Some good TV this week for sci-fi fans. Aside from regular shows like The Partridge Family S2 and Remington Steele S2; we are getting The Kingdom (Lars von Triers’ well-regarded horror series set in a hospital, which was recently adapted for American TV by Stephen King; that too is available on DVD); Mystery Science Theater 3000 Set 8, featuring Phantom Planet, Monster a Go-Go, The Dead Talk Back and fan favorite Hobgoblins; and the short-lived Space Marines series Space Above & Beyond.
The Jabootu movie of the week is The Children, a forthrightly dreadful 1980 horror pic about a school bus full of kids that passes through a radioactive cloud. The youngsters become zombies with black fingernails and a compulsion to hug, although their embrace then microwaves the huggee to death. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT WOULD HAPPEN UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES!! The jaw-dropping ending involves the leads learning that the only way to stop the precocious killer is to chop their arms off (!). So if you ever wanted to see an adult hacking off the limbs of a bunch of 10 year-olds with a sword, then here’s your chance.
With Christmas approaching, the year’s big movies are starting to come out, including Batman Begins and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Both are two-disc special editions.
Old movie buffs (buy it for your parents as a stocking stuffer) will enjoy revisiting Spenser Tracy as ur-movie priest Father Flanagan, and Mickey Rooney as his number one charge, in Boy’s Town, the film that falsely taught a generation “There’s no such thing as a bad boy.”
Camp fans will probably enjoy Reefer Madness the Movie Musical, which is presumably akin to the b-movie-turned-musical Little Shop of Horrors. The original camp classic anti-drug film is also included, so you can’t really go wrong.
Aficionados of Japanese swordplay movies will want to check out The Lady Snowbird Collection (both films, which partly inspired Kill Bill!) and the 6-disc set of Lone Wolf & Cub.
Foreign film buffs will enjoy the latest Criterion releases, Pickpocket (another French crime classic) and Ugetsu, a well-regarded Japanese ghost story. Meanwhile, Kino releases three of Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘mountain movies,’ which she made as an actress before becoming a propaganda director for Hitler. The titles are SOS Iceberg, Storm Over Mount Blanc and The White Hell of Pitz Palu.
