YOKAI MONSTERS: 100 MONSTERS (1968) ***

The residents of a small Japanese town use a shrine to tell ghost stories.  To keep the evil spirits at bay, they perform a cleansing ritual after the evening’s tales have come to their conclusion.  Trouble brews when a crooked magistrate comes to town with the intention of turning the sacred shrine into a brothel.  He also sets his sights on tearing down a nearby tenement, which further distresses the community.  Naturally, when the corrupt officials prevent the cleansing ritual from being performed, it awakens a horde of monsters.   

Yokai Monsters:  100 Monsters is an odd, goofy, but most importantly, fun amalgam of samurai drama, Japanese folklore, and monster movie.  While it’s a mostly enjoyable romp, the pacing has a weird rhythm to it.  Some of the ghost stories are shown in full, which kind of feels more like an excuse to pad out the running time than anything else.  These moments, taken on their own accord, are really entertaining, even if they are more of a goofy detour than anything else.  

The monsters are kind of silly too, which only makes them more endearing, although there are noticeably a lot less of them than advertised.  (I’d say the final number is closer to two dozen than a hundred.)  There’s a fuzzy monster that resembles a one-eyed Muppet, a woman whose snake-like head pops up and down like a Jack-in-the-box, an army of faceless men, and a giant witch.  My favorite was the cute umbrella monster who comes to life via chintzy animation and hops around on one foot.  The scenes where it befriends a boy with special needs are particularly a lot of fun.  (You have to wonder if Spielberg saw this before he made E.T.)

Frankly, the samurai stuff is the weakest aspect.  The hero is kind of a lightweight, and the sword fights are few and far between.  I also wish the ratio of monster mashing had been higher.  That said, when the flick is firing on all cylinders, it’s a real treat.

AKA:  The Hundred Ghost Stories.  AKA:  The Hundred Monsters.  

SAMARITAN (2022) ** ½

Years ago, the superhero Samaritan fought his nemesis… uh… Nemesis in a battle to the death.  Now, a young boy named Sam (Javon “Wanna” Walton) becomes convinced that his next-door neighbor (Sylvester Stallone) is the mythic crimefighter.  Meanwhile, a crime lord (Pilou Asbaek) gets his hands on Nemesis’ hammer, the only thing that can kill Samaritan, and begins amassing fanatic followers to take over the city. 

It's bad enough we have all these comic book movies based on actual comic books.  It’s even worse when Hollywood starts making up their own superheroes (which means they don’t have to pay any royalties).  Even though I pretty much knew what to expect from this (especially since it went straight to Prime), I still tried to remain hopeful because of the participation of Sylvester Stallone.  

Fortunately, Samaritan was just a little bit better than I anticipated.  That’s mostly due to Stallone’s performance, which is easily the best thing about the movie.  His character may be cliched as all get out (Old Man With a Secret Who Just Wants to Be LEFT ALONE), but he finds ways to bring a hint of humanity to the film.  

Things get off to a janky start.  The superhero origin, done in a cartoonish style, is really cheesy, and the mythology behind the characters is pretty thin.  (They are brothers who don’t like each other.)  Luckily, the film gets better as it goes along, even though it takes a while to find its footing.  The scenes where Sly teaches the kid to fight have a Rocky Lite vibe to them, and the big twist is moderately effective.  

The biggest problem with Samaritan is that it’s just too low key for its own good.  That’s probably due to budgetary constraints more than any attempt to ground the characters in “the real world”.  Once the film (and the main character) finally embraces what it really is, it actually becomes a lot of fun.  The action in the finale is surprisingly strong, and some of the violence pushes the realms of its PG-13 rating.  (It also makes terrific use of its One-F-Bomb-Per-PG-13-Rating.)  If it had less moping and more rope-a-doping, it might’ve been a contender.  

AKA:  Nemesis.

NIGHTMARE FESTIVAL (1989) ***

Friend of the Video Vacuum, Stuart McPherran has posted a lot of great trailer compilations online in recent years, and I’ve enjoyed every single one of them that he has uploaded.  He let me know about one I missed, and I eagerly checked it out.  Among the highlights are the trailers for Forbidden Planet (which was shown as part of a ‘70s re-release of “MGM Children’s Matinees”), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (which parodies The Seventh Seal and The Seven Samurai), Sleeper (in which Woody Allen is interviewed in between snippets of the film), The House That Dripped Blood (which has a great tagline:  “Vampires!  Voodoo!  Vixens!  And VICTIMS!”), The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (narrated by the sexy star, Kathryn Grant), and The Gates of Hell (which looks like it was culled from a VHS release).  

Nightmare Festival presents a good mix of trailers that span across the decades and subgenres.  Included are previews from the ‘30s (Rocket Ship), ‘40s (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), ‘50s (The Incredible Shrinking Man), ‘60s (The Fearless Vampire Killers), and ‘70s (Ben).  Because of that, it’s a good primer for fans of horror and sci-fi alike.  There are also plenty of ads for films by notable directors, such as Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Eaten Alive), Herschell Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs), William Castle (Macabre and The Tingler), and Robert Wise (The Haunting and The Day the Earth Stood Still), and movies that appeared on Mystery Science Theater 3000 are well-represented too (The Leech Woman, It Conquered the World, and The Crawling Hand).  While there are some trailers that will be overly familiar for dyed-in-the-wool trailer compilation aficionados like me (the trailer for the double feature for The Blood Spattered Bride and I Dismember Mama is trotted out yet again), there’s a nice assortment of fun, oddball, and iconic trailers here to please just about everyone.  

The complete list of trailers is as follows:  Forbidden Planet, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), The Incredible Shrinking Man, Them!, Raw Meat, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Ben, Sleeper, Race with the Devil, Invaders from Mars, Things to Come, I Married a Witch, Tales from the Crypt, Island at the Top of the World, Scream, Baby, Scream, Rocket Ship, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, The Invisible Ray, The Astro-Zombies, The House That Dripped Blood, The War of the Worlds, The Blob, Queen of Outer Space, One Million Years B.C., The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, The Gates of Hell, a double feature of The Creature from the Black Lagoon and It Came from Outer Space, Macabre, The Tingler, a double feature of The Blood Spattered Bride and I Dismember Mama, Horrors of the Black Museum, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs, The Legend of Hell House, Sugar Hill, The Woman Eater, The Flesh Eaters, The Haunting, Count Yorga, Vampire, Eaten Alive, The Omen, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Dracula:  Prince of Darkness, Carrie, The Leech Woman, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Valley of the Dragons, It Conquered the World, The Crawling Hand, Revenge of the Creature, Children of the Damned, and Freaks (re-release).

ORPHAN: FIRST KILL (2022) ** ½

Sometimes with prequels, it’s best to wait a few years until you come up with a great reason to justify its existence.  Sometimes, it’s better to strike while the iron is hot.  The makers of Orphan:  First Kill waited thirteen years to tell us the origins of the deranged psycho kid, Esther.  What’s odd is that in 2009, Isabelle Fuhrman, who plays Esther, was nine years old.  Now she’s pushing twenty-three.  If you saw Orphan, you will remember that Esther was revealed to be a thirtysomething dwarf masquerading as a child.  Now instead of having a kid playing an adult playing a kid we have an adult playing an adult playing a kid.  Got that?  I’m not sure why they waited so long, especially since Fuhrman is much too old to play the part, but that at the very least makes it memorable.  

They don’t do a convincing job trying to cover up the fact that Fuhrman is too long in the tooth to play a kid either, which may give the film some shelf life as a camp classic.  The child doubles are obvious, as are the parts where the other actors are clearly standing on apple boxes to make it look like they’re a lot taller than her.  It all seems sloppy and cheesy, which of course, I kind of dug.  

Esther murders her way out of an Estonian psycho ward.  She eventually poses as a missing child and dupes the parents into thinking she is their long-lost daughter.  Before long, she begins manipulating and killing.  

Although it’s a little slow to get going, it gets better/cheesier/weirder as it goes along.  The first film had an insane twist ending, so naturally, you’re wondering if they will even try to top it.  While the twist in this one is appropriately nasty, it falls short of the one from the original.  Julia Stiles, who I hadn’t seen in a while, sinks her teeth into the role of the estranged mother gamely and gets the best line of the movie when she says, “If you think I’m going to let some psycho dwarf destroy what I’ve built… you’re mistaken!”

DAY SHIFT (2022) ***

Jamie Foxx stars as a vampire hunter in the sunny San Fernando Valley.  Unlike most screen vamp slayers, he has modest aims.  He’s not trying to rid the world of bloodsuckers.  He just wants to get enough dough to pay for his kid’s braces.

Day Shift kicks off with a great fight sequence with an old vampire contortionist lady who bends, cracks, and gnarls her body in a variety of ways while attacking Foxx.  From there on, it gets a little spotty in places.  Like most Netflix movies, it’s way too long (almost two hours), but the biggest debit is the weak villain.  As Audrey San Fernando, Karla Souza looks and acts less like a Queen of the Damned and more like a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills.  That or maybe a reject from one of those house-flipping reality shows since her character moonlights… err… daylights as a real estate mogul.  

Fortunately, the rest of the supporting cast is a lot of fun.  There’s Snoop Dogg as a cowboy vampire hunter, Peter Stormare as a sleazy pawnbroker who buys vampire teeth on the black market, and Dave Franco as Foxx’s nerdy by-the-book partner.  The best characters are a pair of badass Russian vampire hunters played by Steve Howey and DTV action legend Scott Adkins.  Their big action sequence where they team up with Foxx to dispose of a nest of vamps is breathless, fun, and inventive.  (I especially dug the stake that can also be used as a nunchuck.)  It’s enough to make you wish that Adkins and Howey get their own spin-off somewhere down the road.

Foxx’s performance helps to tie the loosey-goosey tone together.  He’s very funny and is at his best when he’s ad-libbing insults at the expense of Franco.  He also fares quite well in his everyman family man scenes too, which grounds the film from flying off the rails.  

Overall, Day Shift is more than a tad bit uneven.  It often feels like parts of a couple of different scripts sewed together.  All this barely gels, and if it skates by with a *** rating, it’s thanks to the charm of the cast.  It’s just that it never quite realizes its full potential.  There are times when it flirts with awesomeness (like the stuff with Adkins and Howey), and yet it always feels like it’s holding back.  Ultimately, it delivers just enough to make it all worthwhile, but it kind of leaves you wanting more.

PREY (2022) ** ½

Prey is understandably low key next to its Predator predecessors since it takes place three hundred years before Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked extraterrestrial ass.  Still, it’s lacking a certain quality that makes the franchise so much fun.  (AVP:  Requiem notwithstanding.)  The most noticeable missing ingredient is the camaraderie between a ragtag group that fights the monster.  Here, we just get a Comanche woman named Naru (Amber Midthunder) trying to prove to her tribe she can be as good of a hunter as the men.  While she gives a strong performance, the supporting characters lack substance and pale in comparison to the rogues’ gallery typically found in the series.  

While the last entry, The Predator had definite peaks and valleys, it was at the very least a memorable (if a tad goofy) effort.  This one is more or less “not bad” all the way through.  On one hand, that’s a good thing when you’re watching it as you’re never really bored.  However, I can’t say I’ll be thinking about this one all that much in the near future.  I mean, no one will ever put Predators at the top of their Predator franchise ranking, but it at least had that badass samurai duel.  Prey, on the other hand, is relatively enjoyable.  It's just that it’s sorely lacking a big set piece like that one to put it over the top.  

It doesn’t help that the Predator design is piss-poor.  I’m not sure who came up with the idea to have his face look like an asshole, but it’s not intimidating or scary in the least.  Another debit is some of the shoddy CGI, especially for the animals.  There’s a scene where the Predator fights a bear that should’ve been a real crowd-pleaser, but it feels rushed and is hampered by crummy computer effects that make the bear look cheesy.  Give me the Lou Ferrigno/bear fight from Hercules any day.  

Still, as a stripped-down, three-chords, down-n’-dirty Predator flick, it almost, but not quite, gets the job done.  A lot of the stuff you’ve come to expect from the franchise is here (minus the machine guns, obviously) and done competently enough.  Midthunder carries the movie admirably and she clearly has what it takes to become a bona fide action star.  Maybe next time they can build a better movie around her.

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO (2021) *** ½

Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho is a nifty little change of pace for the director.  He trades in his typical comedic approach for a highly stylized horror-thriller that has echoes of many of the old masters.  There were moments here that reminded me of Argento, De Palma, Craven, Polanski, and even Kubrick, but they all feel like an organic aspect of the movie than a mere pastiche of inspirations.

A shy girl named Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) moves from her small English town to London to attend fashion school.  Longing to get away from her annoying roommate, she strikes out on her own and rents an apartment.  Soon, she begins dreaming of the beautiful tenant (Anya Taylor-Joy) who lived there in the ‘60s.  

To go into any more detail would be a disservice to potential viewers.  What makes the film so much fun is how Wright puts our heroine AND the audience squarely in Taylor-Joy’s shoes.  The way he subtly turns the screws to his characters (and us) is masterfully done, and eventually, we feel like we are in the grips of a nightmare we can’t wake from.

Wright slathers on the style too, which helps make the flashback scenes crackle.  The sequences where McKenzie follows Taylor-Joy down a rabbit hole of increasingly seedy predicaments are exhilarating and intoxicating.  He also gives us a gnarly murder sequence that would make any of the aforementioned filmmakers envious.  Wright’s use of nicely timed needle drops of ‘60s tunes also helps heighten the atmosphere.

McKenzie does a great job as the curious bystander who quickly gets thrown in the driver’s seat of terror.  She does some of the best terrified acting I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s Taylor-Joy though who steals the movie with her longing, hypnotic gazes at the camera.  She’s so mysterious and alluring that you can’t blame McKenzie for chasing after her, even after she knows it’s all leading to a tragic end.  

At a few minutes shy of two hours, Last Night in Soho is overlong to a fault.  Wright’s overreliance on CGI specters furthers hinders things.  I know there’s a “reason” why they look the way they do, but their appearances aren’t particularly effective.  These quibbles are relatively minor in the long run and don’t detract too much from the overall mood though.  For when Wright is cooking, the movie really sizzles.  It is certainly a Night to remember. 

GAME NIGHT (2018) ***

I’ve heard a lot of good things about Game Night recently, and as an avid boardgame fanatic, I figured I would roll the dice and check it out for myself.  It also helped that I was a big fan of directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s previous flick, Vacation.  While it’s not quite on the level of that classic, it’s still a lot of fun.  

Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams star as a couple who live for game night with their friends.  Bateman’s ultra-successful big brother (Kyle Chandler) crashes the festivities and tries to one-up his sibling’s quaint evening of fun by staging an elaborate murder-mystery dinner party-style game.  The premise is that one of the guests will be “abducted” and the rest of the party has to find them.  Naturally, Bateman’s brother gets kidnapped for real, which leads to several complications.  

Game Night is sort of like a reworking of The Man Who Knew Too Little as our heroes think they are taking part in an elaborate game, but they are actually in danger every step of the way.  Unlike that flick, the main characters here catch on to that the scenario is all too real about halfway in, which kind of takes some of the fun out of it.  There are also one or two totally unnecessary plot twists in the final reel, although nothing that threatens to derail the film’s momentum.  Despite those quibbles, Daley and Goldstein deliver plenty of memorable moments and funny sequences (like when McAdams is forced to perform an impromptu back-alley surgery on Bateman’s bullet wound) to make it worthwhile.  

It helps that the cast is strong all the way around.  Bateman is still playing yet another variation on his usual shtick, but he is nevertheless very funny.  His chemistry with McAdams is winning too, and if there isn’t a sequel in the cards (heh), then I hope they are at least paired together again real soon.  I also liked Jeffrey Wright’s intense bit as the hardboiled “detective” in the game as well as the cameo by the “big bad” in the finale.  It’s Jesse Plemons though who steals scene after scene as Bateman’s nosy cop neighbor.  

NATIONAL SECURITY (2003) **

Cop Steve Zahn is investigating the murder of his partner (Timothy Busfield).  Things get complicated when he is fired for using excessive force on a black motorist, played by Martin Lawrence.  Afterwards, the only job he can get is working as a security guard.  Naturally, he winds up being partnered with Lawrence, who reluctantly agrees to help him clear his name and find the murderer.

National Security is an odd duck.  The early scenes work well enough, especially the stuff where Zahn is accused of excessive force.  These scenes hit a little differently now than when the film was released, but they are still pretty funny.  The best sequence though details how Zahn is able to avoid being killed in prison.  I wouldn’t dream of spoiling it as it is easily the biggest laugh in the movie.  

Once Lawrence enters the fray, it kind of switches gears and becomes a Martin Lawrence action comedy.  His solo scenes aren’t bad or anything, but they certainly pale in comparison to something like Blue Streak or Black Knight.  At times, it almost seems like there were two scripts that became conjoined as the tone in Zahn’s scenes doesn’t quite gel with Lawrence’s stuff.  That probably wouldn’t matter much if the pair had any real chemistry to speak of.  

At least the supporting cast is interesting.  Colm Feore and Bill Duke are suitably intimidating as detectives, but it’s Eric Roberts who looks like he’s having the most fun as a white-haired assassin.  Sadly, like everything else in the movie, the script never quite figures out what to do with him.  

Another problem is Dennis Dugan’s direction.  His style might be perfectly suited for Adam Sandler movies, but he really isn’t the guy for the job when it comes to an action-comedy.  He also collaborated with Zahn for the much better Saving Silverman, which came out two years prior. 

BULLET TRAIN (2022) ***

I have no problem when an action movie cranks it up to 11.  The problem is when an action movie STARTS cranked up to 11 is that there’s nowhere for it to really go.  If the action lets up, the audience feels letdown, and if the action remains breakneck for too long, it can feel like a pain in the neck.  Luckily, director David Leitch keeps the momentum going at a zippy clip for much of the running time.  

Bullet Train feels like a throwback to those post-Tarantino post-Ritchie crime movies full of colorful hitmen who make pop culture references (mostly Thomas the Tank Engine), have lots of flashbacks, go by cheesy codenames (like “The Hornet”), and are introduced alongside an onscreen title card so you can try to keep up with all the assorted riffraff and miscreants that populate the film.  As far as these things go, it’s pretty entertaining, thanks in part to the wild action and bloody mayhem (most of which takes part inside the titular train).  

The biggest buoy that keeps things afloat is the game cast.  Aaron-Taylor Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry are fun as a team of brothers who go by fruity codenames.  Andrew Koji lends some dramatic depth to the proceedings as a father performing a hit in order to save his son.  Although most of the characters feel like they came out of entirely different films, any movie that features Michael Shannon as an insane Russian Mob boss/samurai is my kind of picture.  

It's Brad Pitt who holds it all together as the goofy, bumbling hitman, Ladybug.  With a film populated with so many eccentric oddballs, you need a character like this as a sort of palette cleanser.  He has a cool, laidback quality that may remind you of his roles in The Mexican and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and his Zen philosophy towards being a hitman often gets some of the biggest laughs.  There are also some great cameos along the way (which I wouldn’t dream of spoiling) that help keep the sometimes overly chaotic flick from flying off the tracks (literally and figuratively).

SWEDEN: HEAVEN AND HELL (1969) **

Sweden:  Heaven and Hell is an Italian Mondo movie about the sexually permissive Swedish lifestyle.  Droll narration (provided by Edmund Purdom, the star of Pieces) accompanies uneven scenes of mock titillation, pseudo-anthropology, and allegedly informative documentary sequences (like schoolgirls learning sex education and receiving contraceptives from the government).  Most of this stuff is rather ho-hum.

Naturally, the lurid scenes are the most entertaining.  One sequence involves a couple who learn they are brother and sister separated at birth and STILL decide to get married.  There’s also a quick trip to a nightclub where the headlining act is a topless rock band that I believe are The Ladybirds, the same group from The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield.  Other segments include a policewoman who moonlights as a photographer’s model, a club of beautiful women who go skinny-dipping in frozen lakes, a nightclub for women only, and Marie Liljedahl from Inga appears as a woman who is gang raped by bikers.  There are also sequences that focus on juvenile delinquents, alcoholics, and drug addicts.  If you can’t already guess, these interludes aren’t nearly as much fun as all the sexy stuff.  If they cut out all that hellish stuff and just called it Sweden:  Heaven and Heaven, it might’ve been a classic.  

Directed by Luigi Scattini, Sweden:  Heaven and Hell was one of the first wave of films that helped kick off the Swedish erotica craze here in America.  As such, it’s pretty tame, and doesn’t feature nearly as much nudity as you might expect.  (The most graphic sequence is probably the one that showcases the birth of a baby.)   The most memorable thing about the film is the soundtrack, which features the inescapable earworm “Mah-Na Mah-Na” which later was used on Sesame Street!  The rest of the incidental music is pretty good too.

Purdom also narrated Scattini’s next pseudo-documentary, Witchcraft ’70. 

AKA:  Sweden:  Heaven or Hell.

DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS (2022) ***

The animated DC superhero movies produced by Warner Animation Group are usually just as good, if not better than their live-action DC Extended Universe counterparts.  In fact, The LEGO Batman Movie is my favorite comic book flick of all time.  While DC League of Super-Pets never comes close to matching those heights, it remains a solidly enjoyable superhero romp for kids and adults alike.  

When Superman (voiced by John Krasinski) proposes to Lois Lane (voiced by Olivia Wilde), it creates a rift with his pet dog, Krypto (voiced by The Rock).  Meanwhile, a demented guinea pig named Lulu (voiced by Kate McKinnon) acquires superpowers from a chunk of orange Kryptonite and sets out to take over the world.  After dispensing of Superman and the Justice League, she zaps Krypto of his super-strength with some Kryptonite hidden inside a cheese wedge.  Krypto then turns to a ragtag group of superhero shelter animals led by Ace (voiced by Kevin Hart) to help save Metropolis.  

There are a few genuine laughs here, but not nearly as many as I had hoped for.  If you go in expecting the satire of The LEGO Batman Movie or Teen Titans GO! To The Movies, you might be a little disappointed.  While we do get a little of that here and there, this is more or less aimed squarely at kids.  It’s basically The Secret Life of Pets, except with capes and superpowers.  

If anything, the celebrity voices are perfectly cast.  In fact, you might find yourself wanting to see them appearing in a live-action movie all their own, minus the wisecracking canines.  Keanu Reeves steals the show as Batman.  I can only hope we see more of his version of the Caped Crusader in the near future because he’s far and away the best thing about the flick.  I also enjoyed hearing Marc Maron as Lex Luthor (although it might’ve been funnier if Maron had just been playing a thinly veiled version of himself).  It’s McKinnon though who gets the best line when she sees the League of Super-Pets assembled for the first time and quips, “What is this?  Paw Patrol?”

SO SWEET… SO PERVERSE (1969) ***

Carroll Baker reteamed with her Orgasmo director Umberto Lenzi for this psychosexual thriller.  Jean-Louis Trintignant stars as a philandering husband who becomes obsessed with a battered woman (Baker) who just moved into his apartment building.  After some well-intentioned stalking, they soon become lovers, much to the chagrin of his bitter, jealous wife (Erika Blanc).  The couple’s future happiness is quickly put in jeopardy when Baker’s loose cannon ex (Horst Frank) begins lurking about.  

I’ve read several reviews that describe So Sweet… So Perverse as a loose remake of Diabolique, but it’s very much its own thing for a good chunk of the running time.  In fact, it doesn’t reveal any Diabolique touches until about the third act.  Curiously enough, it’s this stretch of the movie that’s the weakest, mostly because the big twist is kind of clunky.  

Fortunately, there’s plenty of good stuff in the first hour or so of the flick to make So Sweet… So Perverse a treat for fans of Italian sleaze.  Lenzi does an especially good job on the unsettling flashbacks of Baker’s sordid past.  The rape scene on the beach is particularly memorable as the rushing tide symbolically colliding with a large conch shell on the shore is a rather fantastic (if a bit twisted) image.  Heck, Lenzi even gives the romantic scenes are a hint of danger and makes to make them kind of suspenseful.  (I’m thinking particularly of the swinging dinner party where Baker and Trintignant play a variation on “Seven Minutes in Heaven” in front of Blanc.)  

Baker and Blanc’s performances further help keep the viewer involved in the twisty plot, even when it begins spinning its wheels in the late going.  They have a lot of chemistry together and participate in a handful of tastefully done nude scenes too.  The film also has the benefit of a great theme song, “Why” by Riz Ortolani, which is reminiscent in some ways of his classic, “More” from Mondo Cane. 

ORGASMO (1969) ** ½

Carroll Baker stars as a recently widowed socialite who moves into her dead husband’s Italian villa and starts boozing it up.  Before long, she’s banging the local stud (Lou Castel) who helps make her feel young again.  Trouble brews when he brings along his “sister” (Colette Descombes), who supplies Baker with a lot of pills, which don’t mix too well with all the alcohol.  Eventually, Baker catches onto their depraved blackmail scheme, but soon finds herself trapped in her own home with the two horny psychosexual maniacs.

Orgasmo (which shouldn’t be confused with the similarly titled Trey Parker porn comedy, Orgazmo) is a decent little thriller that, while predictable, moves along at a steady clip.  Only near the end does the film begin to lose its way.  Although the twist ending is kind of neat, the final scenes are way too pat.  It almost feels like a throwback to the old Production Code movies in which the villains MUST get their comeuppance, no matter how lame.  (I guess that makes sense as the plot is another one of those “Let’s Drive the Rich Lady Crazy to Get Her Inheritance” deals.)  

Directed by Umberto Lenzi, the film probably suggests a bit more than it delivers, but it remains thoroughly watchable throughout.  The reason for that has a lot to do with Baker’s hysterics.  She sometimes resembles Ann-Margret in Tommy, and some of her freak-outs and meltdowns are rather amusing.  Too bad Castel and Descombes, who play the brother and sister pair of tormentors are kind of forgettable.  They don’t really feel all that menacing, and the fact that Baker’s character is such a pushover doesn’t help matters either.  

Luckily, the sex scenes, although relatively tame, offer some sizzle.  The sequence where Baker gets it on in the shower is particularly steamy in both senses of the word.  If there were a couple more scenes of this caliber, Orgasmo might’ve been a top-notch thriller.  As it is, it’s a solid, if unspectacular effort.  

AKA:  Paranoia.  

ELVIS (2022) ****

If you go into Elvis expecting a by-the-numbers biopic of America’s greatest entertainer, you will no doubt be disappointed.  It’s less a conventional biopic and more a dark, melancholic examination of mental and psychological abuse.  It's about how the abuser will use any tool at their disposal to control the narrative and insert themselves into it.  How the cycle of abuse begins, is perpetrated, threatens to curtail, and then starts back up again.  It is the story of Col. Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) and Elvis Presley (Austin Butler).

Parker is a carnival huckster who knows how to sell a show.  When he witnesses firsthand the reaction to Elvis’ performance at a county fair, he sees dollar signs.  Parker is able to move Elvis out of the county fair circuit and soon makes him the biggest pop culture artist of all time.  It doesn’t take long before the Parker’s control pushes Elvis to rebel, but somehow, he always winds up crawling back into the Colonel’s clutches.

Elvis is a tragedy.  It is about how a good-natured mama’s boy with unfathomable talent is commoditized, monetized, and controlled by a shrewd businessman.  It is the story of American business, and the way businessmen exploit their workers past the point of exhaustion.  It is about the American Dream and how the dreamers often become distracted, manipulated, and just plain taken advantage of along the way. 

Many will want a straightforward Elvis movie.  I get that.  This is not it.  What is amazing about the film is how firm of a grasp the Colonel has on the story.  He is in control of the narrative from the very first frame, manipulating the audience, just as he manipulated The King.  Elvis goes along with the Colonel’s shady business practices, mostly to provide for his family, but even then, he eventually tires of the Colonel and tries to wriggle out of his iron grip. 

What is fascinating about the film, is that when Elvis temporarily defies the Colonel, the movie soars and becomes an intoxicatingly dizzying spectacle like only Baz Luhrmann could make.  Like when Elvis goes behind the Colonel’s back to make his comeback television special.  We see Elvis totally in his element without the Colonel’s meddling, and he is firing on all creative cylinders.  The moment when he ignores Parker’s mandate for an old-timey Christmas number to deliver the passionate “If I Can Dream” is especially triumphant.  In these moments, Elvis (both the movie and the man) literally and figuratively finds his voice, and we can see what he could’ve accomplished if he wasn’t shackled to the sleazy Colonel. 

The Colonel’s manipulations don’t stop with Elvis.  In the end, when he laments The King’s death, he says it wasn’t the heart attack or the pills that killed him, but “His love for YOU!”  He’s projecting the blame of Elvis’ descent into drugs not on himself, but the audience… US.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie that blamed the death of its title character on the viewer like that before.  It just shows the lengths Parker will go to in order to make himself out the be the hero.  He has his claws in the audience just as much as he does Elvis. 

This is a special movie.  One of the best of the year.  It has all the bombast and fun an Elvis film directed by Luhrmann could have.  However, it’s the dark dynamic between the Colonel and Elvis that gives it so much power.  I can understand why people won’t like it.  If you want a safe Elvis bio, there are plenty of them out there.  (The John Carpenter one is probably the best.)  If you want something braver, riskier, and darker, this will be the way to go.  It is bound to leave the viewer all shook up.

CANDYMAN (2021) *

Rebooting Candyman made sense from a financial standpoint.  So many horror franchises are getting legacy sequels nowadays, so it seemed like a good idea to resurrect Candyman for modern-day audiences.  The fact that Jordan (Get Out) Peele co-wrote and produced the flick certainly gave hope that this just wasn’t going to be another by-the-numbers cash grab.  As it turns out, this Candyman is a muddled, messy, and often dull slog. 

Anthony (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is an artist who is struggling to live up to his early potential.  He finds inspiration in the urban legend of the Candyman, and when he incorporates elements of the Candyman legend into his work, people around him begin to die.  Eventually, he finds himself slowly transforming into the titular hook-handed boogeyman. 

This seems like it started out as a radical reimagining of the character, but somewhere along the way, someone got cold feet and tried to play Connect the Dots to tie it all back to the original.  The fact that half the movie revolves around a different Candyman (a wrongly murdered man in the ‘70s) seems to suggest that.  The idea that the hero is slowly (with the emphasis on SLOWLY) changing into the killer is interesting, but it never really works.  Besides, the only halfway effective moment in his transformation was blatantly stolen from Cronenberg’s The Fly.

The kills are weak too.  Many of them feel shoehorned in there (like the high school bathroom massacre) just to up the body count as they have little connection to the overall story.  The film is particularly shaky whenever it tries to introduce social topics into the mix.  Issues like police brutality, gentrification, and the exploitation of African American artists are given broad, clumsy strokes, but these ideas are all kernels that never really pop.  

The Candyman movies were never very good to begin with, but this one has the dubious distinction of being the worst of the bunch.  The ending especially is frustrating, mostly because when the REAL Candyman shows up, it’s only for like five fucking seconds.  And speaking of the real Candyman, did they not have the budget to use flashbacks from the other movies?  Instead, we get a bunch of crappy looking shadow puppets that fill in the story gaps from the original to the reboot.  This crap might’ve been okay for a title sequence or something, but by about the fourth time the paper cutouts were trotted out, I found my patience sorely tested.

 In short, there ain’t nothing sweet about this Candyman.

BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD DO THE UNIVERSE (2022) *** ½

It’s been over a quarter of a century since Beavis and Butt-Head starred in a feature-length movie.  If anything, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe proves that in all that time, the headbanging duo haven’t change one iota.  Personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Do the Universe plays sort of like a loose remake of their first movie, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.  Only this time out, instead of traveling cross-country while being pursued by government agents and people who want to kill them, they get sucked into a worm hole, wind up in 2022 and are pursued by government agents and people who want to kill them.  Along the way, they eat a lot of nachos, laugh uncontrollably at perceived innuendo, smack each other around, and of course, try to “score”.

Unlike most Johnny-come-lately sequels, Do the Universe hits the sweet spot more often than not.  That’s mostly because creator Mike Judge pretty much allows the characters to behave just like they did in the ‘90s.  The concessions to the present times are few, but frequently funny.  One of the many highlights comes when Beavis and Butt-Head accidentally crash a Women’s Studies course at a college where they learn about their “White Privilege”, which they predictably take full advantage of.  In a time when so many legacy sequels, reboots, and updates try to pass the torch, make social commentary, or simply cash-in on their IP, it’s refreshing to find one that simply resists the temptation to reinvent the wheel.

Compared to its predecessor, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe doesn’t quite have the same amount of fun and laughs.  However, the jokes that do land will leave you laughing long into the next scene.  I said “long”.  Huh-huh.  

INTERCEPTOR (2022) ** ½

Interceptor is a diverting enough actioner that is sort of a throwback to the kinds of action flicks they used to make in the ‘90s.  It has a Die Hard-ish type of plot with a touch of reheated neo-Cold War paranoia in there for good measure.  While it has one or two neat action beats here and there, it never quite puts the pedal to the metal.  Still, it’s not bad for lazy Sunday afternoon entertainment.  

Elsa Pataky stars as a demoted Army captain assigned to a military installation in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.  The base contains the only missiles capable of stopping an all-out nuclear attack on American soil.  Naturally, terrorists siege the base with the intention of frying the firing mechanism and launching a nuclear assault on the good old U.S. of A.  Pataky winds up being the last woman standing to fend off the terrorists and becomes (as one character puts it) “the only thing standing between America and Armageddon!”.

I enjoyed Pataky in the Fast and Furious sequels (not to mention Beyond Re-Animator), so it was nice to see her taking the lead role in a scrappy B-action flick.  It’s a decent vehicle for her talents as she gets to play a capable, badass woman who can take out a bunch of dudes singlehandedly.  The action is competently staged for the most part, although the cramped confines of the missile base (there’s basically just one hallway and a command center) doesn’t give much leeway in terms of variety.  We do get at least one gnarly kill (a beheading), but the film really needed another rousing moment (or two) to put it over the top.  

Pataky, of course, is the wife of Chris Hemsworth, who also produced.  He even shows up in a funny cameo as a nerdy TV salesman who happens to watch the events of the film unfold live on television.  He manages to inject some levity into the proceedings, although his occasional appearances don’t exactly jibe with tone of the rest of the film.

THE KING’S MAN (2021) **

After thoroughly enjoying Kingsman:  The Golden Circle more than I expected, I decided to check out this prequel.  I’m not sure who asked for a Kingsman origin story set one hundred (!?) years before the first movie, but we got one anyway.  It’s certainly an odd duck.  It’s almost as if director Matthew Vaughn wanted to make a WWI movie and couldn’t get funding, so he just grafted the Kingsman brand onto it in order to get it made.  Whatever the case was, it just never really clicks.

Ralph Fiennes stars as a nobleman who masquerades as a pacifist, but is actually a covert secret agent keeping tabs on world governments.  As Europe enters The Great War, a similar agency working to cause global chaos further instigates and manipulates the countries.  Fiennes eventually says enough is enough and using intel developed by an intricate syndicate of domestic workers placed in the highest echelon of government, sets out to stop the war once and for all.  

The fun of the first two Kingsman movies was the fact that it was an amped-up, bawdy updating of the James Bond franchise.  Setting the prequel during WWI was a weird move.  The film doesn’t really tie into the others until the last scene and features little of what made those flicks so much fun.  Most of the time, it’s a dour and joyless slog punctuated by an occasional over the top fight scene.  These sequences, while they alleviate the boredom, aren’t nearly as wild or entertaining as the stuff we saw in the previous installments.  

I like Fiennes and all, but he’s just an ill fit as an action hero.  (Anyone who saw The Avengers can tell you that.)  The supporting players (Djimon Hounsou, Gemma Arterton, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, etc.) are well cast, and yet their roles are so flimsily written that they are unable to do very much with what they were given.  Only Rhys Ifans brings a spark to the proceedings as the mad monk, Rasputin.  His Russian ballerina moves during his big swordfight with Fiennes is the definite highlight, and hints at what could’ve been had the film possessed that same kind of energy throughout.  Sadly, once he vanishes from the proceedings, his presence is sorely missed, and the flick never quite recovers.  

I will say the film has one of the loopiest post-credits set-ups for a sequel I’ve ever seen.  It’s almost like a parody of your typical comic book post-credits sequence, but played with such deadly seriousness that it winds up getting the biggest laugh in the movie.  If only that same kind of bizarre energy was elsewhere in the flick, The King’s Man might’ve been a royal good time.

KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (2017) *** ½

After an attack on the secret society of British secret agents, Kingsman leaves only Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and Merlin (Mark Strong) alive, they set out to find the mastermind behind the assassination plot.  They travel to America where they team up with “The Statesmen” their cowboy counterparts in counterespionage led by “Champ” (Jeff Bridges).  Together, they discover the cheery leader of a secret drug cartel (Julieanne Moore) was behind the hit, and that she now has plans to taint the world’s drug supply.  

Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman:  The Golden Circle hits the ground running with a great opening fight sequence set entirely in a car and it never looks back.  It’s breathless and inventive, and easily surpasses the uneven (but enjoyable) original.  It may often be outlandish and cartoonish, sure, but it’s also a lot of fun.  

It helps that the new members of the cast are all welcomed additions.  It’s particularly fun seeing the likes of Jeff Bridges, Channing Tatum, and Halle Berry as The Statesmen, even if they never are given a whole lot to do.  It’s Moore though who steals the movie as the happy homemaker drug czar.  Her lair is especially clever.  A fan of ‘50s, nostalgia, she’s turned a small acre of jungle into a demented version of Disney’s Main Street, complete with a malt shop guarded by two robot dogs.  The funniest touch is that she’s so powerful that she’s kidnapped Elton John and has him on hand to play his hits like a living captive human jukebox.  John is often very funny and gets some of the biggest laughs in the entire film.  

Taron Egerton is once again a solid leading man.  He and Strong have a couple of fine scenes together.  I also enjoyed seeing Colin Firth making a welcome return from the first movie.  It takes him a while to get his bearings (which is understandable since he died in the original), but once he starts kicking ass again, he looks like he’s having a blast.  

Like most of these comic book flicks, it runs on a bit too long (140 minutes), and probably has one or two too many gratuitous action sequences.  Luckily, it’s breathlessly paced and enormously entertaining.  In short, when it comes to comic book spy sequels, The Golden Circle gets the gold.

OLD (2021) ** ½

It’s no secret that I am not a fan of M. Night Shyamalan’s films.  Most of them feel like half-baked Twilight Zone episodes stretched out far past their breaking points with predictable twist endings that often land with a thud.  Old is the closest I’ve come to actually liking one of his films.  I say that with some major reservations because even though I was relatively entertained, it was mostly for all the wrong reasons as there are several unintentional laughs to be had throughout the first hour or so of the picture.  Too bad Shyamalan completely woofs it when it comes into the homestretch.  Till then though, Old is some reasonably entertaining hokum.  

A bickering couple take their kids to a beach resort to get away from it all before breaking the news to them they are getting a divorce.  They are told about a beautiful hidden beach near the hotel, and they head out there for a nice relaxing day of fun and sun with a couple of other guests.  They soon find out that not only are they unable to leave the beach, but it makes them age at an accelerated rate.  

There is some truly inspired goofy shit here that makes Old mostly tolerable.  I particularly liked the stuff with the kids hitting puberty and reenacting the entirety of The Blue Lagoon in a matter of minutes.  There’s also a rather nifty emergency surgery sequence that probably ranks as Shyamalan’s single best suspense scene of his career.  These sequences alone put Old head and shoulders above his other work.  

Unfortunately, like always, he completely shits the bed when it comes to the ending.  The big “Shyamalan Twist” really isn’t that bad this time around.  However, he just doesn’t know when to quit.  If the film ended right after the big reveal, it definitely would’ve been a *** flick.  The trouble is, he goes and gives us four or five non-endings right in a row to gratuitously wrap up various plot threads that didn’t need to be wrapped up, which adds about fifteen unnecessary minutes onto the already bloated running time.  Had he cut out all this nonsense, Old would’ve been a perfect day at the beach.  

TOP GUN: MAVERICK (2022) ****

Top Gun:  Maverick is as good as a thirty-six-years later sequel to an ‘80s classic could be.  There were so many ways this could’ve gone south, but what’s amazing about the movie is how it honors the past while still pushing the story and characters forward.  There have been a lot of so-called “legacy” sequels here lately that have been in such a hurry to pass the baton onto the new generation that they forget what made the baton special in the first place.  What’s great about Top Gun:  Maverick is that while Maverick (Tom Cruise) is now a flight instructor teaching the new crop of hot shot Navy pilots, he is very much still the heart of the film.  Yes, the young cast all have their moments to shine, but Cruise commands the screen so fiercely that you just know he is gonna hold onto that proverbial baton as long as he can.  

Yes, there are callbacks and/or updates to nearly all the beloved moments in the original.  Only a few of them feel gratuitously shoehorned in there (like the beach football game that is reminiscent of the iconic beach volleyball game in the first movie), but then again, if they weren’t there, it wouldn’t feel like Top Gun.  Everything you’d want to see in a Top Gun sequel is here.  Tom Cruise acting cocky and insubordinate, awesome aerial photography and dogfights, and pitch perfect masculine soap opera theatrics/male bonding scenes.  In fact, there is at least one scene that is genuinely moving.  It occurs when Val Kilmer shows up for his cameo.  If you’re a fan of Kilmer and are familiar with his recent battle with cancer, this scene will have an even bigger emotional impact.  His interactions with Cruise are just wonderful as the script plays upon their rivalry and respect for one another.  

It’s also aces in the action department.  The opening test pilot scene is a lot of fun, and the finale, which owes as much to Star Wars as it does Top Gun, is a pure adrenaline rush.  Top Gun:  Maverick not only flies high right from the get-go, but it manages to soar higher than it has any right to.  Not only that, but it also manages to stick the landing too.  

I think I better stop the review here before I work in any more flying puns, but before I do, just know that Top Gun:  Maverick is just as good, if not better than the original, which is about the highest praise I can bestow upon a movie.