UNDER THE SILVER LAKE (2019) ** ½

Under the Silver Lake is a shaggy dog neo-noir detective story that runs along similar paths previously trodden upon by the likes of The Big Lebowski and Inherent Vice.  As with those films, the lead is a slacker who might not get as consistently high as Jeffrey Lebowski or Doc Sportello, but they are all most certainly kindred spirits.  While Under the Silver Lake isn’t quite as captivating as those movies were, it definitely has moments where it threatens to fire on all cylinders. 

Shiftless lay-about Sam (Andrew Garfield) is five days away from being evicted from his LA apartment complex, but he seems to spend more time spying on his neighbors than looking for a job.  One day, he meets a cute new neighbor Sarah (Riley Keough) and they wind up spending a pleasant evening together.  The next morning, she and her roommates mysteriously vanish without a trace.  Sam then takes it upon himself to find her, even if it means potentially unraveling society as we know it. 

The plot juggles a lot of apples.  There’s the business about the neighborhood dog killer, a missing Hollywood mogul, supposed subliminal messages in a local goth band’s music, etc.  They all could potentially be connected, and I won’t spoil how things shake out, but I ultimately felt the mystery had too many pieces that didn’t fit.  Then again, the movie is more about the importance of having a mystery to solve and not really about the mystery itself.  I think.

If that makes sense.  

I was not a fan of director David Robert Mitchell’s previous film, It Follows.  I will say his quirky style is more suited to a lackadaisical detective story than a horror flick, although he still shows off his horror roots here and there.  (Most notably during the dream scenes.)  While he doesn’t stick the landing, and the film is ultimately less than a sum of its parts, there are enough weird, surreal stretches to make it semi-worthwhile. 

The film is already something of a cult item, and it’s easy to see why.  Repeated viewings will probably help piece together the assorted cryptograms and hidden messages that lurk on the corners of the story.  I’m not exactly itching to watch it again immediately, but I could see myself revisiting it down the road, which is a helluva lot more than I can say for the wildly overpraised It Follows. 

50,000 B.C. (BEFORE CLOTHING) (1963) **

A henpecked husband (Charlie Robinson) gets tired of his wife’s bitching and hops in the back of a taxicab that just so happens to be a time machine.  He inadvertently winds up at a nudist colony smack dab in the middle of prehistoric times where all the cavewomen wander around in the nude.  (Thankfully, the cavemen keep their loincloths on.)  He is captured and brought before the caveman king who eventually lets him stay with the tribe.  Meanwhile, a giant is carrying off all the cavewomen, so the tribe makes the cavegirls perform sexy dances (one dances with a snake that strangles her) to appease the brute. 

50,000 B.C. (Before Clothing) gets off to a fun start with an alluring opening credits sequence featuring nude women holding title slates over their lower extremities.  Sadly, it gets as spotty as a leopard loincloth after that. 

There is a great idea for a nudie-cutie here, but the problem is, it only takes up a small part of the movie.  In fact, it’s pretty rough going whenever the naked cavegirls aren’t on screen.  For one, you have to put up with a lot of irritating stalling tactics including long scenes of our hero relating flashbacks of his old burlesque act to his pet dog.  It doesn’t help that the Catskill brand of humor isn’t very funny.  Robinson is sort of like a low budget Moe Howard, but the filmmakers should’ve realized all his burlesque routines weren’t necessary and stuck with all the sexy cavegirl footage.  

Speaking of which, the nudie-cutie cavegirl scenes include naked cavewomen trying to start a fire, going on nature hikes nude, picking apples in the buff, skinny-dipping, sunbathing au natural, fishing in their birthday suit, and sewing without a stitch on.  ‘60s sexploitation starlets Gigi (Bad Girls Go to Hell) Darlene and Audrey (Olga’s House of Shame) Campbell are among the cavewomen, and Eddie Carmel who plays the giant, was the mutant in the immortal The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. 

AKA:  50,000 B.C. (Before Clothing):  Nudes on the Rocks.  AKA:  Nudes on the Rocks.

NAKED SPACE (1983) *

Naked Space tries to do for Alien what Airplane did for Airport.  They even brought Leslie Nielsen aboard as the spaceship’s captain.  Originally, it was called The Creature Wasn’t Nice, but was retitled to Spaceship to cash in on Airplane.  Later, it was rereleased as Naked Space to cash in on The Naked Gun.  The point is, beware of any flick that changes titles TWICE to cash in on Leslie Nielsen movies. 

It’s a shame too because it has a decent cast.  The rest of the crew is made up of Cindy Williams (who was also in the director’s The First Nudie Musical), Gerrit Graham, and Patrick Macnee.  (Writer/director Bruce Kimmel brings up the rear as the ship’s janitor.)  Everyone, including Nielsen, is game, but the movie never gives them anything funny to do.   

In theory, this should’ve worked.  The problem is there are no laughs to be had.  The humor mostly involves the ship’s computer talking like a radio DJ, Macnee wanting to name every little discovery after himself, and Graham acting like a chauvinist.  None of it was really funny the first time, and their repeated antics wears thin fast.  In addition to Airplane, it seems Naked Space also wants to ape Kentucky Fried Movie as there is a cooking show segment and a preview for a Dirty Harry spoof.  The lamest scene finds the crew holding a talent show where Williams does a musical number.  

Oh, and speaking of musical numbers, the creature also performs the song, “I Want to Eat Your Face”, but he garners no yucks or yuks.  The monster is bad on purpose and looks like a cross between Grimace and a strawberry Gusher.  Sadly, it’s probably the best thing about the whole shoddy enterprise.

With a good script and actual laughs, Williams could’ve made for a strong Ripley stand-in.  Too bad Kimmel resorts to a lot of unfunny side business and dumb musical numbers.  He also peppers in snippets from This Island Earth, War of the Worlds, and Spectreman that acts as monster file footage, but it mostly it just feels like filler. 

In short, this is one spoof that deserves to be shot into space. 

AKA:  The Creature Wasn’t Nice.  AKA:  Spaceship.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982) ****

FORMAT:  4K UHD

ORIGINAL REVIEW:  

(As posted on January 12th, 2011)

Question:  What is best in life?

 

Answer:  To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!

 

Question:  What is second best in life?

 

Answer:  To watch Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, see him kick ass before you, and hear the lamentation of your woman who wants you to turn it off so she can watch the Lifetime Channel.

 

Conan the Barbarian was the movie that got Schwarzenegger noticed as a bona fide action hero.  He gives a great performance as the sullen, merciless, and all-around badass Conan.  Arnold was so awesome in this movie that most Hollywood skeptics thought he only had one acting mode, but he soon proved them wrong.  He went on to show them that he could not only play musclebound barbarians, but also musclebound robots, musclebound commandos, and musclebound pregnant men too.  (Umm… yeah let’s forget about that last one, shall we?)

 

But Arnold is so great in Conan that you can almost excuse Hollywood’s ignorance.  I mean not many dudes can pull off the animal pelt banana hammock look, but Schwarzenegger does it effortlessly.  I particularly liked the scene where he disrupted Thulsa Doom’s snake orgy and overturned a cauldron full of bubbling Nilbog Milk.  It’s shit like this that makes him a Legend of the Silver Screen.  Arnold throws himself into the action scenes with all the gusto of a real barbarian so that you actually forget you’re watching Arnold Schwarzenegger; you’re fucking watching CONAN. 

 

I think what makes the character of Conan great is that he’s totally relatable to the (male) audience members.  Besides the giant muscles and broadsword, he’s just like us.  He’s the kind of guy who enjoys a good time and likes to party.  It’s nothing for him to down a few too many Black Lotuses and punch a camel.  Hey, we’ve all been there.

 

This dude also gets more ass than the proverbial toilet seat.  First Conan lays a hot breeding wench who just wants him for his seed (you’ve got to love those low maintenance chicks).  Then he gets lost and has to bang this fucking smoking hot witch just to get directions (this is why guys should ask for directions more often) who still somehow happens to remain smoking hot even after her hair turns white and she grows fangs.  (Then Conan tosses her ass in the fireplace after busting a nut, making her a different kind of smoking hot.)  Finally, of course he bangs Sandahl Bergman who is also kinda hot even though she could probably break me like a twig over her knee.  Seriously, he gets so much tail in this movie that he makes James Bond seem chaste.

 

There is more than Arnold’s performance and the colorful character of Conan that makes it one of the Greatest Movies in the History of the Human Race.  We also have some flawless directing by John Milius.  He does a helluva job on the action scenes and handles the sorcery parts of the movie just as well.  Milius captures the world that Robert E. Howard created perfectly.  Nearly every frame of the movie looks like a Frank Frazetta fever dream; which is to say it’s pretty awesome.  You also have to give credit to art director Ron Cobb (who also worked on Alien) for designing some pretty badass looking sets.  From the Wheel of Pain to the giant snake pit to Thulsa Doom’s orgy den, every bit of this movie looks and feels like it’s 100% authentic barbarian times. 

 

The supporting cast is also memorable.  You’ve got fucking William Smith as Conan’s dad.  Not many dudes actually look like they could’ve sired Schwarzenegger, but Smith is definitely in that select few.  James Earl Jones makes for a great villain too.  He looks like a Soul Train version of Genghis Khan and commands the screen with authority.  I also liked Sandahl Bergman, Gerry Lopez, and Mako as Conan’s traveling companions.  The latter two bring a quirkiness to the mix that compliments Schwarzenegger and Bergman’s brawn nicely.

 

The script by none other than Oliver Stone is terrific.  I especially liked how Stone wrote Conan’s character as Jesus on Steroids.  Don’t believe me?  Well, let me lay this on you:  Like Jesus, we don’t see much of Conan during his teenage years.  (For all we know, Jesus could’ve been tied to the Wheel of Pain too.)  Both Jesus and Conan went around the land helping people.  Both of them were crucified.  Both of them died and came back to life.  Both of them cut off James Earl Jones’ head and tossed it down a flight of stairs.  Okay, so Jesus didn’t do that last one, but you’ve got to admit there are certain uncanny parallels. 

 

This film also cleverly played on people’s fear of religion at the time.  Remember, Conan was released at a time when the audience still had people like Jim Jones on the brain, so it was only natural that his foe would be someone of the cult leader variety.  I’m sure it was no mistake on the filmmakers’ part to make Thulsa Doom’s underlings dress like those annoying Harry Krishna guys you used to see at the airport either.  I mean you just take one look at those jackasses and you immediately want to punch ‘em in the face.  It’s this kind of universal hatred that makes them ideal villains.  And you know, I’m a sucker for movies in which the hero storms his enemy’s castle and the villain shouts, “Infidels!”; so this movie is right up my alley.

 

The thing I really love about Conan is that the filmmakers treated the source material with the respect that it deserves.  Milius and Stone approach the character with the same kind of respect that Richard Donner brought to Superman.  In fact, Conan has the same basic structure of that film.  The first act deals with the loss of his parents, the second act features him finding his place in the world, and the third much longer act is one big adventure.

 

The flick also has a lot of parallels to Return of the Jedi, which came out a year later.  Both films feature scantily clad slave girls laying at the villain’s slide.  Both films feature a monster keeper who gets all choked up when his pet beast is slain.  Both films feature a funeral pyre for a major character.  And that’s not even mentioning the fact that James Earl Jones is the baddie in both.  (The ending of the flick also predates Predator too as Arnold dons body paint and sets booby traps.)

 

Any movie that uses Jesus, Superman, and Star Wars as inspiration can’t go wrong if you ask me. 

 

Then you’ve got some positively fist-pumping music by Basil Poledouris.  It’s primal and foreboding and it fits the title character to a tee.  Thank God Poledouris wrote this shit because if he didn’t, there’d be about 768 movie trailers that would be without music.

 

Arnold is The Man in this movie.  I know I said it before, but it bears repeating.  Who else but Arnold could play Conan?  He gives a great performance and handles his dialogue better than you’d expect.  YOU try saying the word “lamentation” with a thick Austrian accent. 

 

I don’t know who came up with all of that “Chuck Norris is so tough…” crap.  All I know is that Arnold could easily crush that fool.  The proof is in the crucifixion scene when the vultures gather around Conan’s body.  The vultures don’t eat him, HE eats the vultures!  You won’t see Chuck Norris doing that, that’s for sure.

 

By Crom, this is one great movie.

 

AKA:  Conan. 

QUICK THOUGHTS:

I don’t have much to add as I pretty much said my peace years ago, but as I was watching this again, I was struck by how silent the film is in some stretches.  It’s a testament to Milius’ sturdy hand as a director.  We all know he can write dialogue like nobody in the business, but his gifts as a storyteller and his expert crafting of compositions are evident throughout. 

4K UHD NOTES:

This is a mighty fine restoration by the folks at Arrow.  This is as sharp as the film has ever looked.  The nighttime scenes in particular really pop, especially the ones that are accented by campfire or torchlight.  The details in Thulsa Doom’s throne room stand out even more than before as well.  The soundtrack also slaps.  

ROBOWAR (1988) ***

Did you ever wonder what a low budget mash-up of Predator and Robocop starring Reb (Space Mutiny) Brown, written by Claudio (Troll 2) Fragasso, and directed by Bruno (Night of the Zombies) Mattei would look like?  Wonder no more!

Reb is the leader of a team of soldiers sent to a jungle island on a top-secret mission.  There, they find an unstoppable cyborg on the loose in the forest.  The robo-soldier soon picks off the members of the team one by one before finally going mano y mano with Brown. 

Scenes closely copy Predator, like when the grunts fire endlessly at an enemy they can’t see, the sequence where the soldiers raid a compound (right down to the part where Brown tosses a knife into a guy), and there are also lots of POV shots of the killer (except instead of infrared, it’s seen on a heavily pixelated computer screen).  There are so many other moments here that closely resemble Predator that it’s a wonder John McTiernan’s lawyers didn’t get involved. 

Oh, and the lone African American of the squadron looks and sounds like he might’ve been the inspiration for Robert Downey Jr.’s character in Tropic Thunder. 

Reb screams and hollers and tells everyone to “Move!  Move!  Move!”, like only he can.  His over-the-top theatrics help carry the movie whenever it threatens to bog down.  It’s admittedly a pretty dumb hodgepodge, but for every misstep, there’s something that works... And by “works”, I mean it’s either unintentionally funny, downright cheesy, or (occasionally) kind of cool. 

The stammering robot voice, which sounds like Robo-Porky Pig is annoying though.  You keep expecting him to say, “That’s All, Folks!”, after he blows somebody up.  The film is also padded with long scenes of the troops wandering aimlessly around in the jungle.  On the plus side, lots of bamboo huts explode, and the close-ups of the skinned corpses are effective.  As far as Mattei/Brown collabs go, I think Strike Commando is still my favorite, but this one certainly has its share of nutty moments. 

AKA:  Robo Man.  AKA:  Cyber Robo.

THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY (2020) ***

Charles (Miami Blues) Willeford is my favorite author.  Mick Jagger is my favorite rock star.  Because of that, I’m already inclined to love this movie.  Add in a script by A Simple Plan’s Scott B. Smith, and you have a recipe for a must-see. 

Shady art critic James Figueras (Claes Bang) gets roped into a scheme by a rich art collector named Cassidy (Jagger) to steal the last work of a reclusive painter (Donald Sutherland).  Cassidy sets up an interview between the two, which should give Figueras ample opportunity to nab the painting.  Predictably, things don’t go according to plan, which leads to more deception and even murder. 

All this sounds simple enough, but the way director Giuseppe Capotondi slowly parcels out the details is a lot of fun.  Admittedly, the set-up is better than the follow-through (the symbolism with the flies gets hammered home a bit too much).  That said, there’s still plenty to enjoy along the way. 

Most enjoyable of all are the performances.  Bangs does a good job as he looks like you’d imagine a typical Willeford character.  He’s haggard and beaten up by life and a series of poor choices but he nevertheless keeps moving forward.  He gets a great monologue early on where he ropes a bunch of old biddies into thinking a crappy painting has historical significance.  As his scrappy love interest, Elizabeth (The Crown) Debicki looks great in her nude scenes and has a winsome early Cameron Diaz pluck about her.  Jagger (in his first role in twenty years) was never as good as an actor as he was a rock star, but this might be his best performance.  For someone who hasn’t been on a movie set in decades, he seems to be relishing playing a shady rich dude who holds all the cards and lords over people with a Cheshire Cat grin.  Sutherland has a sardonic twinkle in his eye, and he too looks like he’s having a ball playing a character who skews against his reputation. 

This is the first adaptation of a Willeford work in two decades.  (The last being The Woman Chaser in 1999.)  The novel was kind of an atypical Willeford book.  Even though it was largely about a conman, it was set in the art world far removed from his crime novels.  His ultimate point being that critics and art dealers are really no different than the hoods in his other books.  The film, like the novel, falls short of the Willeford greats like Cockfighter and Miami Blues, but I’m glad it exists.  Speaking strictly as a fan of the man, I hope they don’t wait another twenty years to make another Willeford adaptation. 

BLOCKERS (2018) **

Three high school girls who have been best friends since kindergarten decide to make a pact to lose their virginity on prom night.  Their idiotic parents become wise to their plan and set out to stop them from losing their V-card.  R-rated teen comedy shenanigans ensue. 

Blockers is only the slightest reworking of dozens of other similarly themed teen comedies of the ‘80s.  The difference here of course is that the teens who are trying to get laid are girls.  There are other concessions to modern times (one of the girls is a closeted lesbian), but it’s mostly the same old shit. 

I guess it wouldn’t matter if all this was funny, but there are only a few chuckles to be had.  The biggest problem is with the parents, all of whom are one-note and strangely underwritten.  Leslie Mann is overprotective.  Ike Barinholtz is an asshole.  John Cena has muscles, but he’s actually a really wholesome and sensitive guy.  None of them have much chemistry together either, which is mostly what sinks the whole deal.  Kathryn Newton is decent as the ringleader of the high school friends, but like most movies she’s in, the filmmakers don’t know how to make use of her talents, so she winds up being kind of wasted.  The other two girls don’t make much of an impression though, which is a shame, especially when you’re supposed to be rooting for them to pop their cherries and all. 

After all the R-rated comedy antics (including Cena getting a beer bong shoved up his ass) have died down, director Kay Cannon tries to pull at the audience’s heartstrings at the end, and it honestly doesn’t work.  Had we been involved in the girls’ quest to lose their virginity or had a stake in their parents trying to stop them, we might have cared.  Sadly, the hour and a half that came before is just way too uneven for us to feel anything either way. 

AKA:  #SexPact.  AKA:  Cock Blockers.