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A few reviews . . (film or TV) — Page 91

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One Stormy Night - 1943 - 6/10
AKA - O Noapte Furtunoasa

Rumanian comedy, filmed in the middle of World War II, which aroused my curiosity.
Set in the 1860’s, a jealous husband suspects his wife of infidelity.
The chief culprit seems to be a sissified dandy, who always turns away from the man’s glare.
The only one he trusts is his live-in assistant, and from the opening scene we know how very wrong he is.
Narrative moves quick and plunges into farce numerous times.
Several of my favorite sequences occur in the music hall - which, alas, were not translated.
In fact, the few subtitles available are only “fair” at best.
A cursory glance online suggests this is a classic, as there is a recent theatrical version on YouTube, as well as a TV production from the 80’s.
Comical proceedings fairly amusing, though poor subs (again, few available) are tedious.

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Bron Broen: S01 - 2011 - 7/10
AKA - The Bridge

Corpse is found on Øresund Bridge, midway between Denmark and Sweden.
Police from both countries arrive and they will decide jurisdiction when the identity is discovered.
Wait a minute – The body is actually cut in half – No, it’s two separate bodies put together.
The murders are the beginning of a series of well planned events and symbolic deaths.
Brief series starts slow, but accelerates to red-line quickly.
Not to be missed is the female Swedish detective, Saga.
She has virtually no social skills, and no check switch - and is painfully funny - but her counterparts recognize her crack investigative skills.

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Sea Fever - 2019 - 6/10

“Get out of your comfort zone,” her professor advises Siobhán.
So she does her field research on the fishing boat, Niamh Cinn Oir.
Meanwhile, the coastal authorities warn Skipper Gerard to avoid one section.
So he steers the ship right in … until, too late … he encounters the reason.

Now the “thing” is in the hold, and the crew is succumbing.
Nice horror outing mixes terrors with science. Caution with human greed.
Claustrophobic, messy splatter across a rusty trawler.

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Topsy-Turvy - 1999 - 7/10

Overlong, excessive, but enthralling story of the genesis of “The Mikado”.
Gilbert & Sullivan are experiencing a dry patch, when Gilbert, touring a Japanese section of the Great Exhibition, is suddenly inspired.
So much of this is a how-to: rehearsals, fittings, problems. All intriguing to watch.
Not to mention the usual crises and insecurities of players.
There is the new Savoy, and the coming age (telephones!).
Dazzling sets, vibrant costumes, a sly sense of humor.
Memorable music, which is still being performed today.
Labor of love from Mike Leigh is a delicious tribute.

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About Elly - 2009 - 7/10
AKA - Darbareye Elly

Exasperating thriller from Iran might have you hurling items at your screen.
Some ten years after their college days, friends decide to weekend together at the Caspian Sea.
One of the guys is recently divorced, so a single woman is invited as marriage bait.
Pressure on her is immediate and uncomfortable.
Twenty minutes in, Elly (marriage bait), who has turned reluctant, disappears.
Kidnapped? Walked away on her own? Murdered? Eaten by a bear? Who knows.
Authorities arrive - questions - turns out none of the friends even know Elly’s last name.
The focus pinpoints on Sepideh, the wife who invited her.
Sepideh is a nest of white lies, deception, manipulation.
Because of the constant lying, where even explanations are untrustworthy, you want to scream.

Note to onlookers: Opening credits show money going into an alms box, supposedly to grant safe travel.
Someone’s money gets stuck, foreshadowing later events.

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An Evening With Groucho - 2022 - 8/10

Frank Ferrante’s one man play about the one, the only, Groucho!
Growing up with a stage mother who pushed the sons into showbiz.
Lengthy recollections of Chico, less of Harpo and Zeppo, a bit of Gummo.
Other reminisces include Margaret Dumont, Charlie Chaplin, W. C. Fields, T.S. Eliot (that relationship would make a play in and of itself).
I believe he performs every song. The energy is electrical.
He climbs into a good-natured Baltimore audience and engages members into the madness.
Ferrante has been enacting Groucho for 30+ years, 3000 shows.
If you cannot make his show, this is well photographed and miked.
Marx Brothers fans, essential!

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Sex And The Swastika - 1999 - 5/10

Tenuous documentary lacks hard facts to be compelling.
British set up radio station airing music, German news, and scurrilous rumors.
Propaganda of sexual peculiarities or appetites of leaders.
Objective - ridicule command and undermine Wehrmacht morale.
Unfortunately, no tapes exist, only scripts.
Millions of slanderous, pornographic leaflets were created and distributed.
After the war - evidence was ordered destroyed.
Second thread - Americans assign a psychiatrist to profile Hitler.
He interviews ex-party officials with axes to grind, his conclusions are wide spectrum and outrageous.
Do Allies utilize his analysis? No.
Titillating title, little else.

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Night Bus - 2020 - 6/10

Birthday girl Natasha waits for the late bus.
Across the street waits another passenger, more of a silhouette, actually.
Before she can fix her gaze, her bus arrives and Natasha begins her shift as driver.
As for the wraith across the way, where did it go?
Horror short makes good use of tension and jump scares.
I will cut the ending some slack and hope it works better on large screen, say at a festival.

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Diplomat Kuroda Kosaku - 2011 - 7/10
AKA - Gaikôkan Kuroda Kôsaku // 外交官・黒田康作

Well done spy thriller / sequel to Amalfi: Rewards of the Goddess.
Ten episode J-dorama follows diplomat (ha!) as he attempts to solve a series of increasingly high profile murders.
The police are involved, as is the Foreign Department, finally whatever they call National Security.
He enlists an unappreciated police detective, and also a few unlikely allies (including a couple of cameos from Byung-hun Lee).
Kuroda is mostly a one man show, however.
Cooperation and sharing details are not strong points, viewers have to work out mysteries on their own.
That will be fine for some, too difficult for others.
Closing credits of chess play symbolize the moves, counter-moves and calculated alliances.
The final two episodes forget the basic film rule of “Show, don’t tell” and are extremely talky and explanatory.
Excellent adult drama, nevertheless.

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Satan’s Triangle - 1975 - 6/10

Good title for erotic witchcraft exploitation, except this a Bermuda Triangle yarn.
Coast Guard helicopter responds to S-O-S distress from schooner out in the Sargasso.
Soon as the copilot drops onto deck, a freak storm appears and the chopper flies off.
Passengers and crew are dead, save for a companion B-girl (Kim Novak).
While she and copilot drink and drink, she relates how everyone aboard was slaughtered.
And reminds the copilot, “We’re going to die, too.”
May prove scary for the timid or easily frightened, otherwise fair at best.

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Star Trek: Renegades - 2015 - 6/10

Eagerly awaited fanfilm exploring the underbelly of the Trekverse.
Plot involves embittered souls erasing worlds rich in dilithium crystals.
Walter Koenig plays Admiral Chekov, though his character seems more aligned to Bester of Babylon 5.
Along with Tuvok (Tim Russ - who also directs) they “authorize” a ship of outlaws and misfits to investigate.
Battered cliché, true, but that’s the imaginative hook the writers devised.
Unlike most Trekverse tales, this is quite heavy on action and seldom dull.
After the opening (yawn inducing sitting and scribbling) the narrative barrels along for 45 minutes, pauses, races to the finish.
The story is so brisk, one cannot dwell on plot holes.
This ain’t your father’s Trek. Darker and more violent.
Starfleet Captain Alvarez shoots first, lies in ambush, ignores boundary lines.
Good costumes, top notch models and special effects, lame CGI.

(Released before the Axanar controversy.)
Entertaining. Better than most fanfilms I have watched.
A tighter, more thought out script would have improved this.

One of my issues with Trekverse is how privileged species travel about in magical spaceships, yet half of the lesser members live in dirt. Caves, tunnels, dirty prisons.
Unless you belong to Starfleet, you are - what? - swine?

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Nyrkki: S02 - 2021 - 7/10
AKA - Shadow Lines S02

Season 02 picks up soon following events of S01.
Team Fist remains, and early on, a lethal adversary is eliminated.
Not so much a different series, but the tone is changed.
The “look” (fashions, sets, music) is diminished, and the narrative delves deeper into espionage.
1950’s Finland is still trying keep out of the Russian bear’s paw.
(At one point, Khrushchev even invites them to become a satellite.)
Much of the narrative circles into the Night Frost era, although this is highly dramatized.
Terrific series. I suspect this concludes it.

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The Big Steal - 1949 - 6/10

Confusing Noir set in sunny Mexico.
A military detective hounds Robert Mitchum, thinking he stole a military payroll.
Mitchum teams with Jane Greer, and the pair pursue con-man / ex-boyfriend who actually did the theft.
Film roars across the desert with high speed chases, fistfights, and treacherous alliances.
Logic disappears at times, but Mitchum’s easy nonchalance makes this enjoyable.

Audio commentary, by historian Richard Jewell, is dry with frequent lulls.
Most of it details the troubled production, such as —

  • Howard Hughes had taken over RKO (which he would run into the ground).
  • Robert Mitchum was busted for reefer and served 60 days during filming.
  • Actresses declined to work with him, fearing their careers would be tainted.

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L’Étudiante - 1988 - 6/10

Breezy French romance.
Ambitious student, bracing for exhausting finals, enters steamy affair with musician.
Each barely has time for the other, even making time is possibly career destroying.
Yet they recognize they share a spark and recklessly hold onto the relationship.
They chase across the region trying to carve time for themselves, then hurry back to the classroom or concert appearance, exhausted.
A young Sophie Marceau is pouty and luscious.
Quite an 80’s experience, from music, to clothes, to the photography, to makeup, to the romantic attitudes.
One can’t help but wonder how much physical desperation has been lost in our era of love via digital.

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Marlowe - 1969 - 6/10

Once (If) you get past the idea of James Garner as Philip Marlowe, this will be a solid mystery.
Marlowe is hired by a corn fed, Kansas farm girl, looking for her wayward brother.
$55.00. It ain’t worth it. He refunds her money, tells her the brother should return in a month.
Just as well, as he is soon engulfed in a Hollywood scandal, gangsters, an icepick murderer.
Not to mention drugs, buxom women, and explosive cops.
Glossy, California Noir boasts piercing dialogue, as well as a neatly tangled script.
Wait around to watch Rita Moreno do a striptease number.
And midway in the film, holy moly, Bruce Lee is a study in controlled annihilation.

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Queen Victoria’s Letters - 2014 - 7/10

Unexpectedly entertaining two part series on the Widow Of Windsor.
Victoria wrote an astounding 50 million words in journals and letters.
Many myths debunked here.
Until widowhood, she was used and abused by strong men.
She had a strong sense of humor, as well as a strong sex drive (9 children).
The memoirs published in her life were considered scandalous, and after her death her daughter Beatrice did serious redaction.
With so many, many journals, however, much abides.
Fine documentary for Anglophiles.

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Friends - 1912 - 6/10

On surface, a lightweight love triangle.
Dora has two admirers. Dandy Jack and Grizzly Fallon.
While she prefers Dandy, he is breezy, and uninterested in a serious relationship.
When Grizzly asks for her hand, she must decide.
Griffith Biograph short boasts stellar cast (Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Henry Walthall, even a young Harry Carey).
These early Silent Westerns always stand out for costumes, a wild mix of hats and outfits, probably closer to what the West had been 20 years earlier. By the 1940’s, all cowboys appeared to have shopped at Miller’s Outpost.
This print comes from the Mary Pickford Foundation, and is clean, but has a modernist score of piano and repetitive synthesizer. It grew on me, yet it is essentially incongruous.

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War Of The Robots - 1978 - 4/10
AKA - La Guerra Dei Robot

One of the most ridiculous SciFi movies, and an absolute gem!
There must be 47 plots that careen wildly, launch from nowhere, dead end, so I’ll try to pick the main threads.
Brainy, old man scientist gets kidnapped by robots wearing blonde Prince Valiant style wigs.
No idea why he is snatched, but Space Command reckons he needs rescuing!
There are dumpy space battles - imagine the old arcade fave, Asteroids.
The Earth force arrives on some planet to engage in more battles with the blonde robots (who have knockoff light sabers), and ultimately aid a slave rebellion!

Add an alien empress - human, of course, betrayals, quest for immortality, plastic spacesuits.
Music is cheesy, the camera crops everyone, pisspoor dubbing.
There is a final space battle that goes on for what feels like five hours.
Clearly, film producers wanted to create a grandiose space opera to hop the Star Wars bandwagon, only they were utterly clueless and used the same tropes from sword and sandal epics.
Cannot stress how indescribably awful this is. Normal viewers - beware. Trash connoisseurs - whee!
Oh, if only this was available as a deluxe DVD with commentaries.

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Lost World: Jurassic Park - 1997 - 5/10

Considered the weakest of the original trilogy, yet my personal favorite.
Main reason - the sheer quantity of meals.
With two tyrannosaurs and a pack of velociraptors, one expects to see tasty kills.
This does not disappoint.
From the opening child (gutlessly explained away) to all those armed and experienced hunters to Fido.
Chomp chomp chomp!
Unfortunately, director Spielberg, at this stage of his career, was still pandering to his core soccer mommy audience.
So, violence and mayhem tinged, this is family friendly.
Another big problem is the script.
Most of the characters, so-called seasoned professionals, are astonishingly dumb.
For all its flaws, this is a guilty pleasure. I just wish someone could edit out the human stupidity.

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Strange Report - 1968 - 7/10

Short lived, cult favorite holds up well after several decades.
Anthony Quayle plays retired police superintendent Adam Strange.
He is tasked with mysteries, peculiar or delicate.
Kaz Garas is his assistant who does forensics, chemical analysis, lab work.
Finally there is ex Dr Who girl, Anneke Wills, neighbor, artist, undercover infiltrator.
Unlike much of the era, this is not campy, no heroics, no flashy nonsense.
Being the height of the 60’s and Swinging London, the colors, fashions, sets are off the charts.
Plots include student unrest, Cold War intrigue, illegal immigration.
Show only ran 16 episodes (it was supposed to relocate Stateside, but actors declined).
Noteworthy for one the of the best, and catchiest, opening theme music ever.

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6ixtynin9 - 1999 - 6/10
AKA - Ruang talok 69 // A Funny Story About 6 And 9

Bad luck, Tum is laid off from her financial office position.
Back at her apartment, unemployed, a box filled with cash is left outside her door. Good luck!
Surely, it’s a mistake. Well, finders keepers I always say.
Except for Tum, the criminals realize their error and come calling.
“Money? What money? I don’t know nothing about no money.”

And then, the bodies start piling up. As do comic situations.
Cheap looking, poorly acted, and yet this has an undeniable charm.
The exuberant energy of a cast having a blast making a movie!

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Viper In The Fist - 2004 - 6/10
AKA - Vipère au Poing

The boys live with grandma at the family chateau, unaware of their impoverished gentility.
Grandmama dies, however, and the parents grudgingly return from Vietnam.
Mother removes stoves from the boys’ rooms, decides they only need one blanket, cuts meals.
Removes them from boarding school, confiscates their toys, stabs hands when one speaks at the table.
She is determined to destroy their spirits.
The boys try to rebel, call their mother-from-hell “Freakso” behind her back, but they are so young.
Middle son is the strongest and the film becomes a battle of powerful wills.
Supposedly a watered-down version of Hervé Bazin’s novel of the same name.

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Boiling Point - 2021 - 7/10

Character study of a head chef nearing the end of his tether.
Andy, recently divorced / separated, has finally found a flat after a spell of homeless status,
The health inspector has just docked his restaurant a massive two points.
Main cause, sloppy paperwork, which one gathers is due to Andy’s personal problems.
Stressors include tardy employees, a food critic arriving, an old mentor, food shortages.
One thing after another.
The camerawork is spectacular, lingering on one character, then latching on to another.
After twenty minutes, I realized that had not been a single edit.
In essence, a one take feature. Spellbinding.

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The Secret Life Of Books: S02 - 2016 - 6/10

Superior followup to the first series (S01 marred by inferior presenters).
This season is a trifle more “English” with several titles less known outside of Britain.
Episodes include Spenser’s “Faerie Queen,” Lear’s “Nonsense Songs,” Eliot’s “Mill On The Floss.”
Also “Confessions Of An Opium Eater,” “Cider With Rosie,” and “Swallows And Amazons.”
Each show is a mere 30 minutes. Hosts read from the book, talk of their relationship with it, and the legacy of book and author.
Book lovers need no recommendation. Others, this is a literary way to kill a half hour.

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Dead Again - 1991 - 6/10

Branagh’s followup to Henry V is a Hitchcockian mystery.
A private eye accepts a client with amnesia, suffering terrible nightmares.
Strangers, it turns out they have something of a history. Perhaps.
The narrative is veiled there (unless you watch the trailer) and maintains good suspense.
Two mysteries begin to dovetail: a current story and a flashback.
Not full Noir, but elements used really enhance this, along with a few Gothic flourishes.
Derek Jacobi is delicious.
Old-fashioned whodunit, updated in a good way.