THE LOCUST EATERS (BRITISH TELEVISION)

One of those shows that doesn't work the way it's supposed to, but is still pretty good in a laidback, kind of neo noirish, hangout fashion... The overall plot is that Wanda Ventham is a sleeper agent married to born loser Ian Hendry, which is, as revealed in the pilot episode, an arranged marriage by her agency so that... well... that's the problem: What should be Wanda's series has almost nothing to do with her, or her former/present occupation... Meanwhile Ian Hendry, a fantastic character actor perhaps best remembered as Michael Caine's arch rival in GET CARTER, is treated here like's... Michael Caine, ironically.. with every woman throwing themselves at him when he's a balding midlife crisis...

What THE LOTUS EATERS really is is a kind of proto version of THE LOVE BOAT combined with FANTASY ISLAND... the first because each episode has visitors in which the bar-owning couple try helping out; the latter since it's filmed in the fantastical land of Greece... A nice balmy location providing a CASABLANCA vibe, had Rick and Isla stayed together only to be tempted away by every and any half decent arrival... For Wanda it's the same British spy who provided her all the expository dialogue for the audience to know her espionage alter ego (loaded with B&W flashbacks seeming out of a kitchen sink thriller)... their relationship is liken to a daytime soap... while his May/September trysts are more like nighttime male fantasy melodramas... The nicest pleasure is seeing gorgeous future ANGELS nurse Karan David (pictured) as a young precious barmaid... the best to look at despite revolving guest beauties like Anouska Hempel and Suzan Farmer... But isn't that what any British TV series is about... the birds? Years: 1972-1973 Rating: ***1/2

HOW THE WEST WAS WON (TV SERIES)

James Arness's Matt Dillon killed plenty on Gunsmoke for twenty long years, and here on HOW THE WEST WAS WON the leading man's still leading but is more a character-actor in the lead: an Indian loving mountain man who hates his own people, the whites, and thinks every Indian belch is worth more white man's gold than... white man's gold...

It's a good show that, for a season and a half, plays out like a miniseries more than a series, but the best stories go to Bruce Boxleitner as the fugitive nephew whose adventures that range from a beautiful sheriff's tough daughter Elyssa Davalos to a gang of classy villains led by Richard Basehart and Tim Matheson are entertaining as it gets... But Arness's stories, including Ricardo Montalbaun as a proud Indian who, again, is better than the evil whites, are one dimensional, which doesn't mean Arness isn't good in the role. He is good. But his stories lack story and are more preaching, so it's the young man's show here, really. Years 1976-1979 Rates: ***1/2

NICKELODEON (1976)

There's a scene in Peter Bogdanovich's tribute to early film-making when Ryan O'Neal, a goofy lawyer turned goofy director, has no idea what movie he's in the process of making: no plot, no real characters... which is ironic since director Bogdanovich might have felt the same way while making NICKELODEON... Or perhaps not... if the man who gave us brilliant classics like TARGETS and especially THE LAST PICTURE SHOW combined silent comedy slapstick with a romantic triangle with true Hollywood history in such a clumsy, uninteresting fashion... and Burt Reynolds has absolutely no chemistry as novice actor to O'Neal's novice director...

Ultimately, Bogdanovich blamed the studio for this catastrophe that basically ended his A-list career; but it's the IDEA that's flawed beyond the horribly uneven execution, not knowing which path to take in celebrating the first Hollywood independents war on the big studios (and vice versa), that, unlike PAPER MOON, is a road to absolutely nowhere... An irony because if anyone were to do a historic Hollywood piece it would be the man who began as a critic and wound up an overnight auteur sensation, but, perhaps Bogdanovich was simply too close to the material... Simply put, in doing a parody of old movie style he didn't center enough on the making of old movies. Grade: D

THE DEATH COLLECTOR/FAMILY ENFORCER (1976)

The extremely low-budget of THE DEATH COLLECTOR should not be a detriment since  it effectively provides an eerie realism to what's a potentially asphalt-gritty mob flick where relatively young climber Joe Cortese works collecting cash for lowly but still edgy crime boss Lou Criscuolo... both decent enough actors: The problem is what's missing: we never completely experience the thrills of collecting debts since it hardly ever occurs...

Indie horror flicks have creative methods of filming random killings because that can be afforded, and it's what kind of genre it is, but COLLECTOR merely aspires as a mob flick yet lacks the villainous fun in the process... Perhaps because lead actor Cortese (with underused natural-beauty girlfriend Anne Johns) is too grim and one-note serious while his buddy... a non-famous Joe Pesci... is so natural, energetic and involving, he would've made a far better lead while sidekick's sidekick/comic-relief Bobby Alto would be promoted to second banana instead of third, because he and Joe's scenes (foreshadowing Pesci's witty back-and-forth with Frank Sivero in GOODFELLAS) are the only truly human moments...  Also featuring another future Martin Scorsese regular Frank Vincent, whose low-rent mafioso foreshadows his violently doomed fates in RAGING BULL, GOODFELLAS and CASINO... Overall, THE DEATH COLLECTOR aka FAMILY ENFORCER has some terrifically shot sequences, and makes for a moody 1970's hybrid of Martin Scorsese and John Cassavetes... but its uneven story feels more pieced-together than fully realized: ultimately cheating both the characters and the audience. Grade: C—

Frank Vincent in The Death Collector

Anne Johns in The Death Collector

THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN (1979)

It's odd to experience such obviously catered-to-opening-night-audience mainstream fare from the 1970's, a decade supposedly against the kind of sellout cinema churned out more obviously in the decades that followed... Yet the main problem with THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN is the title character, a has-been rodeo star played by Robert Redford, seeming so outright tired of fame that it never feels possible he was once a professional at anything... and the connected capitalism/commercialism... in the form of a breakfast cereal he's reluctantly hawking... is also too forced and overboard to take seriously...

Meanwhile the shallow corporate goons are so shamelessly unlikable that Jane Fonda... as a journalist bent on interviewing the dissociated (thus uninteresting) Redford... never has to prove herself a worthy love-interest being merely a better person than the scum surrounding her... And the buried lead plot-line, of Redford saving an abused horse used for the commercials in the central locale of glitzy Las Vegas, feels weakly tacked onto a picture that spends too much time spoon-feeding its audience, so that... after even a mere ten minutes... everything tastes the same. RATES: **

GETTING STRAIGHT (1970)

Director Richard Rush had an incredible style, and the first half of GETTING STRAIGHT showcases his kind of handing-off of camera movements within either subtle shots of action, like an apple being passed from student to student in the opening credits in the central hippie college, to random conversations...

For instance, an envelope is dropped on a machine and as the person who set it in place is speaking, the person answering is on the other side, where that letter wound up: a beautiful baton-passing flow that would peak with THE STUNT MAN, but you can't make a miracle out of the sixties, because hippies are simply the most uninteresting characters to ever wind up on film, ironically dying to be independent-minded and free, they're all cookie-cutter machines... and while each look like they're wearing costumes in recent movies, they even looked made up/put-together back then, when it was really going on (mainly because an actor will go from this movie to an episode of Gunsmoke)...

Centered on a very uncomfortable-looking, horribly unattractive Elliott Gould, with big lips and bushy eyebrows matching a bushy mustache and about ten years too old for the role of a student revolutionary who was somehow in Vietnam and now wants to be a teacher... 

Looking the age of someone who has been a teacher for a decade and just horribly miscast here, spouting 1960's platitudes to his so-called fellow students, and, while he does stand out from the younger hippies (including Harrison Ford, John Rubinstein and Max Julien)... being that he's sarcastically obnoxious and selfishly neurotic like the establishment he's supposed to be so against... director Rush cannot make these people interesting beyond the first twenty-minutes. Rates: **

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.

BORN AGAIN (1978)

Part Watergate political-historical biopic but mostly Christian propaganda that includes veteran actor (and our personal favorite) Dana Andrews quoting C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity to a somewhat selfish, partially greedy and supposedly only-coincidentally guilty Richard Nixon lawyer Chuck Coulson thrown into jail; and that's where the good stuff occurs, especially thanks to the always-intense blaxploitation ace Raymond St. Jacques, the tough guy in the federal prison...

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

OLIVER'S STORY (1978)

Poor Ryan O'Neal couldn't catch a break. Even two films now considered classics didn't make money in the 1970's upon release. His daughter Tatum's BAD NEWS BEARS beat the pants off both Stanley Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON and Walter Hill's THE DRIVER...

While the comparably mainstream and now basically forgotten OLIVER'S STORY did even worse... ironic being the sequel to what's considered the first most lucrative pre-JAWS summer blockbuster, LOVE STORY, as Ryan himself had a reason/theory of why it failed: Intellectual thinking man's ingenue Nicola Pagett (resembling cult starlet Pamela Franklin) was supposed to be the girl he winds up with as, early on, they share a blind date, which is more interesting and with far more chemistry than any of O'Neal's scenes with wooden rich girl Candace Bergen, who, being the studio's choice of perfect and pretty, made it so Nicola's third act return was left on the cutting room floor. And while OLIVER'S STORY is not a bad picture... with a particularly clever style of quick-editing so the scene being cut-from seems deliberately unfulfilled (like happens in ROSEMARY'S BABY)... there are relaxing moments within the mahogany-hued classy-to-poor New York City where idealistic rich kid Oliver, a lawyer, fights a slum lord with student employees: yet there's simply no inner peace or contentment for the titular character or his titular story: all he needed was the right girl, who was perfectly whin reach. Rates: ***

Nicola Pagett as Joanna Stone in Oliver's Story

Nicola Pagett as Joanna Stone in Oliver's Story

Nicola Pagett with Ryan O'Neal in Oliver's Story

Ann Risley & Deborah Rush are two bar girls in Oliver's Story

ANATOMY OF A SEDUCTION

year: 1979
rating: ***1/2

Susan Flannery is the perfect fit here. She looks older than her age, which is forty, but she looks incredible. Such a beautiful shaped face and a terrific figure...

Jameson Parker on the other hand, as a college student half her age, in real life is only eight years younger, and it shows. They don't look that far apart in age in this female-fantasy television-movie just like they aren't in real life, so this May/November romance is more March/June, and no big deal, really: Just two great looking people hooking up, and the suspense of her best friend Rita Moreno finding out she's with her son, or her son finding out she's with a guy not much older than him, isn't as effective on paper as the actors try their best to keep reminding the audience: a taboo romance this isn't being so perfect for each other and their chemistry is just too relaxed for even that aspect, when it's just the two alone and in love, making love, to matter. But it's nice seeing Susan Flannery in all her middle aged beauty. She's prettier than most college girls try hard to be.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979)

Having dismissed this famously maligned movie aka the spectacular late-seventies STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE so long for the more action-packed, mainstream, fan-adored sequels, it's become a personal favorite, experiencing the majestic visuals along with the crew, who all kind of sit around stunned, mesmerized as the gorgeous, multi-layered, formidable foe unfolds outside and well... how can you blame them?

BARRY LYNDON (STANLEY KUBRICK)

article: Hating Barry Lyndon
year: 1975 rating: ****1/2 

Given how many takes the infamously picky and in some cases reportedly sadistic filmmaker Stanley Kubrick put his actors through — in watching any of his films, you're not only seeing what he's directed but what he's selected...

Any and every scene or moment was by his choice to fit within the, in this particular case, gorgeous landscape of a period piece/costume drama that is actually the antithesis of an Epic feature film: bordering on what feels like, after numerous viewings, a kind of subliminal parody on what would usually be a fulfilling fictional (adapted from classic-era literature) biopic on a person that, to spend hours on their existence, would eventually lead to a significant purpose...

But keep in mind when watching BARRY LYNDON it's a motion picture that takes the epic form and intentionally throws it both out the door and in the viewer's face...

Famously renown as merely an aesthetic masterpiece, filmed with natural lighting and a region dotted with castles only dreamed up beyond even a picture book's rendition...

The real twist is the revelation of a truly despicable man, played wonderfully selfish by Ryan O'Neal, who cunningly antagonized otherwise good people long before he became the chief antagonist against, basically, everyone: despite starting out as a sympathetic hero simply because he's the main/title character being centered on.

GATOR BAIT

year: 1974

rating: ***

There are revenge flicks where the protagonist/hero seeks revenge on the villain/villains. Then there are those reverse revenge flicks where the antagonist/villain seeks revenge on the hero/protagonist. This film has both as a Cajun hottie played by b-movie vixen Claudia Jennings gets falsely accused for murdering a man attempting to rape her, and his family, and the local cops, take to the swamps — her territory — to find her. Along they way they murder her younger sister and now it's Claudia's turn for vengeance. She leads them further into the swamps — where she has the upper hand — and kills them off one by one. It's that basic, folks. And believe it or not, some of the acting isn't horrible. The camera moves around nicely and gets you involved with the action. And there's Claudia Jennings wearing close to nothing. Need I write more?

HIGH ANXIETY

year: 1977

cast: Mel Brooks, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Ron Carey

rating: ***

Mel Brooks sends-up all things Hitchcock in a film that's more entertaining than funny. You can't help but to get involved in the story of a new head shrink (Brooks) of a crooked insane asylum who has an extreme fear of heights. From one situation to the next, this parody encompasses "Vertigo", "Psycho", "The Birds", "Frenzy", and all the (other) Hitch-flicks that has the main character being falsely accused of murder. Homage-driven jabs at Alfred H's signature camera shots and dramatic musical scores are the funniest. Somewhere between "Blazing Saddles" (as the high-point) and "History of the World" (as a low-point), this movie has a cozy place within the Mel Brooks canon. Nothing gained, nothing lost. But you should enjoy the ride.

THE GLOVE

aka: BLOOD MAD

year: 1979

cast: John Saxon, Rosey Grier

rating: ****

They don't make them any better than this. A big black guy (Rosey Grier) wears a riot glove that was used on him by brutal prison guards and donning the glove kills all the guards one-by-one. The main character isn't Grier but John Saxon, as a narrating bounty hunter who hunts him down. Most of the film consists of Saxon's adventures: going after various criminals... which then leads to the climax verses Grier, who really isn't a bad guy and can play the guitar really, really good. It feels a lot like McQueen's THE HUNTER. All in all there's never a dull moment. This is modern noir mixed with blaxpolotation style violent melodrama and in a nutshell, everything fits like a...

SEARCH AND DESTROY

year: 1979

cast: Perry King, Don Stroud, George Kennedy, Tisa Farrow, John Kerr, Bill Starr

rating: ***1/2

In Vietnam a company of American soldiers try saving a South Vietnamese man from "Charlie" and fail. He is captured by the enemy and now we cut five years later and the Vietnamese man is back in the States for revenge. He kills one of the vets and this peaks the attention of Perry King, an auto shop worker, as he is next in line. Along with fellow vet Don Stroud, a happy-go-unlucky drunkard boat captain in Niagara Falls, they try first finding who the killer is, and then stopping him. But he's trained in killing and is almost unstoppable. Great action scenes all set in the gorgeous Niagara Falls area, and lots of violence makes this a real treat: a fun ride that never derails. George Kennedy adds a little something as a small town cop who winds up allowing Perry King to take care of matters his own way.

HERCULES IN NEW YORK

year: 1970

cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger

rating: ***1/2

Having grown up on the dubbed version... Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice replaced by a guy who sounds like he should be doing FM radio voice-overs... I was sort of thrown by this new DVD which has the REAL THING. We all know, Arnold is Arnold no matter what film he's in... so the fact he's actually speaking kind of takes away from the cheesiness of the original. But it's still quite fun seeing Arnold as Hercules, bored of Mount Olympus and his father Zeus throwing metallic lightning arrows, venturing to New York city where he takes up with nerdy Arnold Stang, who manages his pal "Herc" in a wrestling career, all the while befriending James Karen and his lovely daughter Deborah Loomis, punching-out burly sailors, battling a horribly-costumed bear in Central Park, and fighting not only the mob but the evil god Pluto. Like in all great/bad cult flicks, there's never glue on the feet: things go from one situation to the next without slowing down. And then, before you know it, the movie's done. And you're a much better person for having survived it.

THE GAUNTLET

year: 1977

cast: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Bill McKinney, Pat Hingle

director: Clint Eastwood

rating: *1/2

Imagine "Dirty Harry Callahan" replacing his morning coffee with a flask full of booze. Would that make him meaner, tougher, or blander? The latter describes not only Eastwood's character... an alcoholic Arizona cop sent to Las Vegas to pick up a prostitute the mob wants dead... but the entire film. This is one of Clint's worst action flicks, full of cliched characters and horrendous dialog. Even the shootouts are boring. And Sondra Locke... Clint's girlfriend and co-star of many of his films, who I enjoyed in "Sudden Impact" and "Bronco Billy"... as the hooker with the heart of gold and mouthful of sass: couldn't be more annoying. You'll want Clint to turn from protector into hitman just to shut her up.

THE OUTFIT

year: 1973

cast: Robert Duvall, Joe Don Baker, Karen Black, Timothy Carey, Robert Ryan

rating: ***1/2

A bank robber, having done two years after being set up, gets out of jail, learns his brother was killed (the first scene in the movie) by the same mob that fingered him and, with the help of his former partner and a very cranky gun moll, hit the road, killing all the encroaching thugs and sometimes take out the baddies in their homes, fortresses, banks, and even a church. The two main characters played by Robert Duvall and Joe Don Baker seem protected by the gods. Nothing can stop them, and it's pretty unrealistic in that they get away with everything with ease, but then again, who cares? It's a cool ride... and what a cast!

KILLER FISH

aka: NAKED SUN
year: 1979

cast: Lee Majors, Karen Black

rating: ***

The famously bad low-budget Brazillian import isn't so bad after all. Centers on a group of diamond thieves in South America who, after blowing up a big outpost during the opening credits and nabbing a cache of jewels, hides the goods in a lake that becomes inhabited by killer fish i.e. piranha, all pets of shady millionaire James Franciscus to weed-out any takers. A couple of the thieves are killed attempting a premature recovery and because of this, Lee Majors and Karen Black, both leaders of the heist, are pitted against each other: Black joins with Fransiscus and beautiful Margaux Hemingway, as a fashion model on a location-shoot, beds the Bionic Man. Eventually a boat is stuck in the inhabited lake and the surviving cast attempts to get ashore without becoming piranha burgers. The title body count element ultimately trumped by the Noir aspect that, overseas, is titled Naked Sun... cool, huh?