Police Story (1985)

'Police Story' launches a durable franchise for its star Jackie Chan, here playing a Hong Kong Police Sergeant assigned to protect a reluctant witness (Brigitte Lin) in a drug case. This action comedy was released fairly early in Jackie's time as an action star, and I liked the relative low-keyness of it and how the action sequences felt more organic and less 'forced' then would be the case in many of his later pictures. While Jackie's dubbed voice is a bit distracting, he didn't speak English yet, it is a fun film with some good moments. One not so good moment is a scene where Jackie must juggle answering multiple phones when left alone at a small percent while his co workers are at lunch, there are a few lines about rape played for humor and it does not work, it has aged very badly. Maggie Cheung and Bill Tung who appear in later films in the series originate their characters here. ***

Man in the Attic (1954)

'Man in the Attic' is a Jack the Ripper story, it's actually been filmed a number of times as 'The Lodger' which is the title of the book on which it is based, versions include a silent by Alfred Hitchcock and one as recent as 2009. Here Jack is a research pathologist with a mother fixation and in an unusual bit of casting is played by Jack Palance. While killing prostitutes at night he engages in a timid virginal romance with the niece (Constance Smith) of the woman he is renting some rooms from, Aunt Bee from 'The Andy Griffith Show' Francis Beaver. A solid little films, works better then it might largely on the weight of Palance's intriguing performance. ***

VelociPastor (2017)

At about 11am on Tuesday I got a text from a friend advising me that this movie exists, a few hours later another friend was extolling its virtues on Facebook, after some initial dithering I started this movie around 7:50pm, by 8 it had won me over. 'VelociPastor' is about a Roman Catholic priest who travels to China after the death of his parents in an explosion, there he encounters an ancient artifact that gives him the power to turn into a velociraptor when angry, a prostitute then convinces him to use this ability to fight crime. Filmed for only $35,000 'VelociPastor' is more a high end amateur production then a low end professional one, and I mean that as compliment, it is far superior to something like say 'Sharknadio' which is it's distant cousin in the family of films with outrageous premises.

The film has moments of impressive editing, and one particular song I really enjoyed, elsewhere it has to play up its low production values and does that with tongue-in-check aplomb. The sequence of the priest's parents fiery death is simply done with a static shot of the side of a street with an 'Insert VFX' logo imposed over it. Though the movie has sequences set in China, Vietnam and what I presume to be upstate New York, each of these are filmed in what is clearly the exact same forest. The pastors preaching is shown from the audience's perspective, no establishing shots because they can't afford extra's.

Greg Cohan who plays the pastor Douglas Jones looks kind of like Michael C. Hall, he wisely chooses to play the part earnestly and gives some laugh out loud line readings, my favorite being "That's impossible, dinosaurs never existed, and even if they did I wouldn't turn into one." Alyssa Kempinski whose done perhaps the most 'real acting' of anyone in the cast is fine as the good hearted prostitute. Daniel Steere, who I suspect is the father of writer/director Brendan Steere plays Jones superior at the church Father Stewart, and Fernando Pacheco De Castro is at least moderately amusing as 1970's style pimp Frankie Mermaid. Perhaps you have to be in the right kind of mood for a movie like this, but I evidently was at the time I watched it because I thoroughly enjoyed this picture, it is better then it has the right to be and nicely and appropriately trim with a roughly 70 minute run time. Certainly guilty pleasure material. **1/2

The Irishman (2019)

'The Irishman' is really a capstone film on a number of fronts, almost certainly the last gangster picture Martian Scorsese will ever make, it may also turn out to be one of the last movies Scorsese makes period, the man is 77. The cast is full of septuagenarians as well, De Niro, Pacino, Pesci, heck Harvey Keitel is 80 years old. A sprawling gangster epic that spans roughly 50 years, the film takes advantage of advances in special effects to de-age the appearance of some principal stars, this works reasonably well though by the end of the film some of these characters have become even older then the actors playing them so more traditional old age makeup is employed.

Based on the book 'I Heard You Paint Houses' by Charles Brandt the film centers on the life of Frank Shreeran a high ranking official in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters who had links to the Pennsylvania based Bufalion crime family. The film also concerns the ultimate fate of Jimmy Hoffa, a perennial mystery though upon further investigation the theory here advanced is not one of the more credible. This is a long movie which is slower, a little less violent, and more reflective in tone then its directors previous gangster offerings. At 209 minutes its a serious sit and obviously not for all audiences. It is a well put together finely executed film that has a solid literary quality to it, it has a feeling of heft and substance  and is full of fine performances, which we of course expect from the actors involved, though Joe Pesci might just pull off that Oscar. Not a razzle dazzle spectacle but continuously good to very strong and all building to a denouement that Scorsese has reportedly wanted to explore since the 1980's. One of last years best films. ****

1917 (2019)

The plot of '1917' concerns two British solders (George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman) assigned to run a warning to other solders across no-man's land that that the Germans are luring them into a trap. I would say around 70% of this movie is very tense so that by the end of it I was just exhausted. A very nice fit for director Sam Mendes who does both gritty action and messy humanity well, I jumped, I cried. A beautiful looking movie that uses camera trickery to appear as though it was done in one long continuous take. The film captures much of the essence of that pointless war in a condensed and effective manner. To me I thought this was even more effective then 'Dunkirk'. Without a doubt one of the best films of last year and I would not be disappointed to see this get the Best Picture Oscar for which it is currently the reported front runner. Not many films really warrant the IMAX treatment but see this on as big of a screen as you can. ****  

Let There Be Light (2017)

In 'Let There Be Light' Kevin Sorbo again hates himself some atheists, and so apparently does his wife Sam (who co-wrote and co-stars in this) and likely their children who also appear. Kevin plays a caricature of the 'New Atheist' professional atheist writer Dr. Sol Harkens, Harkens as a cross between well known atheist polemicists Christopher Hitchens and Dr. Richard Dawkins, and Sol because of Saul of Tarsus, as these kind of films like to hit you over the head with things. It turns out Harkins well known atheism is based all but entirely on resentment from the death of one of his sons from disease, and once he see's said son in vision after a near fatal car accident he very quickly changes his world view and reconnects with his ex wife and surviving children. Lazy, hardly convincing and mean spirited 'Let There Be Light' is executive produced by Sean Hannity who appears as himself, as does oddly Dionne Warwick, although she does not produce. There are a lot of weird little touches to this, including a recurring gage about an always absent doorman (which kind of works) and one about a 'sham-wow' type product which doesn't. There are also many, many references to ISIS, it's the films go to, and like every sane individual I of course oppose ISIS, however I do not share this films larger Islamophobia which is a subtext throughout but makes a strikingly shoehorned appearance very late in the proceedings. Also some really odd choices are made with Daniel Roebuck's performance, he gives a load of barley coded gay indicators, but then vocally expresses lust for Kevin's Russian model girlfriend, I suppose this is to mitigate the discomfort of the target audience. This is a 'dog whistle film' where you don't have to be a dog to hear the whistle. *1/2

Supercop (1992)

Jackie Chan is "Kevin" a Hong Cop who partners with a Red Chinese inspector (Michelle Yeoh) in an undercover operation to infiltrate a group of drug runners and take down their leader. Technically this is the 3rd of Chan's "Police Story" movies but "Supercop" is its Chinese subtitle and name under which it was market in the U.S.. They sure like the term "supercop" in this movie, it is used 10 times in actual film dialogue and 28 times in the closing credits song. This is a fun distraction of a film, with a number of good action set pieces, but the stand out one is a long chase sequence at the end that starts off on the street, then migrates in part to a helicopter and finally ends on top of a train. A fair amount of South East Asia nation hopping in this, though not every scene was actually filmed in the country where it was set. I thought it was interesting to see a depiction of early 1990's Communist China on screen again, its was a lot closer to Mao's old China then to the economic power house it is today. **1/2.