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Posted: |
Nov 4, 2020 - 11:01 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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DINNER IN AMERICA (2020) – 8/10
From all appearances, “Simon” (Kyle Gallner) is a small-time hood and a grifter. But he’s also attractive to repressed young women of a certain randy type, who invariably end up inviting him to their family dinners, where his abrasiveness tears open the fragile civility keeping dysfunctional families together. In one case, he ends up making out with Mom (Lea Thompson) in the kitchen, and when discovered by Dad, almost destroys the family’s house in making his hasty exit.
Later, in this comedy-drama, while evading police capture, he is aided by pet store employee “Patty” (Emily Skeggs). Twenty-ish Patty is also sexually repressed, a lover of punk rock, and despite the fact that, as Simon puts it, she “has shit for brains,” he starts hanging out with the girl. What Patty doesn’t know about Simon is that he is a punk rocker himself, a ski-masked singer who goes by the pseudonym of “John Q.” What Simon doesn’t know about Patty is that she is the anonymous person who has been writing to “John Q”, sending him poems and sexy Polaroids of herself.
Simon and Patty go on a local odyssey during which Simon tries to prevent his more commercially-minded band members from following their agent’s advice to open for a vapid boy band, Patty tries to find a job after being unceremoniously fired from the pet store, and both of them deal with exasperated family members and hostile outsiders who see Patty as a “retard” and Simon as a loser.
While it may be inevitable that these two outsiders find something in each other, it’s also gratifying to watch it happen. Writer-director Adam Rehmeier was either good or lucky with his casting, particularly with Skeggs, who never lets Patty slip into oafishness, and always let’s us feel the slights that Patty has to endure. There are also some old pros in the cast—the aforementioned Lea Thompson and Mary Lynn Rajskub (“Chloe” on 24). There are a lot of independent films made about quirky characters coming together. This is one of the better ones.
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Killer Kid (1967) 7/10 with Anthony Steffen, Fernando Sancho and Ken Wood ( well before he started selling electrical appliances) Steffen plays an undercover soldier ( the audience doesn't know this for ages) trying to stop the selling of stolen guns to the Mexican Revolution. Not bad decently made enough shootin' to keep.most happy. Music by Berto Pisano was quite good, very catchy in places.
Followed by the classic
Withchfinder General 9/10 with Vincent Price and Ian Ogilvy. Best looking copy I hAve seen over the years. Lovely scenery . Hangings and ducklings have never looked better. Nice costumes and grubby looking sets. And I always love Paul Ferris' music when Ogilvy is racing across the countryside. Little belter. Never fell asleep in either.
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FRENCH CONNECTION
1971
Dir William Friedkin
Sometimes you dont see a classic film for many years and kind of take it for granted, but when you do see it again you are reminded just how good it still is. Gritty, believable, with some wonderfully tense cat'n'mouse tailing sequences, as cop Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his crew try to follow suspects without being "made", and the brilliant car-chasing-train set-piece where Hackman tracks the French gunman. Probably in top 10 thrillers/cop films ever made.
Ive you've never seen it, youve been a very naughty boy.
8.8 out of 10
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Ive you've never seen it, youve been a very naughty boy.
And you pick your feet in poughkipsy.
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I saw that cardboard pizza and i thought That looks nice!
Better than the snails Charnier was eating!
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Mitch, we've got an 8 o'clock walk tonight!! 
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HANG ‘EM HIGH (1968) – 7/10
The American western that got Clint Eastwood out of his serape, HANG ‘EM HIGH was based on an original story idea from producer Leonard Freeman. Eastwood reportedly received a salary of $400,000, in addition to twenty-five percent of the film’s net profits. The film cost $1.68 million, and went on to become a box-office success, grossing $14.8 million. For Eastwood’s previous westerns, he had been paid a straight $15,000 for A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, $50,000 for FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, and $250,000 plus 10% of Western Hemisphere profits for THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, which had grossed $25 million in the U.S.
So, financially, Eastwood was pretty much set before he ever began his American film career in earnest. HANG ‘EM HIGH was a transitional western for Eastwood. It maintained vestiges of the Italian films--e.g., the hangings, that were a part of THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY; the story of revenge that formed the plot of FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE; the pseudo-Morricone score from Dominic Frontiere, the many killings--but Americanized things in the costuming, the supporting cast, and in Ted Post’s straight-forward direction (his second solo feature after two decades in television). Although Variety deemed the picture “morbidly violent,” reviews in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times cited the film’s mass hanging sequence as its dramatic and artistic high point.
The film was released three months prior to the start of the MPAA’s new film rating system, although it did carry the “Suggested for Mature Audiences” tag. However, when HANG ‘EM HIGH was re-released on a double bill with THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY in July 1969, both pictures were given an [M] rating, or “suggested for mature audiences (parental discretion advised).” Today HANG ‘EM HIGH is [PG-13], while THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY was re-rated [R] in 1989.
In HANG “EM HIGH, Eastwood was bolstered by a great supporting cast: Inger Stevens, Pat Hingle, Ed Begley, Charles McGraw, Arlene Golonka, James MacArthur, Bruce Dern, Alan Hale, Jr., Dennis Hopper, Ben Johnson, L.Q. Jones, and Ned Romero. The film has plenty of incident and action, even taking time out for a romantic interlude, yet still only runs 114 minutes. Compare that with the 161 minutes of the original THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, not to mention its more recent 179-minute expansion. Of course, HANG ‘EM HIGH isn’t going for the epic (and operatic) sweep of that film.
I first saw HANG ‘EM HIGH in 1971, in 16mm, and found the soundtrack LP soon thereafter in a Woolworth’s bargain bin. Since then, I’ve probably seen the film a half-dozen times and listened to that score a hundred times. It was just as pleasurable this time as the first.
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After the Dollars films my expectation was High for Hang em, but omg what a disappointment. Sorry Bob, i thought it was bang average and the main title is repetitive n just never gets going (although the faster main theme is ok). I know score n film has lots of fans on here but for me was about as limp as Joe Kidd. Id give it 6.2.
Shame about Inger. I know we have discussed her sad ending on the forum previously.
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I know score n film has lots of fans on here but for me was about as limp as Joe Kidd. Id give it 6.2. .
Hmmm. I'm not seeing a lot of daylight between your 6.2 and my 7.0.
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).