I have watched a lot of movies this fall and I figure I should get around to reviewing some of them.
First up is Colossal, a 2016 film directed and written by Nacho Vigalondo and starring Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis. Though it was not a box-office success, this genre-bending independent film has received well-deserved critical acclaim. Here is the synopsis from the Internet Movie Database:
Gloria is an out-of-work party girl forced to leave her life in New York City, and move back home. When reports surface that a giant creature is destroying Seoul, she gradually comes to realizing that she is somehow connected to this phenomenon.
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
Hathaway’s performance as Gloria shows what a great actress she is. We see her reckless party-girl, her subservience to her boyfriend, her eagerness to accept charity from Sudeikis’s Oscar, her fear of him, and, finally, triumphantly, her taking responsibility for her life and the incredible situation she has found herself in.
Sudeikis is mildly scary as bar-owner Oscar, who has wanted Gloria since they were kids. He becomes malevolently scary when he learns that, just as Gloria controls the giant lizard-like monster across the ocean, he controls a giant robot. Their final confrontation is masterfully played and made for a satisfying ending.
The movie is light on giant monster scenes, but that’s okay. This is not a monster versus monster movie. This is a movie about people making bad choices and being needlessly cruel, and how at least one of them can get her life back and back on track.
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
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SPOILERS OVER
Colossal is a keeper. It’s a film I’ll watch again. Though it’s been panned by the usual amateur online critics - you know, the ones who have never created anything themselves - I’m confident it will be considered a classic in the years to come.
Every time I think there couldn’t possibly be any more 1970s/1980s Jaws ripoffs I haven’t seen, I stumble across...you guessed it...a 1970s/1980s Jaws ripoffs I haven’t seen. Originally titled Great White, The Last Shark [1981] is an Italian movie directed by Enzo G. Castellari and starring James Franciscus and Vic Morrow.
It did well at the box office, grossing over $18 million in its first month in the United States. However, its North American release was later blocked after accusations of plagiarism of Jaws. Here’s the IMDb synopsis:
James Franciscus tries to save hundreds of swimmers in a coastal resort after a Great White Shark starts terrorizing the area.
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
Franciscus plays author Peter Benton. Morrow is crusty Ron Hamer, a professional shark hunter. Joshua Sinclair plays Mayor William Wells, who is running for governor and who won’t cancel his city’s wind-surfing regatta. You can guess how that works out for him and his constituents. But not completely.
After Benton’s daughter loses a leg to the shark, Wells goes after the shark in his helicopter. Which is more than the mayor of Amity ever did. The shark eats him and his helicopter.
Benton and Hamer plan to blow up the big shark with dynamite. Hamer straps a belt holding dynamite around his waist. The great white attacks Hamer from behind. The hunter gets tangled up in a line and dragged to his drowning death by the shark. Still feeling peckish, the shark attacks a slab of ribs tied to a dock, taking the whole dock and those unfortunates on the dock with him. It dines on the idiot who tied the ribs to the dock and the TV cameraman ordered to film what he thought would be the shark’s capture. But, wait, isn’t it about time to blow up the shark?
Benton feeds Hamer’s body to the shark. The author is holding the detonator for the dynamite that’s still strapped to Hamer’s waist. Shark go all boom real good.
Benton punches an obnoxious TV reporter. If you had seen that guy and sat through this movie, you’d want to punch someone, too.
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
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SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
The Last Shark is worth watching once, but only if, like me, you’re obsessive about seeing shark movies. If you’re looking to get real hammered while watching it, play a drinking game over how often it imitates Jaws. Not for lightweight imbibers of alcoholic beverages.
I know it as Zombiesaurus [2017], which is what it’s called on the Region 2 DVD I bought, but its actual title seems to be Z/Rex: The Jurassic Dead. According to the box art, “There is only one thing worse than zombies on the loose...” After watching this movie, I’m assuming that refers to the movie itself.
Because thinking about the movie might trigger anxiety over the 82 minutes of my life I will never get back, I’m just gonna copy the back cover synopsis:
A militia unit, led by “Cuchilla” Vasquez (Raquel Pennington, UFC “The Ultimate Fighter”), Duque Wayne (Andy Haman, USA Freestyle Wresting Champion) and “Stick” Howard (“American Ninja Warrior”) must team up with a group of tech-nerd millennials after the United States is struck by ab Electromagnetic Pulse asteroid attack. The group are trapped inside a labyrinth compound by Dr. Wokick Borge, a maverick scientist and political terrorist, responsible for the attack. This was just the beginning as the Evil Doctor now looks to unleash his ultimate killing machine, the ZOMBIESAURUS. This bio-engineered ultimate zombie dinosaur, is the complete predator. It either destroys or infects anything that gets in its way. The unit must find a way of stopping the doctor and his killing machine before all mankind is wiped from the face of the earth.
I would give you spoiler warnings if I could remember enough of the movie to spoil it for you. I have a vague memory of waiting for the good parts. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. The movie was released in the United Kingdom in June of this year. It has not yet been released in the United States. I suggest Trump move all funding from his Mexico wall and, instead, build a wall to keep Zombiesaurus from our shores.
A*P*E [1976] is pretty much a cheap South Korean knock-off of King Kong. It was known as King Kong’s Counterattack in South Korea, but has also been released as Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla (for a 1982 grindhouse re-release) and Hideous Mutant (for its first home video release). It was a co-production of the South Korean Kukje Movies and Lee Ming Film Company and Worldwide Entertainment (USA). It was filmed with 3-D effects. I saw it in 2-D and you could tell when those effects were on the screen.
Not unlike later Asylum productions, A*P*E was a mockbuster. It hit the theaters about the same time as the Dino De Laurentiis remake of King Kong. Here’s the IMDb synopsis:
A newly discovered 36-foot gorilla escapes from a freighter off the coast of Korea. At the same time an American actress is filming a movie in the country. Chaos ensues as the ape kidnaps her and rampages through Seoul.
First up is Colossal, a 2016 film directed and written by Nacho Vigalondo and starring Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis. Though it was not a box-office success, this genre-bending independent film has received well-deserved critical acclaim. Here is the synopsis from the Internet Movie Database:
Gloria is an out-of-work party girl forced to leave her life in New York City, and move back home. When reports surface that a giant creature is destroying Seoul, she gradually comes to realizing that she is somehow connected to this phenomenon.
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
Hathaway’s performance as Gloria shows what a great actress she is. We see her reckless party-girl, her subservience to her boyfriend, her eagerness to accept charity from Sudeikis’s Oscar, her fear of him, and, finally, triumphantly, her taking responsibility for her life and the incredible situation she has found herself in.
Sudeikis is mildly scary as bar-owner Oscar, who has wanted Gloria since they were kids. He becomes malevolently scary when he learns that, just as Gloria controls the giant lizard-like monster across the ocean, he controls a giant robot. Their final confrontation is masterfully played and made for a satisfying ending.
The movie is light on giant monster scenes, but that’s okay. This is not a monster versus monster movie. This is a movie about people making bad choices and being needlessly cruel, and how at least one of them can get her life back and back on track.
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
Colossal is a keeper. It’s a film I’ll watch again. Though it’s been panned by the usual amateur online critics - you know, the ones who have never created anything themselves - I’m confident it will be considered a classic in the years to come.
Every time I think there couldn’t possibly be any more 1970s/1980s Jaws ripoffs I haven’t seen, I stumble across...you guessed it...a 1970s/1980s Jaws ripoffs I haven’t seen. Originally titled Great White, The Last Shark [1981] is an Italian movie directed by Enzo G. Castellari and starring James Franciscus and Vic Morrow.
It did well at the box office, grossing over $18 million in its first month in the United States. However, its North American release was later blocked after accusations of plagiarism of Jaws. Here’s the IMDb synopsis:
James Franciscus tries to save hundreds of swimmers in a coastal resort after a Great White Shark starts terrorizing the area.
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
Franciscus plays author Peter Benton. Morrow is crusty Ron Hamer, a professional shark hunter. Joshua Sinclair plays Mayor William Wells, who is running for governor and who won’t cancel his city’s wind-surfing regatta. You can guess how that works out for him and his constituents. But not completely.
After Benton’s daughter loses a leg to the shark, Wells goes after the shark in his helicopter. Which is more than the mayor of Amity ever did. The shark eats him and his helicopter.
Benton and Hamer plan to blow up the big shark with dynamite. Hamer straps a belt holding dynamite around his waist. The great white attacks Hamer from behind. The hunter gets tangled up in a line and dragged to his drowning death by the shark. Still feeling peckish, the shark attacks a slab of ribs tied to a dock, taking the whole dock and those unfortunates on the dock with him. It dines on the idiot who tied the ribs to the dock and the TV cameraman ordered to film what he thought would be the shark’s capture. But, wait, isn’t it about time to blow up the shark?
Benton feeds Hamer’s body to the shark. The author is holding the detonator for the dynamite that’s still strapped to Hamer’s waist. Shark go all boom real good.
Benton punches an obnoxious TV reporter. If you had seen that guy and sat through this movie, you’d want to punch someone, too.
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
The Last Shark is worth watching once, but only if, like me, you’re obsessive about seeing shark movies. If you’re looking to get real hammered while watching it, play a drinking game over how often it imitates Jaws. Not for lightweight imbibers of alcoholic beverages.
I know it as Zombiesaurus [2017], which is what it’s called on the Region 2 DVD I bought, but its actual title seems to be Z/Rex: The Jurassic Dead. According to the box art, “There is only one thing worse than zombies on the loose...” After watching this movie, I’m assuming that refers to the movie itself.
Because thinking about the movie might trigger anxiety over the 82 minutes of my life I will never get back, I’m just gonna copy the back cover synopsis:
A militia unit, led by “Cuchilla” Vasquez (Raquel Pennington, UFC “The Ultimate Fighter”), Duque Wayne (Andy Haman, USA Freestyle Wresting Champion) and “Stick” Howard (“American Ninja Warrior”) must team up with a group of tech-nerd millennials after the United States is struck by ab Electromagnetic Pulse asteroid attack. The group are trapped inside a labyrinth compound by Dr. Wokick Borge, a maverick scientist and political terrorist, responsible for the attack. This was just the beginning as the Evil Doctor now looks to unleash his ultimate killing machine, the ZOMBIESAURUS. This bio-engineered ultimate zombie dinosaur, is the complete predator. It either destroys or infects anything that gets in its way. The unit must find a way of stopping the doctor and his killing machine before all mankind is wiped from the face of the earth.
I would give you spoiler warnings if I could remember enough of the movie to spoil it for you. I have a vague memory of waiting for the good parts. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. The movie was released in the United Kingdom in June of this year. It has not yet been released in the United States. I suggest Trump move all funding from his Mexico wall and, instead, build a wall to keep Zombiesaurus from our shores.
A*P*E [1976] is pretty much a cheap South Korean knock-off of King Kong. It was known as King Kong’s Counterattack in South Korea, but has also been released as Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla (for a 1982 grindhouse re-release) and Hideous Mutant (for its first home video release). It was a co-production of the South Korean Kukje Movies and Lee Ming Film Company and Worldwide Entertainment (USA). It was filmed with 3-D effects. I saw it in 2-D and you could tell when those effects were on the screen.
Not unlike later Asylum productions, A*P*E was a mockbuster. It hit the theaters about the same time as the Dino De Laurentiis remake of King Kong. Here’s the IMDb synopsis:
A newly discovered 36-foot gorilla escapes from a freighter off the coast of Korea. At the same time an American actress is filming a movie in the country. Chaos ensues as the ape kidnaps her and rampages through Seoul.
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
Picture King Kong if it started after the classic monster had been captured on Skull Island. The giant ape escapes from the freighter carrying it to South Korea. It fights a laughable Great White shark and then moves inland. Where it fights an equally laughable giant snake. It smashes a village or two and then comes across American actress Marilyn Baker [played by Joanna Kerns, best known for her role as Maggie Severs in the TV series Growing Pains and, in this movie, credited as Joanna DeVarona.]
The ape snatches Kerns, but she escapes with the assistance of her horny American boyfriend Tom Rose [Rod Arrants]. There are several other actors in the cast and they are all terrible. Even the movie
Kerns is appearing in is terrible. It seems to consist mostly of an unconvincing rape scene in which the director keeps yelling at the actor playing the rapist to be more rape-y but more gently rape-y. If the giant ape prevented that movie from being made, we owe him a debt of gratitude.
The ape tracks Kerns down to the home of a Korean police officer. He wrecks the surrounding village to get the actress. In doing so, it’s possible he kills the officer’s wife and young children. They aren’t seen again.
The combined American/South Korean forces decide the actress would be acceptable collateral damage. They start shooting missiles with visible wires at the ape. The ape releases Kerns.
The ape dies. Kerns wonders why he had to die, which explains why she was making the rape movie. She’s an idiot. Arrants says “He was just too big for a small world like ours.”
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
SPOILERS AHEAD
Picture King Kong if it started after the classic monster had been captured on Skull Island. The giant ape escapes from the freighter carrying it to South Korea. It fights a laughable Great White shark and then moves inland. Where it fights an equally laughable giant snake. It smashes a village or two and then comes across American actress Marilyn Baker [played by Joanna Kerns, best known for her role as Maggie Severs in the TV series Growing Pains and, in this movie, credited as Joanna DeVarona.]
The ape snatches Kerns, but she escapes with the assistance of her horny American boyfriend Tom Rose [Rod Arrants]. There are several other actors in the cast and they are all terrible. Even the movie
Kerns is appearing in is terrible. It seems to consist mostly of an unconvincing rape scene in which the director keeps yelling at the actor playing the rapist to be more rape-y but more gently rape-y. If the giant ape prevented that movie from being made, we owe him a debt of gratitude.
The ape tracks Kerns down to the home of a Korean police officer. He wrecks the surrounding village to get the actress. In doing so, it’s possible he kills the officer’s wife and young children. They aren’t seen again.
The combined American/South Korean forces decide the actress would be acceptable collateral damage. They start shooting missiles with visible wires at the ape. The ape releases Kerns.
The ape dies. Kerns wonders why he had to die, which explains why she was making the rape movie. She’s an idiot. Arrants says “He was just too big for a small world like ours.”
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
Watch A*P*E once, but only if you can watch it for free. It’s one of those films where you have to experience the awfulness to truly appreciate pretty much every other giant gorilla movie you’ve ever seen.
A*P*E runs 86 minutes and was reportedly made on a budget of just $23,000. In some dubbed versions, the ape is actually called King Kong. Apparently, identity theft has been a problem for longer than I realized.
That’s it for today’s bloggy thing. I’m going to be writing about my recent TV viewing tomorrow. See you then.
© 2017 Tony Isabella
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
SPOILERS OVER
Watch A*P*E once, but only if you can watch it for free. It’s one of those films where you have to experience the awfulness to truly appreciate pretty much every other giant gorilla movie you’ve ever seen.
A*P*E runs 86 minutes and was reportedly made on a budget of just $23,000. In some dubbed versions, the ape is actually called King Kong. Apparently, identity theft has been a problem for longer than I realized.
That’s it for today’s bloggy thing. I’m going to be writing about my recent TV viewing tomorrow. See you then.
© 2017 Tony Isabella
Just wondering if you've ever seen/reviewed The Mighty Peking Man, aka Goliathon, aka The Colossus of Konga?
ReplyDeleteScott Lovrine
Not yet. I'll keep an eye out for it.
ReplyDelete