May 2009

THE FILMS OF BERT I. GORDONNobody ever wanted to sell you a ticket to the drive-in more than Bert I. Gordon.Even in a decade of film making known for rabid pursuit of naked revenue, where directors and producers like Roger Corman (The Day the World Ended), Richard Cunha (Frankenstein’s Daughter), and Herman Cohen (I was a Teenage Werewolf) reigned like whirling monarchs virtually mugging an audience for ticket money, Gordon was a forced to be reckoned with. There is a perfect moment of Gordon Zen in Attack of the Puppet People (1958) which perfectly captures the maestro’s giddy zest for self-promotion: Bob Westley (John Agar), salesman from St. Louis, has decided to pop the question to Sally Reynolds (June Kennedy). He takes her to see a film at Rosecrans Drive in Theater. We see the marquee displaying the tag line of another Gordon movie that was out the same year as Puppet - “Amazing Colossal Man – 60 foot Giant Gone Mad!” We watch over the couple’s shoulder a critical scene from Colossal – that is, we are watching a Bert I. Gordon movie, in which we watch a couple watching a Bert I. Gordon movie. Just to cement the moment, Sally asks Bob, “Did you pick this show for any particular reason?” Bob, unable to tear his eyes away from the screen and all its wonders, answers, “I get tired of the same things all the time, don’t you?”The scene continues with the actors in Puppet having to fight for attention against the interspersed moments from Colossal, even having to speak their lines between the rantings of Lt. Col. Manning - the amazing colossal man. Eventually Bob does ask Sally to marry him, but even that is done in between moments of tension from Colossal as the actors in Puppet can’t take their eyes of the screen for anything but brief moments. And, of course, any scrap of human drama or sentiment has been blissfully crushed in Gordon’s shameless bid for ticket sales – the moment so crass and so self-referential as to produce a kind of vertigo; like watching a mirrored reflection of a mirrored reflection, telescoping into infinity. They called Bert I. Gordon many things: Mr. B.I.G. (for both the monogram of initials and his affection for rear projection whereby men and insects could be economically made huge); Schlockmeister, Penny-Pincher, Money-Grubber, Director, Producer – but they never called him over budget, that’s for goddamn sure; and they never called him an artist, either. Not that he would have cared a rat’s ass at any rate about being called an artist (being called over budget would have driven him into a killing rage, though). Artist? Please. Fella, do you know what an “artist” pulls down a year? Shit. That’s what they make per annum. Shit. Zip. Bupkis. They starve, most of them. You want art, go to a museum. I got a wife and a little girl to feed.Bottom Line? As long as you bought a ticket, you could call Bert Gordon whatever the hell you liked because you’d already bought into his game, anyway. Gordon was all about ticket sales, and he specialized in broad strokes, big story concepts you could sketch out on a dinner napkin, and moving pictures projected on white walls as big as a two story house. Artist? I got your artist!So, a serious, critical retrospective of Gordon’s work playing at the art houses in New York is not something I would hold your breath for, and the sleek Criterion Collection treatment of War of the Colossal Beast may be a long time coming (God, for that I would pay $29.00). As of this writing, Gordon’s work has been the basic diet for the vile Mystery Science Fiction Theater 3000. Gordon does have, however, a loyal fan base that love his movies without an over-cute, smarmy commentary track, regardless of their lack of critical recognition and obvious lack of scholarly attention. Why is that? Well, I’m one of those fans, and I can’t think of a quick answer. Let’s see if we can make sense of it - flesh this thing out a bit.I have found Gordon highly watchable at his worst and best, for very different reasons. First, let’s look at Mr. Gordon’s output when time and money ruled the roost.In his worst films, often the raw pursuit of ticket sales caused a Gordon film to shame itself in an effort to please: witness the immortal moment in Earth Vs. the Spider (1958) when a dead, giant spider (killed by gallons and gallons of DDT sloshed around by sheriff deputies like kids at a pool party) is stored at the local high school gym; and subsequently revived by the decibel level of an impromptu jam session by the local garage band (Swing it, cats!). Or, similarly, in Attack of the Puppet People (1958) Laurie (Marlene Willis), shrunken victim of the insane doll maker, apropos of very little, decides to sing “You’re My Living Doll” to her shrunken boyfriend, Stan (Ken Miller, the actor portraying Stan, is reduced to standing beside Marlene Wills, mugging and grinning like a pet puppy. Miller, while remembering Gordon fondly, has called this the most humiliating film experience of his career. “I wanted to crawl under the giant telephone,” recalled Miller in a 1998 interview with Tom Weaver).In treasured moments like these, dramatic tension, not to mention anything resembling plot integrity, is completely sacrificed for a single scene the kids at the drive-in would presumably go for. Gordon didn’t understand teenagers well and badly underestimated their appreciation of a film. His own daughter, Susan, was around 7 or so when Gordon’s most beloved and famous films were produced. This is interesting because the teenagers in a Gordon film rarely behave like teenagers; that is – as young people struggling with raging sexual desires, social displacement, and anger (so well portrayed in Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause – 1955). No, in a Gordon film, the “teenagers” either behave like odd, delirious children (as in the scenes mentioned above), or odd, stuffy adults; like the teenage couple in Spider, Mike and Carol. Carol (June Kenney) begins the film concerned for her father, who “didn’t return home last night” seeming more maternal than daughterly. As for Mike (Eugene Persson); when facing death and thinking about his father, remarks calmly “ah, he’s a pretty good Joe. He’ll be alright, I guess." (steady there, son. Try to get a grip on yourself). Gordon wasn’t the only film-maker of the era hoping to cash in on the newly-burgeoning teenage drive-in market and managing only to misread an entire demographic. In The Blob, (Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.) which came out the same year as Earth Vs.The Spider (but had a much larger budget), such an obvious effort was made to kowtow to the teenagers in the audience the film turns young people into dull, dignified adults and somehow much better equipped emotionally to handle crises that the town’s law enforcement officials, several of whom are Korean war veterans.One of the things that shaped a Gordon production was the rip-snorting speed of the shooting schedule. According to wife, Flora (who assisted on many pictures), all of the films that make up the Gordon fifties oeuvre were done in ten days or so, fifteen tops. In addition, the budget for most of Gordon’s output for this period was approximately $50,000 per. While these time and money constraints were not un-typical for several film-makers of the period (Roger Corman, in his autobiography, How I made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, boasts of shooting Little Shop of Horrors in two days), it did force a director/producer to establish priorities. In films like The Last Woman on Earth (1960) and The Day the World Ended (1955), Corman relied on a network of social tension and character conflict to propel his movies. For Corman, effects were of marginal importance and often look it. With Gordon, the concentration was on action, swift pace, and his beloved “special technical effects.” Often (but not always as we will see in part II of this post) many of the elements of quality film-making were sacrificed in the rush; like character back story, plot development, or a good (or even coherent) script. This often had the unusual effect of a created world void of human resonance; a cold, bloody but bloodless universe lacking the emotional depth of a warm reality. Take, for example, the vision of the city landscape in Earth Vs. The Spider after the attack, with damage hysterically out of proportion to anything any arachnid, regardless of size, would seem capable of. The city appears as though blighted by nuclear devastation; with burned out cars and blowing trash, buildings broken and gutted, and an orphaned, bloody baby crying among the debris of the abandoned streets. This baby simply appears screeching for a presumably dead mother, a horrible touch in a piece of stock footage from God knows what movie or (heaven forbid) real disaster. There is no effort in Spider to explain his abandonment or suggest any eventual safety. This wailing, blood-covered baby is left on its own, merely a detail of the holocaust. To actually make the baby safe or suggest some unique identity for the infant would have taken additional lines of dialogue or perhaps an extra shot or two. In other words, money and time, both in very short supply on a Gordon set. In scenes of rampage like this one, characters in a Gordon production never seem connected particularly to the actual carnage. Scenes of stock footage are interspersed between characters talking in a room, their clothes unwrinkled, as they discuss the tragedy in voices suggesting mild agitation. The effect is like watching an awful car wreck where no one seems particularly moved by the torn cars and bodies but yourself.Or take the rather heartless treatment and startling lack of sympathy afforded the principal attractions in both The Cyclops (1957) and War of the Colossal Beast (1958). Both films borrow heavily from one of Gordon’s best movies, the aforementioned The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) in which a man, exposed to enormous levels of radiation, grows to enormous size. Cyclops, which served as a kind of warm up to the huge, bald man in a diaper theme, has Susan Winter (Gloria Talbott) forming an expedition to search the mountains of Mexico where her fiancé (Bruce Barton) has vanished in a plane crash. The mountainous area, however, is host to a massive uranium deposit, however, that has irradiated Susan’s fiancé into a 50 foot, deformed creature with a partially-exposed face and one, single eye; and a ruined brain (he/it can barely remember her or his passed life, reduced to only growls and screams). Once discovering that her fiancé is a huge, mutated “monster,” Susan doesn’t explore the possibility of aiding her betrothed for more than a moment, and seems able to handle any grief very effeciently. Even though the admittedly no longer handsome giant never seems to do anything particularly threatening other that romp around and make loud cries of pain and anger, Susan becomes quickly resolved in destroying him and/or fleeing back to the expeditions’ plane for a safe exit.His need for extermination is self evident by the horrid spectacle he has become. Before the unfortunate Mr. Barton will be gratefully released from his torment by death, our expedition (which was organized to save him) will stab his single eye out, splattering blood and eye gore all over his massive face, sending him in heart-wrenching screeches of pain (heart wrenching for us viewers, that is. The characters on film are delighted with the monster’s torture). The film ends with the male lead, Russ Bradford (James Craig), turning Susan’s face from the spectacle of her dying fiancé, who has collapsed dead from exhaustion and blood lose, as their plane speeds back to a world of normal, handsome people (particularly gripping in these last scenes is the horrid spectacle of the monstrous, deformed, blind Barton, reaching at the plane as it speeds away over him, leaving him to die sightless and alone. The film is constructed in such a way that it is meant to look like the beast is clawing at the escaping plane, hoping for destruction, but considering the blind, near death condition of the creature, it looks for all the world like Barton is gesturing and crying out for help in his dying spasms). As is typical with a Gordon film of this vintage, spectacle and action trump character development and script. In the end, Susan is simply fleeing a monster with the rest of the mercenaries of the expedition; far too easily consoled by the new man in her life. Any other resolution would have required a different focus and a different set of priorities. Gordon clearly believed that brutal action sold more popcorn and soda than a complex love story, however, so Barton dies alone and blind, his massive body left to rot over the radiating bed of uranium in the mountains of Mexico.In War of the Colossal Beast (1958), Gordon was propelled by the success of Amazing Colossal Man the previous year to bring poor Lt. Col. Manning back to life after his horrible execution and fall into the rocky gorge at Hoover Dam. The fall has crushed Manning’s face, though, turning it into a horrible jigsaw of mashed bone, exposed teeth and skull, and gaping eye socket. It also has left him with some sort of wretched brain damage as well, and the unfortunate beast spends most of the movie strapped down in the hangar of a military base, wailing pitifully, while his sister and officials try to figure out what the hell to do with him. In the original Colossal Man, the fiancé was played with great passion and force by Cathy Downs. For the second film, Manning’s sister is the voice of concern, played by Sally Frazer, who is given several thankless lines of token sympathetic dialogue but doesn’t even begin to breath any real life into the part. She simply wants to go on record, it seems, to suggest officially that something should be done to help her husband. She seems as relieved as anyone when Manning meets his final end.In these films, which are not Gordon’s best by any means, we still find something that makes them watchable, and that is pace. If Gordon did anything consistently right, it was film editing and story pace. A Gordon picture, regardless of dotty science, erratic moments, or shameful self-promotion, never ever dragged. In this he was the cinematic equivalent of another 1950’s pop culture artist, Mickey Spillane. Spillane was not a great writer, and many would argue he wasn’t even a good writer – but no one ever left a Mike Hammer adventure feeling cheated, and damn few could resist the urge to turn the pages (myself included). Spillane, like Gordon, enjoyed action and the raw spectacle of violence. And a final and very important trait the two Atomic Age personalities had in common – they both made their living at what they did. They loved it, sure, but it was primarily their meal ticket, and neither man liked living cheap or hungry.The absolute worst of Gordon is surely King Dinosaur (1955), which is the best example of the kind of twisted, soulless spectacle a film can become when all is surrendered to the need to make a fast, cheap film that sells tickets and popcorn. It is not possible to discuss Gordon and his faults and glories without discussing his one complete and utter misfire.I despise the “so bad it’s good” school of film appreciation (or depreciation), but in the case of Dinosaur it is hard to argue for a different approach. It is not possible to watch this film without repressing a groan or even – yes, it must be said – a laugh. If any film in the history of cinema was comprised of more stock footage, I would like to know about it. At least the first 4 or 5 minutes of the film is pure stock, and much of the dinosaur and wooly mammoth footage throughout comes from One Million BC (has there ever been a film more tapped for footage that BC?). In the case of Dinosaur, a plot summary tells every nuance of the tale: Astronomers have discovered another planet in our solar system – Planet Nova. A team of four scientists (Team Nova!) are assembled to investigate. They discover a prehistoric planet on which there is an island inhabited by dinosaurs (extremely unlucky iguanas and monitor lizards with horns and fins attached). Our scientists decide to blow up the island with a nuclear device just to be on the safe side; walking casually back to their space ship as a mushroom cloud towers over the island. Both the unfortunate reptiles as well as the unfortunate female stars take a terrible beating in this film as overenthusiastic actor Douglas Henderson, playing Zoologist Richard Gordon, is terrifyingly physical in his performance; knocking his female co-stars around like helpless sparring partners – all under the guise of “moving them out of harm’s way.” In one particularly startling scene, Henderson pushes actress Patti Gallagher back (so that he can get a clean shot with his rifle) with such force she gives her head a crack against a piece of overhanging rock wall (you can see the actress say “ouch” and clutch instinctively at her head as her hair flies around). Along with his pushing and shoving, Henderson barks orders at the ladies with an odd irritation in his voice throughout the picture - a grating, acidic tone certainly not required for the part; all of which leads a viewer to the sad conclusion that either Henderson was not pleased with his casting or was simply a misogynistic prick behind the cameras as well as in front of them.You doubt me? Watch the scene I have provided below. In it, we have our four scientists scrambling to safety behind a short ridge before the atomic bomb detonates. Actress Wanda Curtis, playing Doctor Patricia Bennett, slips and falls rushing up the rise, so Henderson grabs her by the ankles and flips her over backwards – just to bring her to safety, you understand. This film was Ms. Curtis’ only film appearance, and I can’t say I blame her. Where I her, I would have had enough of Hollywood and all its glamour after this torture test myself. It is a sad comment on Dinosaur that the only thing that makes it memorable, albeit in a grim and ugly way, is Henderson’s oddly unrestrained cruelty throughout. Watch and weep.In this post we have examined how Gordon’s love of speed, action, and self promotion could result in some very brisk, surreal viewing. At his very worst, nearly everything was sacrificed for cheap, quick spectacle. There was a skilled film-maker there, however, lurking under (or perhaps watching over) the ticket hawker; an artist that knew his craft.Oops. Did I call Mr. B.I.G an “artist?” Well, yes. I did. In my next post, The Cheap, Fast World of Mr. B.I.G. Pt. II, we will discuss his finest film: The Beginning of the End (1957), and I will explain further. – Radiation Cinema!

ATTACK OF THEGIANT LEECHES (1959)Directed by Bernard L. KowalskiStarring:Ken Clark – Steve BentonYvette Vickers – Liz WalkerBruno VeSota – Dave WalkerJan Shepard – Nan GreysonMichael Emmet – Cal MoultonGene Roth – Sherriff KovisBernard L. Kowalski’s 1959, Attack of the Giant Leeches is a dank, bleak nightmare, a true descent into a world that drips black swamp water from hanging moss and stinks of fetid rot and blood; a universe where everyone has a slime of fear sweat. Overlooked and completely dismissed by critics since it’s release, it seems forever destined to be cast into the dreaded “cult classic” category (if that fortunate), doomed to the hell of the Wall-Mart bargain bin. It deserves far more, as do its director and cast. Filmed in the Florida swamps, a true land of massive heat and prehistoric visions, Giant Leeches has a very familiar premise to fans of atomic age sci fi: typically benign creatures, in this case a pair of leeches, have been turned to giants by radiation- in this case from the nearby rocket station at Cape Canaveral. These leeches have also become intelligent as well, attacking the sad denizens of the swamp only when they have an advantage.Our story opens with a poacher, Lem Sawyer (George Cisar) tooling his flat bottomed boat through the reeds of the swamp, checking his otter traps. He sees something odd near a weedy bank, something large and dark. He squints for a moment, then his eyes go large and white as the creature makes a hideous sort of howling sound. Without any further hesitation, Lem grabs his lever-action 44-40 off the boat seat and just keeps working the lever until the magazine is empty. The thing, apparently completely unharmed, slips away under the thick sludge of the swamp and vanishes. Lem, breathing hard and blinking, takes a quick guzzle from a pocket pint and poles his way quickly back to shore.Once on solid ground, Lem hot-foots it to the local hangout: Dave Walker’s bait shop and dry goods store; and in the grand tradition of everyone that spots an alien or a monster in the movies, he can’t wait to blab hysterically to all his friends about it. True to form, his backwoods buddies assume he’s either gone crazy or was drunk (the latter being the favored assumption since every one of these peckerwoods seems to carry a jug around at all times). As the boys yuk it up, blaring jazz from a back room becomes so loud Lem shows a moment of irritation (how’s a man supposed to come off crazy as a shit-house-rat with all that racket going on?).“Hold on a second, Lem,” says Dave Walker (Bruno VeSota). He turns toward a room off behind the store’s counter. “Liz!” He barks. This gets him nothing but an uncomfortable silence. He turns to the door manfully. “You hear me girl?”We hear heels clacking casually over a wood floor, and Liz Walker (Yvette Vickers) makes her entrance. The tinkling piano of the unseen phonograph suddenly seems quieter as all the boys wipe their mouths and turn, stretching their necks like turtles, eyes growing round so as to absorb all of this vision they can. Liz is wearing a loosely adorned kimono bathrobe and plenty of leg and underwear, working a toothbrush in and out of her mouth. She leans back against the doorframe, looks at her husband coolly, and takes the brush out of her mouth. “What do you want now?” she asks him.Dave shoots a nervous glance at his sweat-stained amigos, but manages a mannish swagger as he walks over to his wife. “You have to play that thing so loud?” he says at high volume, then leans in closer and says softly. “What you wanna come out dressed like that for?”Again the toothbrush comes out. “Oh, don’t bother me,” says Liz, and turns on her heel and somehow manages, in only three strides, to give the boys another neck-stretching show as she moves back into the bedroom. “Liz—“ says Dave, but she’s gone. He stands there a moment, looking at nothing, then gathers himself and looks at this pals. “Someday, I’m gonna give that she-cat the whopping she’s been asking for,” he says loudly.The guys exchange glances, stifling grins. “Sure you are, Dave,” says Cal Maulton (Michael Emmet), who is obviously the bully boy, cock-of-the-walk. “Lay the law down to her. Show her who wears the pants around here.” A snuffled chuckle is heard, and Lem shakes his head and snorts openly.“I’ll be right back,” said Dave, pretending he hasn’t heard as he walks into the back bedroom.Once Dave is barely out of sight, Cal says, “Any whopping gets done back there, I’ll lay you a jug she’ll be doing it.” This gets moonshine-soaked guffaws all around, and then the boys get back to the business at hand; which is making a standing fool of Lem over this business of “octopus things.” Eventually, Lem - totally drunk now - staggers off to tend his otter lines and the party breaks up.In the back bedroom, we find Liz and Dave having words while Liz dresses to go “out” (by herself, that is). She expertly torments Dave, who is a good 10 years older and 100 pounds fatter than his cheetah-sleek wife, putting lotion on her legs and putting clothes on in a heated reverse striptease. “Don’t touch me, “ she snaps, as he succumbs with a trembling, seeking hand. “I’m your husband,” he says, “I’ll touch you any time I want.” But there is a pleading wish in his voice as he follows her around the room, his stomach at the foremost. “Where you going?” He demands, but it’s all air. “I’m going out,” she Liz as though she had just been asked the most stupid question ever phrased. “Maybe I’ll be back, and maybe I won’t.” Slam (looks like ol’ Cal just won himself a jug!).Meanwhile, out in the swamp, we find Game Warden Steve Benton (Ken Clark) and his girlfriend, Nan Greyson (Jan Shepard) searching for the very traps cracker poachers like Lem have littered throughout the soggy terrain. Girlfriend Jan is a Florida native (though, judging by her actually clean clothes and diction, clearly of a higher social strata than the previously seen customers at Dave’s General Store), and she warns him the locals aren’t going like having their trap lines confiscated. “You’re new here,” she tells her big, stalwart bo, “these people aren’t like other folks.” Steve, though, is obviously a terribly unimaginative, ramrod straight warranted officer of the Florida Department of Fish and Wildlife, and has dedicated his life to the preservation and protection of the land and it’s animals (yawn). He bushes away his girlfriend’s extremely valid concerns with a few “let ‘em try” comments then crushes his girl in an embrace. As Jan declares her love, we hear screams from somewhere off in the swamp; first a man’s – high and pitiful, then a woman’s (one of the many fine aspects of this movie is the sound effects throughout, particularly the screams. They actually sound filled with human terror and pain, that is, not theatrical at all, and very disconcerting). Steve grabs his revolver from the truck and he and Jan go dashing into the heavy brush.They find Liz Walker screaming her head off while Lem, or what’s left of him, clings to a tree. Lem has horrible lesions, bloody tears and round pits, all over his face and body (his clothes have been nearly stripped off) and is in some fish-eyed catatonic state (a particularly effective shot here as Lem stares briefly directly at the camera/us – a shot that shouldn’t work as well as it does). While Liz screams and screams, Lem slumps to the ground, deader than yesterday’s halibut.When Warden Benton dutifully makes his report to the local Sherriff, he gets his first taste of what his girl tried to warn him about. The local law, Sherriff Kovis (Gene Roth), has nothing but contempt for this interloping, snot-nosed warden from the State and doesn’t bother to interrupt his lunch. He sits hunched over his bowl of stew, barely taking his eyes of his seed catalog, while Benton demands an inquiry. Nope, says, Kovis around a mouth of possum gruel. Coroners’ Office called it death by misadventure, meaning a gator got him. Now, what say you go piss up a rope, young fella? But what about the sucker marks, pleads Benton to no avail. The Sherriff isn’t about to go sloshing around in the swamp for some gator that messed up a poaching, moonshiner like Lem Sawyer; and, not for nothing, the good Sherriff is not the sort of man who has a sympathetic ear for outlandish tales. After some heated words with the Warden, Kovis gets back to his bowl of stew and this season’s seed selection.Benton heads back to his girlfriend’s house and discusses things with Doctor Greyson, Liz’s father. While the men weigh the matter, Liz serves up some coffee. It’s decided that maybe Lem wasn’t such a ‘shine soaked fool after all, maybe he really did see something unnatural out there. In typically humorless fashion, our game warden swears to uncover the truth, even if he has to search “every backwater, channel, and wet spot in the swamp. If it’s there, I’ll find it.” (again: yawn). Benton and his wildly loyal girlfriend spend the next few days in a flatboat, poking through the weeds, their faces shiny with sweat (the actors, particularly the game Ms. Shepard, appear genuinely exhausted and uncomfortable, which isn’t hard to imagine. A short, personal note: I live in Florida and have spent afternoons in the swamp, in a flat-bottomed boat. I did this when I was younger. Much younger. Suffice to say, I will not ever have that pleasure again unless I am knocked unconscious and awake to the experience. If you watch this movie and think the film makers have overdone the sweaty, filthy look of all the locals, think again. You look like that before you’ve poled 20 feet from the bank).Back at Dave’s General Store, there’s trouble. Liz is tearing into her husband, while Dave stoically puts together an order for a customer. Her contempt is scorching, but Dave continues to tell her how much he loves her. This, of course, drives the curvy Liz into a nearly hissing frenzy. Actor Bruno VeSota is a tremendous frump, shuffling around the store, barely lifting either his voice or his eyes as he carries the carton of groceries out to his truck for delivery. He exits the store to the sound of merchandise clattering to the floor and his wife’s curses. Luckily, Dave’s best friend, Cal, is lounging around out front to comfort him. Trouble? Asks Cal helpfully. Ah, you know women, says Dave, nearly managing a scrap of dignity, they have to let their hair down sometimes. Yep, you sure know a lot about women, says Cal. Thanks, Cal, you’re a real pal - now I gotta make this delivery.Cal, naturally, is Liz’s lover, a responsibility he attends to promptly the moment Dave’s truck pulls away from the store. Inside, we find Liz waiting, leaning against a doorframe. ‘You want something, Cal?” she says. “I sure do, honey,” answers Cal.The two take a drive to a secluded patch of swamp and make love. Dave, though, has made short work of his delivery and surprises them with a double barreled shotgun. He walks the pair through the swamp and into the water, meaning only to scare them, but they are attacked and dragged beneath the warm, dark surface by the pair of giant leeches. In a great scene, the pair go down kicking and screaming while Dave, horrified, can only watch while stumbling backward in terror.The Sherriff and his deputies show up and, after listening to Dave’s story, simply arrest and all but lynch the browbeaten Dave for the murder of his wife and lover right there on the bank. The Sherriff’s men search the swamp for bodies, but find nothing. OK, Dave, demands the Sherriff, after you killed them, where did you stash the bodies? “I loved my Liz,” says Dave, his eyes still glazed with horror. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”“Sure, you loved her,” says Sherriff Kovis. “That’s why you chased her through the swamp with a shotgun.” Though lunkheaded, it’s hard to fault the Sherriff’s cynicism in this instance, although Bruno VeSota is so good as the pathetic Dave, we know his misplaced love for Liz was complete. Things descend sharply after Dave’s arrest. For starters, Dave hangs himself in prison with his belt, unable to free himself of the visions in is head. Also, poachers and fishermen begin to vanish at a fair clip, along with local deer and livestock. Coincidentally, all other life in the swamp, including gators, have vanished. In one of the film’s best set pieces, we discover the fate of the missing: They have been dragged below to an underwater cave, a pocket of rank, fetid air that exists somewhere near the swamp bank. Here, the leeches devour the victims slowly, their terrible round appendages sucking flesh and blood from the faces and bodies; turning Liz, Cal, and all the other unfortunates into living food sacks - no longer possessing the strength to do anything but wail in anguish as divots and rings of flesh are taken bit by bit (in one tremendous sequence, it even seems that one of the giant suckers, attached to the side of a victim’s head, is sucking the brains right through the ear canal). We see them in the dripping darkness, their white, bloodless faces nearly glowing in the dank luminescence, their weak howls echoing against the cavern’s walls.Above ground, Game Warden Benton, Doc Greyson, and Nan pursue a solution in their grim, plodding fashion. Displaying perhaps his backwoods Florida roots, Doc Greyson does come up with an idea pretty damn quick, and that is to toss enough dynamite into the swamp to turn the whole stinking shithole into a pit of steam. What this concept lacks in sophistication it more than makes up for in brute force, and Nan likes it. Under the circumstances, a few swamp rats, catfish, and gators are a price all concerned seem willing to pay. Not square-head Steve, though, who is a great big hunk of dull blonde if there ever was one. Benton has sworn to preserve and protect the wildlife of the State of Florida, blah, blah. Even Nan, who has sat on a hard boat slat and sweated through many a blouse for her man, looses patience. Steve’s stance is particularly rigid considering that, by all available evidence, all life either in or near the swamp is already gone.One afternoon Doc and daughter manage to slip a few sticks dynamite into the swamp, unbenounced to Benton (this despite Benton’s promise to arrest the Doctor if he uses explosives). Benton shows up just in time to watch a pair chalk-white bodies bob to the surface (the dynamite has dislodged them from the leech’s lair). A coroner quickly establishes that all the bodies, despite having been reported missing days ago, are all freshly dead and drained of blood. Steve forgets about the sanctity of rats and mosquitoes for a moment and theorizes that the leeches are keeping their groceries in underwater caverns. The Doc takes it a step further, figuring out that Liz Walker, the last person still missing, might still be alive – meat on the hoof, as it were.Steve and an old war buddy get some scuba and decide to investigate. While below, Steve is attacked by a leech and shoots a spear home (the leeches, when not actively sucking brains, seem fairly inoffensive at this first extended viewing – sort of like large, immobile trash bags). Steve comes back to the surface to get a fresh spear. Need any help? asks his buddy. Naw, says Steve, oddly confident considering the preceding carnage. I got this. While Steve is below the dead body of Liz Walker floats to the surface, and Steve’s pal pulls her white, bloodless body from the water and flops it into the boat like a net of fish.Meanwhile below, things are not going very well for Steve in round two. This time, the leeches (due to some clever editing) seem far more menacing, and Steve is battling for his life with spear and knife. He begins tugging frantically on the lifeline, which summons his buddy into the fray. The two just barley manage to flounder to shore with their lives. Steve, nearly suffering now from shock and covered in a blanket, has a complete change of heart regarding the use of dynamite. Screw the ducks and turtles. His only concern now is how fast can a charge be rigged up and is there enough explosives on hand to do the job good and proper. “It’ll blow the bottom out,” assures the war pal with a grin (I can’t find credits for the actor playing Steve’s war buddy, but he’s solid as a rock. His character seems to have missed the action of war and is having the time of his life).“Let her rip,” says Game Warden Benton, still huffing for breath, no longer concerned one little bit about reports, promotions, or egrets.The place erupts in a ball of swamp gas, the leeches float to the surface, and Steve and Nan exchange an obligatory embrace while war buddy grins. The End.And so, to the Good Stuff:Good Stuff, Pt. I: A Cast of CharactersSteve Benton, erstwhile Game Warden, and his dutiful sweetheart, Nan, are the heroic duo of this tale. They are also two of the dullest folks that every strode the globe and the film falls flat whenever they give yet another expository speech while paddling around or drinking coffee. This is a film that loves the little people, and Kowalski’s direction seems to spring to life whenever he has these filthy, sweaty corrupt character together in a scene. The torrid tale of Dave and Liz Walker, and Liz’s brutish swamp boy, Cal, seems to come straight from a 1950s pulp novel by Jim Thompson. “Honey,” says Cal, “You could tell me you killed your ma and your pa, and your whole family, and I’d still fight to protect you.”All three characters hold our attention, are well written and particularly well acted. Yvette Vickers, a screen immortal for her work in Attack of the 50 foot Woman, is the sex-soaked vamp here again, and she takes the part and runs with it straight across the finish line. Vickers wasn’t capable of giving a bad performance, and her commitment to any part she was given was complete. “You call yourself a man!” she howls at Cal, who blames her the moment Dave points a shotgun at his belly, “You and your muscles!” Vickers spits in his face like a frenzied cat. He smacks her in response, calls her a tramp. She gathers herself and spits on him again, putting her whole body behind it this time. In this scene, and others, her anger and pent up sexual power is nearly a tangible force, instantly turning her into the most interesting thing on the screen. Her voice flings insults and contempt like splashes of acid, and one wonders if her spit wouldn’t cause blisters. Yet when she tells her tale of bad husbands and bad luck to Cal, it rings true and touching. Great actress.In love with this leggy harpy is Dave, and actor Bruno VeSota gives us nothing short of an acting tour de force. As the husband and store owner, he is all pathetic subservience and desperate need under a thin veneer of swamp-cracker bluster. He has managed a showcase wife several levels above his station in appearance (Liz tells Cal that Dave is the first man that ever talked nice to her), and he is forever under the thumb because of it. But when VeSota, carrying a shotgun as though born with it in his hands, comes upon the unfaithful two stretched out on their private patch of grass, it is immediately clear the balance of control has shifted. “Get up,” he says darkly, shotgun pointed down at the pair. Cal tries a brief stab at bravado, but Dave shatters that like a windowpane with a shotgun blast that blows a hole in the swamp at Cal’s feet. Cal actually buckles at the knees in fright, and VeSota sends the pair running through the swamp, stumbling and falling, while he stalks them in measured, unhurried strides. While hunting, he calmly refills his side-by-side with double-ought buck, blasting the air now and then to keep the pair nimble. “Run!” he roars after them, his mouth a hate-torn slash in a full face close-up. “Run 'til you drop!”Finally Dave is through torturing the haggard pair and corners them at the swamp’s edge. By this time there is something positively demonic about VeSota, his eyes deep and black in his face, his mustache suddenly inky and satanic. Bully boy Cal is crushed into a yammering tear-stained wreck, simply begging in a hysterical whine for his life. “Get going,” says Dave, ordering them into the water, “or I’ll kill you where you stand,” The pair believe him 100%. They back up slowly, yelping all the way, until they are about hip deep in the slime and stink, and only then does Dave relent. He elicits a promise from Cal to leave the county in exchange for his life. As the two begin to make their way to shore, we see Dave’s face suddenly go blank in fear. “Oh, my God,” he mummers, gesturing numbly. “Behind you . . .look out.”Later, when being question by the heavy-jawed Sherriff (played perfectly by long time B-movie veteran, Gene Roth), VeSota has been reduced to a fat, scared baby with round eyes, words bubbling from him as he stands with his small, fleshy hands handcuffed before him. He is completely ruined in both mind and body and it is perfectly believable when we discover, as does the turnkey, his massive body hanging from a overhead pipe in the jail cell.The Good Stuff, Pt. II: The Nightmare Fever of the Swamp!If you have ever walked through a Florida swamp and had the sudden realization that your feet have sunk a bit into the black muck, and been made aware in a flash that all around you is more black muck with no high ground, you will have touched upon the nightmare potential that dwells in the cypress and Spanish Moss. Humans like us were never meant for the swamp. It is the place for things that never need firm ground, that can wallow like snakes and alligators in prehistoric sludge and rot, can slither or slide through it; that can actually eat and digest filth like snapping turtles and catfish; or suck blood from other living things - like mosquitoes, green bottle flies, and leeches. Humans simply drip sweat here, get terrible headaches, and try not to get eaten while they slap continually at the biting parasites. Every living tree or bush, every growth, seems to hang with a kind of grey-green heaviness as it is absorbed forever down into the corruption of the earth.The film makers of Giant Leeches capture this surreal reality admirably, particularly in the scenes of the leeches dining on their human stash in the underwater caverns. This is the swamp hyper-realized: a place without firmness or escape, stinking of dead flesh and vegetation – where the human soul is nothing – the transient human vessel simply a piece of matter, falling eventually into the mire. Faces loom white and shapeless from the darkness, mouths only black holes full of moans. No salvation. No reward – just meat and substance in a cycle of ever darkening evolution.Please watch this film and notice how the white shapes float through the black water. Let's watch this brief scene below for a taste of swamp culture, atomic age style! -- Radiation Cinema!

The long-awaited sequel to the Terminator trilogy was directed by McG, written by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris. Starring Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Helena Bonham Carter and Michael Ironside.

The plot: After the Judgement Day, John Connor (Christian Bale) is now the leader of the resistance. Well, one of the leaders. In fact he is not a leader – he’s a soldier that everybody listens to, but he’s still subordinate to the command center, which is somewhere on Earth, and in hiding. Mostly the resistance is busy shooting at targets of opportunity, but not very effectively. But at least resistance have got a lucky break – a way to disable the machines temporarily, which should give the resistance an edge in fighting the machines. Everything is set up now for a final attack on Sky-Net’s core, but John Connor finds out that Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) is actually taken prisoner by the machines and is held there at the machines’ base. John Connor must save his future father before the imminent attack on the machines, and he gets help from an unexpected friend – a cyborg.

The good:

1. Lots of action and chases.
2. Lots of CGI machines that nicely integrate with the environment, and rendered with a lot of attention to detail. Comparable to the Transformers.
3. Yes, they have hot pilot women with long hair and tight leather pants – and not playing hard-to-get either.
4. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton make a brief appearance too… in a way.
5. There’s some suspense there

The bad:

1. Lots of continuity problems.
2. Naturally for the genre problems with physics and logic.
3. Not clear where the cyborg came from – did he just come out of the dirt like Orcs in LOTR?
4. John Connor is listening to his mother’s tapes non-stop every day – looking for something he might have missed over the past 25 years of listening to them.
5. The cold-blooded and rational killing machines, the terminators, love to kill the main character as slowly as possible. Why can’t they just shoot him?
6. Everything was destroyed by the nuclear weapons, but there’s no nuclear fallout, the cars are full of fuel and the batteries are charged. Etc. Etc.
7. Too much growling and tooth-grinding

The summary: This is the least interesting of the terminators – the other ones were basically chase movies, but this one doesn’t have as much chase anymore.http://www.FeedBurner.com).gif" />If you liked this post, buy me a beerRelated posts:

• Angels and Demons (2009) mini review
• Amazon’s Blu-Ray Disk Sale
• AOL Radio compiles a list of Top-10 movie songs
• Review of “The Prestige” (2006) PG-13 130min
• 2008 Academy Awards

Copyright © 2008 Maxim (Digital Fingerprint: G-HGReEHdehe93492lsjd_12kjfa (74.125.94.82) )Send to Facebook Related posts

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Three-time World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali defeated almost every top fighter of the golden age of boxing and symbolized the sport for generations of fans. Now, ten of his acclaimed rivals pay tribute to perhaps the world’s most beloved and inspiring athlete in Facing Ali. From the moment he captured the gold at the [...]

Armored is a drama thriller movie starring Matt Dillon, Jean Reno and Laurence Fishburne. The story is about a crew of officers at an armored transport security firm, who found themselves in the middle of the ultimate heist against their own company. When $10 million on stake they willing to risk their lives. Armed with [...]

Land of the Lost is a Sci Fi comedy movie starring Will Ferrell as has-been scientist Dr. Rick Marshall. He sucked into one and spat back through time. Way back. Now, Marshall has no weapons, few skills and questionable smarts to survive in an alternate universe full of marauding dinosaurs and fantastic creatures from [...]

This movie is adapted from the famous cartoon series GI Joe. Paramount Pictures and Hasbro, whose previous collaboration was the worldwide blockbuster “Transformers,” join forces with Spyglass Entertainment for another extraordinary action-adventure “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.” From the Egyptian desert to deep below the polar ice caps, the elite G.I. JOE team [...]

They cannot die. They feel no pain. They hunger for human flesh. They are Revenants. Centuries ago, the Revenant known as Mot was worshipped as a God. Now, he walks the Earth in search for a purpose to his immortality - but when a secret society discovers a way to kill Revenants, Mot and his fellow immortals must make a choice: Hunt or be hunted.

Radical Publishing is proud to announce its newest title for August 2009: INCARNATE, created, written and penciled by Nick Simmons, son of rock

When Anna (Emily Browning) gets released from a mental institution, she figures she’s able to cope with the tragic death of her mother. You see, her mother died when Anna’s giant boathouse (or carriage house or guest house or whatever the hell it is) inexplicably blew up with her mother in it. Unfortunately, Anna doesn’t really understand the true nature of her problem. It’s not that her mother is dead. It’s that she had a giant boathouse in which her mother could get blown up.
Anna and her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) and their father, Steven (David Strathairn) live in some oasis next to a lake where there’s a main estate and then some giant extra house next to the lake, which is where Anna’s mother explodes, which is why I ask my tree falls in the forest question: “If you don’t have a boat house in the middle of nowhere and it explodes, does anybody hear it?” Basically, if you don’t have the social conceit to build the fucking boathouse in the first place, then you shift the chances that your invalid mother will explode in it to very near zero.
You’re probably wondering what precisely the “uninvited” is. Originally, I thought it was food. You see, the first time we see Anna and Alex lounging about their dock in their bathing suits, you think you’re watching some kind of emaciated zombie flick where the undead Alex tears an arm off her unsuspecting sister and proceeds to golf club some stuffed animal into the water except that her sister’s arm snaps in half from the torque of the swing because the fucking thing has the circumference of a piece of fucking twine.
Seriously, where do they get these girls? If they tried to fly to Ethiopia they wouldn’t be allowed in due to malnourishment. Normally, in a film like this one where titillating the audience is of primary concern and nubile teenage girls are walking about nearly naked either in swim clothes or nighties, their nipples are usually poking through their tops at every given opportunity. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen in this film because, I assume, Anna and Alex’s nipples are inverted because their bodies ARE FEEDING ON THEMSELVES.
Stylistically, “The Uninvited” has all the originality of a Catholic wedding. Seriously, one now goes back in the history of the PG-13 horror genre and wonders how the hell directors got along before the Japanese came by and introduced the idea of things moving inside garbage bags and pale little fucked up children haunting our dreams by staring at us funny and moving like some video game character whose console has a motherboard with a short circuit. Oh dear, whatever did we do prior to the body in a garbage bag scenario? Answer: R-ratings assholes.
And oh how I’m tiring of the movie that tells its story from the point-of-view of a character whose mental stability is questionable because inevitably the world as they see it isn’t really the world as it is. Such storytelling indulgences basically allow the director to do whatever the hell they want. In “The Uninvited”, Anna thinks that dad’s new squeeze, Rachael (Elizabeth Banks), is out to get them. How could Elizabeth Banks be out to get anyone? Nice casting. Banks looks as likely to put a gun in her own mouth before she’d step on an ant.
As if all this pretension wasn’t enough, when the credits rolled I got an eyeful of the directing credit, which read: The Brothers Guard. Who? Seriously? You direct some hack piece of PG-13 horror trash and suddenly you’re calling your directing duo “The Brothers Guard”. I get it. You’re two brothers with the last name Guard AND YOU’RE FUCKING COOL! Sure, the Wachowski brothers got away with this shit for a little while until they did the third “Matrix” movie and then everybody started laughing in their faces. A movie credit should read like a dinner reservation. Try telling the maitre d that you’re the “Brothers Guard” and after he’s pocketed your five-dollar bill and kicked you in the stones and left you writhing in the middle of the restaurant floor perhaps you’ll reconsider rejoining the human race with a regular name.
So, in a nutshell: “The Uninvited” – pretentious shit.

After a promising start in independent flicks, Matthew McConaughey quickly realized that the quickest way to cut to the head of the line leading to the Hollywood ATM was to squander his career on a series of roles that essentially involved him making bedroom eyes at the film’s leading lady and then taking off his shirt, over and over again.
In a sense, he is a genius. This simple sequence of events is all it takes to slide millions of 10 dollar bills out of the pocketbooks of his devoted female audience on a regular basis. McConaughey’s slick talking, easygoing demeanor has a similar vibe to that creepy uncle in your family that no one likes to talk about but who gets invited to all the holiday gatherings, except instead of sliding a single finger further and further up your shorts Matthew’s actually got his hand in your wallet.
Unsurprisingly, “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” doesn’t deviate from the standard McConaughey playbook. A tepid re-telling of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” instead of ill-gained riches the lead character finds himself knee deep in fast and easy pussy, a situation meant to help endear him to the reluctant boyfriends dragged along to this chick flick but which unfortunately only makes every man in the audience feel completely inadequate no matter how many MILFs they might have under their belt. In a surprisingly original turn for a major motion picture, it turns out that McConaughey actually still pines for the one that got away, played by a horse-faced Jennifer Garner who still inexplicably qualifies as a sex symbol despite having recently popped out 2 of Ben Affleck’s nasty, nasty spawn.
Set at his brother’s wedding and featuring Michael Douglas as the ghost of STD’s past, the film runs through the predictable “jackass success junkie ruins everyone’s good time” plot points and manages to disengage a viewer’s interest for almost the entire 100 minutes. A series of flashbacks allowed us to witness McConaughey’s chesty magnificence in a number of period disguises and costumes, most notably his late-90’s Fabio-esque hair explosion.
Sadly, during all of this, there are no tits to be found onscreen. This was particularly disappointing as one of the co-stars of the movie, Lacey Chabert, is right about now entering the downswing of whatever lingering fame her jailbait status on “Party Of Five” might have afforded her, which means that she is ripe for a career-affirming display of gratuitous nudity. Alas, we will have to wait for whatever drunken mogul mistakenly casts her in his next gritty film about the perils of marrying into a really rich family.
I can’t recommend that you go see “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” in the same way that I can’t recommend getting a vasectomy. Sure, initially both seem like a good idea, but in the end one leaves you swollen and sore and full of regret and the other involves waking up in surgical recovery room. I’ll let you figure out which one is which.

New tracks, new regulations, new cars: The DTM season 2009.

The Nick Simmons Incarnate signing at Meltdown Comics was a huge success, with countless fans getting Nick's signature on the Radical Publishing book Radical 2009.

Click on the thumbnails below to see full-sized versions of the images. The full set of pictures from the event can be found at Radical's MySpace and Facebook pages.

More: RadicalComics.com

Legendary rock god and multi-hyphenate Gene Simmons and his unconventional family are back and better than ever for an all-new season of A&E's hit unscripted series " Gene Simmons Family Jewels ," premiering with a special one-hour episode on Sunday, June 7th at 9:00 PM ET/PT. The 15-episode season kicks off with Sophie's sweet sixteen party, giving viewers an all access pass to the milestone celebration. When a case of sibling rivalry spirals out of control, Nick pulls on dad's heartstrings and

A&E has solidified its place as the fourth largest cable network among adults 25-54, continuing its phenomenal ratings growth behind the strength of the network's expansive slate of original series, both scripted and unscripted.

After a record year in 2008 across all key demos and beginning 2009 with the best quarter in network history, A&E is expanding its original programming slate with eight new scripted projects in development - including a mini-series from Academy Award® winner Kevin

Season two of the hit A&E original scripted drama series " The Cleaner ," starring Benjamin Bratt, Grace Park, Amy Price-Francis and Esteban Powell premieres Tuesday, June 23 at 10PM ET/PT. The second season will feature thirteen one-hour episodes.

In its first season, on a weekly three telecast cume basis, "The Cleaner" averaged 4.2 million total viewers, 2.4 million adults 25-54 and 2.2 million adults 18-49 in primetime, becoming the number one original drama in A&E history.

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