Archive for January, 2008

I Spy: Last Run

By
Ian W
Published: January 15, 2008Posted in: Movie Reviews, ThrillerTags:

Armand Assante is a pretty decent actor when given the chance. Unfortunately he rarely gets that chance and is more often to be seen in straight to video dross. Which brings us to Last Run…

I bought Last Run in one of W.H. Smiths online sales awhile back. What made me buy it? Simply that it was advertised on the site as The Last Run starring George C. Scott, a 1971 thriller directed by Richard Fleischer. “Wow!” though I “Didn’t know that was out, and at such a silly price too.” So I bought it but instead of Mr Scott I got dear old Armand through my letterbox, in one of his bargain bin masterpieces, because The Last Run isn’t actually out on DVD.

Now I know what you’re thinking – “Why didn’t you send it back?” The honest answer is I couldn’t be arsed, it was so cheap that parcelling it up and cuing at the Post Office…well it was just more trouble than it was worth. So I kept it and it sat there on my shelf gathering dust…until I decided to do a “season” of spy movies on Mine Was Taller.

Which brings us to last night when I decided to finally watch it. I picked it out of the other films I’ve got lined up for future I Spy’s based on a sure scientific formula…I was late getting home and it was short.

Click to continue reading "I Spy: Last Run"

SF & Fantasy Sunday: Conan the Barbarian

By
Ian W
Published: January 13, 2008Posted in: Action, Fantasy, Movie ReviewsTags:

When I first saw Conan the Barbarian I was disappointed, I was a big fan of the character and the film failed to match my vision of him. My image of Conan was one made up as much by Marvel’s Savage Sword of Conan and Conan the Barbarian comics as by Robert E. Howard’s stories and John Milius’ film felt too ponderous, it lacked that pulpish fun that made the books and comics so enjoyable.

Yet I’ve come back to the film time and again over the years, owning it on VHS and two different DVD releases, and each time I think I’ve enjoyed it more. The reason for that is simple; it no longer bears the weight of having to match my image of Conan. It is what it is, and while that isn’t my ideal vision, there is still much to enjoy about the film.

One thing it doesn’t have though is great performances, Arnie would improve as his career progressed, but he’d always be closer to winning a Razzie than an Oscar. What amazed me while doing a little research before writing this, was that Sandahl Bergman, who played Conan’s love interest Valeria, wasn’t just nominated for the Golden Globe’s New Star of the Year but actually won the award! Was 1982 a particularly lean year for new talent in Hollywood? Surely it must have been as she manages to make Mr Schwarzenegger look good, giving a flat lifeless performance. Thankfully her career nosedived after winning the award.

Click to continue reading "SF & Fantasy Sunday: Conan the Barbarian"

Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting: King Boxer aka Five Fingers of Death

By
Ian W
Published: January 12, 2008Posted in: Martial Arts, Movie ReviewsTags:

This is the film that gets credited as starting the Kung Fu craze of the ‘70s; although I’d argue that it merely cashed in on the success of the Kung Fu TV series that was on the air six months before this reached US cinemas. It did show there was a big screen market for this kind of thing and it opened the floodgates for the Asian movies that followed.

It’s the old rival martial arts schools story that features some spectacular fight sequences, although many have an over reliance on wire work. The editing is a little choppy at times, not so much in the fights, which flow quite nicely, but in the scene transitions. There are times where it takes a minute or two before you realise what character you’re with and where they are.

The film features an abundance of cool bad guys, from the evil martial arts master and his son, to some particularly nasty Japanese hired assassins. They all get there comeuppance by the end of the movie, most at the hands of the hero. The best scene though is a fight in the dark that doesn’t even feature the good guy. It’s a scene that is superbly atmospheric and also manages to do the impossible and humanise the previously insidious villain.

Click to continue reading "Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting: King Boxer aka Five Fingers of Death"

The Weekend Western: The Scalphunters

By
Ian W
Published: January 12, 2008Posted in: Movie Reviews, WesternsTags:

Sydney Pollack isn’t a director I associate with westerns, when I think of Pollack I think of films like The Yakuza, Absence of Malice or Tootsie, films with a contemporary setting. Yet Pollack directed the excellent Jeremiah Johnson as well as this hugely enjoyable comedy western so it’s perhaps a shame he hasn’t made a few more oaters.

Most successful comedy westerns tend to spoof the genre, sending up the characters and situations that are familiar to genre fans. The Scalphunters is one of the few that manages to be funny without playing the whole thing for laughs. That it’s so funny is down to William Norton’s witty script and the fine playing of the leads, in particular Burt Lancaster and Ossie Davis.

It’s this Burt/Ossie double act that generates the bulk of the comedic moments, as the cantankerous trapper Joe Bass (Lancaster) and ex-slave/would-be-Indian Joseph Lee (Davis) are thrown together when Bass is forced into trading his hard earned pelts for the black man. The banter between the two is a delight with Lancaster getting more laughs in the first twenty minutes than he did in the whole of The Hallelujah Trail.

Once the pair are parted the laughs don’t dry up completely but the film does become more of a straight action western as Lancaster goes after Telly Savalas and his band of scalphunters (including Shelley Winters). He picks off the gang gorilla style, slowly witling their numbers down and Pollack delivers some fine action scenes. For a director who got his start in television and had only made the jump to the big screen a few years prior to this, he makes remarkably good use of the 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

Click to continue reading "The Weekend Western: The Scalphunters"

The Friday Night Fright: Scarecrows

By
Ian W
Published: January 12, 2008Posted in: Horror, Movie ReviewsTags:

Some things are just damn creepy and topping that list, just under clowns and mimes, are scarecrows. Given that fact, William Wesley was on to a winner with this low budget horror flick from the late eighties, a film that has plenty of gore along with a wickedly black sense of humour.

Rather than pit the straw filled ghouls against the usual array of airheaded teens the film features a group of criminals making their getaway after a big heist. When one of the gang attempts to make off with the loot alone, parachuting out of a plane at night into a seemingly deserted farm, the rest head after him. But the farm is far from deserted, as they soon learn to their cost.

From the moment our outlaw band set foot on the farm the film has a menacing atmosphere. As they hunt for their traitorous companion and the stolen moola through the fields they are stalked in turn by the scarecrows. The film doesn’t concern itself with why the scarecrows are up and about, instead providing a few hints and allowing the viewer to fill in the blanks. The why is never the important part of films like this and, by cutting out pointless exposition, Wesley gets down to the good stuff that much quicker.

Click to continue reading "The Friday Night Fright: Scarecrows"

Comic Tales: The Punisher – Extended Cut

By
Ian W
Published: January 11, 2008Posted in: Action, Comic Book, Movie ReviewsTags:

When crooked businessman Howard Saint’s son is killed in an FBI sting operation Saint wants the man responsible, undercover FBI agent Frank Castle (Thomas Jane), dead. He sends his men to kill Castle and his family but, while they manage to kill his wife and son (along with a large proportion of his extended family), they fail to kill Castle himself. Big mistake! Frank comes after Saint looking to dish out a little punishment.

The Punisher isn’t your usual Marvel Comics superhero and Jonathan Hensleigh’s film isn’t your usual comic book movie. This is a throwback to the ‘80s action films, featuring the sort of extreme brutality you don’t see often in action films anymore. It’s surprising that, in an era where a Die Hard movie gets a PG13 rating, the studio had the gumption to go for an R rating rather than tone the film down for the teen market.

Hensleigh didn’t just direct the film, he also co-wrote the script and it’s reasonably faithful to the source material. Its a little uneven, the origin section drags a bit and the likes of Roy Scheider and Samantha Mathis are wasted in underwritten parts, but when it gets going it really hits the spot. The film’s high point is the fight with The Russian, a hitman hired by Saint and a character straight out of the comics. It’s so exuberantly violent that I couldn’t help smiling as the pair crash through walls and pretty much destroy Castle’s apartment. From there on out it’s almost nonstop action as The Punisher takes down Saint and his army of hired guns.

Click to continue reading "Comic Tales: The Punisher – Extended Cut"

Watching the Detectives: William Powell and Myrna Loy are Nick and Nora Charles in Another Thin Man

By
Ian W
Published: January 9, 2008Posted in: Comedy, Movie Reviews, ThrillerTags:

This third entry in the series is an improvement over the second film and comes close to matching the original. This time out it’s not just the banter between Mr and Mrs Charles that provides the fun, the addition of Nicky Jr. adds something new and gives William Powell plenty of extra ammunition. The murder mystery itself is also far more intriguing than the previous film’s.

The Powell/Loy double act is still the main attraction though and the writers give the pair some great jibes. Their delivery is effortless and yet so perfectly timed that almost all the gags hit home. In fact Powell doesn’t even need dialogue to elicit a chuckle from this viewer, a raised eyebrow or a double take at just the right moment is all it takes.

Plus Asta the dog has a bit more to do this time out.

Literally Speaking: Of Mice and Men (1939)

By
Ian W
Published: January 8, 2008Posted in: Drama, Movie ReviewsTags:

For the first of this series looking at film versions of books what better way to start than with a literary classic?

We first meet George and Lennie running for their lives from a pursuing mob and only George’s quick thinking allows them to escape. As the pair wend their way in search of work it becomes clear that Lennie has what we’d call today learning difficulties. It’s Lennie’s slow wits and huge size that have got the pair into newmerous scrapes but when they find a job on a ranch George begins to believe that the pipe dream he’s filled Lennie’s head with could become a reality, a dream of having a place of there own.

I’ve never read John Steinbeck’s classic novel (although after watching the film I want to) but the tone of the film never leaves you in doubt that you’re in for a tragic ending, yet at the same time it manages to make you hope against hope that you’re wrong, that this mismatched pair will fulfil their dream and live happily ever after. It’s a film that pushes your emotional buttons but never in a cheap way. We care about these people because Eugene Solow’s script, and the actor’s performances, ground them in reality. For a film that’s pushing seventy it’s dated remarkably well.

Click to continue reading "Literally Speaking: Of Mice and Men (1939)"

I Spy: Dr. No

By
Ian W
Published: January 7, 2008Posted in: Action, Movie Reviews, ThrillerTags:

The film that started it all, without Dr. No not only wouldn’t we have a series that’s still going strong well into its fifth decade, but we’d also be without Derek Flint, Matt Helm and those two men from U.N.C.L.E. Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin (all of whom will be making an appearance here in the coming weeks) along with numerous others over the years.

That’s not to say Dr. No is a perfect film, far from it. While it features many things that would become staples of the series (the egomaniacal villain, the hidden base, the beautiful women) they’d all be improved on in later entries. Some things are absent though, Dr. No has no lead henchman and goes mano-a-mano with the super spy in the climactic confrontation. There’s also no Q, but as the gadgets that came with him would lead the series into silliness that’s not such a bad thing.

Even two of the series most famous features aren’t firing on all cylinders first time out. Maurice Binder’s opening credits sequence is eye catching but compared to what he’d create for subsequent films it almost feels dull. Then there’s the music. Monty Norman’s Bond theme is a fantastic piece of music that would be used to punctuate the action sequences in later films, you heard that theme and you knew something good was coming. Here it’s used as accompaniment for Bond walking into a hotel lobby, amongst other equally banal moments, and it just doesn’t sit right.

Click to continue reading "I Spy: Dr. No"

“Did you know the president has super super super sex?”

By
Ian W
Published: January 7, 2008Posted in: Doin' the iPod ShuffleTags:

Day two Shufflin’ to work and here’s a pop quiz for you – what song is the title of this post from? While you think on that here’s today’s list -

There:

  • “Wildflower” (Acoustic version) – Sheryl Crow
  • “Since I’ve Been Loving You” – Page & Plant
  • “You Know What I Mean” – Phil Collins
  • “If I Should Fall Behind” (Live) – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (Steve, Patti, Nils and Clarence get to give their tonsils a workout alongside Bruce)
  • “Super Sex” – Morphine (Who needs guitars?)

And back again:

  • “Don’t Get Me Wrong” – The Pretenders
  • “Find You At Last” – John Hiatt
  • “Thundercrack” – Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band
  • “Rock ‘N’ Roll Mercenaries” – Meatloaf (You can’t beat a bit of Meat)
  • “Glass Jar” – Lloyd Cole (Just over a minutes worth of electronic tinkling from Lloyd’s self indulgent Plastic Wood album)
  • “Babe, I Got You Bad” – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (No one writes a love song quite like Nick Cave)
  • “Shriner’s Park” – Melissa Etheridge

Less songs today, am I walking faster of are they just longer tracks? You should by now have got the answer to that question I posed at the start; it is of course “Super Sex” by the unique and sadly missed Morphine. Somehow I don’t think they were singing about George W.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »