Change Your Image
vinnie-bartilucci
Reviews
The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005)
Many characters in search of their authors and a (evil) plot
Fair warning - this is a film you should not bother with if you have never seen the original show. This is a love letter to the denizens of Royston Vasey, much in the way that Vonngeut's _Breakfast of Champions_ was a sort of love letter and farewell to his creations. It's self-referential, in-jokey, confusing to the uninitiated, and utterly magnificent.
The plot is Pirandello-esquire; The Gents have decided to abandon their creations and move on to new material. Therefore, the town of Royston Vasey is beginning to unravel before the townspeople's eyes. Recon teams are sent into the "real world" to learn what's going on, and things get odder from there.
Many of the characters make their return, but not all - there'd just be no time. Tubbs and Edward return from the dead, but there's no mention of the twins. Dr Chinnery gets a truly orgasmic scene (heh heh) but we only get a glimpse of Mickey.
One of the reasons that the creations of the League are so good is you actually care about them. As with characters like Basil Fawlty from _Fawlty Towers_ you laugh at their situation, but then you feel sorry for them. These characters deserve this farewell, and it's creative, fitting, and damn hilarious.
Deep down, we're all local.
The Wild Weird World of Dr. Goldfoot (1965)
It wasn't a movie - but that don't mean it wasn't good
This was indeed not a film. It was in fact an episode of the old TV dance show "Shindig" that AIP basically took over and did a half-hour long story to plug the upcoming release of Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.
It's quite a bit different from the film, but the basic concept is the same - Dr Goldfoot (Price) has built a line of lovely girl robots including the delicious Susan Hart.
Interestingly, Vincent Price explained in an interview many years later that in its original form, Dr Goldfoot was supposed to be more of a musical. Songs that tied into the plot would have made it more like what Rocky Horror would do many years later. The songs were cut from the script (and assumedly never recorded) but a lot of them showed up in this little episode. It's a neat look at what might have been for this classic.
The short (for lack of a better term) is available on a DVD called "Vincent Price-The Sinister Image" that is basically a long-form interview with Price, where he discusses his whole career. The Weird Wild World of Dr. Goldfoot is on the disk as an extra, but it's the main reason I bought the disk.