Malcolm McDowell – Page 3 – Podcasting Them Softly

B Movie Glory: Fist Of The North Star

May 16, 2017 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

If you ever want to see an entire film production embarrass themselves royally, check out Fist Of The North Star, a misguided, thoroughly awkward live action version of some obscure Japanese manga series. It’s one of those ones that painfully doesn’t translate into the realm of live action though, like that bizarre Super Mario movie they made. Full of notable character actors, packed with steampunk-esque special effects, it could have worked with a different story, but the theatrical intensity and specific vibe of oriental pop culture just doesn’t come to life well on the North American big screen. It’s also at war with itself tonally: there’s a light, PG Power Rangers feel in some places, but many scenes have graphic violence that pushes a hard R rating into the deep end, which makes for a jarring experience. Gary Daniels stars as Kenshiro, a lone warrior out to get Lord Shin (Costas Mandylor under one mess of a mullet), a brutal warlord who murdered his father, briefly played by Malcolm McDowell. McDowell pulls a classic McDowell move, showing up in the flesh for about thirty seconds before disappearing and lazily lending his iconic voice to a talking skeleton version of his character later in the movie. Don’t ask me to remember more of the plot than that because it would involve a rewatch, and ain’t nobody got time for that. Chris Penn is fun as Jackal, an angry vagabond with a giant potato head and the psychotic temper to match. Watch for Dante ‘Rufio’ Basco, Downtown Julie Brown, Clint Howard, Mario Van Peebles and more in equally ridiculous getups. The sole thing I can recommend here is the production design, lifted straight from some striking post apocalyptic video game, it makes somewhat of an impression. The rest lands with a colossal thud and just sits there, doing not much of anything.

-Nate Hill

The Man in the Director’s Chair: An Interview with Michael Schroeder by Kent Hill

May 11, 2017November 5, 2017 by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

It was owning a fast car that booked a young Michael Schroeder his first trip onto a film set. With Chief Dan George (The Outlaw Josey Wales) in the seat next to him, Michael was instructed to drive as fast as he could toward camera. He took this request literally.

While no one was injured, and though this early encounter did not go exactly according to plan, the crew assembled in cowboy hats and shorts seemed to be having a lot more fun than the group of aging lawyers with whom Schroeder had spent this previous evening. So he quit trying to be become a lawyer and ran of to join the movie business.

He began his professional career as an assistant director working on such films as Revenge of the Ninja, Lambada, Highlander 2 and Guests of the Emperor. In 1988 he would take the director’s chair on Mortuary Academy. Fourteen features would follow, among them Dead On: Relentless 2, Angelina Jolie’s debut Cyborg 2: Glass Shadow, Cyborg 3 (apparently Schroeder’s most lamentable experience) and his career high and passion project, the wonderful Man in the Chair.

He is a talented director who came to movies late – but he has since established himself as a consummate artiste of the motion picture. He was a font of great stories, optimism, on top of being an eloquent gentleman.

It is my privilege to present to you this interview.

Ladies and Gentlemen . . . Michael Schroeder.

Rob Zombie’s 31: A Review by Nate Hill

September 21, 2016 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I couldn’t help but feel fairly underwhelmed and a bit let down by Rob Zombie’s 31, which is a reaction I never thought I’d have to a film from one of the most dedicated and talented artists working in the horror genre these days.

Now I’m not saying saying I hated it or even really disliked the film, there’s actually a lot of incredibly creative visual material and good old fashioned practical effects to feast your fangoria loving eyes on, but the fact remains that Zombie has regressed to the primal state he opened up his first few films with.

There’s two phases of his work so far: a rip snortin’ hoo rah gross out redneck scumbucket pile of profanity and bottom feeding trailer trash human garbage, which is what we saw in The Devil’s Rejects, House Of 1000 Corpses and somewhat in Halloween. Then there’s quieter, more thoughtful and meditative Zombie, using an art house, Argento psychedelic slow burn template that he brought hints of to the table in the excellent Halloween II and then full force with The Lords Of Salem, which to me is his best film so far. Now I love the trailer trash aesthetic to bits. It’s mile zero, the genesis of his fascinating career so far, and his writing is detailed, character driven, lifelike and oh so hilarious. But there’s a natural progression to any filmmaker’s career, moods and states which ebb and flow into new regions of stylistic exploration, and 31 just feels like a detour down the wrong road. I expected the atmosphere we got with Salem to churn forward and be a leg on the table of whichever phase came next. But alas, he has done a willful throwback to his earlier work, and although solid (I believe he’s incapable of making a truly bad film, there’s just too much creative juice with him), it’s sadly the least memorable among even phase 1 of his work.

31 is essentially a variation on The Most Dangerous Game, with a dirty dustbowl setting thrown in. A group of potty mouthed carnies, including Meg Foster, Jeff Daniel Philips and the ever present Sheri Moon Zombie, trundle through the desert, reveling in promiscuity and lewd behaviour, another trope that is getting old and icky, even on Rob’s barometer. Attacked and kidnapped one night by a band of scarecrows, they find themselves unwitting contestants in a vicious game called 31 (why is it called that? I still don’t know), on Halloween eve. The masterminds are a group of creepy aristocrats led by a plummy Judy Geeson and Malcolm McDowell, sporting a powdered wig, attire of french royalty and going by the name Father Murder. They release Moon and her peeps into a dismal maze and set a group of demented cackling psychopaths called the “heads” after them, dressed like clowns and seriously adjusted I’ll adjusted, these folks. Now you’d think that premise would be just a bucket of horror fun, and it’s nominally entertaining but just never really takes off into the desperate, visceral fight for survival I wanted to see. The clowns are varying degrees of scary and amusing. EG Daily fares well as whiny creepshow Sex Head, and there’s Sick Head, a chatty midget dressed up like Hitler who yowls at his prey in garbled Hispanic incantations. The film’s real energy shows up in the form of Richard Brake as Doom Head, a repellant maniac who is the only actual scary one of the bunch. Brake is a criminally underrated actor who I had the honour of interviewing some months ago, and when asked what the favorite role of his career is so far, he promptly said this. One can see why, it’s the most he’s ever been given to do in a film and he milks it with virile ferocity and animalistic sleaze that will leave you crying in the shower. McDowell and his cronies are here and there, but feel oddly disconnected from the events at hand, and while visually ravishing, ultimately aren’t given much to work with. I will say though that Zombie has a flair for the musical finale, and the end sequence set to ‘Dream On’ here is a blast that does indeed touch the epic heights of his older films.

And there you have it, kids. I wanted to rave about this one, I really did. But it use felt loose,

cobbled together and nowhere near as cohesive and brutally mesmerizing as his earlier work, all of which still hold up. There are elements here that work, but unfortunately just not enough, and framed by a whole lot of choices that feel copied and pasted. Now Zombie at his worst is still better than most in this sagging genre these days, but for those of you who know his work well and have expectations for the guy, you may just feel a little let down, like I did.

Easy A: A Review by Nate Hill

May 18, 2016 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

The best way to describe Easy A is calling it a wiseass high school retelling of The Scarlet Letter. That can also be a temperature gauge for someone to tell ahead of time if it’ll be there thing, or not. I enjoyed it a lot, thanks to a funny as hell Emma Stone who doesn’t leave out the vulnerability peeking through her guise as strong young woman. It’s a little more relaxed in the content department than some of the bawdier stuff that she got her start in, but still contains sufficient amounts of raunch to please the comedy hounds. Stone also has a veritable army of seasoned pros backing her up, an element which helps her, however she’s quite capable of carrying a film and does so as well. She plays Olive, a spitfire high school girl who finds herself in a funny yet unfortunate situation after her dunce of a friend starts a wildfire sexual rumor about her. Soon the whole school is talking about it, and she takes action in a bizarre move to fight fire with fire…of a certain kind. She boldly takes up the mantle of the school harlot, forever changing things in her quiet serengetti of suburban youth. It all spins wildly out of control, a common characteristic of adolescence, with poor Olive stuck right in the middle of the debacle, which sucks for her but is too funny not to enjoy. Stanley Tucci (“The Bucket List”) and Patricia Clarkson are darlings as her parents, Thomas Haden Church scores points as a deliberately hip and sympathetic literature teacher, and Lisa Kudrow that old flamingo, has fun as a dour guidance counselor. There’s also work from Amanda Bynes as an unhinged religious nut, the perpetually wooden Cam Gigandet, Penn Badgley and a brief cameo from Malcolm McDowell as the world’s most cynical high school principal. As a riff on The Scarlett letter it keeps theme alive, and as a teen comedy with a gaggle of adults trying to keep up with the youngsters, it’s a charmer. Stone holds the proceedings together very well.

B Movie Glory with Nate: 2103 The Deadly Wake

April 2, 2016 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

2103: The Deadly Wake strives to stand out from the B-movie masses by giving turning it’s straightforward sci-fi concept somewhat on its head. It’s set in the very distant future, in which earth’s oceans have become so contaminated that they have all taken a gaseous form, with corporations sending forth spaceship type vessels that deliver goods and wage warfare. They resemble submarines basically sailing through colored fog, and it’s one of the neatest and adorably ambitious futuristic settings I’ve seen. Malcolm McDowell is damn excellent in a rare hero role as Captain Sean Murdock, a salty old sea dog who lost a ship years before and is somewhat disgraced. Forlorn and fed up, he’s in a slump when hired to transport a massive ship across the ocean, with a mysterious cargo that’s guarded by a sinister mercenary and security expert (Michael Paré). Usually in this type of thing it’s Paré as the hero and Mcdowell as the villain (which has actually happened in Roland Emmerich’s Moon 44), but here they pull a Tarantino and switch up the type casting which is wonderful to see and makes for a fresh vibe. Paré works for the sultry, sleazy (Heidi Von Palleske), the company CEO who wants an eye kept on the cargo hold. Paré and Mcdowell bit heads, there’s murky conflict and the ship’s Artificial Intelligence engine is called B.A.B.Y. and is quite literally a fetus in a big gooey tank with wires attached to its brain. If that isn’t worthy of a medal in the ambition department I don’t know what is. Theres an odd sort of climactic fight scene that plays like a dream and doesnt involve fighting at all really, more like just a laser show with strange dialogue. Despite it being set in the future there’s a nifty retro style, with soldier uniforms and the darkly poetic tone almost calling forth the sensibility of the 40’s. I was reminded of Titanic in scenes, but that could be my weird cinematic free association. This one’s a keeper for fans of off kilter, under the radar oddities.

RICHARD LESTER’S ROYAL FLASH — A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

November 17, 2015 by nlclement, posted in Film Review

I’ve long been a fan of the work of Richard Lester. Petulia, Juggernaut, Robin and Marian, Superman II, The Three Musketeers, and The Four Musketeers are films I adore, and I’ll admit to having a soft spot (mostly due to childhood nostalgia) for Superman III. He was a filmmaker who was always interested in mixing tones (especially comedy with action), and I love the chaotic, almost frenetic sense of mise-en-scene that his movies frequently exhibited. I’m eager to check out th…e films of his that I’ve missed; he was always a filmmaker you couldn’t truly pin down, and it’s no surprise that a subversive talent like Steven Soderbergh would hold Lester in such high regard. One of his most asinine pictures, the 1975 slapstick swashbuckler Royal Flash, is easily one of the most ridiculous movies I’ve ever seen. It’s wonderfully cheeky fun, super clownish at all times, very light and spastic, with a pricelessly funny lead performance from Malcom McDowell as Captain Harry Flashman, a sniveling and humorous Oliver Reed, and as usual, Lester totally filled the frame with so much detail and action and energy that it’s literally impossible not to enjoy yourself on some level with this bit of lunacy. It’s undoubtedly minor, but so entertaining and a further reminder that Lester was a filmmaker capable of balancing various qualities and ideas in his work. One minute, the film feels mildly amateurish, with weird sound work and sped up film processing and strange acting on the part of background extras, and then the next scene is one that’s gorgeously appointed, with terrific vistas and epic sweep and great use of light and composition (the great Geoffrey Unsworth was the cinematographer). McDowell plays a good-hearted rapscallion serving in the British army who blunders his way from one situation to the next, always appearing to be the victor, despite his oafish manner and continual stroke of good luck. Alan Bates shows up for some hearty laughs, and the film is just one gag after another involving duplicity, impersonation, revenge, sexual mischief, and tons of terrifically staged sword fighting and general fisticuffs. There’s also a gag atop a bridge that sort of defies technical logic, especially given the era that this film was produced during. The Twilight Time Blu-ray is crisp and clean and offers a solid assortment of extras. A true pisser of the likes we never get anymore, Royal Flash is tons of fun.