I'm not going to get too deep into it this time...
John Carpenter's THE FOG (1980):
"It is now generally considered to be, as Carpenter once called it, "a minor horror classic"."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog)
Minor indeed. I have seen worse, but have certainly seen better and see no desire to rewatch it in the future. Passable and really not bad... but not very good either.
I hope I get into the mood to watch a good Carpenter flick sometime when I'm near the computer.
2.5 / 5 unexplainably old pickup trucks.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Immodium's House of Film
As threatened, I'm just going to completely rip off one of my favorite blog's regular features and attempt to recap / halfassedly critique things I've watched just lately. Here's an installment of that:
John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987):
I tried, I really did. Most things Carpenter that I've run across I've dug on some level. In my younger years, I even wrote the guy a fan letter that I never sent. All the pieces are here... it looked really good on paper. "Paper" to mean, that Netflix account. Sigh.
Really though, am I that crazy?:
Donald Pleasance is a priest... credited first, as "Priest" trying to stop Satan, I suppose.
Victor Wong is the theoretical scientist counterpart to Pleasance. Who? You know, this guy:
And as a nice surprise to me, Dennis Dun! Who? You know, this guy:
And as added bonus: Alice Cooper stabs a guy. With a bicycle.
Okay, so maybe that doesn't actually look very much a "good" movie to you. And you'd be right. It isn't. Carpenter is at his best when dealing with the cold, hard realities of a given situation. Think about Halloween, The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, etc. Cold and hard. And yes, he wrote the screenplay for this mess too.
This is aimless wanking though. There are a lot of various insects and a giant jar of green goo standing in for evil. No, wait: "E-VIL!"
Donald is woefully underused and apparently pretty much hides in a corner for most of the movie. Eventually a Linda Blair look-alike stands menacingly still with too much Aqua-Net on. Then she'll spit water at people. Which makes them "E-VIL". So they now spit at people.
Now this is the internet, and the whole plot of this thing is right here if you want it, but it's so dumb it hurts. It hurts even more for 105 minutes. Trust me. At no point in film history would this have been good, but there was a half-second or so when Father Donald lops off a blond... thing's head which was enjoyable for the performance. It was surrounded by silliness, naturally. If I felt like editing this thing into something good, it'd be about 90 seconds long and it's mostly Dennis Dun.
Want double proof? Are you old enough to remember a middling-average TV detective show called Simon & Simon? Do you remember... this guy?
That's (I kid you not) Jameson Parker, our leading guy for this thing, and while I'm sure he's a decent guy and I'm glad to hear that he can take a bullet and recover (thumbs up pal!) and all of that... doesn't he, umm remind you a little bit of someone? Or two someones, maybe?
Uncanny yes, but what if he rocked a vintage 1978 handlebar mustache throughout?
Hell, he still does. And good for him.
Let's just say that at this point in his career, pinning a film on his ability to emote and convey a primal and maddening fear of the unholy and the unknown may have been asking a little bit much. An hour a week as a hunky dude on his kickass boat? Yep, you were the guy. Good luck with whatever your thing is now.
Dennis, thanks for trying...
...but I still want my hour and a half back.
This is a bad movie and should be avoided. Not even funny-bad. Just bad.
I've taken the bullet for you. Don't watch it. Nothing redeeming here... except Dennis Dun.
1/5 stars.
John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987):
I tried, I really did. Most things Carpenter that I've run across I've dug on some level. In my younger years, I even wrote the guy a fan letter that I never sent. All the pieces are here... it looked really good on paper. "Paper" to mean, that Netflix account. Sigh.
Really though, am I that crazy?:
Donald Pleasance is a priest... credited first, as "Priest" trying to stop Satan, I suppose.
Victor Wong is the theoretical scientist counterpart to Pleasance. Who? You know, this guy:
And as added bonus: Alice Cooper stabs a guy. With a bicycle.
Okay, so maybe that doesn't actually look very much a "good" movie to you. And you'd be right. It isn't. Carpenter is at his best when dealing with the cold, hard realities of a given situation. Think about Halloween, The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, etc. Cold and hard. And yes, he wrote the screenplay for this mess too.
This is aimless wanking though. There are a lot of various insects and a giant jar of green goo standing in for evil. No, wait: "E-VIL!"
Donald is woefully underused and apparently pretty much hides in a corner for most of the movie. Eventually a Linda Blair look-alike stands menacingly still with too much Aqua-Net on. Then she'll spit water at people. Which makes them "E-VIL". So they now spit at people.
Now this is the internet, and the whole plot of this thing is right here if you want it, but it's so dumb it hurts. It hurts even more for 105 minutes. Trust me. At no point in film history would this have been good, but there was a half-second or so when Father Donald lops off a blond... thing's head which was enjoyable for the performance. It was surrounded by silliness, naturally. If I felt like editing this thing into something good, it'd be about 90 seconds long and it's mostly Dennis Dun.
Want double proof? Are you old enough to remember a middling-average TV detective show called Simon & Simon? Do you remember... this guy?
Hell, he still does. And good for him.
Dennis, thanks for trying...
...but I still want my hour and a half back.
This is a bad movie and should be avoided. Not even funny-bad. Just bad.
I've taken the bullet for you. Don't watch it. Nothing redeeming here... except Dennis Dun.
1/5 stars.
Stirrings...
Well, the handful who knew to look here in the first place probably won't be terribly surprised when I say: there are changes afoot.
The only interesting part would be that I intend to be more active on this front in the future.
I don't exactly know what kind of shape it will take yet.
I've got yet another new job in the works, a rock band I'm trying to help be groovy, a Netflix account that I'm really just starting to play with and apparently... some time.
Come along for the ride if you like. I can't promise that it'll be interesting, regular, or good.
But I'll do what I can when I remember to.
The only interesting part would be that I intend to be more active on this front in the future.
I don't exactly know what kind of shape it will take yet.
I've got yet another new job in the works, a rock band I'm trying to help be groovy, a Netflix account that I'm really just starting to play with and apparently... some time.
Come along for the ride if you like. I can't promise that it'll be interesting, regular, or good.
But I'll do what I can when I remember to.
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