One of Lucio Fulci’s final films, this was made for Italian television. It’s actually better than you might think from the trailer. But, yes, it is a far cry from Zombi 2.
Judging from the trailers I’ve come across since I first started this feature, the 70s were a turbulent time. The revolution continued with Combat Cops.
“Pam Grier is …. Sheba, Baby!” Sad to think that the last time we saw Pam Grier on-screen, she was reduced to playing Julia Roberts’ best friend in Larry Crowne.
George Romero’s follow-up to Night of the Living Dead is better known as Season of the Witch. Like most of Romero’s non-zombie films, it has some major issues with pacing but it remains of interesting artifact of its time. The film has a feminist subtext which works about as well as can be expected, considering that the movie was made by a man.
As I’ve mentioned on this site a few times, I was really excited about seeing the new independent sci-fi film Another Earth. Well, I finally saw it and wow. What a disappointment!
Another Earth is a film about an intelligent teenage girl (Brit Marling) who gets a scholarship to M.I.T. She goes out to celebrate and while drunkenly driving home, she hears a report on the radio that a new planet has been discovered. Looking out the window of her car, she spots the new planet while, at the same time, smashing into another car and killing the wife and son of composer William Mapother. Mapother is put in a coma and Marling ends up getting sentenced to prison.
Four years later, Marling is released from jail. She gets a job working as a janitor in her old high school. She also tracks down Mapother, who has come out of his coma and has no idea that Marling is the girl who killed his family. Through a couple of plot contrivances that makes less sense the more you think about them, Marling becomes Mapother’s maid. Though Mapother is, at first, surly towards her, he soon falls in love with her because otherwise, nothing would happen in the movie.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the new planet is actually a mirror Earth! Wow, isn’t that exciting? Well, no one on “Earth 1” seems to be all the excited about it. Don’t get me wrong — they talk about it a lot and we got a lot of monologues about the possibilities of a mirror Earth and how we’ve all apparently got a double on this other Earth but still, everyone’s just kinda like “Oh, that’s neat.” Anyway, Marling wants to go to the new Earth to see if the alternate her is doing any better than her. Luckily, there’s a Richard Branson-type billionaire who is having an essay contest to win a chance to take a civilian flight to the new Earth. We’re told that this civilian flight will be the first to land on Earth 2, which I guess can only mean that the Earth 1 equivalent of Barack Obama really did a number of Earth 1’s version of NASA.
Another Earth isn’t necessarily a terrible film but it certainly is a disappointing one. The film is essentially a collection of indie film clichés that are all held together with an intriguing premise. Unfortunately, the only thing intriguing about the finished film is thinking about how great it could have been if director Mike Cahill and screenwriter (and star) Brit Marling had actually bothered to explore any of the film’s issues beyond a surface level. Mapother does a good job playing his surly role but he has next to no chemistry with Marling and you never, for a minute, believe in their relationship. When Marling isn’t lying to Mapother, she’s bonding with a blind janitor from India who only speaks in philosophical one liners. Why is the janitor in the film? Why does he suddenly decide to mentor Marling? Why does he drink bleach? There’s also a really embarrassing scene where Marling talks on the phone with a guy doing a really over-the-top imitation of Richard Branson. Director Cahill offers up endless montages of Marling looking pretty and sad as she wanders around aimlessly and he’s got the whole shaky cam, zoom lens thing down but he doesn’t seem to understand that images are empty without some sort of honest emotion behind them.
That said, the film does have a great ending, an ending which hints at the film that Another Earth could have been.
So, last week, I asked for everyone to vote for which film I should watch on Sunday. 864 votes were cast and the winner was Michael Anderson’s 1976 cult classic, Logan’s Run. So, last night, I sat down with my sister Erin and we watched Logan’s Run. I have to admit that we both giggled a lot but we still enjoyed watching it. (I should also note that Logan’s Run was filmed in Dallas and Ft. Worth and, even 35 years later, both of us recognized a lot of familiar landmarks. The end of the film was shot at the Ft. Worth Water Gardens and we squealed with delight as we watched it and said, “We’ve been there!”)
Like most sci-fi films released before Star Wars, Logan’s Run takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth. It’s the 23rd Century and what’s left of humanity lives in an underground city where they’re governed by a gently condescending computer. Civilization is now based around the pursuit of pleasure. Everyone appears to live in the world’s biggest mall (probably because the “City” scenes were actually filmed in a shopping mall located in my hometown of Dallas). It’s a city that’s essentially made up of slow-motion orgies, hot tubs, and crazy plastic surgeons. Everyone dresses in these sheer tunics and it quickly becomes obvious that the world’s knowledge underwear was apparently lost during the move underground. (Then again, this could have been because the film was made in the 70s. Seriously, did nobody own a bra in the 70s?)
Future civilization appears to have only one law and that’s that anyone who reaches the age of 30 has to go to Carrousel. At Carrousel, everyone has reached their time limit levitate in the air, floats around in a circle, and then blows up. Their fellow citizens assume that those being blown up are actually being “renewed” but actually, they’re just blowing up. (In many ways, Michael Anderson’s direction of Logan’s Run is pretty pedestrian but the Carrousel sequence is actually quite visually stunning.)
Now, some citizens don’t want to get blown up. These citizens are called runners and they greet their 30th birthday by attempting to flee the City and escape to the Outside and to a mysterious place they call “Sanctuary.” Some of them end up getting caught and frozen by a bizarre little robot called Box (played, in a really odd performance, by Roscoe Lee Browne). Those that don’t get caught by Box usually end up getting gunned down by the Sandmen. The Sandmen are a group of nylon-clad fascists who are never happier than when they’re gunning down runners.
At this point, you may have noticed that it actually takes more time to explain the film’s backstory than its actual story. Logan’s Run has a fascinating concept behind it and the plot has a lot of potential. Sadly, the film itself doesn’t quite live up to that potential but the story is still intriguing enough to carry the viewer through some of the film’s more uneven moments.
Michael York is Logan
The Logan of the title is a Sandman played by Michael York (who, when he first appears in this movie, projects just the right sense of unthinking entitlement). Logan is assigned (by the condescending computer) to infiltrate the runners and find sanctuary. In short, he’s ordered to run. However, as it quickly becomes obvious that nobody’s actually being renewed, Logan decides to run for real. Along with a runner named Jessica (played by Jenny Agutter), Logan tries to escape the city. Pursued by his best friend and fellow Sandman Francis (Richard Jordan), Logan and Jessica most deal with a psychotic plastic surgeon (well-played by the director’s son, Michael Anderson, Jr.) and his glam nurse (Farrah Fawcett!) as well as a tribe of feral children and a bunch of sex-crazed, naked people who move in slow motion. (It’s a neat visual, to be honest).
Logan, Jessica, and Farrah
When Logan and Jessica finally do reach the Outside, it turns out to not quite be all it was cracked up to be. (Or as Jessica puts it, in one of my favorite lines, “I hate outside!”) They come across the ruins of Washington, D.C. which turns out to be inhabited by a thousand cats and an old man played by Peter Ustinov. However, little do they know, Francis has followed them outside and, back at the City, the computer is still demanding to know the location of Sanctuary.
I enjoyed Logan’s Run but I’d be lying if I said it was a great film. It’s basically a big, silly, entertaining film that makes sense as long as you don’t think about it too much. I have a feeling that if I had seen this film in a theater, trapped in the same seat for 2 hours straight, I would probably be a lot harder on it. However, Logan’s Run is the perfect film to watch in the privacy of your own home with a friend or two (or, in my case, a big sister). The story is just good enough to hold your interest, you can openly giggle at the film’s more campy moments, and — once the action starts to drag — you’re free to move around and find something else to do until things get interesting again.
Ultimately, Logan’s Run shares the flaw that afflicts most sci-fi films that are about people trying to escape a decadent, dystopian society. That is, the movie is a lot more fun when everyone’s being decadent and evil than when everyone’s searching for a higher truth. When Jessica yelled that she hated the outside, I had to agree with her because the inside — even with everyone getting blown up at the age of 30 — was so much more fun. Inside the city, they had slow-motion orgies, hot tubs, and really pretty clothes. Meanwhile, the only thing that outside had to offer was Peter Ustinov reading a decayed copy of the Declaration of Independence. Don’t get me wrong — I was jealous that Ustinov got to live with all of those cute kitties but it just couldn’t compare with the psychotic plastic surgeons of the City. If that’s Outside, I can understand why everybody went inside.
(Personally, I call this the Matrix Rule. Everyone talks about how great Zion is but, seriously, what type of toadsucker would actually want to live in that tedious, ugly little Socialistic state?)
Still, despite this, Logan’s Run is a watchable and entertaining artifact of 70s “event” filmmaking. This film doesn’t have any scenes set in a disco but it really should.
Among the actors, both Michael York and Peter Ustinov are a lot of fun to watch as they both found their moments to go over the top and made the most of them. Perhaps my favorite over the top York moment came towards the end of the film when he shouted, “YOU CAN LIVE! LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!” When I first announced, on twitter, that I would be reviewing this film, I got a lot of replies from men who apparently had fond memories of Jenny Agutter in this film and her performance here is sexy and confident. Plus, she gets to deliver one of my favorite lines of all time, “I hate outside!” Still, if you want to talk about sexy and confidence, then you have to talk about Richard Jordan’s performance as the cocky Sandman, Francis. Seriously, Francis is a Sandman who could bring me a dream any night of the week…
Sexy, Dangerous Francis
So, in the end, Logan’s Run is silly but fun, uneven but definitely watchable. Thank you to everyone who voted for me to see this film. And until next time, remember — “Theeeeerrrrreeee Issssssssssss Noooooooo Saaaaaaaanctuuuuuuuary….”
Earlier today, I did a google search and I discovered that Logan's Run was apparently spun off into a television show. Apparently, this is the cast of that show. They certainly look a lot more cheerful than their film counterparts.
Thank you to everyone who voted in my latest “Tell Lisa Marie What To Watch” poll. A total of 864 votes were cast. Up until this morning, it looked like Night of the Creeps was going to be an easy winner but a last-minute surge of votes gave Logan’s Run a come-from-behind victory. Interestingly enough, The Lion In Winter also got a lot of last-minute votes. It didn’t receive enough to beat Logan’s Run but it did manage to knock Night of the Creeps down to a third place finish.
I will be watching Logan’s Run later on today. Look for my review tomorrow. And again, thank you to everyone who voted!
Not to be confused with the 2010 action film, this Losers has been described as the best “bikers-in-Viet-Nam film ever.” It was directed by Jack Starrett and, like every other biker film from 1970, it stars William Smith.
This is another short trailer, in fact, I think — at just 30 seconds — it might be the shortest trailer I’ve ever featured in this series. Anyway, Chatterbox is a film about a woman whose vagina can talk and, apparently, sing. I have never seen this film though I have seen a few isolated clips. I hope if my vagina ever starts to speak, it 1) has a less annoying voice and 2) just displays a lot more wit and personality in general. Anyway, the talking vagina is not featured in this trailer. Anyway, you wouldn’t know any of that from watching the trailer, which I think is odd. I mean, if you’re going to make a film about a talking vagina, shouldn’t the vagina be allowed to speak for itself? Just saying…
Like all good things, this trailer comes to us from Italy.
5) Disco Fever (1978)
Wow! Disco, a concorde, dirt bike racing, braless dancers, and a boring 40 year-old rock star with a cocaine-flecked beard. Could this film be any more 70s? “Disco Fever — Everything is perfect…until the music stops!”
6) American Fever (1978)
Okay, I’m either in a disco mood or else I’m running a fever because I just have to end things with a second disco film. This is an Italian film. Does anyone out there own the American Fever soundtrack?
I’ve got mixed feelings about this one. I have a total girlcrush on Kate Beckinsale and I support any movie where women get to kick as much ass as the boys. At the same time, it’s hard not to look at this and think: “Again?”
Still, one thing’s for sure. It’s got to be better than Dylan Dog: Dead of Night.
Don’t ask me why I love this scene from the 1980 grindhouse classic House on the Edge of the Park because I’ll go on and on. I could say that I love dancing in general. I could talk about how I own a red dress just like the one that Lorraine De Selle wears in this scene. I could rave about how pretty Annie Bell and Christian Borromeo were when they made this movie or the time capsule appeal of David Hess’s canary yellow suit.
But, in the end, I love this scene for two reasons:
1) The song playing in the background, composed by Riz Ortolani, is so bad yet so addictive and,
2) Giovanni Lombardo Radice is just so adorable doing his little dance.
So, earlier today, I saw Final Destination 5 and guess what isn’t half as bad as you might think?
Now, I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this review, then you probably already know what this film is about. Seriously, once a film has reached its fifth installment, you have absolutely no excuse for not knowing what’s going on. Still, just in case you need to be reminded, here’s how this series works. All of the Final Destination films follow the same basic storyline: a group of attractive but generally anonymous people are gathered together for some everyday event like Nascar or a flight to France. Suddenly, there’s some huge disaster that generally involves a lot of things exploding and people dying. However, it turns out that the disaster we just saw was instead the main character’s vision of what’s going to happen. That character freaks out which leads to him and a handful of other people avoiding the disaster. However, by not dying, they’ve managed to tick off Death and soon, our survivors are dying in a variety of ludicrously convoluted ways, the key being that they’re dying in the order that they died in the original vision. (Fortunately, Tony Todd shows up in each film and explains how it all works.) Anyway, in each film, we learn of a different way to cheat death and each film ends with both the final survivors and the audience learning that actually you can’t cheat death. In many ways, the Final Destination series is the perfect reflection of the 21st Century. The same crap keeps happening and, in the end, we’re all doomed regardless.
Final Destination 5 sticks to established formula. This time, the big disaster is a bridge collapse and the twist is that a survivor can fill death’s quota by killing someone else. That’s kind of a neat idea and the film actually has a little bit of clever fun with that at the end. Still, I wish the film had taken the whole idea to its logical, grindhouse extreme and just had all the survivors running around desperately looking for innocent people to murder.
There’s a lot of very legitimate criticisms that one can make about Final Destination 5. Though the supporting cast is well-chosen (especially Miles Fisher — who could be Tom Cruise’s twin brother, seriously, David Koechner and Courtney B. Vance), the main character is played by Nicholas D’Agosto, who gives a performance that is so free of charisma that you have a hard time believing that he was ever alive to begin with. Emma Bell plays D’Agosto’s girlfriend and it is seriously amazing to see how little chemistry the two of them have together. (Then again, this also helps to make the film’s final twist entertaining as opposed to traumatic…) As much as I love to see Tony Todd doing his Tony Todd thing, it’s hard not get impatient with the fact that these characters need to be told that they’re in a Final Destination film.
But let’s be honest — those criticisms may be valid but who cares? This is a Final Destination film and if you’re not willing to consider it on the basis of what it is, then don’t waste your time watching it and bitching about how it’s not The Help. Judged solely on that basis, Final Destination 5 is actually a return to form for the series. The deaths are all nicely done and memorably grotesque and there’s a real nasty twist at the end of the film that basically serves as a reward for all the horror fans who have stuck with the series since the beginning. I wish I could tell you what that twist was but seriously, it’s way too neat for me to spoil it. I’ll just say that I squealed in delight when I saw it.
Finally, this is a 3-D film that was actually made in real 3-D. The 3-D was not tacked on as an afterthought and, as a result, this is rare film that actually uses the 3-D to make the movie better as opposed to just trendier. This is a film where guts spill freely, eyeballs literally pop out of the screen, and it’s all just the perfect definition of good, stupid fun.
(That said, I do have to admit that this film was apparently made specifically to freak me out because, oh my God, it’s like they exploited every single fear that I have. As Arleigh can tell you, I am terrified of two things — heights and drowning. Which means that if you really want to see me scared, just get me thinking about the prospect of plunging several hundred feet into a large body of water. Seriously, just typing that freaks me out. So, of course, what does this film open with? A freaking bridge collapsing. And don’t even get me started on the laser eye surgery…agck! I’ll just stay blind as a bat, thank you very much.)
For this week’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitaiton Trailers, we actually have a loose theme as opposed to just me tossing up random stuff. That theme: Out Of Control Youth. (Cue dramatic DAH-DAH-DAAAAAH music)
Normally, I try to avoid doing “theme” trailer posts because they require way too much concentration on my part. However, this week, as I selected the trailers I wanted to feature, I slowly realized that I was doing just that and I was actually being a pretty good job at it.
Take heart, Out of Control Youths. This post is dedicated to you.
I may be wrong but just judging from the trailer, I think this film might be about “women in chains.” Pam Grier, of course, everyone knows. The white mama was played by Margaret Markov, who later married exploitation film producer Mark Damon.
Eventually, I guess the kids from Over the Edge grew up to be the kids from Suburbia. I’ve got this one on DVD but every time I’ve tried to watch it, I’ve ended up falling asleep. Not necessarily because the film is bad. I just always end up trying to watch it at 4 in the morning for some reason.
I just love that the credits at the end of the trailer announce that this film features a “special appearance” from Peter Fonda.
5) Mission Hill (1982)
“Mission Hill: A Neighborhood where anything can happen…” This is the type of film that I often fantasize about appearing in. Naturally, I would be the girl singing. I can’t really sing but that’s what post-production dubbing is for, right?
This is another one that I have on DVD but I haven’t found the time to watch yet. This appears to be a film in which psycho children kill … well, everything. All I know is that if I’m ever taking a bath and some little child comes wandering in with a bunch of fish, I’m jumping up and running. I don’t care how wet and naked I am.
Earlier tonight, I went and saw the new comedy 30 Minutes or Less. The film has, so far, gotten mixed reviews and the theater we saw it in was half-deserted. The audience laughed quite a bit during the 1st half of the movie and a little less so during the second. As soon as the credits started, everyone stood up and left. This is not the type of film that inspires you to sit around and wait to see if there’s any extras at the end. Still, despite that, it’s an enjoyable comedy that has enough laughs in it to justify the 83 minutes it takes to watch the entire film.
Danny McBride plays an aimless loser who, despite being in his mid-3os, still lives at home with his wealthy but hateful father (well-played by Fred Ward). McBride spends his time blowing stuff up with his well-meaning but stupid best friend (Nick Swardson) and fantasizing about the day that his father will die and leave him his inheritance. However, then McBride finds out about a hitman (Michael Pena) who is willing to kill Ward as long as McBride can pay him several thousand dollars. So, McBride and Swardson kidnap a pizza deliveryman (Jesse Eisenberg) and strap a bomb to his chest. They tell him that is he doesn’t rob a bank in the next 10 hours, the bomb will go off. With the help of his best friend (Aziz Ansari), Eisenberg attempts to do just that.
The film’s humor comes not from the plot (which is based very loosely on a true story — more about that in a minute) but instead from the way these very ordinary characters attempt to deal with the situation they find themselves in. All four of the major characters have little grasp on reality beyond what they’ve seen in other movies. When Eisenberg and Aziz plot their bank robbery, it has less to do with logistics and everything to do with Point Break. The film is perfectly cast and all of the actors have a real chemistry with each other. You believe that McBride and Swardson are lifelong friends just as you buy that Aziz would go out of his way to help out Eisenberg.
Much as he did with Zombieland, director Fleischer manages to maintain a nice balance between the comedic and the grotesque. Unfortunately, also much like Zombieland, the film starts to run out of steam during the second half as the storyline becomes more centered on action than on comedy. These characters who were previously only talking about being in an action film are suddenly thrust into an action film and everything starts to seem a little bit too familiar. Still, 30 Minutes or Less is an enjoyable enough movie. I just wish the end result had been a little less uneven.
Now, 30 Minutes or Less is based on a true story and this story wasn’t a comedy. In 2003, a pizza deliveryman named Brian Douglas Wells robbed a bank in Erie, Pennsylvania. He had a bomb around his neck. Unlike the characters in this film, Wells was killed when the bomb went off and blew a softball-sized hole in his chest. The police — who, in the moments before the fatal blast, basically just stood around with their tasers drawn while Wells begged for help — later accused Wells of being a part of the whole plot. Which makes absolutely no sense but who am I to question Big Brother?
Regardless of whether Wells was a victim or participant, that doesn’t change the fact that pizza delivery men are easy targets. Just last year in Dallas, two kids with guns ordered a pizza and gave the address of a deserted warehouse. They had to call many different pizza places before they found someone willing to deliver to that area of town. When the pizza arrived, the kids gunned down the deliveryman. When they were arrested, they said they had simply wanted to kill someone and they knew a pizza deliveryman was the only potential victim they’d be able to lure out to the middle of nowhere. That’s hardly an isolated incident.
Also, as is mentioned in this movie, whenever the pizza person takes 34 minutes to get to your house and then you go, “Duuuuuuude, the pizza’s free!” that means that the cost of your pizza is going to be taken out of the paycheck of a man who puts his life in danger every time he goes to work.
So, what am I saying? I’m saying don’t be an asshole and pay for your damn pizza!
