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Goliath and the Sins of Babylon (1963) 7/10 With Mark Forest, Giuliano Gemma, Mimmo Palmara, Piero Lulli, Livio Lorenzon and Nello Pazzafini Goliath and co vow to rebel against oppressors Babylon. Every year they take tribute including 30 beautiful virgins. Good.job they didn't come round my manor, they'd be pushed to find three, let alone 30! Deffinately an above average effort with a great ensemble in the leads, all pre -western. You could see there was a bit of cash available,here, as there were more than three horses in the, fairly decent, cavalry battle. Plenty of sword fightin'. Some skullduggery and moustache twirling and a bit of torture thrown in. It was well filmed with decent sets and good colour. A chariot race around the circus, ala Ben Hur, only smaller, was done well. A woman was even allowed to enter. And the final burning of Babylon didn't look too much like a paper mache model. Francesco DeMasi's music was suitably heroic, romantic and sea faring when needed.
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Posted: |
Jan 16, 2022 - 11:15 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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JOE DAKOTA (1957) – 7/10 When a stranger (Jock Mahoney) rides into the small town of Arborville, California, he finds the town abandoned, except for a young woman (Luana Patten). When he goes to visit the nearby farm owned by an Indian friend, he witnesses an oil well being dug by the townspeople. Although suspicious of the stranger, the group’s leader (Charles McGraw), who claims to own the land, lets him stay around to watch. But when he starts asking questions about the previous owner, they run him off. But it will not be so easy to get rid of the stranger. When this film was released, many reviewers noted that it echoed the plot of BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK, and they were correct. But if you have to borrow, borrow from the best. This film, of course, has some different beats to it. It has some lighter moments that BBABR did not. And it mixes in some romance as well. And despite the seriousness of some of the goings on, the film plays out without a single shot being fired. In all, it’s a good outing for Mahoney, who is as solid as they come, and just exudes confidence in his role. This Universal film’s uncredited team score is based on an original song, "The Flower of San Antone," music by Ray Joseph, lyrics by Mack David.
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Posted: |
Jan 18, 2022 - 12:36 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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THE MURDER OF FRED HAMPTON (1971) – 8/10 In 1969, Fred Hampton was the twenty-one-year-old Deputy Chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. This documentary started out as a profile of a charismatic young Black leader, community activist, and avowed socialist and revolutionary. But after Hampton was killed in a 4:30 AM raid on his apartment by 14 Chicago police officers, the film morphed into an examination of his death and the evidence that showed that the police were lying about how the killing went down. You can disagree with Hampton’s politics and still acknowledge the vigor with which he pursued what he thought was in the interests of “the people.” Hampton’s main problem wasn’t with whites per se, but with the power structure that oppressed poor people of all colors. It just so happened that that power structure was run by whites. The history of the Black Panther Party is a contradictory one—preaching armed struggle and killing of “the pigs,” while providing free breakfast programs and health clinics for underserved communities. The film, by white filmmakers Mike Gray and Howard Alk, is roughly shot and put together, but that immediacy gets the job done, giving a balanced portrait of Hampton and the Panther movement. The material covered in the film was also addressed in last year’s Best Picture Oscar-nominee JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH, which focused on information not known at the time of Hampton’s killing—that the FBI had an informant close to Hampton, who may have drugged Hampton the night of the raid and given a detailed floor plan of his apartment to authorities. THE MURDER OF FRED HAMPTON was instrumental in getting some rough justice for Hampton’s survivors. Although a grand jury investigation found the raid was improperly executed, it concluded that there was insufficient cause to charge the police officers with willful violation of the occupants’ civil rights. Nevertheless, the film, which strongly implied that Illinois State’s Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan organized the raid on Hampton’s apartment in order to assassinate him, helped to prompt the later indictment for obstruction of justice of Hanrahan, one of his assistants and twelve of the policemen participating in the raid. Hanrahan was acquitted of all charges in October 1972 but lost his subsequent bid for re-election. A decade later, in November 1982, the city of Chicago and the Federal government awarded a $1,850,000 settlement to the survivors of the raid and to the relatives of Hampton and Matt Clark, the other Panther leader killed in the raid.
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The Perfect Woman(1949) 7/10 With Nigel Patrick, Stanley Holloway, Patricia Roc, Miles Malleson and Irene Handl A batty professor builds a robot woman. He hires Patrick and Holloway to take robot out on the town to try her out. His niece takes the place of the robot. Much hilarity and embarrassment ensues. A bit of a farce, literally, but done well. The cast is quality and bring more to it than lesser people would. Malleson is a gem as the daft prof. Patrick and Holloway work well off each other. Irene Handl is a legend. Supporting cast were decent, too.
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Posted: |
Jan 20, 2022 - 5:02 AM
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By: |
jackfu
(Member)
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PROPHECY (1979) 6.5/10 Thanks to dragon53 and The Avenger, for the trivia and sending me off to seek it out (again)... There's only about 20 minutes of music during the first 75 minutes of the film and then the same amount during the last 25. It's rushed ending is a real bummer, with unresolved character outcomes and a silly stinger finale. I hated this movie when it came out; thought it was just a bigger-budget version of Grizzly(1976). I've mellowed on it more after watching it again, based on your review, Kev, but I'd still rate it 4/10. It is well-made, the visuals are great. It's just that the mutated bear is just that - a mutated bear, gross to look at, but nothing more, really. And I thought that Shire's character seemed a bit overwrought at being pregnant and having consumed tainted fish - would that small amount of exposure cause her baby to wind up like the bear? The thing that hurt the film most for me was its total lack of humor - something that I seem to notice about some of Frankenheimer's films. Total seriousness, with no humor to lighten things up or make the characters seem more real. I mostly like Rosenman's score, as always; but it did seem somewhat unfocussed to me. 20 Million Miles to Earth - Thumps Up. I felt bad for the dog and elephant, though with this viewing I noticed while severely injured they were still breathing after the fights, so perhaps both survived? I watched this again, recently as well. It's a favorite of my childhood. The creature (Ymir) is awesome! You actually feel sympathy for it, as it only fought when attacked. It was cute and somewhat whimsical at first. I also felt that it didn't kill the dog nor the elephant. 7/10
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Posted: |
Jan 20, 2022 - 9:26 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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THE LAST POSSE (1953) – 7/10 An exhausted posse returns to the New Mexico town of Roswell two days after their departure, with aging, has-been “Sheriff John Frazier” (Broderick Crawford) gravely wounded. “Judge Parker” (James Kirkwood) meets the posse and learns from newspaper editor “Robert Emerson” (Warner Anderson) that the three men sought by the posse were killed, as was wealthy rancher “Sampson Drune” (Charles Bickford). It was $105,000 of Drune’s money that had been stolen, but it had not been recovered. In flashback, as recounted by different people, we learn how and why Drune was robbed and what happened out on the trail with the posse. This film sets up an interesting situation at the outset, when it is made clear that the surviving posse members are hiding something. From there, it’s a fast-paced retelling of events by various townspeople and posse members. It’s not really Rashomon-like, because although there are various “tellers,” each incident is seen only once. It’s worth joining the posse for this one. The film has a stock score, but it’s a well-selected one.
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Posted: |
Jan 21, 2022 - 2:17 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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HIGH SCHOOL HIGH (1996) – 6/10 This comedy starts out with some promise, coming as it does from the writer-director (David Zucker) and writer (Pat Proft) of the NAKED GUN series of films. In fact, this was the pair’s next film after concluding that series with 1994’s NAKED GUN 33 1/3. In this film, in order to get away from his overbearing and disapproving father (John Neville), “Richard Clark” (Jon Lovitz) leaves the prestigious Wellington Academy where he works as an assistant professor, in order to teach at Marion Barry High School, where the school district sends all of its most incorrigible students. The early scenes of this film have fantastic production design by Dennis Washington, and the sequences are loaded with funny sight gags, as Clark finds himself in the ultimate dark, crumbling, graffitied, ghetto high school, with roving gangs and terrified teachers. But about mid-way through, the comedy slacks off in favor of an uplifting narrative, as Clark “gets through” to class leader “Griff McReynolds” (Mekhi Phifer), convincing him that he might be college material. Suddenly, the entire student body, who look up to McReynolds, is paying attention in class, cleaning up the school grounds, and generally engaging in other unfunny behaviors. All that’s left is the third act betrayal, and Clark’s attempt to rescue McReynolds from throwing his life away on a drug deal set up by drug dealer “Paco” (Guillermo Díaz). It all ends happily, if not exactly hilariously. None of Ira Newborn’s score found its way onto the Big Beat Records hip hop song-track CD. The film had average grosses of $21 million domestically.
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The Big Day(1960) 6/10 With Donald Pleasance, Harry H. Corbett and William Franklin A brief 1hr( almost) tale of three employees who have the chance of promotion. The backstabbing soon begins with Franklin and Corbett. Donald is the quiet introvert yes man. All three are hounded by their wives. Of them all it's Donald having an affair with his 19 year old secretary. She's a bit of a cow, leading him along. The cast play well, especially Donald.
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Posted: |
Jan 23, 2022 - 12:56 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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THE BRAVOS (1972) – 7/10 George Peppard stars as the commander of an under-manned Cavalry post in the Southwest. He has an uneasy peace with the local Navaho. But when a band of renegade Kiowa out of Oklahoma arrives on scene, the peace is shattered. The Kiowa demand a horse in exchange for allowing a small wagon train to pass through, but the train’s leader (Pernell Roberts) refuses to “pay tribute” and ambushes three young Kiowa during the exchange. Now Peppard must decide how to handle the situation as the Kiowa demand that Roberts be turned over to them. Two thousand Navajo are watching to see if Peppard will back down to these renegades. As made-for-TV westerns go, this is a pretty good one. Not relegated to a small town like many such efforts, this one has an expansive fort, wide desert and mountain vistas, and a fairly large cast, which includes L.Q. Jones as a tracker, Dana Elcar, as the post’s doctor, Randolph Mantooth as a trooper, and Bo Svenson as a German traveler with a price on his head. Ted Post (HANG ‘EM HIGH) directed the film, which aired on ABC on 8 January 1972. Leonard Rosenman provides an OK score, his last for a western. I have no clue as to the meaning of the title.
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It's the plural of bravo, if that's any help.
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Posted: |
Jan 23, 2022 - 7:05 AM
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By: |
Spinmeister
(Member)
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The Empty Man (2020/2018) The "last film to feature the original 20th Century Fox logo," The Empty Man is a very ambitious, and quite often eerily effective mystery/horror from first time director/writer David Prior. It's been out on VOD for ages, but thinking it was just another one of those horror-quickies involving vapid teenagers getting offed one by one, I skipped past it repeatedly. But as it turns out, The Empty Man isn't what I thought it was. My own takeaway pretty much coincides with Brian Tallerico's review at rogerebert.com in that the last act isn't as ambitious as one might have expected (or hoped) and becomes muddled in the headlong rush to keep the film from straying too far past the 120 min. mark, even though Prior could actually have used another 20-30 mins. to deliver a more satisfying conclusion. A persuasive performance by lead James Badge Dale, along with top notch production credits, including evocative cinematography, and Christopher Young's foreboding sound design score. 7/10 Addendum: I've since read of the film's problematic production and release history, and how, having been tangled up in the middle of Disney's acquisition of 20th, Prior was limited in finessing the film to his satisfaction.
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Posted: |
Jan 23, 2022 - 1:44 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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The Empty Man (2020/2018) The "last film to feature the original 20th Century Fox logo," The Empty Man is a very ambitious, and quite often eerily effective mystery/horror from first time director/writer David Prior. It's been out on VOD for ages, but thinking it was just another one of those horror-quickies involving vapid teenagers getting offed one by one, I skipped past it repeatedly. But as it turns out, The Empty Man isn't what I thought it was. My own takeaway pretty much coincides with Brian Tallerico's review at rogerebert.com in that the last act isn't as ambitious as one might have expected (or hoped) and becomes muddled in the headlong rush to keep the film from straying too far past the 120 min. mark, even though Prior could actually have used another 20-30 mins. to deliver a more satisfying conclusion. A persuasive performance by lead James Badge Dale, along with top notch production credits, including evocative cinematography, and Christopher Young's foreboding sound design score. 6/10 Addendum: I've since read of the film's problematic production and release history, and how, having been tangled up in the middle of Disney's acquisition of 20th, Prior was limited in finessing the film to his satisfaction. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My take: THE EMPTY MAN (2020) – 5/10 This film was shot in 2017, and there’s a reason why it wasn’t thrown into theaters until 2020, when movie houses were starved for content. The film, still considered a rough edit by writer-director David Prior, follows ex-cop “James Lasombra” (James Badge Dale), on the trail of a friend’s missing daughter, who comes across a secretive group attempting to summon a terrifying supernatural entity. Sasha Frolova plays the wayward girl, “Amanda Quail.” All of this is preceded by a shocking prologue of four mountain climbers who run afoul of this entity at an earlier time. It sets up a much better picture than this one turns out to be. The film pretty much includes all the cliches one would expect—the secret society disguised as a human research institute, the messianic guru (Stephen Root) spouting new-age enlightenment gibberish, acolytes dancing around a giant bonfire, etc. Little of it (save the prologue) is frightening. Most of it is by the numbers. The $16 million production grossed just $4.2 million world-wide. Brian Williams (credited as Lustmord) and Christopher Young co-scored the film, decently. Not worth your time.
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