A few reviews

[Zaharoff]

A Blueprint For Murder - 1953 - USA

A Blueprint For Murder - 1953 - 6/10

Uncle Cam hurries to the hospital where niece Polly is critical.
Doctors are baffled. Then Polly recovers, only to die by dawn.
Just one of those sad things, I guess.
Until Cam’s friend, a pulp mystery writer, speculates about strychnine.
Sure enough. Stranger still, Cam’s brother, Polly’s dad, had also died mysteriously.
Suspicion falls on the widow, the second wife, who stands to inherit – once little Bobby dies.
More mystery than Noir, neither lead is quite believable.

 

[Horrorshow]

The Time Travelers - 1964 - USA

The Time Travelers - 1964 - 5/10

Scientists devise a time travel view screen.
Only, mirroring today, it drains enormous power from the local utility.
Then, it shorts somehow, and become a transport portal … into the future!
2071, Earth a wasteland after a nuclear war.
Mutants on the surface, remnants of civilization underground.
Although a cheesy B-film (borrowing from The Time Machine, it is thoughtful, and the ending imaginative.

Despite only learning of "The Time Travelers" a few years ago during COVID, I have an enormous fondness for this mostly terrible picture. Due to the film's association with a gorgeous song that means the world to me. A song called "Anomaly" by a prolific electronic musician called Carl Finlow.

I first learned of "The Time Travelers" through a YT video that I stumbled upon while being confined during lockdown. The original video unfortunately no longer exists but there are reproductions of it available. I'll link to one at the end of my ramble here. Patrons of TLO might enjoy it. It combines clips from "The Time Travelers" with Finlow's melancholic song. I found that the weaving together of unearthly, electronic sounds with Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography from "The Time Travelers" made for a pleasingly haunting, retro-futuristic aesthetic. It was a genuinely profound experience for me during a strange time in my life. It certainly helped me endure the challenges of the global pandemic we were all subjected to.

I of course tracked down the movie itself and I enjoyed watching it. It made for a peculiar experience, something akin to déjà vu I suppose, because I already felt like I knew the film before I watched it. Additionally, "The Time Travelers" stars an actor I remembered from the season two Twilight Zone episode "Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?", John Hoyt, whose face if not his mediocre body of work I'm sure will be familiar to many here.

Carl Finlow - Anomaly - The Time Travelers

Sorry for the interruption to the thread. I return you back to our regularly scheduled programming.

 

[Ligrotesque]

The Time Travelers - 1964 - USA

The Time Travelers - 1964 - 5/10

Scientists devise a time travel view screen.
Only, mirroring today, it drains enormous power from the local utility.
Then, it shorts somehow, and become a transport portal … into the future!
2071, Earth a wasteland after a nuclear war.
Mutants on the surface, remnants of civilization underground.
Although a cheesy B-film (borrowing from The Time Machine, it is thoughtful, and the ending imaginative.

Far more enjoyable in the MST3K adaptation/augmentation

 

[Zaharoff]

The Bird With The Crystal Plumage - 1970 - Italy

The Bird With The Crystal Plumage - 1970 - 6/10
AKA - L'uccello dalle Piume di Cristallo

Sam has writer’s block, so he heads to Rome with his English model girlfriend.
After witnessing and intervening in an attempted murder, he foolishly “gets involved.”
Sam begins investigating on his own.
So much so, that the assassin warns him, and threatens his English bird.
Does he listen? Please.
Argento debut film is a tour de force, bristling with style and flourishes.

 

[Zaharoff]

Kiss Me Deadly - 1955 - USA

Kiss Me Deadly - 1955 - 7/10

Sleazy detective Mike Hammer picks up a near nude hitchhiker.
The pair are soon kidnapped, the female tortured to death, Hammer almost killed.
Police and Feds advise the two-bit divorce PI to back off, and he knuckles down.
Hard hitting, two-fisted Noir, one of the very toughest.
Meeker is the definite Hammer to whom all others are measured.
Singled out by a Federal Commission as the #1 menace to American youth.

 

[Zaharoff]

Suggs: My Life Story - 2018 - UK

Suggs: My Life Story - 2018 - 6/10

Madness frontman and ordinary bloke, Suggs, before an intimate crowd.
Part remembrance, part recreations, some music hall, and a search for a missing father.
Enjoyment might depend on how familiar one is with Suggs, Madness, 80’s music, Thatcher England.

 

[Zaharoff]

Night Shift - 2024 - USA

Night Shift - 2024 - 6/10

Best friend Darcy is heading off to Ivy League.
Cheryl, meantime, is stuck in a dumpy diner, filled with immature horn dogs.
Until Feral Cheryl, snubbed-dubbed by schoolmates, is befriended by a leather clad stranger.
Before she gets clawed outside the town’s recreation alley.
Afterward, beware the full moon!
English subtitles = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3373034

 

[Zaharoff]

The Big Country - 1958 - USA

The Big Country - 1958 - 6/10

Retired sea captain heads West.
His fiancée awaits, as does a feud between his in-laws and some outlaws.
The conflict, water rights. Big deal in cattle country.
Uncontrolled testosterone precipitates fighting, which the sea captain declines.
Several times, action is imminent, only to defuse.
The musical theme is the best thing in overlong, plodding soap opera.

 

[Zaharoff]

A Thousand Pleasures - 1968 - USA

A Thousand Pleasures - 1968 - 5/10

After killing his wife, Richard heads to the coast to dispose of her body.
Enroute, he picks up two female hitchhikers – who turn out to be lesbians with “baby fever”.
Richard is kidnapped and subject to humiliation, in order to get his baby makin’ juice.
Good luck there, ladies, as another female, Anna, is a plus-sized nymphomaniac.
No mercy for the murderer in sleazy grindhouse sexploitation.
Pulp dialogue such as, “the delicate pink lining of the chasm of love…”
Audio commentary meanders and is never pertinent to the onscreen “narrative”.
English subtitles = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3373035

 

[Zaharoff]

The Golden Bowl - 1972 - UK

The Golden Bowl - 1972 - 7/10

Ex-pat Americans live in luxury in Europe.
Affluent, they catch of eye of aristocratic Euro mercenaries.
Including a cash poor prince, who marries a naïve Maggie.
Maggie’s best mate Charlotte, marries Maggie’s father.
We suspect, long before our American friends do, that the prince and Charlotte share an intimate relationship.
Superb adaptation of Henry James’ layered novel.
This may prove too slow for many, yet deception takes time to be exposed.
Avarice, opulence, innocence and experience.

 

[Zaharoff]

The Colony - 2026 - S Korea

The Colony - 2026 - 6/10
AKA - Gunche // 군체

As in ant colony or hive mentality.
An embittered young scientist infects the elder who appropriated his research.
The infection grows exponentially, turning victims into zombie like mutations.
Periodically, they share a colony update, learning.
Fast-moving S Korean film, as frantic as Train To Busan, but not as fresh.

 

[Zaharoff]

Souleymane’s Story - 2024 - France

Souleymane’s Story - 2024 - 7/10
AKA - L'Histoire de Souleymane

Souleymane is a Guinea refugee trying to get asylum status.
Between an ill-paid gig as a food delivery guy, he takes lessons on how to present himself as a political refugee.
Truth to the point, he has dependents back home, and he is an economic migrant, which nations are declining.
He is cheated throughout, underpaid, lied to, harassed, racing through Paris traffic.
Abou Sangaré is amazing in the title role. The film is uncomfortable.
I live in the barrio and witness this often. Neighbors gently shoo these folks along.
Desperate people do desperate things, as told to us by local police.
English subs = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3373304

 

[Zaharoff]

Zombeavers - 2014 - USA

Zombeavers - 2014 - 5/10

College students (resembling 30-year-olds) head to the cabin by the stream.
Unaware that toxic waste has spilled into the waters, turning shy, mild-mannered beavers into –
Omigod! Zombie beavers! Ravenous for flesh.
Luckily, our intrepid sextet (mind the first half of that word) take shelter in a cabin made of wood.
Chomp, gnaw, chomp, gnaw, chomp – oh, no! Beavers can chew through wood?
Horror romp has more gags and jokes that nail, rather than duds.
Stick with those credits, likewise a snazzy outro song.

 

[Zaharoff]

Invocation Of My Demon Brother - 1969 - USA

Invocation Of My Demon Brother - 1969 - 5/10

This opens at what appears to be a dissipated orgy, participants spent.
Trippy, with lights, costumes, camera trickery, male nudity and repetitive (hypnotic?) music.
Must say, I did appreciate the skull pipe.
A little of this goes a long way. Maybe if I was back in the early 70’s, stoned.
Participants include Kenneth Anger, Mick Jagger, Anton LaVey, Bobby Beausoleil.

 

[Zaharoff]

Dante’s Peak - 1997 - USA

Dante’s Peak - 1997 - 5/10

Aww shucks, How could I forget?
The other stupid volcano disaster from 1997.
Activity in Washington draws seismologists. Only it’s a false alert.
Government sends their experts back. Save for Pierce, who stubbornly stays.
The disaster stuff takes half the movie to get underway.
Exciting and also ludicrous. I ended up rooting for lava and sulphur.

 

[Zaharoff]

Pride Of The Marines - 1945 - USA

Pride Of The Marines - 1945 - 7/10

Boy meets girl. He’s a confirmed never-going-to-marry sort, she’s no pushover.
Pearl Harbor attack and the boy enlists.
On Guadalcanal, he mows down a company of combatants, but is blinded.
Rest of the film follows his rehabilitation and determination not to tell the girl.
As if women can be fooled.
A trifle too long, but Garfield is intense and memorable as Al Schmid, real hero.

 

[Zaharoff]

Dogville - 2003 - Denmark

Dogville - 2003 - 6/10

Straight off, I do not like this director. Genius or misogynist, take your pick.
Grace, on the run from hoodlums, hides in one-horse-town Dogville.
Gangsters pass through and offer a fat finder’s fee for her.
The town permits her to remain as an unpaid servant. A slave. Games ensue.
Despite the equivalent of a Pre-Code ending, this is a torturous watch.
It is also not cinema, but plain theatre.

 

[Zaharoff]

Hell Harbor - 1930 - USA

Hell Harbor - 1930 - 5/10

After murdering for a cash wad, Morgan is blackmailed into selling his daughter to the head grifter.
Hot-blooded Anita wants none of that, thank you very much.
She intends to kill the moneyed American as soon as he drops anchor.
Until she decides he is too good looking to kill.
Maybe he can sail her to Havana. Maybe he will marry her.
Creaky Pre-Code depends on Lupe Velez; when she is on, this sizzles.
English subs = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3373305

 

[Zaharoff]

Savage House - 2026 - UK

Savage House - 2026 - 7/10

Sir Chauncey Savage married into his title.
He had been working class trash, while Lady Savage came from a noble, if ruined, house.
Together, they squandered or pawned all remaining valuables.
If only a royal would visit, that would boost social esteem and replenish their fortunes.
This is a gloriously wicked comedy, sprinkled with political observations.
But mostly greed. Along with avarice, gluttony, lust, thievery.
Not sloth, however. Their industry could be inspiring.
English subs = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3373306

 

[Zaharoff]

Psycho - 1960 - USA

Psycho - 1960 - 7/10

Bank secretary, annoyed by a pompous braggart, casually embezzles $40K.
Drives into oblivion, plagued by guilt, anxiety, growing regret of her impulsive action.
A downpour forces her off the main highway, where she takes shelter at an old motel.
A classic shocker that must be viewed stone cold.
If you have never viewed this one, don’t read a damn thing. Really.
Turn off the distractions, just focus on the female criminal and relax.