ofpsmith Reviews

Spring in a Small Town (1948)

A good quiet kind of movie.

[9/10 · 15 June 2020]

For whatever reason Chinese movies aren't given a whole lot of attention among the film community (at least in the United States). At the very least Chinese movies aren't nearly as talked about as say Japanese movies are. Admittedly I haven't seen that many (in fact I can name only two other mainland Chinese films other than this one. And that's a shame given that Spring in a Small Town is a good movie. It's set (unsurprisingly) in a small town, namely in the compound of the formerly prosperous Dai family. Reminders of World War 2 still loom and the Chinese Civil War remains a threat. The four characters Zhou Yuwen (Wei Wei), her husband Dai Liyan (Yu Shi), his sister Meimei (Hongmei Zhang), and butler Lao Huang (Chaoming Cui) all live uneventfully until a mutual friend Zhang Zhichen (Wei Li) shows up. It's very much a human driven story and it's very subtly done. There's nothing overly dramatic about it, it's all very calm and collected. It's a film I rarely hear about unless I seek it out and that's a shame because Spring in a Small Town is a good movie.

Thunderball (1965)

Still a good movie even if it has been parodied.

[8/10 · 9 June 2020]

Thunderball is one of the James Bond film from which the parodies derive the most material from. SPECTRE's plan in the film, to hijack two nuclear warheads and hold the world hostage, was notably the same plot used by the villains in Austin Powers. Thunderball is likely one of the first movies people think of when they think of big and overblown Bond. But it's still an enjoyable movie It's very archtypical of the Sean Connery movies and is very '60s, though not in a bad dated way. I've heard criticisms that the film drags too much (with the surplus of underwater scenes especially) but it didn't really bother me all that much. Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) is a fun villain and the cinematography is excellent. It might be easy to laugh at but it's still one of my favorite Bond films.

The Fall of Berlin (1950)

After you take away all the propaganda it's just boring and poorly acted.

[3/10 · 9 May 2020]

The Fall of Berlin is a film made in the middle of Joseph Stalin's rule over the Soviet Union. Given what Stalin's iron grip over the country was like it's not really all that surprising that the film is just a big propaganda piece for him. I know calling films propaganda is usually partisan and the argument can be made that any film that makes any explicit political message is propaganda, but for reference the most famous scene in The Fall of Berlin seems to be immediately after the Soviets take Berlin and we're treated to a dancing celebration of not only Soviet soldiers but also liberated Holocaust survivors and German civilians before Stalin (Mikheil Gelovani) somehow shows up 5 minutes after the battle has ended and is basically praised as the savior of humanity. Moreover I think you can get away with calling a film propaganda if it was made just to exalt a dictator. Watching the film as a historical example is pretty interesting (and the very obvious inaccuracies can be ignored for obvious reasons) but after you take out all that it's just a poorly acted and somewhat cliched war story. Some of my favorite scenes involved Stalin himself but he's surprisingly not in the movie that much. The actual plot of the movie sees Alexei Ivanov (Boris Andreyev) a steel worker decorated by Stalin who falls in love with Natascha Vasilnyeva (Marina Kovalyova). But it all changes when the Nazis invade the Soviet Union and Alexei joins the Red Army to fight in the war. It's bland, cheesy, poorly acted, and after about an hour of it it just became a chore to watch. One impressive thing about the film is the amount of lookalike actors in all the roles. Aside from Stalin we have pretty identical portrayals of Adolf Hitler, Herman Goering, Vyacheslav Molotov, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Goebbels, and Georgy Zhukov (who was not on amazing terms with Stalin after the war and thus has his role in the film somewhat diminished). But aside from that and the interesting historical context of the film's existence, The Fall of Berlin is pretty boring, poorly acted, has a very barebones plot, and is way too long.

A View to a Kill (1985)

Definitely a mixed bag.

[6/10 · 7 May 2020]

I enjoy Roger Moore's portrayal of James Bond a lot and I enjoyed him in this film as well but it's pretty clear that he was getting too old. A common criticism of A View to a Kill is the obvious stunt doubles and, yeah, it can get a little bothersome after a while. There's also the problem of the plot which I didn't find amazingly memorable. Still there were things to enjoy about it. Christopher walken as Max Zorin and Grace Jones as May Day were fun and over the top villains and I even liked Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts). But overall A View to a Kill is one of Moore's weaker films.

The Social Network (2010)

Way better than it needed to be.

[9/10 · 7 April 2020]

I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to make a movie about the founding of Facebook difficult. Part of that is obviously due to the dramatization and the bending of the truth, but credit is more than due to David Fincher's directing, Aaron Sorkin's screenplay, and the performances given by Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake and just about everyone else. There's a line in Honest Trailers that claims that the movie is so good it makes young millionaires suing each other high stakes. As for the aforementioned bending of the truth, well the movie does it pretty often. Mark Zuckerberg didn't come up with the idea after breaking up with his girlfriend, he wasn't really obsessed with exclusive Harvard clubs, and Sean Parker wasn't a coked out paranoiac. Do watch the film, unless you want to know the real story of Facebook.

Psycho Shark (2009 Video)

One of the worst movies I've seen but not in a particularly frustrating way.

[1/10 · 2 April 2020]

I had heard of this movie for the first time about 5 or 6 years ago as one of the many examples of the shark movie subgenre that has seemingly existed ever since Jaws so as to ride off of that film's success, not realizing that in order for the film in question to be as successful as Jaws it needs to be as good as Jaws, which these movies mostly all fail at. It wasn't until I watched the I Hate Everything: The Search for the Worst video which covered this film and 3 others (a video I highly recommend you check out by the way) that my knowledge of Jaws In Japan or Psycho Shark was deepened anymore than that. I was somewhat surprised at his declaration that the film was the absolute worst he has ever seen, giving the film the coveted spot of "worst" for a time before being overtaken by Disaster Movie. Naturally then, I had to watch the film for myself. While I wouldn't call Jaws in Japan the worst film I've ever seen there are several reasons why it deserves the negative reception. First and foremost is how boring and forgettable it is. Nothing happens throughout a good portion of the movie. While marketed as a shark movie the shark appears in a total of 2 scenes, one of which is a dream sequence so it doesn't count. The only time the shark actually shows up is at the very end. This film is almost entirely filler of girls talking, frolicking on the beach, giggling, and showing off for the camera (nothing explicit happens but it has a very creepy and sleazy feel to it). One thing that bugged me probably more than it should have is the inconsistent narrative structure. The film is very loosely structured around this girl in a hotel room who's watching footage of other girls who have stayed there, sort of like found footage. What doesn't make sense to me is that the people she's watching also watch the same type of footage while they're staying there, so it almost implies that it's found footage of found footage. What confuses me more is the lack of any transition between a hand held camera and a traditional viewpoint in a way that's coherent, and also that the entire thing wasn't in a found footage like set up. I know that probably sounds confusing and you're probably wondering what I'm talking about, but that's my point. It's a cheap shark movie. It shouldn't be this hard to follow. That's all I really have to say.

A Page of Madness (1926)

Hard to narrow down.

[8/10 · 28 March 2020]

A Page of Madness was apparently the result of a group of Japanese avant- garde artists who basically wanted to make an unconventional movie. They succeeded and A Page of Madness is a very early example of the avant- garde film, before similar movies were being made in France, Russia, and the United States. But A Page of Madness still has a story. The film has no inter titles (though Japanese silent movies were accompanied by a storyteller) making it hard to follow. This is coupled with the fact that the version existing today is only a fraction of the original product. The entire film was lost for a time before being rediscovered in the 1970s. It follows a sailor (Masuo Inoue) who takes a job as a janitor at a mental institution to free his wife (Yoshie Nakagawa). The film makes use of several flashback sequences to get across the story. What's more is the highly surreal feel of the movie. A Page of Madness is certainly not for everyone but if you're into the avant garde, A Page of Madness is required viewing.

The Wicker Man (1973)

Not the best horror movie ever made but it's certainly up there.

[9/10 · 24 March 2020]

Devoutly Christian Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) of the Highlands Constabulary has arrived on the remote Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate a missing girl. The locals are unhelpful and tell him that she does not exist. Moreover, Howie is dismayed that the islanders have abandoned Christianity for a form of Celtic Paganism. Much of the film's appeal as a horror film comes from its secluded environment. A genuinely creepy feel permeates throughout. The Wicker Man is sometimes referred to as the Citizen Kane of horror movies. I wouldn't go that far, though be aware that The Wicker Man is a properly good film.

Buffalo '66 (1998)

A blueprint for a low budget film.

[10/10 · 16 March 2020]

Buffalo '66 seems like a very rare kind of film. It somehow manages to work as both a comedy (sort of), a drama, and a romance movie all at once. Billy Brown (Vincent Gallo) has been released from prison for a crime he did not commit. He returns home to Buffalo, New York where he kidnaps Layla (Christina Ricci) whom he has pretend to be his wife as Billy has lied to his parents about being married. After a tense and argumentative reunion between Billy and his neglectful parents he and Layla leave. Layla stays with him through the night even though she no longer has to. As she learns more about him and spends more time with Billy she starts to fall in love with him for what he is. This is a pretty difficult romantic angle to pull off (given the fact that Billy kidnapped Layla) but the film made me believe it. Likewise the acting from virtually everyone was fantastic. The fact that the film was made this competently for only a $1,000,000 budget ought to cement it as an example of how independent movies should be made.

Laserblast (1978)

Weird and not good but not the worst thing ever.

[4/10 · 6 March 2020]

Laserblast is an...interesting movie. Don't get me wrong, it's a bad film with no consistency, rules, or any likeable characters to speak of. But it has to be said that out of the many B movies that have made their appearance on Mystery Science Theater 3000 Laserblast is somewhat memorable among them...mainly in how weird a film it is in a way that I do not think was intentional. The story sees our protagonist Billy Duncan (Kim Milford) a teenage loner (in pure movie fashion the teenager is played by someone in his twenties) who happens to stumble upon a death ray type deal that was just lying around in the desert by a guy with a creepy green face who disappeared. He jumps around and plays with it like a little kid then drives away. It's not really explained how or why this happens, but Billy gradually turns into a zombie like creature each time he holds the weapon. Anyhow he starts using it against those who have done him wrong in the past. At least he does whenever it's not implied that he has no control over what he does, like one scene where he chases after his girlfriend (Cheryl Smith) while in alien/zombie form or something. There's a subplot about a (I believe) government agent who comes to Billy's town in California who somehow knows about the extraterrestrial presence (despite no one in the town talking about it or even knowing it exists except for Billy). There's another subplot about the aliens whose ray gun it is. Basically their boss presumably tells them to go and find the death ray before someone on Earth does and starts murdering people. I say presumably because the aliens in question have entire scenes of dialogue that go completely untranslated! Anyhow that's as far as actual plot really goes in this movie. Pretty much everything else is filler. There are a couple other characters but none of them really matter. There's the aforementioned girlfriend, her unhinged Vietnam veteran father played by Keenan Wynn, these two bullies (who also look like adults) that pick on Billy and harass his girlfriend, two bumbling cops who smoke weed (which I guess is supposed to be funny), the doctor played by Roddy McDowall, and some other people I can't remember. There's one scene where Billy shoots at a Star Wars billboard for some reason (I guess the director just really didn't like Star Wars). There's another scene near the end that confused me because it looks like it was filmed in New York or New Jersey despite the film taking place entirely in California. I suppose I wouldn't care as much if I wasn't such a geography nerd. Anyhow, that's Laserblast in a nutshell. I don't really recommend the movie on its own but the MST3K treatment is funny so go check that out if you're still interested.

The Man Who Saved the World (1982)

Recommended Star Wars rip off.

[1/10 · 25 February 2020]

The Man Who Saved the World (more commonly known as Turkish Star Wars) is the most manic and insane movie I've ever seen. I've known about this film for a few years but I've only seen it now. If you know nothing about it, and have stumbled upon this movie whilst aimlessly surfing IMDb, let me give you a rundown. Turkish Star Wars has that unofficial title as the film is both from Turkey and makes copious use of unauthorized stock footage from Star Wars: A New Hope which they definitely did not have the rights too. Moreover, the soundtrack is shamelessly lifted from Raiders of the Lost Ark, albeit with a very unnatural stop in the tempo whenever someone in this film is punched or kicked. The IMDb trivia section is pretty humorous and sheds some light on the film. The use of Star Wars footage stemmed from the fact that the sets were constructed on a Turkish beach, destroyed in a storm (which is going to happen when you build your elaborate film sets on a beach) and then because the studio didn't want to pay for rebuilding them they decided on bribing the security guard at a film distributor for a print of A New Hope. Describing the story is not the easiest task in the world. Just be aware that two Turkish warriors from space (although they are constantly described as being from Earth as well, I guess) are sent to this planet that was once a fragment of Earth that's been shot out into space. There they have to defeat this Wizard guy who's like a dictator like figure. More happens than that but like I said, the story is hard to follow and pretty nonsensical. The film is obviously riddled with faults but it's easily a film you could have fun with. Very bizarre, but very entertaining in an unintended way.

Ghosthouse (1988)

Pretty bad. Not much else to say.

[3/10 · 24 February 2020]

Admittedly I have not yet seen Troll 2 but I'm going to make a guess that this is a similar type of deal. I saw Ghost House on Rifftrax, and from where they dragged is beyond me. Firstly its original Italian title (this film is listed as being from Italy but was set and filmed in the United States) is La casa 3. Some of the related films on the IMDb page are La casa 4 and La casa 5, leading to believe that this film is in a series though I haven't actually taken the time to do any research confirming or denying this. It made relative sense on its own which is why I'm dwelling on this. So the story centers around this house in Massachusetts that's emitting some kind of radio frequency where a guy gets killed which is picked up by this college student in Boston who deduces exactly where it's coming from and decides (for some reason) to drive over there and check it out. He and his girlfriend find some other people there and discover that the house is haunted by this spirit of this girl with a clown doll. Credit where it's due, the film actually legitimately creeped me out which I was not expecting. Clowns generally don't frighten me but for whatever reason this one did. I think that's also due to the very eerie noise it makes which actually got under my skin. Well, at least it did before it sounded off in every other scene and just became annoying. The story is pretty stupid and it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense for the characters to do what they do. The acting is also pretty bad, sometimes verging on being cringeworthy. The comparison I drew to Troll 2 at the beginning is from one scene where a character about to be killed asks some questions like "What's going on?" and "What are you doing?" in a manner almost identical to that film. I'd say give this one a pass.

F*&% the Prom (2017)

Should not have been this bad.

[2/10 · 22 February 2020]

I guess you could say that this movie wasn't really meant for someone like me. I mean I'm not a huge fan of high school dramas/comedies generally speaking. It's not even that I dislike them as films. I found The Breakfast Club pretty good and American Pie was passable, I suppose. They just generally don't appeal to me for whatever reason. I think it's mainly because they usually don't relate to anything that I remember from high school. I didn't care about drama, or who's dating who, or what clique you're in or anything like that and that's what most high school movies deal with. But it wasn't that long ago that I was in high school (and I certainly wasn't popular) and I'm still close to the age demographic as of this writing. If you didn't know, F the Prom was directed by Benny Fine of the Fine Brothers on YouTube. Regardless of whether or not you like the various reaction videos they make I think it's safe to say that those aren't necessarily skills that translate into making a film. So what exactly is so bad about F the Prom? Well the very bland story sees artsy unpopular kid Cole Reede (Joel Courtney) and formerly popular cheerleader Maddy Datner (Danielle Campbell) as former best friends who become friends again after putting together a plan to ruin the upcoming prom. They team up with some other unpopular kids to put the plan into action which they all sort of collectively see as the way to get revenge on the popular kids. The first problem with the movie that comes to mind is the painful way it completely mischaracterizes how high school students behave or how high school even is. This film was made when I was still there and I've never once seen someone who used a term like "selfie virgin." And I'd love to see what high school these guys went to where bullying on such a massive scale is allowed to happen without the teachers stepping in. I guess it was supposed to be funny but it just comes off as nasty. The movie is also oddly inconsistent. The movie's title is of course F the Prom and they swear and such so it's not exactly Disney Channel but it's so stilted and almost safe that it feels like it almost could be. I know that might sound confusing but just bear with me. It sometimes feels like they tried to be edgy but then decided not to be and play it safe. This makes it all the more confusing when out of the complete blue they do decide to throw in some crass humor, which unsurprisingly is not done in a way that's funny or new. And that's without getting into the plot which makes no sense. It's pretty common in this film for characters to make random decisions that don't match how real people would react. None of this felt real. The message of the film is basically about how shallow, vain, and vapid high school can be, how the whole thing is just one big popularity contest, how popularity means nothing in the real world, and that prom is just the king of it all. It's not that I disagree necessarily but the film also crams it down your throat every chance it gets with paper thin stereotypical characters, painfully out of touch assumptions of what teens do or how they speak, and the complete lack of anything resembling subtlety. You might be wondering why I'm writing so much about a movie like this in the first place but that's the point. It's a tacky high school drama. Even if it's not my cup of tea it has virtually no excuse to be as bad as it is. Give this one a pass.

The Bad Sleep Well (1960)

Kurosawa takes on big business corruption.

[9/10 · 13 February 2020]

Akira Kurosawa was a pretty big William Shakespeare fan. Throne of Blood was his retelling of Macbeth and Ran of King Lear. While not a retelling The Bad Sleep Well borrows several elements from Hamlet in this tale of a young man named Koichi Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) who marries his way into the inner circle of construction tycoon Iwabuchi (Masayuki Mori) who years ago engineered the death of Nishi's father. Done in the style of American film noir (a style Kurosawa mastered) The Bad Sleep Well is packed with great cinematography and pointed criticism of corporate corruption.

Cyberbully (2015 TV Movie)

Way better than an hour long film of a teenager in her room on her computer should be.

[9/10 · 9 February 2020]

The line on the poster declaring that Alfred Hitchcock would have loved it is a hard one to argue. If Hitchcock were alive today, and were privy to social media, and the invasive presence of online cyberbullies and trolls then it's possible the master of suspense would have made a film like this. After all, it's pretty hard to talk about this movie without revealing some spoilers. Casey Jacobs (Maisie Williams) is an ordinary teen in the United Kingdom, who spends much of her time online. She soon finds herself chatting with a hacker who lambasts her with accusations of mocking a fellow student Jennifer Li's (Haruka Abe) attempts at a music career online. Moreover the hacker blackmails Casey with compromising photos of her unless she complies with the hacker's instructions. Part of the film's appeal lies in how much we can really sympathize with Casey. She's shallow, vapid, and a bully but she does seem to have genuine remorse for what she's done (not to mention the awful position she finds herself in). This is a difficult role for a young actress to do but Williams more than pulls it off. The film also works in getting out an important message about the presence of online trolls without sounding cliched. It's easy to be a horrible person online when no one knows who you are. Seeing a confessional video from a victim of cyberbullying doesn't have the affect of stopping trolls but seeing something like this would. The only real problem I can think of is the half reveal of the hacker's identity seems somewhat lazy but this is easy to overlook.

Killer Goodbye (1968)

Fairly formulaic but still entertaining enough.

[7/10 · 31 January 2020]

Jess Bryan (Peter Lee Lawrence) is a young man who returns to his hometown some time after avenging his parents' murder. While there he is asked to help the sheriff Clint Simpson (Luis Induni) root out an apparent feud between Bill Bragg (Armando Calvo) and Jack Bradshaw (Nello Pazzafini). A fairly obscure Spaghetti Western, Killer, Goodbye doesn't break boundaries for the sub genre, but it's entertaining enough, though it would do well to point out that the film gets somewhat dull near the end.

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Western take on an Eastern classic.

[9/10 · 26 January 2020]

The Magnificent Seven is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, with the setting being changed from Japan to Mexico and the United States. While most everyone agrees that Seven Samurai is the better film, The Magnificent Seven is still a very good movie. Kurosawa himself believed so. Clearly he took more kindly to this than he did to the other western remake of one of his movies. Farmers from a village in Mexico are besieged by a gang of bandits. With few other possibilities they go to the United States to hire men with guns to repel their attackers. With soon to be legends like Steve McQueen, James Coburn, and Eli Wallach all at on the scene The Magnificent Seven is as simple as it is triumphant. It comes highly recommended.

North West Frontier (1959)

Underrated British epic.

[8/10 · 23 January 2020]

While not on the same level as say Lawrence of Arabia, Zulu, or The Man Who Would be King, North West Frontier is still an enjoyable film. In British India Prince Kishan (Govind Raja Ross) is the son of a Hindu maharajah who is taken into protective care by the British after his father is killed by Muslim rebels. Captain William Charles Willoughby Scott (Kenneth More) is tasked with taking the young boy to Delhi on train for his safety. Another assortment of random characters are on the train as well as Muslim rebels besiege it at every chance making this film kind of like John Ford's Stagecoach. While not as enjoyable as that film North West Frontier is still good. If you enjoy the British colonial epics such as the ones listed above then North West Frontier is one you might want to check out.

The Boys from Brazil (1978)

Fun and intriguing premise but not at all realistic.

[6/10 · 23 January 2020]

I'm only starting off my review that way because it's important to know that despite the presence of Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, and James Mason this isn't a very serious movie, even if it likes to portray itself that way. Dr. Joseph Mengele (Peck) heads an organization of Nazi war criminals and Neo Nazis in Paraguay. When Barry Koehler (Steve Guttenberg) discovers a plot by the organization to systematically murder 94 seemingly random ordinary men across 9 countries he alerts aging Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman (Olivier), who reluctantly agrees to begin looking into the plan. After three of them are killed across West Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States Lieberman visits each family and discovers all the mens' sons are identical in appearance and personality. The elaborate (and completely insane) plan is eventually revealed that the extracted DNA of Adolf Hitler has allowed Mengele and crew to essentially clone him then giving the babies up for adoption to various families across Europe and North America with similar family home lives as Hitler's own. The father is domineering, unfriendly, a civil servant of some kind considerably older than the mother who dotes on their son. The assassinations are all to take place one the son's same age that Hitler was when his father died. The plan is to hope than one or all the boys will turn out like the original Hitler. The biggest problem with the movie is that while it works well as a thriller and a mystery (we follow Lieberman along as he tracks down why these particular men are being murdered by a Nazi organization) it kind of falls apart when we discover the twist which, while incredibly inventive (although credit for this probably goes more to the novel it was based on), how laughably ridiculous and bizarre it all is. It's kind of hard to take the movie seriously as a result. Another thing is the hammy acting. The film has the tone of any other '70s thriller but some of the acting just comes across as bizarre and over the top, even from Peck. It got pretty hard to keep taking the movie seriously when Peck as Mengele (a real person responsible for some of the Nazis' worst crimes) said, "Shut up, you ugly b**ch." And it's more than Peck. Too many minor characters just don't act like regular people would in these situations. But if you can look past all of this The Boys From Brazil still works well enough as a thriller and you can still get some enjoyment out of it.

Mothers of America (1969)

Actually worse than I thought it was going to be.

[2/10 · 17 January 2020]

I had heard of Jesus Franco before through James Rolfe's review of the three Dracula vs. Frankenstein films (one of which he directed). I watched this film as a Rifftrax and I didn't expect it to be that good to begin with but The Girl From Rio is worse than the low budget trash I was expecting. The plot, assuming one could call it that, concerns a secret agent Jeff Sutton (Richard Wyler) who travels to Rio de Janeiro to do something concerning this war between a goofy British mobster Masius (George Sanders) and Sumuru (Shirley Eaton) who leads Femina, a city (supposedly in Brazil but we don't actually know) made up only of women who seek to dominate the world. If that sounds like a really bad story, don't worry because it is. Femina, which is made out to be a super city, seemingly consists of an office building and an airfield. None of the acting is really that good and like I said, there's barely any plot. It's pretty much all filler. In fact when the plot is invoked we don't know why we're supposed to care. You feel that they forgot to fill you in on what you were supposed to know. We hardly know anyone's motivation. In addition the film is fairly boring as well. I didn't expect quality cinema but I at least expected to be entertained. But with all the filler in place of plot that The Girl From Rio has I found that difficult. Watch the Rifftrax. This film has no redeeming qualities otherwise.

Rat Pfink and Boo Boo (1966)

Unlike anything I've ever seen before.

[6/10 · 14 January 2020]

Until a few days ago I hadn't heard of Ray Dennis Steckler. I was surfing IMDb when I came across Rat Pfink a Boo Boo. Before I saw this film I watched The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies (on Mystery Science Theater 3000) and thought it unusually ambitious for an obviously independent film. Even still I was little prepared for what I would see when I began watching Rat Fink a Boo Boo (the random letter A in the middle of the title I can only think is the result of a typo). Cee Bee Beaumont (Carolyn Brandt) is a Los Angeles woman and member of the '60s California beach scene with her boyfriend Lonnie Lord (Ron Haydock), a rock or blues or country singer. This Beach Boys type stuff hits a rut when Cee Bee is kidnapped by a group of criminals who randomly picked her from the phone book. After a few creepy phone calls (which she does little about) she is kidnapped from her home, her gardener Titus (Titus Moede) being beaten up by the thugs. Lonnie arrives at Cee Bee's house and then gets a call asking for a ransom which he is unable to pay. When Titus asks what is to be done, Lonnie declares that there is only one solution; to dress up as superheroes and fight crime, a seemingly completely out of the blue decision. Now that the two have donned superhero gear they pursue the thugs who kidnapped Cee Bee. The film is very inconsistent in the tone. The opening scene is pretty serious stuff with a woman being cornered and robbed, then it abruptly transitions to lighthearted scenes of Lonnie and Cee Bee frolicking around Los Angeles and the parties they seem to frequent. Then it gets serious again when Cee Bee is kidnapped by some pretty violent and degenerate thugs. Then, without any real natural transition, it becomes a goofy parody of the Adam West Batman TV show of the time, with all kinds of wacky shenanigans going on. We've got one of the bad guys get tricked into climbing into a dumpster to find himself incapable of leaving, we've got a scene where that same villain helps Rat Pfink fix his watch, we've got a gorilla and...yeah it's pretty out there. It's like if David Lynch and Ed Wood got together and decided to make two different movies at the same time which were then cobbled up together. From some research I've noticed that Steckler seems to have a cult following and it's actually not that hard to see why. As weird as this film is it's still pretty entertaining, very ambitious, and even somewhat competently made for what it is. I even got some legitimate laughs out of it. While not for everyone I oddly recommend it in a way because it's not like anything I've ever seen before and probably won't ever see again (unless from Steckler perhaps).

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964)

Fun B-Movie.

[3/10 · 12 January 2020]

I was unaware of Ray Dennis Steckler and this movie until today. I was surfing IMDb (as I like to do) when I came across Rat Pfink a Boo Boo from whence I came upon the film with the strangest title I had ever seen. The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies lives up to its title as a strange movie. From the little I have so far read of Steckler he easily seems like a model independent filmmaker and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (I like writing out the complete title so sue me) is at least entertaining in spite of it being a pretty bad film. Not really so bad it's good in a Plan 9 From Outer Space kind of way. Just bad. Shocking, I know. If you're in the mood for garbage, a good MST3K episode, or just want to see an admittedly fairly ambitious independent film then The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies might be just the movie for you.

'71 (2014)

Stunningly good thriller with an authentic eye of '70s Belfast to boot.

[9/10 · 11 January 2020]

In 1971, during the early stages of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Gary Hook (Jack O'Connell) is a young British soldier whose regiment is sent to Belfast to deal with the violence. On his second day he is sent to a Catholic Nationalist area to assist the RUC in a search for illegal weapons. The locals' protest soon devolves into a small but violent riot. In the confusion Hook's regiment accidentally leaves him behind. Hook finds himself a British soldier in a Republican area, hunted by the IRA as he makes his way through Belfast during a typical Northern Irish night of rioting, shooting, and bombing. '71 makes effective use of "shaky cam" to give a heightened sense of realism. The audience is kept on high alert, much like the characters. The riot scene in the beginning, while not nearly as graphic or gruesome, really reminds me of the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan. In addition to being an exceptional thriller '71 gives us a more than authentic view of the Troubles. Elements such as the sectarian division between Protestants and Catholics (the root of the conflict), the illicit collusion between British security forces and unionist paramilitaries, the constant threat of paramilitaries of both sides, and the common toll the Troubles took on the people of Northern Ireland are all explored with great authenticity without it becoming a documentary. It goes without saying but a good historical film has to maintain true to historical fact while remaining entertaining. As '71 is primarily a thriller rather than something like The Longest Day or Tora! Tora! Tora! one might assume that the film forgoes authenticity but it doesn't. '71 comes highly recommended both as a thriller and for anyone wanting a good movie about one of the most haunting chapters in recent British history.

Stalker (1979)

I just watched it but give me time to formulate my interpretation.

[9/10 · 10 January 2020]

We are not sure what the zone actually truly is. With the background we are given it was the site of an accident and is now closed off by the government of this unnamed country (though it likely somewhere in the Soviet Union or otherwise in Eastern Europe). The laws of reality do not seem to apply here. Within this already mysterious and peaceful yet eeire place there exists the Room, which is granted to grant one all that they desire. Stalker follows three men; a guide, a professor, and a writer who traverse the Zone, engaging in many philosophical debaes along the way. Like I said, I won't give my interpretation here. It'll take more thought for me to come up with one anyways. Whatever you think it means and whatever Andrei Tarkovsky's own view was, Stalker is a slow moving beautiful film. From the philiosphy laden dialogue, to the cinematography, to the soundscape there is much to take in in this Russian masterpiece.

I Was Born, But... (1932)

A movie from a child's perspective.

[9/10 · 10 January 2020]

In some ways I Was Born, But... is kind of like a '30s Japanese version of those '80s American kids movies like The Goonies, Stand by Me, E.T., and such. The Yoshi family has just moved to a suburb outside Tokyo where father Chichi (Tatsuo Saito) has taken a new job in an office. Our protagonists are his two sons Keiji (Tomio Aoki) and Ryoichi (Hideo Sugawara). They both idolize their father but have trouble in adapting to life in a new place. After learning that Chichi isn't the important person they thought he was they have a cow. Yasujio Ozu made movies mainly about ordinary, every day people in Japan as they go through their trials and tribulations. With I Was Born, But... he gives perspective to young kids. The film is largely seen through their eyes as they come to grips that, while certainly not destitute, they have a less than ideal life. The film also points out the difficulty of any child trying to make new friends and adapting to a new school in a new location. As someone whose family moved regularly, I appreciated that theme. One of Ozu's earlier great films and it deserves to be seen more widely.