mrbasehart's Film Challenge! - COMPLETE

[mrbasehart]

And on the flip side of Whistle Down the Wind....

Image of the Beast is the third in the Christian Apocalypse series created by Donald Thompson and Russell Doughton.  I'm revealing their names that should anyone want to punish them for cinematic sins, their identities should be known.  Continuing on from A Thief in the Night and A Distant Thunder, it has some remaining Christians trying to survive in a world where Satan is the world dictator and God is raining down his judgement trumpets of death.  As usual with these films, it takes a couple of not-quite believers and uses theose characters as a chance to bombard the viewer with Bible teachings.  It does not make for one good movie, let alone 3.  I have to say, the first 5 minutes felt a little different from the ones I'd seen before, with an honest-to-goodness set-piece about a woman trapped in a guillotine that's slowly breaking about to kill her.  It's a sequence that staged exactly like some of Hitchcock's best works, and judging from the rest of the movie, it was probably copied from him wholesale, because there's no evidence of directorial talent in the rest of its running time.  What I especially loved about the movie is how seriously it takes the words in Revelations, which, lets face it, is St John taking some early version of LSD, tripping his balls off, and writing down whatever the fuck came into his head.  It's also a movie that encourages blind obedience rather than thought and self-belief, something that is utterly antithetical to way I live.  In short: Fuck this movie.

[mrbasehart]

Shit! Almost forgot:

Speed Zone! is another movie, that within the first 10 minutes, realised I'd seen before.  I was actually surprised when I saw it being suggested to me, as I thought I'd seen practically all of John Candy's movies, as my father was a huge fan and we rented practically everything he was in in the 80s and 90s.  I think The Great Outdoors is still one of my Dad's favourites of that time.  Anyways, I still watched it, because apart from bits and pieces, the movie was basically new to me, and though I didn't particularly like it, is wasn't really so bad.  One thing did give me pause though - this is a 1989 John Candy movie, when he was basically at the zenith of his career - so what the hell is he doing in Cannonball Run III? Anyways, some interesting cameos keep things going when the main action flags, but there's a strong sense of deja vu over the entire thing.  And I'm not even sure I've seen the other Cannonball Run movies.  Trivia note: The lady who accompanies John Candy in the movie and does her best Marilyn Monroe impression? She was the "foxy lady" in Wayne's World, and has been married to Dan Akroyd for 26 years.  Lucky stiff.

[MontyServo]

Whistle Down the Wind is an odd British movie from 1961 and stars Hayley Mills in one of her first movies.  She plays a rather lonely teenage girl who comes across a strange man (Alan Bates) nearly unconscious in her family's barn.  When she asks him who he is, he mutter "Jesus Christ!" and passes out.  Mills takes this entirely the wrong way and believes the man in the barn is Jesus returning to Earth.  As the news spreads throughout the children in the nearby village that Jesus is hiding in a barn from people who might do him harm, we discover that he's actually a man wanted by the police for murder.  It's a very interesting movie, with some particularly striking views on religion and faith in general.  Mills' desperation to believe in the man is conveyed in her character's ability to champion the stranger to the other children, and their readyness to believe stesm from their innocence and peer pressure.  There's some bitter irony in the end, when "Jesus" is betrayed by one who loved him, and a couple of rather outrageous symbological moments that's either blasphemous or funny, depending on your view.  A quick word on the performances: Hayley Mills is superb in the lead, and Alan Bates is commendably ambiguous.  A fine film, though I'm guessing non-Englishmen might need the subtitles on for it.   

I have never seen this movie, but the description seemed like something I had seen before.  It took me a little while but I remembered why it was familiar.  This music video seems to borrow a few plot points from that movie:

[mrbasehart]

At first I was like, what's with the invisible ninja? But yeah, it takes more than a few cues from the movie, even the final image at the end is a take on the movie.  Although really, the kids should've known that wasn't Jesus, but Chucky!

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

Shit! Almost forgot:

Speed Zone!......One thing did give me pause though - this is a 1989 John Candy movie, when he was basically at the zenith of his career - so what the hell is he doing in Cannonball Run III?

This was some kind of Canadian government film grant project and they had to cast all Canadians if possible (Matt Frewer's American but he grew up there - his Dad was stationed there for the Navy).  Candy might have just done it as something for his country....

She was the "foxy lady" in Wayne's World, and has been married to Dan Akroyd for 26 years.  Lucky stiff.

She was also in "Bosom Buddies" with Tom Hanks too.

[Rattrap007]

2 to add:

Silence of the Hams is the American directorial and film debut of an Italian TV star, named Ezzio Greggio.  How he managed to wrangle enough money together to put this movie into production is probably more interesting than the movie itself, which is just a warmed over parody of Silence of the Lambs and Psycho.  The humour is fired at you rapidly, but the aim is about as good as an Imperial Stormtroopers, missing the mark on every occasion.  Billy Zane looks mildly embarassed in the lead role, and the supporting cast reads a little like a nightmare: Rip Taylor, Larry Storch, Dom DeLuise, John Astin (who gets the only mildly funny thing in the movie), and Phyllis Diller.  Greggio also appears, and though he's not quite as annoying as Roberto Benigni, it's still a blessing that he never really crossed our paths again.

I actually enjoyed it. Not a terrific movie but it is moderately decent.

Jack Frost is a horror comedy about a sociopathic serial killer who gets transformed into a giant killer snowman and wreaks havoc on a small town getting ready for Christmas.  It has a couple of good moments, and the monster itself isn't that badly realised (even though it's not the most difficult thing to render on screen), but the movie is entirely filled with too many lame jokes about snow, too many horror-stupid cliches, and features 3 false endings.  3!

I love this film because it is over the top cheesy. I like the bad puns. The son is an idiot... Antifreeze in the cookies? Kid needs a whoopin bad. I love that the fend him off with hair driers. Also at one point you can tell the hand is an oven mitt.

Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman is the sequel to Jack Frost, surprisingly.  Taking place on a tropical island, the original survivors of the first movie are haunted by the actions that took place, and are hoping that the island break will help with their recovery.  Too bad.  Jack is scientifically reincarnated, escapes his captors, and wreaks havoc on the island and killing most of its inhabitants.  Dispensing entirely with the already weak horror of the first and plunging for all-out comedy, this manages to be less funny and less scary than the first.  Jack Frost himself is a poor relation to the wise-cracking of Leprechaun or Freddy, and the effects are terrible.  Abominable.  (And with that pun, I was just funnier than the entire movie)

Definitely worse. But still in the realm of so bad it becomes fun again.

[mrbasehart]

Uncle Sam is a movie I had some hope for upon seeing the credits: Written by Larry Cohen and directed by William Lustig.  "Hey!" I said to the empty room.  "Those are the guys behind Maniac Cop!  I liked that movie!" Larry Cohen has also directed a number of different and notable films himself, like It's Alive, Q - The Winged Serpent, or the more recent Phone Booth.  It doesn't match up to the quality of those movies, but there's enough there to keep a person watching.  A young boy worships his uncle Sam, a Marine in action in Iraq during the first Gulf War, though we learn through his mother and his wife, Sam was an abusive sociopath.  When Sam is killed in action and brought home, tensions increase in the house between the boy and the two women.  Then Sam comes back to life as a big green zombie, dons an Uncle Sam costume, and beings to murder people at the 4th of July parade.  It's an odd change of gears, and the movie never really explains how Sam came back, other than the boy "wished it."  There's an odd tone to the movie, a trademark of Cohen's, where you never actually know if the movie's being funny, or playing the ridiculous straight, so it's easier to work on both levels.  It's quality as either horror or comedy isn't particularly high though, as the killing is relatively routine slasher stuff, and the comedy is left to the cameos that are dotted about the movie from stalwarts like Robert Forster or Isaac Hayes, completely overplaying his wounded verteran role to either wonderful or terrible effect. 

[Cosmic Muse]

I usually like to recommend movies that are endurance tests in how much idiocy and bad writing you can handle. The Transformers movies aside I usually recommend these titles:

Max Magician and the Legend of the Rings - I guess this movie is what you'd get if you combined Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings but with the budget of a little kid's home movie project.

Nukie - Mac & Me is absolutely Shakespearian compared to this E.T. knockoff.

Nemesis (1992) and it's three sequels - Albert Pyun's ripping off of the Terminator series I guess. Nemesis 2 & 3 are more interesting in that the heroine is a masculine looking female bodybuilder whose acting is more wooden than Hayden Christiansen. The fourth I have not seen but it's been described as being very pornographic in nature. If you have a fetish for masculine female bodybuilders boinking middle ageg men go ahead and watch it.

[dignan]

She was the "foxy lady" in Wayne's World, and has been married to Dan Akroyd for 26 years.  Lucky stiff.

She was also in "Bosom Buddies" with Tom Hanks too.

mmm...Donna Dixon.

[Cosmic Muse]

I usually like to recommend movies that are endurance tests in how much idiocy and bad writing you can handle. The Transformers movies aside I usually recommend these titles:

Max Magician and the Legend of the Rings - I guess this movie is what you'd get if you combined Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings but with the budget of a little kid's home movie project.

Nukie - Mac & Me is absolutely Shakespearian compared to this E.T. knockoff.

Nemesis (1992) and it's three sequels - Albert Pyun's ripping off of the Terminator series I guess. Nemesis 2 & 3 are more interesting in that the heroine is a masculine looking female bodybuilder whose acting is more wooden than Hayden Christiansen. The fourth I have not seen but it's been described as being very pornographic in nature. If you have a fetish for masculine female bodybuilders boinking middle aged men go ahead and watch it.

[Rattrap007]

Uncle Sam is a movie I had some hope for upon seeing the credits: Written by Larry Cohen and directed by William Lustig.  "Hey!" I said to the empty room.  "Those are the guys behind Maniac Cop!  I liked that movie!" Larry Cohen has also directed a number of different and notable films himself, like It's Alive, Q - The Winged Serpent, or the more recent Phone Booth.  It doesn't match up to the quality of those movies, but there's enough there to keep a person watching.  A young boy worships his uncle Sam, a Marine in action in Iraq during the first Gulf War, though we learn through his mother and his wife, Sam was an abusive sociopath.  When Sam is killed in action and brought home, tensions increase in the house between the boy and the two women.  Then Sam comes back to life as a big green zombie, dons an Uncle Sam costume, and beings to murder people at the 4th of July parade.  It's an odd change of gears, and the movie never really explains how Sam came back, other than the boy "wished it."  There's an odd tone to the movie, a trademark of Cohen's, where you never actually know if the movie's being funny, or playing the ridiculous straight, so it's easier to work on both levels.  It's quality as either horror or comedy isn't particularly high though, as the killing is relatively routine slasher stuff, and the comedy is left to the cameos that are dotted about the movie from stalwarts like Robert Forster or Isaac Hayes, completely overplaying his wounded verteran role to either wonderful or terrible effect. 

hope you enjoyed the potato sack race... I've never seen a cross country potato sack race before..

[mrbasehart]

hope you enjoyed the potato sack race... I've never seen a cross country potato sack race before..

Huh.  Now that you mention it, that sack race is really long.  And I'm glad Uncle Sam killed that douchebag knocking people over. 

[Rattrap007]

hope you enjoyed the potato sack race... I've never seen a cross country potato sack race before..

Huh.  Now that you mention it, that sack race is really long.  And I'm glad Uncle Sam killed that douchebag knocking people over. 

Badmovies.org's take on Uncle Sam. H says the Potato sack race is the best part of an otherwise bad movie.

And his jack Frost review

[THE QUEEN!!!]

when I see the title "Jack Frost" I see an androgenous russo-finnish guy. "That's a girl! I thought I was a girl!"

[mrbasehart]

Primer is a really neat, if terribly complicated, science-fiction thriller that was apparently made for $7,000.  Concerning 2 scientists who discover a way to travel back in time.  That's really all there is to the set-up, but it's ingeniously crafted, though there were big stretches where frankly, they could've been talking another language for the sense I could make out of what was being said.  The film, for its low-budget, looks pretty good too, using an over-exposed look that highlights the golden hue that the movie bathes in.  After seeing many, many, first-time directors get it so completely wrong in their first attempt, it's nice to know that someone can sometimes get it right.  A shame then, that the director doesn't seem to have produced anything since the movie came out in 2004.