If Looks Could Kill

OK, here’s a movie I have no recollection of buying, but based on the time stamp of the rip, I guess it could be part of the Hazel Flagg collection? Doesn’t look like a typical movie, though. Is this some kind of 90s high school comedy?

Yeah, I… I think I’ve got the wrong movie? Perhaps I bought something that had a similar name and I was sent this?

No, I have apparently never bought this movie, or anything that sounds anything like this movie? So somebody sent me a random DVD when I bought something else?

But this is apparently a parody of spy movies and stuff?

They had impressive food on first class in the 90s, eh? Eh?

Hey, it’s what’s her name!

This movie has a lot of familiar faces…

And now it’s an explicitly 007 parody.

This is so silly… and it’s well made! I mean, the pacing is a bit off, but it’s like all the elements are there for a very funny movie. But it doesn’t quite work.

But it’s also kinda weird? Often the dialogue and the video don’t match up? Did they forget to record sound sometimes? I mean, it looks pretty good, so you’d think they’d got all the technical things under control… Was this produced by Golan-Globus? Was this made in Italy? It’s so odd.

Yeah, these are high school students. I forgot to mention that.

See? Production values!

But so odd! Why do they have this guy playing a high school student? And why have they put so much mascara on him? Why did they tweez his eyebrows that much?

It’s just weird. There must be a back story to this…

Well, that doesn’t explain it:

The film was shot at various locations in Montreal and La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada.

Right:

Dekker, who was only credited for the story in the released film, later stated that “The final product is not at all what I envisioned, not the least reason being they cast a ‘cool’ guy to play the nerdy lead, which kind of defeats the comedy.”

With a nerd in the lead, this would have made more sense.

But just look at this. How can you hate a movie that put an entire French class in a cage in a villain’s cave? I wish this movie was in 4K instead of on DVD. They put so much work into the visuals…

The villain is an EU enthusiast!

The cinematographer had so much fun…

This bombed at the box office for very good reasons.

And nobody much likes the movie, and I can’t disagree. It’s such a strange mix of ineptness and competence: The cinematography is pretty good, and there’s several good actors here… if you just look at a random scene (especially with the sound off) it looks really great. And! There’s several good gags. I laughed!

But it’s just wrong. The movie is made wrong.

So I can totally see that a reasonable score would be ⚀. But I enjoyed this movie — it’s just such a contrast watching this after watching modern greige TV shows, where everything looks like puke, and there’s no fun.

I wonder if Redlettermedia has covered this? Or MST3K? It’s such a fun, stupid movie that doesn’t quite work. This should be a cult movie.

If Looks Could Kill. William Dear. 1986. ⚃

Broadway Melody of 1940

I’ve had this DVD for almost a decade, but I’ve never gotten around to watching it. And that’s because the name makes it sound like one of those “cavalcade” movies — i.e., a bunch of hit songs from various stage musicals that year, strung together with a threadbare plot.

And some of those movies are really fun! Without the pressure of coming of with a real plot, sometimes the writers just cram in lots of jokes and skits, and keep things moving. And sometimes they’re just leaden.

I’m not actually sure whether this is one of those movies, though — Fred Astaire is perhaps too big a name to use in one of those.

Yes, indeed — it’s one of those cavalcade movies. I think? The excuse for this bit is that Astaire is visiting the theatre. They didn’t try hard. On the other hand, all the music is by Cole Porter, so perhaps this is more of a real musical…

Now they’re just encountering jugglers and stuff in an agent’s office.

She’s fun.

Oh my god! They dance so well together! I’m not really that familiar with Eleanor Powell, but that was amazing. They were incredibly tight together.

Begin the Beguine isn’t a very good tune, either.

I enjoyed this movie — I smiled a lot while watching it.

But let’s face it — it’s just a vehicle to show the audience all these stage performances. The plot isn’t very much, there’s not in the way of good gags, and there’s no… theme… to the various performances.

So any reasonable person would say this is pretty dire, but I’ve never been reasonable, and I’m certainly not starting now.

Broadway Melody of 1940. Norman Taurog. 1940. ⚃

Mean Streets

I’ve always liked that logo animation — so simple and so distinctive.

Oh, is that Harvey Keitel? So young…

OK, this movie is already annoying me — they’re showing what I guess is supposed to be Super 8 footage in the titles, and they’ve sped it up like we’re watching silent movies from the 1910s. To signal to the audience that we’re watching something oldie? It’s annoying!

I may never have seen this movie before.

Ooh, I see! These streets are mean!

Aha! This must be J. J. Abrams’ favourite scene ever as a child and he shaped his entire career around it.

I totally see what Scorsese is going for, but this is just kinda annoying. Scorsese is so interested in these guys but they’re so boring.

I’m starting to suspect that this movie is just going to be the camera following these low-rent petty criminals around? I guess it’s been a life-long obsession of Scorsese, these guys. He just finds these kinds of people so fascinating for some reason or other. Was he, like, twelve and these guys were on the block and he just loved them so much?

Well, this had more of a plot than I initially assumed it was going to have.

But I just had absolute zero interest in these characters. It’s kinda embarassing how Scorsese tries to give the Keitel character this… depth… by having him having this internal dialogue about religion and stuff.

I found the movie to be intensely boring for the most part.

But there’s some interesting things here, like the way some of the scenes are shot, and some of the editing is fun. But…

Mean Streets. Martin Scorsese. 1973. ⚂