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Thursday, December 20, 2007Country Blue Fulfills the 1970s law that all country-related movies had to star Dub Taylor in a dirty t-shirt. It's basically a drive-in exploitation version of Badlands or Bonnie and Clyde, with two young folks on the run after a botched bank robbery. The film does strive to be something a little more, with some interesting arty techniques and some attempts at message (for example, the protagonists are cool with the black people, even in 1970s rural south Georgia -- actually filmed around Tallahassee). It doesn't entirely succeed, but it's also not entirely boring. Dub gets to play it pretty serious, instead of just having to cackle and jig dance and whatever else he was often seen doing. The leads are sort of vacant, but I'm pretty sure they're doing their best to mimic the acting style in Badlands. It works in a lot of ways like a rural version of a blaxploitation film, meaning that you get to see a lot of guerrilla style "on the street" (or the dirt road) slice of life footage, which I always think is cool (though not as cool here as just watching Fred Williamson walk around Harlem for ten minutes). Pretty good music here, too. All in all, not a great film, but surprisingly worth the time it took to watch it.Labels: Set: Drive-In Classics posted by Armando at 5:36 AM | 0 Comments | Links to this post Friday, December 7, 2007Creeper A rip-off of Deliverance with Hal Holbrook instead of John Voigt or Burt Reynolds. There have been few times, very few times in my life, when I have flat out abandoned a movie before finishing it. This marks one of those times. You start off with a group of doctors, every single one of whom is loathsome and does nothing but whine. Drop them in the woods, spend like an hour watching them snipe and each other and sit around in the dark, and then a hillbilly slowly starts hunting them down in the least exciting fashion possible. I just couldn't do it. I tried. I really tried. But O Lord! I would rather be made to squeal like a pig than ever have to watch this atrociously boring, unlikable piece of junk ever again.Labels: Set: Drive-In Classics posted by Armando at 5:23 PM | 0 Comments | Links to this post Day of the Panther
If you ever wondered what an Australian martial arts film from the 80s would look like, the answer is that it would look like all the same kinds of movies from America. Guys in Members Only jackets and tight polo shirts with upturned collars kick each other to the soothing sounds of synthesized action music. Actually, this movie wasn't that bad. Predictable and generic, but not too bad as far as these things go. Some dude named Jason Blade (oh come on -- that's not your real name!) is a member of a secret martial arts society and the secret police. After his partner is killed by goons in rubber skeleton masks and also skeleton make-up under the skeleton mask (always thinking ahead), Blade shows up to get a little revenge. The film keeps building up to a big underground martial arts tournament staged by the villain, but then it ends before that happens, making this one of the few Enter the Dragon rip-offs that never actually gets around to part where it rips off Enter the Dragon. Like I said, really not too bad. I don't know how they made an Australian kungfu film without involving Richard Norton, though.
Labels: Set: Drive-In Classics posted by Armando at 5:23 PM | 0 Comments | Links to this post Sunday, December 2, 2007Twister's Revenge So how's this for a high concept. Three "hilariously" inept redneck thieves kidnap the computer genius daughter of some rich guy in order to blackmail him into turning over a new artificial intelligence system they plan to sell on the black market. Unfortunately, they didn't count on her vengeful husband and his sentient monster truck. OK, pretty awesome, right? And if you can get through the first half of the film, which dwells way too long on the antics of our three would-be criminals and their attempts to steal first the AI system, and then the girl, then you get to enjoy the second half of the film, in which a dude tears around in a talking monster truck and smashes stuff. The entire thing is as idiotic as it sounds, with lots of comedy on the level of, "Durrr, if I turn around, does my right hand turn into my left hand?" On their wedding night, the hero takes his new bride and parks in a field so they can spend the night in the back of his boss custom van. The artificial intelligence monster truck speaks in a voice that is so over-modulated you can't understand a word it's saying. And then, out of nowhere, the three criminals have access to bazookas and Sherman tanks.Labels: Set: Drive-In Classics posted by Armando at 9:22 PM | 1 Comments | Links to this post Devil With Seven Faces The only face I needed for this movie was whichever face it is I make when I'm bored. This Italian production is supposed to be giallo, I guess, but there are no murders, no stylish flourishes -- to be honest, there's pretty much nothing at all. When this movie was over, I realized I had been staring at the TV screen for 90 minutes and had processed absolutely nothing. Basic story is that some woman gets mistaken for her twin sister, who is caught up in some sort of diamond theft. So now the criminals are messing with the wrong dame. But you won't care at all. The twist at the end is OK, I reckon, and there are about two minutes of actual interesting stuff in this film. Other than that, the best thing is the soundtrack courtesy of Stelvio Cipriani and Nora Orlandi.Labels: Set: Drive-In Classics posted by Armando at 9:18 PM | 0 Comments | Links to this post |
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