The Return of Torgo and Wooley's September Excite-o-rama!

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I have no notes for your Conan review, I think we're pretty much on the same page. My only regret is that I came to it much later in life so I don't have the history with it that you do.

It's a shame that among the thousands of 80s fantasy films made in its wake, so few figured out that a great cast and decent budget were part of the recipe. It would have been nice to have 2 or 3 more films on this level.

Also the last shot of King Conan is like an airbrushed Chevy van come to life. (That's meant to be a compliment.) Despite all of my grumblings about Arnold, he's a gorgeous man in this film.





Good Conan writeup. I also liked William Smith's brief appearance as Conan's father, especially his line "for no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts. This (points to sword) you can trust." Based on what I know about the guy, John Milius alone must have written that scene. I've been meaning to get into the Conan comic books, but I have no idea where to begin since there are so many of them. I am open to suggestions.

My next entry has a fruit and a number in the title (no, it's not a documentary about the Apple II).





Cherry 2000 -


Granted, I went into this one pretty blind, but I'm surprised more hasn't been written or YouTubed about how prophetic this movie is. While it may have been shocking to comprehend someone risking death to restore an AI with whom they have a long-term relationship in the late '80s, it doesn't seem that strange to me these days in which it's not unheard of for some to prefer the company of digital or digitally presented companions to real ones. It also deserves credit for being right about 2017 that some would blindly follow a cult leader and that they wouldn't bat an eyeball when he gets away with murder, but I digress. The man who is desperately seeking his titular beloved is Sam (from Anaheim) (David Andrews), whose Cherry 2000 gets badly damaged when his dishwasher malfunctions during a makeout session. As luck would have it, the only remaining replacement bodies are in a junkyard in what used to be Las Vegas, and what's more, it's in the territory of the aforementioned cult leader, Lester (Tim Thomerson). To help him in his search, Sam reluctantly hires tracker E. (Melanie Griffith) on the condition that he's also willing to get his hands dirty.

Again, I went into this one relatively cold, not to mention with low expectations due to its subpar IMDB and Letterboxd scores, and I was surprised by how much I really, really enjoyed it. The movie makes no bones about it early on that it's a futuristic western, and it has the same appeals of the most fun ones I've seen from its shootouts to its classic saloon scene in a town nobody in their right mind would visit (it's named Glory Hole, after all). I also like that the movie treats Sam with empathy rather than ridicule, which audiences even now would do. As for our hero, I'm not that familiar with David Andrews, which I think is to the movie's benefit because him being a relative unknown enhances his everyman qualities and makes Griffith's flame-haired mercenary and Thomerson's crazy-eyed villain seem even stranger. Both performers give the impression they had a good time playing their roles, which makes the movie all the more fun, and this also applies to appropriately cast Western veterans Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr., each of whom are in small and quirky roles. Besides fun, quirky is an apt description for the entire movie, especially in the production design and costumes, but it's the good kind of quirky in that it doesn't wear out its welcome too quickly. I especially like the look of Lester's compound, which reminded me of the similar retro-futurist looks of Fallout: New Vegas and the FX series Legion, and the costumes of his henchman, which made me laugh for how they resemble the guy on the cover of the Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! That welcome faces and B-movie legends Brion James Robert Z'Dar (and what a face it is, and R.I.P.) make appearances is the icing on the cake.

I'm hopefully not spoiling this movie by talking about my favorite takeaway from it, which is that even the most convincing digital recreation is no replacement for the real thing. As Johnson's Six Fingered Jake so eloquently puts it, "there's a lot more to love than hot wiring." I obviously disagree with the movie's generally low reviews, but that doesn't mean I love every single thing about it. There is a jarring transition in the middle of the movie, and even though it's supposed to be this way, I found myself asking "wait, what" very late in the game. It's also odd, and not in a good way, that Sam is reluctant to assist E. with the wet work because he ends up as someone who would fit in with the crew of mercenaries in another sci-fi movie from 1987, Predator. Granted, "the things I do for love," etc., etc., but I still raised an eyebrow. Even so, with its prescience, unique look and feel and for how fun and endearing it is, I can see the movie standing alongside my favorite cult and would-be classics of its decade. In other words, I can easily see myself rewatching it.

My rating: 4 mini CDs out of 5

My guy (or gal): Six Fingered Jake, a man who will put his life on the line to offer a helping hand or even cook you a decent meal.




Conan The Barbarian
You know I have never seen this. It wasn't my kind of thing when it came out but knowing that Milius and Stone had a lot to do with it makes me want to check it out.



Hmm...
Well, I think the bunny-ears have hooked me, regardless.
Definitely worth a watch.

Good review, and I agree with your main issues. I was
WARNING: spoilers below
also disappointed to learn that Barbara's hangup is her sick mother because it does seem like a "fake surprise;" in other words, one that would have been revealed much earlier if the camera had just panned up a few meters! As for the ending, it does seem a bit clean, but it's tempered by that final conversation Barbara has with the giant. It reminds me of what I like about the ending of Shaun of the Dead for how she doesn't throw her fantasies away completely.
I guess I need to see A Monster Calls. I didn't love The Orphanage, the only other Bayona movie I've seen, mostly because it's not as scary as I would have l liked, but I like his directing style.
Not only is it a
WARNING: spoilers below
fake surprise, as you put it, but it's still something that would devastate a child. She might be less anxious after realizing she isn't responsible for saving her mother, but you don't just go from punching people out stress monster to smiling in class and sharing with everyone.


Definitely check out A Monster Calls. And read the book (which was written by a woman while she was dying, and then finished by Patrick Ness because she passed away before the book was completed).



Victim of The Night


Granted, I went into this one pretty blind, but I'm surprised more hasn't been written or YouTubed about how prophetic this movie is. While it may have been shocking to comprehend someone risking death to restore an AI with whom they have a long-term relationship in the late '80s, it doesn't seem that strange to me these days in which it's not unheard of for some to prefer the company of digital or digitally presented companions to real ones. It also deserves credit for being right about 2017 that some would blindly follow a cult leader and that they wouldn't bat an eyeball when he gets away with murder, but I digress. The man who is desperately seeking his titular beloved is Sam (from Anaheim) (David Andrews), whose Cherry 2000 gets badly damaged when his dishwasher malfunctions during a makeout session. As luck would have it, the only remaining replacement bodies are in a junkyard in what used to be Las Vegas, and what's more, it's in the territory of the aforementioned cult leader, Lester (Tim Thomerson). To help him in his search, Sam reluctantly hires tracker E. (Melanie Griffith) on the condition that he's also willing to get his hands dirty.

Again, I went into this one relatively cold, not to mention with low expectations due to its subpar IMDB and Letterboxd scores, and I was surprised by how much I really, really enjoyed it. The movie makes no bones about it early on that it's a futuristic western, and it has the same appeals of the most fun ones I've seen from its shootouts to its classic saloon scene in a town nobody in their right mind would visit (it's named Glory Hole, after all). I also like that the movie treats Sam with empathy rather than ridicule, which audiences even now would do. As for our hero, I'm not that familiar with David Andrews, which I think is to the movie's benefit because him being a relative unknown enhances his everyman qualities and makes Griffith's flame-haired mercenary and Thomerson's crazy-eyed villain seem even stranger. Both performers give the impression they had a good time playing their roles, which makes the movie all the more fun, and this also applies to appropriately cast Western veterans Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr., each of whom are in small and quirky roles. Besides fun, quirky is an apt description for the entire movie, especially in the production design and costumes, but it's the good kind of quirky in that it doesn't wear out its welcome too quickly. I especially like the look of Lester's compound, which reminded me of the similar retro-futurist looks of Fallout: New Vegas and the FX series Legion, and the costumes of his henchman, which made me laugh for how they resemble the guy on the cover of the Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! That welcome faces and B-movie legends Brion James Robert Z'Dar (and what a face it is, and R.I.P.) make appearances is the icing on the cake.

I'm hopefully not spoiling this movie by talking about my favorite takeaway from it, which is that even the most convincing digital recreation is no replacement for the real thing. As Johnson's Six Fingered Jake so eloquently puts it, "there's a lot more to love than hot wiring." I obviously disagree with the movie's generally low reviews, but that doesn't mean I love every single thing about it. There is a jarring transition in the middle of the movie, and even though it's supposed to be this way, I found myself asking "wait, what" very late in the game. It's also odd, and not in a good way, that Sam is reluctant to assist E. with the wet work because he ends up as someone who would fit in with the crew of mercenaries in another sci-fi movie from 1987, Predator. Granted, "the things I do for love," etc., etc., but I still raised an eyebrow. Even so, with its prescience, unique look and feel and for how fun and endearing it is, I can see the movie standing alongside my favorite cult and would-be classics of its decade. In other words, I can easily see myself rewatching it.

My rating: 4 mini CDs out of 5

My guy (or gal): Six Fingered Jake, a man who will put his life on the line to offer a helping hand or even cook you a decent meal.
I love you for this.


Edit - I want to mention that you and I enjoyed a lot of the same things. Johnson's character/performance add a lot to the film. I also liked the way the film treated the protagonist and made me not wanna roll my eyes at him the whole time. Yet I agree about Sam's reluctance to do the hard things that would be necessary. I liked Melanie Griffith a lot in this, which I am not normally wont to do. I thought she really understood what the character needed to be and delivered just that. And I liked that she found herself with a certain longing. I especially liked Tim Thomerson as Lester, he was a hoot, and Cameron Milzer was also pretty funny.
Yup, just enjoy this movie all around, always up for a rewatch.



Victim of The Night
Good Conan writeup. I also liked William Smith's brief appearance as Conan's father, especially his line "for no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts. This (points to sword) you can trust." Based on what I know about the guy, John Milius alone must have written that scene. I've been meaning to get into the Conan comic books, but I have no idea where to begin since there are so many of them. I am open to suggestions.
I strongly recommend the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard (his Horror works are also the bees knees).
When I finished the Conan stories I realized that Tolkien was not the father of my idea of Fantasy, it was Howard, overwhelmingly Howard.



Victim of The Night
You're right, I didn't even mention the score, which is very good. I think I thought my review was just getting too long.



Victim of The Night

The second in my Sword and Sorcery Double Feature (with Conan The Barbarian), we revisited one of my childhood favorites, Don Coscarelli's The Beastmaster. Released just a few months after Conan, Coscarelli had to make do with less than half the budget that Milius had for his film, but the plucky Phantasm director did not let the audience down.

The film starts as a straight-up Period Horror (Coscarelli's knack for the genre is as obvious here as it was in his previous film) as an evil priest, Mayak, and his coven of witches use dark magic to steal the unborn child of the Queen (and King) from her belly and transfer it to the womb of a cow. This effect is excellently executed and this fire-lit magic by the witches sets a dark and Horror-tinged tone for the film.


One of the witches cuts the babe from the cow's abdomen and prepares to sacrifice it, part of a prophecy to solidify the priest's absolute power in the kingdom, but the plan goes awry as the child is rescued from the witch by a brave villager. In the coming years, as the villager teaches the boy, Dar, to fight and be a man, his connection to animals, due to his time in the cow's womb, is revealed. "I see through their eyes, they see through mine. They know my thoughts and I know theirs." This comes in extremely handy throughout the film.
Unfortunately, the priest, Mayak, has allied himself with the dreaded Jun Horde, which sweeps across the landing taking everything in their path, with Mayak searching for the lost child to end the prophecy. Dar's village is destroyed and everyone but him is killed.


So, Dar, knowing nothing of the prophecy, his royal birthright, or his place in the World, sets out on a quest to find the Jun horde and... well, it's not really clear what his plan is once he finds them, considering there's like hundreds or thousands of them or something (Coscarelli does a great job of making a little seem like a lot all through the film), and their leader is this terrifying motherf*cker.




Yes, The Road Warrior permeates even Sword and Sorcery movies of this time, but I tell ya, when I was 10 years old, I thought the Jun Leader was about the baddest mother on the planet this side of The Lord Humungus and maybe more so.

Along the way, Dar will gather a cast of characters, both animal and human, around him as his quest is sidetracked by his encounter with Mayak at the Temple of Aruk and the revealing of his true destiny. Not to mention he basically just drops everything to follow Tanya Roberts around. Seriously, he absolutely drops his entire quest like 15 minutes into it after he sees Tanya Roberts' eyes. Her function in this film is to have beautiful eyes and drag our hero into his own unknown destiny. But mostly to have beautiful eyes. This was supposed to be Demi Moore but the executive producer overrode Coscarelli in favor of Roberts, so I guess he got mesmerized by these peepers too.


But it is his chance meeting with John Amos' Seth that will prove to be the most important for the movie. Everything's going along fine, trust me, but the movie needed another tentpole and Amos provides it. He has a commanding presence and flip between a withering intensity and a winning good-humor in the blink of an eye. Really, it's kind of a shame we didn't get more of him in cinema.


Ultimately, all of this comes together extremely well under Coscarelli's direction. All of this really works and the film, again as I love to say, punches well above its weight, delivering a tremendous amount of imagination in a surprisingly credible way for the time and budget. Coscarelli makes the most of what he has here, in fact, one of my favorite shots of the film is this forced-perspective miniature he brazenly hovers on as if to say, "Yeah, we couldn't afford to build a whole city and we thought a matte would look stupid, so here, we made this for you, enjoy it."


I mean, you gotta respect that, right?
And the funny thing is, the movie has a lot more to offer, still. To describe this film and not include the wonderful set-piece with the bat-winged people that worship the eagle (lucky for Dar) and liquify their prey, would be folly, and it again illustrates how frequently Coscarelli flirts with Horror in this film and how much that benefits the picture.


And my friend, Trout, who was extremely reluctant to watch the film and had to be bullied into by his wife, Amy, and I, ended up being won over by, of all things, the animal-wrangling of the film. I mean, a golden eagle just comes in and lands on Dar's forearm on queue. A huge black (air-brushed, I guess) tiger chases actors through the forest, drags people to the ground in-frame, and trots right by and gets a pat on the butt. And then there's Kodo and Podo, Dar's "two thieves", who do all kinds of shit in this movie just totally credibly, no puppets or anything, just two ferrets here owning the movie.


Really, I could go on and on. I didn't even mention the Death Guards. Or Rip Torn's Mayak. Or the actual star of the movie. But the film just has a lot to offer. Great set-pieces, lots of exciting action, interesting actors, that great Horror vibe, pluckiness, it just goes on and on. Frankly, I think this is Coscarelli's best film. I highly recommend The Beastmaster.




Let the record show that I pressed the thumbs-up button like 20 times, even though it only counts as one.

Besides everything you mentioned, another image that sticks with me is the climax of the film (I think), in which everyone is surrounded by an inferno. The silhouettes of the characters against the wall of flames is a great image. (Can't find any screenshots on google unfortunately)



Victim of The Night
Let the record show that I pressed the thumbs-up button like 20 times, even though it only counts as one.

Besides everything you mentioned, another image that sticks with me is the climax of the film (I think), in which everyone is surrounded by an inferno. The silhouettes of the characters against the wall of flames is a great image. (Can't find any screenshots on google unfortunately)
That whole section of the movie is a great example of how Coscarelli does a lot with a little. How many Juns were there, really? How big was that set really? And yet Coscarelli makes it seem epic, surrounded by raging flames and shadowy figures. Just a great job all around.



Victim of The Night
Shit, I forgot!
And I've already got another movie on. Alright, I'll see what I can do.



I also love The Beastmaster. I wrote something about it on Corrierino, but I forgot to save it, unfortunately. I admitted to enjoying it a little bit more than Conan the Barbarian, which earned me the ire of Jinnistan (miss him). The sequel, however...woof. For a while, I claimed that it was the worst movie I've ever seen and that Kari Wuhrer's performance was my least favorite female performance.

My final writeup proves that bald is beautiful...and deadly.

EDIT: Since this is the last day, I'll find some fantasy art to post.