So here we are once again, its sunday and i'm setting up to pick my torrents for the week, this week is kind of a cool one because I tossed that extra set in there the other day, but this is the weekly original one, so we're just gonna roll with it.. because you know, thats just how we are around here :)
Ok with out any farther delay, lets get to it...
Angels and Demons: First off, I'm sorry on the size on this one, I couldn't find a copy of the torrent I got, which is the same size but split in two files, as a movie this size should be, and yes this IS an R5, which is basically a dvd rip way before a dvd rip is available. Now with that out of the way, I picked this film because it takes us all back to a genre of film that I believe to have lost its way, the classic thriller. Something that is often forgotten or over shadowed by toss away sex comedies or over the top dramas or slasher films that are forgotten less then 4 months after their release, the thriller is a staple of world wide cinema, and i feel its been forgotten. Angels and Demons brings back that feel, the classic mystery that leaves you guessing, and doesn't really give you a solid answer, which leaves you guessing more. Even if you don't agree with the subject matter of Angels and Demons and its sister film The Di Vinci Code, the whole religion is a cover up to hide the real truth of our past, or not, its still an entertaining ride and worth watching.
Watership Down: I know I talk about this film alot, and I constantly praise it, but believe me, its well with it. With its alligoy for life and religious and social equality as told through the world of rabbits and other woodland creatures in the hills of central england, this film teaches us that its no matter how it appears, for nothing on this planet is life easy or not complicated. Everything lives, everything believes in their own beliefs, and everything is willing to go to war for its home and ideals. In a sense, we are all in a way, the same be we man or beast, just the packaging is different, that is the one thing above all else to take away from this beautifully dark children's tale. Its a personal favorite, and as many might recall, its one of my 30 greatest films of all time, and its there for a very good reason.
Little Shop Of Horrors: Now, I know that most people are aware of, or atleast remember the 1986 remake of this film, which was infact pure musical comedy brilliance, but not many remember the original film from 1960, which happens to be the version that I have picked today. Oh sure there are many reasons to love this film, the comedicly offbeat acting, the over the top singing, a very young Jack Nickleson singing about being a dentist, puppet plants, just so many reasons, and to be honest i can't pick one that stands out over all of the others, in a sense, this is a perfect film because of that, which is really something impressive for a Roger Corman film, given most of his work involved ridiculously large breasted woman beating the crap out of men for no reason. For those of you that aren't aware of what this film is, or its plot, its a musical comedy about how alot of people deserve to die. it tells the tale of Seymour, a young poor boy that lives under the florist shop that he works in on skid row the poorest part of town, in I would assume new york city, he is in love with Audrey whom he spends alot of his time with, but is dating a repressive, abusive sadistic dentist (played by a very young and apparently very drunk Jack Nickleson), One day Seymour discovers this small plant, it looks somewhat like a Venus Flytrap, Seymour takes the plant to his home and raises it there, not knowing what it is, he calls it Audrey Two, one day he brings it out of his apartment and shows his boss, who exploits him and the plant to gain money, eventually, as the plant starts to die, Seymour discovers by accident, that the plant feeds off human blood, and as it gets bigger entire human beings. I know the idea sounds absurd but in the realm of intentionally bad and over the top comedy, this is just so very perfect.. if you haven't seen this version, you really should, watch it back to back with the 1986 remake if possible, they're just so awesome together.
Black Snake Moan: Now it might be hard for many to believe, but I love when a film takes a perfect snapshot of a culture and a time, from the over all feel of the film, to the music used in it, to the cast and how they speak, to every single little detail, just a perfect snapshot, and somewhat forgotten film Black Snake Moan is a film that does all of that. The story of a deeply religious blues guitarist who's given it up for the life of a farmer, and the young nymphomaniac he is determined to save from the fires of hell after finding her beaten on the side of the road near death. Its a story of redemption, rebirth, and the evil that we all do, even those who do it in the name of salvation, and in the name of god, oh and its also got some amazingly well placed and well chosen blues music. This film is just beautiful from start to finish. If you haven't seen it, you really should, plus, like the promos stated, everything's hotter in the deep south.
Klass: Remember what I was saying last week about how some films no matter their subject matter and shocking realism just HAVE to be seen? Well thats the case this week with Klass, an Estonian movie about high school and the complexity and violence there in. its the shockingly realistic story of your average high school in Estonia's capital city Tallinn, where you have your basic social classes, of which, is ofcourse the bully and his followers. One kid decides after standing by and watching this bully's power get out of control, to do something about it, and fight back for himself and his classmates to end this reign of terror. The film explores the entire concept of why people bully others, of personal honor and respect, and how they are earned not given out of fear or intimidation. The film is very dark, and very graphic, from start all the way to the shockingly unsettling ending, but when you think about it, the mind of the average high school student thats living in fear of someone else is a pretty dark and twisted place. This is one of those films I've always told people needs to be seen because so many countries were afraid to tell this sort of story, plus this is like, my second favorite Estonian film to date, second only to August Ball, which, if i can find a good copy of, I'll put up here...
Well, thts it for this week, hopefully you all will enjoy them as much as I did, and be back here next week.. so until my next post, blessid be ..
--
BC
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Torrent Picks Special Edition
Ok so after my article about just what Grindhouse films are, one of my most loyal readers asked me abit more indepth what the term ment, and after explaining it was really a blanket term for many different types of movies just mashed together, I figured it would be best to give some examples of what the true meaning of grindhouse is, so if'n'ye'don'mind, I'm going to take you all on a trip through the heart of the genre that populated drive ins and dollar theaters in the inner city up until the death of both types of places in the mid 1980s.... So sit back, relax, and prepare to laugh at just how absurd these things can get...
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: When you talk about Grindhouse, you can't get more into it then the king of the dollar theater's midnight showing, I'm talking ofcourse about The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the movie that is still all of these years later still delightfully ridiculous and over the top it will NEVER really go out of style, be it for the story thats really just an allegory for the writer's inner struggle with his own sexuality and mental issues, the complete over the top pageantry of the entire film, the delightfully insane casting and just how well they all work together, or even the awesomely 1970s songs... This film still to this day gets midnight showings at the few surviving drive ins and dollar theaters left in the united states, thats a kind of saying power that has no equal.
The Car: Anyone that knows me knows I couldn't do a special edition post like this and not mention this film, possibly the greatest of the "haunted car" films ever made. This thing ruled the Drive In theaters of america for an entire summer, infact 1977, which was the summer of sam, which if you know your serial killers, is a big feat. Ths film follows the basic idea of every "haunted car" film ever made, car is possessed by a demonic spirit and decides to go around killing randomly, sure looking back at it, the film is hilariously bad, but thats the fun of it, the whole camp value, that allows us to look back at alot of Grindhouse films and laugh. Plus any film that makes my friend Frank say outloud "Oh yeah, that guy with the french horn is so gonna be the next to die.." and 4 seconds later it happens, is classic comedy gold.
Midnight Cowboy: Most people forget that with its X Rating (X Rating in 1969 being the same as a strong R rating today) Midnight Cowboy stands at the top of the mountain of Grindhouse films, but it does. It stands tall and proud, even if most don't realize that its a grindhouse film. See, given its controversial nature, much like Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy was pushed out to Drive Ins and Dollar Theaters, thinking that maybe it would be forgotten, much like other movies of the same nature, but no, that didn't happen. and today, Midnight Cowboy, one of the most praised films of the 20th Century, is infact a Grindhouse film, and I just love it.
The Fly: This is the classic of classics, this is the master of early horror and science fiction Vincent Price, starring in The Fly, the classic tale of science gone wrong, as yet another scientist tries to play god, and ends up becoming a mixture of fly and human, sure today we look back at this and laugh, even the ironic scene at the end where the fly is stuck in a spider's web yelling "help me! help me!", we laugh at it, and I guess rightly so, but, you see thats the true love of the grindhouse era, it can make us scared, tantalize us, leave us guessing till the very end, but also, it can make us laugh, no matter how intentional or unintentional, we can still look back and laugh, and in some cases, thats why we're entertained.
Shaft: I couldn't do this with out one BLaxplotation film, I just couldn't, they are just so perfect for what is truly grindhouse, with their timestamp of a culture that they are aimed directly at, they are just so perfect, with their giant afros, their bellbottom pants, their hip 1970s slang and way of speaking, and their completely far out fashion, you can't think of grindhouse with out blaxplotation. And when you speak of Blaxplotation, you almost always think of Shaft right away. Shaft, the gritty yet funky story of a strong black detective working for his fellow black people who have been wronged by "the man". With its smooth Issac Hayes made soundtrack, and the just brilliantly done acting, you truly feel as if you are in Shaft's world. Sure looking back at it, its kind of funny and laughable at alot of points, but, its still pretty cool no matter how you see it.
Ok well thats it for this special edition, I should be back sunday with more torrents, not sure if i got anything to post tomorrow, but we'll see... :D
so until then, I'll see all later...
---
BC
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: When you talk about Grindhouse, you can't get more into it then the king of the dollar theater's midnight showing, I'm talking ofcourse about The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the movie that is still all of these years later still delightfully ridiculous and over the top it will NEVER really go out of style, be it for the story thats really just an allegory for the writer's inner struggle with his own sexuality and mental issues, the complete over the top pageantry of the entire film, the delightfully insane casting and just how well they all work together, or even the awesomely 1970s songs... This film still to this day gets midnight showings at the few surviving drive ins and dollar theaters left in the united states, thats a kind of saying power that has no equal.
The Car: Anyone that knows me knows I couldn't do a special edition post like this and not mention this film, possibly the greatest of the "haunted car" films ever made. This thing ruled the Drive In theaters of america for an entire summer, infact 1977, which was the summer of sam, which if you know your serial killers, is a big feat. Ths film follows the basic idea of every "haunted car" film ever made, car is possessed by a demonic spirit and decides to go around killing randomly, sure looking back at it, the film is hilariously bad, but thats the fun of it, the whole camp value, that allows us to look back at alot of Grindhouse films and laugh. Plus any film that makes my friend Frank say outloud "Oh yeah, that guy with the french horn is so gonna be the next to die.." and 4 seconds later it happens, is classic comedy gold.
Midnight Cowboy: Most people forget that with its X Rating (X Rating in 1969 being the same as a strong R rating today) Midnight Cowboy stands at the top of the mountain of Grindhouse films, but it does. It stands tall and proud, even if most don't realize that its a grindhouse film. See, given its controversial nature, much like Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy was pushed out to Drive Ins and Dollar Theaters, thinking that maybe it would be forgotten, much like other movies of the same nature, but no, that didn't happen. and today, Midnight Cowboy, one of the most praised films of the 20th Century, is infact a Grindhouse film, and I just love it.
The Fly: This is the classic of classics, this is the master of early horror and science fiction Vincent Price, starring in The Fly, the classic tale of science gone wrong, as yet another scientist tries to play god, and ends up becoming a mixture of fly and human, sure today we look back at this and laugh, even the ironic scene at the end where the fly is stuck in a spider's web yelling "help me! help me!", we laugh at it, and I guess rightly so, but, you see thats the true love of the grindhouse era, it can make us scared, tantalize us, leave us guessing till the very end, but also, it can make us laugh, no matter how intentional or unintentional, we can still look back and laugh, and in some cases, thats why we're entertained.
Shaft: I couldn't do this with out one BLaxplotation film, I just couldn't, they are just so perfect for what is truly grindhouse, with their timestamp of a culture that they are aimed directly at, they are just so perfect, with their giant afros, their bellbottom pants, their hip 1970s slang and way of speaking, and their completely far out fashion, you can't think of grindhouse with out blaxplotation. And when you speak of Blaxplotation, you almost always think of Shaft right away. Shaft, the gritty yet funky story of a strong black detective working for his fellow black people who have been wronged by "the man". With its smooth Issac Hayes made soundtrack, and the just brilliantly done acting, you truly feel as if you are in Shaft's world. Sure looking back at it, its kind of funny and laughable at alot of points, but, its still pretty cool no matter how you see it.
Ok well thats it for this special edition, I should be back sunday with more torrents, not sure if i got anything to post tomorrow, but we'll see... :D
so until then, I'll see all later...
---
BC
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Welcome To The Grindhouse
I originally wrote this article 4 years ago under the title "The History of The B-Movie" and having recently just discovered the original copy again, i felt the need to share it again, plus I felt it fits the feel of this place, so with out delay, here we go again...
Grindhouse: (noun); A Movie Industry and Movie fan term for what is generally referred to as a "B-Movie" meaning of low budget production and little or unknown outside of a small genre of fans actors starring. Its taken from the 1942 movie "The Lady of The Burlesque" in which one of the dancers refers to the theater they dance in as a grindhouse. A Grindhouse film is generally a movie that would have in its day been shown at a drive in movie theater or in a cheap inner city dollar theater that would show adult features after midnight.
Ever since I was a minicon I can remember enjoying watching bad movies. It wasn't that I knew at the time they were bad, but I just loved them. Like many it started with old monster movies. See, back in the day Boston's WLVI 56, at the time an independent station, had the weekends on lock. Seriously, they would show old cartoons and early anime on saturday and sunday mornings, but come noon time, thats when it was really going on, at noon they would show a classic english dubbed kung fu movie of some kind, and then come 2pm, it was time for The Creature Double Feature. And thats when all the awesome happened, see for those of you too young to know what the classic Creature Double Feature was, it was sort of the daytime brother to the midnight movie, sometimes they would have a show host who would come in with facts about the movie or jokes about it, sometimes not. none of these hosts ever did make it to the iconic level of the late night movie ones, understandable though, people like Elvira or Maila Nurmi's classic alter ego Vampira, or even Count Floyd wouldn't really fit that well in a sunday afternoon timeslot, but thats a side point. The Concept was pretty simple, the creature double feature played mostly monster movies made in japan; Godzilla, Mothra, all the ToHo made classics or classic american B-movies, normally ranging from the universal monsters for the 1930s all the way up to late 1970s or early 1980s sci fi, and afew made by crap movie master studios Troma and Hammer films as well, they were so bad, and yet, thats what made them awesome. In time the other indie channels followed a similar format for awile, WSBK 38 would show two Blaxplotation movies back to back both days, movies like Shaft, Foxy Brown, Three The Hard Way, Car Wash, Sugar Hill (1874's version not that crappy 1994 movie of the same name and different plot), stuff like that, it made great stuff to watch if I didn't like the movie on 56, and following suit behind both of them was WQTV 68, a saturday morning favorite of mine because of their anime, followed up the other two indie stations with other movies that fit the "Grindhouse" genre, stuff like the original Walking Tall movies from the 1970s, and things of that nature. These concepts became so popular they would expand it to late night programing every night of the week, normally moving over for a nationally syndicated show on friday, saturday and sunday nights.
This is where my love of movies started. Oh sure, I didn't really become hardcore about it until I got into high school and started to take classes in Film Study, that I learned of more then just what was shown on tv on week end afternoons and late nights on the weekdays, I learned of some of the greats in film making, Troma Studios and all their intentionally bad sci fi monster movies, the UK's Hammer Studios and all of their incredibly made though really bad horror movies, as well as Cannon films and all their "bad ass" movies that starred people like Chuck Norris and such, all so very very badly made, but such a joy to watch, see, I learned in my teenage years a fact that I keep true with me today, even the worst pile of dog crap thats put on a movie screen, on some level is worth atleast watching once, even if its the worst thing you've ever seen, there is atleast one thing you can take away from it thats enjoyable. Be it, something like the two corvettes you can see in the chariot race scene in that horrible movie Ben-Hur, or the midget that killed himself on screen in The Wizard of Oz at the end of the scene where they meet the Tin Woodsman, or just how bad the line "Soylent Green .... is.... people!" really is, or any number of other things that make a bad movie, bad. And thankfully, with the power of the internet at the fingertips of anyone thats willing to use it for anything other then pornography, there are ways for those like me, to find others that love bad movies just as much, though in all honesty, I've not met one yet that could beat me in movie trivia yet, and in all fairness, I doubt I'll find anyone that ever can. But in any event, I have found those who are like me, and enjoy the same things I do for the same reasons I do, which is awesome because for so long, I thought I was the only one, I honestly did. And now, thanks to the joy that is filesharing, you can get just about any movie ever made with a day's time, or even less depending on your connection.
Now I know that I am not the first or the last wax nostalgic on this topic, but thats alright with me, it doesn't matter who's first, who's last, all that matters is that there are others who share the same love of things because of their ability to defy logic by their very creation. And though I learned in my teen years of some of the greats, Mel Brooks, Roger Corman, Russ Meyer, and people of that ilk, it wasn't really until my late 20s that I discovered just how vast and really interesting the market for B-Movies really was. And just how expansive the genre truly is. apon finding out these things, and researching, I learned to love b-movies all over again, with a rekindled joy and love for something that almost rivals that of my love for a woman. Almost. I learned of the many subfields of B-movies, from the 1930s pre-MPAA era movies like "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" and the 1932 version of "Scarface" and the version of "Little Caesar" that followed soon after, all laced with graphic violence and sexuality in their own ways, and the drug awareness movies of that same time period, everyone's aware of the ironic classic "Reefer Madness" but how many are aware the others made at that time? Movies like "Cocaine Friends" and "Marijuana"? they all followed the same basic plot, which made them kind of all comical in an unintentional way; Young couple go to a party, the party is either in a dark back alley bar or in some ultra rich mansion and the party is full of pretty people dressed in the hight of fashion for the time, there are drugs there, normally whatever drug the movie was showing you the evils of though others were mentioned, the couple have never done drugs before, the host of the party and their friends either bully or guilt the couple into trying whatever the drug "everyone's using" or whatever the term for the timeperiod is, the couple gives in, and followed by a musical bit set to strange music showing the room getting blurry and things looking funny and whatever, the two sink into this new world of drugs very fast so fast even that it always leads to sex before marriage! The movie then shows them spiral down into the lives of addicts who can't get enough, the girl normally becomes a prostitute that becomes pregnant and gives the kid up or ends up a single mother because the boy took up crime and either ends up in jail, dead, or leaving for someone else. Sometimes you'll find a different version where its just the girl and she basically becomes a prostitute with a baby, but they all end the same way, with a text card that reads "Warn your children". God I love 1930s propaganda, seriously its so much better then all that "yay go Allied Forces we're gonna win the war!" bullcrap from the 1940s, its not that I don't love my country mind you, I just find it so incredibly racist its not funny.
Also, its ironic that in the 1930s Hollywood would be doing movies against the use od drugs, when in the 1960s, one of the many genres to appear was Drugsplotation, a genre that embraced the hippie friendly drug culture and tried to make movies to bring that demographic into the theaters, movies like MaryJane, Alice in AcidLand, Yellow Submarine, Head: A Monkee Movie, Hair, Woodstock, and ofcourse the early 1970s brought us A Clockwork Orange and all the Cheech and Chong classics, all of them written for and aimed at the drug culture of the time, you still see this genre alive today in movies though admittedly there are no where near as many of them worth actually sitting down to see, though these early movies in the genre did to a point glamorize the drug scene of the 1960s and 1970s, all except afew choice movies, were quick and prominent to point out and show the downside as well as the up, if thats just how the stories were written or a hollywood mandate when studios started to aim at this demographic is unclear, but I rather like it, it added a human and harsh side to what would otherwise seem to be an onslaught of surrealistic imagery of half naked people flailing around to pretty colors played over even more surrealistic Hendrix style electric blues rock type music. The few exceptions were movies like Head: A Monkee Movie, Yellow Submarine, and the Cheech and Chong movies, Head and Yellow Submarine both being made by major label top selling music acts at the time it made since they would want to keep selling them to the drug crowd and the cheech and chong movies simply because they were just to funny end everyone knew they were really lampooning drug culture as much as they were promoting it. You still see the drug movie alive and well today, movies like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Half Baked", "Trainspotting" and "21 Grams" still show at at times, it can be a respectable field, though more times then not, its just an excuse to make a stupid movie about druggies doing stupid things these days.
The 1960s also gave us a very strange and hard to really define genre called Sexplotiation, see, its hard to tell where this concept came from, they aren't always hippie friendly "Free love" movies, infact though there is nudity and sexual related dialog 98% of movies in this genre have no actual sexual content, and even in the 2% that does, its never more then just passionate kissing between a man and a woman or sometimes two women depending on the story and plot of the movie, alot of people mix Sexplotation movies up with early pornographic movies, but there are many differences, there is almost never any sexual contact though there is alot of nudity, mostly "Cheesecake" poses and graphic talk of sex in some way or another, there really is none to speak of, and also, more times then not, the plot is just strange and kind of surrealistic stuff about daily life or just enjoying life wile being mostly naked or just plain violent. Graphic scenes of whipping, sometimes beating, cutting, and implied rape, by the Grindhouse era in the 1970s you had some rather interesting mixtures in movies of the sexplotation genre, "bad girl" movies like "Switchblade Sisters", "Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!" and "The Born Losers", there were alot of biker, more to point hells angels related movies in this field as well I should add, as well as "Women Behind Bars" movies, most known in the "Ilsa" series of movies where in this tall statuesque blond woman from German named Ilsa who started out as the madam of "a secret nazi sex camp" takes on various roles, alot of nudity and weird bondage like stuff thats not exactly bondage happens, and in the end, there are afew mutilated nude bodies and stuff of that nature, how they were made with out being called porn, I'll never actually understand. In Sexplotation you also had movies didn't really fit any of the other categories, movies like "The Valley of the Dolls" and its follow up "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", "3 Women" and movies like "I'm curious (blue)" and its second part "I'm curious (yellow) both highly erotic and display full frontal male and female nudity, blue has a famous scene where a woman kisses her lover's penis on screen, as well as a ton of beach movies that all followed the same plot; beaches, kids in almost nothing and sometimes nothing, singing, some older person trying to ruin their fun, and everyone getting along by the end. This concept was later redone as the "Teen Movie" in the 1980s, much like Sexplotation was recycled into the "sex movie" in the 1980s as well, movies like 9 1/2 Weeks, Basic instinct, even the recent soon to be cult movie Shortbus, all the children of this genre. Its weird, I'm not really a massive fan, given the graphic violence on women in alot of the movies, but I find it important to note in movie history.
By the early 1970s came the next genre that alot of the movies of my youth fit into, that would be the genre recently touched apon and brought back to life in the 2007 film named for the genre, I'm speaking ofcourse of the concept of The Grindhouse. The Grindhouse genre, named so because many of the theaters that aired these movies were either old porn theaters or burlesque show houses, is awesome in the fact it fits all of the above listed styles as well as many others, biker movies, slasher movies, cannibal and zombie movies, shock movies, Kung Fu movies, all sorts of stuff, all piled into dark, dirty rundown urban movie houses and shown two different movies at a time, 7 days a week, from noon till sometimes as late as 3am. The whole point of the Grindhouse style theater was pretty simple, take movies that could be gotten cheaply and aimed as second or third feature at a Drive In movie theater and show them double feature style, most of these theaters were simply just old theaters that didn't really make enough money to afford the big name movies of the time, and with the drive in movie theater slowly dying, despite most drive in theaters going to double and triple features for the price of one, it was very easy and cheap to get ahold of the movies aimed as second and third feature, and thats just what the Grindhouse theaters did, many of the movies, had film scratches, "quick clipped" edits or dialog and scenes, and other various damages or effects of badly produced movie making. See, The Grindhouse and The Drive In Movie Theaters weren't seen as being on the same level as a regular movie theater, and movies aimed at them didn't have to be overly pristine in their production and such, cheap made movies to get the people in the seats and make double or triple the movie's cost was the basic idea. The movies fit into many different categories, some of which we've covered already, but here is the complete list; Drugsplotation, Sexplotation, Blaxplotation, Shockplotation, Giallo, Disaster movies, Zombie Movies, Post Apocalypse movies, Space movies, Cannibal movies, Kung Fu Movies, Tough Guy Movies, Classic, Rubber Monster Movies, Slasher Movies, Hicksplotation, Revenge movies, Demonplotation and afew others that weren't really big enough to fit a name those are all filed under simply "B-Movies" or "Grindhouse Movies" both meaning the same thing. Some had their own subgenres too, which I would like to explain now if thats alright with all of you? Ok, I thought so, hope you don't mind alittle repeating.
Drugsplotation: Is a movie that intentionally glamorizes the use of drugs be it by intent or not, many times movies that were ment to be anti-drug were given cult status for their overly preachy to the point of comical depiction of drug life, almost every single one of them ends with the main characters dead, in jail, pregnant and single, becoming involved in prostitution, or some mix of all of them, movies like Reefer Madness, MaryJane and Cocaine Friends fit here. Some would also argue that 1970s things like H.R Puffnstuf the movie would fit here too.
Sexplotation: Is a movie that shows graphic nudity or women wearing almost nothing or very revealing clothing, more often then not the women were large busted, some were also very violent and degrading to women as a whole though not to the extent that Shocksplotation was at times. Russ Meyer and Roger Corman were the two biggest film makers of this field. It had subgenres too, Women in Prison, where its your basic prison movie, just with women and nudity, Bad Girl movies, were you would have a woman or a group of women dressed rather sexy going around fighting bad guys for whatever reason, Nunsplotation movies, were you normally had an attractive nun meeting a man or woman and questioning leaving her station for them, there were also movies that would today be listed as "erotic art house" movies like I'm Curious (Blue) and I'm Curious (Yellow), though they were more "intersexual" movies, meaning though erotically based in story and image, they were intelligently written and ment to make you look inside yourself and your own ideas. Movies like Faster Pussycat Kill Kill!, The Born Losers and Switchblade Sisters fit here.
Blaxplotation: Is a movie aimed at urban culture and mostly black movie-goers, they dealt with issues that were common to the urban landscape at the time, though looking back at them now, as cool as they are, some do come off seeming insulting to the culture itself. Movies range from being about music, to drugs, to pimps, to revenge, and all sorts of others too, sometimes they would just take a movie that was already made and give it an all black cast, Black Shampoo and The Whiz come to mind as examples of that(Remakes of Shampoo and The Wizard of Oz respectively). Movies like Shaft, Hammer, Coonskin, and Cleopatra Jones fit here.
Shockplotation: Shock is just that, shock. Any movie designed to gross you out with gore and violence and things of that nature, The whole point of them is to, well shock you, "Faces of Death", "Mondo Cane", and the Ilsa movies too, "The Life of Ricky" movies come to mind as well. Though admittedly, The Life of Ricky movies came along many years after the golden era of Grindhouse. You see just about anything can fit in this genre really, sexplotation crossed into it alot, as did slasher movies, and sometimes even kung fu. There really aren't any definitive series or movies in this genre, sept I guess Faces of Death and Mondo Cane and all those cannibal movies.
Hicksplotation: These were movies aimed at people who lived in rural areas, mostly in the south, alot of these movies starred country music singers from the 60s and 70s and to a degree had a revival in the early 80s with those really bad Dolly Parton movies, but they would be based on stuff you would find happening in the rural areas of the country, moonshine running, stock car or hot rod races, saving the farm from being taken by the bank, stuff like that, mostly movies that starred Burt Reynolds or people like that. Movies like, Stroker Ace, Convoy and Harper Valley PTA fit here.
Demonplotation: This where you would fit all the "demonic" movies, things like the exorcist, poltergeist, the omen, movies of that nature as well as classics like Häxan, a 1922 movie about witches and satanic worship that gained a cult following, and others that fit that same formula. this genre really only came into being near the end of the Grindhouse era and isn't as well known as its older brothers, the zombie and cannibal movies. Movies like The Omen, Phantasm, to an extent the Hellraiser movies later on, all would fit here.
Rubber Monster Movies: These are basically all of those monster movies from japan, mostly ones made by Toho and companies like that, there are so many sub genres of that its kind of dizzying, so for the American crowd its just lopped into one, this is also were you would find badly made American and European monster movies too, and some would list zombie movies in this grouping too, I tend to do that for sake of simplification, Movies that would fit into this genre are Godzilla and all the movies spun from that, most of the alien movies made in the 1950s, and alot of the monster ones made in the 60s too.
Space Movies: Space movies, and their sister the post apocalypse, always seemed to follow the same formula basically though Post Apocalypse doesn't leave the planet normally, the great nuclear war has come and gone, and whats left of mankind have either taken to space for a home or searching for a new home, normally they involve fighting some big alien armada of some kind, more often then not there are robots of some kind, or strange alien crew members and such, basic sci fi fodder. Movies that fit in this genre would be things like The Black Hole, Darkstar, 2001: Space odyssey.
Giallo: are Italian made movies with a mix of thriller/erotica/Crime Drama normally, kind of the Italian brother to the gangster movie of the 1940s normally. Dario Argento was the master of this genre if there ever was one. Movies one would put into this genre are Five Dolls for an August Moon, Don't Torture a Duckling, A Dragonfly for Each Corpse.
Kung Fu Movies: Simple explanation, these are as they seem, kung fu movies brought over from Asia, mostly hong kong, ironically based on Japanese lore or manga, they were tales of honor and stuff of that nature, the genre is, always defined by Akira Kurosawa and his work. Movies in this genre would be things like Enter The Dragon, Lone Wolf and Cub, and Seven Samurai.
Slasher Movies: Slasher movies have to be the most well known of all the Grindhouse genres, the basic idea is pretty simple, a group of teenagers or collage age kids end up somewhere, normally a campground or some old house in the middle of nowhere, and there is some kind of local legend about someone that goes around killing people cuz of some stupid thing or another, and normally all one one of the kids dies, its kind of what you wished Scooby Doo cartoons would be, but never ended up being. Movies in this genre would be things like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street.
Tough Guy Movies: The concept of the Tough Guy movie is pretty simple, angry man or group of men normally fight against a big business or some local rich person thats trying to take over or something, action movies also came out of this genre as did alot of biker movies, and it infact made Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson, and earlier then them Steve McQueen and James Dean stars. though some argue on if thats a good thing or not. Movies in this genre include Death Wish, Bullit, and the three Walking Tall movies.
Music Movies: The Music Movie is, in some cases the greatest form of Grindhouse movie there is, normally they were just an excuse for a band to act in some crappy written movie that allowed them to sort of Showcase their greatest hits, or songs off a certain album, maybe work a cover or two into the mix for fun, sometimes they were movies that were simply documentaries, like Woodstock, Monterey Pop, Wattstax, and the like, others were completely off the wall, Tommy, Rock and Roll High School, KISS Meets the Phantom of Central Park, This Spinal Tap, and many others worked in popular songs by the bands involved but were actual movies, that told a story, even if it wasn't that powerful of a story. Movies that would fit this genre are like, Heavy Metal, Rock and Roll High School, and Tommy.
The rest filter off into Cult and standard B-Movies, not incredibly bad, not incredibly good in most cases, there are many gems though among the coal though, when researching the history of the B-Movie, Harold and Maude comes to mind as one of the best, as does Carnival of Souls, and Somewhere In Time, another great classic thats forever to be a B-Movie. I know alot of you out there are thinking "the hell are you on about, the B-movie is still around, they make them all the time.." well yes, you are right, the *name* of the B-Movie is still around, but the concept, well the concept is nothing more then cable friendly softcore porn in the modern era, don't get me wrong, there are many stars who have made great careers out of being in B-movies in the modern era, Julie Strain comes to mind, but still at the risk of sounding somewhat like a whining old grump thats scared by change, its not the same, a B-Movie isn't supposed to be softcore pornography, or crappy sex joke movies that star people like Ron Jeremy, simply because they're Ron Jeremy. A B-Movie is ment to be somewhat campy and fun, or to scare the piss out of you and make you laugh all at the same time, its not ment to be this stupid excuse for washed up pornstars to try and act in "real" movies, just seems strange and out of place to me. But thats me, I'm kind of stuck in my movie past.
I won't lie to you, as a whole I sometimes think the modern movie business has lost something, its lost its way, and its soul, and its originality, oh sure you see afew gems a year, though many are loe budget, Indie or direct to dvd movies with no promotion at all, wile piles of crap like Mission Impossible 3 and that really bad Pink Panther remake get all sorts of promotion and just plain tank at the box office. I just don't understand Hollywood I guess, no matter how well I read on it, and learn on it, and the more and more people I meet in the business, I swear I will never understand the way the promotional values are divvied up, I just don't get it. I am not going to be one of those doomsayers that proclaims the end of the world is at hand because they made another DieHard movie, or whatever, but I won't say I don't miss my weekend afternoons as a child watching movies with people in foam rubber suits fighting in miniature cities where stuff gets blown up constantly, or old black and white movies where a woman will let out a really loud earsplitting scream for no reason at all half the time wile running away from what looks like jello.
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" Welcome To The Grindhouse: A History of B-Movies from The Drive In and Two Dollar Double Feature Theaters To The Small Screen and Obscurity "
Grindhouse: (noun); A Movie Industry and Movie fan term for what is generally referred to as a "B-Movie" meaning of low budget production and little or unknown outside of a small genre of fans actors starring. Its taken from the 1942 movie "The Lady of The Burlesque" in which one of the dancers refers to the theater they dance in as a grindhouse. A Grindhouse film is generally a movie that would have in its day been shown at a drive in movie theater or in a cheap inner city dollar theater that would show adult features after midnight.
Ever since I was a minicon I can remember enjoying watching bad movies. It wasn't that I knew at the time they were bad, but I just loved them. Like many it started with old monster movies. See, back in the day Boston's WLVI 56, at the time an independent station, had the weekends on lock. Seriously, they would show old cartoons and early anime on saturday and sunday mornings, but come noon time, thats when it was really going on, at noon they would show a classic english dubbed kung fu movie of some kind, and then come 2pm, it was time for The Creature Double Feature. And thats when all the awesome happened, see for those of you too young to know what the classic Creature Double Feature was, it was sort of the daytime brother to the midnight movie, sometimes they would have a show host who would come in with facts about the movie or jokes about it, sometimes not. none of these hosts ever did make it to the iconic level of the late night movie ones, understandable though, people like Elvira or Maila Nurmi's classic alter ego Vampira, or even Count Floyd wouldn't really fit that well in a sunday afternoon timeslot, but thats a side point. The Concept was pretty simple, the creature double feature played mostly monster movies made in japan; Godzilla, Mothra, all the ToHo made classics or classic american B-movies, normally ranging from the universal monsters for the 1930s all the way up to late 1970s or early 1980s sci fi, and afew made by crap movie master studios Troma and Hammer films as well, they were so bad, and yet, thats what made them awesome. In time the other indie channels followed a similar format for awile, WSBK 38 would show two Blaxplotation movies back to back both days, movies like Shaft, Foxy Brown, Three The Hard Way, Car Wash, Sugar Hill (1874's version not that crappy 1994 movie of the same name and different plot), stuff like that, it made great stuff to watch if I didn't like the movie on 56, and following suit behind both of them was WQTV 68, a saturday morning favorite of mine because of their anime, followed up the other two indie stations with other movies that fit the "Grindhouse" genre, stuff like the original Walking Tall movies from the 1970s, and things of that nature. These concepts became so popular they would expand it to late night programing every night of the week, normally moving over for a nationally syndicated show on friday, saturday and sunday nights.
This is where my love of movies started. Oh sure, I didn't really become hardcore about it until I got into high school and started to take classes in Film Study, that I learned of more then just what was shown on tv on week end afternoons and late nights on the weekdays, I learned of some of the greats in film making, Troma Studios and all their intentionally bad sci fi monster movies, the UK's Hammer Studios and all of their incredibly made though really bad horror movies, as well as Cannon films and all their "bad ass" movies that starred people like Chuck Norris and such, all so very very badly made, but such a joy to watch, see, I learned in my teenage years a fact that I keep true with me today, even the worst pile of dog crap thats put on a movie screen, on some level is worth atleast watching once, even if its the worst thing you've ever seen, there is atleast one thing you can take away from it thats enjoyable. Be it, something like the two corvettes you can see in the chariot race scene in that horrible movie Ben-Hur, or the midget that killed himself on screen in The Wizard of Oz at the end of the scene where they meet the Tin Woodsman, or just how bad the line "Soylent Green .... is.... people!" really is, or any number of other things that make a bad movie, bad. And thankfully, with the power of the internet at the fingertips of anyone thats willing to use it for anything other then pornography, there are ways for those like me, to find others that love bad movies just as much, though in all honesty, I've not met one yet that could beat me in movie trivia yet, and in all fairness, I doubt I'll find anyone that ever can. But in any event, I have found those who are like me, and enjoy the same things I do for the same reasons I do, which is awesome because for so long, I thought I was the only one, I honestly did. And now, thanks to the joy that is filesharing, you can get just about any movie ever made with a day's time, or even less depending on your connection.
Now I know that I am not the first or the last wax nostalgic on this topic, but thats alright with me, it doesn't matter who's first, who's last, all that matters is that there are others who share the same love of things because of their ability to defy logic by their very creation. And though I learned in my teen years of some of the greats, Mel Brooks, Roger Corman, Russ Meyer, and people of that ilk, it wasn't really until my late 20s that I discovered just how vast and really interesting the market for B-Movies really was. And just how expansive the genre truly is. apon finding out these things, and researching, I learned to love b-movies all over again, with a rekindled joy and love for something that almost rivals that of my love for a woman. Almost. I learned of the many subfields of B-movies, from the 1930s pre-MPAA era movies like "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" and the 1932 version of "Scarface" and the version of "Little Caesar" that followed soon after, all laced with graphic violence and sexuality in their own ways, and the drug awareness movies of that same time period, everyone's aware of the ironic classic "Reefer Madness" but how many are aware the others made at that time? Movies like "Cocaine Friends" and "Marijuana"? they all followed the same basic plot, which made them kind of all comical in an unintentional way; Young couple go to a party, the party is either in a dark back alley bar or in some ultra rich mansion and the party is full of pretty people dressed in the hight of fashion for the time, there are drugs there, normally whatever drug the movie was showing you the evils of though others were mentioned, the couple have never done drugs before, the host of the party and their friends either bully or guilt the couple into trying whatever the drug "everyone's using" or whatever the term for the timeperiod is, the couple gives in, and followed by a musical bit set to strange music showing the room getting blurry and things looking funny and whatever, the two sink into this new world of drugs very fast so fast even that it always leads to sex before marriage! The movie then shows them spiral down into the lives of addicts who can't get enough, the girl normally becomes a prostitute that becomes pregnant and gives the kid up or ends up a single mother because the boy took up crime and either ends up in jail, dead, or leaving for someone else. Sometimes you'll find a different version where its just the girl and she basically becomes a prostitute with a baby, but they all end the same way, with a text card that reads "Warn your children". God I love 1930s propaganda, seriously its so much better then all that "yay go Allied Forces we're gonna win the war!" bullcrap from the 1940s, its not that I don't love my country mind you, I just find it so incredibly racist its not funny.
Also, its ironic that in the 1930s Hollywood would be doing movies against the use od drugs, when in the 1960s, one of the many genres to appear was Drugsplotation, a genre that embraced the hippie friendly drug culture and tried to make movies to bring that demographic into the theaters, movies like MaryJane, Alice in AcidLand, Yellow Submarine, Head: A Monkee Movie, Hair, Woodstock, and ofcourse the early 1970s brought us A Clockwork Orange and all the Cheech and Chong classics, all of them written for and aimed at the drug culture of the time, you still see this genre alive today in movies though admittedly there are no where near as many of them worth actually sitting down to see, though these early movies in the genre did to a point glamorize the drug scene of the 1960s and 1970s, all except afew choice movies, were quick and prominent to point out and show the downside as well as the up, if thats just how the stories were written or a hollywood mandate when studios started to aim at this demographic is unclear, but I rather like it, it added a human and harsh side to what would otherwise seem to be an onslaught of surrealistic imagery of half naked people flailing around to pretty colors played over even more surrealistic Hendrix style electric blues rock type music. The few exceptions were movies like Head: A Monkee Movie, Yellow Submarine, and the Cheech and Chong movies, Head and Yellow Submarine both being made by major label top selling music acts at the time it made since they would want to keep selling them to the drug crowd and the cheech and chong movies simply because they were just to funny end everyone knew they were really lampooning drug culture as much as they were promoting it. You still see the drug movie alive and well today, movies like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Half Baked", "Trainspotting" and "21 Grams" still show at at times, it can be a respectable field, though more times then not, its just an excuse to make a stupid movie about druggies doing stupid things these days.
The 1960s also gave us a very strange and hard to really define genre called Sexplotiation, see, its hard to tell where this concept came from, they aren't always hippie friendly "Free love" movies, infact though there is nudity and sexual related dialog 98% of movies in this genre have no actual sexual content, and even in the 2% that does, its never more then just passionate kissing between a man and a woman or sometimes two women depending on the story and plot of the movie, alot of people mix Sexplotation movies up with early pornographic movies, but there are many differences, there is almost never any sexual contact though there is alot of nudity, mostly "Cheesecake" poses and graphic talk of sex in some way or another, there really is none to speak of, and also, more times then not, the plot is just strange and kind of surrealistic stuff about daily life or just enjoying life wile being mostly naked or just plain violent. Graphic scenes of whipping, sometimes beating, cutting, and implied rape, by the Grindhouse era in the 1970s you had some rather interesting mixtures in movies of the sexplotation genre, "bad girl" movies like "Switchblade Sisters", "Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!" and "The Born Losers", there were alot of biker, more to point hells angels related movies in this field as well I should add, as well as "Women Behind Bars" movies, most known in the "Ilsa" series of movies where in this tall statuesque blond woman from German named Ilsa who started out as the madam of "a secret nazi sex camp" takes on various roles, alot of nudity and weird bondage like stuff thats not exactly bondage happens, and in the end, there are afew mutilated nude bodies and stuff of that nature, how they were made with out being called porn, I'll never actually understand. In Sexplotation you also had movies didn't really fit any of the other categories, movies like "The Valley of the Dolls" and its follow up "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", "3 Women" and movies like "I'm curious (blue)" and its second part "I'm curious (yellow) both highly erotic and display full frontal male and female nudity, blue has a famous scene where a woman kisses her lover's penis on screen, as well as a ton of beach movies that all followed the same plot; beaches, kids in almost nothing and sometimes nothing, singing, some older person trying to ruin their fun, and everyone getting along by the end. This concept was later redone as the "Teen Movie" in the 1980s, much like Sexplotation was recycled into the "sex movie" in the 1980s as well, movies like 9 1/2 Weeks, Basic instinct, even the recent soon to be cult movie Shortbus, all the children of this genre. Its weird, I'm not really a massive fan, given the graphic violence on women in alot of the movies, but I find it important to note in movie history.
By the early 1970s came the next genre that alot of the movies of my youth fit into, that would be the genre recently touched apon and brought back to life in the 2007 film named for the genre, I'm speaking ofcourse of the concept of The Grindhouse. The Grindhouse genre, named so because many of the theaters that aired these movies were either old porn theaters or burlesque show houses, is awesome in the fact it fits all of the above listed styles as well as many others, biker movies, slasher movies, cannibal and zombie movies, shock movies, Kung Fu movies, all sorts of stuff, all piled into dark, dirty rundown urban movie houses and shown two different movies at a time, 7 days a week, from noon till sometimes as late as 3am. The whole point of the Grindhouse style theater was pretty simple, take movies that could be gotten cheaply and aimed as second or third feature at a Drive In movie theater and show them double feature style, most of these theaters were simply just old theaters that didn't really make enough money to afford the big name movies of the time, and with the drive in movie theater slowly dying, despite most drive in theaters going to double and triple features for the price of one, it was very easy and cheap to get ahold of the movies aimed as second and third feature, and thats just what the Grindhouse theaters did, many of the movies, had film scratches, "quick clipped" edits or dialog and scenes, and other various damages or effects of badly produced movie making. See, The Grindhouse and The Drive In Movie Theaters weren't seen as being on the same level as a regular movie theater, and movies aimed at them didn't have to be overly pristine in their production and such, cheap made movies to get the people in the seats and make double or triple the movie's cost was the basic idea. The movies fit into many different categories, some of which we've covered already, but here is the complete list; Drugsplotation, Sexplotation, Blaxplotation, Shockplotation, Giallo, Disaster movies, Zombie Movies, Post Apocalypse movies, Space movies, Cannibal movies, Kung Fu Movies, Tough Guy Movies, Classic, Rubber Monster Movies, Slasher Movies, Hicksplotation, Revenge movies, Demonplotation and afew others that weren't really big enough to fit a name those are all filed under simply "B-Movies" or "Grindhouse Movies" both meaning the same thing. Some had their own subgenres too, which I would like to explain now if thats alright with all of you? Ok, I thought so, hope you don't mind alittle repeating.
Drugsplotation: Is a movie that intentionally glamorizes the use of drugs be it by intent or not, many times movies that were ment to be anti-drug were given cult status for their overly preachy to the point of comical depiction of drug life, almost every single one of them ends with the main characters dead, in jail, pregnant and single, becoming involved in prostitution, or some mix of all of them, movies like Reefer Madness, MaryJane and Cocaine Friends fit here. Some would also argue that 1970s things like H.R Puffnstuf the movie would fit here too.
Sexplotation: Is a movie that shows graphic nudity or women wearing almost nothing or very revealing clothing, more often then not the women were large busted, some were also very violent and degrading to women as a whole though not to the extent that Shocksplotation was at times. Russ Meyer and Roger Corman were the two biggest film makers of this field. It had subgenres too, Women in Prison, where its your basic prison movie, just with women and nudity, Bad Girl movies, were you would have a woman or a group of women dressed rather sexy going around fighting bad guys for whatever reason, Nunsplotation movies, were you normally had an attractive nun meeting a man or woman and questioning leaving her station for them, there were also movies that would today be listed as "erotic art house" movies like I'm Curious (Blue) and I'm Curious (Yellow), though they were more "intersexual" movies, meaning though erotically based in story and image, they were intelligently written and ment to make you look inside yourself and your own ideas. Movies like Faster Pussycat Kill Kill!, The Born Losers and Switchblade Sisters fit here.
Blaxplotation: Is a movie aimed at urban culture and mostly black movie-goers, they dealt with issues that were common to the urban landscape at the time, though looking back at them now, as cool as they are, some do come off seeming insulting to the culture itself. Movies range from being about music, to drugs, to pimps, to revenge, and all sorts of others too, sometimes they would just take a movie that was already made and give it an all black cast, Black Shampoo and The Whiz come to mind as examples of that(Remakes of Shampoo and The Wizard of Oz respectively). Movies like Shaft, Hammer, Coonskin, and Cleopatra Jones fit here.
Shockplotation: Shock is just that, shock. Any movie designed to gross you out with gore and violence and things of that nature, The whole point of them is to, well shock you, "Faces of Death", "Mondo Cane", and the Ilsa movies too, "The Life of Ricky" movies come to mind as well. Though admittedly, The Life of Ricky movies came along many years after the golden era of Grindhouse. You see just about anything can fit in this genre really, sexplotation crossed into it alot, as did slasher movies, and sometimes even kung fu. There really aren't any definitive series or movies in this genre, sept I guess Faces of Death and Mondo Cane and all those cannibal movies.
Hicksplotation: These were movies aimed at people who lived in rural areas, mostly in the south, alot of these movies starred country music singers from the 60s and 70s and to a degree had a revival in the early 80s with those really bad Dolly Parton movies, but they would be based on stuff you would find happening in the rural areas of the country, moonshine running, stock car or hot rod races, saving the farm from being taken by the bank, stuff like that, mostly movies that starred Burt Reynolds or people like that. Movies like, Stroker Ace, Convoy and Harper Valley PTA fit here.
Demonplotation: This where you would fit all the "demonic" movies, things like the exorcist, poltergeist, the omen, movies of that nature as well as classics like Häxan, a 1922 movie about witches and satanic worship that gained a cult following, and others that fit that same formula. this genre really only came into being near the end of the Grindhouse era and isn't as well known as its older brothers, the zombie and cannibal movies. Movies like The Omen, Phantasm, to an extent the Hellraiser movies later on, all would fit here.
Rubber Monster Movies: These are basically all of those monster movies from japan, mostly ones made by Toho and companies like that, there are so many sub genres of that its kind of dizzying, so for the American crowd its just lopped into one, this is also were you would find badly made American and European monster movies too, and some would list zombie movies in this grouping too, I tend to do that for sake of simplification, Movies that would fit into this genre are Godzilla and all the movies spun from that, most of the alien movies made in the 1950s, and alot of the monster ones made in the 60s too.
Space Movies: Space movies, and their sister the post apocalypse, always seemed to follow the same formula basically though Post Apocalypse doesn't leave the planet normally, the great nuclear war has come and gone, and whats left of mankind have either taken to space for a home or searching for a new home, normally they involve fighting some big alien armada of some kind, more often then not there are robots of some kind, or strange alien crew members and such, basic sci fi fodder. Movies that fit in this genre would be things like The Black Hole, Darkstar, 2001: Space odyssey.
Giallo: are Italian made movies with a mix of thriller/erotica/Crime Drama normally, kind of the Italian brother to the gangster movie of the 1940s normally. Dario Argento was the master of this genre if there ever was one. Movies one would put into this genre are Five Dolls for an August Moon, Don't Torture a Duckling, A Dragonfly for Each Corpse.
Kung Fu Movies: Simple explanation, these are as they seem, kung fu movies brought over from Asia, mostly hong kong, ironically based on Japanese lore or manga, they were tales of honor and stuff of that nature, the genre is, always defined by Akira Kurosawa and his work. Movies in this genre would be things like Enter The Dragon, Lone Wolf and Cub, and Seven Samurai.
Slasher Movies: Slasher movies have to be the most well known of all the Grindhouse genres, the basic idea is pretty simple, a group of teenagers or collage age kids end up somewhere, normally a campground or some old house in the middle of nowhere, and there is some kind of local legend about someone that goes around killing people cuz of some stupid thing or another, and normally all one one of the kids dies, its kind of what you wished Scooby Doo cartoons would be, but never ended up being. Movies in this genre would be things like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street.
Tough Guy Movies: The concept of the Tough Guy movie is pretty simple, angry man or group of men normally fight against a big business or some local rich person thats trying to take over or something, action movies also came out of this genre as did alot of biker movies, and it infact made Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson, and earlier then them Steve McQueen and James Dean stars. though some argue on if thats a good thing or not. Movies in this genre include Death Wish, Bullit, and the three Walking Tall movies.
Music Movies: The Music Movie is, in some cases the greatest form of Grindhouse movie there is, normally they were just an excuse for a band to act in some crappy written movie that allowed them to sort of Showcase their greatest hits, or songs off a certain album, maybe work a cover or two into the mix for fun, sometimes they were movies that were simply documentaries, like Woodstock, Monterey Pop, Wattstax, and the like, others were completely off the wall, Tommy, Rock and Roll High School, KISS Meets the Phantom of Central Park, This Spinal Tap, and many others worked in popular songs by the bands involved but were actual movies, that told a story, even if it wasn't that powerful of a story. Movies that would fit this genre are like, Heavy Metal, Rock and Roll High School, and Tommy.
The rest filter off into Cult and standard B-Movies, not incredibly bad, not incredibly good in most cases, there are many gems though among the coal though, when researching the history of the B-Movie, Harold and Maude comes to mind as one of the best, as does Carnival of Souls, and Somewhere In Time, another great classic thats forever to be a B-Movie. I know alot of you out there are thinking "the hell are you on about, the B-movie is still around, they make them all the time.." well yes, you are right, the *name* of the B-Movie is still around, but the concept, well the concept is nothing more then cable friendly softcore porn in the modern era, don't get me wrong, there are many stars who have made great careers out of being in B-movies in the modern era, Julie Strain comes to mind, but still at the risk of sounding somewhat like a whining old grump thats scared by change, its not the same, a B-Movie isn't supposed to be softcore pornography, or crappy sex joke movies that star people like Ron Jeremy, simply because they're Ron Jeremy. A B-Movie is ment to be somewhat campy and fun, or to scare the piss out of you and make you laugh all at the same time, its not ment to be this stupid excuse for washed up pornstars to try and act in "real" movies, just seems strange and out of place to me. But thats me, I'm kind of stuck in my movie past.
I won't lie to you, as a whole I sometimes think the modern movie business has lost something, its lost its way, and its soul, and its originality, oh sure you see afew gems a year, though many are loe budget, Indie or direct to dvd movies with no promotion at all, wile piles of crap like Mission Impossible 3 and that really bad Pink Panther remake get all sorts of promotion and just plain tank at the box office. I just don't understand Hollywood I guess, no matter how well I read on it, and learn on it, and the more and more people I meet in the business, I swear I will never understand the way the promotional values are divvied up, I just don't get it. I am not going to be one of those doomsayers that proclaims the end of the world is at hand because they made another DieHard movie, or whatever, but I won't say I don't miss my weekend afternoons as a child watching movies with people in foam rubber suits fighting in miniature cities where stuff gets blown up constantly, or old black and white movies where a woman will let out a really loud earsplitting scream for no reason at all half the time wile running away from what looks like jello.
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BC
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Torrent Picks 6/14/09
Ok so its Sunday, and its time once again for my torrent picks for the week, I have to admit, I have alot of fun doing these, its like a challenge to come up with something new and different each time...
so with that said.... awaaaaaaaaay we go!
The Wrestler: Now, say what you want about Micky Rooke as an actor, or as a person, but I personally am among the school of belief that there has to be atleast one performance in every actor's career, that defines why they became an actor, and for Rooke, that moment is The Wrestler. Now alot might find the story of the life of a man that 20 years before was the most popular professional wrestler in the world but has now fallen on hard times, kind of boring, but really its not. Its a story of how no matter how far in life you go, if you don't live clean and sober, in the end, you will loose it all. The film actually mirrors Rooke's life in alot of ways, which is why I think he fought so hard for the role, in a his attempt to reach for the top just one more time no matter the cost to his well being, also kind of mirrors his life, so even if you found the premise of the movie boring, if you look at it as Rooke playing out his entire career up to this point on film, you might actually be amazed at just how good the film is.
4 Months 3 Weeks And 2 Days: Its not ever been a secret that I enjoy alot of foreign films, I personally believe that its important to support cinema the world over, because genius knows no language, it speaks through those it wishes too the world over. One of those cases is the tragically beautiful Romanian film "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days", the story is set in 1987 and is the taie of two best friends, Otilia Mihartescu and Gabriela 'Găbiţa' Dragut who live in an unnamed Romanian city and go to university together, Gabriala becomes pregnant and does not wish to take the baby to term, the movie tells the story of their search and meeting with an abortionist, in a day and age when in Romania abortion was illegal. The film goes through both girls feelings on the matter and their devotion to each other and their friendship, and in the end, they are stronger then they were at the begining. The film itself might seem abit controversial to some, and maybe the idea of a movie about finding an abortionist is, but the truth is, love it or hate it, films of this nature NEED to be made, the world is always going on about how films need to be more realistic, and agree with it or not, things of this nature were, and still are, a part of life, that is infact the film's intent, it doesn't care if its for or against the concept of abortion, it only cares about telling the kind of story thats only talked about in dimly lit rooms between only the closest of friends, just on a grand scale. Regardless of your feelings on the subject matter, you really should give this movie a look, its almost a crime to pass it up.
The Brave One: This movie, The Brave One, if any of you have read my review of the film, are aware that its one of my favorite films in recent years, infact its really the only movie I've seen with Jodie Foster where I truly cared about her and finally saw why she is respected as she is. The film tells the story of Erica Bain, a talk radio host who walks the the streets of her beloved new york city just recording the sounds of every day life as she goes, and uses at background as she tells what she sees as she walks around in a truly dramatic storyteller fashion, a kind of modern day Jack Kerouac. Her life changes forever when walking her dog through a park with her fiancé David, they are attacked, robbed of their money, belongings, and even their dog, and left for dead. David dies but Erica survives. The film spends its the rest of its first half showing you Erica's decent into her own madness, her fear of going outside of her house, and her frustration with the new york city police who basically tell her to stop asking and give up because "these things happen..". Its that statement that actually finally sends Erica over the edge, she buys a gun to protect herself and after a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, she accidentally kills a robber who is holding up a small store near her home, from there, it tells the story of her quest to make those who do wrong in the city of New York, all in an attempt to find the man that killed her soon to be husband. I know most comic book fans will recognize this as just a reworked version of The Punisher's origin with slight changes, the lead being a a woman and her being a radio show host, not a military officer who's just come home from Vietnam, but that doesn't really take anything away from the film, its beautiful in its dark way, and infact the action scenes where Erica is taking down each criminal, you truly FEEL you are there, its brilliant, you seriously should have a look if you haven't seen this yet.
Renaissance: Its not a secret I am a huge fan of animation in all its forms, that is why when this 2006 french film came out, I literally jumped for joy. Renaissance is done in a mixture of whats called "Computer Generated Rotoscope" (like A Scanner Darkly was), traditional Computer Generated Imagery, and Monochrome, to give it a distinct black and white feel that no other film can match. If you haven't seen the film itself, its just beautiful, even if you don't like the story, you can just sit there in awe of the artwork, its just so amazing. The film tells a classic pulp fiction (not the movie) style detective story set in a not so far off future Paris, as beautiful young scientist who works for a company called Avalon is kidnapped, and they bring in the Paris Police's specialist in kidnapping Barthélémy Karas to find her, the film is a delightfully gritty old school 1930s/1940s style detective movie told in a futuristic way, sure its not the first film to do that, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable, I'd say its definitely worth a look, also if you don't believe me that its a beautiful film, have a look at this screenshot... yeah thought that would get rid of any doubt.
Somewhere in Time: I figure I would end this week on a beautiful note, and to do this, I could think of no other film but Somewhere In Time. The beautiful story that tells us all, that no matter what, love will ALWAYS find a way, even though the confines of time itself can not contain love's power. Based on the book "Bid Time Return", and starring a young Jane Seymore and Christopher Reeves fresh off his box office success with the first Superman film. Reeves plays brilliant playwright Richard Collier who after the opening night of his first successful play in 1972 is approached by an elderly woman who hands him a locket and pleads that he "come back to her" he looks at her puzzled as she walks away, Saying "remember me.." as she is pulled away by her driver/caretaker. Richard dismisses the event and carries on with his life, 8 years and countless hit plays later, Richard is burned out, and decides to take some time away, he ends up out in the country side at a large old Hotel, the location is never stated in the film but the hotel is actually the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan, the resort that holds a festival in honor of the film on the weekend of the film's opening for many years, once at the hotel, Richard looks around, and in the hotel's small room of artifacts from the hotel's history, Richard sees a painting of a woman with whom he becomes stricken with the beauty of. He finds out the woman is renowned early 20th century stage actress Elise McKenna, a woman that many stage actresses even to that day study the work of in hopes of being just as good as she was. Richard returns home and starts to research Elise, he eventually discovers that she was the woman who gave him the locket years earlier, he also finds out she died later that night. Richard becomes obsessed with Elise and finding out what she ment in her final words to him, in his research he finds a theory called auto-suggestive time travel, mentioned to him by an old professor friend of his. The theory is that if one surrounds themselves with objects and sounds of a certain time period, and blocks out all influence of modern day life, they could, in theory, use the power of their mind to travel back in time to any point they wish. Richard returns to the hotel and attempts this, keeping with him a penny from the current year (1980) with him as a way home, to his surprise he does it. From there the film tells the story of Richard and Elise as they meet, and eventually fall in love, much to the dismay of William Fawcett Robinson, Elise's manager, who tries to stop them at all costs. The film might seem to some as far fetched and abit out of place, and maybe it is, but the real story is the love story of Richard and Elise, it doesn't matter really how they got there, what matters is the story, and its just beautiful as it is. This is one of the very few films in the world that actually can make me cry, so thats actually something.
Ok well, i'm done for the day, I hope you all enjoy these as much as I enjoyed recommending them, and I'll post more next week
---
BC
so with that said.... awaaaaaaaaay we go!
The Wrestler: Now, say what you want about Micky Rooke as an actor, or as a person, but I personally am among the school of belief that there has to be atleast one performance in every actor's career, that defines why they became an actor, and for Rooke, that moment is The Wrestler. Now alot might find the story of the life of a man that 20 years before was the most popular professional wrestler in the world but has now fallen on hard times, kind of boring, but really its not. Its a story of how no matter how far in life you go, if you don't live clean and sober, in the end, you will loose it all. The film actually mirrors Rooke's life in alot of ways, which is why I think he fought so hard for the role, in a his attempt to reach for the top just one more time no matter the cost to his well being, also kind of mirrors his life, so even if you found the premise of the movie boring, if you look at it as Rooke playing out his entire career up to this point on film, you might actually be amazed at just how good the film is.
4 Months 3 Weeks And 2 Days: Its not ever been a secret that I enjoy alot of foreign films, I personally believe that its important to support cinema the world over, because genius knows no language, it speaks through those it wishes too the world over. One of those cases is the tragically beautiful Romanian film "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days", the story is set in 1987 and is the taie of two best friends, Otilia Mihartescu and Gabriela 'Găbiţa' Dragut who live in an unnamed Romanian city and go to university together, Gabriala becomes pregnant and does not wish to take the baby to term, the movie tells the story of their search and meeting with an abortionist, in a day and age when in Romania abortion was illegal. The film goes through both girls feelings on the matter and their devotion to each other and their friendship, and in the end, they are stronger then they were at the begining. The film itself might seem abit controversial to some, and maybe the idea of a movie about finding an abortionist is, but the truth is, love it or hate it, films of this nature NEED to be made, the world is always going on about how films need to be more realistic, and agree with it or not, things of this nature were, and still are, a part of life, that is infact the film's intent, it doesn't care if its for or against the concept of abortion, it only cares about telling the kind of story thats only talked about in dimly lit rooms between only the closest of friends, just on a grand scale. Regardless of your feelings on the subject matter, you really should give this movie a look, its almost a crime to pass it up.
The Brave One: This movie, The Brave One, if any of you have read my review of the film, are aware that its one of my favorite films in recent years, infact its really the only movie I've seen with Jodie Foster where I truly cared about her and finally saw why she is respected as she is. The film tells the story of Erica Bain, a talk radio host who walks the the streets of her beloved new york city just recording the sounds of every day life as she goes, and uses at background as she tells what she sees as she walks around in a truly dramatic storyteller fashion, a kind of modern day Jack Kerouac. Her life changes forever when walking her dog through a park with her fiancé David, they are attacked, robbed of their money, belongings, and even their dog, and left for dead. David dies but Erica survives. The film spends its the rest of its first half showing you Erica's decent into her own madness, her fear of going outside of her house, and her frustration with the new york city police who basically tell her to stop asking and give up because "these things happen..". Its that statement that actually finally sends Erica over the edge, she buys a gun to protect herself and after a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, she accidentally kills a robber who is holding up a small store near her home, from there, it tells the story of her quest to make those who do wrong in the city of New York, all in an attempt to find the man that killed her soon to be husband. I know most comic book fans will recognize this as just a reworked version of The Punisher's origin with slight changes, the lead being a a woman and her being a radio show host, not a military officer who's just come home from Vietnam, but that doesn't really take anything away from the film, its beautiful in its dark way, and infact the action scenes where Erica is taking down each criminal, you truly FEEL you are there, its brilliant, you seriously should have a look if you haven't seen this yet.
Renaissance: Its not a secret I am a huge fan of animation in all its forms, that is why when this 2006 french film came out, I literally jumped for joy. Renaissance is done in a mixture of whats called "Computer Generated Rotoscope" (like A Scanner Darkly was), traditional Computer Generated Imagery, and Monochrome, to give it a distinct black and white feel that no other film can match. If you haven't seen the film itself, its just beautiful, even if you don't like the story, you can just sit there in awe of the artwork, its just so amazing. The film tells a classic pulp fiction (not the movie) style detective story set in a not so far off future Paris, as beautiful young scientist who works for a company called Avalon is kidnapped, and they bring in the Paris Police's specialist in kidnapping Barthélémy Karas to find her, the film is a delightfully gritty old school 1930s/1940s style detective movie told in a futuristic way, sure its not the first film to do that, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable, I'd say its definitely worth a look, also if you don't believe me that its a beautiful film, have a look at this screenshot... yeah thought that would get rid of any doubt.
Somewhere in Time: I figure I would end this week on a beautiful note, and to do this, I could think of no other film but Somewhere In Time. The beautiful story that tells us all, that no matter what, love will ALWAYS find a way, even though the confines of time itself can not contain love's power. Based on the book "Bid Time Return", and starring a young Jane Seymore and Christopher Reeves fresh off his box office success with the first Superman film. Reeves plays brilliant playwright Richard Collier who after the opening night of his first successful play in 1972 is approached by an elderly woman who hands him a locket and pleads that he "come back to her" he looks at her puzzled as she walks away, Saying "remember me.." as she is pulled away by her driver/caretaker. Richard dismisses the event and carries on with his life, 8 years and countless hit plays later, Richard is burned out, and decides to take some time away, he ends up out in the country side at a large old Hotel, the location is never stated in the film but the hotel is actually the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan, the resort that holds a festival in honor of the film on the weekend of the film's opening for many years, once at the hotel, Richard looks around, and in the hotel's small room of artifacts from the hotel's history, Richard sees a painting of a woman with whom he becomes stricken with the beauty of. He finds out the woman is renowned early 20th century stage actress Elise McKenna, a woman that many stage actresses even to that day study the work of in hopes of being just as good as she was. Richard returns home and starts to research Elise, he eventually discovers that she was the woman who gave him the locket years earlier, he also finds out she died later that night. Richard becomes obsessed with Elise and finding out what she ment in her final words to him, in his research he finds a theory called auto-suggestive time travel, mentioned to him by an old professor friend of his. The theory is that if one surrounds themselves with objects and sounds of a certain time period, and blocks out all influence of modern day life, they could, in theory, use the power of their mind to travel back in time to any point they wish. Richard returns to the hotel and attempts this, keeping with him a penny from the current year (1980) with him as a way home, to his surprise he does it. From there the film tells the story of Richard and Elise as they meet, and eventually fall in love, much to the dismay of William Fawcett Robinson, Elise's manager, who tries to stop them at all costs. The film might seem to some as far fetched and abit out of place, and maybe it is, but the real story is the love story of Richard and Elise, it doesn't matter really how they got there, what matters is the story, and its just beautiful as it is. This is one of the very few films in the world that actually can make me cry, so thats actually something.
Ok well, i'm done for the day, I hope you all enjoy these as much as I enjoyed recommending them, and I'll post more next week
---
BC
Saturday, June 13, 2009
When They Are Bad, They Are So Very Awesome...
Ok, so I've been kind of busy this week and didn't really have a chance to post much, and with tomorrow's torrent picks post looming, I figured I should atleast post something else this week, so I decided for the fun of it, to just go through some old b-movies that I do love and share in both the beauty and the absurdity of them...
This is The Beast of Yucca Flats, which to many is considered to be the worst movie ever made, worse then Plan Nine From Outer Space, Robot Monster and that 1970s version of Sasquatch that was filmed in the woods near where I grew up in Lowell Mass. combined many believe, and let me tell you, if you haven't see those films, trust me, being worse then them combined, is a huge feat. From its opening scene that has NOTHING to do with the rest of the film, seriously, it has nothing to do with the film at all, its never mentioned, referenced, and couldn't even happen given the film's timeline, its just some random scene of a naked woman coming out of a shower and being strangled to death by a man in the same clothing as the movie's "monster", it has nothing to do with the film itself, which is about a russian scientist defecting to the united states, and accidentally stumbling into a nuclear testing site, where he's transformed into a mindless killing machine called "The Beast". This film is redeemable only in the fact it kind of influenced the creation of the marvel comics character The Incredible Hulk, and for complete camp related hilarity, like how you never see anyone's mouth moving when they're speaking, or how you never actually see guns go off, or anything like that.
This is Devil Girl From Mars, which, next to Day of The Triffids, is probably my favorite of all the non-Hammer Films British science fiction films, simply for the complete absurdity of its plot and its "lavish" production. The film is kind of an attempt to make b-grade science fiction "sexy" while still retaining its "serious scientific integrity", to do this they decided to take your basic American alien invasion movie plot, and "making it sexy" by means of the leader of the invading force is a sultry, sexy looking woman dressed in an all vinyl form fitting suit, complete with cape and high heels, but to make her powerful, as all leaders must be, she has a powerful raygun and your standard issue 1950s robot who looks like a refrigerator box with some piping and dials that apparently will kill you. This invasion though, isn't your normal randomly stupid reason invasion, this one, she's actually come looking for help in repopulating mars, because their men are dying off. Why she felt landing in a remote small Scottish village was the best place to find replacements, I will never know, but in true alien movie fair, the men of this Scottish village deny her request to come back to mars with her, because apparently scottish people are too stupid to see what kind of a sweet jig that would be, somewhere in Iowa James T. Kirk is weeping at their choice to not become studs to an alien race of mostly women.
Now, as hard as it might be for some to believe, the great Roger Corman made some pretty sexist films in his day. This film, is one of them. The Wasp Woman tells the story of a rather vain woman that owns a cosmetics company, and when it becomes evident to her buyers, that she is aging, she starts to seek out the next big thing in woman's cosmetics, so apparently, this means making some half cocked mixture out of the jelly of a queen wasp, because, you know, wasps apparently never actually age, or something, the film is kind of vague on that, so, in her womanly vanity, our lead woman decides to be the test subject for her company's new product, because, you know, apparently women are vain that way, which really was news to me, but I guess its not my place to question the great Roger Corman, after all, he is the man that made such woman's rights championing films as "Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!" and "Supervixens" both highly regarded for their strong stance for woman's empowerment. Anyway, as I'm sure you can guess, the new formula goes wrong, as happens when movies like this are made, and it turns our lead into a giant wasp, as happens in cases of things like this, but instead of it being like the movie poster, it makes her a woman's body with a wasp head and arms, I'm assuming because Roger Corman likes to make films in the cheap, from there the film goes about telling you how she terrorizes people randomly, as happens cases like this, you know, taking their rage out on the world and such. As you can guess this film isn't nearly as great as you'd think a film about a woman becoming a murderous queen wasp would seem on paper, but its still good for a laugh... even if it wasn't ment that way.
Ok, see, in 1932, Joan Crawford was to movie goers, what, well, whoever the new "hot" actress is at this time to us, she was seen as beautiful and smart and graceful and could play any role, you get the idea, but also, in 1932, there was no hollywood ratings system and no real codes they had to go by, which ment that in 1932, Joan Crawford could play a pretty convincing prostitute, which she does in this film, "Rain" is the story of a boat that stops in Pago Pago with a possible sickness outbreak onboard, and what happens to those who aren't sick when they're sent a'shore to stay healthy. Joan plays Sadie, a prostitute from San Francisco who apparently is on the run for murdering a man who got alittle too rough with her. The others who get off the boat are a Missionary named Davidson and his wife, both rather uppity and kind of think they're better then everyone else. The film tells the story of Davidson trying to convince Sadie to give up her life as a prostitute and embrace god and live a better life, by the end, when Sadie finally decides to give it a try, Davidson rapes her, and he's found dead on the beach the next morning, apparently having killed himself. Yeah, thats, just, fine and uplifting cinema right there. I never could figure out why it was called "Rain" though, shame cuz its really a great movie title.
...and now we come to one of, if not the benchmark itself, for completely wrong casting, yes, thats right its time for the unstoppable juggernaut that is "The Conqueror", the film that dared to make you believe that the one and only John Wayne, with his limp and horrible southernish accent, could play the great Genghis Khan. Yes, you read that correctly, the man that many argue was history's greatest ruler and greatest warlord, who happens to also be asian, was played by John Wayne, yes, the John Wayne that starred in all of those westerns and war movie no body likes, apparently thought he could convincingly play an asian warlord that just about took over the world. Now, when you take that into account sure the film is bad on its own, but, when you also add in the fact that this film in theory killed John Wayne, it makes it even stranger. See, they shot The Conqueror only afew miles from where years earlier the atomic bomb prototypes were tested, infact there are many pictures of Wayne on set with a Geiger counter that showed alarmingly high levels of radiation, at the time though, no one new radiation would give you cancer, so you can't really say it was intentional, but, it was stated years later when cast members started to show signs of cancer, that one of the top doctors in the united states called it an "epidemic" and claimed it was because of the film's shoot location they all died. Kind of morbid, kind of creepy, but if you just look at it as a horribly bad movie that swings back around to almost awesome, its enjoyable. Infact its the only John Wayne movie i can stomach.
We all knew we'd get here eventually, and here we are, one of the big guns in the pantheon of movies that are so bad they actually become hilariously good, thats right, its time to talk about the brilliantly bad Ed Wood film "Robot Monster", the film has a horribly confusing and just plain awful plot, a robot who has killed all but 8 humans living on the planet with his deathray searches out those final eight, and as you might expect, he falls in love with the hot teenage girl of the group, as was the style for robots, aliens and other creatures from other worlds at the time. The movie follows the eight as they try and get to their spaceship that will take them to a space station that houses a garrison of earth soldiers waiting for the order to come down and take out the robot, and it also follows the robot as he stalks and terrorizes the group, in the end claiming to his superior officer that they will have to kill the girl of the group themselves, for he is smitten with her. This movie is wrong on so many levels, the plot makes no sense at all, the whole film was shot in that same place right off the highway in Santa Barbra that they shot all the outdoor shots on the cult tv series Gilligan's Island years later, but this time, you can at times actually see cars pass by in the background of some shots, and most of all, this film leaves you wondering the eternal question that we all ponder atleast once in our lives, how in the bloody hell does a gorilla suit, a surplus space helmet from some space movie, and a set of old "rabbit ears" style television antenna make a robot? This question will plague us all through the end of time, I swear it will. Also, this film was called "the worst film ever made" by mustachioed american film critic Rex Reed, but honestly, no one gives a shit what Rex Reed says about movies, he was after all, in Myra Breckenridge, which means he's officially not allowed to comment on anything.
Now, I couldn't let this list go, with out atleast one movie from El Santo, possibly the greatest multi media star there has ever been. For those that aren't aware, in the 1950s all the way through to the early 1980s down in Mexico, there was for lack of a better term, a boom, in movies starring Lucha libre wrestlers, for those that aren't aware of what Lucha libre is, its that Mexican form of wrestling that combines the flash of American "professional" wrestling, with martial arts and the flair of Japanese kabuki theater, for whatever reason in Mexico, someone thought these performers would make great actors, and though this really wasn't the case, they did make alot of these films, still even are made today, but we can look back at them all now and have a nice laugh. Now, among those many many Luchadores as they're called, who made films, none stands bigger then El Santo, called "Sampson" in the english dubs of his movies, El Santo became the most famous of his kind, and went on to become a cultural icon in Mexico, he has a holiday and many statues, and people tell their stories of how he lived his life behind the mask doing good inside, and outside the ring, legend has it he was a sort of superhero, stopping crimes many times out on the streets and such. El Santo is an icon with out doubt, and his movies, as I said, though ridiculous by today's standards, are in the upper part of the so bad its good pantheon. My personal favorite of these films is "Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro" known in the english speaking world as "Samson vs. the Vampire Women", where in El Santo, as always in wrestling gear, mask and cape and all, fights off a horde of vampire women who are trying to raise an army of vampires to take over the world, or something, the plot is kind of vague, but it involves alot of El Santo's in ring moves being used in the scenes where he fights off the henchmen and vampires, because apparently if you're lucha, you're lucha 24 hours a day 7 days a week and can bust out your mad wrestling skills at will. There are days I wish I was as cool as El Santo, there really are. Anyway as always happens in these films, apparently no one seems phased by the fact that El Santo is either in his wrestling gear, or in a suit, but still wearing his mask and wrestling boots, they just go about like its everyday stuff, and ofcourse, in the end El Santo saves the day, with the power of Lucha Libre, a power I sometimes think is the only thing that will save the world from destroying itself in a nuclear holocaust of some sort. If you are interested and want a good laugh, there are literally dozens of movies El Santo made, alot with his long time friend/rival The Blue Demon, there are many starring others too, but the El Santo films are really the best for a good laugh.
and thats where I think i'm gonna end this, I hope you all enjoy this as much as I have, I might do more later, you never do know...
---
BC
This is The Beast of Yucca Flats, which to many is considered to be the worst movie ever made, worse then Plan Nine From Outer Space, Robot Monster and that 1970s version of Sasquatch that was filmed in the woods near where I grew up in Lowell Mass. combined many believe, and let me tell you, if you haven't see those films, trust me, being worse then them combined, is a huge feat. From its opening scene that has NOTHING to do with the rest of the film, seriously, it has nothing to do with the film at all, its never mentioned, referenced, and couldn't even happen given the film's timeline, its just some random scene of a naked woman coming out of a shower and being strangled to death by a man in the same clothing as the movie's "monster", it has nothing to do with the film itself, which is about a russian scientist defecting to the united states, and accidentally stumbling into a nuclear testing site, where he's transformed into a mindless killing machine called "The Beast". This film is redeemable only in the fact it kind of influenced the creation of the marvel comics character The Incredible Hulk, and for complete camp related hilarity, like how you never see anyone's mouth moving when they're speaking, or how you never actually see guns go off, or anything like that.
This is Devil Girl From Mars, which, next to Day of The Triffids, is probably my favorite of all the non-Hammer Films British science fiction films, simply for the complete absurdity of its plot and its "lavish" production. The film is kind of an attempt to make b-grade science fiction "sexy" while still retaining its "serious scientific integrity", to do this they decided to take your basic American alien invasion movie plot, and "making it sexy" by means of the leader of the invading force is a sultry, sexy looking woman dressed in an all vinyl form fitting suit, complete with cape and high heels, but to make her powerful, as all leaders must be, she has a powerful raygun and your standard issue 1950s robot who looks like a refrigerator box with some piping and dials that apparently will kill you. This invasion though, isn't your normal randomly stupid reason invasion, this one, she's actually come looking for help in repopulating mars, because their men are dying off. Why she felt landing in a remote small Scottish village was the best place to find replacements, I will never know, but in true alien movie fair, the men of this Scottish village deny her request to come back to mars with her, because apparently scottish people are too stupid to see what kind of a sweet jig that would be, somewhere in Iowa James T. Kirk is weeping at their choice to not become studs to an alien race of mostly women.
Now, as hard as it might be for some to believe, the great Roger Corman made some pretty sexist films in his day. This film, is one of them. The Wasp Woman tells the story of a rather vain woman that owns a cosmetics company, and when it becomes evident to her buyers, that she is aging, she starts to seek out the next big thing in woman's cosmetics, so apparently, this means making some half cocked mixture out of the jelly of a queen wasp, because, you know, wasps apparently never actually age, or something, the film is kind of vague on that, so, in her womanly vanity, our lead woman decides to be the test subject for her company's new product, because, you know, apparently women are vain that way, which really was news to me, but I guess its not my place to question the great Roger Corman, after all, he is the man that made such woman's rights championing films as "Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!" and "Supervixens" both highly regarded for their strong stance for woman's empowerment. Anyway, as I'm sure you can guess, the new formula goes wrong, as happens when movies like this are made, and it turns our lead into a giant wasp, as happens in cases of things like this, but instead of it being like the movie poster, it makes her a woman's body with a wasp head and arms, I'm assuming because Roger Corman likes to make films in the cheap, from there the film goes about telling you how she terrorizes people randomly, as happens cases like this, you know, taking their rage out on the world and such. As you can guess this film isn't nearly as great as you'd think a film about a woman becoming a murderous queen wasp would seem on paper, but its still good for a laugh... even if it wasn't ment that way.
Ok, see, in 1932, Joan Crawford was to movie goers, what, well, whoever the new "hot" actress is at this time to us, she was seen as beautiful and smart and graceful and could play any role, you get the idea, but also, in 1932, there was no hollywood ratings system and no real codes they had to go by, which ment that in 1932, Joan Crawford could play a pretty convincing prostitute, which she does in this film, "Rain" is the story of a boat that stops in Pago Pago with a possible sickness outbreak onboard, and what happens to those who aren't sick when they're sent a'shore to stay healthy. Joan plays Sadie, a prostitute from San Francisco who apparently is on the run for murdering a man who got alittle too rough with her. The others who get off the boat are a Missionary named Davidson and his wife, both rather uppity and kind of think they're better then everyone else. The film tells the story of Davidson trying to convince Sadie to give up her life as a prostitute and embrace god and live a better life, by the end, when Sadie finally decides to give it a try, Davidson rapes her, and he's found dead on the beach the next morning, apparently having killed himself. Yeah, thats, just, fine and uplifting cinema right there. I never could figure out why it was called "Rain" though, shame cuz its really a great movie title.
...and now we come to one of, if not the benchmark itself, for completely wrong casting, yes, thats right its time for the unstoppable juggernaut that is "The Conqueror", the film that dared to make you believe that the one and only John Wayne, with his limp and horrible southernish accent, could play the great Genghis Khan. Yes, you read that correctly, the man that many argue was history's greatest ruler and greatest warlord, who happens to also be asian, was played by John Wayne, yes, the John Wayne that starred in all of those westerns and war movie no body likes, apparently thought he could convincingly play an asian warlord that just about took over the world. Now, when you take that into account sure the film is bad on its own, but, when you also add in the fact that this film in theory killed John Wayne, it makes it even stranger. See, they shot The Conqueror only afew miles from where years earlier the atomic bomb prototypes were tested, infact there are many pictures of Wayne on set with a Geiger counter that showed alarmingly high levels of radiation, at the time though, no one new radiation would give you cancer, so you can't really say it was intentional, but, it was stated years later when cast members started to show signs of cancer, that one of the top doctors in the united states called it an "epidemic" and claimed it was because of the film's shoot location they all died. Kind of morbid, kind of creepy, but if you just look at it as a horribly bad movie that swings back around to almost awesome, its enjoyable. Infact its the only John Wayne movie i can stomach.
We all knew we'd get here eventually, and here we are, one of the big guns in the pantheon of movies that are so bad they actually become hilariously good, thats right, its time to talk about the brilliantly bad Ed Wood film "Robot Monster", the film has a horribly confusing and just plain awful plot, a robot who has killed all but 8 humans living on the planet with his deathray searches out those final eight, and as you might expect, he falls in love with the hot teenage girl of the group, as was the style for robots, aliens and other creatures from other worlds at the time. The movie follows the eight as they try and get to their spaceship that will take them to a space station that houses a garrison of earth soldiers waiting for the order to come down and take out the robot, and it also follows the robot as he stalks and terrorizes the group, in the end claiming to his superior officer that they will have to kill the girl of the group themselves, for he is smitten with her. This movie is wrong on so many levels, the plot makes no sense at all, the whole film was shot in that same place right off the highway in Santa Barbra that they shot all the outdoor shots on the cult tv series Gilligan's Island years later, but this time, you can at times actually see cars pass by in the background of some shots, and most of all, this film leaves you wondering the eternal question that we all ponder atleast once in our lives, how in the bloody hell does a gorilla suit, a surplus space helmet from some space movie, and a set of old "rabbit ears" style television antenna make a robot? This question will plague us all through the end of time, I swear it will. Also, this film was called "the worst film ever made" by mustachioed american film critic Rex Reed, but honestly, no one gives a shit what Rex Reed says about movies, he was after all, in Myra Breckenridge, which means he's officially not allowed to comment on anything.
Now, I couldn't let this list go, with out atleast one movie from El Santo, possibly the greatest multi media star there has ever been. For those that aren't aware, in the 1950s all the way through to the early 1980s down in Mexico, there was for lack of a better term, a boom, in movies starring Lucha libre wrestlers, for those that aren't aware of what Lucha libre is, its that Mexican form of wrestling that combines the flash of American "professional" wrestling, with martial arts and the flair of Japanese kabuki theater, for whatever reason in Mexico, someone thought these performers would make great actors, and though this really wasn't the case, they did make alot of these films, still even are made today, but we can look back at them all now and have a nice laugh. Now, among those many many Luchadores as they're called, who made films, none stands bigger then El Santo, called "Sampson" in the english dubs of his movies, El Santo became the most famous of his kind, and went on to become a cultural icon in Mexico, he has a holiday and many statues, and people tell their stories of how he lived his life behind the mask doing good inside, and outside the ring, legend has it he was a sort of superhero, stopping crimes many times out on the streets and such. El Santo is an icon with out doubt, and his movies, as I said, though ridiculous by today's standards, are in the upper part of the so bad its good pantheon. My personal favorite of these films is "Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro" known in the english speaking world as "Samson vs. the Vampire Women", where in El Santo, as always in wrestling gear, mask and cape and all, fights off a horde of vampire women who are trying to raise an army of vampires to take over the world, or something, the plot is kind of vague, but it involves alot of El Santo's in ring moves being used in the scenes where he fights off the henchmen and vampires, because apparently if you're lucha, you're lucha 24 hours a day 7 days a week and can bust out your mad wrestling skills at will. There are days I wish I was as cool as El Santo, there really are. Anyway as always happens in these films, apparently no one seems phased by the fact that El Santo is either in his wrestling gear, or in a suit, but still wearing his mask and wrestling boots, they just go about like its everyday stuff, and ofcourse, in the end El Santo saves the day, with the power of Lucha Libre, a power I sometimes think is the only thing that will save the world from destroying itself in a nuclear holocaust of some sort. If you are interested and want a good laugh, there are literally dozens of movies El Santo made, alot with his long time friend/rival The Blue Demon, there are many starring others too, but the El Santo films are really the best for a good laugh.
and thats where I think i'm gonna end this, I hope you all enjoy this as much as I have, I might do more later, you never do know...
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BC
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Torrent Picks 6/7/09
So I'm back again with a list of torrents for movies for all of oyu to have a look at this week, as I said last sunday, i'm gonna try to do this every sunday, so get used to it lol Anyway, with no farther issues or whatever, here we go...
Bullit: This is possibly the coolest of the cool late 60s detective movies, with the coolest of the cool movie cars, the coolest of the cool soundtracks, oh, and the greatest car chase scene ever filmed through out the world. The movie stars the late great Steve McQueen as Lieutenant Frank Bullitt, a San Fransisco detective determined to find out who killed a mob informant and a cop who was protecting him. Its classic grit from the era where gritty detective movies were, well, gritty detective movies. Done with style and personality thats distinctly its own, if you haven't seen Bullit, you must, you just must.
And Soon The Darkness: Now, its no real secret that I personally LOVE this film, anyone that read my 30 greatest movies of all time knows this. Its just brilliant. Its a gritty mystery in the vain of Alfred Hitchcock. Its a murder mystery that takes places when two British girls bike riding across France for a summer stumble across a small town that happens to hold a murderous secret. Its a brilliant mystery that has you guessing right up to the end who the real murderer is. I love that in a movie, when you are left guessing all the way to the end, and then you get tossed for a loop when you find out the answer at the very end. Plus, it was co-written by the great Terry Nation, who I just adore the work of, and made by the people that normally filmed the cult British series The Avengers, thats a pretty big pedigree.
Seven Samurai: This is one of those films I can watch over and over, its really no wonder I listed it as the greatest movie of all time, its just so brilliant, it really is. For those of you that don't know, this film tells the story of an old tired samurai that takes the job of protecting a poor village from a group of bandits who are on their way to pillage the them for very little money, He surveys the village and decides they need 6 others to properly protect the village, the old samurai goes about recruiting 6 others, each with their own special talent with a different weapon. Once the seven are gathered, the film tells the story of their preperation for the battle, and the battle itself, and ends with the survivors left to wonder if it was all really worth it in the end. Its an incredible sentiment with a great take on the greatest question to plague mankind, "In the end, is all that we do really worth it?".
Dr. Strangelove; or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb: There are some great misunderstood gems out there in the world of film, alot of which are looked back on now and just stare in awe of how great, and how sly at times, films were. Dr. Strangelove is one of those films. Its a cold war era anti-war movie that dares to do something that at the time no one dared to do, make fun of the possibility of nuclear holocaust, something people just didn't do in cold war America where the fear of nuclear war with the Russians was a population gripping threat. But this film, this amazing little film, dared to make fun of that fact. And it did it oh so very well, with such brilliant performances, Peter Sellers and Slim Pickins being the two most say stand out from the crowd, the film tells the story of a world literally on the brink of a third world war, and ends with what I think is possibly the greatest anti-war ending I have ever seen. If you haven't seen this rather hilarious film, well, you really should, its just so enjoyable.
Children of Men: I have a saying, "every now and then, the wanna be film lovers get it right", now what this means is, those pseudo film buffs that go on about horrible films like "Donnie Darko" and the like, claiming they're "classics", sometimes do get a film right. One of those films just happens to be Children of Men. The film is set in the year 2027, in a world where humans can no longer reproduce, and with the world's youngest person, at 18 years of age has just died tragically, the human race is looking at the fact they might not survive much longer. Somehow among all of this, word starts to get around that a woman is pregnant, this is the story of how a group of people come together to protect her and transport her to a safely guarded house by the sea in southern england to allow her to give birth in peace and allow for study on just how she became pregnant when no one has been able to in about 18 years. Normally I don't agree with the wanna be film buffs and their ravings about certain films, but in this case, they really did get it right.
well thats it for now, I hope you all enjoy, we'll do this again next week..
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BC
Bullit: This is possibly the coolest of the cool late 60s detective movies, with the coolest of the cool movie cars, the coolest of the cool soundtracks, oh, and the greatest car chase scene ever filmed through out the world. The movie stars the late great Steve McQueen as Lieutenant Frank Bullitt, a San Fransisco detective determined to find out who killed a mob informant and a cop who was protecting him. Its classic grit from the era where gritty detective movies were, well, gritty detective movies. Done with style and personality thats distinctly its own, if you haven't seen Bullit, you must, you just must.
And Soon The Darkness: Now, its no real secret that I personally LOVE this film, anyone that read my 30 greatest movies of all time knows this. Its just brilliant. Its a gritty mystery in the vain of Alfred Hitchcock. Its a murder mystery that takes places when two British girls bike riding across France for a summer stumble across a small town that happens to hold a murderous secret. Its a brilliant mystery that has you guessing right up to the end who the real murderer is. I love that in a movie, when you are left guessing all the way to the end, and then you get tossed for a loop when you find out the answer at the very end. Plus, it was co-written by the great Terry Nation, who I just adore the work of, and made by the people that normally filmed the cult British series The Avengers, thats a pretty big pedigree.
Seven Samurai: This is one of those films I can watch over and over, its really no wonder I listed it as the greatest movie of all time, its just so brilliant, it really is. For those of you that don't know, this film tells the story of an old tired samurai that takes the job of protecting a poor village from a group of bandits who are on their way to pillage the them for very little money, He surveys the village and decides they need 6 others to properly protect the village, the old samurai goes about recruiting 6 others, each with their own special talent with a different weapon. Once the seven are gathered, the film tells the story of their preperation for the battle, and the battle itself, and ends with the survivors left to wonder if it was all really worth it in the end. Its an incredible sentiment with a great take on the greatest question to plague mankind, "In the end, is all that we do really worth it?".
Dr. Strangelove; or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb: There are some great misunderstood gems out there in the world of film, alot of which are looked back on now and just stare in awe of how great, and how sly at times, films were. Dr. Strangelove is one of those films. Its a cold war era anti-war movie that dares to do something that at the time no one dared to do, make fun of the possibility of nuclear holocaust, something people just didn't do in cold war America where the fear of nuclear war with the Russians was a population gripping threat. But this film, this amazing little film, dared to make fun of that fact. And it did it oh so very well, with such brilliant performances, Peter Sellers and Slim Pickins being the two most say stand out from the crowd, the film tells the story of a world literally on the brink of a third world war, and ends with what I think is possibly the greatest anti-war ending I have ever seen. If you haven't seen this rather hilarious film, well, you really should, its just so enjoyable.
Children of Men: I have a saying, "every now and then, the wanna be film lovers get it right", now what this means is, those pseudo film buffs that go on about horrible films like "Donnie Darko" and the like, claiming they're "classics", sometimes do get a film right. One of those films just happens to be Children of Men. The film is set in the year 2027, in a world where humans can no longer reproduce, and with the world's youngest person, at 18 years of age has just died tragically, the human race is looking at the fact they might not survive much longer. Somehow among all of this, word starts to get around that a woman is pregnant, this is the story of how a group of people come together to protect her and transport her to a safely guarded house by the sea in southern england to allow her to give birth in peace and allow for study on just how she became pregnant when no one has been able to in about 18 years. Normally I don't agree with the wanna be film buffs and their ravings about certain films, but in this case, they really did get it right.
well thats it for now, I hope you all enjoy, we'll do this again next week..
--
BC
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Why I Love Christina Lindberg
This image above, is, to me, one of the most important images in film. This is a still from "Thriller: A Cruel Picture" or as it was called here in America "They Call Her One Eye", this image is the great and obscure Christina Lindberg, a woman that kind of gets forgotten in the realm of cinema, even though her impact on popular culture can be still found today. Kind of like a Swedish version of Veronica Lake, not many remember her name, but if you do alittle research you will see just how big the impact she made is.
I first came across Christina in the film "Sex and Fury" a cult cinema favorite of the kung fu movie genre fanbase, where I found her to be one of those captivating types that you don't know if you're staring at her beauty or at her ability to kick you in the mouth while still looking like a lady, the later being a common ponderence when it comes to kung fu style action films, even to this day. I then came across her again when researching my review of the film "Kill Bill" with her name and and what I discover later is her most known film "Thriller: A Cruel Picture" being references in alot of reviews and synopsis of the film. This ofcourse sends me on a chance to find about this movie and about her. And I can tell you, I am so glad that I did. Because after years of reading about her and studying her work, and eventually connecting with her through email, I can tell you, she is nothing short of an inspiration. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
Now at this point, I feel its important to mention that *most* of Christina's films are what you'd call "slightly blue" meaning they blur the line between art and what some would call softcore pornography, but, to be fair, in 1960s and 1970s European cinema just about every exploitation movie did the exact same thing, with a personal favorite of mine, 1968's "Baby Love" staring Linda Hayden being probably my most used example to back up this fact. Christina was infact alot like Hayden in her years on screen, always walking right along that edge between sexy and pornographic, though I should point out at this point, Christina's films, though they do at times depict what some would consider too graphic for the every day theater sexual imagery, she herself, was never the woman in those scenes, they used a stunt double for her, with Lindberg later stating "I have no problem showing off my body, the human body is a beautiful thing, but I'm not going to let just anyone have their way with it, not even on screen". She also often joked that she was a porn star before there was such a term, which is funny given today's standards for films, most of her scenes would just about make an R rating, with afew of questionable even for an R rating quandary.
I feel it important at this point in time to state that though I do find Christina's work in film to be engaging and captivating in its own darkly unique way, its what she has done AFTER her time in film was over that truly enamored me with this woman. She used her fame and notoriety to market herself all over, there are even some rather sought after print adds for everything from Batteries to record players that she is in, all of which by American standards would be seen as obscene btw. She also spent many years singing, she's done many albums of classical, folk, and pop music, and to this day, she still preforms them all, she also has ventured into television news, at one time hosting a current events roundtable program in her native Sweden, as well as her print work, mostly political editorials on Sweden's leaders and sometimes various issues effecting all of the European nations, she is now however settled into a nice quiet job as editor in chief of the top Swedish aviator's magazine which has a name that I have no idea how to say or spell at this moment, she also has embraced her fans in her later years, making countless appearances at European movie conventions and the like.
I guess maybe thats why I love Christina as much as I do, that take no prisoners don't let anyone stand in your way of what you want, and make sure you use every trick in your bag to get where you want to be in life, mentality of hers. Oh sure, I could say its for the large amounts of nudity or overt sexuality in her work, but thats boring and objectifying to her, and well, she's so much more then an object, she's a truly great person who has done some amazing things. I know that given her rather graphic work, she might not be everyone's cup of tea, but, she is just fine for me, and really thats all I care about.
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BC
The Hollywood Resurrection Game
In recent years, its become the "in" thing for big name actors who have sort of faded off into obscurity to take a role on television and if possible use it to restart their career, now, in alot of cases, this works, in the case of the hit television show "The Closer" it restarted the stalled careers for Kyra Sedgwick, J.K. Simmons and G.W. Bailey, all very well or fairly well known in their own right, but had somewhat stalled their careers at the point the show went to air, now they've all gone on to become high profile actors again, in a similuar vain, the series "Saving Grace" saved the career of Holly Hunter, there are others too, Glen Close's career was saved by two television shows, "The Shield" and "Damages", and Harvey Kaitel's career was saved to a degree by the US version of "Life On Mars", or Patrick Swayze on "The Beast", there are many others too, but those will serve as my examples, now, with that said, I've been thinking about this long and hard, and after laughing at myself for saying "long and hard", I compiled a list of actors and actresses who I think should make the full time move to the small box that we all spent so much time infront of, as a means of reviving their careers. After all, all the good writers in hollywood got into Television after the writer's strike anyway, so television is the new movies..
With that said, lets get into this shall we? Here is my list of actors and actresses that need to make the move to the orthicon box...
Ok well, thats enough for now, I might do afew more of these later, but, for now i've got afew other things i should think about getting posted... so.. on to the next!
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BC
With that said, lets get into this shall we? Here is my list of actors and actresses that need to make the move to the orthicon box...
Ray Wise
Now, I know that I rave alot about Ray's work on Reaper as the devil, but with that over now, Ray needs something bigger, he needs to find a dark comedy where he can play a mob boss or a ruthless business man, or even a scumbag lawyer or some kind, the kind of person we can love to hate because he's both awesome and the biggest dick in the world at the same time. Thats Ray's strength, and his true bread and butter, he has the perfect look for the slimy yet awesome type, he does it so well that letting it go to waist would be a crime. Maybe if he was the tyranical boss on a dark dramedy about Advertising or Law, or maybe if he could get in on that ABC stateside remake of Outrageous Fortune called "Good Behavior" as a rival mobster or something, now THAT would be a great role for him. Not that anyone at ABC would listen to me mind you. But still...
Vin Diesel
Ok look, regardless of if I find him boring actor or not, hollywood needs actors who specialize in action, they can't keep using the same two guys over and over, and well, Vin is a name in that field, people will still go to his films, mostly his action films, now Vin should play to these strengths, because I feel in this era of F/X the television action star is being lost. Now Vin might not really be main focus character material, but think about this, in a tv show about like, a military unit that does black ops, or deals with paranormal super science stuff, they are going to need the token big muscular heavy duty tough as nails combat guy, who cares the big guns and dispenses ownage apon the masses and such, Vin could be that guy. There was recently talk of taking obscure old comic book "Blackhawks" out of obscurity and making it a military sci fi/paranormal show, where the unit uses super high tech super science-y equipment to deal with everything from terrorist created monsters to evil ghosts possessing people trying to use them to come back to life, it could kind of be like a Fringe or X-Files meets Stargate kind of show. Vin could totally be the big dude in that. Just get him in the right mix of cast and he would shine.
Will Farrell
Ok, I like Will, I really do, but he has this problem with his acting roles sense he left Saturday Night Live, they are abit hit or miss, when he is funny, he is very funny, but when he is not, it becomes Step Brothers. Now, I know Will's done tv before, but well, seriously, voicing Bob Oblong on the horrible animated comedy The Oblongs really was the wrong choice, like alot of his movies really. Will also have the habit of playing the same character over and over again in different movies, mostly the cluelessly bad at sports guy that thinks he's great, he's been doing this role over and over again sense Kicking and Screaming, and though it worked in Talidagia Nights and somewhat in Semi-Pro, doesn't really mean its gonna work every time, Will needs to learn that. But see, with television, he can play the same role over and over again, and not make us tired of it. He needs to get involved in a comedy thats acts serious but is an out and out comedy, kind of like The Office or something in that same vain, that seems to be his strong suit.
Wesley Snipes
Now, I know alot of people say Wesley tanked his career because when he dated Hallie Berry he beat her so bad she's deaf in one ear from a slap to the head, and yes, thats horrible, but, the way I see it, if the world can forgive Rob Lowe for sleeping with a 17 year old and videotaping it, Robert Downey Jr. and Micky Rork for being abusive and violent drug addicts, and even the likes of Mathew Broadrick and Brandy Norwood for accidental vehicular homicide, and countless others for other things, for the sheer fact that there is a huge lack of known black lead men on television, the world can look the other way on Wesley Snipes. He doesn't need to have a big prolific role, maybe something as a hardened older cop or drill instructor or something of that like, something that doesn't require alot of leaving his good range, Wesley has been good at comedy too, but only in small amounts, i wouldn't play to that aspect, he would over act the role and make it unwatchable. He'd maybe be good in as a rival or fellow operative in Patrick Swayze's The Beast honestly.
Susan Ward
Now, chances are, you've never heard of Susan Ward, or her few roles of note, but for what she has been in, she has infact been incredible in each thing, even the horribly bad, and let me tell you, if you haven't seen The In Crowd, her movies get REALLY bad. But through those moments of horrible film, Susan herself always shined. Her strengths have always been her ability to seem in constant control of her dramatic ability, and thats where her acting roles should stay, maybe in one of those steamy adult aimed prime time dramas, kind of like Melrose Place was, but not as crappy as that or as crappy as its remake. There was talk of a drama about a new york city high school where the main teacher was going to be similar to House, in that says the most horrible and insulting things, but in the end does brilliant things with their students, Susan would make a great female lead for that kind of a series, she could showcase her serious side, and the fact she has that "hot teacher" kind of vibe to her. Or maybe some kind of a drama where she plays the middle sibling out of a trio of sisters or something, maybe with Moon Bloodgood playing the younger sibling... I can't see her doing comedy though, otherwise I'd say she could attempt to breath some life back into that aging trainwreck Desperate Housewives. She can also sing really well, so you know, take that as you wish.
Carol Kane
Now I know she's been around for a very long time, and i know she's had her share of memorable roles, but I have to say, Carol is the kind of actress that i just love, she can play serious, and make you believe its serious, she can play comedy and make you laugh alot, and she can play crazy, and make you believe she is truly crazy. We've all heard the stories of how she was the only person alive that could out Kaufman the great improvisational comedian Andy Kaufman, and how he used to praise her constantly for it, even stating once she was the only person he couldn't get to ever break role when filming the tv show Taxi. Carol is a great actress all around, and a great person from what I read as well. Carol needs something thats a mixture of Drama and Comedy, not to far dramatic, not to far comedy, somewhere right in the middle of the road because it wouldn't be fair to slant her one way or the other whe she's so good at both. I can see her in a role similar to what Lily Tomlin played in the excellent but short lived and just about forgotten series "12 Miles of Bad Road", the half crazy family matriarch, or possibly a mystic old fortune teller in a sci fi series of some kind, she's really the kind of actress that any role will be made her own just by letting her do what she does best. I do love her ever so.
Julia Roberts
Now, alot of people find this one abit shocking, but, hear me out, how long has it been sense you've seen Julia Roberts in a movie? Yeah, see, you can't think of one either. Julia is one of those actresses that everyone loves when they see her, and kind of forgets when she hasn't acted for awhile. Which is kind of a shame really, she's got a great work ethic and is said to be a joy to be around, for any network thats always a PR plus. As for Julia's acting, there is alot of it thats just great, I've really never seen her in anything I didn't like, except maybe Charlie Wilson's War, but that was more just boring script for a well acted movie then anything else. Its hard to pick though what kind of a role she should play, she can do drama, but its not always the best choice for her, she fits quirky sassy comedy more then anything really, so maybe thats where to aim her, with dramedy being all the rage right now. Either way she really should get herself back in the game, I would hate to see her just fade away.
Elizabeth Hurley
I know this one's kind of out of left field too, well, in truth they all are to a degree, but when you think about them, they are true. Now for me personally, this one was an easy choice, because allowing an excuse for those horrible Austin Powers movies, I have enjoyed most of Elizabeth's career, I know alot of people can laugh at me for that, but hey, thats how life goes, though i will admit I find her attempts at comedy alot better then her drama, with her playing the devil in the modern ate of Bedeviled being the stand out among her work given the completely over the top nature of the film and the role, one of those "so bad its awesome" type of deals. I think that might be where to aim Ms. Hurley's career actually, not so much a sitcom, because well I do hate that concept, but one of those single camera comedies thats are shot like a drama kind of deals, maybe something similar to the show Ugly Betty, but like, in the interior design business instead of the fashion business, maybe pair her with awesome british actress Cathrine Tate for something, i could see that working.Ok well, thats enough for now, I might do afew more of these later, but, for now i've got afew other things i should think about getting posted... so.. on to the next!
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BC
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