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As Good As It Gets

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Rated 9 for the Kitsch factor!! I do have a problem, it says that the role of Jake (what's his name) is played by Franco Nero, but I do believe it's played by Terence HIll, who lately can be seen on MHz Networks in Don Matteo. And he was also in the 'Trinity' movies in the 1970's. One thing I do love about these Italian movies is that the music (opening/closing themes) is nicely done. Franco Nero was in Wild Wild Planet. I could be wrong because they're both handsome blue-eyed Italians but I'm pretty sure about that. I think Wild WIld Planet is my favorite. It's SO pre-Stepford Wives. It's the height of corn, but it cracks me up every time I watch it. Very contemporary for the mid 60's....I love all the sleek design costumes, cars, and furniture. And of course, who wouldn't have a crush on Captain Mike!!

While this is a rather poor sci-fi film, for the time it wasn't all that bad. While compared to the artistry of "2001" which debuted just two years later it comes up severely lacking, all sci-fi from around 1966 was pretty shabby compared to the groundbreaking "2001". So, cut this cheesy Italian film a bit of slack when it comes to special effects! Now I am not saying it's all that good a film. But, at least it is watchable."The War of the Planets" begins in the near future. Space travel is routine and things look a bit like "The Jetsons" in this film. However, when a strange greenish cloud-like 'thing' appears in the sky, BAD things will follow! A group of astronauts are transformed into zombie-like people--who are A LOT like the "Star Trek" notion of The Borg. In other words, the infected people all think as one and are emotionless jerks. Can they be stopped or will everyone become duller than Dick Cavett on Valium?! The film has the usual 60s fare--the usual sort of spacey outfits , silly paranoid plot and sexist banter. It's all a bit silly but for fans of cheesy sci-fi (and I am one), it's all enjoyable silliness. Not all bad--and the plot idea wasn't bad at all.

Antonio Margheriti's second entry in the GAMMA ONE QUADROLIGY series of Italian Spaghetti Science Fiction movies is a marvel of form over substance. I love the ultra low budget production design, at times histrionic or wooden acting, the funky 1960s color schemes, and the brooding, mind-boggling sense of pending cosmic doom that infuses nearly every minute of the production. It is almost a perfect translation of the Spaghetti Western to SciFi terms: A good looking film composed of individual moments, some of which are actually quite evocative.The story is a different matter. I have absolutely no idea what is going on here in terms of the specifics, but as far as the broader premise I will hazard to try: Mankind is threatened by disembodied phantom beings from another galaxy who want to inhabit the bodies of "perfect specimens" of humanity in an ongoing effort to dominate the cosmos. United Democracies space soldiers Tony Russell, Franco Nero and good old Enzo Fiermonte do battle with them on an abandoned space station invaded by the Diafanoids during a New Year's eve celebration.So far so good, but there is almost a dizzying myriad of subplots, background stories, romantic interludes, poignant discussions, awkward spacewalk scenes, intense space battles, shootouts with flaming pistols, space meals with space food served in modular containers and dined on from ergonomically designed eating stations, hard-nosed space commanders barking orders at pretty female subordinates, and lots of footage of Margheriti's trademark spaceships with their propane special effects afterburners.It gets a bit too much to keep track of, which is also a quality shared by Spaghetti Westerns, and if Margheriti & his scriptwriters can be faulted for anything it is perhaps being more ambitious with their plotting than their production is capable of fulfilling. Contemporary viewers without a background in ultra low budget genre films will probably be annoyed by the miniature work with models in particular, which are more complicated but not much more advanced in their execution than what is seen in Margheriti's first two SciFi movies, 1960's ASSIGNMENT: OUTER SPACE and 1961's BATTLE OF THE WORLDS. The spacewalk scenes are also somewhat limited in their effectiveness by their depiction in the form of actors in wire harnesses being swung back & forth on a sound stage by off-camera technicians.Considerations like those weren't important to Margheriti, however, who simultaneously made four films that together amount to far more than the sum of their parts. 1964 was actually a remarkable year for Margheriti, who made no less than eight movies including his undisputed masterpiece CASTLE OF BLOOD (DANSE MACABRE) and the Peplum classic GIANTS OF ROME in addition to the four Gamma One films. However he found the energy he had the verve to extend himself and take chances, creating a diverse body of work in only 12 months that put him at the forefront of the emerging Italian B movie circuit.Mario Bava may have been more of a visionary director (and his 1965 film PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES remains the single most impressive bit of Italian science fiction from the period) but Margheriti was a craftsman who was able to churn out product that pleased audiences in abundance. Perhaps it can be stated that where Bava was the more consummate artiste, Margheriti ran a production line studio which went for a bulk-rate approach. Instead of making just one movie with careful didactic attention he made four that together have more imagination, guile and sheer celebration of the act of making movies than all of the 3 contemporary Star Wars movies films put together.6/10, for being what it is.

One of the four GAMMA series SF films from Italy's Antonio Margheriti. Not as "wild" as WILD WILD PLANET, but still fun in colorful low-budget vein. This time, the space crew has to battle a race of aliens who turn men into mindless slaves via a green gas. Reminiscent of stuff going back to INVADERS FROM MARS and IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, not to mention the loosely concurrent STAR TREK pilot "THE CAGE", it has a visual flair that helps it move past a very slow middle act. But, all cult film fans will at least want to tune into the First act with what is certainly cinema's most bizarre New Year's Eve celebration with space-walking astronauts literally spinning and floating in formation! And wait 'til you see the big finale! All this to Italian 60's lounge rock courtesy of Angelo Francesco Lavagnino. The film shares with other Euro SF films of the period decidedly 'mod' music sequences (the famous STAR WARS 'Cantina' sequence has nothing on this stuff) - I.E. Germany's SPACE PATROL and even something as sober as the Czech classic VOYAGE TO THE END OF THE UNIVERSE. Far from classic, but it was a fun period in Italian SF. Though one has to be careful when attributing dialog to the dubbed USA versions, this one has a doozy -- An astronaut has been "taken over" by the aliens, which sparks the comment: "He's gone Galactic!" Too bad the TCM print you are most likely to see isn't Letterboxed (as so much of their vault is). (the closing credits are letterboxed)