January 2012
1 post
December 2011
1 post
Web Searches That Have Led To Burl's Reviews
Hi, it’s Burl! As you probably know, I’ve been reviewing movies over at another location, namely http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/ ! It just seems easier to do movie reviews that way! And one thing I like is how that sort of blog tells you what kind of internet searches people did to find your website! Ha ha! I’ve kept track of some of them, and I present them to you here,...
October 2011
8 posts
Ha ha, an Important Announcement! Burl's reviews...
Hi, Burl here! I’ve moved all my reviews to a different place, namely http://hiitsburl.blogspot.com/ ! All the reviews from this blog have gone there, and all the new reviews will appear there instead of here, so change up your bookmarks accordingly!
Why make such a change, you’re probably asking! Well, this seems like more of a blog to me - and it will continue to be the place...
Burl reviews Phantom of the Rue Morgue! (1954)
Hi lads and ladies, it’s your friend Burl! I thought I’d review yet another movie featuring a murderous ape, because I really am pretty fond of those sorts of pictures! Ha ha, hope you’re not tired of them!
So listen, who’s the last person you’d expect to be playing the mad scientist role in a killer ape movie from the 1950s? Probably Marlon Brando! Well, it’s not him in Phantom of the Rue...
Burl reviews Dr. Renault's Secret! (1942)
Hello to all my pals! It’s Burl here with a review for you! Sure, it’s another ape movie, like Gorilla At Large or White Pongo, but this one has a bit of a twist to it! Read on, MacDuff, and I’ll explain! Ha ha, but first, be warned! In reviewing Dr. Renault’s Secret, I’ll be revealing Dr. Renault’s secret, and it’s not merely that he doesn’t even own a Renault! It’s hard to talk about the movie...
Burl reviews Scarecrows! (1988)
Hi, Burl here to review a movie in a subgenre which I should theoretically love, but which for the most part has never thrilled me like it ought! I’m talking about scarecrow movies of course, which have been spooky to me in a more or less academic way ever since I saw that chilling TV movie Dark Night of the Scarecrow as a wee lad! Ever since then I’ve thought that scarecrows have an awful lot of...
Burl reviews Eye of the Tiger! (1986)
Hi, Burl here to review an action movie from the 80s about a Vietnam vet who’s been pushed too far! Ha ha, doesn’t really narrow it down, does it? This one’s called Eye of the Tiger, and the Ramboo in question is Buck, played by none other than Gary Busey! (No, that’s not a typo – inspired by a fellow film reviewer, Mr. Bleeding Skull, I call these sorts of characters Ramboos!)
Buck has just been...
Burl reviews Butch and Sundance: The Early Days!...
Friends, you know it’s me, Burl! I’ve always liked a good Western, with the horses and the gunfights and the wide-open spaces! I guess Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a Western, though I’ve always thought of it more as an adventure-comedy with bromantic overtones; and in the end I’ve always been more of a Wild Bunch kind of fellow anyhow!
But the prequel to Butch Cassidy and the...
Burl reviews The Devonsville Terror! (1983)
Good day everyone, Burl here! Today I thought I’d catch up on an Ulli Lommel movie I’ve never seen! Actually there are plenty of Ulli Lommel movies I’ve never seen, and most of them I’m pretty sure I never will see! He’s just that prolific, ha ha!
The man’s most famous movie is probably The Boogeyman, which I just might review here for you sometime soon! That one was a minor horror hit back in...
Burl reviews We Dive At Dawn! (1943)
Hi friends! Yes, it’s Burl here to review a movie! I guess if I’m well-known for anything, it’s for my love of very specific movie genres! (Ha ha, remember this?: http://www.avclub.com/articles/favorite-microgenres,33330/) Well, another genre I’m partial to is the submarine picture, and today I’ve got a doozy for you! It’s called We Dive At Dawn, and it’s a dilly of a sub story!
A while back I...
September 2011
15 posts
Burl reviews Voyage in Time! (1983)
Hi, Burl here with a new review! This one is of Voyage in Time, a documentary made for Italian TV by none other than Andrei Tarkovsky! Ha ha, I love Tarkovsky’s movies! I was hooked when I saw Andrei Rublev, and then later I watched Mirror again and again! I might have to watch that one again soon, actually!
Voyage in Time shows us Tarkovsky hanging out in Italy with the screenwriter Tonino...
Burl reviews Brewster's Millions! (1985)
Hi, it’s Burl here to review a movie that had a lot of potential! Well, maybe not a lot, but a lot more than was ever realized by the final product! Brewster’s Millions was about the ninety-hundredth adaptation of a 1902 novel of the same name, and I guess it’s the wish-fulfillment storyline that keeps it so perennial! It seems there’s a down-and-out type of guy who turns out to have that...
Burl reviews Gorilla At Large! (1954)
Hi, it’s Burl here to get something straight with all of you pals: I love carnival movies! That is to say, pretty much any movie set in a carnival, and the seedier the better, will get my attention! Freaks, Carnival Rock (starring the legendary Dick Miller), Carnival of Blood (starring Burt Young), The Funhouse – they’re all great! Ha ha, I even didn’t mind that recent coming-of-age picture...
Burl reviews Due Date! (2010)
Hi, Burl here with a review of a recent mainstream comedy! This one is called Due Date, and it’s another entry in the “mismatched couple of guys” subgenre! Ha ha, think 48 Hours, but if the guys weren’t cops! And if one of them was an uptight professional and the other one an overweight slob! And if they had to cross the country together and for some reason couldn’t take a plane! I know you’re...
Burl reviews Spasms! (1983)
Hi, it’s Burl here with another animal attack movie review! I don’t have a special love of animal attack movies, despite what you might think, but I suppose it’s pretty clear that I have nothing against them either!
Ha ha, this one is called Spasms, although I’m not sure why! It’s true that when the monster snake in this movie bites you, you start spasming, but you also do many other things at...
Burl reviews The Vulture! (1967)
Hi, Burl swooping down at you with a cry of “Screeee!” and a new movie review! The Vulture is a strange little movie that must have seemed old-fashioned even on its original release! It came out in 1967, as the hippies danced and man made plans to conquer the moon, but, with its creaky dialogue, rustic locales, stodgy characters and static camera, it might as well have been made in the...
Burl reviews Beaks: The Movie! (1987)
Hi, Burl here with another animal attack movie! This one originated in Mexico, I think, but, like the similar Slugs, uses a couple of American actors in the lead roles and fills out many of the supporting parts with Hispanic players! Anyway, if you don’t mind dubbing it works out pretty well!
This one is about killer birds of course, much like Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds! It’s pretty similar...
Burl reviews Slugs: The Movie! (1987)
Hi, Burl here with a pretty gross movie to review! Slugs: The Movie still isn’t the grossest Juan Piquer Simon movie though – that title would have to go to Pieces! I’ll review that one sometime soon, rest assured my friends!
But now let’s look at Slugs! Ew, right? Ugly little guys! It seems that the town of Ashton, somewhere on the border between New York State and the Spanish province of...
Burl reviews Blue City! (1986)
Ha ha, now here’s a movie nobody ever thinks about too much! I’ll bet most people don’t even remember it exists, and since I don’t think it’s on DVD or anything, it practically doesn’t! It was one of those movies where the so-called Brat Pack started trying to play adult-ish roles, and in most cases came off like those homburg-wearing kids in Bugsy Malone! Another good example is...
Burl reviews Junior! (1994)
Hi, it’s Burl to review the sort of movie I’d usually run a mile to avoid! I watched this one as a bit of a joke, and it was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be, with one minor exception! I’ll get to that later!
The story involves Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a brilliant scientist! If you can swallow that one, I’ve got another for you: Schwarzenegger dabbles in weird science and, with...
Burl reviews Weekend at Bernie's! (1989)
Well, a Burl’s got to review movies, so here I am with another one! Weekend at Bernie’s is one of those 80s comedies that I never got around to seeing back when they were new, and so in the years hence never got around to checking out at all! Until recently, that is! A friend of mine was astonished that I hadn’t seen it – frankly, he couldn’t quite believe it! It was like I’d never seen Star Wars...
Burl reviews Machete! (2010)
Burl here, friends! It’s time to review a newer movie that’s meant to seem like an older one, Machete! This picture started out as a fake trailer in the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse amalgam movie, and they use a lot of the very same shots from that one in the feature film version! Ha ha, I guess they kept the costs down that way!
Machete tells the story of the super-Mexican of the same name,...
Burl reviews The Horror at 37,000 Feet! (1973)
Hi good pals, it’s Burl chatting at you again! It’s time to review a TV movie from way back in 1973, featuring William Shatner as a whiskey priest and Buddy Ebsen as The Unpleasant Millionaire! This one was a little before my TV movie-watching time, but I understand it managed to scare a lot of people! I’d heard the title for years, but never really knew what the movie was about! What was the...
Burl reviews You Only Live Twice! (1967)
Hi, it’s Burl here with a review of a James Bond movie, namely 1967’s pen-penultimate Connery adventure, You Only Live Twice! This is probably the worst of the 1960s Bond movies, I’m sorry to say, and nearly the worst of the Connery pictures, but that doesn’t mean it’s all that bad! Ha ha, when you’re in competition with the likes of Goldfinger, From Russia With Love and Thunderball, there’s no...
August 2011
16 posts
Burl reviews Island Claws! (1980)
Hi, Burl here! I’m back with another review, this time of a movie that, ha ha, might make you a little crabby! It’s Island Claws, and if you’re wondering just what it’s about, well, it’s about a giant crab! A giant roaring crab at that, ha ha!
As part of my self-imposed summer reading program, I tackled a book called Killer Crabs not too long ago! It wasn’t too great a book, but it delivered what...
Burl reviews Bog! (1978)
Ha ha, hi! Friends, listen, it’s Burl again with a movie review! This one is a swamp creature movie called Bog, and I remember seeing it many years ago on VHS; hard to find nowadays, but I was able to watch it again recently thanks to the magic of computers! Ha ha, thanks, magic of computers!
I was eager to see it again, not because it’s such a great movie – and it’s sure not, ha ha! – but...
Burl reviews Creature From Black Lake! (1976)
Hi friends! Burl here to talk about one of my all-time favorite movie genres, the bigfoot picture! There were lots of these movies released in the 1970s, and Creature From Black Lake was one of the best of them as far as I’m concerned! It’s a close cousin to the Boggy Creek pictures in many ways, but I think it’s better, and you better believe it gets pretty scary by the end!
It starts off with...
Burl reviews Fright Night! (2011)
Ha ha! That’s right, it’s Burl talking! As I write, it’s one of my favorite seasons of the year: the time of the late-summer horror releases! For years, Hollywood seems to have held a couple of horror movies in reserve for August, and this year is no exception! Back in August of 1985, the original Fright Night came out, and now, following that pattern twenty-six years later, a new remake comes...
Burl reviews Blood Beach! (1981)
Ha ha, hi, it’s Burl! Way back in the summer of 1982, when ol’ Burl was just a very young lad, I went with a friend and his dad to their beachfront cabin, and, looking at the local newspaper, we noticed that just up the beach in a nearby town, the local theatre was playing Blood Beach! Ha ha, that sounded pretty great to us, so we set off, walking along the sand to get to this town we assumed was...
Burl reviews Matango! (1963)
Hi, Burl here with a review of the most unusual movie Toho ever did! I can’t think of a weirder one anyway, unless it’s maybe War of the Gargantuas! Anyway, for those who don’t know, Toho is the Japanese movie studio that did all the Godzilla movies, so anytime they strayed away from the giant monster thing, it was at least a little unusual! But with Matango they went fully bats!
Matango starts...
Burl reviews Fletch! (1985)
Hi, Burl here with a review of a comedy picture from the mid-80s! Of course I’m talking about Fletch, the movie that was one of Chevy Chase’s biggest hits that didn’t have the words “Vacation” or “Caddyshack” in the title! It’s a little better than most of Chevy’s movies, because it had a real director (Michael Ritchie) and a script that was based on an actual book!
Chevy plays Irwin “Fletch”...
Burl reviews The Outing! (1987)
Hi, it’s Burl! Yes, it’s time for another review, and this one is of a horror movie made in Texas called The Outing! Actually it was called The Lamp when it was made, and that title makes a lot more sense, but somewhere along the line it became The Outing, a title which is, if you’ll pardon my French, nonsensical! After all, nobody in the movie is revealed to be a h*mosex*al!
Ha ha, but I’m here...
Burl reviews Final Mission! (1984)
Hi, Burl with more action for you! Along with plenty of slow motion familytime montages and dull domestic scenes! Welcome to Final Mission, a Filipino First Blood take-off that features a few choice action bits near the beginning (and a pretty good head-chopping, ha ha!) and then a great deal of machine gun fire in the final half hour!
It’s impossible to stay away from the First Blood...
Burl reviews Deadly Prey! (1987)
Hi, Burl here with an action film review! Actually, this movie belongs to a subset of the action genre I call Ridiculous Action! There are quite a few other Ridiculous Action movies out there: gems like Gymkata, Raw Force, Fists of Blood, Young Warriors and Ninja III: The Domination, among many others! It’s a pretty dependable subgenre, always good for at least a hearty ha ha and usually for a...
Burl reviews The Monster of Piedras Blancas!...
Ha ha, hi! Yes, it’s me, Burl, with a new movie review for you! For this one I wanted to go back, back, back in time to 1959, the days of beatniks and Ben-Hur, not to mention the space race and the Cuban Revolution! It was also the era when movies like The Monster of Piedras Blancas could be released with every reasonable expectation of being a marvelous hit!
I hear you saying “Ha ha, Burl! The...
Burl reviews Rise of the Planet of the Apes!...
Hi, Burl here to review a solid summer sci-fi action spectacular! With apes! Ha ha, I’ve always enjoyed the Planet of the Apes movies, and I was always thrilled at how bitterly misanthropic Chuck Heston’s character was in the first one! He really hated people, didn’t he! Well that was until he met the apes and was shot in the throat and captured in their nets! Then he’d have been glad for a few...
Burl reviews Damnation Alley! (1977)
It’s Burl again! Recently, as a part of my summer reading program, I took on the 1969 short-story-turned-novel of Roger Zelazny called Da*nation Alley! I’m not all that big of a science-fiction or fantasy buff, though I have nothing against it, and so really the only other Zelazny books I’ve ever read are those Chronicles of Amber ones, and then only at the rabid recommendation of a friend! But...
Burl reviews Point Blank! (2010)
Hi, Burl here with a review! No, this isn’t the great John Boorman picture of the late 1960s, but a Gallic concoction of the same title! But the plot is totally different, so don’t go worrying, as I briefly did, that this is some sort of remake! (The Boorman movie was already sort of remade as Payback, starring that loony-tune Mel Gibson!)
This Point Blank is an entirely different plate of cod! It...
Burl reviews Bigger Than Life! (1956)
Ha ha, hi! You know, I always have loved the films of Nicholas Ray, at least the ones I’ve seen! And that’s quite a few of them! I watched this one, Bigger Than Life, for the second time recently, and let me tell you it’s still as terrifying and awkward as ever! It’s a really crazy movie actually – let me tell you a bit about it!
It seems that the great James Mason has been cast, as unlikely as...
July 2011
9 posts
Burl reviews Welcome to Spring Break! (1989)
Hi, Burl talking! It’s time for a review of a mighty odd little movie, Welcome to Spring Break, which is apparently also known as Nightmare Beach, despite the fact that none of the particularly nightmarish stuff happens at the beach! Ha ha, except for the prankster guy, who does the old fake shark number – I guess he’s a grown-up version of those jokester kids from Jaws! And of course we can’t...
Burl reviews Friday the 13th part 6: Jason Lives!...
It’s mid-summer, and so naturally it’s time for ol’ Burl to tackle one of these Friday the 13th movies! Jason Lives seems like a pretty good place to start, since it’s the one that makes me go “Ha ha!” the most! By that I mean it’s the funniest of all the movies, though not necessarily the best – I’d have to say that if I were going to pick a favorite, it might be that old standby The Final...
Burl reviews Mausoleum! (1983)
Ha ha, hi, it’s Burl with another review for you! This time it’s the movie Mausoleum, which is one of those special movies that by any objective measure stinks on toast, but is somehow enjoyable in a goofy and gormless way! Any movie that dares to cast Dan Haggerty as an angry, lecherous drunk, LaWanda Page as a sassy maid and Marjoe Gortner as anything but the actual Marjoe Gortner has got...
Burl reviews Insidious! (2011)
Hi, Burl here with a review of one of the newer horror pictures out there! This one is called Insidious, and it’s a spookshow from the guy who made that movie Saw – but I’ll try not to hold that against him, ha ha!
This movie is about a little kid who goes into a mysterious coma, or at least he just won’t wake up one morning to go to school! At first his dad thinks that maybe he’s just being...
Burl reviews Nightwing! (1979)
Hi, Burl here, and today I’ve gone bats! Ha ha, I mean I have a review of a bat movie for you, namely Nightwing from 1979! It came out around the same time as Prophecy and is in many ways a similar movie! Both pictures have ecological concerns, touch on themes of aboriginal land and resource rights, were directed by veteran filmmakers not known for horror movies, and have hilarious centerpiece...
Burl reviews The Tree of Life! (2011)
Hi, it’s Burl here with a review of the latest picture from that old rascal Terrence Malick! The Tree of Life seems pretty autobiographical to me, it being largely the story of a mom-dad-and-three-boy family in Waco, Texas, in the 1950s, coming of age in more or less the same time and place as Malick himself! Ha ha, it’s an unexpected bit of emotional exhibitionism from a notoriously...
Burl reviews Starship Invasions! (1977)
Hi, Burl here with some science fiction for you! Ha ha, this crazy movie is called Starship Invasions, and it’s all about a battle of the UFOs! What a great opening scene the movie has: a chunky Mennonite farmer in overalls and a Sudbury dinner jacket watches a flying saucer land in the field right in front of him! He gets zapped by a blue ray and taken into the craft, where he gets brutally...
Burl reviews Without Warning! (1980)
Hi, Burl here with another monster movie review! This one is called Without Warning, and boy what a great cast it has! Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Cameron Mitchell, Neville Brand, Ralph Meeker, Larry Storch – and those are just the old dudes! Then there’s David “Blue City” Caruso in his first ever role – YEEEAAAHHHH! – and I swear to biscuits, in the role of Cameron Mitchell’s son,...
Burl reviews Prophecy! (1979)
Hi, Burl here with a review of what might have been the first movie I ever saw on the VHS format, over at my pal Dave’s house after his family got themselves a top-loading VCR as big as an old humidifier! I went with Dave and his dad one Friday night down to Krazy Krazy’s, the component shop where they had bought the highly modern device, and we were allowed to pick a movie to watch, any movie!...