The Fly II (1989)
Article 5829 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-12.2020
Directed by Chris Walas
Featuring Eric Stoltz, Daphne Zuniga, Lee Richardson
Country: USA / UK / France
What it is: A gooey mess

Will Seth Brundle’s son turn into a hideous mutant like his dad?

I have to confess that at this point, I haven’t seen the Cronenberg movie to which this is a sequel. It’s a shame; I would have liked to compare them both to see how much of retread this one might be. As it is, I’ll just react to it as an individual movie. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Then I began to notice certain things about the movie; the soundtrack is a bit on the overbearing side, there’s way too many bad guys acting like bad guys (especially that repulsive security guard). The problem with having such obvious bad guys is that it makes it hard to care when the movie nears its climax; we don’t really find ourselves in their shoes when they’re being stalked. Yes, the special effects are good, but what do you expect when the director is the guy who did the special effects in the original? In the end, I found that, despite the attempt at fleshing out the characters during the first half of the movie, it largely turns into a “monster on the loose” movie with an extra helping of gore and goo. I’m afraid this one didn’t quite do it for me.

Fleshburn (1984)
Article 5829 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-10-2020
Directed by George Gage
Featuring Steve Kanaly, Karen Carlson, Macon McCalman
Country: USA
What it is: drama thriller

A native American escapes from a mental institution to wreak revenge on the four people who placed them there. He leaves them in the desert to fend for themselves.

It’s easy to see how this one could be mistaken for horror; after all, it has an evocative title, it appears on a collection called HORRIBLE HORRORS, and the plot elements include madness and native American mysticism. Nevertheless, those fantastic touches remain side issues to the story, and the movie simply doesn’t play like a horror movie but as a revenge drama with more talk than action. So I’m not really surprised it has a lowly 4.3 rating on IMDB; horror fans will probably feel cheated, and action fans will find it dull. But as a drama about four people trying to survive in a seemingly hopeless situation, I found it engaging enough to hold my attention throughout. The biggest problem I had was that I did get tired of the yelling and whining on occasion, though I do find it easy to believe that being caught in an impossible situation would not necessarily bring out the best in people. In the end I found it entertaining enough, though I wouldn’t call it a classic.

Flagpole Jitters (1956)
Article 5828 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-9-2020
Directed by Jules White
Featuring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard
Country: USA
What it is: Recycled Stooges

The Three Stooges try to raise money to help a crippled friend walk again, and towards that end, they come under the employ of a hypnotist who is secretly behind a bank robbery scheme.

As I watched this late-period Stooges short, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that what I was watching was recycled Stooges; the comic bits feel like tired retreads of earlier Stooges bits, only not as well timed. Still, one reason it feels recycled is because it is; it’s a remake of HOKUS POKUS, and it in fact uses footage from the earlier short. You’d probably have to go through both shorts piece by piece to figure out what’s new and what’s recycled, but I know that the Stooges look noticeably old in some of the scenes here, and that’s probably a clue that the scene is new footage. This is one of the last Stooges shorts to feature Shemp, who had in fact died the year previously to this one’s release.

The First Snow (1947)
Article 5827 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-8-2029
Directed by Mannie Davis
Featuring the voice of Tom Morrison
Country: USA
What it is: Mighty mouse cartoon

Rabbits go out and have fun after the first snow of the season, but a fox sees them as his meal. Can Mighty Mouse save the day?

ohyippeemightymouseagain. He must have been Terrytoons’ most popular character; he shows up even when he’s not really needed. During the first half of the cartoon, the rabbits are having a fine old time defeating the fox, and even if it feels like it’s mostly lifting gags from Warner Brothers cartoons, at least is has gags. It’s only during the second half of the cartoon when the rabbits stop being resourceful and leave Mighty Mouse to finish off the fox. For the record, the first half is fun enough to get by; the second half is just more of the usual Mighty Mouse plot.

Fireman, Save My Child (1921)
Article 5826 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-7-2020
Director unknown
No cast
Country: USA
What it is: Silhouette animation

Wherein a glimpse is given of how firemen operated in stone age days.

The silhouette animation here is provided by Herbert M. Dawley, who is mostly famous for having provided dinosaur animation for ALONG THE MOONBEAM TRAIL and THE GHOST OF SLUMBER MOUNTAIN. Apparently, those weren’t his only dealings with dinosaurs, as this stone age story of firemen coming to the rescue of a trapped family features a few dinosaurs, as well as a mammoth. The animation is acceptable, but not nearly as inspired as Lotte Reiniger’s work is, but it works well enough for this light-hearted short. Most of the laughs are pretty weak, but this short little oddity has at least a certain amount of novelty value.

Fiddle-de-dee (1947)
Article 5825 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-3-2020
Directed by Norman McLaren
No cast
Country: Canada
What it is: Abstract bluegrass

You can stomp your feet and clap all you want, but there’s no plot.

I must be on an animation kick lately, having gone from Felix the Cat cartoons to a short by Starewicz and now one of those abstract animations by Norman McLaren. Perhaps the most striking thing about this one is the choice of music; it’s a bluegrass tune called “Listen to the Mockingbird” played by an old-time fiddler, and I’m willing to bet that one of the reasons it was done is that it’s such an odd choice for this type of animation. Actually, though, the resulting visuals are fast-moving, colorful, vibrant and lively, and as usual, McLaren finds humor in abstraction (or, at least it looks that way to me – those are chicken feet I’m seeing, right?) I’m covering this one because it’s in the Walt Lee guide, and the only fantastic content is that it’s non-realistic. But I quite enjoyed this one.

Felix in Fairyland (1923)
Article 5823 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-2-2020
Directed by Otto Messmer
No cast
Country: USA
What it is: Felix the Cat cartoon

Felix the Cat rescues a fly who is in reality a fairy, and she grants Felix his wish to go to Fairyland. There Felix encounters several fairy tale characters.

There’s no shortage of fantastic content in this one. Yet, I must admit to being a little disappointed by this one. It’s probably because Felix doesn’t use his bizarre transformational powers as much as usual. He even defeats the giant by using the trick in PUSS IN BOOTS, and I expect something a little more original. As it is, it’s not much different than many others of its ilk where other characters visit the same place. Still, it is somewhat better than most of the other animated shorts of the era; the cartoon is certainly better than many of those that come across as merely “moving comic strips”.

Felix Finds Out (1924)
Article 5822 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-2-2020
Directed by Otto Messmer
No cast
Country: USA
What it is: Felix the Cat cartoon

Felix’s human friend is given a homework assignment to tell what makes the moon shine. Felix finds out.

Early Felix the Cat cartoons, like Tex Avery cartoons, flirt with unreality so pervasively that one is tempted to include them all in this survey, but I do tend to hold out for some more precise fantastic content. This one has hot dogs that act like dogs, the moon almost crashing to the Earth (Felix calls out to the Man in the Moon, which comes fairly close to Earth at that point), and in the (inevitable) scene where Felix has an encounter with a mug of moonshine, he hallucinates some very bizarre creatures. That’s enough content for me. The Felix the Cat cartoons are some of my favorites from the silent era, and though this isn’t quite as wild as some others, it’s still quite amusing, especially during the hallucination sequence. This one is worth a gander.

Fatal Footsteps (1926)
Article 5821 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-31-2020
Directed by Charles R. Bowers
Featuring Charles R. Bowers and Eddie Dunn
Country: USA
What it is: Slapstick comedy

A farmhand becomes obsessed with winning a Charleston-dancing competition.

I’m a bit disappointed by this short from Charley Bowers; it’s more into low-brow physical slapstick than it is in the stop-motion animation that sets him apart from the other silent comedians. Still, I do have to admire the man’s energy; since he spends almost the entire short cavorting around and rehearsing his dance moves, it must have been an exhausting film to make. The special effects do come in in the second half of the short when he converts a pair of roller skates into mechanical dancing shoes, which are capable of going out and dancing on their own without him. Still, even these touches don’t quite compensate for the low-brow shenanigans that fill the rest of the film.

Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies (1990)
Article 5820 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-29-2020
Directed by Sandy Oliveri
No cast (as such)
Country: USA / Canada
What it is: Mostly trailers

This is the movie that answers the baffling question – Can dinosaurs and dinosaur-like creatures be found in movie trailers?

I was amazed and a bit baffled to find that this video has a 7.7 rating on IMDB, but then I have to remind myself that presentations like this are probably rated only by people who are big fans of the subject matter anyway. After all, they’re the ones most inclined to like it. And, to be truthful, I’m that kind of person and I do like it. It’s just that I feel the video would have to be pretty outstanding to set it above other videos of its ilk, but it doesn’t; it’s just a collection of movie trailers featuring dinosaurs and other creatures that are vaguely dinosaur-ish. It’s fun enough, but it isn’t revelatory in any way.