ROMANTIC COMEDY

title: ROMANTIC COMEDY

year: 1984

cast: Dudley Moore, Mary Steamburgen

rating: *1/2

I like Dudley Moore but how did he become a sex symbol? It seems in most of his movies in the early eighties he's playing a character who every woman on earth is dying for. I see a short funny guy with a penguin nose. And not only does he play characters who woman love, but the woman mention how "cute" he is. But when Burt Reynolds or Cary Grant are in their romantic comedies, no one really HAS TO say they're good looking. Anyway, this movie again centers on Moore as a forty-something guy going through a mid-life crisis who woman all adore. He's a playwright who's lost his touch and his partner, and gets a new partner in young budding Mary Steamburgen. They write a few plays, some hit, some miss. Mary ends up in love with Dudley, things get weird, and... oh it's just a lot of dialog and really no point at all.

S.O.B.

cast: Richard Mulligan, William Holden, Julie Andrews, Rosanna Arquette

writer/director: Blake Edwards
year: 1980 rating: **

Before "The Player", a film which poked fun at Hollywood films, writers, producers, directors, and how films are made from behind-the-scenes, there was "S.O.B.", a wacky mesh of everything thrown into the pot. There are some good moments, like anything involving Richard Mulligan (as buried lead William Holden futilely attempts to protect him from his own bad choices) as a hit-making director who made a big budget disaster, losing his mind and becoming a suicidal maniac. Writer/director Blake Edwards is making a statement here and I'm still not sure what it is. He has his own wife, Julie Andrews, the queen of G rated musicals, playing an actress who is the queen of G-rated musicals... and she takes off her top in the movie-within-a-movie (being recut by Mulligan's character to redeem itself). Herein lies the parody of a parody, but things get too physical and eventually, though sporadically entertaining, it gets downright tiresome.

10

year: 1979

cast: Dudley Moore, Julie Andrews, Bo Derek, Dee Wallace, Brian Dennehy, Sam Jones

writer/director: Blake Edwards

rating: ***

Bo Derek is to this movie what the shark was to JAWS. You see her a few times in the build up and then a lot at the end. A few differences: when Bo's part of the story, the beautiful woman who "completes" the fantasies of songwriting middle aged "George" played by a somewhat buried lead Dudley Moore, things go downhill. Most of this Blake Edwards iconic film belongs to Moore and his subtle physical humor, and is a laidback mesh of clever lines and mellow wit, and the usual apt direction by Blake Edwards, the Hal Ashby of humor: who seems to let things happen on their own accord. If expectations are for Bo running on the beach (like the famous poster): you don't see her much: but there's a lot more to this movie than a perfect "10", it's more about the number "42", the age of the protagonist, and what he goes through to survive it.

UNFAITHFULLY YOURS

title: UNFAITHFULLY YOURS

year: 1984

cast: Dudley Moore, Natassja Kinski, Armand Assante, Albert Brooks

rating: *1/2

The three lead love-triangle driven characters (Dudley Moore, Natassja Kinski and Armand Assante) are running around like chickens with heads cut off, trying to update Preston Sturges (who wrote films in an era when actors always ran around like headless chickens, yet it worked) but to no avail. Hemingway wrote "Never mistake motion for action". I didn't. There was so much going on, I was bored silly. Even Albert Brooks, as Moore's "voice of reason", was completely wasted.

LOVE STORY

title: LOVE STORY

year: 1970

cast: Ryan O'Neal, Ali McGraw, Tommy Lee Jones, Ray Milland

rating: *

As I watched this film about a woman who dies young, I wanted to also die young (middle aged, that is). It was bad. Ali McGraw... I do NOT know how she ever got famous: other than her beauty. In this, her first big role, she is horrible, robotic, wooden, annoying. Ryan O'Neal is okay but the story is as sappy as stupid as I've ever witnessed. And in keeping with the theme, of a young person dying before their time... I ejected the film far before it's time. But then again, for me, it was time for EJECT.

DRAGONSLAYER

title: DRAGONSLAYER

year: 1981

rating: **

Overall this is an okay fantasy, in looks, but lacked overall movie magic and yet, used way too much of it in the literal sense, being that the main character was a sorcerer's apprentice, providing an "out" in many instances, leaving the story without much difficulty or hardship for the good guys or suspense for the audience. It was all a little too easy, and the climax is a big letdown except that the dragon looks incredible, and isn't dated to this day. The real problem is the hero, played by who'd usually be cast as a weenie-wimp later on: Peter MacNicol. On the other hand, Caitlin Clarke, who dressed as a boy to avoid the town's virgin sacrifice to the dragon, tricks everyone, which would've never happened since she's far too cute. One sequence where a princess is killed by baby dragons... the evil puppets eating/crunching her feet... is downright disturbing, feeling more like the filmmakers wanted to rich girl to pay for her wealth rather than her death making any sense within the already convoluted storyline. 

LOVESICK

title: LOVESICK
year: 1983
cast: Dudley Moore, Elizebeth McGovern, Ron Silver
writer/director: Marshall Brickman
rating: **

After "10" Dudley Moore appeared in a string of romantic comedies, and this outing is one of them. Written by "Annie Hall" collaborater Marshall Brickman, this is another "nervous romance" but has little to no charm or purpose. It's hard to believe gorgeous Elizebeth McGovern would be smitten with the dwarfish Moore, as a New York shrink, or Ron Silver, who plays her actor boyfriend. The acting is decent but you'll find yourself sleeping on the couch halfway through. Camoes by Alec Guinness (as the ghost of Freud), John Huston and Wallace Shawn add little to nothing overall.

LILITH

title: LILITH

year: 1964

cast: Warren Beatty, Jean Seberg, Peter Fonda, Kim Hunter, Gene Hackman, Jessica Walter

rating: **

I always have problems with movies made in the EARLY sixties because it was a time when films were getting more "realistic" and yet they still held back (they still HAD TO) and what's with all the dissolves from one scene to next? In this era there were SO MANY scenes that never really play out and simply dissolve right as they get interesting. This movie is no different than most of the others. It pushes an envelope that's been delivered so many times, that although it is ahead of its time as far as being controversial goes (implied lesbianism and some swearing), it all seems very tame and a bit boring now. Warren Beatty isn't bad as a really good looking war vet (but he doesn't seem like he's been through ANY war to me) who works at a mental ward and meets the most beautiful woman in the world, named LILITH, a patient who draws men (and women) in with her alluring beauty, and eventually drives them to insanity, suicide, or both. A very young Peter Fonda is nice to see as an uptight yet friendly mental patient smitten by the title character, and his acting is just-okay-but-cool as usual. Gene Hackman appears in a cameo but adds little to the film's overall somewhat boring tone (same with Kim Hunter and Jessica Walter)... all that leads to a conclusion that leaves you feeling somewhat in-complete.

THE BUCKET LIST

title: THE BUCKET LIST

year: 2007

cast: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes

director: Rob Reiner

rating: ***

Two old dudes who meet in a terminal ward, one rich and one poor, go around the world and visit various places before they die. The way this is filmed, each location seems as pretty yet uninteresting as something from a traveloque informmerical. The movie itself isn't THAT bad. Jack Nicholson, the rich guy, is basically doing an imitation of his character in "As Good As It Gets" but more subdued, and of course Morgan Freeman plays a really soft-spoken wise man, as usual, and as usual he narrates. It seems though Rob Reiner, who's made some great films, is asleep behind the wheel. The actors seem very alone, but since they are dying, maybe this was deliberate. And all the other actors seem in sleep-mode; straight outta central casting. But the two leads do a good enough job to make this moderate Movie-of-the-Weekesque fare. But the next day you'll have forgotten all about it.

BE COOL

title: BE COOL

year: 2005

cast: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, The Rock, Harvey Keitel, Vince Vaughan

rating: *1/2

For a movie that pokes fun at bad sequels and corporations, this is a bad sequel which is as corporate as can be. John Travolta returns as the ever-cool "Chili Palmer" and, unlike his turn in "Get Shorty" (perhaps his best performance ever), he's simply going through the motions. We get a budding love story with Uma Thurman for all those "Pulp Fiction" fans who wanted to see them hook up, and even a VERY FAMILIAR dance sequence to boot. The plot centers on the music industry as opposed to the movie industry, and there are no decent bad guys (Vince Vaughan as a "wigger" and Harvey Keitel are weak), no decent almost-bad-guys-who-turn-good (Cedric the Entertainer is even weaker), and the someone-is-in-the-house-because-they-purposely-left-the-TV-on, which was great in the original, is overused to the hilt. Attempts of mazy-double-crossings that Elmore Leonard (and Quentin Tarantino for that matter) do so well are all but col de sacs leading to dead ends. But I gotta give credit to The Rock. Although I am not a fan his turn as a gay bodyguard who wants to be an actor is the only decent character.

THE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE

year: 1977

cast: Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen

rating: **

This works as a take on Hitchcock's ROPE with a young teenage girl living ALONE in a house left by her dead poet father and being intruded upon by the perverted son of an uptight real estate lady and then gets badgered by the agent herself, who ends up accidently being killed in the wine cellar, and thus we have our ROPE as Foster has to guide people around the house WITHOUT them realizing there's a dead body in the basement as she keeps telling them (before and after the woman's death) that her father is in fact alive and working in "the study". The downfall is Scott Jacoby as a teenage Magician who aids Foster in BOTH coverups. His character is too helpful and doesn't allow the main character enough complications to make it more suspenseful. If the overall theme is a young girl making it on her own, she should have been alone for longer without the help of Jacoby's character who fills too many holes much too easily. Martin Sheen is great and shifty and steals the show as he tries to figure out where his mother is and flirts with young Foster, but isn't in it enough. And Jodie Foster does a good job, as usual... But there's too much there and not enough missing to give it that Hitchcock touch that it obviously tries hard to achieve.

TOWN & COUNTRY

title: TOWN & COUNTRY

year: 2001

cast: Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Garry Shandling, Diane Keaton

rating: *

This might very well be the worst film of all time... at least while you're watching it. Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn and Garry Shandling juggle romance and cheating spouses and arguments, attempting a Woody Allen style ensemble piece but ending up something that should have completely abandoned, as in fact this film went through years of editing and complications. It starts out dull and then gets bad and then that bad gets even worse, especially a subplot involving Andie McDowell as a very weird woman with an even weirder gun-weilding father, played by Charlton Heston. Beatty dresses like a polar bear in one scene and tries screwing a woman in the snow; and even Garry Shandling cannot land ONE SINGLE funny line. Oh this is bad, really, truly horrible. But you might just want to witness it - after all, it's even WORSE than ISHTAR and that doesn't happen much.

MAN OF THE HOUSE

title: MAN OF THE HOUSE

year: 2005

cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Ann Archer, Curtis Armstrong

rating: **1/2

Tommy Lee Jones as a Texas Ranger taking care of a bunch of dingy cheerleaders who witnessed a mob hit. This sounds bad? Well it isn't THAT horrible. The action is fast paced and the characters are decent and memorable. Tommy Lee does his usual Tommy Lee Jones imitation while Anne Archer adds some class as his POSSIBLE love interest. Don't question why the cheerleaderes have to remain cheering in crowded games or as students in a crowded university campus while they're targets for the mob (or is it the CIA?)... questions like this will only make you think logically, and for a film like this, logic doesn't matter.

SHAMPOO

year: 1975

cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Jack Warden

rating: ***1/2

Warren Beatty plays a womanizing hairdresser who goes from woman to woman, to woman to woman to woman, to woman. Basically, Warren is playing himself but as a hairdresser. Hal Ashby lets things happen on their own accord in his usual Altmanesque manner, and great classic rock tunes play without reason or purpose, in the usual Ashbyesque manner. Beatty has some nice scenes with scene-stealer (and the most interesting character) Jack Warden as a millionaire Beatty needs for a loan, only he's screwing his girlfriend... And to really feel the complete overall effect you MUST wait for the very, very end. The FINAL shot sums up a life of the gigalo, a character standing ALL ALONE. It's a remarkable closing image and makes you look back on the rest of the film with more depth and clarity.

RED SONJA (ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER)

year: 1985

cast: Brigitte Neilson

director: Richard Fleischer

rating: ***

If you hear a movie is bad enough times you will avoid watching it. Thus is RED SONYA, a film centering on a female sword-weilding hottie who sets out to kill a queen for burning her home as a child, or something. Oh but it doesn't matter. With Arnold Schwarzenegger as her Conan-like sidekick (that's right, Arnold is a sidekick and not the main character), and some pretty neat fights this is pretty decent fare. It's a nice companion piece to "Conan the Destroyer", and doesn't try to be anything but what it is: corny pulpy sword-and-sorcery with hard bodies and wall-to-wall bloody action. Works for me.

CONAN THE DESTROYER

year: 1984

cast: Arnold Swarzenegger

director: Richard Fleischer

rating: ***

More of an esamble piece with characters played by Wilt Chamberlain and Grace Jones, but their characters served the plot decently enough, the plot involving a virgin princess (Olivia D'Abo) who must be "delivered" with her virginity intact, and Conan and his "posse" are hired for the delivery and they fight some nasty creatures along the way. Tracey Walter is doing the same kind of role that great-surfer-turned-bad-actor Gerry Lopez did in the original but as comic relief, he's not very funny. Although it doesn't matter. Battles ensue and we're not thrust into a long epic like the first film, and unlike the first there's not just one villain but a lot of them, including Sarah Douglas as an evil queen, a couple of monsters and a metallic snake!

WE WERE SOLDIERS

title: WE WERE SOLDIERS

year: 2002

cast: Mel Gibson, Sam Elliott, Greg Kinnear, Chris Klein, Madaline Stowe
rating: ***

This is a good war film, very moving and intense, but I guess I've been ruined by body count war films in which you get to know each character and then as the movie progresses you watch them either die or survive accordingly. In this aspect, a film like this one, purposely made to be more realistic, gets a bit tiresome since I can't "keep score". I felt I was within the bloody battle, and this is good filmmaking to put someone THERE, but I was there way too long, and after a while I got shell-shocked, I never knew which character was dying or where I'd seen them before. This film covers the recuruiting and training of the Marine Air Calvery in the beginning of the Vietnam war and then that group of soldiers marching onto war. We go through training with the soldiers, and again, while we get to know Mel Gibson's character and his wife, with an exception of one young guy who's wife has a baby (we know this guy's gonna die), the other characters don't stand out... enough so that we care when they're torn to bits in the second half war (very long) segment. I realize, this shouldn't matter. War films should be more realistic and less slasher/body count, but this is what I grew up on and I guess I just like it better knowing EXACTLY who GETS IT. In other words, I want to not only care about the battle and the strategy, but the characters. Although it was nice to see a Vietnam War movie without a political agenda: showing war is hell simply by showing war as it happens, not getting into the reasons it "shouldn't have happened in the first place", which is what we usually get served on the Hollywood platter.

BUTTERFLY

title: BUTTERFLY

year: 1982

cast: Stacy Keach, Pia Zadora, Orson Welles

rating: *

Wow this is bad, and not even fun/bad. An all-dialog mess with Pia Zadora who isn't exactly a great actress (how on earth did she win a Golden Globe for this?) with Stacy Keach who IS a great actor but there's nothing interesting going on. Pia, a damn cute girl with really cool hair plays a.... damn cute girl with really cool hair who returns to her estranged father, Keach, in a small town where he lives on a broken down silver mine and they flirt incestually. This is Tennesse Williams in hell. Orson Welles has a cameo as a judge. Not much here of anything. This butterfly should have been squashed as a caterpilar.

THE BETSY

title: THE BETSY

year: 1978

cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Lawrence Olivier, Kathleen Beller, Robert Duvall

rating: **1/2

Like something off TV from the late seventies/early eighties night soaps ala "Dallas" or "Dynasty" but centering on a car company and with curse words and full-frontal nudity (the Kathleen Beller pool scene is quite a nice surprise). Tommy Lee Jones is a race car driver/designer hired by a rich family to make a new affordable fuel efficiant car (named after Beller, his great-granddaughter, hence "The Betsy") and gets tangled in the web that always permeates the rich and powerful in literature and films. This is just fluff, but sometimes entertaining fluff. Robert Duvall is surprisingly dull as the somewhat villainous grandson of Lawrence Olivier, Olivier who plays wholeheartedly a Henry Ford meets Darth Vadar type matriarch of a powerful family that's falling apart at the seams. When Duvall's character says (pp) "The U.S. Senate cannot dictate the American People's tastes in cars", I got a chill in my bones... Harold Robbins must have some Nostrodomus in him (hint... GM).

GHOST TOWN

title: GHOST TOWN

year: 2007

cast: Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear

writer/director: David Koepp

rating: ***1/2

Written and directed by David Koepp, this gives the wry-guy Ricky Gervais a decent showcase. Plot centers on a grumpy dentist who goes in for surgery and then finds out later he died for six minutes, and as a result he can see ghosts... much like that kid in "The Sixth Sense", but this ghost-spotter is more annoyed than frightened of the pursuing spectors. Greg Kinnear, as the most charming and most persistant of the ghosts tailing our anti-charm hero, "hires" him to thwart his wife from marrying "the wrong guy". It then turns into a love story, and altogether it's an entertaining romantic comedy with a supernatural twist.

MAC AND ME

title: MAC AND ME

year: 1988

cast: Christine Ebersole

rating: **

If product placement was a crime, MAC AND ME would be behind bars. If not for promoting McDonalds and Coca Cola to no end then for ripping off the storyline of E.T. - a space alien getting lost in the suburbs thus befriending a little boy and being pursued by government agents. But somehow, this movie isn't terrible. There is some corny magic that works like only corny magic can. And some classic horribleness that's become camp legacy: like a scene where people are break dancing in McDonalds. Even the Alien's name is a commercial. Mac. Big Mac. Get it? And when they aren't talking about McDonalds, or when they aren't INSIDE McDonalds, one of the characters is an employee and wears her McDonalds shirt with the golden arches ALWAYS VISIBLE. If you like bad movies like me, this is worth a viewing. One thing WILL surprise you: the acting ISN'T THAT horrible. 1930's-era throwback-blonde Christine Ebersole in particular.

BIG STAN

title: BIG STAN

year: 2007

cast: Rob Schneider, David Carradine, Scott Wilson

rating: **1/2

A wimpy Insurance scam artist is sentenced to jail where he is afraid of getting raped. During his six month purgatory before sentencing he hires sloppy homeless kung fu bum David Carradine to teach him to fight. Through a cruely comedic collage of training scenes Carradine trains Schneider, and when Rob goes to jail and becomes the kingpin of the prison which is illegally run by Scott Wilson. The fight scenes aren't bad, and either is the acting. As for comedy, there isn't much... but perhaps this was intentional, grasshopper.

TROPIC THUNDER

title: TROPIC THUNDER

year: 2008

cast: Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Cruise, Jack Black, Nick Nolte

rating: *

"The Three Amigos" centers on three dim-bulb actors who go to Mexico thinking they're filming a movie and end up in a real situation battling bad guys who want to kill them. "Tropic Thunder" centers on three dim-bulb actors who think they're filming a movie and end up... doing "Three Amigos" all over again, but very badly. This could have been an at least halfway decent bad movie if there wasn't the sidestory about Ben Stiller's character's fading career, which makes it horrificly horribly awful. Ben Stiller goes over the top and isn't funny, Jack Black is totally wasted, and Robert Downey Jr. as a pretentious Australian actor playing a black army officer is somewhat impressive but gets annoying, fast.

CONNIE AND CARLA

title: CONNIE AND CARLA

year: 2004

cast: Nina Vardalos, Toni Collette, David Duchuvny

rating: *1/2

Nina Vardalos follows up her independent hit "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" (which made her a star) with a film about two women who sing and dance in a Chicago airport theater (?) who witness a murder and hiding out in L.A. pose as transvestites who then sing and dance in L.A. They become part of the cross-dressing culture and feel guilty in tricking the community as they become big stars (in a little venue). The film isn't as bad as when I first saw it and has a pretty decent underdog story, but it's cliche-ridden and chugs along with little steam. A budding romantic sidestory with David Duchuvny doesn't help much. This is Nina's "Paradise Alley" if in fact "Greek Wedding" was her "Rocky". If so, I'm surprised she's still up for the count. It's basically "Victor/Victoria" mixed with "Tootsie" mixed with... something or rather - that of which I'm still not exactly sure.

THE AMAZING HOWARD HUGHES

year: 1977

cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Ed Flanders, Lee Purcell

rating: **1/2

Okay so this was edited from a longer version and comes off as a greatest hits of Howard Hughes. The story merely glosses through different aspects of his life without much detail. Tommy Lee Jones was good... but at the end you're not sure what made him driven, or crazy, in the first place.

CITY OF GHOSTS

title: CITY OF GHOSTS

year: 2002

cast: Matt Dillon, James Caan

writer/director: Matt Dillon

rating: **1/2

Matt Dillon, who has always been one of my favorite actors, as a director is obviously very influenced by film noir: a stranger in a strange land being used by someone he trusts while not exactly being sure about what's going on around him. This is the basic situation, and the setting is modern day Vietnam. The subtle villian, James Caan, a con-man who swindled people in an insurance scam, doesn't have enough to do. He's a mysterious character but his mystery just isn't that dynamic. Either is the story or the outcome. First-time director Dillon shows the landscape of Vietnam a whole lot, and plays actual music from that region throughout, yet you never feel you're in this place... you're merely watching it, rather than living it.

FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER

year: 1991
cast: Brad Johnson, Willem Defoe
director: John Milius
rating: *

This John Milius Vietnam flick has low-budget written all over it, especially when it counts. The talented actors are wasted, and a romantic subplot that borders on ludicrious helps waste them, and action scenes that leave the viewer wondering not only "What's going on?" but "When it gonna end?" Perhaps Milius, who wrote a good percentage of "Apocolypse Now", in trying for another Vietnam epic, ends up with a "G.I. Joe" meets "Top Gun" in the process. This isn't even corny in an endearing sense, it's just plain bad.

MISSING IN ACTION

title: MISSING IN ACTION

year: 1984

cast: Chuck Norris, James Hong, M. Emmett Walsh

rating: ***1/2

A more subtle "Rambo", Chuck Norris goes to Saigon on a diplomatic "peaceful" mission to talk to Vietnamese politicians about rescuing American MIAs, but he's not there to negotiate. He sneaks out of his guarded hotel room and wearing black sneaks around the city and then kills James Hong, a politician that Chuck alone knows is crooked. From here he teams up with former vet M. Emmett Walsh, who seems like the pilot character "Jock" from "Raiders of the lost Ark" if he had more to do. They buy a really neat bulletproof raft, sail into Vietnam, shoot a lot of bad guys and rescue a couple MIAs. That's in a nutshell, and there doesn't need to be anything more than that.

THE DELTA FORCE

title: THE DELTA FORCE

year: 1986

cast: Chuck Norris, Lee Marvin, Robert Forster, Martin Balsam, Bo Svenson, Robert Vaughan, George Kennedy

rating: ***1/2

This is an above-average hijack movie which, unlike others of its ilk, never gets to claustrophobic or tedious because the hostages are moved to several different locales, first an airplane and then the ground. One hour and twenty minutes into the film the operation to save the hostages begins. The stuff before nicely builds momentum and centers mostly on the hijackers, plane crew and hostages while Lee Marvin and Chuck Norris await on the sidelines to go into action. When the action finally happens it's well worth the wait. Norris on a motorcycle with torpedoes - now that's cool. And Robert Forster is so impressive as the head of the middle eastern terrorists I didn't even know it was him at first.

THE KILLING KIND

title: THE KILLING KIND

year: 1973

cast: John Savage, Ann Sothern, Luana Anders, Cindy Williams

director: Curtis Harrington

rating: **

A young man (John Savage) who enjoys killing woman, cats, etc.. but most of this boring film centers on the pitiful relationship with the central character and his clingy mother, Norman Bates style. Their relationship not only drags but seems pointless, contrived, and at this point, cliche. All in all this is a boring cult film that has no real beat to it. Should have been more "pointless" murders and less pointless dialog. After all, it's an exploitation.

FIRE AND ICE

title: FIRE AND ICE

year: 1983

cast: Steve Sandor

director: Ralph Bakshi

animator: Frank Frazetta

rating: ****

The plot isn't much: the daughter of an important warrior is kidnapped and a blonde warrior must rescue her and rid the land of the encroaching glaciers... and this scant setup works to an advantage. Since it's is a fantasy we don't get a big epic, instead a lot of little battle scenes pitting the blonde buff dude and the sexy brunette chick against really nasty creatures. The direction by Ralph Bakshi of the incredible animation by Frank Frazetta makes this a really entertaining, very bloody yet somehow laidback fantasy adventure that gets right down to the nitty gritty without a lot of rambling backstory.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN

title: CONAN THE BARBARIAN

cast: Arnold Schwartzeneggar, William Smith, James Earl Jones, Gerry Lopez, Sandahl Bergman, Max Von Sydow

director: John Milius

rating: **

This film has little to nothing to do with those incredibly involving Robert E. Howard tales. Instead of following Conan on various adventures, Milius and co-writer Oliver Stone chose one long drawn-out tale of revenge that has tar on its beefy heels. I realize there must be a central plot, which leads the rugged swordsman to his destination, but along the way there lacked the pulpy action needed to keep things flowing, which this doesn't do. Basically, it's not enough butter spread onto too much bread.

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD

year: 1951
cast: James Arness
director: Christian Nyby
rating: *1/2

The John Carpenter version has a relatively small number of men trapped in an Arctic outpost, and you get to know them all by name, personality, share their claustrophobic frenzy and follow their fates accordingly. In this movie there's two main characters, a woman who is totally misplaced, and about a dozen nameless men who walk from room to room talking about a spaceship. John Carpenter told the story in a far better fashion... where you can at least follow each character through the nightmare as opposed to watching a dated stage play with too many characters parading before a stagnate camera. And the famous line, "Watch The Skies," is uttered by a lanky scientist. Which makes sense since there's nothing to see on the ground.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

title: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

year: 2006

cast: Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Fred Willard, Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, Parker Posey

writer/director: Christopher Guest

rating: *

During a commentary for one of his better films, Christopher Guest mentions that he enjoys showing his characters as completely pathetic, and enjoys punishing them for their banal narcissism. But his editors will sway him into submission, making the characters more enjoyable and/or endearing. But now, it's apparent, Guest gets his wish: not only doing away with the documentary style, but making these people totally unlikeable and deserving of the guillotine. Go back to the old style, Chris, this film is SHIT sandwich.

ROAD HOUSE

title: ROAD HOUSE

year: 1989

cast: Patrick Swayze, Sam Elliott, Kelly Lynch, Ben Gazzara, Kathleen Wilhoite

rating: ***1/2

This Patrick Swayze late-eighties bar-brawling vehicle has become sort of a punchline. I'm not sure why because as far as bloody-knuckle action goes, this is top-notch. A sought-after bouncer is brought to a small-town to "clean up" a bar and that he does, first by getting rid of the crooked employees and then beating up the particularly seedy customers who's turned the place into something worse than the Cantina in "Star Wars". But it's not gonna be as easy as it seems, for the town is owned by a Hugh Hefner gone bad millionaire Ben Gazzara, who not only owns the import of all booze but has the hots for Swayze's lost interest, a sexy doctor played by Kelly Lynch. Sam Elliott as Swayze's bouncer mentor adds vitality to an already kickass film.

TOP DOG

title: TOP DOG

year: 1995

cast: Chuck Norris, Timothy Bottoms

rating: **1/2

Chuck Norris teams up with a capable shaggy police dog named Reno to stop a group of racists. The direction puts you right there with the dog's movements and this happens during some of the action scenes as well. Chuck and the dog don't get along at first and then learn how to depend on each other; this happens in EVERY cop-buddy film, so why should this be different just because one of the cops has a flea collar? Good for kids, but pretty violent... for the adults forced to watch it with them.

MOTORCYCLE GANG

title: MOTORCYCLE GANG

year: 1994

cast: Carla Gugino, Gerald McRaney, Jake Busey, Richard Edson, Julia Mueller

rating: **

This is a bad made-for-TV film that's not so bad, at least the first half centering on a family consisting of a father, a mother, and a teenager daughter who - during the 1950s - move from Texas to California. On the way they run into the element that ruins the flow of the movie, and ironically it's the Motorcycle Gang, led by Jake Busey who resembles a flaky nineties surfer more than a fifties gang member and is about an intimidating as a housefly. This is where the movie hits a wall, and explodes. Sadly, once-great John Milius directed this.

REVOLT IN THE BIG HOUSE

year: 1960

cast: Robert Blake, Timothy Carey

rating: ****

Gene Evans is a tough convict who plans a prison break. Robert Blake in an early role plays a Mexican getaway driver (with a heavy accent (a grown up version of his character in "Treasure of the Sierra Madrea") who REALLY wants a parole, and is deadset on being a good prisoner until he is "forced" into joining cellmate Evans and Timothy Carey - a bent gunman who's as dependable as a broken screw - on this seemingly impossible escape. Everything flows well and there's some intense scenes, including the climax where the cons take over the prison. Everything you want in a prison flick this film noir curio piece has it: in droves.

BREAKER, BREAKER

year: 1977
cast: Chuck Norris
rating: ***1/2

This is Chuck Norris's "White Lightning". He's a veteran trucker who's newbie trucker brother is hijacked by a small town cop and sentenced to jail. Chuck searches for him and has to take on this small town of "Texasland" ruled by a very strange judge who quotes Shakespeare and overacts to the hilt. Chuck single-handedly beats up everyone in town and that's about the jist of it: but it's one helluva jist. The direction is tight and there's even some psychedelic elements involved in the fight scenes, including the final bout with the biggest toughest minion where Chuck's movements is intercut with a horse running in circles. You have to see it to get it.

CONVOY

year: 1978

cast: Kris Kristofferson, Ali McGraw, Ernest Borgnine

rating: *

After directing the brilliant anti-war film Cross of Iron, Sam Peckinpah went into a dizzy retirement, and here's what he made at his dizziest. Truckers on CB radios versus a crooked cop. This should be called "BJ and the Billy the Kid", as Kris Kristofferson stars as the rebel trucker, and his usually dependable laidback personality is boring. Ali McGraw, who was pretty bad in the brilliant Peckinpah film The Getaway, is just as bad here, but without a good story to lift her above the fray. Burt Young and Ernest Borgnine are lackluster, as is Peckinpah's signature style... full of slow-motion action and snappy edits... which is hardly visible at all. And click here for above artwork origin.

EYE OF THE TIGER

year: 1986

cast: Gary Busey, William Smith, Yaphet Kotto, Bert Remsen

rating: **1/2

Gary Busey, a quiet, good-hearted and damn tough Vietnam vet gets out of jail, moves back to the small town where the crooked sheriff hates him and his wife and child are waiting. A gaggle of badass bikers led by William Smith ride into town and try raping a woman, and Busey saves her. This pisses off the bikers and now there's war. They kill Busey's wife and now war goes into overdrive. This movie isn't too bad for the revenge genre action flick, with nice directing from Richard C. Sarafian and plenty of blood and guts and before that a decent build up, but after a while there's just too many "fireworks" and not enough character-development.

HERO AND THE TERROR

title: HERO AND THE TERROR

year: 1988

cast: Chuck Norris, Ron O'Neal, Jeffery Kramer, Jack O'Halloran, Brynn Thayer, Tony DiBenedetto, Donna Gordon, Billy Drago

rating: ***1/2

Another action/horror where Chuck Norris plays a cop after a relentless seemingly unbeatable monster of a man, but unlike SILENT RAGE, this one works. Jack O'Halloran lurks somewhere within the newly restored Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles where he used to dwell when it was shut down, and is killing women by sneaking through a grate in the restroom. Known as the Terror, he had just escaped from a mental asylum where Norris's character, the Hero, had put him a year before. Norris is haunted by nightmares of the Terror and now he must find him somewhere within the mazy, complicated structure of the historic L.A. venue. Intense action and horror-like one-by-one killings mix perfectly; along with a little romance which never gets too corny. This is one of the better latter eighties Chuck Norris vehicles.

BUCKET OF BLOOD

title: BUCKET OF BLOOD

year: 1959

cast: Dick Miller, Bert Convy

producer/director: Roger Corman

rating: ****

This is a classic Roger Corman film about a busboy at a coffee shop... name of Walter Paisley... who quotes the pretentious, long-winded "house poet" and aspires to be an artist. He lives in a small apartment and lives a lonely life. This is icon Dick Miller at his best; especially since he's usually a side character or a tough guy as A BUCKET OF BLOOD is black comedy way ahead of its time, and it even says something about wannabe artists who live their lives quoting talented and/or pretentious artists without having a creative outlet of their own. Perhaps the covering of dead bodies in clay represents those who COVER other artists without trying to create for themselves. But it's more than representation of ideas or symbolism; Roger Corman's best directorial effort is liken to a body count horror flick that may not be scary, but it pays off in random kills, each strategic and important for the tight story that never meanders: leading the viewer's suspense into deliciously evil anticipation. Those who lose their lives for Walter Paisley's sculptures more than deserve it. The best scenes are in his own personal payback to those who thought of him as a failure. Corman regular Anthony Carbone is both effective and hilarious as he, halfway through, catches onto Walter's methods, and reacts against and alongside our anti-hero's newfound talents.

BLOODY MAMA

title: BLOODY MAMA

year: 1970

cast: Shelley Winters, Robert DeNiro, Don Stroud, Robert Walden, Bruce Dern, Diane Varsi

director: Roger Corman

rating: *1/2

How can a movie directed by Roger Corman and starring Shelley Winters as a bank robber with sons played by Don Stroud, Robert Walden and last but not least Robert DeNiro not be great? Judging Corman films can be difficult since they don't aspire for much, but this is a lazy exercise in a filmmaker pushing an envelope with nothing inside. For DeNiro fans there's not much here. His character just stands around with a dumb look and every once in a while says something in an over-the-top hillbilly accent. Don Stroud is really the focal point as "Herman", the psychotic eldest son, but his performance does nothing but grate on the nerves. And Shelley Winters collects a paycheck. Corman produced BOXCAR BERTHA and CRAZY MAMA are much better.

CODE OF SILENCE

title: CODE OF SILENCE

year: 1983

cast: Chuck Norris

rating: **

This movie looks good, does all the right things, but something just isn't there. Future "Fugitive" Oscar nominated Andrew Davis directs with an eighties Walter Hill precision but all that really happens is Chuck Norris going from location to location and not getting killed. Chuck plays a cop who's dealing with a mobster who's out for revenge and his fellow cops aren't much help. There's not enough Martial Arts to appease Chuck fans and not enough action to appease fans of the action genre. The script is clunky and downright confusing at times, leaving the viewer not to guess what's gonna happen next, but what just happened? I watched it an hour ago and I'm still not sure.

STUNTS

title: STUNTS

year: 1977

cast: Robert Forster, Fiona Lewis, Darrell Fetty, Joanna Cassidy, Ray Sharkey, Bruce Glover

director: Mark L. Lester

rating: ***1/2

Mark L. Lester rules. STUNTS involves stuntmen getting picked off by a mysterious killer. Robert Forster's little brother is one of them, and he investigates. Darrell Fetty, Joanna Cassidy, Fiona Lewis, Bruce Glover and the late Ray Sharky round out the cast. The acting is wonderful and the action is bar none. The stuntmen are killed off like campers in a slasher flick, and the tension mounts with precision. Lester is a miracle worker. He takes low budget movies and turns them into gold. Or at least, silver. And with Robert Forster at the helm: this one shines.

THE DRIVER

year: 1978

cast: Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern, Isabelle Adjani, Matt Clark

rating: ****

Less is more, and this film has more going for it than modern high-octane chase films. Ryan O'Neal plays a role written for Steve McQueen, and does it with dependable quiet slowburn. He's a getaway driver... the best around. The film really belongs to Bruce Dern as the detective on his trail. He follows O'Neal from witnesses to connections and pesters them into giving him information. But he cuts corners since no one gives him much to go on, and his frustration mounts. Three great car scenes (not all of them involving chases) envelope the movie perfectly. This is Walter Hill right before "The Warriors" doing noir/action with style and grace, but it's very subtle. For those looking for non-stop car crashes ala Hal Needham best go someplace else.

THE FURY

year: 1978

cast: Amy Irving, Kirk Douglas, Andrew Stevens, Daryl Hannah, Fiona Lewis, John Cassavetes

director: Brian DePalma

rating: **1/2

This is a bad movie, but oh how it delivers. Not quite sure what it wants to be, it aspires for action/adventure, a little horror, psychological drama, and of course tons of Hitchcockesque suspense. One story centers on Kirk Douglas who is supposedly killed by terrorists in front of his son, played by Andrew Stevens, a psychic boy-wonder under the care of evil John Cassavetes, wants to use his "powers" for the military, or something. And Douglas has to avoid the evil agents and try finding his son again. The initial action scenes involving Douglas are well-done. But the real star is Amy Irving as a young high school girl with even more psychic powers than Stevens, and she ends up at a home for "gifted children" (where she has visions of him). There are way too many cooks here, but not an entirely awful aftertaste. You will be entertained.

SILENT RAGE

year: 1982

rating: **

A killer with a bloody axe and two corpses in his wake is first arrested by Texas Sheriff Chuck Norris (after a big fight) and then — after breaking free from his handcuffs — is shot numerous times by police after he tries to escape. The killer rejuvenates thanks to three doctors who pump him with drugs before his death. Killer-man awakens ala Frankenstein's monster and goes back to slaughtering and it's up to cop Chuck Norris to stop him. The best moments happen between Norris and his fat silly deputy sidekick played by Flounder from ANIMAL HOUSE, Stephen Furst. A scene involving Norris beating up a bevy of bikers is probably the peak of this standard action flick, which tries mixing "Friday The 13th" style horror but without much of a pulse... at least not a steady one.

A FORCE OF ONE

year: 1979

cast: Chuck Norris, Jennifer O'Neal

rating: ****

This really doesn't live up to its title since there's a slew of characters played by dependable actors. Jennifer O'Neal, Clu Galagher, Ron O'Neal, Pepe Serna, James Whitemore Jr. and (the late) Ray Vitte play cops who are losing their fellow officers to a mysterious killer who uses martial arts. These killings are connected to kids riding skateboards who sell drugs for an unknown dealer. In order to survive, the cops are sent to learn karate from... guess who? As far as acting goes this is a good vehicle for Chuck Norris since he gets to not only play a martial arts instructor/kickboxer, but we get to see him giving lessons, and we get some great kickboxing bouts to boot.