ATRAGON (1965) **

Agents from the underwater “Mu Empire” (it’s basically a Great Value version of Atlantis) are coming ashore and kidnapping naval personnel.  A couple of cheesecake photographers snap a photo of one of them and wind up becoming embroiled in the intrigue.  Meanwhile, the evil Empress of Mu tries to stop a crazed Captain from launching his state-of-the-art submarine called Gotengo, which she thinks can threaten her empire.  She then unleashes the dragon god “Manda” upon our heroes. 

Atragon is a so-so Sci-Fi flick from Toho.  It was co-directed by inoshiro (Godzilla) Honda, and often plays like a Japanese knockoff of a Jules Verne novel.  It kicks off with a fun scene where a silver scuba diver frightens a bikini model mid-photo shoot.  Unfortunately, all the back and forth between the United Nations and the Navy and the scientists quickly bog things down.  The scenes in the Mu palace are likewise draggy as the various rituals and dance numbers do nothing to help pick up the pace. 

If you came hoping for a cool monster, you’ll probably be disappointed.  In all honesty, Manda is not one of Toho’s most impressive creations.  He’s kind of a cross between a dragon and a sea serpent.  He’s also rubbery-looking and goofy as Hell.  (He almost looks like a barely more competent version of Reptilicus.)  Manda later showed up in the Godzilla films Destroy All Monsters and Final Wars.  At least in those movies, the special effects for the creature were better.  Here, he looks like he could be used as a stunt double for Cecil from Beany and Cecil. 

Gotengo is pretty nifty looking though, as it’s a submarine with a spiral shaped drill on its nose.  And it FLIES!  The final battle between Gotengo and Manda is pretty lackluster though, especially when compared to the other monster mashes Toho was making around the same time. 

The film’s chief asset is the great score from composer Akira Ifukube.  Yes, I know it sounds like a slight reworking of his iconic Godzilla theme.  However, in a movie as uneven as this one you have to take what you can get. 

AKA:  Atoragon.  AKA:  Atoragon:  Flying Supersub.  AKA:  Flying Supersub Atoragon.  AKA:  Undersea Battleship.

ELEVATION (2024) ***

Like rip-offs of Die Hard, A Quiet Place rip-offs are quickly becoming a genre unto themselves.   After the success of that film, we’ve had similarly themed movies about monsters that roam the post-apocalypse and hunt humans in idiosyncratic ways.  Movies like Birdbox, Arcadian, and Never Let Go followed A Quiet Place’s blueprint and changed the rules to their monsters’ quirks and/or weaknesses ever so slightly.  Now here comes Elevation, a surprisingly sturdy variation on the theme. 

The gimmick of this one is that the monsters can’t live above a certain elevation (hence the title).  That means all the survivors took to the hills and started living in the mountains after the shit hit the fan.  Will (Anthony Mackie) has a sick kid and he’s all out of filters for his breathing machine.  That means he’s got to venture across “the line” and go into town for supplies.  He gets a bitter scientist named Nina (Morena Baccarin) to join him on his quest since she’s been trying to find a way to kill the monsters once and for all.  Katie (Maddie Hasson), a pseudo-love interest, also joins the group and sort of acts as a third wheel. 

Director George (The Adjustment Bureau) Nolfi brings a modicum of suspense to the scenes of the survivors trekking through the wilderness.  The “Reapers” look like armor plated cockroaches and charging bulls that have been Brundlefly-ed together.  They aren’t exactly memorable, but they look better than the creatures typically found in these Quiet Place knockoffs.  The script also wisely keeps the logistics of the monsters’ weakness purposefully vague.  The “rules” sometimes feel a bit arbitrary, but they do lead to some suspenseful moments.  I’m thinking specifically of the scene when the creatures hunt their prey by detecting the CO2 the heroes exhale, so they are forced to hold their breath.  

The trio of performers have chemistry to burn, which gives Elevation much of its spirit.  Mackie makes for a solid leading man for this sort of thing.  Baccarin is especially good as the sarcastic scientist who constantly complains and bickers with Hasson. 

Sure, no one reinvented the wheel on this one.  However, if you’re looking for a lean and mean ninety-minute creature feature, then it will fit the bill.  As far as A Quiet Place rip-offs go, Elevation ranks higher than most. 

A WORKING MAN (2025) *** ½

I’ve been seeing a lot of people online griping that “A Working Man is no Beekeeper”.  Fair enough, but that kind of blanket statement undersells just how good the film is.  The fact that it doesn’t quite hit the heights of The Beekeeper should in no way be taken as a slight to A Working Man, the latest collaboration between Jason Statham and director David Ayer.  Saying “A Working Man is no Beekeeper” is like saying “The Magnificent Ambersons is no Citizen Kane”.  That’s true enough, but dude, it’s still The Magnificent fucking Ambersons. 

Statham plays a former soldier working as a humble construction worker.  When his boss’s daughter is kidnapped by Russian slavers, he goes to work.  And by “goes to work”, I mean he blows away a bunch of Russian gangsters, grubby drug dealers, and skeevy bikers. 

Boasting a script co-written by Rambo himself, Sylvester Stallone, A Working Man is a better than average Statham vehicle that gives the audience exactly what they came to see.  Ayer plays to Statham strengths, and Stallone’s script gives him a stoic character that fits him like a glove.  Sure, he doesn’t have the great one-liners like he did in The Beekeeper, but the film is essentially wall to wall action and packed to the gills with scenes of Statham taking out the trash.  Because of that, all is right with the world. 

The supporting cast is strong across the board. Jason Flemyng (Statham’s co-star from his early Guy Ritchie movies) is good as the head of the Russian mob.  David Harbour has a lot of chemistry with Statham as his blind war buddy who acts as a mix of conscience and weapons supplier.  Arriana Rivas is also memorable as the kidnapped girl. 

Is the film perfect?  Well, it runs a little long and some of the action scenes suffer from over-editing and less than optimal camerawork.  (The bulk of the action is A-OK though.)  These are relatively minor quibbles than anything.  At the end of the day, A Working Man gets the job done. 

SNATCHED! CURSE OF THE PINK PANTIES 2 (2010) *

When I stumbled upon this sequel, I had never seen, let alone heard of the wonderfully titled Curse of the Pink Panties.  Since I couldn’t find the original streaming anywhere, I went ahead and watched this one.  Not seeing the first film in a series has never stopped me from checking out its sequel in the past.  Why should I stop now?

A woman tries on a pair of haunted panties and is unable to take them off.  As it turns out, the undies are possessed by the ghosts of some dead criminals.  She is then kidnapped by an evil villainess who wants to control the ghosts for her own devious purposes.  Meanwhile, two girls who survived the Curse of the Pink Panties in the first film launch an unsuccessful web show about their paranormal experiences.  The bad chick eventually kidnaps them too and wants to use their expertise to help harness the ghosts’ energy.  Our heroine’s boyfriend then turns to a busty psychic for help. 

The effects for the spirits of the men who haunt the panties are terrible.  They are nothing more than green-screened faces superimposed over a shot of women’s underwear.  Since these scenes are neither funny nor sexy, one would have to assume that the director had a fetish for seeing men’s faces crudely inserted onto a woman’s bikini area.  Why else would anyone make two movies on the subject, let alone one? 

There are also way too many subplots and characters that bog things down.  It might’ve helped if I saw the first movie, but this one is just saddled with too much rigmarole.  It should be said that while nearly all the ladies in the cast are smoking hot, none of them remove the titular panties (or their bras as a matter of fact).  This chaste aura does nothing to help the film as the running time clocks in at an extremely bloated one-hundred-and-eight-minutes.  I’m not saying nudity could’ve salvaged this mess, but it would’ve taken some of the sting out of it, that’s for sure.  Heck, even if it was a half-hour shorter, it still would’ve been a chore to sit through (especially the finale featuring the overweight guy running around in lingerie).

AKA:  Snatched! 

SKYSCRAPER (2018) ***

The Rock stars in what is essentially Die Hard Meets the Towering Inferno.  He plays a security advisor for a state-of-the-art skyscraper in Hong Kong.  Criminals storm the building looking to extort the billionaire owner and set it ablaze.  Adding to the peril is the fact that The Rock’s wife (Neve Campbell) and two kids are trapped in the building.  It’s then up to The Rock to save them and stop the bad guys. 

Written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber (who also helmed Central Intelligence, which starred The Rock), Skyscraper is a lean and mean meat and potatoes action flick that gets the job done.  It knows exactly what it is and doesn’t try to overstep its bounds.  Thurber delivers the goods in the action department and the scenes of The People’s Champion hanging hundreds of stories in the air from his fingertips really work.  The most amusing sequence comes when he uses duct tape on his hands to climb outside the building like Spider-Man.  The finale set in a high-tech hall of mirrors is cheesy too, but it’s still fun. 

To his credit, The Rock’s earnestness goes a long way.  He tones down his macho persona a bit for this one as he plays a humble family man.  Making the role unique is the fact that he plays an amputee.  The scenes where he puts on his prosthetic leg try their best to pull at your heartstrings.  That might’ve felt genuine had The Rock not conveniently forgotten about his handicap as he runs full sprints throughout his action sequences.  (He only seems to limp during his dialogue scenes.)  At least Thurber resisted the temptation to have The Rock say he’s a “One-legged man in an ass-kicking contest”. 

Campbell is good too.  Unlike most of these things, she isn’t just your standard issue wife in jeopardy.  She’s a combat surgeon, so she can handle herself better than most of the wives you see in a Die Hard rip-off. 

As far as rainy-day action movies go, Skyscraper towers above the rest. 

Thurber and The Rock once again teamed up for Red Notice. 

PORNDEMIC (2018) ***

In 1998, porn’s popularity was reaching a zenith that rivaled its Golden Era.  The money was good, the sex was plentiful, and the industry itself was taken (more or less) seriously in the mainstream.  Then, an HIV outbreak rocked the porn industry.  (One interviewee calls the panic, “The Cuban Missile Crisis of the porn industry”!)  This resulted in stricter testing guidelines implemented by former porn star turned industry blood test czar, Sharon Mitchell.  Mitchell then had to backtrack all the infected performers’ previous partners to find the “Patient Zero”. 

Among those infected were Tricia Deveraux, who was one of my favorite porn stars of the ‘90s (and yes, I recognized a clip of her from Gangbang Girl 17 instantly), Brooke Ashley, Kimberly Jade, and Caroline.  Only Tricia is interviewed, which is a tad disappointing as it would’ve been interesting to hear from the other women.  However, her story has plenty of heartbreak to go around.  Even grimmer is the fact that we are shown clips from the films in which the actresses were actually infected.  These moments almost have a ghoulish snuff film quality to them.  Other porn stars such as Tom Byron, Ginger Lynn, Mr. Marcus, Herschel Savage, and Ron Jeremy are also interviewed and give their insights on the situation. 

If you watched a lot of porn in the ‘90s, the file footage of award shows, TV appearances, and home movies of the porn starlets at work and at play will be like a trip down memory lane.  It was fun seeing stars like Anna Malle, Jasmin St. Claire, Chloe, and Alisha Klass in their heyday.  I just wish it was under better circumstances. 

If you’re familiar at all with the story, you know Marc Wallice was the “Patient Zero”.  The more you hear about him and the more he speaks on camera, the more odious he becomes.  It’s one thing to duck being tested.  It’s a completely different thing when we learn he actually falsified his HIV tests, which knowingly put other performers at risk.  The filmmakers do offer evidence that suggests he may not have actually known his status, but his total lack of remorse seems pretty damning. 

Pordemic is a rather cut and dry account of the events.  It probably could’ve dug a little bit deeper, but it still keeps you invested throughout.  The use of non-sex porn clips that mirror the narrative is amusing too and help lighten the mood a bit.  (The music is terrible though.)

JAMES DEAN (1976) **

James Dean is a lukewarm TV Movie of the Week biopic directed by Robert (Now You See Him, Now You Don’t) Butler.  The tip-off that this is going to be disappointing is when you see the opening credits.  It’s here you’ll notice Stephen McHattie, the guy who plays James Dean, the man who is the title of the movie, has the “and” billing.  It was written and produced by William Bast, who was Dean’s friend (and lover).  Michael Brandon, who plays Bast, receives top billing, which kind of lets you know what you’re in for.

Bast strikes up a friendship with Dean at school and despite not having much in common, become close.  He tags along with him from LA to New York and back to LA again.  Along the way, Dean tries to get him to open up and embrace life, but Bast just never can seem to do it. 

Because it’s from Bast’s point of view, the film resists the temptation to paint Dean as a saint.  (We see him smack his girlfriend at one point.)  However, it does break form every now and then to show us Dean biographical highlights that Bast was never there to witness (like Dean auditioning for the Actors Studio or revving his motorcycle at Pier Angeli’s wedding).  Bast’s narration is often intrusive to the narrative and is redundant more often than not.  The black and white silent movie style sequences are pretty annoying too. 

The frank talk between the two about their sexuality must’ve been shocking for a network movie in the mid ‘70s.  While it wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow nowadays, it’s enough to suggest there was more between Dean and Bast than what the censors would allow to be shown. Moments like this prevent the film from being completely forgettable, but it’s still far too clunky overall to really work. 

McHattie kinda looks like Dean if you squint hard, but he does affect his mannerisms well enough to get by.  For a movie from Bast’s point of view, it’s odd that Bast himself never feels like a real character but more of an observer watching Dean’s star rise and fall.  The actresses in the supporting cast who play Dean’s girlfriends (Brooke Adams, Candy Clark, and Meg Foster) are good, although none of them really stick around long enough to be real characters.  It was also nice seeing Amy Irving popping up in a bit as an obsessive fan. 

AKA:  James Dean:  The Movie.  AKA:  James Dean:  The Legend.  AKA:  The Legend.  AKA:  James Dean:  A Legend in His Own Time.  AKA:  A Legend in His Own Time.