Wasted Weekend - 9.24.21

 Hello friends. Between work and travel I haven't had a lot of time to blog but I'm back and there were a few things bouncing around streaming that I thought I might draw your eyeballs to. I've already kicked off my HoopTober challenge but am still finding time to watch non-spooky movies as well. I've got a mix of things to talk about so whether you're looking for things for your own October viewing or fitting in some non-horror viewing before the big binge, I hope to have you covered.

Do you like screaming? Do you like machine gun fire? How about the combination of screaming and machine gun fire? If the answer is "yes" then please let me direct you to Bruno Mattei's Rambo-sploitation duo Strike Commando and Strike Commando 2 . Severin released discs for these a little while ago and I do love Italians running around the Philippines blowing stuff up. Sure the actor playing the lead changes between films but that's probably the least crazy thing on offer from the fertile minds of Mattei and co-writer/nonsense master Claudio Fargasso. These films don't have the sci-fi angle of the Mattei helmed Robowar but promise similar dumb-but-fun good times. Both of these are currently streaming on Tubi and Prime

I had the good fortune to catch a screening of Frederic Hobbs' Godmonster of Indian Flats recently and it was exactly the kind of hyper-regional, scrappy, low-budget American exploitation movie I've grown to love over the years. Unfortunately I missed out on Hobbs' somewhat more obscure film from the same year (1973) Alabama's Ghost. The tale of a nightclub janitor who stumbles on the personal effects of a powerful magician and uses them to become a popular nightclub celebrity. Of course dabbling with the dark arts comes with a price and Alabama finds himself entangled with voodoo, a vampire cult, and an elephant for some reason. I don't believe this has gotten a release since VHS but a rip of that tape is currently streaming on Prime if you're down for some regional zaniness.

Speaking of regional zaniness, on the opposite coast from Hobbs low budget filmmaker and playwright Andy Milligan was churning out frequently sadistic sex and gore packed weirdness including 1970s Torture Dungeon. My own experience with Milligan is limited to Fleshpot on 42nd Street which I really liked so I would definitely be curious to see his take on a period piece. Torture Dungeon interestingly enough seems to draw a lot of comparisons to Game of Thrones due to it's royal intrigue and...well...torture and stuff. Check it out on Tubi

I realize I'm not keeping things too classy in this week's installment but for those of you who want "professionally" made movies for some reason I noticed that Guillermo del Toro's masterful ghost story The Devil's Backbone is currently on Prime. Seriously, if you haven't seen The Devil's Backbone or like me haven't seen it in some time - check it out - it will make for great October viewing and won't cause your friends and relatives to ask you if it's a "real" movie like some of these other suggestions.

That's what I've got this week, go watch a movie already!

Wasted Weekend - 9.3.21

 Just as last week there was a bit of a lull in the streaming catalogues - the beginning of the month brings with it heaps of new titles to sift through. I've seen a lot of great titles pop up across the web including all time favorites like The Long Goodbye, The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three, Thief, What's Up Doc?, and A Fish Called Wanda. If you need me to encourage you to see any of those - consider this your encouragement. However, we're here to get a little off the beaten track and this is what caught my eye this week.

I generally like to champion movies a little on the older side, but Jumbo (2020) is one I've been really looking forward to since hearing about it last year. The feature directorial debut of Zoé Wittock is the age old tale of a girl who meets and develops a romantic relationship with an amusement park ride. It just sounds so deliriously weird and what I've seen of it looks absolutely gorgeous. Jumbo is currently streaming via the Arrow Player and while I don't normally bring up rentals, it's available for a buck from Vudu

If my list of favorites above wasn't already enough of a clue - I am a big fan of crime films. I especially love off-beat, shaggy crime films of the 1970s and early 80s and Cutter's Way is about as shaggy as it gets. It's an excellently written, beautifully performed - with Jeff Bridges, John Heard, and Lisa Eichorn - portrait of disaffected, post-Vietnam, hangout noir. It's bleak, it's funny, it's weird, and it's one of those films you have to imagine the Coen Brothers saw and internalized. It's been up on Criterion for a bit but recently appeared on Pluto TV.

If you're looking for something a little more upbeat - it's hard to go wrong with one of my absolute favorite 60s caper films Topkapi. Jules Dassin applies every bit of heist technicality he displayed in the peerless Rififi and combines it with an anarchic travelogue showcasing the comedic talents of Peter Ustinov - who won an Oscar for his performance. Topkapi was also Dassin's first color movie and it is - sometimes literally - a kaleidoscopic explosion of color. I find it endlessly charming and Brian De Palma liked it enough to give its acrobatic jewel heist a nod in Mission Impossible. You can catch this one also on Pluto TV.

My final crime pick for this week comes as part of the Criterion Channel's New York City series they recently uploaded. There's plenty of great films in there, but I have to mention the Alan Arkin directed Little Murders. Featuring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd and based on a play of the same name, Little Murders is one of those films that has just become difficult to see these days. It's the kind of thing it might be worth signing up with Criterion for free trial or just a month if you aren't a regular subscriber.

October was once the month of ultimate horror film indulgence but for many of us September is when we start to ease into our own personal spooky season. Maybe you would prefer to save your horror picks for the month of Halloween but if you're looking to kick things off why not check out John Carl Buechler's Cellar Dweller? This is solidly B movie territory but with the special effects mind behind Ghoulies, Trancers, and even Mausoleum - Cellar Dweller delivers on rubbery goods and spooky spirit. It's currently up on Hulu. 

Best New to Me - August 2021

 I have been doing monthly recaps of some sort for a while and over a variety of different platforms. Most recently - and regularly - I was recapping my favorite first time watches on Facebook and the feedback I was getting on those is one of the things that led me to writing in this space. I like doing these for a couple of reasons - the short form reviews are good practice at getting to what's important about a movie and I like to be up-front about the things I've never watched before. My watchlist is huge, I haven't been the most consistent film viewer over the years, and listening to critics and podcasters can leave you feeling like you'll never catch up or that you missed the boat on something cool. None of that shit matters though - Edgar Wright said something that I've tried to internalize and make my mantra over the last few years of film watching - "It's never too late to see a great movie." So here's my list of the best new-to-me films I watched in August.

Female Prisoner Scorpion - The First Three Films (1972-73) - I could have sworn I had seen at least the first film in the Female Prisoner Scorpion series and somehow I had relegated it in my brain as not my cup of tea. I couldn't have been more wrong - these films are an absolutely delirious genre throw down with the perfectly cast Meiko Kaji. Yes, there are some hard to watch sequences but I feel that it serves a savage indictment of misogyny and authoritarian power structures rather than being purely exploitative.

The Baby (1973) - I've been dragging my heels on this one for ages and I definitely shouldn't have. The Baby is exactly my flavor of American regional, drive-in weirdness. The idea that someone really needed to bring this story of an adult baby to the screen and was willing to put this much talent and effort behind it is a wonder to me.

Blind Beast (1969) - I don't know what I can tell you that would adequately prepare you for the wildness of Blind Beast. Surreal visuals, intense drama, challenging themes, and it made me look up "sybaritic."

Doberman Cop (1977) - Brutal 70s cop picture that's also a rural/urban fish out of water story that's also about a pop star competition somehow. Sonny Chiba was truly one of the greats.

The Hitcher (1986) - Other than not growing up with HBO, I'm not sure how I can explain not seeing The Hitcher before. Masterclass of chilling nihilism from Rutger Hauer meets absolutely bonkers nightmare logic of a story resulting in pure genre perfection.

Something Wild (1986) - Demme's surprisingly dark take on the screwball set up. John Waters appears as a used car salesman, The Feelies are playing at a high school reunion that's also attended by Su Tissue - how can I not love this?

Vampyres (1974) - There's no shortage of 70s lesbian vampire movies and they are of varying quality and interest to me but this groovier, British-ier, almost folk horror take on the genre was definitely my bag. People keep coming to this old manor in the woods, women in capes run through a graveyard, copious amounts of wine are consumed!

Blood Games (1990) - The silly premise of a foxy lady baseball team playing against a bunch of hillbillies takes a hard right into Deliverance territory and make for a gritty exploitation jam that seems somewhat out of time in 1990.

Chasing Sleep (2000) - Bill Pullman plays an insomniac professor who's wife has gone missing. Anxiety ridden, paranoia fueled hallucinations follow in what I thought was a pretty effective noir riff.

Jakob's Wife (2021) - Effectively gross and wonderfully performed by Barbara Crampton. The practical effects and feminist messaging were definitely working for me here.

Penitentiary (1979) - Can your humanity be reclaimed both by beating the shit out of fellow inmates for entertainment and semi-anonymous trysts in the bathroom? Only one movie has the courage to ask!

The Oracle (1985) - Solid NYC horror flick with a familiar premise of things going wrong for yuppies in a new apartment. Some absurdly wonderful puppet effects and great location work.

Scalpel (1977) - Southern gothic thriller about a greedy plastic surgeon who alters the face of a comatose stripper to look identical to his estranged daughter so he can claim her inheritance. They also strike up a relationship of sorts. If this sounds messed up that's because it is.

Spookies (1986) - I caught a screening of this which is definitely the way to best appreciate it. You want to be in a room of horror fans when the farting muck men turn up.

Sting of Death (1966) - Kooky, low budget 60s monster mash about a killer jellyfish man-thing. There are dance numbers, secret lairs, and a surprisingly high body count. Do the jilla-jella-jellyfish!

Stone (1974) -  Sold as a precursor to Mad Max but really more of Ozploitation Easy Rider of sorts with bar brawls, drag racing, smoking grass, strip poker, and the occasional skinny dip. Take the trip!

Wasted Weekend - 8/27/21

 We've nearly made it to the weekend once again and I'm going to do my level best to give you some good or at least serviceable suggestions of things to watch online instead of doing anything responsible. I feel like there's a little bit of a slowdown of new things popping up on streaming services around this time of the month before the wave of new titles hit over the next week. Still, it's the internet and there's always something to wrap your eyeballs around.

Grizzly is hardly obscure but it is a solidly entertaining Jaws-on-land with a bear animal attack jam. It's is just the kind of thing I like to put on during a bleary eyed Sunday morning while I muster the strength to go pick up breakfast tacos. It's a little slow in parts but it's filled with actors I like - Christopher George, Richard Jaeckel - the kill scenes are all pretty great and the ending is totally bananas. Grizzly regularly hops on and off different services but I noticed it on Tubi earlier this week.

Speaking of actors I like - I have never seen the 1972 made for tv prison drama The Glass House but it stars Alan Alda, Vic Morrow, Clu Gulager, and Billy Dee Williams! Based on a Truman Capote story and directed by Tom Gries - Helter Skelter - Glass House has a reputation for being a truly bleak slice of prison life and it's definitely the kind of obscure, downer 70s film that I look for. I'm willing to give it a shot and it's currently streaming on Prime.

Nothing I tell you can prepare you for the cast featured in 1990s Catchfire/Backtrack. Directed by and starring Dennis Hopper opposite Jodie Foster and an onslaught of familiar faces - Dean Stockwell, Joe Pesci, Catherine Keener, Charlie Sheen, and Vincent Price (?) just to name a few. The question of whether Catchfire is any good is one only you can answer but it is an absolutely brain melting bit of late 80s-early 90s WTF material. See Dennis Hopper playing saxophone in front of an Hieronymus Bosch triptych, witness him defend a burrito in a gunfight, marvel while he saves a baby lamb from falling into a crevasse. You can watch all of this insanity on Prime and Vudu.

I often struggle with modern attempts at psychotronic/exploitation/drive-in fare as they are frequently too self aware for my tastes. I prefer that even the lowest of budget genre flicks take themselves somewhat seriously. I can't say from the looks of things that Lake Michigan Monster takes itself seriously at all but it does look like a genuinely earnest attempt at low budget regional filmmaking - also people say it's really fun! This has been available on Arrow for some time but appears to be streaming on Prime and Tubi as well. 

Doberman Cop - 1977

 Last week the film world lost a legend in Sonny Chiba and many of us sought to celebrate his life by watching one or more of his movies. Though I wished it had been under better circumstances I decided it was time for me to finally catch up to Kinji Fukasaku's Doberman Cop. Fukasaku had a long and wildly varied career beginning in the 1960s and he might still be best known in the US for directing the Battle Royale films in the early 00s. However, in the 1970s Fukasaku directed a string of violent and gritty crime dramas including the blistering Yakuza Papers/Battles Without Honor or Humanity films which include his first collaborations with Chiba. Doberman Cop is one of those crime films - focusing more on the police than on gangsters in this case - and is based on a manga inspired by Dirty Harry. If you took Dirty Harry and combined it with the rural cop in the big city set-up of another Clint Eastwood flick - Coogan's Bluff - you might have some approximation of Doberman Cop but this is Fukasaku at work so things get much crazier.

Doberman Cop opens strong with a murder scene and a burnt corpse - according to the attending detectives this killing is part of spate of murders/arsons targeting sex workers. The evidence on the scene leads them to believe the latest victim is a girl named Mayumi from Okinawa. We then cut to the main theme/credits which are played over some gorgeous city night footage and Chiba as Joji Kano - sporting a straw hat, white slacks, and a pig in a sack. Kano is a detective from Okinawa looking into the details of the murder - the pig was meant as a gift to the Tokyo police from his mom - as well as return the remains to the island. Kano believes that Mayumi is still alive and that the identity of the murdered girl is mistaken. This belief largely stems from Okinawan folk traditions - Mayumi's mother is a kind of Okinawan priestess and Kano himself keeps performing a divination with tiny shells. Despite the evidence and frequent demands that he return to "the boonies" Kano sticks around to investigate resulting both in some fish out of water comedy and opportunities to demonstrate his virility and physical prowess to the relatively soft city folk. While Kano investigates and makes some new friends - a couple that run a live sex show, a biker who is suspected to be the murderer - we're also introduced to Yakuza backed, drug addicted, rising pop star Miki Harakuze who Kano believes has some connection back to Okinawa. 

The action in Doberman Cop is wild and energetically shot - often using handheld set ups similar to the Yakuza Papers. My usual preference for fight sequences featuring someone as skilled as Chiba's is for wide and medium shots that allow for the action to flow - instead Fukasaku presses close and uses a lot of edits. The results are frantic, claustrophobic, and brutal - a fight between Kano and some gangsters in a small apartment is an absolute scorcher. Chiba's stunt skills are on display when - as far as I can tell - he actually rappels down a high rise building to foil a hostage situation earning Kano the nickname "Tarzan." Fukasaku was never one to shy away from gore and once Kano comes into possession of a Dirty Harry inspired .44 Magnum revolver some bloody results follow including a head explosion and three gangsters impaled by the same bullet. While he is ferocious and a self-described "furimun" - madman - Chiba's Kano isn't nearly as grim as Harry Callahan. He finds amusement in his city experiences, he hangs out and smokes dope with the biker gang, he seems to really care for that pig, and he's mostly looking to get a lost girl home to her mom. 

It's not easy to juggle a hardboiled, gritty crime story with lighter elements - I mean there's a pop star competition at the heart of this film - but I think Fukasaku is successful here. Part of this is that despite any levity the film mostly leans into the grime - the industrial showdown between Kano and the killer is truly gruesome and the film ends on a somewhat bleak note. However the tone is also managed due to Chiba's natural charisma and screen presence. The man was absolutely electric in action and while more expressive in many ways than Eastwood or Bronson - like them he could do a lot with a glance. Doberman Cop is not the most essential Chiba film or even the most essential Chiba/Fukasaku collaboration but it's an excellent crime flick and one deserving of a larger audience. As of this writing it is available on blu-ray from Arrow and is also streaming on their subscription service.

Wasted Weekend - 8/20/21

 It's nearly official - as of this writing my weekend has nearly begun - and I'm ready to discuss wild and wonderful films to indulge in. Depending on your tastes, it's actually a pretty solid streaming weekend for new films - Annette has dropped on Prime, Jakob's Wife starring Barbara Crampton is now on Shudder, and a movie I don't know much about but looks interesting - Cult Following - a mockumentary about an occult investigator has appeared on Vudu. However, I'm here to talk to you about older, often weirder gems for you to mine over the weekend so lets get to it.

You could be excused for thinking that 1990's Blood Games is just another sleazy T&A trashfest and its alternate title Baseball Bimbos in Hillbilly Hell does very little to disabuse you of that notion. However, Blood Games is in fact a fairly relentless and brutal revenge exploitation flick combining aspects of I Spit on Your Grave and Deliverance so if you need to heed content warnings - consider yourself warned. This is the only feature from director Tanya Rosenberg and it stars accomplished stuntwoman Laura Albert. Blood Games saw a Blu Ray release from Vinegar Syndrome but is currently streaming on Hulu.

Another VS release seen streaming in the wild is Psychic Killer - Ray Danton's supernatural quasi-slasher about a former mental patient who learns astral projection and uses his newfound powers to wreak revenge on the people who had him locked up. It stars Jim Hutton as the titular killer and Neville Brand makes an appearance. Actor/Writer/Director - Black Shampoo, Satan's Cheerleaders, Joysticks - Greydon Clark is in the film and has a co-writing credit as well. This one is currently free with ads on Vudu.

I have to give a tip of the hat to my friend Tim who let me know that a bunch of Arrow Video titles had dropped onto Tubi including several films from Floridian William Grefe. Of the bunch I have to highly recommend Sting of Death - it is a zany 60s monster mash where a group of swinging biology students are hunted and killed by a mutated jellyfish monster. It's goofy, it's fun, there are dance numbers, and the body count is shockingly high. It's not as gruesome as what I usually go for but it oozes with low budget regional charm and Grefe has a real knack for lovely natural landscape photography - who knew? Sting of Death is available on the Arrow Player but also streaming Tubi with ads.

In addition to the Grefe films, Tubi also has a bunch of films from one of the kings of 60s low-budget horror - Herschell Gordon Lewis. I haven't seen many of Lewis' films since VHS and I keep meaning to revisit them. I'm thinking I'll get reacquainted with Blood Feast. At an economical 67 minutes - Blood Feast gives you the best of Lewis' aesthetic - bright red gore, earnest performances, low budget ingenuity - without wearing out its welcome. Reserve a seat at the Egyptian Feast via Arrow, Kanopy, or on Tubi

Last but certainly not least - the film world lost a legend in Sonny Chiba this week at the age of 82. Chiba's influence on martial arts and action cinema would be difficult to overstate and he will be missed terribly. I can't really do his career justice but I did like this tribute to him by Simon Abrams. We are left with a treasury of Sonny Chiba's contributions and films and there are a ton of them also on Tubi if you're looking for something this weekend. Essentials like The Street Fighter and Hiroshima Death Match to his earlier films like Terror Beneath the Sea. 

Blu-Ray Review - Rancho Deluxe (1975)

Fun City Editions is a relatively new blu-ray company and partner label with Vinegar Syndrome that has been busy impressing collectors with both the curation of their catalogue and the quality of their releases. My reaction to all of the Fun City releases so far has been - What on earth is that movie and when can I see it? or Oh man that's a movie I absolutely loved and I'm so thrilled to see it getting a blu-ray release. Rancho Deluxe falls into the latter category and I absolutely couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy. 

Released in 1975 and directed by one of the great, still somewhat unsung directors of the era - Frank Perry (The Swimmer, David and Lisa, Play It as It Lays) and written by novelist turned screenwriter/director Tom McGuane (92 in the Shade, The Missouri Breaks) Rancho Deluxe is an oddball, low stakes, quasi-crime hangout in the new American West. Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston play Jack and Cecil - two cattle rustlers who land on the bad side of a wealthy ranch owner on account of their small time schemes. The ranch owner hires not only his two hands Curt and Burt - Harry Dean Stanton and Richard Bright - but also a detective played by Slim Pickens to apprehend the cattle thieves. It's a weird little universe unto itself populated with Pong playing cowboys and hotel room destroying bulls where you can pay your rent with beef and the West isn't really the answer to anyone's problems. Rancho is a clever satire of American myth-making but it isn't a particularly savage one - the stacked cast is incredibly likeable and the idiosyncratic downbeat humor feels like a precursor to what the Coen Brothers would do in the following decades.

Fun City's disc is comprised of a new 2K restoration - my understanding is that all of FCE's releases are predicated on new scans - that looks excellent while retaining the warm grain of the original film. Special features include a commentary by film critic Nick Pinkerton who is largely familiar to me through his work with Kino Lorber. Pinkerton provides the kind of commentary that I like best - one that is dense with information about the production and the historical context as well as tying in other films in interesting ways. If you prefer something more conversational the zoom-style interview with Jeff Bridges is charming due to Bridges' affable nature and of the significance this film and Montana has to his personal biography. Tom McGuane gets an interesting, more traditional interview and then there's a terrific essay provided by film historian Gavin Smith.

I've so far been loving what Fun City Editions has been doing and Rancho Deluxe has been no exception. It's a movie I've truly fallen for on repeat viewings and it somehow, shockingly still has fewer than 1000 views on Letterboxd. I'm hoping this new edition can help remedy that and I'd encourage anyone interested to seek it out.

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/fun-city-editions/products/rancho-deluxe-fun-city-editions