A guy wearing an ascot kills a honeymooning couple aboard a speeding train with a meat cleaver and wipes the gore off with the dead bride's veil and I'm going to have to stop this review right here. A meat cleaver is not a hatchet and there's no way you're ever going to get a blood-drenched meat cleaver clean with a gauzy veil. I've tried. Dead bride veil material is one of the least absorbent fabrics known to man, or at least known to mother-obsessed lipstick-wearing cry-baby fancy-lads who have a secret sexy-time wedding-dressed mannequin-filled hump-vault, or so I've heard.
You're just wasting time and money trying to clean up those messes from your wedding-fixated killing sprees. Toss out those old, stained veils because there's really only one product you'll ever need to get your murder weapons clean and sparkling.
Extravagantly dressed boors have a go-go party where they pretend to have an occult ritual and stab each other and run in circles around tropical foliage and then become alarmed where the partygoers actually start ending up stabbed in this uninteresting giallo film.
Those guys know how to party, right? If they're that darn bored, why don't they play some Pictionary? And nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to dance provocatively on my coffee table. I don't care how many Gin Rickeys I serve, you better get your dirty feet off my furniture.
So the cast looks suspiciously at one another for about an hour as the bodies start being hung in a meat locker, and someone's responsible. Well, for the murders, not the meat. I'm not sure why the meat is there. That seems like it wouldn't be very palatable, you know? Like, "Hey, were going to store the bodies in here next to tonight's dinner. How does boeuf bourguignon sound?" Maybe I'm wrong and don't know a lot about haute cuisine. Honestly, I like tater tots and Junior Mints, so I'm not an authority on how vacationers on secluded murder islands like their meat stored. I probably wouldn't hang the bodies next to of a side of beef, even if it looks good on camera. I would probably move the meat to a different corner of the meat locker away from the corpses, but they didn't ask me.
Paul Naschy stars in this brain transplant crime film as a bank robber who gets shot by police while making a getaway in a car where it's nighttime inside the car but daylight outside, and then spends about 45 minutes not starring in this brain-transplant crime film. So Paul Naschy is taken to a country house where he needs a complete cerebral transplant, but unfortunately they don't seem to have a full stock of brains for some odd reason, and you can sort of tell where this whole thing is going to go. So some poor hapless dude is tricked by some chick, and he gets his head removed by getting run over by a train, and there's a strange Mongolian interpretive dance/strip tease of some sort, I think, and I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. Meanwhile, there's also a whole bunch of comb-overs, bell-bottoms, blue eyeshadow, and pornstaches, none of which are very interesting. Then Paul Naschy goes on a turtlenecked, head-bandaged rampage for some reason, and then the movie is over.
A guy wearing a loin-cloth and a cape while spouting poetry fights motorcycle guys wearing aluminum foil in this cheesy 70s motorcycle flick. In the future, amidst plastic 70s modular furniture, the desert, and horses, some people battle other people and then condemn these people to Deathsport.
Spoiler Alert: Deathsport is motocross. That's all it really is. It's motorcycles jumping dirt ramps, sometimes jumping through fire, and sometimes unconvincingly disappearing through contact with unconvincing laser beams.
OK, so there are some lasers and swords, but it isn't really very interesting. There are also lots of headbands, camera-shadows, and co-stars unconvincingly riding motorcycles.
A pop singer stages a career comeback from a country estate as the bodies start mysteriously piling up in this 70s thriller. I don't know an awful lot about Jack Jones, but he reminds me a little of a not-very-edgy Scott Walker.
In fact, the plot of The Comeback seems to borrow a little from Scott Walker's career, only with fewer Jacques Brel songs and rotting, maggoty corpses. Well, I'm not sure how many corpses figure into Scott Walker's career, but I do know he's punched some meat in his time.
OK, so Scott Walker didn't actually punch the meat, but he was directly involved with meat punching.
Anyway, Jack Jones runs around in a revealing bathrobe much of the time as a corpse rots in a stairwell, and Bosley from Charlie's Angels is kind of a douche. Everybody seems to be a villain from the jump, and the ending isn't much of a surprise.
A writer travels to a boy's boarding school to debunk a haunting in this BBC thriller. I'm not ashamed to say I jumped a couple of times in this well-made, beautifully shot, atmospheric film; however, I was a little disappointed in the ending. I very much enjoyed the slate-grey cinematography, the chilling spirit photography special effects, and the use of early 20th-century technology to debunk the haunting in a 21st-century way.
Because of all the headbands, I think it would just be easier to describe the plot to Deathstalker as being exactly the same as the plot to the music video of "Working For The Weekend" by Loverboy...
...except replace the vocalist, guitarist, bassist, rhythm guitarist, and drummer with swords, sandals, puppets, tits, and Barbi Benton eating an enormous turkey leg.
Apparently there was some sort of gathering on the TV last night of a crop of current music video stars, and I missed it. I try to avoid the music that people enjoy because I find it's often awful and depressing, so I'm a little out of the loop as far as what is happening with the youngsters today in music. From what I gather, someone did a dance called twerping, and a former pop group called Lip-Sync got back together for about 15 seconds and performed something that vaguely resembles music. It sounds intriguing, so maybe I'll try to catch it next year.
I missed the telecast of the music thing because Mrs. Deathrage and I ventured out of the penthouse for a date. I know! That's something we never do. And to really ramp up the Wow Factor, we saw a movie in the theatre. I know! It's the craziest thing. We saw the British action-comedy The World's End.
We headed out to the Xtreme 36 Screen Mega-Mondo Cineplex because that's the only place a British action-comedy was playing which seemed counter-intuitive. I would have assumed it would have been playing at the art-house theatre that specializes in foreign films, but that assumption would be incorrect. So, we headed out for the matinee showing, and even though it was only 5 o'clock, people were everywhere. I'm not a fan of people, or lines, or even worse; people in lines. I don't stand in lines. I am always on the list, or I have extra-fancy All-Access Passes. Standing in a line is for suckers.
So we stood in an Xtreme line for tickets, and we stood in an Xtreme line to have our Xtreme tickets torn, and we stood in an Xtreme line to buy refreshments at the Xtreme Refreshment Counter, and we purchased a bottled water, a box of M&Ms (they had no Junior Mints), and a medium soda for $12. I was Xtremely pissed. Let's talk about that "medium" soda for a minute. Here's the breakdown of the soda sizes: The "small" is 3 tablespoons and will set you back $4. The "medium" is 6 gallons and costs $4.50, so it's a pretty good value as far as getting financially hosed goes. The "large" is $5 and requires a forklift to get it to the theatre. I don't perceive the "large" to be a good value because 2 hours is not enough time to drink all that liquid, and I don't think humans have bladders the size of the Hindenburg. I'm not an authority on human bladders, though, so I could be wrong.
So we headed to our theatre with our precious solid gold box of ordinary $5 M&Ms that were definitely not Junior Mints, and there were only 6 people in the theatre which was pretty sweet. We sat down as the previews started, and we were punched in the face with sound and previews for about 20 minutes. I've been to rock concerts quieter than the preview for About Time, and I saw Ministry on the "Land Of Rape And Honey" tour. They has a chain-link fence on stage to protect us from them.
Sorry, someone replace my video of Ministry performing live with the chain-link fence with the trailer for About Time, which seems simultaneously British, witty, maudlin and retch-inducing. The movie, that is, not the band.
Anyway, The World's End is about a pretty cool guy who gets his 4 boring, stodgy, wet-blanket friends together for an epic pub crawl and the four boring friends bitch and whine the entire time like a bunch of schoolgirls whose pigtails are too tight. The 4 wet-blankets are always picking on the cool guy because they find him to be distracted, self-absorbed, superficial, and always wearing a Sisters Of Mercy t-shirt. I'm not sure why they were getting so upset, well, except for the Sisters Of Mercy part. I never liked Sisters Of Mercy, they seemed like a parody of themselves and didn't get the joke, but that's probably just me, I guess. I always thought they performed too many squealing guitar solos to be authentic goth, whatever that means, but that's my opinion. He probably should have worn a Bauhaus shirt instead.
Sorry, someone replaced my Sisters Of Mercy video with a video by Bauhaus, and it hardly had any self-indulgent, ridiculous, or easily-parodied moments in it.
Anyway, I think the four stodgy friends were just mad and jealous because he could still fit in a rock tee from the 80's and they couldn't, or worse, wouldn't. Heck, I wore my Cocteau Twins shirt from 1985 just yesterday because that's how I roll. So, The World's End is filled from top to bottom with sweet jams as narrative from the late 80s and early 90s, and it's like they raided my record collection.
There were top jams from Suede, Happy Mondays, Charlatans, and more. Mrs. Deathrage kept nudging me at one point, and kept asking who did this song, and I'm like, "St. Etienne, obs. Duh.", which she didn't care for. The remark, not the band.
We went home and she played "Join Our Club" 4 times, which is a nice way to end our date.
Toys are marketed to children in this 71-minute feature length commercial. I don't know an awful lot about Legos. I was under the impression that Legos were square plastic blocks children built larger blocks with and then left on the floor so you can step on them in the night while trying to go to the bathroom which then causes you to fall down the stairs, but apparently they've been improved so you can spend $120 and build your own Batcave with about 7000 even tinier plastic blocks. Well, whaddyaknow? Yeah, like I said, I haven't been keeping up with the latest in Lego technology, but I am familiar with the Joy Division video.
Oh. It's been brought to my attention that those toys playing guitars are not Legos. Well, whatever. I don't care what brand they are, those toys are pretty good musicians.
Anyway, everybody's been up in arms about the recent announcement of Ben Affleck playing Batman in the next Superman movie. Well, everybody needs to just settle down about it. Batman has been through worse batastrophes than Batfleck Rises.
Anyone can play Batman. He's a cape, a chin, and a killer car. That's it. Meh.
So, Lego Batman: DC Heroes Unite is an irritating commercial for the expensive plastic blocks. Luthor is running for President but Joker steals the entire movie because he's pretty much the star of the show. Anyone who watches a Batman movie because of Batman is just kidding themselves. The villain is always the star, and one-note Batman and that irritatingly vapid, goody-two-shoes Superman are just along for the ride, filling in moments until the villain takes the screen again.
See what I mean? Anyway, Lego Batman: DC Super Heroes Unite is pretty irritating, but it's for kids so that's OK, I guess. There's lots of comic relief, but there are several cool shots of Arkham Asylum, and I'm a big fan of that.
I've just called off work today due to my horoscope, and by "called off" I mean I mass-texted downstairs to my staff and told them to "Get bent, I've got a horoscope-induce ague and I'm not leaving the penthouse". I don't believe in horoscopes, but it's better to be safe than sorry. I'm a little alarmed at how unusually specific it was. It said, 'Now is a good time to stay somewhere safe, you can venture out later'. OK Yahoo, you don't have to tell me twice.
What the heck is that supposed to mean, anyway? I don't normally take much stock in these things; because if we can be honest for a minute, Yahoo isn't exactly known for the quality of its news gathering. Two of Yahoo's top stories were "5 Things That Taste Better Fried" and "Baby From India Has Second Head Removed" which sounds simultaneously tragic, obvious, confusing, and delicious.
So what does that horoscope mean? Is a comet heading this way? Is a super-villain on the loose? Should I stay on the couch and eat snack cakes?
Yeah, that's what I'll do. I will not go to work and I'll sit here for the next week or so and eat snack cakes and see if I can fashion some sort of anti-comet helmet out of the empty snack cake boxes to protect me. My horoscope said I should.
Anyway, I fell asleep in front of The Fall Of The House Of Usher last night. It's a French silent film with Italian subtitles, so I had no idea what was happening anyway. There was a creepy Expressionistic castle, rising mist from a moat, curtains ominously blowing in the breeze, skeletal trees clawing at the sky, several candelabras, a graveyard, and some pale, sickly chick who kept swooning on a chaise lounge. That chick has the right idea, because she probably read the same horoscope I did. Pass the snack cakes.
Many horror films from the Silent Era are examined in this documentary with a very tiny thumbnail picture. Seriously, what's the deal with that? It is awfully small. I mean, you can barely make out what it is. It looks a little like Ecce Mono.
Maybe it is. We'll never know.
Anyway, the documentary itself was unremarkable. It did cause me to make a list of films to watch, however, and was the reason I watched Maciste In Hell. That's one of my big problems. I make these unruly, lengthy lists of movies to watch and long before I finish with the list I begin some other list because I'm easily distracted by plastic skulls, Halloween Oreos, and Monster Cereals. Oh yeah, they're totally going to have all five of the original General Mills Monster Cereals in stores. So exciting!
So every year I buy box after box after box of the Monster Cereals because there are monsters on the packaging and never eat a bite of them because marshmallow is disgusting. Yuck. It's like tiny globs of fruity foam in your cereal. For breakfast, I drink a gallon of coffee, eat some fruit, and maybe have a bagel. I'm not much of a cereal eater, although I do like Quisp. A box of Quisp is just about as hard to find as the Monster Cereals in February. So I buy a box or two of Quisp and it lasts me about 6 months because I ironically don't like cereal all that much. Anyway, Quisp it's sort of like Cap'n Crunch, only with extraterrestrials on the packaging and they're shaped like little flying saucers and there aren't any filthy marshmallows.
The life and work of the pioneering photographer is examined in this academic documentary. I was speaking with one of my minions this weekend, which is strange because I try not to speak to them, and remarked to it (even though I'm pretty sure it didn't ask) that I have seen 90 of AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list. Some of the movies I missed are sort of embarrassing, and I'm not going into that right now. However, I found another 100 Best Movies list by Jonathan Rosenbaum that is a sort of contrary answer to the AFI's list.
I have seen 14 of those films. Which 14 is not important right now, but I'm taking this list as a challenge. That's why I watched Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer. Who wouldn't want to watch a movie with a name like that?
Anyway, the film is almost entirely composed of prints of Muybridge's glass-plate negative photographs in sepia-tone accompanied by emotionless narration from Dead Stockwell. That's pretty much it, however the film was quite fascinating.
A rather dapper fellow with a beard and mustache wearing a top hat and cape takes an uptight musclebound wet-blanket on a vacation in this silent-era documentary, I think.
So it's kind of hard to tell what's happening in this clip because it's from like a million years ago, but I think the top-hatted guy offers the pipe-smoking ingrate an all-inclusive membership to some sort of spa because of all the smoke, mist and butterflies. Some boring stuff involving an infant and a love interest happens, then it's back to the spa with more smoke, fire, snakes, writing bodies, flames, pitchforks, torture, emotion-wrought eye-blinking, eternal torment, and epic battles; and I can only assume it's January at the YMCA. Then there's some soul-devouring, a fire-breathing dragon, and decapitations with heads being flung into a fire pit, and yes, I'm almost certain it's January at the YMCA.
Two men paint yellow center-lines on a desolate Texas country road in this pastoral, enigmatic buddy-comedy. Actually, comedy is used loosely here; while beautiful, shots of trees and various gamboling wildlife is no laughing matter. Neither is the stately score by post-rock instrumentalists Explosions In The Sky. Come to think of it, I may have only chuckled once. If it weren't for Paul Rudd, I would probably call Prince Avalanche a horror film. If you're miles from the nearest restaurant surrounded by nature, how are you going to get an order of penne a aglio e olio with sundried tomatoes and artichokes? Guess what? You're not. You're going to have to catch what you eat and sleep outdoors, and I'd end up starving. Who's going to deliver an order of vegetable fried rice when the nearest address to you is actually a large moss-covered boulder? Nobody, that's who. Some might call that "roughing it", but I call it "bullcrap". I can't think of anything more brain-meltingly awful than sitting in my underpants near a creek gnawing on and choking down a campfire-roasted fish and having to sleep on the dirt in a freaking tent amongst mosquitos, brain-infesting leeches, and hungry bears. It's absolutely barbaric. This is the 21st century people, so get with the program. Technology has now rendered the outdoors obsolete. If you absolutely need to see nature, I'm sure it's on Netflix. Having watched many horror films in my time, I know that the woods are filled with chainsaw-wielding killers, the streams are full of mutant man-eating fish, and if you are outrunning someone brandishing a large tool to bludgeon you with and you fall off a cliff, there is no one for miles to save you. Seriously people, stay safe and order dessert.
After being mysteriously summoned to the castle of Professor Orloff (or Doctor or whatever), a doctor is having a hard time getting the local townsfolk to give him a lift. I'm assuming it's because he keeps asking people to give him a ride to Professor Orloff's Castle and they've all seen some of the movies instead of asking for a lift to the Happy Funtime Cupcake Palace & Brewery Strip-Club Emporium and waving around coupons for 25% off. That's how I would do it.
Anyway, the carriage carrying the doctor to the castle gets stuck in the mud, and the doctor has to get out and push but he does a crappy job because he's wearing a cape and sporting the Dry Look.
The doctor hoofs it to the castle, and once he arrives all sorts of odd things start happening; and by "odd things" I mean "boring things" like wine bottles floating around. Seriously, drink enough wine and all sorts of stuff seems to start floating around. No big deal.
After an owl-based flashback, a woman steals jewels from Orloff's not-dead dead daughter. The thief decides to admire herself by a stream a la Narcissus even though the hounds are on her trail, and she gets caught and whipped until her blouse pops open which seems likely. Then there's an owl-based flash-forward and another woman gets chased around until her blouse pops open which again seems likely. There's an awkward and confusing hay-based love scene, and by "love" I mean "incredibly offensive rape by invisible ape-man", some other junk happens, and then the movie ends.
Dr. (or Professor) Orloff Vs. (or And or Against) The Invisible Man (or Monster) is boring and should be avoided unless you like looking at a castle in need or a good mopping or at the very least a wipe down with a few sprays of Windex and some paper towels.
Really, I don't understand what the big deal about Coney Island is. Sure, it has its problems, but nothing that a good bulldozing couldn't fix. In all fairness, I've never been there. But I've been to malls before, and cheap residential housing, and they're both awfully nice. Who wouldn't want a nice square boring box of apartments on the beach? No one. Who wouldn't want a bland contemporary shopping mall built over the boardwalk? No one, because there's a mall with an Abercrombie and Fitch and a Taco Bell in every town in America, and New York needs to get with the program.
People don't like old-timey rides and amusements like the Zipper (although attendance to Coney Island was steadily rising until the razing began in 2007).
People like William-Sonoma.
Go ahead an be honest with yourself. You would much rather shop at William-Sonoma for a $500 wine fridge than ride the Zipper, although both were designed to shake change out of your pockets.
People don't like tattoo parlors and sideshows.
They like Applebee's.
Because people from all over the world travel to New York to experience a fiery taste sensation, and that describes both a Coney Island side-show fire-eating act and Applebee's Fiesta Lime Chicken (The Fiesta Lime Chicken has tortilla strips! Take that, one-of-a-kind side-show act you'd be hard-pressed to experience anywhere else).
So knock down Coney Island and build a mall by the seashore. It's what everyone wants, and by "everyone" I mean "billion dollar real estate development and investment firms" and that's what's really important.
Amongst the saxophone players, mimes, and roller disco enthusiasts of Central Park roam a slightly eccentric group of bird-watchers. Birders: The Central Park Effect features interviews with some of them and many shots of the colorful birds they hunt. I once saw a nuthatch pulling seeds from a pinecone in Central Park, and by "nuthatch" I mean "homeless guy wearing nothing more than a pair of dingy tighty-whiteys" and "pulling seeds from a pinecone" I mean "taking an impromptu bath in the sink of the men's room near Belvedere Castle at about 3 in the afternoon". Central Park is just chockfull of wildlife.
A notary arrives at an castle to settle a will, and suddenly Barbara Steele rises from behind a couch and ominously says, "My Husband has been dead for a year" as thunder cracks which seems perfectly fine because there's almost never anything to worry about if you find yourself staying at an castle with Barbara Steele. So like I said, the notary arrives at this castle where plague victims were stored because why wouldn't they be, because the castle's owner who's been dead a year sent him a letter because why wouldn't he, and he has to sleep in the room where the castle's owner died because of course he does, and this room he has to sleep in has a cabinet of severed hands just outside the door because where else would you keep them, and again, all that seems just fine. You sure in the heck aren't going to get those kind of accommodations at the Red Roof Inn. Then the notary listens to a recording of the dead man recounting the legend of the Diabolical Plague Spreaders, and the Diabolical Plague Spreaders sounds like a pretty bad-ass Swedish death metal band, and that also seems fine.
The next morning, the notary goes to start up his Chitty Chitty Bang Bang-mobile when he discovers he has a bloody owl corpse lodged in his engine, and he says, "What rotten luck!" which seems fine and the appropriate thing to say at a time like that. Sometime later, the notary stumbles upon the body of the pharmacist/mayor of the town whose face is drippy from acid (not drippy from acid in the "drippy Salvador Dali clock melting over a tree branch because I took LSD at the Grateful Dead concert" sense, but the "some fiend splashed the sulfuric variety on me and now my dissolving face-skin is sliding into the pocket of my overcoat" sense, just to clear that whole thing up). Someone says, "The Corpse Collectors always come around when someone is doomed" and then Barbara Steele takes a bubble bath; which both the Corpse Collectors and Barbara Steele Takes A Bubble Bath sound like Swedish death metal bands and that also seems fine.
After what seems like forever as the cast discusses the events that have taken place so far, some chick that is not Barbara Steele sitting naked by a fountain in the dark sings a jaunty tune called, "Death Is Approaching" and the notary decides to investigate the dark castle with only a candle as spooky chords are hammered on a piano because that seems fine. Meanwhile, a guy sitting in a wheelchair rolls himself onto a sword hari-kari-style, and someone's plaguey corpse hand caresses the shoulder of his now-lifeless body as theremin music plays because that seems fine and the appropriate thing to do. Then all the crypts in the castle's vicinity slide open for some reason because of course they are and why wouldn't they.
So yeah, Terror Creatures From The Grave has fog, cobwebs, doors that close by themselves, thunder and lightning, howling winds, open graves, long shadows cast by the figure of some unknown horrible thing, and sudsy bubble baths, but very few actual terror creatures from the grave which is actually fine because Terror Creatures From The Grave didn't really need them.
The legendary Joseph Cotten, star of Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Gaslight, Shadow Of A Doubt, and The Third Man stars in this horror film that certainly isn't as good as any of those films. Did you know Joseph Cotten appeared in 3 movies and 4 TV shows the year Lady Frankenstein was released? Neither did I! That's quite a track record. He certainly was busy in 1971. Upon reflection, maybe he should have been a little more selective, but a gig's a gig, I guess.
Anyway, Lady Frankenstein has all the usual Frankenstein elements plus some gauzy nightgowns, secret passageways, drippy incisions, brain transplants, coils and beakers, brains in jars, and Joseph Cotten's weird not-quite-European accent.
Near the end of the movie, Oldest Daughter Deathrage came downstairs because she apparently wanted to ruin my life and said so. She said, 'Dad, have you seen Rich Kids Of Instagram? It'll ruin your life'.
I don't really like having my life ruined, so I had to admit I hadn't seen the site. She went on to tell me that it's a site where rich kids post pictures of their rich lives. This bothered my daughter a great deal. She was shocked at the photos of teenagers having champaign parties on yachts and taking helicopter rides to the Hamptons and owning solid gold diamond-encrusted I-Phone5s.
Now I'm going to have to have a talk with my daughter and explain to her that we're wealthy because I don't think she knows. She believes we live in squalor because we don't have yachts or items gilded in gold. I don't like champaign, I like coffee. I don't like boats of any variety. I don't need to go to the Hamptons because I visited Cave City, Kentucky this summer and that was just as good. I don't eat fancy meals because I like tater tots. I don't need an enormous pool because I don't like to swim, and I don't throw parties because I don't like people. My family and I spend our wealth on extravagant footwear, Halloween-related craft items, and Junior Mints.
UPDATE: I think Oldest Daughter Deathrage is starting to get a clue, because she demanded to know where all the new running shoes and plastic decorative rats came from.
Dear Netflix: I don't think you know what a comedy is, especially if it's a foreign film. Bad Day To Go Fishing has the possibilities to be comedic, but when the cellos start playing you know it's not going to be humorous. Here's the gist: A former world champion wrestler and a supposed prince attempt to grift a small town with tragic results. While Day Day To Go Fishing has some colorful cinematography and good art direction, it's definitely lacking in the humor department.
It should be pretty easy to write reviews for these films. Guess what? It's not. They're all terrible. They all have outlandish plots. And they all have enormous things in them. The comedy should just write itself. Well, it doesn't.
The Calamari Wrestler
In The Calamari Wrestler, a professional wrestler is reincarnated and attempts to reclaim his former life.
Executive Koala
In Executive Koala, a pickle factory executive's girlfriend has been viciously murdered and he finds he is the prime suspect.
Deadly Weapons
And finally, an advertising executive's lover has been murdered by the mob and she's going to get her revenge with the only two weapons she has.
Movies about a murderous marsupial, a pro-wrestling seafood appetizer, and Chesty Morgan should be outrageously entertaining. They aren't. Clearly, they are going to have their scenes of WTF, but instead of going completely nuts, the film-makers decide to play it straight. Using a framework of romantic comedy or gangster film tropes; the wrestling, ax-murdering, and bosom smothering takes a back-seat. Sure, there's a bizarre musical interlude in Executive Koala that has to be seen to be believed, a surreal guerrilla street boxing match between the titular wrestling calamari and a mantis shrimp that's worth a peek, and Chesty Morgan performing one of the most seduction-free and pathos-laden strip-teases ever committed to film; but those highlights are just brief moments in three very tedious full-length films.
Not that I'm saying you shouldn't see them, because you should. It just won't be very pleasant.
The infamous 1970s "Mormon Sex In Chains" case is examined in this Errol Morris documentary. Simply shot in mid close up and consisting primarily of interviews and cut-up-newspaper-like graphics; Tabloid is lurid, manipulative, and nearly impossible to look away from. As the story unfolded, I found my jaw dropping just a little bit more. Tabloid is funny, entertaining and often unbelievable, and to spill more about it would ruin the fun. Here's a trailer anyway.
