Anna and the Apocalypse (2018)

 'Anna and the Apocalypse' is 'High School Musical' meets 'Shaun of the Dead' in Scotland at Christmas time. This feels like something that should have come out about 10 years before it did, It's actually an expansion on a short film. The plot is nothing exceptional so it's the music that really sells the thing, along with a likable young cast. You should already know if this movie is for you, and if it sounds like it is I say see it. **1/2

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

 It has been some time since I enjoyed a high school set movie as much as I enjoyed 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower'. Stephen Chbosky adapted his own novel for the screen and directed it, ensuring that we get what he wanted to put across. The 1999 novel set in the suburbs of Pittsburg during the early 90's, deals with tough subject matter and was banned from some schools. There is a nice mix of lighthearted and poignant here leading to a meaningful whole, the movie does some tricky things incredibly well, and there's a likable group of character. 

Logan Lerman stars as Charly, going into his freshmen year of high school friendless after the suicide of his best friend that May. He winds accepted by an eccentric group of seniors (including Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, and Mae Whitman), and the movie progresses through the ups and downs of friendships and the high school year, ultimately ending in a manner that I found very satisfying. The movie evokes a subtle acke even as it serves as wish fulfillment fantasy, you wish these people were your high school friends. I was surprised by this film and super impressed, I would  recommend it highly to those who might be compatible with its spirt, which isn't everyone. I'd like to read the book this was so good, and there are one or two dangling plot threads I'd like a fuller story on as well.  ***1/2

The Dissident (2020)

Documentarian Bryan Fogel caught lighting in a bottle with 'Icarus', he stumbled into a story about Russian dopping which got that government banded from the Olympics, arguably saved the life of his informant, and made his own career, truly earning his Oscar. 'The Dissident' can't replicate that happenstance, it doesn't try, but it is a well thought out, lucid handling of a matter of real world importance, the death of exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khasoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The film takes that event, the who and why, and places it in context of the power dynamics within the Saudi government and larger resistance to their rule, as well as authoritarian rule in other middle eastern nations. Significant stuff. You also get a nice picture of Khasoggi, long a spokesman for the ruling machine who had finally had enough, and paid with his life. ***1/2

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

 2017's 'Wonder Woman' was surely the best received, most fully functional movie to come out of Warner Brother's lackluster DCEU. Retaining both that films capable star Gal Gadot, and director Patty Jenkins, and with it's 1980's setting promising some fun possibilities, all seem set for a big hit both creatively and at the box office. Covid-19 of course kept the film out of the theaters this summer, instead getting a strange bifurcated roll out on Christmas Day, a more modest theatrical release and streaming as the tent poll film for the newish HBO Max. I made a point of seeing the film on the big screen, and watched it with roughly 30 people in a 3pm showing on Monday. I'm glad I saw it theatrically because I was going to see it eventually and the film doesn't have much beyond it's visuals to recommend it. 

Now I was with the thing at first, I even enjoyed the appropriately goofy 1980's style fantasy plot, a wishing stone proves to be at the center of strange goings on. I like that the villain played by Pedro Pascal was motivated not by a desire for revenge, or to rule the world like all too many movie villains', but by simple greed and ego. I liked Kristen Wiig's awkward, shy, nerdy girl turned gorgeous knock out bit, a stock comedy arc and very 80's. I thought that it kind of worked ridiculously bringing Steve Trevor back for a role reversal on the fish out of water schtick from the first move. The action sequences at the mall and in the desert were fun as well. 

However about half way through this endearingly quirky superhero plot the whole movie goes completely off the rails. It gets ridiculous, try's to make the story too big, get's increasingly stupid and chaotic, character motivations stop making sense, it gets lazy, and preachy, and annoying. The coda at the end feels slapped on, and the mid credits teaser scene is offputtingly gimmicky and kind of desperate. So this movie is about 40% enjoyable cheese, and 60% mistake. DC proves again that it is no Marvel. One of the worst movies I've seen this year. *1/2

The Bishop's Wife (1947)

Remarkably for me I'd never seen this before. 'The Bishop's Wife' tells the story of an angel (Cary Grant) who sets out to help an episcopal-type Bishop (David Niven), however part of the way he goes about this is by seducing the man's wife (Loretta Young). I get that it's fanciful, and sets out to inspire and warm the heart, and it does that to an extent, but I couldn't quite get over the weirdness of God's messenger getting all the women in the picture hot an bothered. The inclusion of the Monty Woolley secondary story I found a pleasant surprise. I get why this movie is only a second tier Christmas classic, though don't get me wrong, it somehow mostly works. ***

Greyhound (2020)

Tom Hanks did double duty on 'Greyhound', a film he both stars in and wrote the screenplay for, adapting the 1955 novel 'The Good Shepard' by C. S. Forester, who is perhaps best known for 'The African Queen'. This movie is no 'African Queen' however, it is dull and gray, lacks for interesting characters, and is such a slow build that it hardly evoked an emotion in me until rather late in the picture. 

The story of a military troop and supply convey making the dangerous trans Atlantic crossing early in 1942, on a technical level the film is excellent. This movies feels quite real and even unusually accurate, and I get that it is going for a semi documentary approach, we see characters doing their jobs, but we don't learn much about them. The exception to that rule is Hanks's Commander Ernest Krause, who is a quite, religious man, self sacrificing, fair, the embodiment of what we take that generation who fought the War to be. He is admirable, but never very interesting as a protagonist.

I apricate that the film was setting out to tell a fairly simple story, it was not trying to be a kind of 'definitive work on the subject' or out spectacle all that came before it. So while a modest film in many ways I think it would have much more impact on a big screen. However 'Greyhound' was another victim of 2020, scheduled for theatrical release I think in the summer, instead its available on Appel TV, arguably their first big cinematic get. The movie left me a little cold and a fair bit bored, a disappointment to me, but not to most based on a 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. From me however it gets just **

I Am Woman (2019)

 'I Am Woman' is an Australian produced bio-pic on the late singer Helen Reddy, whose 1972 hit 'I Am Woman' become the unofficial anthem of the feminist movement, and the ultimately unsuccessful battle for passage of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. What set's this movie off from the usual arc of infidelity, drug abuse, and finical mismanagement one associates with musical bio pics, is here that arc is enacted not by Reddy, but by her manager  and second husband Jeff Wald, played finely by Evan Petters. Reddy herself is played by Tilda Cobham-Hervey, an Australian actress who is reminiscent of Rooney Mara, and ironically has been dating Rooney Mara's 'Lion' co-star Dev Patel since 2017. Cobham-Hervey brings an appropriate combination of determination and pleasant pluckiness to the part. 

Spanning the years 1966-1989 this is a fairly straight forward telling of the singers rise to prominence, and subsequent fading into the back ground. There is also a nice sub plot here about Lillian Roxon (Danielle Macdonald), Helen's good friend and fellow Australian, who authored the first encyclopedia of rock and roll before dying from an asthma attack in 1973 at the age of 41.

A pleasant film, that wisely gives us near to complete renderings of many of Reddy's best remembered songs, dubbed by Chelsea Cullen, who sounds appropriately like her. An undemanding film that is not trying to break new ground, but is an appropriate tribute for fans of the late artist to enjoy. **1/2

Silent Partner (1978)

 About a week or so ago I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and noticed an article entitled something along the lines of 'This year don't watch 'Die Hard', watch 'Silent Partner'. Now while I did watch 'Die Hard' this year I also watched 'Silent Partner', a Canadian produced, crime thriller that opens during the Christmas season.

 A remake of the 1969 Danish film 'Think of a Number', and based on a novel by Dane Anders Bodelsen, 'Partner' stars Elliot Gould as the lead teller at a Toronto bank located inside a busy shopping mall. Gould's character Miles Cullen figures out that a charity bell ringing Santa (Christopher Plumber) is in fact casing the bank and planning a robbery. Not usually a risk taker (he is a single bank teller around 40 years old, who lives in an apartment and collects tropical fish), this opportunity somehow posses Cullen, he hides about $50,000 in his brief case before the robbery can happen, then when Plumber robs the bank he gets away with only chump change, while the bank and the cops think he's gotten away with ten's of thousands  of dollars (Canadian).

Harry Reikle, Plumber's character, figures out from the  cash discrepancy on the news what has happened, and he's not the kind of guy you want to piss off. Plumber is quite scary in this, he sets about trying to get the money and revenge on Miles, and the resulting movie is a smart, edge of your seat thriller in the best of the Hitchcock tradition.

Cullen's risk taking translates into a new found since of confidence and two potential romantic interests for himself, a fellow bank employee played by Susannah York, and the mysterious Elaine, played by the fetching young French-Canadian pop singer Celine Lomez. 

I was really impressed with this, I really enjoyed it, seldom does such an obvious Hitchcock homage work so well on it's own. A sleeper hit upon release, the film won Best Picture, and Best Director (Darly Duke) at the now defunct Canadian Film Academy Awards. Richly deserving of rediscovery, next year you might think about pairing it with 'Die Hard'. Also featuring a young John Candy in an early bit part. ***1/2

Seberg (2019)

'Seberg' is a bio-pic/(political) thriller about the actress Jean Seberg. Seberg had an interesting life, born in Marshalltown, Iowa in 1938, in her late teens she was the winner of director Otto Preminger's nation wide talent search for an actress to play Joan of Arc in his forth coming film 'Saint Joan'. So that was Jean's film debut, and all she had done before was school and community theater. Preminger was a notoriously difficult man, the filming was very hard on her, she was almost killed by fire in the 'burning at the stake' scene. The movie also tanked, Preminger doubled down that he was right to cast Seberg and built his next movie around her, 'Bonjour Tristesse' based on a young adult novel, that film did better. 

Seberg continued to act both in America and overseas, particularly France, where she became a huge star for her role in Jean-Luc Godard's 'Breathless'. Along her career she'd go through three husbands and multiple lovers, developed a drug problem and die at the age of 40 from a drug overdose. 'Seberg' the film focuses on Jean's at lest somewhat radical political activism, she was involved with the Black Panthers and had an affair with a cousin of Malcom X. The FBI developed an interest in her, wire tapped her ect thus feeding her paranoia. Seberg's last husband Dennis Berry directly blamed that FBI harassment for leading to her death. 

This film concentrates on the mental breaking down of Jean Seberg, here ably played by Kristin Stewart. However the film never really sucked me in, I never felt as invested as I should have been for the thing to truly work. It was a little too paint by numbers, obvious and on the nose. I could see what they were going for, especially with the one FBI agent who becomes troubled by the extent of the government harassment and really develops and sympathy for Jean; and you do feel sorry for her, however the film doesn't dig deep enough, it tries to telegraph what makes Jean work but something gets lost in the translation about how she ticks. I could never quite empathize with her. The film I think could have benefited by more of a sense of scale, and more of a sense of Jean as one of many victims of political harassments, to better see her as part of a larger whole would have helped this for me. A competent effort, but I can give it only **

Noelle (2019)

 'Noelle' is a Christmas movie made for Disney Plus last year, and stars Anna Kendrick as the daughter of a recently deceased Santa, and sister to the Santa designate. Though she spends some time in the film committed for mental evaluation Kendrick's 'Noelle' is not crazy, she really did grow up in the North Pole, and as a result of this has a hard time appropriately interacting with other humans when she travels to Arizona to retrieve her way word brother (a perfectly cast Bill Hader), who fled in nerviness regarding his up coming duties. Christmas of course is saved in the end, and the plots 'twist' is fairly evident early on. 

I didn't really care though, this was a fun and low key holiday fish out of water story. It's really a cross between a traditional, fantastical family Christmas adventure film, and one of those Hallmark Christmas romances (this one particularly chaste), between Noelle and the private detective she enlists to help her in her search (Kingsely Ben-Air), he is of course single and has a cute young boy. Michael Gross is in this as an elder elf (I didn't know it was him until the end credits), and in contrast to the superior 'Christmas Chronicles' movies the elfs here are of a more familiar rendering, humans with pointy ears, but not short. 

Other cast members who I should point out (aside from the cute CG baby deer 'Snowcone'), are Billy Eichner as a Santa cousin and the North Poles resident IT guy, Julie Hagerty as the widow Claus (who it feels like was in seemingly nothing for decades, but has kept popping up in stuff for the last few years), and Shirley MacLaine as Noelle's childhood elf nanny who accompanies her to Arizona. MacLaine is in her mid 80's and seems in great shape, both physical and mental. 

The is another nicely relaxed Christmas film that you can hardly accuse of really stretching its self on anything, and thus makes for a pleasant but perhaps forgettable watch. Though some more conservative viewers might find it too PC. **1/2

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

 'Battle for the Planet of the Apes' is the last film in the original 'Planet of the Apes' franchise. My first re-watch of the thing since the late 1990's, this works better as a finale to the series then I had remembered. I long thought that a 6th film would have been needed to really round out the tragic time paradox of the film, but this movie ends on a hopefully note, implying that the march to the apocalyptical final of the 2nd 'Apes' film may now have been avoided. This is certainly a more enjoyable film then it's kind of angry and too often tedious immediate predecessor 'Conquest of the Planet of the Apes'. 

I like how this movie returns to a more agarin setting, like the first two 'Apes' film, and homages the mutants from the 2nd film, and deals pretty consistently with events in the 3rd and 4th. The nuclear war referenced in the earlier films happens off camera, I suspect largely as a budgetary matter, and here a group of humans and apes lead by Caesar (Roddy McDowell) are attempting to make interspecies cooperation work and preserve the good parts of civilization. For those who nerd out a little about chronology like me, in this movie the nuclear war is said to have taken place 15 years after the events of the last film, which was set in 1991, so the action in this movie is set in at least 2006 or possibly a few years thereafter. 

Like the other movies there is plenty that just doesn't add up, but the characters and story narrative are strong enough, for me at least, to enable suspension of disbelief without too many problems. I particularly appreciated the casting of great old time actors like Lew Ayers and John Huston in Ape parts. **1/2

Muppets Most Wanted (2014)

 'Muppets Most Wanted' is the 2014 sequel to the 2010 franchise soft reboot 'The Muppets', or as the lyrics of one of the films multiple and catchy songs reminds us, actually the 7th sequel to the their original 1979 motion picture 'The Muppet Movie'. I thought this worked quite well, better then I expected it would. As the Muppets originated basically as sketch comedy plot has always been a problem with their movies, they tend to repeat themselves and to some extent they do that here. Latching the Muppets on to some pre existing public domain property like 'A Christmas Carol' or 'Treasure Island' has worked for them in the past, looking for literary antecedents to the story in this movie I would have to go with 'The Prince and the Pauper' mixed with 'The Count of Monte Cristo' and perhaps some Russian lit. 

Kermit ends up in a gulag when he is mistaken for Constantine, the most dangerous frog in the world, who arranged to switch places in an effort to use the Muppets world tour as cover while he and his assistant (a game Ricky Gervais) commit various robberies while in Europe. Ty Burrell and Tina Fey have the other major human roles, and as per Muppet tradition the film is full of celebrity cameos, sometimes playing them selves. 

A nicely relaxed film that's lose and doesn't try too hard, which is largely why it works. Again I was particularly impressed with the songs, and have returned to many of them since first watching this movie the other week. A fun, non demanding film that delivers on the good time one wants from the Muppets. *** 

The Christmas Chronicles Part 2 (2020)

With 'The Christmas Chronicles Part II' I again wasn't expecting much, and again I was surprised. The film works because it was so willing to go in a different direction in its story then the first film, though hitting enough of the familiar beats (including an even bigger musical number for Santa) to feel continuities with the original, and again offer a moral or two, though different from the first one. 

A renegade former elf (Julian Dennison, the kid from 'Deadpool II'), and there is of course a story as to why he is a 'former elf', zaps the girl from the first film and a new boy character played by Jahzir Bruno (Judah Lewis only really has a bit part in this one) to the North Pole, where they meet Mrs. Claus (Goldie Hawn, expanding on her cameo from the first movie) and must again save Christmas. You see in this movie (Mrs.) Santa's village is attacked and chaos ensues, making 'The Christmas Chronicles Part 2' technically a movie about a terrorist attack. 

There is further clever expansion on Santa myths throughout the thing, the pacing is playfully and goes in some directions that I might have found off putting if it wasn't done so winkiningly (spoiler, time travel). I had a good time with this, the first movie was really great for a first movie and this one is really great for a sequel, it's surprisingly hard to compare them they are different enough beats, but they really do compliment each other and work together as a nice whole. So I'm give this part 2 another *** rating. 

The Christmas Chronicles (2018)

I really wasn't expecting much from this Netflix holiday offering of a couple years back, though I did think the casting of Kurt Russell as Santa Claus was kind of a neat idea. Though the first 15 minutes or so were pretty paint by numbers, even manipulative (the film starts with a montage of a families old Christmas home movies being watched by a roughly 11 year old girl, the first line she utters when the videos are done is "miss you dad'), it picks up considerably after the arrival of Old Saint Nick, who is decidedly not fat. 

So this is a 'rediscovering the Christmas spirt / fantasy adventure film' and even though it's hardly an exact parallel the movie it reminded me of the most was Tim Allen's 'The Santa Clause' from the mid 90's. Like that film this movie offers some creative, lightly revisionist ideas on the Santa legend, which I mostly really liked, from the design of the sled, to Santa's using 'wormholes' to travel around the world so quickly. The elves in this film are certainly a different take, furry little CG critters that I though a mixed bag (and who first appear inside of a bag). 

Kurt Russell is game and the two kids (Judah Lewis and Darby Camp) give solid on point performances. The film thankfully doesn't try too hard, it's kind of lose and not in a hurry even though there is a major time crunch element moving the story along. What really won me over more then anything was one scene, Santa's musical number in the jail, it was seemingly out of nowhere and has a really fun winking sensibility too it. So 'The Christmas Chronicles' is solid stuff, perhaps the best family Christmas film since 'Elf', hardly a shabby achievement. ***

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

In 'Conquest of the Planet of the Apes' it's now 1991 and 'Caeser', the child of Cornelius and Zira from 'Escape from the Planet of the Apes' is now 18 and the world has changed remarkably in less then 20 years. In 1983 a virus (that in a throw away line is said to have come from space) has wiped out all the dogs and cats on Earth. Now even though the world is aware of time traveling talking apes from a future where apes rule and man is a beast, apes are quickly adopted as pets in mass numbers, at least in North America. Rapidly that 'pet' status is changed to that of slaves when the apes prove easy to train and capable of menial tasks from janitoring, and waitering, to even hair styling. Supervised by a now quasi-fascist state (there are people in very SS style uniforms walking around) it is a recipe for ape rebellion.

Because he can talk and through a series of events Caeser (played by Roddy McDowall, Cornelius in two of the earlier films) becomes leader of this rebellion and the ape insurrection, said to have developed over around 500 years in the pervious film, quickly starts having victories, after a fashion. There is a prolonged riot / revolution sequence at the end of the film that wears thin, but was obviously intended as a kind of allegory for actually race riots in the period this movie was made. Some intriguing ideas but so far the hardest to sit through of the Apes films I've seen. **

The Most Hated Woman in America (2017)

 'The Most Hated Woman in America' is the story of the life, career, kidnapping and murder of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the outspoken atheist activist largely responsible for the outlawing of lead prayer in public schools. Madalyn's often confrontational style and seeming assault on 'Christian America' lead to her being nicknamed 'the most hated woman in America'. In 1995 the founder of American Ashiest was kidnapped along with her son Jon and granddaughter Robin, by a group lead by a disgruntled former employee David Roland Waters, with the apparent intent of just extorting money (Waters was aware that Madalyn had been skimming money from her non profit for years). Things took a turn for the worse and all three captives ended up murdered, their bodies not recovered for another three years.

The framing story of the O'Hair kidnapping is interspersed with flashbacks telling of Madalyn's rise to prominence and the impact that had on her family. The oldest of her two sons William was at first very much onboard with what his mother was doing, but eventually developed depression and a a substance abuse problem that he was able to overcome, ironically, through becoming a Born Again Christian. William is now a Baptist preacher and lobbyist in Washington. It was William's daughter Robin who was kidnapped along with his brother and mother, it was Robin's rape by one of Waters associates that lead to the out of control sequence of events resulting in the death of the three hostages, as well as a coconspirator the other two did not trust to keep quite. 

An interesting story, efficient film making, Madalyn is played by Melissa Leo and you can't ask for a stronger performer in that role then her. Among the solid supporting cast is Josh Lucas, Michael Chernus, Juno Temple, Adam Scott, Sally Kirkland and Vincent Kratheiser. At only 91 minutes it plays like a high end television film, and I think for the most part presents these people with very little judgment, letting the viewer decide what to think about them. ***  

The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (2020)

'The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone' is director Francis Ford Coppola's 30th anniversary re-edit of 'The Godfather Part III', which was the most uneven and ill regarded entry in the landmark franchise. I had seen 'The Godfather Part III' only once, on edited VHS circa 2003, so I didn't remember a lot this and can't easily compare the versions. I remember the last scene, which is changed here and honestly I prefer the original on that front, and mostly the weird Sofia Coppola romantic subplot is what I retained from the first viewing. 

While not approaching the first two movies in terms of quality and impact I remember thinking that Part III was not as bad as I'd expected, and I thought 'Coda' worked quite well as an ending. I think some of the editing, given the dates on newspaper clips shown, messed up some of the internal chronology of this final film. I got to see this in the theater so I've now seen all three (in essence) on the big screen, a quasi-achievement. ***1/2  

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

 Seemingly writing themselves into an unescapable corner by blowing up the Earth at the end of 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes', writer Paul Dehan managed an 'Escape from the Planet of the Apes' by sending simian leads Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter back to the 1970's and reinventing the franchise. 

This was a ridiculous, even shoe horned development, but in effect was necessary. Another ape character that had been neither previously seen or referenced, managed to dredge up and fix Heston's spacecraft from the first film, and he (Dr. Milo played by Sal Mino) and Dr.'s Cornelius and Zira managed to escape on it just before the destruction of the Earth. Now I'm really not clear what the three's escape plan was, but the ship conveniently fell through the same time portal encountered by James Franciscus in the last film. This took them back to 1973, two years in the future from when this movie came out and year after Heston's character is said to have left on his expedition in the first movie. 

Upon arriving back on Earth the apes are taken in by the government, Dr. Milo is accidently killed early on (this may or may not have been solely related to actor Mino's hating being in the ape makeup) and the film becomes an inversed parallel of the first movie. The surviving apes befriend a par of sympathetic scientists (Bradford Dillman and Natalie Trundy) and in this case become beloved by the public when it is realized they can talk, however the presidents chief science advisor Dr. Otto Hasslein (Eric Braden playing a character referenced but not seen in the first movie) is suspicious and wants to sterilize or even kill the apes upon learning that Zira is pregnant.

This film begins a time paradox that either starts, or at least re reroutes and accelerates events that will lead the human dominated Earth to become a planet of the apes. While the films later half is at least semi heavy, the first half has much fun fish out of water stuff, with the Apes adjusting to a commenting on the contemporary  world. I had seen probably 85% of this movie before, all but the beginning, and this probably the best of the sequels, it has a real charm to it. ***

Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie (2012)

 The rise and fall of Morton Downey Jr. is chronicled in "Evocateur: The Morton Downy Jr. Movie". The son of Irish tenor and actor Morton Downey Sr., Jr. spent decades trying to find his place in the world. A periodic recording artists, a D.J., Morton Jr. seemed to have found his place as an "Evocatuer", a populist radio personality turned host of a late night talk show. 'The Morton Downey Jr. Show' aired at night, but had a daytime talk show structure, only free to be even more sleazy because of the hour. The show took off like a rocket in 1987 but relatively quickly feel to earth, canceled in 1989 do to advertiser issues and Downey's penchant for self destructive behavior. Downey made periodic attempts at a come back, a heavy smoker he died from long cancer in early 2001.

'The Morton Downey Jr. Show' was a harbinger of things to come, a polarized media environment that thrived on exploiting's conflict. Like Donald Trump, who was a friend of Downey's and guest on his show (Morton for a brief period would even live in Trump Tower), the hosts sincerity was questionable, he did what got him attention, and didn't always think things through. In fact Downey would clumsily fake his own beating by neo-Nazi's (unlike Trump, Downey seemed to be pretty consistently anti-Nazi), which would more or less be the straw that broke the camels back for his show. 

Fascinating as a forgotten foot note, and disturbingly relevant for today. ***

Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008)

 

'Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!' is exactly what it sounds like it is going to be, an examination of the history of low budget/ low brow film making in the land down under. It is also surprisingly interesting, I started this with the intent to sort of half watch it before going to sleep, however I quickly determined that I would need to stop the movie and resume it the next day (it is currently free on Prime). 

Turns out Australia was largely without a domestic film industry (save for news reels and nature films) prior to the late the 60's / early 70's when the censorship laws were greatly loosened. This allowed for the production of much cheap exploitation entertainment throughout the 70's and 80's , followed by a revival of such fair in the early 2000's. The documentary focuses on the film makers and actors who worked in this field in the early years and has sections focusing on the most popular sub genres, sexploation, horror, action, and a distinctly Australian road vengeance genre, whose best known examples internationally are the 'Mad Max' films. 

The movie mentions briefly some of the more respected/ arty film makers to come out of Australia, such as Peter Weir, but its hart and focus is on enjoyable trash. Quentin Tarantino is a major talking head, which pretty much tells you what you should know about this film going in, it's not for all audience. But I enjoyed the reminiscence, old film clips, and some of the stories are kind of great, my favorite concerns Dennis Hopper's telling off a director based on a humors misunderstanding. I also knew basically nothing about Austrian cinema history going in so I found it very educational. ***

Gus (1976)

'Gus' is that 70's Disney film where a struggling NFL team hires a Yugoslavian mule to kick field goals. It's one of those 'the rules never say a player has to be human' stories, a progenerater to the later (and worse) 'Air Bud' franchise. 'Gus' is perhaps better then it should be, which is not to say good, maybe a little better then fair. It benefits from a large game cast including Disney regulars like Don Knotts, Tim Conway, and Dick Van Patten. Ed Asner plays the predictably crusty but lovable team owner of the fictional California Atoms, which per a line of dialogue is based in Thousand Oaks. Interestingly save the team the Atoms play in the Super Bowl (I guess s that's technically a spoiler) all the teams they play are real NFL. 

Gary Grimes and the fetching Louise Williams have a chaste romance. Tom Bosley is here too, as is Bob Crane in a small part (in my review of 'Super Dad' I was mistaken in stating that was the only Disney film Carne did), as well as a few real life NFL players. Silly but pleasant, the mule in the grocery story sequence near the end is very stretched out, doesn't make a ton of sense in the context of the film but otherwise this movie would have been oddly lacking in splatstick. **

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

 Of the five original "Apes" films, 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' is probably the one I've seen the least of. It has some semi iconic moments I suppose, clustered around the underground ruins of New York City inhabited by mutant humans, an interesting enough wrinkle from where things left off in the first film. The thing that hurts this movie the most is the relative lack of Heston, the star of the first feature had to be talked into a limited appearance in this one, he was loath to do sequels. 

This necessitated the introduction of a new lead, James Franciscus playing Brent, another stranded astronaut from Taylor's time. Not only is Franciscus's character extremely like Heston's character, basically interchangeable, he looks a lot like the better known actor as well. If only Heston had committed fully to coming back I think we would have ended up with a better movie, and perhaps avoided the writely corner they left this unexpectedly resilient franchise in by blowing up the Earth, but that gets us to the next film. This one gets **1/2