Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are
Jigoku Criterion and
The Assassination of Trotsky Lance Entertainment
Hello again ... I guess we're all wondering how difficult it is / isn't going to be to get a UNIVERSAL SCI FI ULTIMATE EDITION with all those 50s hits, now that it's a Best Buy Exclusive. No screener has come my way but I'll do my best to get it reviewed.
Did my one and only trip to the big Sabucat 3D fest on its last day to see CEASE FIRE! and DOOM TOWN, which can certainly be called rarities. CEASE FIRE! was filmed with real soldiers in Korea, although I didn't believe any of the bunk about live ammo and explosives being used -- those mine and grenade explosions were going off right next to the non-pro actors. Unfortunately, the movie wastes its chance to say something meaningful about ordinary heroism (the soldiers must go on a dangerous patrol within hours of an expected armistice) by relying on tired action clichés. The overall realism is to be commended, although the bulk of the picture could have been shot in Southern California.
DOOM TOWN was a short about an atom test narrated by a rather skeptical and pacifist news columnist. The bomb footage is brief and in color, and includes a few of those famous shots of test-zone buildings being blown to bits and bursting into flame. I don't think any of that footage was in 3D, and some of it may have been tinted. Who can tell, when the only color is red? (note - the program notes said that that footage had been replaced, so viewers hoping to see a nuclear explosion in 3D, didn't). In the end, our observer strolls into the (hopefully roentgen-'cold') desert, musing that Man can now blow up almost anything, but he can't build a single blade of grass. Unfortunately, the columnist also assures us that he's going to make his kid happy by ghost-writing his school composition, a piece about Hoover Dam. Even Beaver Cleaver's parents didn't do his homework for him! The guy thinks he has an elevated sensitivity, yet he's teaching his boy very destructive life lessons. A kid who grows up letting somebody else do the think-work for him, is the kind who will vote to build more nuclear weapons! (?)
I think DOOM TOWN has real potential as a reality-based TV series. Every week the sombre hero observes something melancholy in man's society, offers poetic thoughts, and helps his kids cheat on their homework. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson
Picture posed after an interview with Mickey Hargitay, a very nice fellow, 1997.
