“Ricco the Mean Machine” is a gruesome but unusual revenge picture, and it’s rare you can see a movie where two thugs are driving on a road and get a strip tease by a stranded woman who straddles the hood. It’s every bit as exploitative, sleazy, and weird as you’d expect from a movie made in 1973, and that’s probably why I enjoyed it so much. Demicheli’s action thriller is very unlike what you’d expect from a revenge movie. Sure, its hero is out for blood but not because of the reasons you’d expect. Ricco is released from prison to discover that his mob boss father was killed, but upon this discovery he really holds not malice about it. Continue reading
The Bootleg Files: Malice in the Palace
BOOTLEG FILES 595: “Malice in the Palace” (1949 Three Stooges short).
LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On too many public domain labels.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A lapsed copyright.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: There was one, but it was lost amid the cheapo duped versions.
In some ways, bad comedies are more interesting than good comedies. Because when a comedy fails, it is can be a fascinating exercise to pinpoint just where things began to go wrong and to wonder whether the wreckage could have been prevented with tweaks here and there.
Darkness Rising (2017)
A young woman feels a need to go visit the house where her mother seemingly lost her mind and killed her family. Once there, things start going bump in the night.
Vicious Lips (1986)
It’s really hard to find anyone who does eighties neon pop surrealism like Empire Pictures. If you want to soak in everything about the decade from the bright colors, weird synth music and massive hair, look no further than films like “Terrorvision,” “Bad Channels” and or “Vicious Lips.” Your experience with Albert Pyun’s rare cult film may vary depending on your love for the decade, but sans the nostalgia goggles, it’s only a moderately entertaining experience that it limitless in its oddities. Something of a mixture of “Rock and Rule,” “Jem and the Holograms,” and “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” Albert Pyun throws so much imagery at the audience and there’s never any kind of substance soaked up.
The Bootleg Files: The Juggler of Our Lady
BOOTLEG FILES 594: “The Juggler of Our Lady” (1957 Terrytoons animated short).
LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It’s just one of those things that slipped through the proverbial cracks.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It would be lovely.
Among the major animators of the post-World War II period, Gene Deitch had one of the most erratic careers, with output that ranged from memorable (the Oscar-winning “Munro”) to excruciating (the near-unwatchable feature “Alice of Wonderland in Paris”) to mind-boggling (those disturbing Tom and Jerry cartoons from the early 1960s). Deitch first gained prominence in the early 1950s at the United Productions of America (UPA) studio before moving to Terrytoons, where he became creative director. At the time, Terrytoons turned out a series of noisy and frenetic works that lacked the artistic polish of Disney or the subversive wit of the Warner Bros. output. Indeed, even Deitch would ruefully admit that his studio “made the most gross and grotesque cartoons in the galaxy.”
Beatriz at Dinner (2017)
Beatriz is a healer, a holistic health practitioner, whose car breaks down at a wealthy client’s house after she gave her a massage. The client invites her to stay for a celebratory dinner party her husband and herself are hosting that night. Like a fish out of water, Beatriz has dinner with three extremely wealthy couples with whom she has little to nothing in common.
The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All (1999)
Karl Thomasson is back and is still tortured by his days serving in the military. After flashing back to his old days with a military buddy named Macy who made him swear an oath before he died while imprisoned, he visits his Macy’s daughter. She so happens to be a teacher at a fictitious college where the dominant force is the school football team, all of whom are juicing up on some kind of experimental steroids. After she’s attacked by local drug dealers, Thomasson takes it upon himself to go undercover as a professor and begin investigating who attacked her. While trying to figure out the identity of her attackers, he uncovers a drug ring and begins learning about the dangers of steroids as players slowly either turn up dead or become increasingly violent.