1928 - THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK - excellence in all areas

Probably as good as you are going to get in a film.  Director Josef Von Sternberg a filmmaker who struggled in the Hollywood systems always struggled with his artistic intentions and the commercial considerations of the studio.  The Docks of New York is a rare example of both of these objectives being fulfilled for a change.

The story such that it is, is about lowlifes along the waterfront in NYC.  The screenplay was written by Jules Furthman who had a long career in Hollywood.  Furthman is mostly remembered for working with Howard Hawks.

The director Josef Von Sternberg was probably as close to an artist as Hollywood would put up with.   Von Sternberg was considered a difficult individual to deal with and his abrasive personality and lack of commercial success affected his career.

This is one of Von Sternberg's best films, with great photography and lots of atmosphere.  Highly recommended

76 minutes.

2016 - LONDON HAS FALLEN - a time killer about a killer

Terrorists are running amok in London at the state funeral of the prime minister  The President of the United States is in danger.  Good thing our top Secret Service agent Mike Banning is on the job.  If someone needs to be shot or as is Banning's apparent speciality sticking knives in people's heads, he's the man for the job.

This film is strictly a by the numbers action flick.  After about a half and hour of set up the action kicks in with non stop violence.  But for the most part this is just movie violence.  The action scenes are directed to titillate and aren't particularly exciting.

The conceit of the film is that the city of London is completely overrun by middle eastern terrorists dressed as London police officers.  In a way it's almost kind of an insult to the British government and security forces.  As usual the terrorists instead of being ex Nazis are now 3rd world Arab slime balls.

How does it all end?  Will the ruthless agent Mike Banning save the president or will the Pres get his head chopped off on Youtube?

99 minutes.

2005: XXX: STATE OF THE UNION - Spy vs Spy stuff

Stuck in the house on a cold Saturday night with nothing to do, I found this piece of action movie trash.  This is the kind of film where you sit slumped in a chair watching one hyper action scene after another roll by in a plot that I would call a poor man's version of 7 Days in May.

 

Anyway, Ice Cube is some former hot shot soldier stuck in a federal prison for a crime he didn't commit.  At least I think it was a crime he didn't commit, I wasn't paying attention to closely.  Well Ice Cube is broken out of prison by the head of the NSA played by Samuel Jackson in a variation of a role he has played many times before.  It seems that evil William Dafoe who is a General or the Secretary of Defense is planning on staging a coup to overthrow the government.  Like Jackson, Dafoe has played variations on this type of role as well.

Plot, characterization and dialog in this kind of a movie really means nothing.  This is an action show from the first scene to the last.  Never mind if the scenes make any sense or are a part of the plot, they are just in the movie as a sort of violent low grade pornography.  I can sit slumped in my chair and be sort of entertained but not exactly stimulated or excited

What XXX: State of the Union comes down to is another cookie cutter action film not well made but not poorly made either.   I've seen this movie many times and I will probably spend the rest of my life watching this stuff.

101 minutes, written by Simon Kinberg.

1980 - STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

If you can get through the first 30 minutes of this film with all the Millennium Falcon won't fly jokes with Han Solo and Chewbacca hamming it up, this is turns into a pretty decent sequel.

 

George Lucas gave up direction on this film turning it over to a decent director of actors named Irvin Kershner.  But for the most part this was a Lucas production with his hand prints all over it especially in the special effects sequences which are still very goof.

There may be a touch of what Andrew Sarris calls "strained seriousness"  running through this film but it certainly plays better then the mediocre future films in the series

124 minutes, written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan.

1955 - THE MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, the stripped down version.

The stripped down version of the holiday film classic from the 1947 film.  Apparently this version was part of something from 20th Century Fox called The 20th Century Fox Hour.  It looks like Fox Studios was trolling their own backlog of films to knock out some remakes for television.

No on location filming in NYC during Macy's Thanksgiving parade, no time to develop the characters or the love story let's just get it done and move on to the next episode.  Break out the rear projection screens and dust off some sets from the back lot.  Choose the best scenes from the original film and just get it done.   We've got the original versions of The Ox-Bow Incident, Mr. Belvedere and Broken Arrow to condense and film as quickly as possible.

Actually this TV relic isn't that bad but you should stick with the original film.  The basic story was always good.

The direction was by Walt Disney's go to guy Robert Stevenson and has a good cast with Thomas Mitchell, Theresa Wright and MacDonald Carey carrying the load.  It's on YouTube in a good copy. 

 Running time is 46 minutes.Written by John Monks Jr.

1977 - STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE

Preparing for the new Star Wars film and thought I would sit through the first three films. So called episode 4 still plays pretty well.  This was the enhanced version that George Lucas fooled around with adding more digital stuff to the film and some scenes that were previously cut.  Adding all this junk really didn't do anything for his film but it didn't really hurt it.  

The cast looks incredibly young and the idea to add Peter Cushing and especially Alec Guinness was an inspired casting choice.  These actors brought some gravitas to what could have been a very silly film.  The trend setting computerized special effects were also a big deal at the time.  Before this with the exception of 2001:  A Space Odyssey no science fiction film looked this good special effects wise.

It didn't escape many critics that Lucas "borrowed" from a lot of other films.  It can be a film buff's dream to do a spot the reference to other war movies particularly the final attack on the Death Star which is a mix of The Dam Busters and 633 Squadron.

Like I said the film still plays pretty well.  The film was written by George Lucas with uncredited help from Brian DePalma, Jay Cocks, Willard and Gloria Huyck.

121 minutes.

1955 - BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK - in Cinemascope

The director John Sturges shows Hollywood how to film in CinemaScope in this thriller that doesn't over stay it's welcome.

This is an MGM production a studio not exactly know for open mindedness when it comes to technological innovation or story content.  So it's kind of amazing Sturges was able to shoot on location instead of some Burbank sound stage.

Again, Sturges use of composition in the wide screen format is very impressive.

81 minutes, written by Millard Kaufman and Don McGuire.

2015 - A VERY MURRAY CHRISTMAS, not amused

20 minutes into this smarmy Christmas Special I pretty much had my fill of this supposed "cool" holiday show.  Bill Murray can't sing and to listen to him sing song after song was pure torture.

I get that the makers of this special are trying to have it both ways, deconstruct a typical Christmas Special like something Andy Williams or Perry Como would do, but the joke wore itself out after a while.  This show also attempts to trade on the cool guy persona of Bill Murray as he brings in a bunch of his Hollywood cronies to worship at the feet of cool guy Murray.

You know a musical comedy show is pretty bad when you are actually looking fotward to Miley Cyrus showing up during a dream sequence.  Maya Rudolph supposedly can sing but you would never know it from the piss poor sound recording of her Christmas performance.

Frankly the Bill Murray "coolest guy in the room" persona is getting a little tired and let's face it Murray's looking a little old to doing it.

 56 minutes.

1934 - MAMA'S LITTLE PIRATE, an Our Gang short.

Championed by Leonard Maltin as the inspiration for The Goonies.  Mama's Little Pirate is just another version of Jack and the Beanstock. About the only thing these two films have in common is the search for treasure.  Sorry Leonard I think you might have got it wrong this time. 





18 minutes.

1938 - A YANK AT OXFORD, making them the way MGM likes them.

A Yank At Oxford holds the distinction of being the first MGM film to be filmed in England instead of some studio set in Hollywood.  This is MGM at it's most typical, a good production and utter blandness in story content.  After all the studio didn't want to upset it's American or British audiences.

Robert Taylor is the cocky American student who excels at athletics.  He ends up getting a scholarship to study at Oxford and runs into the usual cultural differences that result when you mix the British and those darn Yanks together.  Honestly you could write this film in your sleep and considering the six writers I believe I counted in the titles they probably did.

The film if it has any interest at all is seeing Vivian Leigh in an early role before her breakout performance in Gone With The Wind.   

An empty film kind of a waste of time.

102 minutes, written by Roland Pertwee, John Monk Saunders, Leon Gordon, Sidney Gilliat, Michael Hogan, Angus MacPhail, John Paddy Carstairs, Malcolm Stuart Boylan, Walter Ferris, George Seligman Oppenheimer, Frank Wead and F. Scott Fitzgerald (huh).

1995 - GOLDENEYE, on Blu Ray

This Bond film actually played pretty well for me after sitting through SPECTRE.  The miniatures and special effects are very well done.  This was the last production that featured Derek Medding's special effects.  Meddings had started his career working for Gary Anderson's Thunderbirds and Fireball XL5.  The miniatures are blended very well with the live action of the film.

Pierce Brosnan always kind of suffered at the hands of his series of Bond films.  The stories were kind of silly but at least they were a little more in keeping with the light weight style of the previous films before they became so heavy handed.  Brosnan always uncomfortably walked the line between copying Sean Connery and Roger Moore, but I would have to say he wasn't too bad in this film.

The film is as usual with Bond films is just a little longer than it needs to be but considering the direction the series took Goldeneye almost seems like a fast paced ninety minute movie,

This was the Bond that introduced Brosnan as Bond and everyone seemed to try a little bit harder on this one with a different director and more contemporary story instead of the usual madman out to destroy the world plot.  I actually enjoyed watching this Bond film for a change.

130 minutes, written by Jeffrey Caine and Bruce Feirstein.

2015 - PITCH PERFECT 2, more of the same

My spouse liked it.

115 minutes

2015 - SPECTRE, more of the same

Daniel Craig, the actor who couldn't crack a joke if his life depended on in is back in his 4th and hopefully last Bond film.  This time the writers tried to give Craig a sense of humor with some Sean Connery or Roger Moore type of wisecracks but it's just not in him to have a light touch with a line of dialog.

The film itself is kind of a mess story wise, with the production team trying to tie together all of Craig's previous films into some kind of story telling epic, that doesn't succeed.  In fact the whole series seems just completely exhausted from a story telling point but what are they going to do but keep making Bond films.  The films still make money.

As with all Bond movies the production values are high.  The films are good to look at and the action stuff is fairly well done.  However there is an uncomfortable call back to previous Bond films particularly the Sean Connery films with many scenes borrowed and reworked for SPECTRE.

 

The film has take some heavy hits from some critics but really this is the same old stuff told in a rather pedestrian way. The last 20 minutes are probably the worst part of the film and it's a long film as well.

148 minutes, written by John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth.

1976 - THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE, fascinating crime drama

John Cassevettes writes and directs a film noir / crime drama genre film with his usual touches.  I. E. lots of long scenes shot in a semi improvisational style.  Great attention is paid to character and the photography really eschews any kind of standard Hollywood look.

This is a very challenging film Cassevettes has one of leads, Ben Gazzara on screen almost the entire film.  Gazzara is the owner of a stage club who stages nudie shows with actual themes and stories in them.  As we watch Gazzara go through his life messing things up the viewer becomes more immersed in his fascinatingly seedy personality.

The film comes to a climax in an act of violence that has severe consequences for Gazzaras's character, Cosmo Vittelli.  But really the film is a study of a low life and his low life world.  The rest of the cast (including the strippers) are pretty good.

135 minutes.