Strangers in 7A
Television movie staring Andy Griffith as a downsized industrial worker turned building superintendent and Ida Lupino as his wife. They are a middle aged couple, no children, just barley making it by financially and in a vaguely strained relationship. When Ida takes a trip to go visit her sister Griffith stops in at the local bar where he is quickly seduced by a young women. The women claims to have no place to stay and that she is unable to afford a hotel room, after some near pouty faced pleading Griffith agrees to let her stay in an apartment at his building whose tenets are travailing for the 4th of July holiday. Griffith becomes convinced that the women wants to sleep with him and isn't exactly against this idea, but alas its all a rouse.
Shortly after getting to the aforementioned apartment the young women's companions barge in. They are a group of disgruntled Vietnam veterans who insist they just need a place to stay for a few days. They threaten to reveal to Griffiths wife his attempted affair if he doesn't keep quite. Lupino returns from her trip early, and some tenets are starting to report noises from the supposedly vacant apartment. Griffith eventually goes to check this out and discovers that the vets are planing to rob the bank next door. They capture Griffith, and eventually his wife and hold them captive pending there caper. But the robbery goes wrong, one of the men is killed by the police, and the leader Brandon kill his other partner in spit, while the young lady declares 'she can't live like this anymore' and abandons Brandon as well.
Brandon decides to hold the building hostage with a bomb, but of course he is incapacitated by Griffith who then successfully defuses the bomb. The action is followed by a coda in which Griffith and Lupinos relationship is shown to have been set aright. Even given that Griffiths heroism makes Lupino forgive his attempted affair (she figures it out), why is Griffith allowed to keep his job as superintended? I mean he's kind of at fault, he let the bad guys in and didn't inform the authorities out of fear of his wife. The apartment the bad guys hid in is damaged, and big wholes blown in the neighbouring bank, not to mention that everyone in the building was almost blown up, yet somehow all is forgiven.
Though given his heroism I suppose a case can be made for Griffith's job retention, but why was he involved in the first place? The bad guys knew about the empty apartment before hand and had no trouble entering the building, so why did they need to involve Griffith? Presumably they could have snuck in on there own, they had no problem opening the apartment door without a key, why bring Griffith in as a potential informant? Was it just in case tenets reported sounds in that vacant apartment? Considering the clandestine nature of there enterprise you'd think they could have kept things quite? Lastly even though the Vietnam vet angel reeked of an attempt to keep this fairly conventional caper film 'current', the dichotomy between how the poor Vietnam vets and Griffiths poor World War II vet handle there respective economic woes is kind of interesting.
Grade: C-
The Great Buck Howard
Largely directionless law school drop out Colin Hanks takes a job as the personal assistant to fading illusionist Buck Howard (John Malkovich). Writer director Sean McGinly based Howard loosely on famed illusionist The Amazing Kreskin, for whom he once worked. While Howard's tricks and on stage personality are taken largely from Kreskin, his off stage personality and personal story are given a much darker hugh. Howard easily flys off the handle, is a megalomaniac and possibly a closet homosexual (weird strained relationship with Star Treks George Taki).
The film never opens up like I thought it would, the trailers presented the film as being about the magicans largely unexpected late in life comeback, but this is only a small part of the film, maybe 10-15 minutes of screen time before he's back performing at small dive venues. Colin Hanks is likable enough, but not that interesting, and other then as an excuse for Malkovich hamming there doesn't seem to be much of a point to this film. Tom Hanks was brought in to play his son Colin's father; I think largely this was done in an effort to lend the film some more (and needed) gravities. Howard is just too broad to make for a good character study, and the central plot (as it were) would have worked better as a short story. Not so great.
Grade: C-
Drag Me to Hell
Before he was best known for the Spider Man trilogy, Sami Raimi was perhaps best known for the cult classic Evil Dead trilogy. Raimi returns to his roots in this slightly camp horror film about a young banker (Alison Lohman) who refuses to grant an old gypsy women a third extension on her mortgage, and to ill effect. The gypsy places a cure on Lohman who becomes in grave danger of being dragged to Hell. Strange things start to happen, most of which only Alison can see. Her boyfriend Justin Long is not a believer but tries to stay supportive, so Ms. Lohman gets most of her help in dealing with the Lamia demon who is after her soul from fortune teller Dileep Rao. Out matched Dileep recommends another psychic (Adriana Barraza) who has dealt with the Lamia before (this is depicted in the films brief prologue). Lohman has three days to defeat the Lamia before she's to be drug down to hell, and a lot of the movie explores how much this good at heart character is willing to do keep out of Hades (she even has an opportunity at one point to send a slimy co-worker to hell in her sted, but will she do it?)
Unfortunately most of this movie is a little to slow and at times downright boring. Never really scary or really tongue-in-cheek it therefore fails on both counts. Lohman is cute, and the many closes up of her face (sometimes happy but generally ranging for slightly distressed to horror stricken) are a plus, but not quite enough. This movie reminded me about Alison Lohman, who I'd really like to see in more things, but not necessarily tormented by demons.
Grade: C-
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