A Blast From The Past: Duck and Cover

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s face facts. We live in a scary world and it’s not getting any safer. However, before we all give up on the future, maybe we should take a look at the past. With that in mind, it’s my pleasure to share the 1951 educational short film Duck and Cover.

Seriously, if Bert the Turtle can survive then I think there might be hope for us all…

This is the epitome of one of those things that simply has to be seen to be believed. That said, if I was a child in the 50s, I think Duck and Cover would have provided me with some comfort. After all, Bert is just so cute and the Duck and Cover song is kinda catchy.

The SPM Trilogy Revisited : “Slumber Party Massacre III”

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

What the heck, let’s wrap this up, shall we?

While the appearance of Slumber Party II may have surprised some being that it came five years after the original, it’s safe to say that when Roger Corman unleashed Slumber Party Massacre III on the direct-to-video market in 1990, nobody was shocked in the least.

Shot primarily at one beach location and one residential home for exteriors, and with all the interiors being filmed at Corman’s Venice, California studio, the third installment in the SPM series cost a grand total of $350,000 and took somewhere in the neighborhood of one week to get “in the can,” as the saying goes, so yeah — it’s cheap , quick stuff we’re talking about here.

That being said, that certainly doesn’t mean it’s bad. What starts as a pretty bog-standard tale of stereotypical SoCal bimbo Diane (Brandi Burkett) and her friends ( a crew that features a few young-at-the-time ladies, such as Hope Marie Carlton, Maria Ford, and Keely Christian, whose faces — and other parts — you may recognize from similar early-90s “slasher”/sexploitation fare) playing volleyball at the beach and then returning to Diane’s parents’ place for a weekend slumber party, where they are set upon, in turn, by their prankster-ish boyfriends, a voyeuristic “nosy neighbor” type, a mute Albino creepy dude, and finally a pyscho killer with a power drill, actually morphs somewhere along the way into a flick with a pretty wickedly sadistic, even black-hearted, sense of humor — with a pretty heavy dose of the misogyny you’ve come to expect from these things thrown in, of course.

As a brief case in point, instead of the standard bathtub-electrocution with either a hair dryer or toaster, in SPM III one of the nubile young co-eds is dispatched in the tub by means of a vibrator gone haywire! Nasty stuff, to be sure, but clearly not something that takes itself too terribly seriously while it’s dishing out its feminist-unfriendly — hell, female-unfriendly — goods.

As with the previous two entries in this series, Corman again opted for an all-female writing and directing team here in order, one would assume, to help deflect any criticism this one might bet from the usual quarters (not that very many people were paying attention by this point), with those duties falling to Catherine Cyran (one of his regular screenwriters at the time) and Sally Mattison (a semi-veteran of Hollywood’s low-budget fringes best known for her work as a producer), respectively, and while it’s fair to say that this film is the most “seems-like-it-coulda-been-directed-by-a-man-ish” of the bunch, given that it ups the ante a bit in terms of its misogyny and plays it much “straighter,” if you will, than its predecessors in terms of sticking to the standard and much-maligned slasher formula, at the end of the day it’s still a pretty tongue-in-cheek affair that’s just a bit more self-indulgent and gratuitous in terms of the T&A and overall mean-spiritedness.

To their absolute, credit, though, Mattison and Cyran, while carrying over the blatant phallo-centrism of the whole power drill thing, at least decide to throw in a bit of “whodunit?”-style mystery into the proceedings vis a vis their killer’s identity. Yes, folks, for the first time in a Slumber Party Massacre movie, the psycho might actually have some motivation for his murder spree here!

Or, ya know, he might turn out to be just some random stranger after all. I guess I won’t “spoil” anything in case you haven’t actually seen it. I will say, however, that the mystery angle isn’t a particularly involving one — but hell, at least it’s there. We’ve already firmly established that “take what you can get” is the order of business with these things, haven’t we? The same — ahem! — “philosophy” applies here.

All in all, though, you do get the sense that everyone involved here is giving it their best go on what they’ve got — which admittedly isn’t much in terms of time, talent, and money — but I’d rather watch so-called “D-listers” actually try than “A-listers” sleepwalking through yet another mega-budget production any day of the week. Slumber Party Massacre III may not be particularly ambitious stuff by any stretch, but it’s put together and performed by people who gave an honest day’s effort at the office. That’s worth a little something right there, and after the absolute clusterfuck of wanna-be “trippy-ness” in the second flick, the “return to roots” sensibility in this one is very welcome indeed.

As always, the third and final outing (to date) in the SPM “oeuvre” is available on DVD from Shout! Factory packed together with its older celluloid sisters in a two-disc set under the heading “The Slumber Party Massacre Collection,” part of the “Roger Corman’s Cult Classics” series. It’s presented full-frame with 2.0 stereo sound — and while if there’s been any remastering done with either it’s certainly minimal, the whole thing looks and sounds generally decent enough. Extras include a good little “making-of” featurette, a feature-length commentary with director Mattison, the original trailer, a few trailers for other titles in the Corman series, a poster and still gallery, and a liner notes booklet by Slumber Party Massacre fanatic/filmmaker Jason Paul Collum. A very comprehensive package well worth your time.

Look, who are we kidding? This isn’t a movie out to set the world on fire — hell, it’s not even out to set the DTV slasher world on fire. It’s there to give two distinct parties their money’s worth — Roger Corman and you, the viewer. It manages to deliver on both fronts, even if just barely. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily worthy of a ton of respect, but it’s not worthy of any sort of scorn, either. Don’t expect too damn much, and you’ll walk away satisfied.

Not, I suppose, that anyone who might be inclined to “expect much” as far as their entertainment choices go is even watching this in the first place.

Film Review: Mr. Freedom (dir by William Klein)

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Mr. Freedom, William Klein’s 1968 political satire, is a strange one.

The film opens with a riot in the inner city. A scowling Southern sheriff (played by John Abbey) goes into his apartment and, when he comes back out, he’s transformed into Mr. Freedom, a patriotic super hero whose is costumed in a red, white, and blue football uniform. Mr. Freedom proceeds to invade a black household where, while firing two guns, he sings his theme song.

“F-R-Double E-Double D-OM! FREEDDOM!”

That’s right, he misspelled freedom.

It turns out that Mr. Freedom works for Freedom, Inc. His boss is Dr. Freedom (played by Donald Pleasance) who communicates with Mr. Freedom via a flickering TV screen. Dr. Freedom is concerned that France is on the verge of turning communist and he sends Mr. Freedom to Paris in order to “win the hearts and minds” of the French.

William Klein, himself, was an American expatriate who lived in France and is best known for being both a fashion photographer and a documentarian. His view of America is epitomized by the sight of Mr. Freedom (wearing a gigantic cowboy hat) wandering around Paris and assaulting random tourists. With the help of a prostitute played by Delphine Seyrig, Mr. Freedom attempts to rally the French to the side of freedom and to defeat the schemes of Red China Man. When the French don’t prove enthusiastic enough, Mr. Freedom responds by making plans to blow the country up.

Unlike a lot of left-wing films, which celebrate the American establishment by pretending to attack it, Mr. Freedom is sincere in its politics. It’s obvious that William Klein set out to make the most anti-American film that he could and he succeeded. Mr. Freedom is an irredeemable character. When the film begins, Mr. Freedom is quickly established as being an idiot and, at the end of the film, he has somehow become an even bigger idiot. Perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of people over at the imdb have compared Mr. Freedom’s quest to conquer France to America’s current policy towards the Middle East.

If you’ve read some of my previous reviews, you would be justified in expecting that this is where I would condemn Mr. Freedom for being heavy-handed and tediously left-wing. After all, I’m the girl who condemned Avatar for being predictable environmental propaganda. And yes, I did find Mr. Freedom to be heavy-handed but I actually enjoyed it.

Even if you didn’t know that William Klein was an award-winning photographer both before and after he started making films, you would be able to guess it after taking one look at Mr. Freedom. The film’s narrative is undeniably uneven but visually, it’s a feast for the eyes. From the costumes worn by Mr. Freedom and his disciples to the design of Mr. Freedom’s secret headquarters, the screen is full of bold, primary colors and Klein shows a taste and appreciation for the bizarre that makes it easier to deal with the film’s moments of peachiness. Perhaps my favorite scene in the film involves Mr. Freedom confronting Red China Man. Red China Man, it turns out, is a gigantic dragon-shaped balloon.

See Mr. Freedom.

There’s nothing else like it.

What Lisa Marie and the Snarkalecs Watched Last Night #71: End of the World (dir by Steven R. Monroe)

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, the Snarkalecs and I watched the SyFy original movie, End of the World. For the next two hours, we literally dominated twitter as we shared our mutual, nearly obsessive love for this film. Soon, #EndOfTheWorld was a trending topic and, I’m happy to say, that ended up freaking out a lot of paranoid people who weren’t watching SyFy.

All in all, it was a pretty good night.

Why Were We Watching It?

Because that’s what the Snarkalecs do. We watch movies on SyFy and we usually get all snarky about them. However, it was difficult to be snarky about End of the World because the people who made End of The World were obviously very snarky themselves.

What Was It About?

The world’s being bombarded by chunks of electromagnetic space debris. Or something like that. Really, the important thing to know is that the world’s about to end and it’s up to two video store clerks (played by two titans of nerdy adorability, Greg Grunberg and Neil Grayston) to save it. Their solution involves breaking a sci-fi writer named Doc Brown (Brad Dourif) out of a mental asylum and Greg Grunberg working on a nuclear missile with a power drill.

However, to be honest, the plot is just a distraction. The storyline is mostly used as an excuse to make clever references to nearly ever science fiction movie ever made. Some of the references are obvious and some of them are a bit more subtle but, ultimately, they are what this movie is truly about.

What Worked?

It all worked.

Seriously, End of the World is the best film that I’ve ever seen on SyFy. It was a film that was obviously made by genre fans for genre fans and, as a result, it felt like a belated Valentine’s Day present from the SyFy network to its viewers.

As I previously mentioned, the entire film is basically a collection of references and homages to other science fiction films. While this is a technique that I’ve found cloying when used by other films, End of the World struck exactly the right tone. The references were appreciative without over going overboard and, even more importantly, they were cleverly deployed throughout the film. They moved the film forward and seemed to grow organically out of the action onscreen. As a result, even with all the references, the film itself never felt heavy-handed.

Greg Grunberg is one of those great actors who can perfectly sell both comedy and drama. His talents were on perfect display last night. Perhaps the best Grunberg line of the night was, “It’s a monologue! MONO!”

Brad Dourif didn’t have a lot of screentime but seriously, he was just adorable.

Really, the whole film was just adorable.

What Did Not Work?

It all worked.

“Oh my God! Just Like me!” Moments

Much like the character of Selena (Caroline Cave), I think Greg Grunberg’s pretty awesome.

Lessons Learned

The geeks shall inherit the Earth (but only after the Redheads are finished with it).

Film Review: Django Kill (dir. by Giulio Questi)

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Released in 1967 and directed by Giulio Questi, Django Kill is one of the essential spaghetti westerns.

The film opens with a man literally clawing his way out of a shallow grave. Played by Tomas Milian and known as the Stranger, the man is a Mexican outlaw who has been buried out in the middle of the desert. Two sympathetic Indians discover the Stranger and, while they nurse him back to health, he has several flashbacks that explain how he came to be buried alive.

The Stranger was a member of a gang of thieves who stole a cargo of gold. However, the Americans in the gang betrayed the Mexicans, gunning them down and fleeing with the gold. The Indians agree to help the Stranger find the rest of his gang on the condition that the Stranger tell them what it was like to be dead.

The Stranger’s former gang, meanwhile, has arrived at a desolate town known as Unhappy Place. From the minute that the gang first rides into town, we know that there’s something sinister about Unhappy Place. A naked child stands in the middle of the street while another is used as a footrest by one of the adults. A distraught woman watches them from behind a barred window. A lame hedgehog drags itself across the dusty street. As soon as the gang stops at the local saloon, the locals see the gold that they’re carrying and, in a shockingly brutal scene, the townspeople lynch the outlaws.

While this is going on, the Stranger rides into town. Spotting the last living outlaw, the Stranger proceeds to gun him down. In one of the film’s more infamous scenes, when the townspeople learn that the Stranger is using gold bullets, they proceed to literally rip the outlaw to pieces in an effort to retrieve the golden bullets.

With the outlaws dead, the townspeople claim the gold for themselves. The Stranger, who was apparently more interested in revenge than getting the gold, stays in town and watches as things get increasingly weird.

How weird?

Well, how about the fact that the Stranger ends up having a romance with a crazy woman who spends her days trapped behind a locked door?

Or how about the fact that the Stranger finds himself in the middle of a power struggle between the townspeople and the flamboyantly homosexual Zorro (played, in grandly villainous fashion, by Roberto Camardiel) who rides into town with a gang of cowboys who are all dressed in black outfits with white embroidery? In another one of the film’s infamous scenes, Zorro and his cowboys kidnap and gang rape the son of the town’s saloonkeeper.

(A young Ray Lovelock, who would go on to be one of the best actors to regularly work in Italian exploitation plays the son.)

Or how about the scene where Zorro plays with a bunch of Civil War figures while arguing with his pet parrot? When Zorro offers the parrot a drink, the parrot replies, “I want more!”

Or, how about the fact that the Stranger, at one point, has to deal with several vampire bats while literally hanging from a cross?

Graphically violent and full of bizarre and disturbing imagery, Django Kill is one of the strangest westerns ever made and that strangeness keeps the film interesting even when the story doesn’t make much sense. While Django Kill may not be the masterpiece that several claim it to (the film runs on a bit long and the dubbing of the English language version was absolutely terrible), it’s still one of the most compulsively watchable films that I’ve ever seen. Just when you think the film can’t get any stranger, it does.

Django Kill was filmed under the title of If You Live, Shoot! However, in a move typical of Italian cinema, the film was retitled to take advantage of the popularity of Sergio Corbucci’s Django. The implication, of course, is that Tomas Milian is playing the same character here that Franco Nero played in Corbucci’s film. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Even in the crudely dubbed English version of the film, Milian is never referred to by name. Instead, he’s simply known as the Stranger and, appropriately enough, the film feels more like a surreal take on Sergio Leone’s Dollar trilogy as opposed to being a part of the Django series.

That said, regardless of whether it’s a legitimate Django film or not, Django Kill …. If You Live, Shoot! is more than worth watching. In fact, it’s essential for anyone who loves Italian exploitation films.

Scenes That I Love: The End of Zabriskie Point

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Released in 1970, Zabriskie Point was the great Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s attempt to make the definitive film about both America and the counterculture. While most critics feel that Antonioni failed on both counts, it is also generally agreed that he captured some beautiful images of an America struggling to definite itself culturally.

The film ends with one of Antonioni’s most iconic images as hippie-turned-revolutionary Daria Halprin watches as her lover’s house explodes. Is what Daria sees real or is she just fantasizing about the end of capitalism? Antonioni leaves the answer up to the viewer.

The SPM Trilogy Revisited : “Slumber Party Massacre II”

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

By 1987, I’m not sure that anyone was expecting Roger Corman to trot out a sequel to The Slumber Party Massacre. Sure, the movie had gained something of a cult following thanks to the VHS rental market (it did rather middling business at the box office upon its initial release), but it had been a few years and since most “slasher” sequels at the time tended to pop up within a year or two of the first flick (heck, that’s pretty much still the case), I think it’s pretty safe to say that the general feeling at the time was that SPM was a one-and-done deal.

We all should have known better, or course. When you’ve got an ultra-simple premise that can be filmed cheaply and quickly using just a couple of different locations, and the original turned a profit (however modest), then there’s no way Corman’s not gonna go back to that well at some point. And so it came to pass that, five years on from its progenitor, Slumber Party Massacre II saw the light of day.

Needless to say, times had changed in the half-decade between the two films. While not strictly a straight-to-video release since Corman was still pulling together limited theatrical runs for all his product at the time (mostly in the Southern California area), those were really just a clevver way to essentially pull “focus group” test audiences together (and have them pay for the privilege of being guinea pigs rather than vice-versa!) to make sure the end result more or less had the effect on folks that it was supposed to. Pretty much all the action for the second Slumber Party Massacre was going to be on home video, and ol’ Roger knew it — hence a smaller cast, fewer sets, and, I’m willing to bet, probably an even smaller budget (at least in terms of adjusted-for-inflation dollars). Heck, this thing even clocks in with a slightly shorter run time than its predecessor, if you can believe that, at a paltry 75 minutes!

One thing about the SPM modus operandi that Corman didn’t change, though, was hiring a young, relatively fresh-outta-film-school woman to direct the thing, his hire in those case being one Deborah Brock, who also wrote the script.

To Brock’s credit, she tried to do something a little bit different — and, dare I say, maybe even a little bit more ambitious — than the average low-budget, essentially-DTV slasher sequel allows for with this movie. To her discredit, what she tried doesn’t exactly work. To wit:

Our story here centers around a young gal named Courtney (Crystal Bernard, who would go on to star on the long-running TV sitcom Wings), who just so happens to be the younger sister of the “final girl” from the first Slumber Party Massacre flick. Courtney fronts an all-girl rock band (gotta vary it up from the high school basketball team premise at least a little bit) that’s headed to a rental condo for weekend of fun n’ semi-naked games with their boyfriends. There’s just one problem, though — she’s also been suffering from horribly vivid nightmares involving things like refrigerated whole chickens coming to life and her friend’s acne boiling, pulsating, throbbing, and eventually exploding all over the place. The one constant in all of these bad dreams, though, is an unnamed “devil rocker” (he’s referred to in the credits only as the “Driller Killer” and is played by Atanas Ilitch, who looks more than just a bit like a young Andrew Dice Clay) who terrorizes Courtney and her gal pals with a murderously-retrofitted guitar that’s equipped with a long, uber- phallic (again) power-drill for a neck.

Needless to say, once the weekend revelries get going, things don’t go quite as planned, and Courtney, her fellow girl-group rockers, and their fellas are soon experiencing a very violent reduction in their numbers at the hands of the “driller killer,” who turns out to be very real indeed.

Or is he? And that, my friends, is the crux of Slumber Party II‘s problem in a nutshell (besides the fact that the “real” killings don’t start taking place until just after the halfway point of the flick). At first, the whole “is this the real life, is this just fantasy?” (sorry, Freddie!) gimmick is kinda neat, but it definitely starts to wear on the average viewer’s nerves after awhile, and Brock’s decision not to delineate in much of any way what’s actual from what isn’t ultimately makes for kind of a confusing experience. Still, you figure that in a genre this (for the most part) cut-and-dried, things are bound to make sense by the end, right?

Well, not so fast. Brock throws us not one, not two, but three rapid-fire concluding twists that never end up leaving us with a satisfactory explanation as to whether or not the events we’ve just witnessed “really” happened or not. When we finally learn that Courtney’s locked up in a loony bin, three distinct possibilities emerge — either it was all a dream-within-a-dream in her disturbed mind, or she killed all her friends and this “driller killer” is some alternate persona she’s created in order to absolve herself of any guilt, or it all actually happened, she survived, and the ordeal drove her over the brink. And when the “driller killer” pops up again right before the credits roll, this time in the sanitarium with Courtney, Brock doesn’t in the least bit clue us in as to whether he’s there in the flesh or only in her erstwhile heroine’s admittedly traumatized psyche.

Some folks might find this lack of anything even resembling a concrete resolution interesting, maybe even a bit exciting. Hell, we all like to think for ourselves, right? Unfortunately, Courtney and her cohorts are such a largely uninteresting lot that most of us can’t really be bothered to care all that much about solving this film’s wanna-be-mind-fucking puzzle. And the “driller killer” himself is so OTT, and stripped of any pretense of motivation for his murder n’ mayhem, that he never seems “real” enough to make the purported “mystery” all that involving. The whole thing rings both flat and hollow to this wannabe-critic, at the very least.

Like the other pics in this soon-to-be-concluded little mini-round-up we’re doing here, Slumber Party Massacre II is available on a two-DVD set from Shout! Factory entitled, appropriately enough, “The Slumber Party Massacre Collection,” which is part of their larger “Roger Corman’s Cult Classics” series. It’s sporting a nicely-remastered widescreen transfer, has good 2.0 stereo sound, and there are extras aplenty including a fairly comprehensive little “making-of” featurette, a full-length commentary from writer/director Brock, a poster and still image gallery, the original theatrical trailer, some trailers for other flicks in this series, and a liner notes booklet by SPM historian Jason Paul Collum. While I may not consider this a great movie by any means, this is certainly a great DVD package.

Still, ya know what? Flaws n’ all, I’d still go so far as to say that the film itself is at least worth a look. I do admire Brock for her willingness to break the mold and think outside of the usual slasher box. Her intentions for this flick strike me as being pretty solid, and as almost-innovative as her budget would allow for — she just fails in her execution. And let’s face it — a slasher movie that can’t execute properly is saddled with a problem it can never overcome.

Scenes That I Love: Charles Freck Gets A Good Wine in A Scanner Darkly

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2006, Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly is one of the unacknowledged great films of the past ten years. The scene below, featuring Rory Cochrane as the hapless Charles Freck, is all the stronger for being adapted almost word-for-word from Philip K. Dick’s source novel.

Scenes That I Love: Django Reveals What’s In His Coffin

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This scene (which, be warned, is a huge spoiler) is from the original Django (1966) and features the one and only Franco Nero. If you liked Django Unchained, you’ll love Django.

Lisa Marie Reviews The Oscar Nominees: The Oscar (dir by Russel Rouse)

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I stayed up way too late last night but it was totally worth it because I was watching a film from 1966, The Oscar.

Among those of us who love bad and campy movies from the 50s and 60s, The Oscar is a legendary film. It has a reputation for being one of best so bad-its-good-films ever made. The Oscar is a film that I’ve read about in several books but, until last night, I had never gotten a chance to actually see it. When I saw that the film was going to be on last night, I said “Sleep be damned!” and I stayed up and watched. What other choice did I have?

The Oscar takes place in a world where women are “dames” and men are “fellas” and everyone acts as if they’re a character in a Rat Pack-themed fanfic. One look at Frankie Fane (played by Stephen Boyd) and you know he’s the type of guy who snaps his fingers when he walks and probably uses pig Latin when he flirts. He’s one cool cat and as the film begins, he’s been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

The film begins at the Oscars. Frankie sits out in the audience, surrounded by Hollywood royalty and nervously waiting for the envelope to be opened. The camera pans over to Frankie’s personal manager, Hymie Kelley. Hymie stares bitterly at his former friend and suddenly, we hear his thoughts and do they ever let us know what type of movie we’re about to see.

As Hymie himself puts it:

“You finally made it, Frankie! Oscar night! And here you sit, on top of a glass mountain called “success.” You’re one of the chosen five, and the whole town’s holding its breath to see who won it. It’s been quite a climb, hasn’t it, Frankie? Down at the bottom, scuffling for dimes in those smokers, all the way to the top. Magic Hollywood! Ever think about it? I do, friend Frankie, I do…”

Hymie, incidentally, is played by the singer Tony Bennett. This was Bennett’s first dramatic film role and it was also his last. Whatever talent or magnetism Bennett may have had as a singer, it didn’t translate into screen presence. Bennett goes through the entire film looking embarrassed but who can blame him when the script calls for him to constantly tell Frankie that, “You lie down with pigs, you stand up smelling like garbage…”

As we discover through the use of flashback, Frankie has had to lay down with a lot of pigs to get his chance at winning an Oscar. After starting out his career working at sleazy clubs, Frankie, Hymie, and Frankie’s stripper girlfriend (Jill St. John) find themselves in New York. Frankie dumps his girlfriend (unaware that she’s pregnant with his child) after he meets artist Elke Sommer at a “swinging party.”

“Are you a tourist or a native?” Frankie asks her.

“Take one from column A and one from column B. You get an egg roll either way,” Sommer replies.

No wonder Frankie tells her, “You make my head hurt with all that poetry.”

Eventually, Frankie is discovered by a talent agent who takes him to see studio mogul Joseph Cotten (who went from Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Third Man to this). Cotten is so impressed with Frankie that he says, “Once in a while, you bring me meat like this. It all has different names: prime rib of Gloria, shoulder cut of Johnny. MEAT!”

With the help of savvy talent agent Milton Berle, Frankie becomes a film star but he’s still a total heel who cheats on Sommer and takes advantage of Hymie’s loyalty. When Frankie gets nominated for an Oscar, he hires a sleazy private investigator (Ernest Borgnine, of course) to leak a story about Frankie’s criminal past. Frankie assumes that one of his fellow nominees will be blamed for the leak and that he’ll be able to ride a wave of sympathy to victory.

And who are Frankie’s fellow nominees? We only learn the identity of three of them – Frank Sinatra, Richard Burton, and Burt Lancaster. We never find out what movie Sinatra was nominated for but we’re told that Burton was nominated for The Grapes of Winter (which, I’m going to assume, was a film version of a Shakespeare play about Tom Joad) while Lancaster was nominated for his amazing performance in The Spanish Armada. Doesn’t that sound like an amazing film?

Oh, how to describe the delirious experience of watching The Oscar? In many ways, it is a truly terrible movie but it’s fun in the way that only a “racy” film from the mid-60s can be. Nobody plays his or her role with anything resembling subtleness. Instead, everyone spends the entire film yelling, screaming, and gritting their teeth while flaring their nostrils. Everyone, that is, except for Tony Bennett who gives a performance that has a definite community theater feel to it. Even better is the dialogue. People in this film don’t just say their lines – they exclaim them. If you’ve ever wanted to spend two hours in a world where every sentence ends with an exclamation point, watch The Oscar.

For a film that was apparently meant to be something of a love letter to the Academy, The Oscar was only nominated for two Oscars. It received nominations for Best Art Design and Best Costume Design. While I had a hard time seeing what was so impressive about the film’s art design (in the world of The Oscar, Hollywood has a definite Ikea feel to it), the costumes were fairly impressive in a tacky, 1966 type of way.

Finally, I think it’s time that somebody remake The Oscar. David Fincher can direct it, Aaron Sorkin can write the script, Jessie Eisenberg can play Frankie Fane, and Justin Timberlake would make for an adorable Hymie Kelley. For the supporting roles, I think Billy Crystal would be a natural for Milton Berle’s role and perhaps Philip Baker Hall could step into the shoes of Joseph Cotten. Perhaps veteran film blogger and self-described very important person Sasha Stone could make her film debut in Ernest Borgnine’s role.

Seriously, I think it would be a winner.