[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
It's been so long since we first experienced Rudy Ray Moore in "Disco Godfather." It's kind of shameful how long we've waited to explore his other films since he is just such a joy to watch. With a title like "Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son-In-Law," there's no way we could go wrong. And we were right. This movie is amazing, and we can't wait to watch the rest of his filmography. We start with an intro from the man himself telling us we are going to hear the story of how he became the devil's son-in-law. It starts with his mother giving birth to a ten year old who already speaks English (and a watermelon but that's neither here nor there). He learns karate as part of the prologue from a random wizard-like man on the street, and we get the ridiculously catchy theme song. Petey grows up to be a comedian who gets entangled in some nonsense with a gang that doesn't want him playing at their venue. They murder a young boy associated with Petey in the most tonally dissonant scene in the film and then everyone gets gunned down during the funeral. The devil resurrects Petey to offer him a deal: he'll bring everyone back to life if he agrees to marry the devil's daughter. Petey accepts and then goes about enacting his revenge. He also gets the devil's pimp cane, which allows him seemingly unending powers. Eventually the devil comes to make good on the deal and Petey comes up with the 'brilliant' plan to have a mask of his face made and then put on a drunk to take his place. It works exactly as well as you would think. This ends with a rooftop showdown against the devil that he seems to win but ultimately loses and we finally get a reveal of the daughter's face and that great theme song again. This movie is such a ride. Rudy speaks about half or more of his dialogue in rhymes, the plot is off-the-rails, and it's just unfailingly charming in its complete absurdity. This was a movie that so thoroughly achieved its objectives that calling it bad doesn't even seem fair. You have no choice but to admire this level of self awareness. You must watch this. If you are still not convinced, listen to the theme song. Heck, even if you are convinced listen to the theme song. Spoon Rating: 8.5
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.] This post it very, very late. We actually watched "The Guy From Harlem" two weeks ago but I completely neglected to write about it. Either way, I should note that this week we rewatched "Singham" for the second time because Erik had never seen it, and it's still as glorious as it ever was. "The Guy From Harlem" is a really excellent piece of blaxploitation and one of few films with rewatch potential that we've seen in a while. The film is about a guy from Harlem (I know, stunning) who works as what appears to be a private detective. In the beginning he is tasked with looking after the wife of a diplomat from Africa (we are never told which country but she has a perfect American accent) and told not to try to sleep with her. He promptly tries to sleep with her. When they are threatened in his hotel room, they go to the place of a white lady friend he has and basically kick her out so they can have sex in her apartment. This happens twice in the film. In what appears to be act two, the guy is supposed to retrieve the kidnapped daughter of a drug kingpin. He also has sex with her at the friend's apartment. It was around this moment that we realized this had probably been conceptualized as a television show and then was hastily reworked into a movie when the possibility fell through. It has a formula and can't seem to get a more complex plot to cover a greater span than about 40 minutes if you stretch it. The plot may not be much but the quality of this film cannot be ignored. There's weird sound, bad writing, ridiculous editing where large chunks of the film seem to have disappeared, and, most amazingly, a theme song that gets used constantly. Definitely add this one to your watch list. Quote: *kidnapper with a gun* "I'm going to blow you away. Have you ever been blown away before?" Spoon Rating: 7.5
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
In a continuation of what could aptly be called "The Hunchbackening" as we attempt to watch as many versions of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" both good and bad as we can, we watched the Jetlag Productions version. It starts in a way that implies that it may be one of a series of films about classic books where some kids go on a roller coaster through movie clips but there was no conclusion to that frame narrative so who knows. The movie follows the plot of the book more accurately than any other version of "Hunchback" except maybe the French stage musical including a bunch of minor characters like Pierre Gringoire and Fleur-de-lis except somehow no one dies. Even Disney had the nerve to kill off Frollo. In this one, Quasi pushes Frollo off a small bridge at the end and we never see him again so we can assume whatever we want. This movie also, while not a direct romance like the other animated movie that we watched, did end with Quasi and Esmerelda disappearing together. So was it fun to watch? Yeah. The animation is lazy and there are weirdly long pauses between dialogue. Phoebus is the only one with a French accent and is constantly fooling with his moustache and, as expected, Frollo was comically evil but this time without a cool villain song. There were actually two songs in this movie and they were both lazy, an intro and a Quasi loves Esmeralda number. They were so lazy, I almost didn't mention them. Spoon Rating: 6 Afterwards we watched an episode of "Madeline" where they put on a play of "Hunchback" and Gerard Depardieu is there. We don't recommend it.
