Category Archives: 80’s Movies

On the Edge (1986)

Posted on August 7, 2024 | Leave a comment

ontheedge

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Disqualified runner enters race.

Wes (Bruce Dern) was at one-time a star, long distance runner who ended up in 1964 being banned from competition after calling out the secret practice of paying amateur athletes under-the-table. He’s now nearing 40 and wants to take one last stab at entering the grueling Cielo-Sea cross-country race and hires his old coach, Elmo (John Marley), to help him train for it. The runners are much younger than him by a couple of decades, but they’re aware of his history and look up to him. Unfortunately the race organizers still use what he did in the past against him and refuse to allow him to enter, but Wes decides to join the race anyways illegally, which forces the organizers to try and knock him out of it as the race is going on and being broadcast live.

Surprisingly for a movie that is so little known and hard-to-find the quality isn’t bad. Director/writer Rob Nilsson conveys some wonderful bird’s-eye shots of the climactic race including seeing the runners going along a winding route as it scales a high hill, which is dramatic and exciting. The character building and his personal mission is fairly well done and the strenuous preparation that he must go through to get ready for the race is handled in a way that makes it quite vivid for the viewer. After watching what he must go through you feel as mentally and physically drained as he does especially the shots showing the things from the runner’s point-of-view as they bound down the rugger trails with the camera tied directly to their bodies.

Dern, who was at one time a long distance runner himself and actually ran the race that gets depicted here, which in real-life it’s called the Dipsea race the oldest race run in America, back in 1974, does a fine job though his dialogue is limited and I missed-out on some of his patented, ad-libbed ‘Dernisms’. His character is marginally interesting though in a lot of ways not all that well defined. There’s no real explanation of what he’s been doing for the past 20 years that he’s been away from the sport and the film makes it almost seem like he’s been wandering around as a vagabond all that time. It would’ve been interesting had we seen him stuck in some boring office job and his secret longing to ‘break free’ and do something, no matter how high the odds, that he felt passionate about, which would’ve helped the viewer get more into his mission that is otherwise emotionally lacking.

It would’ve been intriguing too had he been married with a family and the wife was not in agreement to what he was doing, which would’ve added some extra dramatic conflict. Instead we get treated to his casual relationship with Pam Grier, who’s a marvelous actress in her own right, but here is mostly wasted. She pops in and out almost like a fantasy character who’s dialogue is limited, so we learn little about her as a person, and their semi-erotic love-making is cheesy. Their moments together was considered so inconsequential that the distributors cut-out her scenes entirely for the theatrical release only to restore them for the DVD version, but overall they really don’t add much.

The movie is only marginally captivating for the first third, but it does become more appetizing when it finally gets to the actual race.  I’ve never seen a race movie where the person we’re meant to be rooting for isn’t even supposed to be in the event in the first place. The attempts by the organizers to ‘take him down’ and literally drag him out via physically tackling him, or at least trying to, at various points in the race, are memorable particularly as they fail each time. My only gripe is that the other runners intervene to protect him, which I wasn’t sure was completely plausible. After all he wasn’t wearing a number, so it was obvious he shouldn’t be there, and he was competing with them for the title, so one less person would better their chances, so why not allow him to be taken out? Of course there is a scene earlier where Dern hitches a ride and everybody inside the van, made up of young runners who recognize him and even treat him as a sports hero, could explain that he was idolized by his competitors and therefore decided to stick-up for him, but in the moment where you’re only focus is winning you’d think some of them might not care what happens to him and more concerned about getting to the finish line and not doing anything that might slow them up.

Spoiler Alert!

The film ends with the seven runners all holding hands as they cross the finish line. While some could consider this novel, as most movies dealing with competitions will rarely celebrate a tie, it still seems hard to imagine that all seven of them would, in the spur-of-the-moment, agree to share the prize and there wouldn’t be at least one of them who would take advantage of it and run out in front at the last second in order to achieve all the glory and money, or at least lean his head out to get that ‘photo finish’. Maybe having one, or two hold hands and agree to finish it together might come-off as passable. It’s Dern who slows up to let the others catch-up to him, so they might be grateful that he let them share the spotlight, but let’s face it there’s always a black sheep in every bunch who for selfish reasons, these are athletes conditioned and trained to win after all, who would attempt to exploit the situation making the final image too romanticized for its own good.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: May 2, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Rob Nilsson

Studio: Skouras Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD (Out-of-Print)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Sports Movies

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Hold-Up (1985)

Posted on July 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

holdup

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Robber disguised as clown.

Grimm (Jean-Paul Belmondo) has come-up with what he considers to be an ingenious plan. He will rob a bank disguised as clown with two of his friends, Georges (Guy Marchand) and Lise (Kim Cattrall). While he’ll be a clown the other two will pretend to be bank customers and then when he agrees with the Police Commander Simon (Jean-Pierre Marielle), whom he is negotiating with via phone, to release some hostages he’ll let Georges and Lise ‘go’ and no one will know the difference. Meanwhile Grimm will take-off his clown disguise and put on a new one as an old man while pretending that the clown is still inside holding the rest of the bank employees and customers at gunpoint. By the time the police catch-on that there’s no longer any clown the three hope to have escaped on a plane and be far away. While the robbery works without a flaw the getting on the plane part becomes a major, if not impossible, challenge.

The story is based on the novel ‘Quick Change’ by Jay Cronley, which 5 years later was made into another, better known movie that starred Bill Murray. This was a French production that was filmed on-location in Montreal, Canada and one of the few movies that starred Belmondo that didn’t do well financially back in his home country and in-fact it was the first staring vehicle of his that didn’t crack the top 10 of highest grossing movies of that year, which was the first for him since 1976 when L’Alpagueur achieved only 19th place.

Belmondo is certainly a legendary actor whose long and storied career deserves to be admired, but I didn’t care for him here and felt his presence actually brought down the whole movie. He was apparently quite admired behind-the-scenes amongst the cast and crew and he did all of his own stunts including a scene where he climbs out of a moving car and manages to slither his way, while the vehicle is still going at high speeds, onto a tow truck and he did this while already being in his mid-50’s. However, his character is overly cocky and his glib conversational interplay between he and the police chief does not come-off as funny and more like you side with the chief and want to see this arrogant man caught. You’d think someone who had never pulled-off a robbery before would be much more nervous, or at least display some signs of anxiety, so his unbridled confidence seems completely out-of-place with the situation he’s in.

If anything I enjoyed Marchand and Cattrall far better as these two seemed much more human and displayed the insecurity you’d expect. They were like regular people full of foibles and someone you’d actually want to root for and thus I felt the movie would’ve been greatly improved had it just focused on the couple doing the robbing and cut-out Belmondo’s part completely. I also didn’t think the clown disguise worked as unlike in the American version his whole face isn’t covered with white paint and instead simply uses a red wig, a red clown nose, and some eyebrows, which I didn’t feel would be enough to hide his true identity and witnesses could’ve easily recognized who he was outside of the clown get-up and thus the whole disguise thing ends-up defeating its own purpose.

The first act works pretty well with shades of Dog Day Afternoon and some offbeat moments to the bank robbery theme by having one scene where the hostages are forced to get in a circle and sing a rendition of ‘London Bridges Falling Down’. The second and third acts though become protracted and seem to be the start of a whole different movie altogether. The bank segment has a crafty, sophisticated tone where the humor has a satirical bent and the main characters seem smart, savvy, and cool. In the second half the movie suddenly becomes like a live action cartoon with an abundance of car chases and the three leads, who had seemed so clever at the beginning, quickly become inept at seemingly every turn.

The biggest problem is the Lasky character played by Tex Konig. Konig is a big bearded guy that resembles Bluto from the old Popeye cartoons who’s also a tow truck driver who wants to get his hands on the stolen money and chases the three all around the city, which leads to many car stunts and crashes. Some may enjoy the smash-ups, but it comes across as unimaginative filler by filmmakers that didn’t know how to end the story cleverly, so they came-up with a lot of mindless action in order to keep it going.

The infighting between Cattrall and Marchand seems unnecessarily added in as well. This animosity needed to be introduced right at the start in order to make it consistent with the plot and not just thrown-in later to add some conflict for the sake of conflict. You’d think too that if she really resented the guy she would’ve refused to go ahead with the robbery unless someone else took his place.

Having the story then end with the three going to France and then Italy just furthers dilutes the plot, which no longer resembles a robbery flick at all, but more of a jet setting one. While not perfect the remake, which came-out in 1990, fares better in just about all phases.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 23, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 54 Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Alexandre Arcady

Studio: Cinevideo

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Foreign Films, French Films, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Canada, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Robbing Banks

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Jinxed! (1982)

Posted on July 22, 2024 | Leave a comment
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Version 1.0.0

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Blackjack dealer is cursed.

Harold (Rip Torn) is a gambler who can never seem to lose whenever he goes up against one Vegas blackjack dealer in particular, Willie (Ken Wahl). In fact Harold’s winning streak versus Willie becomes so extended that it gets him fired and he’s forced to find a similar job in Reno. Harold follows him up there and Willie’s losing ways start all over again. His supervisor (Val Avery) doesn’t think Harold is doing anything unethical and instead becomes convinced that he’s put some sort of jinx on Willie and for Willie to end it he needs to get something of Harold’s. He drives out to Harold’s isolated trailer where he resides and realizes he has a wife named Bonita (Bette Midler) who also happens to be a lounge singer. She’s sick of dealing with Harold’s abusive ways and makes a deal with Willie that they kill him and then spend the proceeds of his life insurance payout afterwards.

The movie is appropriately titled not so much for what occurs onscreen, but more with what happened behind it. The story was based on the Frank D. Gilroy novel ‘The Edge’, which was published in 1980 and then had the screen rights sold for $300,000. While Gilroy wrote the first draft it was then handed over to David Newman who did a second rewrite and from there passed onto Jeremy Blatt who did a third version before director Don Siegal and Bette Midler began doing further revisions until Gilroy finally asked for his name to be taken off the credits as the plot no longer resembled anything from the book.

The real issue though started with Siegel who was at odds with the leading lady and then eventually became stricken with a heart attack where he ceded directing reins to Sam Peckinpah who completed many of the remaining scenes uncredited. Star Wahl also found getting along with Midler to be difficult and the two feuded throughout making no secret of their disdain for each other even after the shooting was long completed.

From my standpoint the biggest problem was the casting. Midler can be a funny lady, but not in this type of role. She’s known for her snarky, brash, and outgoing personality, but here plays someone who’s shy and pensive something that just doesn’t connect with who she is at all. Maybe she wanted to step out of her comfort zone and that’s why she took the role, but she doesn’t play it convincingly and thus it’s hard to get into. Wahl isn’t up to the demands of being a leading man and it’s no wonder he retired from the business in 1996. His delivery is flat and nothing that he says, or does is engaging. He has a few amusing lines here and there, but overall seems to be phoning it in and the romantic moments between him and Midler come-off as clearly awkward and out-of-place.

There were a few elements that I did like. It captures the rustic side of Nevada quite nicely and not just Vegas, but also Reno and the rural portion of the state. You also get to see an actual, in fact there’s two of them, $10,000 bill, which the fed no longer prints making it the coolest moment in the whole movie. Torn also gives a energetic performance and could’ve put on a clinic for the other two if they had paid attention. Though during his character’s death scene he does blink his eyes and make some brief facial gestures when Midler kneels beside him and slaps him making it seem like he really wasn’t dead even though technically he was. There’s also a few too many shots of his hairy butt crack, which I didn’t particularly care for. A funny scene done inside an adult bookstore, where director Siegel gives himself a cameo as the porn shop clerk, which I found to be a highlight.

Spoiler Alert!

Unfortunately the third act veers off in a weird way where Midler goes on a scavenger hunt using cryptic letters that her deceased husband wrote her before he died, which as critic Roger Ebert describes in his review of the film, ‘paralyzes’ the movie. If anything Wahl should’ve gone along with her as they follow the clues, which might’ve strengthened their chemistry and made them seem more like real couple who could work together to solve things instead of these two individuals doing things mostly on their own.

There’s also no explanation for what exactly was causing the whole jinx thing. Supposedly the luck as it were was coming from the cigars that Torn was smoking, and which Midler later does as well, but why would these cigars bring good luck? Normally smoking cigars can’t help one win at blackjack, so what secret cosmic power did they possess, so that it made a difference in this case? There’s no answer either as to who Torn was calling on his pay phone outside of the trailer he lived in after he lost to Wahl and was now broke. It made it seem like he was conspiring, or in connection with someone else, or maybe some sort of behind-the-scenes organization, criminal or otherwise, and the film should’ve made it clear what this was about, but ultimately doesn’t.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: October 22, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Don Siegel

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity

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Eye of the Needle (1981)

Posted on July 7, 2024 | 8 comments

eye

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Spy infiltrates isolated family.

Henry (Donald Sutherland) is a German spy stationed in England during WWII, who comes upon an airplane site that he thinks is the Allied commandment post for the eventual invasion of Normandy, but upon closer inspection he finds out that the planes are all made of wood and the place is simply a decoy. With this information he tries to charter a U-boat to get back to his homeland, so he can hand his findings directly to Hitler and thus potentially change the course of the war. Instead his boat gets hit by a storm and crashes on the beach of Storm Island. Only four people reside there including Tom (Alex McCrindle), a lighthouse keeper and owner of a 2-way radio, which Henry needs to communicate back to Germany, as well as a young family made up of Lucy (Kate Nelligan), her husband David (Christopher Cazenove) and their 5-year-old son Jo. The family allows Henry to stay in their home while he recovers from his accident.  Lucy is sexually frustrated because on their wedding the couple got into a terrible car accident, which has left David paralyzed and unable to perform in bed. Henry catches onto to Lucy’s despondent situation and soon becomes her lover, but David suspects Henry of being a spy and the two have an ugly confrontation, which sends the situation for all those on the island to go spiraling out-of-control.

The film is based on the 1978 novel ‘Storm Island’ by Ken Follet, with the script staying pretty faithful to its source material. The story though kind of acts like two movies in one. The first half almost fully focuses on Henry’s spy exploits with lots of action and thrills while the second-half settles into being more of a subdued romance. Watching Sutherland playing this cold-blooded killer willing to callously off anyone that even slightly gets in his way without any remorse when for most of his career he played peace-loving hippie types, or at least that’s what he’s best known for, makes for an interesting contrast. It also shows as opposed to James Bond movies how being a spy can be a very lonely and unglamorous endeavor where a person is forced to constantly be on the run and can rely on no one, but themselves.

Spoiler Alert!

The shift during the second act where the tone becomes more of a drama doesn’t work as well. I couldn’t understand why Henry, this spy on-the-run and under extreme stress, would suddenly pick this time to get into a romance with a perfect stranger that he’s known for less than a day. If he wants to try and exploit the situation to feign romance so she will let down her guard and possibly defend him when and if the authorities arrive then fine, or maybe he’s just looking for some cheap sex to unwind him, which I could understand also. However, being in extreme survival mode where the welfare of himself and his top secret film are of the uppermost importance and then suddenly to pick this time to get sidetracked, and put himself in a an evermore and needlessly vulnerable position by trying to start-up and an affair while also simultaneously hiding-out made absolutely no sense.

I couldn’t buy into Lucie openly admitting her painful marriage to a perfect stranger either, which she candidly divulges to Henry less than 24-hours after first meeting him. Most people have pride and ego and thus won’t want to admit the harsh truth about their lives when somebody, in this case Henry, exposes it to them. They instead would want to ‘keep up appearances’ and maybe even become defensive, or resentful of someone they don’t know bursting into their home and openly telling them unflattering things about themselves and yet here Lucie melts completely when Henry confronts her about her flawed union and gushes out all the personal details like he’s her own personal therapist, which happens too quickly to being even remotely believable.

Spoiler Alert!

The affair angle didn’t seem necessary anyways since during the third act when she finds out he’s a spy she goes after him violently without any pause. You’d think if she had been intimate with him she might want to ‘hear his side of things’ or consider escaping with him from her dreary life instead of her immediate response being that he’s the mortal enemy.

With all this said I did like the climactic foot chase where Lucie goes after Henry with a gun alongside this rocky cliff ( in the book she throws a stone at him, but the shooting gun makes it more dramatic). Yet even this and some of the other twists that come about during the third act aren’t as effective as they could’ve been because all of the secrets are given away right from the start and instead having it start out in the cottage, where the relationship between Lucie and Henry could’ve taken more time to be realistic, and where Henry’s true identity wasn’t known upfront would’ve made what happens at the end more riveting, shocking and even profound, which with the way it gets done here doesn’t fully gel.

There’s also some problems on the technical end. The music is way too loud and at times obnoxious to the point it becomes heavy-handed and could’ve easily been left out altogether. The scene showing Henry chasing after Lucie who’s driving away in a car gets badly botched. The faraway shots of him running are okay, but the close-up, showing him from the waist up, looks like he’s jogging on a treadmill. The scene too inside the lighthouse where Lucie unscrews a lightbulb in order to insert a key into the socket and cause the fuse to blow looks phoney because if she were handleling a live bulb bare handed, as she does, she would’ve flinched and even let out a bit of a yelp from the scorching heat, but instead she doesn’t.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: July 24, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 52 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Marquand

Studio: United Artists

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Spy/Espionage

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Butterfly (1982)

Posted on July 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

butterfly

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Family has genetic birthmark.

Jess (Stacy Keach) takes care of an unused mine outside of a small Arizona desert town. One day Kady (Pia Zadora) shows up at his doorstep. Jess doesn’t recognize her at first, but then realizes she’s his 17 year-old daughter the product of his marriage to Belle (Lois Nettleton) who abandoned him 10 years earlier for another man named Moke (James Franciscus). She is pregnant by a man who refuses to marry her, so she  wants to steal silver from the mine that Jess protects in order to help her financially with the child who’s on the way. At first Jess disapproves, but Kady uses her provocative body and looks to essentially seduce him and get him to relent. However, a local man named Ed (George Buck Flower) witnesses their stealing from the mine as well as their lovemaking later on, which gets them arrested for incest.

The story is based on the 1947 novel ‘The Butterfly’ by James M. Cain, who at the time was an immensely popular author, who had many of his books made into movies, but due to the controversial nature of this one it had to wait 35 years until it finally went to the big screen. He was inspired to write the story when years earlier, in 1922, he got a flat tire while driving through a mountainous area in California and a farm family that had moved there from West Virginia helped him fix it, but at the time he speculated that the young daughter they had with them was a product of incest.  The movie makes several deviations from the book. In the book Jess was the overseer of a coal mine and the plot took place in West Virginia while the Kady character was 19 instead of 17.

While the plot has some tantalizing elements, and on the production end it’s well financed, the whole thing comes crashing down due to the really bad performance of its lead actress. Zadora at the time had done only one other film before this one, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, which was universally lambasted. It probably should’ve killed anyone’s career who had been in that, but she continued to struggle on in the business. Then in 1972 while performing in a small role in a traveling musical show, she caught the eye of a rich businessman named Meshulam Riklis, who was 29 years her senior. The two began dating and eventually married in 1977. Her new husband was determined to make her a star even if it meant buying her way in. He put up the entire $3.5 million budget for the film while demanding that she be placed as the star forcing director Matt Cimber to cast all the other parts around her. Riklis even put up big money to help get her promoted to winning the Golden Globes Newcommer of the Year Award, but all of this didn’t get past the critics, or audiences who rightly saw her as undeserving of all the attention and while she did a few other movies after this, which were equally panned, and even a few music videos and singing ventures, she is overall largely forgotten today and hasn’t been in a movie in 30 years.

To some extent her performance isn’t completely her fault as her character is poorly fleshed-out, which is my main gripe. I just couldn’t buy in that this chick on the verge of adulthood would be so extraordinarily naive that she’d come-on to her own father and not see anything wrong with it. First of all why is she sexually into her dad anyways as majority of girls tend to want to go for guys their own age and if not there has to be a reason for it, which this doesn’t give. In either case she should have some understanding that the rest of society doesn’t condone this behavior nor having her aggressively flirt with literally any guy she meets. The fact that she’s so blissfully ignorant to the effects of her behavior made her not only horribly one-dimensional, but downright mentally ill. Sure there’s people walking this planet that harbor some sick, perverse desires, but virtually all of them know they’re taboo and not dumb enough to be so open about, or if they do they learn real fast. Having her unable to understand this, or never able to pick-up on even the slightest of social cues is by far the most annoying/dumbest thing about it.

Keach, who gives a good performance and the only thing that holds this flimsy thing together, has the same issue with his character though not quite as bad. The fact that he doesn’t even recognize his daughter at first is a bit hard to believe. Sure he left the family 10 years earlier, but that would’ve made her 7 at the time and although she has clearly grown I think she’d still have the same face. He gives into his temptations too quickly as at one point he massages her breasts while she’s in the tub. Now if he weren’t religious then you could say he didn’t care about the taboos and had been living so long alone that he’d be happy to jump at any action he could irregardless if they were related, but the fact that he goes to church regularly should make him feel guilty and reluctant to follow through. In the book he’s portrayed as fighting these internal feelings by turning to alcohol, which is the way it should’ve been done here as well.

The eclectic supporting cast does make it more interesting than it should. Orson Welles caught my attention not so much for his role as a judge, but more because of his wacky combover. James Franciscus, who usually played sterile good guys is surprisingly snarly as the heavy and Stuart Whitman has a few good moments as a fiery preacher though even here there’s some logic loopholes that aren’t explained like how did he know Kady was Jess’ daughter, which he mentions while at the pulpit much to the surprise of Jess as he hadn’t introduced her to anybody.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: February 5, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 48 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Matt Cimber

Studio: Analysis Film Releasing Corporation

Available: DVD-R

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Second Thoughts (1983)

Posted on June 25, 2024 | Leave a comment

second thoughts

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Lawyer considers an abortion.

Amy (Lucie Arnaz) is in a relationship with Will (Craig Wasson) a former political activist who found out trying to change the world was too difficult, so now he settles for just being a street musician, who at times gets in minor skirmishes with the law and needs Amy’s assistance as she’s also a lawyer. Amy then also gets ‘hired’ by her ex-husband John (Ken Howard) to represent him in his divorce from his second wife that’s really a ploy to try and get back together with her. Will and John know each other when Will applies for a loan from a bank that John manages though neither of them know about either of their relationships with Amy. Then Amy gets pregnant and considers an abortion. John is fine with her decision and even agrees to drive to the hospital while Will sneaks into the facility and kidnaps her in an attempt at preventing it from happening.

This was the second movie directed by famed producer Lawrence Turman whose first foray behind-the-camera was 12 years earlier with Marriage of a Young Stockbroker, which was panned by most critics though I found it interesting. This one got savaged as well and for the most part rightly so. The main issue is the disjointed tone that starts out as a drama with a TV-Movie of the week theme and then by the second act slides over into becoming an offbeat comedy. The unimaginative title and misleading movie poster, which makes it seem like two horny adults frolicking around, which it isn’t, was more than enough to confuse potential audiences and keep them away and thus lead it into being a financial disaster at the box office with a very limited release before falling off into complete obscurity.

To its benefit it does have some unique moments. The segment where Will puts a dead fish into the bank’s safety deposit box as revenge for them not giving him a loan and then stinking up the place to the point that they bring in a whole bunch of cats in order to sniff out where the odor was coming from is commendable. I also enjoyed Lucie’s attempt to escape from the isolated cabin that she’s in, where she’s handcuffed to a bed, by trying to drag the entire bed frame down the stairs, which could’ve been played-up more. I also got a kick out of the scene where John’s ex-wife, played by Ann Schedeen, threatens his beloved potted plants, even holding one ‘at gunpoint’ unless he agrees to pay for her cosmetic surgery.

Unfortunately Lucie Arnaz’s performance kills it. She had the option of either doing this one, or Poltergeist, and decided on doing this because she felt it lent her greater dramatic work, but in the end she should’ve gone with the other one as that has obtained a cult following while this one is completely forgotten. Her character is too much of a composite of the modern career woman. There’s nothing unique, or interesting about her and thus you never get emotionally invested in her journey and if anything find the times she is on the screen to being the film’s most boring moments.

Wasson has been lambasted on this blog before with the other movies he’s been in and his appearance here proves no exception. He’s supposed to be playing an American Indian, but doesn’t look the part at all and somebody with an actual Native American ancestry should’ve been given the role. The songs that he sings, many of which have a ragtime quality, I found to be just as annoying as his acting and his character isn’t likable. The way he holds this woman against her will until she agrees to have ‘his baby’ I found genuinely creepy. Now of course if one is on the Pro-Life side of the fence maybe they’d consider what he does to be ‘heroic’, but while having a civil debate on the issue and him voicing his concerns on why he feels she shouldn’t terminate the pregnancy is fine, but then confining someone to a small room against their will is where I feel he takes things too far and is no longer just this benign guy with good intentions.

The film’s ultimate message becomes a murky as its tone. Initially I thought with the casual way that the abortion option gets discussed that this was a typical liberal minded film with a pro-choice sentiment, then by the third act this all seems to get reversed especially with the female doctor character played by Peggy McCay. She has performed abortions before, but now is reluctant to do it on Arnaz while using the excuse that she no longer ‘feels comfortable’ with it, which seemed to be the filmmaker’s attempt to insinuate that abortion doctors know what they’re doing is ‘wrong’ and ultimately start to feel guilty about it afterwards.

There’s another doctor played by Arthur Rosenberg, who has no qualms performing abortions, but is also portrayed as being incredible callous and obnoxious. At first I thought this was just done for misguided comedy, but eventually it seemed that this was the filmmaker’s way of trying to show how doctors that do this type of procedure without an regrets are ‘bad and crass’ people inside and his constantly rude demeanor was just a way of ‘exposing’ this.

In either case both sides will get alienated by it. A pro-lifer won’t want to sit around watching a movie that at the beginning seems to be taking a different viewpoint  just to wait until the very end when it then seems to finally come around to their position. Pro- choice people will dislike the movie for the exact opposite reason and therefore you have to wonder what type of viewer this movie was meant to attract as I can’t think of anyone that would like it.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: February 6, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Lawrence Turman

Studio: Associated Film Distribution

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies with a Hospital setting, Obscure Movies

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Let it Ride (1989)

Posted on June 19, 2024 | 2 comments

let

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Betting at horse racing.

Jay (Richard Dreyfuss) along with his friend Looney (David Johansen) are two struggling Miami cab drivers. One day Looney, who secretly records discussions that his passengers have while in the backseat of his cab, overhears a tip by two men of an upcoming horse race. He passes on the recording to Jay. Jay has not had much success in betting and has even promised his wife Pam (Teri Garr) that he will quit, but he can’t pass up this opportunity and places a wage on the horse that had been discussed. It turns out to being a photo finish in his favor and he spends the rest of the day making more bets by using all of his winnings as his wagering. Soon, he finds himself getting richer and richer even as his wife comes to the track in an effort to get him to stop. Will his luck hold, or run out?

Probably the best thing about the movie is the acting particularly by Dreyfuss, who’s known for playing aggressive, snarky types, but here comes-off as surprisingly sympathetic. You genuinely feel for the guy and his need to win at something and has one comically touching moment where he kneels at the toilet of a grimy bathroom stall and prays/pleads to God for a break. Garr, who reunites with Dreyfuss as the two starred 10 years earlier in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where they also played a husband and wife, is equally engaging though while seen right at the start disappears for quite awhile only to reappear briefly during the second act where it would’ve been better had she remained in it all the way through.

In support Johansen, better known as Buster Poindexter the lead singer of the punk band the New York Dolls, is amusing as Jay’s ever losing friend and Robbie Coltrane has some great reaction moments as the ticket seller. Jennifer Tilly almost steals it as a voluptuous vamp while Allen Garfield gets in a few funny quips as her Sugar Daddy boyfriend. A young Cynthia Nixon, wearing braces, can be seen as a underage girl trying to sneak in a bar with a phoney ID though her part doesn’t have all that much to do with the main plot and Michelle Phillips, singer from the Mama’s and the Papa’s, as a rich women who comes onto Jay at a luncheon.

The story, which is based on the 1979 novel ‘Good Vibes’ by Jay Conley, starts out well. I enjoyed the way it captures the working class life of Miami versus the usual glossy look at the chic neighborhoods of the area. All the actors including the stand-ins and those milling about in the background have a very ordinary, everyday quality, which nicely captures how people, who sometimes have very little money, will still flock to the track in a desperate attempt to ‘make it big’ even though it rarely ever happens. The shooting, done on-location at the famed Hialeah Park Race Track, one of the oldest in Florida, is terrifically done and you feel like you’re right there standing next to the track as the horses go thumping by while kicking up clumps of dirt.

The tone though is inconsistent. Instead of remaining this character study with a slice-of-life quality it instead skewers into becoming a camp comedy. Case in point comes when Jay gets arrested for mistaken identity, but still makes a mad dash to place his bet, which gets filmed in a sped-up fashion including having him crash through a wooden door with a cartoonish flair that’s jarring and out-of-place. It also gets highly exaggerated as in only one day’s time everyone at the track gets to know Jay and cheers him on, which is too quick of a turnaround for such a thing to realistically happen.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending leaves much to be desired as Jay just continues to win and win until his earnings amount to over $600,000 (or $2 million in today’s dollars), but what is causing him to have such a streak of luck? Did God really answer his prayers, or is some other mystic source at play? Everyone knows that you end up losing more than you win at gambling and a winner’s luck will eventually run-out at some point.  Showing a guy who never was good at gambling before without having earned it like learning some special skill, or insight, makes for a flimsy and fanciful movie. Getting lucky on one bet, maybe even a really, really big one that beats long odds, which is how the movie should’ve played it, might happen, but having him just continue to ‘get lucky’ with no explanation is too exaggerated and doesn’t show the harsh downside, which if you’re going to do a story about gambling in any type of realistic way, needs to be shown as well.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: August 18, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Joe Pytka

Studio: Paramount

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in Florida, Sports Movies

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Six Weeks (1982)

Posted on June 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

sixweeks

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Young girl has leukemia.

Patrick Dalton (Dudley Moore) is running for political office in the state of California when he becomes lost while trying to find his way to a political fundraiser where he is to be the keynote speaker. He stops to ask a young girl, Nicole (Katherine Healy), for directions and the two strike-up a conversation. He invites her to the fundraiser and finds that she’s the daughter of Charlotte (Mary Tyler Moore) who is the wealthy owner of a cosmetic company. Initially Charlotte is frosty towards Patrick convinced he’s just another opportunist politician. Nicole though grows very fond of Patrick and volunteers to work on his campaign. Charlotte, after seeing how much her daughter likes Patrick, even agrees to give him a generous donation, which he initially rejects until he learns that Nicole has been diagnosed with leukemia and has only a short while to live. This causes Patrick to become quite close to Charlotte and Nicole and he begins visiting them frequently much to the concern of his wife Peg (Shannon Wilcox) who thinks he’s having an affair.

Hard to find much to like about this shallow tear-jerker that was based on the novel of the same name by Fred Mustard Steward. I did though like seeing Dudley, who also composed the film’s score, in a rare dramatic turn. He’s best known for his comedy, but even when he was at his goofiness I still detected a serious side to him and this role here brings that out quite well. I did though have issues with the marriage angle as I felt the wife gave up too easily. She does show-up at a party that the three others are at in an attempt to make them uncomfortable, which it does, but I felt she should’ve created more of a scene. This was done in an era where putting up a veneer of civility was expected even when it was with people who shared intense feelings towards each other, but these days there’s jilted women out there that don’t take kindly to those that are out to ‘steal their man’ and could lead to some very public catfights, which could’ve given the film a lively energy as well as making the viewer more sympathetic to Dudley for leaving her as she would be better deemed as a ‘psycho’. Yet the way the film does it here you’re actually sympathetic to the wife and Dudley, as noble as his intentions are, comes off looking a bit like a cad for literally just abandoning her and getting with the other two essentially full-time.

I was confused too why this didn’t hurt him politically. If I’m his opponent and I catch-wind that he’s been seen regularly with another women that’s not his wife I use it to my advantage to crush him in the polls with it, or this is something his wife could’ve done by tipping off to the press that he was seeing someone else in order to ruin his bid and get back at him, yet none of this occurs. What’s the point of having him be in politics if it’s not going to be used to enter in some potentially delicious dramatic conflicts? Might as well have him being a bland accountant since him as a politician doesn’t really add much, or make that much of a difference to what happens.

Healy, who as of this date is the only theatrical film she’s been in and much better known for her ballet work, is fantastic and shows a lot of poise for someone who never acted in a movie before. I enjoyed her worldly-wise character who despite her age shows a keen awareness to many adult topics, which I appreciated. Kids can be far more observant about things than many adults would like to think, so I was glad she wasn’t played-up to being cute, but painfully naive. I did though feel her protruding, poorly spaced teeth should’ve been straightened with braces and was surprised that her mother, being as rich as she was, hadn’t had that done.

Her leukemia that she’s supposedly suffering from is problematic as she goes through the great majority of the film showing absolutely no symptoms of it. She states that she’s refused treatment, so I guess that could explain why her hair doesn’t fall-out, but I’ve known people who’ve suffered from the illness and it takes a toll on one’s energy to the point that they become bedridden as it progresses and yet here she shows nothing but boundless energy and even dances on stage without any signs of exhaustion near the end. It got to the point that I started to wonder if she was faking being sick and I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking the same thing.

The casting of Mary Tyler Moore, who won the Razzy award for her work here, was a real mistake. Although she was only 45 she looked more like she was 55 and too old to have a daughter that wasn’t yet even in high school. She shows at times quite a cold demeanor making the way she melts away and falls for Dudley seem too quick and forced. Watching the two walk side-by-side where she’s clearly way taller than him makes it resemble a mother walking her son than a couple and thus has the romantic angle visually look even more odd and awkward than it already is.

I was confused too about who this girl’s father was. I have never read the book of which this is based, so maybe it gets talked about there, but here it’s never mentioned. I would think that even if she was a product of a painful divorce her father would still want to see her especially if he knew she was dying. Even if it was just a passing fling that the mother had year’s ago it would be presumed that Dudley would be curious about it and at least ask since he was essentially taking the father’s place with his presence.

Having the Dudley character ‘pull some strings’ in order to get Nicole to perform onstage in the New York Ballet at the last minute was too fanciful to be believed. The other cast members would resent that they would have to rehearse for weeks, even months and years, just to get the opportunity to be on the show and yet this kid gets whisked into the lead, at the sacrifice of someone else, all at the last minute. I admit I liked seeing the Nutrcracker production, but having Nicole already a part of the cast, but afraid due to the onset of the disease she might not be able to do it when it became time for the performance, and having some overly ambitious understudy ready to take over if she couldn’t, would’ve made more sense and been more interesting drama.

Spoiler Alert!

The death scene has got to be one of the lamest I’ve ever seen. Again, she spends virtually the entire movie showing no outward signs of any problem and then while on a subway car she starts feeling ‘weird’ and then a few seconds after that she promptly falls over dead, which was so corny it was almost like the movie makers were begging the viewers to make fun of it.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: December 17, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 48 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Tony Bill

Studio: Universal Pictures

Available: Amazon Video, Tubi, Freevee, YouTube, VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Obscure Movies

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Checking Out (1989)

Posted on June 4, 2024 | Leave a comment

checking2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Man becomes a hypochondriac.

Ray (Jeff Daniels) is a middle-aged father who suddenly experiences deep concerns about his health when his boss (Allan Havey), who’s the same age as he is, drops over dead from a heart attack while at a backyard BBQ. His increasing paranoia about being sick, or potentially dying soon puts a strain on his marriage and his whole life gets essentially put on-hold as he constantly goes in and out of doctor visits over any perceived malady that comes-up.

The film certainly had big-name talent behind it as it was directed by David Leland, who got critical acclaim just a year before in his directorial debut with Wishing You Were Here while the screenplay was written by Joe Eszterhas who wrote such hits as Flashdance and Basic Instinct. However, while the film show flashes of interesting potential, even visually creative moments where Daniels, in a dream segment sees himself getting buried in a grave inside his children’s bedroom while the kids look down on him as the dirt gets shoveled over him, it never fully comes together as a whole. The tone shifts from satirical to sitcom and the concept becomes like a one-joke that gets stretched too far. Leland had promised Eszterhas that he wouldn’t change a thing from his script, but then added in several subplots, which angered Eszterhas to the point that he threatened to have his name removed from the credits, so Leland took out the extra sequences, but I’m almost wishing he had kept them in as it might’ve made the movie more interesting.

The one element that really sinks it is the overreaction by Daniels to his boss dying. For one thing the boss was a total jerk that did nothing but spew out corny jokes, so having him suddenly collapse dead, while saying yet another one of his eye-rolling quips, should’ve been a source of celebration and not dread, which might’ve actually been funny. What’s more is that Daniels immediately starts worrying about his own health, which seemed too rash. If his other friends were also dying suddenly then maybe, but just one guy dropping-over didn’t merit such a panic. Maybe the boss had some underlying heart defect that went undetected and that was the cause of his collapse, but either way it shouldn’t have caused such a drastic change in Daniels’ personality. Only if Daniels had already had some concern about his well-being previously, which he doesn’t, and then this incident brought those deep-seated fears to light would it have made sense. Even if it just meant paying better attention to his diet, but going to such extremes so quickly makes him seem like a completely different person.

The humor is too subtle and there’s long, boring segments in-between where nothing funny even happens only to answer it with a light one-liner. The running gag where Daniels becomes obsessed to find out what the answer is to why Italians can’t have barbeques, which was the joke his boss was saying when he suddenly died, gets overdone. The character arch is handled awkwardly as Daniels gets super hyper about his perceived maladies only to by the second act forget about it and then suddenly go back to being a hypochondriac again when his therapist dies, which makes the story seem like it’s not working in a linear fashion by ping-ponging the character from one goofy personality to the next.

Daniels is excellent and the one thing that keeps the movie watchable. I also enjoyed seeing Melanie Mayron, who up to this time had only played young adult women, getting her first stab at portraying a  middle-aged housewife, she even sports a suburban hair-style, and veteran character actor Allan Rich is quite good too as Daniel’s exasperated doctor. Elderly actor Ian Wolfe, who’s second-to-last movie this was, has a few key moments as an old undertaker who Daniels keeps bumping into at indiscriminate moments.

Spoiler Alert!

However, as interesting as the eclectic cast is they can’t overcome the otherwise mish-mash of the shallow script. Even the twist ending, which features Daniels dreaming that he is dying and going to heaven is forgettable as there have been too may other movies that have featured the afterlife in a more interesting and humorous way.

Watching Daniels then wake-up out of his dream and speed out of the hospital in his wheelchair ready now to take-on life again doesn’t really make it seem like the character grew, or learned anything, but more like a bland family man who went crazy for awhile until he finally snapped out of it. A much better way to have ended it would’ve had Daniels wheeling himself out the hospital door only to then get hit by an ambulance. This would’ve conformed better with the film’s otherwise darkish undertone and been a better payoff. It might’ve even made sitting through the rest of it seem worth it.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: April 21, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated R

Director: David Leland

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD

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If You Could See What I Hear (1982)

Posted on May 11, 2024 | Leave a comment

ifyou

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Blind man finds love.

Tom (Marc Singer) is a young man attending college who also happens to be blind due to being a premature baby and put into an incubator that had too much oxygen. He meets up with Sly (R.H. Thompson) and the two become fast friends and eventual roommates. Both go on the prowl for women with Tom having the better luck as he soon gets into a relationship with a black woman named Heather (Shari Belafonte) though when he proposes marriage she bails. He then has flings with many other women that he meets at a bar where he works at, but when he meets Patti (Sarah Torgov) he begins to fall in-love despite their differences as she’s a staunch catholic while he’s an atheist.

The story is based on the early life of Tom Sullivan who became a famous songwriter and singer during the 70’s, he even sang the National Anthem at Superbowl X, as well as gust starring in several popular TV-shows of that era though today probably not that many people would know who he is. Marc Singer, best known for having starred in The Beastmaster as well as the 80’s TV-miniseries ‘V’, is also a casualty of that period and not real well known outside of those who lived through the decade. Why Singer was even cast I’m not sure as Sullivan clearly had acting experience and I would’ve thought he could’ve played himself and it might’ve been a better movie had he done it.

Story-wise it comes-off as comical vignettes spliced together and hardly seems believable, or at the very least highly exaggerated. Sullivan is given too much of a bigger-than-life vibe as where ever he goes everyone immediately gravitates to him and he becomes the life-of-the-party.  When he does seem to get into trouble he’s able to easily get out of it in circumstances that others wouldn’t. For instance he gets stopped by the police for driving a car without a license or vision, something that would get anyone else a ticket, fine, and arrest especially when his car does end up causing damage, but here the cops just shake their heads in a bemusement and walk away. He also jumps off a boat in the middle of a deep lake without a life jacket and unable to spot the life line that gets thrown to him and yet miraculously he gets out of this pickle just fine too. He’s even able to play golf against opponents with vision and beat them at their own game even catching them when they try to cheat. It’s like the guy can never lose.

The romantic/sex angle gets handled in an equally glossy way. He has a Fonzi-like quality with hot women clinging to him like he’s a magnet. Bimbo blondes and other babes prance in an out of his rented bedroom on an almost nightly basis to the point I was stunned when one of them refuses to go up to his room. This is only because she was ‘catholic’, but then after awhile she ends up doing it with him anyways with the brief delay being caused by her ‘morality’. It’s like his handicap is never a factor and in some ways almost an asset.  Some may argue this is a good thing as it shows a blind person can still live a normal life, but I don’t think there’s anything ‘normal’ here as even a good-looking sighted man isn’t able to score as frequently and consistently as this guy.

Spoiler Alert!

I have nothing against cute. Sometimes a cutesy moment or two in a movie is a good thing and can help bring in a lighthearted mood, but when it gets done constantly throughout it becomes like eating an entire carton of ice cream, which may be good for awhile, but will eventually make you puke. Even when it does finally get serious, which doesn’t occur until 90-minutes in, when he tries to save a young girl whose fallen into a backyard pool, it gets botched. Supposedly this is based on Sullivan’s true-life incident where he saved his own daughter from drowning, but I have a strong feeling the logistics were changed from the real one as here we see the girl floating lifelessly for several minutes making it look like her lungs were filled with water and beyond saving.

Of course there will always be those that may like it. There’s one commenter on IMDb who states she used to watch this over and over back in 1983 when it was on HBO and really loved it though if she went back to it now she might I suspect see it in a more critical way. Siskel and Ebert, who could never agree on anything, both voted it the worst movie of 1982.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: April 23, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Eric Till

Studio: Citadel Films

Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)

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Posted in 80's Movies, College Life, Comedy/Drama, Foreign Films, Movies from Canada, Obscure Movies, Romance

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