A Boy and His Dog (1975)

'A Boy and His Dog' feels like it should come from a Kurt Vonnegut book, but it actually comes from a Harlan Ellison novella, so close. A mean story really, that is somehow kind of likable given the odd set up, odd tone, and odd chemistry between the leads. A post apocalyptic satire features a young Don Johnson playing an 18 year old with a telepathic connection to his extremely smart, and rather cynical dog with radar powers named Blood (voiced by actor/ musician Tim McIntire). Frankly I'm now curious about the source material. Also featuring Jason Robards and Susanne Benton in a fairly versatile performance that makes you wish she'd had more of a career. **1/2

Cold War (2018)

'Cold War' is an epic romance set against 15 years of post war Polish history, centering on the divide between east and west and how that effects a pair of star crossed lovers. Shot in a beautiful crisp black and white this Pawel Pawlikowski film is a sort of thematic follow up to his Oscar winning 'Ida', which I still think is the better movie but not by that much. Strong lead performances by Tomasz Kot and Joanna Kulig, a beautiful looking, soulful film with a great mix of music thrown in. I love films where the plot reaches where you think its going to go and then continues on to what happens after, and I didn't see this after coming. ****

Bad Boys 2 (2003)

I watch 'Bad Boys II' as part of a podcast I'm on, hating the original 'Bad Boys' film as much as I did I thought my venting about this could make for an interesting listen. A little to my surprise however I didn't despise 'Bad Boys II' the way I did the original, I mean its not good but its not near unbearable like the first one. There are some good stunt sequences, and I laughed a few times, though I kept thinking I'd have probably enjoyed this all more if it was minus Martin Lawrence. Conventional and I would think forgettable action fair, though the movie is apparently rather well regarded by many "action fans". **

Road House (1989)

Patrick Swayze's 'Road House' shares a name, but apparently not a plot with an old Richard Widmark movie from the 40's. I felt it a bit of a shame when I found that out, the concept of a movie about the second best (you meet the best in the course of the film) club "cooler" (turns out a "cooler" is like a head "bouncer") in the business seemed a wonderfully slimy and film norish idea. But 'Road House' is really more like a western, the lead a part John Wayne might play if he were a little more cerebral; Swayze's singularly named "Dalton" is an NYU graduate who likes to read poetry in his off hours. A largely silent guy who sure knows how to fight, but will only do it when he needs to, our hero comes to town (it's in real life Jasper County, Missouri but I don't think we ever gets its name) to take a job cleaning up a troubled night spot called the Double Duce, in time he learns that both the club and wider community are under the oppressive control of a local criminal boss named Brad Wesley, played with appropriate menace by Ben Gazzara.

Dalton falls for a lovely doctor played by Kelly Lynch, and puts up for the most part with Wesley's increasingly aggressive behavior, but then the bad guy goes too far so he hits back with force, then he goes too far again and he hits back with even greater, basically unhinged force resulting in a wild and unrealistic ending that is still kind of great. Directed by the appropriately named Rowdy Herrington this is an unusual movie, and I'm not quite sure why it exists, but I'm glade that it does as it's at times wildly entertaining and enjoyably off kilter. The movie does have its bland parts, and honestly does not demand ones full viewing attention, and usually (and I know I'm a bit of an outlier here) I don't like that in a film. Still an endearingly strange concept for a main stream movie, which seems to have done decent business, making $30.1 million off a $15 million budget. Also if you watch 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' this is Crow. T. Robots favorite film. **1/2

Throw Momma from the Train (1987)

'Throw Momma from the Train' is a dark comedy riff off the Alfred Hitchcock classic 'Strangers on a Train', here directed and co-staring Danny DeVito. Billy Crystal is the other half of the "criss cross" duo, a depressive writing teacher whose over eager student (DeVito) misunderstands him to a suggest a murder swap, Crystal's ex-wife (Kate Mulgrew) in exchange for DeVito's overbearing mother ('The Goonies' Anne Ramsey as a women you'd want to throw off a train). I liked, for the most part, the style of the film and the lead performances, and some sequences are very funny, but on the whole it was uneven with a lot of relatively dull spots. One review I skimmed said given the concept and the cast it really should have been a better movie, I'd agree with that, it comes across as not fully developed, like an early draft was filmed by mistake, I'd say more time probably should have been spent perfecting this thing in the writing. I mean "a writer writers" after all, still fit viewing for times when "the night was humid." **1/2

Never on Sunday (1960)

Set in Greece 'Never on Sunday' is a comedy about a visiting American philosopher (Jules Dassin, who also wrote and directs) who sets about trying to reform a popular local prostitute (Greek actress Melina Mercouri, who Dassin would later marry). Mercouri gives a lively performance in what I thought to be a not particularly good film, though it was very well received at the time winning awards at Cannes and nominated for multiple Oscars, including best actress and best director (still a rarity even today for a foreign film) it actually won best song (which is also called 'Never on Sunday' but is sang entirely in Greek). A variant on 'Pygmalion' its a 'happy hooker story' and one of those, 'the Greeks are so full of life, don't you wish you were like them' stories which have never fully worked for me (I didn't care for 'Zorba the Greek'). Dassin is often annoying but Mercouri elevates things and the films only an hour and a half, if they'd played it longer it would have been painful. **

Turn of the Screw (2009)

A year before 'Downton Abbey' Michelle Dockery and Dan Stevens appeared together in this BBC adaptation of the Henry James novel 'Turn of the Screw'. Updated from the 1890's to the 1920's this is a ghost story many of whose beats have been repeated ad nauseam in the subsequent century or more, as a result this is not as effective as it should be because James really pioneered a lot of this stuff. What I really liked about it however was the ending, which interestingly has not been done to death, that really elevated it. A fair amount of what is in this movie is more creepy if you think about, however this presentation lacks emotional punch, which may be a result of the original novel which I suspect would be a little removed and understated. Reasonably creepy kids, Dockery's good, Stevens has little to do. **1/2

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

'Rosemary's Baby' is a landmark "serious" horror movie, ironically produced by schlock mister William Castle. Based on the novel of the same name by Ira Levin ('The Stepford Wives', 'The Boys from Brazil') and famously directed by Roman Polanski it is the story of a young woman and her husband (Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes) who move into an apartment in a rambling old Victorian building in 1960's New York City, that turns out to be the base of operations of a coven of witches. The witches plot of course is to impregnate Rosemary with the devils spawn thus giving birth to the anti-Christ. It's creepy and wonderfully paced, in no hurry but never boring, it leaves a fair amount unsaid but implied, which I liked, and though I'd heard about this film for decades somehow I was not aware of its dream sequences, which were a surprise and added to the strangeness of the procedings. While the film was contextually geard towards younger people most of the cast is older, espically the badies, and that adds a nice effect, the most evil characters in the thing are old and seemingly docile. Visually distinct, a great score, and my kind of ending. ****

White Nights (1985)

'White Nights' is part dance movie, part thriller, this odd combination seems to have come about from a desire to make a movie featuring both Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines. Baryshnikov plays basically a version of himself, a Russian ballet star who defects to the west, only in this movie while on tour his plane is forced to make an emergency landing in the Soviet Union, the government figures out who he is an decides to force him back on the Russian dance scene. To 'babysit' him they bring in Hines, an American defector from the Vietnam War who is a talented tap dancer. Hines has married his Russian translator Isabella Rossellini and KGB agents Jerzy Skolimowski's efforts to use her as leverage to make Hines keep Baryshnikov in lines backfires, bringing the two expats together instead of apart. John Glover and Geraldine Page also appear, as well as director Taylor Hackford's future wife Helen Mirren, playing the part of Baryshnikov's ex-lover. Pre-Glasnot using Finland to substitute as Russia this is better then I thought it would be, though its hard now knowing the fate of the Soviet Union to avoid the temptation of thinking some characters may just want to try to and wait things out, they had no idea the communist government would be gone in less then a decade. ***

SuperVan (1977)

'Supervan' is one of the most jaw droppingly bad movies I've ever seen, and I mean that, more then once my jaw dropped. Not that 'Supervan' isn't without its fascinations, like a car or should I say van accident on the side of the road. Released months before 'Smokey and the Bandit' somehow 'Supervan' knew that it wanted to be that movie, there are CB radios, bumbling cops, a girl in trouble off the side of the road, and a single minded antagonist. Clint Morgan (Mark Schneider) is on his way to "The Second Annual Non-National Bicentennial Van Freakout" held around Halloween time near St. Joseph, Missouri and sponsored by Mid-American Motors. On the way he saves Karen (Katie Saylor) from some biker rapists and in process of so doing his beloved van "The Sea Witch" is chomped up in a car compactor. Clint then borrows the experimental proto-type 'Supervan' from his friend Bosley, a rouge employee of Mid-American Motors, and enters the solar powered, lazar equipped vehicle in "The Freakout" were he competes in competitions such as doing figure eights and seeing how far one's van can get up a steep and muddy incline.

Turns out Karen's father is T. B. Trenton (Morgan Woodward) the president of Mid-American Motors who wants to suppress the Supervan so that he can keep selling gas guzzlers to the van loving public. 'Supervan' was described in the Amazon summery as a "vansploitation classic" which implies the existence of other "vansploitation films", I thought this was a put on but turns out that "vansploitation" was a thing, it has it's own Wikipedia page, examples include the original 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and an early Danny DeVeito film called 'The Van'. The movie hasn't much of a plot so chunks of time are devoted to various side characters, and a quasi cinema verta style examination of what I take to have been some real kind of van gathering. The movie is surprisingly  sexual featuring the requisite 1970's T&A, a wet T-shirt contest, a joke about pedophilia, and some extremely stereotypical homosexuals. The movie ends with a whip cream fight that is interrupted when someone broadcasts Mr. Trenton's sexual dalliance with a preacher's wife over the VA system at the RV park where 'The Freakout' is being held.

The extreme 70'sness and the utter strangeness of 'Supervan' frankly made it fascinating, I will have to rewatch. In fact I need to find a way to get ahold of the script, I want to read it to confirm that its real. The soundtrack, loaded with songs about van's is also surprisingly catchy. A 4 star 1 star movie.

The Lincol Lawyer (2011)

'The Lincoln Lawyer' is a fine film, it has a good cast, a reasonably interesting story, it feels a rather natural vehicle for Matthew McConaughey's strengths. There are times were it gets a little 'I don't know' and strains some credulity, but it's a good movie for the kind of thing that it is. It's based on a Michael Connelly book and I recently got really into the Amazon series 'Bosch', which is also based on a Connelly property, and I found that I wish this story had been given the same season long screen time to develop, a 'Lincoln Lawyer' TV series is in the works for CBS, but I wonder if they will be able to match the quality of the lead both on 'Bosch' and in this movie. Noteworthy is how William H. Macy endows his character with the sense of an entire and complex history with very little screen time. **1/2

Marriage Story (2019)

In the tradition of 'Kramer vs. Kramer', 'Marriage Story' is about a divorce and child custody dispute that starts relatively amicably and then gets considerably less so before it is ultimately resolved. This has been a good year for ensemble casts and here is no exception, including strong performances by Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver as a Hollywood turned New York stage star and her director husband.  Laura Dern won a best supporting actress Oscar, but you also have Merritt Weaver, Julie Hagerty, Wallace Shawn, Ray Liotta and Alan Alda putting in great work, the latter at 84 years of age and with Parkinson's disease. Strong film making all around, there is some real emotional stuff, and some really funny stuff, the sequence with Martha Kelly as the court appointed home life observer is probably the most awkwardly funny of the year. Excellent writing and directing by Noah Baumbach and I rather liked Randy Newman's understated score. ****

Parasite (2019)

'Parasite' is the anti 'Downton Abbey', upstairs and downstairs don't exactly get along in this dark thriller/comedy about strained class relationships in South Korea. The first foreign language film to win a best picture Oscar this movie has a strong ensemble cast and a very cleaver and original screenplay that deserved winning that award as well. A worthy and groundbreaking film in many ways, it also feels like a bit of blip, I'm not sure this will have much long term impact on the movies that Americans go to see and the movies that Academy voters vote for, but I could be wrong. Again really impressive, doesn't go in the direction your probably anticipating, go into this knowing as little about it as possible. ****

Classic Film Freek

Ford v. Ferrari (2019)

I'm not a racing guy, I'm not a car guy, 'Ford v. Ferrari' is a film I would likely have never seen had it not been nominated for best picture, and frankly that would have been fine by me. It felt like this movie took 70 minutes to get going, I never really connected with anybody and I didn't much care what happened, the whole competition was basically a vanity project between rich car makers, my investment basically non existent. I did like the look of some of the racing sequences, I thought the supportive wife part was slightly better written then is usually the case in films like this, and I rather enjoyed Tracy Letts as Henry Ford II, his scenes were probably the highlight for me. But this a film where even Lee Iacocca seemed boring and the corporate jockeying well torn and uninteresting cliché. Too long an put mildly not my thing. *1/2

She (1935)

'She' is a Merian C. Cooper produced adaption of the H. Rider Haggard adventure novel of the same name from the 1880's. A small group sets out in search of 'the flame of eternal life' in the Russian tundra and encounter a hidden civilization ruled over by a supernaturally young 500 year old woman known as "She who must be obeyed". Clunky and slow 'She' was a major box office disappointment that boasts some solid effects and one or two well choreographed scenes and little else. Leading man Randolph Scott is super bland and the rest of the cast not much better. Of Chief historical note as the only film every to star Helen Gahagan, latter Helen Gahagan Douglas, a Broadway and opera star who could go on to marry Oscar winning actor Melvyn Douglas, service in the U.S. House of Representatives and run unsuccessfully against Richard Nixon in the 1950 California Senate race, in which she coined his nick name "Tricky Dick". Gahagan's physical appearance in the film would serve as the model for 'the wicked queen' in Walt Disney's 'Snow White'. Hardly even worth it as curio, a lesser 'Lost Horizon'. *1/2

Cats (2019)

I watched this whole movie and I still don't understand what a "jellical cat" is. 'Cats' is truly an odd film going experience, simply put this is a movie that shouldn't exist. So many questions ran through my mind before, during and after viewing this film. Questions such as... Why was this made? Why was this made now, so long after the Broadway run of 'Cats'? Why was it made in this motion capture CGI furry manner? It's hard to imagine what the target audience would be so who was this made for? They spent $95 million dollars on this movie, did someone actually think it would make money or is this some kind of tax rid-off? Why did I voluntary subject myself to this movie?

Watching this the look of the 'cats' is initially very disorienting, it doesn't seem right or real though eventually you get kind of used to it. Based on the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical which its self was based on a book of T.S. Elliot poems, 'Cats' is directed by Tom Hooper, who did the earlier Weber adaption 'Les Misérables' a few years back. The cast is a mix of well known names such as Judi Dench, Idris Elba and Rebel Wilson, along with theater and dance people such as the Kenyan born ballerina Francesca Hayward in the central and audience surrogate role of Victoria the White Cat.

It's a baffling film and while I can't quite explain it about half away through, right around the Skimbleshanks number, something clicked and I finally started accepting the movie as trippingly enjoyable. This isn't your same old, same old film, there is nothing like it. It's showing me things I haven't seen before and when all too much studio filmmaking is playing it too safe, 'Cats' takes risks. Plus the music is, for the most part, extremely strong and catchy, there is a reason this was Broadways longest running musical. Chalk it up as an interesting failure but it is still interesting and unique. Far far from a perfect film, but not the entire disaster I was expecting, 'Cats' is a genuine novelty and for all its flaws I would say my perception of this film is around 51% positive, so I'm gonna be contrarian and recommend 'Cats', you won't likely forget it. **

Invasion, U.S.A. (1952)

Though the 1985 Chuck Norris film is better known there is another movie that shares the title of 'Invasion, U.S.A.' and in fact is decades older. Cheaply made, good portions take place within a Manhattan bar and much of the fighting is stock footage, the film is a rallying cry to increase defense spending and anti-commie paranoia. Chronicling an enemy (Soviet, but they never actually say the word) invasion of the U.S., first Alaska, then Washington, Oregon, California and on east. Pretty successful at the time of its release $1.2 million on a $187,000 budget, it does not hold up, 'The Red Menace' and 'Amerika' are better variations on a similar them. At times laugh out loud funny, but not often enough. Trick ending kind of pissed me off. *

Ride Ryder Ride (1949)

Having grown up on 'A Christmas Story' I've long been curious to see a 'Red Ryder' story, now I have and there's not much there. Originally a comic strip 'Red Ryder' spawned some film serials, and later a series of B westerns of which 'Ride Ryder Ride' is one. Teamed with the aunt who raised him, a comic old man, and a young Indian boy Red Ryder is a 'cow puncher' who stands for truth and common decency. In this film he is very concerned about due process and the responsibilities of the press, he enacts a scheme to use a newspaper to flush out the criminal activities of a hotelier called 'Frenchie Beaumont' but things still have to end in a fight. Rather evidently made for children. **

Avalanch (1978)

Bland disaster film on a budget from Roger Corman and New World Pictures. Decent cast helmed by Rock Hudson, Mia Farrow, and Robert Forester. Story of a millionaire who builds a ski resort where he shouldn't and a disastrous opening weekend. You have the request side plots and love triangles, but something you couldn't get in the legit studio disaster pictures, full frontal female nudity. There's really nothing here, not good enough or bad enough to be that memorable. *1/2

Fata Morgana (1971)

Deriving its name from a type of mirage the Werner Herzog film 'Fata Morgana' is a sort of documentary, principally Mayan creation myth read in German against various footage short in North Africa in 1968 and 1969. Really more something that might run in a loop at an art museum then a 'movie' in the traditionally sense. It has a hypnotic quality and some great images. A kind of ancestor to the later and better known Koyaanisqatsi (1982). ***

Righthous Kill (2008)

A practically criminal waste of talent 'Righteous Kill' is a movie that's just kind of there. A drama about veteran police officers investigating a vigilante, there is nothing new, or interesting, or particularly well done about this movie. Despite the presence of Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Carla Gugino, Brian Dennehy, John Leguizamo, Donnie Wahlberg, and 50 Cent, there is really nothing here. It plods on indifferently leading to a 'climax' with a twist which is so obviously the only possible twist it hardly counts as twist. A disappointment from the usually competent Jon Avnet. *

Virginia (2010)

I listened to a long form interview with writer/director Dustin Lance Black (Milk, Big Love) last year where he talked about his childhood and now I know where most of this movie comes from. It's a mess of too many ideas, and as a result feels crowded and under developed. Jennifer Connelly plays Virginia, a single mother living in a Virginia beach town with her teenage son Emmett (Harrison Gilbertson). Virginia has been having an ongoing affair for the last 16 years with the local sheriff (Ed Harris) who is now running for the state legislator. Emmett has a crush on the sheriffs daughter Jessie (Emma Roberts) who might be his half sister. Virginia fakes a pregnancy, but she really has cancer, and she tries to rob the local bank, and the owner of the boardwalk amusement park is a secret transvestite and he makes a deal with the sheriff to attract a presidential candidate to town for labor day and Paul Walter Hauser is a professional babysitter. It's well cast, and there's the makings of a soapy TV series here but its all just too much for this movie and the result is very bad, no wonder it was barely distributed theatrically. *

Day of Defense (2003)

'Day of Defense' was originally a short book I vaguely recall reading on my mission in which two Mormon missionaries defend the Christianity of the LDS Church in a courtroom setting against various representatives of the Protestant and Catholic faiths. It's basically a book about how to 'Bible bash', it's arguing, self validation and a sort of wish fulfilment for beleaguered young proselyters. It presents some difficulty in adapting for the screen, the writers construct a ridicules storyline to put the missionaries in court, then spend far too much of the film outside of it. It's silly, cheap, doesn't make a lot of sense, nobody in the movie can act, it's kind of arrogant, and has a 'plot twist' which is somewhat vile in how lazily manipulative it tries to be. This is a very bad movie from the LDS film boom of the early 2000's, there is a lot misestimating here, just because you could make a Mormon movie doesn't mean that it will be good or that you should. *

A Thief in the Night (1972)

A sort of proto-'Left Behind' 'A Thief in the Night' is a low budget rapture film made by a bunch Lutherans in Iowa back in 1972. What is now fairly paint by numbers likely would have been rather novel to see in film form back during the Nixon era. Boasting some early Christian rock the film centers around three female friends, presumably just out of high school, some get saved and some do not. The rapture happens right off, then we have a flash back to the girls simple pre-apocalyptic concerns, there's a medical scare, a wedding followed by early married life shown in film strip form, then we circle back around to the end times. Having not much of a budget most of what were hear of the outside world comes from radio talk, and some static speechifying on the TV. The UN takes right over with a world government called UNITE, marks on the hand or forehead become required to buy things, resisters move underground or are snatched by the one UNITE van they made for this movie (I wonder were that's at today, it should do car shows). You of course have a storyline about a 'mainline' preacher who didn't really believe, and comes to regret it. The movie is really quite bad, but thankfully it is short (69 minutes) and kind of fascinating as a cultural artifact, which is about all I can recommend it as. *1/2