May
13
| The Last Shark (L’ultimo Squalo) |
|
| Year | 1981 |
| Director | Enzo G. Castellari |
| Actors | Vic Morrow James Franciscus Giancarlo Prete |
| Disc Layers | 1 |
| Source | Unknown |
| Image Quality | Fair |
Somehow this movie manages to be a complete rip-off of Jaws, while capturing none of the excitement that made Jaws such a great film. All the stock characters are here: a handsome guy who wants to prevent the deaths of swimmers, windsurfers, and teenagers, an egotistical guy in a suit who refuses to close the beach, and a fisherman doing his best Robert Shaw imitation. There is very little plot other than the shark attacking various people in short, surprisingly gore-free scenes.
The Last Shark is so clearly a redux of Jaws that, in some countries, it was billed as a Jaws sequel. In the United States, Universal successfully had it pulled from theaters.
After an incredibly cheesy opening, the music is pretty good - typical of 1980s Italian horror and action films with heavy synthesizers and tension-building bass lines. Not John Williams, but reminiscent of the work of Claudio Simonetti and other great Italian composers.
On the copy I have, the letterboxed picture is a little bit jittery, which can be annoying, but the image is not muddy. It has non-removable, non-English subtitles, but they’re white and easy to ignore.
Also known as: Great White, The Last Jaws
Apr
26
Bottle Rocket (1994 short film)
Filed Under Short Films, Unknown
| Bottle Rocket (1994 short film) |
|
| Year | 1994 |
| Director | Wes Anderson |
| Actors | Owen Wilson Luke Wilson Robert Musgrave |
| Disc Layers | 1 |
| Source | Unknown |
| Image Quality | Fair |
Clocking in at a brief 13 minutes, this short film would later be developed into the masterpiece of the same name, launching Wes Anderson and the Owens brothers into super-stardom. Here, more than ever, their talent is on display as the dialogue and delivery shine through the grainy, black and white, hand-held image.
Watching this film, it seems as if the feature script was already written, then pared down to its basics for the short. It shares much of its dialogue with the feature, and two years later, many of the scenes would be refilmed almost identically - with a modest, but much larger budget.
A great treat for fans.
May
21
Industrial Symphony No. 1
Filed Under David Lynch, Laserdisc
| Industrial Symphony No. 1 |
|
| Year | 1990 |
| Director | David Lynch |
| Actors | Julee Cruise Michael J. Anderson Laura Dern Nicolas Cage |
| Disc Layers | 1 |
| Source | Laserdisc |
| Image Quality | Very Good |
UPDATE: Industrial Symphony No. 1 is now available in the United States and other countries as part of the David Lynch Lime Green DVD Set. I no longer trade this title.
This collaboration between David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, an avant garde stage performance, takes all of Lynch’s signature elements and presents them in a surreal show filled with symbolism, the haunting voice of Julee Cruise, and the unforgettable music of Badalamenti.
Industrial Symphony No. 1 contains a large number of references to Lynch’s other work. It begins with two lovers breaking up over the phone (Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage in roles almost identical to those they played in Wild At Heart), then abruptly switches to a stage performance that symbolizes the thoughts inside the head of the heartbroken girl. Julee Cruise, seen briefly in Twin Peaks, is the focus of the performance as she flies about the stage and lip syncs songs from the two albums she created with Lynch and Badalamenti. Michael J. Anderson, the little man from Twin Peaks, plays an integral part, as do Lynch’s ubiquitous power lines and unsettling imagery. Badalamenti himself makes an appearance on stage and plays a clarinet.
What makes Industrial Symphony No. 1 interesting to fans of Lynch’s other work, however, may not be the music or the presence of Lynch affiliates, but how it predicts the “psychogenic fugue” style of narrative that he would fully explore seven years later in Lost Highway - a style that he has continued to develop and perfect. Lynch’s recent work tries to replicate that lucid dreaming moment when one is aware of being in the dreamstate. To fully enjoy films like Mulholland Drive or Inland Empire you have to sit back and imagine you’re enjoying a good dream - one in which logic, continuity, and linear storytelling are unnecessary. Looking at it this way, Industrial Symphony No. 1 is closer to Inland Empire than it is to Wild At Heart, which was made at roughly the same time as this performance. It moves through moments of calm, moments of nightmare, and moments of uncertainty like a bad dream. Or a really good one.
The source for this DVD is the Japanese laserdisc. There are no subtitles (all dialogue and lyrics are in English) and the picture quality is very good. It runs just under an hour.
May
7
Hardware (M.A.R.K. 13)
Filed Under DVD, Horror, Movies, Science Fiction
| Hardware (M.A.R.K. 13) | |
| Year | 1990 |
| Director | Richard Stanley |
| Actors | Dylan McDermott Stacy Travis Iggy Pop |
| Disc Layers | 1 |
| Source | DVD |
| Image Quality | Excellent |
Richard Stanley’s first feature film is one of those movies that could only have been made in the late 1980s - a visually artistic, post-apocalyptic/science fiction/horror film that has more in common with the films of Ken Russell than it does with The Terminator. Many of us lucky enough to see Hardware during its limited theatrical run became life-long fans of the man who, in 18 years, has really only directed two full-length features.
Long before the debacle of Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau, Stanley’s film about a robot killing several less-than-likeable humans explored the concept of our own unusual creations becoming a threat to our existence. At the time of its release, I remember reading an interview with Stanley in which he claimed to be filming a documentary in the desert when he received word of Hardware’s funding. He had been carrying a wounded friend on his back for a day or so.
Hardware has much of the late 80s/early 90s post-apocalypse style: a washed out orange/red tint to the image, the implication of a Big Brother-type government, a population of nuclear-mutated homeless people, and a pessimistic attitude that everything is not going to be okay. It’s slow and it mostly takes place in a single room. It’s a movie that just wouldn’t work in the 21st century.
The beauty of Hardware lies in the presentation. With a minimal budget, Stanley created an artistic film with loads of surrealism and memorable imagery that manages to be intelligent and absorbing without being pretentious. A dose of gory violence (which initially earned the film an X rating) keeps things from getting to self-conscious. This is, after all, a movie about a killer robot.
There was a time when Hardware was slated for a Region 1 release. Time stretched on and on until eventually it was clear that it wasn’t going to happen. Fortunately, it was released in limited numbers in one or two other regions. In an age of High Definition, the intentionally washed-out look of the image takes a few minutes to adjust to, but then it starts to add to the movie’s dreamlike feel. A great score, a slight bit of philosophy, and a few quirky characters round out the experience.
Apr
30
Twin Peaks: The Visual Soundtrack
Filed Under David Lynch, Laserdisc, TV Shows
| Twin Peaks: Visual Soundtrack | |
| Year | 1992 |
| Director | Unknown |
| Actors | None |
| Disc Layers | 1 |
| Source | Laserdisc |
| Image Quality | Excellent |
This Warner Brothers-licensed oddity of Twin Peaks fanaticism, released only on laserdisc in Japan, presents the Twin Peaks soundtrack album accompanied by professional-quality, shot-on-video images of various Twin Peaks locations. Japanese captions and subtitles play throughout, along with the occasional English title card.
For those familiar with Angelo Badalamenti’s incredible score to Twin Peaks, the presentation of the images perfectly suits each track. “Laura Palmer’s Theme” plays over shots of an abandoned railroad car “graveyard.” “The Bookhouse Boys” takes you on a tour of the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Office. You’ll also get a glimpse of the RR Diner and its famous pies, among several other famous film spots.
Though it may test your attention span towards the end, this is an interesting piece of documentation for fans. In fact, the best way to watch it may be the imagine that the events of Twin Peaks actually happened and that you are watching a documentary film about the murder of Laura Palmer. The broken-down reality of the locations, in contrast with the romanticized beauty of the show, certainly make it feel this way.
The source for my DVD is the original laserdisc and the video quality is excellent. I wish the Japanese titles could be removed, but after a while I stopped being bothered by them. The scenery changes with each song, making what could have been the world’s most boring home video a moderately interesting look at the people and places of a real life Twin Peaks.
Apr
29
Logan’s Run: The TV Series
Filed Under Science Fiction, TV Shows, Unknown
| Logan’s Run: The TV Series | |
| Year | 1977 |
| Director | various |
| Actors | Gregory Harrison Heather Menzies Donald Moffat Randy Powell |
| Disc Layers | 1 x 3 discs |
| Source | unknown |
| Image Quality | Very Good |
Logan’s Run is one of the classics of 70s science fiction - a combination utopian/dystopian portrait of a future society in which everyone lives inside a shopping mall, travels easily from location to location via public transportation, enjoys liberated free love, and voluntarily dies at the age of 30 as part of a government-run population control. Although the original novel produced two sequels (written to take advantage of the movie’s popularity), the movie never saw a sequel - but it did produce a quality, but short-lived series of the same name.
Logan’s Run: The TV Series follows the logical continuation of the movie if Logan and Jessica had continued running rather than return to Dome City to overthrown the system. They quickly pick up a companion, an android named Rem, and the three go about encountering various unusual groups of survivors who live in the wasteland outside the city - all the while followed closely by the sandman Francis.
Like other science fiction series of the 1970s, Logan’s Run is very episodic - every story begins and end within the time frame of the episode. Their conflict with Francis runs throughout the series’ 14 episodes, but it’s usually just a background plotline or a reason to increase the danger of an episode. The stories usually strive for the psychological and sociological exploration that was done so well on Star Trek , but they fail to reach such heights.
The series is surprisingly entertaining, however, and fans of the movie and 70s sci-fi should enjoy it. Though some episodes lag during the second act, they usually pay off in the end. Gadgets, hovercrafts, and other low budget futuristic devices abound, the interactions between the characters are sometimes intentionally humorous, and flimsy temporary sets provide a sterile future without dust.
I picked up this set at a comic convention - a great place to get cruddy-looking DVDs - and was surprised to find that the video quality of this set is extremely high. I can’t imagine that an official DVD release (which doesn’t exist) would look any better. The image is sharp and the compression is done really well, especially considering that each single-layer disc contains more than 3 hours.