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Posted: |
Jul 28, 2024 - 4:49 PM
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By: |
Marine Boy
(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?
I have vague memories watching this on cable in the 80's. I do remember enjoying it though!
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Doom 2005
Garbage. Resident evil meets Dwayne.
Avoid at all costs. 3 out of 10.
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Posted: |
Jul 30, 2024 - 9:31 AM
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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?
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!
Hey Henry, thank you, I might need to get that KL bluray, yeah, simpler times my friend,
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Posted: |
Jul 30, 2024 - 4:44 PM
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Marine Boy
(Member)
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Bula- 2-5
Okay, I randomly came across this film online and its rather weird and disturbing. It was a Philippine movie in its native language and unfortunately there were no English subtitles so I had to figure out the story as I went along.
WARNING!!! Do not read summary below unless you can stomach some pretty messed up stuff!
A perverse young lady who works in a laundromat lives a secret dark life of kidnapping, murder and sex. In the beginning we learn she gets sexual satisfaction from wearing others peoples clothing. She also takes care of an elder man who appears mentally disabled. He can’t move on his own and can only speak with grunts. He lives in a semi-vegetative state. (More on this later!) She routinely has sex with him though he cannot participate or concent.
One day the protagonist delivers laundry to another young couple. She’s immediately attracted to the young man who happens to be a policeman. She fantasizes about killing his girlfriend so she can have him to herself. She makes a failed attempt at poisoning the other woman by befriending her and putting sulfuric acid into her tea. (She doesn’t drink it)
Later on she finds the other lady cheating on the policeman with another guy. In a rage, she storms into the apartment and sprays sulfuric acid into the mans face and into the other woman’s mouth killing both. The protagonist comforts the grieving young policeman and they eventually start a relationship.
In a flash back scene we learn the protagonists sister was molested by their father. (Or it was attempted, I’m not quite sure) This actually turned her on. Here we learn the elder man in the vegetative state is her father. After learning of the molestation she attacked and drugged her father while he was taking a shower and has been keeping him in this vegetative state ever since.
Now that she has a relationship with the young policeman she no longer wants her father so she murders him. Soon after, her sister confronts her in the laundromat. They get into a fight and the protagonist then kills her sister. At that moment her boyfriend walks into the laundromat and witnesses what she had done.
He pulls his gun on her, they get into a scuffle and the firearm goes off. The bullet appears to have hit the policeman on the side of the head but doesn’t kill him. Now in a vegetative state she takes the young policeman back to her home where he replaces the role of her father. End of story.
Outside of the disturbing story-line the main problem with the film are the huge plot holes. This insane young lady consistently gets away with poisoning, kidnapping and murder over and over again and yet the police are never on her trail. Never question or interrogate her. In fact, we never really see an investigation to begin with. Why are people being murdered? Why are people missing? Does anyone look into it? Dunno! The protagonist is one-dimensional and there’s no real character arc. Nor does she ever face any struggles or setbacks while doing her evil deed's. She’s just one-dimensional, so it’s hard to get into the story.
All that said I highly recommend this film to Thor. I think he’d like it!
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Posted: |
Jul 31, 2024 - 1:51 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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MARRY ME (2022) – 6/10
In this rom-com, Jennifer Lopez plays “Kat Valdez,” a music superstar who plans on getting married to fellow singer “Bastian” (Maluma) before a global audience of fans, just after they sing their hit duet “Marry Me.” But just before she is about to go onstage to sing and take her vows, Kat learns that Bastian has been unfaithful. Crushed, and on the spur of the moment, she instead decides to marry “Charlie” (Owen Wilson), a stranger she sees in the crowd holding up a sign that his daughter “Lou” (Chloe Coleman) brought to the concert that says “marry me.” Of course, immediately afterwards, both parties agree to have the marriage annulled, although Kat’s manager “Colin” (John Bradley) convinces her to wait awhile, for publicity purposes.
Thus begins this relationship of opposites—Kat, the on-the-go celebrity, and Charlie, the laid-back widower schoolteacher. And as you would expect, the pair have their disagreements, as they gradually begin to see the positive qualities in each other. Encouraging Charlie to pursue the relationship is Lou, and Charlie’s fellow teacher friend “Parker” (Sarah Silverman). Meanwhile Bastian tries to win Kat back.
This is all very predictable, but the appeal of the stars, particularly Lopez, makes it tolerable—barely. But the way that the pair originally meets asks a lot of the audience, and the film never really overcomes the unlikeliness of that meeting. The pat situations that follow aren’t enough to make one suspend disbelief.
In addition to the title tune, Lopez sings a few other songs in the film, which appeared with background songs on a Sony CD. John Debney’s score was only released digitally. The $23 million production got middling reviews from the critics, but was better received by the public, and ultimately grossed $51 million worldwide.
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Posted: |
Aug 2, 2024 - 10:18 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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TWISTERS (2024) – 8/10
According to this film’s credits, it is “based on characters created by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin,” who were the writers on the 1996 film TWISTER. But there is no relationship between the characters in this new film and the old one, so the credit (and probably some payment) is only there to forestall a lawsuit on what is shaping up to be a box office success. We first meet “Kate Carter” (Daisy Edgar-Jones) as an idealistic Oklahoma college student, working with her friends and fellow storm chasers on an experiment to drain tornados of their intensity. Things go terribly wrong, unfortunately, and Kate’s passion for field work is destroyed.
Five years later, Kate is working as a low-level bureaucrat with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in New York City when her old friend “Javi” (Anthony Ramos) tracks her down and asks for Kate’s assistance with a special project: the implementation of a three-dimensional scanning system that will allow researchers unprecedented real-time information about how tornadoes gain and lose much of their power.
After initially rebuffing this call to action, Kate finally relents, agreeing to spend one week with Javi back in Oklahoma helping his start-up company, Storm Par. There, Javi and Kate’s ostensibly more serious work finds itself at odds with self-described hotshot “tornado wrangler” “Tyler Owens” (Glen Powell), who oversees a spirited group who hoot, holler, and shoot off fireworks while they film daredevil content for their one million-plus YouTube subscribers.
We can see the romance coming before we see the tornadoes developing in this film, but the characters are fleshed out enough and their encounters are written well enough that we have no qualms about any of it. Add in another 25 years’ worth of better special effects than we had for the earlier film, and this turns out to be a real crowd-pleaser. Powell is definitely a charmer, and Daisy Edgar-Jones, who wasn’t even born when the first film came out, is gorgeous and convincing—another Brit who pulls off an American accent with aplomb. Maura Tierney has a nice supporting role as “Cathy Carter,” Kate's mother.
Reportedly, executive producer Steven Spielberg supported director Lee Isaac Chung’s desire to shoot the picture on 35mm film rather than digitally, and it has a nice classic look about it. Industrial Light and Magic came up with the tornado effects, some of which are pretty spectacular. On the other hand, there are some scenes of the destructive aftermath of the storms that, while extensive, look like they came right off that part of the Universal Studio Tour that shows the scene of a plane crash.
Still, the film delivers on all fronts—both romantic and spectacle. It should also deliver at the domestic box office, where recent disaster films have floundered—2017’s GEOSTORM ($33.7 million), 2019’s THE HURRICAN HEIST ($6.1 million), and 2022’s MOONFALL ($19 million). After two weeks, the $155 million TWISTERS has grossed $172 million domestically and $239 million worldwide.
Benjamin Wallfisch’s poundingly active and occasionally ominous score has only been released digitally, while the film’s songs (a lot of country) appear on an Atlantic CD.
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American Star
2024.
Ian mcshane. Utter crap. A pattern that seems to be revealed with these Sky-financed films. Weak plots. Feeble endings. Same with Eileen and a few others I've seen.
Somebody making decisions needs to lose their job if this is repeated evidence of their judgment.
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It was. Maybe 4th division
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ON THE RIGHT TRACK (1981) – 5/10
In the middle of his run on the television sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes,” diminutive star Gary Coleman made his feature film debut with ON THE RIGHT TRACK. Ostensibly a comedy, but really a fantasy, this film finds Coleman playing “Lester,” a homeless orphan shoeshine boy living in a locker at Chicago’s Union Station. He's got this knack for picking the names of winning horses out of the newspaper while shining shoes. When word gets around, though, everyone wants a piece of the action. Meanwhile, reluctant juvenile division cop “Frank Biscardi” (Michael Lembeck) tries to get Lester relocated to an orphanage, while he romances aspiring singer “Jill Klein” (Lisa Eilbacher), who looks out for Lester as best she can.
In fact, Lester has plenty of friends around the station—a vendor (Herb Edelman), a bag lady (Maureen Stapleton), a janitor (Bill Russell)—who are willing to help him avoid the law and stay in his locker. It’s all quite ridiculous, and only occasionally funny, but probably no one other than Coleman could have pulled off the part. When “The Mayor” (Norman Fell) gets involved in Lester’s case, the film turns into farce.
Gary Coleman was the head of Zephyr Productions, which partnered with executive producers Lawrence L. Kuppin and Harry Evans Sloan to produce the film. In addition to Coleman, ON THE RIGHT TRACK marked the theatrical feature film debuts of former basketball star Bill Russell, director Lee Phillips, and producer Ronald Jacobs.
Most likely owing to Coleman’s popularity, the $3 million production was a hit, grossing $13 million domestically and adding an additional $10 million from video receipts. Arthur B. Rubenstein’s score has not had a release.
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Posted: |
Aug 9, 2024 - 12:14 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE (2024) – 9/10
This is another Marvel multiverse film, and the plot is so convoluted and of so little consequence that I hesitate to try and describe it. But here goes. In a prelude, Masked mercenary “Deadpool” (Ryan Reynolds) travels from one universe to another to try and join The Avengers. He is rejected by Avengers front man “Happy Hogan” (Jon Favreau) and returns to his own universe. Six years later, Deadpool is retired and is now working as used-car salesman “Wade Wilson” with his friend “Peter Wisdom” (Rob Delaney).
During Wade's birthday party, the Time Variance Authority (don’t ask) captures him, bringing him to “Mr. Paradox” (Matthew Macfadyen), who reveals that Wade's timeline is deteriorating because of the death of its stabilizing "anchor being," “Logan” (Hugh Jackman), i.e., “Wolverine,” (who died in the film LOGAN). Paradox plans to speed up this process rather than spend thousands of years waiting for the timeline to die naturally. He offers to spare Wade by sending him to the Sacred Timeline where he is expected to play an important role in future events. Changing into Deadpool once again, Wade steals Paradox's TemPad (a time travel device) and uses it to travel to Logan's grave, hoping to resurrect him and save their timeline. When this fails, Deadpool uses the TemPad to travel the multiverse in search of an alternate universe "variant" of Logan that can replace him.
Deadpool finds a suitable Wolverine, albeit one who is despondent because he had caused the deaths of some of his fellow X-Men. The rest of the film deals with their adventures to save Deadpool’s universe. What they do isn’t as important as how they do it—with nonstop bickering, frequent deadly-seeming battles between the two (both are nearly invulnerable), and a constant barrage of quips and one-liners. This is probably the funniest film in the now 34-film Marvel Cinematic Universe. Deadpool is constantly breaking the fourth wall; making jokes at the expense of Marvel, Disney, and Twentieth Century Fox (DEADPOOL’s prior studio); as well as blasting Wolverine with a withering series of insults. For his part, Wolverine mainly acts as a gruff straight man, but gets in a fair number of verbal shots of his own at Deadpool.
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE is also one of the bloodiest Marvel films, maintaining the [R] rating of the two prior films. Between Wolverine’s claws and Deadpool’s knives and swords, torsos are punctured, throats are slashed, and body parts of various enemies are lopped off with abandon. But it’s all in good fun.
The film suffers a bit from the dreaded “sequel bloat,” where each film in the series runs longer than the last (here, 108 min., 119 min., and now 128 min.). And while some of the action gets a bit repetitive, the original quips never stop coming, in this screenplay by Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Zeb Wells, and director Shawn Levy. That many cooks may be why the narrative stew is so confusing, but if it took that many to provide all the jokes, let’s have more of it.
Rob Simonsen provides a standard superhero film score, which only occasionally rises above the general din. The $200 million production (the standard budget for Marvel films) is a smash hit, grossing $903 million to date—the second highest grossing film of the year so far.
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Posted: |
Aug 10, 2024 - 11:51 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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TRAP (2024) – 7/10
This is another M. Night Shyamalan thriller, but this one has nothing supernatural about it—unless you count the protagonist’s supernatural ability to escape the TRAPs that are set for him. That protagonist is “Cooper” (Josh Hartnett), a serial killer known to the authorities only as “The Butcher.” Cooper is also a family man, and is attending a concert with his pre-teen daughter “Riley” (Ariel Donoghue) being given by pop superstar “Lady Raven” (Saleka Night Shyamalan, the director’s daughter). As they enter the large indoor arena where the concert is being held, Cooper notices that there is a rather large police presence in the facility. What he doesn’t know is that the cops, led by profiler “Dr. Josephine Grant’ (Hayley Mills), have somehow been tipped off that “The Butcher” will be in attendance that day. They have surrounded the facility, blocked every exit, and intend on checking every male who meets the likely physical description of the killer as divined by Dr. Grant. At least, Cooper doesn’t know this until he is clued in by one of the arena’s vendors (Jonathan Langdon), who tells him on the Q.T. that the entire concert is a trap set up by the police to catch the killer.
That’s when the cat and mouse game begins, as the police drag one man after another out of the audience for questioning, and Cooper furiously looks for an escape, while making excuses to his daughter for leaving his seat, as well as dealing with a nosy neighbor (Marnie McPhail) who is there with HER daughter. Cooper is very resourceful, however, and his surprising escape from the arena is only the beginning. And that’s the film’s main problem—Cooper’s preternatural ability to make one escape after another, as well as to show up in places where he shouldn’t be able to show up.
The film’s main pluses are the performances by Hartnett and Donoghue, and Shyamalan’s writing of the scenes between the two. Cooper has a natural charm, and his interactions with his daughter seem genuine. Donoghue is just terrific—expressing both the happiness of going to the concert with her father, as well as a little of the awkwardness of doing so. And the thrills she gets from what happens at the concert itself register fully on her face and in her reactions.
Good support is provided by Saleka Shyamalan, who also wrote and performed the 14 songs heard in the film. The song score has been released digitally by Columbia, while Herdís Stefánsdóttir’s modest background score has gotten no release. M. Night Shyamalan finances his own films, and was able to get an exemption from SAG-AFTRA to film in Canada during the strike. The $30 million production has grossed $29 million worldwide in its first 10 days.
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Posted: |
Aug 13, 2024 - 3:08 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Maybe I'm reading between the lines but it sounds like they finished remastering the film and the delay is in its release date for whatever reason. So the time and money has already been spent.
Good question about someone else copying their remaster and putting it out on another disc if its in public domain. Perhaps they can claim a copyright to "their" remaster?
The fact that they did the remastering suggests that they have confidence in the security of their copyright. I don't believe a specific mastering of a film can be copyrighted. People that have viewed many video versions of true PD titles often find ones that are duplicates, as can be determined by print damage in the same places. PD releases usually come from old theatrical or television prints, and obviously, only one entity held the print with that particular damage. The others just copied those tapes or discs, and thus copied their masters.
But even if the film was at one time in the public domain, there are ways to "reclaim" a copyright. For example, to re-establish its copyright in the PD title IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, Republic Pictures used the rights it held in the underlying story material--a short story called “The Greatest Gift,” to which it still held the rights even after the copyright in the film had lapsed. Then, to bolster their claim, they went out and purchased the rights to the film's music.
Relying on a Supreme Court case Stewart v. Aben, 495 U.S. 207 (1990), Republic notified all television networks to stop playing IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE without the payment of royalties. Republic then entered into an exclusive licensing arrangement with NBC, where the film can be seen twice a year.
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Posted: |
Aug 13, 2024 - 6:27 PM
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By: |
Marine Boy
(Member)
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Maybe I'm reading between the lines but it sounds like they finished remastering the film and the delay is in its release date for whatever reason. So the time and money has already been spent.
Good question about someone else copying their remaster and putting it out on another disc if its in public domain. Perhaps they can claim a copyright to "their" remaster?
The fact that they did the remastering suggests that they have confidence in the security of their copyright. I don't believe a specific mastering of a film can be copyrighted. People that have viewed many video versions of true PD titles often find ones that are duplicates, as can be determined by print damage in the same places. PD releases usually come from old theatrical or television prints, and obviously, only one entity held the print with that particular damage. The others just copied those tapes or discs, and thus copied their masters.
But even if the film was at one time in the public domain, there are ways to "reclaim" a copyright. For example, to re-establish its copyright in the PD title IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, Republic Pictures used the rights it held in the underlying story material--a short story called “The Greatest Gift,” to which it still held the rights even after the copyright in the film had lapsed. Then, to bolster their claim, they went out and purchased the rights to the film's music.
Relying on a Supreme Court case Stewart v. Aben, 495 U.S. 207 (1990), Republic notified all television networks to stop playing IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE without the payment of royalties. Republic then entered into an exclusive licensing arrangement with NBC, where the film can be seen twice a year.
Thanks for the information! You really know your stuff when it comes to these topics. I really appreciate you sharing what you know.
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The Postman (Kevin Costner, 1997) (5/10)
It’s like MAX MAX, except it’s twice as long but with half the action.
In the aftermath of a nuclear war a nameless drifter and his mule earn their living by traveling from settlement to settlement in post-apocalyptic America.
He gets accidentally drafted into and eventually escapes a marauding army called the Holnists and their General Bethlehem (clearly a prototype of Negan and the Saviors from WALKING DEAD). During his escape, he finds a mailbag, starts delivering the mail, romances a widow, inspires other people to deliver the mail, who in turn inspire other people to deliver the mail, and eventually defeats General Bethlehem and the Holnists and restores the good old USA to its former glory, because I guess a good mail service it what it takes.
This (ridiculous, come on) story is told by Costner in big, epic strokes, but the seriousness makes it feel quite goofy at times, and there are sure fun moments.
Not a great classic, but I’m a sucker for post-apocalyptic settings, so I did get some enjoyment out of it, and I liked it now (my second time) more than I did in 1997. Early role for Giovanni Ribisi.
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