A Shaun the Sheep movie: Farmageddon (2019) directed by Richard Phelan and Will Becher

This is not the first Shaun the Sheep movie but it is the first I've seen. I do catch theTV show time to time and that is pretty great. If you are not a fan of Aardman animation, well there is something seriously wrong with you. Wallace and Grommit are classic shorts and films and pretty much all their projects are awesome. Except for the misfortune of casting Mel Gibson in "Chicken Run" they have a pretty much unsullied reputation for great animated story telling. This film will not disappoint you. 

Shaun and his fellow sheep are up to to their usual antics of annoying the farmer and his dog when Shaun finds a space creature in the barn. Sure, there are ALL the tropes from ET, Close Encounters, 2001 etc but by are they funny and still surprising here! 

The stop motion is the top notch and still has a hand made look about it that is totally charming. There is no real dialogue spoken thought so it transfers to anyone speaking any language. Some of the newspaper headline sin my version were in german for some reason but that did not cause any confusion. It's not complicated - just lots of fun! 

Onward 2020 directed by Dan Scanlon

 This Pixar offering supposes that it's world was populated by mythical creatures and magic until technology came along which was much easier to control and learn than magic. Over time the magic was basically forgotten and pushed aside. 

The film follows the adventures of Ian and his brother who receive a wizard's staff and a not from their dead dad which states it can be used to bring him back, for one day only. The spell goes awry and only the lower half of papa returns and they are off to find a magic stone to bring the rest of him back before the sun sets the next day. 

The story is a bit off the beaten track, which to me is its strongest asset. Like most Pixar films there are wonderful details and beautiful animation along with some fun Dungeon and Dragons references. 

At 200 million dollars and box office of only 114 million this could be a rare Pixar failure but I have hard time seeing it in that light. The film is far from a dud in any way shape or form and while not the strongest of their films, it's entertaining and has plenty of legit emotion coming from the characters. It was released just before the COVID shutdown worldwide, so it's amazing it made even ½ its money back, considering. If it was up to me, I would consider a re-release when things go back to normal and see how it goes. It could easily find a larger audience if given the chance. 

RKO Production 601: The Making of 'Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World' (2005)

Made in 2005 as a companion documentary for the 2005 re-release fo the original film, this film covers just about anything you might want to know about the making of the classic film from conception, to filming to reception as well as it's importance in the world of cinema. The interviews are top notch people and full of interesting information. I did get a little annoyed at the repetition of the idea that Kong was the first giant monster movie... it's not. Willis O'Brien the effects creator of the film had already done a monster on the loose in his version of "The Lost World" but Kong was definitely the first time we felt for the beast crushing the city he is stuck in. He moved the needle of effects works to a new level that still stands up today and showed that a completely artificially create character could be on par, or even outdo its real life human actors. A worthy documentary of the one of the world's best loved films. See the entire thing in the YouTube link above. 

The Picnic - the trailer

Things are getting serious with the Million Year Picnic documentary these days as I try and get it a showing and prepare to put it on sale at Amazon.

I am also preparing a digital version for those who gave money on Indiegogo so long ago and have been so patient as i try and get this thing together.

Birdemic - Shock and Terror

Recently, thanks to some promotion from «Riff tracks» the online site with the guys from Mystery Science Theatre 3000 making fun of movies as they watch them, a truly awful film has emerged and is gaining somewhat of a cult status. Some cinemas are even playing the film at midnight and people are coming with props and yelling put downs prepared in advance... just like the old days. What is this modern day masterpiece of «how not to make a film»? It’s «Birdemic - Shock and Terror» and I can vouch for it’s complete and I do mean complete lack of a single element of quality throughout it’s entire runtime.

How bad is it? Many horrible films have stupid plots (if any), bad filming, sound and effects (and this does not disappoint in any of those categories), but how many films are so bad that the actual transitions from one shot to another make you laugh out loud. In today’s computer assisted offline editing environment a simple crossfade is hard to screw up.. yet somehow «Birdemic» makes even the most simple and invisible of transitions into something so poorly executed, you can’t ignore it.

The plot is basically 40 minutes of nothing happening... lots of driving, parking, slowly pulling into traffic with no mention of birds, never mind a birdemic, then it violently collides with another film with a scene of «eagles» (computer generated puppets that I guess might look like eagles if you were really high on something) diving in to a gas station making bomber sounds and squawking (exactly) like seagulls. Oh.. and they explode on contact. And at one point they pee acid on people. They also break every law of aerodynamics you can think of. Why? How? Do you really think you’re going to get a reasonable explantation, or any at all?

Even if the cutting, sound and image quality were acceptable, the acting would drag this film easily into «worse film of all time» territory, but since those elements are equally bad it lifts the bar for bad acting to a level that may never be topped. People come and go in this film for no reason and more than one says «it’s not the eagles that scare me but the most dangerous animal of all, the human race» and then they rant about global warming for 3 minutes and walk away. The really scary thing about this movie is that the director is making a sequel... in 3D!

The thing that makes all bad films amazing to watch is when you can see the film maker has no idea the film is bad at all. In fact, this film like Glen or Glenda, tries so hard to be relevant and meaningful you almost feel obligated to find something good to not just crush the director’s ego completely. «Birdemic» will not provide you with even the slimmest chance of that, but good luck looking.

For those who want to see how bad, bad can be this is the film to see. I recommend the «Riff Tracks» version to keep the pain to a minimum.

The Wild World of the Batwoman

If you have ever wondered what your Aunt Helen would be like dressed a goth showgirl with a poorly drawn bat across her chest and lived with a bevy of vacant strippers in bikinis, then this movie is for you!

The “plot” of this movie is incomprehensible. Some wayward strippers.... I mean crime fighters, witness a crime, do nothing about it and then initiate another girl as a “vampire” (something never mentioned again) as one of the Batwoman’s force against evil. One of the girl’s is kidnapped by a wacky professor who gives her “happy pills” that make people go-go dance uncontrollably. He himself is under orders from “Rat Fink” a super villain looking for a advanced hearing aid, that lets you hear private conversations. On route to the film’s final, which never seems to come soon enough, the cast eats drugged soup served by Marx Brothers imitators, go-go dances, see monsters (cut in from another movie - The Mole People), go to the beach, and a number of other events too confusing to mention.



A highlight of sorts is the seance scene... it’s so racist you laugh out loud , then can’t crawl deep enough into your skin to escape the embarrassment that you laughed. The Batwoman tries to locate the stolen device with some government official and his assistant, who looks like Gomer Pile in her secret hideout, which is a ranch style house in a crowded suburban street (I guess a masked and feather wigged hooker with a huge bat magic markered on her chest is common place here. I wonder what the other neighbors are like?). During her communication with the spirits, they are interrupted by a “Chinese” voice that... mon dieux, I can’t even bring myself to remember how horrible it is! In any case, the best way to see this film, other than with toothpicks holding your eyes open while being pumped full of morphine to kill the pain is the “Mystery Science 3000” version. By the end, even the robots are yelling “kill me” and “END!!!! PLEASE END!!!” and you really feel for them.

Of course for those of us in the slammer... its a must see.

Will Cinema Die This Time for Real?

The death of cinema has been predicted since it began, but recently I have been thinking it might really be happening now.

When TV arrived on the scene and movies could be seen in the homme, the act of going to the local movie house seemed doomed... but in reality attendence went up... there was always something nice... eventful... about leaving your house and «going out» to see something on the big screen. When cable came around, once again the death bells toll, but for who? As blockbuster films came into being it was clear that a night at the movies was here to stay. The lines around the block for «Exorcist», «Jaws» and «Star Wars» was proof of that.

Now we have the internet, downloadable movies for ipods and computer screens, movies on demand from cable compainies, DVD rentals and sale,HUGE TVs in the house (bigger than some cureent day movie houses it seems) and the film going experience is once again a «dying artform». Seeing a film in a theatre is only one of several ways to see it now and the least convenient. Will this really be the end?

No, not in my opinion, but something else will be and it’s sadder than just some techology taking over the medium. The studios themselves have been slowing eroding the profits from films.. not for themselves of course, but for the actual movies houses and theatre chains that show the films. Most pay truly outrageous and should be illegal percentages to show a film these days... up to 90% of the take for the first two weeks in some cases. Nowadays most films don’t even play for two weeks! The «long roll out and finding a film’s audience» days are over and even the 15$ for a bag of 10 cent popcorns can’t hide the reaility of the situation. A movie house simply can’t turn a profit showing films anymore. Here in Québec we pay 9-16$ to see a first run film... seems like a lot of money and it is, for the consumer, but for the movie house only getting 10% of that... it’s peanuts. It's becoming too expensive for us and too expensive for them.

In the end, no new technology will kill the film experience... corporate greed will, like it kills everything else.

(On a side note; all the people that see no difference between the cinema and their filthy , noisy living rooms doesn’t help, either.)