Cult Movies

The packaging of MGM's DVD release of Hammer's HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES carries the critic's quote, "The best Sherlock Holmes film ever made." That may be stretching the truth a little but I'm willing to go along with the hyperbole when the film is this good. The movie begins with Holmes and Watson being told the tale of Sir Hugo Baskerville by Dr. Mortimer (Francis DeWolff). It appears that hundred years earlier, Sir Hugo kidnapped a young girl servant for the debased pleasure of himself and his house full of scummy friends. When the girl escaped across the moors Hugo gave chase with a pack of hounds, caught her and stabbed her to death. Moments later he was attacked and killed by a giant hound and ever since that day every male Baskerville heir has died a mysterious death on those same moors. Dr. Mortimer, a friend of the family, also informs Holmes that just weeks before, the most recent Lord of Baskerville Hall was found dead under strange circumstances. Mortimer asks Holmes to help him protect the life of the last male member of the family, who is arriving soon to take over the estate. The detective meets with the new Lord and agrees to help in this matter of the "Hound of Hell".This is the best known and most often filmed Holmes story, even though no version has ever been able to overcome the difficult problem of having Sherlock absent from the middle part of the tale. One of the strengths of this version is that when Dr. Watson and Henry Baskerville take center stage, the film doesn't suffer for it. Andre Morell is an excellent Dr. Watson, avoiding the horrible trap of earlier adaptations of making the character an idiot. Watson was never supposed to be a bumbling fool and Morell shows us a competent man caught up in mystifying circumstances, doing his level best to solve the case. Christopher Lee, as Baskerville heir Sir Henry, is given a rare opportunity to play a romantic lead and does a fantastic job. At the time Lee was petitioning for better roles at Hammer and this film had to feel like a step in the right direction for the actor. As Henry he is urbane, sophisticated, and a true gentleman — things that cannot be said of Dracula in the sequels he was being asked/forced to make for the studio. But the real acting laurels have to go to Peter Cushing as Holmes. He wonderfully captures the many facets of Doyle's beloved character. He is at times arrogant and pompous but always most concerned with finding and stopping evil. He doesn't suffer fools gladly but you never doubt his innate goodness or his desire to unravel the mystery at hand.. Cushing is in many ways the perfect Holmes and it's a shame that this fine film is his only big screen interpretation. Some of his BBC TV Sherlock adventures have been issued on DVD in recent years but those production's low budgets and cramped sets are all too often a distraction from the fine acting. It is shame Hammer did not produce more Holmes films with their excellent production design and this movie's overall level of high quality. What a missed opportunity!

[Back in May of 2003 (!!) I posted a Video Cheese review of a set of '70s cop show first episodes. One of these was the first chapter of the S.W.A.T. TV show. In honor of Steve Forrest's recent passing, I thought I would report that piece.] S.W.A.T.:  “The Killing Ground” Theme Music/Credit Sequence:  One of the great themes of the ‘70s is supported by a pretty cool action montage.  The S.W.A.T. team transport truck was right up there with the A-Team’s van. Concept:  An elite police team employs Special Weapons and Tactics.  “When people are in trouble, they call the police.  When the police are in trouble, they call S.W.A.T.” Regulars:  Steve “Captain America” Forrest* is team leader Lt. Hondo Harrelson, Robert Urich is Off. James Street. [*Editor Ken: Mr. Forrest didn't play Captain America, but he had appeared in the Reb Brown failed TV pilot movie.] The Episode:  Before S.W.A.T. became a series, it was given a backdoor pilot via a two-hour episode of The Rookies.  However, the only character introduced there was team leader ‘Hondo’ Harrelson.  The rest of the regular cast we meet here, with all the normal exposition and so on.  Thus this is the only show of the five featured on this DVD that feels like a real ‘first’ episode of a series. Handsome young patrol cop Jim Street and his veteran partner Rob Duran respond to a domestic disturbance call.  Upon reaching the scene, however, they find themselves ambushed by a trio of snipers.  Another patrol car comes by and helps drive their assailants off, but Duran is severely wounded.  Quickly on the scene—too quickly, it seems, although as explained later it makes sense—is a S.W.A.T. team led by Lt. Hondo Harrelson. Duran dies at the hospital.  Street cries big glycerin tears, obviously an attempt to make the characters more ‘realistic’ and sensitive than earlier TV cops in the Joe Friday mold.  He then asks Harrelson to let him try out for the new S.W.A.T. team Hondo’s establishing. Afterward, Harrelson informs Mrs. Duran, pregnant with their third child, of her husband’s fate.  She looks about twenty years younger than her husband was, for whatever reason. Perhaps because if she’s young and attractive the whole thing seems more tragic. Since Hondo isn’t in Duran’s chain of command, his assuming this task seems unlikely.  Besides, wouldn’t Street, who was the guy’s partner, want to be the one to tell her?  In any case, the scene is a sadly hilarious example of ‘70s earnestness, exemplified by Forrest’s forehead-wrinkling acting.  And the dialog is shameless: Grieving widow:  “The baby’s birthday is tomorrow.  We…were going to buy the party decorations tonight!  God!  God!  Why?! Why?!” The ambush was the latest in a string of cop killings.  We the viewers now meet the killers, who are seeking revenge for a felonious relative shot down by police.  Meanwhile, Street, fellow patrol cop T. J. McCabe (‘T.J.’ being popular initials for TV cops, I guess) and undercover narc Dominic Luca attempt to make the S.W.A.T. team.  Luca’s the class clown guy whose mouth usually gets him in trouble.  When we first see him he’s in full undercover Serpico-mode, including the inevitable battered army jacket and beard. There are other guys trying out, but Street, McCabe and Luca are clearly the ones who will make the cut.  (First of all, we saw all of them in the opening credits.)  We’re told what a hard-ass Harrelson is, and how rigorous the training, although all we see is some standard calisthenics and field stuff. Part of the show’s appeal was the team’s, well, stuff.  Particularly the “war wagon.”  This was the big blue truck that transported the team and their equipment.  To facilitate speed, the team members grab their weapons on the way out and leap into the truck.  Then they don their jumpsuits and body armor en route and arrive ready to instantly deploy.  Extra weapons and gear are on board for off-duty personnel, who are directed to head directly to the scene when a call goes

Steve Forrest, immortalized for viewers of a certain age as Lt. Dan “Hondo” Harrelson on the short lived but affectionately recalled SWAT, passed away on May 18th. For those unfamiliar with his work, Mr. Forrest was sort of a (pre-comedy) Leslie Nielsen or Lee Majors sort of actor. Mr. Forrest basically began his career as a film and TV actor in the early ’50s, generally playing very small roles. By the mid-50s he was working more steadily on television, and slowly building his career. He would have his first taste of stardom as the titular lead on the adventure series The Baron, in which he basically played an American version of The Saint. The program lasted but one year, albeit that was a 30 episode run. I’ve never really seen the show, but for some reason I own it on DVD. I must have grabbed it somewhere when it was on sale really cheap. By then Mr. Forrest was a guest star mainstay, one of that gigantic pool of actors you had back in that day, appearing on all the endless cops shows and westerns and whatnot. It was in 1975, though, that he received his signature show in SWAT. Partially propelled by quite popular theme music that sold like hot cakes on vinyl, the show was an instant hit. Sadly, it was also immediately targeted by special interest groups for its copious violence. That was a fairly big issue back then, and ABC responded by reducing the show’s mayhem. Needless to say, this reduced audience interest in the show dramatically, and SWAT was off the air after two seasons. His place in pop culture history secured, Mr. Forrest continued to work in television guest roles through 2003. He also played the rocketship captain in the Cat-Women of the Moon parody Amazon Women on the Moon. Mr. Forrest was 87 at the time of his passing. Related PostsRIP Emi Itô (Jul 9, 2012) RIP Ernest Borgnine (Jul 8, 2012) RIP Andy Griffith (Jul 3, 2012) RIP Richard Lynch (Jun 21, 2012) RIP Ray Bradbury (Jun 6, 2012)

Vin Diesel and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson are so pumped up, so anatomically inflated and unlikely that when they have a confrontation in "Fast & Furious 6," it's like watching a pair of unmoored Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons bump against each other. Giant vulcanized renditions of Underdog and Charlie Brown probably have more interesting conversations, however. Lines spoken in "Fast & Furious 6" include: "I got this"; "This should be interesting"; "Talk to me" (i.e., share with me your "intel"); 'Let's roll"; and "You don't turn your back on family." The latter has become the trite theme of the "Fast & Furious" franchise, as if this ensemble of moonlighting bodybuilders, supermodels and rappers, thrown together intermittently over the course of six movies in a dozen years, is united by loyalty to each other rather than by love of a paycheck. To which a wise man might respond: So what? Unlike most movie franchises, which stay in the race even after they've run out of gas, the "Fast & Furious" films, for the most part, have become more popular and more satisfyingly spectacular with each sequel. "Fast & Furious 6," like the previous three entries, was directed by Sundance graduate turned blockbuster auteur Justin Lin, whose track record is enviable enough to cause the O's in the Hollywood sign to drool. Lin's debut entry, "The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift" (2006), earned $158 million worldwide; "Fast & Furious" (2009) more than doubled that, with a $359 million international gross. Two years later, "Fast Five" reached $629 million. With its literal bank vault heist (a nice metaphor for what Lin has done with the box office), the outrageous "Fast Five" was perhaps the most entertaining film in the series. "Fast & Furious 6" adds real-life martial artist Gina Carano to the already overcrowded ensemble but otherwise is a lesser effort than its predecessor, primarily because its two gigantic and protracted set pieces -- one involving a tank on a bridge, the other concerning the pursuit of a cargo plane -- become too ridiculous to be believed. A more accurate title for this franchise might be "Fast & Loose," in reference to its hit-and-run attitude toward the laws of physics, but past sequels typically were fleet enough to leave such concerns in the dust; the scene in which our heroes hauled an enormous vault through the streets of Rio in "Fast Five," for example, was absurd, but presented with such fasten-your-seat-belts conviction and bravado we were happy to accept it. The leaps onto passing autos and other silly stunts in "Fast & Furious 6," however, became speed bumps to my enjoyment. Even the presence of Carano didn't make up for this: Lin -- unlike Steven Soderbergh, who recruited Carano to the movies with his 2011 release, "Haywire" -- shoots and cuts her brawls in ways that fail to make her appear any more skilled at fighting than her actress opponents. The economical title of "Fast Five" seemed an attempt to pre-empt and embrace the fanboy culture that (for example) immediately reduced "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" to "T2." Although advertisements and press materials tout the new movie as "Fast & Furious 6," the film is identified onscreen simply as "Furious 6." The suggestion is that the pace is so frenetic that to add more letters would be a waste of time; as if to corroborate this theory, when characters speak in foreign languages, the subtitles race onto the screen from "off camera," as if the words were making a pit stop and had somewhere else to go. If the vibe is hyper, the plotting is lazy. (Chris Morgan, who has worked on all Lin's "Fast & Furious" movies, is the credited screenwriter.) Presumed dead at the end of the 2009 sequel, tough-girl Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), the true love of the series' star, street racer Dominic Toretto (Diesel), is reintroduced with the explanation that she's been suffering from amnesia. She's also gone bad, working for criminal mastermind Owen

I realize this still makes it look like they’re something interesting in Ghosthouse…DON’T FALL FOR IT! The beastie here looks a lot more impressive in the still than it does in the film, maybe because it’s awkward movements reveal it’s phony nature. Sadly, I could not find a picture of the killer fan, so this concludes our tribute to Ghosthouse, starring Patrick Swayze. Related PostsMonster of the Day #682 (May 3, 2013) Monster of the Day #681 (May 2, 2013) Monster of the Day #680 (Apr 23, 2013) Monster of the Day #679 (Apr 22, 2013) Monster of the Day #677 (Apr 18, 2013)

In a nutshell: It's been a while, but Sofie's making a comeback with a new series of short videos simply recommending movies that she happens to like. First up is Kick-Ass, the superhero action comedy based on the comic book of the same name, starring Aaron Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Nicolas Cage.

What if you could record all your brain activity on tape for anyone in the world to experience? The same smells, tastes, even emotions just as you felt them. Sure you could experience things like skydiving without ever having to leave your couch. Or scale the Himalayans while riding the bus. But then there’s that stench filled cab ride you had last week where your friend threw up on your docker pants. Now a total stranger can enjoy that too. You could even eat a glazed donut burger and still technically be Vegan thus keeping your hipster street creed… because much like your hipster street cred, it’s all in your mind. In 1983’s Brainstorm, Christopher Walken plays Dr. Michael Brace an eccentric scientist who hangs out with his Chain smoking lab partner Lillian (Louise Fletcher.) Most of their day is spent poking monkeys and wearing wired up space helmets while playing rock em’ sock em’ robots. Normally this is where government grants go to die but one day they discover they can actually record a persons memories on laser tape. It’s the Facebook of the future.They decide to take the invention on the road and record everything they can find with a lab tech wearing a recording helmet. There’s racing cars, going down a waterside, having sex, trying out some equestrian (not necessarily in that order.) Things you could have never experienced yourself without the aide of “TECHONOLOGY!” Their boss loves the demo tape but then boots from the project so it can be packaged up and sold as a home console and to military contractors. Michael with some free time on his hands uses the new invention for some couples therapy. His wife Karen is played by Natalie Woods and she’s just about to sign the divorce papers until he makes a memory tape for her showing all the good times from their marriage. Scrapbookers eat your heart out. Meanwhile Lillian has a heart attack back at the lab but records her death for scientific study and likely some smut sections at Thailandese video stores. The tape is put under lock and key while the government also takes over the technology to use it for “peaceful military purpose.” Peaceful in that they’ll peacefully torture and brainwash any suspecting commies they can hook it up to. Michael’s son accidentally tries one of these brainwash tapes making him wacko so Michael goes on a crusade to destroy the project. His robot war knowledge comes in handy as he hacks into the lab computer causing the robots to go on a rampage destroying the brainstorm assembly line. He then gets access to his lab partners death tape so that he can experience some extreme chest pains and the ending to 2001: A space odyssey. While plugged into the death tape at a pay phone, his wife shows up, they hug and he mumbles something about the stars, the Wright Brothers and needing more cowbell. Wow, the hippies were out in full force on this one folks. Barry Goodall says get plugged in with Brainstorm so that you too can experience a couple hours of brainwashing torture.  Let’s just hope that Apple or Google doesn’t make one of these things anytime soon. DOS Intrigue interactive all you can eat buffets giant brain helmets virtual ardvarking interactive chimpanzee multiple heart attacks Lost IMAX footage chainsmoking lab technician 2 BLOOD just a nose bleed 5 BREASTS Virtual nookie stuck on loop 2 BEASTS Just a chimpanzee 2.7 OVERALL Check out this trailer for “Brainstorm”

It actually took a moment of consideration to decide whether to post the new trailer for the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost sci-fi comedy The World's End. It's not that I don't want to see the movie, on the contrary, I'm all up for the boys and a romp through a pub crawl that somehow is interrupted by an alien invasion, but this trailer isn't quite as good as the first. [Continued ...]

It's been a few weeks since we checked in with Franck Khalfoun's Maniac remake. At the time a new trailer had just been released to coincide with the movie's UK release in March and it's only appropriate that this new check-in involves another trailer and poster, this time for the movie's forthcoming US release. [Continued ...]

A brilliant PhD candidate at Yale, Paul is making some big changes in his personal and professional life. He's just taken the big leap and moved in with his girlfriend while on the professional front he's being prodded to submit some work on his dissertation, the project that will guide his professional future. He's doing badly at both. He's freaking out and rather than taking a step back and re-evaluating the situation, he obsesses and when it appears that he left his copy of "Little Dorrit" at his old apartment, the subject of his dissertation, he becomes obsessed with getting it back. [Continued ...]