SWORD OF THE VALIANT (1984, TUBI) Disney's ENCHANTED (2007, BLU-RAY) BRING HER BACK (2025, THEATER).
A sword & sorcery romantic adventure inspired by the classic myth (which director Stephen Weeks had already adapted to film in 1973's "Gawain and the Green Knight"), "Sword of the Valiant" puts the London branch of Cannon Films to work in making the most boring and predictable British magical fairytale imaginable. Sean Connery (making a cool million for a week's worth of work during his "Never Say Never Again" hiatus) livens things up by hamming it up as the show-off G.K. that challenges the knights of The King (Trevor Howard, never referred to as Arthur) to play his beheading-tease shenanigans. Only lowly swordsmith Gawain (Miles O'Keeffe) accepts the challenge, and for his youth and inexperience as a newly sworn-in knight G.K. grants Gawain a year to solve a four-sentence riddle so he may avoid certain death. If the '80's hadn't been overrun with superior action/fantasy epics ("Ladyhawk," "Legend," "Krull," two "Conan The Barbarians," "Excalibur," etc.) the few highlights of "SOTV" could have stood a chance to impress. Peter Cushing, John Rhys-Davies, Ronald Lacey (whose Oswald makes a perfect hiss-worthy villain) and a small army of extras try to entertain during the long narrative stretches Connery isn't on screen, which only highlights how entertainingly hammy Sean was three years before Oscar smiled upon him. 2.5 GREEN BOTTLES OF HEDGEHOG SPIT (out of five).
When's the last time you remember Amy Adams smiling in a recent feature? l know she does a couple of times in "Batman vs. Superman," but every movie I remember her in has Amy playing dour/sad/serious/joyless characters. Turns out the biggest magic "Enchanted" delivers is a happily/sincerely smiling Amy selling the one-dimensional joy of would-be Princess Giselle wanting nothing but be rescued by her Prince Edward (James Marsden, making sincere chivalry look easy to project... it's not). The two are sent from the hand-drawn animated kingdom of Andalasia into the live-action hustle of NYC via a 44th Street Times Square manhole by jealous Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon). Alongside the Queen's saboteur-perceived-to-be-an-ally stooge Nathaniel (Timothy Spall, whose animated counterpart looks the closest to the real actor) and an English-deprived chipmunk (voiced by director Kevin Lima), a single-father lawyer (Patrick 'McDreamy' Dempsey) has to deal with the good/bad fallout of Giselle's sincerity making him see his cynical world in a different light. Cue the Alan Menken tunes!
What "Enchanted" lacks in surprises or plot twists (there are none, everything you expect to happen in a Disney fairytale eventually does... almost) it compensates for with the now-lost art of maximizing the presence of your host city as an integral character. As a proud New Yorker since 1996 (30 years next Spring! :') ) I've never seen my hometown look so colorful, welcoming and postcard-pretty in a big-budget feature ($85 million, all on-screen). The final fight with a CG shape-shifted Narissa drags this one down a peg. Delightful from start to finish. 4.5 CLEANING COCKROACHES... EWW! (out of five).
The Philippou brothers' "Bring Her Back" avoids the sophomore jinx by delivering a disturbing and grotesque follow-up to the twins' 2022 ('23' in the States) modern horror standout "Talk To Me." The least you know going into "BHB" the better it lands. This one cuts a wide swath of J! categories (old-school zombie, demons, ghosts, etc.) and doesn't shy from going to very dark places or diving into nightmare fuel imagery. The younger cast deliver standout work (particularly Jonah Wren Phillips's exhausting-to-watch Oliver) but Sally Hawkins steals the movie. A lifetime of great supporting work on other people's better movies ("The Shape of Water," "Blue Jasmine," etc.) makes Sally's Laura character equally repulsive and (eventually) sympathetic. Not for the squeamish but a positive step forward for Australian-native cinema. 3.25 BROKEN GLASS SHOWERS (out of five).
Finally got around to watching this. For 19 years the fact that I confused this film and The Illusionist (and didn’t want to watch “the bad one”) kept me from watching either. This one is a very enjoyable dark romp, full of Nolan’s labyrinthian plotting, Christian Bale’s intensity, and Ricky Jay’s love of the history of magic. Compelling and tricky, but probably 20 minutes too long. Bonus celebrity cameo by David Bowie playing Nicola Tesla. I’d say that this film was Michael Caine’s audition tape for Alfred in Nolan’s Batman films, but Batman Begins was released the year before. “Some men just want to watch the world… disappear.”
Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989, dir. Enzo G. Castellari & Luigi Cozzi)
To take over the city of Basra and marry the caliph's daughter, the evil wizard Jafar hypnotizes the kindly caliph and banishes the five sacred magical stones that grant Basra's people prosperity and happiness to faraway lands, so Sinbad the sailor and his colorful group of sidekicks have to face untold perils to retieve them.
The story is narrated by a mother reading a bedtime story to her daughter, and the plot flies from scene to scene at a ridiculous pace, big plot points handwaved away with a sentence or two. After the movie, I headed to Wikipedia, which confirmed what I already expected: Enzo G. Castellari delivered an unreleasable three hour mess of a movie to the producers, and three years later they hired Luigi Cozzi to fix it, who presumably added the narrator to tighten the movie up.
So the pacing of the movie feels incompetent, the tone is all over the place, Lou Ferrigno in the lead has the charisma and acting talent of a piece of moist driftwood, a particularly annoying comic sidekick enters the movie at the halfway point, and being an Italian production from the 80's, it's haphazardly dubbed. But on the other hand there's magic, fistfights, swordfights, kung fu, sci-fi contraptions, demon warriors, rock monsters, ghost knights, a leather-clad dominatrix, a slime monster that shoots lasers from its hands for no discernible reason, and deliciously hammy acting from the villain, so I had fun.
The Mad Magician (1954, dir. John Brahm)
A brilliant designer of stage magic tricks and master of disguise wants to pivot to performing the tricks himself, but when his employer embarrasses him and sells his inventions to another magician, he makes a devious (if convoluted) plan for revenge, involving contraptions, disguises and subterfuge.
The story isn't much to write home about, too light to be suspenseful and too self-serious for a comedy, but Vincent Price carries the movie and gets to stretch himself a bit with his disguises. Plus it's 72 minutes long, which is a definite plus.
Lamberto Bava worked on a lot of TV, and instead of just horror, he had plenty of success with this series of films. Based on Italo Calvino’s short story “Fanta-Ghiro the Beautiful,” Bava also borrowed from movies like Legend, Ladyhawke, Willow, Disney cartoons and the fantasy films of his childhood.
It was lucky for all concerned that because the movie was so expensive, it ended up becoming a mini-series—it also aired as a 200-minute compilation, La meravigliosa storia di Fantaghirò and as forty episodes for its twentieth anniversary—and was a big success to the level that it had a cartoon that Bava co-wrote and even a theme restaurant.
Fantaghirò (Alessandra Martines) is one of three princesses born to the King (Mario Adorf). While Catherine (Ornella Marcucci) and Caroline (Kateřina Brožová) act like proper royalty, our heroine is rebellious, well-read and yearns for battle. She’s been training with a White Knight (Ángela Molina) somewhere in the forest and meets the enemy her father has been fighting for years, Romualdo (Kim Rossi Stuart), and he falls for her because of her eyes.
The problem is that he’s challenged her father to a duel, and he plans on sending his daughters, as the White Witch (also Molina) warned him that one of the girls can defeat Romualdo. Catherine and Caroline hate every moment, and Fantaghirò goes into battle alone. She defeats her enemy but can’t bring herself to kill him; her father allows him to keep his kingdom as long as he marries one of his daughters. You can figure out what happens next.
The second movie introduced the big bad for this series of films: Black Witch (Brigitte Nielsen). But that’s another story.
Supposedly, there’s a Disney+ remake coming. It was news to Bava, who told Super Guida TV, “I read it in the newspapers a few months ago, but nobody told me about it, and nobody asked me to cooperate. If they want to make a great Italian production, that’s fine, but if they want to re-propose the same characters, that was our lot because Calvino’s fairy tale is only four pages long.”
A down-on-her-luck teenager discovers she has magical powers on her 16th birthday, and proceeds to use them in the dorkiest possible ways to become, what else, the most popular girl in school, and win the heart of, who else, the hunky, sensitive jock. The story, what there is of it, moves at a gentle, one could say sleepy pace, with virtually no drama, no stakes, and no conflict, while the runtime is padded with corny musical numbers including some truly outrageous white boy rapping. Robin Lively (starring here the same year she was in Karate Kid III) is a likeable lead, but the movie she finds herself in is lukewarm at best, and surprisingly light on the actual magical shenanigans.
Red Sonja (1985): Not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I like Conan (I know Arnold is not actually Conan in this), so anything even remotely related to that world is fine with me. I actually got the UK 4k disc that contains a documentary on Renato Casaro, a great movie poster artist, which I have not watched yet, but will do it soon.
Just to add that the director is Richard Fleischer, a usually good director, but we all know the stories about Dino De Laurentis, so I blame him for the bad movie
SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER (1977) I love Harryhausen as much as the next person, but I’ve never done the deep dive into the Sinbad series. The stop-motion animation is a delight, the swordfights are appropriately swashbuckle-y, and young Jane Seymour is quite the hottie. On the negative side, who the heck can follow this plot? Something about a witch, a telepathic Greek philosopher, and a prince transformed into a baboon for some reason. I dislike having to pause a movie and pull up the Wikipedia plot summary to know what’s going on. Weird to think this was the same year as Star Wars, where this feels so old-school and SW feels so modern (in a ‘70s way).
30 days of Georges Melies, day 5: THE MERRY FROLICS OF SATAN (1906) Looking over the list, I have to wonder why so many of these Melies movies are about Satan/devil stuff. Folks online say just to think of it as a fairy tale, but I don't know. Anyway, the usual scientist/astronomer/wizard types explore an observatory filled with wonders while being pestered by the devil, and then everybody goes on a wild journey. It cumulates in a flight through the stars on a ghostly carriage, which is a real sight to behold.
Couldnt really lock down a good Magic flick for the day so i thought it'd be fun to watch a Riff movie that meets the days theme. A relatively by-the-numbers fantasy flick about a sorceress' son going on a quest to save a captured princess. Feels like a solid movie to show kids who dig the genre. It involves 6 knights joining in the journey and i could not not think of Holy Grail the entire time.
This was an option I considered today. It intrigues me because at that time there were not a lot of fantasy films being produced. Disney seemed to be the main purveyor of magic-based films by the early 1960s. The original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs film was a serious consideration today. So many of the early Disney animated films are based around magical elements.
Magic has such a broad definition that there are numerous genres to tackle to today: fantasy, horror, musicals and comedies. Of course, there are numerous films that take on the craft of stage magic.
Up till now I have only seen fragments of this. My first impression of Labyrinth from what I had watched before was that the story is messy, and that impression held up with the full watch. The set-up to enter the Labyrinth is very arbitrary. In the end, however, this film is about the aesthetic, and Labyrinth has a lot going on in that regard. The puppet work is wonderful. (It’s Jim Henson, after all.) The world of the Labyrinth is very engaging and whimsical. The high point is undoubtedly the charming David Bowie as Jareth, the magical Goblin King. He is the one who keeps the narrative from completely spinning apart.
a.k.a. Kiss of the Beast, a.k.a. The Ravaging, a.k.a. Phantoms. Full Moon Features. Has anyone ever looked as good on film as Charlie Spradling does in this? I would say no.
Seem like everyone’s been watching this today. I’ll just say that Ann-Margret is an incredible, full blooded, adult woman reacting like a real human being to a f-ed up situation and I am here for it.
From the co-creator of the star of both The New Girl and Bones comes a disjointed tale of the son of the late great second greatest escape artist after Houdini who died while escaping prison. The boy, a prodigy magician himself leaves his Grandmothers home to join his legit psychic aunts and fathers former sidekick uncles magic team but runs afoul of Raul Julia(the crooked mayors) crazy son. I had never heard of this till today when looking for magic movies. Which is weird cuz in the early 80s a kid magician movie would have definitely been on my must see list. Sadly its just not the hidden gem I had for. The acting is solid all the way around and the "real magic" the kid does is believable and practical instead of something like 'Now you see me' with its CGI and composites. But overall I can see why its not as famous. Its just too all over the place. No scene seems to connect to any other. And the why's of this kids brain are never shown even with a voiceover narration. We understand his plan to escape the prison that his father couldn't to come to terms but any other decision he makes just seems to be made to lead to the next scene. But I still recommend you watch it. The cast is all excellent with EJ Daily(Tommy Pickles, Valley Girl, Dottie) playing a cheerful waitress, M Emmet Walsh as a cruel warden, Desi Arnez as the crooked mayor and Raul Julia are the highlights. Julia is especially excellent in this and truly the whole reason to watch. Hes a manic/psychotic man child searching for either his fathers approval or wishing to destroy his father depending on his given mood. He brings everything to this and his energy is what carries the movie. His scenes with Desi Arnez are especially entertaining and the twos actually seem to have a legit father son chemistry.
Seductive with its opening magic show delivering fabulous illusion, Now You See Me has a bit of Ocean's 11 at its heart. It's somewhat darker, and it's that darkness that gives it texture. A hugely enjoyable thriller, whose sleight of hand is both audacious and ambitious, Louis Leterrier's film is considerable in scale and daring. This is a film about razzle dazzle composed entirely - and appropriately - from razzle dazzle. This will be best enjoyed by those willing to be hoodwinked along with the characters.
I didn't dislike these movies (1& 2). My kids were REALLY into magic for a short period when we watched them, and we had a good time watching them together. From my memory, the comparison to the feeling of Oceans 11 is apt. Also, the joke was funny!
GRETEL AND HANSEL (2020, dir. Osgood Perkins) on Tubi
I desired to watch something witchy today, and I recently became aware of this version of Hansel and Gretel. Why not give it a shot? I can understand why some people would be put off by the languid pacing and minimalist style, but I found everything to be appropriate for the folk horror themes. It is a slow-burn. As in the Grimm fairy tale, Gretel and Hansel are sent off into the woods during a period of hardship and encounter the witch who likes to eat children. The film takes the story in a different direction, however. What I liked most about it is the atmosphere.
Getting the commercial breaks on Tubi slightly annoyed me, but I never was put out of the mood of the film.
Hong Kong horror! Animal cruelty! A dash of EVIL DEAD, a pinch of BOXER’S OMEN, plus – Catherine Wheel Wet T-Shirt Night at the sorcerer’s lair! This one has pretty much of everything exploitative AND the kitchen sink, so it’s crazy, kooky, and not completely coherent, but it effectively built suspense… and did I mention the Wet T-Shirt?!? After GOODBYE UNCLE TOM, this was a more enjoyable level of unpleasant. Evidently, there’s an “animal cruelty free” cut, but that’s unacceptable for Junesploitation. Go hard or go home, people.
Ah! Feeling a bit uninspired by the day's theme, then suddenly realizing you saved a movie starring your favourite actor that just happens to fit perfectly said theme is what's Junesploitation's all about. Sure, The Mad Magician is kind of a sub-House of Wax (unsurprisingly, since it was precisely made to cash in on its theatrical success), but it's still charming as hell, surprisingly macabre, and the best kind of silly. Vincent Price, who's incapable of showing up on a set looking bored/embarrassed/uninvested and makes every movie 5 times better just by appearing on screen, is as delightful as you'd expect as the titular mad (murderous) magician.
They made the puppet so it looked like Anthony Hopkins. Super Creepy. Being a failed Magician can really screw with your head.
For me the plot over all doesn't completely work, the way it's edited and paced. But when you have a dip some one comes on screen to make you forget. Burgess Meredith - oh the scene in Corky's cabin - Ann Margaret or Ed Lauter are all brilliant and I love just watching them be. They are awesome people. Hopkins is genuinely terrifying, in the sense he is so erratic from the get go. Which is the point who is the actually is the puppet between Corky and Fats is the point of the movie. But I do see a lot of Travis Bickle in Hopkins' performance, and like Bickle this upsets me. Because the whole time I am wondering what Ann Margaret sees in him other than an escape out of the Catskills. Cause in the sex scene Hopkins is really eating her face. Even Hannibal would consider it uncouth. You have romance a woman before you eat her face.
Magic is a great autumnal movie. The way Victor J. Kemper shoots this you can almost feel the frost in the air. Magic is one of those great looking 1970s thrillers that you can live in.
MYSTICS IN BALI (1981, H.T. Djalil) Rewatch, Mondo Macabro DVD, still 10/10. Everybody knows Leák (LEE-ak) magic is the most powerful, but what this movie presupposes is, what if a Leák witch borrowed your head but didn't tell you why? Classic banana-boat magic mayhem offering blissfully primitive video FX, fun practical FX, animated energy lines & plot segments between the madness that are borderline vapid by comparison.
A Franco-phile suggests: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR (1973) Grief drives Emma Cohen to jazz, but she's haunted by murderous visions. A quiet, ghostly tale that feels more "normal" than many Franco films without betraying his presence. Now playing on the Mondo Macabro Blu.
THE WITCH'S MIRROR (1962, C. Urueta) Rewatch, first time on Blu, Indicator, still 8/10 so far... I'm too sleepy to finish, but this gothic tale from the director of THE BRAINIAC offers a magic mirror, ghostly vengeance & plastic surgery with the dead!
Quick Franco- KILLER BARBYS (1996) A total goof with some Tromatic sensibilities, witchery & the inestimable Mariangela Giordano from BURIAL GROUND. Now playing on Plex & Fawesome.
Witch's Mirror is an entertaining Mexican horror film, three films in one. I have delved into Mexican horror quite a bit in recent years. It is still too unknown to general horror fans.
The Dungeonmaster (19484, dir. Various) The whole movie is magic. Followed it up with Deathstalker II, the best Jim Wynorski movie. The only thing better than a movie with Monique Gabrielle is a movie with 2 Monique Gabrielles.
Using today's theme to finally watch what was a glaring omission in my Miyazaki viewings.
Delightful. The magic of childhood. The magic of nature. The magic of the forest spirit that lives in the giant tree in your backyard. The magic of umbrellas.
That is why I like to vary Junesploitation watches as much as possible, largely by choosing different genres, countries, and decades over the month. The free days are a great way to change things up from what the categories can limit us to.
Tending to watch a lot of 1970s and 80's films in general, I consciously try to incorporate other decades. For me, 1950s genre and drive-in movies are always a pleasant palate cleanser when I get a little tired of the sleaze. Though they have a higher chance of disappointing me, I also attempt to put in at least a couple of films from this century.
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983, Tsui Hark)
This was pretty confusing plot wise, but there is crazy action and special effects for nearly 90% of the runtime. Lots of Chinese wizards doing battles with a mix of martial arts and magic.
Awesome movie. I remember a long time ago, basically in another life, renting it with friends, getting a ton of food, and spending the entire watching this and other movies like it.
Carnival Magic (1983) Insane movie filed under What Were They Thinking? It was lost for decades until found and released by Severin Kids.
When you hear a synopsis like "jealous lion-tamer kidnaps magician's chimp" you might not think kid's movie. Let's give every character back story a lot of darkness, have no kid speaking roles, make the carnival look like most people are bored, have magic tricks that drag on, add some weird background songs, and throw in plot points involving vivisection!
But hey the chimp talks. WHY DOES HE HAVE THAT VOICE?? Hahaha this movie is nuts.
Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989) I'm two-for-two in spotting fire-breathing guys for Magic day!
I'm used to Italian made horror movie quirks like the continuous dubbed dialogue, but not in other movies. Hey it's Daria Nicolodi! ...but she's reading a story to a daughter (like in Princess Bride)... and boy is there a lot of narration. The movie was entertaining enough but I broke into laughter a lot from the obvious adult voice dubbed onto the daughter regularly interrupting proceedings.
There are actually a fair amount of nice shots, I liked the sets in Basrah, and most perfornaces are pretty good for a kid's movie. There are some weird plot points and dialogue, and the editing can be jarring... so much must have been cut out. (I guess to make room for the tons of most unnecessary slo-mo?)
So a there's a lot in the movie for some laughs, but also at its core it's a pretty decent 80s fantasy kid's movie!
SWORD OF THE VALIANT (1984, TUBI)
ReplyDeleteDisney's ENCHANTED (2007, BLU-RAY)
BRING HER BACK (2025, THEATER).
A sword & sorcery romantic adventure inspired by the classic myth (which director Stephen Weeks had already adapted to film in 1973's "Gawain and the Green Knight"), "Sword of the Valiant" puts the London branch of Cannon Films to work in making the most boring and predictable British magical fairytale imaginable. Sean Connery (making a cool million for a week's worth of work during his "Never Say Never Again" hiatus) livens things up by hamming it up as the show-off G.K. that challenges the knights of The King (Trevor Howard, never referred to as Arthur) to play his beheading-tease shenanigans. Only lowly swordsmith Gawain (Miles O'Keeffe) accepts the challenge, and for his youth and inexperience as a newly sworn-in knight G.K. grants Gawain a year to solve a four-sentence riddle so he may avoid certain death. If the '80's hadn't been overrun with superior action/fantasy epics ("Ladyhawk," "Legend," "Krull," two "Conan The Barbarians," "Excalibur," etc.) the few highlights of "SOTV" could have stood a chance to impress. Peter Cushing, John Rhys-Davies, Ronald Lacey (whose Oswald makes a perfect hiss-worthy villain) and a small army of extras try to entertain during the long narrative stretches Connery isn't on screen, which only highlights how entertainingly hammy Sean was three years before Oscar smiled upon him. 2.5 GREEN BOTTLES OF HEDGEHOG SPIT (out of five).
When's the last time you remember Amy Adams smiling in a recent feature? l know she does a couple of times in "Batman vs. Superman," but every movie I remember her in has Amy playing dour/sad/serious/joyless characters. Turns out the biggest magic "Enchanted" delivers is a happily/sincerely smiling Amy selling the one-dimensional joy of would-be Princess Giselle wanting nothing but be rescued by her Prince Edward (James Marsden, making sincere chivalry look easy to project... it's not). The two are sent from the hand-drawn animated kingdom of Andalasia into the live-action hustle of NYC via a 44th Street Times Square manhole by jealous Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon). Alongside the Queen's saboteur-perceived-to-be-an-ally stooge Nathaniel (Timothy Spall, whose animated counterpart looks the closest to the real actor) and an English-deprived chipmunk (voiced by director Kevin Lima), a single-father lawyer (Patrick 'McDreamy' Dempsey) has to deal with the good/bad fallout of Giselle's sincerity making him see his cynical world in a different light. Cue the Alan Menken tunes!
What "Enchanted" lacks in surprises or plot twists (there are none, everything you expect to happen in a Disney fairytale eventually does... almost) it compensates for with the now-lost art of maximizing the presence of your host city as an integral character. As a proud New Yorker since 1996 (30 years next Spring! :') ) I've never seen my hometown look so colorful, welcoming and postcard-pretty in a big-budget feature ($85 million, all on-screen). The final fight with a CG shape-shifted Narissa drags this one down a peg. Delightful from start to finish. 4.5 CLEANING COCKROACHES... EWW! (out of five).
The Philippou brothers' "Bring Her Back" avoids the sophomore jinx by delivering a disturbing and grotesque follow-up to the twins' 2022 ('23' in the States) modern horror standout "Talk To Me." The least you know going into "BHB" the better it lands. This one cuts a wide swath of J! categories (old-school zombie, demons, ghosts, etc.) and doesn't shy from going to very dark places or diving into nightmare fuel imagery. The younger cast deliver standout work (particularly Jonah Wren Phillips's exhausting-to-watch Oliver) but Sally Hawkins steals the movie. A lifetime of great supporting work on other people's better movies ("The Shape of Water," "Blue Jasmine," etc.) makes Sally's Laura character equally repulsive and (eventually) sympathetic. Not for the squeamish but a positive step forward for Australian-native cinema. 3.25 BROKEN GLASS SHOWERS (out of five).
The Prestige (2006)
ReplyDeleteFinally got around to watching this. For 19 years the fact that I confused this film and The Illusionist (and didn’t want to watch “the bad one”) kept me from watching either. This one is a very enjoyable dark romp, full of Nolan’s labyrinthian plotting, Christian Bale’s intensity, and Ricky Jay’s love of the history of magic. Compelling and tricky, but probably 20 minutes too long. Bonus celebrity cameo by David Bowie playing Nicola Tesla. I’d say that this film was Michael Caine’s audition tape for Alfred in Nolan’s Batman films, but Batman Begins was released the year before. “Some men just want to watch the world… disappear.”
Shame on you to doubt Nolan 😜
DeleteSinbad of the Seven Seas (1989, dir. Enzo G. Castellari & Luigi Cozzi)
ReplyDeleteTo take over the city of Basra and marry the caliph's daughter, the evil wizard Jafar hypnotizes the kindly caliph and banishes the five sacred magical stones that grant Basra's people prosperity and happiness to faraway lands, so Sinbad the sailor and his colorful group of sidekicks have to face untold perils to retieve them.
The story is narrated by a mother reading a bedtime story to her daughter, and the plot flies from scene to scene at a ridiculous pace, big plot points handwaved away with a sentence or two. After the movie, I headed to Wikipedia, which confirmed what I already expected: Enzo G. Castellari delivered an unreleasable three hour mess of a movie to the producers, and three years later they hired Luigi Cozzi to fix it, who presumably added the narrator to tighten the movie up.
So the pacing of the movie feels incompetent, the tone is all over the place, Lou Ferrigno in the lead has the charisma and acting talent of a piece of moist driftwood, a particularly annoying comic sidekick enters the movie at the halfway point, and being an Italian production from the 80's, it's haphazardly dubbed. But on the other hand there's magic, fistfights, swordfights, kung fu, sci-fi contraptions, demon warriors, rock monsters, ghost knights, a leather-clad dominatrix, a slime monster that shoots lasers from its hands for no discernible reason, and deliciously hammy acting from the villain, so I had fun.
The Mad Magician (1954, dir. John Brahm)
A brilliant designer of stage magic tricks and master of disguise wants to pivot to performing the tricks himself, but when his employer embarrasses him and sells his inventions to another magician, he makes a devious (if convoluted) plan for revenge, involving contraptions, disguises and subterfuge.
The story isn't much to write home about, too light to be suspenseful and too self-serious for a comedy, but Vincent Price carries the movie and gets to stretch himself a bit with his disguises. Plus it's 72 minutes long, which is a definite plus.
Simon, King of the Witches (1971, dir. Bruce Kessler)
ReplyDeleteJust a brutal watch, incredibly boring. Avoid like the plague.
Fantaghiro (1991)
ReplyDeleteLamberto Bava worked on a lot of TV, and instead of just horror, he had plenty of success with this series of films. Based on Italo Calvino’s short story “Fanta-Ghiro the Beautiful,” Bava also borrowed from movies like Legend, Ladyhawke, Willow, Disney cartoons and the fantasy films of his childhood.
It was lucky for all concerned that because the movie was so expensive, it ended up becoming a mini-series—it also aired as a 200-minute compilation, La meravigliosa storia di Fantaghirò and as forty episodes for its twentieth anniversary—and was a big success to the level that it had a cartoon that Bava co-wrote and even a theme restaurant.
Fantaghirò (Alessandra Martines) is one of three princesses born to the King (Mario Adorf). While Catherine (Ornella Marcucci) and Caroline (Kateřina Brožová) act like proper royalty, our heroine is rebellious, well-read and yearns for battle. She’s been training with a White Knight (Ángela Molina) somewhere in the forest and meets the enemy her father has been fighting for years, Romualdo (Kim Rossi Stuart), and he falls for her because of her eyes.
The problem is that he’s challenged her father to a duel, and he plans on sending his daughters, as the White Witch (also Molina) warned him that one of the girls can defeat Romualdo. Catherine and Caroline hate every moment, and Fantaghirò goes into battle alone. She defeats her enemy but can’t bring herself to kill him; her father allows him to keep his kingdom as long as he marries one of his daughters. You can figure out what happens next.
The second movie introduced the big bad for this series of films: Black Witch (Brigitte Nielsen). But that’s another story.
Supposedly, there’s a Disney+ remake coming. It was news to Bava, who told Super Guida TV, “I read it in the newspapers a few months ago, but nobody told me about it, and nobody asked me to cooperate. If they want to make a great Italian production, that’s fine, but if they want to re-propose the same characters, that was our lot because Calvino’s fairy tale is only four pages long.”
Teen Witch (1989)
ReplyDeleteA down-on-her-luck teenager discovers she has magical powers on her 16th birthday, and proceeds to use them in the dorkiest possible ways to become, what else, the most popular girl in school, and win the heart of, who else, the hunky, sensitive jock. The story, what there is of it, moves at a gentle, one could say sleepy pace, with virtually no drama, no stakes, and no conflict, while the runtime is padded with corny musical numbers including some truly outrageous white boy rapping. Robin Lively (starring here the same year she was in Karate Kid III) is a likeable lead, but the movie she finds herself in is lukewarm at best, and surprisingly light on the actual magical shenanigans.
Red Sonja (1985): Not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I like Conan (I know Arnold is not actually Conan in this), so anything even remotely related to that world is fine with me. I actually got the UK 4k disc that contains a documentary on Renato Casaro, a great movie poster artist, which I have not watched yet, but will do it soon.
ReplyDeleteJust to add that the director is Richard Fleischer, a usually good director, but we all know the stories about Dino De Laurentis, so I blame him for the bad movie
DeleteSINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER (1977)
ReplyDeleteI love Harryhausen as much as the next person, but I’ve never done the deep dive into the Sinbad series. The stop-motion animation is a delight, the swordfights are appropriately swashbuckle-y, and young Jane Seymour is quite the hottie. On the negative side, who the heck can follow this plot? Something about a witch, a telepathic Greek philosopher, and a prince transformed into a baboon for some reason. I dislike having to pause a movie and pull up the Wikipedia plot summary to know what’s going on. Weird to think this was the same year as Star Wars, where this feels so old-school and SW feels so modern (in a ‘70s way).
30 days of Georges Melies, day 5: THE MERRY FROLICS OF SATAN (1906)
Looking over the list, I have to wonder why so many of these Melies movies are about Satan/devil stuff. Folks online say just to think of it as a fairy tale, but I don't know. Anyway, the usual scientist/astronomer/wizard types explore an observatory filled with wonders while being pestered by the devil, and then everybody goes on a wild journey. It cumulates in a flight through the stars on a ghostly carriage, which is a real sight to behold.
The Magic Sword (1962, Rifftrax)
ReplyDeleteCouldnt really lock down a good Magic flick for the day so i thought it'd be fun to watch a Riff movie that meets the days theme. A relatively by-the-numbers fantasy flick about a sorceress' son going on a quest to save a captured princess. Feels like a solid movie to show kids who dig the genre. It involves 6 knights joining in the journey and i could not not think of Holy Grail the entire time.
This was an option I considered today. It intrigues me because at that time there were not a lot of fantasy films being produced. Disney seemed to be the main purveyor of magic-based films by the early 1960s. The original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs film was a serious consideration today. So many of the early Disney animated films are based around magical elements.
DeleteMagic has such a broad definition that there are numerous genres to tackle to today: fantasy, horror, musicals and comedies. Of course, there are numerous films that take on the craft of stage magic.
LABYRINTH (1986)
ReplyDeleteUp till now I have only seen fragments of this. My first impression of Labyrinth from what I had watched before was that the story is messy, and that impression held up with the full watch. The set-up to enter the Labyrinth is very arbitrary. In the end, however, this film is about the aesthetic, and Labyrinth has a lot going on in that regard. The puppet work is wonderful. (It’s Jim Henson, after all.) The world of the Labyrinth is very engaging and whimsical. The high point is undoubtedly the charming David Bowie as Jareth, the magical Goblin King. He is the one who keeps the narrative from completely spinning apart.
Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants (1996)
ReplyDeleteRicky Jay pays homage to the great magicians who came before, the tricks of their trickery trade, and Twin Peaks.
Love this one, and might also watch today (especially if I need a quick runtime).
Deleteseconded! i recently revisited this. absolutely amazing. hes a master at close-up magic and a wonderfully verbose storyteller.
DeleteMeridian (1990)
ReplyDeletea.k.a. Kiss of the Beast, a.k.a. The Ravaging, a.k.a. Phantoms. Full Moon Features. Has anyone ever looked as good on film as Charlie Spradling does in this? I would say no.
Deathstalker (1983)
ReplyDeleteStalks more women than death.
MAGIC - 1978
ReplyDeletedir. Richard Attenborough
Seem like everyone’s been watching this today. I’ll just say that Ann-Margret is an incredible, full blooded, adult woman reacting like a real human being to a f-ed up situation and I am here for it.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. And Ann Matgaret was fantastic!
DeleteThe Escape Artist (1982 Dir Caleb Deschanel)
ReplyDeleteFrom the co-creator of the star of both The New Girl and Bones comes a disjointed tale of the son of the late great second greatest escape artist after Houdini who died while escaping prison.
The boy, a prodigy magician himself leaves his Grandmothers home to join his legit psychic aunts and fathers former sidekick uncles magic team but runs afoul of Raul Julia(the crooked mayors) crazy son.
I had never heard of this till today when looking for magic movies. Which is weird cuz in the early 80s a kid magician movie would have definitely been on my must see list. Sadly its just not the hidden gem I had for. The acting is solid all the way around and the "real magic" the kid does is believable and practical instead of something like 'Now you see me' with its CGI and composites. But overall I can see why its not as famous. Its just too all over the place. No scene seems to connect to any other. And the why's of this kids brain are never shown even with a voiceover narration. We understand his plan to escape the prison that his father couldn't to come to terms but any other decision he makes just seems to be made to lead to the next scene.
But I still recommend you watch it. The cast is all excellent with EJ Daily(Tommy Pickles, Valley Girl, Dottie) playing a cheerful waitress, M Emmet Walsh as a cruel warden, Desi Arnez as the crooked mayor and Raul Julia are the highlights. Julia is especially excellent in this and truly the whole reason to watch. Hes a manic/psychotic man child searching for either his fathers approval or wishing to destroy his father depending on his given mood. He brings everything to this and his energy is what carries the movie. His scenes with Desi Arnez are especially entertaining and the twos actually seem to have a legit father son chemistry.
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ReplyDeleteNow You See Me (2012 Dir Louis Leterrier)
ReplyDeleteSeductive with its opening magic show delivering fabulous illusion, Now You See Me has a bit of Ocean's 11 at its heart. It's somewhat darker, and it's that darkness that gives it texture. A hugely enjoyable thriller, whose sleight of hand is both audacious and ambitious, Louis Leterrier's film is considerable in scale and daring. This is a film about razzle dazzle composed entirely - and appropriately - from razzle dazzle. This will be best enjoyed by those willing to be hoodwinked along with the characters.
Just Kidding
DeleteI just copied a bunch of the goofiest critics quotes.
this was a way funnier idea in my head
DeleteYou had me for a second, but it's funny now that you say it's a joke 😁
DeleteI didn't dislike these movies (1& 2). My kids were REALLY into magic for a short period when we watched them, and we had a good time watching them together. From my memory, the comparison to the feeling of Oceans 11 is apt. Also, the joke was funny!
DeleteThis was an amazing joke.
DeleteGRETEL AND HANSEL (2020, dir. Osgood Perkins) on Tubi
ReplyDeleteI desired to watch something witchy today, and I recently became aware of this version of Hansel and Gretel. Why not give it a shot? I can understand why some people would be put off by the languid pacing and minimalist style, but I found everything to be appropriate for the folk horror themes. It is a slow-burn. As in the Grimm fairy tale, Gretel and Hansel are sent off into the woods during a period of hardship and encounter the witch who likes to eat children. The film takes the story in a different direction, however. What I liked most about it is the atmosphere.
Getting the commercial breaks on Tubi slightly annoyed me, but I never was put out of the mood of the film.
RED SPELL SPELLS RED (1983, Titus Ho)
ReplyDeleteHong Kong horror! Animal cruelty! A dash of EVIL DEAD, a pinch of BOXER’S OMEN, plus – Catherine Wheel Wet T-Shirt Night at the sorcerer’s lair! This one has pretty much of everything exploitative AND the kitchen sink, so it’s crazy, kooky, and not completely coherent, but it effectively built suspense… and did I mention the Wet T-Shirt?!? After GOODBYE UNCLE TOM, this was a more enjoyable level of unpleasant. Evidently, there’s an “animal cruelty free” cut, but that’s unacceptable for Junesploitation. Go hard or go home, people.
Hell yeah! Wild flick.
DeleteThe Mad Magician (John Brahm, 1954)
ReplyDeleteAh! Feeling a bit uninspired by the day's theme, then suddenly realizing you saved a movie starring your favourite actor that just happens to fit perfectly said theme is what's Junesploitation's all about.
Sure, The Mad Magician is kind of a sub-House of Wax (unsurprisingly, since it was precisely made to cash in on its theatrical success), but it's still charming as hell, surprisingly macabre, and the best kind of silly. Vincent Price, who's incapable of showing up on a set looking bored/embarrassed/uninvested and makes every movie 5 times better just by appearing on screen, is as delightful as you'd expect as the titular mad (murderous) magician.
Doing a double feature of A Simple Wish and Deathstalker 2. This may short circuit my brain.
ReplyDeleteDeathstalker 2 is a lot of fun, better than the first one.
DeleteMagic Richard Attenborough 1978
ReplyDeleteThey made the puppet so it looked like Anthony Hopkins. Super Creepy. Being a failed Magician can really screw with your head.
For me the plot over all doesn't completely work, the way it's edited and paced. But when you have a dip some one comes on screen to make you forget. Burgess Meredith - oh the scene in Corky's cabin - Ann Margaret or Ed Lauter are all brilliant and I love just watching them be. They are awesome people. Hopkins is genuinely terrifying, in the sense he is so erratic from the get go. Which is the point who is the actually is the puppet between Corky and Fats is the point of the movie. But I do see a lot of Travis Bickle in Hopkins' performance, and like Bickle this upsets me. Because the whole time I am wondering what Ann Margaret sees in him other than an escape out of the Catskills. Cause in the sex scene Hopkins is really eating her face. Even Hannibal would consider it uncouth. You have romance a woman before you eat her face.
Magic is a great autumnal movie. The way Victor J. Kemper shoots this you can almost feel the frost in the air. Magic is one of those great looking 1970s thrillers that you can live in.
MYSTICS IN BALI (1981, H.T. Djalil)
ReplyDeleteRewatch, Mondo Macabro DVD, still 10/10.
Everybody knows Leák (LEE-ak) magic is the most powerful, but what this movie presupposes is, what if a Leák witch borrowed your head but didn't tell you why? Classic banana-boat magic mayhem offering blissfully primitive video FX, fun practical FX, animated energy lines & plot segments between the madness that are borderline vapid by comparison.
A Franco-phile suggests:
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR (1973)
Grief drives Emma Cohen to jazz, but she's haunted by murderous visions. A quiet, ghostly tale that feels more "normal" than many Franco films without betraying his presence.
Now playing on the Mondo Macabro Blu.
THE WITCH'S MIRROR (1962, C. Urueta)
ReplyDeleteRewatch, first time on Blu, Indicator, still 8/10 so far...
I'm too sleepy to finish, but this gothic tale from the director of THE BRAINIAC offers a magic mirror, ghostly vengeance & plastic surgery with the dead!
Quick Franco-
KILLER BARBYS (1996)
A total goof with some Tromatic sensibilities, witchery & the inestimable Mariangela Giordano from BURIAL GROUND.
Now playing on Plex & Fawesome.
Witch's Mirror is an entertaining Mexican horror film, three films in one. I have delved into Mexican horror quite a bit in recent years. It is still too unknown to general horror fans.
DeleteThe Dungeonmaster (19484, dir. Various)
ReplyDeleteThe whole movie is magic. Followed it up with Deathstalker II, the best Jim Wynorski movie. The only thing better than a movie with Monique Gabrielle is a movie with 2 Monique Gabrielles.
Amen all 'round.
DeleteMy Neighbor Totoro (1988)
ReplyDeleteUsing today's theme to finally watch what was a glaring omission in my Miyazaki viewings.
Delightful. The magic of childhood. The magic of nature. The magic of the forest spirit that lives in the giant tree in your backyard. The magic of umbrellas.
WILLOW was kinda the perfect breather I needed for all the sleazy skeezy sinema I’ve watched and that I am about to watch this month.
ReplyDeleteThat is why I like to vary Junesploitation watches as much as possible, largely by choosing different genres, countries, and decades over the month. The free days are a great way to change things up from what the categories can limit us to.
DeleteTending to watch a lot of 1970s and 80's films in general, I consciously try to incorporate other decades. For me, 1950s genre and drive-in movies are always a pleasant palate cleanser when I get a little tired of the sleaze. Though they have a higher chance of disappointing me, I also attempt to put in at least a couple of films from this century.
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983, Tsui Hark)
ReplyDeleteThis was pretty confusing plot wise, but there is crazy action and special effects for nearly 90% of the runtime. Lots of Chinese wizards doing battles with a mix of martial arts and magic.
Awesome movie. I remember a long time ago, basically in another life, renting it with friends, getting a ton of food, and spending the entire watching this and other movies like it.
Delete"Basically in another life"... I have been feeling that way a lot recently, Kunider.
DeleteCarnival Magic (1983)
ReplyDeleteInsane movie filed under What Were They Thinking? It was lost for decades until found and released by Severin Kids.
When you hear a synopsis like "jealous lion-tamer kidnaps magician's chimp" you might not think kid's movie. Let's give every character back story a lot of darkness, have no kid speaking roles, make the carnival look like most people are bored, have magic tricks that drag on, add some weird background songs, and throw in plot points involving vivisection!
But hey the chimp talks. WHY DOES HE HAVE THAT VOICE?? Hahaha this movie is nuts.
Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989)
I'm two-for-two in spotting fire-breathing guys for Magic day!
I'm used to Italian made horror movie quirks like the continuous dubbed dialogue, but not in other movies. Hey it's Daria Nicolodi! ...but she's reading a story to a daughter (like in Princess Bride)... and boy is there a lot of narration. The movie was entertaining enough but I broke into laughter a lot from the obvious adult voice dubbed onto the daughter regularly interrupting proceedings.
There are actually a fair amount of nice shots, I liked the sets in Basrah, and most perfornaces are pretty good for a kid's movie. There are some weird plot points and dialogue, and the editing can be jarring... so much must have been cut out. (I guess to make room for the tons of most unnecessary slo-mo?)
So a there's a lot in the movie for some laughs, but also at its core it's a pretty decent 80s fantasy kid's movie!
The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984)
ReplyDeleteA fistful of magic, buku boobs, and bonus Carradine.