James Batman

Batman, Robin, and some guy named James battle a vaguely communist threat from the nefarious CLAW organization in this Batman film from the Philippines. After a few moments of stock atomic bomb and post-typhoon footage, the leader of CLAW shoots gun-disabling finger beams at a guy and then disappears in a puff of smoke. Meanwhile in the Batcave, Batman and Robin smoke and drink coffee while discussing the possibility of meeting some chicks. Then Batman slides down the Batpole and eats rice from a briefcase and garnishes it with olives from his utility belt. He whips out his telescopic Batfork/Batcommunicator (which is an invention that's well overdue) and wipes his food-covered hands on Robin's cape.

Batman and Robin take a ride in their enormous Batmobile while the James Bond theme plays for some reason. Don't tell me it has something to do with this movie being a weird James Bond/Batman hybrid, because I refuse to believe it due to a plaid fedora, and if you haven't noticed, blatantly misunderstanding key elements of a film are kind of my thing. After being attacked by machine gun fire and threatened with a bomb, the Not-Exactly Dynamic Duo disappears in a puff of smoke and then fisticuffs ensue, but I'm unsure where all the guys with machine guns disappear to. Robin gets a beatdown, and then everyone discovers why capes aren't especially effective during hand-to-hand combat with members of an evil syndicate, because capes nearly always get wrapped around the heroes' heads as they escape. In a revealing sequence, Robin removes Batman's tights while they're dangling from a building, and it's revealed that Batman wears tighty-whiteys. During another dramatic escape sequence because it kind of seems like Batman and Robin spend most of their time escaping from stuff, the Batmobile squirts oil on the road and sets it alight, and Robin puts a lightbulb in his mouth and Batman calls him a freak.

Suddenly, James is involved in a gross, overly-plaid love sequence in extreme, blurry close-up, and it doesn't seem to involve Batman and Robin at all, for some reason. In an extended Batman-free sequence, a woman is punched in the crotch and someone else's pants smoke. I'm not sure why.

Suddenly, Joker, Penguin, and Catwoman sort of appear, but I'm not sure if the film-makers completely understand who these characters are, because Catwoman is called something else entirely even though it's pretty obvious she's supposed to be Catwoman, and Joker looks a little like he's in the Velvet Underground, and by "a little" I really mean "someone should hand him guitar because he's already wearing the cool shades".

Then someone crawls around underneath a palm frond.

Suddenly, Batman and Robin show up amidst a cool jazz soundtrack, and then a chick asks Batman out to dinner. Masked chicks with machine guns chase another chick wearing a bathing suit, and I don't really have anything negative to say about that. Then Batman, Robin, James, the bathing suit chick, and her mom and dad are captured by the machine gun chicks. The leader of CLAW blah-blah-blahs for nearly forever, then one of the masked chicks gets vaporized by a giant, metallic claw statue.

Suddenly, Johnny comes to the rescue! Who's that? I don't know. But it results in a lengthy fight sequence involving James, Johnny, Catwoman, Joker, and Penguin in some sort of factory. I'm not sure why. Then Robin inexplicably uses a gun, and then the movie ends and not a moment too soon.

Considering how little Batman and Robin actually appear in James Batman, it surprisingly has more Batman and Robin action than actual Batman movies, so go figure. James Batman is recommended if you like stuff that sucks.

Canada's Most Haunted

Canada's most haunted sites are investigated in this recreation-heavy documentary. Utilizing the old-fashioned technique of interviews and recreations instead of the modern ghost hunting technique of night-time investigations, Canada's Most Haunted tells the paranormal histories of some of the Great White North's spookiest locations. Unfortunately, there's a very sensible skeptic interviewed between each vignette discounting every single story, tossing a wet blanket over the entire proceedings, so Canada's Most Haunted is very, very boring. To make matters worse, they also investigate the Memphremagog Lake Monster, and while I don't have any problem with lake monsters per se, lake monsters aren't ghosts at all, but Memphremagog is a really interesting word, and it's fun to say. Thanks to Wikipedia, I just found out that Lake Memphremagog has a lighthouse named Witch Shoal Lighthouse, and while I don't know if it's haunted, I wouldn't mind visiting if there's the possibility of seeing a ghost, a witch, and a monster all at the same time.

Central State

Repetitive and gimmicky, Central State follows the paranormal history of the Central State Asylum For The Insane, and it's a lot like Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, or Most Haunted, except shaky cam, distracting editing, voiceovers, and sound effects obscure any 'evidence' uncovered. A former patient is interviewed, but his features and voice is obscured, and it's a lot like the rest of the film, where any so-called proof of paranormal activity is hard to see or hear. If it's paranormal entertainment you're looking for, I would stick with the affable guys from Ghost Adventures and avoid Central State.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lknYvnlPYf0

Patch Town

I'm very disappointed in Patch Town. Although well-shot, well-acted, and featuring good art direction, I believed it to be a horror film. It is not.

It's a musical.

It's a fantasy musical about a mystical Eastern Bloc American city where gooey infants are born in a cabbage patch and turned into dolls. One of these dolls grows up, and searches for his mother.

Yeah, I know, that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. But the kicker is the singing. Everybody sings, and I just can't handle it. I've never understood musicals, and I don't want to. If I wanted to see actors inexplicably burst into song, I'd watch a music video.

OK, I'll have you know I'll go to great lengths for comedy, and I watched every second of that video, and it nearly killed me. I deserve a medal of some sort.

Anyway, Patch Town starts pretty interestingly, where workers saw cabbages open with scalpels and pull drippy infants out of them, umbilical cords and all, but that's tossed aside for a character's search for the little girl who abandoned him when he was a doll. There's a few moments of absurd comedy from a henchman and a truck driver, but overall Patch Town is a musical letdown. If you're scared of musicals, avoid Patch Town.

Here's a remarkably song-free trailer:

Fiend Without A Face

Invisible thought creatures strangle townsfolk and suck out their brains in this sci-fi thriller that's atmospheric, well-shot, and remarkably gory for its time. After a cameraman's fedora'd shadow is visible on the hood of a moving jeep and some stock aircraft and radar equipment footage, a woman is strangled by an unseen force as she's feeding chickens. An autopsy reveals that her brains AND her spinal cord have been sucked out by a 'mental vampire', and I'm just as surprised as you are by that finding. Some plot happens for a while, then an air force major investigates a cemetery. He enters a crypt which has a winding stone staircase that inexplicably leads deep underground because it's in the script. He discovers a clue and an partially open casket, and then the crypt door suddenly closes by itself, presumably by an invisible brain-sucker that didn't find is brain to be that delicious, to it could have been the wind. Who knows? After he breaks his flashlight, he uses some convenient crypt candles (because dead people like ambiance), then he passes out from lack of oxygen just before being rescued, because it's awfully likely he breathed up a two-story house-worth of air in two minutes.  Suddenly, brains in trees lurk outside a house, and they fly and creep and dangle from strings and attack people before being shot by guns and cut open with axes in a grisly stop-motion sequence that has to be seen to be believed. Fiend Without A Face drags a bit in the middle, but it more than makes up for it with a WTF ending. It's wholeheartedly recommended if you like stuff that kind of sucks.

Monster Madness: The Golden Age of The Horror Film/Mutants, Space Invaders, And Drive-Ins

A clip-heavy multi-part documentary of the early history of the horror genre, Monster Madness: The Golden Age Of The Horror Film concentrates on the Universal Monsters, with Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the rest of the gang.

It's probably the better of the two films I watched, but I enjoyed Monster Madness: Mutants, Space Invaders, And Drive-Ins the most. Get prepared to see lots of strings! Featuring Plan 9 From Outer Space, The Giant Claw, Attack Of The Giant Leeches, and Beast From Planet Arous, crudely fashioned monsters from the golden age of horror dangle about, and there's a few drive-in intermission clips, too. The film hops around in time, and some of the star interviews seem out of place, but that's ok. Monster Madness is a fairly comprehensive primer on the beginning of horror film.

Giuseppe Makes A Movie

Utilizing the down-on-their-luck residents of the trailer park he lives in, former child actor Guiseppe Andrews makes no-budget underground films in this gritty documentary. From appearing in big budget films such as Independence Day and Detroit Rock City to buying booze and DVCs from the local drug store, Andrews uses alcoholics and eccentrics as his main characters, feeding them lines in seedy motel rooms, and shooting in extreme close-up with a camcorder. Tragic and absurd, Giuseppe Makes A Movie recounts some of the horrific lives of the actors Andrews uses, and his belief that his films helps his neighbors in some way and his genuine life as an outsider artist amidst terrible poverty and near-homelessness keeps the film from becoming exploitation, but just barely.