HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (1981)

The filmmakers should thank the person who came up with that poster concept/art for every dollar this film made.

The coolest kids at school, "The Top Ten", are disappearing one-by-one. What could it be? Aliens? Wookalars? Zombie hummingbirds pecked out their eyes and now they can't find their way to school?  Maybe they're just falling asleep due to the boring script?  Nope, it's some butthole killing them because of some dumb reason. Honestly, it doesn't matter, because by the time you get to the end you'll be 99 and 44/100% asleep. Not because it's a horrible movie, just a long-winded one that has zero idea what a slasher movie audience wants. A slasher audience wants insane violence, hot nudity, blood, gore, a fun story and a badass killer. HBTM has none of those things. There's very little violence, the killer is weak, zero nudity, only a handful of blood, weak gore and the story is overly complicated.

Not a bad watch, but nothing to get excited about either. As far as early 80's slashers go, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME is watchable and fun to laugh at, but average.

He bet somebody $20 he could make that jump. Totally worth it.

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER (2010)

[Update 04/11/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

*Sigh* Another year, another by-the-numbers Woody Allen movie. It's all here: the three or four main characters; the intertwining of their lives and secrets; a few slightly clever plot twists and the safe ending. No ups, no surprises, no reason to stay awake and pretty much zero resemblance to the vitality and cleverness of Allen's earlier films all the way up to THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION.

The main character is Naomi Watts. She's married to struggling writer Josh Brolin who has a crush on the neighbor, Freida Pinto. Naomi's father, Anthony Hopkins, has divorced her mother, Gemma Jones, and is now married to a prostitute, Lucy Punch. Oh yea, Naomi has the hots for her boss, Antonio Banderas. All the stuff you would expect to happen does and while I did enjoy the film, it was just dead in the water from the very beginning.

Allen hasn't gone completely in the shitter like say Metallica, but he's not helping his legacy by steadily cranking out these lifeless snoozers.

According to Box Office Mojo the budget for this film was $22 million!!! I cannot even fathom why this movie would cost that. The majority of that must have been spent on the actors, cause it's definitely not up on the screen.

BEFORE THE FALL (2008)

At the beginning of the film it's announced to the world that we have 82 hours until a gigantic meteor is going to hit the Earth and kill everybody.  In real life this kind of news would make the population of Rape-Murder City to instantly jump to around 7 billion, but not here.  Pretty much the only thing that happens the entire movie is this dude locks his family up in a secluded house and tries to protect them from a local child murderer.  That's all that happens the entire movie!!!  They could have had the same tension by simply have the phone not work.

With a proper script and a good director this film could have been extremely exciting. Unfortunately, none of that was present here. Skip it and watch MIRACLE MILE instead.

THE BEASTS ARE ON THE STREETS (1978)

"Hey, don't ya know? Kids today, they're not into drinking beer. They're into smokin'!"

Originally broadcast on NBC on May 18, 1978, THE BEASTS ARE ON THE STREETS is the straight-forward and relatively fast-moving story about a bunch of animals that escape from an animal preserve due to a truck wrecking into a fence.  Yeah, that story's pretty weak, but, who cares...I just wanna see the animals running around!  And speaking of critters.  You got tigers, lions, rhinos, ostriches, panthers, bears, elephants and camels.  The lions being the naughtiest of the bunch.  On the human side of things, we have a friendly zookeeper who's trying to capture the animals before any trigger happy hunters or cops can get their blast on.

Tiger vs. bear, Volkswagen Beetle vs. ostrich, Billy Green Bush acting like a psychopath, Burton Gilliam smoking an invisible joint, bear vs. paddle boat, lion vs. dog, lion vs. horse, brief elephant appearance, even briefer giraffe appearance, multiple animal trainers accidentally shown, Volkswagen Beetle vs. a rhinoceros, quick pace that slows some towards the end, zero nudity, zero gore, a baby camel that was so goddamn cute.  

Overall, TBAOTS is a fun film.  I bet kids back in 1978 loved it, since it's almost non-stop animal action. And that lion cub was so cute! I honestly think I said "Awwww!" every time he was on the screen...his paws were huge and his little trot was so adorable!

On the downside, I was very disappointed in the lack of monkeys and orangutans.  A rampaging spider monkey running around throwing his poo at people would have been entertainment gold...just ask Robert McCammon.