Voodoo Island

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 24 August 2008 08:22 (A review of Voodoo Island/The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (Midnite Movies Double Feature))

Mostly interesting for the presence of Boris Karloff and Elisha Cook,Jr. Boris is the hero in this movie, looking fairly robust; he plays a professional skeptic/debunker investigating a mysterious island set for development. Not too many movies where he was the good guy. Usually he was the villain or an anti-hero at best.

The villains in this movie are the carnivorous plants and a callous, encroaching civilization. Though the guys defending themselves may have been a little quick with the 'trigger' finger their motives are sincere and they are not unsympathetic.

This would have been a decent 2nd half of a double feature at the drive-in.

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Subspeceis

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 23 August 2008 10:45 (A review of Subspecies - Epic Collection (1998))

Hammer it aint, but Subspecies is an effective vampire movie. What the leading ladies lack in acting skills they make up in hotness. The creature effects (Radu's little helpers) are crude, even by the standards of the time, but seem quaintly charming now. Anders Hove, as Radu, is what really makes the movie. He's a monster and he doesn't just know it; he revels in it.

There's a little bit of blood, a little bit of skin, a little bit of action, a little bit of romance and a lot of atmosphere. The movie greatly benefits from the Romanian locations. Subspecies was the start of a pretty good franchise for Full Moon.

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The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 23 August 2008 08:04 (A review of Voodoo Island/The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (Midnite Movies Double Feature))

Yup, it's low budget (script contrivances ahoy!). It's never actually scary. I doubt it provided any shudders back in '59 either, but it is often grotesque; the offbeat fantasy/horror aspects were unique for the day and still play pretty fresh even today.

The twist toward the end of the movie is cool. At 70 minutes, it moves along at a brisk pace, wasting no time. You'll probably only recognize character actor Henry Daniell, who starred in a ton of genre work during '40's - '60's. Valerie French was one of the leads in the currently still unreleased on dvd THE 27TH DAY.

Midnite Movies was made for movies like this, forgotten, but solid b-movies made to fill out the latter half of a double bill.

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5 Dolls for an August Moon

Posted : 1 month, 2 weeks ago on 23 August 2008 08:01 (A review of The Bava Box Set, Vol. 2)

Basically a variation of 10 Little Indians. Lot's of eye candy (Edwige Fenech, yummy), which is good, cause the plot's not quite all there. Best to sit back enjoy the pretty pictures and euro-jazz sound track.

There is a twist at the end that's good, but it ain't enough. Considering what he was handed to work with, Bava did pretty good, but he still couldn't make it into a silk purse. A lesser Bava, (many consider it the least), but still worth a look, even if you spend it all wondering what the hell's going on.

The rating's for the set, this movie rates about a 4 or 5 out of 10.

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Good Show

Posted : 1 month, 3 weeks ago on 16 August 2008 10:38 (A review of The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. - The Complete Series)

Just re-watched the pilot episode, "Pilot" after eighteen years. Think of Brisco County as the Wild Wild West's light hearted cousin. This feature length episode introduces us to the primary characters, establishes the overall story (and the first season arc) and sets the tone for the series.

Bruce makes the show what it is (man, he looks so young). Couldn't have been easy doing an oater in '90, much less one that was a bit of a comedy with a touch of sci-fi. He and his co-stars made it work. Fox's fumbling touch is what killed it (it was the first of many; others that followed it include Brimstone, Wonderfalls and Firefly).

Kelly Rutherford may have left an indelible mark as Dixie Cousins, but she was only in 7 of the 27 episodes. Can't help but feel her character was inspired by Frenchy (DESTRY RIDES AGAIN) with perhaps a touch of Lili Von Shtupp (BLAZING SADDLES (who's character was also a direct take off on Frenchy)).

As pilots go, this one proves that sometimes a show starts with all its cylinders firing. Unlike many show axed before their time, Brisco actually got a full twenty-six episodes (plus the pilot) and what with the episodes being 45 minutes long (15 minutes for commercials, ow. It'w worse now though, OW) working through the set will take some time, but no effort.

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Good Movie, Crummy Disc

Posted : 11 months, 2 weeks ago on 30 October 2007 09:51 (A review of Chicken and Duck Talk)

In spite of the burnt in subtitles and mediocre picture quality the story overcomes the disc's shortcomings. It's also a PAL disc, not NTSC (the dvd info on the back cover says NTSC). If you're a Hui brothers fan it's definitely worth watching.

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Fun euro-comic French movie

Posted : 1 year, 5 months ago on 22 April 2007 03:50 (A review of Asterix & Obelix Take on Caesar)

Just got through watching ASTERIX AND OBELIX TAKE ON CAESAR (1999), with
Christian Clavier as Asterix and Gerard Depardieu as Obelix. It's a live action adaption of some the Asterix & Obelix comics by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. Yes, it's a comic book movie, just one that few of us have ever heard of.

Without being too spoilerish the plot revolves around the adventures of our two Gauls defending their village from the Romans. From what little of the albums I have read (a couple, years ago), the movie seems to capture their tone and heart quite well. There's violence, but it's all very cartoony and mostly good natured.

Clavier and Depardieu both nail their roles, though Depardieu's over-grown, superhuman, man-child shines brightest. All the comic's characters are given some screen time so you can point at the screen and go "hey, there's so & so"!

I'm not sure why there hasn't been some kind of R1 dvd release; well, there was a Canadian dvd release, but it's out of print and I don't think there were English subs. The movie did well enough theatrically that they made a sequel called ASTERIX AND OBELIX: MISSION CLEOPATRA, that is considered a superior sequel. No one thought it would sell because it's too French or something...

While there is no R1 disc, there are tons of R2 releases. The UK releases is English dub only (*shudder*), the German disc is German dub only, and the other discs include the French audio (5.1 etc...), but no English subs. However, there is a R4 disc (from Madman), that includes the French audio, an English audio track for masochists (okay, useful for small children), and English subs. Most of the review/comparison sites I use don't mention this disc (or the R4 MISSION CLEOPATRA disc); I kinda tripped over them. I think I was poking around for ASTERIX AND THE VIKINGS and these turned up. The disc isn't fancy and the only extra is a trailer (English dubbed), but the movie's widescreen anamorphic and the picture looks great and the French audio track sounds good. If you want to see the movie, with English subs rather than an English dub, this is your only choice.

I don't know how many live action adaptions of euro-comics there have been (the only ones I can think of off the top of my are BARBARELLA and DANGER: DIABOLIK, both quite good). This has certainly got to be one of the better ones, too.

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Nearly flawless Lovecraft adaption

Posted : 1 year, 5 months ago on 21 April 2007 01:05 (A review of The Call of Cthulhu: The Celebrated Story of H.P. Lovecraft [2005])

Finally, someone has adapted Lovecraft (his short story 'Call of Cthulhu') right. They took the unconventional approach of filming it as a period silent, black and white feature (there is a music soundtrack). The interstitials are in just about any language you can imagine. It works beautifully and is genuinely creepy.

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Be Careful

Posted : 1 year, 5 months ago on 16 April 2007 09:36 (A review of Casino Royale (2-Disc Widescreen Edition))

Sony has slapped some kind of insane drm/copyright protection scheme on these dvds that breaks the discs and makes them unplayable on some players.

You need to think twice before buying any Sony disc, because you might be buying a nice new $25+ coaster.

*******************
Sony is now offering to replace the drm infected/broken discs with drm infected not broken discs.

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Fluffy & Gritty and fun

Posted : 1 year, 6 months ago on 14 April 2007 08:20 (A review of DOA: Dead or Alive [2006])

Fan service out the wazoo. They threw out most of the games' plot(s) (such as it was). They did manage to get all the girl playing beach volleyball in bikinis. There's some beefcake in there too.

The fights are all well choreographed, but they went for a generic martial arts look & feel. Tina is the exception; a lot of her moves did seem to be wrestling based. She also had the best (most brutal) fight, with Zack.

As far as video game adaptions go this is one of the better ones. It's certainly one of the best of the fighting game adaptions (what, there's STREETFIGHTER (oog), MORTAL KOMBAT (good), MORTAL KOMBAT II (decent), THE AVENGING FIST (okay unofficial Tekken movie) and I can't think of any others).

Nobody embarrasses themselves. It's a good time. I wonder when they'll get around to making a Virtua Fighter movie?


DVD
This is a R2 PAL disc. If you've got to have it now I would suggest going with a R3 NTSC disc from Hong Kong (unless you're in a PAL region). I think the R1 dvd should see light of day sometime this summer.

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