david_barnett1 Reviews

The 2nd (2020)

A Film For Our Times.

[9/10 · 21 August 2022]

I totally enjoyed this film. As a serious and penetrating analysis of the wave of violence sweeping America because of their infatuation with a decree issued when the only assault weapon was a flintlock musket, it cannot be bettered.

I recommend it!

The Right Girl (2015 TV Movie)

A pleasant way of passing the time.

[8/10 · 1 August 2022]

While this is not another Citizen Kane or Third Man, it is one of those enjoyable run-of-the-mill romances where we know from the start that only nice things are going to happen, even if the heroine's life looks to be in freefall after the first few minutes.

We know that the spoilt rich girl is really a Nice Person when we see her having lunch with her Best Friend, who happens to be a sweet African American girl who has stuck with her despite her increasingly insufferable behaviour.

This Best Friend gets her a job in a sporting goods store, where she both falls on her feet and in love with her widower boss and his young son.

Obliged to take a second job, she is employed as a waitress by an Italian American pizza genius who is introduced to Mother.

Her snobby rich girl friends desert her when she loses her money and her Black friend sticks by her. I love films with Deeply Moral Messages.

To sum up, I really liked watching this and will very likely watch it again soon. It has a feelgood quality.

The City of the Dead (1960)

Burn the Witch!

[7/10 · 28 December 2020]

I first saw this movie in 1960. It was the supporting feature, the main film being called "I Mobster", which I which I and a fellow aficionado of the horror genre mistook for "I Monster". But neither of us was disappointed by this creepily atmospheric cheapo masterpiece and its riveting charm entirely made up for the disappointment of having sat through a run of the mill gangster movie. .

It has, maybe not all, but most of the clichés associated with the horror film. Lots and lots of dry ice. Locals who could easily pass for zombies. Deserted, ruined churches and an Episcopalian Rector whose congregation and eyesight have been taken away by the evil that infests the town. And still our sweet young heroine persists in carrying out her research project into New England witchcraft - a project inspired be her college tutor, Professor Driscoll, played by the late Sir Christopher Lee.

Most of us would have run screaming for safety before they even reached the town of Whitewood. But not our fearless and dim-witted heroine!

I have seen it a couple of times since then and continue to enjoy its ineluctable inevitability as the clock strikes Thirteen. and the knife plunges - into a birthday cake! You'll need to see it to know what that's about!

Vengeance: A Love Story (2017)

Justice

[8/10 · 19 August 2020]

It seems to me that so many ghastly people are getting away with all kinds of infamous deeds. (Think Trump).

It's good to see low lifes being blown away.

This film may be fantasy, but it's good fantasy.

Secret Obsession (2019)

Wonderful and exciting story

[8/10 · 13 July 2020]

This will keep you on the edge of the seat until the very end. Wonderful performance by the leading lady.

Abduction of Angie (2017)

Not very credble

[3/10 · 6 March 2020]

Angie, a little girl, is abducted, on her eighth birthday, by her grandfather. Grandpa is an ex-cop who went down for corruption. Many year ago, Grandpa had his daughter's boyfriend arrested and thrown into jail on a false charge, leading to the boy's murder by a fellow inmate.

The mother and a female cop friend kind of rescue Angie single handedly, without the cop calling for backup despite the cop being wounded by mad Grandpa, who also murders a colleague.

Wolf Creek (2005)

Not a nice movie.

[8/10 · 13 June 2019]

Anyone who relishes a story with loads of horror, torture, dismemberment and killing and who dislikes happy endings, will most likely enjoy this. It's well made and acted. One can't deny that it is far from amateurish despite its low budget. The fact that there is a sequel as well as a TV series, chronicling the further similar activities of the deranged mass murderer might be a kind of indication that justice is not done, but I have added a Spoiler alert just in case.

As far as I am concerned, the tale of three nice young people enduring what these did with the killer going free to commit further crimes left a very nasty taste in my mouth. I shan't be viewing any more of the series and advise anyone who is thinking of watching this gruesome story, to look elsewhere for entertainment.

My Daughter's Secret Life (2001 TV Movie)

Disturbing

[9/10 · 5 March 2019]

Having seen Elisha Cuthbert in "The Girl Next Door", I was anxious to see more of her work.

Where the other film was a happy fairy tale love story, this is a far more realistic depiction of a clever, pretty girl's growing addiction to gambling and her ruination.

It's not a film I shall watch again. The experience was too painful. Miss Cuthbert is certainly an accomplished actress.

They Call Me Macho Woman! (1989)

All rather silly.

[2/10 · 8 October 2018]

Anyone wanting to find out what it is like to waste one hour and twenty minutes of their life, time that is gone for ever and never to be reclaimed, is advised to watch this movie.

A sweet young woman accidentally encounters a gang of thuggish drug dealers, falls in and out of their coarse and evil hands a few ties and is transformed overnight into a female killing machine.

Jailbait (2014 Video)

A tale of suffering and endurance.

[2/10 · 17 October 2017]

This may contain spoilers.

This film does have a happy ending, which comes quite suddenly, as though the makers of the movie had run out of nasty things to do to the heroine and decided that, maybe, the poor girl had suffered enough. Hard to disagree, for suffer she did. Anna was beaten up several times, sexually abused by the Warden from Day One and locked naked in solitary confinement several times before being sent to the psycho ward and given a Silence of the Lambs mask. She did get to wear nice pyjamas in the hospital wing, though - a vast improvement on the orange wear.

Talking of orange, some of the inmates wore white jumpsuits. I wonder why?

One important social message conveyed by the film concerns the importance of safety in the home. Drunken, abusive stepfathers need to watch where they are falling. Glass can be lethal.

Also, the lecherous, corrupt warden had a voice that reminded me of the villainous J R Ewing in the great TV series, Dallas.

Another lesson to be learned is that plastic trays can be a suicide risk. Giving a disturbed girl who has already threatened to kill herself this opportunity to carry out her threat is a major breach of security.

I was glad she finally got the chance to play her cello in public, dressed in a nice gown and watched by her mother.

Vendetta (1986)

Pretty Satisfying (SPOILERS)

[10/10 · 27 October 2007]

I highly recommend this movie to all who get a guilty pleasure from seeing good looking chicks beating the living crap out of one another.

As has been said elsewhere, a stunt woman goes berserk when her sweet little sister (Bonnie) is unjustly imprisoned for doing nothing more terrible than defend herself against a would-be rapist, with fatal results for the nasty man! In order to avenge her late sister she hijacks and proceeds to trash in spectacular style, the valuable automobile belonging to the judge who had sentenced her sister. The same judge then sends her to the slammer for one year. By a happy coincidence it is the very same slammer in which Bonnie was killed.

It does not take our heroine long to work out what had happened to dear little Bonnie and once she has identified the killers, they begin to be taken out, one by one.

The fight scenes in which the evil ones are sent to eternity are truly excellent.

I have to concede that any tenuous connection between the events in this flick and the real world is purely coincidental.

The movie ends with the heroine, who has recently killed several women as well as gravely injuring a nasty male prison officer, being released to be driven away by her still loving boyfriend.

As an aficionado of rubbish exploitation movies, I can recommend this to all similarly inclined persons.

Great stuff!

The Halfway House (2004)

Well worth the time spent watching it!

[9/10 · 23 November 2006]

I watched this last night and enjoyed it immensely! But I must agree with the views expressed by others that the great H P Lovecraft would have raised an eyebrow at seeing his name in the credits! The absence of full frontal nudity is a disappointment, of course, and this is why I have only awarded 9 points out of ten.

Apart from the let-down when the briefs were not ripped off the quivering tasty bodies of the lovely young victims, I imagine that having to swallow the victims' panties might, possibly, have given the Creature indigestion. (One did see the Janitor drooling over a pair of briefs at one point. A flaw in the plot, perhaps, since they must have been eaten - along with the wearer thereof.) I also sat through that part of the DVD in which the various participants explained the making of this movie. It was clear that they all had a great time doing it! One final thought. If Borat can make it into the top 250, why not this?

Le guerriere dal seno nudo (1973)

Lots and lots of chicks and loads of flesh.

[9/10 · 20 September 2006]

I would say that this otherwise acceptable bit of sword and sandals with a feminine twist ( and loads of wholesome female flesh) was spoilt by the rather weak and disappointing ending.

I loved the two fight scenes between the two rivals for the four year term of office as queen (!!) especially the second and nude fight which led to a tender reconciliation between them.

But it was marred for me by the way the men had to get their own way in the end. Shame!

I only recently obtained the DVD of this old movie after looking out for it for a while. It's a bit scrappy in parts, but worth watching. I suspect some scenes have been lost altogether.

It's a shame there isn't more of this escapist stuff out there full of voluptuous bimbos! As another reviewer has said, the fight scenes are very well done.

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Conspiracy theory stuff!

[9/10 · 26 August 2006]

I searched high and low to find this on DVD! So don't get me wrong, please! It was superbly well done and it held my attention throughout.

BUT! The earnest Political Correctness of it all finally put me off.

I have seen so many flicks like this, where we are asked to believe that government is just an evil conspiracy against the rest of us. Rubbish! By all means sit back and enjoy this as a bit of sheer fantasy. But NEVER! I repeat NEVER! even begin to think about taking it seriously!

Robert Redford is a Right on Liberal, taken straight out of Hollywood Central Casting - and one of the very worst kind! And this ultimately robs him of all right to be taken even half way seriously as a pukka human being. Good actor, though! You can't take that away from him. Thank God for Charlton Heston, John Wayne and - above all - Ronald Reagan!

The Merchant of Venice (1980 TV Movie)

Magnificent

[10/10 · 18 March 2006]

One is compelled to give three very rousing cheers to any performance of this, my favourite Shakespeare play, that does not cut out words and phrases offensive to that curse of the modern age, political correctness.

As another reviewer has said, The Merchant was written in another age when sentiments that would now land one in trouble were commonplace.

Shylock is definitely not the hero of this play but it is impossible to think of him as an out and out villain either. Warren Mitchell brings out this ambiguity well.

The Olivier performance, although unmissable, omits too much to the Jew's discredit.

The recent Al Pacino production, which I bought the minute it became available, was also a great letdown with potentially racist/anti-Semitic words left out and with the text, what was left of it, horribly modernised. It was visually stunning, though.

It may have been wrong of Portia to say what she did of the Prince of Morocco when he bade her a sad farewell, but those were the words that the Bard put in her mouth and they should be left there.

The whole 37 plays, that the BBC produced in the 1970s/1980s, are now available on DVD. An excellent investment!

This Sporting Life (1963)

A Sad Scene

[3/10 · 19 February 2006]

If anyone wonders why cinema became so neglected during the 1960s, this is part of the answer.

To anyone who came to this gritty, bleak story out of a wish to indulge in escapism - hard luck! The nastiness of life in the industrial North of England is shoved into your face with such unremitting enthusiasm that only a dedicated sado masochist would actually enjoy this ghastly misery-fest.

It received numerous plaudits at the time. I am old enough to remember the hoo-ha! But, if anyone wants to examine the reason for the decline of British cinema, look no further. People want to be entertained when they give up their hard earned pennies (cents). All that this film does is make one miserable - and for no good reason.

Life should be better than this. And if it isn,t - why do we go on living?

Opposing Force (1986)

Marred by the Ending

[9/10 · 20 October 2005]

Without saying how it ended, it is sufficient to say that the whole thing degenerates from about five minutes before the end. If the standard had been maintained throughout, the movie would be worth a seven.

One wonders in a way why a woman was added to the cast. (Well - not really!) The premise is a good one The situation the victims find themselves in is pretty terrifying and it's rather well done, but you get the impression the makers of the film lost interest towards the end, or as a previous contributor said, they changed writers and handed over to someone else.

Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)

My First Julia Roberts Movie

[16 October 2004]

Unlike some, I LIKE this lady and this is my favourite film of hers. After watching it for the nth time I was moved to buy the book on which it is based and this is a far more complex affair than the film, which simplifies everything and leaves out several characters altogether. I think Nancy Price did a far better job of studying an abused wife, who never really stopped loving her brute of a husband, than the makers of the film. It depicts Sara/Laura as a far more interesting character than the somewhat insipid Julia Roberts version.

If you have read the book, then some little touches in the film (i.e. - African Violets) become clearer.