Microwave Massacre (1979)

microwave massacre arrow video

One of the things I absolutely love about the abundance of Boutique Blu-ray labels we have now is that they sometimes find these ridiculous, obscure, weirdo movies and clean them up, restore them, and release them on Blu-ray with loads of extras.

Microwave Massacre is a terrible film. It is a movie about a serial killing cannibal, and it is a comedy. Or at least it is supposed to be a comedy. But according to my review (which was written in 2016 which you can read here), there are no laughs to be found.

And yet, it got a killer release from Arrow Video. You gotta love the audacity of that.

Bob Dylan – Tulsa, OK (03/25/25)

No, I’m not sharing a recording of this show (though you can already find one over at Expecting Rain). But I wanted to talk about it anyway.

Yesterday was my birthday. Bob Dylan, one of my all-time favorite artists came to town on my birthday. That would have made a great birthday present.

When the show was announced I was super excited. I missed him the last time he came to town because my in-laws were arriving that very night for a visit and it felt rude to not be here when they arrived.

I vowed to never miss him again. He is 83 after all and as much as I don’t want to think about it, he probably doesn’t have that many more tours left in him.

I am a stupid, stupid man. When tickets went on sale I was busy at work so I put off buying them. I don’t think he sold out last time so I figured he wouldn’t sell out this time.

Ah, but here’s the thing. When the Tulsa show was announced there were no other shows scheduled. We weren’t sure if he was ever going to tour again. Add to that the fact that the Bob Dylan Center is in Tulsa a buzz began that this might be a special show. Maybe Bob was finally going to recognize the center (I don’t think he’s ever even visited the place). Maybe there would be special guests. That turned out not to be true, but I think the buzz made people buy tickets like mad.

It sold out. I did not get a ticket.

There are worse things in life, but that is definitely a disappointment. I couldn’t help but follow the setlist and read the reviews. The big news was that Anton Fig took over the drumming position. He’s played with everyone from Warren Zevon to B.B. King to Cyndi Lauper but may be best known for his role in David Letterman’s house band. He also played on a couple of Bob records and was the drummer for Bob Fest.

The setlist remained pretty much the same as it was on his last tour. Interestingly he took a fifteen-minute break after the 8th song. It will be curious to see if that continues through the tour. Reviews have been very good and I’m excited to sit down with the recording sometime soon.

  1. All Along the Watchtower (Bob on guitar and baby grand piano)
  2. It Ain’t Me, Babe (Bob on guitar and baby grand piano)
  3. I Contain Multitudes (Bob on baby grand piano)
  4. False Prophet (Bob on baby grand piano)
  5. When I Paint My Masterpiece (Bob on baby grand piano and harp,
    Tony on standup bass)
  6. Black Rider (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
  7. My Own Version of You (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
  8. To Be Alone with You (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass,
    Bob Britt on acoustic guitar)

    15 minute break
  9. Crossing the Rubicon (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
  10. Desolation Row (Bob on baby grand piano, Tony on standup bass)
  11. Key West (Philosopher Pirate) (Bob on baby grand piano,
    Tony on standup bass)
  12. Watching the River Flow (Bob on baby grand piano)
  13. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob on baby grand piano,
    Tony on standup bass)
  14. I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You
    (Bob on baby grand piano and harp, Tony on standup bass)
  15. Mother of Muses (Bob on baby grand piano and brief harp at very beginning,
    Tony on standup bass)
  16. band introduction
  17. Goodbye Jimmy Reed (Bob on baby grand piano)
  18. Every Grain of Sand (Bob on baby grand piano and harp)

Band Members
Bob Dylan – guitar, piano, harp
Tony Garnier – electric and standup bass
Anton Fig – drums
Bob Britt – acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Doug Lancio – acoustic guitar, electric guitar

Delicatessen (1991) 4K UHD Review

image host

My wife speaks French. She has a Masters Degree in French Linguistics. She taught French at university for a time. She loves all things French. Especially movies. Obviously, I love movies and I dig foreign language films. I’ve seen a lot more movies than here, but she is the expert in French cinema in our house. She turned me on to director Jean-Pierre Jeunet with his absolutely delightful film Amelie. Then she hit me with his stranger, darker films Delicatessen and City of Lost Children.

Delicatessen is a visually stunning tale set in a post-apocalyptic world in which a butcher puts a help-wanted ad in the paper then murders those who answer and sells their meat to the rest of the apartment. It is romantic, funny, and a delight. You can read my full review here.

The Birthday Haul

image host

Today is my birthday. I’m pushing ever closer to the big 5-0 which freaks me out a little (okay, a lot) but I had a good day. I still had to work which wasn’t fun, but this afternoon my brother’s 4-year-old grandson showed up and that was a delight. There was a mix-up with his childcare so my brother had to pick him up. But we were behind on work so the boy came with him. I had forgotten how fun kids that age can be. And exhausting. He asked questions every five seconds and I kept having to find things for him to do.

Later, we had a nice meal at my mother’s place. My father shares my birthday so we always share a party together.

Anyway, it was a good day and my wife bought me some lovely gifts.

Obviously, I love me some Criterion Collection so I got three films from them. I’m especially excited about Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me as we just finished the original series and I’ve never seen the film.

I watched the movie adaptation of Master and Commander the other day and loved it. Everyone says the book series is even better so I’m excited to find out if everyone is correct.

And Batman is my favorite comic book character. I’ve read The Court of Owls before, but it is nice to have a hard copy.

Night Moves is the New Blu-ray Pick of the Week

night moves criterion

Sometimes I debate what my pick of the week should be – should I choose something I haven’t seen but am really excited about, or should I choose something I already love getting a nice release?

On one hand, it makes sense that I would pick something that I’ve already seen. I know the movie is good and therefore I can stand by my recommendation. On the other hand, when a highly anticipated film makes its home video debut that’s exciting. Or it used to be. Maybe I’m coming from a time when home video releases were exciting. I’m old enough to remember when a movie hit the theater and if you missed it you had to wait until it came out on video. But I guess now they hit streaming services even earlier.

Whatever, I went with the more traditional pick this week. Night Moves is a terrific little 1970s noir, and Criterion is giving it the 4K treatment. But in case you were wondering, I thought pretty hard about picking The Brutalist, which I haven’t seen but has received rave reviews.

You can read all my thoughts on this week’s releases here.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Maniac (2012)

maniac poster

Maniac has the feel of one of those gritty, nihilistic 1970s horror films. Which, in a way, it kind of is. It is a remake of a gritty horror film made in 1980. It stars Elijah Wood as Frank Zitto a serial killer who murders and scalps women. He owns a mannequin restoration shop and he takes the scalps back home, places them on the mannequins then talks to them like they are still alive.

The film is shot entirely from Frank’s point of view and I hate that gimmick. I’ve seen it in several other films and it always grows tiresome very quickly. In old films like Lady in the Lake (1947) and Dark Passage (1947) its use is cumbersome because cameras were so large movement was quite limited.

It is slightly better here mostly because cameras have gotten smaller allowing for easier movement and CGI allowed them to manipulate the images to create more interesting shots. But it is still a gimmick and a bad one at that. There is one scene where Frank is stabbing a woman and the camera moves away, and we see the action from a third-person point of view. It is an interesting moment because we realize that this is still Frank’s point of view. He feels trapped inside his body and he kills to escape. When he kills he literally (and visually in the case of the film) escapes from his body.

But the film doesn’t really do much else with that idea. There are some flashbacks (still filmed through his point of view) where we learn his mother was a prostitute and she often made him watch her have sex with her Johns. That made him a killer, I guess.

One day a kind young woman takes pictures of the mannequins he has on display at the front of his shop. She’s Anna (Nora Arnezeder) and she’s an artist. She’s got a show coming up and thinks his vintage mannequins will be perfect for it. They form a friendship and the question becomes whether she’ll save him or he’ll kill her.

Within the first few minutes of this film, as soon as I realized it was going to be completely shot from his POV I started hating this film. It didn’t help that it goes to some pretty dark places. Because so much of it is seen through the killer’s eyes we get into his headspace. We see him killing. There was a time when I would have loved the transgressiveness of that, but now I just find it depressing.

There are moments in the film where it lightens up and becomes interesting. Most of these are when Anna is on screen. Nora Arnezeder is quite good and her character’s relationship with Frank is an interesting one. She certainly lights up the screen giving what is mostly a dark, dreary movie some buoyancy. It was enough to make me like the film, but not enough to make me really enjoy it.

Westerns in March – Buchanan Rides Alone (1958)

image host

Actor Randolph Scott and director Budd Boetticher made seven movies together, all westerns. I’m a big fan of all of them and this weekend while looking for another western to watch I landed on this one. Mostly because I knew it to be lighter fare than the others and my wife tends to not like dark and serious films.

Buchanan Rides Alone is the silliest of the films they made together, and probably my least favorite. Scott plays Tom Buchanon a drifter returning from Mexico with a lot of money in his pocket. He’s headed home where he’ll buy a plot of land and finally settle down.

He stops at a strange little border town called Agry where he quickly learns everything – a glass of whisky, a room for the night, a well-cooked steak – costs ten dollars exactly. He sits down with a bottle only to have it taken away from him by a drunk named Tom Agry. Moments later a young man named Juan (Manuel Rojas) charges into the bar and kills Tom.

The Sheriff and several other men round Juan up and beat the living tar out of him. Buchanan steps in to lend a hand. Naturally, this lands him in jail.

Nearly everybody of importance in the town is named Agry. The leader of the family Simon runs the town with a tight fist and is also a judge.

There is a trial, and a breakout, and lots of gunfights. It is all light-hearted and fun. There are a few attempts to be actually funny, but mostly it is just breezy and slight. Most of the other films Scott and Boetticher made together are much more serious in nature and have something to say. This is pure entertainment.

It isn’t bad at that, but I can’t help but compare it to films like The Tall T and Ride Lonesome (both of which I reviewed here), and this film just doesn’t compare.

A Few Pickups

imgbox

imgbox

I assume most of you have read my notification on the music site that I’m no longer going to be posting music. That was a hard decision to make, but I think it was the right one.

My hope is that with the time not posting music is going to save me can be spent making this blog more interesting. That will be a challenge because I was so used to posting music that it became like a reflex. It was just something I did every day. But writing movie reviews and posting other interesting things on this site is not yet a habit. I’ll have to make it one.

Something I’ve done in the past and enjoyed was to post pictures of recent purchases.

This post includes two separate purchases.

Tulsa regularly does a big flea market and we like to go (when we remember that it exists). We attended last Saturday and I immediately spied a big vendor with lots of DVDs and Blu-rays. He was selling them all for $1-$2 apiece. Naturally, most of them were crap, but as you can see I found a few gems.

There was another vendor with an even bigger, and better selection of movies. I started grabbing them but then realized they weren’t so cheap. They were individually priced, the cheapest being $5 and they went as high as $50 for larger boxed sets. Those prices weren’t bad for what he was selling, but since I originally thought they were $1 a piece I rejected them outright.

Today my wife went thrift shopping and sent me a picture of the second set. I don’t know anything about Sandition, but I generally love PBS shows and since it was selling for $1 for the three seasons we knew that was a bargain. I have no idea what My Wife Maurice is about (neither does my wife but it is French and she loves all things French).

Studious observers may notice that I now have two copies of the John Wayne movie The Quiet Man. I picked the DVD up at the flea market. When my wife sent me the selection of the movies she found at the thrift store she asked me if I had The Quiet Man. I looked at my list and told her, “No.” Friends, I had not yet added the DVD to my list. So, now I have an upgrade to Blu-ray!

I love a good bargain.

Five Cool Things and Carrie Coon in the Criterion Closet

image host

Another (two) weeks, another Five Cool Things. This time I’m talking about Twin Peaks, Yellowjackets, Hannibal, Dark Winds, The French Connection and Carrie Coon visiting the Criterion Closet.

You can read all my thoughts on these things and more by clicking here.