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davegrenfell
Reviews
The Dark Corner (1946)
Meet Bradford- he's as clean as a peeled egg- unless he's being shagged
This is one of those films noir that isn't really, it's an A picture, at least it is judging by the amazing lighting, which is particularly evident in the breathless murder scene, with William Bendix callously smashing skulls and pictures.
For those from the north of england, a detective called Bradford will always be attractive.
Essentially a vehicle for Lucille Ball (how old is she exactly??) the guy playing Bradford does a sterling job as the wisecracking, almost but not quite pretty boy detective.
This film is a must for linguistic scholars, containing as it does alternative uses for the word shagging, which in this movie means following. The dictionary says shagging baseballs is the usual term, and Bradford does employ some other baseball terminology.
In one of the early scenes these are the two lines that make everything worthwhile: 'How long have you been shagging me?' 'I catch you shagging me again, I'll ram these (pocket sundries) right down your throat.' And later in the movie (59 minutes): 'No guy in his right mind wears a white suit on a shag job.'
The movie is criminally well plotted, and shows the heroes going to a correct amount of trouble to solve the case. Like most films noir, it contradicts the rules of films noir by having the hero survive, get the girl, and enjoy a happy ending. (A film noir, it is rumoured, usually involves the hero dying but 9 times out of 10 that don't happen.) Henry Hathaway of course is responsible for Kiss of Death and Niagara, in which a naked Marilyn Monroe (according to costar Joseph Cotten) cavorts under a bedsheet with her knees a little too far apart.
White Sands (1992)
Brilliant modern noir, career best for rourke
At the time this was released, no-one knew who Sam Jackson was, but now his presence gives the film the balance needed. We know Jackson. We know the kind of mean sh*t that goes down. Dafoe is the sheriff who gets involved in Jackson's plot to catch baddie arms dealer Rourke. Dafoe has to pretend to be a dead man (Rourke doesn't know about the death). The two become friendly as Dafoe is slowly sucked into his world. The last 30 minutes is possibly the most exciting stuff I've seen, filmed in the 'White Sands' of the desert, jackson running for his life with a briefcase containing money- or so he thinks. Rourke turns out to be a CIA operative, which was a little bit unnecessary, and Dafoe perhaps is too smug in his capture of Jackson- but it all adds to the fun. Look out for a young Mimi Rogers and a very young Maura Tierney, who doesn't last long when the bad guy gets wind she's in the area. Those looking for a link between Rourke's pretty boy 80s persona and his current battered hardman image will find it here. Don't know why he decided to give it all up after this, it's exceptional.
Hook, Line and Sinker (1969)
surely the alternative title is kook's tour?
this took about five views before i got used enough to it not to feel it was too cynical to be funny. Jerry's attitude to house and kids is somewhat terrible to say the least. There isn't really enough plot to keep things going, so the film tends to drag. And jerry doesn't get enough revenge, or at least his revenge isn't clever enough to make it all worthwhile in the end. He should be fighting to get everything back and come up with some scheme so outrageous that it is at least as complex and nasty as the scheme inflicted on him. Just putting a black corpse in a coffin isn't enough. Get a gang together! Make it into the sting! Let's stitch that sob to the wall!
Waitress (2007)
Not enough happening
This film is twenty minutes too long. I don't know why, because nothing much happens in the first 45 minutes. We find out our heroine is pregnant, and likes making pies, and works as a Waitress. Then we are reminded of those facts, over and over again.
The woman is bored of her life, so the film shows this, quite mistakenly, in a very boring way. My feeling is, the more boring a character's life is, the more dynamic and rapid the camera and editing should be, to provide contrast and stop us all falling asleep.
After the big kiss happens, at the 45 minutes mark (twenty five minutes too late) there aren't enough consequences. Nobody finds out. Nobody gets in trouble. That's not enough. Why does she cheat at all if there aren't going to be problems because of it? The film reminded me a good deal of that Sarah Polley movie My Life Without Me, about the mom who gets cancer, doesn't tell anyone, has an affair that no-one finds out about, then dies. Where's the drama? The conflict?
Adrienne Shelley was a great actor and creative spirit, and somebody needs to get back in the editing room and kick this film into shape so it provides a fitting testament to her. As it stands, it's like a stage play in an early draft.
Nightmare Alley (1947)
No Alley Involved but a couple of GEEKS
Brilliant movie, classic example of good, dense, cinematic writing. A propulsive plot rockets from the depths of a touring carnival to the airless heights of wealthy but emotionally derelict high society. Tyrone Power, preaching religion, saying he is God's messenger and so on, nearly getting his own church, just goes one step too far and plummets to the depths, in two excellent scenes, becoming first a drunk tramp and then: a GEEK. Anyone not familiar with this movie may not realise that the word GEEK was popularised,perhaps even created, by the writer of the original source novel. A GEEK being the lowest carnie act,the drunk, the junkie, forced by the carnie boss to live in a cage and bite the heads off chickens for their next fix. Tyrone starts off as a barker for a mind reading act, steals his partners first act, a 'code' mind reading act, sort of accidentally killing off his love rival along the way,then, forced to marry the young Electra, he runs off and becomes successful. He teams up with a young psychiatrist to ripoff her wealthy patients; she records their sessions and lets tyrone know the good bits. When the brown stuff hits the fan she kind of manages to convinces tyrone that it's all been in his head and she can get him put away for life. I would also recommend I Wake up Screaming and Conflict.
Conflict (1945)
Conflict?
Not the most imaginative title in the world. How about:
Evelyn; The Red Rose; I want her Dead; Some come Back; Impulse
Watching Bogie's detective stuff, you tend to forget he started off as bad guys. This is kind of a throwback to the earlier stuff, and is genuinely shocking in parts. He really is a very, very nasty character who develops an obsession with his step sister, who really doesn't care if he lives or dies. Bogie heartlessly kills his wife, (because he wants to) faking an accident, then starts to find her personal objects he thought he left with her, coming back around the house! Maybe she isn't dead? Maybe it's her ghost?? Best bit: Bogie goes in a pawnbrokers, finds one of her possessions and her signature in the goods register, comes back with a cop, but; it's a different man! And her possession isn't there! And her signature isn't in the book! The film at times is sort of a cross between the Twilight Zone and Columbo. The ending is a bit weak and i suppose may be a reshot version. The film as a whole would have benefited from some kind of shootout or gruesome, ironic twist, perhaps Bogie being driven mad, ending up in an asylum? Also, he seems to be wearing a lot of makeup to make him look younger, although that may be my imagination. I know he didn't usually, so i could be wrong.
Wrong Is Right (1982)
Not the best Richard Brooks movie
I'd never heard of this, then found out it's the man with the deadly lens, which I'd heard of but not seen. Connery's presence drove me to buy it, and it's not good. It wants to be a sort of cross between Dr Strangelove and Mash, but it just isn't that funny, unless you find the name General Wombat (?) funny. It comes across as a flat 70s thriller until the last ten minutes, when it springs to life. There are many, many flat scenes in the Whitehouse between the president and his aides which don't work. It's almost as if the initial cut was too long, and the first half was edited down to get to the whole nuclear bomb ransom storyline and the suicide bomber attacks, which i think are meant to be played for laughs, but again, aren't that funny. The location filming is excellent but the studio stuff looks like cheap TV. I could not believe the man responsible for Key Largo, Crossfire and Elmer Gantry did this. Only laugh: Connery throws away his wig before putting on his helmet and jumping out of a plane. It makes Never say Never again look like genius.
Island City (1994)
This has a similar feel to Alien Nation
It's difficult to assess this fairly in the age of digital effects. At times this looks very ropey indeed, and then there are moments, the 'magic door' effect that allows them to hop from point to point in Island City for example, or the early cgi of the city itself, that work very well. The plot: in the future everyone has been injected with an anti aging medicine. Some people reacted well and stopped aging. But most mutated into violent, brutish sub humans with super strength and so on. The only safe place left on the planet for 'normal' humans now is Island City. There is a sort of police force who patrol the wilderness and help the few ordinary humans who still, for no good reason, live outside the borders of island City, which is where the show falls apart really. Why doesn't every human simply move into island city? Anyway, during the episode one member of the team goes missing, and because he was born inside Island City, he has no immunity to the horrible diseases in the air outside, which means he only has 48 hours to live. So the force, headed by Kevin Conroy, voice of Batman in the cartoon, and assisted by Eric McCormack and that braless woman from Seinfeld, rush to find him. Kevin and Braless are really old but look really young. Her husband didn't take the anti aging injection, so he's old, and very jealous of Kevin. Eric McCormack is the product of a Pentagon genetically engineered soldiering clone program, so there are 36 or so other versions of him running round. He's the one with the brains, but sadly he has no co-ordination, so can't run or fight. The soldier who is missing has a son in Island City who spends most of his time using his virtual reality headset for homework and pleasure, although there is a parental block on it. The replacement for the captured policeman turns out to be a half mutant. All the other inhabitants of Island City have a dna indicator on their chests, which glow in different colours, indicating who it is safe to mate with, so that more mutants are not produced. The half mutant however has a black crystal, which means he can't have sex- ever. They don't have condoms in the future apparently. The old woman's sister, rather improbably, turns up in the episode, and is very keen on getting a dna indicator so she can shag Kevin Conroy. Kevin and Braless have compatible crystals, which helps explain why her husband is jealous. They yearn for each other but don't do anything- so far. They find the guy. The half mutant and Eric soon realise that by teaming up they have both strength and brains. What next in Island City?
Gumshoe (1971)
la la land
The only possible bad thing that can be said about this is that Frank Finlay's accent is right out of the Northern Character box. Albert Finney's scouse accent is spot on, but Frank... I don't see how you can excuse that, especially after nearly ten years of the Beatles being everywhere, all the time. The same is true for a good many of the characters in Get Carter, very few of which sound to originate from Newcastle. In comparison to Get Carter, this is just as complicated, taking its time to reveal the key to the mystery, which I think (though I could have missed it) was the white leader of a black south African independence movement and his kidnapped daughter, so elements perhaps of Casablanca coming in there. It is fantastic to examine that typically 40s character, which seems so natural and realistic when played by Bogart, and take him out of that context into a very, very run down Liverpool, and see how he appears: somewhat psychotic in this instance. Eddie's wonderful lines come across as the product of someone just the wrong side of intense mania, especially as he gets deeper and deeper into the 'character' he finds himself playing. I wonder in fact if the relatively light and charming ending was the right way to go, and if he shouldn't have ended up committing some terrible crime because of his inability to stop being the detective, even when the mystery is solved. Interesting also to compare Finney's performance in this with another TCM favourite, Night must Fall, when the madness does overwhelm him.
Sky Bandits (1986)
There are much, much poorer films out there than this
Really bad films are boring and incomprehensible: Target Eagle for one, or The Domino Killings. This is neither. Yes, it doesn't have the biggest budget in the world, but the acting is relatively good, and the story makes sense.
The two main characters are played by guys who've faded away, but they have repartee, they get on, they know their lines and so forth.
They are two cowboys who rob banks. They're caught, and forced to join the army instead of being sent to jail. Once at the front they are determined to desert and steal a plane so they can get the hell out of there. Once in the air (which isn't improbable: like Blackadder says, the pilots only received about half an hour of training) they encounter an enormous zeppelin, a German secret weapon. They crashland at an English airbase and are immediately recruited by the base's crazy commander.
Here is the most interesting sequence of the film, which contains a genuine narrative surprise, entirely unexpected and all the more welcome for it. The base is located in an old circus tent. There are prostitutes galore, and all the pilots are having a wild old time. However, this is a suicide squadron, with one aim: destroy the secret German weapon and also die in the attempt.
The arrival of the zeppelin does get a bit crappy, but again, not as bad as, say, the Biggles movie, which really was excrementally poor, and from around the same era.
The worst thing about this movie by far is the complete lie on the poster, which features two guys in modern dress. No mention of the first world war at all.
See it for the art direction, the surprisingly good war scenes and the planes.
8 Million Ways to Die (1986)
Only one quick
Hal Ashby being sacked explains a lot; so does the disappearance of Oliver Stone. You can imagine how much tougher and seedier it would have been in Stone's hands. But Ashby, it would seem, tightened up and found his movie in the editing room, as this movie is not quite there. There is a curious lack of incidental music, except when it isn't needed, and what is there tends to foreshadow action. Scudder's initial descent into alcoholism is almost skipped over; you suspect that Stone or Ashby, given half the chance, would have added some detail to the descent. Instead of which Scudder's wife suddenly disappears, he's on his own. Perhaps you can explain this by saying 'blackout' but I think it's an error. The movie is realistically slow, treating the characters as real people, which is perhaps a mistake for the genre. There isn't much action until the very end, and the couple of bits during the film are followed by Scudder blacking out, so we don't get him dealing with the aftermath of these violent events. This is one of the few Block/Scudder novels i haven't read, so I can't comment on how similar to the book it is. My guess would be very, since Block tends to go in for very violent climaxes preceded by Scudder wondering if he'll hit the bottle again. Falls nicely into the Jeff Bridges B-movie crime genre which the Coens picked up on with The Big Lebowski.
It Rained All Night the Day I Left (1980)
Poor at the start, but improves
This seems to be a pretty poor movie to begin with, but develops well. Very surprising, because it is filmed in the middle of nowhere, at minimal price.
Tony Curtis and Lou Gossett are gun runners, who go to work for Sally K when their guns are stolen. John Vernon, who is,as usual, brilliant, is her rival for the local water supply, and also the man who she thinks wants to marry her. In fact he's after her daughter, and there's a nicely comic sequence involving him and Curtis where Sally's rampaging around with a gun.
The characters are all fairly nasty, especially Curtis, who with his wisecracking acting don't give a sh*t style is really rather frighteningly convincing as a mercenary. What lets it down a little is him starting to empathize with the natives. Sally's husband, a former Nazi, was shot by someone, and she's locking up the local water until the natives tell her who.
Eventually, the government repossesses everyone's land, kicks them all out, and the natives gain control of the water supplies, with the help of the guns stolen from Curtis and Gossett. There's a bit more than that, but not much. So again, the title makes more sense than at first it appears. Feels like a weak episode of the A Team.
Has one moment of good cinema, when John Vernon turns on the tap in Sally's house, fires his gun as a signal to his men, and the water slowly stops running, indicating they've seized control of the supply. But that's all.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Ees nice
This is one of the few films that has made me laugh a lot. The screening started an hour later than planned, in a very hot cinema, so everyone was probably a little dizzy with dehydration, which probably helped the feeling of giddiness. Unfortunately my sight lines were blocked by the low rake of seats, which made it almost impossible to read the occasional hilarious subtitles.
OK. The movie purports to be from Kstan (cowardice spelling of tricky word) so has soviet era graphics and credits, but then very good quality 35mm sequences which spoils it a little bit. Might have been a little braver and convincing to have the whole thing in low quality Kazakh video.
The balls in the face. The balls in his f***** face. Oh God, oh sweet dear God. He's wrestling naked with his fellow star, a very fat man, whose genitals are obscured by his rolls of hairy flabby flesh, and he ends up with the man sat on his face, his nose up his arse, and the man's balls ON HIS FACE. At the same time there seems to be a little bit of tentativity, as Mr Cohen's penis is blacked out with an enormous penis shaped black blob. The pair then run naked through the hotel they're staying in, get crammed in a lift with strangers, and invade a conference, at which point they are wrestled to the ground by security.
I don't know if it was faked or not. There's no way to tell. They weren't shot, so maybe it wasn't real. Certainly at the end, where he shoves Pamela Anderson into his marriage sack at a Virgin megastore signing, she must have known about it before.
A few of the scenes are taken from his British series and reshot in America, but with an extra twist. He invites a black prostitute to an etiquette dinner of white southern secessionists. They call the cops. He smashes $425 of crockery in a civil war antiques shop. He buys a bar and rides around with it in an old ice cream van. He kisses strangers in the street, and chases them when they run away.
It's certainly a lot better than his performance in Talladega Nights. Maybe Ferrell didn't want to be upstaged, or didn't want to rub his balls in Sacha's face. Oh God. OH GOD.
Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water (2004)
Needs some outside shots: very, very boring
This is OK for about half an hour, but all of the interviews seem to take place in hotel rooms, in black and white, and it's not very visually interesting. Isn't there any footage of Star Trek conventions that could be cut in to break things up a little bit? Couldn't we see the home turf of the Klingon Language Institute? The home life of the guy who spoke nothing but Klingon to his two year old son? There are strange little abstract images as well, and perhaps this is where bigger shots would be edited in, when the makers can afford them. The feel of it is like a reasonable quality student film. It just needs more investigation into the lives of these people, even if it's just following around that fat singer for a day or two, or random interviews at conventions with fans. And more colour! One camera, pointed at people sat on chairs, for two hours? Even news programmes keep their interviews down to about three minutes.
Where the Spies Are (1965)
Serious, well written thriller
A good, Bond like thriller, far removed from the standard 60s spy spoofs. Far more serious than even The Ipcress File, this features some very realistic deaths and torture sequences, and a climactic 'tricking the KGB plane' bit that is really nasty indeed. Niven plays it totally straight, with none of the comedy mannerisms that you feel familiar with from films like Casino Royale. A true gem. Bears comparison with The Spy who Came in From the cold.
Niven's character is a doctor who once spied during the war. The British Secret Service are desperate for someone who could justifiably visit Beirut to check on one of their spies who's gone missing (he's been shot) and there happens to be a medical conference there. Niven is a car fanatic, and is bribed with the promise of a very rare Cord Le Baron, which is his dream car. The Cord he drives, incidentally, is very similar to Bond's Bentley Continental, which is probably deliberate.
The plane he is due to get from Italy to Beirut blows up, and from then on he's really up against it. A very, very well written, well shot and performed movie, with terrific performances all round.
Gaav (1969)
Ranks alongside Godard and Fellini
This neglected new wave classic is a fast paced, perfectly edited masterpiece. It rockets along at a thousand miles an hour, and it's impossible to take your eyes off the screen. The shocking opening, of a tormented man having his face smeared with blood by a seemingly military man, sets the stage for an increasingly violent and disturbing movie about one man and his cow, and the hell he descends into.
Set in Iran, the basic premise is of two villages, who are constantly stealing each other's cattle, sheep etc. The rival village kills the beloved cow while his owner is away. His friends decide the shock would kill him, and decide to tell him it ran away. However, when he gets back, the shock of its disappearance drives him insane, and he comes to believe that he is in fact the missing cow, even when the villagers tell him the truth. Eventually he is taken into the desert and killed by his former friends, like a cow to the slaughter.
You can see why modern Iranian cinema is so slow. It's obviously a reaction against this hyperdelic editing.
Greetings (1968)
DeNiro is a natural comedian
The most interesting thing about this early, cheap DePalma movie is DeNiro's performance, containing shades of his later work in Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy and Meet the Parents. In view of Greetings, and since it would appear the DeNiro didn't do the intense method preparation he became so famous for, we might wonder whether he actually isn't a very talented comedian who stumbled into method acting almost by accident (with a lot of hard work). Certainly his performance in Taxi Driver takes on a new dimension compared with his hilarious take on a Vietnam draftee pretending to be outrageously racist here. The careful, almost stilted speech he delivers straight to camera when he reads the sex book is reminiscent of the verbal fumbling of Rupert Pupkin. Indeed, his whole career is put into an entirely fresh perspective by this early, fresh performance, which is a must for anyone interested in his work.