Tape 62

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Horror / Thriller
R, 93 min
Directed by Ken Russell

So... apparently Bram Stoker wrote something other than Dracula, see?  And, well, Ken Russell filmed a version that is much like most Ken Russell movies: w/ weird dream sequences featuring bare breasted nuns and/or knights w/ gigantic metal codpieces, a peculiar absence of day players and a tone that suggests tongue in cheek... but whose cheek, y'know?  Essentially it's a story of two British sisters running a rooming house whose parents had mysteriously vanished some time earlier.  One current resident is an amateur archeologist excavating Roman ruins who discovers evidence of a snake worshipping cult.  There's a mishmash of stuff including Hugh Grant as a neighbouring upper class twit and Amanda Donohoe as Lady Sylvia March who has a predilection for Snakes and Ladders (and thigh high boots).  It's good goofy fun.

Replacement status: have VHS copy.  Might be a (cheap) DVD version.

Dead Ringers (1988)
Drama / Thriller
Rated R, 116 min
Directed by David Cronenberg

Jeremy Irons as identical twin gynecologists.  One is sensitive and bookish, one is gregarious and a bit of a hound... and both fall for Genevieve Bujold, who plays an actress with particularly intriguing reproductive junk under the hood.  The brothers' identities become a little confused, both purposefully and accidentally and things spiral waaaaay out of control.  It's Cronenberg so it's a paragon of body-conscious creepiness.

Replacement status: not replaced.  Will get DVD eventually.

Tape 49

Raising Arizona (1987)
Adventure/Comedy/Crime/Mystery
PG-13, 94 min
Directed by Joel Coen

After their nouveau noir debut, Blood Simple, the Coen Brothers lightened things up a little with the tale of a loveable loser (a Coen staple ever after), ex-con H.I. McDunnough (Nicolas Cage) who finds unlikely love with police officer Edwina "Ed" (Holly Hunter).  The wheels come off their idyllic mobile home lifestyle when they learn they can't have a child.  MEANWHILE local unpainted furniture bigwig Nathan Arizona and his wife are overly blessed with a litter of quintuplets and H.I. is prodded back into illegal action to kidnap one of the Arizonas to fill the hole in their happy home.  Best sequence: grocery store robbery for Pampers that turns into a slapstick masterpiece.

Replacement status: replaced on DVD

Magic (1978)
Drama/Horror/Romance/Thriller
Rated R, 108 min
Directed by Richard Attenborough

The central conceit of the story is that ventriloquist Corky Withers (Anthony Hopkins) has risen from the circles of nightclub hell up into burgeoning mainstream celebrity (I know alternate universe, right?)  On the eve of his big break, a network television development contract, he is asked to undergo some medical tests for insurance... a request he adamantly refuses and, when pushed by his manager (Burgess Meredith), flees to upstate New York.  There he secludes himself in one of the cabins in a failing resort run by his old high school flame Peggy Ann Snow (Ann Margaret) and her husband.  At the centre of this little whirlwind is Fats, Corky's "dummy," who seems to be more than a tool of the trade.  Interesting facts: (1)  It was the movie that Attneborough did between A Bridge Too Far and Gandhi.  (2)  The script was by William Golding (based on his novel), whose other screenplays include All the President's Men and The Princess Bride (3) Ann-Margaret is ditzy funtastic and Hopkins eat two or three walls worth of scenery... in the best way possible.

Replacement status: replaced on DVD.