Tag: Fantasy Flick

Empty Balcony: Legend (1985)

We’re still burning through reviews that were intended for Tom Cruise month. This film is where I began to realize I might not want to watch 31 Tom Cruise movies:

I knew there were going to be some tough watches this month. It’s impossible to run through 31 of a star’s films and not find at least one film made for a completely different type of viewer than myself. In Legend, the 1985 fantasy film from writer William Hjortsberg and director Ridley Scott, that audience was one that likes a fairy tale. That’s what Legend is. It draws stark lines between good and evil, takes place in an enchanted forest, features a damsel in distress, and shares its overall creature aesthetic with Halloween displays at a big box store. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: Legend (1985)”

Shitty Movie Sundays: The Beastmaster

The BeastmasterFilmmaker Don Coscarelli is known to horror fans as the man behind the Phantasm film series. While that series has spanned decades, all cinematic auteurs like to try new things on occasion. Sometimes, when they do, the result is shitty gold.

The Beastmaster, from 1982, is Coscarelli’s homage to the Italian sword-and-sandal flick, and also an opportunity to feed on the leavings, remora-style, of the Conan films. In fact, Coscarelli and producer Paul Pepperman took a book about a Navajo soldier who talks to genetically altered animals on an alien planet, and turned it into a Conan ripoff. There are no Native Americans and no alien planet in this flick. Instead, we get Marc Singer, in what would have been his defining role were it not for V, as Dar, a hunky tribesman who is the long-lost son of a deposed king. After Dar’s village is attacked by a horde and everyone is killed, Dar sets off on a journey, to somewhere a little vague, with something of an idea about what he’s going to do when he gets there. Focus isn’t really Dar’s strongest characteristic — wearing as little clothing as possible without being pornography is. Also, he can talk to animals. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Beastmaster”

Schwarzenegger Month: Red Sonja

What a putrid mess. The problem with spending a month watching and reviewing a single movie star’s work is that one inevitably comes across some real dogs. James Dean was never in a bad film, but he had the good fortune to die in a horrible car accident before he could embarrass himself. Poor Arnold Schwarzenegger, he was stuck in a contract with Dino De Laurentiis. Continue reading “Schwarzenegger Month: Red Sonja”

Schwarzenegger Month: Conan the Destroyer

Groo the Wanderer...oops, I mean Conan the Destroyer, is the sequel to Conan the Barbarian. Conan the Barbarian represented just about all that was good about the adventure story, even though at times it felt unmercifully cheap. But, my goodness, did it have style. Conan the Destroyer wasn’t a slack-jawed effort at making a sequel, but it was enough of a cash grab that most of what made its predecessor so good has been excised. And it’s a subtle difference. Conan the Destroyer has big guys with swords and axes, exotic people and locales from a mythological past, great shooting locations, and sets that look as if much time and effort were put into them, but it’s mere replica. Continue reading “Schwarzenegger Month: Conan the Destroyer”

Schwarzenegger Month: Conan the Barbarian

John Milius must have a violence jones. That’s the only explanation for the films in which he’s played a pivotal part. He wrote Apocalypse Now, which turned war into hallucinatory spectacle, wrote and directed Red Dawn, considered by some at the time to be the most violent film ever made (no, it was not), and wrote and directed Conan the Barbarian, which really was the most violent film ever made at the time. I remember my first encounter with Conan the Barbarian. It was late one night when I was very young. I was supposed to be in bed, but from downstairs, I heard the television. Great clashes of bombastic music and the sounds of screaming warriors made their way up the steps, and I had to see what craziness the old man was watching. I should have known better. Continue reading “Schwarzenegger Month: Conan the Barbarian”

The Empty Balcony: Excalibur & Monty Python and the Holy Grail

VHS tapes, once upon a time, dominated the space below millions of televisions in American homes. They were in your house, a friend’s house, a family member’s house, stacked tall and deep in all sorts of cabinets upon which the TV was perched — cheap particle board constructions bought at the local big box with fake wood grain or flat black veneer, peeling up at the edges always. That awful furniture can still be found. The shapes have just changed a bit as tapes have disappeared and been replaced by DVD boxes. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Excalibur & Monty Python and the Holy Grail”