Saturday, 30 September 2017
Heist (2015)
A father is without the means to pay for his daughter's medical treatment, and as a last resort, he partners with a greedy co-worker to rob a casino.
Fairly effective thriller with some good (albeit improbable) twists; cast is good, and De Niro gets the opportunity to play a tough, but complex wiseguy character.
Last Vegas (2013)
Four friends take a break from their day-to-day lives to throw a
bachelor party in Las Vegas for their last remaining single pal.
Likable, but unremarkable comedy, obviously made for its elderly star cast to have an easy ride.
Maltin**1/2: "Raunchy senior-citizen jokes abound, but some of the gags are pretty funny and the stars seem to be having a good time."
Friday, 29 September 2017
Mother! (2017)
A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.
Over-the-top thesis play in two parts starts off fairly ominous, but (deliberately) blows out of proportion in the second half, and the whole thing is an easily decipherable allegory and appears more like an unintentional satire; well-made, though, with a good cast.
Love (2015)
An American living in Paris enters a highly sexually and emotionally charged relationship with a young, unstable woman.
Candid, but ultimately not successful attempt to recreate the passion and intimacy of an amour fou, pornographic scenes included; while these moments are audacious, they also appear oddly incongruent with the intensity of the performances.
Friday, 22 September 2017
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009)
A drug- and gambling-addled detective in post-Katrina New Orleans investigates the killing of five Senegalese immigrants.
Abel Ferrara's masterpiece is stripped down to a hypnotic, at times surreal crime thriller within a world of lost moral barriers; the movie is mainly successful due to Nicolas Cage's intense performance.
Maltin***: "Wacky police procedural...a long, tawdry, wide-ranging yarn in which the good guys and bad guys are hard to differentiate. Cage is terrific in a no-holds-barred performance. Bear no resemblance to the 1992 film..."
Killshot (2008)
A couple, despite being in a witness protection program, are being chased and confronted by the criminals they outed.
Thoroughly clichéd thriller tries hard to be more than it is, exemplified by Mickey Rourke playing a laughably incompetent hitman as a super-cool wiseguy.
Maltin**: "Routine crime thriller...Quintessential B-movie material is drained of action and suspense via pretentious treatment..., although interesting cast keeps it watchable."
Thursday, 21 September 2017
When a Stranger Calls (1979)
A psychopathic killer terrorizes a babysitter, then returns seven years later to menace her again.
Above-average thriller with a good cast strangely falls into three parts; the highly effective opening could be a movie in itself and is not surpassed by the rest of the film.
Halliwell (no star): "Middling screamer extended from a short, The Sitter; a passive midsection separates a suspenseful start and finish."
Maltin*1/2: "Unpleasant, improbable melodrama falls apart after OK opening segment."
Michael Weldon/Psychotronic: "The ultimate in baby-sitter horror...Although fairly predictable, it's still suspenseful and is helped by a strong cast..."
Unthinkable (2010)
A black-ops interrogator and an FBI agent press a suspect terrorist into divulging the location of three nuclear weapons set to detonate in the U.S.
Highly dubious test arrangement about torture is unnerving with its contrived plot, stilted dialogues - and it's feigned message (in the extended version).
Maltin*1/2: "Attempts to make Jackson's character appear normal only succeed in making him seem even more psychotic. Other than Sheen's chameleon-like performance, there is no upside here. In fact, the whole movie is unthinkable."
Tuesday, 19 September 2017
Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)
A surly convicted murderer held in permanent isolation redeems himself when he becomes a renowned bird expert.
Affecting prison drama takes its time to tell its story, but gives room for many touching moments; Burt Lancaster delivers a great performance.
Halliwell*: "Overlong and rather weary biopic of Robert Shroud, who spent nearly sixry years in prison and became a cause célèbre. One cannot deny many effective moments, notably of direction, but it's a long haul."
Maltin***: "Pensive study...Film becomes static despite imaginative sidelights to enlarge scope of action."
Pardon My Brush (1964)
Two dimwitted house painters are hired to paint an apartment hotel, and it turns out that the hotel's residents consist entirely of beautiful women
Sunday, 17 September 2017
Viktor und Viktoria (1933)
A female singer impersonates men on stage and is discovered by an agent who thinks she really is a man.
Lively and entertaining early German musical (even most of the dialogue is presented in rhymes) is remarkable for its gender-bending plot and for inspiring a slew of remakes.
Titanic (1943)
On its maiden voyage in April 1912, the supposedly unsinkable RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean.
Well-produced Nazi propaganda piece would be standard cinema entertainment of the time, but is marred by its subtle, but obvious political content.
Maltin**1/2: "Creditable disaster film, although the script is no more inspired than later versions of the saga."
[N.B. The film's original director was arrested during production after speaking out against the Nazi regime – he was later found hanged in prison – and the film was completed by Werner Klingler, who was not credited.
Although the film had a brief theatrical run in parts of German-occupied Europe starting in November 1943, it was not shown within Germany by order of Goebbels, who feared that it would weaken the German citizenry's morale instead of improving it. Goebbels later banned the playing of the film entirely, and it did not have a second run. Wikipedia]
The Revenant (2015)
A frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team.
Spectacular landscape photography and excellent performances can't disguise the fact that this is essentially an upgraded Western revenge story.
Saturday, 16 September 2017
Communion (1976)
aka Alice Sweet Alice
After a young girl is brutally murdered during her first communion, her strange and withdrawn older sister becomes the main suspect.
Low-budget thriller comes as close to an Italian giallo as it can: excellently creepy with surreal moments and an unlikely twist.
Halliwell (no star): "Moderate low-budget thriller, mainly of interest for the brief appearances of Brooke Shields in her first film, and of Roth as a pathologist."
Maltin**: "OK murder mystery is noteworthy as Shields' feature debut..."
Michael Weldon/Psychotronic: "...this movie is excellent despite the misleading hype. It's the best-made and most unsettling psycho-shocker in ages. A violently anti-Catholic feature...The murders, although not overly gory, are hard to look at, and the audience is clearly thrown off track. You won't be sure who did it until the end, and you won't believe Mr. Alphonse!"
J. Edgar (2011)
J. Edgar Hoover, powerful head of the F.B.I. for nearly 50 years, looks back on his professional and personal life.
Despite excellent period detail and good performances this biopic ticks off all aspects of Hoover's character only superficially and thusly doesn't lift itself above any former G-Men pic.
Maltin**: "One-note portrait of J. Edgar Hoover...Long, often boring account.....provides litle insight or understanding. DiCaprio works hard, but is miscast and never embodies the bulldog-like Hoover. Hammer's old-age makeup is so ludicrous it almost torpedoes the entire film."
Under Suspicion (2000)
A lawyer is asked to come to the police station to clear up a few loose ends in his witness report of a foul murder.
Remake of Garde a vue: a murder mystery staged as a closed-room
drama with the two male leads playing at their best, but still can't
make the ending more believable - the original managed that much better.
On renewed viewing: I still agree with my initial opinion, the performances make it quite watchable.
Halliwell (no star): "Disappointing duel between two fine actors, who
are not helped by the hyperkinetic style of the director. The result is
much less compelling than the French original The Inquisitor/Garde a
vue."
Maltin**1/2: "Hopkins uses some imaginative techniques, and the two
leads are excellent, as usual, but overall it's routine and familiar."
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