adrianovasconcelos Reviews

Max and the Junkmen (1971)

Excellent direction & script from Sautet, acting by Piccoli, Schneider

[9/10 · 4 June 2024]

Claude Sautet emerged at the tail end of the Nouvelle Vague and was undoubtedly one of the most gifted directors to have surfaced in the late 1960s, having first cut his teeth as script writer, cameraman, assistant director. Such complete knowledge of the entire cinema spectrum only assisted Sautet in cranking out wonderful flicks like MAX, UN COEUR EN HIVER. LES CHOSES DE LA VIE, QUELQUES JOURS AVEC MOI, among others.

In MAX, he is assisted by very effective cinematography by René Matelin, and Sautet himself had an important hand in the script, which is logical and credible, with always impeccably dressed detective Max paying protitute Schneider out of his own pocket to win his way to a potential thief's heart. NB - the reason I dock a star is that initially the aim of Max's operation was to catch in the commission of crime a certain Carmona, but the latter is never seen and after a while seems to have been forgotten.

Through the exceedingly sexy Schneider, we see Max sell the plan of a possible bank robbery to Schneider who in turn passes it on to non-customer, regular lover Bernard Fresson, a poor devil who earns his living from brute strength work and leaps at the opportunity of scoring easy dough. Georges Wilson is superb as Max's boss, aware of the consequences and injustice of forcing a criminal situation but willing to help one of his best detectives after the latter had bungled a previous operation.

The whole film turns around the relationship between Piccoli and Schneider, a prostitute who is happy to earn money without having to move her hips but who begins to get frustrated by Max's distant behavior, even if they kiss and you sense true love between them.

Ultimately, this well done film is about loyalty and betrayal, about overstepping the boundaries of legal and police work, and sticking to those cornerstones of justice, and it certainly had me thinking about those variants for several days.

Highly recommended. 9/10.

La maison des bories (1970)

Un rêve de femme loyale dans un triangle d'amour - or how love triumphs over meanness, deceit, envy

[9/10 · 2 June 2024]

All I know about Director Jacques Doniol-Volcroze is that François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Goddar regarded him as a fellow member of the Nouvelle Vague that rolled over French cinema over the late 1950s, through the 1960s. Ironically, LA MAISON DES BORIES bears none of the usual traits of a Nouvelle Vague flick with its classically composed bucolic cinematography, exceedingly beautiful musical score (the second movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto 21 is put to more inspired use here than in ELVIRAN MADIGAN), restrained acting, and a deceptively simple screenplay that hides immense spiritual complexity.

The serenely beautiful Marie Dubois plays the loyal wife and mother who has fallen in love with a handsome young visitor but know better than to cheat while her husband is away on a job interview. Maurice Garrel plays her rather boring, disciplinarian, conservative university professor of a husband, who rules over the house with a tight grip, but ultimately proves able to change.

Then wunderkind Mathieu Carrière, handsome and fit, fans change into the household as he gets on with his job of translating Garrel's geology work to German, plays with the kids, falls in love with Dubois and ensnares her emotionally. However, the evil mendacity of manservant Ludovic in the house of dry stone huts (i.e. Bories, a construction style typical of southeastern France) enlightens her as to the straight and narrow path for a clean and balanced approach that saves the family unit and gives it a future, as Garrel returns with good news: a job in Paris that will prevent having to place the kids in boarding schools away from home.

I found the film stunningly beautiful and its moral etiquette delightful. Heartily recommended viewing. 9/10.

The Moon Is Blue (1953)

Great male actors, lovable McNamara but... too much fluff

[6/10 · 31 May 2024]

Director Otto Preminger needs no introduction with films like LAURA (1944), BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (1965), ADVISE & CONSENT (1962) and others under his belt. As it turns out, William Holden had already served as his male lead in STALAG 17 the previous year, and deservedly won the best actor Academy Award.

In light of that, it surprised me to watch Holden in a comparatively tame role, as a young man with a girlfriend who feels almost cosmically pulled into the orbit of the openly frank, nothing to hide, deliciously elegant Maggie McNamara. That part I well understood.

I had far more difficulty swallowing the rather older David Niven, father of Dawn Adams - who plays the minimal part of Holden's first girlfriend, Cynthia - actually asking the very young Mc Namara to marry him. I also had to suspend my disbelief to uncomfortable lengths to accept McNamara sitting on Niven's lap and kissing him after accepting a $600 cash gift - I realize she is supposed to be adorably screwball but even today that sounds like devious behavior and back in 1953 it must have startled many.

THE MOON IS BLUE is almost wholly shot indoors, no sight of the moon, hardly any outside views at all, and the characters rather left me with the impression that I was watching a substandard play. That said, Niven steals the show with his underhand class and fake wide-eyed innocence, Holden's dry but yet nuanced delivery is perfect, McNamara's waif-like figure and beautiful eyes are to die for, and Tom Tully stands out as her daddy with a shiner punch.

Ultimately, though, there is not much to remember about this flick, possibly because the cinematography is pedestrian and the screenplay not screwball enough. 6/10.

Christmas in July (1940)

Vile joke turns into happy ending

[7/10 · 26 May 2024]

By 1940, when CHRISTMAS IN JULY came out, Preston Sturges already had some treasures to his name, including assisting with the screenplay of IF I WERE KING, and directing THE GREAT MCGINTY. Needless to say, greater successes awaited him.

CHRISTMAS IN JULY has the great advantage of running a brief 67 minutes and having the beautifulk leading couple - Dick Powell and Ellen Drew - in great comic form. That said, the prank that a trio of work colleagues play on the daydreaming James MacDonald rates out and out vile, and nearly caused me to stop watching.

Glad I persisted, though. Despite living now in a telecommunications age that would not permit forged telegrams to be accepted as evidence of prize-winning, CHRISTMAS carries a positive energy to its happy ending, and it warrants watching. 7/10.

The Favourite (2018)

Endlessly pointless, petty, psychotic, un-comic female pederasty - but attacks on Brit monarchy do sell!

[1/10 · 25 May 2024]

Since coming out in 2018, THE FAVOURITE has clearly lost favor with viewers and if you take the time to go through these 1,340 reviews on IMDB you will find that the bad ones are pretty much all stacked up at the end, where they are harder to find. Why, I have no inknling but it certainly seems that way.

Queen Anne, the main figure in this purported plot, is not anyone I have any interest in learning anything about, even for the purpose of historic correctness, because she left no worthy legacy in any terms that could have helped England, let alone mankind. Instead, we get a fisheye voyeuristic seat on her sexual and other vagaries while supposedly leading her kingdom -- though Lady Marlborough (Weisz) is the real power behind the throne, and the queen's firm favourite and sexual consort.

That is, until the character played by Emma Stone bursts upon the mud; Stone has fallen out of grace because of her family's misfortunes and she is a distant cousin to Lady Marlborough. She rapidly surmises that the queen is the only way out of menial service, and she jostles to become the queen's favourite, and in the process engages in personal war with her cousin, with ravaging consequences for both.

Overlong, very pretentious, pointless from a historic and didactic standpoint, this film is something of a psychotic foray, and its greatest attempts at shocking are the use of profanities and expletives. It is also a sexist film, with males depicted as relentlessly stupid, vain, irrelevant, powerless and laughable.

Lanthimos' deliberately disordered and perverse direction repeats lugubrious scenes in the palace's corridors; repetitive and idiotic dialogue; and, worst of all, the annoying and anachronistic soundtrack, including what appears to be the jarring beat of a pendulum. Out of respect for my wife and mother in law I did not not walk out but I sure as hell felt like it after the first 15 minutes.

Lanthimos also shamelessly borrows ideas from TOM JONES (UK 1963), which showed England's royal court as a place of carnal and other excesses - but at least TOM JONES posted superb acting and a crisp pace, running on zany comedy interspersed with shocking reality; and it did not need offensive language to make its point.

Ultimately, the caged rabbits are the queen's real favourites and they reflect the film's level of intelligence (rabbits reportedly have little memory). The vague, totally meaningless ending only emphasizes the mental vacuum of the entire exercise.

Best avoided waste of time. Pity I cannot award it a big fat ZERO out of 10.

The Apartment (1960)

Wilder's finest after SUNSET BOULEVARD, SOME LIKE HOT

[10/10 · 25 May 2024]

Billy Wilder is one of my absolute favorite directors, surpassed only by William Wyler and Alfred Hitchcock. And, as it turns out, THE APARTMENT is one of his best films: in my view, only the unique SUNSET BOULEVARD and the brilliantly comic SOME LIKE IT HOT rate higher.

Jack Lemmon had recently completed SOME LIKE IT HOT, which had rocketed it him to planetary fame, and Wilder saw him as the right specimen as an overworked, underpaid, pliable clerk who loans his flat for extramarital sex to his boss, a smarmy Fred MacMurray in one of his best roles.

The girl sleeping with the boss is none other than Lemmon's crush, the elegant Shirley MacLaine who keeps him at arm's length, clearly in love with MacMurray. That triangle is tough to accept even in this 21st Century, back in 1960 it must have rated close to improper if not downright scandalous. However, that must be seen as one of Wilder's principal premises: how an individual is used by someone more powerful (consider Swanson's power over Holden and von Stroheim in SUNSET BOULEVARD, or Kirk Douglas' over the village in ACE IN THE HOLE).

It is an indictment of modern society but, as Wilder said once, "things are not as you idealize them." Sharp dialogue, wonderful cinematography and - best of all, in my view - the sublime score by Adolph Deutsch warrant full marks for this masterpiece. 10/10.

Scrooge (1970)

Ebenezer screws you... then becomes a Dickensian saint!

[7/10 · 25 May 2024]

The famous but - in my view - unlikely tale of moral and monetary redemption by that great British writer, Charles Dickens, comes to life with some fine acting and cinematography! The original A Christmas Carol, was written in the mid 19th Century as the industrial revolution swamped England and 5% of the population accrued immense wealth, while the other 95% slogged and suffered to stay alive.

The Dickensian seal of poverty and squalid surroundings is present at the start but Director Ronald Neame rapidly introduces singing children far better dressed than I would have imagined when I first read A Christmas Carol, and so the greedy, avaricious figure of Ebenezer Scrooge emerges in grand eerie malevolence, refusing family time to Bob Crachit, his clerk, and denying extending a loan by two weeks while counting and hiding rows and rows of pennies in his vaults.

Charles Dickens lived a short 58 years but put out about as many famous books as he did children - you have to wonder where he, slight figure of a man, found such supermannish energy!

I know the value of money, saw my grandfather squander a fortune at gambling, so I am uneasy about people giving away money. Forgive me for not believing it possible for a stingy old man to undergo the spiritual and monetary redepemption Scrooge does, but then the economy could not really move and thrive if the 5% of rich society did not allow pennies to trickle down to the impoverished 95%, and the Dickens of such bleak tales as Hard Times, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Nicholas Nickleby and others, always produces a kind of social miracle whereby the protagonists end up better off financially, as if pointing the light at the end of the economic tunnel to his readership.

Scrooge's stinginess obviously harms society, his clerk Crachit's child even perishes out of hunger and lack of medical care - and that is when guilt demons in the shape of ghostly Alec Guinness and Edith Evans start to sting his conscience and, amid a great deal of rather mediocre music and singing, he is saved from his personal hell by becoming generous. Albert Finney provides an appropriately unkempt, withdrawn portrayal of the scrimp & save social fiend who finally redeems himself by realizing the negative impact he has on the community, and buying presents for all kids in the village, in addition to other generous deeds after a life of hoarding away money.

Well... Merry Christmas all! 7/10.

Gumshoe (1971)

Finney stands out as comic PI in Frears-directed British noir

[7/10 · 24 May 2024]

I have always admired the quality and versatility of British-born Director Stephen Frears' work, ever since watching DANGEROUS LIAISONS. Subsequently, I saw FILOMENA, THE QUEEN, and THE SNAPPER, and all helped cement my high opinion of his style, attention to dialogue and acting, and fluid cinematography.

GUMSHOE is an early Frears opus and, although very different from any of the above mentioned films, it already reflects his concern with extracting quality acting: Finney is verily superb as Ginley, the standup comedian chancing it as Private Investigator, and he is ably assisted by Billie Whitelaw - to whom Ginley refers "sister in law", as she is his former wife now married to his brother, taciturnly played by Frank Finlay, and with the nefarious but strikingly beautiful Janice Rule lurking in the background.

The underground sequences are quite good, those above ground not quite as effective. I also felt let down by the ending, but all told GUMSHOE is definitely worth watching.

Driftwood (1947)

Uneven but right-hearted tale about delightful button and her mutt

[8/10 · 23 May 2024]

I wish I knew more about Director Alan Dwan: I enjoyed watching the only two films I can distinctly connect to him: TENNESSEE'S PARTNER, with an in form Ronald Reagan, and SLIGHTLY SCARLETT, with John Payne - neither exceptional, both well made.

The same characteristics of fine visual composition, adroit close-ups, and generally pleasant/effective cinematography are brought to DRIFTWOOD under the experienced hand of the great John Alton. My sole qualms lie with the rather uneven script - still, Dwan wisely elected to keep it short, which leaves the quick-minded viewer to fill the blanks (the not so quick will understandably give DRIFTWOOD a low assessment!)

Still, the best part of DRIFTWOOD is the acting: in rampant form with MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET and TOMORROW IS FOREVER fresh entries on her CV, Natalie Wood steals the show with her innocent child's in your face truth-telling approach, having learned many biblical quotes from her grandfather, who dies in her presence at the beginning. A miracle collie dog joins her from a crashed aircraft and she miraculously lands up in the local doctor's house... none other than the kind, handsome Dean Jagger, with beautiful Ruth Warrick at his side, and spinster Charlotte Greenwood ready to impart her surface bitterness, which really conceals a heart of gold. Last, but by no means least, the wonderful Walter Brennan, the only actor to have won three Best Supporting Oscars (but sadly these days the target of a smear campaign labeling him "the most evil man in Hollywood," among other cowardly efforts condemning his opposition to the civil rights movement, as if all should think the same).

DRIFTWOOD deserves praise for its kindhearted, positive approach. I have only just discovered it but hope to rewatch it, and not just once. 8/10.

The Silence of the Sea (2004 TV Movie)

Well done reprise of Melville's famous 1949 debut

[9/10 · 19 May 2024]

I regret to admit that I know very little about Director Pierre Boutron, having only seen one of his works before - LES ANNÉES SANDWICHES, which I so enjoyed that I eagerly pounced on the opportunity to watch this 2004 effort, a reprise of the debut of one of my all-time favorite French directors: Jean-Pierre Melville.

I am no fan of remakes, so I approached Boutron's film with some misgiving and uncertainty, promising myself that I would stop the moment I found that it clearly the inferior of the famous original.

I am happy to say that I did not. In fact, I found it an improvement on the Melville effort. It flows better and acting is definitely more polished. Julie Delarme, who was 26 at the time but plays a young woman in her late teens, carries a great deal of feeling, conveyed mainly through glances, silences, and repressed emotions. Galabru also deserves plaudits, although his is a much smaller and less demanding part. Thomas Jouannet, portraying Werner, the respectful, well-mannered, music- and art-loving German officer who occupies one of the rooms in the house owned by Galabru, emerges as a honest, civilized figure as France sinks deeper and deeper under the grip of German occupation. Unlike Vernon Howard in the 1949 original, he does not try to atone for his fatherland's faults, he does not wander through the streets of Paris admiring the architecture and what it expresses about the French "soul" that Germany purportedly sought to eradicate through occupation and brainwashing. Jouannet sensitively tunes in to the human beings whose house he occupies against his own will. Marie Bunel also delivers a fine performance as the woman who places geraniums on her window sill when she receives Resistance fighters.

Effective, simple, well done cinematography by Alain Levent. Great script by Anne Giaferi, keeping dialogue to short sentences. Through looks, tears, and silence, Boutron fills in the viewer on emotions and deeper states of mind.

Definitely worth more than one viewing. 9/10.

The Bounty Hunter (1954)

Scott shines in de Toth-directed Western

[8/10 · 16 May 2024]

THE BOUNTY HUNTER was the final collaboration betwixt Randolph Scott and Director André de Toth, and it might well rate the best. Very steady, unrelenting Wewstern with Scott going after three men who repoortedly stole government money and have used none of it so as to keep untraced by the law.

With info from people on whom he places various types of squeeze, he comes to the conclusion that the three thieves (who took $100,000 and are also proficient at icing people) must have sought sanctuary in the town of Twin Forks, all the more so because one of them may have been shot in the leg, and sought the care of the town doctor.

This is where this Western turns into a clever whodunnit with a surprise denouement in respect of one of the threesome planning to flee with the dough. Well worth watching with Scott delivering a contained but highly effective performance. 8/10.

A Man Alone (1955)

No frills direction, good acting, beautiful leading lady

[8/10 · 16 May 2024]

I feel uneasy about Ray Milland: he delivered top quality performances in LOST WEEKEND, DIAL H FOR MURDER, THE BIG CLOCK, and he is very good here, but most of his other stuff - including his role in LOVE STORY - is immediately forgettable.

In A MAN ALONE he does more than just act credibly - he directs, and does it well! Of course he is assisted by John Battle's believable script, including some sharp dialogue, simple but effective cinematography by Lionel Lincoln, and a sensitive score by the great Victor Young.

That said, the acting is the real asset: Raymond Burr makes a disquieting villain as town elder, Arthur Space is no waste as the doctor who steps up when his patient is scheduled for clearly unhealthy hanging, Ward Bond posts his usual small but dependable part (with a sting in the tail, too), and Mary Murphy... what a beautiful face, such caring eyes. 'Love that woman.

Great ending, too. 8/10.

The Incident (1967)

Timely screenplay; superb camera work, acting

[9/10 · 15 May 2024]

By 1967 most films were in color, but Director Larry Peerce wisely elected to shoot THE INCIDENT in B&W to give it greater authenticity against the dingy/sleazy/trashy backdrop of New York streets and train stations.

A cross section of Americans appears in a train, ranging from a racist black man bent on revenge against whites, his decent girl friend who sees the pointlessness of rage, a gay man, a couple with a daughter, an older couple (Thelma Ritter in great slapping form!) to two US Army soldiers reluctant to get involved in stopping two marauding criminal youngsters who have just robbed and killed an elderly family man.

The burgeoning crime wave in NY, the country's largest city, by the late 1950s already worried the US authorities and only seemed to spiral further out of control, and THE INCIDENT turns out to be a brutally honest film about that problem, and attendant ones such as civil rights, the Vietnam war one hears nothing about but sees men in uniform clearly unfit for battle, and myriad other issues. That the film hardly bleeped at the box office and few people I know born in the 1950s or earlier knew at all about its existence, reflects its uneasy reception with censors and public alike.

The excellent screenplay by Nick Baher deserves every plaudit for its superb and sharp dialogue, despite the occasional needlessly repeated line. Extremely effective cinematography by Gerald Hirschfeld, thanks to the expert use of B&W, clever angles inside the train.

Finally, the acting. Tony Musante steals the show with his in your face demon-like rage, racism and unrepentant malevolence. Baby-faced Martin Sheen begins startlingly enough, but then his part fizzles down. Brock Peters, as the racist black man who suffers abuse and is the first to be suspected and frisked by police when they arrive in the box car, ultimately reflects the outrageous treatment meted out to black persons by society at large and law enforcement in particular, and the black person's inability to break out of it back in 1967. As the character played by Ruby Dee correctly forecasts, things were changing and could not be achieved overnight, but they were happening - Brock Peters wants it immediately, but can only suffer indignity in tears.

The two US Army soldiers provide a most interesting angle: they represent the government but neither wants to get involved, and in fact one of them never does. Out of sheer decency, it falls to Beau Bridges, the Oklahoma-born soldier with the broken arm, to take on knife-wielding Tony Musante, and restore order and a measure of self-respect to the passengers on the train.

Despite aging performers like Thelma Ritter, Gary Merrill, Mike Kellin, THE INCIDENT feels very modern, a far advanced movie for 1967 intelligently examining racism, civil rights, crime, gays, social cowardice and other issues. Absolute must-see. 9/10.

In Broad Daylight (1971 TV Movie)

Blind man makes unfaithful wife pay

[7/10 · 14 May 2024]

John Marley must have played his role in IN BROAD DAYLIGHT just before his most famous role of all as Jack Woltz in THE GODFATHER. As is well known, criminals always think themselves cleverer than the policemen investigating them, and that is exactly the case here: Richard Boone, portraying fairly convincingly an actor and movie director who has gone blind, catches his wife having intimacy with his best friend and decides to ice her and make the adulterous pal the culprit.

Needless to say, a blind man is bound to make more mistakes than a normal person, even one of poor eyesight, and in this instance he makes the mistake of taking his therapist's umbrella.

Suzanne Pleshette plays that therapist - a small and largely meaningless part, rather sad to watch. She helps with advice and a guide dog, but ends up compromising her client twice by speaking too much and coming back searching for her brolly.

That is where Marley proves the superior intelligence of the copper, immediately pouncing on the fact that Pleshette had lost her umbrella and linking it to the Greek fella who went into Boone's wife's hotel with the umbrella that only the porter saw. (Puzzled as to the reason for linking a missing brolly to a fellow no one could identify? So am I!)

Of course, blind Boone makes the classical mistake of returning to the scene of the crime... and catching the wrong taxi.

Passable TV entertainment that does not tax your brain cells.

Split Second (1953)

Dick Powell directs furious atomic bomb-timed plot

[8/10 · 14 May 2024]

I had seen Dick Powell in MURDER, MY SWEET, CORNERED and YOU NEVER CAN TELL... always as the leading actor, not the director, and what a joyous surprise I have had!

As any Hollywood Golden Age movie lover knows, Dick Powell deserves the label of one of the most multi-hatted, accomplished artists ever to grace the screen - not only did he serve as message boy at the start, he reached stardom as a singer - tenor, no less! - then comedian, and finally film noir specialist both as leading actor and director.

He does not appear as actor at all in SPLIT SECOND, but he certainly makes splendid use of his cast. Stephen McNally, in a fairly rare lead, made some memorable villains and emerged as one of the finest character actors of the 1950s with WINCHESTER '73, CRISS CROSS, NO WAY OUT under his belt.

A serious, no frills actor, McNally carried menace in his eyes. In SPLIT SECOND, he certainly means business from the superb opening sequence in which we see him run from the clinker in a parched desert. Soon we will learn that that desert is the place for atomic bomb experiments and explosions.

Alexis Smith plays the female lead, a deceitful wife who changes men like underwear. In the 1950s, with the Hays Production Code still in force, this role could only go to a woman of Smith's courage and beauty, and she delivers so convincingly that I, as a male, felt insulted.

Richard Egan also does splendidly with a minimal part as the medical doctor in the process of divorcing Smith. Not only is he a responsible enough hubby to come to his wife's aid, he meets his Hippocratic oath under atomic bomb threat which gives the film its time/urgency edge, and ultimate justice. Egan also delivers the film's final and prophetic words: "Let's take a look at the world of tomorrow!" as the atomic mushroom hangs over the skyline.

Superior cinematography by Musuraca, great screenplay with simple, objective dialogue by Irving Wallace and William Bowers. 8/10.

Red Dog (2011)

Fun Aussie flick with cute canine

[7/10 · 12 May 2024]

The really good thing about RED DOG is that director Kriv Stenders manages to bring in many Aussie characters such as you would find in Dampier and other places along the desert-like Australian northwest, and, at the same time, he shows its incredible landscape beauty. Another massive plus is the musical score, including Suzi Quattro's "Stumbling in" of the late 1970s.

The not so good aspect - in my view, of course - is that characters are hardly developed, sometimes seeming like a series of short adverts. That said, you sense that the aussies really enjoy their world, work hard to keep it, and care about fellow human beings in a place where nature gives you few breaks.

Though no masterpiece, RED DOG posts catchy sequences - such as the fight between Red Dog and Red Cat, Red Dog hitch-hiking all over the northwest, the Hachiko-like statue in his honor and lovely Rachael Taylor.

Kill Me Three Times (2014)

Pegg plays impeccable murder pro in luminous Aussie noir comedy

[7/10 · 12 May 2024]

Well, nothing quite prepared me for KILL ME THREE TIMES. I always like to learn about the director, but not even IMDB tells when or where he was born - though I suppose it safe to guess Australia in the 1960s or 1970s.

The script by James McFarland presents nothing really new and even seems to borrow structurally from Quentin Tarantino, with several characters interacting at different times in the plot. What makes it special is that all characters look and behave normally, apart from planning theft and murder, and the details of their criminal modus operandi keep rocking the unsuspecting viewer.

Let me also confess that one of the hardest things for me to watch in a film, let alone in real life, is money being gambled away, misspent, or stupidly lost - something to do with my youth in poverty. So I did not like the part where the bag with the bucks was dangerously changing hands and could so easily end up burned, damaged or ill-used. On the other hand, I liked the perfection of Pegg's execution of his duties - and targets - while others also iced people in far clumsier ways.

Bryan Brown, as a bent copper, and Sullivan Stapleton as the deceived hubby of scheming Teresa Palmer, are a hoot - though, of course, the cool, calculating, businesslike Pegg steals the show.

Yes, it is a movie of twisted morals, but well acted and with truly gorgeous and luminous Aussie locations - the odd dead kangaroo notwithstanding.

I enjoyed KILL ME and no doubt will rewatch. 7/10.

Bad Lieutenant (1992)

Drug addict degenerate cop Keitel undetected by the force

[3/10 · 12 May 2024]

Director Abel Ferrara likes to stir and get the fan to spray it far and wide, so up he comes with this shocker about a bent, womanizing, drug-sniffing and -injecting, gambling copper - Harvey Keitel, dick showing in intimate scenes and completely stoned in others - and I watched in disbelief as that dirty copper broke every law and police rule without his partners and especially his superiors apparently having an inkling.

That made me feel like a clever voyeur, who knew more than the dumb authorities. That was about the sole feel good sensation I had about this film, after the repulsion of watching a nun get raped and Keitel wanking in front of two young girls without a drivers' license.

I certainly took no moral lesson from this flick. Keitel's cop from hell deservedly gets shot to death and I hope this cheapie flick served as cautionary tale to anyone in law enforcement thinking of doing 1/100 of what Keitel does.

The Texas Rangers (1951)

Well filmed 1950s Western

[7/10 · 12 May 2024]

Truth to tell, the only thing I had seen directed by Phil Karlson before catching THE TEXAS RANGERS on TV was a 1970s flick entitled WALKING TALL, which was neither good nor bad but somehow stayed in my memory.

As other viewers have pointed out, the great thing about THE TEXAS RANGERS is that famous names bunch together so you almost feel you are watching history unfold. In this case, you have baddies like Sam Bass,John 'Wes' Hardin, the Sundance Kid, Butch Cassidy, and more all planning and riding hard to carry out train robbery that would set the government back quite a lotta dough.

Good old John Carver (played by George Montgomery) plays the fake bandit with sheriff and Pinkerton detectives in the background, assisted by pretty Gale Storm (sounds tempestuous!) and they somehow sink that gang of evil doers. Carver gets shot up in his left arm but is still nimble and strong enough to go around the train and take care of Rudabaugh and other heavies.

Pleasant Western with solid cinematography and competent stunt work, bringing back memories of the 1950s to anyone who lived in those days when the Western began to undergo re- and de-construction, paving the way for spaghetti. 7/10.

Limelight (1952)

Chaplin's genius lights personal, philosophical opus

[9/10 · 10 May 2024]

I first watched LIMELIGHT in the 1980s, when VHS took the market and I bought the entire Chaplin collection of full films. At the time, I found LIMELIGHT rather self-serving, a homage to Chaplin himself.

I had watched THE GOLD RUSH at the age of 6, THE KID about two years later, and I had been impressed by Chaplin's antics. In fact, I liked those so much that I rewatched them during a Chaplin festival in my teens. By that point, though, THE CIRCUS and CITY LIGHTS had moved up to compete with THE GOLD RUSH... and MODERN TIMES was now my favorite Chaplin.

Then came the VHS revolution and the chance to watch LIMELIGHT. I had first heard about it when I listened to the Frank Chacksfield Orchestra play the Terry theme (Terry being Claire Bloom in the film). I often whistled that tune and was disappointed that the film only played it in the beginning and its notes came up briefly twice, at the most thrice more. Which paved the way for my overall disillusionment.

Now, I know more about Chaplin and his life, I have seen pretty much his entire output, and the film has gained new stature for me. For instance, when I watched it in the 1980s I knew very little about what had caused Chaplin to leave the USA - not so much his refusal to testify before Senator McCarthy and HUAC, but the continued spotlight on his affairs with younger women, including allegations of rape.

Significantly, Claire Bloom plays Terry, the young ballerina that Calvero (Chaplin) rescues from street misery and ill health. His relationship with this young woman reflects the thorny side of being in the public eye, of the rather puritan morals (for instance, the Hays Production Code) governing US mentality in general, and Hollywood in particular, and of society's readiness to guttersnipe with figures like Hedda Hopper and her likes at the head.

Chaplin would answer those intrusions in his personal life even very effectively by marrying Oona O'Neill, and having a long, happy, and children-filled marriage with her, but in the film Calvero is the image of the decent, respectful older man, who knows that it would be very selfish to accept Terry's love.

To me, that is the main point Chaplin wished to convey as he prepared to leave the USA, his reputation in tatters by allegations of communist leanings and misconduct with young women. Of course, that is personal, even self-centered, but a man of Chaplin's visibility must have felt the need to clear his name, and he certainly does it in style, with a touching personal performance, humor, and extracting superb contributions from the beautiful Bloom, and from a very competent support cast, including Buster Keaton in a memorable clown routine sequence at the end.

It is definitely Chaplin's finest talkie, and, as ever, he acted, directed, and wrote the musical score. Can anyone honestly give 1 or 2 out of 10 to such a magnificent multi-hatted effort? I think not, and I pity those who do because they miss one of the points of great art: the self-portrait.

Given that if IMDB existed in the 1980s, I would probably give it 7, I have docked one star to kind of balance my perceptions then and now. However, today my view is that LIMELIGHT is a work of genius and humane philosophy, a bona fide masterpiece that warrants many viewings - one will definitely not suffice. 9/10.

Desperate Voyage (1980 TV Movie)

Plummer, Potts, Parker deserved better than this cheapie!

[4/10 · 10 May 2024]

It worries me when I have never heard of the director, and that is certainly the case in regard to Michael O'Herlihy, whom I know not from the traditional bar of soap. After watching DESPERATE VOYAGE, I would be desperate, with nothing else to watch, if ever I watched any of his stuff again.

DESPERATE VOYAGE is the ultimate example of shoestring TV production, filmed haphazardly with low quality film, and obviously no retakes. I suppose the poor VHS copy did not help, either.

Canadian-born Christopher Plummer, a best supporting actor Oscar winner, deserved better than to play a Cajun from down south USA, mixing French with heavily accented English as he engages in piracy at sea.

The plot is preposterous. A couple (Cliff Potts and Christine Belford) take another couple (lovely Lara Parker and weak Nicholas Pryor) on their boat but Parker feels unwell, keeps retching and - bad idea! - because they are 12 hours away from land, Potts puts out a call for assistance, so the couple can be taken to land. Why they could not just take their pals and plonk them on land beats me, especially after learning later that they have 12 hours' worth of fuel in the tank.

So they place themselves at the mercy of merciless, gun-toting and wallet-robbing Cajun pirate Plummer and his nephew, the rather dumb-looking Louis, played by the inevitably evil Jonathan Banks, who would rise to his career peak as the main villain in BEVERLEY HILLS COP a few years later.

Given that all the action unfolds at sea, there is not much you can do to make things even a little bit unpredictable. One saving grace is Parker - pure eye candy at the age of 42 - but in the end her fate goes unknown.

Potts plays the resourceful boat owner with a cheating wife who wants to be forgiven - that is the sole unpredictable twist about the film, but it matters zero in the context of the plot.

Cinematography by John Flinn III rates more desperate than the voyage, clearly all shot on stable studio ground with sea visuals as background - ain't foolin' me, O'Herlihy & Flinn III! ... 4/10.

The Great Dictator (1940)

Memorable sequences do not minimize overlength

[7/10 · 9 May 2024]

Charlie Chaplin, one of the great movie makers of the 20th Century, had the foresight to portray Hitler early in WWII (1940) so accurately that the latter put a price on Chaplin's head. Most remarkable how hardly a year after WWII had begun, with the Holocaust still at a naissant stage, Chaplin already had a very clear idea of the horrors the Third Reich was visiting on the semitic population.

Great sequences involving Hynkel (thinly disguised Hitler both phonetically and visually) include his play with a globe until it bursts in his face, his speech in a bogus language to an applauding crowd reminiscent of Riefenstahl's documentary crowds, and, needless to say, the magnificent sequence between Hynkel and Napaloni (Mussolini), each constantly trying to upstage the other.

Marred by excessive dialogue, Chaplin's portrayal of the civilian Jewish barber is far less effective and attention-grabbing than that of Hynkel. Chaplin's rather moralistic speech at the end is far less effective than Hynkel's grunting, raving tirades, and imperial gestures.

THE GREAT DICTATOR suffers from overlength and somewhat repetitive comic routines, and Chaplin does not appear to be at ease with sound pics. To me, it marks the beginning of a chute for Chaplin in terms of quality, even though he would still churn out a masterpiece, LIMELIGHT (1952), and good efforts like M. VERDOUX and KING IN NEW YORK.

All told, it still makes for necessary viewing for anyone really interested in cinema. 7/10.

Return to Sender (I) (2015)

Who is the biggest psycho: the rapist or the raped?

[6/10 · 9 May 2024]

Let me start by admitting that Lebanese-born director Fouad Mikati is a complete unknown to me, and this is the first sample I have come across of his still young career. At first sight, I was impressed by Russell Carpenter's unassuming but effective cinematography, which Mikati never allows to distract from the swing of the plot.

He also deserves plaudits for the quality performance that he extracts from Rosamund Pike, who is almost never out of the screen, but who carries her revenge plans with unsettling grace, as she loses her surgical touch and grip as her hands shake more and more, and slowly gives up on her plans for a career in surgical nursing, accepting instead the humdrum nature of attending to the public and discharging menial tasks.

Mikati also gets what he can from a bloated, hoarse-voiced Nick Nolte, who I found almost unrecognizable and unable to deliver his lines in an immediately clear and graspable manner to the viewer. Still, he is the most level-headed and best-intentioned of the characters in the film.

Shiloh Fernandez is the young fellow who seems innocent but turns into a rapist once alone with beautiful Pike in the latter's house. I do not recall any detectives coming by to get details from the victim but somehow the offender is detained and she somehow manages to find out where he is doing time.

Seemingly forgiving of the past, Pike disconcertingly maintains that relation and convinces her rapist that he is welcome to contact her again once out of jail. Oddly enough, by the end both Pike and Fernandez do not look a day older than when the rape occurred, though I suspect that that type of offense carries at least a 10-year jail term in the USA.

So, graceful as ever, Pike proceeds to ensnare the culprit with a repair job and some spiked drinks before doing the surgical bit.

Her conversation with her dad, Nolte, left me wondering who is the bigger psycho: Pike or the rapist? 6/10.

The Grilling (1981)

Well acted, directed anti-police violence claustrophobia

[8/10 · 8 May 2024]

Why would a man - a notary public, to boot, so a man knowledgeable about law - confess to murdering two children if he did not do it? Perhaps it has to do with some roughing up from police inspector Lino Ventura's sidekick Guy Marchand during his boss' absence.

GARDE À VUE, a legal position whereby if you are suspected of the commission of a crime you are remanded in police custody without being officially under arrest, and can be interrogated, has to do with the techniques used by police to get a suspect to confess. In this case, Ventura lies to notary public Michel Serrault's wife, Romy Schneider in her penultimate film, saying that her hubby does not want to see her. In doing so, he hopes to milk some info out of the wife that will further paint Serrault into a corner. The latter begins rather haughtily but in the end comes across as rather dumb for failing to take what he knows the law can afford him: the possibility of legal counsel and refusal to comment or answer.

Ultimately, the truth is that just as police can resort to mendacity for results, so can a man under pressure lie if he feels that control is slipping from his grasp (though I would never admit to a crime I did not commit, so I have considerable difficulty accepting that anyone of sound mind would do so).

Ultimately, all that official deceit carries unexpectedly high costs. For Schneider, who in real life had recently lost her son in a most unfortunate accident, this must have been a very tough role to play, but she does it convincingly.

Different take on the law in a different culture, certainly nothing to do with 12 ANGRY MEN, or even attempting to come anywhere near its quality in all departments, it emphasizes claustrophobia, and how police authority can distort innocence into guilt, and transform law into crime. GARDE À VUE remains well worth watching. 8/10.

Non-Stop (2014)

Good action sequences marred by poor motivations

[6/10 · 8 May 2024]

The title NONSTOP alerts the viewer that on this flight you need to put your brain on automatic pilot.

John Richardson and Christopher Roach wrote this incredibly hackneyed screenplay whereby plane flight-allergic air marshall Bill Marks - contrastingly convincingly played by Liam Neeson - goes on an NY-London flight as air marshall. Whoe there! He has been fired from the force, how could he get into the aircraft with a pistol? Or has he been fired? Flight captain Linus Roache and eye candy stewardess Michelle Dockery seem to recognize and accept him readily enough. One curiosity that had my antennae up: from the start Marks has had shady characters approach him with questions and dope. It the start of NONSTOP BS.

The fact is that the entire system, including TV and computer networks at airports and in the aircraft, is against him and publicly blackballs his good name as if he could not sue them.

Another incoherent detail: Julianne Moore, a great thespian, is given a rather marginal role as the woman Marks trusts implicitly after she witnesses his fear of flying and patiently pats his paws.

Marks admits, however, that he has taken drugs and that he needs money. Alas, he is not the sole dirty copper on this flight: there is another whose first action is to offer a barbiturate to poor Marks, who has recently had his daughter "taken" (remember TAKEN 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?) by leucemia and, seemingly in answer to his prayers - even if he says nothing religious or remotely God-fearing in the entire flick - suddenly he gets a cool $150 million in his bank account.

The Roach who wrote the script is partnered by Linus Roache as the too trusting and affable flight captain who ends up poisoned: with so many roaches you have to expect rubbish, and that is what the waywardly motivated characters bring to the movie... in spades. It amounts to insult to any median intelligence - which is a pity coz the fight sequences are well choreographed and shot.

Besides the CGI, the single best thing about this flick is the immensely beautiful Michelle Dockery. Neeson performs credibly enough, but it was the elegant Dockery of the exquisite facial features and delightful legs that I wanted to see again and again, complete with her lovely British accent.