If Richard Linklater and Neil Labute got together to write a movie, you’d pretty much get E.B. Hughes’ stellar drama “Turnabout.” While E.B. Hughes sums up the film quite simplistically in most of the press materials, “Turnabout” will very much surprise anyone going in to it expecting a drama about a suicidal man and his long lost friend. “Turnabout” feels a lot like Linklater’s “Tape” except so much wider in scope, in the end. While director Hughes starts “Turnabout” like something of a man experiencing a revelation, he injects small doses of menace here and there to completely undercut every expectation we have when the film begins.
Monthly Archives: December 2016
Black Christmas (1974): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
It’s about time the world has caught up with “Black Christmas” and (thanks to Shout!) given it the proper treatment it’s always deserved. What is arguably one of the first slasher films ever made was always out of print and hard to find while “Halloween” was granted various editions of VHS, and DVD. While “Halloween” is a masterpiece, “Black Christmas” is far more superior. It works as a slasher film, a mystery, a dark comedy, and is genuinely spine tingling in a movie draped in Christmas ephemera. It’s surprising since the tone for “Black Christmas” is almost the same tone from his other Christmas classic “A Christmas Story.” Yet director Bob Clark really never misses a beat, offering up a very scary tale about an inexplicable maniac wreaking havoc on a small neighborhood during the holidays.
The Devil’s Dolls (2016) [Blu-Ray]
It’s a shame that people still think there’s some horror fodder to be mined from worry dolls, because so far I’m not seeing it. “The Devil’s Dolls” plays out like a gory TV movie, or an extended episode of some supernatural series. There are a lot of bland characters trying to stop what is a pretty convoluted and goofy plot device involving a murderer and evil dolls. Director Padraig Reynolds’ film isn’t a complete misfire as it achieves some level of eeriness in some instances. I really do like how our characters look when they’re possessed by evil worry dolls that turn them in to psychopathic maniacs, but that’s lost in a haze of pretty mediocre melodrama and a hazy sub-plot about voodoo.
Dreamscape (1984): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
Between Joseph Ruben’s “Dreamscape” and Wes Craven’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street” arriving at just about the same time, 1984 had a keen insight in to dreams and transforming it in to compelling entertainment. Whereas the latter film is a dark horror masterpiece, “Dreamscape” is its own kind of cinematic offering. It’s an entertaining and often intelligent look in to dreams that opts more for dark fantasy with a hint of adventure. It also sparks allusions, however coincidental, Craven’s film featuring dream demons and a villain who in one instance conjures up blades from his fingers to attack hero Alex Gardner. Despite the coincidence, it’s fun to imagine these films are kind of working within the same universe.
Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983) [Blu-Ray/Blu-Ray 3D]
“Metalstorm” is another one of the Not Brand X movies from the eighties where fans of “Mad Max” were treated to a long list of movies that desperately emulated its formula and aesthetic. If you survey most of the late seventies and eighties, you could probably build a whole sub-genre of post-apocalyptic movies that emulate “Mad Max” and “Escape from New York.” There’s a whole library from various studios who aimed to capture the same success and pop culture momentum as the aforementioned. “Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared Syn” is by no means a bad movie. It is a hokey but fun movie, though. It has all the hallmarks with films of this ilk including a desert wasteland, a hot rod driving “road warrior,” and his blonde babe.
The Search for Weng Weng (2007)
Andrew Leavold, a cult video store owner, goes on the search for a mysterious movie star from the Philippines, the 2’9” action star Weng Weng who did less than a dozen films but left a huge mark on his fans. Leavold through his documentary shows the star’s childhood, rise, and fall until his untimely death. Written by Andrew Leavold and Daniel Palisa (as Daniel Haig) and directed by Leavold, it follows its director’s journey from Australia to the Weng Weng’s native Philippines where he finds footage of the star he had never seen, movies he had never heard about, and plenty of people ready to talk about the star.
The State of the Cinema Crazed Address – 2016 or “The Year of Too Many Movies”
There are too many movies!
It’s unbelievable, but we’re in the tail end of 2016, and I didn’t even see most of the movies I fully intended to. And I also want to try to catch “Edge of Seventeen” and “Rogue One” before the beginning of 2017.
2016 was a rough year. It was a tough year. It was a weird year. It was hell most times. I suffered through summer, I lost a best friend I had for eighteen years, and I had to endure a ton of health problems. However, it wasn’t all bad.