Thursday, December 26, 2013
The Movie Explorer: Myra Breckinridge (1970)
Need to adapt your controversial hit novel to the screen? Who better to do your dirty work than a singer of novelty hit tunes! (No, it's not Ray Stevens.)
Gay Shame Month 2013 #3 of 3
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Monday, November 4, 2013
The Movie Explorer: Staircase (1969)
A pre-Stonewall film about a gay male couple, portrayed by two of Hollywood’s straightest arrows...with all the sensitivity you’d imagine they’d bring to the parts. And Stanley Donen chose THIS to follow up Bedazzled?
Gay Shame Month 2 of 3.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
The Movie Explorer: Windows (1980)
A feature film based on the popular operating system? No, but you'll sure wish it was!
Gay Shame Month 2013, 1 of 3.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Fairy Tale Matinée: Lost in Space (Animated Pilot, 1973)
Did you know ABC once optioned an animated revival of Lost in Space?
Did you know how (unintentionally) hilarious it is?
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Commentary: Che!
Commentary on the Movie Explorer review for the 1969 Che! Mike spends an inordinate time defending his cinematic tastes, and manages to get a little discussion on this acutal episode in there!
Friday, May 17, 2013
Aural Report: Godley & Creme - Consequences (1977)
How does a musical instrument demo meant to be a 7" single swell into a triple LP conceptual opus? Ah, I miss the 70s!
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Movieblog: Godmonster of Indian Flats (1973)
Oh my God, what a bizarre movie!
The whole thing takes place in Nevada, mostly Virginia City with a brief jaunt up to Reno. The plot, as such, largely seems to consist of “Nickolas Ashford” (not his real name, obviously, he just looked a lot like Valerie Simpson’s husband/writing partner) as a representative of some big corporation trying to buy out the town’s currently closed silver mine and winds up butting heads with the corrupt mayor and sheriff. But there’s a ton of other plot threads and character vignettes thrown out there that you just know will never be resolved in the end (a young couple looking for places to make love, a phony psychic woman, a town prostitute who likes to pickpocket her johns, etc.). It feels like an attempt at a semi-serious latter-day western with ridiculously overwritten dialogue and tons of pretentiousness (seriously, one character, who kind of looks like the homely love-child of Jessica Harper and Julie Harris, is named Mariposa!).
I get the feeling that the filmmaker (more on whom anon) didn’t know how to finish the story, so he dropped some acid and came up with a cockamamie monster subplot at the last second. An orphaned young sheep farmer (of Basque descent) returns home after being ripped off by the townsfolk, snuggles with his sheep all night, has some bizarre hallucination about floating bones and blinking lights and in the morning, one of his sheep gives birth to a creature that looks like a pile of rotten meat in a tattered Snuffleupagus costume with a skull at one end. A scientist and his assistant (the aforementioned Mariposa, who seems to be Sheep-Boy’s girlfriend) take the beast back to their lab to study it, only for it to break out and go on a rampage at the end.
Naturally, the two subplots barely interact for the bulk of the film, only really coming together for the nonsensical, acid-burnout ending. The acting is OK for the most part, community-theater level and it seems like everyone’s really trying. The filmmaking, on the other hand, is beyond inept, with looped repeating sound effects (I guess they were using radio carts), unconvincing blue-filtered day-for-night shots and some of the lamest monster effects of any film ever. But the bizarreness and crazy dialogue keep it compelling to the end, even if it makes no sense (and it doesn’t). I later found out that this was made by Fredric Hobbs, who is also responsible for the (supposedly) even stranger Alabama’s Ghost, which is mega-rare and has been on my want-list forever.
The whole thing takes place in Nevada, mostly Virginia City with a brief jaunt up to Reno. The plot, as such, largely seems to consist of “Nickolas Ashford” (not his real name, obviously, he just looked a lot like Valerie Simpson’s husband/writing partner) as a representative of some big corporation trying to buy out the town’s currently closed silver mine and winds up butting heads with the corrupt mayor and sheriff. But there’s a ton of other plot threads and character vignettes thrown out there that you just know will never be resolved in the end (a young couple looking for places to make love, a phony psychic woman, a town prostitute who likes to pickpocket her johns, etc.). It feels like an attempt at a semi-serious latter-day western with ridiculously overwritten dialogue and tons of pretentiousness (seriously, one character, who kind of looks like the homely love-child of Jessica Harper and Julie Harris, is named Mariposa!).
I get the feeling that the filmmaker (more on whom anon) didn’t know how to finish the story, so he dropped some acid and came up with a cockamamie monster subplot at the last second. An orphaned young sheep farmer (of Basque descent) returns home after being ripped off by the townsfolk, snuggles with his sheep all night, has some bizarre hallucination about floating bones and blinking lights and in the morning, one of his sheep gives birth to a creature that looks like a pile of rotten meat in a tattered Snuffleupagus costume with a skull at one end. A scientist and his assistant (the aforementioned Mariposa, who seems to be Sheep-Boy’s girlfriend) take the beast back to their lab to study it, only for it to break out and go on a rampage at the end.
Naturally, the two subplots barely interact for the bulk of the film, only really coming together for the nonsensical, acid-burnout ending. The acting is OK for the most part, community-theater level and it seems like everyone’s really trying. The filmmaking, on the other hand, is beyond inept, with looped repeating sound effects (I guess they were using radio carts), unconvincing blue-filtered day-for-night shots and some of the lamest monster effects of any film ever. But the bizarreness and crazy dialogue keep it compelling to the end, even if it makes no sense (and it doesn’t). I later found out that this was made by Fredric Hobbs, who is also responsible for the (supposedly) even stranger Alabama’s Ghost, which is mega-rare and has been on my want-list forever.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Aural Report: John Cage (Artist Profile)
Mike does a brief overview of the music of controversial 20th Century figure John Cage.
BONUS: Mike “sings” 4'33":
The Movie Explorer: The Head (1959)
A tip of the ol’ pith helmet to the Germans for this Euro sci-fi about a mad scientist who keeps his mentor’s dismembered head alive to help him construct a new girlfriend.
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