Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Junta Juleil's Updated, Browsable List of Reviews– August 2015

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BALTIKA EXTRA 9 (2008, Russia)BANANAS (1971, Woody Allen)THE BAND WAGON (1953, Vincente Minnelli)
BARFLY (1987, Barbet Schroeder)
BASKET CASE (1982, Frank Henenlotter)
BATTLE IN HEAVEN (2005, Carlos Reygadas)
BEAT GIRL (1959, Edmond T. Gréville)
BEAT STREET (1984, Stan Lathan)
THE BEGUILED (1971, Don Siegel)
BEST WORST MOVIE (2009, Michael Stephenson)BEVERLY HILLS COP II (1987, Tony Scott) BIG (1988, Penny Marshall)
BIG BLOW (2000, United States)
THE BIG CLEAN (198?, Michael Ironside)THE BIG EASY (1986, Jim McBride)
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986, John Carpenter)
"BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA" (1986, The Coup de Villes)
BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956, Nicholas Ray)
BILL AND COO (1948, Dean Riesner)
THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1970, Dario Argento)
BLACK BOOK (2006, Paul Verhoeven)
THE BLACK CAT (2007, Stuart Gordon)
BLACK MOON RISING (1986, Harley Cokliss)A BLADE IN THE DARK (1983, Lamberto Bava) BLADE RUNNER (1982, Ridley Scott)BLIND FURY (1989, Philip Noyce)BLOOD BATH (1966, Jack Hill & Stephanie Rothman)
THE BLOOD OF HEROES (1989, David Webb Peoples)
BLOODSPORT (1988, Newt Arnold)BLOODSPORT 2: THE NEXT KUMITE (1996, Alan Mehrez)BLOODSPORT III (1996, Alan Mehrez) BLOODSPORT 4: THE DARK KUMITE (1999, Elvis Restaino)BLUE CHIPS (1994, William Friedkin)
BLUE COLLAR (1978, Paul Schrader)
BLUE DIAMOND BEER (2005, China)
BLUE STEEL (1989, Kathryn Bigelow)
THE BLOB (1988, Chuck Russell)
BLOOD WORK (2002, Clint Eastwood)
BOARDING GATE (2008, Olivier Assayas)
BODY DOUBLE (1984, Brian De Palma)BODY BAGS (1993, John Carpenter & Tobe Hooper)
BODY OF EVIDENCE (1993, Uli Edel)
BODY PARTS (1991, Eric Red)BOOMERANG (1992, Reginald Hudlin) BORDELLO OF BLOOD (1996, Gilbert Adler)
BORDERLINE (1980, Jerrold Freedman)
BOXING HELENA (1993, Jennifer Chambers Lynch)
THE BOY WHO COULD FLY (1986, Nick Castle)BOYZ N THE HOOD (1991, John Singleton)BRAIN DEAD (1990, Adam Simon)
BRAINSCAN (1994, John Flynn)BREWSTER'S MILLIONS (1985, Walter Hill)
BRAZIL (1985, Terry Gilliam)BREAKING GLASS (1980, Brian Gibson)
BROKEN ARROW (1996, John Woo)BRONCO BILLY (1980, Clint Eastwood)
BRONX WARRIORS (1982, Enzo G. Castellari)
THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY (1978, Steve Rash)
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1992, Fran Rubel Kazui)
BUIO OMEGA (1979, Joe D'Amato)BULLET TO THE HEAD (2013, Walter Hill)
BULLETPROOF (1988, Steve Carver)BUNNY O'HARE (1971, Gerd Oswald)
THE BURNING (1981, Tony Maylam)
BURNT OFFERINGS (1976, Dan Curtis)THE BUTLER (2013, Lee Daniels)
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Only now does it occur to me... THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE

Only now does it occur to me... that I must submit the following, without comment.

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Thursday, August 13, 2015

Only now does it occur to me... THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

Only now does it occur to me... that the first time Sharon Stone produced a vanity project (this was her first-ever producer credit) she chose a Western mash-up of UNFORGIVEN and BLOODSPORT.

Written by Simon West (best known to readers of this site for his twisted fairy tale adventure THE 10TH KINGDOM) and script-doctored by Joss Whedon, THE QUICK AND THE DEAD is revenge tale told from beneath the shadow of ONCE UPON A TIME WITH WEST, but with the trappings of UNFORGIVEN.

[Gene Hackman essentially plays "Little Bill" once more, although this time he shamelessly phones in his performance.

Also, a criminally under-used Lance Henriksen is our stand-in for Richard Harris' "English Bob," but more on that in a minute.]

The aforementioned revenge is sought during a gunfighting contest, which is set up, tournament-style and with plenty of montages, almost exactly like the Kumite in BLOODSPORT.  Though directed with stylistic panache by Sam Raimi (a Raimi Western?!––hey, at least it's got "dead" in the title), it's never quite as good as it ought to be, and for a movie lined wall-to-wall with Leone-style duel scenes, it's rarely exciting.  A "too much of a good thing" scenario of there ever was one. 


A few small observations:

#1. Mopey Sharon Stone.  I don't know why, but when actors produce their own vanity projects, they usually make sure that they get to do plenty o' mopin'.  They want as much screen-time as possible to knead their brows and get that sad, faraway look in their eyes.



This is a Revenge-Gunfighting-Kumite movie for godssake, and Sharon Stone is over here patronizing the audience and jonesin' for an Oscar.  They should've just had Charlize Theron do it.


#2.  Big stars for cheap!  There's a pre-TITANIC and ROMEO + JULIET Leo DiCaprio:

and a pre-L.A. CONFIDENTIAL and GLADIATOR Russell Crowe:

They're fine.


#3.  Alan Silvestri totally plagiarizes his own soundtrack for PREDATOR throughout this movie.  It's a good soundtrack, but I kept waiting for the Predator to show up and enter the tournament.  Now that would've been something.


#4.  Bruce Campbell had a scene, but it was deleted.  They should release it in a collection with the deleted Alice Cooper scene from MAVERICK.


#4.  Keith David.  Massively underused, but wearing one of the best/worst fake mustaches in memory.

A fair trade, I suppose.


#5.  Lance Henriksen.  He's not around for long, but he essentially steals the movie as "Ace," a trick-shooter with a tremendous fashion sense.

The way he looks makes me furious that he never popped up in a supporting role on DEADWOOD.


#6. A Woody Strode cameo.

He's pretty ancient at this point, but he has a brief bit as a the town undertaker, and it's a nice throwback to ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.


#7.  Mick Garris.  Errr–––WHAT?!

Seen here on the left manhandling Gary Sinise, Mick Garris (infamous Stephen King crony and director of laughable King adaptations like THE STAND, THE SHINING, DESPERATION, RIDING THE BULLET, and QUICKSILVER HIGHWAY) plays a glorified extra during a Sharon Stone flashback.  I have to say that when I woke up this morning, I never imagined my day would have Mick Garris in it.  Well, there he is.

–Sean Gill
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Monday, August 10, 2015

"Video Mass Mixtape #2" Screening Tonight

Described as a "screening of hidden gems, never-before-seen films," Video Mass' Mixtape #2: Rarities and B-Sides will be screening tonight, August 10th, at 9:00 PM at Videology (308 Bedford Avenue) in Brooklyn.  

Among the short films will be two by yours truly, including ESCAPE FROM STATEN ISLAND and MUSTACHE PARTY.   Admission is free!

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Friday, August 7, 2015

Only now does it occur to me... A CAT IN THE BRAIN

Only now does it occur to me... that I know now what it's like to live a day in the life of Italotrash Art-Horror director Lucio Fulci.

The circumstances by which I know this involve a latter-day film of his called A CAT IN THE BRAIN, a self-reflexive meta-fantasia that stars Lucio Fulci as... himself.  He is revealed to look kind of like that uncle of yours who never married and wears horn-rimmed glasses on a cord around his neck and sometimes traps you in freaky chats at the family BBQ that begin amusingly enough but evolve into the conversational equivalent of kidnapping.

Ready for his closeup

Fulci wanders Rome while directing his latest picture and has a series of hallucinations; a guy chainsawing a tree begins chainsawing a corpse, steak tartare becomes a cannibalistic entrée, housecats chew on brains, et cetera, et cetera.  You know.

That is one angry cat puppet.

Anyway, aficionados of Fulci's oeuvre will find much of this to be interesting (I suspect the casual fan will not), though overall it has the feel of a sitcom "clip show"––there's not much plot connecting the various gore moments.  (Actually, it's not that varied––it's mostly decapitations.  From the point at which I said aloud 'wow, that is a substantial number of decapitations in one movie' and began tallying them, I counted fourteen.  Which means that there are more than fourteen.

One of shall we say a substantial number of decapitations.

There's also a murderous psychiatrist running around who kinda looks like Sigmund Freud, but that's neither here nor there.
 
 "Now you have a... DEAD-ipus complex!"  ––unfortunately, not an actual line from the movie

Also, I find it incredible that this film was made in 1990––between the fashion and the film stock, my movie radar would have placed it somewhere between 1978 and 1983.

In any event, here are some things that I learned about Fulci's day-to-day life, as depicted in this movie.

#1. Fulci loves flannel almost as much as he loves eye trauma.

Lookin' sharp, Lucio!

He loves it at four-star restaurants, and he loves it on set at Cinecittá Studios.  He just loves it.

Note: Fulci does not say "Cut," but "Stop!"  (of course it doesn't matter because he's dubbed from the original Italian)

#2.  But he still really loves eye trauma.  Here he is wrangling a whole bunch of sheep eyeballs (makes sense).


#3. The ladies love him.  I'm sure that this account about Fulci by Fulci contains no exaggerations.  Everywhere he goes, young women recognize him

and fantasize about appearing in his films.

He is chased around by fans like he's a Beatle in A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, though I feel like those situations could be alleviated somewhat if he didn't have "DIR. LUCIO FULCI" emblazoned on his front door.

Dear movie gods, please let that detail be true to life.

Later, he cruises around in a yacht called "Perversion"


whilst mackin' on young Italo-babes.  Hoo boy!  (While it might seem like it's not the case, I do believe Fulci has a sense of humor about all of this.)


#4.  Lucio Fulci directs orgies exactly like you think he'd direct orgies.




 #5.  Finally, I kept wondering if we'd see the interior of Fulci's home.  How well did he do for himself directing incomprehensibly dreamlike art-horror flicks?

When we see it, I suppose we can say he did pretty well, carving out a comfortable upper-middle class existence.  In American terms, I'd say that directing NEW YORK RIPPER and CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD probably is economically equivalent to owning, say, a Dick's Sporting Goods franchise?

Also, for the record, before he died, Fulci accused Wes Craven of taking his inspiration for NEW NIGHTMARE from A CAT IN THE BRAIN (probably a stretch), but perhaps Fulci is indirectly responsible for the wave of self-reflexive 90s horror including SCREAM, HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION, HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD, and the like.
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Sunday, August 2, 2015

RIP, Rowdy Roddy Piper

It saddens me to report that wrestling star, sci-fi legend and all-around bringer of joy Roddy Piper passed away on Friday. 

Despite usually playing a heavy in the wrestling ring (and in Cyndi Lauper's "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" long-form music video!), I'll remember him best as a scrappy and endearing everyman––i.e., "Nada" in John Carpenter's THEY LIVE, one of my all time favorite movies.  As an actor, he always took the craft seriously, but never took himself too seriously, which resulted in some of the goofiest yet most sincere performances I've ever seen, from the aforementioned THEY LIVE to HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN.

"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass..."

He was an athlete, a jokester, and an entertainer in every sense of the word––in fact, just seeing the man puts a smile on my face.  You're dearly missed, Roddy.
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