It Conquered The World

Damn I miss you Roger.

No way I couldn't have a little week dedicated to Roger Corman and no better place to start than a good old fashioned B-movie! Shot in a whopping 5 days this classic staple of goofy monster movie history follows a crashed alien craft with it's pilot slowly conquering...a town and not so much the Earth (hey man they had to get butts in seats somehow) with the help of a resident scientist leading to the military and the scientist's friend to stop the menace. It bears some similarities to Invasion Of The Body Snatchers which coincidentally came out the same year of 1956, and though it's far from air tight in terms of plot and it's absolutely one of those movies where you don't fully see the monster until pretty much the end I gotta admit I didn't hate it! I got involved in the story with the humans and can kinda applaud it for taking some dark cold moments from time to time. The acting is solid across the board, a lot of love was heaped upon Beverly Garland as the evil scientist's wife Claire who is far from a fainting worthless woman, in fact though it would have made the movie only about an hour she has the balls to go charging into the alien's lair with a rifle to take care of business and that is fucking awesome. Best known from shows like Mission Impossible and the host of A&E Biography along with movies such as Airplane, Peter Graves is a pretty solid yet basic lead as Paul. I'm not expecting deep writing in a monster movie but he gets the job done and has a real strong voice that I like listening to. Lee Van Cleef the legend himself plays the baddie Tom and he probably has the best written material viewing the invader as a benefactor and cure to all man's problems even fully knowing it takes over people's minds and has less than altruistic motives leading to many conversations about it. Also shoutout to Dick Miller as one of the army officers, it's always kick ass to see him in any movie whether in a major or minor role! A line that struck me hard in this movie is from Paul during one of the discussions of the wrongs the alien would put to right, "I'd have to take a long hard look at anything that was gonna change the world and me so completely." and man! That needs to circulate majorly in this day and age! Some may point to it as just a cheesy sci-fi movie but I think there's more to it, and it's not an incompetently made film either! The dialogue is good, the setting is basic but has logic, the production values of the sets are believable, and even the alien himself though slightly funny is without doubt a memorable design. Hailing from the planet Venus this red crab-like monster was laughed at even on set with particular shade being thrown from Beverly Garland, and yeah it's not that major a threat or anything but it has charm to it like any rubber suit monster has. Is it a forgotten classic? No. Is it atypical of the 50s B-movie? Yeah. But for a small budget and a run time of barely over an hour it isn't a waste. It's a sure fire recommendation if you're having a 50s monster movie night and you like them on the cheaper side. I give it 2.5 stars, 6.5/10!

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

What many consider to be the best western ever made, how does it stack up in my eyes?

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, I do not hate this movie. I do not dislike this movie. I do not think it is a bad movie. It is however, an overrated movie. Sure the scale is the biggest we've seen in this loosely connected trilogy, the story is pretty simple and can lead to one hell of a showdown at the end, but....it's very cluttered. So let me try to explain, Clint Eastwood returns as our favorite bounty hunter who just captured a bandit named Tuco played to absolute brilliance by Eli Wallach, who soon escapes and through various circumstances they both discover a raided confederate camp, where one dying soldier departs information of a large sum of gold buried in a cemetary. Clint Eastwood's character, now named Blondie (no relation to the singer) knows the name of the grave, and Tuco knows the name of the cemetary but neither of them is telling. Meanwhile, Lee Van Cleef returns as a ruthless, malicious, son of a mother bounty hunter known as Angel Eyes, who wants the gold too and is tracking our duo. So you may be wondering, well the story seems simple so why is it cluttered like you said? One reason, sidetracking! Mother of God the sidetracking! It is padding levels of boredom! This movie should barely be an hour and a half long and not almost 3 HOURS!! 3 fraking hours?! Lord Of The Rings was 3 hours, but that was because they had a lot of story to tell and pretty thick books to adapt! This movie is at least half sidetracking doing other BS meaningless things, instead of heading to their goal, the cemetary. No, let's not just address the fact this takes place during the Civil War but let's spend at least more than an hour reinforcing that fact with Angel Eyes interrogating our duo at a internment camp for northern soldiers, them getting wrapped up in this completely meaningless and prolonged sequence with a colonel wanting to destroy a bridge and fight off enemy troops, I mean sweet Jesus when do we get back on track here?? I don't hate this movie man, I swear! The action though offtrack at times is excellent. All our leads are outstanding especially Eli as the cunning, foul mouthed, yet awesome Tuco and Lee Van Cleef is a great villain, granted I loved him much more as Douglas Mortimer in For A Few Dollars More but that's besides the point, so acting is spot on! The music by Ennio Morricone is the stuff of legend in this movie, with one particular track Ecstasy Of Gold being soooo good Metallica plays it before every concert they perform, seriously! Cinematography is gorgeous and expansive, showing massive battlefields, great stunts, and the mexican standoff we all know and love. Needless to say that is the highlight and best scene of the movie, even if you haven't seen the movie you have seen this standoff. You love it, I love it, it's amazing! But honestly, that's the only part worth anything. Just go to YouTube and watch that scene and save yourself almost 3 hours of unnecesary padding, that just so happens to be shot very well and has good actors in it. I'm sorry guys, I just don't see why people say this is the best western. It's a good western with a massive scale and terrific action, but for the life of me it just couldn't stay on track to tell the story. It's a basic story that tried to prop itself up to be an epic, when in reality sometimes less is more.

For A Few Dollars More

My favorite and the best of The Man With No Name trilogy.

This is the best in terms of story, action, and characters. So the story picks up with two bounty hunters on the hunt for one target, both cross paths and they butt heads for a bit but decide it would be easier to work together. So we have a great dynamic between Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef, as they first start off as opposing forces but grow into a good partnership and I think that's what really makes this movie soar above the first. So we get 2 major badass bounty hunters that would give Boba Fett a run for his money, and both have their own character dynamics, but what's a hero without their villain? And this film has one of the most insane, sadistic villains you would ever see in a western, played by the same actor who played the villain in A Fistful Of Dollars. I guess he just does good work as a murderous bandit, go figure. And compared to the first movie, the pace feels much more up beat and well paced, whereas the first movie kinda dragged in places but everything works much better in this movie. Every aspect in terms of story, action, characters, directing, sets, just everything is done to damn near perfection in this movie. I love Lee Van Cleef in this movie as a more heroic bounty hunter than Clint Eastwood's, he is what makes this movie the best to me because of his character, his motivation, and it culminates into a highly satisfying ending. It's my definite example of a spaghetti western, so I definitely say to watch this if you haven't already. You won't be disappointed.

Oh, but we're not done yet! Next, we have what many consider to be the best western ever made. Tomorrow we end with The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.