tzipple-1 Reviews

Recount (2008 TV Movie)

Quite good for a cable production

[7/10 · 26 May 2008]

Given the circumstances of the Florida recount and the subsequent damage that the Bush administration has done, it would have been east to take a lot of cheap shots in this film. For the most part, the film avoids this temptation and presents an accurate chronology of the events. The actors seldom overplay their characters.... except for maybe Laura Dern as Harris (though this can be forgiven Harris is such a pathetic and cartoonish character in real life). It was pretty engaging even though most viewers know the outcome in broad strokes. When the authoritative book is done on the last 8 years, these events will be a prominent part in the history. Congrats to HBO for getting there first.

I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

Slasher Film With A message

[8/10 · 3 September 2006]

This is a great film. It is basically a slasher film about a really ugly rape fantasy that plays out on the screen. That already makes it unique in a category of film in which violence is bloody but not really disturbing. Relative to most slasher film violence, it is pretty explicit and disturbing stuff. But then the film morphs into a feminist version of The Wild Bunch. All of the bad guys get offed in bloody, ugly ways. And they are trapped by the original victim "seducing" them to get them close enough for the kill. Great irony in this all. Production values are good for a small, low budget indie film like this. Acting is, of course, uneven but the heroine does a credible job. Well worth seeing.

The Screaming Skull (1958)

Dull, Dull, Dull

[2/10 · 17 August 2006]

When I was six, I saw this movie first run and it gave me nightmares for months. I was afraid to be in my room alone, worrying about the screaming skull rolling across my floor.Twenty years later I noticed it running on television at 1:00 AM and decided to stay up to relive one of the great horrors of my childhood. The only horror that I experienced watching it as an adult was trying to stay awake! Terrible script, acting, and production combine to make it a particularly cheesy film. OK, I know that there are fans for these kinds of regrettable films, but unless you are one of these folks with unlimited time to watch bad films, avoid it.

The Thorn (1971)

A Lost, Very Funny Little Film

[6/10 · 9 July 2006]

I admit to biases. I knew Peter McWilliams (credited in the film as Peter Alexander, who directed this film in the early 1970s. Even then he was a great social critic and a gentle, funny man. I was at the "world premiere" held late one night in 1971 at the Detroit Institute of Art and I loved the film, even though my girlfriend who grew up in a conservative Christian family walked out. I also think Bette Midler was a jerk for cranking up the legal system to kill the film after she consented to be in it. And any film brave enough to spoof the birth of Jesus deserves some respect! All of that said, I still think that the movie stands as a good, sort of experimental, comedy. Granted, it was made on the cheap, almost as a gag. But the script has some very funny moments. Watch Mary try to explain to Joseph how she got pregnant! It is like a 90 minute Monty Python routine. Well worth watching.