I, QUEUE: Son of Rambow & The Howling

On Wednesday’s I bring you the latest to arrive in my mail box courtesy of the glorious, life-giving Netflix queue.  Going forward I’ll provide mini-reviews of the previous weeks arrivals as well, provided I’m not covering them in the podcast. 

 

 

Only two new titles from the queue this week as I’ve yet to rip open the first disc of Season 5 of “The Wire.”  What can I say, we had a houseguest on our couch that was much more interested in that other subtle, Dickensian look at the underbelly of our society – “America’s Got Talent.”  Fuck.  They should just call that thing “Apocalypse: The Show.”

Anyway, here are the other two that have shot through the mail slot most recently…

1)  SON OF RAMBOW (2007):

This image and the concept of the film (two kids in the 80’s making a home movie inspired by First Blood) alone is enough to sell me on this movie and, frankly, it’ll have to work really damn hard for me to not like the thing.  It’s already got my support sight unseen.  I, like many aspiring filmmakers, toiled many hours of my youth forcing neighborhood friends to don costumes and film epics in the fields and backyards of our subdivision.  I often think I havne’t written anything as pure or heart-felt as the scripts I wrote when I was 11 and 12.  

 

 

(REPLACES:  “Battlestar Galactica: Razor “– Even though George Lucas has pretty much made the term “Sci-Fi Prequel” a swear word on par with the word “cunt,” this one flew in the face of that stereotype by actually being good.  Although I’m never big on a character being ret-conned into an existing universe, the main chick who does a bad thing but redeems herself in the end worked out pretty good.  Also, it was cool that this was a stand-alone story that also shed light on the shows mythos and gave the viewer even more subtext leading into the 4th and final season.)

2)  THE HOWLING (1980):

Folks, I don’t have a good excuse for why this one escaped me.  I mean, when the home video explosion happened in the 80’s I was one of those kids on the forefront renting every horror movie there was to rent.  Dad worked midnights and Mom was just happy I wasn’t getting in the way, so I watched some crazy, bloody stuff in those days.  Ahh, my formative years.  Anyway, thanks to my recent lacynthropy kick, I’m finally gonna get caught up on this puppy (pun intended).  Joe Dante is its strongest selling point for me despite some of the negatives I’ve heard from friends. 

 

 

(REPLACES:  “Company of Wolves” — Still not sure what I think of this one.  Definitely admired the lush, fairy-tale look of the film and the re-working of the Red Riding Hood fable, but I don’t know if it really held together for me.  It all seemed kind of obvious and I think I’m probably biased because I think the werewolf myth is so much more elastic a metaphor and can cover a lot more territory than just the typical Freudian sex theories and the horrors of adolesence.  Still, I loved the transformations and the effects and, of course, no one can bad-mouth some Angela Lansbury decapitation.  Also, the wedding scene (if you’ve seen it, you know) is truly amazing.) 

Tags: America's Got Talent, Angela Lansbury, Battlestar Galactica: Razor, Company of Wolves, First Blood, Joe Dante, Son of Rambow, The Howling, The Wire