1993 - GRUMPY OLD MEN, a couple of old comedians show how to steal the movie

If anyone should get the credit for this film is should be the casting director, Sharon Howard-Field.  Obviously Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were the stars of this film but Sharon Howard-Field surrounded them with a strong supporting cast played by Ann Margaret, Buck Henry, Ossie Davis, Kevin Pollak, Darryl Hannah and Burgess Meredith.  All of these actors are in the service of making Lemmon and Matthau funny.

The film tracks the 30 year rivalry between Lemmon and Matthau as they attempt to romance free spirit Ann Margaret (and what could she possibly see in either one of these two old fuddy duddies) and a contest to see who can catch enough fish during a chilly winter on a frozen lake in Wabasha, Minnesota, a town by the Mississippi river.

 

Truth be told this isn't that hilarious a film but Lemmon and Matthau are such professionals they know how to milk every line for humor.  They also acted together in enough films which made their comedy timing impeccable.

Probably the most interesting part of the film are the scenes set in Wabasha, Minnesota during the winter.  People are out shoveling, the snowplows are plowing and the proliferation of fishing huts on the lake is very funny.  Thirty years later climate change in Minnesota has taken it's toll.  There's hardly any snow during the winter and whatever accumulates melts because of unseasonably warm temperatures in January and February usually the coldest months of the winter in this state.

 The film was written by Mark Steven Johnson, the running time is 104 minutes.

1943 - GUADALCANAL DIARY, fairly good World War II film

For one of those rah rah World War II fighting films Guadalcanal Diary is a pretty good war film.  It doesn't hit the viewer over the head with the usual amount of government propaganda that the American public was saturated with during World War II.

The film is based on the United States invasion of Guadalcanal in 1942. The mission was to shut down a Japanese airfield that could have threatened Australia and New Zealand.  This film is a little unusual in that it keeps it's focus on a platoon of soldiers instead of the usual military officers barking out orders.  The soldiers are mostly character actors with not a major star in the group.  No Tyrone Power, John Wayne or Clark Gable which does add a little more realism to the story.  Power and Gable were actually serving in the armed forces during the war anyway.

 

Guadalcanal Diary has an interesting cast of actors some who could probably pass for real marines.   William Bendix, Lloyd Nolan, Richard Conte, Anthony Quinn, Preston Foster and Lionel Standler show up playing grunts.  Most of these guys were usually supporting players in "A" pictures or leads in cheapo B movies.  The film is also the debut of Richard Jaeckel a character actor who appeared in around 70 films until 1994 when he retired.

 

Guadalcanal Diary was mostly filmed on location and not on a studio sound stage if you can call filming at Oceanside, California on location I guess.  The film was written by Lamar Trotti and Jerome Cady.  The running time is 93 minutes.

2024 - FROM ROGER MOORE WITH LOVE, kind of odd tribute to Roger Moore

The actor Roger Moore passed away seven years ago.  Moore appeared in his last James Bond film almost forty years ago.  So it's kind of strange that this tribute film to Moore was made now.  Apparently the film aired on the BBC during the holidays.  This is the usual mixture of interviews and home movies.  Moore apparently liked to run around with a Betamax VHS camera of all things and filmed a lot of the guests who stayed at his home in Switzerland.

Moore started his career as a sweater model and was lucky enough to hook up with the director Brian Desmond Hurst who apparently mentored him when he entered the acting profession.  Moore never had the acting "chops" for heavyweight dramas and was dropped by MGM after a couple of less than outstanding performances in Interrupted Melody and Diane.  This film doesn't mention his time at Warner Brothers where he mainly did television shows like Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip. 

 

After his failure in America, it was back to England where he found his signature role in the popular TV show The Saint playing sort of a gentlemen thief.  After working in television for a while he was cast in the James Bond film Live and Let Die. He was James Bond number three during the 1970's.  Moore was blamed for bringing a lot of silliness to the James Bond franchisee but the reality was the series took a sharp turn towards goofiness with Sean Connery's last Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. 

If there is anything to be learned from this documentary and I use the term documentary very loosely it's that Roger Moore recognized his limitations as an actor and was able to turn these limitations into a film and television career.  Moore was apparently a very nice guy in real life.  He was never a prima donna on film sets and he apparently never turned his nose up at his fans.  Moore was also a very lucky man in his career.  Christopher Walken who never does these tribute interviews shows up and speaks very highly of him.

 

From Roger Moore With Love is about as lightweight as Roger Moore was.  It's a painless way to pass some time, sort of entertaining if you are a fan and in the end not remotely memorable.

The film is amusingly narrated by actor/writer Steve Coogan imitating Roger Moore's voice which Coogan has made a carrer of, the running time is 79 minutes.

2024 - THE SIX TRIPLE EIGHT, a true life World War II story

Tyler Perry gets a lot of crap about being a less than good filmmaker.  His Madea character which is basically Perry playing an old lady in drag has been very popular much to the chagrin of many critics.  However Perry is a very successful filmmaker with studios in Atlanta, Georgia.  All of this is a lead up to discussing Perry's latest film The Six Triple Eight.

Based on a true World War II story, The Six Triple Eight was an all black female Army unit which ended up being assigned to Glasgow, Scotland where they are ordered to sort and deliver millions of letters to soldiers in the European theater that were just sitting in a warehouse undelivered.

 

This film is about their efforts to clean up and organize this military mail mess.  Kerry Washington plays the commanding officer of this Army unit who faces a stream of racism from white Army enlisted men and officers. She's based on the real commander Lt. Col Charity Adams a very remarkable woman in real life.  Ebony Obsidian is one of the enlisted women who is involved with a white Jewish pilot in a rather far fetched romantic subplot.  Oprah Winfrey herself shows up in a small role and Sam Waterston and Susan Sarandon are Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

 

Frankly the film is really not that good.  The incidents in the film appear to be mainly true but the storytelling is a little "hit you over the head" blunt as it goes through the motions.  The characters at times seem awfully stereotypical.  

Is this film worth watching?  Well in spite of the at times clumsy execution of the plot, The Six Triple Eight tells a fascinating story about a moment in World War II that had been forgotten.  The achievement of this Army unit is impressive and it looks like most of the story points in the film are true to what actually happened to these women.  So yes the film is worth watching.

The film was written by Tyler Perry, the running time is 127 minutes.

2024 - WICKED, it's long it has a lot of songs

The big hit musical for the holiday season is now showing up on streaming.  Wicked as everyone knows is based on a popular Broadway musical of the same name.  The film was very expensive to produce around $150 million.  It has big sets lots of dancing and two charismatic female stars, it is also very mediocre.

In a musical it should be all about the music.  However in this film I don't think there was one memorable song in the entire film's long running time.  The production team tries to cover this up with lots of big sets and elaborate computer image special effects but after a while it's all just viewer overload.

 

As far as the cast goes Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are certainly talented enough but as an old boss of mine once said you can only put so much "lipstick on the pig" to cover all the problems with this film.  The other cast members well what can you say.  A special song has been dedicated to the original stars of the musical, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth who are showcased in a scene that goes on and on.  Bowen Yang has been carving out a career as a comedian on SNL plays the stereotypical bitchy gay guy which is apparently the best character the writers could come up with.  Michelle Yeoh is also in the film and continues to appear in a lot of films as she enters the "paycheck performance" period of her career.  Jeff Goldblum plays the Wizard of Oz as Jeff Goldblum. 

Wicked is supposed to be a revisionist story of The Wizard of Oz but this film has also decided to be about racism (the green skinned witch) and the social prejudices of the citizens of Oz in this case  talking animals because after all they are different from us (get it).  

I guess the director Jon M. Chu should get some credit for orchestrating all of this junk into a film.  He had to deal with two probably diva stars, lots of overblown special effects and a completely unwieldy screenplay.  By the end of this movie the credit comes up "end of part one" god help me.  To paraphrase my niece the only people who should get awards for this film are the marketing team that sold it to the public.

The film was written by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, who have sort of been hinting at a parts 3 and 4 to this film.  The running time is 160 minutes.

2024 - NOSFERTAU, 3rd remake of this vampire story

A passion project for the writer/director Robert Eggers.  Apparently as a kid he was impressed with the 1922 F. W. Murnau film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.  This is actually the third remake for this story.  Besides the Murnau version Werner Herzog filmed his version Nosferatu the Vampyre, in 1979 with madman actor Klaus Kinski as the title character.

I saw this version at an IMAX theater and in 35 mm no less which made for a rather intense viewing experience.  The film was shot in a lot of medium sized screen shots which on the giant IMAX screen really jumped out at me.   I probably should have sat farther back as at times I felt a little overwhelmed.

Some of the acting was a little hard to take particularly Lily-Rose Depp as the victim of the vampire Count Orlok.  Depp plays a character called Ellen Hutter who apparently has some kind of psychic connection with the Count.  Depp's performance is shall we say rather hysterical and at times she seems to be channeling a possessed character like in one of those Exorcist films.  Regardless of what I may think of her performance it's certainly a step up from that mess of a TV series The Idol which she started in.  Probably the best performance in the film is from Willem Dafoe as Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz although the character is usually called Professor Van Helsing, confused yet?

 

Nosferatu is extremely well made you can't argue with that.  The photography, set design, makeup and special effects are at a high level.  Naturally since this is a film released in 2024 and not 1922 there is the expected blood, nudity and sex but that's the way it goes. A well done horror film although I didn't find it particularly scary.  I'm still not sure the world needed another version of Nosferatu but here it is.

The film's running time is 132 minutes.

2023 - THE BIKERIDERS, interesting look into a world of supposed macho men.

The filmmaker Jeff Nichols continues to make very interesting films in this era of unending superhero movies.  The problem is that he unfortunately hasn't had his breakout film yet.  The Bikeriders is a fascinating look at a culture of blue collar men who strut their masculinity like roosters by forming a motorcycle club.

This film is extremely well cast with Tom Hardy as the leader of a bike club called the Vandals.  In his group is one Benny Cross played by Austin Butler who becomes attracted to  a woman named Kathy Bauer in an impressive performance by Jodie Comer.  The film follows these over aged delinquents through the years until the eventual breakup of the club.

 

Really this film belongs to Jodie Comer.  She is playing a character who on the outside doesn't seem to bright but is actually very aware of the situation and the consequences she has allowed to get herself in.  She narrates her story to a reporter throughout the film which allows the viewer to get caught up in the dynamics of the bike club.

 

This is an excellent drama, well directed, photographer and acted.   A high recommendation for an  interesting adult drama.

The film was written by Jeff Nichols, the running time is 116 minutes.

1965 - THE SKULL, well made but low budget horror film

From Amicus Studios a film company that managed to make even lower budget horror films than Hammer Studios, comes one of their few films that isn't a compendium of short stories rolled together into one feature.   The Skull is a fairly decent horror film made on a tight budget but the production team was a group of British filmmakers who did a good job making something out of next to nothing.

The Skull starts out with a phrenologist in the 1800's studying the heads of criminals to determine if one can identify a good or evil person.  The phrenologist decides to dig up the grave and take the skull of the Marquis de Sade (everybody's favorite sexual sadist) to examine it. Big mistake as it turns out The Skull is possessed and anyone who owns it turns into a mad killer.  Jump forward to present day England and The Skull is now owned by Peter Cushing who wants to add it to his collection of spooky stuff, another big mistake. Well you can guess where this story is going.

 

Amicus studios may have been a real cheapskate place but they did hire a decent cast.  Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Patrick Wymark and Nigel Green.  The director is the very good cinematographer Freddie Francis who photographed a number of classic British films.  Francis had wanted to become a film director but the only projects he was attached to were horror films.  Francis ended up returning to cinematography where he worked for directors like David Lynch and Martin Scorcese which wasn't a bad way to wrap up his career.

 

There's nothing particularly terrible about this film.  It's well photographed and the actors all do their jobs, it's just nothing special.  Freddie Francis probably did about as competent a job as he could considering the budget and the story but really any reasonably decent director could have made this film.

The film was written by Milton Subotsky from a story by mister Psycho himself Robert Bloch, the running time is 83 minutes,

1996 - JINGLE ALL THE WAY, mediocre Christmas comedy at best

Jingle All The Way is a very good example of a very mediocre comedy being pulled across the finish line by the actors since the director and scriptwriter couldn't get the job done.  Arnold Schwarzenegger is a too busy dad who forgets to buy his son a popular toy action figure before Christmas.  The movie is basically about Arnold racing all over town trying to get his hands on one.  Cue one fairly lame comedic situation after another.

The film is loaded with actors who are trying their best to get some laughs out of this thin premise.  Jim Belushi is a crooked Santa Claus, Phil Hartman is Arnold's lech of a neighbor who is hitting on Arnold's wife played by Rita Wilson. Robert Conrad is a motorcycle cop who Arnold continually runs into and the comedian Sinbad is a deranged postal worker who is also trying to get the action figure for his son.

 

Jingle All The Way is part of the inevitable downward slide of Arnold's film career which probably peaked with True Lies, You can't stay on the top of the heap forever.  Arnold had made a few comedies but in this film he was either directed or decided to play it very broad and slap sticky.  You could probably also say that about the rest of the cast,  just not a whole lot of clever comedic acting going on.  The exception is Phil Hartman as the sleazy neighbor, he steals the show from just about everybody.

 

If the movie has any interest at all it's that it was filmed in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St Paul), my old hometown.  The geography of the film has the actors starting one scene in Minneapolis and ending it in St. Paul, the film hops all over the place without any sense of location.  However the final Christmas parade set piece was obviously shot in Hollywood.   This location stuff is funny to me but probably won't mean much to any other viewer outside of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The film was written by Randy Kornfield, the running time is 89 minutes. 

1996 - THE GOD OF COOKERY - a funny Stephen Chow film.

Stephen Chow should have been a bigger deal in the West.  Already a big star in Asia he never really received the recognition that Jackie Chan was finally able to achieve.  Chow made a bunch of popular and highly profitable films in Hong Kong.  The God of Cookery was one of Chow's biggest hits.

In this film Chow spoofs celebrity chefs and those celebrity chef cooking shows.  Chow plays a character named "Stephen Chow."  After humiliating just about everyone who he perceives to be standing in his way.  He gets his comeuppance by losing his show and all of his sponsorships.  This leads to Chow ending up in an area of Hong Kong where they cook and sell street food. There he befriends a facially scarred woman played by the performer Karen Mok who makes something called "pissing beef balls" It's a dumpling that ultimately squirts fluid all over your face as you eat it.  Chow knows a potentially popular food when he sees it so he sets out to market it with a line of canned pissing beef ball delicacies.

 

The humor is an incredible mix of martial arts, Chinese word play (which I suspect will go over the heads of most Western viewers) and lots of jokes about a Shaolin Monastery where he is trained to be a humble master chef.

 

Chow mixes so many comedic styles and genres that at times it's jarring to see him go from pathos to outright goofy "Jerry Lewis" comedy.  The actor Karen Mok is a good sport wearing disfiguring facial makeup and the climatic cook off even drags in some heavenly intervention in the form of some Asian gods.  Overall mighty funny stuff. 

The film was written by  Stephen Chow Edmond Lo and Tsang Kan-cheong, the running time is 92 minutes.

1986 - WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, a violent entertaining action film.

Wanted Dead Or Alive is supposedly a continuation of the series that starred Steve McQueen as a bounty hunter.  It was essentially another Western TV show that plagued the television watching public in the late 1950's to early 1960's.  McQueen played a character named Josh Randall.  This updated film which uses the title of the series and not much else features Josh Randall's descendant Nick Randall who is also a modern bounty hunter.  But who's kidding who here.  Nick Randall is played by Dutch actor Rutger Hauer and he is supposed to be a descendant of Indiana born Steve McQueen!

This is a violent 1980's action film.  It's also almost a nostalgia piece with all that supposedly high tech 1980's hardware such as land line phones and evil Arab terrorists which our hero has to contend with.  Nick Randall lives on a boat and romances a flight attendant named Terry working on her PHD of course.  Nick's also got a cop friend who is pretty much around to give Nick information on the Arab terrorists and eventually get shot which prompts Nick into a fury of violent revenge.  Since this was an era of not trusting the United States Government, one of the agencies of the United States is cooperating with the Arabs for their own secret reasons.  Needless to say Nick will sort all of this out by killing just about everybody in sight.

 

Beside Rutger Hauer, the film has a not uninteresting cast.  Gene Simmons from "Kiss" plays the head of the evil Arabs.  Mel Harris the future star of Thirtysomething where she played the tiresome Hope Steadmen, is Hauer's girlfriend.  Robert Guillaume from Benson is a government agent helping Nick Travis out.

 

Wanted Dead Or Alive is a violent 1980's action film but I have to admit this is a very well made violent action film.  The director Gary Sherman does a good job staging all the shootings and car chases. Rutger Hauer certainly looks ruthless enough to play a bounty hunter and the whole 1980's setting makes me warm and fuzzy for the good old  movie days when the action scenes weren't created by a computer.

The film was written by Michael Patrick Goodman, Brian Taggert and Gary Sherman, the running time is 104 minutes.

1958 - THE TRAPP FAMILY IN AMERICA, a sort of sequel.

 I doubt fans of The Sound of Music are aware that it is actually a remake of a German film called The Trapp Family (1956)  that version of the singing Von Trapp Family also made a lot of money.  The German studio Gloria Films just like their Hollywood counterparts knew a money making machine when they saw it and went ahead and released the further adventures of the Von Trapp Family as The Trapp Family In America.

The story is basically about the Von Trapp Family traveling around America by bus performing their dreary religious song repertory.  Not unlike Julie Andrews, Maria Von Trapp is a goody two shoes who realizes that the paying American public wants to hear music they can relate to in this case a chorale version of "Oh Suzanna" apparently. The Von Trapps eventually end up in Vermont where they buy a farm which I believe is still owned and managed by some of their descendants.  That's about all this film is, a bunch of people riding around on a bus, a bunch of kids singing and Maria Von Trapp as her smiling happy self.

 

I suppose a couple of things to note.  Maria Von Trapp was played by an actor named Ruth Leuwerik who was a big star in Germany in the 1950's.  The real Maria Von Trapp wrote a book about her experiences and eventually sold it to Gloria Films while signing away her rights to any profit participation in the film.  This sequel apparently made quite a bit of money.  Much like American audiences, there is sometimes no accounting for taste when it comes to the German movie goer.

Overall this film is mighty dreary.  There really is no conflict and there is a whole lot of singing the viewer has to sit through.  As with any "based on a true story" film the “facts” are mighty wobbly compared to the real story of these singing songbirds.  This is not much of a film, The Trapp Family In America is more of a curiosity than an interesting story.

The film was written by what else an ex Nazi named Herbert Reinecker, the running time is 103 minutes.

1984 - THE MAKING OF FANNY AND ALEXANDER, a documentary

Sensing this would probably be his last film, Ingmar Bergman had a cameraman named Arne Carlsson follow him around while he filmed Fanny and Alexander.  The resulting documentary with the less than clever title The Making of Fanny and Alexander was the result. The film is sort of fascinating and probably of more interest for film scholars especially those who are admirers of Ingmar Bergman.

The film starts out with Bergman and his cast at a meet and greet where Bergman announces he is just a director this time and doesn't remember any of the script they are about to film. This is a rather dubious claim since he wrote the film.

We get a lengthy scene of Bergman staging a scene on the Ekdahl family set and we see Bergman working with the young actors playing Fanny and Alexander.  We also see cinematographer Sven Nykvist behind the camera setting up the lights and the camera angles.  Sven Nykvist was clearly an important collaborator for Bergman and at times he almost seems like a co-director.

Probably the most poignant and interesting part of this film is Bergman directing one of his old colleagues the actor Gunnar Björnstrand.  Björnstrand  is clearly suffering from memory loss.  Bergman is extremely patient with him as Björnstrand blows take after take.

 

Again, an interesting film but it's probably best to keep in mind since Bergman took a director's credit on this we are only going to see what Bergman wants us to see.  Considering the big cast and the logistics of filming such a long film I doubt things went as smoothly as he seems to indicate.

The running time is 110 minutes.

1982 - FANNY AND ALEXANDER, the extended version

Hang in there we're getting to the end of this Ingmar Bergman mini film fest.  With Fanny and Alexander, Bergman announced this would be his final film.  Hyperbole being what it is from film directors,  he went on to make a few more films although they were primarily for Swedish Television.  It's probably more accurate to say this was Bergman's final theatrical film.

In recent years Bergman had been challenged to find financing for his films.  In order to get this film made he agreed to make two versions, a television mini series that runs over five hours and a theatrical version that runs almost three hours.  Apparently Bergman preferred the television version of this film.

 

The film tells the story of the Ekdahls an upper class family living in Uppsala,  Sweden.  The Ekdahls own a theater which is managed by one of the sons of Helena Ekdahl (the matriarch of the family) named Oscar.  Oscar and his wife Emilie in addition to running the theater are also performers. They have two children, Fanny and Alexander.  Alexander is a boy with a very vivid imagination which will bring him a lot of trouble. 

The film starts with an extended scene of a Christmas party at the Ekdahl home where all is happiness and joy.  But this is an Ingmar Bergman film and in the second act of the film Oscar suffers a heart attack and passes away.  Cue the entrance of the chief villain of this film the Lutheran Bishop Edvard Vergérus a character so frightening he could be in a Wes Craven film.  For reasons that would take to long to explain and are actually kind of unbelievable the grieving widow Helena ends up marrying the bishop and moves into his very austere residence along with her two children.

The film gets very harrowing at this point as the Bishop turns out to be a tyrannical figure who takes out most of his anger on Alexander.  In some very brutal scenes, the bishop physically punishes Alexander to the point of drawing blood from the ten year old child.  The remainder of the film involves the Ekdahl's  attempts to rescue Fanny, Alexander and Helena from the Bishop's household.

At this point in Bergman's career a lot was known about his early life growing up with a father who was a strict Lutheran minister.  The character of the Bishop is clearly based on Bergman's father and Alexander is obviously a stand in for a young Ingmar Bergman.

Fanny and Alexander is one of Bergman's best looking films.  The photography by Sven Nyquist is excellent and the sets and costumes are a real treat to look at.  The film is a mixture of new and old actors who Bergman had worked with in the past.  Jari Kulle, Gunnar Björnstrand,  Erland Josephson, and Harriett Andersson were part of his famous stock company.  Incredibly Liv Ullmann and Max Von Sydow turned down roles in this film.

Fanny and Alexander is in many ways a rehash of Bergman's favorite themes but it's a well made and involving film even in the extended television version.

The film was written by Ingmar Bergman.  The running time for the theatrical version is 188 minutes, the television version runs 312 minutes.