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Guess the pic

August 31, 2010 by wondersinthedark

Courtesy of Troy Olson

The winner can submit their screen-cap to movieman0283@gmail.com. Do not include film title in file name so I can participate as well! (Give a day or two for the new picture to go up)

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Posted in Guess the pic | 16 Comments

16 Responses

on August 31, 2010 at 10:23 pm | Reply Joseph Jon Lanthier

The 9th Configuration?
on August 31, 2010 at 10:43 pm | Reply Bob Clark

“Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”?

Worth a shot.
on August 31, 2010 at 11:03 pm | Reply Jamie

LISZTOMANIA
on September 1, 2010 at 12:56 am | Reply Bob Clark

“Frankenstein Conquers the World” (AKA “Frankenstein Vs. Baragon”)?
on September 1, 2010 at 2:54 am | Reply Dennis

One of two films:

Either Jon Lanthier is right with The 9th Configuration (a.k.a. Twinkle Twinkle Killer Kane)

or

it’s that 1980′s schlock horror film The Keep.
- on September 1, 2010 at 3:44 am | Reply Joseph Jon Lanthier
  
  I’m like 99.9% sure, since I just watched KILLER KANE a few nights ago. A bit creepy, actually, that it showed up here…
- on September 1, 2010 at 4:09 am | Reply Bob Clark
  
  I doubt “The Keep”, simply because it’d be tough to get a screencap of that movie. And I’m certain I’m dead wrong on both my guesses, but the pic did remind me of the castle from “Last Crusade”, and it’d be neat if a Honda kaiju pic were ever chosen here.
on September 1, 2010 at 3:08 am | Reply Joseph Demme

The Boys From Brazil? (I’ve only seen part of it)
on September 1, 2010 at 8:00 pm | Reply Troy Olson

Jon gets it on the first try

Curious on your thoughts on the film. I quite liked it when I watched it for a second time a few months ago.
on September 1, 2010 at 8:16 pm | Reply Jamie

Awesome, I thought maybe Jon had it, but I had to throw out my crazy has nazi imagery movie out there too.

Strange I’ve never seen ‘The 9th Configuration’ and I was ‘into’ nazi-ploitation films for awhile. I will be seeing it soon, I love when bizarre films are dressed up as this one looks to be (2.20:1? sweeeet)
- on September 1, 2010 at 8:31 pm | Reply Troy Olson
  
  Just a note — this is by no means a naziploitation film. This movie takes place in a military asylum and this scene is during a movie that the inmates are filming. So no Nazis.
  
  You do get a great performance by Stacy Keach, along with the underrated Ed Flanders and Jason Miller. The most obvious horror movie connection would be that the film was written/directed by William Peter Blatty of EXORCIST fame (he apparently considers this the true sequel to that film).
  - on September 1, 2010 at 8:50 pm Jamie
    
    oh thats ok, sounds good anyway.
    
    sounds sort of similar to MEN BEHIND THE SUN or PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE, two pretty intense films.
  - on September 1, 2010 at 9:04 pm Troy Olson
    
    Actually, it’s more akin to ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST, moving from farce to someplace darker, by the end of the film. Some good camerawork from Blatty too, taking full advantage of the Gothic architecture on hand (and there’s a great shot of the crucified Jesus on the moon that is kind of the singular image from the film).
  - on September 1, 2010 at 9:48 pm Joseph Jon Lanthier
    
    Right you are, Troy. The inmates at the asylum are perpetually playing out feral fantasies, most of them related to wartime or psychiatric therapy itself, but others a bit more random. The screenshot above comes above when some of the patients want to play “The Great Escape” with the guards/doctors as Nazis and another patient wanders off into his own monstrous game. There are also a handful of Shakespearean works performed by a company of dogs in the film (directed by a madman who feels there are mental benefits to witnessing canine dramaturgy).
    
    The movie’s kind of a cross between CUCKOO’S NEST and something like MASH – a humanitarian farce with military motifs that constantly blurs the lines of reality with mise-en-scene anacoluthia. It’s decent but I felt a tightening of the universal unkemptness at the denouement that I could have done without. I don’t want to give too much away but Blatty views this as a sequel to THE EXORCIST due to the way that issues of faith and salvation are addressed, and in my opinion neither film/novel can be considered a satisfactorily sophisticated consideration of those concepts (as far the EXORCIST goes, I’m with Pauline Kael, who called it the greatest advertisement ever produced for the Catholic Church).
    
    Granted, Blatty’s a pop writer, and KILLER KANE dares to be a hell of a lot messier than most pop explorations of religion. The crucifix/moon juxtaposition you mention is the most eloquent visual statement…it’s a reminder that man tends to approach progress from the perspective of sturdy traditions, and a nervously lysergic example of how numinous stimuli within the material realm becomes immediately associated with the ecclesiastical.
    
    The performances are also uniformly (pun intended) excellent, especially Keach’s. But the ending flourish of “selfless” sacrifice? Meh. If anything, it proves that the intellectualization of altruism is always reliant on arbitrary motives (I’d argue that Kane’s intent wasn’t to “shock” or help the raving astronaut, but to selfishly facilitate cosmic equilibrium for all the carnage he’d committed). The biker gang scene is also a bit too long, and gawkily edited, which mutes power of Kane’s necessary transformation and self-confrontation at its resolution.
    
    Anyway, though, the film IS a great ride, and a strong 3 out of 4 stars, so I’d recommend it. It’s also more or less a perfect subject for the book of essays I’m currently writing, so I was pleased to discover that, as well.
on September 1, 2010 at 8:18 pm | Reply Sam Juliano

Congrats Jon! Back on top again!!
on September 2, 2010 at 12:32 am | Reply Dennis

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it….

Like I said before the secret was revealed, Jon Lanthier hit the nail on the head. I knew too it might be this long forgotten William Peter Blatty nut-job film. When the 9th CONFIGURATION was first released publicly, I remember that the television advertisement commercials had it’s title as TWINKLE TWINKLE KILLER KANE… The commercials were a hodge/podge of MTV style (before there was MTV) flash cuts of weird images from the film; most of inmates in a mental asylum and a Nazi soldier, a person flying across the room on wires (or was it a jet pack?)… Very bizarre imagery that kinda freaked/creeped me out when I was a kid (I think I was 11 years old or so when this movie came out-the reviews were mostly bad as nobody could figure out what the fuck it was about and they were expecting another EXORCIST from Blatty). It was only years later that the intelligentsia reevaluated the film (and it didn’t fare much better on a second viewing). Myself, i agree its more like ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, but far more brutal and psychologically disturbing… If there were ever a film that could take the heading of CULT FILM, this would be one of them….

Figures a big brain like our dear friend Mr. Lanthier would get this one right out of the starting gate (I really wouldn’t have expected anything less)… BRAVO, JON!!!!!!