Review – Stonehenge Apocalypse

Turns out Stonehenge is a giant timing device, and as it ticks down it activates environmental disaster machines planted by ancient aliens under the world’s various prominent archaeological sites (mostly pyramids). A small cadre of scientists battles to find a key to shut Stonehenge down, while a cabal of creepy cultists who want the world to end strives to stop them. Suggestion: take some of the untold riches the filmmakers no doubt earned from this masterpiece and produce a sequel called Buttwipe Armageddon. Thanks to sinister alien technology our toilet paper turns against us, suddenly coming to life during our vulnerable moments and strangling us like CGI snakes. Hey, it’s no dumber than the first one. See if desperate

Review – Dragon Fighter

Usually a movie with a name like this would turn out to be a collection of aspiring actors led by an out-of-work veteran doing battle with bad effects monsters in Medieval Europe. However, this turns out to be a collection of aspiring actors led by an out-of-work veteran doing battle with bad effects monsters in a 21st century cloning lab. Thank goodness for thespians of Dean Cain’s ilk. Otherwise who would deliver dialogue this bad? See if desperate

Review – It!

As usual, the exclamation point in the title is a strong forewarning about the quality of the picture. The assistant curator (Roddy McDowall) of a museum has relatively simple problems: an unrequited crush on a co-worker and his mother’s corpse hanging out Psycho-like in his living room. But then his employer acquires a new statue, an ugly, Ronald-Reagan-looking piece that turns out to be the notorious Golem of Prague. Our anti-hero figures out how to pop the secret compartment in its foot that contains its activation scroll. Needless to say, he immediately starts using it to cater to his own selfish desires. At first his schemes make sense, such as when he has it kill the curator who tries to fire him. But then his golem-centered plots become more and more bizarre. Eventually he gets the thing to topple a bridge thinking that this will somehow impress the woman he loves. And as the golem’s crimes spiral out of control, so does the response from the authorities, including trying to destroy the thing with a nuclear bomb. Though this isn’t actually a Hammer Studios production, director Herbert J. Leder deliberately tried – with reasonable success – to give the movie a Hammer look and feel. Mildly amusing

Review – Star Trek: The Motion Picture

This movie bets heavily on the proposition that its audience is composed largely of Trek fans who’ve been pining for new entries in the saga since the series was cancelled more than a decade earlier. As such, it’s reasonably successful. It features the original cast playing familiar characters with their well-established strengths and weaknesses. It has long, loving shots of the new-yet-familiar Enterprise. It even sports a plot that seems eerily familiar. However, for anyone who isn’t jonesing for fresh Trek (and in the age of full series DVDs, why would anyone be desperate for a fix?) this picture wastes a lot of time on empty nostalgia. It also relies heavily on long effects shots, stuff that might have been impressive back in the days of models and mattes but now just serves to grind the story to a screeching halt. Fortunately after they got some of this out of their system they came back and made a better sequel. Mildly amusing

Review – Hell’s Angels

I watched this largely out of curiosity spawned by seeing The Aviator. And as Scorsese’s biopic implies, this is a technical mess. The picture combines silent, “talkie” and even brief color production techniques in ways that don’t work well together. Likewise as one might expect from Howard Hughes, the aerial combat scenes are impressive – or at the very least look good – while the personal dramas back on the ground are downright soap operatic. Not even Jean Harlow can make the romance work. So if you like watching World War One air battles, by all means rent this disc. Just keep your finger poised on the fast forward button of your remote. Mildly amusing

Review – O. Henry’s Full House

Five directors exploit the author’s gift for the clever twist of the tale to reasonably good effect. Though the final two stories – “The Ransom of Red Chief” (directed by Howard Hawks no less) and “The Gift of the Magi” – are the show stoppers, I was impressed by the lead-off adaptation of “The Cop and the Anthem.” Charles Laughton plays the lead, backed up by brief appearances by several recognizable faces including Marilyn Monroe. And in “Clarion Call” Richard Widmark gives the bad guy role a spin disturbingly similar to what Frank Gorshen would later do as The Riddler. They even got John Steinbeck to do the introductions. As film adaptations of literature go, this one’s not too bad. Mildly amusing

Review – Rebel Without a Cause

Ugh boomers, why do you love this movie as much as you do? It’s a standard 50s era JD picture only with an overpowering frosting of pop psychology smeared all over it. Seriously, this story spins out like a DSM training video. We get a protagonist (James Dean) with a substance abuse problem brought on by a dysfunctional relationship with his overbearing mother and emasculated – apron-wearing, no less – father. We get a love interest (Natalie Wood) with some really icky sexual tension going on with her dad. We get a troubled younger teen (Sal Mineo) who kills puppies because his absentee parents have abandoned him to be raised by the maid. Middle class America, wake up before your children are darned to heck. Good production values save this from turning into a cartoonish mess like Reefer Madness, but the overall message is no more intellectually or emotionally sophisticated. Mildly amusing