Goldbeater

Brian Trenchard-Smith boarded a James Bond/Bruce Lee movies train to create an adventurous kung fu Ozploitation B-movie using Australia's most famous landmarks (from a fistfight at Ayers Rock, to hang-gliding over the Sydney Opera House). Although Jimmy Wang Yu is a terrible (non)actor unable to convey emotions and the plot of The Man from Hong Kong is quite unsophisticated, the constant action and especially deranged stunts are quite enjoyable. During the making of the movie, health and safety at work were allegedly completely ignored, which resulted in more than one accident. For example, when George Lazenby was to be set on fire for one scene, he absolutely refused to do the stunt. He let himself be coaxed into doing it only after the director Trenchard-Smith himself set fire to himself, but when at the fateful moment, Lazenby's burning jacket could not be removed, (which is clearly visible at the end of the movie), the burning fuel began to stream onto his hands, he had to be extinguished by a blanket. Then, in a fit of rage, he punched the director Trenchard-Smith. The director was involved in a dispute with the main protagonist of the movie, (and he was not alone, Jimmy Wang Yu was allegedly a terribly arrogant man who was disliked by all the crew,) so in the collective fight scene, where the physically fit director himself plays one of the killers, the fighting was real. That is how it went down in Australia.

While half of the world today enjoyed excessively politically correct Oscars, the whole of Czechia enjoyed the last episode of politically incorrect MOST! This is a refreshing series that humorously and flawlessly reflects the Czech temperament, which is milked until the very last drop. These top-quality bold jokes are necessary for these times. It is not anything groundbreaking, however, I am happy about the high viewing figures and it is nice to see a production once in a while that, thanks to its strong creative leadership, simply hits the spot.

This is quite a terrible hodgepodge in which the influence of the Gothic horrors of the British Hammer Films is combined with a wannabe rock opera. Harry Nilsson is clearly a non-actor, and the movie certainly fails because of him in the lead role, even when he sings the notorious baby-maker "Without You". Otherwise, all you have to do is see Ringo Starr in the supporting role of the wizard Merlin with a long white beard, and you have seen the most interesting thing in the whole movie. Starr even allegedly said that he thought the movie was so awful that he would definitely not allow to release it in any home media, and so, it has not been released (officially) on VHS or DVD to this day.

You should not expect too much horror here. The movie is dominated by the scenes with hallucinations in the middle of the movie, when a decent atmospheric horror sequence appears, but otherwise, it is more of a modern vampire drama on the subject of what it would look like if vampires lived among us as an organization exploiting humans. It is a pity that the sinister Henry Silva was not given a larger role in the movie when he had already been dragged all the way from the United States to Australia. With his demonic appearance, he could have aimed for the part of an archvillain, while he ended up with a more or less superfluous supporting role.

This is an existentialist thriller about the manipulation of a person in a difficult situation and the strangely complex friendship of two lost souls. The average audience expecting a straightforward thriller will be bored, but those who already know what to expect from Wim Wenders will be delighted with this engaging somber tale, amplified by Robby Müller's hypnotic camera work and the distinctive music of Jürgen Knieper. The whole thing is underscored by the captivating acting performances of both of the stars, Bruno Ganz and Dennis Hopper, whose scenes together look completely natural and whose fates you want to discover more about. I applaud both gentlemen.

This is very much an amusing  B-movie critique of corporations and consumerism, which was far less horrific than I had originally expected. The director Cohen's distinctive style somehow holds everything together, and the idiosyncratic Michael Moriarty as "Mo" is quite a bizarre, wisecracking, and entertaining character. It is all kind of endearing and childishly naive, in short, this movie is a comedic curiosity that can not be taken at all seriously, even though it is obviously trying to get a message across.

Love Camp 7 is a trashy and tiresome Nazi exploitation B-movie, and only audiences on the fringes will have a good time watching this, those who take pleasure in watching women humiliated, licking the boots of sleazy SS officers, which is still the least humiliating thing they have to do in "Love Camp 7". Somewhere in the background is a petty empty-headed storyline, which absolutely bears no importance, because the heart of this movie is made up of torturously long perverse and sadistic scenes that are not necessary to the plot. Sometimes it does make you laugh with inane lines like, “I cannot guarantee you that you will love Love Camp Seven but I can guarantee that you will love in Love Camp Seven.”. Otherwise, it is a rather lifeless and repetitive movie that is topped off by a dash of action in the last five minutes, which is really not enough after the slapdash hour and a half before it.

I won't say anything bad about the special effects - in my opinion, the appearance of the triffids in this movie is solid when keeping in mind the options in 1963, the moving plants do not look ridiculous at all. What does seem ridiculous, however, is the storyline, in many scenes, it is terribly naive and uninteresting, but is also divided into two parallel narratives, which are not related to each at all. The whole storyline with Kieron Moore and Janette Scott had been added to make the movie longer, so it ends up completely different from John Wyndham's novella and fabricates a really stupid happy ending. In terms of being faithful to the original literary masterpiece and its quality in general, the 1981 British miniseries is much better.

Taken from today’s point of view, it seems more like a cold procedural drama than a nerve-racking thriller - it is also supported by restrained (albeit stellar) acting performances and contains zero appeal to the audience’s emotions. It is absolutely incomparable with the emotional impact of later similar movies like Apollo 13 and Gravity. Technically, however, this movie is beyond reproach. The Oscar-winning special effects are great, although it could be compared, critically, to 2001: A Space Odyssey, released only a year before with more fascinating special effects. But the special FX in this movie were still amazing for their time - I can imagine how impressed movie-goers were in 1969. Unfortunately, in other respects, this movie does not really deliver what the audiences are hoping for in terms of proper drama.

This is a remake of the director's older movie Las Luchadoras contra el médico asesino. It's about a doctor who would do anything to save his seriously ill son, and thus in desperation transplanted the heart from a gorilla heart into him. The ape-man then goes on a rampage, runs away, and kills several random people - in particular, naked women. Naturally, professional Mexican wrestlers get mixed up in it, as usual. This was a relatively violent gory movie in 1969, and includes ripping off people’s heads, gouging eyes out, and a realistic organ transplant, which, after all, put the movie on the "video nasties" list. However, in all other respects, it is a purely below-average crap version of Frankenstein, which is often inadvertently comical (the ape-man makes really weird grunting noises, and other strange sounds during his attacks, including snorting noises). The sound-design (especially the musical score) that accompanies the most crucial scenes is a downright tragedy - perhaps due to the editing out of violent gory scenes due to censorship issues, and then being put back into the movie, but the poorly edited music is really intrusive. The acting performances were also dreadful, but it was all more or less as I expected.