The Men's Club

The Men's Club (1986)

Runtime: 101 minutes

Directed by: Peter Medak

Starring: Roy Scheider, David Dukes, Richard Jordan, Harvey Keitel, Frank Langella

From: Atlantic Releasing Corporation

Now, here is something out of the ordinary for me. I found out about this bizarre “only in the 80's” film from someone I know on Facebook. I have no idea how he found this-as it's now really obscure-but it's another movie on Netflix Instant that unfortunately is going away on the 1^st of May. That's why I had to watch it now. He described it as “David Mamet writing The Big Chill” mixed with “The Breakfast Club written by a hedonist”! Yeah, it is that strange. I mean, Roy Scheider says: “I love to f***! It's gonna be on my gravestone!” I swear to God above I am not making that up.

To steal the plot description from the IMDb:

“A group of men get together to form a "discussion group". They share their feelings about women, life, love, and work. The party gets rowdier and rowdier, and then the wife returns home. Thrown out, the men are not yet willing to call it a night... “

I mean, in the opening credits the women are listed as either “Wives & Girlfriends” or “House of Affection”, which is a... brothel! Yes, this is a real film which features the actors already listed plus Treat Williams, Stockard Channing, Craig Wasson, Cindy Pickett, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Wow what a misogynistic movie this is. Women in general look like shrill loathsome harpies, and Keitel (after taking a hit from a joint) brags about how he hit his wife and she cried and that gave him an erection! That's what you get from this talky movie. There's also a scene of knife-throwing, Roy Scheider saying, “A nice whiff of c***”, Frank Langella wears a paper plate mask (!?), Harvey Keitel telling someone to “make coffee and shove it up your ass!”, Treat Williams informing the group he hit a woman for eating a bite of his dessert (?!), an 80's soft jazz score, a visit to a brothel, a ventriloquist dummy, the aftermath of Roy and a random whore having really sweaty sex, a male character saying, “I think I'm gonna have an eruption!” to an erotic statement he heard, Frank-who is said to be hung like a horse!-getting asked in a crude way if he's gay (and this is after he has makeup applied to his face by Jennifer Jason Leigh), the males howling like dogs... and even more that I won't spoil.

The real reason to watch this isn't to be entertained by a good movie, as this certainly isn't it; rather, it's to be amazed at how strange and wrong-headed this is. I think that Keitel's character (and yeah, he gets nude; what a shock) wasn't the only one involved here who ingested drugs! Really, it's incredible. I suppose they got this cast together because this was based on some book I've never heard of, but seeing these guys do these things... strange. It is a shame it is going away on Instant as it was never released on DVD, probably to the relief of the big stars in the movie.

But hey, I had no idea that Roy Scheider could dance so well to Dixieland Jazz...

I'll be back Wednesday afternoon.

Order Of The Black Eagle/Street People

Order of the Black Eagle (1987)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: Worth Keeter

Starring: Ian Hunter, C.K. Bibby, William T. Hicks, Anna Rapunga, Jill Donnellan

From: Manson International

Street People (Gli Esecutori) (1976)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Maurizio Lucidi, Guglielmo Garroni

Starring: Roger Moore, Stacy Keach, Ivo Garrani, Fausto Tozzi

From: AIP

Here are two movies which are on Netflix Instant and are about to expire starting next month. The first one is a goofy send-up of a James Bond film, while the second one stars someone who was James Bond at the time. Works for me for a combo. I have seen the first one in the time I had done the blog but I wanted to wait to talk about it on a rainy day and it didn't happen, so I might as well watch it again.

Concerning Order of the Black Eagle I first heard about it from the Bad Movie Fiends podcast. The description really says it all, stolen right from Netflix: “A James Bond wannabe and his tank-driving baboon infiltrate a South American lair where Nazis scheme to revive a cryogenically frozen Adolf Hitler.” YES. All of that is true.

The movie stars DUNCAN JAX (Ian Hunter, not the former Mott the Hoople singer nor anyone else with the name; he only appeared in this and the first movie in this series, Unmasking the Idol, which I've never seen) as a secret agent type who has an M and a Japanese guy who is supposed to be Q. Hilariously, Hunter looks a lot like modern day Michael Bolton. He goes to South America to go against a German guy who looks like an even fatter version of Orson Welles in his final years. Duncan is aided by a real motley crue of people, from a guy who is supposed to be James Coburn from The Magnificent Seven to an enormous black guy, Not John Hillerman and Not Grace Jones, two guys who look like Grateful Dead roadies, and an 80's hot brunette. This is all true.

This is not a film to watch for the cogent script or masterful acting. Rather, watch it to see a massively entertaining film if you enjoy low-budget 80's action movies. The final 25 minuets or so are positively insane, with multiple massive explosions, multiple stuntment getting positively wrecked, and a baboon (who loves delivering the Up Yours gesture) driving the World War II amphibious vehicle known as the DUKW, or Duck. Utter insanity... and it's all great.

As for Street People, it's a poliziotteschi film starring Roger Moore and Stacy Keach and it's from AIP? Sure! However, I had heard it's not as good as expected so that's why I waited to see it. To steal another description from Netflix: “On direct orders from his mafia boss uncle (Ivo Garrani), swaggering lawyer Ulysses (Roger Moore) teams up with his reckless racecar driver bud Charlie (Stacy Keach) to find the gangsters responsible for smuggling a million dollars worth of heroin from Sicily to San Francisco inside a cross. Brazen backstabbing, chaotic car chases, life-and-death dilemmas and funny fistfights abound in this action-packed crime movie.”

Overall... I'll say that this is average and fine and nothing more; it certainly isn't like the other poliziotteschi films I have seen. Things just seem flat and while there certainly are nice moments, a nice car chase chase, another car destruction scene, and funny dialogue-especially between the two leads-but overall the other movies in the genre are just better, crazier, and more entertaining. The story is rather nonsensical and that doesn't help. According to the IMDb, the script was from NINE different people. That's usually a bad sign. And one of them was a dude who wrote Shaft and The French Connection, and another was from the guy who would go to direct Grease.

At least the music was appropriate for the genre (i.e. pretty groovy), there is some hilarious 70's clothing, and an adult establishment in San Francisco once offered the entertainment of “EXOTIC LADY WRESTLERS”. That made me laugh.

I'll be back tomorrow night.

Another Change Of Plans

I hate having to do this again but last night I went out to downtown Orlando to have a good time and well, I had a great time there, with TWO drunken ladies grinding their stuff on me and a GUY grabbing my ass and then giving me a hug for a picture; after that, today I just want to relax and watch the end of the NFL Draft before I go and see the latest UFC pay per view. I will be back tomorrow night with a review of more than one movie from Netflix and in a few days I MAY go to a drive-in to see a pair of theatrical films.

Broken Angel, An Old TV Movie

Broken Angel (1988)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: Richard T. Heffron

Starring: William Shatner, Susan Blakely, Brock Peters, Erika Eleniak

From: MGM/UA Television

Here is something highly unusual for me, a TV movie. I had heard about it from a messageboard last year and it sounded hilariously bad, and it is on Netflix Instant. Well, it is one of many movies that will be expiring from Instant on the 1^st of May so I figured I better watch this now. It aired originally on ABC way back in 1988.

I'll come up with my own plot description: Chuck Coburn (The Shat) and his wife Catherine (Blakely) are suburban parents who live outside of Los Angeles and they have what looks like a normal average family, including a high school aged daughter Jaime (Eleniak, who back then needed to have her eyebrows waxed real bad... unfortunately I presume the trend wasn't around in the late 80's) and a 13 year old son. Jaime goes to prom, where a drive-by happens (!) with a pistol (!!) and Jaime goes missing. Turns out, via some hilarious and unbelievable revelations, the kids aren't who mom and dad think they are; Chuck has to try and deal with various members of law enforcement as they try to locate where Jaime is.

The overall message of the movie, that parents should listen to their children and talk to them about their problems, is a good one, sure. However, it goes over the top and ridiculous in trying to tell the parents to be on the lookout for gangs. For example, apparently some of them are Satanic. Or that there are gangs filled with rich kids who drive around in BMW's. Really. You also find out that Jaime smokes pot and hangs out with a member of a gang. That's early on. Later you find out more about her, and it's so goofy it is funny. The son also has problems of his own, like him feeling his parents don't listen to him... and also being worried about nuclear war. Seriously.

But the highlight is when Chuck (who wears hilarious clothing throughout, from goofy suits to sweaters, a jean jacket with a hoodie attached to a glorious UCLA Bruins letterman's jacket) ends up stumbling into a gang hideout and he doesn't get gunned down but in fact escapes and fights with Al Leong! Straining credibility there, I say. So is a “gang brawl” that is G-rated. Oh, and you get to hear some punk music too; to steal a quote, it sounds like the I Hate You song you hear the punk blast on his jukebox before he gets Vulcan Neck Pinched by Spock in Star Trek IV.

So yeah, in 2013 this is great as entertainment, even if at the time the filmmakers were serious in talking about gang violence and the threat it is to teenagers who feel alone and disconnected from their parents. A nice messageboard find, for sure. I'll be back Saturday afternoon.

Rome Armed To The Teeth

Rome Armed To The Teeth (Roma A Mano Armata) (1976)

Runtime: 90 minutes (the copy I saw, anyway)

Directed by: Umberto Lenzi

Starring: Maurizio Merli, Arthur Kennedy, Giampiero Albertini, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, Tomas Milian

From: Dania Film

Yep, another poliziotteschi film for me. Don't worry, I'm still using Netflix Instant for the time being for stuff like documentaries, which I'll probably talk about in one big post where I briefly talk about some of them. For now I decided to watch this particular film solely due to the description I found on IMDb: “A tough, violent cop who doesn't mind bending the law goes after a machine-gun-carrying, hunchbacked psychotic killer.” YES

Turns out, once I watched the movie, that was part of the plot but the entire story is that the loosest of loose cannon cops (Merli, who has an appropriate cop 'stache) goes after a criminal organization which the hunchbacked psychotic killer (Milian) is a part of. The cop-Leonardo Tanzi-deals with various thugs who go after him and his lady (Omaggio) but also deals with other random criminals, from a guy missing a hand to young rich punks who enjoy gang-raping women. Yeah, this is a pretty sleazy tale, no surprise given the director.

Overall, while I could have done without the gang-rape stuff (even if most of it isn't shown; there's still a bit where it's implied they use or are about to use a big piece of wood as “a giant wooden dildo”) and seeing multiple women get slapped around, this was still SO wildly entertaining and fun, I enjoyed it all. Tanzi isn't afraid to beat the crap out of suspects in his custody to get the right answers, including kicking them in the balls; that is a trademark of his, hitting people below the belt. Seeing him wreck dudes is always a delight. You better believe he catches up to the gang-rapists and what happens to them... satisfying.

You get the expected here, with shootouts, car chases, brawls, and getting to see Alfa Romeo's, Fiat 500's, and Citroen DS vehicles all around. Here, Tanzi pulls a John McClane and crawls around in air conditioning ducts. That was interesting. So was seeing Kennedy, who appeared in such movies as Lawrence of Arabia and The Glass Menagerie.

So yeah, this is another nice example of a movie in a genre that I think is pretty damn awesome. I'll be back Thursday afternoon.

Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Runtime: 116 minutes (the Director's Cut, anyhow)

Directed by: Nicholas Meyer

Starring: William Shatner, Ricardo Montalban, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan

From: Paramount

Yes, the most famous and what many say is the best Star Trek film... including me. I saw it on the big screen (via a DVD projection) at Universal Studios and their AMC Theatres. This was shortly before the '09 Star Trek came out. That was great times. I know I have seen it on VHS tape as a kid, on ABC TV, on DVD, and on the big screen. Good times.

I did do something different before seeing this late last night: I went on YouTube and I watched the Space Seed episode from the original series that introduced the Khan character. I know I saw it as a kid, but that was at least 20 years ago. You don't need to watch it to enjoy the movie as the movie explains pretty well what happened in the episode, but it does add to the experience and back then the performance and character were real charismatic and just cool. What a great head of hair Ricardo had back then. It was as great as what he had in the film. 

I did laugh at the sexism on display; it was a random woman character who happened to be a late 20^th century historian and that was appropriate as Khan was a genetically created superhuman who ruled in the 1990's before going off to space with his pals and being in cryogenic sleep for 200 years. He tries to take over the ship with his followers but he gets thwarted.  As it is established that Kirk and most of the main crew admire Khan even though he did bad things on Earth (something that Spock thought was illogical), it is not surprising that they didn't go to Space Jail or what have you and instead they were sent to Ceti Alpha 5 to see if they could start a new world. Well, as explained in the movie, a planet nearby it exploded so it went out of whack and the planet became a desert world and Kirk never visited the planet in 15 years to check up on it (as promised in the episode) so you can understand why Khan would be pissed off about it.

Before I move on with the nerditry, the YouTube copy has the original 60's commercials; I don't know how they found the copy but they did and talk about a product of their times. Advertisements for cigarettes and RCA Victor, for example.

As for the movie's plot, it's still great, where Khan is looking for revenge and he and Kirk engage in a battle of wills and wits, and Kirk is concerned about his old age and how much longer he'll get to be a captain of a star ship, and then there's the Genesis Device and whether or not it's ethical or not, and then there's Spock's sacrifice... it's grand entertainment and it's still exciting and fun to watch even more than 30 years later. And yes, from years of the Internet I know that many people are still terrified of the scene with those eels going into the ears of Chekhov and Terrell, and it's understandable as it's a horrific thing to have something go into your body, have an effect on your mind, and then make you go crazy.

So yes I am glad that this is the sort of movie which still holds up in modern times. Hopefully Star Trek Into Darkness can be just as good as this one. I have no idea what to expect as J.J. Abrams isn't one of my favorites and there's all the mystery about Benedict Cumberbatch's character and whether or not he will be playing Khan or not. I am starting to think he is but I know that will end up causing a lot of controversy and angry Trekker fans due to how beloved the original character is. Montalban-a Mexican-as the Indian (as in from India) Khan Noonien Singh isn't so preposterous. The decidedly British Cumberbatch as an Indian, though... they really must be changing the character if he is Khan, and Lord knows how the reaction will be to that. I guess we'll find out in a few weeks.

I'll be back tomorrow night.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Runtime: 136 minutes (The Director's Edition)

Directed by: Robert Wise

Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Stephen Collins, Persis Khambatta

From: Paramount

Yep, I have never talked about any of the Star Trek movies since I started doing this blog back in August of '09. By then I had already seen the reboot of the series (which I enjoyed; I will watch that again before the goofily titled Star Trek Into Darkness comes out next month; I will probably go see that at its midnight premiere, as I imagine dealing with Trekkers (or Trekkies or whatever you want to call them) will be quite the experience) and a few weeks before that I saw the original Star Trek II on the big screen at Universal's theatres in Orlando. I figured now would be a good time for me to talk about the movies with the original cast from the TV show, starting with this one. I did watch a number of the episodes of the TV show as a kid and saw the movies on VHS tape. I know that this entry gets mixed reviews even from fans, but I do not recall ever having any issue with it, despite the fact that the VHS version was 143 minutes long, i.e. pretty damn long.

As for the plot, you probably know it by now; this is the one with V'Ger and the lady officer who is bald. Let's be honest, those are the most famous aspects of the story, dealing with the old crew getting back together on a newly fitted Enterprise (along with some new people) in order to try and intercept a massive cloud of energy that is unstoppable and heading straight towards Earth. You find out that the entity is known as V'Ger and what is ends up being... sure, it is wacky but this is a story that tries in several different ways to be 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I must have seen this Director's Edition in college but that was more than 10 years ago. Seeing it tonight, I still enjoy the movie despite it not being like the TV show or the other movies in the series. Things are slower and more cereberal and heady. With all the fancy images that you get from the wormhole sequence and especially when they go in the cloud of energy, it definitely was inspired (or ripped off from) 2001. But hey, I still enjoy it and its heady concepts as it's all interesting to me, what it means to be human and if there's more out there. It makes you think and I am fine with that.

Also, the performances are all at least fine and the special effects still look nice in 2013, although admittedly the Director's Edition had various changes, including cleaning up various special effects shots. This is the best version of the director's vision as the movie was rushed to be released on time. If nothing else, this allowed the rest of the movies in the series to be made, when they were going to bring it back as a TV show, then Star Wars and Close Encounters were huge hits and Paramount followed the money. The score from stalwart Jerry Goldsmith was also pretty grand, which helps. Also, I imagine that if you smoke a lot of weed or take some acid then watch the movie, your mind will be blown away by the trippy visuals and wacky sound effects!

I understand why people wouldn't care for this sort of film but me, I am fine with it. I'll be back tomorrow night.

A Change of Plans

I did not want to do this again but with how things went the past few days (including going to Walt Disney World yesterday and seeing THE VILLAGE PEOPLE perform; no lie; sometime soon I need to watch their movie Can't Stop The Music; yes, they made a movie; it features Bruce Jenner! Tonight, I watched the UFC show after I was tied up with other things before that), I'd rather not try and rush a review late tonight and post it real early Sunday morning; I'll just do reviews the next two or three nights to make up for it.

And no I wasn't planning on watching something like Cheech & Chong because today is 4/20, even though that would have been highly appropriate.

Death Race 2000

Death Race 2000 (1975)

Runtime: 79 minutes

Directed by: Paul Bartel

Starring: David Carradine, Simone Griffeth, Sly Stallone, Mary Woronov

From: New World Pictures

I decided that the first movie I should watch now that I have Netflix Instant back for the month is a motion picture I had seen before, awhile back. It was something I enjoyed, flaws and all. After seeing it again tonight, I still enjoy it, flaws and all. I do have to say that before I started doing this I saw Death Racers, from The Asylum and starring the Insane Clown Posse and Raven (yes, the pro wrestler). It was awful, but not even for the ICP factor. It was just a badly made movie all around, from the performances to the story to how it was filmed. I haven't seen the 2008 Death Race movie starring Jason Statham but I have heard it is full of illogical moments and is just another terrible movie from Paul W.S. Anderson, where the W.S stands for “Writes Shitty”, to steal a joke. I have heard the two direct to DVD sequels are surprisingly good so I imagine that eventually I'll watch all three of those.

As for this movie, the plot isn't too complex: It's the year 2000 in a dystopian future. What was then the United States holds an annual auto race, the Transcontinental Road Race, where several drivers (with female copilots that pretty much are also there to “service” the drivers) go from coast to coast and the winner is based on time AND points based on the number of pedestrians you kill and their sex/age. The most popular/successful driver is Frankenstein (Carradine), whose main rival is Machinegun Joe Viterbo (Stallone). However, this year there is an anti-government group looking to disrupt the race...

The movie definitely has its flaws. The real low budget does hurt at times. You can tell it was all filmed in California despite it being a cross-country deal. It's goofy and it doesn't always live up to its big ideas. Yet, the film to me is still fun to watch. When it hits, it does hit. The performances are delightfully over the top, especially from Sly. There isn't as much violence as you'd expect but what you see is still satisfying, and at least there is plenty of nudity and pretty ladies to gawk at. It's just entertaining to watch and hey, if you don't like it, it is pretty short. The music score is odd but great at the same time.

And the political commentary still holds true, and it really holds true for the lambasting of the media. I mean, just this week with CNN and how they reported the alleged detainment of the suspect in the Boston bombings... sometimes the media needs to be parodied, let's be honest here.

The movie is appropriate for a GOOD remake but I understand that has never happened as of yet. Hopefully the good remake would have someone being insulted with the line, “You're one very large baked potato” and there's a character like Junior Bruce, a loudmouthed race reporter played by real life loudmouthed DJ The Real Don Steele, who dresses for the movie in a rather fey manner.

I'll be back Saturday night.

An Update

No movie review tonight, but I just wanted to say that yesterday was my root canal and that was a much less painful and difficult process than I was led to believe. It was an easy procedure and tonight I feel 100%.

Late last night I decided to sign up with Netflix Instant again, so that's where I'll be getting some of my material for the next month. Today I went and rented some movies from Blockbuster, so that will provide some content for the next week or so.

I will be back tomorrow night with a proper review.

Syndicate Sadists

Syndicate Sadists (Il Giustiziere Sfida La Citta) (1975)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Umberto Lenzi

Starring: Tomas Milian, Joseph Cotten, Maria Fiore, Mario Piave, Femi Benussi

From: Dania Cinematografica

On this day of chaos and sad world news, I figured I would go for some escapist entertainment and watch another poliziotteschi film, this time one that isn't too difficult to find on YouTube, rather than the ones I've seen as of late that I found on a mysterious site where there's an amazing number of obscure uploads. I'll admit, a big reason why I picked it out was that I recognized some of the names in the cast (Italian actors Milian and Benussi, along with Cotten, who yes once appeared in movies like Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons and his career ended up here, delivering a surprisingly more wooden than Pinocchio; it wasn't the dubbing either, as all of his part was in English) and the fact that Tomas plays a character named... RAMBO. Yes. Obviously it was taken from the David Morrell novel First Blood shortly after it came out, which was years before Sly Stallone first played John Rambo.

To steal the plot from the IMDb: “A biker's brother is killed while investigating the kidnapping of a young boy, the byproduct of a war between two crime families. The biker vows to get revenge by finding the kidnapped boy and destroying the two families.”

Yeah, the plot seems similar to Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which was also adapted into A Fistful of Dollars. That sounded good to me and turns out, I did enjoy it, even more than I was expecting.There was what you'd expect from the genre, meaning shootouts, a badass hero (and Rambo did live up to the name, delivering many great moments), action on a bike (in this case a motorcycle that Rambo rides, while aways wearing a red cap and the old-style of motorcycle goggles), fistfights (there is a great one in a pool hall), a real funky 70's-riffic score and yeah, some sleaze. You see a woman get beat up, which yeah was uncomfortable. There was also a forced OD of cocaine, which is always good for laughs...

In short, I am glad this is easy to find online. If you aren't too familiar with the genre then this isn't a bad one to try out, as it has plenty of action and entertainment for its runtime and at least for me tonight, was entertainment that helped me forget the awfulness that happened in Boston. It also proved that if anyone happens to have the name Rambo, he'll be awesome.

I'll be back Wednesday night.

Violent City

Violent City (a.k.a. Violent Rome; Roma Violenta) (1975)

Runtime: 85 minutes (at least that's how long the copy I watched was)

Directed by: Marino Girolami

Starring: Maurizio Merli, Richard Conte, Silvano Tranquilli, Ray Lovelock

From: Fida Cinematografica

Yep, I decided to watch another entry in the Italian crime genre known as poliziotteschi, as I thought it had been too long. This should not be confused with the 1970 film Violent City, from another Italian and thus considered a part of the genre too, despite it being set in New Orleans. That movie stars Charles Bronson and Telly Savalas.

I decided to pick this one out mainly due to its plot sounding like something right up my alley. It stars Merli, a person who commonly appeared in these films. He is a loose cannon cop here, and he certainly has a great cop 'stache. Conte is best known to most people as Barzini from The Godfather.

The plot, straight from the IMDb as it's easy that way: “A detective sick and tired of the rampant crime and violence in his city, and constantly at odds with his superiors, is finally kicked out of the department for a "questionable" shooting of a vicious criminal. However, he is soon approached by a representative for a group of citizens who themselves are fed up with what they see as criminals going unpunished, and they make him an offer he may very well not refuse.”

I'll tell you right now, he doesn't refuse the offer.

Overall, this isn't the wildest and craziest entry in this genre I've seen. It's no The Italian Connection or Rulers of the City. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy this, though; Merli (as Betti) certainly is a loose cannon cop, getting pissed off at how crime-ridden Rome is and how he has to follow certain rules while dealing with the criminals. Note that if he hops in you car and you try to run away, he'll grab you and ram your head into the steering wheel a few times. There is plenty of violence and action to see, and as it's in this genre there is no surprise that there's both a dirtbike and a car chase involved; I think all of the poliziotteschi films I have seen have had both. The highlight of the movie was the long car chase where a lot of destruction and mayhem happens.

The copy of the movie I saw had English subtitles and they weren't always great in terms of spelling or grammar. Yet, I am glad they did make one change. For some reason, an Italian criminal is known as “The Chinese”, at least according to the credits. Well, imagine my surprise when I look on IMDb and the character is known as the most common ethnic slur against a Chinese person, a term I won't repeat here. I am glad the subtitles changed the name! Also, note that you do get some nudity... but it's from a rape.

Overall, I am glad I checked out this movie. It's satisfying to watch, which is always good. I'll be back Monday night.

Demons

Demons (1985)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Lamberto Bava

Starring: Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny, Fiore Argento, Bobby Rhodes

From: DACFILM Rome

Here is a famous Italian horror film I have known about for a long time but I've only seen bits and pieces of. That's even after many people on messageboards I read have said in the past how great it is and how hilarious the character known as Tony the Pimp is. Finally, I found a copy to watch-nevermind how, althought it actually wasn't one of the several copies of the movie that is floating around on YouTube right now-and I decided to take the plunge. It was written and produced by Dario Argento, back when his name attached to a film is a good thing. I have to have to qualify the statement, but his work in recent years has gotten a lot of flack; I can agree with everyone on his film Giallo. I saw that awhile back and that was just incredibly dull more than anything else, and it was sad.

The plot to this movie, stolen from the IMDb as it's pretty concise: “A group of people are trapped in a large movie theater in West Berlin that is infected by ravenous demons who proceed to kill and posses the humans one-by-one, thereby multiplying their numbers.”

It's an Italian horror movie so things don't always make sense, and I can not always deal with such things; that's just how my brain works. However, in this case I thought this was a wildly entertaining movie. There is plenty of gore and viscera and it's all done pretty well, so you'll enjoy it if you dig that sort of thing. There are transformation scenes as you see people turn into the title creatures; some of it was highly creepy.

There is a great 80's electronica score from Claudio Simonetti (the ex-keyboard player to Goblin, a band that often provided weird and yet awesome scores to Italian films in the 70's and 80's), and it rules. 

Also sweet is that 80's rock songs are also heard, from the likes of Motley Crue and Saxon... but also Rick Springfield and Billy Idol's White Wedding, which rules but is more pop/rock than anything else. The highlight, though, is that awesome German rock band Accept provided Fast as a Shark (an early speed/thrash metal tune), which is aces on its own but in the movie you hear it during an incredible scene where an unnamed character-I don't want to spoil it too much-gets on a dirtbike and uses a samurai sword to F some S up, and it is great.

I don't want to reveal too much else but I do have to mention a great character, Bobby Rhodes as Tony the Pimp; that character actually is a pimp and he's always amusing. His clothing is what you'd expect a black pimp in West Berlin to wear, I suppose, and judging by his facial hair and voice, think Mr. T. Yeah, another movie where you're reminded of the 80's icon. Oh, and there's obvious dubbing which happens; as all Italian movies used to do for years and years, everyone spoke dialogue in their own language and it got dubbed over into whatever language the movie was sent to for distribution. That does lead to some unintentional hilarity.

Overall, if you watch this movie it's not for the plot but rather to have a good time with evil demons, gore, insanity, and plenty of instances where you're reminded of the 1980's... to me, a great recipe. I'll be back Saturday night.

An Update

So, my day was busier than expected and I am exhausted, so I'll be back tomorrow night with a proper review. But, thankfully I definitely feel better than I did Monday night. It was discovered I had an abscess so that was drained; I still need a root canal in 6 days, which I am not too thrilled about. At least I am not in pain/aching pretty bad like I was when I talked about The Great Outdoors. For tomorrow night I hope to talk about some sort of wacky movie.

The Great Outdoors

The Great Outdoors (1988)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Howard Deutch

Starring: Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Stephanie Faracy, Annette Bening, Robert Prosky

From: Universal

What a past couple of days I had. In short, a tooth got infected and this morning the side of my face with the tooth was really swollen. I went to the dentist for an unplanned visit, and yeah I got medication to deal with it for today, but tomorrow I'll have to visit a specialist and likely I'll be getting a root canal soon, which I am not thrilled about... but, if it makes the toothache go away, I'll be thankful for it.

I could have watched several different things today, but as I am really tired from the past few days and not getting as much sleep as usual, I figured I should watch a comedy, and one that I enjoyed as a kid along with the rest of my family and thankfully I still enjoy the movie as an adult. It is a nice reminder of the 80's and early 90's, where John Candy was awesome and he appeared in many memorable films, and where John Hughes wrote and produced many memorable films, as he did here. What great memories.

The plot: Common man Chet Ripley (Candy) and his family go up to rural northern Wisconsin for a retreat in a quaint small resort town. Unexpectedly, Chet's brother in law Roman Craig (Aykroyd)-the most stereotypical yuppie Mercedes-Benz driving know-it-all and his family decide to stay with the Ripley family, leading to arguments, wacky moments, tales of killer bears that are actually true, raccoons that speak in subtitles, and even some romance.

This is simply a fun and entertaining movie with physical comedy and funny lines/situations (such as learning that hot dogs are made from lips and assholes), such as water skiing gone wrong and what happens when a bat enters a cabin and the men of the families try to get rid of the critter. Seeing how yuppies deal with a rural town in the woods goes about how you'd expect. If you enjoy the comedies from the 80's and you haven't seen this, you should, and not just for the nostalgic memories. A bear gets the hair on the top of his head shot off by a shotgun! If you don't laugh at that description, you probably shouldn't see this; however, I imagine that many will at least get some laughs from it.

I'll be back Wednesday night, or at least I hope to be. If I don't post until after that, I'll be fine but the oral surgery thing got in the way.

Jurassic Park 3D

Jurassic Park (1993)

Runtime: 127 minutes

Directed by: Stephen Spielberg

Starring: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough

From: Universal

My apologies for this being up so late but tonight I went and saw this in 3D on the giant screen they have at AMC Theatres at Downtown Disney. I did see it on VHS tape once it came out in that format, but I saw it on the big screen back in the summer of '93, twice. The second time was at a drive-in, which was sweet. It was the second on a double-bill with Beethoven's 2^nd, of all movies. I know it's the same studio for both but it still seems odd. I haven't seen the first sequel since I watched the movie on the big screen in '97; like most people I did not think it was as good as the first one, not at all, even though it was amusing there was a t-rex in a city as if it was Godzilla or something. Jurassic Park 3 I've never seen and I have no idea what to expect from next year's Jurassic Park 4, given that pretty much no info has been announced concerning the movie yet.

By the way, you can read the original Roger Ebert review of this movie here. He thought it was 3 out of 4 stars but he wished for something more cereberal, which is fair I suppose.

I don't need to recap the plot of how things went wrong on the island due to the unwise idea of fooling around with Mother Nature, aided by an enormous Wayne Knight who screwed things up to commit theft to get some phat cash (I had forgotten how much Mr. Knight weighed at the time; he had health issues so he certainly is thinner now; good for him) so let me get to the point (and not roll another joint) and say that I enjoyed the movie at the time and I still enjoy it in 2013, occasional silliness aside. The cast works, there are roller coaster thrills once things hit the fan, there's humor throughout and not just from Goldblum Goldblumming it up... but most importantly, the special effects that were a “Holy Shit!' in '93 due to how groundbreaking it was, they are still effective in 2013. Usually, computer effects from the 90's don't look too good in this day and age, to put it nicely. Thankfully they have aged gracefully. The 3D does work, although I usually forgot about as I was engrossed with the story.

I say that most “summer blockbusters” for who knows how many years have been bloated effects-laden crap that are lacking in soul and heart. Thankfully this movie is a summer blockbuster that works and can work no matter if you're a kid or an adult. If only more blockbusters were like this, I'd actually go and see them instead of going by secondhand opinions that those movies are bloated effects-laden crap.

I'll be back Monday night.

RIP Roger Ebert

I figured that tonight wouldn't be the best time to do a movie review, as the most famous movie critic of all time sadly passed away today. I was not too surprised it happened but it doesn't mean I wasn't sad to hear about it on Twitter.

As with many people, I saw more than a few episodes of his show with Gene Siskel, and later on I got his two books consisting of the funny reviews he did where he ripped apart crappy movies, as I personally dig such things. Once he unfortunately had all those health problems and he joined Twitter I followed him and while I did not always agree with him there (or his reviews) but it was always and interesting follow and above all else, even if I devoted all my time to becoming a great movie reviewer no way could I be as great of a writer as Roger Ebert was. Also, it was pretty great to see that he created such a web presence and he still was able to communicate with people despite the obvious effects his health problems had on him. Rest In Peace to him.

I'll be back tomorrow night.

The Stabilizer

The Stabilizer (1986)

Runtime: 95 minutes (at least that's what it was on Troma's YouTube page; more on that later)

Directed by: Arizal

Starring: Peter O'Brian, Craig Gavin, Gillie Beanz, Dana Christina, Mark Sungkar

From: Parkit Films

This is no April Fools Day joke, I reviewed another crappy film, but this time this is a movie that is gleefully crappy, in a glorious way. Believe it or not, in the United States it was put out by Troma Films-of all companies and among the movies that the company has available for free on its YouTube page is this one, which I have linked to below. This is from Indonesia-of all places-and it's no The Raid: Redemption in quality.

The plot, straight from the IMDb: “Peter Goldson, aka The Stabilizer, searches for drug smuggler Greg Rainmaker. Rainmaker killed Goldson's fiancee by kicking her with his spiked shoes, and now Goldson wants revenge. Meanwhile, Rainmaker has kidnapped the famous Professor Protost, and the Stabilizer teams up with his daughter Christina to save the Professor and bring Rainmaker down for good.”

Yes. The villain is named Greg Rainmaker. That is awesome. But man is there a lot of awesomely bad moments in this, and I had a blast laughing at/with the movie. If you want a more detailed recap you can check out a review from the Internal Bleeding website, which has some stills from the movie that just show you how easy it is to laugh at it all.

I will list a few highlights:

* Greg Rainmaker always wears spiked shoes. Always.

* The movie has some hilariously bad dubbing, including of the star Peter O'Brian, complete with curly-haired greasy mullet. By the way, he was in another Indonesian movie around the same time. It's known as... Rambu! Yes. That's what the character name was so it's usually called that instead of its original title of The Intruder.

* A flamethrower is used.

* Peter on the motorcycle lays waste to a bunch of thugs in a warehouse, and it's glorious.

* Lizard eating is apparently an acceptable practice in Indonesia.

* Defenestrations happen, including one on a motorcycle.

* It's also apparently easy to find a knee-slapping photo of Peter with sunglasses wearing a mesh shirt in the pose of Stallone on the poster of Cobra.

* A motorized weed-whacker is used by a bad guy.

* And finally, the main henchman of Greg Rainmaker... a guy who looks like and even sort of dresses like an Indonesian Mr. T! That is no April Fools Day joke.

If you love crappy low-budget action movies that are cheesily great from any time period, this is definitely a must-see. Thankfully it is real easy to watch thanks to Troma and their YouTube page.

I'll be back Thursday night.