The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - H is for The Howling!

Saturday Night at the Movies! 4/9/11


Who cares what picture we see?


Slim Pickens does...and it's no entertainment slim pickins when...

H is for The Howling!

Okay, that trailer has some spoiler action going on - but we're talking about a thirty year old movie, and that's the trailer they were selling the movie with back in the day - so there you go! It's a truly wonderful frightflick with a love for the genre and the classics that came before - and it has a sterling cast too. Of the two werewolf movies that came out close together around this time - the other not even getting a namecheck here (that's what the internet is for, after all!) - this is my pick. The other movie does hold a special place in my heart - it was the movie I took my first date to see - yes, I knew how to wow the women even then - but this movie is the one I'll watch anytime - like maybe tonight, if you care to come over...anyone know if the moon's full tonight...? *gulp*


Til next time we meet, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - G is for Gary Busey!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge rolls forward, and today we have to acknoweldge the blog's Good Luck Charm - the man who promotes motorcycle helmet safety better than anyone in the world...yes,

G is for Gary Busey!

Sadly, Gary couldn't be here with us today - so let's review one of his movies instead...take it away, Buddha Man!

Diary of a Serial Killer (Image Entertainment, 1998) Gary Busey (TV's I'm With Busey), Arnold Vosloo (Darkmans II and III), and Michael Madsen (Die Another Day) star in this low budget thriller. Busey plays Nelson, the kind of journalist so committed (or needing to be committed) he'll go on a several week alcohol binge or throw on a wig and dress to write articles "through the eyes" of alcoholics and crossdressers. When he accidentally stumbles across one of serial killer Stefan's murders, it looks bad for Nelson, until Stefan (Vosloo) decides he'd like the journalist to start a new project: "Through the Eyes of a Killer." As he puts the nutjob off as best he can, Busey tries to contact cop Madsen several times, but the creepy Vosloo has a way of turning up each time and stopping him. Eventually, Stefan forces Nelson along for one of his killings and then starts eyeing Busey's girlfriend (Julia Campbell - my old buddy from The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics) as a potential victim. Will Nelson be able to stop Stefan, or having seen through the eyes of the killer, will he be corrupted into a life of murder?

Not a single woman was harmed, or indeed, photographed, for this picture.

This one turned out okay, carried along more by the cast than anything else. In terms of their performances, all three actors add to this movie, but Vosloo is 100% into his role, Busey is 90-95%, and Madsen is his usual 70% or so. Busey seems a tiny bit uncomfortable as the hero, and it might have been interesting if he and Vosloo had switched parts. Madsen simply always seems a little bored, and weirdly, he just disappears from the movie in a way that more suggests behind the scenes strife than coherent screenwriting. There's not a whole lot of objectionable material happening here in terms of gore or nudity, so this one might also come off a bit TV movie-ish, so I can only really recommend it to fans of the stars or serial killer kompletists.




Yeah, he's a little out there - and you have to watch your endocrine system around him...but we like having him around. Here's a quick clip from the amazing series I'm With Busey that shows why.

And that will sprinkle us with victory powder for the night! Til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - F is for The Falling!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge is upon us still, and today we discover that despite our best efforts, we're all getting an F for this one....yes, that's right...

F is for The Falling!

The Falling - aka - Alien Predators  (Continental Motion Pictures Corporation, 1987)

Before the Camera:

Dennis Christopher  (Fade to Black)

Lynn-Holly Johnson  (For Your Eyes Only)

Martin Hewitt  (Endless Love)

Luis Prendes  (Tuareg: The Desert Warrior)

J.O. Bosso  (only movie)

Yousaf Bokhari  (Iguana)

Yolanda Palomo  (only movie)

Christina Augustin  (only movie)

Christina San Juan  (Soup for One)
Pablo García  (El Jardinero)
and
Carlos Ramírez  (only movie)
as
The Gas Station Attendant



Behind the Camera:

Directed by Deran Serafian

Produced by Carlos Aured, Eduardo Rossoff, Deran Sarafian, Eduard Sarlui, Michael Sourapas, Helen Sarlui, and an uncredited Edward L. Montoro

Written by Deran Serafian and Noah Blogh  (based on original screenplay "Massacre at R.V. Park") (?)



For his second film as writer/director, the ever eclectic Deran Serafian mashes up some youth comedy with sci-fi horror and gives us...kind of a mess, actually. Damon (Christopher), Samantha (Johnson), and Michael (Hewitt) are three "youths" (all three were hovering just around thirty years of age) careening through Spain in a big RV. It doesn't take long for us to discover that they're all pretty goofy as characters, with Damon lusting for Sam, who's lusting for Michael, who's lusting to drive a car real fast (?) The Plot drops in, literally, as Spacelab falls to Earth coincidentally just ahead of the path they're taking through Spain. We then crosscut between the silly antics of the "kids" and the scientists checking out the smashed remains of the space station, which turn out to be scorching with some alien microbes that promptly set about taking over the humans and animals nearby, turning them into lurching zombie looking beasties. The microbes grow inside the bodies too, so when they occasionally burst open you get some nice slimy spidery lizardy animatronics. Eventually our star trio drives into the town where the outbreak has spread, and soon their vacation has turned to a trip into terror. And silly jokes, as the goofy side of the script never stops trying to balance the slime and gore with humor, jarringly. Who will survive and what will be left of them?


Now that's an offbrand wiper blade right there.

I first saw this flick on VHS under the title Alien Predators in the early 90's. Seeing it now in widescreen thanks to MGM/HD under its other, more pretentious title, I gotta say...meh. The three leads are not given that much to work with, as from moment to moment they're called on to banter lightly back and forth; give heartfelt monologues striving for drama; run screaming; or shriek at a gory special effect as one of the critters splortches forth from some poor sod. Consequently, you can't really identify with them, especially as the script has them fall back to the silly side even after they realize alien monsters are trying to kill them. I have always liked Christopher and Johnson, but they're just not showcased well here. I hope the trip to Spain was a blast for them in any case. Back at the movie, it is not helped by the low budget, first by only having three known actors in the cast (look how many people in that cast list up there did no other film work). And by the way - that cast list is the whole cast. All of them. That's all the speaking parts in the movie, though there might be a couple of extras here and there. The creature effects are pretty well done, but they can't manhandle this thing across the entertainment finish line all by themselves, and they get no help at all from the lack of production values, lack of visual effects, wobbly supporting cast acting; schizophrenic lead acting, indifferent direction, or poor scripting. You know what that means, right? Skip this one every day, and twice on Sunday!





Let's Get Out of Here ?

Around 29:20, Martin Hewitt has finished breakfast. And then around 1:25:00, Lynn-Holly Johnson wishes she was back on the Bond movie.
 
 
 
 
 
Eye Candy ?

She's certainly not the greatest actress in the world, and she's not given much of a chance to be hot in this movie, but gosh darn it, Lynn-Holly Johnson's pretty cute, so she's in!

Buddha Man's Capsule Review



Buddha Man says "Whether you call it The Falling or
Alien Predators, don't bother calling it at all."




You said it, BM. Til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - E is for Eleanor!

It's a Buddha Man Quickie!


The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge continues apace - and today I'm feeling special, since one of my very own initials is providing our theme for the day - but it's not about me today - it's time to pay attention to a special lady - she hails from Detroit, and she has quite the classy chassis, because this time:

E is for Eleanor!

Gone in 60 Seconds (H.B. Halicki Mercantile Company, 1974) H. B. "Toby" Halicki took a love for cars and turned it first into a successful business running scrapyards and dealing in auto parts, then turned that into a career making movies. And surprise! The movies are all about cars! This is his first. In it, Halicki proves to be quite the Renaissance man as he writes, produces, directs, stars in, and performs driving stunts in this flick. He plays the wonderfully named Maindrian Pace, a go-getting insurance investigator who uses that job to cover his real career - car thief. Knowing all the tricks, he finds a lot of stolen cars for his company - but when he investigates certain cases, he mysteriously comes up empty and the company is forced to pay off. As the flick gets going, Pace is given what seems to be an impossible order - a South American drug lord offers Pace $400,000.00 to steal 48 specific models of cars to be delivered within five days. The first half of the movie deals with the setup and the execution of this crazy heist. Then, thanks to an informer, the cops show up, and the second half of the movie turns into one of the longest car chases in movie history - with Halicki doing his own stunt driving behind the wheel of "Eleanor," a yellow 1973 Ford Mustang - and with no CGI or doubled cars - it's quite a chase indeed as Eleanor takes her lumps trying to evade the Po-Po.




It's refreshing to see a movie actress who lets her appearance go in a movie when the script calls for it...



A lot of people have gotten up the gumption and thrown together enough money to make a movie all on their own, with their own ideas for the script, and their friends and family helping out. And most of those movies bite, and are now episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. But then there's this movie - low budget for sure, rough around all the edges, with acting that ranges from decent to nonexistent and a script that was reportedly only worked out in scene outline form and ad-libbed from there. But you know what - this is a kickass movie! A lot of reviews online complain about the first half of the movie - that only the chase is worth watching. Wrong. The first fifty minutes are pretty cool - with some amusing subplots in the different car thefts, some terrible 70's fashions, and a cameo from Nascar star Parnelli Jones and his Big Oly Bronco truck, targeted by the gang for theft. So, while this flick was never designed to win awards, it was engineered to be a perennial drive-in classic, which it definitely is. So jump in your car, evade the police, and track this flick down so you can check this one out!





But in addition to pointing out the fun of watching the movie, we're also here to celebrate the female lead of the picture, so here she is in her pre-chase glory:

I'm not a gearhead by any means, but I do get a charge out of a good movie or TV car, so yeah, I've got a bit of a crush on Miss Elly.

But I am not her only suitor, oh no! She has impressed scads of people over the years. She's been immortalized as a die cast model:

And even after finishing out this movie in less than pristine shape - ol' Eleanor can still bring in the crowds, as she has made appearances at car shows all over the country - here's how she's looking these days:

 
 
Eleanor is really quite a lady. I know she's not the Ms. Rigby the Beatles were singing about - but do you suppose she might have inspired Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman when they wrote their Turtles hit Elenore, even though it's spelled differently and was written six years before Gone in 60 Seconds was made? Yeah, me too.
 
 
 
Til next we meet, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - D is for Doc Martin!

Any old Portwenn it's storming...

One of the most well rounded letters we're examining in The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge is the letter D, and for that we're going to see if the doctor is in...because...

D is for Doc Martin!

Let's take a look at a British TV show you really should be watching...


I had seen this DVD set in my local Moviestop store - one of my favorite haunts to add more discs to the Video Vault, which occasionally calls out "Feed Me Seymour!" Really. In any case, this is what I saw:

Something about the image and the look on the guy's face prompted me to pick up the box and read it - and I thought the show sounded interesting. However, as a lot of DVD box sets are, this one was pretty expensive, especially for a British show that would probably run 6-8 episodes. So I moved on that day.

This has little to do with the show, I just
thought the post needed more pictures in it.

Several months later my wondrous wife Suz and I had settled into a tradition on our Saturdays: Brit Nite. (Spelled just that way, at least in my head.) We start around 5 in the evening, always opening with an episode of Classic Doctor Who - then proceed through 3 or 4 other series - some favorites have included As Time Goes By, The IT Crowd, Coupling, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Last of the Summer Wine, Spaced, and Life on Mars. Around 8-9, the evening turns over to British mystery for the rest of the night.



Again, just a placeholder picture.



I found Doc Martin on Netflix, and programmed it in to the early part of a Brit Nite to see what it was like. Doctor Martin Ellingham (Martin Clunes - Men Behaving Badly) is a brilliant medical diagnostician and surgeon who has developed a rather large flaw: he cannot stand the sight of blood, growing physically ill and sometimes even fainting when confronted with anything larger than a very small cut. This of course is quite the sticky wicket for a surgeon, and Ellingham is forced to give up his thriving London practice.

Maybe I'll teach a course in corporate
logos sometime.

He retreats to his boyhood hometown of Portwenn, taking over as the new town General Practitioner (GP) after the former doctor dies. He soon discovers that the town is filled with what could generously be called "characters," and tersely termed "loons." And terse is the route Ellingham is likely to take, as the villagers soon learn that the good doctor is, as the Amazon description of season one describes: "surly, tactless, self-centered, and uptight—but he’s the only doctor in town." Doctor Ellingham knows his job very well, but interactions with people are definitely not his strong suit. The series plays out as he and the village circle each other warily and always at arm's length.





I discovered that the character of Doc Martin was originally created in a slightly different form for the movie Saving Grace, written by Craig Ferguson (yes, of The Late Show with) and Mark Crowdy. There he was called Martin Bamford and was again played by Clunes. Two TV movies followed, with the character still called Bamford. After those movies television writer Dominic Minghella took the character of Bamford to rework and build a series around him.


Craig Ferguson



It's a terrific show, and for so many reasons. Clunes is terrific as Ellingham; a man who does not suffer fools lightly and has a sharp tongue ready to lash out with at a moment's notice. But when there's a life or death medical situation before him, there's no one better to handle it. The supporting cast is equally excellent, with Caroline Catz as local school teacher Louisa; Stephanie Cole (Waiting for God) as Martin's Aunt Joan; Stewart Wright as Police Constable Mylow; and Ian McNiece (Churchill with Matt Smith's Doctor) as local plumber Bert Large. There are other recurring characters, and all are uniformly well played by the veddy British cast.








Another huge factor in how much I enjoy this show is the location - the town of Port Isaac in Cornwall stands in for Portwenn - an astoundingly beautiful fishing village - but don't take my word for it - see for yourself:

Breathtaking, isn't it?






Here's the cast:




Martin Clunes





Caroline Catz



Stephanie Cole

 



Ian McNiece and Joe Absolom



There have been four series of the show so far, with another scheduled to go into production this year. If you like any of the following things - English shows; medical dramas; beautiful seaside landscapes; or stupid people being called stupid - then you would probably enjoy this show and I definitely recommend you check it out!


Til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - C is for Crazy Movie Posters!

It's Maniacal Movie Poster Monday!


And since this post comes on day three (skipping Sundays) of the April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge, we're going with film titles starting with the letter C! That means:

C is for Crazy Movie Posters!

The Crater Lake Monster  (Crown International, 1977)



I have always been a sucker for stop motion dinosaur movies, so this one has been on my radar now for literally decades, but I've still not seen it - but it has been added to the Video Vault - I just haven't watched it yet.






Carry On Sergeant  (Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors, 1958)

This is a great poster for several reasons. This film kicked off a very popular series of Carry On movies in Great Britain, totalling thirty (!) flicks from 1958-1978. The series came back for one more in 1992, and there have been noises of another go at a Carry On film this century, although that has quieted with the passing of the producer, Peter Rogers in 2009. The top billed actor, William Hartnell, pictured on the poster, went on to play the first Doctor Who.





Cool Breeze  (MGM, 1972)

I haven't seen this Blaxploitation remake of The Asphalt Jungle - but I want to - it's got a great cast, Roger Corman's brother Gene in the producer chair, and a knockout poster!




And that will complete our "C" voyage. Til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - B is for Bond!

Saturday Night at the Movies! 4/2/11

Who cares what picture we see?
Nobody in particular I guess, as long as whatever it is has something B related in it so I can continue posting in The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge!

And that means I'm going to indulge one of my favorite things and bring on the Bond. James Bond.

B is for Bond!

Let's go back almost 25 years...to the 25th Anniversary Year for 007, in fact...

What I love about this trailer: it reuses a pretty funky version of the Bond theme written by forrmer Beatles' producer George Martin for Live and Let Die in 1973; it introduces Dalton pretty excitingly; it features (as does pretty much every version of a trailer for this flick) the horse riding guy carrying a rocket launcher sidesaddle - and the launcher seems to accidentally go off - flying off to the side of the battle and missing all the fun; and I have a particular fondness for the section of the trailer where they totally misrepresent what happens in the movie - you apparently see Bond cut free while climbing a rope - he falls - but lands on the top of a truck which is being driven by one of the baddies...luucky! And of course, that's not at all what happens in the movie - another agent is cut free, his body (a dummy) falls to its doom, and Bond chases the man responsible, ending up on the roof of his truck - but the trailer's version makes me laugh every time I see it!


We always get the poster in addition to the trailer - this time we're going with what's called the British Quad:

Another interesting new aspect of being a fan of movies is that there are other very talented fans out there who have the hobby of making new trailers for older movies in the current style of movie previews; and these can be shared online free of charge, keeping the copyright lawyers at bay. Here is a fun preview for The Living Daylights in the style of the two Daniel Craig 007 pictures:

So, The Living Daylights sits ready for watching in my collection - DVD only, no Blu-Ray release (yet!) - in case you want to drop by tonight to see it.

And til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!