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Visual White Noise Theater: One “Mad God” (2021)

Right when I saw the trailer for this it hit me right in my sweet spot, I was literally salivating with desire and pleasure. A whole movie of twisted stop motion, oh to the fucking yeah,  but when I saw the trailer I was wondering if it had already come out and searched around and realized, nope, it hadn’t and I’d probably have to wait a long fucking time before I’d see this or maybe not see it at all. SIGH. As we speak it is making its way through the festival circuit and then Nightstream came to the rescue. Luckily they are featuring some movies for streaming from festivals. I jumped all over “Mad God”. One hour and twenty minutes of awesomeness, a dark hellish world with stabs of heaven like brilliance.

Directed by Phil Tippett who did the effects for “Alien”, “Robocop 2”,  and “Jurassic Park” among a bunch of other movies, he started making this in 1988 while he was working on “Robocop 2”, after doing “Jurassic Park” he thought the art of stop motion was dead so he then shelved “Mad God” until the year 2000 when he really started working on the movie and just finished the movie not long ago. He worked on this project in between his other higher paying gigs, using volunteers and getting money through kickstarter. To sum things up, pretty much an assassin is sent by a pope like figure to “kill God”, as he descends in a weird ship into this post apocalyptic, hellish world that this god inhabits, he is shot at by cannons, and he lands in an area full of statues of different gods and faiths, not to mention brand name mascots of products.

Alot of what happens “Mad God” is metaphors. Some critics have described this as a movie length Tool music video but its more than that, I don’t want to give away too much. The world looks slimy, one crazy image after another gets thrown out at you  before you can fully recover from the last shock, in fact that is its major drawback, its almost sensory overload. Even taking that into consideration you’ll fall under its Bosch like nightmarish spell. This movie proves that art can be both beautiful and ugly at the same time.

In “Mad God” there is some live action actors filmed in stop motion style, like director Alex Cox and Niketa Roman, after “Mad God” ended my eyes were bulging out of my skull and my jaw was on the floor collecting flies. When and if this hits Blu Ray I am snapping it up. Full length stop motion movies are few and far between these days, getting this one from a special effects master is very rare treat, this is one I can’t wait to see again.

So where do you watch this? Well you can’t yet, unless you streamed it during its festival run.

Here is Phil’s web site where you can get the trailer and other info on the movie: https://www.madgodmovie.com/

Pretty cool vid on Phil designing his stop motion figures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLKxoo9hO84

Interview with Phil on “Mad God”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDVj0a9h8I4

Post Script: This is now on Shudder not on blu ray yet (cross my fingers) but you have to have a subscription, you know what to do *wink*wink*: https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/mad-god/af7abd4d3ae6f0ad

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Visual White Noise Theater: Going into “Phase IV” (1974)

There is a “solar event” and ants start killing people. That pretty much sums up the plot of “Phase IV” it isn’t an original plot, nothing new there but what is surrounding the movie is new and breaths life into a plot that was done to death. Visually stunning, and steeped in some New Age horse shit, this movie pleasantly surprised me, people I trust who have the same tastes as me said “Phase IV” would be up my alley when I asked them if it would make me laugh they shrugged and said “It might I don’t want to give away too much info”. I was given the specifics of the plot and kind of rolled my eyes, another killer insect movie but this didn’t turn out to be another killer insect movie, no this was a sci fi horror/art house film.

It was directed by graphic designer Saul Bass and was his one and only movie which is a damn shame besides directing a few educational short films and the awesome, The Quest, loosely based on a Ray Bradbury short story, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxqN0tGyLRI . He brought along his talent for visual flare to the film, sadly “Phase IV” tanked at the box office and “Mystery Science Theater 3000” (not a fan, don’t find their schtick funny, they fucking suck) skewered the movie relentlessly, because of the failure nobody would hire Saul Bass to direct another movie. Bass would continue to design company logos and posters and win awards, but lord knows what Saul would’ve come up with next if he were allowed to direct another feature.

Ken Middleham, a wildlife photographer, was the one that got the close up shots of the killer ants, interiors were filmed in England and exteriors in Kenya representing Arizona. Saul shot a different ending that showed what happened after the ant attack but the hippy dippy, visually stunning, New Age ending shocked even the coke jaded execs and they wanted it cut. That ending was thought to be lost but it was found in the Saul Bass Collection at the Academy Film Archive, it was cleaned up and showed at the film hipster haven Alamo Drafthouse, for a Saul Bass type festival in Austin, TX, the ending is available on Itunes Extras and 101 films in the UK did a special two disc release with the original ending included, that is out of print.

This film went from “failure” to cult success and one of my favorite new filmmakers, Panos Cosmatos, said this movie inspired his great “Beyond the Black Rainbow” and I can see the visual inspiration from “Phase IV” in this movie. Yeah fuck those not funny idiots on MST3, most of the movies they trash go on to become gems. If you want a visual experience get into “Phase IV” but the story isn’t original, its whats around it that is original.

To watch “Phase IV” with the cut ending go here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/7umrLJlCyjmH/

 

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Visual White Noise Theater: Want to watch some “Strange Tales” (1986)

Most horror anthologies have this problem, either most of them suck with a couple of good ones, or if your lucky they’ll be mostly good ones with a smattering of bad ones, “Strange Tales” has total of six and out of those six, three are good and three are boring and/or stupid. The really good ones shine like diamonds in coal. Vidcrest, who put out the infamous “Mondo Cane” movies, a company that is still around and run by Robert Weinbach who is still alive put this thing together, he seemed to specialize in finding weird and unusual shorts and putting them together. At the time, the only way to get a hold of this collection was to get it on VHS, at first when I e mailed him he said he had no copies, then he e mailed me back and said he had found a VHS copy in storage, so I bought it. Watching this, I could tell most, if not all of these shorts were shot on Super 8 and most if not all were probably student films. I searched this one out when a buddy of mine sent me a list of live action/animated shorts, one of the shorts on this VHS, “Twilight Journey” got my attention. The problem is this VHS was recorded to EP mode which makes the picture look kind of shitty, its to jam more stuff on less tape, the picture is soft and fuzzy, sometimes you can’t see what is being filmed. So without further ado, here are the good and the bad of “Strange Tales”.

The first short, “The Visitant” is an OK short, a guy chases the ghost of his dead son through a cemetery which looks like the famous Forest Lawn Cemetery in Burbank, CA, me and my weird family used to have picnics there, many famous people from the Golden Age of Hollywood are buried (and turning over in their graves). As he is chasing his son, a zombie chases him with an axe and various dead people as well as an driver-less van try to run him down, he comes across his daughter who is cursing him for killing himself and his son in a drunk driving accident, the guy finds out he is in purgatory and now destined for hell. This one had some cool make up effects and was at least interesting.

The second short is called “Desire in a Public Dump” and I wasn’t too impressed with this one, though I gotta give it credit for not dragging on too long. When I watched this I figured this one was shot in the 1980’s like the rest of the shorts on the tape, but the whole look of the actors and actress and the whole feel screamed “1950’s” yes I found out that this short was shot in the 1950’s, it is very weird to have all the other shorts be filmed in the 1980’s and one lone one from the 1950’s. In this one a hobo stumbles on a picture of a redhead pin up who comes out of the picture and when he goes to kiss her he gets a pitchfork through his chest, the girl disappears from the picture and is replaced by a gorilla, a kid with a BB gun finds the picture and it ends there.

The third short is “A Day in the Life of Snidley Carmichael” stupid, boring and hated this fucking short. All it is is a guy spazzing out to opera music, running around like a fucking retard pretending to get shot. Not funny and a waste of this tape. Next.

The fourth short is by far the best and most interesting, “Twilight Journey” is a god damn trip and this is the reason why I searched this tape out. I wasn’t disappointed, a hybrid of live action and rotoscoped animation, this one is hard to peg, this is acid for people who never have or will drop acid. From what I can tell the story is about a kid whose mom is prostitute, she wears a pig mask I guess out of kinkiness, now this is where it gets confusing either the boy kills his mom while the John is asleep or the John kills her and sets the house on fire.

As the John runs away in his car he gets in an accident and dies, soon he is tumbling through animated space.

Soon he encounters weird shapes, pyramids and killer orcs, whoever did this put a lot of work into it, looks like the guy was probably inspired by Ralph Bakshi’s “Lord of the Rings, LSD and a lot of pot.

Looking for keys and a sword battle ensues, its marvelous and fantastic and worth the price of this video, I wasn’t as mad when this short met my expectations, it made it worth the three other boring shorts on this thing. My only gripe is the short ends abruptly, wish this had had a longer running time and Robert would’ve knocked the other boring fucking shorts off this thing.

The fifth short is “Crystal Quest”, I loved this one, this one follows a guy who is being chased by something or somebody on what looks like a different planet, he takes the crystal from the mouth of a stone monster then he is actually chased by a monster who corners him near an elevator.

As he pushes the button and the elevator the monster chasing him runs away and he thinks he scared the monster off until he turns around and sees a behemoth of a monster blocking the elevator.

He dives underneath the monster’s legs shuts the elevator and pushes the lobby button. He gets to the bottom and the door opens and you find out the “Crystal Quest” is a futuristic game show. I loved this one, the make up was good and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the people who worked on this student film went on to do special effects and make up on bigger projects. This one was goofy fun and the other good short in this collection and the last good one.

The sixth and most certainly last one is “Bus Bench” all I can say is “YAWN”, “Strange Tales” goes out on a huge whimper and not a bang. Some old lady sits on a bench while buses and people go by, she seems to be thinking about her past and her own daughter or something. This was boring, so bad I was looking at the clock thinking about other stuff I could be doing. On the back of the VHS box it says “Award winning shorts” yeah, Weinbach I highly doubt this. So all in all there was three good shorts and three boring shorts, so is this worth your clams? I’ll say this much “Twilight Journey” and “Crystal Quest” will make it worth the price, and you’ll want this if your a horror anthology completest.

So where do you pick this up? Well if you want a tape you’ll have to hound Robert you can go to his geocities looking web site here: http://vidcrest.net/catalog/order_list.html

He has a DVD version on his ebay page but talking with one of my friends who ordered a DVD its almost the same version as VHS: https://www.ebay.com/itm/114251165702?hash=item1a99e67006:g:9wUAAOSwwvpe3Af-

If you want a preview of what your gonna get go here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/4Gaa2Xbyq1FX/

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Visual White Noise Theater: Welcome to “The Beast Pageant” 2010

Watching ” The Beast Pageant” I was confused, not because of the crazy imagery or semi non-linear story line, I was confused because this is that type of “tightrope walk” movie, on one side of the thin rope is pretentious, up its ass horse shit and on the other side is spell binding brilliance, this movie didn’t fall onto either side and made it across alright. “The Beast Pageant” was directed by Albert Birney and John Moses and its a fucking trip to be sure.

There is two parts to this film, and I know what “The Beast Pageant” is going for in the first part, Abraham, played by co director/writer John Moses, lives in a German Expressionist style apartment with various machines hooked throughout his apartment, one calls him and sings to him when he picks up the phone and one is a TV apparatus that has a bearded man in it that shows Abraham weird commercials and asks him to talk through the speaker horn if he wants the item advertised in the commercial, Abraham goes to a dead end job in a factory where he pushes slots that spit out synthetic fish. The whole first part smacks heavily of “Eraserhead”, the whole movie is filmed in black and white and has a dream like logic to it. The visuals in this movie are stunning, weird and unusual. The whole “Eraserhead” thing also comes from the dirty, industrial background. Abraham starts to grow a tentacle out of his rib and goes to a doctor to have it removed, the removal isn’t successful. The first part of the film is so blatant in its message, normally when somebody tries to hit me directly on the head with something it pisses me off and turns me off but the hammering is done in an intelligent way, the first part seems to be lampooning consumerism and a 9 to 5 existence. Not to mention how machines will try to give comfort and love but its artificial and plastic.

The second half, Abraham tears out of his house into the countryside, a stark contrast, the tentacle becomes a miniature singing cowboy copy of him complete with acoustic guitar. Among the things he encounters are a small house with a nude couple in it, bush people, water people, dirt people, animal people, a motel in the middle of the forest with a couple that needs a baby sitter and the list goes on and on. The second half seems to say that nature is better than an urban setting and the second half has musical numbers of the indie folk pop type. More weird stuff happens and again I don’t want to spoil too much you’ll have to go watch it yourself.

The movie got its money in part from a Kickstarter campaign and took three years to make. Sure some of this movie made me roll my eyes, some of it is art house pretentious but overall I liked its crazy energy and wasn’t bored. So I say join the “The Beast Pageant”. Albert Birney’s new movie, “Strawberry Mansion”, screened at Fantasia Film Festival, its about a “dream auditor” who gets caught in an old lady’s dream world, hope its as interesting as “The Beast Pageant”.

Become a “Beast” here: https://vimeo.com/groups/awardeo/videos/108922277

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Visual White Noise Theater: How about “Fried Barry” (2020) for dessert?!

That would be one weird tasting dessert, one you wouldn’t forget, I wouldn’t call it “sweet” or “bland” or “bitter” or “gross” its just all of that mixed together. Coming out of the post apocalyptic husk that is South Africa and directed by Ryan Kruger, the movie features Barry (played by future character actor Gary Green) a heroin addict who has a son and pissed off wife, he has no job to support his family and just wanders around looking for drugs until a UFO abducts him and takes over his body.

An alien takes over his body and he is put smack dab in the middle of Johannesburg, that is when things go completely bat shit insane and doesn’t let up. The alien in Barry does drugs, his neck stretches, he knocks up a prostitute who gives birth seconds later, he gets sucked off by some creep in a public bathroom and sprays him with black jizz, he gets kidnapped by a pedophile and gets in a chainsaw fight with the guy, he gets put in an insane asylum, escapes into a beckoning businessman’s car who shoots him up and feeds him pills and they drive through an atom explosion, a grown man sucks milk out of a woman’s nipple etc. I could go on and on.

“Fried Barry” is like if the 1979 Peter Seller’s movie “Being There” had done tons of hard drugs. The alien in Barry just seems to be stumbling around and gathering whatever earth like experiences it can but on the way Barry inadvertently helps people kind of like Dougie Cooper in “Twin Peaks the Return”, the movie does stumble near the end and it picks up again. Depending on your movie tastes you won’t like a nonsensical movie where the character travels from one vignette to another, this isn’t a hapless film by no means, there is a story tying all of this together but I don’t want to give away the whole story.

The director took his short film and stretched “Fried Barry” into a feature length film. From what I’ve heard the actor playing Barry, whose name is Gary Green, was a stuntman, he is very unusual looking which fits the part perfectly of a man who is taken over by an alien force. Not much is told about the aliens, when he is in the ship he sees a lot of weird ass shit, and your left wondering if the alien itself is a drug addict getting high off of the experiences through Barry, an intergalactic tweaker stuck in the body of an earthbound heroin addict.

To get “Fried” with “Barry” go here: https://www.amazon.com/Fried-Barry-Gary-Green/dp/B0948Q98JK

Or you can be a cheap bastard and not support cool art by finding the pirates by the bay. If you choose this option don’t be surprised if those same pirates make you walk the plank.

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Visual White Noise Theater: “Monster Heaven, Ghost Hero” says it all!!!

Don’t build a skyscraper that manufactures hologram equipment on a Samurai graveyard, take it from “Monster Heaven, Ghost Hero”.

Wow, surprise, another weird Japanese movie, nothing new there but of course the weirdness varies, sometimes its cultural misunderstandings or the dialogue isn’t translated properly for English speaking audiences. A Samurai graveyard is bulldozed and in its place is put a shiny skyscraper where they are trying to prefect making holograms you can feel. This pisses off the spirits of the dead. The company puts one of the weird grave markers from the bulldozed graveyard in their lobby under a glass case, because in a horror movie that isn’t asking for trouble.

An old man in a electric wheelchair shows up in the lobby looks at the grave stone and starts yelling about a curse, the receptionists scream and….We’re off and running. The crazy old man warning the youngin’s that if they go somewhere or do a certain something they’ll die, now the Japanese are using an American horror movie trope. Cut to a scene where a Japanese pop rock band is yelling into the camera as Satoshi, son of the guy who owns the big building has fallen asleep at his table and has a nightmare about having his throat cut. Satoshi doesn’t want the responsibility of running the company, so his father’s friend and co chair is running the company, Satoshi is overseeing the hologram program. His father’s friend is trying to talk him into taking over the company.

Then some douche in a white suit shows up and he is always using an electric shaver even though his face is smooth and clean shaven, he has two butch white women in suits that are his bodyguards, apparently he had worked for the company before and stole secrets, now he is back wanting his top level job back because he ripped off his other employer, at first Satoshi’s father’s friend will have nothing to do with the douche in the white suit but white suit is very pushy and consistent and seeks to take over the company from Satoshi. The pop rock band shows up and warns Satoshi and his lab aides that there is a curse over the building because it was built over a graveyard they say if the blood of a virgin touches the gravestone in the lobby underneath the glass case all hell will break loose.

And break loose it does, all over the place, the band morphs into Yokai spirits, the white suit guy tries to rape the secretary and throws her over the balcony, the white suit guy grabs the cursed katana and turns into a demonic Samurai that starts demolishing everything in its path, lightning flashes, virgin holograms clash (yep I didn’t mistype), hallways turn into forests etc. This thing breaks open, and maybe again this is a cultural difference but this movie “Monster Heaven, Ghost Hero” can’t make up its mind if its a kid’s movie or a weird movie for adults. Its trying to be everything to everybody, and for me it succeeds. This movie is “My Ghost Hero”.

So go here to get to “Monster Heaven” with sub titles: https://www.bitchute.com/video/CUozZoHL5ASo/

One more for the road, gif thieves!

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Visual White Noise Theater: “Highway to Hell” (1991) isn’t just the title of an AC/DC song.

Its a movie and a kick ass one at that I finally got around to watching this one.

“Highway to Hell” is a movie I always used to see in video rental stores and I’d say “One of these days, I am gonna rent that, its got Kristy Swanson who is so damn hot.” Yet I never did, now that most mom and pop video stores and Blockbuster have gone kaput I went looking for this one and I am pissed at myself I didn’t watch it sooner.

 

Directed by Ate De Jong, who directed one of the craziest, bat shit episodes of the awesome show “Miami Vice” an episode that involved aliens, UFO’s, James Brown and peanut butter, the episode was widely unpopular and panned out of existence. De Jong’s weird, Danish sensibilities didn’t translate too good to the television screen and people in Hollywood were hesitant to throw money at him. Finally somebody had the good sense to throw De Jong another chance along with a script by Brian Helgeland who claimed he got the idea from being pulled over on some side stretch road outside of Las Vegas with his wife, Brian said the cop was really patronizing and walked around their car threateningly, all over Brian driving a little over the speed limit. Brian wondered “Is this the cop from hell?” And a light went off in his head.

Charlie Sykes, played by Rob’s younger brother Chad and Rachel played by Kirsty Swanson go to elope in Las Vegas. Chad is afraid that his parents and Rachel’s parents might’ve called the police to stop them from getting married and in fear he takes a side road, he comes upon a lonely gas station run by a lonely old man named Sam played by character actor who plays old coots all the time, Richard Farnsworth. He tries to tell them not to go any further past the Joshua trees and especially not go to sleep past that point because they’ll get into trouble, he advises them to get back on the main road,  in other words, Farnsworth plays the typical stock character “crazy old man” that appears in a lot of these horror movies who warns people about doing something or going somewhere and when they do what they were told not to or go where they told not to,  they get killed. Chad in fear takes the side road, falls asleep and the cop from hell shows up, busts up their car and takes Rachel.

In anger and fear Charlie goes back and grills Sam who tells him that his girlfriend got taken by the Hell Cop, the Hell Cop kidnaps virgins to take back to the Devil’s bordello and if the cop gets to Hell City then it will be too late. Sam tells Charlie to take his old Pontiac and says the Pontiac has something special in it and he gives him special ammo to take down the Hell Cop, he tells Charlie that he needs to go back to the Joshua trees, drive really fast, close his eyes and believe, then he can get into hell, when drives really fast a real cop does chase him. Charlie does this and ends up in hell which is a desert and from there I don’t want to give up much more.

This movie is satire but it will keep you on the edge of your seat, you’ll get the Stiller family, Ben (if you don’t know who Ben Stiller is I don’t know what to tell you) who plays a retarded fry cook, Jerry (Jerry Stiller played George Constanza’s dad in the best sitcom of all time “Seinfeld”) who is a corrupt cop caught in eternity in this diner from hell where you never get a coffee refill or what you ordered, Anne (Ben’s mom and Jerry’s wife, a funny comedian in her own right) who plays the waitress that bores the mummified, corrupt cops with her stories, you get Lita Ford as a hooker who traps men into getting killed by a ice cream truck serial killer who wants to scoop brains out of their heads and Gilbert Gottfried as Hitler and Patrick Bergen as Satan. There is various character actors in this movie, the monster effects are pretty awesome, especially the stop motion three headed Cerebus guard hound. Over all this is a wild ride, this is a movie where you can shut off your brain and let the movie do the driving, don’t let it crash your car though. CJ Graham under heavy make up plays the Hell Cop, CJ played the Jason incarnation in “Friday the Thirteenth 6, Jason Lives!” There is more in this movie that I don’t want to give away. This movie is almost as good as the song “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC, I was kind of hoping that it would make an appearance in the movie and it didn’t because this movie was a medium budget movie, however, you get a slower rock ballad from the aforementioned Lita Ford. This movie was made in 1989 but was shelved due to the company Hemdale going bankrupt, it didn’t see release until 1991.

So visual white noise addicts to get on the Highway all you have to do is go here: https://www.amazon.com/Highway-Hell-Chad-Lowe/dp/B081D8Z3MK

For any of you that want an actual road to ride on go to: https://www.amazon.com/Highway-Hell-Blu-ray-Patrick-Bergin/dp/B018STFHKC/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=Highway+to+Hell&qid=1627583632&s=movies-tv&sr=1-5

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Visual White Noise Theater: Will “Jesus Show You the Way to the Highway”(2019)?

I never thought I’d see a movie shot in Ethiopia by a Spanish director, set somewhere in mid 21st century in a virtual world, the only thing is this movie was meant to look like it was shot in the mid 1980’s and is a prediction of what 2035 is gonna look like, so there is retro virtual reality machines and goggles, dial rotary phones, 1970’s furniture etc. In a word this movie is a mind fuck, you’ll want a cigarette after you watch this movie.

Where to start with a movie this insane? Well two CIA agents DT Gagano, played by a dwarf Ethiopian actor Daniel Tadesse and Palmer Eldritch played by Spanish actor Augustin Mateo, both contrast to each other in looks and personality, they are working in “Beta Ethiopia” which is the Ethiopia of the 2030’s as imagined by a sci fi film maker in the 1980’s. The Cold War is still on and the Soviet Union is trying to put a virus in the computer system called, what else? “Soviet Russia”. In this bizarre virtual reality everything is in stop motion and everybody wears the masks of famous actors, comedians and politicians. DT’s wife is a hot BBW blonde named Malin played by Gerda-Annette Allikas and she looks forward to him retiring as a secret agent so she can open a Kick Boxing studio. Your reading this saying WTF?! I did when I start watching this.

DT wants to start a pizza restaurant by the ocean but these dreams get derailed when he gets stuck in the virtual world and he needs to find a way to get out. In this stew you get a satire of 1960’s spy movies, including the incidental music, 1970’s and 1980’s action and kung fu films and B level sci fi. This movie is like a cross between  1980’s James Bond flicks and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s art movies not to mention the audio is badly synced to the lips on purpose. Seriously, this god damn movie is so insane it can’t be classified.

“Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway” is also philosophical, it doesn’t look like it on the surface but there is so many layers in this movie you’ll question whats reality, whats a dream, whats a fabricated reality etc. This movie is hilarious, some of the over the top absurd stuff will have you laughing until you are out of breath especially when one of the characters is watching TV and on it there is a man dressed like 1960’s Adam West Batman licking the feet of a man in a swimsuit, somebody yells at him “Stop watching that communist propaganda and get your ass over here!” Not only that, the president of Beta Ethiopia is dressed as 1960’s Batman and he wants to kick all drug dealers out of Beta Ethiopia. And believe it or not it gets crazier.

Most of the old computer technology that is seen in the movie was borrowed from the Estonian Computer Museum. “Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway” is a movie that hit me in the sweet spot, I literally stumbled across this movie by accident while searching for the movie “Highway to Hell” which I am gonna review next, I saw the poster and it looked like a grind house movie I’d never seen, and at first seeing the date it was made I was very skeptical, I dove headfirst into this roiling and boiling sea and I got the shit thrashed out of me. This is one newer movie I will repeat view and I am sure there is stuff I missed. There is so many Easter Eggs and little tid bits, the name alone should draw you in. I am sure a lot of religious folks searching for some religious movie about Jesus were confused when they watched this movie for the first time like I was, except in a different way, they’ll wonder what a fully clothed black midget is doing in a shower with a naked, statuesque, BBW blonde goddess and what any of this has to do with Jesus. The movie was partly funded by people on Kickstarter which is cool, Llanso’s first movie was the awesome post apocalyptic film “Crumbs” also starring the diminutive Daniel Tadesse, another one I will review later and you should watch and that one was made on a show string budget in Ethiopia and its just as weird.  “Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway” is one highway you don’t want to drive by.

To get the silver pizza pie Arrow has done a bang up job: https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/jesus-shows-you-the-way-to-the-highway-blu-ray/FCD2009

To get on the highway digitally go here: https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Shows-You-Way-Highway/dp/B0893NT9V9

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Visual White Noise Theater: Get a “Light Blast” in your face!!!

If you want to watch a movie that will melt your face and has face melting in it look no further than “Light Blast”. Erik Estrada, fresh off the set of “CHiPs” plays Ron Warren, a San Francisco police detective (wait, he doesn’t look like a “Ron Warren” sorry, I am pointing out the obvious don’t care if you are offended either) who goes after a mad scientist/professor Dr. Yuri Svoboda (played by Italian actor Enio Girolami) who has a laser weapon that can melt huge groups of people, the first people he uses it on are a teenage couple getting hot and heavy in a train yard, tight teen titties pop up and the professor melts them.

Directed by Enzo G. Castellari, who directed the original “Inglorious Bastards”, (Quentin Tarantino ripped off the title for his movie), and the post apocalyptic cinematic turd “1990: The Bronx Warriors” a rip off of “Escape from New York”. This movie was an Italian/American production, you’ll see a lot more Italian names in the credits than American ones. Unlike a lot of Italian productions, it looked like they actually had some money, instead of shooting their whole movie in a warehouse, office building or forest preserve, it looked like they actually got to shoot in Network news buildings, police stations and even on a freeway, they didn’t look like they shot in one limited location like most low budget flicks. However, at the Derby race when Erik goes to stop the mad scientist from melting the crowd the film makers use stock footage from “Herbie The Love Bug” and “Fireball 500” for the derby race which shows some cheapness in the production.

You can’t beat dialogue like this from Erik “Its maggots like you that make me like my job”. OHHHHHHH! OWNED! The mad professor black mails the mayor of San Francisco by telling him if he doesn’t get millions of dollars he is gonna start melting larger groups of people. What ensues is insanity, an action movie that goes off the rails and never gets back on them, you get car chases, car explosions, people melting, people shot in the face, multiple people on fire, corny porn like music more at home in the 1970’s than the 1980’s, titties and weird looking people. What more do you want in an action movie?!

Of course this being an Italian action movie about a mad scientist with a laser weapon you’ll have to suspend your disbelief or you won’t enjoy this movie. Your gonna have to shut off the rational part of your brain and bathe in the stupidity that is “Light Blast”. In one scene Erick chases one of the main villain’s henchmen who has a John Holmes like pornstache to a funeral home, in the funeral home is the mad scientist’s hot young wife working on putting make up on a corpse, she gets in a kung fu (more like “dumb fu”) fight with Erick, she kicks the ever living shit out of him, punching him in the face, kicking him in the nuts and face, Erick gets his gun and shoots her. After the fight he is at the police station, with no black eyes or bruises anywhere! Guy heals fast, not to mention after getting kicked in the balls repeatedly he still fights like nothing happened, now if your a man you know that is impossible, if somebody steals your family jewels you’ll be crying in pain if you get my drift and you won’t be able to fight.

“Ridiculous” is “Light Blast”s middle name. Its a movie I watch at least once every year, this is my kind of action movie, a movie written by a fourteen year old in his creative writing class in junior high. There is even a “junior high creative writing class moment” with the abrupt ending which I won’t give away. At the end I laugh and I clap. Some of Mr. Estrada’s best work and that isn’t saying a lot.

So do want to get “Light Blast”ed in the face? Go here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/3v75N0p9i0Cn/

This has never been released officially so guess what? Use a search engine to find sellers who make bootleg copies if you want a physical one that bad.

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Short (S)hit list: Welcome to “Futuropolis” 1984

Space is certainly the place. Animated space you can live in, you’ll fly in cartoon space ships, eat cartoon hotdogs, everyone of your movements will be herky jerky and you will get turned into kitsch, retro toys by villains with aluminum helmets. If all this sounds appealing to you than you will like…

Smashing animation against live action like a really violent car wreck, this 38 minute short film will snap your spine and make whatever brains you have in your head bloodily leak out of your ears.

“Futuropolis” is a short film I repeat view numerous times, its in its own, whacky, low budget world. I can tell that the creators were paying homage to and making a parody of the 1930’s serials like “Flash Gordon” and “Buck Rogers”. With what budget they had they designed an impressive space opera adventure. The theme song is pretty catchy with the common refrain “Fly Rangers Fly” and looking at the credits they also wrote all the tunes for this movie.

Alot of the effects in “Futuropolis” remind me of a lot of the special effects laden videos on 1980’s MTV, herky jerky live action actors pasted onto some form of animation. Some films I wish would be shorter and they’d have more power but this one I wish was longer. I wanted more exploration into this universe, sadly there is no “Futuropolis 2”.

The Space Cadets (take of that what you will) are Spud, Lieutenant Luna, Cosmo and Captain Garth, they are sent to find out why there is violent mutations of various species on different planets. The source of the mutations is Professor Egghead, a guy who looks like a reject from the band Devo, he has a silver helmet and has a machine that mutates people into animated gaseous clouds or retro toys. Yeah this thing is insane and stuff like this makes me very happy, don’t expect logic out of this short because if you do you’ll be disappointed.

Not only do you get cartoon food, cartoon alien villains, cartoon guns, cartoon saws etc. you also get cartoon farting alien dinosaurs. Go back and read that, yes you read that right, anyways, info on this short is very scant it was directed by Phil Trumbo and Steve Segal (no not the “acting like a stone in every movie he is in” Segal, a different one) Segal also plays Mutcho, one of Professor Egghead’s henchmen. Segal also did the special effects for the end part on a Commodore 64!

The directors of “Futuropolis” went on to work on “Pee Wee’s Playhouse” which makes a lot of sense they go from this short film to that show. This would be something Pee Wee would watch, do his weird pedo chuckle and clap his man boy hands. Steve even worked on “Toy Story”. Apparently this was shot over 9 (!) years in a basement under the Broad Street Station that is now the Science Museum of Virginia.

I can’t tell that this was shot over 9 years, the actors don’t look like they aged at all in 9 years. The dialogue is badly synced, like this could’ve been a foreign movie brought over and dubbed over with bad, stale English. I think that was the effect they were going for.

So do you want to board this animated rocket and shoot into animated outer space? Well you are in luck you can do it here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/Rf3sTLEwc4yM/

If you want to get on a actual flying saucer, your gonna have to get a fake one because there is no official release of this in dvd, you can get it here: https://dvdlady.com/dvd/futuropolis-1984-starring-tom-campagnoli-on-dvd/