MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL - a slick action thriller

Got this one out of the way.

Same old same old with a couple of variations in the formula.  Cruise and Paramount hired Pixar animation director Brad Bird who was able to stick some humor into this series.  The film is still pretty darn shallow even for a lightweight entertainment.

The humor in this film comes from the failure of the high tech gadgets when the team needs them the most which is probably the main contribution of Brad Bird.  However I have to assume that Paramount and the producer kept a tight lease on Bird because the film is still essentially the same as the previous three films.

A very watchable time killer although I couldn't remember most of it and really didn't care.

Mission:  Impossible - Ghost Protocol is over two hours which is way to long for this kind of film.

132 minutes.

2013 - THE WORLD'S END, messy mix of comedy, science fiction and a little drama

After a disappointing shot at an Anime type teenage love story, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  The director Edgar Wright and his actor buddies Simon Pegg and Nick Frost try to return to form with a science fiction comedy.  The World's End is a step up from Scott Pilgrim but not a real high step.

The film is about a bunch of aging high school buddies bar hopping through a small town.  They just happen to stumble onto a space alien invasion of robots.  This film borrows from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Invaders from Mars and The Earth Dies Screaming.  The film also borrows some dialog from Roger Corman's The Wild Angels.  All this nerd hipster stuff gets a little tiresome but I have to admit a lot of this film is pretty funny.  Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are funny guys and the fights with the robots are well done.

Unfortunately there is an attempt to add some profound meaning to this film.  You have to sit through a lot of tiresome stuff about friendship, male bonding and growing up.  Simon Pegg and Nick Frost actually do a decent job with these scenes but it seems like a lot of heavy crap to add to a film that is essentially a goofy comedy.  The dramatic elements are really trite and I've seen it all before in many other television shows and movies.

The uneven mix of all these genres might indicate that Edgar Wright is struggling with what type of film he wants to make in the future.  I wonder how many more of these genre rehash films he can keep spitting out?   It's starting to look like Wright's television series Spaced, which was very funny but had interesting characters which mixed with the funny situations could be his career highlight. 

109 minutes, written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.

1952 - THE SNIPER, the psycho killer on the loose 1950's version.

An attempt to dramatize a story about a deeply disturbed Army veteran, The Sniper is finally done in by the conventions of 1950's attitudes about mental illness. 

Arthur Franz is the psycho shooter who has a real hatred of women. In fact he hates them so much he decides to get rid of them.  He's sort of an early version of Norman Bates without the stuffed body in the cellar.  The police have to get Franz before he pops more women which is probably the most interesting aspect of the film.  The on location photography in San Francisco and the police investigation of the killings are also quite interesting.

However the least successful element of the film is the very dated psychoanalysis of the killer's mind by a police psychologist attempting to help the police understand his motives.  At one point the psychologist makes an earnest plea for locking up anyone who even remotely has some kind of deviant thought.  If you think about it, that would be most of the population of this country.

For all the overblown pseudo psychoanalysis, the film actually ends on a tense and understated note.  It's unfortunate that the rest of the film couldn't have been used this approach.

87 minutes.

1943 - CRAZY HOUSE, from the guys that brought you Hellzapoppin'

Olsen and Johnson are back in another comedy for Universal Pictures.  Edward Cline who had directed W. C. Fields was in charge this time.  The results are disappointing.

For whatever reason the anarchaic spirit of Hellazpoppin' seems to be lost this time.  Olsen and Johnson are still up for any type of gag they can think of but their timing seems way off.  The film is also overloaded with musical numbers and singers, from Alan Jones to Count Basie.  There is also an extremely overbearing performer called Cass Daley who is featured in some very stupid specialty numbers

This Olsen and Johnson production actually has some sort of plot.  Having been kicked out of Universal Studios they set up a film at Miracle Pictures (If it's a good picture it's a Miracle).  The chance to take some major shots at Hollywood never materializes, the musical numbers just keep coming and coming and coming.

The film does have a few decent moments which come mostly at the end when they are previewing their picture for an audience.  Only in these scenes do Olsen and Johnson get to show their madcap vaudeville stuff.  Olsen and Johnson were comedians who appeared to work best without the structure of a formal script.

80 minutes.

1991 - HE SAID, SHE SAID - is another romantic comedy.

Writing a negative review of this film is mostly a "what's the point" post.  He Said, She Said is what it is.

The film has an elaborate flashback structure about a couple who get together, break up and finally get together again.  Probably the only interesting thing about this film is that it was directed by a man and a woman although you would never be able to tell if it wasn't pointed out.

The film follows the usual formula, she's a career woman who is kind of a cute ditz who in real life no guy would want to hang out with.  Naturally she wants to get married.  He's a good looking playboy who can have all the hot women he wants.  A one point he passes on a young and kind of hot looking Sharon Stone.  The guy has commitment issues of course when it comes to long term relationships.

Will they work out their relationship and get together in the end?  I wonder how it will all turn out?

115 minutes.

1962 - THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE, boring remake of a silent film success.

This is an elaborate remake of a silent film success which started Latin type Rudolph Valentino.  No expense was apparently sparred by MGM.  The film lost a lot of money

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is the usual miscast mess with Glenn Ford playing an Argentine playboy.  Ford's a member of a rich land owning family which has Lee J. Cobb as the patriarch giving a hammy and fortunately short performance.  Part of the family are European German's for some reason and since this film is set during World War II they are also evil Nazis.  Ford ends up partying in Paris during the war and falls in love with Ingrid Thulin a Swedish actress who was known for working with Ingmar Bergman.  Thulin plays a French woman of course, MGM glamored her up and also ended up dubbing her voice with Angela "Mrs Potts" Lansbury.  You can already see the train wreck coming.

 

Vincente Minnelli was under contract to MGM and was hired to direct.  Minnelli was known for stylish musicals and over blown if entertaining melodramas so he wasn't the worse choice for this film.  However Minnelli wasn't exactly on his game with this film.  He clearly didn't respond to the actors and most of his interest seems to be in photographing very expense but phony looking sets and pretty on location shots of Paris.  

This film runs over two hours and seems to consist entirely of Glenn Ford and Ingrid Thulin walking around Paris and constantly talking that love talk stuff they liked to do in these old films.

 

 

An expensive big budget disaster that is a companion piece to MGM's other wreck of a remake, Mutiny on the Bounty.

153 minutes, written by Robert Ardrey and John Gay.

1969 - TOPAZ, another disappointing later period Hitchcock film

After flopping with Torn Curtain,  Hitchcock tried again in the spy genre with Topaz.  Hitchcock's plan was to make a "realistic Bond" film. 

This supposedly realistic James Bond thriller basically comes down too guys in suits sitting around talking about stuff, in this case the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.  A 30 year old political crisis with guys talking was just the sort of film that screamed "out of it."  Hitchcock once the master of providing entertaining films had really lost his way as he wandered around in some sort of film making senility.

The cast was made up mostly of unknown and character actors.  Hitchcock picked an unknown European actor names Frederick Stafford as his lead.  Stafford had the look of a James Bond type but his acting left a lot to be desired.  The rest of the cast was made up of French actors who just don't seem to click in the film.  The only recognizable name is John Forsythe not really much of a big name in the movies but an actor Hitchcock could probably get along with.

Hitchcock had a lot of personal and professional problems to deal with during the making of Topaz.  He never seemed to get a focus on the script and the film had enough plot for about 4 spy thrillers.

Some critics championed the film, Leonard Maltin in the video introduction on the DVD comes off more as an apologist than an actual critic.  But do not be fooled this is a very poor film.

143 minutes, written by Samuel A. Taylor.

1985 - REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS, and apparently ended with this film

An attempt to star a new film franchise based on a crummy paperback book series called The Destroyer, some of which I have read.  Remo Williams is a former marine and New York City cop whose death is faked so he can become a member of a secret spy agency called CURE.  Remo is retrained in the martial arts by a Korean master called Chiun.  He then goes on a lame spy mission to stop an arms manufacturer from selling defective weapons to the military. 

 

The film was written and directed by a couple of James Bond veterans.  Christopher Wood had written The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.  Guy Hamilton had directed Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun.  These guys should have been able to juice this film up a bit but the whole thing seems a little tired. 

Fred Ward played the lead Remo Williams although he seems a little to rough to be an action hero.  Joel Grey the musical comedy star is the real show in this film as Chiun the martial arts character who trains Williams.  Chiun is probably the most interesting character in the film, teaching Williams to dodge bullets while watching American soap operas.  

The action set pieces are OK with lots of stunt men dangling from high places but nothing really spectacular.  The film does have a sense of humor and clearly none of it was to be taken seriously, it's just nothing special.  I've seen worse.

121 minutes.

1985 - DEATH WISH 3, middle aged white guy right wing fantasy or parody of the vigilante film genre?

Sometimes you can learn more about the human condition from watching a stupid film like this than anything that was directed by Yasujiro Ozu.  In Death Wish 3,  Charles Bronson is back in his signature role as vigilante Paul Kersey out to slaughter all of those "creeps" menacing middle aged white people in a run down apartment in one scary neighborhood in East New York City. 

It is completely impossible for me to tell if this film is supposed to be serious or a complete joke.  The plotting and characterization are so ridiculous that the director Michael Winner could not have possibly been serious about this film.  The first Death Wish film was released 11 years earlier and Charles Bronson wasn't exactly a spring chicken when that one came out.  However for a guy in his early 60's he's in pretty good shape.  He has a love scene with the film's female lead Deborah Raffin.  Raffin was a one time up and coming starlet who's career never made it into the big time.  Their love scene such that it is, is extremely uncomfortable to watch but how many 60 year old men would run around with a shirt off?   But getting back to the love scene, there is no need to worry about any additional love scenes,  since Raffin is Bronson's love interest we know she's toast.  

The plot has Kersey showing up to help a friend living in a run down neighborhood deal with an improbably multiracial gang of "creeps" extorting the good citizens of that neighborhood.  This gang of "creeps" probably has more members than the 1st Infantry that stormed the beaches on D-Day.  Since this is a Death Wish film the body count with the good guys vs the "creeps" is just extremely high throughout the film.

After lots of killing, raping, stealing,  stabbing and blowing things up,  Bronson grabs a Browning machine gun and literally starts shooting everyone in sight.  When that runs out of bullets he whips out a pistol that uses cartridges made to stop an elephant, that's when the real killing starts. This 15 to 20 minute slaughter with Bronson and what's left of the gang of "creeps" essentially demolishing the entire neighborhood is how the film ends.  A whole lot of stuntmen fall off of buildings which makes me remember the good old days when people did real stunts and weren't replaced by computer animation.  As is to be expected the police let Bronson go so he can star in the next Death Wish chapter Death Wish 4:  The Crackdown.

 

The director is an old favorite of this blogger, Michael Winner.  Winner was a pro at filming on actual locations and completely incompetent in about every other area of film making which included good storytelling.  But I could be completely wrong, Winner may have realized that this was a chance to send up this film series.  With the death of Michael Winner this year, the truth will probably never be known. Highly recommended.

92 minutes, written by Don Jakoby.

1963 - THE HAUNTING, an excellent horror film,

The Haunting is a very faithful adaptation of Shirley Jackson's excellent short novel, The Haunting of Hill House.  The director Robert Wise and the screenwriter Nelson Gidding meet with Jackson prior to filming to confirm various plot points and character interpretations.  I've read the Jackson book and will testify to the fact that this film version follows the very creepy book for the most part.

It's commonly known that Robert Wise got his start working with Val Lewton's low budget horror film team at RKO studio in the 1940's.  The Lewton influence is very strong throughout the film, with sounds and shadows used to scare the crap out of an audience.  Wise was also a talented filmmaker in his own right and brought a very professional polish to the film with his cinematographer who shot at times with infra red film and his production designer who added ceilings to the set for a claustrophobic feeling.

Wise carefully cast the film.  Broadway actress Julie Harris is extremely good as Eleanor Lance who is being chased by ghosts and also suffering from a few mental problems of her own.  It's fairly common knowledge that Claire Bloom was playing a lesbian in this film.  British actor Richard Johnson is the professor looking for signs of ghosts and finds out he's way in over his head at Hill House.  The first time a saw this film I thought the dancer Russ Tamblyn kind of messed with the mood of the film but now he seems like necessary comedy relief in a film which is very intense almost from the beginning to the end.  

The Haunting is a superior film in a genre with is usually more silly than supernatural.

114 minutes, written by Nelson Gidding.