Everyone talks about Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, but nobody talks about this movie. I mean, it has Susan Tyrell — yes, from Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker and Forbidden Zone — as a miniature woman who is married to Kris Kristofferson. Why is nobody talking about this?
It’s also directed by Randal Kleiser (Grease, The Blue Lagoon) and produced by Debra Hill, two people who I would also never think would have anything to do with a Pee Wee Herman movie. Sadly, this was the second and last of what could have been an entire series of these films.
It’s also the debut of Benicio Del Toro, so why should any of these people make sense?
The idea of the film was that Pee Wee had become famous, due to the James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild film made from his last movie and now he is a Frank Sinatra-esque singer. Then, fame became a cruel beast and Pee Wee went away to live as a farmer. This is never explained other than an odd dream sequence, which is, I assume, all that remains.
Pee Wee and Vance the Pig (played by Wayne White, who helped with Pee-wee’s Playhouse and art directed the videos for Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” and the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight) were once content to make giant plants and romance a schoolteacher (Penelope Ann Miller) before the storm brings a carnival led by Mace Montana (Kristofferson).
Soon, our man — or boy — has fallen for Gina Piccolapupula (Valeria Golino), a trapeze artist who inspires him to be in the circus. When the town says no, Pee Wee uses a hot dog tree to turn them into children and…well, that’s the whole movie.
The montage when Pee Wee and Gina finally make love is something that still makes me laugh to this day. This is so much stranger than the first film while seeming normal, yet it has less of the whimsy of Tim Burton, so that hurts it.
Lynne Marie Stewart — Ms. Yvonne! — is a bearded lady, the one-time Henry and Predator Kevin Peter Hall shows up as a tall man (what else could he be?), Matthias Hues is a lion tamer, former Bozo Vance Colvig is a clown (and he was also in Mortuary Academy), Terrence Mann (Ug from Critters) is another clown, Franco Columbu (Arnold’s best man when he married Maria Shriver) is a strongman, Michu Meszaros (Hans from Waxwork and the man who played ALF) is a small person, Jay Robinson (Dr. Shrinker!) plays Cook, Kenneth Tobey (who shows up in plenty of Joe Dante films) is the sheriff, Leo Gordon (the Evil One in Saturday the 14th Strikes Back) plays the blacksmith, Frances Bay (Happy Gilmore‘s grandmother, plus Aunt Barbara in Blue Velvet) is Mrs. Haynes and former movie and kid host Jack Murdock is Otis.
You have to love that Pee Wee followed up his biggest career success with a movie about the circus filled with character actors. Of course, this made nowhere near its budget and that brings us back to today. No one ever talks about this movie. They should.
Known in Italy as 4…3…2…1…Morte, this Primo Zeglio-directed science fiction movie is based on the German book series Perry Rhodan by K.H. Scheer and Walter Ernsting.
Looking for radioactive material that can be more powerful than uranium, Major Perry Rhodan (Lang Jeffries, The Junkman, Spies Strike Silently) leads the four-man crew of the Stardust on a moon mission. There, he attempts to help Commander Thora (Essy Persson, Cry of the Banshee) save a scientist named Crest (John Karlsen, The Church). Of course, there’s a traitor, a crime lord, some robots and plenty of shenanigans.
You can watch it for yourself, as several copies are available on You Tube.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This movie originally ran on our site on January 27, 2020, back when we were doing two weeks of Satanic films. Seeing as how it was just re-released by Mondo Macabro, we’re bringing it back.
Sister Maria should be living the quiet and chaste convent life, but she has a fantasy world in which she runs free and wild, the servant of Satan. In our world, her acts of violent blasphemy are on the increase as she begins to realize that her job is to lead her sisters in Christ down the left hand path to Hell. The Devil has his hooves into Sister Maria and he isn’t going to let go.
Gilberto Martinez Solares also directed Santo and Blue Demon Against the Monsters, but there’s no way that will prepare you for this movie. I’d compare it — obviously — to Alucarda, a movie that it has similar themes to but less eye popping visuals. That’s not to say that this movie plays it safe, but man, it had a high bar to reach.
Sure, Maria is good with medicine and animals, but once she sees Lucifer — who tells her “Call me Lucifer. If you want me, just think of me, I’m everywhere.” — and eats the apple he offers, all Hell breaks loose. Where she once self-flagellated herself, now our heroine — I guess? — is making love to the other nuns when she’s not watching them hang themselves.
There’s also an interesting subplot about a black nun who is treated badly by everyone, including her Mother Superior, which seems a deep subject to tackle in a Mexican nunsploitation film. Also — lots of stabbing. And obviously, this is where Salma Hayek’s character in From Dusk Till Dawn got her name.
You can get the new blu ray re-release from Mondo Macabro, who were kind enough to send us this movie.
Mondo Macabro has been releasing several examples of Greek exploitation cinema lately, which is a genre I have only recently started to dip my toe into. This is directed by Kostas Karagiannis, who directed more than a hundred movies between 1961 and 1990, including Land of the Minotaur, The Wife Killer and Tango of Perversion.
Deborah Shelton, a former Miss USA and star of Dallas, Body Double and Sins of the Night, plays the captain’s wife. That’s right. That’s the only name she gets. When her husband is killed by pirates, she’s left alone with these rough and brutal men on the roughest of seas. That said, she’s not unafraid to use her body and cunning to stay alive and start to plan her revenge.
Set entirely on a ship carrying an illegal cargo of dangerous nitroglycerin, this film places all the many sides against one another. No one is blameless. No one is safe. Not many people have clothes on, either.
Complicating matters is that one of the film’s stars is named Kostas Karagiorgis, when the director is Kostas Karagiannis. Perhaps these names, in Greece, are as common as John Smith.
The original Greek title, Anomalo Fortio, translates as An Abnormal Load, which makes the 12-year-old in me laugh to no end.
You can get this from the fine folks at Mondo Macabro, who were kind enough to send us a review copy. It’s also available on their new site.
Last week, Bill and I watched The Deadly Spawn and Shock. You can watch the conversations that we had before and after each movie! We had a blast, as we always do, and can’t wait to see everyone Saturday night at 8 PM EST for week 4!
Ever seen License to Drive? That’s a Greg Beeman movie, too. This one, he got Jeffrey Jones, usually the villain, to play the heroic dad opposite Terri Garr. Of course it bombed. But it ended up becoming an HBO and video store favorite.
Emperor Tod Spengo (Jon Lovitz) rules the planet Spengo, the leader of idiots who have created a Super Death Ray Laser that will destroy our planet. That’s all before he fell in love with the aforementioned mother.
Once they arrive on Spengo, courtesy of the Magnobeam, Marge is waited on by servants with fish or dog heads, while Dick is stuck in the dungeon, where he meets Raff (Eric Idle), who is the real leader and goes into the desert to find his son White Bird and the rebels.
Jon Lovitz left Saturday Night Live to make this film. I’d compare it to Flash Gordon but you know, Jeffrey Jones instead of Sam J. Jones.
Man, team them up and throw in AIP producer James H. Nicholson, making one of two non-AIP pictures before he’d die, and you get some magic.
You don’t have to look up the other movie he produced. It was Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry.
Dr. Lionel Barrett is enlisted by eccentric millionaire Mr. Deutsch to look into life after death at the Mount Everest of haunted houses, the Belasco House. It was once owned by “Roaring Giant” Emeric Belasco, a huge pervert and millionaire who tortured and killed enough people at his home that it’s filled with ghosts long after his disappearance.
He brings his wife and two experts: mental medium and spiritualist minister Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin, Necromancy, Satan’s School for Girls) and medium Ben Fischer (Roddy McDowall!) who is the only survivor of the last time someone tried to get to the bottom of this house of secrets.
Fischer is soon battling not only the advances of Barrett’s wife, but also the spirits of the home, including Daniel, the son of Belasco. His ghost not only sexually assaults Florence, but then dumps a giant crucifix on her.
Man, the reveal of this movie is so berserk that I don’t feel like sharing it here, despite this movie come out a year after I was born. I’m old, so imagine!
There are some lessons here. Don’t go to haunted houses. Don’t neglect your wife sexually. And if a ghost cat attacks you, leave.
Shedding is a retro-magical fantasy with a narrative structure created through an inventive use of music, camera work, editing, and actor-body language that harkens the French New Wave movement of the late ’50s. Shedding is the story of a Panda, a bored house cat who longs to escape his life and go outside—and with the slight tinkling of a wind chime in the breeze, Panda gets his wish: he transforms into a human. And during his daylong journey in the outside world, he helps a grieving mother and daughter at odds over the loss of their son and brother, find peace.
The original festival one-sheetscourtesy of Jake Thomas.
If you haven’t guessed: Shedding isn’t an A-List Hollywood cute-cat movie starring Will Ferrell with an over-the-top interpretation of a human-cat romancing a career-driven Kristen Wiig and redeeming mom Lin Shayne’s broken soul. This is a film about, just what the title says: shedding. About shedding one’s pains, wants, and needs. About finding a “new coat” through coping and bonding with others—and finding an acceptance and “rebirth” in our lives.
As is the case with the works of Claude Chabrol (La Femme infidel), Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless), and Francois Truffaut (400 Blows) this feature film debut by Jake Thomas (award-winning shorts Blessed are the Peacemakers, One on One) is a film of subjectivity and ambiguity; an existential commentary on the human condition through the mind of a cat, the relationships animals have with humans, and how animals help humans deal with the emotions of loss and longing. It’s a film that, as the credits roll, you’re left wondering: Was it real or was it a dream. And if it was a dream, were the human’s part of the cat’s dream, or vice versa. Did the cat help the humans gain a better understanding of their lives, or the humans of the cat?
As we discussed in our recent reviews of the indie-minimalist masterworks The In-Between by Mindy Bledsoe, Wicca Book by Vahagn Karapetyan, Space by Monte Light, Same Boat by Chris Roberti, Double Riddle by Fernando Castro Sanguino, and Ghostby Anthony Z. James these modestly-budgeted tales from the John Cassavetes narrative school of filmmaking that focus on characters and story that are shot with handheld cameras, available lighting, and spontaneous actor improvisation isn’t easily digested by a mass audience—an audience that most likely dismisses the iPhone-based films of first-time filmmakers Jody Barton and James Cullen Bressack (For Jennifer) and have no interest in the recent low-budgeted, iPhone-shot works of multi-award winning director Stephen Soderbergh (Unsane).
Inspired by the likes of his fellow filmmakers who started their careers with low budget DIY feature films, such as Christopher Nolan (Following), Robert Rodriquez (El Mariachi), and Kevin Smith (Clerks), Thomas, who’s worked as a script reader and other various film disciplines for Lakeshore Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros., began crafting a “storytelling experiment” capturing footage of his cats on an iPhone with the intent of placing the audience in the mind of an animal protagonist. After pouring through the hours and hours of archival footage of his cats to weave a narrative, he then spent the next twelve days iPhone-shooting the second act of his live action fairytale that worked with a combination of script and actor improvisation.
The new December 2020 theatrical one-sheet courtesy of Freestyle Digital Media.
I know. I know. I keep coming back to Will Eubank analogies.
But it’s true: If Will Eubank was able to make the transition with his under-the-radar, low-budget science fiction dramas Love (2011) and The Signal (2014) to directing Underwater, a major motion picture for 20th Century Fox, the same good fortune will come to Jake Thomas.
It’s not the technology. It’s not the “cost” of the filmmaking tool. It’s the person behind the technology that creates great film. And Shedding isn’t just a great film—it’s an incredible film.
A quick meet-and-greet with director Jake Thomas.
On November 12, 2020, Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios, acquired the North American distribution rights. Shedding will be available to rent and own on DVD, digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms on December 8, 2020. You can follow the career of Jake Thomas and the film’s progress on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews and short stories of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.He also writes film reviews and analysis forB&S About Movies.
Disclaimer: We were intrigued by this film’s advance press and trailer and contacted the filmmaker for a review screener. As you can tell, the film didn’t disappoint.
Thanks for joining us at “The Francis” last weekend for our “Drive-In Friday: First Time Directors & Actors Night.” Tonight, we continue the theme of that night with four movies about those movies — well, two of them, anyway. And the last two feature Nicolas Cage — and we all know about The Cage’s unorthodox project choices. It’s why we are and always will be, his “bitch” (shameless plug: check out our “Nic Cage Bitch” love fest).
So let’s hook up the speakers, lite the coils, and pop the Orange Crushes!
Uh-oh. The tax bill came . . . and a developer is eye ballin’ my land for an office park. Are we closing?
For my previous installment of Drive-In Friday, we started off with Rudy Ray Moore’s feature film debut, Dolemite.
Say what you will about Moore’s celluloid “break” into the movie business, but his $100,000 investment grossed $12 million during the film’s initial release and, for what it’s worth, gave him the film career he always wanted. And he’d go on to repeat the success with his follow up films The Human Tornado, Petey Wheatstraw, and Disco Godfather.
Eddie Murphy, who would eventually become friends with Moore, had long wanted to bring a bio-flick on the ghetto renaissance man to the big screen. And Craig Brewer, who made his mark at Sundance with 2005’s Hustle & Flow, was able to honor a man that, as Snoop Dogg (who appears the film) and Ice T rightfully pointed out, is the “Godfather of today’s rap music.”
The nominations and awards for this Netflix production are too numerous to mention, but the fact that the National Board of Review and Time magazine choose this as one of the “Ten Best Films of the Year” tells you that this film — even if you’re not familiar with Moore’s oeuvre and his Dolemite persona — is worth your time. That and the fact the film was Oscar nominated for “Best Motion Picture” and Murphy for “Best Actor.”
And Dolemite Is My Name leads us to our next film on the schedule, which is, essentially, the blaxploitation-homage version of The Disaster Artist.
You can stream Dolemite Is My Name on Netflix-by-subscription.
Movie 2: The Disaster Artist(2017)
When Tim Burton released Ed Wood, his 1994 bio-flick homage to the man dubbed the world’s worst filmmaker, it opened up a whole new audience to a man that many heard of, but never made the effort to see his movies. And James Franco’s The Disaster Artist inspired the many who heard of The Room, but never saw it, to see it. Today, 20 years after its release, Tommy Wiseau’s passion project is the 21st century version of 1975’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show — and still plays in theatres around the world.
While the ineptitudes of Wood, Moore, and Wiseau are grossly evident, there’s no denying their passion and determination. Tim Burton and Eddie Murphy saw it in their subjects. And James Franco saw that same spark in Tommy Wiseau. So he optioned The Disaster Artist, Greg Sestero’s 2003 best-selling chronicle of his friendship with Wiseau and their making of The Room.
The nominations and awards for the film are too many to mention, but the fact that it’s Oscar nominated for “Best Adapted Screenplay” may — even if you don’t know or have any interest in Tommy Wiseau — pique your interest to watch what is, a really good movie. Bravo, Mr. Franco!
You can stream The Disaster Artist across all digital PPV and VOD platforms, along with a free-with-ads stream on FShareTV.
Intermission!
Back to the Show!
Movie 3: Adaptation(2002)
Did you hear the one where Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, and Nicolas Cage walked into a bar? Can you name a director, writer, and actor more unorthodox? Didn’t think so.
Look at Jonze’s resume: He blew us away with the meta-fest that is Being John Malkovich, Human Nature (which everyone hated, except me, natch), and gave us, count ’em, four Jackass movies — five, if you count the critically reviled Bad Grandpa (yes, which I liked . . . in a Freddy Got Fingered kinda way). Of course, Kaufman was the scribe behind Being John Malkovich and Human Nature, along with the even weirder (again, I pick the most-film inept chicks) Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (“Why did Jim Carrey do this?” she shrieked). And Cage? We be his “bitch,” remember?
This is freak-fest is pure meta. The screenplay is based both on Susan Orlean’s 1998 non-fiction best seller The Orchid Theif and Charlie Kaufman’s failed screenwriting assignment to adapt the book into a screenplay. Kaufman found the real life tale of the 1994 arrest of South Florida orchid poacher John Laroche “unadaptable,” so he wrote an exaggerated version that incorporated himself — and a fictional twin brother (both played by Cage) — into the screenplay. And the meta gets weirder: John Cusack, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich, and Spike Jonze (along with his cinematographer, Lance Acord) from Being John Malkovich re-create scenes as themselves on the set of Being John Malkovich.
Friggin’ awesome.
Kaufman thought the screenplay would ruin his career. It ended up sweeping the Oscars and the Golden Globes with multiple nominations and awards. And Nicolas Cage? He made us his bitch with this film . . . and the next film-within-a-film freakfest on tonight’s program: as a producer.
You can watch Adaptation as a free-with-ads stream on Crackle.
Long before “meta” became 21st century digital filmmaking de rigueur, there was this film-within-a-film account of German filmmaker F.W Murnau’s unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stroker’s Dracula.
While the vampire Count Orlok of Murnau’s 1922 silent masterpiece, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, was portrayed by German actor Max Schreck, the film plays up Schreck’s unorthodox Method Acting techniques. (By the way, Nicolas Cage produced this: and we all know his unorthodox methods to get into character.) Schreck would only appear amongst the cast and crew in makeup, would only be filmed at night, and would never break character on set. All which led the crew and actors under Murnau’s (John Malkovich) direction to believe Schreck is a real vampire.
No surprise: Willem Dafoe’s portrayal of Schreck as Orlok was nominated for a “Best Supporting Actor” Oscar.
And the meta on this gets even freakier — if you watch this alongside Werner Herzog’s Klaus Kinski-starring remake of Murnau’s film, 1979’s Nosferatu the Vampyre. Then Kinski took it one step further: he played the character one more time in the 1988 Italian-made Nosferatu in Venice, which co-stars Donald Pleasence and Christopher Plummer.
I’ve binged all four of these “Nosferatu” films back-to-back several times over the years — and it does screw with your mind. And it’s a chick repellent. And all four films come highly recommended, chicks be damned. (One day, I’ll meet a woman who can embrace silent film and Double K.)
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
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