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What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?
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I was underwhelmed when I saw this on video many years ago, but I can see why the occasional person loves this film. They got a whole bunch of artists who are highly acclaimed but the wrong choice for a big budget family musical, dumped them in the middle of nowhere in a blizzard of cocaine, and you end up with this bizarre film that is akin to a freeform jazz experiment. It is just a mess with so much going on, some of it is fantastic, but much of it bizarre and unintelligible. I probably laughed out loud twice, which isn't good for a comedy, and the only song that stuck in my head was "He Needs Me", but that is probably only due to its mini-revival 15 years ago in Punch Drunk Love.
I didn't particularly like it but I did find it fascinating in a way, mainly trying to work out why it doesn't work and why those involved thought it could work (whose idea was it to have Harry Nilsson do the music is insane, as while "Everybody's Talking" from Midnight Cowboy is a great song, it isn't the right style for a comedy musical).
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- Michael Barnes
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It is one of the most misguided, awkward Hollywood films of all time. Such a strange movie, and such a mismatched bunch of players...although Shelly Duvall was clearly born to play Olive Oyl.
It exists only because Robert Evans couldn't get the rights to Annie. So he bought another Sunday funnies/musical property. Who knows why he thought Robert Altman was the man to direct it...but you know, somehow the constant chattering and mumbling fits his style as well as Popeye.
It's a mess. But it's also a pretty elaborate, interesting production. They actually built that town in Malta (WTF) and left it- you can still go visit it, its kind of a tourist attraction. For all 20-30 Popeye movie fans out there, I guess.
Maybe the oddest thing is that it is a Disney picture, it was on the same deal with Dragonslayer.
I saw it in the theater when I was 5...I remember thinking it was really weird...but look at the Popeye cartoons, totally nuts.
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Along with Shelley Duvall, Bill Irwin is also perfect, though very problematic as he steals all his scenes but there is never any reason for him to be around as effectively he is just a featured extra.
EDIT: My wife hated it but said it should be compulsory study in film school because there are so many elements that could be great in other films but don't work here and a budding filmmaker should try to work out why.
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I FINALLY saw Trilogy of Terror. I've wanted to see it FOREVER, ever since I saw a picture of the Zuni Fetish doll in one of my favorite books of all time, the Octopus Encyclopedia of Horror. But I just always missed it or never got around to it. Well, the first two stories are pretty boring- typical made-for-TV stuff, really. But it is interesting that they are all woman-centered stories. The third is the jackpot, and it is the one with the Zuni Fetish doll.
It's such a ridiculous piece of television- there are some genuinely tense, scary moments...but then that doll just goes berserk like Kermit the Frog on a pound of meth. Karen Black's performance is ridiculous too, and full of "why doesn't she..." moments. Like, why doesn't she just get the FUCK out of the apartment? But I do like the contained, small scale- it all takes place in like three rooms- and I like how over the top it is. There is no ambiguity. The doll is alive and FUCKING NUTS. But the thing is, I found it more funny than scary. When he starts to cut out of the suitcase, I was just rolling. And then Karen tries to, like, pinch the knife as he's sawing through. I don't get it. But it has a really cool ending, very chilling and weird.
It's all directed by Dan Curtis, who was sort of the go-to man for TV horror in the 70s. He did also Dark Shadows and the Jack Palance Dracula (actually pretty good). It's worth watching once, but there are better killer doll movies out there if that's what you're in for.
Scrolling through Amazon I was blown away that they had Curse of the Crimson Altar. This is another one I've wanted to see forever, mainly because the stills I had seen showed Barbara Steele (Black Sunday!) with blue skin and wearing this LUDICROUS costume. It's based on Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch House but you know how that goes...and among the players are also Christopher Lee and Karloff in his last role. Horror-hounds will be well-pleased by these three titans of the genre together in a film. But it's not very good. It's a Trigon picture, who were sort of a THIRD tier English horror outfit (below Amicus and two levels below Hammer) and it unfortunately feels very close to lesser Hammer efforts with a modern day setting (like Dracula 1972 AD and Satanic Rites of Dracula). It's pretty poor overall, but man, is it GROOVY. Go-go girls, body painting, human sacrifice, goats, S&M gear...there's definitely some fun to be had, but it is not some lost classic by any stretch of the word. It was written by some guys that did most of the 2nd Doctor stories. There's ALWAYS a Doctor Who connection somewhere in this stuff.
Interestingly, it was released in the US two years after it was made ('68) and it was paired up with Count Yorga, Vampire. So it was a couple of slightly sexy, somewhat daring for the time gothic horror pictures.
I've been hitting all of the Amicus portmanteau pictures as well...I think Vault of Horror is my favorite of the lot. I think these films are really kind of underrated. If you have any interest in the EC Comics/Bill Gaines/Wally Wood/Johnny Craig/Jack Davis/Joe Orlando/Al Williamson style of horror, I think these stories really capture that tone. They range from really pretty gruesome to eerie to funny (there's ALWAYS a funny one)...but always with a sense of ironic morality. It's interesting that Vault of Horror, at least on the DVD print I have, seems to be missing its million dollar moment, where a hapless victim is literally tapped like a keg by a club full of vampires. It's another classic still that used to show up in horror books all the time. But in the DVD, that entire scene is shown as...that still, intercut into the print.
Lots of great English players in these too- Tom Baker, Patrick Troughton, Patrick Magee, ,Ralph Richardson, Denholm Elliot, Joan Collins, Ian Hendry, Roy Dotrice, Terry Thomas, Michael Gough, Herbert Lom, Charlotte Rampling...and of course, Peter Cushing. Great genre directors too, like Freddie Francis and Roy Ward Baker were involved.
Probably will screen The House that Dripped Blood and Asylum tonight.
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Michael Barnes wrote: Scrolling through Amazon I was blown away that they had Curse of the Crimson Altar. This is another one I've wanted to see forever, mainly because the stills I had seen showed Barbara Steele (Black Sunday!) with blue skin and wearing this LUDICROUS costume. It's based on Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch House but you know how that goes...and among the players are also Christopher Lee and Karloff in his last role. Horror-hounds will be well-pleased by these three titans of the genre together in a film. But it's not very good. It's a Trigon picture, who were sort of a THIRD tier English horror outfit (below Amicus and two levels below Hammer) and it unfortunately feels very close to lesser Hammer efforts with a modern day setting (like Dracula 1972 AD and Satanic Rites of Dracula). It's pretty poor overall, but man, is it GROOVY. Go-go girls, body painting, human sacrifice, goats, S&M gear...there's definitely some fun to be had, but it is not some lost classic by any stretch of the word. It was written by some guys that did most of the 2nd Doctor stories. There's ALWAYS a Doctor Who connection somewhere in this stuff.
Coincidentally, my girlfriend and I just caught The Blood Beast Terror on TV a week or two ago, which is another Tigon movie by the same director (Vernon Sewell) as Curse of the Crimson Altar. Blood Beast Terror definitely felt like Hammer-lite, especially the lighting (lots of super vivid blues and greens cast across gothic grey rock walls). Great Cushing performance, unintentionally funny creature effects and a Hammer-style super-abrupt ending.
Curse of the Crimson Altar is fucking great (I might have to watch it tonight), and I'll also stick up for Dracula 1972, if only because I like the music score and the cool mashup of Hammer gothic and 1970s London.
Also: Tigon did give us two of the all-time great folk horror movies with The Witchfinder General and Blood on Satan's Claw.
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Black Barney wrote: Duvall is so insanely hot in that movie, I lose my mind everytime
I made my parents take me to go see it at a dive theater in Utah. One of the family-owned theater employees sat in the back and laughed loudly at all of the "funny" parts, I guess to help us enjoy the movie more, but it was awkward and forced sounding, which, combined with the general dinginess of the theater, made the whole thing kind of depressing. Time is compressing as I get older, so it strikes me as unreal that Altman died 11 years ago.
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I have mixed feelings about the writing of Clive Barker. He has some interesting ideas and can really deliver an exciting scene. But his stories are overly obsessed with bodily fluids, and sometimes he writes something so loathsome that I can't even finish the story. The movies that I have seen based on his work are similar, with some good ideas undermined by really bad special effects. I feel like if he was just a little better at as a writer, he could attract a bigger budget and better people to work on his movies.
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Day of the Dead was as bad I was expecting, but at least I can finally say that I watched it. The acting was bad. The story was weak. While plausible that the zombie apocalypse might cause people to behave badly and possibly go insane, I felt that theory pushed beyond any reasonable interpretation and into ludicrous territory. It is surprising that the same director who made Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead couldn't scrape together a little more funding to hire some talent or at least get a good script. There were some impressive physical effects by Tom Savini late in the film, and a few interesting ideas batted about, but most of my enjoyment came early in the movie when I recognized the source of the spooky opening section of the song M1 A1:
Death Wish was better than I expected. The acting and the cinematography were average, but the story worked, and really justified the plausible change in Bronson's character. The stunt work wasn't great, but was okay by standards of the day. The ending clearly expressed the intent to do a sequel, which I feel was not a common thing back in 1974. In many respects, Death Wish was an unimpressive movie that didn't deserve a sequel, but the subject matter was very timely. At that time, New York City was a dangerous and dirty place and was feared as such around the world. Watching a brutal vigilante fight back and win really resonated with people, and probably cast a long shadow in our culture, inspiring Frank Miller, Bernard Goetz, and the NRA. I want to say that the creation of the Punisher was also inspired by Death Wish or maybe Taxi Driver, but it turns out that the Punisher debuted in early 1974, before either of these movies. I like to watch the credits at the end of older movies to see if any minor roles were played by people who got famous later, and I was stunned to see the name Christopher Guest. He's most famous for his mockumentaries, including Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind, but he played a cop in Death Wish.
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