The Corona Diaries

Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish have never made me laugh. That includes unintentionally.

SnoBorderZero 1godzillafan Wyldstaar PG Cooper

Been a while since I’ve watched Arachnophobia, but I recall being largely indifferent towards it, although I liked it as a kid. That said — Kingdom of the Spiders with William Shatner is surprisingly good. It starts out a bit slow, like a lot of these movies do, but once it gets the ball rolling it's quite entertaining. Some scenes are kinda funny (like the dude on the plane or the lady who shoots her own hand off) but others are actually really well-executed horror scenes. Shatner’s then-wife is in the movie. Quite the cutie. Good job, Bill. Physically, Shatner is transitioning between TV Kirk and old-ass Movie Kirk. Kinda amusing. Anyway, I’m rambling at this point. Kingdom of the Spiders. Good shit.





On a related note: Squirm a/k/a Egg Cream is alright. Not much happens but the characters are amusing. Empire of the Ants with Joan Collins is whatever, although the effects are pretty good for the time.

On an unrelated note: Roger Corman’s Gas-s-s-s is kinda funny in a “what the fuck is this shit” sorta way. It’s about a chemical weapon that kills everyone over 25 so now hippies have to rebuilt society. Corman doesn’t do anything interesting with the concept except pander to the audience. It’s kinda this feel-good “youth comedy”. Some of it works but a lot of it is a head scratcher.

They cut the scene in which the hillbilly gardener is watching her get dressed through the window. Lame. I'm sure they cut out a lot more. In that 90-minute slot they had to fill in their skits, the short film and the main movie. I'm guessing this is the norm. So all these movies that they famously roasted are heavily edited. Have you ever gone back and watched some of the complete movies? Do you ever feel you were robbed of good jokes cause they glossed over certain scenes of a movie?

What really first piqued my interest about it, though, was seeing Siskel and Ebert's review of it in a montage of various reviews of theirs on YouTube. It's safe to say that my thoughts on Naked Lunch are unsurprisingly close to theirs, more so Siskel's than Ebert's. Which is to say, there are lots of parts of Naked Lunch -- namely the scenes that detail the drugged-out fantasies of its main character -- that I honestly found weirdly fascinating and entertaining because they struck this sort of off-kilter darkly humorous tone that I got on board with. Also, I really liked the designs of the bug creatures in these scenes and have to give the puppet effects people credit there. But the issue here is that these fantasy sequences make up maybe barely half of the movie, while the rest details the writer's, played very well by Peter Weller, paranoia and descent into insanity as a result of becoming addicted to a bug powder intended to kill roaches. When Naked Lunch isn't dealing with the hallucinations or anything related to them, the movie has a sort of dry quality to it and the storytelling in general that kept me at a disconnect from it. I mean, I understood what Cronenberg was going for, but I could've watched a whole movie about Weller navigating this weird world of bug creatures with a kind of film noir style while also hitting on the same themes. The biggest issue I had with Naked Lunch as it is, is that like its main character, it maintains a sort of cold and detached quality in relation to the material that is obviously on purpose, but still worked as a disadvantage in my eyes.

This looks stupid but hilariously dated.

Roger Corman gave us a lot of good stuff. Without him, there wouldn't be Jack or Finian's Rainbow.

Happy to report Revenge of the Ninja (1983) is fucking amazing. Rest assured, PG Cooper will be watching it at the Film Club.

Glad you enjoyed yourself

SnoBorderZero PG Cooper 1godzillafan

Revenge of the Ninja is a billion times better than Ninja III: The Domination and I'm kinda annoyed that Ninja 3 gets all the hype/attention. But it does have its merits.

SnoBorderZero PhantomKnight

Watched La Cage aux Folles Part II. I can see why Dracula was apprehensive about it. The plot is the two of them hiding from evil spies, but the core of it is surprisingly good. They go hide at a village and the Nathan Lane one has to face life as a cross-dresser in a farm. It could be seen as problematic by the PG Cooper Generation. The movie doesn't hide the fact that this flamboyant gay man is beneath these strong working women. It makes it seem like this person failed as both a man and a woman. At least that's the impression it could give off to the Zoomers. It's ultimately a wacky comedy. Interesting stuff nonetheless. I'll watch Part III (yes, there's a Part III) if I ever come across it. I'm invested now in this series. LOL.

Doomsday SnoBorderZero

Go watch the Ren & Stimpy documentary. It’s excellent.

That's the only particularly memorable scene in Women in Love.