by ·Comments Off on The Ambulance (1990, Larry Cohen)

Having a difficult movie month here. Seijun Suzuki and The Cannibals were the best movies I’ve watched lately, but this one was the smartest decision. How do you follow up those, plus some major docs, a Jerry Lewis, the Arbuckles, the end of the Szulkin apocalypse series, and my big Cinema Scope roundup? With some brilliant late Cohen nonsense, of course.

Gang:

Janine Turner (Northern Exposure, Cliffhanger) collapses while large-faced Eric Roberts is harassing her. But Eric is no casual harasser, he’s a true stalker, devoted to figuring out why this girl (whose last name he doesn’t know) seems to have disappeared from the medical system after being taken away in a weird ambulance. He goes to a real hospital where he enlists his reporter roommate Red Buttons, and involves police officers James Earl Jones and Megan Gallagher, before uncovering a clonus-horror conspiracy of secret medical experiments and pilfered body parts.

Eric and Red:

Vint:

Coincidence? Cop Richard Bright was in Panic at Needle Park with Alan Vint, and in this movie they go searching for the ambulance drivers with only a uniform that says VINT as a clue. The story is nonsense and Roberts is a nut, but it plays well. Terribly choreographed fight scene between the ambulance drivers and a street gang. Eric was some years after Star 80 and Runaway Train, not long before he started appearing in 10+ movies per year. Eric plays a Marvel Comics artist under Stan Lee, in Stan’s first non-doc appearance – his second being Mallrats. Megan was in a Costas Mandylor movie, oh no. The evil doctor who ends up kidnapping Red Buttons as well as Janine had previously brought on the AI-pocalypse in Colossus: The Forbin Project. Most important is the incredible James Earl Jones performance, hammy but dignified, a must-see.

Dignity, even in death:

Uh-oh, ambulance:

by ·Comments Off on Conan the Barbarian (1982, John Milius)

On Oscars night I thought we should watch something that never* won an award, and so, Conan.

Painted-up horseback killers arrive and destroy young Conan’s town, kill his dad first, then James Earl Jones (with beautiful long hair and named Salsa Doom) beheads Conan’s mom and takes all the town’s kids to be millwheel slaves. Our kid grows into Arnold whilst pushing the millwheel, then gets thrown into gladiator battle where he caves in the other guy’s head, leading to a montage of him killing a lot of guys and “realizing his sense of worth,” haha. After the one-on-one fights in Universal Soldier 6, the chaotic action mishmash of this was bound to disappoint. Impressed, his slavemasters send him to fighting school but some redbeard randomly frees him then he immediately finds a kickass Earth God sword.

The Empty Man, Earth God:

Arnold doesn’t know how to socialize properly, so he has sex with a sorceress while she’s in the middle of reciting his prophecy, then hurls her into the fireplace. He meets Gerry Lopez (thief, archer, and surfer in Milius’s Big Wednesday) and they run around Spain to the lovely adventure music of Basil Poledouris (later a Verhoeven accomplice). Soon after he punches a camel, they meet a cute lady thief (Sandahl Bergman of Hell Comes to Frogtown) and together rob a snake-cult tower and behead the snake god within.

King Max von Sydow congratulates them and sends them on a mission to unkidnap his daughter from the snake cult. Conan ditches the others and runs the rescue mission solo for some reason, asking directions from some hippies, and meeting wizard Mako (The Bird People in China) who lends him a camel, which he learns should be ridden, not punched. Arriving in snaketown, Arnold seduces some guy to steal his cult robes, but he’s not very sneaky and Salsa Doom’s men crucify him on the tree of woe. Really shouldn’t have come alone.

His buddies arrive belatedly and Mako kwaidans him back to life. They sneak in and massacre the palace guards, getting green soup everywhere, while Salsa Doom transforms into a snake and crawls off. The cute girl thief dies of snake wounds before Arnold can find a fireplace to hurl her into. Arnold heals up and goes back to slash his way through more guys, with help from buddies Gerry and Mako and the ghost of his dead girlfriend, beheads Salsa Jones and all the cultists go home. Ends slowly, with a sequel setup, but instead of Conan the Destroyer (a Richard Fleischer/Jack Cardiff joint, shorter, with Grace Jones) I think I’m supposed to watch the Lucio Fulci ripoff Conquest.

*This lost Saturn awards to Star Trek II, Tron, E.T., The Dark Crystal, and Poltergeist, a pretty good lot, but in 2001 it won a DVD commentary award. I listened to a couple minutes of commentary around the camel-punching scene, and nah, I would’ve gone with Charlie’s Angels.

Guess this was technically a rewatch since I remember catching it on cable at Brad’s house in 1983… now that it’s fresh in my mind, bring on the new Mandico version. Milius had recently cowritten Apocalypse Now and 1941, I guess he was into warfare in every era. Producer Dino de Laurentiis also made Halloween III and Amityville II this year, and Edward Pressman and Oliver Stone had just made The Hand.

by ·Comments Off on The Lion King (1994, Minkoff & Allers)

About the 20th time I’ve seen The Lion King, but the second time in theaters and the first time in THREE-DEE (Katy commented that in the rainy scenes it seemed like it was raining inside the theater – otherwise the 3D didn’t add much). During the whole Hakuna Matata scene (and a few others) the Book of Mormon song “Hasa Diga Eeebowai” ran through my head, but I restrained myself from bothering Katy with it, since she was 15 again and reciting all the lyrics and dialogue along with the movie. Didn’t realize Rowan Atkinson played the king’s bird assistant Zazu. Jeez, IMDB lists 29 writers.

by ·Comments Off on Earth (2007, Fothergill & Linfield)

I guess I’ll count this as a movie, even though it’s just footage from Planet Earth, which we’re gonna catch soon on video. We watched the U.S. version narrated by a coddling James “Earth” Jones. The UK version is reportedly more environmentally to-the-point, sort of how our cigarette packs say “cigs are known to the state of california to contribute to cancerous growth of the blah” and UK packs say “these will kill you.” Anyway, animals are pretty cute and wonderful, so we liked this a whole lot.