Category Archives: Movies with Nudity

The Funhouse (1981)

Posted on October 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richrd Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Terror at the carnival.

Amy (Elizabeth Berridge) is a teen who goes out on a double date with her new boyfriend Buzz (Cooper Huckabee) along with her friend Li (Largo Woodruff) and her boyfriend Richie (Miles Chapin). Despite her reluctance, and promising her parents that she wouldn’t, she goes along with the three to the traveling carnival that is in town. While there Richie comes up with the idea that they should spend the night in the funhouse as a dare. The four sneak into the attic, but then witness, through the cracks in the floorboards, one of the carnival workers, who wears a mask to hide his hideously deformed face, kill Carmelita (Sylia Miles) the fortune teller. When the funhouse barker (Kevin Conway) realizes they’ve witnessed it, as well as stolen their money, they go after the kids, who are now trapped.

While the plot has some intriguing elements and the pacing manages to keep things creepy, I did feel that the creativity was lacking. Nowhere is this more evident than the opening bit where Amy’s kid brother attacks her with a rubber knife while she’s in the shower that is a complete rip-off from both Psycho and Halloween. The storyline is bland and predictable. I was hoping for something more surreal like they go into the funhouse and all these freaky things begin to happen to them and then find themselves trapped inside and forced to fight off a mysterious demonic power.

The killer that is named Gunther and played by Wayne Doba I didn’t find scary at all. He wears a Frankenstein mask most of the time and then when his true hideous face is exposed it really wasn’t the shocking moment that I think the filmmakers had intended. Despite being created by noted special effects artist Rick Baker I felt it looked very much like a plastic mask that just didn’t seem all that grotesque. You also feel somewhat sorry for the guy. Like he’s someone who’s been mistreated and not necessarily fear. In Larry Block’s original script Gunther was shown raping and killing another couple who had come to the funhouse earlier. While this would’ve been much more violent, I think it would’ve also heightened the tension. It’d make clear right from the start that this was a dangerous guy with bad intent instead of sitting around for the first 30-minutes not knowing exactly what’s going to happen, or even who the true villain is.

The acting is good all-around especially Berridge who has a natural beauty and behaves the way a shy, awkward teen would, and you feel bonded to her emotionally. In fact, for me the scariest part of the whole film, and the most memorable, is when she sees her parents at the carnival, while she’s trapped in the funhouse, and she scream out to them for help, but they can’t hear her due to the large electrical fan.

Spoiler Alert!

The supporting cast is good too as each of the teens has a distinct personality and avoid for the most part as coming off like caricatures. Miles Chapin plays the guy that just keeps getting the group in more and more trouble. First, he’s the one that comes up with the idea of spending the night there, then he steals the money, which makes the barker want to go after them and then it’s his lighter that falls through the floorboard cracks that alerts everyone to their whereabouts. He was such an idiot that when his dead body, that has an ax through the back of his head, comes wheeling by, I felt the remaining three should’ve cheered it instead of being horrified. At least when he’s dead, he can’t get them into any more of a mess.

Conway is excellent and so is Sylvia Miles, who at the time was the most well-known member of the cast. I loved the moment where she’s giving this fake psychic reading and her accent changes midway through. Having her get killed though was a real disappointment as keeping her working alongside the two men to get the kids would’ve made it more interesting. I didn’t feel the scenes where Gunther pays her to have sex with him and then prematurely ejaculates was even needed. Just having the kids steal their money would’ve been enough motive to have them chased down.

In 2017 writer Larry Block was able to buy back his screenplay in an attempt to produce a remake that would stay more loyal to the way it was originally written. I think it’s worth a shot as this version misses-the-mark though there’s been no updates about it since then.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: March 13, 1081

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Tobe Hooper

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Horror, Movies that take place in Florida, Movies with Nudity

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The Last House on the Left (1972)

Posted on October 3, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Road leads to nowhere.

Mari (Sandra Peabody) decides to go out to a rock concert with her friend Phyllis (Lucy Grantham) to celebrate her 17th birthday. On the way they decide to pick-up some dope and find a young man named Junior (Marc Sheffler) standing outside on the porch of a New York townhome. Phyllis asks him if he has any marijuana to sell and he invites them inside where they meet Sadie (Jeramie Rain), Weasel (Fred Lincoln), and Junior’s father Krug (David Hess). Unbeknownst to the girls these four have all escaped from prison and are dangerous killers. The ‘family’ soon overpowers the girls and takes them hostage into their car where they drive them to a remote forest in Connecticut. It is there that Krug forces them to play humiliating and sadistic games before eventually raping Mari and then killing them both. The four then change outfits and seek refuge in a nearby home, which to their surprise resides Mari’s parents (Richard Towers, Eleanor Shaw). Initially the parents invite the four in believing their story that their car broke down and simply looking for a place to sleep. However, during the night the parents become aware that these people have murdered their daughter, and they plan a violent revenge.

This film is considered by many to be a landmark as no film before this had ever been so violent or graphic, and it set a whole new bar for horror films that followed. At the time though most critics deemed it exploitive and gave it bad reviews with the exception for Roger Ebert who lauded it for its intensity and realism. Today it remains controversial with some deeming it a classic while others like horror novelist Stephan King calling it a ‘crapfest’. This also includes several cast members, like Rain, Lincoln, and Peabody, who have regretted their involvement and openly labeled it ‘the worse movie ever made’ The film though does have some good points, but is greatly affected by being directed by a young Wes Craven, who at the time was a novice behind the camera having only worked as a film editor on a soft core porn flick before this, and thus he approaches things in an extremely heavy-handed manner where the film’s tone shifts wildly from being brutal one minute and comical the next.

I remember watching this for the first time when I was 18 and being highly disturbed by the scenes shot inside the forest to the extent that I was affected by it for several days afterwards as it made me feel like I witnessed an actual murder, which no other horror movie had ever done before or since. A lot of the reason for this is that it gets highly drawn out. Most scare flicks have the killings occur in quick fashion where one stab of the knife is enough for the victim to go down easily, or the gore is presented in such an over-the-top way that it becomes cartoonish and thus entertaining. Here though it’s played up in a more realistic fashion where the victim’s make an effort to fight back and even try to escape but are eventually overpowered. When they’re stabbed, they don’t immediately die but instead suffer in pain for quite a while. The cutaways showing Mari’s dog barking loudly on a leash as she is killed hits home that these are like real people with real lives and families that care for them and not just the generic character types that make up the usual horror film and for this reason alone the film deserves credit for going deeper into the dark ugliness of violence and how it truly is ending someone’s life.

On the negative end the ‘comic relief’ scenes involving the bumbling sheriff (Marshal Anker) and his deputy (Martin Kove) was ill-advised and takes away from the grittiness. The soundtrack, composed by Hess, runs hot and cold. The opening song done over the credits, ‘The Road Leads to Nowhere’ has a haunting quality and is effective, but the up-tempo bluegrass music hurts the building tension and should’ve been excised. The news report that the girls listen to while driving in the car where it describes Krug and company having escaped from jail and him killing a couple of nuns and how Sadie is ‘animal-like’ comes-off more as unintentionally funny and I don’t feel was needed. The situation could’ve just been a drug deal gone wrong, which happens all the time, and having to incorporate a backstory to the villains doesn’t enhance the story, or plot.

The third act, which features the bad guys getting invited into the parent’s house is quite awkward as well. For one thing just because their car has broken down shouldn’t mean that they must spend the night. Why not just give them access to their phone so they can call for a tow truck? Allowing them to sleep in Mari’s bedroom didn’t make sense either. At this point they still didn’t know their daughter had been killed and for all they knew could be showing up at any second and she wouldn’t be too happy about finding these grubby strangers in her bed.

Why didn’t the parents call the police when they realized that they had murderers in their home as that would be the normal response of most people? Granted the cops were buffoons so maybe that made them believe they would have to take matters into their own hands in order to get things ‘done right’, but there should’ve at least been a conversation regarding this before deciding to immediately go ahead with the blood bath.

I also didn’t get why Krug and his ‘family’ needed to pretend to be civilized anyways. They certainly made no attempt to hide their evil instincts from the girls, so why not be the same way with parents? They could’ve easily broken into the home with their guns drawn and tied up the couple and then while ransacking the place they’d come upon pictures of Mari and realized that it was the home of her parents. Krug could’ve even taunted them about this. Then the enraged parents could’ve figured out a way to free themselves and set the process in motion for the revenge.

Spoiler Alert!

Having the mother feel the need to perform fellatio on Weasel as way to get back at him was pretty ridiculous too. How many middle-aged, surbanite mothers out there would be willing to put a stranger’s dick in their mouth that’s been lord knows where, she doesn’t even make him wash it first, when stabbing him with a sharp kitchen knife would’ve been so much more convenient?

End of Spoiler Alert!

With all this said the film still has enough working for it and broke enough ground that it deserves its place in movie history. Sure, it’s lost a lot of its edge, and jaded horror fans of today may even wonder what the fuss is about but for its time it was definitely shocking and paramount in helping to usher in the modern horror elements we know today.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: August 30, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 24 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Wes Craven

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Pluto TV, Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Horror, Slasher/Gore, Remakes, Movies with Nudity, Rape/Revenge

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M*A*S*H (1970)

Posted on September 7, 2026 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rebellious surgeons break rules.

In 1951 during the Korean War Frank Pierce (Donald Sutherland), who goes by the nickname Hawkeye, arrives at the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as their new surgeon. He gets placed in a tent with Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), but the two don’t get along due to Frank’s religious zealotry, so he gets transferred to another tent. Hawkeye then gets placed with another new surgeon nicknamed Trapper John (Elliot Gould) and the two, with their irreverent sense of humor and non-conforming ways, immediately become best friends. Not only do they break most of the rules, but they also routinely play pranks on others with their biggest ones being on Frank who falls for Margaret (Sally Kellerman) who is a head nurse.

The film, which is based on the 1968 novel ‘MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors” by Richard Hooker, which in turn was based on his experiences as an Army doctor during the Korean War, gets largely overshadowed by the TV-Series, which ran for 11 seasons and has become a huge cult hit. In retrospect I actually like the movie better. Robert Altman’s direction where conversations and actions overlap helps to give the setting a realistic kinetic feel where nothing seems staged. While I could’ve done without his patent whistling I still liked the portrayal of the Hawkeye character better here. In the series Alan Alda played him as a very talkative, loud, and opinionated person that dominated every scene he was in while here the character is more like just one of the guys that occasionally pushes-the-envelope, but only because he, like everyone else there, is a victim of the bleak circumstances that they’re in. This also has a much better balance between the humor and drama. The show had a tendency to get preachy but the movie manages to make the occasional serious point, but still overall remains consistently funny.

On the negative side it’s highly anachronistic with the characters behaving too much like it’s the late 60’s instead of the early 50’s almost like they’re a bunch of stoned, ‘free love’ hippies who found a time machine and decided to go back 20 years. While the sexual escapades are amusing it does tend to get one dimensional. Everyone is portrayed as being a sex maniac with no inhibition or restraint. Having some not engage, either because they just weren’t that into it, or wanting to remain faithful to their spouses/ romantic partners back home, would’ve given it a better balance and certainly been more realistic for the period.

Having Hawkeye immediately mock Frank when he wants to pray seemed off too. Granted there were atheists and non-religious people back then, but they tended to be in-the-closet as religion was still the dominant cultural force. If Hawkeye and crew got annoyed later on when Frank attempted to let’s say ‘convert’ them then it would be understandable, but upfront I’d think he’d not be so aggressive with his disdain and might even politely play along a bit, especially since he had just arrived there and wouldn’t know who else he’d be offending with his off-handed comments.

It’s all very disappointing the way Frank gets written out halfway through. I really liked the way Duvall played the role. On the TV-series the Frank character was a benign snobby dimwit that was constantly the butt of all the jokes and couldn’t do much about it, but here Duvall plays the part with an aggressive, even menacing edge that would’ve made him a great nemesis that should’ve allowed him to stay all the way through. Also, it’s a bit ridiculous that he gets put into a strait jacket after he has a confrontation with Hawkeye. Many people can and do get into fights and are not immediately deemed ‘insane’ because of it. If anything, he should’ve been handcuffed along with Hawkeye since it was Hawkeye who goaded him into it.

The Hot Lips character is another disappointment. Initially I thought she was great as her haughty ways helped give the proceedings some conflict, but then halfway through she does a complete Jekyll and Hyde. Initially she hates the place and just about everyone in it, even becomes a victim to a cruel prank, but then later during the big football game she’s seen on the side lines as a cheerleader aggressively rooting for them to win the game when logically you’d think she would be pulling for the other team.

Apparently, the movie’s logic is that since it gets revealed that she’s been having sex with Duke, played by Tom Skerrit, that this then ‘changed’ her. She’s now ‘liberated’ and no longer frigid/uptight, but it’s too drastic a switch that only further adds to the film’s overblown concept that sex can somehow ‘solve everything’.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: January 25, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 56 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Altman

Studio: 20th Century Fox

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

 

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Buddy Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity

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Rancho Deluxe (1975)

Posted on August 28, 2026 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Modern day cattle rustlers.

Jack and Cecil (Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston) are two drifters who don’t work an actual job and instead rustle cattle and use the meat that they take from that to help pay for the basic things that they need. John (Clifton James) is the ranch owner who’s tired of seeing his cattle routinely mutilated and determined to find those who are responsible. Curt and Burt (Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Bright) are his ranch hands who John puts in charge to find the culprits, but they end up being of no effect despite them knowing that Jack and Cecil are behind it. After his prize bull gets kidnapped and he’s forced to pay a large ransom to get him back, he hires Henry (Slim Pickens) a legendary detective in cattle rustling to finally solve the case, but Henry proves, at least initially, to be just as inept and oblivious about the crimes as everyone else, which further frustrates John.

This was the first screenplay written by the prolific and irreverent writher Thomas McGuane, his second script 92 in the Shade, was also shot in 1974 during the fall of that year while this one was done in the spring and early summer. McGuance directed the other one himself while Frank Perry helmed this one and having an established Hollywood director behind the chair makes all the difference here particularly the cinematography by William A. Fraker that captures the majestic, mountains landscape of the big sky country, which was done on location in Livingston, Montanna becoming the first of many movies that would be shot there.

Like with McGuane’s other works it’s his offbeat, wry humor that keeps it entertaining and helps it stand out. There’re some truly original comical moments that had never been done before or since making this film even after being around 50 years still come off as fresh and inventive. Some of the best moments are when Bridges and Stanton play a game of Pong while having a discussion, which was apparently something they both did of lot of during breaks in shooting, so Perry decided to work it into the story. The shot of the bull inside a hotel is funny too though there’s no explanation for how they were able to get him in there without being detected, which could’ve heightened the comedy had it been shown. There’s also the scene where Bridges and Waterston have a sex orgy with their girlfriends and then the next morning get caught while still naked in bed by the girl’s elderly relatives, which I consider the best moment in the movie.

The dialogue has a wonderfully quirky quality working off non sequiturs and weird tangents like when out-of-the-blue Waterston asks Bridges if he believes in the tooth fairy, or when John’s wife, played by Elizabeth Ashley, asks him if he regrets selling their beauty parlor business while he busily frets about tracking down the rustlers. The best though is when Slim Pickens goes off on a rant involving a dream, he had as a slave in ancient Egypt while John tries giving him the latest updates on the case.

The characters and their goofy contradictions help compliment the absurdity. Bridges and Waterston are especially fun, some may even say this is a precursor to the character he played in The Big Lebowski, as a happy-go-lucky drifter with no direction in life, which they equate as being ‘free’. Even after they get put into the prison, they still have the same carefree mentality proving that state-of-mind is everything. James is also quite fun as the cantankerous rancher who’s always quite confident despite being wrong on everything. Stanton and Bright good too as dimwits who think they’re in on the game only to end up getting played badly. I also enjoyed Patti D’Arbanville who plays Bridges girlfriend Betty. She shows a very wild side with her sexual nature and drug use, but in reality, she’s most likely going to be spending the rest of her life in this small inconsequential town and working the same mundane job we see her doing at the beginning. Having her provocatively dance around while getting drunk and just before she partakes in the orgy is in a lot of ways her final act of rebellion before the clutches of the conventional life, whose claws I suspect she senses are already on her horizon, fully traps her in.

Unlike other movies the residents of this small town aren’t portrayed as being sheltered or cut-off but instead shown as being just as jaded as any urbanite if even more so. It also examines how the ways of the old world have been completely taken over by the attitudes and mores of the modern era where even the rural folk, at least the younger ones like the two sisters, compete to see whose ‘hipper’ and more with the times while wanting to avoid any association of the bygone era of their elders.

My only two complaints are the interior segments done inside John’s ranch home as the rooms came off as cramped and echoey. John was supposedly a rich man, so I wanted to see a house that exuded this with high cathedral ceilings and gaudy decor. Also, having Bridges and Waterston able to retrieve the $50,000 ransom money after kidnapping John’s bull, was too easy. I don’t feel John, or anybody else for that matter, would be willing to let go of their money quite so graciously especially to a couple of crooks. He should’ve either gotten the police involved to set a trap or done it himself by lying in wait at a careful distance with binoculars and waiting to see who comes to retrieve the briefcase full of money and then chasing them down when he spots them, which doesn’t occur, but logically should’ve.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: March 14, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Frank Perry

Studio: United Artists

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

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Cult, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Quirky

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The Traveling Executioner (1970)

Posted on May 29, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Paid to execute criminals.

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

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

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

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

Spoiler Alert!

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

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

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 1, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jack Smight

Studio: MGM

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

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

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Lifeguard (1976)

Posted on May 7, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Considering a career switch.

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler Alert!

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

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 23, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Daniel Petrie

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Amazon Video

 

 

 

 

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

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Slap Shot (1977)

Posted on March 24, 2026 | 4 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Winning by playing dirty.

Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman) is the aging player/coach of the Charlestown Chiefs a minor league hockey team that’s struggling both in the standings and attendance. Things get even worse when the town’s steel mill goes out of business laying off over 10,000 of its workers. With no one able to afford watching games the team is set to go defunct. Then Dunlop comes up with an idea to attract attention by instilling the Hanson Brothers (Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson, David Hanson). into the game. The Hanson’s come off like harmless bespectacled nerds, but when they get on the ice, they become a terror by physically beating up the competition in any underhanded way they can. This soon brings fans back and Dunlop hopes this might lead to a sale of the team to sunny Florida and in fact he plants this idea into the local newspaper, but when Dunlop finally does meet the team’s actual owner (Kathryn Walker) she tells him of other plans.

The screenplay was based on writer Nancy Dowd’s brother’s experiences playing for a minor league hockey team in Johnstown, Pennsylvania where the film was actually shot. He would call Nancy up on an almost nightly basis telling her of things that happened, which routinely had him getting beaten-up, which she found ‘sort of fascinating’ and lead to her traveling with him during the season. She started taking notes of the different things she witnessed much of which occurs in the movie including players going into the stands to attack obnoxious fans and fights breaking out before the game evens started.

While the film has become a major cult classic it did only moderately well at the box office when first released. Critics at the time derided the violence and ‘foul language’ as well as the ‘one-dimensional characters’. In Gene Siskel’s case he initially described it as a ‘failure’ only to have him years later watch it again and then call it a ‘terrific film’. What I think the critics missed was that it’s really not about the players, but instead the fans. People living bleak lives working humdrum jobs and how sports can help them escape their otherwise boring lives and the violence they watched at the games was a way for them to vent their frustrations and aggressions and thus acted as a way for them to ‘bond’ with their team.

The best aspect about the movie is Paul Newman who took a big risk doing this as many of his loyal fans, who had started watching him in the 50’s, were turned off by his character’s constant swearing  though I felt this was to his benefit as it allowed him to attract younger fans broaden is acting repertoire. It’s also quite realistic as most athletes really do talk that way and this was one of the first sports films to display that in all of its uncensored glory. However, the most amazing part of his performance is how he plays somebody that could very easily be quite unlikable and in a lot of ways it’s downright shocking how many things he can get away with and still come off as the ‘hero’, or in this case the ‘anti-hero’. Most other actors would flunk at this, but Newman’s able to give this guy an engaging flair that keeps you wanting to cheer for him and see him succeed even as he sleeps around with married women, tries desperately to break-up the marriage of his star player, aggressively promote dirty play even when some of his younger players seem hesitant, and tell off his team’s owner in what has to be one of the most vulgar, politically incorrect lines ever put on film.

My only two complaints with the character are that he’s surprised when the town factory closes when the younger player bets it will, but since Newman’s older it should’ve been him that predicted the closure as he would’ve had more life experience to know that nothing lasts forever while the youthful one would’ve had the wide-eyed optimism. He also wears some goofy looking outfits like plaid pants, elevator shoes, and even a fur coat. Granted these were stylish for the times, but a basic blue-collar guy like him wouldn’t be up on all the fads and would most likely be laughed out of the building by his friends when he walked in wearing some of the stuff that he does.

As for the film’s moral message that seems dubious. It’s almost like saying cheating and violence are good as things continually get better for the team and Newman personally the more it’s inserted into their play. I also felt that the Ned character, played by Michael Ontkean, is a very weak protagonist and besides sitting out games in protest of the fighting does very little. There should’ve been more confrontations between he and Reggie and more attempts to persuade the others not to continue the dirty play. He also treats his wife Lily, played by Lindsay Crouse, who’s wonderful, quite shabbily and I don’t feel he deserved to ‘win’ her back and the tacked-on ‘happy ending’ where they get back together doesn’t jive because if he displayed bad behavior once it’s most likely going to come back at a later point because that’s what’s in his nature.

On the comedy end it’s near perfect. Certainly, the Hanson brothers get most of the laughs, but not so much for their ice antics, but more for their compliant behavior off of it where they display the upmost respect for the coach and team protocol and even play with toy cars during their free time. The person I felt was the funniest was the toupee wearing announcer played by Andrew Duncan, who has no problem with the outrageous fights, but sternly draws the line when it comes to stripping. To a later extent Paul Dooley equally good as the opposing team announcer and also M. Emmet Walsh, who gets so involved in the latest news of the team that he ignores his squabbling children.

The only part where it doesn’t fully work is at the end where the other team brings in their ‘goon squad’ to take on Newman’s guys but the supposed ‘brutes’ come off looking severely aged and silly. It kind of hurts any possible tension when you can plainly see that this young squad could take these old guys, who might’ve been threat 20 years ago, but resemble beer belly 50-year-olds now. The film should’ve cast young muscular men in the parts, which could’ve then instilled a legitimate fear from the other side.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: February 25, 1977

Runtime: 2 Hours 3 Minutes

Rated R

Director: George Roy Hill

Studio: Universal

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Cult, Movies with Nudity, Sports Movies

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Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (1971)

Posted on February 26, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Ahead of his time.

Based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Richard Farina the story follows Paps (Barry Primus) who attends college in the ’50’s but behaves more like someone out of the 60’s and finds it challenging dealing with the rigid mind set of the other students. He gets into a relationship with Kristin (Linda De Coff) but it ends in acrimony when he refuses to meet her parents whom he deems part of the WASP establishment. He eventually gets in with Heff (David Downing) and Jack (Susan Tyrrell) who dabble in drugs and convince him to travel down to Cuba just as the Cuban revolution gets underway, which leads to tragic results.

While the novel did have some humor this film has none, which really hurts it. The expectation would be for a lot of irreverence but shockingly that doesn’t come and instead it’s talky that drones on and doesn’t lead anywhere. The opening bit has some comedy as Paps comes onto and makes out with his attractive young new landlord, played by Marian Clarke, but even that flubs because it brings out the sexually carefree culture of the late 60’s, but since this is supposed to be the 50’s it’s out of place and doesn’t help to establish the staid setting that our main character is supposedly feels imprisoned by.

Farina, who sadly died in 1966 just 2 days after his book got published, had far more interesting experiences in real life attending Cornell University during the late 50’s where he befriended fellow classmate Thomas Pynchon and got suspended for getting involved in student protests, but nothing like that gets shown here. At one point Kristin accuses Paps, during one of their spats, that he does nothing but sit around and waste away and that’s the absolute truth. He’s not actively propelling the action and seems like he’s dropping out of his own movie. I was expecting more lively confrontations between he and the other students, but outside of a few snarky comments this never comes to any adequate fruition. The scenic, tranquil landscape, filmed on location in Meadville, Pennsylvania, is the film’s only asset, but otherwise it stagnates badly.

There are a couple of good moments. One involves actor James Noble playing a priest who is duped into coming to Paps room in order to ‘cure’ him of his ‘deadly illness’, which is funny particularly Noble’s tiny pocketbook of candles and crosses that he brings out in order to perform the ‘last rites’. The painting of an ape that scares Paps while he has a drug trip has some diverting camera work though would’ve been better had the ape come to life though with the special effects capabilities of that era it would’ve been difficult. De Coff, who did just one more movie after this before retiring from the business to become an ordained minister, is really refreshing especially her appealing face, which is attractive but without the glossy Hollywood look.

It’s interesting seeing young stars before they were famous including Raul Julia, John P. Ryan, Susan Tyrrell, Zack Norman as a drug dealer, Nicholas Hammond who later became famous for playing Spiderman, and pop music composer/singer Paul Jabara. Bruce Davidson also gets featured in a small bit, but I was surprised he wasn’t made the star since he had a prominent role in Last Summer, which was released before this one was produced, and looked more age appropriate since he was in his 20’s while Primus was already 32. Either way the script doesn’t bring out these co-star’s talents effectively and their presence doesn’t lift the film out of its otherwise deadening pace.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: September 15, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jeffrey Young

Studio: Paramount

Available: Amazon Video, YouTube

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, College Life, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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The Dream Team (1989)

Posted on February 20, 2026 | 3 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Lost in New York

Dr. Weitzman (Dennis Boutsikaris) is a psychiatrist working at a mental hospital who decides to take four of his patients on a ‘field trip’ to watch a Yankees baseball game. The four patients consist of: Billy (Michael Keaton) who suffers from violent impulses, Henry (Christopher Lloyd) who thinks he’s a doctor, Jack (Peter Boyle) who imagines he’s Jesus Christ, and Albert (Stephen Furst) who can only communicate through baseball terms. Things start out okay, but then Dr. Weitzman witness two corrupt cops (Philip Bosco, James Remar) murdering someone and this leads to him being knocked unconscious. With no one to lead them it forces the four to work together to not only find help but also justice for their doctor all while doing it inside the big, scary place known as New York City.

The first act is too reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and it doesn’t help things that Christopher Lloyd was in that one too, which does nothing but make you want to watch the original and skip this one completely. The humor is too mild, you might chuckle a bit, but there’s never any laugh-out-loud moment. The doctor is also too damn benign. What made the other one so interesting was that Nurse Ratched, the supposedly ‘normal’ one, was just as goofy, maybe even more so, as the patients she was overseeing and ‘helping to cure’ and it would’ve been nice had this doctor also had some unique aspect versus being so painfully blah.

The biggest issue though it that these guys really aren’t all that ‘dangerous’. Sure, they suffer from delusional traits but nothing that necessarily screams that they need to be institutionalized. In Keaton’s case he comes off as downright rational and only needing therapy in anger management. The rest too are quite gentle and could easily exist, with proper medications, in an outpatient setting and the film should’ve approached it that way. Instead of playing it like this trip was their ‘only’ chance to see the outside world again it should’ve been the first of what could be many trips that would hopefully allow them to reacclimate into society.

The trip thing has some intriguing potential, but ultimately losses its edge when it’s revealed that these characters lived and worked in the city before they had their breakdowns and can easily find their way around as evidenced by Henry going back to where he lived and Jack visiting his old job. Having these guys come from a small town to a big, massive city they’d never been to would’ve offered more challenges and comedy. It’s also confusing why the doctor’s identity isn’t known and he gets placed in the hospital as a ‘John Doe’ because he should’ve had his wallet on him, I don’t remember seeing it stolen by the corrupt cops, and therefore his driver’s license would’ve said who he was.

Spoiler Alert!

The mystery aspect where no one believed their story about the corrupt cops, I actually liked, but everything gets resolved too easily. For one thing I didn’t like Keaton’s girlfriend, played by Lorraine Bracco, playing an integral role in getting the bad guys caught as this was the four’s story and therefore it should’ve been solely up to them to find a solution. Having them get caught and temporarily thrown into jail only to escape was unnecessary and only helps to slow down the pace. There’s also a major loophole in that the four end up ‘disguising’ themselves as doctors in order to get access into the hospital and yet earlier their faces were shown on a televised news report, so most assuredly somebody would’ve seen that broadcast and recognized them and thus their ‘charade’ would’ve come to an end before it ever got going.

The ending is confusing too in that the four are allowed to go on a second field trip, but this time all by themselves without any supervision. What’s to say they’ll ever come back and if they are deemed ‘sane’ enough to go out on their own then why are they even institutionalized in the first place?

End of Spoiler Alert!

On a side note, you get a glimpse of Peter Boyle’s naked buttocks and while I’ve mentioned in other reviews of seeing Dabney Coleman’s and Tim Matheson’s bare ass and considering those to be two of the finest, I did feel Boyle’s deserves nomination as being one of the worst.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: April 7, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 53 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Howard Zieff

Studio: Universal

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

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Road Movies

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Stripes (1981)

Posted on February 9, 2026 | 5 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Losers join the army.

John (Bill Murray) works as a cab driver but is getting tired of putting up with obnoxious passengers. He sees an ad on TV about joining the army and convinces his friend Russell (Harold Ramis), who’s also unhappy with his line of work, to take up the offer. The two though find basic training to be far tougher than they thought particularly under the command of drill instructor Sergeant Hulka (Warren Oates) of which John doesn’t get along with and they end up having a one and one confrontation while inside the toiletries.

It seems amazing while watching this movie now how much things have changed as at the time this was considered a ‘raunchy’ flick, but in retrospect outside of a brief minute of flashing tits, and a mud wrestling segment, is very tame and PG rated material. It also goes very soft on the army aspect. This was shot during the era when there was still simmering discontent with the Vietnam War, which had just ended five years earlier and it was hip in many films of the era to poke fun of the military and yet this film doesn’t really do that. Sure, there are some over-the-top characters like Larroquettes, but overall, it’s surprising balanced portrait where if anything it’s Murray that learns the hard lesson that it’s best to keep your mouth shut, or pay the price, in this case the ever-mounting number of push-ups he’s forced to do when he smarts off. In some ways it’s a good portrait of what happens when differing personalities clash and how the ones that are more disciplined, or those that learn to take it on, ultimately win out.

Murray is as always highly engaging and his smug, party boy persona never seems to get old, but the story was originally intended for Cheech and Chong who could’ve been even funnier. My main complaint with Murray is he doesn’t really change and remains the same glib slacker that he was at the beginning though I did like the moment he gets punched in the stomach by Oates, which for Murray was his very first dramatic bit. The opening segment though in which he drives his cab erratically through the city streets in an effort to ‘get back’ at a crabby passenger (played by Fran Ryan) gets overdone as it put other innocent drivers at risk and would’ve gotten him arrested. Also, he and Ramis should’ve had their hair cut just as short as the other recruits as the army is all about uniformity and no one gets any special break.

Ramis is splendid in support even though director Ivan Reitman didn’t want to hire him due to Harold’s lack of acting experience and that his audition didn’t go well, but with Murray’s insistence he came on board and it’s a good thing. Mainly because he doesn’t compete with Murray for laughs, and in fact isn’t clownish at all and thus making him the most relatable. Oates is solid too though nowhere near the intensity that R. Lee Emery would’ve been, but still I liked his nervous facial tics. However, his character gets injured at one point and then gets seen with bandages around his arms and hands, but then during the third act these all disappear and he’s perfectly fine again, but I felt for the sake of continuity he should’ve remained bandaged.

I enjoyed too that the women here aren’t portrayed as bubble-headed beach blondes, but instead sensible people who aren’t afraid to be in control as evidenced by P.J. Soles and Sean Young, who looks really cute and was apparently cast simply for her looks alone. My only complaint though is that as Military Police they should’ve remained with the upper hand all the way through. Not letting down their guard and ultimately allowing the men to take charge. There still could’ve been the flirting and sex, but with the women calling the shots and the men playing along.

In support it’s fun seeing the young faces of up-and-coming stars including Conrad Dunn, who later became famous for his work in the soap opera ‘Days of Our Lives’, as a guy named Francis who threatens to do violence to anyone who dares call him that as well as Joe Flaherty as an inept border guard, Judge Reinhold as a would be drug smuggler and Timothy Busfield, in his film debut and looking downright boyish, as a soldier who fires a misguided mortar shell.

John Larroquette is quite good too in his first major role, in fact I felt the scene where he’s playing with toy soldiers inside his office to be the funniest moment. Unfortunately, his egotistical personality doesn’t get played up enough as I would’ve liked to have seen a showdown between him and Murray, which never happens. Also, his date looked too much like Murray’s former girlfriend, and I actually thought it was the same women, and they should’ve cast one as a brunette and the other a blonde, so we could’ve told the difference.

Spoiler Alert!

I was ready to give this 7 points, but the third act, which director Reitman later described as ‘an embarrassment’, ruins it.  While I’m all for giving the thing some action the way it goes about it is all wrong. Initially I thought it would be the other recruits going to war against Murray and Ramis under the mistaken impression that they were spies after they absconded with the top-secret van, but instead they go up against the Czechoslovakian army, which came off as too easy. These were still amateurs when it came to using weapons and technology and yet they’re able to blow up the bad guys with pinpoint presession until it becomes boring and anti-climactic where if they had been more bumbling about it, it would’ve been both realistic and funnier.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: June 26, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ivan Reitman

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon, YouTube

 

 

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity

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