Blow Out (1981)

A nice taught thriller by Brian De Palma with a very good performance by John Travolta as the sound-man who accidentally records a car accident that he later discovers to be murder. Nancy Allen is fine as the ditzy damsel in distress who Travolta must enlist to get to the bottom of the mystery, and John Lithgow is decidedly creepy as the killer. The final scene of the movie with Travolta back at work in the studio is brilliantly weird as John Travolta's character has obviously gone off his rocker due to the events of the movie.

Of course the assassin Lithgow plays has got to be one of the most incompetent hired killers in the history of movies and only succeeds as far as he does due to extreme luck. Let's break it down:

Dennis Franz plays a sleazy photographer who makes his money taking pictures of men cheating on their wives, he is hired to set up the Governor by getting compromising shots of him with Nancy Allen who is Franz's go to girl for these kind of things. Lithgow was hired to oversee this but he really wanted the Governor dead not disgraced (his employers pooh-poohed his assassination idea in favor of sleazy photos that would disgrace the Governor), but Lithgow goes ahead with the killing by shooting out the tire of the Governor's car, sending it into the river. Franz got all this on film including the muzzle flash of the gun. So Lithgow decided to commit murder even though he knew it was being film. Brilliant!

Lithgow wants to get rid of the loose ends and witness Nancy Allen is one of those loose ends, so he decides the best way to kill her without tipping off the world to the conspiracy is to make her death just one in a series of killings by some pyschopath. His first red-herring victim he grabs off a crowded street as she is lined up to get on a city bus, and the only reason he get's away with this is because nobody turned around or has peripheral vision. His second serial killing is a of a prostitute at a busy bus terminal, he follows her into the woman's washroom, get's into the next stall and leans over the top to strangle her. This all takes place in they cities major transit terminal and his plan hinges on nobody coming into the washroom while he was committing the murder or anyone seeing a man entering or exiting the woman's washroom. Then it's time to get the incriminating evidence and kill Nancy Allen. He pretends to be the local reporter that has contacted Travolta about his theory about the accident and tells her to meet him at the transit terminal (he must love that place) in broad daylight. This plan only works because it relies on the fact that Nancy Allen's character never watches the news, something which Lithgow's character isn't aware off. He then leads her down to the subway platform, passing dozens of witnesses, to where he plans to murder her. He get's spooked by a subway worker and so takes her on a trip down to the waterfront where he get's the film and tape from Nancy, tosses it into the water, and thus revealing himself to be the villain. Does her strangle her and leave her to be found by some passing stroller? No, apparently it's too dark and secluded of an area so Lithgow decides to drag her some place else to be killed. WTF? Not enough witnesses? Max Von Sydow's assassin from Three Days of the Condor would have been appalled at this man's lack of planning and execution.

Those quibbles aside it is still a fun movie and well worth watching. The Criterion Blu-ray is very nice as one would expect from them.

Day of the Triffids (2009)

Do you know what John Wyndham's novel Day of the Triffids was missing, it was missing an evil super villain that would hound and threaten the heroes, oh wait no it wasn't that would be retarded, but that's what this latest update of the classic novel throws at us. Eddie Izzard plays Torrence who was aboard a jetliner when a cosmic solar storm made 99 percent of the world blind, the plane crashes in downtown London but Torrence survives because he hid in the planes washroom, surrounded himself with inflatable vests (and yes it looked as dumb as it sounds), and he makes it out with practically not a scratch, just a soot covered face and torn clothing, so he steals a nice suit and proceeds to take over London. He teams up with Major Coker (Jason Priestley) who has the brilliant plan of handcuffing one sighted person with one blind person (he doesn't seem to understand how that ratio wouldn't quite work), but he is betrayed by Torrence and soon Torrence is running the whole show. With a personal army at his beck and call he attempts to create a little fiefdom inside London...well for as long as the Triffids will let him.

Now let's not forget our heroes:

Doctor Bill Masen (Dougray Scott) is a Triffid expert who was temporarily blinded by one of the plants and thus escaped the cosmic blinding that permanently zapped everyone else. His mother was killed by a Triffid when he was six as both her and his father were scientists studying the newly discovered creatures. She wanted to crack the Triffid language as she believed that not doing so would have dangerous repercussions down the road (how right she was), while her husband wanted to make millions genetically altering them so they could produce oil that would save the world from global warming.

Jo Playton (Joely Richardson) is a reporter who survives the cosmic blinding by being off camera when it happened (apparently she was underground for some reason instead of reporting on the invent which is what she was doing when we last saw her). She almost immediate bumps into Bill Masen and the two join forces. They meet up with Torrence but don't want to hang with him because he's creepy Eddie Izzard, but later when they are press-ganged into Coker's army they fall prey to his evil scheme's again, and again, and again. Seriously, Torrence seems to have some personal obsession with her and Masen.

Our heroes escape Torrence (separately as for awhile Jo is told that Bill is dead so that Torrence could have a shot at seducing her) and fight their way pass the Super-Triffids, which act more like a cross between Ents and zombies than your typical roaming man-eating plant, and try to find Bill's father Dennis Masen (Brian Cox) because he may have a solution to the Triffid problem. Everyone meets up at Dennis Masen's house where he has a plan to genetically alter the Triffids a bit further so that the female will spread pollen that will sterilize the males. Sadly Dennis dies when he plays back a recording of a Triffid that causes his imprisoned one to go berserk and kill him. So the plan now shifts to escaping to the Isle if Wight, but that get's interrupted when Torrence and his goons arrive. Torrence tells Bill that he's got 12 hours to come up with away to defeat the Triffids or he's going to rape Jo and kill everyone else. You see, he's eeevil! Also he is very stupid and not once are we given a reason for anyone following him. Bill comes up with a brilliant plan of using the Triffid recording to attract hundreds of the plants so that while Torrence and his men are distracted they can sneak out through hundreds of man-eating plants...oh wait that plan is moronic. Luckily Bill has a flashback of when his mother was killed by the Triffids and how a native put a tribal mask on his face and dribbled Triffid venom through the eye slits. I'm guessing this makes you appear to be a Triffid to the other Triffids because when Bill and company do this the plants sniff them and let them pass, but not before Torrence tries to shoot them. The plants rip the gun out of Torrence's hands and swarm him. Our heroes escape to the Isle of Wight and apparently live happily ever after.

This was a very stupid, stupid movie.

Almighty Thor

Asylum Studios brings the Syfy Channel the latest in the "Let's cash in on the current blockbuster" genre with Almighty Thor. To say this movie sucked could be the greatest understatement ever uttered. The effects are your standard cheap CGI and bad photo-shopped disasters but what makes this film stand out is the complete lack of a single entertaining moment in the entirety of it's poor excuse for a script, and the failure to hire a single talented actor. When Richard Grieco as Loki is the best you got then you'd just as well pull out a gun and shoot yourself.

The Story *snicker* has Odin, Thor and Thor's older brother Baldir (what?) go visit the cave of the Norns, Norse versions of the Three Fates, who explain that Odin must give the Hammer of Invincibility (Asylum couldn't be bothered to look up Mjölnir) to Loki so he can destroy the Tree of Life, as that is what fate has decreed. The worlds must end! Odin is like "No way!" and Thor is all "As if?" and the three storm of the the cave to do battle with Loki.

Loki raises a bunch of giant jackal like CGI monsters to attack Asgard while screaming, "Odin!" over and over again. Odin, Baldir and Thor finally show up and charge into battle where Thor is knocked out almost immediately, Loki tricks Odin into stabbing Baldir, and then stabs Odin himself. Before he dies Odin chucks the Hammer of Invincibility through a magic portal to keep it out of Loki's hands. Thor wakes up and attacks Loki and is only saved an instant death by warrior woman Jarnsaxa. Thor get's all "I must kill Loki!" but after she beats him repeatedly to show him what a useless tit he is they flee Asgard through another portal to Midgard AKA modern day Los Angeles. Jarnsaxa takes Thor on a tour of the alleyways of L.A. where he thwarts a mugging. They stop off at her place (she has a storage room in L.A.) and gives Thor a .45 automatic and an Uzi. He is impressed with this world's weapons.

They retrieve the Hammer of Invincibility by defeating some dude in medieval armor who I guess is the guardian of the Tree of Life. Jarnsaxa wants Thor to go into hiding and to let Loki destroy all the nine worlds, because as long as the Tree of Life is alive they can rebuild. She believes Thor is not yet ready to face Loki and could maybe use a few thousand years practice with the whole fighting thing. And from what we've seen of his skills in this movie you can kind of see her point. But Thor is all "I must kill Loki!" and repeatedly tracks down the god of mischief and get's his ass handed to him each and every time only to be saved repeatedly by Jarnsaxa. Eventually even Jarnsaxa luck runs out and Loki tricks Thor, for about the third or fourth time, and get's a hold of the Hammer of Invincibility. Loki casts Thor and Jarnsaxa into Hell and he proceeds to destroy the Tree of Life.

While in Hell Thor scoops up some molten magma and states, "I'll make my own hammer!" Which he does by sculpting the molten metal with his hands into a real cheezy tinfoil looking prop. Thor climbs out of Hell, lays the beat-down on Loki, and then dashes off to pour some healing potion on the Tree of Life. Thor then revisits the Norns and smashes their loom. The End.

Special Props go to:
The costumer who made all the Asgardians look like Renaissance-Faire hopefuls with out much of a budget. Thor's armor consist of chain-mail that is clearly coming apart at the seams with a half dozen metal plates randomly placed on his chest.
The Hammer of Invincibility is a large lump of stone tied to the end of a stick and looks more like something Fred Flintstone would use at work than a weapon of war.

Evil Dead: The Musical

Simply put this is the best time I've ever had at a live performance. Laughed so hard my sides ached. Though it's called "Evil Dead: The Musical" it's really "Evil Dead 2: The Musical" with all the extra characters from the second movie and with popular lines of dialogue lifted from "Army of Darkness." It's certainly not for the kiddies as the language is bluer than the movies, and if you sit in the "Splatter Zone" you will get drenched in buckets of blood (seriously, they had guys above the stage dumping buckets of blood on audience members).

This was a very low budget production, not sure how it differs from the New York or Toronto versions, the set was basically wood and cardboard, but with some really well done props. The cast was fantastic and most could really belt out a tune, the guy playing Ash was probably the weakest singer but he really looked like Bruce Campbell and was incredibly funny and charismatic. So that certainly made up for any other shortcomings. It basically took the funny goofy elements for "Evil Dead 2" and then just ramped them up by a factor of ten. Demonic Cheryl had the evil power of yelling out horrible puns from her cellar prison. Hillbilly Jake had one of my favorite numbers Good Old Reliable Jake that is just brilliantly funny. Jake almost stole the show. The actor playing Scott gave him a run for his money though.

Unlike the musical Cats I had no problem with cast interactions because all of them were a lot cooler than Rum-Tum-Tigger getting in your face. My seat was front row center, which in this theatre is actually on the same floor as the stage so you're basically just a couple a feet from the actors. During my favorite number All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons Annie angered about the fact that all the men she's known have died grabbed me and shook me with frustrated rage. Coolest moment ever!

The ticket was only $30 bucks and with festival seating was able to get that great seat by showing up a mere 30 minutes early. If this production is being played anywhere near by you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Beastly (2011)

In this modern telling of the classic "Beauty & the Beast" story we have Kyle (Alex Pettyfer) a handsome, rich, and popular kid who decrees that being beautiful is all that counts and runs for the school presidency of the environmental platform because it will look good on his transcripts not because he gives a damn about the environment (This he actual states during his election speech), but that he is popular and good looking so everyone should vote for him. They do and he wins. His victory angers the schools witch (Mary-Kate Olsen) and I don't mean witch with a capital "B" I mean actual curse casting witch. She curses him to look like a Prague-rock DJ (he turns bald, has a few Frankenstein scars, tribal tattoos and what looks like a bad reaction to shellfish) until someone tells him that they love him, and if this doesn't happen by the time the tattoo of a tree on his arm blossoms it will be permanent.

Going to the same school is Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens) who is smart and is apparently in this High School as a scholarship student (not sure how that works). She had run across arrogant jerk Kyle at party but even though he is a total douche-bag there is something about him she likes. Lindy is not only smart and beautiful she delivers medicine to the homeless. Sadly her dad became a drug addict when her mother died. When drug dealers demand her father pay what is owed them her dad shoots one of them. The survivor threatens to get even some day by killing Lindy.

Having been turned into a "beast" Kyle's father and hotshot news anchorman moves his son, and now embarrassment, across the river to live in a brownstone with a wise Jamaican housekeeper (Lisa Gay Hamilton) and a blind tutor (Neil Patrick Harris). These two fill in for Mr's Potts and Lumiere as they give him tips on how to win the girl. Kyle decides his best shot at love is to stalk Lindy. This pays off when he witnesses Lindy's dad shoot the drug dealer and overhears the threat. So he offers to take Lindy to his mansion to keep her safe. The dad of course refuses because one doesn't turn over one's daughter to the first bald scary dude that offers help. So Kyle uses his cellphone to take pictures of the dad with the dead drug dealer and blackmails the dad into handing over Lindy. True love is in the wings.

Lindy is at first disheartened by these turn of events and pouts in her room while Kyle (now calling himself Hunter so she won't figure out he was the jerk at the party) tries to win her affection with lavish gifts. This fails until the wise housekeeper tells him the gifts must come from the heart and the head. So he buys her a case of Juicy Fruit gum. Her icy exterior begins to crack. Kyle builds a greenhouse on the room. Her icy exterior begins to melt. They read modern poetry together and start to fall in love.

As the "Beast" Kyle has no cool powers, no super strength, and doesn't look near as cool as any previous incarnation of The Beast. Lindy is your stereotypical good girl, though she is pretty she's also kind and smart...and really, really boring. Which pretty much sums up this movie, pretty boring.

I think I'm now due for another viewing of Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast.

Phantom of the Opera (1943)

Phantom of the Opera (1943) is the last film in the Universal Classic Monster Collection and there are two noteworthy things about it 1) It was filmed in technicolor and 2) It isn't very good. Now I usually enjoy Claude Rains in anything he's in but in this case I'd wish they'd cast someone else, he plays the sympathetic Claudin, who is secretly in love with Christine, quite well but his turn as The Phantom is kind of bland. Worse is the fact that Rains refused to put on any elaborate make-ups so The Phantom in this outing just has some burn scars on about half his face that is only slightly more impressive than the make-up used by Gerard Butler in the 2004 version. Not quite on par with the living skull that the original Lon Chaney gave us. But for me what really hurts the film is the horrible pacing of the story as it is constantly brought to a halt so we can watch Nelson Eddy and Susannah Foster belt out opera numbers. This movie isn't a musical so the numbers have no bearing on the story they are just there to showcase the two leads singing talents which are impressive if you are a fan of opera. The Phantom of the Opera is also notable as to be the only Universal Monster to not spawn sequels, it's been remade numerous times but we were never treated to The Wolf Man Meets the Phantom of the Opera.

The Invisible Man (1933)

The Invisible Man (1933) James Whale is back directing another favorite of mine with the fantastic Claude Rains as Jack Griffin a scientist who wants to make a name for himself with the creation of an invisibility formula, but sadly for him one of the pesky side effects is homicidal mania. In this film we don't get a chance to see Griffin before he becomes invisible so we aren't given a chance to witness him as a non murdering psychopath so at films conclusion we really don't have much sympathy for him when he meets his end, so no pathos generated like with The Wolf Man or Frankenstein's Monster. Now as a Universal Monsters go he certainly does win in the kill count category as most of the classic monster's kills can be counted on one hand while The Invisible Man has well over one hundred deaths to his credit. The fantastic voice of Claude Rains matched with ground breaking visual effects makes this one of the better sci-fi horror films out there. Sadly Whale's continued insistence that Una O'Connor's hysterical screaming is funny prevents this from being a near picture perfect film.

Things I love:
• The first unwrapping of the bandages.
• The wire work for the invisible effects is excellent.
• Griffin kicks over a baby carriage during his first rampage. Harsh.
• “Power, I said! Power to walk into the gold vaults of the nations, into the secrets of kings, into the Holy of Holies; power to make multitudes run squealing in terror at the touch of my little invisible finger. Even the moon's frightened of me, frightened to death!”