The B-Masters Cabal

Golan-Globus genie

Greywizard — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:06:20 +0000

If your wish is for a movie that’s breezy and pleasurable to watch, the Bruno Corbucci family movie Aladdin is a safe bet. Sure, it’s sloppily plotted, and its sense of humor is sometimes extremely goofy, but there’s still plenty to like here that makes the movie a charming viewing experience for kids and their parents.

Twilight of the Werewolves

KeithA — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:58:26 +0000

RED RIDING HOOD

I’m not a fan of either Twilight or Harry Potter, but neither am I a detractor, as I have never read either series and likely never will. I have seen some Harry Potter movies, and they were all right, though it turns out that not everyone counts Troll as part of the series. Good or bad, however, there’s obviously something in both of those series that was perfectly timed to tap into a zeitgeist that propelled them to the upper ranks of popularity that was not obtained by their imitators or even by the books (or movies) they themselves might have been imitating. There was something that happened to make each of those the successful ones, and whether you love, hate, or don’t care about either series, there’s no denying that they did something right. Red Riding Hood was one of the first movies to copy the overwrought YA melodrama of Twilight, and few people seem to remember Red Riding Hood was even made.

Not so super

Greywizard — Sat, 05 May 2012 14:31:00 +0000

At one point, a character in the European superhero movie Superargo says, “I can’t really put very much confidence in an agent who calls himself Superargo and wears a mask and has that strange costume.” Indeed, it won’t take long for most modern day audiences watching the movie to express little confidence in the rest of the movie. There is some definite camp appeal here, but not enough for my tastes.

Korea does Leviathan, only less so

KeithA — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:57:50 +0000

Looks like me and Andrew were on the same wavelength this week, monster-movie wise!

SECTOR 7

Sector 7 is the very worst kind of movie with which to be confronted. OK, maybe not. Maybe What Happens in Vegas is the very worst kind of movie with which to be confronted, but since that’s not the sort of movie I seek out, and Sector 7 is, then the wounds I suffer at the hands of Sector 7 leaves a much deeper scar than any injuries I may have suffered while confined to a seat in a bus where they were playing What Happens in Vegas. Sector 7 is the person who should be your friend, but when you are dangling over the precipice and it is holding on to you, it suddenly flashes an evil grin and lets go, allowing you to fall to your death puzzled by this betrayal. Also, you are falling into lava. Sector 7, you were a flashy, big budget monster movie set on an oil rig and fronted by a wickedly cute actress with decent biceps. How could you do this too me? How could you be so very bad on pretty much every single level?

The Old Parker Lewis and the Sea

Andrew — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:12:34 +0000

SEA BEAST

What do you get when you cross “Jaws” with “Predator” and cast a 1990s pop culture star as the protagonist? Why yes, this is a SyFy original movie. How did you know?

Review Snippet:
Without any way to contact the mainland, Carly and Danny leave the cabin behind. They trek across the island to an old ferry where they hope to find a radio. As soon as those two mentioned the ferry, I knew that the monster’s nest was going to be inside. In fact, no matter where Danny and Carly decided to go from the cabin, it would be where the Sea Beast laid her eggs. I don’t care if they were going to the abandoned Starbucks on the island, in hopes that the free WiFi was still running, that’s where all of the eggs would be.

Lesson Learned:
Blinking is a telltale sign of rigormortis.

Pilot error

lyzard — Wed, 02 May 2012 01:23:53 +0000

It is generally estimated that each season, over 500 ideas for new TV series get pitched to the executives of the major American networks, with only 20 receiving the greenlight for the filming of a pilot episode. Of these, perhaps eight will result in the production of a series, with no more than one or two surviving to a second season or better.

It’s a miracle, really, how so much crap still makes it onto the air.

As this brief outline makes clear, there are a variety of fates that might befall a pilot episode. It might air as is, the lead-in for the series to follow; it might be re-tooled, sending the series into a direction different from that initially conceived; it might be re-cut into a made-for-TV movie, as a way of recouping costs (or, in the case of Mulholland Drive, as a way for its director to score a Best Director win at Cannes and an Academy Award nomination while making the ABC executives look more than ordinarily foolish); or it might end up simply as filler, offering bewildered viewers a tantalising glimpse into the might-have-been…and the what-the-hell-were-they-thinking!?

So join us as we take a look at some of the pilots that made it – and others that never stood a chance.

It’s TO BE OR NOT TO BE – all through May at the B-Masters’ blog!

Parasols, Mummies, & Naked Kungfu

KeithA — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:42:19 +0000

Some day, I’m going to not lag behind in these things. But that some day is not this day, and so let’s play a bit of catch-up with recent reviews.

Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec Adele Blanc-sec is highly enjoyable adventure cinema, and if you’re a fan of any of the other titles mentioned in the review, specifically Tintin(either in print or film), the Sherlock Holmes movies, the Amelia Peabody Mysteries, or The Parasol Protectorate books, then you are going to find yourself comfortably at home with Adele Blanc-sec’s loony blend of action, archaeology, supernatural beasties, whimsy, and gentleman mummies with proper manners. I hope Besson gets another movie in the series made, even if he’s only producing. There’s too much left untapped and this one was too fun to just let it be.
Lady Dragon I was quite looking forward to Lady Dragon. For one thing it has the remarkable Richard Norton, who has traded blows with Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung on a few memorable occasions, as the bad guy. For another the film seems to be quite popular with other Cynthia Rothrock fans. On top of that the other three Cynthia movies I’d reviewed so far had lulled me into a false sense of security by all being enjoyably cheesy. Little did I know that a scant 90 minutes after popping this DVD in, I’d feel so soiled as to be contemplating a two-day shower. In battery acid.
Drive Ultimately anyone who likes action should come away from this movie with a big grin plastered across their face, before they rewind it to watch those jaw-dropping fight scenes again and again. It’s been a long time since a Hollywood studio managed to release anything as entertaining as Steve Wang‘s little movie, and given that the world is kung fu mad right now this is the perfect time to see it. I guarantee it’s a Drive you won’t regret taking. And yes, I know I deserve to be punished for that final pun…
Hero Dream Hero Dream is one of the sleazier Cat III action films. In fact, it’s so sleazy and so packed with full frontal nudity and cameras lingering on female pubic hair that it seems almost illegal for it not to have at least co-starred Charlie Cho. Cho must have been busy making twenty other sex films the week Hero Dreamwas made — provided they bothered to take an entire week to film Hero Dream. If they did, it certainly doesn’t show. There seems to have been absolutely no effort at all to come up with a script, giving the movie a very prevalent “we’re just making up scenes as we go until we hit the 85 minute mark.” What effort did go into the movie was spent almost entirely on making it as dense with nudity as possible, with a small bit of effort reserved for finding the absolutely most atrocious shirts and ties for Chin Kar-lok.
The Warrior & The Sorceress It’s a shame that the material can’t live up to the cast; for a movie that runs only 77 minutes, so much filler and repetition really isn’t a good idea. A couple of the fight scenes are OK — Anthony De Longis knows his stuff, sure enough — but the best one is at the end of the movie by which time I was struggling to stay awake. The whole thing is too generic and too dull to linger much in the memory, and probably only merits interest because Carradine is the star rather than Rick Hill, Pietro Torrisi, Miles O’Keefe or whoever. Of all the Conan rip-offs, this… is one.
China O’Brien 2 I still remember my first exposure to China O’Brien 2. It was in the form of a trailer on the rental tape ofChina O’Brien that played right after the movie ended. “Hmm,” my teenage mind reflected, “it looks exactly the same as the one we just watched.” And that was that. Despite my freakish and possibly legally actionable obsession with Cynthia Rothrock, I’d never actually seen the sequel until a couple of days ago. And though my intellect has been transformed over the years by intense studies of art, literature, science and Internet porn, my naive observation back in the early 90s turned out to be spot on.

You’ll wolf it down

Greywizard — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:40:23 +0000

While the subject matter of Dog Soldiers – highly trained soldiers encountering a relentless pack of werewolves – may sound howlingly bad and predictable, I can happily report that the end results are done with a good amount of smarts as well as a number of thrills and chills. And topped off by some effective black humor. This is one B movie that without doubt should have crossed into the mainstream.

NOTE: From now on, I’ll be updating with a new review every ten days instead of every fourteen days. See you again sooner rather than later!

The Kids Are Alright

Braineater — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:44:26 +0000

They’re better than all right. They’re the Rising Generation, and they’ve got guts. Yours. And they’re ripping them out even as we speak…

We Are What We Eat (2012) is a short zombie film written and directed by Sam Toller, a 16 year old film-maker from the UK. It’s being premiered at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth in Seattle on Friday April 27, 2012, at 11:00pm (Toller isn’t even the youngest director represented in the Festival’s Late Night Horror Show, which I find a very encouraging sign). You know all the times I’ve moaned that every kid with a camera and a bucket of fake blood thinks he can make a zombie movie? Well, I will never make that comparison again… because it turns out there’s at least one who does it pretty well.

Unfortunately, I can’t make it to the show myself; but if anybody’s in the area and has a chance to attend the Late Night Horror Show, please post your impressions in the Comments.

Oh — and that sound you hear in the distance is Mary Whitehouse shrieking in Hell.

Gimme tax shelter

Greywizard — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:28:58 +0000

Although The Unknown Movies doesn’t have to follow any Canadian content laws, I review the occasional Canadian movie so that The Powers That Be won’t notice a lack of Canadiana on my site and subsequently pass a law that would force me to review Canadian movies more frequently. If you have seen as many bad and/or unwatchable Canadian movies as I have, like Crossover, you would understand my fears.