We’re hunting down movies about hunters hunting the most dangerous prey in this week’s episode. To finish up our celebration of Action January, Des and I cover John Woo’s direct-to-Netflix return to...form(?), Manhunt and the Brian Trenchard-Smith Ozploitation Classic Turkey Shoot!
The trailers are below, as is the music video for Demon Hunter’s ‘The Last One Left Alive’
Welcome to the Seventies, my friends! I’m still living on Norwood Avenue in Brooklyn, two blocks from Highland Park and a section of pavement that still was cobblestone and contained old trolley rails in it! I’ve started going to therapy in downtown Brooklyn, as my Explosive Mood Disorder started expressing itself; if I was particular good with my therapist, Mrs. Boeing, my parents would take me to Zum Zum, a chain of German-style sausage restaurants, for dinner. I’ve started spending my Saturday afternoons watching Creature Feature on WNEW, and Saturday evenings watching Chiller Theater on WPIX. I am already deeply into monster movies, especially kaiju films thanks to the frequent Godzilla Weeks on WABC’s The 4:30 Movie, and comic books thanks to repeats of the 66 Batman series and the 67 Spider-Man cartoons, My life-long allegiance to 60‘s spy culture begins to solidify after watching The Avengers on WWOR and the James Bond films on WABC. I am pretty sure I’ve been to the Sunrise Drive-In, the Oasis Theater and the Crossbay Cinema by now.
So here’s what I chose and why I chose them...
LE CIRCE ROUGE
I absolutely adore Jean-Pierre Melville’s film Le Samourai, and feel that Alain Delon’s character in that flick is a major league Icon of Cool...so I am really enthusiastic about seeing this film, which reunited Melville and Delon for another hard boiled crime thriller. I am willfully going in knowing nothing about it, wanting to experience it as freshly as possible. I imagine it will have the same kind of Cool that Le Samourai had, but I won’t know for sure unless you pick it!
FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON
If there’s one thing you may have learned about me in the past year, it’s that I really like Mario Bava as a director. I also really like giallo movies. This film--which was never released in America, which is probably why I haven’t seen it--marks Bava sort of transforming the sub-genre he created with Blood and Black Lace, a transformation that will lead directly to A Bay of Blood and the creation several years later of the Slasher subgenre. The trailer looks glorious in its goofiness, and I want to see what Bava trying to do a drawing room mystery is like.
ADIOS SABATA
What do you people have against spaghetti western?
Seriously, the last two times I put up one of these bad boys up as a candidate, no one voted for them. Well, maybe if I tease you with a weird connection to my fictional Chimera Falls Universe you’ll consider this sequel to the Lee Van Cleef film you snubbed so aggressively last time. You see, before director Gianfranco Parolini decided to reframe this as a sequel to Sabata, the character Yul Brynner played was named Indio Black. When my pal Derrick Ferguson (maybe you've heard of him...heh) mentioned this fact to me, it inspired me to create the cult leader Indio Blaque for my second Shadow Legion book, Nightmare City. So I’m curious to see what inspired my inspiration, you know?
THEY CALL ME MISTER TIBBS
Everybody knows the Sidney Poitier/Rod Stieger suspenser In The Heat of The Night, right? But I think the other films in the Virgil Tibbs series--this is the second of three--are long forgotten. I’m curious to see if their assignment to pop culture oblivion was justified. It doesn’t look like it on paper--this flick is directed by the amazing Gordon Douglas and features an impressive cast of character actors. It’s also one of the few Hollywood features that has a capitalized word in its title. So it would be interesting to visit this artifact.
There are you candidates for 1970. Head over to my Twitter Page starting tomorrow and let me know which of these four bad boys you want me to experience for the first time and report on!
This film doesn’t have a single serious thought in its celluloid body. And that is Glorious.
I think the reason I responded so positively to this film is how it has a stylization that I suspect was inspired by the spy movies of the previous few years. Throughout this tight little narrative--here’s a guy, he’s going to do a job, and he does it--there are these little touches which indicate we’re in a world that’s like reality, but really isn’t; let’s call it reality-adjacent. We know in real life that robbers wouldn’t color code their outfits to their getaway cars, they’re not answering to a mob boss who literally runs a prison...but here they do! It’s the kind of thing that made The Avengers my favorite television program.
This film wisely depends almost wholly on the charm and charisma of Michael Caine. He’s the only one with any sort of...character in his character. All the others have schtick--Noel Coward’s crime boss loves England! Camp Freddy dresses really fabulously (and may be gay?)! Professor Peach loves overweight women! Lorna...fills out her brown leather skirt really well(?)--but are mostly there to keep the caper aspects of the film moving. And when their usefulness to the plot is up? Well, the film helpfully and quickly writes them out...Margaret Blye’s Lorna is literally put on a plane when the plot can no longer handle her eye-candy-ness, and Benny Hill’s Professor Peach is hauled away by the cops after goosing a fat woman and is never seen again. The forward momentum of this film’s almost two hour running time is in Caine’s hands and Caine doesn’t drop it. The film moves, moves well, and there isn’t a moment I was getting impatient.
When I mentioned I was watching this film, my mother waxed rhapsodic about the Mini-Coopers. These smallish cars play an important part in the film’s final act, leading the police of Turin on a merry chase through a piazza, on rooftops, underground, in the sewers...all over the place. While it may seem tame compared to the road-bound shenanigans of the Fast and Furious series, keep in mind that this sequence--which goes on for about twenty minutes--features real cars being driven by real drivers on real locations. There is a stunt where the three mini-Coopers jump over the rooftops of the city that might not look very impressive, but I’m sure was insanely dangerous in 1969. It’s not for nothing that the producers of the 2003....remake(?)* weren’t really interested in actually doing it until the Mini-Cooper went back into production. Along with Caine, they’re the stars of this film.
I still find the literally cliffhanging ending (you’ll have to see it to understand what I mean) a little puzzling. This was way before the era of the franchise, and there never was the thought of doing a follow-up, so leaving Caine and his cronies there after pretty much hinting at a happy ending is...weird. It doesn’t effect the events that precede it, or throw them into a different light; it just is.
I may be biased, given my new found love of 60‘s era Michael Caine and that sort of light, fairy tale kind of action-y caper flick that seems to have morphed throughout the ages to become the Fast and Furious series I hold so dear, but I certainly recommend this film. It’s held up remarkably well.
*--I watched the remake before I saw the original because of my man-crush on Jason Statham, and I wonder why it was even called The Italian Job. It should be called The Los Angeles Job with An Italian Job Tacked Onto The First Act. It’s enjoyable and features a smaller and more fully realized cast, but really doesn’t justify the use of its title.
It’s time for a cavalcade of recent films this week! Des and Duane check in on Tara Macken’s foray into health care in 2018‘s Intensive Care. I look at the prison epic that pits Former TV Superman Dean Cain against The Big Show and Cosplay Conan O’Brien in the Soska Sister’s WWE Films actioner Vendetta. I also decide to go Old School Dread Media by doing a Roadkill Review of M. Night Shyamalan’s wrap-up of the Unbreakable Trilogy, Glass.
Wait a minute....you have to drive to do a Roadkill Review. I don't drive.
Who could I possibly reach out to from my...dark past to make this episode Better?
Heh.
The trailers are below, as is Tara Macken’s Flight Reel for 2016 because...well, I think she’s kinda hot and it’s set to the Foo Fighters. Everybody loves the Foo Fighters, right?
Fandom as it stands right now is broken. We need to fix it.
Below are tenets I feel we must adopt to make Fandom into the Inclusive, Nuturing Community it once was--or Thought It Was. I was intending originally to elaborate at length on each tenet, but I figured I can do that on a case-by-case basis over the next few weeks. Keep in mind that I consider this a Living Document, welcome input from my fellow Fans, and encourage additions to this list.
Feel free to use this document as you wish. As long as you credit me, repost it wherever you’d like.
I’m amazed I have to write some of this stuff down.
1. I will respect that people may like something I do not like, and will not try to force him/her to believe otherwise 2. I will not equate financial success for artistic success, and will evaluate each piece of art on its own terms 3. I will celebrate what I love, and accept the loves of my fellow fans. 4. I recognize that my Fandom is there to enhance my reality, not Replace It. 5. I will recognize that not every genre item is made for me. 6. I will not keep patronizing genre stuff after I find I am not enjoying it 7. I will have standards--i.e. no more ‘at least it got made.’ 8.I will be welcoming to people interested in joining Fandom regardless of their sex, orientation, skin color or experience. 9. I will not treat fellow fans I find sexually attractive and/or are dressed in a sexually attractive way any differently. I will Not treat said fan in a way that makes him/her uncomfortable or creeped out. 10. I will be open to new, original genre concepts and not tear them down because they aren’t similar to already established concepts. 11. Similarly, I will respect older concepts, and acknowledge their influence on present concepts. I reserve the right to dislike them, but will express that dislike in reasonable and engaging ways. 12. I will accept that, like all people, the creative types I revere grow, and won’t demand they make the same kind of artifact over and over and over again. 13. While I appreciate the access modern social media gives me to the creators and participants of the genre artifacts I consume, I will use it respectfully and not provoke, stalk, harass or otherwise make them unwelcome. 14. I will accept that there are other interpretations to the same concept. 15. I will respect when things seem to have a finite end, and resist Nostalgia Porn. 16. I will not fetishize my childhood to the point where I will refuse all other interpretations of what I loved and actively seek to sabotage attempts to rework them for future generations. 17. I will allow the generation of fans who come after me to develop their own icons and signposts, and will not force my icons and signposts upon them. 18. I will not be an asshole.
Wanna get in on future Dread Media Giveaways? Be sure to join the Dread Media Facebook Page and watch for future announcements!
The trailers are below (the trailer for Halloween was presented on the website here) as is Cattet and Forzani’s introduction to their film at TIFF 2017 and a deleted scene from Halloween!
We’re now entering my Grade School Years with this Poll. I’m still living on Norwood Avenue in Brooklyn, and I have some still-hazy-but-clearer memories of being taken to movies like Robin Hood (at Radio City Music Hall) by my parents. I may have started seeing films at the legendary Valley Stream Drive-In, as one of my memories of that venue was watching Support Your Local Gunfighter and being grossed out by the Ketchup Flavored Potato Chips my natural father found for me to snack on, and that film was released this year.
Anyway, onto your choices:
SABATA
On January 9th, 1925, Lee Van Cleef was born. If you’re even vaguely interested in the western genre, especially the Spaghetti Western subgenre, you are intimate with Cleef’s work. Described by my guinea pig on The Honeywell Experiment as having ‘a face like a knife,’ I always will remember him for this little sidelong glance that was his trademark--a glance that is the very definition of ‘steely eyed.’ This is the first of a trilogy of films by the director of If You Meet Sartana, Pray For Your Death (which none of you voted for in the 1968 poll; try to do better this time), Gianfranco Parolini. Sabata is considered a slightly lighter-toned version of Sartana, and I’m kinda intrigued to see what it’s like.
THE ITALIAN JOB
I saw the remake due to my love of all things Jason Statham, and seeing The Ipcress File recently made me curious to visit the original because of my growing love of 60‘s era Michael Caine. Caine was hardcore cool during this decade, culminating in his positively frozen performance in the amazing crime thriller Get Carter. Like Get Carter, this is considered an Essential Film by purists. So I would really like to experience it for my own.
THE BED SITTING ROOM
This is a post-apocalyptic comedy based on a play co-written by Goon Show alum Spike Milligan. I am a massive Goon Show* nut, who were the progenitors of the chaotic British comedy people of my generation and beyond love so much. In addition to Milligan and fellow Goon Harry Secombe, the cast features Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (who two years earlier wrote and starred in one of my favorite comedies, Bedazzled) and Marty Feldman. That’s a lot of comedic firepower, as you can see from the trailer it looks freaking weird, and I want to drink this one in.
SWEET CHARITY
Given my association with horror and grindhouse cinema, you’d probably be surprised to learn that I deeply love musicals. I was in lots of community musical theater in my youth, although my less-than-golden singing voice assigned me to supporting roles. An argument could be made that the cinematic musical went into hibernation in the mid-70‘s, and this was made by Bob Fosse during the Golden Age of The Musical’s last gasps. Fosse directed two musicals I really enjoy, including the adaptation of Cabaret that managed to hew closer to the play the musical was based on, I Am A Camera, while retaining what made the theatrical adaptation so good, so I’m interested in seeing this one. Plus, with Shirley MacLaine, it kinda plays up to my thing for redheads....
As always, please go to my Twitter Page and vote You’ll have one week.
And then we’re on to the 70‘s. God Help Us.
*--If you don’t know about the Goon Show, it’s a seminal comedy program that aired on BBC Radio throughout the 50‘s and featured Milligan, Secombe and Peter Sellars playing various characters serving as actors in a series of anarchic half hour plays. You can find a sample of a typical Goons effort here. Seriously, check these things out. You will not be disappointed.
This is a strange one. Even though it is presented to us as a science fiction film, what this Japanese/American production (shot in Japan with an all-American cast--oh, and a token hot Italian redhead to add eye candy and provide a conflict between the two leads) is is a Monsta Movie.
A Monsta Movie is not a Monster Movie. The Monsta Movie apes the Monster Movie, but isn’t really scary, is much more action-based, usually features a creature that is both ridiculous and easily imitated by kids, and is relatively short. It’s the kind of movie Monster Movie Kids like me used to watch on an afternoon after cartoons or homework (Indeed, this film was a perennial on WABC’s 4:30 Movie; why I never caught it when I was younger, I do not know). Taken in that context, it’s okay.
What fascinates me about this film--what fascinates me about a lot of science fiction films before the candification of the genre by Star Wars and its ilk--is what it says about personal attitudes in 1968. For a film by Kinji Fukasaku shot in Toei’s movie studio with Japanese special effects artists, the world of this film is Uniformly White. There’s only one female character of note played by Luciana Paluzzi, who’s ostensibly the head medical doctor but is there only to wear miniskirts and be something the two male leads can fight over. Speaking of women, the only women we see are nurses, and everything else is Man’s Work. The Man Of Science who had tried to harvest the Baby Green Slime to study it for, I dunno, science dies Horribly for his hubris. The most assertive and manly of these Men of Action, played by Richard Jaeckel, ends up with the Hot Italian Redhead while her fiancee, who uses discretion and caution when dealing with the problem of Mutant One-Eyed Electrified Green Slime Monstas infesting his space station dies heroically. The sexual and personal politics of this movie did not age well, and it becomes unintentionally hilarious.
Of course, if you saw this as a kid, you were here for the Monstas, and those are...pretty goofy. They’re big globby things with one blinking red eye and two lengthy electric tentacles that wear what appear to be grass skirts and shriek like back-up singers for Jacques Brel. Like most Monstas, they’re hard to take seriously as a threat, but are entertaining to watch.
I wouldn’t necessarily call The Green Slime a good film, but it’s only 90 minutes, and it does what it says on the tin. It’s a painless watch that I imagine would have entertained Young Tom if he had seen it, and mildly entertained Adult Tom for maybe the wrong reasons. So use your discretion.
It also has a Kick-Ass Theme Song. Honest. Here's your proof.
It’s All Sly, All The Time, as Dread Media pays tribute to Sylvester Stallone. First off, Des and Darryll get very drunk--oh, so very, very drunk--to view the Italian Stallion’s 1986 attempt to create a Dirty Harry for the Neon Age, Cobra. Then I fly solo to look at the 2002 originally intended for theaters but dumped on video peculiarity Eye See You (also known as D-Tox), where Stallone and a really impressive cast are stalked by a serial killer in a detox center specializing in law enforcement personnel.
The trailers are below, as is The Stallone Alphabet! Enjoy!
I know what you were thinking--after that Christmas Blowout, how can Virginia and I top it for New Years? Well, we welcome 2019 by making Chris Honeywell watch Dolomite, starring the Hip-Hop Icon, Party Comic Rudy Ray Moore!
What’s a Party Comic? We’ll explain all that as we celebrate this healthy goulash of kung-fu ho’s, hamburger pimps, signifying monkeys and the man who put the elephants in the trees and made the ants wear BVDs. This is one of the essential Grindhouse Films, and we tell you how this bit of outsider cinema changed the face of an entire culture forever!
We’re hunting down movies about hunters hunting the most dangerous prey in this week’s episode. To finish up our celebration of Action January, Des and I cover John Woo’s direct-to-Netflix return to...form(?), Manhunt and the Brian Trenchard-Smith Ozploitation Classic Turkey Shoot!
It’s time for a cavalcade of recent films this week! Des and Duane check in on Tara Macken’s foray into health care in 2018‘s Intensive Care. I look at the prison epic that pits Former TV Superman Dean Cain against The Big Show and Cosplay Conan O’Brien in the Soska Sister’s WWE Films actioner Vendetta. I also decide to go Old School Dread Media by doing a Roadkill Review of M. Night Shyamalan’s wrap-up of the Unbreakable Trilogy, Glass.
Wait a minute....you have to drive to do a Roadkill Review. I don't drive.
I wouldn’t necessarily call The Green Slime a good film, but it’s only 90 minutes, and it does what it says on the tin. It’s a painless watch that I imagine would have entertained Young Tom if he had seen it, and mildly entertained Adult Tom for maybe the wrong reasons. So use your discretion.
