 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Shootist - (1976) - 9/10
He's got to face a gunfight once more to live up to his legend once more - TO WIN JUST ONE MORE TIME!
Western based upon Glendon Swarthout novel about John Bernard Books an aging gunfighter travels to see a doctor he knows for a second opinion in early 1900's Carson City, Nevada after another doctor told him he has a cancer which is terminal. The doctor confirms what the other said. He says Books has a month maybe two left. He takes a room in the boarding house and the son of the woman who runs it recognizes him and tells his mother who he is. She doesn't like his kind but when he tells her of his condition, she empathizes. Her son wants him to teach him how to use a gun. Books tries to tell him that killing is not something he wants to live with. Books, not wanting to go through the agony of dying from cancer, tries to find a quicker way to go. Later he encounters some heavies from his past who wish to settle old scores which leads into a great finale.
Infact Wayne was dying of cancer at the time of shooting but insisted on doing some of his stunts but was reduced to specifically choreographed shots to look like he'd done them. Wayne had run-ins with director Don Siegel in the picture claiming about a scene "well John Ford would've done if differently!". Powerhouse performances and stellar cast including all time guests like Lauren Becall, Richard Boone, Harry Morgan and James Stewart (who Wayne personally requested) and actor turn future director Ron Howard.
Wayne's performance is indeed worthy of another Oscar all thanks to Siegel taking over director reins. A great classic and the finest Western out there. How could you not love it? not forgetting this score from the master Elmer Bernstein who I heard Elmer say John Wayne kept him in work writing and composing most of his films. I thank La La Land Records in releasing this gem of a score and some others like Grit & Sons of.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I heard Elmer say John Wayne kept him in work writing and composing most of his films.]
I've read that too. I think the end of the quote was something like- after Tiomkin left for Russia.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thank you Bob DuMucci and Prince Damian 4 contribution further info on Elmer Bernstein's association with John Wayne.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Jun 8, 2024 - 11:37 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
|
OVERWHELM THE SKY (2019) – 7/10
There’s a standard plot description for this film, the essence of which you will find in most reviews. It goes like this: “Edgar ‘Eddie’ Huntly” (Alexander Hero), an east coast radio personality, moves to San Francisco to marry “Thea” (Nima Slone), the sister of his best friend “Neil” (Deniz Demirer). Shortly before his arrival, Neil is found murdered in Golden Gate Park, a murder attributed by police to a simple mugging gone awry. As Eddie steps in as an interim host for old friend “Dean's” (Kris Caltagirone) radio show, he becomes increasingly obsessed with the forested spot where Neil's body had been found, and begins making regular visits to the location. One such visit unleashes a series of unpredictable events that sends Eddie into the life of a sleepwalking drifter, “Ambrose” (William Cully Allen), with a mysterious past. These mysteries and others can only be sorted out after Eddie follows Ambrose out in the Arizona desert, where Eddie has a series of surreal, frightening encounters that forever alter his reality.
This challenging film is an independent production of film editor, teacher, and ex-rabbinical student Daniel Kremer. Shot in widescreen black-and-white by Aaron Hollander, the film is a loose adaptation of Charles Brockden Brown's 1799 novel Edgar Huntly, or Memoirs of a Sleepwalker. As with many modern films that attempt to present a complex story, the tendency is not to try and simplify it by setting forth a linear narrative, but instead to make use of numerous flashbacks to add ever more layers to the complexity.
The 170-minute film played various film festivals in 2019 and 2020, with some festivals demanding a cut-down version of the film (124 minutes) before they would program it. In contrast, the film played for one night only, 28 July 2019, at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, in a dressed-up, 1960s-era roadshow format that included an overture, intermission, entr’acte, printed programs, and more. Nevertheless, the film failed to get a commercial release. It was issued on DVD (no Blu-ray) in 2021 by Kino Lober, who missed the opportunity to give us the roadshow version, presenting the standard 170-minute cut instead.
The extra music for that roadshow was provided by the film’s composer, Costas Dafnis. Dafnis and director Kremer met while working on a film at Francis Coppola’s American Zoetrope studios. They bonded over their mutual love for the music of Maurice Jarre. Dafnis’ score for OVERWHELM THE SKY is introspective, as befitting the film’s noirish narrative. But it is also solidly tonal, as per the wishes of Kremer, who decries “the alarming trends in contemporary film music.” La-La Land released the score in 2022
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Meg 2 the trench
Rating 3 out of 10.
Rating for breathtaking silliness 19 out of 10.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE LOVE-INS (1967) – 6/10
When administrators of a West Coast college expel two students, “Larry Osborne” (James MacArthur) and “Patricia Cross” (Susan Oliver), for publishing an underground avant-garde newspaper, professor of philosophy “Jonathan Barnett” (Richard Todd) resigns in protest. Barnett then appears on the Joe Pyne television show, where it is revealed that in a scholarly thesis, he advocated the use of LSD for religious meditation. He immediately becomes a hero with the hippie element in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. Encouraged by a hippie opportunist, “Elliot” (Mark Goddard), Barnett begins to picture himself as a "messiah," dressing in white robes, and becoming involved in a money-making scheme in which a series of admission-priced "happenings" are arranged.
This low-budget Sam Katzman production was timely in its portrayal of the Barnett character, who is obviously patterned after psychologist and author Timothy Leary, known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Leary's famous mantra of "Tune in, turn on, drop out" is echoed in Barnett’s "Be more, sense more, love more."
The film is somewhat of a musical time capsule, featuring several second-tier psychedelic rock bands of the era. The garage band The Chocolate Watchband made an appearance in the film as well as contributing music. The film also featured 1960s bands such as The UFO's, Donnie Brooks, and the New Age Group. Fred Karger was the music director and also composed original music for the film.
The film also features a musical sequence in which the character Patricia Cross has a bad LSD trip and goes into an Alice in Wonderland-themed hallucination. Cross imagines that she is Alice, and meets men dressed in White Rabbit costumes as well as other representations of characters from Lewis Carroll's story over the course of a lengthy, free-form, rock musical sequence.
The film’s dramatics are less authentic than its music. Susan Oliver was very disappointed that the film did not delve into the serious aspects of the hippie movement. But even with its formula plot of an oldster taking advantage of naïve teenagers, the film gives a glimpse of what was happening in Haight-Ashbury at the time. The film was “Suggested for Mature Audiences,” and, had the rating system been in effect, Columbia may have let Katzman go all the way into R-rated territory. As it is, at least director Arthur Dreifuss uses some San Francisco location shooting to full advantage. Like all of Katzman’s films, THE LOVE-INS was produced to cash in on a fad, rather than legitimately explore an issue. It has plenty of shortcomings, but its failure to be a documentary is not one of them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
So Mitch, a movie with a John Barry score gets a High 7+ rating ? Lol. There's a first.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Chase (without John Barry) 3/10
The Chase (with John Barry) 7/10
The Chase (with Bradley Walsh) ???
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Jun 11, 2024 - 6:44 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
|
SNAKE EATER (1989) – 6/10
When we first meet “Soldier” (Lorenzo Lamas) he's in the middle of a police stakeout telling off-color jokes on his hidden mic to two fellow cops sitting outside in their car. The cops, one played by ex-football star Larry Csonka, give the audience a brief backstory on our hero—he’s an ex-Marine from the special unit of the title, and so-on. After a game of "hidden wire strip search" with a female baddie, Soldier (yes, he is addressed by that name throughout the film, even by his sister!) proceeds to bust the dealers using a spiked nail trap in the floor, and gets kicked off the force for being such a loose cannon.
Meanwhile, a family on vacation in a houseboat on a Tennessee river find themselves being attacked, pirate style, by some redneck good ol’ boys led by the mean-spirited “Junior” (Robert Scott), who decides to kidnap the teenage daughter after killing off her parents—which includes mom getting shoved face first into a pot of boiling water. This, of course, turns out to be a really bad move, as their victims happen to be Soldier's folks and sister. Soldier investigates, leading him deep into the backwoods in pursuit of these knuckle-draggers.
The only saving grace in this film is Lamas, who, when he’s not setting traps for the bad guys, takes life completely nonchalantly—whether on that stakeout, getting into a bar fight with a guy twice his size, or talking smack to a pretty girl (Josie Bell) who knows her way around a motorcycle. The film has the requisite quota of action, as Soldier picks off the family of goons one by one while searching for his sister (Cherly Jeans).
There’s no bigger purpose at stake, though, since this redneck family seems to exist solely to kill the occasional stranger and molest young women. If they were, let’s say, hillbilly drug lords with deep political connections, that might be a sufficient premise for a whole season of a series like “Justified.” But you’d need a lot better characters, cast, and production values for that. This is just a cheap, undiscriminating action flick, with nothing more on its mind.
Cinépix didn’t wait to see how well SNAKE EATER did at the box office, at least in the U.S. One month after the Canadian production opened in Canada, and before it debuted in the U.S., they put SNAKE EATER II into production. With that kind of confidence, how can I resist checking it out.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Godzilla Minus One last night on Netflix. Loved it. Not a single fault. Even the wife enjoyed it saying it was engaging because it wasn't all crash and bang for two hours.
Sorry folks, I know I'm a Philistine and all that but it was the English dub...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'm half way thru kev but it's already wandering from mildly entertaining to nonsense.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
