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Seinfeld whines that "comedy is dead" while he delivers a Pop-Tart movie (and while his friend Larry David just wrapped the final season of Curb and seemingly everyone is getting a stand-up special now). He's not been relevant in a long time now but every time I see him mentioned he's just railing against something new.
That’s fair. Unfrosted doesn’t take many risks honestly (Amy Schumer’s casting withstanding, as she does create a lot of backlash, both as an actress and a person). Jerry has so much F-you money, that he doesn’t have to care about creative quality. It’s sad, but Seinfeld was so big that anyone involved with it in a leading role has too much trouble with high expectations. Jerry just didn’t strike at cinema the way he could have. Jerry is like Spike Lee now: criticizing others without having a real answer to the problem. Falling back on their failing trademarks. Both will be remembered for that, over their other accomplishments. Oh well, they still have countless millions to make up for their lack of creativity.
Steven Seagal? 😁
I would indeed have not expected it, but I do have one movie where my database tells me that Steven Seagal is in it: Robert Rodriguez's Machete.
Yes, I have all of them in my "DVD Profiler" program (www.invelos.com), which I have been using for probably about fifteen years. That is, if e.g. I replace a DVD with a Blu-ray, I'll delete the DVD in the list...roughly speaking, so I only keep the "active" disks on record.
As for DVD Profiler, I hope it still has a long life ahead of it, as it hasn't been updated by the makers since 2017. Though it seems as if there is quite a community with enough nerds that might jump in if necessary.
Interesting its a good idea, i have a vast collection which I lose track of what i own. Occasionally I buy something i already have so having an extensive list i can familiarize myself would be useful, it would take a long time to catalogue my films though.
Depends. When I started with the program, I probably had a high three-digit number of DVDs already. But all you need to do is really to enter the UPC, let the program look it up, enter your personal information if you wish (like date and place of purchase, price paid etc.), and then let the software do the rest. A few evenings on the sofa with my laptop, and the work was done. There were very, very few cases where the UPC - and a corresponding disk profile - was not found online, and you can still build a disk profile yourself, based on e.g. other editions of the same film, and add cover images that you scanned yourself or copied from Amazon.
By the way, the program will also tell you right away when you try to enter a disk having the same title as an existing entry... it happened to me a couple of times even when I did not expect it (as I do, of course, when upgrading from DVD to BD).
Thanks I will do some research on the software.
The restoration looks fantastic the detail at times looks sharper than Get Back, and the sound wow I got proper chills.
As for me, today, I watched The Return of Godzilla. A return to form for the Big G. No more goofyness, no annoying kid, and a message against nuclear weapons and the Cold War. BTW, I watched the japanese version, not the american one. So, on the plus side, the message was not diluted by american propaganda, and there was no product placement for Dr. Pepper. On the minus side, no Raymond Burr. Too bad.
@Gerard and @Fire_and_ice_Returns: LET IT BE finally sees the light of day after about 40 years! Notably, unlike Peter Jackson’s GET BACK, the older movie has more complete song performances – specifically from the January 31st sessions (the day after the rooftop concert). I’m also looking forward to the discussion between Peter Jackson and Michael Lindsay-Hogg (Orson Welles’s son? :-) ) that proceeds the remastered film.
I remember seeing LET IT BE on a double bill at the Village Cinema in Manhattan back in 1972 – on a double bill with THE CONCERT for BANGLADESH (IIRC) and it was among the first VHS tapes that I purchased back in the spring of 1982.
Let It Be VHS Tape (early 1980s)
Godzilla
When Kraken Releasing issued the blu-Ray for THE RETURN OF GODZILLA (1984) some years ago, I recall an interview in which they stated that they wanted to pair it with GODZILLA 1985 but were unable to secure the rights. IIRC, New World Pictures – which doesn’t really exist anymore – was responsible for the US distribution. And yes @Gerard, the Dr. Pepper product placement was more than just a bit over the top, but if I can ever get my DVD/VHS combo unit to work, I would like to pop in my old VHS tape of the film for old time sake.
Godzilla 1985 VHS Tape
There were even TV ads showing Godzilla 'drinking' a Dr. Pepper!
PS: I purchased the region 2 DVD of GODZILLA: MINUS ONE from CDJapan two weeks ago since my laptop player software is region free. Despite the lack of subtitles (and .srt files for the film can be downloaded if you know where to look on the internet), I can still follow the plot (and the film really looks great). Not a substitute for my eventual purchase of the region 1 boxset when it is released in the US, but this will do for now.
The interview with Michael Lindsay-Hogg is insightful despite being short, it's more of a introduction. I have watched half of Let it Be as I had to go to work, I will watch it in its entirety on Friday from the start. You are very lucky to have seen the film theatrically it was before my time as I was born in the mid 70's. The VHS cassette you have is quite the collectors item, I was looking at the Get Back Bluray collectors edition earlier, I think I will buy that.
Nothing pleases me more than to upset conservatives who take offence to cute little horror films, believing that they "not only affect young people but will affect dogs as well", as the recently deceased Sir Graham Bright once put it in a mockable disservice to his last name. And so in honour of Sir Graham and that other evil dead person, Mary Whitehouse, I gave Sam Raimi's delicious classic THE EVIL DEAD its umptieth watch -- or as I call it, "WHEN NORMAL PEOPLE TRIUMPH OVER SPOOKY CONSERVATIVES."
It was, in fact, Bloody Whitehouse herself who called the film "the number one nasty" in Britain's shameful display of backwards thinking known as the Video Nasty Era. For those not in the know, England once thought it wise to follow the advice a wannabe nun in her seventies gave on cheap, indie horror pictures. (Sounds like a good idea, no?) The old hag, known for having serious issues with the likes of RAMBO, THE THING and CHILD's PLAY III (of all films!), felt it was her heavenly duty to decide whether you and I should be allowed to see certain films. Already nasty deadites, even when they were still alive, Whitehouse and her political followers taunted the living hell out of nice people who were just looking for some innocent Friday night fun. Furthermore, Sam Raimi had to answer, in court, for THE EVIL DEAD. Yes, the man who would bring us his very popular SPIDERMAN trilogy faced a medieval British inquisition because old conservatives with weak hearts, stomachs and bladders thought him a servant of Satan. This happened long before the Enlightenment, you say? No, this happened a mere few decades ago, when Roger Moore was James Bond.
To be fair, THE EVIL DEAD is not a child-friendly picnic of a movie. While exploring Lovecraftian themes with a charming Bruce Campbell as the reluctant hero, the film also goes to graphic extremes. Few will forget the forest rape that gave Ellen Sandweiss's career its strangely memorable highlight, or the complete dismemberment of a fellow cabin resident, or the torment of seeing a sharp pencil cut open an ankle. But given that mostly inexperienced filmmakers produced these visceral scenes with little to no budgetary resources and that these scenes serve as the ultimate inspiration for future generations of filmmakers, THE EVIL DEAD deserves praise rather than conservative wrath. Actually, it deserves both, because if your horror film makes conservatives angry, you've probably done something right.
THE EVIL DEAD certainly never fails to amuse me. It's the best film of Raimi's trilogy, in my opinion. Its sequel already opted for more comedy, forced to do so by the relentless witchhunts and crusades of Britain's Video Nasty Cult and America's prudish MPAA. The third film, ARMY OF DARKNESS, toned down the horror even more. We had to wait until 2013 for Fede Alvarez to effectively revive the blood and gore factor in the series with his EVIL DEAD. But the 1981 original has it all: barely any money, no experience to boast of, but a ton of creativity. It's a scary film with excellent effects and exquisite camera work. It has one of the simplest stories you can tell on film -- a night in a cabin in the woods turns into a deadly nightmare -- but it tells its story so well that once you've seen it, you can never forget it. Predating the CGI era by many years, THE EVIL DEAD relies on old-school trickery but with such awesome results, one almost wishes that more films would work like this, even today. It's usually the low-budget, unintentional classics that serve as horror milestones. Between HALLOWEEN and THE THING, we got THE EVIL DEAD. May we never forget the Candarian frenzy that totally screwed up Ash William's attempts at asking his girlfriend Linda to marry him. (Yes, that really is the story of the film... from a certain point of view.)
If I ever get my hands on the Book of the Dead, I'll think twice before opening it. After all, if Mad Whitehouse were resurrected, we'd probably be thrown in jail for watching an episode of RICK & MORTY. Instead, I'll happily continue my celebration of her eventual defeat by rewatching the great Video Nasty classics. It is my personal mission to perpetuate their legacy in the cruel dishonour of Mangy Whitehouse, Sir Graham not-so-Bright and those other puritanical British killjoys who once believed that they could ever tell me what I'm allowed to watch. They are now long dead, but THE EVIL DEAD is still very much alive. And since I don't take too kindly to censorship, I'll do my demonic best to keep it alive! To me, this is one of the very best horror pictures ever made. I may be evil, but I'm not dead... yet. And as long as I can, I will continue to enjoy THE EVIL DEAD.
5/5
Delicious! =))
I don't get such reactions. It's just a movie... movie ... movie ... The effects are obviously fake. Well done, impressive even, but fake. I'm glad, @Mathis, that you agree the video nasty hysteria was utter nonsense indeed.
Raimi's camera work is a pure delight. Films like this one show that sometimes, small budgets bring out the best in people.
The second Harry Palmer film has never been "up there" with The Ipcress File for me, but it has several great things going for it. Most of all is the setting in Berlin. There isn't a better place to set a 1960's Cold War era spy film than Berlin, is there? And in Funeral in Berlin it obviously features heavily.
Michael Caine is of course perfect yet again as the character which is unnamed in Len Deighton's novels. The film sticks fairly close to the novel too, which is a plus, since Funeral in Berlin is a fantastic novel. We also meet Colonel Stok for the first time, which is just as fun as Major Dalby, if not even more so. Every scene between Palmer and Stok is brilliant. I also really like Eva Renzi as Samantha Steel; Renzi would no doubt have been a great Bond girl, but turned down the chance to play Helga Brandt in YOLT.
Although I prefer The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin is very much a great spy film, and Guy Hamilton's directing is probably preferable to some, over that of Sidney J. Furie's for The Ipcress File.
I like 'Funeral in Berlin', the more times I watch it! Theres some great one-liners, Dalby "I like weeds!", Palmer "Yes, they're easy to grow!". It opens great, and Caine is as good as ever! But it does run out of steam by the end, and I miss Barrys music, but its still very watchable!
I really like FIB; the more I watch it, the more it grows on me. I agree that Barry would have elevated this film, most likely. His Ipcress File score is great.
Yes, Funeral in Berlin does somewhat run out of steam, and the climax is a bit "meh". Everything else, including the one-liners more than make up for it though!
Konrad Elfers' score has never been a favourite of mine, although watching it last night I found it a bit more than just serviceable, which has previously been my opinion of the music in the film. It works well, isn't obtrusive, and has some nice moments.
John Barry's Ipcress score on the other hand is one of my personal favourite scores, and the film is one of my favourites as well, so Funeral in Berlin would struggle in almost every department with the first Harry Palmer film. Interestingly, I think I prefer the Funeral in Berlin novel to that of The Ipcress File.
I bought Funeral in Berlin and Billion-Dollar Brain on Blu-ray last year, and it's only now that I was able to give one of them a watch. Billion-Dollar Brain is the lesser of the three, but it's been a while since I last watched it, and I'm looking forward to see how well it holds up.
I wish the Blu-ray transfer for Funeral in Berlin would have been better though. This Blu-ray was just marginally better than my DVD copy, and the film is in need of a new, proper transfer. It certainly deserves it.
Thing about Funeral is that its setting is the main star, Berlin during the Cold War is the nec plus ultra spy film location for me.
I think that is one of the reasons I also love Octopussy so much, even though I wish the Bond films would have used that location a lot more.
Talking about Eva Renzi, she may have not appeared in YOLT, but she did appear in Dario Argento's masterpiece giallo The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.
Nothing scares me more than horror veering into comedy out of fear of an X rating. The MPAA, always the priggish and sanctimonious lot, made it exceptionally hard for creative horror filmmakers in the 1980s to release their films to a wide audience lest invasive cuts were made. Sadly, many chose to water down the horror with its tonal opposite, comedy. And I, for one, have rarely seen a horror comedy that works well for me. Either the jokes aren't funny, the horror isn't scary, or both; I seldom favour the outcome. One such tragic example is THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, a film which, if it weren't for Linnea Quigley, would never play in my house again.
Alas, EVIL DEAD II came close to being another failed film, in my opinion. For his 1987 follow-up to THE EVIL DEAD, Sam Raimi did, indeed, choose a more absurd and humorous approach, though it is said that pleasing the smug prudes over at the MPAA was only a secondary consideration. Since this "sequel" virtually retold the first film's story anyway, Raimi wanted the tone to be different enough to set them apart. After the shocking nightmare of his cabin-in-the-woods classic, he decided to make EVIL DEAD II a lot sillier instead.
Despite the number in the title, EVIL DEAD II starts all over again, this time with only Bruce Campbell's Ash (no longer called 'Ashley') Williams and his girlfriend Linda being trapped, taunted and assaulted by Deadites at a forest cabin. Through a blink-and-you-miss-it montage at the start of the film, we go from two lovers on their way to the cabin to Ash left all alone to fight the titular evil dead. While a few others will at some point join him, most of this film is Campbell running in and out of the cabin, playing pantomime, punching his evil self, and chainsawing the hell out of Deadites. Yes, this is the film that introduces us to Ash's famous chainsaw arm. This is also the film that at last takes Ash where Raimi had wanted to take him in the first place: Medieval times.
We should probably consider ourselves lucky that Raimi retains enough yuck, gore, splatter and occasional jump scares to qualify EVIL DEAD II as a bonafide horror film. The infusion of comedy furthermore happens with the help of the man with the legendary chin. Heads up to Bruce Campbell, whom we are fortunate enough to have in the lead role, and whose undying charisma makes even the silliest moments in this film bearable and even enjoyable.
Raimi will eventually make the perfect horror comedy (in my opinion) with the superb and vastly underrated DRAG ME TO HELL. But for now, EVIL DEAD II offers me a good enough show to be amusing, that is, until the time portal appears, because then I'm reminded of where the series will go next, and oh boy, I won't be so forgiving next time. Meanwhile, I miss the intensity of the original film, but I can see the appeal it's had on plenty of people who now recognise it as the best in the series -- or so I gather from conversations with fellow fans. I'm not in that boat; I don't think this one comes close to the original regarding its scares. But it's still an enjoyable effort, not too hindered by its comedic punchlines, and expertly carried by Bruce Campbell.
4/5
So am I. I really enjoyed Master Gardener, so I'm looking forward to this one too. Love most of Schrader's work.
Good point!
Yes, one thing that Ipcress does not have, is the wonderful setting which Berlin is. That being said, they manage to portray a very grey, pre Swinging Sixties London in Ipcress, which is interesting.
Octopussy is a favourite of mine too, and it's probably one of the Bond's I've watched the most. The settings is one of it's stronger points for sure!
I've never seen The Bird with the Crystal Plumage before, but now knowing Eva Renzi starred in it, it's just another reason to check it out. Giallo is not a genre I'm very familier with, but I've watched some giallo's the last year or so.
Nothing hurts me more than seeing a horror series with great potential bury itself in unholy ground within two sequels after its awesome original. It happened to Sam Raimi's EVIL DEAD series. Since EVIL DEAD II was praised for its comedic tone, among other things, why not take the absurdity to extreme levels next time? My answer is, because it doesn't work. And it doesn't. ARMY OF DARKNESS is one of the biggest disappointments I've ever had to endure. While this 1992 comedy has its fans, I loathe it. If it weren't for Bruce Campbell, I'd find the film positively unwatchable.
The original offered all I needed to get some wonderful thrills out of a horror cheapy. The series could have stopped there (though I'm very glad it didn't, as we'll discuss next time.) Number three, however, takes us to silly town as Ash is sucked into a spacetime vortex that drops him off in the 1300s. And I can say this: considering the film's small budget, I'm impressed with the sets, simple though they are. But gone are the frightening images, the gore, and the claustrophobia that made the previous two films instant classics. Instead, we get even sillier jokes than before, virtually no scares anymore, and a climax in which the titular army storms a castle while looking like leftovers from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. All the while, the film keeps telling me to laugh harder than I ever have, but my arms are folded and I'm sighing in desperation, hoping the film will be over very soon. And then the ending happens, and I'm free at last, and I can return the Bluray disc to the trilogy box, store it, and unpack the Fede Alvarez film, just to remind me that something good is coming my way.
"But you shouldn't treat this one as a horror film! It's a pure comedy," someone once assured me. Thanks but no thanks. Though the film isn't called "Evil Dead", it's still the third chapter in a series that started out strong as a celebration of all things horror. Also, ARMY OF DARKNESS isn't funny in my book. Humour is subjective, I agree, but I never laugh with (or at) this movie. I only experience cringe. And that's me, I know. I'm mostly commenting on my own allergic reaction to films like these; I know this one has its fans. And yet, when Ash proves himself incapable of repeating the line from WHEN THE EARTH STOOD STILL, and he tries to "sneeze" out the password instead, I'm throwing my arms in the air. We went from nasty tree rape in the first EVIL DEAD to Ash messing up his password for access to the Necronomicon. They really goofed things up too much this time, or so I think. I will go on record saying that BEYOND THUNDERDOME was a better sequel to THE ROAD WARRIOR than ARMY OF DARKNESS was to EVIL DEAD 2.
Despite a few good comic book titles, not much has come from this movie. For a long time, it looked like this was it, that we'd be stuck with a very uneven trilogy. Luckily, Fede Alvarez, director of the upcoming ALIEN: ROMULUS, changed all that in 2013. His film washed away the bitter aftertaste that ARMY OF DARKNESS had left me. Gimme some sugar, baby.
2/5
Sorry man, AOD is one of the finest films ever made. Solid 5/5....