Rough Cut (1980), Virus (1980), Von Ryan's Express (1965), Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Rough Cut

Having recently watched the 'Every Which Way' movies with Clint Eastwood I've come to see that a successful formula for Carter era films is a lite tongue in cheek plot which is bluffed through on the bases of how cool the star is. Burt Reynolds is cool, he's at the height of his coolness. Jewel thieves are also kind of cool, as long as there cool like Burt Reynolds. It's also cool for a jewel thief to have a beautiful love interest and be assisted by wackier cohorts like a disco singer and an ex Nazi. David Niven is also cool, the whole jewel thief thing is very Niven retro, though here he plays the long arm of the law, sort off. Reminiscent of To Catch a Thief.

Grade: B-


Virus

This was the most expensive Japaneses made movie up till its time. Disaster movie premise, a seemingly unstoppable virus destroys world civilization almost wiping out the human race. Movie is padded with appearances by the likes of Glen Ford, Robert Vaughn, Edward James Olmos and George Kennedy. This movie was a bomb, in fact its already been allowed to land in the public domain, but I kind of like things like this, even in there paint-by-numbers sensibility. Like a cheap made for TV disaster film you'd see on Sci-fi, only this is better. Guilty pleasure.

Grade: B-


Von Ryan's Express

I expected little more then a cheap Great Escape want to be, but this was good. Frank Sinatra, a River Kwai type British officer, a train (like in the movie The Train) full of POW's and a flight through Italy to Switzerland. A Vicar pretends to be a Nazi officer, an Italian sports an eye patch, a group at first divided among themselves come together, courage, sacrifice ect. Plenty of enjoyable little set pieces, pleasantly surprised by the ending.

Grade: B

Night of the Living Dead

A lot of Zombie films are made these days, and to be honest I'd rather watch most anybody elses over those made by George Ramero. He's the godfather of the genera but I just don't think he's that good, the last one of his films before this that I tried to watch I could only make through the first 20 minutes, flat, derivative, poor. But he did launch the genera, develop the standard model that is still largely followed, and Night of the Living Dead is the seed from which the whole zombieverse would grow. This movie was actually very good, I guess Romero's talents just haven't aged well. Its obviously a cheaply made movie, but it still works well, genuine suspense, tension, largely sub par acting. I can see why this film is so memorable. The photo montage and the end sequence with the Sheriffs posy invokes the civil rights era, interestingly the lead role was not specifically written for an African American.

Grade: B