(Not So) Random Film of the Week: Fast Company (1979)

Posted on March 6, 2020 by geelw

I’m still waiting for the Slow Company movie, but I’m patient…

I think it was around 1983 or so and I’d seen four or five films by David Cronenberg when I found out he’d made the 1979 drag racing centered “B” movie Fast Company. At the time I had to search around for a video store that carried it because in the US, it wasn’t readily available as far as I was seeing. A friend of a friend got a copy of the film from one of his sources not too long afterward because he was just as curious as I was and its funny how that sort of thing works out, isn’t it? I recall liking the car stuff, but not liking the plot much, but overall it was a decent popcorn flick provided you didn’t take the story at all seriously.

Watching it again more recently reveals it’s still a pretty pedestrian (ha-ha) movie with a some great car action, a touch of sex and nudity not uncommon to the era and if you didn’t know it was directed by Cronenberg, you’d think you’ve gotten a pretty good made for cable flick from a time capsule. It’s not a badly made film at all, though. In fact, some of the drag race scenes and a later car reconstruction scene benefit from Cronenberg’s attention to detail and his real-life obsession with the sport. Hey, everyone needs a hobby, right? You could say “All body horror and no play make Jack a dull boy”, but that’s not true if you stop and think about it. Still, variety is indeed, the spice of life, so this one’s special like that.

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Random Film of the Week: High and Low

Posted on November 2, 2015 by geelw

Based on the 1959 crime novel King’s Ransom: An 87th Precinct Mystery by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter), Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film Tengoku to jigoku (Heaven and Hell or High and Low to western audiences) is one of those great police procedural films that’s a must for crime drama fans. With perfect casting, a gripping story of a kidnapping gone wrong thanks to a case of mistaken identity and the rush to find the kidnapper before things go further south, Kurosawa’s film is a multi-layered masterpiece worth seeing multiple times.

When “wealthy” businessman Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) and the company he works for decide to snap up the National Shoe Company, there’s a divide between executives on how to close the deal. Gondo prefers the company stick to making well-made and reliable stompers for the masses but other big shots want shoes for all that are cheaply made and thus, more profitable because they’ll need to be replaced more often. With all the back and forth debating going on, Gondo has a master plan he’s hiding from his peers. He’s mortgaged everything he owns and plans to pull off a leverage buyout of National Shoes that would put him in charge for good and keep National doing what they do best.

Little does he know he’s being watched by a few pairs of far more evil eyes looking up at his “castle” from the lower depths… Continue reading →

(Not So) Random Film of the Week: Humanoids From The Deep

Posted on June 3, 2015 by geelw

It’s pretty much a 60’s “B” flick dipped in the not for the kiddies gore and nudity of early 80’s slasher flicks. But on that level Humanoids of the Deep works. You’re pretty much getting The Horror of Party Beach and Creature From the Black Lagoon with a bit of actual horror, but the film is more notorious for its added in post-production scenes of icky, horny sea creatures molesting a few young actresses after whipping their bathing suits off. That caused a bit of a stir back when I saw this in 1980 with a few friends and I also recall a handful of people screaming and doing an exit dash at the film’s somewhat ALIEN-inspired final scene.

Back then I didn’t like the film all that much because of its extremes and that it felt like two different films crunched together at the expense of the better one. But over time it’s become something of a mash-up of intentional and unintentional comedy, eyeball-rolling “shock” scenes and yes, well-known cast members who didn’t realize they’d be starring in a rather mean-spirited exploitation moneymaker that would garner a loyal fan base. For me it’s more of a great guilty pleasure when I look at it now. Albeit with a big blood red caution buoy in the water if you’re squeamish or easily annoyed by gore and gratuitous nudity in a “roughie” manner.

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Random Film Of The Week: The Graduate

Posted on June 19, 2014 by geelw

(thanks, ryy79!)

It’s actually quite funny, sitting and watching a favorite film with people who haven’t seen it before who initially end up not liking as much as you do. I’ve had this happen countless times, but I don’t think I’d ever had such an odd reaction from the last screening I did of The Graduate, Mike Nichols’ excellent, classic 1967 comedy/drama. What I saw (and still see) as one of the many films of that year that were minor to major revolutions in film making, my friend and his wife (who are a tiny bit younger than me) ended up being divided on a few fronts, making for an interesting discussion afterwards. I’d initially planned a straightforward review of the film, but watching these two people interact during and after the movie made me scrap that in favor of this article.

Is Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock merely a “spoiled rich kid, a stalker and a jerk!” or is he just “an elite everyman living a plastic life” like my friends debated (among other things)? If you look at the film with a modern eye, the answer is yes on both counts. However, that modern eye will miss a chunk of the film’s actual comedic value and even some of the most interesting elements of this classic. if there’s a lesson to be learned here, it’s this: spinning things into a too politically correct version of a movie that needs to be seen as a sign of the times it was made in isn’t always necessary, but it makes for some perky bits of conversation… Continue reading →