What was the last movie you've seen?

[fastbilly1]

This is a sad day. Robert Osborne was one of the greats of film history. His knowledge was encyclopedic, his presentation familiar, and his demeanor kind. Everyone I know who got a chance to work with him, said he was one of the bets talents to work with.

Truthfully, he is one of the reasons I know so much about film history. I never got to meet him, but I did walk on his set once at TCM.

[Michi]

Damn. That is sad news. Watching anything on TCM will never feel the same now.

[Sarge]

I saw Logan over the weekend.

On a positive note, it's probably the most authentic Wolvie movie ever. On a negative note (at least for me), I thought some of the gore and language was a little too over the top.

Also, I can't have been the only one yelling,

"No, don't go home with that family, you selfish jerks, they're just gonna die!" And of course, they die.

[fastbilly1]

In honor of Robert Osborne, I finish watching an old serial last night:

1945 - Republic

Republic era serials are my favorite and Manhunt of Mystery Island is the best nonrocketpack serial Republic made. It is a standard plot of a doctor finding an evil scientist on an island who is going to take over the world, but this time the evil scientist is an undead pirate. Surprisingly the female lead is strong and actually hurts people.

Overall the show is decent. If you have never watched a serial, it is a good one to start with. Just know the stories move slowly and the fights are more like boxing - Kungfu had not made it to the states yet to change how movies were made.

[isiolia]

I went and saw Logan last night. It was quite good.

Also, I can't have been the only one yelling,

"No, don't go home with that family, you selfish jerks, they're just gonna die!" And of course, they die.

Yeah, a friend and I commented on that earlier today, it seemed like a number of characters basically were there to get fridged

[noiseredux]

I'm seeing Logan this weekend, so avoiding all these spoilers.

[Sarge]

Pretty sure this isn't any sort of spoiler: Lots of people die.

[MrPopo]

Spoiler: Patrick Stewart is awesome in it.

[Ack]

Stage Fright

Poor, down on their luck actors are appearing in a sleazy production hosted by a down on his luck asshole director while the lusty money man just tries to make sure things get done as cheaply as possible...until a local mad actor escapes an insane asylum and decides to start killing everybody. Yes, it's an Italian slasher film that hits the usual slasher beats, only this time the killer wears a crazy owl mask and occasionally performs a dance move. And that is where it goes from dime-a-dozen to awesome, because our silent killer is creepy as all get out, and when he sits on stage with his menagerie of gore and destruction to listen to music while the final girl tries to escape...it's pure brilliance.

The kills are also better than your average run of the mill slasher. Chainsaws, drills, axes, pickaxes, knives, syringes, this guy knows his way around a tool shed. He slices and dices, disembowels and dismembers, and he does it with just enough gore to keep things interesting without going totally over the top. The highlight for me was seeing a woman take a pickax through the mouth and then later another lady being pulled through the floor, with her terrified companions struggling to only rescue half of her dismembered torso, complete with loose intestine. Seriously, this is some great messed up stuff.

Of course, why wouldn't it be? It was written by George Eastman, star of Italian schlock classics such as Anthropophagus, Porno Holocaust, and 2019, After the Fall of New York. Joe D'Amato produced the picture, while Michele Saovi directed in his feature film debut, having previously only helmed the documentary Dario Argento's World of Horror.

Stage Fright is Grade 'A' Italian trash, and it lets you know it. I highly recommend it to fans of brutal slashers and gory giallos. This one really ends up going above and beyond what I was expecting, and I admit that I had spent some time seeking it out before finally getting my hands on it. Check it out if you can.

[Ack]

Neon Maniacs

It's unfortunate when you run across a film that you want to like a whole lot more than you end up actually enjoying. But this movie is a lot like its poster: it screams "WAY AWESOME" but then fails to hold up once under scrutiny. For instance, why are the twin towers there? The movie takes place in San Francisco. Second, why is it called Neon Maniacs? Yes, there are maniacs, but there's a distinct lack of neon in this movie. Also, why is that one guy dressed as a samurai?

In fact, that's a great question for the movie too. Neon Maniacs has an interesting idea: a bunch of killer horror movie tropes live in an abandoned garage under the Golden Gate Bridge. One night the tropes suddenly wander out to attack teenagers, while a weird little monster with a big hook snags their prey's corpses and hauls the parts away. All that's left in the morning as evidence is a weird goop that no one can identify. So...why? That's where Neon Maniacs falls apart. It never gets to the why. Why do these undead maniacs include the likes of a Native American, a G.I., a samurai, a biker, a werewolf, and a doctor, among numerous other things? Why are they working for this weird little monster? And why is it that water is the only thing which can hurt them? Was M. Night Shyamalan involved?

Instead of taking the time to explain this, the teenagers who end up busily conforming to slasher movie tropes instead decide that the cops are useless(which they are in this movie, so I suppose I shouldn't fault them), so they're gonna fight off the horde of undead maniacs using water pistols during a costumed battle of the bands at the local high school. Yes, this is seriously their plan. I want this to be cooler than it is. I really, really do. There's a freaking undead samurai wandering around San Fran, for goodness sake! How awesome is that?! And yet the movie meanders and fails to get to the point so often that it just never gets off the ground.

I will not say it's a total waste however, as one of the main characters is a monster-loving middle school girl who wants to make horror movies and quickly figures out how to fight the monsters. She then successfully manages to defend herself and do by far the most damage to their ranks than anyone else. She's seriously the only reason anyone lives, because everyone else is a moron, including the movie itself. But her? She kicks ass, and she does it with an angled baseball cap or while dressed like a little vampire. She's the kind of young lady you guys with daughters hope your little bundle of joy grows up into: smarter, tougher, and ballsier than just about everyone else in the picture. Hats off to her; she saved this from being a total let down.

Neon Maniacs...what happened? I know you shut down in the middle of production due to a lack of funds, but was the script this lacking to begin with?