Wednesday, June 10, 2015

The Works Network Airs The Weirdest Movies

There’s a new(ish) over the air channel called The Works.  A quick Google search shows that it’s another one of those “retro” channels (like Me-TV, Cozi, etc); for movies it pulls from MGM’s library as it is owned by that studio.

Now MGM is one of the oldest and most prestigious of movie studios; their inventory also consists of the libraries of such companies as Orion Pictures, The Samuel Goldwyn Company, and United Artists.  From  all those companies, there's a lot of great, interesting movies to choose from.

So, why the hell are they showing Mr. Hercules Against Karate?  It’s a martial arts movie from 1973, directed by Italian Antonio Margheriti, where “Two Americans go to Hong Kong to rescue the son of a Chinese restaurant owner who is being held hostage by his stepmother and the sadistic owner of a kung fu school.”

In that one paragraph, it’s a virtual United Nations of moviemaking: Italian director, American cast, Hong Kong locations and Chinese kung fu.  So naturally the title includes “karate” which is Japanese, you nitwits! 

The Works had previously aired Jon Voight’s first feature film, a surreal superhero comedy from 1967 called Fearless Frank, written and directed by Philip Kaufman of all people.  It was heavy on the surreal and light on the comedy as far as I was concerned.  It was just too wacky for me.

If The Works is going to continue to air this kind of strange, off beat fare, they really need to showcase it by having someone like Joe Bob Briggs (world’s greatest drive in movie critic) or Michael J. Nelson (star/head writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000) host the thing.  If not, I suggest they rename the channel WTF, because every time I switch over to it, my first reaction is, What The F—k?