BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, OR SITTING BULL’S HISTORY LESSON (1976) **

Buffalo Bill’s (Paul Newman) Wild West show is a big hit.  In what has got to be the Old West version of a casting coup, Bill lands none other than Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts) as the show’s latest attraction.  Sitting Bull soon proves to be more trouble than he’s worth.  He begins acting like a total diva, making lofty demands and generally causing trouble for the show.  It’s then up to Bill to placate his new star while retaining his artistic vision for the show (even if it differs from historical fact).

Like Robert Altman’s Nashville, The Player, and A Prairie Home Companion, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History is a picture about the daily life of show biz folk and their various struggles.  It has all the overlapping dialogue, long tracking shots, and colorful characters you’d expect from an Altman picture.  It’s overlong, patchy, and uneven, but there are moments when you see can what he was going for. 

The scenes of Buffalo Bill trying to outwit Sitting Bull and his ever-increasing list of demands play out just fine.  Somewhere along the way, the film starts going around in circles.  Once the wheels start falling off in the second act, it slowly becomes a rambling endurance test.  The loose narrative becomes almost nonexistent as it enters the final act.  

Newman is good as the crotchety Bill.  The film is at its best when he’s front and center being wily and flashing his trademark smile, but even he can’t save the slow-moving narrative.  Harvey Keitel and Kevin McCarthy also get a few laughs as members of Bill’s company.  Burt Lancaster has a couple of nice moments too as Bill’s publicist, who mostly sits on the sidelines commenting on the action.

It’s Newman who gets the best line of the movie when he says, “The last thing a man wants to do is the last thing he does.”

GOLD OF THE AMAZON WOMEN (1979) **

Mark L. (Commando) Lester directed this Made for TV jungle adventure the same year as Roller Boogie.  Bo Svenson stars as an explorer looking for gold in the Amazon jungle.  Some Amazon women get wind that he’s snooping around and try to bow-and-arrow him to death.  The killer Amazons are in cahoots with crazy old Donald Pleasence who wants Bo to lead him to the gold, so he can steal it for himself.  Once Bo arrives in the Amazon village, he’s immediately kidnapped and marked for breeding stock by the sultry Queen of the Amazons (Anita Ekberg).  Pleasence attacks the village looking for the gold and Bo agrees to team up with the Amazon Women to stop him.

Since this is a TV movie, there is an awful lot of padding.  The scenes of Bo and Richard Romanus (who’s playing a Latino) making their way through the jungle are slow going for the most part.  You also have to wait until the film’s about halfway over until you get to see Ekberg.  The TV budget doesn’t help either as the climax is chaotic, rushed, and poorly choreographed.  The ‘70s “message” moments are often hilarious though.  (“Times are changing. Men are working with women now.”)

I did like the scene where Bo has to fight a tribe member (perennial ‘70s stuntman/That Guy Bob Minor) for the affections of a scantily clad native girl.  There’s also a decent stick fight between two Amazons on a raft surrounded by alligators.  Because of the television censors, it never gets violent or steamy enough to be worth a damn.  So much for the breeding stock subplot.  

AKA:  Amazon Women.  AKA:  Quest for the Seven Cities.  AKA:  Female 300.

DEADPOOL 2 (2018) *** ½

There are certain ways to approach a traditional sequel.  Deadpool 2 opts for two of them simultaneously:  Darker is Better and Bigger is Better.  It tries to up the emotional stakes while giving us (much) more of the same.  The results are often uneven, but Ryan Reynolds’ love for the character and his enthusiastic need to entertain prevails throughout, carrying the film confidently over the spotty sections.

Director David Leitch did Atomic Blonde and John Wick, so we know he can handle the action.  Furthermore, the action is clearly filmed, precisely edited, and balletically choreographed.  The Deadpool and Domino team-up is a lot of fun and the battle between Colossus and [REDACTED] is one of the best in the entire X-Men series.  

Leitch just isn’t nearly as consistent when it comes to telling a joke.  The X-Force scene is funny, and the cameos are good for a few laughs, but that owes more to the performers’ wiliness to show up.  Leitch kind of drops the ball when it comes to the potty humor.  He mostly just defers to Reynolds, allowing him to mug endlessly until the scene is over.  Leitch also oversells the dramatic scenes, which fit less successfully here than they did in the first movie.

Sure, the dramatic stuff is incongruent with the film’s irreverent nature, but Deadpool 2 is still enormously entertaining. Zazie Beetz makes a star-making turn as the lucky mutant Domino.  In her short amount of screen time, she proves without a doubt that she deserves her own movie. Josh Brolin is good as the soldier from the future, Cable.  It’s just that his performance suffers from comparison to his OTHER performance as a Marvel baddie a few short weeks ago.  

Reynolds puts in another funny turn as Deadpool.  Whenever he’s wryly commenting on the action and/or making pop culture references, it works.  Again, when it switches gears to dramatic it doesn't quite stick the landing.  Still, it has one of the best post-credits scene ever, so make sure you stick around for that. 

X-MEN MOVIE SCORECARD:

X-Men: Apocalypse: ****

Deadpool: ****
X-Men: Days of Future Past: ****
X-Men 2: X-Men United: ****
X-Men: ****
X-Men 3: The Last Stand: ****
Logan:  ****
X-Men: First Class: *** ½
Deadpool 2: *** ½
X-Men: Origins: Wolverine: *** ½
The Wolverine: ***

2018 COMIC BOOK MOVIE SCORECARD

Avengers:  Infinity War: *** ½ 
Black Panther: *** ½
Deadpool 2: *** ½

Accident Man: ** ½ 

SHOW DOGS (2018) * ½

As the parent of an eight-year-old, I'm sort of a connoisseur of bad talking animal movies.  As far as these things go, Show Dogs isn't quite as bad as the nadir of the genre, Super Buddies, which is a blessing.  It’s not quite as annoying and unbearable as Nine Lives either.  My daughter ate it up, which is what really mattered.  All I’ll say is, thank God for MoviePass.  

Will Arnett stars as an FBI agent who gets teamed up with a dog cop named Max (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges).  Naturally, they’re a mismatched pair who are forced to work together to complete an assignment.  They go undercover at a Vegas dog show to take down a ring of animal smugglers.  Since Max is gruff and disobedient, it’s up to a former award winning French papillon (Stanley Tucci) to show him the ropes of being a show dog.

Show Dogs is the kind of movie that spoon feeds its jokes to the audience.  I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise any adult viewer that the film makes numerous Turner and Hooch references since they’re both about a cop and his dog partner.  However, it has to gratuitously explain that Hooch was the dog because the target audience is too young to remember.  (It must be noted that there’s not one mention of K-9.)

Would it surprise you that Show Dogs was directed by Raja Gosnell, who also gave us Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo 2, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua?  Probably not.  The man’s made the same movie four times and he still hasn’t gotten it right. 

One thing that makes Show Dogs almost tolerable is the major plot point that revolves around Max’s ability to be groped by the judges.  This all leads to Arnett and the dog recreating a scene from Dirty Dancing.  As bad as the movie is, you have to respect a film that makes you question if you’ve just been dosed with a high-grade hallucinogenic.  

The Hal Needham-esque end credits are the best part, and not just because it means the movie is almost over.  The outtakes of the dog actors flubbing their lines are good for a laugh or two.  All this does is make you wonder if the documentary about the making of Show Dogs would be better than the film itself.

VOODOO DOLLS (1991) *

A girl suffering from the loss of her father goes to an all-girls boarding school and enrolls in the drama club.  Her teacher selects a weird play from an anonymous author that focuses heavily on voodoo.  As the play edges closer towards opening night, people at the school begin dying off in mysterious ways.

Voodoo Dolls had a solid premise, but other than a cool black and white flashback in the beginning, it takes way too long to unfurl its obvious and predictable premise.  You’ve got to wait a while before anything remotely horrific happens, and when it does, it’s rather tame.  The sluggish pacing, especially early on doesn’t help matters as the film is one long, dull slog.

There is at least one memorable subplot involving the main bitchy trollop’s relationship with her lesbian roommate.  When she rebuffs her roommate’s clumsy pass, the devastated girl runs off and commits suicide.  I guess it was progressive at the time to have this sort of undercurrent in the film, but unfortunately, not a whole lot is done with it.

If you’re wondering why the movie is called Voodoo Dolls, it’s because in one scene, the titular dolls attack a Peeping Tom janitor after he spies on some college girls showering a la Porky’s.  This scene is pitiful.  The dolls are basically pinned onto the actor while he flails around.  It makes Puppet Master look like Psycho by comparison.   After that, it’s back to more insufferable interminable boredom.

CREEP (2015) **

Mark Duplass stars as a guy dying of cancer.  He hires a cameraman (Patrick Brice, who also directed) online to document a day in his life so that his unborn son can spend some time with the father he never knew.  Slowly but surely, the cameraman learns Duplass is a real weirdo.

Basically, it’s My Life done as a mumblegore movie.  

This is pretty much the Mark Duplass Show through and through.  Your enjoyment of the film will probably hinge on how much you can tolerate Duplass’ mugging.  I didn’t mind him so much, it’s just that the scenes of him purposefully freaking Brice out quickly got repetitive.

Although sold as a Found Footage horror film, Creep revolves more on social awkwardness than out-and-out horror.  If Brice’s character was more of an asshole, he would’ve pushed Duplass aside and walked out the door ten minutes in.  Then again, if he did that, we wouldn’t have a movie.  Even when he receives an ominous phone demanding that he leaves the house right away, he can’t bring himself to do so.

That pretty much summed up my frustrations with the film.  The fact that Brice keeps filming once Duplass starts acting bizarre (even though he’s been paid) defies logic.  (Even when he FINALLY leaves the house, he waits FOREVER to notify the authorities after Duplass starts leaving him weird videotaped messages and odd trinkets on his doorstep.)  Of course, that’s one of the conceits we’re forced to make while watching a Found Footage flick.  As far as these things go, it must be said that the shaky-cam footage is far from the worst I’ve seen.  

Another genre pitfall is that we already know that nothing really happens in a Found Footage horror movie until the last few minutes.  The same goes for Creep.  The payoff is OK I guess, but it’s not exactly worth waiting 75 minutes for.  

Ultimately, this might’ve worked better as a short.  I might’ve been able to go along with it if it was part of a V/H/S anthology.  As it is, Creep just never clicked for me.

AKA:  Peachfuzz.  

BLOOD (1973) ** ½

Blood is one of Andy Milligan’s best movies, which is telling.  It’s a slapdash, low budget horror flick set primarily in one location that features crummy effects and inconsistent acting.  Some parts are out of focus.  Others are too dark to see.  Sometimes the actors flub their lines.  Other times their dialogue doesn’t match their lip movements.  All this makes the film more enjoyable, not less.  If you’ve ever sat through Milligan’s atrocious The Rats are Coming!  The Werewolves are Here!, this will seem like Citizen Kane by comparison.

Lawrence Orlofsky (Allen Berendt) moves his wife Regina (Hope Stansbury) and his gaggle of assistants into his ancestral home.  Almost immediately, they begin performing experiments on bloodthirsty plants to keep Regina looking youthful and vibrant.  When Lawrence starts making eyes at a pretty secretary (Pamela Adams), it sends Regina into a jealous rage.

Milligan’s Everything but the Kitchen Sink method is admirable.  Just when you start to get restless, he’ll toss in another improbable (but amusing) plot wrinkle.  (I wouldn’t dream of revealing why Orlofsky had to change his name.)  No matter how shoddy the production looks, I can’t in good conscience dismiss a movie that features mad scientists, vampires, AND man-eating plants.

Even at a relatively scant 69 minutes, the pacing starts to sag about halfway through.  The claustrophobic location doesn’t help matters either.  That said, there’s at least one memorable moment involving a mouse that will make your jaw drop.  While most of the performers are wooden and/or stilted, Stansbury is rather charming as the vampiric lady of the house.  The ending, though brief and anticlimactic makes me wish it had been on a double feature with Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein instead of the crappy Legacy of Satan.

AKA:  Black Nightmare in Blood.