What classics did you see last week ? (22 Apr - 28 Apr 2018)
Apr 28, 2018 14:36:35 GMT
spiderwort, teleadm, and 1 more like this
Post by mikef6 on Apr 28, 2018 14:36:35 GMT
Not a good week for me. The only thumbs-up I can give is to an early TV cop show.
Highway Patrol S.1, Ep. 13 “Escort” December 26, 1955. This almost legendary 30-minute police series ran 4 seasons from October 1955 to June 1959. Oscar winner (for 1949) Broderick Crawford stars. In this episode, a crusading Senator is targeted for death by a gangster his crime commission is investigating. Dan Mathews (Crawford) must get the Senator safely to the commission hearing and catch the Bad Guy in the act of attempted murder. And, yes, Crawford and cast say “10-4” multiple times. Crawford dominates every thing with his gravely voice and imposing presence.
Pretty Maids All In A Row / Roger Vadim (1971). Talk about your “male gaze.” The opening credits follow the POV of a hormone driven high school boy (I hope that’s not redundant) as he walks to school. Images of female bottoms and shirt fronts tumble one over the other. Not that I am immune to feminine pulchritude, but such a display of male centric “humor” should have looked overdone (at least) even in the middle of the sexual revolution of the early 1970s – and maybe it did. Things don’t get any better. Rock Hudson plays the school’s football coach and guidance counselor who regularly turns on the “Testing. Do Not Enter” sign over his office so he can have sex with the underage female students. Angie Dickinson plays a sexy substitute teacher who “helps” a shy boy in one of her classes by going to bed with him. The monkey wrench in these monkeyshines comes when some of the high school girls end up being murdered. This, I guess, was all intended to be a dark comedy but nothing works. It moves at a glacial pace with one eye rolling sequence after another. The only exchange I ended up laughing at was: “Are we going to have football practice today.” “No, we never have practice on the day of a murder.” Oddly, the only actor to actually be funny and interesting is Telly Salvalas who does it by playing his police detective absolutely straight. I hope I don't come across like a conservative finger-wagging prude, but times have changed so much and so recently that the attitudes expressed in this movie seem really vile.
I Was A Teenage Ninja / Yoshikazu Katō (2007). Along with classic films, I really enjoy Asian martial arts films. You might call it my Guilty Pleasure or my Brain Candy movies. Anyway, that is how I ended up watching Teenage Ninja which turned out to be a truly awful martial arts film with no fight choreography to speak of but was really, as my buddy Wikipedia eventually informed me, the fourth in a series of Ninja sexplotation films, each one starring an adult video actress popular in Japan as the protagonist. So, near zero ninja action, 5 softcore sex scenes, all the female cast members show their breasts as the extent of the nudity, terrible acting, ridiculous clumsy staging and shooting of scenes. Waste of time even for a sex film. The first three of this series can be found on the movie database but not this one. I’m not going to bother to add it.
Lady Bird / Greta Gerwig (2017). One of the year’s most acclaimed films sort of landed with a thud for me. Catholic high school senior Christine (Saoirse Ronan), who insists on being called Lady Bird, has decided to rebel against her perpetually angry mother (Oscar nominee Laurie Metcalf) and go to college on the east coast (the film is set in Sacramento, California). I won’t go into any more intimate details except to say that all the clever lines can be heard in the trailer. I am happy for all the people who loved this film but it just didn’t do it for me.
Highway Patrol S.1, Ep. 13 “Escort” December 26, 1955. This almost legendary 30-minute police series ran 4 seasons from October 1955 to June 1959. Oscar winner (for 1949) Broderick Crawford stars. In this episode, a crusading Senator is targeted for death by a gangster his crime commission is investigating. Dan Mathews (Crawford) must get the Senator safely to the commission hearing and catch the Bad Guy in the act of attempted murder. And, yes, Crawford and cast say “10-4” multiple times. Crawford dominates every thing with his gravely voice and imposing presence.
Pretty Maids All In A Row / Roger Vadim (1971). Talk about your “male gaze.” The opening credits follow the POV of a hormone driven high school boy (I hope that’s not redundant) as he walks to school. Images of female bottoms and shirt fronts tumble one over the other. Not that I am immune to feminine pulchritude, but such a display of male centric “humor” should have looked overdone (at least) even in the middle of the sexual revolution of the early 1970s – and maybe it did. Things don’t get any better. Rock Hudson plays the school’s football coach and guidance counselor who regularly turns on the “Testing. Do Not Enter” sign over his office so he can have sex with the underage female students. Angie Dickinson plays a sexy substitute teacher who “helps” a shy boy in one of her classes by going to bed with him. The monkey wrench in these monkeyshines comes when some of the high school girls end up being murdered. This, I guess, was all intended to be a dark comedy but nothing works. It moves at a glacial pace with one eye rolling sequence after another. The only exchange I ended up laughing at was: “Are we going to have football practice today.” “No, we never have practice on the day of a murder.” Oddly, the only actor to actually be funny and interesting is Telly Salvalas who does it by playing his police detective absolutely straight. I hope I don't come across like a conservative finger-wagging prude, but times have changed so much and so recently that the attitudes expressed in this movie seem really vile.
I Was A Teenage Ninja / Yoshikazu Katō (2007). Along with classic films, I really enjoy Asian martial arts films. You might call it my Guilty Pleasure or my Brain Candy movies. Anyway, that is how I ended up watching Teenage Ninja which turned out to be a truly awful martial arts film with no fight choreography to speak of but was really, as my buddy Wikipedia eventually informed me, the fourth in a series of Ninja sexplotation films, each one starring an adult video actress popular in Japan as the protagonist. So, near zero ninja action, 5 softcore sex scenes, all the female cast members show their breasts as the extent of the nudity, terrible acting, ridiculous clumsy staging and shooting of scenes. Waste of time even for a sex film. The first three of this series can be found on the movie database but not this one. I’m not going to bother to add it.
Lady Bird / Greta Gerwig (2017). One of the year’s most acclaimed films sort of landed with a thud for me. Catholic high school senior Christine (Saoirse Ronan), who insists on being called Lady Bird, has decided to rebel against her perpetually angry mother (Oscar nominee Laurie Metcalf) and go to college on the east coast (the film is set in Sacramento, California). I won’t go into any more intimate details except to say that all the clever lines can be heard in the trailer. I am happy for all the people who loved this film but it just didn’t do it for me.