Making Prime Work Part IV

NOTE: This is the start of a very intermittent series on this blog, wherein I review anything I may have watched, read, or otherwise gained from our Amazon Prime membership. This is partly to continue justifying the cost of Amazon Prime as it takes yet another leap, and to remind me what a wonderful cornucopia of media there is out there that I have yet to witness, or re-witness as the case may be.

Part One: A Film Set in America Yet Featuring Comically Impossible Italian Cars

I’m not a big fan of the zombie/vampire film genre. There’s only so much you can do with a story about hiding out from the baddies. Particularly when the baddies are of the slow, mumbling, gonna get you when I actually get around to it variety.

And I’ll admit when I saw "The Last Man on Earth" was based on the book “I Am Legend” as the opening credits spooled, I was surprised the book was that old (given its recent treatment in the Will Smith vehicle of the same name).

And eh. I could live without this film.

Though it was fun to see all these comical Italian vehicles in a film that’s supposed to be set in the United States, or so I assume when “his excellency the governor” appears on TV to say his state too has been declared a disaster area.



Vincent Price seemed ill-fitted to the role. His character needed the cocky assurance of Charlton Heston a la The Omega Man, another film based on this book. Yet Price’s vulnerability, brought about by the inevitable laughter over memories begetting tears over the same memories, is undeniable.

And where did the organized group of vampire-killers get their matching outfits?

Part Two: These Days, Anyone Can Make A Documentary

First of all, I was right. That is Elliot Gould narrating "The Soyuz Conspiracy".

That’s been the only thing I’ve liked about it.

Well, there was the background used for one of the experts interviewed for the film: a touristy book on Russia, some nesting dolls, and a big map clearly labeled, Batmanesque, “Former Soviet Union” tacked to the wall behind him.

While the story told is compelling, everything else about this film feels amateurish, from the schlocky graphics to the “put more Russian stuff in the background” set dressing.

There’s little about this film that feels new – maybe it was in 2000. Looking at it now, it’s hard to tell what the “new footage” the documentary touts is, as most of what we’re seeing is film of Soviet parades.

And in describing the death of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, bada boom, it feels like Gould goes off-script. Or maybe he stayed on a terribly-written script.

In any shape or form, this documentary feels slipshod, just like an early Soyuz.