Disc Reviews

Though this wasn’t a film I remembered first seeing, the VHS box art is one I’ll never forget for how cheesy it was.  For those who don’t know, it had a man having a kebab impaled into his mouth.  While the cover art isn’t the most appealing, what got me interested was seeing that the film was directed by J. Lee Thompson, who has a fun and diverse body of work.  With films like The Guns of the Navarone, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Cape Fear (the one starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum) and numerous others, for film lovers this should be enough to garner some interest to want to check out. Does the film hold up as an 80’s slasher, or should this be a title that should have remained shelved to collect dust?  It’s time to strap on those party hats and find out.

The film opens up innocently enough with a bunch of college friends hanging out in a bar and causing some mischief with the locals.  While the setup and dialog are nothing all that great, it’s the scene with them leaving the bar that got me hooked.  As the gang is exiting the bar, they see that a drawbridge is getting ready to raise its section to let a boat pass, so the students hop in their cars and motorcycles racing to see who will make it across or who will chicken out.  This of course freaks out Virginia (Melissa Sue Anderson), though as the film progresses, we see it’s for good reason.  This was a fun sequence, but what surprised me was that the film kept me entertained.

Family Guy has reached a level of impact upon the American pop culture where I believe the characters need little to no introduction.  Is there anyone really that doesn’t recognize Stewie? After all, he’s reached the status of icon and has even become a fixture of the Thanksgiving parade as one of the many floats.  Where The Flintstones, then later The Simpsons, were at one time the dominating animated family on the television tackling day to day struggles of the modern American (each in their own and unique way), Family Guy (love it or hate it) now seems to be the go-to animated family.

In this collection of 20 episodes, the creative force, Seth Macfarlane and his team continue to deliver the laughs along with their twisted moral messages.    In today’s culture it seems like it is harder and harder to be a comedian and manage to not offend anyone.  Considering how Family Guy has always been a show that seems to enjoy testing the boundaries on what is considered obscene while poking fun at pop culture, I’ve been curious how the show would fare.  Thankfully the show hasn’t seemed to pull its punches and manages to have jokes aimed at just about everyone, and by saying that I want to start off by discussing “The D in Apartment 23”.  In this episode we see Brian suffer the fallout after he makes a “racist” tweet. We’ve seen in the media how quickly a tweet can ruin careers, and in this episode  the show even dares to poke fun at how sensitive people have gotten.  This is one of those social commentaries where though it’s funny in its presentation, it is kind of a sad reflection of what we have become, where a joke can’t just be a joke anymore.  This is one of those episodes I wish everyone could sit down and watch and simply appreciate what the episode has to say, because frankly I’m a little concerned about the direction comedy may end up going, along with that notion of “freedom of speech”. On a lighter note on this episode, perhaps the highlight of the season was seeing Chris and Meg take on the students at their school in a fight scene that parodies the epic fight scene from the first Kingsmen film.   The episode “HTTPETE” piggy-backs on this message, where we see Peter attempt to become a Millennial, though this episode definitely doesn’t have as serious of a tone to it.

In 1983 when Krull first came out it was riding the wave of sci-fi and sword-and-sorcery films that were attempting to cash in following the success of Star Wars.  I didn’t see this in theaters, but I did eventually see it once it was on VHS.  My memories of the film were vague at best, but what I never could forget was the “glaive” weapon that you see displayed on the cover art.  For many, though, I can understand if you are just now hearing about Krull for the first time considering the film’s age and its lack of commercial success.  While Krull isn’t a great movie, it’s still a silly (unintentionally) yet fun movie that was directed by Peter Yates.  In case you need a little reminder, Yates is responsible for a little-known film some may have heard of called Bullitt.  So, after three decades, how does the film hold up?  Well, saddle up; I’m about to tell you.

In the opening moments we get an opening shot in space, and we are watching a massive ship pass across the screen (no, this is not Star Wars). Not to be too judgmental so early on, but it does bother me that the spaceship looks like a giant log in space.  The ship lands on the planet on Krull. It’s here where Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall) is marrying Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony).  As luck would have it, the wedding is crashed by The Slayers, a violent futuristic race that decides to kidnap the Princess and kill Colwyn’s father-in-law, the King of planet Krull.  With no other options, Colwyn gathers up a group of men to assist him on his journey into The Black Forest to kill off The Slayers along with their leader and hopefully rescue the princess in the end.  I wouldn’t call this an original concept by any stretch, but it’s a fun way to kick off this campy adventure film.

Hardbodies is a sex comedy; there is no other way of putting it. This is a hard R movie; I wasn’t really expecting that. However, between the gratuitous nudity, there is a love story unfolding, and to be honest, the other subplots are secondary to this point. Not exactly my kind of film, mainly due to it being from before my time, but I still found it to be moderately entertaining. Needless to say, this is more of a guys’ movie, as I don’t know of a woman who would not have an opinion or two about this movie, especially given the current climate. Then again, Fast Times at Ridgemont High remains a classic to this day. I’m not putting this on that same level, but in my opinion it deserves a fair shake and to be paid the respect of the time period.

Scotty is your typical California beach bum, doing whatever he can to get along. That is until he is evicted from his apartment for not paying his rent. Down on his luck, desperate to maintain his way of life, he soon finds three older men who have a lot of money, but they do not have a trait that Scotty possesses, his abilities with women. They agree to let Scotty stay with them at their beach house and pay him a monthly stipend if he returns the favor by teaching them how to pick up women.

one of the biggest action stars in Hollywood.  He got his start in martial arts films; The Way of the Dragon was his big coming out as we got to see him go toe to toe with the legend Bruce Lee.  So in 1982 when Silent Rage came out, people knew what to expect out of Norris even though this was still before some of his biggest hits.  I remember seeing the movie when I was a kid. It was part of a Chuck Norris marathon, where I also got to see Firewalker, a film that for some reason I became obsessed with. (Upon re-watching it years later, the film didn’t hold up at all).  That’s sort of the thing with a lot of films that you adore as it kid; they don’t quite hold up as much as you would like them to, so I was a bit hesitant when Silent Rage was offered to review.  Would it hold up as a fun action romp, or would it let me down?

Sheriff Stevens (Norris) is the lawman in a small Texas town that doesn’t seem to ever have much trouble, and that seems to be fine for the sheriff.  The film opens up with Jack Kirby (Brian Libby) waking up and obviously on the edge of losing it. As it turns out, he’s completely gone insane and goes on a mini killing spree at the home where he is staying.  The sheriff and the deputies are called to the home, and after a small confrontation, Kirby is gunned down.  Kirby eventually is pronounced dead, but not for long, since he is under the care of a mad scientist and a pair of other doctors (one including Ron Silver) who believe they have a cure against disease and possibly even death.  It’s no surprise when the doctors inject Kirby with this serum things will go bad; they just aren’t ready for how bad it can get.

The story is loosely based on a real incident called “The Newton Massacre”, which was basically a brutal shootout that took place in a saloon back in 1871.  Though we do get to see the incident in the film, the story places most of its focus on the events that in theory led up to this violent showdown.  It’s a good idea, and after reading up on the actual shootout, this could have been a tale that would have suited Eastwood, John Ford, or Howard Hawks. Deadman Standing has all the right parts to make a great independent western; unfortunately, by the time you’re ten minutes into the film, you’ll see that this film was a misfire.

The film wastes no time in setting up the political divide that has struck the small boomtown of Hyde Park.  There is an election that is going to take place, and basically it’s a battle over land between the cattlemen and those who work for the railroad.  Stuck in the middle of this fight is the town’s lawman, Mike McCluskie (Luke Arnold), who is too outgunned and outmanned to really make much of a difference and is simply trying to keep the town together, though he knows eventually there is going to be bloodshed.  But instead of keeping things simple, the filmmakers have injected so many characters with some rather clunky dialog that the story does get to be tiresome and un-engaging.