2017 - CHRISTMAS GETAWAY, is the prototypical Hallmark Christmas movie

Christmas Getaway is a good example of the Hallmark Channel's November and December Christmas movie onslaught.  The film is competently put together by the director Mel Damski who was a veteran of many TV movies and series.  The film features a cast of very good looking people who if they will probably never star in a big budget action movie franchise (like most of those are ever any good) are professional performers who know how to deliver their corny dialog without bumping into the furniture as they say.

This constantly recycled Hallmark plot goes something like this.  A big city writer journeys to a small mountain town to write an article on what else, Christmas in a small mountain town.  She meets a widower with a young daughter naturally.  It's all incredibly easy to guess what will happen next, the travel writer and the widower will make goo goo eyes at each other for the next hour and a half.  There will be romantic misunderstandings but eventually true love will find a way. This story all takes place during Christmas but the reality is that the Christmas setting is really not important to the story.  This romance could have been set during the 4th of July, Hanukkah, Ramadan or National Spaghetti Day for that matter.

 

The film has the usual supporting cast, the white writer has a black female friend she can rehash her romantic troubles with.  The widower has a mother who looks like she's only about 2 years older than him. There's and old guy hanging around for no particular reason.  Finally there is an overly cute little girl to bond with the travel writer who will become her surrogate mom.  The women all have the famous Hallmark hair style with half of it flipped over their shoulders. The men always have that rugged mountain man look with their sort of facial hair which is not quite a beard.  It usually makes me think that the female lead is kissing a face that must feel like a Brillo pad.

It's really hard to criticize a movie like this, it is what it is.  Christmas Getaway is a well done feel good holiday film, and it is well made.

This movie was written by Marlene McPherson, Elizabeh Snyder and Tracy Andreen.  That's a lot of writers for such a cookie cutter of a scrip.  The running time is 90 minutes.

1940 - PINOCCHIO, on the big screen

Three years in production this is the followup to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  Pinocchio shows the very talented team of Walt Disney's artists and technicians really on top of their creative game.  A very good digital print of Pinocchio screened at our local revival theater and it is quite an impressive artistic achievement.

If you spend a little time on the internet, you can find a decent synopsis of Carlo Collodi 's original story which was serialized for 30 chapters in a weekly magazine.  The Disney storyboard artists did a brilliant job revising and condensing Pinocchio's story into a 90 minute film with no slow moments.  The Disney artists also elevated and developed the minor character of Jiminy Cricket as Pinocchio's conscience who  in reality is the narrator of the film.

 

Unlike Disney's first feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio does not have kind of a 1930's feel which gives Snow White a bit of a dated look.  The careful use of color particularly the color blue is stunning.  Disney also used their famous multi dimensional camera which gave the illusion of 3-D.  

 

Incredibly this film did not make money on it's initial release despite excellent reviews at the time.  The  reissues of this film started in 1945 and the film made money.

 

The film was written by Ted Sears, Otto Englander, Webb Smith, William, Cottrell, Joseph Sabo, Erdman Penner and Aurelius Battaglia, the running time is 88 minutes,

1978 - GATES OF HEAVEN, a documentary about the pet cemetery business

This documentary about the pet cemetery business was what really put Errol Morris on the map as an interesting filmmaker to watch.  Morris's documentaries usually focus on the oddball or eccentric or just plain weird in people.   

Gates of Heaven started as a documentary after Morris read a news story about a pet cemetery that was being relocated.  Sensing there was a film in this story he raised the money and then got interviews with the people involved.  Morris spoke with the owner of the failed pet cemetery and the owners of the pet cemetery that the deceased pets had been moved to.   The result were filmed interviews that for the most part just focused on the interviewee with the camera locked down.  It certainly gave the film an unusual look and pace. 

I had seen this film several years ago and watching these people being interviewed at the time I found it very easy to sneer and develop a real patronizing attitude about their lives.  Now watching it again I find that I am a lot more sympathetic. The love and grief that they feel for their deceased pets is actually very genuine and touching. After all who loves you more unconditionally than your pet. 

 

 Don't get me wrong there's still plenty of quirk and weirdness going on throughout the film.  In the end it's just people being people.  Gates of Heaven is a very entertaining documentary.

The film runs 83 minutes. 

2014 - BIG GAME, far fetched but entertaining

After sitting through the disappointing and frankly ridiculous Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters I was reluctant to take on another tall tale of a film.  To my surprise Big Game for all it's outrageous story elements is actually very entertaining.

The film is set in Finland and involves a young boy on his first hunt.  He's desperate to prove to his father that he got what it takes to be a hunter.  For reasons really confusing to explain he happens to stumble on to a plot to kill the President of the United States played by the always game Samuel L. Jackson.  After Air Force One is shot down by terrorists over Finland, the President must rely on the boy to evade the terrorists as they race through the forest for help.

 

The film manages to have it's tongue firmly in it's cheek but still walk the line as an entertaining action/adventure film.  This is no easy task but the director manages to orchestrate the action and story elements in some quite clever ways.  The young boy hunter played by the Finnish actor Onni Tommila interacts with Samuel Jackson very well.  Tommila makes a great action hero in the tradition of an Indiana Jones adventurer and Jackson seems to enjoy his sidekick role.

 

This film is a very tall but entertaining tale.

The film was written by Jalmari Helander and Petri Jokiranta the running time is 90 minutes. 

1956 - ELENA AND HER MEN aka PARIS DOES STRANGE THINGS

Ingrid Bergman who had just entered her early 40's is at her most radiant in this film by the great French filmmaker Jean Renoir.  In this film Bergman is courted by several suitors all of who she manages to hold at bay until she finally chooses the guy she wants.  Bergman had a long career in the film industry with lots of highs in 1940's Hollywood and a big low with her involvement with Italian director Roberto Rossellini (having a child out of wedlock the horror, the horror). 

Elena and Her Men was made after Jean Renoir's return to France.  He had been in exile in Hollywood during World War II.  Renoir struggled in Hollywood and was never very comfortable with the cookie cutter studio approach to film making.   The films he made upon his return to France are considerably more light weight than some of his serious 1930's films such as Rules of the Game and Grand Illusion.  He certainly had the ability to film comedy with the amusing Boudu Saved from Drowning.  So filming a farce 20 years later wasn't difficult for him.

 

Elena and Her Men is frequently mentioned by critics as a variation on his theme of the foolishness of the upper class which he satirized in Rules of the Game.  Renoir certainly ridicules the upper class in this film but this is a very paper thin story for the most part.

 

The film was mostly filmed in the studio.  Claude Renoir who was an outstanding color cinematographer was responsible for the look of the film. This movie is absolutely gorgeous to look at.   Claude Renoir also happened to be the nephew of Jean Renoir.  Jean Marius and actor usually associated with Jean Cocteau is one of Bergman's suitors.  American actor Mel Ferrer is another.

The film was written by Jean Renoir and Jean Serge, the running time is 98 minutes.

1958 - WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST, sequel to THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN

The Colossal Beast is back in this sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man.  After having been presumably killed by a fall off a cliff into a river the Colossal Beast (aka Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning) is living in the hills in Mexico.  After being drugged and captured by the U.S. Army the Colossal Beast is taken back to Los Angeles where naturally he escapes and runs amok leading to the inevitable giant stop the monster climax.

This low budget but highly entertaining film comes from who else, American International Pictures.  There's hardly a dull moment. Unfortunate actor Dean Parkin is stuck running around in a diaper stomping on small sets in a tribute to Toho Studios.  To compound matters Parkin is stuck with some kind of gross makeup on his face to let the audience know he is one scary monster dude.

The director is the legendary "B" filmmaker Bert L. Gordon who pumped out this kind of cheaply made horror/science fiction/fantasy stuff his entire career.  Some of his titles include, Attack of the Puppet People, Earth vs. the Spider and Empire of the Ants throughout his film making career and Gordon had a long career he lived to age 100. 

The film actually borrows from The Wizard of Oz of all things with the last section of this epic changing from black and white into color. 

 

The film was written by  George Worthing Yates and old hand at this kind of cheap monster movie stuff, the running time is a brisk 69 minutes.

1965 - A PATCH OF BLUE, a dated interracial love story.

A young blind girl sitting in the park is befriended by a black man who helps her deal with her hellish home life and teaches her independence.  Their relationship begins to develop and grow.

This film is well made and well acted.  The racial aspects of the love story are obviously dated for today  but it was the mid 1960's after all.  The acting by the two leads is at a high level.  Sidney Poitier gives his usual excellent performance.  The blind girl played by Elizabeth Hartman in her first film is very sensitive and vulnerable.

The director was Guy Green who in a previous career in film was a noted cinematographer who had worked with Michael Powell and most notably David Lean.  Green was responsible for photographing some of Lean's greatest 1940's films such as Oliver Twist, Great Expectations and In Which We Serve.  Green moved over to direction in the 1950's and relocated to Hollywood in the 1960's.  A Patch of Blue was a very personal project for Green, he controlled the story rights and wrote the screenplay.

 

Elizabeth Hartman perfectly captured the isolation and vulnerably of the blind girl.  Hartman was a talented performer but had a troubled personal life where she struggled with depression and ultimately committed suicide.  

 Sidney Poitier was a black actor in Hollywood who had been working since the 1950's.  He was considered a "safe" performer for white audiences.  This was a role he understandably got very tired of playing and who could blame him.   He certainly didn't sign up to play a token black character throughout his profession.  Later in his career Poitier moved into film direction with some success.

There's nothing particularly wrong or bad with this film but the story is very old fashioned.  If you can accept that it's a good drama.

The running time is 105 minutes. 

2013 - HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, consider the title

As children Hansel and Gretel survive the evil witch in the gingerbread house.  They grow up to be a pair of witch hunters who kill witches for a bounty.  They end up in a small village which is being attacked by a really tough evil witch and her coven.  The really tough evil witch wants Gretel's heart so she can perform a ritual that will make all witches immune to fire.  Let the violence and the bloodbath commence.

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is a very silly movie to put it mildly.  The intention appears to be to go down the same road as the John Landis horror comedy An American Werewolf in London.  That film mixed humor and what was at the time trendsetting gross out effects.  Well they got the gross out part right they just couldn't seem to get any clever humor out of their silly story. 

The film was shot in Europe mostly with European actors.  However the leads were American actor Jeremy Renner as Hansel, taking a break from playing Hawkeye from those Marvel superhero movies. However you wouldn't really know it since he basically plays Hansel and Hawkeye as the same character.  British actor Jemma Arterton is Gretel who in this case is taking a break from playing a credible performer in her career. The writer of this epic didn't even attempt to explain their mishmash of American and British accents. 

 

The film was produced by one time comedy partners Will Farrell and Adam McKay and I get that everyone involved in this production had their tongues really in their cheeks.  But for a film like this to succeed you really need to be a lot wittier spoofing this fantasy stuff and while the gross out bloody humor is in abundance, the actual amount of cleverness is sorely lacking.

 

Of course after criticizing the stupidity of this film I do have to report that it made a bumch of money for the studio.  There was a lot of discussion about filming a Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters 2 but as of this date it never came to pass.  Kind of surprising since Hollywood never passes on an opportunity to beat a film concept to death if there are bucks involved.  Even though this film made a lot of money it's still a piece of crap.

The film was written by the director Tommy Wirkola, the running time is 88 minutes. 

1993 - THE RETURN OF IRONSIDE, closing the loop.

The previous post looked at the TV pilot for Raymond Burr's Ironside series.  The chief selling point of The Return of Ironside was as a reunion show which had Burr back with the original cast from his old TV series.  The movie was filmed on location in Denver, Colorado at Burr's insistence.  Burr had a great fondness for the city.

In the 1970's these television reunion shows were all the rage.  The baby boomer crowd got to relive the hours they spent in from of their television sets watching stuff like, The Return of the Mod Squad, Rescue From Gilligan's Island, The Munster's Revenge,  etc.  Believe me the list is endless. 

The plot of this film is almost incidental.  The original cast was Don Galloway as Ed Brown, Barbara Anderson as Eve Whitfield, Don Mitchell as Mark Sanger and Anderson's replacement Elizabeth Baur as Fran Belding who took over the sexy female cop role after Anderson left the series.  The story of this rather contrived movie involves Anderson's daughter played by Perrey Reeves being framed for a murder she didn't commit by some corrupt cops, yes that old narrative chestnut.

 

Burr was back in the wheelchair but this time he needed it in real life as he was now dying from cancer.  In fact The Return of Ironside was aired after Burr's death.  Burr at age 76, was still the old performing trooper and although visibly ill he's the main reason to watch this plodding crime thriller.  The movie spends way to much time on the Perrey Reeves character's boring love life at the expense of Burr's interaction with his old cast mates.

 

You can spend a few minutes on the Wikipedia entry for Raymond Burr, it's fascinating reading.  He was a closeted actor his entire life and had a long career working in film, theater, radio and finally TV.  The Return of Ironside is a real nostalgia wallow.

The film was written by Collier Young, Rob Hedden and William Woodfield, the running time is 89 minutes.     

1967 - IRONSIDE, the TV movie pilot for the series.

The careers of some actors can take an interesting turn, case in point Raymond Burr.  Burr had entered into the movie business in the 1940's and carved out a career playing bad guys.  Probably his most notable role was as Lars Thorwald the wife killer in Rear Window.  Hitchcock with his usual perverse sense of humor had Burr made up to look like his first producer David Selznick who Hitchcock frequently clashed with while making Rebecca, Spellbound and The Paradine Case.  It should also be mentioned that Burr was cast as reporter Steve Martin in the American reedit of Godzilla.  This version of Godzilla was the film responsible for the popularity of the Godzilla character.

 In 1956 Burr moved to television where he was cast as Perry Mason in the long running legal series.  As with all TV series Perry Mason finally ended it's run in 1966.  Burr was now a popular television star which lead him to his next series Ironside the wheelchair bound detective.   The TV movie pilot showed up on Amazon Prime so I thought I would give it a look.  Ironside had Burr playing the chief of detectives of San Francisco who gets shot while on vacation.  Ironside survives the shooting but is left paralyzed. This doesn't stop him from getting back in the crime solving business. His first case being who shot him.  Ironside has a trio of helpers to assist him in solving crimes.  A by the book cop, a beautiful blonde policewoman and in a rather tasteless piece of casting a black guy who's job it is to push him around in a wheelchair.  The Ironside character is basically a reworking of Sherlock Holmes if Sherlock were stuck in a wheelchair.

 

Truth to tell when I watched this series in my very younger days the mysteries on the show were nothing special.  Then again there wasn't a whole lot of choice on what to watch on television in the 1960's since there were only three networks.   Raymond Burr had a great booming voice but he really hams it up as the tough detective who isn't going to let a little thing like the loss of his legs keep him from solving crimes every week.

Ironside the TV movie pilot is a typical Universal Studios pilot from the 1960's.  It was filmed mostly on the back lot, it's loaded with lots of B-movie and TV actors and overall is kind of a cheap looking production.  The mystery isn't really much of a mystery.  Viewing this movie was probably more an exercise in nostalgia if anything it's really kind of a mediocre movie.

The writers were Collier Young and Don Mankiewicz, the running time is 98 minutes. 

1964 - BEDTIME STORY, a farce with Marlon Brando!

 Marlon Brando the preeminent method actor of his generation, the star of On The Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, Julius Caesar and The Godfather gives a performance as a complete grinning goofball in this comedy.  He mugs, does some broad slap stick and at one point acts like the village idiot.  This is his only outright comedy as far as I can tell and he's incredible to watch.

 

Bedtime Story is what you could call a typical Universal Studio comedy. With a little adjustment in the plot and characters it could star Doris Day and Rock Hudson.  The film has reasonably amusing situations.  It was written by a couple of tried and true pros Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning.  The director Ralph Levy was also an expert in comedy having worked on TV shows such as I Love Lucy, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies so Brando was surrounded by people who knew their way around this genre.

 

You can see Brando is really enjoying himself in this film.  He was the first to admit that playing broad comedy this was not exactly his acting forte.  However performing with David Niven, not an actor who was known for method acting really brought out the ham out in him.  Niven who was a very witty guy in real life kept Brando laughing throughout the entire production.

 

Well the plot such that it is involves two con men  (Brando and Niven) attempting to chisel an heiress played by Shirley Jones out of her money.  Bedtime Story has been remade a couple of times as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and The Hustle.  It was also adapted as a Broadway musical.  I would hardly say this is the greatest comedy ever made but Brando and Niven are very entertaining playing off each other and certainly worth a look.

The running time is 99 minutes. 

1982 - HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH, a misfire of a movie.

Obviously the third in the Halloween series and usually thought of as the movie that didn't have Michael Meyers in it.  John Carpenter only took a producer credit on this film and turned it over to his production designer/editor Tommy Lee Wallace.  Carpenter hired British writer Nigel Kneale author of the Quatermass films.  However Kneale was dissatisfied with the direction the film was heading and left the production.  So besides directing Wallace handled the screenwriting.  The final result was a mess of a story.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch has a rather ridiculous plot involving Stonehedge, an Irish businessman who wants to pull the ultimate Halloween trick and robots of all things.  The original Halloween movie shows up on television screens that people are watching thoughout this movie but it's only a reminder of what a better film that was. 

 

As for the cast, a doctor played by character actor Tom Atkins teams up with the female lead Stacey Nelkin to investigate all of this stuff.  Nelkin was a sort of an actor whose chief claim to fame was as the very young real life girlfriend of Woody Allen.  Also showing up is Dan O'Herlihy as the evil CEO.  O'Herlihy at least brings a little gravitas to this film.  It's fun to See Atkins in a leading role for a change he certainly knows his way around genre films.   

 

Frankly this movie is terrible, the story is at best ridiculous, the scary stuff isn't scary and the action scenes are barely competent.  This film made money but it was not the big bucks payday the producers were looking for.  If anything redeems this film it's the cinematography of Dean Cundey, but nobody is going to watch a film because they want to see how the film looks.

The producers learned their lessons and Michael Meyers came back from the dead to star in all the other Halloween sequels. Halloween III: Season of the Witch is now considered a cult classic but it's an undeserving cult classic.

The running time is 99 minutes.

1957 - INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN, short and sweet

American International Pictures at their wacky best even for them.  This drive-in feature is a mixture of science fiction, comedy and bad acting but it sure is fun.

Space aliens land on earth near a lover's lane filled with teenagers making out. Except the actors playing the teenagers are way way past their teenage years.  The aliens get the attention of the United States Army who are expected to keep the flying saucer invasion under wraps.  A couple of con men stumble onto to the flying saucer one of who is killed by a space alien who's hands are claws that inject alcohol into him thereby overdosing him with booze.  

There are a couple of young lovers and I use the term "young" very loosely.  They try to alert the police to this alien menace which in these types of movies is usually impossible since the police are typically clueless.  There's a cow that the aliens try to kill by filling it full of alcohol and the Army which is supposed to keep all of this secret has a public relations officer for some reason.

 

With a little research it's nice to find out that none of this stuff was taken seriously.  The acting is not very good but that only adds to the fun of this film.  These cheaply made movies with their quick running times were a staple of the drive-in market in the 1950's and 60's.  It's easy to sneer at the low production values on this film but you could argue that they are a lot more entertaining than some of the made for streaming movies floating around on the internet, I'm talking to you Brazen, Mother of the Bride, The Kissing Booth and The Kissing Booth 2.

 

The screenplay was by Robert J. Gurney Jr. and Al Martin, the running time is a zany 69 minutes. 

2003 - INTOLERABLE CRUELTY, a comedy from the Coen brothers.

A goofy comedy from the Coen Brothers about marriage and divorce.  Their oddball humor is very much present. With the assistance of their leading man George Clooney they continue to make Clooney act like an absolute fool.

Briefly, Clooney is a shark of a divorce attorney known for never losing a case.  He takes on a divorce where the husband played by Edward Herrmann picks up prostitutes and pretends he is the conductor on a train, (don't ask).  Herrmann's wife is played by Catherine Zeta Jones photographed to look her most glamorous.  After Jones loses the case thanks to shyster attorney Clooney, she swears revenge.  This kicks in lots of scenes with goofy characters and nutty situations involving scary rottweilers, asthmatic hit men and soap opera actors.

 

The Coens are known for their eccentric dialog and the scenes during the divorce court proceedings are funny.  However it does seem like the comedic invention and situations seems to sag about midway into the film.  Still this is a Coen Brothers film and they are always worth a look. 

 

Among the other actors involved in this film are Geoffrey Rush, Cedric the Entertainer, Richard Jenkins, Billy Bob Thornton, Julia Duffy and Jonathan Hadyley as a character named Heinz, the Baron Krauss von Espy, aka "Puffy." 

The film was written by Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone and Joel and Ethan Coen, the running time is 100 minutes.