Uncle Scoopy's Fun House

Splatter Disco

2007

"The first slasher musical"

Because if there's anything slasher movies need, it's a little more gaiety! Maybe a roundelay. Whatever that is. What the hell, make it two roundelays.

You would probably guess two things from the title: (1) it's not a great movie; (2) it goes for a "campy" aesthetic. You'd be right on both counts. It's the kind of movie John Waters would make if he had to use your dad's old video recorder from the seventies.

The familiar plot pits the fun-loving discomaniacs against the cartoon bad guys who want to tear down the beloved disco fun center and profit from it by converting it to something completely without laughter, like a Solomon Brothers Branch Office or a Yakov Smirnoff performance.

But ...

It's not an ordinary bad movie. I'll give it that. The typical bad movie has only a few weapons in its arsenal: a bad storyline built on clichés, carried by bad dialogue, delivered by bad actors, photographed badly. This film does have those things, but it has so much more to offer. It also has bad jokes, bad music, bad singing, and - yes - even the highly coveted bad dancing. It's like Singin' in the Rain, as performed on the Bizarro planet.

Best of all, the cinematography even offers the generous bonus of psychedelic hippie-style photography and lighting, with fish-eye lenses, kaleidoscope effects, Batman-style camera tilts, and hallucinatory sounds - all used to simulate a "head trip" - in a musical number! That was groovy, brother.

The characters have names like Jellybean and Crumbcake, and one actor played the triple role of Acid Trip Angel, Furry Cow, and Lounge Singer.

Far out, man. It blew my mind more emphatically than Pam Anderson blew Tommy Lee.

In fact, this film did quite a bit of blowing.

If you really want to see a pretty good effort at a splatter musical, skip this and get Troma's Poultrygeist instead.

There is some nudity here and there. Mostly it's a second here and a second there of women you never heard of, but there is a brief topless scene with Debbie Rochon.

So it's got that goin' for it.

The Rochon sample is below.

* Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).

* White asterisk: expanded format.

* Blue asterisk: not mine.

No asterisk: it probably sucks.

OTHER CRAP:

Catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles, here.

Money for Nothing

(1993)

John Cusack stars in the mostly true story of Joey Coyle, a sporadically employed longshoreman who found $1.2M that had fallen from an armored car in South Philly. The law was clear: not returning the money was a felony. Joey's decision when faced with $1.2M in non-sequential bills was instant. He elected to keep the money, making him a local folk hero. The fact that he gave much of it away added to his fan base. Unfortunately, he got cocky, talked too much, and had no idea how to launder that kind of cash, so he eventually got caught. In real life, Joey was acquitted using a temporary insanity defense, but had a life-long drug problem, and committed suicide years later.

The film's story goes for a more upbeat ending with him and his love interest (Debi Mazar) under arrest, but hopeful. Unfortunately, the romanticized version of this story does not support the running time of 100 minutes, and probably could have been comfortably told in a 1 hour TV special. Cusack does a good job at making Joey a sympathetic character, and the film does provide a few laughs, but it could have mined much more from the situation.

IMDb readers say 5.5. Berardinelli awards only 2 stars.

Debbie Mazar shows breasts in an after-sex scene.

The Quick and the Dead

1995

Sharon Stone's downblouse in ultra HD (1920x1080)

Here's the recap of the film clip:

And here's a capture of the key frame:

This section will present Defoe's film clips to accompany Charlie's collages, which are found on his own site.

Today's clips are the latest and greatest from Defoe, based on this week's update:

Armelle Deutsch in Le Gendre Ideal

Caterina Murino in Le Grand Alibi

Sandrine Cohen in Anna

Zoe Felix in Clara Sheller

Film clip	Sample
Lilijana Blagojecic in Zavet
Lin Dan Pham in Dante
Michelle Carpente in Scusa Ma Ti Chaimo Amore
Veronica Logan in Scusa Ma Ti Chaimo Amore

Apocalypse Now (Redux version)

(1979)

Aurore Clement. Sample below.

The Book of Revelation

(2006, Australia)

This drama won't go down as one of my favorite Australian flicks, mainly because it wraps about 140 boring minutes around roughly 10 interesting ones. It's a very deep character analysis/study, but frankly, the lead actor seems to be sleepwalking through his part.

A successful and much admired dancer disappears for almost two weeks. His girlfriend/dancing partner doesn't know where he is, nor does anyone else. When he returns, he is secretive, almost embarrassed, about what might have happened, and only as the movie drones on do we learn he was kidnapped by three mysterious women who subjected him to humiliation and sex, lots of that apparently.

The few minutes that show what happened while the guy was captive are pretty interesting, and there's plenty of nudity during those scenes although the explicit masturbation stuff is blur boxed, but it barely makes up for the terribly draggy 140 minutes you have to sit through to get there.