Movie-A-Day #39: The Crucible (1996).
Two Winona Ryder films in a row? Hellz yeah! It was on this date in 1692 that a village doctor in Salem, Mass., first suggested that two young girls might have been the targets of malicious witchcraft. Within the course of the next few months, this spiraled out of control to become the notorious Salem witch trials. Arthur Miller’s 1953 play “The Crucible” the witch trials became a parable the anti-Communist fervor of the time, and his screenplay for Nicholas Hynter’s film version makes sure that message is still pertinent today – whether the targets are terrorists, “Obama socialists” or “teabaggers.”
Movie-A-Day #38: Black Swan (2010).
National Ballet Day is today. How does one celebrate the day? I don’t know, maybe with a little dancing – just as long as one doesn’t give into the psychosis of a rapidly fracturing psyche. “Black Swan” is an Oscar favorite this year and really is worth seeing. It’s probably even still playing a theater near you.
Movie-A-Day #37: Any Given Sunday (1999).
It’s Super Bowl Sunday. Outside of Independence Day, this is the closest thing we have to a true national holiday, a day when a huge swath of the population – regardless of race or religion or income – stops everything to focus on a single event. There are plenty of good football themed movies out there, but Oliver Stone’s “Any Given Sunday” is my favorite. Sure, it’s overwrought (but in a good way) and the non-NFL licensed apparel looks silly. But it’s got a great cast and Pacino’s halftime speech is a stone cold classic. Try to squeeze in some time to watch this around your viewing of the big game today.
Movie-A-Day #36: Chained for Life (1951).
Today marks the birthday of conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, who became vaudeville sensations as a song-and-dance team starting as teenagers in the 1920s. They made two film appearances, as part of the lurid sideshow cast of Tod Browning’s “Freaks” (1932) and as the stars of the exploitation cheapie “Chained for Life.” In the latter film, the plot involves one of the twins murdering the husband of the other, but it was essentially just an excuse to let the audience leer at their “freakishness.” Sadly, their lives featured a lot of this sort of exploitative spectacle, and they eventually died alone and forgotten in 1969.
Robot Monster (1953).
The Scoop:
It’s the end of the world as we know it – or maybe it’s not. It was all just a dream – or maybe it wasn’t. It’s kinda hard to tell with this movie. A guy with an ape suit and a bubble machine tries to take over the world. There’s a lone family of survivors. Bad dinosaur footage pops up once in a while. It all adds up to one of the absolute worst movies ever made. And it’s in 3-D!
It’s bad, but in kind of a fun way. It’s mighty slow in patches, so its entertainment value doesn’t hold up as much as some other bad movies classics like “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” but it does have its moments. But mostly it’s kind of an oddball. It seems to be aimed at the same kiddie audience as the Republic serials of the time, but it’s got some awfully dark stuff (like murdered kids and implied rape) thrown in. And its tone just gets bleaker and most despairing as it goes along. Thankfully that despair is kept at arm’s length by the bad monster costume, the bubble machine and the relentlessly bad acting. It sure is something else.
And yet despite all its ineptitude – or perhaps because of it – Ro-Man, our boy in the gorilla suit, is one of the most endearing of the b-movie creatures. Who can resist a helmeted ape who just walks around a valley all day spouting non sequitur threats?
Think you’ve seen bad movies before? Think again. This is far, far worse. Trust me.
Best Line:
“At what point on the graph do ‘must’ and ‘cannot’ meet?”
Side Note:
The dinosaur footage comes from that old standby, “One Million B.C.” (1940).
Companion Viewing:
“Teenage Caveman” (1958).
Links:
IMDb.
BadMovies.org.
Take a Look:
The trailer:
What’s going on here? Hell if I know, but the whole movie just sort of goes on and on like this:
Desuko Movie Spot. 