1974 - THIEVES LIKE US, boring make that very boring Robert Altman film

This is the kind of self indulgent film that really hurt Robert Altman's career not that he would probably have cared very much.  This is a love story/crime drama set in the rural south.  Thieves Like Us is almost the antithesis of Bonnie and Clyde.

Altman lingers on the atmosphere and the character touches throughout the film at the complete expense of audience involvement.  There is just absolutely no way you can get interested in these stupid rural redneck characters must less stay awake watching them which was a major challenge by the way.

As for the cast, were there ever less charismatic romantic leads than Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall?  At least Bonnie and Clyde had Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway to engage the audience.  Between the mumbling of Carradine and Duvall and Altman's notorious manipulation of the film's soundtrack with his multi channel mix it's almost impossible to hear the dialog.  Well at least the film looks kind of cool particularly with some soft dreamy long shots at the beginning of the film.

However films like this pass their phony indulgence as "Art" at the expense of the viewer.

123 minutes.

1985 - FLETCH, modest but enjoyable comedy/mystery

Chevy Chase wise crack's his way through a fairly decent mystery as investigative reporter Irwin Fletcher.  The director is Michael Ritchie who turns in a competent professional job on the downside of his career. 

Chevy Chase's real life wiseguy persona can get mighty tiresome after a while but Fletch plays to his strong suit.  He improvised a lot during filming and got to play a lot of different characters since he was supposed to be an undercover reporter.

Fletch has a good cast of character actors, Richard Libertini, George Wendt, Joe Don Baker and Tim Matheson.  The film is also short so it doesn't wear out it's welcome coming in at around and hour and a half.

98 minutes, written by Andrew Bergman.

1981 - RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK , slick commercial Hollywood filmmaking at it's best

Obviously Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were the main creative figures behind this film.  However there were a number of top line professionals that made this film a success.

The cinematographer Douglas Slocombe had been working in films since the 1940's.  His very impressive list of films included, The Man in the White Suit, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Lion in Winter, the first three Indiana Jones films, and 2nd unit on Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Apparently Slocombe barely used a light meter when he was shooting.

2nd unit director Mickey Moore had been staging action scenes in films like Patton, Gunfight of the OK Corral, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Man Who Would Be King, and the first three Indiana Jones films as well.  This guy worked into his 80's.

Spielberg's long time editor Michael Kahn had started out editing Hogan's Heroes and had worked on a number of blackploitation films which included Truck Turner, Black Belt Jones, and The Spook Who Sat by the Door.  He's still working with Spielberg at age 80.

115 minutes.

1962 - ESCAPE FROM ZAHRAIN, very entertaining chase film.

A very good action/adventure film from a decent director, Ronald Neame.

 

Yul Brynner is the leader of an Arab group attempting to bring reforms to his repressive Middle Eastern country.  Yul's escaping in an ambulance across the desert from the troops of his country's repressive government.  Along the way he picks up an eclectic group of people which includes character actor Jack Warden who is very entertaining.  OK the film is essentially a rehash of John Ford's Stagecoach but if you are going to steal steal from the best.

Ronald Neame was known for well made entertainments and this film fits the bill.  It's fast paced, well photographed and edited.  

A modest film that just happens to be an entertaining one.

93 minutes, credited screenplay, Robin Estridge.

2012 - HITCHCOCK, fantasy based on the making of the film Psycho

As close to a travesty about filmmaking as you could find.  Hitchcock is supposedly a recreation of the events behind the making of Psycho.  The film gets almost nothing right about this trend setting film.  Well about the only thing it gets right is that Hitchcock made a film called Psycho.

They put together a good cast for the film, Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock, Helen Mirren as his wife Alms, Toni Collette as Hitchock's loyal assistant Peggy Robinson, Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, well you get the picture. 

There are a lot of recreations centering around the Hitchcock's personal lives. The film tries to get inside Hitchcock's head regarding his need to shake up his career to stay relevant as he moved into the 1960's.  There is a real goofy storytelling device which has Hitchcock having imaginary conversations with the real life Psycho character Ed Gein.  In another particularly icky scene the film postulates that Alma Hitchcock may have had an affair with the writer Winfield Cook.  The film also show Hitchcock acting up on the set due to his emotional turmoil. All of this stuff is mostly untrue or exaggerated at best.

The big problem this film has is trying to explain Hitchcock's creative process.  It's well known that Hitchcock created his films in his office behind a desk working with the writer to define scenes and create characters.  Hitchcock also usually story boarded his entire film before he began filming.  Sitting in an office working doesn't really make for dramatic storytelling.

98 minutes, written by John J. McLaughlin.

1963 - COME BLOW YOUR HORN, Neil Simon, Frank Sinatra = predictable comedy

Frank's a hipster dude salesguy working for his father's company selling plastic fruit.  Frank's also a real ladies man stringing women along like they were fish on a hook.  Frank's brother played by Tony Bill the future producer of The Sting wants to be a chick magnet like Frank.  Their parents want them to settle down with some nice Jewish girls. 

The film is based on a play by Neil Simon.  It was adapted for the screen by Norman Lear.  Lear made his reputation not in movie but on TV with such series as All in the Family, Good Times, One Day at a Time, etc.  Lear was a liberal who's shows reflected his personality and frankly these shows have dated badly with all of their sloppy liberal sentiment.  Bud Yorkin his producing partner was the director of this film.

Yeah Ring a ding ding Frank

You get what you get with this film since it's based on a Neil Simon play.  Lots and lots of tiresome Jewish jokes, some cheap sentiment, lots of pathos and Frank Sinatra singing a song in the middle of this film for no particular reason. The whole film does reek of the early 60's with Sinatra's bachelor pad an over designed nightmare of garish furniture and carpeting.  In fact Sinatra himself is a complete anachronism with his middle aged lady killer character.  This film is just hopelessly dated.

I guess this is what passed for comedy in the early 1960's since Come Blow Your Horn made a nice chunk of change for Paramount.

112 minutes written by Norman Lear.

1965 - IN HARM'S WAY, Otto Preminger's navy epic

Otto Preminger's World War II epic about navy life was dismissed by most critics when it was released but it's a good film that deserved better.   John Wayne is front and center in one of those all star casts.  Patricia Neal is his love interest and is a strong enough actor to stand up to the Duke.  Kirk Douglas plays an antihero character who is Admiral Wayne's second in command.  

Preminger rounded up a decent supporting cast and the wide screen black and white photography at times looks pretty spectacular.  The final sea battle was criticized for looking a little too much like models in a studio swimming pool.  The battle is certainly a noisy confusing mess but real war is a noisy confusing mess.

Everyone expected fireworks from the liberal director and the very right wing star but apparently they were very respectful of each other.  

A good war drama that the public stayed away from unfortunately.

165 minutes, written by Wendell Mayes.

1993 - JOHN FORD, a film from British director Lindsay Anderson

Film makers can make for strange bedfellows and nothing is stranger than the friendship of Irish/American director John Ford and left leaning, gay British theater and film director Lindsay Anderson.  This documentary is Anderson's attempt to explain how much Ford's film have meant to him.

In many ways this is a standard tribute to Ford, there has been a lot written about Ford but Anderson attempts to explain and understand Ford and his films with whom he felt he had a spiritual connection.  Anderson actually met and developed a sort of friendship with Ford in the 1950's as Ford was winding down his career.  Surprisingly Anderson does not care for Ford's film The Searchers which he finds well made but very impersonal.

Anderson interviews some of Ford's crew and actors but noticeably missing are John Wayne, James Stewart and  Henry Fonda.  Anderson does have a very touching interview with Maureen O'Hara who had a very complicated relationship with John Ford.  Towards the end of the film Anderson speaks very movingly but without sentiment about his final meeting with the dying director.

This is an interesting film tribute from one very different filmmaker to another.

90 minutes, written by Lindsay Anderson.

2105 - TRAINWRECK, they got that right

"Dirty little girl"  comedian Amy Schumer attempts to move to a mainstream audience in this updated romantic comedy.  Certainly there is nothing wrong with giving the "romcom" genre a kick in the pants but this film just doesn't know when enough is enough.

Schumer's character "Amy," apparently a very thinly disguised version of herself is suppose to be a "modern" woman, which in this case means she parties a lot and sleeps around with a lot of guys.  Her wit and humor are what attract guys to her but deep down she is a empty and hollow person who can't find the right guy to settle down with.  No cliches in that character.

Into this mix comes a doctor who is attracted to her but Amy's commitment phobia eventually destroys the relationship.  Fear not because this is still a romcom and it all will work out for the best with the doctor and Amy reunited at a basketball game after Amy dresses up as a cheerleader and jumps around in her little outfit.  So much for the modern woman angle.

The film was directed by Judd Apatow who is usually criticized for making overlong comedies but the stuff I liked best were the little touches of humor that Apatow allowed the other characters to run with in scenes that really didn't move the plot along but were kind of delightful.  As for Schumer her potty mouth humor is in danger of overexposure and her dirty girl act is getting to be a little old.

By the way it is highly unlikely this couple would ever stay together in the real world.

124 minutes

1950 - THE ELUSIVE PIMPERNEL, a not very good Powell and Pressburger film to put it mildly.

A stinker is a stinker even from Powell and Pressburger.  The producers Alexander Korda and Samuel Goldwyn persuaded The Archers to remake The Scarlet Pimpernel.  However Powell and Pressburger seemed very uninspired considering the end result.

The film has pretty color photography and enough foppish behavior from the cast to completely distract the viewer from the story which is about rescuing French aristocrats during the French Revolution.  Frankly the sight of David Niven with curls in his hair is not one easily forgotten.

As usual the film is drenched in technicolor as is the way with Powell and Pressburger, it is a gorgeous film to look at. However the film is just about dramatically inert with the climax involving the chief villain sneezing after inhaling a bunch of pepper up his nose!

The Elusive Pimpernel shows the further decline of the Powell and Pressburger team, good looking films but eccentric and off putting entertainments.

109 minutes.

2005 - SERENITY, an attempt to convert a TV show to a film series

Writer/director Josh Weldon developed a TV series called Firefly sort of a science fiction adventure about some mercenaries flying around the galaxy while being chased by the mysterious Alliance and some weirdo mutants called the Reavers who like to eat people.  Despite Weldon's clever way with dialog and a good cast the series never really caught on but developed a cult following.  Hoping for more mainstream success as a film series Weldon tried again with a film called Serenity featuring the same cast.

Weldon is a clever fellow who can spin witty dialog in rather fantastic films like The Avengers and it's sequel and that Buffy the Vampire series.  Here he had the impossible challenge of condensing the TV series into a film and keeping the mainstream and cult audiences entertained something he doesn't pull off.

Watching Serenity is like coming into the middle of a TV series and having the person next to you try to explain what has been going on during the past episodes.  The movie's screenplay seems very fragmented and there are so many subplots at times it's almost impossible to figure out what is going on.

Still, Weldon is good at mixing this genre stuff and adding humor to it so it isn't to be taken that seriously.  The film has action and lots of spaceships flying around shooting at each other.  Serenity comes off as an attempt to create a hipster version of Star Wars.

119 minutes

2014 - LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY'S ISLAND OF DR MOREAU

This kind of ordinary documentary has a great subject matter, the attempt to make another film version of The Island of Dr. Moreau by a first time director named Richard Stanley who seems to have a screw or two loose. 

A film where about everything went wrong from the selection of a location which was an hour from civilization to the cast while involved Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer two shall we say difficult actors.  Naturally with these two characters and a relatively novice director things fell apart almost immediately.  The production came to a grinding halt while the director Richard Stanley was fired and a replacement was sought.

The replacement turned out to be John Frankenheimer a guy who had not been involved in a good project since 1973's The Iceman Cometh.  Frankenheimer bullied his cast and crew to get through the production but meet his match in Brando who was clearly in it for the paycheck and probably realized the film was essentially a hopeless mess. 

The documentary has interviews with Richard Stanley, members of the cast and crew with the exception of Brando and Frankenheimer who have passed away.  Val Kilmer refused to be interviewed.  The documentary is essential viewing and demonstrates how difficult it is to make a film and in particular a decent film when the odds of it being any good are stacked against it from the outset.

96 minutes.

2005 - KINKY BOOTS, the feel good cross dressing movie

This trite piece of feel good junk is the kind of thing your significant other will like as you set through and wonder at first "why is this simple little film so long?"  On additional reflection "why is this film so by the numbers?"

A old fashioned British shoe factory is about to go out of business with everyone losing their jobs and livelihood etc.  To the rescue is a cross dressing performer named Lola who manages to get the factory to manufacture a line of sexy boots for men or something like that.

As everyone works together, lessons about life are learned, feelings are hurt people make up with each other everyone works together and hey drag queens are just like you and me.


Enjoy.

106 minutes.