Open Thread 10/11/10

I watched the original Fantasia yesterday, which is still quite good, if a bit long. I watched the second half of Evan Almighty, which wasn’t funny and had the worst. deluge. ever. I couldn’t sleep last night so I watched the second half of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. It’s just like the first one, but with the CGI action, sexuality, etc. ramped up several notches, but doesn’t seem as fresh as the first film. Glad to see Robert Forster and Yuen Cheung-Yan finding work, though.

I watched a poorly made documentary, compelling the same way a motor accident is compelling, about the least talented people on Earth, called We Are Wizards. It’s a loosely organized collection of footage about various people connected in one way or another to Harry Potter fandom.

I’ve watched a lot of documentaries made in many different styles; I’m not saying that a good documentary needs to impose some sort of structure or point of view on its subject material. Gimme Shelter is a shapeless movie but utterly fascinating because the people and events are fascinating. But We Are Wizards feels like they just rolled the cameras for a few hours, added a couple bookend scenes with a laughable strawman for “balance” (a woman who wrote one of those books about how Harry Potter is seducing children into the occult and all that), and then printed up the results.

None of the Harry Potter fans depicted, even though they like to talk about how creative they all are, show the slightest evidence of being good at anything. The singers can’t sing, the guitarists know maybe three chords, the paintings we see are garbage, it just goes on.

A hootenanny! I hope the fests aren’t near a carpet remnants warehouse.

“Also,Val Kilmer has the bloated look of a man who’s just given up.”

There was this rubbishy pilot for a dystopian TV show from a couple of years ago; I forget the name of it, but it had Cuba Gooding as a guy who’d undergone ad-sponsored brain surgery and therefore kept hallucinating advertisements and Val Kilmer as the evil mastermind who came up with the idea in the first place. Kilmer looked absolutely horrible in it. Bloated and bored. Like he’d just given up at some point, as you say.

Well, let’s see. Over the weekend I saw (for the first time)…

The Witch’s Curse (1963). I liked it, and at a tight 75 minutes it didn’t have time to get off track. Ever wonder what it would be like if Hammer had made a Hercules movie? Maciste shows up in the 1600s and makes a trek through Hell to break the title curse, which is tearing a Scotch village apart. Very strange flick, but fun too, and pretty good to boot.

Invaders From Space (1964). An alien dance team tries to conquer the earth with a mysterious plague. Lucky for us, Starman is on our side. Usual berserk fun you’d expect from Starman, and some nicely spooky photography in a few scenes.

Girl in Trouble (1965). Country girl wants to get some action out of life so she hichhikes to New Orleans. Along the way she almost kills a man, get’s spied upon, is raped, and becomes a stripper. Actaully, for what it is, this isn’t a bad movie. Not great my any means, but I’ve seen worse.

Varietease (1954) and Teaserama (1955). Two of three color burlesque features produced by Irving Claw and featuring Bettie Page. Important mostly as a filmed version of the old burlesque shows which have joined vaudville in the showbiz graveyard. Varietease is the better of the two films, for those interested, tho Page has much more footage in Teaserama. Her third feature, Striporama, is possibly a lost film.

The Hearse (1980). Joesph Cotton adds what he can to this ghost story about a city woman who moves into her aunt’s house. Turns out the old lady was a witch, and her hearse is stalking our Haley Mills-like heroine. Slick, but it failed to impress me.

Horror High (1973). Middle ground between those 50s teen horror movies AIP put out, and the 80s slashers. I actually really enjoyed this flick, mostly because I had no idea what to expect. Teenage take on Jekyll and Hyde. How is it I’d never heard of it before?

Lurkers (1988). Woman’s old house is really an anex of Hell. Fast-forwarded through most of the second half, not usually a habit of mine.

Fleshburn (198?). Sort of What Would Billy Jack be Like if the Movie Wasn’t Skewed in His Favor. Wacko American Indian Vientnam Vet escapes from mental hospital and ambushes the jury that sentenced him by White Man’s Laws. He takes their shoes and leaves them in the desert to die from the elements. Good thing one of them was a Boy Scout. Another one I really enjoyed because I had no idea what to expect (the plot synopsis on the cover made it sound like a slasher movie). I enjoy a nice survival epic and this one was pretty good. One of those movies aided by its low budget.

Day of the Nightmare (1965/69). This one started out really, really, REALLY sleazey. But once they threw a few bones to the raincoat crowd, it turned into a William Castle movie. John Ireland is the police dick trying to track down a woman who was murdered and stuffed into a trunk, but said woman is now alive and running around with a knife! Hundred times better than you’d expect. I was worried in the first reel, but I ended up really enjoying it.

Goliath and the Dragon (1960). Seeing any of these old sword and sandal movies get a scope release is always a treat. Title muscleman fights a fire-breathing, three-headed dog, a giant bat, an elephant, a bear, the dragon, and Broderic Crawford!

The Creeping Terror (1964). Finally saw the whole version of this Jabootu staple, and it was a nice print to boot. I have to wonder, had they not lost the soundtrack and it been released as intened, would the film be more obscure or less obscure. Not getting the ‘carpet’ jokes, the giant plant/slug looks like it was formed of rubber with a wild paint job. I wonder whatever happened to it.

By the way, be sure to pick up the Cult Terror Cinema pack from Mill Creek. The Crater Lake Monster is scope! And the print is just gorgeous!

Predictably, I saw Secretariat. It was predictably good. It was interesting seeing Malkovich being non-creepy.

I just saw the last mini-episode for the upcomming Avengers cartoon. I have to say it was a lot better than I expected. Especially since they managed to make Ant Man look cool. Just in case anybody here wants to see said mini-episodes, Marvel has been putting them up on their youtube page under Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

I also watched some bootleg DVDs, Island of Terror, The Quatermass Xperiment, and Night of the Big Heat. The last was clearly cut from the Island of Terror template, but they didn’t do the formula properly. To wit: take Island of Terror, add Christopher Lee, add stupid love-triangle thing, add neurotic slutty girl, remove most of monster footage, remove almost all deaths, add weary stuff that has nothing to do with anything.

Caught Forbidden Planet and Aliens on TCM. FP and Aliens are movies that show that excellent effects and a good story will make a film timeless.

I saw two ’70s thrillers, and was reminded of just how cool those were when they turned out well. It’s not the cynicism so much as the structure: in both films, the first 2/3 was almost entirely character development, and the last 1/3 contained about 80% of the plot and action. It makes them a little harder to sit through, but it also makes for fantastic finales.

“Marathon Man” was a terrific ride that probably doesn’t hold up to scrutiny at all, but was totally gripping throughout. It’s aided a lot by perfect casting in all the major roles — Hoffman and Olivier are terrific, of course, but Roy Scheider doesn’t get enough credit for his performance. A lot of the first half was from his point of view, and you had to get involved in his story even though you had no idea what he was up to. (in fact, one of the things I loved about the film was that even at the end, you’re not 100% certain whether he was a good guy, a bad guy, or just a simple thief) Scheider had the perfect presence and charisma to draw you into his character without having so much that you fully trusted him. Also, his fight with the assassin in his hotel room was superb.

Anyway, it was a really solid film that spent a lot of time developing its characters in non-gimicky ways (i.e., not all the details of their lives conveniently pay off; Hoffman didn’t have to be studying history or have a history with his father, but it helped you understand who he was). And the last act was incredibly intense — and, thankfully, didn’t end in a predictable hail of bullets, but had a more thoughtful and interesting ending. Examining the story, there are a lot of things that don’t make sense, but I certainly didn’t think about those things when I was watching.

The other one, the much more obscure Night Moves, was much quieter, but had the same basic qualities: lots of character development, strong performances (including James Woods younger than I ever imagined he could be), thoughtful presentation, and a knockout last act. The climax was excellent — a short but brilliantly conceptualized, shot, and executed sequence that was thrilling and packed an emotional wallop. But mostly, it’s worth watching for Gene Hackman’s performance, which may be among his best. It’s kinda slow and meandering, but it definitely pays off.

I really miss thrillers like these that require patience, but that reward your for your effort. Too many of today’s films are all payoff and no buildup or exactly the opposite. There are the occasional exceptions like “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”, but not enough.

But the thing I got most out of the experience was remembering how awesome Roy Scheider was, and have decided that as soon as I finish Netflixing my gaps in Doctor Who, I’m having a Scheider marathon and catching up on some of his that I’ve missed.

Night Moves was released same time as Jaws. Nobody went to see it and it’s very much a forgotten movie to this day. I’ve never met anybody who saw Night Moves or even heard of it. I agree with JJ the film is great and that underwater climax is a knockout.

I’m a little late to the party, but an old horror movie from my childhood finally came to DVD (and to Netflix). I watched Dark Night of the Scarecrow recently. It suffers from being a made-for-TV film, but it’s got a straight-forward revenge-from-beyond-the-grave plot, and a few simple scenes that are still pretty effective.

This is one I’d love to see remade as a regular movie. Even with a modest budget, I think it could do pretty well.