Boardinghouse (1982) Death Park: The Beginning (2021), Death Park: The End (2021)

Boardinghouse (1982)

Shot on video---VHS according to Indiewire, but that may not be true. They had U-Matic video back then which had a better picture. Camcorders didn't have flying eraser heads then, so they didn't have clean cuts between shots. So you had to edit which meant loss of image quality.

Because it was shot in somebody's house reportedly on VHS, I assumed it was terribly cheap, and it was. The estimated budget was $10,000 according to imdb.com, but that was over $30,000 today. They spent far more than that to make a tape-to-film transfer to release it to theaters.

Movies that cheap today are made today without paying anyone, so I was surprised by the amount of nudity. It doesn't seem like actors should do that for free.  

Horror movie, somewhat bloody, had a gore scene with pig's intestines.

Death Park: The Beginning (2021), Death Park: The End (2021).

Made for $180, according to IMDb. Another site said $680. I would quip that I wondered where all the money went, but that wouldn't be true. They had a large cast, a couple of topless scenes, quite a bit of presumably fake blood and a number of simple practical effects. I had the feeling it was made for Community Access TV, but there was nothing to indicate that.

Not much to it. People go into a park and a man in a Donald Trump mask murders them with a knife. 

They always cut to another shot before the stabbing. It goes from the guy beginning to plunge the knife in the victim's direction, then it cuts to a shot of the knife stuck in them. It's nice that the unpaid cast was never in any danger. Although I hear you can get workman's comp on unpaid volunteers, so an on-the-job injury could have been their only hope of being paid. There was a scene where a woman flees the killer but trips over a rope the killer stretched across the trail and this was also accomplished through editing. I'm at a stage of life where I would consider lying down on the ground a stunt.

So, it was all right. It seems like they could have taken greater advantage of the truly low budget. They were free to do whatever they wanted plot-wise. They had almost nothing to lose. 

All three movies are free on Tubi.

John Bolton

I just know "liberals" will now sympathize with him.

From Counterpunch.com:

On Thursday, John Bolton was indicted for sharing classified documents. Here’s what he said 15 years ago about Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning for doing the same:

Q. What do you think of Bradley Manning?

Bolton: I think he committed treason. I think he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Q. What does that mean?

Bolton: Well, treason is the only crime defined by our Constitution. It says that treason consists only of levying war against the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. And he gave our enemies a lot of aid and comfort.

Q. So what should happen to him?

Bolton: He should be prosecuted and if he’s found guilty he should be punished to the fullest extent possible.

Q. And what is that?

Bolton: Death.

Q. You think he should be killed?

Bolton: Yes.

 

As always, I was disappointed Bolton turned himself in instead of making a run for it. Why don't these people ever make a run for it?

 

Top Gun (1955) Sterling Hayden

Yes, this is a different Top Gun, a 1955 western. I was intrigued for some reason by the review on the Once Upon a Time in a Western website which read in part:

Another wooden performance by Hayden and poorly filmed action scenes don’t add up to a classic 1950s Western.

And why would Quentin continue to follow through with a raid of a town with no significant loot to offer when he knows it’s been tipped off to his plans and he’s likely to lose lots of his men in doing so?

Sterling Hayden had no interest in acting. He became a star for the money to pay for stuff he actually wanted to do. I'm not entirely opposed to wooden performances, but he didn't look much like a celebrity gunslinger in this. He could have worn a black shirt or an interesting hat. 

Criminals arrive on horseback and they remain on horseback, the horses just standing there, the townsfolk shooting the criminals and the criminals shooting the townsfolk. No strategy involved.

The non-combatants take refuge in the church which would have made sense if it was bullet proof, made of stone. They could have at least stayed away from the windows.

Even a low budget movie costs a fortune. They could have done anything, and they chose to do this. I knowingly sought it out so I'm not complaining exactly. I sort of liked the first part, people just walking around talking. It wasn't very good, but it was like a TV show. You didn't have to pay close attention.

Wasn't life expectancy pretty short in the Old West? They probably could have saved money by giving it an all-teenage cast and they'd have some historical justification for it.

Directed by Ray Novarro.

Free on Western Classic Movies.

Angie Dickenson vs Betty White

Betty White had a sit-com in the '80's playing an Angie Dickenson-like TV star with show called Undercover Woman. I read at the time that Betty White and Angie Dickenson knew each other and that Dickenson was annoyed at the show. 

I don't think I ever watched a full episode of Police Woman, but it was a right-wing show. One episode I watched part of had Police Woman protecting a radical Black activist who was portrayed rather negatively, and now I read that there was an anti-Lesbian episode. Apparently, Police Woman knew a Lesbian in college and this gave her life-long antipathy for them. 

So, I'll have to side with Betty White in whatever feud she might have had with Police Woman.

TV shows back then rarely lived up to their opening credits. 

Rain Man (1988)

Tom Cruise was completely convincing as a slick lying arrogant yuppie grubbing for money, abducting his autistic-savant brother and holding him hostage, demanding half his late father's three million dollar estate. His character arc, where he becomes a nice guy at the end, wasn't convincing at all. I don't know if we were supposed to feel some terrible injustice was done in the end, because that wasn't my feeling.

I couldn't understand why Tom Cruise thought he should get any part of his father's estate when he hadn't spoken to him since he was a teenager. Also didn't understand how he got rich and successful after cutting himself off from his father at that stage of life.

In Rain Man, Tom Cruise has inherited his father's custom 1948 Buick Roadmaster convertible which he and his brother take on a cross country road trip. It might make a double feature with Macon County Line, set in 1953. about a couple of degenerates traveling in their 1948 Chrysler Town and Country convertible. The car was only five years old but needed a new fuel pump which I would imagine was a more realistic portrayal of automotive reliability of the era.

Trump on stairs

Donald Trump at the beginning of his speech to U.S. military leaders at Quantico, Virginia:

"We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling down stairs every day – every day, the guy’s falling down stairs – and I said, that’s not our president. We can’t have it. I’m very careful, you know, when I walk down stairs, I walk…very…slowly. Nobody has to set a record. Just, try not to fall, ‘cause it doesn’t work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen, and it became a part of their legacy, you know. Walk nice and easy. You don’t have to set any records. Be cool! Be cool when you walk down, but don’t…don’t bop down the stairs. The one thing with Obama…I had zero respect for him as a president, but he would bop down those stairs, I’ve never seen…da-da-da-da-teh-deh-bop-bop…I’ve never seen…he would go down those stairs, bop-bop, he wouldn’t hold on, he’d go down those stairs, I said, it’s great! I wouldn’t want to do it. I guess I could do it, but eventually, bad things are gonna happen, and it only takes one. A year ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. This country was going to hell. We had nothing.”