THE 31 DAYS OF TUBI-WEEN

As I’m sure you all remember, I am in the midst of trying to watch and review 365 movies on Tubi in 365 days.  As of October 1st, I am running behind by 22 movies.  I am also about two weeks behind on posting reviews, but I hope to get caught up real soon and eventually accomplish my goal of watching and reviewing a movie a day as part of the Tubi Continued… column.

The tradition in years past has been watching nothing but horror movies during the month of October as part of The 31 Days of Horror-Ween.  I’m combining both columns this year and calling it The 31 Days of Tubi-Ween.  I plan on not only watching 31 horror movies on Tubi during the month of October, but I also hope to make up those pesky 22 reviews I’m currently running behind on.  If not, I can always try to catch up during November’s annual Halloween Hangover column, which this year will be called Tubi-Ween Hangover.  

Will I ever catch up and meet my goal?  Tune in to find out!  

TUBI CONTINUED… BECAUSE OF EVE (THE STORY OF LIFE) (1948) ****

Because of Eve (The Story of Life) is a combination of several roadshow hygiene pictures:  The Story of VD, The Story of Reproduction, and The Story of Birth.  These informative films have been given a narrative involving a young couple in love to give it dramatic weight.  It’s also a great way to get four movies for the price of one.

Sally (Wanda McKay) and Bob (John Parker) are newlyweds thinking of starting a family.  They flashback to their first visit with Dr. West (Joseph Crehan) before they got married when they first learned about each other’s sordid pasts.   You see, Bob had VD and Sally had a baby out of wedlock.  When their secrets threatened to tear them apart, the good doctor showed them a bunch of filmstrips to educate them for the road ahead.

The scene where the doctor drops the bombshell on the couple was in the past two documentaries I watched (Sex and Buttered Popcorn and Schlock!  The Secret History of American Movies), and each time they showed it, it remained a jaw-dropper.  Seeing it in its proper context is even better.  It’s really something.  Not so much for the stilted acting and flat direction, but because of the utter frankness of the dialogue.  I’m sure audiences at the time weren’t used to hearing that sort of thing in movies.  It still works though, and packs as much of a punch now as it did back in ‘48.

The Story of VD on its own is incredible.  The extreme closeups of syphilis-ridden sex organs with giant open sores are disgusting and the images of dead syphilitic babies are horrifying.  It's also packed with lots of ballyhoo and amazing narration like, “Three million people are walking or HOBBLING along our streets today with syphilis!”  It’s all enough to put you off sex for at least a week. That is to say, it’s brutally effective.

The dramatic sequences are a doozy too.  The scene of Sally alone in her room being hysterical is especially memorable.  “That’s when I realized we were… IN TROUBLE!”  (Cue the swelling orchestral music!)  Later, she gets scared out of a skid row abortion clinic and eventually tries to end it all.  (The newspaper headline reads:  “CO-ED TRIES SUICIDE!”)

Once Sally and Bob confess their pasts to one another, they decide to forgive and forget and press on with the marriage.  But not before the doctor shows them the facts of life via the filmstrip, The Story of Reproduction.  It’s clinical and factual.  It’s definitely nowhere near the horror show The Story of VD was.  It was here I thought the movie was going downhill.  I was wrong.  It was saving the best for last.

Eventually, Bob and Sally become expectant parents.  After the doctor gives them the good news, he shows them yet another film, The Story of Birth.  This is quite simply one of the gnarliest movies ever put on screen.  The scene of the “normal” vaginal birth scene was a piece of cake.  However, the C-section scene is some real Faces of Death-type stuff.  You actually get to see doctors hacking layer after layer from a woman’s belly before ripping the baby out.  That part is grody by itself.  Then comes the scene where they stitch her back up.  Man, I started getting queasy and whoozy on this part.  I mean when the director shows the patient being sewed up, he shows every damn stitch and staple along the way.  Nothing is spared.  No cutaways.  Just pure old medical procedure footage.  I bet this had ‘em puking in the aisles back in the day.

Simply put, Because of Eve (The Story of Life) is one of the best roadshow movies ever made and one of the ultimate exploitation flicks of all time.

TUBI CONTINUED… SCHLOCK! THE SECRET HISTORY OF AMERICAN MOVIES (2001) ***

Schlock!  The Secret History of American Movies begins its chronicle of Hollywood exploitation with the Baby Boom and the advent of television (most notably with shows like Vampira that piped old horror movies directly into your living room).  The rise of American International Pictures is also discussed, with producers James Nicholson and Sam Arkoff and filmmakers like Roger Corman who marketed their films almost solely through the use of lurid posters and outrageous titles like The Wasp Woman and The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes.  The way they catered to the previously untapped teenage market with the likes of I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein is also viewed as a game-changer. 

The film works its way up to the exploitation of the Atomic Age (with films such as War of the Colossal Beast) before backtracking to the ‘30s to discuss the subject of nudity and the roadshow circuit.    From there, nudist camp movies of the ‘50s became popular before giving way to the nudie cuties.  Nudie filmmakers David F. Friedman and Herschell Gordon Lewis pivot away from nudies to make Blood Feast, which sparks an entirely new genre:  The gore film.  Friedman eventually splits with Lewis, striking out on his own to pioneer the “roughie” with films like The Defilers.

Schlock! features a pretty good assortment of talking heads.  In addition to Corman, Friedman, and Vampira, we also hear from Dick Miller, Harry Novak, and Doris Wishman.  Friedman tells some stories he already told in Sex and Buttered Popcorn, but that’s okay because he’s always fun to listen to.

While it’s far from the definitive guide on the subject, this is a decent trip down memory lane/historical account of Hollywood exploitation movies.  In fact, the biggest problem with the flick is the misleading title.  It shouldn’t be called “The Secret History of American Movies”.  It should’ve been called “The Secret History of American Exploitation Flicks”.  I could’ve also done with the scenes of a theatre troupe putting on a stage production of a Reefer Madness musical.  I did enjoy the moments when they try to explore the deeper themes lurking underneath the surface of the films themselves.  (Including the claim that The Brain That Wouldn’t Die is a feminist allegory!)  Sure, there’s nothing earth-shattering here, but it’s informative and fast-paced.

Other films featured include Teenagers from Outer Space, Carnival of Souls, A Bucket of Blood, Nude on the Moon, and Kiss Me Quick.

TUBI CONTINUED… SEX AND BUTTERED POPCORN (1989) ** ½

Sex and Buttered Popcorn is an exploration of sex in the cinema hosted by everyone’s favorite screen sex symbol… uh… Ned Beatty.  We begin with silent nudie reels and shorts and early exploitation flicks that hid behind moralistic crusading in order to show some T & A.  Also featured are movies that tackled social issues like child marriage (Child Marriage), so-called “antisocial behavior” (Reefer Madness), and… shall we say… “educational” films (Mom and Dad).   Really, they were mostly only an excuse to show a little skin.  Also covered (or uncovered as the case may be) are nudist colony movies and filmed burlesque acts.

The film also explores the penny-pinching ways the producers used to grind out a buck.  They talk about the use of alternate titles to trick audiences and skirt censors, as well as shooting “daring versions” with more suggestive dialogue and less clothing.  There’s even a segment on the numerous dancing scenes in these movies that almost always served as padding.

The interview scenes of exploitation producers David F. (Blood Feast) Friedman and Dan (Trader Hornee) Sonney hanging out and shooting the shit are fun.  They have great stories, like when Sonney talks about the making of the infamous cat scene in the classic Maniac.  They also offer up praise to the legendary exploitation pioneer Kroger Babb.

Beatty is an odd choice to host something like this, but he’s kind of amusing whenever he’s making snarky Mystery Science Theater 3000-style commentary over the clips.  Unfortunately, sometimes the clips run on too long, and not always the best scenes are used.  Sometimes, you wish the editing was a bit tighter too.  (The compilation of scenes of actors speaking directly to the audience and warning them about the dangers of amoral behavior could’ve been longer.)

Some of the other titles featured are Forbidden Daughters, Dance Hall Racket, Hollywood Script Girl, Gambling with Souls, and Assassin of Youth.

AKA:  For Adults Only.  AKA:  Sex and Buttered Popcorn:  The Story of the Hollywood Exploiteers.

TUBI CONTINUED… KINGS OF CULT (2015) ***

This is labeled as a “documentary” on Tubi, but it’s essentially a filmed Q & A with exploitation legends Charles (Puppet Master) Band and Roger (Little Shop of Horrors) Corman sitting in director chairs and fielding softball questions about their careers, their influence, and their legacy.  Corman is his usual smooth-talking Zen self and makes no bones about the movies he made.  Band is more animated and has some funny stories (he was once babysat by Marilyn Monroe!).  If you’re a fan of Corman and have seen him as a talking head in countless other documentaries, some of his stories will be overly familiar.  Band, on the other hand, offers some cool insights on the Italian filmmaking process in the ‘60s where his father worked.

While Band and Corman are only one generation removed from one another, they still have a lot in common as they are both mavericks when it comes to working on the fringe of the mainstream.  The duo also talk about how they milk their successful films and concepts for all they are worth.  (Band is preparing an eleventh Puppet Master while Corman is busy producing yet another shark movie for the SYFY Channel.)  If you’re a fan of either director, you’ll probably have as much fun as I did just listening to them sitting around and talking shop. Out of all the anecdotes, my favorite story was how Band came up with the iconic poster for Ghoulies.  (Spoiler:  Weed was involved.)

That said, I’m not sure how much replay value something like this will have.  Still, for what amounts to basically a filmed hour-long chat, it’s quite entertaining.  It’s certainly more informative than most genre filmmaking documentaries as this one delves pretty deep into the distribution and marketing aspect of motion pictures, which is something that usually isn’t covered in these sorts of things.  That aspect alone makes Kings of Cult worth a look.

TUBI CONTINUED… SAVAGE VENGEANCE (2023) NO STARS

In the Ozarks in the late 80’s, inbred cannibals kill and eat their victims.  At least that’s what the opening crawl says.  The cannibals we get in this movie look less like extras from Wrong Turn and more like cast members from the Jersey Shore.

The filmmakers try in vain to make Savage Vengeance resemble a lost relic of the ‘80s, but they overdo it with all the fake tape rolls and manufactured static.  I get it.  You’re trying to make the movie look like an old VHS tape.  However, all this is obviously just a filter on a camera (or more likely a phone).  The footage also looks way too new to be filmed on an old videotape and the actresses don’t much look like they came from the ‘80s either.  I mean did women in the ‘80s have giant arm tattoos of the Epcot ball?  Did they carry around trendy water bottles wherever they went?  I don’t think so.  When the fashions don’t look very ‘80s and the vehicles certainly don’t look like the ‘80s and the music absolutely does not sound like the ‘80s, then what’s the damn point?  Why even attempt to set the movie in the ‘80s if you can’t even make it look like the ‘80s?

This is a remake of Donald Farmer’s 1993 flick (which starred Camille Keaton).  It contains long scenes of our heroines aimlessly walking around, first in slow motion, then in regular motion, and then in fast motion.  Like, make up your goddamned mind, people.  Better yet, cut the scene altogether.  I guess if they didn’t, the movie would be less than an hour long.  At least these scenes play out silently, so you don’t actually have to listen to the actresses yammering on.

It takes fucking forever for anything to happen.  Then, when it finally does, we are treated to a scene where a pregnant woman is beaten in the stomach with a crowbar.  Lovely.  If you somehow make it past that, you’ll be treated to one of the fakest looking castrations cinema has ever seen using the most obvious looking dildo in history.  Then again, the production company didn’t spend any money on the rest of the movie.  Why am I not surprised they didn’t spring for a realistic looking dong?

Farmer also coproduced and has a cameo as a professor.

EXPEND4BLES (2023) *** ½

So, the word on the street for Expendfourbles has been downright toxic.  The meager box office totals labeled it a complete bomb.  Did that shake my belief in my beloved franchise?  Not really.  Sure, the lack of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis was disheartening (although I can’t blame Bruce for sitting this one out, all things considered), but I still went in hoping for the best. 

In their place with have 50 Cent and Megan Fox as the new Expendfourbles.  Not exactly Mickey Rourke and Terry Crews, are they?  Still, they have enough cred to make them, at the very least, honorary Expendfourbles.  Cent was in Escape Plan with Sly and Arnold, and Fox was in Midnight in the Switchgrass with Bruce.  I guess there were worse choices out there.  

The big news was the additions of Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais.  As a massive fan of The Protector and The Raid, their inclusion took the sting out of missing some of the bigger names.  Besides, even though he’s the villain, and they don’t really make the best use of his talents, Uwais still gets more to do here than he did in The Force Awakens.

The scuttlebutt of the Hollywood rumor mill (not to mention the “and” billing) sorta implied Sly was gonna die in this one.  Now, I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but he makes his entrance on a motorcycle with the word “Resurrection” emblazoned on it.  So, yeah.  Maybe don’t get the hankies out just yet.

Uwais is a baddie who goes to “Gaddafi’s Old Chemical Weapons Plant” (I’m not kidding, that’s what the text at the bottom of the screen says) to get detonators for a bomb that can start World War III.  The Expendfourbles are called in, and fuck up big time, which means Christmas (Jason Statham) is taken off team.  The rest of the team have to stop him from completing the bomb, and when they are captured, Christmas finds an old ex-Expendfourble (Jaa) to plan a rescue mission.

This is definitely a step down from Parts 1 and 3.  (There’s no way it was going to touch Part 2, which for my money, is still one of greatest movies of all time.)  However, it is far from the disaster critics have made it out to be.  After the watered-down PG-13 Part 3, it was good to have a bunch of F-bombs and bloody violent deaths aplenty back in the series.  We get bloody knife wounds, decapitations, and smoldering corpses, just to name a few.  

Yes, Sly is largely absent from the proceedings.  That means Statham does most of the heavy lifting, which is perfectly fine by me, especially when we get to see him fighting alongside Jaa and getting into fisticuffs with Uwais.  The other team members are enjoyable too.  Dolph Lungren gets some fun moments and Randy Couture is handed the bulk of the comic relief (which admittedly, isn’t all that funny).  As for the other big addition to the cast, Andy Garcia chews the scenery gamely as the team’s new CIA handler.  The big surprise I guess was that Fox wasn’t nearly as bad as I was anticipating as the new team leader.  In fact, it felt like the filmmakers knew this might be the last one, so they were trying to combine the abandoned Statham spin-off “The Expendables:  A Christmas Story” and the all-girl Expendables spin-off, “The Expendabelles” into one movie, which I’m perfectly OK with. 

Overall, Expendfourbles gives you your money’s worth and keeps the old Golan-Globus macho brand of filmmaking alive, at least for another year.  Action icons kill bad guys and make funny quips after.  Stuff blows up real good.  And there’s at least one jaw-dropping action scene where Statham plays chicken on a machine gun-mounted motorcycle that harkens back to the insanity of his Transporter 2 days.  What can I say?   I had fun.

As far as Sly’s Part 4’s goes, it’s no Rocky 4 or Rambo 4, but then again, what could be?  For rabid action fans, there’s plenty here to like.  Bottom Line:  I would say it’s highly recommend4ble.

AKA:  The Expendables 4.