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Post by delon on Apr 25, 2020 17:37:20 GMT
Comments/ratings/recommendations/film posters are welcome and much appreciated.
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Post by wmcclain on Apr 25, 2020 17:44:14 GMT
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Post by politicidal on Apr 25, 2020 17:47:00 GMT
Skyjacked (1972) 5/10
The Group (1966) 7/10
Escape to Victory (1981) 6/10
Lisbon (1957) 5/10
Alligator (1980) 6/10
Triple Frontier (2019) 5/10
School Ties (1992) 8/10
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Apr 25, 2020 19:42:43 GMT
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Post by MrFurious on Apr 25, 2020 20:42:17 GMT
Spider-Man: Far from Home(19) Bumblebee(18)(3D) Shazam!(19) Rocketman(19) Detroit(17) Us(19) ^^^^^^ Pokémon Detective Pikachu(19) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse(18)(3D) Border(18) Coffee and Cigarettes(03)
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Post by mikef6 on Apr 25, 2020 21:19:17 GMT
Crashout / Lewis R. Foster (1955). Standard Productions. Cinematography by Russell Metty. This gets off to a fast start as, over the titles, we see a prison riot with convicts storming out their living areas and charging the gate while guards try to beat them back and then shoot them down when that doesn’t work. Some make it to the woods surrounding the jail but are killed as they run. Six of the men, however, know of a hidden cave where they can hide out. The men are: Joe (Arthur Kennedy), Swanee (William Talman), Pete (Luther Adler), Billy (Marshall Thompson), Monk (Gene Evens), and Van Duff (William Bendix). Duff is wounded and unable to travel. The others want to leave him but Duff tells them he has loot stashed away and will split it with them if they get him a doctor and take him along. Thus Duff becomes their de facto leader. William Bendix’s TV series “The Life of Riley” was in the middle of broadcasting its third season when he took the role of Van Duff, a man without a sympathetic bone in his body, a man who will kill or order murder without the slightest compunction. Considering the moron his Riley character was and the kind of silly mugging he had to do on TV, I can imagine that Bendix relished playing an evil criminal as a welcome change. Two women have key parts to play. Young Billy falls for a girl he meets on a train, a girl who had just experienced a big disappointed and ends up traumatized when the train reaches the station. She is played by Gloria Talbot, a very familiar face on 1950s television. When the escapees take a breather at a farm, holding Alice (Beverly Michaels), her son and her mother hostage, Joe and Alice begin to feel a connection but one which can never be satisfied. Beverly Michaels does a very good job here playing a character quite different from her femme fatale in the title role of “Wicked Woman” (1953). Her film career was short. She retired a couple of years after “Crashout” when she married writer/director Russell Rouse. Her family members, though, were successful in the movie business. Her husband won an Oscar for Original Screenplay in 1960 and their son Christopher Rouse won an Oscar for Editing in 2007. After a good story and several tense set-pieces, “Crashout” suffers from a bit of a weak ending, an anticlimax, but all that goes before is good low-budget film noir fate-will-get-you stuff. Marshall Thompson and Gloria Talbot Michaels, Kennedy, Talman, Bendix Romeo and Juliet / Stage Director Dominic Dromgoole (2010). Video of a live streaming from the Globe Theatre in London. A more-or-less traditional but still excellent production that presents the text near complete. Tomiwa Edun is an immature Romeo, a little hyper, unable to stand still for a moment until maturing after his marriage and banishment. Ellie Kendrick is an adorable but innocent Juliet who turns fierce once she believes she has been betrayed by her family. The Mercutio-Tybalt-Romeo duels are well handled and exciting. Excellent all around. This program will be available until May 3. Search “Romeo and Juliet free online” at YouTube and it should be at the top of your results list. It's love at first sight “Here’s to my love” Zimna Wojna (Cold War) / Pawel Pawlikowski (2018). Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) is a music teacher in Communist Poland in 1949. He and one of his youthful charges, Zula (Joanna Kulig), fall in love and plan to escape into West Berlin on their next tour. But Zula decides not to meet him at their rendezvous so Wiktor goes alone into the West. A couple of years later he is a struggling musician in Paris when he encounters Zula again. This pattern of meeting and then breaking up continues over the next decade. Pawlikowski directs this time-spanning love story like his previous film “Ida” in a very spare, rigorous, austere manner, in black and white, with a lack of non-source music, and the editing down of each scene to its essentials give the whole film a look and feel quite unlike most other movies. That editing rhythm provides for elliptical scenes that jump-cut in a sometimes startling manner to a new time and place. The acting is superior, especially Kulig who was awarded and nominated at festivals all over Europe. Some critics complain that this style of filming leaves the audience at a distance unable to connect personally with the characters. I think that is the very point. Yes, it is astringent and at a distance but that is what makes it not just another love story movie. Doing things differently would make the film ordinary. Highly recommended. And three that I have checked back in with after 20-30 years: Hamlet / Franco Zeffirelli (1990). This “Hamlet” starring Mel Gibson has been the go-to Shakespeare film for advanced English classes in U.S. high schools since its release. I believe that is still true even after Gibson’s downfall. And why not? We have a major movie star acting Shakespeare while being backed-up by some lesser lights who teenagers might be familiar with like Glenn Close, Ian Holm, and Helena Bonham-Carter. Franco Zeffirelli has directed his cast to a fairly solid version that doesn’t take many risks, will probably not generate any emotional response, but is spoken cleanly and understandably. For me, the best performance comes from Alan Bates as King Claudius. Close makes Queen Gertrude almost girlish in the early going, with a lot of giggling. It is a centuries old running gag that the actress playing Hamlet’s mother is about the same age as the Hamlet. That is true here. Close is only nine years older than Gibson. Maelström / Denis Villeneuve (2000). This French-Canadian feature – an early work from Villeneuve who went on to blockbuster fame in Hollywood (Sicario, Arrival) - begins with an unusual conceit: a fish about to go on the chopping block in a market begins to talk to us and tell us the story of a young woman. The woman, Bibi (Marie-Josée Croze) is having an abortion as her story opens. She is depressed from the experience, but from what we learn about the state of her family and business dealings, she has been in a funk for a long time. Things go from bad to worse when her inattentiveness causes a tragedy that she speeds away from but which leaves her unable to function. There is a lot more going on that I cannot reveal about the nature of coincidence and how we are all only separated by a few degrees. As she seeks absolution, her life takes a totally unexpected turn. Redemption may lie in the least likely place. And there are fish all the way through it. Great, great performance by Croze. Strange, mysterious, touching, and deeply funny. Highly recommended. Ni Neibian Jidian (What Time Is It There?) / Tsai Ming-Liang (2001). Taiwan. As we left the theater back in Aught One, My Lovely Wife asked me what I thought of the film. I replied that it was either something really extraordinary or we got ripped off. I have finally, after about 10 years, have made up my mind. It is a masterpiece (of some sort). To say that it moves at a “deliberate pace” is to underestimate to a considerable extent. The camera is very static. It never moves and I noticed just two scenes that had a cut in them. It will open on a scene, for example, showing a dining room in the foreground and a kitchen in the back. A man in the kitchen fills a plate of food, brings it to the foreground table and sits. After looking at his plate, he turns his chair to one side and lights a cigarette. He smokes the cigarette. That’s it. The plot is minimal and much is left out concerning the character’s purposes or motivations. Once again, to call it “elliptical” is an underestimation. Yet, the film’s technique is hypnotic rather than boring. I never once thought about giving up on it. Also, the lack of movement and cutting may also relate to the characters’ loneliness and longing to connect with someone else, but, like everything else, it is impossible to say for certain.
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Post by delon on Apr 25, 2020 21:46:44 GMT
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Post by OldAussie on Apr 25, 2020 22:12:07 GMT
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Post by teleadm on Apr 25, 2020 22:13:22 GMT
Here comes the Tele Week: The Wind and the Lion 1975 I have a feeling that this movie came out at the wrong time, the 1970s, but has been re-evaluated in later years. Based on an actual incident that I knew nothing about, and later days positive reviews that I've read, I wasn't swept away. Not against the brutallity in some scenes since they ringed true and possible for 1914. Sean Connery is after all Sean Connery, so the movie might need a second watch... Edited together from what I've learned was a very popular Disney TV three parter called "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" filmed it at England's marshes and it is a beautiful production, if a bit confusing at times, now that I know that maybe an hour might be missing. Actor Patrick McGoohan played so many villians in later years, so it's so nice to see him as a hero, and he handles it well. Above avarage on a matinée level Don't trust the girl on this poster, aka Highway Pick-up, French thriller based on a novel by James Hadley Chase, directed by non other than legendary Julien Duvivier. On the surface the plot seems easy but as the movie goes on new layers are throwned at the vewers all the time, something new disturbs the very simple story with new elements. Some have suggested similarities to The Postman Always Rings Twice, and there are a few, but I also think that this movie can stand on it's own. Two locksmith pals, fixing locks by day, looting them by night, until something goes wrong, one on the run, get's a job at a relay station (Bus Stop could be similiar) in the sweaty and warm Alpes-Maritimes in France. Duvivier had been around since the silent cinema, so he knows how to make the story moving without words with intricate camera movements. Watched it in French with English subtitles. Charles McGraw plays the hardest and toughest insurance investigator that anyone here hopes never to meet. Yet he falls for a dame who want to live the high life, and by incident plans a surefire robbery with the one he professionally hunts, he hopes to also be rich and can have the dame he yearns for. Once the robbery is done, irony is that the woman he yearns for has changed her mind and might like to live with a simpler man, but it's too late... Seeing Charles McGraw in a lead, not his only, is a pure joy, he had a great way of lines. It could have been better, but if you find it, watch it, at least once... Based on a true story of an occasional counterfeiter that eluded a Secret Service division for years, since he only printer small bills when he needed a few bucks from time to time. This is a warm and nice movie, mixing comedy and a little drama too, and sometimes I like movies like this too. Big Burt is at his most charming, stern at times but still charming, as is Dorothy and Gwenn, something that is clear very early that he is the counterfeiter so I'm not ruining a spoiler, that lives in the same house as Dorothy, who Burt falls for when she buys a thing with counterfeit money that Burt traces... I enyoyed watching it, and knowing that there is a story behind it made it even more interesting. The only defence I have for watching this movie is Maureen O'Hara in Technicolor and Vincent Price as a villain. It's about tribal wars in the deserts and revenging a dead father. Looting Kansas and Quantrill's Raiders, I wish I had read more about it before I watched this movie since at times it felt a bit confusing. This was a big production coming from minor Republic, starring John Wayne, though Claire Trevor was billed above him, with Raoul Walsh steering the story with his sure hand, and Walter Pidgeon, far from Mr Miniver, as Quantrill but in this movie called Cantrell (maybe there was still relatives around at the time). The first 30 minutes or so is light and nearly comedial, after that it's serious business, raw hard and and times unpleasant, and confusing since I was not familiar with the back story. Wayne show's a few hint's that he had later in comic timing, Gabby Hayes shows he could look like Gabby but be serious when needed, Roy Rogers as Trevor's brother, well as good as he is singing, he had a face that couldn't play angry. Walter Pidgeon well I like him in many other things, but I couldn't see him as a manipulative villain murdering all over Kansas. Poor Harry, when he finally found some happiness in a grey and dull life, as a designer of tapesties (I think) and suddenly blooms, falls in love, and want to see the world, it is crushed bit be bit by one of his sisters that he lives with in a big house. George Sanders as Harry etches a very touching portrait of a lonely and bored man that suddenly falls in love, and his love is met with someone who loves him too, no matter his eventaul faults, and played by Ella Raines. The trouble is that he has lived with his two sisters for many years, and are they willing to let him go but not that easy, and to what length will they go to keep him...one sister is sickley and the other seems dizzy, and one of them might go to the length of murder, just to keep Harry in the house... The ending is as others have written disappointing and feels forced, but until then this is a great and dark movie. Robert Siodmak was a great and unsung director that should have been more appreciated. Angry fashion model wan't to revenge her snouty boss, answers an ad that promises invisibility. The inventor of invisibility is a crazy old man that a young playboy inherited that has spent all his money on girls and casinos. A side project from Universal who did the 1933 The Invisible Man, before they launched their own series, or maybe at the same time. They did another sidestep with The Invisible Agent 1942. How this is part of the series depends on who you ask. John Barrymore is fun as the crazy inventor as is is housekeeper, played by Margaret Hamilton (Wicked Witch of Oz). There is a ridiculous side story with comic gangsters that doesn't work at all, one is played by stooge Shemp Howard. If you must you must! others can very well live without it, but for me it was funny to have seen. Well that was it, misspellings is included! Now I will read what others have watched last week
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Post by Chalice_Of_Evil on Apr 25, 2020 22:17:29 GMT
The Stepford Wives (2004). Dunkirk (2017). Strangerland (2015). Push (2009). The Duchess (2008). The Rocketeer (1991).
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Post by teleadm on Apr 25, 2020 22:30:34 GMT
Skyjacked (1972) 5/10
The Group (1966) 7/10
Escape to Victory (1981) 6/10
Lisbon (1957) 5/10
Alligator (1980) 6/10
Triple Frontier (2019) 5/10
School Ties (1992) 8/10
I had ideas to see Skyjacked 1972 sometime in the future, but since it get's such low points I keep moving it forward Escape to Victory 1981, was ridiculed and more or less spitted upon when it came, and now it has grown be a nearly liked movie, I myself liked it if one takes it for what it is, and nothing else, and forgets for a few hours that it's directed by John Huston.
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Post by bravomailer on Apr 25, 2020 22:38:43 GMT
Santa Fe Trail (Michael Curtiz, 1940) 7.5/10 Okay, historical accuracy isn't the film's strength. But good grief it stars Errol Flynn, Ronald Regan, Olivia de Havilland, and Raymond Massey and they play George Custer, Jeb Stuart, and John Brown. And Robert E Lee, Phil Sheridan, James Longstreet, Jefferson Davis, John Bell Hood, and George Pickett are tossed in for good measure. The film shows great camaraderie between northerners and southerners. It was a few hotheads like Brown and a fictional character named "Rader" (Van Heflin) who loused things up.
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Post by manfromplanetx on Apr 25, 2020 22:50:08 GMT
Had a great week of viewing down here , A recent relocate of the home collection stirred up lots of memories and desires have been enjoying watching again many excellent classic films long forgotten... Joshû sasori: 701-gô urami-bushi , 701s Grudge Song (1973) Yasuharu Hasebe. Outstanding finale to the Prisoner Scorpion series...briefly noted on the Classic Japanese Thread Garazh , The Garage (1980) Soviet Union Dir. Eldar Ryazanov. Wonderful confined comedy of collective politics with a meeting of the garage co-operative Two typically outrageous Czech comedies Coz takhle dát si spenát , A Nice Plate of Spinach (1977) Václav Vorlícek ' Ctyri vrazdy stací, drahousku' , Four Murders Are Enough, Darling (1971) Oldrich Lipsky For Earth day some positive enriching viewing Morning of the Earth (1972) Australia Dir. Albert Falzon The Man Who Planted Trees (1987) Canada Dir. Frédéric Back The odd one out in need of some easy viewing light entertainment 59min. A witty script & enjoyed once again the great performances from Gordon Harker and rest of cast in Small Hotel (1957) UK Dir. David MacDonald
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Post by Chalice_Of_Evil on Apr 26, 2020 1:22:11 GMT
Just wondering what your thoughts are on the movie Down With Love, wmcclain. I personally am a fan of it and try to watch it whenever it's on TV here.
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Post by politicidal on Apr 26, 2020 1:23:35 GMT
teleadm yeah it was an odd sit but the further it went along, I became more interested. Plus it was nice to see Max von Sydow again.
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Post by wmcclain on Apr 26, 2020 1:34:28 GMT
Just wondering what your thoughts are on the movie Down With Love, wmcclain. I personally am a fan of it and try to watch it whenever it's on TV here. This is the second time, so we liked it enough to revisit. It takes me a while to get my mind right for it. If I were current on the Rock & Doris no-sex sex comedy genre I'd probably get more out of it.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2020 5:48:57 GMT
The Living Skeleton-Japan-1968 People who killed a ship full of people start dying after they see a ghost Pickup on South Street-1953 muffins, cannons, spies, tarts, stoolies, secret film, commies, Candy and Tiger and Parley Baer...oh my. The Fugitive Kind-1960 Musician hits town trying to turn over a new leaf Man Without a Star-1955 Kirk Douglas and his chest hate wire With a Song in My Heart-1952 Susan Hayword does it again Les Misérables-1935 Ex con tries to stay one step ahead of the law I Fidanzati-1963-Italy Separation will either make or break a troubled relationship The Asphalt Jungle-1950 Good heist gone bad A Town Like Alice-1956 Women POW's get a little help. Danton-1983-France Gerard Depardieu fights for the people against tiereny by giving a lot of speeches and waving his arms Colossal Youth-2006-Docudrama-Portugal 3rd part of the Pedro Costa trilogy Parasite-2019-South Korea Battle of classes when grifters take over a household and get more than bargain for. The Heartbreak Kid-2007 Guy meets the woman of his dreams on his honeymoon. Twice! The Tale-2018 A woman making a documentary on childhood rape reexamines her first sexual experience and has some troubling realizations. Lady Vengeance-2005-South Korea After spending 13 years in prison a wrongfully accused seeks revenge. Blue Ruin-2013 Homeless man returns home after the man who killed his parents is released. Barcelona-1994 Two Americans living in Barcelona deal with anti-american feelings and deal with women. Slaughterhouse Rulez-2018 Frackers release subterranean creatures that wreak havoc at a private school.
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Post by claudius on Apr 26, 2020 12:01:20 GMT
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (1980) “Strothers Martin/The Specials” 40TH ANNIVERSARY. Universal DVD.
DAVID COPPERFIELD (1986) “Episode Two” Simon Callow, who will play Dickens on stage many times, joins the cast as Micawber. Just Entertainment PAL DVD.
MOVING VIOLATIONS (1985) 35TH ANNIVERSARY Bill Murray’s brother John makes an attempt a film career in this comedy of misfits taking Driving School to get their license back. First saw this on Cable back in my childhood. I especially the scene of the Float Duck performer screaming a profanity in a Clarence Nash-type voice. CBS Fox Video VHS.
THE SLAYERS (1995) “CRASH! Red and Black All Over!” 25TH ANNIVERSARY. Japanese with English Subtitles. Sculptor Software DVD.
MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM WING (1995) “Five Gundams Confirmed.” 25TH ANNIVERSARY The Gundam Pilots start to meet. Japanese with English Subtitles. Bandai DVD.
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930) 90TH ANNIVERSARY. April 1930 saw the release of two Anti-War films. The first was JOURNEY’S END. The other is the Best Picture Winner of 1930 and Universal’s first artistic hit, an adaptation of Erich Remarque’s Novel about idealistic youth destroyed by their experience on the battlefield. First saw parts of this on Showtime 1991, the only things I knew was that the German town set would be used later for FRANKENSTEIN (1931). I got a better idea of the film from HOLLYWOOD’s “Hollywood Goes to War” which ends with the film’s dark-for-a-1930s-film ending. I finally saw the whole film in June 1992 on American Movie Classics. Universal Blu-Ray.
DADDY LONG LEGS (1990) “A Strange Coincidence.” 30TH ANNIVERSARY. Bootleg DVD.
TENCHI MUYO! TV (1995) “No Need For Monsters” 25TH ANNIVERSARY. The opening plot of the original OVA was that Tenchi Masaki invades his personal shrine out of curiosity and finds a 700 year old demon that turns out to be a Pirate from outer space named Ryoko. This ‘Chariot of the Gods’ plotpoint is remade for the TV series, only this time it is Ryoko who breaks into the shrine and discovers the demon is a 700-year-old Mad scientist named Washu. Japanese with English Subtitles. Pioneer DVD
ONCE AND AGAIN (2000) “A Door, About to Open.” 20TH ANNIVERSARY. My Anniversary viewing of the first season comes to an end as Lily and Rick finally plan a dinner to introduce their children to each other. Buena Vista DVD.
HE-MAN/SHE-RA: THE SECRET OF THE SWORD (1985) 35TH ANNIVERSARY this year. Feature film of HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, spinning off SHE-RA: PRINCESS OF POWER. I believe this was a five-episode pilot edited down into a feature film put in limited release. I remember the posters in my comic books, but I don’t think the film ever came to my town. That year I did see the five-part pilot (which I will see this fall). I didn’t see the film (or at least the opening credits) until the USA Network broadcast it in 1988. I finally saw the whole film in the Winter of 2001. RCA Columbia VHS.
ANGEL “Five by Five” 20TH ANNIVERSARY After her arc in BUFFY, Faith heads to LA and fights Angel in one of the series’ best episodes. The ending is something to behold for the franchise. FoxVideo DVD.
SWORD OF LANCELOT (1963) Cornel Wilde directs and stars in the tragic tale of Lancelot and Guinevere starring his wife Jean Wallace as the unfaithful Queen. A progressively mature version than MGM’s KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE, more liberal to certain tropes (Mordred is portrayed as the illegitimate son, Lancelot and Guinivere consummate their affair) as well as violence. When I first saw this film on the Family Channel in 1992, I was introduced to the sad end of Camelot (the affair, the civil war, the end of Arthur, Guinevere joining the nunnery). MCA Universal VHS.
SHIVERING SHAKESPEARE! (1930) 90TH ANNIVERSARY this year. The Our Gang (the brief Jackie Cooper era) does a play of QUO VADIS? in this early talkie. I first saw this on the syndicated THE LITTLE RASCALS on my local NBC network in the early 1990s. Cabin Fever VHS.
Watch parts of: KING OF JAZZ (1930) 90TH ANNIVERSARY. I only watched the 2-strip-Technicolor number of George Gershwin’s piece “Rhapsody in Blue,” although in this imperfect color, it looks like Rhapsody in Tourquise. YouTube.
This month marks the 75th Anniversary of the Death of Adolf Hitler. I have been watching three films on the subject. I’ve been slowly watching them day by day as according to the events that happened from April 20 to 25 1945. THE BUNKER (1981) YouTube. HITLER: THE LAST TEN DAYS (1973) Olive Films DVD. DOWNFALL (2004) Sony Pictures DVD. I have seen three depictions of Hitler’s 56th Birthday, Hitler learning the counterattacks to save Berlin are impossible, Hitler playing with the Goebbels children, as well as Goering’s ultimatum and subsequent dismissal. Twice I’ve seen Himmler planning to escape and negotiate peace with Eva Braun’s brother-in-law an accomplice, Albert Speer meeting everyone, Hitler awarding young boy soldiers, and Dr. Goebbels informing his wife to bring the children to Berlin.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Apr 26, 2020 12:28:34 GMT
As regards Down With Love, I just couldn't warm to it, and I'm a big fan of both the stars. Mag 7 Remake - Big fan of the Brynner/McQueen version, and this version didn't bother me at all. I seek righteousness. But I'll take revenge. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk. Starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett and Peter Sarsgard. Music is by Simon Franglen (also working from a James Horner template) and cinematography by Mauro Fiore. Seven gunmen band together to aid the town of Rose Creek whose inhabitants are being driven out by ruthless capitalist Bartholomew Bogue. We are now in an age of film making where "tagged classics" are no longer sacrosanct. Any number of these "tagged classics" have been and will become viable for remake - reboot - reimaging for newer audiences. It's here, it happens and really there's nothing we can do about it but moan amongst ourselves. John Sturges' 1960 The Magnificent Seven (itself a remake of Kurosawa pic Yojimbo) is a much loved film, and not just in Western lovers circles, it's a film that non Western fans are known to enjoy - and rightly so, it deserves its place as a "tagged classic" and still enthrals over 50 years since its release. So the big studio big wigs and Antoine Fuqua were taking a major gamble remaking a classic remake with their own remake! Undeniably the shadows loom large over the 2016 version, so much weight of expectation, in fact to some it was a stinker of a film even before it was released! Well, as those who have seen it will attest, both the fans and the dissenters, it hasn't raised the bar for the "Seven" formula, but, and this is very key here, the makers wasn't setting out to make a film that down the line would be a perceived a "tagged classic", and this is evident in the ream of extras available on the Blu-ray releases. They achieved what they set out to do, to make a blunderbuss Oater for the modern era to sample, and they have done it with much love, much cool and lashings of technical greatness. Add in a cast clearly enjoying themselves and not letting anyone down, and it's a tasty plate of beans. Fuqua updates things by having his seven as a row of differing ethnicities, which works a treat, and crucially he and his writers are respectful of those characterisations, even if a bit more fleshing out wouldn't have gone amiss. Yet nothing is at a cost to honouring the great Westerns of old. Beautiful landscapes envelope the players, the musical score bouncing around man and nature with homaged sweetness. There's closeups, silhouetted slices of panache, superb stunt work (man and beast), glorious set design, and then there's the action. The fight sequences are excellently constructed, a feast for the eyes and ears, death and slaughter unfurled in brutal but hunger appeasing strokes. There's comic relief about the place, and while much of the dialogue wouldn't have the great poets of yore troubled, there is deepness to be found. Intelligence, too, the addition of PTSD to one of the main players is a notable piece of worth, while how wonderful to find a Western lady character of great substance (Bennett excellent), so good in fact she could have been one of the seven! It's a bare bones story, with a pointless motive revelation tagged on for the finale, while some anachronisms will irritate those bothered by such. But if you are able to judge it on its own terms, as a Western entertainment for this era, and to accept it isn't trying to outdo the source of its inspiration, then a good time can readily be had. 8/10
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Apr 26, 2020 12:36:42 GMT
Escape to Victory (1981) 6/10
Alligator (1980) 6/10
Escape to Victory - Its reputation in Britain has gained momentum over the years as it has become a staple of holiday schedules. Arguably one of the most unfairly derided boys own movies out there? World War II and the Nazi officers have come up with a propaganda driven idea for the German national football team to play a team composed of Allied Prisoners of War. Led by Capt. John Colby (Michael Caine) the prisoners agree, but there's more than just propaganda at stake here. Directed by John Huston in the twilight of his career, Escape To Victory, in spite of it being a perennial Bank Holiday staple viewing in the UK, is a film that's often used as a kicking post by stuffy critics. It's hard to understand why such a fun and harmless piece can cause such derision in cinematic circles. It can't be expectation because when you read the plot and see that Sylvester Stallone is playing as the goalkeeper, and that a tubby 48 year old Caine is the captain of this soccer team, well surely you know this film isn't all about about cranial depth encompassing the propaganda machinations of the Nazi regime. Using real footballers (notably Pelé, Bobby Moore and Osvaldo Ardilies) is what makes Escape To Victory work as entertainment for so many people in the UK. Huston, much like Stallone, hadn't got a clue how to make a football based movie. In stepped the footballers to choreograph the film's football sequences - sequences that give the film some truly memorable moments (Pelé overhead kick, Ardiles rainbow flick, and erm, a Stallone penalty save). They couldn't act for toffee, none of them, but that's where Caine comes in. Guiding them through their scenes, Caine was highly thought of on the set by the players, a sort of father figure by all accounts, and not just on the set, but in the bar as well. Stallone excepted (he was off doing his own thing most of the time), it was a happy shoot, and this shines bright in the movie, with the non actors growing in confidence as the movie progresses. So while the film ultimately deals in escapist fun, it's not without moments of poignancy too. A sacrificial break for the war effort induces winces across the board, whilst the arrival of the Eastern Block players from the work camps demands our utmost heartfelt thoughts. So is Escape To Victory a great film? No, of course not. But it is a darn good one. A film that's easy to lose oneself in during the holiday periods. With Caine flicking the eff off Vs, Max Von Sydow being classy as usual and some legendary footballers strutting their stuff, what's not to enjoy? Really? 7.5/10 Alligator - Hee. It's snappy. After an irate father flushes down the toilet his daughter's baby alligator, the creature feeds on dumped animals that have been tested with a growth hormone. Thus the gator grows into a 36 foot long monster that promptly terrorises Chicago. With a rather witty John Sayles script, tidy effects work and Lewis Teague's knowingly "B" movie direction, Alligator turns out to be one of the better post "Jaws" copy-cats. Very much using a satirical slant, Alligator's gigantic horror is born out of dubious suit types involved in conspiracies. While the cheery pay back that comes the way of various git's responsible for the growth of super gator is rewarding to say the least. Peperred with in jokes as well, Alligator also benefits from having the considerable talents of Robert Forster and Dean Jagger in the cast. They may look a touch bewildered at times, more out of a sense of fun one feels, but they give it gusto supreme and carry the picture to the bloody and entertaining finale. A million miles away from "Jaws" of course, but this is a funny, enjoyable and different type of animal. 6.5/10
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