Monthly Archives: January 2026

Casey’s Shadow (1978)

Posted on January 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

My Rating: Boy raises a racehorse.

Based on the short story ‘Ruidoso’ by John McPhee the plot centers around Lloyd (Walter Matthau) a single parent raising three sons. The youngest, Casey (Michael Hershewe), decides to raise a colt whose mother has died. At first, they’re not sure the colt will make it, but eventually he grows into being a racehorse that gets named Casey’s Shadow. Lloyd, who’s been looked upon as a loser for many years, feels this is his one chance to make money and thus enters the horse into the All-American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico despite the fact that the horse has been recently injured and running him could endanger his life.

Upfront the film seems similar to many other young boy with horse movies to the extent you wonder why even bother to make this one though it does manage to have some memorable moments. The biggest one being the birth of the colt that gets captured in graphic, vivid style that one will find either a beauty of nature, or grotesque. I also liked the scene involving the horses being put into their stalls before the race and how some of them were difficult to maneuver and even resisted. The shot of the dirty dinner dishes inside a grimy bathtub filled with yellowish water is an image you won’t get out of your mind as well as the horse that gets poisoned to death and keels over in dramatic fashioned making it appear very real and not sure how they could train a horse to do that, but it’s quite effective.

On the casting end I wasn’t convinced this was the best career choice for Matthau as his character is too similar to the one he played in The Bad News Bears where he was a down-and-out guy with little ambition who suddenly finds his competitive edge. In that film his transition was fun, but here it’s strained and not nearly as engaging. It also seemed a mistake to make him the protagonist as it’s the boy that spends the most time with the horse, so he essentially should’ve been the main hero.

While I liked how the three sons aren’t afraid to question their father’s judgement and many times seem to be the mature ones I felt there were too many of them. The two oldest ones lacked any distinction and could’ve easily been combined to just one person. The youngest, Casey, came off like some Italian kid from Brooklyn, especially with his long hair, and I didn’t for a second believe these were boys raised in Cajun country particularly since they made no attempt to convey an accent authentic to the region, which makes it feel like they’re miscast.

The supporting cast is interesting, but underused. Alexis Smith has an icy appeal, but it never comes to full fruition. Would’ve liked more of a confrontation between her and Matthau. Murray Hamilton is always good playing a conniving, amoral character, but his presence is intermittent and doesn’t ultimately do much to propel the story. Robert Webber fares best. He’s known mainly for playing sniveling types, but here falls into the rugged western persona surprisingly well. The only beef with him, and it’s not his fault, is that he gets beaten up by Matthau in what looks to be a pretty decent pummeling, but then later it shows him fully recovered. To make it realistic he should’ve been seen with bandages, crutches, or cuts.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: March 17, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 57 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Martin Ritt

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

 

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Short Stories, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies that take place in the South, Sports Movies

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Bachelor Party (1984)

Posted on January 22, 2026 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Wild night before marriage.

Rick (Tom Hanks) has decided to settle down and get married to Debbie (Tawny Kitaen) after years of being a party animal. Debbie’s parents (George Grizzard, Barbara Stuart) do not approve of the impending union and enlist the help of Cole (Robert Prescott), Debbie’s former boyfriend, to try and break it up by attempting to win Debbie back. Meanwhile, Rick’s friend Jay (Adrian Zmed) decides to throw Rick a lavish bachelor party by renting out a hotel room, but things soon get completely out of control.

This was pinnacle of the crude 80’s movies where the comedy emphasis was on the vulgar and shocking and while there were plenty of films before and after that had the same format this one is probably the best. A lot of the reason for it is that it has four different scenarios working in tandem that eventually converge into one at the end. Cutting away to the different plotlines and characters helps keep the pace breezy and doesn’t make the story come off quite as one dimensional as with other crude comedies. There are some genuinely funny moments especially the ending sequence that features Rick getting into a fistfight with Cole in front of a movie screen showing a film and theater goers think it’s simply a part of the 3-D effects.

Yet as popular as this movie was, and I was around when it came out where it was a huge hit, you cannot find it streaming anywhere, which is initially baffling. However, when you go back and watch it, I hadn’t seen it since it was released, you can kind of see why as the humor is quite un-PC especially by today’s standards. A good example is at the beginning when Jay, who works as a child photographer, has a mother with big bosoms come in with her kid and he manages to ‘trick’ her into posing in provocative ways, which is something that only happens in a guy’s fantasy world. A woman with big breasts is well aware that it attracts men, so she would immediately recognized Jay’s not so subtle come-ons right away, might even be expecting it as most likely many guys before having done the same thing, and wouldn’t be so naive.

The male strip joint sequence that the ladies attend is kind of dumb too. It features one of the male strippers putting his penis on a tray between some hot dog buns and then ‘serving it up’ to Debbie’s mother (Stuart). However, nobody in their right mind would want to put their sexual organ up to a stranger for them to grab. What if they stretched, or scratched it? It’s making it too vulnerable to injury and if it does get injured could they sue, or because they literally shoved the thing in the woman’s face, would they be considered liable? No idea why Stuart’s hand seems to get ‘stuck’ with it either, but that’s another issue.

While Hanks is engaging his character is a bit over-the-top. He acts very juvenile when with the parents to the extent that I actually sided with the dad as I wouldn’t want my daughter marrying a complete clown like that either. You’d think if he wanted to impress the parents, he’d try to be more serious and upstanding. Had the film done it this way and the father still rejected him then you could sympathize with Hanks, but here his goofing around just makes things worse.

Hanks complete ambivalence in regard to his friend Brad (Bradford Bancroft) who threatens to kill himself and even attempts it, but Hanks blows it off like it’s ‘no big deal’ makes him seem like he doesn’t care about what’s now considered a very serious issue. He also, at a later point, dangles Cole out a hotel window several stories up with nothing more than bed sheets, which is quite dangerous because if the guy slips out of them, he’ll fall and die and thus putting Hanks and his pals on the hook for reckless homicide.

The worst part in the movie, and again I did like it overall, but I feel it’s important to get the negative aspects of it addressed, is the donkey scene. I’m not sure why the donkey was brought to the party, I guess so the lady stripper could perform bestiality, which is both illegal and very unsexy, but having it perish after ingesting a lot of drugs that had been laying around is sad. Then having its dead body show up in an elevator makes it even sadder. Granted they didn’t actually kill a real donkey, but the just the idea is terrible and if anything, they should’ve had the donkey live and run all through the hotel where it would scare the guests and staff, which would’ve been funnier.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 29, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Neal Israel

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Crude Comedy, Movies with a Hotel setting, Movies with Nudity

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The Return of Swamp Thing (1988)

Posted on January 18, 2026 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Doctor creates genetic mutations.

Dr. Anton Arcane (Louis Jourdan) continues in his quest to fight aging by doing, with the help of his assistant Lana (Sarah Douglas) many experiments that combines genes from swamp creatures and people that creates many monstrous mutations, some of whom escape the lab and go out and terrorize the swamp lands including any human victims that they may come upon. Abby (Heather Locklear) travels to visit Arcane, her stepfather, at his lab to find out what really happened to her dead mother. Arcane uses this as an opportunity to have Abby be his next victim to his newest experiment where he hopes to transfer her youthful essence to his body, so he can be young again, but Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) returns to fight off Arcane and all of his henchmen in order to save Abby and the two fall in love in the process.

This ill-advised sequel could of been so much better had, or at least had some potential, had it been put in the hands of a talented director, but instead the project was handed over to Jim Wynorski, who’s pretty much the Ed Wood of his era. He not surprisingly flunked out of film school back in the 70’s, but was so desperate to get into the business that he traveled out to Hollywood anyways and managed to get a job as an on-location manager to the short lived TV-show ‘Breaking Away’, but soon got fired from that and feeling demoralized and out of money he humbly took the next flight home thinking that was the end of his Hollywood dreams, and most likely it would’ve been, had he not met someone on the airplane who knew Roger Corman and he set-up a meeting with him, which got him a job writing screenplays for his production company that ultimately lead to him directing. To date he’s helmed over 110 movies, but virtually all of them have been critically panned and many are of the direct-to-video variety making you wonder if it’s really worth making all those movies if nobody ever sees them.

This film is typically of his campy approach where everything is done for cheap laughs, which quickly become tiresome. I don’t mind some humor in horror films and during the 80’s it became common for killers to make jokey one-liners after they killed their victims, which became kind of kitschy, but those at least had some bona fide scares and gore. This one though has no fright or tension and just the tackiest of effects making it all just a cheap, silly mess.

Locklear is certainly easy on the eyes, but her character is written in a way that makes her seem like it’s just some sort of walk-on role where she steps in to make a few snarky comments and then leaves. She seems to have no emotional connection to anything going on around her and she has no discernable arc making her presence overall quite sterile. She also rushes to judgement about things and lets her motivations be known too quickly. For instance, when she first arrives at Arcane’s residence she immediately gets into a bickering match with Lana, but wouldn’t it make more sense since she’s just gotten there to hide her animosity until she’s figured out how to maneuver her way around and see whom she can trust? She also instantaneously falls for Swamp Thing, but it would’ve been more interesting transition had she been reserved around him, or even disgusted by his appearance, as most people probably would be.

Jourdan, in his second to last film, is fun though looking frailer than he did in the same role eight years earlier. However, in the last outing it ended with him turned into a monster and no explanation for how he was able to turn back into his original form, which makes this seem less like a sequel and more like a separate movie altogether.

The only one that I really did like was Daniel Emery Taylor who plays this fat redhead kid that says a lot of amusing lines. His acting his actually terrible, but it jives with his goofy, clumsy character and thus becomes amusing. In fact, I think had he and his friend Oman, played by RonReaco Lee, been the sole protagonists this thing could’ve done a lot better. I also felt that turning it into a live action was a mistake as the comic book visuals that get shown over the opening credits look rather cool making me believe the entire thing should’ve been animated.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: May 12, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Jim Wynorski

Studio: Millimeter Films

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, PlutoTV, Tubi

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Low Budget, Movies based on Comic Books, Movies that take place in the South, Sci-Fi, Sequels

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Swamp Thing (1982)

Posted on January 14, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Scientist transforms into creature.

Alice (Adrienne Barbeau), a federal agent, is sent to the bayou regions in order to investigate the disappearance of another agent who’d been working at a top-secret facility. It is there that she meets researchers Linda (Nannette Brown) and Alec (Ray Wise) who are brother and sister and working on a chemical that can rapidly regrow plant life. Anton Arcane (Louis Jourdan) is after this formula and raids the facility in order to get his hands on it, but Alec manages to swipe it away just in time only to trip and fall causing him to spill it over himself and getting set on fire. In order to extinguish the flames, he jumps into the swamp but is presumed dead. Alice is able to escape, but Arcane’s henchmen (David Hess, Nicholas Worth) spot her the next day and attempt to drown her, which is when a strange green creature jumps out of the water to save her. Alice is at first unsure of where this creature came from but slowly begins to suspect it may be connected to Alec.

The film is based on the comic book of the same name where the creature first appeared in July of 1971. While I liked the on-location shooting done at the Cypress Gardens in South Carolina the movie otherwise falls precariously flat. I suspect the cause of this comes from the tight budget where the emphasis was for everything to come in on time and limit costs. There’s adequate action, which almost all done on the water, but it eventually gets formulaic. There had been plans to shoot a chase underwater, but this got scrapped and there’s just so many shots of a speed boat one can take before it becomes monotonous. It’s not clear either whether this was to be played up for camp, or not. Some knowing humor could’ve given it an added dimension, but as it is the only real amusing moment is when Alice ‘shoos’ away the giant creature with her hand treating him like he was nothing more than a rodent.

Casting wise it has an appeal. Barbeau was already hitting 40 and it’s refreshing having a female protagonist not having to be youthful and hip, but instead grounded and straightforward. Jourdan is equally enjoyable, and his crusted, stern look and terse delivery makes him sufficiently menacing. I also enjoyed Hess and Worth better known for playing prominent psychos in other films but coming off as sort of klutzy and over their heads here. Out of everyone though I really like Reggie Batts. He was a young black kid that lived in the region but had no other acting experience and was never in another movie but is quite amiable with his humorous observations and his presence gives the movie some earthy balance.

While Wise does well as the main character the fact that when he turns into the creature it gets played by somebody else, in this case stuntman Dick Durock, doesn’t really work. Initially Wise was supposed to play both roles and Durock would only put on the creature outfit when there needed to be stunts done, but his body build was so different from Wise’s that it was determined to just use him as it would be too obvious otherwise. The biggest mistake though, and I haven’t read the comic, so it may be true there as well, is that I didn’t like him speaking. Having the creature be this murky anomaly gave him an aire of mystery, which gets ruined when he starts talking. He becomes like just another character only in a body suit, and outside of super strength and being able to regrow his limbs, isn’t all that interesting.

Spoiler Alert!

The concept where ingesting the formula will bring out the person’s ‘true essence’ of who they really are was cool but unfortunately gets badly botched. When Worth’s character takes it, he shrinks in size and thus showing that he’s timid inside, which is fine. However, his clothes shrink with the body, but the chemical never got on them, so they should’ve remained normal sized and just his body gotten smaller.

When Arcane drinks it he becomes a hairy monster, but it comes off looking like a guy in a Halloween costume, which cheapens the effects. It might’ve cost more, but doing the transformation via makeup, similar to The Planet of the Apes, would’ve been more impressive and authentic looking.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: February 19, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Wes Craven

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Plex, Roku Channel, Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies based on Comic Books, Movies that take place in the South, Sci-Fi

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Shirley Valentine (1989)

Posted on January 6, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Trying to find purpose.

Shirley (Pauline Collins) is a middle-aged woman married to Joe (Bernard Hill) and having two grown children but feeling like her life lacks purpose. While her marriage started out well the passion has now faded and the two find themselves at odds sometime for the most minor of things. Seeking change Shirley jumps at the chance of getting out of working-class England by taking a trip with her friend Jane (Alison Steadman) to Greece. During her vacation she meets up with bar owner Costas (Tom Conti) where he takes her on his boat and the two make love. When it’s time for her to return back home she instead skips out on taking the flight and remains in Greece while taking a job as a cook at Costas’ restaurant, but Joe won’t let go of his marriage and travels to where Shirley is now living in an attempt to woo her back.

The film is based on the stage play by Willy Russell, but with some big differences as the play had only one character, Shirley, and a running monologue. Some of the monologue remains by having her routinely break the fourth wall and speak directly to the camera, which most of the time works and isn’t a distraction. It even helps tie-in some loose ends by allowing us to understand Shirley’s inner motivations, but I didn’t like how the film ‘explains’ her running commentary by having her get ‘caught’ by some of the characters, like Costas, speaking out loud to herself and having them walk away thinking she’s gone ‘a bit batty’. Other films have done a similar concept but play it off more like time just freezes and thus allows the protagonist to speak their thoughts for a bit and I felt the movie should’ve stuck to this same rationale.

The acting is excellent with Collins reprising the same role she had played onstage. Her matter-of-fact delivery and the terse little frown she exudes when she’s with someone she secretly can’t stand help expose her character’s down-to-earth sensibilities though I could’ve done without her nude scenes from both the front and back. Conti is also good playing a Greek man with authentic sounding accent at least I felt it was though other critics weren’t all in agreement.

The story itself is a bit slow with Roger Ebert describing it as a ‘realistic drama of appalling banality’. However, for me that’s what made it work. There’s a lot of people like Shirley out there longing for some point to why we’re here and not able to find the satisfaction through the normal social functions of marriage and raising a family. Too many times, we’re told that having a family should be fulfilling and make us ‘happy’, but for some people that’s not always enough and sometimes just makes things worse especially in Shirley’s case where the kids, now adults, treat her like someone to be taken for granted.

I also liked the way it explored loneliness. Most films that deal with this subject usually portray the person as being the one at fault by having them afflicted with poor social skills, or behaviors that cause others not to want to be around them. Here though it’s Shirley’s ‘friends’ that are the annoying ones and could turn off most anyone. Just having people around doesn’t mean one is actually connecting, and the film deftly examines how a person can be smart and friendly and yet still fall through the cracks.

Spoiler Alert!

The trip sequence, which takes up the third act, is well done as Shirley’s loneliness doesn’t just automatically end with a change of scenery. The fling that she has is okay, but when she decides to stay on and overhears Costas feeding another woman the same lines he had given her about coming onto his boat, I thought she should’ve responded with a hurt, or angered look. Instead, she’s amused, but I’d think most other people in the same situation would’ve felt used and taken advantage of.

I did like the husband coming to Greece at the very end, but I believe his character should’ve been more toned down earlier. The way he gets so extremely upset at not being served the meal he was expecting and then throwing the food on her lap made him seem mentally unhinged. In some marriages people just grow apart. They can both be good people, but through no one’s fault, have much in common and I think the film could’ve approached it that way versus having him blow up in a very over-the-top way that was almost frightening.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: August 24, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 49 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Studio: Paramount Pictures

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, British Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with Nudity

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The Sunshine Boys (1975)

Posted on January 2, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Comedians try to reunite.

Wily Clark (Walter Matthau) is an aging comedian from the vaudeville era who’s now in his 80’s and finding it hard to find work. His nephew Ben (Richard Benjamin) acts as his agent but signing Wily to acting gigs proves challenging due to Wily’s disagreeable manner. Al Lewis (George Burns) worked with Wily when the two where in their prime and known as The Sunshine Boys. ABC wants to reunite the two for a TV special, but Wily resists insisting that he can’t work with Al again due to petty grievances. Ben though gets the two together in Wily’s apartment for a rehearsal of their old skits, but fighting immediately breaks out. They then pair up again for the TV special under the condition that neither has to talk to the other outside of the skit, but when Wily falls over with a heart attack things take a serious turn. Will Al be able to reconcile with Wily before it’s too late?

This is another hit Neil Simon play that hasn’t aged well. At the time it was best known for having George Burns, who hadn’t been in a movie in 36 years, and his subsequent Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actor, which he received at age 80 that was a record for oldest recipient until broken 14 years later by Jessica Tandy. My main gripe though is more with characters. Matthau is alright, though he was only 55 when he did the part, but still looked adequately old, but the person he plays is unlikable. Supposedly he wants acting gigs but makes little effort to get to the auditions on time, or memorize his lines while expecting his stressed-out nephew, whom he belittles and berates constantly, to do all the legwork. It’s really hard to feel sorry for someone who doesn’t put in the effort and he’s rude and boorish at every turn. The movie tries to play this off as just being a part of old age, but it really isn’t. The guy has a huge attitude problem for any stage in life, and it becomes a big turn off. The viewer could’ve sided with him more, or at least little, had he been trying his best and just coming up short and would’ve created a far more interesting dramatic arc had his only option back into the business would be pairing with Al and the internal efforts he’d have to go through to get along with him to make it work versus having his nephew desperately do all the attempted repairing, which isn’t as interesting.

The reasons for their feud are inane and hinges on minor issues like Al apparently ‘spitting on’ Wily whenever he says a word that starts with ‘T’ or poking him in the chest during a moment in their skit, but you’d think if they had been doing this routine for 43 years that Wily would’ve brought up these grievances already. Al seemed quite reasonable, so why does Wily feel the need to stew about it and not just call it to his attention? The story would’ve been stronger had there been a true gripe to get mad at, like Al stealing away Wily’s wife or girlfriend, or signing some big movie deal without Wily’s knowledge that made Al a star while Wily got left behind. All of these things would make anyone upset and create a better dramedy on how the two would be able to reconcile, but these other ‘issues’ that Wily has are just too insipid even for a silly comedy.

Spoiler Alert!

The film also lacks an adequate payoff. There’s this big build up for this TV special, but then it never gets past the rehearsal phase. It climaxes with Wily lying in bed in his cluttered apartment treating his nurse, played by Rosetta LeNoire, just as shabbily as he does everyone else and having learned nothing. I was surprised to by all of these get-well cards and telegrams supposedly by his fans and other celebrities. Would’ve been more profound if Wily received no well wishes and thus gotten him to realize that he was truly forgotten and this would then force him to reassess his selfish nature and commit to treating people better, which unfortunately doesn’t occur, and the character learns nothing.

Since it’s revealed that Wily and Al will be spending the rest of their lives in the same actor’s retirement community it would’ve been nice to show them doing their skits in front of an audience of other seniors, but the film misses the mark here to. There’s no real finality or journey, just constant rhetorical bickering and a running joke dealing with Wily unable to unlock his apartment door from the inside “don’t push it, slide it”, which gets old fast.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: November 6, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 51 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Herbert Ross

Studio: MGM

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Comedy, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

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