Star what now?– A smoking hot chick in a bikini, a robot named Larry the Cable Guy and a guy with a perm to die for, go in search of Princess David Hasselhoff, who is the son of Christopher Plummer, the Emperor of the First Circle of the Universe. Stop laughing. It’s STARCRASH, a film which outright plagiarizes STAR WARS … Read More
THE RUTLES
The Ballad of Eric and Innes. Better than wishing for the Beatles to reform, better than any Beatles tribute band, and definitely better than Jesus, Eric Idle‘s THE RUTLES is a brilliant, hilarious, underappreciated pastiche of the rise and fall of The Beatles. Written and co-directed by Idle (of Monty Python) and starring Idle as a roving reporter and as … Read More
INTERIORS
The Artistic Mind is a Terrible Thing to View. The scenes show what interesting characters the characters are – but it also shows what an interesting character Quentin is. — Christoph Waltz, 2013 interview for DJANGO UNCHAINED. Writer-director Woody Allen‘s early work certainly has two main gears: dark and absurd. The absurd gear drives comedies like SLEEPER, LOVE AND DEATH, … Read More
THE WIZ
If you’re thinkin’ of being my remake, it don’t matter if you’re black or white. Took brass balls to remake the legendary WIZARD OF OZ – or maybe just black balls. The pinky-white euphemism “urban” doesn’t disguise THE WIZ for what it is – a black version of THE WIZARD OF OZ. It’s what the original WIZARD OF OZ desperately … Read More
HALLOWEEN
Carving Teen on Halloween. Arguably the first Senseless Knife-Kill flick; arguably the first “serial murder” movie mislabeled as “horror”; arguably the only movie to ever use a Captain Kirk mask to scare people. Intentionally rather than accidentally. HALLOWEEN is historical; like FRIDAY THE 13TH and a handful of seminal horror movies that spawned an unstoppable tide of sequels, it has … Read More
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS 1978
Communist Plants in Skeletal Pants. Not the original movie, but probably the best. Director Philip Kaufman’s 1978 INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS remakes Don Siegel’s 1956 movie of the same name, from the 1955 book by Jack Finney. And it is terrifying: Jeff Goldblum’s scarecrow-skinny xylophone ribcage, Donald Sutherland’s style-less white-fro, Veronica Cartwright’s pre-ALIEN whining – oh, and some spores … Read More
JAWS 2
New Shark, Old Story. We know what’s going to happen: you go in the water – you get eaten. Pretty much. A comedian once noted that reporters of shark attacks always sound surprised: “A man was attacked by a shark at the beach today!” Well, how surprising can it be if sharks live in the water? As Quint (Robert Shaw) … Read More
THE DRIVER
Emotionless Motion. Taking McQueen’s BULLITT (1968) car-chase scene to its extremities, here is a movie ALL ABOUT the car chases. With a funny little plot thrown in for good measure. Originally written for McQueen, Ryan O’Neal (known simply as The Driver, a professional getaway car driver) does a bangup job of emotionless motion – yet imagining McQueen in the role … Read More
EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE
American Knuckle Sandwich. A street fighter. A love story. An ape. Disguised as a simplistic road story, EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE is a paean to freedom; freedom from the strictures of routine, freedom to settle disputes like a man (If the problem can’t be fixed with a fist or a monkey wrench, it ain’t worth fixin’), freedom to fight … Read More
SUPERMAN
One Part Steel, Two Parts Cheese. This movie did for Superman what KING OF KINGS did for Jesus – burned an iconic image of a fictional god into world consciousness. And the Word was made Flesh. And the Flesh was Christopher Reeve. So unknown at the time of his casting that he might as well have been from Krypton, Reeve … Read More
CAPRICORN ONE
Idiotic fodder for Moon Landing conspiracy theorist idiots. As a child in Australia, I remember seeing posters for CAPRICORN ONE: the visage of the lone, space-suited astronaut, movie title scrawled across his glare-shield. Something foreboding and sobering about that poster had me believing (as I attained full cucumberhood) that the film was one of the all-time greats, placed alongside A … Read More