Keyser Corleone's Movie Memoirs

Here we go, everypeep. The quintessential art movie, even to the point of being considered the quintessential MOVIE. Stanley Kubrick's ultra-debated sci-fi commentary on the human condition has withstood the test of time for a plethora of reasons, one of them being that it's not the average movie in any format. Hell, my stepdad hated this movie because of it (but he hates Terminator 2, so what the hell). There is a lot to take from this movie, and entire books can be written on the various theories as to the film's exact meaning. However, let's forget about non-fiction library books for now. I'm already proofreading my novel, so I'll keep this shorter.

This multi-segment sci-fi film is really about the strange monoliths that appear on Earth, somehow altering the destined human history by rewiring the minds of those near the monolith for the better, starting with a bunch of early humans during the ape age and ending with the astronaut David Bowman, who goes searching through the darkest depths of space after having to deal with his all too human AI, HAL 9000, who is threatened by the astronauts when he becomes to human.

2001 is an infamously slow-burner, drawing out scenes for the sake of special effects which were practically impossible at the time. I need not lecture anyone on the rotating sets which made it look like people were walking and running on the walls, a feat to this day that most people don't bother to do without CGI. It's all about CGI these days. But the key difference here is that, as far as I know, these SFX can't be replicated in the same classic way.

We start out with some of the most realistic ape costumes money could afford in 1968, traversing incredible landscapes of sand and ountain ranges, and early on we get an iodea of just how incredible the camera work will be. Honestly, cinematography is the strongest point of this movie if you ask me. When the ships begin flying in space to the Blue Danube, the realistic props and incredible lightning make this purely enchanting in a way that no space opera can achieve because those shows are too busy with special effects. Even the damn ship props are thirty years ahead of their time.

For example, the cutout during that freaky horror music when the first monolith is discovered just EATS at you, doesn't it? It's like a damn jumpscare, waking you up from a nightmare. And the crazy thing is that it fits in with the themes despite being a near polar-opposite towards the rest of the classical score.

The storytelling is subtle at first, and cuts to a few scenes detailing how boring and lifeless the human race has become after having made so many advancements in history, which works for and against the film for its thematic depth but boring dialogue mimicking the basics of 60's sitcom family tropes, and what with the discovery of a new monolith, that's where things turn for the weirdest. The only human here is the robot HAL 9000, who is considered a danger by the human characters for showing some genuine emotion. So the robot is the only one that actually gets any character development. As a result, Dave Bowman, and his lack of development is saved by everything that happens to him throughout the rest of the movie, and his smarts with which he uses to accomplish this before the final act, even though the middle and the final act could have had a couple minutes each cut out.

Now there are a million theories as to exactly what happens to Bowman at the end of the movie, although I do know what Kubrick said pertaining to it. However, I refuse to actually detail what it was, because in the end, all that matters is really the theme and what the exact meaning is. The mystery behind the movie's ending gives us just enough hints to be intrigued by what's going on, and gives us enough power to come up with our own theories which range from a number of potential backdrops such as philosophy, religion, science, humanity and everything in between.

I suppose you want my theory?

We don't advance by conforming. We only progress by not becoming robots. The more we conform to a norm with the greatness of our egos, the more dangerous we become on the inside. Eventually it's the things that we create to advance us when we won't advance ourselves that end up becoming threatening to us. And those who support it will be interpreted as a threat, and will defend themselves from us. In other words, our egos eat us alive if we conform to this idea of a "perfect world" that is out of our reach. The true secret to the universe is not to accept what we're familiar with, but to reach out and look for something new, which is the very essence of advancement. And that's why we don't get a clear ending. We need to think about it ourselves. By improving ourselves will we be ready to improve the world. And part of that is to theorize. About what? Life, the world, this movie.

Of course, this is just my interpretation. Only by looking for the answers that Earthlings cannot achieve can we truly advance. This can be an allegory for inventors, innovators, science, godlike beings, etc. etc

2001 is not a conventional movie in any manner. It's an experimental movie for common moviegoers who wants special effects, and even then it doesn't reach everyone. Some aren't willing to read enough into such an unconventional movie that got way too popular for an experimental film, but people who are glad an experimental piece finally got popular also read too much into it. The way I see it, the point of the movie is simply to KEEP THINKING for yourself.

= 96/100

Movieforums is having its official 2010's countdown, and I've only got a couple days to submit a list. So I'm gonna watch as many critically-acclaimed 2010's movies as possible. Now, I wasn't gonna review this movie, as I wanted to keep the majority of movies I've been watching a secret. But when it comes to a movie that I have a lot to say about, then I get that writer's urge to just pour my heart, soul and talkative guts out just so I can further dissect a movie that moves me.

What we have here is a pure example of the power of minimalism, and what happens when such an easy thing to **** over is put in the right hands: Bela Tarr. If anybodsy else got a hold of this, as Dr. Clayton Forrester would put it, it would be "a real stinkburger of a film." Now I have exceptionally high standards for a genre of film that combines minimalist storytelling with maximalist cinematography: slow cinema, and those standards were set by the longest movie I have ever seen: Bela Tarr's Satantango. The bar is so high that even his second most beloved film, Werckmeister Harmonies, couldn't even come close for me. The story was a bit jumbled, and on a less logical and more personal note, I hated the ending. But The Turin Horse has a way of speaking to an aspiring film critic who works in fast food.

Using the tragic end of Nietzsche as a thematic basis, this black and white movie tells the story of an old man with a paralyzed right arm and his daughter living out a circadian rhythm upon a farm with an uncontrollable horse, all during a flurry or winds which last several days. And in those days, the two contemplate their lives while little obstacles and occurrences are thrown at them which help them re-evaluate life.

The cruel circadian rhythm becomes more relatable as it plays out in this post-apocalyptic-esque setting... which is not post-apocalyptic at all. This was the average world in the time and place of the movie's setting, and that's the battery for this despair. You want this woman to go out and get water from the well as much as you want Samara to be thrown into it. Dielman had a good idea of this kind of despair, but The Turin Horse thrives on it. Doom is at every step as the winds get worse. In fact, watching the old man frantically eat his potato everyday just to get it out of the way, while sitting across the woman who's more resigned to her simple meal, brings out a level of cross-character realism that's impressive even for a movie that has practically no character development. It doesn't really need it, as the movie's theme is human despair. I mean, you're reading a review by a guy who usually NEEDS character development just to keep myself from dying of boredom, but the despicable power of this filmmaking makes up for the lack of it, maybe completely.

To see things happening outside the window in this landscape of sand, leaves and wind may add a lot for a couple minutes at a time on camera, but knowing that nothing's gonna happen for the characters is what really makes these long shots work. In fact, I loved how the day after the camera follows our lady to the well, the cameraman stays inside instead. Bela Tarr must've been thinking along the lines of how a human being would act behind that camera, similarly to the mindset of the outstanding humanist cinematography of Spielberg's War of the Worlds, following Cruise like a human on the run from the aliens and checking to see if the aliens are following.

The most troublesome thing besides the wind is the subplot involving a lack of water, and an immediate switch to the alcoholic drink known as palinka. This spells almost certain doom for the sanity of our main man, as is to be expected in movies like this after movies like Jeanne Dielman came out (I suppose now I have two primary slow cinema movies to compare when watching other slow cinema pieces). In fact, when we see the other side of the window, and see for ourselves that the outside has prison bars, we know what it means.

But there's still ONE MORE THING that needs to be addressed: The damn horse. Why is it there? How does it apply to the theme?



I admit, I had difficulty deciphering this one, and I still am. But that's what movies like this are built for. My first theory was simple: when you think about it, things don't always go your way. And it's only gonna be much worse in desperate times. But that didn't feel entirely right. It wasn't despairing enough.

But then it hit me: the horse is essentially Dorothy's hourglass, the meter by which to measure the patience and tolerance for the world that these two unfortunate souls live in. By the time we follow these two out in the windy world more often, we've practically resigned ourselves to the world around the characters and are fed up with the horse's antics. We don't need anymore reminders of just how hard life is, and that's exactly what the horse is: a pain in the neck trying to make some room among all the other pains. And by the time we change our tactics on how to handle pain, we've changed somehow, maybe by just accepting that life doesn't get any better than that. Even looking at that empty bottle of palinka tells us that we can't even hide away with alcohol.

In short, too much pain drives us insane. (hey I made a little jingle)

Now the big question is... DID THIS MAKE MY TOP 25 FOR THE 2010'S COUNTDOWN? We'll wait and see. But I will say this, this is the second best slow cinema movie I have ever seen, and the second one I'm willing to give five stars.

Yep. I'm not even gonna do a real quote to begin with. It almost offended me to put up the poster for this trash. I mean, I expected it to be bad, but this is a Jerry Warren movie that makes The Incredible Petrified World look like a good time.

In this thankfully forgotten hour-long suckfest with another worthless Lon Chaney Jr. villain, a random psychic women is taken back to a previous life through hypnosis, like Antichrist (1974) except much more boring, to some ancient Aztec temple where a scientist finds a mummified werewolf and a mummified Aztec warrior. As both are awoken, they escape the lab and begin killing people until one of them gets hit by a care, leading the entire boring horror-factor to be lead by the cruddy werewolf.

The first and foremost criticism for this piece of crap is not the complete lack of horror, but how a movie could possibly draw out a single hour so long. The temple scenes and transformations scenes are drawn out so long that you could get in a long line at the concession stand, come back after finally getting your snack and miss absolutely nothing. There is no reason for this woman to be psychic, as this does nothing else for the plot past the temple ritual scene.

These characters have basically no reason to exist other than to get killed off or progress a hokey and undercooked plot that never once get interesting, because there are only two real instances of plotting: in the first five minutes and about fifteen minutes later for about two minutes. And at the end, some random guy comes in and saves the day?

I looked up the movie on Wikipedia to post the basic information such as the year and the director here, and found that it was in fact a movie made of two unrelated foreign movies and some additional scenes were filmed by Warren. In other words, this was pre-Power Rangers editing. And since the plot was a bit confusing, I occasionally had to read in on Wikipedia! That's how confusing it got! Apparently, our hero had a stronger role in one of the two foreign movies, and most of his scnees were cut out, so his appearance doesn't even make sense anymore!

I'll be honest, judging from the poster I was hoping for a D'Amato-style cheesefest.



Whatever cheese you may be hoping to find is just a couple of masks and a cruddy transformation scene. Otherwise, it's all camera work on a moonlit night. I hated watching this with every fiber in my body, and I rank this the second worst movie I've ever seen.

Now, I am not a FAN of Malcolm X. I come to you not as a supporter of Malcolm X, not as an enemy. Not as a white guy, or a black guy. Not conservative, not liberal. I write this review as an American watching a piece of history, and I judged his character based on my own moral principals, and I saw a very troubled man who was growing more and more, even though he still had his troubles. He was growing more and more, relieving himself of the scars of the past before his infamous assassination. This is what I saw.

Malcolm Little grew up in a city where white racism was apparent and even dangerous. As a result, he himself developed racist traits, as well as opposed the law. Running from the gang he joined up with, he met a man in prison ho introduced him to Islamic belief. Eventually, he became a popular spokesperson, often criticizing the white man as "devils." But when he becomes too popular even for the church he speaks for, his life is in jeopardy.

The movie is unflinching in its depiction of the film. Spike Lee wrote the film based not only on the autobiography but on personal interviews with related people. And the end result is a movie that goes over every philosophical angle of Malcolm's life, whether they be good-hearted or controversial. It's no wonder this man had so many admirers and haters. We can also compare the assassination to the fate of several Apostles, although this man was much more angry at the start. You can even see his confusion at the question, "Do you think a white man has ever helped black people?" It brought to mind the confusion of a few North Koreans in a Nat Geo documentary where a few foreign doctors were brought in wqith a couple cameramen and they asked if they thought Kim Jong-Il could potentially make a mistake. Of course, in the third act he had completely let go of the "white devil" mentality.

Even when Lee wasn't focusing on style, he kept the cinematography stylistic. Our opening sequence of dazzling dances and jazz music is reminiscent of the wedding scene of The Godfather, shifting in tone once the sequence ends and going right to the mood, the real essence of the movie. The cinematography flawlessly covers each angle both visually and philosophically, matching with the themes as it covers Denzel Washington sink so deeply into the role of Malcolm X that one does not see Denzel Washington anymore. They see Malcolm. There were times I almost forgot it was Washington.

Every character, while not super-well developed, is right there to progress this biopic just as they should be, influencing Malcolm's life as he influences them back. We're watching history, not a soap opera. Some become easy to love and some become easy to hate just because of that, and we get a further understanding of who Malcolm really was as a result. It even gets to the point where the genre shift from crime drama to political drama feels so human that the genre shift hardly makes a dent on the consistency, and that's how much heart and soul was poured into this movie.

Malcolm X is an incredibly philosophical movie that covers dark and deep topics from angles that even Tarkovsky didn't cover. We have an incredibly human historical drama that does not hesitate to paint the man's struggles as vividly as possible, and whether or not you love him or hate him is entirely up to you. Me, I saw a struggling man with a lot of anger become the kind of person I would listen to: a man who wants to teach people to let go of that anger. In my opinion, he always had good intentions, but he also had some maturing to do. And when he finally got rid of the anger, he died. He never deserved to die, but they killed him at the worst possible point in his life. He died a good man. This is making my top 20 of all time. Definite perfect rating, no blemish, no mistake.

= 100

If you've taken part in the 2nd Movieforums Hall of Infamy, then you'd know the movie Candy, starring the gorgeous Ewa Aulin. And we all know one of the greatest B-movie stars of all time, Klaus Kinski. Both star in this film by Joe D'Amato, one of the worst directors in history, despite the fact that this movie has one grand strong point.

In Death Smiles on a Murderer, we see a carriage crashing at the residence of a rich and high society family, carrying a beautiful girl (Aulin) who looks just like a woman that the man once knew and loved, one deceased. She's taken in as a guest, and suddenly, she's the subject of love for both the husband and the wife. Little do they know that this woman is in fact UNDEAD, as discovered by the family's doctor friend (Kinski).

It started off with a little promise. Joe D'Amato is a better cameraman than a director, and sometimes that trait glimmers, like it does in this movie. The cinematography was top notch, and even mystifying. I was occasionally drawn in based on that, while the plot was still developing and growing muscle. It makes it easier that many of these long and mystifying shots are focused on its beautiful female lead, and pairing with a very eerie soundtrack makes it better.

However, there are so many problems with this movie that the cinematography only makes it watchable, usually in the first half. By the second half, they got rid of their best actor and so we lose much of the juice. The movie also spends too much time playing with the camera and drawing out scenes that are either too lovey-dovey and horny to really add meat, or building up to a gruesome scene with an obviously fake gore mask.

The worst travesty of the movie is that the plot practically halts all development forty minutes in, and instead we get a collection of pretty camera work aimlessly walking around the premises like a lost child. The scare factor becomes cheesy and the deaths become pointless. Ewa is not given any chance to really test her skills as an actress, and her abilities as an undead being make absolutely no sense. However, the final death scene was hilariously bad. I mean, wow. Just wow.

Death Smiles on a Murderer was suppose to be a decent film by Joe D'Amato, and considering my recent history with his movies, he needed a decent rating from me. Um, nerp. This is one of the stupidest movies I've seen in a long time, and that stupidity starts as soon as the first half is done. I would NOT recommend this.

= 28/100

My recent viewing of Malcolm X has inspired me to watch more of Spike Lee's movies. But I like to go extrmeely in-depth with these kinds of things. Ergo, I'll watch the rare ones when I can find them. I watched Coppola's Tonight for Sure for example (and I hated it). And what better type of rare movie than a college thesis from an old art class, a thesis like Spike Lee's Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop?

Barbershop co-owner Joe is killed by a local mafioso for skimming money from the gambling business that he's running and using the shop as a front for. As a result, Zack, the only owner left, tries his hardest to make the barbershop legitimate, but the same old gangster won't let him. He finally relents when his business is getting run down the toilet, but that doesn't stop him from getting ideas in his head, but these ideas could not only endanger his wife, but the young employee he's looking after at his wife's behest.

First, lemme say that the acting kinda sucks. I mean, I guess compared to many B-movies I've seen, it's not terrible, but nobody in the movie looks like they're getting into their roles. It feels like they're just reciting their lines with the bare minimum emotion necessary. I understand that Spike Lee couldn't get professionals, but you'd think going to a school of arts would at least allow him to hire some acting schoolmates.

As for the plot, I don't really think it stood out much. You take a random business, use it as a front for gambling, add a couple of threats and kills, and presto bingo, you got yourself a crime story. SO there's a plot, and there's minimum character development. OK, that's all there really is, a minimum. Minimum acting to go with a minimum plotline. It adds some extra scenes for the sake of building up the focus on the hood-world message and themes, such as the scene where our kid, Teapot, teaches his friend how to swear properly. But scenes like this don't really add much to the story, not like the vague ending which was the best part in the movie.

Maybe this is because I'm just off the back of an incredible Spike Lee movie, but this one didn't move me at all. The whole thing felt more like a practice run for Lee to produce a feature film and see how he could improve. If you're a movie historian, then this movie is watchable enough, but I wouldn't give it any kind of an award, not necessarily even a Golden Raspberry since it's not terrible.

= 37/100

OK, one of my all-time faves is Alien, although I love the sequel more. Alien and Aliens changed my life for the better, and now I'm a huge horror fan. I could be wrong, but it feels like I've seen more horror films than any other genre. But Alien has a lot of knockoffs and similar films, such as the recent film Life. On my review thread, I'm gonna tell you about one of the worst: Creepozoids.

So, six years after a nuclear war left the world completely rotten, with mutant nomads being mentioned but never showing up and acid rain for some reason because sci-fi, and tragedy struck when Recyclops' fictional planet was attacked by some other fictitious thing, a bunch of army deserters find their way into this abandoned lab complex. They soon find out that scientists were experimenting on amino acids, and ended up creating a monster which in attacking and infecting the deserters one by one.

The creature looks like a chubby xenomorph with pincers, as if they hired Bandai to do the costume and they decided to get inspiration from Japan's local H.G. Giger museum. There actually is one, on that subject. And, there are scenes that almost directly mirror scenes from Alien, such as the infamous chestburster scene, but with a mutation instead. And there are a lot of scenes concerning looking into a computer for answers, mirroring the Mother scenes in Alien. But despite any attempts at setting up a sci-fi plot, nothing really stands out and it gets pretty boring pretty quickly.

As for the special effects, pretty lame. Aside from the costume being unconvincing, the movie has random blood spots looking and feeling so fake that any and all disturbing qualities are waned down almost completely. Not to mention, there's absolutely no charm to the R.O.U.S.'s. Yes. This movie... does have... rodents of unusual size. They're literally just being help by the actors and they don't move. They aren't even puppets. They aren't even ****ing puppets.

In short, nothing about this lamo movie is scary. It hardly even brought out any of the alien horror charm that these kinds of movies are known for, even the cheesy kind. But apparently, there's a Fred Olen Ray remake, which is actually very good news for those in the know of the cheese world. So, I got myself another movie to get to, and I'll compare it to this soon.

= 22/100

Just off the back of the David DeCoteau film Creepozoids (this is the man who directed A Talking Cat under a pseudonym), I immediately found out that this film was remade by Fred Olen Ray. Loving FOR's camp, I wanted to see what he could do with an Alien knock off as soon as possible. Thankfully, YouTube did the trick, as Tubi, which has a lot of Fred Olen Ray movies, didn't have this... but it did have the terrible Creepozoids.

Right after a CGI spectacle of alien ships blowing our asses to pieces, an ion storm hits the planet, and a bunch of commandos need to find shelter. One of these commandos aided in a huge gold raid. Meeting up with a local drifter, they take shelter in an abandoned laboratory where they find and must face a hybrid of human and alien. The movie comes complete with a new creature design, more storytelling capabilities, two nudies washing each other in the shower, properly cheesy CGI from the start, two nudies washing each other in the shower, and better rats.

Oh, and you gotta hear this: two nudies-



Awright. The first thing I noticed that the dialogue, while not brilliant, was a lot better than the dialogue of the original. The characters felt more lively and developed, even though they only had two sides to them and one side was often overshadowed by the other, such as our angry fatman Blaine who's very good with machines. Of course, this guy's anger is played up WAY TOO MUCH. And about five-eights through the movie, there's a plot twist that I actually KINDA liked. I didn't love it, but the way they delivered it was fine. It has to do with the drifter, and that's all I'll say.

As for the sets and the effects, they reek of the Fred Olen Ray touch, or as I like to call it: FOR-fodder. There is enough FOR-fodder to last the whole movie, all the way from blue snotty slime to fake-ass machinery to the blood that may or may not be made of Kool-Aid. However, the action sequences were kinda lame and poorly directed. They didn't have that soul that was poured into our CGI intro of alien ships firing laser at everything.



And the sex scene was so poorly acted that it could be the next Billy Squire video. For your sanity, that is one video I will NOT post.

To make up for this travesty, though, the immediate third act doesn't resort to senselessly killing everybody until there's one person left, an art perfected by Alien. The characters really try to fight back. And another thing: the movie doesn't rip off Alien anywhere near as much as Creepazoid did. Hybrid doesn't feel like Alien. It feels like Hybrid, despite the fact that the monster is still just another costume that looks scary as opposed to a unique threat. And they reuse the same old monster roar sound effects CONSTANTLY. I recognize them from an old Wild Tangent computer game called Dark Orbit.

Well, I officially believe that Hybrid is miles ahead of the original Creepozoids. Fans of cheese might find a lot of fun to be had with this, as the FOR-fodder charm never ceases. However, this is still a Fred Olen Ray movie, and those are usually never very original or well-directed, and this is no exception. Thanks, Fred. This was a watchable movie and one of your best. And thus ends my review.

And two nudies washing each other in the shower.

= 46/100

Posting one more review later tonight: my daily Spike Lee review.

Yup! My third Spike Lee film, right after my second being his really college film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop, is his first movie to be released and his breakthrough movie. In the short time I've been anticipating this movie, I've seen mostly positive but still mixed things about this movie. But I knew very little about the plot or how it would go. I gotta say, this took all of my expectations and burned them at the stake with the unique structure and behavior.

Taking turns between the style of a documentary and the style of a movie, She;s Gotta Have It tells the story of the many lovers of the promiscuous Nola, who, as the title suggests, just has to have it. The movie covers many of her opinions on love and sex, as well as the approaches to Nola by the various interviewed lovers and friends.

This is pretty much Spike Lee's art movie. Apparently, it was made on a budget just over $100,000. Really good for such a short amount of money. Lee makes some use ofreeling photos which seem to be recounting the setting itself, but I don't feel that those scenes added a lot to the movie's plot. It felt like a random stylistic trait thrown in and influenced by La Jetee.

The movie's documentary style switching with the movie style rings towards Anges Varda's drama movie Vagabond, released the year before. The camera style of following characters around and episode structure also remind me of Cleo from 5 to 7. This tells me that Spike Lee may be a Varda fan, and if not I find it hard to see no influence, because this is a very artistic movie that says a lot about relations, even though I have a certain criticism: this didn't offer any new commentary on sexual relations, even though it did thoroughly examine the basics.

This examination is told from three major characters aside from out leading lady Nola: Jamie, the smart and calm one who gives us the best examination of Nola; Mars, the hyperactive smart-mouth who likes to make people laugh; and finally, Greer, the jock who's a bit full of himself and is the most serious about marrying... or at least being alone with Nola. All three characters are played well and deliver their examinations thoroughly and add a lot to the movie, even making the feeling of Nola going to her bed alone feel so bitter.

She's Gotta Have It is Spike Lee's careful balance of style, story and experimentation. The strongest parts of the movie aren't fully fleshed out, but they flow together like sangria's many ingredients. Spike Lee made a huge jump in quality as a director from his college movie, and I would honestly watch this again tomorrow if I wasn't already focusing on one new Spike Lee movie a day.

= 80/100

OK, so two movies about a warrior named Ator got on MST3K, and then another one got on MST3K, and then a spin-off that retcons the whole story and gives Ator a new appearance and pisses off the creator of Ator, Joe D'Amato, so now Joey Tomato has to Rise of Skyewalker this Last Jedi and rewrite a few things. And thus, Ator was given ANOTHER origin story. Skipping the supposedly non-canon third one, I'm going right for the fourth, and the third directed by D'Amato.

This time, Ator starts out as the son of a king who is smitten by the same god, named Thorn, who let him wield his own sword. Stripped of her power, Ator's mother the queen makes a deal with a treacherous goblin who raises Ator as a part of the deal. As an adult, he defeats the goblin, reclaiming the sword and sets out not only to slay Thorn and rescue the one person who stood up for his father: an immortal woman.

From the start, the movie has slightly but noticeably higher production values than the first two movies. The goblin's lair looks perfectly appropriate for the film, for example. It's not overglossy like places like this can be in fantasy movies, but it's not "low-budget" either. However, the cheese comes on pretty early as we have half-assed origin stories involving curses, betrayal and He-Man style action. But the cheesiest thing in the movie must be when Ator reclaims his sword and cuts someone in half: someone who splits into two completely non-gory halves like a toy! I'm certain I heard the sound of rubber!

Ooh! And that's not all! In the second act: the hero is travelling through the grass fields and encounters an enemy. He takes his sword of light, and with video game sound effects his foe is slain! Yes, it was EXACTLY like in a video game. And there was even a miniboss which followed Ator, but couldn't bend over to go through the hole, so the monster just kelp walking into the wall like an NPC! Turns out he was a robot. It was amazing! And then the dragon showed up.

Now to quote Brandon the Singer: And that's not A-A-A-ALL!

In the third act, we have the beauty of magically summoned weapons in split-second shots, a creepy old man forcing our immortal lady into wedlock, and let us also call attention to the goblin who looks like an ugly-ass werewolf got ran over, and he sounds like the guy in the next cubicle with robotic acting. However, the cheese soon turns into boring politics and a predictable peplum third act, which seems to be a curse for D'Amato's movies. He has no idea how to make an ending good.

OK, this Ator movie wasn't fully fleshed out, but it had some great cheese about it. VIdeo game logic made it even better. Honestly, this is in my opinion the best of the Ator series, excluding Iron Warrior, the one Joe D'Amato hated because I haven't seen it, but the movie still isn't that great. It's just another sword and sorcery film like The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (no relation to Gladiator 7, directed by the guy who did Iron Warrior).

My fourth Spike Lee outing is School Daze, his film and second release. I admit, I had a feeling that I might struggle with this one. Frat humor usually doesn't get to me, not unless it gets seriously ridiculous like the end of Animal House, or literally any episode of Recess. Otherwise, it typically flies over my head. There's gotta be something new to it, or it's just another bunch of school hijinks that were likely done in real life. Even The Chaos Class didn't "touch my soul." So how does School Daze hold up against the likes of Animal House, Chaos Class, Kinky Coaches and Monsters University? Let's take a look.

School Daze is an original story by Spike Lee inspired by his own school life. The movie chronicles the ongoing clashes between two groups of students in a historically black college known as Mission College: a fraternity called the Gammas and a bunch of apartheid protestors lead by ex-Gamma Dap Dunlap. Meanwhile, Dap's cousin Half-Pint struggles to prove himself from within the Gammas. And at the same time, the sorority Gamma Rays are clashing with the other students in the school because the Gamma gals' fashion statements feel to the others like they're trying to be white.

The movie has a lot of personality, and yet somehow feels lifeless. For example, all the sports dances and ceremonies just feel so staged. Great acting and writing shouldn't feel staged, and the college cheers and jingles all felt that way. These scenarios are built to be humorous but they never really end up laughable. I think Spike Lee was more interested in recounting the memories he had on screen rather than focusing on the actual story he tried to set up. I mean, there are very few times when characters are developed well enough to care about, so the college antics feel a little wasted. On top of that, the style and pizazz, as well as the blackitude, are either drowning out the fact that the story feels under-written or are just plain hiding the fact that it was under-written to begin with.

However, the movie's main focus is exploring racism, colorism and everything in betweeb, so maybe that was the real reason that these characters and the story didn't feel complete: Spike Lee just needed some more practice balancing it all out. At least the acting's good. I mean, these people pretty much feel like they're just being themselves, especially Larry Fishburne as our main character Dap and Spike Lee himself as Half-Pint, and so they bring some life to characters with otherwise lifeless characterization. In fact, the clash of classes is the leading element of the exploration of black subcultures and the various formats and interpretations among the African-American community.

I liked the musical numbers, though. Yes, you read that as correctly as the dog marriage sign. There are stage performances and war chants during sports events, which are expected in a college film. The choreography is in my opinion the strongest aspect of School Daze. I mean, they kind of felt way thrown in there in the same way the "foto film" elements of Lee's previous film She's Gotta Have It felt thrown in, but they were more stylish. I mean, they didn't really help with the story.

Well, the movie was a mixed bag of strong points that focused more on style than substance on most accounts, even though it did a decent job covering racial themes. But it was hard to get fully invested in those themes as frat-comedies generally don't have such great social or emotional stakes other than frat wars or reuniting with the one you love. School Daze was no exception, and I'm sure these themes will be more skillfully handled in Do the Right Thing. The movie had enough good acting, personality and filmmaking technique overall to keep itself watchable, but that doesn't change the fact that the whole movie feels incomplete.

= 57/100

As for Spike Lee, I've seen:

Do the Right Thing
Malcolm X
BlacKkKlansman
Da 5 Bloods

I would recommend all of them.

My Spike Lee marathon has taught me a lot about the man himself. From the movies I've been watching, it looks like Spike Lee's strongest point is personality. Even when he tries to make social commentary the main theme, the personality usually overtakes the themes. This is especially true for Lee's first two official releases, She's Gotta Have It and School Daze. Looks like our friend Lee finally perfected it in his essential hood movie, Do the Right Thing.

An Italian-American named Sal runs his pizzaria with his two sons, and hired only one other person: Mookie, one of the many black men in the city. However, another black man called Buggin' Out raises a complaint about the wall of fame in the pizzeria only featuring Italian-American actors, he angrily wants some black actors represented. The whole movie centers around the events of the day and various characters expressing their social and racial opinions until a big bang which ends in an angry mob.

It's gonna be impossible to write a review about Do the Right Thing without bringing up the very concept of racial differences, as well as true blue spirits to American racial subcultures that this movie displays. So I'm just gonna wing it and me the natural old me who thought racism was a myth when he was a kid.

There are a bunch of movies I could compare this to in terms of technical skill. However, I think the best movie to compare this to is Citizen Kane, due to Lee starring perfectly as the lead character in an incredibly thematic movie which gives people a lot of things to think about at just about every corner. This movie is ALL character ALL the time. Even though most scenarios revolve around Mookie (Spike Lee), the hyperlink behavior brings out a lot of commentary on hood society as a perfect replacement for heavy character development. Hell, the scene where various characters of various characters looking into the camera and taking fifteen seconds each to hurl insults at a race each before our DJ Senor Love Daddy tells everyone to chill out says a lot about the city we are experiencing.

Sometimes people are pushed to the point where they will hurl racial insults just to get back, regardless of whether or not their true racial beliefs are coming out. Heart-to-hearts like the one Sal has with his son or the scene where Da Mayor is criticized by a small group of friends for his drunken behavior tell a lot, and it's all realistic not only because this is all normal for people growing up in the right neighborhoods, but these actors all feel like real people in the city. Even the guy who has trouble speaking feels realistic when he's trying so hard to say "F-f-f-f-f-**** you!"

This racial commentary also helps familiar cultural aspects of various Americans coming out. We don;t just get that independent hood spirit from the African-American community, but Sal's family feels as real as the Corleones. In fact, the Koreans are blatantly obvious immigrants due to the honest scripting of their struggles with service English-speaking customers. I can't be the only one who's had difficulty communicating with people who's English wasn't perfect. Of course, the real bad guy in this scene was Radio Raheem who foul-mouthed the whole scene.

But the third act is the one that blows everything out of the water. I mean, seriously, that was a damn horror show. But isn't this also honest? When people keep pushing each other to insult each other based on heritage, and pent up aggression concerning history comes into the picture? The fact that this shit DOES happen is what makes this brutal and heartbreaking. In fact, it almost makes me mad that Lee and Aiello played their parts sop perfectly, because the perfect acting also made this last act hurt.

Oh my sweet. I cannot believe what I just watched. There's never gonna be a movie like this again, hopefully, because this was all too real. I can't BELIEVE the realism of this film. You might as well have filmed a documentary all day and got lucky when something brutal actually did happen. Lee mastered filmmaking that early in his career, and I don't know if he'll ever be able to top it. In fact, I'm still deciding where I'm gonna put it on my top movies of all-time list: either 8 or 9.

= 100/100. This is the second Spike Lee movie I've given a perfect rating. This also makes Lee the fourth director to ever have two movies in my top 20, with the other three being Francis Ford Coppola (obviously), Terry Gilliam and Steven Spielberg.

The name says it all. This might be my favorite movie title I've ever read, like my favorite album title: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. But the two are of freakishly different leagues. I mean, what can you expect from a David DeCoteau B-movie? However, it should be said that I found this to be one of his better ones.

Our appropriately-named B-movie is about a bunch of frat boys who get captured by a bunch of sorority girls when the three bozos break in an peek in the shower. They are forced to comply with two girls' final sorority entrance exam: go to the local bowling alley in the middle of the night and steal something from it. But when they go after the trophy and cross paths with an actual thief, they drop it and it opens up, revealing a wish-granting imp who wants to have some nasty fun.

OK, so like I've said in other reviews, I am NOT into frat humor, and I usually need something unique in a movie to enjoy it. Example: Monster University uses the concept of teaching scares to progress its otherwise done before plot. This, however, made a genre switch halfway and went from sorority girl comedy to another version Evil Toons or Evil Bong.

The specific horror pertaining to the school comedy is basically just more frat stuff. Sex wars, hazing, evil plots which soon go horribly wrong, etc. And when the horror kicks in, our imp is just too cartoonish to enjoy, and his Wishmaster style evil is just so hammy and predictable in turn. The wishes are turned against each person in ways that, lo and behold, torture and kill them. The movie compensates the lack of scares or humor with boobs.

However, the awkwardness of these nerds clashing with these "babes" provides a more realistic character dynamic than the average Full Moon Feature, which is likely the reason this is considered a cult classic. The fact that our biggest nerd of the group is building a relationship with our badass thief throughout the horror half also makes things a little more humorous.

Sorority Babes doesn't really utilize what made it that unique, so it doesn't live up to its potential at all. However, character dynamics between our main cast still help the movie, even when the genre switch kicks in and the scares and humor don't do much. But the movie is cheesy as hell, so that really helps make this movie much more watchable.

= 38/100

Lemme start out by saying that I consider Bernard L. Kowalski to be one of the worst directors I've experienced so far. Earlier I saw his hour-long war movie Blood and Steel, which was so plotless that I didn't even bother reviewing it. And on top of that, he has two MST3K movies that deserved their appearances on that show: Night of the Blood Beast and Attack of the Giant Leeches. Kowalski obviously has difficulty with horror.

Black Noon is a pretty damn creepy movie, and I think you readers should check it out on Tubi or YouTube (although the YouTube link is a bit harder to hear).

Shortly after a small town church burns down, a pastor and his wife nearly die on their desert trip to Saguaro. They're saved and brought to that same small western town where they find out that it's being tormented by a dangerous shooter named Moon. The villagers are all too afraid to do anything. Meanwhile, they watch over a mute woman named Deliverance, who seems peaceful enough, and wants the reverend to heal her affliction as he is believed to have healed a boy's legs. However, he and his wife start having strange experiences, and they have a connection to this mute girl.

The movie is a short 75 minutes, but it starts out pretty slow. Our lead characters' opening sequence is practically ripping off the beginning of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. After that, we get into some basic character development in which, low and behold, we find out that somehow Deliverance is evil. Basically, as a western, this movie pretty much has no surprises. Not to mention, our so called "villain" Moon might be easy to hate, but he's such a generic villain that his entire character is practically cancelling itself out in terms of good and bad like matter and antimatter, and in the end, we're just waiting for him to get written out of the movie.

But then the actual horror begins, and there's a dream sequence with brilliant direction, perfect light and a beautifully Gothic atmosphere that is perfectly mesmerizing. This kickstarts other strange sequences which get either creepy, cultish or just plain mysterious. One really learns to be shocked by the mere sight of orange tabbies.



As the spiritual and mental conditions of both respective characters gradually decrease, what with the preacher being further and further tempted to sin, and the woman's mental and physical being deteriating under the fearful sites around her, the minimal plot eventually progresses into a big plot twist which makes for quite the shock at first. However, at the same time, I thought it was a typical folk horror ending. And to be honest, I get kind of tired of that type of ending.

Well, this 75 minute film wasn't a waste of time. It;s much better than anything else I've seen by Bernard L. Kowalski so far. He finally got a grip on horror in 1971. However, it's still passable, despite a couple of brilliant bursts of direction. I don't really think I'd recommend it, though, as it makes for a better horror than a western. The two genres are not molded very well at all, like a polar opposite to the seamless molding of polar opposites apparent in movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Bernard had some decent experience in horror, but limited experience in westerns, and it shows in this TV film that's overshadowed by his worst projects.

= 55/100

For my next Spike Lee joint, we'll be diving into Lee's first collab with Denzel Washington, and the least social / political of the six that I've seen. This time, the movie covers something that I've spent the last ten years critiquing and writing about: music! This view is not only off the back of watching the second collab between Lee and Washington, but off of the back of Damien Chazelle's two music movies Whiplash and La La Land. I've got quite a few movies to compare aspects of Mo' Better Blues to, and I'm gonna stay in that mindset throughout the whole review.

We once again find our way to Brooklyn where Senor Love Daddy is preaching love while African-American culture takes its course, and this time we stroll into the jazz clubs where our Denzel Washington character Bleek Gilliam comes from a forced musical childhood and now leads his own band. But being a musician isn't all martinis and booties. His tenor sex Shadow (Wesley Snipes) wants to leave the band, his manager Giant (Spike Lee) is having trouble and HIS boss wants him fired, and Bleek can't get his crap together between two different women: Clarke and Indigo.

In comparison to the later films Whiplash and La La Land, I'd say that this movie covers a very basic ideal of the struggles of musicianship. Our man Bleek is essentially too focused on his music to truly care about anything or anyone else, and that bites him in the ass. Lo and behold, we have a movie. Maybe it's because this is Lee's first dive into a mostly music-central movie, but this doesn't hold a candle to Whiplash in that regard. Having said that, Damien Chazelle's debut feature film was in fact Whiplash, and after that was La La Land.
So maybe Chazelle's passion is more musical while Lee's is more social.

But among the generic romance is another level of philosophical and psychological examination. The scene where our man Bleek visualizes both of the women he's sleeping with break down his behavior while he struggles with replies and eye contact is one of the most enlightening scenes about our leading man's character. However, almost nobody except for Bleek and Giant get any serious character development that makes them stand out as characters. Example: I noticed that Lee makes a lot of commentary on his own height in this movie. I once heard something about Do the Right Thing actually being a self-commentary about Spike Lee's height, which I think is kind of ridiculous, but this movie DOES prove that Spike Lee could be bothered by it.

The movie features lengthy scenes of jazz sessions, which, for a jazz fan like myself, is a very good stylistic choice. However, I noticed that this could make the movie much harder to enjoy for the non-converted. This means that the music and the story were not one and the same as they were in Whiplash. Other stylistic choices are hit or miss depending on their scenes, whether it be the deep and colorful lighting or the spinning cameras. Usually the moments where these techinques go hand in hand with the psychological aspects help a lot.

As far as the story goes, I can't really say I'm impressed. For the first two acts, it kinda goes through the same few elements as if I was playing with a Viewmaster: music, sex, let's talk money, I grew up with Giant, music, sex, let's talk money, I grew up with Giant. But the third act takes a major shift and sets up everything for a happy ending despite all of the pain, even though the movie is still stretching length.

Mo' Better Blues was one I was really looking forward to as a music fan. Still, even if I hadn't compared this to Whiplash or La La Land, I'd still be comparing the one-sided characterization to the honest and mutli-faceted representation of Malcolm X in his biopic. Malcolm X made the most of the three-hour runtime when the story here was overlong with a two-hour length. Still, I'm not at all disappointed and I appreciate the more mature stylistic attempts.

= 69/100

The Movieforums 2010's ballots have ended, and in the time of prep before being tempted to watch and review Malcolm X after having seen the trailer from sheer curiosity, I went through quite a few movies. There was the slow cinema arthouse film The Turin Horse, the gruesome and almost un-rewatchable historical epic 12 Years a Slave, and there was Jordan Peele's two mysterious horror movies Get Out and Us. But the one I had the highest expectations for, being a huge Shrek fan, was the Dreamworks movie Imdb considers better than Shrek: How to Train Your Dragon.

A community of vikings trains their young to become dragon killers, but the son of the leader, Hiccup, struggles with it. When he shoots down a rare breed of dragon by chance, he goes to kill it. But as soon as he does, he sees fear in the dragon's eyes and realizes it's just like him. In secret, he begins training the dragon with a makeshift tailfin to replace the one he shot. His training makes him a legend in dragon class, which impresses others but makes some suspicious.

So this is apparently a legendary movie by director pair Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, spawning two sequels and several TV shows. And did the first movie deserve this legendary status? Yes and no. It's definitely a good movie, but it's not perfect.

There's a lot of heart that goes into the relationship between Hiccup and his dragon Toothless. Toothless acts a lot like an animal, which makes his relationship authentic. As the scenario switches from Toothless to Hiccup succeeding in his classes, we're incredibly impressed with our wimpy-ass lead character. However, Toothless's snarky behavior only occasionally shows, and he's at his most dynamic in these few moments. Otherwise, he's just an animal.

On the subject of character development, Hiccup's various classmates make entertaining characters on their own. However, they're also quite one-sided for the sake of filling up the class. We have the independent woman who's desperate to prove herself, the bickering twins, the total jock who's not really all that great, and (this is my favorite) the nerd who memorized the entire book on dragons in a D&D statsheet manner. They entertain, but they aren't complete.

As for the story and the direction, its simple themes of trust and change are told with a lot of heart and great acting. We actually feel for the lead characters in ways that we don't often feel in other kids movies because family and tradition aren't told in this style very often in children's cinema. And the action-adventure bits we get are perfectly directed. The cinematography and animation are at some of Dreamworks' best.

Still, when I watch this movie, I can't help but compare every aspect to Sanders and DeBlois' other legendary franchise kickstarter: Lilo and Stitch. Almost every aspect of this movie, including family commentary, are more unique and effective. On that subject, one can see artistic similarities between both Toothless and Stitch's eyes. (What? I can also tell which early Disney scenes were animated by Don Bluth. Sue me.)

Well, How to Train Your Dragon in a great kids movie with a lot to like and some stuff to love, but it needed a little work. It deserved to get a couple of sequels, but let's be honest. Expanding the dragon world is just another franchise deal, just like trying to create 625 more experiments for Lilo and Stitch: the Series. The glory of the franchise belongs to cinema.