1992 - MALCOLM X, way too long biography

I had to sit through a lot of Malcolm X's childhood and formative years before I finally got to the meat of the drama, Malcolm X's conversion to the Muslim religion. This early stuff unfortunately takes up half the length of the film,  Terrorized by racists as a child who also killed his father, Malcolm X ends up in prison where he begins to focus on the racial injustice propagated  against African Americans.

I'm not saying this isn't interesting or important information but the writer/director Spike Lee should have worked a little harder to telescope the events of Malcolm's early life.  A film that is pushing close to four hours is a lot for a viewer to sit through.  Probably the two dance numbers Lee staged could have been cut to start with since they add nothing to the narrative.

 

Denzel Washington is excellent as Malcolm X (you only have to watch some video clips of the real Malcolm X to see how good he is) especially when he begins preaching the teachings of The Nation of Islam. The film follows his pilgrimage to Mecca, his struggles with the leadership of the Nation of Islam, the perceived threat that white people have of him and his controversial comments about the JFK assassination this film finally become interesting. 

 

You can't fault the cinematography by Ernest Dickerson or the physical production of the film which really captures the look of the 1950's and 1960's.  Spike Lee had to deal with a really tight budget during the production of this film but he did give the film an epic quality.

The film was written by Spike Lee and Arnold Perl, the running time is 202 minutes.

1954 - THE BRIDGES AT TOKO -RI, one of the finest Korean War films.

One of the finest films about the Korean War.  The Bridges at Toko-Ri was closely based on the short novel by James Michener.  Michener had been a reporter on a navel task force flying bombing runs against the North Koreans.  He created his characters who were actual pilots and officers he had met during this time.  In fact the last part of this film follows the fate of the actual helicopter rescue of a downed navy pilot.

This is an excellent studio production.  The producers William Perlberg and George Seaton put together a good cast starting with William Holden as the navy pilot with serious questions about what the United States was doing with it's involvement in Korea.  Frederic March is Holden's commanding officer, Grace Kelly has a small role as Holden's wife.

The film also for a change a restrained Mickey Rooney as a helicopter rescue pilot.  Character actor Earl Holliman was his co-pilot.  Another veteran character actor Charles McGraw is Holden's squadron leader.  This is one of the very underrated McGraw's best films.  Charles McGraw also had a memorial role in the classic The Narrow Margin.

 

The navy cooperated with the producers so a good portion of the film was shot on actual carriers.  The rumor is that Holden  learned how to taxi a fighter jet down the carrier's runway.  One of the most interesting things about this film is the subtle antiwar theme that is carefully woven through out the film.  The navy may have been good about providing ships for this production but they certainty didn't read the script carefully.  This film does not have the usual "rah rah" feel good war movie ending.

The film was written by Valentine Davis, the running time is 102 minutes.

1985 - COMMANDO, a comedy pretending to be an Arnold Schwarzenegger action

A film patronized by about every film critic that saw it upon it's initial release.  The critics failed to realized that this was a very funny movie that was also a spoof of action films.  This was Arnold's third film as the lead and it certainly set the tone for every action film going forward.  Arnold was in incredible shape and his dead pan delivery of a bunch of classic comedy one liners in his dialog made this a very fun film.

Arnold is a widowert living in a mountain retreat with his daughter played by a very young Alyssa Milano.  He's a former special ops Colonel who becomes a one man killing machine after his daughter is kidnapped by "The Wez" himself Vernon Welles.  It's just one over the top moment after another as Arnold rushes to save her.

 

This film has a decent supporting cast but the standout is Rae Dawn Chong as a flight attendant who gets involved in Arnold's quest.  The diminutive Chong, especially when she stands next to Arnold, more than holds her own in the comedy quips department playing off Arnold's violent shenanigans.

It all ends in a major shoot out as Arnold takes on an army of Vernon Welles's bad guys while basically blowing up the Harold Lloyd estate where this film was photographed.   

This is the film that really cemented Arnold Schwarzenegger's Hollywood leading man career and started his twelve year run in the action genre.  Commando still holds up as a very entertaining film.

The film was written by Steven E. de Souza, the running time is 90 minutes.

1960 - THE WITCH'S MIRROR, aka EL ESPEJO DE LA BRUJA

Mexican horror at the beginning of the 1960's,  Mexican horror is almost a genre on it's own going from interesting films to completely ridiculous films.  The Witch's Mirror sort of straddles this range of frequently interesting to at times ridiculous plot turns.  The English dubbing on this DVD definitely doesn't help contribute to the serious aspects but it's what it is.

Our story, it seems a plastic surgeon has decided he no longer loves his wife and plans to kill her off and marry someone else.  This turns out to be a very big mistake as the wife's stepmother happens to be a witch who is out for revenge by evoking the powers of Satan.  The film mixes tradition horror scenes with an odd borrowing from the plot of the french film Eyes Without A Face.

 

The Witch's Mirror is filmed in black and white and apparently entirely on studio sets.  It's got nice photography and great gothic atmosphere with the cast prowling around creepy castle sets.  Time has kind of chipped away at the plot of this film and obviously horror has gotten a whole lot more graphic.  Still for a early 1960's film the film has some interestingly disgusting scenes.  The film is short and doesn't drag out the plot.  It's worth a look.

 

The film was written by Alfredo Ruanova and Carlos Enrique Taboada, the running time is 75 minutes.

1966 - TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD, another entertaining Tarzan film.

Probably time to take a break from the ape man after this Tarzan film.  Once again the producer Sy Weintraub shoots a film on location, in this case Mexico.  Weintraub made some major tweeks to the Tarzan character this time.  It's been pointed out that Tarzan is now acting more like James Bond then the jungle ape man created by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  There is also a really annoying 1960's jazz score to have to put up with.

 

Weintraub also had a new actor playing Tarzan, former NFL football player Mike Henry who is needless to say is in very good shape and in these Tarzan movies these actors don't wear a whole lot of clothes.  With the exception of character actor David Opatoshu playing the chief bad guy like he was Auric Goldfinger and model/actress Nancy Kovack, the rest of the cast and the film crew were Mexicans.

The film is an entertaining action adventure. Tarzan travels to Mexico to save a young Mexican boy from an evil bad guy. The bad guy wants the boy to lead him to his jungle city which is loaded with gold.  Fortunately Tarzan is on the case and the film has lots of action.  The final part of the film was photographed at the magnificent Teotihuacan pyramids, nothing beats on location filming.

Mike Henry as Tarzan isn't much of an actor but then again he doesn't have to be.  Viewers watching this film and especially adolescent boys are here for the action highlights not Shakespearean soliloquies.  This Tarzan movie has Tarzan with his animal friends, a chimp named Dinky and a lion named Major helping out.  Apparently Mike Henry and Dinky didn't get along to well, Dinky ended up biting Henry which resulted in him getting stitches.  Henry ended up suing the producers for creating an unsafe work environment.

The film was written by Clair Huffaker who was frequently associated with John Wayne movies and other western films.  The running time is 90 entertaining minutes.

1995 - A MONTH BY THE LAKE, entertaining romantic comedy

At 58 years old when this film was released Vanessa Redgrave is the whole show in this romantic comedy.  Set in 1937 at Lake Como in northern Italy. It’s now a place that only the very rich can afford to vacation at.  Redgrave plays a single woman who would probably be called a "free spirit."  She meets an Englishman played by "The Jackal"  himself, Edward Fox and finds herself attracted to him.  Unfortunately he is being led on by a younger woman played by Uma Thurman.  Will Vanessa win the heart of this stuffy British guy?

The film was shot on location and the production design does a good job capturing the mood of pre-World War II Italy.  John Irvin was the director.  Irvin worked in a lot of different genres whether it was the war film, the thriller or the drama he was for the most part an excellent craftsman.  The cinematography was by Pasqualino de Santis who had been associated with Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Robert Bresson and Ettore Scola.  De Santis was a real heavy hitter in the Italian film industry.

 

If there is one objection that I have to this film, it's that the very magnificent Vanessa Redgrave would never fall for Edward Fox's English twit character.   The guy just acts like a complete jackass most of the time. Still this is an entertaining romantic comedy. Vanessa Redgrave even late in her career is a pleasure to watch and this film shows again what a unique talent she always is.

 

This film was written by Trevor Bentham, the running time is 92 minutes.

1963 -TARZAN'S THREE CHALLENGES, entertaining adventure film

 The producer Sy Weintraub obtained the film rights to the Tarzan character from the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate and had a radical idea he would actually make Tarzan films in the jungle instead of some film studio back lot.  Working on a tight budget Weintraub hired talented film crews and shot quickly on location.  Tarzan's Three Challenges was filmed in Thailand and is a nonstop action adventure story.

After saving a herd of elephants in Tarzan Goes To India, the ape man is pressed into service helping the new ruler of an Asian kingdom travel to his coronation while fighting off a local strongman trying to stop the rightful ruler of the kingdom.  Jock Mahoney is back as Tarzan and his opponent was Woody Strode a former NFL football player and member of the John Ford stock company.  Strode is to put it mildly in very good shape in this film and was an excellent opponent for Mahoney.

 

The film is called Tarzan's Three Challenges but it should have probably been called Tarzan's many challenges as it's just one damn thing after another for Tarzan.  An attempted assassination, a forest fire, a test of strength as two water buffalos try to pull him apart and finally a sword fight with Strode on an elevated net which has big jars of boiling oil ready to deep fry the fighter unable to stay balanced on the net.

 

It's well known that Jock Mahoney got dysentery while filming in Thailand and lost 40 pounds which gave him a very lean look during the big sword fight scene.  However the show must go on so they apparently loaded him full of drugs stuck him in front of the camera and kept on shooting.  The result of all of this is an entertaining action film with some amazing stunts and stunning scenery.

The film was written by Robert Day and Bernie Giler, the running time is a lean 92 minutes. 

1972 - LADY WHIRLWIND, Angela Mao kicks butt

There is really not a lot you can say about Lady Whirlwind.  It's kind of a standard marital arts film for the most part.  What this film does have going for it is Angela Mao who besides being an actor was also an excellent martial artist.  Mao had been a Chinese opera performer and when from what I've read about the Chinese opera it was no place for wimps. 

In this film Mao is out to avenge her sister who committed suicide after being left at the altar so to speak There is lots of marital arts action which includes the usual scene where one of the protagonists has to learn a new technique to toughen him up after getting beat up by the chief bad guy etc.  

 

Naturally it all comes together at the end for a big fight scene with everybody hitting everybody else. However it's always fun to see a female martial artist kicking butt in what was essentially a male dominated genre.

 

An interesting fact about Angela Mao, she ended up relocating to New York City where her family has opened up several restaurants.

The film was written by Huang Feng, the running time is 88 minutes. 

2016 - THE ACCOUNTANT, kind of absurd action thriller

With the internet suddenly full of movie trailer ads for The Accountant 2, it's probably time to take a look at the first film in what is apparently an attempt to turn future Accountant movies into an action series with Ben Affleck playing sort of an autistic James Bond.

Ben Affleck an autistic savant, is a wiz with numbers (he's an accountant).  He's also, a martial arts expert and an expert with firearms.  At times he works for the mob doing their books but at other times he's a secret high level informant for a member of the Treasury Department.  Affleck gets hired to check the books at a start up robotics company where he discovers embezzlement is going on.  This in turn leads to a group of hit men attempting to kill him and his female accountant helper in order to silence them of course. The female accountant is played by Anna Kendrick who looks like a midget standing next to accountant Affleck.   Little do these hit men know they are about to run into a real autistic killing machine.

The story is rather ludicrous, the action scenes are the usually shaky hand held camera mess and with the exception of Ben Affleck the characters are for the most part not really well defined.  The back story on how Affleck became a number crunching killing machine is essentially unbelievable.  Still when you take all of these things into consideration this is an entertaining action film even with all of this plot nonsense. 

 

The Accountant is blessed with a good cast even if a lot of their roles are small.  JK Simmons is Affleck's Treasury Department contact.  John Lithgow is the head of the robotics company, Jean Smart is his sister.  Jon Bernthal is a mysterious hit man and Jeffrey Tambor is a mob bookkeeper who teaches Affleck everything there is to know about sneaky accounting.  The Accountant is yet another example of a good cast really holding a movie together when the screenplay is not so hot.  Good actors have saved many a questionable movie.

The film was written by Bill Dubuque, the running time is 128 minutes.

1972 - THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, corny but entertaining Irwin Allen foolishness

Another film in our Gene Hackman memorial film festival.  The Poseidon Adventure is an Irwin Allen production with all of the good and bad stuff that Allen was noted for.  The Poseidon Adventure marks the beginning of the 1970's disaster cycle.  Take an improbable situation, in this case a luxury liner tipping upside down after a tidal wave knocks it over and focus on a group of survivors trying to escape before it sinks.

Producer Irwin Allen assembled what would back then be called an all star cast.  Gene Hackman is a defrocked minister who leads a motley bunch of has been movie and TV actors out of the Poseidon.  Ernest Borgnine is an LA cop on vacation with his former hooker wife played by Stella Stevens.  Red Buttons is a Haberdasher who is a lonely single guy.  Shelly Winters and Jack Albertson are a Jewish couple on their way to Israel to see their grandson and because this is a 1970's film there is an annoying little kid played by Eric Shea who you wish somebody would drown.  Naturally since this is the 1970's we get a couple of women stuck running around in hot pants in lots of gratuitous derriere shots. 

 

The director Ronald Neame who in a past life had been associated with David Lean and had filmed a lot of quality English dramas and comedies signed on for this nonsense and was probably responsible for keeping the focus on the story.  Apparently true to form Gene Hackman was not a happy camper on this production but who can blame him as he had to get doused with water and avoid explosions and fires throughout the production.  Still he turns in an excellent performance.

 

This is an enjoyable film, it keeps you watching but it's pretty dumb when you stop to think about it.  The characters are basically a bunch of stereotypes but as the film goes on you do get kind of get a vested interest in what will happen to them.  The producer Irwin Allen was really hot after this film and reached his professional peak with The Towering Inferno but it was all downhill from there.  His brand of entertaining schlock had finally worn out it's welcome.

The Poseidon Adventures has two excellent screenwriters, Wendell Mayes and Stirling Silliphant but you would never know it watching the collection of cliches they put together.  Still the  film is fun to watch.

The running time is 117 minutes, it made a lot of money.

1986 - HOOSIERS, very entertaining sports film

 Let the Gene Hackman memorial film tribute begin.  After watching The French Connection and Get Shorty we moved on to Hoosiers, a very good sports drama.  Gene Hackman is the coach of a small town basketball team.  He has to put up with the know it all townspeople and pull together a very small team of high school players.  Even with all of this going on he makes time to have a romance with school principal Barbra Hershey and rehabilitate Dennis Hooper the alcoholic father of one or his best players.

This is probably one of Hackman's most likable films and it's definitely one of those Frank Capra triumph of the little guy feel good films.  The film was shot in Indiana and is based on an actual championship game although in this case it's an all white team of high school kids in real life their were black basketball players in Indiana basketball although you would hardly know it.

Hoosiers may be a feel good film but apparently it wasn't a real feel good film for first time director David Anspaugh to shoot.  Anspaugh had to deal with a very ornery Gene Hackman who felt this film would be a career killer for him.  His romantic lead Barbara Hershey was also unhappy as she saw her part reduced during the making of the film.  Anspaugh and his production team were also working on a very tight budget.  Composer Jerry Goldsmith put together what you would call a rousing score and careful attention was paid to 1950's period detail in spite of all the challenges.

 

Hoosiers succeeds thanks to Gene Hackman's excellent performance. He may have been a grumpy guy on set but he was a complete professional when it came to performing.  The director and the writer Angelo Pizzo were also smart enough to focus on the characters in the film.  There are plenty of basketball game scenes to watch but they never lost track of the story or the people.

The film runs 115 minutes.

1994 - TIMECOP, a pretty good science fiction film

A fairly decent film for a Jean Claude Van Damme movie.  The time travel plot is well thought through and Van Damme at times actually allows himself to get beaten up by the bad guys.  The plot has Van Damme as guess what, a cop traveling through time attempting to keep a corrupt politician from becoming President of the United States.  The challenge for time cop Van Damme is to keep from changing the future.  This is all fairly cleverly worked out in the screenplay.

The most tiresome aspect of this film is the gratuitous love scene between Van Damme and the actor Mia Sara who gets to roll around naked with Van Damme, lucky her.  You can be sure that someone insisted on inserting this sex tease stuff to satisfy the drooling teenage nerds watching the film.  Later there is a virtual reality nude scene the viewer has to sit through as well that adds nothing to the story.  These scenes actually hurt the film and drag the film into the "B" status category. 

Jean Claude Van Damme was always the poor man's Bruce Lee or Arnold Schwarzenegger (take your pick).  His specialty was kicking people.  In TimeCop he kicks lots of people.  Bruce McGill who played "D-Day" in National Lampoon's Animal House a long time ago, is Van Damme's boss.  Ron Silver is the hiss able evil Senator villain and it's a cliched character to be sure but he puts it over.

 

The action is decent, the story is interesting. Peter Hyams the director keeps things moving along.  The film is entertaining even with it's tiresome sex scenes and for the most part doesn't outstay it's welcome.

The film was written by Mark Verheiden, the running time is 98 minutes.

1935 - CAPTAIN BLOOD, large scale, dated but entertaining swashbuckler

Warner Brothers pulled together this entertaining swashbuckling pirate film with a large budget.  Michael Curtiz directed and one of Warner's best screenwriters Casey Robinson adapted the book the film was based on.  The photography is excellent, the special effects and model work for 1935 were at a very high standard.  The composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold was a master at writing large scale symphonic scores and he provided a very entertaining one for this film.  The film really couldn't miss.

Warner Brothers took a big chance with the cast. Errol Flynn essentially an unknown actor at the time was chosen as the title character.  Olivia de Havilland hadn't even turned twenty yet and was cast as the female lead and love interest for Flynn.  But both of these performers were soon to become mainstays at the studio and were very popular with the movie going public during the 1930's and 40's.

 

Captain Blood is mostly entertaining with lots of colorful characters and interesting locations.  The action never lets up with sword fights and everyone's favorite pirate movie scene two ships blasting at each other with their cannons.  It's true swashbuckling film making. 

 

Probably the worst thing to say about this film is that it is very dated even for a film set in the 1600's.  A lot of the plot has to do with the character Peter Blood being forced into slavery by the King of England, escaping and becoming a pirate fighting against the English.  By the end of the film the screenwriter has had to spend a lot of time juicing the plot to get Captain Blood back fighting on the side of the English and become a true English patriot again.  All fairly ludicrous stuff but that's Hollywood story telling after all.

The film runs 119 minutes.

1973 - PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, Peckinpah's eulogy for the western film

Sam Peckinpah directed yet another one of those "end of the west films" which puts him in good company with John Ford. Don Siegel, Sergio Leone and George Roy Hill.  Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid is about the friendship of Garrett and the Kid.  As the frontier ends and civilization i.e. corporate greed takes over Garrett chooses to take the side of corporate interests at the expense of getting rid of his outlaw friend

Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid was a difficult production for Peckinpah.  Peckinpah's alcoholism, production overruns and a very hostile relationship with the failing MGM studios resulted in Peckinpah losing control over the final cut of the film.  The history of this film gets even more complicated as the film actually exists in three different versions.  The studio cut, Peckinpah's preview cut and finally a cut that assembled scenes from the studio cut and the preview cut which is called the special edition cut. Confused yet?

 

Peckinpah hired a cast of performers that he had worked with in the past. It's almost a curtain call of western actors,  James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Slim Pickens, Richard Jaeckel, Chill Wills, Barry Sullivan, Katie Jurado, Jack Elam, R. G. Armstrong and in some really offbeat casting Bob Dylan. Dylan wrote the score for the film which really displeased Peckinpah.  Peckinpah himself shows up as what else, an undertaker towards the end of the film.

Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid's reedited versions are now considered something of a masterpiece.  No question Peckinpah has a great feeling for western landscape.  He's also good with his actors and no one can photograph gunfights like him.  However I though  this film was very choppy and disjointed as the story moved from scene to scene.  I think you can blame this on Peckinpah's tampering with Rudy Wurlitzer's original script.  

In general Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid is a good film but it is probably of greater interest to fans of the director.  

The film was written by Rudy Wurlitizer with uncredited rewriting from Sam Peckinpah, the running time is 115 minutes.