Vultural

52 Pick-Up - 1986 - 6/10

Harry, successful businessman, gets blackmailed for cheating on his wife (Ann Margaret, really?).
Somewhat an ego-head, Harry blows them off, refuses to pay.
The hoods up the ante, screening Harry an up close and personal snuff flick.
Neo-Noir roots are strong in this, likely because this is based on an Elmore James novel.
That said, sport, this is trashy exploitation at times.
The narrative leaps logic, there are plot holes, and characters are too knowledgeable, or pure stupidity.
Although Roy Scheider stars, and there are plenty of “names” (including a slew of porn stars), John Glover as the lead villain, steals every scene he is in.
Got that, sport?
Fun film, though extremely sleazy.

Coming Home - 2014 - 7/10
AKA - Gui Lai // 归 来

Man returns home after being imprisoned as a “rightist” for over a decade during China’s Cultural Revolution.
He attempts to rebuild his family though there are complications.
His wife suffers amnesia and does not recognize him, his daughter shuns him.
Over time, he uncovers some of the mishaps that befell while he was in prison.
Not all, however, which may frustrate Western viewers.
No dates are given, the Cultural Revolution goes unmentioned.
Gong Li remarkable as the broken wife.

Orlando - 1992 - 7/10

“Do not fade, do not wither, do not grow old.”
So commands Queen Elizabeth upon giving Orlando a castle.
Time rolls on, and the young lord does not age, dabbling away the years.
He does, however, transform into a female, and experiences life from that perspective.
And years continue to sweep past.
An audacious film of gender identification and sexual fluidity, far ahead of its time.
Haunting score, interesting casting. A film that may linger with you for weeks, or through your life.

Romeo Is Bleeding - 1993 - 6/10

Jack is a bent copper, on the take from the mob, a woman abuser.
A doomed loser, hemmed in by his own sorry choices and corrupt character.
Latest favor he owes? Whack job.
Only the target is attractive, and cunning. Oh, and a hitman, feminine version.
Yes, Jack is out of his league.
Merciless Neo-Noir, riddled with diseased twists.
Dialogue is arch, and Gary Oldham’s delivery strikes one as mannered, yet believable.
For a dark tale, this is awfully funny at times, and Jack is a cringe worthy soul.

Desperate Romantics - 2009 - 6/10

Six part series narrates the rise of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Only four are in this: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, William Holman Hunt, and Fred Stephens - err - Walters.
Rejected by the Royal Academy, they win favor from influential John Ruskin, and learn how to market.
Focus is on their inter-personal relationships and affairs with models.
Parents - There is copious nudity and rather enthusiastic bouncing.
This is a modernish account. Characters are a blend of fiction and truth.
(I’m hardly an expert, but I have a dozen or so books on the PRB.)
High production values, some funny moments. with a great deal of brio.
Not dry. More fun than Effie Gray, though best viewed with a skeptical eye.

Glorious 39 - 2009 - 7/10

Christopher Lee bookends a pre-WWII thriller of treachery and betrayal.
Young man visits two elderly uncles and asks what happened to a great aunt.
She disappeared, you see, on the eve of World War II, and Lee who was a young witness, tells her story.
Time falls midway between Chamberlain’s “peace in our time,” and Churchill’s “we shall never surrender.”

The three oldest children, young adults, discover an oily patch of shrouded history on their estate.
Contrary to popular myth, not everyone was keen to fight Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
There was an powerful underbelly of appeasers, entrenched nobles, industrialists, royalty, eager to cut a deal.
Good show for history buffs, even if this jumps in mad directions.
For conspiracy types: Joe Kennedy is mentioned, the Duke of Windsor is not.

The Grand Inquisitor - 2008 - 6/10

Young woman, Lulu (in a Brooksie bob), arrives at Mrs. Reedy’s home, unannounced.
She holds books, notes and theories, which the police ridicule.
The elderly woman is frail, yet typical of her generation, is hospitable. Even to intruders.
Essentially a chamber play, this was one of Marsha Hunt’s final screen performances.
Mystery short. Praise Eddie Muller for giving a sunset role to an old star.
Subtitles = https://subscene.com/subtitles/the-grand-inquisitor/english/2891353

Auto Focus - 2002 - 6/10

Who knew? Colonel Hogan was a porn addict?
Uncomfortable retelling of Bob Crane, minor actor, whose TV hit, “Hogan’s Heroes “ rocketed him into TV stardom.
Aside from Superdad, he was unable to transit to movies, although he remained a familiar face on television.
Greg Kinnear very good as the troubled Crane, in this seedy look at the 70’s.
Another Paul Schrader film of damaged males leading stunted, perhaps empty, lives.
If you remain a fan of Crane’s sitcom, it might be wiser pass this by, as it leaves a sour residue.

The clip I saw was exquisite, very sharp.
Mmm, not to lob rocks at you, but are you trying to upscale an episode, a season, the series itself?
Even one episode would be an awfully big task.

And no, I cannot envision Disney restoring Millennium and more than I can picture them restoring Profit, another FOX gem.

Loving Highsmith - 2022 - 6/10

Documentary on novelist Patricia Highsmith.
Childhood, impossible relationship with her mother (who rejected her), romantic dalliances.
Talking heads include relatives (nieces?) and partners, along with experts.
Scenes from four film adaptations: Strangers On A Train (1951), The American Friend (1977) from “Ripley’s Game”, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and Carol (2015).
The doc is enlightening, and maddeningly opaque.
Dialogue is in English, French and German. The version I saw had no subtitles.
One gleans the gist of conversations, but unless you are multi-lingual I suggest you hold off until this comes with subtitles.
For now, stick with her listing on Wikipedia.

Mongo’s Back In Town - 1971 - 6/10

Gritty crime story of a hitman returning home for the holidays.
Not exactly a family reunion, however.
Mongo’s brother owns a cheap club and is acting as middleman for counterfeit plates.
Except the plates have gone missing and brother is being setup as the patsy.
Bare bones overview of this Noirish film, shot to look like rainswept, wintry New York.
Sally Field plays a waif Mongo picks up along the way, Martin Sheen a young cop.
Telly Savalas’s Lieutenant Tolstad seems a dress rehearsal for Kojak, two years away.
Joe Don Baker well cast as tight-lipped, brooding Mongo.

The Gleiwitz Case - 1961 - 7/10
AKA - Der Fall Gleiwitz

Stylized docu-drama with more than a passing nod to 1928‘s, Berlin: Symphonie der Großstadt.
A German commando type group, impersonating Poles, cross the frontier border, assault a radio station, and urge Poland to rise up and attack Germany.
The provocation was false, but the blitzkrieg launched the next day. Britain and France declared war two days later.
Theatrical looking production. Closeups, high contrast black n white, angular film compositions.
Several sequences are slow, yet the visuals are always imaginative.
“Travel” scenes faithfully recreate the montage and pan effects from aforementioned Symphony Of A Great City.

The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema - 2006 - 7/10

Slovenian philosopher, psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek gives three lectures which orbit Film Appreciation 101.
Freudian analysis, obsessions, death, desire, phallus / vagina (fear - envy - worship), all probed.
Scenes from a diverse array of films are shown, followed by comments.
Žižek frequently inserts himself into scenes, exaggerating or undercutting concepts of reality or suspension of disbelief.
Mainstream studio fare as well as European arthouse used as examples:
Hitchcock - Lynch - Chaplin - Wachowski - Kubrick - Coppola
Tarkovsky - Haneke - Von Trier - Kieślowski - Eisenstein - Bergman
Observations and conclusions are, by turn, insightful, provocative, wrong-headed.
Those with a healthy resume of arthouse titles in their “seen that” list may be better able to agree with some of his theories, or hurl a sock at the screen.
For novices or aficionados, Žižek is entertaining and enthusiastic throughout.

Iskander: Shadow of the River - 2018 - 6/10
AKA - Maroni

A grisly murder in French Guiana is assigned to a new arrival and a grizzled veteran.
Slain were a husband wife pair of missionaries. Do-gooders.
They had journeyed deep into the jungle, going to remote villages, refusing to get permission from chiefs or elders.
The dead couple had a child. Missing.
In fact, the area suffers a long history of missing or kidnapped children.
From the beginning, you realize this heads straight into voodoo territory.
If you can accept supernatural and superstitious elements you may enjoy this four-parter.

How To Get Ahead In Advertising - 1989 - 6/10

Ha ha, how about grow one, Boil?
Advertising exec, ruthless, callow, suffers the equivalent of writer’s block.
He cannot devise a slogan for … wait for it … pimple cream.
Frustration spills onto his wife, colleagues, then infects his own body.
A stress boil forms on his shoulder. Which grows eyes and a mouth, and starts talking back.

Pungent comedy, hideous black humor that seems to worsen moment by moment.
An overlooked comic gem with Richard Grant giving a bravura performance.

Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story - 2012 - 7/10

Booker Wright, owner of his own cafe, also waiter in an upscale Whites Only restaurant.
Greenwood, Mississippi 1965.
Freedom Riders had been coming into the South since 1961, challenging racism and Jim Crow laws.
After the KKK murdered three, the Federal Government intervened.
In 1965, NBC aired a documentary, “Mississippi: A Self Portrait” and Booker was among those interviewed.
Dressed in his waiter whites uniform, he was funny and he was candid.
At odds with all other speakers who declare how improved and nice Mississippi is.
This 2012 doc is a “follow-up” documentary, filmed by the original documentarian’s son.
Solid job comparing 1965 Mississippi with 50 years on. What’s changed, what ain’t.
The doc suggests a connection between Mr. Wright’s comments in 1965 and his last chapter, of which I wanted more proof, less theory.

Nothing Sacred - 1937 - 5/10

A young woman learns she has work related radium poisoning.
Following a financial settlement, she goes to Manhattan to live her last days in style.
A grubby reporter then starts a deathwatch column on her final days.
Except, mistakes had been made.
Acclaimed as a great screwball comedy, this is anything but.
Carole Lombard overacts with her usual weepy, ditzy schtick.
Frederic March is an insufferable cad. The pair have no chemistry, no comic timing.

Candlestick - 2014 - 5/10

“Friends” gather at Jack’s for a dinner date.
In homage to the game Clue, the ominous candlestick arrives on the coffee table.
Loaded conversation, drinking, and gamesmanship progress.
Action occurs on one set, or, for one scene, outside on the street.
Lines are mannered, direct from drama school.
Seriously, this is like watching an Off-Broadway or fringe London theatrical production.
Note - I might have foolishly paid $30.00 or £20.00 to sit through this.
Characters are 99% predictable to the point of being talky cartoons, minus any satire.

Oddities include - three principals wear the same shade of maroon (shirt - dress - tie).
Music, what scant amount there is, apes Bernard Hermann.
Unless Jack spins a record, in which case he plays a 78 (yes, a 78 rpm vinyl and few turntables do 78).
Jack’s phones (two of ‘em for one flat) are both landline, rotary dial.
Hipster wannabe.
Attend community theatre or college boards, instead of this.

Vardeman, David - An Angel Of Sodom

Who let this guy loose?
The opening title story is a wild read and an avalanche of deranged images. Fifteen year old Jackie weighs 342 lbs, his knockers are the envy of most girls. Under his belt lurks his mantool, buried beneath folds of flesh. Folds that prove resistant to hygiene, so they waft like only body stench can.
Such is merely the opening of a painfully funny novella.
Within weeks, however, Jackie experiences “growing up” lessons, and his outlook detours into a sadder perspective.
Oh, the novella is written without commas or quotes. Yeah, yeah, the author is being artsy.

“… I’ve always had to do the wrong thing to find out what the right thing would have been …”
So sighs Mrs. Windbourne, pondering her quietly misspent life. She has struck up a conversation with a new friend in “Stomboli” as their cruise ship circles the volcanic island of the same name. Both females, one insecure, the other incisive, drink cocktails on deck, and their exchanges grow ever more irrational and incoherent.

The next outing bears a conversational tone, with a repetitive narrative style. Meaning a phrase or sentence is echoed in varying degrees. This repetition, for me, became like an annoying coworker.
Anyway, “A Young Guy And His Career” might just as well be Detection 4 Dummies. One morning, Wally decides he is a detective. He posts an advertisement, and lands his first case within 15 days. From there, the tale moseys from Pigge to pig. I kid you not. A satire on hard boiled dicks and the Great American Way, if a little hammy.

“Tramp On The Street” is another long tale. Opening paragraphs resemble a standup monologue. Our narrator’s mother has just died – so – doing as you or I, he heads to the local saloon.
The usual table, the usual cronies, spouting alcohol soaked wisdom and philosophy. Much of your sympathy here may depend on your thoughts on the human race.
There are one or two interludes where our narrator, Kap, leaves the table and reflects. Situations, observations, paths untaken. Mr. Vardeman enters more serious territory here, before stepping back and returning to sarcasm de jour.

This is not a collection to trot through or to read solo, one story after another. The author’s voice has a “samey” quality, and I found it best to space these between stories or novels by varying writers.

Keanu Reeves. He’s knowledgeable about the craft (reference Side By Side).
The films? His choice.

Squid Game - 2021 - 6/10
AKA - Ojing-eo Geim // 오징어 게임

Sat on this over a year before watching. Chief concern? Global hype.
And yes, this has been overhyped, primarily by Western viewers who have never seen Asian TV.
Nonetheless, it does make an easy entry into K-dramas (the violent ones), although I doubt most newcomers are reading subtitles (as many declare) but are viewing dubbed episodes.
Watch the subbed if you can, if spite of inferior translators (for example, oppa is NOT “old man”).
Anyway, a huge assortment of financial losers are recruited to compete is a slate of deadly games.
None know how lethal these are until after the carnage of the first match.
Although there are hundreds of competitors (bodies), the series follows about ten.
Ensuing rounds continue gruesome eliminations.
The J-dorama Alice In Borderland aired before this, as did movies Escape Room, Running Man, shoot, “Fun And Games” from the old Outer Limits.
Hardly original, Squid Game is lavishly made, though not as fiendishly plotted as the finest K-dramas.
A Netflix series, this does not suffer the usual “Netflix ending”, meaning this has a passing conclusion.

Maybe I’ll Come Home In The Spring - 1971 - 6/10

After living with her hippie boyfriend, Dennie returns to home in suburbia.
Parents, though delighted she is back, have no idea why she left in the first place.
Their middle class life is wonderful! Barbeque, cocktails, conformity.
Dennie is trying, really trying to readjust (the hippie lot was harder than she thought).
Yet, watching her parents, their friends, we observe the stifling home she fled.
Plus, her younger sister, desperate to escape, repeatedly voices the negative.
A perfectly cast Sally Field, Flying Nun in her rearview mirror, is the beating heart of this.
People idealize the Sixties, forgetting the rotten ending for so many, for so much.

Sing Street - 2016 - 8/10

Joyous, “let’s put a band together” story set in mid 80’s Dublin.
Chocked with tunes from the era, as well as the band’s own compositions.
The early numbers are dreadfully funny, though the band improves quickly.
Typical of the time, they also make videos, with like a 5p budget.
The female star of the videos is the unreadable girl across the street, who transfixes the lead singer.
No great revelations plotwise in quite likeable film.
Cast is almost perfect. Don’t just watch the videos, watch it whole.
Wonderful movie and great pairing with God Help The Girl.

Run Lola Run - 1998 - 7/10
AKA - Lola Rennt

Manni phones Lola, begging her to find cash to repay a gangster.
If she cannot find the money in twenty minutes, he will rob a bank.
And Lola runs.
Three times, each time running moments ahead or behind (note the overhead train).
Manni and Lola are only lightly sketched, their relationship even less so.
The film itself is breathless action, the run against time, against destinies.
Brilliantly conceived and executed alternate timeslips.

Soylent Green - 1973 - 6/10

Yesterday’s future today!
New York in 2022, where Earth is massively overpopulated.
A tiny sliver of humanity live like royalty, blue bloods of wealth and power.
For the teeming unwashed, jobs are nonexistent, utilities are gone, and food dwindling.
Humanity is a barely controlled planet of beggars.
Plotwise, when one of the captains of the food supply is murdered, a detective investigates.
Unsettling Charlton Heston led SciFi grows more relevant each year.
Swelling populations, by the way, are rarely mentioned – in 1973 or today.
Give this film another generation or two, see how accurate predictions were.