Category Archives: Film Review

Film Review: Pirates of the Caribbean – On Stranger Tides

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

This post is going to end with some spoilers, which will have warnings behind it. Just so you know.

Confession: I fell asleep during Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides. It was only for a few minutes during the jungle sequences, but nothing special was happening, so I figured I could get away with it. I can see, though why Gore Verbinski saddled up with Rango instead of this one. As Lisa Marie mentioned via Twitter, she zoned out about 10 minutes in and really only followed it for the awesomeness that is Johnny Depp. He, Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane are the only real reasons to see this, but know that the film is muddled with a bit of lazy writing covered in explosions and chases. This is one Jack Sparrow story you can really wait for on DVD. It’s literally the Pirates of the Caribbean Edition of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.

Every writer goes though a bad time now and then. Even though Paul Haggis won an Oscar for Crash, he was also responsible for Quantum of Solace, which could have been a tighter story than what it was. I have to remind myself that even though Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot gave us a cool character in Captain Jack Sparrow (which was made more concrete through Johnny Depp’s performance), they were also responsible for Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla some years back. It happens. Of course, they could both write me under the table while blindfolded, this I get, and they have my respect.

That said, I didn’t outright hate Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. It was a fun popcorn ride in some areas, with as much flair as the Disney / Bruckheimer collaborations can offer, but it also felt like it was a production just made for the money, like The Wolfman. The only ones who seemed to really enjoy themselves here were Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane, and to both their credits they carried the film for me. Johnny Depp was great as always (he has moment where he clearly shines), but I get the feeling like he’s almost tired of the character. Again, that’s just my viewpoint here.

What about the Kids?

Well, being a film under the Disney banner, the easiest rule of thumb to use here is this: If you’ve taken your kids to any of the other Pirates movies, this is pretty much more of the same. Granted, people die and there may be a nearly naked mermaid, but it’s done well.  It should be okay for teens and pre-teens, but that’s up to families to decide.

Previously on Pirates, we found Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp, great as always) in the possession of the map from At World’s End, who is in search of the fabled Fountain of Youth. Jack finds that there is someone impersonating him who also happens to be looking for the same thing, and seeks out the imposter. This eventually leads him to the dreaded pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane) who also seeks the Fountain to block a prophecy that will lead to his death. So, it’s something of a race to see who will get there first. Even his old friend/enemy Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) is part of the adventure, but doesn’t quite have the same presence here as he did the other films.

Depp on his own does justice to Sparrow and he still manages to bring some fun to the character.  That’s really not a surprise, but after 3 of these films, I had the feeling that part of his performance was just repetition of what he did before. I imagine him wishing for Verbinski or sighing after every take. Well, every take that didn’t involve Penelope Cruz, I guess.

I felt Penelope’s Angelica really matched well against Depp’s Sparrow, and it opened up a lot of doors for characterization between the two. Depp and Cruz’s scenes together really worked for me and were definitely a highlight as their chemistry is amazing. Between she and McShane – who quite frankly hasn’t had a bad role since Deadwood – really help to carry the movie. Blackbeard’s ruthlessness is clearly conveyed through McShane’s acting and  if there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s to play the villain well. There are also some notable cameos near the start of the film, which was nice to see.

One other major plus is the music. Even though Hans Zimmer uses some of the themes from the other films, he’s had some great help in guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela. If you’ve never heard these two before, open up another tab on your browser and look them up online. This post will be waiting for you when you get back.

Done? Good. Didn’t I say they were cool? The duo adds a lot of flavor to the music of the movie, which really does help things (as much as they can).

Rob Marshall’s direction of the film isn’t terrible as some might say. It actually feels a lot like Gore Verbinski’s (to me, anyway), and if you weren’t told who was making the film, there’s a slight possibility you wouldn’t recognize it wasn’t Verbinski. He does capture the action scenes well and truthfully, there was something cool with the lighting in the Sparrow sword fights that occurs early on. I’m under the impression that this is due to the Bruckheimer touch on things.

The writing on this film felt lazy. Here’s what I mean, and the following might be spoilers:

*** Here lie Spoilers, Ladies and Gents, be warned! ***

*** Here lie Spoilers, Ladies and Gents, be warned! ***

*** Here lie Spoilers, Ladies and Gents, be warned! ***

There is a part in the film where Barbossa explains his stake in the chase for the Fountain of Youth. In a few lines, Geoffrey Rush nails it like an old man telling stories by a campfire. The only problem is that you’ve been told what happened in a visual medium. One of the first rules of writing is to show, and not tell. With a budget of over $400 million, I find it shocking that they couldn’t have just taken a few minutes to visually give us that explanation. It’s possible that Rossio and Elliot wanted to avoid reusing some of the same Pirates elements from the earlier films, but sometimes Pirate life does have a few struggles on the water. Why not show how he lost the Black Pearl?

Another example of the writing problem is the quasi-love story between the ship’s cleric (who’s name I can’t even recall) and the mermaid they encounter. It felt forced to me, and I’m convinced that when the Cleric finally tells the Mermaid he wants her to save his life, she pulled him down into deep waters only to feed upon him like those other poor pirate souls. And you know why? Because Marshall and the writers never bothered to show the audience a hint of what became of them. I doubt they cared about them any more than the audience could have. I even stayed after the credits, figuring that the final shot would maybe show me something of their fate, but no. Nothing of the sort.

*** Spoilers are done, you can keep reading now. ***

*** Spoilers are done, you can keep reading now. ***

*** Spoilers are done, you can keep reading now. ***

Oh, and there’s nothing to read after this, because I’m writing like Rossio and Elliot. Feel that sense of emptiness? That gap, like there should be something here? That’s what this Pirates may do to you.

The Winners At Cannes

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The winners of this year’s Cannes Film Festival have been announced and it’s good news for Kirsten Dunst and Terrence Malick, the director of Palme d’Or winner Tree of Life..  I’ve seen the Tree of Life trailer about a thousand times at the Plano Angelika and to be honest, I haven’t been very enthused about it.  On the one hand, Terrence Malick is a legendary director and the film looks visually quite stunning.  On the other hand, the trailer also features a kid with a heavy country accent (and I’m not hating here, I’ve got quite a twang myself) going “Mother, Father, always you fight within me,” and when I hear dialogue like that, I’m just kinda like, “Uh-oh.”  The trailer itself features a lot of quite interesting and tense family scenes mixed in with a lot of scenes that seem rather New Agey.  I’d go into my feelings about new agey films but I don’t want to upset our readers in Vermont.

Kirsten Dunst (who may be on the verge of a comeback of sorts and good for her) won for a film directed by Lars Von Trier and I wonder if the award was, in any way, meant to protest Von Trier being previously declared a “non-person” at Cannes because of a press conference where he may or may not (I haven’t been following the story closely enough to take a side) have said he was a Nazi.  (While I can’t say whether or not Von Trier is a Nazi, I can say that I loved Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves, and Zentropa and I hated Dogville and I’m scared to see AntiChrist.)

Anyway, here’s the winners:

  • Palme d’Or: The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
  • Grand Prix(a tie): Le Gaumin au Velo (Dardennes brothers) & Once Upon a Time in Anataolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
  • Best Director: Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive)
  • Best Actor: Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
  • Best Actress: Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia)
  • Prix du Jury: Polisse (Maïwenn)
  • Prix du scènario / Best Screenplay: Hearat Shulayim (Joseph Cedar)
  • Camera d’Or (Best First Film): Las Acacias (Pablo Giorgelli)
  • Un Certain Regard : Prix Spécial du Jury / Special Jury Prize : Elena (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
  • Best Short Film: Cross Country

Just a heads up, Arleigh — next year, I’m going to get down on my knees and crawl all the way over to California just so I can beg you to send me to Cannes. 🙂

Review: The Midnight Meat Train (dir. by Kitamura Ryuhei)

Posted on by Arleigh

There’s a certain number of books when I was much younger that I thought would’ve made for some great horror films. They were the early works by Clive Barker. Short stories collected into several volumes aptly dubbed his Books of Blood. While several short stories from these volumes were adapted to film in the intervening years most were not worth the time to watch them. So, lo and behold that when I finally saw the latest short story adapted from these collections I was genuinely surprised at how well-made and entertaining it turned out to be. The Midnight Meat Train by Japanese filmmaker Kitamura Ryuhei was a fine piece of horror filmmaking that dripped in atmosphere and a growing sense of existential dread right up to it’s very surprising end.

The Midnight Meat Train is quite a simple story when one really breaks it down to it’s component parts. It’s a crime thriller wrapped in the bloody layers of an extreme horror film. There’s a certain noirish quality to it’s storytelling as we see the film’s protagonist in Leon (Bradley Cooper). He’s a photographer struggling to find the inspiration for his next set of photographs and decides to wander the train stations at midnight to find that inspiration. It’s during one visit at night that he begins to suspect that he might’ve come across one of the latest missing persons who might’ve become a victim of the so-called “Subway Butcher”. The film shows his growing obsession in finding out if the urban legend of this so-called serial killer is actually true.

His mental state only deteriorates as the reality about the “Subway Butcher” (Vinnie Jones in one of his best roles to date) catches up to the truth on one midnight ride on the subway train. His witnessing of the killer at work brings him into a hidden world the rest of the city seems unaware or incapable of acknowledging despite the hundreds of people who go missing year in and year out for almost a hundred years. His girlfriend Maya (Leslie Bibb) and best friend Jurgis (Roger Bart) soon become drawn into Leon’s nightmarish situation and must confront the very boogeyman who has begun to haunt Leon’s waking life.

The film is Kitamura Ryuhei’s first Hollywood film and it doesn’t diminish the talent for some creative visuals he earned while directing horror and genre films in his native Japan. He makes great use of the nighttime setting and the stark environs of the subway trains at midnight to give The Midnight Meat Train an almost black and white look punctuated by vivid splashes of visceral red during the many inventive killings by Vinnie Jones’ mute Mahogany character. Kitamura showed that he was able to squeeze as much as was possible from a script that was average at best. Especially considering that the script had to adapt one of Barker’s shorter tales.

The performances by the ensemble group led by Bradley Cooper ranged from good to excellent with the aforementioned Vinnie Jones leading the pack. Even Bradley Cooper as the tormented protagonist Leon handled the role well. I’ve never warmed to Cooper as an actor as he always came across as a smirking douchebag in almost every role he played prior to this one. He quickly shed some of that reputation for me with his performance in this film and continues to do so with every one since this film. The smirk is still there but he has managed to drop the douchebag aspect of it. I also must point out a nice turn by veteran genre actor Tony Curran as the train conductor who exuded a sense of the otherworldly and a character who held the answers to the questions brought up by the film.

Since this is a horror film one must mention it’s horrofic aspects and this film fills it’s quota of horror. The scenes where Jones’ Mahogany dispatches the unwary last riders of the train at midnight were shot extremely well and with some visual flairs Kitamura has gained a reputation for. There’s nothing cartoony about these kills unlike other slasher films of it’s type. The kills are done in a brutal fashion as meat tenderizers smash into skulls and backs. Then there are the dressing of the kills which gives meaning to the film’s title. The only part of this film which seemed so out of place, but was necessary in the film’s overall narrative was the make-up effects in the end of the dead-end tunnel where Leon finally sees the truth of why Mahogany has been killing passengers on the subway train. It’s here that the film’s budget shows. At least Kitamura was smart enough to film these scenes in very low light to hide some of the zippers and laces on the costuming.

Overall, The Midnight Meat Train was one horror film in 2008 that deserved to have been seen by more people. It’s a shame that the handling of this film’s distribution by Lionsgate bordered on the criminal as it failed to be screened  by many theaters which led to it’s failure in the box-office. This was a horror film that delivered on the goods without pandering to the torture porn crowd who had begun to dominate the scene due to the popularity of the Saw franchise. Kitamura’s first work in America showed that he brings a fresh new voice to Western horror. The film also ends up becoming the best of all the Books of Blood short story adaptations and shows that Barker’s earlier grand guignol writing phase could be adapted well to the bigscreen.

Here’s to hoping that the failure of this film in the box-office (Again, I say fuck you Lionsgate) doesn’t keep other up-and-coming horror filmmakers from tapping into Barker’s volumes of short stories for their projects. There’s horror gold to be found there and Kitamura’s The Midnight Meat Train was one gleaming example of it.

Review: Conan the Barbarian (dir. by John Milius)

Posted on by Arleigh

Khitan General: “Conan, what is best in life?”
Conan: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!”

1982 premiered what has to be one of my favorite films ever. It was a film that was year’s in the making and had as one of it’s producers the eccentric and powerful Hollywood icon, Dino De Laurentiis. It also starred who was then a very much unknown Austrian bodybuilder-turned-actor in Arnold Schwarzenneger. To round out this unusual cast of characters producing this film would be the maverick screenwriter-director John Milius not to mention a young writer still fresh from Vietnam, Oliver Stone. During it’s production there were conflicts between producer and director as to the tone of the film right up to who should actually play the lead character. It’s a good thing that Milius was the ringmaster of this group of characters as his personality was able to steer things to what finally ended up as the film legions of fans have known and seen throughout the decades since it’s release. Conan the Barbarian was, and still is, a fantasy film of quality which still remains as action-packed and full of flights of fancy in the beginning of 2011 as it did when it premiered in 11982.

Milius and Stone adapted the stories of Robert E. Howard while adding their own flourishes to the iconic Cimmerian character. While many Howard purists were aghast at how these two writers had turned a character who was muscular but also athletic and lean into the hulking muscle-bound one Schwarzenneger inhabited the final result would silence most of these critics. The film kept the more outlandish backstory of Howard’s writing, but left enough to allow the film’s story and background to remain something out of Earth’s past prehistory. It was a film which was part origin tale for the title character, part coming of age film and part revenge story.

The film begins with a sequence narrated by iconic Asian-actor Mako as he tells of the beginnings of his liege and master Conan and the high adventures which would soon follow. Conan the Barbarian actually has little dialogue in the very beginning outside of that narration and a brief interlude between a young Conan and his father about the meaning of the “riddle of steel”. Most of the film’s beginning is quite silent in terms of dialogue. This didn’t matter as film composer Basil Poledouris’ symphonic score lent an air of the operatic to the first ten to fifteen minutes of the film. It’s here we’re introduced to James Earl Jones’ Atlantean-survivor and warlord in Thulsa Doom whose barband scours the land trying to find the meaning to the “riddle of steel”. The destruction of Conan’s village and people is the impetus which would drive the young Conan to stay alive through years of slavery, pit-fighting and banditry. He would have his revenge on Thulsa Doom and along the way he meets up and befriends two other thieves in Subotai (Gerry Lopez) and Valeria (Sandahl Bergman whose presence almost matches Schwarzenneger’s in intensity and confidence).

The rest of the film sees these three having the very tales of high adventures mentioned of in the film’s beginning narration and how an unfortunate, albeit succcesful robbery of a cult temple, leads Conan to the very thing he desires most and that’s to find Thulsa Doom. It’s here we get veteran actor Max Von Sydow as King Osric in a great scene as he tasks Conan and his companions to find and rescue his bewitched daughter from the clutches of Doom. In King Osric we see a character who may or may not be a glimpse into Conan’s future, but as Conan’s chronicler says later in the film that would be a tale told at another time.

Conan the Barbarian is a film that was able to balance both storytelling and action setpieces quite well that one never really gets distracted by the dialogue that at times came off clunky. Plus, what action setpieces they were to behold. From the initial raid by Doom and his men on Conan’s village right up to the final and climactic “Battle of the Mounds” where Doom and his men square off against Conan and his outnumbered friends in an ancient battlefield full of graveyard mounds. The film is quite bloody, but never truly in a gratuitous manner. Blood almost flows like what one would see in comic books. Conan is shown as an almost primal force of nature in his violence. In the end it’s what made the film such a success when it first premiered and decades since. It was Howard’s character (though changed somewhat in the adaptation) through and through and audiences young and old, male and female, would end up loving the film upon watching it.

This film would generate a sequel that had even more action and piled one even more of the fantastical elements of the Howard creation, but fans of the first film consider it of lesser quality though still somewhat entertaining. The film would become the breakout role for Arnold Schwarzenneger and catapult him into action-hero status that would make him one of the best-known and highest paid actor’s in Hollywood for two decades. It would also catapult him to such popularity that some would say it was one of the stepping stones which would earn him seven years as California’s governor at the turn of the new millenium.

In the end, Conan the Barbarian succeeds in giving it’s audience the very tales of myths and high adventures spoken of by Conan’s chronicler. It’s a testament to the work by Milius and Schwarzenneger couple with one of the most beloved and iconic film scores in film history by Basil Poledouris that Conan the Barbarian continues and remains one of the best films of it’s genre and one which helped spawn off not just a sequel but countless of grindhouse and exploitation copies and imitation both good and bad. The film also is a great in that it helped bring audiences to want to learn more about the character of Conan and as a lover of the written word the impact this film had on Howard’s legacy is the best compliment I can give about this film.

12 Trailers In Case of the Rapture, Part Two

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there!  It’s Saturday morning — are you still with us?  If you’re not, don’t worry.  You have all day to get raptured.  Until then, here’s the second part of this weekend’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers.

(And if you haven’t read part one, it’s right here.)

Anyway, let’s waste no more time because who knows how long we’ve got left.

7) Requiem for a Vampire (1971)

Seeing as this could very well be the last things that I ever post or that you ever read pre-Rapture, there’s no way I can’t start things out without including this trailer for Jean Rollin’s unique, twisted, and very French vampire fairy tale, Requiem for a Vampire.  One thing to note here is that when this film was released in the U.S., the American distributor felt the need to emphasize that the two girls were virgins and even went so far as to retitle the film Caged Virgins.  However, the original French print of this film makes no reference to whether or not the girls are virgins and, despite all that happens to them in the film, the girls themselves are never presented as being helpless.  Whenever I feel the need to explain the difference between American culture and French culture, this is one of the examples I always cite.

8 ) Kenner (1969)

Jim Brown is Kenner!  And that’s about all I really know about this film.  Well, that and small bundles of heroin are worth millions…

9) The Three Dimensions of Greta (1973)

I was recently reading about 3-D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy, a movie from Hong Kong that is apparently setting box office records because it’s being advertised as the first 3-D pornographic film.  And, as the linked article shows, a lot of people are reporting that claim as fact.  And they’re wrong.  3-D Sex and Zen might be the first recent 3-D porn film but it’s hardly the first.  There was a spate of 3-D porn films in the mid-70s and one of my favorite trailers (which I can’t post here because 1) it’s too explict and 2) I can’t remember the title of the film) features a stereotypical, curly-haired, guy with a mustache type of porno actor going, “Soon, my giant schlong with be hanging right over the head of that redhead in the 3rd seat in the backrow.”  And of course, I was all like, “Oh my God, can he see me through the screen!?”   Anyway, the 3 Dimensions of Greta was a part of this wave.  This is another one of those trailers that will probably be yanked off YouTube in a few more days (assuming there isn’t a Rapture first).

(By the way, why were so many porno films made about girls named Greta?  I mean, was that name a turn-on?  Were the films of the 70s exclusively made by guys named Hansel?  Seriously, boys are weird.)

10) The Violent Professionals (1973)

They’re violent alright!  Before the Italian exploitation industry devoted itself to cannibals and zombies, they devoted themselves to ripping off The French Connection and The Godfather.  This film from Sergio Martino actually features Don Barzini himself, Richard Conte.

11) Wonderwall (1968)

If I didn’t tell you this film was from 1968, you’d guess it just from watching the trailer.  The soundtrack was done by George Harrison.  Though this film was certainly not designed to be an exploitation film in the way most of the other films featured here were, it definitely is one.

12) The Beyond (1981)

Can you believe I went this long without featuring the trailer for Lucio Fulci’s best known (after Zombi 2) film?  Well, I love Fulci, I love this film, and I was waiting for the right occasion to feature this trailer.  And the end of the possible end of the world seemed like the right time.  Anyway, this is one of those love it or hate it films (and I know that one of our regular readers is not a huge fan of this film but I love him anyway).  At his best, director Lucio Fulci made some of the most visually stunning and dramatically incoherent films ever and never was that more apparent than with the Beyond.  Out of the film’s cast, Catriona MacColl plays one of the few strong women to ever appear in a Fulci film while David Warbeck (a personal fave of mine) is the perfect hero.  My favorite performance in the film (and a lot of this has to do with the fact that she co-starred in one of my favorite movies ever, Beyond the Darkness) is given by Cinzia Monreale, who plays the blind Emily.

And so there you go.  If you do get raptured later today, thank you for reading.  It’s been a pleasure telling you about the films I love and hopefully, someday, we’ll all meet in the beyond.

And if, as I suspect, there is no rapture today, I look forward to sharing even more.

Ciao!

12 Trailers In Case of The Rapture, Part One

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, last night, I was selecting which trailer to feature in the upcoming weekend’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation trailers when it was pointed out to me that the Rapture is apparently scheduled for Saturday.  Now, I have to admit — this kind of annoys me because I really look forward to my Saturdays.  So, if I get raptured, I miss out on my favorite day of the week and if I don’t get raptured …. well, it’s just a lose-lose situation for me.

It also annoys me because it means that, potentially, there won’t be anyone around to read my latest post.  Well, I guess there will be a lot of atheists, agnostics, heathens, Unitarians, Canadians, and (if it turns out the Protestants are correct) Catholics around but I imagine they’ll be more upset about not being raptured.  And since I’m a Catholic but not a very good one, I’ll be screwed twice and not in a fun, college sorta way either. 

Anyway, with all that in mind, I’m going to do an early super-sized collection of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers.  In order to keep things manageable, I’m going to divide this weekend’s (potentially final) edition into two posts of 6 trailers each.

Here’s part one:

1) Super Fuzz (1980)

Since I imagine everyone might be bummed out because either 1) the Rapture happened or 2) the Rapture did not happen, I’m going to start things out with a trailer for Sergio Corbucci’s 1980 comedy Super Fuzz.  Now, to be honest, Super Fuzz doesn’t look that funny but maybe people had a different sense of humor back in 1980.  The important thing is that the movie stars Terrence Hill and it’s “just for the fun of it!”

2) The Exterminator (1980)

But, apparently, crime wasn’t all fun and games in the 80s.  I guess when Super Fuzz couldn’t get the job done, they called in the Exterminator.  No, not Dale Gribble!  That’s King of the Hill, silly.  No, the Exterminator appears to be an urban vigilante of some sort.  I imagine will see a lot of his type post-Rapture.

3) College Girls (1968)

This trailer is for College Girls which appears to be some sort of late 60s softcore film.  I’m not sure that there’s anything really that special about this trailer as much as it’s just always odd to me see these old school sex films and think to myself, “Oh my God, people in black-and-white movies actually do have sex!”  Fair Warning: There’s a lot of nudity in this trailer (actually, it’s pretty much just 4 minutes of nudity) along with some out-dated social attitudes so if that offends you, don’t watch it.  In fact, I’m kinda surprised that YouTube hasn’t taken it down yet.

(By the way, I checked on Amazon to see if this was available on DVD and oh my God, do you have any idea how many movies there with the words “College Girls” in the title!?  Anyway, as far as I can tell, this movie is not available on DVD.  Still, searching through all those countless Girls Gone Wild video releases reminded me why I let out a little cheer of delight when Jerry O’Connell got devoured in Piranha 3-D.)

4) The Devil’s Nightmare (1971)

Assuming that we’re all still on the planet after this weekend, I’m going to have to write a tribute to my fellow redhead Erika Blanc, one of the true icons of the European Grindhouse.  Until then, here’s a trailer for one of her best films, The Devil’s Nightmare. 

5) Slaughterhouse Rock (1988)

I’ve never seen Slaughterhouse Rock though, just judging from the trailer and the year it was made, I imagine that it’s probably not quite as good a film as The Devil’s Nightmare.  Just a feeling I’ve got, mind you.  However, this film apparently has a cult following because of the film’s new wave soundtrack.  I just like the trailer because apparently, choreographer Toni Basil is playing a ghost who can raise the dead by dancing.  I’ve actually tracked down the clip of the dance on YouTube and it’s actually pretty cool.  I’ve mastered the moves but I haven’t managed to raise the dead yet.  But give me time!

6) Convoy (1978)

Finally, seeing as how the world might be ending tomorrow, let’s close out part one with a trailer for a film that can serve as a stand-in for every misguided decision ever made in Hollywood — 1978’s Convoy.  This film, based on that annoying novelty song that some old guy always wants to sing during Kareoke Night, was directed by drug-addled genius Sam Peckinpah and it’s supposedly one of the most cocaine-fueled productions in the history of the movies.  (It was also apparently co-directed by James Coburn.)  Technically, it’s more of a drive-in movie than a grindhouse film but it’s definitely exploitation.

(By the way, I’ve also read that some people think that the truck in the opening of the trailer is supposed to literally be driving through mountains of cocaine.)

Well, that’s part one of this special edition of Lisa Marie’s favorite grindhouse and exploitation trailers.  Part two will be posted early Saturday morning.  Don’t let yourself be whisked off to another state of being without checking it out.

Until then…

Lisa Marie Defrocks Priest (dir by Scott Stewart)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’m posting this review of Priest for one reason and one reason only.  That reason is because I love you and I know that times are tough and I don’t want you to waste your money.  Okay, that’s three reasons but they all come back to the main theme which is that I love you.  Though you can’t see it right now, I just gave you a suggestive little wink right after I typed that last sentence. 

(I’m winking even though, from personal experience, I know that whenever I post a critical review, I end up having to deal with a bunch of flack from people who feel I’m being too “negative.”  And let me ask you this: is that any way to treat someone who loves you?)

So, Priest is the latest movie to come out to feature a stoic, cynical hero making his way across an apocalyptic wasteland so that he can defeat a bunch of vampires.  The stoic hero is played by Paul Bettany who I usually kinda lust after and I understand that by doing crap like this and Legion, it frees him up to do things like play Charles Darwin but seriously, Bettany deserves so much better than the material he’s given here.  The evil villain is played by Karl Urban.  We know that Urban is evil because, whenever his vampire followers are killing people on-screen, Urban moves his hands as if he’s conducting an orchestra.  Like Bettany, Urban deserves a lot better than what he’s given to work with here.

Priest, by the way, is being advertised as being a 3D movie.  Actually, it’s just a 2D movie that was converted to 3D after it was filmed because the folks at Screen Gems think that they can trick you into wasting your money simply adding “3D” to the title of a thoroughly bland and uninteresting film.  As well, probably less than 20 minutes of the film was actually converted to 3D.  The rest of the film remains in 2D.  Seriously, if you’re going to be this cheap, you should at least be shameless about it.  Priest, however, is too bland to feel shame in the first place which prevents it from ever being shameless and, ultimately, from being memorable in any way.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Frankenstein (dir. by J. Searle Dawley)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

There’s literally been hundreds of film adaptations of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.  Everyone from James Whale to Terrence Fisher to Paul Morrissey to Kenneth Branagh to Marcus Nispel has taken a shot at interpreting the legend and the monster’s been played by everyone from Boris Karloff to Christopher Lee to Robert De Niro to Srdjan Zelenovic (who was pretty freaking hot and yummy for a creature stitched together out of random corpses in Flesh for Frankenstein).

However, the very first cinematic version of Frankenstein came out in 1910.  Produced by Thomas Edison’s film company, this 10-minute, silent film starred an actor named Charles Ogle as the monster.  Frankenstein, himself, was played by Augustus Phillips while his fiancée was played by Mary Fuller.  The film was directed by a fellow known as J. Searle Dawley.  Dawley reportedly directed over a hundred silent films and most of them are lost to history.

For about 6 decades, it was assumed that Dawley’s Frankenstein was lost as well.  However, in the mid-70s, it turned out that one remaining print of the film still existed and was apparently sitting up in someone’s attic in Wisconsin.  It also turned out that the film was still in viewable condition.

And now, thanks to a combination of YouTube and the fact that every movie made before 1922 is now in the public domain, I’ve had the opportunity to see this movie for free and even better, here’s your chance to see it for free.  Understand that when I say better, I’m speaking from the point of view of someone who is fascinated by history in general and cinematic history in specific.  In many ways, this film epitomizes everything that makes it difficult for modern audiences to appreciate the excitement once generated by silent film.  The acting is overly theatrical and watching the film makes you appreciate the eventual development of the dolly shot and the zoom lens even more.  Add to that, the music that was selected to accompany this video is way too obvious and heavy-handed.  I would suggest, before watching, that you mute the video and put your own preferred music on instead.

Still, the film does have a lot of historic interest.  I don’t think you can truly judge and appreciate the films of today unless you know something about the films of the past.  Watching a movie like the 1910 Frankenstein not only makes you realize how far films have come as an art form but also how much of the medium’s inherent earnestness has been lost with each advance in technology. 

Anyway, with all that said, here is the 1910 version of Frankenstein…

Review: The Cave of Forgotten Dreams (directed by Werner Herzog)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Do you ever wonder why and how the great artists of the past first decided to become artists in the first place?  Have you ever thought about why, since before recorded history, humanity has always had the same desire to record and recreate their existence in the form of art?  I know I do and that’s why I was excited to see the new 3-D documentary The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

The Cave of Forgotten Dreams is probably the only chance that most of us will ever get to see the oldest, preserved art created by our ancestors.  The Chauvet Cave in Southern France was first discovered in 1994 and it is believed to contain the oldest known cave paintings in existence.  (Some of the paintings are estimated to have first been created 32,000 years ago.)  The Chauvet Cave has been very carefully preserved by the French government and the interior of the cave has remained so fresh and undisturbed that ancient footprints can still be seen on the cave’s floor.

For this documentary, German director Werner Herzog was allowed to film in the cave but, as he shows us, he had to work under several restrictions to preserve the cave.  He could only work with a three-man film crew, he had to stay on a 2-foot metal walkway the entire time, and, because of the high levels of carbon dioxide in the caves, no one was allowed to stay in the cave for more than a few hours at a time.  Once you see the film, you realize that all the restrictions are worth it to preserve the cave.

The paintings in the cave are so well-preserved that they seem as if they could have been painted just a year ago.  While most prehistoric cave art sites have focused on paintings of animals that could be easily hunted — like horses and reindeer, the Chauvet Cave also features paintings of more dangerous animals, like lions, bears, and especially rhinos.  What really struck me was how these paintings were created with a clear aesthetic purpose.  Several of the animals are painted in such a way that creates the illusion of movement.  The most famous of the Chauvet Cave paintings appears to feature a stampede of horses.

As Herzog makes clear in his narration, the perfectly preserved cave paintings show that “cave men” weren’t the simpletons we always assume they were.  Instead, the paintings reveal that they were observant and actually had personality.  One of my favorite parts of the movie was when Herzog and a paleontologist look at one wall that is covered with ancient hand prints.  The paleontologist points out that we can tell one person made all the handprints because the hand has a crooked little finger.  That hand print is also found throughout the entire cave and allows us, 32,000 years later, to follow the man with the crooked finger as he walks through the cave.

Because of the restrictions he had to film under, Herzog had to have his 3-D cameras custom-built and he and his 3-man crew had to put the cameras together inside of the cave.  It was all worth the trouble because the 3-D effects truly make you feel as if you’re standing there in the cave with Herzog.  Unfortunately, we probably won’t ever be able to see the world’s oldest paintings in person but The Cave of Forgotten Dreams is the next best thing.

6 More Trailers From The Girl Who Can Be Your Dream or Your Nightmare

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

How can I be your dream?  Because even though I’m currently all the way in Arlington, celebrating my niece’s 3rd birthday (Happy Birthday, Shannon! — that’s the cool thing about the Internet, this’ll still be here in the future for her to read), I still made the time to put together this weekend’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers.  And I can be your nightmare because … well, that’s my little secret.

Anyway, here’s this weekend’s trailers…

1) Beyond Evil (1980)

Several posts ago, I featured a trailer for a movie called Death Has Blue Eyes.  (I love that title, by the way.  I’m going to call my autobiography Lisa Marie Has Mismatched Eyes.)  Judging from the trailer, this movie could have been called Evil Will Have Wide Lapels.  Speaking of eyes, this is yet another movie from 1980 to feature someone shooting beams from her eyes.  Apparently, eye beams were a big deal in the early 80s.

2) The Dark (1979)

For example, The Dark came out in 1979 and what does it feature?  That’s right — laser beams being shot from the eyes.  Seriously, was this a metaphor for all the cocaine that I’ve heard people were snorting back then? 

3) Parts: The Clonus Horror (1979)

Films in the 70s and the early 80s were apparently not just obsessed with aliens shooting lasers from their eyes.  They were also obsessed with character actor Keenan Wynn.  He was featured in The Dark and, that same year, he was also featured in Parts: The Clonus Horror.  As for Clonus Horror, I’m guessing that it must be a grindhouse version of one of last year’s best films, Never Let Me Go.

4) The Clones (1973)

Speaking of clones, here’s the trailer for The Clones.  Now, some people have claimed that this might be the most boring trailer ever but I kinda like it just because I think the constant switching from the overly dry voice over to the more surreal scenes of the film creates a kinda neat effect.  Believe it or not, I actually have a battered old VHS copy of this film.  And it’s not half bad.  It ends with this really neat gunfight at an abandoned amusement park that — for some reason — just happens to be sitting out in the middle of Death Valley.  Oh, and John Drew Barrymore is in it, acting like John Drew Barrymore.  (I also love the fact that apparently, cloning was such a new concept at this point that the trailer had to include a guide to make sure people understood how to properly pronounce the word.)

5) Rituals (1977)

Actually, I guess the 70s most have been scary all around because apparently, not even Hal Holbrook was safe.  I’ve heard good things about this movie though I’ve never actually seen it.  I know Code Red announced a DVD release but is Code Red even in business anymore?  It’s difficult to keep track.  Anyway, this looks like a good movie to have on hand if I ever have to justify why I don’t camp.

6) Venus In Furs (196?)

Well, the 70s are pretty icky, huh?  Maybe it’d be better if we took our cinematic time machine back to the 60s, when this adaptation of the Marquis De Sade’s Venus in Furs was apparently made and released.  I don’t know much about this film beyond the fact that it is not to be confused with Jess Franco’s Venus in Furs, which starred James Darren and Klaus Kinksi.