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Excalibur, a review by Antares

Excalibur (1981) 3/5 - I must say first, that the DVD I watched had the truncated US version of the film, which clocks in at 2 hours. Maybe if I had seen the European release, which would have added another 21 minutes of story, my opinion of this film would have been different. But I have my doubts as to whether it would. All during the duration of this film I was haunted by memories of past productions of Dino De Laurentiis. You know, those cheesy, badly dubbed Hercules flics that he made with Steve Reeves back in the late 50's and early 60's. It's as if Boorman was making the film as if he was on a shoestring budget, in terms of the acting, yet spending like a drunken sailor, the remainder of his budget on the lush cinematography. Did they not rehearse any of the scenes in this film? Did Boorman and his producers not view dailies, to see how stiff, comical or amateurishly bad his actors recited their lines? I wondered how he could have have selected such an amazingly bad actress to play the mother of the future king, but then when the credits rolled, I had my answer. It was his daughter! And then, Boorman takes nepotism to dizzying heights by having his daughter simulate a somewhat gratuitous sex scene. "Excuse me Katrine... could you lift your leg a little higher please, the camera can't quite catch your heaving bosom"? Remember my dear, you are in the throes of passion, you are creating the future King of England!!! Yet even with all these problems, Excalibur has its moments, yet those moments can't save the film from sinking under its own weight. I can see why some consider this a guilty pleasure, and maybe, just maybe, if I can find that Euro release, it too will find its way on to my guilty pleasure list.

(From Antares' Short Summations on June 7th, 2012)

I Walked With a Zombie, a review by Jon

I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE
4 out of 5

A young Canadian nurse (Betsy) comes to the West Indies to care for Jessica, the wife of a plantation manager (Paul Holland). Jessica seems to be suffering from a kind of mental paralysis as a result of fever. When she falls in love with Paul, Betsy determines to cure Jessica even if she needs to use a voodoo ceremony, to give Paul what she thinks he wants. (from IMDB because I couldn't bothered to type one, alright? So sue me.)

Another example of Val Lewton being far ahead of his time. This certainly fits the horror bill in atmosphere, set in a far off land with strange customs. The story is again, much more subtle and is especially noteworthy for its depiction of Voodoo, normally such a big obvious target for villains to employ. Even modern representations clumsily try to show "good" voodoo and "bad" (Bones for instance). Here it is shown to be far from that simple and it works beautifully as a plot device.

It's less about there being a good/evil split, and more about having the courage to make decisions that are for the greater good. In simple terms, very cruel to be kind. It's a moral and challenging film dressed up in b-movie fun. The atmosphere is again superb and you get a tangible sense of this girl being so far from home, dealing with strange customs. The "zombies" obviously aren't gory corpses wandering around groaning, but the blank hypnotised characters (the wife and a strange, imposing figure under voodoo control) are just as creepily effective.




(From Val Lewton Horror Marathon on October 4th, 2008)

The One Where It All Began: The Pilot Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

The King of Queens



What's the show about?
Doug Heffernan is a delivery man for International Parcel Service (IPS). His wife, Carrie, works as a secretary for a law firm. Both live in a house in Queens, New York and in the basement of that house lives Carrie's father Arthur. That living arrangement leads to all kinds of funny situations.

"Pilot"
Doug has just got his new TV which is placed in Doug's sanctuary - the basement, when Carrie's sister comes to the house to tell them that Arthur's wife (or girlfriend? - she does not seem to be Carrie's or her sister's mother) has just died. When Arthur tries to live alone he accidentally burns down his house and has to move into the basement of the Heffernan's house...

My Opinion
Another really good sitcom and this one I'll finish when I get the remaining seasons on DVD.

(From The One Where It All Began: The Pilot Marathon on January 5th, 2008)