The Fate of the Furious

...But fuck all that story and character nonsense, you say, let’s get to the cars. To which I say: If I had to sit through the glycerine tears of Vin Diesel to get to the cars, so do you...

Click here for a full review of the shiny pile of noisy hackery that is The Fate of the Furious.

Cool World

I wrote about Ralph Bakishi's live action/animated trip through Las Vegas and the Cool World for my day job at the Vegas Seven. A deeply flawed film, but it has its moments....

The Manitou

The Manitou was one of the wave of occult horror flicks during the 70s--this time with some of that fashionable Native American culture and a few of those newfangled computers thrown in. Other than that, it's just your standard flick about a chick with a tumor on her back that has an undead Native American medicine man living in it.

Wot? I know--weird even by the addled standards of the Quaalude decade...

Our star is Tony Curtis, slumming--if you can call anything Tony Curtis does slumming, he always just seemed happy and bemused to be there, glad you see you, thank for the check--plays a two-bit psychic who hustles old ladies (so many Tony Curtis roles involve the words "two-bit" and "hustle")...

C'mon, sweetheart, let's go. I gotta get this schmatte back to Williams Costume by five
or I pay for another day's rental.

He's got a sweet San Fran bachelor pad with an awesome stereo, drinks beer out of a wineglass and knows lots of babes. Among said babes is his ex, played by Susan Strasberg with a pussycat bow at her neck and a fetus on her back. (Yes, Susan, your father was a guru of the American theatre, you fucked Richard Burton and Warren Beatty, you hung out with Marilyn Monroe, but here you are in The Manitou. And just wait until the topless laser scene...)

Strasberg shows up on his doorstep and they wander around the various tourist locales of San Francisco, as they always do in movies set there--everyone always goes to Fisherman's Wharf and the steep hills. No one ever goes to a Kwik-E-Mart. She tells him about this tumor she's got and Curtis is all, "Oh, that's too bad. But it's on your back, right? Not on your front? Like, not your lower front? Okay then." I mean, I was in New York during 9-11 and i know what fucking in the face of death is like but I'd consider "removal of a large tumor tomorrow" more of a "let's cuddle" occasion.

So, they bang, and as Strasberg and her tumor sleep, she mutters, "Panna witchy salatoo." It is not the last time we will hear this nonsense phrase repeated portentously. Nay, it will be repeated over and over until one longs for the simplicity of a "Klaatu barada nikto!" or "Pazuzu!"

So, they X-ray the tumor and the mop-topped and pastel-coated doctor declares, "They are sure that the tumor on her neck is actually a fetus." I cannot think I of something I would less want to hear from a medical professional. I' think I'd rather hear "malignant" than "monster fetus."

Of course, Tony Curtis rolls with this as he rolls with everything in The Manitou (or anywhere else) and goes to rip off another old lady. (Curtis would go on to remain unphased by the weird and the undead in Sextette.) However, when old lady goes full Linda Blair in the middle of a tarot reading, levitates and chants "Panna witchy salatoo," he finally freaks out. Bitch's monster baby tumor is fucking with my livelihood!

So he goes back and tells the doctor all about "Panna witchy salatoo"  and the doctor is like, "Whatever" and messes with his giant mainframe computer some more before stomping off to operate to remove said tumor. I'm waiting for some right-wing politician to run in and stop him because Unborn Undead Native American Mutant Demon Parasites have a right to be born, even in the case of threatening the life of the mother and jeopardizing all the lives and souls on Earth. But i'm getting ahead of myself in the story...

Holy diver, Batman!

Anyway, the doctors try to X-ray the tumor, Strasberg has seizures and speaks in "possessed voice." They try to cut it off, the surgeon slits his wrist. They try to laser it off, the laser goes nuts like a Spinal Tap stage prop gone wrong. So Tony Curtis flounces off to to find Stella Stevens, who is slathered in self-tanner to the edge of blackface and is apparently some kind of California psychic buddy of his.

They have a seance with a Gabor sister, some weird shit goes down with heads rising up out of the table and people speaking in tongues and freaky wind (But isn't there always freaky wind?) Stella's stoner hubby finds a passage in a book that seems to mention the human-tumor phenomena as well as the "panna witchy salatoo" and the gang is off to find the author...

Burgess Meredith! Yes! You loved his kung fu battle in Foul Play and leading motherfuckers straight to hell in Torture Garden, so here he is! The Scooby Gang asks for his help, he yadda yaddas about some more old books. Then they go up in his attic, which is a mere staircase above his paneling n' shag, ferns n' pre-Columbia art living room, but shrouded in yard-square cobwebs and inches of dust because, y'know, attic.

Burgess Meredith tells them that what they need is a non-parasitical undead Native American shaman to battle the Native American shaman that is attempting to resurrect himself. Tony Curtis hustles and bribes (via a deus ex machina "aunt" who has $100,000 to donate to the little Indian kids or whatever because Tony Curtis knows motherfuckers don't do shit for free). In the meantime, the tumor has finally given birth to itself--although it's a dwarf thank to the goddamn X-rays, which means it looks kind of like Tom Cruise in Rock of Ages drag.

Tonight, the role of the undead medicine man will be played by Glen Danzig...

So Tony Curtis and Live Shaman do battle with Undead Shaman. There's ice storms and computer malfunctions and random gore. Little Undead Shaman seems rather arbitrary in his attacks--he might use mind control to force a doctor to cut himself with a scalpel, or it might somehow create a giant lizard to chew on your hand, he might throw a possessed old lady at your or he might just rip your skin off. But, well, we already understand that logic isn't part of the The Manitou's universe. Panna witchy salatoo. Anahl nathrak, uthvas bethud, do cheol dienve...

Anyway, The Manitou is what happens when no one's really paying attention, just throwing casting options and plot points against the wall like so much chimp scat and seeing what sticks. But that's what makes it fun to watch: If you can't come up with good snark for The Manitou, no one can help you....

Modesty Blaise

Fabulous cast, highly regarded director, beloved source material, eye-popping design: What could go wrong?

In the case of Modesty Blaise, apparently a lot, though it's hard to put your finger on exactly what--probably for all of those reasons listed above.

So, we have the sensational Monica Vitti as super-spy Modesty, done up in a succession of stunning mod 60s outfits and wigs. When they put her in the catsuit and dark beehive, she does truly look like the heroine from the comics. Terence Stamp is most appealing as her sidekick; Dirk Bogarde does a fine, queeny turn as the arch-villain--and his pop-art Mediterranean villa is to die for.

If there's anyone I might look askance at in this matter, it's the director: Joseph Losey--better-known for dark psychological dramas such as The Servant and Eva. Modesty Blaise opens with our heroine in her all-white rotating penthouse, on her round bed, getting mercenary assignments and horoscopes (she's a Scorpio) from a houseboy in white tie and tails.... promising enough, but them the theme song kicks in: It sounds like Up With People in tone, if not content, and it presages a movie full of almost and not quite...

Anyway, a Sheik has a bunch of diamonds stolen, Modesty is hired to get them back by a committee of stuffy British tropes. Thus begins the rather silly and pointless plot. Dirk Bogarde chills around his lair with his organist and his lackeys and his dominatrix buddy who tortures mimes, occasionally sending a henchman or two off in an attempt to stop Modesty, who does not seem to be trying all that hard to do anything but look gorgeous and bemused.

There's only one big explosion--right at the opening--and very little in the way of the elaborate schemes and getaways or fancy lethal gadgets usually found in spy movies. We do get some lovely international locales--London, Paris, that fabulous Mediterranean villa--but that and the sensational outfits are about all we have from the high-gloss world of international espionage we all know so well from the movies. But apparently Losey admitted he had seen virtually nothing of the genre he was supposed to be parodying. That is not a good sign.

The movie ends with a romantic duet amidst gunfire and Arabs on jet-skis. It's meant to be exciting and amusing: It winds up being more dull and dumb. Frankly, Monica Vitti kicks more ass as the suicidal perfume heiress in The Scarlet Lady.

There were plenty of spy film spoofs during the 60s--Danger: Diabolik, Casino Royale, Dean Martin's Matt Helm films. None were entirely successful, but they all had their finer points. Mostly, when Modesty Blaise tries to be silly, it simply winds up being stupid. Still, this movie is a nice piece of eye candy and if you put it on in the background with Serge Gainsbourg or Stereo Total on the sound system, it should work quite nicely.

The Donny & Marie Star Wars.... Special?

The Star Wars Holiday Special is considered by many to be the Holy Grail of crappy Star Wars kitsch and, oh, it is not. That honor belongs to the Star Wars episode of Donny & Marie. It makes the Holiday Special look like it was scripted by Billy Wilder and directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Unsurprisingly, we open with Marie in Leia drag and Donny Skywalker (in white, stack-heel go-go boots) boogieing through their first excruciating musical number in front of a bunch of glitter-covered risers. R2-D2 and C3-PO wander in, along with Chewbacca and Darth Vader because the producers apparently had a platinum account at Western Costume.

But then things start to get (really) weird: Redd Foxx meanders past a primitive green screen as “Obi Ben Okefenokee,” while Paul Lynde briefly turns up to whine and wave his hands in the air as the Grand Moff Tarkin. But the oddest guest star is a visibly, erm, out of it Kris Kristofferson, wearing aviator shades and leaning against a cardboard rocket ship like it’s the only thing that’s holding him up. He lurches through a half-assed disco cover of “I Want to Take You Higher” (Sure you do, Kris, sure you do.), then a half-dozen Stormtroopers show up, accompanied by a slew of chorus girls in white unitards and motorcycle helmets for an awkward dance routine to Up With People-like renditions of “Get Ready” and “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” The whole experience takes about thirteen minutes: Ten to watch and three to try to figure out what the hell you just saw.

The Return of Dr. X.

Every actor has something on the resume they're not exactly proud of. Elizabeth Taylor has Butterfield 8, Bette Davis has Beyond the Forest, Christopher Lee and Nicholas Cage have a few of their own. Hey, we've all taken a bad gig while struggling, or did it for the paycheck because we wanted a vacation or a dinosaur skull or a backyard water park. But there are some actors we consider beyond such things....

... like you'd never think Humphrey Bogart played a zombie or a mad scientist or a zombie mad scientist. But, well, you've never seen The Return of Dr. X. No relation to Dr. X.--it's not a sequel--or to The Revenge of Dr. X., which was written by Ed Wood and is only marginally worse.

So the upshot is that this really annoying intrepid reporter type--played by Wayne Morris as an annoying goofball dork with highwater pants and his fedora flipped up like a hayseed--is trying to interview a famous actress. You can tell she's a famous actress because she lives  in a luxury hotel, wears satin negligees and has a pet monkey and a indiscriminately foreign accent. She is played by Lya Lys, better known from her role in Bunuel's L'Age d'Or. Hey, surrealist manifestos don't pay the bills, aight?

However, when Intrepid Reporter gets to her suite, Famous Actress is dead. Stabbed. Intrepid Reporter prints the story that Famous Actress is dead. Doesn't tell the hotel manager, doesn't call the cops, just leaves the body and informs the authorities with a front-page headline. Of course, Famous Actress turns up, quite pale but very much alive and threatening to sue. But then another body drained of a rare blood type--the same as Famous Actress--turns up and Intrepid Reporter busts into the hospital where he makes friends with Random Doctor.

And just when Random Doctor sends off Intrepid Reporter with the orders to "come back when you sober up" (But he's not drunk; he's just stupid.), Random Doctor is promptly summoned to another hotel room with a dead body, this time "a professional donor," also of the same rare blood type. 

Another blood spot is found at the crime scene, but "It's not... human." Which leads Intrepid Reporter to figure it must be a -- "Gorilla murder... Aw, Mike, if you can figure that one out we'll have a front-page spread on every newspaper in the country for weeks!" (Gorilla murder, Donald Trump candidacy--tomato, tomahto, same difference.) But it's not gorilla, or even animal, so Random Doctor goes to visit a hematologist colleague of his, Dr. Flake. It is here he meets Humphrey Bogart as Kang, apparently Dr, Flake's Renfield figure.

Dr. Flake gives Random Doctor the brush-off and he leaves. Shortly thereafter, Famous Actress arrives, makeup gun apparently set on Three-Day Drunk Elvira, begs Dr. Flake and Kang for help and passes out. All of this is witnessed through a window by Intrepid Reporter.

Rosemary Lane pops up as Joan, Intrepid Reporter's girlfriend who is only present because apparently she's some kind of Uber. Also to prevent us from assuming the obvious about Intrepid Reporter and Random Doctor. (She doesn't and, yes, we've already assumed it about Flake and Kang as well.)

I didn't know Dave Vanian's dad was a butler but, really, it makes perfect sense.

Neither of these men are at all creepy. Which is why Famous Actress still has them for her doctors. And probably why Famous Actress winds up dead. Again. For real this time.

So, yadda yadda yadda, it turns out that Flake is doing experiments raising rabbits and humans from the dead. Among his experiments: Kang, who is actually the feared Dr. X. who was "that skunk who wanted to see how long babies could go without eatin'" and subsequently got the chair. There's some poking around in funeral homes and graveyards and they finally go back to see Dr. Flake who is all like "Hell, yeah, I brought an electrocuted baby murderer back from the dead and am now draining human blood to keep him alive. What?" Of course then Kang reappears and demands the vampire rolodex of people with the magic blood type he needs.  Of course one of them is Joan the Uber-Beard. And off we go...

Bear in mind that this film was released in 1939, long cited as the greatest year in cinema history. The year of Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Ninotchka, The Women, Destry Rides Again, Laughton's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dark Victory ... and The Return of Dr. X. Ultimately, The Return of Dr. X. is an unremarkable C-grade horror movie that's not particularly horrifying at all. It's sole distinction is the slumming appearance as a zombie mad scientist sorta vampire from one of the most respected and iconic stars of all time.

 

* Also, i found out in the credits that it's apparently Dr. Flegg and his assistant Quesne. Whatever.
I'm sticking with Flake and Kang.

The Immortals

Well, it looks great and heaven knows it doesn't matter if you leave the sound off.

The Immortals is directed by Tarsem Singh, known for sinking an incredible amount of time, energy and skill into the visual aspect of his work and devoting about five minutes and ten I.Q. points to the story. It was produced by the people who brought you 300; it also makes 300 seem like Eugene O'Neil.

This whole flick is just one big, butch upskirt shot.

Let us not consider that The Immortals bears little to no resemblance to the myths you may be familiar with, expect as far as cribbing some names and a monster or two. It kind of reminds me of when i saw Clash of the Titans as a kid and got all aggro about the inaccuracies. See, when i was about seven or eight, i got my sticky little hands on a copy of Bullfinch's Mythology and became totally hooked. The gods and goddesses of Olympus had powers beyond our reckoning, but that were often in service of emotions all too human. (Like Artemis did Acateon: Embarrass a goddess, get turned into a stag, be shot down by your own hunstmen and devoured by your own dogs. Bam!) They managed to be movie stars, Disney Princesses and the X-Men all at once and what little girl can resist that? But, compared to The Immortals, Clash of the Titans was scrupulous in its attention to... accepted fiction.

... not so much Mount Olympus as a Gay Pride float.

But, anyway, the point of The Immortals seems to be that evil King Hyperion, played by Mickey Rourke in a state of low-energy camp wants to... take over the world? Kill the gods? Release the Titans? Destroy all the temples? Sterilize every man on earth with a big clown hammer? Find a +5 laser-shooting enchanted crossbow of doom? Just be the biggest asshole he can to as many people as possible? All of these goals are alluded to, but none seem to be a real focus...

Yup, you're wearing a vagina dentata topped off with crab-claw bunny ears on your head.

But, hey, you're Mickey Rourke. This doesn't even crack your bad decision Top Ten.

Our hero is Theseus, pretty-boy killing machine. (Like Jon Snow in Pompeii, i just don't believe it.) He is played by Henry Cavill, who seems way more impressive in the Man From U.N.C.L.E. trailer that's making the rounds. But, hey, shit movies are a part of life and, even if the flick isn't one for the resume, i'd say that the stills are one for the portfolio.

I'm not going to try to explain the plot of The Immortals further, because i'm not even sure there is one. Zeus claims that, according to divine law, gods may not interfere with mortals. But he's been hanging out with Theseus pretty much every day of his life, teaching him to fight, imparting old-dude wisdom (in the guise of John Hurt, who's just collecting the check, thanks). How is that not interfering?

Zeus is played by Luke Evans, who does his best to have some kind of gravitas while wearing a tinsel tutu. (The funny thing is, he looks less ridiculous than he did as Apollo in that shitty Clash of the Titans remake.) Then there's his daughter, Athena, an actress-waitress from Orange County. (Goddess of wisdom and war who could outwit and outfight pretty much any creature in heaven or Earth... not so much.) and the rest of the gods, an interchangeable bunch of underwear models in lame jockstraps and showgirl headdresses

So, down on Earth, King Hyperion is being an asshole. And there's some mean soldiers and some not-mean soldiers. And Theseus is kind of milling about. Then we have Frieda Pinto as the Sibyl and her three backup Sibyls and Stephen Dorff as some guy named Stavros, because Greece, right? 

The Minotaur turns up, but it's not really a Minotaur and they're not really in a labyrinth... which is kind of a waste of a righteous set piece. And then there's this magic bow, that they all sort of want and are sort of looking for, but everyone keeps getting distracted. It's all very unclear but, again, it's a plot you can ignore. Turn off the sound and put on some tunes. Groove on the fabulous images. Do another bong hit, maybe eat some gelato...

 You want a fun mythology movie full of cool effects, Harryhausen's Clash of the Titans is still it. You want to see Greek gods as pouty go-go boys, watch The Immortals.

Poseidon's muffin had gluten it it. Sad Poseidon.