THE APPLE (1980)

You thought XANADU was weird? Well, it doesn't hold a candle THE APPLE on the weirdness meter. Even for the 70's this sucker was weird. I'm not even sure what the filmmakers, but I'm glad it turned out how it did because I love this movie! The songs are so energetic and the dancing so contagious that a couple of time I thought about jumping up and dancing around the room. Then I remembered that I would look like an asshole so I didn't.

In 1994 the world has been taken over by BIM music which is created by a Mr. Boogalow who also happens to be Satan. Two young folk singers (Adam and Eve?) come to his attention and he asks to sign them. The female (a very hot Catherine Mary Stewart) signs while her male partner refuses. Overnight she becomes the the most popular singer in the world, but not with folksy love songs but BIM music. The male becomes a heartbroken nobody and is even harassed by the ever present police when he refuses to wear the now mandatory BIM sticker (the Mark of the Beast?) on his face. He eventually joins a hippie cult that lives in a nearby cave. Will they ever get back together? Will BIM music take over the world?! Will I eventually dance around my living room?

Top 5 musical numbers: 1) the one where the male singer sees a vision of Hell, complete with an actual, actual, actual vampire! 2) the one where Mr. Boogalow explains how good he is at being a master. 3) the opening BIM song. 4) Speed!!! 5) the newly enacted but mandatory stop work and dance dance. I especially liked the dancing riot police.

If you love cheesy 70's/early 80's musicals like THE PIRATE MOVIE, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE and XANADU then you need to check out THE APPLE as soon as possible. You're life depends on it! Everybody else will probably hate it.

I did notice in the trailer that there's some scenes not shown on the DVD version of the film. Does that means there's a longer cut out there somewhere? Maybe an extended cut would explain the bizarre ending.

I love the fact that the director, writer and producer of this film, Menahem Golan, went on to produce some of the greatest action movies of the 80's like AMERICAN NINJA, INVASION U.S.A., THE DELTA FORCE and MISSING IN ACTION 2!!! I watched all four of those movies hundreds of times when I was a kid. Somebody should write a book about that guy. He also produced the underrated TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2! "Dog will hunt."

28 DAYS LATER... (2002)

28% action. 90% talking. 2% me yawning loudly.

Some caveman-looking dickneck wakes up in the hospital ("Day of the Triffids"-style), 28 days after an virus of "Rage" breaks out. Rage makes people act like it's 6 AM on Black Friday all the time! Dickneck crawls out of bed and wanders around for a long time. Finally some of the infected attack him, but he's saved by two other survivors. Stuff happens.  Most of it's talking.

I was not a fan of this movie. Fanboys seem to love it and rub their crotches furiously at the mere mention of it's holy name, but I found the entire thing to look low-budget and way too overstylized with the grainy film and the sped up frame rate when the infected were onscreen. I didn't hate the movie, just found it boring and average. It's not until the very end of the movie that there's an action scene that last for longer than just a few seconds. Everything up until that point was just some asshole twitching and screaming then getting killed. Hell, the remake of THE CRAZIES had more action!

There's really no reason explaining why I thought this movie was weak, but during this movie I never felt any of the claustrophobia or complete sense of isolation and doom like I did with the original DAWN OF THE DEAD or Brian Keene's "The Rising" books.

Worth watching, but it's nothing to write home about that's for sure. Moderate low-budget violence, some blood, GY!BE on the soundtrack, zero doom, zero tits, zero logic (if the infection is caused by bodily fluid transference then I'd damn sure be wearing safety glasses and a mouth cover at all times), happy music, people laughing, purposely grainy picture, towards the end there was glimpses of the violence I had wanted to see but even then it cut away too soon.

Part 2 - 28 Weeks Later (2007)

[Update 10/4/2021: Interesting item I discovered while looking for Exorcist newspaper ads.]

 Person middle of screen walking away on sidewalk.

 Human on left side throwing trash bag into dumpster.

 Cameraman extremely visible over to right.

 Dead body at lower left clearly breathing.

CYRANO DE BERGERAC (1990)

[Update 11/16/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Cyrano de Bergerac is a master sword fighter and poet who would gladly fight 100 men, but recoils in fear at the mere thought of expressing his secret love for the beautiful Roxane. Why? Because he has a giant nose and figures she will reject his love because he's so ugly. Cyrano is madly in love with Roxane so when she confides in him that she's attracted to a new soldier in Cyrano's military unit he wants to crush the guy, but instead he takes the cadet under his wing. Then when he sees the guy means well but an idiot.  Cyrano writes endless love letters to Roxane for him. Naturally, Roxane falls wildly in love with the young man, but how long and how far will this charade go?

CYRANO DE BERGERAC is a nice mixture of romance and action and even a little humor. The 137 minute run time flies by in a swirl of love filled wooing and sword swinging asskickery. The main attraction though is the portrayal of Cyrano by Gerard Depardieu.  He's a true pleasure to watch here. Every mannerism and gesture he does expresses something. Cyrano is a very loud and vibrant character, but yet Gerard still manages to capture the internal torment that Cyrano is going through and express it to the audience without us even realizing it.

The look of the film is also beautiful with impressive costumes and sets. My biggest complaint is the story wasn't as dark or heartbreaking as I had hoped. Also, I wasn't impressed by the Roxane character. I've never read the original story, but in this movie she didn't seem very well fleshed out. She was kinda a ditzy simpleton actually. That's just my opinion. Still it's a great movie, I just wish the Roxane character had given me more of a reason to be deserving of Cyrano's delicate prose. If you like romantic films then check it out!