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Showdown (1973)

Posted on February 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Friends go separate ways.

Chuck (Rock Hudson) and Billy (Dean Martin) were once close childhood friends, but as they grew older their lives drifted apart. Now Chuck is a sheriff while Billy has become a bank robber. When he and his gang rob a train it is up to Chuck to track him down and bring him to justice.

This flat and lifeless concoction was the last film directed by George Seaton who seemed to be slumming when he did this one as it’s derivative and formulaic to the extreme with nothing in it that is diverting or memorable. Part of the problem is the tone. It starts out as a potential western comedy with Billy riding on a train and pretending to be a sheriff. When the train gets attacked by the bandits he convinces everyone to put their valuables into a sack, so he can ‘protect’ them only to shock the people by absconding with them instead, which is kind of funny and had the film stayed at this level it still wouldn’t have been all that great, but at least more entertaining.

Unfortunately the rest of the story turns into one long, drawn-out drama that is both slow and pointless. The flashbacks showing the men when they were children are neither amusing nor insightful and could’ve easily been scrapped. I was also under the impression initially that the two men were brothers and the story might’ve had more impact had they been.

The film’s title seems to imply some big, climactic finish, which doesn’t really occur. Instead of waiting until the end for the two men to meet up with each other it actually occurs during the second act and when they do there’s no big confrontation or fireworks, which makes their interactions as flat and boring as the rest of the film. There is some mild tension involving Billy’s former gang members who want to track him down in order to inflict revenge on him for shooting another member of the gang, but this story angle doesn’t get played up enough and they’re given only moderate screen time.

Martin is engaging despite coming off looking washed-up and far older than the 57 years that he was with his hair looks dyed and buffed up by some Hollywood stylist. Hudson though is unable to match Martin’s charm making it seem like it would’ve been better had he not been in it at all and instead just solely focused on Martin trying to escape the clutches of the other gang members. Even Susan Clark, who is a great actress, gets wasted and miscast as Hudson’s wife as she looks too young to have been married to him and was in reality 18 years his junior making it more appropriate had she played his daughter.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: June 20, 1973

Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: George Seaton

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD-R (Universal Vault Series), Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Movies with a rural setting, Westerns

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Hardcore (1979)

Posted on February 11, 2020 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: His daughter does porn.

Jake (George C. Scott) is a conservative businessman living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who is raising his teenage daughter Kristen (Ilah Davis) as a single parent only to have her disappear while on a church sponsored road trip to California. Jake then hires a detective (Peter Boyle) to track down her whereabouts and after some searching he finds that she’s entered the world of porn, which compels Jake to go to California and pose as a adult film producer in hopes that he can get information from those working in the business that will eventually lead him to Kristen.

While the storyline has some potentially interesting aspects it gets handled in too much of an over-the-top way, particularly at the beginning, to be fully effective. The opening song sung by Susan Raye is too heavily tinged with a country music sound and the religious aspects of the citizens, who debate Bible passages even during a holiday dinner, gets overplayed. Having a brief scene showing Jake leaving church after attending a service was all that was needed to convey that the character was on the conservative end without having to throw in all of the other heavy-handedness.

The segments dealing with the porn scene are equally botched. For one thing with the advent of the internet the adult film business has changed drastically making what we see here quite dated and irrelevant.  We also learn barely nothing about the daughter, or how exactly she got into doing porn. The film implies that she meets some man on her trip who apparently ‘tricked’ or ‘drugged’ or ‘kidnapped’ her into doing porn and that could be the only possible explanation for why anyone would ever do it, which I suppose at that time was the answer most mainstream audiences would accept. However, there are many famous female porn stars from that era who insist they choose to get into the business and weren’t forced.

The film would’ve been far stronger had writer/director Paul Schrader actually done some research into the people who worked in the business, which I felt he hadn’t done as the porn producers are portrayed in the same broad caricature way as the religious people at the beginning. Having the daughter choose to get into the business and then cutting back-and-forth between her dealings inside the adult movie world and her father’s search for her would’ve made the movie more insightful.

I did however enjoy seeing conservative/small-town Jake get plunged into a dark, seedy world that he wasn’t used to and the many adjustments that he makes, including buying a whole new wild wardrobe in order to fit in. His friendship with one of the female porn stars, which is convincingly played by Season Hubley, is quite fascinating especially their conversations and an aspect of the film that I wished had been played-up more.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending, which involves a big shoot-out on the streets of L.A. gets too Hollywood-like and should’ve been avoided. Having Jake finally meet-up with his daughter and their subsequent stilted conversation, was equally dumb and really hurts the movie as a whole. Originally the script had the daughter dying in a car accident before Jake was able to find her and since her character remains pretty much an enigma anyways, that’s the ending that they should’ve kept.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: February 9, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 48 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Paul Schrader

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (U.K. release) Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Drama, Movies with Nudity, Sex

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Tell Me a Riddle (1980)

Posted on February 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Adjusting to old age.

Eva (Lila Kedrova) is an elderly woman who has been diagnosed with cancer, but her husband David (Melvyn Douglas) does not tell her of the terminal disease and instead takes her on a cross country journey to visit their grandchildren in San Francisco. Eva though begins to feel homesick and wants to return to the place that she is used to only to learn that David sold the home without her knowledge and forged her signature on the papers, which creates a rift between the two just as she enters her final days of life.

This modest low budget film was notable as the first feature film in America to be written, directed, and produced by women. It is based on the 1961 short story by Tillie Olsen and the first feature directed by actress Lee Grant, who felt that after she won the Academy Award for best supporting actress in 1975 that her days on the screen were numbered due to her age and the only way to stay busy in the business was to go behind the camera. She choose this script because it tackled two topics most important to her: feminism and her fear of aging.

For the most part, at least at the beginning, the slow pace works as it helps replicate the elderly lifestyle. The flashbacks showing the couple when they were young, which features a then unknown Peter Coyote as the younger David, help to make the two main characters more multi-dimensional. The different locations that they go to and live-in on their trip, which includes sleeping in their daughter Jeannie’s (Brooke Adams) cramped apartment while she sleeps with her boyfriend across the hall as well as visiting an elderly friend, Mrs. Mays (Lili Valenty), who lives in a place no bigger than a small bedroom and forced to walk-up several flights of stairs just to get to it, helps to give the film an indie vibe.

Unfortunately the second half stagnates as the couple’s journey ends at Jennie’s apartment, which cuts off the visual variety that gave the movie energy during its slow spots. The cross country journey should’ve been played-up much more, like with Harry and Tonto, where the trip becomes the main focus by having the couple travel by car instead of by plane while still keeping the main crux of the story intact.

Douglas gives an impeccable performance and speaks in an authentic Eastern European accent and Adams does quite well in support. However, Kedrova barely says much of anything making her character seem like she’s suffering from a personality disorder and having Douglas do the majority of the talking comes off too much like he’s the ‘narrator’ and it doesn’t help. I also didn’t like the hearing aid cord dangling out of her ear either, which seemed overdone. My grandmother, who lived at the same time this movie was made, wore a hearing aid too, but it was much more inconspicuous and didn’t require any cords.

The film also suffers from an unrelentingly downbeat perspective making old age seem like it’s just one depressing thing after another. I liked the way this same subject matter was approached in Harry and Tonto  where it examined the elderly years from different angles showing how there could be some downsides to it (like with any age), but also some positive ones too. Instead of approaching it as an end-of-life scenario it presented it as a transition that was still full of possibilities and new adventures, which is what I wished this film had been better able to convey.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: December 15, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 33 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Lee Grant

Studio: Filmways Productions

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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

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Embryo (1976)

Posted on February 4, 2020 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Accelerating the growth cycle.

Late one night while driving home in raging thunderstorm Dr. Paul Holliston (Rock Hudson) accidentally hits a pregnant dog with his car. He takes the dog home to his lab and is able to save one of the embryos by placing it in an artificial uterus and then injecting it with an experimental hormone that speeds up its growth cycle. Paul is so excited about the results that he gets one of his colleagues (Jack Colvin) to agree to give him an unborn human baby from a mother who had committed suicide. Paul uses the drug on the fetus and finds that it grows at an even more accelerated rate, which leads to many unforeseen and horrifying scenarios.

For a grainy looking, low budget production (the DVD transfer is horrible) the plot isn’t too bad and had me guessing all the way up to the end at how it was going to turn out. The story has a lot of holes and most likely won’t be plausible to a science purist, but Ralph Nelson’s competent direction keeps the drama moving at a brisk pace, so you never dwell on the absurdities for too long and for the undemanding viewer it may come off as believable enough. The film also has a unintentionally funny moment that may not have floored audiences back in the 70’s as it did with me and features Barbra Carrera reading the Bible, which she finds ‘illogical’ only to have Hudson a supposed scientist tell her that it’s an ‘accurate account of how life began’, which blew me away as I’m sure there are few scientists who would say that today.

Carrera does surprisingly well in a difficult role, but her ability to retain knowledge and learn things happens a little too quickly and isn’t interesting. I realize she’s supposed to be super smart, which is fine, but even a smart person needs to be taught how to read and the meaning of words to communicate, which is something that the film just glosses right over.

I was glad that there was a big age difference between the two stars and that a romantic angle wasn’t forced into the proceedings that would’ve just bogged everything down, but having the two end up going to bed together was almost as bad. Hudson had taken a very paternal approach to Carrera almost like she were his daughter, so when she asks him to have sex with her, so she can feel what it’s like, I would’ve thought it would be too uncomfortable and too awkward a situation for him to go through with.

Roddy McDowall has a great cameo as an arrogant chauvinistic chess player. There’s also an interesting car chase, a neat twist ending, and some good aging make-up effects, but Carrera’s dilemma of suddenly going from being healthy and vibrant to on the brink of death is jarring. It’s almost like the writers wrote themselves into a hole and couldn’t think of any way out of it except to insert having the character die from some mysterious illness even though the dog, who went through the same treatment, is not affected, which is a shame as the premise is intriguing and works for most of the way.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: May 21, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 44 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Ralph Nelson

Studio: Cine Artists Pictures

Available: DVD-R, Amazon Video

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American Gigolo (1980)

Posted on February 2, 2020 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Male escort gets framed.

Julian (Richard Gere) works as a male escort in the Los Angeles area servicing affluent female clients, which allows him to drive expensive cars and live in a luxury apartment. He even gets into a relationship with Michelle (Lauren Hutton) a senator’s wife, but just as everything seems to be going his way it comes crashing down when he gets accused of murder, which he didn’t commit. His only alibi is Michelle who he was in bed with that night, but she is reluctant to come forward fearing it will tarnish both her reputation and that of her politically ambitious husband (Brian Davies).

The film’s chief asset is Gere’s performance who puts a gritty edge in a film that is otherwise quite shallow. His character though is blah as we learn little about him, which I found frustrating. Male prostitution is not a profession most men get into, so why does Julian? Having a backstory dealing with his upbringing and showing his relationship with his family could’ve helped us better understand his motivations, but none is ever shown leaving us with a character that may look sexy, but is otherwise an empty shell that is neither interesting nor memorable.

The film offers no insights into the sex profession either. I kept wondering how he was always able to ‘get-up for the occasion’ with all of his clients especially when a lot of them were older women who were not all that attractive. Many male actors working in the adult film business will admit to taking Viagra or some other drug to guarantee an erection on cue. They also have women working behind-the-scenes as ‘fluffers’ who will give male performers a hand-job/oral sex, so when it’s time for his scene he’s erect, but Julian doesn’t have any of these things, so what’s his secret? The film makes it look like he can get-it-up on demand, which in reality I don’t think would always be the case.

I was also disappointed when Julian is told by the husband (Tom Stewart) of one of his clients to get rough with her by slapping her and Julian turns around with a shocked expression, but then the scene immediately cuts away without seeing what happened. I felt this was a crucial moment that needed to be played-out and it would’ve helped us understand Julian better by seeing how he responds to demands that he’s uncomfortable with. The film most likely cutaway because seeing him slap a woman would’ve made him unlikable to the viewer, but if he’s the type of person who will compromise his ethics to make money then we need to know this, or if he returns the money and walks away we need to see this as well.

Julian’s relationship with Michelle is ridiculous and unbelievable. Why would a guy who’s been to bed with hundreds of different women suddenly decide to fall-in-love with this one and why would a woman, who’s otherwise living a comfortable lifestyle, allow herself to fall for a man whose profession won’t allow him to be faithful to her? It doesn’t help either that Hutton gives a horribly wooden performance and it would’ve been far better had Julie Christie, who was the original choice for the role, played the part

The mystery angle is somewhat intriguing, but the wrap-up gets botched by suddenly instituting long pauses between scenes in which the screen goes completely black and silent for several seconds, which is jarring since this was not done at any earlier time and only helps to cement how over-the-top Paul Schrader’s directing is. Had more effort been put into character development instead of flashy lighting/camera angles we would’ve had a more interesting movie.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: February 1, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 57 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Paul Schrader

Studio: Paramount

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Moody/Stylish, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Sex, Thrillers/Suspense

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Earthquake (1974)

Posted on January 19, 2020 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Los Angeles really rocks.

A jolt from a massive earthquake shakes the Los Angeles metro area one morning, but researchers at the nearby seismological institute fear that there may be another one that will be far stronger and yet they hesitate about warning the public fearing that it may create ‘too much panic’. They agree instead to alert the National Guard about it, so they can prepare for the fallout when it happens, but in the meantime many innocent people go about their day including those working in skyscrapers ill-prepared for the tragedy that is about to befall them.

Due to the success of disaster flicks during the 70’s many studios clamored to get on board and while this concept may have sounded good in theory, it really leaves on lot to be desired. For one thing most earthquakes last on average for only 10 to 25 seconds, so the majority of the film deals with boring, soap-opera-like drama of a bunch of cardboard characters both before and after the quake while there’s probably less than 5-minutes of actual quake effects.

The special effects are, despite winning a Special Achievement Award at the Oscars, not very convincing and come off looking like shots of miniatures homes and buildings made of paper that could easily fall apart without much effort. The shot showing workers falling down while on the Mulholland Dam  appears more like they’re all dancing some sort of gig and then intentionally dropping themselves to the ground as part of the dance routine.

The film is also notorious for its elevator scene in which people get stuck inside an elevator as the quake occurs and then it goes plummeting down the shaft before eventually crashing and killing everyone inside. However, due to an inability to effectively spray stage blood onto the stunt people, director Mark Robson decided to have animated blood added in during post production, which looks as cartoonish as it sounds and puts an embarrassing, amateurish mark on the entire production.

The casting is out-of-whack as well and features Charlton Heston in the lead as a sort of hunk even though he was 50 and too old for that type of thing, but is still seen sweaty and shirtless in a couple of scenes nonetheless. Ava Gardner livens things up a bit as Heston’s clingy, bitchy wife, but having her portrayed as being Lorne Greene’s daughter, who in real-life was only 8 years older than her, was ridiculous.

I did enjoy Marjoe Gortner as the psycho grocery store manager, who after the quake occurs, puts on a wig and takes part as a member of the National Guard to control the looters only to become more of a nemesis than a help. Walter Matthau, who appears in a bit part wearing an Afro wig, is funny as a patron at a bar who’s so drunk he’s oblivious to the chaos.

Spoiler Alert!

The only part of the movie that I really liked was the end where Heston is helping people out of an underground tunnel that is filling up with water and instead of climbing up out of the hole to his lover, played by Genevieve Bujold, who is waiting for him with open arms, he jumps back down to save his bitchy wife only for them to both end up drowning, which I found interesting. Too many movies especially the ones made these days, always have the hero come out of these things unscathed, or making a full recovery after being temporarily injured, but in reality saving others in treacherous circumstances has its share of risks where not everyone will come out of it alive, so it’s nice to have a film share a realistic balance.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: November 15, 1974

Runtime: 2 Hours 2 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Mark Robson

Studio: Universal

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Disaster Flicks

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Dreamer (1979)

Posted on January 3, 2020 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Bowling for a living.

Harold Nuttingham (Tim Matheson) who is nicknamed ‘Dreamer’ because of his lofty ambitions of becoming a big league bowler struggles with the demands of the sport and the amount of sacrifice and practice that it takes to be good along with the balancing act of having a relationship with Karen (Susan Blakely) and holding down a job. Eventually with the help of Harry (Jack Warden), who acts as his coach, he’s able to get accepted into a major tournament where he’ll take on the veteran champion Johnny Watkin (played by real-life champion bowler Dick Weber) and prove to a national audience that he truly deserves to be considered one of the best.

It’s truly hard-to-believe how a film like this could’ve been funded by a major studio, or how anyone would think a movie about bowling, a sport with no real cinematic quality to it at all, would be something that people would want to watch, or even take seriously. Sure, it replicates the same Rocky formula, which at the time was quite popular, but what’s next? A small town kid desiring to be the next great badminton champ? Ping Pong? Tiddlywinks?

There’s been other films made about bowling like Kingpin and The Big Lebowski, but those all had a sense of humor to it and some interesting camera shots, but this thing takes it all too seriously and is flatly photographed. Part of the charm of Rocky was seeing him train to become a good boxer, but this film glosses over the training/technique aspect and starts out right away with him already winning a bowling contest and receiving a big trophy, so what’s the point of seeing him receive one trophy after another? Besides the bowling alleys that he plays in all look blah and filled with the same unexciting people making it look like Dreamer really isn’t moving up, but instead perpetually stuck in the same drab small Midwestern town, or one’s just like it, that he came from.

The story needed of some sort of side-plot that could’ve created actual tension that is otherwise completely lacking. It may sound like a sport’s movie cliche, but Dreamer needed a psychological hurdle to overcome, like maybe he had a history of choking under pressure in big games, or possibly injuring his hand right before the contest, or maybe even losing his trusted bowling ball (or having it stolen) that would cast some doubt, and elicit some genuine intrigue from the viewer about whether Dreamer could pull through, but nothing like this ever gets presented.

Instead the majority of the drama centers around Dreamer’s on-again/off-again relationship with his girlfriend over benign issues that aren’t interesting and with a woman that looks way too beautiful to be wasting her life away working in some dumpy bowling alley, or going out with a bland stiff that doesn’t treat her right. There’s also a thread dealing with Harry and his inability to come to terms with not achieving as much as he could’ve during his younger years when he was a bowler on the circuit, but Harry is just a minor character, so his character history/arch isn’t compelling. It’s Dreamer’s that’s important, but his arch isn’t even apparent.

The film also has a cheesy scene featuring Harry bowling intensely all by himself in the dark after the place has already closed, which begs a really important question: If he’s bowling after everything’s been shut down, then who, or what is resetting the pins while he proceeds to continuously knock them down?

A bad guy, or jerk with the potential of throwing a monkey wrench into the proceedings needed introducing, but nothing materializes and everybody is too chummy with no tantalizing element simmering beneath the surface. To some degree this is the film’s one successful quality as it accurately recreates just how slow, dull, and uneventful small town living can be while putting the poor viewer to sleep in the process.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: April 27, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Noel Nosseck

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: None at this time.

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Obscure Movies, Sports Movies

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The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)

Posted on December 30, 2019 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Coke bottle causes problems.

One day while flying over the Kalahari desert a airplane pilot inadvertently throws a coke bottle out of his cockpit window, which falls to earth and is found by Xi (N!xau) and he brings it back to his nomadic tribe. At first everyone is intrigued with the object as they are an isolated people unaware of modern technology. They think it’s a ‘gift from the gods’ and make use of the bottle in different and creative ways, but eventually the bottle causes friction from within the tribe because there is only one and no one wants to share it. Xi decides to ‘give the bottle back to the gods’ by traveling to the end of the earth and throwing it off. During his journey he meets a clumsy biologist named Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers) and a pretty school teacher named Kate (Sandra Prinsloo) while also saving school children who are kidnapped by a group of terrorists led by Sam (Louw Verwey).

This film became the biggest box office success in South African history and when released abroad became the most successful foreign film in the U.S., but the film initially comes off like a nature documentary complete with monotone voice-over narration by Paddy O’Byrne only to then shift uneasily into a flick dealing with political revolutionaries who systematically massacre the heads of state via machine gun. It’s not until about 30 minutes in that the gentle comical flow of the story gets going, but even then there’s a lot of sped up stop action photography, dubbed voices, and a cartoonish sounding musical score that gives it a choppy amateurish feel throughout.

Yet despite all this the concept is quite original and filled with genuinely funny moments. Writer/director Jamie Uys, who appears briefly as a Reverend, shows an amazing ability to squeeze laughs out of virtually any scene and sometimes in the most amazing of ways. Some of my favorite moments was when the jeep hangs upside down in a tree, or the scene showing the same disabled jeep getting tugged along by another vehicle and because the desert was so flat and barren the man driving the vehicle is able to get out of it and it simply drives itself with no fear it would run into anything. The shot where N!xau arrives at what he thinks is the end of the earth, but in reality is a place known as God’s Window is quite memorable and picturesque as well.

Of course the film does come with its fair share of controversy and accused of being racist with two countries, Trinidad and Tobago, banning the movie from being shown there because of it. The main complaint centers around the bushmen tribe that N!xau comes from being shown as completely cut-off from the modern world and unsophisticated when in reality this is not true. The 2004 Columia TriStar DVD edition has a wonderful documentary called ‘Journey to Nyae Nyae’ on its bonus section where a filmmaker travels to the real-life desert bushmen tribe that actor/star N!xau resided and found that although the people were quite poor they were far from ignorant and in fact excitedly embraced technology like a computer when it was shown to them. There’s even a really cute segment where the children get shown this film and laugh along at all the same antics just like American audiences.

This same documentary also has a very sad edge to it as it shows the impoverished life N!xau had even after the film became a worldwide hit. While the movie grossed over 200 million N!xau was only paid $2,000 for his work and the other actors who played the bushmen got paid nothing. Director Uys tried to rectify this by paying N!xau many years later an additional $20,000 and a monthly stipend, but by then he had already become sick with tuberculosis and ended up dying from it in 2003.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: September 10, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 49 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jamie Uys

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Farce, Foreign Films, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Quirky

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Time After Time (1979)

Posted on December 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: From 1893 to 1979.

In 1893  writer H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) constructs a time machine and introduces it to his skeptical guests at a dinner party that he is hosting unaware that Dr. Stevenson (David Warner) who is also attending the party is the notorious Jack the Ripper. When the police surround the home looking for Ripper he jumps into the time machine and escapes to the year 1979. Wells then quickly follows him to modern day San Francisco and tries chasing him down, but along the way he meets Amy Robbins (Mary Steenburgen) who he fall in love with.

Initially I enjoyed seeing Wells’ confusion at dealing with modern society and the technology and had the film stayed at this level the whole way it could’ve been quite entertaining, but Wells ends up adapting too quickly. I was willing to accept that he was just a smart guy who could figure things out by being very observant, but Jack ends being the same way. Jack even attends a discotheque wearing a John Travolta-like white leisure suit, until it seemed like he was always a part of the modern world, and the original time traveling spin gets unfortunately phased out.

The romantic relationship that forms between Wells and Mary comes off as forced. Having her ask him out on a date while she’s working at her job and after only talking to him for a few minutes seemed too forward and unprofessional. Does she do this to all of her customers and if so how can she hold down a job if she’s coming on to all the men that she meets and if not then why would she ask out Wells so quickly after having just met him? Having the two end up going to bed together makes Wells seem too contemporary and not like a person from the Victorian era from which he came where sexual relations outside of marriage were much more taboo.

The script is full of a lot of loose ends too. For example: Wells goes to a jeweler to trade in his jewels for US currency, but the jeweler won’t accept them unless Wells shows a valid driver’s license, which he doesn’t have. The next day he goes to a different jeweler who gives him the money without asking for the ID, but why? In between Wells goes to a church where he speaks out loud in an awkward prayer, so are we then to presume that the second jeweler gave Wells the money without requesting the ID because of divine intervention?

There’s also a moment when Jack runs out into the street and gets struck by a car and is sent away to a nearby hospital, but then returns later showing no visible bruises or scratches. There’s also no explanation for how he was able to fool the nursing staff into thinking he had died as when Wells goes to the hospital that’s the explanation he’s given.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending is equally screwy. It has Wells and Mary going a few days into the future only to read a newspaper article reporting Mary getting killed inside her apartment by Jack, so they return to the present and then back to the apartment where Mary then takes a nap, which seemed hard to believe knowing that Jack was coming to kill her there and she’d be too tense and nervous to ever relax enough to go to sleep. Why even go anywhere near the apartment anyways and instead just find a room at a nearby hotel? There isn’t much tension to her potential death either since all Wells would need to do is go back a few days in his time machine and she’d be as good as new.

The explanation that Mary never got killed, but instead it was really her friend, who she had invited over to dinner is problematic too because even though there wasn’t DNA testing at that time they could still identify the victim through their dental records.

The story, which was based on a 55-page treatment written by Karl Alexander, who later expanded it to a novel, which was released at the same time as the movie, has a lot of potentially interesting ideas, but it ends up taking on too much. A decision should’ve been made to focus on either the romance or Wells’s pursuit of Jack, but not both. Trying to cram two plot-lines together results in a script that’s too rushed and poorly thought out.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: September 28, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 52 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Nicholas Meyer

Studio: Warner Brothers

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies Based on Short Stories, Romance, Sci-Fi, Thrillers/Suspense

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Birdy (1984)

Posted on December 27, 2019 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Fly like a bird.

Al (Nicholas Cage) becomes friends with an introverted neighborhood boy (Mathew Modine) nicknamed Birdy due to his fascination with birds. Al begins to follow Birdy around as he collects pigeons and stores them inside an aviary that he has built in his backyard. The two share a strong bond, which is broken when they both get drafted and have to go off to war. Al returns from battle with facial injuries, but Birdy is sent to a mental hospital because after missing in action for a month, he refuses to speak. Al spends time with Birdy trying to get him to talk again, but finds it futile and fears that if he can’t get him to talk the Dr’s will confine Birdy permanently.

The film is based on the William Wharton novel of the same name that was initially rejected by director Alan Parker as a possible movie because he considered the story to be ‘uncinematic’, but after the screenplay was commissioned to writers Sandy Kroopf and Jack Behr who were able to restructure the thoughts of the main character from the novel into dialogue and action Parker was then willing to sign on. The result is a interesting drama that manages to have some touching, quirky moments, but it’s also quite reminiscent of Brewster McCloud and comes complete with the same winged flying contraption which Birdy uses to fly briefly over a junkyard that Bud Cort also used to fly around the Astrdome in that film.

While both Cage and Modine give excellent performances I found the friendship between the two to be confusing. They had very little in common and why Cage would want to follow Modine around all the time as he collected pigeons, which he himself thought to be kind of ‘weird’, did not make much sense. Had they both had an interest in birds then it would’ve worked, but they don’t, so what’s the bond that keeps them together? Having them portrayed as being gay would’ve been the solution and at times it seems that is what Birdy is since he shows no interest in women at all and in one amusing scene watches in boredom while Cage has sex with another women on a beach. Cage could’ve been portrayed as being bi-sexual, or not fully aware of his secret attraction to Birdy, but could later eventually come out and that could help explain why he’d stick with someone that he otherwise found ‘kooky’.

Despite the film’s length  and having some definite slow parts including Cage’s ‘conversations’ with Birdy when he’s inside the mental hospital, which are quite static and should’ve been trimmed, there’s still some memorable moments including a scene showing baby canaries hatching out of their eggs. I also like the tracking shot where Birdy imagines himself flying and done from the point-of-view of a bird, which gives one a very authentic feeling/experience of what it would be like and it was shot with a Skycam, at least partially, which is the first time that had ever been used in a movie.

I also enjoyed how the film examines the different dynamics of both Cage’s and Birdy’s family life and the contrasting personalities of the parents where in Cage’s family the father, played by Sandy Baron, was the dominant force while with Birdy it was his mother (Dolores Sage). My only complaint in this area is that there’s a running subplot dealing with the fact that Birdy’s mother would take all the baseballs that the neighborhood kids would accidentally hit into her backyard and keep them, but no one knew where she hid them. Cage then, years later, asks the Dr’s at the hospital to convince the mother to send the hidden balls to Birdy in an effort to get him to talk again and the mother complies, but the scene showing her retrieving the balls is never shown. So much time is spent talking about where she hid the balls that the film should’ve revealed the hiding place while also showing a tender side to the mother who otherwise came off as being quite cold, so not having this scene at all really hurts the film.

Spoiler Alert!

There’s also complaints by some viewers and critics about the ending, which some, like critic Leonard Maltin, refer to as a ‘gag’ ending. For me this wasn’t an issue as it offered some much needed levity in what is otherwise a very dramatically heavy film, but I was frustrated that there’s no conclusion given to what ultimately happens to the two characters. They’re shown trying to escape from the hospital, but never whether they were able to break-free permanently. After spending two hours following these two around the viewer deserves more concrete answers as to their ultimate fate and keeping it so wide-open is a bit of a cop-out/letdown.

 

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 21, 1984

Runtime: 2 Hours

Rated R

Director: Alan Parker

Studio: TriStar Pictures

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity, Quirky, War Movies

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