The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: 1961
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Insofar as it has a protagonist,Judgment at Nuremberg is the story of recently electorally defeated Maine judge Spencer Tracy. Tracy is the chief justice on a military tribunal hearing cases in the Nuremberg trials, the Allied attempt to hold the Germans accountable for their actions during World War II. Tracy's coming in towards the end…
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If Creature from the Haunted Sea weren’t atrocious, it’d have to be fantastic. There’s no possible in between for the film, which is high concept, no budget. The film starts as a political spoof about Cuban generals fleeing the revolution with gold. They enlist the aid of gambling gangster Antony Carbone, who has a yacht.…
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Battle of the Worlds is, thankfully, fifteen minutes or so shorter in its dubbed American version than the original Italian. While the film’s got its low budget, early sci-fi charms… another fifteen minutes would’ve been long. Though they might have sorted out Umberto Orsini’s seeming love triangle with Maya Brent and Carol Danell, which actually…
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It’s an hour into The Hustler before the film offers any real information about protagonist Paul Newman. We’ve seen Newman and mentor slash manager Myron McCormick pool hustle their way across the North American continent, getting Newman to New York City so he can play the best pool player in the world, Minnesota Fats (Jackie…
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Probably pretty short–probably because co-director Godard’s editing is butcher job–about a young woman trying to get to Paris for college. Big problem is the seasonal flood. The (real) flood footage is great. The short, nah. DVD, Blu-ray.Continue reading →
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At eighty-nine minutes, Through a Glass Darkly never has a chance to get tedious, which is part of the problem. Writer-director Bergman has just introduced the characters, just established the ground situation, when he tries a graceful segue into the characters and their relationships being familiar in the second act. They’re not. They’re still being…
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The Explosive Generation has expert plotting. Joseph Landon’s script; it’s expertly plotted. Even when it high tails it away from the “hook,” it’s still expertly plotted. The film goes from being about teenagers trying to frankly and openly discuss sex in teacher William Shatner’s classroom to being about student protest. The protagonist goes from being…
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The Curse of the Werewolf has an absurd epic structure. Clifford Evans narrates; he eventually comes into the film, which means there’s no way he’d know about events he didn’t witness except everything does apparently take place in the same Spanish town. First is the story of a beggar, played by Richard Wordsworth, who ends…
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Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll are American tourists in Paris who meet expat jazz musicians Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier. They pair off on color lines (a change from the source novel, where Newman’s character romances Carroll’s); the men grapple with possibly returning to the States with their new ladies while still trying to hit…
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What’s startling about Bloodlust! isn’t how bad it gets–the film opens on a docked ship, with the principal cast pretending it’s moving violently so the bad is obvious straight away–but how many not bad elements there are to the film. None of them are enough to make Bloodlust! worthwhile, unless someone’s a big June Kenney…
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“The Phantom” is horrific. Between Lon Chaney Jr. trying a Cajun accent and Paulette Goddard’s hilariously bad turn as a Ms. Big, there’s no good acting. But these two guest stars aren’t even the worst–lead Roger Creed is unbearably awful. I’m sure he was hired to put on the purple jumpsuit but still… he doesn’t…
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I’m sure writer-director Glut understands Time Is Just a Place–and I’m sure he explained it to friends and family who watched it when he made it–but there’s no explanation in the short itself. There are a couple rocket ships traveling through space. They’re apparently time rockets. One ends up in prehistoric times, the other in…
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There’s nothing good about The Saga of Windwagon Smith. The best thing about it is the extended opening titles, which eat up some of the runtime and lessen the cartoon’s awfulness. The animation happily plays at the nexus of lazy, incompetent and bad. Director Nichols–who cowrote–at least could’ve come up with an interesting visualization for…
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Are all Speedy Gonzales cartoons the same? Cannery Woe opens with starving Mexican mice needing Speedy to get them cheese. Sylvester is guarding the cheese. Woe does have a couple minor differences though. First, none of the mice have to whore off their sisters to Speedy. Second, he doesn’t even show up until the cartoon’s…
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I wonder if anyone involved in making The Last Hungry Cat ever owned a cat. The premise is (for a Freleng cartoon) quite good. Sylvester is haunted–by an Alfred Hitchcock-like narrator–after he “eats” Tweetie. There are a couple big logic problems. The major one involves cats. They don’t have remorse. It’s absurd Sylvester would feel…
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Very Nice, Very Nice is a collage of sound clips and photographs where Lipsett discusses the vapidity of an uninformed, disinterested populace. Of course, Lipsett made the film in 1961 and in Canada, but it’s just as relevant today as it was then… in fact, it’s probably timeless. As an artifact, it goes to show…
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I don’t get it. When I watched the film, I had no idea The Innocents was considered some masterpiece of British cinema. I’m actually rather surprised by the acclaim. Similarly, I’m shocked Deborah Kerr considered her performance in this film her best. It’s not a bad performance by any means; the plotting constrains it a…
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Mothra is a strange mix of Japanese monster movie, 1950s Hollywood sci-fi and Disney. The last ingredient only becomes clear at the end of the movie, though it’s probably present throughout (as Mothra returns home with the two fairies, it’s clear Mothra would have made a fine animated feature). But the strangest element of Mothra…
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Girl with a Suitcase plays a little like The Nights of Cabiria. Watching Suitcase, one can’t help but feel like the filmmakers were quite familiar with Cabiria. Cabiria, of course, is from a certain period of Fellini and Suitcase feels a little like that Fellini, only the diet version. The film does have a lot…
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Stupefyingly bad sequel to PEYTON PLACE without any of the original cast returning. Unfortunately, none of the replacements are up-to-par–though, to be fair to Tuesday Weld and Eleanor Parker (in for Hope Lange and Lana Turner, respectively) the parts are the problem not the performances. Really bad lead performance from Carol Lynley, who’s back in…
The Stop Button 