Category: ★★
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The Dark Past opens with a lengthy, confidently showy, and capable POV sequence. Lee J. Cobb is arriving at work, just like anyone–and the movie does a lengthy “peoples is peoples” bit–except he’s a police psychiatrist. It’s his job to save kids from becoming hardened criminals, thereby not being on the taxpayer dime. It’s progressive…
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Until the third act, when it suddenly becomes clear the film never really had anywhere to go (at least not in this installment), Dr. Cheon is mostly delightful. Even the listless ending isn’t not entertaining, it’s just listless. After a magic-heavy dream sequence opening, Cheon settles into the gag–Gang Dong-won is a “doctor” who solves…
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The Plague of the Zombies opens at its lowest point—the film involves Haitian-style voodoo (not really, the movie’s version of Haitian-style voodoo) being practiced in a Cornish village, and the high priest has a trio of Black men drumming. Throughout the film, we’ll learn about the voodoo setup (though not a lot, including what they…
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Buddy is in desperate need of some contextualizing. The film takes place—roughly—between 1928 and 1933. Given that timeline, it’s a little weird the Great Depression doesn’t start, but Buddy’s also really strange about when it decides to be grown-up and when it doesn’t. The film tells the story of eccentric socialite Gertrude Lintz, who raised…
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Battle Beyond the Stars answers that age-old question… what if you mixed the star-fighting of Star Wars, the visual grandeur of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and some of the production design of Alien, but also had all the sexy babes in the galaxy hot for John-boy Walton’s bod. Also, it’s a remake of Seven…
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Day of the Dead is a nightmare. Occasionally literally, with writer and director Romero not afraid to rely on a recurring “it was just a nightmare” bit. But more symbolically… Day is about a group of scientists working in a secured location in the Florida Everglades, ostensibly protected by the U.S. Army; they’re on a…
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Mad Monster Party? spends a solid portion of its runtime only slightly amusing. It’s technically competent stop-motion animation with a charming voice performance from Boris Karloff as Boris von Frankenstein. He’s just discovered the anti-life formula and has become destroyer of ravens, potentially worlds. Having run the gamut from creating life to creating anti-life, Karloff…
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Bride of the Incredible Hulk is just the season two two-part opener, “Married,” as a theatrical release (for overseas). But it’s also a remarkably self-contained outing for Bill Bixby (and even more so for series costar Jack Colvin, who gets a single scene). The movie opens with Bixby arriving in Hawaii to consult with preeminent…
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The World, the Flesh and the Devil is one of those rare films where even the opening titles are spoilers. Devil is an end-of-the-world picture, all about coal miner Harry Belafonte emerging from a cave-in to discover he’s the last man alive. Except we’ve had the titles, so we know we’re also watching a movie…
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As a pilot movie, The Flash is a success. It establishes its regular cast—John Wesley Shipp, Amanda Pays, Alex Désert, Paula Marshall (who wasn’t back, but sure seemed like she would be)—and doing an admirable, post-Burton Batman live-action superhero. Danny Elfman even contributes the theme, while composer Shirley Walker keeps the rest in Elfmanesque line.…
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I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK gets some points for not wrapping things up with a neat little bow, but they do little to offset the film’s more significant issues. Cyborg’s got a lead performance problem and a stakes problem, something the film tries to avoid acknowledging, which ends up creating an infinite loop. Im…
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Bell, Book and Candle has three problems. The first involves Kim Novak and James Stewart’s May-September romance, which I’ll take couple jabs at in a bit. The second two problems are with the plotting, either in John Van Druten’s original stage play or Daniel Taradish’s screenplay. In the third act, Candle forgets its supporting cast…
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With some notable omissions (paramours, they’re French, after all), Désirée is shockingly historically accurate. Napoleon really did have an ex-girlfriend named Désirée, who ended up the queen of Sweden, her husband his former general and then adversary. The film gets big and little details right. On its face, Désirée is just a resplendent CinemaScope melodrama.…
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It’s a funny idea, and it would explain a lot about Love’s Labour’s Lost, but I don’t think screenwriter, director, and co-producer Branagh cast Alicia Silverstone on a bet regarding whether or not he could get her to deliver an okay monologue. He succeeds and she succeeds, but just okay, and it takes most of…
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About half of Hansan is a naval battle. The second half. The first half is a combination history lesson, period espionage and turgid war thriller, and naval warfare theory symposium. The film’s about Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who kicked the invading Japanese navy’s ass in the sixteenth century. Despite being in command, lots of folks questioned…
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For better or worse, once the film proper starts, Hereditary doesn’t have a single wasted moment. Every little thing is important in the end, whether it’s how dead grandma wanted favorite grandchild Milly Shapiro to be a boy or Toni Collette’s justified fears of hereditary schizophrenia. I mean, the title’s Hereditary and she’s got a…
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Sam Rockwell can do an English accent. See How They Run occasionally has him use it but mostly has him stone-face while sidekick Saoirse Ronan amiably chatters away. The movie only asks Rockwell to act once or twice; he can do it with the accent. He’s not really a stunt cast because the movie doesn’t…
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This Dracula adaptation takes place in 1913, which is only important so leading lady Kate Nelligan (battling and sometimes winning her English accent) can be a suffragette, and her beau, Trevor Eve, can drive a motorcar. So there can be a car chase. Or three. The film begins already in England. A ship is having…
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It’s impossible to say how Little Woods would play if Lily James weren’t terrible. As is, the film’s a waiting game to see if James will ever have a good scene. Spoiler alert: she doesn’t. She’s so bad I was expecting the production company to be “Lily James Productions.” She lets down writer and director…
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While Tom Cruise is most of the show in American Made, it’s not a star vehicle. Star vehicle suggests it’s got somewhere to take him. Made exists because of Cruise’s likable performance, not the other way around. Thanks to that likability, he even gets away with an eighties TV “Louisiana” accent. The film also avoids…
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Given how much writer, director, and special guest star Welles cares about performances—not only does he dub over one of the other actors, he steals a juicy monologue from Michael Lonsdale—one would think he’d have seen the problem with star Anthony Perkins. Because everyone’s looping their dialogue in The Trial, Perkins gave this performance at…
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Lilting is not a character study. You’d think it’d be a character study since it’s studying two characters to the detriment of all else (including the actors’ performances), but it’s actually a flashback-filled attempt at lyricism. Except for Lilting and writer and director Khaou, lyricism just means flashbacks. And the same editing device where dialogue…
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Transatlantic is a pre-code Modern Marvels Melodrama. Set in some fascinating technological, man-made invention or creation, a varied group of characters get together and have some drama. Sometimes there’s a murder, sometimes there’s not. Transatlantic has a murder. Unfortunately, it takes its sweet time getting there too, which gets frustrating; the film doesn’t even run…
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The Steel Helmet is an admirable effort from writer, director, and producer Fuller. However, from the start, it’s clear some of the film’s successes will come with qualifications. Fuller, for example, has a great shot a quarter of the time, a terrible shot a quarter of the time, and okay shots half the time. Lousy…
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At first glance, it appears Fright Night Part 2 is the rare example of a film saved by a mullet. Lead William Ragsdale doesn’t have much more onscreen charisma than last time, but with his gloriously juvenile late eighties wavy mullet, his lack of appeal becomes charming. Or it may be another thing director Wallace…
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Prey is roughly thirty years late. It’s a Predator prequel with ties to the existing franchise (mainly the second one), but it’s a conceptual no-brainer and one they’ve been doing in the Predator licensed comics for decades. The movies established the Predators had been to Earth before, so why not show one of their earlier…
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The Hoodlum Saint is a surprisingly long ninety-four minutes, though since it takes place over eleven years (at least), I suppose some plodding is to be expected. There’s plenty not to be expected about Hoodlum Saint, starting with the time period. It begins in 1919, with a fifty-four-year-old William Powell returning from the Great War…
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Director Badham intended Whose Life Is It Anyway? to be black and white, which would probably help with the staginess. It’s a play adaptation. Badham handles the relatively big, busy cast well, but he doesn’t know how to shoot lead Richard Dreyfuss. Dreyfuss is playing a recently paralyzed sculptor who, after approximately six months, realizes…
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The Witch: Part 2. The Other One starts with a flashback to the very late nineties or very early aughts—someone’s still got a cassette walkman, but MP3 players do exist. Now, The Other One is a sequel, but it’s a “start from scratch” sequel, so for a while, it seems like this story will be…
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At its best, which isn’t often, The Big Picture is a vaguely charming Hollywood satire about young director Kevin Bacon discovering making it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But also not. Because Picture skips over Bacon’s “making it” period, other than being a dick to best friend Michael McKean and driving a Porsche…
The Stop Button 