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THE BIKERIDERS (2024) – 8/10
The decade from 1966 to 1975 was the heyday of the motorcycle gang film, with scores of them being produced. While Marlon Brando’s THE WILD ONE (1953) had set the template a dozen years earlier, the genre didn’t catch on until Roger Corman let loose THE WILD ANGELS in 1966. While motorcycle gangs have been a constant fixture of films ever since, in the past 40 years, they have probably become most associated with post-apocalyptic films.
Now comes THE BIKERIDERS, which takes us back to the beginnings of the genre. While it’s set in 1965, it has a look closer to THE WILD ONE than to THE WILD ANGELS, since it is set in the decaying industrial Midwest rather than sunny Southern California. The film is based on the photo-book of the same name by Danny Lyon. In that book, Lyon depicts the lives of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, a Midwest gang that he lived with and photographed from 1963 to 1967.
In the film, Kathy Bauer (Jody Comer) meets Benny Cross (Austin Butler), a hotheaded member of the fictional Chicago-based Vandals Motorcycle Club, and marries him just five weeks later. Photography student Danny Lyon (Mike Faist) travels with and interviews the Vandals. He learns that the founder, Johnny Davis (Tom Hardy), was inspired to create the club after watching THE WILD ONE. The film follows the interactions of the various members of the gang, shows Johnny occasionally being challenged for dominance of the gang, and describes how new chapters of the club begin to form across the Midwest.
Aside from committing traffic violations, we initially don’t see the gang engaging in any overt criminal activity. Mainly, they hang around the bar that serves as their headquarters, drinking beer, playing pool, discussing their bikes, which are all individualized—never stock. Periodically, they gather for outings, races, or rallies. Gradually, marijuana begins to replace beer as the drug of choice. If all of this seems rather benign, it's primarily because most of the gang members are not just out of their teens, but are in their late twenties to mid-thirties. A number of them have wives or families. They see themselves as belonging to a club more than a gang.
Since it’s based on a real gang and real people, the film is more of a docu-drama than a fiction film. While the film doesn’t show us much about how the gang affects the outside world, we do see how the changing nature of motorcycle gangs affects the insulated world of this particular gang. When a traveling member of California’s Hell’s Angels visits the Vandals, he’s regarded with awe and respect by many of the gang, who seek to emulate his look and behavior. Younger men, more prone to violence, seek to join the gang or start new chapters. Vietnam veterans bring harder drugs into the gang. When one of the gang’s members is killed in a barfight outside the gang’s territory, the gang retaliates. The times, they are a-changin’.
Austin Butler gives a taciturn performance as Benny, and his character is hard to penetrate, for us as well as Kathy. Jody Comer’s Kathy narrates the film either through voice-over or by her describing to Danny Lyon the things she has witnessed, as he records her observations. She’s an open book, so to speak, as she isn’t shy about telling us how she feels about everything she sees or participates in.
The film had a tough ride with distribution. Disney's 20th Century Studios planned a December 1, 2023, theatrical release after screening at some film festivals in fall 2023, including a world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival over Labor Day weekend. However, it was indefinitely delayed in October 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, making the actors unable to promote the film. Disney ultimately dropped the film the next month, letting producing company New Regency take it elsewhere. Focus Features ended up acquiring the film, with Universal Pictures handling the film's international release.
The film mostly has a song score, with David Wingo providing incidental background music. The picture cost $30-40 million to produce, but is a loser at the box office, with a $25 million gross to date.
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THE DALTONS RIDE AGAIN (1945) – 6/10
If this film didn’t purport to tell the story of a gang of famous outlaws, it would be just another Universal B western. The film is told in flashback by Emmett Dalton (Alan Curtis) from the courtroom where he has just been found guilty of bank robbery. It seems that he and his brothers—Grat (Lon Chaney, Jr.), Bob (Kent Taylor), and Ben (Noah Beery Jr.)—had decided to give up their outlaw ways and escape to Argentina. Along the way, they stop in the Kansas town of Skeleton Creek to visit an old friend of their father, cattle rancher Tex Walters (Stanley Andrews). Emmett soon falls for Mary Bohannon (Martha O'Driscoll), the daughter of Skeleton Creek's newspaper publisher, Michael Bohannon (John Litel). The brothers' plan to leave town is squelched when Tex is murdered, his land burned, and his cattle are run off. So, the brothers postpone their trip until they can find out who is behind the murder.
I haven’t researched it, so I have no idea how much truth there is to this yarn of the brothers’ desire to leave the country, of this love affair of Emmett’s, or of their desire to see justice done in the killing of their father’s old friend. The only part that I read that is definitely true is the ending, where the brothers are involved in an ill-fated bank robbery in Coffeyville, Kansas, and that Emmett was indeed caught, convicted, and sent to prison.
The film doesn’t have a lot of action. It’s mainly the brothers poking around town trying to glean on to some leads about who’s behind the cattle rustling in the area, trying to deal with the bank to pay off the mortgage on the ranch for Tex’s widow, while also trying to keep a low profile and avoid being recognized. It’s enough to hold your interest for a 72-minute running time. The film has mainly a stock music score.
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THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH - A BILLION OUT OF 10
A total masterpiece in every way! Mitch! Can you watch TOMB OF LIGEIA next? That's even BETTER!
I simply cannot believe that MusicMad's score for MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH differs so much from mine. It's almost as if we were two different people with two different opinions. Unfathomable.
Mitch! What do you think of the absolutely brilliant CD of Oliver Nelson's great scores for DEATH OF A GUNFIGHTER and SKULLDUGGERY? It's got to be your favourite purchase so far this year, right?
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Posted: |
Jul 10, 2024 - 12:11 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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SECTOR 4: EXTRACTION (2014) – 4/10
Frenchman Olivier Gruner is a former kickboxing champion who has been making films since 1990. Most of the three dozen or so action films in which he has appeared have been direct-to-video, direct-to-cable, direct-to-streaming, direct-to-what-have-you.
In SECTOR 4: EXTRACTION, an elite band of mercenaries is caught behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, and three are left for dead. After their mission leader “Nash” (Gruner) escapes war torn Sector 4, he finds out that the three are still alive and being held captive by the Taliban. After the CEO (Eric Roberts) of his employer, Black Knight, refuses to authorize a rescue operation, Nash undertakes a one-man mission to bring his men home.
Gruner not only stars in this film, but directed, co-produced, and provided the story as well. Aside from the routine military action, the film’s greatest failing is that much of it literally cannot be seen. Most of the action takes place at night, and the scenes are so poorly lit that I could barely discern the outlines of figures let alone see what they were doing. I should have turned it off, but then how could I warn you away from it.
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Posted: |
Jul 11, 2024 - 11:14 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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47 METERS DOWN (2017) – 7/10
Two sisters, “Lisa” (Mandy Moore) and “Kate” (Claire Holt), are vacationing in Mexico, when they are convinced by two guys they meet at a bar to go skin-diving. Lisa, who has never skin-dived before is hesitant, but the more adventurous Kate convinces her to go. Once out in the ocean, the girls find that the skin-diving involves going over the side of the boat into a shark cage to get “up close and personal” with the beasts. After the guys successfully enjoy the sight of the maneaters, the girls give it a try.
Unfortunately, that’s when the cable on the shark cage breaks, and the cage sinks to the bottom of the ocean—47 meters down. As boat “Captain Taylor” (Matthew Modine) works to bring the cage back up, the girls must be concerned with both a depleting air supply and the marauding sharks, as they have to leave the cage to get to a level where their headset radios can communicate with the boat.
This is a harrowing adventure with plenty of squirm-and-terror-inducing moments. Both women give realistic performances in what looks to be a difficult shoot. There is only so much suspense you can wring out of this one basic situation, and the film runs a quick 90 minutes. But that’s enough to get the job done, and the filmmakers are to be commended for not cluttering the film up with any extraneous subplots. In fact, once the cage descends, we are trapped down there along with the girls, never seeing anything that is or is not going on at the surface. It’s just us and them. And the sharks.
Johannes Roberts directed and co-wrote the film. The musical duo Tomandandy (Thomas Hajdu and Andy Milburn) scored the film, with Lakeshore Records releasing the score as a download. The $5.5 million production was originally titled "In the Deep" and was supposed to go directly to a video-on-demand/DVD release in August 2016 through Anchor Bay Entertainment and the Weinstein Co. However, one week before the planned release, the film was bought by Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios, retitled 47 METERS DOWN, and given a wide theatrical release in June 2017. The picture ended up grossing $62 million worldwide, the second highest grossing indie film of the year.
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Posted: |
Jul 14, 2024 - 11:03 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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HORIZON: An American Saga, Part 1 (2024) – 8/10
This film is getting much more press for its production than for its filmic qualities. A passion project for Kevin Costner for over three decades, the film was eventually conceived by Costner as a four-part saga. He sank $38 million of his own money into the project, the first two parts of which, already filmed, have cost $100 million each. Production on Part 3 began in May. Unfortunately, Part 1 of the film has come a cropper at the worldwide box office, with a gross of just $30 million. Part 2 was to appear in theaters in August. But with so few people seeing Part 1, the expectation is that fewer still would see Part 2. Consequently, Part 2 has been indefinitely delayed, with Part 1 going to streaming on premium video-on-demand sooner than expected, i.e. tomorrow (July 16th). The hope is that more people will view Part 1 via streaming, making a theatrical release of Part 2 sometime later more viable.
With that out of the way, is it worth it to pay to watch Part 1 on the small screen? Well, the film is as good as the first part of any four-part miniseries. Many characters are introduced, a number of storylines are established, and by the end of the third hour some of those storylines have begun to interweave.
The film begins in 1859, in the San Pedro Valley, where a party of surveyors mark stakes to outline the borders of a forthcoming frontier town, Horizon. Four years later, a flourishing Horizon is raided by Apaches led by “Pionsenay” (Owen Crow Shoe). The Army, led by “1st Lt. Gephardt” (Sam Worthington) and “Sgt. Major Riordan” (Michael Rooker), comes to aid the survivors, among whom is new widow “Frances Kittredge” (Sienna Miller), who goes to live at Camp Gallant. A party of scalphunters, led by “Tracker” (Jeff Fahey), goes off to hunt the Indians, who are having their own squabbles as Pionsenay argues with tribal elder “Tuayeseh” (Gregory Cruz) over the wisdom of making war on the settlers.
At about the film’s mid-point, horse trader “Hayes Ellison” (Costner) appears. He gets involved in the tail end of another storyline involving a woman named “Marigold” (Abbey Lee) that kicked off earlier in the film in Montana. In yet another thread, a wagon train led by “Matthew Van Weyden” (Luke Wilson) treks the Santa Fe Trail to Horizon. In the train are pretentious British couple “Juliette Chesney” (Ella Hunt) and “Hugh Proctor” (Tom Payne).
Little gets resolved in these first three hours, but that is not unexpected. The film is a fine production, with numerous locations and landscapes, not artificially drained of color. The film is not shot in scope, but in the more TV-friendly spherical widescreen (1.85:1). The cast is fine, with no “stunt casting” or “guest stars” as they would be called in a mini-series. John Debney’s score is a little more subdued than I would have liked, but it comes alive in the film-ending three-minute “sizzle reel” preview of Part 2.
I’ve liked the sensibilities of the two previous westerns that Coster has produced and directed, and I like this one. But there is nothing genre-smashing about the film. If you don’t like Costner or westerns in general, this film won’t change your mind. But unlike DANCES WITH WOLVES or OPEN RANGE, most of Costner’s work in this film is behind the camera. Although he is the nominal lead, he does not dominate the screen time, at least in Part 1.
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Posted: |
Jul 16, 2024 - 11:02 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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GAME OF ASSASSINS [aka THE GAUNTLET] (2014) – 6/10
This film follows a band of unsuspecting people who have been abducted for the pleasure of a twisted human group who are bent on punishing those who have taken a life, by putting them in a crazy “Saw”-like situation, with the exception that in GAME OF ASSASSINS they must traverse a medieval type labyrinth wrought with peril. THE GAUNTLET was a better title for this film, but the alternate title has some validity in that the group eventually learns that only a single survivor of the ordeal will be allowed to escape. At certain points, one of the group has to make a decision to save or not save someone’s life.
The group are in some kind of underground maze filled with obstacles and traps, and they move from one area to another by solving puzzles and riddles, so to some extent they are forced to work together. The physical production is good, with the studio-bound sets realistic and adequately lit.
The film was partially shot in China, and obviously made with an eye to the Asian market, with Chinese actress Bai Ling and Vietnamese actor Dustin Nguyen among the group of five. The film never got a U.S. theatrical release, going straight-to-DVD. The score by Evan Evans has not been released.
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Posted: |
Jul 17, 2024 - 1:45 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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DESPICABLE ME 4 (2024) – 7/10
Universal’s DESPICABLE ME franchise is the most financially successful series of animated films ever produced. The 5 prior films (which include two MINYONS spinoffs) have grossed more than $4.6 billion. Perhaps Fox’s now-dormant ICE AGE franchise is second, with 5 films producing $3.2 billion in revenues.
Now we have this 6th film, in which bad guy turned good guy “Gru” (voice of Steve Carell) is informed that one of the bad guys he helped put away, “Maxime” (Will Farrell), has escaped from prison and is out to get Gru, his wife “Lucy” (Kristen Wiig), and his family. Gru is sent into witness protection in a new town, posing as a solar panel salesman, where he meets new neighbors “Perry and Patsy Prescott” (Stephen Colbert and Chloe Fineman). Meanwhile, Maxime is aided in his quest for revenge by his loyal assistant “Valentina” (Sofía Vergara).
The goings on among this group are mildly amusing, as they deliver most of the verbal humor. But as usual, the best gags are the visual ones reserved for the Minyons, those semi-verbal yellow blobs who assist Gru, while constantly squabbling among themselves and playing tricks on each other. Heitor Pereira’s score is mickey-mousey, but the film offers little opportunity for much else.
This film is like the others—frantic, loud, fitfully funny, reasonably short (94 minutes), with no agenda to push other than to entertain. Actually, its real agenda is to make money. The $100 million production has grossed $438 million in its first two weeks. Another Minyons film is planned for 2027.
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Posted: |
Jul 24, 2024 - 10:46 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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FLY ME TO THE MOON (2024) – 7/10
This semi-factual romantic comedy-drama is set in 1968-69 during the run-up to America’s landing of two astronauts on the Moon. After the disaster of Apollo I, when three astronauts were killed in a launching pad fire that destroyed their capsule, NASA loses much of the confidence of the American public, who come to believe that their tax money is being wasted on a failing program. Enter publicist “Kelly Jones” (Scarlett Johansson), who has been tapped by Presidential aide “Moe Berkus” (Woody Harrelson) to apply her PR skills to the program to get the public excited and onboard with the upcoming Moon landing. But her brash ways immediately rub the buttoned-down launch director, “Cole Davis” (Channing Tatum), the wrong way. Davis is all-business, blames himself for the earlier deaths, and has no stomach for interviews, product placement, or political shmoozing.
Of course, it’s inevitable that these two are going to get romantically involved, and that part of the film is well-handled by the stars, who are both a pleasure to watch. Ray Romano also provides good comic support as Davis’s colleague. But no story about the Moon landing would be complete without dragging in the conspiracy theory that the landing was faked. So, here, we find that Moe Berkus’s real purpose in hiring Kelly (who has an ethically checkered past), is to stage a fake landing, purely as a “back-up plan,” mind you, if something goes wrong with the real thing. But then it turns into more than that. In the third act, the film goes from romantic comedy to farce, and the resolution is not all that convincing.
Because of the protracted subplot, the film runs a bit long (132 minutes) for what should be a breezy feel-good picture, and we’re unsure as to whether the filmmakers want us to take the fake Moon landing element seriously. But without it, the film wouldn’t have a third act, since the romantic relationship was going too well to sustain itself—some conflict had to be introduced. But once the filmmakers decided to go that route, I honestly can’t say how it could have been handled better. It’s certainly unique to a romantic comedy, and superior to the usual “misunderstanding” that pulls the romantic pair apart before the finale. Although it’s a clumsy device, the film still ends up being a good date movie for older audiences.
The location shooting at Cape Canaveral is welcome, and the film crew was able to catch a real launch while they were there to add to the verisimilitude. Daniel Pemberton’s score has some nice touches in the romantic scenes and some mysterioso cues for Moe Berkus. Otherwise, it’s bouncy, light ‘60s jazz. Despite this being the 55th anniversary of the Moon landing, the $100 million film was a big flop at the box office, grossing just $32 million worldwide. Those budget and gross numbers are almost the exact ones as for Kevin Costner’s recent film HORIZON. But while the press has been full of stories about HORIZON’s financial woes, this film’s equal failure has flown under the radar, so to speak.
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Posted: |
Jul 28, 2024 - 3:52 PM
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By: |
Ado
(Member)
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RUNNING SCARED(1986) 8-10
I really enjoyed this buddy cop film. Crystal and Hines have great chemistry, and it has a good mix of comedy and action. I also love the song SWEET FREEDOM.
agreed, a case of a film that is more than the sum of its parts. Those two are good together, and Peter Hyams directs it well, it has that Hyams look to it, and it moves briskly. The song also does work, good song. Goodness, 1986, almost 40 years ago, it is basically an oldie but a goodie now. Odd isn't it, time?
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Posted: |
Jul 28, 2024 - 4:01 PM
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By: |
henry
(Member)
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RUNNING SCARED(1986) 8-10
I really enjoyed this buddy cop film. Crystal and Hines have great chemistry, and it has a good mix of comedy and action. I also love the song SWEET FREEDOM.
agreed, a case of a film that is more than the sum of its parts. Those two are good together, and Peter Hyams directs it well, it has that Hyams look to it, and it moves briskly. The song also does work, good song. Goodness, 1986, almost 40 years ago, it is basically an oldie but a goodie now. Odd isn't it, time?
Yes it is. I get very nostalgic for the eighties. I was born in 1977 so I remember them well, and miss them. Btw, RUNNING SCARED is available from Kino Lorber on Blu-ray!
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