Friday, December 25, 2009

THEODORA GOES WILD (1936)

How much you like this film will probably depend on how much you're a fan of Irene Dunne and/or Melvyn Douglas. Myself, I'm not the world's biggest Douglas fan. I've seen a number of his films and he does nothing for me. All I can ever think about when I see him is how somebody else would have done such a better job in his role. On the other hand Irene is pretty good considering she's working with a boring script.

Let's talk about the story. There's a huge fuss going all over the country about this new steaming sex novel called "The Sinner". It's a nationwide bestseller, but nowhere is the fuss bigger than in the small hamlet of Lynnfield. The local newspaper published the first chapter and it caused the righteous old ladies to go berserk and raise such a stink that the newspaper agreed to stop printing the story. In the midst of all this crazy behavior is Irene Dunne, a quiet woman who lives with her three cunts, I mean, aunts. She's also secretly the author of "The Sinner". She had no idea her story would cause such an uproar and she'll do anything to keep her secret.

Enter the annoying Melvyn Douglas who finds out her secret and is now using his knowledge to blackmail Dunne into employing him as a gardener in the hopes of...well I'm not really sure what he's hoping for. Things happen (I'm not going to give it all away) and soon Dunne turns the tables on him and is now blackmailing him! That sounds like it could be funny and when I rented it I was hoping that it would be, but instead I just got a few chuckles and that's it. I would have loved to see what Preston Sturges could have done with that story idea instead. Skip it.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH (1976)

[Update 05/17/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

For years I've thought that this was a hardcore horror movie so when I started it up I was quite shocked when the opening theme song was some pathetic 70's folk guitar ballad horseshit. Then the characters show up and they're a bunch of pussies! What the hell is going on here...this is a goddamn drama movie!!! Once I settled into my disappointment I realized that the film wasn't half bad. In fact it's pretty much a HEATHERS of the 70's.

David's new to Central High. He meets different students (each representing a different political group or ideal) and the four bullies who keep order in the school with an iron fist (I guess they represent Communism). David instantly gets on the bad side of the bullies and tries to get the other students to revolt. They decline and the bullies break David's leg. He returns to school and assassinates three of the bullies. With no bullies, the students go wild and tear the shit out of everything and start fighting over who's going to be the new boss. David doesn't like how things are turning out so he starts a fresh wave of assassinations.

The gore level is zero and I used the term "assassination" for a reason, he isn't murdering people in standard slasher fashion, but actually assassinating them like in a political action film...bombings, sabotaging vehicles, etc . This movie is not a slasher. It's more like a high school retelling of Orwell's "Animal Farm" with more violence and weird 70's fashions. Only a half-hearted recommendation.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

TOO MANY HUSBANDS (1940)

[Update 07/25/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Released two months before MY FAVORITE WIFE this movie is pretty much the same story, but it's the husband instead of the wife getting shipwrecked. Also, the timeline is different and, ahh, who cares? Anyway, Fred MacMurray is the unfortunate shipwreck victim who comes home a year later to find that his wife has married his best friend, Melvyn Douglas. Instead of just saying "Deuces!" and finding the closest divorce lawyer, both husbands whimper and fuss like little children and beg Jean Arthur to pick him as her rightful husband.

As pathetic as that is it's kinda amusing and I was shocked at how much sexual innuendo made it past the censors. I swear to Satan at one point Jean Arthur was saying she wanted some double penetration!!! I'm serious!  MacMurray and Douglas bicker constantly and do stuff like jump over chairs to impress Arthur. It's all just crazy yelling, with no real substance.

Comparing it to other screwball comedies of the day, it's just OK and I really can't recommend it. Unless you're a Arthur and/or MacMurray fan, who I think both did very well considering the script was a mess.

PROJECT: METALBEAST (1995)

For a movie about an 7 foot tall metal-skinned werewolf bringin’ a ruckus…there sure is a lot of talking going on.  The film starts out well enough with some CIA dudes on a mission in Hungary to collect werewolf blood.  The first guy distracts the monster by placing his neck in the werewolf’s gaping mouth full of nasty, big, pointy teeth while the other CIA dude shoots the creature with silver bullets.  There’s no indication if he hits the wolfman in the nards or not, but I like to believe so.  Once back stateside, some scientists at a Top-Secret facility try to use the werewolf blood to make a super soldier.  Good news is they succeed!  Bad news is this mother woke up grumpy as fuck (Grrrrr.) and immediately starts killing the wookalar piss out of everybody.   It’s mildly entertaining in a low-budget, early 1990’s horror movie kind of way.

I could probably toss in some Barry Bostwick ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW jokes or make some lame quips about a "metal" werewolf who is really into metal music, but I'm not feeling it.  The movie is mildly interesting in an nostalgic way for older viewers and that's about it.  The "metalbeast" looks cool, but isn't on screen enough.  The rest of the characters are forgettable and boring.  The dialogue is nothing.  It just sounds like "burrr, buuurrrr, burrrrr..." after awhile.  Zero nudity, very little blood, zero gore, dumb ending, boring direction.  Watch it if you want, but don't blame me if you fall asleep.