LET’S GET PHYSICAL: IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953) ***

FORMAT:  4K UHD

The year before director Jack Arnold and star Richard Carlson teamed up to make the iconic classic Creature from the Black Lagoon, they worked together on this 3-D Sci-Fi flick for Universal.  It is usually mentioned in the same breath as Creature because of the personnel, studio, and 3-D gimmick, and because of that, it inevitably suffers from comparison.  Yes, it falls short of Creature in just about every way, but it still stands as a fine example of ‘50s science fiction. 

Carlson stars as an astronomer living out in the middle of the desert who witnesses a meteor crash near his home.  Of course, it ain’t no meteor but a UFO.  (It looks like a bouncy ball.)  Naturally, no one believes him.  The one-eyed monster inside the ship needs to take the form of humans so they can help repair the ship and prepare it for its voyage home.  The first person it duplicates is Russell Johnson, the professor from Gilligan’s Island!  Maybe he could use some coconuts to put it back together. 

The movie starts with a bang (literally) and has a great set-up.  The scenes of Carlson exploring the crater are quite good too.  Things do slow down around the second act.  Arnold also kind of overdoes it with the bubble-eyed alien POV shots.  The comely Kathleen Hughes is sadly underutilized too (although she participated in some of the film’s most memorable publicity shots).  While It Came from Outer Space is effective and entertaining, it must be said that the whole “aliens replacing townsfolk” thing was done better in other later films like Invaders from Mars and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 

Okay, now I got that off my chest this is still a strong Sci-Fi flick.  That last paragraph was just me nitpicking.  When the movie works, it really works.  Carlson is excellent and he carries the film over the slower stretches.  The ending is unique too as our hero is trying to stop the humans from destroying the aliens and not the other way around.  All in all, this is a thoughtful and compelling piece of 50s Sci-Fi.

4K UHD NOTES: 

I know I keep comparing this to Creature from the Black Lagoon, but since that and It Came from Outer Space are the only black and white movies in my 4K collection (so far), I honestly have nothing else to compare it to.  Fortunately, this looks and sounds just about as great as Creature did.  The swirling smoke billowing up from the crater of the ship looks hypnotic and the string on the meteor when it crashes is even more noticeable now in 4K.  I will say I wish that Universal had included an anaglyph 3-D version instead of a useless Blu-Ray 3-D disc, but oh well. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: COME DEADLY (1973) **

FORMAT:  DVD

A psycho who wears a big black hat and a black nylon stocking over his face is running around raping and killing women.  His latest victim is an actress in a small theater company.  A detective goes undercover as an actor to catch the killer but spends more time balling actresses than doing actual police work.  More women wind up dead and eventually, the cop-turned-thespian sets a trap for the serial sex maniac. 

Come Deadly is sort of a mix between an old school roughie and a horror porno.  The rapist looks like a cross between the killer in Blood and Black Lace and a goth beekeeper.  His memorable attire is about the best thing the movie has going for it.  While the theater setting is novel, the filmmakers don’t really exploit the possibilities to the fullest.  I mean you could’ve done a XXX version of Phantom of the Opera with this set-up and made it work.  Sadly, they just opted to make a rapey detective smut film. 

The detective scenes are pretty rote.  There’s a lot of scenes of the detective questioning suspects (before he fucks them), obvious red herrings, and a failed sting attempt.  This bare bones structure could’ve been a decent way to string together the sex scenes.  Since the rape scenes are mostly unpleasant and the so-called “normal” sex scenes are lackluster and uninspired, there’s just not much here to recommend one way or another.  At least it’s short.  (It’s only an hour long.)

You know you’re in for some cheap shit right from the title sequence, which is done with Crayola markers.  (I’d give the cursive penmanship a B+, which is shocking because the handwriting is the best thing about the movie.)  Honestly, your enjoyment of this one may depend on your tolerance for scenes where women are taken against their will and victimized.   For me, the incessant harp music during some of the sex scenes was even tougher to stomach. 

AKA:  The Harder They Fall.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: WALTZ OF THE BAT (1972) **

FORMAT:  DVD

Eric Fledermaus (Barry Vane) is a dude in a black cape and top hat who pays a chick fifty bucks to come back to his pad.  He then reveals to her he is The Bat, “The Master of the Ball” and bangs her.  His superpower is that all women are in his power after he fucks them.  Once they are his slaves, he uses them to turn tricks to make him a quick buck.  Meanwhile, “The Bee” (Kandi Johnson), the woman who gave him his powers, sets out to stop him from corrupting more women. 

Waltz of the Bat is an odd, uneven mash-up of the horror, superhero, and porno genres.  The elements are thrown together so randomly you have to wonder if they were just making it all up as they went along.  The scenes where the characters address the camera are more goofy than anything too.  

It’s all very cheap looking.  In fact, you can see crew members in some shots, and a phone rings in one scene while a couple are doing the deed.  The costumes are strictly dime store stuff, too.  The Bat basically just looks like Dracula, which is fine I guess, but The Bee, who is supposed to be some sort of half-assed superheroine, looks like a refugee from a cable access kids show.  And don’t even get me started on the Native American guys who double team The Bee in one scene. 

The sex scenes are about average for this sort of thing.  Most of them are tepid, but there is an occasional spark of energy here and there.  Too bad that spark gets extinguished before the scenes can really ignite.  I’m thinking specifically of the final confrontation between The Bee and The Bat, which starts off well enough, but ends much too abruptly.  The quick-cut montage at the end is borderline schizophrenic too. 

I did like the fact that there was a still from Rodan randomly hanging on the wall in one scene though.  The performances are pretty good too. Vane makes for a decent heavy and Johnson (who was also in Behind the Green Door) has a lot of spunk as The Bee.  As far as superhero skin flicks go, it’s certainly no Bat Pussy, that’s for sure. 

WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY (2022) ***

If this feels like a feature length Funny or Die spoof, it’s because that’s exactly what it is.  If you’re wondering if a Funny or Die sketch can become a viable motion picture, the answer is yes.  Mostly. 

Whereas Weird Al took regular songs and made them funny, the movie is essentially a comedy, but it plays things totally seriously.  You know, as if it was your average, run of the mill biopic of a famous musician.  This is a kind of tightrope act.  It’s something that would be easy to sustain for a five-minute short.  It’s another feat entirely to maintain the tone when you have to commit to the bit for nearly two hours.  And it succeeds.  Mostly.

Al (Daniel Radcliffe) wants to play polka, but his stern father (Toby Huss) forbids him in hopes he’ll someday work in the factory like his old man.  When Al gets recognition playing parody songs, he becomes an overnight success.  However, when his girlfriend Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood) gets kidnapped by drug czar Pablo Escobar, Al must go into the jungle to rescue her. 

The deadpan seriousness of some scenes is amusing, especially when it’s sending up the conventional biopic tropes.  For example, the scene where Al finds inspiration for “My Bologna” while making a bologna sandwich as The Knack just so happens to be fatefully playing on the radio at that exact moment.  The scene where Al comes up with his “original” song “Eat It” is also a clever jab at the way biopics often fudge facts for dramatic effect. 

Along the way, there are plenty of cameos (including Weird Al himself), all of whom get plenty of mileage from the maudlin acting style typically seen in biopics.  Most of them pop up during a funny Boogie Nights-inspired party scene playing various pop culture figures.  (My favorite:  Conan O’Brien as Andy Warhol.)

Radcliffe seems to be having fun as Weird Al.  It’s certainly one way to shed his Harry Potter image, that’s for sure.  Evan Rachel Wood steals the movie though.  She’s pitch perfect as Madonna, who seduces Al so he will parody “Like a Virgin” and keep her in the public spotlight.  

The film kind of goes off the rails once Al tries to rescue Madonna from the clutches of Pablo Escobar.  (That’s a sentence I’d never thought I’d write.)  This jaunt into action movie territory is a bit of a stretch to say the least.  Overall, the movie would’ve worked like gangbusters at eighty-seven minutes.  However, at one-hundred-and-seven minutes, it has a tough time making it to the finish line. 

If you love Weird Al like I do, it’s easy to forgive the film for some of its third act lapses.  It’s no UHF or anything, but it’s got plenty of laughs.  In the end, that’s all that really matters. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE RITES OF URANUS (1977) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

A young girl is taken into a cult where she witnesses “The Rites of Uranus”.  (That’s just a fancy way of saying they stick a little candle up some girl’s ass before they bang her.)  Then two heavily oiled-up cultists get it on atop a velvet altar.  Eventually, the cult member initiates their new pledge into the group.  Trouble brews when the new gal accidentally kills the high priest while doing the deed.  (She suffocates him while giving him a mustache ride.)

This movie contains a lot of things you would not expect to see from a movie called The Rites of Uranus.  For one, the sets are pretty good as it actually looks like a creepy cult headquarters and not just a bedroom with some black light curtains.  Also, there’s a lot of atmosphere as the lighting is very moody and a fog machine sometimes swirls smoke around the proceedings.  The biggest surprise is the camerawork.  Often in these kinds of things, the camera is static and rarely picks up the best coverage of the performers.  Here, the camera swoops and circles the actors while they are performing, and the effect is quite cinematic. 

As a bonus, the movie also delivers on everything you would expect to see from a movie called The Rites of Uranus.  Namely, lots of butt stuff.  So, if that’s your sort of thing, then you should definitely enjoy this one.  In addition to candles, fingers, and dicks probe “the dark passage” of Uranus throughout the film.  In one wild scene, a cult member shoves “The Sword of Uranus” (a dildo with a hilt) up a guy’s ass!  Your mileage may vary, but I'd rethink my membership after they tried something like that on me. 

There’s also some great dialogue along the way too.  Most of it naturally revolves around Uranus puns.  However, I think my favorite line might’ve been:  “I’m locked up like an unevolved mammal!”

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: A DIVA’S CHRISTMAS CAROL (2000) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on December 27th, 2010)

Ah yes… A Diva’s Christmas Carol.  If ever there was a guilty pleasure Christmas movie, it’s this one.  I mean you all know my movie-watching tastes.  You know it’s not in my DNA to like this sort of flick.  The funny thing is though; A Diva’s Christmas Carol actually has more wit and genuine holiday cheer in it than a hundred other Christmas Carol knockoffs you’ll see this month.

 

Eboneeza Scrooge (Vanessa L. Williams) is a top-selling R & B diva who bosses her staff around and pinches pennies like a motherfucker.  She used to be part of a Destiny’s Child style trio (named “Desire”), but she went Beyonce on their ass in search of fame and fortune.  Of course, on Christmas, she gets haunted by the ghost of her dead band mate (Chili from TLC) who warns her she’ll be visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past (Kathy Griffin), Present (Duran Duran’s John Taylor), and Future.  Predictably, she sees the error of her ways, learns to care, regains her Christmas spirit, and all that shit.

 

I really like A Diva’s Christmas Carol because of its clever twists on the Dickens’ classic.  I think my favorite part was that the Ghost of Christmas Future was nothing more than a VH1 Behind the Music special that showed what would happen if Eboneeza didn’t change her ways.  And speaking of Eboneeza, I liked the way they played with the familiar characters’ names.  Even though her name was Eboneeza, they just called her “Ebony” for short, which I thought was pretty funny.  Then there’s the Jacob Marley character who is now a female named “Marley Jacobs”. 

 

Marley actually gets the best moments of the movie when she confronts Ebony about her miserly ways.  To prove she’s a real ghost, she rips off her own head and pulls her face off to let Ebony know that there are “no facials in the afterlife”.  I’m sure Charles Dickens himself would approve of that particular rewrite.

 

You guys are probably thinking it’s April Fools and not Christmas but I’m telling you, this one is pretty funny.  Do yourself a favor and don’t be such a Scrooge and check it out.  You’ll be glad you did.

BLOOD TIES (1991) **

Blood Ties is a TV movie that’s basically an unsold pilot.  It was produced by Gene Corman (Roger’s brother) and directed by Jim (Breathless) McBride.  Despite the pedigree behind the camera, it still somehow winds up being lukewarm and forgettable. 

A vampire teen (Jason London in his film debut) goes on the run after his parents are staked by a vampire hunter (Bo Hopkins sporting a laughable Amish beard with no mustache).  He flees to Long Beach, California which is a haven for vampires who live quietly among the humans.  The vampire hunters follow, and it’s up to the clan leader (Patrick Bauchau) to decide how to retaliate. 

Even though the majority of Blood Ties is lame, I must admit that some of the dialogue is rather amusing.  Take for instance the scene when a vampire reporter (Harley Venton) teaches London about vampire sex, or as he calls it, “The Bats and the Bees”.  Or when the vampires talk about revealing their true nature to the world by saying, “It’s time to come out of the coffin”.  I also liked how they refer to themselves as “Carpathian-Americans” because they believe the term “vampire” is racist.  I guess you better be politically correct when you talk to a bloodsucker. 

The performances are a mixed bag.  Michelle Johnson is sexy as the sultry vamp who in the film’s most memorable scene is able to pop the buttons off her blouse just by heaving her bosom up and down.  Bauchau is okay as the sleazy vampire businessman, but Venton is a bit dull in the lead.  Sadly, Hopkins, along with Gregory Scott Cummins and Grace Zabriskie are woefully underutilized as the vampire hunters. 

This might’ve worked if it had gone to series and was able to expand upon its ideas.  However, like most TV pilots, it takes an inordinate amount of time to gather any steam.  The plot is splintered (the low rent Lost Boys stuff with London works better than the “A” plot line with Venton romancing a human lawyer) and the pacing is sluggish.  The made for TV limitations also mean there’s more talk than action (the finale is fine for an episode of a TV show, but it’s definitely lacking for a feature film) and that the sex scenes (a McBride specialty) are watered down.  (Johnson shows off her cleavage and her bare back and shoulders but that’s it.)  These limitations prevent Blood Ties from having much bite.