Spooky
There is always a joy to watching Lee Marvin act, as you never know what he’s going to do next and you have the sense that him punching you is always a viable option. So, it’s rather fitting that his third to last film has a script that feels the same way. It’s was originally based Jean Herman’s novel of the same name, and then went through three other screenwriters until director Yves Boisset got his hands on it. Needless to say, the director behind the criminally underappreciated sci-fi death-TV masterwork that is Le Prix Du Danger insured that it had social commentary, blunt violence, and an uneasy touch of surrealism. Continue reading
Time for a properly obscure bit of animation from director Robert Taylor ad the Hanna Barbera studio. There is a proper “production hell” story that accompanies this film, with it being finished in 1981 and then put on hold till a new section was added (by a different team) and it got it’s first screening in 1987. Never released for home viewing, and only broadcast a handful of times, if you want to watch it you’ll need to go to Archive.Org and forgive the quality/AV-Sync issues.
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Before we start, we need to address one key issue about this film: the historic Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier but Westle, who stars in the titular role, is a West Highland White Terrier. The Skye Terrier Club spoke to the press about this when the film was in production, That then gets complicated when in 2022, the president of the Canadian Dandie Dinmont Terrier Club claimed it for their preferred breed. Which is to say that some people take these things almost as seriously as this film took its subject matter, and that after am hour of research into this I can conclude that all the breeds mentioned are adorable. Continue reading
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the novel this is based off, because not everything can be about weaponizing an academic’s neurodiversity, and it’s fitting that the person who invented the Lost World genre got his story into the first monster movie. Not only does it help explain the complexity and depth of the characters, in the text if not in the movie, but also how this ended up being a key part of pop culture itself. This begot King Kong, which begot Godzilla, which begot every sci-fi technician for from 1955 to 1970, which bigot visual effect you’ve seen since. And, obviously, Jurassic World Dominion. On balance, I think we have to give him a pass for that…
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On the surface, it looking like a cheap bit of crime drama. Just under the surface, a lot more T&A than expected, but I should have seen the “Thriller” tag and put two and two together so that’s on me. Beneath all that, a far more complicated movie which tries to push at the boundaries of what cinema could . Or, at least, something that throws every idea it can think of into a mafia / slasher / romance / cop / action / psychological / thriller cheapie.
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Tom Sizemore isn’t renowned for his comedy, but he is a damn fine actor and has brought comedic moments to his more serious roles. Héctor Jiménez is, and he’s also a damn fine actor who’s done serious roles and brought the right amount of drama to things like Nacho Libre. Having never heard of this 10-year-old film, it needed to get a watch.
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I appreciate that time has passed since this novelty film came out, but I’m going to talk about it anyway as I absolutely loved it I want to get some thoughts out of my head about it. Firstly, I want to say that it is incredibly good fun if you go into it with the right “this is an absolute piss-take of a film that considers reality to only have value if it adds to the gag”. It’s also an incredibly mind-melting experience to watch it when the person behind you is apparently convinced that it’s a documentary and is vocally complaining that the audience laughing at the comedic over-violence is being grotesquely disrespectful. Honestly, I didn’t know if I should laugh harder at them or the movie.
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It’s the mid-sixties, so whilst New Hollywood is being forged, Rock-&-Roll is tuning on to acid, and Vietnam is still considered winnable, there were kids’ movies to be made! In this case, with one of the stars and a number of the behind-the-scenes team from the outrageously popular Andy Griffiths show. It made crazy bank then, and secured a four-movie deal for those involved, but do the ghostly hijinks and gurning promised in the trailer hold up to today’s cynical psychotronic audience? Well…
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I’d never heard of Jean Rollin before, so when this documentary about his life and work turned up I was rather excited to give it a go. As usual I had my notepad out, ready to jot down the odd movie that would be worth a look, but by halfway through I just assumed it safer to work through his filmography. I appreciate that a lot of effort when into making this a valid and informative collection of anecdotes and titbits for long-time fans, but I’m quite sure directors Dima Ballin and Kat Ellinger are going to take my uneducated reaction as a win.
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Trash or Treasure 