I watch quite a few movies, and most of them come and go without leaving much of a mark. Indeed, I pretty much only watch movies now, with the exception of a few shows (like Bob’s Burgers). Some of them probably deserve more attention than I give them, as I’m usually multitasking—poorly—while watching them.
But for every eight duds there is one film that will stick out. These are usually the ones I write about. Typically they stick out in a positive way, though Ponty has encouraged me to write some reviews of movies I don’t like (you can read one such review here). This week’s selection really made an impact on me, and it’s one I heartily recommend.
The flick is 1973’s The Wicker Man, based on a 1967 novel by David Pinner called Ritual. The film is, perhaps, one of the most Christian (and pro-Christian) movies I have seen in a long time. I don’t think its creators intended it as a Christian film, but I’ll make the case for it in this review.
That said, if I’m correct, The Wicker Man probably has the most nudity of any Christian film ever made.
It’s another Lazy Sunday and I’m at a loss for a theme, so how about looking back at some more movie reviews?
Even with writing a review a week, I’m beginning to catch up to the present when it comes to these Lazy Sunday retrospectives. As such, the day is coming where I won’t be able to rely on this “out” to avoid a modicum of creative thinking.
But that’s Future Port’s problem. Here are three reviews from October 2021:
“Monday Morning Movie Review: Lifeforce (1985)” – Outer space energy vampires invade London in the 1980s. What’s not to love? I really enjoyed this movie, with its great practical effects and its outrageous premise. But the premise works.
“Monday Morning Movie Review: In the Earth (2021)” – In my review for this odd film, I noted that I would not recommend it to the vast majority of viewers. I still wouldn’t recommend it, but I really enjoyed it. The first half is much stronger than the psychedelic second half, as you’re trying to figure out what is going on in the world the filmmakers have created.
For Christmas I received a couple of box sets, each containing fifty films from their respective genres. The first collection I cracked open, Mad Scientist Theatre, consists of, well, fifty films about science and scientists gone wrong (or mad, I should say).
I’ve decided to write reviews of the films from these collections throughout the course of the year semiregularly. Son of Sonnet is taking a bit of a hiatus from writing for the time being, so these midweek reviews seemed like a good way to fill the void his pen has left. I don’t plan on writing these reviews every Wednesday, but maybe once or twice a month.
Also, I’ll be making the meat of these reviews for subscribers only. That’s not to cut out my lovable band of regular readers, but to further sweeten the pot for existing subscribers. I thought about doing these posts for $5 and up subscribers, but as of this past weekend, I finally have a subscriber at the $3 level. Because I think she will enjoy these oddball film reviews, I’m going to make them available starting at that level.
That said, I will still provide a substantial portion of these reviews for non-paying readers, as their energy and enthusiasm in the comment sections really keep the blog alive and fresh.
So! With that lengthy preamble out of the way, the first two flicks on the first disc of Mad Scientist Theatre are both silent films from 1920: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. You don’t need Mad Scientist Theatre to watch these films, either, as they’re both in the public domain (indeed, they’re both 102-years old, which is wild to contemplate—film is a young medium, but it was around and commercially viable a century ago). You can view both on YouTube:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (with the original color tinting, which is not on the Mad Scientist Theatre collection):
These are quite different films, but each interesting in their own way. The themes and situations explored in each are eerily prescient for those of us living through our own “Roaring Twenties,” with all this decade’s excesses, licentiousness, and absurdity.
Today is my birthday. I’m thirty-seven today, and am on the downward slide towards forty.
But even on my birthday, I must deliver the goods. Since it’s Monday, that means a movie review, and this flick is really quite fun.
The film is Boys from County Hell (2020), a comedic vampire movie that takes place in rural Ireland. My family and I had the opportunity to visit Ireland in 2006, and the film’s setting really reminded me of that trip.
The premise is straightforward: in the small, dying town of Six Mile Hill, there is a stone cairn in the middle of a farmer’s field. The cairn is said to be the grave of Abhartach, an ancient Irish vampire who is said to have been the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
The cairn—indeed, the entire town—is threatened by a proposed new bypass. The bypass will route so much traffic away from the town, it will kill the struggling local economy. Naturally, the construction will also move directly through the cairn.
After a very long Monday, I’m taking a moment to write a post I promised earlier today. Instead of my usual Monday Morning Movie Review, I’m offering up a preview of 100 films.
Just look at those glorious covers. What is going on with that hairy dude holding up a syringe full of a mysterious green substance? Why is there a woman’s head covered surrounded by tubes in a tub of liquid? Perhaps Dr. Fauci can weigh in.
Regardless, I’m super excited to watch these films—all 100 of them.
I’m finally coming up for air after two very long weeks of week. The multiple belated posts of the last week, including today’s, is indicative of the pace at which I’ve been working.
But no one wants to read (more!) about that. In the spirit of laziness and yuletide exhaustion, I’m offering up another three-film retrospective, as I continue marching through past editions of Monday Morning Movie Reviews:
“Monday Morning Movie Review: The Stuff (1985)” – 1985’s The Stuff is one of those movies that looks like it was filmed in the 1970s, but it takes place firmly in the 1980s. In that context, the satire of cultish consumerism and materialism run amok is pretty on the nose. Still, it’s a good film, combining elements of consumer protection advocacy, mass media advertising, consumerism, ruthless business tactics, and addiction into a blob of creamy terror.
“Monday Morning Movie Review: Star Wars (1977)” – Reviewing the original 1977 Star Wars is a bit ridiculous—what do I have to say that others have not already said, and better?—but I had the opportunity to watch it outdoors in a neighbor’s driveway on a big inflatable screen. Pretty awesome, eh?
There’s a new Shudder exclusive just in time for Christmas: 2021’s The Advent Calendar, a Belgian production entirely in French (but with English subtitles). The film stars the improbably lovely Eugénie Derouand as Eva, a paraplegic who—before a terrible automobile accident—was a gifted dancer.
A lot of the recent Shudder exclusives have been rather ho-hum. I viewed one recently—I can’t even remember it’s name now!—that was essentially post-horror: it was only atmospherically creepy, but nothing else about the film provoked scares. Sometimes a horror movie is “scary” in the sense that it poses difficult questions (the way good science-fiction does), or presents some intriguing moral dilemma—or just depicts the terrifying consequences of a society pursuing a certain path. That film didn’t even fit that criteria.
But The Advent Calendar does. It’s not a particularly frightening film, but it presents a classic dilemma: given the ability to improve your life dramatically at an extremely high cost—including sacrificing lives to achieve your goal—do you take the opportunity? It’s a bit like The Monkey’s Paw, as another, less favorable review notes: your wish comes true, but with horrifying unintended consequences.
Despite nearly botching the dilemma—more on that below—the film is compelling, and a fun watch (even if you’re reading subtitles the entire time).
It was a grueling week for yours portly, and the weekend hasn’t been much easier. There won’t be much resting this Sabbath; in addition to catching up on this quite belated post, I have quite a bit of prep work for the school week ahead, which includes not just writing review guides for exams (which also need to be written), but also preparing for the school’s annual Christmas concert. One major beef I have with the time-honored five-day workweek is that it leaves little precious time to attend to what needs getting done around the house (like fixing a clogged drain and hanging my Christmas lights), and this school year I feel like I am constantly grading and creating assessments.
But enough moaning. Here are three more film reviews, all three from August of this year, when I was deep in the throes of my ongoing love affair with Shudder, the horror streaming service:
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot would be! I loved this flick, which is about the title character, Sam Hell (Roddy Piper), infiltrating a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by frog people (thus, Hell Comes to Frogtown). The world is completely ridiculous, but fun, with hot babe super scientists, villainous frog dictators, and a man whose virility is so legendary, women lick their chops at the sight of him. It’s everything that made the 1980s great: original storylines, comedic machismo, and pro wrestlers as actors.
“Monday Morning Movie Review: Jakob’s Wife (2021)” – In August Shudder released a new exclusive film, Jakob’s Wife (2021), a feminist-inflected vampire story starring 80s scream queen Barbara Crampton. While the feminist themes were a bit heavy-handed at points, the film handled the subject matter with a surprising degree of nuance. For one, the film suggested (perhaps unintentionally) that female empowerment unleashed is a destructive, parasitical force—like a vampire. Regardless, Crampton’s portrayal of the titular wife is excellent, and the script makes us sympathize with her.
I’m coming off a dizzyingly long Thanksgiving, and while I enjoyed quite a bit of unstructured time, I surprisingly did not have much time for writing. Posts from the past week indicate the amount of phoning in I’ve done lately, and this week’s Monday Morning Movie Review will likely be no different.
After reading his review, I found that Shudder had the Herzog remake—which photog correctly identifies as a tribute to the 1922 F. W. Murnau film—and watched it. I will say that photog’s review really does an excellent job of detailing the highlights, so I’d encourage you to read it. As he goes through much of the plot, I’ll leave that alone, and instead will give some of my thoughts on the film.
Today marks the official start of my glorious Thanksgiving Break. My sage advice—to sacrifice Columbus Day as a day off in exchange for an entire week of freedom for Thanksgiving—has apparently, via osmosis, found its way to my school’s administration, and after slogging it out for three months, we’re finally reaping the benefits of that sacrifice.
This past weekend was also the first time in a few weeks I did not have to travel out of town for one reason or another, so I have watched a lot of movies on Shudder—the good, the bad, and the forgettable (I also managed to get in a late-night session of Civilization VI, eschewing my most recent playthrough as the Celts and cranking up a new run as the Incan Empire, which is slowly expanding across South America at the time of this writing). I managed to catch two flicks with the word “Ghostland” in their titles, one memorable and somewhat good, the other absolutely terrible: 2021’s Prisoners of Ghostland and 2018’s Incident in a Ghostland, respectively.
The Portly Politico 