Goldbeater

Hanukkah could only be described as an incoherent conglomeration of scenes, which was perhaps initially meant as a festive slasher on the theme of Hanukkah and Judaism in general. The result, however, is just an unbearably prolonged collage of low-budget hell which I barely managed to watch till the end. It stretched so badly—out of the 106 minutes, some 50 minutes should have been left out! Sometimes, it was a horror movie, sometimes it tried to be a comedy, however both lack harmony, humour and atmosphere… What’s the point? I almost exclusively watched it for Dick Miller and, after the first thirty minutes, I already thought about switching it off as soon as his act would end. But since rabbi Walter Paisley does not appear until right before the closing credits, I stayed for the whole duration of that endless torture. RIP cult masters Sid Haig & Dick Miller. And no more of Eben McGarr, please!

This made my day! I got exactly what I expected from a sci-fi movie about space truckers, maybe even a lot more. Stuart Gordon was a trash visionary. Dennis Hopper as the (infrequent) main hero is utterly cool and I’d be happy to watch his space getaways in the context of a series of multiple films. Space Truckers is a rather naive, yet self-conscious and wonderfully stylized show with an eloquent Hopper, terrifying killing robots, the time-frozen MILF Barbara Crampton and a top-notch role for Charles Dance. What’s not to love?

Visually impressive with a classy film-noir styling. All the rest was, for me, totally insane. Apart from all the “things” that happen in the movie and which I would rather not comment at all, Singapore Sling still has around forty minutes in excess for the little story it has to offer—if any. Watching this film was extremely tedious for me and, even though I’m generally ready to give movies a second chance, in no circumstance am I going to watch this again.

It’s nice that William Peter Blatty took a completely different path and, even without its connection to the initial movie, The Exorcist III could have been a piece on its own. It was even conceived that way in its genesis. George C. Scott is a powerful lead actor and the whole picture nearly entirely stands on his charisma. Blatty managed to shoot a couple of really impressive horror scenes, for example the carefully constructed sequence in the hospital corridor, which is the highlight of the film. However, out of a bad habit, the director couldn’t totally remove himself from his writer side and let the characters recite long arduous monologues and philosophical stances, during which the original story fades away and disappears somewhat. When, on top of that, the studio enters the game and adds the whole storyline with Nicol Williamson along with the exorcism, the viewer then seriously starts to feel lost. I would personally like it if this film was not related to The Exorcist in any way and was called Legion like the novel it is based on.

Playing a drunkard cop, Clint Eastwood is given the mission to escort an important witness from Las Vegas to Phoenix, and like in other movies of the genre, they immediately become a target for the mafia and corrupt cops. At the time and possibly to this day, the most naive—or dare I say most stupid—Eastwood film I have ever seen, almost falling in the category of overblown high-budget rubbish in which everyone first fires, then asks questions, and where thousands of bullets fly above the central duo as to avoid giving the viewer too much time to think about the screenplay (you still get to decide for yourself if the final scene and the “resolution” of the whole situation is calling for a solid laugh or rather for you to get mad at the TV and smash the remote control—I laughed). For me, Eastwood is charismatic enough to be 100% fun, even in weaker productions, so I enjoyed The Gauntlet and would watch it again anytime.

I appreciate some of the scenes filled with funny gags (all with Sam Rockwell and Stephen Merchant), but the story as a whole left me cold. Taika Waititi has style and a lot of humour, but on a dramatic level, he hasn’t convinced me so far. On the other hand, to write a role for Rebel Wilson in a way that her unbearableness benefits the story and adds humour to the movie requires some mastery. One final note: although I can listen to "Heroes" by David Bowie anytime and anywhere, using this song for key scenes of any film after the relatively recent movies The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Horns seems totally cliché to me.

Dohler's successor of The Alien Factor with a comeback of several characters, including the total non-actor Sheriff Cinder who kind of reclaims the main role. After the shipwrecked alien, we have a space sharpshooter this time, who is always quick to reach for his laser weapon. The movie starts, therefore, with a grotesquely action-based show with which legendary Star Wars’ laser battles pale in comparison. Human characters still act as if from another dimension, and the series of absurd resulting scenes certainly entertain, but in no way scare. The only interesting trivia is that the co-author of the music and sound effects was Jeffrey Abrams, about 16-year-old at the time and one of the most respected creators in Hollywood today, also known as J.J. Abrams (which concludes the reference to Star Wars).

The Alien Factor is a very ambitious sci-fi horror: unlike similar films, it has not only one alien, but a whole bunch of different extraterrestrial entities, shipwrecked in the American backcountry and destroying the town folk. No doubt, Don Dohler’s ambitions were higher than his creative abilities, because with such a dumb script and amateur actors, he definitely couldn't have reached the stars. The whole thing amounts to nothing more than some awkwardly costumed aliens’ spree in a forest. The icing on the cake, though, comes with a really stupid finale where the audience is likely to move their sympathy towards the aliens since, in this movie, the ones to behave like if they had fallen from another planet are actually the humans.

Enter the Ninja is a totally naive, yet one hundred percent inventive and stupidly fun action show in which the dubbed Franco Nero struggles to embody an invincible ninja—and I frankly admit that I enjoyed every minute of it, more and more (unlike the other ninja movie from Cannon Studios). Menahem Golan’s action film virtually copies the premise found in The Way of the Dragon with Bruce Lee, where a martial arts master comes from a distant land to protect his friends from the raids and schemes of wicked mafiosi. A simple, black-and-white and dumb plot, yet a full-fledged testosterone flick, in which you can completely turn off your brain and enjoy the enthusiastic filmmaking that promises a ruthless dose of action.

Young student Simone suffers from a morbid obsession with a famous pop singer. She is willing to break all ties with the rational world with the sole purpose of somehow getting closer to him. The Fan is a probe into Simone’s disturbed mind. The characters are not embellished in any way by the director and screenwriter Eckhart Schmidt; both main characters are seriously mean people at their core who, in order to reach their goal, ruthlessly go and harm their surroundings, and when one of them acknowledges it, hell is only starting. One thing is that the outcome looks like it came from a completely different movie, and sets the seal on the whole preceding storyline. Therefore, I’ll strongly stress out that the least you read about The Fan in advance, the more likely you are to be taken aback by its ending. A sick flick for sure.