tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84927953761748477692024-03-18T03:30:46.117-05:00Ha ha, it's Burl!Ha ha!Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.comBlogger1065125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-77893826142434825812023-11-30T22:52:00.004-06:002023-12-02T21:10:15.948-06:00Burl reviews Fallen Leaves! (2023)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMQWVQMXerxibtLTLCXJca6i1qJSIMqGgf1rMkPyuAt-cykKG6yHa2kJS2b3-niNcQfyoJTjUdS4oIcWZJ7mG86iq_j1WBYkh51PWtQuSDwaLyEG2gHQouY1EB3wURl859yOS7_WC115JLcNZgSrDMxx1YMZ_sP5glWGMtCKXT1b0w-PZpv-ESJGEpb_I/s2560/fallen-leaves-poster-final-scaled.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1728" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMQWVQMXerxibtLTLCXJca6i1qJSIMqGgf1rMkPyuAt-cykKG6yHa2kJS2b3-niNcQfyoJTjUdS4oIcWZJ7mG86iq_j1WBYkh51PWtQuSDwaLyEG2gHQouY1EB3wURl859yOS7_WC115JLcNZgSrDMxx1YMZ_sP5glWGMtCKXT1b0w-PZpv-ESJGEpb_I/w432-h640/fallen-leaves-poster-final-scaled.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha and hello again
everybody! I sure am sorry I’ve been such a no-show lately – I’m working on a
book, and that always eats into my movie reviewing time and energy! I’ve still
been watching plenty of movies though, many of them great candidates for review!
There’s a bit of a backlog and I’m not sure I’ll ever get to them, so for now I’ll
just review a picture I saw with friends and family the other afternoon at the
local arthouse! It was a fine outing, the more so because the movie was the
latest Aki Kaurismäki picture, <i>Fallen Leaves</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha, as a person of
mostly Nordic blood, I’ve always enjoyed deadpan Scandinavian movies, and I’ll
say right off the hop that this one was a real delight! I used to watch Kaurismäki
joints with my pal Pellonpäa, who is so nicknamed because of his undying love
for the great bohemian and excellent actor Matti Pellonpäa! Unfortunately
Pellonpäa (the real one, not my friend) died a long time ago, so he couldn’t be
in <i>Fallen Leaves</i>! But we sure enjoyed him way back when in the <i>Leningrad
Cowboy</i> movies and <i>Night on Earth</i>, and best of all in <i>La vie de bohème</i>,
in which he played the role he was born for: a bohemian! After all, in real
life he had no home – he lived in a car and a big booth at his favourite Helsinki
bar, and that’s a pretty boho situation right there!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">So there’s no Pellonpäa in
<i>Fallen Leaves</i>, but there are some pretty acceptable substitutes! Our
story revolves around two lonely, quiet, early-middle aged people in Helsinki! Ha
ha, they’re taciturn in the great Finnish tradition, and because this is part
of a series of Kaurismäki pictures set amongst the proletariat, they work a
series of menial service or industrial jobs from which they keep getting fired
or otherwise becoming unemployed! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">We meet Ansa, who looks
uncannily like my friend Mary and is played by Alma Pöysti, as she toils in a bleak
supermarket under the close and creepy gaze of a monstrous security guard! She lives
in a lonely apartment and whenever she turns on the radio it plays dire news of
the war in Ukraine! And across the city is lank-haired, ghost-moustached Raunio,
who drinks a lot, lives in a shipping container with four other dudes, works some kind of compressor-based job while wearing a thick boiler suit, and is played by
Martti Suosalo!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">These two lonely <i>folkünn</i>
first spy one another at a charming karaoke night, where the show is stolen by
Raunio’s buddy Huotari! There are some further mutual (or not mutual)
sightings, and then finally they go on a date to see a movie: none other than
the Jim Jarmusch zombie feature <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/06/burl-reviews-dead-dont-die-2019.html">The Dead Don’t Die</a></i>! Ha ha! This
occasions a few funny <i>cinéaste</i> gags in which the movie is compared to a
Bresson film and also to Godard’s <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/11/burl-reviews-band-of-outsiders-1964.html">Bande à part</a></i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">But (in a plot mechanism
that rings a little false, I must say), the two never get around to telling
each other their names, so when Raunio immediately loses Ansa’s phone number
he’s unable to find her, and true love must wait! Then when they reconnect it
must wait again thanks to Raunio’s devotion to the demon alcohol! And at the last,
once the bottom has been reached and rebounded from, and it looks like the two
will finally get together, fate intervenes yet again in a slightly unlikely cliché
that is depicted in perhaps the laziest, most clichéd and most rote way
possible!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">But ha ha that’s
completely forgivable, because Kaurismäki’s hand is so steady on the wheel that
we know it must all be by careful design! The same goes for the cute dog which
is introduced in the final act of the film – there’s nothing lazier than
tossing in a cute dog to win the hearts of the audience, but here we don’t care
because the dog underplays his part in just the same stoic manner as the rest
of the cast, and is genuinely charming and hilarious as a result!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">There are other on-screen charmers
too – ha ha, I thought Huotari, the buddy, was a heck of a fellow, and he
reminded me of some real-life people I know! Ansa has a nice friend too! The
picture was shot on real celluloid film, so it looks very nice, and, typically
of Kaurismäki, thanks to the locations, sets, props and costumes, it seems as
though it could be taking place any time between the 1950s and now; although of
course there are such modern touches as cell phones, karaoke, and the war in Ukraine,
so we know it’s set in the now!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It’s a feel-good sort of
movie without any of the laboured heart-tugging that phrase usually bespeaks!
It’s slight, but it’s simple in the best ways, and as a date picture you could
do <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/09/burl-reviews-new-life-1988.html">much</a>, <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/12/burl-reviews-tulips-1981.html">much</a>, <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/09/burl-reviews-on-edge-of-crazy-2007.html">much</a> worse! I say that if you get a chance to see it in a little
arthouse cinema like I did, take that chance! I give <i>Fallen Leaves</i> three
and a half expired sandwiches, and will try to be a bit better with my movie
reviewing in the future! But if I’m slow with it, at least you know why! Ha ha!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-83245731179277650752023-10-12T12:14:00.006-05:002023-10-13T00:27:02.709-05:00Burl reviews Dark Night of the Scarecrow! (1981) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiytenlPD3xdPyHB-v3KMx5hWqPNTN-SSGIuXWPsBgF1cz1O6c7GdGRACrfJcPot5AqS7qLnCY_2LAt79_jxOxIrEUVly18l_zQ4VTj-5H_fW7mJmuwwwnuDYl-wOnx8uVEkNEETDd83xnFJH6P4kUojHeBDWBQZ9a994MmH0zWnYbl6PT5CWK5-ilbBEs/s1600/DNotS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1066" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiytenlPD3xdPyHB-v3KMx5hWqPNTN-SSGIuXWPsBgF1cz1O6c7GdGRACrfJcPot5AqS7qLnCY_2LAt79_jxOxIrEUVly18l_zQ4VTj-5H_fW7mJmuwwwnuDYl-wOnx8uVEkNEETDd83xnFJH6P4kUojHeBDWBQZ9a994MmH0zWnYbl6PT5CWK5-ilbBEs/w426-h640/DNotS.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><p><br />
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">With a rustle of straw,
it’s Burl, here to talk to you all about killer scarecrows! Ha ha, we’ve seen
them before in pictures like <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/search?q=scarecrows">Scarecrows</a></i> of course, and everyone
remembers the eerie dancing man o’ straw from <i>The Wizard of Oz</i>, but
still, when you bring up the subject, everyone’s mind will instantly conjure up
images from a television movie more than forty years old – ha ha, yes, I’m
talking about <i>Dark Night of the Scarecrow</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The teleplot is simplicity
itself! Our setting is a small town in what I believe is meant to be the
American South, although it’s patently California! Bubba, a jolly but
soft-brained man played by Larry Drake from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/01/burl-reviews-darkman-1990.html">Darkman</a></i> and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/01/burl-reviews-for-keeps-1988.html"><i>For Keeps?</i></a>,
is playing in the fields with his friend Marylee, a ten year-old girl! Watching
from the sidelines is venal postie Otis Hazlerigg, essayed with narrow eyes by
Charles Durning from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/07/burl-reviews-stick-1985.html">Stick</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/12/burl-reviews-hudsucker-proxy-1994.html?m=0">The Hudsucker Proxy</a></i>! Otis impugns
all sorts of unsavoury motives onto Bubba, but of course he’s projecting in the Bell
& Howell style, and in fact the friendship between Bubba and Marylee is completely innocent!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The next thing you know
the little girl is attacked by a yard dog and Bubba bursts in through the fence
to save her, but initially he gets blamed for her injuries anyway, even though he protests that BUBBA DIDN’T
DO IT! Otis rounds up a posse made up of good old boys like Harliss, played by
Lane Smith from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/11/burl-reviews-night-game-1989.html">Night Game</a></i>; Skeeter, who is Robert F. Lyons from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/10/burl-reviews-death-wish-ii-1982.html"><i>Death
Wish II</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/08/burl-reviews-10-to-midnight-1983.html">10 to Midnight</a></i> and other Bronsonfests; and Philby,
essayed by Claude Earl Jones from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/11/burl-reviews-i-wanna-hold-your-hand-1978.html">I Wanna Hold Your Hand</a></i>! (Ha ha, somehow
I don’t think Claude is a part of the great Earl Jones acting dynasty, but as we
know from pictures like <i>A Family Thing</i>, I may well be wrong!) The
posse discovers Bubba hiding in a scarecrow and shoots the poor man to death,
just before it’s revealed to them that he wasn’t only harmless but a hero for
saving the girl!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Well, this hateful lynch
mob is instantly acquitted in a highly unbelievable courtroom scene, and soon after this,
the scarecrow vengeance begins! The stuffed anthropomorph appears in Harliss’s
field and that night the beer-swilling redneck is chawed in
his own wood chipper! It next shows up in Philby’s acreage and soon he’s
found in his silo, drowned in grain! Panicky Skeeter gets a graveyard klonking from Otis,
and there’s a pumpkin-crushing, pitchfork-poking climax wherein we discover
that indeed it’s Bubba’s spirit inhabiting the scarecrow that’s behind all this
vengeance! And a good thing, too – ha ha, what a disappointment if the killer
had turned out to be a more corporeal presence, like the D.A., or the little girl,
or Bubba’s rightfully angry mama, who’s played by Jocelyn Brando, older sister
to Marlon!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Of course Drake played
other soft-brained men in his acting career, most notably on the law show I never watched; and
he also played a character called Bubba in his very first film role, in Herschell Gordon Lewis’s hicksploitation drama <i>This Stuff’ll Kill Ya</i>!
He was a good actor, and he does fine work here – ha ha, he's a little broad here and
there perhaps, but never unrealistic! And Durning is good too – he can play
the most avuncular guy you ever saw in movies like <i>Tootsie</i>, but he has
this way of just squinting a little bit and presto, he instantly looks evil and pædopheliac! Ha
ha, and this is no small trick, given that Otis is for some reason always
wearing his silly postal service outfit, complete with blue pith helmet!</p>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">So the movie has a couple of solid performances and
some cornfield atmosphere (though it could have leaned harder into that I think),
and there’s a Halloween costume-ball scene, which I always like in a movie – ha
ha, remember <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/10/burl-reviews-primal-rage-1988.html">Primal Rage</a></i>? But it suffers a bit from a TV movie blandness,
from the So-Cal locations, and also from the padding needed to fill it out to
the length required of a movie in a two-hour broadcast slot! The affrights were
decidedly muted this time around, but since it really did me a spook-up back when I
was eleven, I want to give it some residual credit for that! Some added
walking scarecrow action might have been effective, but since that one head-turn we
get at the end really works, I’m not completely sure where I stand on that! So in
the spirit of my somewhat confused and ambivalent feelings, I’m going to give <i>Dark Night
of the Scarecrow</i> two flower leis!</span>
<p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-45344452473790299112023-10-10T15:55:00.004-05:002023-10-10T23:41:24.400-05:00Burl reviews Night of the Living Dead! (1990)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6De5iFnvd6pjPyJjDTcNdtW2y1Iu7DIw3DKth_RpadQUatyGFvptRlhbAH6Jn5MdQSY8S8Lm_sUw0EMo6Ute2eS1lr4fTIxcRox6VpicpwjDu-t4aYr5AIQsFZVOtcqd9wrBNReMM8EyLWqqqmuNFNY9bn6TkRlvopEbhgW0z0e4Cb_n4K-SGN1FCbcs/s860/NOTLD90.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="580" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6De5iFnvd6pjPyJjDTcNdtW2y1Iu7DIw3DKth_RpadQUatyGFvptRlhbAH6Jn5MdQSY8S8Lm_sUw0EMo6Ute2eS1lr4fTIxcRox6VpicpwjDu-t4aYr5AIQsFZVOtcqd9wrBNReMM8EyLWqqqmuNFNY9bn6TkRlvopEbhgW0z0e4Cb_n4K-SGN1FCbcs/w432-h640/NOTLD90.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It’s Burl once again with
the shambling and the moaning and the munching – yes, it’s zombies all right,
and not only that but it’s the same zombies, almost! Yes, last time I reviewed <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/10/burl-reviews-night-of-living-dead-1968.html"><i>Night
of the Living Dead</i></a>, and now here I am with a review of <i>Night of the
Living Dead</i>! Ha ha!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">This is the one directed
by trick effects makeup man Tom Savini, who did his gory necromancy in pictures
from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/04/burl-reviews-burning-1981.html">The Burning</a></i> to <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/11/burl-reviews-prowler-1981.html">The Prowler</a></i>! Here he’s behind the megaphone
and leaving the rubber wrangling to others, and ha ha, did you know what – he
did a decent job of it! Like Stan Winston with <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/10/burl-reviews-pumpkinhead-1988.html"><i>Pumpkinhead</i></a> and Tom
Burman when he made <i>Meet the Hollowheads</i>, Savini seems to have picked up mostly the right things from being on so many movie sets before taking up the megaphone himself!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Well, it’s the same old
story: Barbara and her ever-complaining brother Johnny pull up to the
graveyard, a zombie man jumps them, Johnny gets a klonking, and Barbara finds a
farmhouse! But this time it’s in color, and Barbara is played by Patricia
Tallman from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/10/burl-reviews-road-house-1989.html">Road House</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/10/burl-reviews-army-of-darkness-1992.html">Army of Darkness</a></i>, and Johnny is good
old Bill Moseley from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/10/burl-reviews-texas-chainsaw-massacre.html">The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2</a></i>! And when Ben pulls
up to the farmhouse, knocking over a zombie along the way and clutching a mighty
hayer’s hook like he’s auditioning for <i>Candyman</i>, he’s played by Tony
Todd from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/09/burl-reviews-enemy-territory-1987_27.html">Enemy Territory</a></i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Again we find cowering in the
basement an objectionable slaphead, this time played by Tom Towles from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/04/burl-reviews-mad-dog-glory-1993.html">Mad Dog and Glory</a></i>, and even meaner, barkier and more crazed than the 1968 version!
Ha ha, I thought this was a setup for when Ben shoots Cooper, as he did in the
original – you know, make Cooper dangerously insane so we don’t consider Ben's action egregious! But that’s not where the movie goes with this particular relationship!
And along with Cooper we again have the wife, the ailing daughter, and the
young hayseed couple! The lad in this latter duo is played by William Butler from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/07/burl-reviews-friday-13th-part-7-new.html">Friday
the 13<sup>th</sup> part VII: The New Blood</a></i>, and he has about the same luck in
both movies!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Aside from being in colour
(though Savini’s idea, nixed by unimaginative moneymen I assume, was to start
it in monochrome and gradually bring in the colour), the most remarked-upon change
from the original is to reconfigure Barbara from a shock-paralyzed nobody to an
actual character with agency! This is of course an improvement – one imagines
that for Romero, who wrote the screenplay, offering the more badass Barbara was a sort of
<i>mea culpa</i> for the wimpy old Barbara in his movie, ha ha! There are other small misdirects for those familiar
with the 1968 version, and other welcome changes here and there, especially in
the third act! But one thing they’ve kept: the incessant hammering of boards
across windows! Ha ha, this update has even more hammering, I think, and it
makes the middle act awfully monotonous! I also have to say that the inky,
eerie, spookshow atmosphere of the original is almost entirely missing!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Most of the changes are
improvements, however, even if they feel fairly strategic! Equally strategic
are the things kept pointedly the same, like an appearance by Chilly Billy Cardille
as a TV interviewer once again, and the return of the sheriff who says “They’re dead, they’re… all messed
up!” (Ha ha, and that new sheriff is played by Russell Streiner, who was Johnny
in the original, and was one of the producers of the old one too!) And of course the new movie is
gorier than the original, but not as much as you'd think a movie directed
by beloved goremeister Savini might be!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Altogether it turned out
better than anyone could have expected it would! There’s nothing very organic
or sincere about it, and I think it was at least in part a reaction to <i>Return
of the Living Dead</i> (or maybe to <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2016/02/burl-reviews-return-of-living-dead-part.html">Return of the Living Dead part II</a></i>, which had just come out a year or two before), and generally designed to reclaim ownership of the
Living Dead brand; but at least it was made by people connected to the original,
who were willing and able to put some effort into it! It’s no 1968 <i>Night of
the Living Dead</i>, but I’m going to give 1990 <i>Night of the Living Dead</i>
two pairs of old man pants!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-75970236461309962592023-10-05T11:33:00.006-05:002023-10-05T11:53:50.127-05:00Burl reviews Night of the Living Dead! (1968)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSS5EfgiM_t2UtTMCcDC_x-WRHwrEsHYPUlQ9tuKohPPpx-RPjzgmIDzdrlZon4qsGgC11sNQ_PeG43NpOJeG06fT9QqrPSPMgcjivy9_8ArqXFqmm8av3GqO25updl42QXPVV98GF1kT1DdhsAOHNDapCF458DJl2dCK93T7zxqx25nAPdZOO1g8SnKY/s1086/NOTLD.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1086" data-original-width="711" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSS5EfgiM_t2UtTMCcDC_x-WRHwrEsHYPUlQ9tuKohPPpx-RPjzgmIDzdrlZon4qsGgC11sNQ_PeG43NpOJeG06fT9QqrPSPMgcjivy9_8ArqXFqmm8av3GqO25updl42QXPVV98GF1kT1DdhsAOHNDapCF458DJl2dCK93T7zxqx25nAPdZOO1g8SnKY/w420-h640/NOTLD.jpg" width="420" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha, they’re coming to
get you Burlbra! Yes, it’s Burl here, reviewing an influential classic of
independent horror cinema! Before <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i>, before <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-halloween-1978.html">Halloween</a></i>,
along came the cheap little horror movie that could, and did, give the world a
new idea about where smash-hit movies might come from and what they might be like! So, in glorious black and white, here comes that all-timer <i>Night of the
Living Dead</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It’s a movie I’ve seen
many times, but I showed it to my son the other day as a part of his general horror
education, and was very pleased myself to watch it again! It’s a really solid
piece of work, being as it is a low-budget first feature from a little
Pittsburgh gang of twentysomethings whose usual line of country was commercials
and industrial pictures! They went out into the rural areas on weekends, or
into their jerry-built Pittsburgh studio, and made a movie that resembled almost nothing that had come before it! It was gruesome and boundary-pushing and eerie
and dark, and entirely of a piece with the times into which it was released:
the tail end of a decade of war, assassination, racial unrest, and riot!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Of course the lead beard
on the picture (ha ha, before he even <i>had</i> a beard) was George Romero, “creator
of the living dead,” as the mall PA system tells us in <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/12/burl-reviews-morgan-stewarts-coming.html"><i>Morgan Stewart’s
Coming Home</i></a>! Romero later brought us pictures like <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/06/burl-reviews-creepshow-1982.html">Creepshow</a></i>, and of
course many further zombie stomps, including <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2022/06/burl-reviews-land-of-dead-2005.html">Land of the Dead</a></i>! There’d
been zombie pictures before, naturally, but so far as the whole modern walking
dead cycle goes, ha ha, this is the wellspring!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">We all know the situation
and the characters! Barbara and her jerky hip-nerd brother Johnny have driven
out to a remote graveyard to visit their father, and Johnny’s complaining and
joking around is interrupted by a zombie man, with the net result being Johnny’s
head klonked on a tombstone! Well, Barbara is immediately reduced to a shocked jelly, but, shrieking and falling down the whole way,
she makes it to a nearby farmhouse, where she sees scary things and meets
up with capable Ben, played by Duane Jones! They start boarding up the windows against the gathering ghouls
outside - well, Ben mostly, with a little help from the near-catatonic Barbara - and after a lot of banging and nailing it transpires that there are
people hiding in the basement: angry, frightened slaphead Cooper, his wife and
injured daughter; and a young hayseed couple, Tom and Judy!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">There’s a lot of arguing
about whether they should stay upstairs or go hide in the basement, and then,
during an attempt to gas up a pickup truck as a prelude to fleeing the scene,
everything starts to go terribly wrong! Frankly, nobody comes out of the situation in
very good shape, and the final, cruel irony of the finale feels monumentally
unfair, but also consistent with the mood of both the film and the era! It’s
still a real gutpunch, however, and reading Roger Ebert’s account of the weeping
and crying children at the 1968 screening he attended – children who’d been dropped
off by their parents on the assumption this was another silly childish horror
movie – one wonders if it was the flesh-munching and other shocks that so upset them, or the
atmosphere and downer ending!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">As you’ve surely gleaned,
I admire this movie greatly! It’s not perfect: there’s not much respect given
to the character of Barbara, who’s just dead weight to the other characters and
to the film itself, really! The characterizations in general can’t be called
nuanced or profound, although I found the acting to be of a very high quality! Duane Jones
in particular is good, and it’s interesting, given the times, that he’s black:
this easily could have been a purposeful thing, a political statement from the
progressive Romero, but in fact he says that Jones was simply the best actor
they knew! This is borne up by his performance, and everyone else is pretty
good too, or at least acceptable! This goes a long mile in a low-budget
production!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It's rough in spots (which
I don’t personally regard as a debit), and the characters occasionally do dumb
things, and it probably all seems quaint and silly and overly familiar to today’s
zombie-soaked audiences! But it still works for me, and I have every respect for
its place in horror history, so I give <i>Night of the Living Dead</i> three
and a half keys to the gas pump!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-31355226189969885512023-09-27T09:50:00.007-05:002023-09-27T10:26:29.646-05:00Burl reviews Thunderbolt and Lightfoot! (1974)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdzuSZ3OasljEah1ebS-eTMosnax94g4KZXHgdA3rGvobGRf5nNDZO3hWvWEk_yUBSPtcEid0cOP3LHAA2HGaKCJGl0Kk4QOKO3Q4UQQZbMk5NMHoCovutDg27bazT-WKgfNDEeWMFLZy0tSp9YrMiXDztUW6GKuCI8ak2YdDUo6-R1fOJMTOX_EtRNs0/s1023/TandL.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1023" data-original-width="682" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdzuSZ3OasljEah1ebS-eTMosnax94g4KZXHgdA3rGvobGRf5nNDZO3hWvWEk_yUBSPtcEid0cOP3LHAA2HGaKCJGl0Kk4QOKO3Q4UQQZbMk5NMHoCovutDg27bazT-WKgfNDEeWMFLZy0tSp9YrMiXDztUW6GKuCI8ak2YdDUo6-R1fOJMTOX_EtRNs0/w426-h640/TandL.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Wacka-doo, snakecharmers,
it’s Burl, here to review a picture I’ve long wanted to see but somehow never
got around to until now! It’s a Malpaso picture from the 1970s, and you know
what that means: Clint! And most of those movies, whether Eastwood directed
them or not, have that Malpaso feeling: you watch them and just know that each
take is the first or at most the second, and that whether it was directed by
Don Siegel, who was Clint’s directing mentor, or James Fargo, whom Clint
mentored in turn, or by Clint himself, in each case the same philosophies and
work methods were employed! So there’s a sameness to these films, which isn’t
unwelcome – in fact it’s comforting! Nevertheless, when you see one that’s
clearly operating on its own principals, it’s pretty refreshing, and <i>Thunderbolt
and Lightfoot</i> is just such a film!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Of course we know Eastwood
from such pictures as <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/04/burl-reviews-blood-work-2002.html">Blood Work</a></i> and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2016/01/burl-reviews-tarantula-1955.html">Tarantula</a></i>, and here he plays
a laconic vault cracker-turned-fake-priest known as Thunderbolt, and we meet
him at the pulpit just as an angry George Kennedy from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/12/burl-reviews-creepshow-2-1987.html"><i>Creepshow 2</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/08/burl-reviews-earthquake-1974.html">Earthquake</a></i>
arrives at the church and tries to shoot him dead! In his frantic escape he
hooks up with a young Jeff Bridges, not yet of <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2016/01/burl-reviews-starman-1984.html">Starman</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/12/burl-reviews-king-kong-1976.html">King Kong</a></i>
fame, who has just stolen a roadster from a used-car salesman played by none
other than Gregory Walcott from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2022/08/burl-reviews-plan-9-from-outer-space.html">Plan 9 from Outer Space</a></i>! Bridges, of
course, is Lightfoot, and soon this pair of sillynames are bombing around picturesque
Montana, being buddies and, in their masculine, mid-70s manner, falling in
love!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Their first adventure
together involves catching a ride from a completely insane driver played by
Bill McKinney from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/11/burl-reviews-cannonball-1976.html"><i>Cannonball</i></a>! Ha ha, this demento keeps a caged badger
in the front seat and tears it up on and off the road, and after he’s
barrel-rolled the auto it turns out he’s got a trunk full of live bunny
rabbits, which he starts blasting at with a shotgun! Soon we get a taste of
George Kennedy again, and it turns out that Kennedy is playing Red, an old
partner of Thunderbolt’s who believes the craggy <i>longuebönes</i> to have
stolen some ill-gotten loot! Red and his confrere Goody, played by Eastwood
buddy Geoffrey Lewis, whom we’ll recall from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/06/burl-reviews-smile-1975.html">Smile</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/09/burl-reviews-salems-lot-1979.html">‘Salem’s Lot</a></i>,
first do some fisticuffs with and then enter into a foursquare partnership with
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot in order to once again take out the vault Thunderbolt
et al. had robbed the previous time!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">So the gang is assembled
and the plan is made, but first they all have to get jobs to buy the equipment
they need to do the heist! Ha ha, we get all sorts of amusing vignettes
featuring famous faces like Gary Busey from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/09/burl-reviews-silver-bullet-1985.html"><i>Silver Bullet</i></a>, looking young
and handsome; Burton Gilliam from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-fletch-1985.html">Fletch</a></i>, playing the sort of grinning
good old boy he made his stock-in-trade; Dub Taylor from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-creature-from-black-lake.html">Creature from Black Lake</a></i> just being Dub; and Luanne Roberts from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/11/burl-reviews-simon-king-of-witches-1971.html"><i>Simon, King of the Witches</i></a>
as a stark naked housewife! Lightfoot has an encounter with a motorcycle rider who’s
handy with a hammer, played by Karen Lamm from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/07/burl-reviews-ants-1977.html"><i>Ants!</i></a>; and before the
heist can be pulled off, the fellow monitoring the security alarms must be
taken care of by a drag Lightfoot, and the security fellow turns out to be a
chubby, girlie magazine-reading individual played by Cliff Emmich, who played
another chubby security officer who gets hit on the head later on in <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/11/burl-reviews-halloween-ii-1981.html"><i>Halloween II</i></a>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The picture dwells less on
the robbery details than most heist pictures do – perhaps because it’s not
centrally a heist story but is organized more around buddy themes! Still, there
is the unique aspect that the vault is broken into by means of a 20mm cannon,
ha ha, and the use of this tool is what earned Thunderbolt his name! And then
of course after the heist it all goes pear-shaped, and the tensions within the
group are expressed physically (and boy-arr-dee, how great an actor is George Kennedy!), and we come to realize that a line delivered
earlier in the picture (“Ate ‘im?”) was a case of Dramatic Foreshadowing!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Now, this is the first
picture from Mr. Michael Cimino, who vaulted into the prestige picture business
with his follow-up, <i>The Deer Hunter</i>! This one isn’t a prestige picture
though – it’s a genre film with a higher-toned style and an almost defiant
insistence on theme and subtext! The idea of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot as unconsummated
lovers is not very subtle (although I’m not sure Clint was cognizant of it,
Bridges was, definitely), and what it really is, once you factor in the other couple,
Red and Goody, is a study in how well an all-male machine, each component
having a few teeth missing from their gears, can operate; and the answer is, ha
ha, not very well! I found the movie a splendid entertainment, wonderfully
photographed and impeccably cast: an unsung gem of the 70s! I give <i>Thunderbolt
and Lightfoot</i> three broken cigars!</p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-2267345672197252232023-09-26T08:29:00.004-05:002023-09-26T08:35:31.022-05:00Burl reviews Cockfighter! (1974)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8WhCBdUAtmiq8bkbGDcmTiZqQwtAOAoSW03TAwwavN1oT0inSpBm8qXKFZVWEePvhb3S9baMlmCbmssR57vaasMT36QH8SqMjaOOyu4Mdgcdad4g2Bkb2ivTIiR7q1l8MqIhGCJt94N7ZxpSgdOB9fDn1huPsiFTcEtTEvcsxTz0qslXHl6VpheVBNM4/s3593/COCKFIGHTER.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3593" data-original-width="2411" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8WhCBdUAtmiq8bkbGDcmTiZqQwtAOAoSW03TAwwavN1oT0inSpBm8qXKFZVWEePvhb3S9baMlmCbmssR57vaasMT36QH8SqMjaOOyu4Mdgcdad4g2Bkb2ivTIiR7q1l8MqIhGCJt94N7ZxpSgdOB9fDn1huPsiFTcEtTEvcsxTz0qslXHl6VpheVBNM4/w430-h640/COCKFIGHTER.JPG" width="430" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Buck buck b’kaw, it’s
Burl, here to review a movie at which many would cry fowl! Ha ha, you know, old
Burl is an animal lover, so I find it hard to get behind a movie that depicts –
indeed, has caused – harm to any creature! I actually think <i>Cannibal
Holocaust</i> is a pretty effective movie, but that tortoise-killing scene
really sours it for me! (To be honest, some of the other gnarly stuff in there
does too!) I’ve praised many an old Western film, but when they start tripping
horses I spend the rest of the movie thinking about how mean that is! And then
comes along a movie whose story, theme, very essence, and even title, involves
heavy doses of terrible animal cruelty: <i>Cockfighter</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">What to make of it? I’d
seen it before but watched it again the other day, because someone I know is
writing a book about the movie! Ha ha, I’m raring to read it! And I’ll tell you
what, I also met the director of this picture, Monte Hellman, when I stayed at
his house in the Hollywood Hills, where he hosted an Air B‘n’B! He was a nice
fellow and we chatted quite a bit about movies and such! The third outside factor
which might somehow affect how I think about this movie is that once, for moviemaking
reasons too complicated to get into, I had to keep a rooster overnight in my
apartment! I built a big cage for the thing, put it in my living room, and then
of course the bird went off at four-thirty in the morning, cock-a-doodle-dooing
away and waking up all the people in my building; and only playing the song
“Bali H’ai” from <i>South Pacific</i> could get it to shut up! Ha ha, the
incident didn’t endear me to roosters, I’ll say that!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">So: <i>Cockfighter</i>! It’s
the story of Frank Mansfield, played by Warren Oates from <i>Blue Thunder</i>
and <i>Race with the Devil</i>, a down-South fighting-cock trainer who has
taken a vow of silence after letting his own foolish words cause him to lose
out on a chance to be Cockfighter of the Year! Only once he wins that medal does
he plan to speak again, and so far, we gather, it’s been a couple of years since
he first clammed up! (Ha ha, we get to witness his pre-vow chattiness in a
flashback, and he’s so obnoxious that I was quite happy to have him spend most
of the movie with zipped lips!)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Frank travels around with
his birds and a gal named Dody, who has only ever heard Frank talk in his
sleep, when he blusters and yells and threatens to kick people across the room!
Dody is one of a very few performances from Laurie Bird, who was also in
Hellman’s <i>Two-Lane Blacktop</i> and later in <i>Annie Hall</i>, and that’s
it! Frank loses yet another bet to his frenemy Jack Burke, played by the great
Harry Dean Stanton from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/08/burl-reviews-christine-1983.html"><i>Christine</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/01/burl-reviews-repo-man-1984.html">Repo Man</a></i>, and Jack walks
away with Frank’s money, car, camper trailer, and girlfriend! This is where we get
a sense of how much Frank values human relationships, in particular with women, which is to say not very much! We also see how he treats his brother (played
unexpectedly by matinee idol Troy Donahue, known from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/08/burl-reviews-grandview-usa-1984.html">Grandview U.S.A.</a></i> and <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-deadly-prey-1987.html"><i>Deadly
Prey</i></a>) and sister-in-law: Frank arrives at the family home, stays the night,
and the next day steals the house (which technically he owns) right out from
under them and has it shipped off down the road on a truck! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">But Frank does have at
least one true pal in Omar, essayed by Richard B. Shull from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/04/burl-reviews-klute-1971.html"><i>Klute</i></a> and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/02/burl-reviews-spring-break-1983.html"><i>Spring
Break</i></a>! Ha ha, Omar is a mighty appealing character, or at least as
appealing as someone who engages in a pointless blood sport can be! Frank hangs
out with Omar and with Buford, another affable fellow, here played by James
Earl Jones’s dad Robert Earl Jones, whom we may recall from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/12/burl-reviews-trading-places-1983.html">Trading Places</a></i>!
Much of the middle act of the picture involves Frank hanging out with these
two, or episodes in which he encounters such characters as a gangly
overall-clad goofbuster played by Ed Begley Jr. from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/12/burl-reviews-get-crazy-1983.html">Get Crazy</a></i>, or Steve
Railsback from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/10/burl-reviews-lifeforce-1985.html">Lifeforce</a></i>, playing a cocky cockfighter with a
loosey-goosey pointin’ finger who likes to give his birds a little bit of
digital persuasion!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">I’ve not talked much about
the cockfights themselves, which are frequent and often bloody! They’re faked
to an extent – the sharp spurs are mostly not actually made of metal – but
there’s only so much you can fake these things really, and there are times when
the cocks are clearly killing each other! It’s pretty grotesque, but also a
powerful dramatic device! Through the course of the picture, in spite of or
maybe because of Frank’s silence, we move more than we may like into his point
of view and the fights become less brutal and alien; but when the object of his
silent amours, his fiancée Mary Elizabeth, played by pretty redheaded Patricia
Pearcy from <i>Squirm</i>, finally witnesses a cockfight, we see the bloody
spectacle from her perspective and are suddenly repulsed anew by it, along with
her!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The picture is exacting in
its detail and almost never strikes a false note! It’s clear the cock pits we
see are real cock pits, the spectators are real spectators, and of course the
roosters are real roosters, fighting and clawing and beaking each other bloody!
The cast is just about perfect: ha ha, what a gallery of faces, and in addition
to those already named we get folks like Warren Finnerty from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/12/burl-reviews-laughing-policeman-1973.html">The Laughing Policeman</a></i>, Tom Spratley from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-deadly-friend-1986.html">Deadly Friend</a></i>, and even Kermit Echols
from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/09/burl-reviews-grizzly-1976.html">Grizzly</a></i>! But it remains that Mansfield, as ingratiating as he can
sometimes be in his silence – slapping his knee in response to a joke, or
darting out his hand for a shake to seal the deal or to indicate agreement – and
as marvelous as Oates’s performance is, is ultimately a damaged and inhumane
guy; and that the sport itself, in spite of occasional bursts of first-person narration
trying to explain Frank’s love of it, is indefensible! It’s a wonder that this
movie exists, and, cruelty aside (if that’s possible), it’s one of the most
perfectly-crafted things Roger Corman, or the 1970s for that matter, ever
produced! And that’s saying something on both counts, ha ha! I give <i>Cockfighter</i>
three and a half busted beaks!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-54604392413624939492023-09-25T12:33:00.006-05:002023-09-25T19:30:53.224-05:00Burl reviews Oppenheimer! (2023)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPW7DjEVCirg-p82RVyUFLhrOrVvGAgkUFuDUXx73slUmQcmZz0MSOIBI3zIaN_X5f8Xbw3Vd5Sve-ceXF0lIPWn1YKUTbY34qDpRYH-7qjvLX14FeLX5BXAPtDcn516rTkm7AIv34QyKsMGhTji3OOBnXWbGKNshsqzV_-_15FwWV6YajRIqM4kV0OG4/s1482/OPP.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1482" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPW7DjEVCirg-p82RVyUFLhrOrVvGAgkUFuDUXx73slUmQcmZz0MSOIBI3zIaN_X5f8Xbw3Vd5Sve-ceXF0lIPWn1YKUTbY34qDpRYH-7qjvLX14FeLX5BXAPtDcn516rTkm7AIv34QyKsMGhTji3OOBnXWbGKNshsqzV_-_15FwWV6YajRIqM4kV0OG4/w432-h640/OPP.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Bang boom and blast, it’s
Burl, with a report on a big summer movie that I’ve only just gotten around to
seeing, as opposed to the big summer movies I managed to see but haven’t yet
reviewed! (I hope to review them for you soon, but who knows!) This is one of
the biggest of the summer pictures, or at least one of the longest, and I’m
sure by now you’ve figured out that I mean <i>Oppenheimer</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha, as a casual WWII
buff, I already knew the broad strokes of the story, and was aware that, after
spearheading the logistics of the bomb-building and after the war was won and his utility exhausted,
Oppenheimer was subsumed by the Red Scare business of the 50s, mostly, it seems, just to get him to shut up, and also for revenge! All of this is
told fairly plainly in the film – we jump around a bit in time, as is the norm
in a Christopher Nolan picture, but it seemed pretty straightforward biopic material
to me!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Oppenheimer is played by
the veteran zombiefighter and Irish-man Cillian Murphy from <i>28 Days Later</i>,
looking rather gaunt and zombielike himself! Ha ha, with his suit and hat and
skeletal physique, he seems a pretty good candidate if they ever want to make
the William S. Burroughs story! (Unless Peter Weller wants to do it, ha ha - maybe they could share the role!) We
meet the titular atom-juggler as he’s testifying before some kind of panel we
don’t yet understand, but we will many times return to this small,
unprepossessing room to see more of what we soon understand to be a kangaroo
court!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">We flash back to Oppenheimer’s
time at Cambridge, where he nearly kills first his tutor and then, accidentally, Niels Bohr
(played with appeal and a fine Danish accent by Kenneth Branagh from <i>Mary
Shelley’s</i> <i>Frankenstein</i>) by means of a poisoned apple! Then we get
into some science madness and relationship wackiness, including a few nude-lady
scenes which elicited a gasp from the woman sitting next to me! (Ha ha, is a
perfectly tasteful sex scene really so shocking? Have we really sunk so far back into
puritanism?) We also get into Oppenheimer’s politics a little bit, which were
refreshingly similar to my own! And of course then mustachioed army man Leslie
Groves, played sternly by Matt Damon from <i>The Martian</i>, shows up to
enlist Oppenheimer into the Manhattan Project, and the race to build the biggest
bomb in all the world is on! (Ha ha, but they prefer to call it a "gadget!")<br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Of course once the
Trinity test is successful and the bomb carted off by the army, and
Oppenheimer has qualms about the morality of it all, there’s still the third
hour left in the picture, which is mainly back to the kangaroo court I mentioned
before! We learn that an administrator and would-be Cabinet member called
Strauss, played very well by Robert Downey Jr. from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/04/burl-reviews-weird-science-1985.html"><i>Weird Science</i></a> and <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-due-date-2010.html"><i>Due
Date</i></a>, has orchestrated Oppenheimer’s downfall because one time Oppenheimer
was a wisenheimer and Strauss has never forgiven him for it!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">We meet many, many
characters in the course of all this, most of them played by familiar faces!
Oppenheimer’s tart-tongued wife Kitty is played by Emily Blunt from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/06/burl-reviews-edge-of-tomorrow-2014.html">Edge of Tomorrow</a></i>; his emotionally disturbed girlfriend Jean Tatlock is Florence
Pugh from <i>Midsommar</i>; Roger Robb, the bulldog prosecutor in the disciplinary
panel scenes is played by gimlet-eyed Jason Clarke from <i>Twilight</i> (the
Paul Newman one, not the vampire one); silver fox inventor Vannevar Bush is
Matthew Modine from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/02/burl-reviews-full-metal-jacket-1987.html">Full Metal Jacket</a></i>; Strauss’s aide is Alden
Ehrenreich from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/03/burl-reviews-stoker-2013.html">Stoker</a></i>; a fellow called Borden, whom Strauss uses as
ponyboy in his pursuit of Oppenheimer, is David Dastmalchian from the more recent <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/11/burl-reviews-dune-part-one-2021.html">Dune</a></i>; a
miraculous defender of Oppenheimer is played by Rami Malek from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/11/burl-reviews-no-time-to-die-2021.html">No Time to Die</a></i>; and a presidential aide called Gordon Gray is Tony Goldwyn from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/01/burl-reviews-plane-2023.html"><i>Plane</i></a>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It’s a long picture, but
made up mostly of short, often punchy scenes – ha ha, you can tell there was a
very concerted effort to keep things moving to offset the inevitable criticisms
that this really is mostly a movie about white guys endlessly talking in rooms!
It can be difficult to keep track of who’s who and what their motivations are,
but a general understanding is really all that’s required to discern the larger
themes and narrative drive at work! And some the major concerns here include
power and responsibility, and it seems to me the picture is proposing an
inverse to Uncle Ben’s great maxim “With great power comes great
responsibility!” <i>Oppenheimer</i> – and Oppenheimer, for that matter – asks whether
that responsibility still applies when it turns out one doesn’t have much power
after all! The conundrum torments our science bug, and is addressed directly in late-picture
scenes featuring a no-nonsense Harry Truman, played by Gary Oldman of <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/04/burl-reviews-track-29-1988.html">Track 29</a></i> fame, and, separately, an avuncular Professor Albert Einstein,
impersonated here by Tom Conti from <i>Reuben, Reuben</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Nolan provides some poetic
visuals that are meant to spring from Oppenheimer’s imagination: here we have
raindrops depicting the sort of atomic chain reactions he’s looking for in a
bomb, or rather gadget; there, a trick effect dramatizing what might happen if the chain
reaction simply didn’t stop! But these sometimes seem shoehorned in as sops to the audience, and, as
with the deliberate punchiness of the scenes, the non-stop music attempting to wallpaper
over the seams, and the declamatory quality of some of the dialogue, one can
here and there see the popular-cinema pulleys, cogs, and wheels hard at work, more so than the
director intends!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Still, it’s a real
achievement, almost as much as it assumes itself to be, and the sheer volume of craft on
display is nearly overwhelming! I’m glad this long, talky, science-minded picture
was made and that it’s doing well, and I for one was consistently engaged! (My
twelve year-old got pretty antsy after the Trinity test, however, ha ha!) There’s
something marvellously old-fashioned about it even beyond its mid-century
setting, and I’m going to give <i>Oppenheimer</i> three slatherings of a
topical jelly!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-78245838526393479552023-09-20T23:11:00.003-05:002023-09-21T08:21:18.662-05:00Burl reviews Somewhere in Time! (1980)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvNt7pg-GH4c63B3QKhBe4dVidQDweUKk3nfnA36ps9m9n2UDAQtPhIubVo_xNEPi7WHdjWlqXNHShEwZ5Fz0_9PCj8pagBmO__mlgI8rO_wGFfzvXXAX7EEsONdrSG7EVSF4NO6tNRXSLYebulciZf9MJajtaa8tqmoIKF55hna_nrCoYRAFa1ESsQn4/s1920/SoT.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1256" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvNt7pg-GH4c63B3QKhBe4dVidQDweUKk3nfnA36ps9m9n2UDAQtPhIubVo_xNEPi7WHdjWlqXNHShEwZ5Fz0_9PCj8pagBmO__mlgI8rO_wGFfzvXXAX7EEsONdrSG7EVSF4NO6tNRXSLYebulciZf9MJajtaa8tqmoIKF55hna_nrCoYRAFa1ESsQn4/w418-h640/SoT.jpg" width="418" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Tick tock, it’s Burl here
with a touch of time travel for you! Ha ha, when you think of late 70s-early
80s time-travel pictures, what comes to mind? <i>The Final Countdown</i>, of
course, and also, no doubt, <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/07/burl-revews-time-after-time-1979.html">Time After Time</a></i>! But there was another time-travel
extravaganza of the era, in which not a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, not
Jack the Ripper, but a simple lovelorn <i>longuebönes</i> is sent hurtling
through the temporal rift! Yes, I’m talking about the cult romance picture <i>Somewhere
in Time</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The <i>longuebönes</i> is a
playwright named Richard Collier, played by Christopher Reeve, whom we all recall
from <i>Monsignor</i>! In 1972, when he’s a young scribe celebrating his first
success beneath the proscenium, an old lady approaches, gives him a pocket
watch, and whispers “Come back to me!” Ha ha, eerie! But horror isn’t where we’re
going with this, more’s the pity: we flash forward eight years by which time Collier is well-known
and much-produced, and struggling to finish his next play! He decides on a
change of scenery and drives to the giant Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, where
he soon becomes infatuated with a woman in a portrait: a famed stage actress
from yesteryear called Elise McKenna, played by Jane Seymour from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/07/blog-post.html">Live and Let Die</a></i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Well, ha ha, he figures
out this is the very same old lady who approached him eight years before, and,
his infatuation rapidly metastasizing into obsession, he attempts to hypnotize
himself into the year 1912 so that he can meet the object of his fancy!
Eventually this actually works, and sure, why not? He manages to meet and charm
Elise despite energetic counterefforts from her moustache-twirling manager Robinson,
essayed by Christopher Plummer, whom we know so well from bad-guy roles in <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/11/burl-reviews-dragnet-1987.html"><i>Dragnet</i></a>
and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/12/burl-reviews-silent-partner-1978.html">The Silent Partner</a></i> and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/03/burl-reviws-dreamscape-1984.html">Dreamscape</a></i> and so many others! But
Robinson, though evidently in the grip of his own Elise obsession, even willing
to employ toughs to rough Collier up, is unable to prevent the couple from achieving
their romantic and sexual destinies! However, the ill-timed discovery by
Collier of an anachronistic coin in his pocket sends the gangling clockhopper
hurtling back into 1980, where he becomes so depressed that he locks himself in
his room, turns white, and dies!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Now, ha ha, this movie was
no hit when it was released, but in the years since it’s attracted a cult of
romantically-minded people nearly as obsessed with the movie as its hero is
with Elise! That doesn’t make it a good movie, but it suggests that there’s
something to it, some core attraction worth considering! Is it in the concept, or
the execution of that concept, or both? I think it’s maybe a bit of both: the
concept is compelling but not exactly groundbreaking or unique; the execution
is competent but not exactly brilliant, and these virtues together add up to
something that a certain sort of person is just going to love! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The story is very simple:
maybe, it seems to me, too much so! That simplicity is probably one of the secrets of its
appeal to those who love the picture so much that they travel to Mackinac Island every year
for the big <i>Somewhere in Time</i> celebration! Yes, there really is one! But there are lots of little
virtues here that <i>I</i> appreciated – the location is very nice, and the acting is
strong, for example! And it’s dandy to see veterans like Teresa Wright from <i>Shadow
of a Doubt</i>, who plays Elise’s latter day companion, Miss Robert, and Bill Erwin
from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/05/burl-reviews-jet-pilot-1957.html"><i>Jet Pilot</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/11/burl-reviews-planes-trains-automobiles.html">Planes, Trains & Automobiles</a></i>, who is the
elderly bellboy Arthur!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">And I do like a time
travel story! This one suggests a looping and rhyming time structure,
especially once we realize that the photo which initially entranced Collier is
the same one we see being taken in a later scene, and that her smile in the
photograph was her genuine reaction to catching sight of him coming into the
room, so the smile was indeed and directly meant for Collier, which is what
entranced him about the photo and led him to do his time travel in the first place!
Phew, ha ha! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">There’s something very
1980 about the picture, and it fits in, or at least alongside, the other movies
of the era that fascinated me as a youngster by the insights into the adult
condition which I believed they provided! (I’ve spoken about this elsewhere
regarding pictures like <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/02/burl-reviews-last-married-couple-in.html">The Last Married Couple in America</a></i>, <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/12/burl-reviews-six-weeks-1982.html">Six Weeks</a></i>
and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/04/burl-reviews-its-my-turn-1980.html">It’s My Turn</a></i>!) As a time travel picture it slots more into the
dreamy, was-it-even-real tradition of <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-midnight-in-paris-2011.html">Midnight in Paris</a> </i>than it does the
nuts and bolts approach of, say, <i>The Terminator</i>, but I say there’s room
enough for all of them! I can’t say I’ve ever fallen under this film’s spell,
but I’ll acknowledge that the spell is real, and that weaving a spell for
anyone regardless of their predispositions, is a genuine achievement, and so I
give <i>Somewhere in Time</i> two old suits!</p><p><style>@font-face
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<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Screech screech and
aiyeeee it’s Burl, here with Japanese monster action! Ha ha, when I was a kid
I had several issues of a magazine called <i>Hammer’s House of Horror</i>, and
one of them contained a piece on a movie called <i>Legend of Dinosaurs and
Monster Birds</i>! The article was allegedly a review, but the author obviously
hadn’t seen the movie and didn’t try to hide that fact; but the write-up, which
described centipedes acting up and eels appearing in people’s beds, along with
the accompanying photos of dinosaurs and monster birds, made it look like a must-see!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Now all these years later,
thanks to the magic of the internet, I’ve managed to catch up with this (in my mind)
legendary movie! Now, first off, the title: despite the plurals, the movie
contains just one dinosaur and one monster bird! (I guess you could say it’s
the titular legend speaking of multiple creatures rather than being a promise of the title itself, but I still say the plural is a bit of pocus!) Secondly,
there were no centipedes or eels to be found, unless I nodded off for a minute and
missed them! And, I’m sorry to say, nodding off during this picture is a definite
risk!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The story is set at one of
the lakes which surround Mount Fuji, and I really liked that specificity
because I didn’t previously know much about this region! Dinosaurs and monster birds aside, it looks quite pleasant! Nearby is that forest
you’ve heard about where people go to kill themselves, and that gets a mention
in the movie too – a skeleton discovered there is dismissed as just another
suicide, rather than being recognized as the dinosaur and/or monster bird
victim that it is!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">We open with a woman – a would-be
suicide, I think – wandering in the woods! She falls into a cave (there’s a
terrific shot of her plummeting toward the camera), where she finds some eggs,
and then an egg cracks open and she sees a goochy eye staring back at her! Then
we meet the picture’s alleged hero, a geologist called Takashi, who’s described
in the film’s IMdB synopsis as an “action scientist,” and ha ha, I guess that’s
what he is! On the other hand, for most of the picture he seems almost as
sleepy as the Russ Tamblyn character in <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/08/burl-reviews-war-of-gargantuas-1967.html"><i>War of the Gargantuas</i></a>, a film I was
strongly reminded of as I watched this monster bird movie!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The scientist sees the
story of the woman who discovered the giant eggs on TV and instantly becomes obsessed first
with finding the eggs and then, once he realizes the possibility, with seeing an
actual living dinosaur, which was also a pet project of his late father's! Once at the lake, Takashi hooks up with an old flame, Akiko,
who is an underwater photographer! More stuff happens, not much of it having to
do with either dinosaurs or monster birds though, and finally the picture borrows a
scene whole from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/07/burl-reviews-jaws-1975.html"><i>Jaws</i></a> (a major inspiration on the first half of this
movie) when two wiseacres panic people with a fake fin in the lake! The stunt cruelly
interrupts a country music concert held on a floating barge, but thankfully the two pranksters are first
swirled in the water like the turds they are, then chomped! A third fellow
witnesses this, but, in a heartrending scene, no one will believe him when he
reports it!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The monster rumours extend
far enough to bring a Scotsman, who tells everybody that, as a Scotsman, he
knows it’s no picnic dealing with giant lake monsters! Akiko can
certainly confirm this once her diving buddy is chomped in half by the
dinosaur, but the gruesome tragedy doesn’t prevent her from taking a shower (providing the
picture with that rarity in the <i>kaiju</i> genre: a nude scene!) and doing a cheesecake
underwear scene which concludes with a cutaway shot of a doll in diving gear
with pink troll doll hair!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">When the monster bird
finally shows up, it’s almost worth the wait! He grabs people with his talons
and then drops them like a jerk; he buffets them with his wings and slaps them
with his tail, then causes them all to blow up! Inevitably the two props battle
it out, bumping into each other and making screeching noises! A volcanic
eruption puts a stop to this rumbustification and provides a seemingly
endless final scene in which the two leads are caught in a deadly situation,
dangling from a log over a river of bubbling lava! </p>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">This absurdly overstretched sequence and its uncertain
terminus are frustrating but apt for a movie that’s a frequent bore and a narratively
unstructured mess, ha ha! Plus, the monster bird looks like a really ugly
version of one of those dino-head grabber toys, and the dinosaur has a
freakishly pliable neck! Other trick effects are actually pretty good though,
and the slight nudity and slightly more frequent gore give the whole thing a grindhouse feel;
also we get the occasional striking shot or moment, like that plummet in the
cave! Too often it’s tedious though, and sure could have used more monster
attacks, more people being eaten up like junior mints, better characters, a proper story, and a heavy dose of pep! If it
comes down to a choice, stick with <i>War of the Gargantuas</i>, but if you do
watch <i>Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds</i> you will be able to wring at least
some enjoyment from it! I give this picture one and a half depth charges!</span>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-42720451057286771442023-09-06T23:08:00.007-05:002023-09-12T17:39:24.899-05:00Burl reviews Humongous! (1981)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSDCUEYeSkTHQIK-WWQtr1f14oQ5xxig-n-gPymmM757KMWvOJIAqDx7P2CWlJ1ovhUxkI1-wLyQ9IY-Ve_ENlaoegcl2HJ43Ytg9OSF_OZJC0GpFnyvBLpDTxjuW8U5AT7QdZeRp3IfEbk4Gs9dr_Cs9ilKDRU0mwO9A5TRhRhYRl-zbxCINGMAnTJy0/s911/HUMONGOUS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSDCUEYeSkTHQIK-WWQtr1f14oQ5xxig-n-gPymmM757KMWvOJIAqDx7P2CWlJ1ovhUxkI1-wLyQ9IY-Ve_ENlaoegcl2HJ43Ytg9OSF_OZJC0GpFnyvBLpDTxjuW8U5AT7QdZeRp3IfEbk4Gs9dr_Cs9ilKDRU0mwO9A5TRhRhYRl-zbxCINGMAnTJy0/w422-h640/HUMONGOUS.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Wauuugghhh, it’s Burl,
here with late-summer maniac madness! Yes, it’s another Canadian slasher
picture today, this one from the director of <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/05/burl-reviews-prom-night-1980.html">Prom Night</a></i>, so he had previous
experience in the form! Ha ha, I recall seeing a poster for this one back in my
childhood and thinking it looked pretty darn scary, but of course I was too
young to check it out back then! I’ve seen it several times since, though “see”
may not be the right word, as the VHS release is so very dark that often you
can hardly discern what’s going on! Anyway, the movie is none other than <i>Humongous</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">That bad tape transfer has
given this movie a reputation as being unwatchably dim, but I suspect and hope
there have been subsequent releases which correct this! But even on VHS, one
can apprehend the basic story: in an opening scene, set on the Labour Day
weekend of 1946, a lady is set upon by a drunken reveler outside a big island
lodge house! He achieves his unsavoury object, but is soon set upon by hounds
and torn to shreds, and the lady finishes the job with a big rock! </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Then we cut
to the present day, which I gather is the Labour Day weekend of 1980, to find a
clutch of young folk heading out for a weekend of cabin cruising! We have two
brothers, one, Eric, played by David Wallace from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-mortuary-1983.html">Mortuary</a></i>, and the
other, Nick, essayed by John Wildman from <i>Blackout</i>! Eric is a boring
bozo, while Nick is a full-on jerk with all manner of issues! Eric’s girlfriend
Sandy, played by Janet Julian from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/08/burl-reviews-smokey-bites-dust-1981.html"><i>Smokey Bites the Dust</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/02/burl-reviews-fear-city-1984.html">Fear City</a></i>, is a sensible lass (and our clear Final Girl), while Nick’s ladyfriend
Donna, played by Joy Boushel from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/05/burl-reviews-pinball-summer-1979.html">Pinball Summer</a></i>, has trouble keeping
her shirt on, ha ha! And rounding out the quintet is little sister Carla, a
female glasses nerd played by Janit Baldwin from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/02/burl-reviews-phantom-of-paradise-1974.html">Phantom of the Paradise</a></i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Well, after a day cruising
around in the family yacht, the fog rolls in and the youths rescue a stranded
hoser named Bert! Then of course Nick goes mentyl with sibling resentment and
steers the watercraft into some rocks! Everybody jumps off, and we see a small
model of the boat go up in flames and explode! By the next morning they’ve all
washed up on Dog Island, Bert with his leg broken, Carla missing, and Nick
feeling the painful shame of the lamebrain; and by the sound of those moans and
groans in the woods it’s nearly time for them to meet Mr. Humongous!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Humongous is the result of
the rape scene in the film’s prologue, and he’s played by Garry Robbins, the
Canadian Giant himself, who would later play another malformed backwoods psycho in <i>Wrong
Turn</i>! Now, <i>Humongous</i> usually gets classified as a slasher film – not
least by me, ha ha – but Humongous himself doesn’t actually do any slashing: he
kills mainly by bearhug! Nick is the first to go, a relief for the audience;
and thereafter we are treated to a lot of dimly-lit searching around the island,
the boathouse, and the big old lodge itself! Bert meanwhile is ministered to by
Donna, who finds her wherewithal when she collects berries in her décolletage, and
removes her shirt one last time to keep the shivering hoser warm; but soon enough
Humongous shows up to stomp them!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The rest of the story
unfolds pretty much as you might expect – more creeping through impenetrable
darkness, and then even at the end, when the boathouse is on fire and the
moaning and groaning of the Humongous reaches a crescendo, you still can’t
really see what’s going on! Paul Lynch, the director (he also brought us <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/05/burl-reviews-bullies-1986.html">Bullies</a></i>,
ha ha) favours canted angles and shots framed through broken panes of glass and
so forth; but none of this helps things much! As far as the slasher taxonomy goes
there are a few Special Makeup Effects here – a glimpse of Bert’s floating
head, some bloody dogbites – but most of the carnage is lost in the gloom!
Similarly, while the Humongous is meant to be monstrous in appearance, we have
to take that on trust, ha ha! I couldn’t tell you what he looks like if you
offered me one million doll-hairs!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">So it all feels a bit of a
cheat! If ever I find a better transfer and my impression of the movie is
materially improved by the viewing of it, I’ll come back here to append an
extra paragraph saying so, as though this review needs an extra paragraph, ha ha! The movie as it stands has its pleasures though:
principally a Canadian-ness so intense it seems to have infected even the actors
(Julian, Wallace, Baldwin) who were imported from America or thereaboots! The
Humongous is not a one-note monster but a fairly sympathetic character whose
death one doesn’t mourn precisely, but we don’t really celebrate it either! The
ending is downbeat in the way familiar from many other such movies, from <i>The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i> on down: the heroine has survived, but, we wonder,
has her sanity? So it’s got some things going for it, but at the same time it’s
sorely lacking in pep; the characters are mostly jerks, dimbulbs, or hackysacks;
and the attempts at terror frequently fall flat! From my youthful sighting of
the poster and many subsequent years of admiring its box on the video shelves,
I will always have a fondness for the movie, but in the end that has little to
do with the movie itself! I give <i>Humongous</i> one and a half plaid shirts!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-67191090770876546062023-08-23T12:23:00.003-05:002023-08-24T00:52:49.465-05:00Burl reviews Roadhouse 66! (1984)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF-UWuerGhOhvUTJeFUuLF_lKisQ0RRh_I1Sp0Bp5_KhXDhQB2Bk8gpEblZX3zqKs_cXFvYAAj6hEukGHEZZ8cyAQOGur5fe_jjvq8LAFTKt1AL4Jicaq4SmoZtGW3nZ7O6xW2MQdTaFCJqFgGACyhm8VsixLXTyo7P5kQlxSJ-EpzXUzaBBN7lLBUgSE/s1180/RH66.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1180" data-original-width="773" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF-UWuerGhOhvUTJeFUuLF_lKisQ0RRh_I1Sp0Bp5_KhXDhQB2Bk8gpEblZX3zqKs_cXFvYAAj6hEukGHEZZ8cyAQOGur5fe_jjvq8LAFTKt1AL4Jicaq4SmoZtGW3nZ7O6xW2MQdTaFCJqFgGACyhm8VsixLXTyo7P5kQlxSJ-EpzXUzaBBN7lLBUgSE/w420-h640/RH66.jpg" width="420" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">With a jolly “paarp,
paarp” on my motorcar horn, it’s Burl, arriving in town to do you a new review!
Ha ha, we all love stranger-in-a-small-town movies, don’t we? It’s a pretty
reliable microgenre, and maybe not so micro either, as, once you’ve tossed in
Westerns, samurai pictures, and action movies from the 80s, there must be hundreds,
nay thousands of these things! It’s a very basic formula, therefore theoretically
hard to mess up, but one thing you learn when you watch a lot of movies with a
critical eye: <i>anything</i> can be messed up! Ha ha, I wonder if that’s the case
with today’s movie, <i>Roadhouse 66</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha, I’m not going to
make a joke about this being the 65<sup>th</sup> sequel to <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/10/burl-reviews-road-house-1989.html">Road House</a></i>,
because I expect that hoss’s been rode before! No, it’s the tale of a
travelling fauntleroy called Beckman Hallsgood Jr., played by Judge Reinhold
from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/01/burl-reviews-ruthless-people-1986.html">Ruthless People</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/12/burl-reviews-gremlins-1984.html">Gremlins</a></i> in effete-nerd mode! Beckman is
scion to a belly-bustin’ fast-food pork franchise and is driving his T-bird
across the desert to scout locations or something, but as he approaches Kingsman,
Arizona he’s set upon by the town goons, the result being his flivver disabled
by gunfire! Luckily a wandering rockabilly who knows how to fix cars, played by
Willem Dafoe from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/01/burl-reviews-streets-of-fire-1984.html">Streets of Fire</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/11/burl-reviews-lighthouse-2019.html">The Lighthouse</a></i>, shows up to
play it cool and help out Beckman in exchange for a ride into town! The
rockabilly’s name, of course, is Johnny Harte, for how could it be otherwise!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Conveniently enough there
are two beautiful sisters living in the town who are single and sell auto
parts! Kaaren Lee from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/11/burl-reviews-right-stuff-1983.html"><i>The Right Stuff</i></a> and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/12/burl-reviews-remote-control-1987.html"><i>Remote Control</i></a> is
Jesse, the older sister with the incomprehensible past, and Kate Vernon from <i>Pretty
in Pink</i> and <i>Mob Story</i> is Melissa, the younger and more impulsive
one! But also in the town are the louts who shot up Beckman’s car: a fearsome
triumvirate led by Hoot, a meatbones played by Alan Autry from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-brewsters-millions-1985.html">Brewster’s Millions</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/02/burl-reviews-house-1986.html">House</a></i>! His minions are a scabie little guy named Dink,
played by Kevyn Major Howard from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/02/burl-reviews-full-metal-jacket-1987.html">Full Metal Jacket</a></i> and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/09/burl-reviews-alien-nation-1988.html"><i>Alien Nation</i></a>,
and Moss, played by Peter Van Norden from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/01/burl-reviews-best-of-times-1986.html">The Best of Times</a></i>, who looks
like if Mike Starr had been removed from the oven twenty minutes early!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The whole middle act is an
escalating campaign of harassment from Hoot and his boys directed at Beckman,
who’s stuck in town until the ladies can order up a new radiator! Luckily
Johnny Harte is around to help him out of trouble, and lucky too that they have
a place to sleep in the junkyard owned by old drunken Sam, played by Stephen
Elliott from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-beverly-hills-cop-1984.html">Beverly Hills Cop</a></i>; and later, of course, they take up with
the two sisters: Johnny with Jesse, Beckman with Melissa! And that
incomprehensible past of Jesse’s that I mentioned? Well it turns out she used
to be married to Hoot, a thoroughgoing jerk with a drywall personality and the
physique of Cousin Eddie from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/02/burl-reviews-vacation-1983.html">Vacation</a></i>! Who’d have thunk it! But things come
to a sticky wicket when Hoot and co. start a vengeance fire that turns fatal
for one of the characters!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Meanwhile I know you’re
asking “Ha ha, what about this roadhouse we’ve been promised by the title!”
Well some of the action, including a fight between the two heroes and the gang,
does take place there, but it’s not as central to the plot as you might assume!
Erica Yohn, who was Madame Ruby in <i>Pee Wee’s Big Adventure</i> and Selma in <i>Amazon
Women on the Moon</i>, is the roadhouse proprietor, Thelma, who observes the
goings-on with wry detachment, but is there for our heroes when needed! And the
roadhouse itself is a pretty bland place, free of any atmosphere or style!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The climax of the picture,
once we finally get there, is one of the least exciting car races ever filmed!
It starts out promisingly when Hoot sticks a scorpion in Beckman’s car, but
from there it’s mostly a series of static shots of cars rolling by at moderate
speeds! Ha ha, at least that gives us a good look at the nice autos – a T-bird, a
Chevy, a wonderful ’66 Mustang! I won’t tell you how it ends up, but we never
really find out what happens to Hoot – who, after all, is an arsonist and a
murderer as well as being a scorpion-dropping jerk!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">I’ll wrap it all up by
saying this: <i>Roadhouse 66</i> is a pretty unmemorable and unexciting
small-town meller, but if you like Dafoe and Reinhold and always wondered what
it would be like if they teamed up, you may wring some enjoyment from it! But I
myself had never wondered that, so I didn’t get a whole lot from the picture! I
liked the cars though, and the small desert-town location! I’m going to give <i>Roadhouse
66</i> one new radiator!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-30033907342471131172023-08-19T09:22:00.005-05:002023-08-19T11:42:35.014-05:00Burl reviews Star Crystal! (1985)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC7Bnwa7RKYiOqbO_gJnj7Lp3kA5aUhDvbQa6m1-4rWosbQX6V46xkdo8IMFmHxxuj0LcDOqlWLbLm-NW1SX9kJDbydoSoS46vVfSl3-LK7_4KxbveCpw1mgSUcjtkP5w7HYPuK-b1njKRczDGdfOM28tNIX83lTJi73mx4BlFs93YdkaVdsHaUlBTtlM/s2768/STARCRYSTAL.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2768" data-original-width="1775" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC7Bnwa7RKYiOqbO_gJnj7Lp3kA5aUhDvbQa6m1-4rWosbQX6V46xkdo8IMFmHxxuj0LcDOqlWLbLm-NW1SX9kJDbydoSoS46vVfSl3-LK7_4KxbveCpw1mgSUcjtkP5w7HYPuK-b1njKRczDGdfOM28tNIX83lTJi73mx4BlFs93YdkaVdsHaUlBTtlM/w410-h640/STARCRYSTAL.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Beep boop and by Gar, it’s
Burl, here to review low-budget space-based VHS insanity! You know, there was
no shortage of <i>Alien</i> rip-off pictures in the wake of that 1979 superhit, and
following the grand success of <i>E.T.</i> a few years later there were more than several small-scale
coattail riders on that one too! But there was at least one picture to manfully
attempt to rip off both hits at once, and the result is just as bifurcated a
narrative as you might expect! Ha ha, the movie, for reasons of its own which
it keeps to itself, is called <i>Star Crystal</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">We begin on a surprisingly
convincing Mars, where a pair of louts find a rock – I suppose this may be the
titular crystal, but it doesn't much look like one – which they bring onto their ship! Next thing you know the rock has hatched and everyone on the ship is dead because the oxygen got
turned off by somebody! The action then relocates to a space station that looks like it was, and
according to an article I read about the movie in <i>Cinefantastique</i>
magazine, actually was, constructed out of painted water bottles! Then something goes
wrong and the space station blows up, and the space ship that escapes has the
creature that hatched out of the rock on board!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Well, you know the drill!
The crew, an uncommonly stupid and unlikeable bunch, are one by one attacked by
the creature and turned into puddles of goo! And then, when there are only two
of them left, the alien taps into the ship’s computer and reads all the
information therein, which includes the Bible! Yes, ha ha, Holy Bible! This of course has the effect of radically changing his personality, and before you know
it, the alien, whose name is Gar, is best buddies with the remaining
spacefarers, even after brutally murdering all their friends! Proof of this
friendship comes in a hilarious montage during which, as they work on repairing
their failed systems, Gar does shenanigans like using his telekinesis to spin a
wrench around in mid-air as everybody laughs! And shortly after this
jaw-dropping turn of events, the picture comes to an end - an end I will characterize as "unceremonious!"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Some really
head-scratching decisions were made in the production design of this picture,
ha ha! The number of sets is pretty minimal, with most of the action taking
place in a single room, like a play; but to enter or leave the room the crew must use
dog doors for some reason, and then they have to crawl like hens through
seemingly kilometres-long tubes to get from one part of the ship to another, as
though the craft had been designed by hamsters! No character mentions the
absurd inconvenience of this; and one hopes the cast were issued knee pads,
since collectively they must crawl a marathon’s worth of distance in those dumb
tubes! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The picture reaches some
sort of nadir when, after a fatal encounter in the crawl tubes leaves him with
his skin melted away, the film’s lone black character turns out to have a black
skeleton too! Ha ha, it’s ridiculous! So is the creature, which looks like
somebody sculpted a sad-eyed E.T. out of wax and then took a blowtorch to it, and which
is shown only in grotesque close-ups for most of the film – his twitchy eyeball
or his undulating flesh or his goofy Beaker-like mouth! Ha ha, don't let that image on the poster fool you - it may be Gar's meaner cousin or something, but by garr, it sure isn't Gar! (There are no floating glass coffins either!)<br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">I was really hoping for something approaching those Roger Corman <i>Alien</i> rip-offs of the early 1980s, like <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-forbidden-world-1982.html"><i>Forbidden World</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/05/burl-reviews-galaxy-of-terror-1981.html">Galaxy of Terror</a></i> - pictures that may not be good, but show energy and imagination in their mad quest to purloin! No dice with <i>Star Crystal</i> though! My son, a wise old cynic
at age 11, declared this the worst movie he’s ever seen and likely ever will
see! He maintained that opinion even after we recently watched <i>The Creeping
Terror</i>, so you can be certain the ineptitude on display in <i>Star Crystal</i>
really made an impact on his young mind, and I guess maybe that’s an
achievement in itself! Ha ha! I give <i>Star Crystal</i> one futuristic sippy-bottle
of Coke!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-86628189512186356602023-08-18T17:07:00.012-05:002023-08-18T18:15:33.510-05:00Burl reviews Hog Wild! (1980)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4vz-G2KON4WvLFbdEqRZAtVqgzXLBKIyphBArJBctZJ06ttSXTMkiC_p348Wf2d8Rl8b3ykA7r13tYup1qW1hHChAkbXQLZ3ULnPcVq8eBrShgDQKXs0a5J9dX7-6J_zBpqS5zx158CNCH6ku9pdrnqYCyNqhe6Rl50qRH5WyAd7NXvBOG5Xdsnw6XWg/s1500/HogWild.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="999" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4vz-G2KON4WvLFbdEqRZAtVqgzXLBKIyphBArJBctZJ06ttSXTMkiC_p348Wf2d8Rl8b3ykA7r13tYup1qW1hHChAkbXQLZ3ULnPcVq8eBrShgDQKXs0a5J9dX7-6J_zBpqS5zx158CNCH6ku9pdrnqYCyNqhe6Rl50qRH5WyAd7NXvBOG5Xdsnw6XWg/w426-h640/HogWild.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Like open pipes at
midnight, it’s Burl crying vroom vroom vroom! Ha ha, remember the Quebec-shot
comedy I watched about the bunch of jerks and their girlfriends who play a lot
of pinball and get into an escalating prank war with a motorcycle gang? You’ll
probably say “Sure Burl, ha ha, that one was called <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/05/burl-reviews-pinball-summer-1979.html">Pinball Summer</a></i>!” Well,
you’d not be wrong, but that description also snugly fits a picture known as <i>Hog
Wild</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It seems a military cadet
called Tim, played by an apple-cheeked Michael Biehn from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/01/burl-reviews-aliens-1986.html">Aliens</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/10/burl-reviews-abyss-1989.html">The Abyss</a></i>, gets himself deliberately tossed out so he can go to a regular high school! On
his arrival at the new alma mater, he finds the place run by a half-goofy, half-dangerous motorcycle
gang called the Rustlers, who are very much in the mode of the <i>Pinball
Summer</i> organization, or the Nazi dunderheads from <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/07/burl-reviews-any-which-way-you-can-1980.html"><i>Any Which Way You Can</i></a>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The leader of the gang is
Bull, played by Tony Rosato from <i>SCTV</i> and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/12/burl-reviews-silent-partner-1978.html"><i>The Silent Partner</i></a>! (Of course
he was also in a lot of those bad, weird, middlebrow Canadian comedydramas,
like <i>Nothing Personal</i>, <i>Utilities</i> and <i>Improper Channels</i>!)
Much like Bobcat Goldthwait’s incoherent screaming character from movies like <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/08/burl-reviews-one-crazy-summer-1986.html">One Crazy Summer</a></i>, Bull is unable to speak like a normal person, so his mumblings
are interpreted by his loyal factotum Ben, who is well played by Angelo Rizacos
from <i>Nightstick</i>! Rizacos does it as well as he possibly can, but this translation routine gets tired well before the picture's end!<br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">And Bull’s lady Angie is
played by Bilitis herself, Patti D’Arbanville from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/07/burl-revews-time-after-time-1979.html">Time After Time</a></i>! When he lays eyebones on her Tim
develops an instant crush, and this puts him at odds with Bull and the gang
and thus begins the escalating and destructive prank war, which targets not
just Tim but his little Archie Comics-like group of pals! Ha ha, at one point the
Rustlers somehow manage to hoist Tim’s car up the school flagpole! One of them also
cruelly crushes and eats a pet tarantula beloved by one of Tim’s friends, whose response to this outrage is surprisingly sanguine! Of
course it all culminates in a race, as is almost always the case with these pictures, and in
the last few seconds, as Bull watches his ex-ladyfriend stroll off
with the victorious Tim, the movie attempts to engender some sympathy and
even a little respect for the mush-mouthed hooligan!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The picture is jam-packed
with familiar Canadian faces who also turned up in the contemporaneous <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/06/burl-reviews-meatballs-1979.html">Meatballs</a></i>,
like Matt Craven, whom we also know from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/06/burl-reviews-till-death-do-us-part-1982.html">Till Death Do Us Part</a></i> and <i>Happy
Birthday To Me</i>, playing a claw-handed biker called Chrome; Jack Blum,
playing, as he so often did, a glasses nerd; and Keith Knight, who was also in <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/02/burl-reviews-my-bloody-valentine-1981.html">My Bloody Valentine</a></i> and here plays a portly imbecile named Vern who
desperately wants to be a Rustler! There’s also Michael Zelniker, whose
presence reinforces the many connections between this picture and <i>Pinball
Summer</i>! Karen Stephen and Helene Udy, the girlfriends in <i>Pinball Summer</i>,
are in here too, playing smaller background roles!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">John Rutter, who was in <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/08/burl-reviews-between-friends-1973.html">Between Friends</a></i> and played the laughing cop in <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/12/burl-reviews-black-christmas-1974.html">Black Christmas</a></i>, is also a cop
here, but not in this case a laughing one because, ha ha, he’s impotent!
Bronwen Mantel from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/02/burl-reviews-city-on-fire-1979.html">City on Fire</a></i> plays his frustrated wife, while Sean
McCann from <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-starship-invasions-1977.html"><i>Starship Invasions</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/12/burl-reviews-tulips-1981.html">Tulips</a></i> is Tim’s
military-loving father, who likes to unexpectedly smash his son across the back
with a pool cue, just to keep the lad on his toes!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It’s a pre-<i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/06/burl-reviews-porkys-1982.html">Porky’s</a></i> picture,
meaning that despite its oinker-themed title, <i>Hog Wild</i>’s antics are mostly free of the leering sexual aspect the teen shenanigan films developed after
the runaway success of the Bob Clark pig picture! That gives it a bit of novelty; and,
too, you can detect thematic and stylistic holdovers from an earlier era of
Canadian youth movies: pictures like <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/05/burl-reviews-rip-off-1971.html"><i>Rip-Off</i></a> and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/09/burl-reviews-homer-1970.html">Homer</a></i>! All of
this has <i>Hog Wild</i> sitting awkwardly athwart several genres and eras, riding
sidesaddle as it were, ha ha, and so it never really gels as a fun or uproarious movie
experience! And smushing that tarantula? That was uncalled for! I give <i>Hog
Wild</i> one and a half slams across the back with a pool cue!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-39056844194785127672023-08-06T23:41:00.003-05:002023-11-30T23:51:20.980-06:00Burl reviews Steele Justice! (1987)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFXKVxPr0HS4wmOMjzGiWsG-9aL8Gcs4w1j6kn4ZwucFcZKTm7UVlxGwjF3YiZBY2ZKbFc0GvprbumMufIFdNozrAfcZAZm5QVwMy8hui2yJPKRkMKhQ8oJLlvBRT6hgI0aOWO6FQKAdudR3vk62r88CxFya9k_PJkkOMuvU9uZ87swQCsHhqkUTexLfY/s1577/STEELE.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1577" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFXKVxPr0HS4wmOMjzGiWsG-9aL8Gcs4w1j6kn4ZwucFcZKTm7UVlxGwjF3YiZBY2ZKbFc0GvprbumMufIFdNozrAfcZAZm5QVwMy8hui2yJPKRkMKhQ8oJLlvBRT6hgI0aOWO6FQKAdudR3vk62r88CxFya9k_PJkkOMuvU9uZ87swQCsHhqkUTexLfY/w406-h640/STEELE.jpg" width="406" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Killoo-killay, it’s Burl
here with classic VHS action! Ha ha, there sure were a lot of action movies
made in the 80s for the booming VHS market! Some of them – many of them in fact
– had a theatrical release, but as the decade wore on, such a release became
more cursory, more obviously just a promotion for the videocassette release
that would allow wide (and double-wide) audiences to see the pictures! In the wake of <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-beverly-hills-cop-1984.html">Beverly Hills Cop</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/05/burl-reviews-rambo-first-blood-part-ii.html">Rambo</a></i> there was no end to the low-budget cop and war
variants eager to cash in, and occasionally there were combo platters aiming to
suck from both troughs at once! One of these – its glowering VHS cover familiar
to many an 80s kid – is the subject of today’s review: <i>Steele Justice</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha, is there justice of any other
kind? <i>Steele Justice</i> begins at the tail end of the war in Vietnam, with
stone-faced, rock-brained John Steele, played by Martin Kove from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/05/burl-reviews-white-line-fever-1975.html">White Line Fever</a></i>, <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/07/burl-reviews-once-upon-time-in.html">Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood</a></i>, and of course <i>Rambo</i>,
standing tall in a small hovercraft as it cruises up a jungle tributary! Steele
is so tough he wears a live snake as a necktie, and accompanying him is his best pal
Lee, essayed by Robert Kim from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/02/burl-reviews-ferris-buellers-day-off.html"><i>Ferris Bueller’s Day Off</i></a>! They discover
a bunch of dead bodies and realize their supposed South Vietnamese ally, General
Kwan, played by Soon-Tek Oh from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/06/burl-reviews-man-with-golden-gun-1974.html"><i>The Man With the Golden Gun</i></a> and <i>Death
Wish 4</i>, is not actually a very nice man! Kwan has Steele and Lee shot, but
that doesn’t kill them, and Steele in turn shoots Kwan with a gun that shoots
knives, but that doesn’t kill him either! And somehow a colonel named Harry played
by Joseph Campanella from <i>Hangar 18</i> figures into this preamble!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">A dozen or so years later,
Steele is married and divorced from Sela Ward from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/07/burl-reviews-fugitive-1993.html">The Fugitive</a></i>, and has been
employed with and fired from the Los Angeles police department! His buddy Lee
is still a cop though, and when Steele bottoms out, Lee is there to help him
up! But, uh oh, Lee and most of his family (including a granny with a Moe
haircut played by Kimiko Hiroshige from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/12/burl-reviews-blade-runner-1982.html">Blade Runner</a></i> and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-fletch-1985.html"><i>Fletch</i></a>)
are murdered by Kwan’s evil son, impersonated by Peter Kwong from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2016/02/burl-reviews-big-trouble-in-little.html">Big Trouble in Little China</a></i>; and as a further ignominy it all happens while Steele is relaxing in a bath, so he gets
very angry and figures on delivering a little Steele justice!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Kwan has become a
respected American business man, and so Steele is faced with a bogomil crisis
when Ronny Cox from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/07/burl-reviews-car-1977.html">The Car</a></i> and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/06/burl-reviews-beast-within-1982.html">The Beast Within</a></i> shows up as his
old boss on the force, Bennett! And there’s another cop played by Bernie Casey
from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/07/burl-reviews-ants-1977.html"><i>Ants!</i></a> and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/08/burl-reviews-never-say-never-again-1983.html">Never Say Never Again</a></i>,
who’s more sympathetic to Steele and his methods! While protecting the
surviving Lee daughter, played by a terrible actress I’m sorry to say, Steele first bothers, then intimidates, then finally attacks and kills Kwan and his
crime bunch!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">As though a political
psychodrama is lurking camouflaged within the movie, there’s a lot of real
estate dedicated to showing the depths in respect, both self- and from everyone
else (except for Lee and his family, who are the biggest Steele fans in the
world), to which the agate-visaged hero has plummeted since the war! Killing is
his only balm, and after the massacre of his only friends he seems almost
gleeful at the opportunity to dispense the Steele justice I spoke of earlier!
Of course his necktie snake gets involved, and the final fight against Kwan involves the old
“battle-atop-a-shipping-crate-being-lifted-by-a-crane-operated-by-?” routine!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It’s a dumb, reductive,
reactionary, Reagan-era movie, of minor (but hardly unique) interest thanks to
the Asian gangs angle! But the bad guys are allegedly fearsome, and, ha ha, you
know General Kwan is really mad when he appears on the scene wearing a floral print dress! Kwan
has Shannon Tweed from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/11/burl-reviews-dragnet-1987.html">Dragnet</a></i> on his side as a fellow crime boss, or at
least the daughter of one; meanwhile Phil Fondacaro from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/06/burl-reviews-phantasm-ii-1988.html"><i>Phantasm II</i></a> and
<i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2022/06/burl-reviews-land-of-dead-2005.html">Land of the Dead</a></i> shows up as a wee bartender, and of course Al Leong
henches once again, just as he henched in everything from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2022/12/burl-reviews-lethal-weapon-1987.html">Lethal Weapon</a></i> and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/12/blog-post.html">Die Hard</a></i> to <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/05/burl-reviews-death-warrant-1990.html"><i>Death Warrant</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/11/burl-reviews-protocol-1984.html">Protocol</a></i>!</p>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">As sedimentary as its hero, the picture does nevertheless
provide a few hyocks, a modicum of confusion, a fine B movie cast, and
occasionally the impression that it must have been written and directed by
Clyde the Orang-utan! It sat on shelves in the Action section alongside <i>The
Patriot</i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2022/06/burl-reviews-instant-justice-1986.html">Instant Justice</a></i> and <i>Born American</i>, and there perhaps it should stay - but, ha ha, that's up to you! I give <i>Steele
Justice</i> one RPG – Rat-Propelled Grenade! Ha ha!</span>
<p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-27276524788519301312023-07-30T23:47:00.007-05:002023-08-07T00:48:54.925-05:00Burl reviews Any Which Way You Can! (1980)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtYCd9oTq4fXFOC30gQp8c4lo2zhkoUTGQnyjNaqd74KVYK1EW43WOFd6gt_RjOhYX-I1CBDYEys5SOfv-D3im9sIALkQChKHsZ9xEoG21GYDQgS7s28TyOn9dqFRuNe8AgK4mNxIPlXrCsyWQftFL4A6E8kPjlXxW02nG8kLTvh1g3VX3eY0-_t2dIWo/s1500/AWWYC.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="979" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtYCd9oTq4fXFOC30gQp8c4lo2zhkoUTGQnyjNaqd74KVYK1EW43WOFd6gt_RjOhYX-I1CBDYEys5SOfv-D3im9sIALkQChKHsZ9xEoG21GYDQgS7s28TyOn9dqFRuNe8AgK4mNxIPlXrCsyWQftFL4A6E8kPjlXxW02nG8kLTvh1g3VX3eY0-_t2dIWo/w418-h640/AWWYC.jpg" width="418" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha, right turn Clyde,
it’s Burl! Yes, I’m here to review one of the good ol’ boy apestravaganzas
Clint Eastwood appeared in back in the late 1970s! In fact, the one I’m
reviewing for you is <i>not</i> the epic that kicked it all off, <i>Every Which Way
But Loose:</i> nope, although I did watch that one a while back (but didn’t review
it for some reason), I’m skipping right to the second and final entry in this
abbreviated series, <i>Any Which Way You Can</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">You might ask “Ha ha, but
Burl, aren’t these movies terrible, and why are you wasting precious, precious
minutes of life, which is so dear, to watch them?” Your inquiry has merit, and
I’ve asked the same questions myself! But while the movies are indeed fairly
terrible, they have a hominess to them, along with a little bit of nostalgia,
that afford them a certain edge! They have other values as well, which I’ll get
to presently!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">But first: the plot! No,
ha ha, there’s no plot, so I’ll give you the setup and the situation instead!
It seems there’s a beer-drinkin’, engine-block haulin’ bare-knuckle fighter,
lean mean and taci-tureen, who goes by the name of Philo Beddoe! He has a best
pal, Orville (or is Orville his brother?), but an even better pal in his
orang-utan roommate Clyde, an inveterate cop-car shitter! A hapless gang of
Nazi idiot bikers are constantly after Philo, and are always outwitted by him,
which, ha ha, isn’t all that impressive really, since they're dopes! He has an irascible old Ma, and
in the first movie he fell for a lady singer named Lynne Halsey-Taylor, who
dumped him at the end of it!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">In this one, Philo decides
to quit bare-knuckle brawling just as some gambler gangsters organize a
big-money brawl! They want to pit Philo against their east coast monster Mr.
Jack Wilson, played by Big Bill Smith from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-fast-company-1978.html">Fast Company</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/05/burl-reviews-mean-season-1985.html">The Mean Season</a></i>; but in the meanwhile Philo and Lynne Halsey-Taylor (played again by
Sondra Locke from <i>The Shadow of Chikara</i>) have rekindled their romance by
playing bohankie in the filthy barn where Clyde dwells, as the fascinated and
horny ape watches! Ha ha, yikes! So under the influence of his family and friends, Clint decides to pull out of the fight; the
mobsters kidnap Lynne Halsey-Taylor in an attempt to force the issue; Mr. Jack Wilson and Clint become friends
while jogging and work together to save Lynne Halsey-Taylor; and then they have a
big fight anyway! And, in an ending I did not expect, the Nazi bikers become
millionaires!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">See, here’s where we come
to one of the virtues of this picture, to which I alluded before: the cast! Of
course Clint, whom we know so well from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/05/burl-reviews-tightrope-1984.html"><i>Tightrope</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2016/01/burl-reviews-tarantula-1955.html">Tarantula</a></i>,
is Philo, who is a pretty dopey guy really, and from his facial expressions
frequently seems overwhelmed by a mystifying modern world that baffles him at
every turn! But he’s a generally amiable dimwit, and he’s backed up by Geoffrey
Lewis, familiar from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/06/burl-reviews-smile-1975.html"><i>Smile</i></a> and <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/09/burl-reviews-salems-lot-1979.html"><i>‘Salem’s Lot</i></a>, in the role of
Orville, the unscrupulous tow-truck driver who also lives in the compound; and
Ruth Gordon from <i>Rosemary’s Baby</i> and <i>The Big Bus</i> is Ma, crotchety
old Ma, ha ha!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Familiar faces abound!
There’s Bill McKinney from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/11/burl-reviews-cannonball-1976.html">Cannonball</a></i>, Barry Corbin from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/11/burl-reviews-my-science-project-1985.html"><i>My Science
Project</i></a>, Al Ruscio from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/12/burl-reviews-naked-flame-1964.html">The Naked Flame</a></i> and Michael Cavanaugh from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/07/burl-reviews-collateral-damage-2002.html"><i>Collateral
Damage</i></a>! Plus the cast is filled with stuntmen of course, because the movie
was directed by a stuntman, Buddy Van Horn, and so there are plenty of casual stunts to go
along with the more obvious and heavily planned stunt gags! And then there are the Quinces, a
Midwestern couple recently arrived in California and played by real-life spouses
Logan Ramsey from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/06/burl-reviews-beast-within-1982.html"><i>The Beast Within</i></a> and Anne Ramsey from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-deadly-friend-1986.html">Deadly Friend</a></i>!
They serve as completely marginal story elements, like living Sergio Aragones
drawings, whose coincidental proximity to the ape-fuelled antics at first
provides only alarm, but eventually reinvigorates their moribund sex life!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Digressions like this are
one reason the picture runs an unconscionable 114 minutes, and musical
interludes are another! In addition to the songs sung by Lynne Halsey-Taylor,
we get material from both Glen Campbell and, amazingly, Fats Domino, sporting a
cowboy hat and singing a country song in a shitkicker bar! And weirdest of all
is the opening theme song, a duet by Eastwood and Ray Charles called “Beers to
You!”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">So there are items of
interest salted throughout the picture, but ultimately it’s a pretty dumb
good-old-boy comedy: the kind of picture that wildly over-commits to the running
gag of an orang-utan befouling police vehicles! As a director, Buddy Van Horn
makes an excellent stunt coordinator, and there’s a loose and ramshackle vibe to
the whole thing that’s appealing if you’re in the right mood, irritating if you’re
not, and in any event loses all value no matter what mood you’re in once the
picture is over and you’re trying to remember it later! Ha ha, I give <i>Any
Which Way You Can</i> one and a half flying car hoods!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-53717826200438138592023-06-30T12:22:00.001-05:002023-06-30T16:17:13.403-05:00Burl reviews City in Panic! (1987)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCFHiBg_e9Qi6ehEo-ZsCt4tDbRM1DZX_tWEtpqtqS-hDOg0ou1b7sIdYM2AK64Dzp4uLyl9fnBlDCRE-maNFHTgtjGbUqvL3GcfsRKViVjY9js3JOzlVihl_41FuDpi5Q9gBWV6Zhhb_O_-xfD33n44iIsXKUoNW5Fec2aVGFOdNRz4Zr14m251LfL5I/s1357/CiP.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1357" data-original-width="844" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCFHiBg_e9Qi6ehEo-ZsCt4tDbRM1DZX_tWEtpqtqS-hDOg0ou1b7sIdYM2AK64Dzp4uLyl9fnBlDCRE-maNFHTgtjGbUqvL3GcfsRKViVjY9js3JOzlVihl_41FuDpi5Q9gBWV6Zhhb_O_-xfD33n44iIsXKUoNW5Fec2aVGFOdNRz4Zr14m251LfL5I/w398-h640/CiP.jpg" width="398" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha, speak up everybody,
you’re on the air - it’s Burl here to review a fairly obscure little Canadian mystery-slasher
picture! It’s one of those grimy, vaguely <i>giallo</i>-inspired movies that
came along regularly through the early and mid-80s – pictures like <i>American
Nightmare</i> and <i>Evil Judgment</i> are close cousins, it seems to me! The
movie we’re talking about today goes by several titles – among them, reportedly, <i>The
AIDS Murders</i> – but I’m going to refer to it by the name on the VHS tape I
watched: <i>City in Panic</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The city in question is
Toronto, and though they don’t name it, it’s pretty identifiable! Ha ha, there
are plenty of recognizable cityscape shots, and the piles of dirty snow seen
everywhere identify the climate and the season for us as well! It looks like it
was a cold shoot - ha ha, as someone who has worked on movies in Toronto in the
wintertime, I had real sympathy for the cast of this picture, and even more for
the crew!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The panic has already
begun as the story begins: enough people, maybe two or three, have been
murdered for the police and the public to realize it’s a serial maniac! Because
the victims are mainly gay men, the action starts outside the Oak Leaf Steam
Baths on Bathurst Street, which I cheered when I saw because, even though I
never went to the steam baths, they were in the same building as Mimi’s, a
great restaurant at which I used to frequently eat my breakfast! Ha ha, they made
a terrific French toast! Mimi’s was a marvelous place, always full of famous, semi-famous, and non-famous musicians, and Mimi herself was a
real character!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Anyway, the man comes out
of the steam baths looking chagrined and heads home for a shower! The killer is
on his tail, and what follows is the most slavish recreation of the <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/10/burl-reviews-psycho-1960.html">Psycho</a></i>
shower scene outside of Gus Van Sant’s weird 1998 remake! Then we’re introduced
to the competent but unremarkable actors who will essay our main characters: firstly
Dave Miller, impersonated by David Anderson, an anodyne talk radio host who
plays with toys as he broadcasts and whose catch phrase is “Speak up, you’re on
the air!” The topic du jour on Dave’s radio show is of course the murders, and
his position on the matter is tough to define, but it’s apparently at odds with
that of the town’s other media giant, a Truman Capote-ish columnist called Alex
Ramsey!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Although these two constantly
reiterate their respective opinions on the killings and on the approach the police
are taking to solve the crimes, I was never quite sure what those positions were!
As near as I can tell, Dave is asking the public for patience, opining that the
cops have a tough job so let them do it; while Alex Ramsey just wants someone
to declare martial law and do whatever they have to do to get this murderous
scoundrel off the streets! Meanwhile we meet other characters: Dave’s radio
producer Louise, played by Bonnie Beck from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/06/burl-reviews-wild-thing-1987.html">Wild Thing</a></i>; Ramsay’s assistant
(and, I think, Dave’s ex?) Elizabeth Price, played by Leeann Nestegard; and
Dave’s best friend, who’s also the detective on the case, Barry McKee! We also get
to know Barry’s partner, who is the world’s angriest cop!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">But the killer seems
unstoppable! Kitted out in <i>giallo</i>-wear (black hat, cloak, gloves and
glasses), the fiend takes out He-Man, a ponky male stripper who prances about
to the screams of the ladies! Ha ha, even the cops, even his best friend, even
He-Man’s own physician refers to him only as He-Man! And there’s more! Every so
often the killer will roll up in a sweet boogie van right out of <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/05/burl-reviews-prom-night-1980.html">Prom Night</a></i>
and put the knife to, oh, let’s say a fellow hanging upside down in the gym, or
else a security guard who takes advantage of a glory hole and by garr pays the
price! Arghhh, ha ha! A letter M is always carved into the victims, and later
on a poster for Fritz Lang’s <i>M</i> provides an important if belated clue to Detective Barry McKee!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">I guess I shouldn’t give
away the killer or the motive, but despite the fact that the victims are almost
all gay men and are afflicted with AIDS (which, in keeping with the mid-80s provenance
of the picture, it assumes is an automatic death sentence for anyone who’s got
it), it’s not a simple case of murderous homophobia! I suppose the movie is
pretty progressive for its day, in that none of the gay folk are simple caricatures;
but it’s nevertheless very much of its day, so keep that in mind and be warned if you’re thinking of
watching it!<br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">I can’t say the solution
to the mystery surprised me, and, ha ha, I’m pretty easily surprised! Also, the movie
is simply not terribly well made, even if it could have been worse! Some of
the acting is not bad, and some of it is; and it’s not a movie with much of a
sense of humour – by the end, I must say, it gets pretty grim! But then suddenly, with a
bonk on the head, it’s all done, and the only thing left is to wait for the
AIDS to inevitably claim any still-living infected characters, as far as the movie's medical understanding goes! As movies go it’s a bit
unusual and it’s a bit Toronto, and those are its main virtues, so I’ll give <i>City
in Panic</i> one set of gravity boots!</p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-74455997808772076102023-06-29T23:00:00.005-05:002023-06-29T23:00:57.083-05:00Burl reviews Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3! (2023)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5YnhDQDfhDAEGH3mchZO6tzEhH3CK8cKYXfmqrnKv9oxSm-stdL3EdIV04d2LczfzckSdUEjgY3lAQIO20K0cb4GxipGFJ52qYL7Tm3vlyfvNl3I4sS9ObXuBypFFWNDLJ5PtwmgPIlu1womVhbiGrsPfSBzmHxw7eCSWSPgJm1vqaxr54ks7EhiGeyY/s1481/GotG3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1481" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5YnhDQDfhDAEGH3mchZO6tzEhH3CK8cKYXfmqrnKv9oxSm-stdL3EdIV04d2LczfzckSdUEjgY3lAQIO20K0cb4GxipGFJ52qYL7Tm3vlyfvNl3I4sS9ObXuBypFFWNDLJ5PtwmgPIlu1womVhbiGrsPfSBzmHxw7eCSWSPgJm1vqaxr54ks7EhiGeyY/w432-h640/GotG3.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><br /><p><br />
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha and pieww-pieww,
it’s Burl here with space action-comedy for you! Yes, it’s the summer
blockbuster season, and the big shows are being rolled out weekend by weekend;
and, seeing as how my son and I recently watched the first two entries in the <i>Guardians
of the Galaxy</i> series of pictures, which come from the director of <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/03/burl-reviews-super-2010.html">Super</a></i>,
James Gunn, we thought we might go out to catch the third in the series! The
official title of this third entry seems to be <i>Guardians of the Galaxy
Volume 3</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">I will here and now
confess that I’m no great adherent to the Marvel superhero pictures, which I
mostly find cacophonous and bewildering! Well, they’re not <i>that</i>
bewildering – I’m not an idiot after all, ha ha – but when watching one I’m
always conscious there’s a whole mess of back story and relationship dynamics
of which I’m cheerfully unaware, and knowing this tends to dull my enjoyment of
their product! But of all the various series, the <i>Guardians of the Galaxy</i>
ones have been among the most amusing, both because they seem to sit apart from
the Avengers and all those associated heroes, and because there is for the most
part a refreshing lack of reverence for the interwoven Marvel universe as a
whole!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The Guardians of the
Galaxy are of course a motley band of space people who live in a lumpus called
Knowhere, are led by a ragamuffin called Quill, played by Chris Pratt from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/06/burl-reviews-jurassic-world-2015.html"><i>Jurassic
World</i></a>, and occasionally cruise around in their spacecraft doing missions!
Ostensibly they’re flying around out there to battle evil, but most of their
time seems spent on investigating their own origins and past traumas, as though
the whole hero caper is really just some good old fashioned recovered-memory
therapy! The first one dramatizes the origins of the group, but takes time to
investigate how the battling sisters Gamora (who is green and played by Zoe
Saldana from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/03/burl-reviews-star-trek-into-darkness.html">Star Trek Into Darkness</a></i>) and Nebula (a mostly-blue
patchwork essayed by Karen Gillan from <i>Oculus</i>) came to be what they are,
which has something to do with their father, a rock monster! Then the second
one showed that Quill’s father was secretly a space god played by Kurt Russell!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">This time it’s the raccoon
man’s turn to look back on his life! The character of Rocket is an irascible <i>procyon</i>
with the voice of Bradley Cooper, and at the beginning of the picture a golden
boy flies in and tries to kidnap him! After a fearsome battle the golden boy is
driven off, but poor Rocket hovers on the edge of death! It turns out the only
way to save him is for his pals to bust in to the scientific facility that
created the raccoon: a place run by Chukwudi Iwuji from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/02/burl-reviews-john-wick-chapter-2-2017.html"><i>John Wick: Chapter 2</i></a>
playing “The High Evolutionary,” who’s a maniac with pretensions to godhood!
This is our bad guy, and the rest of the movie bounces between the Guardians’
efforts to find the information that can save him, and Rocket’s comatose
recollections of his childhood, in which he was caged with three other
similarly mutilated weirdo child-animal friends!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It's as melancholy a
picture as Marvel will allow, meditating (ha ha, again, as much as Marvel will
allow) on loss and survivor’s guilt; and it’s also got a strong
anti-vivisectionist message! These things are over and again subsumed by the
pieww-pieww, but you can tell Gunn means what he says because there’s
significantly less joking around than in the previous installments, and a lot
more talking about feelings! There’s a scene that takes place in what I took to
be heaven’s antechamber that, for a conversation between two non-human CGI
confabulations, is really quite touching! And eventually everyone cries, even
the raccoon!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It’s a long, busy picture
– ha ha, the Marvel extravaganzas all seem to be in running time and
character-number competition with one another – but fairly straightforward when
you break it all down! The High Evolutionary is a mean man but gets what’s
coming to him, and I could never decide whether Iwuji’s performance was a minor
triumph or a silly hamfest – ha ha, or maybe it was both! I liked it, though!
Otherwise except for the occasionally dour tone, the movie mostly follows the
pattern set by the previous volumes, including the requisite moment of fighting
triumph for the tree-man; some literal-mindedness from manmountain Drax, played
by Dave Bautista from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/11/burl-reviews-dune-part-one-2021.html"><i>Dune</i></a>; a cameo appearance measurable in seconds by Sylvester
Stallone from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/12/burl-reviews-first-blood-1982.html"><i>First Blood</i></a>; and lots of cacophony and endless song cues!
Although, ha ha, they seem to have dropped the trope of Quill listening to mix
tapes his mother made him – although there are still 1970s AM radio cuts here,
the selection is also watered down by what I suppose are simply songs James
Gunn likes!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Anyhow, it’s more
enjoyable than the usual Marvel nonsense, and it has an alternate earth
populated by animal people, so I’ll give <i>Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3</i>
two blue jay men!</p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-33119746567180925522023-06-26T10:25:00.001-05:002023-06-26T10:25:29.527-05:00Burl reviews She Demons! (1958)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU4YMGKeJHK83XYQll7bH8ZWMwVOssqI8y0oekPRfNP42KsDqr9roC2aTqPQSePh-SmKptYzBfdsS7yHuPKrhLHooARZrstnh8OcNzjq0-s7ZvSHpAJFpggtJ-Nm3Y0WS-TiwxPPLiExoOUirCn-S-RXMm5OoJMrka1woLZuYAroR3psHOPSVbSFLn3Tc/s1517/SHEDEMONS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1517" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU4YMGKeJHK83XYQll7bH8ZWMwVOssqI8y0oekPRfNP42KsDqr9roC2aTqPQSePh-SmKptYzBfdsS7yHuPKrhLHooARZrstnh8OcNzjq0-s7ZvSHpAJFpggtJ-Nm3Y0WS-TiwxPPLiExoOUirCn-S-RXMm5OoJMrka1woLZuYAroR3psHOPSVbSFLn3Tc/w422-h640/SHEDEMONS.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">To the beat of the jungle
drums it’s Burl, returning to the land of Cunha! Ha ha, we’re all very familiar
with, and fond of, his work I’m sure, particularly the Great Quartet of
Fifty-Et, which includes <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/09/burl-reviews-giant-from-unknown-1958.html">Giant from the Unknown</a></i>, <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/10/burl-reviews-frankensteins-daughter-1958.html">Frankenstein’s Daughter</a></i>,
<i>Missile to the Moon</i>, and the movie I’m gabbing about today, the exotic,
buxotic, quixotic <i>She Demons</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">The plot is largely lifted
from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/01/burl-reviews-eyes-without-face-1959.html">Eyes Without A Face</a></i>, or would have been if <i>Eyes Without A Face</i>
hadn’t come out a year later, ha ha! It seems that there’s been a <i>Gilligan’s
Island</i>-style marine mishap, and the castaways include spoiled debutante Jerrie,
played by beauteous Irish McCalla, most famous for playing the title role in <i>Sheena,
Queen of the Jungle</i>, and who, a trivia, was born exactly the same day as
the great Dick Miller! The boat captain and generic hero type is Fred Macklin,
played by Tod Griffin, who had, after all, already appeared in <i>She Devil</i>
so should have known what to expect on this island! There are a couple of crew
fellows too: Sammy Ching, played by Victor Sen Yung, famous for his role as
number one son Jimmy Chan in the <i>Charlie Chan</i> film series and who also
appeared in movies like <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-moontide-1942.html">Moontide</a></i>, <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/12/burl-reviews-soldier-of-fortune-1955.html">Soldier of Fortune</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/06/burl-reviews-killer-elite-1975.html">The Killer Elite</a></i>; and Kris Kamana, played by Charles Opunui, who had appeared,
very briefly, as an “Eskimo” in <i>The Thing From Another World</i>! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">After exploring the beach,
which looks a lot like Paradise Cove in Malibu, they venture into the island’s
interior, which looks a lot like Griffith Park! Unfortunately their buddy Kris
suffers a mishap that leaves him chock full of spears, ha ha, and it’s soon
revealed that the perpetrators are a group of goochy-faced ladies who like to
dance around and attack anyone who happens along! And these ladies, instantly
dubbed “She Demons” by our intrepid castaways, turn out to have been created by
Colonel Osler, of course!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">But who is Colonel Osler?
Well, he’s played by Rudolph Anders, who’d essayed plenty of Nazis and other
assorted evil Germans before this, and was Dr. Louis Dupont in <i>The Snow
Creature</i>, and here he delivers a particularly rootin’-tootin’ performance
as a Mengele type guy acting out of the usual maniacal uxoriousness, which of
course he’s happy to drop as soon as he claps eyes on Irish! It seems Osler’s wife
Mona, played by Leni Tana from <i>Torn Curtain</i>, was involved in a lava
accident and needs a replacement face, and local island ladies figure in this
treatment somehow, and whenever the procedure fails, as it constantly does, the
result, somehow, is a She Demon! The filmmakers don’t really explore the
medical whys and wherefores of this, however!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Of course Osler has his
Igor figure, here called, imaginatively enough, Igor, and played by familiar
face Gene Roth of <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/12/burl-reviews-strange-illusion-1945.html">Strange Illusion</a></i>, <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/05/burl-reviews-jet-pilot-1957.html"><i>Jet Pilot</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/10/burl-reviews-zombies-of-mora-tau-1957.html">Zombies of Mora Tau</a></i>; he also has a number of generic sub-henchmen who all try to keep
their faces in those frowny expressions Nazi henchmen always seem to wear in B pictures!
Ha ha! And as the island’s volcano gets rumblier, and Fred and Sammy are captured
and tortured while Jerrie is captured and wooed, and then everybody escapes with
help from the bandaged Mona, who has finally recognized what a monster her
husband is (and whose face, partly revealed near the end, is genuinely gross), and Osler rants and raves and grins and grimaces, and the She Demons keep dancing around, we come to realize just how
long 77 minutes can seem!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Nevertheless, I liked this
little movie! After all, it starts from a pretty solid foundation, because I’m
naturally fond of these little 50s programmers and always enjoy the world of
Cunha! In the first half of the movie Jerrie is a supremely annoying spoiled
rich girl, but it’s rewarding as she transforms into a regular person! Sammy,
for his part, is just a regular sidekick sort of a guy instead of the Asian caricature
I was fearing, and that was good too! He’s goofy, but also resourceful and
brave! And then it’s always nice to see Nazis on the receiving end of a lava
shower, ha ha! It won’t make you change your religion or anything, but you’ll
probably enjoy the movie, so I give <i>She Demons</i> two powder-blue cashmere
shorties!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-38449482445237990322023-06-15T10:29:00.004-05:002023-06-17T09:31:01.280-05:00Burl reviews Twister! (1996)<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaVmMWL_48HoRMyozU5CN-Eo1JrywQM7s0N6beeC1jn3NarfOQIXqFVJDgvKhtpO35HhfO1UH3OQRNYpsTE7Hb4IFHUFn02hDRBlZL4CgtsbNuqmfLphRNhDETJSFiEY4fhsn2Rk1hjgnhoLaSkOFmjURtnBaPDvZ3nVde38rrxo9YSfJKICyYt5Ij/s2375/twister.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2375" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaVmMWL_48HoRMyozU5CN-Eo1JrywQM7s0N6beeC1jn3NarfOQIXqFVJDgvKhtpO35HhfO1UH3OQRNYpsTE7Hb4IFHUFn02hDRBlZL4CgtsbNuqmfLphRNhDETJSFiEY4fhsn2Rk1hjgnhoLaSkOFmjURtnBaPDvZ3nVde38rrxo9YSfJKICyYt5Ij/w432-h640/twister.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">From within the whirling
winds of the Hollywood Midwest, it’s Burl, with a review of some big-budget
1990s weather spectacle! Ha ha, the second half of the 1990s saw the rise once
again of the large-scale disaster movie: we had the lava duello of <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/02/burl-reviews-dantes-peak-1997.html"><i>Dante’s
Peak</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/09/burl-reviews-volcano-1997.html">Volcano</a></i>; meteor-vs.meteor with <i>Armageddon</i> and <i>Deep
Impact</i>; alien blast-vasions in <i>Independence Day</i> and <i>Mars Attacks</i>;
and various randos like <i>Daylight</i>, <i>Titanic</i>, <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/08/burl-reviews-godzilla-1998.html">Godzilla</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/09/burl-reviews-firestorm-1998.html">Firestorm</a></i>!
But among the earliest in this cycle was the tornado drama <i>Twister</i>, the
summertime success of which helped kick off the late-90s disaster-spasm!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha, I remember
reviewing this one back in my semi-professional movie reviewing days, and I didn’t
care much for it, declaring it, rather harshly perhaps, "flatulence from the sky!" But
whether it’s a softening of my heart, or of my head, or the stench of
nostalgia, or wistfulness for the days when Bill Paxton was alive and could
headline big movies, my attitude toward this twistravaganza has improved
somewhat! I still think there’s too much bickering in it and an overly healthy dose of silliness,
and that it irresponsibly encouraged the goofy sport of tornado-chasing; but I
must admit that on a recent re-viewing of this windy action-drama, I more or less enjoyed
it!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Paxton, whom we recall
from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/01/burl-reviews-aliens-1986.html">Aliens</a></i> and <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/04/burl-reviews-weird-science-1985.html"><i>Weird Science</i></a> and so many others, plays Bill, who
does a little weird science of his own by sniffing dirt and looking at the sky
to see when the tornados are going to appear! He’s a former tornado chaser,
legendary for his recklessness, who rejoins his old gang, temporarily he
thinks, in order to have divorce papers signed by ex-wife Jo, who’s played by Helen
Hunt from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/06/burl-reviews-next-of-kin-1989.html">Next of Kin</a></i> (which Paxton was also in, actually)! Bill has in
tow his fiancée Melissa, a straight arrow played by Jami Gertz from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/08/burl-reviews-mischief-1985.html"><i>Mischief</i></a>
and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/07/burl-reviews-lost-boys-1987.html">The Lost Boys</a></i>, who is initially interested in the tornado gang but,
after a few close calls, is happy to walk away and let Bill have both his twisters
and his old wife back!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">That’s the human drama
part of the movie, and too much screen time is spent on it if you ask ol’ Burl!
And then there’s the antics of the tornado gang, which is to say the crew of
pseudo-scientists who drive the highways and byways in their motley of vehicles
in pursuit of supercells, and pine for the days when Bill was their wild and fearless
leader! This group includes Phillip Seymour Hoffman from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/05/burl-reviews-jack-goes-boating-2010.html">Jack Goes Boating</a></i>
and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/09/burl-reviews-mission-impossible-iii-2006.html"><i>Mission Impossible III</i></a> in the role of Dusty, the most comedic
scientist; Alan Ruck from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/02/burl-reviews-ferris-buellers-day-off.html"><i>Ferris Bueller’s Day Off</i></a> as Rabbit, the crew's putative wise man; Sean
Whalen from <i>The People Under the Stairs</i> as Allan; Scott Thomson from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/05/burl-reviews-parasite-1981.html">Parasite</a></i>
and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2022/10/burl-reviews-police-academy-1984.html">Police Academy</a></i> as Preacher; Wendle Josepher from <i>Intolerable
Cruelty</i> as Haynes; famous director Todd Field as Beltzer; and Joey Slotnick
from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/01/burl-reviews-plane-2023.html">Plane</a></i> as Joey! Ha ha!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">But this rabble are
unconvincing not just as scientists but as genuine human people, and their
interest in, essentially, air is about all there is to them, and makes them only as substantial as that passion would suggest! A scene in which the whole gang
stops off unannounced at the home of Aunt Meg, played in granny-artist mode by
Lois Smith from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/04/burl-reviews-black-widow-1987.html">Black Widow</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/11/burl-reviews-french-dispatch-2021.html">The French Dispatch</a></i>, and proceed
to eat her entire supply of steak, is meant to be endearing and humanizing but it comes off
more as just a bunch of insensitive louts mooching off an old lady, no matter
how affable Aunt Meg is about it nor how much it’s implied that this has
happened many times before and Meg must be used to it by now! Ha ha! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">And then there are the
rival scientists, who drive in shiny black trucks, have all the latest
equipment, and are led by windbag showboater Jonas, played by Cary Elwes from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/12/burl-reviews-princess-bride-1987.html">The Princess Bride</a></i>! Of course the ragtag heroes disdain them, in this Universal
Pictures-Warner Bros. co-production, for accepting corporate sponsorship to
fund their activities, though the script doesn’t bother detailing which
corporation would want to sponsor tornado chasers, nor why! At least there’s
some nuance in the presentation: Jonas is a bad guy, but not so bad that the
heroes don’t try in earnest to dissuade him from blundering into an F5! But he’s still the
bad guy after all, and for his sins he reaps the whirlwind! Or rather, ha ha, the
whirlwind reaps him! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">So it all comes down to
the tornadoes, doesn’t it, and these scenes are pulled off with, if not
realism, all the techno-aplomb the mid-90s could offer! The trick effects are
still impressive today, and the number and length of the tornado scenes stop
<i>just</i> short of the point where they’d become repetitive and boring! The
filmmakers take care to vary the types of debris thrown at the heroes: trucks,
exploding trucks, farm equipment, exploding farm equipment, cows; and there’s a
good nighttime scene at which a drive-in movie screening of <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/10/burl-reviews-psycho-1960.html"><i>Psycho</i></a> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/11/burl-reviews-shining-1980.html">The Shining</a></i> is interrupted by one of the larger twisters! Still, as thrilling
as these scenes often are, and as awesome as the tornadoes shown here can be, it
still falls short of the one seen in <i>The Wizard of Oz</i>, and that was just a
big black sock wasn’t it!</p>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The physics displayed here are about as authentic as
they are in <i>Oz</i> (a film much alluded-to in this production), and the
great goal of Bill's team - to release their science instrument named
Dorothy into a tornado so as to discover its characteristics and therefore be
better able, somehow, to predict them - seems both unrealistic and a bit
underwhelming! Meanwhile the dialogue is unspeakable, most of the characters
are annoying, and the drama is flaccid! But the effects sequences remain marvellous and
the atmosphere of Midwestern heavy weather is nicely achieved! There’s a
summeriness to the movie that I like, too, so in the final puff I’ll give <i>Twister</i>
one and a half handfuls of dirt!</span>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;"><style>@font-face
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<p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style> <br /></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-31779155202626148152023-06-14T09:32:00.002-05:002023-06-14T09:32:56.688-05:00Burl reviews Cottage Country! (2013)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcBYgGPI0M_kEs110VQxURGE2zQeK92JXG2bfXj7yuH0ZexM3Pz3aHuxJKN-b7vNfHAQ_20J8urpyThBgpteEShLcChuDZYSSS2KyOmJKMSDqV1Dd-GD1wQ_cwknns2kYoI6koUQSkPiUTZ9UL7i3Ps4-TsA3RGnWxyPy9cSQA-1O38V702EpBh3fA/s1430/CC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1430" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcBYgGPI0M_kEs110VQxURGE2zQeK92JXG2bfXj7yuH0ZexM3Pz3aHuxJKN-b7vNfHAQ_20J8urpyThBgpteEShLcChuDZYSSS2KyOmJKMSDqV1Dd-GD1wQ_cwknns2kYoI6koUQSkPiUTZ9UL7i3Ps4-TsA3RGnWxyPy9cSQA-1O38V702EpBh3fA/w448-h640/CC.jpg" width="448" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha and welcome to the
cottage, it’s Burl! I had lake cottages I could visit while I was growing up –
grandparents had one, uncle had one, some friends of course – but they were either
far away or could only be visited occasionally, so I can’t say I really had the
childhood cottage experience! But eventually I married into one, and now I do
have it, and man is it sweet! It’s a lot of work, though! I’ve built additions,
sheds, decks, docks, wooden walkways and garden boxes, and have done more
tree-chopping, wood-splitting, outhouse-moving and various sundry other tasks
than I ever thought I would! But if that sounds like complaining, think again:
ha ha, I’m very grateful to have it!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">But my place is a lot more
rustic than the cottage seen in the movie I’m reviewing for you today: by name,
<i>Cottage Country</i>! It’s a Canadian picture, and at times a very Canadian
picture, so as a cottaging Canuck myself, I thought this picture might strike a
chord! Well, maybe it did, but a fairly dull one with little resonance and not
always the most pleasing of tones! Still, it proved better than I was
expecting! Read on, sweet primate, and I’ll give you the particulars! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Tyler Labine from <i>Tucker
& Dale vs. Evil</i> and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-rise-of-planet-of-apes.html">Rise of the Planet of the Apes</a></i> plays Todd, a
milquetoast Toronto salaryman with a family cottage in the Muskokas and a blonde
girlfriend who at first seems out of his league, and to whom, this magical
weekend at what Ontarians call “camp,” he plans to propose! Malin Ackerman who
played Debbie Harry in <i>CBGB</i> is Cammie, the girlfriend, and she does a
good job at immediately situating the character as a very specific type, who
later in the movie will evolve into a different, but related, specific type!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Anyway, after a brief
encounter with a woods-hobo played by Earl Pastko from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/03/burl-reviews-heads-1994.html">Heads</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2022/06/burl-reviews-land-of-dead-2005.html">Land of the Dead</a></i> and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2022/05/burl-reviews-roadkill-1989.html"><i>Roadkill</i></a> and <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/06/burl-reviews-sweet-hereafter-1997.html"><i>The Sweet Hereafter</i></a>, Todd and
Cammie arrive at the cottage, which is more like a regular two-story house; and
before Todd can make his ill-considered proposal, even before Cammie can enact
a prefatory session of whistle-dog, who should burst in but Todd’s obnoxious
brother, whose name, improbably, is Salinger, along with his dour Eastern
European girlfriend Masha, played by Lucy Punch from <i>Hot Fuzz</i>! This
unwanted invasion sets up the big conflict of the picture, which comes to a
head when Todd semi-accidentally puts the chop to his brother’s neck!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Things get a little <i>Macbeth</i>
from here: Cammie turns out to be the sort of lady who won’t let anything get
in the way of her personal happiness and the vision of her life which she has
conceived! Ha ha, you know the type! Well, she’s soon browbeaten Todd into
helping her murder Masha, and from there things get complicated with the
chopping up of the bodies, the sinking of the parts, and the unexpected party which
the brother had arranged before his axing! With increasingly suspicious guests
– one in particular likes asking the hard questions, ha ha – the murder-happy
couple’s desperation grows, and their willingness to kill, or at least Cammie’s
willingness to kill, grows apace! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Eventually Todd and
Salinger’s parents show up, played by Canadian acting veterans Kenneth Welsh,
whom we know from any number of things including the latter-day Romero picture <i>Survival
of the Dead</i>, and Nancy Beatty from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/02/burl-reviews-city-on-fire-1979.html"><i>City on Fire</i></a>! They’re a pair of
bickersons right out of <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/06/burl-reviews-till-death-do-us-part-1982.html"><i>Till Death Do Us Part</i></a>, and the name “Salinger”
becomes even more unlikely once these L7s appear, but the actors are talented
enough that their worry for their missing son, and increasing suspicion about
what might have happened to him, hits a genuine emotional note!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">There are some hoser cops
that include Jonathan Crombie from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/05/burl-reviews-bullies-1986.html">Bullies</a></i>, and then there’s a car chase
and the final dislocation between Todd and Cammie! Ha ha, in the last act the
picture begins to recall the British killer-couple movie <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/01/burl-reviews-sightseers-2012.html">Sightseers</a></i>, but
it never fully commits to the heartlessness and black-comic violence of that
picture! Still, there are casualties and things occasionally get bloody! The
acting is pretty sharp all around, the locations pretty, and the rest of the
show is perfectly functional! But it never really flies, and it never really
lands either – it’s not scary and not all that thrilling, and if the intention
is satirical, the targets (WASPy couples? Affluent cottagers? Families?) escape
unscathed! But it has moments of sharpness, minor suspense, and gratifying
humour, so it was hardly a total loss! I’ll give <i>Cottage Country</i> two
pairs of expensive headphones!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-187677849818292112023-06-13T16:10:00.002-05:002023-06-13T23:41:24.537-05:00Burl reviews Till Death Do Us Part! (1982)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYXiBGLM7_89hi9w9TF_6c9RBFhVComyxhuOQvJEFSkkHEWQVfC2BXHpHXUBco5E_gA23NQLRoCfPxIbaByv0YB5Cvamu1gi5YysyuV_k_iODGh9k_Gh46phjpdG9qB4Q-c9Gvq-K38Au4HemCJn51Uv433q7QOHD-4yuCFbNs_GJ-KyITquJDQrRb/s3278/TDDUP.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3278" data-original-width="1796" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYXiBGLM7_89hi9w9TF_6c9RBFhVComyxhuOQvJEFSkkHEWQVfC2BXHpHXUBco5E_gA23NQLRoCfPxIbaByv0YB5Cvamu1gi5YysyuV_k_iODGh9k_Gh46phjpdG9qB4Q-c9Gvq-K38Au4HemCJn51Uv433q7QOHD-4yuCFbNs_GJ-KyITquJDQrRb/w350-h640/TDDUP.JPG" width="350" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">By hidden camera, it’s
Burl, here to report on a piece of oddballania from the Great White North! Ha
ha, many strange concoctions have emerged from that land, and the movie under
discussion today is not the strangest – but most certainly it is not the most
normal, either! It’s claimed in certain quarters to be a made-for-TV movie, but
I don’t think that’s true! I think it’s just a plain old freaky little mystery,
and it goes by the name of <i>Till Death Do Us Part</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">I can see why some would
think it’s a TV movie though – the VHS version I saw had been sort of transformed
into one with some weird and very apparent editing elisions; a clearly re-cut
credits sequence, which shows bits from the movie to come; and an abbreviated running
time! I suppose it was chopped and reordered from whatever it started as into a
post-hoc TV movie in much the same way as Dr. Moreau surgically alters people
into half-animals! So it’s a bit of a mutation, this little movie, but does it
still work? Ha ha, sort of!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">We open in a big country
house at night, with a scullery maid played by Riva Spier from <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/05/burl-reviews-pinball-summer-1979.html"><i>Pinball
Summer</i></a> discovering a young man rocking back and forth in his chair as he
watches a screen showing two people engaged in pre-bohankie! The maid steals
the big ¾ inch video tape and escapes the house by the tried-and-true method of
tying sheets together and shinnying out the window – though, ha ha, her knots are
not so good and she takes a tumble! Worse still awaits her in the woods, where
she is killed, has a cross carved into her forehead, and is crucified on some
trees by person or persons unknown!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Then it’s the next day and
we’re back at the country mansion, which proves to be a marriage counselling
retreat run by a radical post-Freudian psychologist called Dr. Sigmund Freed,
ha ha, who’s played by none other than the director of <i>Mon Oncle Antoine</i>,
Claude Jutra! (Some pretty unsavory stories have come out about poor Jutra in
recent years, but as they haven’t really been confirmed so far as I’ve heard,
and as he’s dead anyway, drowned in the St. Lawrence, I tried not to let that
bother me as I watched the movie!) His character is meant to be a crazy
unpredictable obsessive wearing a thin veneer of rationality, and for a
non-actor he pulls it off pretty well!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Anyway, three married
couple arrive for therapy: we have the world’s rudest man, Wally, played by Jack
Creley from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/12/burl-reviews-tulips-1981.html">Tulips</a></i> and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2022/10/burl-reviews-videodrome-1983.html"><i>Videodrome</i></a>, and his long-suffering wife
Edna, essayed by Helen Hughes from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/09/burl-reviews-incubus-1981.html">Incubus</a></i>; floppy-haired Robert Craig,
played by the picture’s requisite American star, James Keach from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/11/burl-reviews-cannonball-1976.html"><i>Cannonball</i></a>
and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/02/burl-reviews-vacation-1983.html">Vacation</a></i>, and his wife Dr. Susan Craig, who is played by Candace O’Connor
from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/12/burl-reviews-silent-partner-1978.html">The Silent Partner</a></i>; and, late to the party and therefore subject to
a fearsome dressing-down from Freed, drugs aficionado Tony, impersonated by veteran
summer-camp actor Matt Craven from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/06/burl-reviews-meatballs-1979.html"><i>Meatballs</i></a> and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/07/burl-reviews-indian-summer-1993.html">Indian Summer</a></i>,
along with his wife, played by someone I forget who, ha ha!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Already at the big country
house is Freed, of course, along with his wife Honora, played by Toby Tarnow
from <i>Utilities</i>; Honora’s brother, who seems mute but later protests that
he’s only shy, played not by an actor but by a lighting technician; and Terrence
Labrosse as a crusty, gun-toting, bunny-loving handyman! The bickering couples
are subjected to various mind games and constant surveillance, and are informed
that they must not leave the premises for the entire weekend! Ha ha, but after
Freed does things like pretend to machine gun everyone to death, it’s
inevitable that they will insist upon leaving in the most strenuous terms!
Except, ha ha, they don’t really – they make a lot of noise, but these are not
very proactive people!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">And eventually, they start
dying! Wally, the world’s rudest man, is first to go: bonked on the head with a
meat tenderizer, a cross carved in his forehead, and sent plummeting down a
well! And it seems to take forever, but eagle-beaked Tony goes next: after a
long sequence in which he’s blitzed by mind drugs given him by Freed, he
relaxes in a hot tub and is heated to death! (We have to assume this – we don’t
see it, but he is later found in the tub looking a little ruddier than usual!) There’s
also a knife to the gut! And eventually – ha ha, spoiler alert I suppose – the killer
bonks Freed on the head, and the garrulous quack goes down still talking as
though nothing has happened, but dies once he’s on the floor!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Well I won’t tell who the
killer is, but I will say that I, a notoriously bad guesser of such things, was
not surprised at the culprit! Nor do the other characters seem terribly
shocked, but this is in keeping with their reactions all throughout the movie,
ha ha! They muster only the most feeble of requests to call the police once
bodies start turning up! Keach, wearing a truly bizarre hairstyle, turns out to
have a secret of his own, and is positioned as the hero, but like everyone else
he pretty much just stands around in small-mouthed astonishment as the film’s climax unfolds! (He does
deliver one minor punch to Freed, however!) We never really find out what the
deal is with the crosses in the forehead, but I assume that’s just a holdover
from the Duplessis era in Quebec, where the movie was shot!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It’s a strange little
movie: part horror, part country-house murder mystery, part comedy! The bizarre
lengths Freed is willing to go and his psychopathic egoism; and the outsized
behaviour of many of the other characters, in particular the world’s rudest man
and the necro-groper handyman who’s constantly fondling bunny rabbits; and the
astonishing passivity of the patients, all help make up the oddballness of the
picture, and are what makes it compelling despite the long stretches of not
much happening and the unpleasantness of many of the characters! The acting is
fine, the direction adequate if unspectacular (the director went on to a long
TV career, naturally), and the screenplay eccentric enough to make it
interesting! It’s no lost classic, though it is virtually lost, and I’m going
to give <i>Till Death Do Us Part</i> two polygraph machines!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-76603642849573515252023-06-07T23:01:00.004-05:002023-06-14T14:37:16.608-05:00Burl reviews Twilight of the Ice Nymphs! (1997)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUUSzgZHe1F6U6X_Q9kYrY4NlaV6tO9odU5rOowHDByuvl0KgrQPQDhx0Zi6WwxPZyWWsd1PAOLgpHBXeoONEAu6yQXxGKySK9a-urWssRHvCfM7Fchk3NgZ0GfylrhuRErfQtPha0LgsXU0uLjw4PDmgGCcvWTcZsQvTF564MJkoAo973X-0EL73G/s1000/TOIN.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="675" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUUSzgZHe1F6U6X_Q9kYrY4NlaV6tO9odU5rOowHDByuvl0KgrQPQDhx0Zi6WwxPZyWWsd1PAOLgpHBXeoONEAu6yQXxGKySK9a-urWssRHvCfM7Fchk3NgZ0GfylrhuRErfQtPha0LgsXU0uLjw4PDmgGCcvWTcZsQvTF564MJkoAo973X-0EL73G/w432-h640/TOIN.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">With a cry of boodle-doo,
it’s Burl, here to review arthouse! Ha ha, yes, it’s time to talk about another
movie from that <i>billet-doux</i> of film directors, Guy Maddin! You’ll recall
how much I enjoyed his mountain picture <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/01/burl-reviews-careful-1992.html">Careful</a></i>, and now here’s a movie
universally recognized as the very worst feature film he ever made, a
star-studded superattraction entitled <i>Twilight of the Ice Nymphs</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Now, ha ha, I say “star-studded,”
but it’s all relative, isn’t it! In this case it means there are a few recognizable
stars salted into the cast here – in fact, some actors I like very much! And of
course, whether or not this being his worst movie (assuming that’s true) makes
it a <i>bad</i> movie also hinges on a comparative relativity, since I do tend
to like not just his movies, but also the old semi-silents that inspire him:
movies like, oh let’s say, <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/03/burl-reviews-eternal-love-1929.html">Eternal Love</a></i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Anyway, the story here,
liberally borrowed from a Knut Hamsen novel called <i>Pan</i>, has a
newly-released political prisoner returning to his homeland, a country of
perpetual sunlight called Mandragora! The prisoner, Peter Glahn, is played by
an uncredited Nigel Whitmey, who later turned up in <i>Saving Private Ryan</i>;
on the boat ride home, he meets a strangely gorgeous lady called Juliana,
played by Pascale Bussières from <i>When Night Is Falling</i> and <i>August 32<sup>nd</sup>
on Earth</i>, who teases him silly! On arrival at the family ostrich farm,
Peter is reunited with his spinster sister Amelia, played by none other than Shelley
Duvall from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/11/burl-reviews-shining-1980.html">The Shining</a></i> and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2022/02/burl-reviews-mccabe-and-mrs-miller-1971.html">McCabe and Mrs. Miller</a></i>! Amelia longs
for the embrace of a local mesmerist and science doctor, Dr. Solti, played in high
comic fashion and with a proto-Christoph Waltz accent by R.H. Thomson from <i>Who
Loves the Sun</i>; she is also involved in a bitter feud with the farm’s hired
man, Cain Ball, essayed by a grizzly-looking Frank Gorshin from <i>Invasion of
the Saucer Men</i> and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/01/burl-reviews-12-monkeys-1995.html"><i>12 Monkeys</i></a>, a long mile from his days as Best
Dressed Man of 1978!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Wandering amidst all this,
through the extravagantly artificial forests of Mandragora, is Zephyr, a
fish-widow played by an especially ethereal Alice Krige, an actor who's a great favourite
of mine from movies like <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2016/01/burl-reviews-ghost-story-1981.html">Ghost Story</a> </i>and that <i>Star Trek</i> picture where she plays a robot queen! Peter becomes involved with her,
but then rediscovers Juliana, who turns out to be the ward of, and perhaps
lover of, the limping Solti! Solti's gone gimpy because a statue of Venus he’s recently
unearthed has fallen on and crushed his leg, and this statue will claim more victims before the story is through! So Peter and Juliana start an
affair, which makes Zephyr jealous; while Peter himself becomes increasingly jealous of
Juliana’s involvement with Solti, and Amelia, the smoke-dried stick, pines desperately for the
mesmerist! At home the stakes rise in her feud with Cain Ball, and soon the melodrama –
and it <i>is</i> melodrama: the Hammer Films-style musical score never lets up for a
moment – includes assault, insanity, immolation, self-mutilation by shotgun, a nail pounded into a head, and
a semi-mystical death-by-crushing!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Narratively it’s a lot
like <i>Careful</i> in many ways: we have, for example, a scene in which the
tragic final events are precipitated by the hero wrecking a female relation’s
romance with a local nobleman! Here the difference is that the romance never
would have happened anyway, so the import of the hero's act is greatly diminished! So,
too, is the sense of place: <i>Careful</i>, as artificial as it is, has a few
crowd scenes and a little town, and so seems to be happening in a world
inhabited by other people; <i>Twilight of the Ice Nymphs</i>, on the other
hand, is really just a half-dozen crazy characters wandering around a too-often
scantily-dressed fake forest!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiETjL9dpMM_22vfEbm6MGWvU5Zfcnhn45Ig_ivlpAWKaN_Zjb6KpLHc2Vax6ong9LN4DOgXy_B9F2vOZ1oqCRpqkGXdDr6lHBdVr9pUvVIFGek3nh_fRR61V0LpxRyGPpdWzrzCl3dZ20SBeuOLQp1NhCj7doBgAxUtEmV01wrA5oeId6OyhqkqkeG/s720/twilight.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="544" data-original-width="720" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiETjL9dpMM_22vfEbm6MGWvU5Zfcnhn45Ig_ivlpAWKaN_Zjb6KpLHc2Vax6ong9LN4DOgXy_B9F2vOZ1oqCRpqkGXdDr6lHBdVr9pUvVIFGek3nh_fRR61V0LpxRyGPpdWzrzCl3dZ20SBeuOLQp1NhCj7doBgAxUtEmV01wrA5oeId6OyhqkqkeG/w424-h321/twilight.jpeg" width="424" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;"><i>Ice Nymphs</i> is a bigger-budgeted
movie than <i>Careful</i>, but it seems the money went to the actors and the
35mm photography, and therefore the art department budget suffered; and, ha ha, now and
again it shows! The acting can be a bit over the top occasionally, but this
always seems deliberate, a calculated facet of the Reinhardt/Dieterle <i>Midsummer
Night’s Dream</i> effect Maddin is shooting for! (No Joe E. Ross in evidence though,
ha ha!) But the Shakespeare work it recalls most is <i>The Tempest</i>, and when Peter
gets so outraged that he commands the trees of the forest to bend to his will
and help him vanquish his enemy, and the trees actually sort of respond, the
sense of an island powered by glitter and magic comes to a full boil!</p>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I’ll have to agree that, of the ones I’ve seen, which
is most of them, this is Maddin’s worst picture! However there’s lots of
wonderful stuff here: for example, dialogue that's as rich and purple as a
fine blood pudding, and filled with quotable gems! And one must admit there’s really nothing
else out there that looks like it, and that’s very much a point in the movie's favour! And, too,
it has ostriches, ha ha, plenty of ostriches, and those guys are mighty
charming if you don't have to stand too close to them, or downwind! Shelley Duvall turns in a really fine and completely heartbreaking
performance, easily selling the idea of someone driven mad by loneliness,
heartache, and disappointment! It’s an underwhelming movie in many ways, but it’s
also very much worth seeing, and I urge you to do so if the opportunity arises!
I give <i>Twilight of the Ice Nymphs</i> two and a half night bogs!</span>
<p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-13237003165404506992023-06-05T22:39:00.006-05:002023-06-26T12:46:09.988-05:00Burl reviews Surf II! (1983)<p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigtRcga-66cH_ILwprhQTLmboPjdqeskHEP_pciiZhabDp8Lc0UvClI-61Jm0jvhUkxDj53BdDnEz6lSwp48u6LUl44XzZZohfZ7I95au2wzro_4ATuBpG3z4eDCvgxmcUwHHeRGWokNnZ1AkDpwJqJ9whcAP6CgW0oIpaBmvPZt9yjjlz0b6tt5y6/s1502/SURF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1502" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigtRcga-66cH_ILwprhQTLmboPjdqeskHEP_pciiZhabDp8Lc0UvClI-61Jm0jvhUkxDj53BdDnEz6lSwp48u6LUl44XzZZohfZ7I95au2wzro_4ATuBpG3z4eDCvgxmcUwHHeRGWokNnZ1AkDpwJqJ9whcAP6CgW0oIpaBmvPZt9yjjlz0b6tt5y6/w426-h640/SURF.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Hang loose, hodads: at the
sign of the shaka shaka and with a big bau bau, it’s Burl, here to review one of the kookier comedies
of the 1980s! Ha ha, they made all sorts of teen sex comedies back in those days,
and while most of them were fairly normal exercises in peeping
tomfoolery and beer-fuelled hoot-n-holler, there were some that yearned to be
a little different! Here you might have a <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/01/burl-reviews-zapped-1983.html">Zapped!</a></i>, incorporating science
fiction themes into the mix; there, maybe a <i>School Spirit</i>, which went with the supernatural;
and then there were some that couldn’t settle on anything but wholesale weirdness, like <i>The Party
Animal</i>! Today’s movie takes a little pinch from each bucket, and the messy
and inchoate result was given the title of <i>Surf II</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Ha ha, it’s all like some
crazy shenanigram from another dimension! Our location is a coastal surf town,
where there are a pair of idjits very like Greg and Steve from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/05/burl-reviews-pinball-summer-1979.html">Pinball Summer</a></i>, though not <i>quite</i> as bad as Greg and Steve, because <i>nobody</i> is as
bad as Greg and Steve! This pair is Chuck and Bob, played by Eric Stoltz from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/02/burl-reviews-wild-life-1984.html">The Wild Life</a></i> and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/03/burl-reviews-some-kind-of-wonderful-1987.html"><i>Some Kind of Wonderful</i></a>, and Jeffrey Rogers from <a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/12/burl-reviews-friday-13th-part-3-in-3-d.html"><i>Friday
the 13<sup>th</sup> part III</i></a>, and instead of a boogie van they drive a
dusky orange VW bug! They’re surfers, and so obsessed with the sport that they
animatedly exchange surfing stories even as their exasperated girlfriends (one of whom is
Brinke Stevens from <i>The Slumber Party Massacre</i>) remove their tops in a
bid to get some attention from these dumbasses!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">But why they want attention
from these clods I couldn’t tell you! Anyway, thankfully there’s much more
going on than whatever Chuck and Bob are up to! Strange things, in point of fact, are afoot:
surfers are being sucked below by something in the water that looks like a UFO,
and are resurfacing as zombie-like punk wasteoids! (And by the way, as an old punk
rocker myself, ha ha, I sort of resent the implication that punks are all gross
nosepicking dumbasses! They were a pretty prim bunch as I recall, and usually pretty intelligent!)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Anyway, behind it all is glasses nerd Menlo
Schwartzer, played by <i>nerdo di tutti nerdos</i> Eddie Deezen from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/11/burl-reviews-i-wanna-hold-your-hand-1978.html"><i>I
Wanna Hold Your Hand</i></a> and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/12/burl-reviews-desperate-moves-1981.html">Desperate Moves</a></i>! He’s a perpetually
outraged goon who took too much frazz from the high school surfer bullies,
and now is taking revenge against all surfers whether they bullied him or not! He’s invented Buzzz Cola, which
is really just motor oil and detritus, and I was never sure about the part
where the surfers got sucked down to his lair, because why was that necessary? And what about these mutilations
we hear about but never see? And then there's Menlo’s reluctant partner-in-crime, Sparkle,
a pretty gal played by Linda Kerridge from <i>Fade to Black</i> and <i>Down
Twisted</i>, who once was a homely glasses nerd herself but is now beautiful thanks to Menlo’s
weird science!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Chuck and Bob’s fathers,
it turns out, are the local distributors of Buzzz Cola! They’re a couple of old
surfers, mercenary capitalists in quasi-hippie guise, forever asking people if
they can relate! The dads are played by Morgan Paull from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/12/burl-reviews-blade-runner-1982.html">Blade Runner</a></i> and
Biff Maynard from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/11/burl-reviews-lunch-wagon-1981.html">Lunch Wagon</a></i>; the moms by Ruth Buzzi (the female Joe E.
Ross, ha ha), whose voice, they say, was heard in <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/09/burl-reviews-rescuers-1977.html">The Rescuers</a></i>, and
Brandis Kemp from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/09/burl-reviews-clifford-1994.html"><i>Clifford</i></a>; and one of the movie’s most impressive and
memorable scenes has the two families shown in a split screen (actually a set
built like a split-screen shot) having the same conversation at the same
time! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Meanwhile Chief Boyardee,
played by Lyle Waggoner from <i>Swamp Country</i>, and Inspector Underwear,
who’s none other than Ron Palillo from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/its-mid-summer-and-so-naturally-its.html"><i>Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> part VI</i></a>,
dopily investigate the disappearances, or mutilations, or personality changes,
or whatever is going on! Those character names give you a taste of the level
and variety of the movie’s humour, ha ha; and further investigation into the case comes from
the school science teacher, Beaker, played by Peter Isackson from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2022/05/burl-reviews-grand-theft-auto-1977.html">Grand Theft Auto</a></i>! And on the sidelines, watching with
increasing incredulity but to absolutely no narrative purpose, is the school
principal, Mr. Daddy-O, wielding a megaphone and played by Cleavon Little from <i>Vanishing
Point</i> and <i>Blazing Saddles</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">And meanwhile again, there’s
plenty of beach- and surfing-related buffoonery involving the younger set! One
of the first possessed surfers is Jocko, played by Tom Villard from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/05/burl-reviews-parasite-1981.html">Parasite</a></i>
and<i> <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/08/burl-reviews-one-crazy-summer-1986.html">One Crazy Summer</a></i>, who’s a pal of Chuck and Bob, and a pal too of Johnny
Big Head, played by Joshua Cadman, who was in <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/12/burl-reviews-sure-thing-1985.html"><i>The Sure Thing</i></a> and of
course was Bronk in <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/04/burl-reviews-goin-all-way-1982.html">Goin’ All the Way</a></i>, and whose oft-repeated catch-phrase is "Bau Bau!" There are side antics with Johnny
Big Head’s family: his brother Little Big Head played by Pat Romano from <i>Hot
Moves</i>, and who became a celebrated stuntman; and his mother Mrs. Big Head,
played by Lucy Lee Flippin from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/07/burl-reviews-summer-school-1987.html"><i>Summer School</i></a>! And there are some
sisters, Cindy Lou and Lindy Sue, played by <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Corinne Bohrer from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/09/burl-reviews-beach-girls-1982.html">The Beach Girls</a></i> and
<i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/03/burl-reviews-kid-with-200-iq-1983.html">The Kid With the 200 IQ</a></i>, and Lucinda Dooling from <i>The Alchemist</i>,
and their parents, whom we see for some reason, are played by Terry Kiser from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-weekend-at-bernies-1989.html"><i>Weekend
at Bernie’s</i></a> and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/07/burl-reviews-friday-13th-part-7-new.html"><i>Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> part VII</i></a>, and their mom,
Carol Wayne from <i>The Party</i>! And then, just to provide colour commentary,
there’s a so-called teen called Becker played by Ralph Seymour from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/06/burl-reviews-ghoulies-1985.html">Ghoulies</a></i>
and <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/04/burl-reviews-killer-party-1986.html"><i>Killer Party</i></a>; and finally there's a pair of seat-splitting sand ‘n’ surf superchubbins
played by Fred Asparagus from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/05/burl-reviews-fatal-beauty-1987.html"><i>Fatal Beauty</i></a> and Jim Greenleaf from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/07/burl-reviews-joysticks-1983.html">Joysticks</a></i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Phew! That’s a lot of
characters, and a lot of familiar faces playing those characters, and many of
those faces are, in their way, beloved by those of us who watch these kinds of movies! Does it add up to something worth sitting through, though? Well as you can see,
it’s a complicated case! For example, as we also find in <i>The Party
Animal</i>, and who can forget <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/01/burl-reviews-party-party-1983.html"><i>Party Party</i></a>, the movie has a strangely
killer soundtrack that would seem well beyond its budget to afford! We get
several Beach Boys tunes of course, since it’s a beach picture; plus She
Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby (because of science); a Circle Jerks
song (included to underline the ragged wildness of the crazed punks, but to me
just plain good music); some Oingo Boingo numbers; a triumphant use of Six
Months in a Leaky Boat by Split Enz; songs by The Stray Cats, Talk Talk and The
Ventures; and of course Wall of Voodoo’s hit Mexican Radio! Pretty good, ha ha!
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Anyway, I’m sorry this
review was so darn long! <i>Surf II </i>is weird, which is good, but also is
bad, which is bad! And mixed in with the badness like spots on a domino are the
occasional moments of terrific timing, or a good gag, or a clever shot, or a "Bau Bau," so it’s
not a total loss! Why, it gets turkey-points for the breakfast scene alone! Ha ha!
It’s hard to quantify the value of this movie exactly, as it is and should be
with any work of art, but I guess I’ll give <i>Surf II</i> one and a half cries of "Bau Bau," for how could it be otherwise? Ha ha!<br /></p>
<p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-38193389064362754882023-05-31T00:32:00.003-05:002023-05-31T22:43:24.118-05:00Burl reviews Up the Creek! (1984)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf4ruJwl7fPJ6X6RNuVezOq6ANTqkpJ5nQezXKNH7d9c1vl8BtZhFw-Upfnd9EpLeLGGKA7AUpuQG8N1i6IPcdt-Xp9pZVQszP9hiNYebym92xDlgdjho-v--yTV8j2y5KWrihw1wH2XKXbV5vVIWF704T2N17f4r3aE1aTqedNon4xmUGFaLSmYU5/s3000/UTC.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2020" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf4ruJwl7fPJ6X6RNuVezOq6ANTqkpJ5nQezXKNH7d9c1vl8BtZhFw-Upfnd9EpLeLGGKA7AUpuQG8N1i6IPcdt-Xp9pZVQszP9hiNYebym92xDlgdjho-v--yTV8j2y5KWrihw1wH2XKXbV5vVIWF704T2N17f4r3aE1aTqedNon4xmUGFaLSmYU5/w430-h640/UTC.jpg" width="430" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">With a whitewater smile
it’s Burl, reviewing another sophomoric rip-off comedy for you! Ha ha, can you
imagine an 80s raucous beer ‘n’ boobs cacklefest so devoted to the form that it
features not one or two but three actors from two entirely different previous
raucous campus comedy hits in the cast? Well it exists! The picture I’m telling
you about is called, quite simply, <i>Up the Creek</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Yes it’s a river rafting
picture, but naturally, given the previous experience of its cast, it is in a
larger sense a collegiate shenanigan film! Two of the actors are familiar to
those many millions who saw <i>Animal House</i>: we’ve got Tim Matheson from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2011/10/burl-reviews-fletch-1985.html">Fletch</a></i>
and <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2016/01/burl-reviews-impulse-1984.html">Impulse</a></i> in the lead role of smarmy Bob McGraw; and in the Belushi
role of Gonzer is Stephen Furst from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/03/burl-reviews-silent-rage-1982.html">Silent Rage</a></i> and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/02/burl-reviews-national-lampoons-class.html">National Lampoon’s Class Reunion</a></i>! And they join forces with Dan Monahan from <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/06/burl-reviews-porkys-1982.html"><i>Porky’s</i></a>
as Max, the loveable horndog! The principal foursome is rounded out by Irwin,
who’s played by Sandy Helberg from <i>Spinal Tap</i>, and who evidently
represents an attempt to come up with a new collegiate comedy archetype: the
nerd with a terrible drinking problem!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">These four, the bottom
four students at LePetomane University and therefore in the country, are
press-ganged by their angry dean, played by the Royal Emperor of Snob himself,
John Hillerman from <i>Chinatown</i> and <i>Blazing Saddles</i>, into taking
part in some kind of annual inter-school raft race that supposedly has gone on
for fifteen years! Of course the competition is a gallery of stock 80s characters:
toffee-nosed bad guy Rex played by Jeff East from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/08/burl-reviews-deadly-blessing-1981.html">Deadly Blessing</a></i> and <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2015/10/burl-reviews-pumpkinhead-1988.html">Pumpkinhead</a></i>,
along with his three bleach-blond fascist pals; plus a random rich man called
Tozer who wants the all-blondes to win for some reason and is played by James
B. Sikking from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/04/burl-reviews-outland-1981.html">Outland</a></i>; and, for extra value, a quintet of crazed
military nutcases led by a lunatic with a serious case of Resting <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/11/burl-reviews-ernest-goes-to-camp-1987.html">Ernest</a> Face
called Lt. Braverman! There’s also a boatload of co-eds, non-snobby variety, of
whom the most important is Heather Merriweather and is played by Jennifer
Runyon from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/06/burl-reviews-ghostbusters-1984.html">Ghostbusters</a></i>; and then there are some cowboys who don’t
really factor in at all!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Of course the rivalry
between Bob and Rex sharpens when Heather turns her affections to the
insouciant hero Bob rather than the perpetually incredulous-looking Rex; this
leads to a long exchange of dangerous pranks back and forth, but then, wouldn’t
you know it, Irwin is kidnapped by the army guys and staked out naked on the
ground! “We’ll find him even if it takes a hundred years,” McGraw vows! And all
through this there is a long series of raft explosions – ha ha, truly, there
are a lot more exploding rafts in this picture than you might ever guess – and
ultimately it comes down to the final confrontation at the finish line, where
Tozer conveniently keeps a riverbank summer house which may or may not be destroyed by raging waters!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Thinking of that summer
house makes me remember that <i>Up the Creek</i> tries a lot of large-scale
physical gags which it can’t always pull off – ha ha, this leads to plenty of
reaction shots and astonished people getting covered with dust instead of the
allegedly spectacular moments of destruction they’re looking at, which often
happen off screen! Still, I give it points for trying that stuff with a mixture
of miniatures and full-scale effects, insofar as they could manage it! It’s
certainly one of the more ambitious of the collegiate sex comedies of that era!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">As douchey as the frat guys
are, our heroes, as is so often the case in these pictures, are no better! Bob is as smarmy
as Matheson can make him, which is to say considerably; Furst’s character is a grotesque
eating machine; the nerd drinks way too much and is kind of obnoxious about it;
and Monahan especially looks too old to be involved in things like this, and in
any case isn’t given much to do! Anyway, they’re all handily upstaged by a
marvelous but oversensitive dog whose top-flight acting abilities are just this
side of the furball charmer in <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/01/burl-rviews-boogens-1981.html"><i>The Boogens</i></a>, ha ha! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">In many ways the Platonic
ideal of the R-rated 80s comedy, <i>Up the Creek</i> is lamely determined to
hit all the bases but not exceed expectations, especially in, say, the
screenwriting or acting departments! Still, the showmanship it musters now and
then gives it a bit of personality! Of course it all seems to be occurring in a
world in which the only authorities are university deans and rich guys who put
on raft races, whose rule is so absolute that even army guys can only fume and
fulminate uselessly against it; but if it’s plausibility you’re looking for,
you’d better try <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/09/burl-reviews-teen-lust-1978.html"><i>Teen Lust</i></a> or <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/04/burl-reviews-goin-all-way-1982.html">Goin’ All the Way</a></i> or one of those!
I give <i>Up the Creek</i> one and a half flume rides!</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8492795376174847769.post-29973296360967557372023-05-29T20:37:00.015-05:002023-09-07T23:54:47.367-05:00Burl reviews Pinball Summer! (1979)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrCAr7Wv-_AngD3F2V6E815i53gOm2e8h8QmABPZVuQ9wfSTcJxBnyzXTgG1vkom3R1ZwGRUq-tiHAnLFXRnGEGYXqznK3djs-tXO-3xCgixdxFmLumvvSu7bCsCA8pNVxkWtoRFiaU3oiQWPNf7U0DH2LfEtJPxUuP3_ElNz5ggPGM2qifIuH9OhL/s743/PSummer.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="696" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrCAr7Wv-_AngD3F2V6E815i53gOm2e8h8QmABPZVuQ9wfSTcJxBnyzXTgG1vkom3R1ZwGRUq-tiHAnLFXRnGEGYXqznK3djs-tXO-3xCgixdxFmLumvvSu7bCsCA8pNVxkWtoRFiaU3oiQWPNf7U0DH2LfEtJPxUuP3_ElNz5ggPGM2qifIuH9OhL/w600-h640/PSummer.jpg" width="600" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Bing-bang thunk thunk
tilt, it’s Burl, here to review a movie featuring pinball as a theme! It’s the
sort of movie that would have featured video arcade games as a theme
if it had come out a few years later, but in 1979 it was still pinball times,
if only just! Don’t be fooled – a year or two later the movie was re-titled <i>Pick-Up Summer</i>
so it could fit more easily into the by-then-popular <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/06/burl-reviews-porkys-1982.html">Porky’s</a></i> genre, and
so it would not be hobbled by its by-then-superannuated pinball
theme, but the opening (and closing) song, “Pinball Summer,” gives the game away! So
of course I’m going to review it under its original title, which, you won’t be
surprised to hear, was <i>Pinball Summer</i>!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLkboQROUC-IEfJJgLa2XIN3mmImjquKDalsusuWzHTJsWEZAPoutC_eQW2rR2y5KtNiMJT8RGj4ddccLv78jXvVRmg7ua_ajll_X18rK1foXnbaRxJA9lV1SKY3O5Ad9qzpmQynXy-bMXxQ2UOxCZVCVfkITFiHCJpFP6UQKOjJqOzFcLpM7Psbf/s2909/PUPSummer.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2909" data-original-width="1917" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLkboQROUC-IEfJJgLa2XIN3mmImjquKDalsusuWzHTJsWEZAPoutC_eQW2rR2y5KtNiMJT8RGj4ddccLv78jXvVRmg7ua_ajll_X18rK1foXnbaRxJA9lV1SKY3O5Ad9qzpmQynXy-bMXxQ2UOxCZVCVfkITFiHCJpFP6UQKOjJqOzFcLpM7Psbf/w264-h400/PUPSummer.jpg" width="264" /></a></div><p> </p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s the story of a pair
of assholes and the unpleasantness they sow up and down the banks of the St.
Lawrence Seaway, or at least the Ottawa River and the Lake of Two Mountains! Ha ha, I’m sure sorry to be so crudely blunt in my
choice of language here, but it’s hard to overstate just what incredible pricks
these two characters are! Their names are Greg and Steve – Greg is played by Michael
Zelniker from <i>Hog Wild</i> and <i>Naked Lunch</i>; Steve by Carl Marotte
from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2020/02/burl-reviews-my-bloody-valentine-1981.html">My Bloody Valentine</a></i> and <i>Breaking All the Rules</i> – and they
drive around in their (admittedly sweet) boogie van all day insulting people
and making life especially hard for a pair of sisters, Donna and Suzy! Donna is
played by Karen Stephen from <i>Happy Birthday To Me</i>, and Suzy by Helene
Udy from <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2019/09/burl-reviews-incubus-1981.html">Incubus</a></i>!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">They also torment a biker
gang leader called Bert, played by Tom Kovacs from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2021/04/burl-revieews-scanners-1980.html">Scanners</a></i>! He’s sort
of the Erich Von Zipper figure and serves as the putative antagonist, but the
friction between the jerk duo and Bert (who’s a bit of a knob himself, but not
as bad as Greg and Steve because nobody's as bad as Greg and Steve) is entirely the fault of the former, as is all the
other trouble they get into! Why the ladies put up with these immature canker
sores for even a moment is a true mystery!<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Their frequent sexual
harassment of women extends to Sally, played by Joy Boushel from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2023/09/burl-reviews-humongous-1981.html">Humongous</a></i>, <i>Terror
Train</i> and <i>The Fly</i>, who is a waitress at the hamburger joint they
patronize and is also the semi-steady girlfriend of Bert! The pals bounce
between the burger place and a proto-arcade run by a fellow called Pete, who,
for reasons of his own, decides to stage a pinball contest that will determine
exactly who is the best player around! What masquerades as a plot in this
picture simply involves one group trying to steal the trophy from the other group, back
and forth; and never for one moment do you care who has the treasured item at
any given moment or who will keep it in the end! </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">Pete happens to employ a
doughy dimwit called Whimpy, who also has a thing for Sally, so Whimpy and Bert
work out some kind of creepy deal for Bert to win the pinball trophy through manifest
dishonesty! But that goes nowhere, petering out like everything else in the
movie; and meanwhile a local flasher played by Wally Martin from <i><a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2014/06/burl-reviews-wild-thing-1987.html">Wild Thing</a></i>
opens his raincoat to any and all in the vicinity! While all this is occurring,
a hideous talking pinball machine called Arthur grins and blinks its teeth
like a lunatic; there’s an underwhelming bout of strip pinball; the bikers
engage in some Peeping Tom-ism that so arouses one of them he begins crazily
humping his gangmate; and Greg and Steve continue to act like absolute
dickwads to everyone they meet!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw9A88TL7VWP_192PIKozzUJCmz5yPIsEBCf2PcqkThl9dqQl43-aIk6rXVHpdJdA-N7yBYiob0PO6RYSl64g5E7h8Ay28Sd4mikY6tWV0s7zz8G-LUBW6nHX1FVXTZM-Oyef-PzN9TwHXuOmr0uueojSz0Dd2AAVH_MbpUfE2UiFPqRvDyTd7e5-8/s958/Udy%20n%20friend.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="674" data-original-width="958" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw9A88TL7VWP_192PIKozzUJCmz5yPIsEBCf2PcqkThl9dqQl43-aIk6rXVHpdJdA-N7yBYiob0PO6RYSl64g5E7h8Ay28Sd4mikY6tWV0s7zz8G-LUBW6nHX1FVXTZM-Oyef-PzN9TwHXuOmr0uueojSz0Dd2AAVH_MbpUfE2UiFPqRvDyTd7e5-8/w400-h281/Udy%20n%20friend.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">It’s amusing how many of
the actors were in the Canadian horror pictures of the time! Ha ha, I
recognized plenty of these mugs – several of the performers here also showed up
in <i>My Bloody Valentine</i>, which makes sense because it was directed by the
same fellow who helmed this pinball caper, George Mihalka; and then there’s horror
veteran Boushel, who goes for an underwear-clad ride down the road astride the
aforementioned hideous pinball machine Arthur; and there’s also a local city
counsellor played by Roland Nincheri from <i>Evil Judgment</i> and <i>Visiting
Hours</i>; and Riva Spier from <i>Rabid</i> and <i>Ghostkeeper</i>; and of
course the flasher, who was in <i>Shivers</i> and <i>The Pyx</i>!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;">In a more generous mood I
might award this plotless, brainless concoction the distinction of being
Canada’s sincere attempt to copy such wonderful Crown Internationals as <i><a href="http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2012/01/burl-reviews-malibu-beach-1978.html">Malibu Beach</a></i> or <a href="https://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/2013/06/burl-reviews-van-1977.html"><i>The
Van</i></a>; but no one in those movies, not even Dugan, is so thoroughly
unpleasant as Greg and Steve, the alleged heroes of this picture, so that honour is off the table! Nothing that
happens makes much sense, there’s no follow-through to any action or event; the
number of funny jokes adds up to something near zero; and Greg and Steve, need
I repeat myself yet again, are so off-putting as to ruin the viewing experience even
if anything else about the movie <i>was</i> good! Ha ha, I sure did hate those dorks,
Greg and Steve! Because of them, and because very little else in the movie even
comes close to making up for their terribly fuckery, except possibly their boogie
van, I give <i>Pinball Summer</i> one comment from Arthur, which isn’t worth
very much I’m afraid!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.2pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-para-margin-bottom: .6gd;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNQDMsxzrDPsanR1__plf5_MKUB9WIloYY5chB1yXf-dCH6sTAJX5N1TNs-rXuKPDf3S0PElcjD035LLC3NPeeKZ8xs2c9hRTERwtWm4Aa63zpdvufgrqmpPZ1bTAsNcm3CcLOvAOQeMeFJrCywMxUrDC56SowzQWG8utNpR9oaaWjW3Fx8I3kXLzn/s300/Arthur.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNQDMsxzrDPsanR1__plf5_MKUB9WIloYY5chB1yXf-dCH6sTAJX5N1TNs-rXuKPDf3S0PElcjD035LLC3NPeeKZ8xs2c9hRTERwtWm4Aa63zpdvufgrqmpPZ1bTAsNcm3CcLOvAOQeMeFJrCywMxUrDC56SowzQWG8utNpR9oaaWjW3Fx8I3kXLzn/w320-h320/Arthur.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Burlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15471864627412228340noreply@blogger.com2