We watched Naked Angels at Motorcycle Movie Night this evening. We washed it down with some great Buddy's pizza and cider. Good times.
Naked Angels is the epitome of classic era biker flicks. It's by the king of biker b-movies, Roger Corman. And it was shot in 1969 with members of the Hells Angels. What more do you need? Here's my full description of the flick from the first time we watched it.
I'd never heard of Stretch Armstrong or Bobbito before I came across this doc. But any time a music doc pops up on Netflix I'll look into it. I'm glad I clicked on this one. It was killer.
Stretch and Bobbito hosted a hugely influential independent hip-hop radio show in the 90's in NY. The list of talent that they had come on and freestyle is nothing short of royalty. And the super cool thing is that almost all of these future legends appeared on their show before they were signed. We're talking Jay-Z, Nas, Wu-Tang, Biggie, Eminem, etc. The biggest of the big.
Anyhow, this show was on from 1am til 5am on Thursdays. People in the know at the time would record the show on their boomboxes. It was gospel. It was dope.
Bobbito actually put this doc together. It's a great nostalgic trip even though I wasn't even aware of the show before I hit play on the doc. But it makes you feel like you were there. Like you had these memories, too. It's really cool like that.
The music is amazing. It's all classic 90's shit. But freestyles you haven't heard before. Very cool.
I'm not sure how I feel about it. It was good. It was gnarly. It was filled with tension. So mission probably accomplished. But the reason I'm not totally sure how I feel about it is that I didn't think it really had the Rob Zombie ambience, scope, or X-factor that he normally brings.
It felt low budget compared to all his other stuff. And it didn't have the same feeling you got from House of 1000 Corpses or the Devil's Rejects. 31 seemed to go for the jugular right off the bat and missed the big build up. It felt less psychological and more like a 2nd rate Running Man.
I think people who like shit like Saw would like this. It has a sick premise. But I guess it just didn't feel as sophisticated as his other works. Maybe the cinematography wasn't even up to snuff now that I think about it.
None of 31 was bad...except maybe some of the acting. Y'know, that might have been a strike against it. It didn't have a real strong cast.
I come to expect a LOT from Zombie, and while this would have been a great film for most other horror directors out there, I thought it was just a "good" movie from Zombie.
My ranking of his flicks:
Devil's Rejects (my favorite modern era horror flick)
House of 1000 Corpses
Halloween
The Lords of Salem
Halloween II
31
I just watched another strongman documentary on Netflix. This one was called EDDIE STRONGMAN and follows the life of Eddie Hall in 2015. Wow, this was good. There's a certain moment at the end that even brought a tear to my eye. The power of the deadlift compels thee.
Eddie is a really likable character and makes for an entertaining watch. Nice family, too. This is a good doc regardless of whether you've ever squatted or deadlifted in your life.
I saw the trailer for this a while ago and finally got around to watching it. It looked like a campy take on 70's occult flicks. And that's what it is. But it's not very good. Yet it's still mesmerizing and I watched two hours of it and would probably watch another two hours of it. The lead character, Elaine, had me transfixed.
See why? The director couldn't have picked a better lead. Robinson was born for this role.
I would like to point out the great lighting in this shot. The film had a great use of saturated color. It was beautiful and very 70's with the edge lighting and the color casts. Reminiscent of Vertigo at times, too. Evidently that's an aspect the director of this flick is known for.
Those cheeks.
The movie is about a witch who uses sex magick to ensnare her men. She's looking for love. Men die. There are a lot of hot chicks. And plenty of witch-y type things happening. Think Hammer Horror meets Alfred Hitchcock meets Russ Meyer.
While the film is somewhat satirical and is obviously a pastiche / homage, evidently the feminist undertones and sexism monologues are to be taken seriously (according to something I read on IMDB).
Anyhow, I didn't think it was a particularly good film. I dunno. It was alright. I think the more I think about it the more I like it actually. Maybe it just took time for it to sink in. But I think I've been bewtiched...
How is it humanly possible that I haven't posted about Hell Ride before? I don't see it in my prior posts???...
Hell Ride is a film from about ten years ago. Larry Bishop acted in quite a few classic era biker flicks, and now he's responsible for this modern take on the genre. I think he pretty much did everything on this. Wrote, directed, and starred, if I'm not mistaken.
Hell Ride had Quentin Tarantino's backing and included Tarantino favorite, Michael Madsen. Not to mention small parts by Vinnie Jones, David Carradine and Dennis Hopper. So its not slouch in pedigree.
While you'd never mistake this for a Tarantino film (obv cuz of the dialogue), it's still certainly a kindred spirit. It's a grindhouse movie for the 2000's. It's fun. It's over the top.
Larry Bishop wanted to do a classic era biker flick for modern audiences. This meant he could get away with a lot more sexuality than the old classics. And Larry does a fantastic job in this department. The women throughout the film are drop dead gorgeous and full of variety. And the bikes are pretty fucking rad, too.
I think Larry Bishop really achieved what he set out to do. His vision was well executed. Top notch stuff (if sexually charged B-movie biker flicks are your thing).
There are Indians, Triumphs and Harleys in Hell Ride. Oh, and there are beautiful women, too. Almost forgot.
I haven't seen Hellraiser since I was a kid. Marie was outta the house tonight so I gave it a watch. First time in a couple decades. It was a chore to get through it, to be honest.
I dug the music, the 80's nostalgia from my youth, and....that's about it. Kristy was hot.
The movie has no plot or drama, really. It's extremely rudimentary. I've probably seen some deeper plots and dramatic moments in some of the shitty 60's biker flicks I watch, and that's saying something.
Hellraiser does have great special effects. Stop motion / live action is always superior to CGI. There'll come a time when CGI is 100% indistinguishable from real life and at that point we can say it's better. But until then; physical effects are definitely superior.
Hellraiser also has a few good one-liners that really stick in your 10-year-old head. Cuz that's the age that you should be when you watch this to really fucking enjoy it. I hate one-liners, but Hellraiser has some classics that any kid would love and repeat in the playground to their friends.
I didn't enjoy it. But I just had to watch it since it's been so long. Tell ya what, Night Breed is faaaaaaaar superior. Night Breed is legit as fuck.
I started the year off right and made up for the crappy last lifting film of 2017. The Perfect Physique sucked, but Born Strong was pretty kick ass.
This was another one that appeared on Netflix recently. It's a doc about the Arnold Classic Strongman competition. Obviously I'm more interested and aware of the bodybuilding aspect of the Arnold Classic, but this strongman component was really cool to watch. These are dudes in excess of 400lbs! Some of them are only 6'2" and weigh that much. It's gnarly. But there are guys like 'The Mountain' who are something like 6'9". They lift obscene weight. Absolutely insane feats of strength.
Anyhow, this is a legit doc that follows the top four contenders from around the world. There are interviews with their spouses and their friends. They show their eating/lifting routines etc. It's all very different and very interesting.
The thing that struck me most about these strongmen was the fact that they're all so likable as individuals. There's certainly bravado that goes along with being a strongman, but it's nothing like the peacocking of bodybuilders. They can get rather douchey. Let's be honest. But Eddie Hall (I believe it was) really hits it on the head...with a strongman competition it is black and white. You either lifted the most weight or you didn't. It's not subjective. You can't influence a judge. Lift the most. That's it. But with bodybuilding it's all in the hands of the judges. It's a 100% subjective sport. So there's a lot more showmanship, peacocking, bullshit machismo and mind games that come into play.
I'm getting off topic. Born Strong is a good doc. Well worth watching if you've ever been to a gym. Good way to open 2018.
Wow, only 22 freakin movies in 2017, and only FOUR of them weren't documentaries! Unreal. That's less than half of last year and down from 100 movies a year a few years ago. I used to practically never watch any TV series but now TV series make up a lot of my viewing. We watched every episode of Red Dwarf from Series I through Series XII, Sherlock, all the Vikings series, the Last Kingdom, Shetland, and a bunch more, blah blah blah... It's not just having a kid that cut down the actual film consumption. Now I know how few I actually watch I need to make sure each on really counts in 2018.
Read 14 books, which while that's a decline, it's not bad considering the balancing act of raising a toddler, working, being a husband, lifting, and playing music.
Top 5 Movies:
Oasis: Supersonic
The Sunshine Makers
T2 Trainspotting
Big Trouble in Little China
Chasing Trane Top 3 Motorcycle Movies:
Hell's Bloody Devils
Trip with the Teacher
Sinner's Blood
Top 5 Documentary Movies:
Oasis: Supersonic
The Sunshine Makers
Chasing Trane
SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock
Generation Iron 2 Top 5 Books:
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
Metallica: Back to the Front
Hard-Core: Life of My Own
The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom
For the Sake of Heaviness: The History of Metal Blade Records
Top 10 Albums that came out in 2017:
Venenum - Trance of Death
Blasphemer - s/t
Immolation - Atonement
Undergang - Misantropologi
Ulver - The Assassination of Julius Caesar
Gorephilia - Severed Monolith
Spirit Adrift - Curse of Conception
Phrenelith - Desolate Endscape
The Ruins of Beverast - Exuvia
Craven Idol - the Shackles of Mammon
This was a crappy movie to end the year on. The Perfect Physique popped up on Netflix because I've watched other great bodybuilding doc's. I figured I'd try this one, too, even though I was skeptical. It looked like it might be "The Real World" with a bunch of shirtless bro's. Thankfully, that wasn't the case, but it was just a different shade of garbage.
The Perfect Physique is supposed to be about five Olympians who compete in the Physique class, and five fitness models. They all hang out and bullshit about their diet and routine. Sounds worth checking out. Hell, it's got Sadik Hadzovic in it. You'll probably glean some knowledge, you think...
Well, the Director is a female and it shows in the way these dudes are treated. There are totally unnecessary montages of these guys doing staged bullshit like a tug-o-war...shirtless...slo-mo...sweaty...for fuck's sake. And the gym scenes are super gay, too. If someone walked in on you watching certain scenes they'd think you were getting down with a software gay porn. So if you're that interested in these guys' tips on diet and lifting just make sure no one is in the room.
Oh yeah, the overt product placement by Met-Rx was another factor that cheapened the whole thing. Plus the awful music for the montages. Yeah, this was a dud.
