2008 - LEATHERHEADS, attempt at a Capra type comedy

George Clooney can't get a break particularly from this writer.  Leatherheads is yet another directing attempt that falls flat.   The film is about the early days of football before it became a recognized professional sport.  Clooney is one of the players and the captain of a team called the Bulldogs.  The story bounces between the rough and tumble go for it early games, a love story and a romantic triangle which as it turns out is an awful lot to shovel into one film.

Clooney is his usual amiable movie star presence.  The love interest is played by Renée Zellweger in a not so hot performance.  John Krasinski turns out to be Clooney's chief rival for Zellweger and a rival on another football team the Bulldogs play against in the big game at end of the film.  Seen all this stuff before.

 

As a director, Clooney is for the most part good with working with actors.  The film has a nice 1930's look to it even if the film is at times drenched in sepia, a favorite of directors and cinematographers who want to create a look of what the good old days looked like.  But you can be fairly certainly people weren't constantly bathed in sepia light during the 1930's.  

 

As with a lot of Clooney's films the script is the main issue as it sandwichs in football field slapstick action and a wisecracking 30's movie style romance.  Clooney appears to be going for a Capra type of film lots of frenzied action and romance.  However it’s all just to much as the film loses focus from the football games to the not very interesting romantic moments.

The film was written by Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, the running time is 114 minutes.

1987 - SPACEBALLS, Mel Brooks takes on Star Wars.

After having exhausted just about every film genre he could think of.  Mel Brooks and his writing team turned their attention to the Star Wars series with very mixed results.  The outcome is a combination of bad jokes, lots of jokes about men's crotches and even more jokes about women's breasts, and this was clearly a film aimed at the adolescent Star Wars adolescent. 

As was the way with Brook's recent films at the time he wrote a substantial part in the film for himself, in this case two parts as he drifted between the role of President Skroob, (get it) and the Yoda character in this case named Yogurt, (ha ha).  The rest of the main cast is as dull as dishwater.  Bill Pullman is "Lone Star" the Han Solo character, John Candy is "Mog," the Chewbacca character and Daphne Zuniga is stuck with the Princess Lela character who unfortunately has to put up with a lot of jokes about being a Drudish princess (get it again).  And so it goes. I guess it's okay for Brooks to do the ethnic Jewish humor jokes.

 

The film is also loaded with a bunch of sight gags which are mostly not funny although you occasionally get a few gems.  Brooks and his writing team have stuck fairly closely to the plot line of the Star Wars films with some nods to Star Trek and Planet of the Apes.  The humor is not of the sophisticated Ernest Lubitsch caliber and the whole movie probably plays best for gross 13 year old boys.  Since that is what Brooks seems to be at times.

 

The film was written by Mel Brooks, Ronny Graham and Thomas Meehan.  Spaceballs is now considered a cult film but you can be sure this writer didn't vote for it. The running time is 96 minutes.

1979 - LADY OSCAR, a film late in the career of Jacques Demy

 A film made towards the end of Jacques Demy's career and not really one of his best.  Lady Oscar is based on a Japanese manga originally called The Rose of Versailles. Set in the 1700's as France heads towards their revolution. A French nobleman with a whole lot of daughters declares that the next daughter will be raised as a male and trained as a soldier.  If you think you are going to be watching some film about cross-dressing and male/female sex roles forget it.  Lady Oscar is sort of about the uprising and finally attack on the French Aristocracy particularly the end of the monarchy.  The character of Oscar is the personal guard to Marie Antoinette so she gets a front row seat on all of this but doesn't seem very affected by all the upheaval.

The film was funded by the Japanese and it's certainly elaborate with opulent sets and costumes in about every scene.  However the actors don't seem to bring much passion to their roles considering all that's going on around them.  Demy manages to stage a few scenes of interest but it seems like the old passion for making films just isn’ here with this film.  Even the tragic ending is indifferently filmed.

 

It's hard to believe this is the same director whose resume includes Lola, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Donkey Skin and The Young Girls of Rochefort.  All films that were really charming and quite beautiful to look at.  Even a misfire like Demy's remake of Cocteau's Orpheus called Traffic is more interesting than this film

 

The film was written by  Jacques Demy and Patricia Louisianna Knop, the running time is 124 minutes.

2024 - JACKPOT, typical streaming comedy

This lame action comedy coming from the world of streaming, is a typical streaming movie.  Cable TV aka "Linear TV" continues to die on the vine as the public migrates to streaming. These streaming shows should provide more original entertainment since they are not subject to a lot of the censorship rules linear TV has put up with.  But in their desire to flood their streaming channels, the viewers end up with some stupid junk like this.

Jackpot is a typical streaming movie, it has a high concept idea but presents it in the blandest way possible.  There is a plot such that it is. In the future, anyone drawing a winning  lottery ticket has to spend the first 24 hours ducking the general public which in this case is trying to kill the winner.  The person who kills the lottery winner gets the winning ticket and the original winner’s monetary so cue the unending action scenes.

The film is a mediocre action comedy, with decent actors trying to wring some humor out of this preposterous situation. In fact it's safe to say this movie is not funny. 

The lead actors Awkwafina and former wrestler John Cena seem like they want to make this silly film work but Jackpot gives them nothing to do. It's as if the writer Rob Yescombe and the director Paul Feig had absolutely no interest in making an entertaining popcorn film other than collecting an easy paycheck for this drivel

 

I'm not sure what happened to Paul Feig.  He was usually a fairly reliable director of entertaining comedies like Bridesmaids, Spy and A Simple Favor.  But lately he really seems to be struggling with making decent comedies.   Jackpot is extremely undemanding viewing.  As  I sat in front of the TV playing with my phone at the same time, I sort of watched it with neither a mild interest or a mild disinterest.

The running time is 106 minutes.

1966 - FANTASTIC VOYAGE, dated but fascinating science fiction film

Two years before Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey was released, a film that upped the game when it came to showing special effects in the movies, came this bizarre, fascinating and unique film.  It seems that the United States and the Soviet Union (although they are never called that), have developed a process of miniaturization.  They cane shrink a person or even an army down to the size of atoms.  The process only lasts one hour and wouldn't you know it the only scientist who knows how to make the process longer has been the victim of an assassination attempt which has put him in a coma.

The plan is to shrink a group of scientists and insert them into his body, where they will repair the damage and get out before they start to enlarge.  So begins our film.  The story is certainly on the rather ludicrous side but is it any more stupid than the ridiculous Twisters that is currently in the theaters?

20th Century Fox really didn't spare any expensive in the making of this film.   The sets were built on a fairly lavish scale.  The very cool looking shrunken submarine "Proteus" was designed by Harper Goff who had designed the Nautilus for Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

 The film actually has a fairly decent cast of Hollywood mainstays, Stephen Boyd is the secret agent assigned to the mission to make sure there is no sabotage good idea to bring him along.  Raquel Welch in one of her first mainstream films is the medical assistant to Arthur Kennedy playing a surgeon.  Arthur O'Connell  and Edmund O' Brien are the military guys in charge of the mission.  They are basically around to provide exposition and shout out orders.  Also on the team is Donald Pleasence an expert on the human body, watch out for him everyone.

 

Richard Fleischer who was kind of the house director for 20th Century Fox was behind the camera and I would guess this film was a big technical challenge at the time it was made.  Fleischer always seemed to get the difficult films at Fox.  He notably had to straighten out the big scale production of Tora Tora Tora after Kurosawa was fired from that film.  Truth be told the special effects don't really look that great but I guess they get the job done.  Apparently the film did make money.

Fantastic Voyage was written by Harry Kleiner a reliable mainstream screenwriter, the running time is 100 minutes.

1934 - SIX OF A KIND, a comedy apparently.

 The same year as he directed the Marx Brothers classic Duck Soup, Leo McCarey also directed this so called comedy.  Six of a  Kind was a box office success and apparently recieved good reviews from the film critics at the time.  Viewed today the film is a chore to sit through and the comedy situations don't strike me as particularly funny.

Well lets get on with the plot.  Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland are going on a second honeymoon to California.  In order to share expenses on the road trip, they team up with George Burns and Gracie Allen.  Somehow they also end up with money stolen from a bank which brings the last couple into the mix, "The Duchess" played by Alison Skipworth and "Sheriff Honest John Hoxley" who is none other that the legendary W.C. Fields.

Well time for the comedy bits.  Burns and Allen do their vaudeville act with Gracie Allen playing her usual idiot character to George Burns straight man.  Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland were kind of reliable 1930's comedians but the comedy situations they go through don't seem particularly funny especially one long sequence at The Grand Canyon.

 

Finally there is W.C. Fields as Sheriff Honest John Hoxley. You have to sit through almost the entire picture until he does his pool table shtick, a sketch he performed when he toured in vaudeville.  The routine is only about five minutes long but it is funny.  

 

The obvious lesson learned watching this film is that times have really changed when it comes to comedy.  

The film was written by Keene Thompson, Douglas MacLean, Walter DeLeon and Harry Ruskin.  A lot of writers for such a trifle of a film.  The running time is 62 minutes but seems like 620 minutes.

1968 - SOL MADRID, the one about the undercover cop

With the once mighty MGM studios seeing better days, someone got the idea to feature The Man From U.N.C.L.E. leading man David McCallum in a movie.  McCallum is Sol Madrid a sort of  humorless tough undercover cop on the trail of some drug smugglers in Mexico.  McCallum was popular on TV as spy Illya Kuryakin so he got his one time chance at a big screen role like every other TV star usually did.

The whole film has kind of a tired  feeling to it.  Everyone seems to be walking through the motions with all the usual double cross stuff that's always in these films.  If there is any entertainment value in the film, it sure isn't the plot. Anyway, McCallum infiltrates the drug lords, beats up some bad guys and screws a gangster's moll played by Stella Stevens who always seemed to be in every movie and TV show.   The film does look like it had some on location filming in Acapulco well at least I think it did.  Mostly Sol Madrid has that tired MGM studio back lot look to it.

 

The film actually has a decent cast besides McCallum and Stella Stevens.  Tellly Savalas is the drug kingpin in Acapulco.  Savalas appears to be doing a warm up for his Blofeld character from On Her Majesties Secret Service,  he is essentially playing the same guy. Ricardo Montalbán is another undercover cop working with Sol Madrid.  Character actor Pat Hingle is the organized crime accountant and  Rip Torn is another organized crime bad guy out to get Sol Madrid. Good actors all of them, but they don't really have much to do.

 

Brian G Hutton directed, he wasn't noted for filming action shoot em up's, at this point in his career but  he must have impressed the producers as they hired him to direct Where Eagles Dare.  File Sol Madrid under tired crime thrillers.

Written by David Karp, the running time is 90 minutes.

1994 - LEGENDS OF THE FALL, attempt at an epic Western film

The director Edward Zwick working from a novella by author Jim Harrison a guy who likes to put a lot of macho posturing in the stories I have read of his.  Zwick tells the epic tale of a family with a ranch in Montana fighting off corruption from the authorities while making a complete mess out of their personal lives.

 British actor Anthony Hopkins is the head of the family, Aidan Quinn is the son who wants to get into politics, there's a younger brother whose name escapes me but it doesn't matter anyway since he ends up dying in World War I early in the film.  However the big casting news in this film was Brad Pitt as Tristan a handsome fellow who likes to run around and challenge bears to fist fights as a test of his manliness.  Needless to say all the women swoon over him.

The film has the requisite couple of hot frontier women.  Julia Ormond, another British actor, is married to Quinn but secretly pines for hunky Brad Pitt, that won't end well.  Karina Lombard is the young farmer girl living on the ranch who grows up looking like a hot Vogue model who Tristan ends up with.

The film is well photographed by John Toll on some spectacular Canadian locations, apparently Montana couldn't cut it when it came to location filming for this film.  The director does keep the story moving along although some of the plotting might be a little questionable.  If you are in for a western epic I guess this will do.

The film was written by Susan Shilliday and William D. Wittliff.  As befits an epic film, the running time is 133 minutes.

1973 - THREE WISHES FOR CINDERELLA, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic version of Cinderella.

 Not really the kind of film I watch, but I was a little curious about how they would tell the story of Cinderella in Eastern Europe without the presence of an overblown Disney animated feature. They definitively made some changes although the basic story is still the same

Cinderella is still the downtrodden maid to her evil stepmother and stepsister,  The director Vaclav Vorlicek apparently thought one stepsister was enough.  There is no magic pumpkin or cute mice in this version.  In fact they even got rid of the fairy godmother.  Instead Cinderella ends up with hazelnuts that have three magic wishes. Cinderella also seems to be able to talk to the animals like Doctor Doolittle. Well you can kind of guess the rest from here.  Cinderella uses her wishes to go to the ball, meets the prince loses her shoe etc.

Vaclav Vorlicek is the same director who filmed the very funny science fiction film Who Wants To Kill Jessie.  However the time Vorlicek is aiming for something a little more mellow and sweet. This is after all a children's story.  Vorlicek filmed Three Wishes For Cinderella during the winter which gives it an intriguing kind of mystical look. 

The performances are as expected emphasized to play up the romantic and fantasy elements of the story.  An interesting film to take a look at.

The film was written by  František Pavlíček, the running time is 83 minutes.

1973 - THE LAST OF SHEILA, puzzle film/murder mystery

 No lover of mysteries am I the most annoying thing about them is you really have to pay attention.  At what time did Colonel Mustard go into the library?  The least suspicious person in the room is always the guilty party.  Important information is always held back from the reader until the very end of the story etc.

With that in mind The Last of Sheila is an entertaining story.  The Last of Sheila has an all star 1970's cast and was filmed in the south of France which is not the worst way to spend time on a film location.   James Coburn is a movie producer who's wife is killed in a hit and run during one of those wild Hollywood parties they supposedly are always having.  There are 6 suspects, a talent agent played by Dyan Cannon, an actress played by Raquel Welch and her husband played by Ian McShane and a screenwriter and his wife played by Richard Benjamin and Joan Hackett and James Mason a washed up film director.

 

Coburn's character is a puzzle playing freak who has invited them to his yacht for a cruise where he has arranged a series of real life puzzles during the cruise which will ultimately reveal the killer of his wife.  As is to be expected things don't really go the way he planned, such is life in the movies.

The film was directed by Herbert Ross who usually filmed Neil Simon comedies.  But the real auteurs behind this film are the witty screenwriters, Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins.  They clearly must have enjoyed themselves developing the elaborate clues that they scattered throughout the film.  While The Last of Sheila is a murder mystery one of the bigger mysteries about the film are who these characters are actually based on.  Fans of this film have been speculating about that puzzle for some time.  After watching the film I would have to admit this is a very clever and entertaining film.

The film was written by award winning Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim along with mister "Norman Bates" himself, Anthony Perkins\.  The running time is 120 minutes.

2011 - THE IDES OF MARCH, sort of interesting politial drama

 George Clooney directs a little better than usual for him.  Clooney also plays a very liberal Democratic governor running in a president primary for the party nomination.  Ryan Gosling is a supposedly idealistic junior campaign manager.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman is Clooney’s campaign manager.  As you can see Clooney pulled together a good cast for this political drama.

The performances are at a high level, the story telling is fairly good for a Clooney film.  In his other films, Clooney has not always been the best judge of the scripts that he picks.  But with the Ides Of March he seems a little more engaged in the plot this time.  Clooney has donated a lot of money to Democratic candidates in past campaigns so he probably knows a thing or two about back room political manipulations.

If there is any criticism of the film, it would have to be of the character Ryan  Gosling plays.  He suddenly seems to switch from political idealist to hardened political operation mostly because of the one indiscretion of the candidate he is trying to get elected.  Also Clooney's very liberal governor seems just a little too over the top politically to be a viable candidate running for president.

Still the film is not without interest.  It didn't do well commercially possibly because the general public is already extremely pessimistic about the political process and doesn't need a film to tell them that.

The film was written by George Clooney, Beau Willimonn and Grant Heslov.  The running time is 101 minutes.

1998 - MERCURY RISING, pretty bad

Ludicrous doesn't even even begin to describe this typical Bruce Willis action thriller.  If seems the NSA has developed a code that is so powerful no enemy agents can break it. For some reason a couple of NSA nerd clerks stick the solution to the code in a puzzle book.  The parents of an autistic savant kid buy him a copy of the puzzle book who of course solves the code and this in turn leads to the murder of his parents by evil NSA agents.   To the rescue is FBI agent Bruce Willis who has to protect the boy and track down the bad guys.

If the plan was to attempt something a little different plot wise in what eventually ends up being a typical Bruce Willis shoot em up,  the writers and director certainly succeeded.  The story is so ridiculous that every plot twist makes this narrative even more stupid.  Frankly the whole kid with autism plot line seems in really poor taste.

 

Needless to say Mercury Rising did not exactly get good reviews by the critics, Bruce Willis won one of those dumb "Golden Raspberry Awards."  The whole comes down to another "what were they thinking?" movie.

The screenplay was by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, the running time is 111 minutes.

1962 - HELL IS FOR HEROES, a very good antiwar film

 This is a very good antiwar film.  A squad of American soldiers has to hold the line from some German soldiers.  Along with excellent battle scenes the interactions of the soldiers are well developed particularly with the heightened presence of the Germans.

The film has a great cast of character actors.  Singer Bobby Darrin is a private, James Coburn is a corporal, Nick Adams a Polish refugee from the Germans.  Even more great character actors show up, Mike Kellin, Fess Parker, Harry Guardino, and L.Q. Jones.  In a very strange piece of casting comedian Bob Newhart is a soldier/clerk now assigned to the squad.  Newhart probably has the dumbest scene in the film doing one of his comedic telephone bits.

 Probably the most fascinating performer is Steve McQueen as a former Master Sergent busted down to the rank of private.  This is a classic McQueen role, a malcontent who can't get along with anyone but is highly skilled at his occupation in this case killing Germans.  During the making of the film McQueen was quite a handful for the production.

The director was Don Siegel who was kind of a bruiser of a filmmaker guy himself when dealing with actors and studio executives.  Siegel was a replacement for Robert Pirosh the screenwriter who initially tried to direct this film but ran into major issues dealing with McQueen.  Only a tough guy like Siegel could handle him.

  

The battles are well staged and for what could have been a rah rah war movie they have a tough intensity to them.  The final battle with the Americans attacking a German pillbox is particularly intense.  To paraphrase Shakespeare there's no honor in dying in combat, you just end up dead.  Highly recommended.

Written by Robert Pirosh and Richard Carr, the running time is a tight 90 minutes.

1984 - AFTER THE REHEARSAL, a film late in the career of Ingmar Bergman

 After announcing that Fanny and Alexander would be his last film before he retired from film making After The Rehearsal showed up a year later,  so much for truth in advertising. This is what is called a chamber film, it has only three characters and for the most part is a real talk fest as a lot of Bergman's  later films got to be.  You can't read the subtitles fast enough to keep up with the Swedish dialog in the film.

 

After The Rehearsal is about theater director Henrik Vogler,  (played by one of Bergman's stock company regulars Erland Josephson) staging a version of Strindberg's "A Dream Play."  Bergman had a great affinity for this play as he frequently refered to it in his other films and even staged a version of it for Swedish television.  As Vogler reviews his notes from the latest rehearsal a young actress, Anna Egerman shows up supposedly looking for a bracelet she lost.  The role of Anna Egerman is played by a very young Lena Olin who Bergman was very high on at the time. What Anna Egerman is really at the theater for is to confront Vogler about the affair he had with her mother Rakel Egerman (played by another Bergman regular Ingrid Thulin) years ago.

Let the fun and games begin as Vogler and Anna Egerman square off about the affair.  The mother shows up at the theater as a ghost or memory or something.  After all this is a Bergman film. 

As Bergman began to wind down his career he gravitated towards making films for television.  His kind of searing emotional dramas were getting harder to finance and he rightly figured that television was a way to keep working.  Bergman besides being an excellent film maker was also a talented theater director.

 

 

After The Rehearsal appears to be a summation of Bergman's time in the theater, staging plays and working with actors. In a way it's an old man's film since Bergman seems to be reflecting about his past life, career and relationships.  If you are a fan of this director you will probably find this film interesting otherwise it's kind of a slog to sit through but with some interesting scenes.  The film is well regarding by a number of critics.

Written by Ingmar Bergman, the running time is 70 minutes. 

2024 - TWISTERS, a big dumb summer movie

A big dumb summer movie with the emphasis on dumb.  Actor Daisy Edgar Jones is a brilliant scientist named Kate Carter who only seems to wear a wardrobe of tank tops.  Kate has invented a way to stop tornadoes by shooting sponges or something into them thereby improbably sucking the water out of them.  After a failed test which results in the deaths of most of her science team she goes into mourning.  Five years later she's back chasing tornadoes but this time she is competing with YouTube video star Tyler Owens a character clearly modeled after real life YouTube video star Reed Timmer whose videos are frankly a lot more entertaining than this. Tyler Owens is played by Glen Powell in an entertaining performance.  In fact Powell is the best thing about this movie, he really turns on the charisma.

This silly movie features lots of tornado destruction from evil tornadoes, evil land grabbers exploiting people who have lost their homes and Kate Carter in tank tops when at times a rain coat might be a little more appropriate.  When you get right down to it Twisters is pretty much an updating of an old Irwin Allen movie.

Twisters supposedly cost between 155 - 200 million dollars. You can be sure they didn't spend it on the screenplay which for the most part is just a collection of cliches with lines like," you don't face your fears, you ride 'em," and "if you feel it, chase it."  We're not exactly talking Harold Pinter dialog here.

 

As I've stated before, movies like this aren't really directed or acted they are made by a bunch of computer nerds sitting at their desks making stuff spin around on their computer monitors.  Supposedly Twisters has nothing to do with the original Twister movie but don't kid yourself this is the exact same movie as the first one.  I have nothing against an audience pleasing summer movie but does this one have to be so dumb?

Written (barely) by Mark L. Smith, the running time is 122 minutes.

1963 - THE RUNNING MAN, disappointing thriller from Carol Reed

After being used and abused by Marlon Brando during the remake of Mutiny on the Bounty, the director Carol Reed signed on for a thriller which was primarily shot in Spain.  This should have been a film that Reed could have made in his sleep. After all he was the director of The Third Man, Odd Man Out and The Fallen Idol.  The Running Man turned out to be a big disappointment.

People on the set of The Running Man spoke about Reed's indecisiveness and for the most part Reed does seem to lose interest in the story.  Most of the film’s running time seems to be spent photographing the Spanish scenery which is stunning.  However taking pretty pictures of the countryside didn't exactly make for much of a story.

Laurence Harvey plays an airplane pilot who stages a plane crash in order for him and his co conspirator wife to cheat the insurance company out of their claim.  Alan Bates is the insurance investigator and Lee Remick is Harvey's wife.  Anyway, while hiding out in Spain and waiting for the insurance payoff, Harvey and Remick travel to much to their surprise run into Bates.  Is Bates on to their scheme or is he just on vacation? 

 

It's a decent enough story but the way Reed tells it he just completely sucks the suspense out of it.  Laurence Harvey does his smarty pants British crook shtick, Lee Remick is gorgeous to look at and she has really blonde hair.  Alan Bates seems to be wandering around in the film with nothing to do.  The film is just completely inert.

 

The Running Man was a big disappointment from Carol Reed whose future films seemed to show a filmmaker who had lost the light and was now bogged down in big, expensive and boring Hollywood films.

John Mortimer wrote the screenplay, the running time is 104 minutes.