The Quite Ones (2014)

From the reconstituted Hammer Studios comes The Quite Ones, which by the way its never very clear from the movie why they went with this title. The film is based/ inspired/ very loosely based on an actual 1972 parapsychology experiment conducted in Canada, though the film is set in England. It's a mildly effective and certainly moody picture with one or two genuine moments to its credit, and no stars to speak of save Jared Harris, though Olivia Cooke has potential. The movie has a set up that would have worked perfect for a found picture movie, four people in an isolated mansion conducting parapsychology research on a young, possibly possessed women, and while the film has sequences presented as footage filmed by the experiments official chronicler and most sympathetic character Sam Claflin, most of the film is done in a more conventional manner, and I'm actually glade they went with this choice. Limited by its genera nature its still pretty good for what it is, but apparently not all that popular because I was the only one in the theater. ***

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Like last years The Man of Steel, The Amazing Spider-Man is another film that has me asking myself how many times is Hollywood going to feed me the same super hero origin stories. Only a decade removed from the start of Sam Rami's Toby McGuire helmed Spider-Man series, The Amazing Spider-Man, whose sequel just came out earlier this month, again gives us teenaged Peter Parker, now played by British actor Andrew Garfield, being bitten by a radioactive spider, gaining super powers as a result, and deciding to become a costumed crime fighter just in time to go up against a newly arrived super villain, this time Dr. Curtin Conners 'Lizard' (Rhys Ifans).

This film is less campy then the Rami films, though in no way devoid of camp, and the story is told in a very well crafted way, but is still largely devoid of surprise. Parker does get a different love interest in this film, instead of Mary Jane its Gwen Stacy, the other Spider-man love interest from the comics, and instead of a blond Kristin Dunst with her hair died red, we have iconic red-head Emma Stone with her hair died blond, go figure. There's really not a lot to talk about with this movie, its all known property, and it caries its 136 minute running time as though its only two hours. A little smarter then its predecessor series, this film sets up some actual back story for Parker's missing parents that I'm sure will be further fleshed out in what I assume will be at least two sequels. I enjoyed watching this film, but it played things infinity safe and left no real lasting impression. **1/2

The Swimmer (1968)

Based on the short story of the same name by John Cheever The Swimmer was something of a vanity project for its star Burt Lancaster. The studio that produced it, Columbia, wasn't overly enthusiastic about the projects box office potential and naturally wanted to keep costs to a minimum. In fact Columbia didn't want to shoot a certain scene that Lancaster felt was essential to the film, the confrontation between Lancaster's character Ned Merrill and his former mistress Shirley Abbott (Janice Rule), so after official filming had stopped Burt used his own money to put it back into production and shoot that scene, bringing in his friend Sydney Pollack to direct it uncredited, (Frank Perry is the films official director and does a fine job).

The films story is an unusual one to say the least, a surreal drama which I'll let Wikipedia tell you about:

"On a sunny day in an affluent suburb in Connecticut, a fit, tanned and tone middle-aged Ned Merrill (Burt Lancaster) drops by the pool party held by some old friends. They offer the bathing-suit-clad Ned a cocktail, as they nurse their own hangovers from the night before. The old friends share "school boy stories." The nostalgia seemingly getting to Ned, he gets the sudden idea -- he realizes that there is a series of swimming pools that almost forms a "river" all the way to his house, making it possible for him to "swim" his way home across the county.
Ned dives into the pool, emerges at the other end and starts his journey. This perplexes his friends, all middle-aged smokers and drinkers who seem to use their pools only as status symbols and mere ornamentation.
As Ned travels pool to pool, every stop compels an encounter with a different set of neighbors, each having had a particular acquaintanceship with him. In one backyard Ned meets 20-year-old Julie (Janet Landgard), who as a pre-teen had babysat for his daughters. Ned reveals his idea to Julie, who decides to join him on the adventure. Ned and Julie have several experiences including crashing another fancy pool party and sipping champagne. Stopping for a chat in the forest, Julie reveals that she once had a school girl crush on him. When Ned mistakingly takes this as an opportunity to return the affection, Julie freaks out and flees.
However optimistic and adventurous Ned is, he continues to be confronted with reminders of his not-so-glorious past. It is a neighborhood of judgmental and well-heeled “Joneses” intent on one-uping one another with their displays of conspicuous wealth, their insistence on social etiquette, and their constant gossiping about those who don’t keep up such facades."

And it goes on. It's a great, unusual character piece for Lancaster who starts out appearing to be one kind of man, and over the course his journey we discover him to be quite another, and in in absolute denial about this. The film features lots of good performances as the various neighbors, some of them quite quirky, and the films score, the first by future EGOT winner Marvin Hamlisch is a very beautiful one. In short it's a kind of proto-indie film, and a well done one. ***

Captain America: The Winter Solder (2014)

The sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers is more of a direct sequel to both films then I had anticipated, it brings together lose ends and bits, particularly from the first movie, and more or less logically fleshes them out. I feel like I have a much greater understanding of how Hydra works as an organization and philosophy then I got from the first movie, its operations make more sense to me now and I think its a better more dynamic nemesis for the Captain as a result.

Whereas The First Avenger was handled as sort of a World War II movie disguised as a super-hero flick, Winter Solder is a 1970's style conspiracy film in super hero clothing. This aspect of the production is brought home by among other things, the unexpected (and effective) casting of Robert Redford, a veteran of  perhaps the paramount 70's conspiracy film All The President Men, to play a government official with 'complicated' motivations.

The stories intriguing and the pacing's good, striking an effective investigation to action sequence to character arc ratio, and there are a couple of genuine surprises. The film does somewhat over relay on a certain slight of hand the franchise has done before already. Chris Evans is great again as the Captain, a role he perfectly embodies, and he has an enjoyable give and take dynamic with leather clade Scarlett Johansson. I think that Marvel Studios continues to do an unexpectedly good, even sophisticated job handling this giant multi-franchise universe they've created, and hope to see future Captain America, Avengers, etc. films continue in this pattern. ***

The World According To Dick Cheney (2013)

This Showtime documentary actually got Dick Cheney to us his story, aided of course with archival footage and numerous talking heads, its a good review of the former Vice Presidents life and an even more reveling look inside his mind. Most politically aware individuals know Cheney's life story in a rough outline, but this doc did a good job of fleshing out some of the more unknown periods for me, I was particularly interested to learn more about a young Cheney's time as union lineman in Wyoming, something I remember him making a brief reference too in the 2004 vice presidential debate, and that I've subsequently been curious to know more about.

The center of attention of course is on the Cheney vice presidency, arguably the most influential in U.S. History. I think there's no doubt that Cheney mislead President Bush on numerous occasions, and once the extent of this finally dawned on the president it had a very negative impact on their friendship and Cheney's influence, a rupture that reportedly is still open today. The thing about Cheney that is most striking from this documentary, but something that I'd long assumed, is that this is a man who doesn't seem to be capable of accepting blame. I honestly think in his mind everything he did in office was justifiable, he just fiats to himself that his ends were noble and hence any means acceptable. I think he understands the criticism's against him, he just doesn't care, and takes a perverse pride in the fact that his not caring irritates so many of his opponents. ***

Skyjacked (1972)

Skyjacking, when a person or group of persons hijacked a plan in flight for criminal or political purposes is something that used to happen a lot more then it does today. In the 1970's it was enough a part of the zeitgeist to lend a little topicality to the subject matter of director John Guillermin's 1972 film Skyjacked. It's a simple enough premise, a flight to Minneapolis receives word in the form of a lipstick scrawled message in the first-class restroom, that there is a passenger on board with a bomb and he intends to detonate it unless the plan re-routes to Anchorage, Alaska. There is a period in which it is not clear if the threat is real and if it is which of the passengers is responsible. Eventually the perp revels himself to be James Brolin, playing a mentally unhinged army officer on the verge of court martial. Brolin successful gets pilot Charlton Heston (who a few years later would also play a pilot in the better known Airplane in peril film Airport 1975), to get the plane to Anchorage and there forces its refueling so that Brolin can take the plane and its first class passengers, including a US senator (Walter Pidgeon, a Canadian who also played a US senator in the film Advise and Consent), to the Soviet Union where he plans to defect.

The film is split into two legs of flight as it where, the first just domestic terrorism, and the second potentially an international incident as the American commercial passenger plan heads into Soviet airspace without permission, adding another level of peril to the proceedings. Like most films of this nature there are a number of subplots involving the various passengers and crew, including a love triangle with Heston, his co-pilot, and a lovely stewardess played by Yvette Mimieux, as well as a frustrated business man and his wife, a black jazz musician, a young hippie girl (The Partridge Family's Susan Day), the senators son, and of course a pregnant women in danger of going into labor at any time. It's all well handled, this is genera that Guillermin manages well, he would later direct The Towering Inferno. Nothing too amazing, but featuring a suitably unhinged performance by Brolin. Also I always like seeing Leslie Uggams. **1/2