{"id":19500,"date":"2016-06-23T22:09:07","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T04:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=19500"},"modified":"2016-05-06T22:10:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-07T04:10:45","slug":"monkey-shines-1988","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=19500","title":{"rendered":"Monkey Shines (1988)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES.jpg\" alt=\"MONKEY-SHINES\" width=\"991\" height=\"1500\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-19476\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES.jpg 991w, http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES-198x300.jpg 198w, http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES-768x1162.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES-677x1024.jpg 677w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 991px) 100vw, 991px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>George Romero does an excellent job of swapping Zombies for Monkeys. This film may sound ridiculous in the most preposterous way. But then again, we now live in a world of Snakes on a Plane and Burning Bright, so this is a little easier to swallow. In its genre, it is one of the best examples, and I&#8217;m not just talking about killer animals. I&#8217;m also referring to the stalker\/obsessive partner\/friend genre. <\/p>\n<p>What Romero does brilliantly, is to take a number of characters and the audience on a journey of emotions and self discovery. For example, I started off wanting one of these monkeys. The relationship built up is a genuinely loving one. It&#8217;s really cute, and this could easily be one of those lifetime inspirational movies. If the monkey wasn&#8217;t a genetically modified, telepathic, homicidal, psycho monkey. The well trained monkey takes us from tragic victim of experiments, to a loving carer. We get a wonderful cleaning montage, as the monkey helps the friendship expands. The monkey&#8217;s obsession grows steadily. It starts off with a few temper tantrums and escalates into bananas in the slippers. Soon bananas turn to murder. It&#8217;s the evolution of all species.<\/p>\n<p>None of this would work if it wasn&#8217;t for a dramatic human connection. Beghe is a law student\/athlete that is paralysed. He goes through acceptance, denial, frustration, which is understandable as his girlfriend leaves him for his doctor (a sleazy Tucci), he gets a patronizing nurse, and then his overbearing mother. It&#8217;s great to see how the characters react to Beghe&#8217;s quadriplegia, as it enforces Beghe&#8217;s later anger. Beghe also does a terrific job of facial acting, which is most important as he can&#8217;t use his body. In a single look he can convey the embarrassment of his mother having to wash him. <\/p>\n<p>On the surface, this is a story of a monkey being a bitch to a cripple. But look deep down, REAAAAAAALLY deep, and you&#8217;ll see a social commentary. For a long time, the monkey is the only one that treats Beghe as an equal. It doesn&#8217;t throw money at his problem, try and cheer him up, nor can the monkey do everything for him. <\/p>\n<p>Romero fills the film with dread, absurdity, and most of all a serious edge that clearly does the film justice. It&#8217;s easy to mock this film. But the truth is, this could actually happen. Monkeys are creepy and untrustworthy. <\/p>\n<div class=\"syndication-links\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George Romero does an excellent job of swapping Zombies for Monkeys. This film may sound ridiculous in the most preposterous way. But then again, we now live in a world of Snakes on a Plane and Burning Bright, so this is a little easier to swallow. In its genre, it is one of the best&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movie-news","wpcat-1-id"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES.jpg",991,1500,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES-145x145.jpg",145,145,true],"medium":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES-198x300.jpg",198,300,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES-768x1162.jpg",768,1162,true],"large":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES-677x1024.jpg",677,1024,true],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES.jpg",991,1500,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES.jpg",991,1500,false],"gridflex-1422w-autoh-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES.jpg",991,1500,false],"gridflex-1074w-autoh-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES.jpg",991,1500,false],"gridflex-360w-300h-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/MONKEY-SHINES.jpg",198,300,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin1","author_link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"George Romero does an excellent job of swapping Zombies for Monkeys. This film may sound ridiculous in the most preposterous way. But then again, we now live in a world of Snakes on a Plane and Burning Bright, so this is a little easier to swallow. In its genre, it is one of the best...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}