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Reviews
99 River Street (1953)
Very Good Noir film all the way around
John Payne plays a bitter cab driver saddled with a cheating wife who wants the moon and the stars and everything that goes with it. Something she realizes will never come married to this broken down hack. Such is the singular event that starts in motion a series of events, some coincidental, some planned and all of them unexpected. And unlike some lesser entries into the film noir black and white movies of the day, this has some totally logical and totally unexpected twists along the way. Peggie Castle was never sexier than this film, Evelyn Keyes was never more reserved-- until you get about the three quarters mark, and then she does one of the most erotic things I've ever seen in any film from 1953 or anywhere in the '50's. The fight scenes are gritty and realistic and the dialog is understated and not hysterical. And the pacing is big screen professional. I highly recommend this film to anyone looking for some serious fun.
Texas Lady (1955)
Claudette Colbert's next to last film...
She was 51 when she made this turkey, though she still tried the best she could to make it work. NO CLOSEUPS of her AT ALL in the film, and everything is shot from her LEFT SIDE, or straight on. A few glimpses of her right profile when she danced and the such, but 95% from her left side. Incredibly hokey film, the color is faded, Barry Sullivan looks bored to tears, Ray Collins spends half the movie sitting down. Gets interesting when the mean sheriff gets involved, and his resolution caught me off guard. But all in all, lame and dull and not up to snuff. Watch CLEOPATRA instead for a solid Claudette Colbert fix. Or better yet, catch the milk bath scene from THE SIGN OF THE CROSS or any scene from IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT for a good dose. This movie just doesn't work.
Autopsy (2008)
Not bad little shocker...
Middle of the road shocker that starts instantly and rolls along unfettered by common sense or reality. The inclusion of Robert Patrick and Jenette Goldstein only makes this film better. It actually moves along quite well and newcomer Jessica Lowndes does an exceptional job as her moment by moment confusion becomes fear becomes dread becomes terror and then becomes retaliation. As usual with movies of this sort, there's the "I'm the next victim" characters, the orderlies gone mad and all sorts of "this is bullsh*t" moments, but the ending makes up for some if not all of those.
Very high production values, very good photography, generally good acting across the board-- I doubt I'll watch it again, but if you haven't seen it, give it a view.
Cheyenne: Riot at Arroyo Seco (1960)
The Best Ending for a TV Western!
Remember, we had political correctness back in the 1950's too! No mention of story or plot here, but this episode surprised me! It has, in my very humble opinion, the best ending I've ever seen for a western TV drama of any of the shows made during this time.
HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL was great, at half an hour, but the PC "message" westerns didn't gear up until Kennedy was elected-- Gunsmoke went "comedy" with Festus and Bonanza became a preach fest. Of course, this lead to LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE and so on and so on, a trend that killed the western.
This episode of CHEYENNE had NOTHING TO DO with any of that sappy junk! It leads you by the hand for 95% of it's story, then springs a twist ending so cool and original I felt I needed to comment on it here and hope other people will watch. and the last scene, the look on his face-- well, don't tell me Clint Walker didn't know how to act. He may not have knocked over the critics, but we're watching these shows 50 years later-- that has to tell you something.
Watch this one episode and then watch the rest, see what you've been missing. Great stuff.
Fort Dobbs (1958)
A cut-above average Warner Brother's Western.
In the late 1950's, Warner Brothers was the studio responsible for more westerns on television than any other production company in town (the town being Hollywood, of course!) They made stars out Clint Walker, Ty Hardin, James Garner, Jack Kelly and a host of others who appeared in their half hour and then one hour western dramas, which later became parodies of themselves, as the long running Maverick will prove.
Here, they rework the "Hondo" plot (lone gunman rescues a woman and her son after finding her husband dead) and spend two thirds of the movie getting themselves to Fort Dobbs. I'll stop there, because actually, under the considered hand of director Gordon Douglas, this is actually an okay film. Walker gives a very quiet performance but it's his character, so you buy it. Virginia Mayo and Richard Eyer give better performances, one scene with the kid especially cool-- and the standard cowboys vs. Indians plot is made a bit more edgy by the presence of Brian Keith as the bad guy. He doesn't show up until the 30 minute mark, but he steals the show and has a great time playing the bad guy.
The final scene is laughable ( not in a good way, sorry to say) but prior to that, the action is okay, inter cut with some out takes from "The Searchers", which don't match the Fort Dobbs footage at all.
Contains all the usual Warner Brothers sound effects, gun shots and bodies hitting the ground you've heard hundreds of times. Also, the music was by Max Steiner, which notched it up to a 7 for me.
If you get a chance, give it a look. VERY LITTLE studio work, a whole lot out OUT DOOR SHOOTING, another high point.
Wichita (1955)
Unwatchable claptrap.... and I love Joel McCrea!
Joel McCrea was 50 when he made this movie. The real Wyatt Earp, when he took the job in Wichita, Kansas, was 28. "He only shot to wound those fellas" is also claptrap. This movie is filled with this "made for kids" dialog and fight scenes. Wrongs are righted, the bad guys are caught, and all is right with the world. TV was a booming place for TV westerns in the mid 50's, and this was right out of that world. Sorry, but this film is just plain laughable.
It has all the usual characters-- well dressed saloon bosses, the boozy newspaper man with a secret past, the town marshal who has a yellow streak a mile wide. Cattle barons and cow punchers who feel it's their duty to tear a town apart. All the "saloon girls: are wearing fancy duds without a hair out of place and perfect makeup-- but they don't show cleavage. Yeah, right.... Pass.
Lakeview Terrace (2008)
Unwatchable Throwback to the 70's...
Imagine if you will a screenplay written in the racially charged mid 1970's, when Rudy Ray Moore was knocking out his Dolomite films and black afros and bell bottom pants filled the screens. Imagine a story about a interracial couple (he's white and she's black) who move into a ritzy neighborhood somewhere in Los Angeles. The local neighborhood racist can't stomach a black woman kissing up on a white dude and voices his concern.
Then, mix in a sub plot of the black father-in-law worried about the mixed breeding of the children to come from this unholy alliance of white sperm and black egg. The horror of it all! Then, this script gets locked in a time capsule and dug up 30 years later. And they decide to make the script into a movie. 2008 is a far cry from the 1970's.
I stopped watching at the one hour and ten minute mark. I have no idea how it ends-- but then again-- maybe I do. But during the 70 minutes I hung with it, I cringed at least ten times and literally had to eject the DVD from the machine and get a refund on the rental. It's that kind of story.
Ripped from the headlines-- thirty years ago. Updated with cell phones and rap music, it still stinks of the 1970's. Clarence Williams II might have pulled this off-- Fred Williamson could have made this work. Had it been done back then.
But even Samuel L. Jackson can't save this mish mash. Give him a ten for trying, it reeks of mold and mildew and formula. Sorry-- Kerry Washington is beautiful and Patrick Wilson is wimpy and Sam Jackson is menacing-- but the story plays like an ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK that should have starred PATRICK DUFFY and TERESA GRAVES and JIM BROWN.
L'ultimo bacio (2001)
Talk talk talk talk...
Yell yell yell yell scream scream scream scream whine whine whine whine cry cry cry cry plead plead plead plead sniff sniff sniff sniff cuss cuss cuss cuss bond bond bond bond suffer suffer suffer suffer unhappy unhappy unhappy unhappy poor me poor me poor me poor me you've seen this all before you've seen this all before you've seen this all before you've seen this all before yawn yawn yawn yawn snooze snooze snooze snooze.....
The Italian sounded great, and sensuous and romantic-- what they were saying was redundant redundant redundant redundant-- watch a TV soap opera instead, at least they say the vapid lines in English so you don't have to "read" the movie as you try to watch it.
Literally-- skip three chapters ahead and you can pick it right up. Aboslutely nothing new here.
The Lady Says No (1951)
Ho-hum romantic comedy...
Short on laughs, sometimes even embarrassing to watch, it makes me wonder what this film would have been like WITHOUT David Niven. His performance is so wooden and he seems so bored with the whole thing. Joan Caulfield, not a well known name, does a really good job, actually, playing the ying and yang of her character.
Niven seems TOTALLY OUT OF PLACE, a part someone like Tony Randall or Jack Lemmon could have banged out of the park (maybe it was a bit before their time...) Not a bad premise, has been stolen and used repeatedly in movie history, but it seems listless and lifeless when Niven is on screen. Oh, well.
Shock (1946)
Over wrought and hilarious!
Vincent Price-- one of the greats! He does his reputation no harm here with SHOCK-- a post war melodrama where-- well-- in the first fifteen minutes, he kills his wife and the crime is witnessed by a young woman who goes into shock! And who's the "capable doctor" and "one of the best" to take her into his care and try and save her? You got it! Vincent Price!
From here on in it's a talk fest of conflicting emotions as the "femme fatale", Lynn Bari, a role she was born to play, tries to get her lover, Price, to whack the crazy broad and be done with it. Mostly set in "the hospital", it has all the requisite "mad house" standards-- the spooky dude who reacts in bad ways to thunderstorms (always at night with plenty of studio lightning) and the sweet old lady who sits on the veranda knitting, only to find she's crazy as a bed bug! But the ending-- oh, man! Wait for it-- the last two minutes had me laughing out loud! This is a movie that does not stand up well after 60 years! But the last 2 minutes are worth their weight in gold! I recommend this movie for that alone!
Apocalypto (2006)
A stunning achievement-- highly recommend this movie!
I rated this film a 9. Nothing is a 10, nothing is a 1, and 9's as high as I can go with any film. Unlike the overblown FX / CGI extravaganzas of LORD OF THE RINGS or the STAR WARS films (9 films I have never written a user comment for), Mel Gibson's stunning achievement with APOCALYPTO is virtually beyond compare.
It crafts a story so simple as to be almost Homeric in it's telling. It is said that many "native" people use a vivid and compelling "oral history", stories that are passed down from one generation to another, very much like the character in this film, Old Story Teller. That is the feel and texture of this movie.
Set during the final days of the great Mayan empire, starting out in the vast jungles, we meet a group of villagers who live in a world of tranquil serenity. This is not a Hollywood version, where everyone seems to have good teeth, sleep well, shave often and have plenty of makeup for the babes. These are "natives" and Gibson doesn't shy back from the warts and all feel of the place.
But they are a simple people (not simple minded) with simple needs. Enter the bad guys-- in this case a raiding party of Mayan's (we find this out later) who capture as many able bodied villagers as they can, killing only those they have to, even to the point of abandoning the kids under 12, since they have no value at the slave market back at the main city.
Our hero has hidden his pregnant woman and their son down a dry well (or some sort of hole in the ground) promising to return-- only to be captured and imprisoned with the others.
The trek out of the village to the big city is spectacular! The scope of the film broadens to epic proportions, as visual as the old Biblical flicks of the 50's and 60's. Gibson has out done the PASSION OF THE Christ scope here-- truly, a cast of thousands! And not Orks or Robots or Clones! These are people-- period dress, caste system, beggars and prostitutes, kings and queens, slave dealers, lepers-- an incredible film-- and all seen through the eyes of our hero! I highly recommend this film! This is not as bloody or as gory as the critics would have you believe! It is grisly-- that's a fact! But the context of the blood letting is all in the story-- in fact, I'd say this: in my opinion, there is not one drop of gratuitous blood in this whole movie.
Also, and bet your bottom dollar on this-- thank God for Mel Gibson and his independent streak! Hollywood would never have made this movie! The first thing you notice is the good guys and the bad guys, the women and the kids-- an not one single homage to old school Hollywood with the slick productions values, perfect makeup and big busted "white girls" playing the Mayan queen or princess or some such hooey! You can taste the attention to detail here! Throwaway scenes that must have cost millions of dollars to recreate-- and they get 30 or 50 seconds of screen time! This truly makes me anticipate the next Mel Gibson film. He has reached a level of story telling here that has no equal. A perfect example of what a true artist can do when he (or she) doesn't have to kiss the a** of the studio exec's! APOCALYPTO-- 9 out of 10-- an excellent film!
Third Degree Burn (1989)
Great Erotic Thriller... Until the Ending--
If you're a fan of the erotic thriller, this one works and works well. Yes, you've seen it before. Yes, there are no surprises. Yes, Virginia Madsen is hot hot hot-- not nearly as psycho as THE HOT SPOT but is dead on contender for the Kim Novak / VERTIGO prize as the cool ice queen with the ability to melt the screen. What a great noir style film, even though it's predictable and clichéd by today's standards. Hell, this was old back when it was made in 1989! Treat Williams plays a private detective set up to take the fall for the murder of Virginia Madsen's wealthy husband. This isn't rocket science, but it is a fun ride. Except-- until you get to the end. No real spoilers here, but the ending plays out in broad daylight, no thrills, no surprises, no tension. Sorry to see that. It almost feels rushed and faked, as if the original ending was too oblique and the producers whipped up this dumb ass replacement at the last minute. It ruined an otherwise decent little thriller.
The Marksman (2005)
Eastern Europe Tripe
I've seen some bad Wesley Snipes movies (and this is one of them) but I've rarely seen a bad Wesley Snipes performance. His acting style is much better than the junk here, but if he continues to make these loser films, he will indeed lose his "Teflon" status. THE MARKSMAN is a horrible example of BAD MOVIE-- shot in the economically depressed "eastern Europe" where the local governments offer "creative incentives" for film companies to come there and blow things up, this movie reeks of "been there, done that".
Trying to make a Jerry Bruckheimer action film on a low budget is just plain painful to watch. The costumes looked cheesy and the action scenes contrived. There's one scene where Painter (Snipes) is wearing a camouflage cap so big, it bends his ears out and makes him look like an elf. Later, the hat is so small it looks like a party favor perched three inches up his bald skull.
EVERYTHING about this story is contrived. ONLY THE BOX ART is good looking, the rest is slam bang crash boom from the eighties repackaged as entertainment. YOU'VE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE-- just say "no!"
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Total garbage!
Mindless "man's the real enemy" of the planet movie-- what a horrible mess! Typical "special effects" is all we need to sell the story movie making from the same genius behind Independence DAY and GODZILLA. This guy runs hot and cold-- hey! A pun!
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW even has a typical "we Americans suck!" ending so prevalent with the Hollywood elite, without taking into account that the cheap Japanese monster movies of the 60's and 70's offered the same hokey "man as bad guy" scenarios! Anyone remember GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER?
Laughable performances, especially the scene where a French woman and child are trapped in a cab, trying to get out, and the dumbest cop in the world sees them beating on the window glass and he says "What do you want? I don't understand French!"
Pass on this junk-- but hey-- it may be too late-- it's made a fortune from the global warming crowd-- it's just good to know that when the world freezes over (not a spoiler, since it shows it on the box art, right?) those clowns will freeze with the rest of us morons too stupid to heed their warnings.
The Naked Kiss (1964)
Laughable Sixties trash...
Painfully awful film; the budget was low, but it looks more like the shooting schedule was six days and Fuller used whatever takes he could get. The film editing was sloppy, the dolly shots wobbled and weaved and were used anyway, which is what leads me to think they didn't have much time to make this movie.
There are scenes so embarrassing that you literally want to turn away from the screen they hurt so much! I first discovered Constance Towers in THE HORSE SOLDIERS, where she played opposite John Wayne and William Holden, directed by John Ford. Talk about a completely different performance! In THE NAKED KISS, she plays a call girl of the early sixties Playboy variety, one of those Hitchcock cool blonde types. You have to remember, the Rat Pack was peaking and the Kim Novak of the VERTIGO blonde had transformed into the Tippi Hedren of THE BIRDS and MARNIE variety.
The story line (eventually) becomes about child molestation and poetic justice, which is, to say the least, new and intense for this time and day. Perhaps no studio would touch this film-- which is why the movie looks and plays so badly. It feels rushed, hurried, pushing the talents against an untenable deadline.
The dialog reeks of bad Playboy jokes, where they discuss sex in the terms of drinking champagne and then, later, eating candy, and even later-- well, you get the idea. The horse racing scene between Bogart and Bacall from THE BIG SLEEP it ain't. And it goes on-- and on-- and then-- more. And more.
The ending, where she is exonerated from the murder of the pedophile is so hokey you squirm in your seat. This is independent film making right on the cusp of knowing when something is so bad it should be avoided. This entire film is a stew pot of clichés, we know that, we cut it some slack. But the crummy scenes in this movie were clichés back in 1964, when they were used here. They should have been avoided then. But they weren't.
Fuller was about 53 when he made this movie. Maybe the script was ten years old when he finally found someone to produce it. Who can tell. Anyway, I recommend it only as a lesson that not everything great directors do is great.
The Broken Land (1962)
Terrible Western--
Except for the strangely out of water Jack Nicholson as a cowboy, this movie has nothing to recommend it. Here, he looks and sounds like a TV sidekick, the only thing missing is a comb to run through his hey, daddy-o hair. No where near as compelling as his later western, RIDE THE WHIRLWIND, which, if you think about it, is basically the same story as this one. Except, with Monte Hellman directing, it was watchable. This movie wasn't good back in the early sixties when it was made-- it certainly hasn't stood the test of time. This looks and feels like a contract obligation movie-- meaning they had a slot in the production schedule and threw this junk together to fill the opening. The direction is boring, strictly point the camera and shoot-- one take by the look of it. The female lead, a pivotal role for the last half of the movie, can be seen looking down every time she moves, to make sure she hits her mark. Unwatchable.
The Hired Gun (1957)
Hokey ultra low budget western
Badly made western featuring Calhoun as a gunfighter paid $5000 to go find an escaped murderer-- who happens to be Anne Francis. He does so, and of course, everyone is trying to stop him. Terrible performances, terrible script, lack luster direction, wall to wall music-- all in all, a really bad movie. And it's only about 72 minutes long. Made back in the days when westerns ruled on the TV screens, it was shot widescreen, with only one or two well shot scenes, the rest of the time, it looked like they did one take and moved on. Classic scenes even included four Indians who were obviously white guys in grease paint. Good for a laugh, that's about it. TCM shows this once in a while-- a real hoot.
Dawn at Socorro (1954)
Good psychological western-- until they pull their guns.
Not bad little movie, shows up on TCM every so often. And darned if Rory Calhoun doesn't look exactly like GEORGE CLOONEY at times, or is it vice versa? Anyway, interesting turn on the gunfighter trying to go straight story with an appealing Piper Laurie and mean gambling hall owner David Brian. They play cards and throw dice for the girl, with fortunes going back and forth. Edgar Buchanan plays a nervous sheriff and not the usual dimwit he's known for and Alex Nicol chews the furniture as the edgy slinger waiting to gun down Calhoun. But then comes the typical Hollywood ending where none of the characters show even a lick of common sense. Sorry to see that ending, this isn't a half bad film until the last five minutes, and then it's Universal Studios back lot fireworks. Too bad.