AFTER LAST SEASON or MY EYES! MY BRAIN! AARRGGGHHHH!!!!!!

You have now had the privilege of experiencing AFTER LAST SEASON minus 98% tedium.
If you're still intrigued and somewhat masochistic, you can plunk down $20 and buy the dvd from the filmmakers on Amazon - but in good conscience, I can't recommend wasting your hard earned cash. The more adventurous can find a torrent that includes a comedy commentary track - I also don't recommend or even like comedy tracks, but in this case the obnoxiousness of the comedy is matched perfectly with the ineptitude of craft it's commenting on.

Recent viewing


Some quick words about stuff that I've seen or currently watching - but first, news about a new Criterion Collection boxset coming out near year's end: AMERICA LOST AND FOUND: THE BBS STORY.
BBS Productions being the company of Bob Rafelson, Bert Schneider and Steve Blauner, and their films are classics of the late 60's-early 70's -- films like FIVE EASY PIECES, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, EASY RIDER, DRIVE HE SAID (Jack Nicholson's directorial debut), A SAFE PLACE, THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS...

and the artistic pinnacle of The Monkees and Monkeemania, HEAD!




Hopefully, I'll take a crack at this sometime down the road...

With a title like CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD, you're sure to be guaranteed some sort of fantastic action... you'd think. Unfortunately, for me, that title turns out to be the best thing about this movie, disappointing because it was something I'd been hunting down for years.  I have the original CLEOPATRA JONES in my collection - CCCG isn't available in the U.S., and having watched it, I think I can understand why.

Despite a bunch of great elements that should guarantee cinematic nirvana, CCCG comes off as a lesser version of ENTER THE DRAGON...

The story has Cleopatra (Tamara Dobson, reprising her role), on the hunt for two other missing Federal agents in Hong Kong, who've been taken prisoner by the Dragon Queen (Stella Stevens), who is making her move to control the entire drug trade.
Aided by private detective Tanny (Ni Tien), Cleo kicks asses and a path to the titular Casino of Gold, which the Dragon Queen controls, and many asses are kicked, henchmen killed and a Final Showdown eventually settles all scores.


THAT sounds like an exciting movie!! And yes, those things DO happen -- but I fell asleep watching this. TWICE.

Wha happen?  Well, there is action aplenty, but aside from some car chases and some indoor motorcycle action, the fights are very uninvolving, which is surprising considering the director is former stuntman Chuck Bail (THE GUMBALL RALLY). Well, maybe not so surprising -- shooting kung-fu is way different than staging car crashes... the script isn't really very good, but you can say the same thing of ENTER THE DRAGON... there's something else that was a distracting element for me, and that was Tamara Dobson's makeup. She's credited for doing her own makeup in this film...

Hmmm....  well, I don't think that it's a fall-back skill for her.  She plays the role more Bondish in this, and with a bit more humor, so I assume that the outlandish makeup was an intentional element.

And you know what happens when one assumes...  Anyway, it was pretty distracting, and not in the fun way.



The cast is pretty decent; along for the ride is Norman Fell, as Cleo's handler and Clueless White Guy Comic Relief. Stella Stevens makes a decent lesbian Dragon Queen.

So, why isn't this a better film? I blame the script and direction...  it certainly looks great, and probably wouldn't be too bad watched with friends and lots of liquor nearby. I just expected better - maybe then I wouldn't keep falling asleep watching it.


Crass American remakes of foreign hits is apparently not a recent development - I came across a remake of Fritz Lang's M, done in 1951 by Joseph Losey... and it's actually pretty good, despite what purists would probably say.










There's no major divergence from the basic storyline... although it's a bit strange seeing it with American characters on American soil - aside from the fashion and car makes, it's almost like a contemporary film, with the emphasis on what is now called 'stranger danger'... and it doesn't shirk on the climax of the film, which, in light of what happened to Losey can be seen as prescient and very-on-the-nose. The cast is top notch - David Wayne, Howard DaSilva, Norman Lloyd, Raymond Burr, Jim Backus, Walter Burke, and many other character actors of the time. The cameraman is Ernest Lazlo, who also shot another L.A. travelogue, KISS ME DEADLY, of which this almost seems a dry run of; seeing that Robert Aldrich was Losey's assistant at the time, it seems that Aldrich learned his lessons well.
It's a film that's hard to find - if you ever come across a copy, or run across a screening, definitely set aside 90 minutes and give this a watch.

Currently plowing through tv boxsets of MAX HEADROOM: THE COMPLETE SERIES... and DARIA.




I wonder if we'll ever look back at the current MTV programming and consider THE HILLS and JERSEY SHORE to have been clever instances of satirical programming and disguised social commentary?

Nah! - do your teen a favor and give them the DARIA set for Christmas and/or birthdays... give them the Real Thing.

Finally, THE WOLFMAN - I waited for the unrated version to be released. I thought the end result was extremely decent -- the homaging was nicely handed (I particularly liked the Bava-ish touches in the scenes in the woods), and it was handled seriously, unlike THE MUMMY -- it was almost TOO serious with all of the frontloading of the "Daddy Issues"... if you haven't figured out what Anthony Hopkins will be within the first half hour, then you're not paying attention, since it's all but spelled out in big neon letters with a hand pointing --- and I also think that it's time for the "Daddy Issue" Plot to take a big time-out for awhile. It didn't do THE HULK any good, and I can't really say that it added anything of major importance to THE WOLFMAN.

Obscure Film of the Moment: CHILD'S PLAY - plus some excellent news for documentary fans


Well, news first - I had the opportunity, at film school, to see the infamous DEMON LOVER DIARY (the original AMERICAN MOVIE) and SEVENTEEN, films by the duo Joel DeMott and Jeff Kreines. SEVENTEEN was quite hot at the time, because it was part of a documentary series for PBS called MIDDLETOWN, and it was the only film in that series that was withheld from broadcast, due to its unvarnished and no bullshit look at the American Teenager.  Strong stuff, and memorable -- it's been over 25 years since I last saw it, and those who've been lucky enough to see it at film festivals and special screenings over the years have been jonesing for a copy.

While DEMON LOVER DIARY remains an underground legend (and can be found if one looks in just the right places, let's just say), SEVENTEEN has been harder to track. One could purchase a VHS tape for the pricey sum of $300, or try to hustle an invite to sites that hosted it in torrentland...  For the past year, SEVENTEEN has been popping up in special screenings at film festivals, which usually means that something special is coming down the road.

Well, the news is good - in fact, it's BETTER than just Good, it's GREAT - the MIDDLETOWN series is being released on DVD, and it includes SEVENTEEN! Scheduled to hit retail in September... so get your pre-orders in, and/or request that your local library purchase a copy.

Here's a taste:




Now to the second good deed of the day...


Sidney Lumet is a well-respected director who, over the years, has dipped into quite a few genres, although he's mainly known for tight dramas usually involving cops and criminals... although he's never done horror. Straight on, balls out, booga-booga horror, that is - although, depending on your definition, that can be stretched... FAIL-SAFE is pretty intense, nut-tightening tension, and a horror story of a different sort, although DR. STRANGELOVE just pawns everything in the Nuclear War story ghetto.
He's done quite a few thrillers; but straight on horror is something that Lumet has really never approached.

CHILD'S PLAY doesn't really qualify as horror; it's more of a psychological thriller, but it's the closest that Lumet comes to the genre - it's quite content to wrap itself up in that cloak and go BOO...

That look of puzzlement on your face is no accident; you've never seen this, and most of you are thinking, "Where's Chucky?", when the title was mentioned. If you're above the age of 55, you may have heard of this, if not ever having seen it. It started as a very successful play in 1970, written by Robert Marasco -- and if that name is familiar, it's because of a book he wrote called BURNT OFFERINGS, which was made into a movie that scared the shit out of many a person. It's also how CHILD'S PLAY can be lumped in with the horror genre, at least in the psychological end of the pool.
At the very least, it's a horror film for teachers.

CHILD'S PLAY was very successful in its New York run, but the film version is pretty much unheard of - it didn't get a wide release, and it never went to home video in the U.S. I remember reading about it in film catalogs. It may have been seen on rare occasions on television, when stations used to broadcast movies that were older than the past five years... the copy that I saw is apparently from Spanish television, since it has subtitles burned in.

I'm attempting to be somewhat oblique about it... hard to do when you're talking about something that no one has seen and you don't want to spoil everything. Most of the links will take you to additional information about the film, so no need to linger over trivia such as Marlon Brando being sued for walking off the picture... interesting as it is.

So, here's a series of screenshots, to give you a very rough idea of watching it.

It's a very paced and deliberate film... it takes place in a Catholic Boy's School, so that provides lots of atmosphere to milk, from subtle homoeroticism to pre-EXORCIST stirrings. The premise of the film is, basically, a battle for the soul of the school, contained in the rivalry of two elder teachers (GREAT performances by James Mason and Robert Preston). That battle is more metaphorical than supernatural, but there is just a hint that the little evils that Men do may just leave the door open for a much larger Evil...

One may even find parallels to the present day, especially with education being a major concern, and the presence of charismatic individuals who play skull-farmers, planting and harvesting ideas that may not be in everyone's best interest... heck, even BURNT OFFERINGS can now be seen, in the shadow of the housing financial crisis as a black comedy about home ownership - where the house literally sucks the life out of the residents. But that could just be me.

Point being, although not technically horror, CHILD'S PLAY still has plenty to offer the viewer who does like their horror to be unsettling instead of merely gross. But again, it's not easy to see - Amazon appears to offer the movie, in their "Burn on Demand" selection, where you can either rent or buy -- though the reviews are all about the "Child's Play" with Chucky. There is the possibility that it may get a release though other outlets, now that the Paramount vaults are slowly opening up, but it may not be anytime soon. Outside of that, the options of the interested public finding this are slim... very slim... next to nothing... just hopeless.

Which makes posts like this really frustrating, but that's part of the package when dealing with the obscure...

INCEPTION




Saw INCEPTION over the weekend, having managed (barely) to avoid much hype, anti-hype and Nolan Backlash that apparently, will be SOP with every Christopher Nolan film from now on.

I liked it.

But then, I've liked much of Nolan's work that I've seen - I'd prefer if he stuck more to doing films like this and THE PRESTIGE rather than Batman Movies; but then, if he didn't do the Batman films so well and work the crowd up to a frenzy, then he wouldn't get to do films like INCEPTION.

Such a conundrum... which is so fitting. Nolan's quickly become somewhat of a polarizing figure, having come from the Indie world and diving into the Hollywood Blockbuster - being able to deliver on the box office AND making films almost too smart for Hollywood... obviously, something must be amiss.

I can say that INCEPTION is one of the best films of the year - time will tell if it fits in with the 'Best of the Decade' lists that people will be making over the next couple of years.

I also think that a good portion of the criticism against this film, such as the dream states not being very imaginative, exposition as dialog, not enough character development, totally misses the point of the film. For me, INCEPTION also functions as a metaphor for what Nolan does - filmmaking. Where you bring in an architect (screenwriter), and various specialists to create a world that can function on various levels... and usually extract money; but in the best scenarios, one can also implant ideas.

That's my take on it, anyway... and in this climate, it's a rare thing to go to a summer movie that actually allows you to chew over its connections and ambiguities. As much as I enjoyed this film and cast, I hope that any attempts to sequelize/prequelize this will be murdered in its sleep.

Observations on Jonah Hex, Solomon Kane, Paranormal Activity... and some asides



Two things first:

The people behind the summer series PERSONS UNKNOWN (created by THE USUSAL SUSPECTS/THE WAY OF THE GUN writer ChristopherMcQuarrie) have a far better sense of what it takes to do an updated 'bounce' on THE PRISONER than the people who were responsible for the misguided attempt on AMC.

Watching the films in Pasolini's "Trilogy of Life" - THE DECAMERON, THE CANTERBURY TALES, and THE ARABIAN NIGHTS help add an added dimension of understanding what his intent was with SALO, the first in what was intended to be a "Trilogy of Death".

OK - onward...




Took a look at PARANORMAL ACTIVITY on DVD... I did see it during its theatrical release, but didn't really much care for it. This time around, I watched the alternate ending, and ended up liking it much better. Watching something that is obviously meant to mirror a home video, on your television screen puts it in a much better context. The alternate ending was much more unnerving than the ending in the theatrical version, which is such an obvious pander to the audience, and a setup to justify the inevitable sequel.

It's a better film than BLAIR WITCH was, in terms of concept and execution; but the problem I have with these films is "Stupid White People Syndrome"... in order for the story to work, it's necessary that the characters HAVE to do something so monumentally stupid. And in horror films, most specifically films involving hauntings and such, SWPS is pretty much part of the basic DNA of the story, otherwise there IS no story. If there were ethnic characters in this, the movie would be about 10 minutes long, because they'd have too much sense to intentionally antagonize the Inexplicable.



Which, to me, is sort of a major flaw - although, I suspect that a major reason why this was a hit with audiences, besides delivering the goods, is that the movie can be read as sort of a metaphorical look at a deteriorating relationship. The actors are extremely believable as a real couple, and the supernatural elements are just vague enough to support a poltergeist theory rather than demonic... and the alternate ending does keep that question rather open-ended.

I would have preferred if they had actually tried to get away, only to have the phenomenon follow them, as is stated several times in the film. If they had tested that out, only to find that there was no escape, that would have helped justify most of the dickishness of Micah's character.


Also got to see JONAH HEX and SOLOMON KANE recently, which provided a effective illustration of adaptation, good and bad. HEX is based on the DC Comics character, and SOLOMON KANE is a creation of Robert E. Howard, the creator of CONAN THE BARBARIAN. As I write this, HEX is in the process of disappearing from theaters, due to dismal box office and bad critical reception, while SOLOMON is still awaiting a release in the U.S. by Lionsgate... and still no word, although it is available on DVD overseas.



I'm familiar with Jonah Hex, having been introduced to him via Joe Lansdale's version of the character... originally an extremely grim and violent character when introduced in the 70's, Lansdale did add supernatural elements, in the style of his 'weird Westerns' - the series continues on, scaling back those elements, but they haven't entirely disappeared. So I was initially excited when hearing about a Jonah Hex movie.

That excitement diminished as reports of a troubled production leaked out... and now having seen the finished result, it just ends up being another disappointment.
Instead of adapting JONAH HEX, the movie is an uneven combination of THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, THE ADVENTURES OF BRISCO COUNTY, JR. and THE WILD WILD WEST movie monstrosity. The only extended bit of actual source material 'Jonah Hex' that's onscreen is roughly 2-3 minutes after the main title comes up, as Hex rides into town to claim his bounty... and that only lasts until the double gatling-gun on Hex's horse opens fire.

Yes, you read that correctly.

WTF!?!?!?!?

And the supernatural element involved - Jonah Hex now has a superpower of sorts - he can talk to the dead. Literally.

WTF!?!?!?!?!?

I suppose I wouldn't mind these things, and even more idiocy, if they just didn't have the guts to call it JONAH HEX, because it certainly AIN'T. You can't blame the actors - Thomas Jane actually does try, and does well; and the rest of the cast is good with what they've got to work with... although I have to say that I don't really understand what Megan Fox is doing in this picture. Not through fault of her own... she gives it her best shot, but the role as Hex's love interest is pretty unnecessary.

No, the fault lies with the makers of this film, who obviously didn't understand JONAH HEX - the writers (and re-writers -- not having seen the original draft by the CRANK/GAMER duo who were supposed to write and direct this, and who left the project due to 'creative differences', it's hard to tell - yet - whether this pooch was screwed from the start, or if it got screwed later), producers and director.



For all that JONAH HEX does wrong, SOLOMON KANE gets RIGHT. Word on this has been mixed, so I went in with diminished expectations - and was surprisingly rewarded with a fantasy film that took the character seriously, and was GOOD. I mean, on the level of John Milius' CONAN THE BARBARIAN, because, unlike the creative team of the Jonah Hex movie, and like Milius, director/writer Michael Bassett (DEATHWATCH, WILDERNESS) GOT IT.
He didn't attempt to 'improve' the character, or to make him 'relatable' to modern audiences -
He and his creative team looked at the Howard stories and simply tried to bring the character and his world to life, as Howard wrote it. And for my money, they succeeded. I'm certain that a die-hard Howard fan could probably pick things apart, but my interest was held and I was thoroughly entertained. That this film isn't in theaters while JONAH HEX is, is simply an artistic crime. The names aren't as known as the HEX cast - James Purefoy (ROME) is the title character, and familiar faces from British films such as Pete Postlewaite, Alice Krige and Jayson Fleming play major parts. Well worth your time to search for a copy - hopefully, SOLOMON won't become another 'Lionsgate Dump' casualty into dollar theaters located near Bumblefuck, U.S.A.

Some thoughts on THE BOX






Richard Kelly's THE BOX is not the end of the world as we know it, as some critics seemed to hint at during its release... but not as strongly as they felt that SOUTHLAND TALES was the End of the World, and probably the End of His Career - which is ironic considering that all of Kelly's films are definitely about The End of the World As We Know It. It's certainly not a career-killer, but it certainly was not the commercial property it was touted to be - although I bet it looked that way after the reception SOUTHLAND TALES got at Cannes, and he was pondering the choices available to avoid Movie Jail.

THE BOX is a much better movie than you'd think - like all of Kelly's films, it's bound to find more appreciative audiences watching it at home and other venues than it found in theatrical release. I liked this film - after the sprawling, overstuffed intentional train-wreck that ST was, Kelly scales things back to DONNIE DARKO size, character wise and plot wise. Kind of.

THE BOX is an adaptation of the Richard Matheson short story, "Button, Button". That story focuses on a wife who is presented with a mysterious box by a mysterious man who has a very simple proposition: if the wife or her husband presses the button on the box within 24 hours, they will receive a million dollars - and someone who they don't know will die. If you were around in the mid-80's, you'll remember that the story was adapted for the revived 1980's TWILIGHT ZONE series, with Mare Winneham and Brad Davis as the couple.

Go ahead and check it out... I'll wait.






In THE BOX, that couple is Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, both of whom are perfectly fine in the roles; and the mysterious stranger is Frank Langella, who's also very good. The adaptation of the story pretty much wraps up in the first 35 minutes of the film... actually, it's more like 25, if you strip away some extraneous scenes that have nothing directly to do with the story. The remaining 1 & 1/2 hours (it's just under a 2 hour film) concern themselves with the consequences of that action - Diaz presses the button, they get a million dollars, and someone dies, yes - but there's also Langella's bizarre deformity from a lightning strike, Diaz's club foot deformity, NASA, the Viking Mission to Mars, possible alien infiltration, glowing portals of water (yet again!), some self-conscious 70's referencing and science shotgun-wedded to the spiritual/biblical.

In other words, it's a Richard Kelly film melded to a Richard Matheson source, and as much as I do like the final product, it seems that the former overwhelms the latter. Which, is not really surprising, considering that a straight adaptation just really doesn't support a feature length film. What's curious to me, is that both adaptations really miss the point of the story.

"Button, Button", the Twilight Zone episode, would seem to be a perfect fit - but the only thing that connects, besides the really annoying performances by the leads is that ending. THE BOX gets the tone of the story right, for the dilemma presented to have some sort of weight, but muffs the story's ending in order to launch into the second part of the movie, where Kelly's main concerns are. Go look up Matheson's story - it's quite easy to find - to see that original ending and compare it to both adaptations.

I'd be willing to bet money that Kelly had his story - the one with the NASA stuff - already in mind, but couldn't find financing; and at some point, encountering the Matheson story, thought that it provided a strong enough hook to graft the other story onto. It's not done badly; that it works as well as it does proves that there was some skill involved. There's just something about it, though, that makes it clear that it's not a natural grafting of stories.

Which makes me think that Kelly just needed another source that would match up better with his creative concerns...



Unless you're a science-fiction fan of obscure movies, you know nothing of THE 27TH DAY. It hasn't been released in the USA in any format, although if you're under the age of 45, you might have caught it on television, in late night/early morning (when black and white movies instead of infomercials ruled the airwaves). Made and released in the late 50's, this always received glowing mention in most of the books about science-fiction films.

Written by John Mantley, (a writer who also produced shows such as 'Gunsmoke' and the second season of 'Buck Rogers' [The Disco Years], among others) based on his novel, THE 27TH DAY is about five people, from various countries, who are chosen by aliens from a dying world to be given a 'gift' - a capsule that, if activated within 27 days, will destroy all human life on the planet, leaving it open for colonization. If the capsules are not activated within that time, then life on the planet will be spared and the aliens will die. However, the aliens are certain that the capsules will be utilized, humans being what they are, and the people are returned to their countries to let the drama play out.


An obvious Cold War parable, THE 27TH DAY is memorable - director William Asher (who did the "Beach Blanket" movies and the BEWITCHED television movies in the 60's) makes the most of a limited budget and effects, and puts the emphasis on characters, Gene Barry (WAR OF THE WORLDS) and his co-stars' attempts to figure their way through this cynical game they've been placed into.

The movie is available on Spanish DVD -- but you can watch it in its entirety on YouTube in eight parts.


This, to me, seems like material that would have melded better with Kelly's intentions, and may have made for a more balanced viewing experience. Although, I'm not certain that anything that Kelly did would have been 'commercial' - his work isn't quite as easy to niche, which is what I do like about it, but the SOUTHLAND TALES experience coupled with the lukewarm response to THE BOX may have squelched anything to come from him for awhile.

I hope not.