Coming Home (1978)

Posted on March 12, 2023 | 1 comment

coming

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 10 out of 10

4-Word Review: Falling for injured vet.

Sally (Jane Fonda) is the military wife to Bob (Bruce Dern) who’s been deployed to Vietnam. Since she now has more free time she decides to volunteer at her local VA Hospital. It is there that she meets Luke (Jon Voight) a former classmate from high school who has now come back from the war a paraplegic. Luke is very embittered about his condition and he’s initially angry and confrontational with Sally. Eventually he softens and Sally invites him to her house for dinner. It’s there that their romance begins to bloom and eventually they become intimate. Bob though, having suffered a leg injury, returns to the states and while Sally and Luke agree to keep their affair a secret Bob soon finds out, which leads to an ugly confrontation between the three.

The idea for the film was inspired by Fonda’s meeting with Ron Kovic, an injured vet who had written his autobiography Born on the Fourth of July that later, in the 80’s, became a movie starring Tom Cruise. Fonda though wanted to make a film with a character that was similar to him and got together with screenwriter Nancy Dowd in 1972 to write a script, which initially focused completely on the hospital setting without the affair, or B-story dealing with the conservative military husband. After many rewrites and bringing in Oscar winner Waldo Scott to help bolster the story the script finally managed to gain interest amongst the studios though many were still cautious about producing a movie dealing with the after-effects of the war, which at that time had never been done before, up until then only films dealing with the war, or those coming back with psychological issues, but not actual physical impairments and thus making this a first in that category.

Since Fonda was instrumental in getting the project produced she was the only choice to play Sally. I think she’s a fine actress who deservedly won the Supporting Oscar for her work here, but since she was on the front lines of the war protest and in many ways even became the face of it, the transition of her character isn’t as profound. Having an actress whose name wasn’t so aligned with left politics and who could better fit-into the part of a conservative housewife would’ve then made the character’s arch more dramatic. I felt too that Sally is too understanding of Luke right-off, the history of them going to high school together should’ve been excised, and instead she should’ve feared Luke when she first encounters him as he does act out-of-control and the romance between them happens too quickly.

Also, once her character changes her hairstyle from the old-fashioned straight to curly it should’ve remained as this visually establishes her character’s changing perspective and not go back to the straight look when she visits Bob in Hong Kong. To remedy this she should’ve decided to keep the curly look even if she feared Bob might not approve, she was technically becoming more empowered with him away anyways, and this would’ve signaled to Bob that she wasn’t the same person he knew when he left, or had the hair change occur after the Hong Kong visit, but having the hair style flip-flop works against the arch, which should be linear and not zig-zagging.

Voight, who won the Best Actor Oscar, and who had to lobby hard for the role as the producers originally wanted Jack Nicholson, is outstanding and there’s not a flaw in his performance with his best moment coming at the very end when he gives a lecture to a room full of high school students about his war experiences. My only complaint, which has nothing to do with his acting and more with the script, is when he bluntly tells Sally, when he goes to her place for dinner, that he dreams of making love to her, which seemed too forward especially since they end up having an impromptu kiss later. Since movies are a visual medium it should’ve settled with the kiss exposing the underlying brewing romance without his character having to explicitly state it. I also found it interesting that the DVD features a commentary track with Voight, Dern, and cinematographer Haskell Wexler, but Fonda is conspicuously not present and I wondered if this may have been due to Voight becoming a hardened conservative as he’s aged and because of their political differences Fonda not wanting to be in the same room with him.

Dern, like the other two, is excellent. His improvisational Dernisms as I like to call them come into play particularly when he gets intense I even learned what the slang term Jody meant, which is what he calls Voight at one point. You also, at the end, get a full view of his bare ass. Now, on the celebrity male naked ass scale I still say it’s a distant third to Dabney Coleman’s in Modern Problems  and Tim Matheson’s in Impulse, but it’s not bad.

Accolades must also go to director Hal Ashby, who was not the first choice as the studio initially wanted John Schlesinger. While Schlesinger could’ve been great I felt Ashby’s use of all natural lighting is what really makes the difference and becomes the over-riding look of the film. He displays keen use of the music too at the end when the song ‘Time Has Come Today’ by the Chamber Brothers is played and the lyrics are used to expose the underlying ticking time bomb of the situation that the three characters are veering speedily into.

My Rating: 10 out of 10

Released: February 15, 1978

Runtime: 2 Hours 7 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Hal Ashby

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

1 Comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Academy Award Winners for Best Actor, Academy Award Winners for Best Screenplay, Academy Award Winners for Best Supporting Actress, Drama, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Romance

Tagged , , , , , ,

Fools’ Parade (1971)

Posted on March 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

fools

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Can’t cash his check.

Mattie Appleyard (James Stewart), who lost one of his eyes during a fight years earlier and now wears a glass one, finally gets released from prison after spending 40 years behind bars. Along with him there’s bank robber Lee Cotrill (Strother Martin) and a young convict named Johnny (Kurt Russell) who both get released on the same day. Mattie’s also given a check in the amount of $25,452,32 as payment for his years of prison work. Mattie, Lee, and Johnny plan to use the money to start-up their own grocery store, but since the year is 1935 and many are poor due to the Great Depression they realize they must guard the check carefully and not cash it until it’s fully safe to. During their train ride out of town they become aware after reading the fine print that the check can only be cashed in person at the bank in the town that they’ve just left, so they take another train ride back. Unfortunately for them they don’t know that Mattie’s former prison guard Doc (George Kennedy) has already hatched a plan with the bank manager (David Huddleston) to make sure that the check is never cashed. In-fact the manager has given Doc an advance on the money to have Mattie and his friends wiped-out. Doc has hired a ‘Christian’ hit man  named Junior (Morgan Paull) to do the dirty deed, which Junior agrees to as long as it’s confirmed that people he kills are atheists, which Doc insists they are.

The film is based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Davis Grubb, who is better known for having written Night of the Hunter. It was shot on-location in Moundsville, West Virginia where Grubb was born and raised and it’s the setting that helps give the movie added character. The scenario though is rather odd and seems to want attain a certain quirky tone that it can’t quite reach. Leonard Maltin, in his review, complained about it being ‘unintentionally funny too many times to be taken seriously’. While I’ll agree the tension is lacking I do feel that this was meant to be humorous and some of it is slightly amusing, but it never gels and overall isn’t intriguing. I also felt the Russell character wasn’t needed. Maybe the producers wanted a youthful character added to attract younger members of the viewing public, but he doesn’t say, or do anything that’s funny, or helps move the story along. His romance with Chanty (Katherine Cannon in her film debut) who plays a 16 year-old who’s virginity is up for sale for a price of $100, is too forced, not believable, and adds nothing to the main plot.

There’s also several directorial errors including the first time Stewart takes out his glass eye, which was apparently so painful to wear that shooting could only last for 20-minutes at a time. In the shot we see Stewart put his hand over his eye and then it cuts to Russell’s shocked expression and then back to Stewart where the eye ball is in his hand, but we can see on Stewart’s face, just as he turns that he still has a blue eye in the socket where the glass used to be. When he removes the eye later he keeps the left eye closed in order to represent an empty socket, but the first time he doesn’t.

There’s also issues with Kennedy’s teeth. Initially I thought he was wearing braces, but then during close-ups it looks like there just supposed to be dirty, or rotting, but realistically it’s not done right. If they were truly bad teeth then some of them should’ve fallen out, or broken off instead of looking like they have been covered with black specks. There’s also a scene where he’s sitting in a car putting on his white shoes and his teeth are all white only to have in a later scene going back to them appearing dirty.

The performances are certainly a plus with Stewart’s being especially good and I admire the way he was willing to go out of his comfort zone by playing a type of kooky character he had never done before. Kennedy is also a scene-stealer in quite possibly the funniest thing he ever did. Huddleston is also solid as the corrupt bank manager and the segment where he nervously watches Stewart attempt to light a stick of dynamite inside the bank office is probably the film’s best moment. Kudos though must ultimately go to Anne Baxter who’s quite impressive as an aging, embittered prostitute who runs a whorehouse on a houseboat. I remember being blown away by her performance in The Ten Commandments and then later for her Oscar winning work in All About Eve, but her she’s almost unrecognizable in a role that is both darkly funny and sadly poignant at the same time.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: June 17, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 38 Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Andrew V. McLaglen

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R, Tubi

Leave a comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a train setting, Obscure Movies, Offbeat

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

The Swinging Barmaids (1975)

Posted on March 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

swinging

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killer stalks cocktail servers.

With a script written by Charles B. Griffith, better known for having done Little Shop of Horrors, the story centers on Tom (Bruce Watson) a serial killer who stalks women who work at a bar called The Swing-a-Ling Club. His first victim is Boo-Boo (Dyanne Thorne), whom he felt ‘disrespected’ him when she referred to him as ‘sonny’ when she served him his drink, so he quietly followed her home and attacked her and afterwards took photos of her in provocative poses. He then changes his appearance and gets a job at the bar as a bouncer. He proceeds to kill two more of the waitresses, Marie (Renie Radich) and Susie (Katie Saylor) before setting his sights on Jenny (Laura Hippe). However, with Jenny he begins to admire the fact that she insists on staying faithful to her fiancée Dave (Jim Travis) and therefore he considers her to be ‘pure’ deserving of respect instead of a gruesome death. While visiting her at the home of her parents (Milt Kogan, Judith Roberts) he tries to convince her to dump Dave and get with him and he won’t take ‘no’ for answer. Will Lieutenant White (William Smith), who’s been investigating the case and does not consider Tom as a suspect, be able to connect-the-dots before it’s too late?

For an exploitation flick this one doesn’t seem all that titillating. The film’s promotional poster seen above alludes to ‘loose women’ having indiscriminate sex, the film was later reissued as Eager Beavers, which pushes this concept in an even more explicit way, but really you don’t see much of that onscreen. The women, who appear to be around 30 and looks-wise are okay, but nothing that would be considered stunning, come-off as basic working-class folks just trying to do their hum-drum jobs and not oversexed vamps in any way. Their personalities are indistinguishable from the other and their conversations deal with run-of-the-mill issues that aren’t compelling, or original. They also speak in a cliched, Flossie-like tough girl way of a New York street hooker, which I found annoying.

Having it shown right away who the killer is doesn’t help matters. Part of the fun of a slasher film, which this isn’t as it was made before that concept came into vogue though still follows the same basic formula, is trying to guess who the bad guy is, but having that quickly revealed losses the potential mystery element that could’ve made it more intriguing. We learn nothing about the killer, other than a police detective ‘profiling him’ as being someone with ‘mother issues’, but this is something the viewer needs to see and learn visually instead of having it explained to them. Smith as the good-guy is weak too. He’s been great in some of his other film roles, but he’s rather detached and downright irritable in this part and there’s long segments where he’s not even seen.

Gus Trikonis’ direction helps to give it a few extra points. While the killings lack blood I did like the way the hand-held camera follows the victim around as she gets chased through her apartment, particularly during the first attack, which lends an authentic, vivid feel as she tries to fight-off her attacker. The underwater photography showing one of the victims getting drowned is impressive as well, but there are some directorial mistakes here too.

One is when Tom kills Marie and then poses her naked body on a deck chair outside on the patio. The club owner Zitto (Zitto Kazann)  comes along and finds her there with Tom hiding behind the bushes and could’ve easily escape undetected, but instead he proceeds to attack Zitto, who is his boss and could identify him, so why not just get away from the crime scene instead of making things potentially worse for himself?

Another segment has Susie inside a film studio looking up towards a bright spotlight where Tom is standing, but because the light is so bright she must shield her eyes and cannot make out who’s talking to her.  When the viewer though is shown a point-of-view shot we can easily identify him, but if we’re really supposed to be seeing things from her perspective then the light should be blinding for us as well.

Another flawed moment has Jenny’s mother getting a call from a Smith warning her that Tom could be dangerous. She’s to pretend that she’s talking to someone else on the other end, so as not to tip-off Tom, who is sitting close by and can overhear what she’s saying. However, in the film the viewer can hear Smith’s voice through the receiver making it seem that if we can hear it then Tom should be able too. To have prevented this the film should’ve cut away every time Smith spoke showing him at the phone booth and therefore never would’ve heard his voice through the receiver.

Some may enjoy the sleazy storyline and Grindhouse reputation, but even on that level, there’s more explicit and violent stuff out there and it all gets handled in a highly routine way. In fact the only unique thing about the production is that both of the leading actors ended up committing suicide. Hippe’s was in 1986 and Watson, who suffered from manic depression, was in 2009.

swinging2

Alternate Title: Eager Beavers

Released: July 16, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Gus Trikonis

Studio: Premiere Releasing Organization

Available: DVD-R

Leave a comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Drive-In/T & A, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Police Drama, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Certain Fury (1985)

Posted on March 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

certain

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Two gals flee police.

Scarlett (Tatum O’Neal) is a teen prostitute brought to court to face charges of killing a prospective customer. Tracy (Irene Cara) the daughter of a doctor (Moses Gunn) is also attending the courtroom that day. She’s there on charges of drug possession and resisting arrest. Before they can be brought before the judge a shootout occurs inside the packed room in which several deputies are shot and killed. During the ensuing melee Scarlett and Tracy and able to escape and get onto the streets. Neither one knows the other and have many differences in their personalities and temperaments, but find they need to depend on each other in order to survive.

In 1983 Tatum traveled down to New Zealand to star in a movie called Prisoners where she played the daughter of a prison warden who begins a relationship with one of the prisoners who is under her father’s watch. The film though was apparently so bad, or at least so disliked by her father Ryan O’Neal, that after viewing it as part of a preview audience he decided to buy the rights to it in order to keep it from being distributed and to this day very few people have seen it. This film, which was shot in June of 1984, was supposed to get her career ‘back on track’, by casting her as a streetwise 80’s punk, which was considered ‘trendy’ at the time, but was really just as much of a career killer as the other one and Ryan should’ve had the negatives of this one locked-up too.

That’s not to say it’s all bad. The action moments are genuinely impressive. The shoot-out is realistically handled with the gunshots that wound the police appearing authentic. The chase sequence goes on for quite awhile and includes the two going down into an underground sewer where there’s exciting underwater footage as well as a dramatic gas explosion. I even enjoyed the scenes inside a drug den in what seems like hundreds of people all lying around and shooting-up.

The film falters with the characters who aren’t fleshed-out enough to be interesting.  Cara is quite beautiful and looks great nude during a segment where she is attacked by Scarlett’s boyfriend (Nicholas Campbell), but she’s a bit too goody-goody. I would’ve liked more confrontation between the two and Cara being to be just as bitchy as O’Neal. As for Tatum she’s a caricature who lacks any type of depth to be believable. The only thing remotely unique about her is that she can’t read, but with no explanation as to why; is she dyslexic? She’s also snarly the whole time and thus making the two coming together and forming a friendship seem quite forced and mechanical as no one would want to be friends with her especially after she calls Cara the N-word several times to her face.

IMDb, on it’s storyline section for this film, incorrectly states that it takes place in New York, where most anyone would think a plot like this one would happen, but it was actually filmed in Vancouver. You become blatantly aware of this at the end when the camera pan’s the cities’ anemic skyline (it has since improved). I’m sure for tax reasons it was much cheaper to shoot it there, so that’s why the location was chosen, but for authenticity it’s not particularly believable as having such a vibrant underground punk scene like here it would’ve had to be in a giant metropolis instead of a mini-city. In either case this movie is a great example of how if you don’t have well defined characters it will flop no matter how good the action may be.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: March 1, 1985

Runtime: 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Stephen Gyllenhaal

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Tubi

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Buddy Movies, Movies with Nudity

Tagged , , , , ,

The Naked Face (1984)

Posted on February 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

naked1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Is psychoanalyst being targeted?

Judd Stevens (Roger Moore) is a psychoanalyst residing in Chicago who suddenly finds that people he knows are turning up dead. First it was one of his patients, whom he let borrow his raincoat. Then it’s his secretary and soon the police are suspecting him of the killings. Lieutenant McGreavy (Rod Steiger) doesn’t like Judd as it was Judd’s expert testimony that got a cop killer sent to an institution versus a jail cell where McGreavy felt he belonged. In order to get the cops off his back and find the real killer Judd  hires Morgens (Art Carney), private investigator, who seems to get a lead when he calls Judd and tells him that a ‘Don Vinton’ is behind it, but then Morgens ends up dead too, so Judd puts his trust in another police detective named Angeli (Elliot Gould) only to learn that he has ulterior motives.

The story is based on the Sidney Sheldon novel of the same name that was written in 1970 and besides this one has been remade two other times: in 1992 in Ukraine as Sheriff’s Star and then again in 2007 in India as Kshana Kshana. This version was produced by the notorious Cannon Group, which always makes me hold my breath in apprehension every time I see their logo come up before the movie begins as I’m never sure if this is going to be one of their cheaper productions, or one that was given a decent budget. While Leonard Maltin, in his review, describes it as ‘low budget’ I’d say this was one of their passable efforts as the production standards aren’t compromised in any way and if anything is rather slick. The on-location shooting done in Chicago, this was changed from the novel where the setting was Manhattan, is excellent and the plot is well paced with incremental twists to keep it flowing.

The film’s main selling point is seeing Moore playing against type as he was known as an action star, but here plays an intellectual. For the most part he does quite well and even able to hold his own when sharing a scene with Steiger, who otherwise likes to chew up the scenery and everyone else in it, but I didn’t like the big Harry Caray-type glasses that he wears. I guess this was done to make him look ‘smart’, but it wasn’t needed. The best part is seeing him get beat-up by the bad guys. When Moore was playing Bond it always seemed a bit absurd that this aging 50-something would be able to take-on virtually any villain, no matter the size, and come-out on top every time. Here he gets flattened with one punch and it’s kind of funny.

Steiger, with  his intense delivery, dominates. He’s given a lot of screen time during the first half almost making him seem like he’s the star and his stewing anger lends adequate tension, but his good-cop/bad-cop routine doesn’t work because he’s the type of character who’s impossible to like, so he needed to stay bad all the way. I also couldn’t stand the wig. He supposed to be an ugly, unlikable guy, so might as well have him naturally bald, as the rug gives him a campy look.

Gould is the outlier. He was during the 70’s a major headlining star, so seeing him pushed to the background where Steiger takes center stage is almost shocking. I remember him saying once in an interview that he didn’t like the pressure of being a leading man, so maybe this supporting bit was right for him. His character does become more prominent towards the end, but for the most part he comes-off like a faceless walk-on  and a sign of a career decline.

Spoiler Alert!

The twist ending in which it’s found that the crime syndicate was behind the killings due to the wife (Anne Archer) of the crime boss seeing Judd and fearing she may be giving him secret information during their sessions was not particularly original. It also opened up some loopholes. For instance Judd’s patient at the beginning is stabbed on the streets because he was mistaken for being Judd, but later when Judd is kidnapped and in the crime boss’ presence he isn’t immediately killed as they first want him to divulge what his wife told him, but if the idea was to extract information then why was the patient offed right away instead of taken somewhere for interrogation?

At the very end Moore is walking with Archer outside and suddenly she gets hit with a bullet, but not Moore. If she was shot by a hit man for giving out secret info then Moore should’ve received a bullet as well because it was he that she had confided in, or at least that was what they had presumed.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 6, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Bryan Forbes

Studio: Cannon Film Distributors

Available: DVD, Tubi

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in Chicago, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , , , , ,

Overboard (1987)

Posted on February 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

overboard

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rich bitch loses memory.

Heiress Joanna (Goldie Hawn) is a wealthy and snobby woman who hires Dean (Kurt Russell), a carpenter, to remodel the closet that she has on her yacht. Since Dean is a widowed father of four boys (Mike Hagerty, Jared Rushton, Jeffrey Wiseman, Brian Price) he’s more than happy to take on the job in order to bring in extra money, but Joanna, treats Dean poorly, is unsatisfied with his work and refuses to pay him. She ends up throwing him overboard with his tools. Later that night while still on the yacht she goes on deck to retrieve a lost ear ring and falls overboard causing her to hit her head and lose her memory. She is rescued and taken to a local hospital. News shows report on the incident along with pictures of Joanna asking if anyone knows who she is. Dean, who is with friends at a bowling alley, sees the report and concocts a scheme to take advantage of her amnesia by pretending she is his wife and bringing her to his home to do chores and take care of his kids in order to repay her debt to him. The  plan starts out seamlessly, but eventually she begins to bond with both the kids and Dean and then her real husband, Grant (Edward Herrmann) arrives at Dean’s residence in order to take her back with him.

Russell and Hawn began their real-life relationship while working on Swing Shift and wanted to do another picture together. This uninspired script, which was written by Leslie Dixon who had better success with Outrageous Fortune, is a misguided hybrid between Houseboat, a 50’s romantic comedy that starred Cary Grant and Sophia Loren, and Swept Away, a classic 70’s Italian film involving a rich, snotty woman stranded on an island with a working-class man. Unfortunately all nuance gets thrown overboard (pun intended) and we get left with the most extreme caricatures possible. While Hawn is certainly a fine actress her over-the-top character is too cliched and heavy-handed to be even remotely interesting or believable and the film falls hopelessly apart before it even gets going.

The basic premise is full of loopholes. The idea that just anyone could show up at a hospital and insist that some woman is his wife when that women shows no recollection of him and he’s able to bring her home without showing any type of documentation, marriage license, or photograph of the two together is beyond ridiculous. Just saying he recognizes a tattoo on her rear end wouldn’t be enough; maybe the two had a one-night-stand, but it wouldn’t be proof positive that he was married to her and yet for this hospital staff it was. Also, it’s very unlikely that Grant, Joanna’s real husband, would be able to get away with denying her existence as long as he does. He pretends he doesn’t recognize her when he goes to the hospital, so he can then bring young women onto his yacht to fool around with, but his friends and most certainly Joanna’s meddlesome mother, played by Katherine Helmond, would’ve seen the news reports too and gotten on him to go retrieve her, but for some reason in this movie rich people don’t watch the news only the poor folks.

Russell seems to enjoy his part, but like with Hawn his character is a tired caricature that’s not remotely original, or unique in any way. While the movie tries hard to get you to like him I still felt what he does with Joanna by tricking her into thinking she’s his wife was highly exploitive and not forgivable even when factoring in the poor way she had treated him.

The four boys are yet another issue. With the exception of the one who talks in Pee Wee Herman’s voice, which was apparently ad-libbed and not a part of the script, there was no distinction between any of them and they all could’ve been combined into just one. It’s also hard to believe that they’d all agree to play along with Dean and pretend she was their mother when they really knew she wasn’t as most kids are notorious for not be able to keep a secret. I was surprised too that the kids would all accept this new woman into their life and forget that their real mother ever even existed. These kids, or at least one of them, would’ve had some bonding with the real one and been reluctant to just let that go and welcome in her ‘replacement’. The kids were also used to having no rules and doing what they wanted while their dad was away at work, so having a new person come in out of nowhere and start enforcing discipline would most likely caused a rebellion instead of them all embracing this newfound orderly lifestyle.

Had the characters and comedy been more subtle like perhaps having the Hawn character not being a super rich heiress, but just a suburbanite living in a better part of town who has a slight disagreement with Russell when he comes to her house to do some work, then this idea might’ve had potential. However, as it is, the caricatures are too silly and overblown for any viewer with discernable tastes to get into. Also, for such slight and predictable material it takes way too damn long to play-out. Should’ve only been 80 minutes not almost 2-hours.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: December 16, 1987

Runtime:  1-Hour, 52 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Gary Marshall

Studio: MGM

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with Nudity, Romance

Tagged , , , , , ,

The Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker (1970)

Posted on February 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

pigeon

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cab driver dislikes pigeons.

Based on the novel of the same name by David Boyer, the story centers on Jonathan (Jordan Christopher) a Princeton graduate who spends his days working as a New York cab driver with no ambition to climb up the corporate ladder. Jonathan detests the establishment, but is too old to be a part of the hippie movement, so he rebels from society in other ways by being flippant with his customers and kicking at pigeons in Central Park. His friend Winslow (Robert Walden) has problems of his own as he’s 24, but still a virgin. Jonathan takes Winslow to a party in an effort to find him a woman, but Winslow is so socially awkward that they all turn him down. Back at his apartment Jonathan meets-up with Jennifer (Jill O’Hara) who’s busy trying to ‘find herself’ while living off of her parent’s money. Initially Jonathan resists her advances, but since they’re both lonely he eventually agrees to a relationship with her as long as there are no strings attached. He even brings her to visit his mother (Kate Reid), but then at a holiday party Jennifer makes the mistake of  saying she wants to get married and have kids, which scares Jonathan away and the two break-up only for Jennifer to then sleep with Winslow, which causes Jonathan to become jealous.

This was one of an assortment of youth pictures from the early 70’s trying to analyze the alienation of the love generation and their resistance to conformity and middle class values. These films tended to be much less structured and in certain cases downright experimental, but the subject matter was still considered topical enough that the studio heads at MGM decided to pick it up for distribution only to then quickly drop it when previews of it scored low with test audiences. It was then handed over to a fledgling film company known as Plaza Pictures that re-edited it down to 90 minutes while cutting-out much of the second act in the process and then re-naming it as Pigeons, but this version did no better and the film sat in obscurity for many decades before finally getting a DVD release in 2014.

While I do like offbeat movies I did find the way this one began hard to get into as the lackadaisical pace makes it seem like there isn’t any plot and just a lot of throwaway segments dealing with the angst of big city living. It does improve and manages to even have a few keen moments. John Dexter’s direction, he was better known for his work in the theater as well as his rude behavior towards women, helps a lot. In fact it’s the directing that keeps the thing watchable and despite the modest budget it’s quite polished with the most impressive moment, outside of a taxi car driving off the dock and into the water, is when Jonathan goes under his kitchen cabinet in an attempt to exterminate hundreds of ants. This isn’t as easy as it sounds to get a camera and lighting into such a small space, nor finding all the ants, and I suspect the cabinet was specially made for the production, but still on a small scale it’s impressively done.

The film also features a great supporting cast including Walden in his film debut who is both believable and amusing as Jonathan’s shy and apprehensive friend. O’Hara is equally engaging, she looks exactly like her more famous sister Jenny O’Hara and for awhile I thought it was the same woman. Kate Reid is a scene-stealer as the meddling, oppressive mother and William Redfield has a great moment near the end playing the stepfather who openly has a one-night-stand with a lady he meets at a Christmas party and then comes home late at night to talk to Jonathan about it.

The film’s Achilles heal is the casting of Christopher. He rose to fame as the singer of The Wild Ones, which got him cast as a rock singer for the cult hit Angel, Angel Down We Go, which generated enough notice that producers decided to take a chance on him in a lead role, but it doesn’t work. His character is unlikable and he lacks a dynamic presence let alone his disheveled mop-head hair-do that resembles a bird’s nest. Having the film begin by showing him kicking at pigeons in Central Park, fortunately his foot doesn’t seem to actually hit any of them, makes the viewer despise him right from the start and things never improve.

Spoiler Alert!

The cop-out ending is a disappointment as it features Jonathan riding off on a train headed to Des Moines, Iowa, but I’ve rarely found anyone who’s been born and raised in New York to move to the farmlands of the Midwest. Sure many New Yorkers have gripes about where they live, most anyone is never completely happy with their home city, but ultimately they remain because it’s what they’re used to. Instead of ending it with him riding away it should’ve made this a part of the movie showing his adapting to a completely new and alien place, which could’ve given the movie some interesting insight and made a stronger impression than it otherwise does.

Alternate Title: Pigeons

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: October 28, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes (DVD version runs 1 Hour 30 Minutes)

Rated R

Director: John Dexter

Studio: Plaza Pictures

Available: DVD

Leave a comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Christmas Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Take This Job and Shove It (1981)

Posted on February 22, 2023 | Leave a comment

job

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Modernizing a beer factory.

Frank (Robert Hays) is hired by a conglomerate called The Ellison Group to find ways to improve a beer factory that they own and get it in the black. Since Frank is originally from the small town where the factory is located he excitedly takes-on the task, but soon finds himself at odds with many of the workers, some of whom he was friends with in highs school, but who now look at him as a threat to their jobs. While the ideas that he implements are at first resisted the situation in the factory improves and the place begins turning a profit. Unfortunately it becomes such a success that The Ellison Group decides to sell it to a man with a background in the oil business, who doesn’t know the first thing about beer production, which gets everyone in the factory to rebel from the acquisition in very physical ways when the new owner and his cronies arrive for a visit.

The movie was filmed at an actual beer factory, The Dubuque Star Brewery, in Dubuque, Iowa, that is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and although no longer functioning as a brewery it still stands today. The history of the place is similar to the movie as it was bought by Joseph Pickett in 1971 who implemented a massive renovation when he found that it was still using equipment from the 1930’s. The story itself was inspired by the hit country song that sat on top of the country charts for 2-weeks and was performed by Johnny Paycheck and written by David Allan Coe, both of whom appear in the movie.

The production has some nice on-location shooting of not only Iowa, but also the Twin Cities and I really dug the basketball court in the mansion owned by Eddie Albert’s character. The working class issues and the gritty nature of their jobs and lifestyles is basically on-target, but the movie bills itself as a comedy, and the trailer makes it seem almost like it’s going to be a farce, but in reality it’s more of drama with very little action until the end. There’s not much that’s funny either and the thin, predictable premise gets stretched-out longer than it should ultimately making it boring and a strain to sit through.

The main defect is the Robert Hays character. While he performs the part well he’s not enough of a jerk, or nemesis and thus the confrontational drama is missing. Having him from the area originally was a mistake as he seems too different from everyone else around him and creating him as an outsider from the big city that had little to no regard for the people working under him would’ve created the necessary fireworks that this otherwise benign film lacks. It also would’ve made a more interesting character arch where he’d go from arrogant, city-slicker to a humble man who would learn to appreciate those that he initially looked down on instead of having him already a semi-part of the group to begin with. It also hopelessly wastes the talents of Barbra Hershey, who gets cast as an idealistic, pro-labor lady, a perfect part for her, and I was expecting the two to quarrel over their contrasting viewpoints, but it never gels and she’s seen far too little.

The script also suffers from logic loopholes and continuity errors. While a hotel room door may seem like a minor thing to quibble about it became a big deal for me. The scenario starts out funny enough, possibly the only amusing bit in the movie, with Fran Ryan playing the owner of the hotel touring him around the cramped, rundown room and acting like it’s a more ritzy place than it really is. Later though while Hays is asleep, his buddies from the factory rip the door off its hinges by attaching a chain to it that’s connected to a pick-up truck, but there’s no scene showing, or explaining, how the door ends up getting reattached. The door is also apparently always unlocked as both Hershey and the Martin Mull character walk into the room from the outside unheeded, but most if not all hotel room doors automatically lock when they’re closed, so why doesn’t this one? In the case of Martin Mull he walks in on Hays while he’s still asleep, but you’d think Hays definitely would’ve locked the door from the inside and put the security chain on it before going to bed, so again how is Mull able to just open it? He doesn’t even bother to knock, which is absurd too since he’s never been to that hotel before, so how would he even know for sure he had the right room and wasn’t walking in on a stranger?

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: April 1, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 41 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Gus Trikonis

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD-R, Blu-ray-R

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies Based on Songs, Movies with a Hotel setting, Movies with a rural setting

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

The Beast (1988)

Posted on February 20, 2023 | 1 comment

beast1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 9 out of 10

4-Word Review: Tankers stranded in desert.

During the invasion of Afghanistan in 1981 a group of Soviet tanks roll into a small village and callously bomb every home and building to a cinder. One of the tanks, led by Commander Daskal (George Dzundza), orders his driver Konstantin (Jason Patric) to run over an Afghan man to the shock and horror of everyone else. When Taj (Steven Bauer), who is one of the Afghan fighters, returns to the village and sees all the carnage, including the death of his father and brother, he becomes committed to seek revenge. He assembles a small group of fighters to go out into the desert to search for the tank, which they call the beast, and which has become lost when it takes a wrong turn and thus stranding them in the middle of nowhere with no option but to turn around and go back to where they came from, which they want to avoid. As the gas and rations become scarce the tensions mount particularly between Daskal and Konstantin who share widely different viewpoints as well as with Samad (Erick Avari) an Afghan interpreter who Daskal no longer trusts and now considers to be a traitor.

This film was requested for review by a reader of this blog named Nick (it was requested over a year ago and I do apologize that I got caught up with things and forgot about watching it). What struck me though is how he said it was such a gripping film and one of the best war movies, in his opinion, ever made and yet few people, including myself, had ever heard of it. I figured if the movie was as great as he said it should be better known and feared it might not live up to his billing, but when I watched it I found myself just as caught up in it as he said and impressed with how emotionally compelling it was from beginning to end.

Why this great film fell into obscurity and was dismal at the box office where it managed to only recoup a paltry $161,000 out of an $8 million budget is yet another example of the cruelty of the Hollywood business. It was directed by Kevin Reynolds who had just come-off doing the breezy road comedy hit Fandango and who wanted to follow that up by doing something completely different. He decided to do a filmization to the stageplay ‘Nanawatai’ by William Mastrosimone who was inspired to write the play after witnessing a group of mujahideen fighters capture and execute a Soviet tank crew in 1986. David Puttnam, the then head of Columbia Pictures, loved the script and threw his full support to the project. However, during the course of the filming Puttnam was ousted and Dawn Steel took over. She wasn’t as enthusiastic about the movie and when it was completed it got released to only a few theaters with no promotion. Few people heard or saw it and it went into oblivion only to finally several decades later get the recognition it deserved through the release of the DVD and has now acquired a fairly sizable cult following.

The use of a hand-held camera and graphic violence, including seeing the man get run over by a tank and then afterwards the remains of his mangled body, all help accentuate the harsh realism of war. Having it shot in a desert in Israel helps add to the authenticity as deserts in North America look different and cannot match the distinct topography of a Middle Eastern one. Leonard Maltin in his review, which I didn’t read until after viewing the film, describes the plot as ‘predictable’ and the pace ‘ponderous’ while the characters are in his opinion ‘stereotyped’, which I couldn’t disagree with more. While I haven’t seen every war movie out there I found this one to have many intriguing twists that I wouldn’t have guessed. The characters have distinct personalities and the pace is perfect with each scene and line of dialogue opening up a new story wrinkle.

My only two complaints is that the Afghan townspeople at the beginning are a bit too blissful as after all a war was going around them, which they were aware of, so I’d have thought they’d be more guarded and only cautiously gone outside if completely needed versus behaving as if they’re in a bubble with no worries about the horrors around them until it finally happens. The Russian soldiers are too Americanized. Great effort was put into the Afghans to make them seem authentic including having them speak in their native tongue with subtitles, but actors playing the Russians not only speak in English, but do it with American accents. I’m okay with them talking in English as forcing them all to learn Russian would’ve been too exhausting and requiring the movie to be completely subtitled, so I’m okay with that compromise, which seemed almost necessary. I presume for the project to get financed the studio insisted on American actors to play the parts in order to make it more marketable, so I understand that concession as well, but at least have them sound Russian should’ve been a requirement as many times throughout the movie  I had to keep reminding myself this was a Russian army as outside of George Dzundza’s brilliant performance, the rest hardly seemed foreign in any way.

Alternate Title: The Beast of War

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Released: September 16, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 51 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Kevin Reynolds

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, Tubi

1 Comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Movies Based on Stageplays, Movies with a rural setting, Outdoors, War Movies

Tagged , , , , ,

X Y & Zee (1972)

Posted on February 10, 2023 | 1 comment

x

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Wife sabotages husband’s affair.

Zee (Elizabeth Taylor) is the middle-aged wife of Robert (Michael Caine) and the two have been in a tumultuous marriage for many years. Then at a party Robert spots Stella (Susannah York) who is a single mother with two boys. Robert enjoys her much calmer less confrontational demeanor, which is the exact opposite of Zee’s and the two quickly fall into an affair. Zee though becomes aware of what’s going on and becomes determined to put a stop to it one way or the other. At first she is meddlesome by constantly calling-up Stella and warning her about Robert and even going to her place of business to harass her. When that doesn’t work she tries playing into Robert’s sympathy and at one point even attempting suicide, but when all that fails and the affair continues she uses her gay friend Gordon (John Standing) to dig-up some dirt on her and when she finds out the secret that Stella has she uses it to exact her revenge.

Taylor and her over-the-top shrewish performance is the whole reason the movie works and if you watch it for that purpose you won’t be disappointed. Sure she’s played this role a bit too often to the point that it was becoming more of a caricature for her and ultimately what I feel killed her career as by the 80’s she was no longer making films for the big screen, but still when she’s as entertaining doing it as she is here it’s still a joy to watch. Unfortunately she dominates every scene that she’s in that it leaves very little room for her co-stars particularly York who’s completely dull by comparison. York certainly was an accomplished actress, but in this movie she’s unable to go toe-to-toe with her superior co-star and the film suffers for it. A strong actress with a definite presence was needed instead York just quietly sits there looking overwhelmed as Taylor’s character continuously berates her. If anything Mary Larkin, who plays Caine’s nerdy secretary, should’ve been the love interest, Caine ultimately sleeps with her anyways, as she’s so meek that you would feel sorry for her when Taylor got snarky with her, but with York you feel nothing and it’s almost like she’s transparent.

Caine on the other-hand is able to hold his own, but his frothy retorts at Taylor’s abuse is never quite as clever, or entertaining as hers. My biggest issue with his character is why doesn’t he just divorce her as he’s quite wealthy and could easily do it and yet avoids it. He mentions at one point wanting to kill her, but never just divorcing her. Since the couple never had any kids it would be less messy, so why not just take that route and then he could see York, or any other woman for that matter without worrying about Taylor getting in the way. I realize some marriages are held together for weird reasons, even those when it becomes achingly clear that it should end, but for whatever reason it doesn’t. However, after 2-hours of watching this those reasons should eventually become clear, but they never do.

Spoiler Alert!

I sat through almost the entire movie just waiting to find out what the ‘dark secret’ was that York’s character held, as described by Leonard Maltin in his review, only to finally realize it was nothing more than her being a closet lesbian. What’s worse is that nothing much happens once the secret is exposed. Maltin also describes Taylor/York’s lovemaking scene as ‘ranking high in the annals of poor taste’ though this sentence has been removed from his review in the later editions of his book presumably to avoid making him look homophobic, but whatever lovemaking he may of seen I didn’t and I watched the full 1 Hour 49 Minute newly remastered version from Columbia Pictures (same version streaming on Amazon Video), so either a minute of it got snipped on this cut, or Maltin was offended at seeing the two women hug, which is all there is.

Admittedly I was disappointed as I was hoping to see them kiss, or in bed together, which would’ve livened it up a bit and made it worth sitting through, which otherwise is a strain. The lesbian angle should’ve been introduced much earlier and showing Taylor and York not only getting-it-on and enjoying it, but inviting the reluctant Caine in as a threesome. That would’ve made the movie truly sophisticated and ahead-of-its-time, but having it end the way it does with York seeming very ashamed and defeated about her homosexuality makes it dated and out-of-touch with modern-day sentiments. A misguided relic of its period that really doesn’t have much to say and nowhere near as ‘daring’ as the filmmakers thought it was.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: January 21, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 49 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Brian G. Hutton

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD-R, Amazon Video, Tubi

1 Comment

Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Drama, Foreign Films, Gay/Lesbian, Movies with Nudity

Tagged , , , , , ,