Review: I Got The Feelin': James Brown in the 60s

Finally got this three DVD set the other day. Over the course of two nights, I watched the whole thing, and there's a lot here to digest. Unfortunately, there isn't much of the 60s covered and the title is a bit of a misnomer. But what's here is pretty essential for serious James Brown fans.

This set could almost have been called James Brown in March-April 1968 as aside from bonus footage on the third disc, that's really what the focus is on. More specifically, the important date is April 5th, 1968, the date of the concert on the second disc and, as the title of the documentary on the first says, "The Night James Brown Saved Boston."

Context is everything here, as April 4th was the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Riots had broken out all over the country and the major cities were breaking out in flames. Boston hadn't been hit yet, but, as luck would have it, there was a big James Brown concert scheduled.

At first, the city leaders considered canceling the show to keep people off the streets. Then, they had a better idea. Televise the concert. Hopefully, people would stay home and watch the show and the city might make it thought the night. A risky plan, but they didn't see many other options.

Too bad they couldn't get a hold of Brown before hand.

Needless to say, when James touched down in Boston, he was furious first at the attempt to shut down the show, then at the idea that the city was going to have it broadcast. Two things you could say about JB, he was a capitalist and he wasn't going to be used by anyone, and it looked like he stood to lose a lot of money and be used by the government of Boston.

Anyway, I won't recount the whole thing for you. It's an interesting story and the documentary covers it well. I'd always heard the Boston thing mentioned in JB lore, but this was the fullest I'd heard the story told. It's not only a pretty amazing piece of history, but it's a pretty good look at how much influence James had in the late 60s. The fact that televising a concert of his contributed to one of the quietest nights in Boston's history, is pretty amazing.

The second disc is the video of that concert. There are a couple of spots where there's missing video, but luckily there's still audio. The circumstances of the filming are unfortunate in more ways than one. WGBH was commissioned to do the telecast with little notice and no prior expirence filming much other than classical concerts. Their director jokes about not using the good mics and sadly, it's apparent, especially in James' vocal mic.

Still, they did a pretty good job. It's just odd how for most of the show, all you see is James in the spotlight. I don't know if that's a combination of early videotape equipment and the lighting in the Boston Gardens, but the effect is kind of eerie. Later in the show, James calls for the house lights while he's trying to keep people off the stage and you get a good look at how few people actually did come out.

Speaking of, the climax of the concert hasn't anything to do with the music. Near the end of the show, some kids jump on stage. A white cop pushes one back into the crowd. Then the stage is filled with people. James orders the cops to back up and handles the situation. It's pretty impressive stuff.

In spite of it all, they turn in a smoking performance. 1968 was kind of a turning point for James music and this show is a great example of what it was like at that time*. It's a shame that none of the other performers in the revue are featured. I would have loved to see Marva Whitney's set, but I'm assuming they only filmed James.

The third disc is kind of odd. The packaging trumpets the footage being from the Apollo in 68 and while it is, it's really a TV special called James Brown: Man to Man. The footage is heavy on the crooner stuff and there's a lengthy sequence of James walking around the ghetto. This special was shot about a month before the Boston show and while it's in color, the picture quality isn't as good as the black and white Boston footage.

The rest of the 60s is apparently represented by two clips from Paris in 67 and the famous TAMI Show appearance from 1964. Shame there wasn't more, but that's it.

Going into this, I knew it was pretty much about the Boston show so I wasn't disappointed. But, to someone who didn't know much about this release, Shout Factory's curious title might be misleading. While it's easy for a hardcore Brown fan like myself to ask for more, I have to say I'm pretty pleased by this set. I hope there's more to come, as I really think Shout did this right and there's still the whole half of the decade to cover. (Not to mention the 70s...hey, Shout Factory! How about a Future Shock box set?)

* Sidenote: another reviewer mentioned something about James starting off the show slow as a tribute to MLK or something like that. The fact of the matter is, James had been starting his shows off with a crooner set for most of the 60s. Based on other recordings around the same time, this is pretty much the same show they did every night on the road.

DVD Review: Phase IV (1974)

I can't believe I haven't done a review of Phase IV prior to now. I was first exposed to this obscurity via the infamous "season zero" of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Upon tracking down the old VHS, Phase IV has become one of my favorite movies. Now, thanks to Legend Films (who have other DVDs with a Mike Nelson commentary, coincidentally) Phase IV is finally out on DVD.

Phase IV is a movie about ants. Not gigantic ants like a Bert I. Gordon or Corman flick. These are small, regular sized ants. But ants that become highly intelligent and attempt to take over.

So, we have two scientists out in the desert investigating strange occurrences caused by the ants. They've killed livestock, run people off their land and built a bunch of Stonehenge like monoliths. Michael Murphy plays James, the "good cop" scientist, trying to learn their language and figure out what they're after while Nigel Davenport as Dr. Hubbs becomes more and more engrossed in defeating the ants, regardless of the cost.

Hubbs takes delight in shaking the ant farm, so to speak, which always results in disaster and the ants evolving. Because of Hubbs' recklessness, they pick up Kendra (Lynne Frederick,) a wide eyed farm girl who is now orphaned and in shock. Meanwhile, James is trying to decipher the ants messages and get Kendra to safety before Hubbs gets them all killed.

This 1974 film was a directorial debut for Saul Bass, who was an Academy Award winner for his animated title sequences. Phase IV is a post-2001 sci-fi flick, unspooling at a leisurely pace, with heavy philosophical overtones and a trippy, ambiguous ending.

At it's heart, it is another man vs. creature movie. But, because it gets into issues of evolution, the possibilities of communicating with other species and the idea that we might not be the smartest animals on Earth, it becomes more. OK, it's not the greatest movie ever, but it handles a lot of interesting ideas in an intelligent way and, if you can appreciate slow, cerebral sci0fi, I think there's a lot here to enjoy.

The stunning thing about it is the miniature photography. I know it sounds silly to say, but the ants really are the best actors in the film. The way Bass manages to capture them on film and get them to do things that actually advance the plot (we see many of the evolutionary steps) is pretty remarkable. Plus, Bass throws in some style from time to time, so if nothing else, this movie is pretty interesting to watch.

Unfortunately, this DVD is about as bare bones as it gets. No extras, not even a trailer. Just the film itself. While I understand this is a pretty obscure film, I'd have loved even a simple "how they did it" featurette, as from a technical standpoint, there's some interesting stuff going on here.

The ants have more detail than the old VHS I had, this transfer is pretty flat and the print used has quite a bunch of specks and is pretty bland to look at. I'd love to see this film in a good HD transfer, to say nothing of a Blu-Ray release.

This is to say nothing of the fact that the original theatrical release was rumored to be longer with more of an ending. Apparently it was cut down a pinch for home video and this disc runs the same length as my old tape. (Though a little longer than the french TV rip my friend Kevin sent me. I think that had a couple of brief cuts for violence.)

Honestly, I wasn't expecting Phase IV to get a DVD release at all, so just having this is better than nothing. And considering I paid the same amount ($10) for an age old ex-rental VHS, I'm not too disappointed. Still, I feel this movie deserves better than what we got. Hopefully, some day we will, but until then, fans of intelligent sci-fi should feel pretty safe picking this up.

A lot of words about a handfull of DVDs.

I've been up to my eyeballs in wedding and moving lately, but I have managed to sneak a few movies in during the downtime. I managed to pick up a bunch of stuff on Something Weird's summer sale which came out to $8 post paid a DVD-R. For those of you who only know the SWV catalog from their special editions, they have a ton of stuff in their on-line catalog that will probably never see an Image disc. In many cases, the stuff is a little more "adult" than what a mainstream company would be comfortable carrying. There's also some of it with a much more limited appeal than what they have been releasing. And some of these prints are flawed in a way that only more dedicated fans will probably put up with them.

So, my order had a little of all three of these elements. Of course, it will probably be just my luck that Image will take the plunge on a few of these, but I kinda doubt it.

The first movie I got into probably hits all three criteria. It's Miss Nymphet's Zap-In, a Herschell Gordon Lewis film lost until a few years ago. HGL cut this one to double feature with Gore Gore Girls, though it's pretty far away in theme from that odyssey of gore.

Zap-In is kind of an "adult" take off on Laugh-In, consisting of lots of rapid fire vaudeville sketches, dirty jokes and plenty of boobies. Every now and then, the action stops and the entire cast yells "ZAP" and attempts to hold a freeze frame. Honestly, these were some of the more humorous moments in the film.

I'd like to say something good about Zap-In, but I really can't. Could HGL do comedy? Yes, at least when we're talking black comedy. That vein runs deep in most of his films. But this one just comes off corny and while it's interesting for a HGL completest, there isn't much to recommend it above and beyond that.

SWV's DVD-R looked alright to me, all things considered. This film had a really low print run and until recently, this was the only copy known to exist. (An incomplete print turned up on eBay about a year ago, but I don't know if anyone has seen it.) This print is pretty battered, with emulsion lines running through out and some rough spots at the reel changes. Still, I've seen a lot worse, and I don't think the public is going to demand this one get the Criterion treatment any time soon.

I filled a couple more holes in my HGL collection with The Magic Land of Mother Goose and Jimmy the Boy Wonder, two kiddie features Herschell shot as a hired gun. Now this is a warped double feature. Mother Goose is basically a stage play with Herschell doing little more than setting up a camera at the back of a high school auditorium. Basically, this was a vehicle for some magician and it features practically no production value at all. It does have a Raggedy Ann costume that is pure nightmare fuel and a pretty twisted which burning trick. I found this one worthwhile, but I also love K. Gordon Murray kid flicks.

(Speaking of K. Gordon Murray, one of his Santaland shorts appears as an uncredited extra on one of these discs. Both discs have a bunch of Storybook Classics trailers as filler. Pretty cool stuff there.)

Jimmy is an attempt at a real film. The premise being, this kid wished time stopped and then has to start it up again. Along the way there's terrible singing, a villain that could be Faud Ramsey's cousin and a poorly dubbed cartoon stuck in the middle as padding. (Check out Hersh's terrible Sylverter the Cat impression. Mel Blanc, he ain't!) Though there were many snooze inducing parts, again, I found it worth checking out, if you are into the warped kid flicks as I am.

Then we had an infamous one from the dynamic duo of Lee Frost and Bob Creese, Love Camp 7. I remember reading about this one in Incredibly Strange Films and knew I'd have to see it someday. This one may have been the first Nazisplotation film, a dubious honor, I'm sure. You know it was created just on the cusp of hardcore porn as you never see any of the guys take their pants off, and you see a whole bunch of torture and whatnot in lieu of sex.

The best part of the film, hands down, is Creese, in the role he was born to play, as the camp commandant. Bob doesn't just chew the scenery, he Hoovers up large pieces of it like a black hole let loose on the Hogan's Heroes set (which, according to legend, was where this was filmed.) Other than that, the movie is kind of dull. At least there's ample 60s cuties to gawk at, though the sex scenes made me reach for the fast forward button.

Other than that, I've had some time to view a few discs I got on the last Deep Discount sale. I was anxiously awaiting the new Godzilla discs from Classic Media and again, they impress with their releases. Ghidora the Three Headed Monster makes it's US DVD debut and Invasion of the Astro-Monster (aka Monster Zero) returns after being out of print for ages. Like the other releases, you get the US and Japanese cuts, commentary tracks and documentary features on one or another aspect of the Godzilla series.

Both of these movies are great, in my opinion, and Classic's discs serve them well. Quality is again top notch, though I found it a little curious that they reedited the Japanese prints to match the US dub tracks rather than using a proper US print this time around. I'm guessing it was to curb criticism like they had from their US print of Godzilla vs. Mothra that was the incorrect aspect ratio. Still, I can't recommend these discs highly enough and I only wish Classic had the rights to all the Godzilla films in the US as they appear to be the only company to truly do them right. (And the discs are cheap!)

Finally, I watched Sin City and I know at this point I must be the last person on the planet to see it. I only own it for the PSP as my friend I bought my PS from threw it in. Since I found these spiffy speakers at Target for cheap, I figured I'd kill an afternoon with it.

About the movie, my only real complaint is it could have used some tightening up. Ironic to say this, considering there's an even longer director's cut, but I just felt it could have been a little shorter and not any less of a movie for it. However, I loved the story, thought the look was great and I especially liked Mickey Rourk. Really fun stuff.

Watching a movie on a PSP is like staring at a dollar bill for two hours. It's easy to see why the UMD bombed as a movie format bombed, aside from the fact that people aren't too keep on paying twice as much for a lower quality disc they can only watch on the PSP. The screen on the PSP is great and with this Psyclone speaker set up ($25, Target clearance rack) you end up with a miniature home theater, but that's just the problem. It's too small to get really engrossed in like I like to with a movie. Even my Phillips portable with a 10" screen is a more enjoyable experience.

So, there's the latest in my movie watching diary. Also, Planet Earth on Blu-Ray is mind blowing. There's the PS3's killer app. After seeing that, it's really hard to go back to standard definition anything. Such pretty colors...

Own a piece of Arch Hall Jr. history...

Do you have Twist Fever?

You too can sing the beautiful strains of "Vickie" lounging by the pool with Bud Eagle's 1960 Jazzmaster. (Richard Kiel not included.)

Interestingly enough, this leads me into a double barrel review. I recently got the Wild Guitar/The Choppers double feature from Something Weird and the Wild Guitar CD from Norton. Arch could actually play guitar and, even though he had some sappy stuff in his movies, the tape of him and the Archers playing at a drive-in is pretty rocking. Apparently he was a big fan of Albert King and Johnny Otis.

In the liner notes, he mentioned getting an endorsement deal with Fender for the Wild Guitar and they pretty much forced him into a Jazzmaster. Maybe this is the same one. Sure looks like it. (Yeah, I know he's got a Tele on the album cover. Sue me.)

Also got the Wild Guitar/Choppers double. I had Wild Guitar on an inspired dollar store DVD paired with The Beatniks. Needless to say, the quality on this is a million times better, plus you get all the extras Something Weird is known for.

As for the films, I really dig 'em. Wild Guitar is a "country bumpkin moves to big city to be a star" story but it's done really well. Yeah, Arch is sickeningly "Gee wiz!" through out, but his dad(!) and Ray Dennis Steckler are great as sleazy music industry rollers who lock Arch's Bud Eagle into a financial straight jacket where he has to be essentially a trained monkey. (And you thought that stuff didn't happen until Steve Albini wrote about it.)

The Choppers is a short JD picture. Shot several years before it was released, Arch looks about 12 in it. In this one, Arch plays a look out for a gang of car strippers. It's a fairly simple story, they get caught, people die, the survivors go to jail. The End. Oh, the greasy fat guy from Attack of the Giant Leeches is in there. That's a plus.

So, there it is. For some strange reasons, I'd claim being an Arch Hall fan. Yeah, he got knocked around on Mystery Science Theater, but he's got some kind of goofy charm I just can't put my finger on. You can get most of his movies cheap on public domain issues, well worth whatever you invest in them.

Big Commotion 1968

Zany, episodic mod 60s flick staring Japanese Group Sounds band The Spiders. The film kind of plays like a long Monkees episode. As I gather what's going on (no subs, baah!) the boy's Galaxy 500 wagon gets rear ended by this chick and of course one of the guys falls madly in love with her. The rest of the film is a bunch of set pieces about him trying to win her heart. One guy in the band keeps having these weird hallucinations and imagines the band playing in the North Pole (riding polar bears) and in war and similar odd situations.

Along the way, the Spiders play some songs. It's an interesting post-Beatles, pre-acid rock 60s sound. Lots of pop hooks, but a distinct Japanese flavor. Good stuff, I'd love to hear more.

It looks like this was taken from a video source and it's non anamorphic letterboxed, which is very good. However, the video has been processed through 5 Minutes to Live's patiented video crapifier making the end result a bit of a pixely mess. It's still watchable, but it looks more like some web video blown up and less like a DVD. (Dear 5mtl, your source may be A- but until you invest in a real capture device and not the set top DVD recorder you got at WalMart for $69, this disc is a C+.)

Also be aware there are no subs and this is in Japanese. It's not very easy to follow, but I doubt speaking the language would make it that much easier.

Recommended if you can trade for it *cough cough cough* and you're into this sort of thing.

Review: Alice in Acidland/Smoke & Flesh

This one has been in the hopper for a while and I finally decided to tackle this double feature of drugsploitation this weekend. Why I picked this disc up, I don't know as the drug films really aren't my thing. I guess I'm a Something Weird completest.

We start with Alice in Acidland. This film is classic exploitation all the way through. From the faux moral high ground narration, to the depiction of all the depravity it is supposedly condemning, Alice is the grandchild of Reefer Madness through and through. Even the title carries the tradition of being leagues better than the picture under it.

Unfortunately, Alice is missing the goofy charm of it's predecessors. Make no mistake, this is a picture designed to show as much T&A and unattractive people dry humping as they could at the time, but it does so in the dullest way possible. I never made it to the full color acid trip scenes at the end, but I have a hunch I didn't miss a thing.

Marginally better is Smoke and Flesh. This one isn't a roadshow style exploiter, in fact it's almost arty in it's execution. Some groovy people score some pot whereupon they disrobe and have softcore sex. A gang of bikers crash the party and the hero doses the leader with LSD to get them to leave. Then everyone goes back to their cardboard tube bong and playing strip slot cars. The end.

There's not much to it, but it does have a few nice shots. It also has a garage rock track that sounds like of the Fabulous Wailers that plays over and over for nearly the entire 70 minutes of the film. And lots of shots of "the man" riding his motorcycle. Honestly, it was hard for me to pay attention to most of the film. Maybe I needed some of what they were smoking.

At least we have the special features and in this case they outshine the main attractions. First there's the usual assortment of trailers, radio ads and magazine covers. I'd buy discs of this stuff and, come to think of it, I have.

However, we also have a third featurette, Aphrodisiac: The Sexual Secret of Marijuana. Now this is something worth watching. An edited hardcore feature (I've heard it's more of a "soft" X. It's available from Something Weird on DVD-R, if you're really curious.) Aphrodisiac purports to be an educational film about the sexual properties of pot. What it is is plain and simple exploitation.

There's phony facts and figures. Silly man on the street interviews. Stiff dialogue. Early John Holmes. This one is really funny. Not worth the cost of the disc, mind you, but at least there's something worth watching here.

I love Something Weird, but I'll admit not everything they put out is for my taste. Maybe this is a case of that, but I really think with the exception of Aphrodisiac this is just a dull disc.

Review: X From Outer Space

This is probably going to be the worst review I've written so far. Reason being, I fell asleep multiple times while watching this movie. I'm fairly confident that I got enough of it to accurately convey what's going on and if it's worth your time.

Honestly, this is a very simple movie. Some people go into space, they unknowingly bring back a monster egg, which hatches and wrecks stuff. That's pretty much X from Outer Space right there. Of course, it takes the first 45 minutes of the movie to actually get to the point where anything really interesting starts happening. Hence my naps.

Long the way we have a small love triangle featuring two women who can't put professionalism above their personal feelings and male object of affection who doesn't seem to care much either way. There's also enough pseudoscience and scientific coincidences to equip a cheesy comic book for a whole year.

The monster, who is for some reason christened Guilala (there is no X from Outer Space in this movie)is pretty dang goofy looking. Imagine a bee stung Godzilla with a stingray for a head. Then put a pair of those bopper antennas on him.



The model work isn't too bad, at least not until you get close up. To Shochiku's credit, the sets are pretty big. There's lots of crap to stomp, it's just not that detailed. Of course, there's some horrible green screen work any time the monster has to appear with humans. Obviously, they only made the man sized suit and not any scale models for scenes that needed them.

I won't spoil the ending for you, but let's just say it involves one of those coincidental scientific discoveries I was talking about earlier. Really, you're better just to forget about the plot and enjoy the monster.

Two other things. One it looks like this movie was filmed either with a fish eye lens or to be shown on a curved screen. Everything looks a little stretched and it gets worse near the edges of the frame. Frankly, it about drove me nuts, though other than that the picture looks pretty good (and it is original aspect ratio.)

This disc doesn't have subs but it does include the English dub. I don't know who did it, but the dub is pretty good except for the fact that all the Caucasians in this movie have some really over the top Hogan's Heroes German accents. At times, it was difficult to figure out what the hell the white folks were saying!

Given the fact that this isn't available here in the US (and I'm surprised some public domain company hasn't tried to release it yet like they have with Gamera and Yongary) I'd really say only if you're a kaiju completest should you track this down. There isn't anything here kaiju fans haven't seen dozens of times already and what is here is really average at best.

(I almost forgot, there is one classic scene of an astronaut plugging a hole in the space ship with his ass. That was pretty much the best part of the first half of the movie right there.)

Review: The Invisible Boy (1957)

The Invisible Boy is tucked away on the second disc of Warner's recent Forbidden Planet double dip. Watching this film didn't ring any bells, so I'm pretty sure this was a first viewing for me. It's kind of obscure and barely a fraction of the movie Forbidden Planet is, but it's kind of fun anyway.

Egghead mathematician Dr. Tom Merrinoe is irritated that his son Timmy is almost 10 and can't play a decent game of chess. So he takes the boy in to meet this supercomputer he's created and the machine teached the boy about chess...and world domination. Dun duh duuuuuuuuuh!

Timmy hustles his dad at chess and in return gets to play with Robby the Robot. Actually, he has to rebuild Robby first, which he does flawlessly and no one seems to find this weird despite the fact that all these other science dudes couldn't figure out what made him tick. Later, Timmy has the supercomputer reprogram Robby to forget the first law of robotics because he wants Robby to fly him in this dangerous kite Robby built for him.

Timmy's mom sees him flying, flips out and deals the kid a beatdown. This leads to Timmy wishing he could do fun stuff and no one could see him, so Robby cooks up an invisibility potion for him. Again, the fact that something completely fantastic just happened seems to be handled very nonchalantly and the boy receives another whooping after playing voyeur on his parents. (Ewwww!)

Meanwhile, the army is trying to get a rocket up and has asked the supercomputer for help, but the machine has different ideas. Dr. Merrinoe has some code sequence memorized that the machine needs so it can be disassembled and reassembled on the moon where it will then rule the Earth. (Huh?) The computer has Robby take Timmy hostage and install transmitters in the skulls of all the army and science people around the doctor to try and persuade him.

The rest of the movie is the doctor trying to get Timmy back without giving away the code. You can probably guess what happens, but if you can't, I'll give you a clue. They all live happily ever after (and Robby protects Timmy from getting a final spanking. Sheesh, you'd think they be happy to get the kid back in one piece.)

I know it's not fair to compare this movie to Forbidden Planet, but given they are packaged together like this, it's kind of hard not to. The Invisible Boy is pretty much the polar opposite of that masterpiece. It's cheap, juvenile and silly with tons of pseudoscience whereas Planet is a mature "A" picture with lots of research and care going into it. Forbidden Planet was based on Shakespeare. The Invisible Boy could have been a Richie Rich comic.

My favorite thing about The Invisible Boy (aside from Robby, who is still my favorite movie robot) is the way everyone treats Timmy and his various shenanigans. In the first five minutes of the film, it's pretty obvious the kid is depressed because his father is self-absorbed and a workaholic and his mother is the typical weak "wait 'till your father gets home" type. Everything Timmy does is either wrong or worth a beating. No chance of sparing the rod and spoiling the child here.

However, when the kid is responsible for some amazing stuff, it's just brushed off. Rebuild a robot that a bunch of science dudes couldn't figure out? Oh, that's nice. Turn yourself invisible? He's just acting out. This whole movie plays like some pop psychology hell.

Then there's the supercomputer. Despite being cheap (and having a midsection that looks like one of those dessert display cabinets you used to see in restaurants) is kinda cool. Because it's the heavy, one might be tempted to see this as a precursor to man vs. machine movies like 2001 and Blade Runner, but really, that's giving The Invisible Boy too much credit. The film still plays like a giant monster movie, except this time the monster is electric...err...atomic (this was the 50s, after all.)

It's obvious The Invisible Boy was thrown together to get some more mileage out of the expensive Robby suit. It probably didn't hurt that this movie would appeal to the kiddies either. If you approach it like a kid's B movie, it's a bit easier to swallow. Still, I'd have a hard time recommending this to anyone other than sci-fi completests or Robby the Robot fans.

Review: The Land Unknown (WTF-flims)

The last DVD I looked at was The Deadly Mantis, a Universal sci-fi flick that managed to get a lot wrong. So today I'm going to talk about The Land Beyond, another late 50s Universal sci-fi that manages to get closer to right. Mind you, it's not a great movie, but if you're a fan of 50s sci-fi/giant monster flicks, you're going to enjoy this one.

I'm not going to lie to you and say this is some mold breaking sci-fi work. It's not. As usual, we have the reporter lady Maggie tagging along with the scientist/military guys on an expedition. This time they're going to the South Pole for reasons I missed. Their helicopter is clipped by what looks to the audience to be a pterodactyl and they are forced to land in a balmy crater well below sea level.

Exploring the terrain proves they're not in Kansas anymore. Our leader Hal quickly surmises they're in the mesozoic period, a fact which everyone seems nonchalant about. Maggie's clothes start to fall apart (though in one scene, her sleeves magically reappear, then dissapear) and the group discovers the survivor from a previous mission who's magical conch shell sounds like the Stan Kenton horn section and keeps the dinosaurs away. He and Hal fight over Maggie while the guys try to find the parts to fix their helicopter.

What helps here is the actors aren't entirely incompetent and the effects are actually pretty good. The t-rex is a suit with a big old animated head. Kind of cool. Not the best, but neat enough. The sets are pretty decent though. You can tell it's a sound stage, but at least they tried.

Interesting that you can tell they put some money in to this, they even went so far as to film in Cinemascope, but they didn't go so far as to use color film. Granted, that wouldn't have changed the fact that this is still a pretty silly movie, but it might have give it a touch of class over the other B-movie sci-fi of the day.

WTF's disc is letterboxed and looks good. Crisp image, good blacks, etc. (By contrast, I have a Cryptflicks disc of this that's almost gray and white.) You also get the trailer, an image gallery (short as it is) and an easter egg with Italian opening credits. The only beef I have is the menu is a little wonky. All the items are accessable, but the direction buttons don't go the way you'd expect them to.

Good stuff here. Fun movie, not a great one, but if you're into the genre and ready to dig a little deeper, you could do a lot worse than The Land Beyond.

Available from WTF-film. Use coupon code cdr10 at check out for 10% off.

Review: The Deadly Mantis (WTF-flim)

You can't deny Universal Studio's might in the world of monster movies. Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Creature and on and on and on. Classics all. Then you discover something like this lurking behind the Universal globe and you have to wonder what the hell they were thinking. Were they trying to fill the lower half of a double bill and didn't feel like re-running one of their classics? Was the market for Z-grade flick like those that Astor and Lippard cranked out that lucrative?

Anyway, the key with these bottom of the barrel monster movies was suspense and advertising. Give the movie a name like "The Thing that Killed" or "Hell Creature of the Sky" and keep the audience guessing as to the creature looks like. Of course, it's going to be silly and cheap, but there was always that anticipation that it might be scary. However, even the title of the Deadly Mantis gives it away, so when the characters spend half the movie trying to figure out what's taking down airplanes, we already know.

Aside from that, you can go down the Z-grade monster movie check list and pretty much check the box by every cliche. Three main characters; scientist guy, military guy and reporter girl. Check. Cold war underpinnings? Check. Atomic energy as the trigger? Check. Narriator? Check. Copious stock footage? Yep. Giant bug? How's this guy for ya?


I know a lot of people like to take the piss out of Bert I. Gordon, but watching this movie seriously makes one appreciate what he could do in the giant bug genre. I'm not going to suggest Mr. BIG was a great filmmaker, but you could never accuse him of being less than entertaining. I fell asleep twice during the Deadly Mantis. No lie. There's only so much army stock footage a man can take.

Anyway, I'm sure you're all going to want to run right out and secure a copy of this for your very own, so let me tell you a little about the DVD. As usual, WTF-film does a great job with the disc. From cover to menus, the whole thing looks great. The transfer (which, I'm assuming comes from the old Universal Sci-Fi laserdisc set) is slightly windowboxed full frame and looks really good*. This looks about as good as the Sci-Fi set Universal put out last year and has extras (trailer and photo gallery) that Universal didn't bother with to boot. Unless they decide to put out another Sci-Fi collection, I think this is going to be the best way to own this movie, even if I can only really recommend it for genre completists.

Available from WTF-film. Use coupon code cdr10 at check out for 10% off.


* note, if you were reading message boards around the time Universal released This Island Earth on DVD, you'd know there's a ton of controversy over the correct aspect ratio for the Universal Sci-Fi and Horror films of this era. I'm in the camp that believes these were meant to be cropped to 1.85:1 widescreen, but transfers like this that are full frame rather than pan and scan don't bug me too much.

Goin' Coconuts (1978)

You know Donnie & Marie Osmond were on the way down in 1978 when Goin' Coconuts starts with the two supposedly in concert on a totally empty stage with no audience. Not only did they cheap out on scenery, but it would appear to me they borrowed the plot from the Brady Bunch or Scooby-Doo.

CAUTION: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD! FO' REALZ!!!1

See, Donnie and Marie, along with their stereotypical manager, are on their way to Hawaii to play a show. In the airport a fake priest hands Marie a necklace which immediately attracts the attention of a dozen stereotypical baddies. About five hours into the movie, we learn the necklace is actually a decoder for this treasure map leading to a sunken submarine (!) with gold bars. Of course, by this time, we've already figured that out as subtlety is not this movie's strong point.

Along the way, there are many "wacky" and/or "madcap" chases. Of course it takes about half the film's running time before our heroes realize they're being chased. Those stereotypical baddies? Well, we have a Strangeglove-esque German (who would have been a million times better if Charles Nelson Riley played him) and a few Fu Man Chu generic Orientals. And Lurch. Yes, Ted Cassidy is the only other recognizable person in this film.

There are lots of jokes about teeth. Y'see, the Osmonds have really big teeth. I mean huge. Like, freakishly large and white. We're also treated to many scenes of Donnie being a playboy. Though his star fading at this time, I guess it's still possible that he'd get the Beatles treatment. Poor Marie though is treated like the virginal kid sister throughout.

The problem here is Goin' Coconuts falls into the category of films not bad enough to be good but also too bad to be good. There are a few good moments (like this classic reaction shot) but for the most part the movie just kind of drags.



This disc, from EastWest, is slightly less crap than their normal fare. It appears to be taken from an actual film source as opposed to their normal technique of using crusty old ex-rental VHS tapes. Of course, the print is less than pristine and is compressed to all hell so you get some massive macroblocking anytime there's motion or any complexity in the image. For a dollar, you expect it.

As always, the legality of this release is highly questionable. There's also a second feature "Lost on Paradise Island" that I haven't gotten into yet.

If you're one of the suckers who paid $25 on eBay for this, well, I'd be out for blood if I was you. Worth a buck? Maybe. I have to admit, I had high hopes and this failed to live up to them.

Battle Royale DVD Review

Wake up! Time for happy fun die Hello Kitty!

Ok, here's one messed up film I'd be willing to lay money on never seeing a US release. (Of course, at this point the film is almost 7 years old, which might have something to do with that as well.) Battle Royale doesn't have so much in the way of plot. Basically, the youth are out of control so to apparently scare them straight, the Battle Royale law is enacted. Every year, one seventh grade class is dropped on an abandoned island, given weapons and supplies and the last person standing gets to return to society. Of course, if after three days there isn't a winner, the monitoring necklaces everyone wears explode.

That's pretty much it. Teenagers going after each other with guns, grenades (tucked in severed heads) and sickles. Hmm...wonder why no one has picked this one up?*

So, what does Battle Royale offer other than violence, gore, etc.? I took this film as a black comedy parodying high school. All the stereotypes play themselves out in various deadly manners. Yes, the characters seem melodramatic at times, but teenagers can be melodramatic. Even though most of the relationships are told in flashbacks, it's interesting to see how the alliances form and break and how many kids profess love for someone who has just unloaded a clip into their stomach.

I suppose there's also a commentary in there about losing innocence or something, but it kind of gets muddied in the episodic nature of the film.

Now, we do end up with the traditional triad of a hero, his girl and a friend, but I don't feel I can really say too much more without going into spoiler territory. Let's just say there is a traditional story going on here, but if you've watched more than, oh, I don't know, three movies, you'll probably figure out how things are going to end up by the end of the film. I just don't think the characters are entirely the point here.

So, how was it? I dug it, but it's kind of a turn your mind off and just watch sort of thing. The imagery is very powerful and there are some really tense, exciting scenes. In particular, Kiriyama, who is a ringer brought in to fix the game, is particularly fun, in a sadistic sort of way as is Mitsuko, who I gather is either a spoiled rich girl or some kind of loner. (Having 42 characters in the film doesn't leave too much time for character development.)

This disc, an English one from Tartan Asia Extreme, is one of the approximately 3,847 DVD releases of Battle Royale, non-US, of course. This is the regular cut of the movie, not the extended director's cut, which I've yet to determine if I'm missing out on not seeing. The image is soft and PAL so there's a slight speed up and you need equipment to play back PAL discs. The subtitles are fairly good, but they're burnt on, which is always kind of a bummer. Hardly a reference quality disc, but it's also a lot cheaper than the "progressive scan" version which is out of print. There's also a dirt cheap Hong Kong version, but that one is not anamorphic.

If you've read this far, I'd say you should probably snag a copy of this film which ever version you can find. It's certainly entertaining and if you can handle some over the top, black comedy based on a premise that would likely offend most of America, this is a decent way to spend an afternoon.

And who doesn't like Japanese school girls with automatic weapons?

Fun fact: this is the from same director that did the Green Slime.

* the other side of the story is Toei wants an unreasonably large amount of money for the US rights. *shrug*