David A Prior Triple Bill

I’m somewhat late to the party on this one, as the below films have, of late, been mulled over and reviewed a fair amount. The so-bad-it’s-good appreciation community has taken Future Force, Future Zone, and Deadly Prey to its heart, as should we all. There’s nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

No matter how poor the acting and screenwriting and directing and special effects were, B-movies still looked great before the 1990s and beyond. “Improved” film stock/processing and digital cameras meant we lost a bit of class. Well, a lot of class. Which is a genuine tragedy for cinema.

So, without further ado, here’s my brief look at three films from one of the B-movie action crapfest genre’s most clueless directors.

And his brother, Ted.

FUTURE FORCE (1989)

As a city council official, you know it’s time to clean up your area of influence when it can easily double as a future dystopia. I dearly hope that, for its citizens, Los Angeles looks a little better as of 2026. But I sincerely doubt it. David Carradine is, perhaps, about 20-years too old to be playing the lead in this movie, but at least he gives the bare minimum amount of effort. Bless. I won’t bother with a plot summary, as I believe simply describing it as “Robocop meets Grumpy Old Men” should do the job. It’s cute though, with all the 80s action movie cliches. Big hair. Big boobs. Mom jeans. Shitty metal music. Embarrassing one-liners. Honestly , what more do you need?! The good guys win. The bad guys lose. You know the drill. Not incompetently bad or just something to put in a VHS box to sell, but certainly no Lethal Weapon. You will need to go elsewhere for an ounce of style. David A Prior shoots like he’s filming a commercial for cinderblocks. Or something just as boring. Now that’s ambition for you!

FUTURE ZONE (1990)

What?! A sequel to Future Force?! Really?! These films were apparently passion projects for Carradine, which boggles the mind indeed. This time, Carradine’s… SPOILER ALERT!… son, played by David’s brother Ted, comes back from the future to meet the gun-toting father he never knew. There’s a little more money put into this one, especially with regards to the musical score. However, I suspect said score wasn’t composed for this film. I mean, how on Earth could it have been?! It’s beautiful, so why any self-respecting composer would waste their ideas on a sequel to, erm, Future Force, is beyond me. Apologies to the composer if they did. Nothing personal. Anyway, much like the first film, evil corporate types attempt to kill our half-hearted elderly protagonist, with the latter’s awesome laser gauntlet famously being rarely used. The special effect would have been too expensive to repeat, you see. Generally no better or worse than the first one, in terms of overall enjoyment. Ted’s also a pretty good actor here. Worth a watch though, if only for its adorable blandness.

DEADLY PREY (1987)

No relation to the above two films, except for its sibling director and lead actor. Ted Prior’s muscly, sweaty, half-naked body is shot beautifully by his, erm, brother. I wonder how many times members of the crew gave each other creeped-out glances. Deadly Prey features the well-worn “man is the most dangerous game” structure. This genre was, of course, perfected with John Woo’s Hard Target. In this idiotic version, men hunt the innocent for payment, rather than being the ones paying for the dubious privilege. Huh?! That doesn’t make sense. Our hero regularly fails to pick up clothing and weapons after dispatching his captors. His imbecile wife calls her elderly father for help, instead of the police. There’s a needlessly dark ending, which benefits no-one. Oh and, at one point, our hero manages to walk 75 miles home and back in a matter of minutes. Still, the film is comical for so many reasons, mostly its childish screenplay. Seriously, this is Rambo fan fiction as written by a 12-year-old. Gloriously dumb and fun and full of… murder!

So, there you have it, a few short sketches about three of the most average action films you’ll ever experience. Still, you’ll have a great time watching them and pulling apart their logic with your friends. Or by yourself, as I did.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Self-Censorship

“Lemonade?”

“Please!”

I’ve just deleted a couple of my short stories, as apparently they are not covered by Blogger’s freedom of speech policy.

Nobody has complained, I just thought it best to sacrifice them in order to keep the rest of my nonsense up to read. I’m very proud of said short stories, which I put a lot of time and love and effort into, so I have done this with a heavy heart.

The shy, awkward, lonely nerds of this world have lost. The vacant pretty people, who wish to sanitise everything, have won.

Perhaps the rest of my stories will eventually have to go.

Perhaps it will all go.

Oh well, I honestly post online in the hope of making friends, but that isn’t happening. So, hey, who cares if a post here and there vanishes.

Not only has the light at the end of the tunnel been switched off, but the tunnel has been bricked up altogether.

I no longer see a future. I no longer see a present.

Goodbye, darlings.

RiffTrax Website

I’ve mentioned, a fair few times, that I’ve become a huge fan of MST3K, surely the inventor of the modern audio commentary track. Sadly, I feel as though I’ve arrived too late to make any sort of worthwhile fan contribution to it. In any form. I don’t believe we ever got the show here in the UK, which I can only assume would have been a copyright nightmare anyway. Well, after the show’s original run ended and everyone who was ever involved went their separate ways, they eventually reformed under different guises, like talented magnets of comedy.

Joel Hodgson and his camp formed Cinematic Titanic. Mike J Nelson and his camp formed RiffTrax.

As many of the original viewers surely were back in the mid-1990s, I’ve not been too sure about Mike’s screen/audio involvement. I’ve gone through my reasons before, so I don’t feel inclined to be a dick and repeat them. Anyway, as hoped, my heart has defrosted and I’ve come to enjoy him, either in MST3K or RiffTrax. I’m glad about this, as it means I can soak up more riff content. I also love Bill Corbett, who’s dry comedic timing is just perfect, and Kevin Murphy is as awesome and beautiful as he always has been. Oh and while I’ve not heard them on any feature-length RiffTrax commentaries yet, Mary Jo Pehl and Bridget Jones are fabulous on many of the shorts.

And so we come to this post.

Well, as mentioned above, I felt somewhat impotent in not being able to contribute as a fan, until I discovered that RiffTrax had a paid subscription on their website. I’m not inclined to throw money at every streaming service “because that’s just what you do”, much to Netflix and Disney’s chagrin, as I’d like to think I’m more discerning than that. I only whip my wallet out when the content speaks to me personally. I’ve also not watched broadcast television since the covid pandemic started, mostly in order to avoid panic mongering and misinformation, and I’m still sticking to that behaviour 6-years-later.

So, yes, I recently subscribed to RiffTrax, which I have yet to regret. I chose the highest tier, not because I needed to, but simply because I wanted to give them more cash. I think there’s a social element to my tier, but I have no interest in that. In terms of socialising, I’m like a blind bull in a China shop perched precariously upon a cliff in a hurricane. In hell. So I shall leave all that for now.

There are, erm, curious rules to what you have automatic access to, including only content older than a year and not content that’s available on paid disc, but hey-ho. I get it. Girl’s gotta eat, am I right?! Right. I’m going slow with it all, if only to savour it like a fine wine, but so far I’ve experienced (not including those I’ve already seen on YouTube): The Phantom Menace (audio only), the legendary Reefer Madness, Maniac, and Battlefield Earth (audio only). I have disc copies of the two audio-only ones, so it was just a simple matter of rummaging around in my many, many, many disc carry cases to find them, but that’s my problem. Sometimes US and UK cuts are different, as I found out with Battlefield Earth, but it didn’t take too long to reorientate myself.

I think it’s really sweet that all these great people are still friends and working together after over 30 years. I can barely keep a friend for longer than a few years. At best. There’s even a video of the RiffTrax boys just out on a fishing trip. Aww, bless! Not to pull out my sadness violin, but I’m a lonely soul these days, with RiffTrax and MST3K keeping me company through such dark personal times. Satirical comedy also aids in alleviating my lifelong anxiety. I guess it just helps to have someone remind me that everything is ridiculous, so maybe I shouldn’t worry so much about it all.

Please drop by their website here.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles! 

Subtitles OFF: Primite telegrammu v dolg (1979)

Yes, another Russian film. I guess I’m just finding myself captivated by cultures I know so very little about. And being whisked away from my own repressed and aggressively-conservative English one.

Surely, a discussion for a future therapy session.

I’m not a particularly intelligent soul, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy with being ignorant. So, yes, I’m ignorant, but not wilfully ignorant. If that makes sense. It does?! Great!

As is the way with this series of posts, I watched Primite telegrammu v dolg without it being translated for me, either through an English dub or by the inclusion of subtitles. I just find hearing human voices, without understanding them, quite relaxing. It’s like being back in the womb, which helps to relieve my constant anxiety. So, bearing all that in mind, let’s see what I could discern from the film, then look up a proper synopsis. I will admit that, having accidentally seen the Russian title translated, it means that one element has already been revealed to me.

Bah!

Anyway, the film appears to tell the story of a naive but likeable young boy, who spends his days either doing chores on his family’s working farm or delivering telegrams. The latter I only know about due to that pesky title spoiler, I originally assumed he was delivering farm produce. During his telegram runs aboard his bicycle, he literally has his two tiny siblings in tow, which is just adorable. He also seems to be quite the ladies man about town, albeit with middle-aged women. Eventually, the boy tries to impress a young local girl by becoming more refined. You know, instead of rolling around in filth wearing only underpants. His posh behaviour freaks his down-to-Earth family out, and he is still rejected by the object of his affections. The whole affair ends up in tragedy, when the girl’s ruffian friends violently assault our protagonist and destroy his beloved bicycle. Once a harsh winter hits, the local girl, now wracked with guilt, turns up at the farm to apologise to the boy, but he rejects her for a change. The girl persists, with both kids sitting down to enjoy a warm fire together, surely being symbolic of the boy’s heart defrosting.

How very Soviet!

Right, let’s see how well I did. I failed miserably with the first two episodes of Dekalog, but I’ve got a good feeling about this one…

…just a second…

Ah, a detailed synopsis appears to be hard to find, although it’s actually a toy aircraft that gets destroyed at the end, not a bike. I suppose pedal bicycles don’t usually feature materials that explode, so I really should have figured that out for myself. And the boy’s telegram job is a means to fund the building of said aircraft. Oh well, I am pretty confident that I got the rest right, even though it is technically the B-story.

Feel free to furnish me with a fuller synopsis, if you’re able to find one.

As I mentioned in my discussion of My Life as a Dog, if someone who doesn’t understand the language your film is presented in can still be moved to tears by the end, then you have truly mastered the art of visual storytelling. And I was indeed crying. The musical score, which is incredibly haunting, aided my emotional outburst a great deal too. The lead actor, Andrey Tikhonchik, can light up the darkest of Russian winters with just his smile, so it’s a shame this is the only thing he’s credited for. He carries the entire film with his plucky charm and sombre grace.

I guess his teenage years led him onto other endeavours.

You can find the film here.

Do stay in touch, comrades.

Poka!

Petrov and Vasechkin

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out which category of post to file this under, eventually deciding to just relax and not categorise it at all. It’s very much its own thing, as with its subject matter.

As what happened with Fanny and Alexander, these are two films that were also aired as miniseries. The version of The Adventures of Petrov and Vasechkin that I will link to below I believe to be the film, whereas Petrov and Vasechkin’s Vacation is the miniseries. The runtime of both pretty much match what is listed with online resources, so the miniseries versions clearly aren’t longer cuts or anything.

They just sliced them down the middle.

Both films have an episodic vibe to them anyway, so my staccato viewing (without English subtitles or dub), over the course of about a month, felt natural. I just dipped in and out whenever I had 5 minutes spare. You know, in my hectic schedule of, erm, sitting around watching crap.

Right, “What on Earth are you on about, Jim?!”, you’re probably asking by now. Well, these are two Russian family films that appear to follow the musical adventures of a pair of energetic schoolboys, the titular Petrov and Vasechkin, along with their pigtailed gal-pal Masha. The latter seems to keep the boys’ craziness in check, while also providing some mild romantic interest. This the young girl is fine with, as she clearly adores her two classmates, even just as friends. Aww! So that’s a general naive overview for you of both epics (over 2 hours a piece!), but the films themselves couldn’t be more different if they tried.

And they do try.

The Adventures of Petrov and Vasechkin (1983), has the boys breaking up the mundanity of school life by rocking out in a band, performing a stage play, and simply slipping off into fantasy. I like that their band is fronted by a flamboyant Elton John-type on piano, with their gymnasium rehearsal space having to be cleared regularly for, you know, actual PE lessons to take place. I get the feeling that the musical numbers are meant to act as wannabe music videos for their band’s real songs, only incorporated into the general beats of the storyline. No pun intended. This visual swirling together of musical fantasy and reality could very well have been an inspiration for Flight of the Conchords, indeed!

But probably not.

Petrov and Vasechkin’s Vacation most likely speaks for itself. The boys take time off school and bugger off to the coast for sun and surf, consorting with the rustic locals as they prance around rhythmically. The musical numbers have multiplied this time, with my starting to feel lost when another didn’t start a minute after the previous. Seriously, the songwriters and choreographers must have been exhausted by the end of production! Vasechkin is now pining after multiple girls and goes on a Don Quixote-inspired adventure on his own, while Petrov seems to be doing… something. His plotline doesn’t stand out so well, I guess. Unless I kept mixing the two boys up, which, given my poor eyesight, is very likely.

I’ve only watched the two films once, with my jumpy viewing experience meaning I will have missed a few things.

There aren’t many grown-ups in Petrov and Vasechkin’s world, less so in the first one. The centrepiece stage play appears to be lacking a drama teacher, which is amusing in itself. Children don’t usually have the organisational skills to produce something so lavish. Unless they do and adults just never trust them with it. Who is to say. Well, probably parents and teachers and anyone who’s ever witnessed a shambolic live stage production slapped together by a bunch of clueless elves.

The director of both films, Vladimir Alenikov, appears to be “the Ridley Scott of Russia”, which is no bad thing. The Adventures of Petrov and Vasechkin features copious amounts of shaft-lighting, smoke machines, and cameras regularly angled stylishly to capture the length of a set. There’s a bit of Jonathan Demme thrown in there too, with Alenikov getting around the kids accidentally looking at the camera by having them stare down the barrel of the lens constantly. I love that cheat. Petrov and Vasechkin’s Vacation has a warmer vibe, obviously intended to compliment its pastoral goings on, and shot largely outdoors. Again, they have their own unique tones, both visually and musically.

I initially assumed the second film was made a decade earlier, as the music is very ABBA and the actors look slightly different, so I was surprised to learn that it was actually made in 1984, directly after the first. The clothes certainly look like 1970s throwbacks too, with the costume designer having found the tiniest denim shorts allowed by law. You will find yourself having to avert your eyes a few times.

Cough.

My favourite moment out of the two films, which comes towards the end of the second one, has Petrov attempting to wake Vasechkin up after the two have spent the night in a tent. Simple nudging fails to work, so Petrov pinches his friend’s nose and covers the boy’s mouth with his other hand. This provokes a perfectly natural panic reaction from Vasechkin, but at least it works. The comedic timing is perfect. I suppose it is technically a rather dark moment, but hilarious if you enjoy a splash of twisted humour.

Our two leads, Dmitriy Barkov and Egor Druzhinin, respectively, are just fabulous, with Druzhinin in particular a dancing and singing natural. Whatever that implies. It’s sad they didn’t produce any further films, although, given that puberty was clearly knocking on the door by the end, it’s probably best the two boys and their adventures are locked in an idyllic time and place.

The Adventures of Petrov and Vasechkin (1983) can be found here.

Petrov and Vasechkin’s Vacation (1984) can be found here.

I had an absolute blast watching both films, even without knowing exactly what was going on. This just goes to show the strong grasp of the language of cinema director Alenikov had. Both works, while long in runtime, race along at a stunning pace. Never have musicals had the pace of an action movie quite like this. At least not in my experience. These are musicals for people who don’t like musicals.

They will truly brighten your day and soul. I genuinely wished they would never end, which is probably why I took so long to get through them.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Poka!

Jim’s Shaft Trilogy Movie Marathon, Can You Dig It?!

A viewing experience a long time in the coming, due either to some form of unintentional, subconscious racism, or simply due to the films being set in the 1970s, the decade that taste and style forgot. I dearly hope it’s the latter. A lack of distribution in snowy-white England may also have been an issue, as, even today, the boxset now in my possession had to come from mainland Europe. 

While the fine details of John Shaft and his adventures weren’t well-known to me prior to my sitting down to experience them today, the iconic theme song, by Isaac Hayes, certainly was. I’ve heard parodies of it multiple times, across multiple platforms, from other films, to TV shows, and even podcasts. I know there are now two reboots that exist, confusingly also called “Shaft”, but I have little-to-no interest in those.

I’ll try not to discuss racial politics as best I can, even though the films appear to bring it up themselves. I’m just not educated enough in that area to do the subject justice. All I’ll say is that, after returning from a holiday in America, a friend informed me that, still to this day, you can cut the racial tension there with a knife. What with the country voting in elderly right-wing lunatics as their leader, I can only assume another civil war is on its way.

As with all my movie marathon posts, this will be a “living document”, in that I’ll be writing it as I go along. Not always though, which should go some way into explaining the confused tense used. You know, instead of just pure incompetence. I’ll also avoid backtracking as much as possible, only doing so in order to clean up my usual poor grammar.

Anyway, on that note, let us flip the detective agency’s sign from CLOSED to OPEN and see what cases saunter on in.

SHAFT (1971)

“I’m supposed to take you to visit a lady. Come on.”

“I haven’t finished my espresso.”

I generally don’t find forced-“cool” to be particularly cool, instead preferring moments, like the above dry exchange, to be much more refined in the art of coolness. There are many moments like this in the original Shaft, which is what I enjoyed the most about it. Protracted scenes of characters stood around talking usually don’t make for great cinema, but these scenes are laced with so much menace and tension that I feared my television would break under the stress. They should be taught in schools like Shakespeare. Wouldn’t that be great?! 8-year-olds being able to quote Shaft verbatim! The answer is “yes”. The actual action scenes are sparse and Howard Hawks/John Carpenter-brief, but they are well staged. The story, about our hero being hired to locate a rich man’s kidnapped daughter, is the average stuff of private detective fiction, but that’s fine. The simple case even blows-up into something bigger, threatening to incite a race war. I appreciated the scene where Shaft gives money to a shivering little street urchin, which aided in deepening Shaft’s character. He’s a complicated man, after all. The film doesn’t need this scene, but it’s there all the same. The final infiltration of the villain’s lair surely inspired Brian De Palma as much as Alfred Hitchcock, with the set piece’s music reminding me of Elliot Goldenthal’s scoring of the finale bank heist in Michael Mann’s Heat. I’m glad the two sex scenes didn’t go on too long, as gratuitous love making in movies is not welcome by this reviewer. I prefer the two art forms to be kept separate. Keep awkward groping out of cinema, and keep thoughtful cinematography out of porn. Deal? Deal. Overall, Shaft’s laconic pace often threatened to detach my concentration, but, after taking a brief powder to reinvigorate myself, I returned with glee. A thoroughly enjoyable experience indeed! Right, let’s up the “whakka-chikka-whakka-chikka” for…

SHAFT’S BIG SCORE! (1972)

“You oughtn’t talk to a lady that way! Where’s your fucking manners anyway?!”

Preach it, sister! Now the aspect ratio widens, as does the visual ambition of director Gordon Parks. While the gritty atmosphere of the first film sure was, erm, gritty, I’m a cinephile who prefers their slick framing/blocking. This all means the chaotic intimacy has gone, but I admire Parks for not trying to repeat himself. After all, this one does largely take place in the homes of the wealthy, which doesn’t work well in a documentary style. The plot is as inexplicably complex as the aforementioned Hawks’ own The Big Sleep, but I quite enjoyed being baffled by the goings on. Richard Roundtree’s titular “hero” is less honourable this time, with one scene in particular, where he beats up a mafioso out of revenge, lowering him to the status of a common thug. Two wrongs don’t make a right, John. Tsk, tsk. I initially thought said clarinet-playing mafioso was being portrayed by Alex Rocco or Sydney Pollack, but it’s some other dude. I guess you can’t have everything. The love scene is, once again, mercifully brief but genuinely erotic. Perhaps I’m going, ahem, “soft” in my old age. I enjoyed the jazz-based, rather than funk, musical score, which just goes to show that Parks wanted a different vibe to this one. There’s also a classic 70s car + boat + helicopter chase, which is always welcome. That’s the one thing Barry Lyndon definitely lacked! By the end, I still had no bloody idea what was going on, but this fact never stifled my enjoyment or made me want to cut today’s marathon short. Oh and the film features the one and only upper-floor apartment in the universe with a rear entrance. Go figure. Anyway, let’s get packing for…

SHAFT IN AFRICA (1973)

“Uptown dude like me, [they’ll] spot me a mile away.”

“Not if you’re briefed in tribal ways.”

Sigh. Ever since learning of the Shaft trilogy as a dumb teenager, I’ve yearned to see this one the most. I mean, just look at that title! Such glorious schlock. Saying that, it did bring to mind the embarrassing imperialist adventure films of the early-20th century, but I’ve always assumed none of that regrettable stuff would feature here. Well, as it turns out, we’ve lost Gordon Parks this time, being replaced by John Guillermin, the caucasian director behind the 1976 King Kong remake, Death on the Nile, and multiple Tarzan movies. Oh good grief. Now I’m worried! Yes, folks, Shaft has officially been sucked up by the Hollywood machine. We don’t even hear a black character speak until 7 minutes in, not until we’ve witnessed one being chased down and executed, like an animal, by white people. I said I wouldn’t naively bring up racial politics in the post, but this one’s really pushing me. The film mentions female circumcision twice, which is two times too many. I mean WTF?! The action is upped, but these moments are nowhere near as riveting as the subtle dialogue exchanges of its predecessors. Guillermin shoots as flatly as if he were making a sitcom, with none of the personality of Parks’ world. I’m now halfway through as I type these words, but struggling to continue. This is not a “Shaft” film, it’s something… ugly. The black characters here are merely a curiosity to the white filmmakers who have somehow infiltrated the series. End of story. I dearly hope Roundtree was strongarmed into returning out of contractual obligation. I haven’t read anything about the making of it, so there’s always the chance this was a passion project for the actor, but I sincerely doubt it. I did eventually crawl to the finishing line, but have nothing else to say. Don’t give Shaft in Africa your time and, if you can avoid it, you money. What a shame.

So, there you have it, two classic pieces of cinema and one piece of dated imperialist junk. It was a tragedy to end on such a sad note, but now I know why they never made any follow-up films. And why they keep trying to make amends for Shaft in Africa with numerous reboots.

Richard Roundtree has been a sterling guide through it all, with enough charm and charisma to even get me through that bizarre third one.

I’ve enjoyed today, two-thirds of it anyway, so I’ll hopefully do another marathon asap. I never did get around to the second half of my Pirates of the Caribbean one, but I’m so traumatised by the first three entries that my mind keeps blocking out my commitment. I do not believe this to be a bad thing.

Shut yo’ mouth, darlings.

Toodles!