Horror F/X (1989)

Director: Paul McCollough

Starring: Tom Savini, Lia Savini, John Russo, Everett Burrell, Greg Funk, Jerry Gergely, Will Huff, Nancy Savini, John Vulich

More info: ???

Plot:  John Russo interviews frequent collaborator and fellow Pittsburgh horror movie maker, Tom Savini, in this low-budget shot-on-video documentary.

My rating:  7/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

This 37 minute documentary is only going to be fun for Savini fans or fans of makeup and creature effects.  Tom touches on how he got started and moments in his career showing us some behind the scenes footage of some of his pictures and test footage of his creations.  That's the neat part.  He's such an easy interview and I dig this cat's enthusiasm.  It's all too short but it's a gas spending a half hour with the guy and hearing stories behind some of his most famous work of the 80s.

Radio Cab Murder (1954)

Director: Vernon Sewell

Writer: Vernon Sewell

Composer: Hubert Clifford

Starring: Jimmy Hanley, Lana Morris, Sonia Holm, Jack Allen, Sam Kydd, Pat McGrath, Michael Mellinger, Charles Morgan, Bruce Beeby, Frank Thornton

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  Mile-A-Minute Thrills...

Plot:  Fred Martin, a taxi driver who is a reformed convict, is used by the police to go undercover in order to help catch a gang of safe robbers. However things start to go wrong when the police stake out the wrong bank and Fred finds himself alone with the crooks.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Probably not.

This nice little crime thriller is enjoyable enough to give it a go but not so much that it's by no means a classic.  The acting is solid and the technical aspects are good but, for as good as the story is in parts, it lacks oomph.  That sounds like a dig but it's not.  It's a pretty well told story but in the spots you want tension the most, it fails.  It's most noticeable in the sequence in the final act when things are most dire for Fred (Hanley) and the chase is on between the good guys and the bad guys.  There's a lot of back and forth with the good guys and dispatch.  I understand that we need some of that but it goes on and on and on.  It doesn't ruin the sequence by any means but, if tightened up, it would've made it more exciting.  I take an extraordinary amount of chances on movies and this is an example of why.  Movies like this are worth sifting through the garbage for.  

We Need to Talk About Dad (2011)

Director: Elizabeth Stopford

Writer: Elizabeth Stopford

Composer: Christopher White

Starring: Zoe Telford

More info: IMDb

Plot: A documentary following a family in turmoil. Seven years ago, they were the happiest, perfect family. A loving husband and wife with two beautiful boys. When the children were 17 and 10 the oldest son, Henry discovered his mother half dead in the garden. She was unrecognizable because there was so much blood and his father just stood there watching her try to crawl to safety. His father had blindfolded his mother and walked her out to the garden where he hit her in the head with the back of an ax, fracturing her skull in three places and leaving her to die. He only served 5 months in prison and then tried to return to the family as if nothing had happened. The family hid the whole tragedy from the youngest son, Felix. Now that Felix is 17 yrs. old Henry decides to tell him the whole story, while trying to heal himself.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

How about that subject for a documentary?  It sounds wild as hell and interesting as shit.  But it's not nearly as compelling as I thought it would be.  The story is told calmly and rather bland.  Now I wasn't expecting tension-filled scenes surrounded by grisly re-enactments but it boils down to a simple story of how this family was ripped apart and re-formed in about as smoothly and quietly as possible.  That's the strange part.  If you're looking for a gripping drama, this isn't it.  You'll probably find more of that about the real story on Wikipedia.  The story sounds more interesting than this film and I don't necessarily fault the filmmakers for that as I'm sure that was their vision from the beginning.

Hell Up in Harlem (1973)

Director: Larry Cohen

Writer: Larry Cohen

Composers: Fonce Mizell, Freddie Perren

Starring: Fred Williamson, Julius Harris, Gloria Hendry, Margaret Avery, D'Urville Martin, Tony King, Gerald Gordon, Bobby Ramsen, James Dixon, Esther Sutherland, Charles MacGuire, Mindi Miller, Al Kirk, Janelle Webb

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Black Godfather is back...and there's gonna be Hell up in Harlem.

Plot: A gangster in Harlem must rescue his ex-wife, who has been kidnapped by the Mafia.

My rating:  6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

BLACK CAESAR (1973) was an instant hit and the producer went to it's writer/director Larry Cohen to make the sequel ASAP.  This sequel hit theaters that same year, ten months later.  It was a rush job beyond belief and it shows.  There are a lot of inserts where it's obvious the actors aren't in the room with the others.  There's one really bad one that has Williamson, Harris and Hendry sharing a scene but each actor was filmed at a different time.  It's awful.  But we don't watch these movies for the quality of the acting, dialogue, beautiful locations and Oscar-bait monologues.  These were cheap action pictures made to make money, warts and all.  So in that sense I kind of dug it.  D'Urville Martin isn't given much to do and his time is short and not funny at all, in one of his few dramatic turns.  Williamson is alright but he's not here to pour on that charm that he often showed.  I really liked how the story brought in Tommy's (Williamson) dad, Papa (Harris).  Julian Harris is always a treat to watch and Cohen had a stroke of genius adding Papa to the story and having him go from nothing to running the operation (like son, like father but without the violent and drawn out trek from rags to riches).  Overall it's not a bad watch and it's a little less entertaining than CAESAR but it's still mandatory viewing for fans of the genre. 

Savages (2012)

Director: Oliver Stone

Writers: Don Winslow, Shane Salerno, Oliver Stone

Composer: Adam Peters

Starring: Blake Lively, Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, John Travolta, Shea Whigham, Diego Catano

More info: IMDb


Plot: Pot growers Ben and Chon face off against the Mexican drug cartel who kidnapped their shared girlfriend.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I digs me some Oliver Stone and it feels like ages since I saw one of his pictures I hadn't seen before.  This one is hit and miss.  There are a couple of great suspense scenes that show off how good he can be.  He's also good at producing some trippy shit.  Technically it's very good but there are some issues that are unavoidable.  I didn't care for Blake Lively.  She's OK part of the time but her performance is pretty bland which includes all of her narration.  It's Dullsville.  On top of that, some of the narration dialogue is just awful, especially how she delivers it.  For example, [about fucking her 'hard to concentrate because of the war' ex-military boyfriend] "He gave me an orgasm and I gave him a wargasm".  Ugh.  For the most part the performances are fine.  I had the 'rental' Blu-ray so my only option was the theatrical version but it's got some great moments of hard violence.  I'm not convinced I liked the ending although I can easily see why Stone went that way by trying to have his cake and eat it, too.  You get to a point then everything takes a hard left and throws some fuckery at the audience.  I guess I'm OK with it but fucking hell does Lively under deliver.  Where she fails, Hayek delivers.  She's great as the tough as nails drug kingpin.  I'd like to see a movie all about her character.  It's nice seeing Travolta in a role I dig him in.  Del Toro plays a great no-nonsense badass except it was tough accepting that mullet he was sportin'.  And I always get a kick out of watching Shea Whigham.  It's one of those pictures that probably had the potential to be a great movie but not with this story as it was and the casting of Lively.  I think Stone was the right choice but it was undercooked and left me wanting something more satisfying.

The League of Gentlemen (1960)

Director: Basil Dearden

Writers: John Boland, Bryan Forbes

Composer: Philip Green

Starring: Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick, Roger Livesey, Richard Attenborough, Bryan Forbes, Kieron Moore, Terence Alexander, Norman Bird, Robert Coote, Nigel Green, Oliver Reed

More info: IMDb

Tagline: What is the league ... Who are the gentlemen?

Plot: A disgruntled veteran recruits a group of disgraced colleagues to perform a bank robbery with military precision.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

Well this was an interesting picture.  The setup to bring all of these characters together was fun.  Along the way we meet each of them and get a sense of who they are and, for some, their motivation on why they would want in on this scheme.  Once the team is assembled the picture moves onto preparing for the caper and then the aftermath.  This isn't a laugh out loud comedy but there is some good funny.  It's more lighthearted.  Oliver Reed has a brief walk-on bit and he's hilarious.

I about lost my shit at that.  I miss him.  Anyway, I won't spoil anything but the post-heist ending is unconventional.  I'm not sure I liked how things turn out.  I'm not used to this kind of thing coming out of England in this era.  It feels like it belongs more firmly in the mid-70s.  Maybe it'll sit better with me the next time I see it.  It's a good picture but don't expect a laugh out loud comedy caper.

I almost forgot, the second biggest laugh is right here.  Fucking classic!

Now go watch it.

The Killer Likes Candy (1968)

Directors: Federico Chentrens, Maurice Cloche

Writers: Maurice Cloche, John Haggarty, Adam Saint Moore, Giovanni Simonelli

Composer: Gianni Marchetti

Starring: Kerwin Mathews, Marilu Tolo, Venantino Venantini, Ann Smyrner, Riccardo Garrone, Werner Peters, Gordon Mitchell, Bruno Cremer, Lukas Ammann

More info: IMDb

Tagline: A Paid Assassin Stalks His Prey.

Plot: Shrewd and evasive ex-Nazi and top assassin Oscar Snell is determined to rub out the King of Kafiristan. Snell's sole weakness is his sweet tooth; he leaves candy wrappers at the scene of his every crime. It's up to no-nonsense CIA agent Mark Stone to find Snell and stop him before it's too late.

My rating: 4.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Ugh.  This is yet another boring Eurospy with barely anything memorable or positive to talk about.  The story is passable, the acting (the version I saw was dubbed in English) isn't all that bad but the dub acting choice on one of the main characters was strange, and the action is ho-hum.  Gordon Mitchell's not in it that much which hurts the picture I think.  But the one thing that excels is Gianni Marchetti's wild and often fun score.  Watch the video above for a little taste.  Maybe the picture bored me and the music was different enough to keep me awake or at least pull me back in.  That much I enjoyed.  Everything else is hanging out on the wrong side of OK.  This is for Eurospy completeists (like myself) only.  For everyone else I'd say get the soundtrack for your next groovin' 60s dance party.