1973 - FANTASTIC PLANET, interesting, unusual science fiction film.

If you are looking for a fully fluidly animated feature film in the style of a Disney cartoon keep looking.  This is not a film that advanced the technique or art of animation.  However this is a fascinating science fiction film with a very interesting story.

On an earth like planet live two species.  The giant blue Drags who dominate a smaller humanoid species called the Oms.  The Drags treat the Oms as inferior pets at times almost like ants.  When one of the Oms escapes with a piece of Drag technology that educates individuals by directly transmitting information into their brains, the story becomes a metaphor for race relations as the Oms start to rebel.

 

The film has a unique look to it.  The animation may not be the pinnacle of full movement but the story and visual qualities of the film more than compensate for this lack of animation.  

 

The film was written by Rene Laloux and Roland Topor, the running time is 71 minutes.

1935 - THE SCOUNDREL, interesting, crazy filmmaking from Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur

The Scoundrel is what you end up with when you let two successful but very cynical screenwriters have the keys to the studio, in this case Astoria Studios in New York City.  Hecht and MacArthur got financing through Paramount Studios to produce some moderately budgeted film.  The end result were a series of offbeat and mostly weird films.  

The Scoundrel stars English actor/playwright/composer Noel Coward in his first film.  Theatrical audiences may have known Coward as a successful writer of upper class comedies but I would bet his name and reputation meant next to nothing outside of New York.

The story has Coward playing a malicious publisher who enjoys ruining people's lives.  When he dies in a plane crash, he comes back as a ghost who can only get to heaven it someone grieves for him.   Yes this is the same plot as the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. 

For a couple of guys who were top screenwriters in Hollywood, Hecht and MacArthur sure had a primitive film technique.  They seem to have had absolutely no visual sense and didn't know how to get decent performances out of their actors.  What makes The Scoundrel watchable is top cinematographer Lee Garmes who ended up being a co-director on this and other Hecht and MacArthur films.  The fact that this film looks professional at all is a tribute to Garmes skill.

But lets go to some quotes from this film, this was Hecht and MacArthur's strength, clever and cynical dialog:

"Pity - that most vile of virtues - has never been known to you."

"I'm never nice "

"She's the only woman I've ever met who seems shallower and more superficial than I am. It'll be a perfect match: two empty paper bags, belaboring each other. "

"I don't approve of child labor as a rule, but so much depends on the child."

"Cora, get off your knees. Tears always make me crueler than I really am."

Written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, the running time is 76 minutes.

1980 - THE DAY TIME ENDED, amateur hour science fiction tilm

Well here goes the plot.  A family living in some part of the American southwest desert gets trapped in some interstellar time and space warp.  That's about it for the plot of this low budget science fiction film.

The film is loaded up with has been and no name actors who I can at least say perform professionally.  Next to the decent looking special effects made on a tight budget it looks like the cast was the second biggest item in the film's budget because it sure the hell wasn't the story.

 

This film apparently employed a lot of special effects technicians who were underemployed or unemployed.  There are decent optical, stop motion special effects and old style matte paintings to give credit where it's due.  But overall the film has that look of an after school teacher assigned project.  You can thank the success of Star Wars for propagating stuff like this on the viewing public

There are amazingly enough three writers credited, Wayne Schmidt, J. Larry Carroll and David Schmoeller, the running time for a film without a story is 79 minutew.

1937 - A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS, odd Fred Astaire musical

Filmed during Fred Astaire's run of musicals at RKO during the 1930's,  A Damsel in Distress is one oddball film.  Usually in these RKO musicals Fred Astaire was teamed with Ginger Rogers.  Unfortunately the box office performance of the Astaire/Rogers series was starting to diminish.  The studio got it into their head that Astaire needed to be separated from Ginger Rogers and picked as his romantic lead Joan Fontaine a performer who couldn't sing or dance which was kind of a problem for a musical.

The story has Astaire as a musical comedy star performing in London where he falls in love with snooty Lady Alyce Marshmorton played by Fontaine who is very pretty but struggles to act.  Frankly the story in this film is really a big nothing even for a film like this.

  

What this film has going for it are some excellent musical numbers.  Astaire's dancing partners are none other than George Burns and his wife/partner Gracie Allen a couple of performers who started out in vaudeville and whose careers ran all the way to the dawn of television.  They were seasoned comedians who were actually fairly credible dancers while performing with Astaire.

 

The songs were by George and Ira Gershwin, the director was George Stevens.  The story may be weak but this is a top grade production with excellent numbers particularity a dance with Astaire, Burns and Allen using whisk brooms of all things and an amazing sequence in a fun house set.

The film was written by, P.G. Wodehouse, Ernest Pagano and S.K. Laauren, the running time is 98 minutes.

1993 - CLIFFHANGER, ridiculous action film but entertaining

A 1990's action film that doesn't really hold up despite it being a commercial success.  Cliffhanger is all about Sylvester Stallone in another action film which has lots of call backs to Die Hard and First Blood.

Stallone is a mountain climber rescue guy who scurries around the Rocky Mountains in shorts and a tank top in the dead of winter.  Stallone and his mountain climber buddies happen to get involved with a gang of thieves who have just done a midair heist of three suitcases full of money that ends up falling out of their airplane.  The gang forces Stallone and his mountain climbing friends to help them find the money which is lost somewhere in the mountains.

The main really evil bad guy is played by John Lithgow in yet another evil bad guy role who is such a psychotic nutcase it's a wonder he is even able to recruit guys to work in his gang. When they piss him off he shoots them, this includes his girlfriend. 

 

Unfortunately for Lithgow, Stallone escapes and now is in hot pursuit of this bunch.  Apparently there was no thought given of going to the police for help.  Then again it wouldn't be a Stallone action movie if the police just showed up and arrested everybody.  We would miss Stallone throwing guys over mountain cliffs, impaling them on stalactites or leaping between mountains like he is Superman.

Lots of the mountain climbing scenes were the real thing and the scenery of the Italian Alps which for some reason were used instead of the Rocky Mountains is impressive. The rest of the cast is a combination of character and TV actors who don't leave much of an impression.  Overall a very dumb story but with some decent action and climbing scenes.

The film was written by Stallone and Michael France, the running time is 113 minutes.

1945 - CHILDREN OF PARADISE, classic French film on the big screen

Children of Paradise considered the greatest French film ever made is on some sort of 80th anniversary tour courtesy of Criterion.  I viewed it at a revival theater on a large screen with an almost full house.

The film is a favorite of serious film scholars and buffs.  It was filmed in what was then called the classic French film tradition none of this new wave jump cut stuff.  Directed by Marcel Carne and just as importantly written by Jacques Prévert a poet and screenwriter who at this time was a major collaborator with Carne.

This film was a large scale production which was amazingly filmed over a two year period during the German occupation of France during World War II.  

 

The story is a simple one, four men love an enigmatic woman in the 1800's. Set in the world of theater with most of the focus on a performance artist who is a talented and popular mime.  In fact there are two extended sequences where he does his prancing mime thing.

Children of Paradise is considered the pinnacle of "romantic fatalism."  The performances are at a high caliber and the dialog certainly has a very poetic quality to it even after being translated with subtitles. 

The running time is an epic 190 minutes.

1986 - BAND OF THE HAND, another forgotten action film

This film has the distinction of having Michael Mann as the executive producer who was the next big thing thanks to his trend setting TV series Miami Vice.  Well when you're that hot you can get a film, the chosen film was this under performer, Band of the Hand.  

The story is basically a rehash of The Dirty Dozen this time it's juvenile delinquents instead of convicts who need to be rehabilitated. Apparently law enforcement needs them to kill a lot of Miami underworld tough guys instead of Nazis.  Since Mann filmed his series Miami Vice in Miami he had the facilities to shoot this story in the same style he used on his TV show.

 

The end result was actually kind of tepid the movie seems stylish enough but the cast of young nobody actors doesn't make much of an impression and this seen it before plot doesn't help matters.

 

The film was directed by actor turned director Paul Michael Glasser.  White guy actor Stephen Lang is the leader of the group playing a Native American.  James Remar who played lots of bad guys plays the head bad guy.  Laurence Fishburne is the jive talking drug dealer.  You the picture.

Written by Leo Garen and Jack Baran.  The running time is 110 minutes. 

1990 - SHIPWRECKED, entertaining adolescent boys adventure story

The Disney company has their name on the top of this picture but the reality is this was a Norwegian film made with a Norwegian director and a Norwegian cast.  Disney picked up the North American release and had the film dubbed into English since movie studios believe that audiences are too stupid to read subtitles.

A very entertaining adventure film aimed at the family audience but 13 year old boys were probably the intended audience.  The film was shot in Norway, the Fiji Islands, and England.

The story concerns a young boy who has signed on to a ship as a cabin boy.  He has various adventures which involve, a storm at sea, pirates, and buried treasure.  He ends up getting shipwrecked on a deserted island and finally has a confrontation with the pirates where he fights them off with a bunch of Home Alone type traps he has devised. Along the way he meets a girl who is a stowaway on the ship in need of rescuing.

 

It's all presented in a fast moving film that races from one situation to another.  The viewer doesn't have time to think about some of the plot holes and contrivances in the story.

 The film was written by Nils Gaup, Bob Foss, Greg Dinner and .  Nick Thiel.  The running time is a fast paced 93 minutes.

1987 - STAKEOUT, popular comedy thriller from the 1980's.

This buddy cop film was very popular at the time of release.  The critics gave it fairy decent reviews and it made good money for Disney Studios.

The plot is sort of a mash up of Hitchcock's Rear Window. Two cops played by Richard Dreyfuss and Emilo Estevez are on a stakeout at the home of a former girlfriend of a dangerous escaped convict.  The girlfriend just happens to be a real knockout and the Dreyfuss character manages to meet her and eventually sleep with her.  The last part of the film is an action climax with the cops taking on the escaped convict.

Richard Dreyfuss was at the peak of his career as a movie star.  He essentially played a cocky smart ass in film after film.  Emilio Estevez was probably at about the height of  his popularity and was considered a member of "The Brat Pack," a group of young actors that the press usually heaped scorn on.  In this film they both wear what can charitably be called "porno star mustaches."  The female lead was played by an actor named Madeline Stowe who naturally has to show some skin.

The film was produced by Disney's Touchstone division which released mildly R rated films without the Disney label on them.  A clever trick.  The director John Badham was a good studio craftsman who had bailed out Saturday Night Fever a film that was in chaos during production.  Needless to say Saturday Night Fever was very popular.

 

Stakeout is what you could call a crowd pleasing somewhat contrived studio production.  It has action, comedy and some leering sex jokes but it's all presented in a way so as to not offend the 80's audience.  It's kind of dated and really not that good, a time killer of a film for the most part.  Nothing special to see here.

The film was written by Jim Kouf, the running time is 117 minutes.

2025 - THUNDERBOLTS, Marvel tries yet again

Marvel is still struggling to regain their superhero glory.  This story is the usual  group of super humans who don't particularly like each. They team up to defeat the evil Valentina Allegra de Fontaine who is trying to create a super being by experimenting on a sensitive guy named Bob.

 

There's lots of fighting particularly in the first half of the film.  It looks like Thunderbolts will be at the very least an entertaining action picture.  But with about an hour left in the run time, the film gets all soft and mushy as the team gets a conscience and tries to stop Bob who is now a full fledged powerful evil villain. There's  lots of hugging and talking about feelings in fact there is so much feel good stuff that after a while you wish people would start hitting each other again.

Really the only reason to watch this film is for the sly performance of Florence Plug as Yelena Belova who ends up being the leader of the new superhero group.  Pugh basically blows away nearly everyone in the cast even the blowhard character Red Guardian played by a very hammy David Harbour.  And who made the decision to cast one time Seinfeld cast member Julia Louis Dreyfuss as the evil Valentina?  I'm sure she's a fine performer but those years of playing Elaine Benes have seriously typecast her.  I expected to hear a laugh track whenever she spoke.

 In the early Marvel films they were able to mix action with humor.  Now it just seems like they can't get the mix right anymore.  In fact I would argue they are rehashing story points from early and better Marvel films. Thunderbolts  is mostly another sit in front of the TV with your computer and surf the internet movie.  A step up from the stupid Thor Love and Thunder and the horrible Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania but really not much of a step up I'm afraid. 

The film was written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, the running time is an overlong 127 minutes.  They should have been able to knock this story out in 90 minutes.

1982 - YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE, sort of funny comedy.

A spoof of those hospital drama TV shows, the formula is take a bunch of medical interns stick them in some dramatic situations and you have a hit.  Shows like Medical Center, MASH, House, Ben Casey, ER, and even the current flavor of the month the Pitt have been a reliable staple in the world of entertainment.

Young Doctors In Love was put together by some old comedy writers.  They were clearly trying to duplicate the success of The Zucker Brothers films particularly Airplane.  I would  say the ratio of hits to misses is roughly 40 percent and that's being generous.

The jokes are a scattershot mess with some slapstick, some "little people" humor, some sex jokes and this being an 80's comedy lots of gratuitous female nudity.  The film weirdly enough has some sentimental moments which seems like they should be in another film.

 

The director was television producer Gary Marshall who was certainly an old comedy pro running shows like Happy Days, Mork and Mindy, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple and Joanie loves Chachi. But Marshall would probably be better off not mentioning that last one.  Marshall apparently got it into his head that it was time to be a film director.  Well, the really big bucks are in the movies if they turn into hits.

Marshall was smart enough to load his cast up with lots of funny actors and they certainly are experts at spinning straw into gold.  I am ashamed to admit I did laugh at the dancing Candy Stripers and Héctor Elizondo as a gender confused gangster.

The film was written by a couple of comedy veterans Michael Elias and Rich Eustis, the running time as 96 minutes.