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teddanson
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Post subject: Re: What have you been watching? Posted: 03 Nov 2020, 15:37 |
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Joined: 16 Nov 2018, 14:21 Posts: 1570 Location: New Delaware Has thanked: 448 times Been thanked: 496 times
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I watched my Blu Ray edition (an HD world first for this film) of Drive-In Massacre last night to make up for missing my horror film tradition on Halloween. Here's some drivel from my Letterboxd entry. Might watch the TV version that is included on the same disc tonight to compare the two editions. After a long time sat on my shelf I finally got around to giving this short and not very sweet 'proto slasher' a whirl. In short, Drive-In Massacre isn't very good. Yet it holds a particular charm that takes it away from being an full-fat, high calorie stinker. The film is very much a boring cop procedure with a few gory kills and Z Core smut thrown in. However there are elements that make the film engrossing and, upon reflection, appear ahead of it's time, even so far as shaping and influencing the very many splatter and slasher films that would flood the late 1970's and throughout the 1980's and beyond to today. Drive-In Massacre opens with flower power-esque music over a montage of patrons arriving at a drive-in theatre. Simple stuff, but it instantly throws you off thinking that the credit sequence would be more sinister in tone. It kind of reminded me a bit of Last House On The Left, just with more upbeat music. Acting is virtually non-existent along with any real plot, though the ending is a great and almost comedic twist. Kills are few and far between but when they arrive they are, for their time and the size budget, rather graphic and don't hold back. Watching the interviews on the Blu Ray afterwards gave some great insight in to the inventiveness that was called upon that helped the crew to get this film done, on a miniscule budget too. What we have in Drive-In Massacre is a pretty terrible film, but one that certainly has earned a place in the annals of cinema history. The influences in films that came after this one are plentiful and varied. Don't dismiss Drive-In Massacre. It is what it is. Sub par hokum. But without it, many a modern film would be lost.
_________________ Blog: The Coterie / L'boxd: Diary Pioneer CLD-R7G, CLD-D925 | Yamaha APD-2 | DVDO Edge, VP50 Pro
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takeshi666
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Post subject: Re: What have you been watching? Posted: 21 Nov 2020, 03:47 |
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Joined: 01 Feb 2018, 02:41 Posts: 1990 Location: Finland Has thanked: 183 times Been thanked: 384 times
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signofzeta wrote: People are too afraid to look stupid nowadays. Thousand times this. No major motion picture studio today would make a movie as earnestly hokey as the 1980 Flash Gordon for example.
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signofzeta
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Post subject: Re: What have you been watching? Posted: 21 Nov 2020, 04:40 |
Jedi Knight |
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Joined: 14 Jan 2010, 09:44 Posts: 5982 Location: Ann Arbor Has thanked: 1281 times Been thanked: 1102 times
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takeshi666 wrote: signofzeta wrote: People are too afraid to look stupid nowadays. Thousand times this. No major motion picture studio today would make a movie as earnestly hokey as the 1980 Flash Gordon for example. I don’t know. They made Cats and that thing is quad dumb as Flash. If it’s officially gay canon then it’s OK, I guess. This was dumb and new though. I guess what I meant with Zardoz is...well, the plot is *really* similar to stuff kids say when they get effed up on something for the first time. Or it’s a bunch of 60s scifi half remembered and ripped off by some sort of 1970s Joe Rogan. I don’t know. It’s dumb, but it wants to be smart, and a guy will wear a red diaper to get the point across. It’s not common. I respect the enthusiasm.
_________________ All about LD care, inner sleeves, shrink wrap, etc.
https://youtu.be/b3O-vHpHRpM
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firehorse_44
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Post subject: Re: What have you been watching? Posted: 21 Nov 2020, 11:01 |
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Joined: 11 Jun 2008, 06:10 Posts: 1617 Location: Milky Way-Sol System-Terra-USA-North Carlolina. Has thanked: 561 times Been thanked: 239 times
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signofzeta wrote: You guys are acting like you don’t watch Zardoz every night.
I love this movie. You have to be comfortable with the fact that it’s more weird and dumb than it is brilliant scifi but once you’re comfortable with that it’s a blast. I love how earnest it is. People are too afraid to look stupid nowadays.
One of my favorite rappers is POS of Doomtree and one of the many reasons I like him is that he once referenced this movie with the seeming non-sequitor “god barfs guns.” I wish I could remember what song that was... You may be on to something zeta, I need to watch ZARDOZ every night for stretch and see what happens. If I go dark, I was committed and am resting quietly in some institution singing the ballad of Dwight Frye LmAo ! Seriously, I do like the film, it just took me for a loop with the abstract nature. Absolutely loved the introduction with the floating head explanations of "reality" ! ! ! I burned a copy to share and reccomended it to a few friends in memory of Mr. Connery....... Cannot believe that crazy Scott went from 007 to ZARDOZ Disciple..... What a mind job first watching it ! And I am a fan of WEIRD stuff !
_________________ Acta Non Verba ..... Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum .... Si Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc ......
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takeshi666
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Post subject: Re: What have you been watching? Posted: 21 Nov 2020, 15:19 |
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Joined: 01 Feb 2018, 02:41 Posts: 1990 Location: Finland Has thanked: 183 times Been thanked: 384 times
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signofzeta wrote: I don’t know. It’s dumb, but it wants to be smart, and a guy will wear a red diaper to get the point across. It’s not common. I respect the enthusiasm. Well if you really want to boil the movie down to just the message it's trying to send (immortality = bad) then yeah, it is kind of dumb. But that's not really all there is to it, is it? I remember reading the movie was very well received in literary science fiction circles, because it is very similar to literary science fiction. Is it really any dumber than, say, The Fantastic Planet?
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je280
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Post subject: Re: What have you been watching? Posted: 22 Nov 2020, 01:55 |
Hardcore fan |
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Joined: 13 Sep 2012, 23:14 Posts: 1199 Location: United Kingdom Has thanked: 265 times Been thanked: 259 times
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ZARDOZ. Must be about 30 years since I watched that one, now perhaps time to give it another view. The opening/introduction was apparently added by John Boorman at the request of studio execs to help the audience understand what they were about to see..... I am Arthur Frayn, and I am Zardoz. I have lived three hundred years, and I long to die. But death is no longer possible. I am immortal. I present now my story, full of mystery and intrigue - rich in irony, and most satirical. It is set deep in a possible future, so none of these events have yet occurred, but they may. Be warned, lest you end as I. In this tale, I am a fake god by occupation - and a magician, by inclination. Merlin is my hero! I am the puppet master. I manipulate many of the characters and events you will see. But I am invented, too, for your entertainment - and amusement. And you, poor creatures, who conjured you out of the clay? Is God in show business too? The part played by Sean Connery was originally offered to Burt Reynolds but he apparently had to pull out before shooting started due to an injury or ill health at the time. When I last watched this it was on VHS with a couple of friends & when it ended one of the chaps said "can someone tell me what have we just watched, that was a mind-fu+k that was." Looks like I will be giving ZARDOZ a another viewing soon - looking forward to seeing it again.
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teddanson
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Post subject: Re: What have you been watching? Posted: 06 Dec 2020, 00:19 |
Absolute fan |
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Joined: 16 Nov 2018, 14:21 Posts: 1570 Location: New Delaware Has thanked: 448 times Been thanked: 496 times
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Watched 13 Ghosts in Illusion-O! Lifted from my diary if you wish to read it. Also watched Moonraker, Live Like A Cop Die Like A Man (which was BRILLIANT) and Murder By The Book over the past couple of nights. Anyway… ================== A fun, and very much of it's time, little horror film from 1960 packed with an Illusion-O gimmick! I watched the main Illusion-O version with a pair of red/blue 3D glasses I had laying around as the Indicator Blu Ray box set doesn't have a Ghost Viewer packed in. Early pressings of the 2001 Columbia DVD did come with a viewer but these are hard to find now and expensive. Interestingly, William Castle was originally going buy a 'haunted' mansion and then get 2 million keys cut for it. The keys would have been handed out at screenings but only one key would open the door to the house. In other words William Castle was going to give away a house to a lucky winner.¹ Another interesting piece I learned from the Indicator blu ray is that Rosemary DeCamp, who plays the mother, was at home with her husband on July 7th 1946 when an X11 airplane, piloted by mogul Howard Hughes, crashed in to the house next door to them but not before the wings of the aircraft tore through her home, with her and her husband in it, first! Hughes apologised and offered to pay for all of the damage.¹ The film is fairly short and sweet, telling a simple tale of a haunted house but with a treasure-laden twist. It's all good stuff and by today's standards it's fairly innocent fare. I would imagine that even back in 1960 there were more terrifying films to see but the gimmick is the draw here and it works really well. I had a great time donning my 3D glasses and looking for the ghosts as well as peeking through the blue filter to see them instantly removed! There's not a great deal to say about 13 Ghosts as it's really straightforward stuff. I guess if the gimmick was missing this would just be a picture lost in the vat of countless other horror films of the time. There's a fairly good score here, decent acting and some lovely direction to get the best out of the filtered ghost viewer scenes. Nothing that will leave you sitting in a damp collection of your own loose, watery stools, but an enjoyable gimmick-laden 80-something minutes will probably be had by many. Seek this one out, preferably as part of the two excellent William Castle Indicator box sets. ¹ source: Steven Laws introduction feature, Indicator blu ray release.
_________________ Blog: The Coterie / L'boxd: Diary Pioneer CLD-R7G, CLD-D925 | Yamaha APD-2 | DVDO Edge, VP50 Pro
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takeshi666
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Post subject: Re: What have you been watching? Posted: 14 Dec 2020, 17:13 |
Absolute fan |
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Joined: 01 Feb 2018, 02:41 Posts: 1990 Location: Finland Has thanked: 183 times Been thanked: 384 times
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Finally got the replacement belts for my player. I say "belts" even though I only needed one; I actually bought two because the 3.6" belt didn't show up on search and I'd already bought a 3.8" one. Anyway, the first thing I spun up was Snowman, The (1982) [50LS-4011] - fantastic picture quality, just like on Father Christmas. I wasn't expecting the David Bowie introduction to continue as a voiceover into the cartoon though, I wonder if the other one with the Raymond Briggs intro is the same?
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