The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984)

Posted on January 26, 2025 | 1 comment

pope

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cousins turn to crime.

Charlie (Mickey Rourke) and Paulie (Eric Roberts) are cousins working at a restaurant who get themselves fired when Paulie is caught skimming checks. Since Charlie’s girlfriend Diane (Daryl Hannah) has a baby on the way he must act fast to bring in some money. Paulie convinces him of a ‘great’ opportunity, which is to hire a former safecracker, now working as a clock repairman, Barney (Kenneth McMillan) to break-open a safe inside the building of a large company that reportedly has a large amount of money inside it. Charlie is cautious as he doesn’t completely trust Paulie whom he finds immature and unseasoned, but he’s so desperate that he reluctantly agrees. Things go smoothly at first, as they’re able to break into the building easily, but the unexpected arrival of undercover cop Walter (Jack Kehoe) soon sends their plans awry. When Walter dies during the melee they’re now on the hook for his death as well as in the bad graces of mob boss Eddie (Burt Young) who’s safe it was that they tried to rob. 

The film is based off of the 1979 novel of the same name by Vincent Patrick who also penned the screenplay. It does an excellent job of creating a vivid feel of Greenwich Village where it was shot on-location and the interactions of the characters seem overall authentic. The only real issue is the way it hinges of extreme Italian American stereotypes where it seems like anyone from that background must be involved in crime and if any other group was portrayed that way it would be deemed problematic if not downright controversial. The cliches are so strong that had it been heightened just a small degree it could’ve been deemed as parody, or even satire and in fact IMDb does list it as being a ‘comedy’ though I really don’t think that’s the case. I believe it’s meant to be a drama, but either way, for the sake of balance, it would’ve helped had there been some Italians even just one who didn’t fall into the tired caricatures. 

The acting is the crowning achievement. Roberts is superb and I really found it hard to believe he didn’t become a star from this. While he’s always been a great character actor I think he should’ve been given more and I do realize he’s still busy in the business and has been consistently, but I don’t think the quality of the parts has always been there and most filmgoers are probably more familiar with his sister Julia, which is a shame. I was completely blow away by him here and genuinely surprised why the Oscar didn’t fall into his lap.

Rourke is excellent too, but more because he wisely underplays his role and allows Roberts to carry all the emotional energy. Had they both been competing for it it would’ve failed, but their different approaches help create a nice contrast and sometimes it’s the best actors who don’t force it and for the most part that’s what Rourke does here. Of course, he too has his moments like when they go to the racetrack, and he bumps into a guy and instead saying ‘excuse me’ like a normal person he instead says, ‘out of my way asshole’. Him beating up on his refrigerator when Diane leaves him has a memorable quality to it though I would’ve thought the fridge would’ve been more damaged and he should’ve at the very least injured his hand, which strangely doesn’t occur despite him punching at it repeatedly.  

On the female end most accolades goes to Geraldine Page who got nominated for the supporting Oscar despite having only 8-minutes of screentime. She gives a powerful performance for her limited presence, but the idea that she could stymie police efforts to search her deceased son’s room by giving veiled threats that she’ll make them look bad in the media I didn’t totally buy. If cops want something bad enough, they’ll get it with the possible exception of money exchanging hands, which in this case didn’t happen. Hannah as the girlfriend has almost the same screentime, maybe a little more, and hits the bullseye as an idealistic young woman who believes she can somehow get her boyfriend to change only to learn the ultimate harsh lesson that it doesn’t work that way. 

Spoiler Alert!

The ending I felt was a letdown. I was actually intrigued with Charlie finding the tape from the deceased cop that implicated Eddie and seeing how he could use that to stay out of trouble for being a part of the robbery. Having Paulie then swoop in by putting lye into Eddie’s drink and poisoning him seemed too easy. Eddie had just gotten done having his men cut-off Paulie’s thumb, so he should expect Paulie would be looking for revenge and not naive enough to have him make his drinks, or if he does at least have one of his henchmen taste it first. You have to wonder how Eddie was able to climb up the crime ladder if he was that stupid and thus the climax really isn’t that clever, or surprising as the camera focuses up-close on the coffee cup making it too evident that something is going to happen. A letdown for a movie that had been relatively smart up until then.  

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 22, 1984

Runtime: 2 Hours

Rated R

Director: Stuart Rosenberg

Studio: MGM/UA

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Gangster Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

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Avalanche Express (1979)

Posted on January 24, 2025 | Leave a comment

avalanche2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Defector on a train.

Based on the 1977 Colin Forbes novel of the same name the story centers around General Marenkov (Robert Shaw) a soviet agent who’s decided to defect to the west. Harry (Lee Marvin) is the CIA agent in charge of extraditing Marenkov back to the U.S., but to do so they must travel via train across Europe. Nikolai (Maximilian Schell) is a KGB agent assigned to stop Marenkov’s escape and tries many ways to stymie his trip before finally settling on creating an avalanche, which will not only impede the train ride that Marenkov and Harry are on, but if done right should completely destroy it and end the lives of everyone inside.

The film was noted for its many difficulties during the shoot including the death of its director Mark Robson from a heart attack with only 2-weeks left of filming forcing Monte Hellman to step in and complete the production. The biggest problem though was that during the post-production it was deemed that the opening scene, which featured Shaw speaking to his soviet counterparts in broken English, should be redone with Russian dialogue. However, Shaw too had already died from a sudden heart attack in August and thus was no longer able to come-in for reshoots, so they settled on his voice being dubbed by Robert Rietti for that scene. This would’ve been fine had they stopped there, but instead they came to the conclusion that for the sake of consistency Shaw’s voice should be dubbed by Rietti for the entire film, which was a huge mistake.

Shaw has a highly distinctive and wonderfully articulate delivery and for the viewer to miss out on that is downright criminal. I think most audiences could’ve forgiven that his voice sounded a bit different during the opening bit and probably wouldn’t have even cared or noticed since they were so busy focusing on the subtitles anyway. It becomes like a bait and switch, since Shaw’s name headlines the cast, but since somebody else does his speaking it’s like he’s not really in it and thus a big rip-off to his fans who came to see the movie simply because of him.

The special effects are equally abhorrent. There’s been many movies that have created fake snow scenes, but this one has to be the cheapest looking one yet. The falling flakes look more like Styrofoam and the white stuff on the ground resembles foam from a bathtub especially as the vehicles slush their way through it like it’s a white liquid. The sequence showing the train gliding down the tracks is clearly of the miniature variety and will fool no one.

The casting is a mess too especially the appearance of Joe Namath, a great football player, but a threadbare actor who has no business being in a big budget Hollywood picture. He’d be okay for a TV-movie with other B-performers, but for something that’s supposed to be taken seriously his presence makes the thing even more tacky than it already is. Even stalwart leading man Marvin fails here as he shows no emotion even when it’s warranted, like when he gets word that train they’re on is headed for disaster and yet he remains hyper stoic like he’s a robot with no feelings. Having him get shot dead early on only to return later isn’t the gotcha they thought it would be as I was predicting he’d reappear as there’s simply no way a big-name star like him would sign onto a movie just to be killed off right away.

Linda Evans is good simply because she has the ability of playing a cold, bitchy lady quite well. It could almost be described as her forte and her snippy comments and icy behavior towards Marvin during the first half are engaging and helps give the proceedings a bit of a dramatic flair. Turning the two into lovers though during the second half ruins all the underlying tension and since they don’t share much of a chemistry anyways having them remain adversarial throughout would’ve worked better.

Schell as the villain is as cardboard as he was playing the bad guy in The Black Hole. His career is long and distinguished, but his success is clearly not in these types of roles though he does at least get the film’s one good line. It comes when he’s told he must go undercover in disguise by playing someone who does not smoke. Since his character is a chain smoker, he panics that he won’t be able to go on without a cigarette and exclaims “That’ll kill me’.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: October 19, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Mark Robson

Studio: 20th Century Fox

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Disaster Flicks, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a train setting, Spy/Espionage

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Johnny Dangerously (1984)

Posted on January 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

johnnydangerously

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: From newsboy to gangster.

Young Johnny (Byron Thames) must find some income to help his mother (Maureen Stapleton) with her medical expenses. He catches the eye of Jocko (Peter Boyle) a notorious gangster who offers him odd crime jobs to do part-time and Johnny takes him up on it but feels guilty. The years pass and a grown-up Johnny (Micheal Keaton) finds that his mother’s health hasn’t improved, and the bills continue, so he decides to get into the gangster business full-time and even takes over as head of the gang once run by Jocko. The money is so good that it not only covers everything his mother could need but also helps his younger brother Tommy (Griffin Dunne) get through law school. However, once Tommy graduates, he gets a job at the D.A. office where becomes committed to stamp out corruption and put all criminals behind bars even if it would mean his older brother.

The pace and structure are modeled after the more successful Airplane movies in which the light plot works as a platform for a barrage of rapid-fire jokes and pratfalls mostly satirizing gangster movies from the ’30’s. While Airplane came off as fresh and funny as it poked fun of all the disaster movies from the ’70’s this thing seems old and tired before it’s barely even begun. The biggest issue is that gangsters had already been parodied for many years both in TV and on the big screen. By the time this movie came-out most of the jokes had already been used many times over and the comedy fails to create anything inventive. The characters are nothing more than walking-talking cliches that mouth banal one-liners and not much else. Almost all the jokes fall flat, nothing sticks and has no edge to it. It’s something that could’ve easily been made for TV and it should be no surprise that the writers were two men who helped create the ‘Different Strokes’ TV-show.

What surprised me most is that it wasn’t even dirty, or at least not that much. It’s directed by Amy Heckerling who had just gotten done doing Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which seemed to have bawdiness and sexual innuendoes in almost every frame and yet here there’s surprisingly very little. Yes, there’s an animated segment dealing with victims of enlarge scrotums, which doesn’t have much to do with the story, but is kind of amusing, but that’s about it. Some more sex and even nudity could’ve helped enliven things, or at the very least given something more to laugh it. The malapropisms by the gangster character Moronie, played by Richard Dimitri, where he uses a lot of colorful language that sounds like curse words, but really aren’t I didn’t find to be clever at all. Today words like fuck and fucking are used liberally in social media and even casual daily conversations. I even hear young neighborhood kids saying it, so for a movie to think that it’s ‘pushing the envelope’ by having someone use phrases the sound like the F-word but aren’t makes the movie seem quite dated.

I didn’t care for Keaton. He comes-off like some smart ass who’s phoning in his performance with a pasted-on smile that never leaves his face. It’s like he isn’t even acting or trying to create any type of character. He just casually walks on, makes a semi-amusing remark, and then walks-off. Thames who played the younger version of Johnny was better and the movie could’ve been more engaging had Johnny remained a kid the whole way and then watching an innocent teen take down the gangsters and even ultimately become their leader would’ve had some original spin that’s otherwise lacking.

Joe Piscopo, who plays Johnny’s criminal rival, is quite good and as opposed to Keaton, seems to be making some sort of effort to play a role and I thought he should’ve been in it more, or even just given the reins and taken over completely. The film’s promotional poster makes it seem like the two will have equal screentime, but that’s shockingly not the case and Joe’s presence amounts to a few walk-ons, which is a shame.

The rest of the supporting cast are equally wasted. Marilu Henner sings a nice dance number but otherwise doesn’t do or say anything else that’s interesting. Stapleton looks way too old for the role of a mother and would be more suited as a grandmother. At one point she even refers to herself as being ’29’ despite having gray hair. Don’t know if this was meant to be a ‘funny joke’, but it doesn’t work and is dumb like most everything else. Dunne is miscast as well. He’s supposed to be this young idealist but appears much more like someone already in their 30’s and would’ve been more authentic had they gotten a college aged student with a wide-eyed, clean-cut image versus Dunne who’s always had more of a weary and beaten down impression. Dom Deluise though is the most out-of-place in a part that amounts to being a cameo as the Pope who appears inexplicably on a city sidewalk for some strange reason that misses-the-mark completely in a gag that like everything else gets thrown-in with little thought, or care.

I did do enjoy Danny DeVito who amazes me how even when given small roles still manage to steal the proceedings especially with his impromptu hosting of a game show send-up. I’ll even give a few props to the ‘pass the secret message’ segment done inside a jail where one prisoner whispers something into another prisoner’s ear, who then passes it along to yet another guy and so forth down the line until it gets to the last one where the initial message has now become completely distorted, which got me to laugh, but honestly that was the only time during the whole viewing that I did.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: December 21, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Amy Heckerling

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Gangster Movies, Parody

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A Private Function (1984)

Posted on January 18, 2025 | Leave a comment

privatefunction

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Couple hides a pig.

The year is 1947 and even though the war has been over for 2 years there’s still food rationing going on in this small England town. Gilbert (Michael Palin) works as a podiatrist and travels to residential homes where he cuts the toenails of the women who live there. During some of his visits he comes upon families who are hiding meat in their homes, and they must rush to cover-up any evidence of it when the local food inspector (John Normington) comes around to investigate. One such home has been illegally raising a pig in hopes to use it for a private party to celebrate the upcoming Royal Wedding between Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip. Gilbert tells his wife Joyce (Maggie Smith) about it, and she convinces him to steal the pig, so that they can sell it off to the bacon black market but trying to hide a pig from both their neighbors as well as Joyce’s noisy elderly mother (Liz Smith) let alone being able to kill it proves quite challenging.

The film is a perfect mix of droll English humor and quirky moments. It starts out with a very original idea and manages to add one amusing moment, or sly comment, after the other becoming one of the better foreign comedies of the year where you can pick-up on funny little things that you might’ve missed on the first viewing, each time you watch it. Palin is especially good as a timid man who finds himself in the middle of chaos that he didn’t want and his unique profession along with the giant plastic foot that he orders to help represent his business are all on-target as are his engagingly consternated facial expressions.

Initially I thought Smith, a two-time Academy Award winner, was wasted here as she isn’t seen much during the first act and pushed mainly to the background making it seem almost like a token role that doesn’t have much pizazz, but she comes on strong by the end by having an interesting arch where she is just a passive, doting wife at first, but proves to be quite controlling, conniving and even demanding by the end. Liz Smith is equally engaging as the sometimes-confused aging mother ‘she’s 74’ whose dialogue is limited, but the few lines that she does say are doozies.

Spoiler Alert!

The pig though becomes the main star even though behind-the-scenes it made things quite difficult to film. This led to one 12-year-old boy getting his ‘big break’ into show business. When he heard that they were going to be making a movie in his area he proudly proclaimed that he’d be ‘willing to do anything’ in order to ‘get into the movies’ so the producer handed him a pail and told him to follow the pig around and collect its droppings every time it defecated and for this he got his name proudly billed during the final credits as ‘the bucket boy’.

As pigs go this one struck me as being quite small. Apparently, this was intentional as the filmmakers were advised by animal experts to choose a 6-month-old female pig as it was deemed, they’d be easier to control and less unpredictable, but visually she looked too scrawny and certainly not the type of pig to be used as the centerpiece for a giant feast such as the one that the townspeople were excitedly planning. It’s also a bit of a downer, even depressing, when the animal is eventually killed and served up on a platter. There’s a lot of close calls where the animal evades death and it makes it seem almost like the human captors were ultimately too afraid to do it, but when it does finally occur it hurts the film’s levity and makes it feel like murder when it does die and thus sucks all of the comedy that came before it right out.

The climactic party isn’t eventful either making the story go out with a whimper. It had been relatively lively up to then with all sorts of subtle twists and goofy turns only to end things on a dry note. There needed to be some sort of ultimate confrontation between the couple and the former owners of the pig, so things could’ve ended with more of a bang as it’s not quite able to hold-up feeling almost like it ran out of ideas with an uninspired conclusion.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: November 9, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Malcolm Mowbray

Studio: HandMade Films

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, British Movies, Dry Humor, Foreign Films

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The Out-Of-Towners (1970)

Posted on January 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

outoftowners

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Travel plans go awry. 

George (Jack Lemmon) is set to have an interview in New York City for a possible job promotion with his company. He brings along his wife Gwen (Sandy Dennis) for what he hopes will be a fun-filled trip in which they can explore the new city they hope to eventually relocate in, but things don’t go as planned. Their flight is forced to circle JFK Airport for hours before it’s diverted to the Logan Airport in Boston and then requiring them to take a train ride back to the Big Apple causing them to arrive there very late. Once they do make it, they find their hotel reservations expired since they hadn’t thought to call or wire, to tell them to hold it. They’re then mugged, and while being escorted by police to a local armory, where they plan on spending the night, they become involved with two liquor store robbers who hijack the squad car they’re in and force them out into Central Park in the middle of the night. This then leads to several more calamities, but despite everything George manages to somehow make it to his interview on time, but when offered the position he’s now not so sure he wants to accept it. 

Originally writer Neil Simon was planning on using this concept as a segment to his 1968 play Plaza Suite, but since that play was already divided up into three other segments it was deemed too many and thus this one got thrown out. He then tried making it into its own stage play but realized it would require too many different set pieces and ultimately came to the conclusion it would work better as a movie. Unlike his other works this one does not rely on dialogue for its primary humor as instead the intended laughs come from the situations, but it’s more like a dumb comedy in that what occurs isn’t all that clever, or original and relies solely on the exasperated reactions of the characters. 

Some of it goes overboard particularly an underground gas explosion that blows a manhole cover that George is standing on into the air and temporarily causes him to lose his hearing, which I found quite disturbing. What’s worse is that the cover comes crashing down just inches from George’s head, which could’ve been fatal and was apparently a mistake as it was intended to go up only a few feet and thus it could’ve really killed him had it hit him, but being the trooper that Lemmon was he remained in character despite the issue. However, exploding gas lines don’t happen that often giving the film an unintended surreal quality, or a piling-on effect and for that reason I would’ve excised that segment completely from the movie. 

The characters aren’t that lovable especially George who comes-off as what would be called today as a female Karen, or ‘Kevin’ as he complains about everything right from the start making him obnoxious and annoying. Had the character shown a laid-back Midwestern mentality, since that’s where he’s from, and been more congenial about things, only to finally get exasperated at the very end as it built up, would’ve worked better as by that time the audience could’ve forgiven him after what they’ve been through, but having him be so quick tempered already at the beginning doesn’t allow for any character arch and having him constantly threaten to sue everyone who has wronged him quickly becomes redundant. Sandy Dennis is better as she takes things in more of a strident fashion and makes a healthy contrast to George. The small bit parts made-up of a recognizable B-list actors are fun though they should’ve been given more amusing things to say. 

Spoiler Alert!

The overall point of the story is muddled. Supposedly it’s a harsh assessment on New York, but the couple’s problems aren’t exclusive to the city as they have issues when they go to Boston and even on their plane ride back when it gets hijacked to Cuba making it seem more like a cursed trip versus a nightmare place. Taking potshots at NYC isn’t hard either as most people have complaints about it even those that have lived there for their whole lives making the premise too obvious. A much more original idea that could’ve given it a fresher perspective would’ve had the couple already living in New York, but tired of the crime and rundown urban conditions, so they decide to move to a small Midwestern town but find unexpected problems at every turn and thus return to the city where they conclude that despite the less-than-ideal elements they’re still better off. 

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: May 28, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated G

Director: Arthur Hiller

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (Reg. B/2), Amazon Video, YouTube

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Hurricane (1979)

Posted on January 11, 2025 | Leave a comment

hurricane

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Tropical cyclone strikes island.

Charlotte (Mia Farrow) is the daughter of Navy Captain Charles (Jason Robards) who was appointed governor of a small island of Alava, which is under U.S. control. She comes to the island for a visit as she hasn’t seen her father in quite a while and immediately becomes attracted to Matangi (Dayton Ka’ne) who works as a houseboy at her father’s estate. A romance blossoms between the two and when her father finds out he puts Matangi in jail on trumped-up charges, but Charlotte is able to find a way for him to escape, but as they go on the run her father sets out to find them and put Matangi back behind bars just as a massive hurricane descends.

The film is a remake of the 1937 movie that was directed by John Ford and in itself an adaptation of the novel of the same name by James Norman Hall and Charles Nordhoff. After completing the runaway hit King Kong, another remake of a 1930’s movie, producer Dino De Laurentiis became inspired to tackle a second classic from the same era. He was most enthused with this one due to the hurricane effects as he was convinced that with modern technology it could be more vivid than the original and even hired the same man, Glen Robinson, who did the special effects for that one to recreate it here, but with modern film capabilities that had been unavailable when the story was first produced. So much focus was admittedly put into the ending that things like character development, which director Jan Troell had come onboard to work-on, were largely ignored causing Troell to consider it an unpleasant experience and he spent the remainder of his career making films in his homeland of Sweden as he felt after this that working on a Hollywood project wasn’t to his liking.

The casting of Farrow is part of the problem as the role called for a woman in her 20’s even though she was already well into her 30’s, but since she had what Dino described as an ‘eternal face of an 18-year-old’ he decided to hand her the part anyways. Her character though is so one dimensional that her time on the screen isn’t captivating. Ka’ne, who was an Hawaiin surfer with no acting experience, does better than expected though he only did one other movie after this before retiring from the business and working the rest of years as a compost truck driver and hotel doorman. Max Von Sydow is good in support playing a doctor who utters the film’s best line, most likely ad-libbed from his well-known atheist roots where he asks why a painting of Adam would require him to have a belly button since if he was created from dust then he’d have no need for an umbilical cord.

The biggest issue is the romantic angle as it occurs too quickly. An interesting relationship is one that has a challenge and this one should’ve had several as Mia’s father was clearly not going to be happy about her seeing Ka’ne and therefore she should’ve been apprehensive about getting involved, or even suspicious as how did she know he wasn’t just using her for leverage to get the old man to soften his stance on policies Ka’ne wanted changed? Instead, they fall into each other’s arms in a seamless few minutes and the whole first hour is spent with them dreamily swimming around in the ocean in a lovesick fashion, which is dull. Having the character of Moana appear, played by Ariirau Tekararere, who was the woman Ka’ne was arranged to marry, offers some potential, but since she barely speaks and when she does it’s in her native tongue without the benefit of subtitles, her presence doesn’t offer much.

Spoiler Alert!

The finale, which is all about the hurricane, is somewhat exciting, but it’s not perfect. The destruction of the homes appear like they’re miniature models and seeing constant shots of blowing rain becomes tiring, but watching the people leave the church while Priest Trevor Howard continues to pray at the pulpit is kind of funny and having the ship burst through the wall was cool too.

However, I wasn’t exactly sure that the couple really got ‘saved’ at the end like the viewer is supposed to believe. Yes, they survived the storm but were now stuck on a tiny sandbar in the middle of the ocean with no source of food, or transportation. Unless some help came along, which wasn’t guaranteed, they weren’t going to survive long. Thus, it’s not a real ‘happy’ ending because although they weren’t killed right away like the others doesn’t mean they won’t die an even more painful death of starvation.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: April 12, 1979

Runtime: 2 Hours

Rated PG

Director: Jan Troell

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (Import Reg. A/B/C)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Disaster Flicks, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Remakes

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Perfect (1985)

Posted on January 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

perfect3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Reporter investigates aerobics craze.

Adam (John Travolta) is a reporter working for Rolling Stone magazine who gets sent on assignment to Los Angeles. While there he becomes intrigued with the health fitness craze and believes the workout clubs are becoming like the singles bars of the 80’s. He asks his editor Mark (Jann Wenner) permission to write a secondary story focusing on this new phenomenon and he agrees. Once he begins attending the club he becomes infatuated with Jessie (Jamie Lee Curtis), one of the instructors. He asks her for an interview, but she refuses based on a past experience she had with another journalist, but Adam continues to pressure her. Eventually the two begin dating only for Jessie’s initial fears to ultimately get exposed when she reads the story he’s written about the club, before it gets sent to the press, and realizes it’s a negative take on the people in it, many of whom are her friends, which leads to a serious strain on their relationship. 

The film is loosely based on the real-life experiences of Aaron Latham who worked as a reporter for Rolling Stone during the late 70’s. He had already written the screenplay for Urban Cowboy, which also starred Travolta and was also directed by James Bridges, so this reteaming was expected to be a huge hit, but instead it lost over $8 million at the box office despite initially doing well on its opening weekend. A lot of the problem is that journalists aren’t considered likable people and most of the American public by and large despise them. The fact that this one behaves exactly the way you’d expect, being more than willing to exploit their subject, particularly with the way he treats the Marilu Henner and Laraine Newman characters, in order to get a juicy spin on a story, just makes him all the more despicable. 

His character is quite blah as well. We never learn why he wanted to get into journalism and if some backstory had been given, and not just starting out with him working in the obituary section and trying to move his way up, then he might’ve had more depth. It’s confusing too why such a good-looking, jet-setting guy, wouldn’t have a girlfriend. Maybe if he’d been through a rough break-up and thus wanted to avoid it that might’ve been understandable but should’ve been explained. Even just having some casual dates would’ve made sense but having him just all alone with no reason only adds to make the character even more transparent. 

Curtis as an actress is excellent and the movie is worth sitting through solely because of her and she’s looking really hot here too. However, her character’s responses to things seemed a bit off. She makes it quite clear upfront that she’s not interested in an interview, but Adam doesn’t take no for answer and proceeds to continue to hound her, which should make her hate him even more, but for some reason it doesn’t. Yes, he does help get her car started when her battery dies, so as a thank you she might’ve been willing to do a simple interview, but instead her repayment is to go to bed with him while still refusing to do any interview, even though I felt realistically it should’ve worked the other way. 

The concept itself isn’t intriguing. I lived through the 80’s and really didn’t care why people got into the aerobics thing. Revealing that some of those that did was because they were lonely and looking to meet someone to hook-up, isn’t exactly groundbreaking. The entire supporting cast is incredibly dull including Jann Wenner, the original co-found of Rolling Stone magazine, who essentially plays himself as Adam’s boss, but his performance is lackluster, and a professional actor should’ve been given the role. 

Spoiler Alert!

My biggest gripe came at the end where Curtis keeps going back to Travolta even as he does all the things that irritates her about reporters like secretly recording their conversations while in a car. That alone should’ve gotten her to dump him, which she does for a while, but then she returns. One forgiveness is okay, everybody deserves a second chance, but then he does it again with the negative story. Granted having the article revealing that she had an affair with her coach years ago wasn’t his fault as his editors put that into the story later on, but she had no way of knowing that. From her perspective he betrayed her trust and therefore the relationship should’ve been permanently over. She didn’t care for reporters right from the beginning and all he did was affirm her confirmation bias. It would’ve been more believable had she instead liked journalists and maybe wanted to be one herself and therefore kept given him the benefit of the doubt, but the way it gets done her makes little sense. 

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: June 7, 1985

Runtime: 2 Hours

Rated R

Director: James Bridges

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Short Stories, Movies with Nudity, Romance

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The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Posted on January 3, 2025 | Leave a comment

eddie

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Gunrunner tries avoiding sentencing.

Eddie (Robert Mitchum) is an aging gunrunner living in Massachusetts whose career in crime has taken a toll on his family. He feels his life in and out of jail has caused him to lose connection with his kids and wants to avoid a repeated stint in the slammer. Another sentencing is likely as he’s been charged with hijacking a truck, so he works with special agent Dave Foley (Richard Jordan) to help reduce his pending time, or get it cleared altogether, by agreeing to give him tips of other crooks he’s worked with, of planned crimes that are about to take place including a string of bank robberies that have been occurring throughout the area and being carried out by people Eddie knows. While Eddie is able to give Dave some help it’s not enough and he continues to be squeezed to offer more names and when he does his former associates become convinced, he’ll sell-out on them, so they devise a plan that’ll quiet him once and for all. 

The film is based on the 1972 novel of the same by George V. Higgins that won numerous accolades including by such famous authors as Norman Mailer and Elmore Leonard who called it the ‘best crime novel ever written’. While the film does closely follow the story in the book, and received equally positive reviews, it did very poorly at the box office. A lot of the problem is that while the actions is captured in a gritty and unglamourous way, the idea behind the film was to give a harsher viewpoint of those working in the criminal underworld as The Godfather had been deemed at the time as being too romanticized, the characters are not people to get emotionally vested in and the plot fails to garner any momentum. The crimes get carried out in too much of a methodical way and lack tension. The viewer doesn’t care what happens to these people and thus the movie ends up lacking much of a point.

There were certain things that I did like. The gray and brown late autumn landscape helps accentuate the cold, soulless lives of the characters. The bank robberies are captivating for a while as it focuses on the intricacies of carrying out such daring heists and the planning though I felt seeing one of these was enough and having to go through two of them made it redundant and unnecessary. 

Mitchum gives an excellent performance and certainly appears and acts like someone who’s been beaten down enough by the system that’s he’s willing to do whatever he can to self-preserve. His attempts at a New England accent aren’t bad either. However, I would’ve liked to see some interaction with him and his kids as this is the whole motive for why he turns informant as he wants to spend more time with the family and not go to jail, but we never see any actual communication that he has with them albeit a brief moment with his wife. Had there been more family moments where the viewer could actually feel the character’s quandary on an emotional level than they might’ve been more wrapped-up in seeing him get through it, but by the way it gets done here there’s very little if any of that. He’s also not in it enough and there’s long stretches where we see Steven Keats, a fellow gunrunner, who’s more adept at showing the anxiety and paronia that goes into someone living the fringe lifestyle that he does and thus it would’ve been a more captivating film had it focused on him instead. 

Spoiler Alert!

The ending is the biggest letdown. While it’s the same one as in the book it’s too uneventful to be riveting or impactful. It features Eddie getting invited to a hockey game by Peter Boyle, a fellow hood, and another man who after the game take a drunken Eddie out for the ride where he passes-out and thus gives them the opportunity to conveniently shoot him, which they do. While I did enjoy close-up footage of an actual hockey game as it features players in an era where they didn’t have to wear helmets, I did find the way Eddie falls prey to the men to be too easy. This was a career criminal, so he should’ve in the back of his mind been well aware that his ‘friends’ may start to suspect him of being the snitch that he is and put on a more defensive mind set. I was fully expecting him to be faking passing out and at the last second jumping out of the car and trying to get away, which could’ve led to an exciting climactic foot chase, but stupidly falling into their trap without a peep of a fight isn’t an adequate payoff. He might as well had just shown up to the event with a bullseye tattooed to his forehead that said ‘shoot me’ as it ends-up playing-out in pretty much the same way. 

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 26, 1973

Runtime: 1 Hour 43 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Peter Yates

Studio: Paramount Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (The Criterion Collection), Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Gangster Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Robbing Banks

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Barfly (1987)

Posted on December 30, 2024 | Leave a comment

barfly

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Drunks at a bar.

Henry Chinaski (Mickey Rourke) is a bum who has very little money, lives in a small rundown apartment that’s more like a sleeping room, and spends most of his time getting drunk at a bar across the street called The Golden Horn. It’s here where he gets into arguments with Eddie (Frank Stallone) the bartender. During one of their confrontations the two go out back and have a fistfight behind the building, which Henry unceremoniously loses. Feeling embarrassed and dejected he goes on a crusade to ‘win his title’ back by finding food in order to regain his energy, but when he rips a sandwich out of another customer’s hand, since he doesn’t have money he must steal from others, he gets thrown out of the bar by Jim (J.C. Quinn) the bar owner. He then stumbles his way to another waterhole named Kenmore where he meets Wanda (Faye Dunaway) a fellow alcoholic. The two create a makeshift bond and end-up going back to her place, an apartment paid for by a married man who covers for her life necessities, as a kept woman, as long as she’s willing to put-out when he wants it. Just when Henry thinks he might be falling in-love she betrays him by have a tryst with Eddie. Feeling dejected Henry turns back to the bottle only to have Tully (Alice Krige) show-up at the doorstep. She’s a publisher offering him a check of $500 in compensation for some of the poems and short stories that he had submitted, which she found to be both gifted and profound. Henry though isn’t sure he can accept the money as he’s more comfortable being poor and not used to being liked, or a part of the upper class, which for decades he had found snotty. Then Wanda comes back into his life and when she finds out about Tully she makes a personal vendetta to ‘put her out’ as she feels rightly or wrongly that Henry is ‘hers’ and no other woman can have him.

The film is based loosely on the life of Charles Bukowski, who used the character of Henry Chinaski in five of his novels and was considered his alter-ego. It was produced by the notorious Cannon Group a production company that had a portfolio of a hodge-podge of movies some of them of a decent quality and others that were anything but. Although they had made a commitment to finance this one it almost didn’t get made as the studio was going through a period of financial distress and felt this one required too much money to fund, so they threatened to pull-out until director Barbet Shcroeder appeared at their office with a Black and Decker power saw warning that he would cut-off one his fingers to show the world that ‘Cannon was cutting-off a piece of him by pulling out of the project’, which was enough to get the execs to change their mind.

As a film it works mainly because it used authentic Los Angeles locations, many of which Bukowski frequented in real-life, as the setting. The dismal interiors really help create a vivid look making the viewer feel they’re as trapped in the skid row surroundings as the protagonist and with no discernable way to get out. The apartment sequences are especially engaging not only for the scene, that comes near the end, where Henry finally busts in on his noisy neighbors where he has a memorable confrontation, but also at the beginning when he accidentally goes into an apartment that isn’t his, but since it looks just as bleak as his sans for some decorative window curtains, he at first doesn’t even know it.

As a character study it’s revealing though it does hinge on how much tolerance the viewer will have towards someone whose decidedly self-destructive at every turn. Rourke plays the part in an over-the-top way particularly the weird style he walks almost like he’s trying to put a touch of camp to it and I don’t blame Bukowski, who stated in a later interview that Rourke was ‘too exaggerated and a bit of a show-off’ in the part, which Bukowski ultimately felt that he ‘didn’t get right’ though he later warmed-up to it and possibly other viewers may as well.

Dunaway seemed more problematic playing a woman on the skids was definitely not a part of her repertoire and she seems miscast. She almost makes-up for it by appearing topless during the bathroom scene and then getting into a climactic catfight with Krige at the end, but I didn’t understand why the woman would be wearing what appeared to me as female business attire as that was something her character was not and therefore she should’ve had something more ragged to wear even if it was just a simple jeans and T-shirt.

Spoiler Alert!

The film has many quirky moments including the two paramedics that come to visit Henry on a couple of occasions, which almost steals the movie and make this seems more like a surreal, dark comedy than a drama. The leisurely pace I liked and seems more suited for a European audience that isn’t so plot driven, but I would’ve liked seeing Henry working more at his craft. He’s only shown writing a couple of times, which is so brief that I really didn’t think he was that committed to it and almost like a novice writing words on notebook paper making it a complete surprise when a publisher eventually does show-up. You’d think if he hadn’t even bothered to type out what he had written most publishers would’ve thrown it away making the moments with the agent seem almost dream-like and more a fantasy than the intended reality.

I was a bit turned-off by the ending. I remember reading an article back in the 80’s that this movie was an example of a ‘downbeat ending’ that Hollywood studios were shying away from. During the 70’s sad endings had become the standard, but by the 80’s they tended to not register as well with the public and thus making upbeat conclusions became the norm. However, the article had specifically pointed out this movie as having an ending, which ‘wasn’t a happy one’, but I didn’t get that impression. I thought maybe it would have Henry getting knocked out by Eddie during their fight ‘rematch’, but the camera tracks out of the bar, so we never see the results of the confrontation and it’s all left open, so it’s neither sad nor happy. My only conclusion is that the article’s author felt this was a ‘sad’ ending because Henry went back to his old ways of drinking versus becoming a successful writer, but for some people success is a scary thing and falling into their familiar habits, as bleak and destructive as they may seem to others, offers a weird form of security, so I felt it ended on a high note because Henry was doing what was right for him and with the type of people he felt comfortable with. Being rich and famous would never have worked with his personality and therefore he was better off without it.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: October 16, 1987

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Barbet Schroeder

Studio: The Cannon Group

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Johnny Got His Gun (1971)

Posted on December 28, 2024 | Leave a comment

johnny1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Left with no face.

Joe (Timothy Bottoms) finds himself stuck on a hospital bed, covered with a white sheet and unable to communicate with any of the doctors or nurses. As a soldier fighting in WWI, the last thing he remembers is being hit with an artillery shell and he presumes he’s injured and the medical staff is just trying to make him well again, but ultimately, he comes to the conclusion that he’s lost all of his limbs and even his face. The only thing left is his brain, which allows him to relive the memories of the past, but with no ability to express himself, or see or hear anything, like a prisoner in his own body. Locked away in a utility room, so his disturbing condition won’t be seen by others, he tries to suffocate himself but finds even that to be impossible. Eventually he’s able to use morse code by banging his head against his pillow to alert the staff that he’s still conscious and not a vegetable, but his demands to be toured around in a glass coffin in order to show the public the horrors of war go unheeded.

The film is based on the 1939 novel of the same name by Dalton Trumbo, which was inspired by the real-life case of Curly Christian, a Canadian WWI soldier who lost all four of his limbs during battle. The book was met with many accolades from the critics and was even considered for a movie as early as the 1940’s when it was to star a young William Holden, but funding for the project fell through. By the 1960’s when anti-war sentiment grew during the Vietnam years renewed interest in bringing the novel to the big screen mounted and plans were put in place to have Luis Bunuel direct, but yet again funding became an issue and the pre-production was paused for several years until Trumbo himself decided to take it on by working with private investors to get the required capital. The modestly budgeted film was then given a limited release in the summer of ’71 but was never a hit and largely forgotten until revived in 1989 when the heavy metal group Mettalica used footage from the film in their music video ‘One’.

The film has some interesting aspects including having the present-day scenes shot in black-and-white while Joe’s memories and dreams are done in color. Timothy Bottoms, in his film debut, is excellent. For most of the movie we only hear his voice-over of his thoughts, but within that limitation he plays it well and uses his tone eloquently to convey his emotions and inner angst. The supporting cast such as Jason Robards as Joe’s caustic father help give the movie a bit of an edge and Diane Varsi as the sympathetic nurse who shows compassion with Joe’s dismal predicament and quarrels internally about what to do including considering shirking her professional responsibility in order to put him out of his misery, is quite good too.

The structure though doesn’t fully work. The memories of past events, including his home life and upbringing, are too general, stuff that could’ve happened to anybody and thus nothing stands-out. The dream sequences don’t have enough visual flair and are much too talky. Trumbo may be the master of the written word, but his cinematic sense is lacking, and the film drones along putting the viewer to sleep instead of reeling them in emotionally. The anti-war message may have been ground-breaking for the ’30’s, but by the time of the movie’s release there were too many other art mediums saying the same thing, so what gets said here is nothing new and comes-off as redundant and even preachy.

My biggest complaint though is that we never see Joe’s actual physical state. During the whole movie he remains conspicuously covered by a white sheet, which I found to be a cop-out. I wasn’t opposed to keeping what he looked like a mystery for most of the way as revealing it right away would’ve taken away the shock effect, but at some point, it needed to be exposed to the viewers horrified eyes. Just constantly describing something doesn’t work in movies, maybe in books, but in film one should always go for the visual. Not sure why it wasn’t done here. Maybe they thought it would be too costly to create the special effects, or the gruesomeness would sicken the audience, but wasn’t that supposed to be the whole point? By keeping it at a ‘tasteful’ level it misses-the-mark and one of the main reasons why the movie doesn’t have as strong of an impact as it could’ve.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: August 4, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 52 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Dalton Trumbo

Studio: Cinemation Industries

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, War Movies

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