THE GOOD STUDENT (2006) ** ½

Tim Daly stars as Mr. Gibb, a shy, lonely, sexually repressed teacher who has a crush on his prize student, a perky blond cheerleader named Ally, played by Hayden Panettiere.  After Ally has a fight with her boyfriend, Mr. Gibb agrees to give her a lift home, even though he knows it goes against professional ethics.  When she vanishes without a trace, he quickly becomes the prime suspect in her disappearance.  Mr. Gibb then takes it upon himself to look for her, which only makes him appear guiltier than before.

The Good Student was produced by Kevin Spacey (which explains A LOT, actually), and it’s anchored by a solid cast.  Daly delivers a fine performance and makes his sad sack character likeable, even if he’s tempted by questionable desires.  The supporting players are equally good.  Panettiere is ideally cast as the object of his affection, even though she doesn’t stick around for very long.  I also enjoyed seeing Dan Hedaya as a nosy janitor.  It’s William Sadler who steals the show though as Panettiere’s sketchy father who uses his daughter’s disappearance as a marketing ploy to drum up business for his used car lot.  If you’re like me and believe the world needs more movies in which William Sadler plays a sleazeball, then this one has you covered, even if it isn’t completely successful.  Also, speaking as a huge Wings fan, it was fun to see Daly once again in a leading role.  

Sure, the story itself is rather thin, and the tone is a little funky too.  (It often plays like a cross between a Lifetime Movie and a Coen Brothers knockoff.)  The cheap production values don’t do it any favors either.  However, the cast alone makes The Good Student is an agreeable, if a tad forgettable comic thriller. 

AKA:  Mr. Gibb.

THE FIGHTER (2010) ***

David O. Russell’s The Fighter is less a biopic of real-life boxer Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and more of a white trash slice of life piece.  While it hits all the notes of your typical sports movie (bloody boxing scenes, training montages, romantic subplots, etc.), it seems like there’s more focus on Mickey’s family squabbles than his boxing career.  The title makes you think about his rise to prizefighting glory, but it’s more about him dealing with his crackhead brother Dicky (Christian Bale), his overbearing manager mother (Melissa Leo), and his loudmouth sisters.  Meanwhile, his new girlfriend (Amy Adams) fights to make her voice heard throughout all the familial screaming and shouting.  

Your enjoyment of The Fighter may hinge on your tolerance of Mickey’s annoying dysfunctional family unit.  His mother’s meddling and his sisters’ screeching are bound to grate on the nerves.  You have to wonder if he was adopted because he’s so reserved next to his feral siblings.  (He’s actually their half-brother, which I guess is about the only explanation.) 

Despite the film’s flaws, Bale is electric.  He handily steals the movie from Wahlberg with his heartbreaking performance of a former champion (who once knocked out “Sugar” Ray Leonard) turned crackhead.  It’s one of his all-time best.  In fact, they probably could’ve made a whole movie about his character appearing in a crackhead documentary, which seriously takes away from the boxing sequences.  Even though the scenes of addiction are often hard to watch, it’s impossible to take your eyes off Bale.

So, therein lies the conundrum.  Do I take points off because of the revolting characters and unpleasant subject matter?  Or do I recommend it solely based on the performances alone?  I think I’ll go with the latter.  As long as you don’t expect a heck of a lot of boxing, you might enjoy it.  Otherwise, the bulk of the film feels like you’re trapped at someone else’s family reunion and can’t escape. 

MARRIAGE STORY (2019) ****

Noah Baumbach’s gripping, engrossing, devastating Marriage Story is reminiscent of a John Cassavetes movie.  At times it feels like a documentary.  You’re like an invisible observer on the frontlines of a family in crisis.  You get to see the implosion of a marriage firsthand and witness all the little painful details that most movies leave out.  This is one of the best films of the year.

It starts out with Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) in therapy.  There’s an argument, and she storms out of the office.  They know the marriage is over and decide to do things amicably and not hassle with lawyers.  Then she decides, well… maybe I’ll get a lawyer.  Charlie, perplexed by her decision, scrambles to get a lawyer of his own.  As with any fight, whether it takes place in the kitchen or the courtroom, things escalate, and Charlie and Nicole try to figure out how to carry on with their lives as they drift apart from each other.  

This is the most realistic depiction of divorce I have ever seen in a motion picture.  It almost plays like a how-to manual on what to do the moment you and your spouse separate.  Honestly, Baumbach should’ve called this Divorce Story.  I imagine it will hit close to home for a lot of people.  I know there will be a lot of triggering elements here for many viewers, but if you need a good, cathartic, ugly cry, Marriage Story will do the trick.

The film is often painful, uncomfortable, and cringe-inducing, but then again, so is real life.  The big fight scene between Charlie and Nicole feels spontaneous, unscripted, natural, and organic.  You never see the acting or hear the dialogue.  You’re just watching two people you’ve grown to care about having mutual meltdowns.  Driver and Johansson are stellar throughout the movie, but they are truly next level in this particular sequence.

My favorite scene though comes when Johansson gets her sister to serve Driver the divorce papers.  This sequence is constructed like something out of a horror movie and is just as effective.  The tension builds and builds, and the punchline is unexpected and devastating.  

The supporting cast is aces too.  Ray Liotta is great as Driver’s pit bull of an attorney, as is Alan Alda as his congenial first lawyer.  Julie Hagerty gets a lot of laughs as the mother in-law who plays both sides.  It’s Laura Dern who steals the movie though as Johansson’s ball-breaking attorney.  Remember in The Last Jedi when she kamikazed herself into Kylo Ren’s fleet?  This time out, she does a Holdo Maneuver on his finances.  

The only debit to an otherwise perfect film is Randy Newman’s intrusive musical score.  It rarely fits the scene and often threatens to drown out the dialogue.  Other than that, Marriage Story is, for me, Baumbach’s best work.

LOWLIFE (2018) **

As you all probably know, I’ve been watching a lot of El Santo movies lately.  When I saw this advertised, I thought it was going to be kind of like a modern version of the classic Lucha Libre cinema.  As it turns out, that’s not the case.  It’s more of a Pulp Fiction variant as it consists of a handful of interconnected crime stories. 

This first story focuses on a former Mexican wrestler named El Monstruo (Ricardo Adam Zarate) who is now reduced to acting as a doorman for a back-alley bordello.  The second tale is about a struggling motel owner (Nicki Micheaux) who is seeking an organ donor for her dying husband by any means necessary.  The third centers around a guy (Shaye Ogbonna) whose best friend (Jon Oswald) emerges from a long prison stretch with an extremely problematic face tattoo.  In the final tale, all the stories come together for a violent climax.

The set-up had potential, and there are some clever moments along the way, but overall Lowlife just doesn’t quite work.  Much of the black humor lands with a thud, and the tone is rarely consistent.  Most disappointing is the character of El Monstruo.  In Pulp Fiction, it didn't matter when we didn’t see the big boxing match because the rest of the movie was so breathtakingly original.  Here, we just feel shortchanged by the lack of Lucha Libre action.  What makes it worse is that El Monstruo, who is prone to violent fits of rage, blacks out whenever he goes on rampage, so we only see the aftermath of the bloody carnage he wreaks.  If anything would’ve saved this movie, it would’ve been some serious masked Mexican wrestler action.  Even with the benefit of a worthy Mexican wrestler, I’m still not sure Lowlife would’ve been highly recommended.

THE SISTERS BROTHERS (2018) *** ½

The cute title makes The Sisters Brothers sound like it’s going to be a comedy.  Sort of a Step Brothers Out West kind of thing.  While there is some levity and humorous moments along the way, this is more about struggling with grief, living with trauma, and the burden of fraternal ties.  

The Sisters Brothers are a pair of henchmen who do dirty deeds at the behest of the shady “Commodore” (Rutger Hauer).  Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix) is the de facto leader, a hard-drinking, trigger-happy scoundrel that maybe likes his profession of tracking and killing a bit too much.  Eil (John C. Reilly) is the more sensible of the two, but just because he’s often the voice of reason doesn’t mean he isn’t just as quick and deadly with a pistol.  Although he’s fiercely loyal to his brother to a fault, Eli’s constantly searching for an opportunity to leave his life of bloodshed behind.  Charlie, on the other hand, revels in it, perpetuating the cycle of his family’s violent past.  

Their target is a chemist (Riz Ahmed), who has figured out a formula for finding gold.  He takes up with a detective (Jake Gyllenhaal), who turns on the Commodore in search for buried treasure.  Once the Sisters catch up to them, greed takes over and the four men form a shaky alliance that could end bitterly at any moment. 

There are shots and scenes here that evoke Ford and Huston.  Whereas their films were more about perpetuating the myths of the Old West, director Jacques (A Prophet) Audiard is more concerned about how men cope with the legacy of violence.  Even if there’s more on his mind than just the standard cowboy stuff, Audiard still gives Western fans plenty of gunplay and shootouts. 

Reilly is fantastic.  He gives one of his career-best performances as the introspective, protective, and loyal Eli.  Phoenix is phenomenal as his brooding, volatile, drunken brother Charlie.  His performance in this is somewhat similar to his role in The Master, and with this, Joker and I’m Still Here, he delivers another memorable performance of someone stricken with mental illness and alcoholism.  

This will not be a movie for all tastes.  It’s deliberately paced and has some serious lulls in between the violence.  Also, it’s sad to see the usually charismatic Rutger Hauer wasted in what is nothing more than a cameo, even if his character casts a long shadow story wise.  These are minor quibbles in the long run as there are plenty of affecting moments along the way.  Besides, how can you pass up a movie that stars Dewey Cox AND Johnny Cash? 

AKA:  Golden River.

THE BEASTS OF TERROR (1973) **

A pair of criminal lovebirds are on a joyride when they are abducted by the henchmen of a mad doctor and taken back to his lair.  There, he uses his captives for his zombification experiments and sells the female zombies into white slavery.  Since the police are powerless to stop these brutes, they call on everyone’s favorite Lucha Libre superstar, El Santo and his loyal sidekick Blue Demon to help crack the case. 

The set-up sounds ideal for an El Santo adventure.  A film that features a couple of thrill-killers, a mad doctor, and zombie sex slaves sounds like a recipe for success to me.  Unfortunately, El Santo and Blue Demon are more or less supporting players in this one.  In fact, it takes almost twenty minutes for either of them to finally show up, and even then, the duo spends nearly half the movie in their car, either on a stakeout or tailing the suspects.

While The Beasts of Terror boasts having three wrestling scenes, it’s rather disappointing as they are all much too brief to have any real impact.  (One is probably less than thirty seconds.)  There are also no musical numbers to be had, nor are their any dance routines.  Well, there’s a drunk girl who dances wildly twice.  I guess I should’ve said there’s no CHOREOGRAPHED dance routines.

The lack of El Santo and Blue Demon in this one gives me the feeling that this was an unrelated (possibly unreleased) movie that producers padded with newly shot footage of the two famed masked wrestlers.  I mean they never once make contact with the kidnap victims and when the tragic ending occurs, they just stand around off screen before shaking hands and getting in their cars and leaving.  You could’ve easily edited them out of the film, and it would’ve have affected the plot in any way.

The meat of the movie feels like a Mexican version of an American exploitation picture.  There’s a skeevy scene where one of the kidnap victims seduces the villain’s hunchback assistant to win her freedom.  Nothing is ever shown, but it’s probably the only real memorable moment in the whole flick.  The score is funkier than usual, which helps, but overall, The Beasts of Terror isn’t a terribly vital entry in the El Santo filmography.

AKA:  Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Beasts of Terror.

ALTITUDE (2017) ***

This week, I was a guest on Matt Poirier’s Direct to Video Connoisseur Podcast discussing the career of Dolph Lundgren.  As part of the discussion, we decided to give a new-to-us Dolph flick a look-see and compare notes.  While there’s a part of me that wishes we had chosen a movie that took better advantage of Dolph’s talents, I have to admit that Altitude is surprisingly, a lot of fun.   It’s a throwback to the airplane actioners of the ‘90s such as Passenger 57, Executive Decision, and Air Force One.  There’s even a little bit of déjà vu from Non-Stop as well.  (Man, it makes me feel old to say something from the ‘90s is a “throwback”, but oh well.)  You can listen to our full discussion here: https://www.talkshoe.com/episode/8308715?fbclid=IwAR2ZQf92_CtPZzqm5DC1JEqN_UJcw4BZzNf2sgiW_WC4RyJA0aS5kE1fJ3Q

Denise Richards stars as a demoted FBI agent on a cross-country flight back to DC to work a crummy desk job.  While onboard, she’s approached by a passenger who offers her $50 million if she can get him off the plane safely.  As it turns out, a gang of thieves has hijacked the plane and are planning to crash the bird to cover their tracks.  With the crew members indisposed and confronted with an incompetent air marshal, Richards takes it upon herself to stop the bad guys and save the passengers.

They say there aren’t enough good roles for women of a certain age, but Altitude plays like a manifesto to prove the naysayers wrong.  This is an excellent vehicle for Richards, who’s at the top of her game.  She’s a lot of fun to watch, and to my pleasant surprise, makes for a credible action heroine.  

Of all the actresses in Hollywood, I was not expecting Denise Richards to get a Totally Unrelated Badass Moment scene.  Usually, these are reserved for the likes of Clint Eastwood or Steven Seagal or someone like that.  And what a badass she is.  This scene cleverly uses her sexpot image to usurp the audience’s expectations.  It begins with a man taking people hostage inside an office building while having phone sex with an unseen sexy woman.  When he finally asks her what’s she’s wearing, the filmmakers cut away to Richards outside the building surrounded by FBI agents holding the phone to her ear and saying, “Kevlar!”  Naturally, this leads to the big moment when she storms into the building, diffuses the situation, and takes down the gunman.  

From the opening moments, Altitude announces itself as a quirky actioner that doesn’t quite play by the rules.  Many films like this have a clever opening, but quickly fall into the same repetitive lulls that most DTV actioners run into.  Not this one.  It’s constantly a little bit better at every turn than you’d expect.

You make think I’m crazy, but it’s similar in some ways to Dolph’s classic Showdown in Little Tokyo.  Not only does Altitude move like lightning and has zero fat on it, it’s clearly having fun turning traditional action genre clichés on their ear.  What’s refreshing about the film is that the women are much stronger and competent than the men.  Most of the male characters are seen as buffoons or corrupt, while the women are more than capable, smart, and funny.  While Richards is excellent in the lead, it’s Greer Grammer (Kelsey’s daughter) who steals the movie as Dolph’s henchwoman Sadie.  She has a lot of screen presence, kicks some serious ass (she even believably intimidates Dolph), and is just plain fun to watch.  

Even though Altitude has fun messing with the conventions of an airplane action movie doesn’t mean it fails to deliver the goods.  Everything you’d want to see in an airplane actioner is here:  There are evil flight attendants, fights that occur in the cargo hold, and bad guys getting sucked out of the plane.  It’s as every bit as good as Die Hard on a Plane but with Denise Richards could be.  

On the downside, I will say that the action suffers from poor camerawork and fight choreography.  I can almost write that off though, due to the cramped, claustrophobic quarters inside the airplane.  Unfortunately, you don’t get to see Denise square off with Dolph, but she does fight against UFC star Chuck Liddell.  The CGI is also terrible, and the shots of the airplane often looks like something out of a video game.  That too is forgivable, mostly because the film is so fast moving.  Although it takes place in a cramped, confined space, the movie never feels like it’s repeating itself.  The plot always has forward momentum, and there are no unnecessary scenes to bog the pace down.   

I kind of felt bad spending a whole podcast devoted to Dolph Lundgren talking about a movie in which he had such a minor role.  Even though he spends most of his screen time sitting down in the captain’s seat flying the plane, he still delivers a strong performance.  As a die-hard Dolph fan, I did find it funny that the picture on his character’s ID badge was nothing more than Dolph’s IMDb photo!  

In short, Altitude is one DTV action flick that flies high!  

AKA:  Hijacked.  AKA:  Turbulences.  AKA:  Altitude:  Die Hard in the Sky.  

SANTO VS. THE VICE MAFIA (1971) ** ½

The police are powerless to stop a gang of drug dealers.  They enlist the aid of famous Mexican wrestler (and part-time secret agent) El Santo to help stamp the pushers out.  When a wealthy heiress is kidnapped by the notorious bunch, it’s up to El Santo to rescue her.

The best part of this unremarkable yet entertaining El Santo adventure comes when the bad guys dispose of El Santo and one of the henchmen dons an El Santo mask and impersonates him.  Predictably, El Santo knocks the guy out, trades places with him, and stands idly by while the villains shoot the poor dope and incinerate his corpse!  He then spends the next chunk of the movie pretending to be a henchman who’s pretending to be El Santo and foiling the bad guys’ plans from the inside.  

Because of its grounded nature, Santo vs. the Vice Mafia isn’t as wildly entertaining as some of his silliest films, but it’s a solid effort through and through. In fact, I’m sure it would’ve gotten Three Stars if there was a mummy or robot in there somewhere.  Still, I did like the scene where the bad guys get the drop on El Santo by posing as sports journalists and using a trick camera that emits smoke.  I just wish there were more cool Bond-like gadgets throughout the rest of the movie.

There’s only one wrestling match in the entire film, which is a tad disappointing, but the rest of the action is otherwise okay (although it’s nothing really all that memorable).  The musical numbers and dance routines are a lot more entertaining than usual though.  Things kick off with a rollicking musical number set on the rocks of a seaside resort.  Later, the same guy does a song in a nightclub.  (It looks like someone’s living room.)  After he leaves the stage, a line of chorus girls does a big choreographed dance routine.  (There’s also another amusing routine later in the film.)  These scenes are a lot of fun and help punch up an otherwise by-the-numbers outing.  While it probably won’t win over any new fans, indiscriminate El Santo die-hards are likely to be amused.

THE SIN OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK (1947) **

Writer/director Preston Sturges had a number of hits under his belt in the mid ‘40s and practically had carte blanche in Hollywood.  He was a big Harold Lloyd fan and decided to make The Sin of Harold Diddlebock as a comeback vehicle for him.  (Lloyd hadn’t appeared in a movie in over nine years at that point.)  It sounded like a match made in Heaven, but unfortunately for comedy fans, their styles never really mesh.  The fact that the laughs are precious and few makes the teaming of the two comedic titans even more disappointing.

The film opens with the classic football game scene from The Freshman.  It’s supposed to do two things simultaneously:  Remind the audience of just how funny Lloyd could be while also acting as cheap stock footage.  Too bad there’s more laughs in the footage from The Freshman than there is in the rest of the movie.

After winning the big football game, Harold gets offered a lowly job with the promise of an eventual promotion.  Fast-forward twenty years and he’s still stuck at the same desk.  When he complains to the boss, he’s promptly fired.  Faced with few options, the usually teetotaling Harold decides to go out and get drunk for the very first time.  He goes on a wild bender and awakens from his drunken stupor surprised to learn he’s now in possession of a failing circus.  Harold then goes off on a frantic search to pawn off the circus on someone else, but of course he gets no takers. 

The best scene is when Harold goes into the bar and the overly eager bartender played by Edgar (Duck Soup) Kennedy mixes him up a customized drink.  Kennedy is quite funny in this scene, and it’s a shame he wasn’t given more to do elsewhere in the picture.  Other bits are played by such familiar faces as Lionel Stander (as a bookie), Margaret Hamilton (as a maid), and Rudy Vallee (as a potential investor).   

The rest of the picture is low on laughs and surprisingly light on the physical comedy Lloyd is known for.  I guess that’s to be expected, given the fact that he was much older and hadn’t appeared in a movie in over a decade, but still.  He doesn’t give a bad performance either.  It’s just that the film itself is rather lackluster.  The big finale where Harold tries to retrieve a lion from the ledge of a tall building is supposed to evoke memories of the iconic Safety Last.  However, it just comes off as a hollow imitation and isn’t very funny to boot. 

The film sorely lacks Sturges’ comedic touch too.  Sturges might’ve meant The Sin of Harold Diddlebock as a love letter to Lloyd, but I think he would’ve been better off allowing Lloyd to direct the picture as their sensibilities don’t quite gel.  Ultimately, its biggest sin is that it just isn’t very funny.   

AKA:  Mad Wednesday.

ONE-EYED JACKS (1961) ***

There’s a fine line between art and crap.  Because of that, it can sometimes be difficult to tell if the movie you’re watching is terrible or if it’s a work of greatness.  That’s the overriding feeling you get while watching One-Eyed Jacks, the first and only film directed by Marlon Brando.  It’s obtuse and frustrating at times, and yet it’s hard to take your eyes off it.  I can’t say it’s particularly well-made or has any distinguishing directorial touches, but it has a lure to it that is hard to deny, even if the film itself is rather leaden.

Brando replaced Stanley Kubrick as director, if you can believe it.  He stars as a bank robber named Kid who gets left in the desert by partner, Dad (Karl Malden).  Naturally, Kid gets caught by the authorities and is sent to prison.  He breaks out five years later and heads to Monterey, California where Dad is now sheriff. 

This set-up is rather laborious and will likely have you squirming in your seat but stick with it.  An odd thing happens as One-Eyed Jacks enters into its second act.  It becomes less a western and more a maudlin morality play.  You see, once Kid stares down Dad face to face, he realizes he can’t very well kill the man in cold blood.  Dad is grateful of course, but that all changes when Kid starts messing around with Dad’s stepdaughter.  From here, the picture turns grim, violent, and nearly operatic.  

It’s clear when you watch One-Eyed Jacks that Brando was in over his head.  He went way over schedule and over budget and legend has it his first cut clocked in at a whopping five hours.  The studio naturally took it away from him and cut it down to 141 minutes.  

It’s hard to tell just what he was going for.  At times, it’s introspective and moody.  Other times, there are outbursts of violence.  It’s a western in sheep’s clothing as it doesn’t really cater to the demands of the genre.  It almost seems as if Brando was making it all up as he went along.  The picture, like his acting technique calls for long quiet stretches punctuated by great emotion.  I can’t quite say it works, but it’s certainly something.

At times you can almost feel like Brando is only playing coy with the genre and seeing just how far he could push it.  For example, many scenes in the film take place at the beach.  I can’t say I can recall the last time I saw a western with so many (if any) beach scenes.  It’s as if Brando was literally pushing the western as far west as it could possibly go.  

The drama, as I’ve said, is nearly operatic.  You don’t need to be a psychologist to read into the fact that the protagonist and antagonist are named “Kid” and “Dad”.  Nor is the castration metaphor subtle when Dad catches Kid with his daughter and smashes his gun hand, leaving him unable to “shoot”.

It’s hard to say what Stanley Kubrick would’ve done with the material.  If he had done everything exactly the same, it might’ve been hailed as a masterpiece.  Because Brando did it, it’s merely a curiosity piece.  I don’t think Kubrick, who is known for his cold, detached style would’ve allowed Brando to act as theatrical as he does here.  That unrestrained passion seeps into every other aspect of the movie, making One-Eyed Jacks worth a look for Brando enthusiasts.

SANTO ON THE BORDER OF TERROR (1981) ***

Santo on the Border of Terror is at its heart, a metaphor for the plight of the Mexican refugee who is escaping to America in search for a better life.  In fact, it’s probably timelier now than when it was first released.  The film also pulled at my heartstrings more than any Lucha Libre movie in history.  Because of that, it comes highly recommended, even if there are some serious lulls in between the action.  

The picture does kick off right away with El Santo participating in a fast-moving tag-team wrestling match during the opening credits.  (El Santo also wrestles in a six-man tag-team match later in the film.)  He then makes the acquaintance of a sexy lounge singer and her little sister, who is blind.  They plan to cross the border to America so she can have an operation on her eyes, and El Santo offers to help them out.  Her boyfriend is lured into thinking a doctor will help him across the border, but he just wants to use him for his own devious medical experiments.  It’s then up to El Santo to rescue him and bring down the evil doctor once and for all.

Masked wrestlers are intensely secretive about their identities.  Keeping up the mystery of their appearance is one of the most hallowed traditions in their sport.  That’s what makes the scene where El Santo takes off his mask and allows the little blind girl to touch his face so she can “see” him so damned beautiful.  The other characters respectfully look the other way when El Santo does this, and the camera is kept behind him, so the audience doesn’t see his face either.  It’s a great, touching, tender, human moment that we rarely get to see in these films.  So poignant was this scene that it reduced me to tears.  I’ll admit, I’ve had some personal stuff going on this week.  It might not have affected me the way it did otherwise.  That in no way takes away from the power of this scene, one of the finest in El Santo’s career.

Okay, enough of the mushy stuff.  There’s still enough wrestling action and goofy shit (the doctor keeps a pair of eyeballs floating in a jar) to make Santo on the Border of Terror work as a pure Lucha Libre flick.  I will say the fights that take place outside of the ring are somewhat lacking.  (The overuse of long shots during the action kind of takes away from the immediacy of the fights.)  We also get two nightclub performance scenes for viewers who love seeing Mexican musical numbers in their El Santo movies.  I also enjoyed seeing The Puma Man’s Miguel Angel Fuentes in an early role as the mad scientist’s henchman.

Unfortunately, the film really drags when El Santo or the cute kid aren’t front and center.  Although the presence of a mad scientist is always welcome in these films, these scenes just aren’t as wacky or as weird as El Santo’s best stuff.  The evil doctor shit is also an uneasy mix with the exploitation of Mexican workers subplot.  Still, Santo on the Border of Terror’s heart is in the right place, which is all that really matters.  I can’t be too mad if it doesn’t quite make the grade as a social parable, especially when El Santo’s interactions with the little blind girl are so heartwarming.  

AKA:  Santo in the Border of Terror.  AKA:  Santo vs. the White Shadow.

INFERNO (1953) ***

Geraldine (Rhonda Fleming) and her lover Joseph (William Lundigan) ditch her husband Donald (Robert Ryan) in the middle of the desert with a broken leg.  Hoping he’ll die of exposure so they can live happily ever after together, they come up with a bogus cover story that the gullible law enforcement buys hook, line, and sinker.  Naturally, Donald uses his wits and ingenuity to not only survive, but to get the upper hand on his two-timing wife and her spineless suitor. 

This 3-D thriller has a solid premise, reliable performances, and a snappy pace.  Director Roy Ward Baker (who would go on to direct many Hammer horror classics) waits till the thrilling climax before he unleashes the best 3-D gimmicks.  He’s more concerned with crafting an involving tale of survival than tossing a bunch of stuff into the audience’s lap.  The taut desert scenes utilize some terrific voiceover by Ryan.  Although he says very little out loud, his constant narration is a wonderful technique to show his thought process and draw the audience deeper into his plight.

The scenes of Fleming and Lundigan deliberately throwing the police off their scent and playing house together aren’t nearly as compelling as Ryan’s fight for survival.  Their performances are still strong enough to keep you watching though.  Ryan is the real standout however.  His performance is even more impressive when you realize he speaks very little throughout the first two acts of the film.  Henry (The Werewolf of London) Hull is also quite good as an old timer who eventually lends Ryan a hand.

Baker waits till the last ten minutes or so to pile on the 3-D effects, but they’re well worth the wait.  Once Ryan and Lundigan finally lock horns, they throw nearly everything they can get their hands on at each other, and consequentially out into the audience.  Among the 3-D effects:

·         3-D Airplane Nose

·         3-D Gun

·         3-D Rocks

·         3-D Torch

·         3-D Lantern

·         3-D Cup

·         3-D Chair

·         3-D Falling Timbers 

RADIOACTIVE DREAMS (1986) *

Two boys are locked in an underground bunker as the bombs of WWIII begin to fall.  Having spent their formative years in a fallout shelter reading ‘40s detective novels, Phillip (John Stockwell) and Marlowe (Michael Dudikoff) emerge from the bunker fifteen years later as “atomic dicks”.  Almost immediately, they run smack into a mysterious woman (Lisa Blount) who is on the run from some shady characters who are looking for the keys to the last nuclear warhead left on earth.  Phillip and Marlowe give chase and wind up having many bizarre misadventures in the post-puke landscape. 

There’s a kernel of a good idea here, but writer/director Albert (The Sword and the Sorcerer) Pyun never figures out a way to make it pop.  The odd mix of Mad Max action, ‘40s film noir inspiration, and ‘80s teen comedy doesn’t gel.  The plot is nearly incoherent as our heroes have run-ins with everything from foulmouthed kids that look like Bugsy Malone versions of Al Pacino in Scarface to ‘50s style greasers to mutant cannibals to giant monsters.  None of it remotely works and it feels more like a checklist of shit Pyun wanted to put into a movie than a movie itself.

The incomprehensible plotting has nothing on the dingy cinematography.  Like many of Pyun’s movies of the era, it’s often ugly and unpleasant to look at.  The combination of dark shadows and grimy looking locations and sets make it hard to tell what’s going on some of the time.  The repetitive rock soundtrack gets annoying fast, and many sequences just feel like a bad MTV music video.

For a movie whose characters are obsessed with ‘40s detectives, it really doesn’t lean into the film noir clichés until late in the game.  I’m not sure why it took so long for the film to embrace the genre because these scenes are definitely the strongest stretch of the picture.  It’s still not very good mind you, but it’s certainly better than the cruddy sequences of our heroes hanging out in dark and grody punk rock nightclubs. 

Stockwell isn’t bad, but Dudikoff is thoroughly annoying.  While he was quite good in the American Ninja movies, he’s not much of a comedic actor, and his constant mugging and whiny demeanor are like nails on a chalkboard.  Blount gives the film a fleeting spark, although she is sadly underutilized as the femme fatale.  Even if she was given more to do, I’m not sure it would’ve prevented Radioactive Dreams from being a total snoozer. 

THE RAGE (1998) **

Lorenzo Lamas stars as an FBI “Mindhunter” on the trail of a madman played by Gary Busey.  His superior (Roy Scheider) hates Lorenzo’s guts, so he saddles him with a wet-behind-the-ears agent (Kristen Cloke), hoping they’ll screw up and Roy can finally fire his ass.  After a rocky start, the two agents eventually combine their resources to stop Busey and his trigger-happy militia members from assassinating a bunch of politicians during a woodland weekend retreat.

Directed by Sidney J. (Superman IV:  The Quest for Peace) Furie, The Rage is uneven, overlong, and undercooked.  It often feels like two scripts were haphazardly stapled together.  Busey’s character starts out like a serial killer/rapist in the early scenes, but by the end of the movie, he’s leading a team of trigger-happy Ruby Ridge-inspired militia members.  They probably should’ve dropped all the stuff with him being a rapist because it lends an air of unpleasantness to the film that prevents it from being fun.  

I mean what can you say about a movie that features A) Its lead female character dealing with the repercussions of being molested by the villain and B) A random Kung Fu battle between Lorenzo Lamas and Roy Scheider?  The tone is just too all over the place to work.  Not to mention the fact that Busey’s character’s backstory is blatantly stolen from Women’s Prison Massacre.  

Furie does deliver on the action.  The car chase through a steeplechase course is a lot of fun, and I liked the sequence when Lamas’ car gets stuck underneath a speeding tractor trailer.  The climax, in which Busey is set on fire and still proceeds to do battle with Lamas, is unintentionally hilarious too.  It’s just that the jarring shifts in tone prevent it from ever getting into gear.

Lamas is more straitlaced than usual, but he still gets in a couple of funny quips.  He has a lot of chemistry with Cloke, who is asked to endure a lot of unnecessary unpleasantness.  Busey is entertaining to watch, and Scheider seems to be having fun, even though he is clearly slumming.  We also get a completely random cameo by David Carradine who provides a gratuitous exposition dump mid-movie, only to be abruptly killed off.

BAD BLOOD (1994) ***

Travis (Lorenzo Lamas) is an ex-cop who went to jail for destroying evidence to keep his younger brother Franklin (Hank Cheyne) out of prison.  When Franklin rips off the cartel for five million bucks, it’s once again up to Travis to protect him.  Franklin just so happens to be married to Travis’ former flame (Bad Lieutenant’s Frankie Thorn), which further complicates their already strained relationship. 

You know Bad Blood is going to be better than your average Lorenzo Lamas actioner when you see it was directed by the great Tibor Takacs.  This is the guy that directed minor '80s classics such as The Gate and I, Madman; not to mention Mansquito, one of the best Syfy Channel movies of all time.  Takacs infuses the film with enough quirky touches (like when Lamas beats up some thugs after a Little League practice), gratuitous T & A (Thorn, along with Skinamax sirens Nikki Fritz, Kim Dawson, and Kimberley Kates eagerly participate in softcore sex and/or stripping scenes), and non-stop action to keep things moving along at a steady clip.

Much of the film feels like a low rent version of a John Woo movie, and I mean that in the best possible way.  Nearly all the action sequences feature an abundance of slow motion during the shootouts, chase scenes, and Kung Fu battles.  Actually, there’s probably a bit too much slow motion, but it’s hard to complain when the plot moves faster than the action.  The finale is a hoot as Lamas dispatches the villains in a variety of ways including explosions, electrocutions, and forklifts.  In fact, this movie would make a great double feature with Death Wish V:  The Face of Death as both films came out in 1994, feature deaths by forklift, and conclude with its villain taking a dip in an acid bath.

Lamas once again delivers a fine performance and gets to show off an array of Kung Fu moves in his fight scenes.  He also uses a nice assortment of weapons such as bats, bricks, and pipes to bludgeon the bad guys senseless.  The supporting cast is equally strong.  Cheyne is well-cast as Lamas’ brother as they strongly resemble one another.  Thorn makes for a great leading lady, and John P. Ryan is a lot of fun as Lamas’ crotchety father.  Their combined efforts help keep Bad Blood in good standing with the audience.

AKA:  Viper.

DJINN (2013) ** ½

An Arabic couple still mourning the death of their infant decide to leave America and return to the United Arab Emirates.  While Khalid (Khalid Laith) goes off to work, his emotionally sensitive wife Salama (Razane Jammel) is left alone in their swanky apartment.  It doesn’t take long for her to realize something is seriously wrong with the place.  You see, it was built on an ancient village haunted by an evil spirit (or djinn) who, predictably, has sinister intentions for Salama.

Djinn isn’t quite successful, but it certainly is an interesting variation on the usual horror formula.  We’ve seen countless horror movies that draw from Christianity to supply their title character.  This is a rare flick that draws from Islamic lore, which at the very least is enough to make it memorable.  I also liked that the couple’s use of English and Arabic was about 50/50, which gives the impression that they don’t feel at home in either country.

Djinn was the last film directed by Tobe (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) Hooper.  He does a fine job setting up the premise.  Before long, it reveals itself to be a slight reworking of the Rosemary’s Baby formula as it revolves around a couple who moves into an odd apartment with kooky neighbors that hold ominous dinner parties and have diabolic intentions.  The big difference here, of course, is our heroine isn’t pregnant, but is grieving the loss of her baby.  There are also some nods to the J-Horror genre as the sinister specter’s hair floats along ceilings and walls.  Even though much of this may feel familiar, despite the novel setting, Hooper is still able to make these sequences work by using odd camera angles and playing with the timing of scares to keep the audience off guard. 

Unfortunately, the ending is abrupt, unsatisfying, and just plain sucks.  I don’t know if they ran out of money or time or what, but it doesn’t work at all.  Nevertheless, there’s some cool stuff happening here and there.  There’s just not enough of it to make the movie totally worth recommending.  It’s a shame it was Hooper’s final project because it’s one of his best late-era films. 

SHAKMA (1990) * ½

Int.  Producer’s Office.  Hollywood.  Day.

Producer #1:  Killer Monkey movies all the rage with the kids today.  The box office returns from Link and Monkey Shines prove that.  We’ve got to strike while the iron is hot.  What do you have for me?

Screenwriter:  Well, I have a lot of ideas actually.  First, we can…

Producer #1 (Pours a giant pile of cocaine on his desk):  Hold up, before we begin, I’m not spending much on this thing.  What can we afford to put in this movie?  

Producer #2:  Well, I have a buddy who can give me the keys to the science building at the local community college.  Also, my kids really love that Dungeons and Dragons computer game crap, maybe we can work that into the plot somehow.

Producer #1 (Chopping up the coke with a razor blade):  What about star power?   

Producer #2:  We could probably afford that kid from The Blue Lagoon, although he’s not a kid anymore and is way too old to play a college student.  Maybe one of the girls from A Nightmare on Elm…

Producer #1 (Putting the cocaine into neat little lines):  Don’t give me that!  I need a big name!  

Producer #2:  How about someone like Roddy McDowall?

Producer #1 (Snorts a big line of cocaine):  He was just in those Fright Night movies.  I bet he’s expensive.  We can probably only afford him for one day.  Two tops.  What about the monkey?

Producer #2 (Snorts a big line of cocaine):  I have that all worked out.  A friend of mine runs a zoo and has a red-assed baboon we can use.

Producer #1:  Is it trained?

Producer #2:  All it knows how to do is run after someone who is about to close a door.  Then when the door is shut, it pounds its fists against the door and screams.

Screenwriter (Snorts a big line of cocaine):  Perfect!  I can write dozens of scenes where it’s chasing characters in the science building and just when it’s about the strike, the character shuts the door just in the nick of time.  

Producer #2:  Hmm… will it be suspenseful?

Screenwriter:  Hell no.  But it will pad out the film.

Producer #1 (Snorts a big line of cocaine):  So, wait.  Why are they in the science building again?

Screenwriter (Rubbing cocaine along his gums):  I have that all worked out.  Since we’re making the computer game a big plot point, the characters can be LARPing.

Producer #2 (Snorts a big line of cocaine):  What the hell is that?

Screenwriter (Snorts a big line of cocaine):  It’s like playing Dungeons and Dragons.  Except instead of being huddled in a basement, they wander around the halls picking up clues and…

Producer #1:  This sounds like nerd shit.  Where does Roddy come in?

Screenwriter:  We’ll just sit him at a desk for three-quarters of his screen time.  He can facilitate the game as the dungeon master and communicate with the students via walkie-talkie.

Producer #2:  That way we can shoot all his scenes while everyone else is at lunch.  Perfect.  So, how will it all fit together?

Screenwriter (Snorts three big lines of cocaine):  These nerdy med students lock themselves in a science building after hours so they can do live-action D & D shit with their professor, played by Roddy.  You see, he performed an experiment on the baboon’s brain to increase its aggressiveness.  His students were SUPPOSED destroy the baboon, but the dumbasses were so wrapped up with their roleplaying shit that they forget to cremate it.  Then, the pissed-off baboon breaks loose and begins killing the students.

Producer #1 (Reaching into his desk to get some more cocaine):  This is gonna be great.  This is gonna be a respectable picture.  Like all respectable pictures, it’s got to be over a hundred minutes long.

Screenwriter:  Sir, with this thin of a plot there’s no way we can make this thing last over a hundred minutes.  There’s barely enough plot here for an eighty-minute movie.

Producer #1 (Chops up a big pile of cocaine):  If that’s the case we have to pad out the movie a bit.  No big deal.  Most of these things are nothing but long scenes of people splitting up and slowly walking down hallways anyway. 

Screenwriter:  Even if I put in double the usual amount of those scenes, it still won’t be long enough. 

Producer #2 (Pulls out a glass vial of cocaine from his sportscoat and snorts the contents):  I know!  How about if every time the hero finds a dead body of his classmate, he picks them up and moves them around from room to room. 

Screenwriter:  Why would he do that?

Producer #2:  I have no idea, but it will eat up a lot of screen time. 

Screenwriter:  Roger that.  Speaking of bodies, how will the characters be killed if the killer is a baboon? 

Producer #1 (Snorts a big line of cocaine):  Well.  It’s a baboon.  Probably the only thing it can do is rip people’s throats out.

Producer #2 (Snorts a big line of cocaine):  Besides, we only have room in the budget for one cockamamie gore effect.  

Screenwriter (Snorts a big line of cocaine):  Well, at least let’s make that memorable.  How about if a guy accidentally pours acid in his face and it melts off. 

Producer #1 (Snorts a big line of cocaine):  Brilliant.  I think my face is melting off as we speak.  (Snorts another line of cocaine) So, do we have a title?

Screenwriter (Snorts an enormous line of cocaine):  Yes.  (Snorts another line for good measure) Shakma.

Producer #2 (Snorts massive line of cocaine):  What the fuck does that mean?

Screenwriter (Bleeding profusely from the nostrils):  I have no fucking clue.  I’m so high right now I’m just making words up.

Producer #1:  Great.  We start shooting in the morning.  Right now, we have to snort some more cocaine!

AKA:  Panic in the Tower.  AKA:  Nemesis.