#and why do the bad guys look like rejects from clockwork orange: the musical!

[belladonnaprice]

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[mst3kproject]

520: Radar Secret Service

So here’s a challenge.  My stated goal for this blog is to watch and find something halfway intelligent to say about each and every movie the show ever featured. I’m not sure I can say anything intelligent about Radar Secret Service.  I’m not sure I can say anything stupid about Radar Secret Service.

I don’t know if I can even describe the plot. The introduction is pretty straightforward, explaining to us that the men of the Radar Secret Service can find just about anything, from a school of fish to a hidden murder weapon.  I wonder if anybody’s asked them about the g-spot.  With a tool like that, they could go looking for the Ark of the Covenant or Jimmy Hoffa or something, but instead they’re keeping an eye on a shipment of radioactive material.  Some crooks manage to steal the stuff despite the high-tech surveillance… and that’s where the movie starts to lose me.  I can pay attention to this for about ten minutes, and then my brain just shuts the fuck down.

I mean, I keep trying to watch, I really do.  I don’t know why I can’t.  Radar Secret Service is only sixty minutes long, for crying out loud, surely I can pay attention to something dull and stupid for sixty measly minutes!  I watched the sandstorm sequence in Hercules Against the Moon Men.  I sat through the Rock Climbing in Lost Continent.  Hell, last Thanksgiving I listened to my Dad and my brother-in-law talk about their unfinished home improvement projects for what felt like six days.  Surely Radar Secret Service cannot be the thing that defeats me.  I get myself a snack and my knitting and settle down, but without fail, by that ten minute mark I’ve lost track of who any of the characters are or what they’re supposed to be doing.  My knitting’s on the floor and I’m playing Marvel Puzzle Quest.  Shit.

I start over and try again.  This time I turn off my phone.  I close the blinds.  I do my best to remove all distractions.  I still can’t focus.  The walls of my living room are more interesting than this movie.  I find myself looking at them and wondering what happened to that National Geographic solar system poster I had when I was a kid, the one that showed all the moons to scale.  I mean, it’s horrendously out of date now but it was my favourite poster for ages.  Twelve-year-old me named all the characters in half a dozen unfinished fantasy novels after those moons.  Out of sheer curiosity I googled, and found out that holy shit, you can still buy it! Well, damn, that’s kind of tempting, just for nostalgia’s sake.

Okay, no.  I have to watch the movie.  By twenty minutes in, I still don’t know any of the characters’ names but ‘radar’ no longer sounds like a real word.  In fact, it’s not a real word.  It’s an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging.  In the UK it’s also the Royal Association for Dis-Ability Rights, and the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago has the Research on Adverse Drug events And Reports committee.  I bet either of those would make a better movie.

Wait, I’ve gotten distracted again. This isn’t working.  Maybe I can watch it in MST3K form.  Radar Secret Service is so short that almost all of it got into the episode.  I could cheat and do a review based on just that. I do remember snickering at the skit about the Quinn Martin nature preserve.  I should look up some of those people on IMDB.  Maybe I can find some material for Episodes that Never Were.  It says Lee Meriwether was in a mad science movie called The 4-D Man, which looks remarkably bad.  I definitely need to see that…

God damn it.

Okay, clearly having a computer at all is too much distraction for me to watch this movie.  I’m gonna have to pop the disk into an actual DVD player and watch it that way.  Some kind of drastic measures are definitely needed here because I’ve written almost an entire page of this review and I have not yet actually managed to watch the fucking movie right through in one sitting.  There’s nothing there to watch.  Where are these people?  Who are they?  They all look and dress and sound alike.  They all have identical mustaches and drive indistinguishable cars – I can’t even tell which is the Radarmobile unless we’re in a wide shot that shows the Christmas ornament on top.  The only reason I’m sure that Waitress and Leopard Lady are two different characters is because they had a scene together at the beginning.  Are they both wearing the same wig?  They’re so alike that when one of them shoots the other I’m tempted to say it counts as suicide.

The characters have no character.  The script imparts nothing to us besides minimal so-called plot information and the performances are dismally bland.  The music is boring.  The direction is listless.  It’s no wonder they picked Oh!! There’s a dead man there!!! as the stinger because it’s literally the only memorable moment in the whole film. I’m not using literally to mean emphatically, either.  I’m using it to mean literally.

Why did they make this movie?  I don’t understand.  It’s not an action flick because there’s no action.  It’s not a drama because there’s no drama.  It’s not a comedy because nothing’s funny.  It’s not sci-fi because there’s no science.  What are we supposed to take away from this experience?  What are we supposed to learn?  The movie is like a black hole, sucking in our hopes for entertainment and hiding them away behind an event horizon of boredom and confusion, from whence they can never be retrieved.  I feel actively stupider for having seen even part of it.

Even if I were to make myself watch it all the way through, from the finding of the gun to the final arrest, in a single sitting, even if I were to force my unwilling brain to recognize every frame of it, what could I possibly say?  There’s nothing to analyze here, no meaning, no metaphor. Even on a technical level, there’s not much I could add to what Mike and the Bots already said.  Yes, everybody looks the same.  No, I have no idea which side most of these identical gray suits with meaty 50’s men in them are on.  No, the people who made this movie have no idea what radar is or what it’s used for.  The Radar Men from the Moon were more relevant to radar than this movie and I don’t think they ever even used the word.

I could just talk about the short.  The short!  A shining beacon of something I can actually pay attention to!  Sadly, the very fact that I could fill a review with my thoughts on Last Clear Chance is surely a sign it deserves an entry of its own.  Where does that leave me?

It leaves me sitting on the sofa, realizing I haven’t paid any attention for the last few minutes because I zoned out dreaming up flowery metaphors for my struggle.  I’m starting to think the only way I could actually watch this is to strap myself into a chair with my head locked in place and tape my eyes open, like something out of A Clockwork Orange.  Even then, I might still manage to get distracted. My entire body is rejecting this movie.  I think I’m making antibodies to it.

I cannot tell you how much I’d rather be watching A Clockwork Orange than Radar Secret Service.  Hell, I’d rather be watching Caligula.  Caligula had stuff to look at.  It had characters with names.

Maybe… wait.  What if Radar Secret Service is actually a brilliant work of art and I’m missing it because I can’t pay attention for long enough?  Maybe it’s a satire of 50’s futurism and tedious moviemaking!  Maybe the ultimate-spy-tool-radar premise is a comment on the erosion of our privacy in an increasingly technological society!  Maybe the reason it’s so hard to tell the heroes from the villains is because the modern world has rendered both concepts irrelevant!  There is no good or evil anymore, just men in suits either giving or obeying orders, no one individual identifiable as the reason why something happens!  Maybe the two women are identical because the filmmakers are trying to point out that patriarchal society turns women against each other and ultimately against themselves!  Of course!  It all makes sense!  How did I not see it before?

I have no memory of typing that last paragraph. What’s going on?

Oh my god.  Oh shit. I know what this is.  It’s the hypno-helio-static-stasis!  I’m already in its clutches!  The world is fading.  I need to inject something thoughtful and entertaining directly into my eyeballs immediately.  There may still be time if I can only reach Netflix…

And suddenly, there it is, looming over me like a glittering spaceship above Devil’s Tower National Monument… like a saving angel… could it really be?  It is!  It’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind!  I reach out for it.  I can already hear its dulcet tones ringing in my ears like a siren song… doo-doo-DAH-doo-DAH…

And then the ship wavers and fades away, leaving only a brushed chrome ball.  My browser’s not even on Netflix.  It’s on DailyMotion, and all that’s playing is a shitty print of Radar Secret Service.

I hope you guys enjoyed my mental disintegration because it’s all the review you’re gonna get.  See you next week.  Fuck this movie.

[resonanteye]

via https://is.gd/IEusfG

horror movie talk with LFR

My friend Lucy F. R. has really great taste in movies.

I don’t say that lightly. You all know (if you’ve been reading me a while) how fussy I am about horror/weirdshit and how many movies I’ve watched. It’s my actual hobby, unrelated to anything else I do, purely for enjoyment. It’s hard for me to find people to talk about movies with, really- my uncle, who first introduced me to horror movies, and weird cinema, and one or two friends. So I’m really happy to have a conversation here about movies with someone.

Sal doesn’t take any shit from no man. (Beyond the Valley of the Ultravixens)

(R: me,  L:them)

R:  you’re on a grimy southern/grind horror kick right now. But what genre do you like best? What feeling are you after?

LFR: Horror is my favorite genre, I just get very into specific branches. I always want to end up saying to myself “this is a GOOD movie”.

R: What’s the best of the batch you’ve been into recently?

LFR:The Dunwich Horror (the 70’s one), Ghost Galleon, House By The Cemetery, Werewolves On Wheels, and Tourist Trap.

R: Tell me about Werewolves on Wheels. I just watched Dog Soldiers again, and I’ve been on a werewolf kick.

(Swamp Water)

LFR: Wait, you haven’t seen it? It’s about a small biker gang that are on their way to the desert and come across a monastery that they think is abandoned but come to find out it’s not and a mysterious cult interacts with them. The cult takes one of the biker girls and puts her in a ritual. The bikers take her back from them and go back on the road, but don’t know that ~one~ of them is now a werewolf at night.

R: People reading might not have seen it. I usually try to explain a little when I start talking about stuff, especially the lists I make.

I feel like this could turn into a list?

I saw a short film recently also with a werewolf- soldiers are in WWII, surrounded by Nazis in an old police station. There’s a woman in a cell that’s locked herself in and they get stuck in there with her. She’s a werewolf and they turn so they can beat the Nazis.

I feel like- the older werewolf stuff, I think 60s to early 80s, a lot of it was hippie panic. Manson references.

I felt like Werewolves on Wheels is also backlash on feminism, like a lot of gory stuff from that time.

LFR: It felt like a backlash on feminism and hippies.

(Vamp)

R: with werewolves and vampires there’s the whole homophobic/transphobic thing too. “secret monsters” and all that.

what movies would you compare it to? what’s close to it, in feeling?

  LFR: In feeling as in how it made me feel while watching it for the first time: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, House Of 1,000 Corpses, Ghost Galleon. I just know it’s a movie that I’ll recommend to everyone and watch over and over.

Aesthetics and mood-wise: Warriors, Clockwork Orange, Hammer Film movies.

R:yeah it’s got that grit to it. easy rider/warriors. I actually haven’t seen Ghost Galleon. Rip it up for me a little.

LFR: Oh man, so

I get really into bands and for the past few years I always look up what my favorite band member’s favorite movies are, or movies that feel like the music genre. So recently I’ve just been super into doom and stoner metal, naturally I’ve been listening to a lot of Electric Wizard. I asked a bunch of doom metal fb groups “what’s the most doom metal movie you’ve seen” and eventually I somehow found Ghost Galleon. It’s a movie that is not good. Very low budget. Like Ed Wood status. But it’s REALLY good.

These swim suit models go out on a shoot and stumble across a ship that should not be afloat still and is completely abandoned. They get stuck on the ship so friends come looking for them. But the ship’s crew is a satanic cult and they come alive and, to keep from spoiling, all hell breaks loose. And it’s THE most doom metal movie you will ever watch. It has it all- mood, aesthetic, and story wise.

R:so bad, it’s incredible. sounds perfect.

LFR: it’s on prime.

R: FUCK YEAH

you guys are always using my prime and my Netflix and my Hulu. you think this is a costume? this is a way of life

R:when I started watching musician friends’ recommendations I ended up discovering Green Room.

The last time before that, it was Pighunt, which is to this day one of my favorite movies.

LFR: You told me to watch that one years ago. I recommend it to basically anyone who will listen to me.

R:it’s like the least sexist least racist southern-USA monster movie ever made.

LFR:Les Claypool’s roll in that has forever changed how I see him. When I saw Primus all I could see him as was a hillbilly preacher.

R: yep completely.

let’s talk about art horror. the weird shit. seen anything good there lately?

(The Horde)

LFR:The Girl On The Third Floor. It was weird and a little comical, but I enjoyed it. I Am The Pretty Thing Living In The House is REALLY good but it’s a little weird and a major slow burn. And, Society, but that’s more body horror than art house horror.

R:Society is a classic. Body horror and class war. So amazing. I thought I am the pretty thing was a lot of fluff- I understand the drive to slow-burn right now, it’s nostalgic. But I think it’s one of the movies where they went too far into the slow burn.

If I’m going to wait 90 minutes, that girl better taste some damn butter. You know?

LFR: I can see why but I also saw it as more of a classic gothic horror story so the pace didn’t bother me too much.

R:I kind of got tired of Gothic horror at some point. The slow burn. I think I was too interested in French and Korean extreme and gore for a minute.

LFR: I’m a sucker for gothic horror and black and white universal monsters.

R:I liked Late Phases- that kind of straddled the line for me really well. Which brings us back to werewolves, strangely enough.

I have been seeing more elderly characters in movies, which I like a lot.

  LFR: I love creepy old women and demonic children in films. I feel like The Visit sparked people’s interest in elderly characters in horror.

R: yes! I agree. I really like variety- diversity. ” 5 teenagers on a road trip ” movies… it gets tiring. Bland.

not to mention that there’s actually Black people and elderly women in movies now.

LFR: Road trip gone wrong horror is good but, you gotta do it right.

R:tell me about one that you think gets it right.

LFR: The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It paved the way.

R: it did pave the way. that there were pockets of deep weird hate in this country- I think the suburbs were really shocked by it. but if you grew up in bumfuck nowhere it was less shocking.

I think Dead End is the ultimate “road trip gone wrong” movie. Urban legend plot, Ray Wise, Lin Shaye. Just incredible pacing.

LFR: I haven’t seen that one, I’ll have to watch it.

R:oh, you’re going to love it.

I feel like the Hills Have Eyes deserves a mention here. though it’s more a “trapped on purpose” movie than a road trip.

LFR: That’s a “vacation gone wrong” horror movie, and it’s definitely one of the best ones. Vacation and road trip movies are two different branches of a genre to me.

R:I think of them as “wrong turn” vs “bad directions”. like they stumbled into trouble is one genre. they were purposely hunted/trapped, is another.

LFR:Yes, exactly!

R: like a vacation movie that’s a trap- hills have eyes a vacation movie that’s an accident- Jurassic Park

Texas chainsaw massacre is both a road trip and a vacation, an accident and a trap.

tell me about a movie that’s got a plot hole, or has kept you thinking afterward, lately. for me it’s been resolution/the endless, and residue. residue in particular. how do they keep that book? why such a dumb ending? resolution/endless bugs me and I have to watch it again- time loops force me to do math, and I end up a little obsessed with figuring out timelines.

(Requiem for a Vampire)

LFR:Horror wise, 3 From Hell. I keep thinking about how different of a movie it originally was going to be. But also, still, HOW did they survive the shoot out from Devil’s Rejects just… miraculously??? And how come this new Firefly brother was never mentioned previously whatsoever??

R:OMG yes. I couldn’t. I got too wrapped up in plot holes to enjoy it!

LFR:I still enjoyed it for what it was but yeah, I was like WAIT WHAT??? every ten minutes.

R:what about not-horror?

LFR: Picnic At Hanging Rock.

We’ve come for the crites.

R: oh yeah. that’s the kind of movie you think hard about the rest of the day. what’s your theory on the ending?

man I just went to find a photo from it and they made a show? what the hell.

have you seen The Fields? It’s set where I grew up, it’s got…a vibe. Stuck with me.

LFR: Honestly? I can’t come up with a theory on what happened. It just really feels like they simply vanished.

I haven’t seen it. Tell me about it.

(The Fields)

R: There’s a menacing thing in the cornfields. A kid has shitty parents and is sent to stay with family. The farm is in the middle of all cornfields… there’s an abandoned little amusement park that lures him. It’s based on an actual place- a tiny amusement park that flooded and was shut down. it’s still there abandoned, right next to the town I grew up in!

cornfields are extremely creepy. it’s so easy to get lost in them.

The main characters- it’s got all the bad mountain people shit going on, abuse, drinking, violence, and then more because of the presence in the fields. pretty good stuff.

not a slow burn. a medium burn.

LFR:I’m definitely watching it

R: you’ll like it. big Jughead mood.

(and then I got tired and they I think did too, so that’s all for today)

I hope I get to do this again soon: I fuckin LOVE to talk horror.

Not your baby.

If you want to support LFR in some way, wear a mask, stay the fuck home, support BLM and trans rights, and get your government reps to continue unemployment payments for gig AND other workers. Seriously.