Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Posted on July 21, 2026 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 10 out of 10

4-Word Review: Meetup at Devil’s Tower.

Roy (Richard Dreyfuss) works of a utility company in central Indiana and gets assigned in the middle of the night to investigate power outages that are occurring in the area. While he stops his vehicle to read a map a huge spaceship flies over him causing him to get a bad skin burn on the side of his face. After the encounter he becomes obsessed at recreating a distinct mountain landscape inside his home using any material necessary including digging up the dirt and plants from his outdoor garden and bringing them inside, which causes his wife Ronnie (Teri Garr) to leave him along with their three kids. Jillian (Melinda Dillon) is having a similar issue. She’s a single mother residing in a country home with her young son Barry (Cary Guffey) who gets swept up into the spaceship when it goes over her house. Since losing her son she too becomes obsessed with creating the same type of mountain landscape. Eventually Roy and her meet by chance and when they realize they both have the same vision in common and connect it to Devil’s Tower they set out to Wyoming to get there unbeknownst that the government has already become aware that the aliens intend to land there and have come up with a ploy to keep the public away by pretending that the area has become contaminated with a dangerous gas leak.

The film is a remake of sorts of Steven Spielberg’s first movie that he did called Firelight, which he directed in 1964 when he was only 17. While the storyline was similar that one was shot on a budget of $500 while this one was given almost $20 million and that made all the difference, but what really stands out is how, unlike most sci-fi films up to that time, it’s more about the people and their reactions to the ‘invasion’ or ‘visit’ than the space creatures. Some of the best moments deal simply with the local people congregating on a hilltop next to the highway in the middle of the night playing cards while waiting for the saucer to come. Another great segment is when the government officials become excited when they figure out what the coordinates that the aliens have sent to them mean and then roll out this giant globe to figure where on the planet the location is.

My favorite scenes deal with Roy’s home life, which is so realistic that it’s almost like it could’ve been somebodies home movies. I loved how the children, though still quite young, have essentially ‘taken over’ the house with toys and chaos all over. The parents have become so used to the kids shenanigans that when the one boy takes his younger sister’s doll and begins smashing it to pieces the mom and dad don’t bother to pay much attention to it even as it happens right in front of them, which is what I believe happens with most parents they essentially start to tune out the kids and the noise to the extent they no longer notice what their own kids are doing that others from the outside immediately would.

The casting is on target most of the way. Initially Dreyfuss was deemed too young for the dad role as he was only 29 at the time, but the segment where he becomes disillusioned at the children not wanting to see Pinocchio, which he had enjoyed growing up, brings out the universal generational disconnect that can befall most parents and thus almost immediately cements him as being middle-aged in the viewer’s mind.

I did feel that Garr’s and Dillion’s roles should’ve been reversed. Dillion’s character I never really got into. She’s got too much of a serious look about her and comes off as cold. Some may argue she was traumatized at losing her son, but I just didn’t really feel her pain. Garr is much better at playing vulnerable types and therefore should’ve been the single parent and Roy’s ultimate love interest while Dillion’s acting style would’ve been better suited for the distant and impatient wife.

Roy and Jillian’s quest to get to Devil’s Tower and fight through all the elements that try to stop them is compelling especially when done with John William’s pounding score, but there did seem to be a few logic loopholes. For instance, there’s no explanation where he got the car, as his wife drove off with the kids in their station wagon, and as his car keeps crashing through all the barriers there should’ve been a lot more front-end damage. Having the aliens message the exact coordinates of where Devil’s Tower is begs a lot of questions too. How would aliens know what English numbers mean and if they’re smart enough to learn that then why not learn the language too and speak to the humans with English words and not even bother with the musical note ditty?

Spoiler Alert!

The climactic finish, while still impressive especially with the giant spaceship landing, is a bit of a letdown. The biggest problem are the aliens themselves, which were obvious stop-action Claymation and comes off as tacky and unconvincing. There’s also the issue of this group of people, seems to be around 15, who agree to go off with the aliens in their ship and back to their home planet, but why would anyone want to do that?

How would they know they weren’t going into a hostile environment where humans wouldn’t be accepted, or treating unfairly? Wouldn’t they miss their friends and family here since there would be no guarantee they’d ever come back? Showing other people who had ‘disappeared’ years earlier and were now returned to the earth having not aged might’ve been enough to put the other people’s mind at ease, but still for me it would be taken too much of a risk and I don’t think there would be that many people like it gets shown here who would volunteer to do without question or pause.

The same goes for Roy who is seen entering the ship, but he has family here and if he’s any type of loving father he would never want to leave them. Some may argue that his wife left with the kids, so he was essentially ‘abandoned’, but he could fight for joint custody making the ‘abandonment’ angle null. To make more sense Roy should’ve been portrayed like the protagonist in Liquid Sky, as a loner with no connections or friends and thus leaving this planet wouldn’t have been any great loss.

My Rating: 10 out of 10

Released: November 16, 1977

Runtime: 2 Hours 17 Minutes (Director’s Cut)

Rated PG

Director: Steven Spielberg

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Classic, Movies Based on Conspiracy Theories, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a rural setting, Sci-Fi

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On Golden Pond (1981)

Posted on July 10, 2026 | 3 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 10 out of 10

Ethel and Norman (Katherine Hepburn, Henry Fonday) are an older couple who spend each summer at their lakeside cabin. Norman, while being perpetually grouchy, is starting to show serious signs of aging. They receive word that their grown daughter, Chelsea (Jane Fonda), will becoming for a visit along with her new boyfriend Bill (Dabney Coleman) and his son Billy (Doug McKeon). She plans on traveling in Europe with Bill while leaving Billy with her parents. At first Norman does not take kindly to the news, but eventually he and Billy bond while taking the boat out to go fishing. When Chelsea returns, she finds the two have become quite close, but then her own past problems with Norman begin to seep through.

The film is based on the play of the same name that originally opened on February 28, 1979, and starred Tom Aldredge as Norman and Frances Sternhagen as Ethel, who were both only in their late 40’s at the time, but managed to somehow convincingly come off as elderly, and was written by 28-year-old Ernest Thompson who had struggled throughout the 70’s as an actor, co-starring in some short lived TV-shows, before finally finding his forte as a writer. The play, like the movie, was a big hit both with the critics and the audiences and it’s easy to see why. Instead of focusing on some bigger-than-life occurrence it captures the magical nuances of real life and how a simple visit to a cabin leads to unexpected results to what initially seems like two very different people with nothing in common.

The acting is a standout most especially Hepburn, who at the age of 73 did all of her own stunts including diving into the lake, is terrific and helps to hold the whole thing together. Fonda is great too, both won the Oscar for their work, though personally I would’ve liked his arc to have been more evident, he softens slightly at certain intervals, but I would’ve preferred it being broader and more permanent. It might’ve helped too had his mental decline not been telegraphed so quickly, make it seem like he was doing fine, which would’ve then made the scene where he can’t remember how to find his way home after picking strawberries more disturbing versus here where we’re pretty much expecting it before it even happens.

McKeon is adequate though Anthony Micheal Hall, who auditioned for the role, but lost out, might’ve been better. My main complaint is that I felt he was a bit too old. Leaving a 13-year-old who’s at that age where they begin to be rebellious and challenge authority alone with two frail, elderly people, might not have been the best idea, and having the kid be under 10, maybe like 8, where they’re more manageable, would’ve worked better.

The idea that the kid would’ve been ‘bored’ traveling in Europe made no sense to me. Exploring an entire new continent would’ve been quite memorable and something most kids would consider an exciting adventure especially if it was going to be done with their parents instead of spending it at a lonely cabin with old fogeys that he didn’t know, which is why I felt there needed to be a better explanation. For instance, he could’ve failed a class and thus forced to stay behind in order to attend summer school.

Having Jane bring up the idea of the kid staying with her elderly parents during the visit seemed audacious and really should’ve been discussed and planned out long before, like weeks or even months and having all parties agree to it. You couldn’t blame the kid for initially sulking about it and feeling like he had been ‘dumped’, which is exactly what it came off like especially since they weren’t even his grandparents and just people he had only met.

Coleman is splendid in support, and I really dug his manly beard, which actually makes him look younger. Jane’s role though seemed unneeded. Her conflict with her father was too broad and came-off more like padding than anything concrete. It’s not exactly clear what the specific problem is other than he was cold and distant to her growing up, but he’s that way to everybody, so why does she take it so personally? Having it revolve around some past incident of some kind would’ve been meatier.

While small in nature, the segment where Norman is reading the newspaper is a little confusing as he seems to be talking about the baseball scores, but when you look at the top of the page that he is reading it’s clearly the weather section and not the sports. I also felt it was dumb that Ethel asks for the aid of the mailman, played by William Lanteau, and his boat to help in her search when Norman and the kid don’t return home. Whatever state they lived in they had a working phone and were inside a county, so there would’ve been a police department and those should’ve been called as their boats would most likely been better able to go inside the treacherous rock area and they could’ve also had helicopters, which would’ve made the search easier and quicker.

Overall though the film succeeds on its vision and kudos should really go to director Mark Rydell, who as of this writing is still alive at the age of 97, which is considerable older than what Norman’s age was in the movie, which was 80. Rydell started his career as an actor and probably best known for his creepy performance in The Long Goodbye, but he’s helmed some really good films too with this one being his best. What I enjoyed the most was the imagery like when the kid takes the boat around the lake on his own and the brief shots of leaves growing out of the buds on trees and plants showing, like with the characters, the evolution of life.

My Rating: 10 out of 10

Released: December 4, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 49 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Mark Rydell

Studio: Universal Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, PlutoTV, Plex, Peacock, Roku, Tubi

 

 

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Academy Award Winners for Best Actor, Academy Award Winners for Best Actress, Drama, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a rural setting

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The Front Page (1974)

Posted on June 29, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Reporters covering an execution.

In 1928 Chicago convicted killer Earl Williams (Austin Pendleton) is set to be put to death over the accidental shooting of a police officer. All the reporters from the press are there set to cover it as it happens except for Hildy (Jack Lemmon) who plans on getting married to Peggy (Susan Sarandon) and get out of the reporting business once and for all much to the chagrin of his tenacious editor Walter (Walter Matthau). Problems ensue when Earl escapes from his cell. All the other reporters take to the streets presuming he must be hiding somewhere in the city, but instead he breaks into the press room when only Hildy was there. Hildy soon realizes that Earl isn’t the cold-blooded killer that everyone has made him out to be and decides to jump back into being a reporter to cover the big scope just as his fiancée sits outside in a taxi waiting to take him away on a train to their honeymoon.

The film is based on the 1928 hit stage play of the same name that was remade into a movie twice before this one and then once after in 1988. While this one isn’t as poor as the 80’s version, which starred Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner, it isn’t as good as the first two. This version, which director Billy Wilder later admitted he wasn’t proud of, is rather slow and doesn’t manage to hit its stride until the second hour. I remember watching His Girl Friday, which was the second film version, and finding each and every scene and line of dialogue to be hilarious while here there’s only a sprinkle of occasional laughs. Part of the problem is that the older versions had a rapid fire pace, but in this movie, everything is slowed down and stagy and the blame could be put squarely on Wilders as he insisted all the words of dialogue needed to be heard clearly versus having overlapping conversations where one character would occasionally talk over or interrupt the other, which would’ve helped the scenes move along faster.

Lemmon is only funny when the characters he plays are in some sort of anxious bind and he responds to it in a nervous, hyper sort of way. Here though he’s way too relaxed. He walks into the scene like he’s not even a part of the cast. While everyone else is frantic to get an edge on the story he sits back like he’s more of an observer who really doesn’t have anything to do with the main plot, and the contrast is not humorous or interesting. It would’ve been better had he still wanted to cover the story, but his soon-to-be wife wouldn’t let him and thus there could’ve been a funny balancing act of him trying to keep her happy while still trying to do his job behind her back.

The film also suffers from the miscasting of Carol Burnett, who has later admitted to this being one of her weakest performances. The problem is that she’s too one dimensional coming off like some angry, emotional woman who has nothing funny to say. Had it been played by a younger woman with a physical appeal who could’ve elicited her lines in a softer way that would’ve made her seem less embittered. Switching the roles where Susan Sarandon played Molly who could’ve conveyed a less angry inflection while Burnett could’ve shined as the nagging fiancée, which she’s more adept at.

The rest of the supporting is the one thing that helps keep it afloat. Matthau again scores, but more for his body language like the scene where he gives Sarandon a knowing stare down when it finally hits her that deep down the man she wants to marry is really more in love with his job. David Wayne is amusing as an effeminate reporter who drinks his liquor with a straw and Vincent Gardenia steals every scene he’s in as a hyper nervous Sheriff though in the end it’s probably Austin Pendleton that I liked best if only for the moment where he smiles into the camera as his picture is being taken despite the fact that he’s only hours away from being executed.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 18, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Billy Wilder

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video. YouTube

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in Chicago, Remakes

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Endangered Species (1982)

Posted on June 23, 2026 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Investigating mysterious cattle mutilations.

Ruben (Robert Urich) is a recovering alcoholic who quits his job as a cop and decides to move to rural Colorado with his teenaged daughter MacKenzie (Marin Kanter).  Along the way their vehicle breaks down in the small-town of Buffalo.  They decide to make their temporary home there and Ruben meets up with Harriet (JoBeth Williams) the newly elected sheriff. He learns that she’s investigating, with the help of local newspaper reporter Joe (Paul Dooley), some mysterious cattle mutilations that has been plaguing the area. Ruben, who grows fond of her, helps her in the pursuit for answers and comes to determine that it may have something to do with a nearby abandoned military complex as well as a neighboring cattle baron Ben (Hoyt Axton) who seems awfully worried about anyone snooping around.

The film’s direction, done by the still budding Alan Rudolph, is probably the best thing to recommend about what’s otherwise a pedestrian story. I liked the soundtrack, which despite the setting being quite rural, has a cool sci-fi vibe, and the grainy cinematography gives it a documentary feel. Rudolph’s use of capturing dialogue, which was clearly inspired by his mentor Robert Altman, is cool too as the camera will focus on one person, but we’ll hear the conversation of two other characters who are not in the shot. Unfortunately, the plot is unimaginative, and the mystery portion becomes too obvious.

Urich is miscast in the lead, the part was intended for Robert Mitchum who would’ve been far superior. Urich’s a nice guy and all, but not convincing as a brash, hard-edge cop making his entire performance come off as affected. His character arch, which focuses on an alcoholic trying to redeem himself, both with his career and relationship with his daughter, is too formulaic to be either gripping, or compelling though it’s interesting to hear him casually utter the slur ‘faggot’ at one point as it would be impossible for someone in a movie today to say that and still be deemed the hero.

I also didn’t feel an outsider was needed here as Urich seems to come up with all the clues that you’d think somebody living in the town would’ve deduced far earlier. A good example is when he follows some trucks to the military complex and starts to connect this to the cattle killings, but any other resident could’ve done this too and most likely would’ve. Most small-town people are characteristically suspicious of government agencies, so knowing that there was an abandoned federal outpost nearby would’ve made that area number one on their suspect list and would not have required the assistance of some big city cop to get them there.

Jobeth looks awkward and uncomfortable in her police uniform. I dug the idea of having a female sheriff, which hasn’t been done too much, so it offers a unique angle, but it approaches it in an illogical way. For instance, it has her attempting to break up a male bar fight by her trying to somehow tackle one of the men, who immediately fling her away as if she were a rag doll and it looks as pathetic as it sounds. Clearly, she should’ve gone into that with some backup by male deputies, or a taser, but for her to go in it alone and think somehow, she can ‘handle it’ makes both her and the film look like it has no common sense.

I will though give some credit to the scene where Urich is in her shower and he makes a pass at her and she in returns gives him a gut punch, which was unexpected as I was afraid it was going to turn into some sort of sappy, stereotypical love scene, which does occur later, but I at least enjoyed the momentary attempt to go against the grain.

Spoiler Alert!

I did enjoy Axton’s bad guy part. He performance isn’t anything spectacular and his poisoning moments, where he brushes his teeth with a contaminated toothbrush that causes his gums to bleed looks more like he’s just swishing around red Kool aid in his mouth. I also thought it was ridiculous that Urich would force Axton to drive the pick-up at gunpoint when he was clearly in a weakened and distressed state that could’ve killed them both. However, his death scene, where he kneels on the highway and has his abdomen burst out of his body, is awesome and the film’s best moment though it could’ve been extended.

The ending unfortunately offers no resolution. It has the night helicopters of the bad guys flying away while JoBeth and Urich remain on the ground watching helplessly. To sit through nearly 2-hours of this thing, which is at times a bit slow, there needed to be more of a finale. Preferably nabbing the baddies and breaking open the case and the fact that this doesn’t happen makes the whole thing feel like one big waste of time.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: September 10, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Alan Rudolph

Studio: MGM

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

 

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies Based on Conspiracy Theories, Movies with a rural setting, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

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Number One with a Bullet (1987)

Posted on June 15, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Mismatched cops fight pushers.

Nick (Robert Carradine) is a renegade cop who plays by his own rules and uses unorthodox ways to not only nab the bad guys but also getting them to confess. He gets matched up with Frank (Billy Dee Williams) who’s more on the cultured side and enjoys the company of beautiful women. They are assigned to transport a known snitch named Boudreau (Alex Rebar) so that he can help the cops identify dangerous drug dealers, but before he can give any names he gets killed forcing the two to use their local leads to get them inside information as to who the hit man was and who ordered it.

Initially I thought this was a rip-off of Lethal Weapon as it has the same basic storyline and set-up and since it was produced by the Cannon Group, whose output of movies were never that original anyways, it seemed to make sense, but to my shock this one actually was filmed first, in April-May of 1986, while the other one was shot in the fall of ’86. Either way it’s basically the same thing though the one with Mel Gibson/Danny Glover fares a bit better.

The main complaint here is the over-the-top nuttiness of the Carradine character, that was originally meant to be played by James Belushi who might’ve been better. It’s not so much that Carradine gives a bad performance, he actually does okay for what’s asked, but as a protagonist I really couldn’t stand the guy. I didn’t see him as a ‘hero’ but more of a problem. His interrogation of the suspects is just plain ridiculous and at one point hangs a guy upside down from a tall building and then just leaves him there. I realize with Dirty Harry it made cops who do these things seem ‘cool’, but in reality, it would and should get them into a lot of trouble and the fact that he’s constantly able to get away with it with almost no consequence except some minor exacerbation from their superior, played by Peter Graves, just makes the thing even more absurd. The truth is if these suspects got a good lawyer than all the information that they stated while being tortured would’ve been thrown out since it was under extreme duress when they gave it, so then Carradine’s ‘tough guy’ efforts would’ve become more of a detriment and not a solution as it gets portrayed here.

Aside from this he’s also just a complete jerk especially with the way he treats he’s so-called friend and buddy Williams. For instance, when they’re up in a plane, Williams tries to meditate since he has a fear of flying, but instead of showing him any sympathy Carradine just makes a joke out of it. He also ruins one of his potential dates by insinuating to the lady that Williams was gay, which makes you wonder with friends like these who needs enemies. Carradine’s relationship with his ex, played by Valerie Bertanelli, is creepy too. He comes off more like a stalker who can’t move on and in need of a restraining order to keep him away.

What tops it off even more is the blandness of the bad guys as they all take the term cliche to new heights. The stereotypes are so strong here it becomes literally cartoonish and almost like an unintended parody. They acted and looked the same. Each new one they came upon seemed just like the last one and I ended up not caring whether they ever were able to bring in the kingpin or not and the tired, overused scenario just gets more irrelevant and boring as it goes on.

I did feel that Billy Dee Williams was fantastic and likable and had the movie just been centered around him, without the stupid ‘psycho’ sidekick, I probably would’ve enjoyed this better. He gets horribly underused as Carradine is given most of the screentime when it should’ve been in reverse. The jazz score is good too, but other than that there’s nothing to recommend. It’s just another B-rate 80’s cop comedy/drama that adds nothing to what was already a tired formula.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: February 27, 1987

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jack Smight

Studio: The Cannon Group

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Tubi

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Buddy Movies, Police Drama

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Five Days One Summer (1982)

Posted on June 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Mountain climbing with niece.

The year is 1932 and a Scottish doctor by the name of Douglas (Sean Connery) arrives in the Swiss Alps for a vacation with a young woman named Kate (Betsy Brantley) whom he introduces as his wife. The truth though is that she’s really his niece and the two have run off together for a few weeks so that they can endeavor in their affections without the prying eyes of Sarah (Jennifer Hilary) who Douglas is actually married to. The two hire a guide by the name of Johann (Lambert Wilson) to help them climb the mountains. He eventually becomes aware of Kate and Douglas’ ‘arrangement’ and tries to convince her to leave him, which she starts to consider after realizing that Douglas isn’t quite the man she thought he was, but when she brings up the topic of breaking up Douglas refuses to listen insisting that despite the wide age gap the two are ‘perfect’ for each other. Johann then comes to the conclusion that it’s up to him to make Douglas change his mind and plans on doing it while guiding him up the steep climb of Maiden Mountain.

This marked the last film to be directed by the legendary Fred Zinnemann and while the story itself is weak the climbing segments are both breathtaking and intense. The actors were forced to do many of the stunts themselves and everything is quite authentic with nothing done inside a studio or in front of a green screen. The bird’s-eye shots inside an icy canyon that Connery almost falls down into and which Johann spots the shoe of a dead body, is visually impressive and helps the movie standout. If you watch the film for only these moments you should still go away quite entertained and enthralled.

As for the script, which is based on the short story ‘Maiden, Maiden’ by Kay Boyle, it doesn’t work as well. The source of the problem stems with how Kate falls for Douglas. The film fails to have any adequate explanation for why she ‘loves’ him so much and the fact that she starts having these feelings for him as a young child, even though he is already a full-grown adult, ceases to make much sense. Children can certainly like adults in their lives for a variety of reasons, but it’s usually through admiration, or respect, but not as somebody they want to be with romantically. Here though, even while under the age of 10, she’s quite possessive of him and very upset when he leaves, which makes it more like a weird obsession and that she has psychological issues.

Had it been centered around some sort of event, like Douglas had saved her from an animal attack, or accident, or fire, as a teenager and she started to have feelings for him that way, it might’ve been easier to buy into. Or, she could’ve been shown dating men her age, but finding them to be immature and irresponsible, and thus she turns to Douglas because of his money and prestige, but the film doesn’t show or elude to either of these scenarios and thus making Kate a very weird one-dimensional, enigma that at times even comes-off as creepy and unhinged particularly as she angrily glares at Douglas’ wife when she first meets her.

Connery’s character isn’t so great either. It’s hard to sympathize with a guy who beds his brother’s daughter and openly cheats on his wife while she’s living with him in the same home. Johann, the guide is also off-putting. He’s stiff and robotic showing little emotion except for anger and frustration, so the viewer doesn’t care much for him as well and thus by the third act with no one to really root for you become detached from the proceedings causing the climactic finish to have no impact at all.

Spoiler Alert!

The photography at the end is still quite good, but what should’ve been gripping, like watching the two hang on for dear life while boulders and rocks slide down the mountainside all around them, fails to elicit much concern because they’re both unlikable. Seeing one of them fall from the mountain is realistic looking, it resembles even at a distance, a real man and not a dummy, but being coy as to which man it was, didn’t really heighten the tension, or suspense, making this come-off more like a misfire despite the amazing action and cinematography.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: November 12, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 48 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Fred Zinnemann

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD-R (Warner Archive Collection), Amazon Video, YouTube

 

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, British Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Short Stories, Movies with a Hotel setting, Outdoors

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The Traveling Executioner (1970)

Posted on May 29, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Paid to execute criminals.

Jonas (Stacy Keach) is a man who makes a living executing prisoners with his electric chair in the South near the turn of the century. He charges $100 per execution as he travels from prison to prison. On his latest stop he’s set to execute siblings Willy (Stefan Gierasch) and Gundred (Marianna Hill). While Wily’s goes smoothly he ends up falling for Gundred and coming up with a scheme where he’ll fake her execution, giving her just enough voltage to knock her out and make her seem dead, but then revive her later on with the help of Doc Prittle (Graham Jarvis) the prisoner doctor. However, this plan gets stymied when Doc demands payment upfront in order to be a part of the scheme forcing Jonas to come up with different ways to raise the funds including hiring the local prostitutes to ‘service’ the prisoners inside their cells for five minutes each at a set rate.

The story was the product of writing student Garrie Bateson who wrote the script for one of his screenwriting classes he was taking at USC and his teacher liked it so much he shopped it around to the studios before MGM decided to finance it. The idea is original and the first two acts work pretty well and at times has some delicious black humor, but by the third act it begins to falter and never fully recovers.

Keach’s performance was one of the things I did like. He’s always an excellent actor and here he helps humanize a character and even makes him engaging and likable particularly with the way he ‘counsels’ the prisoners as they’re being strapped down by telling them stories about the ‘Fields of Ambrosia’ and convincing them they’re not necessarily going to die, but instead being swept up into a another world that will be full of bliss and beauty. The on-location shooting, shot at the closed Kilby Prison in Montgomery, Alabama during the dead of winter, helps to accentuate the period flavor while also encompassing it with the brown, sparse landscape which works to bring out the dead theme of the story.

There’s good support from Hill, who speaks with a German accent, but she’s not in it enough.  For Keach to risk so much, his job and reputation, just to save her, a woman he hadn’t known just a few days before, simply because he suddenly got smitten with her, was rushed and unconvincing. Would’ve worked better had there been some underground element willing to pay him off if he faked her execution, which I feel would’ve been more believable.

Spoiler Alert!

I actually thought the scheme to fake her death was a cool idea and I was intrigued to see if he could pull it off, but unfortunately the plot becomes too preoccupied with the side story of Keach trying to make enough money to pay off the Doc to keep quiet about it. When one con doesn’t work, he tries another until you start to forget about the electric chair, which was in the shop getting repaired, altogether. The ‘friendly executioner’ was what made the movie unique, and everything needed to remain focused on that, not silly scenarios on how to bring in quick money.

The finale, which has Keach strapped to his own electric chair, and everything malfunctioning, which causes the entire prison building to blow up, has a nice surreal quality to it, but the message is unclear. This was intended to be a ‘satire’ on the death penalty, but it never makes much of a point if any. Also, having Keach go on a long rant about the ‘Fields of Ambrosia’ slows everything down. The ending needs quick edits in order to heighten the tension not having the camera glued to a talking head that drones on and on, which is why I feel the film failed at the box office as it didn’t maintain its momentum and lost sight of its offbeat premise.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 1, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jack Smight

Studio: MGM

Available: DVD-R (Warner Archive Collection), Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity, Offbeat, Prison Flicks

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D.O.A. (1988)

Posted on May 26, 2026 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: College professor ingests poison.

Dex Cornell (Dennis Quaid) works as a college professor where he teaches writing, a craft he once showed promise in, but has given up on in order to sit back and enjoy the benefits of being tenured. Rob (Nicholas Lang) has written a book and gives Dex the manuscript for him to critique, but Dex is too lazy to actually read it but gives him an ‘A’ on it anyways for effort. Later Rob is pronounced dead after jumping off the roof of a college office building and then after that Dex begins to feel sick and when he goes to the hospital, he’s informed that he’s ingested a fast-acting poison, of which there’s no remedy, and will kill him within 48 hours. Dex then uses what little time has, and with the help of a college student Sydney (Meg Ryan), of which he glues himself to, to find out who it was that killed him.

This is a remake of the classic original that came out in 1950 and starred Edmond O’Brien. While most will agree that was the better film, I didn’t think this one was all that bad. Maybe, it benefited from me coming up with very low expectations, but overall, I liked the way this one played out, at least the first hour that kept me kind of riveted. The shift from black-and-white to color was slick and Quaid and Ryan give great performances. I felt the set-up was a bit better too, I clearly knew who the suspects were and genuinely intrigued to find out which one did it. I was even surprised when the actual perpetrator is unmasked. Usually, I can guess these things ahead of time, but here I didn’t.

On the flip side there were added elements thrown in for no reason. The heatwave thing confused the heck out of me. For one thing it takes place during Christmas, so there shouldn’t be any heat to speak of, and it makes no difference to the plot, so I didn’t know why it had to be brought up as much as it is, or even at all. Also, the characterizations of the policemen are pretty bad. I get it that they wanted to show that they’re ‘hardened’, but these guys come off like they have no soul. A guy comes into the station telling you he’s been poisoned there should be some concern, after all these are public servants, and to act so glib about it was over-the-top. It’s not every day that you meet someone who tells you they have literally just a few hours to live, so there should’ve been at the very least some shock and surprise on their part.

The thing really starts going off its hinges when it loses sight of its very premise. Having Dex get trapped in a car and furiously kick the rear window until it breaks in order to escape, seemed off kilter. Most healthy people probably wouldn’t have the strength to break a car window, and this guy should’ve been in a weaker condition due to the poison, making the odds of him getting out even lower.

He also seems to at one point, make love to Meg while the two are on the run. It’s not explicitly shown, but heavily implied as he’s seen putting a blanket over her nude body as she lays sleeping on a sofa, so they must’ve done something, but how? They guys is sick, so having an erection would be too physically demanding and besides that he has limited time to find his killer and that should be his top priority. Making love is wasting away precious minutes and therefore last thing he’d want to do.  Having him shown getting physically weaker as the poison progresses would’ve helped heighten the urgency and kept the focus on him slowly dying, but the way things get done here we almost start to forget about that.

Spoiler Alert!

The twist ending makes things even more ridiculous. Again, I liked that Stern was revealed to be the killer, as I hadn’t even considered him, but having him doing it over a student’s manuscript was far-fetched. Apparently, it was so ‘brilliant’ he just had to steal the idea, but it’s highly unlikely that anyone would be able to write something so perfect on their first draft. Many manuscripts have to go through several revisions and edits before it even starts to come together and this is from professional writers who do it for a living, so for a student who’s never even attempted to write a book before the odds are he’d have a long way to go to get it publishing ready even if the story idea and prose had good potential.

Watching Dex then casually walk away from the interrogation room, as seen during the closing credits, didn’t make much sense either. In the original version, O’Brien died at the end, and that’s what Quaid should’ve been seen doing too. Otherwise, it makes it look like the whole thing was a hoax. Besides where exactly is he walking too?  By this point he should have only a matter of seconds left and be too weak to be able to even get up let alone move. It may look ‘cool’ to have him casually stroll out, but it doesn’t mesh with the reality of the situation and further weakens the novel premise.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: March 18, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Rocky Morton, Annabel Jankel

Studio: Touchstone Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Mystery, Moody/Stylish, College Life, Remakes, Christmas Movies, Movies that take place in Texas

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Lifeguard (1976)

Posted on May 7, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Considering a career switch.

Rick (Sam Elliot) works as a lifeguard along a southern California beach. While the pay isn’t great, he does enjoy the laid-back nature of the job and meeting attractive young women, including those that aren’t quite 18 like Wendy (Kathleen Quinlan) who is only 17, but still eager to get with Rick. He meets Larry (Stephen Young) whom he knew when he was younger and who is now a successful car salesmen. Rick is being pressured by his father (George D. Wallace) to ‘get a real job’ and thus decides to go in for an interview at the dealership where Larry says they have an opening. Rick also attends his high school reunion and gets reaquanted with Cathy (Anne Archer) who he dated back in the day. She’s now divorced and interested in starting their relationship back up, but only if he can find a ‘respectable’ job that pays well as she owns a home in the burbs and wants to ‘keep up appearances’, which further pressures Rick to make a career switch, but the more he considers it the more he feels like he’d happier just staying where he’s at.

The marketing for this one, as evidenced by the film’s promotional poster seen above, tried to make it seem like this was going to be some mindless teen sex comedy, which it’s not, but the result didn’t attract the right type of audience and thus allowed it to fall under the radar and was little seen, which is a shame. In reality it’s an excellent drama that brings out many universals that just about everybody goes through at some point in their life. It also captures the day-to-day events in a vivid way showing the unglamorous side of lifeguarding where a lot of time is just spent sitting around bored, going after old men who expose themselves to ladies on the beach, or having to pry away perverts trying to sneak a peek of women on the toilets. When they do actually save someone in the water, as he does at one point, they’re rarely every thanked for it and it’s all just taken for granted even from the victims themselves. While I’ve never worked as a lifeguard, I have had customer facing jobs and have found the events depicted here as well as the people’s responses ring quite true.

I enjoyed the class reunion scenes as well that not only allows us to see an actual picture of Elliot when he was a teen, which he’s forced to tape to his name tag, but also the generic conversations one has while at these events. The best part though is how he lies about what he does to the attendees. Other movies and TV-shows have depicted high school reunions before but have always had the other characters be the one who fib, so it was refreshing to see the protagonist bend the truth because sometimes good people can lie and thus this helps with the realism.

It’s also great seeing young actors before they became stars including Parker Stevenson, who has a very dreamy surfer boy look playing a lifeguard in training who exudes an outer confidence only to have it instantly fragment the second he gets faced with a difficult situation. Kathleen Quinlan is also great as a teen who falls hard and instantly for Rick despite being underage.

The fact that Rick, who is 32, has sex with her while knowing she’s not yet at the age of consent may not go over well with today’s viewers, but my issue is more with her reaction when he decides to move on. Their ‘relationship’ consisted of nothing more than a quick fling inside of all places the guardhouse, so having her threaten to drown herself when he no longer wanted to see her made her come off as irrational and unstable. Some may argue that because of her young age she didn’t know the difference between love and infatuation and thus this caused her overreaction, but a much better twist would’ve had her become pregnant, which then would’ve put more pressure on Rick to take the sales job in order to support the child and thus helped heighten the drama even more.

Spoiler Alert!

I was disappointed though that we never see Rick actually work the sales job. He went to such efforts to get it, even showing up to the interview in a suit and tie, so why not at least try it out? He still could’ve decided to go back to being a lifeguard at the end like he does, but showing the negative side of being a salesman, even just briefly, could’ve helped give the film, which is a bit too leisurely paced, an added kick that it’s otherwise missing.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 23, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Daniel Petrie

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Amazon Video

 

 

 

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies with Nudity, Outdoors

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Uncle Buck (1989)

Posted on April 30, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Babysitting his brother’s kids.

Bob and Cindy (Garrett M. Brown, Elaine Bromka) must leave for Indianapolis when they’re informed that her father has suffered a heart attack and are desperate to find someone to look after their three children: Tia (Jean Louisa Kelly) who’s the oldest, and Miles (Macaulay Culkin) and Maizy (Gaby Hoffman). After going through all possibilities, they finally settle on Bob’s brother Buck (John Candy). Buck avoids commitment and spends most of his time at the track betting on horse races. His relationship with the kids is awkward, but he finally manages to bond with the younger two, but things remain frosty between him and Tia.  Things further escalate when Tia wants to spend time with her boyfriend Bug (Jay Underwood) whom Buck does not approve of.

While the film has its flaws, which we’ll get to in a minute, it does start out pretty well. Candy is always good for laughs, even just his very presence can elicit chuckles, and Kelly, in her film debut, is excellent and helps give the story some depth with her three-dimensional character. While the humor does score points, particularly the giant pancake that Buck serves up to the kids, there were other moments where I felt it could’ve gone further. The scene dealing with a clown, played by Mike Starr, who shows up to the kid’s party drunk, would’ve been funnier had he actually been allowed inside and then have Buck get into a fight with him all to the amusement of the kids who had been bored just previously.

The main character though ultimately becomes a big drawback. One second, he’s a laid-back slob and in the next instant a stern father-figure. It was confusing why someone, who didn’t even know the kid’s names when he’s driving up, would suddenly take such extreme concern for them in just a matter of one short week. This was a guy who had no children, nor wanted any, so where did he suddenly get all this parental wisdom from? Would’ve been better had he initially been completely carefree with the kids, let them do whatever they wanted while he sat back and drank beer, only to eventually realize through the chaos that there needed to be some rules and limits, which would’ve given him an actual character arch verses this weird, unexplained Jekyll and Hyde thing that we get here.

He also has moments where he isn’t all that likable and seems in a way kind of creepy. His broken down, back-firing car is a total disaster and an embarrassment to Tia who asks that she be able to walk home instead being seen going inside it. If Buck was really being sensitive he would’ve understood her feelings and agreed to let her walk home, or picked her up a few blocks down the road that would’ve been out of sight of her friends. However, he instead becomes very angry and controlling insisting he’ll pick her up whether she likes it, or not, but why be so demanding? Just a little while earlier he barely knew she existed and he’s just there for a week and then back home to his regular life, so why not just let her do what she wants, it should make no real difference to him either way.

The scene where he traps the cheating boyfriend in the trunk of his car is equally problematic and in reality, could’ve led to some serious consequences. Granted it would’ve been the gentlemanly thing for the boyfriend to have officially broken up with Tia before he starts messing around with someone else at a party, but that still doesn’t give Buck the right to tie him up with duct tape, and drive around until the wee hours of the night with him in the trunk. Legally this would be deemed kidnapping and then having Buck nail him in the back of the head with a golf ball would’ve gotten an added charge of assault and if the kid, or his parents, went to the authorities, Buck would be in a heap of trouble. The car exhaust was in such disarray anyways the kid probably would’ve been overcome with the fumes and when Buck did finally open the trunk door he’d find himself with a dead body.

Buck’s girlfriend Chanice, played by Amy Madigan, isn’t handled right either. She’s introduced briefly in the first act and then pretty much disappears only to come on strong near the end, which doesn’t work. Having her consistently in the film by having Buck regularly calling her to get advice on how to deal with the kids, or do household chores, which then could’ve helped strengthen their teetering relationship. Marcie, played by Laurie Metcalf, who was the weird neighbor lady who tried to come-on to Buck, was not needed. I admit that Buck’s ‘conversation’ with the washing machine, which Marcie overhears, was quite funny, but having Chanice walk-in while he’s talking, would’ve been just as good.

The inciting incident is weak too. Buck is reluctantly asked to come babysit the kids because they couldn’t find anyone else, but in reality, Bob, the husband, really didn’t need to go with Cindy to Indianapolis to visit her sick father. Yes, it’s nice for the spouse to tag along when he can for moral support, but his job probably wouldn’t have let him off on such short notice, and this was 1989 long before remote work was even a concept. To make it more plausible Bob and Cindy should’ve already been on a trip, like a cruise, and then having logistical issues, like a weather event, force them to extend their trip. The babysitter that was in place wouldn’t be able to stay longer and then asking Buck to come for only ‘an extra day or two’ would’ve made more sense. The film then could have this running joke where Buck would think is time there would be coming to a close only to have Bob and Cindy call again telling he’d have to stay longer because more problems had come up, which would then elicit increasingly frustrated responses from Buck.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: August 16, 1989

Runtime: 1 Houd 40 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: John Hughes

Studio: Universal Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Campy Comedy, Comedy/Drama, Movies that take place in Chicago

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