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17th March 2016, 08:03 AM
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 Missing in Action Chuck Norris stars as Braddock, a special forces veteran who returns to Vietnam in order to rescue POW's still held by the vietcong. Arriving as part of an American delegation, the Vietnamese promptly try and frame him for war crimes so he skedaddles into the bush to go it alone. He does end up enlisting an old war buddy (M Emmet Walsh) to assist as he goes full Rambo and decides to win the war! The best way to approach a film like Missing in action is the same way I approached London has fallen. Don't go looking for any deeper message or reliable political statement, switch of the reasoning part of your brain and just go with the over thee top action scenes of Chuck kicking ass. Like Rambo 2 it epitomises 80's action cinema. Both films shared the spurious notion that the communist Vietnamese kept hold of POW's after the end of the war. This notion came from the large number of Americans remaining unaccounted for. Why? Well there is no real logical explanation as to why they would keep hold of these prisoners, they were never used for any political purposes, exchanged for spy's. The more likely explanation is that the bodies were simply never recovered. Even today people stumble across human remains and relics from the war in the jungles and the death toll from unexploded munitions discovered is a source of public record. However misguided its attempt at a message, its worth remembering that above all else films like missing in action are fun. Joseph Zito does a great job at directing and the film is a thrilling piece of nonsense that's worth watching. For my money its a better film than Rambo 2 as its not following on from a far better film (first blood).  |
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17th March 2016, 08:13 AM
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| Invaders from mars One of Tobe Hoopers Cannon films, this is a remake of a 50's red scare that's updated to take a look at 80's America. Essentially a bodysnatchers type of film it focuses on a young boy who witnesses a strange light in the sky one night. His parents go and investigate but come back 'changed'. Gradually the whole town begins to be surreptitiously taken over by the Martians, the only indications being an X on the back of the neck. Fortunately the boy has assistance from his teacher (played by the actors real life mum Karen Black) and begin to fight back against the Alien menace. I know Tobe Hoopers Cannon output divides audiences, here this is certainly a production hamstrung by budgetary issues and re-editing that really detract from Hooper's intentions. However I still think this is a really underrated effort from the director. It really captures the bold visual style attempted in the original that adds a deliberate air of artificiality or at least unreality to the film that comes from its showing events from the young boys perspective. The set design and creature effects are good and its approach of showing the Bodysnatchers as the decimation of small town values is interesting but ultimately flawed thanks to the film not delivering the directors intentions. That said I do feel the film is very entertaining and far from the worst remake I've ever seen (**cough..The fog..cough...nightmare on elm street..cough..) |
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17th March 2016, 08:35 AM
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| Texas chainsaw 2 Probably the most divisive film of Hooper's on these forums (and most others) TC2 opens with a pair of college frat boys getting brutally dispatched in their car by Leatherface. The audio of the killings are caught on tape by local DJ Stretch (caroline williams) who is soon approached by Texas ranger Lefty (a now sober Dennis Hopper) who wants to use the tape as bait to lure out the sawyer family. It seems Lefty is the relative of Franklin and Sally from the first film. He's convinced the family are still active and killing and he wants revenge. The sawyer clan on the other hand are enjoying success from their award winning Chilli cooked by Drayton (Jim Siedow) and don't want their secret recipe revealed! The whole film then leads to a bloody showdown at a war themed amusement park dubbed Nam land by new family member chop top ( Bill Moseley). I think the hate the film gets is primarily from how radically different it is to part 1. Here Hooper dials both the gore and the humour to 11 and I can imagine that might be off putting to some fans. However, like the first Texas chainsaw the film is a product of its time. The original was a reflection of the state of mind of a county where traditional labour requirements were disappearing, the fuel pumps were running dry, the country had suffered a humiliating defeat in Vietnam and violence and madness were in the air. Part 2 comes from a period where America is trying to pick itself up and revise its history. Here the painful memory of Vietnam has been turned into a grotesque theme park, the family's murderous antics go largely ignored as all people see is the surface level 'success' of the family's chilli. There are numerous references to entrepreneurial spirit and making money from Drayton, especially at the end when he's clutching a roll of bills in one hand and a grenade in the other. Even one of the films posters is a direct parody of major Hollywood 80's hit The breakfast club. The film seems even more cynical of America in the 80's than it ever was in the 70's and the whole film feels like a parody of its time and place in history. Overall I still like TCM2. I like that Hooper for the most avoids repetition. I like the set design, the gore effects and most of the actors and after the 20th time of viewing (rough estimate) I feel it still holds up |
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17th March 2016, 08:53 AM
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Snuck in a few non-cannon efforts. Choke A fairly accurate adaptation of the chuck palahniuk novel, Choke sadly does not quite work as a film in its own right. It follows Sam Rockwell as Victor, a sex addict left messed up by his insane mother Ida (Anjelica Huston) a recidivist criminal with a history of abducting Victor as a child and taking him on 'adventures'. Victor has taken responsibility for his mothers care and the huge medical expenses means he has dropped out of medical school and is working in a colonial theme park to raise the required funds. To cover the shortfall he goes to restaurants and chokes on food, the idea is the person who saves him then feels a sense of responsibility for his life that will translate to cheques. Gradually he discovers his scam has brought comfort to the people who saved him, he also discovers that he has an innate ability to comfort the residents of his mothers care home. His mothers doctor Paige Marshall reads his mothers diary and reveals he may actually be a clone of Jesus christ. The film is not wholly successful at translating the books themes of addiction and salvation. Its idea that issues like addiction come from modern living which in the book is compared to life in a zoo does not really work. The film however is fun and worth a look at the right price. Jurassic piranha How do you deliver a shark based creature feature with no money for the actual shark. If your the makers of this bizarre DTV effort then you write in that the sharks are actually miniaturised and actually work like a virus. The film is something of a weird disjointed mess, I had no idea who half the characters were. Suddenly Kevin Sobo turns up as a senator who does not like wearing pants and occasionally stuff happens. when there are effects the are terrible. The film has an appeal for fans of terrible films and should be worth a punt in poundland. |
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17th March 2016, 04:37 PM
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The bodies found in the jungles have nothing to do with any war. They are the bodies of the many cannibal film crews who thought they could make a quick buck in the 70's. That found footage in Cannibal Holocaust was real you know. keirarts and trebor8273 like this. |
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17th March 2016, 04:43 PM
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 Demdike@Cult Labs likes this. |
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17th March 2016, 05:38 PM
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| Fräulein Leather (1970) Nick Millard's classic porn quickie about a lonely woman whose husband is away on a business trip. As is the norm, her mind wanders and she has psychedelic dreams of leather clad lesbian sex which then seemingly become reality. I like Millard's experimental style with erotica. He seems quite cutting edge (More of that later) rather than plain old porn. The psychedelic aspects in this film remind me in particular of French auteur Jean Rollin, in his use of beach location work and ghostly female figures. Although explicit towards the end, it doesn't seem to matter, as by this time the viewer is swept away by the ambitious expressionism of Millard's work. Last edited by Demdike@Cult Labs; 17th March 2016 at 06:03 PM. |
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17th March 2016, 06:02 PM
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| Roxanna (1970) A second helping of 70's erotica courtesy of the experimental styling's of Nick Millard (Here known as Nick Phillips) Millard takes his cutting edge attitude to porn and really gives the viewer something to think about. Roxanna is a film as downbeat as any i can recall. Roxanna, as played by Louise Thompson, is a tormented soul whose sexual escapades lead to her downfall. From her first encounter with the gorgeous Uschi Digard to the insatiable Lynn Harris, taking in a transvestite and hairy bloke along the way, the film stares deep into Roxanna's consciousness with many cut away sequences as we learn she is in fact naked, staring at the blank walls of an asylum. Amidst all the sex there's the ugly truth about depression and Roxanna's fragile state of mind. Come the end (You won't have, it's not that kind of porn) the sole thought in my mind was sympathy as she undertook the inevitable, razor blade between her fingers. |
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18th March 2016, 12:13 AM
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18th March 2016, 12:14 AM
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DOCTOR BLOODBATH – From the director of 'Criminally Insane' and 'Satan's Black Wedding'. It's a shot-on-video flick from 1987. Before you tune out, I will try to convince you that 'Doctor Bloodbath' is not bilge, but genius. Or genius-bilge. I understand. I speak all the time to people who tell me that “most of that early shot on video stuff isn't just dreck, it's boooooring”, and then hit me when I say I like 'Cannibal Campout'. Well OK, some of that stuff is pretty dire. I admit that I wouldn't be in a great position to navigate my through it all were it not for the likes of websites such as Bleeding Skull, the primary source for many a trash fancier. But those strange gems are out there. Nick Millard has harvested quite a few of said gems. His films have a natural but very conscious freakiness about them. Poverty row budgets only accentuate their weirdness. I'm a big fan of post HG Lewis trash like 'Criminally Insane', even more so the trippy strangeness of 'Satan's Black Wedding'. 'Doctor Bloodbath' came later. It's about a guy, a doctor. Doctor Bloodbath. That's probably not his real name, but we're never on first name terms with this dude anyway. He performs abortions, then kills the women he 'services' in their homes. Again and again and again. That pretty much sums up 'Doctor Bloodbath'. Except, there's more. His wife is having an affair with a Polish poet. She falls pregnant, but her poet lover panics. You can tell where that's heading. Doctor Bloodbath isn't big on talking. His eyes are always somewhere else. Even when he's killing people, he does it in a detached, 'going through the motions' kind of way (which looks ludicrously stylised the way Millard films it, like a disinterested ten year old miming dagger slashes). People in this film are really dissociated. They seem like extensions of their suburban interiors (there are lots and lots of shots of suburban interiors). They speak like they're reading lines from a piece of paper held in front of them. They probably are, but that also feels like the intended vibe. Again, Doctor Bloodbath doesn't say much. He keeps it clinical, formal. He does blurt out “murder” or something during one of the kill scenes, but doesn't even give it an exclamation mark. Otherwise, he lets his hands do the talking. He's always fidgeting. We see close ups of his fingers, knitted together, twitching, straining in repetitive little patterns which are presumably meant to convey suppressed anger or something. This whole aspect of the film is mesmerising. Honestly, it's like a whole hidden film-within-a-film. The threadbare nature of 'Doctor Bloodbath' mirrors the emotional poverty of the characters. It's really, really cheap. Whole sections repeat as it chugs away, pretty amusing when you consider that these 'flashbacks' are being used to pad out a film which is all of 57 minutes long. Even worse, Millard throws in bits of filler from (I think) 'Satan's Black Wedding'! Primarily, scenes of someone doing some housework! That's the kind of flick we're dealing with here. But, in the end, what should just be gibberish is surprisingly affecting. I actually felt kind of empty and a little bit sad after watching 'Dr Bloodbath'. I know that there are 'proper' films about suburban ennui, but 'Dr Bloodbath' nails things in a way which seems both melancholy, bleak and laughably odd. It's a strange concoction to be sure, even odder when you look at it as a film not about a misogynistic killer, but instead about a bored man and his meaningless life. Whichever way you choose to take it, 'Doctor Bloodbath' is ripe cinematic gunk from one cat strolling on the wild side of the psyche.
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