Vultural

Howard’s End - 1992 - 7/10

Lavish Merchant-Ivory production of impoverished gentry clashing with wealthy family.
Class comes into play as the impoverished are intelligent and more sympathetic to poorer connections.
Money is its own world, portrayed by a coldly dispassionate Anthony Hopkins.
Slow throughout, with gorgeous photography.
There are a lot of characters, and interweaving triangles. One almost needs a playbook.
Subsequent viewings will reveal more subtleties.
Powerhouse cast.
Most worthwhile if you are in the mood for a leisurely journey though manners and distinction.

Stay Hungry - 1976 - 6/10

Peculiar, Southern Gothic film of crooks and bodybuilders.
The bad guys, once again, are property developers.
Gobbling up the block save for one holdout, the bodybuilding gym.
The moneymen slide in one of their own (Jeff Bridges) but he gets his head turned (Sally Field).
That’s the outline. The whole film is odd vignettes and Southern proverbs.
An improvised rawness runs throughout.
Will appeal more to Southerners, and Schwarzenegger fans.

Present Laughter - 2017 - 7/10

Garry Essendine, aging Romantic lead, aging Lothario, aging … well, that‘s it. Aging.
Actually, he is well beyond the mid-life crisis age, closer to post-delusion.
Of course, female admirers do keep flocking to his nest and spending the night.
Lively Noel Coward romp of situations and sparkling dialogue.
Kevin Kline excels as the narcissistic, always “onstage” actor who cannot switch off.
Friends, colleagues, lovesick, assistants – all mere staff.
Dry ice humor from opening to closing curtain.

Ewing, Frederick - I, Libertine

“Gadzooks, but here’s a saucy bawd!”
BANNED IN BOSTON.
With credentials like that, I knew this must be good.
Rollicking historical adventure, the sort you seldom find anymore, and certainly will not read.
Lance, 18th century hustler, advances up the social rank via romantic dalliances.
Schemes and steam aplenty. Those of faint heart, beware.
Believe it or not, this was a bestseller at one point.
Also a favorite of Jean Shepherd (“you’ll shoot your eye out”) and SciFi great Theodore Sturgeon.
Ideal book for lovers of spring, particularly April.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Libertine

Bloody Friday - 1972 - 6/10
AKA - Blutiger Freitag

The duo spring Heinz just before his sentencing.
Do they run? Hide out? No, they start planning another caper.
First they need guns, however. Machine guns.
The bank heist is just the pretext for a high stakes ransom siege.
Euro-Crime has a mind-bending sequence intercutting the slaughter house with sopping carnality.
Foul language galore, sex scenes, blood and bullets.

Dark Harbor - 1998 - 6/10

Bickering couple, late for the ferry, heavy downpour.
Yet somehow they see something in a ditch. A body!
Rather than keep driving and notify authorities later, they stop and investigate.
And before you can say, “I don’t think this is a smart idea” they bring the young male to their country home on their private island.

Slow thriller mixes ménage à trois with role-playing and gamesmanship.
Not exactly a mystery, this feels like a chamber play.

Sunnen, Florence - Archetypes

The Centaur. Two chests, human and equine. Does it feel twice the emotions? Perhaps you never considered the centaur. Unlike our author who reflected and wondered how the creature felt about itself.
A beautiful book that contains twenty archetypes, from classic myths to more modern abstracts. From Mermaids to Robots. Gorgon and Angel.
The Gorgon, art school student, drawn to sculpture because of the permanence of the form. She who shuns transitory arts: music or dance. The Gorgon possesses the gift of immobilizing things, life, making them easier to sculpt. Making friends, keeping friends, proves more difficult. She is lonely, also a chronic downer who thinks too much.
Humanity misunderstands the Mandrake, attributing magical powers, not grasping the danger of the root, nor the inevitable disappointment it brings.
Stories weave from thoughtful to sad to humorous. Each archetype is imaginatively, often erotically, illustrated by Dolorosa De la Cruz.
Final thought goes to the Minotaur. With the head of the bull, the body of the adult male, yet the beast is actually a child. Villagers offer meat in the form of sacrifices, but it longs for green grass – and sunshine. It is utterly misunderstood, and unhappy with what Fate ordains.
Such is the magic Sunnen invokes in these clichéd fables. Insight, another perspective, drawing them nearer to our own experience, hoping the reader possesses a trace of humanity, enough to recognize our kindred, no matter the shell.

Burning Ambition - 1989 - 6/10
AKA - Lung Ji Zheng Ba // 龙之争霸

The family boss is moving to Canada. He announces Number Two son will take over.
The skirt chasing oldest son feels slighted and the boss is soon assassinated. War erupts.
Throw in the dead chief’s brother, and ex-wife.
Mercenaries from Manhattan, as well as the family branch from Holland.

One watches this Frankie Chan actioner for imaginative fights.
Brawlings and shootouts must comprise 50% of the run time.
Memorable one-on-ones in an amusement park.
Storywise … mmm … yeah.
Another small gem from Hong Kong’s heyday.

Cocaine - 1922 - 5/10

As ever was, if one climbs high enough into the cocaine distribution web, one finds Number One to be a man of wealth and prominence.
With an increasingly reckless daughter, who requires a steady hand to tame her.
Oh! Number Two, an oily sort, wants her. Good enough.

Preachy melodrama with Jazz dancing and the temptations of moral turpitude.
The image I saw was pretty fair, the intertitles battered and too brief.
Most versions, you will have to provide your own musical score.

Copenhagen Cowboy - 2022 - 6/10

Three unconnected stories of Miu drifting through the Danish underworld.
At one point, Miu is referred to as a “lucky coin”.
Like the coin, she shows two sides. Good luck or misfortune.
Fans of Nicolas Winding Refn (I’m grudgingly one) will declare this awash in style.
Detractors (on the fence here) will argue Refn is mired in stall.
Lengthy takes serve to permit viewers to feast on visuals, as well as pad the time.
Refn’s eye, which to me most resembles Cattet & Forzani, is his strength.
His storytelling, or lack of, is his prime weakness,
Stunning scenes aside, this offers neither substance nor emotional involvement.
The conclusion of the sixth episode seems to point toward Fantasy Island territory, which holds no interest for me.
Not that it matters. Refn has unwisely aligned with NetFlix.
In patience and foresight, the cable behemoth rivals King Joffrey, who would axe this series.

Navalny - 2022 - 7/10

Alexei Navalny, political rival and thorn in Vladimir Putin’s side.
Until he suffered an assassination attempt in Siberia.
Fortunately, his wife arranged emergency transport to Germany where Novichok poison was treated.
Unfortunately, once well, he returned to Russia, was seized, is currently in solitary confinement in Melekhovo.
Petitions, marches, polite discontent = big, fat fail.
Watching this reinforced my suspicion that the vast majority of humanity will revert to its historic rank within a generation. Two at most. The servant, worker, prole, serf, slave.
Again and again and again, nations and citizens empower the “strongman”: who promises to solve their problems.
More often than not, the solution becomes king, chairman, emperor, czar, generalissimo, dictator, tyrant.
Once in place, they gerrymander the rules, making removal impossible.
The sharpest way to topple the corrupt regime is the spilling of blood.
Afterward, we swear “Never again” over the graves of millions. Until we forget.
“Whatever has happened, will happen again; whatever has been done, will be done again.” Ecclesiastes.

Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind - 2002 - 6/10

Shaggy biopic based on the memoirs of Chuck Barris.
Who? Therein lies a wee problem. One should be a certain age to remember Barris.
Host of TV’s “Gong Show”, creator of “The Dating Game”, producer of “The Newlywed Game.”
Also … according to his autobiography … during this time, he worked as a CIA assassin.
This film plays those claims kinda straight, kinda tongue-in-cheek.
Nevertheless, this ridiculous film has a smart performance by Sam Rockwell, and boasts an incredible supporting cast (George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Rutger Hauer, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon!).
View as a goofy spoof (not as someone who believes everything they see).

Kama Sutra: A Tale Of Love - 1996 - 6/10

Fabulous looking, if empty-headed melodrama of childhood friends, Tara and Maya.
Adults, Tara marries the prince, who, bored with her boudoir limitations, begins an affair with Maya.

Also lusting after Maya is the prince’s hunchbacked, dwarf brother.
Meanwhile, Maya initiates her own affair with a handsome, muscular sculptor.
Ravishing scenery is a joy for armchair travelers.
Otherwise, steamy story of jealousy, revenge, comeuppance.

The Clue - 2016 - 6/10

For Noa, dull days flow listlessly by.
Until one morning, scrawled on her mirror is “Come on an adventure.”
I don’t know about you, but I’d freak over an intruder.
Instead, she follows a pattern of clues. Her adventure.
Contrived mystery short defies logic and requires immense suspension of disbelief.

Little, Bentley - The Summoning

“Classic” horror from the 90’s heyday of the genre.
A tent preacher is called by Jesus to build a church in Rio Verde.
The congregation grows along with the building, and deaths multiply.
As ever, no one quite makes the connection.
Mr. King praises this author, and for good reason; it’s a page turner. Formula, but the pace is full steam ahead. More than that, it reads like a King novel – or Koontz – or Laymon.
Three clusters in the yarn. Preacher Wheeler and his intimates, brothers Robert (sheriff) and Rich (newspaper man), and their assorted family and colleagues, and Sue Wing and her friends and Chinese family. Other characters that crop up from time to time? Dinner is served.
Oh yeah, vampire saga. Sucking dry humans, armadillos, cacti. And the locals? They seem to stick around instead of hightailing their behinds to Vegas.
Empty headed fun, reminiscent of a drive-in movie.
Neither here nor there: I preordered a posh version of this back in 2014. Nine years later, it finally arrived in my mailbox.
May all your preorders arrive, children. If not sooner than mine, at least arrive, period.

Living - 2022 - 6/10

Mr. Williams heads a faceless bureaucratic nook, Public Works.
Paper shufflers. Where public projects linger a dusty death.
Given a terminal diagnosis, Williams has a small, very small, awakening.
Too little, too late. Life, indeed living, experiencing, has atrophied.
Low powered film is mannered almost to the point of being stilted.
Williams, an empty soul, merits pity more than sympathy.
As far as the overall message, take it to heart, younglings. It is later than you think.

Die Screaming Marianne - 1971 - 6/10

Sisters, not always the warmest relationship.
Half-sisters? And where money is involved? A lot of money?
Marianne has been pursued across Spain and France, and into London.
A quickie marriage is attempted, except she registers the best man as her mate.
Curious mystery filled with liars, sociopaths, shadowy types, and innocents.
Sun washed Portugal acts to blind viewers to the dark, murderous undercurrents.

The Assailant - 2022 - 6/10

“Here. You dropped your wallet, I wanted to return it.”
“Thanks, we thought you were going to kill us.”
“Oh, no. Eventually yes, though.”
Michael (a harrowing Casper van Dien) has a thing about impolite behavior.
He does give bad souls three chances to apologize.
But how few people actually apologize in this world?
Completely, utterly unbelievable married couple mar this Most Dangerous Game remake.

Japanese Summer Double Suicide - 1967 - 6/10
AKA - Muri shinjû: Nihon no natsu // 無理心中　日本の夏

During Japan’s violent summer, a sex hungry girl latches onto a suicidal man.
They accidentally wind up at a Yakuza meeting place and are forced to remain.
The men wait for weapons, as a conflict with rival gangs is imminent.
Add a young male, obsessed with guns and bent on killing as many people as possible.
Symbolic of the “youth crisis” in Japan.
And, a Westerner, a sniper, eluding police and shooting at random.
A slow film, saturated in various death wishes.
Also of a specific time, which is passed, largely forgotten, so outside events seem incomprehensible.

Agatha Christie’s Hjerson - 2021 - 6/10

She is a showrunner for the popular MILF TV show, running out of ideas.
What if we do a series with famed inspector Hjerson, retired after a case error?
Odd couple premise based on obscure Christie character (actually a character of a character).
One watches formula mysteries for plots, twists and clever characters.
Plots here are half baked, meaning each 2-parter needed a more imaginative rewrite.
Twists range from adequate to obvious.
Our characters are quirky, though not on Poirot level.
They also lack chemistry and the female, Clara, grows more grating each outing.
OK enough if it’s airing.

Quintessentially British - 2022 - 6/10

The passion for gardening, clothes from Savile Row, West End theatre.
How about temperamental motor cars, rich literature, or cricket?
Midway through this happy go lucky documentary, I said quietly, “These are English traditions, not necessarily British.”
England is one part of Great Britain, and this doc excludes Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Feel good remembrance of what was.

We traveled there for decades. Over time, we noticed the distinctly English identity of London subsumed a trifle more each visit. London now equates with New York, San Francisco, Paris, Mexico City, multicultural Babylons.

- -

Louise Brooks - - Errol Flynn

Holy Spider - 2022 - 7/10
AKA - Ankabut-e Moqaddas

The serial killer dubbed “the holy spider” has strangled ten at least.
Police are hunting, but – well – victims were only prostitutes after all.
He is happily married, a war hero, with a steady job.
Still, prostitutes, drugs, and decadence corrupting sacred Mashhad.
Someone ought to do something!
Intense, dark thriller based on the true story of Saeed Hanaei during 2000-2001.

Consent - 2017 - 6/10

The barristers work the trickier cases such as rape.
Was it consensual? Date rape? Martial rape? Or a fitty puck?
And what happens when they get entangled in their own marital conflicts?
Texting, sexting, adultery, recriminations, revenge.
Over-busy play tries to cover a lot of mileage, goes mostly nowhere.
Spartan sets bring all focus to the dialogue. Mostly jousting banter.
Seats in the balcony, this capture.
Audio poorly caught, cameras are far removed.

Twenty Plus Two - 1961 - 6/10

She sees her old flame, actually the man she promised to marry, until she mailed him a Dear John letter.
Now he tracks missing heirs. This time, a big one, an heiress gone for a decade.
Latest lead, the murder of a film star’s fan club secretary.
Yes, pretty slender, as is the plot itself.
The construction is odd, with an extended flashback midway (making one realize how dumb the investigator is).
Swanky jazz score and a strong supporting cast.
Janssen himself is stiff, surprising since this is so similar to his Richard Diamond series.