'THE CHOSEN' ('HOLOCAUST 2000')...........THE OMEN, ITALIANO......

The Chosen (a.k.a. 'Holocaust 2000') 1977.........stars the No.1 breathrough sensation of 1970's cinema....

             The devil.

               After making a huge splash in "The Exorcist" and later, "The Omen" that fabulous, fork-tailed, firebreathin', foulmouthed funster was big, big Box Office........

               So it was only a matter of time (actually, minutes) until Italian movie trash-meisters jumped on the Beelzebub Bandwagon with their own cheapo knockoffs........

                And as far as these things go, here's the very best of them..... an Italo-British co-production fronted by a huge star (Kirk Douglas at his intensive best) and backed up by a solid cast recruited from the top ranks of actors of both countries.....(Alexander Knox, Anthony Quayle, Adolpho Celi, Romolo Valli)

                Wildly uneven, the film alternates from a slavish imitation of "The Omen" to its own rather clever update on the genre........(the smooth Devil here plans to wipe out the earth with a nuclear power plant, which in design, vaguely resembles a multi-headed monster foretold in biblical prophecies......)

                 Kirk Douglas, as the CEO of the Nuke Power company is all gung ho about building the thing, until he starts noticing that everyone opposed to it meets grisly ends in gruesome 'Omen'-like ways.....(usually freak accidents ending in gory mutilation.....yum, yum)

                    The question remains.......who the devil's the Devil????

                    Your choices.....Kirk's second-in-command and apple-of-his-eye son, the suave blonde Simon War..... Of is it the yet unborn child of Kirk's much younger current girl-toy....(Agostina Belli)?

                    Nobody with more than two brain cells would strain themselves guessing this, but Kirk, to be on the safe side, arranges a surprise abortion for his baby-mama........what a thoughtful guy.....(he bases this rather drastic decision after noticing her skittishness about entering a church...….heh, heh, heh.....when's the last time anyone saw Trump within spitting distance of a church?)

                     The movie wastes some time using one of those two options as a red herring until it finally spills the beans and gets down to its apocalyptic business......the Devil wants his holocaust cause he thinks it'll make for a fresh start........(and given the state of the world, he's got a point there....)

                       Douglas, never less than fully committed to whatever film he's in, endures all sorts of wear and tear, including a naked meltdown inside a Middle East cave and periodic beatdowns with roomfuls of asylum crazies.......he does have a spiffy, glass encased computer office though, even if that mean ole Debbil sometimes turns the glass panels into an instant plus-sized kitchen slicer.....)

                         The splatter stuff is practically subliminal, but the film takes particular pride in a
sequence where our slick El Diablo engineers the death of an entire maternity ward's worth of babies.......a great way to rack up a high body count in less than one minute......Bravo, Beelzy......

                        It's all Guilty Pleasure fun most of the way, until the movie stumbles into its mismanaged, clumsily edited finale......a cobbled-together last minute attempt to concoct a positive outcome........and far different from the film's original European ending, which left the monstrous power plant in the hands of........well, you-know-who.......

                         3 stars (***), but that's strictly for those of you who enjoyed all those 70's  Devil movies, both the big budget originals and the extra-cheesy imitators.......if you're among 'em (as is BQ), you'll can have yourself a Hell of a good time........so to speak......and this one pours on the Cheese Whiz extra high...…..



                   

'WATERLOO'.......BONAPARTE-Y HEARTY!

Waterloo (1970)   We decided to jump ahead a few months to post on this one......since it's only a few months away from hitting its 50th Anniversary, why not?

                 You'd better believe you'll never see another movie like "Waterloo" for all sorts of reasons.......

                  Mega-budgets epics like this one.......with giant sweep, all star casts, 1000's of extras ......were lumbering into oblivion, dropping deader than dinosaurs tumbling into the tar pits......

                 Another oddity that you're likely to never see again......'Waterloo' was one of three co-productions between a Western studio and Russia........the other two being 1971's "The Red Tent" and the embarrassing atrocity "The Blue Bird" in 1976......(that's if you don't include the Trump-Russia co-production of the 2016 Presidential election.....)

                   We sincerely promise we'll get around to "The Red Tent" and "The Blue Bird", but for now, let's talk "Waterloo"......traffic-managed by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuck, who'd impressed the hell out of the cinema world with his 7 hour gargantuan version of "War And Peace".....

                    So once again, Bonderchuk, armed with multiple cameras, an ample budget and what looks like the entire Red Army at his disposal, puts on a spectacular, panoramic display of 19th century combat.......with Rod Steiger's Napoleon Bonaparte facing off against Christopher Plummer's Duke Of Wellington.......

                    SPOILER ALERT for those of you who fell asleep in European History class.......Nappy goes down for the count........

                    Continuing our list of things you'll never see again.......

                    Rod Steiger......a one-man special effect.......Steiger's eye-bulging, dialed-up-to-11 performance, (his specialty) was a sight to behold........in Zero to Sixty, he could go from a barely audible whisper to a raging air-raid-siren tantrum.....and back again. We're not entirely sure this qualifies as good acting, but we defy you to take your eyes off Steiger when he shifts into full
Steiger-licious madness at the top of his lungs.....

                    Poor Christopher Plummer couldn't possibly compete with Steiger's self-contained, theatrical fireworks......he's reduced to holding a stiff upper life while his soldiers get blown to smithereens all around him.......(in fact, Plummer made a far more formidable, commanding figure as Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound Of Music".....maybe in the heat of "Waterloo"s carnage, he should have broken out into a few bars of "Eidleweiss"...)

                     Strangely enough, considering the massive logistics deployed here, the film comes in at  a trim 123 minutes. There's no real visual power to the battle scenes, though......Bonderchuk films pitched warfare as if he's a TV news cameraman covering a live re-enactment.

                     The film does throw in a brief anti-war moment, as some poor sucker faces the camera screaming out  "Why are we killing each other?!!" or some such thing......(he's later seen piled up with the dead, no doubt cut down in mid-rant........nice try, pal......except the few ticket-buyers who showed up for "Waterloo" came strictly for the falling bodies and cannon fire.....)

                     And speaking of those battles, there's something you definitely will NEVER. see again.......thousands upon thousands of real men and horses charging at each other......as opposed to the computerized, pixel-ated crowds you see in today's films...….

                    Outside of Rod Steiger's hammy histrionics, "Waterloo" finally comes across as a distanced, generic impersonal spectacle...….the language barrier between Bonderchuck and his mostly English speaking cast didn't help matters much. At best, the film aspires to …...efficiency.

                   But for classic movie lovers, it remains a fascinating artifact of a long gone era of filmmaking......and in that regard, not to be missed  2 & 1/2 stars (** 1/2)



                 
                 

'MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN'........EVERY STITCH WAY BUT LOOSE.......

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)    Bet you forgot all about this one, right?

               So did we........until, at the request of BLD (Beloved Librarian Daughter), we dutifully viewed a DVD copy that one of her  patrons graciously donated to  the library's video collection.

                 Hey, it 's  a tough job checking out these movies to see if they play without skipping before they're put out for rental......but somebody's gotta do it........who better than BQ?

                  Director-actor Kenneth Branagh was already well established as the Crown Prince of Theatricality when he took this one on.........and if nothing else, the movie maintains a Grand Opera fever pitch from beginning to end.......

                   Watching it again, it reminded us of the glory days of  Ken Russell's 1970's reign as official Cinema Madman.........with it's over-the-top acting, frenzied camerawork and downright bizarre production design......everything thrown into the mix with delirious abandon. 

                   A kick to watch, without a doubt........but after awhile, it starts to wear you out.......though you're bound to perk up and gaze open-mouthed at the film's penultimate scene.......in which Doc Frankenstein (Branagh) ends up in a doomed romantic triangle between his Creature (Robert De Niro) and his recently murdered childhood soulmate (Helena Bonham Carter)......whom he had to stitch back together and re-animate in a hurry after the Creature ripped her heart out.......

                   What can we say......love hurts in the Frankenstein household.......for real. 

                  Everyone on the creative team stepped up to the plate as well.  We adored production designer Tim Harvey's massive winding staircase for the Frankenstein mansion, literally the only dominant furnishing of the first floor....(very, very William Cameron Menzies)......and composer Patrick Doyle scored every single scene with blaring, symphonic bombast.

                  And as you'd expect, De Niro gives his all to the monster, making hairpin turns as he goes from pathetic to frightening......and improving his speech patterns from monosyllabic growls to eloquent dialogue that even exceed's Branagh's. 

                     None of this is remotely believable for 3 seconds, but the whole thing moves like an off-the-rails freight train.......and Branagh piles on the striking imagery.......(our personal favorites being  Branagh and the naked De Niro slipping and sliding through the slimy muck Branagh used to incubate and birth his creation.........and the juicy sight of the back-from-the-dead Bonham-Carter, who still appears crudely cobbled together even though Branagh neatly severed her head for easy placement on another girl's body.......this guy so needs to go back to medical school.....)

                      Since this movie goes all in for craziness, we'd advise potential viewers to either go with the flow or avoid it altogether.  We admire that Branagh really swung for the fences here, not caring much that his movie came out way more operatic than horrific.

                        You won't be scared, that's for sure. But with enough beers, vodka and hot buttered popcorn, you might have a goofy good time with it.......2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).........

                        And doesn't anybody worry about that nutty staircase not having a bannister??

'JOKER'........'You laughin' at ME?, You laughin' at ME?"

Joker (2019)    Let's start out by declaring that we don't believe for one minute in this film's commitment to its up-to-the-minute social commentary........

                 It's just show-biz, folks.........

                 And writer-director Todd Phillips (of the "Hangover" trilogy) is clever enough to turn the bottomless rage of the disenfranchised and the tormented, untreated mentally ill into prime popcorn fodder......

                  As they say in TV news.....if it bleeds, it leads.

                   Philips plays this tune like a master pianist.......though he's been lauded for making the film a blatant mash-up of "Taxi Driver" and "The King Of Comedy", the film he's referencing here more than any other is Michael Winner's 1974 groundbreaker, "Death Wish".......with Charles Bronson pushed past his civilized veneer and turning vigilante executioner of New York street punks.

                    'Joker' flips and bends the 'Death Wish' premise in service of what's happening now......envisioning an actual civil war between the frustrated, impoverished 'have-nots' and the ultra wealthy, cocooned one-per-centers...........

                      In the film, mobs of Have-Nots, inspired and energized by the Joker's slaying of three entitled young Wall Street assholes, don their clown masks and rampage through the streets, wielding 'Kill The Rich' signs......

                      It's a typically Hollywood facile conceit......and we have to wonder if Phillips is smart enough to realize that if his imagined Poor-Vs.-Rich revolution ever came about,  those clownfaced hordes would lay bloody siege to the film community's swimmin' pool mansions......

                     But we're not even close to that happening.......cause in reality, the Have-Nots got suckered and conned into electing the very greediest, foul and immoral of the One-Percenters they claim to hate...... making him their Savior President, worshiping him like a deity while he lines his own pockets and massages them with thousands of lies......

                    And in the real world,  the mentally ill Have Nots don't storm the homes of the rich. They storm Wal-Marts, Schools and churches........with AK-47s.  And they don't check people's bank accounts before opening fire....

                     Now there's a movie for ya, Mr. Phillips......

                     Putting aside the movie's slick pandering, there's one thing that cannot be denied.....Joaquin Phoenix's Joker may well be the the greatest, most spectacular film performance
of this young century or any other.  .

                    He's literally lightning in a bottle, crafting an unforgettable piece of work in which he pulls off the feat of breaking your heart while scaring the crap out of you......

                    There's only a handful of actors who've ever accomplished that singular, amazing task........to freeze your blood in one scene, and almost bring you to tears in the next. We're guessing that acting students who haven't even been born yet will study Phoenix's 'Joker' for decades to come.

                   We could go on and on about his work in this film........but let's sum it up by saying the Academy Award for Best Actor belongs to no one but Joaquin Phoenix.....no contest, it's simply his....end of story.

                   So we'll end this post with a 4 star (****) rating for "Joker"........though we're deeply suspicious of this film's true motives, there's no denying it as a showcase for the  most breathtaking piece of acting you'll ever see. Unmissable by any standard..

'SPINNING OUT'.......MANIC DEPRESSIVES....ON ICE!

Spinning Out (2020)   Here's the Netflix formula for sucking you into one its typical 10 episode series......

                From the get-go.....keep it manic, keep it crazy, keep it bubbling over with angst and chaos.....from the first chapter to the last......

                 Which is no problem for this particular overstuffed, deep winter soap opera........since virtually all the characters are dysfunctional nut-jobs, workin' on their very last nerve........(and ultimately your nerves, if you hang around for the bitter end....)

                 Hitting the ice in Sun Valley, Idaho are a large collection of unsettled souls swirling around in the cutthroat world of competitive skating......(and we all know how much fun that is from "I, Tonya")......

                 .......and a cast of characters who make Tonya Harding look like Minnie Mouse.....

                 This generally miserable and misery-inflicting group includes a mother-and-two-daughters trio...(January Jones, Kaya Scodelario, Willow Shields)......with Jones and Scodelario punishing themselves and everyone around them with their endless, exhausting manic-depressive bouts......

                   In the interest of preserving our sanity, we'll make no effort to describe in detail the litany of woes and agonies afflicting everyone else circling around this miserable trio of women......which includes heavy boozing, racism, fractured hips, long lost loves, and a dash of pedophilia.....

                    You get the idea by now.........shameless melodrama amped up to almost absurdly comic levels.......designed to hook you at the start and keep you hooked until all 10 overheated episodes play out in their entirety........

                    And leave you panting for a second season.

                    So if you love this kind of stuff, you'll no doubt find it addictive.......even as you end up deeply ashamed for enjoying it.  For all those folks (and you know who you are), you should easily find this a 3 & 1/2 star (***1/2) wallow in frosted soap bubbles...…

                    For everyone who'd normally run screaming from stuff like this.......keep running.
1 star (*).......

'ISLAND OF TERROR'.........CANCER CURES GONE AWRY!

 Island Of Terror (1966)    We probably should have doubled this one up with our recent post on 'Island Of The Burning Doomed', since they both came from the same British production company and are similar in so many ways.......

            So here we again,  on another fun excursion to a remote, rustic isle somewhere off the British coast.......infested by creepy monsters........

           This one's a little more lively and gruesome than 'Doomed', which had chunk-o-rock aliens heating up the whole island like a plus-size microwave dinner.......

            'Island Of Terror's beasties are man made, botched lab experiments, accidentally created by scientists working on a cure for cancer.......

             How on earth their bubbling little test tubes spawned these large ungainly things is left to your imagination.......clearly, someone fell asleep at the bunsen burner......

             The 'silicates' as they come to be called by the terrified populace, resemble St. Bernard-sized armadillos with a snaky tentacle that pops out for convenient grabbing of victims........once grabbed, the silly-looking silicate, accompanied always by electronic wah-wah-wahs, sucks the bones right out of your body........leaving you as squishy and boneless as a pile of Chinese takeout barbecue ribs......or a GOP Trump enabler.......

            .......and also dead as a kitchen sponge, is case anyone hadn't figured that out for themselves.

             Sorry to report, Christopher Lee's not in this one, but we do get Peter Cushing and Edward Judd as two stalwart doctors who take on the task of combating the creepy-crawling bonesuckers along with the island's residents.......

              Even though the 'Sils' move at about 1 mile an hour, they catch plenty 'o people unawares and leave any number of poor folks de-boned and terribly deflated, ruining their whole day......

              By now you've read enough to know whether you'd run screaming from the sight of this movie, or if you can't wait to give it a warm hug while you chow down the popcorn........(for the BQ, of course, it's always the latter, we LIVE for movies like this.........)

               Cheesy, foolish and seriously ridiculous......we wouldn't have it any other way. 3 stars(***).......this is one dopey batch of cancer researchers who should have stuck to chemotherapy...

GIMME MY OSCAR! NOW!.....BQ WEIGHS IN ON THE NOMINATIONS........

The Academy Awards.........Seems like an eternity to us since the Oscars were a fun exciting event to look forward to.......

               Ancient history........now it's a minefield of anger, hate, resentment and fodder for social media trolls........

                No wonder they can't find a host. ....it's equivalent to sliding down the Mare Of Steel from "The Long Ships"......

               Come to think of it, all the 'snub-ees' should thank their lucky stars for their snubbing........it puts them in the position of the Wrongfully Abused.........a role that every actor would kill for.....

                For example:

                Jennifer Lopez -  Born too late.....back in the day, Hollywood used to LOVE multi-media Princesses like J-Lo (remember Cher?)  But now?  It's all about high art......which means you're not allowed to wiggle your ass on awards shows and the Super Bowl if you hope to collect an Oscar....

                 Robert DeNiro........does anyone really care if he got left out of "The Irishman" noms?  Same old same old stuff he's been doing for decades. Yawn.

                 Frozen 2   - a well deserved snub......we don't care how many Kazillions it makes......it's a worthless cash-grab mess with a negligent, incomprehensible plot and not even an actual villain. And the songs suck too, including that one Idina Menzel has to burst several blood vessels to sing....

                 Adam Sandler and Eddie Murphy....... Sandler's paying the price for lifetime of low-grade sludge.....presumably, he'll make good on his threat to make a typical Sandler movie if he failed to win a nomination ("Jack And Jill 2" anyone? Be afraid. Be very afraid.)........as for poor Murphy, we do feel for him......c'mon Academy, it's time to forgive and forget over "Norbit".....

                  No women directors -   this is why we wish Ricky Gervais would crash the ceremony, run in and do one of his corrosive monologues before security wrestles him to the ground.......

                  Beyonce....we had to look up why anyone thought she'd be nominated......apparently, she wrote a song for that abysmal Disney greed-orgy, CGI atrocity,  "The Lion King". Case closed.

               And there....(as TV reporters love to say)....you have it. Maybe Joaquin Phoenix's Joker is the perfect character to represent today's Academy Awards........a manic-depressive psychotic aching for payback, validation, love, respect and validation by the multitudes.......

                 Sounds like a perfect description of the entire awards season to us.........see you on the red carpet February 9th......we'll bring the popcorn and tomatoes to throw at the celebs......