That Familiar TV Buzz: The Addams Family (1964-66)

As a kid, even one growing up watching the shows only in reruns, you were either an Addams or a Munster. We were too young to really understand the difference between the shows. At a certain point, both The Addams Family and The Munsters were in reruns on weekday afternoons, and given that both shows ran for only two seasons each (and almost perfectly simultaneously), it didn’t take us long to become very well-versed in both of the seemingly similar but worlds apart universes. While one might surmise that I would identify with a family of monsters who didn’t really understand that they ran a little incongruously from the rest of the neighbors, as it was with Herman Munster and family, my loyalties actually ran the other way.

The Addamses were well aware of their displacement from the rest of society, and they relished it. In fact, it seemed they often went to great trouble to rub other people’s noses in the messes they left behind. They didn’t long to be liked like the Munsters did, nor did they wish to find acceptance. They were just the Addams, and they lived down the street from you, and they were weird (at least, as judged by the neighboring world) and woe to those who couldn’t handle that fact. The show was loaded with a subtly sadomasochistic air, what with all the talk and visuals of torture devices and the like, and there was always the feeling that, deep down under the surface, Gomez, the loving but deeply unhinged father, could crack and take his exploding toy train fixation into our real world on a large and terrifying scale.

But there is that word: “loving.” Because, if anything grand came out of the show besides a wonderful air of suburban depravity, quite unique from the safe sitcom world in which it resided, The Addams Family represented probably one of the most romantic couples to ever grace the TV screen. That they came out of the early 60’s unscathed is a most remarkable thing, for while I say romantic, it is with the knowledge that the Gomez and his lovely, whiter-shade-of-pale wife Morticia also represented lust. Though most of Gomez’ attentions came in the form of his merely kissing his way up Morticia’s arm and then across the nape of her neck every time she even got near a word that sounded even remotely French, there was the very real sense that these people had actual down and dirty but loving sex. Unlike other sitcoms where you swear every kid was probably adopted due to the antiseptic air of the parents, you knew that the Addams’ offspring likely came about from a couple of nights strapped down on the family rack.

The only problem I have watching the show now is that I have a near-maniacal disregard for the laugh track. Of the handful of live-action comedies that I watch today, all but one have a complete lack of any outside audience noise, real or recorded, and that is How I Met Your Mother, which honestly doesn't need it. (There are actually large gaps in the show where such noise seems to disappear, as if the producers were slowly trying to ween the audience off the forced laughing.) For the record, the others that I watch regularly are The Office, My Name is Earl, Scrubs and 30 Rock – all of which possess a blessed silence between the delivered lines, leaving the viewer to discern hilarity from their own devices. Watching the first two discs of The Addams Family: Volume One, I was struck with how the laugh track has grown even more strident and discordant to these ears. But I was also struck by how easily I was able to slip from the more recent, happy memory of the more urbane and flamboyant Raul Julia’s portrayal back into the goonier, twisted smile of John Astin’s take as a slightly shabbier (though closer to the comic vision) Gomez.

Just as there is room in the world for comic strip and cartoon versions of the Addamses, so it can be that there is room for multiple live versions of them as well. Strangely, all versions have worked to some degree or another, even in badly done animation. For it is Charles Addams’ superlatively designed characters, even if they have been slightly transformed over the years, that shine out from what has proven to be an unknowingly resilient concept. Long may they torture our funny bones…

Uncle Croc Bites "It": Charles Nelson Reilly (1931-2007)

Charles Nelson Reilly apparently once said "When I die, it's going to read, "Game Show Fixture Passes Away". Nothing about the theater, or Tony Awards, or Emmys. But it doesn't bother me." Was he truly prescient in his catty dismissal of "it" -- which I take to mean the headlines as they will appear across the vastness of the media ocean? Depending on where one looked, he certainly called "it."

On IMDB, who should have known better since that is where I gathered the above quote, they decided to laugh off his prediction, and announced on Monday morning, following Reilly's death confirmation by his partner on Friday, "GAME SHOW STAR REILLY DIES." CNN.com and MSNBC.com, however, since they apparently don't hire their own reporters, placed up on their respective websites the very direct and unadorned "CHARLES NELSON REILLY DEAD AT 76", running with the official Associated Press piece that seems to have popped up everywhere on the "Internets". The AP piece also doesn't mention his affiliation with Match Game, with The Tonight Show perhaps the most public platform for his zaniness, until several paragraphs into the article, concentrating on his Tony win and nominations instead. Even on Fox News, where one would think they would take the chance to slam an openly gay performer who lived with another man for almost 30 years, thereby serving as a social terrorist and taking the world one step closer to the apocalypse (which I purposely place in lower case letters), they took the safe road and merely ran with the AP story.

And thus it was that Reilly, at least by headline, avoided "it": that dread that he would only be remembered for game shows. He once said, "You can't do anything else once you do game shows. You have no career." And yet, what is so wrong with that? Isn't appearing on game shows a paying position? Isn't that another item on a resume? Is Pat Sajak worrying about his "career"? Judging from his talk show experience, he only has a career because of game shows. Reilly, though, was far more talented, even if a lot of his work was in the literal bargain bin of network television. But he was known quite well for his stage work, being nominated for three Tonys over four decades, twice for acting and once for directing, and winning in 1962 for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He was also nominated for three Emmys, once for playing Jose Chung in Chris Carter's Millennium, a role which he originated in an excellent episode of The X-Files a couple years earlier. He also made a zillion appearances with Johnny Carson on Tonight. And for those with IFC, catch the episode of Jon Favreau's Dinner for Five from three years ago, where Favreau and Reilly are joined by Reilly's buddies Dom DeLuise, Burt Reynolds and Charles Durning. To say that Reilly and DeLuise take over the show is an understatement. What can one say? The guy got around...

For myself, Reilly was a great reason to get home after school in the 70's. CBS ran Match Game and Tattletales back-to-back at 3 in the afternoon, and even though Richard Dawson always had the right answer and some very witty responses, Reilly was my favorite. Partially for his outrageous big-pocketed suits, ascots, ever-present pipe, humongous eyewear and captain's hats; partially for his laugh, his pithy asides to host Gene Rayburn, and his ever-running battle with blithely unaware neighbor Brett Sommers. Plus, the show was not-so-secretly dirty, which was the main reason I was watching it, waiting for them to write "boobs" on one of those ubiquitous blue cards. My brothers would get home in the middle of the show, wherein we would launch into the 4 o'clock monster movie that followed on the same station. Even today, I loves me some Match Game, and for many of the same reasons. My 6 a.m. routine involves getting up and turning on Match on The Game Show Network for some background while I get my tea ready and my computer started. (Lately, though, the episodes have been sans Charles, and my interest wanes when either he or Dawson are missing from the deck.)

But there are a couple of other reasons for which I remember Charles Nelson Reilly, ones not mentioned in the AP story at all, though it's not surprising. Early on, I recall watching him as the evil wizard Horatio J. Hoodoo on the psychedelic Sid and Marty Krofft fare Lidsville. (How they got away with some of that shit is prove that the network heads really were "heads" at the time, if not now.) His sneery laugh had already snickeringly wormed its way into my brain at a very tender age. Then, after I was already aware of Match Game, in the Saturday Morning TV season of 1975-76, Reilly was the star of a children's show parody called Uncle Croc's Block. Resplendent in crocodilian headgear, which remained open to show his giant-bespectacled grimace, Reilly as the titular Uncle Croc did battle with his director and crew on a kiddie show run amok. I really only remember the human characters on the show; the Reilly parts were interspersed with animated Filmation segments, none of which I recall at all, except for a fleeting memory of the Bone-Apart character (though this might be from when he appeared on The Groovie Ghoulies, from the same company).

I don't know how it will play today, but with Lidsville already available, and with Reilly's untimely demise, hopefully those who hold the Filmation rights (they've been putting out some of their other series), will give me at least a quick chance to catch up with Uncle Croc, if only on DVD. Loved it as a kid, and I would relish the opportunity as an adult to discover WHY. But with Reilly himself, there was no wondering. He was one for the ages: entertaining in any format.

Godzilla Raids Again... Free At Last!

Having gone to the new Pirates flick twice in four days over Memorial Day weekend (and this is not intended as any sort of criticism of the film itself), I came to a realization. Jen's passion for pirate flicks (which existed far before the Depp trilogy) is all-encompassing, and rather than skip what seems to be a rote attempt at seafaring action, she will watch it like the swashbuckling-mad buccaneer zombie that she is. It's Automatic Watching instead of Writing. Despite a couple days at work where her equally Disney-faithful co-workers complained about what was wrong with the new Pirates, she maintained a passion to see it again on Monday, and the night after Friday's inaugural viewing, she was sitting on our couch, rocking her feet against the coffee table, bouncing up and down to the music playing only in her head, and anything I said was drowned out by the movie's sword-clanging finale that she maintained was still crashing behind her eyes.

One could think, "Your girl is crazy!", and sure, we all are to a certain degree. The girl is pirate-mad. I like pirate flicks, too (I am huge Flynn fan and The Crimson Pirate with Burt Lancaster is one of my personal favorites from childhood), but I don't have this reflexive mode where I immediately have to click on or go to every film featuring a scraggly sea-robber in a dirty bandanna. When I first knew her, and for several years after, I actually felt Jen acted this way about mysteries (if it's Marple or Poirot, we apparently have to watch it) or BBC comedies, but there are limits even to these. I would offer that her pirate love has a limit; she often says that it is the romantic, fictionalized pirate that she adores, and not the real-life criminal type that exists to a certain degree even today. But since these are rarely featured in films or televised fiction, I will grant her the rights to this genre addiction, if only to proffer up mine in comparison.

There are those who would believe, and would use this site for proof, that horror and science fiction would be my equal to Jen's pirate fixation. This is wrong, for both horror and science fiction (like my assumption of Jen's view of the mystery genre) cast far too wide a net to be realistic as points of absolute fixation. There is much in both genres that I have no interest in seeing, even if, by the curse of my own movie rules, I will see any movie once. However, it is in sub-genres where we find my own personal downfall. It is in a strange mix of both horror and science fiction (and some would say "comedy", as well, though this is usually unintentional), and it is the Giant Monster Movie. Not just daikaiju eiga flicks (Japanese giant monster movies), but even Them! or The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (I should say, "Especially, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms"). It is no surprise that all of this stems from my extant Kong love, and also, due to my ancient history with that giant ape, movie dinosaurs of all sizes have been sucked into the mix. If you want to see a guy, in a roughly comparable scenario to Jen's need to attend every Disney Pirate release instantly, that has no defense against the eventual Jurassic Park 4, then look my way.

Lately, a lot of kaiju flicks have been showing up at my doorstep, and I am sure Jen believes I am tossing my money away like so many used tissues after a Jenna Haze marathon. I might be, but I cannot help it. Classic Media, over the course of the last six months, has been releasing a series of rather comprehensive DVDs featuring several Shōwa era Godzilla films to which they have obtained the rights. Sadly, the entire run of Godzilla films won't be released in Classic Media's format and casing (the rights for the remaining films are too far flung to other uncaring companies to allow this to happen), but I will take what I can. The initial release, Gojira, popped up last year; two more were made available by the end of the year (though not on Amazon, in an odd situation, until months later), and two more are on the horizon next week. (There will also be a couple other daikaiju eiga DVDs released later on, including the original Rodan and the awesomely weird War of the Gargantuas). The films are released under the banner "The Toho Collection", and this doubles the shame that the entire series can't be put together for this package. Purist fanboys complained about some artifacting and the other usual stuff that the homeward bound have time to complain about, but what I loved about the first disc was the fact I could finally see the Japanese version of a film that I already loved in its bastardized American form. It was a profound revelation, and I doubt I will ever watch the American version again. Godzilla had finally come home to me, and when it did, it was in his truest form.

Another disc; another Godzilla; another slapped-together American release that I grew up watching, never knowing what I was missing. Godzilla Raids Again, the second DVD from the Classic Media collection, followed the original film by a year or two in Japan, but by several years in the States. Through some very odd reasoning, the U.S. producers felt it important to disguise the identity of their giant creature, and the film was released as Gigantis the Fire Monster, confusing millions of youngsters for years in the process. They also cut out about half of the Japanese version, and poured rather haphazardly on its remains what seems to be several reels of random stock footage and bad animation (in the film shown to the scientists). The film made little sense to me as a youth, but then, monster movies, especially giant monster movies, aren't generally known for their depth of plot or characterizations. It's usually all about the monster action, whether stomping a city, devouring fishermen, or battling a similarly large monster. Who cares what the human are up to, unless they are a hot Japanese chick, or if the humans are being squashed or eaten? This film features Godz -- er -- Gigantis battling an ankylosaur-like creature called Anguirus. (Unfortunately, Anguirus is a quadraped, and this requires the stuntman in the suit to muck about in a rather silly fashion, displaying the limits of a biped masquerading as a quad.)

I will not go into the differences between the two versions of the film -- that is what watching the superb DVD is for -- but I will remark that, although once again the Japanese version definitely trumps the American one, in this case, as it is with many sequels, we are struck with the Law of Diminished Returns. Godzilla Raids Again is only half as good as its remarkable predecessor, but it is still fun nonetheless, and the fact we are discussing pure fun implies that it is without the emotional and political impact of the first film. If this seems like faint praise, it is -- Gojira is a film to be discussed; Godzilla Raids Again is merely there to be enjoyed as a simple monster movie, which in fact, is the way of most daikaiju eiga, even the ones that attempt to be something more, from this point on.

And yet, I had the urge to see it over again, and also, to own a personal copy. So much of my video collection has consisted of cheapjack video knockoffs, such as the Goodtimes VHS I owned of this movie (and, even then, only of the American version), that it made the DVD purchase a literal no-brainer. To be able to see such a film in its uncut form and in its language of origin, and without all of that b.s. that short-minded Hollywood producers brought to its U.S. release, is probably the purest pleasure one can derive from such a venture. I look forward to the future run of Classic Media Godzillas for exactly the same thrill -- seeing old favorites with new eyes, even if those eyes are seeing something it should have been given a chance to see properly in the first place.

Gojira no gyakushû [Godzilla Raids Again]
Dir.: Motoyoshi Oda // Toho, Japanese, 1955 [DVD]
Cinema 4 Rating: 5

Gigantis, the Fire Monster (American version of Gojira no gyakushû)
Cinema 4 Rating: 3

Recently Rated Movies #48

Edmond
Dir: Stuart Gordon // 2005 [IFC]
Cinema 4 Rating: 7
Not that my rating can (or needs to) be bought by any means, but one can certainly earn an extra notch on that rating for their film by taking out Julia Stiles. I don't mean out on a date; I mean having her character (and thus her maddeningly overrated acting) dispatched from the story altogether. Perhaps this isn't what the filmmakers meant by having what happens in Edmond happen to her, but it works for me. I hate to spoil anything for someone who hasn't seen it -- because it is entirely a worthwhile work to catch -- I just can't stand Julia Stiles that much. It's the one downside to The Bourne Ultimatum coming out this summer: knowing she will be in it. But lest you think I am harshing on Ms. Stiles, Denise Richards shows up briefly to show her not what bad acting can truly be, but to display what a total lack of acting talent is. Stiles doesn't know how lucky she has it. But don't let my disdain for two of Edmond's cast sway you from seeing it. This film should be seen.

I have to admit that this is one of the David Mamet plays that I have not read nor seen, but I dove into watching it eagerly for three reasons: Mamet, lead actor Filliam H. Muffman -- AAHH! -- damn that Stephen Colbert! -- William H. Macy, and the director. Does the fact that Stuart Gordon, the auteur of Lovecraftian wonderments like Re-Animator, From Beyond and Dagon, is directing a Mamet script throw you? Well, I've known of Gordon's theatrical career for quite a while, being a fan of Bleacher Bums back when it was on PBS eons ago. Gordon started Chicago's Organic Theatre, where Mamet had his first theatrical success with Gordon at the helm. You'd really be surprised just how deep Gordon's connections to some of the most famous actors and writers in theatre and film go; gathering some of this talent together and then summoning every ounce of his directorial skill to tackle Edmond, which appears to be a decidedly difficult and quite possibly controversial piece once it is seen, Gordon has produced perhaps his finest, most mature work to date.

This film, though, really belongs to Macy, and its a shame that his nervy portrayal of a henpecked businessman loser bursting out of his timidity in all the wrong ways was not nominated for any major awards, because its a doozy. He starts out looking like a self-made hero, finally taking the proverbial bull by the horns and getting his shit together. But then all the sewage within his system comes gushing forth from first his runaway mouth, doing damage to those to whom he initially seeks solace: whores and strippers. When a verbal assaults don't quell his growing hunger for comprehension in an non-listening world, Edmond breaks free in torrents of violent misunderstanding. It's not a huge leap to accept that Macy's Edmond is a very recognizably human movie monster run amok, and that this film really is a sort of horror film, even when most involved would probably swear it's not. Then again, it's not an uncommon thing in Hollywood anyway, the "it's not a horror film" defense. It's where the term "psychological thriller" came from. This film is "psychological" in the sheerest sense of the word, it thrills in a sick way, but its not a "psychological thriller". It's a horror film that still manages to discover notes of grace for its rampaging monster of the id. We should all be so lucky.
Der Untergang [Downfall]Dir: Oliver Hirschbiegel // German, 2004 [DVD]
Cinema 4 Rating: 8
One of those Schindler's List-like things, where you recognize that greatness is unspooling before your eyes, and you know that you really should watch, but it's going to be a chore to behold. We're in Hitler's bunker as the Russians are pouring through Berlin, and you know all along that a bullet will be eventually zipping its life-ceasing way through der Führer's skull by the film's end. Sure, many people don't mind watching a ton of Nazis bite it in increasingly nasty ways, but there is always humanity to be found in even the most misguided of mindsets. We get to watch Hitler (who is granted less of a super-villain bearing than he usually is on film, and much of this is due to a stellar Bruno Ganz, he of Wings of Desire) as a human. His misguided plans of world conquest, coupled with his startlingly poor management and dissipation of his once vast resources, cause him to slowly lose it even more than he already has by the start of the film -- and certainly that little fucker was a lost cause for most of his life -- but this is merely the background setting, and Hitler almost seems like a supporting character at times.

The true dramatic center of the film is on the fringe characters, particularly Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge (whose memoirs form part of the basis for the film). Many of these clerical operatives were common people simply doing their job, and are remaining patriotic to their state and their leader. Traudl is of this blank-minded ilk, but also remains sympathetic and even worshipful to her cruel leader even in the face of overwhelming knowledge as to his darkness and madness. (It also must be remembered that most in Germany -- not all, but many -- were largely unaware as to the eventual extent of the Nazi atrocities). Even when they might be aware of the horrors at hand, such as the military doctor who keeps administering aid even in the face of possible death or capture, there is still some form of very human nobility to be performed before the titular downfall. Some very rough scenes await the casual viewer -- be warned, the scene with the mother coolly putting her kids down for an unwaking night of sleep is not for the faint-hearted -- but then, most of this very long film is not for that type of personality. You need to be willing to deal with the lowest depths to which man can sink, and as in Letters From Iwo Jima, you need to accept that even the enemy have hearts, souls and dreams. Even if, as a direct result of their cruel and evil actions, they should possibly relinquish their rights to them.
Il Grande Silenzio [The Great Silence]Dir: Sergio Carbucci // Italian, 1968 [IFC]
Cinema 4 Rating: 7
A fascinating "Spaghetti Western" (which I actually find a deplorable term, given the wide range of quality inherent in the derisively named genre -- and also from the fact that I prefer lasagna), made all the more so for me, as I had never even heard of it until I chanced upon it a couple of weekends ago. If I had not watched My Name is Nobody earlier in the day, I probably would not have watched this one. But I was still in the mood for a western, and the fact that Klaus Kinski was in the cast loomed large in my decision. This one keeps you guessing from start to finish; it offers a terrific hero named Silence (played with mute calm by the cast-at-the-last-minute Jean-Louis Trintignant, who supposedly took the part only if he didn't have to learn any lines -- it must be nice to be desperately needed like that), and an even more terrific and hissable villain played by Kinski, who as usual, employs his dark-rimmed "crazy" eyes and shock of blond hair to imbue his character of bounty hunter Loco with even more implications of sadistic evil than a normal mortal actor ever could. The film tells us this is based on some purportedly true Utah bounty hunter wars back in the Old West days (I am too tired as I write this to even bother checking on the veracity of the film's vow), but it really doesn't matter. The film is unique for its entirely snowbound location shooting, and also for its ending, which frankly shocked me (and kind of pissed me off when it happened, as I thought the flick was heading into eventual safer territory). But I have reconciled my brief anger, and for both the ending and the great Kinski, this is one I will be grabbing for my collection.

Shock Show Update: Macabre Theatre (KHIZ-TV/DT, Barstow/LA)

Despite the fact that I own most of the movies that could possibly be shown on a syndicated public access matinee show, my deeply ingrained craving to see such movies weirdly encumbered by a zillion crappy, local commercials led me to KHIZ-TV last Saturday night to check out the last five minutes of The Mad Monster.

Sure enough, the title that I had seen in the cable listings was indeed the George Zucco PRC cheapie from 1942, though I was horrified at the thought of just how many minutes of ads they would have had to add to the two-hour time slot, since the film itself only runs a scant 77 minutes in its entirety. At the close of the film, a computer-generated moon appeared through a cloud of animated bats, with the words Macabre Theatre superimposed over the glowing celestial orb. A jaunty and eerie little tune, punctuated with sharp little synth jabs showed me, that at the very least, someone had put a modicum of effort into the time slot, and didn't just throw up any old movie and call it programming. Someone actually decided to make a horror show out of it.

Tuning in last night, or rather, DVRing the show -- at this time, Jen and I were actually saying a sad goodbye to Veronica Mars and having our interest (I refuse to invoke the word "faith," if only because I dread where the series is going ultimately) in Lost renewed until next season --  to its airing of The Crawling Eye, a film which I already owned on DVD and on an old MST3K tape (so actually watching the movie was unnecessary), I was pleased to discover that there was even more to see on the other end. 

Actually, it was only an introduction -- there was no cheesy host, I am sad to report -- and it consisted of an animated sequence, beginning with the bats, moon and music thing I have already described. Then, a large manse was seen atop a hill, with a long stairway heading up to its entrance. While the jaunty and eerie tune repeated itself endlessly to the action, a stocky, shambling figure dressed in a backwards baseball cap and a flannel shirt wandered up to the stairs. There was something gripped in his hand, and from first glance, it almost appeared as if it were a football. The figure bounded onto the stairs, and the camera swept past it, up through the doorway to the mansion and down a series of hallways. Eventually, the figure overtook the roving camera, and it becomes quite clear that not only was the figure more than a tad hirsute, but the item gripped in its hand/paw (?) was a decapitated human head! 

As the creature swiftly roamed the halls, a series of gates, bars, spikes, etc. were triggered open, in a style perhaps immediately reminiscent of Get Smart, but which really reminded me of the series of doors sprung open anytime "Movie Sign!" was yelled on MST3K. Several bodies littered the hallways as we traveled down them, and the figure reached a final room, where he bounded up to one of those portable doggie kennels, tossed his treasured human head into its inky depths, and then climbed into the kennel. As the music closed, the figure, whose face is never clearly seen, reached out to a dog dish, and then -- and I am a little unclear on this -- it picks up a pack of what looks like Lucky Strikes. The opening dissolves straight into the film, and I found myself a little down about this discovery, hoping the show would go the extra length to give me a horrible-pun-wielding host.

And yet, it appears that there is much more to this Macabre Theatre than I first thought. Zipping through the show on my DVR, I came to an ad where one can win a part in a movie about the Manson Family called The Devil Exists. The commercial is presided over by a large-bosomed Goth girl, against whom one could bring accusations of stealing Elvira's bit, if Elvira herself hadn't stolen it from Vampira in the first place. At this point, anytime anybody wants to doll up a movie show with a gratuitous slice of cleavage, it's alright with me. The big-titty host thing is up for grabs, as far as I'm concerned. The girl is, groaningly (but perfectly), called Ivonna Cadaver, and the commercial also serves as a chance for her to push her website as well. As I finished the ad, I thought "Well, gee, why didn't they just get her to host the show?" Then I went to the show's website (and Ivonna's, too), and found out that not only was she actually the host of Macabre Theatre, but that Butch Patrick -- whom you might recall as the famous Eddie Munster -- is the co-host. Or was the co-host. Where are they on the show now? A stroll back through the opening sequence finds a picture of Ms. Cadaver on the wall, but except for the commercial, neither she nor Mr. Patrick are present within the show as presented that evening.

People, it is now that we discover the importance of updating your website. All websites. Here I am, a late-coming but semi-interested viewer to Macabre Theatre, and I cannot find out decent information surrounding the show. You see, none of the websites surrounding Ms. Cadaver have any sort of copyright date or "page last updated" notation on them. There is a link to an OC Weekly story from 2003, and the calendar page only gives up all of the channels nationwide where the show can be found. Sure enough, KHIZ is on there, and one can find on the Cadaver site that it is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. on Saturdays, but as for any current news or schedules, there is naught to be found. However, a trip to the website for The Devil Exists finally revealed news with dates, and the information that I gleaned was that the "text your way to win a part in the film" contest being pushed on the television ads with Ms. Cadaver ended on March 9, 2007. Almost three months ago. If the contest was not a success, I can understand that -- but still running ads for a dead contest months past the conclusion, without an update on this situation on the website? Perhaps I am expecting too much from both the people involved and the show they produce. After all, they are involved in making a movie about Charles Manson -- which is an unneeded headache, thank you -- and in the manner of people wrongly worshipful of the asshole, they tag their trailer with "MANSON UP FOR PAROLE 2007". Perhaps it's meant to add another fearful element to the impending production, but it just sounds like they are wishing for the best for him. Luckily, he will likely die in prison.

And perhaps I am not missing anything through not seeing the full Cadaver/Patrick version of Macabre Theatre. Maybe coming late to the game is a good thing. The final caveat regarding Ms. Cadaver's coffin? A trailer for the show on her website (and be warned if you go to her "Videos" page, for every single Quicktime bit loads up and plays all at the same time. If your speakers are up even slightly, you will slam your knees into the bottom of your desk...) promises (in a series of short statement cards) "FINALLY -- HORROR -- AND INTELLGENT COMEDY -- COME TOGETHER". That's right: "INTELLGENT". I would think this is a joke, but elsewhere on her page she tells us (for the contest): "Text YOU Way to Win".

It's all a shame, because the show (with the hosts) looks like it might pose some good, dopey fun. The clips on the lovely Ivonna's website bear out that at the least it is along the lines of what Elvira offered. I will tune in over the next month to see what's going on, though I am sure that I will only be even more disappointed -- if the hosts never show up. But that's OK, it will leave me plenty of time to text my way to winning (belatedly) that featured role in the Manson flick. I'm going to win it, and then I am going to kick the guy playing Manson in the 'nads!

Here's one for Sharon Tate, ya maniacal, waste-of-prison-space fuckhole! (May She Ever Rest in Peace...)

Psychotronic Ketchup: Once This Bell Tolled, I Found My Purpose Again...

A couple of weekends ago, I developed a true annoyance at the rote giallo entry from Maestro Bava's son Lamberto, Blade in the Dark, which left me practically banging my head against the wall in ennui. I also spent much of its length yelling at its incompetence in the dubbing department, which instead of at least illuminating me to some of the more obscure story elements, left me seething with rage over what could only be described as a hack job for a hack job. Saturday afternoon, the next day, I watched the third Spider-Man film and also watched my enthusiasm for the franchise wane to levels I never expected it to dip, even if I ended up enjoying the film overall.

Not that this would be enough to make even a cinema nut with the weakest of constitutions swear off films for a while, but it could have at least been enough to move my cynicism-meter up a notch or two. (Some who have known me for eons would call this an impossible feat.) However, my frustration after the junior Bava effort did leave me a tad punch-drunk, and it made me fear changing my player to the next disc in line, another foreign thingy of dubious heritage, which I was sure would find me registering for a weapon (completely out of my character, mind you) with which to Elvis-blast my television. My surprise then that I not only found myself intrigued enough at its conclusion to immediately submit to a repeat viewing, but that upon waking in the morning, I dove in once more for a trip through the film-fanatic's commentary that came attached to the Spanish horror thingy from the early 70's. Three straight times with a five-hour nap?

Why? What is so remarkable about A Bell From Hell, a film that I had barely heard of before I clicked to add it to my rental queue a month ago? Everything, that's what. Only you don't realize this going in. From the DVD cover photo, one should feel right in expecting a film where a series of women are tortured in a creepy and overly gratuitous fashion. It seems like this film is nothing more than an early-day version of the currently popular "torture porn" genre. And this would be a seriously incorrect assumption. What is unique about the film is how it gets to the point in the film that appears on that misleading cover, and where it goes after that illuminating point. Chiefly, the film does nothing or goes nowhere that you expect it to in the course of its 100 minutes – not even end the way you expect. And it doesn't go down easily when it does end. It's like the film itself is expending anxiety over the way things occur, and refuses to accept its own conclusion.

Waltzing into A Bell from Hell, unaware of the ragged rocks ahead as I was munching on a Trader Joe's pizza, and truly believing that I was in for more of the same as in the previous film, a trail of tiny weirdnesses caught my eye: little creeping things which served to mount up in my brain as the film took its casual stroll across my screen. I wanted to believe I was watching just another revenge epic, but there was something different about it. The fellow doing the rather stiff commentary points out again and again the director (who died at the end of filming, either jumping or falling from the film's tower which holds the titular bell) uses the film to make political jabs at the petit-bourgeoisie (a phrase he slathers far too generously onto nearly every other comment, like Tom Sawyer finding a twentieth kid to whitewash Aunt Polly's fence) and certainly I picked up on this as I was watching it, but not to the extent that he swears it does.

There is undoubtedly class jealousy and hatred at play here, both between the protagonist and the townspeople, and between the protagonist and his aunt and cousins, who consider themselves above him (even though all three of his gorgeous cousins are either in love or lust with him to some extent). His aunt, played to shockingly chilly effect by Viveca Lindfors, controls his estate, and the fact that she has helped spur on his removal from society and his rightful inheritance to an asylum in order to rein him in, in no small way inspires him to not only exact some sort of penance from the woman, but also to punish all who conspired with her, including his cousins.

There is a frankly shocking scene where he gets a job at a slaughterhouse -– be warned: the scenes of cattle slaughter, even those involving the main actor, are not staged; they are real and, if you are an off-again and on again vegetarian such as myself, painful to watch –- and the scene, apart from acting as a foreshadowing of the impending violence (we believe), serves as solid punctuation to the fact that there is no limit to what this individual will do to inflict the pain he seeks to cause. He will also use the affections of his cousins against themselves and each other; he will not hesitate to make himself seem foolish (especially in a strange public bathroom sequence) if it will make his enemies uncomfortable; and he will employ a wide variety theatrical devices, technological props, and a surprising cast of operatives to exact his revenge. If this sounds like the hero/villain, for he actually seems at times as both, is along the lines of The Abominable Dr. Phibes, don't be fooled. This is an earthier, more painful form of vengeance; unlike Robert Fuest's classic, outrageous Avengers-style camp affair, A Bell from Hell is a dark-toned mood piece, with incest and rape and murder and revenge, both personal and political on its mind.

And yes, for those of you who, like the fellow on the commentary track, can't get enough of the fact that the film sports a reminder of the uneasiness between the classes in Spain in the early 70's, I will say this: I wish that they had hired Chevy Chase to do the commentary. He would not only prove to be a far livelier host, but he could also nudge the viewer with an old-school Saturday Night Live fact from just a couple years after this movie was released: the fact that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

La Campana del Infierno (A Bell from Hell)
Dir: Claudio Guerín [& Juan Antonio Bardem, uncredited, post-production] // Spanish, 1973
Cinema 4 Rating: 7

Psychotronic Ketchup: Blood Creatures or Male Terrors?

Terror is a Man aka Blood Creature (1959)
Dir.: Gerardo de Leon and Eddie Romero

TC4P Rating: 5/9

Sure, a lot of very good work has been done in alerting everyone to the death and destruction that land mines, laid down from the wars of previous or even current generations, cause around the world. But, no one – I repeat, NO ONE – has lifted one finger (at least, one of those fingers that they have left) to rid the world of alternate video titles. 

There you are, clicking innocently on a title on your Netflix queue, happily zipping through your list and adding a title which you believe you have never seen before. Sure, it sounds familiar – exceedingly so – but you click on it anyway. When the DVD arrives, you pop it in your player, and when the opening credits splat up on the screen, you still don't know what you are about to see, because the title matches the one on the case (and the one on the website). And then, once the movie kicks in, the slow, creeping suspicion builds inside your mind that you have seen this shitty film before. And by the time the hot Filipino girl in the simply too tight, flowered sarong gets left behind by her fellow villagers (who have smartly taken to safety across the seas in their canoes, but have not too smartly left behind a hot Filipino girl in a simply too tight, flowered sarong), you realize that, yes, indeed, you have seen this before. Only the film had a completely different title the first time you saw it. And then you hit rewind to watch the hot Filipino in the simply too tight, flowered sarong again.

It's a horrid problem, and one that cannot be fixed without your help... and without the generous help of your cash, check, or money order to this address...

Actually, it's not that horrid a problem. I merely slipped a bit and didn't notice the alternate title line in my copy of The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film. The fake title in question is Blood Creature, and the title by which I know it (and one which I find far more poetic) is Terror Is a Man. Generally considered to be the first of the wave of increasingly atrocious horror films from the Philippine Islands through the 1960s and 1970s, though I have yet to seen any other than this film, Terror is a Man and/or Blood Creature is actually not too bad a film. In fact, I've actually seen this a handful of times in the past, and even had a copy recorded off Cinemax from years earlier. Seriously, if there is a problem that equals land mines in the horror movie world, then it is probably the proliferation of mad scientists on remote islands or in remote castles who experiment on animals, methodically switching their species from that of some already dangerous predator, like a tiger or bear, or in the case of this particular Dr. Moreau acolyte, a panther, into an even more dangerous predator: man.

Not just any panther, but a panther that, when wrapped in bandages, has two very cute little ears on top of his head, two adorable little fangs shooting down from his mouth, and, as George Carlin describes the whiskers on a cat, "a lot of crazy-looking shit sticking out of his face!" Aww, he's almost too, too adorable to be devouring people on the island. But he does, and with increasing regularity. Aww, wook at him! He's just so cute! Wook at his widdle eaws! Fuckin' ow! Little shit bit my finger off! 

While the film is no great shakes as entertainment, and is, in fact, quite boring going in, the last half hour is fairly effective, and what the film does well is invoke the memory of earlier, better Universal horrors, and then crossing it, probably unintentionally, with a little Tennessee Williams-like spousal drama. There are a number of well-composed shots, and the climax is particularly memorable. While the "heroine", the wife of the mad scientist, is quite voluptuous and allows the shadows of raindrops to drip over her nose most seductively, the "hero", a lost-at-sea (in more ways than one) muscular schmo, decides to focus on the married white girl instead of on the hot Filipino girl in the simply too tight, flowered sarong who has been left behind on the island. It's all about choices, Mac… you chose wrong. As for the film, while the film won't replace Island of Lost Souls in quality, or even the 1977 version of Island of Dr. Moreau, it is fleetingly effective, and not all that harmful to run into, even under an assumed name.

Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory (1961)

Dir.: Paolo Heusch

TC4P Rating: 3/9

A film that nobody is going to mistake for another more decent film is Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory, an Italian-Austrian co-production from 1961 that actually, looked at by its own merits, much like Terror Is A Man, isn’t all that bad overall. It’s just not good, nor very interesting. Halfway through it, I received a call on my cell from Jen, and I told her, “Just watching what is probably the worst werewolf movie I’ve seen since Underworld”. Which may or may not have been true (I had seen Cursed in this same period), but I should point out two things: 1) invoking Underworld was merely to give Jen an idea of the pain I was going through, since she would be quick to understand, and 2) by “worst,” I meant “most boring”, because at the point in which she called me, I was completing the taste of paint chips as a viable substitute to watching even another frame of this film.

It perked up a bit from that point, but the damage was done. Thing is, in a private school for wayward girls (all of whom seem to be refugees from a typing pool, most likely all chainsmokers and all between the ages of 23 to 28 years old), one would think it would be slightly more erotic than the dunderheaded murder mystery that it is. When I initially described the film to Jen, she thought I had rented myself some titty flick with a rampaging monster in it to disguise it from the porn it was. Then I told her it was from the early ‘60s. And she said “Ah…” and I heard the empathy in her voice. There is a rather fetching girl amongst the “young” ladies, who all sport either way too much makeup or not enough where they need it: the heroine, played by Barbara Lass, but her looks are dashed a smidgen by the fact that her head is weirdly big for her body. (Then again, as I said, I had just seen Cursed, and that had Christina Ricci in it. But then again and again, I love Christina Ricci and her abnormally large head…)

Barbara bobble-heads her way through woods which are not so much filled with killer wolves, but instead with an endless loop of howling that is meant to tell us the killer wolves are simply there. There is so much howling, in fact, that after a while I started to not consider the wolves any sort of threat – I sometimes go to Chivas USA soccer games where the muy loco fans sport long plastic tubes that they blow into as horns. The bull-like bellowing that emits from the far end is intensely annoying through the first half of the game; after a personal refreshment at half-time, the noise becomes like so much traffic: it’s there, it’s polluting your ears, but you have grown accustomed to it. You don’t notice it at all until you get home, and once it’s ringing goes away, you kind of miss it. So, too, went the howling of the wolves; I stopped paying attention to it, and once it was gone from my notice, I started to long for the threat that it once seemed in the film.

Because the film squarely needs any sort of threat, the lame excuse for a werewolf it does offer will not suffice in this instance. Even Teen Wolf was scarier than this ponce. He looks like Kevin McDonald playing Edward Tudor-Pole in a straight-to-video remake of Absolute Beginners. A decent lycanthrope might have turned the tide in the film’s favor. After all the boredom and creepy woman-girls and big-headed Nancy Drews inhabiting the film, a downright frightening wolfman might have still made for a worthwhile payoff. Instead, we only get some halfway decent stabs at atmosphere, a dislocated opening theme song titled A Ghoul In School that would seem kind of fun if it were actually in I Was A Teenage Werewolf instead, and a surprisingly listenable score. But then you feast your eyes on a werewolf that could be outdone by an six-year-old with a fistful of cat hair and a tube of airplane glue, and you shake your head.

I didn’t even mention the German shepherd dog that actually serves as the most interesting character in the film. And despite the assumed presence of wolves, he is clearly supposed to portray a dog.

But he goes by the name of "Wolf" in the film.

I am so confused now.

I don't know if this is an appellation that is only found in the translation, or if the filmmakers meant this, but once your film takes one too many turns in on its own logic like that... well, that's a landmine that you cannot avoid...

RTJ

[This review was edited and updated with new photos on 11/14/2016.]

Uh... Where Was I?

Just one of those moments, mind you, where I have to reset my head and forge on anew. I have been busy at work the last couple of weeks -- not just at work, but also extending into the last pair of weekends -- and though I rarely actually think about my job on my off-time, what it does is hit me with an exacting sort of weariness that I can't seem to shake after a while. Add to this the fact that my head has been pounding with headaches for those same two weeks -- non-stop, really -- and it really starts to break you down mentally. Add to this a family situation last week that served to make me lose a triple-dose of evenings' sleep, and it becomes apparent that this builds up physically on a person, especially one in the throes of a fit of extreme busyness at work. And even though I have posted off and on in these two weeks, my heart hasn't really been in it in the frenzied way that I normally post. So, it becomes necessary for me to break the format once in a while and post a reset.

I have seen a lot of movies in this time, though, because the only thing I have been up to doing otherwise is pouring into the couch or the bed when I get off work and dig into a disc or two. (That is, when Jen isn't home also, and we aren't catching up on Heroes, Lost, The Daily Show, Robin Hood and The Colbert Report. We also have literally weeks of The Tudors and The Riches to begin watching at this moment.) Thus, there shall be a slew of Recently Rated Movies coming up, I will get the Rixflix A to Z/Z to A line revved back up, I will be posting the third part of Dylan Goes Electric (Again) (summing up my amazement at being a recent iPod convert), and will start a new series of posts on record albums (title pending).

Best of all, sometime in the next month, I will be soon posting Act the Third (not to be confused with the middling Shrek entry now in theatres, which I have seen, so I can say "middling") -- yes, Act the Third -- of Gamera Vs. Mankind, the animated kaiju opera short created by my brother Mark and myself. OK, so it's not the posting of the film, actually, but rather, the lyrics. The short is still to be completed, but we are marching towards an, I believe, August/September showing at an art film show in Santa Rosa. I like this, because I have been dragging my feet on this since the initial creative output for the piece, and my poor brother has been patiently waiting for it through my stubborn insistence that this weekend -- over and over again -- will be THE ONE where I finish it. The truth is, I meant it every single time that I said it, but starting something and doing something are two very different things. I was waiting for that moment of what the D call inspirado. And the one personal thing that I did attain this weekend, and perhaps inspired by the familial travails, was the hashing out of some actually lyrics for Gamera.
Hopefully, this will make my brother most happy.

For now, it's Onward Go and Edward, Ho! Forge on...

Recently Rated Movies #47: A Saturday Spent In Hell (If I Believed In That Crap...)

Even when you know deep inside that a movie is going to suck, sometimes you have higher hopes for it. Witness below three flicks that, due to the subject matter or the original source material, I had reason to believe that they might get turned around into something surprisingly good. In all three cases, I wasn't so much disappointed in their outcomes, as I was disappointed in myself that I expected more of them. Read my tales of woe and take the walk of shame with me...

The List:
Faust: Love of the Damned
Dir: Brian Yuzna // 2001 [Showtime]
Cinema 4 Rating: 4
A film version of a much-touted “graphic novel” from a few years back. There was a point in time where I really wanted this book to appear at my comic shop because it was one of those "unrated" comics, was reportedly very adult in nature, and loaded with equal amounts of sex and gore. Once upon a time, dirty comics were very important to me, not so much because they were dirty, but because they upset people. In a comic world where the bulk of the books still came stamped with the stultifying mark of the Comics Code Authority, the fact that comics could once again cause mothers to get the vapors was immensely satisfying. Of course, there was the pervy side of me, and at that time, anything short of Betty and Veronica going down on each other was bound to disappoint me. (Oh, who am I kidding? I'd still like to see that... let’s throw that little minx Midge in there while we’re at it.) When Faust appeared in the comic shop, and after I consumed numerous positive reviews from friends I once considered to have decent sense, I purchased the entire series. And, yeah, it was indeed loaded with sex and gore; while it turned out to be not the worst comic I had ever read, I found it merely OK. Even worse, once the main character changed to his demonic form, he bore the stupidest-looking costume in the Modern Age of Stupid-Looking Costumes (Rocket Racer and Spider-Ham notwithstanding…) Not a surprise then that the movie version has the same problems in story and costume, but seeing Yuzna's name in the credits made me think that perhaps, as with Return of the Living Dead Part III and Bride of Re-Animator, this might get pulled off into something somewhat fun to watch. Faust as portrayed in comics would almost seem to warrant some hardcore film approach, but Yuzna does manage to pull off the erotic aspects of the story far better than he does the violence, which comes off as too cheesy. There are great doses of gore on hand, but if it is all meant to add some dramatic grittiness to the happenings, it gets offset by how truly moronic both the costume and the actor filling the costume appear. I did rather like Andrew Divoff as the satanic M and Mònica Van Campen as his generally naked aide-de-camp/seductress Claire, but that’s about it. Even a nearly Society-style orgy scene at film’s end can’t save it..

Mysterious Island
Dir: Russell Mulcahy // 2005, made-for-TV mini-series [Hallmark]
Cinema 4 Rating: 3
Remember when Highlander looked like the greatest movie in the world and it's director, Russell Mulcahy, felt like he was the Second Coming of Somebody Important in the Film World? Remember when we thought that he actually had some thought going on behind what seemed to be a remarkable visual sense? Remember when Highlander II came out five years later, and suddenly everyone went "What the hell?", and the world got their first dose of what would happen later with the Matrix and Star Wars series, where you got the sense that these guys really didn’t have it all worked out in advance… that they were just winging it? Remember when, even though Christopher Lambert was clearly one of the worst actors in the world, you stuck with him because he was an awesome Tarzan and, hell, he played the Highlander? Today, even on a bad-movie day, I can't get near the original Highlander anymore, but I did stick with Mulcahy up through Ricochet and his not-altogether-bad version of The Shadow. (I will always be sort of fond of his wonky pre-Highlander Aussie flick Razorback.) Here, Mulcahy is assigned to tackle the Jules Verne "classic", which is not even half the quality as a Nemo adventure as 20,000 Leagues is, but I love the crazed Captain, so it's cool that Verne felt he had to follow up. While it might seem nice that Patrick Stewart has been corralled to play the part, he is all wrong for Nemo, of course, and truly seems to be nothing onscreen but the nose-holding receiver of a paycheck in this one. Kyle MacLachlan comes off better as the hero, but he, too, has that faraway "just trying to get through the scene" look at all times. Perhaps this was his way of combating the gnawing pain that at some point his actions would be matched up with some truly horrendous CGI creatures. Or perhaps it was his way of dealing with the notion of action with the most ludicrous pirates this side of a Captain Crunch commercial. Either way, it's the viewer who truly needs that faraway look -- this thing runs almost four goddamn hours, so if you are going to commit to it (like I did), be warned that you will eventually know just how many holes there are on each acoustic tile on your ceiling. (426,226 to be precise.) Nowadays, Mulcahy has apparently settled into his true form as a hack -- nowhere is this more evident than the fact he has recently signed on to direct a film about an animal smuggler who is mystically turned into a koala. The film is called -- surprise! -- Russell, and when I saw the title, I at first thought it would be an autobiographical tale of a man whose artistic career has turned to shit. Turns out, his actions speak far louder than any film biography of himself ever could.

Starkweather
Dir: Byron Werner // 2004 [Showtime]
Cinema 4 Rating: 4
I was going to pass on this trifle, figuring that no one could possibly even come close to topping Terrence Malick's Badlands, which not only used the same series of shocking late 50's murders as its source material, but also presented it in a deeply poetic and immensely satisfying way. (I firmly hold it to be one of the ten best films from the 70's.) Then I noticed on the information page on my DVR that Starkweather featured the star of the amazingly something Spring Break Shark Attack, Shannon Lucio, in the role of Caril Ann Fugate, the willing (or is she?) tag-along girlfriend of Midwestern whackjob Charles Starkweather. Now, I know well enough that most of these gigs for an actor are considered to be steps up in a career, and I would not judge Ms. Lucio for appearing in such dreck. A job's a job... you do what you can to pay the rent. So, I am not ripping on her for appearing in what turns out to be a dreadful interpretation of this tale. Honestly, I tuned in because she reminded me in the shark flick of Jennifer Jason Leigh when she was much younger, and Ms. Lucio, despite the interference from this film, continues that resemblance in my mind. Her performance is OK -- no knock on her -- it's simply that this film, whatever its intentions, shouldn't have even tried. If the intent was to give a more accurate portrayal of the events than as represented in Badlands, well, perhaps they succeeded here and there in this endeavor, but dramatically, the film falls apart the instant, which happens very early on, that they introduce Charlie's shadowy "influence", a character voiced by Lance Henriksen that is probably supposed to be the devil in Charlie's head, if not Ol’ Scratch hisse’f . This gives certain areas of the film a “Freddy Krueger” feel that is completely unnecessary, especially when it seems like the filmmakers are trying to achieve a more realistic feel elsewhere. Any look at any number of movie sites will find comments by people who “really lived where this story took place” or “remember these events as a child”, and they will invariably comment on the clothes and the cars and the facts and the street names and the locations all being wrong. I don’t give a shit about this. Malick went off the facts for Badlands, and the result was a stunning masterpiece of incomprehensible violence, marked by moments of seemingly misplaced beauty. One can be creative and still capture the mood of a true story. Bring the Devil into this story in this particular fashion, though, and you’ve turned it into nothing but a silly melodrama. Might as well have Charlie and De Deb’bil duel it out on guitars Crossroads-style or have a drag race for Charlie’s soul. And have cute little Lucio, who was almost twice the age of her thirteen-year old character when she filmed this, stand in the middle of the Badlands in her TV-shark-film bikini and have wave a blood-soaked scarf to start the race. Then nobody would care that the characters are standing on the wrong street in the wrong town when they blow somebody’s head off, and that they escape in the wrong make of car. I suppose if someone made a movie about Robert Hansen and didn't film it in Alaska, I might raise a similar stink. But, you know... I watched Northern Exposure all the same. Bunch'a nitpickers! Starkweather is bad enough on its own merits; it doesn't need inaccuracies in location to show what a shite-fest it is.

Recently Rated Movies #46

Last post, I hinted that I had watched a couple of the cult classics from the 1970's in my buildup to going to Grindhouse. Well, I didn't just watch a couple -- I watched a whole slew of them, in a solid two weeks of sometimes sublime, but mostly cheesy goodness. Raw Meat, the film that I have discussed in relation to my frustrations with broken Netflix discs, was originally to be one of these films, but alas, it has proven not to be. (Some of the films from my Psychotronic trek counted as part of this marathon, but they are reviewed in other posts.) Blaxploitation, kung-fu, car crashes, blood, gore, sex, monsters, nudity (not necessarily the same thing as sex): every thing that made the movies from that era incredible at the time, and still amazing to see today. Not all of them hold up all that well, but sometimes, even the worst ones are some of the best times to watch.

The List:
Switchblade Sisters
Dir: Jack Hill // 1975 [DVD]
Cinema 4 Rating: 6
It had been about 20 years since I last saw this movie, and while I kind of dug it at the time, it took Tarantino's raving about it to get me interested in seeing it again. So much did he rave about it, that he ended up releasing it on DVD on his Rolling Thunder imprint. This is one no doubt a far more enjoyable effort if you are predisposed to flicks about girl gangs, which I generally am not. It's top-loaded with crazily over-the-top (and bad) acting, escape plots that just wouldn't work anywhere but here, and is absolutely ludicrous from frame one. And yet, like many a Jack Hill film, it's amazingly compelling and somehow succeeds in spite of itself. And just when you think you've reached the incredible finale, there's another even bloodier one to top that. The film never seems to stop working to beat itself to a pulp, and rather than seeming overlong by this breathless rampage of punky silliness (which it easily could), the viewer benefits from the movie proving to be the thrill ride that one often expects when one watches a film of this ilk but rarely gets. And, yeah, I know this film can be taken as a girl-power tract, and I know I saw the film years ago, but I didn't realize until now that I have been in deep subliminal love with star "switchblade sister" Joanne Nail all this time. Now, I'm going to have to watch The Gumball Rally all over again. (I was planning on it anyhow... it, too, has languished for 20-some years in my memory.)

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry
Dir: John Hough // 1974 [DVD]
Cinema 4 Rating: 5
I've got an old buddy who was, and probably still is, unbelievably enamored of the starlets that he grew up wanking to in the 1970's. Yeah, I've spoken of my personal favorites from that period -- Caroline Munro, Jenny Agutter, et al -- but he picks some odd ones. The one I truly can't figure out is Susan George, whom he swears by. Blonde and British -- a good start, to be sure, but then she is topped off by a set of what can only be described as "comedy teeth", which some guys from that era seem to think gives her a cute pout, but which looks to me as if she were trying out for the part of Chaka's girlfriend on Land of the Lost. And then there is her acting... look, I am a Peckinpah fan to a certain degree (he is at least a fascinating director, even if you, or I, do not like some of his films), but if he thought that using her in Straw Dogs and then having what happens to her in that film was going to elicit some sort of sympathy for her character, he's got another thing coming (well, I guess he doesn't since he is long dead). Sometimes my anger at a miscasting is such that I can no longer see the character and only the annoying actor instead. I am sorry to say this, but I can't stand her so much I want to see even worse happen to her in the film, and, really, not much worse can happen to her. In this car-chase "classic" which, again, I last saw over 20 years ago, she is not miscast: she plays a slutty recidivist criminal who hooks up with two supermarket robbers played by Peter Fonda and his mechanic buddy. As far as I can tell, they have only committed this robbery to drive fast and drive cool. Fonda almost always wears shades, and has multiple escape routes and cars laid out for the adventure, but there is a certain nihilism in his attitude, where he seems to know he probably isn't going to get away with this but is going to give the cops everything he has anyway. This would be great if Susan George weren't there to be as annoying as possible on the ride. I know it's a plot point that she is annoying the robbers, as well, but I think George goes over and above the call of duty here. Sometimes you see someone in a job of someone whom you can't believe hasn't got fired for just being, quite simply, bad at it; I think Susan George in her movie career is a prime example. (A great ending to this flick, by the way. Before director Hough got Disneyfied (the Witch Mountain movies, you know) he had the nerve to end this one right...

Kenka karate kyokushinken [Karate Bullfighter]
Dir: Kazahiko Yamaguchi // Japanese, 1975 [IFC]
Cinema 4 Rating: 6
Kyokuskin kenka karate burai ken [Karate Bearfighter]
Dir: Kazahiko Yamaguchi // Japanese, 1977 [IFC]
Cinema 4 Rating: 6
The first two parts of a trilogy that I have yet to complete, these films feature the tougher-than -- well, a bull and a bear, obviously -- Sonny Chiba as his real life mentor Masutatsu Oyama, who supposedly killed over 50 bulls in his martial arts career. The drama is suspect, though many elements did come from real life, but it is well-handled, and the fighting sequences are far more brutal-seeming than in most chopsocky flicks. Chiba meant the fighting to feel more like real fighting, and it shows, but I have a hard time with the bull scene, because I am never really sure just how fake it is. The bear scene in the second film is far easier to figure out; the only thing that has one wondering about the fight is whether the guy in the immensely cheesy bear suit (check out how he runs on all fours!) wandered off the set of a kaiju film where he had to play a giant bear. Really, they could have called the second one Karate Stuntmanfighter instead. While the films are enjoyable, the main problem is its choice of being called "biography": if Oyama killed this many people in his real life, he would have to be put down in a hail of bullets. Still, Chiba is always interesting, and here, his relentlessly stern expression fits the mood of the films well, and in the scenes where he is called upon to bring a lighter personal touch, the release of this expression works incredibly well. Growing up, my only real experience with Chiba was through the Street Fighter series, so these two films were most enlightening.

Recently Rated Movies #45

Kontroll
Dir: Nimród Antal // 2003 [Showtime]
Cinema 4 Rating: 7
One of those movies that periodically renews my interest in filmmaking, Kontroll takes place entirely in the Budapest Underground, and even opens with a sharply pronounced disclaimer to not mistake what happens in the film with the real subway system in that city. That's good, because in the film there is a serial killer who goes about pushing lonely riders onto the tracks in front of the trains at the last surprising second. The real surprise here is that not only is the serial killer angle, which is so overdone in movies now it's ridiculous, not all that interesting, it's really not even necessary to the film. I'm certain some other conflict could have been derived to allow the hero to tackle his own personal problems through solving the mystery, but, that said, the killer storyline doesn't really detract all that much from what is really almost an Altmanesque crazy-quilt of characters -- the majority of them ticket-checkers on the Underground. The fun part is watching the ticket "kontroll" get bashed about both mentally and physically by the unconcerned riders on the train, and judging from this film, no one in Budapest ever buys a ticket. Perhaps that's why there is a disclaimer -- hate to think a whole foreign city is loaded with subway cheats. Serial killers? Well, you expect them. At least, movie producers do. And keep your eyes peeled for the world's cutest Hungarian girl in a teddy bear costume, which she wears Kinski-style through most of the film. Oh, didn't I mention the film was kind of weird?

Dolemite
Dir: D'Urville Martin // 1975 [DVD]
Cinema 4 Rating: 4
Watching some of the Japanese "Starman" films a couple of months ago reminded me of a four-year-old wrestling with his older brothers, where the little hero would throw a karate chop which couldn't dent warmed-up butter, but his siblings would react like he had almost put them through a brick wall. It's cute at that age; in grown-up stuntmen, it's rather silly, but it can be great fun when done properly (as in the Starman films, where it is done seemingly on a huge, hundred-attacker scale). In the cult "classic" Dolemite, which causes even the most casual fan of blaxploitation films to go "Hells, yeah!" when it is mentioned, one wonders constantly if star Rudy Ray Moore, as the pimp/anti-hero, hasn't been trained in the martial arts to the level of a four-year old. His moves can barely be called that, since he hardly commits physically to even the slightest punch. Worse, since he is a comedian, and a horribly-acting one at that, he is given a couple of showcases for his rhyming, pseudo-rapping routine, which made me long for even one minute of Nipsey Russell on the old Match Game instead. (The poems would be mercifully shorter, the delivery would be sharper, and the result would be twelve times as funny.) Perhaps I am not predisposed to enjoying films about pimps and drug dealers getting revenge on other pimps and drug dealers, or perhaps I am not "of the world" where revenge like this is something to be admired. This would be a bullshit statement -- this film is just bad guys killing other bad guys, but done right, it can be an incredible rush onscreen. And if you think perhaps I am just not cut out for blaxploitation films, I will point out that the same week, I watched Foxy Brown and Coffy (I was actually watching all of them as a wind-up for Grindhouse) and enjoyed both of those films for what they were: campy but engaging low-budget revenge thrillers. The chief crime of Dolemite is that it is deadly dull and unfunny. It's as campy as the other films I mentioned, but at least those were backed up by talents like Jack Hill and Pam Grier. Here it's just Rudy Ray Moore, and from where I sit, he never should have stopped telling his long-winded poems at backalley dice games.

Clash of the Wolves
Dir: Noel M. Smith // 1925 [TCM]
Cinema 4 Rating: 6
I grew up watching a 1950's version of Rin Tin Tin (with that fat, annoying, freckled Rusty kid), but I had never seen the real deal until a couple of weeks ago. TCM cranked out one of the original Rinny silents, and I was stunned. Not because the film was any great shakes -- it was only average melodrama, after all -- but because I was astounding by some of the stunts they had their star pooch tackle throughout the film. Rinny was literally the Douglas Fairbanks of the canine world, and to watch his incredible leaps and tackles and dashes across the desert is to wonder if they actually ran through about three dozen dogs in the course of filming. The comedic stuff, too, was also a lot of fun, and even though the film itself wouldn't pass muster outside of a kiddie show today, I was thoroughly entranced by the action and adventure. An incredibly fun time while it lasted. And to find out the original Rinny dies in Jean Harlow's arms? There's a scandal that US Magazine would have a field day with today...