All posts by Rod Lott

Horror

Land of the Minotaur (1976)

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Hi, folks, and allow me to personally welcome you to Greece, the Land of the Minotaur! I’ll be your tour guide, pointing out some interesting sights along our route, and I’m happy to answer any questions that may arise! Don’t be shy! That’s what they pay me for!

If you look to your left, you’ll see two guys and one lovely young woman. For the life of me, I can’t tell the men apart because their hair is so long. Damn hippies! Ha-ha! But I kid. Look to your right, and you’ll see some local youths playing soccer, as they are wont to do. Watch it, you scamps!

Look! Over there, emerging from the car, it’s Mr. Peter Cushing, ladies and gentlemen! He’s Baron Corofax and he owns the castle o’er yonder, which is one of the oldest pagan sites in the country! And hey, let’s all give a hearty wave to Donald Pleasence as Father Roche! Hi, Father! Looks like he’s got a lot on his mind. This whole village is possessed by the devil, you see!

Just between you and me, folks, it’s easy to tell who’s in the satanic cult ’round here: It’s the people in the blue, silky KKK outfits! Hi-oooh! Amiright? We’re coming up to our final stop, the fabled giant minotaur. That’s half-man, half-bull, if you were paying attention in school! Now, you’ll notice he shoots fire out of his nostrils, but if you local reaaaal close, you’ll see his weenus! Go on, he’s not shy!

Did you hear Father Roche just now? He said, “We are up against a force that no traditional weapon has the power to destroy!” He’s weird that way. I just don’t trust the balds, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, on to the gift shop, ladies and gentleman! —Rod Lott

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Documentary

Growin’ a Beard (2003)

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Just like it sounds, Growin’ a Beard is a documentary about a beard-growing contest. In particular, the annual St. Patrick’s Day Donegal beard-growing contest in dinky Shamrock, Texas. The Donegal beard is a mustache-less style — think leprechauns and the Amish. Starting just before New Year’s Day in 1997, director Mike Woolf focuses his camera on four longtime residents (and oft-winners), asking their strategies and secrets. A monkey wrench is thrown into the tradition when a young art director from Austin enters on a lark and threatens to usurp the regulars, even though an outsider has never won.

That man, Scotty McAfee, is the subject of the film’s funniest moment, when people who know him compare the ad man to a series of hirsute pop icons, including Grizzly Adams, the original G.I. Joe doll and Jonny Quest guardian Race Bannon.

Thirty minutes is plenty long for this doc. Although pleasant and unthreatening, its numerous shaving scenes grow tiresome and could have been, um, trimmed. The video is jerky at times, but such is to be expected for a no-budget, handheld effort — and Woolf deserves props for not making fun of his subjects. He shows them as they are, which unintentionally depressed me, because I get easily bummed out thinking about small-town life.

The real reason to check out this DVD is for a bonus short titled The 72 Oz. Steak, which packs three times the laughs and suspense in a third of the time. At the famed Big Texan in Amarillo, a friend of Woolf’s attempts to eat the titular object — plus potato, salad, shrimp cocktail and dinner roll — in an hour in order to avoid paying $50 for it. Who knew four pounds of meat could be so enthralling? —Rod Lott

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Thriller

Swimming Pool (2003)

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Despite loads of young-French-blonde nudity courtesy of then-newcomer nymph Ludivine Sagnier, François Ozon’s Swimming Pool is merely a decent movie. It’s a virtually thrill-less thriller (purposely methodical, one assumes) about a lonely mystery writer with writer’s block (Charlotte Rampling) who goes to her publisher’s summer home in France to get her creative juices flowing.

It works until his highly promiscuous daughter (Sagnier) shows up and keeps the woman up all night with her loud orgasms. Then the girl kills someone and the writer doesn’t seem to mind because it’s good plot fodder. Then, in an effort to keep the crime covered up for the sake of the book, she beds an old sweaty gardener just after he’s mowed the yard. Eeewww!

The film is nicely shot, and I didn’t dislike it, but the ending left me with a “that’s it?” feeling. If you rent the unrated version, you get to see the girl blowing a French guy while Rampling throws rocks at them.

WARNING: But if you rent the unrated version, you also get full-frontal scraggly Rampling. WARNING: No matter which version you rent, you have to see a sleazy, dumpy French guy hanging out of his black cotton underwear. —Rod Lott

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Comedy

The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (2002)

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In space, no one can hear you scream “Crikey!” But that’s where, in Collision Course‘s opening moments, a U.S. satellite explodes, sending its beacon-equipped core crash-landing in Australia, where a crocodile promptly swallows it. CIA agents are deployed to retrieve it, unaware it’s in a croc’s belly, putting them on a collision course … with danger!

Meanwhile, Animal Planet host Steve “The Crocodile Hunter” Irwin and his masculine wife, Terri — playing themselves because that’s all they can do — spend their day collecting all sorts of wildlife for zoo research. With all his scenes framed TV-style and talking straight into the camera, Steve finds something, catches something and indulges himself in a five-minute, diarrhea-of-the-mouth treatise on the animal, whether it’s a wily snake, a venomous spider or hungry crocodile. His typical, hypercaffeinated shtick is peppered with such exclamations as “If you ever see a snake like this, DON’T MUCK WIT’ IT!”

The two “stories” converge briefly when the agents come upon the croc in Steve’s possession and he mistakes them for poachers, putting them all on a collision course … with laughter!

Actually the movie puts you on a collision course … with sleep! It’s pretty dull, livened up only by the prospect of seeing Steve have his face penetrated with poison-dripping fangs, but alas, such blooper-worthy shenanigans never come to be. No mistake about it, this is simply an episode of his TV show with a pointless government-agent wraparound, putting me on a collision course with … aw, never mind. —Rod Lott

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