Month: June 2020

Shame of the Jungle (1975)

SHAME OF THE JUNGLE (1975)
aka Tarzoon, la honte de la jungle
Article 4661 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-22-2014
Directed by Picha and Boris Szulzinger
Featuring the voices of Johnny Weissmuller Jr., Christopher Guest, Bill Murray
Country: France / Belgium
What it is: Bawdy animated parody of Tarzan

An evil woman plans to take over the world; however, she’s self-conscious about being bald and seeks the hair of a jungle woman named June. June, however, is the the girlfriend of Shame of the Jungle, who sets out to rescue her.

This movie is rather like a cross between a Tarzan movie, a Ralph Bakshi cartoon, and FLESH GORDON. The movie is full of sex, nudity, gross-out gags and indescribable non sequiturs, such as the whole sequence with the beer-guzzling man who is flown around on a carpet by a group of enslaved birds. It’s not really sexy (the bawdy humor is just too weird to elicit that sort of reaction), nor is it particularly funny (it’s trying so hard to be outrageous that it forgets to try for laughs). Way too much of the movie involves the evil woman’s palace guard (or “phallus guard”, as the case may be) which consists of a tribe of mobile penises; I wouldn’t be surprised if fully half of this movie consisted of footage of these guys, and any humor they generate gets old quickly. Perhaps the main reason the movie still held my interest is that I’m a fan of animation. Perhaps the most interesting things about the movie for me were the presence of Johnny Weissmuller Jr. as the voice of Shame, the presence of some Saturday Night Live Alumni in various roles (including John Belushi), and a cameo appearance by Tintin which was probably a lot more amusing to French/Belgian audiences than to American ones. The user reviews on IMDB seem to indicate that the movie is mostly well-remembered by those who saw it when they were fourteen years old, and I can see that. As it is, I find it mostly a curiosity.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

A Fantastical Meal (1900)

A FANTASTICAL MEAL (1900)
aka Le repas fantastique
Article 4660 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-20-2014
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Comic trick short

A family sits down to dinner but encounters difficulties when their food, and their table starts exhibiting strange behaviors.


The strange behaviors include such typical Meliesian touches as the the chairs disappearing from under their seats, the table becoming really tall, really short, vanishing and reappearing around the room. It gets weirder as it goes along when a ghostly figure appears over the table and turns into a box of dynamite (identifiable because the word “dynamite” is emblazoned across it) just as the master of the house attacks it. It’s a typical Melies short, but it the touches of humor work and it’s a fairly fun short, though I’m not quite sure how to describe the weird ending where one of the characters seems to be transformed into a bouncing bundle of clothes.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato: In the Name of Love (1978)

FAREWELL TO SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO: IN THE NAME OF LOVE (1978)
aka Saraba uchu senkan Yamato: Ai no senshitachi
Article 4659 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-19-2014
Directed by Toshio Masuda and Leiji Matsumoto
Featuring the voices of Kei Tomiyama, Yoko Asagami, Goro Naya
Country: Japan
What it is: Space opera

When the members of the Space Battleship Yamato discover that the ship is going to be retired from action and the crew split up, they defy orders and return to the ship and take off. They intend to do battle with an evil empire hidden within a white comet.

This is my first encounter with the Space Battleship Yamato, and it appears I’ve definitely come in at the wrong end. It began life in 1974 as a Japanese TV series (known as STAR BLAZERS in the United States) and then became a feature film. This was the follow-up to that film, and it was meant to mark the end of the story of Yamato, though the movie itself would spawn a second TV series on Yamato that would retell the movie with several changes. At any rate, the movie appears to be intended as an emotional end to the series for longtime followers, and to be perfectly honest, there’s no way for a first-time delver into the series to fully appreciate the intended impact.

It’s basically a two and a half hour anime space opera, and you’ll need to be used to the limited animation techniques of the form to appreciate it. Though it was intended as a feature film, I do feel it could have been easily broken up into five thirty-minute TV segments in which each section tells a discrete section of the story arc. Though I do get slightly annoyed with the climax-upon-climax-upon-climax approach to the storytelling, it does become apparent at about the two hour mark that this movie is not joking in its intent to be an end to the series. I found it a little hard to sit through the whole thing at one sitting; the animation style works better in smaller increments, and most of the movie consists of action scenes that get a bit tiresome. I do find myself really fascinated about some of the decisions that were made near the end of the movie; in particular, I admire the decision the movie makes in its approach to the ultimate climax of the film, which I didn’t expect. I doubt that the movie draws me into a desire to experience the whole series, but I suspect that this does a good job of bringing things to a close.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

The Time Traveller (1984)

THE TIME TRAVELLER (1984)
aka The Next One
Article 4658 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-18-2014
Directed by Nico Mastorakis
Featuring Keir Dullea, Adrienne Barbeau, Peter Hobbs
Country: USA / Greece
What it is: Odd SF/mystical drama

After a strange electrical storm, a woman and her son find an amnesiac stranger with a number on his back washed up on the beach. He eventually claims to be a time traveller, but she fears he may be an escaped child killer.

The above plot description makes this one seem as if it might turn into a thriller of sorts, but the plot point is really nothing more than a set-up for an event that happens much later in the movie. I’m clarifying that now, because I would hate for someone to go into this one expecting something other than what it is – a leisurely drama/art film with one of the most blatantly self-conscious Christ-figures in cinema history. To be honest, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this movie; on a certain level, I admire what it’s trying to do, and the lovely Greek locations make it pretty to look at. I do think, however, that it would have made for a more interesting movie if it had kept its themes under the surface rather than out in the open; I would have liked it better if it had left me with a sense of mystery. As it is, it’s one of those movies that leaves me with the feeling that there’s less here than meets the eye. I also don’t care for the ending, which seems to court outrageous coincidence for no good purpose and opens up a can of worms that the movie blithely ignores.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Extraordinary Illusions (1901)

EXTRAORDINARY ILLUSIONS (1901)
aka Dislocation mysterieuse, An Extraordinary Dislocation
Article 4657 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-16-2014
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Andre Deed
Country: France
What it is: Trick short

A clown has a novel way of reaching for and using things that are out of his normal reach.

Given the events that occur during this Georges Melies trick short, I’d have to say the alternate English title (AN EXTRAORDINARY DISLOCATION) is much more descriptive than the relatively vague title under which I found this. The clown is able to have his limbs and head detach from his torso to reach the out-of-the-way objects, though sometimes the limbs seem to take on a will of their own. It’s one of Melies’s more focused trick shorts, in that it is specifically designed to demonstrate a certain trick and see how much he can do with it. As such, this is a simple and satisfying short that doesn’t wear out its welcome.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

L’eventail anime (1909)

L’EVENTAIL ANIME (1909)
aka The Animated Fan
Article 4656 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-15-2014
Directed by Etienne Arnaud and Emile Cohl
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: History of the fan

The fan is portrayed in its various incarnations throughout history.

I’m assuming the Emile Cohl sequence of this short is the opening special effects sequence, in which an animated fan opens up and various women waving fans appear in the feathers; that’s it for the fantastic content as well. From there we get a serious of live-action set-pieces in which we see various women from history and around the world using their fans. That’s pretty much all this short features. It might have been more interesting if we saw the women and their fans in close-up, but they’re all medium shots with not particularly engrossing events happening around them. As it is, it’s only mildly interesting and not much fun, and those who are fond of Cohl’s animation will find little of interest here.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

The Enchanted Glasses (1907)

THE ENCHANTED GLASSES (1907)
aka Les verres enchantes
Article 4655 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-14-2014
Directed by Segundo de Chomon
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Magic short

A manic magician makes a female magician appear; the latter then performs several tricks with dancing girls.

What we have here is a variation on the Melies-style magic short, in which a magician appears and does a variety of tricks. The glasses in question are not spectacles, but drinking glasses; they come into play about halfway through the short in which the magician captures the essences of the dancing ladies in some drinking glasses, and then makes them appear and disappear in the glasses as she pours water to and from them. This is easily the most striking sequence in the short. The rest of it is smoothly done, but there’s not much here that I haven’t seen before; still, it is moderately entertaining.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and the Moon (1907)

THE ECLIPSE: COURTSHIP OF THE SUN AND THE MOON (1907)
aka L’eclipse du soleil un pleine lune
Article 4654 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-13-2014
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France
What it is: Comic special effects short

An astronomer hosts a get-together so that he and his fellows can observe a rare occurrence; an eclipse of the sun by the moon.

I’ve always been rather fond of this Melies short, largely due to the sections that do work. However, I did notice on this watching that it’s somewhat marred by the opening and closing sequences with the astronomer; though overtly comic, it’s not really all that amusing and takes up too much of the running time. The best part of the short is the special effects sequences in the middle. There’s a sequence where various heavenly bodies pass by, including the cranky guy on Saturn (a regular Melies character) who gets into a tussle with another heavenly body over a woman lying on a crescent moon. There’s also a surreal and oddly beautiful segment showing various heavenly bodies raining down from the heavens. However, the high point of this one is easily the eclipse itself, largely because it turns out to be something of a racy joke; watch the faces of the sun and the moon during this sequence and you should get an idea of what is REALLY going on here. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; after all, the title does mention the “courtship” of the sun and the moon. This would be one of Melies’s best shorts if the beginning and ending sequences were trimmed down.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Riding with Death (1976)

RIDING WITH DEATH (1976)
TV-Movie
Article 4653 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-12-2014
Directed by Alan J. Levi and Don McDougall
Featuring Ben Murphy, Katharine Crawford, Richard Dysart
Country: USA
What it is: Two episodes of “Gemini Man”

A secret agent with the power to turn invisible is sent out on two missions. In the first, he is sent out to deliver a super-fuel, unaware that the fuel is unstable. In the second, he goes undercover at a race track to find proof against a man believed guilty of sabotage.

According IMDB, this movie’s rating is just a hair above the one for yesterday’s atrocity. It’s actually not near as bad as yesterday’s movie, but this one suffers from the burden of having been an episode of MST3K, the fandom of which is known to give every movie featured on the show the lowest possible rating on the site. This, combined with the fact that the movie has few defenders (or even people who have bothered to see it outside of its appearance on MST3K), is what makes the rating so low. Granted, there’s not a whole lot to defend here; it’s one of those movies edited together from two weak episodes of a poor short-lived TV series (“Smithereens” and “Buffalo Bill Rides Again” from GEMINI MAN) that is largely forgotten, and it’s not even much fun on a campy level. The two episodes have a few other things in common; they both feature singer Jim Stafford as a guest star, they both prominently involve driving vehicles, and they both feature the same climax in which the hero has to drive a dangerous vehicle about to explode out of a crowded area to save the lives of the innocent. The fact that two episodes out of a twelve-episode series had to make use of the same climax certainly doesn’t bode well for the quality of the series, but the most disappointing thing is that it barely makes use of the invisibility gimmick; each of the episodes could have been adapted so the invisibility played no part of it. Nor is the concept of the series particularly novel; the TV series THE INVISIBLE MAN from the year before largely had the same approach, and thought it was a little better, it lasted about as long as this one. All in all, this one is pretty forgettable.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Reel Horror (1985)

REEL HORROR (1985)
Article 4652 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-11-2014
Directed by Ross Hagen
Featuring Alexandra, John Hayden, Howard Honig
Country: USA
What it is: Recycled

A female exorcist arrives at a movie studio that is being haunted by footage from old movies.

Well, here’s one way to recycle your old movies, though not a good way. Five movies from the seventies are edited down into roughly fifteen minute bits, and the footage is interspersed with new footage showing how each of these movies is haunting someone working at the studio. The five movies are DADDY’S DEADLY DARLING, CYCLE PSYCHO, NIGHT CREATURE, MAXIE and NICOLE. I’ve seen the first three for this series, but not the other two, and based on the fact that I found it nearly impossible to follow the plots of those two, I’d say the editing of the movies isn’t particularly good. All five of these movies looked like they were low-budget affairs, but the new footage looks even cheaper. I suspect the new footage is supposed to be funny, but it’s just pathetic. IMDB shows a DVD image from the movie which prominently features John Carradine’s name, but his footage takes up about two seconds of screen time. Is the movie any good? I’d say it would be better to ask if the movie is a complete waste of time, and if you did, I’d say yes. This is perhaps the most worthless thing I’ve seen in the last year or so. The best thing I can probably say about it is that the promised sequel, REEL MONSTERS, appears never to have gotten off the drawing board.

0 CommentsLeave a comment