David Lynch: The Art Life (2016)

 'David Lynch: The Art Life' is another documentary on David Lynch by one of the directors and the cinemtographer of the earlier production 'Lynch'. 'Lynch' was filmed during the making of the directors last film 'Inland Empire', while in 'The Art of Life' we see Lynch working on various projects in his home studio, many in the company of his toddler daughter. 

'The Art of Life' focuses on the first 30 years of Lynch's life, a childhood mostly in Idaho and Virginia, art school in Phildephia, and film school in Los Angeles. The film ends as the director is putting the finishing touches on his first feature film 'Ereaserhead', so the film isn't really about his film work, but about the formative life experiences that would later manifest in it.

David Lynch tells a lot of stories, many of which I was aware of, but it can be the way that he tells them that is most arresting. The Lynch family heavily documented the boys childhood so there is no shortage of photographs and home movies to supplement the remincences, Lynch would carry that impulse to documentation into his own family and work lives. 

The contrast between David's loving family and childhood happyness, and the dark edge present throughout his film work is fascinating. That Lynch was thrown into what for him was such an alien and urban environment, while going to film school amidst the violence and industrial decay of 1970's Philadelphia, is indeed central to the visual and tonel style that would come to define his work. ***1/2

The Intruder (1962)

 Legendary B movie producer Roger Corman is famous for always turning a profit. The only exception I've heard him acknowledge was 1962's 'The Intruder', a movie he said he made because he wanted to make it more then he wanted to make money off it. Though in a 21st century interview Corman was proud that between a British re release and home video sales the movie had finally made money, though it took 40 years.

'The Intruder' is based on the 1959 Charles Beaumont novel of the same name, though the film has also been shown under the titles 'The Stranger', 'Shame', and 'I Hate Your Guts!'. A pre Star Trek William Shatner (The only "name" in the cast) plays a professional race baiter come to a small Missouri town as it prepares to integrate the local high school for the first time. Shatner riles up the towns folk, starts dating a teenage girl (very Roy Moore), has an affair with a married woman, and inspires a church burning and at least one death, all before being reveled as the unscrupulous liar he is in the final reel. This causes the townsfolk to abandon him, though I worry the lies, adulty and death might not have been cause enough for many in real life.

A number of people do stand up to Shatner's character throughout the film, including a noble school principle, and a traveling salesman who can just smell the deceit coming off him. His primary foil is the local newspaper editor, who while sharing the cultural discomfort of his fellows with the prospect of intigration, believes in obeying the law and dosen't like the meanness that Shatner's intruder brings out in his neighbours. In fact the whole experience makes the editor realize he actually supports integration, which he confesses to his wife was a surprise to himself. The wife, in a litely touching scene, proclaims that while she doesn't understand his view herself, knows that he is a good man and must have good reasons. The poor editor is severely beaten and loses an eye for his trouble.

The film has been criticized for not doing much with its black characters, though they like most people in this film where played not by professional actors but by locals. One black character, a teenager falsely accused of the attempted rape of a white girl, shows real courage in trying to turn himself over to an angry mob to keep them from hurting others.

'The Intruder' is a limited film in a number of ways, in budget, acting, the extent to which it is willing to challenge it's white audiance. But is also a brave film for tackling what it does even with these constraints, and all of this while on location in a rural part of the country not known for its hospitality on the integration issue. The film still works despite its flaws and has a number of very effective scenes. ***

God's Little Acre (1958)

 What drew my attention to this film was a throw away line in an episode of the Billy Bob Thornton series 'Goliath'. I like obscure refrences so I looked it up, decided I wanted to see it, and later threw it on the schedule for a 'public domain movie month' on my podcast.

'God's Little Acre' is a 1958 film adaptation of the 1933 Erskin Caldwell novel of the same name. Both film and book have a racey reputation, and it was production code standards that kept the popular novel from being adapted to screen for about a quarter century.

The movie is a kind of hillbilly Payton Place or low rent Tennessee Williams. I was expecting more of the fomer, with the first half of the film being the most interested in titulation, and the latter groping for southern gotheic of social significance, even featuring an abortive labor insurrection. 

The two halves of the film never fully gelled together for me, though Robert Ryan does an admirable job of trying to bridge them as the patriarch of a Georgia family that has seen better days. Ty Ty Walden has let the family cotten buisness come to a halt in an obssesive persuit of gold allegedly burried on family land by ancestors a hundred years ago. So desperate is he to find these richs that when a friend suggests, in accordance with folk belief, that he get an albino to divine its location, he and two of his sons abduct one (played by a young Micheal Landon).

The gold plot is there largely for humorous misadventure, most of the story concerns Ty Ty's five grown children, their spouses and/or potential love interests. Central to these relationships is Griselda who is married to Ty Ty's son Buck but desired by most every male in the picture. She is played by Tina Louise (Ginger from 'Gilligan's Island') in her film debut. Her introductory scene in a form fitting dress of shallow fabric is an attention graber, and she follows it up with other attire that while tame by today's standards, conveys a sultryness perhaps more appealing for being mildly subtle.

Griselda's ex lover Bill Thompson (Aldo Ray), who will later lead the abortive factory take over, is married to her sister in law Rosemind (Helena Wescott, doing the most she can with what little screen time she is given). Buck (played by Jack Lord, who like his film wife would also be best known for his role on a 60's born island based TV show, 'Hawaii Five-O') is specious of Bill as regards his wife. The other children consist of a resentful rich widower who lives in town, a third son who is something of a sypher and doesn't say much, and youngest Darlin' Jill (a memorable Fay Spain) who gives Griselda a run for her money as screen tart. She is the object of obsession for the pudgy Pluto Swint, a family friend played by Buddy Hackett, whose only hope of landing the girl seems to be success in a qusadic run for county sheriff. 

The film hops around between these stories and Ty Ty's competing drives between gold fever and an understated religious piouty. The various elements of the film work well enough on their own, but as a whole seem somewhat lacking.

The film was directed by Anthony Mann, who is known for some operatic tendencies in his story telling and (along with Alfred Hitchcock) crafting a darker post war image for Jimmy Stewart, in his case through westerns like 'Winchester '73' and 'The Man from Laramie'. The score here is oddly by Elmer Bernstein.

A film most notable for the hodge podge of talents in front and behind the screen, as well as a quasi scandalous reputation that is yes deserved, but still gives less then expected. My biggest critique of the film is probably that it dosen't go whole hog with the naughtiness, though that probably wasn't an option open to it at the time. Also I think not setting it in the depression was a mistake, it's a very 30's story despite some 50's automobiles (though the poorer main characters all drive 30's vintage vehicals), and it just seems off. Still an entertaining picture despite a certain unevenness. **

Glen or Glenda? (1953)

 Edward D. Wood Jr. is widely remembered as one of, if not the worst, film directors in movie history. This reputation is heavily buttressed by Tim Burton's loving 1994 bio-pic 'Ed Wood', but rests principly on the extremely low budget 1959 aliens and the undead disaster that is 'Plan 9 from Outer Space'. Next to 'Plan 9' Wood's best remeberd bad movie would probably have to be 1953's 'Glen or Glenda?'.

Produced for "Z movie" icon and road show king George Weiss, 'Glen or Glenda?' is a film about cross dressing, transvestitism, hermaphrodites, and transexualism. While treated with unusual ernestness by writer/director/star Wood, himself a cross dresser, the film is a plea for tolereance that surely reasonates better now then it did in the early 1950's. So while the film is ahead of its time in some ways, like its plea for tolerance, it is also retrograde in others, Glen's crossdressing is attributed to a displacement disorder caused by a childhood with unloving parents, and as something that can (and probably should) be cured.

Setting aside the socio psychological aspects of the picture and their relative merits or lack there of, 'Glend or Glenda?' is a mess of a movie. It is explotation in a quasi-documtery disguise, a common approach for films of the 30's to 60's that wanted to discuss socially stigmatized sexual topics. It has dueling narritives devices, Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist torturing Glen's subsconcince, and a progressive doctor using him as an example in explaining trans issues to a police detective troubled by the suicide of a crossdresser.

The film makes heavy use of stock footage, presumably to create an illusion of production value. There are odd digressions and asides such as a discussion of men's vs women's hats, and a dream sequence featuring some borderline lesbian S&M. 

While the film is called 'Glen or Glenda?' that is not the only example explored. Glen has a cross dressing friend who councils him to tell his fiance (played by Wood's real life girlfriend at the time Dolores Fuller) about his other self before marrying, the friend made the mistake of not telling his beloved and it cost him his marriage. Also towards the end of the picture a separate story of an "Alan or Alice" is presented, this person, a World War II vet, does undergo "sex change surgery", but turns out to have been a hermaphrodite the whole time so the audiance is given permission to think this is okay.

It should probably be pointed out that the film repeatedly explains that cross dressing and homosexuality are not the same thing, and that most cross dressers are heterosexual. The film implies but does not state an opposition to homosexuality, which may indicate anti homosexual vews on the part of the film makers, or may just be a concession to the time.

A truly strange film, a bizarre cinematic artifact, it's legit entertaining and only 65 minutes long, so as Bela Lugosi's mad doctor character would say "pull the string" and give it a watch if your interested. The film is in the public domain. Full of odd, occasionally repeated dialouge, bizarre editing choices, and a cameo appearance by the devil himself. I kinda liked it. **

David Lynch: An Introduction

 Introduction for David Lynch Month on the podcast.

David Keith Lynch was born January 20th, 1946 in Missoula, Montana. He was the first of three children born to Donald Walton Lynch, a research scientist with the Department of Agriculture, and Edwina Sundburg Lynch a homemaker and English tutor.

The family moved around for Donald's work, principally in the Pacific Northwest, (including a long stint in Boise, Idaho) and the South (North Carolina, Virgina). Lynch was raised a Presbyterian, was an Eagle Scout, amature carpenter, and in high school developed an interest in painting.

He attended The Pennslvania Acadamy of Art in Philadelphia. One day some wind coming in from an open window in class caused a ripple motion to play across his canvas, this implanted in David's mind a desire to see his paintings move. In 1967 he would premier his moving painting 'Six Figures Geeting Sick (Six Times)' which would run on a sixty second loop. This lead to his first short film 'The Alphabet' in 1968. Lynch was then accepted into the American Film Institute Conservatory in Los Angeles where he made his next short films 'The Grandmother' in 1969 and ' The Amputee' in 1974.

At AFI Lynch was granted use of an abandonded stable on Conservatory land to make his first feature. The sureal 'Eraserhead' (1977) was filmed in fits and starts over the course of years, becoming an unexpected hit on the Midnight movie scene of the 1970's. Mel Brooks as a producer was looking for someone to direct a biopic on Victorian England's famous 'Elephant Man' John Merrick. After seeing 'Ereaserhead' he hired Lynch telling him "Your weird, you can direct my movie." Brooks was also responsible for giving Lynch the nickname "Jimmy Stewart from Mars".

'The Elephant Man' (1980) was both a commercial and critical hit, earning Lynch a directing Oscar nomination for his first Studio backed motion picture. George Lucas approached Lynch to direct 'Return of the Jedi', which is a funny story, there is a video on YouTube of Lynch telling it which is worth seeking out. David turned down Lucas but accepted an offer from Dino De Lurentis to direct an adaption of the Frank Herbert sci-fi epic 'Dune' (1984). Part of the deal was after making 'Dune' Lynch could direct a film of his choice. While Dune flopped with critics and audiences 'Blue Velvet' (1986) was a hit with both, and is now his signature film.

In the late 1980's Lynch was approached by a desperate ABC network to make a television series, the resulting show 'Twin Peaks' would be an International sensation when it premeried in 1990, counting both Queen Elizabeth II and Mikeal Gorbachev as fans. The show would suffer in its second season when Lynch was distracted making the movie 'Wild at Heart' (1991), and would be canceled. The following year Lynch would make a much darker prequel film to the series called 'Fire Walk With Me' (1992). In 2017 he would direct every episode of a Twin Peaks revival series on Showtime to much critical acclaim.

In the 1990's Lynch would do another short lived series for ABC,  a sort of sitcom called 'On the Air'. He would also be involved in an anthology documentary series for Fox, also short lived. He would go against type and make 'The Straight Story' (1998), a G rated family movie for Disney based on real events.

Lynch would cap out his feature film directing career and return to the dream logic of his early work with his "Califorina Trilogy", consisting of 'Lost Highway' (1997), 'Mulhallen Drive '(2000) and 'Inland Empire' (2006).

In addition to his feature work Lynch would direct a short film for French Televison 'The Cowboy and the Frenchman' (1987), as well as a music video for German hard rock group Rhamstien and a concert film for Duran Duran, plus animated and live action content for his website David Lynch.com, including daily weather reports for the Los Angeles area where he lives. Lynch has also written multiple books and done art and photography exhibits. He has even released several albums of music I don't know how to describe.

David Lynch has been married 4 times and has 4 children, including Jennifer Lynch, a writer and prolific televison director who has also helmed the feature films 'Boxing Helena' (1992) and 'Survailance' (2007). Lynch has for decades been an avid practitioner and advocate for the practice of transcendental meditation and has a non profit Foundation to promote the practice. 

Lynch has been nominated and won multiple awards for his work and despite a cannon of only 10 feature films, is widely considered one of the most unique and important American directors of the last 50 years.

Thor: Love & Thunder (2022)

 Taika Waititi, the quarky New Zealand autor who revitalized the Thor franchise with 'Ragnarock' in 2017, returns to the directors chair to give us a kind of warmed over, more jokey, more sentimental version of that movie. Liam Hemsworth's Thor and the various supporting characters, including the Waititi voiced Korg remain fun and likable, but static. 

An attempt is made to bring stakes to the film beyound it's disposable bad guy (Christian Bale giving more then is necessary because he's a commited professional), by bringing Thor love interest Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) back into the picture. She's suffering from cancer now, but also becomes a female Thor (a nod to recentish developments in the comics), which might help or might hurt the spread of the disease.

The Guardians of the Galaxy appear early in the film and are given notaciably short shift. The bad guy of the piece is obsessed with killing "Gods" because one let his daughter die, so this is a comic book version of a faith deconstruction naritive as villain origin story, I'd like to read Dawkins review.

I liked some things in the film, including what feels like a 'Shazam' influnced part of the ending, that reminds one that comic book stories were originally supposed to be for kids. Russell Crowe, now firmly ensconced in the "pityable figure" part of his career, appears as Zeus, the best part of his performance was that accent.

There have been so many of these Marvel movies that it is simply hard for them to impress anymore. The mid and post credit sequences where they tease further films now bring more of a sense of dread and resignation then excitmen. 'Love and Thunder' is another reasonably well executed brick in the wall. **1/2

Poor White Trash (1961)

 I watched this as a sort of, and I emphasize "sort of", companion piece to 'Where the Crawdads Sing'. 1961's 'Poor White Trash' is really just a re-edit of the 1957 film 'Bayou', featuring a new theme song, more provocative title and advertising campaign, and some mildy erotic body double shots inserted.

 A bland romance between a New York architect visiting New Orleans for a job (Peter Graves) and a local Cajun girl (Hungarian-American actress Lita Milan, who would serve briefly as the First Lady of the Dominican Republic around the time this re-edit would come out). Things are complicated for the couple by a crooked store owner with the hots for Lita played by Timothy Carey, who was the Tom Green looking solder executed for cowardice in Stanley Kubrick's 'Paths of Glory'.

Peter is a passive type himself, which he blames fot his inability to get ahead in life ( loseing the contact he was in New Orleans to get because of a lack of gusto). However when Lita is sufficiently threatened he finds his courage and Timothy ends up with a hatchet in his back. There's something off about the message. This is a mostly bland picture whose chief virtues are loction shooting and Timothy Carey's suitably weird performance. *1/2

Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

 Based on a best selling book 'Where the Crawdads Sing' is a period piece, a coming of age tale, a murder mystery, a court room drama, and a Nicolas Sparks-ish love story. Set in the North Carolina wet lands and told largely in flash back between 1953 and 1969 (plus a coda), it is the story of Kya (Played as a young girl by JoJo Regina and in her teens on by the striking Daisy Edger-Jones).

 Abandoned by her family at a young age and left to mostly raise her self, the young girl has a natural sense of harmony with nature and does pretty well on her own. There is a friendly black couple who help where they can, and as a teenager a nice young man (Harris Dickinson) comes along and teaches her how to read, how to love and encourages her talents as a naturalist.

When love interest number one goes away to colloge, Kya is embittered for some years before along comes love interest number two played by Taylor John Smith. Unlike her first love this guy comes from money and has a dark side, though to the movies credit it makes him seem like a reasonably decent person, at least at first.

In time Harris comes back from colloge and wants to make amends, while Taylor becomes more of a problem and a publishing company becomes interested in Kya's drawings and writings. Then Taylor dies suddenly in a fall from an old forest service tower, Kya the obvious suspect.

David Stathairn is the kindly southern lawyer whose known Kya a little over the years and comes out of retirement to defend her. Rather conventional in both style and substance the film relies mostly on the likable and sympathetic presence of Edgar- Jones to carry it. Not without surpries, some rather subtly rendered, the false ending was a bit of a let down, the true ending scored back a few points. Still this movie is rather what you'd take it to be at first blush, a solid mediocrity just a little better then forgettable. **1/2

Candy (1968)

 Released the same year as the MPAA ratings system was launched, 'Candy' takes full advantage of its R rating. It's a main stream release with big stars, but it's also very much an explotation film at heart. The story concrns Candy Christian (Ewe Aulin, a former Miss Teen Sweden and Miss Teen International, only 18 at the time of filming), a high school girl who lives in the Midwest with her widower, teacher father (John Astin, who also plays this characters twin brother).

 The episodic plot concerns a series of men, usually played by well known actors of the time, who seek to and usually succeed at having sex with Candy, sometimes through rape. The film also features some badly dated racial stereotype parts played by white actors, such as Marlon Brando as an Indian guru, and Ringo Starr as a Mexican gardner. It's a comedy, all unpleasantness is played for laughs, the film even ends on an incest joke.

Based on a popular, notorious "dirty book" of a decade before, 1958's 'Candy' by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg. The property had been considered unfilmable and probably should have stayed that way. The great Buck Henry, who had done 'The Gradute' the year before was brought in to do the adaptation. Henry would go on to say that the preview showing he attended for the movie went so badly he worried he'd never work again.

Henry needn't have worried however as prurient interest made 'Candy' a big hit at the box office, $16.4 million off a $2.7 million budget. Filmed in Italy by Frenchmen Christian Marquand, the big name cast included the likes of James Coburn and John Houston riffing on their public personias.

 While there is much base humor the film is often rather witty and contains some very funny dialogue. It also boasts some strong comedic performances with highlights being Walter Matthau as a general and Richard Burton as a Welsh poet, both seem to be having a blast.

The movie is still a badly dated, uncomfortable piece of 60's psychodelic film making, overstuffed in the tradition of 'Skidoo' or the original comic version of 'Casino Royal'. If ever a movie called out to be canceled by both Right and Left its this bizarre sex farce built around a credulous teenaged blonde with the most stereotypical of bimbo names. *1/2

Jurrasic World: Dominion (2022)

 I had low expectations for this going in, what with the 30% Rotten Tomatos rating and the previous three Jurrasic films not living up to the promise of the first two. However 'Jurrasic World: Dominion' proved to be an unexpectedly balanced film. Part Jurassic World franchise, part Jurrasic Park reunion, and part James Bond movie (the whole Isle of Malta sequence felt very Daniel Craig era Bond). 

The movie is not very deep, clever or particulary insightful, though I liked the stuff about the locusts, something new but fitting with what came before. The important thing is the movies parts work and most every important character, and there are about 10 here, is given sufficient screen time and arc. I liked the note they closed this property out on. ***

Saint Jack (1979)

 After several box office failures in a row Peter Bogdonovich was back where he started in the film buisness, getting financing from low budget producer extraordinaire Roger Corman. But 'Saint Jack' is like no normal Corman picture, it's not cheap or explotive, its probably the most high end, literate film ever to come out of New World Pictures. Orson Wells of all people suggested the book to Bogdonovich as a good candidate for adapation.

'Saint Jack' is based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Paul Theroux, today best known for 'The Mosquito Coast'. The movie tells the story of Jack Flowers (Ben Gazzara), Buffulo born Korean War veteren, who after graduating with a degree in English via the G.I. Bill, decides he needs to see the world before he can truly become a writer. He leaves the country in 1959 and by the early 1970's still hasen't returned home, and through circumstances never gone into  finds himself managing a brothel in Singapore.

'Saint Jack' is a character study, as well as a portrait of the troubled American presence in the South-East Asia of the time. Gazzara gives what is probably the best performance of his career, understated, subtle and tortured. In scanning through blurbs about this film on Rotten Tomatoes one reveiwer described it as a "brilliant character study of a reprehensible man who is also a decent human being." It is about trying to be a ethical pimp, and is that even possible.

The lead chartacters background is given out slowly over the course of the film. At one point he makes a self depricating joke about writting, and it is only later with added context that we see the pain that the joke masks. Jack is good at hidding pain, it's something that only those who grow close to him seem to notice, on the outside he is friendly to everybody, an expert crises manager with a good sense for people.

The film progresses over the course of around four years. We see Jack go from a kind of freelancer to managing a high end brothel, which is then destroyed by a rivial syndicate which allows Jack to take on the task of opening a quasi-government sponsored brothel for American solders on leave. The film ends with America preparing to withdraw from Vietnam and Jack looking around for his next opertunity.

The light and dark pulls to watch Jack is subject are personified by two supporting characters. Denholm Elliot, best known as Marcus Brady in three Indiana Jones films, plays William Leigh, an English accountant who comes each year to do the brothels books. Like Jack he seems a good man caught in bad circumstances. Mr. Leigh is honest in his work and never indulges in the sexual escapedes readily avilable him, he prefers instead a good game of squash and openly longs for the day when he and his wife can retire to the English countryside. He and Jack like each other and become good friends.

Appealing to Jack's worse angels is CIA man Eddie Schuman, played by Bogdonovich himself in a role intended for Charles Grodin. Schuman is ereduite and charming and offers Jack resources he'd never had before. It is Eddie Schuman who recrutes Jack to run a brothel for the government.

On one of his trips to do the books Leigh has a heart attack and dies. He is cremated and Jack calls his Hong Kong based widow offering to travel there and deliver the remains in person. Hurt by her husband's dying and leaving her a widow half a world away from her home, Mrs. Leigh tells Jack not to bother making the trip and just dispose of the remains himself. This further depresses and disillusions Jack.

Around this time Schuman comes to him with an offer. An anti-war Senator whose made enemies with The Agency, is coming to Singapore as part of a trip to observe the winding down of US involvement in the war. While purportedly a family man there are rumors about the senators personal life and Schuman will pay him $25,000 for some incriminating photographs. Jack follows the senator (played by former Bond George Lazenby) at night, see's him turn down propositions from mutipal female prostitutes, only to engage a male one and proceed to rent a hotel room. Jack bribes the young man to leave the door ajar so he can take photos. He does so and Jack then spends some time debating with himself whether or not he is going to destroy this man's life, he ultimately decides he can not and throws the evidence into the river.

'Saint Jack' is the first movie ever filmed in Singapore, and captures the island nation as it was still transitioning into the highly regulated buisness state it is known as today. Theroux's book was known there and is not a flattering portrait of the place, so the movie was filmed semi gurelia style. Bogdonovich even pened a treatment for a fake Singapore based film to show local officials as needed. 

In the film Jack has a relationship with a Sir Lankian woman, Bogdonovich had a relationship with the lady who played that woman, one which caused the end of his eight year relationship with the actress Cybil Sheapard. The movie would receive good to middling reviews but would have limited distribution in the US, making most of its money internationally. Bogdonovich always regretted and that the movie didn't do better, and it's real shame that Gazzara didn't get an Oscar nomination as his performance was worthy of one. 'Saint Jack' is a forgotten gem of a film and one I knew upon finishing I needed to see again, so I waited 10 days, gave it a second viewing and liked it even more. A complex rumination on morality both personal and geopolitical, a real achivment. ****

Uncut Gems (2019)

 Adam Sandler has recieved career high praise for his performance as Howard Ratner, a profrane, philandering, gambling addicted, Jewish, New York City jeweller in the Safdie Brothers film 'Uncut Gems'. A character study that touches on the world of organized crime, Sandler is stretching some little used acting muscels and gives an impressive, surprisingly raw performance. So while Sandler is good here, the film itself is a cliche ridden, unpleasant slog of two and a quarter hours, lacking likable characters, humor, or much of a point.

It was truly an unpleasant watch. Much yelling, much profanity. A film full of unlikable characters making selfish, short sighted decisions. There is a knowing quality to the piece, the writer/directors come from a similar world apperently, so while this may be a slice of life picture, who would want this life? 

Howard Ratner is an unpleasant fellow. Perhaps once legit he is now a borderline conman, heavily leveraged due to a sports (specifically basketball) gambling addiction he is unable to control. The principle figure to whom he owes money is his brother in law, which is even more awkward then it might be due to his marriage to the man's sister being on the brink of disunion, though the couple has decided that a formal announcement to friends and family can wait until after Passover. Howard spends  most evenings not with his family at his suburban home, but at his city apartment with his much younger mistress, an employee at his high end jewellery store.

Howard has purchased (at a discount) a rare Ethiopian black opal, a visually complex jewel of which it is said you can see the beginnings of the universe inside. His intent is to put the stone up for auction, but when basketball star Kevin Garnett (the film is set in 2012) visits his store he shows it to him. Garnett is taken with it, asks to borrow it, Howard reluctantly allows this, Garnett wins his game that night and attributes this to the gem.

Now Garnett is a serious bidder for the auction, but Howard decides to use his father in law as a plant to imitate a bidding war and try to juice up the final sales price. His creditors are upping their pressure, including having him abducted outside his teenage daughters play and left naked inside the trunk of his own car. Pressures build, tensions mount, Howard is keeping an untenable number of balls in the air as we wind towards the films climax, which while generally well exicuted was still not enough to save the movie for me.

I don't care about jewells, I don't care about basketball, I didn't care about these characters, nor did I appreciate the tedium of the pacing. The film overshoots on the sense of stress, your supposed to undertsand that Howard is feeling it, but there is nothing about him, no rooting interest, that would make me want to vicariously feel that stress with him, but the film insists that I do anyway.

I can see talent in the creation of 'Uncut Gems' and in Sandler's performance, but I didn't get anything out of watching the film that could compensate for the utter opressivness of the experince. I just hated it, and if that's what they were going for then they did a good job. But still I hated it. *

Megaforce (1982)

 Released right around 40 years ago 'Megaforce' was the great box office bomb of the summer of 82', made for $20 million it grossed less the $5 million. Directed by former stuntman Hal Needham, who had helmed 'Smokey and the Bandit' 1977's second biggest hit (the first of course being 'Star Wars'), it was not without cause that he was trusted with this action comedy.

'Megaforce' however was no Burt Reynolds vehical, the type of movie Needham would spend the bulk of his directing career making. It's hard to understand the logic of 'Megaforce', who exactly was this made for? What were they even trying to accomplish?

The movie anticipates by about a year the cartoon series 'G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero' as it concerns a cartoonish special opps force. Eveyone has stock personality defining names like "Ace", "Dallas", "Egg" and "Ivan". They exchange witty dialouge like: "Dallas when somebody dosen't have less on they have...." "More on." " Exectly." 

They have all sorts fancy vehicals for which Hotwheels would make the merchandise tie ins. They have a fancy super computer which records military communication the world over and can creat holograms to distract gulabel enemy solders with bikini girls. This movie even had an Atari 2600 video game. So the juvinale audiance seems the obvious target.

However the movie it's self is pretty dull and boring, and strangely talkie. The action sequences are subpar, and not well shot, a surprise with Needham at the helm. There is also an arguably homoerotic subtext to spandex clad group leader Barry Bostwick agonizing over former associate Henry Silva's defection to the communist bad guys.

This movie is just bad, but not in a fun way, in an embarassing way. It is a slog to sit through, which might explain why its seemingly never rebroadcast and I never saw it growing up. While it's bad green screen and corny catch lines like "The good guys always win, even in the 80's" can be momentarily amussing, they are not enough to build a movie around. Another mistake was sidlining Ace's nominal love interest played by former Miss India Persis Khambada for half the movie, at least she provided incentive to look at the screen. 

This is an awful waste of a movie, good for little beyound scratching it off the bad movie bucket list. *

Fifty First Dates (2004)

 Did a whole a episode of the podcast about this one so I won't say much. Starts out as standard Adam Sandler gross out stuff, but is elevated by Drew Barrymore at peak adorableness playing a Hawaiian girl with a brain injury,which causes her mind to reset each time she sleeps to the morning of her accident. Sandler falls head over heels and puts aside his womanizing ways to concentrate on winning the same girl over and over again. The only reasons this ridiculous and only sporadically funny film works is because of the chemistry of its leads. But it works well enough that despite having some near painfully bad stuff in it, I'd still call it good. ***

Shanty Tramp (1967)

In August of 1967 Sidney Poitier slapped a white man across the face on theater screens across the country in that seminal picture 'In The Heat of the Night'. Two months prior Lewis Galen knocked a white man unconsicious into a stack of Pabst Blue Ribbon boxes in 'Shanty Tramp'.

This low budget, black and white exploration feature set in the South plays its story out over the course of roughly six to eight hours. There is such a quasi documentary quality to the film I felt tempted to write it up like a newspaper article, capturing the rough timings of the comings and goings of the various characters over an eventful night.

At around the 9 o'clock hour Lewis Galen's Daniel was attending a tent revival service with his mother, standing near the back while the white attendees sat in folding chairs affront. It was there that he noticed the titular "Shanty Tramp" Emily Stryker (Played with some sensuality by Eleanor Vaill, an actress who would appear in only three films, all of which where released in 1967).

 At the end of the service Emily asks the visiting reverend for a private meeting, the reverends assistant quickly puts the kebosh on this, fearing that meeting might get to be too private if you catch my meaning. Anyway the rev needs to rest up for the midnight meeting before pulling up stakes and heading further south in the wee hours. This servant of the Lord does suggest she might try him after that latter service, he then goes into his trailer to count from the collection plate.

Bored and looking for action Emily heads to the local club, dances for awhile with a seemingly nice man then switches partners to the head of a biker gang. Some time later the new couple seek out privacy in the club storage room.

Across town Daniel is getting anxious, hot and bothered from seeing the Shanty Tramp. His mother warns him not to go seeking her out at the midnight rivial service or in town, reminding him she is white and this is the same community that lynched his father when he was a young child. Unwisely Daniel ignores her, heads to the service, sees she is not there and makes his way to the club where he observes things from a distance.

In the storage room Emily and biker man get into a tussel when he decides not to pay her the agreed upon five dollars but still take his good time. Seeing things from the window Daniel swoops in, has a fight with biker man and knocks him out. An impressed Emily offers to give Daniel a freebie as a reward. He is leary but ultimately gives into his baser impulses.

Meanwhile at the revival Emily's town drunk father is moved by the spirit (the other kind) to seek out his daughter and get her saved. He finds her post coutious with a black man and don't care for that none. Emily surprises Daniel by telling her pops that she couldn't help it the black man overpowered her. Daniel's reaction to this, exclaiming "Are you serious!?" with a mixture of fear, indignation and 'I should have know better' is the film's greatest moment.

Pa heads out to round up the police and a lynch mob so Daniel wisely flees. He is unaware that biker man, upon regaining consciousness and finding out who Daniel is takes his gang to the house and kills his mother. Daniel steals a car full of moonshine and being chased by police crashes it into a tree, the moonshine explodes and Daniel dies a firey death.

Back at the tramps shanty pops has pieced together that his daughter lied and proceeds to beat her with his belt. Afterwords she seeks revange and beats her father as well, leaving wounds that will prove fatal. Emily flees to the site of the revival and catches the rev and his assistant just as they are about to leave, she hitches a ride with them and joins the reverend in his trailer as we fade out.

'Shanty Tramp' is of course exploitive sleaze, but the directions not half bad and there is a knowing cleverness to the whole proceedings, some real dark humor. That it touches on race relations at all is notable, but the brutality of its portrait of southern hypocrisy is what's memorable. Not quite art house trash, but rises slightly above meaningless filth into the world of social awareness. **1/2

Looney Toons Back in Action (2003)

Red Letter Media did a video recently about the 1988 movie 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' in which they also talked about other films that combined live action and animation. One largely forgotten film mentioned was 2003's Joe Dante directed 'Loony Toons Back in Action', I had been aware of it but had also forgotten about it, so I decided to watch it. 

This isn't a very good movie but at least it's low key in its cross promotion and cameos, unlike the new Rescue Rangers and Space Jam movies. The weak plot pits Bugs, Daffey,  Brendan Frazier and Jenna Elfman against ACME CEO Steve Martian in a search for a magic diamond. The film almost counts as the third Timothy Dalton Bond movie, as Dalton plays an actor who plays a secret agent as a cover for being a real secret agent.

The most interesting things (for me) in this film tended to happen around the edges, some of the cartoon background stuff and the very Dante world cameos by Roger Corman, Dick Miller, Robert Picardo, and others. There is also a scene in an Area 51 like facility called Area 52, where classic 50's B movie monsters are scattered throughout the background. On the whole a middling movie which only really approached classic Loony Toons greatness in the chase through various paintings at the Louve. **

Frankie and Johnny (1966)

 'Frankie and Johnny' is more or less a fictional origin story for the folk song of the same name. Set principly on a river boat some time in the 19th century, Harry Morgan is a song writer and Elvis of course a singer. Presley gets caught in a love quintangle when the compulsive gambler gets advice from a gypsy woman that redheads will bring him luck at the tables. Possibly the worst of Elvis's movies, which are seldom good, everything about this is flat, the story, the acting, the songs. I had just seen the new Elvis bio pic the same day and with that enhanced context, man did I feel bad for the King here. *