The Misfits (1961)

 'The Misfits' is the final completed film for both Clarke Gable and Marilyn Monroe. A recent divorcee falls in with three aging cowboys in rural Nevada. Directed by John Huston from a screenplay by Monroe's soon to be ex Arthur Miller. A little uneven but Monroe's never been more sympathetic and Gable's still in good form. Thelma Ritter and Ellie Wallach both solid in typed roles. Montgomery Clift a little haggard but comes through. 

A fittingly melancholy film for the two to go out on. Monroe is always sexy but I've never seen her play vulnerability like this before, its serious acting and she's just beguiling. Performances elevate a mediocre story, but sadly never transcend it. ***

The Fly (1986)

 David Cronenberg's reimaging of the 1958 Vincent Price horror movie 'The Fly' was the directors biggest main stream success ($60 million box office, off around a $7 million budget). Jeff Goldblum is a scientist working on teleportation, Geena Davis a reporter who becomes his girlfriend (the two stars would have a roughly three year marriage after this). A fly gets into the electronic ointment as it were, and it and the scientist merge, the resultant creature getting more grotesque with time, some fine Cronenbergian effects and images, ahh the body horror. 

This is an efficient, trim and effective little film, it touches on a few interesting ethical issues, and has some intriguing sci-fi conceits. It's all played pretty straight, these are solid committed performances. The third (human) wheel in this triangle John Getz comes off as a real creep at first, but he gets to largely redeem himself. I'd say 'The Fly' is certainly worth seeing, but probably not while your eating. ***

LLamageddon (2015)

 My viewing of 'Llamageddon' is related to an ongoing dispute between me and my podcast co-host Rob about if this or 'VelociPastor' is the better movie, Rob contends for the former and I the latter. Rob is quite simply wrong, 'VelociPastor', whose praises I sing elsewhere, is by far the better movie. 

In saying a little about 'Llamageddon' I have to do so in relation to the superior dinosaur priest movie. Where 'VelociPastor' cast comic aspiration for scope and a budget beyond its means, 'Llamageddon' goes much more small scale, it is basically a 'bottle movie.' The action is set mostly at a little farm house, it makes illusions to 'Night of the Living Dead' and more overtly to 'Critters' and 'Evil Dead', the latter being referenced by name. 

Where 'VelociPastor' is largely made by some committed central performances, the cast of 'Llamageddon' is goofing off, they are horrible actors, a bunch of collage age kids who seem to be having some fun, but aren't so much committing to their performances. I am of the opinion of, and it is the correct opinion, that satire is at its best the closer to straight the actors are playing it. 

Where I laughed fairly regularly during 'VelociPastor' I think I laughed once during 'Llamageddon'. The first movies pun based conceit was inspired, where the forced gage of the latter is simply forced. Crashed space ship, red eyed alien, laser blasting, green mutagen blowing Llama is released. What does he want? That is simply never clear. 

There's a few witty lines, and once or twice the film does something unexpected and odd enough to warrant a proto chuckle, but on the whole its dull, repetitive, plays long, and is uninspired. It would be hard to justify giving it anymore then *

Sayonara (1957)

 In 'Sayonara' Marlon Brando is a southerner, he's third generation West Point, it's 1951 and he's stationed in Japan. Though informally engaged to a generals daughter he's known since childhood, and whose the gorgeous Patricia Owens, he has no passion for her, she's pretty and smart and knows the ropes of military life and that's what he thinks he wants. However the moment he sets eyes on beautiful Japanese actress Miko Taka, he's struck love dumb. 

There are things in this film that a quite dated, but it's also pretty bold, there's real tragedy here. Based on one of James Michener's shorter novels and featuring an original song by Irving Berlin. Red Buttons and Miyoshi Umeki won Oscar's for their supporting performances as an ill fated married couple. Features reasonably adult discussions of racial issues for a main stream period film.  ***1/2 

Lilies of the Field (1963)

 For his part in 'Lilies of the Field' Sidney Poitier becomes the first person of color to win an Oscar for a lead acting performance. Based on William Edmund Barrett's 1962 novella 'The Lilies of the Field', the film is about a black Baptist handy man who helps a group of Germanic nuns build a small chapel in Arizona. Though the subjects of religion and race are there in the foreground, they are never gotten at too deeply. This is not a probing examination, it is intended to uplift. It is the film on these matters that audiences in early 1960's America were ready to accept, pretty well down the line, it reportedly did quite good business in at least the metropolitan centers of the old South. Pleasant, likable, with just enough heart, and just enough to say, to not be forgettable. *** 

Blue Jasmin (2013)

 Cate Blanchett won an Oscar playing a Mrs. Bernie Madoff type in this Woody Allen dramady, more weighted towards the drama. It's not necessarily a fun film to watch, Blanchett's character is not a pleasant person, but you grow to better understand her, and in a few ways admire her as the film goes on. Which is not to say she's not a wreak, she is, and a largely thoughtless, selfish, unemphatic person, who almost beyond her control repeatedly engineers her own downfall. 

But almost is a key word, one feels she may actually have it within her to transcend her old self, she demonstrates a drive and commitment midway through the film that you wouldn't have expected at the beginning. But then she succumbs to old habits, and makes obvious mistakes in trying to take the easy way out. 

A large, strong supporting cast as one would expect from Mr. Allen. This is the first of Mr. Allen's films that I have seen for the first time since the old troubling allegations about him started to re-emerge around 2015. It's perhaps best to try not to think too much about him when watching his work, and it helps here that he is never on screen. ***

Ride The High Country (1962)

'Ride the High Country' is early Sam Peckinpah. Set 1905ish, two philosophical former lawmen and a cocky kid take a job transporting gold for a bank through dangerous territory. Along the way they pick up a woman torn between a religiously domineering father and a shady fiancé. Smart, ruminative, funny, even a little scary. Final film of Randolph Scott and screen debut of Mariette Hartly. Also staring Joel McCrea.  

The film feel like it takes a long digression or two in the middle, but it's wonderful slice of life stuff. and ties in nicely to the overall plot. You can feel some of 'The Westerner', the TV series that Peckinpah had made a few years before this film, really imbedded in the pictures DNA, tone, tempo, and story wise. Contains what may be the best wedding speech in film history. ***