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grinninfooleMillari is home!
Yesterday, we hosted another Church Of Otis Bad Movie Night. The Pope, St. Watserface (& Concubine) and Syd joined us for two entertainingly poorly made films. The first was Modesty Blaise, a mid-60s action flick with five different directors and a female lead who spoke no English and learned her lines phonetically. It did, however, have both Terence Stamp as an appealingly roguish criminal and Dirk Bogarde as an evil mastermind with a horror of violence and a different color theme in each scene. It had random costume changes, a musical number, and lots of bad accents.
The second was King Of The Zombies, a 1941 flick, just over an hour long, about a Nazi scientist in the South Seas, a voodoo cult and zombies. It was as dumb as one might imagine, and also featured tons of blatant racism, especially around the character of Jefferson Jackson, the black manservant to one of the white leading men, as played by Mantan Moreland. I see that Moreland played a lot of cowardly black servants in the 30s and 40s, and was considered funny, but with the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the 50s, he was seen as emblematic of rejected stereotypes. It was uncomfortable to watch, especially since he really was hilarious, thanks to excellent delivery and perfect comic timing. Also, honestly, he seemed the smartest and most interesting character in the piece. I'd love to see more of his work.
Today, _usakeh_ came out for the day, and we watched the first couple of episodes of Life On Mars (the original BBC version with John Simm). I had heard it was fabulous, and it did not disappoint. We'll watch more later, in tandem.
Yesterday, we hosted another Church Of Otis Bad Movie Night. The Pope, St. Watserface (& Concubine) and Syd joined us for two entertainingly poorly made films. The first was Modesty Blaise, a mid-60s action flick with five different directors and a female lead who spoke no English and learned her lines phonetically. It did, however, have both Terence Stamp as an appealingly roguish criminal and Dirk Bogarde as an evil mastermind with a horror of violence and a different color theme in each scene. It had random costume changes, a musical number, and lots of bad accents.
The second was King Of The Zombies, a 1941 flick, just over an hour long, about a Nazi scientist in the South Seas, a voodoo cult and zombies. It was as dumb as one might imagine, and also featured tons of blatant racism, especially around the character of Jefferson Jackson, the black manservant to one of the white leading men, as played by Mantan Moreland. I see that Moreland played a lot of cowardly black servants in the 30s and 40s, and was considered funny, but with the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the 50s, he was seen as emblematic of rejected stereotypes. It was uncomfortable to watch, especially since he really was hilarious, thanks to excellent delivery and perfect comic timing. Also, honestly, he seemed the smartest and most interesting character in the piece. I'd love to see more of his work.
Today, _usakeh_ came out for the day, and we watched the first couple of episodes of Life On Mars (the original BBC version with John Simm). I had heard it was fabulous, and it did not disappoint. We'll watch more later, in tandem.
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Date: 2009-08-11 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-11 05:48 am (UTC)Sorry I was so sleepy for King of the Zombies and part of Modesty Blaise. MB was pretty hilariously bad, especially with the secret weapon thighs! I ended up being really curious about Big Man Japan. I want to see that at some point. And yeah, the racist stuff was really getting to me in the first five minutes. It made it easy to give in to my powerful urge to sleep anyway.
But LoM? Wow, it's really all everyone squeed about. I'm really getting to like Chris, Sam's little apprentice.
Sorry I'm away again, but this time only for a few days. I can't wait to see you again! Miss you lots!
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Date: 2009-08-11 01:06 pm (UTC)