'IT!'.....NUKE THE GOLEM!

 It! (1967)     I may have initially skipped seeing this way back when, 'cause though it was shot in rich, ripe Eastmancolor, all the U.S. prints were duped in black-and-white. 

               When a color print finally popped up on TCM, I dutifully, grudgingly sat down to watch it, not expecting much. After all, it came from writer-director Herbert J. Leder, strictly a bottom-ot-the-barrel guy who also did the freeze-dried Nazi movie "The Frozen Dead".......(though I did enjoy the talking beheaded girl in it.....)

                 The "it" here is our old, old, old movie monster friend, the Golem......big stone guy meant to protect defenseless villagers, but usually misunderstood because.....because, well, he's a big, freaky-deaky stone guy. 

               In this film, Big G's found in the U.K. and comes under the care and protection of assistant museum director Pimm (that one time child star and longtime genial hammy character Roddy McDowell.)

               You do indeed get the full scene-stealing McDowell here, doing one of his specialties - the prissy, preening fussbudget minion.....Uriah Heep reborn.

                His boss, the museum director browbeats Primm without mercy, until one of Golem's massive stone arms comes down on him like Maxwell's Silver Hammer......clearing the path to promotion for Primm. 

               Let us not forget to mention that from the very outset, the film establishes Pimm as a world class whack-a-doodle.  Like Anthony Perkins' Norman Bates, Pimm bonds with the skeletal corpses of his dead mom, whom he still keeps at home with him in a a wheelchair. 

               So before long, with help of a secret scroll he sticks in the Golem's mouth, Pimm can command Big G to do his bidding.......mainly wiping out senior museum guys so Little P can become the U.K.s youngest curator.

                Another big task Primm hands to Stone Head, impressing the hell out of his cute blonde co-worker (the criminally cute Jill Haworth).  This involves ordering Big G to park underneath a bridge and upend it......yes, folks, this movie lets you see a London bridge come falling down.

               Now here's where "It!" stops being just another mundane monster movie and begins to go seriously off the rails.......which I dearly love.

                The authorities not only figure out Primm's using Big G as a combo bullyboy-genie, but don't seem to have any trouble believing it.  (Remember how long it took the powers-that-be in 1950's sci fi horror movies to comprehend weird shit was happening?)_

                The cops and the army come ready to rumble, but Big G's fairly indestructible......even bazooka shells and cannon fire won't put a dent in him.  

                Their response?   Wait for it.......nuke the Golem!  I kid you not. The Brits, rather that trying out a wrecking ball or a a frickin' laser beam, resort to dropping a low yield warhead on top of ole Stoney.......large enough to turn him into pebbles and probably give half the country radiation sickness.  But what the hell, you gotta crack some eggs to make an omelot, right?

                The nuke does in fact vaporize Primm.....but guess who is still left standing! And leaving us all between a rock and hard place?  Not to worry, because the movie, in a last gasp bid for irony comes up with a suitable ending and warning to all of us........don't mess with effin' mother nature.....and a Golem. 

                For that bonkers third act and the additional bonus of seeing Jill Haworth in a nighty.....3 stars (***). Stone cold crazy.

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL GOP 'POLLING PLACE COMMANDOS' EDITION......

 Threatening goons dressed up like half-assed commandos show up at Arizona polling places, taking photos of photos of voters to scare them......now let's all think hard and try to figure out which political party might be behind this......hmmm.....whoever could it be?  What group of fascist, evil, democracy hating slugs would want to frighten people who exercise their right to vote?   Who? Who?

Kanye West's embrace of anti-Semitism loses him endorsements.......when told he was vying with Donald Trump for the title of Most Stupid And Loathsome Human Being In America, Kanye boasted, "Not this year, Donny....I'm comin' for ya, bro!"

Ted Cruz mocks John Fetterman's speech di\fficulties due to his stroke.......and later privately admitted to reporters...."You know, come to think of it, Donald was right all along, , my wife truly is a butt-ugly skank and it's possible my Dad really did kill JFK......"

Republicans outline their agenda for Agenda for America..........while there's no plan for reducing inflation, the party does promise a busy slate of goals.....prosecute Hunter Biden, cut into Social Security and Medicare, make rich people even richer with lower taxes just for them, insure that raped little girls will have to give birth to their rapist's spawn,, even if it kills them, cut Ukraine aid to help out Trump's BFF Putin commit more atrocities, station GOP commandos in every Polling Place in America, to make sure they win every election , even the ones they lost......and demand the word "Democracy" be stricken from all school and college textbooks..... 

'CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD'...........6 FOOT 2.....AND KNOWS KUNG FU......

 Cleopatra Jones And The Casino Of Gold (1975)    Way back on 12/2/20, BQ fondly remembered 1973's 'Cleopatra Jones', a sterling addition to this site's Pantheon Of Guilty Pleasures.

         Who could resist the towering, Amazonian stunner Tamara Dobson in the title role.....a not so secret agent who unleashes her endless legs to literally kick drug lords in oblivion......

           Certainly not I......

           And bless the Movie Godz (and Warner Brothers) for bringing her back two years later in an even more action-drenched adventure.....with our gal Cleo kung-fu-ing her way through Hong Kong and Macau.......and for a grand finale, demolishing a vast, Vegas-style casino with machine guns and kung-fu bikers. Wahoooo!

           Two huge improvements in this one.....handing over direction to Chuck Bail, who mostly functioned as one of Hollywood's top stunt directors (including the crazy array of car chases in "Freebie And The Bean"). Bail never lets anything slow down to perpetual onslaught of fights, chases, explosions and other general mayhem. 

            Bail understood that nobody watches a 'Cleopatra Jones' movie to glean deep insights into the human condition......(that's what 'Bevis and Butthead' is for)

           Second huge improvement......the villain's casting, which in the Cleo-verse, must always be a queer woman drug kingpin with with a hot temper and loads of minions....

            The first film miscast the frowzy, chunky Shelly Winters in this role. Shelley did give it the full hambone treatment, but she looked ridiculous going Mano-e-Mano with Dobson.....kind of like Roseanne Barr having it out with Gal Gadot. 

           The ever gorgeous 1960's starlet Stella Stevens plays the new drug running nemesis, conveniently named..... Dragon Lady.  She's more than a match for Dobson in every way.....vicious, lethal and a beauty to die for.....(which befalls  some of cast members unlucky enough to cross her path)

            Aided by a local private eye Mi Ling (Ni Tien) and Mi's team of martial arts motorcycling daredevils, the stage is set for a colossal showdown at Dragon Lady's massive casino.......and the movie delivers a full spectacle of  blazing firefights, kung-fu-ing up the wazoo, hair raising bike stunts and  a staggering body count.  As I previously mentioned.......wahoooo!

           Enormous dumb fun from beginning to end......cook up the popcorn and switch off all thought processes.....you won't need 'em.    4 stars (****)

'ALICE SWEET ALICE'....BLESS ME FATHER FOR I HAVE SLASHED.....

 Alice, Sweet Alice (a.k.a. Communion) 1976    What a backstory this film has......a first feature for director Alfred Sole an architect in Paterson New Jersey. His previous filmmaking attempt, a short porn spoof, got him excommunicated by the local Catholic Diocese.

           You could say that Sole took furious revenge on his church with 'Alice Sweet Alice'......a horror film drawing heavily on Catholic iconography and bookended by brutal murders committed in the church itself......right in the middle of a Sunday communion service.  Holy corpses!

           Sole scraped together enough of a budget for a fast, cheap shoot in his Paterson hometown and recruited New York actors for his cast. Remarkably, for a fledgling, barely experienced director, the resulting film displays some powerful, assured work in its visuals, editing and creation of suspense and terror.

            Cribbing style and inspiration from the best, Sole drew heavily from Nicolas Roeg's stunning 1973 thriller "Don't Look Now", as well as Hitchcock and Giallo-master Dario Argento.  But what really set the film apart was its aggressive reliance on Catholicism as a touchstone for psychosis, guilt-drenched obsession and horrific death......tropes that other films had only lightly dabbled in.....

             To start out with, you won't find a single sympathetic character in sight here, with the possible exception of Father Tom (Rudolph Willrich), the church's young priest whom everybody dotes on, especially his cranky housekeeper, the widowed Mrs. Tredoni.(Mildred Clinton).  Virtually everybody in this film stays in a permanent state of hot temper. 

            Harried divorcee Catherine (Linda MIller) can hardly cope with her raging, bratty 13 year old daughter Alice (Paula Sheppard, fully channeling Patty McCormick's 'Bad Seed'). Alice can't stand the attention her mother and Father Tom give to her angelic little sister Karen (Brooke Shields, her first film role).....especially on the eve of Karen's first communion. 

            Come Sunday at church, Karen never makes it to the big event, due to her being strangled and set ablaze by a masked, raincoated figure who's suspiciously about the same size as Alice. And in the ongoing symphony of screams and panicked hysteria, how does Alice end up with Karen's communion veil.....(which she jealously coveted in a previous scene....)

             Things only get worse for the grief stricken, nerve-wracked Catherine and the always angrily whining Alice.......the diminutive raincoat slasher pops to severely wound Catherine's abrasive sister  and then moves on even more vicious, blood soaked killings.

             The slasher, inevitably, is finally confronted and cornered at another fully packed Sunday service......leading to even more shrieks, hysteria and freely spilling blood.  How the Diocese convinces any parishioners to set foot in this place is beyond me.....and Church elders must have felt frustrated they couldn't excommunicate Alfred Sole twice. 

             Horror film buffs will love savoring all the homages and references in play here......from Hitchcock's slow ominous tracking shots to the eerie child-like chanting in Stephen Lawrence's music, evoking Argento's "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage". 

               And I can guarantee you won't see another film with a character as pathetic, grotesque and disgusting as the morbidly obese Alphonse DeNoble,  a sad figure typecast as a pathetic, grotesque, disgusting and morbidly obese landlord..........enough said, you'll simply have to see him to believe him

              .....just another facet of "Alice Sweet Alice" that makes it essential viewing for all horror completists who, shall I say.....possess....uh   catholic tastes. 3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)

              

         

               

'DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE'.....A GUILTY DISPLEASURE....

 Dr. Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine (1965)   So sorry to all the buffs who might chuckle at the mere thought of this movie, but that's the category I'm assigning it......guilty displeasure. 

            By that I'm referring to those movies that, in a fit of nostalgia, make you smile remembering them.

            But just try, if you dare,  a sit down to watch them again. And you realize, "My God, this does suck.....and come to think of it always did..."          

              In this category I'd place "Barbarella", "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", "Casino Royale" (the all .star 1967 spoof version)......and "Dr. Goldfoot"....(the first one, believe it not. In no way will I waste time on the Italian produced sequel "Dr. Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs", directed by Mario Bava, no less. No one remembers it for good reason....)

             I can't blame the shlockmeister outfit American International Studios wanting to cash in on the James Bond frenzy which swept the entire globe after the 1964 release of 'Goldfinger' AIP was reveling in its Golden Age, scooping up the cash from the Roger Corman-Vincent Price Edgar Allen Poe films and the wildly successful beach party musical romps with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.

             With the world salivating for the upcoming Christmas 1965 release of 'Thunderball' , the studio's savvy moguls Sam Arkoff and James Nicholson threw together 'Goldfoot'. It combined Price hamming it up as a Bond-ian mad scientist and surrounded with the young actors  and mega-dumb low comedy of the beach films.  (And the like Bond producers Saltzman and Broccoli did for 'Thunderball', AIP even slapped together their own prime time TV special promoting the film in advance.)

              It's nice that everyone involved here, Price and the young cast, Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman and Susan Hart are clearly enjoying the hell out of themselves. The obvious fun they're having becomes almost contagious. 

               Almost. 

                Except that screenwriters, Edward Ullman and Robert Kaufman never ever come up with anything even remotely funny for them to say or do. 

                 The humor, or what passes it for it here, stays somewhere below the level of an elementary school playground. Actors make funny faces. They fall down. A lot. Then they fall down some more. And bump into things.......and fall down again.   Beyond a kindergarten class taken to see their first movie, I can't think of what other audience  that would find this funny. 

                  For everyone above the age of 5, it's excruciating to endure. 

                 In fairness, let me point out the few pluses. The main title credits rendered by claymation animator Art Clokey (of "Gumby" fame).......he may count as the only person who contributed some measure of artistry to the movie......along with the Supremes, who sing the title song. 

                  Next plus.......a platoon of drop gorgeous fembots in bikinis.  Austin Powers' head would explode if he ever got a look at these stunners. 

                  And that's about it. The rest is too worthless to waste any more time talking about.  We can all still smile at the sight of the poster and the very name of the movie....feel free.

                  But watching it?  1 star (*) at best. And keep in mind, I'm being very, very kind. Dedicated lovers of babes in bikinis might want to indulge but  trust me, they'll want to fast forward through all the painful non-bikini scenes.......

'GHOST STORY'.....A VENGEFUL SPIRIT HAUNTS A QUARTET OF CODGERS.....

 Ghost Story (1981)   This film's screenwriter, Lawrence D. Cohen, always had my deep sympathy for taking on a true mission impossible........trying to shape author Peter Straub's epic length novel into a coherent script for a feature length film. 

               While Stephen King, Straub's rival (and eventual co-collaborator) stuck to simple, primal easy to digest frightmares, Straub's overlength, overwritten novels often wandered off in multiple directions, overloaded with characters and incidents.  Cohen, who penned the swift, simple screenplay for the first King blockbuster, the swift, simple "Carrie" now faced a doorstop book that leisurely spanned decades 

                So he was destined to take withering heat from the book's readers and critics for vastly condensing "Ghost Story", in which the spectre of a once beautiful  young woman reeks literal heart-stopping horror upon four elderly New Englanders......and their younger offspring. 

                I've no doubt that sooner or later, Netflix, Amazon Prime or Apple Plus will take another crack at the book, only this time converting it into a 10 hour episodic mini-series, probably the best format for it. 

                But I'll now defend the 1981 film version, directed by John Irvin and photographed by the legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff. For all the well cataloged  deficiencies in its adaptation, the movie still whips up a fair amount of creepy atmosphere, fine performances and more than enough jump-out-of-you-skin scares.  

                 Let's start of course with the to-die-for cast playing the aging members of "The Chowder Society", prestigious Vermont seniors who entertain each other with ghost stories......John Houseman, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Fred Astaire. The most frightening of their stories belongs to the men themselves - their fateful encounter, as young men, with the mysterious, alluring Eva Galli (Alice Krige, superbly sexy and scary)

                The terrified codgers face to possibility of Eva's return....in the incarnation of Alma Mobley (Krige again, naturally), who at any given moment, turns into a horrifying, rotting corpse.....courtesy of master make-up artist Dick Smith, who crafted Linda Blair's head-spinning tween in "The Exorcist.".

                 And to ramp up the creep factor even more, Alma's recruited two very alive minions in Gregory and Fenny Bate, a father-son pair of insane asylum escapees.  Yikes.  

                 There's even more stuff to admire here......genius matte artist Albert Whitlock's creation of Eva Galli's crumbling haunted house, Phillipe Sarde's ominous, mournful score and among the cast, Patricia Neal and Jacqueline Brookes as Astaire and Douglas's anxious, long suffering wives. 

                Yes, I'll freely admit that this is the farthest thing from a faithful adaptation of the massive Straub book......and maybe it doesn't qualify as one of the most successfully rendered ghost movies, such as "The Haunting", "The Uninvited" and "The Innocents". 

                For all its many Halloween-ish pleasure, though, "Ghost Story" remains a classy little item and well worth adding to any October horror film watchlist. 3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)  

                Just ask the snowplow driver of this movie's quaint little town..............and stay off those icy roads when Alma's at large.......

            

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.......SPECIAL 'BYE BYE STEVIE' EDITION

 Steve Bannon sentenced to 4 months jail time for contempt of congress......the only good news for Bannon - he only received a $1000 fine for Contempt Of Basic Hygiene......

Trump's Special Master, Judge Dearie, keeps asking lawyers "Where's the beef?"..... Trump lawyers responded by denying rumors that Trump has stored 20,000 Wendy's Bacon-ators in Mar-A-Lago freezers in case he needs a snack......

U.S. District Court Judge alleges Trump lied in court..... What? Trump lied?........in other breaking news, the sun came up this morning and is due to set sometime later, bringing on night.........

Rep. Kevin McCarthy threatens to cut off aid to Ukraine if Republicans retake the House......prompting Vladimir Putin to promise McCarthy he'll be automatically awarded the Order Of Lenin medal for supreme service to Russia.....

Mike Pence stuns audience when questioned if he'd vote for Trump in 2024..."Well, there might be somebody I'd prefore more".....presumably meaning himself....  privately, away from the microphone, Pence admitted, "Well, honestly, I'd much prefer myself as a candidate rather than someone who sent a howling mob of fascist thugs to hang me...."

Lindsay Graham loses all his legal battles to avoid testifying in Georgia election fraud probe....in related news, paramedics were called in to use the 'Jaws Of Life' device to pry Graham's head out of Donald Trump's anal cavity......

UK paper declares a head of lettuce lasted longer than Prime Minister Liz Truss........across the pond, U.S. Republicans claim they're not worried about their own similar 'trickle down' agenda to cut taxes for the wealthy, the plan instrumental in demolishing Truss....("our lower and middle-class voters are way too stupid to realize we plan to screw 'em over....")

'KLEO'....A VENGEFUL COMMIE HIT-GIRL ON A 'KILL BILL' SPREE

Kleo (2022 German series -Netflix)

              Granted, it takes some amount of courage to take a plunge into one of Netflix's many imported European mini-series.....(sometimes, subtitled, sometimes dubbed)

               Not sorry at all I dove into this one......a quirky, ultra-violent mash-up of "Killing Eve", "Kill Bill", "Hanna" and every other smart-aleck action thriller featuring a kick-ass heroine. 

               Plus this one benefits enormously from its historic underpinnings......the collapse of the GDR,  the brutal, infamous East German communist government and the reunification of the two Germanies.  The resulting cultural shock and continued political rivalries of the newly blended country keep the show a cut above the usual wham-bam body-count Tarantino-isms that we've all come to expect.  

               But don't worry, you'll find more than enough punishing physical fights, bloody deaths and sudden eruptions of gunplay that could kill any character at any time. Wahooo.....

              Caught in the demise of the GDR is loyal Stasi  assassin Kleo (Jella Haase, whom you'll fall in love with even while she's single-handedly piling up the corpses.)

              Unbeknownst to the luckless Kleo, one of her hits involved a guy with a red suitcase containing an globe-shattering political secret.  To fully cover their tracks, the Stasi (including Kleo's own grandfather) frame and imprison her  Inevitable inmate violence results in her  heart wrenching loss of the unborn child she carried from her hook-up with a fellow Stasi spy

             With the Berlin wall torn down and the two sides of the country reunited, Kleo's sprung from jail on a general amnesty. And she's fueled with fury, hellbent on working her way through the former Stasi chain of command until they're all dead and the hidden suitcase's secret revealed, no matter who it shakes up.

              A parallel storyline that intersects with Kleo's belongs to Sven (Dimitrij Schaad) a hapless West German cop. To the derision and displeasure of his boss, he' still doggedly investigating Kleo's murder of that mystery spy with the red suitcase.....which puts him right in her path and sights.  

              Then all you have to do from this point is hang on for countless, twists, turns, and falling bodies that stack up through eight breathless episodes. (You can watch them in the original German with subtitles or if you want to pretend it's a pseudo Bond adventure, you can watch with everyone speaking in dubbed in British accents......)

                Jella Haase, an elfin adorable redhead is this series most assuredly MVP.  She's lethal subtly hilarious, sexy and loads of fun to watch.......the joy coming from the fact that you never know how she'll behave from one scene to the next.  One hell of a discovery and I'm a fan for life.

                 BQ's final thought.....even you're wary of spending eight hours worth of time with a foreign TV show, try at least one episode of "Kleo"......then prepare to succumb to the remaining seven. 

                 4 stars (****). 

'SHE HULK: ATTORNEY AT LAW'....MARVEL CRAWLS UP ITS OWN ASS......

 She Hulk: Attorney At Law (2022 series - Disney +)......you can probably tell from the subtitle of this post that I've reached the saturation point with Disney's Marvel universe....along with their never ending toxic oil spill of superhero movies and TV shows......

              The very sight of CGI recreated humans and other assorted creatures flung through the air like frisbees is starting to induce nausea.......and at this point I don't see the necessity of telling one apart from the other......

               Back on August 23, I weighed in the first episode of this CG-Eysore......viewing it in its ghastly entirety hasn't changed my opinion.......

               After enduring 9 episodes of meta drenched, self-referential snark,  I did find a glimmer of hope in all this sludge......

              ......I base this hope on long years of watching genres enjoy years of fabulous success and public approval before collapsing into the dust from too much winking spoofery.

                Marvel now wants us all to sit up and bark in appreciation because they've moved into making fun of themselves.....all the tropes, all the characters, all the movies. And we're all supposed to celebrate the spectacle of their indulgence in inside jokes as if it's the Second Coming.

                 Give me an effin' break.

                And by the way, Marvel, learn some history.......when any particular genre moves on to satire, it's a desperate call for help......and a sure sign that everyone's growing tired of the same damn stuff, repackaged like pre-chewed Spam.  You execs can have the actors break the fourth wall all you like......but to me it sounds like you're out of ideas and close to giving up.

               I cannot torture myself (and you wonderful BQ visitors) with the plot details of 9 excruciating episodes......so to be brief....

                Marvel believed it could entrust the gifted multi-gifted Tatania Maslany to make this show work. And yes, she practically sweats green bullets to try to make it all funny and exciting.....

                But the show's too busy contemplating its own navel, referencing countless other characters and events from the MCU, and giving us those wink-wink pokes......(as in, "did you get that in-joke? Did ya? Did ya? Did ya get it????")

                 "She Hulk" finishes up with what the Marvel brass no doubt thought of as their ultimate meta jape......imagining that their all powerful Marvel Mastermind Kevin Feige as 'K.E.V.I.N." an AI robot who programs all the plot point and fates of his spandex army.

                 Given the monotonous, mechanical construction of Marvel projects, that scene lands as uncomfortably true.....if Kevin's really a soulless automaton, that would explain "Ms. Marvel", "The Eternals".....and "She Hulk: Attorney At Law"..... 

                  1 star (*).

'SPARRING PARTNERS'........THE SANDY QUILL REVIEWED IT FOR YOU....]

          

                 Everyone who devours every new John Grisham besteller positioned this new one on the top of their To-Be-Read lists.....

              Should you put it on yours?  Worth reading......or should you pass it by?

              Head right on over the BQ's book review blog The Sandy Quill for a full review of "Sparring Partners"......SQ will fill you in on everything you want and need to know about Grisham's latest, consisting of two extended short stories and a novella. 

              See you all at www.thesandyquill.blogspot.com......and check out all the other reviews when you stop in.....you might end up adding a whole bunch of titles to your own TBR list........

               

'THE FRENCH DISPATCH'.....WES ANDERSON'S ULTIMATE SNOW GLOBE.....

 The French Dispatch (2021)   For those who dote on the meticulous craftsmanship and obsession with arch irony of West Anderson films.....here's your ultimate wallow. 

             It's all here for you......the scenes and sets put together like semi animated still photos and the micro-managed posing of actors slyly underplaying characters who are more archetypes than human beings.  (as in "The Grand Budapest Hotel", "Moonrise Kingdom, etc.)

             And giving you the overall effect of watching an entire movie that exists solely within its own self-contained universe....a movie unspooling inside Wes Anderson's own personal snow globe. 

             I don't know if it's possible to maintain a neutral opinion about Anderson's filmmaking........either you embrace it and fully accept these voyages into his snow-globes, embracing their cleverness and artistry........or you find them distant, remote and tiresome in their fussy, deliberately cartoonish presentations of scenes and performances. 

             It's fitting that watching "The French Dispatch", inspired by the writers and articles of New Yorker magazine, feels like you're spending 107 minutes flipping through that magazine's famed cartoons..... that's .a lot of deadpan, dry wit to absorb at one sitting. 

           After awhile, I began to wonder why Wes Anderson goes to the trouble of still using flesh-and-blood humans for his films.. The actors here don't function for Anderson much differently than stop-motion puppets, a technique the director switched over to for "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "Isle Of Dogs". At one point "Dispatch" does actually convert to pen-and-ink animation and the cartoon figures work pretty much the same as their live counterparts.

            Bur I'll say this in the film's favor......I couldn't help but stand in awe of Anderson's intricate camerawork and staging,, the constant rat-a-tat firing of the most subtle, smirk-inducing humor and the absolute physical and emotional precision of his actors.

            For better or worse, the film's the epitome of Anderson's art. If you go with it, then it's a 4 star (****) feast of Anderson-ia.......but if you find his work pretentious and designed only for film festival culture vultures to salivate over, you'll find your patience tested to its very limit.

           View accordingly.

'SLITHER'.....CAN BQ EXPLAIN 70'S CINEMA? NO CAAN DO......

 Slither (1973)......stands as prime example as to why movie buffs wax nostalgic over the 1970's......

                 Nobody running the studios had the slightest idea what audiences wanted anymore.......and the oddest projects imaginable were greenlighted, and their directors given unheard of leeway in bringing them to the screen.....

               Exhibit A: this movie.

               Is it a comedy?  Possibly. It always seems on the verge of breaking out into actual farce.....but never does. Is it a thriller?  Possibly. It throws in chases, guns, crooks, stolen money.......but never seems particularly interested in any of those things.  They're just there.

               Does it have a point? An ending? An overall reason for its existence?  You tell me.

               How are we supposed to process what's going on in it? Solve its mystery?  Chuckle at the craziness?  Worry over the fates of its aggressively quirky characters?  You tell me. 

              What I'm trying to say here......welcome to the epitome of quintessential 1970's filmmaking. The kind of movie I can guarantee you'll never, ever, ever see come out of any of today's studios or even the most off-the-rails independent film director. 

               Our cast......recently released convicts Dick Kanipsia (James Caan) and Harry Moss (Richard B. Shull). Harry tells Dick about hidden, stolen cash he shares with his partner, cornball would-be comic and big band leader Barry Fenaka (Peter Boyle.)  The thieves' loot was being held for them by a mysterious someone named Vincent Palmer.

                Harry's promptly riddled with bullets from unknown assailants, but Dick survives the attack and seeks out Barry. Along the way he encounters manic pixie madwoman Kitty Kopitsky (Sally Kellerman), drugged out of her mind and given to random, sudden bouts of armed robbery.

                Escaping Kitty, Dick finds Barry and his loyal loving wife Mary (Louise Lasser). Dragging along the couple's  RV, they hit the highway in search of the elusive Vincent Palmer......and pursued by an ominous black van that comes accompanied by its own horror movie music whenever it appears. 

                 And to Dick's further exasperation, the lunatic Kitty resurfaces to join this already bizarre band in hunting down the boodle.

                "Slither" mostly functions as a showcase for James Caan, who spends the entire film reacting to the parade of oddballs he's forced to content with.  Every single individual he comes across is either openly hostile, goofy, eccentric ,suspicious  and/or plain dangerous.......with all of them so self-absorbed that they're unaware of how hostile ,goofy,  eccentric, suspicious and dangerous they are. 

                 At any moment, the movie threatens to erupt into an all-out screwball comedy. . But don't hold your breath waiting for the punchlines. Or any deliberately funny dialogue

                  By the time "Slither" decides to come to a stop (and I do mean "stop", since there's no real conclusion to any of it), you may stare in wonderment.......wondering what it all meant and why in hell you spent any time staying with it.

                  To that I can only reply......welcome to the cinema of the 1970's, where lots of little movies could revel in their defiant oddness and never identify their genres, their purpose, their storylines......or how they ever got made in the first place.  

                   And that's why I'm still giving 'Slither' a warm hug and 3 stars (***).  Caan, Kellerman, Boyle and Lasser brilliantly underplay this one-of-a-kind material that you'll never see anywhere in today's films,...(except maybe in the overly calculated work of the Coen brothers and Wes Anderson)

                    Don't expect much.....this movie's not designed to bowl you over.......it just spins a long semi-funny yarn with no clear ending.....but might amuse and entertain you all the same.