The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

My article on the great Richard Burton spy movie can be read here.

The 10 Best Spy Movies You Don’t Know About

Over at my latest Blog, Spy Safe House, I have an article on some of the Bond rivals which emerged from Europe in the 60's.

"Oldboy" (2013)

I relate my problems trying to see the latest Spike Lee movie here:
http://cinemaofhorror.com/oldboy/

Haunted Cinema

"Nothing could be more mysterious or forbidding to the uninitiated than an old movie palace laid waste by years or even decades of neglect at the hands of absentee landlords and mercenary owners determined to suck every last dime out of a joint and then torch it for the insurance money. And once a theatre slipped into the twilight of exhibiting XXX hardcore porn, it rarely slipped out again. In most cases nothing was ever upgraded, and even the most basic repairs were a rarity. Broken chairs were left where they collapsed, burned-out light bulbs were never replaced, and even the life-blood of the enterprise, the movie projectors, turned into rat's nests of filth, while up in the restrooms a witches' brew of slime bubbled away in plugged-up toilets. This attitude of radical laissez faire imbued these environments with a certain frozen-in-time ambiance as the architectural remnants of Depression-era grandeur slowly sank into appalling decay and unimaginable things took place in the darkness."

-From Jack Stevenson's brilliant article on the decline of movie theaters:
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/70/70stevenson.php

Bloodbath in the House of Knives (2009)

Regional horror films are the sort of thing every film gnostic lives for. Well do I remember the days of noting strange titles on drive-in marquees and wondering about their origin. Everyone of us used to know at least somebody who caught The Night Daniel Died on a one-week run or discovered the original Night of the Living Dead at the bottom third of week-end bill. And once in a great while we too might have found something special at 2:30AM on a local TV station. Because having access to this sort of experience is what made you cool among other film geeks.
So I was delighted that Mr. Ted Moehring would elect to send me a DVD-R (in an illustrated clam shell, no less!) of his gallo, Bloodbath in the House of Knives. Made in the isolated town of Boyertown, PA ( and surrounding environs), Bloodbath is a neat little film that shows how people with limited means can still create something to hold the attention. Using a cast of unknowns, it manages to capture the spirit of Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Suspiria.
The plot is complex: a nightclub hypnotist puts a man in a trance. Suddenly, the trancee goes on a rampage, killing a member of the audience before he is felled by a bullet from an unknown shooter. Meanwhile a sinister figure in black and wearing a theater mask is randomly killing people in the town where the movie takes place. And a woman named Ivy keeps getting threatening phone messages from a stalker. Are the killings related? And when is the intrepid police detective going to put it all together?
And there are a number of effect-laden murders, none accomplished with CGI or growth hormones. At least one is quite scary.
Lloyd Kaufman does an excellent job of playing himself. As a matter of fact, I can't think of anyone else who could do such a good job playing Lloyd Kaufman. The only problem is Lloyd Kaufman is supposed to be playing a sleazy lawyer in this movie.
A few other complaints would be the lack of exterior shots. Some local color might have been nice. At least I was able to see the town across from where I live for a few minutes in The Lovely Bones. But I don't recall any news of Mr. Moehring shutting down Boyertown traffic to film Bloodbath.
Good use of lighting, color, and a surprise ending. I hope we'll be seeing more of Ted Moehring.

Further Proof in the Existence of God

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Al Adamson tribute YouTube channel:


http://www.youtube.com/user/iipAlAdamsonMania

Obscene (2009)

Fascinating film about maverick publisher Barney Rosset. The complex doccumentary details his rise as a poor little rich kid with too much time and money on this hands to the free speech icon he is today. Along the way we see him found The Evergreen Review, turn Grove Press into a cutting edge book company and distribute amazing films. Countless interviews fill in the details. My only complain is the soundtrack draws too much attention to itself. You also get to see the aging Rosset interviewed by Al Goldstein right before the latter was about to have some major legal problems of his own. Not to be missed.

Living Dolls (1980)

Here's a creepy little film which used to be in rotation on the USA Network's "Saturday Nightmares" show. It's about a janitor at a dress store who finds himself trapped in the attic with the mannequins. I worked as a shipping clerk at a similar store some years ago, so it brings back some seriously bad memories.

The Deadliest Man Alive

Floyd Web has been trying to put togather an amazing documentary video for several years about "Count Dante", a martial arts master from Chicago who passed away in the 1970's. You can see the trailer for it by going here. This will be one fascinating movie should it ever be made.

Quo Vadis?

OK, it's been a month since I posted on here and a little explanation is in order. What it comes down to is other demands on my time. I don't have a huge back-log of unused articles I can dump on FOD . When I write one of my capsule reviews the film is fresh in my mind. So I try to stay on top of things.
But what it really comes down to is that there isn't much to write about. Once you've seen The Mysterious Island of Beautiful Women and The Stone Tapes in one month, it's hard to equal the experience. And, if you haven't already noticed, I don't like to write negative reviews. Enough fanboys out there doing that already. It's easy to sneer at all the crap. Not so easy to hunt down such exotic plants as Terror In The Jungle.
I could start reviewing newer films, but I don't care for much made after 1980. As far as I'm concerned, 1980 was the last good year. Afterwards came VHS, thousand channel cable and the last few Drive-Ins closing. It was never the same. I know there are good genre movies out there, I just lack the time to watch enough garbage to find the good stuff. And after reading the synopsis for The Collector, I am less likely to do it.
There's also the matter about what I can say. I've started watching the Sartana Euro-westerns, but what new insight can I add? Shall I adopt a Poststurcturalist Autodidatic Premodernist approach? Perhaps delve into the inner symboliam of the gun? Right. Leave such nonsense for people with too much time on their hands.
I'm not sure what to do. But I'll come up with something

Daddy's Gone A Hunting (1969)

There are movies I waited to see for a long time just because of the way the ad affected me as a kid. Faster Pussycat was one, this movie was another.
Set your time machine back to 1969. I'm sitting in my dad's car listening to the AM radio. On comes this creepy commercial for a movie featuring a man reciting a nursery rhyme. Cut to a woman's scream. I knew at that moment I would someday have to see this flick.
Too bad the movie itself doesn't deliver on the promise of the radio ad. It's basically a thriller from the (to steal a concept from Bill Landis) "endangered child" subgenre. Woman dumps psycho boyfriend when she finds out she's preggers. Woman has the pregnancy aborted. Boyfriend comes after her years later when she has a baby she did want to keep. But she's now married to a powerful lawyer with political ambitions, so she can't tell her new hubby the whole truth.
I will say the final half-hour, involving a hunt for the psycho ex-boyfriend, was pretty gripping. But the actor who played him just couldn't pull-off the cloud of fear necessary for the role

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2008)

Excellent film about 60's experimental visionary Jack Smith. Smith, who achieved notoriety with FLAMING CREATURES, never went on to the big art film leagues and died in 1989, forgotten by all but a a few dedicated fans. He never finished another film after CREATURES, perfering to live the life of a pure artist.
The film portrays his life and work via interviews with the various friends and family who knew him. You even get a few interviews with Smith himself, who comes across as a tortured artiste. The narrative tries to be as objective as possible, but it does suggest that several critics made their fame off Smith's work.
A good look into a different era when filmmakers actually had to worry about getting busted on obscenity charges.

The Mysterious Island of Beautiful Women (1979)

This is a MTV from the final phase of the "movie of the week" phenomena which made 70's TV such fun. I don't know how to describe it other than make comparisons to Lord of the Flies and Charlie's Angels. And it has both big Clint Walker and Jayne Kennedy (who looks mighty fine in a loin cloth).
A plane carrying catholic school girls out of war-torn Indochina in 1955 crashes on an isolated Pacific island. Years later a sea plane makes an emergency landing on the same island. The sea plane is conveying oil roughnecks back to the US (all male). The roughnecks encounter the adult versions of the school girls, who have grown into a jungle tribe of shapely young women. Meanwhile there's a rival tribe of men who've been raiding the female tribe.
Gilligan never had it so good.

Adventureland (2009)

Because every now and then I do watch Hollywood movies.
Hilarious film about working a summer carny job by writer Greg Motta. From what I understand, he was discussing the worst jobs they ever had with some other tinsletown types and his was an amusement park on Long Island in 1985.
I'd love to know what his fellow glitter palace courtiers did.
The movie follows a preppie who's alcoholic dad is about to lose his job. Junior has just graduated college with a useless degree in comparative literature and renaissance studies. He'd planned on backpacking Europe. Because he wants to go to journalism graduate school at Columbia ("I want to write travel books like Charles Dickens"), he's forced to take a summer job at a tacky amusement park. Along the way he learns a lot about real life.

Equinox (1992)

Stylish thriller by Alan Rudolph about twins separated at birth. One becomes a cunning hit man, the other a quiet nobody. Essentially this is a noir version of The Prince and The Pauper, but given the Rudolph treatment with his love for multiple characters. Every scene is memorable and this movie seems to exist in the same universe where Trouble In Mind takes place. Rudolph is an underappeciated director and it's a shame he hasn't produced more films of this caliber.

The New Women (2001)

Hilarious black-and-white satire of feminist apocolypse literature as a group of neglected housewives find themselves the only survivors of a global catastrophe. After a major electrical storm, all the men remain in a coma, forcing the women of their town to fend for themselves. In the first meeting, they kick out the woman who's been sleeping with all their husbands. When food runs low, a group of them headed by Mary Woronov take off in a camper loaded down with supplies. They've received a radio signal from a surviving colony of women. Of course, the trip to redoubt more fun than the destination.

ROBERT TILTON AND THE GOSPEL OF GREED

If you watched any late-night TV in the early 90's, you may have encountered this whacked-out preacher. A real "put your hands on the radio" type, he was famed for suddenly speaking in tongues when he wasn't begging for money. And it all came down in a baptism of fire when it was discovered the good pastor was dumping all the prayer request letters in the trash.
This documentary was produced by The Trinity Foundation, a small church group that brought the TV preacher's practices to light. It's mostly excepts from the TV specials about Tilton's sleazy practices.
But no documentary can come close to the crazy mailers this Elmer Gantry used to send out for a little $$$. Prayer mattes, holy bread, this man had a system! I don't know who did his marketing material, but they were a genius.
A good movie to watch on a Sunday morning.

Kampus Kapers

Ah, to have been a student at a big university in the late 60's. Free love, free money, and sticking it to The Man. The only thing a male had to worry about is which girl to see on a given night. And here are three movies which lets us relive those wondrous days of yore: Three in the Attic, Down in the Cellar, and Been Down So Long It Looks Up To Me. Groovy!
The first, Three in the Attic (1968), concerns the exploits of poor Paxton Quigley (Christopher Jones). He has this problem: a compulsive womanizer, he has three different women on the string, telling each one they are his one and only. When they all find out what's been going on, Pax gets locked in an attic by the vengeful trio and is forced to have sex with them nonstop. He finally escapes, but describes himself as "the first victim of the sexual revolution."
Down in the Cellar has Wes Stern gunning for Larry Hagman, a rich Texas benefactor of a prestigious college. It seems Hagman spoiled Stern's performance art, so he decides to bring him down by seducing all the women in his life. I'm sure the movie was very topical in 1970.
And at last we have Been Down, based off a famous counterculture novel by Richard Farina. This 1970 movie has been forgotten, but a few copies are known to exist. Barry Primus plays the lead, Gnossos, a young man who is returning to college after being out in the world for a few years. He eventually ends up in Cuba at the time of the 1959 revolution, but not before taking many journeys of self discovery.
Three movies which attempted to copy the success of The Graduate (1967). In many ways they all failed, but they serve as mirrors to the 60's.

The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle (2005)

Douglas Henshall plays Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes in this BBC production. It begins with Doyle, sick of writing "Holmes" stories, deciding to kill off his creation. The public reaction is understandably negative, prompting a row with his publisher. Added to the mix is his own wife's worsening tuberculosis. Finally, he's got a rather pretty female fan who "understands" him.
In the middle of this personal crisis, a man appears at his door who claims to be the official biographer from Doyle's publisher. He knows a lot about Doyle's background and wants to know more. Soon his biographer is probing into every bit of sad information he can get. What are the real motiviations for this biographer?
An excellent BBC production. Any fan of the Great Detective will enjoy this examination of how and why Arthur Conan Doyle created his famous literary figure.

Lifepod (1980)

In the wake of a certain movie made by George Lucas, a lot of independent producers wanted to get into the Space Epic game. Most of them didn't have the resources to do it right, but they tried just the same. Lifepod, made in 1980, showed what people could do with a lot of enthusiasm could do on a limited budget. Someone duplicated the idea with a lot more money around 1993 as a MTV movie. But I like this one much better.
Several passengers on an exclusive interplanetary ship have found themselves in an escape lifepod after the central computer on the ship declared an emergency. The usual lifeboat cast is here: the journalist, the pretty girl, the corporate exec, the administror and the crew member. Suddenly, the space ship suddenly decides to head after the lifepod. Why? And why did the central computer declare a fake emergency to get everyone off the ship?