Friday, July 24, 2015

Eyes Behind The Stars - 1978

There I was, in my work clothes, drunk on Hurricane High Gravity (followed by a gin and tonic, followed by a blue Hawaiian), watching this movie, and realizing, well, it wasn't that good.  Why do these things happen to me?!  I wasn't paying attention, to be honest, not in the least, but this movie truly didn't even try to keep me entertained.  It made good background noise though, I will give it that.  I also have experienced this before, but it was really strong with this movie:  the inescapable question as I watched, "what the hell movie is this?"

This is what happens when you're drunk, you own a 50 sci fi movie DVD collection, you pick a disc at random and you press play.  I had a 4 movie choice of what to watch, I picked one with a long name, instantly forgot what it was called, and spent the next 40 minutes wondering "what the hell movie did I pick?"  because I was too lazy to get up and check.

Turns out this movie was called "Eyes Behind the Stars".  Huh.  Who knew?  Also, I thought I had watched about 40 minutes of this, turns out it was closer to an hour.  That's strange, usually movies feel like more time has gone by, not less.

Anyways, it's a mystery movie of sorts, it doesn't play out like a sci fi movie - it's more just got a sci fi twist.  Also, it is sort of an adventure movie, as the main character Tony escapes from this evil group of people associated with aliens.  Oh I forgot the plot is about aliens living among humans and wiping their memory.  Yeah, that's important to know.  Also, important to know this movie was Italian (ah, Italy) and was seriously dubbed.  I mean, seriously.  So bad.  Laughable.  But in a good way.  I also have to say that the aliens in this movie were fucking fantastic.  I love things that are genuinely original, and they were definitely that.  Obscure, bizarre, these are also good descriptive words for them.


This movie wasn't what I'd expected, of course this was going back to my sci fi boxset as I somewhat eluded to earlier.  So I went in expecting fun action and sci fi, especially since this disc that the movie was on also held my fave "The Day Time Ended".  But what I got was kind of a mystery thriller, instead, not heavy on the sci fi.  For what it is it's not bad, being drunk made me extremely short attention spanned, and I was not ready for the slow build this movie has.  If I was still in my amateur phase with this blog, I'd go back and rewatch this movie like I did with Stanley, but I'm at the point where I don't give a fuuuuck, so nope, this movie won't get rewatched any time soon.

My parents are probably so proud of me.

This movie is not okay to drink to, if you're going to smoke make sure it's the relaxing kind of weed, and don't you ever think of showing this to friends late at night.  Put this on if you're patient, and have plenty of time to kill.  I don't want to go on about this movie too much, suffice to say it's just another forgettable flick, for the most part.


Revisit 3/28/17
I did rewatch this film, and man, I was just way to drunk for it, as I guessed.  Its a slow moving mystery film similar to Footsteps on the Moon, actually.  It is also quite progressive, decently paced, and a genuinely freaky film.  You're not even introduced to the main character until 17 minutes in, and by that time I had probably already decided I hated it when I was drinking.

The film has some small, minor omissions and it's not for those who want everything spelled out, that's for sure.  However, it is really bizarre, highly drugged da fuck up, and worth a viewing if you like mystery sci fi.  It's a bit long, and sometimes it tends to lag, and it has a ton of dialogue, but with some small cleaning up this coulda been a five star mystery sci fi.  Of course, it is 1978 and the pacing was average for the time.  So really, it's pretty close to perfect.  It works as a mystery, not as much a sci fi, which was why I might not have been ready for it when I was drunk.

I'll give it a retroactive 4 stars.


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