Maniacal Movie Poster Monday #16!

After enjoying Thor in theaterth thith weekend...er, theaterS thiS weekend...I thought we'd take a look at our usual three movie posters for the week with a superhero theme in mind...but maybe not quite so mainstream or high quality...




The Three Fantastic Supermen  (21st Century Distribution, 1976)

This Italian flick made the rounds of American theaters in 1976, but the movie had actually been made in 1967 in Italy! Now that's exploitation!




Mister Superinvisible  (K-Tel International Corporation, 1973)

Yes, you read correctly - this 1970 Spanish Disney rip-off with borrowed star Dean Jones was brought to America for release by K-Tel three years later - the same K-Tel that gave the world all those music compilation albums in the 70's. The same K-Tel owned by Mr. Ron Popeil, inventor (or at least distributor) of the Pocket Fisherman and the Smokeless Ashtray back in the day, and the Ronco Rotisserie and the Solid Flavor Injector in the past few years! And boy did Ron and company want you to think this was a Disney movie, even going so far as to conduct a sweepstakes with a Disney vacation as the prize - all in the hopes that seeing the movie's title and the word Disney together in any way would make you believe Walt's company had something to do with this dubbed slapstick nonsense. Here's that poster as a bonus:

But after those two attacks hit America from foreign soil - we hit back. Boy howdy did we hit back!





KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park 
(aka KISS in Attack of the Phantoms) (Hanna-Barbera Productions, 1978)

It seems kiddie production company Hanna-Barbera had a deal to make movies for NBC TV in the 1970's. Somehow, they company execs managed to pitch this flick to the members of KISS as "A Hard Day's Night meets Star Wars." The movie is many things. It is neither of those or any combination of them. It is a big goofy TV movie level flick where the band members are superheroes thanks to four magical talismen they own, which either very coincidentally match up with their makeup personas, or which gave them the ideas for the makeup personas. But I almost sorta digress. Ace Frehley can teleport himself and others. Peter Criss has cat-like powers. Paul Stanley can shoot a laser beam out of the eye surrounded by the star makeup. And Gene Simmons can breathe fire and fly like a demon/dragon sort of thing. They are hired to play a concert at a theme park, but run afoul of the evil Abner Deveraux (the great Anthony Zerbe, doing more for the flick than it does for him) and his evil robot doubles of the group. Eventually the world is made safe for neverending replays of Rock and Roll All Night and Beth. As actors, the band members flounder to a one. At least there's lots of KISS music to fall back on, right? Nah, not that much, really. Thankfully for domestic KISS fans the movie aired on NBC as promised on Saturday October 28th, 1978. Sadly for European fans we sent this over as a feature film so they could, you know, pay money to see it and stuff. I think this may be where America started to be hated in the rest of the world.



And three times - that's the kind of superhero movie they just don't make any more...




Thank goodness!




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

Hammer Time!

Thor  (Paramount, 2011)

Before the Camera:

Chris Hemsworth  (Star Trek)
Natalie Portman  (Mars Attacks)
Tom Hiddleston  (TV's Wallander)
Anthony Hopkins  (The Road to Wellville)         <-----I worked on that one!
Stellan Skarsgård  (The Hunt for Red October)
Kat Dennings  (The House Bunny)
Clark Gregg  (Iron Man)
Idris Elba  (TV's Luther)
Colm Feore  (Storm of the Century)
Ray Stevenson  (Punisher: War Zone)
Tadanobu Asano  (Walking Home)
Josh Dallas  (The Descent Part 2)
Jaimie Alexander  (Rest Stop)
Rene Russo  (Lethal Weapon 3)
Adriana Barraza  (Drag Me to Hell)
and
Stan Lee (Thor's comics co-creator)
as
Stan the Man


and look fast for:

J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5 creator and recent Thor comic writer)



Behind the Camera:

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Produced by Kevin Feige, Victoria Alonso, Mike Bodkin, Louis D'Esposito, Debra James, Craig Kyle, Stan Lee, David Maisel, and Patricia Whitcher


Written by Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz and Don Payne

Story by J. Michael Straczynski and Mark Protosevich

Thor created for Marvel Comics by Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, and Jack Kirby


Marvel Studios adds another thread to the giant superhero tapestry they started creating with Iron Man in 2008. This time the Asgardian warrior Thor is the focus. In the original Marvel Comics run in the early 1960's, Thor was actually Dr. Donald Blake, a limping physician who discovers a strange walking stick in a cave in Norway. When he strikes the cane on the ground, it transforms into a mighty war hammer and Don Blake becomes Thor, a superhero version of the Norse god of thunder. After running with this premise for a while, Lee decided to bring in the actual Norse mythology to the story to give himself more writing fodder and the story more scope. So, the book's setup was altered - as the story was revised, Donald Blake was not a real human - he was a creation of Thor's father Odin, who had exiled his son from the wondrous land of Asgard to Earth to learn humility. Odin sapped Thor's power and blanked his memory, letting him believe he was a human physician (a practicing one, mind you! Odin doesn't do things in half measures!) Eventually Odin drew Thor-as-Blake to Norway to find his war hammer Mjolnir (Mee-yole'-neer) and allow him to slowly regain his godly power while balancing his heroics with his human life. Of course, nearly fifty years of different writers have added and subtracted from the story and the origin, but that's the basics of the character in comics.
    The movie adheres pretty closely to the second origin, with Donald Blake only getting a little lip service and serving as a plot device briefly. We start out in the Southwest in the modern day, right near the place where the little sequence after the end credits in Iron Man 2 took place. (You did know that all of these Marvel comics movies starting with Iron Man have little teaser scenes after the end credits, right?)



Asgardian antics a go go...

 Thor falls to Earth, but just as he is discovered by Jane Foster (Portman) - Blake's nurse and mostly unfulfilled love interest in the comics - now an astrophysicist (!) - and her pals Dr. Selvig (Skarsgård) and Darcy (Dennings), we suddenly back up to ancient Norse history, to establish the connection between those people and the fabled land of Asgard, realized marvelously on screen, with all of the scope and grandeur Lee and Lieber wrote about and that Kirby drew so magnificently in the comics. We meet Odin (a perfectly cast Hopkins, bringing all his Shakespearean weight to bear on the character), his wife Frigga (Russo - not a lot to do, but nice to see her), and his sons Thor (Hemsworth) and Loki (Hiddleston). Blond Thor is a brash warrior, a chip off the old block, whereas Loki is quieter, more studied. They couldn't be more different, and with good reason as it eventually turns out.

After some Asgardian drama and some gorgeous battle scenes that include the comics' Lady Sif (Alexander) and the Warriors Three - Fandral (Dallas), Hogun (Asano), and Volstagg (Stevenson), Thor commits a grave error that puts Asgard on the brink of war. An incensed Odin casts him out, and we are back to the start of the movie. The next section details Thor's journey of self-discovery as a human on Earth alongside Loki's journey of self-discovery back in Asgard; and it is Loki's findings that prove the most surprising, and leave him poised to serve as the villain of the piece...


The son of Odin approaches the Destroyer, hoping to give him a Thor-ough thrashing.

   
    I was not a huge fan of Thor as a kid, preferring Spider-Man and the Hulk to the Asgardian warrior. But as I got older the character began to appeal to me more, especially as clever writers like Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, and Walt Simonson built on the framework layed out in the early issues by bringing in more of the mythology and mixing it with the superheroics and even cosmic angst. I found this flick to be a solid addition to the Marvel pantheon of the last couple of years, not as good as the first Iron Man, but on a par with that film's sequel and The Incredible Hulk - very good, not great. Kenneth Branagh may seem a strange choice to handle such an effects and stunts laden mashup, but those things are handled by other department heads anyway, and it's Branagh's flair for the drama of Shakespeare that serves him and the film very well indeed. I think it also helped the movie draw in a stellar cast - and they are all terrific. Hemsworth is well cast as Thor, a character not seen much before in live-action, with only Eric Allan Kramer's pudgy Viking from the TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns not making this much of a contest. The other actors are all fine, and the ones with comics counterparts mostly all look the part, even if they're a little different (an Asian Hogun?) A special shout out must go to Idris Elba, who is marvellous as Asgard's peerless gatekeeper Heimdall. Heimdall never seems to get to do all that much, but he remains one of my favorite characters from the comics, and Elba infuses him with power and dignity and makes the smallish role crucial to the film. The production design and costumes do a fine job invoking the feel of the comic book without being too cartoony, and the special effects are marvellous throughout.


Turns out Mjolnir can be used to stop fire ants too.

    The story handles the always-difficult origin story with panache, giving us a goodly dose of Asgardian action before stranding Thor on Earth. Even during that middle section, a subplot with Marvel's spy group SHIELD attempting to discover the mysteries of Mjolnir keeps the plot boiling, and covers nicely until Loki's machinations send the Asgardian Destroyer robot to Earth, which then leads to the film's climax.     The film is available in both 3-D and 2-D. I checked out the 3-D, and it was obviously added in post-production, making it fairly skippable in the format, especially if the extra charge "for the glasses" is a hindrance. But I am a sucker for the depth of the format, even when added as an afterthought on the backside, so there you go.
    And of course, there is a stinger scene (with you-know-who once again popping up) after the end credits that sets up some events that will be seen in the next Marvel movie - Captain America: The First Avenger, due out July 22nd, which will then lead us into The Avengers - the supergroup movie which will bring together Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. Oooo, looking forward to that one!

But in the meantime, Thor is on the Big Screen now, and if you enjoy a rollicking superhero flick now and again, I can heartily recommend this one, so check it out!
 
 
 
Let's Get Out of Here ?
 
One viewing in the theater has once again left me unsure, but it seems I must have heard it in there somewhere...more research is again necessary...
 
 
 
Eye Candy ?
 
Natalie Portman just doesn't send me. Sorry, Nat.
 
 
 
Jaimie Alexander, however, rocks some Asgard armor pretty well, so she's in!

 


 
But the clear winner here is Kat Dennings, seen below at the premiere and then just generally looking va-va-voom. Welcome to the list Ms Dennings!
 
 
 

 
 

 
Yowza!
 
 
 

Buddha Man's Capsule Review



Buddha Man says "For superhero fans, Thor should not be mythed!"

 Thank you Buddha Man! And that wraps this one up! Til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Saturday Night at the Movies! 5/7/11

Who cares what picture we see?




Ralph Bakshi certainly would, so we'll just pick this little epic:



    I first saw Wizards thanks to my brother Blake - yes, Blake Edwards, and no, not that one - anyhoo, Blake, who'd seen it in the theater in 1977, no doubt. He took me to a revival theater showing it in St. Louis Missouri where he was attending college during a visit, probably around 1980 or theareabouts - and I was wowed. I then saw the movie several more times on Showtime when it aired later that year or the next. Then a few years after that it came out on VHS, and I rented it to show my movie pal Brad, and we didn't have a good time at all with it, so I marked it as one of those "liked it long ago; doesn't hold up" flicks and went on with my life.

    Then, decades later, in a fit of nostalgia, I picked up the DVD because it was in the sale bin and was a loaded special edition. I watched it again a year or so ago, and found myself enchanted with it again...isn't that strange? But I look on it now as a wonderful post-60's hippy lightshow great-drugs-were-ingested-in-the-making-of-it time capsule of the late 70's. Interesting story - 20th Century Fox were very much behind this little flick, pushing it as a major release in the early spring of 1977. But, they also had, right around the same time, this other little sci-fi flick they had never been behind and which they fully expected to tank...let's see...it was called...oh, that's right. STAR WARS. And when GL's space opera went through the roof, RB's animated fantasy got yanked off the screens it had been playing on for a while to give Star Wars a wider playing field. As a result, Wizards kind of tanked (it might have anyway - it's a little out there for Mr. and Mrs. Middle Aged Suburbia, admittedly) and Bakshi was left out in the cold.

    But that special edition DVD sits ready to give Mr. Bakshi some love anytime, like even tonight if you care to come by...

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

Buddha Man Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach

Hold everything! The golden movie critic is dropping in on Miami Beach for an all new review (or two)!

Two for two, pleasing for me, pleasing for you.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage  (Universal Marion Corporation, 1970)  Sam (Tony Musante - TV's Toma), an American writer on an extended sabbatical to Italy, is nearing the end of his time in Rome and preparing to head back to the States. Then, one night on the way back to his loft he sees a murder attempt in an art gallery he's passing - the wife of the owner of the gallery; a sinister man in a raincoat and black leather gloves - but Sam ends up powerless to do anything - locked in between a double set of glass doors while trying to go in to help. The injured woman survives, but the man in the raincoat makes his escape. The police say that she is the first surviving victim of a notorious serial killer. The police detective in charge of the case gloms onto Sam's passport, preventing him from leaving the country. But as their investigation runs into dead end after dead end, Sam, with nothing else to do, decides to investigate on his own, turning up several clues - painting a big target on his own back, and that of his girlfriend (Suzy Kendall - Darker Than Amber) as the crazed killer keeps on claiming victims. Will they be able to stay alive long enough to solve the mystery?

Sam always picked the wrong time to show off his mime routine.

Dario Argento's first film as writer and director is a stylish thriller (of course) that got him pegged as "The Next Hitchcock," which is kind of funny, because at that time we weren't done with the first one - who still had a couple of flicks (one a classic - Frenzy) left in him. But, the Master was quoted after seeing this film as saying "that Italian fellow is starting to make me nervous," which they used in the American trailer. And while it is a clever and confident flick, it's missing a little of the sturm und drang Argento would bring to his later movies - the graphic violence, the psychosexual kinks of the killer (and the hero), the almost unbearable suspense of some of the stalking sequences - this is kind of 'Argento Lite.' Don't get me wrong - this is required viewing - you always need to see how an artist like Argento has grown by checking out his first - but he really hit his stride for me with Profondo Rosso (Deep Red). In the meantime, get to watching this one!





Challenge of the Tiger  (Dragon Film Company, 1981)  Bruce Le, whose stage name might have been chosen to make viewers think he was someone else, stars in and directs this chopsocky epic. Le (Salt, Pepper, and Soy Sauce) and Richard Harrison (Terminal Force) star as two guys. Someone has a "formula." Other people want it. Some villains attack Le, who fends them off with his kung fu; he then runs over and breaks up Harrison's topless tennis game with several young women to enlist his help. After that they walk around various parts of Hong Kong getting attacked every few minutes. Eventually everyone in the cast kicks someone. And that's pretty much it. Definitely no plot getting in the way of the story here.

"If I'm not supposed to grab you like this, why are there handles here?"

The dubbing, usually atrocious in these movies is actually somehow worse here, as no one seems to be moving their mouths for the words not to match to. One very fun scene has Le and Harrison following the bad guys to some kind of convention hall, where tons of people stare at the camera as they are forced into being extras, and Le takes a moment to talk to Jack Klugman and Jane Seymour (?!?), and although we can't hear the conversations, it's obvious neither know who Le is or that he is shanghaiing them into his movie. Cinema gold! Another great scene pits Le against a bull for some meaty martial arts. Who wins? Well, at the end of the fight one of the two gets briefly represented by a little graphic of a cartoon that shows the skull cracking into pieces, and that's no bull! Er...well, I mean, yes, it is the bull...oh, you know what I mean!

Roger Moore-ish
Richard Harrison

Other than that, this is pretty standard issue kung fu nonsense, but it moves along pretty well, Le and Harrison have some chemistry together despite the dubbing, Le has entertainingly bad hair (a huge mop that makes him look like an angry housewife in some shots), and Harrison really looks like a mustached early 80's Roger Moore in any shot wider than a closeup. You can also spot Brad Harris (Kong Island) and Bolo Yeung (Enter the Dragon) in there somewhere. For these reasons alone I had a good time with this, if that sounds good to you give this one a try!  






With two positives behind us, let us part before we run into a negative. And always remember - twos are powerful - even Bela Lugosi only played Dracula twice on film.

The Video Vault of Mora Tau 5/5/11!

It is indeed time to delve deep into the Video Vault of Mora Tau, and see what we can find to delight our eyes and ears...


I know, at first I was just thinking - could there be a clip that features Barbi Benton, Bert Convy, AND Herve Villechaize? Lo and behold...

Thank you Fantasy Island!


Then I started thinking this is 5/5...maybe I should try to find five lovely ladies in clip form...


And while we were on the subject of ABC shows with hotties from the 70's/80's, let's run with that and see what else we might find...

Well that got us Brenda Sykes and Suzanne Somers....

Let's go for a hat trick and see if we can score two more lovely ladies working for a living on the American Broadcasting Company...that'll mean cinco mujeres por Cinco de Mayo...MUY BUENO!



Okay, there we go - Phyliss Davis and Judy Landers! 1,2,3,4,5!

Done! Finished!

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

Maniacal Movie Poster Monday #15!

We're back to our regularly scheduled blog now, and it's that time again - time to start the work week with visions of three movie posters floating in your short term memory...



Forbidden World  (New World Productions, 1982)

The Land That Time Forgot  (American International, 1975)

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins  (Orion, 1985)

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

Happy May Day!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge has reached its end - just in time for a little secular holiday magic! So let's celebrate May Day with a little video clip, what do you say?

(I hope you'll have the good Grace not to mention my Jones for this series...)

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