Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #89: Forbidden World (1982)

Hello Space Marine. Care to have space sex?

The innuendo
drips like the slime from
black meta-mutants

Another Roger Corman alien-ripoff oh shit we're stuck in a space lab movie! When will it end? Hopefully never, because it's like a beautiful dream.

I was smitten with Forbidden World from the start because it gives you this trippy opening montage where a robot wakes a guy out of cryogenic stasis with some Beethoven. While the ship is being attacked by raiders. That's how I'd do it.

This one's actually pretty cool. I'm pleased to say that there's an attempt to keep the camera interesting throughout most of the movie, since we get a pretty wide variety of shots of things from places you wouldn't expect, but not so many that it starts to look like an overenthusiastic student film wank. You will get gratuitous ass shots of women walking in high heels, though. Quite a few. They're made to walk up and down the corridors in what must be standard space lab attire: skin-tight silvery jump suits with low cut chests and high heels. There are nighties too, and many situations where the female characters feel the need to be topless. Babes will literally bump into the protagonist and introduce themselves by batting their eyes. As one scientist puts it, the women there are apparently starved for new faces.

I absolutely love how often people will stop to have sex when there's a killer mutant loose in their science facility. It's got to be a space fetish of some kind. There's this ridiculous and great sequence where a security guard, who is watching for the goddamned deadly mutant, watches the blonde scientist get it on with the dopey space marine protagonist instead. It's an amazingly creepy violation of security camera protocol. As he watches, he pulls at some kind of light up space yo-yo and sweats profusely. This is the greatest form of space sex innuendo possible.

The scene is extra funny because the security guard looks exactly like Tim Roth. We get some fantastic space porno music evidently coming from a token black guy playing a screechy clear plastic space saxophone. This all goes on for a full two minutes, and the song actually gets pretty darn catchy by the time they hit orgasm. Forbidden Planet has a genuinely cool soundtrack by the way, a very Goblin one.

So while watching, the guard catches a glitch on a sensor and decides to investigate. That, of course, is serious trouble. What I love about his cautious search for the alien is that every 25 seconds or so we get a split second of the scientist and space marine having sex in their room. At first I was confused - is this guy afraid he's about to die and is reliving the happiest moment of his life? The one a minute ago when he was watching space marine fuck that girl he probably wants so badly? Then I thought: no, wait, the monster is using psychic projections of her getting it on to lure him in, because every time he hears something or looks over, it cuts to a few frames of sex. By the time the monster hits it's clear that they were going for a sex and murder montage that actually turns out to be fairly effective. An orgy of blood! An orgy of love! Everything the viewer might want in a scene! We get a shot of a different scientist smoking a cigarette afterwards, and I feel in my heart that it was Roger Corman in spirit.

The lab facility has a space sauna, and in the morning the space marine gets it on with girl number two there. The actor's attempt to look seductive just looks really weird - this doofy smirk and wide eyed "Heh heh, eh baby?" expression that makes the guy wholly unlikable. This look of course works within seconds on girl two, who's boyfriend was killed by the monster the previous day. Incredible. Space marine walks in and 'EEEK GET OUT! LEAVE NOW LEAVE NOW!' and after that pervy look, switches to (and this is a quote) "Fair's fair, get naked."

After the mutant attacks them both, some guy actually bulldozes over the fact that there's a killer creature on the loose by asking "Hey you know what I wanna know? I wanna know what you and Tracy were doing in there dressed like that." Just so girl number one can add a catty comment. Clearly, what they were doing in the sauna is much more important than the fact that they were nearly transformed into a digestible food tissue by a vicious mutant, and somebody better damn well take care of it. Nobody seems to give a shit about the mutant until it's attacking someone.

Hmm...maybe we should do something about this soon?

Now, you might have read my review of 1991's Dead Space. Turns out that Dead Space was in fact Roger Corman's remake of Forbidden World. Same plot. Same characters. Different names. At least three lines of dialogue that I noticed in Forbidden World found their way into Dead Space. The opening space battle in DS is lifted from the opening of FW, and I'm guessing that FW probably takes it from some even earlier Roger Corman film. Probably Battle Beyond the Stars, though it's been a while since I've seen that one.

So: You really have to watch any movie where characters hit computer keys with glowsticks. Standard, ordinary dollar-store glowsticks. Because fingers just aren't good enough.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #88: Valhalla Rising (2009)

I've been meaning to write a review for Valhalla Rising for quite some time. I've name-dropped it in other reviews, promising that I'd one day say a bit more about it. That day is upon you.

If you read any of the reviews I posted about The Pusher Trilogy, you probably noticed that I have nothing but high praise for Danish writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn. I haven't seen anything he's touched that I haven't liked. His images are stirring and organic, and he knows how to pull interesting performances out of his actors. He seems to be able to work special magic when he's working with Valhalla Rising lead Mads Mikkelson, a guy who could very easily turn into a misused Hollywood action chump (like in the awful Clash of the Titans remake). But he's chosen some very interesting, and in the case of Valhalla, daring films to be part of. In Valhalla Rising he doesn't say a single word.

Mads is 'One Eye', a completely silent one-eyed Viking slave/prize-fighter who eventually finds himself on a ship filled with Scotsman bound for the Crusades. There's really not too much more to say about the plot.

I'd wager that anyone passing by the DVD case would be immediately mislead. It's image of a grim Viking warrior standing alone with an axe in hand might make you expect a film filled with spectacle-driven violence. It isn't. There's in fact very little violence, but what violence there is some of the grittiest, ugliest violence I've seen on a screen. Mads' screen presence is great, and though silent (not to be confused with mute), manages to present you with a startling enigma you constantly struggle to decipher in terms of emotion and motive. This movie is minimalist in its strategy in almost every way and works essentially as a thought-provoking, poetic, and captivating existential mood piece. And it's about a fucking Viking. Who knew.

So: My pick for best movie of the year (it was released in North America only recently). Might not be your cup of tea, but if anything I said tickled your fancy, watch it.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #87: Dead Space (1991)

Think about your hungry children, Bryan.

Another Roger Corman Alien rip-off with people and monster trapped in an inescapable lab!

Beastmaster dude Marc Singer plays a han solo-ish space marine, and he's alright. His mildly sarcastic robot sidekick is pretty cool. That's about all of interest in this movie.

The lead actress is absolutely terrible, and every line she delivers falls completely to the floor and shatters into pieces of "Why the fuck am I watching this?" I'd guess that she got the lead role because she was the only one to agree to get topless during the space-sex scene. Any of the relatively much more talented actresses in the cast would have been a better choice, and would have made Dead Space an easier pill to swallow. Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston makes a solid appearance as one of the main scientists at the facility though, and while nearly as boring as the other characters, it's clear from the get go that as an actor he's doing his absolute best with the gig.

The fight scenes are hilariously bad. I know I usually use words like "hilarious" in my reviews of terrible films, but this time I really really mean it. I actually laughed out loud during a few sequences, and had to pause the movie so my brain could do a reality check and confirm that I was actually seeing what I was seeing. Dead Space probably has the worst fight sequences I have ever seen, and I've seen my fair share of shitty violence. Characters just run around, back and forth, aimlessly diving and rolling. From one side of the room and then back again. To clutch at someone they don't think can hold their own and then topple over in fear. And normally, when you have a monster in a movie, you don't just have your characters start shouting and shooting and then show the monster lurking by the fog machine, you give a hint that the creature is there by the fog machine, all misty and atmospheric-like, and then you can have the heroes react. But this movie is riddled with instances where the characters are reacting to a monster we haven't been shown yet - not because we don't know what it looks like, we do already. But solely as an editing choice. The monster shots come last, come separately, and in some cases, have been shot in totally different locations and then edited together. It's pretty clear that most of the special effects shots were done late in the game, and that's normally a relatively fine stratagem if the editing supports it. The movie seems not to care overly much though.

The carelessness of the movie manifests in other numerous, joyously funny ways. Characters will sometimes enter a fight scene as though they were already battling for hours and are ready to pass out, just to match the forced intensity of the movie's scuffles. A particularly lame and cowardly character enters a room with an enormous alien creature he's terrified of and actually takes noticeable time to just walk up to it (in perfectly sound mind) just to get close enough so he could get killed for us. All the while he's being shouted at: "What are you doing? Where are you going?? What are you doing!?" At points it almost seems like a character takes on the consciousness of the movie and expresses its confusion over why it's doing what it's doing. The aforementioned lame character filled that role earlier by asking questions like "Why is he going up there??" and "What is he doing? He's stupid." Those were valid meta-questions, though within the film he was just being a dick.

The space marine walks into a room and somehow doesn't see the same huge alien creature that couldn't have possibly been hiding anywhere. He doesn't notice it until a claw peeks into the frame and attacks. The best response of course is to push the person he's trying to protect, his new girlfriend, onto the floor in front of the creature. He then backs up and starts shooting bullets that have never once injured the creature during the course of the film. If a bear ever came at my girlfriend and I during a secluded camping trip, I know I'd toss her down in front of the bear and start hurling small stones. I guess there's not too much threat with the monster though, it kind of just stands around and waves it's arms.

Of final note, this movie has an awful synthesized orchestral soundtrack that sounds like the jaunty background music to some old medieval strategy game.

So: I barely got through it, but I'm eternally grateful that this movie exists.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #86: The Terror Within (1989)

I've been watching more Roger Corman ripoffs of Alien. Galaxy of Terror wasn't enough. Corman seems to be following a set up he likes for its relative simplicity: people are stuck in an isolated and inescapable lab facility with a monster that ripped out of someone's body. The monster picks everyone off one by one by working its way through the air vents.

The Terror Within takes that formula and places it within a post-apocalyptic setting where women give birth to mutants called Gargoyles. Where Galaxy of Terror had a maggot rape sequence, this time we get a Gargoyle rape sequence! Not nearly as graphic as its predecessor but just as ridiculous.

There's not much to say about this one, apart from the fact that it's deliciously terrible and manages to satisfy my craving for post-apocalyptic movies, for the odd moment anyway. You'll get awful acting, macho heroes and pseudo-feminist "I want to fight too!" heroines, a guy in a rubbery mutant suit, and an ending with an explosive final move that doesn't make sense because it isn't necessary. It also ruins chances of future survival in case their rescue doesn't actually pan out.

That isn't a spoiler because the heroes don't actually use it save their butts. They do it because they seem fixated on blowing up their lab for some reason, and so that the lead male could say "Adios motherfuckers" when some Gargoyles, on cue, start to crowd around their dilapidated shack/secret entrance. This is of course for the sake of having an explosion in a movie that up until that point had none, and been relatively ok for it. I kind of like how afterwards, however, the two survivors just sort of wander off into the Gargoyle-infested desert with their dog, supposedly making for some other lab in just as bad shape, and the credits roll to haunting music. Chances that they'll make it? SLIM.

So: Chances that you need to watch this? SLIMMER. Unless you've got bad taste like myself.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #85: Four Lions (2010)

Chris Morris, a notoriously shy, reclusive BBC comedian and so-called "media terrorist" has directed his first feature film. And fittingly, it's about terrorism. Yippee! He's directed for and starred in various BBC television projects in the past, and his stuff is typically hilarious and full of biting commentary. Seeing his name on the DVD case certainly grabbed my interest, since it promised something aggressively satirical.

Four Lions centres on four British jihadists trying to take their ideals to a violent end and blow themselves up in the name of the great struggle against MacDonald's and Jews and all that jazz. One of the characters is so comfortable with blowing up that his own family encourages him lovingly towards his goal as though he were simply going for a raise at his security job. He's the one with the most relative sense, and the other guys are mostly hapless, confused, and belligerent. Some of them aren't exactly sure they want to blow up, but the peer pressure is too great for them. One goes so far as to try to train cute, friendly crows strapped with bombs to fly into sex toy shops and jihad themselves up to heaven. It doesn't go too well.

While the characters are clearly huge idiots, they also seem very human. The stupidity that it takes to blow yourself up and kill people doesn't precisely come from a fanatically religious place in Four Lions. Rather, it seems to have more to do with human insecurities and vulnerabilities. This makes the characters mostly sympathetic idiots rather than easily dismissed and disliked religious lunatics. You get the constant impression that these people are missing something and getting in way over their heads. The key phrase at a pivotal moment in the narrative is "I'm sorry. I don't really know what I'm doing."

So: Some interesting and endearing satire. Worth a look.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #84: Galaxy of Terror (1981)

Hi kids. Captain Spaulding here, this time with CRYSTAL NINJA STARS.

This wonderful Gigeresque Alien ripoff is full of familiar faces. I was amazed to see Robert Englund, Ray Walston, someone from Happy Days but not who you're thinking, and Sid Haig, all milling about in a space ship together in a movie that looks and plays out like an issue of Heavy Metal. Here's why:

After a generic scene where a dude somewhere is running away from something scary and dies, the movie proper opens in a way I wasn't expecting. The movie decides to trip the hell out. We get a guy playing some kind of lasery table game with an old witch. He's called The Master, and he has a glowing plasma flame for a head. No face.

The Master, getting it done.

Him and The Oracle are apparently deciding the fate of the planet, and The Master orders a rescue mission, one that apparently needs to happen for reasons of Destiny, to a planet where something awful happened years ago. The dialogue in that scene is grandiose and striking, and I eat that crazy space opera/space fantasy stuff up like alphacentaurigetti.

Though it's mostly rushed thanks to its hour and twenty runtime, the movie works pretty hard to give each character some kind of bizarre distinctness, most fun of which, and most out of the blue, is Sid Haig's character Quuhod. He's an understanding and empathic warrior-type who "lives and dies by the crystal," meaning that as a master of these cool crystal throwing blades he can touch no other weapon. Sid Haig apparently, on reading the script, insisted that Quuhod be played entirely mute. He thought the lines were terrible and didn't suit the character at all, and given most of the dialogue in the film, was probably right. Famed producer Roger Corman heard his pleas and agreed. Quuhod's muteness, coupled with the movie's tendency to give you hints of back story and lore without actually telling you what any of it is, adds a wonderful mystique to the narrative that the movie really needed. I kind of want a movie just with Quuhod, hiking across the galaxy like the man with no name and dealing in blade wounds instead of gunshots. But this is a universe where dreams are shattered. This is a galaxy....of terror! Though it might be a Battle Beyond the Stars, since it uses enough stock footage from that previous Corman sci-fi.

I found myself liking this flick not just for its Corman-infused silliness, but its streaks of seriousness. As I mentioned before, much of the stuff you see seems like it could have come right off the pages of Heavy Metal Magazine. The movie possesses the same kind of weird, dark, and at times sexual space opera that I can't get enough of, though almost did when it came to the maggot rape sequence. Yep.

I wish I could say a maggot was raped when I write "maggot rape sequence," but I'm afraid an enormous maggot rapes a busty blonde in Galaxy of Terror, and that the scene was a big part of the movie's relative success. I'd forgotten up until that point that I was watching a Roger Corman flick. It will only make sense once you find out what an evil pyramid in the movie is all about, but not much sense.

Also, James Cameron was apparently second unit director and production designer. In the special features there's a handful of really interesting anecdotes about a smug and combative Cameron berating people for various silly reasons. The prosthetics department supposedly made a monster partially in the likeness of Cameron, though I couldn't see any similarities apart from the claws and slime. The special features on the disc are great, and Roger Corman's interviews always offer illuminating insight into the filmmaking business and its trends and turns.

So: Fair amounts of gore, a Heavy Metal magazine vibe, and a haunting ending I wasn't expecting. Cool stuff.

Gaming on Facebook - Gaming's Ugliest Manifestation!

Came across an interesting article on Gamespot about the nature of Facebook gaming, and the way it's probably affecting the game industry. It goes so far as to say that Facebook games, designed specifically to be addictive cash grabs, are in fact morally reprehensible. THE WIZAARD AGREES.

Here's the link.

And here's a lil' blurb! Off you go then, lil' blurb:

"My worry is from the player's standpoint. If the research carries over to gameplay as it does in other [fields], it will actually turn people off games in the long run. It emphasizes the shallow, dumb, non-interesting tasks, and it decreases motivation for interesting tasks that might be intrinsically motivated."

Hecker said his hope for games is that they become the preeminent art form of the 21st century in the same way film was for the 20th century. His concern is that the industry is engaging in trends now that will hold it back from achieving that goal in the future.

"The way you become the 'preeminent art form of the 21st century' is not by giving people more achievements and stuff," Hecker said. "It's by making deeper and more compelling games."

Much of the article denounces the popular 'microtransaction model', where you pay real money here and there for in-game benefits that ultimately just help you play the game more effectively until you need to purchase the next benefit. But one enthused developer suggested that it's a more honest way to sell games - thousands of dollars are spent on marketing campaigns designed to sell you a game that you might not like. So the alternative is to give you a free game, and if you like it, you can invest in it yourself. That makes some sense, but the model leads to a troubling gaming experience that is necessarily dependent on fostering an urge to keep you buying, and where the indulgence in that urge is the sole reward for playing. Any compelling or engaging gaming experiences, which I'll argue are dreadfully important in our current culture, are going to take backseat to our ugly consumer drives. Which is decidedly not what we need more of. It's gaming at it's most barefaced business-like, without passion and without enrichment. It's just a casino.

Some say it's training a new generation of gamers that normally would never have touched a video game, since console controllers, even those of the Wii, are scary. But what are these gamers being taught to respond to? At the risk of sounding alarmist, I worry, and suspect that while these gamers can certainly evolve past their Facebook training wheels, the majority will come to find enjoyment only in games that are easily thrown away. The perceived threat is in the model becoming so popular and lucrative that we see a decline in games that actually matter. And yes, some of them do.

Facebook gaming certainly won't demolish the video game industry, but it has created an embarrassing and exploitative trend. It's also succeeded in creating a class of gamer that the rest will mutter and moan about for years to come.

Oh, and it looks like Sid Meier of Civilization fame is developing a Facebook version of Civ. I guess once that hits, you'll never see your friends again, but for messages like "Lame McCrappersmith has built the Parthenon! Join and beat him to the Panama Canal for $4.99!"

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #83: The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)

Still insatiable
hungry for monster movies
I watch Black Lagoon

There are embarrassingly huge gaps in my cinema history, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon has been on my 'to watch' list for years and on my mind for the past few months. Finally saw it, and was surprised by how much I liked it. Great atmosphere, great monster, and an environmental subtext I hadn't been expecting. There's a shot where the leading lady tosses an unwanted cigarette into the creature's lagoon, and the camera moves below the surface to the face of the creature, who watches silently. Thanks to how it's shot the cigarette becomes invasive, and, more importantly, insulting. This is some of the earliest environmental awareness I've seen in a Hollywood film, sci-fi fear of toxic waste and nuclear war aside. There's a scene where poison is dumped into the lagoon to force the creature out of hiding, and the comatose fish that litter the water's surface highlights the disregard for the natural world that the scientists, behaving more like hunters, are exhibiting.

The creature itself looks awesome, and the amount of understanding and sympathy we find in him makes for great monster cinema.

So: A thoroughly satisfying classic.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #82: Pig Hunt (2008)

Fangoria Magazine's foray into horror film production is a welcome experiment. Of the handful of films they've produced so far, I've only managed to see Pig Hunt because I was drawn to the dark and epic boar on the cover.

I'd heard it said that with Pig Hunt, the filmmakers realised that having a giant boar as a nemesis makes for demanding special effects, so they decided to throw a bunch of other dangerous obstacles in their way. Rednecks. Dangerous hippies. Lesser boars. This is for the most part effective, but in the end I found myself wanting Moby Dick in the forest far too much to reach any full appreciation.

The soundtrack is pretty nifty thanks to it having been partially composed by slap-bass demi-god Les Claypool, of Primus fame. He's also in the movie, as a violent redneck priest. The only kind of redneck priest, I suppose.

The giant pig, once it hits, is puppetous and satisfying for it. In general, if you've got the choice between low-budge CGI or low-budge practical effects, you'd better pick the latter. At the very least, your actors have something physical to contend with. Who doesn't want to watch a giant and slimy pig puppet crunch into a human being?

So: Has its moments, but the characters are mostly boring. This one's a maybe.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #81: Blue Planet (2001)

This BBC series apparently five years in the making is narrated by none other than the nature doc legend himself, David Attenborough. His wisened voice has lent itself well to the nature documentary for some time, and does no disservice to the sea. If you haven't treated yourself to a lengthy and thoroughly entertaining series like this yet, you better get on that while there are still animals in the ocean to appreciate.

As you'd expect, you'll be given stunning footage of the intricacies of undersea life, running through the various kinds of sea environments that the world has to offer. You'll be given footage and information that might even turn off the squeamish - nature, children's stories tell us, isn't exactly nice, or unfalteringly pretty. Easy to forget, but the series will offer up some firm reminders that majesty is a thing of power, and power is very often a thing of violence. When you're not seeing amazing beauty, you might be seeing killer whales play tennis with a baby seal, or the eggy, undulating jangly bits of lobsters ready to give birth.

So: Awesome. An emotional roller coaster at times, but in the healthiest way.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #80: Until The Light Takes Us (2008)

I'd heard about a handful of documentaries that have popped up over the past two or three years tackling Norwegian black metal and its turbulent history as their subject. When one actually appeared in front of me after I drew a pentagram in ketchup on the floor and lit some scented candles, I decided to give it a watch. Being big on Norwegian black metal myself, I was wary of being sold a cheap hunk of fan-service meant to do little more than nod in my direction for an hour and 20.

Opening up the DVD package I found a pretentious little booklet with a glowing review, an essay by the directors telling you what theoretical approach to use while watching, and a Fredric Jameson quote. Huh. Unexpected. But I should have expected this - with black metal having become a satanic farce, there's been a real push among aficionados to re-contextualise the subgenre and understand it as a clear instance of youth culture. And, moreover, as punk did before it, be recognised as a viable movement with an ethos of its own.

I'm happy to report that Until The Light Takes Us doesn't hammer that notion down into your skull as fiercely as the booklet does. Instead it follows the daily lives of four or five key figures in black metal history - of special note, Fenriz of Darkthrone and Varg Vikernes of Burzum, the latter of which was, at the time of filming, still in jail for murder and the arson of historic church sites. Other figures from the metal scene of the period pop in and out of the film, but the most engrossing portraits are found in those main two. They are old friends and they haven't spoken to each other in years. They don't come together in the film, as there is a palpable sadness that forces them to leave it all to time. It culminates during a scene where Fenriz is shown footage, shown earlier, of Varg speaking well of him and his music, but Varg, as always, is possessed by a persecution complex, and you can hear the accusation of abandonment in his voice. Fenriz actually holds back tears and laments over the past with little word.

There's a lot of psychoses on display in the film. His obsession with persecution aside, Varg hints at anti-semitism, Hellhammer explicitly approves of the killing of homosexuals, Fenriz tries to figure out where it all went sour, and a younger black metaller takes part in an ultra grim performance art piece proposed by a local painter. All reflect on what the genre is supposed to be about, and their points slowly converge. When all is said and done, we've been given a look at the really interesting and sympathetic people that invented a new mode of metallic expression, and the really interesting and awful ones that are an inseparable part of it too.

For black metal fans, you'll get the bonus of seeing intimate interviews with people you've probably mostly read about, and rare rehearsal footage you might have never seen before.

So: Surprisingly good. Worth a watch for fans and non-fans alike.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #79: Mystery Science Theater 3000: Santa Claus (1959, MST3K Version in 1993)

Forever at war.

Not sure what MST3k is? Read this first!

Apparently Santa was not in high standing in Mexico in '59. El Santo certainly was, but Santa and Christmas were, it was felt, a distinctly American tradition that had little place in the imaginations of Mexican children. How best to sell the Santa meme to Mexico? Why, the only way to properly bridge the gap is to put Santa in the service of god! You know, make him lock horns with satan and his minions! Kid movie stuff. The MST crew have a field day.

Santa lives in a cloud fortress made of crystal and filled with surreal anthropomorphic contraptions that monitor Earth. These contraptions were made by none other than fucking Merlin. Merlin lives in the fortress with Santa. Oh, and an army of 6 year old toy-making workers from every nation on the planet. These must be the purest child-souls to be found on Earth, to be working for god's newest general in a magic cloud city. The elves are nowhere to be found, and this will be a strange movie indeed. I can only assume that they, like the angels before them, grew jealous and rebelled and were cast down amidst the fire.

Soon enough we get a bizarre sequence with Santa playing organ and singing along with each nation's representatives in turn, and let me tell you, it is a badly dubbed buffet of racial stereotyping.

I'd have to say this episode possesses one of my favourite MST3K moments to date, a moment where the clockwork reindeer, having just been awakened from their year-long slumber, begin to laugh along with a merry Santa. Now, the reindeer's jaws open and shut in a jerking, string-pulled fashion and they can never blink. Their laugh grows into what I'm sure is an unintentionally disturbing cackle, a cackle the guys of course are compelled, in the evil spirit of Christmas, to join in on. It then becomes an unholy chorus of laughter akin to the scene in Evil Dead where Ash has his first true mental breakdown.

It's possibly the most offensive MST I've seen, and certainly one of the darkest. Given the subject matter of the film in front of them, the boys aren't afraid to make fun of every national culture they can think of in the name of fairness and in step with the flick, and poke fun at the rammed down your throat religiosity and fear of hell that this film tries to install into children.

So: Pretty damn awesome. Still with a bit a Hallowe'en in the brain yet ready for Christmas, this might be perfect for you sinners.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #78: The Mummy's Hand (1940)

Continuing my march into monster movie mania, The Mummy's Hand!

A lot of light comedy and not as much hammy horror as I had hoped. You do get a bit of it though - the sort where there's a slow-moving monster creeping closer and closer to a half-asleep love interest and EEEEEEEEK other love interest bursts in and BLAM BLAM but too late! Her dad is maybe dead but no he's just knocked out cold and she's gone! Oh noes! If only it had more of that and the lurchy dusty mummy responsible for the whole mess it might have been worth sitting through. We've seen the mummy before, we don't really need him saved up for a big reveal or final act. Turn it loose. Let the new Egyptian empire begin its ancient reign of terror anew! Bricka bracka firecracka' siss boom bah! Go Mummy Go, Amun-Ra-Ra-Ra!

Instead you'll have some dull character set-up that ends up accomplishing little by the time the curse hits home. A good chunk of the movie is spent on a magician character's various parlour tricks, or rather, the edits that make them work. A buffoony support character practices one of tricks throughout the first half of the movie so he could, I thought, use it at an opportune moment and save the day later. Turns out it was just filler. Like the stock footage they used from the first movie with Boris Karloff edited out.

So: Not terribly worth it.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #77: Frankenstein (1931)

So much is different from the original story that comparing the two is a pretty good waste of time. This film exists as its own entity and really has a life of its own. Of the classic monster movies I've seen to date on my Hallowe'en trek, this one is by far the best. I daresay it's a masterpiece. At its heart it contains a 'who is really the monster' dynamic that has since become awfully trite, but in its original form still potent.

As if the hints of German Expressionism wasn't enough to catch my interest, much of the acting is actually pretty good, which, given the other classic Universal horror films I've watched, was a total surprise. Boris Karloff is fantastic as the monster, and it's easy to see how, I think after this film, he became a household name. His monster is incredibly sympathetic. After a sheltered and grim life filled with torture, the monster frees himself and escapes into the woods. There's an amazing scene where he finds a little girl. The little girl hands him a flower, and they sit down by a pond. She shows him how you can throw a flower into the water and watch it float gently along. The monster is so overjoyed to find something kind and delicate and beautiful in the world that it is genuinely tear-pulling when something goes wrong. He gets up, trying his best at laughter, and throws the little girl into the water because she's like a flower too. She drowns, and it's genuinely disturbing to see the monster's panicked reaction when he doesn't understand what's happened. I hadn't felt that stirred by a movie in a long time. I was really bothered by the moment.

Made before the motion picture code was actively enforced, you get some cinema that's not afraid to upset you. While the edges will sometimes show, the violence is shocking when it wants to be, and I found myself continuously surprised by what the film was prepared to do. The film bubbles with potential violence, and by the time the mob lights their torches, the loss of control that you didn't realise was creeping into your brain reaches its apex. People shout through the streets, dogs yelp, women and children cower on the sidelines, and the beast has been loosed on the monster. It was a torch that was initially used to torture the monster, and it's unsettlingly fitting that an army of them tries to flush him out of hiding, trap him, and set him ablaze. Karloff's thrashing screams while the flames rise about him will stick with me for awhile.

Also surprising, I'm noticing that the female characters in these early monster movies aren't as helpless as I expect them to be, and I wonder if that had anything to do with the code as well. They're not neutered characters, and rigid gender roles don't seem to have been installed as safety mechanisms yet. The women in these films are just as sensible as the men, and they aren't afraid to speak their mind. In the years to come, that wouldn't be the case for quite a while. Hell, it's mostly not the case in films today.

Despite all of the injustice in the film, it's hard to really hate anyone in it save for an annoying comic relief character I'll just ignore. The monster is understandable, Dr. Frankenstein is understandable, the angry torch-wielding village folk are understandable, and even the abusive Fritz is understandable. He's a deformed hunchback that Dr. Frankenstein treated like shit. Of course he was going to whip the monster and burn him when Frankenstein wasn't looking. Nobody's really to blame in this film, which makes it so remarkable. It ends off remarkably too, with an an ironic ending that presses home the severe tragedy at the centre of the film.

So: Fantastic. I expected an iconic cheese-fest and got a dramatic masterpiece that probably made it to my list of favourite films.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #76: The Mummy (1932)

Still going on my Hallowe'en kick and finally getting around to seeing the great monster classics of film history. I had decided a few weeks back that I was going to go for a classic costume this year, and I settled on the one that (I won't call the Invisible Man a monster, he was just a big jerk) is probably talked about the least: the Mummy!

You're probably familiar with the Brendan Fraser Mummy from 1999. I'll pause to shudder for a sec. It lifted some elements from the original Mummy, namely the fact that there's a guy named Imhotep that fell in love with the Pharaoh's daughter. She died. Then his love drove him to seek out forbidden rituals and raise her from the dead, but he was caught, and soon sentenced to be buried alive and partially mummified. A terrible curse was laid down upon his tomb.

Made a year after the success of Dracula and featuring much of the same cast and crew, The Mummy doesn't possess the same magic but manages to be a pretty cool flick for a number of reasons. I guess I'll tell you what those might be, since this is a review and I only get fed my fish heads if I write a review. I also might get my beloved red bouncy ball back.

For starters, I saw this film before I watched the historic Frankenstein, and this was my first run in with the real Boris Karloff. I find that I love Boris Karloff. He's starring as Imhotep, and his rigid creepiness, sullen voice, and gaunt face have all been parodied so often that I felt immediately familiar with him. It was a treat to finally see the icon at work.

Secondly, like with Dracula, I was surprised to find an interesting female character, this time one both alluring, evasively clever, and amazingly unafraid to refer, just once, to sex. She's played by Broadway actress Zita Johann, who was actually seriously interested in the spiritualism of the occult and took her role perhaps a little too seriously. There's a famous scene in the movie where she dies in a past life. She reportedly fainted for real in that scene, after a strenuous day of filming without much food or water thanks to the director's cruel and ridiculous feud with her.

Now, the plot is almost identical to the plot of Dracula. We get the dude who played Van Helsing playing Doctor Muller, who is, like Van Helsing, a master of occult lore and adept at fighting the supernatural. He helps everybody out when shit hits the fan. Like Dracula, the Mummy seems to be after a young woman in Muller/Van Helsing's care. Imhotep also seems to be able to control people's minds, like Dracula could, by staring hard at them. What makes him different, though, is motive. The man isn't entirely evil, he's just obsessed with a love he couldn't attain. That's all. Leave him alone, you guys.

I was hoping, especially for my costume research, to get some serious dusty cloth-wrapped mummy action. Sadly there is virtually none in the first Mummy. Instead you get a slightly wrinkly Boris Karloff, who has inexplicably been restored to much of his living health. There's no lurching violence, but there are a few ancient Egyptian spells used to wreak some havoc.

So: A cool piece of monster history, if not as great as other first monster appearances. Certainly better than most Monster Movie sequels to come. The Mummy manages to hold his own. Also, look at this:

Black Metal Meets Surf Rock!

On a whim yesterday I googled "black surf rock," hoping that someone, somewhere, had also thought that a fusion of Norwegian black metal and surf rock would be a music to end all musics. Though I hoped, I expected little. I didn't think anyone would have actually bothered.

I'm sorry I doubted you, internet.

Some geniuses (perhaps the same one) have put up a handful of surf rock covers of black metal essentials, by the likes of Burzum, Emperor, and Darkthrone. I present to you, then, The Burzums! The Emperors! And The Darkthrones!

(Just a heads up on the first vid - it starts with a few seconds of footage featuring a bird getting swatted from the air by a desert wind turbine, in grim California style)







These are all done by MrMeddled, and there's more cool stuff on his youtube channel. Do check out his write ups for each video, since they're wildly entertaining reads. Here's a sample:

The Burzums was the musical project by Varg "Charlie" Vikernes. It began during 1961 in Bergen, California and quickly became prominent within the early Californian surf scene. During 1962 and 1963, The Burzums recorded four albums; however, in 1964 Vikernes was convicted and imprisoned for stealing a box of matches, stealing a box of matches on a Sunday, siphoning fuel from a parked Studbaker, posessing a guitar amp rated above 10 Watts (the upper threshold of human hearing in 1964) and protesting loudly about how much of his hard earned money was creamed off and wasted on that joke of an airplane known as the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. While imprisoned, Vikernes recorded two offensively bad albums in the dark ambient surf style.

Hilarious, given that Varg "Count Grishnack" Vikernes was in fact the guy that unwittingly put black metal on the map by burning churches and getting convicted of murder back in the early 90s.

And on a side note, a little band called Hurtigruten. Their track 'The Black Surfers' is another cover of Emperor's 'I Am The Black Wizards,' a title I never get tired of saying aloud.

Black metal riffs lend themselves surprisingly well to surf guitar, given both genres insistance on tremolo picking. In some cases it sounds like you could pretty much just slow down a black metal riff and take out the distortion for instant and eerie surf rock.

How I wish these were real bands, and their tracks available in album form. I would pay good gold for these items. What a grim black metal beach party I would dance in.

If you don't see the vids, they'll be on my original blog post here.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #75: Mystery Science Theater 3000: Night of the Blood Beast (1958, MST3K Version in 1995)

I've probably made reference to MST3k in other reviews and explained its basic concept, but now that I finally come to review one of their many, many episodes I'll give your lovely heart a refresher.

Dr. Forrester is an evil crazy-go-mad scientist who has decided that he wants to rule the world. But to do that, he is certain that he must break the will of earth's populace. The most obvious way to do this is to force them to watch the most incompetent, most embarrassing, most boring films ever made by their own feeble human hands. Naturally, this procedure should be tested first in a controlled environment. So Dr. Forrester kidnaps his laboratory janitor, Joel, and jettisons him into the seclusion of his secret space station, the Satellite of Love. He sends Joel awful movies and monitors the man's brain - but what's this? He manages to stay sane somehow! The key to Joel's survival is that he makes fun of the cinematic shit he's sent with the help of two robot friends he constructed from satellite parts. In the series, you get to watch the awful films Dr. Forrester sends with Joel and the bots riffing and cracking jokes all the while. Its like watching a terrible movie with some hilarious friends, the sort that makes any movie experience ten times better.

There's tons of episodes, and each one is an entire film minus the 15 or 20 minutes trimmed for the sake of the MST3k sketches that pepper the show. Some episodes are a great success, some are not, since some films just are so terrible that the MST crew can't win. Night of the Blood Beast, though, is fantastic. It comes from season 7 of the series and is probably one of the best episodes I've seen. Night of the Blood Beast is a Roger Corman wonder, filled with lots of dull walking scenes, awful dialogue, sci fi pontification, and rubbery alien monsters. The boys are in great riffing form, and I ended up laughing out loud, or LOLing if you will, more than once. I tend not to LOL when watching comedies, and usually just smirk and chuckle ever so slightly. This is due to the terrible burden I carry, the alien shrimps gestating within me. I identified with the astronaut in Night of the Blood Beast completely.

So: Wicked-awesome. This one features Mike instead of Joel, who is, I think, my favourite of the two Forrester victims.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #74: Babylon 5 - Season 1 (1994)

I'm sure some of you know this series well. It's a TV series that's held in pretty high esteem by a great many, myself included.

This review will be for two sorts of people. One is the sort that has seen some of the first season and said to themselves "this is a piece of shit and I hate your guts J. Michael Straczynski" and stopped watching. The other is the sort that say to themselves, every year or so, "I should probably get around to watching that crazy Babylonia 18 show that my nerd friends talk about too often."

The concept is this: Babylon 5 is earth's greatest achievement - a massive space station in distant and neutral space built to function as a centre of commerce and diplomacy between the various alien races of the galaxy. Lots of politics, fantastic character drama, and, about 2 seasons in, grand and poetic space opera of the best kind. Probably 70 percent of the series was written all at once as what creator Straczynski calls a telenovel, and benefits greatly from having had a start and finish already intricately planned by the time the pilot hit the airwaves.

Babylon 5 tries very hard not to be Star Trek, and does pretty damn well in its goal. B5 isn't afraid to give you alien races that are much more alien than your average Trek alien. Communication between alien cultures is often very strained. There's a large mantis-like insect that's top gangster in the shady areas of the station, and a tentacle-faced Cthulu-type alien that only eats decaying food because they evolved from a scavenging animal. In general, the skull shapes and faces of the alien races are a bit more varied than you're used to in other shows.

This doesn't always make for a good first impression however. You have to get over your initial knee-jerk this-is-not-like-startrek reaction and adapt to the different flavour. Star Trek has had a monopoly on sci fi television for so long that any series that isn't Star Trek wears its invisible shackles. If you had caught any episodes of the series during its run in the 90s, you probably saw a dude with hair like a paper fan and changed the channel. On its surface, and because of season 1's terrible budget, the show can look pretty silly at times. The CGI stuff didn't look good, and the sets looked dreadfully cheap. Michael O'Hare's lead act as Captain Sinclair is embarrassing, and he manages to ruin almost every scene that reaches for emotional force. Once he leaves in season 2, the series takes a serious upturn. So season 1 is pretty terrible, but there's enough important information and character set-up that unfortunately makes it necessary to watch. Now and again you'll get a winning episode, one that hints at the bigger picture to come in later seasons, but for the most part season 1 is comprised of forgettable little one-offs.

So: Placing the 'recommended' tag on this review was a strange decision, but for the awesomeness of what is to come, it must be so written. And the fan hair will grow on you once you realise how fucking awesome Londo Mollari is.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #73: Amazons (1986)

High adventure in progress.

This wildly entertaining sword and sorcery flick, like most of them, comes to us from the dark and time-fogged forests of the 1980s. Under the supreme command of dread mogul Roger Corman, a screenplay was commissioned to Charles Saunders, who based his script off a short story he wrote for an anthology called, coincidentally, Amazons!. So that Amazons! was apparently the first significant anthology of fantasy works using female protagonists and written by a mostly female cast of authors. You'd expect, then, that the Amazons under review is an interesting feministical text where warrior women fight for equality and independence in a harsh and largely masculine world, right? Well yeah you get that. Only with boobs. Lots of boobs. This is a film, after all, and it is common knowledge that only films with boobs do well. I remind you of Titanic.

If you've seen as many 80s sword and sorcery movies as I have, you might recognise these common links:

• There will be a scene where a woman takes off her top.
• There will be a scene where women are swimming naked in a river and are being watched by drooling pervs.
• There will be a scene with sex in it.
• It is made in Argentina.

We will not be given armour or be clothed against the elements.

Amazons is of course about a tribe of warrior women. They are under the command of a queen who rules over a kingdom currently under siege by an evil wizard named Kalungo. When I hear the name Kalungo I can't help but imagine a cute baby elephant, a born in captivity type that's maybe the result of a worrying but in the end rewarding pairing. Not so much a demon-enslaved lightning-throwing sorcerer. After doing some quick online digging, however, I find to my shame that a kalunga, or calunga, is a Brazilian descendant of runaway slaves. The word can mean many things, and is oddly enough used both as a derogatory racial label and as a byword for someone who is famous or important. Go figure. Charles Saunders is African-American, and I wonder if the link here is merely coincidence or some interesting subtext.

Oh, right, the movie. So anyway the amazons need to quite obviously find a magic sword since it's the only thing that can stand up to Kalungo's evil magic. Two amazon babes are sent on the quest, and it's hilariously wonderful. It's great fun to watch people use prop weapons they've never handled before. Especially when they haven't been given much supplementary training. You're basically given a bunch of calendar models who drill practice their spear maneuvers with 'What if I really hurt someone?' hesitance. A real winner's attitude on the mock-battlefield. Sword duels can sometimes look half-decent, but largely possess a 'What am I doing?' grace that lends the whole production metric ass-loads of charm.

So: A fantastic watch with friends. Can't get enough of this stuff.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #72: Dracula (1931)

Since it's the season for witchery and other assorted evil delights, I decided to check out the Dracula Legacy Collection, which collects the classic Dracula films done by Universal Studios, the set of films that laid out the iconography of the vampire. Empty castles, long candles, winding staircases, cobwebs, capes, heavy accents. All the campy Count Dracula signifiers we now pick up from saturday morning cartoons came from that first Bela Lugosi hit.

And it's cool. It has some really memorable moments - great lines, great visuals, and some pretty engrossing scenes; my favourite being a scene where an aged Dr. Vanhelsing is visited by Dracula and told to leave. Their battle of wills is timeless, and most of it comes through in their almost archetypal posturing, a posturing that has the ring of the silent film era.

Since Hollywood really started flexing their sound film muscle in 1927 (The Jazz Singer being among a host of big '27 releases), in 1931 'talkies' were still a new art. Dracula director Tod Browning, also of Freaks fame, was pretty uneasy with sound and was one of those silent directors that kind of petered out after sound came into the picture. He had thrown in the towel by 1936.

His Dracula seems to forget that it's a sound film at times. I say his, but allegedly Browning's set presence was at near zero and most of the directing was done by the cinematographer, which might also account for the persistence of silent image over sound in the film. There are long stretches of dialogueless silence, and an insistence on capturing strong facial expression and holding the shot for emphasis. The make-up work is pure silent film, with its heavy whites and dark lips. Also, apart from the brief and orchestral 'come out to the movies' style opening credits sequence, there's no soundtrack. Not one shred, not a hot lick of music to be found in this film. While it gives the film the sensation I imagine the fish that chokingly set a first flipper on land had, it's a strangeness that works. It creates pools of tension and atmosphere that might have been ruined otherwise with unnecessary dialogue or the emotional imposition that music carries.

So: A classic treat and a fascinating look at a silent film probing into the world of sound.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #71: Che: Part Two

I resume my journey into the biopic'd life of El Che!

Che: Part Two has a different flavour than Part One. Where Part One uses broken narrative, Part Two is linear and straight-forward. Since Che's character has been established already, it pulls few obvious cinematic punches and focuses simply, and still satisfyingly, on Che and his comrades' struggles against a hostile Bolivian government and its impossibly isolated and un-revolutionary populace.

While I detected a Soderberghian flatness in the first part, Part Two feels a bit more intimate now that the frenetic narrative style has calmed down. It's just as well shot, though there is admittedly less in terms of captivating imagery, thanks to the constantly dense, dry bracken of the Bolivian forests. It is, like Part One, engrossing and unique in its tone and sensibility. Despite knowing my history enough to know what would happen by the end of the film, the finish is perfect, and I suspect that it will stay with me for a long time.

So: It's a moving look at the way ideals don't always work out, and the very man that has come to represent that problem.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #70: Pusher III: I'm The Angel of Death (2005)

The final film in the Pusher trilogy. This time we focus on Milo, the Copenhagen drug lord from the first two films. Milo, a Croatian immigrant, was seen up until now only as a looming power - friendly at first, fond of cooking and prone to culinary disasters, and vicious when crossed. By Pusher III, he is older, addicted to what he pushes, and is losing dealing ground to a new generation of would-be drug runners.

In Pusher III we get the greatest sense of desperation and waste. The amount of care you might find you have for Milo is surprising. You really want his addicts anonymous meetings to go well for him. You really want his daughter to appreciate him. You really want him to work himself out, and, most surprisingly, you really want him to kill his enemies. All this for a man that does some awful things, and makes his living on the suffering of others. That takes some pretty tactful filmmaking.

Issues of race and nationality are raised in this film much more than in the previous two films. We're given a host of immigrants trying to carve a tenuous life in the underworld of Copenhagen. Unfortunately for Milo, that means his turf. The new generation of pushers are all racially divided expats, the most threatening being a young Arab, and a rival Serbian group that attempts a passive aggressive (for the most part) takeover in a moment of weakness. Milo, being Croatian, doesn't handle this well. Or perhaps he does.

So: Same great character, dialogue, and cinematography. A great finish to a great trilogy.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #69: Pusher II: With Blood On My Hands (2004)

After loving Refn's first Pusher film, I was eager to continue. Pusher II did not disappoint, and if I had to make the hard choice, is probably the strongest film in the trilogy.

Mads Mikkelsen gets his chance to shine. I had first encountered him in that awful Clash of the Titans remake with Avatar-face McSoldierstein, and was greatly afraid that he sucked. I knew I was soon to see Mads in the unbeknownst-to-me-amazing Valhalla Rising, and feared the worst. So crappy move down, awesome movie up, I wondered what Pusher II would be like with him at centre stage. The answer to that is: Mads Mikkelsen is now an actor I will follow. I am enamoured by his screen presence and hope for some great films to come.

Pusher II is much like the first film in terms of its visual sense, pacing, and dialogue, but is certainly tighter in all fields. The budget is higher, the scope larger, the characters more complex. As with each film save the first, you really can't help but invest affection in the gangster characters. They are by no means nice people, but they are more human than one would expect, and they are beset by environments of poverty, violence, and abusive family dynamics, and every second is emotionally riveting.

So: If you see any of the Pusher films, see this one.

Princess St. Haunted House!

It's your last weekend for some classic Hallowe'en fun. There's a Haunted House set up over at the Kitchener Waterloo Little Theatre on 9 Princess st E.

Tonight, and Friday you'll be able to check out the 7-9 pm kid friendly house, and the 9-11 pm not-so-kid friendly house. WHICH WILL YOU CHOOSE?

Admission is free, but donations are appreciated and benefit the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which is a guild of deadly assassins.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #68: The Color of Magic (2008)

This mini-series, comprised of two films, is based off of the incredibly charming work of Terry Pratchett, a British writer of glib, comical fantasy novels. I had seen the Hogfather about a year ago without realizing that it was a Terry Pratchett piece, and was amazed to find that I was watching a fantasy film that wasn't shit. In fact, it was probably one of the best fantasy films I'd ever seen.

The Color of Magic doesn't achieve the same kind of gravitas that the Hogfather reaches, but offers enough to endear me to Terry Pratchett's world, and more importantly, his characters. Color follows a lovable, aged, and underachieving wizard by the name of Rincewind who's studied magic for 40 years only to find that he can't really do anything particularly magical. There's grand adventure and whatnot, as is typical of the genre. But Color will poke fun at that.

The acting is half-way decent and the comic deliveries tend to be pretty entertaining. And ladies, start your swooning, because Color stars none other than "Mr. Samwise Gamgee I was in Lord of the Rings!" Sean Astin himself! You've shit your pants with amazement, since I can smell the sickly sweet excitement from here. Technically, more starring than Sean Astin is David Jason as Rincewind. He's the voice of Count Duckula! Remember him? And Mr. Toad from the Wind in the Willows! David Jason is terribly charming despite having a first name for a last name. Oh, and you get to watch Tim Curry get his evil wizard on. Damn right.

You'll also get a fascinating world to learn about, one that's flat like a disc and sitting atop four huge celestial elephants that are in turn sitting atop a huge space turtle. The whole world is strung together by oddity and humour.

I was surprised to find some fitting and strange film homages as well. Like a scene spoofing the famous "What is best in life?" scene from Conan the Barbarian, and references to Monty Python's Holy Grail and Star Wars. The strange one comes as a visual homage to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as the heroes dash out from a hiding place in slow motion, slinging spells like pistols in a last-ditch effort while under heavy spell-fire themselves. Where the hell did that come from? I mean I like it, but WTF, as the French say.

So: The jokes are sometimes over explained, but since it's so wildly imaginative, it never ceases to be interesting.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #67: Aeon Flux (Peter Chung, 1991)

Peter Chung’s cerebral and post-modern animated series, not that other thing from 2005 that you and I should never speak of. That which cannot be named.

The good Aeon Flux, the animated Aeon Flux, happens to feature my favourite femme fatale: the fearless, sexy, elite assassin - you guessed it - Aeon Flux. She’s deadly, anarchic, and downright impenetrable. You’re never quite sure what she’ll do, or, once she’s done something, exactly why she’s done it. She’s a stylish renegade of abstract proportions, without border or precise definition, and fiercely individual. And that’s the nature of the series on a whole. When you add a spastic, gritty and idiosyncratic animation style to the mix, you have a pretty surreal and engrossing experience on your hands.

It’s refreshing now and again to immerse yourself in an anti-story, an anti-TV series, where you’re not so much watching a story unfold as you are watching a story deconstruct and re-apply itself in liberating ways. I get the impression that like the heroine of the series, Peter Chung lives to shake things up. I thank him.

So: A wicked piece of animation, style, and paradox. Don't try to put it all together as you watch it - you're not supposed to.

New Conan Stills

Haven't seen any of the stills released for the new Conan flick? NOW YOU CAN IF YOU ARE STRONG AND FREE FROM THE YOKE OF MORALITY LIKE CONAN

Word is that the film will be released next year. And Rose Mcgowan is supposed to be in it. Not much detail beyond that. She was supposed to star in Robert Rodriguez' Red Sonja until their romance went badly. Could she be Red Sonja in Conan? Could it possibly be...a Robert E. Howard crossover!? Mcgowan is, of course, allowed to say very little about the topic, though the first picture you'll see after clicking the link supposedly features her, I wonder if it's just a dirty trick. The secrecy seems strange.

The Latest From Tommy Wiseau, Director of The Room!

THE HOUSE THAT DRIPS BLOOD ON ALEX. A short 12 minute film and a not-so-chilling tale about a guy that buys a house from a shifty evil guy.

If you've seen the historic The Room by Tommy Wiseau, you'll know what to expect. Tommy failed embarrassingly to craft a serious drama in The Room, and ended up creating instead what has been hailed by many as the worst movie ever made. To save face and spin his failure into a money-making success, he decided to call his film a piece of irony. Now he's making comedy and claims that comedy was his goal all along.

Now that he's purposely trying to make his films terrible, will he lose his charm? You be the judge!

I can say this: he seems fixated on rooms and houses. Oh Crom. This man might be an auteur. Can you be an auteur unintentionally? Why I am I shrivelling inside?

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #66: Krull (1983)

Read it and weep, boys.

I’d first like to thank Krull for giving the Glaive to the world. Once I find it, locked away in some (no doubt) nearby mountain, life’s going to be a whole lot more interesting. I can’t think of one life-situation where a glaive couldn’t be applied to achieve great success.

If you don’t know what the Glaive is I’d imagine you’ve never seen Krull, and I would think, furthermore, that you’d better get on that before the Slayers arrive. They’re evil and blackly armoured juggernauts that take people’s planets from them. Then they give the enslaved worlds over to their boss, who is the Beast. I don’t think you want that. If you do, you are what’s called a bad person.

The Beast will likely kidnap a princess and try to wed her, and if you, dear reader, are a prince, I’m afraid you’re going to have to do something. You’re going to have to find some British actors, band together, and find The Beast’s wonderfully surrealist fortress. Getting in and saving the day is going to be dangerous.

But at least there’s the goddamned Glaive, which is shaped like a big starfish and has retractable blades and you can throw it around and control it with your mind. And guess what! The Beast fucking HATES it.

All in all Krull is a glittering and melodramatic science-fantasy done well, which makes it a lot of fun. It might feel a bit long, but the amazing James Horner score should make up for it. And the Beast looks like the creature from the black lagoon after his black lagoon became a toxic nightmare.

So: Give Krull a try so you’ll know what to do when the Slayers come.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #65: Highlander: The Source (2007)

No. Just no.

Now, I love Highlander. I love the concept. I love swords, I love immortals. What I don’t love are films that are made with an ethos something like HEY MAN REMEMBER THAT MOVIE WE LOVED WHEN WE WERE YOUNG LET’S DO ANOTHER ONE BUT MAKE SURE THAT EVERYBODY ON THE PROJECT IS A HACK AND A DUKE OF MEDIOCRITY.

I’m sorry fans, but it shines from every facet with a stupefying lack of talent. And most glaring is the writing.

So: the world has ended for some unexplained reason. Civilisation has crumbled and there’s this thing called The Source. Duncan Macleod and his pals decide to look for it after all the planets in our milky-way galaxy suddenly align. But there’s a problem – The Source is guarded by a fucking Looney-tunes character.

It turns out that the “Guardian” of the nexus of the galaxy is a goof in S&M gear. He gets his fun by killing and by shouting hello really loudly after he sneaks up on someone, or sometimes when he just sees someone. Like when Joe smacks into him with a truck. As the Guardian flies backwards through the air, the writers thought it best to have him shout HELLO JOE! like a fucking clown, arms and legs held out like he was doing a jumping-jack.

That’s cute. He’s the Guardian of the nexus of the galaxy.

I'm going to spoil it for you, so stop reading if you actually want to see this movie with friends, piss yourself laughing, and get surprised (or not surprised) by the Guardian's defeat. Here’s how Unkie Dunk beats him: Duncan Macleod of the clan Macleod runs so quickly around the Guardian that he is actually drilled into the ground and is trapped. Before he explodes for some reason, he screams NOOO! I’M GONE FOREVER.

I’m not kidding.

But that’s not really the ending. There isn’t one, I’m afraid. And I don’t mean that in a great No Country For Old Men way. I mean that instead of actually showing the audience much of what occurs after Macleod makes his “I’m done with this immortal life of killing” choice, the film fades. And the unthinkable happens. They recap the film for about three minutes. All the major, ultra boring plot points that you don’t need or want to see ever again. A recap just for fun, as though you hadn’t been paying attention, which, in all fairness, could well be true. When that’s done, instead of seeing much of what happens we get a voiceover telling us what happens: The Source is won and now Duncan and his love have a child, since she can suddenly feel her new pregnant-ness. The Source is god and he gives people babies. We see a quick shot of Macleod and Mrs. Macleod floating naked.

So: This is the way the franchise ends, not with a bang but a recap.

Here are some things IMDB forum folk learned from Highlander: The Source:

1. In a decimated post-war Eastern Europe you can easily gain access to sophisticated ultra-modern communications equipment since it's protected by one security guard.

2. Being a 5000 year old immortal that has traveled the length and breadth of the world does not mean you can pull off wearing a leather jacket with tassels.

3. When planets align they will appear bigger and closer to us than Earth's own moon.

4. If you want a big explosion in your movie, have a guy decide to drive a post-apocalyptically valuable gas truck through a brawl and crash it.

5. If you want to move characters quickly onto an island, have one of them say "We need a boat," followed by a shot of them on a boat. Then show them at a pier, watching the boat move away. All this can be done in two minutes.

6. When a woman enters the Source her clothing changes and her hair is braided.

7. Three Immortals with thousands of years of battle-honed experience cannot see or hear cannibals tromping through a sparse forest until they are surrounded.

8. ‘Lawlessness’ means the cops show up just in time to witness a stabbing and begin pursuit.

9. Although they have firearms and motorcycles, cannibals prefer to chase people around on foot and horseback with wrenches and knives. It is more satisfying.

10. Queen doesn't sound good when ‘updated’ as generic hard rock.