Change Your Image
mutighollander
Reviews
The Fountainhead (1949)
Strickly 4 laffs...
If you've read this far down, you've seen people praising the book this movie is a version of while deriding the film itself, saying it doesn't really capture the deep characterizations of the novel. These people are wrong, however, as what is omitted is even more tedious pedantic lectures on the ideal relationship between the individual and the state. As it stands, a case could be made Rand did herself a favor by leaving the more unpleasant implications of her philosophy on the page. On the other hand, they actually have to at least sort of show you the buildings here, and that works against them; it's all walkways and glass and concrete boxes; schools built after 1970. The acting is monstrious, Cooper delivers his lines like a downed airman confessing for enemy interrogators. Of course, it's really difficult to imagine any way to utter something like "The man who works for others without being paid is a slave! and I am no man's slave" or some other tongue honey from the Stan Lee school of bombastic pronouncements about one's self in a convincing fashion, so perhaps the perfectly talented cast was up against more than they could handle. The art direction is all stuff you saw plenty of on "Perry Mason," say. The plot is finally resolved by the characters behaving in a completely unrealistic way. Yet the thing is hilarious, it's so stuffy and pompous. The camp value is astonishing. It's like Reefer Madness, only extoling the dangers of being nice to each other.
Gandahar (1987)
aesthetically pleasing but largely free of content
This appears to be an animated version of some semi-erotic European SF comic. While arguably some of the animation is undetailed and stingy with motion, creative art direction offsets this to a large degree. In fact, a good deal of this movie is jaw dropping, sweeping vistas of Flash-Gordon-meets-Hieronymous-Bosch. If only it was as well animated as, say, He-man, well, then you'd really have something. The plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense, it's something at once simplistic about killer robots at the beck and call of this giant glans-brain-anus beaked floating squid thing, and something overly convoluted about potato faced mutants and time travel. The later have a speaking device which will not add to your comprehension of the ending of the movie about talking in then-now-later, "I will did are going gone went over under behind then now later." May well be as enjoyable with your favorite psychedelic music as soundtrack instead of that business, fun to watch high. If you like Barbarella or Heavy Metal, you'll dig this.
Freakazoid! (1995)
remarkably not funny
Who exactly is this cartoon for? While kids probably won't get most of the references and allusions, there's really very little else here that's supposed to be funny or entertaining. Meanwhile, adults are likely to find it forced and derivative. There are also some supporting segments, of which the best is Lord Bravery. The central conceit there is "Basil Fawlty as a superhero," which is somewhat amusing momentarily, until you realize you could actually watch "Fawlty Towers." The other segments, Toby Danger and Lawn Gnomes, are one joke parodies of Gargoyles and Jonny Quest. Freakazoid himself is a pretty shoddy one off of The Mask, except his major shtick is Jerry Lewis. In fact, just about his only shtick is Jerry Lewis, which isn't funny shtick when Jerry Lewis does it. I guess you'd dig this cartoon if you like that little flash of recognition that comes from the realization "Hey! The writers of this cartoon have seen all the same movies I have!" but me, I prefer jokes and stuff. It's not really hard to see why this didn't last. Good for fanboys and other nerds, everyone else should avoid.
Blood Orgy of the She-Devils (1973)
Not a lot of good things to say
There wasn't much blood, and there sure wasn't no orgy. It's hard to like this movie, even as camp. It's sort of, hmmm...imagine if Russ Meyers wasn't even as talented as he was. The most interesting feature of this early seventies cheapie are the young women, presumably the titular "She-Devils," but they don't get much chance to show off their assets as actresses. I thought there was a rule, any mid-seventies horror cheapie with more than three women in the cast had to feature gratuitous nudity. They also do some dance as part of the human sacrifice ritual.
SPOILER.
Incoherent goings on at a witch's coven; think Snow White's mother runs the Playboy mansion. There's really nothing like a plot here. Instead you get lots of hokey scenes of the head witch in charge standing in front of a braiser, stabbing dolls, incanting. "So Mote it Be." Woo Hoo. Sometimes, she orders this caveman version of Jamie Farr to...you know, I really don't remember what he does. In one scene, he holds a bowl for her (you'll want someone to hold a bowl for you too, this might not be bad to watch with a room full of messy people.) There's a couple of scenes of witches being executed, inquisition style. One of them is momentarily amusing when you notice how much the witch looks like "Samantha." This feeling fades quickly, as the realization forms in your numbing mind that you'd be more entertained watching "Bewitched." The ending just sort of happens. This professor type who's been pushing along what plot development just comes over to the "Blood Orgy" with his three friends. They chant in an Ed Wood version of Hollywood Bible-ese. "Oh spirits of evil! We command you! We command you to remove yourself" or something equally inspired. Then lightning comes out of their fingers and the She-devils all stab each other, or perhaps the evil spirits they were boogeying with down in the groovy paneled basement that dripped blood turn against them and make them stab each other, or maybe they were just going to stab each other anyway. There's no way of knowing. Oh, and the score is unpleasant tuneless electronic music.
Heavy Metal 2000 (2000)
I found it unsatisfying in almost every way
Wow, was this bad. I mean, really really bad. I am actually hard pressed to think of any part of the movie that was interesting or in some way entertaining. Let's start with the animation; it's not to the level of the average Saturday morning cartoon. In fact, occasionally the "persistence of vision" illusion isn't triggered because of how few drawings per frame you're seeing. Jeez, couldn't they afford a rotoscope and a plane camera? That in and of itself would be more or less excusable, since after all the original HM was often jerky with unconvincing motion, but FAKK2, unlike its predecessor, suffers from really really uninspired art direction and production design. Often the characters bodies are out of proportion, and not because of heroic exaggeration, but simply because of shoddy craftsmanship. Despite kinky sex situations and a fair amount of nudity, there's nothing erotic about the movie, and again, it's because it looks like an episode of Road Rovers. Julie and her sister are about as sexy as Barbie dolls. The characters and backgrounds are all in these muddy shades of grey and brown and green, and there are few or any of the panoramic vistas of alien worlds or fantastic cities you'd expect. We do get long crawls down the side of CGI space ships, and that's probably the best thing about this movie. Certainly it's not the dialogue..."when you kill something, make sure it's dead." or the plot, which is a dull rehash of the Moebius-inspired segments of the original film. "Astonishingly bad" may be giving the movie too much credit, as that would seem to imply a "Plan-9" camp value, and this straight-to-video number fails to provide entertainment even ironically. My final complaint would be with the sound, although maybe that was just the copy I rented. The vocal track was so fuzzy I had to turn the volume up to a level that made the music and sound effects deafening before I could make out what anyone was saying.