by Seagal, and so much more. It’s mis-casting, but it was done on purpose. There’s also an an immigration agent-Alba, believe it or not; a great actress she’s not. A really hot woman who looked great in this movie? Yes! She played that role pretty well-and April (Lindsay Lohan! She’s barely in the movie, and she was fine for what it was. She even looked almost appealing and not total skank nasty), the daughter of Fahey’s character. There’s also a large cast of colorful characters spread throughout. Sure, at times it seems to be too many characters, but despite any foibles I may have about how things turned out, I had such a good time with this, I didn’t care.

It’s a movie where there is VERY graphic violence and you see guys getting shot in the head (and the mess that creates when a bullet enters the skull), not to mention a gross-out gag involving a part of the human body; no, not *that* part, but another one. It’s something I’ll never forget. The cast full of famous faces does well-enough, at least most of them do. What I enjoyed the most was that it still had a light and humorous tone to it despite all the carnage going on and it did not take itself too seriously. In this sort of movie, that was appropriate. I mean, just look at the cast of the film; it was rather unique and it managed to work. I sure as hell enjoyed this much more than Mr. Rodriguez’s Predators. Like I said, I’m disappointed that more people didn’t enjoy it and didn’t see the movie like I did. As someone described the movie as “a big fat greasy super-delicious burrito of a movie”, and I agree!

I’ll be back Wednesday night with a new review.

Crocodile Dundee

Crocodile Dundee (1986)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: Peter Faiman

Starring: Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, John Mellion, David Gulpilpil

From: Rimfire Films

Here is a movie that I only happen to be talking about due to its star getting into some recent legal problems (more on that later) and the fact that recently I noticed it was on television and I saw a few minutes of it.

Now, the first two movies in this series (I haven’t seen the third, and by most accounts, “not having seen it” is the best way to go) I’ve seen more than once before, but I was most familiar with the second one, oddly enough. I did not remember too much from the original, aside from its most famous bits and its ending in the subway… actually, I did see a few minutes of it while one of my two sisters happened to be watching it at home back when we all still lived in Illinois. There was a scene involving a guy snorting some blow, and I sure as hell didn’t remember that!

Recently on CMT I got to see a bit of this film, and it was entertaining enough where I decided that I should finally watch it in full after all of these years. Besides watching it on DVD rather than tape and avoiding their edits, I would also avoid their near-constant advertising that next weekend they’re having a Dukes of Hazzard marathon. Now, I like the Duke Boys and Daisy as much as any other guy, but the constant plugging (via graphics) was a major distraction. What else would you expect from a network that is part of a conglomerate that includes MTV, though?

As for this movie (technically Australian, although not one of the Australian films of old that I’d like to see one of these days) it’s definitely simple and straightforward, but it manages to work. Newspaper writer Sue flies to Australia (on the newspaper’s dime) in order to track down Mick “Crocodile” Dundee, as there was a legend about him surviving a major crocodile attack in the middle of nowhere down under. She gets there and meets him and his buddies; the attack was overinflated, but once she gets to interact with him and his country boy ways, she gets charmed… so much so that on the newspaper’s dime she flies him into New York City for an indeterminate amount of time AND he stays in a posh hotel downtown. Sure, we find out that her dad owns the newspaper and he’s filthy rich, but major LOL in 2010 thinking that the newspapers of today would be able to afford that kind of expense. Also, imagine in 2010 getting a guy who hasn’t ever been in a city before and has no sort of ID on him-and doesn’t even know when exactly he was born-for him to be able to fly out of the country… that’s just funny in hindsight, you know.

Like I said, the movie is rather simple (the plot gets started right away and there’s no let-up) and it’s totally predictable, but what makes it entertaining is the two leads, their performances, and their chemistry with each other. It’s no surprise that for the past 20 years now, Paul and Linda have been married in real life. It’s a quaint story but if it sounds appealing to you… it was an amiable and good-natured time... one that happened to involve transvestites, Mick Dundee grabbing their package to confirm that they were indeed dudes, that scene where a guy is sniffing coke, and Mick chatting with whores and then punching out their pimp. Like I said, good-natured!

Now, if you haven’t heard, Paul recently got into some trouble. He lives in L.A. but had to go back to Australia in order to attend his mother’s funeral; she was 101. The Australian government-in their kindness-thought this would be a good time to force him not to leave until he pays off alleged tax debts. I’m sure it’s a load of crap anyways, but doing this right after his mother’s funeral… what a dick thing to do. He was stuck there for like the past two weeks.

But, things changed in the past few days. He now is allowed to leave and go back home, although he still has the dispute going on. By the way, check out this link to read about the story, if only to see an image of Hogan goofing on the situation and dressing like a bandito. Awesome.

I’ll be back this Friday night with a review, and this time it’s of a movie now out on the big screen.

It’s Random Movie Time Again

Yep, this time around I’ll just mention briefly some movies I’ve seen as of late-in part due to me STILL getting those Showtime channels for free-and I don’t plan on doing full reviews of any of these in the future… unless I change my mind. I mean, not all of these I even watched in full, to be honest.

Avatar Special Edition

Yep, this is a movie that I saw and reviewed back in December. For what it is, it’s great entertainment, although the replay value isn’t all that high. I ended up never seeing it in IMAX 3-D, so when I saw that the AMC Theatres at Downtown Disney were showing it at their ETX screen. It’s almost comparable to a legit IMAX screen (as I’ve said before) and it sounds pretty great. So that’s why I went and saw the Special Edition, with a few minutes of added footage. In general the new stuff doesn’t mean a whole lot for the story; it’s just interesting in a trivial sort of way. I did enjoy seeing it again in 3-D, though.

Freejack

Here’s an early 90’s movie with a nice cast (Emilio Estevez, Anthony Hopkins, and Mick Jagger; yes, Mick. As an actor, he proves that… he’s a great musician) but despite an interesting opening, this film about a race car driver who gets sent to the future (i.e. 2009!) for his body is just not that good. Of course the movie has a dystopian future-something that is starting to get pretty old as a plot device, I say-and it just becomes boring and through the motions. It reminded me of Escape From New York at times and really, you’re much better off watching that movie instead.

Fire Down Below

Yes, the Steven Seagal movie from the late 90’s which happens to have Marg Helgenberger as his love interest and a small but memorable role from none other than Stephen Lang as her brother. It’s not what you’d call one of Steven’s best works (yes, that’s what I said. They’re not all bad, I swear. For being cheesy action movies with not that high of a budget, some of his movies can be a lot of fun to watch) but it is still entertaining and has some real funny moments too.

Pig Hunt

Here is a horror movie from 2008 which I’ve heard about on various sites before and it’s gotten mixed reviews. After I saw it, I’ll side with those who say that it’s not very good. Sure, they use a nice-looking animatronic pig that looks far better than a cheap CGI porker, and the movie has a soundtrack from Les Claypool (yes music fans, THAT Les Claypool; he ‘s even in the movie in a small role) but it felt like it took about 900 hours to finish, and the characters in general are not that likeable in the beginning… then you get to meet some more characters that are even MORE unlikeable. I know I'm starting to get tired of Rob Zombie white trash characters. It also takes forever to get going, so by the time shit starts going down, you’re bored out of your minds and you just don’t care.

Vice Squad

Here is a random early 80’s movie that was on the Independent Film Channel one night and I watched it, as some people on a messageboard were plugging it due to it being so sleazy and yet so memorable; hey, they were right. It’s a trashy movie about prostitutes and their psychotic pimp who beats up and tortures them. It’s not for everyone but if you enjoy sleazy movies like this, it’s entertaining for what it is. I mean, this song from the movie matches the tone of the film pretty well, I say. The main highlight is Wings Hauser as the evil pimp character. He does a great job being terrifying as a guy named Ramrod. The name alone also says a lot as to what kind of motion picture this is.

I'll be back Sunday night with one of my usual reviews.