Monthly Archives: December 2023

My Bodyguard (1980)

Posted on December 31, 2023 | 1 comment

my1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Hiring protection from bullies.

Clifford (Chris Makepeace) is a new student at a tough Chicago high school who finds himself at odds with the bullies who are headed by Melvin (Matt Dillion), who goes by the nickname ‘Big M’. He and his cronies want Clifford to pay them ‘protection money’ in order to defend him from Linderman (Adam Baldwin) who is a big, loner kid that supposedly killed his own brother. Clifford refuses and thus gets constantly hounded by them, so he decides to go to Linderman and offers him a deal where he’ll pay him some money each week and even agree to do his homework if he’ll become his bodyguard. At first Linderman declines, but eventually comes on board, which is enough to get Big M and his gang to leave them alone. Then a few days later Big M returns with his own ‘bodyguard’ named Mike (Hank Salas), a big muscular guy, who challenges Linderman to a fight, which he at first resists.

This teen movie is unusual in that it was not based off of a novel as its source material, even though you’d be convinced it was, and although a novel version of the story was eventually written after the film was released, it’s ultimately an original idea by screenwriter Alan Ormsby. Ormsby was at that point better known for writing low budget horror movies, with a couple of them he even starred in, and seemed the least likely to have penned something as good natured as this. It also stands out from other teen movies in that its music isn’t some pounding rock score, but instead soft classical that helps give it distinction and let it stand-out from just about all the other high school flicks out there particularly those from the 80’s.

Kids today may not relate to a school where every student doesn’t have an I-phone, a laptop, or piercings, but if you were a teen back then this movie captures that experience to a T. Everything from the bland school lunches where you had to drink milk out of a small carton to the creaky old school buildings (this one was filmed on-location at Lake Forest High) gets recreated. The teens are all realistically geeky and awkward, even Joan Cusack, in her film debut, looks nerdish especially as she smiles exposing a mouth full of metal. Many who see this, or see it again, it will bring back a fondness to their own school days to the point it may even make you feel you’re right back there.

Chris Makepeace is perfectly cast as a sensitive youth who must learn to ‘make connections’ or ‘network’ his way around the new environment and use what social skills he has to maneuver through the teen jungle. Dillon, in only his third movie, makes for a believable bully and Baldwin, in his film debut, is also excellent and while his character doesn’t say much he gives off a very effective almost creepy stare that proves memorable. In support I really got a kick out of Paul Quandt, who’s only film appearance this was, as a scrawny tyke who befriends Makepeace and always supplies funny side comments and reactions. You also get to see Joan and Jon Cusacks’ dad, Dick Cusack, as the school’s much put upon principal.

The only segments and characters that really don’t work are the scenes involving Makepeace’s home-life that are a bit unusual since he resides in a hotel that his father, Martin Mull, manages. He has no mother since she died in a car accident years earlier and Mull behaves more like a big brother, who is into looking at naked women with his son through their telescope, than any type of disciplinarian. Ruth Gordon plays Mull’s goofy mother and while Gordon is quite amusing her scenes go on too long and don’t have much if anything to do with the main plot. Mull’s moments don’t help either though one could argue that his scenes do have some outside connection to the theme as it shows adults have to deal with their own type of bullies in this case his crabby and demanding boss, played by Craig Richard Nelson, who is always threatening to terminate his employment.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending is different too in that it essentially says fighting may sometimes be necessary though many administrators of today try to persuade against the idea that violence is the answer and there are other more constructive ways to tackle conflicts. Of course watching Makepeace clobber Dillon while Baldwin handles Salas is quite satisfying especially since the whole rest of the movie is watching the kids, including even Baldwin, getting humiliate by the bullies, so the bad kids do ultimately get a much deserved come-uppance. However, just because one person ‘kicks some other person’s ass’ means only that they were the more skillful fighter, or just bigger physically, and not necessarily the moral superior.

Still it’s a very pleasant movie that has a rites of passage/ fleeting moment in time quality. The situation is portrayed as a growing pains issue and not a dire one. This is well before mass shootings and all of the ugliness you see happening in schools today where everything spews out into the adult world. Here it was still done at a time where these problems were contained within the school walls, which is the best thing about it.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: July 11, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Tony Bill

Studio: 20th Century Fox

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies that take place in Chicago, Movies with Nudity

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The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (1975)

Posted on December 29, 2023 | 2 comments

sherlock

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Sibling solves the case.

Gene Wilder plays Sigerson Holmes, the jealous younger brother of Sherlock, who is upset that his sibling is so famous for solving crimes while he sits in obscurity having not seen as much success though he feels he’s just as smart if not smarter. One day Sigerson gets a case that his brother doesn’t want to get involved in due to him desiring to lay low for awhile. It involves Jenny Hill (Madeline Kahn) who’s a beautiful music hall dancer who is being blackmailed by an opera singer named Eduardo (Dom DeLuise) over a lewd letter she sent him years ago. However, the document proves to be much more than just a letter and is in fact an important paper that foreign powers will pay high price to get their hands on. Eduardo agrees to sell it to the evil Professor Moriarty (Leo McKern), but will only hand it over to him during one of his operas, which Sigerson and his loyal partner Orville (Marty Feldman) plan to attend in order to intercept the paper before it gets into the wrong hands.

Gene Wilder was approached by producer Richard Roth to do a parody of Sherlock Holmes, but Wilder didn’t like the idea of poking fun of what he felt was an iconic character. Roth told him to think about it and then approached him a week later. By this point Wilder said he had come up with a better idea instead of it being about Sherlock it would focus on his jealous brother Sigerson. Roth found the premise intriguing and suggested Wilder begin writing the screenplay which he did while working on Young Frankenstein. Once completed he asked his friend Mel Brooks to direct, but Brooks declined saying he didn’t like working on projects that were not his own idea, so Wilder took the reins himself calling it a ‘terrifying commitment’.

While the movie has some good moments the Sigerson character is not interesting. For one thing he’s poorly defined. One minute he’s cunning and sharp and then the next he proves dimwitted and clumsy almost becoming another Inspector Clouseu. The comedy should feed off the character, but with it unclear whether he’s brilliant or buffoon it never catches its stride and for the most part the scenes with him in it are boring and the audience doesn’t care if he solves the case nor feel that there’s any redemption if he does. He’s also genuinely unlikable particularly with the way he snaps at Jenny Hill making you almost want to despise the guy and hope he doesn’t succeed. Also, if he really is Sherlock’s brother then I felt there needed to be some scenes with them together and the interplay between the two could’ve been amusing if done right, but this never happens.

Wilder directs the film the way most actors turning director do by having the scenes more extended and allowing the actors to drive the pace and momentum versus the editing. With a so-called ‘zany’ comedy like this that doesn’t work and there’s several segments that go on too long until it becomes dull and looking a bit amateurish. The biggest example of this is when Jenny arrives a Sigerson’s place to tell him about the letter. Their interplay doesn’t go anywhere and ultimately in order to get out of it the characters, for some unexplained reason, break-out into song and dance making it seem like its a musical, which it isn’t, but either way it’s dumb and not funny. During Jenny’s music hall show, which Sigerson and Orville attend, she sings a long song there too, which wasn’t needed and saps the comic energy.

There are though some offbeat moments much of which comes from McKern a usually serious actor who shines in his campy part and really plays it up to the point that he becomes the highlight. The part where he goes to a fortune telling machine, that he has inside his residence, is inspired and his visit with Eduardo in which the two strangely fondle each other and even go to bed together that gives off weird homoerotic vibes is good too in a sort of bizarre ‘what am I looking at’ type of way.

The best part though is when a giant saw blade cuts off the back of Wilder’s and Feldman’s trousers causing their bare behinds to be exposed. They then go to a formal dance party and shock everyone who sees their asses with them still not aware that they’re showing. What’s so interesting about this part is that they both have really good looking butts especially Feldman. You’d think with his freaking looking face that his rear wouldn’t be so hot either, but it amazingly is, so in keeping with our current male ass scorecard we still have Dabney Coleman, who bears his behind in Modern Problems, coming in first and Tim Matheson’s in Impulse, being a close second and then Wilder and Feldman tying for third place.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 14, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Gene Wilder

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Campy Comedy, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Quirky

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Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

Posted on December 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

crimes1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Threatening to tell wife.

Judah (Martin Landau) is an eye doctor whose mistress of several years, Dolores (Anjelica Huston), is threatening to tell his wife (Claire Bloom) about their affair. Judah tries to persuade her not to, but she insists on going through with it unless he gets a divorce, which he refuses to do. Feeling he has no other option he hires his brother (Jerry Orbach) to do a hit on her in order to get her off of his hands. Once the job is done Judah then becomes wracked with guilt and though he had been a non-believer for many years begins to rekindle the fear of the wrath of God for what he’s done. Meanwhile Cliff (Woody Allen) is a struggling documentary filmmaker who gets a job filming a movie of a obnoxious comedian (Alan Alda) who’s highly narcissistic and difficult to deal with.

The film is unusual in that it has two correlating stories that go on at the same time with very little that links them. The only connecting thread is a Rabbi, played by Sam Waterston, who is friends with both Alda and Landau, as well as Cliff and Judah getting together briefly at a party to have a discussion near the end. Otherwise it’s like two separate movies with one being semi-funny while the other is made to be more like a searing drama and character study. While it’s engaging most of the way I felt the segment dealing with the egotistical celebrity wasn’t interesting or comical enough to be worth having especially since Alda didn’t seem able to convey an obnoxious jerk in a way that was amusing. The film also goes off on several tangents including Cliff counseling his sister about a date she had where a man tied her up and defecated on her that didn’t have anything to do with the main story and just taking up runtime for no reason. There’s also segments that I did find intriguing like the mysterious phone calls Judah gets late at night where the caller immediately hangs up when Judah answers that I felt should’ve been explored more.

A good way to have solved this and would also have tied-in Allen’s character better would’ve had him filming a documentary on Judah who could’ve been portrayed as this heroic eye doctor who saved the vision of underprivileged kids, or even gone to Africa for awhile to help heal the vision of the kids there and thus his efforts were considered a suitable material for a film. Alda’s character could’ve been cut out totally and not missed. Judah could’ve still be conniving behind-the-scenes about how to get rid of the other woman and thus the irony of him being lionized in front of the camera, but a complete jerk behind it would’ve been even more accentuated and interesting.

As it is the moments with Landau are still quite strong. His career during the 80’s had nearly tanked with him having to accept co-starring roles in low budget horrors just to keep busy only to finally get his name revitalized with his role in Tucker: A Man and His Dreams in 1987 that lead to an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor and helped him get better quality work including this one. Here his expressive blue eyes come into play particularly after the dirty deed gets done and he begins having reoccurring visions of himself as a boy going to synagogue and quarreling with his moral depravity, which is effective.

This is also the rare movie where Allen plays someone who is actually likable. Normally his incessant whining and misguided belief that he’s more sexually attractive than he is and can bed any hot women I’ve found annoying, but here he’s more of a ignored chump who’s still struggling to make a name for himself and this makes him endearing. Instead of aggressively coming onto women in tacky ways he instead shyly courts Mia Farrow who plays a sort-of nerdette here and their scenes together are cute.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending in which Allen and Landau meet briefly and he tells Allen about this ‘great’ movie idea in which a husband finds away to kill off his mistress, which is essentially what he’s really done, and feels no guilt afterwards doesn’t really work. For one thing it’s hard to believe that he’d wake-up one day, as he describes, and no longer feel any remorse and could just go on normally as he had felt so guilty about it earlier that you’d think it would’ve left some sort of lasting affect. The viewer should’ve also seen this realization play-out visually through the story versus having him just describe it.

I realize Allen’s whole point was to show that the universe doesn’t dispense justice and sometimes people really can get away with murder and can go on living happy lives unlike in the movies where it’s expected that the bad guy should suffer some consequence. Yet realistically I actually think Landau would’ve been caught, or at least been more of a suspect than he is. He was already questioned by the police earlier due to all the phone calls he had with the victim and I don’t think his flimsy excuse would’ve sufficed. Since he had been to her apartment many times including even on the night of the murder that most likely one of the other tenants would’ve spotted him coming and going and all the police would’ve had to do was show his picture around for him to be easily fingered by someone else living in the building. Thus watching Landau confidently leave his discussion with Allen thinking he could go on happily with his life only to have a detective there with handcuffs would’ve been funnier and in a lot ways ultimately more believable.

The film’s promotional poster, as seen above, doesn’t get the mood of the scene right. If you look at the poster it seems like Landau is the despondent one who’s suffering from inner turmoil while Woody is nonchalant, but if you watch the movie it’s Landau that is at complete ease while Woody is in turmoil over Mia getting married to Alda, so the poster is essentially misleading.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: October 12, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 44 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Woody Allen

Studio: Orion Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

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I Love My…Wife (1970)

Posted on December 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

ilove

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: He’s bored with marriage.

Richard (Elliot Gould) is a medical student when he meets Jody (Brenda Vaccaro) and the two quickly fall-in-love and get married. She then gets pregnant while he’s still in school and they don’t believe they have enough money to financially support a child, so they initially consider an abortion, but at the last minute Richard changes his mind and feels they should have the child. Jody though gains a lot of weight during the pregnancy, which Richard finds unattractive. Once the baby is born she’s unable to burn-off the excessive pounds causing their sex life to go even further into the tank. He has a few flings with some of the nurses before finally setting his sights on Helene (Angel Tompkins) a beautiful model who’s married to a baseball star (Dabney Coleman). At first she resists his advances, but the two eventually bed and then fall-in-love. She insists that Richard leave his wife, so that they can be together and no longer have to meet-on-the-sly. Richard tries to break-up with Jody, but because they have two kids finds that he can’t and instead begins lying to Helene as he plays both women at the same time, which soon turns into a losing situation.

The odd way this thing opens really hurts it and although it does improve a bit as it goes along some viewers may not be patient enough to stick with it. Having the opening credits deal with Richard’s relationship with his mother (Helen Westcott) and the sheltered way that she raised him isn’t funny and because the mother never appears again in the movie it wasn’t worth introducing her at all. Since the wife is the main focus I felt the opening scenes should’ve dealt with their dating period, which the movie breezes over too quickly. The clips from old movies, which get spliced in from time-to-time, add nothing and make it seem too much like Myra Breckenridge, which came out around the same time and best left forgotten. At least in that movie the clips came at predictable intervals, but here it’s sporadic making it seem, when they do get shown, as jarring and out-of-place.

Gould certainly excels at this type of role and he’s quite possibly the only actor who could play a shallow person and still manage to make it come-off as semi-likable. Vaccaro though is the real surprise as she’s usually best at drama and initially I felt she was miscast, but she comes through in making her character complex and even amusing as she goes through her tirades, some of it justified, at Gould. This is also the first movie to ever explore the issue of women who gain weight during their pregnancy, but can’t lose it afterwards and how this could affect their sex life, which I felt deserved kudos for being ground-breaking. The film makes the mistake though of showing too much from her point-of-view to the extent that we start to sympathize with her over the main character and almost start to dislike him in the process.

The introduction of Helene really does help as it’s her presence that gives the story a unique angle. Before this it comes-off more like your typical run-of-the-mill flick about a cad of a husband who can’t stay faithful, which has been done a lot and this movie doesn’t add anything insightful in that vein. However, the affair itself is interesting. For one thing she plays hard-to-get and doesn’t just jump immediately into the bed sheets at Gould’s beck-and-call, which is good as too much of the time, especially in 70’s movies, the women seem way too easy in a way that isn’t realistic. What I liked even more though is that the affair really doesn’t solve anything. Sure he finds her hot and sexy and they do get along, but she also has demands of her own and Gould finds himself in the same quandary as with his wife showing how extra marital flings really aren’t the ‘escape’ that they’re intended, but instead more of a problem.

Spoiler Alert!

The script by Robert Kaufman brings out many harsh truths about marriage and doesn’t insult us with any placid answers. Yet when the movie should go hard it goes soft instead. I liked how Vaccaro, who spent the whole time trying to win him back, finally gives up and starts seeing someone else, but Gould though upset and rebuffed, doesn’t learn anything from it. He goes back to the bar and tries picking-up an attractive stewardess he meets like he’s now making some sort of ‘fresh start’ when the film spent its entire running time exposing how this ‘cruising for chicks’ is a vicious cycle that just leads to more emptiness. Seeing Gould’s character change, or learn from his mistakes and display some regret would’ve been a far better way to have ended it.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 21, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Mel Stuart

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com, modcinema.com)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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The Wild Life (1984)

Posted on December 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

wild

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: One week before school.

The summer is winding down and the teens in suburban Los Angeles get ready to head back to school. Conrad (Eric Stoltz) has just graduated the previous year and is now planning to move into his own apartment, but finds it to be expensive and his salary working at a bowling alley doesn’t pay enough, so his buddy Tom (Chris Penn) volunteers to move in with him as his roommate and thus share the costs. The two though don’t see eye-to-eye on things particularly Tom’s penchant for wild parties, which Conrad fears will get them kicked-out. Conrad’s younger brother Jim (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) is fascinated with the Vietnam War and getting into trouble by smoking and underage drinking, which Conrad doesn’t like. Anita (Lea Thompson) is Conrad’s ex-girlfriend who’s having problems of her own as she’s still a teen, but having an affair with a cop (Hart Bochner) who is much older and also married.

The script was written by Cameron Crowe, who had great success with Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and took about trying to emulate that one. Instead of being all about crude jokes and pranks like with most teen flicks of that decade Crowe centered it more on studying the individual teen characters, but unfortunately they’re all rather banal and not that interesting to follow. The first half suffers from a lot of segments that go on too long and doesn’t help the pace. It moves along so leisurely that 20-minutes in I started to wonder when it was going to get on with the story and if there might not even be one though there eventually is. The humor, while amusing at times, is too soft and subtle and could’ve been played-up more to give the thing a much needed jolt. The word ‘wild’ is in the film’s title, but what we end up getting is just the typical teen stuff that hardly lives up to its name. I also could’ve done without the cigarette swallowing, which happens a few times with different people. To me it looked dangerous and enough to make somebody sick and was surprised the characters didn’t puke it out.

Mitchell-Smith has the face of a teen heartthrob, but his squeaky voice is a distraction and I would’ve considered dubbing it though I suppose funny sounding voices at that age as they go through the ‘big change’ may just reflect the reality. His character  is a bit over-the-top with his bravado and at one point challenges a guy who’s much bigger than him to punch him and in another segment he lies down on the street in front of a moving car. This type of behavior seems too reckless and brazen and isn’t normal. Teens are known to take some unwise risks, but it usually catches up with them, but never does here, which I found annoying. Also, when someone shows extreme bravery in one instance they can, as human nature goes, be amazingly scared about something else, but we never are shown that balance and thus making the character come-off as unrealistic.

Eric Stoltz has the same issue in reverse as he’s too clean-cut and responsible. Would’ve been nice and created a more three dimensional person had he been deviant at some point. Lea Thompson, who was already 23 at the time, looked too old to be playing a teen, and in fact just a year later got cast as the mother of a teen in Back to the Future, so I felt her appearance here didn’t work, I did however enjoy Chris Penn he’s definitely a doofus, but a lovable one and all his scenes elicit a chuckle. Robert Ridgely as the slick apartment manager, Hart Bochner as the corrupt cop with a mustache, and Rick Moranis as a preppy clothing store salesmen, with a puffy hairdo, are all funny too and help to give the proceedings a needed zing.

The third act does bring in a party, which gets out-of-hand, but not as much as it could’ve. Having all these people crammed into a tiny apartment should’ve created some fist fights when a boyfriend would catch another guy touching his girlfriend by accident due to having such little space between them. Spraying beer and food fights should’ve also followed, but never do, which makes these party goers too docile and well behaved. Having the guys break down the wall and evade the apartment next door and shock the neighboring couple (Ed Berke, Jessica Rains) was inspired, but we should’ve been shown these neighbors reactions the next day when the apartment manager surveys the damage. Overall though there’s just not enough here that stands-out especially from all the other teen flicks from that era and thus it’s easily and quickly forgotten.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: September 28, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Art Linson

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD-R (Universal Vault Series)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Crude Comedy, Movies with Nudity

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Cold Turkey (1971)

Posted on December 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

coldturkey

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Small town quits smoking.

To commemorate the passing of Norman Lear last week at the ripe old age of 101 we decided to review the one film that he directed and was shelved for two years by the studio who didn’t think it would be a hit with any audience and only decided to eventually release it once Lear had success with the classic ‘All in the Family’ sitcom. The story revolves around a small town in Iowa named Eagle Rock. The Reverend Clayton Moore would like a bigger congregation in a more prestigious area as he feels trapped in what he considers a ‘dying’ town with limited employment opportunities. He then hears about a contest that a giant tobacco company is sponsoring where they try to see if there’s a town in America that will make a pledge to agree to quit smoking for 30-days and if they succeed will be awarded $25 million. Merwin Wren (Bob Newhart), who works for a tobacco company, bets that there isn’t a place that would be able to make this pledge, but Clayton, figuring this may be his ticket out and onto greater things, pushes the citizens to sign the pledge, which will then put Eagle Rock on the map.

The location of the film shoot was Greenfield, Iowa, which I traveled to in 2009 and was amazed how similar it still looked after 40 years. The opening sequence showing the town from the south end still had many of the same buildings and the courthouse along with the gazebo in which the reverend makes his fiery speech are all still there and looking almost untouched.

The town itself is really the main star. Lear does a terrific job of showing the people who live there as they really are versus in some idealistic, or romanticized way. Too many other Hollywood productions seem to suffer from the Mayberry effect where the citizens are portrayed as simple and content ‘God Fearing’ folk who are devoid of any complex personality. Here they are frustrated individuals who secretly dream of moving away, or ‘hitting it big’ in some way, but because they don’t have the means to achieve this ultimately find themselves stuck and just trying to make the best of it. The people are no more immune from temptation, or corruption, than the ones living in a big city and if anything are even more susceptible since they haven’t been put in that situation much, but when they are, as evidenced when the place gets spoken about all over the media and everyone from all over descends on it including Lottie (Gloria Leroy) a prostitute under the guise of being a masseuse who services all married men.

Beyond the on-target satire the film also scores with its fabulous ensemble of character actors, many of whom would later star, or guest star, in many of Lear’s TV-shows. Each actor plays a distinct personality from Barnard Hughes the fidgety and nervous doctor who resorts to lollipop sucking, or Graham Jarvis the head of a far-right organization, who preaches about the evils of ‘big government’, but then readily accepts for his group, which is mainly made up of senior citizens, to become a voluntary gestapo-like militia that arrests those who are caught smoking and forcibly search all in-coming vehicles. Pippa Scott though, as Clayton’s much put-upon wife, was my favorite. She encompasses what I think a lot of small town people can feel especially those that weren’t originally from the area, who are stuck in a dead-end marriage and perennially forced to ‘put on a happy face’. Her primal scream, which happens during a dream-like segment on the rooftop of one of the houses while neighbors stand around watching I felt was one of the film’s defining moments.

In the lead roles Dick Van Dyke is terrific mainly because he plays against type. Part of what I felt killed his movie career was that he took too many roles that were just an extension of his Rob Petrie persona in his famous TV-show. Here though he’s the opposite playing an egotistical, narcissists who cares about nothing other than his own career ascension, but manages to do it in a way that’s quite amusing. Newhart plays an unusual role for him as well. Typically he’s a buttoned down, strait-laced guy commenting on the insanity around him, but here he is the nutty one and does a trick with his eyes that gives him a psycho appearance.

Spoiler Alert!

The one flaw is the ending in which all three leads (Van Dyke, Newhart, Hughes) get shot in the middle of a crowd of people standing in the town center. The shootings look fake as they show no bullet hole in their clothing, or blood even just a little bit for authenticity. One shot shows people in the crowd holding the heads of the victims as they lay there in an effort to comfort them, but then in the next shot has the three lying all alone as the crowd essentially abandoned them, which seemed unrealistic that absolutely no one would care. Having an ambulance driver trying to drive-in through the mob, but then maybe stopping to run out and grab the cigarettes that rain down on the town from a helicopter, would’ve been amusing and better explanation for why the three didn’t get the help that they needed.

There’s also one shot showing Newhart sitting up and laughing, but what is he laughing about and why would he be doing this when he’s been injured with a bullet? There’s no answer to this, which makes it come-off as a cop-out ending and like Lear had written himself into a hole that he couldn’t get out of.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: January 20, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 41 Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Norman Lear

Studio: United Artists

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Cult, Movies with a rural setting, Offbeat, Satire

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O’Hara’s Wife (1982)

Posted on December 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

ohara2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Wife turns into ghost.

Bob (Ed Asner) and Harriet (Mariette Hartley), whom he affectionately calls ‘Harry’, share a special bond and have been in a marriage for over 20 years that has produced two children, Rob (Perry Lang) and Barbara (Jodie Foster). They plan for a second honeymoon, but just before they’re ready to leave Harry suddenly dies. The grief-stricken Bob feels he can’t go on, but manages to stay focused due to the love and support of his children. Then one day, about a month after he death, she suddenly reappears in the form of a ghost. At first Bob runs away from her thinking he’s gone crazy, but then eventually settles to the idea that she’s going to be around wherever she goes and in return she helps him to understand that life is about more than just working hard and if he doesn’t learn to relax he too will soon be dying as well.

Feeble attempt at a ghost comedy, which has been done many times before in a far better way in such classics as A Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Topper just to name a couple. Right off the bat though this thing falls flat with a long drawn out song segment sung by Billy Preston, Billy’s a good singer, but just not here, that happens not once, but twice. A movie should not slow-up the pace with a droony song especially when that’s just ‘telling us’ through its lyrics what we already know is happening to the characters visually.

The second thing where this movie really gets dumb is when the wife just falls over dead for no apparent reason. One second she’s perfectly healthy and joking around with her hubby and then in the next instant she just literally falls over dead in the corniest way possible. The doctors diagnose it as a brain hemorrhage of some sort, but normally healthy, middle-aged people don’t just ‘fall over dead’. A better, more gripping and believable way would be to have her die in a car accident, or have her diagnosed with something early on, or at least complain about certain symptoms that will eventually lead to her demise, but to just croak instantaneously without any warning or set-up is about as stupid as it gets.

The ghost angle is just as poorly thought-out. I realize having ghosts appear and disappear and go through walls may seem cliched, but at least that had a logic to it and this thing doesn’t. Here we have her opening and closing doors to get through them as if she’s a regular person. Her husband can also feel and touch her and she can even use her body to stop his movement, but if she’s just a spirit then shouldn’t she be a vision only and not able to do those other things? She also panics when she sees her husband’s medical chart and realizes he has a serious heart condition and may die, but since her ghostly existence proves there’s essentially ‘life after death’ then why should she care? She acts like death is some sort of ‘end’ even though her appearance literally proves the opposite, so why not celebrate his impending doom as that will mean they’ll be in a ghostly existence forever and thus death will be a happy ending and not a sad one like her character seems to believe.

Hartley is certainly perky, she always seems perky no matter what she’s in, but her character is one-dimensionally nice, and not fleshed-out enough to be interesting in any way. Asner has some funny bits particularly when he must deal with this ghost wife when someone else is around who can’t see her and thus making his behavior look pretty weird, but overall he’s a bit too old for her, almost like he could’ve been her father, and a younger actor more age appropriate to Hartley would’ve been better. Mary Jo Catlett, as Asner’s much put upon secretary as some endearing moments, but ultimately it’s Foster, who gets billed as having a ‘special appearance’ though she’s in a good chunk of it, that comes off best though I didn’t initially recognize her as she has darker hair here and on a bit of the chubby side  and I could only tell who she was at first by the sound of her voice.

I did like how it attempts to tackle family drama and how as children age and become adults may not see things eye-to-eye not only with their parents, but siblings as well. This becomes especially apparent with Rob who doesn’t agree with his father quitting his job and the two share a couple of raw moments, which is good because these things do occur in real-life families, but then the film glosses over this issue by having the two magically reconcile a little bit later, which like with everything else in the movie is too shallow.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: December 3, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: William Bartman

Studio: O’Hara Cinema Group

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Ghost Story, Obscure Movies

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Fever Pitch (1985)

Posted on December 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

fever1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Sportswriter addicted to gambling.

To commemorate the sad passing of Ryan O’Neal just last week we here at Scopophilia decided to review one of his more infamous outings in a film that helped to ultimately bring in his career downfall, which was already fading at the time anyways, but this one was the nail in the coffin. He plays Steve Taggart a popular sports journalist who wishes to do an expose on the gambling epidemic. His editor (John Saxon) gives the okay and so he proceeds to write articles dealing with a ‘Mr. Green’ whose addiction is ruining his life and career. Unbeknownst to his editors Mr. Green is actually Steve whose gambling habit is so out of control that he owes $31,000 to a bookmaker named The Dutchman (Chad Everett) who has a henchman named The Hat (William Smith) that follows Steve around and threatens him with violence if he doesn’t pay up. Steve’s recourse is to simply gamble more hoping somehow to get on a lucky streak and be able to pay it all back when instead he just continues to drown in an even more widening debt.

Writer/director Richard Brooks became fascinated with the topic of gambling while recovering from a heart attack and spent years writing the script, where he intended to have Sam Shephard play the lead. Unfortunately despite his great success with other films this one ended up becoming a giant flop that cost the studio over $7 million to produce, but only recouped a paltry $244,000 at the box office. Derided by both critics and viewers its become a ‘so bad it’s good’ type movie that in the ‘Official Razzie Movie Guide’ gets listed as the 100 Most Enjoyable Bad Movies Ever Made.

The movie would’ve been better had they got Shephard in the lead role as intended instead of the wooden O’Neal who doesn’t show enough emotion, or nuance to make his part interesting. The character would’ve had a better arch had we known him before he got into gambling and could see his downfall right from the beginning versus coming into it when he’s already starting to hit rock bottom. Having the viewer fooled into thinking Mr. Green was a real person might’ve made an interesting twist versus giving it all a way at the start that it’s Steve.

The dialogue is badly overwritten with the character’s regurgitating out gambling statistics like they’re a computer and there’s no conversational quality in anything that gets said. Despite being supposedly this ‘hard-hitting’ look at what goes on in Las Vegas it instead comes-off more surreal as it shows only people who are ‘captivated by the madness of gambling’ like these are the only type of people who exist without countering it with others who are not into it and thus giving it a better balance and perspective.

The story also suffers from too many coincidences and extreme dramatic arcs. The most notable is when Steve finds a soldier (Patrick Cassidy) inside a bathroom stall ready to shoot himself with a gun as he’s so depressed about losing all his money, but Steve stops him from doing it. Then gives the soldier money for airfare and a little bit extra for spending cash. The soldier uses it to continue his gambling where he wins it all back at the craps table making it seem like a ‘happy’ ending and going against the film’s own narrative that wants to show the ‘evils’ of the addiction only to laugh it all away when somebody gets on a magical win streak that somehow makes it all better. Going from potential suicide victim to happiest guy on earth in the matter of only a couple of hours is a bit of a stretch.

Having Steve get physically attacked by The Hat inside a gambling lounge as he has both his shins kicked-in and then miraculously having Flo (Catherin Hicks), a cocktail waitress whom he had a fling with, walk by at the exact same instant when The Hat leaves, so she’s able to help back to her room seemed way to coincidental and convenient. The fact that he doesn’t go to a doctor and able to still walk using only some pain pills to get by was even more absurd. What gets even dumber though is that during the melee Steve injures The Hat, using non other than salt and pepper shakers, causing him to wear a over-the-top neck brace as he goes around town trying to ‘even the score’ with Steve by attempting to kill him, but unable to do so at every turn like he’s morphed into the live action version of Wiley E. Coyote.

Spoiler Alert!

The biggest laugh, or most nauseating moment depending on your perspective, comes at the end when Steve is supposedly ‘cured’ of his addiction by having attended a Gambling Anonymous meeting only to, at the airport waiting to go home, decide to put one last quarter into a slot machine called ‘Bet a Buck for God’ in which he amazingly wins a massive payout and having his winnings immediately handed to him by a woman dressed like a nun. I thought for sure this was some sort of dream, but to my shock it’s not and we’re all supposed to take it seriously.

It then gets even worse as Steve goes on one last hot streak and able to win back all the money he’s owed and thus get out of his predicament, which does a complete injustice to the subject. Many other victims of gambling aren’t able to do this as the movie even says itself the odds are the house will ultimately win making the wrap-up completely false and thus the film’s notorious cornball status is highly deserved.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: November 22, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Brooks

Studio: MGM/UA

Available: VHS, DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Obscure Movies

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The Devil’s Honey (1986)

Posted on December 9, 2023 | 1 comment

devilshoney

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Revenge on a doctor.

Jessica (Blanca Marsillach) is madly in-love with Johnny (Stefano Madia) who’s a famous saxophonist. The two share many kinky moments and have sex in the wildest of places. Wendell (Brett Halsey) is a surgeon who no longer has sex with his wife Carol (Corinne Clery) and instead seeks out prostitutes though even here the arousal is brief as he can’t achieve an erection for any extended period of time. Carol finds out about his philandering and asks for a divorce, which sets Wendell into a panic as he still enjoys having his wife around as a support system even if it isn’t for intercourse. As this is happening Johnny falls unconscious during one of his recording sessions due to a bump he got on his head while falling off his motorcycle earlier. He gets rushed to the hospital where Wendell is on-call, but he’s unable to concentrate on the surgery due to the stress of his marriage and Johnny ends up passing away. Jessica is outraged by this and sets a vendetta on Wendell to punish him for killing her boyfriend. It begins by her calling him constantly, but eventually she kidnaps him by taking him to her place and tying him up. She tortures him sexually, which strangely both of them begins to enjoy.

This was cult director Lucio Fulci’s return to a sex themed film, which he had started his career out as and away from the gory giallos he had become most known for. The attempt is not without merit as the sex is explicit and almost like a porn film with brief interludes of dialogue before it goes right back to the sexual imagery. Unfortunately on the erotic end it’s not all that titillating. The scene where Johnny blows his saxophone up Jessica’s vagina looked more laughable than kinky. The segment where he tries to get her to fondle his penis while they’re riding on a motorcycle, which almost gets them into a bad accident, I found genuinely cringey and not sexy at all. The fact that she’d be so into a guy that’s rather controlling and degrading to her seemed a mystery though it might’ve been meant as a quirk to her personality, but never explained sufficiently.

Outside of the sex the drama is weak. The moment inside the studio where he complains about having a headache, but the producer tells him to keep on playing anyways, so he blows out a few weak notes before tumbling to the floor came-off as unintentionally funny and had me laughing. Jessica’s distraught reaction where she bangs on the glass that separates the control room from the studio was ridiculous as she should’ve run into the studio to try to physically come to his aid, which had a better chance of actually helping him than just pounding on a window. I also got sick of hearing Johnny play the same piece over and over until it became nauseating.

Things improve with the presence of Halsey an American actor who appeared in many B-pictures during the 60’s and 70’s, but eventually went abroad by the 80’s when the film offers here began to dry up. While his face is chiseled and good-looking the hollow look in his eyes perfectly fits the character and thus becomes  a memorable image. Watching Jessica harass the hell out of him is kind of fun though no explanation for what the substance was that she used to knock him out, nor where she managed to attain it.

Spoiler Alert!

The third act has some tension though it gets ruined by all the flashbacks. Wendell’s wife also disappears completely and no scenes showing her reaction to the news that her husband’s been kidnapped. She had figured prominently in the first two acts and therefore we should’ve seen some sort of response from her in the third. Whether she was happy to have him gone, or had a change-of-heart and became upset is something we should’ve seen. There’s also no answer to what ultimately becomes of the new couple who end up liking the abuse that they give to each other. Do they go on cohabitating and if so does Wendell go back to being a surgeon and if not how do they survive financially? There needed to be more of a conclusion and just leaving it all hanging is not satisfying.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: August 21, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 23 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Lucio Fulci

Studio: Selvaggia Film

Available: DVD-R, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Erotica, Foreign Films, Italian Films, Kidnapping Movies, Movies with Nudity, Sex, Thrillers/Suspense

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Made for Each Other (1971)

Posted on December 4, 2023 | Leave a comment

made

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Couple argues a lot.

Pandora (Renee Taylor) is an out-of-work actress still clinging to her dreams that she’ll one day become famous something she has hoped for since she was a child. Gig (Joseph Bologna) suffers from not being able to find a stable relationship and guilt-ridden over sending the last one into attempted suicide. Both Pandora and Gig attend a group therapy session and this is where they meet. Initially though things are rocky. Gig does not like Pandora’s stand-up act, something she’s been working on for years, and openly tells her it’s awful. They then break-up, but Pandora eventually returns telling him that he was right and she’s worked out the ‘kinks’ from her act, so it’s now improved. To celebrate Gig takes her to his parents (Paul Sorvino, Olympia Dukakis) for Thanksgiving. The parents though don’t approve of Pandora since she’s Jewish and they’re Catholic and they eventually drive her out of their apartment. Gig and Pandora continue to argue once they’re back in the car, but find, strangely, that no matter how the other one annoys them they still like each other’s company.

After the runaway success of Lovers and Other Strangers, which Bologna and Taylor wrote initially as a play, but then turned it into a movie, Hollywood studios were interested in them trying another script and gave them upfront money to do so. The first film had been based on their real-life experiences of dealing with all of their in-laws during their wedding, which occurred in 1965, and so they decided to base this one on their lives as well, namely what brought them together. Like with their first project the script is quite broad and focuses in on many different people including the parents of each character who have quite a bit of screentime, particularly Sorvino and Dukakis, and who are quite funny. The film also shows the leads when they were infants and many of their childhood experiences, which gets shot in black-and-white, that is also both insightful and amusing.

Unlike with most movies the scenes are quite extended and seemed better primed for a stageplay. The elusive Robert B. Bean gets credited as director, but he never did anything else, which seems a bit curious and there’s been rumors that he was just a pseudonym for Bologna who took over as the actual director. The long takes though are effective and enhance the comedy. The scene inside Gig’s parents house where the tension builds when they slowly realize that Pandora is ‘not their kind’ is quite good and not unlike what could happen in many families homes of that era who closely identified with their particularly religions and not privy to having their kids marry outside of it. Gig’s inability to appreciate Pandora’s stage act and his blunt assessment of it while at a late night cafe is comically on-targe too as any fledgling artist will tell you sometimes family members, friends, and even those really close to them won’t always connect with their artistic endeavors and regrettably become their biggest critics.

Sorvino scores as the abrasive no-nonsense father though ironically he was actually 5-years younger than Bologna who plays his son and for that reason his hair should’ve been made more gray. Dukakis is equally on-target as the super religious mother whose strong faith amounts to a lot of rituals and ends up inadvertently harming her child psychologically like when she catches him masturbating and informs him that if he continues his ‘little thing will fall off’. Helen Verbit as Pandora’s mother is equally amusing playing the over-protective type who wants so hard to shield her daughter from harsh reality that she tells her that her stage act is ‘brilliant’ when it really isn’t and that because she’s her mother that somehow makes her opinion ‘objective’.

The film’s one drawback is the yelling, which there is a lot of. Sometimes confrontational comedy can be quite amusing and this one works most of the way, but how much the viewer will enjoy is up to each individual. Bologna’s shouting is particularly loud and abrasive. It’s meant to funny and done only out of aggravation, but it does tend to get extended especially by the end. Had Taylor shouted back then it would’ve seemed like a ‘fair fight’, but having her run away and cry takes humor out of it and may ultimately ingrate on the audience. The intent is for there to be an offbeat charm, but not everyone may see it that way and thus this thing won’t be for all tastes.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 12, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 41 Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Robert B. Bean

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD-R (Fox Cinema Archives)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Obscure Movies, Offbeat, Romance

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