159) THE ADAM PROJECT(2022 dir. Shawn Levy) Date Seen: March 22 2022
Shawn Levy has a way of building up my goodwill towards him over the years by producing lots of content for filmmakers I enjoy & then knocking all of that goodwill down again in one fell swoop; releasing astronomically generic gunk like this. Then all the reasons I disliked the nudnik's work in the first place come flooding back. You can take Shawn away from the Disney Channel but you can't take the Disney Channel out of Shawn.
158) SANTA'S SLAY
(2005 dir. David Steiman) Date Seen: March 22 2022
This had the pacing & energetic violence I felt was missing from the disappointing JACK FROST (1997). It's also got genuinely clever writing in a few scenes unlike the latter Christmas horror. I just wish it didn't have that typical 1990s straight to video look with regards to framing & lighting. It came out in 2005 and looks like something from ten years prior.
157) DELTA SPACE MISSION
[MISIUNEA SPATIALÃ DELTA]
(1984 dir. Cazan/Toia/Antonescu) Date Seen: March 22 2022
156)
THE RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS
(1983 dir. Ruggero Deodato) Date Seen: March 22 2022
Just got Severin's nifty blu-ray of this today and watched it in a state of almost total incredulity. Holy hell, how did Deodato ever find funding for movies like this and CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST?! It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen & I cannot believe it doesn't have a bigger cult following.
features one of the coolest cross dissolves I've ever seen; where a moving dolly shot of pristine new furniture within an upper-class home slowly morphs into a shot of the same furniture dust covered & abandoned in the future. That visual transition happens early in the film though & unfortunately almost everything that follows afterwards is a middling bore. The technicolor is nice though.
