Tweet
The Pirates of Blood River: One of the films in that set of Hammer adventure films I got recently. Really interesting and well-paced, with Christopher Lee as the villainous pirate captain and Kerwin Matthews as the hero. Andrew Keir is also great as Matthews' overly religious and misguided father.
-
-
The Scarlet Blade: Another swashbuckler from Hammer, this one set during the English Civil War in the mid-1600's. Not quite as good as The Pirates of Blood River, as the plot is a tad complex, with the title character not amounting to much in the long run, and the ending feels very sudden and anti-climactic. However, it does have Oliver Reed as a traitorous captain, which is fun to see.Comment
-
The Brigand of Kandahar: The last film in that Hammer box-set, this is about a half-Indian officer of the British Army in 1850 India, who's court-martialed for cowardice in the line of duty, escapes, and joins up with a large group of brigands to get revenge on those who betrayed him. While it's another example of the many movies of the time to feature Caucasian actors playing other races, it is interesting how this film deals with the subject of racism during this period, and like the other swashbuckling films in this set (all of them directed by John Gilling), its ending is far from a happy one. Oliver Reed is in here again as the leader of the brigands and, while he would later call this the worst movie he was ever in (and that's quite a statement), he's quite entertaining to watch. All in all, this may turn out to be my favorite film in that set.Comment
-
Fata / Morgana, by Vicente Aranda.
First time viewing and I can’t claim to have loved it. It’s a good-looking film and I was never exactly bored, but I was never fully engaged either.
I think the only other film I’ve seen by Aranda is The Blood Spattered Bride, which obviously has moments of surrealism and some political subtext. It’s much more conventional in terms of its storytelling though, and can be enjoyed as a genre film. By contrast, Fata / Morgana brought to mind Alain Robbe-Grillet and Jean-Luc Godard, whose films I tend to like but probably wouldn’t choose for a Saturday night.
Comment
-
Just finished the Cruel Brittania set, with CRAZE being the best of the bunch."The popcorn you're eating has been pissed in. Film at 11".Comment
-
Sex and Fury - The problem with this one is that nothing that happens in the movie is as entertaining as the first few minutes of the movie. It sets expectations so high opening with a bloody sword fight involving a nude woman but then never even tries to come close to being as entertaining as that was again. Went in with low expectations, thought I was wrong, and then was proven right; very disappointing.
Help Me ...I'm Possessed - This movie has very little story and it just feels like random things happening for most of it but I did really enjoy the doctor in this one because he's an amusing, weird little creep. There's also almost nothing else going for this one though.
Comment
-
Dr. Cyclops: I'd seen this a couple of times before. It's a fun, 1940 sci-fi flick about a mad scientist who shrinks a group of people down and they have to fight for survival against both him and their now gigantic surroundings. It was made in Technicolor, which looks gorgeous on this Kino Lorber Blu-Ray, and was directed by Ernest Schoedsack, who directed King Kong along with Merian Cooper. I wouldn't go as far as to call it a classic, but it's definitely entertaining for fans of science fiction from this era.Comment
-
The Mole People: Of the many 50's sci-fi movies from Universal that I've seen, this is one I've watched very few times. In fact, watching this Scream Factory Blu-Ray may have been only the third or fourth time I've ever watched it. While I think the monsters that everybody knows from this movie (which aren't actually the titular Mole People) are pretty cool, the rest of it is just kind of "meh" to me, with characters and actors I don't find intriguing and a story I don't really care about.Comment
-
Mausoleum, 1983.
First time viewing this but I had seen trailers and adjusted my expectations accordingly.
It’s dumb and totally devoid of scares or tension. The effects are dreadful and yet . . . I didn’t hate it. It reminded me of the films I rented as a teenager.
For the sake of completeness, we also watched The Suspicious Death of a Minor over a couple of nights this week, and while it’s obviously not one of Martino’s best films, it’s enjoyable enough.
The best thing I watched this week wasn’t a film though, it was the fourth episode of Twin Peaks.
Comment
-
Der Weg Nach Eden (The Road to Eden) – Documentary about death and what happens after death following Janos Kesser, a master of dissecting in Budapest. It features some very graphic autopsy footage but overall was somewhat disappointing. Disappointing because the procedure doesn’t take up as much of the film as I would have liked and they also do not explain what they are doing as they do it for the most part. It would have been a lot more interesting if they had gone into those details but on the other hand the lack of narration in these parts does allow you to hear the sound of the autopsy which at times is something in and of itself, so it's not a terrible trade-off. Another thing I didn’t like is the amount of time we spend listening to the subject talk about life, death, and their family. I suppose it is an good insight into the mind of someone who does this work but I was hoping the documentary would focus more on their work itself and at one point when it wasn't doing this I actually fell asleep. There was even a scene where his daughter shows up to bring him lunch (while they are not dissecting) and he starts going over certain aspects of his job with her, it seemed very staged and wooden. Regarding the autopsies, the footage we get is surprising because I really have to wonder how they got all these people or their families to consent to having them filmed like this but they do talk about how some of the dead are people with no family or anyone looking for them so maybe that is how. All that said the autopsy footage does provide the intense, uncomfortable viewing experience I was expecting, the older I get the harder it is to watch this stuff but I’m still drawn to it from time to time... An expensive but OK purchase overall, it would make a good companion to the similar Orozco: The Embalmer.Last edited by f.ramses; 03-02-2025, 11:20 AM.Comment
-
Back 20 years ago or more there used to be a programme on late night tv where a crowd wpuld sit around an operating theatre and a creepy German dude (who always wore something unprofessional on his head... a fedora maybe?) would just spend an hour carving up bodies. Incredibly hraphic and very bizarre stuff to happen upon on a late night TV sesh.Originally posted by f.ramses View Post
Anyway... I remember that there was a bunch of this sort of stuff going around at the time. Exhibitions for dissected bodies etc. And there was a huge fuss at one point in the media when it turned out that one or more of these shows or programmes were sourcing their corpses from China where the bodies came from the likes of political prisoners etc. I wish I remembered all this more clearly, but I don't remember what happened last week at this point.
"Never let the fact that they are doing it wrong stop you from doing it right." Hyman Mandell.Comment
-
I'm bitter, I'm twisted, James Joyce is fucking my sister.Comment
-
The Leech Woman: Another 50's sci-fi flick from Universal which I've seen before. Kind of middle of the road. Has an interesting premise and first act, but kind of peters out afterward.Comment
-
-
Going to have to see if I can track down some episodes of that show! I'm surprised the movie didn't remind me but it wasn't until reading your post that I remembered that I wondered the same thing about approval when I was at the Bodies exhibition.Originally posted by Dom D View PostComment
Comment