Ingagi, 1930 – ½

I have neither the time, patience nor inclination to really get to the bowels (and believe me bowels are involved here) of the problems around ‘Ingagi’ a film that’s “behind the scenes” is WAY more interesting and engaging than the film itself.

Basically, the films a nasty racist PoS. That’s putting it lightly. What happened here was in 1929, some producers got the idea to make a fake documentary about a fictional explorer visiting a fictional tribe who worship the ‘Ingagi’ (Kinyarwanda for ‘Gorilla’). The film opens by stating that the current state of play is that once a year, the tribe offer the gorillas a woman in exchange for a peaceful 12 months. But that before this arrangement was made, women who were unable to have children were shunned into the jungles, where they offered fruit and themselves to the Gorillas in the hopes of becoming ‘fruitful’ themselves.

And…honestly? The film is basically an hour and 10 minutes of Stock footage, largely stolen from the 1915 film ‘Heart of Africa’ (Which…to my understanding was supposed to be a silent film introducing african cultures to a then unknowing American and European audience) with seriously racist undertones dropped in throughout via narration from our adventurer ‘Sir Hubert Winsford’ with (approximately) 12 minutes of new footage shot in some LA backlot in which Sir Hubert trots about doing very little other than having a presence in the movie.

The ending features highlights such as; A guy in a gorilla suit kidnapping a woman before being shot to death, Black women being described as ‘half human’ and questions being raised as to whether black womens children are ‘Half human and half ape.’

The utterly sick transformation of what was supposed to be informative stock footage and heavy racism aside, this film also features scenes of animal cruelty, hippos being gored and rhinos being chopped up in scenes not TOO dissimilar to ‘Cannibal Holocaust’.

But dont get *too* excited…because this isnt a sleazy, ill informed, exploitation picture that you can get your seedy kicks from. Its DULL. SO dull. Unforgivably dull. 90% of this film is literally just poor quality footage of savannahs and animals…its tedious, the racism is tedious, the gorings are tedious. Its like watching paint dry with a racist uncle.

The film *allegedly* inspired ‘King Kong’ though, to be honest. I dont really care much for that tidbit. it could have inspired ‘Citizen Kane’ and i’d still call it a vindictive PoS movie.

How bad is this film? When I can confidently say that this would make a brilliant B-picture to ‘Child Bride’ and ‘Child Bride’ would come away looking like the better movie!…You know your in for a bad time.

How bad is this film? On day one of its official rollout it was hit with protests from the mammalogist who dissaproved of the animal cruelty and members of the black community who were upset with the racism…to the point that the FTC stepped in and found the whole film to be a sham, eventually banning the film in 1933! How AWFUL did your movie have to be that the FTC would be like ‘No wait…these protest guys actually have a point…’

Ingagi is an important film, only in the sense that it inspired a much MUCH greater film, and as a relic that should be shown in schools to teach awareness of media literacy and just how awful times were back then. If anyone harks back to wanting things to be like they were…’A simpler time’…show them ‘Ingagi’ and get them to say that again with a straight face. God DAMN I hated this thing.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/ingagi/

by tytdreviews

The Shepherd, 1998 – ★

Okay, so right off the bat I need to make it clear, While I understood the VERY broad elements of what was going on here; this film is SO badly handled and poorly executed that I honestly dont feel like I fully understood what was really going on. Honestly this thing felt like some sort of bizarre mash up of ‘The Warriors’, ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Escape from New York’ had all 3 films been slammed together and produced and directed by your local senior citizens lunch club.

The plot; as far as I can tell; is that at some point in the future sattellite warfare leads. to nuclear warfare which in turn leads to ecological breakdown and the collapse of society, the earth becomes uninhabitable, and so; humanity goes underground (literally) in order to survive.

While down there, over time…religious cults begin to pop up centered around anyone whos charismatic enough to draw a crowd. All of these groups are basically pumping the poor people for ‘donations’ in order to live cushy lifestyles. But the three main organisations have…basically an ordained crime syndicate ensuring their turfs are protected from the other cults influence and that the main three continue to steadily grow.

While there are grunts in this organisation, there are also ‘Shepherds’ basically highly trained assassins who do special missions on behalf of a particular cult that your regular goons arnt able to do.

Its here that we meet Dekota, a Shepherd who’s recently lost his wife and kid, who’s sent on a mission to assassinate a woman from another cult faction thats been causing trouble. However when Dekota gets out there, the woman turns out to have a son…and given that He’s recently lost his family, he cant bring himself to kill off another family, so he takes them hostage.

That’s pretty much the first 15 minutes of the film, and the rest of the movie from there on in, is basically just a long chase sequence occasionally broken up with sex scenes and shoot outs.

There is almost certainly more nuance to be had with this film. But i’ll be damned if I could find it, the broad plot is interesting but WAY too complex. I’d have been happier had it just been ‘it’s the future, 3 cults run the world and our hero has to try and escort a hostage while learning that all the cults are evil’

Instead the film makes out that there are dozens of cults (that we never see) and we spend WAY too long hanging around with characters who dont matter, talking about stuff that isnt relevent and using AWFUL dialogue thats way to flowery and takes a LOT of focus to figure out exactly whats being said.

The tones all over the place, this thing cant decide if it wants to be ‘Total Recall’ futuristic, or ‘Terminator’ futuristic and as such we flip flop between overly animated characters who feel really out of place, and genuinely unpleasent and grim scenarios that totally sour any of the comedy elements.

The pacing is all over the place, we spend WAY too much time stopping and starting with inane conversations that add NOTHING.

theres APPAULING CGI dotted throughout, that makes FMV clips look like 4k remastering.

Im led to believe this was produced by Roger Corman (one of 4 being produced near simultaineously around this time) and I sincerely believe that they basically booked out a warehouse, blew most of the budget on making a bladerunner-esq shanty town set with a few futuristic looking vehicals, and THEN (and only then) did they bother to consider what the script should be about.

Because this thing reads as a rough draft, its got WAY too much stuff going on that should have been on the cutting room floor, the ending is dissatisfying and theres no challenges or twists to this thing, it’s literally ‘They say they’re going to do a thing, they do the thing’. It feels like the cult elements have been too far seperated from the rest of the movie, meaning the whole thing feels like 2 films are going on at once, Dekota protecting the hostage from soldiers sent by the cult…and the whole ‘inner complexities and nuances of the three cults’

Because the two plots dont really interact till the end, and when they do interact it’s pretty meaningless. it means that it feels like neither side is ‘whole’ and neither side really satisfies.

Almost every aspect of this production falls down in my opinion. The script has the above issues, but the direction is rushed, lacks style or confidence, it feels incredibly generic and has a frantic feel to it that feels less coordinated and more just ‘desperately trying to get stuff in the can before we’re kicked off the set’

the cine is WAY too dark, to the point that large swathes of the film are almost unviewable, everythings drown in a turd coloured vasaline smeared smog that renders most of the movie unappealing and icky. and not in a planned way, in a mistranslation from script to screen kind of way.

The edit is poor with WAY too many cuts in a sequence and WAY too much B-roll crammed in there, it feels rushed, unpleasent and incoherent to the point that it makes the scripting even worse, because I could barely tell what was going on based on dialogue and plotting…but with an edit that makes it feel like a third of the film is missing, I have NO idea whats supposed to be happening.

The performances are all sub-par TV Movie quality, very poor deliveries from almost everyone involved (including Rowdy Roddy Piper, which was a real shame) They’re either too animated and incoherent, or not animated enough and feel like this was there first acting gig…well…ever.

The one redeeming thing this film has is it’s score, which does suit the tone of the film just about right. its a tad generic and synthy which makes it feel a little cheap. But it fits and they use it effectively. So small mercies.

Outside of the set work and score, this is a DIRE picture. One that I think, with some friends and a few beers could have the potential to be hilarious. But sober, on a Wednesday night, alone when writing notes for a youtube review. This things insufferable. Avoid.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-shepherd-1998/

by tytdreviews

Hocus Pocus, 1993 – ★★★★½

Ahh ‘Hocus Pocus’ A movie that evaded me for the longest time (i’d seen clips and chunks of it here and there over the years, but it wasnt until the late 2010’s that I actually conciously sat down and watched the whole thing tail to snout) and, it’s probably not going to be the most original review in the world to say that I genuinely and sincerely enjoy it.

The plot, a coven of witches who commit atrocities in the 17th century, are hung, but by the power of a curse, are ressurected in 1993, just in time for Halloween COULD have the potential to be played out as a rather grizzly horror tale, however the decisions been made instead to basically play it as a mash up of a YA horror flick, with a healthy dose of ‘The Three Stooges’ and a liberal scoop of campy good fun.

And thats basically this whole thing across the board, it’s a Disney/Buena Vista movie (not that that guarentees quality…But it means it’s more likely to be a hit than a miss broadly speaking) So I didnt go into this expecting anything abysmal, and I wasnt honestly dissapointed.

The scripts lively, acidic and very humourous mixing several different comedy styles to create a solid blend thats fun for all the family, it doesnt feel overly long, it’s well paced has a wickedly fun tone and ends in a satisfying way.

The characters are all multi layered, decently written and enaging with enough complexity to keep audiences interested but not so much that younger audience members minds would wander. The dialogues a little bit iffy in places, but im putting that more down to the time it was written than anything else, and when the dialogue DOES hit, it knocks it out of the park.

The direction and cine are just…wonderful, especially for a movie like this which could have easily been relegated a ‘cheap and cheerful’ attitude. It excels in showing 90s suburbia as a rich and colourful visual delight and theres enough special effects and solid sequence structuring here to keep people avidly watching.

The cast are superb with our three Sanderson sisters easily being some of the best Disney written characters ever committed to script, though it does have the unfortunate side effect that, because they’re SO well written, it does make the rest of the cast feel a little sub-par as a result. Non of them are bad by any stretch…they’re just not as good.

Theres also a couple of wobbly moment on dialogue delivery, i’d say its a pretty even split though between the dialogue being a bit rough in places, and the actors not quite nailing the right tone for delivery. it’s missing heart at times.

The scorings perfect…Look. ‘Hocus Pocus’ may not be for everyone, but it’s solid plotting and pacing, enaging cast work and razor direction and cine really make it stand out from the other Disney YA offerings of the time. A perfect family film, theres humour to suit almost all tastes here, and when its not trading on comedy, theres a rock solid foundation for a decently told leading plot running right under the surface of this thing.

I barely go a year without catching it at some point, and every time I always forget just how fun it really is.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/hocus-pocus/

by tytdreviews