April Screenings: Best & Worst

                                             April Screenings: Best & Worst

If April showers bring May flowers, what do April Screenings bring? Well, pretty much a mixed bag. Some were fresh, fun and interesting, while others were all wet. 

There were four movies that ended up on the “Worst” list, while seven films were added to the positive side of the spring ledger.

Before I begin, I would like to address the elephant in the room, or bear in this case. 

Yes, I saw “Cocaine Bear.” And no, it didn’t make either end of today’s list. Here’s a brief explanation why. 

It wasn’t funny enough. 

If I’m going to spend 95 minutes of my time watching a coked up bear maul people to death, I want it to be funny. The gore was pretty good, but that’s about it. It wasn’t bad enough to totally trash, but definitely not good enough to warrant further discussion or a recommendation. 

I’m sure “Meth Bear” is coming soon, so this may not be over.

Alright! Let’s begin where we always do…with the worst of the month!

The Fox (1967)

This boring bit of nonsense is based on a D.H. Lawrence novella, so strike one. The male lead is played by Keir Dullea. Strike two. One of the female leads is played by Sandy Dennis. Strike three. You are out.

Two women live on and run a chicken farm in Canada. A man who used to live on the farm shows up and puts things “in order” according to IMDb. Not sure what they meant or why anyone would want to see this movie for that matter. 

When the man proposes to one of the women, this awakens the “homosexuality dormant in the girls.” That was IMDb again, not me. This time I know what they meant, but it still doesn’t make sense.  

If the title isn’t enough of a metaphor hammer, the fact that the women run a LITERAL HEN HOUSE will seal the deal!

This was no more boring than any of the other extremely boring movies based on the writings of D.H. Lawrence. What’s that? He wrote “Lady Chatterley’s Lover?” That movie was interesting. Even the trailer for it on IMDb features a ton of nudity. Is that allowed?

Devil’s Harvest (1942)

If there’s something I love more than cannabis, it’s anti-cannabis propaganda movies from the 40s made by people who never met anyone who ever consumed cannabis.

Unlike 1936’s wonderfully misguided and hysterical Reefer Madness, Devil’s Harvest actually forgot to include something in their film. 

The cannabis.

I want my anti-cannabis propaganda to at least contain SOME cannabis! Without it, there’s no point. 

Just like this movie.

 

Visit to a Small Planet (1960)

On the podcast/YouTube side of these shenanigans, this marks the 4oth episode of Cinema Wellman. You know what there hasn’t been nearly enough of?

Jerry Lewis bashing. 

I realize that I mentioned my disdain for Lewis during the World Cup episode. I believe France was penalized in some way for their love of him. Rightfully so. But that’s about it. 

Until now.

There are so many things I dislike about Jerry Lewis, but I will stick to my problems with him in this movie only to save a bit of time.

IMDb takes this half-assed shot at a synopsis; “The weirdest alien in the galaxy pays a visit to Earth…” That’s it? That’s all you got? But after watching Visit to a Small Planet, there might not be that much more to say. 

All of the Jerry Lewis schtick that I’ve grown to hate over the years is on full display here. The stupid vocal changes (“Hey, ladies!), the immaturity, the idiotic faces…everything you loathe about Jerry Lewis all in one place! How convenient.

I was expecting this to be stupid. I just wasn’t expecting it to be this stupid. 

The Worst: So Dear to My Heart (1948)

My hatred of Disney is well documented, so no surprise to see a Disney movie named as the WORST film screened here at Cinema Wellman in April. Low hanging fruit, to a certain extent.

The poster boasts “Music! Laughter! Heartwarming Drama!” I beg to differ. 

Here’s the synopsis from IMDb: “This heartwarming classic tells the tale of a country boy who adopts a mischievous black lamb and learns valuable lessons about love and dedication.” This was on Cinema Wellman’s radar due to an Oscar nomination in the category of, you guessed it, Best Original Song.

It sounds harmless enough and stars Burl Ives! You know. Sam the Snowman from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. What on earth can be so bad about this movie to earn the title of the “Worst of the Month?!”

Pretty simple. Christopher Columbus.

That’s right. 

In the middle of this family movie about a kid and a lamb is an animated segment that features a hero job about that Eurotrash Christopher Columbus. Makes sense that this propaganda cartoon was fully endorsed by famed racist and anti-Semite Walt Disney. And since it’s Disney, Columbus even got a song! Hey kids! What rhymes with genocide?

Now onto the quality stuff of the month of April! Seven movies worth a watch for a variety of reasons, as always. 

Hansel & Gretel Get Baked (2013)

This was part of Cinema Wellman’s 4:20 celebration and with stoner comedies it’s either hit or miss. Mostly miss. With stoner comedies they either don’t get it at all, or they get it too much and they act like they invented the stuff. People have been smoking cannabis since 2800 B.C.E. Don’t act like it was your idea Pineapple Express. 

I was totally surprised by this movie. I’m not saying it’s great, but it’s a fun stoner horror/comedy that stars Lara Flynn Boyle as the evil cannibalistic witch! 

From IMDb: “A brother and sister battle a witch who lures teenagers into her suburban home with her special blend of marijuana where she then proceeds to kill and eat them to maintain her youth and beauty.”

THIS is how you make a cannabis movie, Devil’s Harvest!

The gore is pretty sweet, including a scene where the witch extracts and eats an eyeball while the owner watches her do this with his other eye. 

I also liked how the witch first appears old and decrepit but becomes younger after dining on the teens. There’s enough here to earn 86 minutes of your time. 

As the Gin Blossoms once said, “If you don’t expect too much from me, you might not be let down.”

The Visit (1964)

Let’s have IMDb set this up: “An unwed pregnant teenager is run out of town and years later she returns there as a rich woman, raising the town’s expectations with her generosity, but she’s only out for revenge.” Oooh!

The rich woman is played by Ingrid Bergman, and Anthony Quinn plays a townsman who also fathered her child back in the day.

The acting is superb, which is no surprise since Bergman and Quinn are two of the best ever. It was filmed entirely in Italy, so the scenery is beautiful. And the story is quite compelling.

When Bergman returns, to great fanfare, we (and the townspeople) think all is forgotten and she’s here to help the town that treated her so poorly.

She does want to help the town, but there is a condition to her generosity. And it is a biggie!

Bergman does a wonderful job with her character and the pain she’s suffered through is portrayed in a sympathetic way. . This town totally ruined her life, and now she’s back for revenge. In a way, it’s like High Plains Drifter. 

Ingrid Bergman is the “Woman with No Name!”

I love a good revenge story.

And the ending is superb for another tangential reason. If you’re a regular here at Cinema Wellman, you know how I love the good people at Cinema Sins. Look for them on YouTube, you will not be disappointed.

One of the regular sins they tally is the mentioning of the movie’s title somewhere in the movie. When that happens, you are to loudly say, “Roll Credits!” I love that and do it on a regular basis.

Well the end of The Visit includes a double bonus “Roll Credits!” At the end of the movie, Bergman is leaving the town. As she gets into her car she says, “The visit has ended.” That is the final line of the movie!

ROLL CREDITS!

Hollywood on Trial (1976)

I’m once again going to let IMDb set this up since they do it so well. “This documentary analyzes a dark period in Hollywood’s history due to the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s when actors, writers, and directors were persecuted and investigated by the House of Un-American Activities Committee after being considered suspects of committing anti-American acts by preaching Communism in their films and television shows.”

I am old enough to remember the Cold War. I wasn’t alive when it actually started right after WWII or when JFK and Castro almost ended things for everyone in 1961, but I certainly lived through a good 30 years of it. 

“The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show” dealt with Communism (a lot!) and Monty Python had many sketches dealing with Russian history and Communism, so the Cold War was even in the entertainment I was enjoying at the time. “Kosygin and Brezhnev are in the kitchen now! Tasting my wife’s jam!”

When I signed my first teaching contract in the fall of 1988 one of the things I had to agree to was stated as such on paper on that very contract, “I will not teach the Communist doctrine in my classroom.” Hudson, New Hampshire. August 1988. Live Free or Die, unless by “free” you mean Communism. Then just die.

This documentary was made up almost entirely of actual courtroom testimony as some of the legends of Hollywood were asked some seriously probing questions about not only their politics, but their personal lives. 

I knew a lot about this part of film history by watching films about screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Trumbo, a documentary about him from 2007 made last February’s Top 10 right here at Cinema Wellman, and the 2015 film, also titled Trumbo stars Bryan Cranston as the blacklisted writer. Both are worth a watch if you're a fan of cinema or overreaching government committees. 

The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971)

If you suffer from Entomophobia, STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THIS MOVIE!

That’s the fear of insects. I don’t have it. I have musophobia, claustrophobia, taphophobia, and hella coulrophobia. But I have no problem with insects. Actually I find them fascinating.

That being said, this 1971 Oscar winning documentary about the savagery and efficiency of the insect world made me more nauseous than watching the vomit flood from The Triangle of Sadness.

Insects are amazing. They are also absolutely disgusting and do some gross and heinous shit as part of their regular lives. 

I watch most of my movies alone, but there was a crowd of family in Cinema Wellman for this one and we were all making barf noises throughout, when we weren’t yelling things like, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!?! WHAT’S GOING ON?!!?”

Good times.

This is Cinerama (1952)

Wow! The third documentary in a row on April’s best list! This is Cinerama was made in 1952, the very year this way of presenting movies to audiences debuted.

I love documentaries about film history and the innovations the industry has gone through since its birth in the late 1800s. 

“Cinerama” is a wide-screen process using three adjacent, synchronized cameras for photographing and three corresponding projectors for showing the film. This is ultra ultra widescreen stuff here!

The film is projected on a huge, deeply curved screen by three projectors, and it looks amazing. Notable films presented in Cinerama include How the West Was Won, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Grand Prix, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Howard Hughes’ favorite film Ice Station Zebra, and most recently The Hateful Eight in 2015. 

So credit to Tarantino for that even though I think he’s an overrated hack who continually reads the reviews of his two masterpiece projects Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction and needs to attend physical therapy for arm and shoulder pain suffered from continually patting himself on the back. 

This is Cinerama is a fun look back at not only movies of the 50’s, but the 50’s themselves. 

Fourteen Hours (1951)

In 2012, Elizabeth Banks (director of Cocaine Bear) starred in a movie titled Man on Ledge. It was about a man who is threatening to jump from a Manhattan hotel rooftop. 

It was junk.

If you want a tense, suspenseful drama about a man on a ledge, just go back to 1951 for Fourteen Hours. That’s the total number of hours a suicidal man is standing on the ledge of a high-rise building in this film-noir thriller. 

Richard Basehart is the man on the ledge, and the great Paul Douglas is the only police officer Basehart will trust. Hall of Fame Friends of Cinema Wellman Agnes Moorehead and Grace Kelly are also a part of this Oscar nominated film.

In an odd sidebar, several members of the cast and crew of this film were called before the House of Un-American Activities Committee that I just mentioned being the focus of Hollywood on Trial. And always remember that there’s no such thing as coincidence. 

The Best: Zero Hour! (1957)

This film has been on my radar for at least a decade. The only reason it’s famous is because it’s the movie parodied in 1980’s hysterically funny Airplane. 

Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers wanted to make a spoof of airline disaster movies and there were several things they loved about Zero Hour! They loved it so much that they bought the rights to it. The whole thing. Since they owned the property, they could do whatever they wanted to it. And they did. 

Some of the characters' names (including protagonist Ted Stryker/Striker) and the lines are taken directly from the original. 

“Johnny, how about some coffee?” is said in both films. It’s only greeted with a “No thanks!” in Airplane. This is tremendous. 

“I want every light you have poured onto that runway!” is said in both films. Airplane adds the sight gag of a dump truck dumping household lamps and lights onto the runway. 

This is genius. If you love Airplane, you MUST see this! I watched them back-to-back because of course I did. 

The oddest thing about Zero Hour! is that it’s actually a GOOD airplane in distress action thriller! On its own merits! Without being turned into an all-time classic comedy!  

There are more than a couple of reasons to seek out Zero Hour! 

Word to the wise…when the stewardess asks, stay away from the fish. 

Well, that’s a wrap for the Best & Worst of the month of April. Thanks for joining us again here at Cinema Wellman and we hope to see you next week when it may finally be the time for that gambling movies episode.

But…I wouldn’t bet on it. 

Until then…take care.