“Your pardon, I dislike to be touched! An…Eastern prejudice.”

Once more its that time of year again. Dead leaves flying through the air, pumpkin ale flowing through taps, and nothing but horror-related stuff here at Castle RMWC. That’s right, its back for a third go, and hopefully it’ll be more like the first year and not like last year. So, where do we begin? Universal’s always a good place to start.

Capitalizing on the popularity of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922 (and the mystique about the curse which supposedly claimed the lives of several members of the discovering expedition), Universal cast Boris Karloff for a 1932 movie featuring, what else? The Mummy.

Story
So we’re in Egypt in 1921 and an expedition discovers the mummy of Imhotep, a pretty big deal back in the day who apparently did something bad to get himself mummified alive and buried with a curse over his head. A foolish young archeologist deciphers the Scroll of Thoth and reads it out loud, awakening Imhotep, who grabs the scroll and shuffles off. The archeologist goes mad from the experience and we flash forward to “now.” That took all of six minutes.

Ten years later, Imhotep (as “Ardeth Bey”), cleaned up and now fluent in English, arranges for the discovery of the tomb of Princess Ancksenamen, his long lost love. He finds that she has been reincarnated as a modern woman, Helen Grosvenor, and he sets his eyes on her. Trying to oppose him are archeologist Frank Whemple (who’s taken with Helen himself) and Dr. Muller, an expert on Egyptian occultism.

Characters
Imhotep/"Ardeth Bey": The real draw here is Boris Karloff. He just dominates the screen whenever he’s on. His performance as “Ardeth Bey” is incredibly restrained and subdued, as befit’s a man who’s body is shriveled, dried, and fragile. It also helps that Imhotep is an incredibly tragic figure. Sure he’s the villain of the piece, but everything he does he does for love. In life, it was a sad, desperate love to revive his beloved which led to his condemnation to his fate. After his revival, all he wants to do is be reunited with her, first with her mummy and then with her reincarnation. Naturally, he goes about it in a horribly creepy way that involves hypnosis and murder (and the wearing of a dapper fez). He’s fantastically sympathetic.

See? Dapper

Helen Grosvenor: Zita Johann is suitably exotic looking and kind of pulls off the half-Egyptian thing to her character. She’s likable and rather active in trying to figure out just what’s going on with her. Definitely one of the better Universal Horror heroines.
Frank Whemple: David Manners is the male hero and about as generic as other contemporary male heroes in horror films. Frank is the son of the leader of the previous expedition, Dr. Joseph Whemple, and his dad knows that the Scroll of Thoth is a mysterious and potentially dangerous artifact. Frank doesn’t do much except fall in love with Helen.

Dr. Muller: Edward Van Sloan, once again playing a professor type. He does it well, so I’m not complaining. This time he’s also Helen’s doctor, which enables him to keep an eye on the plot after the intro sequence.

Visuals/Effects
Interestingly enough, the famous “mummy” look by Jack Pierce is only used in the beginning, where Imhotep is found in the 1920s and inadvertently reanimated by the Scroll of Thoth. The scene itself is quite effective where little is actually shown of the mummy. The rest of the time he wears makeup that gives his skin a dried, drawn look without being too obviously undead.

The other real thing to note is the direction and cinematography of Karl Freund, who was a successful director of photography before becoming a rather unsuccessful director. Freund worked on a hell of a lot of projects, including Metropolis and the 1931 Dracula, but he was only a film director for a few years during the 30s. Shame, really. Set design, lighting, and so on are all very well done AND the film makes extensive use of a steadi-cam, which wasn’t all that common in 1932.

Writing
Screenplay by John L. Balderston from a story by Nina Wilcox Putnam & Richard Schayer. The storyline borrows more than a few elements from Universal’s Dracula (professor-type character, ancient, foreign villain, hypnotism, etc), but there is significantly more tragedy involved. Imhotep was cursed because his great crime (necromancy) was committed in the name of love, which instantly adds sympathy to the character.

Also of interest is that the other male characters are actually rather ineffective. Dr. Miller provides a lot of exposition and Frank is really rather useless aside from falling in love with Helen. The real protagonist and hero is Helen, and aside from frequently falling under Imhotep’s mental influence, the resolution ultimately comes down to her actions. That’s actually pretty interesting, considering the times.

Sound
Original music by an unaccredited James Dietrich, and the soundtrack is really quite good. Full of intrigue and romantic cues, it fits the proceedings excellently. They also use Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake music for the intro (as did Dracula).

Conclusion
The Mummy truly is a fantastic work of cinema. Moody and atmospheric, it has an interesting etherealness to the proceedings and follows a methodical, measured pace that actually works quite well. Karloff in particular shines as the main character, and while the mummy wrappings disappear after a few seconds of screen time, Karloff himself remains magnetic on the screen. Which is a shame, since he’s got nothing to do with any of the sequels. Totally recommended.

“I am your pallbearer.”

Well, the previous Sartana movie got me hungry for more, so I tracked down the first in the series, If You Meet Sartana, Pray For Your Death AKA Se incontri Sartana prega per la tua morte from 1968. Starring the original Sartana, Gianni Garko.

Story
It all starts with a stagecoach getting ambushed by a gang of bandits. A mysterious, impeccably dressed drifter deals with most of them and examines the wreckage before traveling to the small town of Goldspring where the plot begins in earnest and swiftly spirals into a game who’s going to double cross whom. There’s a Mexican general who entrusts his money to two crooked bankers, who are in league with a gang that’s raiding stage coaches. It all comes down to a large stack of gold and who’s going to walk away with it.

Characters
Sartana: Gianni/“Johnny” Garko plays our protagonist; a soft-spoken, well-dressed anti-hero with a dark sense of humor. He’s well armed, great at poker, and constantly prepared for any situation. My earlier assessment of him as a Western Batman stands. The four-barreled palm gun also gets a lot of spotlight, and even that thing’s got some surprising tricks up its sleeve. There’s also a hint that Sartana is more than a mere mortal. A smooth, cool badass in every way.

Dusty: Franco Pesce plays the short, elderly undertaker of the town. He latches onto Sartana as soon as the gunslinger rides into town. Dusty was once an artist in Boston but its hinted he threw that away in favor of booze. Provides comic relief, but the voice dubbed for him is gratingly annoying.

General Tampico: Fernando Sancho plays the Mexican general with a comically overlong name (shorted to General Tampico). He’s somewhat comical, but little more than a thug with a bunch of goons that sure don’t act like soldiers. He invests his gold with the bank and gets understandably upset when it vanishes.

Lasky: William Berger hams it up royally as the real villain of the movie. Lasky is a great counterpoint to Sartana since he’s an emotional psychopath who thinks on the fly. Berger’s great in this, whether he’s swaggering into town, smugly cheating at cards, mowing down his own gang with a Gatling gun, or freaking out when Sartana plays a musical watch from some hiding place just to mess with him. Carrying forward the Batman analogy, there’s a fair amount of the modern Joker in his performance as an untamed psychopath. A great villain.

Morgan: Hey, its Klaus Kinsky! He’s Lasky’s right hand man and fond of knife throwing and wears bells on his spurs, which in fact DO go jingle-jangle-jingle. Not a major character, but a fun one.

Jeff Stewal and Al Alman: Sydney Chaplin and Gianni Rizzo are the pair of bankers who are scheming to get away with the gold through an insurance fraud scheme. Alman’s a fat fellow with a fondness for candy and Stewal is juggling two affairs: one with the widow of the mayor, and the other with Alman’s wife Evelyn (Heidi Fischer). Pillars of the community, they are.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Gianfranco Parolini (as “Frank Kramer”) and with Cinematography by Sandro Mancori, the movie has some nice shots here and there, but is otherwise fairly standard as a Spaghetti Western, with a few spots that are rough around the edges. The pacing is nice and we never forget that its all about the gold. The action sequences are a definite positive for the film, since they show off Sartana’s resourcefulness and cleverness. Probably the most amusing is where Sartana has set up a trap in his hotel room where he can snare anyone coming in through the window.

Writing
Adolfo Cagnacci, Luigi De Santis, and Fabio Piccioni on story and Werner Hauff, Renato Izzo, and Gianfranco Parolini as writers. That’s a lot of people working on one script, but things seem to work out okay. The plot is horribly convoluted, but that’s not the real draw here. Solid character work, reprehensible villains and Sartana being awesome are the draw.

Sound
The score by Piero Picconi is serviceable but sparse. The musical watch gets a lot of screen time and those scenes work, but that kind of thing gets done better in For A Few Dollars More (I’ll get to that review when I can). The music’s not bad and has a few high points that dips into that whole “swingin’ sixties” vibe, but not one of the film’s strong points.

Conclusion
If You Meet Sartana Pray For Your Death is a solid foundation for a “franchise” of nearly 20 movies with the gunslinger’s name attached. The action’s good, the plot is confusing (par for the course with a lot of Spaghetti Westerns, I‘m noticing), and the characters are well realized, even if they are caricatures. What it may lack in budget it more than makes up for in attitude and charm. Sartana is, frankly, an Awesome character and thoroughly entertaining.


Boy that trailer sure asks a lot of questions. Don't expect most of them to get answered.

“What was I supposed to do? Call him for cheating better than me, in front of the others?”

Right, so, Real Life has been kind of getting in the way of working on a side project such as this for a while now, which explains the big gaps in updates. Fear not! I have something big planned to get back in the swing of things come next month! In the meantime, September will likely continue to have spotty updates.

Such as this one!

Regarded as one of the greatest con man movies ever made, The Sting boasts an impressive roster of talent and the awards to match, winning Best Picture and 6 other awards for 1973. And it totally deserves those accolades.

Story
Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) is a talented but small time con man in Joliet, Illinois during the 1930s. He’s partnered up with Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones) who’s looking to retire soon since he’s getting on in years. The two of them con a delivery boy for a mob and end up with way more money than they expected. Johnny pisses the money away gambling and he gets shaken down by crooked cop Lieutenant William Snyder (Charles Durning) who informs him that the money belongs to New York big shot Doyle “The Big Mick” Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) who’s none too pleased that a chunk of his money has gone missing. Luther is killed by Lonnegan’s thugs and Hooker escapes to Chicago, looking for a near-mythic friend of Luther’s named Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman). Hooker wants revenge on Lonnegan and Gondorff agrees to help him pull the Big Con on the crime lord.

What follows is a steady buildup to the Con that involves gathering a big team that includes Gondorff’s gal Billie (Eileen Brennan), the fast talking J.J. Singleton (Ray Walston), and the dapper Kid Twist (Harold Gould) among others. Lonnegan has a fondness for gambling, so the plan is to scam him out of a lot of money without him knowing he was even played. But things are tricky. Lonnegan’s no fool and while he doesn’t know what Hooker looks like, his men know he’s in Chicago. Lt. Snyder and a mysterious assassin named Salino are on Hooker’s trail, and the FBI are very interested in nabbing Gondorff at any cost. You better believe things are going to get interesting.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by the very talented George Roy Hill with Director of Photography Robert Surtees. Its quite a testament to the filmmakers’ skill that while the movie was made in the early 70s, it looks like it was shot back in the 1930s. I don’t mean the period clothing and props (though that’s an obvious requirement), but rather the whole visual feel of the film. It feels like it was made right before the Hays Code (and in color).

Pacing is also marvelously quick and the audience doesn’t get a moment to breathe from the moment Hooker gets to Chicago. It adds a feeling of underlying tension and urgency to even the more relaxed scenes.

Writing
Written by David S. Ward, the movie fires on all possible story cylinders. The character work is fantastic. Redford and Newman work exceptionally well together and their characters have a mentor and student relationship with some interesting twists that play on the inherent paranoia of men who make their livings by lying for big stakes. Shaw’s Lonnegan is also very well realized: Tough, craggy, ruthless, but oddly vulnerable when the con begins. The rest of the cast are well realized as well and given plenty of moments to shine.

The plot also deserves mentioning, because its incredibly well thought out. Unfortunately, I can’t say anything more about it without going into spoiler territory, and that would be a huge disservice to anyone who hasn’t experienced this movie yet. Suffice it to say that its one hell of a ride and rewards multiple viewings.

Sound
The soundtrack doesn’t have an original score. Instead a number of Scott Joplin tunes were conducted and adapted by Marvin Hamlisch. It took a while for me to warm up to the soundtrack because ragtime was old hat by the 30s, but after a while it grew on me. The innocence and above all, playfulness of the music really cuts the tension in some places and in others reminds you that this is a movie and you’re watching it to have fun, so relax.

Conclusion
The Sting is rightly regarded as a classic. Everything works exceptionally and the movie demands that you keep on your toes while you’re watching it. Absolutely recommended, to the point where it should be required viewing.

“One half isn’t any good without the other.”

In looking for info on the next entry, 1966’s Johnny Yuma, I came across a whole lot of stuff pertaining to the TV series “The Rebel” and a Johnny Cash theme song. This spaghetti western doesn’t have anything to do with that series, which ended about a decade before the movie was released. What does that ultimately mean for this review? Nothing! So off we go.

Story
Johnny Yuma (Mark Damon) is a happy-go-lucky gunslinger and gambler who’s picked up the nickname of “Yuma” from a shootout he was involved in there. Johnny likes womanizing, shoots well left-handed, wears a vest as his signature costume piece, favors really bright shirts (that, impressively enough, he changes several times through the course of the movie instead of wearing the same thing over and over), and in some scenes seems to be wearing eyeliner. Huh.

Anyway, Johnny’s uncle, Thomas Felton (Leslie Daniels) owns a profitable ranch in Santa Marco and makes Johnny his heir. This doesn’t please his wife Samantha (Rosalba Neri) one bit since she was hoping he’d make her brother Pedro (Luigi Vannucchi as Louis Vanner) the heir. The two don’t waste any time in murdering Thomas and pinning it on a servant. These two have an interesting relationship. Pedro is a sadistic bully, little better than a simpleton. Samantha is much more subtle in her manipulations and the brains of the duo, mixing cunning with evil. Sexy evil.

Felton invited Yuma to the ranch before dying, so Samantha & Pedro figure they have to take care of him. Samantha sends a letter to an old flame, a gunslinger named Lawrence Jerome Carradine (Lawrence Dobkin). Carradine’s a classy, well dressed gent who like chess, fair play, and has an interesting holster where the gun basically hooks onto the belt with a quick release. He agrees to come because she’s offering a lot of money, but he’s quite bitter about how their relationship ended in the past. Despite the fact that she’s crazy hot.

Carradine and Yuma happen to meet up by chance in a bar brawl and develop a mutual respect for each other, even going so far as to trade guns and holsters without knowing who the other is. Johnny’s also (largely against his will) picked up a sidekick in Sorito; a cowardly, sniveling fellow who Yuma tends to browbeat on occasion because of his big talk.

The stage gets set for some confrontation and a lot of goons are going to end up dead by the end of the movie.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Romolo Guerrieri and cinematography by Mario Capriotto. The film is very well shot. Scenes are well lit and framed, and there’s a fair amount of nice camera movement. The fight scenes in particular are nice, especially the bar brawl which mixes nice stunts and camera work.

Writing
Written by Fernando Di Leo, Romolo Guerrieri, Sauro Scavolini, Giovanni Simonelli, the movie covers fairly standard ground for a western. Family member is murdered for his money, hero seeks to avenge him. People cheat at poker, bar brawls break out, there’s showdowns and shootouts, and the villains are villainous. People expect that in a western, and this movie does those elements very well. The interesting stuff comes about with character interactions. Johnny Yuma’s a lovable rogue but there’s not a whole lot to his character other than being fun to watch and root for. Samantha Felton is a stone cold bitch, sending her lover and accomplice to deliver a letter to Carradine implicating him in Felton’s murder with half of a reward just to get him out of the picture.

The real interesting character arc goes to Lawrence Jerome Carradine. He’s got sad eyes and his past with Samantha is hinted at being painful. Apparently she left him because they were poor. He claims to not have any feelings left for her but its obvious he’s got something still there. On the one hand, he’s willing to work for her, but on the other its pretty clear that he’s all kinds of angry at her for breaking his heart. He’s the wild card of the film, and its quite fascinating to watch how his arc plays out.

One other thing the movie does is not pull punches with some character deaths. Not so much in showing gore and gruesomeness, but in the way that when it happens you go “well damn.” It adds a little more weight to the consequences of character actions, but if I say more, we’re getting into spoiler territory.

Sound
Music by Nora Orlandi, and the soundtrack is fairly standard Spaghetti Western fare. Trumpets, guitars, and lots of whistling. The score also has a few comical tags for lighter scenes without getting obnoxious, which is appreciated. I have to add that the theme song that plays at the beginning and end titles is also quite catchy.

Conclusion
There is nothing revolutionary about Johnny Yuma, but that’s not a bad thing. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel all the time. Its quite well shot, has a good sense of humor, brings a lot of intrigue to the table and tells a good, if straightforward, cowboy revenge tale. It does its job solidly with some great atmosphere, acting, and good action scenes. And seriously, Rosalba Neri is gorgeous in this. Totally recommended.


See? Catchy.

“You’re lucky today. I never kill on Thursdays. I promised.”

Ah Spaghetti Westerns. Movies Italians made about the American Southwest in the Italian countryside with mostly-Italian casts and crews and a few American lead actors. The very concept is a bit on the surreal side and I’ll admit before recently, I’ve not seen any of them. Inherent goofiness aside, I suppose its time to change that. Now where to start?
I’ll just be an ass and not pick The Man With No Name Trilogy and instead take one of the Sartana films. Who’s Sartana? From what I’ve gathered he’s another mysterious bounty hunting drifter who’s been the focus of a great many awesomely titled films with several actors playing the lead over time (and several knockoff films of much lesser quality). Guy’s got a cult following. Today’s entry is I Am Sartana, Trade Your Guns For A Coffin, AKA C’e Sartana…vendi la pistola e comprati la bara AKA Fistful of Lead from 1970. It’s not one of the “Big 4” of the Sartana movies, but it definitely leaves an impression.

Story
We start out with an impeccably dressed rider sitting down for a lunchtime picnic on his travels and witnessing a stagecoach get ambushed, slaughtered, robbed and a stick of dynamite thrown into the wagon to destroy it. Deciding to investigate, since a bounty he was looking to claim just got shot dead, he throws his canteen up into the air and shoots it, the water from it landing squarely on the dynamite, diffusing it. This told me two things: That Sartana is one hell of a shot, and that it’s going to be THAT kind of movie.

Sartana (George Hilton here as opposed to Gianni/“Johnny” Garko who was the original and definitive Sartana) discovers that the bags of gold the coach was carrying were full of sand. He follows the trail of a bandit leader named Mantas (Nello Pazzafini) clearing out one of his hideouts of henchmen and heading to the crooked town of Appaloosa where the head of the local mining company, Samuel Spencer (Piero Lulli as Peter Carter) and his henchman Baxter (Carlo Gaddi) are looking for hired guns to protect the gold shipments to Dodge City. Sartana quickly finds himself surrounded by intrigue and backstabbing and catches the eye of local hotel owner Trixie (Erika Blanc).

Sartana proceeds to outfox his enemies with Batman-like resourcefulness and planning. Things take another turn when another gunman rides into town; the poetry reading English dandy Sabbath (Charles Southwood) who’s no slouch himself when it comes to elaborately planned badassery.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Giuliano Carnimeo (as “Anthony Ascot”), there are some interesting camera angles used (mostly spins and whip-pans) that add some different touches. Otherwise, visually the film’s not what I’d call innovative, though still well shot.

Writing
Tito Carpi on writing duty and the film mixes equal parts badassery and cheesiness. There’s a lot of entertainment to be found between the occasional cheesy one-liners, Sartana’s crazy preparedness for any given situation, and interesting little touches, like the four-barreled Derringer he carries around and a friendly game of checkers…using shot glasses. That’s badass. Horribly, horribly bad for your, but still pretty awesome.

Sound
Music by Francesco De Masi, and you know, its pretty good. Nice and catchy with a fair amount of swagger that fits the character nicely.

Conclusion
Fistful of Lead was a fantastic surprise. Sartana is one hell of an interesting gunslinger and I’m going to make it my mission to track down the rest of these films. Totally recommended both as a Spaghetti Western and as a part of “Cinema of the Awesome.”



BONUS REVIEW!

Oh, and the disc also contained Trinity and Sartana Are Coming AKA Trinità e Sartana figli di... from 1972. You would think it was connected in some way, but no. It’s not. It’s a long, dull, Buddy Comedy Western about two thieves/bank robbers who get into all sorts of not-actually-hilarious hijinks as they score loot and can’t seem to keep any of it. They pretty much used the names of popular gunslinger characters (Trinity’s another Spaghetti Western badass). The fights are childish (and I presume targeted at a younger audience), the music annoying, and everybody seems to have graduated from the A-Team School of Marksmanship. The one interesting thing it does is make “Trinity” a native of Trinidad, but its really not worth putting up with the rest of the movie. This film really isn’t worth your time, nor is it worth a full review write-up.

“It's a pity we can't send Jet Jaguar to go and get Godzilla!”

Ah Godzilla. Haven’t really discussed any of his films here yet, which is a shame, since I’m a fan of giant monster movies. 1973 Gojira tai Megaro (Godzilla vs. Megalon), is considered one of the lesser Gojira films, though.

Story
So, we’re obviously in Japan and the boring human characters we have to follow are an annoying kid, his inventor older brother and another guy who… I don’t really know what he does. Anyway, the inventor has created a robot, Jet Jaguar (he has nothing to do with jaguars), that can fly and do other robot stuff. Unfortunately, the subterranean civilization of Seatopia is pretty angry about nuclear experimentation below the surface of the earth, and they decide they’ve had enough of our nonsense, so they send a giant beetle monster named Megalon up to teach us a lesson by destroying model tanks and buildings. Jet Jaguar is useful to the Seatopians because if controlled, he can help guide Megalon. Naturally, Jet Jaguar breaks free of that control and gets a message to Godzilla on Monster Island. And then suddenly he becomes sentient, taking control of his own programming, decides he has to take things into his own hands, and then grows to kaiju size because he subscribes to the Megatron school of Physics (where the laws of conservation of mass are optional), and he fights Megalon. It goes well too, until another Godzilla foe, Gigan, shows up and he & Megalon double team our hero. Can Jet Jaguar hold out long enough for Godzilla to show up and even the odds?

So its really a Jet Jaguar movie and Godzilla only shows up near the end.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Jun Fukuda, it provides about what you’d expect from a Godzilla movie, though production values seem a little lower than some others. Regardless, we do get four monsters in a tag team match by the end of the movie, so you can’t say they didn’t deliver on the kaiju. The designs themselves are also fairly interesting. Megalon and his drill hands and Gigan with his hook hands and buzz saw belly are both really damn weird, but that’s why they’re likable. Godzilla doesn’t get much screen time at all, but when he shows up he wrecks some faces and does a really goofy tailslide kick that is so insane that they show it to the audience twice to prove to you that it just happened. And as for Jet Jaguar, I dunno. I just really like the guy, with his Ultraman-like body and giant hammy grin. That grin really adds a lot.

Writing
Written by Jun Fukuda, and story credits to Takeshi Kimura (for "Gojira tai Uchu Kaiju") and Shinichi Sekizawa. The plot is ridiculous, but then again, who watches a kaiju film for the plot? The human stuff is boring, the military tries to stop the giant monster of the week, fails and then Godzilla shows up (in this case with an ally). Its not complicated, just thoroughly formulaic.
Sound
The score by Riichiro Manabe is totally suitable for the movie. The sound effects work is fine, but I just wish Jet Jaguar had more than just futuristic clanks for when he talks to the monsters. I know R2-D2 was still four years in the future, but something that sounded like robot speech would’ve been preferable.

Conclusion
I know its considered one of the lesser Godzilla movies, but I have an incredible level of fondness for Gojira tai Megaro that I don’t really have an excuse for. No, Godzilla’s not really in it all that much, but Jet Jaguar is a perfect blend of goofy and badass and the two vs. two battle at the climax is really damn entertaining.

I make no excuses for myself.



And then there's this:

How can you hate that??

“I have the sky as a roof and I sleep wherever I may.”

A year and some change ago I reviewed Legend of Drunken Master. Which, while an awesome movie in its own right, was also a sequel. Well, I finally saw the original film, Jui Kuen (aka Drunken Master in English), which, while still starring Jackie Chan, was made in 1978. So yeah, young Jackie Chan. So young he was credited as Jacky Chan.

Story
Wong Fei-Hung (Jackie Chan) is an extremely talented but precocious youth who’s father wants to drill some sense into. Dad calls in a relative, the wandering drunk Su Hua Chi (Siu Tien/Simon Yuen) to pound some humility into Fei-Hung. Fei-Hung naturally resists, butting heads constantly with his teacher. Meanwhile, the assassin Thunderleg (Jang Lee Hwang) is hired to take a contract out on Fe-Hung’s father, and naturally its up to our hero to save his father from getting kicked into the grave, but only after a grueling training period where he learns the intricacies of drunken-style kung-fu. That’s pretty much the plot right there. Refreshingly simple.

Visuals/Effects
Woo-ping Yuen (who’s kind of a big deal in the fight choreography world and the director of RMWC favorite Iron Monkey) directed this movie, and make no mistake, the entire movie revolves around martial arts (and fight scenes). It is important to note that it’s a fairly low-budget film, so many of the action sequences lack the flair of a lot of the sequel’s set-pieces. This movie gets by with the sheer athleticism of the cast, which is a different level of impressive. This was Jackie Chan’s breakout movie for a good reason, after all.

Writing
Written by Lung Hsiao, See-Yuen Ng, and Woo-ping Yuen, the story is quite straightforward in terms of plotting. It serves to follow Fei-Hung’s development from immature, selfish boy to more mature, less selfish young man. Simple, really. There’s also a fair amount of slapstick and most of the comedy is physical and broad.

Sound
Original music by Fu Liang Chou, which works great for the film. There’s also the issue of dubbing (which listening to the commentary enlightened me about). Apparently not all of the original Chinese audio track survives and so parts of the film use the English dub track, even when you go for the Chinese with English subtitles option on the DVD. Such is life.

Conclusion
Jui Kuen is a different experience than the more commonly seen sequel. This isn’t bad, just different. For instance, its much more self-contained, less concerned with geo-political situations and is much more…permissive of a hero who’s abilities are essentially “Popeye with booze instead of spinach.” It also has a smaller budget and lacks the polish of the sequel. However, both feature excellent martial arts and showcase Jackie Chan doing what he does best, and when you get right down to it, isn’t that what’s really important here?

“What we have just heard are the first words of the inhabitants of a new planet; a cosmic document!”

This next dip into old sci-fi is an interesting case, not because it’s good, but because of its origins. It’s a joint East German/Polish production from behind the Iron Curtain made in 1960 as Der schweigende Stern in German and Milcząca Gwiazda in Polish. It was edited, dubbed, and released in the US as First Spaceship On Venus (the version I saw) in 1962. Let’s find out if it’s an early victory for glasnost, or a bowl of bad borscht.

Story
Remember the Tunguska explosion? Of course you don’t, it was in 1908, well before you were born. But you’ve heard of it, yes? Well, according to this movie, it wasn’t a meteor that exploded, but a Venusian spaceship and some equipment will be recovered in the far future of 1985 and get scientists all in a tizzy. Fast forward a few years after that and SCIENCE is getting around to checking out Venus to see what’s going on. An international crew is assembled (naturally bringing a robot with them) and off they go in the rocketship Cosmokrator. There’s too many characters to really go into them (and they don’t really have too much in the way of personality). On the way to Venus, they pick up a signal and the linguist is able to eventually decipher it, and the astronauts learn that the Venusians planned to attack Earth, but its an old signal.

Instead of going back to warn Earth, they press on, reach Venus and discover that the planet is pretty much uninhabited. They do some exploring, some accidents happen, some scientists die and they learn that the Venusians blew themselves up with atomic weaponry a long time ago. So its basically an anti-nuke message, but coming from the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Kurt Maetzig, the special effects aren’t actually that bad for Soviet Bloc Sci-Fi. Its standard rockets on strings stuff for the space ships, but I’m okay with that. The robot is a bit less interesting, being a squat little thing that looks like it gets underfoot.

Writing
Based on the novel “Astronauci” by Stanislaus Lem (a well respected Polish novelist who’s had works adapted into other films, such as George Clooney’s Solaris). Adaptation by Jan Fethke, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Günter Reisch, Günther Rücker, and Alexander Stenbock-Fermor and Screenplay Collaboration by the director Kurt Maetzig. Aside from giving short shrift to most of the character development, I don’t have much to complain about in terms of writing. It gets the job done and some of the ideas (a hostile and belligerent Venus that screwed itself over with nukes before man gets there serving as an anti-nuclear weapon message) are kind of novel. Still, the adaptation doesn’t really bring anything new to the table aside from a few suspect scientist deaths. They flat out leave the black scientist on the planet when they leave with the fairly flimsy excuse of “being hurled off the planet.” Hmmm…

Sound
Original Music by Andrzej Markowski is your typical orchestral spacy stuff from the rocket age. Nothing fancy or unexpected.

Conclusion
Its not bad, actually. Its not great, but you can tell they actually tried to make a legitimate, somewhat accurate (for the period it was made in) science fiction film. Given the constraints of the time and the fact that it was made in the Soviet Union, they did a pretty good job of it. Still, its value exists more as a curiosity and a look at filmmaking from behind the Iron Curtain than it is a movie that can stand up on its own merits. You’re better off tracking down the MST3K Version to enliven this otherwise dull movie.

“They're eating her... and then they're going to eat me... OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!”

What is this I don’t even?

Well, it was bound to happen. 1990’s Troll 2. The so-called “worst movie ever made.” Let’s get this over with. To paraphrase, it has nothing to do with trolls, it has nothing to do with 2’s. It has everything to do with hurting.

Story
Oh where do I begin?

Joshua Waits (Michael Stephenson), Michael Waits (George Hardy), Diana Waits (Margo Prey), and Holly Waits (Connie McFarland). Elliot Cooper (Jason Wright) is Holly’s boyfriend, though she spends most of the early part of the movie ball busting him. For some reason, she also invites him on the family road trip, but he wants to bring his friends along, misses the car ride and they follow along in an RV for no good reason other than to provide a bunch of bland friends to kill off.

Now, Joshua’s been having visions of his dearly departed Grandpa Seth (Robert Ormsby), except Joshua isn’t two jokers short of a full deck and Seth is a ghost trying to warn him about the threat of goblins. Vegetarian goblins that want to feed humans some green goo that will transform them into plant matter so that they can eat them. Sounds like an overly complicated plan, but I guess goblins are just assholes that way. Anyway, the goblins are all capable of disguising themselves as humans and the town is effectively led by the druid-like sorceress (I mean “druid” in the D&D sense, not in the ancient Celtic sense) Creedence Leonore Gielgud (Deborah Reed) who’s actually kind of hot in a crazy-eyed, overacting-community-theater sort of way.

…

So, uh, where were we? Oh, yeah. So it boils down to “can Joshua save his family from being turned into goo and eaten by goblins and escape from the small town in Utah where they live?”

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Italian director Claudio Fragasso (as Drake Floyd) who actually made a fair amount of movies before filming this one, so I’m not entirely sure what the excuse is. Lack of budget is certainly a valid one, as the goblins look silly, the makeup is unconvincing and the less said about Grandpa Seth’s “lightning bolt attack” the better. As for the cinematography, budget constraints doesn’t really excuse it.

As a completely unnecessary tangent to justify a bit of useless trivia, the costume designer of the film was Laura Gemser, who in the 70s and 80s, starred in a very large number of, shall we say “naughty” exploitation films. The writer of one of these films? Claudio Fragasso. She’s actually quite important as she would act as translator between the English-speaking actors and the Italian-speaking crew (according to the trivia page on IMDB).

Writing
Speaking of writing! Screenplay by Rossella Drudi and “Drake Floyd” and let’s not mince words. The script is by far the absolute worst part of this movie. The dialogue is painfully unconvincing and, coupled with the fact that the writers were not native English speakers and expressly told the native English speaking cast to say their lines word-for-word. If you’ve seen this movie, you can see just how well that worked out.

Now, I do have to admit that the idea of making the villainous goblins militantly vegetarian is a reasonably novel idea. It’s something you legitimately don’t see frequently. The execution here probably never helped that trope catch on.

Sound
Original music by Carlo Maria Cordio and its full of synthesized badness. Let’s just move on to the end.

Conclusion
So yeah. Troll 2. Troll 2, man. Troll 2. Its status as infamous trainwreck is well documented by now and there’s little I can add to the discussion other than “Yep. It’s a bad movie.” Certainly not the objectively “worst” movie ever made. Nor is it even the worst movie I’ve ever seen (it didn’t even make me mad or anything). What elevates it to Ed Wood levels of bad moviedom is the sheer ineptitude of the execution that makes it absolutely hilarious when watched with friends because this movie needs to be seen by several people who can stare at each other in slack-jawed shock when the credits roll.

“I brought the atom bomb; I think it's a good time to use it!”

There’s just something about 50’s-60’s Atomic Age Sci-Fi that I can’t help but love. Maybe it’s the sleek tech designs, maybe the goofy costumes and robots, maybe it’s the ham-fisted social commentary that gets (mostly) ineptly jammed down the audience’s throat about the benefits or dangers of SCIENCE! It was a time where not a whole lot was known about space exploration, so “anything goes” was a general theme. 1955’s King Dinosaur kind of misses the boat on that wide open promise.

Story
Astronomers discover a new planet that has moved into our solar system. Dubbing the planet Nova, a team of four astronauts, Dr. Ralph Martin (Bill Bryant), Dr. Patricia Bennett (Wanda Curtis), Dr. Richard Gordon (Douglas Henderson) and Nora Pierce (Patti Gallagher) travel to the planet and discover it’s pretty much just like Earth, only with GIANT MONSTERS! Most of the movie is padding as the two couples flirt around with each other and then two of them decide to explore the scary looking island in the middle of a lake that contains “dinosaurs” like an iguana and a caiman fighting each other with frills taped onto them.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Bert I. Gordon, a man famous for his quick shooting in B movie circles. This was actually the first movie he directed and, well, there’s not a whole lot to it. Four actors in fairly simple costumes in Southern California occasionally interacting with animals. The set piece of the movie is the “dinosaur” attack, and, well, they’re lizards. Regular reptiles with the actors chromakeyed in front of them. The reptiles themselves look like they’ve been goaded into attacking each other for real, so I guess animals WERE harmed in the making of this picture. Now, I’m not huge on animal rights or anything, but seeing a caiman/small crocodile biting down on an iguana in the name of a bad movie is a little uncomfortable to watch. Simpler times, I suppose.

Writing
Story by Bert I. Gordon and Al Zimbalist, written by Tom Gries. The story is pretty damn light in terms of anything at all of consequence. Some of the humans get pretty injured but nothing really comes of it and Planet Nova is conveniently Earth-like, so the astronauts get out of their spacesuits as quickly as possible. Simply put, the story feels like a rush job. And there’s some of the standard “nukes=bad” elements common to the genre.

Sound
Original music by Louis Palange & (Uncredited) Gene Garf. It’s your standard B movie soundtrack.

Conclusion
It’s a movie called King Dinosaur for crying out loud. You should know whether it’s something you’d want to watch or not. For my part, that answer is yes, because I like bad movies and this fits the criteria: It’s a movie. It’s bad.

“How about making me vice president in charge of cheering you up?”

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve got a fondness for movies from past decades. Over the course of viewing and contemplating films for this here project, I’ve come to realize that I’ve got a particular fondness for the 1980s, 1930s, and (with relevance to today’s entry) the 1960s. While I am far from anything close to a hippy, I’ve got to admit there’s a definite appeal to the cocksure swagger of a good 60’s movie. 1963’s Charade, which I’ve seen quite a few times in my life, certainly qualifies.
Story
Regina "Reggie" Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) is a wealthy young woman who’s on holiday in the Alps and plans on divorcing her husband when she returns home to Paris. He beats her to the punch by getting himself thrown from a train to his death in the pre-credits sequence. At his funeral, a colorful band of shady looking types (Tex Panthollow (James Coburn), Herman Scobie (George Kennedy), and Leopold W. Gideon (Ned Glass)) make sure he’s dead and Regina starts wondering just what’s going on. She gets called in to the American Embassy by a CIA Agent named Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau) who explains that during WWII, her husband was part of a group of people who stole a hefty sum of money that technically belongs to the US government. Her husband stole the money from them, but being as he was the only one who knew where it was, a treasure hunt with deadly consequences commences. Oh yes, and along the way Reggie meets the charismatic and mysterious “Peter Joshua” (among other names) (Cary Grant), who’s reason for wanting to find the money changes as often as he changes names.

That’s really about all that I can say about the plot without stumbling into spoiler territory. Just trust me when I say that the plot twists fly fast and thick in this film, but they all make sense by the end of the movie. Basically, if Alfred Hitchcock had ever decided to make a romantic thriller in the 60s, this is the movie he would have made.

Visuals/Effects
But it’s not Hitchcock who directed this. It was Stanley Donen (who’s done all sorts of big films like Singin’ in the Rain, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Damn Yankees and some films that aren’t musicals). The visuals and pacing of the film are both outstanding. Paris looks great (as it usually does) and the pacing is lightning quick as we move from scene to scene with a near-manic urgency (which works perfectly for the mystery). Characters seldom get a chance to catch their breath, and when they do, well, its basically for Hepburn and Grant to have fantastic chemistry together as their characters struggle to trust each other as they fall in love. Also, the final chase scene and showdown is exceptionally tense and well-edited, so bonus points for that.

Writing
Screenplay by Peter Stone and based on the story “The Unsuspecting Wife” by Peter Stone and Marc Behm. Funny thing is, the writers shopped the story around first, got no bites from Hollywood, so they published it as a novel under a different title and lo and behold, the studios went for it. Say what you will about the film industry’s lack of originality, but it has always been like that.

The story works great. Yes, its based on the old plot of “we need to find the money before its too late!” but it handles that plot with a deft touch that throws in romance and some legitimately nice twists. Dialogue is great in this too, as character verbally spar with aplomb.

About the only complaint I have with the movie lies with one character, Jean-Louis, the little son of Reggie’s best friend. He shows up at a few intervals with an important part to play, but I don’t know if it’s the writing or the fairly bad dubbing on his voice, but he is annoying as all hell.

However, the character work on Regina herself is outstanding and worth noting. She’s vulnerable and in way over her head, but she is anything but helpless. She doesn’t run around with a gun in her hand, but she’s incredibly smart and resourceful, often figuring things out for herself just as often as she finds herself in trouble. Just a fantastically well-realized and believable female lead character.

Sound
Original music by Henry Mancini. You can’t go wrong with Mancini and this is very much a truism for this movie. Action sequences have a lot of percussive beats that drive things forward quite nicely as well.

Conclusion
Charade is one of those movies that I love deeply and can watch frequently. It works equally well as a Romantic Comedy as it does a crime thriller and it’s great seeing Coburn and Matthau on screen, but the real heart and soul of the movie belongs to the interaction between Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, and they’re both fantastic in this. Hepburn in particular is radiant and I dare any heterosexual male out there to not fall in love with her even a little bit after watching this. Wholeheartedly recommended.

“Roses are green... violets are red…”

Great, another biker movie from the 1960s. This can’t possibly be a good thing for my health. Well, let’s try and get this over fast. Here’s 1967’s The Hellcats, AKA Biker Babes. A movie that was originally supposed to be about lesbian bikers that was apparently rewritten.

Goddamnit.

Story
Well, there’s a crime boss named Mr. Adrian (director Robert F. Slatzer as “Bob Slatzer”) who uses a biker gang that hates him to run drugs for him (usually in broad daylight). An undercover cop investigating the crime ring is killed by a sniper and his brother, Army sergeant Monte (The Sidehackers’ Ross Hagen, who was also the voice of the retired badass gunslinger Landon Ricketts in Red Dead Redemption, which is a neat fact) and the dead cop’s girlfriend Linda (Dee Duffy) join forces and infiltrate the biker gang to get to the bottom of the killing. That’s pretty much the plot and most of the movie involves Monte trying to get in good with the gang and/or bang their women, and there’s some motorcycle driving and a whole lot of padding before the cartoonish ending. Hagen’s not terrible, but the movie sure is. Aside from Hagen, a few other actors/crew were also involved in Sidehackers.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Robert F. Slatzer the movie doesn’t do a whole lot during the duration. We get some biker partying shenanigans, some motorcycle stuff and eventually some stuff in Mr. Adrian’s very low budget offices. There’s really nothing going for it here aside from a really trippy opening credits background that is inappropriately cosmic.

There is however one scene that bears mentioning. A few bikers menace a painter and his model who are out in a park at one point. It comes out of nowhere, has no bearing on anything and is just a nonsensical temporary diversion that never gets mentioned or explained.

Writing
Based on the original story by James Gordon White and screenplay by Tony Houston/Huston (who worked on Sidehackers) & Robert F. Slatzer. Again, there’s not much here. Dialogue is boring, the characters stiff, underdeveloped, unlikable and usually have one character trait that is about all the characterization they get. There’s an eye patch chick, a bad poet, a guy who carries a trumpet around all the time, etc.

Sound
No original score, but we get some songs by Davy Jones and the Dolphins and Somebody’s Chyldren. Yeah, there’s a reason you’ve never heard of them.

Conclusion
Another sentence I never thought I’d write: Sidehackers was a better movie than this. The Hellcats suffers most from simply being really boring without enough action scenes to get you through. At least Sidehackers, with all of its nihilism and stupidity at least tried to mix things up a bit here and there with action scenes.

Not recommended.


Somehow the trailer manages to be both better AND skeezier than the movie itself.

“Why couldn't you put the bunny back in the box?”

Right, so I was a bit harsh on Face/Off for being too dumb to take seriously and too serious to take dumbly. Clearly this calls for something extra ridiculous to fix things while still being a Nicolas Cage movie. Something like 1997’s Con Air.

Story
Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) is a former Army Ranger who went to prison for killing a drunken redneck outside of a bar. But that’s the backstory. Flash forward a few years and he’s done his time and just needs to get to a parole hearing for good behavior so he can get back to his wife (Monica Potter) and the seven year old daughter he hasn’t met yet. As such, he’s a passenger on a prisoner transport plane that also happens to be transporting some of the nastiest, meanest, most vicious criminals around. Let’s have U.S. Marshal Vince Larkin (John Cusak) and DEA Agent Duncan Malloy (Colm Meany) introduce them: (WARNING: Potty Words)


Cyrus “The Virus” Grissom (John Malkovich), Nathan “Diamond Dog” Jones (Ving Rhames), William “Billy Bedlam” Bedford (Nick Chinlund), Joe “Pinball” Parker (Dave Chappelle), Johnny “Johnny-23” Baca (Danny Trejo) are the major players and this being an action movie, OF COURSE Grissom organizes a takeover of the plane. Also on the flight is Garland “The Marietta Mangler” Greene (Steve Buscemi) who’s an extra creepy child killer who just kind of keeps to himself except for when he says something disturbing in that way that only Buscemi can say. He creeps out the other convicts.

So when things go bad, it falls to Poe (and his mane of prison hair) and Larkin to figure out what’s going on and how to stop these violent criminals from escaping and causing even more chaos and destruction.

Somewhere along the way a Corvette gets towed through the air by a cargo plane and the finale involves Las Vegas and a fire truck. It’s THAT kind of movie.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Simon West, the movie doesn’t really do anything particularly outside-the-box when it comes to 90’s action movies. Still, it knows it’s a goofy action movie and aside from the action set pieces that litter it, there’s a fair number of self-aware goofy touches, like the famous “bunny scene” and the part where one of the convicts’ corpses falls out of a wheel well and lands on small-town America. It’s these kinds of absurd, black comedy touches that give the movie it’s identity.

Writing
Written by Scott Rosenberg, the script takes a premise which is essentially “Die Hard on a Plane” and runs with it. Dialogue is snappy and frequently witty and while there’s not a whole lot innovative here, it does its job of entertaining the audience quite well.

Sound
Original music by Mark Mancina and Trevor Rabin. Orchestral touches married to electric guitars mean that the soundtrack is anything but subtle. Fairly standard for 90’s action films. There’s also “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd (and Garland Greene readily points out the irony of it) and “How Do I Live” by Trisha Yearwood which is kind of the ending/love theme.

Conclusion
I’m not going to defend Con Air as high art. It’s not. It’s a goofy 90’s Nic Cage action vehicle and for what it is, it’s good cheesy fun, and that is something I CAN defend.

“I want to take his face... off. Eyes, nose, skin, teeth. It's coming off.”

So, uh, 90s action movies. As a whole, they kind of are taken more seriously than 80s action movies, which oddly enough makes them goofier. Maybe it’s all the slow motion walking away from explosions shots. Anyway, 1997 gave rise to Face/Off, in which, well, let’s get to that in the next section.

Story
Sean Archer (John Travolta) is an obsessed FBI agent on the trail of the “terrorist for hire” and gleeful psycopath Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage). A while back, Troy accidentally killed Archer’s young son with a bullet that was meant for the agent, and when Archer captures Troy in a dramatic airport sequence, an experimental medical procedure is performed that physically swaps the faces of the two so that Archer can approach Pollux Troy (Alessandro Nivola), Castor’s brother who has information on a deadly bomb plot.

Naturally, Castor Troy (with Archer’s face) breaks out and assumes the FBI agent’s life because fair’s fair, and it gives him an opportunity to make all kinds of trouble for Archer. Obsession, gunfights, and realizations of a “we’re not so different, you and I” nature about.

Visuals/Effects
This was actually John Woo’s second foray into western cinema, and it has all of his signature “heroic bloodshed” touches. Jumping through the air firing two pistols at the same time, big explosions, and doves juxtaposed with violence. To be fair, the action sequences are all incredibly expensive looking and incredibly good. The rest of the movie is kind of eh. Visually its fine, but in terms of pacing, I think it goes on too long.

Writing
Written by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary, the script is, well, mostly just “eh.” There’s touches of mythological humor (Castor & Pollux Troy) and there are the occasional bits of very entertaining dialogue, but overall, there’s really little that draws me to the movie. Castor Troy, when played by Cage is easily the best character in the movie, but Sean Archer (as Travolta or Cage) never really strays past the whole “Good but obsessed FBI agent.”

The movie also walks a weird line between “ridiculous amusing” a “ridiculous annoying.” The whole face transplant thing was a pretty far-out concept back in 97, but since it’s the premise of the movie, its both essential and it works for all the crazy pseudoscience they came up to make it work in-movie. (Of course face transplants are a thing that is real now). Honestly, the part where the movie really, I mean really lost me, was the remote prison where Pollox Troy is kept after his capture at the beginning of the movie. So, it’s on an oil rig somewhere in the ocean, and it houses only the MOST dangerous prisoners imaginable, AND the method to keep the prisoners in check is to clap them all in giant metal, MAGNETIC boots that, in the need for a lockdown, literally lock the prisoners down in place. For a sci-fi film I could probably buy that conceit, but for something set in the 90s where the big narrative conceit you have to accept is Nicholas Cage & John Travolta swapping faces (and hair, and height, and voice, and… well, see that’s why it’s a narrative conceit you just have to accept), I just can’t accept MagnetBoot Penitentiary. I mean, what budget committee signed off on that project? The logistics of the undertaking had to be absurd, not to mention the cost of flying food and fresh guards in to relieve the garrison.

Sound
The original music by John Powell gets the job done with a mix of orchestral and electronic cues, which works for 90s spy-related movies.

Conclusion
I didn’t dig Face/Off. While the action sequences are impressive, John Woo has a great flair for visual style and Cage & Travolta do admirable jobs imitating each other, there’s just something about the movie that bugged me. Sure, the magnetic boots thing didn’t help and John Travolta just doesn’t do anything for me cinematically, but I think its that, in the quieter moments, the movie tends to bog down and drag itself out. Its as if the movie wants to be viewed as a goofy 90’s action movie AND a serious psychological thriller and it didn’t impress me very much.




Turns out there's a lot of face touching in this movie. SYMBOLISM!

“Why not just kill them? I'll do it! I'll run up to Paris - bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm back before week's end. We spend the treasure. How is this a bad plan?”

Right, so its been a while since I’ve complained about a film, and it looks like the 2002 adaptation of Alexandre Dumas pére’s classic, The Count of Monte Cristo might get my English Major hackles up. Let’s explore.

Story
For those of you who didn’t pay attention in 9th Grade English, we follow the story of one Edmond Dantés (James Caviezel), an idealistic and naïve French sailor living in the early 19th Century. He’s got a good job, a fiancée that loves him and solid friends, or so he thinks. After a fateful landing at Elba and meeting the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte, a small conspiracy begins brewing against Dantés. After the return to Marseilles, Fernand Mondego, the Count de Morcerf (Guy Pearce) (who in the movie is a close friend of Dantés and fellow crewman and not just a romantic rival) and Danglars (Albie Woodington) (who is jealous of Dante’s quick rise past him in the ship’s hierarchy) bring the illiterate Dantés before J.F. (oddly enough not Gerard as in the book) Villefort (James Frain). Dantés was given a letter by Napoleon to deliver to someone on the mainland. That someone is Villefort’s father. Villefort confiscates the letter, burns it and has Dantés imprisoned for life in the sinister Château d’If because Villefort’s career would be in danger if his father were to be outed as a Bonapartist.

While in prison, Dantés meets the eccentric, but brilliant Abbé Faria (played with great humor by Richard Harris), an Italian priest who was imprisoned long ago and forgotten. Faria teaches him to read, to speak several languages, to fence and other skills. He also tells him of the location of a buried treasure that, if found, would make him wealthy beyond imagination. Faria dies and Dantés escapes the prison, runs afoul of bandits, recruits one named Jacopo (played with homicidal glee by Luis Guzman), finds the gold and returns to France intent on finding out what happened to his former love Mercedes (for some reason called Iguanada and not Herrera) (Dagmara Dominczyk) and enacting a carefully constructed revenge against the three men who wronged him so.

And that’s the short version of the plot. What? It's a thick book.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Kevin Reynolds (who also did Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and the legendarily maligned Waterworld), the movie hits all the right visual notes for a modern period costume drama. Lots of fancy costumes and dresses, interesting locations and the occasional impressive swordfight. There’s even a nice bit of spectacle as Dantés makes his first official appearance as the Count of Monte Cristo via hot-air balloon.

Writing
Based on the novel “Le Comte de Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas pére. Screenplay by Jay Wolpert. As you can see from the plot description above, the book is densely layered and translating all 1,312 pages to a single movie would be a horrible task for any writer. So cuts were made, some characters folded into others, some characters, like Danglars, were diminished and others, like Fernand, elevated. Understandable, and for the most part, the changes are acceptable. Cavizel does a very nice job of transforming our hero from a young idealist to a bitter manipulator. It’s really the end of the movie where things kind of lose it. Without spoiling it too much, instead of patiently exacting his revenge on all of his enemies and realizing that his thirst for revenge is spilling over and destroying the lives of innocent people, the realization of which forces the Count to quietly re-learn mercy and move on with his life, instead we get a knock-down, slam-bang swordfight between Dantés and Fernand over Mercedes and a surprise revelation as to the identity of somebody’s father.

While yes, it’s a nice swordfight, it kind of wraps things up too nice and tidy and removes the deliciously cold revenge that Edmond takes out on Fernand in the book. I suppose it was also done to keep Edmond from going into some pretty unlikable actions (which is arguably the point of the book: Edmond goes to some pretty nasty lengths in his quest for revenge and only really repents for them after he’s seen what he’s become). Still, I appreciate a nice swordfight, so that makes the ending doubly irritating.

Sound
Original music by Edward Shearmur (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow), the soundtrack is quite good, filled with sweeping orchestral flourishes and lots of moody movements.

Conclusion
Maybe it’s the weather, maybe I’m just not in the mood for vitriol, but I can’t call the 2002 The Count of Monte Cristo a bastardization of all that is good and holy in literature. The music is good, the visuals are good, the cast are all very good. The ending is very, very dumb, and that rankles me a bit. Still, I can take comfort in knowing that somewhere, somewhen, a lazy high schooler got his information about this story from the movie instead of the book and did horribly on a test or essay.

Some days, it’s the little things like that that matter.

“To be with another woman, that is French. To be caught, that is American.”

1988 brought forth a most curious combination of Michael Caine, Steve Martin and Frank Oz. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is the tale of two conmen, an American and an Englishman, who get into what can only be called a turf war over a small town in the French Riviera where they are working their cons.

Story
Well, the plot is fairly simple. Lawrence Jamieson (Michael Caine) is a classy, urbane con man operating out of the Beaumont sur Mer who runs into the crass, blunt Freddy Benson (Steve Martin) an American con man working his way across Europe. Some time later, Benson arrives in Jamieson’s territory and the two social parasites end up bumping into each other constantly. At first Jamieson tries to drive Benson away by “training” him, but the American is too persistent to let a little lost dignity drive him off. A contest is agreed to. The first one to con $50,000 dollars out of a rich young woman wins and the loser has to leave town. The contest heats up when the wealthy Janet Colgate (Glenne Headly) arrives in town and both conmen begin working on her. Notable side characters include the very clued-in Inspector Andre (Anton Rodgers) and Jamieson’s servant Arthur (played by Ian “Emperor Palpatine” McDiarmid)

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Frank Oz, the film has a steady hand behind it. The scenery is pleasant, bright and sunny, which goes a long way to making the conmen much more likable than professional liars and social predators normally are.

Writing
Written by Dale Launer and Stanley Shapiro & Paul Henning (and basically a loose remake of 1964’s Bedtime Story), the story ambles around at an amiable clip, though the first half (before the bet is made) kind of wanders a bit too far afield. Things pick up quickly when the conmen officially square off against each other. The film has its fair share of great comedic scenes (one of the real standouts being the “Ruprecht” bit), but be aware that this isn’t a knee-slapper. The comedy is more subtle, steadily building and building towards absurdity. The real charm of the movie is watching Caine & Martin play off of each other.

Sound
Original music by Miles Goodman, the soundtrack is entirely suitable to the task of a light, breezy comedy about conmen. Its somewhat reminiscent of Elmer Bernstein’s comedy scores.

Conclusion
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a good time. Steve Martin was unstoppable in the 1980s and its always a joy watching Michael Caine chew the scenery. Definitely recommended.


Odd sound effects not actually in the movie, thankfully.

“Do I get the job, or should we move right onto the shark infested waters test?”

So, digging into the category of “movies I know for certain almost nobody but me has ever heard of” I present to you one of the formative film experiences of my youth: 1983’s Twice Upon A Time, a fractured kind of fairy tale featuring a rare (or at least uncommon) animation style called “Lumage.”

Story
Well, dreams come from two places. Good dreams come from Frivoli and nightmares come from The Murkworks. The residents of both places refer to the real world as Din and us humans as “rushers,” on account of how we’re always concerned about this thing called “time.” The ruler of the Murkworks, unrepentant jerk Synonamess Botch (Marshall Efron), hatches a plan to freeze this “time” and explode a bomb in Din that would effectively cause permanent nightmares. Its up to several Frivolians to put a stop to his mad scheme. Recruited by a particularly cynical Fairy Godmother (Judith Kahan) they are: Ralph, the All-Purpose Animal (Lorenzo Music), Mumford (who doesn’t speak so much as make sound effects), Flora Fauna (Julie Payne) who’s looking for her uncle Greensleeves (Hamilton Camp) who works in Din making sure dreams get distributed, and eventually Rod Rescueman, a superhero still on his learner’s permit (James Cranna). Oh yeah, and there’s also Scuzzbopper, Botch’s head writer at the Murkworks. (also James Cranna).

Visuals/Effects
Directed by John Korty & Charles Swenson, the real draw here is the Lumage style animation. What that means is they used cut out pieces of paper (or plastic in this case) and animated them over a light table. The result is a very unique “illuminated” feel to the film that also looks like moving watercolors, if that makes sense. Also of special note are the credits of Special Photographic Effects by David Fincher (yes, THAT David Fincher) and Sequence Director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline)

Writing
Screenplay & Story credits to Bill Couturié, Suella Kennedy, and John Korty. Written by Charles Swenson. The story takes a standard heroic plot, mixes in a bunch of fairy tale tropes and then turns a lot of stuff upside down. There’s also two versions of the film, one marked by saltier dialogue that mixes in occasional mid-level potty words.

Sound
Original music by Dawn Atkinson and Ken Melville. There are also several songs by Maureen McDonald and one by Bruce Hornsby. The soundtrack is very "early 1980s," but not in a bad way.

Conclusion
Twice Upon A Time is another one of those “movies I love deeply but you’ve probably never heard of.” Which is a shame, because I can guarantee you’ve not seen an animated film that looks quite like this AND has a surprisingly sophisticated sense of humor. Its also unfortunate that its kind of caught up in a legal snarl between the director and producer, since this really deserves to be on DVD. I don’t normally recommend finding movies through less than legal sources, but since it would take a miracle to get this thing re-released, do so (and if it actually DOES happen I vow to pick up a copy on day one). VHS copies exist and the internet has copies of both versions circulating around.


Not a trailer, but it shows plenty of scenes, so good enough.

“Get your ass to Mars.”

Rounding out the impromptu Arnold trifecta (yes I'm counting Commando from last month), we turn to 1990’s Total Recall, which is a thoughtful meditation on self-identity, memory, free will and destroying mining equipment with oversized power drills.

Story
Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is an otherwise happy construction worker who’s haunted by strange dreams of being on Mars with a woman, Melina (Rachel Ticotin) who’s not his wife Lori (Sharon Stone). He turns to Rekall Inc. which sells “mental vacations” by implanting memories into clients. Something goes wrong and Douglas Quaid remembers being a secret agent/freedom fighter named Hauser affiliated with the Martian resistance. Chased by agents of Martian dicator/CEO Vilos Cohaagen (Ronny Cox) and his right hand man Richter (Michael Ironside), Quaid/Hauser tries to track down his missing past, surviva Cohaagen’s men, find resistance leader Kuato (Marshall Bell), find Melina and along the way he teams up with a cab driver named Benny (Mel Johnson Jr.). And of course, there’s the three-breasted prostitute, because you can’t discuss Total Recall without mentioning her.

Or Quaid is stuck in Rekall’s memory machine and only thinks that he’s a former secret agent trying to liberate Mars. It’s deliberately left vague.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Paul Verhoeven, the movie looks great and the movie jumps from action scene to action scene at a high clip. The effects are also solid, with a lot of practical prosthetics for the Martian mutants and so on. Some of the vehicles though, are a little goofy looking.

Writing
“Inspired” by the Philip K. Dick short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.” Screen story by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, & Jon Povill. Screenplay by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon and Gary Goldman. The story is actually surprisingly thoughtful for a big action movie, what with the refusal to be clear on whether Quaid really IS Hauser or merely imagining all of these things as part of his “mental vacation.”

Sound
Original music by Jerry Goldsmith, and appropriately, its quite good.

Conclusion
Compared to the previous two Arnold films, Total Recall is easily the classiest, most sophisticated of the three. If you feel like thinking, it actually has a lot for you to find, such as the “is it real or just in his head?” question. If you don’t feel like thinking, its got plenty of “Get your ass to Mars” and “Screw YOU!!” moments to satisfy your barbarian urges.

“I’ll live to see you eat that contract, but I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your god-damn spine!”

More Arnoldy goodness. This time its 1987’s The Running Man.

Story
Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a former cop who was wrongfully convicted of firing on unarmed civilians during a riot. He gets sent to prison, breaks out with some fellow inmates, but when he makes it back to the city, he runs into Amber Mendez (Maria Conchita Alonso), a woman who eventually turns him back over to the authorities because of his reputation. Richards is given over to Damon Killian (the gloriously hammy Richard Dawson), our villain and host of the hit show THE RUNNING MAN (DUN DUN DUN) where convicted felons are given the opportunity to fight their way to freedom through strange levels while being chased by the Stalkers, a bunch of gimmick oriented goons that include: Captain Freedom (Jesse Ventura), Fireball (Jim Brown), Buzzsaw (Bernard Gus Rethwisch), Subzero (Professor Toru Tanaka-- he was a wrestler, I checked) and Dynamo (Erland Van Lidth).

There’s also cameos by Mick Fleetwood & Dweezil Zappa. For some reason.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Paul Michael Glaser, the movie follows standard 80s action movie principles in visuals. The sci-fi elements lead to a lot of glowing lights and computer screens. As for the costumes…well, that’s where things get really goofy. The jumpsuits for The Running Man contestants are a bit silly, but they pale in comparison to the outfits of the Stalkers. Of particular mention is Dynamo, who is a fat guy who sings opera in a costume made out of LED lights and drives around a go-kart also covered in LED lights.

Writing
Based on the Steven King (under the pen name Richard Bachman) book and screenplay by Steven E. de Souza. I haven’t read the book, but I’m fairly certain that a LOT of liberties were taken. Still, the movie’s fun, we get plenty of Arnold one-liners and its fun waiting for what new craziness awaits around the next corner.

Sound
Original music by Harold Faltermeyer, the score is INCREDIBLY 80s with a lot of electronic cues.

Conclusion
The Running Man is another goofy slice of Arnold-y goodness. Its got a dystopian future setting where convicts fight in an arena that’s like Super Smash TV against a group of bosses that look like rejected He-Man toys. Its great!

“You're a funny man, Sully, I like you. That's why I'm going to kill you last.”

Ah Valentine’s Day. A day for love, romance, chocolates and gettin’ some. A day like today needs something just as sweet and romantic as the spirit of the holiday. Something like 1985’s Commando.

Story
A former special forces agent would like nothing better than to live in his mountain cottage with his daughter and cut lumber, eat ice cream and feed wild deer. Sadly, a deposed foreign dictator wants him to assassinate a political rival and kidnaps the daughter. This does not go according to plan.

Characters
John Matrix: Arnold Schwarzenegger is our one-man killing machine who will shoot the population of a small country to get his daughter back.

Jenny Matrix: A REALLY young Alyssa Milano plays Matrix’s spunky, resourceful daughter who gets kidnapped by the bad guys. So yeah, she’s kind of just a plot device here.

Cindy: Rae Dawn Chong plays a flight attendant/stewardess who gets caught up in all of this madness when Matrix boosts her car (with her in it)

General Arius: Dan Hedaya is the deported dictator of a small island nation who wants Matrix to assassinate his replacement. This really doesn’t go according to plan. He’s got an army of mercenary goons, including Sully (David Patrick Kelly) and Cooke (Bill Duke) that provide little more than speed bumps for Matrix’s bloody revenge.

Bennett: Vernon Wells plays a former member of Matrix’s squad now working as Arius’ second in command. Bennet has…questionable taste in mercenary clothes (he wears a vest with what looks like a hammock sewed on) and a very…passionate desire to kill Matrix.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Mark L. Lester, the movie is a giant vehicle for action sequences. Ridiculous, over-the-top and thoroughly insane action sequences. It does them well.

Writing
Screenplay by Steven E. de Souza with story by Jeph Loeb, Matthew Weisman and Steven E. de Souza. The plot is goofy as all hell and the dialogue is chock full of Arnold one-liners, and for a movie like this, that is EXACTLY what is needed.

Sound
The original score by James Horner is full of 80’s era driving beats, but also a lot of steel drums. This is both weird and awesome at the same time (which can be said of the movie as a whole, actually).

Conclusion
Pleasures really don’t get much guiltier than Commando. If you want Arnold spouting one liners and single-handedly killing off the equivalent of a small island’s population, this is exactly the movie for you. Its not good cinema. It’s awesome cinema and should be watched alongside Swayze’s Road House.

“They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way!”

I got tired of people giving me funny looks when I told them I hadn’t seen 1987’s The Untouchables. Well, now there’s one less reason for them to give me funny looks.

Story
Prohibition Chicago, a city effectively ruled by crime boss and bootlegger Al Capone (Robert De Niro). A young Federal Agent named Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) arrives in town intent on enforcing the law and bringing Capone to justice. He has a rough time of it until he assembles a hand-picked team of not-dirty cops to help him out: Jim Malone (Sean Connery), Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith) and George Stone (Andy Garcia). Together, they become known as The Untouchables (Dun dun dun) for their incorruptibility.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Brian De Palma, the movie is really well shot with excellent pacing and some really impressive action set pieces. About the only thing I really, really didn’t like was the shootout near the end, the famous “Odessa Steps” remake in the station. I know, I know, its an homage to one of the great scenes of the silent era and I can respect that, but here its such a gigantic shift from the rest of the movie that it felt a little, I hate to say it, out of place.

And if you feel like seeing just how many times said Odessa Steps sequence gets homaged/referenced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH1tO2D3LCI

Writing
Screenplay by David Mamet and “suggested by” the book “The Untouchables” by (the real) Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley. Naturally the screenplay takes a lot of liberties with history (there were more than just four Untouchables, Capone’s lieutenant didn’t die like that, etc) but that doesn’t really bother me since 20th century history isn’t my area. The dialogue is sharp, the characters well defined, and the story keeps moving at a good pace.

Sound
Original music by Ennio Morricone, and the music is very, very good.

Conclusion
The Untouchables really surprised me. In the best possible way. The cast all do a solid to excellent job with their characters, the writing and plot are incredibly solid despite the liberties they take with history, and the visual feel of the movie is incredibly stylish and well done (with one exception that I mentioned above). Awesome movie though, and heartily recommended.

“It’s like living with a six year old.”

I don’t know how to preface 1986’s Three Amigos! so I won’t.

Story
The Three Amigos are Lucky Day (Steve Martin), Dusty Bottoms (Chevy Chase) and Ned Nederlander (Martin Short), three big time actors in Hollywood who get a little too big for their pay scale and get fired for demanding too much from their cranky boss (Joe Mantegna and Jon Lovitz & Phil Hartman as his henchmen). Unknown to them, a lovely woman from Santa Poco, Mexico named Carmen (Patrice Martinez) has seen one of their films and thinks they’re real gunfighters. She writes them and invites them to drive off a bandit that’s been terrorizing Santa Poco, and they comply, thinking it’s a paying gig. That soon changes when they run into the murderous El Guapo (Alfonso Arau), his sidekick Jefe (Tony Plana) and their gang.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by John Landis, the movie is both solidly shot and brings a lot of sight gags to the table, both of which are very important to comedy. Of note is the fake Three Amigos movie shown at the beginning, which is shot just like an old silent short.

Writing
Written by Steve Martin, Lorne Michaels & Randy Newman. The beginning is a little slow and a few early jokes miss the mark, but when the movie gets up and running, its great. Martin, Chase and Short are all funny (as expected), but some of the funniest scenes in the movie come from El Guapo’s exchanges with Jefe.

Sound
Original music by Elmer Bernstein and “The Ballad of the Three Amigos” written by Randy Newman (who was also the voice of the Singing Bush). With that kind of pedigree, you better believe the music is excellent.

Conclusion
Yet another movie in the pile of films that Kes loves unabashedly. Three Amigos! makes up for what it lacks in originality (let’s face it, it owes everything to The Magnificent Seven) with bizarre, tongue-in-cheek hilarity.