Well, dear readers we must simply have a brief respite from yesterday’s long and winding notes. Those were the longest notes I’ve ever seen. They were endless, they went on and on and just when I thought they were through, they went on some more. No wonder posts were a bit down in volume, everyone was probably asleep from all that reading. So, of course, today being Friday, we shall have a brief respite from long notes, because Friday is short notes day. There will be no note longer than a half-note, and most notes will not be longer than a dotted quarter. Is the dotted quarter similar to the spotted finch? Is the spotted finch similar to the blotted frump? What the hell am I talking about?
Last night I watched the brand spanking new DVD of the motion picture entitled The Swarm, un film de Irwin Allen, with an all-star cast of players. According to one or maybe two of our dear readers, the original theatrical version of The Swarm ran something like 116 minutes (I missed it in the theaters). This special cut of the film runs 155 minutes and was, I think, used for television. They should unuse it immediately. What a truly bad motion picture The Swarm is. It is a motion picture about killer African bees – not, as the end credits tell us, the wonderful American bee, which provides honey and pollination for all. These African bees have shown up here in the USofA for reasons only known to the screenwriter. But they are here, billions of them, Swarming around and causing havoc and death where ever the go. These are mean bees, these African killer bees. There is no antidote to their poisonous venom. As a matter of fact there is no antidote to watching this movie either. It just goes on and on, like yesterday’s notes. And when someone is stung, while they’re recovering (some recover, most don’t) they see a vision of a huge African killer bee. They see it until Dr. Michael Caine tells them it’s not really there – then the vision goes away. The dialogue in this film is amazing and should be studied by all aspiring screenwriters. All I can say is, these poor actors. Dr. Michael Caine either looks like he’d rather be anywhere else on earth, or he yells loudly. Richard Widmark, who is rarely bad, has the worst of the dialogue. Fred MacMurray and Ben Johnson play the two men who want to marry Olivia de Havilland, in a totally useless subplot. I don’t mean they want to marry her in a totally useless subplot, they want to marry her in a church, but that whole business goes nowhere and means nothing to the film at hand. Richard Chamberlin shows up and says some lines. Jose Ferrer has one scene – hilariously awful – he runs a nuclear power plant. Kathryn Ross plays a military doctor with quiet ineptitude. And then there’s Henry Fonda as Dr. Krim. Somehow, Mr. Fonda escapes unscathed. He’s confined to a wheelchair in this film and he doesn’t have much to do, but even with all the risible dialogue and awfulness going on around him, he somehow manages to invest any scene he’s in with dignity and reality. The scene where he injects himself with his antidote, only to find out it doesn’t work, is really good, solely to his playing of it. Mr. Irwin Allen’s direction gives lethargy a new meaning. Most of this thing was shot on the back lot at Warners on their small town street and I kept waiting for Harold Hill to show up. It does a feature a non-stop Jerry Goldsmith score, from the days when he was still doing excellent work. By the way (BTW, in Internet lingo), the idea they finally come up with to stop the unstoppable killer bees is remarkably similar to the one they come up with in Mr. Bert I. Gordon’s far superior Beginning of the End, the movie about giant grasshoppers run amok. In any case, The Swarm DVD is a must have and you must purchase it right now.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Let us all, in the interest of short notes, click on the Unseemly Button below so we can move on. Of course, maybe “on” doesn’t want to be moved, did we ever think of that? Well, let’s click anyway, because I see a huge African killer be sitting on my keyboard.
Has anyone noticed that we are having a brief respite from long notes?
Donald will be running an Encore presentation for the radio show – if there’s one you missed that you’d like to hear, e-mail him at Donald@haineshisway.com. He’ll announce which it will be, hopefully tomorrow. Also, tomorrow will be our handy-dandy trivia contest, so don’t be a coprophiliac’s favorite party guest (a party pooper) and stop by. There’s always a party going on here at haineshisway.com and sometimes things get a little wild and wooly and even perhaps a little wild and cottony on the weekends.
Well, dear readers, it is time for me to take the day and I shall not put the day back, do you hear me? I shall take the day and do with it as I will. I will get in my automobile and drive the streets of the city, I shall wave to passersby, I shall sing a song of sixpence whilst driving, I shall open my sunroof and let the sun shine in. I shall drink Diet Coke and stop at various and sundried places to do the things I do. I shall return, however, to check up on all your posts, and I know there will be posts aplenty, because we must not shirk our posting duties, we must never shirk, because to shirk does not work – let a Turk shirk but never us. Let a jerk shirk but never us. Let a fershluganah clerk shirk but never us. Let a Doge or a Dirk shirk but never us. You don’t get a perk if you shirk, even if you lurk you shouldn’t shirk, although to lurk is to shirk and we call that a quirk. What the hell am I talking about? Today’s topic of discussion: Since we were talking about The Swarm – what are your favorite risibly bad mainstream films? We already know that the two Valley of the Dolls films top all lists, so let’s skip those. I’ll start – The Swarm would now be on my list as would Copacabana. Also, Lost Horizon, the musical film (I do like the score very much, but the film itself is totally risible and hopeless and hilarious), Airport 77, and so many others. Remember, mainstream films – things like Plan Nine and other bad low-budget films don’t count. As always, I can’t wait to see your choices, so post away, my pretties.