It's January...

... January Jones that is. And she's decided to "declutter" in the new year, reducing her belongings to the essentials.

We think she may have gone a little too far...

It's International Dance Day!

Today, we celebrate dancers--and specifically Brigitte Bardot, who trained as a ballerina before she turned to modeling, acting, and, ultimately, social activism. Here are some photos from a shoot she did as a teenager where her dance training and modeling career intersected.

And just for good measure, here's a shot of Bardot from when she was an actual ballerina.

Happy birthday to Jennifer Love Hewitt

It's Jennifer Love Hewitt's birthday, and a perfect excuse to put up some pictures of a beautiful actress! (Jennifer Love Hewitt was born 2/21/1979.)

                                                                           

Frankie Adams of 'The Expanse'

Born in Samoa and raised in New Zealand, Frankie Adams began her professional acting career at 16 as Uli Levin on the long-running NZ soap opera "Shortland Street". Starting in 2010 and going through 2014, she appeared in nearly 300 episodes (the series airs five nights a week). 

In 2016, she joined the cast of the sci-fi series "The Expanse", where she plays Bobbie Draper, a Martian marine turned-under-cover-operative for a renegade United Nations official. Adams is expected to stay with the show through 2021 when it will come to its conclusion.

Here are a few photos of Adams. And when you're done here, you should head over and watch "The Expanse" on Amazon Prime if you aren't already. It is one of the best sci-fi series ever produced.

Deduction from these photos: Frankie Adams is not allowed to wear pants or skirts at the same time she's wearing shirts or blouses.

Lily Gao of "The Expanse"

Lily Gao is a Canadian model and actress who has most recently been seen as the would-be U.N. Secretary General in the latest episodes of the sci-fi series "The Expanse" on Amazon Prime. (That's a show that's outside the scope of this blog, but I strongly recommend watching all four seasons of it. It just keeps getting better and better.)

Today, Ms. Gao is here to demonstrate the unifying theme at Shades of Gray.

The Beauties of 'Hips, Hips, Horray!'

So many of the publicity photos for the 1932 RKO musical comedy "Hips, Hips Horray!" feature cuties wearing next to nothing that I was surprised to learn that the film revolves around competing cosmetic companies and flavored lipstick.

Saturday Scream Queen: Amy Smart

Born in 1976, Amy Smart studied dance and acting as a child, and had her first professional acting gigs in 1996. She added horror films to her resume in 1997 with "Campfire Tales" and "Strangelands" and they've been a regular part of her busy schedule ever since.

Horror films in the past ten years that have been graced by Smart's presence are "Mirrors" and "Seventh Moon", both released in 2008; "Among Ravens", Flight 7500", "Run for You Life", and "The Visitant" (all debuting in 2014); "Hangman" (2015); and, most recently, "The Keeping Hours" (2017).

I REALLY wanted to like this one....

The Dead Want Women (2012)
Starring: Jessica Morris, Ariana Madix, J. Scott, Robert Zachar, Jean Louise O'Sullivan, Circus-Szalewski, Jeannie Marie Sullivan, and Eric Roberts
Director: Charles Band
Producers: Charles Band, Dustin Hubbard, Tom Landy, and Rick Short
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

A pair or young realtors (Madix and Morris) think they've finally managed to unload the supposedly haunted mansion of long-dead silent movie star Rose Pettigrew (O'Sullivan), but they instead learn that the legendary hauntings are all too real.

I'm starting to know what fans of Dario Argento feel like when they keep hoping for another "Deep Red" or "Cat o' Nine Tails" and instead get "Do You Like Hitchcock?" or worse. Because I keep hoping and hoping for Charles Band to bring me another "Trancers" or "Puppet Master" or "Head of the Family" or even "Crash and Burn" or "The Creeps", but he brings me stuff like "Gingerdead Man" and his latest effort "The Dead Want Women" instead.

And I really thought I would like "The Dead Want Women". First of all, it's a great title. Second of all, it's rooted in old-time movies, a topic I love so much I write reviews whenever I watch a old-time movie. Thirdly, it stars Jessica Morris who was one of the best things about "Haunted Casino". And, last but not least, I LOVE haunted house movies--and, again, I love them so much I write about it whenever I watch one!

And make me even more excited about the film, I loved the approach Full Moon took to marketing it. Once again, it had fabulous preview/trailer and the "who is the secret big-time movie veteran in our new movie?" teasers on the web-site were nicely done.

And the main titles sequence is also extremely well done. It is perhaps the best credits sequence for any Full Moon film... and long-time fans know how Full Moon loves its long main title sequences.

Unfortunately, once the credits run their course, this turns out to be another one of those Charles Band films that doesn't live up to my expectations. It's not the worst he's done, and it's far from the worst that's been released under the Full Moon logo, but it's a disappointment.

It's not the actors' fault. They all do the best they can with what they have to work with, but the problem is they don't have much to work with. In fact, it's a testament to the great degree of talent of everyone on the screen that the film comes across as entertaining as it dopes, because the actors are dealing with a pretty awful script here.

When I reviewed the last film Band directed--"Killer Eye: Halloween Haunt"--I complained that the script was flimsy. That complaint applies here as well. In fact, worse, "The Dead Want Women" feels like it was shot using a partially finished first draft that was missing part of Act One and all of Act Three.

This may, hands down, be the worst script that has ever been the basis for a Charles Band moviem and it's a testament to the talent of the actors that it doesn't come off worse than it does. The preview for the film has a better dramatic structure than the film itself, because the way the real movie unfolds it's hard to tell where the focal point of the story was supposed to be... and not just because the characters are universally badly defined. In fact, just as the film seems like it's finally starting to get going--after opening with one of the most listless Roaring Twenties parties you'll ever witness on film, a secret Satanic sex orgy that makes me wonder if Band is longing for the days of Surrender Cinema, and some truly dull bits with Jessica Morris and Arina Madix playing the BFF realtors getting the house ready to show to their mysterious client--with the evil ghost of Miss Pettigrew and her sidekicks doing their thing, the film ends. Like most Full Moon pictures these days, the film barely breaks the one-hour mark... and in this case the run-time is not only half of what we expect from most movies, but the MOVIE is half of what we expect from most movies.

Viewers looking for lots of female nudity will enjoy the film--there is an actress who is naked for literally 99% of her time on screen. Hardcore Full Moon fans will also be able to enjoy a few of those Charles Band touches we know and love--but they will mostly be outweighed by truly awful moments of lazy writing and lazier direction. (Ohmygod... the ghosts have our hapless realty ladies chained up and they are about to do horrible things to them. Oh wait. One of them just undid her shackles easier than I undo my belt when I need to take a dump. And now she's freeing the other chick just as easily. WTF? When did she get possessed by the spirit of Harry Houdini?! And where did the ghosts suddenly disappear to? WTF?!)

The Two Rating might be a little harsh... it film really is teetering between Two and Three. But in this case, I am being miserly with my rating, because this film could have been so much more with just a little more effort. Meanwhile, here's the preview for the film. If the finished product had followed its flow, it might have been a little stronger....



(By the way, is it coincidence that in the past month, I've seen two movies with Eric Roberts doing a goofy accent? He does a Texas/Oklahoma kinda accent in this film, and he did Russian in "The Tomb." Is that something he's known for, and I've just not noticed until now?)

Mars Needs Bikini Babes!

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (1965)
Starring: Marilyn Hanold, Lou Cutell, Robert Reilly, Jim Karen, and Karen Grant
Director: Robert Gaffney
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

A sexy alien queen (Hanold) and her pointy-eared second-in-command Dr. Nadir (Cutell) come to Earth to abduct bikini babes to replenish the breeding stock on their homeland. Unfortunately for them, their arrival on our world interferes with the test-flight of a cybernetic astronaut (Reilly), causing his ship to crash near the alien landing site.

Some movies derive their entertainment value from the fact that you will spend the entire time you're watching wondering if what you're watching was really that nonsensical on paper, and how one director could make so many bad decisions in the course of one movie.

Even in 1964, the "Mars needs women"-type scenario must have seemed silly, although it does provide an excuse to show attractive women in little bikinis so one can understand why the filmmakers and viewers ran with it. But one wonders what bizarre fetish the writers or director must have been trying to bring to the screen with the oddball "physical exam" that the aliens use to determine the fitness of the women for alien breeding stock.

That said, for a film that was clearly designed to show off fit birds (to borrow a phrase from Joe Bloke's excellent blog) the director made a bizarre choice in casting Playboy-Bunny-turned-actress Marilyn Hanold and yet hardly showing her body off at all. Viewers can see hints of a sexy costume, but she spends most of the movie seated, so it hardly gets shown off.

The only thing that makes the film mildly interesting, aside from the bikini babes if you're hard up, is when the heroine gets grabbed by the aliens and almost becomes chow for the Spacemonster of the film's title, and the runaway robot who stumbles his way through the movie to ultimately serve as something of a literal deus ex machina plot device. Unfortunately, he doesn't quite qualify as a "Frankenstein" in any sense, but instead serves as an illustration of the illiteracy that seems to have been a mainstay of the movie business from the get-go.





(By the way, if I had watched this movie three-four weeks ago, "ROLF: Attack of the Commies from Jupiter" may have been an unauthorized adaptation of this film given there are some similarities content-wise. Heck... there may still be one forthcoming, given its mostly designed. :) )

Saturday Scream Queen: Jessica Morris

Jessica Morris' first professional acting job came at the age of 16... in a Japanese commercial for crackers. After a few bit parts on television and in film, she landed a major recurring role on the soap opera "One Life to Live" in 2001.

Jessica remained on the series until 2005, at which point she moved to California and became a regular face in the quirky low-budget horror films from Charles Band's revitalized Full Moon production companym usually appearing in the films he directs instead of just produces. She has so far appeared in "The Haunted Casino" (2007), "Decadent Evil II" (2008), "Dangerous Worry Dolls" (2008), and the just-released "The Dead Want Women" (2012).

She has also starred in other low-budget horror flicks along the way, including "Venom" and "The Fading of the Cries" (both in 2011), "Demons" (2007), and "Bloody Murder" (2000), a film she claims to have hated making.