Saturday, January 28, 2006

Ice From The Sun (Collector's Edition) - 1999

This is what the Independence Motion Picture scene is all about. The Making of featurette calls it a "Dangerously Experimental Punk Art" film. That about sums it up. Eric Stanze is a genius, as far as I'm concerned. I have many of his movies, and I enjoy them all.

I love this movie, but its not for everyone. Its wild, weird (looking and plot), and totally different. Thats what makes it great. I guarantee you haven't seen 20 movies like this (unlike everything in Blockbuster).

This new Collector's Edition is great, too. The audio track is MUCH improved. I can actually understand what everyone is saying. (Although I still wish someone had subtitles). There are TWO commentaries. The Second disc has the afformentioned making of, thats over an hour long. In fact, this is the first Independent movie where there was actually MORE special features than I wanted to watch (only the new version of David Cronenberg's The Fly has more!). Buy this one! Support independent cinema. Oh, and Eric, hurry up with Deadwood Park.

Five beers out of five.

Final Terror - 1983

On the other end of the scale comes this steaming pile of poo. I'd like to say that I made fun of it, but ITS SO DAMN DARK THAT I COULD NEVER TELL WHAT WAS HAPPENING. This is more common in movies from the late 70's, early 80's than you'd believe.

This disc is the exact opposite of Ice as well. The audio's bad, and there's NOTHING on the disc except the movie. There are chapter breaks, and that's it. No trailers, no commentaries, nothing.

I think this is about an abandoned old lady who kills off a bunch of kids in the woods. Gee, we've never seen that before. And since its dark, we didn't see it this time. And since its the final terror, there's never been one since. Yeah, right. And why the hell is Daryll Hannah slumming in this movie? She had already been in The Fury and Blade Runner. She was up and coming. How her career survived this is anybody'd guess.

One beer out of five. (and I'm not sure that its beer. Its the right color, but....)