What A Way To Go! (1964)

A while back I came across this glorious photo of the lovely Shirley MacLaine donning pink from head toe. Perfectly coifed with the most beautiful cotton candy pink hair I've ever seen. I had totally forgotten how badly I wanted to see "What a Way to Go!" until earlier this year I was doing some research on Edith Head for work. I wasn't previously aware that she designed all of the Miss MacLaine's gowns for the film. This skyrocketed it from moderate to high priority.

This cute and stylish big production was originally going to be a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe (which I could totally see) but since she died and untimely death, Shirley Maclaine landed the roll. To be honest, overall the plot isn't very strong and after a while becomes a bit repetitive. The character wants a humble, modest existence but every time she marries a decent guy, he becomes greedy and rich which eventually leads to his demise. Quirky concept but the film is carried by gorgeous art direction, sensational costumes and the adorableness of Shirley.


 This is more of a showcase than an actual review, because the design is BANANAS and needs to be admired forever....

Probably in my top 10 favorite "looks" in cinema ever.

Fantastic.

This mourning widow look made me LOL

I need more hats.

This looks like an ice skating outfit but she has a bunny rabbit < 3

I wish I had gotten a picture of the back of this bikini. She stands out beautifully against the amazing pink mansion.

It's so Jayne Mansfield, I can barely take it.

It's almost like a Frank Tashlin film. So fucking LUSH!

The Breakfast at Tiffany's look only better.

Yellow and Black speckled dress with a giant belt. I would wear this today. Like, right now.

This olive green skirt suit is gorgeous. I love the collar and the absurd pearls.

She has so many looks I barely remember this one in the movie but it's sweet!

Such amazing use of solids.

Another one of my favorite "casual" looks. Oversized pea green turtleneck sweater. I want it.

Burnt orange suede coat with matching gloves. So gorgeous. Translates so beautifully on screen.


I'm pretty sure I missed some but that's what I was able to salvage in a hurry. I think I'll make this a regular thing. Focusing on the design of visually pleasing films. Cool!

See ya!

Purana Mandir - 1984

I don't claim to be an expert on Bollywood horror, though it has always appealed to me. There's such a small output for it, so like most good things, you have to actively hunt. My introduction to the genre happened in my late teens when I first started collecting hard-to-find movies. I came across a little Nightmare on Elm Street rip-off called Khooni Murdaa, which if you have any base knowledge of the genre I'm sure you're familiar with. It was a gateway drug , so to speak, and served as an entry level pass key to the fascinating world of Bollywood Horror. Now to be fair, Khooni Murdaa wasn't really that great. Going from that to the Ramsay Brothers was a huge leap. I later saw Bandh Darwaza and found it to be worlds apart in quality and entertainment. The settings, the atmosphere and exceptional portrayal of an Indian Dracula by Anirudh (Ajay) Agarwal. A hulking 6"7 giant dude. He's got an enormously scary head. More than anything, the size of his head scares me. Yeah, it's really big. I was pleased to the learn that in addition to Bandh Darwaza, he also plays "Samri", the monster in Purana Mandir.

Before I move on to the review, I just want to mention how much I love these certification cards at the beginning.of EVERY Bollywood movie.

Purana Mandir translates to "the Old Temple", which is where the story begins. Big ol' ugly Samri is going around killing people, to put a stop to his evil reign the King has him captured and couriered to be decapitated in front of the village. Naturally, in bad guy fashion, Samri curses the king so that all of the women in his family will die horrible deaths during child birth. Two Thousand years later, in present day, the king's heir, still haunted by his wife's death, is now concerned for his beautiful daughter. She will inevitably be attracting the attention of potential husbands which only brings her closer to her doomed fate. He soon finds out, she's already met someone, they're in love and all that crap. They want to get married. He tells them all about the curse in hopes to guilt trip the suitor into bowing out. Instead they decide to go to the old temple in attempts to disprove the existence of a curse. Of course, Samri is resurrected and all kinds of monster-y stuff happens.

I did like this one, and I hate to be the jerk who complains about the running time of movies but it was really putting the hurtin' on me. I was totally into the Samri story line and even didn't mind the love story or the song and dance numbers, in fact I anticipate all of those things. Purana Mandir is considered by many experts of Indian film to be the first solid horror entry to the Bollywood cannon. Sure, there had been horror elements in other films and the Ramsay brothers themselves had been working towards the horror genre for years but with the ever growing popularity of the Halloween and Friday the 13th films, this kind of monster movie hadn't been made regionally yet. The Ramsay Brothers wanted to do something like that while still maintaining the flavor of Bollywood. It was very popular and is still considered a classic. That being said, based on my admittedly very limited knowledge of the genre, I felt it was trying to be too many things. There's a huge amount of comedy in the middle section of this 2 1/2 hour epic that was lost in translation. From what I've read this sub-plot was parodying a famous movie and was hugely successful at the time. The audience was litterally "rolling on the floor" laughing in the theaters. Then there's me sitting my bedroom with a blank expression on face. I'm not apart of the culture so I can't accurately gauge the relevancy of this plot point. But as a non-partisan movie go-er, it lost me for a good chunk of that mid-section. Whether or not this aspect of the film was popular and successful doesn't change the fact that's it's uneven. But I digress...

One thing I always thought was interesting about Bollywood films is that despite whether they're horror or romance or action, first and foremost they are Bollywood films. There will always be signature song and dance routines and you can bet that you're butt will be in that chair for a minimum of 2 1/2 hours. This isn't a bad thing, I just find it interesting that in the past century the genre has been tweaked a little this way or a little that way and modernized for sure but has never really strayed from the formula.

Aarti Gupta was a total babe and I love all of her clothes in the movie!

While on the subject of clothes...

THIS GUY.

And I can't move on from this subject before I mention...

Samri's FANTASTIC bedazzled wolf jacket. I suspect this jacket had something do with his tough guy demon persona. It HAS to be related. This is some Kenneth Anger shit.

I love the rural aspects of Bollywood horror. There's a real sense of isolation there. To my foreign eyes, it's exotic, alluring and dangerous. I can't discredit the fact that at times Purana Mandir was legitimately creepy. All humor and dancing aside, the atmosphere is really something and for the Ramsay brothers first serious attempt at horror, they did a damn fine job and most importantly, they gave India a monster. Samri.

I still prefer Bandh Darwaza slightly. Less comedy, less dance numbers, more straight up horror and I still get to see Ajay Agarwal be a total creep face. I think by then they had honed their art, although I'm sure many would disagree. But the influence of Purana Mandir cannot be denied. It's a landmark film and once I got over my Westernized need to be constantly entertained, I really dug it.

Creating Rem Lezar (1989)

What better way to celebrate April Fools than to spotlight a video that's a complete aberration on humanity. Creating Rem Lezar is a bit of an anomaly. Considered to be a holy grail of sorts by many collectors of found footage. It's a straight to video children's musical meant to inspire some kind of critical thinking and develop social skills. I'm sure all it ever accomplished was inflicting irreparable psychological damage.

The story follows two kids, a boy named Zack and a girl named Ashley. They're both constantly getting in trouble for daydreaming. What else do that have in common other than being lame and having no friends? They share a "special" imaginary friend named Rem Lezar. A gown man dressed as a superhero with a blue mullet. They love Rem Lezar, and who wouldn't?

One day in ceramics class Ashley notices Zack molding a life like sculpture of Rem Lezar. She comes over to inquire about his inspiration for the piece and he tells her to "go braid her hair or something". And this kid has no friends? She explains her demented friendship with Rem Lezar. Of course he's real, if he's not then who's the strange man sneaking into her bedroom at night to sing sad songs while watching her sleep? She then exasperates "you see, a girl CAN understand Rem Lezar". But can we really? I might not want to understand a man who wears tights and stands over small children's beds at night. No, Ashley, I think you're the one who doesn't understand Rem Lezar, that goes double for you Zack. This isn't a matter of boy and girl this is a matter of AMBER ALERT.

Despite their differences, they bond on the fact that they share the same friend and no one believes them. They decide to make Rem Lezar real. How do you make a friend? With mannequin parts apparently. In an extremely disturbing display of delusional behavior, the children put together a make-shift Rem Lezar out of pieces they found god-knows-where. Where do find a blue leotard for an adult male on short notice? Surprised that he's still an inanimate object they sing possibly the most terrifying off-key song in this entire disaster. It works! He comes to life and joins them in their mournful dirge. He cradles them to sleep singing...all alone in an empty barn. How am I watching this?

"Eight year olds, Dude"

The real fun begins when they wake up the next morning and find that it wasn't a dream. Rem Lezar IS real. The began an adventure to find the one accessory missing from his ensemble. The Quixtoic Medallion. What makes it "quixtotic"? Nothing. My guess is the writer wanted to throw a cool word in there so they put a figure 8 on a saucer, spray painted it gold and called it "quixotic". What's even better is that at the end there are literally credits for "Quixotic Medallion Construction". Which is now going to be code for when I have to take a shit, because that's exactly what Creating Rem Lezar has done to my life.

Come to find out there's a bad guy in this movie! (Aside from this fruity pedophile following these two kids around) We also have Vorock, a giant pixelated video toaster head. He reveals that he's stolen the Quixotic Medallion because he has no friends. He hints that he's hidden the medallion at the "highest point of the mind". Whoa. Rem asks the kids what they think is the highest point of the mind? Zack says a mountain. Ashley says a skyscraper in NYC. Which struck me as some blatant adults-writing-what-they-think-a-stupid-kid-would-say answer. My answer would have been "A flying unicorn. duh.". For the record, the correct answer ended up being "love". "Love" is the highest point of the mind. See what they did there?

CRL makes feeble attempts at being educational or enriching in some way, but fails miserably. At the end of the movie the credits list several P.H.D.'s and Psychotherapy clinics, which leads me to believe this was funded by such organizations. Which also leads me to believe it was shown to patients. Which leads me back to my original statement of Creating Rem Lezar causing irreparable damage to young minds. Could you imagine if a child who had actually been victimized saw this film? Horrifying.

A few notations I jotted down while watching Creating Rem Lezar, but couldn't quite figure out how to work them into my summary...

• "Adults are Assholes"
• "Creepy Pedophile Pansy Magical Disaster"
• "I Can Touch, I Can Feel" (direct quote)
• "Homosexual Rockapella + Rapping"
• "Oddly Placed Violin Solo" (best part of the movie actually, made me want bust out some Ponty)
• "A LOT of singing. a lot."
• "Little Tot-Tots" (direct quote)
• "Heavy Philosophical Bullshit"
• "Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit"

For the longest time I thought the title of the movie was "Creating R.E.M. Lasers"...which was something I desperately wanted to learn. Still do. Anyone have THAT movie?

There's so much to say about this mind fuck that you can't really began OR end any kind of logical dissertation. I didn't know where to start this thing and I don't know how to finish. This 48 minute feature is like that awful quixotic medallion. An infinite symbol of tackiness and despair. Much like my life now that I can't go back and un-see it. Honestly though, it was a delight! I'd like to have been inebriated or at least amongst friends but the truth is, it was a blast to watch. Even alone in your apartment surrounded by cats.You can watch the whole thing in six parts on youtube.

Fun Fact: Rem Lezar is the guy that sang that stupid fucking Snickers song. Good to know that those golden pipes took him somewhere in life. 

Creaturez, Hobgobz, Skeleton Handz.

I have a list of movies I want to review. Eventually I'll get back to doing in depth singular reviews but for now I'm going to catch up a bit  by compartmentalizing these movies into several bunches of mini-reviews. Which seems to be the only way I can get any writing done these days. Anyway, for now I'm starting with three recent views that I was mildly to not at all impressed with. Enjoy...or something.

I finally saw the Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies. I looked forward to it for years. To the point where even after I bought it I was afraid to watch it. Now I know why. It completely disappointed me. I'm not exactly sure where my expectations began and blind affection for Ray Dennis Steckler ends. The trailer seemed magical, the self proclaimed "first zombie musical" sounded captivating but in reality it lived up to very little of what it promised. The "musical" aspects were mostly schmaltzy burlesque stage shows that included very few of the actual actors (if you would actually call the "actors"). Obviously just carnival footage of stage shows. The plot is really thin and between Steckler's acting leaving so much to be desired and the over use of carny exposition there really wasn't much of a chance for salvation. Truly saddening, I really wanted to like this movie. I wanted to love it. Now I'm almost afraid to make the leap for the Thrill Killers, which I also own and is currently collecting dust. Wish me luck on that one, folks.

I also recently watched Hobgoblins. This time I had almost no expectations and that's a good thing because they were still barely met. The film would have you think it's another tiny creature feature film ala Gremlins, Munchies, Ghoulies, Critters, etc. But all of those (including Munchies [even Munchie and all of it's hypnotically repulsive sequels]) are light years ahead of Hobgoblins in entertainment value. It just didn't do it for me! The creatures are more of a frame of reference to explain the dreamlike death laden trance that they supposedly put their victims in. Other than that, they're relatively harmless and also rather illusive. You hardly see them through out the entire movie. It had it's moments but overall left me feeling a void that only a tiny monsters, or many tiny monsters can fill. My favorite part about the dvd was seeing the trailer for one of director Rick Sloane's other movies, the Visitants. Still very self parodying, but struck me as being potentially delightful, at least in comparison to Hobgoblins!

Lastly, and most enjoyably, I FINALLY saw Death Bed: the Bed That Eats. For obvious reasons I've been meaning to see this for years. Somehow, despite the plot and everything about the title being completely absurd I was still shocked at what was actually delivered. Most of it was rather painful. The narration by the man trapped in the painting was extremely difficult for me to stomach. However, the actual consumption of people and objects by the bed were so bizarre that I couldn't very well dislike this otherworldly rape of my senses. The nonchalant behavior of the victims, particularly the skeleton hands guy. SKELETON HANDS. If there's any one thing about the movie that sold me on it was those goddamn skeleton hands. I don't know how to make you understand the power these skeleton hands had over me but I might just change my name to "Skeleton Hands", for the purpose of naming my first child "Skeleton Hands" Jr. so you understand the gravity of this situation. The film attempted some sort of demon possession story line and whatnot, but everything about it was so completely devoid of any substantial foundation that a movie, even a b-movie, necessitates that it TRULY boggles the mind. It's so shocking it makes me create really long run on sentences because, like the film, I have no idea how to come to any reasonable conclusion about reality or my life or how things like this are even made. It will make you question yourself and your standards. It will send you spinning uncontrollably into a quagmire of disillusionment and self deprecation. But mostly, it will just make you wonder how you sat through the whole thing. And how for some reason, you still loved it.

That's it for now. I'm starting to get arthritic pains in my skeletons hands. More soon. Stay cool.

Krush Groove (1985)

Let's face it, I'm no expert on Hip Hop. Before a few years ago I thought I hated the genre completely. Finding a hoard of Fat Boys, Fresh Prince & DJ Jazzy Jeff and Whodini records effectively changed that. It was like discovering a world I didn't really know existed. I was still a baby when Hip Hop was new and awesome. Aside from catching the tail end of decent rap music when I was in elementary school (when I was more interested in listening to Letters to Cleo and Beck), my general experiences with it haven't been pleasant. Hearing artists like Eminem and Mace on the radio made me want to fucking puke. I hated the entire urban culture and wanted no part of it. But like all music, it can be traced back to something raw and unprocessed. Influential music resonates timelessness and opening yourself up to something you were once closed to is an refreshing experience.

 I found myself OBSESSED with the Fat Boys. Not only are they really talented but they're a novelty. They're the jesters of the Hip Hop world. Shortly after this obsession began I came across a copy of Disorderlies at Big Lots for $3. The idea of the Fat Boys in a movie seemed like the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me. I bought it and it became a staple for me because it's such a piece of shit. Little did I know that it actually gets better. Around this same time I came across Krush Groove at Walmart for $5. All I knew was the title sounded ridiculous and the Fat Boys were in it. That's all I needed to know. It got mixed in with some other stuff during a move and only recently did I come across it while cleaning.

I had no idea that I was actually in for a good GREAT fucking movie! Roughly based on the early days of Def Jam Records, cutely renamed Krush Groove for the movie. Blair Underwood plays producer Russell Walker (Russell Simmons in real life) who's trying to get his label up and running. He's got the talent, Run DMC, he just doesn't have the funds. Needing to make some quick cash to press these records he's already sold, he turns to a loan shark and gets himself into a heap of trouble. The plot, although basically true, isn't the selling point. The high light is of course the incredible line-up of musicians that act and perform in this movie.

Run DMC

the Fat Boys originally known as "the Disco 3".

Kurtis Blow

the Beastie Boys

LL Cool J

New Edition



And the AMAZING...

Sheila E, who rocked my ass performing "Holly Rock".

Complete with the best worst fashion statements I've ever seen in my life, this movie is pure unadulterated 80's kitsch. Candle lit sex scenes set to smooth jazz. We even get to see the Fat Boys stuff their faces at a Sbarro buffet and rap about it. It's like all of my dreams manifested themselves in this movie.

I was surprised at what overall low ratings this movie seemed to get. Leonard Maltin brushed it off with a 1 1/2 star rating calling it "one of the many rap musicals", failing to mention that it as the FIRST Hip Hop musical, and best. It also has the best soundtrack this side of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. There are many things to look at when rating or critiquing a movie and I'd be lying if I said a plot was always the most important factor. Some movies capture culture in way that you can overlook it's weaknesses and just enjoy it as a time capsule. Such is the case with Krush Groove. It many not be the best movie, but it's certainly a fun movie, and isn't all that really matters?