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.) 

I, QUEUE: Cylons, Werewolves and The Wire

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. 

 

 

 

 

1)  BATTLESTAR GALACTICA:  RAZOR:

 

“I’ll take ‘Women I’d Like To Punch’ for five hundred, Alex.”

 

So, this was the summer that I got on board one of the few nerd bandwagons that I had yet to jump on.  (Sorry Doctor Who, it’s never gonna happen, man.  You either Stargate Atlantis.  Jesus.  Leave me alone.) 

 

Ah, and what a bandwagon it’s been!  I’ve had a great time watching the original mini and the first three seasons and I’m chomping at the bit for that Season 4.0 DVD set to come out.  For the time being, I’ll have to bide my time with this prequel mini from last year.  Frankly, if the only thing good about it is watching Lee Adama pork up (I believe this takes place in the year before Season 3 which began with Chubby Apollo) then it’ll be worth a watch.  I always take pleasure in watching extremely fit people go to seed. 

 

It’ll make it so much easier for me to eat that bacon burger as I watch this one. 

 

2)  THE COMPANY OF WOLVES (1984):

 

“I want these motherfucking werewolves off my motherfucking estate!”

 

The name of the blog probably attests to the fact that I’m neck deep in werewolfery of all kinds lately.  (Psst, not only is my podcast going to be called “The Werewolf,” but I’m writing a werewolf script right now as well.  Definitely more on that later.) 

 

So, I’ve been plowing through a lot of lycanthropic cinema recently — Werewolf of London, The Wolf Man, An American Werewolf in London — and this is one film that I just never got around to.  While I’m not the biggest Neil Jordan fan in the world, I am excited about this take on the Red Riding Hood story but am mostly looking forward to seeing David Warner (so great as the heavy in Tron and Time Bandits) and the sublime Angela Lansbery (no amount of Murder She Wrote could ever detract from her Manchurian Candidate greatness). 

 

As long as it doesn’t end with Jaye Davidson whipping out his junk at the end, it should be fine. By the way, why do folks consider that scene from “The Crying Game” so earth-shattering?  “Sleepaway Camp” had the exact same shocking reveal, I mean EXACTLY the same (only freeze-framed as the entire end credits rolled over top of it) nearly ten years earlier!  Sure, “Sleepaway Camp” didn’t really have the “Oscar buzz” or “quality filmmaking” behind it, but still.  That shit freaked me out as a kid.  By the time “Crying Game” came around I could only shrug and say, “Been done before.” 

 

3)  THE WIRE, SEASON 5, DISC ONE:

 

 

Oh yes, another bandwagon I joined this year.  And, I almost had the first four seasons watched before season 5 debuted, but was about three episodes too late.  But, I’m learning more and more that my HBO subscription is completely useless unless I find myself with an insatiable need to watch “Garfield 2” five times in a week because I generally watch their original shows on DVD anyway.  Of course, it figures that when I finally did decide to watch an HBO show as it aired with this past weeks “True Blood” it kicked me in the nuts with a steel-toed work-boot made of awful! 

 

Anyway, back to the good.  “The Wire,” while not the greatest show ever created since the invention of the vacuum tube as many have asserted, is still really, really amazing.  I’ve heard it called Dickensian and I can’t disagree.  What it is is like a five season autopsy of a dead city; a post-mortem assessment in grizzly detail of an industrial urban wasteland.  Each season is a dissection and diagnosis of a different part of crime-plagued Baltimore (the corners, the cops, the docks, city hall, the schools) and each one has been harrowing.

 

And, each one has required me to watch with subtitles.  I don’t have a hearing impairment, but I’ll be damned if I can understand a word anyone is saying without it.