THE VHS FILES

[Grouchy]

http://www.opinamos.es/gadgets/imagenes/vhs.jpg

Ok, so maybe you guys haven't read me on the subject, but:


Something incredible happened yesterday. We were walking with my friend when we stumbled across eight garbage bags filled with old VHS. There was everything in there, from hilariously titled porn (Catgirl and Batwoman) to obscure '70s and '80s classics. So we started shuffling around and soon we were walking with two full bags. I'll be making a return to VHS technology just to watch all this stuff.

So this is the thread where I review the actual films. This will be done without any particular order or respect for anything. I'll simply grab a random VHS, watch it, and review the movie as quick as possible. There is hilarious stuff in the garbage bag, sure, but there is also some pretty solid cinema that I'll watch for the first time in VHS instead of DVD. So you'll never know exactly what sort of stuff I will be reviewing.

First one in exactly 98 minutes.

[megladon8]

Awesome.

That's a pretty cool find.

[Spun Lepton]

Damn, I would've loved to have found something like that.

[MadMan]

Sweet. I still watch VHS tapes from time to time, just because many of them are for free in my school's library and I still haven't completely abandoned the format. My old VCR still works, too, which more than I can say for my piece of shit DVD player. I haven't bothered to buy a new one though because my laptop has one built in anyways.

[Mysterious Dude]

My old VCR still works, too, which more than I can say for my piece of shit DVD player.
My VCR outlasted my DVD player, too. I even got one of those combination VCR/DVD players in anticipation of the eventual demise of my VCR, but it's still going strong.

[Grouchy]

http://www.ioffer.com/img/item/470/144/76/o_SNAPDRAGON.jpg

SNAPDRAGON
A Worth Keeter film, 1993

They don't make them like these anymore. This is actually something of a milestone, being the big screen debut of Pamela Anderson, who looked absolutely fucking devastating before all those surgeries kicked in. She has a whole Brigitte Bardot thing going on, don't tell me you don't see it. Well, the first scene shows us a bunch of evil Chinese women tattooing a snapdragon in a ten-year-old's tight. This appears to be all Pam's flashback/nightmare, and she gets up from bed, goes to the window and the credits start rolling. Then we meet the police force, some sort of alternate universe police force in which female sergeants (like Chelsea Field here) dress up as hookers in order to arrest mob bosses. She's about to be promoted to Homicide to chase a female serial killer who offs men and leaves snapdragons lying around, so she's excited and stuff. So is her doctor boyfriend Steve Bauer, but wait until he meets amnesia patient Pamela Anderson and her fucked-up dreams about killing people in bed.

I can easily imagine how the pitching session went. "Hey, remember Basic Instinct? Why don't we make that movie, PLUS Pamela Anderson?". Well, it does sound good on paper. This is a movie where characters are completely retarded, specially if they're Steven Bauer. So they will most definitively NOT add two and two together even in the face of the most robust pieces of evidence. But, even if we think we figured out the killer from the start, the film has a confounding (confounding, I say) plot twist. Guess? No? Want me to tell? THEY'RE TWINS! One is evil and the other one is tied up in the movie's exciting finale. Both Pamelas struggle and moan for the gun until Chelsea Field shoots one of them. Which one?, we ask. "How did you know which one to shoot?", Steve Bauer finally asks. The answer - "I just didn't care". Hah!

Good times. Pam has many tease scenes, but only one (very short) nude, near the ending, in a sex scene so misplaced and gratuitous it has to be seen. Although I had my laughs, to be honest with you, the 98 minutes are more spectacularly dumb than funny, so this is ultimately not recommended. The sex scene near the end is recommended, and it's probably on YouTube. Oh, and the plot never addresses how come these blonde American twins became Chinese concubines. That sort of thing just happens in bad, evil China, I guess.

[Morris Schæffer]

Haha, this sounds like a fun thread. Curious to see what else is in store.

[Skitch]

Holy crap that is a treasure trove of awesome. I'll take 'em when your done.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Heh. On my way home from work the other day I stumbled upon a strongbox on a bench full of computer games and old applications. No joke. I snagged me an Encarta 98 and X WING vs TIE FIGHTER. Do you know how good that game is? It is a very good game.

Cool thread.

[Dukefrukem]

What an awesome write up. Keep em coming.

[Thirdmango]

I found a big trove of VHS tapes about 2 years ago at some yard sale for free. I have yet to watch them as I don't have a VCR, but once I do, I can join you in the mayhem. Also I found all 6 VHS tapes of "Hulk Hogan's Rock and Wrestling." The cartoon.

[balmakboor]

This thread is making me feel like going out and hitting every garage sale and flea market in sight.

[Scar]

Subscribed. With a Vengeance.

[balmakboor]

I was just reading user comments at imdb on the various movies of Worth Keeter and it's quite hilarious how many people review the movies seriously. They argue about the merits of Memorial Day and Snapdragon as if they were ever intended to be more than quickly, cheaply made videostore shelf filler with pretty box covers.

[D_Davis]

I sold about 800 VHS tapes about a year ago.

Still got about 300 left.

Cool thread.

My friend is a VHS collector - he writes reviews for all of his finds.

Fun.

[balmakboor]

I have a real soft spot for production companies like Prism Pictures (makers of Snapdragon). They're the perfect place for recent film school grads to cut their teeth (preferably using a pseudonym). You hear about New World Pictures all the time as well as joints like Troma. I'm sure there have been more companies like Prism producing videostore junk than I can even imagine. Prism's film list is:

Under the Hula Moon (1995) ... Production Company
Galaxis (1995) ... Production Company
Project: Metalbeast (1995) ... Production Company
Dominion (1995) ... Production Company
Sleepstalker (1995) ... Production Company
Scorned (1994) ... Production Company
Backstreet Justice (1994) ... Production Company
Suspicious Agenda (1994) ... Production Company
Bitter Harvest (1993) ... Production Company
Night Eyes Three (1993) ... Production Company
Betrayal of the Dove (1993) ... Production Company
Snapdragon (1993) ... Production Company
When the Bough Breaks (1993) ... Production Company
Illicit Behavior (1992) ... Production Company
Invasion of Privacy (1992) (V) ... Production Company
The Double 0 Kid (1992) (V) ... Production Company

I mean it's almost worth the time to look up each and every one of those on imdb just to look at the posters.

I wonder, now that videostores are dying, if such companies will also die. I used to love walking through videostores and seeing all of the VHS or DVD covers that are dead ringers for the covers of major hits like Lord of the Rings. They demonstrate an acute awareness of just how stupid the average Joe is when it comes to movies.

I suppose they'll still sell like hotcakes every Tuesday at Target, Walmart, and Best Buy though.

[Grouchy]

I have a real soft spot for production companies like Prism Pictures (makers of Snapdragon). They're the perfect place for recent film school grads to cut their teeth (preferably using a pseudonym). You hear about New World Pictures all the time as well as joints like Troma. I'm sure there have been more companies like Prism producing videostore junk than I can even imagine. Prism's film list is:
Fascinating stuff, those titles are. And yes, my cult video store carries some of the imitation titles like I Am Omega [I am Legend] or Monster [Cloverfield].

I saw my second film from the pile. Write-up coming up shortly.

[Grouchy]

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/060612/182341__gambler_l.jpg

THE GAMBLER
Karel Reisz, 1974

"For 10.000, they break your arm. For 20.000, they break your legs. Axel Freed owes 44.000".

Man, American movies in the '70s were the real thing. I mean, not only were they thought-provoking, treated daring material and were usually open-ended. The people in those movies were UNPREDICTABLE. I mean they weren't contained inside the box of movie dialogue and movie actions. They seemed to have a will of their own. Look at the moment where Burt Young kicks the living shit out of a guy while James Caan stands there watching. They are walking down the hallway afterwards and Caan sort of gently grabs Young's wrist and feels his pulse. "What's the matter, pal?", says Young, "All those looks, you can't get a pretty girl?". "You didn't miss a beat", answers Caan. Or Paul Sorvino threatens a guy through the phone speaking about "la signora Morte". "That doesn't even mean anything", he explains afterwards, "You say something Italian-sounding to these guys, they shit their pants".

As you can probably guess, this is a movie about gambling. Caan is addicted to it. He is not, however, a low-life. He's a literature teacher coming from a wealthy Jewish family who has no real reason to bet his salary at blackjack besides the big thrills he gets from it. His girlfriend is the lovely-legged Lauren Hutton. His grandfather, the maker of the family fortune, thinks she's not the girl for an intellectual Jew. All of these are details, but they amount to make Caan and his world a believable sum of circumstances. We really care for this guy and his plight. We also get to see some violence as Caan pushes around a very young James Woods who won't give him a bank loan, and in a very meaningful ending scene where the protagonist has lost his moral integrity to get the 44.000 back, and has grasped his urge for gambling to a point where he decides to bet his life instead of simply money.

This is a small-scale but profound and strangely exciting movie. It submerges us into the world of this intelligent, self-destructive man. Caan's performance is the best I've seen from him, and that's saying. What an actor. A man's man. His expression while he listens to a baseball match in the tub is priceless drama. The movie gains pounds of weight because of him. The editing is specially notable for quick cutting to previous scenes to follow the gambler's train of thought. This material, by the way, is also spectacularly covered by Cassavetes two years later with Killing of a Chinese Bookie. But that's a crime movie filtered through the lens of meta-textuality and improvisation. This is a focused common man's drama. The two movies would make for a good double feature.

And Lauren Hutton is a sexy fox. Those shapely legs. Those feet. That tunnel between her front teeth. She's the bomb.

[Grouchy]

http://stylefrizz.com/img/lauren-hutton-mango-fall-2008.jpg

Some wisdom from Lauren Hutton:


Sex and the City is written by guys, who happen to be gay, who are sluts. That's what I think. Let's face it most men are sluts. That's what testosterone is supposed to do. As a hunter, if you stayed alive after 30, nature wanted your genes out there. Women were just trying to get the best sperm to make a masterpiece. It's too bad, because Darren Star is sort of a friend of mine and I always liked him, but you have a bunch of guys who are sluts writing for women and telling them they are supposed to act like this.

She's right, you know.

[Grouchy]

http://i3.iofferphoto.com/img/item/968/625/03/o_0S9tqZwJ38W0kUx.jpg

BLOWING WILD
Hugo Fregonese, 1953

Two remarkable and funny facts about this movie. The first one is that the title makes no fucking sense. I mean, there are a lot of "wild" characters on this, but none is blowing anybody, at least not on this cut. Who's blowing? Why is the blowing so wild? These questions remain unanswered. The second one is that, inmediately after the vague title, we get an equally vague card which informs us the story is set in "South America". This is like if I made a movie set in "North America", and the story happens, I dunno, in Toronto. Or New York. It's all the same, right? The South America in this movie appears to stand in for Mexico, which technically speaking is not even South America, although Quinn's character opens a bottle of tequila he apparently brought from Mexico to... where? The director, Hugo Fregonese, was born in Mendoza, Argentina, so this oversight is quite a shame on him. Since the final cut was probably the studio's, though, I think he can be excused for the title card. I'd never heard of Fregonese before, by the way, and he appears to have had a pretty wild and blowing career, both in Hollywood and in Argentina.

The movie stars an A-list Hollywood cast, and all of them appear to be playing their stereotypical characters. Gary Cooper is old and noble, and a "Gringo giant" according to the poster, although fortunately none in the movie refers to him by the nickname. Barbara Stanwyck is female and bitchy. Anthonny Quinn is loud, aggresive and drinks. Ward Bond is old and hungry. Ruth Roman is a girl. The film has more than a passing resemblance to Wages of Fear, which came out the same year, and judging by the quickie feel of it, I think it's safe to consider it an imitation of the Cannes-winning classic. The plot, however, takes the basic premise of fellow Americans starving abroad and willing to take on dangerous jobs like transportation of nitro and turns it into a romantic melodrama. For what it's worth, I think the closing scenes of this have an inmediacy and impact that the French movie loses by stretching the action long past its most effective moments. Hey, it's a classic, but nobody said it had to be perfect.

If I'm coming up a little too much on the negative side of this, I'm sorry. This is a solid Hollywood melodrama based on the strenght of its stars and an energetic direction that makes the most of its obviously small budget. In this kind of movie, you expect sparkling dialogue, sexy people with their clothes on and complexity in the characters, and you get all of that, plus a heart-warming song that's ripped off the Nina Pastori song "Angelitos Negros". Gary Cooper and Ward Bond have an oil lease, but their well gets blown up by bandits of the "we don't need no stinkin' badges!" type. Penniless and desperate, they try to rob a man for lunch money, and it turns out to be their old friend Paco (Anthony Quinn), who's currently much better off with business than them. Cooper is heart-broken to find out that Paco has married his old flame Barbara Stanwyck - who, in turns, uses Paco more or less as a bottomless wallet and continues to have strong feelings (bordering on obsession) for Cooper.

I wouldn't encourage any of you to go out and seek this out like it's the second coming, but don't let that stop you from watching it if you find it in a sale or on TV. For those like me who love old Hollywood, it's a great experience. The action scenes are quite energetic and the whole film works despite its over-the-top melodrama qualities. It builds up an intensity that really explodes during the last two or three scenes.

[Mara]

I had a roommate in college who watched a soap opera where a main character was a princess from "Europe." She kept wanting to go back to her homeland, "Europe."

I think they thought it was a country.

Also, the first three times I read the title, poster, and first couple lines of your review, I thought that the name of the film was Blowing Wind, which makes perfect sense. Wind blows all the time.

[Grouchy]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_qfj6el71ckQ/SXfhRnzKTBI/AAAAAAAADDU/nxmgtBLcXZc/s400/RichardHarris_ATrampShining_sm .jpg

YOUR TICKET IS NO LONGER VALID
George Kaczender, 1981

I don't think you need me to explain that Richard Harris is a great actor. From The Guns of the Navarone through Major Dundee and Unforgiven, his presence is always strong, either as the protagonist or as back-up for the star. The quality of his output made me wonder exactly how did he get involved in a mess like this. Was he under contract? Did he need extra dough? Or did he actually believe on the project? How did other good actors like Jeanne Moreau and "Hannibal" Smith from The A-Team get involved as well?

Well, Harris stars as no-last-name Jason, a millionaire around the 60 age barrier who's having a passionate romance with a 20-something Brazilian girl. A succint opening voice-over explains to us that he's close to bankruptcy and feels guilty about having more or less collapsed the financial empire his father built. During a business meeting with "Hannibal" Smith, a fellow big shot, he's told in confidency that the guy just can't get it up anymore and is very concerned that people his same age are banging 20-something Brazilian girls. I would be, too. Jason mourns over this and, perhaps because he thinks about it too much, soon finds himself the victim of soft woodies. To top it off, a gypsy enters his house while he's asleep, threatens him with a switchblade and steals some jewelry. Jason soon begins to have cuckold fantasies about watching the gypsy guy penetrating his girlfriend. In a very cool little scene, he eventually tracks down the gypsy, points a gun at him and forces him to kneel down and apologize.

One of the many problems with this movie is that Harris never really sells the erectile disfunction. In fact, he spends more screentime showing off his naked body than the girl and, at 51 when this movie was made, I admire the guy's build. In a very goofy scene, his girlfriend locks him out of his own car during a storm after a heated argument. Jason starts undressing himself to the girl's surprise and eventual horniness. When he's completely naked and dancing, a car drives down the road and the scared driver almost crashes into a tree. Another problem with the movie is that it is very unerotic. All the sex scenes, specially the climatic one, are set to an overbearing score that makes the whole thing more ridiculous than arousing. Of course, maybe being erotic is not really the movie's purpose, but then again, what is it? Even a third problem is that the film is half realistic and half fantasy. Moreau's character, for example, is a madame who has killed 29 Nazis during WWII with a poisoned hairpin, and who acts more or less as the spiritual advisor to Jason. "If I was looking for a Spaniard", he says to Jason, "I would go to the Tobruk Café". Riiiiight.

I assume none of you will be watching this anytime soon, not because of my opinion but because it's probably the most obscure movie I reviewed so far. So I'll go ahead and spoil how it ends - you have been warned. After getting his come-uppance on the gypsy stud, Jason contacts the madame to arrange his own execution. That's right, since he has lost his sex drive he decides he might as well get himself killed. Moreau, after getting paid, decides to break her contract to help his friend and tells the girl everything. She then convinces her to create a sex scenario where Jason can finally indulge in his cuckold fantasies. But just as the girl is about to suck the gypsy's cock Jason decides he's hard enough and he throws the stud out and jumps her bones. Moreau, just as the couple is approaching orgasm, murders Jason with the poisoned hairpin. The music finally stops and the credits start to roll.

[Grouchy]

I had a roommate in college who watched a soap opera where a main character was a princess from "Europe." She kept wanting to go back to her homeland, "Europe."

I think they thought it was a country.

Also, the first three times I read the title, poster, and first couple lines of your review, I thought that the name of the film was Blowing Wind, which makes perfect sense. Wind blows all the time.
Heh. That's hilarious too.

And yeah, Blowing Wind might not be the most meaningful title, but at least it's logical.

I'm really starting to dig this VHS thing. The surprise of it all. It's not the same as renting movies I know are at least supposed to be good. Plus, I left the bags at a friend's house when I picked them up because I was already going there for a party and the friend's two female roommates have already made it clear to me they want the whole stock removed from their living room pronto.

[Bosco B Thug]

BLOWING WILD
Hugo Fregonese, 1953

title makes no fucking sense.

equally vague card which informs us the story is set in "South America".


YOUR TICKET IS NO LONGER VALID
George Kaczender, 1981

Jeanne Moreau

The entire final two paragraphs Fascinating. Will we ever get to see these movies??? So sad.

[The Mike]

I totally pegged Blowing Wild as an adult feature. :confused:

[Grouchy]

http://turek.ecn.cz/work/images/sid_nancy.jpg

SID & NANCY
Alex Cox, 1986

This has to be one of the most consistently bleak movies I've ever seen, although at the same time it has the sense of delirious mayhem and fun chaos that is very distinctive of Cox's work. From the first scene to the last, the script depicts Sid Vicious as a hopeless junkie with no work ethics, barely any redeeming qualities and zero future. The only thing that seems to keep him going is the obsessive, self-destructive relationship he has with Nancy Spungen, which starts in a very casual manner and soon becomes a shared junk addiction and the destruction of his musical career. I guess every band has its Yoko Ono. Cox's view is that Vicious was a limited but promising musical talent and that Nancy got him into heroine. It also looks as if Sid takes the heroine (claiming he was already into it) simply because he feels he has to in order to live up to the punk rock image. The Sex Pistols manager is also pointed at as stimulating his addiction and extreme behavior for publicity purposes.

Is all this consistent with reality? I don't know. After the movie was over I read Johnny Rotten's very unfavorable comments - "Cox is lucky I didn't shoot him" - and some of it feels very justified, like the assertion that the movie's directed by an Oxford graduate who missed out on the punk era. He's portrayed in the movie as something of a nulity as far as their friendship goes, a mindless troublemaker who does nothing to stop his mate's downward spiral. He claims Cox did very limited research for the movie and never even bothered to speak with him or the other band members. He also claims he doesn't drink champagne. My take on it? Sid O.D.ed in 1979, and this movie was filmed barely six years later. In fact, Tim Roth refused the Rotten role because he felt the material was way too recent. I think Cox perhaps didn't want to be overwhelmed with information because he wasn't doing a documentary but a film about the consequences of fame and drug addiction, which happened to focus on the Sex Pistols. Ultimately, his vision is valid and not wildly unrealistic. His version of Nancy's suicide/murder/accident doesn't even attempt a theory about what actually happened, unlike the lame fiction segments in Ferrara's recent Chelsea Hotel documentary.

The film is filled with memorable images. As Sid sings his "My Way" cover he draws a huge silver gun and starts shooting down the audience, including Nancy herself. Then he kisses her reanimated copse. Another moment shows the lovers making out in an alley while huge garbage bags fall from the sky in slow-motion. By far the most depressing moments appear near the end, when Sid and Nancy are far too wasted and hooked on heroine to even speak coherently with each other or anybody. Cox uses every trick in the book to convey the punk lifestyle. I disagree that the movie glamourizes heroine, though. In fact, I think it does the opposite - it shows a glamorous lifestyle through the secret face of the glass, the one where Sid is a hero to the teens who go to his concerts but is in fact little more than a manipulated tool and, ultimately, an insecure little kid. The movie is fun, sure, but trashing vintage Rolls Royce cars is supposed to be fun. It was fun for the people involved and, in order to make an accurate movie, that fun should be communicated to us. It's the same thing as Goodfellas making a point about the benefits of wealth and power - it shows the viewers why people are drawn to this lifestyle, but it pulls no punches as far as the consequences go.

Gary Oldman's performance is bloody good acting, perhaps one of the man's very best. A running joke throughout the movie is that he is never shown actually playing bass - he's always way too wasted to bother with music. Little-known Chloe Webb also sinks teeth into the Nancy role. She's always screaming and always extremely into depression or excitement. One particularly memorable moment has the couple eating with Nancy's grandparents. The folks ask regular questions - whether they intend to marry, if they like the food, etc. - and they find this subhuman pair of slobbering monsters who rant on about nothing while getting drunk. In a manner reminiscent of Repo Man, Cox always drowns Sid and Nancy in mountains of trash food packaging, everything from KFC to Pizza Hut.

This is a great rock movie, and probably Cox's best from what I've seen, although Walker also gives it a run for its money. Also the best film I've had to review so far on this thread. "Ever get the feeling you been cheated?"

[balmakboor]

I didn't know you were going to be reviewing genuinely great movies in this thread.

I couldn't stand Walker though.

[Grouchy]

I didn't know you were going to be reviewing genuinely great movies in this thread.

I couldn't stand Walker though.
I didn't know either. I just take them as they come. Now I understand more jokes in that Nelson/Lisa episode.

I think Walker is a bit of an acquired taste. I love the way it starts straight and gradually becomes a parody.

[Grouchy]

http://home.comcast.net/~mossrobert/html/works/images/FarewellMyLovely.gif

FAREWELL, MY LOVELY
Dick Richards, 1975

It's nice that I'm seeing this now because I'm about to jump in on the third part of a film project very much related to noir and, as a consequence, I started re-reading Chandler's fucking inmortal novels that I own in the original English such as The Big Sleep, Lady in the Lake and Farewell, My Lovely. The last one, although not my favorite, is surely the one I've read the most times. This exercise has also made me realize that I suck at Chandler on the big screen - besides an episode of TV's "Fallen Angels" show with Danny Glover as Marlowe and, of couse, The Big Lebowski, I really haven't seen the most famous adaptations of his work. Not the Altman movie, not the Hawks one (although my mental image of Marlowe is always Bogart), not even the '80s TV show.

The main reason for making this particular adaptation at the time it was made, methinks, is to take advantage of the '70s loose grasp on censorship to portray violence and sex stuff the 1944 Dick Powell one could not. The second reason, I think, is Chinatown's success. The Polanski movie took a genre long considered dead and made it jump into color and relevance. The third reason might have been Robert Mitchum. He's perfect as Marlowe. Cool, collected and snappy. The great thing about Mitchum is that he's an effortless actor. You might be tempted to say he doesn't act, but when you compare the character he builds here with the ones in Night of the Hunter or River of No Return, you realize the extent of his talents. I was specially fond of his sexy duet with Charlotte Rampling in a man-eater role. But, overall, Mitchum IS this movie. His performance is what everything else here is resting on.

And how does that everything else fare? Well, the script is solid but uneventful. Transforming the overly complicated and dialogue-heavy novel on the screen can't be easy, so the writer's solution appears to be to insert gun action every three scenes. Which is pretty good, actually. The plot has been simplified in a way that really doesn't change the gist of what the book's about, "Moose" Malloy's doomed love affair. Malloy himself, I thought, could have looked a little more menacing and a little less like Jaws. The movie has an obviously very low budget but it ingeniously makes the most of it, ingeniously decorating interiors instead of doing street scenes. The dialogue and voice-over from the novel is re-arranged sometimes to be said by different characters or at different moments, but in Mitchum's voice, it retains all of its wit. "The house wasn't much", he says, "smaller than the Buckingham Palance and with less windows than the Chrysler Building". Or, "she gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket".

Seeing Mitchum being so Mitchum in a role that takes so much advantage of his talent made me wonder, who would all of you cast as Marlowe nowadays? The profile seems to be a little beyond most modern actors range. I could only come up with James Caan, which apparently has been made. Robert Downey Jr.?

[Grouchy]

http://www.cinemaretro.com/uploads/kellyoddball.jpg

KELLY'S HEROES
Brian G. Hutton, 1970

Ten minutes into this my first thought was that someone had tried way too hard to emulate The Dirty Dozen, which I consider a personal favorite, a masterpiece and the best war film ever made, in that order. By the closing credits I'd realized this unusual story had more in common with the spirit of M.A.S.H. than with any serious adventure movie. That it came out the same year is only telling of the climate of the era, methinks. Like Altman did with the Korean War, this movie takes place in WWII, but it's clearly about Vietnam and the discontent the American soldiers felt at not feeling justified about their actions and sacrifices.

Clint Eastwood stars as Private Kelly, an intelligent man with an attitude problem who finds an interesting angle while interrogating a German prisoner - a bank 50 miles behind enemy lines, loaded with 16 million dollars in gold bars. He proceeds to inform those he considers worthy and necessary for the mission about the gold. Sgt. Big Joe (Telly Savalas) is initially against the idea of a suicide mission, but when he discovers absolutely all of his men side with Kelly, he gives in. Sgt. Crapball is a New Yorker whose eyes can't stop shining as they approach the gold, although he isn't much use for fighting. By far the film's most memorable performance and character, however, is Oddball, played by Donald Sutherland. Oddball is a guy straight out of the '60s who appears to have discovered marihuana long before the rest of his fellow men. The straight faces of Eastwood and Savalas staring at his bizarre opinions and attitudes are priceless stuff. I admire and love Donald Sutherland for a variety of movies, but until this I hadn't realized that, during a 1967-70 period, he was probably only known as the guy that cracked jokes in war movies.

Like I said, this isn't an action movie, but a dark comedy about greed disguised as one. There is never any sense of danger, and all of Kelly's Heroes seem to always have the right shot at the right time, until the script predictably calls for one of them to fail. The fun stems from the characters and the actors attached to them, and also the editing that yuxtaposes the battlefield and the soldiers going AWOL with the weird ideas the suits on the war rooms form about what's happening. Near the end there's a moment that surprised me - a direct visual reference to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, down to an imitation soundtrack. I'm just not used to seeing a homage so obvious in early mainstream cinema, but I guess the times were a-changing. Once again, this isn't a real action movie, but by Jove the war scenes are great. Unlike M.A.S.H., this one really gives in to the spectacle of explosions and shooting, and it has a couple of combat scenes that are among the best I've ever seen.

Where the film more or less fails, ironically, is in the depth of the characters. None of them have any, and they're mostly one-trick ponies except for (arguably) the Sargeant played by Savalas, who seems to have a more humane understanding of the situation than anyone else. This is by far the most cardboard protagonist ever played by Eastwood, who usually plays his non-acting with just enough variety to create a completely new personality. There's enough raw gold in here that, if the script was just a little more worked over and the writers cared more about the emotional resonance of the characters, it would be a timeless classic. As it is, it's a curious little film that seems a little lost in time. Its deliberate anachronisms, the patented brand of dialogue-based comedy plus the blockbuster feel of the war scenes make Kelly's Heroes a film that can be confounding and difficult to wrap your brain around, but never boring.

[Grouchy]

http://www.joblo.com/images_arrownews/Nancy_Allen_robo.jpg

THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T DIE
Bill Condon, 1994

I watched this yesterday and... I don't really feel it deserves a big-ass review, so I'm just gonna make a really short one and post a picture of Nancy Allen.

Roger Moore plays Thomas Grace, a best-selling crime writer and journalist who bases the recurring villain of his novels on a real life killer (Malcolm McDowell) he interviews. The killer feels betrayed (I think he's right, too), breaks out of prison and starts killing people in murders taken straight from the pages of Grace's last novel, "The Man Who Wouldn't Die". At the same time, this waitress (Allen) who has weird-ass psychical powers, starts receiving visions of the murders.

If that isn't already the blandest plot outline ever, it will look even worse once you get to watch the actual movie. Luckily I already did it for you. Almost everything about this is boring, from the corny overwrought dialogue to the inevitable romance between Moore and the waitress. I felt like the killer was right about his revenge plans and I wish he'd killed the writer, the girl and everybody else. The scenes that take place in the fictional world of the novel are shot in black and white and look like they are from an Avengers episode. In fact, the whole movie, despite its occasional violence and subject matter, is really old-fashioned and naive.

Well, not all of these can be winners. By the way, this was directed by the guy who would go on to have a career doing movies like Gods and Monsters and Dreamgirls. I haven't seen either one, but they're supposed to be good movies, right?

[Grouchy]

Lack of sleep is really an ugly thing so I'm posting all my Top10s for recent years.

2008

http://dimpost.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/joker-nurse-the-dark-knight.jpg

1. The Dark Knight
2. Let the Right One In
3. WALL-E
4. Rachel Getting Married
5. Hunger
6. Waltz with Bashir
7. Lorna's Silence
8. Pineapple Express
9. Speed Racer
10. The Wrestler

Honorable Mentions:
Iron Man
Tokyo Gore Police
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Achilles and the Tortoise

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2007

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/photos/thegolddigger/images/74761/original.aspx

1. I'm Not There
2. Zodiac
3. There Will Be Blood
4. No Country for Old Men
5. Fear(s) of the Dark
6. Ratatouille
7. The Mist
8. [REC]
9. Boarding Gate
10. Persepolis

Honorable Mentions:
Smiley Face
Sunshine

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2006

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/environmentandenergy/children-of-men-theo-kee1_1166716426.jpg

1. Children of Men
2. Exiled
3. I'm a Cyborg But That's OK
4. INLAND EMPIRE
5. Paprika
6. Big Bang Love: Juvenile A
7. Casino Royale
8. The Lives of Others
9. Election II: Triad Election
10. Black Book

Honorable Mentions:
Nightmare Detective
Borat
Pan's Labyrinth
Fearless
Rescue Dawn

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2005

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/3274/cache7bf.jpg

1. Caché
2. Brick
3. The Descent
4. MirrorMask
5. Strange Circus
6. A Bittersweet Life
7. Election
8. Takeshis'
9. Tideland
10. The Devil's Rejects

Honorable Mentions:
The New World
L'Enfant
Edmond

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2004

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gu5F7Pn2YLw/SHgWl9VGXoI/AAAAAAAAAO0/CQgYft4PcQ4/s400/incredibles.jpg

1. The Incredibles
2. Spiderman 2
3. Kung-Fu Hustle
4. Shaun of the Dead
5. Dead Man's Shoes
6. 2046
7. 3-Iron
8. Downfall
9. The Holy Girl
10. The Bourne Supremacy

Honorable Mentions:
Kill Bill Vol. 2
Napoleon Dynamite
Breaking News

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2003


http://www.offoffoff.com/film/2005/images/oldboy.jpg

1. Oldboy
2. The Dreamers
3. Kill Bill Vol. 1
4. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring Again
5. Bad Santa
6. Zatoichi
7. The Triplets of Belleville
8. Dogville
9. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
10. The Hulk

Honorable Mentions:
X2: X-Men United
Azumi
Tokyo Godfathers

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2002

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2160/2107688378_5697b2b938_o.jpg

1. Talk to Her
2. Femme Fatale
3. May
4. The Pianist
5. Punch-Drunk Love
6. The Twilight Samurai
7. Far From Heaven
8. Hero
9. Irreversible
10. Spider

Honorable Mentions:
25th Hour
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Dolls
Dog Soldiers

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2001

http://dearcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/mulholland-drive.JPG

1. Mulholland Drive
2. The Devil's Backbone
3. The Pledge
4. Spirited Away
5. The Man Who Wasn't There
6. The Piano Teacher
7. Moulin Rouge!
8. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
9. Ichi the Killer
10. The Royal Tenembaums

Honorable Mentions:
No Man's Land
The Happiness of the Katakuris
The Others

[Grouchy]

http://rottenmangos.com/one_sheets/the_killer_elite.jpg

THE KILLER ELITE
Sam Peckinpah, 1975

Occasionally, there's a movie in a director's filmography which is so blatantly bad that it even makes his other, better movies look worse. Peckinpah is one of my favorite directors and he has made at least three perfect films (The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia) and many other interesting ones about violence and the trials of being a man. Despite his complicated reputation and his drug abuse, I always found him to be a meticulous filmmaker and a great actors director. Of course, you wouldn't guess any of that from this movie.

The Killer Elite stars James Caan as Mike Locken, an agent in an organization that seems to be doing the CIA's dirty work for them. In some very confusing opening scenes, Locken and Bob Duvall (George) blow up some sort of building and depart with a prisoner they are supposed to be keeping alive. Luckily, sooner than later we get some title cards explaining to us exactly what is COMTEG and why are they doing this - followed by one claiming that the film is strictly a work of fiction and that the story is "preposterous". After a party and some getting laid, George reveals himself as a traitor and shoots both the prisoner and Mike, who survives only to find himself a limping cripple. The scenes detailing the recovery of his character are amiable and fun to watch, although a little reiterative. Unfortunately, the movie soon branchs out into a new spy plot that I'm betting nobody could care less about, except for Mike's long shot at having revenge on George.

When this plot kicks in a new movie starts, one that sees Mike returning to duty despite his injuries and assembling a two-man backup team that consists of Miller (Bo Hopkins), a trigger-happy mercenary mistrusted by authorities, and Mac (Burt Young), a retired getaway man who owns a garage. These characters are supposed to protect a Japanese politician, but they don't get any chance to shine or show off their skills. Mac gets some corny moments as the moral conscience of the film, speaking to Mike about how he's getting used by his superiors as he has been all his life, but he also made me laugh in a wonderful scene in which our heroes find a bomb planted under their taxi cab and react very calmly to it. That scene is clearly the best thing the film has going for it.

So, I bet you're wondering, what is so bad about this? The script seems to have been improvised on a drinking night with the buddies. I'm not only talking about the actors ad-libbing, which happens so much that some scenes are nearly impossible to understand. I mean that the story seems lost. What's the movie about? COMTEG? Caan's physical recovery? His old friends? Near the end, a scene of dialogue that's not ad-libbed between Mike, Mac and the Japanese guy explains to us a bunch of themes that are very Peckinpah-ish, but that had never before been addressed by the movie. The movie also incorporates a samurai and ninja vibe, but does so in a very strange way. Although there are ninjas on this movie, they're portrayed as buffoons who get constantly hit and shot by our gun-totting, Western heroes. A kendo duel in the last scene is played with a commentary track of Young and Caan making fun of it. Although this strange sort of ultra-Americanism is hilarious in its non-PC way, it seriously has no business being on this movie.

The saddest part of this is that even the typical slow-motion thing Peckinpah is fond of doing during action scenes seems almost like an imitation on this one. It's as if the once combative director did a film with everything that was expected from him and nothing he really felt like doing. I'm sure Killer Elite might find defenders from those who like the actors and '70s thrillers in general, but the movie is boring, overwrought when it should be natural and crazily ad-libbed when it should explain to us what's going on. The climax(es) are so devoid of life and enthusiasm they should probably be played on fast-forward.

[Raiders]

Hm, I thought this movie is terrific. It's basically Peckinpah giving the plot the middle finger right from the get-go. The contempt oozing from the ad-libbed dialogue had me rolling. The film is very obviously a spoof done in pure Peckinpah fashion. It's certainly a messy, strange movie but it takes what The Getaway started (Peckinpah sending up the 70s American action film) and just dives head first. There's the slo-mo and Peckinpah's old west code and the ninja fight scene is absolutely hilarious and fits in with the on-going Peckinpah theme of old and new, here kung fu vs. guns and so forth; Peckinpah's disdain for much of the modern world, and perhaps more specifically the movie industry, coming through in his satiric view of the entire franchise.

I don't know, but this is one instance where I am squarely with Kael.

[Sven]

So, I bet you're wondering, what is so bad about this?

Yes, even after your review, I'm still wondering precisely what your problem is. Everything that you mentioned is either a biased skewering or is factually incorrect. I even disagree with Raiders's comments about both this film AND The Getaway (how, other than by having them "getaway" with being criminals, is The Getaway a "sendup"?). It's definitely got elements of self-parody (ninjas, for realzies), but I don't see how Caan's trajectory, which is what the film is about, is parodic Peckinpah. The compositions themselves hold up to any of his other films, as does the editing (the entire opening, with Caan and Duvall at the house with Duvall turncoating is about as good as Peckinpah has ever been). And that scene with the bomb under the car where they're stopped on the bridge? Amazing. Hilarious, tense, and the freewheeling delivery of the dialogue, which for some reason you hate, is priceless. The whole thing culminates in a mood both relaxed and ferocious and I totally love it.

I wish I still had my review for it I wrote for the old site.

[Raiders]

The Getaway (how, other than by having them "getaway" with being criminals, is The Getaway a "sendup"?).

I don't know, really. My comment was just using Peckinpah's own words that the film was his "first attempt at satire, badly done."

[Sven]

I don't know, really. My comment was just using Peckinpah's own words that the film was his "first attempt at satire, badly done."

Interesting.

Coincidentally, The Getaway is one of my favorites of his (him being one of my favorites too). Those opening credits are tops. And the cutting, my Lord!

[Grouchy]

Hm, I thought this movie is terrific. It's basically Peckinpah giving the plot the middle finger right from the get-go. The contempt oozing from the ad-libbed dialogue had me rolling. The film is very obviously a spoof done in pure Peckinpah fashion. It's certainly a messy, strange movie but it takes what The Getaway started (Peckinpah sending up the 70s American action film) and just dives head first. There's the slo-mo and Peckinpah's old west code and the ninja fight scene is absolutely hilarious and fits in with the on-going Peckinpah theme of old and new, here kung fu vs. guns and so forth; Peckinpah's disdain for much of the modern world, and perhaps more specifically the movie industry, coming through in his satiric view of the entire franchise.

I don't know, but this is one instance where I am squarely with Kael.
Unexpected. I hadn't thought about it that way. Then again, I don't consider The Getaway a satire either but a serious action film. I guess if you consider Killer Elite a spoof of an action movie, then some stuff that didn't sit well with me can easily be explained. But the movie would still be lacking in entertainment value - plot too complicated, and those two climaxes are some of the most lifeless, stale Mexican stand-offs ever.


Yes, even after your review, I'm still wondering precisely what your problem is. Everything that you mentioned is either a biased skewering or is factually incorrect. I even disagree with Raiders's comments about both this film AND The Getaway (how, other than by having them "getaway" with being criminals, is The Getaway a "sendup"?). It's definitely got elements of self-parody (ninjas, for realzies), but I don't see how Caan's trajectory, which is what the film is about, is parodic Peckinpah. The compositions themselves hold up to any of his other films, as does the editing (the entire opening, with Caan and Duvall at the house with Duvall turncoating is about as good as Peckinpah has ever been). And that scene with the bomb under the car where they're stopped on the bridge? Amazing. Hilarious, tense, and the freewheeling delivery of the dialogue, which for some reason you hate, is priceless. The whole thing culminates in a mood both relaxed and ferocious and I totally love it.
I did mention that I loved the bomb scene. Also, I didn't completely hate the ad-libbing, I just thought it was excessive for some scenes. I ask you, is the movie doing something useful with Caan's trajectory? How? I'd sooner side with Raiders analysis that Peckinpah is giving conventional plot the middle finger instead of trying to defend a character arc as botched as that one.

What's factually incorrect or skewered about the description I made?

[Grouchy]

http://www.impawards.com/1978/posters/magic.jpg

MAGIC
Richard Attenborough, 1978

SOME MILD SPOILERS AHEAD

I think one of the greatest pleasures of being a movie buff is finding out the rare gems, the underrated stuff, the movie none talks about but that it's secretly the greatest thing that can happen to you. I felt something like that halfway through Magic, which is the scariest movie, bar none, involving a killing doll of sorts. A very young Anthony Hopkins stars as "Corky" Withers, a shy ventriloquist and magician. On the opening scene, he's telling his dying father, also a magician, how his performance went, twisting events to hide the fact that he was ignored by the audience until he burst out like Michael Richards in a comedy club.

When we meet Corky again, he's being eyed by a couple of TV producers and his act now starts with ordinary magic tricks, until suddenly he's rudely interrupted by a voice in the crowd. They argue and Corky reveals his partner Fats, who says everything his master is too shy to admit in the funniest, coarsest one-liners he can come up with. This is the gist of the movie and what makes it special. Despite what advertising might lead you to believe, Fats is not really "alive" like Chucky. It's Corky who has buried some of the most disgusting aspects of his personality inside the doll and who eventually loses control over his actions. But through the framing and the use of scenery, Attenborough very cleverly treats Fats like any other flesh and blood actor.

This is essentially a movie about characters. Besides the obvious character study of the protagonist, there are remarkably few key people on the story, which gives each actor time to slowly develop distinct personalities. Ann-Margret is Corky's high school crush whom he seeks out in a time of confusion. Burguess Meredith has the role of his life as Ben Greene, the agent who thinks he's struck gold by finding Corky. His last scene alive is some of the creepiest stuff I've ever seen, as he gradually realizes the extent of Corky's insanity. I believe Hopkins is better in this role than in any of the Hannibal Lecter movies, because he's required to do so much more than acting creepy - he has to convey vulnerability and histrionic behavior, and murder people in cold blood while looking horrified. His scenes alone, acting both as the ventriloquist and the puppet, are fucking impressive, as is one where he fakes an elaborate phone call.

The film's screenplay is by William Goldman, based on his own novel, and it's full of witticism. Not only is Fats genuinely funny, but his one-liners often are so bluntly honest that they eliminate the need for big chunks of exposition. This is a movie that remarkably does a lot of things - not only it presents us with a scary and very human killer, it explains us a lot about his character, his past experiences and how he came to develop this psychosis. I was constantly reminded of the Batman villain, The Ventriloquist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventriloquist_(comics)), and I'm pretty much convinced that Alan Grant had seen this movie shortly before creating his character, who is in many ways a less subtle, more violent version of Corky.

To sum it up, this is a starkly directed, wonderfully scored (the hacordion notes that signal the menace of Corky are better than the Jaws theme) and intelligently written drama-thriller. With so many Horror movies that seem aimless and redundant, it's refreshing to see a film which clearly knows what it wants to say and is so good at it. Every scene here is brilliant and merits being watched very carefully.

Plus, how can you say anything bad about a movie with a trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezkx07HYylo) this good?