2026 - MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, a very strange film

This is not a good film, in fact it's a very stupid film.  Mattel owns the rights to the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe characters. They were looking for a studio to make a live action version of their cheesy syndicated cartoon series. Mattel managed to get MGM/Amazon to sign on to create a feature film.  And what brought this on?  Well one word Barbie.  Barbie another Mattel character made so much money that all these corporate interests thought they had a potential money source converting plastic toy doll characters into actual films. 

Unfortunately nobody seemed to understand the success of Barbie.  The film had an excellent screenplay, good direction and casting.  Barbie also pitched a message of female empowerment and you can rest assured Masters of the Universe really had no such message just a cowardly tiger called Cringer and a floating magic guy called Orko.

As poorly as this film turned out there was the gem of a decent idea in it.  Add the usual action and fantasy stuff but also stick in lots of self deprecating humor with a wink to the audience that all this sword and sorcery stuff is actually mighty silly.

Half the time the actors look like they can barely contain the smirk on their faces while playing these silly characters.  The action scenes are the usual bunch of overblown computer graphic animations. After a while it just looks so outrageous it ceases to be remotely believable even for a fantasy world.  But maybe that was the point. 

The director Travis Knight had primarily been associated with animated cartoons. I suppose he was considered to be a safe choice for what is essentially a live action animated cartoon.  But in the end the whole thing just came off as another  flop that ended up on streaming almost immediately after it was released.  If you are for some reason interested in the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe world I would recommend watching the Dolph Lundgren version.  Released in 1987 by the Cannon Group who at least recognized this was B-Movie junk instead of the wasted $170 million dollar budget that this film spent.

 The film went through a lot of screenwriters but only four got credit.  Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee and David Callaham.  The running time is 140 minutes for a film that is an updated toy commercial, 

2025 - ETERNITY, another afterlife comedy/romance/fantasy

Apparently in these Hollywood movies about the afterlife you just don't get to go to heaven and enjoy yourself you still are faced with all sorts of decisions about what kind of eternity you are going to enjoy and who you are going to enjoy it with.  This is the dilemma for The Scarlett Witch herself Elizabeth Olsen who has passed on and has to pick who she will spend eternity with her last husband who she was married to for 65 years or her first husband who was the passionate love of her life before he died early.

There's a whole bunch of these afterlife films.  The weird Robin Williams film What Dreams May Come which has a love story/suicide plot line.  Albert Brook's very funny Defending Your Life with Brooks as an advertising executive who ends up in Judgement City.  At time of his death he was screwing around with the CD player in his car instead of paying attention to the road.  

Made in Heaven has Timothy Hutton and Kelly McGillis as a couple of unborn souls who fall in love and have to find each other when they are on Earth or else they will get yanked back to Heaven.  Made in Heaven was directed by Alan Rudolph so you can be sure it's going to be on the strange side.  

A quick shout out to Powell and Pressburger's Stairway to Heaven a very impressive World War II film made at the peak of their skills.  That should go near the top of the list. 

For my money the best afterlife film is Heaven Can Wait the Ernest Lubitsch film. This is not strictly an afterlife film although it starts in the afterlife.  Don Ameche is a philandering husband who has to relate the story of his life to the Devil before he goes to hell.  This is a terrific film filmed in beautiful 1940's technicolor. 

 Let's get back to Eternity.  Yeah it's okay, the actors are decent the world building of the afterlife is some sort of train station.  That's kind of interesting.  It drags in the middle as we have to wait for Elizabeth Olsen to make her husband decision although it's fairly apparent who she will pick.

Eternity was written by Pat Cunnane and David Freyne, the running time is 114 minutes. 

2026 - THE ODYSSEY, on the big screen is long and very loud

This is the big summer movie filmed in 70mm with a big budget and a big Hollywood cast.  It has it's good points and not so good points.  As a high school student who along time ago was forced to read the Robert Fagles translation of Homer's poem I can say that Christopher Nolan changed a lot of stuff.  But there have been so many translations and interpretations of this epic Nolan certainly has the right to create his version.  The biggest change is the addition of the Trojan horse and the siege of Troy which I believe are not mentioned in the poem.  Odysseus is also now a doubting leader racked by guilt about his role in the war and haunted by the deaths of his men  He's a candidate for some serious mental health counseling and maybe a prescription of Prozac.

The film includes all the greatest hits of The Odyssey.  The encounter with Polyphemus the cyclops (probably the best scene in the film) who munches on his crew like they were after dinner mints.  A battle with the Laestrygonians, some giants that attack and destroy his ships. We are spared the scene from the book where they also eat some of Odysseus's men.  Apparently one cannibal scene was enough for this film.  Circe and Calypso are here and there's a side trip to Hades.  The final slaughter of the suitors in the banquet hall is for the most part unchanged.  About the only mythological character Nolan missed was Bobo from Clash of the Titans. 

The cast much to my surprise was fairly decent.  Matt Damon isn't bad as Odysseus and doesn't look to silly with that broom helmet on his head.  Anne Hathaway is his wife the faithful Penelope.  She's actually very effective in her scenes.   Robert Pattinson is one of the suitors of Penelope he makes a good hissable villain in the great tradition of these "sword and sandal" epics.  Tom Holland an actor now in his 30's is also good playing Odysseus's young son Telemachus.  Every time he refers to Odysseus with the anachronistic name of "Dad," that played a little cringy for me.  Tom Holland's wife Zendaya is Athena the muse of Odysseus.  However Zendaya makes absolutely no impression in this very small role. 

Yes the production is impressive considering the challenges of filming with 70mm cameras.  The Odyssey does have plenty of fighting and battle scenes to satisfy the action fans.  For a 2700 year old poem a lot of the story still works fairly well.  The soundtrack on this film is very LOUD.  I actually sat in my car for a few minutes after the film to wind down.

I will give Christopher Nolan credit this guy isn't afraid to think big and go over the top in his film making.  If he doesn't always succeed with his approach at times at the very least he is trying to go there with his large scale approach to storytelling.  Nolan's in the great tradition of super epic filmmakers like David Lean and Sergei Bondarchuk, directors who worked on a large canvas. 

 The running time is 173 minutes, screenplay by Christopher Nolan.

2013 - BEAUTIFUL CREATURES , gothic southern teen love story stuff

We're south of the Mason Dixon line in South Carolina where sensitive teenager Ethan Wate is about to fall in love.  How do we know he's sensitive?  Well he's reading Charles Bukowski and Kurt Vonnegut and it's not even on the assigned reading list for his high school English class.  Into his life comes transfer student Lena Duchannes from the far way land of New York City.  Ethan is immediately smitten with her and vice versa.  But Lena has a big secret she is secretly a "caster" (witch) who has magic powers.  When she turns 16 she will either become a good caster or an evil caster.  Can Mason stop Lena from turning into an evil caster?  He will have to fight the powers of darkness to keep this from happening.  I guess that means Mason needs to read more Charles Bukowski novels or something.

 

So what we have here is a variation on the Twilight series except this time it's a girl with supernatural powers instead of a boy.  The viewer has to sit through a lot of mumble jumble about casters, reincarnation, magic spell books and mysterious magic people who secretly co-exist with us mortals.  I am reluctant to say this film reminds me of the old Elizabeth Montgomery TV series Bewitched because that would be wrong.  However it does remind me of the spinoff to Bewitched, Tabatha who was Elizabeth Montgomery's witch daughter. 

 

The cast of this film is the usual bunch of actors in their 20's trying to pass for 15 year old teenagers.  Somehow Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson and Viola Davis also got roped into this foolishness and they really should have known better.   The writer/director Richard LaGravenese was the one responsible for this southern gothic young adult fiction nonsense.  He's usually a competent writer but in this case he should have known better.

 

Beautiful Creatures stumbles through it's contrived teenage love story trying to create it's magical world  but in the end the world building is just tiresome and dissatisfying.  Beautiful Creatures is part of a four book series and clearly the intention was to make another Twilight series.  But the movie was an under performer and that put an end to the studio's money making dreams.  My advice would be to dig out your copy of The Wizard of Oz and watch that again.

The running time of this film is 124 long minutes.  

2025 - DUST BUNNY, a fantasy horror film for the kids.

It must be the weekend for strange films.  Dust Bunny has been described by it's writer/director as a "horror film for the family" and that's probably not far from the truth.  The plot has a little girl convinced that a monster is hiding under her bed.  Unsurprisingly there is a monster under her bed and it proceeds to eat her parents.  To stop the monster, she robs from a collection plate during a Catholic Mass and uses it to hire a hit man who just happens to live in the apartment across the hall from her to kill the monster.

The film mixes the fantasy elements, action scenes and the budding relationship between the hit man and the little girl quite well.  The director Bryan Fuller is an experienced hand at this kind of storytelling.  He's written for the television shows Pushing Daisies, Hannibal, Star Trek Voyager and Deep Space Nine.  I think it's safe to say he knows his way around macabre stuff like this.

 

Dust Bunny has a great cast.  Mads Mikkelsen is the hit man and when I think of him he's usually an unrepentant bad guy.  Sigourney Weaver is Mikkelsen's contact for hit man jobs.  She first played an action hero in Alien and 40 years later she's still kicking butt.  The young girl Sophie Sloan was about 10 years old when she acted in this film and she gives a very droll performance.  Mikkelson and Sloan work very well together in this film.

 

Dust Bunny is another off the wall film that really should find an audience it's a lot of weird fun especially for fans of the fantasy genre.

The running time is 106 minutes. 

1978 - BEAUTY AND THE BEAST aka THE VIRGIN AND THE MONSTER

There have been many versions of Beauty and the Beast with Jean Cocteau's film and the Disney animated feature probably the best known adaptations of this story.  From Czechoslovakia comes this fascinating version.

The emphasis is on horror and is it ever on horror with the love story almost relegated to a next to nothing subplot.  The story is still basically the same with the daughter of a merchant substituting for her father after he violates the home of a mysterious creature living in a creepy rundown castle.   If you are looking for a Beauty and the Beast film with singing dishware you better skip over this one.  An atmosphere of decay and ruin runs through the film.  In fact the Beast is haunted by voices in his head telling him to kill Beauty a nice creepy touch.

 

The film opens with the slaughter of the Merchant's wagon train by some bandits and the killing of a woman by the Beast.  The story then moves to a not very merry medieval village where we get to watch animals being slaughtered for a wedding in a town that is one big muddy disgusting mess.  The cinematography compliments the setting with lots of gloomy and foggy night photography.

 

This version of Beauty and the Beast was directed by Juraj Herz who was associated with the "Czech New Wave." A horror film version of this old narrative war horse was an interesting approach to a frequently adapted story and definitely worth a look.

The film was written by Pavla Marková, the running time is a spooky 91 minutes.  

1985 - ONE MAGIC CHRISTMAS, attempt at making a good Christmas film

A little late with this one but it should still be considered as this is a well made Christmas film with good actors in it particularly Mary Steenburgen.  This is a Canadian production, the film was shot in Ontario instead of the over photographed city of Toronto which is the place for films set in New York which aren't filmed in New York.

Steenburgen plays the mother of a blue collar family.  She has a job in a supermarket as a cashier.  Her husband has been laid off from his job and they are about to be evicted from their home.  This film is obviously set during the Christmas season and it's safe to say that Steenburgen is not embracing the Christmas spirit this year.  Into the plot comes a Christmas angel who befriends Steenburgen's children and is tasked with helping her regain her Christmas spirit.  The angel is played by Harry Dean Stanton who is really cast against type in this film.  One Magic Christmas  is a little top heavy with some potentially tragic moments involving a bank robbery and Steenbugen's children almost dying but it's still a Christmas film in the tradition of It's A Wonderful Life, so you can expect a happy ending.

 

The film appears to have been actually photographed during the winter for a change and the setting of a blue collar city is a nice variation from the usual bogus Hallmark picture post card village that always shows up in their films.  The fantasy elements are handled in a very low key fashion which keeps the film from ending up as an overproduced special effects show and concentrates more on the characters.

 

One Magic Christmas was picked up for distribution by the Walt Disney company but for whatever reason the film was not really a financial success.  The reviews at the time were not that great which may have been the result of the film's setting and low key nature.  Still this is a very fine film and really deserves to be embraced as a corrective to most of those corny Christmas films that dominate the holiday season.

The film was written by Thomas Meehan one of Mel Brooks writing partners.  The running time is 90 minutes.

1992 - THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL, finally a version of A Christmas Carol I can get through

If you are looking for the definition of overexposed look no further then Dicken's A Christmas Carol.  I'm sure when Dickens wrote it he didn't expect it would probably be the story he would be remembered for.  A Christmas Carol is 182 years old and still going strong with many variations and that's putting it mildly.

 There is the stage version performed in my hometown at the Guthrie Theater which they role out every year a guaranteed fund raiser.  The actor Patrick Stewart does a one man version.  A musical version was performed on Broadway from 1994-2003. An LBGTQ version Scrooge and Marley apparently exists.  Mickey Mouse got into the act with Mickey's Christmas Carol.  Probably the best film adaptation is 1951's Scrooge with Alistair Sim which played up the horror elements of the story.  Believe me the list is endless.  I'm not even going to get into the other TV and film versions of this story although I will single out the Will Farrell version Spirited as particularly loathsome. 

 

Well let's get to The Muppet Christmas Carol which was filmed after the death of Jim Henson by his son Brian.  This is a surprisingly well thought out version which is mercifully under 90 minutes. Henson had the advantage of a supporting staff of technicians and performers who had been working together for quite a while.  The cast of these felt puppets assumed the various character roles.  Kermit the Frog is Bob Cratchit, Gonzo is Charles Dickens, the Marley's are played by Statler and Waldorf to name a few.  Paycheck actor Michael Caine takes on the role of Scrooge and if he's not exactly trying hard in the role at least he's British or in his case a Cockney to be precise.

The OK songs are by Paul Williams, the photography, sets and special effects are very well done and the idea of having these sock puppets play Dickens's characters really takes the sting out of a story that has been adapted more than it ever should have been.  

This version of A Christmas Carol was written by Jerry Juhl and old hand at writing material for the Muppets. The running time is 86 minutes. 

1932 - CHANDAU THE MAGICIAN, is 1930's escapism at it's most entertaining.

Chandau the Magician (Edmund Lowe) has graduated from yoga school where he has mastered the powers of hypnotism, teleportation and some other rather dubious mental abilities.  His first order of business is to stop the evil Roxor (Bela Lugosi).  Roxor has kidnapped a scientist in order to have him build a weapon that will destroy cities.  Chandau must also rescue the scientist's pretty daughter from a slave auction in addition to romancing Egyptian Princess Nadji.  It goes without saying for a film set in the Middle East, every actor in the cast is played by white people.

Chandau the Magician could almost be the grandfather of Indiana Jones.  There's lots of action combined with fantasy elements and plenty of narrow escapes.  In fact you could probably argue that this film is in many ways more entertaining than that series.  It's also has a short running time something these present day overstuffed adventure epics on the streaming services constantly plague the viewer with.  These films never seem to know when to wrap it up.

 

This film has the benefit of some impressive behind the camera talent. The legendary Chinese cameraman James Wong Howe was responsible for the photography. Howe was one of the best black and white stylists in film.  The director was the famous production designer and special effects expert William Cameron Menzies. The film has an interesting look to it and for a film made in 1932 the special effects are still impressive. 

If you are looking for a visually sophisticated looking film with an amusingly naive story line you should enjoy this.  The film is action packed and fast moving even by today's ADHD standards of film making.  The film was co-directed by Marcel Varnel.  William Cameron Menzies was a great filmmaker in a lot of areas but working with actors was not one of his strong points.

The film was written by Barry Conners and Philip Klein. The running time is 71 minutes.

2025 - SUPERMAN, latest version on the big screen

Yes it's entertaining, it has action and humor.  It's a little on the long side but not excessively so.  Superman turns out to be a good summer movie event.

The film was carefully cast.  David Corenswet is very good as Superman, he manages to instill the modesty in the character and is not some saccharine goody two shoes.  Rachel Brosnahan is a feisty Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult is the hiss able villain Lex Luthor.  This version of Superman adds Krypto the Superdog a character I had remembered from the conics.  Fortunately they didn't push their luck on this super pet stuff so we weren't inflicted with Streaky the Supercat.

The writer/director James Gunn is obviously an aficionado of this superhero stuff as he has proved with his Guardians of the Galaxy series for Marvel.  But Gunn is smart enough to know that you can't take this material very seriously he loads the film up with plenty of humor. 

If I had any issue with the film it would be that the plot is a very busy one with civil wars, a kaiju monster, an inter dimensional prison and the addition of lots of other superheros that probably most people have never heard of.  In this film we are expected to know who Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Metamorpho and Mister Terrific are.  It sometimes seems like you can't tell the players without a program.

There has been some criticism that this film has some kind of left wing agenda.  Maybe yes, maybe no.  I suppose it's what you read into it based on what your politics are.  But if you want to waste your time worrying about the politics of a film that has a guy flying around in his underwear, be my guest.

Written by James Gunn, the running time is 129 minutes.

1935 - THE SCOUNDREL, interesting, crazy filmmaking from Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur

The Scoundrel is what you end up with when you let two successful but very cynical screenwriters have the keys to the studio, in this case Astoria Studios in New York City.  Hecht and MacArthur got financing through Paramount Studios to produce some moderately budgeted film.  The end result were a series of offbeat and mostly weird films.  

The Scoundrel stars English actor/playwright/composer Noel Coward in his first film.  Theatrical audiences may have known Coward as a successful writer of upper class comedies but I would bet his name and reputation meant next to nothing outside of New York.

The story has Coward playing a malicious publisher who enjoys ruining people's lives.  When he dies in a plane crash, he comes back as a ghost who can only get to heaven it someone grieves for him.   Yes this is the same plot as the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. 

For a couple of guys who were top screenwriters in Hollywood, Hecht and MacArthur sure had a primitive film technique.  They seem to have had absolutely no visual sense and didn't know how to get decent performances out of their actors.  What makes The Scoundrel watchable is top cinematographer Lee Garmes who ended up being a co-director on this and other Hecht and MacArthur films.  The fact that this film looks professional at all is a tribute to Garmes skill.

But lets go to some quotes from this film, this was Hecht and MacArthur's strength, clever and cynical dialog:

"Pity - that most vile of virtues - has never been known to you."

"I'm never nice "

"She's the only woman I've ever met who seems shallower and more superficial than I am. It'll be a perfect match: two empty paper bags, belaboring each other. "

"I don't approve of child labor as a rule, but so much depends on the child."

"Cora, get off your knees. Tears always make me crueler than I really am."

Written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, the running time is 76 minutes.

1983 - FIRE AND ICE, an animated fantasy epic.

Probably looking for a commercial hit after the success of Arnold's Conan the Barbarian. The director Ralph Bakshi along with the comic book artist Frank Frazetta dreamed up this story of muscle bound heroes, nearly naked buxom babes, evil magicians, scary monsters and did I mention nearly naked buxom babes.

To save money on animation Bakshi and his crew rotoscoped the main characters. This is a technique which involves tracing over live actors to make them look like comic book people.  The now animated characters are then placed in exotic backgrounds  The result is interesting if a little jarring at times when viewed.  Bakshi had used this technique on several R rated cartoons notably Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic.  He had uneven success in Hollywood as R rated animated cartoons didn't exactly make for a family night at the moves.

.

Fire and Ice is loaded with lots of fighting and entertains as an action film although the story is really nothing special.  The good vs evil fantasy stuff had been done before and in better films.  Fire and Ice is at best an okay time killer.  The weird looking animation does give it an interesting look.

The film was written by Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas, a couple of comic book writers.  The running time is 81 minutes.

1969 - THE VALLEY OF THE GWANGI, it's cowboys vs. dinosaurs.

This cowboys versus dinosaurs fantasy originated with Willis O'Brien who was never able to get a studio to back his film.  Years later stop motion animator Ray Harryhausen resurrected the property and with his producing partner Charles Schneer filmed this story in Spain.

Initially popular with a series of stop motion science fiction and fantasy films in the 1950's, Harryhausen had always labored with tight budgets as most Hollywood studios looked at special effects films as  poor stepchildren to their usual output.  Relocating to England Harryhausen produced some of this most entertaining films, Jason and the Argonauts, First Men in the Moon and One Million B.C. come to mind.

Even though the popularity of traditional special effects fantasy films had diminished by the mid 1960's with the film audience, Harryhausen soldiered on.   Valley of the Gwangi is a very entertaining fantasy film in the classic tradition.  The film has some entertaining sequences particularity the cowboys roping the Tyrannosaurus scene which was one of the most challenging stop motion scenes Harryhausen had ever filmed.  

Valley of the Gwangi was a victim of a studio regime change and was patronized by critics at the time of release.  With the passage of time the reality is that this is a very fun film   The film's reputation has actually continued to grow over time.  Steven Spielberg and his production team obviously took a look at this film before they made Jurassic Park.  One sequence in Spielberg's film was directly lifted from this film.

The film was written by William Bast, Julian More and Willis O'Brien, the film runs 96 minutes.

1986 - CASTLE IN THE SKY aka LAPUTA: CASTLE IN THE SKY

Hayao Miyazaki temporarily abandons his themes of mankind's interaction with nature and children adapting to life in a complicated world in favor of this action packed fantasy adventure.

 Our hero Pazu,  is a young boy working in a coal mine.  One night he finds a strange girl named Sheta literally drifting through the sky while wearing a magic crystal.  The two young people team up to learn more about Steta's past life and the magic crystal.  This story features a series of amazing action set pieces that rival and at times surpass about anything that can be found in American action films.  The staging and animation are incredibly exciting throughout the film.

This is sort of a change of pace film for Miyazaki who would write and direct more contemplative films later in his career like My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service and Ponyo on the Cliff.  Castle In The Sky is actually kind of a throwback to an earlier fllm of his, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro which I believe was his first major feature film and also featured a number of exciting action scenes.  In many ways Castle In The Sky has much in common with The Castle of Cagliostro.

 

Disney had cut a deal with Miazaki's home studio Gibli and reworked the  soundtrack replacing the original Japanese voice talent with American actors.  Anna Paquin is now Sheta, James Van Der Beek is Pazu.  Cloris Leachman is the leader of a group of flying pirates and Mark Hamill is the chief villain named Muska.  Disney was fairly careful creating the re-dubbed soundtrack even though at times it's a little jarring to hear American voices come out of Japanese characters.  Still for the most part it works fairly well.

 

Along with the stunning action scenes one has to point out the animation background design with it's  airships, floating islands and giant robots.  Visually this film is also a real treat to look at.  A stunning film.

The film was written by Hayao Miyazaki,  the running time is 124 minutes.

1964 - VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, 11 Days to Zero

Kicking around in my DVD collection is the first season of Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.  Let's take a quick look at the pilot episode for this series.

The first season of this series was shown in black and white on television but the producer Irwin Allen was prescient enough to film it in color since the remaining seasons were broadcast in color.  Irwin Allen was what I guess you would call a character.  He was drawn to science fiction and fantasy themes but as an actual producer he was kind of a cheapskate.  Allen was known for reusing footage from other episodes of his TV series and any movie he could lay his hands on. The later seasons of his TV shows tended to get more ridiculous plot wise as the look of the series got cheaper.

For the pilot episode 11 Days to Zero, Allen actually cast interesting actors.  Richard Basehart was Admiral Nelson the inventor of the submarine Seaview.  David Hedison played Captain Lee Crane.  It should be a tribute to these two actors that they kept a straight face during the run of the series when faced with a series of ridiculous monsters.  Giant sea plankton, a giant manta ray, a giant jellyfish and who could forget the unforgettable heat monster that threatened the Seaview during the series run.

The pilot episode of 11 Days to Zero was written and directed by Irwin Allen himself.  A close examination of the episode shows that it was a rehash of Allen's 1961 movie version of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.  Allen cleverly loaded the story up with lots of stock footage from that film and stuck in a decent guest star, in this case Eddie Albert who was able to stir up a little character conflict.  The pilot is enjoyable mostly because it's fun to see how many scenes he lifted from the movie and stuck in this episode.

Probably the coolest thing about this series was always the submarine Seaview itself.  It has a pair of wings in the back of it and the famous windows in the front.  Inside the Seaview itself it's like living in a Hilton.  Everything is spacious and very bright.  I have no idea if this design is even practical but for a 10 - 12 year old kid it's probably the ultimate in cool.

 

Obviously Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was no Star Trek but as a simple and at times very silly adventure series it entertained.

The running time for 11 Days to Zero is 52 minutes.

1982 - SORCERESS, extremely crappy Roger Corman production

Even by the standards of movie producer Roger Corman this exploitation film is very poor stuff.  Sorceress was directed by B movie director Jack Hill.  Clearly the intention was to make a cheapo version of the John Milius film, Conan The Barbarian.  According to Hill the producer Roger Corman stepped in after filming and did a lot of reediting ruining Hill's film.  Hill's comments are kind of laughable since this was the guy who directed, The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage and The Swinging Cheerleaders, hardly award winning stuff.

Sorceress is a typical Roger Corman production with sex, violence and nudity but when it comes to female nudity in a Roger Corman show, it's nothing below the waist.  Corman was strangely prudish about female nudity in his films while still managing to exploit his female cast.  In this film the nudity is kind of ineptly photographed.

 

 Corman has recently passed away as of this writing and has been getting a lot of accolades about his career mostly I think because he was a survivor of the B movie Hollywood film scene which has been surpassed by  the crap that now shows up on streaming channels.  A lot has been written about Corman giving opportunities to filmmakers like Bogdanovich and Scorsese at the beginning of their careers but the bottom line was that it was all about turning a profit for Corman.

 

Sorceress is sort of a cult film mostly because it is so ineptly made and poorly acted and I'm not even going to get into the dialog.  I suppose there are a few chuckles to be had with some of the ridiculous scenes and characters, a guy in a Viking costume shows up for no particular reason and the climatic special effects at the end of the film are hilariously poor.  Well you get the picture.

 The film has a writing credit for Jim Wynorski although Jack Hill claims he actually wrote the script probably something he shouldn't be talking about.  The running time is 83 minutes.