Sssssss and Baoding Balls

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Movie Review of the Day:

Sssssss

What can I say about this film? The title and poster say "schlock" about as loudly as I can imagine. Is this film good? Not really. Is it fun to watch? I would give that a yes.

I first saw this movie on channel 26's Creature Feature on a Saturday afternoon. My local station used to show schlocky monster movies at 12:00pm on Saturdays (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMWkqRFbHTk&feature=related) and I did whatever I had to do to be home and in front of the TV to catch a glimpse of the not-so-scary monster movies that were showcased at this time.

I was treated to my first viewing of "Night of the Living Dead" during this show, as well as "Son of the Blob" and "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes". It was with great gusto that I sat down on that July afternoon and watched "Sssssss!"

Snakes... my wife hates them and when I say "hate", I mean she loathes them to the point where she won't even look at images of them. She is scared of cartoon snakes and will maul me to death if I even mention the word 'snake'. In fact, if I just start making a "sss" sound, I will be punched, slapped, or similarly maimed. As you can guess, I cannot even ask for the "salt" because it starts with an S. Myself, I have a fear of zombies, particularly those lumbering, George Romero ones (I think it has to do with the slow moving, large groups that will eat you to death), but at least I can enjoy films that feature them. Needless to say, Sssssss is a film I'd never be able to get her to watch with me... at least not without tying her to a chair and holding her eyes open with toothpicks like Alex on A Clockwork Orange.

Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski (Attack of the Giant Leeches, Krakatoa, East of Java), the film stars Strother "What we have here is a failure to communicate" Martin (Cool Hand Luke, The Wild Bunch), Dirk Benedict ("Battlestar Galactica", "The A-Team"), and Heather Menzies (Hawaii, Piranha), probably best known for her role as Louisa von Trapp from the film The Sound of Music (1965). Also appearing is Richard B. Shull (Splash), Tim O'Connor (Across 110th Street), Jack Ging (High Plains Drifter), and former USC football player and professional boxer Reb Brown ("Captain America", Yor, the Hunter from the Future), in his first silver screen appearance.

Strother Martin plays Dr. Carl Stoner, a herpetologist (one who studies reptiles) who specializes in the filed of ophiology (snakes), assisted by his daughter Kristina (Menzies), both of whom live on the outskirts of a small college town. Seems when the good doctor isn't collecting venom samples or engaging in snake handling demonstrations for the slack jawed yokels, he's busy working on a serum derived from snake venom whose purpose has yet to be determined. In need of a new assistant (his previous one `left' under mysterious circumstances), Stoner contacts an acquaintance at the college, a professor named Dr. Ken Daniels (Shull) who offers up a young student named David Blake (Benedict). David accepts the opportunity and moves in with Stoner and his daughter, where the doctor immediately begins David on a series of `inoculations', supposedly intended to build up his immunity to snake venom for protection in the event he gets bitten (yeah, right).

Anyway, David and Kristina start getting chummy (precipitated by a skinny dipping incident in a nearby lake, one that includes some carefully placed foliage), and David starts noticing some very subtle changes in his body to which Stoner brushes off as perfectly normal side effects to the inoculations (oh, those scales are the result of an allergic reaction...sure). After some business with a local jocko a-hole college football star (Brown) who's got the hots for Kristina, David soon finds himself in a world of trouble as the changes, while still occurring, aren't so subtle anymore.

Stoner, learning of Kristina's involvement with David, tries to warn her off, but she sees the attempt as purely interference from an overprotective father (seems she's unaware of her father's experimental activities). As you can imagine, things start going seriously downhill from here... While Sssssss was a feature film, it does have a made for 1970s TV feel about it most likely due to the fact most of the performers (with the exception of Martin) and the director previous experiences were limited to television work. I did enjoy this film, but there really wasn't a huge mystery in terms of what was going on or where the film was headed as the story, especially the opening sequence, tended to give away enough for an experienced viewer make their own conclusions early in the feature.

Despite this I still thought the film was a lot of fun, as it moved along well and featured enough creepiness to keep me engaged throughout (the transformation bit at the end was seriously warped). I thought Strother Martin did pretty well, as he wasn't really an evil scientist, but a seriously demented figure who took the whole naturalism gig a little too far, able to rationalize his activities (to himself, at least) for the sake bettering mankind. I did learn a number of things from this film including the following...

1. Old men and snakes enjoy a nip of booze now and again.

2. Never go sticking your grubby mitts into a herpetologist's car.

3. People tend to fear snakes for same reason they fear minority groups.

4. In terms of snakes, the king cobra seems the most uppity.

5. The Leather Tuscadero mullet hairstyle seemed oddly popular with women in the early 1970s.

6. The ability to shoot accurately apparently isn't a prerequisite for becoming a law enforcement official in a small town.

7. Never get into a tussle with Reb Brown as he'll toss you around like a rag doll.

8. Reb Brown doesn't have to pay for it...never has, and never will.

9. Nothing gets a woman you don't know in the mood for action like climbing up the side of her house and sneaking in through her bedroom window at night while she's sleeping.

10. Never get on the bad side of a herpetologist as they may just toss a poisonous snake in the shower with you.

11. Snakeman have a really annoying preponderance towards whimpering.

12. Strother Martin had a lot more guts than I ever will as far as his willingness to mess about with poisonous snakes.

It should be noted most all the snakes depicted in the film were real. Whether or not any were harmed during filming is unclear. The film is rated PG so the violence is pretty low key i.e. safe for television broadcast, but there are a couple of nekkid sequences involving the showing of male bumcakes (primarily Reb Brown in a shower with a semi-opaque shower curtain). There's a really funny bit where David and Kristina go skinny dipping, and both strip down, most of their naughty bits obscured by some strategically placed leaves, Austin Powers style.

I thought the makeup, specifically in relation to David developing reptilian features, quite good, at least for the time the film was made. One aspect of the film did seem a little strange, and that was the ending. While it was downbeat, it also felt abrupt as if perhaps the writers had painted themselves into a corner and had nowhere left to go, so they just ended it as best he could. Regardless, the film is still a lot of fun, especially if you dig on ookie creature films of the 1970s.

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Little Darlings and Baoding Balls

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Movie Review of the Day:

Little Darlings

Ok, I admit that I am a lover of trashy B-movies. I love the old drive-in flicks of my youth and I miss the old local grindhouse (Fresno's Manchester Cinema) where you could see two trashy B-movies for $2 or the drive-in (Fresno's Drive In next to Malibu Grand Prix) where you could see a double-feature for $5 a carload. I miss the sticky floors, the stale popcorn, the dazed-eyed ticket girls, and the ushers that didn't dare try to quiet people down or make them act civilized. It was a grand old time.

You see, that was the appeal of grindhouses and drive-ins. You could watch movies with friends on the cheap and have a rip-roaring good ol' time. The experience was more than movies... it was almost like a right-of-passage and it gave many young folks an appreciation for trashy cinema with scratched negatives and mis-synched sound. Plus, you got to socialize and hang out, which gave you something to look forward to on the weekends.

Today's kids don't have any of that in their lives. They rush home from school to check out some message board or social networking site and spend all weekend on the computer instead of eating stale popcorn, sticky Mike and Ike's, and drinking flat soda while watching a couple of exploitation flims with friends. So sad.

Do you remember going to school on Monday and reenacting the movie or spoiling the ending for those lamers who didn't go to the movies? How about telling everybody about who was making-out, who got in a fight, and who got dumped at the movies? Today kids just text-message the news or upload some stupid viral video. The art of story-telling and exaggeration has been lost on this generation. I pitty the fools.

Now on to the movie. Little Darlings is a guilty pleasure if I ever had one. Christy McNichol was the girl of my dreams when I saw this movie for the first time and she has continued to be quite an attractive woman throughout her troubled life. Her "butch" attitude, while being totally femenine, was what grabbed me. She was cute but you knew that she would probably slap the hell out you if you got out of line. I like that in a woman.

The story is about a group of teenage girls that go to summer camp and bet on which of the two of them will lose their virginity first. After that, they choose targets, or guys they want to be the ones they lose the virginity with. Unbeknownst to the adults, all the girls in camp bet money on the contest and divide into two "teams," each rooting and egging on either Ferris or Angel. At the same time, the girls engage in typical teenager acts of fun, such as food fights and other activities.
The girls involved in the contest are opposites and rivals: cynical, suspicious and streetwise poor girl Angel Bright (McNichol) and romantic rich girl Ferris Whitney (O'Neal). Both girls discover that "it" is not what they thought it was.

Tatum O'Neal was cute, but too stuck-up for my tastes. Her role was McNichol's foil, but at the hands of another girl who seemed to be the shrewdest of instigators. The contest was well-played and the entire film seemed totally plausable. I enjoyed the tension, the dialogue, and the conclusion. In all, it is a very solid film.

The young Cynthia Nixon (the Flower Child) was a plesant surprise and I rather enjoyed the fact that the girls in the film appeared to be the ages of the roles they were portraying. Much like the newer (and more shocking) film "Kids", this movie plays with the audience's perception of youth and innocence. It is pure exploitation at its finest.

Whenever this film comes on cable, I must stop what I am doing and watch it. I'll relive the night when I saw this movie at the Drive-in with my friends and we were praying for a nudie-shot that never came. I remember the $5 pizza that I bought from the snack bar that was not worth $1 and the flat and tepid Pepsi that I bought. I remember Josh, Alex, and Danny all making moves on their girls and me being too wrapped up in the movie to pay my girl too much attention.

I remember the drive up to Sky Harbor Road (the local Make-Out spot) in Josh's 1964 Chevy Impala and the fizzy pony-keg in the trunk. The view from Sky Harbor Road was beautiful (http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1005/1425482016_e7fdb51958.jpg?v=1190503278) and the evening was filled with laughter during that hot August night. Those were the times of my life and Little Darlings was there to guide me through it. I give this film an A+.

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Movie Review of the Day:

Death Proof

Death Proof is a 2007 film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, about a psychopathic stunt man who targets young women, murdering them with his "death proof" stunt car. The film, a tribute to the muscle car movie genre of the 1970s, stars Kurt Russell, Zoë Bell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Sydney Poitier, Tracie Thoms, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Rose McGowan. Death Proof was released theatrically in the United States as part of a double feature with Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror under the title Grindhouse in order to replicate the experience of viewing exploitation films in a "grindhouse" theater.

While this film aims to emulate the B-movies of the late 70's, I hold this movie far and above anything produced in that period. Don't get me wrong, this flick is pure schlock, but it is engrossing, fun, and the dialogue makes it almost like slam-poetry. The way the characters talk and the vocabulary (not to mention the plethora of pop-culture refrences) is pure music to my ears.

The girls are well-cast and each is used to their maximum potential. In particular, Zoe Bell is my favorite because she is so real. Tracy Thoms is one of my fantasy-girls and so is the too-hot-to-hold Rosario Dawson. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the weakest of the second set of girls, but somebody had to be.

The first set of girls is great. I think the only lag in the film happens when the girls act out the "Butterfly moment". It is a necessary part of the film but I felt bored while I watched that part. And how could I forget... Sydney Poitier is just plain freakin' hot. Her character is a skeezeball, but I have seen her in other films and she can be very alluring.

I really dig the opening credits since they bring up such a nostalgic feeling for 70's schlock. The music for this scene, provided by the legendary Jack Nitzsche, is pure fun. The way that Tarantino shot the film is incredible and I commend him for really getting to the heart of what 70's exploitation films are and then making a really classy version of one.

Now we head on to Stuntman Mike, played with great pleasure by Kurt Russell. He is Snake Plissken with human vulnerabilities. He is not pure instinct and he is totally human. If I saw Rosario Dawson's feet sticking out of a car window, I would probably do what he did if I could get away with it. He is THE MAN!

My only regret is a double-edged sword. I wish that Sylvester Stallone had been able to play Stuntman Mike, as was originally planned. The only problem with that scenario is that we would not have been party to Kurt Russell's take on the character. Oh well, maybe next time.

This film flopped at the theaters. It was a major disappointment for all parties involved except for the audience. From my research, this film has had an excellent second life on DVD and cable tv broadcasts. I know I own the DVD but I still tune in when it comes on Starz. The Grindhouse version is adequate, but the full DVD version is awesome. If you have not seen the DVD version, snap yourself with a wet towel and then go rent this version. You will not be disappointed.

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MOVIE REVIEW OF THE DAY:

Two of a Kind

No, I am not reviewing that John Travolta/Olivia Newton John turd that effectively ruined Travolta's career until Quentin Tarantino rediscovered him. I hated that film and I wish I could wash the memory from my mind. It was terrible.

The film I am reviewing today is the George Burns/Robby Benson flick Two of a Kind. This movie is something that I remember from my fifth grade "Movie Day" with my cute teacher, Mrs. Ashlock. She popped this movie into the VCR and we sat back and watched it with home-popped popcorn and tepid Pepsi poured from a two liter bottle.

In this film, Nolie Minor (Robby Benson) and his elderly grandfather, Ross Minor (George Burns), are two of a kind in that nobody seems to believe in them but each other. Nolie, a mentally retarded 21-year-old man with the intelligence of a child, goes to a special school for the mentally retarded and lives at home with his parents, who can't seem to agree on how to raise their son.

His father (Cliff Robertson) struggles with embarassment over Nolie's disability and wants to see him independant as an adult, while his overprotective mother (Barbara Barrie) is unwilling to let him go and still treats him like a child. Meanwhile, 81-year-old Ross is left by Nolie's parents in a nursing home, where he is given medications that seem to take all the life out of him.

When Nolie goes to the home to visit his grandfather for the first time in two years, he is shocked and heartbroken to find him bound to a wheelchair, unable to respond or communicate. However, he is determined to bring his grandfather back to the old "Papa Ross" that he has once known. Nolie visits him frequently in the home to do exercises with him and spend time with him, and gradually sees Ross improve back to the way he was.

At the same time, Nolie learns some valuable lessons about life from his grandfather, who frequently calls him "Einstein" and encourages him to always believe in himself. In summation, this movie has its funny moments and its sad moments, but is basically a poignant story of the power of love between a boy and his grandfather, and how believing in someone can truly make a difference in their lives.

I really dug the way that the movie played and upon my viewing of it today, it was every bit as sappy-sweet as I remember it. It was a blast.

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Bamboozled and Baoding Balls

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Movie Review of the Day:

Bamboozled

Bamboozled is a 2000 satirical film written and directed by Spike Lee about a modern televised minstrel show featuring black actors donning blackface makeup and the violent fall-out from the show's success.

The content is intended as satirical, with its show within a show featuring its characters, all in blackface, performing in a watermelon patch. The Roots, a hip-hop band from Philadelphia, have a role as the show's house band, The Alabama Porch Monkeys. The audiences within the movie, initially baffled, come to love the show, and after a few episodes even elderly white women show up in blackface and proclaim themselves "niggers".

The script expresses rage and grief at media representations of black people, largely through the eyes of its moral center, Sloan Hopkins (played by Jada Pinkett Smith). It also satirizes many icons of black culture including Ving Rhames, Will Smith (real-life husband of Jada Pinkett Smith), Johnnie Cochran, and Al Sharpton (Cochran and Sharpton appear as themselves in the film, protesting against the television series).

The movie also stars Savion Glover as "Manray" (stage name Mantan, after Mantan Moreland), Tommy Davidson as Womack (stage name Sleep n' Eat, after Willie Best), Thomas Jefferson Byrd as Honeycutt, and Mos Def, Canibus, MC Serch and Charli Baltimore as four of the activist/hip hop group The Mau Maus. Mos Def's character, who calls himself "Big Blak Afrika" (refusing to spell the word "black" with the "c" because "they don't even pronounce that shit!") is also Sloan's unemployed older brother, Julius.

Pierre Delacroix (stage name for Peerless Dothan), played by Damon Wayans, is an uptight Harvard-educated black man who speaks in a nasal voice, working for a television network that routinely rejects his proposals for what he sees as intelligent shows involving black people. He is further tormented by his boss Thomas Dunwitty (played by Michael Rapaport), a tactless, boorish white man who proudly proclaims that he is more black than Delacroix and that he can use the word "nigger" since he is married to a black woman.

Facing the necessity of either coming up with a hit black-centric show or being fired, Delacroix decides to aim for the latter. If the network fires him, he rationalizes, it will release him from his employment contract, allowing him to seek work at another network. With help from his personal assistant, Sloan Hopkins (played by Jada Pinkett Smith), Delacroix decides to pitch a minstrel show, complete with black actors in blackface, in the belief that the network will reject such over-the-top racism and fire him on the spot.

Delacroix and Hopkins recruit two impoverished street performers, Manray and Womack, to star in the stage show. While Womack is horrified when Delacroix tells him about the show, his best friend Manray willfully agrees to star in the show, seeing it as his big chance to become rich and famous.

To Delacroix's horror, not only does Dunwitty enthusiastically endorse the show, it also becomes hugely successful. Manray and Womack become big stars while Delacroix, contrary to his original stated intent, defends the show as being satirical. Delacroix quickly embraces the show and his newfound fame, while Sloan becomes horrified at the racist nightmare she's helped to unleash. In the meantime, a frustrated rap group called the Mau Maus, led by "Big Blak Afrika" (Mos Def) become increasingly angry at the content of the show, and plan to use violent criminal action to express their disapproval. Eventually, Womack finally has enough of the show and its racist nature, as well as Manray's increasing ego due to his new-found stardom and quits after a heated argument with Manray. This causes Manray and Sloan to grow closer, which angers Delacroix. Delacroix tries to break up Manray's relationship with Sloan by accusing her of sleeping with Manray to further her career. Then Delacroix reveals that Hopkins only got her position as his assistant by sleeping with him (Delacroix).

The move backfires and drives Manray and Sloan even closer together. Sloan creates a tape of offending racist footage culled from assorted movies, cartoons, and newsreels to try to shame Delacroix into stopping production of the show, but he refuses to view the tape. After an argument with Delacroix over all these differences, as well as realizing he is being exploited, Manray defiantly announces that he will no longer wear blackface. He appears in front of the studio audience during a TV taping and does his dance number in his regular clothing. The network executives immediately turn against Manray, and Dunwitty personally fires him from the show and throws him out of the studio.

After the studio kicks Manray out, Sloan's brother Julius aka Big Blak Afrika and the Mau Maus kidnap him. They then announce a plan to publicly execute Manray on a live internet webcast. The authorities work feverishly to track down the source of the internet feed, but Manray is assassinated (as a sort of sacrificial figure at his death). The police quickly catch The Mau Maus, shooting them down in a hail of bullets. They leave only one survivor, a white member known as "One-Sixteenth Black", who tearfully proclaims that he is "black" and demands to die with his groupmates instead of being arrested. Furious, Sloan confronts Delacroix at gunpoint and demands that he watch the tape she prepared for him. Delacroix refuses and tries to get the gun, but is shot in the stomach. Sloan, horrified, flees while proclaiming that it was Delacroix's own fault that he got shot. Delacroix, after positioning the gun to make the wound appear self-inflicted, watches the tape as he lies dying on the floor.

The film concludes with a long montage of racially insensitive and demeaning clips of black characters from Hollywood films of the first half of the 20th century. Among the films used in the sequence are The Birth of a Nation, The Jazz Singer, Gone with the Wind, Babes in Arms, Holiday Inn, Ub Iwerks' cartoon Little Black Sambo, Walter Lantz's cartoon Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat, the Merrie Melodies short All This and Rabbit Stew, and, from the Hal Roach comedy School's Out, Our Gang (Little Rascals) kids Allen "Farina" Hoskins and Matthew "Stymie" Beard.

This film is so good that it is actually frightening. Lee is able to make you believe that this could actually happen (and I believe that it could). It is so troubling to see the events unfold and how readily the American public accepts this type of production. I was sickened and saddened at the same time. With strong visuals and a satirical edge, Lee has awoken me from my sleep. All I can say is BRAVO.

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The Bounty and Baoding Balls

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Movie Review of the Day:

The Bounty

The film is based on the real life story of Captain William Bligh, against whom a mutiny is led by Master's Mate Fletcher Christian. This version follows both the efforts of Fletcher Christian (Mel Gibson) to get his men beyond the reach of British retribution, and the epic voyage of Captain Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) to get his loyalists safely to East Timor in a tiny lifeboat.

Unlike earlier versions, this film did not portray Bligh as a villainous character, and it paints a far less heroic portrait of Christian. In Gibson’s description, “Fletcher was just a lad of twenty-two and he behaved like one. The first time he decided to test his horns and fight for the herd, it was a mistake. He shouldn't have done it.” The film also portrays the sailors exploiting the islanders. Gibson said, “It was a complete culture shock and it was unbelievable to them. It was paradise in terms of personal freedoms - freedoms that shouldn't have been taken advantage of. They exploited the people, fooled them, and didn't tell them the whole truth.” Gibson chose to suddenly erupt in violent emotion during the mutiny scene because eyewitness accounts had described Christian as 'extremely agitated' and 'sweating and crying.'

This film is very nice. I am not only referring to the bare-breasted Island girls that populate a large portion of this film, but to the acting as well. Anthony Hopkins is able to be both villainous and sympathetic at the same time. That is quite a feat, in my humble opinion.

Mel Gibson gives a very real performance as a man torn between two worlds. His loyalties are tried and he cannot stand the stern hand of his superior when the pressure is on. He might be a great leader or just a weak anarchist. You never learn which one he is.

The tension on the boat is pure cinematic gold. Anthony Hopkins chews up scenery like he was Takeru Kobayashi. I loved every moment of this film and only wish that there had been more of Anthony Hopkins in this version.

Overall, it was a very good film that tries to be historically accurate and never loses its way. VERY good film.

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Movie Review of the Day:

John Carpenter's Christine

The movie stars Keith Gordon as Arnie Cunningham, a typical high school nerd with only one friend, a childhood companion named Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell), a popular jock. Arnie's life begins to change when he discovers Christine, a red 1958 Plymouth Fury in serious need of repair. Arnie begins to restore Christine to her original beauty, but as he spends more and more of his time repairing her, those in his life notice that he is changing as well. Formerly shy, Arnie develops a cocky arrogance. Dennis, as well as Arnie's new girlfriend Leigh Cabot, played by Alexandra Paul, discover that the car has a deadly past. The previous owner, Roland LeBay, became consumed with Christine and he paid for it with his life. Leigh and Dennis try to save Arnie from a similar fate. They realize that the only way to save Arnie is by destroying Christine. Christine, however, isn't ready to give up Arnie without a fight.

First off, I love this film. When I first heard Tanya Tucker's cover of "Won't Fade Away", I was sucked into this movie. Keith Gordon does something incredible with his role and I cannot think of another time when an actor went through such a metamorphosis as effectively. He starts out being the biggest dork in the world and then slowly evolves into the ultimate badass. Very cool.

John Stockwell is good, but his character has a lot less to do than in the novel. Buddy Repperton and Moochie were fun characters and I liked watching their demise captured so effectively on film. Bullies deserve deaths like the ones suffered in this film!

John Carpenter sure did an excellent job of crafting this film and the soundtrack/score. I love John Carpenter's scores and he does not disappoint in this film. I even bought the score from iTunes just so I could hear that haunting theme in my headphones. Creepy!

In all, this is an effective translation of one of Stephen King's finer works. It's not a rape of Stephen King's source material like Lawnmower Man or The Running Man. No, this is a great film. I loved every moment of it. You will too.

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Step 1 Lay the palm of your hand flat. You can use meditation balls not only during meditation, but also anytime you're seated or while walking.

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Step 4 Raise your pinky finger to guide the ball towards your ring finger. The other ball should now be the one closest to your wrist.

Step 5 Use each of your fingers, in sequence, to guide the top ball along your hand in a clockwise direction. Meanwhile, use your thumb and the base of the palm of your hand to guide the ball closest to your wrist back towards your pinky finger.

Step 6 Repeat until you get comfortable moving the meditation balls in a fluid motion.

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