Keyser Corleone's Movie Memoirs

Registered User

08-06-24

TWIN CINEMA WEEK, DAY 5, MOVIE 2

Strawberries Need Rain

(1971) - Directed by Larry Buchanan
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Erotica / Drama
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"Do you know what love is?"

Watched at the same time as Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril.

So Larry Buchanan, one of my least favorite directors, has at least one movie people claim to at least like a little. This one has an impressive (for him) 6.6 on Imdb. I was just WAY to interested in the idea of a good Buchanan movie to pass this up. I've seen nothing that I liked by this man, so I was holding my hand out for a hope that could've been false. Here's to the hope that you had TALENT, Larry Boy.

This is Larry Buchanan's tribute to the works of Swedish genius Ingmar Bergman. Monica Gayle plays Erica, a woman who is about to die for seemingly no reason. She begs and even convinces the Grim Reaper himself to give her one more day. She decides to use this day exploring erotic fantasies with potential guys.

And there's your plot.

Even though the dialogue and filmmaking don't compare to Bergman, this is certainly better than travesties like The Eye Creatures... for a little bit. After the intro, the movie becomes a serious drag. Now I kinda like the idea as far as the story goes: a girl convinces Death to give her one day to enact her romantic fantasies? Decent concept, but even an amazing concept can be turned to utter trash, with my favorite example of this conundrum being the 2006 TV film Re-Animated. And since this is a Larry Buchanan film, I had my doubts.The scenes building up to sexuality aren't very original. They're basic and a little long. In fact, many scenes here will be very long for no reason. I mean, seriously, did the motorcycle scene really have to be like four minutes long? Nothing exciting happens except for riving on a normal road. And no surprise, you get punked a couple times and the sex doesn't actually happen those times.

And this is literally all I have to say this time about such a terrible movie, so I'm going to fill up a paragraph with its relation to Lone Wolf and Cub 4. Like I said in my last review, I was watching both screens with one eye each, and it was really easy considering both movies went through extended scenes without dialogue. But unlike Lone Wolf and Cub 4, this had no action save walking around, riding on a motorcycle and even breathing.

It's really difficult to see this as a tribute to Ingmar Bergman considering that there's barely any thought put into the story. If Buchanan wants to do a tribute to him, I won't stop him, but did he really feel like he could make something just as good as the best of Bergman? No. I can't believe the Imdb ratings for this. Total and utter slog. It missed a glorious opportunity to explore themes of life and death for filler scenes and very little of the erotica it advertises. This movie is by far the loser of the two.

= 22

This film does not affect Larry Buchanan's Directorial Score.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-06-24

TWIN CINEMA WEEK, DAY 6, MOVIE 1

The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves are Here!

(1971) - Directed by Andy Milligan
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Werewolf / Family Drama
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"They can be very destructive if they get mad."

Watched at the same time as The Mechanic (1972).

It's been a few days since I turned on a horror movie, as I'm watching my horror intake (I'm doing the same with my metal intake for albums), as my charts had once had WAY too much of the genre months back. It took serious work to get my chart to under 20% horror and I'm still working on it. Close to finishing a bottom 50 and top 50 for 1972, I've been going through the bottom 50 of 1972 for Letterboxd, sparingly however since I'm careful about too much horror in MY chart when there's too much horror in THAT chart. Ironically, I got lucky somehow.

The Mooneys are a family of werewolves, but Diana is somehow different from the rest. There's a slim chance she can break from her family and start a normal one, but her father won't allow it because the chances are slim. He's prefer for Diana to help him with the experiments he's been working on. Unfortunately, she's fallen in love, and her new husband is slowly introduced to the horrible behavior of this family, as well as their secrets.

First, lemme talk about the family themselves. GOD, can these people stop fighting for one minute? This is supposed to be the prologue, and already everybody's just being so snipy with each other that I wanted to shut it off multiple times. This is NOT the kind of family you want to have dinner with. Ironically, I can't say I wasn't at least half impressed with the dialogue. There were times I enjoyed it to the point of pausing The Mechanic. I mean, considering the title, there's really no point in all the effort they put in trying to treat the werewolf thing as some sort of mysterious plot twist, considering the title and the face that their family name is literally MOONEY. �....... OK, I'm gonna give you a little quiz. For my debut novel, the two main characters are symbolic of the sun and the moon. Their names are Losa and Nula. Tell me how I made those names.

I was pretty impressed that the movie kept trying to keep the plot going. Because of its speed, I found myself favoring watching this at times instead of The Mechanic because of the activity. This doesn't make it the better movie, though. There are some plot choices that felt like they needed to be further developed, especially in regards to that one girl who bought the rats. It felt thrown in just to say more about the rats without adding a lot to the movie.

But as for its genre, what the hell is this movie doing with so little horror? There are a couple times a guy is seen growling in a room and flailing, and very VERY few death scenes. This movie isn't acting like a horror movie very often, and I'd say it only manages to double the tiny amount of horror featured in an often-mistagged drama movie, Freaks from 1932. And it doesn't really go for the full-on horror treatment until the thrown-together climax, as expected, but what I didn't expect was that these rats advertised by the title and the unnecessary subplot wouldn't even make an important appearance again! GOD, what a rip-off. I really wanted some subplot involving the experiments to make a much more important appearance somewhere, and I didn't get that at all!

So I'm not even gonna bother tagging this as a horror movie. The horror comes FAR secondary to the family drama even to the point of subgenre. I liked the decisions that they introduced, but there was so little focus on building up half of the interesting subplots as well as building up the horror that this movie just ends up being a mess by the end. Shame. I quite enjoyed some parts.

= 47

Andy Milligan needs 2 more films to qualify for a Directorial Score.

Last edited by KeyserCorleone; 08-07-24 at 04:11 PM.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-06-24

TWIN CINEMA WEEK, DAY 6, MOVIE 2

The Mechanic

(1972) - Directed by Michael Winner
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Erotica / Drama
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"Someone trained by ME could be of value to you."

Watched at the same time as The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!

At the same time as watching that family drama disguised as a horror, I decided that a nice crime thriller would be different enough. They were about the same length, and I needed to get this out of the way, anyway. It seems to be a classic for 1972, and I needed another Charles Bronson movie anyway. Otherwise, I don't often watch movies of this vein and I was a little concerned about the somewhat lower ratings in comparison to other classics.

Arthur Bishop is an assassin who makes his jobs look like total accidents, but after his most recent hit his health begins to fail him. He then decides to train someone to take his place: the son of the man he killed. But he broke a cardinal rule in his organization doing so.

The intro goes for slow-building moods and focus on little details, but it's a bit TOO slow for me. For the most part, I like the thrills. There's a combination of good build-up and sluggish build-up, but the end result is usually cool. Thankfully, things are much faster afterwards, but never rapid-speed. There's a motorcycle chase scene which is pretty cool, and the combination of action and storytelling gets better along the way, especially since the first have deals a long stretch of slow storytelling with little to no action. There is some slow-pacing by the end as well, but it's not even near as bad as the intro.

My personal favorite aspect of this movie is how Arthur and Steve build up their connection and eventual student-teacher relationship. They have a lot in common and the two actors perform their characters quite similarly. Honestly, this Steve kid's about as cool as Arthur. And I don't know this kid from other movies like I do with Charles Bronson, who've already seen several movies of, but this kid really knows how to keep his cool in a Bronson-esque way.

Now this is gonna be a bit of a weirder criticism, but I gotta say it. Now the idea of this killer is that he always makes it look like accidents? There's creativity involved, but as I watch these scenes play out I can't help but compare them to the feelings I got during the death scenes of the first 3 Final Destination films. There was less of that effect here, and I pay close attention to the �creative� details of the movies I watch. Some creativity, not a lot, basically it.

Well I liked this more than the other film at the very least. This is the winner so far, but I can't see it being a favorite. This is a movie where all the best stuff is paired with drawn out scenes that only get faster as they go along. Minimal characterization is also a problem, but nevertheless this is still a movie with a strong "cool mood." So, yeah. I guess I would recommend it.

= 73.5

Michael Winner needs 2 more films to qualify for a Directorial Score.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-07-24

Before I watch the final two movies for Twin Cinema week, here's another review.

Bury Me an Angel
(1971) - Directed by Barbara Peeters
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Road Movie
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"You meant for me to feel your pain. I can't."

Not much to say as an intro for this one except that I was in the mood for a B-movie, knew Barbara Peeters specialized in that for her short time as a director, and that movies like that are typically easy to get through while writing. So I had a pretty clear piece of filler for my charts this time. But since I care so little about this movie or the review, I'm typing this while watching Ouran on Netflix.

Dag was just joining some friends at a party one day when a total stranger comes in an blows her brother's head off with a rifle. Unable to sleep without seeing the murderer's face, she decides to travel the road and find this guy. Joined by friends of the family, they come across various people and places before confronting the culprit.

The movie is pretty damn slow from the start. It makes a point of using filler scenes with music just to create an 85 minute runtime. Thankfully, there's a bit of surrealism put into some of these scenes. There's a dream scene about fifteen minutes in which has a surprising amount of artistic focus involved. Having known Peeters as the director of Humanoids from the Deep, I wasn't expecting such a well-filmed and well-lit dream sequence. However, we still get motorcycle filler. At least they're more well-filmed than the one from Strawberries Need Rain, and there's the decent 60's-70's rock music attacked. But the opening scene involved lots of people doing drugs with no psychedelic vibes whatsoever, which would've been great considering psychedelia is a good thing to include in horror, i.e. Suspiria.

As far as the personal stuff goes, I can't really say I feel these guys. This movie's advertised as a revenge thriller, but it's nothing more than a home video of three people travelling the open-road to rock music. I'm desperately waiting for the gunfire to show, and instead I get unrealistic barfighting, stopping at random tour sights like any other road trip and an overly-glossy jacket matched with red sunglasses. In other words, there was pretty much no need for a guy to be killed, as you can make up any reason to go out on a road trip. We finally get some real dialogue and conflict around the end of the second act, and of course it hits a little hard, but it quickly ends in place of another motorcycle scene. As for the climax, so quickly rushed and thrown together in the way you'd expect...

I heard this was better than Peeters' Humanoids from the Deep, and I agree... but not by much. This might have better filmmaking, but its story is standard and barely has any real imagination. This is nothing more than a road trip that's so standard I felt like I could've purchased the actual trip itself at the Five Below.

Barbara Peeters needs 1 more film to qualify for a Directorial Score.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-08-24

Sorry about not posting the final two yesterday. I had them written down but got so busy that by the end of the night I already had. Well the next two are coming up shortly.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-08-24

TWIN CINEMA WEEK, DAY 7, MOVIE 1

The Wanderers

(1979) - Directed by Philip Kaufman
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Hood Film / Drama / Coming-of-Age
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"Listen, I ain't callin' those guys Turkey, I got my pride."

This is the final day of Twin Cinema Week. Sorry about the delay from yesterday, but I don't feel like typing up all the stuff that I wrote about yesterday's two movies, so I decided to watch two more. Now I'm on yet another Philip Kaufman movie, which I needed considering that I pay so little attention to him. I read on Letterboxd that the reviews there were quite good, so I had really hoped for a hit here.

The new guy in town, Perry, is tough enough to take on the local street gang the Baldies, so the Wanderers accept him into their own. During this time, they get into a fight at school with the all-black Bombers, the Wanderers start looking for new recruits, including a REAL mafioso to help. Unfortunately, that's when all hell breaks loose. Even on school grounds or at the prom, a fight could start at any moment.

Based on my experiences with great movies like The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, as well as overrated movies like The Warriors, I already have my standards for comparing street gang films. The one thing I was paying the most attention to was the plot, and it seemed to progress fairly well. Most of what happened did a decent job recreating the vibes and struggles of hood life, and even left some room for twists, like when the Baldies left the movie. I didn't always think it was a SENSIBLE movie, though. Some scenes felt pretty dumb, like when the teacher is having his class exchange racial slurs to prove a point, and it ends up in a fight. I don't feel like I learned anything from that personally, and I don't see why the students should. On top of that, while the Baldies thing made a nice twist, I felt like forcing them out halfway wasn't exactly the way that should've built up to the next more tragic twist, becayse anything could've lead up to that with more story. And by the end it feels like they're throwing things together for the sake of �resolution.�

The acting is tolerable, but I don't really see anyone standing out here. I feel like these people are largely just trying to be themselves, but none of them have that unique charisma that really helps them stand out. Oh yes, and the leader of the Baldies... his voice just can't be real. I think he's adjusting his voice to sound tougher, but he comes off like he's voicing a Muppet. If it weren't for the light bits of characterization and the fact that one guy's bald, the Wanderers would all blend in with each other perfectly. In fact, much of this light development has very little effect on the movie overall, much like Danny's boys from Grease.

So B-movie fans may find some John Carpenter charm involving movies like Escape from New York or Assault on Precinct 13, but its movies like this that make me really wish for a hood movie that actually gives development to the whole gang. This has some activity to it which I greatly appreciate the effort of, but overall the story is only a little better than The Warriors, as it needs to be more organized and more character-driven.

Philip Kaufman's Directorial Score (3 Good vs. 1 Bad)

The Right Stuff: 95
Invasion of the Body Snatchers: 91
The Wanderers: 66
The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid: 33

Score: 71.25 / 4

Philip Kaufman moves down on my Best Directors List from #186 to #194 between John McTiernan and Donald Petrie.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-08-24

TWIN CINEMA WEEK, DAY 7, MOVIE 2

The Little Things

(2021) - Directed by John Lee Hancock
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Cop / Mystery / Psycho-Thriller / Neo-Noir
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"I know I'm not officially in custody, but... better be safe than sorry, huh guys?"

At the behest of a regular at work, I was told I needed to check this movie out. He mentioned Denzel Washington so I was a bit interested, but his wife and his friend both said the movie wasn't worth watching. The friend said it was two hours you'd never get back. My response was, "If I can write a decent review, it'll be two hours well spent." So now that I have my extra weekend chore out of the way, here's the final review for Twin Cinema Week.

In the year 1990, Deputy Sheriff Joe Deacon (Washington) is still plauged by an unsolved case from five years ago. He's soon called in to the LAPD to investigate a murder with behavior that mirrors that of the unsolved case from long ago, aiding newbie Jimmy Baxter (Rami Malek). After a couple of suspects don't make the cut, their leading suspect is a freaky little bugger (Jared Leto) who follows crime cases and even played tricks on the cops without ever being taken in for murder, which may or may not be true.

So part of the reason to watch this movie would seemingly be for its bigname cast. Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto, nice trio, right? But none of them are really standing out as actors here. What is it about bigname actors playing cops and ending up losing their unique qualities to such tropey, overly-serious characters? In the end, every actor who plays a cop feels too familiar to enjoy the actors for. Rami Malek is a personal favorite of mine via the short amount of Mr. Robot and Bohemian Rhapsody, and I'll always hold some place for Denzel because of Malcolm X. They were just kind of pushing one or two emotions through the whole movie with very little attempt at expansion, so I ended up bored with these characters very easily. The most interesting one was Jared Leto who was a buit on the weird side on this one, but not any weirder than the usual creepy guy in the crime thrillers.

In the end, I couldn't feel any personality during the events of this unfolding case. I remember more connection from an average episode of CSI Miami. Every bit that's supposed to feel �thrilling� like the investigation in Leto's home feels like it was �inserted� in there to fit a base plotline for a movie of this genre. Throughout this entire movie I was waiting for anything that felt unique, but instead I got a bunch of long, dreary and drawn-out nighttime scenes put together with what sounded like CSI music with the .5x speed option playing. By the time the actual killer is revealed in the end, I wasn't surprised at all because these drawn out scenes gave me plenty of time to just sit back and go over every possible theory without actually being interested in them. I felt more challenged when I decided to play a Scooby-Doo movie, muted with the sound off and sped up to twice the speed just to see if I can pick out the murderer based on that. And I've done it.

I didn't think I was gonna like this movie very much, but I never expected to be so bored with it. I have to wonder why this movie exists? A tax-write off? The Little Things is basically a bunch of pros doing generic things for over two hours. This movie won't offer you anything you can't find on TV expect maybe a bloodied police photo of a naked lady's corpse.

= 45

John Lee Hancock needs 1 more film to qualify for a Directorial Score.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-08-24

Now to rank these movies:

Foodfight: 2
Strawberries Need Rain: 22
The Snowman: 32
The Triumph of Hercules: 35
The Little Things: 45
Sniper: Special Ops: 45
The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!: 47
Guns of the Magnificent Seven: 54
Super Fly: 63
The Wanderers: 66
The Mechanic: 73.5
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril: 92
Lenny: 95
Midnight Cowboy: 96

Midnight Cowboy is the winner of Twin Cinema week!

SpelingError

Message

AKA Popcorn Reviews

08-09-24

Love Midnight Cowboy. I nominated it for one of the HoFs awhile back.

__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-11-24

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things

(1972) - Directed by Bob Clark
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Zombie / Supernatural Horror / Black Comedy / Horror Comedy
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"A man has a right to some dignity, even when he's dead!"

So this is the moment where Bob Clark finally makes it into one of my Director's Lists, either the best or the worst. I figured it might be exciting if I left it to a coin toss with a movie with middling reviews, yet still a cult classic in its own right. Now up to this point I had only seen two Bob Clark movies, specifically one of his best and one of his worst as the media states: A Christmas Story and Baby Geniuses. I have enough room for another horror movie, and I'm inches away from finishing my top and bottom 50 of 1972. So here we go.

Allan is a director who invites his theater troupe to play a satanic ritual on a deserted island for fun, except it looks like he actually wants the damn thing to be real. While he demeans his team, the others mock him for his theatrics. Unfortunately, they actually DO end up summoning the dead, so hoe the hell are they going to beat these guys when they hardly even know how they summoned them in the first place?

So the idea of young people playing with demonic objects is a pretty common one, and has been a common one ever since who knows how long. But in all the cheesy b-movies I've seen, I don't think I've seen one about a theater troupe accidentally summoning one in a practice play. I like that idea. What I especially like is the fact that, despite the lacking characterization which normally REALLY bugs me as if a person is mentally incapable of considering it, this cast of characters really does feel like a theater troupe. So at least the cast is alive just enough to feel like we're with them. While I'll take points off for the lacking development, this is something I can get behind. And it helps that the dialogue, while not always as funny as a comedy should warrant, feels a bit realistic and understandable for people who are not only taking part in a play satanic ritual, but teasing each other, often in reference to the game. The dialogue even makes unfunny jokes a bit more charming than they really are, especially since the actors, being Clark's old college friends, are noticeably better than b-movies like this typically warrant. I mean, they aren't great actors by any definition of the word, but they're way better than anyone you'll find in a Dustin Ferguson or even Christopher Forbes movie.

As for the actual scares, people looking for a good horrific time in this cult classic might be disappointed for a while. If you get a kick out of DnD or larping, you might at least get some enjoyment out of the pretend games, because they pretty much take up the entire first half once the opening credits are done. So while the entire movie touches up on horror themes, it spends very little time trying to scare you until the actual summoning begins. Sometimes the creepiness aura is attempted, such as when that one girl (one criticism is that I didn't learn many of the characters' names) talks all spiritual and starts getting really creepy with the whole "sense a dead person's aura" bit or whatever. There's both creepy charm and comedy here in light doses at least.

The third act is when the horror actually kicks in. Among these sets that are about twice as realistic as the graveyard from Plan 9 from Outer Space are some decently cheesy zombie scenes and good zombie sound effects that might not make the wait fully worth while but are still a huge breath of fresh air. Good zombie make-up and direction really help in this instance. At least Clark had some decent skill early on in his career. The scary-ass music really helped most of these scenes. I mean DAMN! This is Michael Gira scary!

So, I consider this a fairly enjoyable movie that didn't live up to the full extent of the choices of genre. As a zombie movie, this one works pretty damn well. It's actually kinda scary. Unfortunately, it's only a real zombie movie in the third act. Otherwise, this is a so-so comedy with decent dialogue and a knack for the horror aesthetic at the very least. It's basically a pre-Evil Dead edition of Evil Dead with less fleshing out (no pun intended). But when I think about it, I like the gimmick enough to maybe watch it again at some point if not just for the good third act. It's like the opposite of a Joe D'Amato movie: so-so build up in the first two acts and a good third act, especially where that twist ending is concerned. For a negative ending, I quite liked that one. Might've even been a perfect ending, artistically at least. Looks like Bob made it to the good list.

= 58

Bob Clark's Directorial Score (2 Good vs. 1 Bad)

A Christmas Story: 100
Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things: 57
Baby Geniuses: 34

Score: 63.66 / 3

Bob Clark debuts on my Best Directors List at #238 between Fernando Di Leo and Roy Ward Baker.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-15-24

Fist of Fury

(1972) - Directed by Lo Wei
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Kung Fu
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"Whenever you're ready, I'll take on any Japanese here."

When I saw Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon years ago with my dad, I wasn't really impressed. It didn't do much for my curiosity pertaining to martial arts films, so I ended up putting off Bruce Lee for years. Now that I'm focusing on 1972, Fist of Fury, which is said to be quite good, has become an obligation. Is this going to be the movie that finally kindles a love for Bruce Lee in my stubborn soul, or is this going to be another bust like Enter the Dragon and The Way of the Dragon?

Chen is a stubborn and angry little man who's kung fu teacher was recently killed. The reports say it was pneumonia, but many students in the school are still suspicious. After being taunted by a Japanese school, Chen, against his new master's wishes, goes over and challenges them, winning in the process. However, now the Japanese are out for blood, and they've threatened the kung fu school. Chen's not gonna take that lightly.

I just typed a very tropy plotline. I really don't think it requires imagination to think of people getting revenge after being shamed. It's pretty much the story of Samson here: The Philistines threaten his wife, he kills some Philistines, they kill his wife, he kills some Philistines, they force the Israelites to hand him over, he kills 1000 Philistines. How can this be considered original by anyone when you get to the basics of what human beings will naturally do? Why did so many martial arts films of that time have to be so plotless? There's nothing here that Bruce is offering that's any different than what others were offering at the time, save the weird noises, one of which sounded like a bad impersonation of a creaking door opening slowly. I can do that. There's much better plotting in an episode of Kung Fu.

The biggest reason movies like this sell are for the stunts. And how are they? They're alright. I mean, you can tell when some of this stuff is faked pretty often, but the choreography is operable at best. But once again, I see nothing here that I can't get in better martial arts movies. And the biggest problem in this vein is not just the stunts, but the characterization. Angry student getting revenge? Allow me to sing a song: Whoopdee-freakin-doo, when will you, be someone I can like now? Whoopdee-freakin-doo, how are you, a staple kung fu star now? Cop on the wrong side of the law (but maybe the right one since he's Chinese and not Japanese)? That adds so little to the movie that it's not even worth following as a character. Every other person here can't even call themselves paper-cutouts. They WANT TO BE paper cutouts.

Dammit, third time wasn't the charm when watching my third Bruce Lee movie. If anything, this was the worst of the three. I understand that I'll probably anger somebody, but I am on movie-related chat boars and am SO not afraid of that. Bruce Lee was nothing more than a guy relying on the rep of an original fighting style and a fake American given-name to sell his movies. He was basically the Ramones of the movie industry, except Ramones had the decency to keep their fun projects less than a half-hour at a time so they didn't burn out easily.

= 52.5

Lo Wei needs 2 more films to qualify for a Directorial Score.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-17-24

Pink Flamingos

(1972) - Directed by John Waters
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Black Comedy / Gross-Out Comedy / Sex Comedy / Queer Cinema / Exploitation
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"I swear I'm gonna puke if you don't stop doing that!"

Well, here it is, my 100th movie for 1972. Moving onto 1969 after this to keep up with the directors I introduced myself to for this purpose. Then I'll probably move onto a 40's or 50's year. I knew that Pink Flamingos was controversial for adult topics, and I had seen movies in that vein before, like the previous year's A Clockwork Orange (let's be honest. As soon as the MPAA's new rating system came around, Kubrick saw it as a new form of creative freedom). I went into this knowing nothing about the plot, however, and now I'm prepared.

In this first entry in John Waters' Trash Trilogy, Drag queen icon Divine plays "herself" as a criminal hiding under the name Babs Johnson, taking care of her baby-fied mother, her friend Cotton and her son, Crackers. Proud to be self-proclaimed the filthiest person alive, the title is soon up for grabs when a married couple who specialize in kidnapping and selling women challenge them. This leads to a plethora of gruesome, disgusting and supposedly riotous situations.

What in everyone's ass did I just watch? I mean, I've seen my fair share of weird movies, be them comedic ones like this or more serious ones like Jacob's Ladder or more introspective ones like Being John Malkovich. This is literally just a bunch of dicking around with no real sense of art. This is amateur filmmaking and amateur humor that Disney entendres and Dav Pilkey have shown more comedic appeal in. I mean, first of all, some of this stuff isn't "gross-out comedy." It's just gross. At least Peter Steele had the decency to blur the photo of his own anus when he used it on Type O Negative's second album's cover. I don't need to see someone opening up that thing in broad daylight. Literally any sexual scenes or the few bloody scenes involved are just rooted in being gross for gross's sake, hiding behind the excuse of "commentary" when the farthest thing I feel right now is enlightened.

Second of all, the characters just get on my nerves. They constantly do things that are supposed to be abnormal and wild, but this doesn't add to the comedic value at all. The build up to stuff like incestuous oral sex and vulgar language during these situations does literally nothing for the sex-joke lover in me. This is coming from a guy who's spent a good 10% of his adult life on "that's what she said" and "describe your sex life with a Spongebob quote." None of these people can act that well, and they spent most of the movie yelling and complaining. In fact, Edie is just so utterly annoying. I spend a lot of time online, so sometimes I'm dealing with whiny babies in adult costumes trying to act like adults and failing. I don't need whiny babies in adult costumes acting like actual whiny babies. The moment she started fake-crying like a baby, I was whispering "NO. NO. NO."

OK, so the four question method:

1: What is the goal of this film? To be an exercise in poor taste as advertised on the poster.

2: Does the film meet it's goal? Unfortunately, a bit too well.

3: What did this movie sacrifice in order to meet its goal? Easy. A focus on PLOT, GOOD ACTING, TECHNIQUE AND ACTUALLY BEING FUNNY.

4: Do other aspects of the film make up for the sacrifices? Considering that I watch a lot of weird movies all the time, I have to say no. Weirdness is literally all the movie has.

Looking through other reviews concerning its "successful attempt at parodying the filth popular at the time" and how "it's just so weird and unique," that really isn't enough for me at all. This movie's going to have its lovers and haters for the rest of eternity, and I typically love weird stuff, and I've even given weird erotic movies like Blue Velvet and Videodrome 100/100. But this is an instance where I have to join the haters on the spectrum of polarization. I will give it points for boldness and some seriously effective scenes, which was the intent. But like I already said, this is nothing but an amateur movie full of amateur actors. They say the next John Waters movie, Female Trouble, tackles some of the same themes with the same cast, and is a much better movie as well. God, I hope that's true, because now that I bothered to deal with the first movie in the thematic trilogy, I have to see the other two.

= 27

John Waters needs 2 more films to qualify for a directorial score.

Last edited by KeyserCorleone; 08-17-24 at 03:06 AM.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-17-24

Reposting the colorization chart for genre-tagging.

Action - Red
Adventure - Orange
Comedy - Yellow
Crime - Dark Blue
Documentary - Green
Drama - Teal
Experimental - Olive
Family - Lavender
Fantasy - Magenta
Horror - Purple
Musical - White
Mystery - Brown
Noir - Black
Romance - Pink
Sci-Fi - Blue
Sports - Cyan
Spy - Indigo
Thriller - Gray
War - Dark Green
Western - Tan
Other - Dark Red
Movement - Slate Gray

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-17-24

Zeta One

(1969) - Directed by Michael Cort
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Alien Invasion/ Spy / Sex Comedy / Sexploitation
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"The whole place is like a vast, supernatural ant colony."

It's time for me to start making a top and bottom 50 of 1969! I chose 1969 because it was close to 1972, and many of the same directors I explored in that year released at least one movie in 1969. For my first film, I'll check out a cheesy sci-fi B-movie about a race of femaliens. Come on, you're talking to ME here. This was the only film directed by Michael Cort, which originally told me that this movie was so little of a success that he gave up. Of course, I found that he also directed a short film in 1972, so I have no idea what happened to him, but I was prepared for the absolute worst.

Zeta One, a.k.a. The Love Factor, shows secret agent James Word recounting to his secretary a case involving an alien race exclusively of females kidnapping Earth woman to repopulate their own planet. Word's plan is to use their next target, a stripper, to invade their base after being kidnapped, but Word's not the only one on the case. There are others who are interested in their alien race and are planning a few kidnappings themselves.

You know something? ... I... feel... refreshed! A B-movie fan such as myself shouldn't have to struggle to find good cheese. My 1972 binge was loaded with both great movies and terrible movies passing themselves off as horror movies but featuring too many extended scenes of nothing going on and very little horror action / cheese. This, however, is sharp cheddar died with rainbow colors and flavored birthday cake. This is MAXIMUM camp. There's always something very playful and maybe lightly sexual going on, and these semi-bad actors are obviously having fun with the roles they've been given. The skinny brit with the glasses, and I am no racist, is just begging to be called a "limey," and that sophisticated overweight dude with the beard wants so badly to be the next Orson Welles.

And oh my beloved crapbaskets... the colorization. The unadulterated, shameless, eye-burning colorization! There is way too much vivid colorization here. Against the black backdrops, these alien sets and vibrant clothing look like an episode of PBS's Zoom on psychedelics. There is absolutely no shame here, especially when some of these sets look like they were build out of oversized children's blocks. The fruits and mattresses were practically glowing in neon. And of course, we have a female fighting force who's battle armor amounts to little more than a couple of strings (cue Tamaki's aneurysm. If you get that, you win a cookie).

As for the plot? What can I say that hasn't already been said in the summary? This is really just an excuse to put together a dumb b-movie, so the plot is more or less what I gave you: cheesy alien technology, sensual situations between alien and spy, secret organizations, no surprises. But at least the movie's having fun with it. The 60's were an incredible time for proto-Power Rangers camp. Of course, I have to say the first 20 minutes were slow as hell, and I didn't expect much from it, despite the fact that a few sparks were lit over the lengthy strip poker scene.

OK, so despite the beginning, I would return to this for a campy time. Zeta One is a surprisingly well-directed piece of tripe that shows the director treating the film in the same way Frank Zappa treated his music: shameless dumb fun. Of course, the major difference here is that Zappa didn't have to worry about subpar acting or poor plotting, since he was a musician. At least everyone had fun, and it's easy to have fun with everyone else with Zeta One. It's a crying shame this was his only feature film. I would've loved to see what other campy movies he would've made, because this must NOT be put in the same league as another single-movie I can think of: Manos.

= 60

Michael Cort has directed only 1 film and is not eligible for a Directorial Score.

Last edited by KeyserCorleone; 08-17-24 at 04:55 PM.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-24-24

A . . L . . I . . E . . N
R . . . O . . . M . . . U . . . L . . . U . . . S

(2024) - Directed by Fede Alvarez
--------------------------------------------
Alien / Sci-Fi Horror / Survival
-------------------------------------------------

"You don't help her, you run."

I became a fan of Alien exactly half my life ago, fifteen years (what am I, Lou Pickles?), and I've been staunch in defending the possibility that Alien has at least of drop of purely acidic blood left in the franchise, despite the lower-quality sequels. The first one is the scariest movie I've ever seen, the second is my favorite movie of all time for its marriage of action and horror, but Alien 3 was flawed thanks to "The Company," being Fox. And Resurrection was a bit too actiony and modern to really feel like an Alien movie. Then we had the two forgettable Alien vs. Predator movies, a slight resurgence with the largely well-done Prometheus, and a decent return to xenomorphophilia with Covenant. But considering that they didn't really reach great heights, did any of us really believe that the next Alien was going to be a major hit? I defended the idea, but I didn't fully believe it.

The ninth installment, Romulus, takes place in between the first two films. Rain Carradine is a miner who's tired of spending years on a mining colony, and joins her friends and her adoptive android brother Andy in stealing a ship and going after some cryosleep pods so they can make a trip to another planet. The pods are inside a destroyed space station separated by two halves: Romulus and Remus. Inside, they accidentally awaken Facehuggers from cryostasis, and because this is an Alien movie, one disaster after another keeps going on until they not only have to deal with the same creatures that destroyed Remus, but with an android of the same make, model and even appearance of ASH.

Now I pay little attention to Fede Alvares. This is the same man who did a decent revival of Evil Dead and the original Don't Breathe, the latter of which I haven't seen yet. But judging from reviews, while he's good at what he does, I'm not seeing anyone compare his to Robert Eggers or even Ari Aster. So my expectations amounted to "fairly enjoyable. But right from the appearance of the opening credits and the colorization of the insides of Welyand-Yutani spaceships, Fede Alvares immediately tells you what you've been waiting to say for a long time, even when the last two movies were out: ALIEN IS BACK!

We're not dealing with some attempt at forcing a new spirit and breath into it, and we're not falling into the pit of sequelitis. This is where Fede Alvares gives us the return to the glorious form that cemented the original one to begin with. You may think that this was an unoriginal choice, but I've seen every Alien movie, and none of them tried to recreate the original like this. There are two key components here: the visual effects and the sound effects.

The visuals were surprisingly strong. Alvares was very focused on the imagery here, even if characterization sometimes took a back seat to it. Thankfully, it managed to give us enough of the good ol' fashioned character dynamics to be satisfied, and it's more than what the first film gave us as the first film was largely focused on the scares and the world-building. So there's a bit of a plus here already. But it's the shots that really matter here. Seeing that little ship float through the blackened clouds with yellow lights following were more eerie and hypnotic than the inside of Mordor. And the chaotic sound effects let you know that everything was clanking and clattering and that safety could be thrown out the window at any second. They put some extra effort into capturing everything the sound could offer. Both of these feats last throughout the whole movie, and are sometimes paired with a faster pace of danger development. The direction is both Alien and modern, but also carries fast-paced action sequences not only reminiscent of the difference between Alien and Aliens, but also brought to mind the running zombies from 28 Days Later. I was on my toes the whole damn time.

Now most of the people are going gaga over the performance of Cailee Spaeny as Rain, the lead. It's true that she delivers her role perfectly realistically, but I didn't really get "Stranger Things Kate Bush" moments from her, as she still has to compete with Sigourney Weaver for this. The performer that caught my eye is David Jonsson. It's one thing to play a human, but it's another thing to play a robot with two conflicting personalities. This theme perfectly differentiates him from both Ash and Bishop from the first two films while also being reminiscent of them. The mystique pertaining to his next actions depending on his directives is a major point of interest here. Although, we must call attention to the fact that Disney used AI to create another Ash. Actual voice actor or not, they didn't bother with a rubber mask for a visual actor like Doug Jones, and this is the kind of disrespect you'd expect from Disney (unless is was an artistic comparison to the cruelty of Weyland-Yutani which I doubt). Some critics are already making the comparisons, so let's not shy away from that.

And now for the most important part: the storytelling and the scare factor. DO THEY WORK? Maybe there are quite a few jump scares, but when there's good world-building and natural danger constantly developing, it's much more easy to be invested in the thrills here, which makes the jumps a bit more effective. I watch A LOT of horror movies. It even got to the point where I had to force myself into other genres just to balance out my year lists. So when I see this incredible combination of visual flair, sound effects and perfect direction, it all amplifies this pure terror in a plethora of effective and even creative ways. A large part of it is rooted in the fact that we know what the aliens are capable of, so all we have to worry about is which of the countless angles they're going to emerge from? The fast and slow paces both operate well here, although the faster pace is the biggest differentiation from the slow-moving original. That's probably a Fede staple. As the danger is always evolving, we always have something, as well as a few twists, to look forward to. But the story is very traditional as well. If you saw the first two Aliens, then you know hoe this will play out. But these traditions also have tweaks that are either for storytelling or for visual purposes.

It can be said after 32 years: Alien is once again a great franchise. As none of the previous sequels really tried to replicate the original film's atmosphere, Fede obviously put in some real effort and studies to give us the revival we've been waiting for. In other words, he played it safe, and gave us something unique to the sequels while still following in the vein of the original film. I was constantly on the edge of my seat, and while tradition might mean some unoriginality, this will easily be a favorite of Alien fans because of that decision. Major thumbs up for Alvarez and his sense of faithfulness!

= 93

Fede Alvarez needs 1 more film to qualify for a directorial score.

Last edited by KeyserCorleone; 09-22-24 at 08:39 PM.

xSookieStackhouse

Message

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

08-29-24

Originally Posted by KeyserCorleone

A L I E N
R O M U L U S

(2024) - Directed by Fede Alvarez
--------------------------------------------
Alien / Sci-Fi Horror / Survival
-------------------------------------------------

"You don't help her, you run."

= 93

Fede Alvarez needs 1 more film to qualify for a directorial score.

they making aliens tv series called alien: Earth. what u think? hopefully the tv series will be good

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

08-29-24

I don't think we need that series since it's best to let ideas ferment in this franchise, but I'll wait and see how it goes.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

09-14-24

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

(1975) - Directed by Jim Sharman
--------------------------------------------
Rock Opera / Parody / Sci-Fi / LGBT
-------------------------------------------------

"Leeet's dooo the Tiiime Waaarp AGAAAIIN!"

I have no idea why I put this off for so many years. I love glam rock, am a big Meat Loaf fan, always liked musicals and slowly adopted a love of cheese and horror overtime. I guess I just had so many different assignments for cinema exploration over the years and Rocky Horror never really fit the bills. So I went into this knowing absolutely nothing about it except that Meat Loaf is in it and essentially becomes meat loaf. I even managed to forget that Tim Curry is in it. Well, now that the MoFo Musical Countdown is happening, I have to rush through a few musicals before it's over this week. Apparently even the Musical Countdown thread can't motivate me to check out this movie until the end.

This is an adaptation of a stage musical about a couple in love who gets caught in a storm and have to make a phone call at nearby castle. But of course, the castle is loaded with eccentrics led by a genius transvestite named Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), who's castle is really a laboratory for a number of freaky experiments, including an artificial muscle man. As the couple get caught up in his experiments, another visitor comes along and the real origins of the mad doctor are revealed.

OK, it's difficult to say that this movie has a plot, because it ambles on throughout the whole damn thing. But this ambling, ironically, is part of the movie's eccentric personality. It's dedicated to the cheese and charm you'd get from classic B-movies ranging from the well-knows works of Roger Corman to the near-intolerable crap by Peter Perry Jr. Every little plot twist or development is rooted entirely in the movie's colorful and stereotypical take on the LGBT side of musical theater.

So with this movie packed with songs from start to finish in the same vein as Mamma Mia, all that's left to see is whether these songs are any good. Well, I'd say most of them are. They're catchy even when they feel a little undercooked, and once again, every note and lyric is dedicated to the movie's flamboyent atmosphere. But does this all work??? Well, as a Frank Zappa fan, if I were to criticize the idea in general, I'd be a hypocrite. So, I'd say this isn't quite comparable to Zappa's works, but it's still fun enough to ride through the whole movie.

And now for the best part: the acting. Most of these people are just cheesy enough to make it all feel proper and alive. You might not give most of these people awards, but you don't want them offstage because they're all part of this cartoon world. It's not like when Uma Thurman blew her performance as Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin; this is all proper. But anyone who's seen this knows hands-down that the best performer is Tim Curry. Not only does he have a legitimately great rock voice, but this straight man's performance as a transvestite is disturbingly on the spot. You can tell he loves being there, and that he put his heart and soul into that performance. I might never look at any past Tim Curry roles the same way again, not even John Silver.

Rocky Horror isn't exactly "fine filmmaking," but rather "fun filmmaking." This is really just a colorful excuse to have a wild time and a few good laughs. Maybe there are too many songs and not enough finely-tuned parody storytelling, but in does a good job recreating the vibes of the subject while never losing its own personality. I don't really know if I'll ever watch it again, maybe if just an excuse to have something enjoyable in the background, but I'm really happy I got it off of my to-do list. Unfortunately, it's not going to make my ballet for the Musical Countdown.

= 72

Jim Sharman needs two more films to qualify for a Directorial Score.

Last edited by KeyserCorleone; 09-15-24 at 01:36 AM.

KeyserCorleone

Registered User

09-22-24

Ratatouille

(2007) - Directed by Brad Bird
--------------------------------------------
Family / Comedy / Fable
-------------------------------------------------

"Anyone can cook."

For whatever reason, I didn't really get into the idea of this movie when the trailers were all over the Disney Channel,. Nick and Cartoon Network. I guess it was the plot. I really don't know why, but in the years that followed it would be ranked among the greatest animated films of all time. And just yesterday, I found out that it wasn't only the most popular Pixar movie on Letterboxd, but the highest rated as well. There was that part of me that was really hoping that this hype was justified.

Remy is a rat who's tired of scrounging for garbage with the rest of his "clan," including his critical father and lazy brother.

When he gets separated from them after raiding an old woman's house for said real food, he finds that he was actually living in his dreamworld: Paris, and soon invades the restaurant of his idol: Gusteau. After he sees the new garbage boy (son of Gusteau's old flame) fixing a mistake in a pan, Remy takes it upon himself to fix the mistake, and ends up partnering up with this new guy by tugging his hair and making his body move like a real chef! But the head chef of Gusteau's is suspicious of the sudden success of their new garbage boy, and on top of that, turns out that this new guy is the RESULT of the ex-owner's old flame.

Like I said, this was one I hoped would live up to the hype. Unfortunately for me, I found that the characterization simply didn't make the cut for me. If you know the tropes, you know how this movie's going. This is the same criticism I gave How to Train Your Dragon. I even came under fire on the Dreamworks Reddit for claiming that the movie was too predictable. Too bad, I say, deal with the criticism because this is EARTH. LIFE. THE REAL WORLD. Every character lives up to the basic tropes and nothing more, so the story tends to follow suite just like How to Train Your Dragon would three years later. I'd expect to come under fire against the Pixar Reddit if I ever mentioned it there, but I also remain honest because I'm on a movie community of people who largely don't give a, dare I say it, rat's ass. I mean, take the father. Disagrees with his son and is the boss. Bottom line. Older brother's lazy and fat. I got more characterization from Gus from Cinderella, being a tough guy who even wanted to fight a rat, and I wouldn't give Cinderella awards for characterization, either.

Now that I have that out of the way, everything else about the movie is essentially perfect. I was constantly head-over-heels for Patton Oswalt's performance as Remy. Pixar has a knack for getting great actors, but Patton as the lovable little dreamer is one of their best choices since the first Toy Story. Hell, even the general Pixar workers who act as voice actors, including animator Lou Romano actually voicing our hapless deuteragonist, was an excellent choice. These Pixar people really knew there stuff in that age. But this also makes me eager for more characterization as I previously detailed. We might have enough Brad Garrett and Ian Holm, but not enough Janeane Garofalo. Honestly, she was just another Astrid, or Astrid was just another Colette, an aggressive female rival to the lead who starts a relationship with him and nothing more. Gimme seasoning!!!

Now we get to the technical stuff. The humor isn't always up to par, but it has its fair share of good laughs. Many of them stem from Brad Bird's exquisite and careful direction which probably shines the brightest. Every kind of combo of pacing and angling is as perfected as the cheese and strawberry combo Remy was fauning over. Obviously, this means that Brad Bird was the best cook in the kitchen. And one thing about the story I especially loved was how the movie captured the stress in the kitchen in largely kid friendly ways, detailing was a job can realistically be like (assuming your good enough for THAT kind of high-demanding job).

From a technical standpoint, there are a lot of layers to Ratatouille. From a characterization stand point, it needs a little extra time in the pan. It's no wonder people love this, however, as the filmmaking is exquisite and many of the casting choices are excellent. I'm really glad I finally got this one off my chest, though. I was really hoping this would make top Pixar for me, but no, this isn't going to stand with Toy Story, Soul or Toy Story 3. Instead, I give it a Coco rating.

= 93

Brad Bird's Directorial Score (3 Good vs. 0 Bad)

The Incredibles: 96
The Iron Giant: 95
Ratatouille: 93

Average Score: 94.66 / 3

Brad Bird debuts on my Best Directors List at $45 between Henry Selick and Terrence Malick.

Now I'm gonna watch that Ren and Stimpy episode.

KeyserCorleone