p e n g u i n d e v i l

Yes, it’s been a long time coming. Busy these last few weeks, with taxes (oh, the dread..) and building the shop a webstore at mabelscafe.com, something which I had never attempted before… This, and more, has kept me away from much movie watching and from much time for writings like this. Now though, those times are behind me. So free that I decided to start doing some hiking lately and started off today by walking to to Angels Rest in the gorge. A grand walk it was, much different that my daily stroll to work, much more fulfilling. And it is surely worth going all the way up and out on the rest… Very nice. And it was actually a pretty involving walk for non-hikers such as ourselves.

here’s the view looking back down at part of the trail

here’s the view across the river from the top. 1600 feet up…

I Watched The Lurker in the Lobby, the old first compilation of shorts from the HPL Film Festival. Of course they are all interesting as renditions of Lovecraft’s stories, probably with more connection to the actual stories than the feature films that are made. I like the Hound most of all, though Necronomicon seems good, but it is soo short that it is really a bit hard to determine. Both of The Outsiders seem a bit too little. It is such a basic story and such a good one that I hope to see a version that seems to involve more than a blue filter on a camera watching someone walking through a house. Cthulhu Wore Tennis Shoes, as the name would imply, isn’t worth watching but The Music of Erich Zahn is good as is From Beyond. The Hound is really the one film worth having this collection for, well, that and the awesome Thickets video for Worship Me Like a God! Though in reading reviews of the DVD collections now available, I’m getting a bit tired of people always dissing the Thickets. They just don’t get it… I think maybe they haven’t heard enough of their songs. Nothings backs up a HPL day for me like listening to Cthulhu Strikes Back! The stuff on this ol’ VHS is currently available on the hpl collection dvd’s from Lurker Films

Eyes Wide Shut. Okay, here’s another one. I had some idea about what this movie was about and, from day one, I had never any intention or interest in seeing it. I know how could I say that about a Kubrick film? Has he ever led me wrong. Well, no. But… Well, as always, I was wrong. The movie was nothing like what I had expected. It is soo not a slow boring artsie orgy film, instead it is a captivating thriller that, while lead by two annoying actors, is engrossing, well-shot, nice to look at and well acted (TC and NK pull of their irritating characters fairly well). Yes, Cruise and Kidman were dull (though I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in a movie before), but they fit the parts pretty well. And it was just a good movie. All I had to do was close my cruise-eyes (like I do for Minority Report) and watch the plot unfold. A good mystery and another well-crafted film for Kubrick.

The worst movie this year crown is pulled off the head of Battle Beyond the Stars! Yes, I know that Jeff Conway is always a bad sign, but even he must have hated himself for signing onto Alien Intruder. Bad. Not even bad in the “okay, at least it’s corny” way, just plain, lame unwatchably terrible. Nothing else needs to be said. Not a single redeeming quality. Avoid it (and what? Billy Dee? It makes the Schlitz ad’s look like a highwater mark).

Another Masters of Horror came down the pike. I sat for a late nighter of Cigarette Burns. Easily of the better of the two MoH that I’ve seen. The lead guy wasn’t too engaging for me, and some of the scenes in France didn’t come across as all that believable, but all in all, a pretty good flick. A good idea, fun storyline, well made, good gore, Udo Kier, John Carpenter. I would recommended it if you are into the horror movie kind of thing and have an hour to spare. Also, some of the other MoH trailers seemed interesting. Especially Jenifer (by Dario Argento!) , it looks really good. And, obviously, they did a good job with “la fin absolue du monde”. It looks intriguing. yes, arty and “extreme”, but still, it looks like it may have made an interesting little film.

Yeah, for old times sake we watched Vacation. And I’m even bothering to mention it here because it’s been many a year since I had seen it all the way through. Of course, it was exactly how I remembered it but, I must again admit, this humor sort of fades with age. Or maybe fades with familiarity, or both. Still a classic though. The cousins are wonderful and the horrifying car is almost reason enough to watch the movie. Chevy Chase just gets a bit tiring after all these years.

And now we’ve watched Donnie Brasco. I’m not sure why I hadn’t seen this before. It was another good mob movie, more low key than most, which was nice and, of course, everything reminds me of the Sopranos… But this one didn’t have too many of the old Sopranos faces and it was a pretty good film. Good period job, good actors… Some top notch ones, including one of my old favorites, Bruno Kirby, and a job from Pacino that didn’t seem as much of a tired old thing as a lot of the roles I’ve seen him in. Of course the “basd ona ture story” aspect adds an element to the supense, and maybe a bit of remorse knowing thta things probably didn’t turn out too well for any of those guys. But a strong film.

And lastly, a repeat viewing of The Body Beneath. A movie truely only for fans of the old Something Weird style of movie. This on has it all: sex, violence, blood sucking, psychedelic feasts… But all done in a truly awful way. Bad acting, silly story with lots of contradictions, bad costumes, some odd characters like the vampires nymphet vampiress slave enforcer squad (no matter how low budget a film is, some of the money should be used for makeup), who sort of grew on me after a while, and the hunched-back mod, who never did grow on me… and that terrible terrible “i can’t believe they used that for blood” kind of blood that drips all over movies like this. It was a fun film though! And Gavin Reed is worth the price of rentals alone as the only actor who really tried to put anything into this film, his portayal of Algernon Ford was just perfect! I also liked the music played during the “feast”.