Which FORCE 10 has plenty of... an eclectic group, mostly at bickering odds, with genuine chemistry while GUNS moves along too sluggishly for an action flick, has very little intrigue for an adapted twist-filled espionage, and for what's a worthy ensemble on paper, the characters, from stalwart mountain-climber Gregory Peck, explosives-expert-second David Niven, vengeful widower Anthony Quinn, patient middleman Anthony Quayle (these four far too old), machine-gun blasting youth James Darren and strong-silent-type Stanley Baker, all seem... despite collectively sent to destroy the Nazi's strategically-placed gigantic title gun on the titular Greek isle... in entirely different movies. Rates: **
THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (1961)
THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS (2018)
LIVE CREAM (ALBUM)
LIVE CREAM is the best live Cream album, covering songs from the first LP Fresh Cream and Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker (bass/lead vocals, guitar/vocals and drums) are able to not only expand upon those relatively unknown tunes but to turn them into extended blues/jazz jams...
When you listen to and get to know this album inside and out (which includes a studio ditty Lawdy Mama, which is Strange Brew with more blue-oriented/less psychedelic-oriented lyrics), and then crank up Fresh Cream, it's a lot like hearing some of the 1970's Grateful Dead albums wherein their studio work is simply a means to a live performance end... And Cream's second live album VOL 2. (both came out after the band broke up) is more catered to mainstream audiences or mega Eric Clapton fans, mostly covering the band's popular "hits" like Sunshine of your Love and White Room... but LIVE CREAM is the album-experience that proves who the original JAM BAND really was. And still IS... all you need to do is listen. And keep listening.
THE LAST ACTION HERO (1993)
The main problem is, Arnold did this movie way too soon. After TERMINATOR 2 he was at the peak of his powers, and he winds up showing audiences how stupid those kind of movies are. The funny thing is, Arnold's most popular "Action" films are really Science-Fiction... Not just TERMINATOR 1 and 2 but TOTAL RECALL, THE RUNNING MAN and PREDATOR... plus the CONAN films which are sci-fi's sibling, Fantasy...
Many of the cliches through the JACK SLATER universe do NOT exist in actual action movies... In those they're part but here they are glaring stereotypes that serve no purpose at all. Especially unfitting is the CARTOON CAT that shows up as a working cop in the police station. No Arnold or Sly Stallone or Bruce Willis movie has EVER had a cartoon mix in with humans (and the central kid actor is a bore)...
The
only two good things are the tall/lanky, totally scary-looking Tom Noonan as an ax-killer who should have been the ONLY MAIN villain instead of Charles
Dance making fun of Charles Dance..
And F. Murray Abraham as Jack's fictional cop partner turned backstabber
could have had more merit than two quick scenes, so the fact is,
the film-within-the-film is treated with no respect, and it's simply not
entertaining (like Arnold's following years' comeback, a real action movie, TRUE LIES): For instance, JACK SLATER IV opens with a five-minute scene between two very old men having a conversation (Tony
Quinn and Art Carney), which would bore the daylights out of
any kid watching on opening night. And, after all the nonsense, by the time the fictional characters do a TIME AFTER TIME meets THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO and enter real life, the
audience is exhausted. A shame since THAT movie was far better than the
other. SCORE: **
MIRACLE OF THE ORIGINAL 'GHOSTBUSTERS'
Basically, the original GHOSTBUSTERS was a shocking success that no one saw coming (including all those who were THERE on opening night). Had John Belushi starred alongside Akyroyd as intended, it probably would have not worked since Belushi, as great as he was and always the craziest guy in the proverbial crazy train, didn't have the subtle skill of undoing all the work done by others. Murray was there all along to say, "This story is silly and I don't know why I'm here" which was needed given the insane premise and, without him OR Harold Ramis to make Dan's character that much more serious-minded about all the mind-boggling, fantastical science, there's simply no use of trying to trap the same lighting in the same bottle… which, as noted several times, wasn't even possible in 1989 for an unnecessary sequel attempting to tread the same ground that was miraculously successful to begin with.
SHADOWS AND FOG (WOODY ALLEN)
His films usually have no empty spaces wherein one forgots what they're watching. Even his best work, from ANNIE HALL to CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, leave the viewer exhausted, if only from laughing or smiling (or thinking) too much.... FOG however sporadically loses touch within its own story and at times the actors seem directionless. And as strong and infectious Woody is a writer, sometimes his "guest stars" here seem to be desperately improvising (especially Johns Cusack and Malkovich... although they're also doing Woody impressions); on the other hand, the fact it's not as downright hilarious as his 1970's films also means it's that much more laid-back and subtle. Not a bad thing. Despite being about a killer on the loose, it's one of his most relaxing features. And Mia Farrow steals the show by not seeming like she's acting at all.
THE GHOST OF PETER SELLERS
Year Film: 1974 Doc: 2018 Rating: **1/2
Watching THE GHOST OF PETER SELLERS it feels like Spike Milligan, not Peter Sellers, is at fault for the Peter Medak's doomed pirate movie
GHOST IN THE NOONDAY SUN being so bad since it was Spike who talked his former Goon, Sellers,
into doing a movie that he hardly even had developed on the page.
In
one reflection, Medak, who also directs this very documentary, says that both he AND Sellers cried on the phone
together after having read what there was to read of the script. Then,
when Sellers becomes a pain to the director on set, Spike shows up to
write the last half of the script, and acts like the hero for bringing
Sellers back to the set when in reality, it was a set that should have
never been built because the script wasn't even finished from the very
beginning. A screenplay is the most important "set" of a movie. It's
everything. Seeing parts of the movie, that is, the ACTUAL movie of NOONDAY SUN,
it doesn't seem all Sellers fault despite Sellers being absolutely horrible in it.
The direction looks like test shots for rehearsals or casting
auditions, so this supposedly brilliant young director wasn't really
directing but rather just pointing his camera and filming. So perhaps the
fault isn't just on Peter Sellers here. And at the very end of the doc, when Medak is sitting next
to Spike Milligan's statue, praising him after defecating on Sellers for
two hours, it makes very little sense.
I'LL NEVER FORGET WHAT'S'ISNAME (1967)
The plot has
Oliver as an ad man quitting before we the audience know how good he is,
or about what exactly he's quitting. It feels like the movie starts 20
minutes in, even 40.
And being a 1960's counter-culture flick it's one of
those Drop-Out themes, but Reed still has wealth and girls (including gorgeous, underrated Carol White) so there's
not much of a void there to be filled, or that he's filling. And Reed is
usually so amped into roles (especially he and Winner's first and
best THE SYSTEM) but here he sleepwalks, and doesn't utter a
complete sentence until about fifteen minutes in. At least not one that
matters. And herein, not much does. Rating: **
BORN AGAIN (1978)
Who initially bullies and then protects Coulsin, played by Dean Jones, usually cast in Disney flicks as their then-modern-day Jimmy Stewart; thus that kind of man-next-door quality keeps this character-study down-home and intriguing albeit one-sided and self-promoting yet never boring but not altogether great either but, for what can be called a 2-hour cinematic Alter Call (resembling a Television Movie-of-the-Week), BORN AGAIN fits both the title and purpose, nicely enough to pass the time since these kind of preachy melodramas can often feel like eternity. Rates: ***/12
A KILLER IN THE FAMILY (TV MOVIE)
Year: 1983 Cast: Robert Mitchum, James Spader, Lance Kerwin, Eric Stoltz rates: **
Google a picture of the real life sons after they were arrested... Look at their hard, calloused faces, edgy, mean, deadly... Then watch as little-dipper eyed Lance Kerwin and docile Eric Stolz play the whining, kindhearted, manipulated, vulnerable, blue-eyed sons of the father they broke out of the jail... A father who kills an entire family including a small child...
Anyhow, if KILLER IN THE FAMILY were meaner and colder, like the real life Tison family, who were rampaging white trash serial killers throughout Arizona, unlike especially the law student son played by James Spader, supposedly wanting to kill his father while on the road, then it'd be more realistic and more an exploitation piece instead of a TV-movie that's not sure who exactly the bad guys are...
Much of the blame is laid on the dad's convict friend. Sadly, this road movie could have been really good, but Robert Mitchum was far too old to play a man with sons that could be his grandchildren... With a melting face, he has one of those ballooned stomachs that looks hard as steel from drinking and he can hardly move his old bones... Miscast, to say the least... Again, Google the real Gary Tison and see the empty shell of a human being, around forty-years old and dead to life, dead to the world...
Either way, while not terrible and sometimes entertaining, this was a missed opportunity... Reminds one of the horrible Death of a Centerfold TV-movie, that was soon trumped by the incredible theatrical Star 80... Too bad nothing came out to straighten out this crooked mess... There's a Straight-to-Video job starring Robert Patrick from 2017, but... The best thing to come out of this was the Warner Archives DVD with the original blue outlined cover; a collector's edition but, sadly, what's inside there is merely a forgotten curio, for good reason.
DETOUR (1945)
Year: 1945 Rating: **
Ann Savage's famous femme fatale would be the kind of classic Noir character had she entered the picture earlier on...
Instead, during Tom Neal's story as he, a low-rent piano player, hitchhikes from New York to L.A. to see his girl who's trying to make it big in Hollywood, Savage's Phoenix AZ con-artist babbler simply kills the self-narrated road movie buzz that'd belonged more comfortably to the far more subtle and intriguing Neal...
Her incessant bickering is annoying while
their collected con (that HE'S bickered into) is so far-fetched you'll
wish poor Tom did what he initially promised: Instead of thumbing the ride
that'd changed his life and given Savage the chance to blackmail him, to
make the whole trip across country all alone, by himself, on a
pogo-stick.
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