cfosteresq Reviews

Ubu roi (1976 TV Movie)

showy, funky, Literati Soul Dose

[10/10 · 18 April 2024]

Donald Pleasance goes all classical doing this bizarre Jarry play, which I read--a handwritten babble of epic tale-telling.

As a TV movie of sorts, this comes off like Monty Python invading some broadway stage dealing in the English fine arts.

Rubber prosthetics, garish colors, sassy talking, hobo autocracy, and all kinds of great late night entertainment!

The video has the oversaturated glare of Hee Haw and the late night diner jazz of a Tom Waits hallucination. I saw it in England somehow, and I have always wanted to find a legitimate copy.

Someone! Find the tape! Donald Pleasance and Alfred Jarry made a winning mix here.

History of the Occult (2020)

A Royal Rumble of Occult Concepts

[7/10 · 9 October 2023]

Wha?...

This movie is very rich, but in my opinion too short! It feels like if someone tried to trim Pulp Fiction down to 45 minutes.

The other reviews make it seem like there is no action, but there are scenes with movement, and vehicles... the whole swirl of events is fast, pretty deliriously so. At the end you feel like everything just blew by.

But I will think on it more, I feel like there is more to get. Therefore I would say it is worth a watch.

But more for a night when you would enjoy a play--intriguing characters played by a cast that acts continuously very well. Black and white seemed a challenge for me here, but it gives a Twilight Zone feel mixed with a vaporwave dream essence of news and commercials: hard to tell what year this takes place!

The Nun (1966)

Exactly, kind of

[7/10 · 10 September 2023]

This is exactly the kind of thing I would watch on Encore movie channel as a 13 year old in the 90s and think because it was a highly specific film hidden in the dark hour of 2 AM that it must be underground or convey secret things about life.

And I guess it does if these are secret, irrelevant, forgotten things, like the dream of a previous era that one can never know to be true or false.

But for sure, the films I saw like this I won't forget. They are like whole history lessons delivered in double--the time period of the story, and the culture period of the production.

The acting, and the beautiful set pieces and locations, and the nonmusical, drony bell music add to this impression of jarringly subtle value, meanwhile the story has that quality of classic French novels which I can somehow feel emanating from old Penguin paperbacks... the height of drama in an atmosphere of emptiness, the pathetic outnumbered by the purely unsympathetic, scene after scene; and all of it mired in seriousness and God.

Drink a few beers and go for it!

Miami Connection (1987)

Gotta push up that average a little!

[10/10 · 22 July 2023]

Under the right conditions, this can be the exact film you need. The concept of ninjas vs. Drug dealers is compelling enough, but the dialogue and narrative path pays homage to something like Lynch or Fellini--some real bizarre statements and avenues of character development.

Some real unintentional art in this film, leading to laugh-out-loud moments. Decent kung-fu, with a lot of effects and slow-mo. In most places, the editing supplies crazy awkward atmosphere. The focused karate fights offer a nice contrast.

I didn't realize it would keep having an 80s band performing onstage with references to the plot--like some Greek chorus. This director did their homework.

I will revisit this one again. Probably in the same condition. I gotta take someone else with me.

White Noise (I) (2022)

Only for big fans of the book

[5/10 · 5 January 2023]

Yep, that's DeLillo. People do not actually speak this way. It's like Wes Anderson times ten. White Noise is his best book of the 3 or 4 I have read, but this film did bring me right back to that insufferable intellectualism, that, when applied to a family at home or one guy violently confronting another, just jars the credibility of the scene.

I feel bad for people who go into this story cold. Without the additional narration, there's no way it makes sense. They even try to resuscitate the film by having some characters randomly start pretty-much reciting parts of the book like they are thinking aloud. And as other reviewers state, yes: It's like "characters aren't listening to each other." It's DeLillo done as if it were Beckett and boy is it painful.

Super literary. Little symmetries and references and lord above--the allusions! There is one single-word theme: Death. All the events of the movie skirt around this, and it makes it seem like the plot is totally indecisive, with overwritten dialogue trying to vehemently explain what the movie is about.

I'm just griping at this point. College students, if you have to read this book, the movie is a totally viable option. You can quote the dialogue and you'll get right on by!

Joy of Learning (1969)

Krunk L'dovings

[10/10 · 10 December 2022]

Godard is a new experience for me--over the summer, I watched La Chinoise for about 20 minutes at a time. It was somehow taxing, but very rewarding to think about. I found myself yearning to see Godard's colors and the snappy transitions between blunt dialogues. So it surprised me that this film is predominantly black--there is more negative space than any other film I've seen. To some people it could be unbearably monotonous, but it definitely makes a lasting impression.

There is some good humor, but overall Godard seems very deadpan. In a way, I thought this must have been a major inspiration for Wes Anderson's sense of color and dialogue pacing. Meanwhile the content speaks to some of my favorite literary interests, like William S. Burroughs, Marshal McLuhan, and of course my main man Jacques Ellul. La Technique!

Not a party film, nor a relaxing watch. Sit meditative and delve in the atypical presentation of Godard's ideas. Surreal, and France in the 60s is interesting enough beyond that. Stylish as hell.

Intruder (1989)

haha bruce campbell is not in this

[10/10 · 24 November 2022]

What a hilarious film, full of underground spirit and retro props... like a pop culture museum mixed with a quirky community murder mystery.

Bruce Campbell is just a cameo, really. But even fans of his should like every minute of this movie. There is humor, and darkness, and the cool weird camera shots (like through the dialing face of a telephone?) that awake viewers will realize happened before they could question it.

Just... seriously, an easy one to enjoy. So sit down, dish out the opioids, and let all clams resound to the mighty gainsay of this cinematic supertide! I swear! You'll be a prosecco bandito!

Wild Wild Country (2018)

When the Rajneesh calls...

[8/10 · 13 August 2022]

I watched it on Earth Day, so thinking about laws and fairness and looking out for each other and the world really influenced my analysis.

No one looked good in "Wild Wild Country." Think about directions the world could go from either side, Antelope folks or cult folks... it will make you really confused.

Wild Wild Country and the Night Stalker tie for having so much recorded history, from stadium speeches to car rides and group conversations, polling places... so much captured footage! And the audio department really slathered on the fudge with that stupid faux-epic music that made nearly 7 hours of interviews and live footage all look like ONE GIGANTIC PREVIEW. Seriously, turn down the music. Ease up and let the people speak. Jesus, it's not Koyanasqaatsi here. I want to hear the lawyers.

So, minus two stars for volume problems.

And Soon the Darkness (1970)

Amelie meets The Hills Have Eyes!

[7/10 · 15 April 2022]

Hello! I like 70s horror, giallo, so I said, "why not?" I started to lose heart about another trite "lost girl" movie, but this one is worth watching for several reasons. Like the main reviewer says, it doesn't translate the French, so you feel a lot like a tourist unable to understand the native chatter (I imagine it would be interesting the other way around, too) (I also turned on subtitles halfway through, so I could understand).

There is something delightful in a late night movie that takes place entirely on one bright, lovely-looking warm day. That's point two.

And last I will say the director put effort into tiny details that make the viewer double guess. This is maybe no Hitchcock, but the nearly Tarkovsky-style folkness of the minor characters lift it a notch above b-movie schlock. This one is slightly classier than something you want to watch drunk and make fun of with friends.

That recurring theme was a tad annoying, though. Good thing it leaves for the main 45 minutes of the film.

Living in Oblivion (1995)

Scads of Eons!

[9/10 · 31 March 2022]

Great Buscemi, great cast overall--very NYC underground. I can imagine how hard it is to control your environment, making a film in the city.

The whole movie feels like 4:30 AM, and just like when you are asleep, but realize you've been awake, and you realize it may have been a long while since you were sure which one you were, lying there... the movie ends, fast, cold.

But quite fulfilling. Fun, despite the fact that several times, during the tasks of the actor characters, I found myself saying, "Mannnn... making (low-budget) movies would suck."

A Cat in the Brain (1990)

Whippin' along

[7/10 · 11 March 2022]

I am about 45 minutes into the film, and I wanted to come here, because I started thinking, "Uh oh... this movie might suck." And from a walk-up perspective, it is certainly not a gateway to thoughtful horror art.

But after reading the many negative reviews, I feel compelled to support this film's high notes. Sure, watch The Beyond or New York Ripper first--just like all the Italians, it was obviously conceived into a tape recorder, while pacing the room on a coke binge... that's the kind of intense narrative flow, head-twisting moments of death and sex, totally disembodied from any rational order of events... actors that perform cinema's equivalent to Cubism, because they phrase things and move around like no native English speaker would--and for half the cast, the lips don't line up with the dialogue at all... Like Ron Reagan or some demon said, "It's the giallo movies, stupid!"

The best way to approach this film, and really enjoy it, is in the spirit of a 13-year-old child, watching this late at night. It has similar goof and schlock to Tales from the Crypt--this was the birth of the '90s right here, and it has the last few drops of the '80s, too.

The frame story does invite the sense that this was a personal sendoff autobiography, meant to be taken with humor but determined to deliver all the old showstoppers; deadpan in a self-indulgent way, like we should derive several layers of meaning from it, but know that the cast and crew is back to cut loose and introduce some rather shocking clips.

So sit back and win $10,000--the money used to make this oddball film you can cherish forever!

The Beyond (1981)

Buffet of screams!

[8/10 · 5 March 2022]

Great kills. Basic characters. New Orleans as setting is top notch. Soundtrack has some cool twisted antichrist grandeur to it. Therefore one of Fulci's best, with his love of dismantling bodies on camera in front of snazzy urban backdrops.

A Bay of Blood (1971)

Fertile with Grime!

[10/10 · 2 January 2022]

This one is fraught with activity... people keep having violent encounters! Bava.has the tendency to blow up the physics of time and strength to an artistic extent, making me feel disoriented and overfed. Bay of Blood is in the upper tier of his work... but I am realizing that applies to most of the ones I've seen...

There is a Love Generation/Kraut rock feel to it, and everyone is trying to explain their complicated ideas very quickly before they get mixed up in a violent confrontation. So the only thing rolling out as often as violence is confusion--and Bava is clearly a lover of these audacious scenes of people either going primal, or the opposite, really not acting as freaked out as they should be.

Lisa and the Devil (1973)

A diabolical body-waxing

[10/10 · 2 January 2022]

This film clicked on my Bava light: Thereafter I said I will see if his other films come close to this, and felt regret that I did not watch his films closely for so many years that I have been into giallo. I have seen maybe 5 Bava films now, and this is still the most interesting.

He was strides out there, and you will be making coffee for a long, long time, thinking about what you saw in this film--reflecting on it really creates the vague feelings associated with trying to recall a dream's uncomfortable details.

A Guy Walks Into a Bar (1997)

Like the Twilight Zone on Twisted Tea

[8/10 · 29 November 2021]

This felt like one of those sweet-hearted Twilight Zones, where you don't feel dread or fright, more like a surprise party is going to happen any minute in a room where it seems like a murder happened, or the old man finds his key at the last second before the monster gets him. It had fallen right into the bowl of the stone angel his son had given him as a lucky charm!

The style is a bit Tarantino--I thought, "This must have totally influenced Pulp Fiction!" But then this page said the short film was from 1997. I thought, "That cannot be. That cannot be." I thought Fred Savage was a young adult in the 80s!

Then I found all the facts I needed. It has an '80s feel, or a '90s Nickelodeon feel to it, but... gritty Nickelodeon. So sit back, get out your Gak, and enter the obscurity!

Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon (1973)

Explanation of Madness

[10/10 · 25 November 2021]

This film is great for its value as a bowl of mixed art fruit.

As independent Mexican cinema, it is psychedelic and stylish and full of jaw-dropping vistas and abandoned ruins. I would kill to have the soundtrack--if they even saved the tapes.

As an adaptation of Poe, you will find it is delightfully faithful to a very short story... the parts where Poe shines as a manic stylist--the dialogue of the insane-- are displayed with honors as special monologues and outbursts.

As a b-movie, it is full of helpless women, sexist chivalrous men, female moaning and the utterance of "the devil" through echo effects, and unsettling freaks instead of gore.

The cherry in this bowl is Claudio Brook running the asylum. His verbal deliveries, smug expression, and madman laughter run parallel to the infinities of this dimension. How I would have loved to meet him on set and just absorb some of the light he shone on this character.

Great to watch during a sick day, or with friends when looking for a tame but stylish Horror film equivalent of Home Alone.