Filmic Friday 327: It's Not A Mall

This week on "what did I just watch, no seriously?!"...

Once upon a time, someone decided that there needed to be a musical sitcom, that it needed to be set at a shopping plaza, and that it needed to co-star Allison Mack as a chipmunk-voiced child. Predictably, something that sounds that fever-dreamed and nonsensical did not make it very hard of you'd have immediately known what I was talking about. Since you probably don't (unless you're my partner, who showed it to me, or you're part of a very small subset of Internet People), let me tell you about Shangri-La Plaza.

This show was created and run by the guy who played adult Michael Myers in the original Halloween, Nick Castle, along with Mark Mueller. You might not recognize Mueller's name, but he's the only reason I sat through the show. See, Mueller is the guy who wrote the themes to Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers. As you might have guessed, the show has an incredible theme song.

If only it weren't utterly destroyed by the cast, only three of whom (Melora Hardin from The Office, Carmen Lundy who sang jazz, and Broadway staple Terrence Mann) could sing, but who only get... okay songs.

Speaking of the songs, except for the theme, most of them are choppy little songlets that just appear and vanish as soon as they begin. It's... It's not good guys. One or two songs actually get off the ground - one about making donuts poorly is Lundy's big piece. The rest are basically sing-spoken and it's not that great to be honest.

And the story! What a half-imagined thing! Basically, Hardin and Mack are a mother and daughter who have inherited a donut shop on Shangri-La Plaza, but Hardin wants to ditch it and move to Paris with her kid for a fresh start. That's the story. It doesn't show up until about 1/3 of the way through the pilot! Instead, we open with a pair of mechanic brothers who, unfortunately, are our romantic leads.

Oh, and if you're wondering why there's a slightly racist street punk Chorus like a modern-vintage Shakespeare play, I don't have answers. I can, however, tell you they took one of the world's best tapdancers at the time and put his character on crutches.

Now, if you're wondering how this "show" went, I'm going to paste it in here for you so you don't have to clutter up your YouTube recommendations extra hard by both looking for and watching it. "Enjoy".

Final note: Allison Mack went from being obnoxious here to being kinda cute in Smallville to being a legit monster thrall in a monster cult. That is all.

Go Enjoy Something! (Preferably something better)
FC


Oh, and:

Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor.
Black Lives Matter.
The current method of policing America cannot, on the whole, be rehabilitate, therefore it should be completely overhauled and funds largely redistributed over multiple highly-regulated organizations who are hyper-specialized while being dispatched by a highly-regulated dispatch office so that we don't have armed and fearful officers beating in the heads of mentally ill people on "wellness checks" or shooting unarmed social workers for no reason.

Filmic Friday 320: Watching The Internet

The Internet: A Huge Resource For Movies And Entertainment

Let's be real, y'all already know what the internet is all about, what's on it, and what you like to look at. I won't bore you with an in-depth history of New Media and social networking and all that.

Instead, let me bombard you with a few YouTube channels I've been watching this week:

• NintendoBlackCrisis - I've been playing more Breath of the Wild, so it makes sense that I'm watching a lot of Zelda Theory videos. NBC provides some pretty nifty theories, and they're easy jumping off points for your own theories on the deep, confusing lore of a series that only recently became interconnected in more than name and theme.
• 2Can TV - a man with toucans. What more can I say? I like birds.
• Rachel Maksy - a delightful young lady with a penchant for vintage dress and creative costuming (including a feminized Creature from the Black Lagoon).
• PointCrow - Another Zelda guy, though he's more known for being a very quirky speedrunner. Ever wanted to see someone beat Breath of the Wild without ever turning Left? He's done it. Feed all the dogs? Done it. No Stamina, ever? Did it. Never getting the Sheika Slate?! DID IT.
• Chunk the Groundhog - Exactly what it says on the tin. A cute groundhog. He has a girlfriend. They're cute.

I'll try and give you guys some more recommendations next week :) For now, just stay in if you can, wear a mask, wash your hands, and know that I love you all.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Filmic Friday 319: Pandemic Presentations

In Which I'm Back on Daily Blogs and Blather About Movies In Seclusion

So you've finished Netflix. You're binged out on the newest and best. You're looking for cinematic comfort food. You don't know what to watch because you're bored and you're months into your quarantine.

What are you watching?

I know almost everyone has seen the big Netflix and Hulu features, we're all talking about tigers and meth (though you do not want to talk to me about that particular flick, I promise), and reality tv and maybe you've seen CATS too many times, but...

I promise, there are things out there to watch!

The first advice I have for your viewing-pleasure is this: pay attention to your feelings!

If you're feeling very stressed out right now, perhaps Night of the Hunter should wait for when your resting heartrate doesn't resemble that of an Olympic sprinter mid-race. If you're looking for ways to stay up at night to finish that project you've been putting off, then you might want to skip the Bob Ross marathon. Maybe you're trying to stop overeating - stop watching Chopped or Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.

How you feel is very important to finding something you'll enjoy watching. If you're in the wrong mood, even a beautiful film will be the wrong fit! If you're feeling like schlocky horror, then that's what you should watch - don't force yourself to watch Forrest Gump or Shakespeare in Love.

The second thing you should pay attention to is who you're watching the movie or show with. Are you surrounded by children? Maybe hold off on Raiders of the Lost Ark (though I saw that as a wee lil baby and I loved it, so gauge your kids' hardcore-levels). Is your partner a romantic? Maybe don't watch anything by Eli Roth... Does your mom hate horror movies? Try to avoid The Thing or Aliens.

But if you're alone, then anything is game, right?

Maybe.

Like I said - pay attention to your mood. Don't just throw something on and think you'll react the same no matter what. Especially now. I've found that paranoid viewing right now is a major no-go. No one should stay up with their heart in their throat, jumping at every noise (unless that's what you find to be a good time, you wild person, you). You may find that your tolerance for childhood classics has dropped to shockingly low levels, and when you throw on that copy of Beauty and the Beast or Bambi, you are inexplicably angry. There's nothing wrong with you. You're living through something that hasn't been part of daily life in about a century. You're coping the best you can.

So if your usual comfort-watches aren't working, try to find something else! Maybe you remember a movie you kind of enjoyed but haven't seen in a while? Try that one! You may find that the weird noir movie you saw that one time at a library event is just what the doctor ordered, or maybe you usually only watch crappy action movies when you wash dishes and now you're craving them like a pregnant person craves fishsticks? That's fine! Watch what you feel like you're watching.

And finally: TURN IT OFF if it's bothering you! You are under absolutely zero obligation to finish any movie, show, episode, or video you embark on. You might go through thirty YouTube videos to find the right one. That's okay. You're not doing anything wrong.

Everyone's going to go through this differently, everyone will cope in their own way. Just make sure you're taking care of yourself and not letting yourself get overwhelmed (which is its own challenge).

If you're looking for a way to watch things with a partner, there's a website called watch2gether.com where you can share videos with each other in a chatroom - just keep it legal, folks lol.

I hope you guys are doing okay out there right now, and I hope to see you all back here once in a while as I begin to write daily blogs again. Don't be alarmed if I miss a day here or there - I might have nothing to say on a particular day, or I might be busy (like many people are right now).

Welcome back to the blog!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 314: When Ladies Meet

Sometimes We Watch Without Watching

I'll be honest, guys, I haven't been able to actually focus on a movie in a while, so forgive me if this review isn't up to my usual standards.

A Surprisingly Nuanced take on a movie about infidelity

When Ladies Meet is a film in which a novelist (Joan Crawford) falls in love with her married publisher. His wife does not know. The novelist's on-again-off-again boyfriend has come back to see her and finds out the hard way that she's been swept off her feet by a guy who he immediately pegs as a serial philanderer.

While, yes, the boyfriend (played by Robert Taylor) is a manipulative little jerk on occasion, he actually has everyone's best interests at heart - except for Rogers Woodruf the publisher (Herbert Marshall). Joan's Mary Howard is thoroughly enchanted by Woodruf to the point where she completely blinds herself to the fact that he's married and his wife likely loves him. His wife, Clare (Greer Garson) does not appear until about the halfway through, but when she arrives, it's clear that both she and Mary are being played by Rogers. Jimmy (Robert Taylor) is offended by all of this, behaving pretty terribly so that everyone can blame him in the end if he's wrong about Clare not knowing that Rogers is cheating on her with Mary. He's not wrong.

The final confrontation is facilitated on one of the coolest locations I've ever seen in a romantic drama - a converted mill where Spring Byington's Bridget Drake (Mary's best friend) lives. Bridget is a flake, but her taste in obliquely gay designers is apparently impeccable because that set is gorgeous, but interior and exterior, making for the perfect setting to act out the title.

Because it is in this laughably overwrought setting (with functioning waterwheels, fantasy swings, a severely out-of-place French butler, and bars made from the gears of the grist mill) that the eponymous Ladies (Clare and Mary) meet at last.

They are very much alike - strong women who have a very good idea of what they want out of life, trim, athletically built, and with "hands as graceful as thoroughbreds" (because of course a guy named Rogers would have a bizarre hand fetish) - and they would easily become best friends if it weren't for the fact that they've both gotten played by Rogers Woodruf.

This is very much a 1940s movie (though there was an earlier version of this same film in 1933 starring different people yet still directed (in part) by Robert Z Leonard. I... kinda want to see both to see how they handle everything differently. It could be used as a tool to see what individual actors brought to their roles, I'd imagine...

I don't usually, as a rule, enjoy these kinds of films, because they're usually pitifully melodramatic to hide the fact that there's no story and poor direction, but When Ladies Meet was pretty engaging! With excellent set design, powerhouse actors, and a fascinating look at women as active participants in a movie (with the men serving largely as catalysts, rather than as the main driving force), it's a pretty fresh movie from 1941.

I'd definitely recommend giving it a watch if you can find it somewhere!

That'll do it from me, today

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 312: Social Distancing And Film

In Which I Talk About COVID-19 and Movies

It's fun to get together and watch movies with friends and family. Movie theaters are great for dates and just to relax and enjoy yourself. Hitting up a RedBox or other rental kiosk can be a great choice for a night in.

But now there's COVID-19 to be concerned with, and with cases all the way up here near Nowheresville, it's time to think about some changes.

I'm already a fairly antisocial person - social distancing won't be as big a change for me as it might be for some social butterflies - but this will still change how I view movies.

It's unlikely that I'll have the option of a movie theater soon (hopefully it waits for after tomorrow, though, there's a 35mm print of In The Bedroom I'd like to see with my partner...), and I'm already paranoid about the disease-slicked screens of the grocery store kiosks.

So how do we engage in the social behavior of movie-watching when we're all freaking out and don't want to get sick?

Well, there's a few options, in my mind.

There's streaming, which most people have or have access to (and if you have family with Netflix or something, now might be the time to beg for the password, tbh).

There's also cable tv, but fewer people have this, now, and companies like to make it hard for you to share this experience outside your home.

You could also make sure your fellow viewers have a copy of your movie of choice in their own homes.

These three solutions are great for being housebound.

Except that you're still sitting in a room alone watching a movie and having no one to talk to.

Well, chances are, if you're 30 or younger, you're on your phone anyway, so hook up a group chat or a multi-person Facetime call or something and get to sharing your experience digitally!

To be honest, if movie theaters and production companies want to really make bank, they'll run Pay-Per-View-style movie streams under their branding with built in conferencing to make groups more interested in streaming these shows from home. It could be on an emergency basis, running when there are natural disasters or plagues or just really bad air quality.

This is a scary time. Yes, it's unlikely that most of us will catch this disease (I think. I hope.) but it pays to be cautious, especially with an illness like COVID-19.

Here's a few bits of advice from my heart to yours:

• You're allowed to be anxious about this. It's scary. Anyone telling you to stop worrying is either worried themselves and trying to keep you from heightening their anxiety or they just are not paying proper attention. You can be worried. Just use that anxiety to prepare in sensible ways. Which ties into my next point:
• Stop buying toilet paper unless you actually need it - there wasn't a shortage before the panic because every continent except for Antarctica makes their own TP. The US imports a very small amount from Canada, Mexico, and yes, China, but we're not going to miss the Chinese imports that much because guess what? We make our own TP. It's going to be okay in this regard.
• When selecting a movie, try not to pick anything that will keep you up too late! Your body needs proper sleep, and spooking yourself out by watching that extra-scary horror movie might not help. I'm not saying you should switch over to all kids' movies, but now is a good time to pick up some things that won't give you a heart attack. If you're looking for scary but not too scary, I recommend The Lost Boys.
• I'm sure I'm about to piss people off but here's some mild medical knowledge that's easily accessible by laypeople like me:
• Homeopathy is not medicine. It's literally just placebos. It's pseudoscience and should not be confused with medical science.
• Naturopathy is also not really medicine. Yes, many medicines are derived from nature, but please remember that by definition, literally everything is natural. If it exists, it is in nature, and therefor it is natural.
• Antibiotics cannot cure viruses because antibiotics only fight bacteria, so if you're talking to someone who claims they're on antibiotics for their "cold", they have misunderstood the situation and do not have a cold. They have a bacterial infection. Also, COVID-19 is a virus and thus is immune to antibacterial materials.
• You cannot cure this with honey. You cannot cure this by drinking bleach. One is tasty on toast. The other will literally kill you.
• Remember, if it has "alternative" in the title, unless prescribed by an actual straight-up medical professional, it is not medicine and it will not work. Our great grandparents used this stuff because there was no medicine.
• And finally, if you are going to be around people you like and you have allergies, please consider dosing up on your allergy meds, despite the grogginess. Try not to sneeze too much.

We'll get through this, guys.

We're all in this together (ish).

Seriously, though, this week's recommendation is The Lost Boys, which I only saw about half of because I kept falling asleep (I was super tired), but if I ever see the whole thing? I'm blabbing about it on here. Promise.

Also, uh... I need to start working on a list of movies as I watch them because... my memory? She is the suck.

That'll about do it for me, guys!

Stay social from a distance and take care of yourselves!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Filmic Friday 311: Zodiac

In Which I Discuss True Crime

Once upon a time, there was a serial killer who called himself "Zodiac". He has never, to our knowledge, been caught. Evidence is shaky. Eyewitness testimony, while extremely valuable, has not been sufficient to nail this beast. Of course there had to be a movie made about this horror. Several, in fact. But the one I'm going to talk about today is the David Fincher movie from 2007.

The poster is absolutely not kidding.
There are, indeed, many ways to lose your life to a killer.

Zodiac is a film based on the Robert Graysmith book of the same name name. Graysmith was working as a cartoonist at the time of the first Zodiac killings in the late 1960s. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the role of an obsessive artist and puzzle-lover in the film, which he plays really well against Robert Downey Jr's Paul Avery (a reporter), Inspectors Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Armstrong (Anthony Edwards).

The Newspaper Men

The Detective

The Zodiac

The entirety of this film is about what happens to everyone caught up in the Zodiac's horror. Paul Avery does his best to nail the killer to the wall with his writing but only succeeds in destroying his reputation and descending into narcotic and alcoholic hell. Inspectors Toschi and Armstrong are slowly consumed and then crushed by the public scrutiny and the impossibility of the crime. And then there's Robert Graysmith, the artist who likes solving puzzles. And he's consumed so fully that he convinces himself of a man's guilt.

Which, let's be fair, Arthur Leigh Allen was a horribly creepy dude, and he did commit some heinous crimes.

Even Arthur Leigh Allen gets consumed in the search for the elusive killer. He is dead, yet his name keeps coming up.

Seriously, though, the Zodiac is one of the creepiest stories out there about an uncaptured serial killer because of how much has gone wrong with the investigation, and Fincher's film does an excellent job of keeping the focus away from the violence of the slayings and firmly upon the people and lives that were impacted.

One of the most powerful details about this film is that one of the killing scenes (along the shore of a lake) was directed by the survivor of the attack, who appears in the background of a scene in a movie theater with his wife, moving quietly across the background. It's powerful to see someone who this monster meant to murder, whose life was irrevocably altered in those awful moments, take control of  that moment, revealing it to the world as truthfully as possibly, and then to show himself, defiant and alive in the face of a true beast. So thank you, Mr. Mageau, for showing us your truth and for not being forced to hide.

Go watch this movie.

Go Enjoy Something,
FC

Filmic Friday 308: Spoiled for Choice

Too Much Of A Good Thing Is A Real Problem To Have

So I've been watching more movies in the last couple months than ever before - almost a movie a day in some cases! So what do you do when you feel overwhelmed with the amount of movies you've watched?

You take a break from movies for a little while. Which is what I'm doing today. I have seen a couple of movies recently that I'd like to talk about later, though, so here they are: First, there's Zodiac - a serial killer is on the loose and a newspaper cartoonist begins to descend into obsession while trying to track him down. Then there's CATS (2019) - A musical I've seen, but done poorly and with rushed cgi. I eventually want to talk about the stage production of CATS, but that'll have to wait.

I'm pretty sure I've seen a couple other movies I wanted to talk about, but I've been very tired lately, and my memory is absolutely garbage :(

How do you guys handle film burnout? Do you just keep watching and hope that you enjoy what you're seeing, or do you bow out?

I'll be back tomorrow, guys, never fear, but for now, I'm going to go pack up some food and head out.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 307: Post Oscars Silliness

Ever Wonder What Brad Pitt's First Movie Was?
It Was This One.

So the Oscars are over, Parasite won a bunch (deservedly so), the cast of CATS ripped on the visual effects people (which was not deserved, they did their best and got fired because of overblown expectations), and Brad Pitt won an Oscar for Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood (also deserved).

But what did Mr Prettyboy do in his first movie?

I'll tell ya: not much.

Yes, this is his first roll.
In an 80s/90s slasher.

Cutting Class is a rock stupid movie that thinks it's clever, is full of actors who have better things to be doing with their lives, and is only really of importance because it's the film that launched Brad Pitt's career. The acting is either stilted and wooden or over the top, because apparently the director micromanaged the actors' performances - especially Jill Schoelen's.

Baby Brad in all his adorkable glory.

Jill Schoelen's character is being left alone for the week by her District Attorney father (Martin Mull) as he goes for a brief hunting trip to unwind. She is played hypersexualized but... comes off as a baby instead of a sex kitten. Her boyfriend, Brad Pitt (and boy, that must have been interesting when his career took off, do you think she told people she dated him in a movie once?), just wants to goof off and get drunk and have sex.

Get used to that facial expression, guys.

Really, the cast is what makes this movie. The principal of the school, Mr Dante (you'll notice that's the only name I remember!), is played by Roddy McDowell, who is played as a bizarre lech of a man, but is also one of the only adults to not be killed. Spoilers, someone's killing students and teachers at this disfunctional sex-starved school. It's not Roddy, though.

He's just creepy and weird, that's all.

No, the killings are all done by the Weird Kid (played by Donovan Leitch). They don't hide it, and even the brief moment we're supposed to believe Brad Pitt is the killer doesn't work.

He's a fairly effective killer, though.

Now, usually, in movies where there's killing in a high school, all of the kids look like adults, and that's a problem here, but Donovan? I buy him as a high schooler. He's that creepy intense kid everyone talks about but nobody talks to. It's hard to believe that this school would just... let him back in after he'd killed his dad, but boy, they don't do much to support him.

This could all have been prevented if he'd been given therapy instead of shock treatment...

Anyway, the worst part of this movie has to be Martin Mull, who spends the whole time trying to get help after he's shot with an arrow in the opening scene. It's played for laughs, but it's as unfunny as bad comedy can be.

This part was crap.

But if you're still interested in checking out Cutting Class, go for it! It's not the goriest movie you'll ever see, but it's one of those "European director tries to capture the American high school experience" movies that are so much fun. It's pretty fun to watch, actually.

Except for the Martin Mull bits. Meh.

That'll do it for me, guys!

Happy Violently Beheaded Catholic Saint Day!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 306: Hereditary

In Which I Have Withstood The Spooks

A couple weeks ago, I watched a real-deal, actual-factual Horror Movie - Hereditary.

Yes, everyone already reviewed this movie.

Yes, everyone mispronounces it as "Heredity".

No, I don't care.

We had a choice between Hereditary and Midsommer, but at the last second, we chose Hereditary, and I'm glad we did.

This is a movie where you really do have to sit through the whole thing to even begin to understand it, because every part of the movie is interdependent, and nothing is random (though a lot is left to chance in the plot, but I'll get to that later...). So yeah, if you're gonna watch this movie, you really do need to watch it, or you run the risk of being confused. You're not stupid - it's a complex film. Maybe a little too complex for its own good...

Hereditary starts off as a movie about mourning and coping with loss. A mother of two has lost her own mother, and she tries burying herself in her work (she's an artist who makes miniatures) to cope with her complicated feelings. Her daughter is a bit odd, but she seems like a weird kid who just does stuff her own way. Her husband is supportive and loving and tries to take care of her and their son, who seems, like most teenagers, wrapped up in his own teenage troubles.

Then things start getting weird.

A desecrated grave, an ill-advised party, a tragedy, and an ill-advised support-group friendship drive this story from the grounded-but-strange to the downright bizarre, and, to be honest, if it weren't for the director informing us of his intentions, I would have no idea whether it was a story of a family becoming horrifically unmoored or a straight-up supernatural thriller, which is a nice headspace to be in, to be honest.

Unfortunately, the director has a very set way you're supposed to interpret the film, which I feel kinda... lessens the impact.

It also feels like two almost completely separate movies that got married halfway through, though that doesn't feel too ungainly. It feels like discovery more than disappointment. See, in the first half there's this rich family drama of people who are bad at coping trying to cope with bad stuff, but then it becomes a really well-shot, unsettling horror movie with some spectacular special effects.

I like that the effects, while gory and well-crafted, aren't used to simply shock everyone. The grisly nature of some effects is upsetting enough that they don't have to linger on the effect itself. The knowledge of what has happened is too dire to ignore.

Really, every part of the movie works well together - the sound design is eerie without being exploitative, the lighting gives the feel of the despair a family would feel on the loss of loved ones, warming only when in the presence of fire, fear, or friends, and the music is effective without being overbearing. When the music is loud, it's behaving as the audience's heartbeat, rising with the tension and action before pulling back. It's nice to have a movie where, even though everyone tends to speak quietly, you can still hear what they're saying.

And then there's the plot.

I'm about to get super spoilery, so if you want to watch the movie, stop reading this review and go watch it, then come back so I can complain about walnuts.

Did you watch it? Do you not care about spoilers? Okay, here we go.

After the grandma has been buried, someone desecrates her grave, which we learn about via a phone call to the dad. The daughter character, Charlie, has a nut allergy and may or may not (absolutely is, according to the director) be the temporary earthly vessel for grandma and her secret cult's favorite demon, Paimon. Yes. This is a secret demon cult movie. No, you don't find out for sure until the last act.

Well, in order to get Paimon out of Charlie and into her brother (who has no idea about any of this), poor Charlie has to die. We are asked, by the end of the movie, to believe that the son is invited to a party where the mom knows there will likely be drinking and/or drugs, but she insists that he take Charlie with her. The mom, at this point, knows nothing about the cult and could reasonably get a babysitter for Charlie (if not just leave her alone, she's old enough to take care of herself, it seems), so this is weird because this party? This party kills Charlie.

See, the son takes Charlie to the party, where for some reason, there are people chopping mountains of walnuts, which Charlie's deathly allergic to. The son does not notice at all and goes to smoke some weed with a girl he likes, urging Charlie to eat the cake which he doesn't know has nuts in it. Charlie, of course, has a reaction and goes to get her brother to take her to the hospital. Instead of calling an ambulance. Ambulances, newsflash, don't give a crap about the presence booze or pot when there's an obvious episode of nut-induced anaphylaxis...

So sonny boy takes Charlie to the car and drives outta there like a bat outta heck. Charlie, meanwhile, is suffocating as her throat closes, so she sticks her head out the window to breathe. There's a sudden deer in the road (a carcass, actually), which causes the son to swerve. Charlie's head is then taken off by a telephone pole.

We are, by the end of this movie, expected to believe that this entire sequence was planned by the cult for the express purpose of freeing Paimon from Charlie's body so they can literally scare the son to death and put Paimon in his body.

This is insane, obviously. Also obvious is the link between all this craziness and mental illness. This could absolutely be a story about a fantastically unfortunate family where they all go crazy one-by-one, but no. Demons.

The jump from "Charlie dies horrifically, but completely by accident" to "A crazy cult of nudist geriatrics wanted a genius demon to come into being through a weird girl and her brother" is a bit too much of a leap, for me, but it's still a really cool movie in spite of the twist.

Overall, I think this movie is incredibly worth watching and  you should check it out.

Really watch it, though, because yeah... that Paimon stuff is hard to follow if you haven't been paying attention the whole time.

I'm proud of myself for only looking away during the decapitations, guys. Yeah, you read that right. There's multiple decapitations. Five, actually. One's a metaphor, though. The four physical decapitations are: Grandma's Corpse, A Dead Pigeon In A Bush, Charlie, and The Mom Via Possession/Piano Wire. The metaphysical decapitation is when the dad is killed - cutting the head from the family.

So yeah, fun, scary, cool movie.

Go watch it!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

PS: I'm late with the blog due to internet outages - we're having an ice storm :|

Filmic Friday 305: Highway To Hell 1991

In Which ... Ok, You know what? I have No Idea what I just watched.

Once upon a time, my partner and I were feeling pretty sleepy and wanted to zone out, so we threw on a random movie that we liked the look of. That movie was  Highway To Hell, starring Rob Lowe's brother, Chad. We were anticipating that the movie would be allegorical, or metaphorical, or anything else besides literal because... why would you write a movie about a literal highway leading to the Devil's domain when there is so much else you could do with the title?

I should note that, since we knew this was a film from the early 1990s, we were sure it wasn't anything like the 2016 horror flick of the same name.

Well, we were right about that second bit - it's not a slasher movie.

It sure is something, though...

And no, this poster isn't lying. Much.

We open the film normally enough, with Charlie Sykes (Chad Lowe) and his girlfriend Rachel (Kristy Swanson) eloping to Las Vegas. They're on the road in Charlie's pizza delivery car, but after a scare with a police officer following them (Charlie remarks that their elopement is potentially illegal, and Rachel confesses that she left her mother a note, thus making Charlie believe that Rachel's mom has called the cops on him), they end up on a back road in the middle of nowhere. Rachel rebuffs Charlie when he tries to bang her in the back of his Pinto (uh, also, his dog, Mr. Ben, is in the car with them, wtf Charlie, stop), and to his credit, Charlie agrees to hold off until the honeymoon.

It's nice to see a movie with such sleeze potential back off from having a young woman lose her virginity in a crappy car in the desert.

What I didn't realize was that this moment is integral to the plot!

This film has a nearly Hocus Pocus level obsession with virginity, it seems.

So, after stopping at the only gas station for miles, the couple are warned not to fall asleep on the road until they've passed two Joshua Trees. The old man in charge of the gas station begs them to stay the night, and, being a young white couple in what I was beginning to suspect was a horror movie, they again threw my expectations by saying they'd be okay and continuing on.

This, too, is integral to the plot.

See, Mr. Ben the dog and Rachel the girlfriend fall asleep while Charlie drives, and because no one is awake to talk to him, Charlie, too drifts off near a defaced billboard where a cop car awaits.

Charlie wakes up before having an accident and tries to gather himself as the cop approaches. But it's not a normal cop. This bald demon is the Hellcop, and he kidnaps Rachel, knocking both Charlie and Mr Ben out.

All while looking suspiciously like a bald, disfigured Toby Maguire in Spiderman 3

Charlie ends up back at the gas station and begs the old man for help. The old man tells him that the Hellcop kidnaps pretty girls, which he knows because the Hellcop also stole his pretty girlfriend back in the day, which is why he has the gas station and why he'd begged them to stay the night. Charlie's desperation moves him, and he gives the young man his old car, which he'd modified to survive a literal trip into Hell, a magic gun which seems to work with shotgun shells, and advice. Charlie then goes to Hell to save Rachel.

I'm going to try to avoid too many more spoilers, but you have to understand, we weren't expecting Rob Lowe's brother to literally drive into Hell and fight a demon cop while exploring the beautiful desert landscape.

Along his journey, Charlie meets several characters, including Mr Beezle (whose true identity I'd guessed in seconds, what with the painfully obvious name) and Adam, a young boy who was also kidnapped by the Hellcop. Since Adam is a living being down in Hell, he's been trying to escape. He's also a little creepy, and I had him pegged for a secret demon, but... spoilers... he's not. He's just a weird, kinda creepy kid. I mean, if I watched a creepy demon dude gun down my family and my dog when I was barely more than a toddler, I'd probably be a bit weird, too.

So now Charlie has three souls to save - Rachel's, Adam's, and his own. Mr Ben is never in any real danger.

Did I mention that Mr Beezle is played by Patrick Bergin?

A few interesting points of note:

1) The entire Stiller family plays different roles in Hell. Ben is a psychotic short-order cook, Jerry is an undead Desk Sergeant who tries to steal from Sgt Bedlam (the Hellcop), and Amy Stiller is Cleopatra.
2) Gilbert Gottfried is Hitler. You cannot prepare yourself for that.
3) The set design is both incredible and ridiculous, and if you have any understanding of pop culture and/or mythology, you're going to get a lot of laughs (the diner is called "Pluto", there's a casino called "Hoffa's", and there are multiple references to different takes on the afterlife)
4) No one is giving a half-assed performance. Everyone's trying their best, and that makes it more fun and surreal!

Ben Stiller smashing eggs on his head to make headcheese omelets on the sidewalk outside The Pluto

Hoffa's, which is stop-motion animated and looks awesome!

Yes, there's a scene with Cerberus.
Yes, it's more or less mythologically accurate.
No you aren't prepared for how they bypass him.

Eventually, Charlie gets to take a shortcut (with the help of the old man's lost love, who has elected to remain in Hell, as she now feels it's what she deserves), but as with most things in the afterlife, he's presented with a choice. That choice is whether or not to sleep with Rachel, who is super into him when he finds her. He knows something's up, though, and eventually, he catches sight of her reflection, which... uh... isn't her.

And yes, this is some amazing prosthetic work.
The costume looks amazing and moves perfectly with the actor!

Eventually, Charlie defeats the succubus and goes on to find the real Rachel practicing violin, waiting for the Devil. She's thrilled to see Charlie, though, and agrees to escape with him. The Devil, of course, is quite annoyed by all of this, but he's a being of deals, so he agrees that if Rachel and Charlie leave without looking back, they can go.

It's an overall fairly bog-standard escape attempt against the Devil's minions

Of course, that's not enough, so the movie ends with a race against the Hellcop to escape from Hell and Mr Beezle (who, shocker, turned out to be the Devil the whole time). They get Adam to come with them, and the race is on. It's a fun chase sequence, and the stunt driving is pretty awesome. I liked every second of it, and honestly, it's one of the better race sequences I've seen.

The movie itself is neither a "good" movie nor a bad movie. It's a bizarre movie, and it defies proper explanation.

If you have a fever, or if you're just looking for a good-but-weird time, definitely check out this movie!

Also: the dog is 100% okay by the end of the movie, if that's the kind of thing that is important to you.

So yeah, go watch Highway to Hell, directed by Ate de Jong! It's a great time :)

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 304: Martial Law (1990)

In Which This Is Not The TV Show of The Same Name

Once upon a time, martial arts movies were all the rage. Van Dam, Carradine, Chan, and Segal were kings of action and karate chops, but there was another.

No, not Chad McQueen (though he is in this movie and is, ostensibly, the star).

Cynthia.
Freakin.
Rothrock.

She was the queen of action movies, a five-discipline master (Tang Soo Do, Tae Kwon Do, Wushu, and Eagle Claw, Northern Shaolin and Pai Lum Tao Kung Fu), and a fellow teeny-rager (she's 5'3", the same height as me!).

And she ruled the 1990s.

Heck, if you like video games, specifically Mortal Kombat, she's the inspiration for Sonya Blade!!!

So of course I've watched some of her movies.

Most recently, I saw Martial Law, a 1990s vehicle for Rothrock, David Carradine, and Chad McQueen (who, yes, he's Steve McQueen's son).

Oof. He doesn't even get billing on the cover of this copy?
He's literally the main character!

Martial Law is a very silly story about Chad's character, Sean Thompson. Sean is a cop whose brother (played by Andy McCutcheon) has fallen in with some very bad dudes (David Carradine). His girlfriend, Billie Blake (Rothrock) is also a cop who helps him take down the villains and is also really hot.

Sounds like a pretty generic story, right?

Okay, but get this - the whole movie is insane.

We open with a hostage situation. Chad McQueen shows up as a Dominos delivery guy. He delivers the hostage-takers a pizza at the request of the cops, and once they decide to be rude and stiff him, he beats them down with marital arts. There's a quick quip about another success for "Marital Law" (cue that one Family Guy meme...) and we get our credit sequence.

Crazy, right? Not crazy enough for you?

Okay, how about this:

David Carradine is basically playing Bill from Kill Bill, running an evil dojo to train people to steal things for him or kill people for him. He's a mob boss, and if you fail him, he kills you. He runs guns, steals cars, and I'm sure there are drugs involved, too, because it's the 1990s. It's... also a shockingly clean movie, though. Because despite having women in it, no one gets raped. Which is... really unusual for a 90s action movie with boobs.

Actually, since it's Rothrock, she basically gets to run the show when it comes to how her body is used.

That being said, I really, really wish I hadn't seen Chad McQueen mostly naked and fooling around with Cynthia Rothrock.

But I digress.

This movie is bonkers. Yes, there are long scenes you won't care about where they're just... talking to people. Yes, the brother is obnoxious and feels kinda pointless. Yes, there are multiple double-crosses, but...

The movie never gets tired. You just go from scene to scene, with a tiny bit of filler between the silly action sequences, and eventually, you realize that it's over, but it feels like it just began!

Also... there's a pro-wrestler involved.

Yes, you heard right. One of the big goons for the guy who wants cars from Carradine is played by Professor Toru Tanaka! It's great to see Toru having a great time, and he plays well off of Carradine.

Carradine, for his part, is having a blast playing a Bond Villain type of bad guy, and it really is fun to watch him revel in his badness. He's been drinking recently, you can tell, but! He seems to be relatively sober on-set, and that just makes it more fun.

As for Chad... well... he's a Chad. He's trying, and his acting skills aren't abysmal, but he's not his dad, and he's not an action movie star. He seems like he'd be pretty decent in some smaller dramatic roles, working his way up to stardom, but he was given the starring role based on his last name alone.

Don't let me make you think this movie isn't amazing, though.

It's awesome, and you should check it out!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 303: Pacific Blue and the Roku Channel App

I don't always use this blog to talk about tv,
but when I do, it's primo nonsense.

I don't watch a whole lot of tv. It's not something I wear like a badge of honor or anything, I just don't really do the whole... programming thing. I usually go online, watch movies, or check things out on my Roku.

Well, the Roku has an app called the "Roku Channel", and it's become my new best friend.

See, the Roku Channel has some of the tv shows I never saw growing up in the 1990s, and I remember tv as being delightfully cheesy back then, so when the opportunity to watch Pacific Blue came up... I had to do it.

Woo, 90s!

So what the heck is Pacific Blue?

Santa Monica Pier needs protecting, and the best way for cops to patrol a pedestrian-heavy area is by foot or... bike.

Yeah.

It's bike cops.

CHIPS without engines.

And with very muscular legs

The world of Pacific Blue, however is what attracts me, far more than the police-procedural-but-on-a-beach aspect. This is a world where drugs are plentiful on the pristine beaches of Santa Monica, people have relationship issues, there's someone stealing and stripping cars, and...

Micky Dolenz from the Monkees is the mayor.

Yes. You read that right.

It's incredible.

So yeah, this show is a blatant ripoff of Baywatch, but it's got those sweet 1990s XTREME BIKING camera angles, it looks great, the music is awesome, the acting is... well, let's face it, it's very Baywatch.

If that sounds like your cup of tea - a cop show on bikes surrounded by models in bikinis - then swing on over to your Roku and look up the Roku Channel to see it! It's absolutely worth a half hour of your time at least :)

Go Enjoy Something,
FC

Filmic Friday 302: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

In Which I Watch a Classic (?) Movie

I'm a straight-edge person. I don't drink or smoke or do any drugs beyond caffeine. I feel out-of-control enough due to my brain being about as well-wired as something worked on by a stoned electrician who flunked out of kindergarten, thanks. Hunter S Thompson and I have never really jived for that reason. I kinda got Vonnegut, but maybe that's because I was exposed to him first. Maybe I'd like Thompson more if I'd read some of his work before Vonnegut's? Regardless, it's not even a word-to-word issue with Thompson, it's just...

Dude, I don't want to feel like I'm high.

I don't like it. It's an unpleasant experience.

Even Sayonara, Gangsters - a book I read recently - grated on me after a while because its super-surrealist qualities made me slightly detached from the world around me.

I don't know, man. I like fantasy just fine, but when we start deconstructing solid concepts like "a chair is a chair" or "people go to a grocery store for food", I start feeling off-kilter and a little crazy.

So of course I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Which is a story and a movie basically made by, for, about, and on drugs

The story of Fear and Loathing goes thusly: Raoul Duke (aka Hunter S Thompson) is on a business trip to Nevada because he's a journalist and he's supposed to be covering a dirtbike/motorcycle race for the newspaper he works at. He brings his insane, drug-dealing "lawyer" Dr Gonzo with him. The two have a briefcase literally full of all of the drugs, and they keep finding trouble along the way.

To be honest, Toby Maguire is probably the best choice they make in the whole movie

After a lot of mescaline, ether, and acid, the two have racked up considerable debt, trashed several hotels, blown the race story, crashed an anti-drug police seminar, attempted to kill one another, possibly corrupted a minor, and Raoul has had several flashbacks (one of which has the actual Hunter S Thompson in it) and hallucinations (because a circus-themed casino and a combination of ether, mescaline, and acid are a terrible idea). The whole movie is a series of psychotic breaks strung together in a barely coherent manner.

I will say that the puppets and costumes during the hallucination are pretty great, though.

This image captures a bit of the feel, but it's not eye-blastingly neon enough...

Did I love Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? Absolutely not. Did I hate it? Also absolutely not. It's quite the experience, and if you've never seen it, you probably should, but... I don't quite get the diehard cult following the film has.

I guess I just wasn't stoned enough.

Regardless, everyone's acting their balls off, and Gary Busey's cop is a heck of a headtrip, so go for it!

Go Enjoy Something,
FC

Filmic Friday 301: New Year, New Films

In Which I Talk About Movies I Haven't Seen Yet

Since 2020 is all about hindsight, I thought it might be fun for today to have a list of ten movies I haven't seen yet, but would like to this year! These are in no particular order, but I hope I can look back at today's post by the end of December and say "I saw those things!!!"

• Phantom of the Opera (1925)
• Tremors
• Friday the 13th
• CATS (2019)
• In The Bedroom
• Monkeyshines
• The Lighthouse
• Pulp Fiction
• Subspecies (all of them)
• Death on the Nile (2020)

Obviously, I'm going to see more than 10 movies this year, but these 10 are ones I'm really hoping to see. I mean, if I miss Monkeyshines because something cooler came up, I'm not going to be offended, that one is mostly inspired by Twitter.

Regardless, those are my movie goals this year!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Filmic Friday 251: Can't Stop Here This Is Santa Country

In Which I Put Off Fear And Loathing for one more week, lol

It's going to be Christmas in FOUR DAYS

Oh crap.

I am soooooo not ready.

I never am.

Since I'm an unprepared potato, I thought I'd let you in on a little secret: I kinda don't like sentimental Christmas movies. Like... at all.

But I'm also not fond of comedies (I have a soft spot for Ernest Saves Christmas, but that's because I'm a 90s kid).

So what the heck kinda Christmas movies does a nerdy birdy like me like to watch?

Stupid ones, mostly, it turns out. Stupid movies, action movies, and the occasional detective romp.

My top five Christmas movies are:

• Die Hard
• Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
• How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
• Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas
• A Charlie Brown Christmas

That's... a weird top five, right? I mean, no The Santa Clause, no National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (and probably never that one thanks to the other Chevy Chase movie I watched this year... ), no A Christmas Story or Polar Express or Elf...

I mean, not even Rudolph or Frosty, and they were my childhood favorites. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I wore out the VHS tapes for both of them...

Why these five?

They all mean something to me.

Die Hard and KKBB were movies I saw for the first time with the love of my life, and that sticks with ya. It doesn't hurt matters any that they're just solid, wonderful, fun movies on their own, either.

Grinch was ubiquitous in my youth, but I was madly in love with Karloff's voice and cadence. I was also very disappointed to find out that my singing voice would never reach the deep, buttery tones of Thurl Ravenscroft...

And yeah, that's the name of the dude who sang the song.

And yeah, that's possibly the most badass name on Earth...

Emmet Otter was another childhood treasure, but it became a quest of sorts for me, where I was constantly hunting down the tv cut we'd all seen as kids where Ma mumbles about the fox falling off the dock. I was searching for it for my mother's sake, since she'd expressed a wish for it, and I'm frankly terrible at gift-giving. Suddenly, in college, I became friends with my Film And Editing Friendo, who was at long last able to conclude my search. It's a friendship that's still strong today, and I'll always be grateful for the one year where I actually got someone what they wanted.

And I know I said that I wasn't a saccharine Christmas movie person, but there's something about Charlie Brown, man. Maybe it's because we grew up surrounded by Snoopy (my parents are both fans). Maybe it's because between Charlie and Mr Rogers, that was the only real exposure to jazz music I was able to get without anyone complaining. Maybe it's just that sometimes, you want a bunch of kids singing "loo loo loo" around a crummy little tree that someone tried so hard to get for them. All I know is that it doesn't feel like Christmas to me until I hear the music from this cartoon.

Btw, my next five faves are:

• Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (Rankin/Bass)
• Frosty the Snowman
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Fleischer/Jam Handy)
• The Muppet Christmas Carol
• White Christmas

If you think that's weird, that's 100% okay. I'd probably find your top ten fav Christmas flix to be a bit weird too.

This does make me wonder what kinds of holiday films there are for the other... dozen or so non-Christian holidays there are during this season...

Maybe next year...

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Filmic Friday 250: A Public Service Announcement

In Which I Must Warn You

I love bad movies. I really love them - not just in a sarcastic way, either. I love that people came together and made something, no matter how bad it is. I love The Room. I love Troll 2. I love Shakma, and Birdemic, and Giant Gila Monster...

But this movie.

This freakin movie.

Yes, this is the original poster.
It's not... really lying? These are things that exist in the film.
But do not believe its beautiful lies.

Once upon a time, Peter Akroyd decided to write a script based on the time he was pulled over and had a middling-to-negative experience with a cop. Dan Akroyd decided to film it. It went by Git at first. Then Valkenvania.

Now, we know Dan's a funny guy. He is a really good comedian. So how could he have failed so completely?!

The movie is exactly what the title says: Nothing But Trouble.

You'd think that the cast - Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, John Candy - would be enough to carry any script, but... it's just trash.

From the first scene, following rich banker Chevy Chase around, you know something is wrong, because this is about as unfunny as a movie can be.

The whole movie is supposed to play like a farce, and everyone is actually trying to do their best (except for Chevy Chase, who's just being Chevy Chase), but... it's trash.

It's a waste of celluloid.

I feel sorry for everyone involved.

Now, John Candy kinda... checks out of this film pretty early on. While he starts off as a cop named Dennis, that character runs off with two of the ancillary characters - Brazillian siblings played by Taylor Negron and Bertila Damas. Then Candy spends the rest of the film in drag as the granddaughter of Dan Akroyd's wretched character. It's bizarre and bad.

The worst part is that every single part of this movie that isn't a person or the script is great. There's some fun camera work, the lighting is fantastic, and if you're ever looking for set designers, definitely hire every single person who worked on this movie. The world is meticulously put-together, and if you mute the damn thing and just look at the special effects and scenery, you'll wonder why this is so bad.

The score is pretty okay, which is damning, because Michael Kaman is a brilliant composer, and this lacks his usual polish.

The only redeeming part worth watching in its entirety is the scene where the Digital Underground appear.

Yes.

That Digital Underground.

The one with Humpty Hump.

For some stupid reason, they end up being dragged into the movie and perform a 100% out-of-place musical number that is an oasis in the sea of disgusting gross-out humor and wretched nonsense that the movie throws at you constantly.

There's another reason besides Humpty that I want you to watch this scene (I'll put a link under my "Enjoy Something" at the end).

They have a guest star.

Why, yes.
The nice young man in the Yankees jersey is 2Pac Shakur.
What the heck.

This is 2Pac's film debut, and you know something? He and the rest of the Digital Underground are the only people who look like they're having fun.

So, don't watch this movie.

It's stupid, borderline racist at times (especially the stuff with the Brazilians), and there are basically no redeeming qualities.

But that Digital Underground scene...

Man.

...

One final note: I started trying to write this review at 10AM today. I've been having to take frequent breaks because I'm having flashbacks to how unenjoyable this crap movie was. It's almost 6PM now.

Ugh.

Anyway, please, please, please

DON'T WATCH NOTHING BUT TROUBLE.

And Go Enjoy Something.
FC