FILM FESTIVAL
#173 [archive]
12:01 (1993)At the start, it says, “A film by Jack Sholder”, and I literally yelled at the screen, “Oh yeah, baby.” Sholder made The Hidden, one of my favorite low-budget big action sci-fi movies.
This starts as a slight comedy, with Barry (Jonathan Silverman) in Personnel infatuated with Dr Lisa (Helen Slater) in R&D, at some super high-tech corporation.Then Lisa’s killed in a random drive-by shooting (all the rage in the mid-90s), but when Barry wakes up the next morning it’s the day before again. Everything’s happening the same as yesterday, and Slater’s alive and well.Yes, that’s the same setup as Groundhog Day, which came out five months before 12:01. That’s too quick to be a rip-off, so I’ll chalk it up as a Hollywood coincidence, like the summer of Real Genius and Weird Science and My Science Project.Barry starts as a nebbish but improves himself day-by-the-same-day, plus there’s a mystery for him to solve using clues from yesterday again, and if he sets things right there’s a life to be saved.Like Barry, the movie also needs some time to set things right — it’s only mildly interesting until about halfway through, when all the elements are in place and the plot starts simmering. A little adventure, a little romance, a little sci-fi in your pants.This is no Groundhog Day, but if that movie didn’t exist you’d think this one’s pretty good.Verdict: YES.♦ ♦ ♦ Human Highway (1982)
Neil Young made a movie, and this is it.It’s written by Young (under the non de plume Bernard Shakey) and half the cast, and directed by Young with help from Dean Stockwell.Stockwell plays the new owner of a gas station and diner in Glowtown, near the leaky nuclear power plant. Devo works at the nuclear facility, and glows in the daylight. Dennis Hopper plays the fry cook who has a pet raccoon. Sally Kirkland and Russ Tamblyn are also present.Mr Young gives himself the movie’s most difficult role, as the comic relief in a comedy, wearing buck teeth and enormous glasses and a smirk that makes him unrecognizable.There’s some music but not enough, and the movie is 80% over before Young sings, which (no surprise) makes everything excellent for a few minutes. With Devo, he performs “Hey Hey, My My,” and it’s beautiful. The movie ends with an all-out song-and-dance rendition of “Worried Man Blues,” nicely choreographed by Tamblyn.The rest of the movie might be moderately enjoyable, if your standards are low. The story goes in three different directions, all dropped along the way. The backdrops are intentionally fake-looking (some of which are cool). The dialogue and jokes are extremely lowbrow and dumb, but I laughed a few times. You gotta suspect that most of the movie’s budget went for drugs. Verdict: MAYBE.♦ ♦ ♦ Journey to the Center of Time (1967)
A benevolent billionaire has been funding experiments in time travel, but alas, Mr Moneybags has croaked before the movie starts. Now his son, Junior Moneybags, is in charge, and plans to shut the project down.When Junior visits the lab to deliver the bad news, one of the scientists cranks a knob up to eleven, proving that time travel works by sending everyone 5,000 years into the future. They don’t like it there, so they hurry home, but overshoot by a few million years and touch down among dinosaurs.The story has potential, but almost everything is done poorly. The dinosaurs are lizards, with hardly even an attempt at forced perspective to make them look bigger. The actors only occasionally act, and the script works against them, with oodles of dialogue having the characters explain what we’ve already seen and understand. The worst acting, so bad it eventually got me laughing, is by the biggest name in the cast, one-time Hollywood hunk Scott Brady. He’s playing the Junior Moneybags role, the rich man who doesn’t want to spend a dime, doesn’t believe in time travel, knows better than the scientists, etc. To show his impatience, he holds his hands on his hips in the classic ‘harrumph’ pose for about half the time he’s on camera, and the rest of the time his arms are folded over his chest for an alternate ‘harrumph’.This is extremely not a good movie, but the music is lively enough to keep you awake, and what’s on screen is kinda cool to look at. Most of the sets seem plywood basic, as if this was a summer-stock play instead of a movie, but everything’s painted in brilliant orange. Sometimes they forego sets entirely, and simply have the actors stand against a black backdrop. The aliens in the future are a lovely shade of blue and have nifty costumes. When the scientists are stuck in a prehistoric cave, it’s only foam rubber or something, but it’s gorgeously lit and colored. I am serious about all this — the movie is awful, but watching the movie is borderline fun.Lyle Waggoner, later of The Carol Burnett Show and TV’s Wonder Woman, has a tiny role and gets his name misspelled in the credits.Verdict: MAYBE. It’s almost, almost so bad it’s good.
♦ ♦ ♦ • Coming attractions •
American Revolution 2 (1969)Freaked (1993)Following (1998) High-Rise (2016)
The Invisible Man (1933) Merrily We Go to Hell (1932)
Naked (1993) The Thing (1982) Turkish Star Wars (1982)The Unknown Marx Brothers (1993) (plus occasional schlock as needed)
• And then •
The Cook (1918)The Corporation (2003)
The Dark Crystal (1982)Delicatessen (1991)The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)District 9 (2009)Good Night, Nurse (1918)Hit! (1973) Inherent Vice (2014) Last Tango in Paris (1972) My Life in Monsters (2015) The Scarecrow (1920) They Live (1988)Upstream Color (2013) We Steal Secrets (2013)Who Killed Captain Alex (2010) Within Our Gates (1920)
8/8/2023
There
are so many good movies out there — old movies, odd or artsy, foreign
or forgotten movies, or do-it-yourself movies made just for the joy of
making them — that if you only watch whatever’s on Netflix or playing at
the twenty-plex, you’re missing out.To get beyond the ordinary, I recommend:Alter
Cineverse
Criterion
CultCinema Classics
DocsVille
Dust
Fandor
Films for Action
Hoopla
IHaveNoTV
IndieFlix
Internet Archive
Kanopy
KinoCult
Kino Lorber
Korean Classic Film
Christopher R Mihm
Mosfilm
Mubi
National Film Board of Canada
New Yorker Screening Room
Damon Packard
Mark Pirro
PizzaFlix
PopcornFlix
Public Domain Movies
RareFilmm
Scarecrow Video
Shudder
ThoughtMaybe
Timeless Classic Movies
VoleFlix
WatchDocumentaries
or your local library.Some people even access films through shady methods, though of course, that would be wrong.
Reviews are spoiler-free, or at least spoiler-warned. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the
popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff.
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