Going Bananas (1988) - Dom Deluise deputises for Bud Spencer in a 40s jungle comedy complete with stereotypes (Jimmie Walker as the Mantan Moreland-ish Mozambo), but made in 80s South Africa by Cannon with Herbert Lom as a dictator-ish Captain and Deep Roy essentially playing the Peking Homunculus again. A dull Disneyesque joint intended as a sequel to the Clint Eastwood and Clyde the Chimp films AND an adaptation of an Israeli Curious George knockoff, and the Needham-esque circus scenes hint at the former, pumped up to ultra-weirdness levels by Cannon. Nice Pino Donaggio soundtrack.
Iron Eagle (1986) - average, very 80s Karate Kid-via-Top Gun, Lou Gossett as mentor. David Suchet livens up proceedings, but too 80s teen movie for its own good, something which has hurt the likes of Night of the Comet (1984) and Night of the Creeps (1986).
Machinegunner (-1976) - HTV pilot shot on film, feature-length Leonard Rossiter vehicle. Interesting failure, the tweedy harpschicord soundtrack does not work against urban Bristol. Murkily shot in some scenes, a complicated plot involving Nina Baden-Semper, Colin Welland, Kate O'Mara, feels overlong at 80 minutes, lots of non-dialogue spying and chasing,
TRAPPED! (1982) - Blackfaced hillbilly nutter Henry Silva wages war in slasher/vigilante rural terror movie, uninteresting characters against interesting setting.
Blazing Magnum (1976) - Stuart Whitman, Martin Landau, John Saxon, Gayle Hunnicutt all feature in Italian-Canadian cop thriller with some exciting action scenes - Whitman getting beaten about transvestites on top of a skyscraper, lots of proto-parkour, an ace car chase, a helicopter assassination climax that seemingly influenced the opening of For Your Eyes Only in camera direction (Remy Julienne worked on both) and a nicely Canadian feel a la the Silent Partner. Stunt director Remy Julienne miscredited as Julienne Remy.
Ruby (1977) - Piper Laurie in muddled supernaturally gangster drama that also revolves around a haunted drive-in, and features a moon-eyed teenaged daughter for extra Carrie-ness. Like an episode of Happy Days directed by someone who wants to be Argento. Curtis Harrington directs, but he's not sure of the plot. Is it a horror or a 50s melodrama?
Russian Roulette (1975) - ITC-funded George Segal thriller/travelogue of 70s Vancouver, Gordon Jackson, Denholm Elliot and Nigel Stock play Canadians, only the latter attempting an accent. Typical tax shelter larks, although good action and an interesting soundtrack, its main theme a high school band performance of Polyushka Polye, its Canadian-ness creating a friendler tone than other Cold War thrillers including Segal's cold Quiller Memorandum (1966).
Three For All (1975) - Early Martin Campbell film, all star disaster of a comedy musical. More interesting behind the scenes story, frankly.
The Dunwich Horror (1970) - A duff episode of Night Gallery that goes on for 90 minutes.
The Dove (1974) - True life adventure, Charles "Condorman" Jarrott directing, though with its partly Australian setting, less Disney, more Lost Islands. Teen Joseph Bottoms travels around the world and falls in love with Deborah Raffin. Features staged Fijian kitten-butchery.
Ghost Story (1981) - Atmospheric but dull all-star horror. Shock ending at odds with tone of the film. Craig Wasson a rubbish lead.
Watched a few Blake Edwards films, find his stuff self-indulgent, too weighed down to work. Even the Pink Panthers go overlong, even the brilliant Pink Panther Strikes Again. Then watched the likes of Breaking Away (1979 )and More American Graffiti (1979), like most coming of age stories, pleasing but only occasionally interesting - an average time-killer. Although the theme to the TV version of Breaking Away is very close to Mrs. Brown's Boys.
Killer Force (1976) - Fast-paced but not endearing Val Guest-directed pseudo-blaxploitation actioner with OJ Simpson among a cast of Peter Fonda, Hugh O'Brian, an Afrikaaner-accented Maud Adams, Christopher Lee and Telly Savalas as a character called Harry Webb, the real name of Cliff Richard, whom Guest directed in Expresso Bongo. Fun, very 70s, Fonda with a perm, lots of showcasing for South African-based actors of the era. Double-bill it with the similar, overlong but more fun Gold (1974).
Pigs (1972) - More not-conventionally-good-or-bad indie horror weirdness. Marc Lawrence in a bad ginger wig feeding victims to pigs. Kind of fun. Prototypical hillbilly cannibal nonsense. Lawrence lifts the material, but then he also directed it, and features his daughter. Dreamlike.
The House Where Evil Dwells (1982) - Badly-accented Susan George and Edward Albert move to Japan, she has an affair with Doug McClure, cool kabuki-samurai ghosts appear, but otherwise routine haunter. Boring, bad child acting, too.
Figures in a Landscape (1970) - routine Defiant Ones-ish adventure with Malcolm McDowell and Robert Shaw chased through South America by Henry Woolf. Ends on a shootout against the military. And perks up. And then continues into the snowy mountains. Overlong. Feels like a Beckettian travelogue. Final image arresting, of bloodied Shaw alone on the mountain.
Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun (1969) - Bonkers, incredibly confusing, lovely sets and design, slightly warmer than UFO, but hard to follow. The "flash-forward geriatric wheelchair/mirror suicide" ending is insane.
Lisa and the Devil (1974) - The original, moody, atmospheric, slow cut not the House of Exorcism piece. Like a lot of Italian horror from this era, like most Euro-genres merges into one, and I can't take early 70s Elke Sommer seriously cos of Carry On Behind, interesting supposed-to-be-a-twist ending with If-era Telly.
Runestone (1991) - Interesting, watchable but average Viking-themed Highlander knock-off with some interesting character comedy bits.
Crescendo (1970) - I'm not a big fan of Hammer's psychodramas. A lot of them blend into one, but this almost impressed me, nice jazzy score, and the sunny photography keeps it above TV movie level, similar to And Soon The Darkness. The old mad twin-brother gambit, with James Olson (who I presumed for years to be a Yank in the UK along the lines of Ed Bishop, only to realise he was a solid non-star Hollywood character lead). Stefanie Powers plays along cliches, wheelchairs, missing luggage, crazy maids, orphans, it does devolve into a Brian Clemens-ish mess, but the exterior stuff is lovely. Joss Ackland rocks many an all-black ensemble.
Daughters of Darkness (1971) - Confusing but interesting, nicely shot lesbian vampire horror. Ponderous in some respects and the back and forth in location (is it in a castle or a hotel? God knows?), but the idea of a vampire countess driving a car which then explodes and supernaturally burns, with its owner is a fascinating one. Symbiotic. And a great soundtrack and a great location in the hotel and surrounding Ostend. The two leads are bland, but that may be the dubbing, and John Karlen doesn't have the beard he has in Cagney and Lacey or the Irish accent he had as the murderous Gard in Murder, She Wrote. But there is a definite Euro-smut vibe with those two. An above average Euro-horror.
Malpertuis (1971)- Nice design, maybe it's Welles, but it reminds me sort of what Jodorowsky's Dune may have looked like, completely different setting, but in terms of fat Orson in Euro-weirdness. But not as mind-expanding.
Daughter of Darkness (1948 - B/W)- Siobhan Mackenna in weird Irish horror-noir. Shows that the Brits always had trouble spelling Irish names. Frightfully young Honor Blackman. Atmosphere, kind of lags, I'm not a noir guy, really, but the Irish angle is interesting. Not the 1970s vampire movie Daughters of Darkness, or the very interesting Stuart Gordon TVM, set in Romania, but filmed in Hungary.
Watched Jean Paul Belmondo's That Man from Rio (1964) and The Burglars (1971) - which are nice time-wasting visual treats, watched them in French/Italian, but it didn't matter, cos they are visual films, with all his stunts, better than Italian stuff of the same era. But they work best or purely as excuses of doing great stunts.
Also watched intriguing but rather cliched and stilted Martin Sheen-Sam Neill spy thriller Enigma (1982), very clearly shot entirely in France by Jeannot Szwarc with a dubbed Michael Lonsdale, dubbed by Marc Smith doing a Lonsdale impression with an American accent.
The Silent Partner (1978) - Christopher Plummer as Santa - two icons of Christmas in one being. And then he's in drag. He's doing panto. Superman tin. Robertson's jam. Away in a manger. John Candy with a kipper tie. Plummer wears eyeliner even out of drag, and a blond syrup. Celine Lomez's head cut along the fishtank. Elliott Gould's realistic reaction - almost vomiting as Plummer laughs. The nearly headless corpse rolled up in carpet. Little touches in Plummer's performance make him such a memorable villain. The way he touches his hair constantly, sauntering down. His hairy chest in the Chanel blouse. Recommended.
The Glove (1979)- Decently made if rather inert TV-ish Canadian-funded LA-shot thriller - Rosey Grier has a studded metal glove. John Saxon is in narrator mode as the bounty hunter out to get him. On DVD with similarly average Vietnam-revenge-in-Toronto thriller Search and Destroy (1979), starring Perry King, Tisa Farrow being a waxwork of her sister essentially and George Kennedy.
The Snake-Woman (1961 - B/W) - Sidney J. Furie b/w horror, an atmospheric but not very good colonial Victoriana with a sub-par cast, seemingly an influence on Hammer's the Reptile. Double-billed with Furie's slightly more fun but rather dull-if-colourful Dr. Blood's Coffin (1962).
The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977) - Larry Cohen's all-star CIA expose, almost an anthology of US political vignettes, entertaining in its almost-Churchill's People sense of cramming it all in if a little confused. And never gets at outrageous as it should.
I Was A Teenage Frankenstein (1958 - B/W) - Threadbare average AIP (who I prefer in their 70s era) B-monster fluff. Titular creature a well-spoken disfigured lad. It and the actually-not-very-exciting I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957 - B/W) were united in semi-meta not-really-a-horror-more-a-poignant-but-halfbaked melodrama sequel How To Make A Monster (1958 - B/W) the next year, with Gary Conway once again in makeup as the Frankenstein's Monster, again a normal kid with horrible makeup, but much better than that film. Michael Landon alas is nowhere to be seen.
Also watched the fun Truck Turner (1974), though I'm not a big blaxploitation guy (Larry Cohen's efforts in the genre are occasionally enlivened by his trademark guerilla action work, but are otherwise well-done but token blax-gangster fare), it has an interesting cast, Isaac Hayes as the lead, Nichelle Nichols as a madam with a hooker called Colonel Sanders cos she's "finger-lickin' good", Scatman Crothers as a pimp and Yaphet Kotto being weird with a client named Joe Dante, a deliberate reference, as this was directed by Jonathan Kaplan, another Corman alumnus. Also saw JD's Revenge (1976), a fun gangster film masquerading as a horror, though the period stuff is ragged. It may have been more interesting with a racist white gangster possessing the black lead. But Glynn Turman is astonishing.
Watching Fog Island (1943 - B/W), the ultimate Old Dark House quickie, plus the similar Horror Island (1941 - B/W), the repetitive Gorilla Woman films (1943, (194, (1945 - B/W), the surprisingly atmospheric Terror is a Man (1959 - B/W) - which spawned a series of colourful but ultimately worthless colour Blood Island films, keeping its monster little-seen and mysterious unlike its sequels. I've seen Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968), Brides of Blood (1968), Beast of Blood (1970) and yet they all blend.
Monday, 16 October 2017
Wednesday, 30 August 2017
More reviews -not all British but I'm not that loyal. - 49
Been watching a couple of 70s horror indies, the slow, deliberate and kind of dated sorts of I Drink Your Blood (1971 - which has a fun twist ending), Messiah of Evil (1973), and Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971), all in the same 70s style, though the latter two feel more like art dramas disguised as horrors. Then again, I'm not really a slow horror guy, I respect those sort of films, but they're not for me. I'm more excitement, gothic, creating a world, etc.
Also tried watching paedophile scumshit Victor Silva/Salva's Clownhouse (1989) - initially nice style, but too much leering on the young boys' bodies.
Skullduggery (1970)- weirdo melodrama about missing links, the Tropis headed by Pat Suzuki as a sort of cheesecake innocent female progeny of Dr. Zaius discovered by Burt Reynolds and sidekick Roger C. Carmel doing a Swedish Chef accent, in New Guinea, and Canadian-trying-to-be-English archaeologist Susan Clark. Interesting plot. Are the Tropis human? William "Blacula" Marshall plays a Papuan barrister. Chips Rafferty adds some Australian credibility as the old Ocker minister who tries to baptise the Tropis. Eventually, Motown exec/actor Booker Bradshaw comes in as a stereotyped Black Panther who argues the Tropis are prototype-Caucasians as they have pink skin/straight hair (but are headed by a Japanese actress), then touches Suzuki's doll/surrogate child, she goes mad and gets squashed by a bookshelf, leaving Welsh Hollywood vet Rhys Williams as the judge to mull whether they can be classified as human until we classify ourselves as human. Tonally all over the place, very preachy, with a feel akin to the Ron Ely Tarzan or a Disney adventure, i.e. Reynolds mugging and taking mick of Papuan chiefs' jewellery clashing with subplots about rape and trying to sell Papuan tribeswomen into prostitution.
Also realised the pervading horror styles of 1980-82, the disjointed One Dark Night (1981, and its identikit brethren Mausoleum (1983), though not the confusing slow-as-death itself slasher pair of Mortuary (1983) and Funeral Home (1980)), Fear No Evil (1981), the Incubus (1982), the 1982 Albert Salmi two-fer of the gory, nonsensical Superstition and the rather better Bert I. Gordon-directed Burned at the Stake (1981 - he was also in Dragonslayer, which also features witch/virgin sacrifice), Evilspeak (1982), Jaws of Satan (1982) - all similarly shot, witchcraft, priests, demons, fire at night, day-for-night blueish tints, and though Fear no Evil is rather initially excitingly shot, and there are elements of atmosphere to all, the performances are quite lacking and it quickly descends into soft-focus. They are all one-time watches, all forgettable, often tedious entertainments that try to go for weird for weird's sake Jodorowsky-style but are too pedestrian in other ways to be fully off-the-cinematic wall. Though not quite to the level of the insane but badly-directed (and only really watchable in the daylight bits) Oliver Reed vs giant snakes film Spasms, Fritz Weaver elevates Jaws of Satan, and it features a subplot about how the snake-related druid cult originated in Sligo. No, really.
One Dark Night is at first quite a sunny, attractively shot but rather boring slasher with lots of teens going about, while Adam West does exposition. Then, it becomes your typical early 80s witch/demon with lightning eyes in a confined space.
Class of 1984 (1982) has a nice performance by Roddy McDowall, but it suffers from a nasty, unrealistic tone somewhere between Fame and Death Wish. Nice punchline.
I wonder with the likes of Canadian spooker Ghostkeeper ('81), does watching on NTSC VHS print contribute to the dullness. Though it may be the slowness. Even Ghost Story (1981) had this problem, and that was a major release. And Class of 1984 had it, I think it is common in a lot of domestic-based action films of the period, especially Canadian ones.
Frightmare (1983)- not the Pete Walker classic, but Norman Thaddeus Vane's rather dull horror, with unlikeable victims. Ferdy Mayne is good, but at odds with the 80s slasher aesthetic.
Highpoint (1982) - Awful action-comedy, not quite saved by the wonder of Richard Harris' Scouse accent.
Nikita (1990) - Crazy French "teen", resembling a sexy and mental Jimmy Krankie goes on warpath. Didn't quite capture my interest, because I found the titular French heroine annoying.
The Yakuza (1974) - Slightly too dry Robert Mitchum goes to Japan thriller, needed Michael Winner to perk it up. Then again I'm not really a man for private eye thrillers. Almost Friedkin-ish. Humourless. Attractively shot, but it lacks something. Nasty and hard to follow.
The Osterman Weekend (1984) - almost good but becomes impossible to follow conspiracy thriller, perhaps needed more international elements to keep it from being a boring LA news thriller, Ludlum/Peckinpah crossover, and Peckinpah I find insufferable. Lancaster and John Hurt good, Rutger Hauer his Rutgerish self.
Also saw Gallery of Horrors (1967) - Lon Chaney, John Carradine, and 60s USA posing as Victorian England and Scotland, with literally no changes to sets, accents, etc.
Wavelength (1983) - Boring conspiracy thriller. Robert Carradine saves alien kids from being holed up in a bunker. As exciting as it sounds.
Knife for the Ladies (1973) - Low budget late-era Bonanza-quality western with a Jack the Ripper-ish killer thrown in. Just a below-average 70s western with some gore.
The Baby (1973) - Like Knife, features Ruth Roman. Feels like a bad episode of one of the lesser Universal NBC Mystery Movie series when it isn't featuring a wet bloke dancing around in a romper with child's screeches dubbed over. Odd and oddly sweet ending.
Blood Link (1982) - Forgettable Canadian-Italian telepathic twin nonsense with Michael Moriarty, Greystoner Geraldine Fitzgerald, and a nice soundtrack from Morricone.
Beyond Evil (1980) - John Saxon in "exotic" but rather pedestrian almost TV movie-level horror, like one of those boring Filipino tourist shockers like The Thirsty Dead (1974) or Daughters of Satan (1972), without the actually exotic-looking locales.
Filipino exploitation is curious but most of it is terrible - all those Eddie Romero Blood Island films and similar variants like Beyond Atlantis (1973) and the Mastermind theme-soundtracked Twilight People (1973) and then other things like the "what were they thinking?" kung fu jungle cannibal adventure/Gilligan's Island with Nazis of Raw Force (1982).
Non-horror, watched Melvin and Howard (1980), which is a nice but rather unexciting rural comedy which isn't really about Jason Robards as a wild and crazy Howard Hughes, sadly, as that is just a cameo.
The Savage Innocents (1960) - ridiculous and not very funny (it's not supposed to be, but it is slightly unintentionally hilarious) Eskimo epic - yellowed-up Anthony Quinn discovers rock and roll and starts clicking along with his buck teeth. Might have only seen a few bits.
These Are the Damned (1963 - B/W) - Interesting Hammer SF, nice plot, but the protagonists are rather unlikeable, though Oliver Reed is menacing as the rocker gang leader. Then again Joseph Losey's kind of British cinema is not my kind of British cinema.
13 Frightened Girls (1961) - William Castle does Disney, teen girl thriller, not very good, only interesting because of the rather odd fact the teen lead is in love with middle-aged father figure Murray "Mayor of Amity" Hamilton.
Bunny Lake is Missing (1965 - B/W) - As a kid, I imagined this as an ultra-sensationalist weirdo mystery like an even schlockier Hammer psycho-thriller or a better spin on something like the soap opera-ish shenanigans of Picture Mommy Dead (1967), but it is a nicely made thriller, though Carol Lynley is slightly annoying.
The Liquidator (1966) - I've realised that I don't like 60s spy movies much, even Connery's Bonds leave me cold bar Diamonds Are Forever. Even though this has Eric Sykes and Shirley Bassey, and Rod Taylor as a British secret agent with a bad American accent, it has no real plot, just a series of not very exciting vignettes about the Duke of Edinburgh, and it's lots of things going on, no real action, just a lot of sort of gags. But they're not funny. Nice Richard Williams titles that don't really fit.
Candy (1968)/Skidoo (1968) - the thing about these 60s square celebrities-go-apeshit movies is that they are terrible movies that instead become works of art, pieces of social history, less films, but ultra-expensive embarrassing home videos-cum-variety shows. Though the Magic Christian (1969), like Candy featuring Ringo Starr, is unlikeable in its self-indulgence, no matter how many stars, and fun little vignettes it throws. And possibly Manson family aside, another reason why Roman Polanski stopped dating mature women, in the fear they'd all be Yul Brynner.
To Catch A Spy (1971)/Otley (1968) - Dick Clement can't direct spy films, because he doesn't know should he go full Clement and Le Frenais or full spy glamour. I can see why people like Otley. But Tom Courtenay's kitchen sink Northerner spy doesn't quite fit in. It's trying to be both 60s fab and down and dirty Northern, mixing Le Carre with Dick and Ian's style.It needed to be more fantastical, perhaps. It's a mess. See also 1971's Gumshoe, which, though written by Neville Smith, is a similarly conflicted and messy mix of international espionage and kitchen sink British grimness. Juggernaut may be the best attempt at such a thing.
Also Permission to Kill (1975), promising but rather dull Euro-strollaround with Timothy Dalton, Dirk Bogarde and a post-Doctor Who pre-convention anecdote snorer John "Sgt. Benton" Levene, almost exactly like fellow Bogarde Euro-boreathon The Serpent (1973).
Loophole (1981) - Sheen and Finney in dull "can't believe it's not Euston" heist flick.
Also watched various episodes of 80s anthologies such as the late 80s Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ray Bradbury Presents, Darkroom, the Hitchhiker, Tales from the Darkside, all with the same sort of "video-edited cable filler" feel, even those that don't have "tits" still feel like they are filler for softcore action, no matter how many good actors you throw. And even the Bradburies, no matter how many interesting ideas they throw, there's always an air of twee charming smugness. And 70s mid-Atlantic anthology Anthony Quayle's The Evil Touch (-1974) seems to be the same schtick of US "name" finding that Aussie people are either eccentric, murderous or just plain odd.
Secret Ceremony (1968) - That awful Taylor woman who was married to Richard Burton and Mia Farrow were lesbian sort of adopted mother and daughter figures who go around England/Holland, in arty bobbins. "Mean" Robert Mitchum appears with a sort of British accent.
If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium (1969) - tedious "all-star" supposed comedy from when Hollywood thought they could make Ian McShane the next Michael Caine fails to raise a laugh, bar a joke where US tourists travelling through London gawp at US-themed casinos, Safeway and Woolworths and comment about how exotic they are despite having all three back home. An almost unrecognisably slim and youthful Dame Pat Routledge appears. Produced by David Wolper and directed by Mel Stuart and the feel is astonishingly similar, the bus scenes one long version of the boat scenes, but with annoying sitcom level dialogue and despite a parade of cameos, it lacks the madness.
Deathtrap (1982) - pleasing but rather overlong Caine vs Reeve Sleuth-alike, may have worked better as an one hour anthology play. Neat ending, but it repeats itself. And it doesn't have as good a setting as Sleuth.
Also saw trailers for the too-OTT-for-its-own-good 99 and 44/100% Dead and Deadfall, the 1968 heist movie with Michael Caine, seems to be a prototype for all his boring pedestrian Sunday afternoon thrillers in the 80s, funded by dodgy Middle Easterners.
Also tried watching paedophile scumshit Victor Silva/Salva's Clownhouse (1989) - initially nice style, but too much leering on the young boys' bodies.
Skullduggery (1970)- weirdo melodrama about missing links, the Tropis headed by Pat Suzuki as a sort of cheesecake innocent female progeny of Dr. Zaius discovered by Burt Reynolds and sidekick Roger C. Carmel doing a Swedish Chef accent, in New Guinea, and Canadian-trying-to-be-English archaeologist Susan Clark. Interesting plot. Are the Tropis human? William "Blacula" Marshall plays a Papuan barrister. Chips Rafferty adds some Australian credibility as the old Ocker minister who tries to baptise the Tropis. Eventually, Motown exec/actor Booker Bradshaw comes in as a stereotyped Black Panther who argues the Tropis are prototype-Caucasians as they have pink skin/straight hair (but are headed by a Japanese actress), then touches Suzuki's doll/surrogate child, she goes mad and gets squashed by a bookshelf, leaving Welsh Hollywood vet Rhys Williams as the judge to mull whether they can be classified as human until we classify ourselves as human. Tonally all over the place, very preachy, with a feel akin to the Ron Ely Tarzan or a Disney adventure, i.e. Reynolds mugging and taking mick of Papuan chiefs' jewellery clashing with subplots about rape and trying to sell Papuan tribeswomen into prostitution.
Also realised the pervading horror styles of 1980-82, the disjointed One Dark Night (1981, and its identikit brethren Mausoleum (1983), though not the confusing slow-as-death itself slasher pair of Mortuary (1983) and Funeral Home (1980)), Fear No Evil (1981), the Incubus (1982), the 1982 Albert Salmi two-fer of the gory, nonsensical Superstition and the rather better Bert I. Gordon-directed Burned at the Stake (1981 - he was also in Dragonslayer, which also features witch/virgin sacrifice), Evilspeak (1982), Jaws of Satan (1982) - all similarly shot, witchcraft, priests, demons, fire at night, day-for-night blueish tints, and though Fear no Evil is rather initially excitingly shot, and there are elements of atmosphere to all, the performances are quite lacking and it quickly descends into soft-focus. They are all one-time watches, all forgettable, often tedious entertainments that try to go for weird for weird's sake Jodorowsky-style but are too pedestrian in other ways to be fully off-the-cinematic wall. Though not quite to the level of the insane but badly-directed (and only really watchable in the daylight bits) Oliver Reed vs giant snakes film Spasms, Fritz Weaver elevates Jaws of Satan, and it features a subplot about how the snake-related druid cult originated in Sligo. No, really.
One Dark Night is at first quite a sunny, attractively shot but rather boring slasher with lots of teens going about, while Adam West does exposition. Then, it becomes your typical early 80s witch/demon with lightning eyes in a confined space.
Class of 1984 (1982) has a nice performance by Roddy McDowall, but it suffers from a nasty, unrealistic tone somewhere between Fame and Death Wish. Nice punchline.
I wonder with the likes of Canadian spooker Ghostkeeper ('81), does watching on NTSC VHS print contribute to the dullness. Though it may be the slowness. Even Ghost Story (1981) had this problem, and that was a major release. And Class of 1984 had it, I think it is common in a lot of domestic-based action films of the period, especially Canadian ones.
Frightmare (1983)- not the Pete Walker classic, but Norman Thaddeus Vane's rather dull horror, with unlikeable victims. Ferdy Mayne is good, but at odds with the 80s slasher aesthetic.
Highpoint (1982) - Awful action-comedy, not quite saved by the wonder of Richard Harris' Scouse accent.
Nikita (1990) - Crazy French "teen", resembling a sexy and mental Jimmy Krankie goes on warpath. Didn't quite capture my interest, because I found the titular French heroine annoying.
The Yakuza (1974) - Slightly too dry Robert Mitchum goes to Japan thriller, needed Michael Winner to perk it up. Then again I'm not really a man for private eye thrillers. Almost Friedkin-ish. Humourless. Attractively shot, but it lacks something. Nasty and hard to follow.
The Osterman Weekend (1984) - almost good but becomes impossible to follow conspiracy thriller, perhaps needed more international elements to keep it from being a boring LA news thriller, Ludlum/Peckinpah crossover, and Peckinpah I find insufferable. Lancaster and John Hurt good, Rutger Hauer his Rutgerish self.
Also saw Gallery of Horrors (1967) - Lon Chaney, John Carradine, and 60s USA posing as Victorian England and Scotland, with literally no changes to sets, accents, etc.
Wavelength (1983) - Boring conspiracy thriller. Robert Carradine saves alien kids from being holed up in a bunker. As exciting as it sounds.
Knife for the Ladies (1973) - Low budget late-era Bonanza-quality western with a Jack the Ripper-ish killer thrown in. Just a below-average 70s western with some gore.
The Baby (1973) - Like Knife, features Ruth Roman. Feels like a bad episode of one of the lesser Universal NBC Mystery Movie series when it isn't featuring a wet bloke dancing around in a romper with child's screeches dubbed over. Odd and oddly sweet ending.
Blood Link (1982) - Forgettable Canadian-Italian telepathic twin nonsense with Michael Moriarty, Greystoner Geraldine Fitzgerald, and a nice soundtrack from Morricone.
Beyond Evil (1980) - John Saxon in "exotic" but rather pedestrian almost TV movie-level horror, like one of those boring Filipino tourist shockers like The Thirsty Dead (1974) or Daughters of Satan (1972), without the actually exotic-looking locales.
Filipino exploitation is curious but most of it is terrible - all those Eddie Romero Blood Island films and similar variants like Beyond Atlantis (1973) and the Mastermind theme-soundtracked Twilight People (1973) and then other things like the "what were they thinking?" kung fu jungle cannibal adventure/Gilligan's Island with Nazis of Raw Force (1982).
Non-horror, watched Melvin and Howard (1980), which is a nice but rather unexciting rural comedy which isn't really about Jason Robards as a wild and crazy Howard Hughes, sadly, as that is just a cameo.
The Savage Innocents (1960) - ridiculous and not very funny (it's not supposed to be, but it is slightly unintentionally hilarious) Eskimo epic - yellowed-up Anthony Quinn discovers rock and roll and starts clicking along with his buck teeth. Might have only seen a few bits.
These Are the Damned (1963 - B/W) - Interesting Hammer SF, nice plot, but the protagonists are rather unlikeable, though Oliver Reed is menacing as the rocker gang leader. Then again Joseph Losey's kind of British cinema is not my kind of British cinema.
13 Frightened Girls (1961) - William Castle does Disney, teen girl thriller, not very good, only interesting because of the rather odd fact the teen lead is in love with middle-aged father figure Murray "Mayor of Amity" Hamilton.
Bunny Lake is Missing (1965 - B/W) - As a kid, I imagined this as an ultra-sensationalist weirdo mystery like an even schlockier Hammer psycho-thriller or a better spin on something like the soap opera-ish shenanigans of Picture Mommy Dead (1967), but it is a nicely made thriller, though Carol Lynley is slightly annoying.
The Liquidator (1966) - I've realised that I don't like 60s spy movies much, even Connery's Bonds leave me cold bar Diamonds Are Forever. Even though this has Eric Sykes and Shirley Bassey, and Rod Taylor as a British secret agent with a bad American accent, it has no real plot, just a series of not very exciting vignettes about the Duke of Edinburgh, and it's lots of things going on, no real action, just a lot of sort of gags. But they're not funny. Nice Richard Williams titles that don't really fit.
Candy (1968)/Skidoo (1968) - the thing about these 60s square celebrities-go-apeshit movies is that they are terrible movies that instead become works of art, pieces of social history, less films, but ultra-expensive embarrassing home videos-cum-variety shows. Though the Magic Christian (1969), like Candy featuring Ringo Starr, is unlikeable in its self-indulgence, no matter how many stars, and fun little vignettes it throws. And possibly Manson family aside, another reason why Roman Polanski stopped dating mature women, in the fear they'd all be Yul Brynner.
To Catch A Spy (1971)/Otley (1968) - Dick Clement can't direct spy films, because he doesn't know should he go full Clement and Le Frenais or full spy glamour. I can see why people like Otley. But Tom Courtenay's kitchen sink Northerner spy doesn't quite fit in. It's trying to be both 60s fab and down and dirty Northern, mixing Le Carre with Dick and Ian's style.It needed to be more fantastical, perhaps. It's a mess. See also 1971's Gumshoe, which, though written by Neville Smith, is a similarly conflicted and messy mix of international espionage and kitchen sink British grimness. Juggernaut may be the best attempt at such a thing.
Also Permission to Kill (1975), promising but rather dull Euro-strollaround with Timothy Dalton, Dirk Bogarde and a post-Doctor Who pre-convention anecdote snorer John "Sgt. Benton" Levene, almost exactly like fellow Bogarde Euro-boreathon The Serpent (1973).
Loophole (1981) - Sheen and Finney in dull "can't believe it's not Euston" heist flick.
Also watched various episodes of 80s anthologies such as the late 80s Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ray Bradbury Presents, Darkroom, the Hitchhiker, Tales from the Darkside, all with the same sort of "video-edited cable filler" feel, even those that don't have "tits" still feel like they are filler for softcore action, no matter how many good actors you throw. And even the Bradburies, no matter how many interesting ideas they throw, there's always an air of twee charming smugness. And 70s mid-Atlantic anthology Anthony Quayle's The Evil Touch (-1974) seems to be the same schtick of US "name" finding that Aussie people are either eccentric, murderous or just plain odd.
Secret Ceremony (1968) - That awful Taylor woman who was married to Richard Burton and Mia Farrow were lesbian sort of adopted mother and daughter figures who go around England/Holland, in arty bobbins. "Mean" Robert Mitchum appears with a sort of British accent.
If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium (1969) - tedious "all-star" supposed comedy from when Hollywood thought they could make Ian McShane the next Michael Caine fails to raise a laugh, bar a joke where US tourists travelling through London gawp at US-themed casinos, Safeway and Woolworths and comment about how exotic they are despite having all three back home. An almost unrecognisably slim and youthful Dame Pat Routledge appears. Produced by David Wolper and directed by Mel Stuart and the feel is astonishingly similar, the bus scenes one long version of the boat scenes, but with annoying sitcom level dialogue and despite a parade of cameos, it lacks the madness.
Deathtrap (1982) - pleasing but rather overlong Caine vs Reeve Sleuth-alike, may have worked better as an one hour anthology play. Neat ending, but it repeats itself. And it doesn't have as good a setting as Sleuth.
Also saw trailers for the too-OTT-for-its-own-good 99 and 44/100% Dead and Deadfall, the 1968 heist movie with Michael Caine, seems to be a prototype for all his boring pedestrian Sunday afternoon thrillers in the 80s, funded by dodgy Middle Easterners.
Thursday, 29 June 2017
Review Roundup -3 - The Unseen, Boogens, Humanoids of the Deep and Monsignor Quixoteally
Monsignor Quixote (1987)- a waste of of talents, prototype ITV comedy drama premiere - Alec Guinness as David Jason. Euston does Graham Greene does Don Quixote, with all the visual flair of a substandard BA ad. Like El Dorado if made by Euston.
Watching 1980's Humanoids from the Deep. It's okay. But it's too routine, there's none of the quirkiness of a John Sayles script, and the monsters are good, but there's none of the florid colour of your typical Doug McClure fantasy film. i.e. what this film needs is Ron Pember and Keith Barron. It needs a Joe Dante. It is like the Boogens (1981), another well-shot, well-designed horror - with cool monsters but little else.
EDIT: Watched it, and there's some fun bits, the old people's orchestra and the whole fairground bit, and the ventriloquist's dummy being used as a witness to a sex and murder scene. And there's an impressive explosion. And the fat kid on the boat. The setpieces are all well done, but if it had the character and appeal of a Piranha, and perhaps a less sleazy tone, it might have been a classic. Ann Turkel is a plank of wood. And McClure doesn't look interested.
The Unseen (1981) - Barbara Bach (before she became Barbara Bachhkkkeeeee (said in Scouse accent)) meets baby-monster. 80s slasher, sort of like a more evil, more straightforward The Baby (1973) if done as an episode of Brian Clemens' Thriller, with annoying eccentrics a la the Avengers, and a nice Michael J. Lewis score, which belongs to a better film. It features the Danish colony of Solvang, which is an interesting location, and sadly not enough is made of it. But it does have a bizarre chicken-used-as-a-torture weapon scene.
Watching 1980's Humanoids from the Deep. It's okay. But it's too routine, there's none of the quirkiness of a John Sayles script, and the monsters are good, but there's none of the florid colour of your typical Doug McClure fantasy film. i.e. what this film needs is Ron Pember and Keith Barron. It needs a Joe Dante. It is like the Boogens (1981), another well-shot, well-designed horror - with cool monsters but little else.
EDIT: Watched it, and there's some fun bits, the old people's orchestra and the whole fairground bit, and the ventriloquist's dummy being used as a witness to a sex and murder scene. And there's an impressive explosion. And the fat kid on the boat. The setpieces are all well done, but if it had the character and appeal of a Piranha, and perhaps a less sleazy tone, it might have been a classic. Ann Turkel is a plank of wood. And McClure doesn't look interested.
The Unseen (1981) - Barbara Bach (before she became Barbara Bachhkkkeeeee (said in Scouse accent)) meets baby-monster. 80s slasher, sort of like a more evil, more straightforward The Baby (1973) if done as an episode of Brian Clemens' Thriller, with annoying eccentrics a la the Avengers, and a nice Michael J. Lewis score, which belongs to a better film. It features the Danish colony of Solvang, which is an interesting location, and sadly not enough is made of it. But it does have a bizarre chicken-used-as-a-torture weapon scene.
Saturday, 27 May 2017
My latest article - Fortean Times.
You can read my latest article in the Fortean Times issue out now. I wrote the Les Dawson article. Read it. Danny Baker liked it.
For the time being - focusing my attention on this - george-j-white.tumblr.com/
Find me on twitter@swmtdinnercast
For the time being - focusing my attention on this - george-j-white.tumblr.com/
Find me on twitter
Thursday, 25 May 2017
Bits and bobs - 6 - The Oscar, Hill and Spencer, House of Cards, Rage, Greek Tycoon
House of Cards (1968) Good-looking but tedious Eurospy thriller, directed by John Gullermin, George Peppard vs fascists Keith Michell and Orson Welles - ends with pre-Way of the Dragon coliseum chase.
Old films don't really excite me unless they're different. I've seen so many identikit horrors, thrillers, etc, that I'm bored by a lot of old films because they seem samey.
The Oscar (1966) - an actual film about the actual Academy Awards, and not the "Awards Presentation Ceremony" featured in The Lonely Lady. Designed as a vehicle for Tony Bennett, this is in the category of "famous singer tries acting and fails". Astonishingly not based on a Robbins novel, but one by pulp writer Richard Sale, and with a script co-written by Harlan Ellison, of all people, it features Belfast's very own Stephen Boyd as someone who desperately wants to win the Best Actor award, but then loses to yer actual Frank Sinatra as himself. Weirdly, set in a world where Sinatra is himself, but Peter Lawford is playing someone else. It also has Bob Hope, Merle Oberon, and other Hollywood sorts as themselves, Elke "How are your doings?" Sommer, Milton Berle, Joseph Cotten, etc. It's at times mind-numbingly awful, but sometimes, it gets unintentionally brilliant i.e. Bennett's narration. But it is something else.
Been watching a ton of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer movies (which are odd to say the least, syrupy tough-guy comedies. Charleston (1977), a Spencer-only joint is interesting. A Sting knock-off set and shot in 1970s London but with everyone in 1920s costumes to convince us otherwise, starring Herbert Lom, James Coco, and as Spencer's fellow gang members, Geoffrey Bayldon (RIP) and Ronald Lacey and featuring Peter Glaze, and copious amounts of Harp product placement.
I also caught the interesting George C Scott infection folly Rage (1972), and Tippi Hedren-guest starring French ITC-ish TV nonsense Docteur Caraibes (from Telecip, makers of the films of Rene Laloux, 80s Channel 4 French soap Chateauvallon, coproducers of 1978 BBC panto-esque semi-musical period drama the Devil's Crown).
I also watched another French telefantasy, 1960s noirish ORTF series Belphegor - allegedly about a mummy, but as I was watching it unsubtitled, seemed to be an atmospheric but rather empty Maltese Falcon-ish thing. I also saw a 1973 French-Spanish-Italian miniseries of The Mysterious Island, cut for feature release, with threadbare Harry Towers-ish production values, a pseudo-steampunk set design, lots of moaning in a balloon, an annoying kid dubbed by a man and not much going on, and Omar Sharif clearly looking for a paycheque as Captain Nemo, here portrayed as Verne later saw fit to retcon Nemo, as an Indian prince.
The Greek Tycoon (1978) - Directed by J. Lee Thompson, written and produced by Greek exploitation mogul Nico Mastorakis, Anthony Quinn once again plays a Greek, despite being an Irish-Mexican (basically, to quote Richard Herring, there are four types of race, "black, white, Chinese and those played by Nadim Sawalha", but Quinn could be used as an easy substitute), in this case Theo Tomasis, a Greek tycoon who is NOT Aristotle Onassis despite marrying Jacqueline Bisset as Elizabeth 'Lizzie T" Cassidy, former First Lady, married to the assassinated President James Cassidy (James Franciscus). This film is all kinds of strange. The aforementioned assassination isn't done in Dallas, but on a beach God knows where, possibly the Isle of Wight, as some of it was filmed in the Solent.
Saturday, 22 April 2017
Robbins? Robbins! 3
Recently watched a few Harold Robbins adaps.
The ludicrous Stiletto (1969), where Alex "Archangel from Airwolf" Cord plays a Mafia assassin playboy who shags Britt Ekland and constantly visits an "Italy", i.e. Puerto Rico with a few Fiats, an Italian flag and a sign saying "Italian poste", while chased by Patrick O'Neal and Roy Scheider. Features a character called "Hannibal Smith", not played by George Peppard, who alas, did appear in Robbins' Howard Hughes roman รก clef The Carpetbaggers - "aka the one with the Money Programme theme, chandelier-dancing and a dying Alan Ladd as Nevada Smith". Smith, a half-Indian cowboy-turned-film star (and name inspiration for Indiana Jones) was played in the prequel by Steve McQueen, aged 35 playing 16, and people think he was old in the Blob...
Not as ludicrous as 1969's the Adventurers (1969), intended to launch Yugoslavian Bekim Fehmiu as an international star, about a fictional Cinecitta-realised South American state of "Cortequay", where we see a skinny-dippying Ernest Borgnine seemingly cosplaying a Mexican Ted Bovis. Quickly transforming from a childhood romance to a spaghetti western, and we see that director Lewis Gilbert, who hated directing this film for he lost out on Oliver! seems to forget where exactly Corteguay is, and introduces us to a who's who of Europudding vets, Fernando Rey, Rossano Brazzi, Charles Aznavour, Ferdy Mayne, etc. Overlong and seemingly about five films in one, you have to marinate in its weirdness.
Mayne also is in the Harold Robbins miniseries The Pirate (1978), "my favourite", according to Mrs. Hamilton in Fawlty Towers. In Robbins' view of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Franco Nero as an Israeli sold at birth by his dad Eli Wallach to Sheikh Christopher Lee, to an Arabia where Ian McShane and Armand Assante are natives. Features Olivia Hussey as Leila the terrorist and James Franciscus as "Dick Carriage", and Hollywood doubling as Monte Carlo, Geneva, Israel, etc. Typical 70s network trash, punchily directed by Ken Annakin.
The Betsy (1978) is Robbins' view of the car industry, Featuring a confused chronology, 70-year-old Lord Olivier playing a dirty old car mogul, Loren "Number One" Hardeman from the age of forty to ninety, Robert Duvall as his grandson, Kathleen Beller as the titular Betsy, the great-granddaughter with a car named after, Tommy Lee Jones romancing Lesley Anne Down as the wife of a race-driving Lord, a John Barry soundtrack and feels like a driving instruction video padded out by soap opera.
The ludicrous Stiletto (1969), where Alex "Archangel from Airwolf" Cord plays a Mafia assassin playboy who shags Britt Ekland and constantly visits an "Italy", i.e. Puerto Rico with a few Fiats, an Italian flag and a sign saying "Italian poste", while chased by Patrick O'Neal and Roy Scheider. Features a character called "Hannibal Smith", not played by George Peppard, who alas, did appear in Robbins' Howard Hughes roman รก clef The Carpetbaggers - "aka the one with the Money Programme theme, chandelier-dancing and a dying Alan Ladd as Nevada Smith". Smith, a half-Indian cowboy-turned-film star (and name inspiration for Indiana Jones) was played in the prequel by Steve McQueen, aged 35 playing 16, and people think he was old in the Blob...
Not as ludicrous as 1969's the Adventurers (1969), intended to launch Yugoslavian Bekim Fehmiu as an international star, about a fictional Cinecitta-realised South American state of "Cortequay", where we see a skinny-dippying Ernest Borgnine seemingly cosplaying a Mexican Ted Bovis. Quickly transforming from a childhood romance to a spaghetti western, and we see that director Lewis Gilbert, who hated directing this film for he lost out on Oliver! seems to forget where exactly Corteguay is, and introduces us to a who's who of Europudding vets, Fernando Rey, Rossano Brazzi, Charles Aznavour, Ferdy Mayne, etc. Overlong and seemingly about five films in one, you have to marinate in its weirdness.
Mayne also is in the Harold Robbins miniseries The Pirate (1978), "my favourite", according to Mrs. Hamilton in Fawlty Towers. In Robbins' view of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Franco Nero as an Israeli sold at birth by his dad Eli Wallach to Sheikh Christopher Lee, to an Arabia where Ian McShane and Armand Assante are natives. Features Olivia Hussey as Leila the terrorist and James Franciscus as "Dick Carriage", and Hollywood doubling as Monte Carlo, Geneva, Israel, etc. Typical 70s network trash, punchily directed by Ken Annakin.
The Betsy (1978) is Robbins' view of the car industry, Featuring a confused chronology, 70-year-old Lord Olivier playing a dirty old car mogul, Loren "Number One" Hardeman from the age of forty to ninety, Robert Duvall as his grandson, Kathleen Beller as the titular Betsy, the great-granddaughter with a car named after, Tommy Lee Jones romancing Lesley Anne Down as the wife of a race-driving Lord, a John Barry soundtrack and feels like a driving instruction video padded out by soap opera.
Monday, 3 April 2017
My problem with Brazil/HBO
Okay, here is a confession. Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits has been one of my favourite films since I was eleven. But I tried watching his followup, Brazil years ago, and found it alienating. So I tried again...
BRAZIL (1985) I find an overblown mess. It's a film where visually it's glorious but there's no substance. There's no real likeable characters in it. You can tell Gilliam began in animation and was influenced by Mad magazine, but it becomes tiring, all this beautiful detail stuck onto a story which is frustrating, an incredible cast which is lost in the mass of detail and silly plotting. It's a place you want to go, but Sam Lowry's story is so meaningless. I can see why Universal wanted the film re-shot. The thing is Time Bandits is one of my favourite films, and that is a film where it is basically split into chunks, each chunk different to the other, different design, different cast, different atmosphere, and it works, with Brazil, everything's clashing, It'd make a great videogame, hours of exploring all that detail, but as a film, it stinks.
I love Time Bandits, but Gilliam's other films bar possibly Jabberwocky and the Crimson Permanent Assurance alienate me. I am not saying he'd be a better director if he'd died young like the grossly overrated Michael Reeves, but he's someone who worked better on a budget, than with a budget.
Same with John Landis. I love American Werewolf in London (though the usually reliable Joe Dante's slightly too slasher-y The Howling has the better werewolves) and find moments in his two Eddie Murphy comedies appealing, but everything else, nah...
Most TVMs, especially post-1990 have the same bland dullness, even the likes of Cast A Deadly Spell (1991)/WitchHunt (1994), Fatherland (1994), various ones starring the likes of Anthony Hopkins and Alan Arkin. HBO original films, as all these films are a mixed match, from the theatrically released likes of The Hitcher (1986) and Three Amigos (1987) to the straight-to-cable likes of Cold Room (1984) which resembles an episode of Quantum Leap where Sam is played by Amanda Pays in a school uniform who has to leap into a girl who suffers incest from her Nazi butcher father played by Warren Clarke. The Cold Room features George Segal, who also appears in the Tales of the Unexpected-y HBO-BBC coproduction The Deadly Game (1982), where Trevor Howard and Robert Morley lead a cadre of elderly judges who try to put Segal on a fake trial in Switzerland. I've been watching a few. A few too grand to be boring, but not exciting enough like Alan Rickman's Rasputin (1996) or the Christopher Lloyd/John Heard-starring one about the Exxon Valdez disaster, directed by Paul "the Graff Vynda-K" Seed who started his career as a director, playing one in the swinging 60s "Blue Marigold" Tales of the Unexpected episode.
Hence the likes of:
"Sword of Gideon" (1986), a slow but engrossing Canadian CTV/HBO TVM based on the same book as Spielberg's Munich where Rod Steiger and Michael York (unconvincingly cast as a Belgian) and Lino Ventura hunt Black September from Paris to London (actual location footage) .
Mom and Dad Save The World (1992) where Teri Garr and Jeffrey Jones on their wedding anniversary are kidnapped by aliens and go to a planet where all the females are bipedal fish and the men bipedal dogs (as if to get known nonce Jones to get turned on by child-fish creatures as if bestilaity is better than paedophilia). Somewhere between daft and stupid. Colorful, inventive design but too silly for adults, despite or maybe because Eric Idle appearing. Similar to the similarly muddled mess that is Stay Tuned (1992), but not quite as inventive.
David Lynch's Hotel Room (1992 )- bundle of incomprehensible weirdness - features Freddie Jones vs Harry Dean Stanton, and Crispin Glover romancing Alicia Witt (who I weirdly mistook as Bernadette Peters).
Citizen X (1995) - Stephen Rea, Max Von Sydow and Donald Sutherland try to pin down Soviet killer Andrei Chikatilo. Best thing is Rea's brilliant Ulster-Israeli-Russian-Chicago accent. Also features Imelda Staunton and Joss Ackland.
A Dangerous Life (1989) - coproduction with the Aussie ABC about the assassination of Filipino politician/First Man Ninoy Aquino, shot in the Philippines, starring Gary Busey, Filipino staples like Vic Diaz and being Aussie, Mr. Udagawa from Neighbours. Bland and soppy.
Even Joe Dante's The Second Civil War, despite that cast doesn't quite feel like a Dante movie, despite a strange portrayal of Pakistan. It's progressive and satirical but its tone is misaligned.
BRAZIL (1985) I find an overblown mess. It's a film where visually it's glorious but there's no substance. There's no real likeable characters in it. You can tell Gilliam began in animation and was influenced by Mad magazine, but it becomes tiring, all this beautiful detail stuck onto a story which is frustrating, an incredible cast which is lost in the mass of detail and silly plotting. It's a place you want to go, but Sam Lowry's story is so meaningless. I can see why Universal wanted the film re-shot. The thing is Time Bandits is one of my favourite films, and that is a film where it is basically split into chunks, each chunk different to the other, different design, different cast, different atmosphere, and it works, with Brazil, everything's clashing, It'd make a great videogame, hours of exploring all that detail, but as a film, it stinks.
I love Time Bandits, but Gilliam's other films bar possibly Jabberwocky and the Crimson Permanent Assurance alienate me. I am not saying he'd be a better director if he'd died young like the grossly overrated Michael Reeves, but he's someone who worked better on a budget, than with a budget.
Same with John Landis. I love American Werewolf in London (though the usually reliable Joe Dante's slightly too slasher-y The Howling has the better werewolves) and find moments in his two Eddie Murphy comedies appealing, but everything else, nah...
Most TVMs, especially post-1990 have the same bland dullness, even the likes of Cast A Deadly Spell (1991)/WitchHunt (1994), Fatherland (1994), various ones starring the likes of Anthony Hopkins and Alan Arkin. HBO original films, as all these films are a mixed match, from the theatrically released likes of The Hitcher (1986) and Three Amigos (1987) to the straight-to-cable likes of Cold Room (1984) which resembles an episode of Quantum Leap where Sam is played by Amanda Pays in a school uniform who has to leap into a girl who suffers incest from her Nazi butcher father played by Warren Clarke. The Cold Room features George Segal, who also appears in the Tales of the Unexpected-y HBO-BBC coproduction The Deadly Game (1982), where Trevor Howard and Robert Morley lead a cadre of elderly judges who try to put Segal on a fake trial in Switzerland. I've been watching a few. A few too grand to be boring, but not exciting enough like Alan Rickman's Rasputin (1996) or the Christopher Lloyd/John Heard-starring one about the Exxon Valdez disaster, directed by Paul "the Graff Vynda-K" Seed who started his career as a director, playing one in the swinging 60s "Blue Marigold" Tales of the Unexpected episode.
Hence the likes of:
"Sword of Gideon" (1986), a slow but engrossing Canadian CTV/HBO TVM based on the same book as Spielberg's Munich where Rod Steiger and Michael York (unconvincingly cast as a Belgian) and Lino Ventura hunt Black September from Paris to London (actual location footage) .
Mom and Dad Save The World (1992) where Teri Garr and Jeffrey Jones on their wedding anniversary are kidnapped by aliens and go to a planet where all the females are bipedal fish and the men bipedal dogs (as if to get known nonce Jones to get turned on by child-fish creatures as if bestilaity is better than paedophilia). Somewhere between daft and stupid. Colorful, inventive design but too silly for adults, despite or maybe because Eric Idle appearing. Similar to the similarly muddled mess that is Stay Tuned (1992), but not quite as inventive.
David Lynch's Hotel Room (1992 )- bundle of incomprehensible weirdness - features Freddie Jones vs Harry Dean Stanton, and Crispin Glover romancing Alicia Witt (who I weirdly mistook as Bernadette Peters).
Citizen X (1995) - Stephen Rea, Max Von Sydow and Donald Sutherland try to pin down Soviet killer Andrei Chikatilo. Best thing is Rea's brilliant Ulster-Israeli-Russian-Chicago accent. Also features Imelda Staunton and Joss Ackland.
A Dangerous Life (1989) - coproduction with the Aussie ABC about the assassination of Filipino politician/First Man Ninoy Aquino, shot in the Philippines, starring Gary Busey, Filipino staples like Vic Diaz and being Aussie, Mr. Udagawa from Neighbours. Bland and soppy.
Even Joe Dante's The Second Civil War, despite that cast doesn't quite feel like a Dante movie, despite a strange portrayal of Pakistan. It's progressive and satirical but its tone is misaligned.
Today, watched soppy, not as interesting as it sounds Burl Ives-guest starring Japanese-Bermudan Rankin/Bass giant turtle-themed tragic romance the Bermuda Depths, bonkers but stretched-out Bette Davis as Lord Summerisle "witchy town" miniseries The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978) which should have been thirty minutes not three hours, and the actually interesting and rather good 1996 BBC-HBO true story Deadly Voyage (Sweaty Joss Ackland and a wonderfully seedy David Suchet play sadistic ship's crew who bump off African stowaways).
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