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TITLE DESCRIPTION TAGGED AS
TAHALKA And what a villain is our General Dong. Establishing the Mogambo connection right off the bat, Puri is both bethroned and bedecked in a fanciful military uniform, and also comes with a numbingly repeated catchphrase: "Dong is never wrong". But in a departure from his obvious model, Dong also boasts a look in which no signifier of orientalist treachery is spared: the puttied eyelids, the Fu Manchu 'stache and goatee, the long braid, and, just in case you didn't get it, stretching across his bald pate, a tattoo of a Chinese dragon. , , , ,
TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA After vowing to never return to the role again, Christopher Lee reprises the role fo the bloodthirsty count in a surprisingly strong entry into Hammer's Dracula series. , , ,
THEY WERE 11 They Were 11 continues a recent trend for me, which is visiting old anime titles that, for one weird reason or another, I never actually got around to watching back in the day. In the case of Crusher Joe, it was because I didn't think the title sounded interesting. Realizing how wrong I'd been about that movie after finally watching recently, I decided to investigate another title I'd skipped over for an even more bizarre and nonsensical reason. , ,
THIRSTY FOR LOVE, SEX, AND MURDER Plot summary would be a waste here, but I can say that there are some effective scenes in the film (my favorite might be the parking lot chase), and the cinematography is at times much more refined than in some other Turkish outings of the same period. That said, at other times this film lacks some of the restraint and refinement of the better giallo outings from Italy, and adds in a very manic Turkish element instead. , ,
THRONE OF FIRE What Throne of Fire lacks in sexy, naked Valkyrie type chicks swinging around a sword it makes up for with plentiful scenes of people sitting around in poorly lit throne rooms discussing events that would be more interesting if they were actually happening on screen instead of just being described to us by bored Italians. ,
300 SPARTANS The tale of the 300 Spartans (and let's not forget that some Thespians and Thebians stayed behind as well), then, became one of the greatest legends of inspiration ever told, and even if it has some clunky dialogue and stiff acting, it's more than enough story to make for a damn enjoyable film.
TIGER OF ESCHNAPUR Fritz Lang's two-part epic was conceived to be a big-budget, color version of the old serials, kind of like Raiders of the Lost Ark decades later, but since it was made by Germans, without scenes of Nazis with exploding heads. ,
TO CHASE A MILLION Two episodes of the obscure British series "Man in a Suitcase" are edited together to make a feature espionage film about a hapless ex-CIA agent in search of a million dollars his defector friend stole from the Russian government. ,
TOKAIDO YOTSUYA KAIDAN A sleazy samurai and his equally sleazy buddy devise all sorts of murders and frame-ups to better their own lives, resulting in more than a few vengeful ghosts taking issue with their actions in this spectacular horror tale. ,
TONY FALCON AGENT X-44: LAST TARGET The road that lead me to Tony Falcon, Agent X-44: Last Target was, as is often the case with these things, a somewhat long and circuitous one. It began when I was watching the third Christopher Lee Fu Manchu movie, the Shaw Brothers co-produced The Vengeance of Fu Manchu, on TV, and found my attention drawn to the actor Tony Ferrer, who was playing the fairly substantial supporting role of Shanghai Police Inspector Ramos. Ferrer was certainly charismatic, and handled himself admirably in his action scenes. But what really struck me was that here was a Filipino actor playing a character whom the filmmakers had gone out of their way to identify as Filipino. , , ,
TOOFAN Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan and ramshackle low budget superhero spectacle are both subjects that get a lot of play here at Teleport City, and when a film brings the two of them together we're pretty much fated to cover it, no matter how underwhelming that film may be. Fortunately the 1989 movie Toofan comes to us wrapped in some particularly interesting context. It's mildly depressing context, mind you, but interesting nonetheless. , , ,
THE TOUCH With a solid international cast, a superb cinematographer, an eye on Indiana Jones, and plenty of money, Michelle Yeoh's debut as a producer should have been a rousing, old-fashioned adventure romp. So why did things go so terribly wrong? ,
TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS A soldier of fortune in a windbreaker, a washed-up clown with a heart condition, a sexy trapeze artist, and a drunk mountain climber are enlisted to recover a couple jewels from a religious cult that could use them to bring about a dark era in which good constantly battles evil. So basically, nothing much would change. ,
TURKISH STAR WARS What Star Wars might have been if it had sped-up Benny Hill kungfu, disco music, paper mache monsters, mummies, gore, and an all Turkish cast! ,
TURKISH STAR WARS 2 I heard numerous times over several years that there was going to be a sequel to Turkish Star Wars. I heard it would have Cuneyt Arkin in it. And I really hoped that those were just fruitless rumors. They weren't. So, with a heavy heart and low expectations, I went ahead and hoped that maybe it was a fitting tribute to the original film. I've now seen it. It's not. , ,
TWISTED ISSUES A straight-edge skater is murdered and returns as a vengeful zombie with a skateboard bolted to his foot! The Gainesville splatterpunk horror comedy that changed a generation! ,
TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE AKA Bay of Blood. One gets the feeling that Bava really relished the opportunity, after infusing so many of his films with a humanist compassion toward the lead characters, to simply cut loose and let a bunch of conniving, spoiled schemers really have it. , , ,
TWO UNDERCOVER ANGELS
 The peculiarities, stylistic flourishes, and lapses in talent and/or judgment that together create the Jess Franco Experience have been well-documented in just about every write-up of Jess Franco's work. His 1969 "spy" film Two Undercover Angels is no different. You can expect weirdly framed shots, lengthy jazz club stripteases, haphazard editing, vacant acting, and a plot that, at its best, flirts with making any damn sense at all. What sets Two Undercover Angels apart from most of Franco's other films is that it's pretty enjoyable. , ,
UNCLE SAM A brutish soldier returns from the grave, dons a goofy Uncle Sam outfit, and terrorizes unpatriotic commie pinkos in this incredibly lame waste of time. ,
UROTSUKIDOJI: LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND The Overfiend gets no respect, and frankly, it doesn't deserve much. The animation is sometimes hit or miss, occasionally nicely realized, and in some cases bordering on great; the story is scatter-brained; and yes, it's packed full of misogynistic violence toward women, underaged sex and rape that culminates in exploding heads. But it does have its moments, and good or not, it played a huge role in defining the formative years of anime, and deserves, if nothing else, to be recognized for its contributions (be there good or ill) and its rightful place in the history of anime. , , ,
UZUMAKI The twisted story of a young schoolgirl who finds herself in the eye of an increasingly horrific chain of events that all seem to revolve around spirals. ,
VERSUS Just when you think Japanese zombie films can't get any more insane, along comes this deliriously over-the-top gem full of tongue-in-cheek ultra-cool gangsters, gun-toting zombies, immortal samurai, and more gore effects than you can count. ,
THE VIKINGS Simply put, this is a movie that swaggers into the room and boisterously proclaims, "I'm gonna entertain the hell out of you!" then proceeds to go ahead and do just that.
VIOLENT NAPLES Hands down the most bad-ass movie that ever was, is, or will be! A tough police inspector with a broken heart wages a one man war on the gangs of Naples in this superb Italian cop film from the 1970s. , ,
VIOLENT ROME Maurizio Merli plays a frustrated cop who becomes disillusioned with the corrupt justice system and joins a private group of vigilantes. ,
VIVA LAS VEGAS The usual skeletal plot has just enough bones on which to hang a nice series of scenes in which Elvis sings, or Ann-Margret sings (or pretends to sing, I reckon), or Ann-Margret go-go dances, or Elvis engages in verbal sparring with the rich guy (or with Ann-Margret), or Elvis gets pushed into a pool.
VOODOO ISLAND I think most of us realize that American films have done a pretty poor job of depicting voodoo over the years. The thing is, I think we usually think of the depiction as being poor because of its (pervading) undertones of racism, if not explicit prejudice and a sense of cultural and moral superiority. And, yeah, that's out there. But there's more. , ,