The Underrated: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

I should really rename this series “the forgotten about”. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, and that’s because I haven’t really seen anything that I’d class as that underrated. However, while watching Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, which is arguably the ultimate Sam Peckinpah movie, it occurred to me that the film receives nowhere near the love that it should do. Even if it is arguably to blame for some of Cokey McFrankensteinhead’s more wild excesses. I find it surprising that in this day and age of remakes, particularly of notorious films from the day, that this Grand Guignol of bloody tragedy and ultraviolence wouldn’t have flitted across some marketing whore’s desk. I mean, if you think about it, the supremely unpalatable Straw Dogs received a grotesquely inappropriate remake last year (which genius cast Kate Bosworth in the Susan George role? She’s got the sex appeal of a tapioca filled jockstrap) so it’s astonishing that arguably the definitive pulp movie somehow has remained untouched. 

XIPHOS AND THE MOST VAUNTED OF ALL MINI REVIEWS

Here are some books I’ve read and TV and movies I’ve seen lately. I  decided to wrap them up into a quick reviews format this time out. Due to Barfy being very busy at the moment this is all me she didn’t edit it so that’s why it reads like it was written by a slow five year old.

Jarv’s Schlock Vault: Komodo v Cobra

If I had brought my guitar, we could all sing Kumbaya. 

I love these big dopey “improbably large and hungry creature fights another equally improbably large and hungry creature”. I love the sheer randomness of the opponents. For example, are octopi and sharks really natural enemies? I think not. In this case, the title fight is between a large Komodo dragon, native of the south pacific, and an even bigger King Cobra, native of, er, India, I think. Or it may be Africa somewhere, anyway naturalism isn’t my strong point and all that matters is that it’s nowhere near the giant lizard’s natural habitat. Therefore this strikes me as unlikely that these two animals would ever face off, even were they to be trapped on a small island in Polynesia and fed nothing but cardboard for two weeks.

Just Pillow Talk v Marvel Comics. Number 9, part 2: Iron Man 2

Welcome back to Just Pillow Talk’s tour of insipid cinema. Marvel adaptations are, judging by this series, a pretty uninspiring bunch with very few of them becoming elevated above their source material. In fact, it does seem that he’s seen an awful lot that I’d term as being utter shit.  He split up the two Iron Man reviews, probably for reasons of sanity, as the second Iron Man film is dogshit by any reasonable standard. Nevertheless, he’s back with his update from the bowels of funny book hell: 

Made in Britain: Colin

Colin was a film that flashed briefly into the public consciousness on release in 2008. The director, one Marc Price, made a virtue of how cheap his film was, costing, allegedly, £45 to make. Now, whether this is true (and I’m somewhat sceptical) the reality is that he used equipment, both camera and editorial that he was either given or already had in his possession. Were I to make a film, then it would cost me a hell of a lot more to both rent the camera and gain access to Adobe Premiere. Nevertheless, the focus on the cut-price nature of the production does, to me, reek of trying to cover over limitations by focusing on one extraordinary feature, and as such excuse the obvious knock on effects of those problems.

Spanked by the Monkey: Beneath the Planet of the Apes

From my brief research into this film, in a vain attempt to find something to write about, I’ve discovered that Beneath the Planet of the Apes is almost universally reviled. This strikes me as unfair. It’s nowhere near as bad as, say, Battle or Burton’s equally hateful remake, and were it to exist in a vacuum then it would be a seriously enjoyable piece of B-level schlock. Unfortunately for the first Planet of the Apes sequel, this isn’t the case and the original film casts a long shadow both over the production of the film itself and the reception to it that Beneath simply isn’t good enough to get out from under.

Serious spoilers lurk below, by the way. 

Made in Britain: Attack the Block (2011)

I’ve liked Joe Cornish for a long time, as I remember Adam and Joe in the 90′s (if YouTube has some of the toy reconstructions of films, then I seriously suggest that you watch them. The Trainspotting one in particular is inspired) and he seems like a likable enough film geek in his own right. So, following in the footsteps of Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright (who produced Attack the Block) it feels fitting that he’s finally released a genre film of his own. That film was last summer’s Attack the Block, a science fiction Alien v feral Hoodie scum film that seems to be either rapturously adored or strongly disliked. 

Spanked by the Monkey: Planet of the Apes (1968)

It’s time for my next step in the chronological journey through the Planet of the Apes films. For the most part, these films are pretty lousy, being a strange mixture of cheap prosthetics, cack-handed social commentary, bad acting, and nonsensical science fiction. However, the original Planet of the Apes from 1968 has long gone down as a genre classic. It’s reputation partially derives from the  simply stunning ending, which I will be spoiling if you happen to be the only person on the planet that doesn’t know what it is (even lost tribes in the Amazon know what the ending to this film is), but that does the film a massive disservice. This is a stone cold classic for a reason. 

Jarv’s Schlock Vault: Bare Behind Bars

I just adore raspberry pudding

Is there a more sorry genre out there than the Women in Prison films? Exploitation cinema as a rule is dirty, seedy, nasty stuff, but these exist solely to show various acts of sadism inflicted on unlikely female convicts who exist to wander round in the buff and commit various sapphic acts for the pleasure of the hooting gibbons that comprise the audience. Even in a genre as sorry as this one, and let’s face it aside from Reform School Girls, which is a spoof anyhow, they’re all tacky garbage, this 1980 slice of grindhouse schlock may possibly be the most obnoxious one out there. So, I was clearly compelled to watch it, and, this is something I never thought I’d say, Bare Behind Bars (A Prisão) eventually managed to make even lesbianism boring. How could such a thing happen?

Coming Soon…

… to a birthday boy near you… and providing my clearly ailing 11 year-old PC doesn’t pack up (and an upcoming hospital scan doesn’t turn up anything rapidly fatal). Beginning January 30; rated PG…