Vultural

The Riot Club - 2014 - 6/10

Privileged toffs behaving very badly, indeed.
Not only are they rich, entitled, and destined for the best of everything,
but they get to urinate all over the lower orders.
At least they do in this film.
Supposedly based on the Burlington Club, the Riot Club originated after the death of Lord Ryot.
Film rings false as they would not book an evenings revelry in a bourgeois pub.
Nor would they hire a call girl who would balk.
Also, paparazzi and phone cams are ubiquitous nowadays.
Nevertheless, a curious choice for conspiracy and Illuminati buffs.

The City Of Lost Children - 1995 - 7/10
AKA - La Cité des Enfants Perdus

Mesmerizing, if confusing, story of kidnapped children and the mad scientist trying to steal their dreams.
In a sentence, that is the premise in a film wildly imaginative in visuals and ideas.

Of course, why does the scientist kidnap children?
Meanwhile, a cult of one-eyed cyborgs prowl the fog-laden seaport and carnival.

There is nothing remotely predictable in this work, which ought to be viewed with as little info as possible.
Funny, profound at times, and a mysterious adventure.

Sex For Sale - 1974 - 5/10
AKA - Mian Ju // 面具

Wide-eyed Lin arrives in Hong Kong and immediately swells the ranks of the unemployed.
Fortunately, he catches the eye of a talent scout, who opens doors for him, as well as her thighs.
Yeah, one of “those“ films, in this instance a steamy Category III.
Females soon flock and flutter around him, only he ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
Rather than press his advantage, Lin remains broke, despite servicing women of wealth and influence.
The style is pure disco in dayglow colors in this trashy melodrama, played straight instead of sleazy.

Revealing Anne Lister - 2010 - 6/10

Documentary about the scandalous Ms Lister, landowner and womanizer during the Regency era.
Womaniz - huh? Say what?
Apparently this Sappho tale was an open secret during her time, though she did live in seclusion and was rich.
Money always helps cloak taboos.
She left journals containing 4 millions words. Juicy bits, seductions and graphic depictions, are written in code.
The code was cracked in the 1890’s, yet a descendant suppressed it.
The journals were deciphered again in the 1930’s, again in the 60’s, both times suppressed.
Finally, in 1988 the diaries were published. It is astonishing they survived, instead of being burned.
Most of the “talking heads” in this are excellent, commenting with wry humour.
The presenter, on the other hand, is an insecure soul who brings up her own life experiences throughout, and cracks sarcastic.
Anne Lister’s story is interesting, the narrator’s life is not.

Outland - 1981 - 6/10

Space marshal is sent to Io to investigate mysterious deaths.
There are illegal drugs, normally tolerated, except are causing fatalities.
Powerful forces behind the drugs, official whitewashing, and none of the residents want to snitch.
What’s a law man to do? Aside from waiting for the hired mercenaries to kill him.
OK SciFi, bears a passing resemblance to High Noon.
A few “space” externals in this, though better if you watch as a crime thriller. (Bad guys are below dumb.)
Sean Connery is the best thing in this as stubborn, no nonsense cop.

Clones - 2015 - 6/10

Mr. Freeman, physicist in an orbiting station, has a tumor the size of an apple in his brain.
Surgery is required, though standard procedure is to make a backup of his brain first.
All the memories of his 442 IQ.
Dark, futuristic short suggests a disquieting horizon for those too valuable to die.
In delicious casting, Replicant N6MAA10816 (Roy Batty) plays Dr. Richards, cloning specialist.

Subs = https://subscene.com/subtitles/clones/english/2840683

Walsh, J. M. - A Journal

A journal of word activity. Exercises. Forced structure of word restriction, per day, per month.
Day 1 = 1 word. Day 2 = 2 words. Day 6 = 6 words. Day 22 = 22 words, etc ………
Some of the wordplay is inspired, at times the result resembles haiku. Other times it seems like top hats pulled from the rabbit’s ass.
Midway, Walsh finds a rhythm, recognizes the path, and there are a flow of jeweled phrases that might well find their way into a book one day.
This is a souvenir, a copy of a writing notebook, the equivalent of an artist’s sketchpad.
More rewarding than a vanity project, better than a curio, this is worthwhile in allowing readers to “look under the hood” of a writer’s creative process.
Do not overlook the brief notes following.

Cop Hater - 1958 - 6/10

Late entry in Noir genre is a grimy, sweaty hunt for a cop killer.
Dialogue stilted initially, though one grows accustomed to it. Based on an Ed McBain novel. (For ripe pulp prose, track down episodes of “Broadway Is My Beat,” OTR from the 50’s.)
From the look of the barely clad females, air conditioning had not been invented yet.
Hot summer, lingerie cheesecake cooling in front of open blade fans.
Many picture compositions appear yanked off detective paperbacks.

The precinct knuckles down, slaps suspects, cuts deals. Sensitive, good-guy cops, no.
Robert Loggia is the main star. Look for a young Jerry Orbach (Law & Order) as delinquent gang leader.

Film simmers and boils into a bruising finish with twist ending.
Sleazy, enjoyable film.

The Dig - 2021 - 5/10

Obscure history that must have sounded great during the pitch.
1939, eve of Germany invading Poland, Britain poised for another war.
In Suffolk, gentry Mrs. Pretty hires Basil Brown to excavate mounds that she feels are burial sites.
He is working class, though self-educated, while her days are numbered and she knows it.
Anyone can predict how events will proceed.
There isn’t much plot here, and what there is, is utterly predictable.
Filmmakers shoehorn in a romance, spice it with the hint of homosexuality, add meddling by degreed toffs.
There are fine actors involved, given little to do in this thin broth of a story, riddled with inaccuracies.

Villain - 1971 - 6/10

Richard Burton, in shrewd casting, is gangland boss Vic Dakin.
Most of the illegalities run along lines of loan sharking, protection, blackmail.
The latter, rife with sexual proclivities or infidelities.
Along those line, too, is the overt homosexual behavior of Vic and chum, Wolfie.
I suspect much of this stemmed from the Krays downfall in 1969.
Sneering, belligerent tone, and Burton is a nasty piece of work.
Many “English” references flew past me (I gathered the Parliament connection equated with Profumo).
Underrated, half-forgotten gangster film should be sought out by crime fans.

Love & Mercy - 2015 - 8/10

Resisted this for a very long time.
I am very familiar with the Beach Boys, particularly Brian Wilson’s story.
Glossing or fabricating on the filmmakers part would ruin this for me.

A few quibbles aside, this is highly recommended to Wilson fans, and generally recommended to casuals.
Paul Dano portrays Brian at his creative zenith, while John Cusack’s Wilson is caught, not in the lowest point, but certainly in a career trench.
Dano very good as young Brian, innocent, ebullient, full of uncontrolled ideas.
Cusack has the tougher road as he does not resemble Brian, yet he does not fall into the cheap actor’s trick of impersonation. Hairstyle or Wilson’s sidespeech. Cusack works marvels with mannerisms.
Basic tale of collapse and later resurrection is smartly told, if somewhat disingenuous.
Outstanding use of colors and clothing to evoke time and convey subliminal messages.
The two docs on this are helpful.

First problem - Dr Landy. Yes, a despicable, self-serving cad, and yet, he did get Brian out of bed, got him to exercise, eat better, lose weight. He also pushed him into the studio to craft a great album.
(Rolling Stone published an insightful article in their August 11, 1988 issue.)
No reference whatsoever to the “drainers” as Marilyn (wife #1) called them.
The spongers and hangers on who were human parasites.
No reference to Diane Rovell, Marilyn’s sister. Both were in Wilson produced groups, The Honeys and Spring.

Another problem - The band’s discomfort with “Pet Sounds”. As if they did not understand it. Fact is, Brian used crack musicians and the band knew the songs would be difficult to perform live. (Note - they later learned.)
This dovetails into the “Smile” sessions where Mike Love lobbied hard to return to the old cars, girls and surf formula, which was already passé.
In 1967 music was exploding. Filmmakers, instead of playing a Dusty Springfield song, should have selected The Doors, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Cream, Hendrix, to name a few, to show just how out of touch Mike Love was, and how Brian, following his own muse, was more cued in.

Another quibble. Although the movie flashbacks on the early Beach Boy ascent, the subsequent years are not shown. The band continued, with and without Brian, to release well received albums for another decade.

As noted, these are nitpicks, and the casual Beach Boys fan couldn’t care less. Moreover, hardcore fans - of any musician, poet, writer, actor, artist, chef - are often obsessive and strange.

Paris: The Crazy Years - 2005 - 6/10

After the Great War (WWI) ends, Parisian celebration turned into a decade long, wild bender.
Prostitution was legal, drugs and alcohol were cheap and plentiful.
The City Of Light became a magnet for thousands of American GI’s, who lingered and partied.
For Americans of color, why return to slave mentality US, when France offered freedom?
From Josephine Baker to hot Jazz musicians.

Elsewhere, Fitzgerald, Hemingway and their set. Creative souls freed of social inhibitions.
Good times never last, though. The Depression, followed by the Nazis, snuffed the bright lights.
Part of the “Sin Cities” trilogy.

Freeway - 1996 - 7/10

“Look who got hit with the ugly stick!”
Imaginative update of Little Red Riding Hood, finds teenage runaway trying to find safety with grandma.
Chasing her is a pedophile, serial killer, whom she has already fought off once.
Leaving him disfigured, but really p!ssed off.
Reese Witherspoon nails this so hard, and it’s a real shame her later career veered white bread over white trash.
Kiefer Sutherland, as the creepy high school counselor, is perfect as the smiling foil.
Don’t miss those opening Crumb inspired credits!

The Zombie Walks - 1968 - 5/10
AKA - Im Banne des Unheimlichen

Movie opens during church funeral as pallbearers hoist the coffin.
Whereupon gales of laughter issue from the oblong box.
Does anyone investigate? Heck no, they’re British, avoid embarrassment at all costs.
They seal the stiff in the crypt and head to the pub.
Krimi based on Edgar Wallace book is a campy spoof the of genre, as well as Gothic potboilers.

Sure enough, soon as folks wonder if the corpse ain’t dead a skull faced fiend starts killin’.
The movie blasts along with murders, chases, blondes, and dozens of suspects.
Even during simple interviews, filmmakers toss in crazy sets and visuals to distract you.

Though “set” in England, with Lords, Rolls Royces, Scotland Yard, this is a German production all the way.
Not the best Krimi. A nutty film for aficionados of odd.

Swordsman II - 1992 - 7/10
AKA - Siu ngo gong woo: Dung Fong Bat Bai // 笑傲江湖II東方不敗

This, and the Wong Fei-Hung films, helped propel Jet Li to stardom.
Jet Li is the pure warrior, ala Sir Galahad, who wants to cease the interminable battles.
He is an idealist in a world that is dark, bitter, brutal.
Romance strikes and he attracted to a village girl, not realizing she is actually an arch enemy.

Nor that she is / was a man, who castrated himself to heighten his magic powers.
A very beguiling Brigitte Lin.
Swordsplay wuxia actioner, with a lot of wire work. Followed by East Is Red.
Get the Hong Kong original, avoid the US dubbed, dumbed down version.

Bite The Bullet - 1975 - 7/10

1908, the Wild West fades into the sunset, but not before a 700 mile race.
Men and horses, cross country through desert and mountains.
The newspaper sponsoring this offers prize money, and loads the field with their own thoroughbred.
Contestants are an assortment: gunfighter, aging Rough Riders, hooker, vaquero, a Brit.
Cast led by Gene Hackman and James Coburn, bolstered with Ben Johnson, Jan Michael Vincent, Candice Bergen (way too pretty to accept as a prostitute).
Admirable filmmaking, sumptuously photographed, excellent late-era Western.

To Paint Or Make Love - 2005 - 5/10
AKA - Peindre ou Faire l’amour

Guy retires, lives in the city, worries about getting bored.
His girlfriend, out one afternoon painting in rural oblivion, is approached by the blind mayor and given a tour of a house for sale.
Next beat, the guy and his girlfriend buy deserted pastures manor and move to the woodlands.
In other films, this would be slasher setup. If only.
The pair befriend the mayor, his girlfriend, and, for reasons unexplained to viewers, lose their moral compass.
As in, they become “swingers,” mostly one gathers, because they suffer ennui.
Sorta like the energy they put into their performances.
Anyway, attractive visitors soon appear and disrobe.
More jaded souls would think rural sex romps and imagine natives of the Ozarks, or Everglades, or Outback, or Yorkshire in winter, and cringe.
Move yourself to Provence for more appetizing bareback riders.
Well photographed, pretentious fantasy.

Hodgson, William Hope - Little Aquamarine Book Of Agitated Water

For the most part, this is a well chosen collection of Hodgson’s “watery” tales.
A mix of stories and poems, set out in turbulent waves or still pools.
“On The Bridge” opens, and this could be the night watch of the RMS Titanic. Steaming though dense fog, eyes sharp for icebergs. A thousand souls depend on a split second, accurate decision.
Steer southwards, where the fathomless depths hide many a grim scavenger. In “A Tropical Horror,” one rises from the deep and hauls itself aboard.
“The Voice In The Night,” much anthologized, is justly famous. A devoted couple, lost at sea, clamber aboard an abandoned vessel. Salvation, there are provisions and water. They take note that the ship, stem to stern, seems to be covered in an odious fungus. Well, that should be easily cleaned. Matango fans, this!
Plunder from India brings death and anxiety to a small hamlet. Two recent arrivals are curious about the large marble statue that, some whisper, moves during the night. “The Goddess Of Death,” while not set in the seven seas, does splash to a watery conclusion.

I had seen the trailer for Star Wars a couple of times and decided I wanted to watch it.
This would have been summer of 1977.
I went to the Victory Drive-In in North Hollywood. Foolishly, I took the hippie chick along with me, and we were both high.
As soon as the film began, I knew this movie would be terrific. Unfortunately, the hippie chick couldn’t care less about SciFi, let alone Star Wars. For her, the drive-in meant a different experience, and she ignored the fact that we were in an open top convertible.
Star Wars at the Victory was a distracted event, though I enjoyed enough scenes to watch again the following month.

This time, Grauman’s Chinese in Hollywood. Again with the hippie chick, this time, no reefer.
Grauman’s screen size was vast, 90 feet wide or more. The theater also blasted stereo, though I don’t think surround.
We sat in the third or fourth row, dead center, immersed in the film, and deafened by the sound.
Pretty fabulous experience, one that’s stayed in my memory for decades.
Note: the hippie chick and I are still together.

Lord Of Illusions - 1995 - 6/10

Dorothea consults Harry D’Amour, private eye drawn to the supernatural.
Her husband, the great Swann, master illusionist, is afraid of a resurrected evil.
D’Amour investigates, delving into a sleeping cult, murders, sacrifice.
Clive Barker film fuses Horror with Noir, illusion with magic.
Mystery is solid, horror angle well developed. Illusions are beautifully staged, and the Magic Castle makes for an inside joke.
The finale feels rushed and, to be honest, looks cheap.
A one-off (which I wonder about). There ought to have been one or two more D’Amour movies.

The Purple Rose Of Cairo - 1985 - 7/10

Cecilia, unhappy with her lot in the 1930’s, finds escape in the movie house.
Where characters live the glamorous life she longs for.
Then one of the characters, the manly Tom Baxter, steps out of the screen and starts dating her.
Talk about breaking the fourth wall!
One of Allen’s bittersweet comedies displays a keen eye for the 30’s.
From costumes and dialogue, to Depression expectations and Hollywood mythologizing.
Part of the streak of top films he made during a productive twenty year stretch.

Building Jerusalem - 2015 - 6/10

Static documentary about the lead up to the 2003 Rugby World Cup.
Rugby - not Football (Soccer for Americans) - but the more rough ‘n tumble Rugby.
2003 was the year England fielded a strong, albeit aging, lineup and it was their best chance to advance in the tournament against the dominant clubs from the Southern hemisphere.
The film seems for knowledgeable viewers. The game is not explained, scoring is a mystery, and one sees training though not strategy.
Enjoyable as a curiosity, true fans may appreciate more.

Constellations - 2021 - 7/10

Phase two, a different couple, physicist Marianne and beekeeper Roland.
Whereas Peter Capaldi and Zoë Wanamaker were older, perhaps warier, Sheila Atim and Ivanno Jeremiah are younger and seem to slip into intimacy easier.
Again, the audience must keep up with “realities” including those that double back.
Although the older actors work well together, there is a physical, emotional distance between them.
With the younger pair, there is less personal space, although Atim is on fire, and Jeremiah lags in comparison.
There are two OTHER versions of this play, all exploring choice and outcome.
Choose your own adventure.

Constellations - 2021 - 7/10

Marianne and Roland meet at a party, and hit it off … or not.
In time, they form a relationship … or not.
Marianne is a physicist, Roland a beekeeper.
She attempts to differentiate between quantum physics and relativity.
Then she mentions the potentiality of multiverse, which informs this play.
Reality may simply be a series of choices and decisions, and every different choice means a different reality.
No Fate here, only infinite, random realities. The multiverse.

Incident - 1948 - 5/10

Often categorized as Noir, this low-rent effort is not.
Cheap budget, poor sets, women with bad perms, men with empty heads.
Poverty Row, B-mystery all the way.
Man misses late bus and decides to walk home.
In a case of mistaken identity, he is mugged and beaten, but not robbed.
Later that week, he decides to find out who beat him up, who hired that guy, and who the intended victim was.
Yes, IQ of a cheese sandwich.
Along the way he meets an intriguing female who keeps a few secrets.
Time waster. There are easily 643 better Noirs out there.