Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Striking Distance

This may not be Die Hard, but after watching the travesty of Hudson Hawk, this movie probably seemed a lot better than it is. In any case, it's proof that Bruce Willis was a lot better off acting in action movies, than in spoofs of action movies.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Certainly better than its rep and box office would lead you to believe.
It is helped no end though by a wonderful support cast....
The ever fantastic Dennis Farina is the big bonus but John Mahoney, Tom Sizemore and the still weirdly late Brion James are damn welcome too.

Even Sarah Jessica Parker is watchable. Should have done more with the always welcome Tom Atkins though, but it was nice to have him popping in.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Yeah, I kept waiting for it to get horrible, having seen some ratings, but it never did. And at the end, I found that I'd been entertained the whole time. I guess the prior ratings had given me a bit of cognitive dissonance, and it's hard to discount the comparative effect with Hudson Hawk, but I think this is a film I'm going to watch again.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

The Black Camel (1931)

This is the earliest surviving Charlie Chan film to star Warner Oland as the detective, and while he's still trying to find his niche in the part at this point, this was an entertaining mystery. Chan is in Honolulu investigating the murder of a young movie actress and tries to untangle the relation between her death and a prior killing of another actor she used to know. Bela Lugosi, fresh after DRACULA and riding its successes for a brief time in his career, is very good as a mystic involved in the mystery. Dwight Frye, Bela's familiar from DRACULA, also has a part as a butler. A very young Robert Young (of FATHER KNOWS BEST fame) is also on hand albeit in a rather insignificant part. This was the only time Chan was assisted by his bumbling sidekick Kashimo, and it's for the best, as this character is extremely irritating .

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

EDIT: Strike my comments on the Chan. My brain had a weak moment.

Re: STRIKING DISTANCE

I also enjoyed this one. I saw it in the theater when released and thought it was very intense and certainly entertaining.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

The Heavenly Body (1943)

Silly predicable romantic comedy made bearable by William Powell's presence.

Vicky Whitley (Hedy Lamarr) has her fortune charted by astrologer Margaret Sibyll. Vicky is ready to foresake her marriage to be with another man all because her chart says so. William Whitley (Powell) spends the better part of the movie trying to win her back.

This is a very improbable, contrived story. The chemistry between the leads is non-existent. This was not a good role for Hedy Lamarr. William Powell tries but is defeated by a weak script.


Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Entertaining Hitchcock suspense thriller about a young girl who thinks that her Uncle Charlie is a murderer.

Joseph Cotton plays the part of the Uncle perfectly, a man who one minute seems like a congenial and beloved member of the family but is really a murderous monster. Theresa Wright was also excellent as the niece who had her eyes opened. There were a couple of abrupt scene changes one in particular that didn't make sense but no matter, this is a superb movie.

Saboteur (1942)

Another excellent Hitchcock movie about a factory worker who is falsely accused of starting a fire that killed his best friend. He spends the rest of the movie on the run trying to discover and bring to justice the real culprit. Along the way he meets model Patricia Martin who believes him guilty at first, but then falls in love with him.

The acting was good all around. The movie seemed alittle slow but did reach a satisfying conclusion.


Captain of the Clouds (1942)

Traces the exploits of bush-pilots in Canada and their decision to enlist in the war effort after hearing Churchill's stirring speech. Interesting enough at least the first half that follows the exploits of these bush pilots and one in particular a ruthless fellow played by James Cagney.
The second half was mainly propaganda for the war effort and no where near as interesting as the first half. The location shots of the Canadian wilderness were gorgeous. This was the beginnings of an interesting movie that fell apart in the second act.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Cloverfield (2008)

Easily one of the best giant monster-on-the-loose films of all time, even though it's not so much about the creature as it is the devastation it wreaks in New York City and the panic for survival by a group of young people who are caught in the middle of it under such extreme emergencies. The whole thing is recorded POV through one of their camcorders (a la THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT) which was presumably recovered sometime after the tragedy and secured by the government. I've heard complaints of nausea and dizziness, but the camcorder craziness didn't bother me as I knew what the movie was trying to do and I just went with it. Special effects here are outstanding, and the monster was never shown all that much to ruin the illusion. I'd also call it one of the more intense, genuinely scary monster movies I've seen in a dog's age. My wife cried in the theater early on with the scenes of buildings collapsing and the chaos during the first attack; it reminded her too much of 9/11, as she was on her way to work in downtown Manhattan that fateful day in 2001 and it brought back some unpleasant visuals. You really feel like you're a part of the destruction and it seems very realistic.

"Classic" status? Not sure. I do think the tendency these days is to move on to the next film and nothing retains a hold on viewers like cinema giants used to when life was simpler and perhaps not as varied, with numerous entertainment options. But it's a great monster movie. I'd also advise fans who want to see it NOT to wait for video; this needs to be seen on the big screen with thundering sound effects for best impact.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

"The Slaughter"
Beardy Freak Reviews

Surprisingly enjoyable little low budget horror flick about a pantie wearing She-Demon.
A groovy as hell opening leads to lots of comic strip chat between its comic strip characters as an at times genuinely amusing horror homage plays out.

Some good and gory on-set FX and make-up, some rather dubious matte work and visual effects, some fun acting and some bad acting and a rather weak finale sadly because it relies on the worst (though cute) actress reeling off a lot of unfunny spiel.

But overall it was far more entertaining than I could have hoped, which is rare enough today.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964, Michael Carreras)

Hammer's 2nd Mummy film follows the standard template, expedition opens tomb, triggers curse, and members start dropping like flies. The "twist" here is that the mummy's brother is still around, cursed to walk the Earth for murdering his brother. How this Egyptian prince morphed into a white English gentleman is not explained. Anywho, while the film is sumptiously decorated and costumed in the Hammer style and features the impressively endowed Jeanne Roland, it is generally rote and bland with few visual flourishes. It sorely misses the commanding presence of a Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing or Oliver Reed. For completists only. - C

Day Night Day Night (2006, Julia Loktev)
Indie shot from the POV of a young woman preparing for a terrorist attack. We watch as she undergoes training excercises and receives information from masked men who move in and out of her lonely hotel room. She fights boredom and uncertainty until finally she receives her costume and bomb and is taken to the streets of NYC. Will she carry out her deadly attack?

A better question would be, will we still care? With lifeless direction, the film's concept slides slowly from compelling to inert. At first the film captures her vulnerable qualities as she seems to shrink before these large men in scenes that feel invasive. Why must this young girl make a sacrifice these men will not? But as we spend more time with the character, the film grows less intimate; more remote. By the time the film should be reaching its climax, there is no tension left and little drama, as it reaches a predictable outcome and a cliched ending. - C+

Warning Spoiler! Click to show

Rescue Dawn (2006, Werner Herzog)
Herzog's dramatization of the story of Dieter Dengler is his most straightforward film, and also his most inert. While it is well-acted and features excellent cinematography, it feels strangely lacking in energy and is never the tense thriller it intends to be. There are enough scenes of quality drama to make the film worth seeing, but the story was told better by Dengler himself in Herzog's documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly. - B

Sucker Free City (2004, Spike Lee)
This was orginally conceived as a TV series for Showtime, but after they passed, Spike was left to shape the material that was filmed into a 2-hour "movie". This had the makings of a terrific show, a compelling urban drama with an assortment of well-drawn, intriguing chracters featuring Lee regulars like Anthony Mackie, Ken Leung, and John Savage alongside Kathy Baker, Ben Crowley, Jim Brown amongst a large cast that draws pictures of several San Francisco communities along social, racial and criminal lines.

For most of the characters we see, gang life and crime is a part of their daily lives. Lee's San Francisco of urban decay and dingy shops is far different from the post card San Francisco usually seen in popular media. The show operates on dual planes, providing the brutal action of a something like The Sopranos or the Wire, while Lee's script provides the moral and social shading that forms his unique voice. It's too bad we can't see more of his vision for this project. - A-

The Tin Drum (1979, Volker Schlondorff)

Revisit of Schlondorff's allegorical masterpiece about a child who refuses to grow older and join the world of adults who only disappoint him, against the backdrop of the rise and fall of the Nazis'. - A

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1966, Russ Meyer)
Wrote about my enjoyment of this cult hit in the S&S thread. - B+

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Yeah..I's not a good film at all. And quite frankly almost everything 'Hammer' made from their grossly and unjustily maligned 70's output leaves stuff like this in the dust...'classic' era Hammer or not.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

1/22/08

The Birds (1963) Dir: Alfred Hitchcock

“It’s the end of the world!” And so it may very well be in Hitchcock’s fable apparently about man and nature’s capriciousness.

A couple of recent items in the news led me to this viewing of The Birds. One was the recent passing of Suzanne Pleshette. Not that I was a particular fan of hers. Her television work was before my time and the only other film of hers I’d seen was The Shaggy D.A. The second item was more disturbing than the movie. Speculation has it that in the Michael Bay-produced upcoming remake of the film, the birds will be given a motivation for their attack: global warming. Talk about missing the point. So I sought solace with the classic original.

The plot is simple enough. In the midst of the boy-meets-girl story, a horde of birds gathers and invades the town of Bodega Bay. There is no explanation for the attacks and we watch to see if Melanie Daniels (Tippy Hedren), the ‘girl’, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), the ‘boy’, his mother, Lydia (Jessica Tandy) and sister, Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) can make it out alive. And what of Ms. Pleshette? She plays Annie, the schoolteacher. It’s a small but important role in the story. Through her we get the background on Mitch and Lydia. Annie and Mitch once had a relationship that ended because of Lydia’s controlling nature. Annie is bitter and regretful, but also resigned, though definitely still holding a torch for Mitch. Pleshette is good, she makes it matter when we learn of her eventual fate.

Perhaps my favorite scene is the one in the diner, after the attack at the school. It serves as a brief respite for the film in that it comes after an attack and precedes an attack. There are even some moments of levity. We’re introduced to the characters populating the diner, like the verse-spouting drunk, the doubting ornithologist, Mrs. Bundy, the increasingly hysterical woman with her two scared small children and Mr. Sholes, the fisherman (Charles McGraw). Then another attack begins and all hell breaks loose in the town. There’s the Eisenstein-esque shot of Melanie tracking the flame along the gasoline as it’s about to blow up. More mayhem outside, including a magnificent process shot, this of the bird’s eye view of the town being mucked up, as more and more birds enter the frame. Then back into the diner where everyone is cowered in a hallway, even Mrs. Bundy. Marvelous.

The ending is mostly seen, I guess, as ambiguous. Is the car attacked when they round that last bend? Possibly, but I believe they get away regardless. I see plenty of signs of optimism. For example, all the damaged relationships have been repaired. There’s Mitch and Melanie (they’ve moved beyond the preconceptions they first had about each other), Mitch and Lydia (she’s no longer unnaturally possessive of him/substituting him for her husband), and Melanie and Lydia (their closeness gives Melanie the mother figure she wants and relieves Lydia of her fear of abandonment). The mere presence of the lovebirds at the end is also a clear optimistic sign.

The Birds is a technical marvel. The mixture of live birds, puppets and some animatronics is virtually seamless. The bird-wrangling is certainly impressive, with live birds pulling off some purposeful dive bombing (the man at the gas station, the children fleeing the schoolhouse). Hitchcock also made the decision to have an electronic soundtrack of just bird noises, which creates a disorienting effect and keeps the viewer on edge. There are some famous shots, like the last one, which utilizes some 30 or so pieces of film in an elaborate process shot. Think the film is a bit influential? At about the 1 hour 44 minute mark (the bird attack on the Brenner house) there is a low angle shot of Lydia’s face, shooting into the ceiling with the shadows from the lit fireplace dancing all over the room. She looks around as she hears the birds somewhere in the house. Then we pan out and track back as Melanie enters the left foreground, followed by Mitch, and then stop with all three in the frame, looking around. It’s a shot that’s been ‘homaged’ over and over again. You see it, you’ll recognize it right away.

Needless to say, a must-see for anyone interested in classic cinema (I gather most people knock this one out rather early in their explorations).

out of 4




1/23/08

Phantom Lady (1944) Dir: Robert Siodmak

Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis), following a nasty fight and split with his wife, looks to drown his sorrows at the local watering hole. There he spies a woman in a similar emotional state and, looking for some companionship, asks her to a show at a club to get both their minds off their problems. She agrees, but only on the condition that they keep their names to themselves. Sure enough, when Scott gets home he finds the police there, waiting to question him. His wife’s been murdered. Where were you at 8 o’clock this evening, asks Inspector Burgess (Thomas Gomez)? But Scott has an alibi, right? Only he doesn’t know the woman’s name. And the bartender remembers Scott but not the woman. Neither does the cab driver. Nor the drummer (Elisha Cook Jr.) at the club. Even the dancer at the club, who Scott clearly caught looking at the woman (they were both wearing the same hat), won't acknowledge there was someone with him. Something is going on, but whatever it is Scott is helpless to defend himself at a trial and is sentenced to death for his wife’s murder (on the flimsiest ‘evidence’ in Hollywood judicial history). It’s left to his loyal secretary, ‘Kansas’ (Ella Raines), who’s later joined by a sympathetic Inspector Burgess, to find out the real killer before Scott is executed.

Phantom Lady is built on themes that recur, almost compulsively, in Woolrich’s work. For example, the schizophrenic antagonist is also seen in Black Angel and The Leopard Man. Additionally, there is the character who becomes mentally unhinged by the death of a sweetheart or spouse as found in Rendezvous in Black and The Bride Wore Black. It can leave a viewer feeling like he’s treading on well worn ground. But in the right hands, the feverish plots, sorry dialogue, the narrative inconsistencies, all are beside the point. Fortunately, Phantom Lady was being guided by sound hands.

This is Siodmak’s first noir. He would go on to distinguish himself as one of the, if not the, preeminent practitioners of the style (The Killers, Criss Cross). Here he is fortuitously paired with cinematographer Woody Bredell (they would be reunited on Christmas Holiday and The Killers). There is some great storytelling done in the camera. In one shot, the deteriorating mental state of a character is shown as he sits in front of a 3-way mirror, suggesting multiple personalities. The same character, who is an artist, has Van Gogh’s self portrait with the bandaged ear hanging on the wall in his apartment. But what Siodmak and Bredell are really doing in Phantom Lady is practically creating the mise-en-scène blueprint for noir. Released very early in 1944, it’s all here; the wet pavement, the bags of atmosphere and dread, the sharply contrasting b&w, the wildly expressionistic versions of reality (when Kansas visits Scott in prison), the discordant shafts of light, etc. It is a terrific picture to look at.

Franchot Tone aside, the cast, as well as the subject matter and relative inexperience of the director (and presumably, the budget), suggests ‘B’ movie ambitions. I thought Tone was a little hammy. Alan Curtis (High Sierra) is not up to much, and actually comes off pretty weak in a few scenes. Ella Raines is mostly good (and quite beautiful). Her ‘sex scene’ with Elisha Cook Jr. is so deliriously perverse it has to be seen to be believed. A real highlight. Another standout scene is when Kansas goes after the bartender to question him. It amounts to a chase scene, as she relentlessly dogs him through the streets, with a stop at a subway station. Some real good tension in there.

One of the indisputable pillars of film noir, well deserving of a DVD release.

out of 4

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Updated post.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Wayne's World

I took me 16 years to get around to watching this, despite the fact that I love Bohemian Rhapsody, because I have never found the SNL skit it's based on to be funny at all. At least not the basic premise. I may have laughed at one or two gags, or a particular guest, but the main characters and settings were just lame, and it always seemed to me to be an odd choice to make into a film.

On the plus side, there's a lot of good music in the film, Tia is hot, and I'm from the generation it's aimed at - I got every single cultural reference being poked fun at in this film. But, the main idea is still lame, and while there were a few laughs scattered throughout, in the end, it's an OK film at best.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Fat City (1972)

Fat City is not a normal boxing movie. In fact some may argue that it is not a boxing movie at all although the two main characters engage in various bouts throughout the films. Boxing movies tend to show the triumph or despair of the characters while they are in the ring. The protagonist may struggle to overcome various problems and triumph by winning a big fight or just regaining his/her self-respect. Or maybe we see the ugly side of the sport and how certain boxers crumble under the spotlight. Fat City eschews such dramatics and instead just shows us the lives of its characters outside the ring in a low-key, subdued fashion. Nothing much really happens in the film but there is a strong sense of hopelessness, melancholy and broken dreams in the low-class bars, hotels, gyms and fight halls perfectly photographed by Conrad Hall.

Stacy Keach is very good in his role as Billy Tully, the out of shape, borderline alcoholic who wants to start training and fighting again but is never stable or committed enough to do so. His relationship with a female alcoholic is doomed to fail and despite winning his "big" fight at the end of the film, he does not start to move up in the world and instead drifts downwards again. The younger boxer (played by Jeff Bridges) is a more stable character but becomes penned in by his marriage and lack of progress in the ring.

Watch this movie as an antidote to normal boxing movies - these fighters are at the lower-end of the professional sport and do not box that skilfully. And watch it for its downbeat, melancholy atmosphere.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Marked Woman (1937)

Well acted gangster film about women being victimized by mobster Johnny Vanning. Mary Dwight (Bette Davis) works in an club as a hostess run by Johnny Vanning. A client she was entertaining is murdered for welching on a debt. Mary agrees to testify at Vanning trial saying exactly what he wants her to say. After Mary's sister is killed, she goes to the prosecutor ( Humphrey Bogart) and agrees to testify for real this time.

Well paced and well directed by Lloyd Bacon, the movie was inspired by the real life case of Lucky Luciano who had been convicted the previous year. The acting from the cast was superb. It was quite obvious that the women working for Vanning were prostitutes but this fact was sugar-coated no doubt due to the times. This is Bette Davis's movie and she gives a fabulous performance. You've got to give Bette credit. No half measures for her. Bogart was also fine as the prosecutor, a different type of role for him. The rest of the cast were great especially the young girl who played Davis's sister. Another superb movie from the Davis Box collection, a worth-while purchase.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Harold and Kumar go to White Castle - 8 of 10

After seeing the trailer to the amazing looking sequel I knew I had to watch this. didn't let me down. Amazingly funny. Brilliant even. One I'll probably watch several times.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Mission Impossible

Rewatched the first film in the series.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

It's aged very badly, and smacks of grown men playing at teenagers.
I think these films now fail in a way the "Bill and Ted" films do not...They STILL hold up and are just as funny. "Wayne's World" now just seems rather up itself and slightly embarrassing.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Orgazmo - 7 of 10

sweet and silly film about good guys overcoming porn industry villains. sadly there's little to no nudity in the film, which makes it hilarious it gets an NC17 simply for the presence of dildos and frank sexual discussion.

It's not a really great film but it's got a script that's better than the filmmaking or performances, it's a good mockery of superhero films like Spiderman3, which seems the best example of the awful lines and posing seen here, despite the fact Spidey three was made many years after the fact. Also blows up the ridiculousness of pornos having plots by the nuttiness of the situation of a superhero pornstar and his sidekick. lol. Sort of an antiBoogie Nights, there's no tragi-reverential tone here, it's a straight up porn is stupid (and we can be even more stupid for your entertainment) smackdown.

As for plot... well? Joe is a mormon who's studied martial arts. he interrupts a porn shoot while knocking on doors serving his mission in LA, and when the bouncers attack him he takes care of them. the director/producer promptly offers him 20,000 to take over his new porn film as the superhero orgazmo. When this straight laced, garment-clad mormon protests the producer brings in a 'stunt-cock'. Thus does he get swept into the wacky world of porn. There's a side plot shoehorned in involving sushi and gangsters (and naturally the producer). but for the most part it's all nonsense but hilarious and quite funny. Orgazmo's sidekick is played by an MIT grad who figures this is the only way he can get laid but has also secretly built a real orgasm ray-gun in his basement. Maybe a real life orgazmo will have to fight err... crime(?) as well. :p

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Bill & Ted is another film I've never seen. I have to admit that at the time, based on the trailers, it just looked stupid to me. But it is on my to rent list - then again, so are 1000 other films, so no telling exactly when I'll end up seeing it.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

I was a teenager when WAYNE'S WORLD was released and saw it at least four times in the theater. I'm not sure how it holds up today but I thought the film was very funny. I also enjoyed the sequel although it's certainly a step down from the original. I'm not sure the Queen segment was suppose to be funny but it did put a smile on my face. I also enjoyed the Alice Cooper bit (and Aerosmith in the sequel).


01/21/08

Taxi (1932) Roy Del Ruth

Silly but extremely entertaining crime film from Warner deals with two rival cab companies who resort to violence to settle business. James Cagney leads one side of the fight while slowly falling for the girl (Loretta Young) who lost her father in the taxi wars. This is certainly a silly film but if you enjoy watching Cagney kick ass then this is highly entertaining. The film opens with Cagney knocking around a few guys and continues throughout the film, which runs a very fast 68-minutes and doesn't have one dry moment the whole way through. One of the men Cagney beats is played by a young George Raft who smarts off after a dance contest. Cagney is as fast and as wild as he has ever been and his performance is top-notch. Young is also very good in her role as his wife as she must try and talk Cagney out of seeking vengeance on the man who killed his brother. The screenplay is rather smart even though most of its just there for the action but this is the perfect time killer and great fun for fans of the two stars. George E. Stone, Guy Kibbee and Leila Bennett co-star.

Frisco Kid (1935) Lloyd Bacon

The Barbary Coast in San Francisco is the setting in this story of Bat Morgan (James Cagney), the man who would become the countries first racketeer. This is a decent little film but there's not enough energy to keep things moving as well as it should. Cagney, with a funky little haircut, is in good form but this is certainly not one of his greatest roles. The supporting cast is in good form and includes Margaret Lindsay, Ricardo Cortez, Donald Woods and George E. Stone. Cortez steals the show as the top guy in town but Stone adds some very good comic relief as Cagney's buddy. The highlight of the film is a terrific fight sequence between Cagney and a large man with a hook for a hand. The final twenty minutes deal with the city getting tired of the thugs and deciding to take the law into its own hands. We get another mob scene where they want to hang the bad men and this here is where the film should have taken off but things stay pretty bland and never get too exciting.

Quiet Please! (1945) Hannah & Barbera

Oscar winning Tom and Jerry short has an angry bulldog trying to sleep but Tom keeps getting blamed for Jerry waking him up. I think this is one of the best T&J shorts as it contains non-stop action and plenty of laughs including the scene where the dog gets blown up with dynamite.

01/22/08

Life After People (2008) David de Vines

Documentary from the History Channel talks about what would happen if people were to disappear from the Earth at the same time. The documentary goes from the first few days after people are gone up to 10,000 years after. The most interesting aspect are the early days when the remaining animals would have to try and survive without their owners. For examples, dogs could only survive if they managed to get outside. Even then they'd have to resort to habits that they've never gone through. The rest of the documentary deals with stuff like buildings, insects, wildlife and various other objects out there. We're basically looking at how long things would last and if there would be anything around to where if people ever came back if they'd know someone was here before them. If you like this sort of 'what if' scenario then this should keep you entertained, although it gets a little long in the end.

Daily Beauty Rituals (1937) None credited

Technicolor short has Constance Bennett telling people how she keeps herself looking good. There's really nothing too special here but there is some sexuality that goes out, which somewhat shocked me since this was made after the pre-code era. There's a scene where Bennett gets out of bed in a tight robe and gives off a sexual stretch and there's another scene where she's in a bathtub that doesn't leave too much to the imagination.

Hollywood Hist-O-Rama: Tyrone Power (1962) Joe Juliano

Stills and narration tells the story of Tyrone Power and his rise to fame. This is the third in the series that I've watched and this one here is no different than the other two. There's nothing deep to be learned but it's a fun little introduction to the career of the actor.

Strictly G.I. (1943) None credited

Bob Hope hosts this filmed broadcast of "Command Performance", which also features Betty Hutton, Lana Turner and Judy Garland. I'd be lying if I said I was a big fan of Hope but he's very funny in this short and Hutton sings a great version of Murder, He Said. Garland sings "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

Infantile Paralysis (1944) None credited

Greer Garson does this public service announcement talking about the crippling disease and asking people to help. This is pretty interesting to see where the disease was in 1944 compared to today and it's certainly a lot better than those cheap announcements we see before movies today.

01/23/08

Play It Again Sam (1972) Herbert Ross

Hilarious film has Woody Allen struggling in the dating scene, getting advice from Humphrey Bogart and then falling in love with his best friends wife (Diane Keaton). This is one of my all time favorite comedies, which I could probably watch monthly and not grow tired of. I've talked about how much I loved this film in previous years so I'll just mention that I've never bought into Herbert Ross directing this. There are only a handful of Allen films that I haven't watched and to me this film has the same style, same pace and same tone as every film directed by Allen. I've always been curious if Allen had more of a role than just an actor and screenwriter here because to me this is Allen 100%.

01/24/08

To Catch a Yeti (1995) BOMB Bob Keen

Incredibly horrid rip of E.T. has a big time hunter (Meat Loaf) tracking a yeti only to find it living with a family and beloved by the little girl. Even on a cute kids movie level, this film is quite horrid and comes off more creepy than sweet, which was its main goal. The movie is awful on every level and this includes the performances, which range from bad to suicide worthy. Meat Loaf has been good in several films but he's really bad here. The Loaf goes over the top and his performance is all over the place as if he doesn't know what to do. Chantellese Kent plays the young girl who befriends the yeti and she turns in one of the worst performances from a child actor. The screenplay is all over the place as well and the jokes are way too forced to work. The director apparently realized this was going to be junk because I can't see any signs of actual directing being done.

Sea Hawk, The (1924) Frank Lloyd

Oliver Tressilian (Milton Sills) goes from a rich man to slave and then works his way back up in this faithful adaptation of Rafael Sabatini's famous novel. Most people know the 1940 Errol Flynn version, which is considered a major classic but that version left me rather flat when i watched it a couple years ago. This silent version isn't a classic but to me it's somewhat more entertaining. The funny thing is that I praised the Flynn version for various battle scenes but it turns out that many of them were lifted from this film because Warner felt they couldn't top the scenes here. The battle scenes here are certainly the highlight and the slave mutiny is full of excitement. Sills, a major star in the silent era who is now forgotten, delivers a very strong performance but the screenplay doesn't offer him too much outside the lover/fighter part. Wallace Beery is also good in his role as another Captain but Enid Bennett is rather lame as the love interest. Towards the end of the film there's some nice tinted scenes but the real surprise was the hand colored flames, which appear in three scenes.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

It's s a shame that Bob Keen's directorial efforts have been so bad, as he seemed a nice guy when i met him years ago at a horror film all-nighter, and a top class FX man.

"Play it Again Sam" is indeed a joy. One of my favourites from/with Allen.
I think it plays close to the hearts of most movie fans and the geek in them all.



"Shoot 'em Up"

Birthed from the iconic 'Chow Yun Fat with a baby and a shotgun' scene from John Woo's "Hardboiled", "Shoot 'em Up" delivers a film based on the idea that Chow would have to look after and protect the baby throughout the entire film!
And it works brilliantly.

This is not a film pretending to BE a John Woo film, or even pretending to be LIKE a John Woo film (they are separate creatures despite the shared DNA) it's simply a movie being something so out of this world deranged that is exists in its own little universe.

It's a juicy hamburger made of the finest meats and cooked to absolute perfection and served on the best bun ever baked, to John Woo's juicy prime steak cooked and seasoned to perfection and served on the finest bone china plate ever made.
Both bloody lovely depending on what mood you're in.

If Woo's masterworks pushed reality to breaking point in their drive to ensure that style and entertainment come before all else, then "Shoot 'em Up" quite frankly pushes reality out of the frame entirely!

Stupendously creative and over the top set-pieces packed with blood spattered carnage and oh so many guns is the order of the day, with a large side helping of humour and utterly fantastical physics.

But because the film starts out like that from the very start (a guy killed with a carrot should signpost all you need to know about the kind of film this is going to be) then the movie's 'there are no rules' rules remain basically above criticism.
You want a film literally packed with guns, blood, action and stunts that you can just sit back and enjoy with absolutely no pretensions?
Well here it is.
Done in a way so completely devoted to delivering the most outrageous examples of guns, blood, action and stunts that quite frankly, if you walked into the cinema in the first place, and crucially were still there after the first 10 minutes....You've got nothing to complain about!

The creative use of the baby only adds to the comic strip madness of the action (you WILL get close to the edge of your seat at times whenever the baby is put through the kind of set-pieces Tex Avery would find too crazed) and for a film that was basically spawned from an idea in another film, and that hugs and kisses so many past action conventions with great passion, it's to everyone's credit that the damn thing still comes out unlike any action/gun film you've ever seen.

Clive Owen is quite frankly pitch perfect as the mysterious stranger who's a one mad slaughter house. Owen knows exactly how to react to the madness, how to trip out the one-liners and how to handle the action.
And Paul Giamatti is a complete comic strip, pushed to the edge of the cosmos, nasty as hell villain that shouldn't work... but does perfectly in the kind of universe "Shoot 'em Up" dwells in.

This is a gunplay film on speed, acid and grass all at the same time while still managing to pull all the best effects of such a cocktail together with military precision (under Michael Davis' expert direction) to amazingly deliver not a vomit chocked overdose, but a big ass, grin on the face, orgasm.

"Eat your vegetables"

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

I'll third the love for Play it Again Sam. I've never really thought about how different it is from an Allen directed film, and indeed it's probably more "Woody Allenish" to me than some he directed but didn't star in, though I don't know how much that's just his impact as an actor and writer (he did write the movie) as opposed to a director.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

I suppose "Sam" is more grounded in normality than most of Allen's own directorial efforts. It has an 'old Hollywood' sensibility to how it's handled somehow.
Even with the Bogart element, it lacks that edge of general surrealism that seems much stronger in Allen's comedies of around the same time.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

1/24/08

Cause for Alarm! (1951) Dir: Tay Garnett

A minute into Cause for Alarm! and we’re already into a flashback-within-a-flashback, which usually doesn’t bode well. Thankfully we’re not there too long and we’re back to just the flashback. Our narrator is Ellen Jones (Loretta Young), and she informs us that we’re going to see “the most terrifying day of [her] life.” Her husband, George (Barry Sullivan), is bedridden with a heart problem (the second flashback is the story of how they met, it also shows him to be a bit of a cad). While Ellen is doing the vacuuming we go upstairs to meet George, who we see writing a letter. The letter is to the District Attorney. In it George says that his wife and doctor have been slowly killing him by overdosing his medicine. If anything should happen to him, this letter should serve as witness against them. The only problem is that George has lost his mind. His illness has made him paranoid and delusional. He thinks Ellen is in love with the doctor (an old friend of theirs) and they’re plotting against him. George gets Ellen to unwittingly mail the letter, then confronts her with his plans and suspicions. As George is about to kill Ellen, he dies from the stress. Ellen must pull herself together and somehow stop that letter from getting to the DA.

Tay Garnett, who had previously taken a wrecking ball to connubial bliss in The Postman Always Rings Twice, has another go here. Cause for Alarm! is of the subgroup of crime pictures where the drama had moved out to the suburbs. The saps were the people who bought into the American dream only to find fulfillment doesn’t necessarily come with a house and a white picket fence. When at one point George asks Ellen what she wants for herself, she answers kids and a garden. George can hardly mask his revulsion. Garnett barely does either. You get the feeling he enjoyed obliterating poor Ellen.

For about the first 45 minutes this is a pretty good film. Once George dies, there are a series of patience-testing contrivances (all designed to make Ellen look more ‘guilty’) that really drag the film downhill; a moronic mailman, George’s doddering aunt, a businessman with an appointment to meet George. Ellen has to lie to all of them…for some reason? She even tries to get the doctor out of the picture, although he’s the one person who can corroborate George’s poisoned state of mind. I couldn’t figure out what her plan was. In other words, this is one of those films where the plot can only advance if the protagonist is an imbecile of the highest order (it would have been much more interesting if she actually was trying to kill him). On top of that, it’s all settled at the end with a twist that wouldn’t have made it out of Rod Serling’s inbox.

I’ll give it credit for being pretty good for about 45 minutes of its 1h and 15m running time. Probably worth it if you’re a fan of Loretta Young, who’s pretty good here.

Note: The film's title is parodied in a Warner Bros. cartoon, Claws for Alarm (1954), a wild Chuck Jones short starring Porky and Sylvester.

out of 4

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

Laura (1944)

Superb film noir directed by Otto Preminger and starring a young Gene Tierney. A police detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) investigates the murder of socialite Linda Hunt (Tierney) and develops a growing fascination with the murder victim.

This movie has an eclectic cast of characters from Vincent Price, Clifton Webb to Dame Judith Anderson and the lovely Gene Tierney. I've been fascinated with Gene ever since I saw her in Ghost and Mrs. Muir. There seemed to be a fragile aspect to the actress and she fits well in this role. I saw this movie years ago as a child and the only thing that stuck in my mind was the portrait. For some reason I thought the character was evil. I had this movie mixed up with Rebecca. It was with pleasure that the movie turned out to be quite different then what I remembered. Other than the police detective and perhaps the Clifton Webb character Waldo Lydecker, the other supporting characters in the movie are fairly one dimensional. Still an extremely entertaining movie.

Gene Tierney: A Shattered Portrait

I watch very few of these promotional biographies on these discs because I find them short and usually a waste of time. This one was alittle bit better produced for A&E Biography. It had the usual film clips and reminisces of various people that knew her. I did learn some things about her that I didn't know previously, such as the details of her fight with mental illness and her happy marriage in her latter years. Interesting lady.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

re: PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM --- I love the film, and it may even be my favorite film to feature Woody Allen, or way up there.

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

1/25/08

A Matter of Life and Death (1946) Dir: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger

Powell & Pressburger’s extravagantly imaginative fantasy about love’s ability to transcend literally everything, including death, takes the opposite tact of the similarly themed Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Instead of a man mistakenly being claimed by Heaven, here he’s missed by his ‘conductor’ in the confusion and remains Earth-bound.

A theater out in Sag Harbor was showing this last Friday. I was debating all week whether or not to go when circumstances eventually dictated that I not. Well, just to show you what I psycho I am, this ended up bugging me. Yes, bugging me that I wasn’t able to take a likely four hour round trip out to the Hamptons to see a 60-year-old film. So, I endeavored to, ah, somehow find a copy of the film and watch it (thanks for nothing Columbia/Sony). Here’s what happened…

As the film opens we hear a radio transmission. It’s from RAF pilot Peter Carter (David Niven). He’s the last man alive in his bomber which is about to crash. On the other end is an American servicewoman, June (Kim Hunter). They form an immediate bond in the fervor of Peter’s last moments. Finally, without a working parachute, Peter is left to decide on his death, be it either in the crash or by first bailing out. Then we see him jump out an open hatch. It is a devastating scene, emotional without being maudlin. Think of how it would have resonated with audiences of the time. Next we get a quick glimpse of Peter’s body, floating in the surf, followed by a transition to the ‘other world’ (Heaven, but never named as such). There, one of the crewmen on the bomber, Officer Trubshawe, waits patiently for Peter to arrive. He never does. A mistake has been made. Peter, alive, awakens on a beach. He thinks he’s in the after-life until he spots a woman on a bicycle. It’s June. They 'reunite' and fall in love. Meanwhile, in the other world, Conductor 71 (played by Marius Goring as a foppish French dandy who fell victim to the guillotine) is instructed to bring Peter back. Peter, now in love, refuses to go and demands an appeal for his release. A trial is scheduled to determine Peter’s ultimate fate (Raymond Massey plays the prosecutor). Back on Earth, Peter, who shared with June the story of his run-in with Conductor 71, is treated for a brain injury by June’s friend, Dr. Reeves (Roger Livesey). His planned surgery to fix Peter’s injury will dovetail, dramatically, with the trial.

Powell & Pressburger frequently deal with love as a theme. Sometimes it destroys (The Red Shoes), and other times it can deliver, as in A Matter of Life and Death. The film originated as an idea to further American-British relations during the War, but such a sentiment (‘love conquers all’) would’ve obviously appealed to any member of the contemporaneous audience. The fact that its message is purposeful means that modern viewers might find it loses its way at times. The trial scene particularly is filled with some minor speechifying designed to break down barriers between Americans and Britons (Conductor 71 shows us that we all laugh at the French, so there’s one common bond). That’s really the only quibble I’ve seen, and it personally didn’t bother me at all.

This being a Powell & Pressburger picture, there’s going to be a certain artfulness in the design and look (Variety’s review in ‘46 accused it of trying to be too highbrow). The scenes on Earth are filmed in the spectacular Technicolor that was a hallmark of the DP, Jack Cardiff. The scenes in the ‘other world’ are in black & white and just as stunning (Conductor 71, moving between that world and Earth impishly says, “Ah, how one is starved for Technicolor up there”). When Peter is visited by Conductor 71, the frame is frozen to show that time has stopped (in one example June and Dr. Reeves are frozen in mid point of a table tennis match). As Peter is anesthetized before surgery there is a shot from the point of view of his eyes of the lids closing. Finally, Alfred Junge’s production design, especially of the giant stairway and the sets of Heaven and of the trial, is breathtaking.

I believe I read somewhere that the Archers indicated how they felt about a film by the placement of the arrow in the opening logo. In A Matter of Life and Death the arrow is a perfect, dead-center bull’s-eye. Directing, acting, script/dialogue, photography, design, - who am I to argue with them?

out of 4

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

01/21/08: THREE LITTLE BEERS (Del Lord, 1935)

The cinematic spoofing of the high-class sports of golf was made famous by W. C. Fields in a couple of his films and even Laurel & Hardy tackled the subject in one of their underrated Silent shorts, SHOULD MARRIED MEN GO HOME? (1928); it’s hardly surprising, therefore, to find The Three Stooges getting the golfing bug in this one and, later still, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis would do so too in THE CADDY (1953).

Anyway, The Stooges are newly-employed delivery-men with a beer-producing company who set their modest sights on winning the top $100 prize in a golfing competition between employees of their own firm; they stop during a delivery to spend an hour of training at the sport which, typically, is alien to them at this point…and their ideas sure don’t get any clearer by the end of it. Happily, in lieu of their usual slaphappy schtick, we get several funny routines displaying their incompetence at the sport: Moe digging up innumerable holes in the green in his attempts to hit the ball and maintaining that he must be improving since the holes are getting smaller; Curly chopping down a tree because his ball has got itself stuck in it; Moe hitting dozens of golf balls with three tees simultaneously and striking down everybody who happens to be in the vicinity; Larry getting stuck in a cement pit and being dragged by the irate worker by his moppish hair; the boys being chased around the sloping town streets by their own kegs of beer which have gone loose, etc.


01/22/08: ANTS IN THE PANTRY (Jack White, 1936)

This pretty good Three Stooges short has them as pest exterminators under threat of losing their job if they do not “drum up” business; to this end, they infest a house in a posh quarter with mice and all kinds of bugs – so that they can then offer their services to rid the upper-class owners of the ‘problem’! While the central idea could hardly fail to be entertaining (given also that the landlady’s throwing a party and doesn’t want her snobbish guests to become aware of the unhealthy environment inside her house), having watched a number of these Stooges shorts, it’s becoming increasingly evident that not only the boys’ routines are repeated from one film to the next but even the backdrops against which they’re set! That said, it’s a likeable enough vehicle – with, thankfully, a restrained Curley…and an especially cute scene in which a bagful of kittens is hidden inside a piano, which starts playing ‘by itself’ when a celebrated performer sits down to give a recital! By the way, director White used the pseudonym Preston Black for this one (and a few more Stooges titles from the first Columbia set).


01/23/08: MOVIE MANIACS (Del Lord, 1936)

This Three Stooges short was a particular disappointment given the Hollywood milieu; in fact, the opening scene aboard the train is more inventive than the ensuing studio silliness! The comic trio are mistaken for movie executives and given the run of the studio (the president’s name, Fuller Rath, emerges as the film’s best gag): unsurprisingly, they drive the director and leading actors to distraction with their antics and end up by replacing them (with Moe as director, Larry the leading man, and Curley – naturally in drag – takes on the part of the leading lady)! The film is okay in itself, but clearly not in the same league as feature films on the subject starring other contemporary comedians – such as Harold Lloyd’s similarly-titled MOVIE CRAZY (1932) and W.C. Fields’ NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK (1941).


01/24/08: HALF SHOT SHOOTERS (Jack White, 1936)

This army comedy, a favorite milieu with star comedians, is one of the better Three Stooges shorts I’ve watched. Its plot – starting in WWI and then moving on to the present (1935, in this case) – anticipates one of Laurel & Hardy’s best feature-films, BLOCKHEADS (1938). The boys are layabouts during the war (they even manage to sleep through combat!) who fall foul of their sergeant; years later, we find them as tramps willing to do any work. They’re eventually directed to an office building which, unbeknownst to them, is the city’s army recruiting post: there they meet again their old sergeant, who’s naturally keen to get even with them! During the film’s surreal climax, where they’re assigned to cannon-fire practice, The Stooges contrive to sink a visiting Admiral’s ship and demolish a number of buildings in the vicinity – for which they’re soon facing the firing squad…only the weapon turns out to be the cannon itself and the executor of the sentence is none other than their vindictive sergeant!


01/25/08: DISORDER IN THE COURT (Jack White, 1936)

This is another so-so Three Stooges vehicle: as swing musicians, they’re the chief witnesses in the trial of a nightclub murder (where the accused is the young chanteuse in their act). The implausible situations that ensue are often wacky-for-wackiness’s-sake (such as the dotty old lady in the jury giving her phone number to the prosecuting attorney), though the section in which Curly takes the stand provides some undeniable visual and verbal hilarity. Eventually, the boys – along with their scantily-clad companion – perform a musical number in order to reconstruct the night of the murder. The riotous climax, then, sees an over-pressurized water hose running riot in the courtroom…until, finally, a parrot reveals the identity of the real killer!


01/24/08: THE DISAPPEARANCE [Edited Version] (Stuart Cooper, 1977)

Ostensibly, it should be hard to understand why certain movies slip into obscurity despite being loaded with talent, but then you come across a case like this one and the possibility suddenly becomes not just plausible but inevitable. On paper, this Anglo-Canadian “existentialist” thriller certainly had potential: an impressive cast – Donald Sutherland, David Hemmings, John Hurt, David Warner, Christopher Plummer and Virginia McKenna – was mouthing the words of screenwriter Paul Mayersberg under the guidance of director Stuart Cooper (the man behind recent Criterion DVD release, OVERLORD [1975]) and being lit by the late great cinematographer (and frequent Stanley Kubrick collaborator) John Alcott; besides, the whole thing was being overseen by producer Hemmings himself. So, where did the film go wrong?

Well, for starters, the central mystery itself is not very interesting: the neglected wife of brooding Donald Sutherland – the No. 1 hitman for an enigmatic espionage organization – is forever threatening to leave him and does exactly that at the very start of the film; unfortunately, while Sutherland is very good in his role and literally the best thing in it, the actress playing his wife (Francine Racette) is as stiff and unappealing as one of her husband’s handiwork. This fact renders the knowledge that Racette is none other than Sutherland’s own wife in real life as well almost impossible to believe, since this is hardly borne by their interaction here – least of all during a fragmentary sex scene that ludicrously apes Nicolas Roeg’s DON’T LOOK NOW (1973) which, of course, also starred Sutherland! Actually, I had seen Racette act previously in two notable films – Dario Argento’s FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET (1971) and Joseph Losey’s MR. KLEIN (1976) – but I can’t really say if her efforts were any better there. For the record, THE DISAPPEARANCE proved to be Racette’s penultimate film before retiring to raise her three children with Sutherland. Thankfully, although most of them are practically extended cameos, the supporting cast – of whom, I thought, John Hurt comes off best – does keep one watching…but, again, the utterly predictable double surprise ending closes the film with a whimper instead of a bang.

Equally to blame for the film’s ultimate failure is Stuart Cooper whose direction is pretentious to a fault and, unsurprisingly, he too faded exclusively into TV-movie limbo soon after; for what it’s worth, many years ago I did get to watch two of his TV ventures – A.D. (1985) and THE FORTUNATE PILGRIM (1988) – both of which were large-scale productions. Having said that, screenwriter Mayersberg is himself well-known for his non-linear scripts but the would-be audacious time-jumping techniques abused here merely attempt to imbue an obscure and thin plot with some elusive sense of significance; incidentally, even if the 88-minute version I watched was 12 minutes short of the original, I doubt that the missing footage would made things any clearer! Unfortunately for the viewer, Stuart Cooper is no visual stylist like Nicolas Roeg, much less a master film-maker in the league of Alain Resnais! Besides, given the structure and themes of the film, at times I couldn’t help but unfavorably compare it to John Boorman’s vastly superior POINT BLANK (1967)…

Re: Track the Films You Watch (2008)

"DIRTY HARRY" - What a great classic thriller. Clint is just amazing!!!

"UNTRACEABLE" - A cool and intense thriller in the vein of "SE7EN". Very suspenseful with excellent action scenes. Diane Lane was superb!

"CLOVERFIELD" - A quality monster movie but the "shaky-cam" was an annoyance in the extreme.

"THE BUCKET LIST" - It's O.K. but Nicholson and Freeman have been batter.