Friday, September 1st, 2023
August 26, 1983
STRANGE BREW (on screen title: THE ADVENTURES OF BOB & DOUG McKENZIE: STRANGE BREW) is a silly lowbrow comedy that I loved when I was kid, and that holds up well from an adult perspective, though I probly don’t have a much deeper understanding of what specific Canadian observations and stereotypes the characters are playing off of. No problem. They’re still funny.
Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas direct, co-write and star as their SCTV characters Bob and Doug McKenzie, the winter hat and earmuff wearing, beer guzzling stars of the Canadian-themed talk show Great White North. In the opening scene they host their show and demonstrate the difference between TV format and movie format, then they introduce their DIY post-apocalypse epic THE MUTANTS OF 2051 A.D., a very funny fake-bad movie that coincidentally (?) has parallels to fellow Summer of Nub release SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE. Bob’s character even spots “a mutant in the forbidden zone” (played by Doug). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angus MacInnes, based on a sketch, Canada, Dave Thomas, Joel Silver, Lynne Griffin, Max von Sydow, Mel Blanc, Rick Moranis, SCTV, Steve De Jarnatt, William Shakespeare
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 21 Comments »
Thursday, August 31st, 2023
August 25, 1983
After all the bullshit I happily dissected for this Summer of Nub series, I knew I shouldn’t skip the revered international classic that dropped in the final week of August ’83. The one that’s in the Criterion Collection, that was brought up so lovingly when co-star David Bowie died in 2016, and when composer/co-star Ryuichi Sakamoto died in March. I’ve been giving you the lowdown on every cheapjack part 3, off brand space opera and fantasy sword guy you ever heard of, then right when I’m about to wrap up I swing in with this highly acclaimed drama that happens to have been released in four American theaters between JARED-SYN and HERCULES. Film criticism won’t know what hit it.
One problem, though: what if it turns out I don’t really understand MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE very well? What then? Well, I guess I’ll just confess that up front. We must be able to admit that we don’t know everything. But come along and help me parse it, if you want.
I really went in blind, so this was news to me yesterday: it’s the story of mostly British prisoners in a Japanese P.O.W. camp in Java, 1942. The titular Lieutenant Colonel is played by Tom Conti, who’s immediately unmistakable as the guy who played Albert Einstein in OPPENHEIMER. It’s impressive because yeah, he looks so much like Einstein, but the resemblance never would’ve occurred to me. Casting directors know what they’re doing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alistair Browning, David Bowie, international co-productions, Johnny Ohkura, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano, Tom Conti
Posted in Reviews, Drama | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, August 30th, 2023
August 26, 1983
In my opinion the most unusual and most accomplished of the summer of ’83 fantasy movies – which admittedly just means it’s better than KRULL, PRISONERS OF THE LOST UNIVERSE, YOR – THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE and HERCULES – is Ralph Bakshi’s FIRE AND ICE. An animator for Terrytoons in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Bakshi had knocked the animated feature game off its axis with the independent, adults-only movies FRITZ THE CAT (1972), HEAVY TRAFFIC (1973), and COONSKIN (1975) before pivoting to fantasy specialist with WIZARDS (1977) and THE LORD OF THE RINGS (1978). He had even been attached to direct Oliver Stone’s script for CONAN THE BARBARIAN, the movie that (directed by John Milius) made these sorts of sword and sorcery movies big business for a while.
Bakshi says he lost the gig by telling Arnold Schwarzenegger he’d have to lose weight, so I believe he was expecting to do it in live action, not animation. But his films from this period kind of split the difference between mediums – LORD OF THE RINGS and then AMERICAN POP (1981) made heavy use of rotoscoping, basically filming a version of the movie with actors for the animators to draw over frame by frame. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: fantasy sword dudes, Frank Frazetta, Gerry Conway, James Gurney, Leo Gordon, Peter Chung, Ralph Bakshi, Roy Thomas, Susan Tyrrell, Thomas Kinkade, William Ostrander
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords | 5 Comments »
Monday, August 28th, 2023
August 26, 1983
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first movie experience was playing Hercules in the comedy HERCULES IN THE NEW YORK (1970). Here, thirteen years later, his PUMPING IRON opponent Lou Ferrigno played the character in a serious (but still laughable) Greek-mythology-meets-’80s-sci-fi-fantasy epic – his second movie role. Like Arnold in his debut, Ferrigno’s voice is dubbed (by Marc Smith, who played a mafia boss in CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER and later became a prolific anime dubber). He had turned down other movie offers, but had also been obsessed with Steve Reeves’ Hercules movies growing up, and jumped at the chance to follow in his hero’s footsteps.
It’s definitely a movie made in a post-STAR WARS world, with mythological creatures depicted as robots and a poster painted by Drew Struzan. It’s also clearly inspired by the existence of Arnold’s CONAN THE BARBARIAN, even introducing adult Hercules on the Wheel of Pain, though without dissolving from a younger version. They were able to steal the image, but not what was cool about it.
Most of all it strikes me as a poor man’s CLASH OF THE TITANS, with its gods sitting around on the moon talking about how to control human affairs. But let me tell you, its stop motion sequences do not deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as. Ray Harryhausen’s. Important information I neglected to mention: this is produced by Cannon Films and directed by “Lewis Coates,” a.k.a. Luigi Cozzi (STARCRASH, CONTAMINATION). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cannon Films, Claudio Cassinelli, Delia Boccardo, Eva Robins, Lou Ferrigno, Luigi Cozzi, Marc Smith, Mirella D'Angelo, Pino Donaggio, Rossana Podesta, Sybil Danning, William Berger
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 20 Comments »
Friday, August 25th, 2023
August 19, 1983
METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN is yet another sci-fi/fantasy/adventure released in the summer of RETURN OF THE JEDI that seems like it wouldn’t have existed without STAR WARS. In fact, a 1983 Cinefantastique article quotes screenwriter Alan J. Adler (PARASITE, THE CONCRETE JUNGLE) saying that he “packed my bags and left town for Los Angeles” when he saw STAR WARS. To be fair, this particular movie seems much more inspired by THE ROAD WARRIOR, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
Before seeing them, I always mixed this up with SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE, without realizing they were released a few months apart, and both in 3D. Now that I’ve seen them I know that they actually are kind of similar – both have a tough bounty hunter guy driving around a wasteland planet in large all-terrain vehicle, fighting mutants and warlords and shit while searching for someone. Dogen (Jeffrey Byron, HOT RODS TO HELL) is a “Finder,” and instead of trying to rescue some abducted tourists he’s trying to kill a wizard guy named Jared-Syn (Michael Preston, Pappagallo from ROAD WARRIOR), who’s trying to do a, like… evil crystal thing. Because the treaty with the Nomads was violated, I believe is what Dogen says. You know how it is. Gotta stop that, obviously. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 3D, Alan J. Adler, Charles Band, Jeffrey Byron, Kelly Preston, Larry Pennell, Michael Preston, R. David Smith, Richard Moll, Tim Thomerson
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 27 Comments »
Thursday, August 24th, 2023
August 19, 1983
THE GOLDEN SEAL is a PG-rated movie about a 10-year-old boy named Eric (Torquil Campbell) who befriends a seal matching the description of one from Aleutian myth and local poacher legend. It’s directed by Disney-animal-movie veteran Frank Zuniga and written by John Groves (TARANTULAS: THE DEADLY CARGO), based on the book A River Ran Out of Eden by James Vance Marshall (a.k.a. Donald G. Payne, whose novels were also turned into SANTA FE, WALKABOUT, and THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD).
I expected this to fit somewhere in that cloying kid-and-animal subgenre we know today, and yeah, there’s a section in the middle with montages of seal frolicking. But it kinda leans more on being an old fashioned family adventure movie. There’s a remote island, a violent storm, a rope bridge, a cave, some rescuing, some father and son conflict. I kinda liked it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: adventure, Alaska, Aleutian Islands, Frank Zuniga, James Vance Marshall, John Groves, Michael Beck, Penelope Milford, Richard Narita, Sandra Seacat, seals, Seth Sakai, Steve Railsback, Torquil Campbell
Posted in Reviews, Family | 11 Comments »
Monday, August 21st, 2023
August 15, 1983
There are a few more to go but I have a strong feeling PRISONERS OF THE LOST UNIVERSE is gonna be the crappiest fantasy/sci-fi type movie in this historic summer of Jedi returns. I’m sure the terrible, washed out transfer on the DVD I rented doesn’t help – it’s a “Grindhouse Double Shock Show” paired with the 1979 Italian film STAR ODYSSEY – but everything about the production seems low rent. It’s all very ugly and low energy, filmed mostly just out in a rocky area somewhere, with acting and dialogue that made my wife ask if I was watching a porno. Then she decided it looked like the “Safety Dance” video, which is a very good comparison, although honestly with lower production value. I would bet that there was less time between conception and release than it took to animate the spider in KRULL.
The director and co-writer is Englishman Terry Marcel, his followup to HAWK THE SLAYER, but the cast is American and it’s filmed in South Africa. That’s why even though it opens in what we’re told is L.A. all the cars have the steering wheels on the right side. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: John Saxon, Kay Lenz, Richard Hatch, Terry Marcel
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 9 Comments »
Thursday, August 10th, 2023
August 12, 1983
I’ve written about CUJO before, but that was 15 years ago. Since there aren’t that many horror movies in this summer of ’83, it seemed worth revisiting now. Cujo the book was formative to me because I read it when I was in third grade. It might’ve been my first Stephen King book, maybe even my first horror book besides Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Alfred Hitchcock short story collections. The part I remember vividly, of course, is something about Donna’s sex life with Steve. That seemed grown up and mysterious. The dog attacking people just seemed cool.
The movie wasn’t as important to me, and though I saw it on VHS at some point it wasn’t until rewatching it for that 2008 review that I realized it’s a real gem. It’s a movie everyone knows about but I’m not sure it’s held in as high of regard as I think it deserves. It’s a simple movie with very strong execution, and some of the elements involved (killer dog, tiny kid, limited location) are of a high enough degree of difficulty that there aren’t many other movies to directly compare it to. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy Jacoby, Charles Bernstein, Christopher Stone, Daniel Hugh-Kelly, Danny Pintauro, Dee Wallace, Ed Lauter, Jan de Bont, Kaiulani Lee, killer animals, killer dog, Lewis Teague, Robert Elross, Stephen King
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 21 Comments »
Wednesday, August 9th, 2023
August 12, 1983
I believe we’ve discussed once or twice in this series, and possibly in other contexts, that in 1977 there was this movie called “STAR WARS” that absolutely knocked pop culture on its ass, and the thing still hasn’t recovered. One of the biggest and longest lasting pop culture creations so far. More than a phenomenon. Practically a religion.
Would you care to guess what was #2 at the U.S. box office that year, and therefore also a big deal? It was SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, the directorial debut of stuntman Hal Needham. Though I’m not aware of a disco version of its theme song, it made more money than CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND or SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. It was huge.
SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II came out the August after EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and did pretty well, if not as well. Now we have SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT PART 3 released in the August after RETURN OF THE JEDI. This time it acknowledges its sister trilogy by opening with text that says, “Once upon a time, there was a famous Sheriff. It was not so long ago in our very own galaxy……..” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Burt Reynolds, car chases, Colleen Camp, David Dashev, David S. Cass Sr., Dick Lowry, Faith Minton, Jackie Davis, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Pat McCormick, Paul Williams, Sharon Anderson, Stuart Birnbaum
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, August 8th, 2023
August 12, 1983
So far in this series we’ve seen the third STAR WARS movie, the second PSYCHO movie, the thirteenth James Bond movie, the third SUPERMAN movie, the second Tony Manero movie, and the third JAWS movie. (We skipped the second PORKY’S movie, but that also came out, and we looked at the second GRIZZLY movie, which did not come out.) Among all these, one of the least remembered, for justifiable reasons, is the eighth PINK PANTHER movie, CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER.
Though people my age tend to be more interested in the animated cat character spun-off from the Friz Freleng-directed title sequence of the first movie in 1963, the PINK PANTHER is of course a series of mystery slapstick comedies about the clumsy but accidentally effective French detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau, played by Peter Sellers in THE PINK PANTHER, A SHOT IN THE DARK, THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER, THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN and REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER. After Sellers died in 1980 the series became an experiment in ways to continue after the death of a star that was 98% of the attraction. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Art Leonardi, Bill Nighy, Blake Edwards, Burt Kwouk, Capucine, Christopher Reich, David Niven, Denise Crosby, Ed Parker, Henry Mancini, Herbert Lom, Joanna Lumley, Joe Morton, Leslie Ash, Robert Loggia, Robert Wagner, Roger Moore, Ted Wass
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 13 Comments »
