NSFW! In retaliation for his selection, Jamie busts out a mostly-forgotten late-80's magical-realism romantic comedy that really draws some interesting lines in the sand for what it thinks are totally fine ideas to put into a movie. Thrill to Jamie and Ryan pondering how this was a mainstream movie that went without comment at the time.
Dream wives pushing up their prices
Even though it's a dying trade
Cool hands sticking to their guns
Hoping it'll keep them safe
They're eyeing off each other
Hoping to discover the only needle in the hay
But the sun's gone down and they're feeling around
With palms stretched open skimming the ground I was hoping that things were better since we're all so clever
Quick cash filling up the pockets
Of the most boring men in the room
Red lips, the promise of kisses
Whisper sweet nothingness
They're eyeing off each other
Hoping to discover the only needle in the hay
But the sun's gone down and they're feeling around
With palms stretched open skimming the ground
And you're sitting high above it
Modern comfort is always having something to say
And a million artists have come to this in the past years
Tired and hungry, laughing through tears
I was hoping that we'd feel better since we're all so clever
You look better in the spring
(The violins play the rite of it)
I see you ever considering
Packing up your things and driving into the sea
We're eyeing off each other
Hoping to discover the only needle in the hay
But the sun's gone down and we're feeling around
With arms stretched open skimming the ground
I was hoping that things were better
I was hoping that things were better
I was hoping that things were better since we're all so clever
It's my b-day tomorrow, and for my b-day, Dug and K sent me a couple of Hammer blurays I'd not picked up, and... I'm very excited. Lots of extra features and whatnot and excellent picture quality.
I wrote this one up in late 2020, so I'm not inclined to say a ton more. I suppose this time it really struck me how much this movie seems to play with the idea of gothic romance novels, of the young woman entering a castle and uncovering a mystery - but in this case rather than a wrongly imprisoned prince or lord, she accidentally frees a Dracula. It's kind of clever.
This is also a movie where we see Van Helsing continue on his arc as a bad-ass, fist-fighting Draculas and applying his anti-vampirism plan to himself. It's crazy.
I will also continue to contend that Andree Melly was very cute as a vampire.
An astronaut (Hugh Marlowe) and his buddies land on 26th-century Earth and find men meek and women friendly
I mean, yes.
I have no idea how I recorded this movie, but I did. I'm guessing by accident. I put it on to see what it was, and - while not good or great - there's a bit of The Time Machine and what we'll all know from Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes to this movie.
Some astronauts return to Earth only to find they didn't just pass through space, they passed through time - a few hundred years. On the surface, they find giant spiders and brutish troglodytes, and as they meet a race of subterranean people who seem much more like the people they left, they find that there was a nuclear war at some point. While safe in their underground city, the men have turned weak and fearful, and the women - hot and mini-skirted. And disappointed in their men. So of course they like Rod Taylor popping his shirt off and bringing the gun show.
Anyway, it's mostly curious in that it seems like Hollywood did watch the movie and said "we could do this better". And they were not wrong. Just twelve years later, Planet of the Apes - with Rod Serling and the original novel behind it - doesn't just turn the opportunity into a sex fantasy/ reinforcement of our exceptionalism as mid-Century Americans.
This doc felt weirdly slight, and I see now it was 80 minutes. It traces the history of film from its origins to what sorts of theaters carried schlocky, sexy, or violent films not produced by the studios.
But... it's weirdly focused on just New York and LA, forgetting these movies had audiences all over, and never curious about how they were (or were not) seen in the rest of the country. I'm not sure I buy of the main theses of the film, that the studios started making "grindhouse" movies because of the end of the vertical integration of studios and theaters that dissolved post WWII. But I would agree that eventually studios got involved with content formerly reserved for the grindhouse market. I'd just point to studios trying to differentiate from what was on TV once the Hays Code fell apart and the rating system came to be.
There are pretty good interviews, including Eddie Muller, and some creators of some classic schlock, much of which I haven't gotten around to seeing (pitching a 'Women in Cages' movie to Jamie is not as easy as one would believe). And I've never come across availability of Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS. But I was pleased with which ones I'd seen. I think they gave Russ Meyers and his real legacy basically no consideration, and it's weird. There's no mention of kung-fu or other genre. Instead, they seem to want to follow a thread to porn that I'm not sure works if you remember actual porn theaters existing and that was an adjacent but not entirely related thing.
In short - it's fine, but feels... debatable? Like the narratives only work if you aren't thinking too hard.
You'd think a movie about giant, mutant rabbits with a taste for human flesh would be more exciting. But, alas, that is not the case with Night of the Lepus (1972), which seems like such a missed opportunity. And I welcome some enterprising soul to remake and improve the idea. NOW IS THE TIME.
The movie features Rory Calhoun, Dr. McCoy and Janet Leigh, among others. Janet Leigh is kind of weirdly wasted in the film, but wears an interesting array of stripes. And it also features a lot of bunnies shot in slow-mo on scale sets, and it is goddamn adorable.
The main character and his family are entirely responsible for the science and bad decisions that create the mayhem of the movie, and should be in jail. Even the little girl. It's a hell of a script.
Anyway, my middle school floor hockey team was named The Slaughter Bunnies, and I really wish I could say we based it on this movie, but we did not.
Puberty is a challenging time. You're growing, changing, making new discoveries and accidentally murdering bystanders with your newfound powers. Danny and Ryan splice into the genetics of this long-delayed installment in the X-franchise, the arrival of which signaled the last gasps of Fox Studios' X-films. Join us as we ponder what the movie thinks it is, what it is, and try to retain control.
It's been decades since I've seen Nobody's Fool (1994), but it's a movie I saw in the theater twice and a few times after. I recalled feeling weirdly and profoundly moved by the film and was unsure how it would sit as I'm closer to the main character's age than the grandson's age at this point.
On first blush, the movie could be read as some smalltown schmaltz, but reviews of the time were overwhelmingly positive and reflect a lot of how I felt about the film at the time. It takes place within the kind of small town romanticized by politicians in ads, of Main Streets and "working people", but it's also frank that small towns are kind of hard, that it's not always the pathway to the achievement of the American Dream and when you know everyone in your town, it can get weird.*
To that end, it's a reminder of a kind of film you don't see as often these days as it's a quiet, thoughtful ensemble film where actors seem to be enjoying the work, a few name Hollywood types playing supporting roles just to be there, in the mix with up-and-comers and character veterans. Of course, anchored by one of the best of the post 1950 American cinema, Paul Newman, still handsome and better than ever when it comes to what he does, which is say a thousand words with a glance or even in stillness.
In a lot of ways, Flash Gordon (1980) maybe came out at exactly the wrong time and set the tone for what would be a problem for comic-based material until X-Men in 2000.
With Star Wars and Superman released to critical and financial success, Dino De Laurentiis began mining the properties that had influenced the creation of both properties and set the tone in Hollywood that Marvel and DC couldn't get anything green lit for years - but somehow pulp characters would get movies.* As The Incredible Hulk and Wonder Woman disappeared from TV, Buck Rogers showed up on the small screen, and De Laurentiis went and tapped Lorenzo Semple, Jr., one of the main brains behind the 1960's Batman series, to bring Flash Gordon to the big screen.
