Tag Archives: Review

Bad Manners (1984)

Posted on September 9, 2013 | Leave a comment

bad manners 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Orphans on the loose.

Piper (Greg Olden) is the new kid inside a rough orphanage who befriends Mouse (Michael Hentz) who looks up to Piper as a sort of tough guy hero. When Mouse gets adopted by a snotty rich couple (Martin Mull, Karen Black) Piper convinces the orphans to break out of the orphanage and rescue him.

If there is one thing that can be said for this film, which is so obscure it is not even listed in Leonard Maltin’s Video Guide, is that it is lively. Director Robert Houston uses a lot of quick edits, interesting camera work and spinning tracking shots to keep things at a fast, irreverent pace. Piper’s sessions with his psychiatrist, which is played by Stephen Stucker is the funniest. Stucker is best known for playing the hyper air traffic controller in Airplane, but I felt he was more engaging and amusing here. The scene where Mouse swallows a small dinner bell and sends everyone into a panic is also a riot.

Unfortunately the film is unable to hold the balance between quirky humor and action and eventually devolves into a cartoonish, silly mess that becomes pretty much just an R-rated kiddie flick. I also didn’t care for the synthesized music score, which had a generic sound similar to ones used in 80’s porn flicks and only further cemented this as an uninspired B-movie.

The children characters are excessively crude and in some ways I prefer it a little more like this because I think it is realistic to how teens and pre-teens behave instead of as the wide-eyed sweet innocents that some other movies portray them as, but parents most likely will cringe and won’t want their own kids to watch it. A mean-spiritedness permeates throughout and although I am not sure if this was intentional or not but the two male leads and the one female are quite androgynous.

The one thing that keeps it fun is the adult performers who seem more than up to the campiness. Murphy Dunne is delightfully hammy as the orphanage warden and Anne De Salvo is quite cute despite playing an oppressive nun. Mull’s glib one-liners are a perfect balance to the zaniness. Black is also great and practically steals the film at the very end when she goes on a spastic shooting spree. This also marks the final film appearance of Richard Deacon best known for playing Mel Cooley on ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ who appears here in a brief bit as a ticket agent.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Alternate Title: Growing Pains

Released: November 4, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 22Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Houston

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: VHS, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Crude Comedy, Farce, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Quirky

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Marooned (1969)

Posted on September 8, 2013 | 2 comments

marooned 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Astronauts stranded in space.

Unfortunately this film’s biggest claim to fame is that it is the only movie nominated for an Academy Award to be shown on ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’.  As much as I enjoy that show I think it is unfair to throw this movie into the pile and make fun of it as I think it holds-up well and is a solid space drama.  The story based on the novel by Martin Caidin is about three astronauts (Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman, James Franciscus) who have been orbiting the earth for several months in a space lab, but as they try to return to earth they find that their retro rocket won’t fire and they’re stranded. Initially NASA, which is headed by Charles Keith (Gregory Peck) decide they have no alternative but to leave them there however, Ted Daugherty (David Janssen) puts up enough of a raucous that they decide to allow him to head a rescue mission. An impending hurricane and the astronaut’s dwindling supply of oxygen all cause further problems and force everyone to work at break-neck speed to pull it off.

One of the things that grabbed me initially was the lack of music. Instead we just here beeping sounds of a computer and the hum of a rocket during the opening credits, which helps give the film a futuristic and distinctive flair. I also liked the cool sounding hum that the viewer hears every time the men are outside of their capsule and in space. It has kind of a hypnotic tone to it and makes things a bit surreal. The special effects were decent for its era. You do have to forgive it a little particularly the scenes showing the rocket and men floating in space, which were clearly matted over a blue screen, but at least when the men are shown floating around with no gravity there are no visible strings. My favorite moment out of the entire film is when one of the men goes floating off motionless into the dark abyss while the other two watch solemnly from the capsule door.

The narrative could have been handled better. Instead of starting things out right away with the rocket taking the men off into space I felt there should have been more of a backstory to the main characters so we got to know them better and felt more empathy to their predicament. Even having flashbacks of the characters at different times in their life dotted throughout the film would have helped make them seem less cardboard. The scenes involving all three wives of the astronauts (Nancy Kovack, Mariette Hartley, Lee Grant) talking to their respective husbands via satellite just before the rescue mission takes off becomes too extended, predictable and maudlin. However, the scene involving the conversation that the astronauts have amongst themselves when it is learned that there isn’t enough oxygen for all three and one of them must be willing to die to save the other two I found to be gripping and compelling.

Peck is as usual incredibly stiff and delivers his lines like he is preaching some sort of sermon. Here though his style works with a character that is no-nonsense and locked into being completely practical at all times. His looks of nervousness as the rescue rocket gets ready to take off are great as is his delicate conversation that he has with Crenna involving which of them must sacrifice their life for the other two. Hackman is solid as usual playing an emotional Gus Grissom-like character, but he has played these roles so much it would have been interesting to see him play one of parts that required more restraint. The beautiful and talented Grant is wasted in a non-distinguished role as one of the wives, but her line about ‘the girls’ leaving the men alone so they can get back to their jobs seemed incredibly sexist especially from her.

The rescue mission is exciting, but excruciating and the ending is way too abrupt. However, my biggest complaint about this film that I otherwise find to be realistically and plausibly handled is that no explanation is ever given for why the rockets failed to fire, which I felt there should have been especially since there is a moment showing the green light on their dashboard stating that the rockets did fire and this light mysteriously stays on even when they shut down the power to the rest of the cabinet.

marooned 2

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 11, 1969

Runtime: 2Hours 14Minutes

Rated G

Director: John Sturges

Studio: Columbia

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 60's Movies, Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Sci-Fi

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Burnt Offerings (1976)

Posted on September 6, 2013 | 3 comments

burnt offerings 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Evil house menaces family.

Marian and Ben (Karen Black, Oliver Reed) are a couple who takeover for the summer as caretakers for an old gothic-like mansion.  They bring along their son Davey (Lee Montgomery) and Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis). Soon there are strange occurrences as well as a transformation of their personalities, which makes them believe that the place is haunted.

The attempt at going back to an old-fashioned type of horror movie doesn’t work. Dan Curtis’s direction is too restrained and most likely will be a turn-off to even those that like these types of films. The pace is slow and the film takes way too much time telling a story that in the end adds up to nothing. The scares are non-existent and I didn’t even find it to be the slightest bit creepy. The only impressive scene involves a body flying out of an upstairs window and crashing head first into the windshield of a car, but that doesn’t occur until the very end. There is also a potentially interesting subplot involving Ben’s reoccurring nightmares about a traumatic childhood experience with a chauffeur, but it is never fully explained what this is about, which ultimately makes this more frustrating instead.

The soft lighting approach is another mistake as it makes the whole thing look like a shampoo commercial and adds nothing to the atmosphere. There is also the backyard pool that was clearly shot at another location from the summer house one that they reside.

Probably the only fun element of this otherwise blah film is the eclectic cast. Burgess Meredith, who shows up at the beginning, should’ve won an award for campy performance of the decade. Black plays another one of her flaky characters with her usual flaky style and Montgomery is good as the no-nonsense kid. Reed is outstanding as he ends up showing the widest array of emotions.

However, it is Davis whose latter day presence gives the film its broadest appeal. She spent a career playing strong-willed women with electrifying performances and yet here her character is downright ordinary. The change of pace is interesting especially the scene where she gets shouted down by Black. She also has a pretty good deathbed sequence and there is even a moment where Reed pats her on her rear. Depending on one’s point-of-view you will either find this to be amazing, amusing, or really gross.

On the whole though I found this to be a pretty hopeless excuse for a horror film with the most horrifying thing about it being having to sit through it.

burnt offerings 2

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: October 18, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 56Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Dan Curtis

Studio: United Artists

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Mystery

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Body Rock (1984)

Posted on September 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

body rock

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Lots of break-dancing.

Chilly (Lorenzo Lamas) is a an aspiring street artist who learns of an agent named Terrence (Ray Sharkey) who is looking for break-dancers for his next production. Although Chilly doesn’t know how to break- dance he gets a young African American kid named Magick (La Ron A. Smith) to teach him how. Soon Chilly and his friends are doing the moves and form a group called The Body Rocks. Unfortunately the producers like Chilly, but not his friends. He gets hired to dance at a high class club while leaving his friends behind, which causes friction with his old buddies especially when things don’t work out and Chilly finds himself in need of them.

If you like an 80’s movie that is oozing with cheesy 80’s kitsch from its first frame until its last then this movie is for you. Amazingly director Marcelo Epstein shoots it pretty well with a nice pace that never gets boring. There are a lot of scenes of break dancing here. In fact out of the entire 90 minute runtime at least 30 minutes of it deals with shots of somebody dancing. Director Epstein uses creative camerawork to keep it interesting and avoids it becoming anymore repetitive than it already is and in that regard he deserves credit. I liked how he showed some of it in slow motion as well as the underneath shots where the viewer sees the dancer’s body fly over the camera. The segment where the dancers wear glow-in-the-dark costumes resembling skeletons was actually kind of cool. It has been so long since I’ve seen anyone doing the moonwalk or the other dance moves that on a nostalgic level this is kind of fun.

Lamas wasn’t quite as bad as I feared. I admit I’ve never followed his ‘career’ much and he always seemed to me to be one of those hollow hunks, but here he doesn’t take himself too seriously. His colorful ‘hip’ bare chest exposing outfits and headbands are goofy and the fact that he insists on wearing them even on job interviews gets over-the-top and makes the already one-dimensional character even more of a caricature. The biggest problem though is the fact that Lamas was too old for the role. He was already 26 at the time and the part was more suited for an 18-year-old. Personally I would have had Majick as the lead. The kid has way more charisma than Lamas and was a much better dancer.

Sharkey as the agent is completely wasted and trapped in a blandly written role. I did like Grace Zabriskie as Chilly’s white-trash mother. A woman who seems to lie in bed all the time and smoke cigarettes while somehow trying to camouflage her aging, worn face with a platinum blonde dyed hairdo. The talented Zabriskie plays the caricature perfectly and I wished she had more scenes.

The movie is tolerable on a tacky B-level, but the corny over-blown ending pretty much kills it. The script was written by Desmond Nakano who later found critical success with Last Exit to Brooklyn and White Man’s Burden, but you wouldn’t see a shred of that here in a story that is woefully pedestrian and predictable. In fact the whole thing would have been more interesting had they scrapped the paper-thin plot and made a documentary on break-dancing instead.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: September 28, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Marcelo Epstein

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Musical, Obscure Movies

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The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976)

Posted on September 3, 2013 | 1 comment

the witch who came from the sea 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: She doesn’t like men.

Molly (Millie Perkins) is a middle-aged woman suffering from dormant, haunting memories of sexual abuse that she suffered at the hands of her father. To compensate she goes through periods of black outs where she murders and mutilates men that she picks up and brings home for kinky sex games.

If this movie was half as provocative and artsy as its movie poster this might have been something. Unfortunately it takes a potentially interesting idea and slams it into the ground with a talky script that goes nowhere. Matt Cimber’s direction is unfocused creating a movie that is slow and filled with endless and redundant conversations. It hardly seems like a horror movie at all and more like a drama and a rather stale one at that. The emphasis is more on the psychological workings of the character, but it is too broad and generalized to be interesting, or intriguing. The brightly lighted sets do not create any type of atmosphere and this was one film where I was looking more at the clock waiting for it to be over than at the screen.

The only time there is any action is during the killing sequences, but like everything else this gets botched. For one thing there are endless conversations during these as well. Cimber adds in an echo effect, which initially has a little pizazz, but then gets over-used and monotonous. The victims are stupid and allow themselves to be put into vulnerable positions that the average person wouldn’t so it is hard to relate to them, or care about their gruesome fates. The liquid used for blood is skimpy and resembles chocolate syrup.

It is interesting initially to see Perkins in the title role as she is most famous for playing Anne Frank in the classic 1950’s movie version. She took this part mainly because her then husband Robert Thom wrote the script and she seems game for it. She even does a few nude scenes and looks pretty good in them particularly the scene where she gets a tattoo along her stomach and chest.

The second half deals with the investigation of the murders and the slow realization by Molly’s friends that she may have a dark and dangerous side to her, which is too contrived and offers no suspense or intrigue. The scenes recreating the Molly’s sexual abuse by her father are hooky and it would have been better had it not been done at all and only implied. The worst part though is that Verkina Flowers who plays Molly as a child has brown eyes while Molly’s eyes as an adult are blue.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: January 2, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 23Minutes

Rated R

Director: Matt Cimber

Studio: Cinema Release Corp.

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Sex, Slasher/Gore

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The Grass is Singing (1981)

Posted on September 2, 2013 | Leave a comment

the grass is singing 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Farming isn’t her thing.

In memory of Karen Black who died on August 8th we will review on each Monday of this month an 80’s film that she starred in as well as a 70’s movie that she was in on Fridays. This film is based on the Doris Lessing novel and was filmed on-location in Zambia. The story centers on Mary a racist woman from South Africa who is bored with her job and lonely. She meets Richard (John Thaw) a simple man who becomes smitten with her. She is not as crazy about him but decides to accept his proposal of marriage simply as a way to escape her dreary existence and loneliness. He moves her to his farm where she finds the rigorous lifestyle difficult to adjust too. The isolation begins to wear on her already tightly wound temperament and eventually she begins to show erratic behaviors that become more disturbing and shocking.

The Zambia locations are captured in vivid style with a grainy film stock that makes it look like it were a documentary. The farm setting is indeed desolate and makes for great atmosphere. Director Michael Raeburn wisely refrains from using too much music and when he does he uses instrumentals from the native culture, which further elevates the film and gives it distinction.

The film stays pretty faithful to the novel and starts out in startling fashion with Mary being stabbed and bloodied on her backdoor step and then shifts back seven years where we see what lead up to it. The pace is slow, but involving and the characters are three-dimensional and believable. Mary’s breakdown happens in a deliberate and realistic fashion starting with little things that work into bigger ones. In the end you feel more sorry for her than frightened and thoroughly engulfed with her sad and pathetic circumstances.

This was Black’s last serious role before being quarantined in B-movie purgatory. This may also be one of her finest moments as she brings out the manipulative nature of the character quite well and I love the way she always seems to add quirky qualities to her parts. She also speaks with an authentic sounding South African accent.

Thaw is quite good in support and creates empathy from the viewer playing a very humble man looking for simple companionship with no idea what he was getting into.

There is some serious filmmaking going on here in a movie that makes some great points about life and human nature that is well worth checking out. The original theatrical release which is what I saw and able to obtain from a private collector runs a full 105 minutes. However, the American release which is available on DVD from Synergy Entertainment as well as Amazon Instant Video and goes under the title Killing Heat runs only 90 minutes and heavily edits out the explicit violence and nudity and has a narrative that is choppy and at times confusing.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Alternate Title: Killing Heat (U.S. version)

Released: September 18, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 45Minutes (Original Version)

Not Rated

Director: Michael Raeburn

Studio: Chibote

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video (as Killing Heat)

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

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A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die (1968)

Posted on September 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

a minute to pray a second to die

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: A gunfighter suffers seizures

Clay McCord (Alex Cord) travels to New Mexico where the Governor (Robert Ryan) promises amnesty to all outlaws. Clay finds himself at odds with the other outlaws who are traveling to the state for the same reason, which causes him to get involved in numerous gun fights and although he is an excellent shooter he also suffers from strange seizures that temporarily paralyze his arm. When he has these fits it makes him completely vulnerable to all those who might want to take advantage of him. He tries to keep this condition a secret while looking for a Dr. which he hopes can cure him, but the other outlaws get wind of it and start to track him down.

One of the biggest problems with this movie is that Director Franco Giraldi is no Sergio Leone and you spend the whole time wondering how much better this would have been had Leone directed it. Giraldi fails to have Leone’s visual style or lyricism. Everything is staged and photographed in a very conventional unimaginative way with a lot of choppy editing. The one fun and interesting scene that the film does have Giraldi screws up and it entails Clay as a young boy watching a group of cowboys laughing at his father and dragging him through the mud while he suffers an epileptic seizure. The crying boy becomes so distraught that he steals one of the men’s guns and then turns around and shoots them all dead. Instead of taking advantage of the scene’s irony and showing the men with shocked expressions and even possibly having them getting hit and falling down dead in slow motion Giraldi instead immediately cuts away the second the boy starts shooting, which doesn’t allow the scene to gel and stand out as much as it should.

The music is another issue and in desperate need of Ennio Morricone’s distinctive orchestral sound. Carlo Rustichelli the composer here has a score that places too much emphasis on the violins and creates a heavy, droning melody that would be better suited for a drama. The dialogue is also dubbed. I know a lot of Italian filmmakers did this especially during this era. I’ve never been sure why and I have never liked it although with Dario Argento’s horror movies it somewhat works because it heightens the surreal effect, however here it cheapens the production and cements it as a definite B-movie.

Cord doesn’t have the charisma or presence of a leading man. His deep voice and laid back delivery makes him sound like he is only half awake. He glides through the film with too much of a detached and unemotional persona. The biggest problem though was the character. This is a man who has no idea when his seizures will occur and knows full well the vulnerable position they will put him in and yet he continues to behave in a brash, cocky way with everyone he meets and singlehandedly tries to right every wrong when it would have been much more practical to simply lay low and blend in with the crowd.

Nicoletta Machiavelli is a beauty and although I wasn’t so sure about her acting her face was so appealing that I wanted to see her in more scenes and was disappointed when she got killed off so quickly. Veteran actor Arthur Kennedy who wears a wig gives his usual stalwart performance as the town’s marshal, but it is not enough to save the picture. Ryan is okay as the governor, but I found it hard to believe that a man who looked like he was clearly getting elderly would be able to punch out as many guys as he does let alone even one of them.

There are quite a few gun battles particularly during the first half, but they are generic and the final one really isn’t that exciting. The ending peters out with a whimper and this spaghetti western wannabe does nothing but make you long to go back and re-watch a classic one.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 1, 1968

Runtime: 1Hour 37Minutes (The DVD cover says 1Hour 58Minutes, but they’re wrong.)

Not Rated

Director: Franco Giraldi

Studio: Cinema Releasing Corporation

Available: DVD

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Posted in 60's Movies, Action/Adventure, Foreign Films, Italian Films, Spaghetti Westerns

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Paperback Hero (1973)

Posted on August 30, 2013 | Leave a comment

paperback hero

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Big fish small pond.

Rick (Keir Dullea) is a hockey player living in a small town on the western plains of Canada. To pass his time he imagines he is a gunslinger in the old west and makes himself the self-imposed marshal of the community.  Outside of Sheriff Burdock (George R. Robertson) the other townsfolk considered it an amusing and otherwise harmless quirk. Then Rick learns that his hockey team will be disbanded and he will be without a job. He is given an opportunity for employment in nearby Saskatoon, but he refuses it feeling that he will lose his ‘mystique’ in the bigger city. Slowly the strains and pressures of his situation start to get to him and eventually it culminates in an old fashioned gunfight right in the center of town between him and the sheriff.

If the film gets one thing right it is in the recreation of small town life. Filmed on-location in Delisle, Saskatchewan director Peter Pearson gives the viewer a wonderful and vivid feel of the town. Just about all the sections of the hamlet are captured including the inside of abandoned buildings, trailer homes and farms as well as a couple of nice bird’s eye shots. The remoteness and flat wheat laden terrain brings to life the region in an almost stunning clarity. Having grown up in a small town not too terribly far from the Canadian border I can say that this film hits-the-mark in its portrayal of people in the Nordic region. All the little dramas that can go on between people locked in a remote local as well as the scenes done inside a dark and dingy bar that many times can constitute as the place to go for a ‘night-on-the-town’ is amusingly well played-out.

However, despite having the right flavor the film lacks direction. It was hard for me to get into this because all the scenes were random and not connected together by all that much. The plot is thin and made up if anything by a series of vignettes.  The main character is brass, egotistical, deluded and arrogant. He treats women like they are his property. He beats up one and considers it minor because her bruises are only the ‘size of a quarter’. He talks about getting turned on by one woman while making love to another and then is surprised when she gets upset with him. Having a film built around such an unlikable character is not entertaining or interesting especially when we are given no history to why he became the way he is.

Dullea does well in the lead and shows a lot more emotion and panache than one might expect from him especially when compared to his most famous role as the rather robotic Dave Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is always fun to see Elizabeth Ashley and here she plays one of Rick’s love interests, but her role is small and rather thankless though she does get shown in a long and explicit nude scene.

My favorite was Dayle Haddon as the alluring Joanna. Haddon has retired from the acting profession years ago, but was at one time a fashion model and she looks gorgeous here. The scene that takes place in an abandoned house where she tells Rick off and shreds his deluded ego while doing it in a quiet whispery tone is the movie’s best moment.

The segment showing a big hockey brawl where fans jump out of the stands to get involved and even the ref gets bloodied is fun. I also liked the part where Rick takes Joanna on car ride through the wheat fields. The camera is hooked up to the bumper of the car so the viewer gets an up close experience of watching the wheat thrash before them at high speeds. The standoff at the very end in the center of town is also interesting, but the film takes too long to gel and the main character is such a turn-off that it hurts the good points and ultimately makes this a misfire.

The movie also features the Gordon Lightfoot’s song ‘If You Could Read My Mind’, which is a great a song, but it has been played so much on lite-rock stations that instead of getting the viewer more engrossed in the movie it instead takes them out of it. The film works hard to create a gritty appeal and for the most part succeeds, which is why having a long segment with the song played over it doesn’t work and I would have left it out.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: September 21, 1973

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Rated R

Director: Peter Pearson

Studio: Alliance Film Distribution

Available: VHS, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Foreign Films, Movies from Canada, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Meet the Applegates (1990)

Posted on August 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

meet the applegates 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Bugs turn into people.

Giant Brazilian Beetles take human form and disguise themselves as a typical suburban family. The father beetle Richard (Ed Begley Jr.) gets job at a nuclear plant, which he plans to use to destroy mankind and thus save their species and the rainforests from human progression.

This cultish-like comedy pretty much kills itself from the beginning by having a farfetched premise that it never bothers to explain. Just how do these giant beetles learn to take human form? Nothing is shown or mentioned. Even a really, really stupid explanation would be better than nothing at all.

The film does have a few good points, which allows you to stick with it despite the complete absurdity. One is the fact that it tackles the very serious issue of environmentalism. If anything it gets the general viewer a little more aware of the problem and by putting the bugs in human form makes them sensitive to their situation.

The film also has its witty moments as it analyzes the different habits of both bugs and humans. The best part may actually be a rather simple bit when the bug wife Jane (Stockard Channing) is not in the mood for sex so Richard grabs a science magazine with large pictures of insects and then ‘gets-off’ on it in the bathroom. There is also a side story dealing with the wife’s obsessive use of credit cards that is right-on-target.

Yet within all the offbeat humor there is also an amazingly high level of inconsistencies. These bugs seem to know a lot about certain technical gadgetry, but then not in other areas. They respond to some things in an odd creature-like way and then at other times like a regular person would. The scenes involving sexual relations between these bugs and other humans seem very unnatural and highly preposterous.

The acting runs hot and cold. Begley can be good in offbeat and nerdy roles, but as a family patriarch he just does not cut it. Robert Jayne as the son Johnny is terrible. He has a dazed expression on his face throughout like he was hit on the head a few times and acts like he was never in front of a camera before. On the plus side it’s nice to see Stockard back to doing comedy as she has a good knack for it. Dabney Coleman is fun even though he is pretty much wasted though seeing him dressed in drag and calling himself ‘Aunt Bea’ is genuinely funny.

Overall the film looks rushed and may have had studio tampering. The special effects are cheap and although some of it is passable most of the time it is downright deplorable. The ‘feel good’ ending is excruciating. Director Michael Lehmann seems to be another casualty to the dreaded sophomore jinx. Heathers, which was his first feature was a great success, but even though this film has its moments it cannot come together as a whole.

meet the applegates 2

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Alternate Title: The Applegates

Released: November 8, 1990

Runtime: 1Hour 30Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Lehmann

Studio: Triton Pictures

Available: VHS (as ‘The Applegates’)

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Posted in 90's Movies, Cult, Obscure Movies, Satire

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Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)

Posted on August 26, 2013 | 2 comments

sex lies and videotape

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Sex confessions on tape.

This movie was the critic’s darling when it was released 24 years ago and there didn’t seem to be anyone around that didn’t like it. I remember watching it back then and feeling like it was a bit overrated and although I liked it a little more the second time around I can’t say that my feelings about it have changed all that much. The story is about John (Peter Gallagher) who is married to Ann (Andie MacDowell) and who is having an affair with her sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo) due to Ann’s frigidity. In comes Graham (James Spader) an old college buddy of John’s who stays with the couple temporarily while he looks for a permanent residence. Graham has an unusual fetish of recording women confessing to some of their wild sexual moments to the camera to which he records and then gets off to later. Ann is initially attracted to Graham, but when she finds about his habit she is appalled only to later become keen to the idea and agree to do a taped confession herself, which sends everything spiraling out of control.

The movie seems excessively talky with scenes and conversations particularly the dinner one between John, Ann and Graham going on longer than it should. Not a lot really happens and there is little if any action. The production values are pretty basic and don’t seem much different than the ones Graham uses for his taped confessions. For a film that talks so much about sex, which seems to fill pretty much every conversation that the characters have it is not very erotic and the attempts at eroticism is pretty generic. I did like writer/director Steven Soderbergh’s use of editing where conversations from one scene between two characters will be heard overlapping over a shot featuring two different characters. However, the scene where Cynthia gives her confession to Graham is ruined by the sound of a train whistle going off in the background, which became distracting.

I also had a hard time buying into the basic premise. I just couldn’t understand why so many women would freely divulge to a perfect stranger all of their deep dark fantasies and sexual excursions knowing full well that they were being recorded for his own personal gratification with no real assurance that these tapes wouldn’t one day get into the wrong hands and come back to haunt or humiliate them years later. There is also what I considered a glitch when Ann is vacuuming the rug and finds Cynthia’s earring underneath their bed, which was apparently left by her when she had sex with John in the bed a few days earlier, but I kept thinking that after a few days Cynthia would have realized that she was missing her earring and had John go back to retrieve it. It is possible that Cynthia may have intentionally planted the earring there for her sister to find since she seemed to really dislike her, but if that was the case the movie should have confirmed this, which it doesn’t.

MacDowell is great in the lead and looks beautiful. I enjoyed the character and felt her presence in the story made the movie more interesting. I did though have some issues with the opening scene where she is seen talking to a male therapist about her lack of sex drive, which to me wasn’t realistic. I would think that if a woman had sexual problems that she would be reluctant to discuss it with a male and would only talk about it with a female Dr. Also, she sits on his sofa Indian style with her shoes off, which seemed too relaxed a posture for a woman that otherwise is frigid and reserved.

Spader is also likable and conveys a surprisingly sensitive performance. However, I couldn’t understand what type of person in this day and age would leave their door always unlocked especially at night. Gallagher is just too much of a narcissist pretty boy philanderer to have much appeal although seeing how things unravel for him at the end and how he somehow feels morally superior to Graham is interesting.

I didn’t care for the Cynthia character at all. She dresses and behaves too much like a one-dimensional tramp and the only thing that ever comes out of her mouth is a barrage of sarcastic, snarky remarks and at no time ever shows even some remote sensitivity, which might have helped.

Although his part is brief Steven Brill is a hoot as a barfly constantly making feeble attempts to hit on Ann. He is the one amusing part of the movie, which I wished had infused more humor.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: August 18, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated R

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Studio: Miramax

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Low Budget, Movies that take place in the South, Sex

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