| Author |
 Topic  |
|
Joe Blevins 
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
 Posted - 07/22/2009 : 03:57:24
|
"The thrill is gone, and the chill is on." - BIG JOE TURNER ("The Chill is On")
Not so fast, Mr. Turner. As far as this project is concerned, the thrill is on, and the chill is gone. We've already been through some chilling classics from Mill Creek Entertainment, but now it's time to explore a DVD set entitled After Dark Thrillers: 8 Movie Collection from the good folks at Crown International Pictures.
While the previous set cost me only $8 for 50 films, this particular set was a relatively pricey $10 for only 8 films. These distinctions are important when you're buying cinema in bulk. Layout-wise, these sets are very much alike: double-sided DVDs with two movies per side and no extras whatsoever. So what does the extra money get you? Well, the menus for After Dark Thrillers are a little bit fancier than those for 50 Chilling Classics, and I'm hoping the transfers will be a little better. We'll see. Anyway, here's the first movie:
1. Click: The Calendar Girl Killer (IMDb rating 2.2)
It's difficult to judge the quality of the transfer here, because Click: TCGK is pure straight-to-video sludge from 1990 and has that blurry, occasionally grainy look common to low-budget horror flicks of that era. It's presented 1.33:1 and looks passable, but not outstanding. My heart kind of broke during the film's first night scene when I realized that Click's darker, more shadowy sequences were going to have that same "speckled" look I'd seen so often during the previous project. The film's soundtrack was mostly clear, but again had a kind of muddy quality that I attributed mostly to the film itself and not the DVD. So we're not in the lap of luxury quite yet. Maybe this is as good as Click: TCGK is going to look and sound.
Movie veteran Ross Hagen stars in this one, as well as serving as co-director and co-writer. I know Hagen well from two 1960s motorcycle films, The Hellcats and The Sidehackers, both of which were memorably used on MST3K during its second season. (Please do read my short plays about them here and here.) In those films, Hagen was a leathery tough guy with a raspy voice and macho-yet-sensitive personality. It took me a few seconds to recognize him in Click because in the intervening decades he seems to have curiously shrunk -- all except his hair and his eyebrows. Hagen leaves behind his "strutting hero" persona to play Jack, an egomaniacal pin-up phtographer with a creepy fetish for weapons. Troy Donahue (not far away from doing Cry-Baby for John Waters) sort of co-stars as Jack's unwholesome accomplice/assistant, Alan. I say "sort of co-stars" because even though Donahue is prominently billed -- and even snags top billing in the closing credits -- the movie frequently forgets about his character, and he's absent for long periods of screen time.
In many ways, Click: TCGK encapsulates much of what was bad about the 1980s. The worst of the era's music, clothing, and hairstyles are on display here. There's a very seedy, desperate vibe to this picture that made me feel sorry for its cast members -- mainly big-haired bimbos and oily hunks -- who probably came to Hollywood with big dreams, only to wind up as victims in a cheap sexploitation slasher. I hope some of them came to their senses and went back to school and got nice, reliable office jobs somewhere. The film itself rips off elements from Halloween, Dressed to Kill, Peeping Tom and especially Psycho, which I'm now convinced must be one of filmdom's most-imitated pictures. The movie even drags in a private detective who serves the same basic function -- and meets the same fate -- as Martin Balsam's Arbogast. In Click, the transvestite killer attacks a woman in a bathtub rather than a shower. Does that count as originality?
Oh, there's some fun to be had here. There is some very obvious and unconvincing yet entertaining stunt work -- explosions, crashes, fistfights, etc. The killer is a cross-dresser who dons a nurse's uniform and a really bad wig and runs around spouting hysterical nonsense, some of which rhymes. And the finale -- oh, that finale! -- is so remarkably tasteless and blasphemous that I'm almost tempted to tell you to rent Click: TCGK and skip to the last 15 minutes. But the first hour of this film drags horribly (no pun intended), and I mostly felt embarrassed on behalf of the cast and crew, especially Hagen who is robbed of whatever dignity he may once have had.
In a word: blecch. |
|
|
Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
Posted - 07/23/2009 : 03:20:38
|
And the project heads down south to New Orleans:
2. French Quarter (IMDb rating 3.8)
French Quarter proves that a crazily convoluted movie which seems to be half The Wizard of Oz and half Pretty Baby can still end up being fairly boring. I'm truly sorry to report that news. I wish I had found a hidden gem. Oh, well. Like Pretty Baby, this film is set largely in a brothel in the Storyville prostitution district of New Orleans in the 1910s. Amazingly, though, French Quarter came out in 1977 (a full year ahead of Pretty Baby) and therefore was not, as I had guessed, an attempt to cash in on the cultural infamy of the Louis Malle film. It even features a portrayal of E.J. Bellocq, the same photographer played by Keith Carradine in the Malle flick! Plus, we get to see some of the burgeoning New Orleans jazz scene, represented by portrayals of a young Jelly Roll Morton and an even younger Louis Armstrong! This plus snake-filled voodoo rituals (staged by noted expert Charles Gandolfo), a smattering of nudity, and lots of quintessential New Orleans color and atmosphere. Not to mention a crazy wraparound story set in modern day (i.e. 1977) New Orleans involving a failed stripper who tries to get a witch to cash a check (?!) and is almost sold into white slavery.
All of this might sound pretty interesting, but French Quarter is too sluggish to be much fun. For one thing, it goes on at least half an hour too long and is very slow-paced. I mentioned the wraparound story and the Wizard of Oz angle. See, it's like this: the beginning and end of the movie are set in the present day. A young lady -- broke and homeless -- comes to New Orleans to find work. She does not last long as a stripper, and in her attempts to cash her one paycheck is drugged into a lengthy sleep by the aforementioned witch. The middle part of the movie -- the bulk of the running time -- is devoted to the dream the woman has while she is asleep. The dream involves her being a prostitute in the 1910s and falling in love with a piano player, and just like in The Wizard of Oz, the people in this dreamworld are all played by actresses and actors we saw in the modern-day scenes. Got it? The problem is, all of this set-up I've described takes up screen time. Lots of screen time. And then, once we've finally gotten the dream story underway, the film continues to move at a languid pace. I was particularly annoyed by the director's tendency to include little cutaways to paintings, statues, and stained glass windows. I realize these shots are included to provide atmosphere, but after a while they become maddening. Since the bulk of the film is a flashback/dream, the director has also decided to make the corners of the screen all blurry, in the manner of dream sequences on old TV sitcoms. That's fine for a three- or four-minute scene, but this goes on for the entire movie!
French Quarter is not a total loss. Its bizarre set-up makes it a one-of-a-kind curio, and it makes an admirable attempt to capture both the 1910s New Orleans and the 1970s New Orleans. (The film was entirely shot on location in the city.) By all rights, this should be a minor lost classic. But the film's self-indulgent excesses -- not to mention some shaky acting and writing -- unfortunately make it an also-ran. |
 |
|
|
Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
Posted - 07/23/2009 : 03:40:46
|
TWO RANDOM OBSERVATIONS
1. I said French Quarter has a lot of New Orleans detail -- and, boy, does it ever -- but one scene had me totally baffled. During a sequence set in a jazz club, there is a ham hanging from the ceiling, and all the women try to kick it. What the hell is going on here? What is the significance of the ham-kicking ritual? Anybody?
2. In the last project, I said that booze was a major motif of the films, and that trend has continued for both films in this project so far. (J&B seems to be a brand of choice.) But what I never mentioned in 50 Chilling Classics was another frequently-used beverage: tea. The characters in the chillers were always insistent on offering each other tea. (Robert Englund even natters on about tea for several minutes in Slashed Dreams.) And now that we're into the thrillers, tea continues to be a strong theme in both Click and especially French Quarter, in which the heroine even drinks her tea with jam and bread -- just like the song says! Significantly, this was also the first film in which something bad actually happens as a result of drinking tea. Previous to this, tea had served no thematic or plot function but was omnipresent all the same. So... what's the deal with tea, anyway? Is tea scary?
The next movie is called Night Club, and I can virtually guarantee the booze theme will persist. But if tea is mentioned, I will begin to suspect a conspiracy. |
|
|
|
Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
Posted - 07/24/2009 : 02:58:34
|
I fully realize no one has actually ever seen these movies (not even the people who starred in them), but continue we must:
3. Night Club (IMDb rating 4.0)
This movie may well be a wild, audacious experiment on par with Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho. What if you made an entire movie and then digitally erased the leading man and painstakingly replaced him, frame-by-frame, with footage of some schlub you found throwing up in the bathroom at a minor-league hockey game? That is the only explanation I can think of for someone like Nicholas Hoppe starring in a motion picture that was actually intended to be seen by people other than Nicholas Hoppe and his immediate family members. Picture this: the movie starts, and there's this sort of doughy, pale, slightly-below-average guy shuffling around behind a bar. He sort of looks like Jeff Daniels in Dumb & Dumber, right down to the messy, shoulder-length blond hair. Anyway, as I was saying, he's sort of shuffling around and mush-mouthing his way through some inconsequential dialogue, and I assume him to be an extra or a bit player. But after a few scenes, I realize that this guy -- this same guy on screen right this minute -- is the leading character in the movie. The whole movie is going to be about him and what happens to his character.
So what does happen to his character? Well, he plays a writer who has decided to become a club owner, turning an abandoned warehouse into a glittery night club. Trouble is, this costs a ton of money. His wife -- also blonde-haired but a good deal prettier -- put up $50,000 of inheritance money, but the cost for this ridiculous project has skyrocketed to $200,000. Now, our hapless hero is in debt to the mob, though this movie has the tamest, most lethargic mobsters ever. Their beatdowns are really half-hearted. This, plus some marital strife, has caused our man to frequently retreat into a fantasy/nightmare world, wherein he is having an affair with a woman who looks exactly like his wife. The main plot of the film is interwoven with lengthy dream sequences (generally of a softcore nature) and lots of abstract, plotless, wordless sequences set inside the warehouse. The movie jumps backward and forward in time and makes huge, unexplained narrative leaps, somewhat in the nature of David Lynch's Lost Highway and Mullholland Dr., though minus the grotesque surrealism. Basically, imagine a David Lynch wannabe making a film to be shown on Cinemax at three in the morning. That's Night Club. You don't wanna watch it.
Points of interest? Well, the opening-credits song ("Midnight Blue") takes its melody from one of Beethoven's piano sonatas, and the end credits give proper thanks to Ludwig Van, so he can list Night Club on his CV if he so desires. The warehouse is identified as the Boyle Midway Building. The internet says they're somehow involved with the production of Zud Cleanser and other fine household cleaning products.
|
Edited by - Joe Blevins on 07/24/2009 03:05:16 |
|
|
|
Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
Posted - 07/24/2009 : 03:20:27
|
Speaking of Boyle-Midway, this is kind of interesting. It seems be a lawsuit over the Roach Motel and an imitator called the Roach Inn.
Here is that Beethoven piano sonata. Now imagine it with stupid 1980s pop lyrics and shots of neon signs, and you've got the opening credits of Night Club. |
|
|
|
Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
Posted - 07/29/2009 : 00:38:28
|
| Despite a general lack of interest -- including my own -- I have not actually abandoned this project. I just haven't had much time for moving-watching or reviewing these last few days. The 8 Thrillers project will continue in a few days with a review of a movie called Hot Target. From what I can glean, it's a Body Heat ripoff. Doesn't look too promising, but hey, I own it. Might as well give it a cursory viewing, right? In the meantime, if you haven't checked out the 50 Chilling Classics thread recently, I've added some "bonus material" at the end of it. |
|
|
|
Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
Posted - 08/03/2009 : 00:40:09
|
Oh, happy day! The 8 Thrillers project is back:
4. Hot Target (IMDB rating 4.7)
Hot Target sounds like the result of a merger between Target and Hot Topic, but in fact it is a Body Heat-style thriller made in New Zealand in 1985. If you're looking for movies to rip off, you could do worse than Body Heat (a movie which has held up very nicely), and if you're ripping off Body Heat, you could do much worse than Hot Target. How's that for damning with faint praise? This one is well-paced and professionally (if blandly) made, with adequate acting and writing and a dollop of sex appeal. There's simply nothing outstanding here, other than a few nice glimpses of the leading lady's anatomy.
Borrowing a page from the James M. Cain playbook, Hot Target focuses on that eternal noir triangle: a handsome guy, a gorgeous dame, and the dame's inconvenient husband -- get the idea? The guy and the dame have an affair which soon leads to... murder! Well, sort of murder. The movie treats it like murder, but it's really more of an accident. That gets to the heart of the problem with Hot Target. The guy and the dame both seem pretty bland, and the script isn't twisty or malicious enough. Even the powerful, obnoxious husband doesn't seem all that bad! There are the standard nosey detectives with their standard nosey questions, too, but they're far too namby-pamby and cautious. A movie like this should have at least a few devilish plot twists and terrible revalations, but Hot Target just doesn't have the stomach for it. By this time, movies like Blood Simple (and, um, Body Heat) were already offering ingeniously convoluted, sexed-up variations on Cain classics like The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. Hot Target, in comparison, seems too nice and straightforward. The only thing distinguishing this movie from the pack is the fact that the characters have NZ accents (except for the male lead, who is American) and drive on the left side of the road.
Actually, that last part -- driving on the left -- made it a little tricky for me to follow some of the car chase scenes. Other than that, Hot Target does not capitalize on its New Zealand setting nearly as much as Bad Taste did. Sure, there are lots of nice outdoor scenes throughout Hot Target -- parks, cricket fields, racetracks -- but none of the breathtaking scenery and quirky local humor of the Peter Jackson film. This one might as well have been made in Los Angeles. |
|
|
|
lemmycaution 
"Long mired in film"
|
Posted - 08/04/2009 : 02:24:06
|
| Joe, please don't infer a lack of interest. I love your comments and insights and I know that I am not alone. Keep thrilling us with your posts and if the right-hand driving sequences bother you, watch the film in a mirror. |
|
|
|
ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
|
Posted - 08/04/2009 : 07:11:27
|
quote:
Originally posted by lemmycaution
Joe, please don't infer a lack of interest. I love your comments and insights and I know that I am not alone. Keep thrilling us with your posts and if the right-hand driving sequences bother you, watch the film in a mirror.
I second that emotion.
(Actually, better you watch them than make me see these!)
|
|
|
|
Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
Posted - 08/06/2009 : 04:09:55
|
Thanks for the kind comments! On with the project:
5. Double Exposure (IMDb rating 4.8)
Didn't we already have a movie about a loony photographer who is possibly killing his models? Yes, we did. It was called Click, and you should just put it out of your mind now. The image of a crazed, middle-aged Ross Hagen running around in nurse-drag is not something you want in your dreams.
Where to begin with a movie like Double Exposure? Well, first, if you want a movie whose cast is chock full of recognizable TV and film stars -- and randomly-assembled ones at that -- have we ever got 'em! Some on their way up, some on the way down. Cassavetes/Wes Anderson mainstay Seymour Cassel! Blazing Saddles star Cleavon Little! Irrepressible comedienne Victoria Jackson! (Doing her classic reading-poems-while-standing-on-her-head bit we remember from The Tonight Show and SNL!) Playmate of the Year for 1986 Kathy Shower! Hell, we've got two actresses (Sally Kirkland and Misty Rowe) who played Marilyn Monroe! Our three leads (Michael Callan, Joanna Pettet, James Stacy) are perhaps not as well-known, but all of them have racked up tons of movie and TV credits. The crazy, tragic, up-and-down life of James Stacy (alarmingly summarized here) might make for a good movie in and of itself. All this and an extended mud wrestling sequence!
So how is Double Exposure? Eh, I'd say the 4.8 rating is about right. With its wildly diverse cast, weird little details, and off-the-wall premise, it should be a little more exciting than it is. It feels like a second-rate De Palma knockoff that's gone flat. The somewhat sluggish and repetitive plot focuses on a pair of brothers (hence the title): one a photographer, the other a one-armed, one-legged stunt driver. Both of these macho-yet-sensitive dudes are grappling with some major emotional issues. Victims -- mostly models and hookers but occasional drunks and transvestites -- keep piling up, and our photographer friend is having some awfully nasty dreams. There are detectives on the case, natch, and there's a shrink (Cassel) who's also trying to get to the bottom of things. And since it's 1983, pretty much everyone except Cleavon Little has feathered hair.
Technically this thing is none too shabby: filmed in Panavision and generously presented here in (are you ready for this?) anamorphic widescreen! (Night Club was anamorphic widescreen, too, but it still looked crummy.) Apart from a few slightly pixelated details, Double Exposure is as good a DVD transfer as anything I've seen in either of these two projects. There is even some evidence of filmmaking skill here, including some lovely aerial shots which add little to the flick, plot-wise, but look swell all the same. What the movie lacks is a sense of urgency. There are way, way too many scenes of the photographer waking up, drenched in sweat, from a bad dream. The decision to presage all of the murders with several minutes of "scary background music" is also a suspense-killing drag. Seriously, whenever the score turns dark and ominous, you just know a murder's coming up so there's very little shock value. It seems like the director couldn't decide whether he was making a respectable thriller or a cheap, bloody shocker, so Double Exposure vacillates between being thoughtful and being exploitative.
The late, great Cleavon Little hardly needs an introduction from me, but this clip captures him at his best.
Like Cleavon Little, Misty Rowe also worked with Mel Brooks. (She was Maid Marian on When Things Were Rotten.) Her IMDb page includes some remarkably frank quotes about her career. She's pretty good here in Double Exposure -- sunny and likeable -- and I wish she'd had more screentime.
Not a complete washout by any means, but not a film I can heartily endorse. See it for the cast, if you must, and oddball details like the club which apparently employs one lonely Chippendale. Poor guy! |
|
|
|
Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
Posted - 08/12/2009 : 03:04:11
|
And to think I criticized Double Exposure:
6. Blue Money (IMDb rating 5.0)
First a technical note about the project: The IMDb ratings for the films represent the scores they had received as of July 13, 2009. Since then, most of the films' ratings have gone down. Blue Money is currently a 4.9.
Alain Patrick cannot act. Do you hear me? Can. Not. Act. Oh, sure, you could blame his poor performance in Blue Money on his subpar English skills (he seems to be French Canadian), but that does not explain or excuse his total failure to emote in scene after scene of this movie. The IMDb shows him racking up acting credits from 1966 to 1979, mostly in episodic television and made-for-TV movies, but I assume he got by mostly on his looks. He's got sandy-colored hair down to his broad shoulders, and apart from a Roman-Polanski-esque nose, he has that tanned and toned look of a movie star pretty boy circa 1971. If you're struggling to picture him, try imagining Joe Dallesandro minus virtually everything that makes Joe Dallesandro interesting. Alain Patrick seems like a pod person from the 1970s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And he's in absolutely EVERY scene!
Blue Money has the feel of a vanity project. Patrick is the writer, director, producer and star, and there is a suspicious amount of footage of him just driving around in his Porsche convertible or hanging out on his unfinished yacht, all the while looking like the epitome of Nixon-era grooviness in his half-unbuttoned shirts and tight jeans. His character, a shallow and dim-witted pornographer, is the kind of vain, showboating cretin we'd write off as a "douchebag" today, but back in 1971 he must've seemed like an out-of-sight, together kind of cat. People did a lot of drugs back then.
You want plot? Well, on this very same forum, I once clumsily tried to define the Icarus movie. Blue Money is basically an Icarus movie on quaaludes. The first half is mostly fun (for the main character, not the audience), the second half is all consequences. Patrick plays Jim, a young director churning out product for the smut film racket, his activities forever dogged by the uncool Joe-Friday-esque authorities who spend countless man hours tailing him. Throughout the course of the movie, Jim suffers various professional and personal setbacks... and Patrick reacts to exactly none of it. When his wife walks out on him and takes the couple's daughter with her, Patrick reacts as if he'd lost his favorite comb. Actually, considering the immaculate condition of his hair, he actually might react more to losing his favorite comb. The ending of the movie is a bit of a shocker, as nothing of consquence actually happens. I couldn't believe the filmmakers chose to end their film with such a dull non-event! The film also suffers throughout from its extremely sparing use of music. The long, uneventful stretches of Blue Money might seem more "cinematic" if they'd actually been scored.
Presented in a bright and colorful anamorphic widescreen transfer, Blue Money is packed with early 1970s detail in the clothing (atrocious), home decor (abominable), and conversation (witless). I guess it gives some insight into the smut film business of that era, but if you're at all interested in that subject, please watch Boogie Nights instead.
|
Edited by - Joe Blevins on 08/12/2009 03:14:04 |
|
|
|
BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
|
Posted - 08/12/2009 : 11:54:44
|
quote:
Originally posted by Joe Blevins
And to think I criticized Double Exposure:
6. Blue Money (IMDb rating 5.0)
First a technical note about the project: The IMDb ratings for the films represent the scores they had received as of July 13, 2009. Since then, most of the films' ratings have gone down. Blue Money is currently a 4.9.
Alain Patrick cannot act. Do you hear me? Can. Not. Act. Oh, sure, you could blame his poor performance in Blue Money on his subpar English skills (he seems to be French Canadian), but that does not explain or excuse his total failure to emote in scene after scene of this movie. The IMDb shows him racking up acting credits from 1966 to 1979, mostly in episodic television and made-for-TV movies, but I assume he got by mostly on his looks. He's got sandy-colored hair down to his broad shoulders, and apart from a Roman-Polanski-esque nose, he has that tanned and toned look of a movie star pretty boy circa 1971. If you're struggling to picture him, try imagining Joe Dallesandro minus virtually everything that makes Joe Dallesandro interesting. Alain Patrick seems like a pod person from the 1970s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And he's in absolutely EVERY scene!
Blue Money has the feel of a vanity project. Patrick is the writer, director, producer and star, and there is a suspicious amount of footage of him just driving around in his Porsche convertible or hanging out on his unfinished yacht, all the while looking like the epitome of Nixon-era grooviness in his half-unbuttoned shirts and tight jeans. His character, a shallow and dim-witted pornographer, is the kind of vain, showboating cretin we'd write off as a "douchebag" today, but back in 1971 he must've seemed like an out-of-sight, together kind of cat. People did a lot of drugs back then.
You want plot? Well, on this very same forum, I once clumsily tried to define the Icarus movie. Blue Money is basically an Icarus movie on quaaludes. The first half is mostly fun (for the main character, not the audience), the second half is all consequences. Patrick plays Jim, a young director churning out product for the smut film racket, his activities forever dogged by the uncool Joe-Friday-esque authorities who spend countless man hours tailing him. Throughout the course of the movie, Jim suffers various professional and personal setbacks... and Patrick reacts to exactly none of it. When his wife walks out on him and takes the couple's daughter with her, Patrick reacts as if he'd lost his favorite comb. Actually, considering the immaculate condition of his hair, he actually might react more to losing his favorite comb. The ending of the movie is a bit of a shocker, as nothing of consquence actually happens. I couldn't believe the filmmakers chose to end their film with such a dull non-event! The film also suffers throughout from its extremely sparing use of music. The long, uneventful stretches of Blue Money might seem more "cinematic" if they'd actually been scored.
Presented in a bright and colorful anamorphic widescreen transfer, Blue Money is packed with early 1970s detail in the clothing (atrocious), home decor (abominable), and conversation (witless). I guess it gives some insight into the smut film business of that era, but if you're at all interested in that subject, please watch Boogie Nights instead.
I now think of you as Blevins, Film Martyr.  
Just wanted to make sure everyone knows there were two Blue Moneys. This one, and the one I'm in - with Tim Curry, Billy Connolly, et al - which is detailed here!
Re: Double Exposure/Sally Kirkland ... she's always been a strange one. Her mom at one point was fashion editor at Vogue, and she did have enough talent/chutzpah to get into the Actors Studio. But, despite an Oscar nom, her career never took off the way she'd have wanted. Sadly, she could never discern the value of any piece of work,
and made decisions on messages from the beyond and other such 'reliable' directives. She prob'ly did Double Exposure because she was pals with some of the cast. I'm guessing. If you ask nicely I'll tell you the Fred Forrest story!
|
Edited by - BaftaBaby on 08/12/2009 11:56:24 |
|
|
|
Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
Posted - 08/13/2009 : 01:22:42
|
quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
I now think of you as Blevins, Film Martyr.
Enervating movies like Blue Money certainly make me feel that way. The reason this review was delayed by several days is that I actually had to watch this movie -- which is not long at all (my copy ran a mere 80 minutes) -- in stages. With the 50 Chilling Classics, I viewed each movie straight through, with the exception of George Hamilton's Greek crime epic Medusa (2009 Chilly Award winner for Most Boring Picture), which I also had to parcel out over several viewing sessions. I don't know whether Medusa or Blue Money ever got much play in theaters, but if they did, it's a cinch the concession stands did a great business because viewers probably guessed they could go for a quick "snack run" and not miss anything.
quote:
Just wanted to make sure everyone knows there were two Blue Moneys. This one, and the one I'm in - with Tim Curry, Billy Connolly, et al - which is detailed here!
I vaguely remember that other Blue Money. I went through a near-rabid Rocky Horror phase about 10-15 years ago (hence this) and especially tried to see everything Tim Curry was ever in. I'm sure I came across Blue Money in my travels. By the way, I seem to remember Pass the Ammo as being pretty good and Times Square being fairly rotten. Is my memory playing tricks?
quote:
Re: Double Exposure/Sally Kirkland ... she's always been a strange one. Her mom at one point was fashion editor at Vogue, and she did have enough talent/chutzpah to get into the Actors Studio. But, despite an Oscar nom, her career never took off the way she'd have wanted. Sadly, she could never discern the value of any piece of work, and made decisions on messages from the beyond and other such 'reliable' directives. She prob'ly did Double Exposure because she was pals with some of the cast. I'm guessing. If you ask nicely I'll tell you the Fred Forrest story!
I'd love to hear the Fred Forrest story, if you'd be so kind as to tell it.
For what it's worth, Sally gives a fine performance in Double Exposure and seems to be having fun with her rather minor role. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn she'd done the film strictly as a favor. The cast is much better than you'd expect for this kind of thing. I neglected to mention it at the time, but there are some highly respectable actors in French Quarter, too: Virginia Mayo and Bruce Davison (both in dual roles, no less).
|
|
|
|
BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
|
Posted - 08/13/2009 : 10:29:45
|
quote:
Originally posted by Joe Blevins
I'd love to hear the Fred Forrest story, if you'd be so kind as to tell it.
Okey-dokey!
Well, Sally was well-known for her alacrity at stripping off, whether the part required it or not. When she joined the LaMaMa Troupe we still did a workshop every day, continually reinforcing the trust/bond among us so we had an extraordinary sense of unity on stage. Part of the day consisted of various physical exercises, and we noticed that Sally would drop items of clothing along the way.
One day, a small group of us were chilling out in the rehearsal area. I don't know why Sally wasn't there. All of a sudden, Freddy jumped up and started tugging at the shoulder of his t-shirt.
"I can't" he said.
Then he tugged at the hem.
"I just can't."
Finally he pulled the shirt over his head and yelled in a falsetto:
"I just can't ACT with all these clothes on!"
We all just collapsed in a heap of laughter.
Maybe you had to be there 
|
|
|
|
Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
Posted - 08/14/2009 : 03:33:45
|
Things like that never happen where I work. I must've taken the wrong path in life.
Seriously, awesome Sally Kirkland anecdote. Thanks for sharing, BB. 
Only two movies left to go. I hope to have 8 Thrillers done this weekend. The main event -- Separate Ways with Karen Black and Tony Lo Bianco -- is looming on the horizon. |
|
|
|
Joe Blevins
"Don't I look handsome?"
|
Posted - 08/16/2009 : 23:30:59
|
7. Pick-Up (IMDb rating 5.0)
Normally, it's no great feat to have amassed a mere 262 votes on the Internet Movie Database. A recent movie like G-Force, for instance, has already gotten 2,338 votes and was only released last month. But in the shadowy netherworld of After Dark Thrillers: 8 Movie Collection, it's a badge of honor to have a vote total in the triple digits. It means that at least somebody has seen the darned thing outside of the cast and crew and their relatives. In this respect, Pick-Up easily leads the After Dark pledge class, probably by virtue of having been included in several DVD boxed sets from Crown International. It was even sort of reviewed by The Onion.
The movie itself is very much of its era (1975) and is only intermittently interesting. An extremely lucky young man is transporting a fancy, tricked-out bus through the backroads of Florida when he decides to pick up a couple of attractive female hitchhikers. One of the young ladies is sort of bubbly and free-spirited, while the other is more serious and slightly sinister with an interest in the occult, i.e. Tarot cards, zodiac signs, etc. Anyway, our driver takes a detour and winds up lost in the Florida swamps, and this is where the plot essentially breaks down into softcore psychedelia, including plenty of weirdly staged fantasies and flashbacks. The three main cast members -- none of them terribly bright -- spend the remainder of the movie in that swamp, either in or near the bus. The driver and the bubbly girl spend lots of screentime romping nude through the swampland, apparently unconcerned with such inconveniences as mosquito bites, while the occult girl mainly stays in the bus having dream sequences in which she is seduced by a priest, courted by a vote-grubbing politician, terrorized by a clown, etc. (The politician scene is actually kind of funny in a Laugh-In kind of way.) There's also some kind of sacrificial altar out in the swamps, but I couldn't tell whether it was suppposed to be real or just a figment of the occult girl's imagination. That's the kind of movie Pick-Up is. It's basically plotless sexploitation mixed with youthsploitation, peppered with a lot of corny 1970s slang and a few random weird touches like a radio announcer whose voice seems to be an imitation of Howard Cosell. Think Waiting for Godot plus Three's Company times a Russ Meyer movie divided by an acid trip, only slow paced and kind of dull.
Ludwig Van Beethoven was the composer of Night Club's immortal theme music a few movies back, and now it's J.S. Bach's turn. His famous "smash hit" cantata, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring is an important musical motif in Pick-Up. These guys really need to talk to their agents!
P.S. - Despite what this movie tells you, it is not a good idea to kiss a raccoon full on the lips.
|
Edited by - Joe Blevins on 08/16/2009 23:33:59 |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
|
Out with the Chillers, in with the Thrillers!
