The Friday Night Horror Movie: John Dies At The End (2012)

john dies at the end

Don Coscarelli has had one interesting career as a director. After directing his very first feature film at the age of 18 he went on to create one of the more iconic horror mechanisms of the 1980s (Phantasm‘s flying silver ball). He followed that up with The Beastmaster a ridiculous, schlocky bit of fantasy starring Marc Singer as a bare-chested cross between Luke Skywalker and Doctor Doolittle which was a staple of late-night cable television in the early 1990s. He then made four increasingly bad Phantasm sequels which expanded the film’s mythology into incoherence. He also made Bubba Ho-Tep, a film that I haven’t seen but apparently stars Bruce Campbell as an elderly Elvis Presley who teams up with JFK to fight an ancient Egyptian mummy. His last film was this one which I just watched.

It is an absolute mess of a film, at times both brilliant and baffling. To explain the plot would be an exercise in futility. It involves a mind-altering drug, an alternate universe, bug aliens, and a lot of gross-out horror. It is a film so filled to the brim with ideas that it never pauses for a breath to let the viewer catch up, or to take stock of where it is going.

Coscarelli has a visual flair so it is generally interesting to look at (with the exception of some pretty dodgy CGI). It is well made and well acted (Paul Giamatti has a small role and he’s always great to see in anything – he also produced the film). There are lots of interesting things going on in the script, I just wished they had spent a little more time on any one idea and fleshed it out more, instead of throwing more and more and stuff at us. It has a tendency to be a little too jokey as well. In part, it wants to be this mind-bending, time-jumping sci-fi/horror film and in another part it wants to be a Judd Apatow-style bro-comedy. The two parts never really gel together in any coherent way.

It is definitely worth watching if you like Corscarelli or films that get a little crazy.

Wilfred: Season Two

wilfred

Reading these old reviews that I wrote is such a strange experience for me. There are times when I’ll read a review and have no memory of ever watching that movie to TV series. Or my memory of the thing is totally different from what I wrote on the page. Wilfred is a show I do remember watching. I remember which house I was living in when I watched it and my mind’s eye sees me sitting there watching. But I couldn’t tell you a thing about it. If asked if I liked it I’d probably shrug and say it was ok. But reading my review I see that I quite liked it. That I found it crass, but very funny.

I don’t know that this means anything, except that I’ve watched a lot of stuff over the years and written about it. And that my memory isn’t great. Now I think I may have to see if I still have those Wilfred DVDs and watch them again.

Beck: Volume 7 & 8

beck tv

I’m never entirely sure how I should title these posts where I’m just linking to reviews I did for Cinema Sentries. I suppose I should research the best possible SEO way to capture Google searches or something. But I never was good at that sort of thing. Beck is a Swedish detective series that I apparently thought was pretty good. I watched it and wrote the review back in 2013 so my memory is sketchy at best. I’ve since read one of the books in the series and felt basically the same about it – ’tis good but not great.

Wild Strawberries (1957)

wild strawberries criterion

I often think that Ingmar Bergman is the reason most Americans don’t like foreign films. Bergman often made emotionally heavy, deeply symbolic, and frankly not all that easy to watch movies. He is the epitome of the intellectual, art-house type of filmmaker that I think a lot of Americans think of when they think of foreign language films. The fact that there are all kinds of films – silly comedies, dumb action films, etc. – being made in countries that aren’t American doesn’t matter. Foreign films = inexplicable movies that only smarty-pants film critics like.

Or something. I generalize. But it is true that when I talk to my friends who don’t like foreign films they seem to think that all foreign films are European art-house films of the kind that Bergman specialized in.

Which, is perhaps, a weird way of saying I actually love Bergman. I find most of his films to be utterly fascinating. Wild Strawberries is one of his best. Criterion released a Blu-ray of it a few years back, and I’ve got a review.

Detective De Luca

detective de luca

I love a good crime drama. There is something very satisfying about watching someone try to solve a murder or some other heinous crime. The conventions of the genre are somehow comforting as you more or less know what is going to happen (a crime will be committed, questions will be asked, and the criminal will be caught). The best stories find ways to subvert those conventions and do something interesting.

I also love that crime dramas work well all over the world. Just about every culture that makes movies and TV shows makes crime dramas. MHZ used to put out a lot of DVDs of crime dramas and mysteries from all across Europe and other countries. They might still do that, I’ve just lost touch with them. I know they do have a streaming service and I’ve been meaning to give it a try.

Detective de Luca is a cool little series of detective movies from Italy. I reviewed it several years ago and now you can read my thoughts here.

Doctor Who: The Visitation

doctor who the visitation

I originally wrote this review in 2013. It is fun to read my thoughts on this story as it was pretty early days for me and Classic Who. This was my first time watching Peter Davison in the role and I wasn’t thrilled with his performance (I’ve since come to love him). It is also funny that I note that Adric seems pretty useless and Tegan does nothing but complain (my opinions on them have remained the same).

As a side note my current cat is named Nyssa.

Anyway, you can read the review here.

Band of Outsiders (1964)

band of outsiders criterion

Jean Luc Godard was one of the pioneers of the French New Wave. His films have been hailed as some of the greatest movies of all time, but he also has a reputation for being difficult, for making challenging, even obtuse films. So, I’m always surprised when I watch one of his movies and find them to be utterly delightful. Band of Outsiders is one of my favorites of his films (at least from what I’ve seen) and Criterion released an excellent Blu-ray of it awhile back. I wrote a review and you can read it here.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

star trel undiscovered cpimtru

Every now and again the owner of Cinema Sentries will decide he wants to cover all the films in a series. When he does so he’ll ask all his writers to pick a movie in that series and review it. Apparently, back in 2013, he wanted us to cover the Star Trek movies. I say apparently because I have no memory of him asking us to cover Star Trek, nor me volunteering to review this film. I don’t even remember writing the review. Honestly, had I not just read my review of the film I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about it.

But now you can read my review and learn something about it, too.