A few reviews . . (film or TV) — Page 148

Cast A Giant Shadow - 1966 - 5/10

Ex-US officer Mickey Marcus is enticed to organize the fledgling Israeli Army in 1948.
Soldiers are untrained and ill-equipped, surrounded on all sides by hostile nations.
From the onset, a series of clichés, head-scratching decisions, distracting cameos.
Kirk Douglas fine as Marcus, yet he leaves his pregnant wife (Angie Dickenson),
Extended cameos include John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Yul Brynner (after while I quit looking).
Film is overlong, short on action, bloated with romance, and in general a muddle.

Arcadia: S01 - 2023 - 6/10

Dystopian future finds citizens of high merit living in the Dome.
Merit is calculated by a score-keeping implant that tracks skills, IQ, work ethic, attitude.
Higher score members have perks, lower orders scramble to avoid the dread “2” and expulsion.
Of course, everyone is monitored night and day in this utopian police state.
Inspired work done with architecture, and making the most of costumes.
Nonetheless, the script has drawn the main family (all females) as utter dolts.
They are wide-eyed, trusting, gullible fools, repeatedly committing illogical and stupid decisions.
By E05, with more narrative track being laid down, I knew this series would not conclude.
A second season is announced, and this has the skeleton of a great yarn, if characters wise up.
Producers need to fire every single writer, however, and hire intelligent ones.

From Beijing With Love - 1994 - 6/10
AKA - Gwok Chaan Ling Ling Chat // 國產凌凌漆

A Tyrannosaurus fossil is stolen from China.
Their “best” agent is assigned to retrieve it from the villain “Golden Gun”.
Operative 007, long-retired, had been working as a kitchen butcher.
Fast moving Stephen Chow vehicle is one of his friendlier ones.
Packed with jokes and parodies of the Bond franchise, as well as in-jokes of Hong Kong hits.
Lots of physical humor, although so much of Chow’s skill is verbal humor.
Wordplay, pratfalls, sexual innuendo. Know thyself.

The Crusader - 1932 - 5/10

Namesake being the new District Attorney, cleaning up the troubled burg.
How troubled? Who knows!
He talks a lot to self-righteous citizens, while a muck raking, guttersnipe reporter rolls in dirt.
Our reporter is an annoying caricature, and it seems perplexing that he has not been killed.
Lew Cody fine as the reformed nightclub owner.
Most will view for Evelyn Brent, but she is underutilized.
Often tagged as Pre-Code, it is a stagey, early talkie – and too talky at that.

Please Don’t Touch Me - 1963 - 5/10

“Oh, honey, I just love this special outfit!”
“Yeah, I was going to make the car payment, but saw this in the window and bought it instead.”
“Just so long as you don’t try – No, please don’t touch me!”
The story of the young wife, raped at 15, now frigid, entering regressive hypnosis therapy.
Wildly uneven claptrap is crazier, and more fun, in the initial scenes.
Once Lash La Rue starts hypnotizing, blathering talk dominates.
Of course, for many, Viki Caron as the overripe, milk fed Vicky, will be the main attraction.

Wicked Little Letters - 2023 - 6/10

As is often the case, they started out as friends.
Enjoying each others company, sharing laughs.
Before the misunderstandings, the spats, then the letters.
Filthy obscenities, heinous libels, shocking to decent citizens.
And decent citizens across the village began receiving the posted filth.
Marked as a comedy, this is an ugly, mean-spirited thing.
Jane Marple would recognize the setting and the characters.
The petty harshness of the cozy confines.

Assignment Terror - 1970 - 5/10
AKA - Los Monstruos del Terror

Lo, advance agents from planet Ummo, 14 lights years distant.
Mission, make Earth suitable for colonization after obliterating humankind.
Easy, correct? They can impersonate humans, have mastered interstellar travel, plus, check out all that cool gear behind the pair. Lights, SciFi equipment, tube amplifiers, other gadgets.
So, their master plan?
Resurrect a vampire, a werewolf, mummy, and the Frankenstein monster.
Next, unleash the beasts!
If you can accept that premise, you probably watch a lot of similar junk.

Firefly - 2002 - 6/10

Small ship Firefly flits across the galaxy, smuggling, transporting cargo, embroiled in conflicts.
The look and adventures are Space Western.
Crew is ex-military, idealists, convicts, a troubled girl.
Credit for many things done right: grub food, language a mix of English, Spanish, Mandarin.
Stories are character and plot driven, effects not so much.
Joss Whedon’s dialogue is twee and arch, however, and I suspect that puts off casual viewers.
All the outposts they visit are primitive, low tech, causing one to wonder: what’s the point of the future?

Queen Of Hearts - 2019 - 7/10
AKA - Dronningen

Husband is a successful doctor, wife an attorney for victims.
Two young daughters, solid marriage –
Until the husband decides to bring his 17 year old son from a previous marriage into the home.
Yes, the kid has problems, and the adjustment is rocky.
But the small daughters take a shine to him, and he grows into the family.
Bringing girlfriends home, however, triggers something.

His stepmother suddenly feels old. Akin to a midlife crisis.
The incomprehensible affair she starts runs hypocritically parallel to teen victims she defends.
Unpleasant slow burn drama, one knows will end badly.

44 - 2024 - 6/10

The Mumbai heist never even went as planned: the cops had been tipped off.
Stu evades arrest by dashing inside a 50 story building, unfinished for decades for reasons unknown.
She ascends to floor 44, before realizing that level is an Escher trap.
Horror short, filmed in rubble, loaded with shadows and jump scares.
Closing credits hold aural interest. Ought to be 5.1.

Winchester ‘73 - 1950 - 7/10

Outstanding Noir, cloaked in Western settings.
Two journeys:
Bent on revenge, cowboy Lin searches for outlaw Dutch Brown.
Parallel narrative tracks the Winchester rifle as it passes from hand to hand.
Violent film altered Jimmy Stewart’s usual comedy / drama personas into harder edged.
Classic Hollywood, with impressive casting (Shelley Winters, Dam Duryea, Will Geer, and newcomers).
The DVD features an interesting, if rambling, commentary from Stewart, recorded in 1989 for LD.
He never stays on-topic, but listening is akin to sitting on a sofa beside him, hearing one story after another.

The Stones And Brian Jones - 2023 - 6/10

Early on, the narrator states, “…most people today haven’t even heard of Brian Jones.”
Hardly true, since the initial album for most is the “Hot Rocks” compilation of their earliest hits.
And Brian is throughout that collection.
This lightweight documentary hits some bases, omits others.
Early Stones, Ian Stewart, who’s that?
Jones numerous girlfriends, and subsequent mothers, fill chronology between the band’s ascension.
Nico omitted. Monterey Pop omitted.
Brian’s “death by misadventure” glosses over the murder theories, or that onlookers did nothing.
This is entertaining, yet the participants are being very careful with their words.

Sssssss - 1973 - 6/10

College student starts working for a professor (completely mad) working with snakes.
To protect the lad, the doctor injects him with anti-venom.
No time flat, the student’s skin starts to peel and he has weird nightmares.

At this point, common sense should take over and the kid hightails it out of there.
Except – he’s met the doctor’s daughter, and primal urges compel him to stay.
Restrained telling hurts, although the make-up is effective.
Story itself is rather goofy, but this is watchable and will maintain interest.

The Joy Luck Club - 1993 - 7/10

In 2018, Crazy Rich Asians was released with exclamations of “Finally, Asians are represented!”
Disingenuous for anyone who ever watched a Shaw Brothers actioner, Toho production, etc …
Plus, twenty-five years earlier, The Joy Luck Club was a huge hit with a predominantly Chinese cast.
Four older female friends meet to play mahjong and comment on their daughters.
As with too many mother-daughter relationships, mothers see disappointments.
Four stories of the mothers’ lives / existence in China.
Four stories of the daughters’ lives in San Francisco.
Reconciliations are somewhat pat, the men are clueless.
Still, each story delivers emotionally and the film towers above today’s “card” flicks.

High Anxiety - 1977 - 6/10

Dr. Thorndyke arrives in Los Angeles to take over the Institute for the Very Nervous.
His predecessor had died under mysterious circumstances.
Throndyke suffers from acrophobia, which the Institute’s cliff location exacerbates.
Satire / parody of Hitchcock films is well done.
References include Vertigo, The Birds, Psycho, even Citizen Kane.
Jokes and sight gags land most of the time. When they don’t, that’s OK because you are recalling other films, as well as the locations used.
As with much of Mel Brooks, some of his humor is tasteless or puerile, forever 12 years old.
Hitchcock was actually involved with this one, so there.

The Cruise Of The Zaca - 1946 - 6/10

Errol, on his Mulholland hillside, calls for a helicopter to shuttle him dockside.
He drops in on friends at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and go gray whale hunting.
Afterward, a small scientific party sails down the Mexican coast.
Catching specimens, cataloguing finds, shore parties,
Voyage sails south, through the Panama Canal, into the Atlantic, to Jamaica.
Flynn narrates this easy going, personal travelogue, unreleased for several years.

Bodyguards And Assassins - 2009 - 6/10
AKA - Shi Yue Wei Cheng // 十月围城

In 1905, Dr Sun Yat Sen plans to visit Hong Kong to unite provincial rebel factions.
The empress wants him assassinated.
A force of skilled murderers are gathered, strategies and snares laid.
In opposition, ordinary folk from rickshaw drivers to street vendors, students to disgraced nobles.
Continued slavery vs the chance at democracy.
Film is slow burn for about an hour, once Sun Yat Sen arrives, street fighting begins.
Second half overloaded with breathless action.
Dominated by Donnie Yen, Jun Hu, Simon Yam, Leon Lai.
Fights, dazzlingly choreographed, excessive and heroic.
Since that era, millions of Chinese have died, hoping for democracy; in 2024, democracy seems a dream.

Gangster No. 1 - 2000 - 6/10

Freddy, spellbound by beauty onstage, fails to see the hungry gleam in his new recruit’s eye.
Not for the bird, but for Freddy’s clothes, flash, position.
He is ambitious, cold blooded, probably a sociopath.
The gang is a small, disparate bunch, and Freddy seems to be losing focus.
Set in “Swinging London” this evokes the Sixties, instead of offering slavish imitation.
Paul Bettany and Malcolm McDowell brilliantly channel the same gangster, decades apart.
Stylish, violent, with the blackest of comedy.

The Medusa - 2023 - 6/10

Over cocktails, Professor Gleer gives old flame, Professor Dregler, a book.
Gleer is something of a boaster, and the book he picked up during foreign travels.
Dregler them strolls into an ever perplexing journey.
Decent Ligotti short mixes the everydayness with increasingly disorientation.
Note: Subtitles are indifferent. I captured, and was able to correct half. Have been unable to reach the creator to fix the remainder.

Last Plane From Baalbeck - 1964 - 6/10
AKA - F.B.I. Operazione Baalbeck

Energetic Italian Noir set in Beirut.
Interpol sends in a fresh agent to Lebanon to thwart gun runners.
Earlier agents had been liquidated.
On the plane, on the tarmac, in the terminal, everyone looks suspicious.
Fresh killings begin.
The narrative moves so fast that one doesn’t have time to think, or even sort cops from villains.
Beirut locations would have been exotic, especially when this city was considered the Paris of the Mideast.

House Of Usher - 1960 - 7/10

Philip arrives at the Usher mansion, home of his fiancée, Madeleine.
Only brother Roderick refuses, owing to the Usher curse.
Philip stays, listens to brother Roderick spin tales of family history and madness.
Surprisingly good film from Roger Corman.
Benefits from Vincent Price’s restrained, brooding performance.
Superb set design. DVD boasts commentary by Corman.

Reasons To Be Cheerful - 2017 - 7/10

Blockheads, assemble! Ian Dury musical follows a pair of stiffs trying to see a concert.
Vinnie tells of when he and mate Colin schemed to attend a sold out Hammersmith show.
It’s also tribute to Vinnie’s father who has gone blind, yet remains defiantly anti-establishment.
In between, sometimes out of nowhere, the songs, pounding, aggressively in your face.
The Graeae Theatre Company features an all-disabled cast, though you will not notice after a few minutes.
Filmed live in a pub club, the sound is a mixed bag.
During dialogue / monologue volume is too low, whereas musical numbers roar full throttle.
The mixing person should have easily corrected this during or afterward.

Love Pants: Ian Dury & Jane Horrocks - 2022 - 7/10

Jane was 23 when she met the 45 year old Dury.
She was an up and coming actress, his mainstream appeal had waned, although he continued to have hits.
There relationship, tempestuous and toxic, barely endured a year.
Years after his death in 2000, she unearthed letters.
Love letters, loaded barbs, apologetic, pleading.
Reasons why she loved him, and why she had to leave.
Radio drama, for Dury fans, for those enmeshed in bitter love.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001g97b

Night Shift: Money Heist - 2022 - 6/10

After forging their boss’s signature, and sorta buying stuff for themselves, two office drones get fired.
What to do? Drink, get high, then plot to heist the boss’s black money vault.
Bear in mind, our two schemers ain’t the brightest bulbs.
“Some heists work, some don’t.”
Sharp Hindi comedy.

The Dive - 2023 - 6/10

Sisters Drew and May prepare for the annual family watery descent.
One gathers Dad exists no more, while Ma is a lost entity.
Bubbly Drew and glum May are polar opposites, as they drive down the coast of Malta.
Destination? An underwater cave. Have they told anyone?
So, early on, when the landslide occurs, the scatterbrained Drew is left safe.
Most of this is photographed deep down, so this is fairly dark.
Drew is something between a klutz and a dunce, a perky bobblehead.
Decent aqua-thriller, marred by overly excessive characterizations.