Sunday 19 February 2012

Terrorvision (1986)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFsVcflPFl4&feature=related
THIS SKY TV IS AMAZING! Stanley Putterman (Gerrit Graham) has just installed a new, state of the art satellite television receiver...unfortunately it picks up a signal from Pluton, a 'garbage disposal' planet that is in the process of beaming out the most dangerous life form in the Universe, an alien 'pet' that has a taste for human flesh. Guess where the creature ends up? That's right, in the Putterman's living room! The blobby, boggle eyed, two ton extraterrestrial is soon comfortably ensconced in the family home and begins to learn our human ways...while displaying a few nasty habits of his own. I won't give away much more of this uproariously funny movie, suffice it to say that the plot involves heavy metal, wife swapping and a visit from the alien sanitation officer! This encounter goes badly for the unlucky space garbage collector, as you will see. Also stars Mary Woronov, who was a pal of Andy Warhol back in the day. This is my kind of movie...mad as a box of frogs on mescaline! More entertaining effluent from Sneaky Elephant SOON!

Dark Angel (1990)

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pCiw0XwFSE
I COME IN PEACE! This very loud movie stars the amazing Dolph Lundgren, a hero hewn from the finest timber. He plays rule-breaking cop (aren't they all!) Jack Caine, a tough Texan lunatic who is after a narcotics gang called The White Boys. No, they ain't Nazis, they all have white collar jobs as a front for their crimes. Anyway, they steal a big pile of heroin from the FBI's own lockup, and the Feds take over the Police investigation. Caine gets a Fed as a new partner (Brian Benben) who tries to make him follow procedure etc. (just like all those other films right?). However, here's where it gets interesting...several of the White Boy soldiers are found slaughtered in a strange way. It turns out that they were killed by a razor sharp flying disc, similar to the one Predators use in THEIR movies! Also, bodies start turning up that have been pumped full of heroin, then had their endorphins extracted. Yes, you guessed it, an alien drug dealer is on the loose! This nice guy kills his victims with the smack, then sucks out the endorphins, which he then sells to addicts on his own planet. He extracts the gunk from the brains using a spiky thing strapped to his wrist...again just like Predator! (see the picture above).  Caine, the Fed idiot and an alien cop named Azeck must stop the nasty Talec (dumb alien names!) before he brings his druggy pals to Earth and wipes us all out for our brain chemicals.
I loved this movie when it was released, as the action makes up for the shortcomings in a big way. On reflection, it's just a twist on the vastly superior PREDATOR which came out two years before. Dolph is as wooden as a tree, as are the rest of the cast. The horrible Talec (Matthias Hues) is about nine feet tall and  looks like a pop eyed model for Mount Rushmore. This movie does have one big name star...Michael J. Pollard, who was in BONNIE AND CLYDE (he played CW Moss) and LITTLE FAUSS AND BIG HALSY (with Robert Redford), and many other films in a fine portfolio of work. However, Pollard's star was definitely on the wane by the time he appeared in this...he has a small cameo as a pool playing snitch. To sum up, this is a typical 80s movie, from the cast to the soundtrack (by Jan Hammer), and is easily Dolph's best film...it's a lot better than THE PUNISHER anyway.  ENJOY!
More intergalactic idiocy from Sneaky Elephant SOON!

Saturday 4 February 2012

Flesh Gordon (1974)

http://veehd.com/video/4534798_Flesh-Gordon-1974


You won't believe your (hogs) eyes! Emperor Wang the Perverted is the ruler of the planet Porno.He devises an evil plan to conquer the Earth by turning everyone into sex maniacs with his 'sex-ray', and only Flesh Gordon can save us! He sets off for Porno with his girlfriend Dale and Professor Flexi-Jerkoff to find the source of the ray and defeat the evil villain.This astonishing parody of the old Flash Gordon serials was released in 1974 and is about what you would expect from the title. Unbelievably stupid...but funny in places, and the special effects are better than many 'serious' movies.But remember...if you see the Penisaurus coming, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!  More dirty doings with Sneaky Elephant SOON!

Trog (1970)

http://stagevu.com/video/ldhasiqnybrf

No, it's not a frog, it's a TROG! This movie, Joan Crawford's last, is so funny your sides will split. Miss Crawford ( she must have REALLY REALLY needed the money to appear in this) plays Dr. Brockton, an anthropologist who discovers a troglodyte, or caveman, hiding in the local caverns. A television crew manages to entice the hairy bugger out and the doctor shoots him three times with a dart gun (one hundred and eighty!). She then gets him back to her lab, where she teaches him the colours of the rainbow (ugh...red! ugh...green! ugh...blue!), what to drink (ugh..waa...terrr!) and even attempts a BREEDING PROGRAM (ugh...ugh...uuugghhh!), although not personally. The unfortunate cave dweller then has a bad reaction to rock and roll music, and has a tussle with a dog. He also undergoes brain surgery.The creature eventually tires of this treatment and goes on the rampage, murdering the local butcher, baker and candlestick...I mean greengrocer. Trog himself is played by Joe 'The Dazzler' Cornelius, a former professional wrestler who used to own a pub near Victoria Station many years ago.I met him several times and he was a lot nicer in person than he appears here, hidden as he is under crappy whiskers and a rubber mask that looks like it will fall off at any second, not to mention a pair of furry slippers.Also stars Michael Gough, who appeared as Alfred in four of the Batman films. Here, he plays a local businessman who takes an irrational dislike to the hairy fellow. Directed by Freddie Francis, who really should have known better. P.S. I was lying about the breeding program! More neanderthal naughtiness with Sneaky Elephant SOON!

Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWFmKt9NVMw&feature=related

NO SMOKING! Guy Montag is a fireman of the future, but he doesn't put fires out...he STARTS THEM! This adaptation of the Ray Bradbury novel is directed by Francois Truffaut and stars Oskar Werner as Montag. In the near future books are banned, and readers are rebels against society. The firemen cruise around on their fire engine carrying out property searches, and any books they find are promptly set alight ( 451ยบ F is the temperature at which paper burns) in public.Dissatisfied with his aimless life, Montag steals a book and reads it in secret... This fine film is somewhat dated now, but has a fine sense of style, plus some good performances.Unfortunately I could only find a version with Japanese subtitles, but don't let that put you off, as it's well worth a look. More hot stuff from Sneaky's trunk SOON!

Friday 3 February 2012

Heartbeeps (1981)

http://stagevu.com/video/lekzagucaidv
  Yes, it's HEARTBEEPS! Starring one of my comedy heroes, the amazing Andy Kaufman, this is one of the worst movies ever committed to celluloid. Andy is Val, a valet robot, who meets and falls in love with Acqua (Bernadette Peters) when they both go back to the factory for repairs. They steal a van and escape, pursued by Crimebuster, a sort of fat Dalek in a tank who is the local law enforcing robot. They also find time to produce a 'child' named Phil (allegedly Grateful Dead icon JERRY GARCIA...but all he does is bleep) out of spare parts, and fall in with a stand up comedy robot (who spends the entire movie sitting down!) named Catskil. This unfortunate fellow tells the lamest jokes you ever heard, the one about the man who thinks he's a fridge being typical of his repertoire. However, it turns out that he is conserving energy by selecting 'low power joke mode', and he finally redeems himself with a blinding mother-in-law crack at 1:04:48 into the film. This tale has an exceptional cast including Randy Quaid, Kenneth McMillan, Christopher Guest (Nigel Tufnel from SPINAL TAP) and Kathleen Freeman (The Penguin nun in THE BLUES BROTHERS). Also, the soundtrack was composed by John Williams...yes, the STAR WARS guy! Despite this,I'm warning you...it's  AWFUL!!! In fact, it did such dismal business on release that Kaufman himself apologised to his fans and offered to refund their ticket money during an appearance on the David Letterman show. Letterman's advice to Andy was to make sure he had change of $20! I loved every minute of it...but then I'm just a dumb animal...More dross among the diodes from Sneaky Elephant SOON!

Wednesday 1 February 2012

This Island Earth (1955)

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgkf2m

Based on the 1952 novel by Raymond F. Jones, THIS ISLAND EARTH is a much-loved and influential classic sci-fi movie starring Rex Reason, Jeff Morrow and Faith Domergue. The planet Metaluna is at war with the evil Zagons, so they send their man Exeter (Jeff Morrow) to Earth to get some uranium for their weapons. Meanwhile, Dr. Cal Meacham (Rex Reason) orders some electronic components but gets some strange parts instead, plus plans to build a device called an Interocitor. When this machine is turned on, Exeter appears on the screen and recruits Meacham to his cause against the Zagon menace.He takes Meacham and his girlfriend Ruth back to Metaluna,where things are looking bad for the home side.A big-headed monstrosity called the Mut-Ant lurks in the corridors of the Metalunan city, adding to the general confusion.It turns out, however, that the Metalunans have a hidden agenda, and Exeter must betray his home planet in order to save the Earth. This film is packed with great ideas and special effects for the time, despite the lockjaw performances and wooden dialog! Sit back and enjoy a big chunk of Cold War era scaremongery, but mind the Mut-Ant doesn't get you! More alien antics with Sneaky Elephant SOON!

The Bed Sitting Room (1969)

http://www.veoh.com/watch/v18728107N337ZF76

‎'GOD SAVE OUR GRACIOUS MRS ETHEL SHROAKE!' This film, directed by Richard Lester, is based on the surreal play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus. It concerns the survivors of WW3, slowly decaying amid the ruins and rubble of society. It stars many familiar faces from British television and film, notably Arthur Lowe,Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Rita Tushingham and Dandy Nichols. The war only lasted two minutes and 28 seconds, but the lingering radiation has had catastrophic effects on the survivors....Arthur Lowe turns into a parrot (and is cooked and eaten), Mona Washbourne into a wardrobe, and Ralph Richardson into the bed sitting room of the title. Dandy Nichols plays Mrs Ethel Shroake, former cleaner to Her Majesty, and as a result the new monarch of England. Milligan himself is on his usual surreal form, and the screenplay follows the original story as best it can, despite the obvious limitations of 60's movie technology. I won't make any jokes about this one, it makes its point in tragi-comic style...More tales of wonder from Sneaky Elephant's movie alerts to follow!

Guest House Paradiso (1999)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHr1XaJCnck
 
This could well be the funniest film ever made. It stars the incredible Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson as the proprietors of the worst hotel in England, situated next to a nuclear power plant.Mayall is Mr Twatt (pronounced Thwaite!) the manager, and Edmondson is the bellboy, waiter, stand-in cook and odd job man. The guests include Bill Nighy, Simon Pegg and Fenella Fielding, all treated disgracefully by our dynamic duo. Throw in an Italian beauty and her violently jealous boyfriend and you have the makings of a fantastically funny romp.There are knob gags, fart gags, you name it and it's here. The movie also features the longest moped joke in the world, and a host of incredibly violent but side splitting fights. After seeing this, you will NEVER eat pea soup again. WONDERFUL! More from Sneaky Elephant's trunk of titters SOON!