Quel maledetto treno blindato (1978)

It's no surprise that this movie has been getting quite a lot of attention ever since Tarantino announced a movie that shares the title with this one (more or less). First lets take a look at some of the alternative titles for this movie: Deadly Mission, Counterfeit Commandos, G.I. Bro, Hell's Heroes, The Dirty Bastard, Commando Bastards, The Inglorious Bastards and now this latest version that I got, The REAL Inglorious Bastards. The real has just been added by the company who owns the rights to get a piece of the cake from the hype surrounding Quantin Tarantino's movie. This is made even more obviouis when reading the back-cover, adding Quantin Tarantino as much as possible in the movie description and even going as far as to call the cast Tarantino's favorites and to call this the ORIGINAL version of his latest movie.

I'm a lead farmer, mothafucka!

While this is to be expected, I can't forgive it for this shameless promotion. Especially because this is not the original version of the latter movie, Tarantino borrowed only the title from this movie and based itself on the same movies that this movie is based on, namely The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes. Now that I got this rant out of the way, let's get on with the review.

• Year of release: 1971
• Director: Enzo G. Castellari
• Genre: Action, Adventure, War,
• IMDB Page

The Inglorious Bastards is a school example of a so called Macaroni War movie, that's how we call those Italian war movies inspired by those American war movies like The Dirty Dozen. Not just ripping those movies off, but making it even more exciting.
We know that Castellari can make good movies thanks to his The Warriors rip off movie "The Bronx Warriors", so there is little surprise that this movie is enjoyable one as well. This movie would be forgotten and difficult to find hower if not for having Fred Williamson, not only is Williamson 100 percent awesomeness, the director was aware of this and recut the movie to make it only about him cutting out the other scenes. This version was called G.I. Bro and I can only suspect it to be almost as good. The other reason that this movie is easily availible on dvd is of course thanks to as much people as possible trying to cash in on Tarantino's succes with his movie of the same title.

The Dirty Five

Set when WWII was coming to an end, a group of Americans sentenced to military prison find themself free in France when there convoy is bombed. Even-though they decided to go to the Swiss border to escape the war; they end up being mistaken for some American war heroes who came to France to help the resistance after some plot twists. Colonel Buckner realizes this but still decides to hire them to do a mission in return for immunity. The mission consist of stealing a rocket guidance system from a moving train. To make matters worse they have to make sure they won't be arrested by their own countrymen again.

Even-though the story is quite straightforward, there was a plot point or two that was build up greatly and that I did not see coming. The acting is suprisingly good with Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson leading the cast with a lot of likable characters.

Congratulations, they just made your movie awesome.

There is non stop action (the one thing that a movie like this has to get right!). Castellari has made a lot of progress since the bronx warriors, with camera shots and special effects that far succeed anything he has done before this. This movie is pulp of the highest level, but their were some diminishing factors as well.

And the winner for the best "The Scream" impression is ...

First of we get to many forced comedic moments, most of them by Michael Pergolani, who plays an Italian immigrant, who escapes from army prison all the time thanks to some useful tools he has hidden all over. It's those hidden tools that they went to far with, want some salt? Well look inside this fake grenade. What about something to fix our broken car? Look in his left pocket. What about pictures of naked women? He has them taped inside his helmet. Not only is this joke way to forced, it seems like they use it to get out of situations the writer had no idea how to finish.
Another negative point is the fact that our heroes can stand in the open en none of the germans seem to know how to aim. While we can't expect any more from an eurowar movie, it can lessen the suspense a bit.

Make your own damn sandwich.

In Conclusion:
This movie was a fun ride with lots of action and explosions, a good cast, and a story that eventhough not original has some interesting ideas. For fans of Macaroni War movies and just action movie fans in general. But don't watch this wanting a smart war movie.
Score: 8.0

Nobody expected them to start dancing

The dvd:
The dvd I have is a new released version by DFW. The original aspect ratio is 1.85:1, on this dvd however it is 1:78:1. Don't know why this has been changed but the picture quality is clear and crisp without any noticeable print damage. Sound quality is also top notch. The dutch subtitles are without errors and translate both the english and the german spoken parts. On the flip-side though there are no extras on the disk, just the movie. As I said in the beginning of the movie I did not like the shameless connections with Tarantino that this dvd cover makes, and the addition of REAL in the title makes no sense. But no matter what, if you want the dvd, this version is as good as any for sound and picture quality.

PS: for my next review I will make sure to do a movie pack review again.

Il Decameron (1971)

Welcome back for another review. This time another first! Another non-public domain movie by the name of Il Decameron (The Decameron for idiots) by Pasolini.

• Year of release: 1971
• Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
• Genre: Comedy, Drama
• IMDB Page

Based of course on Boccaccio's popular collection of stories from the 14th century, Pasolini adapts around 10 of the 100 stories for his first entry of the "Trilogy of life".The trilogy of life actually contains this movie, The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights. All three based on medieval books (which I might review in the future?).

I always get the shitty.. whoops made that joke before.

The stories Pasolini shows us are sometimes connected, but not always. We follow Ciappelletto, a murderer, thief, homosexual and sodomist who lies to a priest on his deathbed an therefore is hailed as a saint. The directors way of taking a stab at Christianity perhaps? We see some nuns exploring the sins of the flesh with a gardener who pretends he's a deaf mute (hilarity ensues), a nobleman who gets what is coming to him for being naive and many more stories.
Pasolini himself appears in this movie as artist Giotto, who has been hired to paint a fresco in the city's cathedral. What is special about this part of the movie is that from this point on everything that happens become scenes of the fresco.

Rambo, the renaissance version.

I'm not sure if this is just Pasolini being a narcissist or there are some quite deep meaning behind this all, but I am sure one of those arthouse buffs will tell me all about it (after all this is a review, not a analysis). At the end of the movie/fresco our painter wonders:
“Why create a work of art when dreaming about it is so much sweeter?”
Yes, I also have no idea why he ask himself that question, but it's a good quote nonetheless.

An inspiration to nunsploitation.
(I should have been a poet, or maybe a rapper)

The movie itself must been one of the most convincing movies about medieval life I have seen, of course the amount of sex and humor are exaggerated, and the stories themselves are not too believable, it is the surroundings and the whole atmosphere created that made me believe it, not to much of a surprise considering the book it is based on.

There is also an interesting paradox shown between two love stories, in the first one, we get a rich boy from a noble house who has sex with a girl from a good house. When the dad finds out he instead of killing him forces the boy to marry his daughter, ensuring the good name. When on the other hand the brothers of a girl find out she has been shagging (trying to keep it classy here) with a servant in the second story they secretly kill and bury him, showing us that in the end, what social class you where born in really mattered back then.

Cover Your Cough, you stupid woman.

Pasolini uses non-professional actors in this movie, he might have sacrificed some acting talent like this, but he sacrificed it for real, original and honest performances and people.
I would still stay as far away from Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom as possible, but if you want a realistic, all in all quite uplifting view of the dark ages, look no further than this first part of Pasolini's trilogy.

I believe this scene is self-explanatory, it's obvious the woman is searching for something on the floor that the dastardly priest has actually hidden in his pants.

Score: 8/10

The Crawling Hand (1963)

Ok time for another Public Domain movie, this time however I did not encounter it on those movie packs, either it will be in the near future (thanks to this review of course) or it is not certain that the movie is in public domain. (but it probably is).

• Year of release: 1963
• Director: Herbert L. Strock
• Genre: Horror, Sci Fi
• IMDB Page

The Crawling Hand AKA Don't Cry Wolf AKA The Creeping Hand is by the hand of Herbert L. Strock. Who you will know from classic movies like euhm, ok well you won't know him (unless "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein" is more popular then I thought).

This was the most terrifying scene from the movie.

The movie starts with two scientists wondering why they didn't heard back from the astronaut they where monitoring. When he interrupts him in the middle of their conversation (the arrogance). Now because they are scientist they immediately notice that something is not right, not hard considering he has black rings around his eyes without being a goth and o yeah, he died because he ran out of oxygen. Since scientist become scientist so they can blow shit up, they blow him up, destroying this abomination of nature. Or not? For some reason one of the scientist gives us a lecture about why they blew him up, but to be honest I wasn't paying attention cause it was extremely boring and goes on for forever. It's like they needed 7 more minutes of playtime and decided to instead of just showing us a black screen or anything else at least a bit entertaining they let one of the actors play my old math teacher.

I'm like so into goth-rock.

Apparently the scientist was blown up in pieces with his arm (with hand intact) lands on a random beach on earth. Now around this time the movie actually gets interesting. That's because around this time we are introduced to the lovely Marta, played by Sirry Steffen a former miss Iceland winner.

Why couldn't the whole movie be like this, forget about the man-killing hand.

Besides Marta we get to be introduced to Syd Saylor, who owns a soda shop where everybody is dancing on The Bird's the Word, making this one of the best soundtracks of all the 60s sci-fi movies. Sadly this was the last movie Saylor did before he died, that's right after being in movies and on tv over 400 times, THIS was the movie that finally killed him.

Watch the crawling hand, YOU will believe a HAND can CRAWL.
It's like the beast with five fingers, but from SPAAACE.

Marta and her boyfriend Rod come across the arm of the astronaut and for some reason Rod secretly sneaks it home. As aspected the hand then starts killing people and influences Rod turning him into a goth himself. The rest of the story really is nothing special, hand kills people, rod almost kills people, the people killing hand was no match against some cats and some of the worst paramedics ever (who, I kid you not, steal beer from a death woman's fridge). The same paramedics who later in the story are given the key to a chest where the hand has been locked in (smart move).
Instead of elaborating the story, just watch the best scene from the second part of the movie:

In conclusion, this movie is not good, for better hands killing people watch "The Beast With Five Fingers" or "The Hand", the acting is often just over-the top bad (but not in a good way) and the movie is just to boring to like it. There are some good moments (all involving either Syd Saylor or Sirry Steffen) but not enough to cover for the other parts. There are to many sci-fi movies from that era to watch em all, and I suggest you just skip this one.

Score: 3/10

The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

What better way to kickstart this blog then to review a movie from the 50 horror classics pack that is such a little obscure and bad flick that even mst3k wouldn't touch it? (note: mst3k was never available for watching here in Belgium, I don't have the foggiest idea what they did or did not made fun at.)

Well that would be a good idea but instead I'll review the original Little Shop Of Horrors.

• Year of release: 1960
• Director: Roger Corman
• Genre: Comedy, Horror
• IMDB Page

Let's be honest, this movie would not ring a lot of bells if it wasn't for the musical that was based upon this story, eventually resolving into the 1986 famous version. It might be a good idea to compare both movies in this review. Well no, I will save that for when I review the musical version (if ever). The story starts with our main persona, Seymour Krelboyne (Jonathan Haze) working as a clumsy helper in a flower store. The store isn't doing very well but we do get to see some regular customers who represent everything that works with the humor of this movie. First we have Mrs. Siddie Shiva, and old annoying lady who has to buy flowers everyday because a new relative has just died. Another regular is Burson Fouch who buys flowers as a snack or as a dinner, the funny part is that nobody seems to find it that strange.

I always get the shitty roles.

Seymour is so clumsy however that his greedy boss Gravis Mushnick (Mel Welles) wants to fire him. Luckily we have our love interest of the movie Audrey Fulquard who together with flower eating Burson convinces his boss to give him another shot by showing his new breed of plant, a cross-bred from a butterwort and a Venus Flytrap (a buttertrap?). The plant, titled Audrey Junior (get it?), does not gather much attention at first but when our "hero" accidentally drops some of his own blood on it, the plant start growing. After feeding the plant with as much blood as he can miss, Seymour takes a walk to think what he will do next. In frustration he randomly throws a rock which lands on probably the most lucky man in the world who then falls into the tracks right before an incoming train. Since this man is dead anyway, Seymour decides to at least have some use out of him and feeds him to the plant.

let me take a look into this giant man-eating plant.

This first accidents leads to many people disappearing by Seymoure (he is not really a murderer, but accidents happen right?).
The greedy boss finds out that the plants feeds on humans but when he wants to put an end to it, he finds out how many people are visiting his shop looking at this marvelous eight wonder of the world (or so it seems) and he decided that the plant can stay as long as he gets his profit.
The world is shocked however when the plant blooms and the faces of all the people it has eaten are shown in the flowers. I won't give the ending away but it is quite dark and fits right in with the overall feel of the movie.

Heeere's Johnny!

This movie is known for two facts (besides the musical). First that it was shot in two days making this whole thing quite impressive and two that Jack Nicholson started his career with a small part in this flick.
This has to be viewed as the dark comedy with some horror influences, not as a serious horror movie, and you know what? It works, the humor doesn't come from jokes or slapstick but it comes from the story and the characters creating a whole overall feel of enjoyment. The story also plays out more like a parody of horror movies of that time than an actually horror movie. The acting is great with a special mention for Nicholsons sadomasochist persona who gives us a great dentist scene.

It does have some small problems though, the love interest scenes feel forced and undermine the overall darkness of the humor and even by 1960 standards the special effects feel and look shoddy (junior was probably made by the local kindergarten with Papier-mâché).

This is where the term flower power actually came from.

The print on the "Horror Classics 50 Movie Pack" is more or less the same as the one that can be streamed from archive.org, so even-though it is not the best quality you can get, it does not diminish the overall enjoyment of this movie.

So in conclusion: It is not a horror movie, it's a dark comedy and a great one at that.

Score: 7.5/10


Edit on 15/02/2010: I have bought a digitally remastered edition (colored) and it's definitely a great improvement. Try to track it down!

FAQ

Please alow me to FAQ-you hard,fast and quick.
1) You made a spelling mistake on your review of movie "x". Are you a retard missing half a brain or something?
Yes.

2) Really?
Well that is only half the answer, I do like to point out that English has never been my native tongue, nor do I claim to be an actual writer. I do like to share my knowledge and experience with whoever stumbles upon this site but you will just have to look past spelling and grammar mistakes.

3) I like your site zo far, but so few reviews have been made. Please be more active!
Ok, It is not like I have anything else to do, ever.

4) Your lay-out hurts my eyes, change it!
Any constructive comments will be read before ignored. Any non constructive comments will be ignored.

5) This site is stupid.
This is not a question, please reformulate.

6) Is this site stupid?
No.

7) Can I request a review from you?
Sure can, anything goes as long as I can get my hands on a physical copy.

Feel free to leave other questions in the comment section. If you want me to FAQ you even more I might update it in the feature.

Introduction and Mission Statement.

The purpose of this blog is quite simple to review movies and music. I haven't really figured out yet what categories of movies and music I will constrain myself to but I hope it will be a natural evolution. I first had the idea to start my own review blog when I was searching for someone that had reviewed all the public domain movies in the Horror Classics 50 Movie Pack and the Sci-Fi Classics 50 Movie Pack. Only for the more famous movies (the few real classics) I found decent reviews.

So
Part 1 of my mission statement is:
Put online a review for all 50 movies from both the horror and the sci-fi "classics" packs. Those movies are all in the public domain so easy available for everyone. I will be receiving another movie pack soon as well, so new additions of public domain movies will be made.

Part 2: Reviews of other movies
Beside those reviews I may or may not review other movies. Those will probably be bmovies or just oldies. I honestly haven't decided what to do yet.

Part 3 : La musique
Besides movies my other passion is oldschool metal, since I want to force my opinion upon everyone who stumbles upon this blog, I will add reviews of either obscure albums or just what I happen to be listening to when I got some time on my hands. I also might add soundtrack reviews sinds this can be quiet hard to find.

Note: The blog and all its content is still under construction until further notice. Feel free to add any comments.

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update 2012: Music reviews can be found here:  http://progressiveviolence.blogspot.be/
No more take on the pack reviews. Instead going for random movies from my collection.