Thursday, August 26, 2010

DOCTOR/DISTURBED

The last or month or so Your Humble Narrator has felt almost like a press agent for MadCap Theater in downtown Tempe. I can’t help it—the redoubtable film programmer there, the Midnite Movie Mamacita, has been eating her Wheaties lately, & serving up some really kickass offerings.

This weekend is no exception. Tonight (Thursday) at 7 p.m., MadCap shows a film I’m proud to say that I, Your Humble Narrator, introduced the Mamacita to myself a while back: 1973’s Doctor Death, Seeker of Souls.



It’s being presented as a “Movie Mashterpiece Theatre” show with a live riffing performance by the Phoenix National Comedy Theatre. All I can say is that the troupe will have its work cut out for it to make this movie any more hilarious than it is already.

The story concerns a studly ‘70s-type dude (Barry Coe) so bereaved at the death of his wife that he hangs out in her mausoleum. He learns of the creepy mystical conjurer of the title, who has the power to transfer souls from one body to another—for a price, of course.

Dr. D is played by that first-rate journeyman actor John Considine, veteran of everything from soap operas to Altman movies to The Greatest Story Ever Told. He rips into this twisted, lascivious role with great campy gusto. The scene in which he performs the Sawing-a-Woman-in-Half trick is roll-in-the-aisles riotous.

This scene also contains this movie’s other meager claim to fame, of special interest to Three Stooges completists: The volunteer from the audience is played by Moe Howard, in his final film role.

Admission is $9.

On the other hand, tomorrow you could go to MadCap for a free movie—Phoenix-area filmmaker Rafa Alcantara’s documentary Decade of Disturbed, a chronicle of the famed hard-rockers, screens, free to the public, this Friday at 8 & 10 pm.



So…

Monster-of-the-Week: …in honor of Disturbed, this week let’s give the nod to The Guy, the creepy spectre who graces, if that’s the word, the cover art of Disturbed albums…





The Guy is the work of artist Todd McFarlane. Looking at his grinning non-visage leaves me…well, disturbed.

No comments:

Post a Comment