DISASTROUS DOUBLE FEATURE: “Revival of Evil: The Occult in America” (1980) / “Cult Explosion” (1980)

How many cults does the occult cult if the occult could cult cults?

Oh. My. Stars. And. Garters.  Who remembers the early 1980’s?  Remember the Satanic Ritual Abuse Panic? Remember how there were at least tens of thousands of people who were alleged members?  Remember regression therapy?  Michelle Remembers? Seriously, if you didn’t have false implanted memories back then, you were no one.

I’ll tell you who remembers all that stuff.  New Liberty Videos does, that’s who.  Their tagline on their website is “Christian DVDs changing lives now and for eternity”.  That’s a pretty broad mission statement.  I will say that all three (yep, three, there’s a bonus feature to this double feature) are certainly of a Fundamental Christian bent, and even though this set of videos were made in 1980, there’s not much there that won’t fit into today’s fundamentalist thinking.  Science and Satanism go hand-in-hand, according to these guys.  Lovely.

So, Revival of Evil: The Occult in America features candid shots inside Anton LaVey s First Church of Satan (which are stolen from another documentary, Satanis: the Devil’s Mass — way to break copyright laws, “Christians” …); witchcraft in famous rock groups (the alleged “musician and sound technician” doesn’t even know that KISS is Knights in Satan’s Service, and not Kings in Satan’s Service, for crissakes.  What a poser!); demonic possession through yoga (I would say wtf? but back then yoga was for hippie communist pinko Krishna-Buddhist-Hindu-Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong freaks, and not for decent Christian folks.  That has changed, though.  I know for a fact that there are several Christian Yoga places in my town, with names like Holy Yoga, Genesis Yoga, Yahweh Yoga).

… to grunts, groans, and flatulence.  Praise Jesus!

There’s also lots of testifying by those bewitched by Ouija boards, seances, UFOs, witchcraft, drugs, and the bright lights of San Francisco (eek!).   For the most part, these stories are told by those who have been triumphantly delivered through The Light and Love That Is Jesus Christ, Incorporated!  Wheeee!

Cult Explosion is actually a little more interesting.  According to this flick, 35 million people are in a cult, and 78% of all cult groups are made up of people who have previously attended Christian churches. Back in 1992, when I was attending grad school, my local paper boasted the headline, “47% of Alabamians are Going to Hell!” (meaning that 47% of Alabama was not Fundamentalist Christian.  Nice, huh?)  Testimonies from ex-cult leaders and members share information about those great wacky cults: The People’s Temple, Worldwide Church of God, Moonies, Hare Krishna, Christian Science, Scientology, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Unity, and the Manson Family.

My religion is based on golden plates translated out of a hat! Yeah!

Of course, a number of these religions are all about the $$$ and how much “tithing” they can get out of your average poor dope who really just wants to know what it is all about.  Frankly, for me, it’s about dark chocolate, yarn, and hugs.  And since I was raised Roman Catholic, I’m heading to hell anyway.

The bonus feature on this disc was Is There Life After Marriage? but it really should have been called Make Room in Your Bed for Jesus, Because Your Marriage Ain’t Sh!t Without Him.

I’m off now to enjoy some Flavor-Aid, thank you, goodnight.

FLAWED FILM FRIDAY: “Sorcerer” (1977)

 

When the challenges on BBC’s Top Gear go too far.

To be fair, it’s too easy to dismiss films in the 1970’s.  You hear about a film about big trucks, and you think Convoy, or Smokey and the Bandit, or possibly Duel (which is really good).  You hear about a film with Roy Scheider, and you think Jaws.  You hear the name “William Friedkin”, and you think The Exorcist.  And then you hear the title Sorcerer, and you know it’s from 1977, and you’re probably thinking possibly bad sword-and-sandal-and-wizardry, or maybe rock-and-roll Vangelis-style animated opera by Ralph Bashki, or possibly even blaxploitation kung-fu disco mafia flick.  And you’d be so totally wrong on all of them.

Sorcerer, is, in fact, actually a rather good thriller, with essentially the same story as 1951’s Wages of Fear: four men are hired to transport an urgent nitroglycerin shipment without the equipment that would make it safe.  I haven’t see Wages of Fear, so it would be unfair of me to make a comparison.  In Sorcerer, in fact, four guys (criminals), who have made their way through various (nefarious) ways and (very illegal) reasons to the same South American hellpit, have to transport old, leaky nitroglycerin, in two decrepit trucks (cobbled together in a loving montage from the bits and bobs of about 7 other equally decrepit trucks), without any safety equipment, in order to blow up a fire that has started in an oil pumping station.  Because blowing up a fire with leaky, old nitro is the best way to kill such a big-ass fire.***

“The hell you say!”

So “Dominguez” (Roy Scheider), “Serrano” (Bruno Cremer), Nilo (Francisco Rabal), and “Martinez” (Amidou), the actors playing the four dudes who have been selected to drive this two trucks of death, set off into the South American jungle in their rickety trucks with the promise of $$$ and new identities should they succeed.  Or they will die fiery explosive deaths.  A win-win all around.

It’s good.  It’s really good.  And you will like these guys.  Even though they are bad guys.  That’s why they’re here in South America, trying to eke out some kind of living in a disreputable little town for an American oil company.  But they’re still bad guys, and things catch up to them, and these bad guys have to figure a way out.  But you will care, dammit, about how the end of this movie plays out, and you will hold your breath during that big wobbly bridge scene, and you will have to remind yourself that this is 1977, and those are all practical effects.

Why didn’t you ever hear about this movie, you ask?  Two Words:

Okay, ten, actually.

This flick has the great distinction of opening one month after a little movie you may have heard of, Star Wars.  So there was that problem.  Also, there are four “vignettes” in the beginning – the back story of our four main guys – and there’s no English spoken in the first 15-20 minutes.  American audiences have issues in general with subtitles. Because having to read is too much trouble, I don’t know. So, thinking that this was some foreign film, there were a lot of walkouts.  And then there was the problem, with, oh, the title of the damned thing.

Sorcerer.

Really?

Even worse, Sorcerer, brought to you by the same fella who brought you The Exorcist.

So.  You have a wacky title, bad timing, and a beginning sequence that makes the average jumbo-popcorn-eating-Bubba go “Huh?”  Which is a shame, really, because it’s actually pretty good.

But why Sorcerer?

I’ll tell you why.  Billy Friedkin wasn’t able to come up with a name himself, until they got to the bit where they needed POS trucks to cobble to together, and one of them happened to have the name “Sorcerer” painted on it.

Really.  Imagine if Orson Welles had named the movie Rosebud after the sled.  Paramount and the movie theaters had to put up cards saying that Sorcerer wasn’t a foreign film and the audience hadn’t wandered into the wrong theater and it didn’t turn out as well as everyone wanted it to, but then Friedkin went on to bring us Cruisin’ and To Live and Die in L.A., so I guess it turned out okay.

*** So, as it turns out, dropping dynamite into a big oil rig fire is in fact a good way to stop the fire.  The explosion quickly uses up all the oxygen, thereby smothering the fire.  At least that’s what the Hubster says, and he’s an engineer who’s studied this kind of thing, so I’ll go with that explanation.

 

 

 

MINI MOVIE REVIEW: “Tom and Francie” (2005)

Angry Bunny and the rest of the Just-Altered-Enough-To-Save-Us-From-Litigation-Gang’s gonna get you!

According to IMDB, Tom and Francie “follows the creation of a new children’s tv show, “Accepting Everyone Through Music,” while pursuing the real reason behind the untimely cancellation of “The Flower Shop,” in 1986.” It’s a direct-to-video mockumentary in the style of “Where Are They Now?” mashed up with Tom and Francie’s attempt to recepature the old magic, as they were.

Now, this video was released in 2005, but the screen size format belies that … certainly this thing was made well before that.  Also, the video quality screams “Circuit City Closeout VHS Camera”.  Thirdly, the characters themselves allude to the fact that their previous show, “The Flower Shop” (which aired in 1986), went off the air a decade ago.  There are also visual clues to the time period when this may have been filmed — an electric typewriter, no cell phones … although this may have been deliberate by the writer/director/co-star … but I don’t think he was that clever. (poor dope.)

So what we have here is a movie auteur‘s attempt to make his own movie with his buddies.  The “old show” clips are kind of a scream, complete with costumes straight from a defunct children’s theater troupe, music lyrics about diversity that will make your skin crawl, and cardboard scenery good enough to chew through.  The puppets, on the other hand, are actually quite good:

“If I had a mouth, I’d introduce you to Forgetful Elephant, and Purple Nurple back there!  Thank you, Cincinnati!  Good night!”

Hey, I had fun watching this one.  But then I am a life-long member of the Sesame Street committee. On the other hand, I never knew what contribution Zoom! had to the world of children’s television besides Ubbi Dubbi.

MINI MOVIE REVIEW: “Redline” (2010)

The moment when your hair breaks the sound barrier!

 

Wow.  Okay.  So … imagine, like, Speed Racer with much better animation (7 years worth, with 100,000 drawings), Deathrace 2000, but with much more bizarre yet likeable characters with impossible DA pompadours, the good parts of the pod race from Star Wars: Episode I, the war parts of Macross but with the animation being as cool as you remember it when you were 10 years old, all the action scenes of all the Fast and the Furious movies, a couple of heavy metal albums with double the good guitar bits, and a sweet sentimental love story.

So the movie’s like that.

So.

Much.

Pompadour.

“My hair doubles as a roll bar, baby!”

 

 

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So what was the KC knitting while watching this?

This thing’s going on for a long while.  It’s 576 stitches per round.  I managed about 2.25 rounds during this 1 hour, 42 minute movie.

 

DISASTROUS DOUBLE FEATURE: “The Glass House” (1972) & “Butterfly” (1982)

 

Double the Movie, Double the Icky Feeling That Makes You Want to Take a Shower!

Oh, dear. As my long-time readers know, I have a Netflix queue that defies both imagination and logic. You know how Netflix pops up with suggestions for you to watch? I think I’ve managed to break that function. I get both Sailor Moon titles as well as Friday the 13th. As the good Hubster says, I’m one hot mess. So both of these flicks showed up at my house at the same time, so I felt compelled to watch them back-to-back, as dissimilar as they are.

Anyway. The Glass House was a made-for-TV movie from 1972, based on a Truman Capote story, starring Alan Alda in all his sideswept hair – hang dog expression glory. Alan has the bad luck of accidentally killing a guy who mowed down a lady with a stroller with his car. Vigilante justice never pays, dude. So he gets sent down for 1 year (!) at a maximum-security prison (!!). Seriously. The same day he shows up as the new fish, Clu Gulager (it’s a 1970’s TV Movie after all!) starts his new career as a prison guard. Rounding out the cast is the great Vic Morrow and a magnificent porn mustache, along with Billy Dee Williams and his silky silky voice. Like all prison flicks, there’s the story of the established prison HMFIC prisoner (Morrow) who sets his sights on the new guy (Alda), and new guy feels the need to buck the established system because hey, he’s better than everyone else in prison because he doesn’t really belong here. Clu’s story is essentially the same — he’s a guy who wants to do the right thing and he’s set against the jaded old-timer guard and warden. To further drag along the “prison movie” milieu, there’s the obligatory rape scene, prison yard shiv scene, bad food in the cafeteria scene, and riot scene. The only real surprise was a moment with Billy Dee and his acolytes where you distinctly hear him say “motherf*cking”. Damn, did that go out on the airwaves to Little Rock? Wow. Be prepared for the nihilistic ending. It was the 70’s after all.

Butterfly is based on the James Cain novel The Butterfly, although you probably know his other stories better: The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce, and Double Indemnity. Butterfly is another potboiler in the same mold as his other stories — there’s murder, intrigue, and people jumping in and out of bed, although Butterfly has the added spice of possible incest! The movie was made to follow up on the success of Postman — the one with Jessica Lange and Jack Nicholson — so director Matt Cimber thought he’d be able to top that with none other than Stacey Keach and Pia Zadora. Yep, Pia Zadora.

“Yeah, it’s me. Grown-up Gi-Mar from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians!”

I’ve read this book, and I’ll tell you, Jerry Springer has nothing on this family. And this movie has such a star studded cast beyond the two main characters — good god, Orson Welles is in this thing. Also, Edward Albert (son of Green Acres Eddie Albert), Stuart Whitman, June Lockhart, and even Ed McMahon. Yikes. It’s like Battle of the Network Stars in this thing, and honestly, it’s not that bad of a movie. Even with Pia Zadora, because really, we just love to hate her for some reason. I think it’s the goofy Charo haircut.

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So what was the KC knitting while watching these?

The knitting on this blanket goes round and round … round and round … round and round …

The hippy-dippy Jerry Garcia spiral grows!