Sheba, Baby.

Review #2508: Sheba, Baby.

Cast: 

Pam Grier (Sheba Shayne), Austin Stoker ("Brick" Williams), D'Urville Martin (Pilot), Rudy Challenger (Andy Shayne), Dick Merrifield ("Shark" Merrill), Charles Kissinger (Phil), Charles Broaddus (Hammerhead), Maurice Downs (Killer), and Ernest Cooley (Whale) Directed by William Girdler (#1636 - Abby)

Review: 

Admittedly, the 1970s had some odd (and possibly fun) titles for select exploitation movies. This was the third action movie with Pam Grier in a starring role after Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), which were all American International Pictures productions. It was the first of three movies with Grier for AIP that year: the crime action film Bucktown (where she co-starred with Fred Williamson) and Friday Foster (in the title role with Yaphet Kotto as co-star). And then there's William Girdler. You might remember the Louisville native from the movie he made before Sheba with Abby (1974), that movie where they rode the shirttail of The Exorcist. Girdler's next movie was Project: Kill (1976) with Leslie Nielsen as star. The movie was written by Girdler and David Sheldon (who produced the movie) and was filmed primarily in, well, Louisville, Kentucky (not to go on a tangent, since I know it makes some sense to be in Kentucky, but now I expect a movie about boats set in New Mexico) that involves some nefarious people in, wait for it, loan companies. The promotional material for the movie actually called itself "Hotter'n Coffy, Meaner'n Foxy Brown", which is highly ridiculous when you consider those two movies were rated R while this is rated...PG (in fairness, you either got G, PG, R, or X in those days). At least the movie isn't lying in wait for a high quality home media release.

Look, it just isn't a good enough movie to try and get away with being on autopilot for most of its bare 90-minute runtime. Sure, Grier continues to have the charm and stamina to make one believe so much in her as an action star*, but there is basically nothing for her to latch on to in terms of general tension or variety. As ridiculously violent as Coffy or Foxy Brown could seem in their execution, at least those movies actually sounded like they had some energy to them in their craftsmanship. Here, it just seems that Girdler settled for just getting it done in the most basic of ways. It basically is a movie to all hucksters: it wants to coast on doing the most basic of tasks with as little engagement as one can possibly do, where seeing someone on a jet ski is more an "eh" moment rather than seeming like the start of a real fun climax. Another movie where our hero is motivated by the death of a loved one does seem a bit tired when you consider the energy given out by the two prior Jack Hill productions with Grier (okay Grier was in a few other Hill movies, but do you really care about prison movies such as The Big Bird Cage [1972]?). Comparing it to Abby might seem a bit unfair to this movie, but they both still belong to the "dumbass movies you might see on a Saturday night*" classification, so I guess that is a bright side. Stoker flickers with the slightest bit of interest, but he basically is being carried by Grier's energy, and the villains (as headed by Merrifield and a far more interesting Martin) don't exactly thread the needle in why the movie moves the way it does in menace (companies must be acquired because...because!). The best way to talk about the movie is thus: Grier looks cool, things happen, the movie ends and you forget most of it happened right then and there. It is the blaxploitation movie near (or maybe at the end) the back of the line to check out, but there are a few little moments of sunshine through the efforts of Grier and the occasional amusement at the situation presented that may make you not regret it all the way.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

*And also pretty attractive, but again, just the facts.

*This of course assumes that, you, the reader, who I appreciate in getting to the note section, has a nice sleep on the weekend rather than, say, working really late. Hell, some of you may even have friends.

French Connection II.

Review #2490: French Connection II.

Cast: 

Gene Hackman (NYPD Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle), Fernando Rey (Alain "Frog One" Charnier), Bernard Fresson (Inspector Henri Barthélémy), Philippe Léotard (Jacques), Ed Lauter (General William Brian), Charles Millot (Miletto), Jean-Pierre Castaldi (Raoul Diron), Cathleen Nesbitt (Old Lady), and André Penvern (André) Directed by John Frankenheimer (#559 - Grand Prix, #985 - The Manchurian Candidate)

Review:

"I like the script, I like the characters, I like the Hackman character in France and not speaking a word of French. It's a very difficult film because we want in no way to rip off the first one, which is one of the best films I've ever seen. I want to make a movie that stands on its own as a movie"

Sure, why not do a sequel to The French Connection (1971)? To reiterate, the film took influence in atmosphere and style from films such as Le Samouraï (1967) and Z (1969). You probably remember that the film had a handful of characters based on real-life people in terms of distribution of heroin, which was turned into books such, as, well, The French Connection in 1969 (as written by Robin Moore) that detailed Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso trying to figure out the drug ring (oddly enough, there was another film based on the exploits of Egan in Badge 373 [1973], with Robert Duvall as the star). One of those people was based on Jean Jehan, who really never did get extradited from France and apparently did die peacefully in old age. But hey, screw reality, right? Sometimes you really want to make some money and sometimes audiences will want to watch a sequel that gives you more of what you think you want, so screw it, French Connection II, complete with only Hackman and Rey returning from the first film. Friedkin had no interest in doing the second film and apparently never watched it. The story was written by Robert and Laurie Dillon, who worked on the screenplay with Alexander Jacobs (in his penultimate film credit as a writer), although apparently Pete Hamill provided an uncredited remake for nearly all of the dialogue shortly before production started (apparently Hackman had "nothing to act" with the lack of Roy Scheider in the cast*). John Frankenheimer signed on to direct the movie because he wanted to do a movie that audiences would see. Made on a budget of over $4 million, the movie made nearly three times its budget back (for comparison, the first film made over $70 million).

Admittedly, a movie that features the lead character getting addicted to heroin - he gets kidnapped about 40 minutes into the film, gets injected with heroin not long after, gets dumped back to the cops and eventually gets through the cold turkey treatment by about the 80-minute mark so he can torch a place (and call the cops and no I'm not joking about any of that). It surely is a curious one. Doyle isn't nearly as abrasive as he was in the first film because this time around, he spends more time trying to understand (miserably) the French people around him in one of those "fish out of water" scenarios. Hackman was appreciative for the role of Doyle but he also went on record for stating he never actually re-watched the first film after 1971. He is still pretty offbeat and still pretty entertaining in that certain type of gritty rage that could only come from someone like Hackman. He just has the knack in making a guy like Doyle seem more than just a blowhard or one that could vanish into thin air in the action. Fresson makes for a quality counterpart in capturing the restrained nature of authority that probably fares best in the sequences when having to confront Hackman trying to go cold turkey. Rey is the same type of elusive presence as before, mainly because he doesn't really have to do much besides slide in and slide out of the background that is mostly convincing in nebulous drug dealing*. Regardless of its fictional nature in following up such a hard-nosed first film, there is a worthy sense of danger and entertainment that comes through for engagement that at least makes you care about most of the 119-minute runtime, even with the amusement that arises in straight up fading to black right after the pivotal moment of the whole thing. You get a nice foot chase and even a burning building sequence to see havoc, some sequels don't even try to give you that even when they aspire to top the original. As a whole, French Connection II doesn't do anything particularly great when compared to the long shadow cast by the first film, but it is a solid enough film in its general execution of thrills to go along with enough from Hackman and company to make the trip at least seem like one worth going through once. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Hackman and Rey had interesting paths to being cast in the first film, by the way. Rey was cast because Friedkin had wanted the small performance of a Spanish actor that had been in Belle de Jour (1967)...which was Francisco Rabal. Hackman on the other hand came about because they couldn't get the people Hackman or the studio envisioned for Doyle: Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Peter Boyle, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, James Caan, Robert Mitchum, Rod Taylor, and...Jimmy Breslin!

*Hey, fuck drugs. Sure, you can try weed, but in general, well, fuck heroin. Hell, cigarettes give you cancer, fuck them too. Don't even get me started on alcohol or vaping.

The Man Who Would Be King.

Review #2488: The Man Who Would Be King.

Cast: 

Sean Connery (Daniel Dravot), Michael Caine (Peachy Carnehan), Christopher Plummer (Rudyard Kipling), Saeed Jaffrey (Machendra Bahadur Gurung aka "Billy Fish"), Shakira Caine (Roxanne), Doghmi Larbi (Ootah), Jack May (District Commissioner), Karroom Ben Bouih (Kafu Selim), Mohammad Shamsi (Babu), and lbert Moses (Ghulam) Directed by John Huston (#081 - The Maltese Falcon [1941], #094 - The Misfits, #224 - Casino Royale [1967], #419 - Key Largo, #1379 - The African Queen, #1622 - Beat the Devil)

Review: 

Once ago, there was a short story by Rudyard Kipling about kings of Kafiristan, a historical region in what is now Afghanistan. It was called "The Man Who Would Be King" and it was first published as part of the anthology The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales in 1888 that may or may not have been inspired by a handful of real adventurers ranging from Alexander Gardner to Frederick "Pahari" Wilson to Adolf Schlagintweit. John Huston was probably the ideal person to want to make a film based in adventure because of his already busy life. He dabbled in boxing, training for opera singing, serving as a member in the Mexican cavalry before actually dabbling in screenwriting and directing. Intrigued by the story from childhood, was fascinated by the idea of doing a feature film based on the story, initially targeting Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart for the lead roles in the late 1950s that saw both actors die before it could get off the ground. Further years saw other names floated around from Richard Burton to even American actors (Paul Newman advised keeping it a British affair) before it finally came around to Sean Connery and Michael Caine. Huston co-adapted the story with Gladys Hill (a longtime assistant to Huston who had previously co-written Reflections in a Golden Eye [1967] and The Kremlin Letter [1970]. The movie was shot in locations around France, Morocco and at Pinewood Studios. Premiering in November 1975 before a general release on the week before Christmas, the film was a decent hit with audiences at the time while both Connery and Caine described it as one of their favorite film experiences. The fifth of John Huston's six films directed in the 1970s, he returned four years later with Wise Blood (1979). The next film to take loose inspiration from the Kipling story was The Road to El Dorado (2000).

 

The big thing about the movie is the fact that it manages to be such a fun adventure within the bounds of the thing that binds them most of all: greed. Sure, there is some brotherhood and charm within the characters played by Connery and Caine, but really it all boils down to wanting to matter as people beyond wearing some garb and getting called a god or a king of something. All fall at the end with their titles or classifications laid bare, some do it faster than others and some don't even have their story told to actually tell anyone. The inevitable peril that comes in trying to become a name among men in a world one is ravaging with their own imperial desire is still a fun one, of course, because who can resist scoundrels in adventure? Undeniably, Connery gets the better of the two roles in terms of the most curious in plundering adventure: self-mythologizing within the foundation of one who actually is quite pathetic when you get down to it. Actually, both actors are being sly in playing pathetic types because of how well we engage with them even with how we come to view them, and they are dynamite together. Plummer still makes his mark in making his role dignified even with most of it being opposite Caine. They never really become men of the people, merely just ones who believe they have them right where they want them as tools, which really could play today with how we still underestimate the spirit and belief of "the other". Jaffrey accompanies Caine and Connery with devoted energy that makes for a quality tragic figure. The 129-minute runtime rolls along with little to get in the way of its charm within the harrowing inevitability of when men try to become more than plundering conquerors. Apparently, Huston once said that he read so much of Kipling that it was in his unconscious, one that he understood in terms of a world that was different from the one we know now in terms of how we perceive places apart from us, the honor, and so on and so forth. The Man Who Would Be King is a good time for all in terms of its entertainment and its execution of adventure and tension.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

1,826 days later, it's the 15th anniversary of Movie Night originally being a thing. Sure, it started as ramblings on an online game before it became an actual blog, but the last couple of years (one that has seen at least ten reviews a month for over six years) have arguably seen it hit its stride for actual productiveness that I hope you've enjoyed. More to come in December.

The Giant Spider Invasion.

Review #2443: The Giant Spider Invasion.

Cast:

Steve Brodie (Dr. Vance), Barbara Hale (Dr. Jenny Langer), Robert Easton (Dan Kester), Leslie Parrish (Ev Kester), Alan Hale Jr (Sheriff Jones), Bill Williams (Dutch), Kevin Brodie (Dave Perkins), Dianne Lee Hart (Terry Kester), and Tain Bodkin (Preacher) Directed by Bill Rebane (#756 - Monster A Go-Go)

Review: 

"I call myself a dyed-in-the-wool Wisconsinte and I just believe this state has so much to offer other filmmakers, especially in locations."

I suppose it made sense to give a proper spotlight to Bill Rebane with his most talked about movie. Born in Latvia, he came to the States at age 15 and majored in drama at the Art Institute of Chicago. He worked a variety of jobs in media from WGN-TV to working in Germany involving Cinemascope and his own circular motion picture process. He also worked as an international studio representative with Bendestorf Studios for several years. He wanted to make a feature film in 1961 and began production on what was to be "Terror at Halfday" with June Travis. You might recognize that the movie did come out...as Monster A Go-Go, since Rebane sold his (not quite complete) footage to Herschell Gordon Lewis, who needed a movie to put on a double feature. Apparently, he felt that his real contribution to the industry was the "first 360-degree motion picture process created with one camera" (which had one projector on a seamless screen), brought over from Germany. Later in the decade, he bought a farm property in Gleason, Wisconsin that became "The Shooting Ranch", an actual feature film studio in the Midwest that could do commercials and small-scale films. Rebane used it to do his first true film with Invasion from Inner Earth (1974). Apparently, the Giant Spider Invasion was made for roughly $300,000 and was shot around the Wisconsin towns of Merrill, Tomahawk and Gleason. The movie apparently made millions of dollars (although it was apparently pirated many, many, many times) and Rebane continued to make horror movies for a time, with one even featuring Tiny Tim as a star. His career effectively ended when he had a stroke in 1988, as the farm soon was sold off and Rebane moved away from the town to Hurley. Did you know that Rebane actually ran for Governor of Wisconsin twice? (1978 and 2002, where he was quoted as not really caring about the results). Rebane has lived long enough to see a film festival (as hosted by people from Mystery Science Theater 3000, no less) held in his honor and even served as the focus of a documentary. Apparently, the movie will have an "enhanced version" to celebrate its 50th anniversary later in the month.

 

Admittedly, you probably have low expectations for a movie that dare to call itself "Giant Spider Invasion". And you would be right. This is a movie that has a Volkswagen beetle used to represent a giant spider (one spider was lifted by crane) to go along with "The Skipper" being cast as a goofy sheriff talking to scientists that are claiming the spiders have arisen from a mini-black hole to go along with a diamond plot, I swear. The movie was written by Richard L. Huff and Robert Easton. Easton is mostly known for his countless years of work as dialogue/accent coach (which led to Rebane motivating him the best way possible: locking him in a cabin to write multiple pages to get food) while Huff apparently never wrote for a movie again. The best thing to say is that at least the crowds that run from the spider at least looked like they had fun doing things. Well, that, and the fact that you need crap like this to remind you of what to appreciate when watching movies and saying they look like slop or find on a streaming service (pity). Honestly, while I get how some people call it one of those "cult following things, I just found it kind of boring and not really that interesting as a movie. Easton being in the movie to play a skeevy husband is at least semi-curious, but the movie clashes way too much with what it wants to be: either attempt to be a monster movie like the 1950s or go all out in humor, but pick one, man. The spiders (whether as a car or the actual tarantulas they used) are only moderately funny to see on screen. This might be one of those movies you watch with The Giant Claw (1957), but at least that movie wanted to try and actually follow procedure in monster mashing (okay that movie had a monster from an "antimatter galaxy"). This movie just meanders for 80 minutes with either skeevy weirdos, a preacher that randomly pops in (and doesn't even get eaten!), totally funny line-delivery or bland authorities. Sure, it is funny to look at the countless times where day-for-night shots are actually screwed up, and sure it is funny to look at the absurd juxtaposition of man and car-spider. That's about all you get. On the other hand: at least when you say the name Bill Rebane, you won't immediately think of worse stuff like Monster A Go-Go. There's a lesson to be had there...probably.

Overall, I give it 4 out of 10 stars.

Redux: Jaws.

Redux #480: Jaws.

Cast: 

Roy Scheider (Chief Martin Brody), Robert Shaw (Quint), Richard Dreyfuss (Matt Hooper), Lorraine Gary (Ellen Brody), Murray Hamilton (Mayor Larry Vaughn), Carl Gottlieb (Meadows), Jeffrey Kramer (Deputy Leonard Hendricks), Susan Backlinie (Chrissie Watkins), Lee Fierro (Mrs. Kintner), and Peter Benchley (Interviewer) Directed by Steven Spielberg (#126 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind, #168 - Raiders of the Lost Ark, #169 - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, #170 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, #302 - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, #351 - Schindler's List)

Review: 

You might wonder why I'm giving a revised review of a movie I covered before. Well, that review was nearly 12 years ago on November 11, 2013. Enjoy.

Like most great movies, it all started with taking a novel into one's hands. In early 1974, Peter Benchley's debut novel Jaws was published, which had seen him take inspiration from shark attacks and the exploits of Frank Mundus, a fisherman that once caught a shark weighing over 4,000 pounds off the New York shores. Benchley thought the book wasn't going to be a hit, mainly because it was a first novel and that it was "about a fish". The result was a novel that sold over five million copies in its first 18 months. Ironically, both Benchley and Mundus became conservationists in later years, with the former telling people that he could not write the book as it was in good conscience (for Mundus, he later called the movie "the funniest and the stupidest movie I've ever seen because too many stupid things happened in it.").  Benchley was tasked to write the first draft of the screenplay, and it was he would basically do the "mechanics" of the script more so than characterization, which most notably saw him excise the affair between Brody and Hooper (upon suggestion). Others delivered uncredited work such as Howard Sackler, John Milius, Matthew Robbins, and Hal Barwood; Carl Gottlieb, who was tasked to bring in "some levity", was given co-credit with Benchley on the screenplay. The director would be Steven Spielberg, who had two features to his credit at the time with the TV-film-turned movie Duel (1971) and The Sugarland Express (1974). 159 days of production were spent around Massachusetts and the Atlantic Ocean due to overruns that saw script refinement and a bit of cast strife. You probably already know Jaws was a phenomenon, but it still sounds fun to say it: Universal spent a good deal of money marketing the movie in a media blitz and a strategy that was still not as widely used now: releasing the movie on hundreds of theaters at once for opening week, with over 400 theaters seeing the movie on June 20. For two years, Jaws was the highest-grossing movie of all time and the TV premiere of the movie in 1979 saw over half of the total US audience watch it. Years later, Benchley was asked about a deal involving sequels to Jaws, with him stating, "I don't care about sequels; who'll ever want to make a sequel to a movie about a fish?" Jaws 2, with no Spielberg or Dreyfuss, came out in 1978 as directed by Jeannot Szwarc to mixed reviews. Jaws 3-D (1983) and Jaws: The Revenge (1987, with Gary returning because...) came out later to diminishing box office returns and little-to-no creativity. Benchley went on to write seven more novels, with a handful being adapted into films such as The Deep (1977) and The Island (1980); he died in 2006 at the age of 65.

I admit that I've seen Jaws roughly three times: once in 2013, another a few years later, and lastly just a few days ago with my mom. I wanted to re-live the experience of wondering what was so great about a movie like this, and what better time than in the summer and in July? Steven Spielberg is probably the seminal entertainer for direction in the past fifty years, but I really did want to figure out (at least, again) just how he did it. Whether thought of as an action thriller or as a horror movie (let's be honest, there are people who willingly choose to ignore the latter genre because of bias), there is just something so thrilling about how this movie pushes one's buttons so effectively in great adventure. Filmmakers could only dream to make a movie run as well as one can for two hours that has no bloat or demand for more that come across here, and this is for a film that wisely spaces out its tension until it absolutely becomes important to do what it has to do. To borrow from old me, there were plenty of "animals gone bad" movies before and after this movie such as say, Grizzly (1976), Piranha (1978; widely considered among the best of the Jaws ripoffs), Alligator (1980), and so on, but Jaws just has that enthusiasm and commitment to its tension. You have to remember that the movie characters are meant to be more likable than the book characters, which dealt with a subplot involving the Mayor being tied to the Mafia and the aforementioned affair between two characters. The funny thing is that it was easier to cast Brody with a perceived "tough guy" in Scheider than the other two key roles, which apparently were not cast until the last few days of pre-production that resulted in two people being cast with how good they were in other people's movies at the time: actor/writer Robert Shaw, who had worked on the recent Universal Pictures hit in The Sting (1973) for Quint and American Graffiti (1973) star Richard Dreyfuss for Hooper. They all are essentially perfect for what needs to happen for the film. Scheider in particular shines because he fits the everyman type like a glove, one with real worries and quibbles that sells for all who know the plight of being, well, a fish out of water.

Shaw was a man of the stage who happened to write on the side, so of course he can play the ultimate rugged captain (he was a Bond adversary, for heaven's sake, he could do anything). Every line of his has a certain type of timing and cadence that we find listening to intently that is rewarded with that one particular sequence in the "U.S.S. Indianapolis monologue" that he sells in such a soulful way that it almost doesn't matter just who (Shaw, Milius, Sackler, what have you) came up with what in writing it. Apparently, Dreyfuss thought that the movie was going to be a "disaster" because of the general boredom that came in waiting to film. There's the veneer of charm within a part that apparently was molded to be Spielberg's "alter ego" (debate on that), and Dreyfuss draws a few light chuckles even in the great admirer of, well, the routines in science. Bottom line: you care about these folks. It may interest you to know that this was the debut theatrical performance of Gary, who had done a handful of television performances. But it is Hamilton and his steely smarm in the art of evasiveness that probably sticks out the most now more than ever: a person in a position of power that hears of certain facts and doggedly moves forward with his own self-serving needs anyway. Evidently, there is actual footage of real sharks in the film, as Ron and Valerie Taylor shot footage in the waters of South Australia that had an actor in a mini shark cage. The look of the shark isn't what matters in the end, what matters is the fact that it could come when it comes to suspense that came from someone who honed their craft in suspense with Duel (1971) and plays with the audience just enough to where the climax will splatter in harrowing excellence. As a whole, Jaws is the phenomenon for monster movies one would hope to aspire to do. I'm not really sure exactly where it rests on the pantheon of entertaining Spielberg movies when considering his earlier work (and what's to come), but it sure has a hell of an argument for making a good time.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Mitchell.

Review #2383: Mitchell.

Cast: 

Joe Don Baker (Mitchell), Martin Balsam (James Arthur Cummings), John Saxon (Walter Deaney), Linda Evans (Greta), Merlin Olsen (Benton), Morgan Paull (Salvatore Mistretta), Harold J. Stone (Tony Gallano), Robert Phillips (Chief Albert Pallin), Buck Young (Det. Aldridge), Rayford Barnes (Det. Tyzack), and Jerry Hardin (Desk Sergeant) Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen (#1414 - McLintock!)

Review: 

Sure. You may notice a bit of familiarity with knowing the film was written by Ian Kennedy Martin. Well, okay, he created exactly one other notable thing with the TV series The Sweeney, but Martin actually is the brother of Troy Kennedy Martin, and it was Ian who came up with the original idea of a robbery film set near traffic that Troy liked enough to buy the rights to then make the screenplay that became The Italian Job (1969)*. The director was Andrew V. McLaglen, who you might remember as the director behind McLintock! (1963), but he made a wide variety of movies for hire, which mostly involved Westerns as is the case with Shenandoah (1965) and The Way West (1967) but also stuff like Fools' Parade (1971). McLagen actually directed into his seventies, closing with Eye of the Widow (1991) Apparently, the best version of the film came out on DVD (i.e. one that isn't just pan and scan) came out as late as 2013.

Honestly, the movie is funny to experience late at night. Don't get me wrong, it isn't a good movie, but if you watch the full version (so no, not the MST3K version that doesn't even bother to show the whole thing), you get a sense of a really, really, weird movie. Sure, on the level, it basically is a film that sounds destined for television on the level of say, Rockford Files Jr., but there is something really funny about the way the lead character is so abrasive to everything around him that you'll laugh at the idea the movie has a title sequence (where you get to see Baker with bulging eyes carrying an object that you will find out is a rock) and a song. One minute you see a hooker try to hook-up with our hero and later on he'll decide, no, the temptation is over and proceeds to bust her for weed. I especially like how the revenge the hooker gets is to simply write "BASTARD" on the windshield of his car (in the edit, it's just "JERK") - ooh, that'll show him. You could call him the Diet Dirty Harry, but really he might as well be the proto-Homer Simpson in folks who underestimate exactly what he is willing to do as a cop, but popping in and out of cars takes up a good chunk of the runtime before it eventually comes down to him being around in leading to the death of, say, seven bad guys. Mr. "Brute Force With a Badge" does shoot folks, don't get that twisted, he also gets chased around in a dune buggy sequence where the best way to get someone trapped in the buggy when they can't go up and just bash 'em with a rock a few times. He's also good enough with a dune buggy where the other guy can't even drive it right before it rolls over and just explodes. The acting, in comparison to the mayhem, is not exactly as exciting, but for a B-movie, it just, well, "is what it is". Baker is best remembered for Walking Tall (1973) and Charley Varrick (1973) more so than this movie and that is probably for the best, because this is a movie that does not suit him (the plaid suit in particular doesn't help). It almost sounds like the character is supposed to be a parody of the tough cop, at one point Baker tells a kid to go to hell after bickering with him. But alas, he just seems adrift when trying to be anything other than the formidable authority, because you can't help but chuckle. Sure, I like Saxon, and I suppose there is something to Balsam (yes, an Academy Award winner), but they are mostly going through the motions because you know it's only a matter of time (97 minutes) before the inevitable happens. This actually was the last film appearance by Olsen, the football player-turned-actor-turned-broadcaster/businessman, and it probably says something that he does more in the whole climax than Balsam does for probably the whole movie (seriously, the latter just stands there when the last fight happens, as if he was doing meditation). It's the kind of B-movie that you might find something to spot out there and chuckle at a movie at the strange qualities that come with cliches and old habits**. It isn't a big winner or big loser, but a palate cleanser with familiar names can't all be that bad.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*Fun coincidence: Troy wrote for a variety of television programs, ranging from Ian's The Sweeney to the BBC serial Edge of Darkness...which featured Baker as an authority figure. I should mention that Baker (who passed away just a few days ago) actually appeared on television as a cop with Eischied in 1979-80.

**Hey hey, a small role for Jerry Hardin, who I enjoyed seeing as Deep Throat in The X-Files

At Long Last Love.

Review #2249: At Long Last Love.

Cast: 

Burt Reynolds (Michael Oliver Pritchard III), Cybill Shepherd (Brooke Carter), Madeline Kahn (Kitty O'Kelly), Duilio Del Prete (Johnny Spanish), Eileen Brennan (Elizabeth), John Hillerman (Rodney James), Mildred Natwick (Mabel Pritchard), and M. Emmet Walsh (Harold) Written, Directed and Produced by Peter Bogdanovich (#1000 - The Last Picture Show, #1475 - Mask, #2093 - Targets)

Review: 

Admittedly, a handful of films that were thought of as flops are really just because they fit the bill of something worth tearing down because of its star or director being, well, worth taking down a peg. In this case, Peter Bogdanovich might have been an easy target. He had made a tremendous debut feature in Targets (1968) after once being a stage actor, film essayist and critic. Sure, it wasn't a hit with audiences, but it was a damn good thriller. The Last Picture Show (1971) came out of the blue to rip-roaring success. His next film was a homage to screwball comedies in What's Up, Doc? (1972); Paper Moon (1973) was a road feature that adapted a play to pretty good acclaim. And then there was Daisy Miller (1974). The lavish period adaptation of the novella of the same name that Bogdanovich labeled as both "good" and "completely uncommercial" was not exactly a favorite at the time. At Long Last Love (1975) did not have the time or luck to change a perceived slump by Bogdanovich. He was inspired to make the film when he was given a book of song lyrics that had been done by Cole Porter by his then-girlfriend Cybill Shepherd (star of two of Bogdanovich's previous films). It was the first Bogdanovich written entirely by himself (after having co-written a few of his other ones) and it would be one where the actors would sing the song live, which is tough to do if one is not exactly in with dancing on step. It was rushed into theaters and torn apart enough to the point where Bogdanovich printed an open letter of apology. Reynolds stated his belief that the film "Not as bad as it was reviewed. What was reviewed was Cybill and Peter's relationship." Various versions of the film persisted over the years (with different scenes added or missing), which included a cut that wasn't even done by the director. Apparently, a studio editor named James Blakely (a Porter fan) had made an edit of the film (lasting 121 minutes) that honed to the shooting script that was similar to the first preview cut that found its way as the "default" used for streaming. Bogdanovich (having heard of the Netflix version and being delightfully surprised) acknowledged the edition and with a little bit of additions, a "Definitive Director's Version" came out in home media in 2013. But in general, one probably does have to take a little bit of effort to see the film more than other certain flops, particularly when compared to other Bogdanovich films.

Sure, the footwork and singing in certain areas is a bit curious to view for those familiar with musicals. Sure, it has an air of strange elegance that could only come from someone who pushed on making a "jukebox musical" of Cole Porter songs with a loose execution in, well, take your pick. Sure...I actually liked it. It is a playful meet-cute that is full of strange imperfections that seem quite amusing when packed in such a dazzling feature that is old fashioned and yet amusing. These are eccentric "different class" people that are seen doing things such as say, dropping glasses off buildings or casually parking cars with a thud on the lawn. They bumble and stumble in such casual effectiveness that could only come from someone who believed in the actors to basically be like the figurines that are seen to introduce and end the film in that wind-up fashion (complete with a look once described as "Black and white in color"). Reynolds glides through the film with such a casual aura that benefits the proceedings in the charm that arises in offbeat singing/dancing that seems more on the joke in stumbling neatness. Of course, I might be biases because, well, I like seeing Reynolds even in a strange movie like this. Shepherd might have been a lightning rod for criticism, but she doesn't do a terrible job here. Sure, she wavers in certain numbers, but she isn't exactly meant to be playing an angel anyway (goofy brat might be the word here). Del Prete (an Italian singer/songwriter/actor) is adequate, albeit mostly as a straight man (with the obvious qualities in hunky goofiness) to other odd qualities, at least when Kahn is right there to play up this frivolous foursome that really need someone to be there with them for those good times rather than melancholy. It is the support from Hillerman and Brennan in amusement that end up saving the film from dottering away, for which one can be grateful. There are worse ways to hear songs played out than this film, ones where they drone on and on or never really elevate the material, but At Long Last Love just happens to be lightly charming in a way that seems to be an out of its time curiosity that plays with the musical while not forgetting the interest that arises in its Porter jukebox for a chuckler that is about people who happen to sing rather than just a straight to the point singing film. On that note, it is a Bogdanovich movie worth looking into with a curious glance because of the clear delight he has in making a tribute to the old days that I'd affectionate without being beholden to doing everything just as one would expect it to be. It is the kind of odd duckling that belongs in the discussion for viewing not as a flop but as something to marvel as a director's vision that hits its mark.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Well, here we are with another theme August finished up. Fourteen reviews (one redux) saw a few surprises in the mix from theatrical interests such as Trap and fun times such as Showgirls. I've been trying to get into the spirit of viewing+reviewing movies with the proper amount of commitment that I hope has been maintained to usual expectations.

There was not quite enough time to consider more films to give "acknowledgement" for August, with a few shortlist misses being movies such as: Treasure Planet, Heartbeeps, 1941, City Heat, Quintet, Moment by Moment, and Staying Alive (the latter three have been thought of for Turkey Week before). The future is uncertain for August 2025, but I'm sure there will be a suitable "A" thing for next time around. I'll try to find some interesting films for September 2024 before, well, you know about October and November. See ya soon. 

Death Race 2000.

Review #2231: Death Race 2000.

Cast: 

David Carradine ("Frankenstein"), Simone Griffeth (Annie Smith), Sylvester Stallone (Joe "Machine Gun" Viterbo), Mary Woronov (Jane "Calamity Jane" Kelly), Roberta Collins (Matilda "The Hun"), Martin Kove (Ray "Nero the Hero" Lonagan), Louisa Moritz (Myra), Don Steele (Junior Bruce), Joyce Jameson (Grace Pander), Carle Bensen (Harold), Sandy McCallum (Mr. President), Paul Laurence (Special Agent), and Harriet Medin (Thomasina Paine) Directed by Paul Bartel (#955 - Eating Raoul)

Review: 

"Most of my guilty pleasures in this film were ripped out by the roots by Roger Corman before the film ever saw the light of day and substituted with crushed heads and blood squibs. Nevertheless, there is a joke about the French wrecking our economy and telephone system that I still find amusing. And I am pleased by the scene introducing the Girl Fan (played very effectively by my sister Wendy) who is to sacrifice herself beneath the wheels of David Carradine's race car and wants to meet him so that the gesture will have 'meaning'."

Okay, so you have managed to encounter a Roger Corman-related production. Gratuitous and all around weird is what one might expect from a film that was inspired by the publicity that came for the film Rollerball, which was slated for release in June of 1975. Corman found a short story to crib for an adaptation with Ib Melchior's "The Racer", which actually had been inspired by the revulsion Melchior seemingly had when he saw a death at a motor race. Script troubles meant that the film had a prolonged production schedule, which initially had a script written by Robert Thom before re-writes were done by Charles B. Griffith and its eventual director (Corman would play influence when it came to looking over tone, naturally). At director was Paul Bartel, who had made his first noted film with the short The Secret Cinema in 1968 (after several years of shorts, which included work for the United States Information Agency) before becoming a feature director with the horror-comedy film Private Parts (1972), which was produced by Gene Corman; the following year, Bartel did second unit work on Big Bad Mama. Interestingly, Carradine wanted to pick a movie to help his film career after spending three seasons as the star of Kung Fu, the television show he is perhaps most famous for (having seen the show, this is probably true), and the film was released one day after the final show airing; he came around after Peter Fonda was approached and had declined (of course, there was a moment in time during the turbulent production that had Bartel thinking about replacing Carradine with Lee Majors (!), but the two eventually bonded). The film was a hit in the general sense; Bartel's next film was Cannonball (1976), which had Carradine as star that aimed for comedy within its inspiration based on a real race (as you might know). In 1978, Corman, having a contract with Carradine, spearheaded a push for another vehicle-related film with motorcycles that that eventually became Deathsport (as directed by Allan Arkush and Nicholas Niciphor), which was not particularly successful. In 2008, a remake of the film was done by Paul W. S. Anderson, which was the first of five "Death Race" films that were either follow-ups to the 2008 film or in the case of Death Race 2050 (2017, as produced by Corman), a sequel to the original.

So, here is how the future is envisioned by 1975 standards: to pacify the population under a tough regime dealing within crisis comes the "Transcontinental Road Race" that has seen twenty years of violence and gore because of combat of cars and, well, people. You get to see the gauntlet of just who would do these kinds of races: people who dress up like gangsters...and Nazis. In the land of B-movies, it really can come down to just how much fun one sees on screen when it comes to execution and commitment. This is aa pretty neat one that surely delivered a tiny bit of inspiration for Mad Max (1979). The conflict of nudity and gore with the attempts at comedy (the latter was favored by Bartel and Carradine to an extent) makes for a curious experiment that may have a random viewer wondering just what the hell they are supposed to think about its 80-minute runtime of lean and mean nature. That strange casual blend (in of itself a "Frankenstein" creation of Corman and Bartel) of guts and the occasional chuckle that arises from people watching the violence of car-on-man (or in the case of point-seeking to the extreme, the elderly) is a feeling that one always hopes to find in an exploitation film. I particularly like hearing from Bensen and his mimicking of Howard Cosell when it comes to being a voice from the crowd (alongside other "journalists"). Carradine just has a natural charm to him that attracts one's curiosity in what is left said and unsaid within that everyman nature that comes out for a role that if played by a lesser talent would've been just a film with less interesting impact in terms of (pun intended) drive. He has the gumption to roll with the inane goofiness that is apparent even with the real assertion one could argue about just how much curiosity people really have about violence (in living color). It's interesting that two of the early roles for Stallone before Rocky (1976) were Corman productions, with this and Capone being released in 1975 (the same year that he got the inspiration for, well, Rocky). He provides a few good heel chuckles in a cast that is mostly fine in those silly one-note mannerisms (which ranges from the aforementioned Nazi helmeted person to, uh, bits of nudity). There is just a mayhem and energy here that works so well in making light of the obsession that arises from violence in terms of the spectator or opportunistic journalists that is hard to match. The climax is pretty neat in one lasting chuckle that really does prove Bartel had the right idea in mind (Corman wanted to film an ending where the FBI shoots an annoying reporter rather than, well...) in making a film with useful timing in manic commitment without having to be broad about it. In the long run, it is a neatly cheap movie with the idea of conveying what people seem to think about seeing violence play out right in front of them that goes with the entertainment value of the film: fun on the run.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Cooley High.

Review #2178: Cooley High.

Cast: 

Glynn Turman (Leroy "Preach" Jackson), Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (Richard "Cochise" Morris), Garrett Morris (Mr. Mason), Cynthia Davis (Brenda), Sherman Smith (Stone), Norman Gibson (Robert), Corin Rogers (Pooter), Joseph Carter Wilson (Tyrone), Maurice Marshall (Damon), Steven Williams (Jimmy Lee), Christine Jones (Sandra), and Jackie Taylor (Johnny Mae) Directed by Michael Schultz (#1637 - Car Wash)

Review: 

"The thing is, when you’re a kid in whatever environment you grow up in, you look at it in a different way. It’s your home. It’s where you hang out and you have your friends. To outsiders, it may be ugly, but as a kid, you don’t look at the ugliness. You look beyond it. I wanted to capture that on film."

I'm sure you can recognize the idea presented in writing about what you know, because this was a film released in the 1970s, but I think we all are very interested in ones that seem ripe with honesty. Eric Monte was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, growing up in the Cabrini–Green housing project (all but the original two-story rowhouses remain from there, as everything around it was demolished from 1995-2011) on the Near North side that found himself attending Cooley Vocational High School only to drop out in his junior year to join the United States Army. After serving in the Army, Monte had a dream to work as a screenwriter, to the point where he hitchhiked across Route 66 and found his way to Hollywood. He eventually found work on television, most notably serving as co-creator on the sitcom Good Times. His first script in film was co-writing The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat in 1974. Steve Krantz had brought Monte in to help write for the film, and a conversation between the two of their experiences growing up (him in New York and Monte in Chicago) got Krantz to bring the idea to American International Pictures. Monte wrote the script for what became this film to express the fun he had "while inhaling and exhaling" in the projects. The success of the film inspired ideas to make a television show based on the film, and after some retooling, it became What's Happening!!, which ran for a number of seasons starting in 1976. Monte did not reap much of the rewards, as he felt that others higher up than him in productions were stealing his ideas, which led him to sue. He won a settlement but his prospects of writing for television dried up to the point where this was his last film script. At director for this film was Milwaukee native Michael Schultz, who had previously directed stage productions and two somewhat obscure films in Together for Days (1972) and Honeybaby, Honeybaby (1974), and he helped cast a handful of authentically Chicago people for certain roles (such as Norman Gibson and Sherman Smith, known as petty thieves by cops) while also working on straightening the script out with Monte (interpret for yourself about the decision to tone down the language). Shot in Chicago and featuring a selection of Motown music and distributed by American International Pictures, Cooley High was a tremendous success that made over ten times its budget.

Admittedly, one might have an inkling of thinking about American Graffiti (1973), because, well, that was a film set in 1962 with a script based on a writer's experiences in that time. In fact, both movies feature a "where are they now" for certain characters at the end. But we are talking about an AIP film (read: compliment!) set in 1964 that happens to seem just as useful in its portrayal of life in the inner city in all of the honest angles imaginable without becoming just a series of cheap gags. It earns its moments that play out for 107 minutes because the chase for dreams and trying to escape the hard truths that come in potentially hard living is a universal one always worth watching play out on screen. Turman and Hilton-Jacobs make a suitable pair because their interactions with each other seem authentic as friends. Sure, they do make plenty of comedic moments happen with the interactions that come in trying to skirt situations, but it works as well as it does because the pairing seems authentic without a false note shared even with their distinct dreams for trying to dig out of the projects, whether that involves writing or in sports (consider Boyz n the Hood, released in 1991 by John Singleton, who had been influenced by this film, also dealt with a group of friends where one is a promising sportsman). In the hijinks of escapes and chaos also involve dreams and desires that you just didn't see in film as much back then. That youthful energy goes all the way down to the other members, such as with Davis or with Rogers. Morris doesn't have as much time, but even he has presence worth watching when it comes to trying to spread meaningful influence onto the youth with truthful warmth (his performance played a hand in being cast as the first group of actors on the comedy program Saturday Night Live, perhaps his most enduring appearance). There are a handful of scenes one could highlight, such as sharing poetry together or trying to drive, but I think the one that brings it all together really is that climax, where the film moves from recollection to reality. By the time the film maneuvers to its resounding conclusion, the best thing to say is that the film fulfills itself as one that lives for today with a mostly successful collection of honesty and humor that clearly has every reason to endure in influence and stature as it soon approaches a half-century of age.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Dersu Uzala (1975).

Review #2080: Dersu Uzala.

Cast: 

Maxim Munzuk (Dersu Uzala), Yury Solomin (Vladimir Arsenyev), Vladimir Kremena (Turtygin), Alexander Pyatkov (Olenev), Svetlana Danilchenko (Anna), and Suimenkul Chokmorov (Chzhan Bao) Directed by Akira Kurosawa (#968 - Throne of Blood, #1385 - Seven Samurai, #1870 - Sanshiro Sugata, #2004 - Drunken Angel)

Review: 

“Few people are eccentric enough to enjoy paying a high ticket price to go to see a television movie in a movie theatre. I have digressed again, but it is difficult for a film director who is like a salmon. When the river he was born and raised in becomes polluted, he can’t climb back upstream to lay his eggs – he has trouble making his films. He ends up by complaining. One such salmon, seeing no other way, made a long journey to climb a Soviet river and give birth to some caviar. This is how my 1975 film Dersu Uzala came about. Nor do I think this is such a bad thing. But the most natural thing for a Japanese salmon to do is to lay its eggs in a Japanese river.”

I'm sure that you can understand how some stories of travel can endure in the memories of countless people who end up reading about them and thus lead to further curiosity. In 1923, a memoir titled Dersu Uzala (sometimes referred to as With Dersu the Hunter or Dersu the Trapper) was published, as written by Vladimir Arsenyev, an explorer who was travelling the Far East of Russia, specifically the Ussuri basin in the early 20th century. The title of the book (which was actually the second of three books he wrote) refers to the native hunter (a man of the Nanai people [known once as the Goldi] who lived from c.1849 to 1908) that Arsenyev encountered in his travels that became a helpful guide for the rough wilderness. One admirer of Aresenyev's chronicles was Akira Kurosawa, who expressed a desire to film such travels for years but found that the only way to do it right would be to film in the region itself (which in it of itself would be hard, and add the fac that, well, this was part of the Soviet Union). By the 1970s, Kurosawa was in a turbulent period in his life, one that saw him go five years between filmmaking after a long and consistent stretch between his first venture in Sanshiro Sugata (1943) to Red Beard (1965). One of the things that occurred in that gap after the aforementioned 1965 film was his involvement of what would've surely been a curious venture: the Japanese perspective in the two-pronged venture that became Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). He had spent time on the script and pre-production but was fired early into shooting that put his sanity into question in some quarters. Dodes'ka-den (1970), his response to said fears that was made in a matter of weeks in color, was not appreciated by Japanese audiences of the time. One year after, with minimal prospects (he tried television at one point), he attempted suicide but recovered. In 1973, Mosfilm approached him with an offer to work with them on a film, and he specifically asked to make a film based on Arsenyev's travels. Interestingly, the book had been adapted to film before in 1961 by Agasi Babayan. Kurosawa wrote the screenplay with Russian writer Yuri Nagibin in a production that would take years to shoot with a small crew of Soviets (and a few Japanese) that happens to also be the only 70mm production Kurosawa ever shot; in addition to Russian, other languages spoken in the film include Mandarin, and Kyakhta Russian–Chinese Pidgin. The resulting success was an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Kurosawa would take just as much time for his next two films in Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985), which received even further global curiosity. 

How could I not pick a Kurosawa film when dedicating a month to world cinema, particularly his only non-Japanese feature? While it might not be his most engaging work when it comes to showing grand scope, it does accomplish a solemn procession of man's place in nature when are placed within its scope for 144 minutes. This was the most noted feature with Munzuk as star, and the Tuvan actor (alongside other professions such as singing) was a founder of a musical-drama theatre for his people. He pulls in a worthy performance to accompany the title role, a man of measurable frontier qualities that is endearing all the way through even when confronting what it means to look upon death and wonder where it seems best to do it, the frontier or in a padded society. I especially like the sequence where he observes the men trying to shoot a bottle and he confronts them with the observation that a bottle is quite precious to waste before challenging that he can shoot the string on the bottle, which he promptly accomplishes. Solomin plays the traveler with worthwhile interest in following along in the trail of the wilderness, which means dignified interest in conveying the place and mood (he narrates the film from time to time) that comes with trying to embark on the trail of life. It is a friendship based on what they understand and don't understand of each other as men of different walks, one of the land and one who lives in society of the land that nevertheless makes the ideal friendship, which makes the last scene all the more rewarding. It is the scope of images that matter most in this film, such as one that sees a rising sun and a moon setting down all in one shot. Naturally, the sequence of two men dealing with a blizzard with resounding pacing also makes a noted sequence to look on in scale.  When one does spend a bit of time away from the great wilderness, one can see the size of how man really looks when they are back in those carefully crafted buildings of comfort. The fate that arises from the inevitabilities of age and the parts that come with understanding just what nature means to the people who see and experience it for themselves. Dersu Uzala showed that Kurosawa still had what it takes to make a feature fit for audiences across the world in resourceful timing fit for the curious explorer at heart.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Next up: the original Ghost in the Shell.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.

Review #1994: Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.

Cast: 

Delphine Seyrig (Jeanne Dielman), Jan Decorte (Sylvain Dielman), Henri Storck (the first client), Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (the second client), Yves Bical (the third client), and Chantal Akerman (the voice of a neighbor in the hallway) Written and Directed by Chantal Akerman.

Review: 

 "a love film for my mother. It gives recognition to that kind of woman."

It only makes sense to talk about the bond of a filmmaker with their parent, if you think about it. Born in Brussels, Belgium to Holocaust survivors from Poland, Chantel Akerman was encouraged from a young age by her mother to pursue a career (once describing her childhood as "suffocating") Seeing the film Pierrot Le Fou (as directed by Jean-Luc Godard) as a teenager made her want to become involved in cinema. She attended the film school Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle et des Techniques de Diffusion before dropping out and later moved to Paris and New York, making short films, which included documentaries such as Hotel Monterey (1973) and Hanging Out Yonkers (1973).  In 1974, she directed her first feature with Je, Tu, Il, Elle, which she co-wrote, produced, and starred in (complete with filming a lesbian sex sequence involving herself). Resisting the urge to be labeled as just a feminist filmmaker, Akerman would make a variety of films until her death in 2015 at the age of 65, such as News from Home (1977), Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (1978), and No Home Movie (2015), a film involving conversations with her mother right before her death. Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles was a co-production between Belgium and France that was filmed on location in Brussels, Belgium in French for five weeks, with the obsessive habits of Akerman's mother being the inspiration for the title character here.

So yes, this is a movie that goes like this: a woman lives in an apartment with her teenage son and does a routine over and over again: brewing coffee, shining shoes, shopping, cooking before eating meals with her kid. Oh, and a session of earning a living by working as a prostitute. If that sounds like something that you would think is 201 minutes long, you would be correct. In a portrait of a woman that is utterly alone and wrapped in a depressive state of self, the movie will only work for those who accept its terms. Look, I get why people like movies that are, well, meant to be the kind of film watched by movie-lovers (I would use the term cinephile, but dear God that just doesn't roll off the tongue), but that does not mean I have to grant it credit for being anything other than "fine". Seyring (a French person born in Lebanon) was actually a well-known figure in France who worked with various directors from Akerman to Francois Truffaut while also serving as a director on three of her own films. This surely must have been one of the toughest challenges, as it is a role that focuses on one paying attention to what she is doing with her movement (and what isn't shown, obviously), even if it is something like peeling potatoes (as for the sex work, well...). As the film goes on and you start to notice the cracks within the banalities, the performance holds the film all the way to its natural conclusion. It is a mundane way to spend time watching long takes in life, which means that a viewer should just go in cold when viewing it and let it dwell in your mind. Boring on purpose or boring on principle, this means that the only appropriate rating to give it is to be as boring as possible in calling it average. A desire for order as you get to hear every little sound and see every little thing may work for you, but I am not in the business of searching for order within the bounds of what the movie is selling me. There are better ways to embrace the chaos of films, where a film that makes you laugh is a film that makes you laugh, and so on. I can respect the craft and then say that the film is best suited for those who have the patience to sit through something I probably won't see again for years, if ever. But don't let that stop you from enjoying something from the world of cinema, because it is a curious and confrontational movie. It challenges your perceptions of what film means to a viewer, and in a subjective world full of tastes in all shapes, enter if you dare.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Amended: rating to #1993 relegated from 7 to 6 stars due to error.

Congratulations to all who have enjoyed this month of women directors for the third straight March. I enjoyed finding fourteen films to cover from the depths of history that went from the 1910s all the way to 2023 that I hope showed something interesting about history within women actors or directors in cinema and where we still can go. As always, here's to the next month. 

#2000 looms in April.

Hester Street.

Review #1818: Hester Street.

Cast: 

Steven Keats (Jake), Carol Kane (Gitl), Mel Howard (Bernstein), Dorrie Kavanaugh (Mamie), Doris Roberts (Mrs. Kavarsky), and Lauren Friedman (Fanny) Written and Directed by Joan Micklin Silver.

Review: 

"I came of age for film, at a time when the sexism was pretty strong. And although I could get work as a Writer, I couldn’t get work as a Director at all. And I had the experience of watching young men who had made shorts as I had, prize winning shorts, as I had, moving on to directing films and I couldn’t do it. And, and my husband, Ray, was… became angry, and he said, “You know, maybe you can do it, maybe you can’t, but everybody should have a chance to try for the brass ring.”

Joan Micklin Silver was born in Omaha, Nebraska in in 1935 to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants. In that sense, it only seems fitting that her first film would be one like this. She had graduated from Sarah Lawrence College before moving to Cleveland with her husband to teach music and write for the next eleven years. She continued her writing when she moved to New York City in 1967, where she would write for The Village Voice. She soon wrote scripts for educational films and found her way into directing within that area, which resulted in three works, most notably with "The Immigrant Experience", a short about Polish immigrants. Silver would end up directing for until 2003 with a handful of theatrical features (seven) and television work, with this and Crossing Delancey (1988) being her highlights (with each touching upon Jewish identity). The movie is an adaptation of the 1896 novella Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto by Abraham Cahan; he was born in Lithuania before immigrating to New York City at the age of 21 that was part of the exodus of Jewish peoples from Eastern and Southern Europe to the States (roughly 2.8 million), and he is mostly known for his work within Yiddish language newspapers. A 19th century tale about Jewish people trying to assimilate in a newly adopted country for the 20th century surely would attract studio attention...it did not. A first-time director, particularly a woman, was felt to be "another problem" that studios did not want to fund; making independent movies had changed from decade to decade, but that didn't mean things would be easy, especially with a film with a handful of dialogue communicated in Yiddish with substitute. The film was funded by Raphael Silver, a real estate developer who saw his wife's trouble with getting a studio to produce the film and decided to pull roughly over $300,000 together to do it, complete with filming in New York (Hester Street, while located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, was not used for filming). Distribution struggles ended with a run on the festival circuit that turned into a fair audience hit. 

I'm sure you are familiar with films made as a passion project. Of course, certain movies made in the memory of others didn't have to deal with funding difficulties or being thought of as too "ethnic". For what Silver wanted to achieve in making a tale involving the clash of traditionalism versus assimilation, I would say that the movie is a fair success, one that doesn't serving as a judging ground for what kind of life seems best. With its black-and-white photography, one gets the feeling of watching an old photograph that seems aptly appropriate for the film, which utilizes limited settings to show the assimilation from each angle to useful effect, which naturally ends with one famed custom in the religion: A get (divorce), which is done tastefully. This would end up one of Kane's first shining roles, and it earned her an Academy Award nomination (losing to Louise Fletcher is not a shame). At any point, when she does finally arrive on screen, she makes the most of it with earthy patience. It doesn't require great monologues to see a performance built on observation and immense struggle for charm. Keats proves suitable as the other side of assimilation, in the classic hustling sense. There is a man in there, it just happens to have a bit of ooze for a few amusing moments when it comes to seeing just what one would do to be thought of as something else besides what they are, whether that involves cheating on women or trying to change a name. Howard patiently makes his mark in dutiful patience, while Kavanaugh pairs well with Keats. Roberts proves sound with careful charm that serves as a helping hand to Kane. The movie does fair in showing a way of life in its drama without hesitation or melodrama that makes a useful 90-minute curiosity. For the independent circuit, this is a movie that I would recommend for what Silver managed to do with a tale that will prove rewarding in interest for its audience without compromises.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (1980).

W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings.

Review #1689: W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings.

Cast: 

Burt Reynolds (W.W. Bright), Conny Van Dyke (Dixie), Jerry Reed (Wayne), Ned Beatty (Country Bull Jenkins), James Hampton (Junior), Don Williams (Leroy), Rick Hurst (Butterball), Mel Tillis (GOB), Furry Lewis (Uncle Furry), and Art Carney (Deacon John Wesley Gore) Directed by John G. Avildsen (#003 - Rocky and #895 - Rocky V)

Review: 

"...turned out wrong but it made a lot of money. It was supposed to be a special, warm and lovely little film. It was important that we not make fun of the people in Nashville as opposed to Nashville (1975). It wasn't that kind of movie. It was a bouquet to Nashville. But I got into a lot of fights with the director." - Burt Reynolds.

"The thing that the film taught me was that I could do something that I had no passion for, that my mechanics were such that I could make it work. There's some satisfaction to that." - John G. Avildsen

There aren't that many films out there where you could describe it as a stepping stone for better films for both its main star and director. Dick Richards was initially thought of in mind for director in 1972, but this did not come to pass (Reynolds would work with him fourteen years later with Heat), but a new director soon came about. This was the ninth feature film for John G. Avildsen, who had specialized in making low-budget movies with plenty of preparation involved that worked with production companies that ranged from the Cannon Group to Troma Entertainment, and it is Joe (1970) that stood out among his early work. The film that rocketed him all the way, however, was the film that followed this movie the next year, which was also a low-budget affair (starring an actor who auditioned for this film) that miraculously became one of the most iconic sports movies ever made in Rocky (1976). As for Reynolds...well, I am stretching this a bit, because he already was a star with stuff such as Deliverance (1972), White Lightning (1973), and The Longest Yard (1974) after a sea of low-budget affairs in television and film. But if one saw this film and Smokey and the Bandit (1977) back-to-back, one might get the impression one was a stepping stone for the other (incidentally, the director for that film in Hal Needham was the stunt coordinator for this feature). Granted, the focus is a smooth-talking conman who likes to specialize in robbing a specific gas station brand (while giving some of the loot to the poor sucker who finds themselves looking at his weapon) but finds himself in need of a good alibi that finds one with a travelling country music band while driving a (modified) Oldsmobile Rocket 88...really the one thing that seems more noticeable between the lovable showoffs in each film is a more interesting presence for both the feminine lead and the authority foil (of course there is also more of Jerry Reed in one of them, so there's also that). As one would like to note, Avildsen and Reynolds (who helped pick the director because of a good word from Jack Lemmon, who won an Academy Award with Avildsen's previous film, Save the Tiger) did not get along with each other during production, as Reynolds described him later as a "picky, arrogant little man", while Avildsen called the movie "one of the most unhappy experiences of my movie career", bemoaning that he did not have the knack of getting what he wanted and satisfying Reynolds; Avildsen was concerned about getting work done in carefully rehearsed details but Reynolds liked to have fun with his entourage of good ol' boys while favoring a loose style of filmmaking (i.e. not a complicated storyboard of sketched out scenes, as argued by Reynolds in his autobiography). The result is a curious venture of comedy that might be thought of as a loose mixed bag, but at least both seemed to have found something to like the film.

Apparently the script by Thomas Rickman would be tinkered extensively for production. He displayed his disgust by asking to write the novelization for the film (one might joke, but I remember reading a novelization of Fantastic Four as a kid), and the only reason one might even know this is because Quentin Tarantino was inspired by what he saw in the novel as compared to the film (which "literally offended" him) to start writing his own screenplays. Welp, differences can always be apparent when it comes to taste, because I found this to be a pretty decent movie. It isn't a great one for either its star or director, but being a stepping stone for better pastures is not a terrible thing when one has enough fun seeing it all play out. It's a silly light movie, filled with bits of Nashville in the singing department with a decent execution of comedy that is buoyed mostly because of the presence of Reynolds (who had a share of hits and misses with films that relied mostly on him, as evidenced by films like the Bandit series). He has the easygoing charm one could see on the stuff that made him a household name (whether that was films or the talk show circuit), which helps a bit that starts with the casual robberies that take hold from time to time. Van Dyke is okay, but she seems more interesting within the music group than with any small attempts at chemistry with Reynolds. The film features the acting debut of Jerry Reed, an Atlanta native that reportedly aspired to be a star in Nashville as a child, and the end result was a lengthy career in country music and it only makes sense to see a country star dabble into the world of acting; Reed would appear in a handful of films with his friend Reynolds (who he directed the following year with Gator). Reynolds may have all the elusive charm, but Reed helps to compliment him the best in actual chemistry, even when they have a brief fight scene. Others who were involved in music included Van Dyke alongside Williams, Lewis and Tillis, although Hampton probably sticks out a bit among the music players in the peanut gallery. Beatty was in his sixth film role (he also starred in Nashville the same year as this film), and one gets to see him for about two to three scenes, but I appreciate his candor when it comes to playing the trick between a legendary singer and the image besides the singing, and it is easy to see why Beatty had such an interesting career in character acting. And then of course there is Carney, making small appearances as the devout authority foil...honestly, he either should have had more time with Reynolds or should have just been cut from the film, because his stone-faced attempts at...something are very okay at best (while I have been all about stepping stones in this review, this was actually the first film role for Carney after winning an Academy Award for Harry and Tonto).

As a whole, what we have is a film befuddled in someway by what it wants to tell in a tale of adventure and romance that likely needed a bit more spark when it comes to being more than a Southern road movie. If one has a liking for Reynolds or the other good ol' folks, however, you will find yourself just fine with what happens here, even if it isn't exactly remembered as one of the best for either Avildsen or Reynolds. It's an average affair with a few chuckles and a little bit of light action that works in some way for whomever happens to encounter it.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.