Novocaine (2001)

Director: David Atkins

Writers: Paul Felopulos, David Atkins

Composer: Steve Bartek

Starring:  Steve Martin, Laura Dern, Lynne Thigpen, Hlena bonham Carter, Scott Caan, Elias Koteas, Keith David, Kevin Bacon

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Crime Is Not Only Done By Criminals.

Plot: A dentist finds himself a murder suspect after a sexy patient seduces him into prescribing her drugs.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

I haven't seen this in ages and I'm glad it's held up. This is a nice, tight and sometimes darkly funny crime thriller.  It's nice seeing Steve Martin outside of the comedy pictures.  He's fun but in a serious way.  Having seen him in a lot of movies there's some baggage that he brings that's purely that of the audience.  Because he's Steve Martin you almost automatically like him and that can help or hurt an actor.  The supporting cast is great.  Hell, there's no weak link in the picture.  The story has a lot going on.  I would suggest not thinking about anything and let the film take you for a ride.  Do you like incest?  I thought you did.  Kevin Bacon has an uncredited role of an actor researching the role of a detective and he's hilarious.  I love that guy.  The Artisan DVD has lots of extras.  You get a short piece on forensic dentistry (9 minutes), a 9 minute fluff piece on the making of the film, 5 deleted scenes, 6 excerpts from the soundtrack (including 2 by Danny Elfman and 2 from Steve Bartek, Elman's bandmate in Oingo Boingo who also provided the score), the non-anamorphic widescreen red band (and green band) trailers for the film, and trailers for 5 other movies, TV show and DVD box set, plus the director's commentary for the film.  I really enjoy this film and if any of this sounds like your bag, it's an easy purchase for under five bucks.  I picked it up at Big Lots a couple of years ago for $2 and it was a no brainer having already seen the film at that point. 

Hitler's G.I. Death Camp (2011)

Director: Steven Hoggard

Writer: Steven Hoggard

Composers: Stuart Kollmorgen, Christopher Magnum, Michael S. Patterson

Starring: Liev Schreiber

More info: IMDb

Plot: Artifacts, photographs and journals tell the story of 350 American GIs who were held at Berga, a secretive Nazi concentration camp.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

I really have a distaste for these short TV documentaries yet I keep watching them as if I'm going to get something of genuine quality.  The only thing I generally glean is learning just a little bit about something I knew little to nothing about.  The music is heavy handed and overly dramatic and they take 20 minutes worth of material and stretch it out to 44 minutes.  It's the complete opposite of most of the UK equivalent of which I'm a HUGE fan.  They know how to make interesting, compelling and informative docs.  This one feels like it's leaving a lot out.  The subject is the G.I. camp but they only spend about half the program discussing it in any kind of detail.  Every few minutes I found myself asking good questions that they failed to address (not as if I expected the TV to give me instant feedback or anything).  For example, they go through great lengths to talk about the journals that some men kept while in captivity but only give us a few scant words on what they contain.  I'm sure there are countless fascinating entries that could have been mentioned. And how were they able to keep them and how did they survive the war?  I understand there's nothing that's going to beat picking up a good book on the subject but these National Geographic, History Channel, etc. docs are only going to whisper the tip of the iceberg.  The sad thing is, with more effort they could all do a far better job in delivering the information and a lot more of it in the same amount of space.  I'm going to save more heartache with these poor episodic docs and remove them from my Netflix queue.

The Body Snatcher (1945)

Director: Robert Wise

Writers: Robert Louis Stevenson, Philip MacDonald, Val Lewton

Composer: Roy Webb

Starring: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell, Edith Atwater, Russell Wade, Rita Corday, Sharyn Moffett, Donna Lee

More info: IMDb

Tagline: INVADED!...the sanctuary of the Dead!...by the Hero of Horror!...and the Master of Menace!

Plot: A ruthless doctor and his young prize student find themselves continually harassed by their murderous supplier of illegal cadavers.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

I'm a sucker for any variation on the Burke & Hare story of grave robbing, but only if it's set in the 19th century which this is.  Karloff is one sinister fucker in this picture and he's incredibly good at it, too.  Lugosi is great but he's barely used.  It's a shame he wasn't given better roles and he was relegated to minor parts just so they producers could have his name on the poster to sell tickets.  The rest of the cast does a fine job.  The score, art direction, camera work, etc are all very good.  It's so good that I'd love to see this in an old theater.  That would be tops.  There's even some great and creepy moments like when the street singer is suddenly silenced.  That was masterfully handled and completely off screen to maximize its effectiveness.  The Warner Bros. DVD I have comes with a commentary by Steve Haberman and director Robert Wise along with the theatrical trailer.  Another Val Lewton classic, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943), is the second feature on the disc which is a great film, too.

George Lucas: Maker of Films (1971)

Director: Jerry Hughes

Writer: Not scripted

Composer: No original score

Starring: George Lucas, Gene Youngblood

More info: IMDb

Plot:  Film critic Gene Youngblood spends an afternoon with George Lucas discussing Lucas' brief time in making films which as led to his turning his award winning student film into a Hollywood feature film that was just released, THX 1138 (1971).

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Probably not.

This almost hour long video taped film was made to air on PBS.  It's a serious discussion about the state of the art of film making not only in dissing the major studio's way of doing things but also where technology is taking (and is going to take) the medium, that once everyone has access to the equipment that only then will you see art being made and distributed instead of consumable entertainment.  I really dig hearing the pre-too-big-for-his-britches Lucas discussing film making and this was done just as THX 1138 was released.  Lucas talks a little about his youth and what led him to film making and a lot about his college years, the making of the THX short film and how that led to his getting a larger budget feature made of it.  He's really upset with the changes Warner Bros. made that shaped his first feature, so much that I'd like to rip the plastic off my THX DVD and listen to the commentary before seeing the picture again.  It sounds like his original vision is vastly different, and cynical, to the finished product.

Also of interest is the inclusion of two short films, 6-18-67 (1967) (5 minutes) and ELECTRONIC LABYRINTH THX 1138 4EB (1967) (15 minutes).  The former is about meaningless will the latter will whet your appetite on what the young Lucas was thinking in science fiction terms 10 years before he finished STAR WARS (1977).  This short film is definitely worth a look for fans of the man (pre-prequels).  I miss that young, idealistic George Lucas.

Dracula III: Legacy (2005)

Director: Patrick Lussier

Writers: Joel Soisson, Patrick Lussier

Composers: Kevin Kliesch, Ceiri Torjussen

Starring: Jason Scott Lee, Stephen Billington, Diane Neal, Jason London, Rutger Hauer, Ilinca Goia, George Grigore, Roy Scheider, Tom Kane, Alexandra Wescourt, Serban Celea

More info: IMDb


Plot: In the near future, Uffizi and Luke travel to the remote reaches of war torn Romania to rescue Elizabeth and finish the vampire once and for all. Along the way, they encounter TV news journalist and a corps of rebels trying to fight the vampire uprising which plagues their country.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Woof.  I only watched this because Rutger Hauer plays Dracula and Roy Scheider's also in it.  It's a fucking bullshit move that Hauer doesn't show up until 25 minutes from the end.  Up until then it's cheesy dialogue (that only a few of the actors can deliver without me cringing) and the typical fare you'd expect in a late night TV movie or DTV.  Filming in Romania is definitely a plus but there's far too much video grading, giving this an almost sepitone look.  I'd swear I've seen Jason Scott Lee give a good performance but it's definitely not here. Part of it is the crap dialogue and that he's trying too hard to be the soft-spoken, tortured badass.  Not many people can pull that kind of roll off successfully but this character type is way over-played in movies.  If you're interest in seeing this is purely for Hauer or Scheider, you're going to waste your time.  If I had known I would've moved onto something else instead.  The 4-movie Blu-ray I have (soon to be had) with the 3 Dracula pictures (the two films prior to this one) and THEY (2002) are all on one disc and have no special features.  I want my ten bucks back.

Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967)

Director: George Lucas

Writer: George Lucas

Composer: No score except for music from other films (none credited)

Starring: Dan Natchsheim, Joy Carmichael, David Munson, Marvin Bennett, Ralph Stell

More info: IMDb

Plot: While monitored and pursued, a man races to escape through a futuristic labyrinth.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Probably not.  It'll watch the feature film instead.

This is the 15 minute short film that George Lucas made in film school that is responsible for pretty much kick starting his career.  It won several awards and for it he won a scholarship from Warner Bros.  There he met Francis Ford Coppola which lead to their forming Zoetrope Studios.  Knowing this is a student film really helps, especially when you consider this was made in the late 70s.  Forget for a moment that it was made by future Mr. STAR WARS (1977).  It's visually interesting by filming TV monitors and the sound is really important and does a fantastic job of selling it.  The soundscape is outstanding.  Daniel Tueth is the only name attached to the sound department.  I'm sure since this was Lucas' baby that he had a hand in shaping what Tueth created.  We often give extra credit for things that came first.  Everyone has an opinion.  Is this a great film?  No.  It's interesting but it also is the one thing that you can point to that put Lucas on the path as a film director and for that I'm grateful.  And now I'm reminded of how freakin' long it's been since I saw the feature film version of this short that came out a few years later with the shortened title of THX 1138 (1971).

Dracula 2000 (2000)

Director: Patrick Lussier

Writers: Joel Soisson, Patrick Lussier

Composer: Marco Beltrami

Starring: Gerard Butler, Christopher Plummer, Jonny Lee Miller, Justine Waddell, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Jennifer Esposito, Omar Epps, Sean Patrick Thomas, Danny Masterson, Lochlyn Munro, Tig Fong, Tony Munch, Jeri Ryan, Shane West, Nathan Fillion

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The Most Seductive Evil of All Time Has Now Been Unleashed in Ours.

Plot: A group of thieves break into a chamber expecting to find paintings, but instead they release the count himself, who travels to New Orleans to find his nemesis' daughter, Mary Van Helsing.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

I honestly expected a lot more from this.  I had no idea it was so bad and cheesy. The music really goes over the top in a few scenes, making this look even more like a music video.  The story is just fine but the performances are mostly over the top and campy.  Plummer comes off the best and that's probably because he's, you know, a really good actor (he's had his moments of cheese but this isn't really one of them).  I think the big problem is in the direction and art direction.  I watched the Blu-ray and it looks super clean and too pretty.  I love the idea of setting it largely in New Orleans but even a lot of those shots look like they were filmed on a soundstage and look fake as hell.  The Mardi Gras crowd scenes look staged and unnatural.  I don't know, man, this just looks slick and superficial.  Yeah, it's a horror movie called DRACULA 2000 and that about says enough, but this should have been better.  The best part was seeing Nathan Fillion in a small role pre-FIREFLY.  I'm skipping the first sequel and the only reason I'm about to watch DRACULA III: LEGACY (2005) is because Rutger Hauer plays Dracula and it's also got Roy Scheider in it (he's also in the second one but it doesn't look like his role is substantial enough for me to waste my time).