Tag Archives: M

The Warriors, Streets of Fire and Mothra Vs Godzilla – episode 145

Streets of Fire

In this one, we cover the two Walter Hill iconic movies The Warriors and Streets of Fire, and for our Kaiju movie we cover Mothra Versus Godzilla

Other stuff covered:

Movies

  • Zulu
  • Romper Stomper
  • A Clockwork Orange
  • Dead Snow
  • Hanzo The Razor: Sword of Justics
  • The Black Cat (1981)
  • Madhouse (1974)
  • A Bucket of Blood
  • Cobra
  • Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

Other Stuff

  • Tengen Toppa Gurran Lagann (anime)
  • Attack on Titan (anime)
  • Dark Souls (video game)
  • Spyro (PS One video game)
  • Batman Beyond (animated series)

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Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus 0.5/5

There’s very few movies where you watch it and think ‘this could have been better if Michael Bay directed it’, but this is one of them.

An atrocity of the art of film making mostly, though it did earn a score above 0 because of the shark taking out a plane, and a bite out of the Golden Gate Bridge (and let’s be clear, the point is for the ‘idea’ of these things, not the execution).

Milius 4/5

Milius

Compelling but fun documentary about a guy who writes great, grand dialogue, and was a peer of Spielberg, Lucas and all. Really fun to see what he added to the 70s and 80s moviescape. The world is a better place because of this guy, for sheer entertainment alone.

Masque of the Red Death 4.5/5

Masque of the Red Death

I saw this before as a teenager, and thought it was deliberately overwrought and contrived just to fill the running time, and I had that general opinion of Corman’s Poe cycle.

However, I watched The Haunted Palace for the first time not too long ago, and thought it was wonderful, and thought maybe it was time to give the whole Corman/Price cycle another chance.

Watching it again, I realised I was totally wrong. It is weird, vivid, a mashup of pulp and existential horror that’s works superbly, and apart from Witchfinder General, I think this might be Price’s best performance as the black-hearted Prospero.

I loved the garish colours and the very fine set design and rather good costuming, and I particularly liked the Red Death and his brethren.

A fine film, and a classic of horror.

Miami Vice: Brother’s Keeper 4.5/5

Miami Vice

Well, as I watched the first half, I couldn’t help thinking ‘this really isn’t as good as I remember it’. Then we saw Sonny Crockett lived on a yacht. With an alligator called Elvis. Then we saw a judge with a pump action shotgun, a clerk with a magnum, Sonny getting it on with a work colleague, and a bad guy in a dress.

So 80s, it hurts, in a good way.

I rate it Awesome++

Mark of the Vampire 3/5

Mark of the Vampire

This movie reinforces my view that Todd Browning was great at eerie and odd, but pretty terrible at conventional drama. He did it in Dracula, and he does that here. Only his ‘Freaks’ remains a pure masterpiece, because the conventional drama is completely soaked by the odd people, script and final act in that movie.

However, this film does fly when he’s doing spooky/eerie. Lugosi and the woman playing his vampire daughter are terrific, and their scenes, filmed like a silent movie, really work well.

Otherwise the movie is pretty leaden when it’s focussing on more conventional drama scenes.

The ending was fun.

The Man With The Iron Fists 2.5/5

The Man With The Iron Fists

This movie had some real problems, and I was getting bored in the first act. It looked pretty, the action scenes were decent to very good, and you could tell care was taken over the look and feel. However, it really fell short in terms of narrative coherence, and and sort of character building. It felt like a lot of fussy scenes that weren’t building to anything involving characters you really couldn’t care about.

However, it did get better as it went on. In the second act, things started to line up, and there was a better sense of cohesion, and things made sense, which dragged me from apathy to paying better attention.

By the time the final act/finale started rolling, I was fully engaged, really digging the visuals, and whilst the action could have been editing better, I found myself enjoying the ideas, panache and sheer amount of mayhem going on.

Overall, yes I enjoyed it, but I nearly turned off 20 minutes in because it seemed diffuse and more like strung together action scenes rather than a coherent whole, but I’m glad I stuck with it.

It obviously was a homage to 70s martial arts movies, and also a homage to the subgenre of spaghetti Western where gadgets are significant – the most famous example being the Sabata movies, I guess.

Fun, but the first 30 minutes are something to put up with, rather than enjoy. The rest is fine though.

Mighty Joe Young 3.5/5

Mighty Joe Young

I really expected this to be a rerun of King Kong, and for the first 2/3rd it mostly was, but it then wildly diverged into unexpected territory of a chase, followed by rescue that was genuinely exciting. The male lead was one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen, but the rest of the cast was solid. Pretty decent.

Macabre (1980) 3/5

Macabre 1980

Odd Italian thriller/horror that suffers the usual problem in Italian horror, in that the motiviation and speech of the characters seems slightly skewed compared to the narrative drive. The main actress was pretty committed, and the ending was pretty good (except the last 5 seconds), and it was fun, with a few atmospheric moments. The central relationship between a woman and a severed head doesn’t bear too close an examination.