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Some fun stuff, but generally speaking, it was pretty forgettable.
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[Farewell My Lovely] I remember watching it years and years ago. And you're right, I did enjoy it.
Both were wonderful. Actually I think Mike Mazurki made a better "Moose" Malloy in the Powell version than did Jack O'Halloran in the '75 version.



I always get confused between O'Halloran and Richard Kiel, even though Kiel was an actual giant.





The Wraith

Was a lot better than I expected. Kind of a carsploitation, sci-fi, paranormal, revenge, action/comedy, cult thing that feels about as 80's as any movie I can think of (white jeans and roller skates are just the beginning). Stars Tiger Blood as the new guy in town with a secret past, Randy Quaid as a Sheriff investigating strange car crash deaths, Nick Cassavetes as the gang leading, bad guy repo man, Clint Howard in a Jack Nance hairdo circa 1977 and Sherilynn Fenn as the roller skating car hop, love interest/damsel in distress. You don't watch this for the plot but it's not terrible. Nick is into racing cars in the desert and if he wins takes your cars title. Spoiler - he never loses. He's also extremely protective of his girlfriend and may do worse than repo your car if you so much as look at her and considering it's Sherilynn, looking about as good as she ever has, that can be a struggle especially if you have Tiger Blood flowing through your veins. Well, Tiger Blood shows up and the conflict is born. You watch it for the car crashes/racing and goofiness which it has plenty of. The 80's metal soundtrack isn't bad either. There are two characters of the gang, Skank and Gutterboy, a couple of dimwitted punks who are hilarious and Quaid delivers some good lines as well. It's silly and campy, never dull and I had fun watching it.




The Manchurian Candidate

A real solid thriller. Everyone knows the story or at least is familiar with the term Manchurian Candidate so reviewing the plot seems pointless and I'm not good at doing that anyway. Okay, a guy has been brainwashed to assassinate somebody, at some time but even he doesn't know who or when. Kind of like Reggie Jackson in the Naked Gun but a little different. There isn't really anything to knock about this, it's that good from top to bottom. Loved all the performances but Angela Lansbury was particularly good as the driving force behind a showpiece Senator. The thing it had me doing was wondering who may have been Manchurian Candidates in the past and who is one now? They're out there just like the Greys! Will be watching this again.



Brother (1997)




I knew going in that this was a popular crime film in Russia. When it first started I wondered about the state of their moviemaking business because it's pretty low budget. Soon enough I realized that the budget lends itself to the look and style. It's grimy and ugly, sort of in a Romper Stomper kind of way. The lead character is very good, young and naive in some ways but badass in others. There's a sequel and I'll be checking it out too.



[quote=Takoma11;2184613]


I haven't seen this for years but remember really enjoying it, will search out again. The only Jarman I've seen other that "Sebastiane" which I also enjoyed (but was quite close to the bone).



Both were wonderful. Actually I think Mike Mazurki made a better "Moose" Malloy in the Powell version than did Jack O'Halloran in the '75 version.
Oh yes. He was one of those actors I always took note of whenever I spotted him onscreen. Let's see, I remember him in Donovan's Reef and he was on an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies playing a wrestler. And I think I even saw him in a music video once. Maybe a Rod Stewart one? Great character actor.





The Wraith

Was a lot better than I expected. Kind of a carsploitation, sci-fi, paranormal, revenge, action/comedy, cult thing that feels about as 80's as any movie I can think of (white jeans and roller skates are just the beginning). Stars Tiger Blood as the new guy in town with a secret past, Randy Quaid as a Sheriff investigating strange car crash deaths, Nick Cassavetes as the gang leading, bad guy repo man, Clint Howard in a Jack Nance hairdo circa 1977 and Sherilynn Fenn as the roller skating car hop, love interest/damsel in distress. You don't watch this for the plot but it's not terrible. Nick is into racing cars in the desert and if he wins takes your cars title. Spoiler - he never loses. He's also extremely protective of his girlfriend and may do worse than repo your car if you so much as look at her and considering it's Sherilynn, looking about as good as she ever has, that can be a struggle especially if you have Tiger Blood flowing through your veins. Well, Tiger Blood shows up and the conflict is born. You watch it for the car crashes/racing and goofiness which it has plenty of. The 80's metal soundtrack isn't bad either. There are two characters of the gang, Skank and Gutterboy, a couple of dimwitted punks who are hilarious and Quaid delivers some good lines as well. It's silly and campy, never dull and I had fun watching it.
The Wraith is definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. You know what part stuck in my head? There's a scene where Quaid is talking with Clint Howard and they're walking through the wreckage and aftermath of the Wraith's latest visitation and for some reason the director chooses to go with this shot where the camera is like half a football field away from the actors. I always wonder what went into a choice like that.





The longest slowest movie ever. Ever watch a movie & you think it’s been 3 hours when it’s only 45 minutes? That’s this movie. If not for James Franco I would have bailed out. Not a bad story by any means & I did make it to the end. But excruciatingly slow.





Strangely, I had never seen this very excellent movie. Lemmon & Fonda were terrific.
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The Wraith is definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. You know what part stuck in my head? There's a scene where Quaid is talking with Clint Howard and they're walking through the wreckage and aftermath of the Wraith's latest visitation and for some reason the director chooses to go with this shot where the camera is like half a football field away from the actors. I always wonder what went into a choice like that.
Not the scene that sticks out for me but I went back and watched that scene and there was some obvious dubbing.



Not the scene that sticks out for me but I went back and watched that scene and there was some obvious dubbing.
Ahh, I see. So it was the director spackling a nail hole. Camouflage so to speak. Okey doke.












Sing and Like It - 1934 comedy starring Zasu Pitts. It's a farce but with no actual straight man to play off of. Everyone is a character in this and the jokes and insults fly at a breakneck pace. The lion's share of the best lines come from the two actors who more or less steal the show, Pert Kelton as gangster moll Ruby and Ned Sparks as the gang-leader's second in command Toots McGuire. Easily recognizable character actor Nat Pendleton also stars as gangster T. Fennimore (Fenny) Sylvester.

Pitts plays the starstruck Annie Snodgrass who dreams of a big break on stage while rehearsing with a local amateur theater troupe. When Sylvester and his gang break into the safe of a local bank he chances to hear Annie warbling a tune about mothers which, for some reason, hits him where he lives. He tracks her down and, after a repeat performance, becomes obsessed with putting her in a Broadway show. He then hunts down the marvelous Edward Everett Horton as put upon Broadway producer Adam Frink and intimidates him into casting Annie in his next big hit.

This is a precode movie so there are plenty of gags and allusions that probably wouldn't have flown by unnoticed in the coming years. There are numerous references to Fenny never having mistreated Ruby in all their time together. But then being a frustrated actress herself she grows jealous of the hapless Annie and decides to sabotage Fenny's plans. This of course leads to a scene with her sporting two black eyes. If you can get past stuff like this then you'll find this a suprisingly clever and witty farce.



Robot Jox -


To paraphrase Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "robots fighting robots is no basis for a system of government." Those in control of the post-apocalyptic Earth in Robot Jox would beg to differ because that very thing determines who controls what few habitable pieces of land remain. A movie that's essentially the Cold War in a nutshell, its centerpiece is a showdown between American jock/jox/what have you Achilles, who's back for "one last job," and Russian Alexander, who's not much of a rule follower. Even though it's over 30 years old, the robot fight scenes hold up pretty well. While their uses of forced perspective, green screen, etc. are obvious, they're professionally filmed, each attack has a visceral impact, I could tell who was fighting who - something that isn't always clear in modern movies like this one - and best of all, they're fun to watch. Believe it or not, and don't fret, but the movie is not just about robot fights: there are also Cold War and sci-fi military-inspired plotlines involving espionage and eugenics that held my interest and defied my expectations and the production design, while minimal and thrifty, still manages to both honor and parody the design found in dystopian sci-fi from its era. Just because a feature film is short does not mean it's lean in content, but this one is decidedly lean. When it ended, I had a somewhat "that's all?" reaction. The character development is partly to blame: while the movie serves Achilles well enough, it's pretty scant for everyone else. It is thus no masterpiece, but if you're wondering if it's a good addition to Stuart Gordon's filmography, a worthy member of the robot fighting genre, worth the wait for it to appear on streaming services and, well...fun, the answer is "yes" to all four.




Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971, John Hancock)

A masterpiece this film is not - in fact, many would dismiss it as a badly made piece of hippie-drenched cult nonsense, and if i were to be objective I would have to agree. But it's one of those films that, in spite of the flaws, kind of puts you under a spell and lulls you into its world. There's a dreamy, hazy, hypnotic quality to it - like an acid trip. The low-budget production feels like a choppy, disjointed affair but, on the other hand, it also lends it an eerily real, almost documentary vibe (not unlike the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only without the visceral shocking horror of the latter). Some of the cinematography is absolutely mesmerizing, with countryside scenery coming through beautifully wistful yet subtly foreboding at the same time, and the sparse score is effective in creating the atmosphere. A number of elements in the film instantly evoke parallels with other horror classics, like the opening sequence of the car with the lead characters inside winding down countryside roads and stopping at the cemetery (Night of the Living Dead), or the closing one (Friday the 13th).

Technically this may not be a very well made film but I enjoyed it very much, and I definitely understand its cult status. It has that certain low-budget charm and realness to it that I found strangely compelling.
Absolutely LOVE this film. I actually think that the "low budget" look adds a bit to the vibe. One of my favorite moments is toward the beginning when she sees the woman on the stairs and she just freezes because she doesn't know if she's real and if she isn't, it means she is still mentally ill.


Brother (1997)




I knew going in that this was a popular crime film in Russia. When it first started I wondered about the state of their moviemaking business because it's pretty low budget. Soon enough I realized that the budget lends itself to the look and style. It's grimy and ugly, sort of in a Romper Stomper kind of way. The lead character is very good, young and naive in some ways but badass in others. There's a sequel and I'll be checking it out too.
One of the stars of this one is in a film I really like called Prisoner of the Mountains. He unfortunately died very young in an avalanche.



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Bustin' Looose (1981)


I wanted to like this movie. It's just that those damn kids were as annoying for me as the viewer as they were supposed to be for Pryor. That, and they were entirely unconvincing. Kids simply aren't that messed up and not in juvenile hall or dead. Then there's the relationship with everybody involved. None of it makes any sense. In fact, the entire movie made no sense. As a vehicle for Pryor's comedy, it fails because he's not even trying to be funny.

It has a 6.1 imdb rating, but I don't get it.



Bustin' Looose (1981)

I don't know how to do the popcorn rating smiley thing, so 1 out of 5 boxes of popcorn.

I wanted to like this movie. It's just that those damn kids were as annoying for me as the viewer as they were supposed to be for Pryor. That, and they were entirely unconvincing. Kids simply aren't that messed up and not in juvenile hall or dead. Then there's the relationship with everybody involved. None of it makes any sense. In fact, the entire movie made no sense. As a vehicle for Pryor's comedy, it fails because he's not even trying to be funny.

It has a 6.1 imdb rating, but I don't get it.
Just do this [*rating]1[/rating] but remove the * and you'll get this



One of the stars of this one is in a film I really like called Prisoner of the Mountains. He unfortunately died very young in an avalanche.
That's crazy he was the star and it happened while filming a movie.



That's crazy he was the star and it happened while filming a movie.
It's a horrible story. I watched Prisoner of the Mountain (which I highly recommend, BTW) around 2002-2003, and so when I went to IMDb him shortly after I was shocked to find that he had just died.





Arctic - If you've never seen Mads Mikkelsen in anything or even if you have and you want definitive proof of just how good an actor he is then you need to watch this. I've never seen Hannibal but I've heard and read the near universal acclaim he's garnered for his work in that series. And I did watch Valhalla Rising, another example of him doing some gargantuan heavy lifting acting wise with little to no dialogue.

In this film he literally and quite single-handedly carries the movie. He plays H. Overgård and in the films cold (both figurative and literal) opening he is shown working his way through what appears to be a methodical routine. He laboriously digs in frozen tundra, checks an array of fishing lines and trudges up a rise where he hand cranks what appears to be a homing transmitter of some kind. First time Brazilian director Joe Penna gradually reveals that Overgård has survived a plane crash in the frozen snowbound wilderness. The digging is his SOS banner and the fishing lines are his only source of food. It's also never clearly delineated how long he has been there but he does have a relatively safe shelter in the wreckage of his plane. This all changes one day when he spots a rescue helicopter while making his rounds in the middle of a rapidly building storm. The chopper crashes and he finds an injured young woman in the wreckage. Her copilot has died and Overgård takes her back to his makeshift home and tends to her wounds as best he can. It's only after looking through her effects and realizing the extent of her injuries that he accepts he no longer has the limited luxury of waiting for a rescue that may never come. With the help of a topographical map he salvages from the helicopter he decides to undertake the long and perilous journey with the young woman to the nearest outpost.

Mikkelsen probably doesn't utter more than a couple of dozen words over the course of the movie. His performance is accomplished solely with his marvelously expressive face. I've been a fan of his since Casino Royale, Flame and Citron and Valhalla Rising but he just blew me away in this. He is onscreen about 99% of the time with the young actress playing the pilot (Maria Thelma Smáradóttir) filling in the rest and there are no dead spots. The beautiful and austere Icelandic landscapes contribute mightily as well.