Want to know what they’re looking at? (Thanks to Matt Munro.)
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Tags: staring, studio audience, talk show, whistling
I was shocked, shocked, to find (after 5 seconds of looking) there weren’t any R. Kelly ‘Remix To Ignition’ gifs. Well, problem solved.
Tags: hot and fresh, out the kitchen, R. Kells
Hello All. Did everyone enjoy ‘Marwencol’? Was everyone sufficiently moved by the triumph of an individual over personal demons using means at hand to help, resulting in a beauty that only comes of truth? Great! Glad we got that out of our systems. It’s October, and high time to gird ourselves for a month of cardboard sets, flimsy plots, and laughably unscary monsters! IT’S B-HORROR MONTH here at the I.Q. Movie Club!
To ease us gently in, we’ll kick this week off with one of Roger Corman’s classier Edgar Allen Poe adaptations, ‘The Tomb of Ligeia’. It’s got all the hallmarks: a tormented Vincent Price, a young lady in danger from the supernatural, evil cats, confused servants, and buildings collapsing as they burn!
Searching for the trailer, I came across this infinitely crappier modern version. Note the smurf-blue coloration and flashed footage apparently indicating horror. Also checked off the list: creepy kid at night, a well, bad CGI and burlesque. Nothing terrifies like a random, mostly nude dance sequence!
Tags: edgar allen poe, horror, roger corman
With the passing of Labor Day, hundreds of thousands of children find themselves corralled back in school for another season of doodling, social awkwardness, and reading books where innocent animals die at the end. Many claim today’s schools are nothing more than the worst combination of babysitter and jail, a holding pen for sexed-up no-goodniks hell-bent on destroying everything good and decent their parents worked for.
Apparently this opinion’s been in vogue since the 1950s, as a teensploitation film catering to and shaking a finger at the target market comes out pretty much every 5 years. Most feature a well-meaning teacher entering a vortex of chaos. Some, like ‘Lean On Me’, ‘To Sir, With Love’, and that Coolio video for ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ show how with empathy and trust, even the violentest student can be won over. Others, such as this week’s Blackboard Jungle, focus more on beating the ever-living daylights out of the little punks:
(Still better than ‘Class of 1999′.)
But you needn’t spend 8 hours crammed in a desk next to gum snappers and kids who smell of sour milk to enjoy the benefits education confers! Why, in today’s modern, internet-based society, you can attend Youtubeniversity! Yes, that is a terrible word and I’m sorry. All the classes are covered! There’s Government:
“We needed weenies. Mr. Brown had weenies. It’s as simple as that!”
Math:
Science: “Would it work with real money?” Burning money?! SHE’S A COMMIE! Strap her down and make her watch the capitalism movie!
Art and Music:
English: “How many Eagles? Count them!” More people would pay attention to poetry if it was read by T.S. Eliot. I mean, Monty Python makes this seem like it’s a bad thing!
Shop Class:
Home Economics:
And, unfortunately, Gym:
Tags: brutality, education, fisticuffs, movie club, punks, teens
After great delay and much personal annoyance, I’ve decided this week’s movie will be 1989′s ‘Warlock’, in which a 17th century witch-hunter tracks an escaped witch to modern-day L.A., and with the help of a sassy young lady tries to stop him from gathering the Grand Grimoire, the evilest book ever that also contains the True Name Of God (go figure).
I’ll be honest, 40% of the interest was hearing Richard E. Grant, known for playing bitingly sarcastic Englishmen in ‘Withnail & I’ and ‘Hudson Hawk’, speak with a soft Scottish accent. It’s amazing how completely an accent changes a person’s entire mein. I first noticed the effect in ‘How Green Was My Valley’, the story of a Welsh mining community which, faced with financial difficulties and a mine collapse, constantly sound like they’re asking polite questions about tea. Here, the man who spit out ‘I’ll torture you so slowly you’ll think it’s A CAREER!’ to Hudson Hawk never once raises his voice trying to tie thumbscrews to an angry wizard.
The script was penned by the same fellow behind other enjoyable but uneven fantasy scripts like ‘Waterworld’ and ‘The Chronicles of Riddick’ (directed by the same). This is the sort of movie my 12-year-old self would have loved watching some late afternoon on USA Network, which speaks to its charm, silly effects and fun details (Mennonite hex signs!), but also to its glossing over of logic and skimpy plot points. So, the demon needs the witch’s help getting the most evil book in the world together, and yet the witch is less powerful than and limited by the same stuff as the demon? Huh.
As an added bonus, the film features a cameo by Mary Woronov, aka Calamity Jane, as a fake spiritual healer that gets turned into Jocelyn Wildenstein.
While searching for the trailer, I found these delightful gems from the 70s, replete with gravelly histronic voice-over, the promise of nudity, and cheesy catchphrase (“It’ll take your breath away. All of it.”)
Tags: b movies, movie club, trailers, wizards
