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Hit Man (2023)
"What, does a gentleman not kill and tell?"
If the real-life Gary Johnson of this story had assisted in a murder with his girlfriend, he would have been telling his side of things from a jail cell. As it is, he passed away in 2022 before "Hit Man" started filming, but it's known that the love interest part of the film was entirely fictional, so at least he didn't die a murderer.
This was an entertaining flick up to a point, but it got truly weird when Gary (Glen Powell) arrived at Madison Masters' apartment and coached her through a string of lies while his police department associates listening in tried to catch her admitting that she killed her husband. She had already done so with Gary, which caused him to freak out and give up his fake identity as 'Ron' the hitman. Quite honestly, I can't imagine how the guy was able to make with a comeback for every prospective client who was looking to have someone eliminated. The guy never said the wrong thing and had an answer for every eventuality. Talk about thinking on one's feet!
So even though this picture might have been based on a true story, the whole thing had an air of incredulity about it. Getting back to the real Gary Johnson, he assisted in the arrests of more than 70 people seeking contract killers using aliases when it suited his purpose. The Madison Masters character was based on a woman that Johnson referred to social services and a therapist to get the help she needed to end an abusive relationship. When all was said and done, Gary Johnson never did kill anyone as a supposed contract killer, nor did Glen Powell's character, who probably would have missed if he had to pull the trigger.
Il portiere di notte (1974)
"When all seems lost, something unexpected happens."
This is a rather bizarre film, one which won't appeal to most tastes. There's something Kafkaesque about the story with repeated mentions of a trial meant to clear the name of Maximilian Theo Aldorfer (Dirk Bogarde) who had served years earlier as a Nazi prison guard. All of his former associates have been cleared of wrongdoing in a manner of speaking, but the presence of a witness to their and Max's horrible crimes threaten to expose them all if a woman was to testify. In flashback, we see Lucia Atherton (Charlotte Rampling) literally plucked from a line of naked victims about to be sent to the gas chamber, selected by Gestapo officer Max, in my estimation to be his own personal concubine. Lucia is shown performing topless in a sexually arousing song and dance number for the amusement of German officers in one of the more outrageous scenes, one which heightens Max's lust for the young woman.
The prospect of a trial was something that didn't quite make sense for this viewer. There was no mention of who or what agency was conducting this trial, and though the purpose was stated, it wasn't made apparent how Max's associates were cleared in their own investigations. That was all left rather murky. When Max renewed his relationship with Lucia, it would have seemed a foregone conclusion that she would definitely not say a bad word against him, even if their relationship tended to resemble a Stockholm Syndrome affair. In the minds of Max's cohort, since the possibility existed, remote as it was, they banded together to eliminate Lucia from the picture.
Which leads me to another thing I didn't understand. With Max under surveillance and virtually imprisoned with Lucia in his own apartment, why wouldn't Max's former associates simply force their way into his place to take charge of the situation? Instead, they put him on a ten-day quarantine against food deliveries to starve the couple out when they could have potentially resolved the situation to the satisfaction of all with the proper understanding. Perhaps seeing an unfortunate end in sight, Max dons his former Nazi uniform and accompanies Lucia away from his building, only for both to be gunned down on a bridge on the outskirts of town.
Though the film was so outlandish, I must say that Charlotte Rampling's performance was extraordinary, delivering the pathos of a person about to be executed to the unbridled passion she demonstrated for her sadomasochistic lover Max. I wasn't really ready for the more grotesque displays of human conduct, none more so than perhaps the sight of a decapitated head in a box presented to Lucia because she told Max she wanted the man gone. He obviously took her request to an extreme.
Et Dieu... créa la femme (1956)
"That girl is like a wild animal. She needs to be tamed."
I must comment on a couple of other reviewers I read who stated there was no nudity in the film. Perhaps no frontal nudity, however the picture opens with Brigitte Bardot sunning herself in the altogether, and you get a pretty good glimpse of her backside. Very bold and sexy for 1956, I wouldn't know how they got away with it.
The story puts the outrageously outgoing and spontaneous Juliete Hardy (Bardot) at the center of a love triangle that was bound for disaster from the start. Agreeing to marry Michel Tardieu (Jean-Louis Trintignant), even though she loved his older brother Antoine (Christian Marquand), she is still pursued by much older business tycoon Eric Carradine (Curd Jürgens), who also covets the property owned by the Tardieu family for a casino he wants to build. It didn't help Juliete's ego that she overheard Antoine tell a friend that she was no more than a one-night stand, even after he told her he would take her away with him when he left the next day. Spurned by Antroine, and fearing that she would be sent back to an orphanage (???) because of her frivolity and unruly behavior, she made a last minute decision to marry Michel and remain in sunny St. Tropez. I couldn't buy that threat to send her back to an orphanage, what were the nuns going to do with her?
As a breakout role for Bardot, the film surely did the trick, helped in large part by director Roger Vadim, her husband at the time. Virtually every scene she's in plays upon her coquettish mannerisms and sultry blond looks, no doubt meant to turn the heads of male moviegoers everywhere. Her brazen dance number at the Whiskey Club near the end of the picture caused the jilted Carradine to remark - "That girl is made to destroy men". I'm not sure if the title of the movie was the most appropriate given the story line, because even though God created Woman, He didn't create them all like Brigitte Bardot.
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
"All I know is you've got to run..."
Early in his tenure at the Ruxton Towers school, Colin Smith (Tom Courtenay) made it a point with his mates that he would do what he had to do to ingratiate himself with the authorities there without giving in to their notions of class and achievement. When he inadvertently beats out his unit's dorm leader in a practice run, the school's governor (Michael Redgrave) sees an opportunity for both Smith and the school to gain some notoriety in a much desired challenge against a public school in an athletic competition. When finally given the opportunity to run unsupervised, Colin looks back on his past life and that of his family as lower-class citizens of Nottingham, and the feeling of alienation that led him into a life of petty crime and insubordination. Director Tony Richardson utilizes an extensive number of flashbacks to juxtapose Colin's disdain for money and material goods against the break in at a bakery with friend Mike (James Bolam) that resulted in the theft of a considerable sum which eventually led to the young man's undoing. Though the movie has aged to a point where its relevance to today's society may not be as strong as it once was, its filming in black and white renders it a somewhat timeless appeal in its depiction of disaffected youth who see no way out of their lowly circumstances. Smith's decision to not finish the challenge race against Ranley School was an act of defiance in which rightly or wrongly, he was determined not to let others decide his life for him.
Tension at Table Rock (1956)
"Make up your mind, it's gotta be one way or the other."
Except for the annoying song, this was a serviceable Western. Not only annoying, but what are the odds a song would be written by a cowboy in a saloon about a gunslinger who outdrew his murderous friend and got the hell beat out of him for the effort? And within days of the confrontation, no less? How quick did news travel in the Old West? That song kept following Wes Tancred (Richard Egan) around the entire picture until he put a stop to it in the town of Table Rock, where he ventured with an orphaned young boy (Billy Chapin) after Wes took out three outlaws who killed the boy's father at a remote stagecoach outpost. There in Table Rock, Wes tried to remain noncommittal as the town sheriff, Fred Miller (Cameron Mitchell), used all his powers of persuasion to get a passel of cattle drovers to behave properly as they hit the town to let off some steam. It almost worked too, since herd boss Hampton (John Dehner) gave strict orders to ramrod Cord (John Pickard) to refrain from any sort of hoorah in town. Given how successful Cord was at keeping his men in line, I found it odd that they would all go to bat for the sniveling troublemaker Lerner (James Anderson) when he killed rancher Brink (Joel Ashley), putting the whole town on edge.
It was only a matter of time before Wes Tancred shed his alias of John Bailey to set matters right with the town judge, thereby setting up a confrontation between the town and the cattlemen, with Sheriff Miller in the middle and totally conflicted about doing the right thing. This could have been a lot more complicated with the sheriff's wife (Dorothy Malone) having an eye for the newcomer, but Wes wouldn't let an unwelcome relationship stand in the way of helping Miller keep peace in the town. Saloon owner Kirk (Edward Andrews), siding with the cattlemen, tried to intervene by hiring gunslinger Jim Breck (DeForest Kelley) to take out Wes, but Tancred was too quick on the draw to foil that plan. Table Rock's citizens, influenced by newspaper editor Harry Jameson's (Royal Dano) front page banner of the Brink Murder, came together to back Miller and Wes as the cattlemen arrived for a showdown, which by now for followers of the Western genre, was a foregone conclusion in favor of the good guys.
His Kind of Woman (1951)
"Beginning to think you're the strangest man I ever knew."
With every film I see starring Robert Mitchum I gain a greater appreciation for the actor. He came a long way from playing a heavy in Hopalong Cassidy flicks from the Forties when he was billed simply as Bob Mitchum. His character Dan Milner finds himself in a puzzling situation when offered a fifty-thousand-dollar payday to light out for a Mexican resort and await further instructions. On the way he meets gorgeous torch singer Lenore Brent (Jane Russell), and between the snappy dialog and intense attraction, you just know the pair will arrive at an eventual, mutual understanding. Before then though, things get hot and heavy with shady henchmen and a mobster calling the shots from Naples, Italy before arriving at Morro's Lodge on the coast of Mexico. At play is a scheme to lure Milner aboard a transport ship, murder him, and have gangster Nick Ferraro (Raymond Burr) assume Milner's identity so he can make his way back to the States from which he was deported earlier. Though the eventual outcome could have been delivered in more sinister fashion, the filmmakers opted for a surreal bit of misadventure as wealthy businessman Mark Cardigan (Vincent Price) comes to Milner's aid with a bizarre combination of Mexican federales and a rag tag group of adventure seekers from the Lodge. Given all the furious gunplay and Milner's half dozen near-escapes from a hypodermic needle intended to turn his mind to mush, the end arrives in rather anti-climactic fashion when Milner shoots bad guy Ferraro. Earlier in the film, fans of the movie "Casablanca" will recognize a scene in which Mitchum's character intervenes in a card game to save a young married couple from financial disaster, similar to Bogey's nod to help a similar pair win at the roulette wheel to afford their passage out of Morocco. In both cases, the loser in the situation remained miffed that he couldn't take advantage of a wife's willingness to do anything to earn her husband's freedom.
The Steel Helmet (1951)
"If I was right all the time, I'd be an officer."
Compared to all the movies made about World War II and even Vietnam, the Korean Conflict gets relatively short shrift, but "The Steel Helmet" is a pretty good one. The title derives from a helmet worn by Sergeant Mike Zack (Gene Evans) that caught a bullet and spun around inside before exiting the lucky soldier's headgear. If that's even possible, I'd sure hate to test the idea. I was intrigued by the opening credits that offered 'Introducing Gene Evans' because I've seen him in at least a couple dozen films and TV series, mostly Westerns, but upon checking they were almost all made after this picture was released. In the few appearances he made prior, most were uncredited.
The film offers an unusually gritty look at war with Zack faking his death to survive a North Korean ambush. Befriended and accompanied by a young South Korean boy (William Chun), the sergeant eventually hooks up with a small contingent of fellow infantry men finding themselves in a similar situation roaming the Korean jungle. What's both odd and interesting is how Lieutenant Driscoll (Steve Brodie) defers to the older and more experienced Zack to effectively lead the way to a Korean Buddhist temple called Chang-An-San. There, unknown to the men, is a North Korean Communist soldier who attacks and kills a couple Americans before he's found and captured. Attempting to sow dissension, the Communist Major (Harold Fong) taunts black medic Corporal Thompson (James Edwards) with the way his race his treated back home, and infuriates Sergeant Zack when the Major makes fun of 'Short Round' for praying to Buddha so that Zack would like him.
A point of interest in the film occurs when Short Round sings in his native Korean to the music of Auld Lang Syne. Responding to a soldier's inquiry, the boy says that it's the South Korean national anthem. That didn't sound right to me, so when I researched it, it seems that the filmmakers got it half right. The 'lyrics of Aegugka', translated as 'Patriotic Song', were originally set to that old Scottish tune, but a unique melody was composed for it in 1936. I could not determine why it wound up in this film as the national anthem as late as 1951.
The only distraction from the main story is the reliance on stock war footage looking like it was from World War II near the end of the picture. A bombardment leaves Zack shell shocked thinking he's back on a beach in Normandy, while leaving Driscoll a victim of the fierce shooting by a North Korean squad. Coming back to his senses, Zack honors an earlier request by Driscoll for his bullet riddled helmet by placing it on the lieutenant's grave marker. As if to comment on the virtually endless prospect of war among human beings on this planet, the movie closes with the words 'There is no end to this story', a sentiment that sadly remains true to this day.
Meg 2: The Trench (2023)
"I still think we look like food."
Apparently, "Jurassic World" had its impact on both films with 'Meg' in the title. Just as in the other franchise, a huge megalodon made an appearance in "The Meg" to literally destroy a research ship that killed and brought aboard one that the crew captured from the murky depths. Leaving originality aside, this story follows the Jurassic script and has one chomp down on a T-Rex in a prelude to the present-day story. Unfortunately, this one is short on dinosaur action until the very end, and even then, you don't see much of the huge shark-like monsters that you probably tuned in for. Jason Statham returns to reprise his role as Jonas Taylor, this time leading another rescue mission that takes up a major part of the picture. With Taylor's romantic interest (Bing Bing Li as Suyin) from the first picture gone, he becomes somewhat a surrogate father figure for young Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai), who once again following the same story line, disobeys a request to stay behind when Taylor goes on a rescue mission. Unfortunately, that mission takes place in a dark, underwater environment making it hard to follow the drama. It's dragged out as well, until the villains of a rogue rare earth metal mining operation target a packed beach resort where the ridiculous offensive of man and meg takes place. I should mention there's a giant squid in on the action too, but all you ever see of it are two huge tentacles sloshing around, making more for hilarity than danger. It almost felt like the filmmakers ran out of ideas for this one, making the whole adventure a bit tiresome.
The Oldest Posse (2023)
"Why do I feel I was better off at the end of that rope?"
A mere fourteen viewer ratings for this picture averages out to a '7' at the time I write this. I think that's a bit generous, although there are a couple of novel touches in the story for a Western. The opening sequence has The Marshal (Sergio Cantu) encountering a drunken outlaw (Joey Venegas Jr.) who in his stupor agrees to a showdown, and gets shot by the lawman who had his gun hand hidden underneath his long coat and behind his back. The only way that could have worked was if Marshal shot through his duster, which might have been necessary in a tight spot, but this was no tight spot. The alcoholic old fool could hardly stand to begin with.
The other scene that intrigued me was The Marshal running across a naked outlaw in the middle of the desert wearing nothing but a gun belt and holster placed rather strategically. Following a dispute upon arriving in a small town, Walker (Craig Rainey) got his pants back from the hooker that hooked him, and agreed to join Marshal in a makeshift posse on the trail of an outlaw named Samuel Grant (Michael David Burger Song), who by his looks didn't seem to be all that mean or ornery, and without the story offering much of a clue why he was wanted, I felt much of the tension the story could have gone for was lost. That's even after Samuel's own father, ex-lawman Grant (Jake Jecmenek) was enlisted as part of Marshal's troop.
The first time I ever heard of Bass Reeves was from the 'Legends and Lies' TV series in which the lawman's career suggested he might have inspired the Lone Ranger. I'm not exactly buying that argument, but ever since that program came out, there have been more and more film treatments of the legendary black man hired by the infamous hanging-Judge Isaac Parker of the old Indian Territory. The character of Reeves is introduced in this story in a rather precarious circumstance - with a noose around his neck and left to hang while teetering on a stool under his feet, compliments of Samuel's gang. If you look closely though, you'll note the rope around Reeves' (Carlos Leos) neck was loose enough that he could have wiggled his way out of it while balancing himself on a stool under his feet. When Reeves finally lost his composure and fell, the posse, now grown to five, all shot the hanging rope to free him. Joining the posse, Reeves' first name was never mentioned until late in the picture, confirming for the viewer that this was the noted lawman of the era.
So it goes for the rest of the picture until the posse catches up with Samuel in a dusty saloon, with the script forcing Marshal out of the story when he gets shot by one of the outlaws saving Walker in the path of a bullet, leaving the uncommitted posse member to make the difference in a showdown between Grant and his own son. Samuel would have had no problem gunning down his old man but for the intervention of Walker, who's loyalty to the Marshal had him fulfill an earlier vow that he would do so if Grant found it impossible to shoot his son.
Except for a few high spots, much of the movie is a ponderous affair with scenes dragged out longer than necessary. "The Oldest Posse" might have gotten its inspiration from 1969's "The Over-the-Hill Gang", which mixed humor amidst the gunfights with great character actors of the time including Walter Brennan, Edgar Buchanan, Andy Devine Jack Elam and Chill Wills, and if that wasn't enough, it even has Mr. And Mrs. Rick Nelson as central characters in the story.
You People (2023)
"Yeah, you're my boo, come on!"
That this movie was agenda driven shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. The wonder is that it came right out of the gate instead of creeping up on you slowly so that its message could sink in. I wasn't comfortable with the story almost immediately, and not because of the inherent topic of racism, but in the coarse language of the characters and the hip-hop lyrics searing their way into my brain. Maybe it's supposed to serve as a distraction from the poorly scripted story and the feeble attempt at humor. I could almost handle the film until Eddie Murphy's character dropped the Louis Farrakhan bomb - why emulate and cite a figure whose own preaching and writing is known to be antisemitic, racist and homophobic? Any attempt at cross cultural understanding was undermined right there. The only positive thing coming out of the picture was when Akbar (Murphy) and the clueless Shelley (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) admitted that their cultures had no way of completely understanding each other. At that point, I think they might have understood each other.
The Honeymoon Killers (1970)
"We'll work our future out together."
Without question, this is one of the creepiest movies you will ever see. At first reluctant, overweight and lonely nurse Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler) decides to sign up with Aunt Carrie's Friendship Club at the urging of her friend Bunny (Doris Roberts). Little did she know that her life would almost immediately turn on a dime when she began corresponding with a man named Ray Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco). From that point on in the picture, we take off on an ill-fated road trip that finds the pair pledging their love to one another, while Ray continues to scam unsuspecting women of all types by marrying them and running off with Martha and the meager life savings of their victims. As suave as Ray tries to be however, he finds himself constantly in ear splitting tirades with Martha, whose rage intensifies every time she even suspects he's having relations with another woman. I constantly found myself wondering how much of an act both of these scoundrels were putting on, as in the case of Martha swimming out in deep water to drown herself over her jealousy. I couldn't tell if she was faking or really meant it. Just as I couldn't tell if Ray even really loved Martha the way he professed, or simply found her to be a reliable and loyal companion as criminals on a constant run. The most depraved murder took place with their final victim in the picture, when they not only murdered another prospective 'bride' for Ray, but also the woman's young daughter who couldn't have been any more innocent. Given the tenor of the story, it's not as violent as the one of star-crossed lovers Bonnie and Clyde, but in some ways it's even more chilling when you consider how matter of fact these two pariahs were. Only fitting then that in one brief moment of ambiguous clarity, Martha called it quits and called the police to end their notorious escapades. This real-life story ended with the execution of Ray Fernandez and Martha Beck on March 8, 1951 at Sing Sing Prison in New York. With that, I think I'll go take a nice long shower.
The Meg (2018)
"There's a monster, and he's watching us."
I never figured Jason Statham for an action film like this one. Usually, he's off chasing down some mobsters or making with the heroics as an Expendable type. His general persona remains the same here however, I liked mega-financier Morris's (Rainn Wilson) description of Statham's character, Jonas Taylor - "You know, he looks heroic and walks fast, but he's kind of got a negative attitude". Yeah, that's Statham alright.
Taylor has to be persuaded back into service by an oceanic exploration company when one of their submersibles is left stranded in deep water with his ex-wife (Jessica McNamee) in command. Oddly, there's not that much intrigue with that former relationship; Jonas saves her and that's pretty much it. Instead, he casts his eye in the direction of Suyin Zhang (Bingbing Li), daughter of the research facility head (Winston Chao). You could have knocked me over easily enough when I looked up how old she was since she looked not much more than a Millennial to me, even with a young daughter. At forty-five when the movie was made, that compared reasonably with Statham's then age of fifty-one. I would never have thought so.
Anyway, I liked this movie for pretty much what it was intended to be, a tense action flick with a bunch of narrow escapes and the idea of a once thought prehistoric megalodon living in the ocean depths of the Marianas Trench below the thermocline. The scriptwriters borrowed a page from "Jurassic World" when they had the even larger megalodon show up to claim the one the ocean crew poisoned and brought on board, destroying everything in sight in the process. As for that thermocline business, it sounded like it was made up, so I had to research it. Turns out the thermocline is exactly as described in the story. Live and learn.
Anyway, it's on to "Meg 2: The Trench" for me in the next day or two for more of this ridiculous fun. That's really the only way to approach this stuff, and if you think otherwise, you're wetter than an ocean full of sharks. By the way, the kid Meiying (Shuya Sophia Cai) was kind of cute, and quite the matchmaker.
Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)
"A clever bird doesn't foul its own nest."
It's always great to see the villain get his due. In this case, it's the scheming and smarmy Edward 'Teddy' Bare, convincingly portrayed by Dirk Bogarde as he's upended every time he's within reach of scoring a measure of wealth for himself. Quite honestly, even for the money, I couldn't see a guy like Teddy marrying the much older and hardly fashionable Moni (Mona Washbourne), who was apparently taken in by his false charm and gentlemanly manners. For that matter, so was housekeeper Emmie (Kathleen Harrison), who took her cues from the last person she spoke to throughout the story. On the prowl for a replacement benefactor, Teddy meets Freda Jeffries (Margaret Lockwood), but learns to his regret after marrying her that she has quite the mind of her own. It seems her 'pound for pound' arrangement with Teddy only seemed to work one way in her favor, and the little surprise he planned for her was thwarted by the ever-vigilant family attorney, Phillip Mortimer (Robert Flemyng). One thing I found it hard to accept was how Teddy didn't recognize Moni's sister Dora Mackintosh when she came calling in the guise of Charlotte Young (Kay Walsh). I suppose it's possible that he never met her before, but then he guessed her identity just a little too easily when he wound up confessing to Moni's murder. Well, there's one other thing that's a little hard to accept too, and that's how he didn't recognize the car he tampered with when he tried to make his getaway from Mortimer and Ms. Mackintosh. I always wonder too, why a car that crashes over an embankment in these older movies always bursts into flame. In any case, that was a terrific sendoff for our boy Teddy, who had a lot to live for if he wasn't such a jerk.
By the way, did you get a good look at that matronly trio playing music at the hotel where Teddy met Mrs. Jeffries? What twisted mind came up with the idea of calling them the Rocketeers?
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976)
"We the pinnacle of baseball creation."
The story here may be fictional, but it's rooted in the history of Negro league baseball during the Thirties and early Forties. The picture's introduction highlights newsreel type footage popular back in the day, with a brief mention of Satchel Paige as one of the premier players of that time, one who eventually made it to Major League Baseball. Bertram 'Bingo' Long is portrayed by Billy Dee Williams, who on an offhand comment by fellow player Leon Carter (James Earl Jones), decides that they should pool their resources with the best players from various teams and form one of their own, thereby dropping their affiliation with team owners who paid them what little they could get away with while enriching themselves on the backs of their star players. The only other notable name in the cast is that of Richard Pryor in somewhat of a low-key role for him before he became much better known. His character, Charlie Snow, came up with a short cut to make his way into the white leagues by passing himself off as Cuban, but that gimmick didn't get very far in the story. Besides, he didn't look much like a Carlos Nevada.
Given the era, you would expect to experience the racism that bedeviled that time though the teams' approach to the game included humorous stunts and colorful characters to win over largely white audiences in the small towns they barnstormed. What surprised me in a way was the extensive use of the 'n' word throughout the story, sometimes leveled against the players by racist onlookers, but more often by the black players themselves in badgering one another in good natured ribbing. Throughout the teams' barnstorming triumphs, the black league owners met behind the scenes in an attempt to scuttle the star players and get them back to their former organizations.
No stranger to sports films, Billy Dee Williams co-starred as football player Gale Sayers in the 1971 TV movie tearjerker, "Brian's Song", teammate of cancer-stricken Brian Piccolo, portrayed by James Caan. James Earl Jones never struck me as the athletic type, but he performs reasonably well as Bingo's all-star catcher and personal confidant. It's interesting to note that both actors probably gained their greatest celebrity due to the Star Wars franchise; Jones as the inimitable voice of Darth Vader, and Williams as Lando Calrissian in "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi".
Followers of my reviews will note how often I mention the product placement of Coca-Cola in so many pictures I happen to watch, and this one was no exception. Bottles of old-style Coke and its logo appear all over the place, but I would have to question one thing. What was the likelihood of a Coca-Cola sign appearing in center field of every small-town baseball park that the Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings played in?
Crazy on the Outside (2010)
"Let me be your biggest success story."
I had all but forgotten that Tim Allen once served a two-year prison stretch on drug charges. This film in a sense is autobiographical for him as a first-time director, while also serving as the main character in a chaotic relationship with former girlfriend Christy (Julie Bowen) and keeping his parole appointments with Angela Papadopolous (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Sigourney Weaver also appears as Tommy's (Allen) truth challenged sister Viki, married to the ever-horny Ed, portrayed by J. K. Simmons. It's telegraphed fairly early on that Tommy will eventually fall for his parole officer once Christy's marriage to Frank Fabercini, the Big Scree Genie is all but confirmed. Angela's son Ethan (Kenton Duty) helps move things along between the ill matched pair, but things have a way of working out in these rom-com relationships. It's quite amazing to me how Tim Allen has managed to forge an acting career out of being Tim Allen, or more to the point, Tim the Toolman Taylor from the successful TV series. HIs characters never change from film to film, even as a jelly-bellied Santa Claus(e). In this example of art imitating life, Tim Allen proves that going straight can have its rewards.
Storm Fear (1955)
"I'm gonna kill you now, big shot!"
Turner Classis Movie host Eddie Muller isn't a big fan of this film. Noting that the novel on which it was based by Clinton Seeley told the story through the eyes of young David Blake, Muller contends that the picture loses much of its resonance by making David (David Stollery) merely a player in the story, without openly questioning the motives of his Uncle Charlie (Cornel Wilde) or that of Charlie's insane accomplices, Benjie (Steven Hill) and Edna Rogers (Lee Grant). I can go along with some of that, but in general I thought this was a fairly taught noir that sought to cast the pair of brothers in roles that were probably better suited for the other actor's specialty. In other words, Dan Duryea who was often cast as a heavy, would have made for a better fugitive Uncle Charlie, while Cornell Wilde might have been better suited to portray the unsuccessful writer and husband of Elizabeth Blake (Jean Wallace). But this was Wilde's directing debut as an independent filmmaker, and he probably thought it was a good idea to go against type.
The claustrophobic setting is enhanced by the onset of a heavy winter storm, with the wounded Uncle Charlie seeking overnight solace for him and his companions until they can make a getaway in the morning from their eighty-five thousand-dollar bank heist and the killing of a cop in the process. In time, we learn how all the principals are conflicted in relation to each other, particularly Charlie and Liz, whose romance in the past resulted in son David, unknown to the boy and kept secret throughout the story. More than enough hints are offered for the viewer so that it doesn't remain a mystery, so even if David was only twelve years old (almost), he probably should have figured things out.
Not everything proceeds in the story logically. Right after Charlie and Benjie fight over the psychotic accomplice's threat to the family, Charlie hands his gun right back to him after having wrestled it away. Later, when the three outlaws make their getaway on foot, they never see the body of Fred Blake, who died while going to alert authorities. Then there's the Blake hired hand Hank (Dennis Weaver), who arrives at the family home in the middle of a heavy snow, but enters the house with no snow on his person and without even being wet. All rookie mistakes from a first-time director.
I thought the ending would have been more impactful if an earlier statement was repeated in answer to young David's question about who had sent him his pet dog when he was younger. The first time around, it was stated that Max was a gift from David's father, a statement that caused Fred Blake to have a minor meltdown, knowing that his wife's fling with Charlie before they were married produced Fred's adopted son. Had Charlie repeated that same sentiment just before he died, it might have been enough for David to finally figure out who he really was.
Dune: Part Two (2024)
"The Prophet shall know the ways of the desert."
This was a more than competent follow up to 2021's "Dune", which didn't carry a 'Part 1' included in the title. As an early 2024 movie release, much of its impact will be gone by the time the next awards season arrives, but true film fans will recognize it as a top contender for the year's best, even if we've got more than a half year to go yet as I write this. Visually, the picture is more than impressive, however I was expecting more from the scenes of the Shai-Hulud, the giant sand worm that the story's hero summoned to demonstrate his acceptance as the Muad 'Dib of the Fremen people, 'The One Who Points the Way'. The one Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) rode was all but invisible, contrasted with those scenes in which a sand worm engulfed enemies of the Fremen earlier in the picture, reminiscent of Jabba the Hutt's favorite pet Sarlacc from "Star Wars".
One thing that seemed ambiguous was the relationship between Paul and Chani (Zendaya). At times her facial and body language showed disapproval with Paul, even as they expressed their undying love for each other. I can only attribute that to the fact that Paul was an outsider to the Fremens, and his stature as the future Lisan al-Gaib might have been considered heretical. Even so, her obvious disapproval with Paul at various times felt out of place, except near the end when Paul expressed his willingness to marry Princess Iluran (Florence Pugh), daughter of the Emperor (Christopher Walken) right after he told Chani he would love her forever. At that point it felt like Paul was acting more on his own behalf in a quest for power than what was appropriate for the Fremens.
A major surprise for this viewer was the casting of Austin Butler in the role of Feyd-Rautha, nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). I didn't recognize the 'Elvis" actor in his albino guise as the promised future Emperor. Once again, in terms of an ambiguous outcome, I couldn't perceive how Paul reversed his enemy's knife to defeat Feyd-Rautha in the final contest for the Emperor's throne. And finally, how we've gotten this far into the story to find out only now that Paul's mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) was a Harkonnen was quite troubling. How would Paul's deceased father not have known, and consequently, the viewer. That twist sort of defied one's understanding of the relationships among the principal characters.
Lastly, where one might have expected a definitive resolution to the Dune saga, the story leaves threads hanging with the impending birth of the mystical baby girl carried by Reverend Mother Jessica, and the fierce resolve of Chani in abandoning Paul. I had not gone beyond the original Frank Herbert "Dune" novel myself, and this film's conclusion points me in the direction of following up with 'Dune Messiah".
The Bricklayer (2023)
"I never do a job without my tools."
You know, I'm getting quite jaded with these action/adventure flicks in which the hero has more lives than the Energizer bunny. The kicker for me here was when the two hundred fifty pound Russian thug slammed Steve Vail's (Aaron Eckhart) head into a brick wall three times, and the guy still came back for more until he put the bad guy down for good. In what reality could that ever happen? If the story left out some of this kind of nonsense and stayed with its basic espionage slant it would have been a whole lot better. How is it that when facing a double-digit number of armed henchmen, the hero manages to plow through them without even one of the bad guys getting off a direct hit? And when it comes to close quarters combat, the bad guy in question doesn't have a firearm? It always puzzles me. Anyway, you always expect the surprising twists and double crosses in stories like this, and that's okay, as long as they seem credible enough. This one went way beyond the credibility factor, even if it had some entertainment value from time to time. As for Vail's nickname as the bricklayer, you'll just have to watch the movie.
Beyond Tomorrow (1940)
"Could you give the boy another chance?"
The picture opens on Christmas Eve with three elderly business partners finally setting aside their commerce and agreeing to indulge in a bit of whimsical holiday spirit with each throwing their wallets out the window with a ten-dollar bill inside to see which of them would be returned. As rocker Meatloaf would sing, 'Two Out of Three Ain't Bad', as that's how many were returned, quite coincidentally by a young man and woman who find a mutual attraction for each other. As one thing leads to another, all of the parties become good friends and carry on their relationship beyond the holiday season. As their romance grows, James Houston (Richard Carlson) and Jean Lawrence (Jean Parker) get engaged to be married, but on the day they intend to inform their new friends, they learn that the three businessmen were lost in a mountain storm plane crash. Up until that point, the film had a rather upbeat and merry tone with a good share of homespun good humor, so the news of the three gents perishing comes as very much a downer.
Surviving as ghosts, Michael O'Brien (Charles Winninger), Allan Chadwick (C. Aubrey Smith), and George Melton (Harry Carey) return to their home (they all lived together), and take on the guise of guardian angels for the handsome couple. In life, Melton had a bit of a Scrooge-like personality, which he maintains to a degree in the great beyond. So much so, that when he's confronted with a choice between heaven and the other place, he refuses to be a hypocrite, and continues his sojourn into darkness. Chadwick is presented with his opportunity to move on as well, and he does so, leaving Michael behind as the last one to tend to the young couple. Their relationship is almost doomed however, when James suddenly finds himself on the brink of singing stardom, and falls to the wiles of a celebrity singer (Helen Vinson), who has her own designs on the inexperienced man.
It's no wonder that one would have conflicted feelings about this film, as what starts out in a grand moment of holiday spirit, turns almost on a dime with the plane crash that claims its three victims. Making things worse, when Arlene Terry's (Vinson) ex-husband catches her and Houston together, he shoots them both in a drunken rage. The spirit of James joins Michael in heaven's holding area, until Michael entreats the powers above to give the young man a second chance at life and redeem himself with his real love Jean. To round out the good vibes, George returns from the darkness to join Michael in what proceeds to be a happy ending for all, that is, if you can overlook the idea that the three old gents met their untimely fate as a consequence of bad weather.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Move Along Home (1993)
"It's only a game."
A First Contact alien delegation from the Gamma Quadrant arrives at DS9, but instead of tending to diplomatic niceties, the Wadi insist on going straight to Quark's (Armin Shimerman) gambling deck to partake in some profitable wagering. In the best tradition of your B Western saloon gimmicks, Quark has his man Broik (David B. Levinson) rig the dabo wheel to cheat the Wadi, but Master Surgid Falow (Joel Brooks) quickly recognizes the deception and puts the station on notice with a high stakes game that puts the officers in a potentially dangerous situation. Commander Sisko (Avery Brooks) wakes up to find himself in a holosuite type environment, soon to be joined by Major Kira (Nana Visitor), Lieutenant Dax (Terry Farrell) and Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig). Even though they figure out that they've been made pawns in a dangerous game, they proceed through various levels of Wadi 'shap', finally to be rescued from their ordeal when Quark literally has a meltdown and agrees to a final 'make or break' roll of the Wadi dice. The winning save comes virtually out of nowhere in what felt like a convenient way to end the story to send the Wadi back on their way to 'move along home'.
If anything, this episode reinforced my dislike of Kira Nerys, particularly when things got weird with the Wadi. Her angry comment that 'this is not what I signed up for' made her look a poor choice for a rank of major among the Bajorans. A subplot involving Sisko's son Jake (Cirroc Lofton) learning the facts of life from young Ferengi Nog could have been humorous if carried out, but the idea was dropped fairly quickly when no teenage Wadi girls showed up with the delegation.
Anda muchacho, spara! (1971)
"... if you want this gold, you have to kill them all."
Unless you catch a quick newspaper reference to the name of the principal character, Roy Greenford, you'll go through the whole picture thinking of him as The Stranger, much like Clint Eastwood in "High Plains Drifter". The elderly Joselito (José Calvo), who takes The Stranger in as a wounded escapee from a prison chain gang, continually refers to him as 'muchacho', which hardly seemed fitting, as the serious-minded gunslinger resembled nothing like a young boy. I guess it was all in the perspective. With mixed motives, The Stranger Roy proceeds to eliminate members of smarmy town boss Redfield's (Eduardo Fajardo) henchmen crew, doing the villain a favor by reducing the number of people he has to split the proceeds of his illicit gold thefts with. With the help of unwilling prostitute Jessica (Charo López), Roy manages to withstand a terrible beating after hijacking and hiding Redfield's gold, only to learn that his mentor Joselito was waterboarded to death to reveal The Stranger's location. With numerous flashbacks of The Stranger's own wartime and criminal past, perhaps the most sordid glimpse of his ruthless nature involved cutting off the foot of the man he was shackled to on the chain gang. Somewhat fortunately, his fellow prisoner was already dead.
The Falcon Takes Over (1942)
"Hmm, the great Falcon. Haven't seen you for a half a dozen murders!"
Predating "Murder, My Sweet" by a couple years, and "Farewell, My Lovely" by more than three decades, this was the earliest take on a Raymond Chandler classic while changing the principal character's name from Philip Marlowe to Gay Lawrence. You probably wouldn't know it if you hadn't seen either of the other pictures, but character names like Moose Molloy, Jules Amthor and Velma/aka Diana Kenyon are pretty good clues as to the origins of this story. As a standalone movie it's not too bad, though George Sanders' portrayal of self-styled private detective Gay Lawrence doesn't have the same bite and witty dialog of a Robert Mitchum or Dick Powell, though if you're of a more humorous bent, you've got the offbeat antics of guys like Allen Jenkins as The Falcon's sidekick Goldy Locke, and bumbling police detective Bates (Edward Gargan). Although in this picture, you might consider that Bates' boss, Inspector Mike O'Hara (James Gleason) is even more bumbling. What starts out as a mystery involving the hulking Moose Molloy (Ward Bond) trying to track down former girlfriend Velma (Helen Gilbert) turns into a string of murders that eventually leads to a blackmail racket involving a phony psychic (Turhan Bey) in league with Velma and Swan nightclub owner Laird Burnet (Selmer Jackson), who isn't even a principal player. After the fact you might wonder about a few loose threads left hanging, like who actually shot Lindsey Marriot (Hans Conried) after Marriot took a shot at Lawrence, and perhaps even more intriguing, what ever happened to the ninety-thousand-dollar Fei Tsui Jade necklace that the Falcon and reporter Ann Riordan (Lynn Bari) were looking for?
Four Boys and a Gun (1957)
"But you can't get away with murder."
Notwithstanding some of the more favorable reviews here for this picture, I haven't seen a dumber flick in quite a while. The idea that these four idiots would throw dice to determine who would take the rap for killing a cop is just too bizarre for me to contemplate. So, sticking together like the pals they were, they all say they were guilty of pulling the trigger, thereby insuring themselves a ten-year prison sentence each. Justified in their minds I guess, that the guilty one wouldn't have to face execution.
The story is told in good part via a series of flashbacks demonstrating the conditions that brought the four guys to the critical juncture, which occurred early in the picture. In a get rich quick scheme, the boys (none of whom are boys, by the way), decide to rob an arena box office for a few thousand dollars, but the robbery goes awry when a couple of beat cops happen by, with the guy holding the gun delivering the fatal shot. By the end of the story, we all know who did it, but in actuality, it could have been any one of them depending on how the script was written.
I was probably more entertained by the subtle indications of what things cost during the 1950's than anything else. When Eddie's (Tarry Green) mother complained how high the price of eggs were as the reason she didn't cook them every morning, I had to check - fifty-five cents a dozen in 1957!! Which didn't sound so bad to me, when you consider that Stanley's (William Hinnant) dad gave him twenty bucks to buy new shoes and a hat!
The Falcon's Brother (1942)
"He's almost as bad as his brother, only worse."
So, this is how the Falcon baton was passed from George Sanders to real life older brother Tom Conway. It's just too bad Sanders' character had to take a bullet and die in order for Tom Lawrence (Conway) to take over as the Falcon character. I think Sanders deserved better, but at least he came out a hero for helping foil a Nazi espionage plot, even if the term 'Nazi' was never mentioned in the script. For 1942, what else could it have been?
One of the things I liked here was how the story referenced a prior Gay Lawrence (Sanders) flick when Morning Gazette reporter Marcia Brooks (Jane Randolph) mentioned the Molloy case from "The Falcon Takes Over". It's those little things that keep a fan interested, a tactic that was also employed by the Charlie Chan films of the same era. The story here has Marcia teaming up with Tom Lawrence to help solve a sequence of murders after brother Gay gets sidelined by a speeding car that knocks him unconscious for a couple days. That put Tom in the spotlight as the self-styled private detective, staying a step ahead of bumbling homicide inspector Timothy Donovan (Cliff Clark) and his even more bumbling sidekick Bates (Edward Gargan). Speaking of sidekicks, I didn't really see the necessity of Tom having his brother's pal Lefty (Don Barclay) along for the ride, though he did have some comedic moments that entertained.
Well, Tom and Marcia fingered Paul Harrington (James Newill) as the murderer in question when they figured out how his 'Modern Modes Magazine' offered significant clues to the war effort on the covers of his magazines. Dates of important events were hidden in random objects on the cover of the fashion mag, something that could only have been done in retrospect, as the date of the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7th, 1941, would hardly have been known by an American citizen. Still, it made for a clever premise.
If you're paying close attention, you'll pick up on a couple of goofs in the picture. For one thing, the position of the Diane Medford (Gwili Andre) corpse changes position and location in the room in which she was murdered. Later on, when foreign agents Carmela (Amanda Varela) and Valdez (George J. Lewis) arrive to question Tom Lawrence and Miss Brooks about what they might know, they had to walk right past the dead body of Harrington's associate Savitski (André Charlot) without seeing him. Some agents!!
Jim Gaffigan: The Pale Tourist: Jim Gaffigan: Spanish American (2020)
"You guys don't even need drugs here."
This was the second entry in Jim Gaffigan's 'Pale Tourist' comedy special, making it perhaps the shortest series on record. That's probably something Jim could make fun of all by itself. Performing before a local Spanish crowd, the audience here was a little more subdued than the one he did before a Canadian audience. Gaffigan attempted to circumvent the language barrier with extensive references to local words and customs, with humorous observations on siestas, flamenco dances and paella. Things seemed to get a little uncomfortable with mentions of Spanish holiday customs like 'caganer' and 'caga tio', which I won't try to explain here; you'll just have to watch the special. The running of the bulls in Pamplona got its own particular emphasis, prompting Jim to utter his funniest observation in my summary line above. You have to credit Gaffigan with the ability to come up with these humorous observations for each unique show, seeing as how the cultures of Canada and Spain are so different.