Aw, man. I’m imagining a double date…
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Baby Blood (1990) - dir. Alain Robak
The opening voice over, in grating, sinister French, declares that, when the earth was still molten, life was just starting, and would soon have all it needed to begin growing. “But,” says the voice, “I needed only one thing. To be born!”
From here we go to the story of a voluptuous circus performer named Yanka, who, though circumstances I wouldn’t want to spoil for you, ends up with this evil presence growing within her, bodily, as a fetus. Worse, it needs blood to grow and torments Yanka 'til she acquiesces. So Yanka spends the rest of the film violently murdering more or less everyone she comes in contact with, occasionally drinking their blood, as she desperately tries to figure out how to kill the monster within her.
Now, when I say she murders “everyone” I mean everyone! I lost count of the bodies that pile up. At a certain point, it becomes comedy. She literally wanders around town covered in blood and no one gives her a 2nd glance. Her exchanges with her fetus grow snarkier. It’s ridiculous and shocking in the best way.
As a bonus, in the English dub of the film, the evil fetus is voiced by GARY OLDMAN! So, clearly, there will need to be a 2nd viewing.
2 out of 5 extras with less than 2 minutes of screen time until their inevitable demise.
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We just finished watching Untamed, a Netflix series. We were intrigued by the review in our local paper, and since it was set in Yosemite National Park (only a couple hours from us), we thought we’d give it a try. The article was clear that the majority of the series was filmed in Canada and not YNP, so we knew not to get our hopes up too high about seeing some of our favorite sites.
Untamed features Eric Bana, for whom Mrs. ricepad has a serious jones, and Sam Neill in a significant supporting role. I can’t think of a single role that I didn’t like Sam Neill in, so we got hooked pretty easily. Then in the final episode, things went to shit, as if the writers wanted to throw a major curveball at the audience, but with that plot twist, we were left thinking, “WTAF was THAT all about??” Mrs. ricepad compared the series to Lost, and how they both ended in completely unsatisfactory ways. I’m not going to spoil it, but if you watch it, don’t blame me if you finish the short series and find yourself yelling at your TV.
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Watched “Driver” 2011- Ryan Gosling was just a kid!
Pretty good movie, but the streaming service I had to watch it on, CTV = Canadian service, was absolute horse shyte. A million commercials that were un skippable and it started lagging at critical moments. Kinda killed the vibe tbh.
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Agreed. WTAF only begins to express it. My usual response to something like that is that it’s just some writers trying to justify their jobs. My better half usually asks why good actors let themselves be part of something like that.
That film is actually titled Drive.
A pity about your viewing experience. I really love that film. Nicolas Refn really channeled that 80’s Michael Mann vibe, all smeary neon and a cool synth soundtrack.
It also has fantastic work from Ron Perlman (always a blast) and Albert Brooks against type as a TERRIFYING villain.
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Yes, my bad 
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Albert Brooks was great, I know him best from the Simpsons.
“A pity about your viewing experience” it was so bad that I deleted the app from my phone as soon as the movie finished 
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Brooks is someone I don’t think gets enough notice as an actor. He’s got the neurotic Woody Allen sort of energy without Allen’s absurdity, playing hard into stereotypes, or his personal problematic nature, if that’s important to you.
On my list for blu ray pickup is Real Life, a shockingly prescient film about 24/7 reality show, inspired by 1973’s landmark PBS show An American Family. Also Mother (with a great performance from Debbie Reynolds), Lost in America, and the absolutely delightful Defending Your Life
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Speaking of Mr. Neil, as Vasili Borodin gasped, “I would liked to have seen Montana.”
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You should check him out in The Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Surprisingly funny and heartwarming at the same time.
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“You heard the captain. Dismissed.”
The King Of The Hill reboot is now on Hulu. Hank comes home from a job in Saudi Arabia to find a changed Arlen. Bobby Hill is now 21 and running a Sushi/German fushion restaurant, (which is why I’m posting this on Hungry Onion.) I Just finished the third episode and it was a little like the Bear. So far the quality is still there.
Lucky and Luanne have moved away, (RIP Brittany Murphy and Tom Petty.)
We watched the very engaging, odd Eileen with Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie — both excellent.
The ending is unexpected & didn’t quite work for us. I actually said “this better not be the end of the movie.”
'twas.
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Oh man. I had forgotten this one. Saw it in the theater. I was so pleasantly surprised by this one. As you say, Hathaway and MacKenzie were both excellent. I was really pleased at the way the plot swerved. I didn’t see it coming at all. I’m always pleased when I film can genuinely surprise me. This one did.
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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986) - dir. Tobe Hooper
1974’s original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a grungy, “verité”-style low-budget scrapyard of a film that used its limitations as an advantage, to build an atmosphere that did much of the horror heavy lifting. For all its infamy, there’s relatively little on-screen violence.
1986’s followup is none of those things. Hooper decided to do the sequel as a dark comedy, since he felt the original’s humor was often overlooked. Rather than a band of teens unwittingly stumbling into redneck slaughterhouse hell, we have Caroline Williams as Vanita “Stretch” Brock, a Dallas-area DJ who hears a couple of obnoxious college students get slaughtered over the air. She teams up with Lt. “Lefty” Enright, a cop and relative of Sally, the only survivor of the first film. The trick here is that Enright is played by Dennis Hopper(!!), who in 1986 was in full Blue Velvet Frank Booth mode. Enright is convinced that killer family is still out there, but no one believes him. Thus we have Stretch trying to help Lefty, getting captured, and then trying to escape while Lefty goes on a destructive rampage.
To say the tonal swings here are wild is a tremendous understatement. There’s a ton of goofy, yokel-based humor and dumb one-liners. Bill Mosley, who’d go one to be a favorite of Rob Zombie, is on a streak as the motor-mouthed Vietnam vet with a steal plate in his head, Chop Top. And Hopper, of course, has everything dialed up to max and snapped the knobs off. He spends a good portion of the last third of the movie screaming curses and chainsawing a building down around him. There is, of course, a chainsaw fight, and Leatherface is back, though he’s no longer played by Gunnar Hansen. There’s copious on screen gore and blood (unlike the original) but most of it lands as horror comedy.
The film was financed by Cannon as a result of a very profitable re-release of the original in 1981. In that sense, it feels like exactly what it is: a mercenary money-grab that trades on the original’s rep, but bears only a superficial resemblance to it. It’s not without a decent amount of bad-movie charm, but it’s not, and will never be, essential viewing like its predecessor.
2 out of 5 smaller, one-handed chainsaws as backup for the big 2-hander. Gotta have your equipment in order.
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I watched the second episode last night and already rolling my eyes…I do love Richard E Grant though.
Just re-watch Withnail and I.
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Don’t forget How to Get Ahead in Advertising.
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I don’t think I’ve seen that!
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