Stacy Kane, an ambitious woman working in a tawdry burlesque show at a carnival, schemes her way to New York City and gets a chance to sing in an exclusive night club. The one problem she has with her change of luck is that she chafes at the game she has to play, including becoming the mistress of the club owner. Manipulation follows manipulation to get out on top of the situation.
Satan in High Heels resides between sexploitation, film noir, and B-movie melodrama. I am a big fan of these kind of 1960s films and can forgive the flaws. These are not fast-paced films. There is a lot that I like about Satan in High Heels, though. One aspect is the night club environment, which is wonderfully evoked. There is an elegance to the club and the experience of being there. You even get a chance to see a little of the floor show. The performances are quite charming, too. Stacy is a compelling character, but my favorite performance is the queer-coded club manager. Grayson Hall, best known from the TV show Dark Shadows, plays her as witty, catty, and always aware of what is going on around her.
Blogger is giving me crap, so breaking these reviews down individually to see if I can sneak them through.
HARD WOMEN, aka PERRAK (35mm, 1970, BROOKLYN'S NITEHAWK CINEMA)
Shame that "Hard Women" screened one day too late for me to include in Eurosploitation Day! The never-released-on-home-video English dubbed version of this German police drama set in Hamburg's seedy tr@nsgender underworld (think Friedkin's "Cruising" 10 years prior and w/o the gay panic subtext) turned out to be 'just fine.' Horst Tappert (TV's Inspector Derrick) makes an appealing vice squad detective trying to find who killed a tr@nsvest!te pr0st!tute, which (surprise!) uncovers a deeper conspiracy. The 35mm print looked faded but that just adds to the exploitation charm. 'It's fine.' 3 STOLEN EARRINGS (out of five).
I've seen the trailer/heard the radio spot enough times that seeing the title instantly conjures up the "Hard Women" as spoken by Independent International's regular trailer voice-over guy.
zillagord, unless you track down a 35mm print you can't see "Hard Women" in English. Only "Perrak" in German (and a different cut than the version shown in the States) is somewhat available if you dig deep enough. 🧐🫤
In Joseph Kominski we trust... to reign-in the worst tendencies in Ehren Kruger's screenplay for "F1: The Movie," a $200 million self-aggrandizing advertisement for the motorized sport masquerading as a would-be summer blockbuster. It's also a reminder that old-fashioned star vehicles and predictable/formulaic filmmaking keep getting made for a reason: when made well they work like a charm and travel well abroad. I'm no fan of F1 and could anticipate everything the fictitious APX racing team went through during their hellish rebuilding half-year/season. As he did with "Top Gun: Maverick," though, Kominski (who co-wrote the film with Kruger) relies on the appeal of an ageless superstar (Brad Pitt) to sell the in-between-action filler melodrama. Special effects are excellent (too many 180-degree whip pans to/from the driver's cockpit), Hans Zimmer delivers another great score and a decent cast (Javier Bardem and Kerry Condon stand out among the painfully generic stereotypes) make this a great way to kill 3 hours in an air-conditioned IMAX screen. It's no "Maverick," but it sure ain't "Driven." :-P 3.25 UNSEEN PLAYING CARDS IN SONNY HAYES' POCKET (out of five).
Made in 2021 but not released theatrically until now due to one of its young stars testing positive for illegal substance use in early '23 (apparently still a big-enough deal in South Korea to derail a promising career), "High Five" is a reminder that non-IP superhero movies can still be a fun ride when done right. Six strangers receive transplant organs from a superpowered individual who (per the opening credits) lived through thousands of years, with each gaining an ability related to the organ they received. A little Taekwondo-loving girl (Jae-in Lee) with a new heart becomes super strong, a suicidal middle-aged yogurt saleswoman (Mi-ran Ra) becomes a conduit to others' powers and gets a youthful makeover from her new kidney, etc. But the recipient of the pancreas that grants youth by sucking energy from other life forms (including plants) turns out to be a selfish cult leader who wants all six organs to make himself an omnipotent god. I didn't like all the characters in "HF," but it was sure fun watching them trying to control their new powers and learning to get along before bad guy Shin Goo comes looking for them. The action-packed finale in the basement of a religious temple could teach Marvel's "Thunderbolts*" a thing or two about how to end an action pic with a bang. Love that in Korea a kid's movie can get away with characters saying "motherf#&!er" if it's clearly meant as a joke! :-D 3.75 OUT-OF-NOWHERE RICK ASTLEY CAMEOS (out of five).
Despite having some of the best 3D effects of any recent animated CG movie Pixar's "Elio" is a major disappointment. All movies (especially from the Disney brand) try to manipulate emotions to get us to like/feel for a character's loss/wishes, but here it rings hollow. Ellio's obsession with being abducted by aliens to escape a miserable life with his aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) make him an unlikable protagonist. It doesn't help that the human designs are uglier and more off-putting than the average Pixar human. This project went through years of retooling and major changes to its story (Brad Garrett's Lord Grigon baddie was initially a completely different character) and it shows in the final product. The concept of the Communiverse and some alien designs (that deck of cards!) are cool, but the callbacks to better sci-fi flicks ("Last Starfighter," "Contact," etc.) constantly undermine its own.
I can't remember a time before when I wanted to stop watching and walk away from a Pixar movie during a first-time theatrical screening. I would have, but it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside. :-( 2.5 LAVA-PROOF SPACE BUG BESTIES (out of five).
Had to get in another Jim Kelly flick this month. In this case its a three way team up of Kelly, Fred Williamson, and Jim Brown!
The three estranged friends come together to share life lessons spending the entire run time in a coffee shop talking, hugging, and learni.....HA!...i kid! I kid!....they actually come together to fight a modern day Nazi inspired cult with plans of ethnic genocide. Kung fu! Guns! Cars that randomly explode throughout! A Chicago river boat tour!
Rare egg collector Donald Pleasance hires top climber Powers Boothe to steal some Bald Eagle eggs. Man of the forest and protector of animals Rutger Hauer must stop him, while Kathleen Turner romances both of them. Last Junesploitation watching The Hitcher I realized Rutger Hauer is, as Patrick would say, one of my guys. I've been trying to catch up on his filmography since. If you like the cast this one is worth watching, although not a lot happens. It's more about the characters sizing each other up until an unsatisfying climax. Weird movie.
The things this has going for it are the John Carl Buechler makeup effects and Richard Lynch and Hilary Shepard as the villains. Shepard in particular is doing... something. It gives off Saturday morning cartoon villain vibes. Unfortunately in keeping with the series, our hero is the least interesting thing in this.
There should be a super cut of all the "Scanner" faces in this because it would be hilarious.
In June 1994, George Romero came to Florida’s Valencia College to film a movie he’d wanted to make for some time—or at least part of it.
Working with students at the school, he shot a few minutes of Jacaranda Joe, a movie that was called The Footage in the 1970s. Pre-found footage mania, Romero wondered if a documentary could scare audiences. This would be at some point between The Crazies and Martin, so 1973-1978, during the time that Romero was working on O.J. Simpson: Juice On the Loose and three episodes of the TV series The Winners on Pittsburgh sports heroes Willie Stargell, Bruno Sammartino and Franco Harris.
Keep that sports hero part in your head for a bit.
In all three scripts that were written — major credit due to the University of Pittsburgh Horror Studies website for so many references — a show called Outdoorsman USA brings on major stars and athletes on authentic hunting and fishing trips that are captured raw and shared with the TV audience. There were two different versions — the “Franco Version” has the beneficiary of Franco’s Italian Army and the man who made the Immaculate Reception playing star quarterback Johnny Wilson, who is trying to leave the NFL behind while the other version has Johnny Shaw, “a star NFL quarterback who is just beginning a career as a country and western recording artist,” who has to be Terry Bradshaw — of who the hero would be, but the action is similar. Somehow, someone kidnaps a baby sasquatch, and the family starts to chase the humans, kind of like Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues, but many years before.
Jacaranda Joe was written by Romero knowing that he would be filming for just ten days with young filmmakers. Valencia had a great class, obviously, as Robert Wise did the same class the year before. In this version, there is a skunk ape in the woods that is found by the crew of Remington, a TV talk show very much like the Geraldo and Sally Jessy Raphael-type shows — Sally Jessy is even mentioned — of the day.
This played on April 10, 2022, thanks to the University of Pittsburgh. Because all things online are captured, it’s in the Internet Archive. There’s not much more than a few scenes, but as you can imagine, it’s exciting to see a new George Romero film. It was also the first movie that the director made entirely outside of Pittsburgh, but not the last.
Neighbors (1981): John Belushi as the straight man, Dan Aykroyd as the zanny neighbor, what the heck is this? I'm kidding of course, this is exactly why I like this movie. I think they could've gone bigger and weirder, but what we got is fun enough, the kind of comedies Aykroyd and the gang specialized back then.
My fourth 90s Parker Posey of the month. Four women forge an ephemeral connection while stuck in temp jobs in a big, faceless company. Toni Collette and Parker Posey are both on fire in very different roles, and the movie does a great job painting the office environment as an oppressive, almost dystopian hellscape that crushes your spirit and messes with your mind. As an exploration of malaise in a modern working place, I liked it more than 1999’s Office Space.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (1976, dir. Jonas Middleton)
A-d-u-l-t cinema meets 1970s surreal arthouse horror. Catherine is an heiress living a life of luxury with a husband and a daughter. She seems to have everything, but feelings about her late father (Jamie Gillis) keep coming to the surface to torment her. Whenever she goes up to her childhood bedroom and stares into the antique mirror there, Catherine sees a demonic vision of her father beckoning to her from the other side of the mirror. Through The Looking Glass is atmospheric psychological horror mixed with random sex scenes necessary to meet certain viewer expectations. Those, though, are kept at a minimum and integrated into the story as much as possible. The story does go into some dark emotional territory, and the nightmare sequences get more surreal as the film goes along.
Through the Looking Glass has a reputation of being among the most accomplished films made in the a-d-u-l-t realm, and it lived up to that. It is far more polished in style and execution than one would expect, which make everything look great in Vinegar Syndrome's lovely restoration. The locations, particularly the mansion and its grounds, are used very effectively. Another strength is that the actress who portrays Catherine convincingly conveys the growing confusion of the character.
Midnight in the Switchgrass (2021, dir. Randall Emmett)
A pair of FBI agents investigating sex trafficking and a Florida state cop running leads on a suspected serial killer cross paths and find out they're after the same man.
An aggressively generic thriller that I'm sure I'll forget by tomorrow. Bruce Willis is on the Blu-ray cover, but Megan Fox and Emile Hirsch are the leads while Willis sleepwalks through the four short scenes he's in. Which of course is understandable given what we now know about his condition and deeply depressing.
But on the plus side, at least now I can finally listen to the episode Patrick and Rob did on this movie four years ago, so it was all worth it. Yay!
Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955, dir. Charles Lamont)
Bud and Lou (they have character names but call themselves Bud and Lou all the same) hit up an archaeologist for a part-time job, but find themselves caught between an undead mummy, a criminal gang, the police, and a mummy-worshipping cult.
The first hour is a little tired, uninspired and padded with musical performances, but once we get into the mummy's tomb, the final act goes hard and packs a whole movie's worth of antics into 20 minutes.
Bonus short: Boo (1932, dir. Albert DeMond)
A wisecracking narrator jokes over scenes from Nosferatu (1922), The Cat Creeps (1930) and Frankenstein (1931) cut together to form a single nightmare.
The cross-cutting between movies is occasionally clever and I'm guessing novel at the time. The narrator is more a cultural artifact to be studied on what comedy was like almost a century ago (with jokes like "The monster doesn't know which way to go, he's like a woman automobile driver") rather than funny.
964 Pinocchio (1991, dir. Shozin Fukui)
A defective cyborg sex slave, Pinocchio 964, is discarded by his owner and wanders the streets aimlessly until a young vagrant woman takes him under her wing. And then... weird things happen that I can't even begin to try to put into words.
A barrage of unsettling imagery rather than a movie, this was shot on the streets of Tokyo, in train stations and supermarkets, and in what look like abandoned industrial buildings, I'm assuming gonzo-style, without any kind of permits of permission. The camerawork, the editing, the sound design, it's all very frenetic and keeps you off balance, the nightmare logic of the story (such as it is) is unhinged, and the acting is deranged across the board (there's a scene very reminiscent of Isabelle Adjani's famous breakdown in Possession, and the female lead does not hold back). I have no words to describe what a strange, unsettling, compelling experience this fever dream of a movie was.
Bonus short: Hardware Wars (1978, dir. Ernie Fosselius)
A charming little Star Wars parody that manages to distill the original movie's story into 13 minutes. The comedy isn't exactly sophisticated or groundbreaking (the characters are called Fluke Starbucker and Ham Salad, and the spaceship miniatures are replaces with household appliances), but there's just enough fun stuff here to keep you engaged for a quarter of an hour. Chewchilla the Wookiee Monster was my favorite part.
EAST END HUSTLE (1976, 4K UHD) BODY PARTS (1991, KINO 4K UHD)
Got "East End Hustle" on 4K cheap, my first Canadian International Pictures title. Set in Montreal, we follow former pr0st!tute Cindy (Andrée Pelletier) as she rescues a kind-hearted seamstress (Anne-Marie Provencher's Marianne) from following on her footsteps as a high-priced working girl for the mob. This lights a fire under Cindy to rescue other girls working for her former pimp Dan (Miguel Fernandes, a dead ringer for uber young Michael Ironside), which doesn't sit well with the latter when his business starts hurting. Equal parts feminist manifesto (men are seen both abusing women but also protecting/helping them) and exploitation fare (girls go skinny dipping, Cindy and her boyfriend make passionate love, etc.), "EEH" wins you over with decent actors making their characters likable enough you want to see them escape the life. Screenwriter Len Blum ("Meatballs," "Stripes," early aughts "Pink Panther" reboot, etc.) delivers a surprisingly catchy and fun music score, so good that it's on the menu screen of the 4K disc. It's not perfect (the children Marianne was taking care of at the start are never seen again) but when "EEH" concluded I was heartbroken that I wouldn't know what happened to some of these men/women. It's a shining example of 'the off-screen movie' living past its own downbeat ending. 4 NEW YORK MACE STICKS (out of five).
A 'B' horror picture that lucked into a big budget for its time ($10 million) when producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. went shopping for a new horror franchise after Paramount stopped making "Friday the 13th" movies, "Body Parts" (shot in Toronto) traumatized me when I rented it on VHS. For years I was convinced the scene where car accident victim Bill Chrushank (Jeff Fahey in a rare leading man role) witnesses the medical beheading of the criminal whose arm he's about to receive was the goriest thing ever. Turns out that operation scene is not only subdued, but for most of its running time "BP" is a psychological thriller about Bill's unease at feeling like his new arm's controlling him. Kim Delaney (as Bill's worried wife) and Brad Douriff (a painter who received the other arm and embraces the darkness that Bill rejects) are fine in supporting roles, but Lindsay Duncan stands out as the seemingly altruistic doctor that performed the operation. The final third of "BP" goes full crazy, with car stunts and violent/gory moments that make you wish we followed Duncan's Agatha Webb character instead of Jeff Fahey's. Sharp-eyed viewers will recognize Seth Brundle's building, hallway and warehouse apartment from David Cronenberg's "The Fly" remake. 'It's fine,' but you can feel the filmmakers pulling their punches/cutting away to avoid an 'NC-17' rating. 3.5 MOTEL ANSWERING MACHINES (out of five).
BONUS: THE SHALLOWS (2016, DVD)
Another 2010's shark movie, but one smart-enough to make its singular human protagonist interesting and worth investing in for 90 minutes. Yes, Blake Lively is attractive to look at and the Australian-as-Mexican surfing beach where 95% of the action takes place looks enticing. But since the shark that traps Nancy on a bed of rocks 200 yards from shore is CG and wholly unrealistic (the ending is almost ruined by how phony it looks) it's the random recollections about her life as medical school dropout and brief interactions with other folks (Óscar Jaenada's driver, Brett Cullen's disappointed dad, etc.) that give our sole human anchor much needed personality. Kudos to the filmmakers for avoiding the temptation of Nancy becoming a chatterbox with her seagull companion (which looks CG but are actual birds), speaking only when a rare chance to save herself (like the drunk guy on the beach who goes after Nancy's surfboard) actually happens. In an endless sea of crappy-to-worse shark flicks, "The Shallows" stands out. 3 TASTY RAW CRABS (YUCK!) (out of five).
No one I’ve seen on film this month is cooler than Joe Don Baker tooling around in his ‘71 Dodge Charger, repeatedly getting arrested by the cops he’s working for, trading blows with bad guys (and ending up worse for the wear), and seducing the ladies in his too-short bathrobe.
All this and a long-haired Tyne Daly on a Kawasaki dirt bike and an evil Robert Loggia.
Also, filmed in my home town of Tempe, AZ, so there’s that.
Heading out to see this tonight at Portland’s amazing Hollywood Theater! The film is accompanied by a live score! Check out the details here: https://hollywoodtheatre.org/show/turkish-rambo/
The coolest theater in town. They have monthly grindhouse features, kung-fu theatre, and my personal favorite, B-Movie Bingo! They also have a 70mm projector and show tons of niche flicks. Love this place so much. If any of my fellow Junesploitationers are ever in Portland, hit me up, I’ll be happy to accompany you to a show if I can!
I’ll try to report back on the flick tomorrow. Also have my Cannon! film in the bag, so will check in with that. The rest of the weekend is going to be a challenge, as I am moving into a new home! But I'll check in as best I can. Thanks everybody for all the killer picks!
Goofy coming of age comedy that manages to be sweet and genuinely funny at times. Captures the high school experience a lot more accurately than a lot of more “serious” movies. Chloe Fineman, Paula Pell, Nicole Byer and Alex Moffat are all good and I hope the younger stars (Sam Morelos and Matt Cornett) get some more roles. They’re very good.
Training Day (2001): I've never been a fan of the movie, but I found the 4k cheap recently, so I thought I should give it another try. It's still not my favorite, but nowadays I'm more at peace with scenery-chewing performances (which Denzel got an Oscar for it). It played a little better this time, especially at the halfway point when the movie gets into gear and the corruption comes into light. Before that, it was mostly a collection of scenes showing us Denzel's character driving around, being mostly a douche, but not quite corrupt. Ethan Hawke is still one of the best, and I miss Eva Mendes in movies.
A high school grad buys a George Bariss tricked-out super-van with surround shag carpet and a waterbed. He just wants to laid. But ends up just getting hassled by the local tough guy in the flame-painted van until there’s a bid drag race at the end. Lots of nudity. Danny Devito in a small comic relief role. Kinda boring.
The Olga films is a “roughie” series following the cruel exploits of the title character, a criminal mastermind with an insatiable appetite to punish those who go against her. Olga’s specialties are p-r-o-s-t-i-t-u-t-i-o-n and dope peddling, but House of Shame sees her branching off into gemstone smuggling. Of course, she finds the women – it is mostly women who work for her – in her employ not doing what is expected of them. Made at a time when sexploitation could not show sex, the violence becomes the stand-in. The violence of House of Shame takes on a strong fetishistic angle. Even at 70 minutes, the run-time is padded too much by random belly dancing scenes and characters walking around. The film relies heavily on a hilariously over-the-top narration to connect the various scenes. There is a camp factor to an Olga film now.
I think we deserve the story about how Mulva 2 became so prominent in the Junesploitation calendar this year.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI think it's just Doug being Dracu-Doug. :-P
DeleteIm not sure but it could have to do with one of these Mulva 2 trivia tidbits:
Delete* First movie in history to be nominated in every category for the 2005 Academy Awards and won none of them
* Came out 2 years before Kill Bill...QT was so impressed that he 'borrowed' some of the concepts/scenes within
* Was entirely created by a very early version of A.I. running on an Apple Macintosh!
SATAN IN HIGH HEELS (1962)
ReplyDeleteStacy Kane, an ambitious woman working in a tawdry burlesque show at a carnival, schemes her way to New York City and gets a chance to sing in an exclusive night club. The one problem she has with her change of luck is that she chafes at the game she has to play, including becoming the mistress of the club owner. Manipulation follows manipulation to get out on top of the situation.
Satan in High Heels resides between sexploitation, film noir, and B-movie melodrama. I am a big fan of these kind of 1960s films and can forgive the flaws. These are not fast-paced films. There is a lot that I like about Satan in High Heels, though. One aspect is the night club environment, which is wonderfully evoked. There is an elegance to the club and the experience of being there. You even get a chance to see a little of the floor show. The performances are quite charming, too. Stacy is a compelling character, but my favorite performance is the queer-coded club manager. Grayson Hall, best known from the TV show Dark Shadows, plays her as witty, catty, and always aware of what is going on around her.
I appreciate your love for these seedy sexploitation flicks! Off to a great start for Free Space! day!
DeleteBlogger is giving me crap, so breaking these reviews down individually to see if I can sneak them through.
ReplyDeleteHARD WOMEN, aka PERRAK (35mm, 1970, BROOKLYN'S NITEHAWK CINEMA)
Shame that "Hard Women" screened one day too late for me to include in Eurosploitation Day! The never-released-on-home-video English dubbed version of this German police drama set in Hamburg's seedy tr@nsgender underworld (think Friedkin's "Cruising" 10 years prior and w/o the gay panic subtext) turned out to be 'just fine.' Horst Tappert (TV's Inspector Derrick) makes an appealing vice squad detective trying to find who killed a tr@nsvest!te pr0st!tute, which (surprise!) uncovers a deeper conspiracy. The 35mm print looked faded but that just adds to the exploitation charm. 'It's fine.' 3 STOLEN EARRINGS (out of five).
Sounds fine to me! I'll have to check it out!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI've seen the trailer/heard the radio spot enough times that seeing the title instantly conjures up the "Hard Women" as spoken by Independent International's regular trailer voice-over guy.
Deletezillagord, unless you track down a 35mm print you can't see "Hard Women" in English. Only "Perrak" in German (and a different cut than the version shown in the States) is somewhat available if you dig deep enough. 🧐🫤
DeleteJM-- thanks for the insight!
DeleteAOP-- I just listened to that radio spot and the last line, "Hard women... they're really something else!" conjures up a whole new meaning now!
DeleteF1: THE MOVIE (2025, IMAX)
ReplyDeleteIn Joseph Kominski we trust... to reign-in the worst tendencies in Ehren Kruger's screenplay for "F1: The Movie," a $200 million self-aggrandizing advertisement for the motorized sport masquerading as a would-be summer blockbuster. It's also a reminder that old-fashioned star vehicles and predictable/formulaic filmmaking keep getting made for a reason: when made well they work like a charm and travel well abroad. I'm no fan of F1 and could anticipate everything the fictitious APX racing team went through during their hellish rebuilding half-year/season. As he did with "Top Gun: Maverick," though, Kominski (who co-wrote the film with Kruger) relies on the appeal of an ageless superstar (Brad Pitt) to sell the in-between-action filler melodrama. Special effects are excellent (too many 180-degree whip pans to/from the driver's cockpit), Hans Zimmer delivers another great score and a decent cast (Javier Bardem and Kerry Condon stand out among the painfully generic stereotypes) make this a great way to kill 3 hours in an air-conditioned IMAX screen. It's no "Maverick," but it sure ain't "Driven." :-P 3.25 UNSEEN PLAYING CARDS IN SONNY HAYES' POCKET (out of five).
HI-FIVE (SOUTH KOREA, '25, THEATER)
ReplyDeleteMade in 2021 but not released theatrically until now due to one of its young stars testing positive for illegal substance use in early '23 (apparently still a big-enough deal in South Korea to derail a promising career), "High Five" is a reminder that non-IP superhero movies can still be a fun ride when done right. Six strangers receive transplant organs from a superpowered individual who (per the opening credits) lived through thousands of years, with each gaining an ability related to the organ they received. A little Taekwondo-loving girl (Jae-in Lee) with a new heart becomes super strong, a suicidal middle-aged yogurt saleswoman (Mi-ran Ra) becomes a conduit to others' powers and gets a youthful makeover from her new kidney, etc. But the recipient of the pancreas that grants youth by sucking energy from other life forms (including plants) turns out to be a selfish cult leader who wants all six organs to make himself an omnipotent god. I didn't like all the characters in "HF," but it was sure fun watching them trying to control their new powers and learning to get along before bad guy Shin Goo comes looking for them. The action-packed finale in the basement of a religious temple could teach Marvel's "Thunderbolts*" a thing or two about how to end an action pic with a bang. Love that in Korea a kid's movie can get away with characters saying "motherf#&!er" if it's clearly meant as a joke! :-D 3.75 OUT-OF-NOWHERE RICK ASTLEY CAMEOS (out of five).
Disney/Pixar's ELIO 3D ('25, THEATER)
ReplyDeleteDespite having some of the best 3D effects of any recent animated CG movie Pixar's "Elio" is a major disappointment. All movies (especially from the Disney brand) try to manipulate emotions to get us to like/feel for a character's loss/wishes, but here it rings hollow. Ellio's obsession with being abducted by aliens to escape a miserable life with his aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) make him an unlikable protagonist. It doesn't help that the human designs are uglier and more off-putting than the average Pixar human. This project went through years of retooling and major changes to its story (Brad Garrett's Lord Grigon baddie was initially a completely different character) and it shows in the final product. The concept of the Communiverse and some alien designs (that deck of cards!) are cool, but the callbacks to better sci-fi flicks ("Last Starfighter," "Contact," etc.) constantly undermine its own.
I can't remember a time before when I wanted to stop watching and walk away from a Pixar movie during a first-time theatrical screening. I would have, but it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside. :-( 2.5 LAVA-PROOF SPACE BUG BESTIES (out of five).
Three the Hard Way (1974)
ReplyDeleteHad to get in another Jim Kelly flick this month. In this case its a three way team up of Kelly, Fred Williamson, and Jim Brown!
The three estranged friends come together to share life lessons spending the entire run time in a coffee shop talking, hugging, and learni.....HA!...i kid! I kid!....they actually come together to fight a modern day Nazi inspired cult with plans of ethnic genocide. Kung fu! Guns! Cars that randomly explode throughout! A Chicago river boat tour!
A Breed Apart (1984, dir. Philippe Mora)
ReplyDeleteRare egg collector Donald Pleasance hires top climber Powers Boothe to steal some Bald Eagle eggs. Man of the forest and protector of animals Rutger Hauer must stop him, while Kathleen Turner romances both of them. Last Junesploitation watching The Hitcher I realized Rutger Hauer is, as Patrick would say, one of my guys. I've been trying to catch up on his filmography since. If you like the cast this one is worth watching, although not a lot happens. It's more about the characters sizing each other up until an unsatisfying climax. Weird movie.
Mentioned on the Vice Squad podcast, can confirm Death Line (1972, dir. Gary Sherman) is the best thing ever.
ReplyDeleteDonald Pleasance's performance is next level awesomeness.
All of the darts not in the dartboard.
DeletePleasence and Christopher Lee, together in that one scene at the police station... legends! 😎🤓
DeleteScanner Cop (1994)
ReplyDeleteDir. Pierre David
The things this has going for it are the John Carl Buechler makeup effects and Richard Lynch and Hilary Shepard as the villains. Shepard in particular is doing... something. It gives off Saturday morning cartoon villain vibes. Unfortunately in keeping with the series, our hero is the least interesting thing in this.
There should be a super cut of all the "Scanner" faces in this because it would be hilarious.
Jacaranda Joe (1994)
ReplyDeleteIn June 1994, George Romero came to Florida’s Valencia College to film a movie he’d wanted to make for some time—or at least part of it.
Working with students at the school, he shot a few minutes of Jacaranda Joe, a movie that was called The Footage in the 1970s. Pre-found footage mania, Romero wondered if a documentary could scare audiences. This would be at some point between The Crazies and Martin, so 1973-1978, during the time that Romero was working on O.J. Simpson: Juice On the Loose and three episodes of the TV series The Winners on Pittsburgh sports heroes Willie Stargell, Bruno Sammartino and Franco Harris.
Keep that sports hero part in your head for a bit.
In all three scripts that were written — major credit due to the University of Pittsburgh Horror Studies website for so many references — a show called Outdoorsman USA brings on major stars and athletes on authentic hunting and fishing trips that are captured raw and shared with the TV audience. There were two different versions — the “Franco Version” has the beneficiary of Franco’s Italian Army and the man who made the Immaculate Reception playing star quarterback Johnny Wilson, who is trying to leave the NFL behind while the other version has Johnny Shaw, “a star NFL quarterback who is just beginning a career as a country and western recording artist,” who has to be Terry Bradshaw — of who the hero would be, but the action is similar. Somehow, someone kidnaps a baby sasquatch, and the family starts to chase the humans, kind of like Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues, but many years before.
Jacaranda Joe was written by Romero knowing that he would be filming for just ten days with young filmmakers. Valencia had a great class, obviously, as Robert Wise did the same class the year before. In this version, there is a skunk ape in the woods that is found by the crew of Remington, a TV talk show very much like the Geraldo and Sally Jessy Raphael-type shows — Sally Jessy is even mentioned — of the day.
This played on April 10, 2022, thanks to the University of Pittsburgh. Because all things online are captured, it’s in the Internet Archive. There’s not much more than a few scenes, but as you can imagine, it’s exciting to see a new George Romero film. It was also the first movie that the director made entirely outside of Pittsburgh, but not the last.
Neighbors (1981): John Belushi as the straight man, Dan Aykroyd as the zanny neighbor, what the heck is this? I'm kidding of course, this is exactly why I like this movie. I think they could've gone bigger and weirder, but what we got is fun enough, the kind of comedies Aykroyd and the gang specialized back then.
ReplyDeleteBlond Akroyd is somethin' special.
DeleteForgot to add that JB wrote a nice piece on the movie. Go read it
DeleteWhy, thank you.
Delete"Did the towel drop, Earl? Or did you psychically will it to fall?"
Clockwatchers (1997)
ReplyDeleteMy fourth 90s Parker Posey of the month.
Four women forge an ephemeral connection while stuck in temp jobs in a big, faceless company. Toni Collette and Parker Posey are both on fire in very different roles, and the movie does a great job painting the office environment as an oppressive, almost dystopian hellscape that crushes your spirit and messes with your mind. As an exploration of malaise in a modern working place, I liked it more than 1999’s Office Space.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (1976, dir. Jonas Middleton)
ReplyDeleteA-d-u-l-t cinema meets 1970s surreal arthouse horror. Catherine is an heiress living a life of luxury with a husband and a daughter. She seems to have everything, but feelings about her late father (Jamie Gillis) keep coming to the surface to torment her. Whenever she goes up to her childhood bedroom and stares into the antique mirror there, Catherine sees a demonic vision of her father beckoning to her from the other side of the mirror. Through The Looking Glass is atmospheric psychological horror mixed with random sex scenes necessary to meet certain viewer expectations. Those, though, are kept at a minimum and integrated into the story as much as possible. The story does go into some dark emotional territory, and the nightmare sequences get more surreal as the film goes along.
Through the Looking Glass has a reputation of being among the most accomplished films made in the a-d-u-l-t realm, and it lived up to that. It is far more polished in style and execution than one would expect, which make everything look great in Vinegar Syndrome's lovely restoration. The locations, particularly the mansion and its grounds, are used very effectively. Another strength is that the actress who portrays Catherine convincingly conveys the growing confusion of the character.
Midnight in the Switchgrass (2021, dir. Randall Emmett)
ReplyDeleteA pair of FBI agents investigating sex trafficking and a Florida state cop running leads on a suspected serial killer cross paths and find out they're after the same man.
An aggressively generic thriller that I'm sure I'll forget by tomorrow. Bruce Willis is on the Blu-ray cover, but Megan Fox and Emile Hirsch are the leads while Willis sleepwalks through the four short scenes he's in. Which of course is understandable given what we now know about his condition and deeply depressing.
But on the plus side, at least now I can finally listen to the episode Patrick and Rob did on this movie four years ago, so it was all worth it. Yay!
Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955, dir. Charles Lamont)
Bud and Lou (they have character names but call themselves Bud and Lou all the same) hit up an archaeologist for a part-time job, but find themselves caught between an undead mummy, a criminal gang, the police, and a mummy-worshipping cult.
The first hour is a little tired, uninspired and padded with musical performances, but once we get into the mummy's tomb, the final act goes hard and packs a whole movie's worth of antics into 20 minutes.
Bonus short: Boo (1932, dir. Albert DeMond)
A wisecracking narrator jokes over scenes from Nosferatu (1922), The Cat Creeps (1930) and Frankenstein (1931) cut together to form a single nightmare.
The cross-cutting between movies is occasionally clever and I'm guessing novel at the time. The narrator is more a cultural artifact to be studied on what comedy was like almost a century ago (with jokes like "The monster doesn't know which way to go, he's like a woman automobile driver") rather than funny.
964 Pinocchio (1991, dir. Shozin Fukui)
A defective cyborg sex slave, Pinocchio 964, is discarded by his owner and wanders the streets aimlessly until a young vagrant woman takes him under her wing. And then... weird things happen that I can't even begin to try to put into words.
A barrage of unsettling imagery rather than a movie, this was shot on the streets of Tokyo, in train stations and supermarkets, and in what look like abandoned industrial buildings, I'm assuming gonzo-style, without any kind of permits of permission. The camerawork, the editing, the sound design, it's all very frenetic and keeps you off balance, the nightmare logic of the story (such as it is) is unhinged, and the acting is deranged across the board (there's a scene very reminiscent of Isabelle Adjani's famous breakdown in Possession, and the female lead does not hold back). I have no words to describe what a strange, unsettling, compelling experience this fever dream of a movie was.
Bonus short: Hardware Wars (1978, dir. Ernie Fosselius)
A charming little Star Wars parody that manages to distill the original movie's story into 13 minutes. The comedy isn't exactly sophisticated or groundbreaking (the characters are called Fluke Starbucker and Ham Salad, and the spaceship miniatures are replaces with household appliances), but there's just enough fun stuff here to keep you engaged for a quarter of an hour. Chewchilla the Wookiee Monster was my favorite part.
CANUXPLOITATION DOUBLE FEATURE!
ReplyDeleteEAST END HUSTLE (1976, 4K UHD)
BODY PARTS (1991, KINO 4K UHD)
Got "East End Hustle" on 4K cheap, my first Canadian International Pictures title. Set in Montreal, we follow former pr0st!tute Cindy (Andrée Pelletier) as she rescues a kind-hearted seamstress (Anne-Marie Provencher's Marianne) from following on her footsteps as a high-priced working girl for the mob. This lights a fire under Cindy to rescue other girls working for her former pimp Dan (Miguel Fernandes, a dead ringer for uber young Michael Ironside), which doesn't sit well with the latter when his business starts hurting. Equal parts feminist manifesto (men are seen both abusing women but also protecting/helping them) and exploitation fare (girls go skinny dipping, Cindy and her boyfriend make passionate love, etc.), "EEH" wins you over with decent actors making their characters likable enough you want to see them escape the life. Screenwriter Len Blum ("Meatballs," "Stripes," early aughts "Pink Panther" reboot, etc.) delivers a surprisingly catchy and fun music score, so good that it's on the menu screen of the 4K disc. It's not perfect (the children Marianne was taking care of at the start are never seen again) but when "EEH" concluded I was heartbroken that I wouldn't know what happened to some of these men/women. It's a shining example of 'the off-screen movie' living past its own downbeat ending. 4 NEW YORK MACE STICKS (out of five).
A 'B' horror picture that lucked into a big budget for its time ($10 million) when producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. went shopping for a new horror franchise after Paramount stopped making "Friday the 13th" movies, "Body Parts" (shot in Toronto) traumatized me when I rented it on VHS. For years I was convinced the scene where car accident victim Bill Chrushank (Jeff Fahey in a rare leading man role) witnesses the medical beheading of the criminal whose arm he's about to receive was the goriest thing ever. Turns out that operation scene is not only subdued, but for most of its running time "BP" is a psychological thriller about Bill's unease at feeling like his new arm's controlling him. Kim Delaney (as Bill's worried wife) and Brad Douriff (a painter who received the other arm and embraces the darkness that Bill rejects) are fine in supporting roles, but Lindsay Duncan stands out as the seemingly altruistic doctor that performed the operation. The final third of "BP" goes full crazy, with car stunts and violent/gory moments that make you wish we followed Duncan's Agatha Webb character instead of Jeff Fahey's. Sharp-eyed viewers will recognize Seth Brundle's building, hallway and warehouse apartment from David Cronenberg's "The Fly" remake. 'It's fine,' but you can feel the filmmakers pulling their punches/cutting away to avoid an 'NC-17' rating. 3.5 MOTEL ANSWERING MACHINES (out of five).
BONUS: THE SHALLOWS (2016, DVD)
Another 2010's shark movie, but one smart-enough to make its singular human protagonist interesting and worth investing in for 90 minutes. Yes, Blake Lively is attractive to look at and the Australian-as-Mexican surfing beach where 95% of the action takes place looks enticing. But since the shark that traps Nancy on a bed of rocks 200 yards from shore is CG and wholly unrealistic (the ending is almost ruined by how phony it looks) it's the random recollections about her life as medical school dropout and brief interactions with other folks (Óscar Jaenada's driver, Brett Cullen's disappointed dad, etc.) that give our sole human anchor much needed personality. Kudos to the filmmakers for avoiding the temptation of Nancy becoming a chatterbox with her seagull companion (which looks CG but are actual birds), speaking only when a rare chance to save herself (like the drunk guy on the beach who goes after Nancy's surfboard) actually happens. In an endless sea of crappy-to-worse shark flicks, "The Shallows" stands out. 3 TASTY RAW CRABS (YUCK!) (out of five).
SPEEDTRAP (1977) dir. Earl Bellamy
ReplyDeleteNo one I’ve seen on film this month is cooler than Joe Don Baker tooling around in his ‘71 Dodge Charger, repeatedly getting arrested by the cops he’s working for, trading blows with bad guys (and ending up worse for the wear), and seducing the ladies in his too-short bathrobe.
All this and a long-haired Tyne Daly on a Kawasaki dirt bike and an evil Robert Loggia.
Also, filmed in my home town of Tempe, AZ, so there’s that.
KORKUSUZ aka RAMPAGE aka TURKISH RAMBO (1986, Cetin Inanc)
ReplyDeleteHeading out to see this tonight at Portland’s amazing Hollywood Theater! The film is accompanied by a live score! Check out the details here: https://hollywoodtheatre.org/show/turkish-rambo/
The coolest theater in town. They have monthly grindhouse features, kung-fu theatre, and my personal favorite, B-Movie Bingo! They also have a 70mm projector and show tons of niche flicks. Love this place so much. If any of my fellow Junesploitationers are ever in Portland, hit me up, I’ll be happy to accompany you to a show if I can!
I’ll try to report back on the flick tomorrow. Also have my Cannon! film in the bag, so will check in with that. The rest of the weekend is going to be a challenge, as I am moving into a new home! But I'll check in as best I can. Thanks everybody for all the killer picks!
I love historic theaters and will note this on the chance I ever come to Portland!
DeleteSummer of ‘69 (2025)
ReplyDeleteGoofy coming of age comedy that manages to be sweet and genuinely funny at times. Captures the high school experience a lot more accurately than a lot of more “serious” movies. Chloe Fineman, Paula Pell, Nicole Byer and Alex Moffat are all good and I hope the younger stars (Sam Morelos and Matt Cornett) get some more roles. They’re very good.
Training Day (2001): I've never been a fan of the movie, but I found the 4k cheap recently, so I thought I should give it another try. It's still not my favorite, but nowadays I'm more at peace with scenery-chewing performances (which Denzel got an Oscar for it). It played a little better this time, especially at the halfway point when the movie gets into gear and the corruption comes into light. Before that, it was mostly a collection of scenes showing us Denzel's character driving around, being mostly a douche, but not quite corrupt. Ethan Hawke is still one of the best, and I miss Eva Mendes in movies.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteVansploitstion!
ReplyDeleteTHE VAN - 1977 dir. Sam Grossman
A high school grad buys a George Bariss tricked-out super-van with surround shag carpet and a waterbed. He just wants to laid. But ends up just getting hassled by the local tough guy in the flame-painted van until there’s a bid drag race at the end. Lots of nudity. Danny Devito in a small comic relief role. Kinda boring.
OLGA’S HOUSE OF SHAME (1964, dir. Joseph Mawra)
ReplyDeleteThe Olga films is a “roughie” series following the cruel exploits of the title character, a criminal mastermind with an insatiable appetite to punish those who go against her. Olga’s specialties are p-r-o-s-t-i-t-u-t-i-o-n and dope peddling, but House of Shame sees her branching off into gemstone smuggling. Of course, she finds the women – it is mostly women who work for her – in her employ not doing what is expected of them. Made at a time when sexploitation could not show sex, the violence becomes the stand-in. The violence of House of Shame takes on a strong fetishistic angle. Even at 70 minutes, the run-time is padded too much by random belly dancing scenes and characters walking around. The film relies heavily on a hilariously over-the-top narration to connect the various scenes. There is a camp factor to an Olga film now.