Tag Archives: Movies

Lawman (1971)

Posted on July 6, 2016 | 4 comments

 

lawman

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: He does not compromise.

Aging western marshal Jarrod Maddox (Burt Lancaster) rides into the town of Sabbath determined to retrieve five ranchers whose drunken revelry the year before resulted in the death of one of his town’s older citizens. The marshal of Sabbath (Robert Ryan) is reluctant to help Maddox while informing him that the town is ruled by land baron Vincent Bronson (Lee J. Cobb) with a judicial system that is less than stellar. However, Maddox refuses to compromise on any issue no matter what odds or obstacles lay in the way.

During the ‘70s there was a trend to reinvent the western by instilling storylines that did not go along with the age-old, black-and-white formula while questioning the cowboy heroes of yesteryear and putting a grittier slant to the realism. Typically these newer westerns proved to be a refreshing change-of-pace and more in-tune with a hipper generation, which I normally would applaud, but in this rare case I wished that it had fallen back to the old ways.

For one thing Lancaster was still identified with the older film-goer and not in tune with the younger ones. His stiff and detached manner was a better fit to the film’s rigid character and quite frankly I was just plain intrigued to see how this man was somehow going to get all of these other men back to his town to stand trial when everyone else was entrenched to stop him.

Director Michael Winner however decides to switch gears on it and in an apparent attempt to make it more ‘relevant’ to the modern viewer slows the pace down to an almost screeching halt by implementing long-winded conversations and containing the action to only brief interludes while having an initially strong-willed character turn weak and indecisive. To me it was like slashing a tire and watching the air slowly drain out of it. The showdown at the end is anti-climactic and any potential tension is lost by a talky script and a bad guy (Cobb) who is dull and benign. The supporting cast of old pros is the only thing that saves it and I enjoyed the way each of them one-by-one got caught in bed with a prostitute at the town’s local whorehouse throughout the course of the film.

The Maddox character does indeed become an interesting enigma and even going against his supposedly upstanding nature by not only stealing two horses out of a nearby ranch when his is shot dead, but also at one point shooting an unarmed man in the back. Maybe this was the filmmakers attempt to show that western heroes where really human like the rest of us and full of the same contradictions, which could’ve elicited more discussion had the script been tighter.

This also marks the film debut of Richard Jordan a gifted character actor who died much too young, but managed to make some memorable movie appearances along the way. Here he portrays an young gunslinger attempting to stand up to Maddox, but unable to and at one point displays a cut on his face that looks more like a red leech stuck to his cheekbone.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: August 4, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 39Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Winner

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Revisionist Western

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Valley Girl (1983)

Posted on July 5, 2016 | 4 comments

valley girl

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Like totally, for sure.

Julie (Deborah Foreman) is a popular teen who is attracted to Randy (Nicholas Cage) who is not a part of her snotty clique. Stacey (Heidi Holicker) and Suzi (Michelle Meyrink) are her friends who want her to go back to dating the two-timing Tommy (Michael Bowen) even though she gets along with Randy far better. Her hippie parents (Frederic Forrest, Colleen Camp) aren’t sure what advice to give her, so she’s forced to choose between her friends and true-love while being threatened with ostracism if she goes out with the ‘wrong guy’.

The film was inspired by the Frank Zappa song, which is far funnier than anything that goes on here. The song had Zappa’s 14-year-old daughter Moon Unit putting on a fake southern California accent and speaking in a valley-speak lingo, which was right on-target. Here though we don’t get any of that. The girls only do the valley-speak thing at the very beginning and then it’s dropped and becomes just a pedestrian story of ordinary teens doing very ordinary teen-like things.

To me a valley girl represented a rich, plastic, entitled teen insulated from real-world issues who charged their Daddy’s credit card like it was a hobby and felt they were ‘too cool’ to work and more concerned with the latest teen fashions than anything else and yet the lead character here doesn’t represent any of this and in fact is the complete opposite.

The cast is also way too old for their roles. Foreman was already 21 and Bowen was 30! In fact none of the lead cast is of the right age range for their characters and making it look much more like college students or even young adults than high school. The party scenes are lame with the kids dancing like zombies moving their bodies in a robotic fashion with no sense or feel to the music or beat. The whole thing lacks hipness and comes off like a mild, sanitized concoction created by middle-aged adults far removed from the teen scene and unable to recreate it in any effective type of way.

Forrest and Camp are mildly amusing as the parents, but aging hippies running some backwoods type health food store probably wouldn’t be able to afford living in the valley let alone getting along with their more elitist neighbors. I was also disappointed that the Lee Purcell character just disappears without any denouncement. She plays Suzie’s very hot-looking mother, and with the possible exception of Foreman is quite easily the best looking member of the cast, who comes-on to one of her daughter’s guy friends (David Ensor) only to later catch the two in bed together, but what should’ve been a funny and lively confrontation and aftermath never gets addressed, which is a letdown.

On a purely romantic level the film could be considered ‘cute’ and the soundtrack has some cool tunes, but the story lacks oomph and fails to take advantage of the true valley girl persona ending up seeming more like just a mild ‘80s update of Gidget instead.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: April 29, 1983

Runtime: 1Hour 39Minutes

Rated R

Director: Martha Coolidge

Studio: Atlantic Releasing Corporation

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Comedy, Movies Based on Songs, Movies with Nudity, Romance

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Le Mans (1971)

Posted on July 3, 2016 | Leave a comment

le mans 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Car race of endurance.

Le Mans is a car race held annually in France in which the test is to show not only how fast the vehicle is, but also its reliability as cars are forced to drive for 24 straight hours with a minimum of pit stops. Michael Delaney (Steve McQueen) is the driver who represents the American team and who is under a great deal of duress because of the fact that he caused an accident that killed another driver just a year before.

The film’s first thirty minutes may be its most captivating and has been described by many fans as being their favorite part of the movie. I loved seeing the empty stands fill up with people as it gives the viewer an authentic race day feeling. Every little facet of the race gets captured almost like it is a documentary with the emphasis more on ambience and the adrenaline it creates instead of a story and in fact no one utters a single line of dialogue until almost 40 minutes in. Watching the cars whizz by with the camera set directly on the pavement just inches away was enough to make me flinch and the wipeouts are particularly graphic and up close.

The film has very little of a backstory to the characters and one gets propelled into the race without much distinction between the various drivers, or even any emotional stake for who wins. Normally I’d say this is a good thing because the dramatic elements in these types of films can get overly drawn out and soap opera-like, but it also makes it a rather detached experience like watching a football game with no concern for either team, or the outcome. The drama that does get played out is boring with dialogue that is only on a conversational level. It also gets confusing as to which driver is in the lead and the constant shots of loud cars speeding by eventually becomes tedious.

Things manage to recover by the end with an exciting finish between three of the race’s drivers that even features a very dramatic tire blow-out. Unfortunately the middle half bogs it down so much that by the time it gets there you feel pretty worn out already. It also wastes the acting talents of McQueen. Granted I was impressed that he did his own driving, but the script doesn’t give him enough to do outside of that.

The film was known for its troubled production in which John Sturges the film’s original director left after being unable to deal with McQueen’s constant meddling and replaced with Lee H. Katzin. Katzin was mainly known for doing TV-Movies and I honestly don’t think had the skill to create the movie’s impressive visual style. I believe it was McQueen’s presence that forged that and I almost feel he should’ve been credited ultimately as the being the director, or at least co-director. The irony is that McQueen ended up not receiving any salary for his work here, or even a percentage of the profits and in fact refused to even attend the film’s premiere.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: June 23, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 46Minutes

Rated G

Director: Lee H. Katzin

Studio: National General Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Sports Movies

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The Music Lovers (1971)

Posted on July 2, 2016 | 3 comments

music lovers 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Madness has no bounds.

This is a revealing look at Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain) and based on his own personal correspondences as he fought his homosexual tendencies by marrying Nina (Glenda Jackson) a woman he really did not love. Her nymphomania becomes something he cannot satisfy and he eventually abandons her where they then both go on to suffer their own personal forms of madness.

Pianists and composers were like what rock stars are today and I liked how director Ken Russell handles the concert sequence by infusing in the thoughts of the people as they listen to the music and therefore allowing the viewer to visualize the experience of a concert goer.

The scenes with Nina in the asylum are a good example of the grotesque imagery, but they are also well orchestrated and quite memorable. However at times it also gets overdone and unintentionally comical especially the sequence involving Chamberlain’s ill-fated attempt at lovemaking to Jackson on a shadowy, bouncing train car.

Russell shows no feeling for the subject and seems more interested in using it only as an excuse to show off his flashy style. The viewer is never allowed to get emotionally attached to the characters as we are only given a fragment of what these people were like and never the whole picture. The emphasis seems exclusively on their dark and self-destructive sides and watching their descent into madness is not very inspiring or insightful.

The casting of Chamberlain was a poor choice as the guy seems to have a very limited acting range. He is good looking, but lacks the charisma and his facial expressions rarely change while he shifts badly from underplaying the part to overplaying it.

Jackson fares far better and this could be considered a real find for her fans because she plays a type of character that she has never done before, or since. Usually she plays strong willed people, but here her character is weak allows herself to be dominated and exploited shamelessly even by her own mother while also taking part in a very provocative nude scene.

Overall if you like Russell’s style then you will enjoy it more than others. Otherwise it comes off as shallow, moody, and fragmented with some real slow spots during the middle half.

music lovers 2

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: January 24, 1971

Runtime: 2Hours 4Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ken Russell

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

3 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Foreign Films, Gay/Lesbian, Moody/Stylish, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity

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Money Movers (1979)

Posted on July 1, 2016 | 1 comment

money movers 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Employees become the thieves.

Lionel Darcy (Frank Wilson) runs an Australian armored truck business that transports payroll funds from one location to the other. After there is a robbery to one of his trucks he tries to increase security measures in order to prevent another one from occurring unaware that his own employees, with help of a local crime boss (Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell) are planning an even bigger attack and everyone, even the police detective hired in to investigate the first crime, are in on it in one or the other.

The film is based on a novel by Devon Minchin, who worked as head of security for The Beatles when they were on tour in Australia and also owned at one time Australia’s largest armored car security company. The story itself is based on two real-life robberies that occurred in Sydney during the summer of 1970.

To me what stands out most about this film is how everyone, with the sole exception of Darcy, is thoroughly corrupt. There is no ‘good-guy’ in this movie, but instead of that being a turn-off it becomes almost like a running-joke where the viewer waits to find out what dark vice each new character will reveal to have. Fortunately they and their vices remain strangely engaging and this is mainly because none of them are portrayed as being inertly ‘evil’, but instead people sucked into an already screwed-up system and simply trying to make a living and doing it in the only way they know how.

Ed Devereaux , who plays a retired cop named Dick Martin, becomes the film’s reluctant protagonist although his presence gets refreshingly underplayed while having him look worn, aged and genuinely overwhelmed yet still remaining dedicated to his cause and ultimately managing to put a monkey wrench into the proceedings. Darcy, the only other non-corrupt character, is equally engaging albeit in an unconventional way as his utter cluelessness as just how criminally overrun his own company is, is a perfect comical testament to how many business owners and CEOs are thoroughly detached from the companies they run and the people they supposedly control.

The violence is graphic and impactful and one of the most memorable elements of the movie particularly during the final shootout that occurs inside the garage of the armor car company. There is none of this staged nonsense where the men have ‘manly’ fistfights that always get coupled with that annoying smacking sound-effect. Instead it gets captured in quick, ugly ways where the men desperately do whatever ugly tactic they can to stop the other one. The action is stark and unglamorous while given a bestial quality like starving animals fighting over a last piece of meat that leaves the viewer feeling like they’ve just witnessed an actual crime as it happened.

The film’s beginning is admittedly confusing and there should’ve been some backstory given before it jumps right away into the crime that features a dizzying array of shootings and double-crossings before the viewer is even able to figure out who is who. Yet after this awkward first part it manages to settle down while becoming a rapid-paced, in-your-face crime thriller that has proven to be highly influential and years-ahead-of-its-time.

money movers 1

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: February 1, 1979

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Rated R

Director: Bruce Beresford

Studio: Roadshow Film Distributors

Available: VHS, Amazon Instant Video 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Gangster Movies, Heist Movies, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies Based on Novels, Movies from Australia, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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It Rained All Night the Day I Left (1980)

Posted on June 29, 2016 | Leave a comment

it rained all night 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Stuck in the desert.

Robert and Leo (Tony Curtis, Louis Gossett Jr.) are two losers working as gun runners who transport their goods in an old beat-up VW that looks to be seriously on its last leg. They meet up with The Colonel (Sally Kellerman) who is the widow of an actual Colonel that fought during WW II. She is now living alone with her nineteen year-old daughter Suzanna (Lisa Langlois) in an isolated ranch in the middle of the African desert. She hires Robert and Leo to help her oversee the water that she pumps to a nearby village. Since she feels that the members of this village had something to do with her late husband’s murder she has cut off their supply to it and only lets them have access to it at certain times of the day, which the two men feel is harsh. They do some investigating on their own and believe that it is neighboring rancher Killian (John Vernon) who is the real culprit to the murder, but trying to convince The Colonel of this, who has a romantic interest in Kilian, is another matter completely.

This obscure, low budget film is pretty much a botched mess from the get-go. Too much emphasis is put on comedy, but filmed by people who have no idea what is funny which forces the actors to carry-on with broadly written banter and insipid slapstick-like scenarios that is intended to be humorous, but falls resoundingly flat instead. The story and setting has some potential, but resorts to contrived, uninspired romance that becomes completely boring.

I’ll give Kellerman credit for lasting over six decades in the business, but her acting never seems to be effective. Her character is supposed to be a domineering, tough-as-nails lady, or at least that is how she is introduced as she even insists that the men refer to her as ‘sir’, but this quickly evaporates until she becomes just another aging, lonely female looking for love and companionship, which isn’t compelling, or original. Langlois as the daughter is equally transparent while delivering her lines as if she were half asleep. Why an attractive young lady such as herself would ever fall for a struggling 55-year-old man like the one Curtis plays here makes little sense and is pretty dumb.

The film is saved to a minor degree by the presence of Curtis. He was a top billed star during the ‘50s and 60s, but by the ‘80s his career had plummeted severely to the point that he was accepting minor, supporting roles in direct-to-video fare that next to no one saw. This film isn’t much better than those, but here at least he retains his engaging persona and helps lift the dead material to a somewhat tolerable level and his pairing with Gossett is odd enough to make it semi-intriguing.

This is a sad, almost embarrassing follow-up project for director Nicolas Gessner who had achieved critical acclaim with the Jodie Foster hit The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. Why he would choose this oddball thing to tackle next is a mystery as I’m sure he must’ve been offered better scripts, but in either case it’s a misfire that never manages to click at all.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: August 6, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 24Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Nicolas Gessner

Studio: Gaumont

Available: None at this time.

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Buddy Movies, Campy Comedy, Foreign Films, Movies with a rural setting, Obscure Movies

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Flashdance (1983)

Posted on June 27, 2016 | 3 comments

flashdance 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Dancing is her passion.

Alex Owens (Jennifer Beals) is a young lady of 19 who works as a welder during the day, but moonlights as an exotic dancer by night. She dreams of one day joining the dance institute and train to work in the professional ballet, but when she goes to their admissions desk they demand that she show some proof of prior training, which she doesn’t have and this is enough to intimidate her from applying at all.  She eventually starts up a relationship with Nick (Michael Nouri) who is the owner of the factory where she works. He uses his money and influence to pull-some-strings at the dance conservatory so that she’ll be able to get an audition, but she resents his help and threatens to not only pull out of their relationship because of it, but her audition as well.

The film is loosely based on the real-life story of Maureen Marder and the plot is relatable to anyone who dreams of one day rising above their humble beginnings, which is what makes the film interesting. Beals does well in the title role and has a very appealing face, but I was surprised how little dancing there actually was. Out of the whole runtime there are only three dance routines that the Beal character does, which was a shame as the routines are well staged, have a lot of energy and creativity and the most unique part about the film while its contrived romantic angle is  a complete bore.

The Alex character has issues as well as she comes off as too much of a mish-mash of different extremes making her more like a caricature than a real person. I realize human beings can be a bag of contradictions, but this character takes it too far. The biggest one is when she goes every week to confession even though she doesn’t behave at all like she is a religious person in any other way. I would think a devoutly Catholic individual wouldn’t feel as relaxed about getting on stage and gyrating her body let alone stripping off her clothes the minute she brings her new boyfriend back to her place, going to bed with him on their first date and even aggressively flirting with him at a restaurant.  In either case the confession scene was unnecessary because all it does is have the character verbally explain what the viewer has already been able to pick-up on visually.

The character is also highly volatile in ways that could easily get her pegged as being a borderline psycho these days. First she throws a rock through her boyfriend’s window when she thinks he is seeing another woman, then she jumps out of a moving car in the middle of a tunnel that could’ve caused a major traffic accident and then tops it all off by rushing onstage to drag her friend Jeanie (Sunny Johnson) off at a strip club and then callously throwing the dollars that Jeanie had earned into a puddle of water all because she consider herself to be a ‘good friend’, which brings up another point; why does this character consider stripping to be so ‘sleazy’ while being an exotic dancer is ‘respectable’? Granted she doesn’t take her clothes off as an exotic dancer, but the outfits she wears are quite revealing and the dance numbers are so sexually tinged that in my opinion there wasn’t that much of a difference.

I was also surprised how the male characters at her factory job seemed to treat her as being ‘just-one-of-the-guys’ as this was a highly attractive single woman making me believe that a lot of the guys would be hitting on her besides just the owner. I would also expect that she would be sexually harassed at the work place by some of them since she spends her evenings playing into their fantasies with her sexy dancing and the fact that the film fails to tackle this subject even briefly makes it poorly thought-out.

Overall though I found it to be an enjoyable watch and I think this was mainly due to Adrian Lyne’s direction and his use of lighting that made each shot seem like a visual design and his ability to photograph the grimy, steel mill setting in a way that made it seem artsy and evocative as well as the film’s rousing dance number at the end that despite its cheesy nature is still inspiring and fun.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: April 15, 1983

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Rated R

Director: Adrian Lyne

Studio: Paramount

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Actual Events, Movies with Nudity, Romance

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The Hot Rock (1972)

Posted on June 25, 2016 | Leave a comment

hot rock

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Stealing back stolen gem.

Having just been released from prison Dortmunder (Robert Redford) has no intention of ever going back because if he does it will be life, but even so he still can’t help but get caught up with the enticing offer that his brother-in-law Kelp (George Segal) has planned. The idea is to steal a valuable jewel from a New York museum where Dr. Amusa (Moses Gunn) will pay top dollar for what he believes was stolen from his African ancestors during colonial times. He even offers to help fund the mission and everything goes well until Greenberg (Paul Sand), who is one of the men on Dortmunder’s team, gets caught with the diamond and forced to swallow it. He then hides it inside the police station after he was forced to relieve himself. Now sitting in prison he promises the others he’ll show them where it is, but only if they agree to break him out of jail, which they do only to find further complications involving Greenberg’s dubious, double-crossing father (Zero Mostel).

Based on a Donald E. Westlake novel this film has all the trappings of being a fun, breezy outing and for the most part it is. The actors are game and Redford gives a surprisingly strong performance and maybe one of the best of his career while the supporting cast fall into their roles perfectly especially Mostel who easily steals it from the rest despite having only limited screen time. Director Peter Yates nicely paces the material although the set-up could’ve been more extended as the film spends only a few minutes on the planning phase and then jumps jarringly right into the actual crime making me feel more scenes of the preparation were filmed and then excised for possible shorter runtime purposes.

Spoiler Alert!

The actual crime is where the film falls apart as it starts getting a little too creative for its own good by incorporating too many offbeat touches that it can’t logically get its characters out of without going overboard into the implausible. The first issue comes when Dortmunder and Kelp try to break into prison in order to break Greenberg out of it. To me it just seemed too easy and they routinely open up prison doors that should certainly sendoff loud alarms almost immediately, but strangely don’t. I also couldn’t believe that Dortmunder would ever break into a place he so dearly wanted to stay out of. One misstep and he’d be stuck there for the rest of his life, so why even take the chance?

Later we learn, after they manage to get Greenberg out, that he has hidden the diamond inside the police station, which involves them flying a helicopter onto the roof of the police building, cutting off the power and phones lines and then releasing smoke bombs in order to get the officers out, which they do only to find that someone else has already gotten to the diamond, which was hidden inside the grimy sewage pipes. Later they find that it was Greenberg’s father, but how could some old man have been able to get to it when it took these four men a lot of effort just to get into the building?

The biggest implausibility though and the one that ‘jumped-the-shark’ for me is when, in an attempt to retrieve the diamond which Greenberg’s father has hidden in his safety deposit box in the bank that only he can access, they have a hypnotist hypnotize one of the bank employees, so that all Dortmunder needs to do is say a magic word and the bank employee will open up the father’s box for him.

I’ve tried hypnotism in the past and I can assure you that there is no way that someone can put anyone else into a trance-like state like they do here. It just doesn’t work that way a person’s conscious state doesn’t shut off nor can they be ‘tricked’ to do something against their will or that they are not aware of. If it was so easy to manipulate people in this way then we’d have robberies all over the world committed like this, but we don’t.

It also brings out more questions than answers like how were they able to get this woman to help put this bank employee into a trance? Did they offer her a part of the cut in order to keep her quiet and how would they know that they could trust her to begin with?

End of Spoiler Alert!

I really wanted to like this movie and the production is slick with a nice jazz score by Quincy Jones and a thrilling look at New York’s skyline from a helicopter, but the numerous plot holes became too much to overlook and ultimately made the story impossible to believe at all.

hot rock 3

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: January 26, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Peter Yates

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Dry Humor, Heist Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

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The Last Wave (1977)

Posted on June 23, 2016 | Leave a comment

last wave 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Suffering from strange premonitions.

David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) is a lawyer working in Sydney, Australia who is hired to defend some aborigines that have been accused of murder. David’s specialty is taxation law and he feels overwhelmed in this new role, but still takes it on with an earnest dedication, but in the process begins to experience strange dreams and even sees one of his clients, Chris (David Gulpilil), in them. This coincides with weird weather events that begin occurring all over the continent including the phenomena of black rain. David can’t help but feel that somehow this is all connected and after doing extensive research finds that tribal aborigines have a belief system involving what they call dreamtime in which spirits from another world communicate with us through our dreams and David has been the chosen recipient due to his lifelong ability to dream of events in his sleep that eventually occur later in real-life.

The film, which is directed by the gifted Peter Weir, has terrific imagery that almost makes-up for its other shortcomings. There have been a lot of movies that have tried to create creepy nightmare segments, but the ones here work much better than most and gave this viewer an effectively spooking feeling. The silhouette of the aborigines in the pouring rain, the shots of a large seismic wave and use of tribal music all get used to ultimate effect. Even the rain storms become fascinating to watch. None of them were actual ones, but instead large firehoses were employed along with giant fans to create a sort-of surreal stormy effect that actually looked better than the real thing.

The story though borders on being convoluted and would’ve worked better had the movie been given a longer runtime. The first hour is spent with the viewer seeing a lot of strange events that make no sense and are given no explanation. It is only after about an hour in that some expert, who’s given no formal distinction to what their line of study is or degree, explains to David the importance that dreams have to the aborigine culture, which helps tie things together, but this should’ve occurred earlier as some viewers will probably find it too confusing and off-putting otherwise.

Chamberlain is his usual bland self, but okay in this type of role as it doesn’t demand anyone who is colorful. The character though is supposed to be this very pragmatic individual, but he seemed to buy into the mystical qualities of the aborigine belief system much too quickly. A person with a practical approach to life would most likely be quite cynical to the events as they first occurred and even reluctant to base any value on his own nightmares, at least initially.

The ending is a major letdown. For one thing we have the main character inside an ancient sacred site beneath a sewer system where he suddenly has to start ‘thinking out loud’ by explaining what he is seeing on the drawings along the wall even though the viewer could’ve figured this out for themselves without the ‘narration’. The ambiguous conclusion is frustrating and makes sitting through the rest of it feel like a big waste of time.

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My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: November 13, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 45Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Peter Weir

Studio: Cinema International Corporation

Available: DVD (Criterion), Blu-ray (Reg. B), Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Court Drama, Foreign Films, Movies from Australia, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Spiritual Movies, Surreal/Fantasy, Thrillers/Suspense

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Blood Simple. (1984)

Posted on June 20, 2016 | 1 comment

blood simple 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Love triangle turns deadly.

Julian (Dan Hedaya) is a jealous and controlling husband who suspects that his wife Abby (Frances McDormand) is cheating on him. He hires a sleazy private detective named Loren (M. Emmet Walsh) to follow her around only for Julian to ultimately learn, to his shock, that not only is she fooling around, but it is with Ray (John Getz) who is one of his employees. Filled with rage Julian then asks the detective if he’d be willing to kill both of them for a price. Loren says he will, but then fakes the murder simply so he can collect the cash, which then leads to a myriad of twists.

This marks the Coen brother’s feature film debut and I was surprised to learn that every major studio passed on it and it wasn’t released to theaters until it got a favorable response after being screened at the Toronto Film Festival. The film is filled with the directorial flair that we’ve become accustomed to in their movies. I particularly enjoyed the inventive camerawork with my favorite shot being a tracking one done down a bar top in which the camera somehow leaps over a drunk’s head. The opening shots showing the desolate, dry and heat soaked Texas landscape helps give the film a gritty flair and the brief, clip-like dialogue that seems more like sound bites is quite interesting and helps reveal more by what the characters don’t say than by what they do.

McDormand is terrific in her film debut and her angelic-looking blue eyes help make her character more appealing to the viewer while the rest of them come off as being pretty vile. I was also impressed with how her Texas accent here sounds just as effective as the Minnesota one that she did in Fargo.

Hedaya does well playing the type of part he’s become best known for and I’ll give him credit for allowing himself to be put into a hole and having dirt thrown on him, but when he gets shot it is clear that his eye lids are fluttering and chest moving up and down, which should’ve been equally obvious to his shooter as well.

The story is slick, but the character’s actions not so much. Both Julian and the detective sneak into Ray’s house, but park their cars, which have very distinctive features, right in front of the home in which any neighbor looking out their window could report seeing it later when speaking to the police. Ray’s actions are even dumber as he gets fingerprints all over the murder weapon and then foolishly carries a dead body into his car where it doesn’t take a genius to know that the victim’s blood will most likely seep all over his backseat cushions.

The story appears to take place in the summer as the daytime scenes show the characters sweating, but then at nighttime we see the character’s breath, which makes it seem more like a winter time setting. I also thought the viewer should’ve been shown how the detective was able to doctor the photos to make it look like Abby and Ray had been shot as this was well before the age of personal computers or photo cropping.

There is another scene near the end where Abby, in an effort to escape from her killer, climbs out of her bedroom window and into a neighboring room. However, there was no ledge for her to climb onto making it almost impossible for her to do what she did, which is why I think they didn’t even attempt to show it and was simply something that we are expected to ‘forgive’ in order to enjoy the rest of the movie.

Despite these minor flaws I still found it to be an inventive film and one of the better attempts at creating a modern-day film noir that should be considered the standard for all others that followed.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: October 12, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 39Minutes

Rated R

Director: Joel Coen

Studio: Circle Films

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Moody/Stylish, Movies that take place in Texas, Thrillers/Suspense

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