I just learned that YouTube has permanently removed my What I Watched Last Night account, wiping out a year's worth of video uploads. Over 150 trailers and clips all posted for this blog. I won't bother complaining, as I was technically doing something "illegal", although I'm only one of a million other folks doing the exact same thing on YouTube. I won't bother uploading any more videos, I don't want to put in the time to have the same thing happen again. So for a while you'll find a lot of broken videos here. I'll try to replace them with others, but unfortunately a lot of them were original cut scenes made by me.

Oh well, worse things could happen.

How this movie escaped my attention for so long is kind of a mystery. Well, not really much of a mystery, as the film was never released in theaters and languished on VHS until September of 2008, that's when Netflix recommended it to me. What the mystery is, is how I didn't even know it's name. As a huge Bruce Campbell fan, how could I never have heard of an early horror-comedy of this caliber, with him in a prime role? I've been through his IMDb page countless times, trying to find a hidden gem, that I haven't yet seen, but I don't ever remember seeing this title. It sits unassumingly at #77 between Maniac Cop 2 and The Dead Next Door. Now that's not to say that Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, is some kind of hidden classic, but it's a very worthy addition to Campbell's resume, and is probably better than 90% of his other films, which admittedly isn't saying much. But as a Bruce Campbell fan it's a must see.

Bruce doesn't show up until about 20 minutes into the film, but the film is full of cult actors, most notably David Carradine as the head vampire Count Mardulak. The film also features Morgan Brittany, Maxwell Caulfield, Deborah Foreman, John Ireland, but it's M. Emmet Walsh that gets the first big laugh. He and his vampire brothers sit on a swing, wearing sunglasses and bonnets, watching a Jeep approach their gas station. Walsh takes his sweet time, applying a handful of sunscreen, before making his way out to pump gas. When the Jeep's owner gets impatient with this ridiculous looking old man, he gets his head knocked clean off. It's a cheesy gag, but it works for a joke.

A whole group of new-age vampires have moved out west to the tiny desert town of Purgatory, where they've taken over and want to live a quiet life. And thanks to the miracle of sunscreen, vampires can venture outside during the day. They've also stopped feeding on the blood of living humans, instead they have a synthetic blood that a factory in town manufactures. For decency sake, the town's sheriff puts Walsh into jail for a few days to cool him down, although he could break out any second, due to his tremendous strength.

Salvation is on its way to town in the form of David Harrison and his very human family. His expertise is going to help streamline the factory's output of synthetic blood. They're in no real danger from the town-full of vampires, except for Ethan and his faction of outsiders, who want to go back to the way things were. Amongst the baddies is Sarah Harrison's ex-lover, the sleazy Shane, who wants nothing more than to convert Sarah, and live out an eternity of sinfulness. There's a hilarious scene right after the family arrives in town, where Shane flies into Sarah's room and attacks her vampire-bat style. The effects are pretty awful here, a badly done stop-animation bat, flying over a fuzzily matted Morgan Brittney flaying away. It looks worse than something Ray Harryhausen was creating twenty years before, but it adds to the cheesy charm of the film.

Bruce Campbell ambles into town around this time, stopping at a small diner, he immediately falls for the beautiful vampiress Sandy White, a name more fitting a 50's sitcom, but they're trying to be ironic. We soon learn that he's a descendant of Van Helsing, attempting to finish his great-grandfather's life work. His mission doesn't last long, before he's turned into a vampire himself, with an over-the-top comic performance that only Bruce Campbell could get away with. (See directly below.) Before long the family finds themselves in the middle of a vampire war. On one side is David Carradine teaming up with Bruce Campbell to fight for the good vampires, on the other side is Ethan, Shane and their henchmen full of character clichés throughout the ages, including pirates, cowboys and punk-rockers.



This battle takes up the last 30 minutes of the film and it really grows tiresome. Since they live in a desert in the west, they have to fight it out Western style, wood bullets providing the kills. It's entertaining at first, but by the time they show the 1000th smoky shot fired, with a stunt-man falling cinematically to the ground, it brings this otherwise fun film to a screeching halt. The cheesy dialog, performed by charismatic B-actors has ended, the goofy special effects are gone, vampires pretending to be something they're not, over; in its place is the entire cast lined up, firing blanks at one another.

If you're into forgotten films, if you're into B-films or cheesy horror-comedies with or without Bruce Campbell, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat is fun enough to recommend. The first two acts of the film are quite entertaining. The filmmaking, except for the special effects, is quite good throughout. The film is nicely shot in widescreen to take advantage of the beautiful desert scenery. The film is full of great character actors, having a lot of fun playing sun-drenched vampires. But you can't call something a cult classic, when the whole final act of the film leaves you with the taste of boredom in your mouth. If they'd found another way to end it, I might have heard of it a lot sooner. - Grade: C+

Through IMDb, I just discovered that Cannonball! was directed by Paul Bartel one year after Death Race 2000, which I was going to compare this film to, seeing as how they're both 70's carsploitation (I just made that word up.) flicks, starring David Carradine. It's been a few years since I've seen Death Race 2000, but I think it did everything right where Cannonball! did everything wrong. Race is funny, gory, sexy and endlessly entertaining; while Cannonball! is sloppy, boring and dull. Yeah, boring and dull are the same thing, but I couldn't come up with any more adjectives to describe this cinematic turd. There is no way I should be bored by an exploitation flick, it totally defeats the purpose.

David Carradine is Coy "Cannonball" Buckman, an ex-con and ex-professional race car driver, who wants to race his flame orange Firebird in in the illegal Cannonball Run across the country. Unwillingly along for the ride is his parole officer and girlfriend, one in the same. Since he's the favorite to win, he's got everybody gunning for him, including a gangster who's laid a big bet on another driver. It's a pretty basic set-up, that should provide for some fun, mindless entertainment. There's a couple of good scenes, which I'll post below, but that's about it. The rest of the film is incredibly dull, the racing scenes are mostly uninspired, the acting hovers between good and bad, so you can't get into the characters, but you can't laugh at the actors ineptitude. The score is an earful of awful, it sounds like it was ripped straight from a 70's porn movie that the composer was working on at the same time.

Don't bother in the least. Watch Death Race 2000 again, or one of the other 100 better 70's car-chase films, like Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, The Vanishing Point, or Bullit. Or if you're in the mood for an 80's comedy version of the Cannonball Run, than check out the ultimate guilty-pleasure film, Cannonball Run, featuring Burt Reynolds in his charismatic prime. - Grade: D

In this scene David Carradine uses some of his Kung Fu skills to beat down a fake cop, sent to take him out of the race. I love the way Carradine pauses for a second before unleashing a fury of kicks.



Here Carradine's had enough of his main rival in the race, Cade Redman, and decides to dispatch him. He jumps an unfinished bridge 20 years before Speed. It's easily the best put together scene in the film, if all the chase scenes in this film had this kind of energy, it'd be a cult-classic.



This has got to be the most ridiculous car crash scene in the history of cinema. It just goes on and on, with cars crashing into each other long after everyone should have stopped. Each collision ending in a huge fireball. It's cheesily entertaining though, I'll admit.

There's a delicate art to creating movie gore. First the filmmakers have to decide what kind of tone they want to set; realistic, scary, gross, funny, or a combination. Then they have to decide how they want to use it, a little shown just right can be extremely effective ala Seven, you use too much, the audience can become numb too it, like by the time the girl's getting her eye blow-torched in Hostel, it's become humorous. Sometimes filmmakers want to go all out, and make a movie pretty much all about the gore, see how far they can push it, see how many ways they can come up with destroying the human body. The Italians relished in it during the 70's, now the Japanese hold the market. (Examples: Tokyo Gore Police, The Story of Ricky, or Ichi the Killer.) Machine Girl is one of the better and more original gore films I've seen.

Ami is a high school basketball star, who takes care of her younger brother Yu, because they're parents are dead. When Yu gets killed by the school bully, and son of the local Yakuza boss, Ami goes nuts and starts killing off everyone who was even slightly involved. She's captured by the Yakuza, gets tortured and her arm chopped off, but manages to escape with her life. She stumbles upon the doorstep of Yu's best-friend's parents house, whose son was killed along with Yu. The father, an ace mechanic builds Ami a machine gun arm, and soon the two mom's team up to take down the Yakuza in the bloodiest way possible.

People are tortured, maimed and killed in just about every possible way you could think of, and quite a few ways you never would think of. Guys are sliced and diced with knives, swords and chainsaws, they're shot with Gatling guns inches from their face, Ninja stars fly furiously, at one point Ami gets her arm deep fried in tempura and then she's attacked later by a woman with a drill-bra. Yes, a bra, that has large drills covering each breast; I must say, it's one of the most inventive weapons I've ever seen. The filmmakers make sure to show every bloody detail of every single attack, ramping up the gore to the maximum effect. A small cut to the neck, will shoot off like a fire hose. When somebody's shot in the face, the entire skull is exposed, white eyes bugging out, while they scream in pain.

The Machine Girl is one of the bloodiest films I've ever seen, but I didn't get squeamish even once, none of it can be taken seriously in the least, it's all over-the-top cartoon violence. Writer/director Noboru Iguchi, doesn't want to get us sick, he wants to push the envelope and makes us laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. At times the gore is top-notch, but they also rely too much on cheap computer effects that don't sell the gooshy-red stuff in the same way. It's too bad that the rest of the film does't hold up, they try their damndest, but the rest of the film is a bit weak. It could have been shot with more style, the editing lags at moments, and even for a film this stylisticy goofy, the acting ranges from barely tolerable to painfully bad. But if you're into weird or violent films, you could do much worse, it's worth watching just for the hundreds of gory deaths. - Grade: C+ (Seen on 7/1/08)

If I told you that John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd made a film together one year after the classic film Blues Brothers, each still at the height of their comical powers, you’d probably rack your mind for a moment, trying to come up with a comedy masterpiece that you’d somehow misplaced in your brain. Yet, I don’t think most people have seen, or even heard, of the film Neighbors. And you certainly couldn’t call it a comedy classic. Belushi and Aykroyd try their damnedest to save the film, creating a few funny moments, but the script is so dead it's impossible to revive.

The problem starts with Belushi playing the straight-man as homeowner Earl Keese and Aykroyd playing the over-the-top obnoxious, new neighbor Vic. I usually appreciate films that try something new, but Aykroyd, who can definitely play weird, is known as a classic straight-man. (See Ghostbusters, Trading Places or Spies Like Us.) While Belushi always shined as the goofy outcast. Each are so funny in their own right that they do a decent job with their roles, but ultimately it’s a bit off-putting that they’re playing the wrong characters.

The film starts off decently enough, with Belushi and wife sitting around the house, it's another boring night after work. But something different is happening, with the long abandoned house across from them getting moved into by an odd looking couple. The doorbell rings and Belushi answers the door to Cathy Moriarty, who plays the femme fatale, sexpot Ramona to a tee, who leads Belushi into quite a few sexually awkward scenes. Soon her husband, Aykroyd, is on the scene, demanding that Belushi act the host and treat them to dinner. It’s a fairly good set-up for a comedy, but ultimately Neighbors never goes anywhere. The film takes place all in one night, with Belushi constantly being foiled by Vic or Ramona, while his wife thinks the new couple is the cat’s pajamas.

Belushi is repeatedly put into ridiculous situations, each only slightly more awkward than the last, with the film never building to any worthwhile climax. And the way each situation is set-up, the conclusion is telegraphed from a mile off, robbing most moments of its laughs. The line delivery, facial expressions and comic timing of Belushi and Aykryod keep the film from becoming a complete mess; if the film had starred two lesser comedians, it never would have seen the light of day. Director John Avildsen tries his best to dress up the story, with wacky camera angles and some other fun filmmaking tricks, but he’s completely unable to save it as well. If the script had been anywhere near decent, if it had any sense about how to build a story or set a scene, the actors may have been enough to make it a fun comedy. But as it is, Neighbors is far too big of a mess for anyone to bother, and it remains a forgotten piece in two comedy legends filmographies. – Grade: D (Seen on 6/26/08)

Best scene in the film, Belushi gets ready for a date to "Staying Alive":

This film is an incredibly ridiculous supernatural thriller, that falls apart the minute it’s over, as you start to fill in the badly done pieces. It works okay for a while, good enough to keep you watching and wanting to know how it ends. But once some of the film’s mysteries start to unravel, you feel dumber for continuing to watch it. The film only works because of some blatant plot-holes and leaps in logic, that don’t make sense even in a world where Sandra Bullock’s life jumps back and forth between days of the week.

At the beginning of the film Sandra’s told that her husband has died, obviously it’s a horrendous day for her family and she goes to bed much worse for the wear. However the following day, she wakes up to her husband being alive again, and thinks her memories are nothing but a bad dream. But again she wakes up to a dead husband, and suddenly she’s going off the deep end, winding up the day by being committed to a mental hospital. Again she wakes up to her husband being alive. She starts to unravel the mystery of what’s going on, hoping that she can save her husband from dying.

She learns that she has a couple more days to figure out how to stop it all from happening. There’s one unintentionally funny scene where she ponders if he’s worth keeping alive, after she learns about his affair. Which pales in unintentional hilarity, to when she first confronts the fact of her husband being dead, sending his beheaded noggin rolling into the street; my favorite scene in the film. I’ll admit I was a bit interested in how it would come to an end, if it was in fact a self-fulfilling prophecy, something that’s always intrigued me. But once the groaner of an ending played out, and the credits started to roll, the film destroyed any sense of logic.

Premonition is a thriller for those who’ve never unraveled a mystery, and don’t want to spend a second past the end of a film, thinking about what they’ve just seen. Sandra Bullock dramatically over-acts her way through the whole film, ranging from hysterical tears to hysterical terror; her husband played by Julian McMahon, never sells himself as a real guy, I kept thinking he was going to jump into maniacal villain role. The filmmaking is typical Hollywood slickness, but with no real artistic or intelligent touches. But it’s the script that truly fails, with ridiculous scenes full of unrealistic dialog and actions, ending with a huge cheat. (Which I’ll discuss below) – Grade: D (Seen on 6/19/08)

(Full spoiler mode.) So the film ends with Sandra crazily driving after her husband, trying to get him to stop his car before the spot where he’s hit by a truck. She ends up stopping him at the exact place where he was killed and as he tries to pull a u-turn, his brand new car breaks down in the middle of the road, leading to a truck driving straight through him and then nonsensically exploding. Those ridiculous events aren’t even the problems I had with it, because at the beginning of the film, she’s told by a cop that her husband has died. Yet she’s on scene when it happens. Why doesn’t the cop know that or even recognize her? Time is only mixed up for her. They also blatantly cheat another thing in the time-line. There’s a “shocking” shot where her daughter’s face is suddenly mangled. They show later that she accidentally ran through a sliding-glass-door, but in the time-line which they set for the movie, it happens before they learn that daddy is dead, in fact daddy shows up at the hospital. But at the very beginning of the film, when they find out he’s dead, her face is perfectly normal. They should have found another way around this, by shooting her only from the back or something, instead they simply cheat. Not that it would have made this crappy movie any better.

This was a film I'd never heard of before, but when I ran across it on IFC, it sounded like my kind of movie. A dark-comedy about an alien invasion, made during the 80's. Unfortunately it's one of those "almost" films, where it's almost a good film, almost a cult-classic, but something is missing. Strange Invaders has a lot of the right ingredients, but it was thrown together a little sloppily, cooked at too high a temperature, so the final product isn't totally appealing.

The film starts in 1955, in a small town in Illinois. There's a young couple making out in a truck, when unseen to them a large spaceship lands near town. When the boy goes home, there are some strange lights, a creepy shadow of a hand, a scream, and the film cuts to 1983, New York City. Charles is hanging out at home, when his ex-wife and daughter show up. His ex asks him to watch their kid, while she goes home for a few days to help her mother. When she doesn't come back for a couple of weeks, and he can't get a hold of her, he begins to seriously worry. He leaves his daughter with grandma, and drives out to the same small town we saw at the beginning of the film.

Everything still looks very 1950's. But that's the least of Charles worries, when he starts to ask around town, nobody has ever heard of his wife or her family. This seems extremely strange in a town so small. He's about to leave town, when his car breaks down. He stops for a bite to eat, when suddenly there's a laser blast and his car is blown up, and there's a mob outside the restaurant looking very menacing. He does the sensible thing and jumps out the back window, stealing a car from the lot, and begins to tear out of town. On his way out, he catches a glimpse of what looks like an alien, who shoots some kind of death ray, from his face no less, at him as he speeds away, only catching the tail of his car. This is one of the best scenes in the film, and a good set-up for what I hoped would be a fun flick the rest of the way.

When Charles gets back to New York, he tries to get the government involved, but of course nobody believes him, writing him off as a nut-case. That's when he sees a photo in a cheesy tabloid of an alien that looks very much like the one he saw. He visits the paper, where he meets Betty, played by 80's hottie Nancy Allen, who after her own run-in with some weird alien activity believes Chuck's story. Soon they have a gaggle of aliens chasing them through the city, trying to stop their story from getting out any further. Mostly the aliens keep their human disguises, but when they do reveal themselves, the effects are pretty well done.

When the film takes a turn towards a more modern, alien-action-chase, the movie kind of falls apart. They lose most of the comedy that was keeping the film lively, and the filmmaking isn't exciting enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, the way they intended. By this point it's pretty obvious what truly happened to Charles ex-wife, so the film loses the mystery long before the truth is revealed, leaving the ending fairly anti-climatic.

The first half of the film is a throw back to the old sci-fi films of the 1950's. A nice tone is set between loving tribute and straight-up spoof. I thought I was getting into a forgotten cult-classic, but the second half ruins it. It's not terrible, mostly it's the tonal change from spoof to "intense" chase thriller, that didn't work for me. I liked the lead actors; Nancy Allen is always cute on the run. And it was cool to see Paul Le Mat, best known as John Milner from American Graffiti, get a lead role, he has some good leading-man charisma. The sci-fi effects for a low-budget 80's film are fairly well done, the filmmakers knew what they could and couldn't do, so they use them effectively. Strange Invaders might be worth seeing if you're into dark-comedies and/or 1950's alien invasion films. - Grade: C (Seen on 6/4/08)

(Seen on 5/31/08) It's nice when a movie surprises you by being something more than it originally appeared to be. Timber Falls, although I'd read some good reviews, seemed to be nothing more than your typical slasher in the woods horror flick. And for about the first half of the film it seemed just that way, but then a twist changed it all, and it became far more interesting. Now I won't say that this film worked on all levels, but if you're a fan of horror films, especially original ones, this film would be worth giving a try.

(Seen on 5/2/08) I'm going to try an experiment here. Since I've gotten so far behind on my reviews, why not kill two birds with one stone and write my review while watching. Most likely this review will end up being about twice as long as my normal, already longish reviews. I'm going to start with Rambo. Why? Because it's brainless enough to watch and type at the same time.(And I only thought of this idea yesterday.) I'm not a huge fan of the Rambo series, though my favorite Stallone flick is probably First Blood; I've honestly never sat down and watched part 2 or 3 all the way through. I've seen so much of each, in so many sections that I feel like I've seen them, although I couldn't tell you what exactly happened in either one. When I first heard about them making Rambo 4, I thought what a lame idea. But after the fairly successful Balboa film written and directed by Stallone, and the very bloody online teaser for Rambo (see it below) I started to get excited.

So what happened so far is that, we've seen some news footage and some senseless torture of the natives of Burma to get our ire up. Now we're getting some sensitive shots of Rambo working with the land and the people. Hell, he just shot a fish with an arrow, then gave it to a cute little boy. So he's a much kinder, gentler Rambo now... but obviously that ain't gonna last.

Directed by: Sylvester Stallone - I never thought those words would give me confidence. The first laugh; "Fuck the world." That was Rambo's response to a guy trying to ask for help to get their church group up the river to bring supplies to the poor citizens of Burma. Now the good looking chick is trying to sway him, but he's still refusing, telling her to go home. Cut to: him taking them up the river, I guess she persuade him after all. Ah hell, Burmese pirates are pulling up aside them, threatening to take the woman. Damn. Rambo shot eight of them in three seconds flat. Amazingly the woman, Sarah, wants to keep going. Probably not a wise decision.

The group is now taking their medical supplies into the jungle and Rambo's heading home. Now he's burning the pirate's boat and bodies, I guess cause one of the guys threatened to report him when they got back. Boom! Village getting the crap blown out of it, and just guess what idiots are caught in the middle of it. Pretty brutal scene, kids getting shot, legs getting blown off, another kid just got thrown into a fire, blood everywhere. Soft sensitive music, and more people dying. Sarah's down, but amazingly not hurt among all the bullets and explosions. These guys better hope that Rambo doesn't catch wind.

Rambo's having war flashbacks, conveniently they have clips from the previous movies to fill us in. That didn't take long, there's a guy waking him up to tell him that the group's missing. Obviously his little crush has come into play. Manly stuff. Pounding out metal to make a machete. "Killing's as easy as breathing." Now he's taking some mercenaries up the river to save the group, they're talking a bunch of shit, but obviously Rambo could kick any of their asses, he's keeping his mouth closed for now. Somebody better not step on his toes.

"The Boatman stays with the boat." Rambo just offered to come along to fight and the mercenaries turned him down. Obviously they haven't seen First Blood. These guys ain't exactly the group from Predator, one head on a stick and they're ready to head home. Some Burmese army assholes are playing a sick game with their prisoners, betting on who'll step on an underwater mine. Splat... arrow through the head. Rambo's arrived, ready to kick ass, and show these pussies how to fight. "Live for nothing or die for something, your call."

They're sneaking around the prison-camp, freeing the hostages, getting ready for the attack. Sarah's about to get raped, Rambo doesn't like that, and out comes the machete, but instead he rips out the guy's throat with his bare hands, nice bloody choice. Slooowwww motion jump to save Sarah from gunfire, but a sniper takes out the gunmen before Rambo takes the bullet. Morning. The army has discovered the prisoners are missing, and is chasing them all into the jungle.

I meant to review Hearts of Darkness a couple months back, but it got lost among all my other postponed reviews somewhere. It's been too long for me to remember it with enough detail to review it fully. It's an excellent documentary, whether you care about the making of Apocalypse Now or not. It's a fascinating insight into Francis Ford Coppola's creative process and the great depths, emotionally and psychically, that he goes to achieve his lofty goals. There's great insider footage of Francis, Martin Sheen, Lawrence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper and Robert Duvall, among others. And some good interviews with Francis' film-making buddies, George Lucas and John Milius. A truly excellent film. - Grade: A

The opening minutes of Hearts of Darkness:

I hate what spoof movies have become in the last decade. All the "something" Movie's, have been terrible, little more than a thousand badly done pop-culture jokes loosely strung together. They never ever bother to stay within the genre they're supposed to be spoofing. Something like Hot Shots, which I always considered a lesser-spoof, looks like a classic compared to these films, it remains in genre, actually develops the characters and tells a bit of a story. Airplane, the king of spoof films, is as funny today as it was almost 30 years ago, and it will always be funny. While something like Epic Movie feels out of date by the time it gets to DVD. So I was happy to see the trailer for Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, it looked more like the classic spoofs, and was made by people with some talent.

Produced and written by Judd Apatow, who's been on a hit comedy roll for the past few years. Co-written and directed by Jake Kasdan, who directed episodes of Apatow's TV shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, along with some good films, including 2006's The TV Set. Anyways, the fairly high pedigree for this film, got my expectations up pretty high. Walk Hard, didn't quite meet those expectations, but the film is much better than the other spoof comedies of this era. And I think it's one of those films that'll grow on me over time.

Walk Hard, keeps within the rock n' roll biography, mainly spoofing Ray and Walk the Line, but touching on other films, such as The Doors and Great Balls of Fire. The great thing about it is, they take Dewey Cox through just about every genre of of music from the past 50 years. He starts off as a country-rock musician, playing shows with Elvis, a great cameo by Jack White of the White Stripes, has a spiritual awakening with the Beatles, goes through a Bob Dylan faze, moving through disco and pop, before going back to his roots. The songs are all very well written and produced, they believably sound like the songs they're mocking, while being very funny at the same time. The songs are the highlight of the film.

The performances are also very good, they give the goofy jokes a reality. Dewey was the role John C. Reilly was born to play, his charisma sells the idea of him being a huge rock star, while also selling the jokes, without being too cheesy about it. The Office's Jenna Fischer, is really wonderful as Darlene, Dewey's muse and co-singer. Tim Meadows gets a chance to shine as a member of Dewey's band, I particularly liked the scene where he tells Dewey not to try pot. Raymond J. Barry, a character actor who's usually dead serious, made me laugh every time he was on screen as Dewey's dad, even though he only had one real line: "The wrong son died!" - Repeating the same line over and over, is a gag that usually doesn't work, but he has a gravitas that sells it.

The film is well made, with great photography, editing, direction and acting, much better than the other spoofs of this era. So when all the films like Epic Movie, Date Movie and 300 Spartans, are long forgotten, I believe that Walk Hard will live on. It's not a classic, but it is a consistently funny film, that is worth seeing. - Grade: B

I love werewolves, greatly prefer them too vampires, unfortunately they have a much weaker presence in film. Sadly, The Howling series, seven in all, constitutes a good chunk of the films from the last twenty years. American Werewolf in London remains the best werewolf film ever. I was pleasantly surprised by the fairly recent film Ginger Snaps, its sequels much less so. It had been a long time since I had seen any of the Howling films, and I don't believe I've ever seen Howling II: Your Sister's a Werewolf, so when it showed up on TV, I decided to check it out.

I was completely not expecting this flick. It is extremely surreal. They throw all logic out the window and turn these werewolves into complete sex-fiends, the humans chasing them aren't much more normal. But that's only a sliver of what makes it so weird. The film is edited in an extremely experimental manner, at least for a fairly mainstream film that had a wide theatrical release. The film moves along normally, then they suddenly cut to a random shot from earlier in the film, usually somebody changing into a wolf, but not always. As an editor, I found it refreshing, to see a horror film try something different. It doesn't always work, but it keeps it interesting, as you never know what you're going to see next.

Ben is attending his sister Karen's funeral, who died in the first film, when he's approached by Stefan Crosscoe, a Van Helsing type character, played by the classic Christoper Lee. Crosscoe tells him his sister is in fact a werewolf, and that she'll come back to life that night. Being a rational person, Ben dismisses him as a nut, but decides to make sure later that night. He witness her changing, just before Crosscoe drives a silver stake through her heart, and they're attacked by a gaggle of werewolves. That's it, Ben is pissed. He's ready to travel to Transylvania with Crosscoe to wipe out the monsters that did this to his sister. Ben's new girlfriend, a journalist and friend of his sister, comes along for the ride. They stay in a weird little town, in the heart of werewolf country.

(I'm going to save some time and post a seven-year-old review of Spy Kids from my defunct website: Optimus Prime Films - Mostly as a history lesson for myself, so I can see how my writing has changed over the years. I'll leave it intact. Don't laugh.)

Director Robert Rodriguez most well known for the over-the-top action flick Desperado and the gory horror flick From Dusk till Dawn, makes a kids movie? It's called Spy Kids? That title makes it sound like a straight-to-video flick starring the Olsen Twins. I was thinking he was crazy or a "sell-out" or both. Seeing the trailer didn't do much to quell those thoughts. It looked like a pretty standard kids movie, with the way to obvious jokes and the standard shots of kids beating up adults. Like the hundreds of Home Alone replicas that have come out since that seminal film.

I went into Spy Kids thinking, "Ok I'm going to watch this from a 10-year-olds point-of-view. That's probably about the only way I'm going to enjoy this." Boy was I pleasantly surprised when, only about 20 seconds into the film, I realized I wasn't going to have to do that. That this was a film that adults could have fun watching too.

The film opens simple enough with a mother telling her daughter a bed-time story about the two greatest secret agents to ever live. These two spies fall deeply in love and decide to get married. This is no ordinary wedding, towards the end about 20 heavily armed helicopters show up and shoot up the place, the wedding ends with the couple jumping off a cliff together. Soon they're having kids and retiring from the spy game. Of course this is the story about the parents in this film, played by Carla Gugino (Snake Eyes) and Rodriguez staple Antonio Banderas. (See the scene below.)

After a little introduction to the family's home life, the parents are kidnaped by the maniacal, evil genius Fegan Floop. You know the typical James Bond film, diabolical madman, except this time his genius is focused more on his children's TV show than taking over the world. The weird characters from Floop's show also work as his henchmen. (I especially liked the Thumb-Thumbs.) It is up to the kids to save their parents from this conflicted villain. Character actor Alan Cumming plays Floop with a flamboyant glee; it is the best performance of the film. That's not to say the rest are bad, they're just good enough, both of the kids are quite charismatic. After all this isn't a film about acting.

It is an entertainment piece, pure fluff, but thankfully it's one of the better ones to come out lately. This is a Rodriguez film, he knows how to make fast paced, fun films. And unlike his last film, The Faculty, all of his trademark stuff is here, the outlandish action scenes, the cool camera work, quick zooms, slow-motion, perfectly edited together by Rodriguez himself, all set to some funky guitar riffs. There are a few jokes that fall flat since they're aimed at the kiddies and a bad McDonald's product placement. But otherwise it's fun stuff, a perfect Saturday afternoon matinee film. - Grade: B

(I watched this with my son for the first time in a few years, he seemed to enjoy it, though hasn't asked to re-watch it, the true test. I still feel the same about the film as in this review. As for the writing, it hasn't changed much; same style, maybe a little more developed now, and definitely wordier. Though it's nearly impossible to critique yourself.)

I want to see the movie on the poster to the right, it looks so much cooler than the film I watched. The rats never looked this scary, nor were there any scantily-clad girls getting carried off by them. There were giant rats, yes, but they were either big immobile puppets thrown at the actors, or cute pet rats climbing on miniature sets. The effects are laughably bad throughout Food of the Gods, but they're endearing because the filmmakers try so hard to make them work, despite their limited budget and 70's technology.

Honestly the film is nowhere as near as bad as I thought it would be or hoped for. I was expecting a laughable mess, instead the film is fairly competently made. The effects are very cheesy, but respectably so, not nearly as bad as many films of this era. The acting by the mostly unknown actors isn't terrible, they give good line readings, with the right inflections. The film is decently shot, directed, edited and scored. Which was a bit of a disappointment on one level, because I couldn't laugh at the film-maker's incompetence, and sort of had to take this ridiculous story seriously, which didn't make it as entertaining as I expected. Because the film's not funny, and I obviously can't be scared of it either, because I'm not 10 and living in the 70's, it becomes mearly a mediocre piece of entertainment.

Now don't get me wrong, the effects are humorous, I especially liked the part where our hero Morgan gets attacked by a giant chicken. The scenes of the giant animals are definitely the highlight of the film, but there are too many dead scenes of dialogue, that slow the film down. I was also hoping for more variety in animals, at the very beginning Morgan and his buddies are hunting in the woods, when one of them is attacked and killed by giant wasps. There's some good make-up effects here of the guy gruesomely puffed up. After the funeral, Morgan, a professional football player, heads back into the woods to figure out the mystery of what happened. That's when he comes across the farm with the giant chickens. That night, the farmer is attacked by giant rats. For the rest of the movie only the rats attack, and it got boring seeing the same old puppets. I guess that's all the animals they had in the budget.

There's some kind of magical goo seeping out of the ground on the farmer's land, and any animal that eats it turns gigantic. So by all means, there should have been more, especially of the insect variety. (Writer/Director Bert I. Gordon did the giant insect thing with his next film Empire of the Ants.) The farmers decide to feed it to the chickens, then the rats steal the chickens eggs, and apparently that's where the food chain ends in this world. Anyway, I shouldn't be complaining, three giant animals is three more than most films have to offer. An evil businessman shows up, he wants to buy the goo to use in animal production. In tow, is his cute secretary, who soon falls for Morgan and his manly blond curls. Soon they're all trapped in the farm house with giant rats crawling all over and it's up to Morgan and his NFL buddy to save the day.

They made a lot of these nature-revenge films in the late 70's and early 80's. It all started with The Birds, then became popular with Jaws, which remains far-and-away the best of the bunch. But there was also Day of the Animals, Piranha, Grizzly, Squirm, a personal favorite, and quite a few others. In terms of quality, Food of the Gods lies somewhere in the middle, as it's a fairly well made for a B-movie. But lies in a strange area between good and bad, which makes it unfortunately boring. Watch it for the giant animal scenes, skip the rest. - Grade: C+

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I appreciate the craft and hard work that goes into any film, even if the final result isn't all it was meant to be. I'm doubly impressed by the work put into indie films. And I'm not talking about something like Pulp Fiction, that has a relatively huge budget, movie stars and professional crew. I'm talking about true independents, films that have zero connections to Hollywood, that are made completely outside of the system, with thread bare budgets. Automaton Transfusion is such a film, made in Florida, with a budget under $100K, and not a single recognizable actor.

I'm usually much easier on such films, because I know exactly how much love and hard work is donated in making a film like this. So while I wouldn't rate this as a fantastic film, I'm deeply impressed by what they were able to create. The filmmakers said screw-it in trying to develop a unique story, they used as few dialogue scenes as possible, and focused all their attention on creating some serious gore. They knew that hardcore horror fans would forgive the bad acting and the cliche' ideas, if they were fully entertained by the sight of nonstop blood.

It's a normal Friday afternoon in Grover City, a few high school seniors have a night of partying ahead of them, but things go awry when a horde of zombies attack their town and they're forced to fight for their lives. That's about it on the plot. One minute their biggest problem is a pimple, the next they're running to literally save their skin. Near the end of the film, the film comes to a screeching halt with a poorly done scene of exposition, as a soldier explains why everything just happened and also sets up the sequel. The filmmakers planned on turning Automaton Transfusion into a trilogy, and the film ends with a: to be continued...

However, you don't watch zombie films for originality, you watch them for bodies being torn apart and eaten. Automaton Transfusion has that in spades. Despite the low budget, they went all out on the gore. Every body part imaginable is ripped off in waves of the sticky red stuff. They created the most imaginative death I've ever seen in a zombie flick, as a girl's unborn baby is torn out of her stomach and bitten into, while she screams helplessly, before getting eaten herself. It's so disgustingly perverse, so over the edge, that I actually cheered when it happened. There are never ending waves of zombies, the filmmakers got every friend and friend of friends to show up to get turned into the undead. They're the new-style zombies, quick moving, with a touch of smarts in how to get to their victims.

If you're any kind of horror fan, you have to do yourself a favor and see this film. What it lacks in acting, most of the characters are seriously bad, the less talking the better; and story, it's your basic military experiment gone wrong plot; it more than makes up for in stylized gore. The make-up artists did a great job in creating some seriously sick imagery. They even got their city to shut down a few blocks, to add to the authenticity. There was one thing about the filmmaking that bugged me all the way through, I'm not sure if they were trying to get a film look out of their video source, but the whole film has that skipped-frame look. You know like some of the battle scenes in Gladiator, it's an effect that should be used sparingly, and they went a little nuts with it here.

Ultimately I believe that writer/director Steven C. Miller has a very promising future in horror. With Automaton Transfusion he created a lot out of a little, if he gets any kind of budget and a decent script, he could create a classic horror film. - Grade: B+

Since anybody who would bother to read this site has a 99.9% chance of already seeing Dumbo, I won't bother with a review. I'll simply post a few clips.

The first is the original 1941 trailer. Amazing, simply for how different they used to advertise films.

My favorite scene in the film, "Pink Elephants on Parade". Again amazing, for how times have changed. You could never get away with a scene of a drunk character, that turns out to be this trippy in a G rated film these days. Gorgeously hand animated, they simply don't make them like this anymore.

My 2nd favorite scene, which might be considered racist by some, and I can understand their point of view, but I choose not to see it that way, and simply enjoy it as a wonderful musical number. I love most of the music in these classic Disney films, they're entertaining and move the plot along. The later Disney films, once the characters start singing, it brings the whole movie to a stop. Enjoy, "When I See an Elephant Fly."

I originally saw this when I was about 12 years old and it scared the hell out of me. I remember laying in bed obsessively thinking about this shapeless killer sliming its way into my room. I've had affection for this film ever since. I watched it a few more times over the years, bought it when it first came out on DVD, and being in the mood for a decent 80's horror flick, decided to revisit it after running across it in my collection.

I don't believe I've ever seen the original The Blob all the way through. Sure I remember the imagery of Steve McQueen running from it, but that's about it. It's one of the classic sci-fi/horror movie ideas, and like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I wouldn't mind them remaking it every other generation. I'm sure there's a script floating around for it right now, with a 2000's twist to it.

Despite some bad blue screen backgrounds, which pop up sparingly through this film, it remains fairly timeless. A solid script by Frank Darabont and director Chuck Russell sets the perfect tone, which is dryly funny, a fairly realistic take, and also seriously scary at times. They didn't wimp out when it came to the film's death scenes. Even going so far as to kill a little kid, an extreme rarity. I remember being stunned when the kid dies, they'd always gotten away before that, and that freaked me out.

Kevin Dillan, long before his Entourage days, plays Brian Flagg, a small town bad-ass, with accompanying leather jacket, motorcycle and silky-smooth mullet. And way before her turn as a killer in the Saw flicks, Shawnee Smith played Meg Penny, the town good girl, who always does the right thing. Their paths cross when Meg and her boyfriend run down an old man, who previously stumbled across the Blob and is now slowly snacking his hand. Brian rides with them to the hospital, so they can get their stories straight, but takes off before the Blob swallows the rest of the old man and then eats Meg's boyfriend.

Of course nobody believes Meg's story about the killer Jello, chalking it up to the shock of her boyfriend's death, but she knows what's out there. Soon it's eating more people, including in one of my favorite scenes, a couple out for a night of parking. Meg decides to take action and escapes out her bedroom window, running into Brian, the only other person to have seen the Blob and live. Looking for clues, they run across a group of Government scientists who are searching for the Blob, and unwittingly reveal its true origins. Meanwhile Meg's little brother, his friend and a theater full of people are attacked while watching a horror movie. After absorbing a few dozen people, the Blob has grown to massive proportions and the whole town is under risk. It's up to the rotten-egg and the goody-two-shoes to save everyone.

This film is fairly straight-forward, you can pretty much guess where it's going the whole time. But it's almost perfectly executed, making it a very fun ride. Director Chuck Russell uses some great gruesome effects, with people melting and getting sucked into drains, to convey the true horror that this ever growing shapeless killer is capable of. The dialogue is crisp throughout, making the ridiculous seem realistic, and giving Kevin Dillon a couple of great one-liners. I believe The Blob a forgotten classic, and if it weren't for John Carpenter's version of The Thing, I'd call it the best ever remake. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a a favor and do so. - Grade: B+