Here’s the official trailer for Alien: Romulus, which director Fede Alvarez has promised will be a return to the genre’s roots as a haunted house movie in space. We’ll see how that goes. The trailer certainly is not lacking in atmosphere.
Category Archives: Film
Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join us for Immortal Combat and Lair of the White Worm!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasionally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.
Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1994’s Immortal Combat, selected and hosted by Sweet Emmy Cat!
Following #MondayActionMovie, Brad and Sierra will be hosting the #MondayMuggers live tweet. We will be watching The Lair of the White Worm!
It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Immortal Combat on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! Then, at 10 pm et, switch over to Twitter and Prime, start The Lair of the White Worm, and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag! The live tweet community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Retro Television Review: Getting Away From It All (dir by Lee Philips)
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1972’s Getting Away From It All! It can be viewed on YouTube.
For Fred Clark (Larry Hagman) and Mark Selby (Gary Collins), life is New York City just isn’t that much fun anymore. The weather is terrible. The traffic cannot be navigated. The only people ruder than the cabbies are the doormen. Fred and Mark have come up with the perfect plan. They’ve decided to move to a small country town and purchase a house on a small island. In fact, they’re going to buy the entire island! It’s surprisingly cheap. Fred and Mark don’t ever really stop to wonder why the island is available for so little money. Seriously, if you’re buying an island, you should probably ask yourself those questions.
Mark’s wife, Alice (E.J. Peaker), is enthusiastic about the idea. Less excited is Fred’s wife, Helen (Barbara Feldon). Helen enjoys living in the city and having a nice job in an office building. She gets along with her boss (played by Jim Backus, one of many veteran actors to show up in a small role in this film). Perhaps hoping that Fred will change his mind once he’s confronted with the reality of actually living in the country, Helen finally gives in.
It does turn out that the island is not quite the paradise that Fred and Mark were expecting. The only way to get out to the island is in a leaky rowboat. The house is falling apart and, as Helen is disgusted to learn, it also doesn’t have indoor plumbing. There’s no electricity either but fortunately, the local handyman is working on it. His name is Herbie and he’s played by a very young and thin Randy Quaid. If you’ve ever wanted to hear Randy Quaid speak with an exaggerated New England accent, this is the film for you. There’s nothing convincing about Quaid’s accent but it still seems only fair, considering all of the Yankee actors who have butchered the Southern accent over the years.
Just when it looks like Fred and Mark have managed to make the Island livable, they get a disturbing letter. As the new owners of the Island, they owe 20 years worth of back taxes. As Fred puts it, the tax bill is more than either of them can afford. If they can’t raise the money, the town will take back the Island. Fred and Mark consider trying to get jobs but it turns out that neither one of them knows much about being fisherman. They then decide to charm the town into nullifying the tax bill. That turns out to be more difficult than either man imagines.
Getting Away From It All is a comedy that deals with a universal theme, the desire to escape from the harshness of everyday life and find a perfect place to which to escape. That said, the film’s main reason for existing is a parade of comedic cameos. Jim Backus, Vivian Vance, Joe E. Ross, Burgess Meredith, Paul Hartman, and J. Pat O’Malley all appear in small roles, appearing just long enough for 1972 viewers to say, “Hey, I recognize that person!” The end result is a rather shallow film that has a few chuckle-worthy moments. (Again, Randy Quaid pretending to be from Maine has to be worth something.)
In the end, for all of the film’s celebration of getting away from it all, it’s hard not to feel that Gary, Mark, Alice, and Helen will all end up back in Manhattan sooner than later. Some people are just city folks.
The Black Hole, Short-Film Review (Dir. Philip Sansom, Olly Williams)
Gravity …..
No not that gravity. The gravity that makes you feel fat like Your Mom.
Specifically, black holes- A star is big – Really big. So, I’m tryin to get close the center of this star like everyone does with Your Mom. I’m getting closer to this star’s center, but it’s radius is REALLY big so I’m feelin some gravity, but when it collapses on itself and turns into a black hole- there’s serious gravity ahead. Before, the star was 2 million millions wide like Your Mom. Now, this star is just a few miles wide like Your Mom wishes she could be. So now, I can get WAAAAAY closer to the star’s center because the radius is tiny tiny tiny now. Therefore, this black hole will pull me harder than before like way harder just like Your Mom.
Before I was two million miles from the center because stars are what what scientists call BIG. Now, I can get right up on that star’s center like everyone does with Your Mom. As I get closer and closer to the center, I can’t get away because the pull is so strong like Your Mom’s grip. In fact, the light around me is curving and can’t get away. So, I will look like I’m frozen in a photograph like this Pearl Jam song:
This short film – poorly depicts a black hole, but it accurately depicts GREED. A man prints out a hole that is black, but not a Black Hole because we’d all be dead. He uses it to steal from his company by placing a hole that is black over the company’s safe with a tiny bit of tape. He takes out a bunch weird European looking monopoly currency, which checks as legit because Europeans are weird. Wanting to grab as much as he can, like everyone does with Your Mom, he climbs in the safe but the hole that is black falls off the safe, trapping him inside.
I tricked you into learning! HA!
The Elevator, Short-Film Review
Two for Two!!!! Unreal! I haven’t found two great short-films in a row in like two years! It has a clear joke, no words, told in pictures, and is just well done!
This short is only 3 minutes, but you appreciated the angst! This random man, who is very thin, gets on an elevator with a max capacity of 2000lbs. The elevator rapidly gains passengers of the more expansive variety. As a formerly fat person, I felt for the guy because I remember when my body took up too much space – especially on airplanes. As I would approach my row and seat, I would see a look of fear and disappointment.
It’s hard to be fat, but it can be beaten! In this man’s case, he is rapidly calculating how many more pounds of humanity can enter the elevator before he plunges to his death!
This is a gem!
The Gunfighter, Short-Film Review, (Dir. Eric Kissack, Writer Kevin Tenglin)
There are many times when I watch a short-film with FEAR because so many are just terrible. “The Gunfighter” is VERY funny and I put it in the MUST WATCH category. For my dedicated readers, you know that recommending a film as a Must Watch is a small club. The Gunfighter won a number of awards, however, very few of the actors or directors went on to a big career, which is a real shame. See, I can still pull depression from the jaws of happiness. I think I need a Rx.
The Gunfighter takes the Western and gives the characters the ability to hear the Narrator (Nick Offerman). This creates a lot of comedy because the narrator is determined to have everyone in the saloon kill each other. I know this is dark, but it is HILARIOUS! The narrator reveals who is having affairs with each other, who is having sex with a man’s favorite sheep, and a prostitute who was given a disease from a man who has sex with a man’s favorite sheep.
This is definitely a short-film to watch …. like right now!
The Life of Death, Short-Film Review (Dir. Marcin Dubinec)
Death has been on my mind A LOT the past several months. I recently lost my Uncle and he was a lot closer to a Dad than what I was assigned. My uncle lived an authentic life and was OUT when it was not okay to be out, but in the words of the philosopher Bruce Springsteen- “Closets are for Hangers.” Sadly, he suffered a great deal, but he faced Death like a Man.
In this short, Death has a life- A really really really banal life. He acts out in school, gets drunk in college, marries, and gets run over by a car. Actually, how he died was the most interesting event that happened to Death.
I’m really trying to be nice here, but sometimes I just can’t. You might notice that I tagged Alex Magana; well, he makes terrible short films too and I feel like Alex should get a royalty when someone else spits out a crappy film. Apparently, Marcin won some awards for THIS??! So ugggghhh, I guess people like terrible things sometimes.
Where did the short go right? It had a beginning, middle, and an end. I can write that without a doubt that this was a film that was made. Also, this film had a script where words were written down. I can assume that real dollars were spent to make this…film, which is fine. I mean, well people can buy all sorts of things with cash. It should be noted that as a society we forbid people to spend money on certain things: murder, heroin, but maybe this could be considered to make that list…let’s not rule that out. He did murder my time and patience.
Where did it go wrong? It was boring. I really just did not care that Death had a boring life or that he had children. If anything, I thought it was tacky. I really didn’t find the writing really moving. I never cared about Death as a “Person”. I did Chuckle Out Loud COL once, but that’s it. You could say, Case, you’re down and grieving; of course, you’ll hate this, BUT I argue that this short-film is still crap and the filmmaker is not great and should do something else with his time. Decoupage? Extreme Couponing? Boxing? Whatever, just stop bothering us.
I once wrote that we could stop Alex Magana from making films – he can only be so strong and if we ganged up and brought a tall guy, we could taunt him by holding his camera up really high and make him futilely jump for it. There’s basically TWO Alex Magana’s now; so, we might have to bring more people into stopping them, but we can do this! Left, Right, Libertarian, or Vegetarian let’s stop them- TOGETHER!
43,000 Feet, Short Film Review by Case Wright (Dir. Campbell Hooper, Written by Matt Harris)
It’s good to see you again. I’ve been away, but now I’m going to take you back in time. All the back to 2012. Yes, things kinda sucked then too, but not as much as for this protagonist especially because he is about to fall from a plane at 43,000 Feet. I have to give him credit- he died like a Man – calm, cool, and collected *tips hat.* May we all go out with such courage and dignity.
This short is hosted by Dust, a Youtube channel that focuses on Science Fiction, but I guess this counts because …. He talks about math? Whether this counts as Science Fiction or not (it does NOT), it is still a fun short film. John Wilkins (Dylan Pharazyn) calculated how long he has before his body impacts the earth from 43,000 feet. It appears that he calculated this before being blown out of the plane.
John contemplates how he should fall to lessen his impact on the head, what he should say to the press if he survives, and his encounter with a homeless person. What got to me was that at no point did he express fear. He stared down death and normally you would think of a STEM person being weaker or less manly, but his calculations calmed him. I have to write that math calms me down too. I know a number of people who had bad experiences with math, but math has an ability of calm because it forces order from chaos. There is no possibly of a sequel for this Man, but his ability to look at his impending death within the structure of mathematics spared him anguish because Math is order and can be the remedy for fear.
I absolutely recommend this film, especially if you want to give math a second chance.
Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us For The New Barbarians and Hacksaw Ridge!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasion ally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.
Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be The New Barbarians (1983), from director Enzo Castellari!
Then, on twitter, #MondayMuggers will be showing 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge! The film is on Prime and it starts at 10 pm et!
It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up The New Barbarians on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! Then switch over to twitter, pull Hacksaw Ridge up on Prime, and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag!
Enjoy!
Retro Television Review: Indict & Convict (dir by Boris Sagal)
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1974’s Indict & Convict! It can be viewed on YouTube.
There’s been a murder!
The wife of Assistant District Attorney Sam Belden (William Shatner) has been found, shot to death. Making things especially awkward is that the body of her lover is found next to her. Though Belden is the obvious suspect, he has an alibi for the time of the murders. He claims that he was in Las Vegas, attending a convention. Two gas station attendants remember seeing him filling up his car with gas at around the same time that his wife and her lover was being shot.
Attorney General Timothy Fitzgerald (Ed Flanders) is not so sure that Belden is innocent. He instructs two of his top prosecutors to check out Belden’s story and to see if there’s enough evidence to not only indict but also to convict. Bob Matthews (George Grizzard) is a veteran prosecutor and he’s the one who narrates the story for us. Assisting him is Mike Belano, who is played by the always likable Reni Santoni. Just three years before this movie aired, Santoni played Harry Callahan’s partner in Dirty Harry. There was just something about Santoni’s friendly but determined demeanor that made him perfect the role of the supportive partner or assistant.
The film is very much a legal procedural, with the emphasis on not only the investigation but also on the strategies and the techniques that are used in the courtroom by Matthews and defense attorney DeWitt Foster (Eli Wallach). In many ways, it feels like a forerunner to Law & Order. Usually, I love court procedurals but Indict & Convict was a bit too slow and high-minded for its own good. Maybe it’s because I’ve been spoiled by all of the legal shows that I’ve seen but I have to admit that I spent a good deal of Indict & Convict wanting the prosecutors to get on with it. Flanders, Grizzard, Santoni, and Wallach were all ideally cast but the film itself sometimes got bogged down with all the debate about the best way to win a conviction. It’s a shame because the story itself is an intriguing one and I actually enjoyed the movie’s use of spinning newspaper headlines to let us know what had happened in between scenes. Also, as a classic film fan, I enjoyed seeing Myrna Loy as the judge. She didn’t get to do much other than say, “Sustained” and “Overruled,” but still …. Myrna Loy!
Most people who watch this film will probably do so out of the hope of seeing some trademark Shatner overacting. William Shatner doesn’t actually get to say much in this film. He spends most of the running time sitting silently at the defense table. Towards the end, he does finally get a chance to deliver a brief speech and it’s everything you could hope for. Shatner takes dramatic pauses. Shatner emphasizes random words. Every line is delivered with the subtext of, “Pay attention, Emmy voters!” Eventually, Shatner would learn the value of laughing at oneself but apparently, that lesson had not yet been learned when he did Indict & Convict.
Through the Shattered Lens