88 - 2014 - Canada

88 - 2014 - 5/10

 
Bullet fest mystery / thriller set in the land of violence, the Canadian backwoods.
Katharine Isabelle stars as female companion / waitress / hooker to roadhouse owner and local crime boss.
For withheld reasons, she ghosts in and out of fugue state, caused by emotional trauma.
Her alter-ego, Flamingo, is one no-nonsense, milk swigging broad.
Steals cars, shoots up the bowling alley, goes into full bore revenge against crime lord, Christopher Lloyd.

 
Isabelle terrific once again, truly commits to a difficult role and nails it.  If anything, there was another outrageous whacked out guns and revenge comedy buried in the script had the writers chosen to focus on Ty and Lemmy.
Michael Ironside is the sheriff.  Fine cast in a half-assed script, narrative slice n diced in jumbled chronology.
There’s the flaw.  Because of all the jumps in the story, you really must pay attention and even then you might get confused.  All well and good if the payoff delivers.  Hate to spoiler this, so I won’t divulge.  Note 5/10, though.  And my rating is a wee bit high.
There’s a lot of unexpected, and really funny black humor.
Will I rewatch 88?  Probably (loser).  Do I recommend?  Yes, but primarily to fellow losers.

Paris 1900: The City Of Lights - 2018 - France

Paris 1900: The City Of Lights - 2018 - 6/10
AKA - Une si Belle Époque! La France d'avant 1914

Eye catching throughout, this doc spans 1900-1914.
The heyday of the Belle Époque to the onset of the Great War.
From streets filled with horses, omnibuses, hansom cabs, to mechanized slaughter.
A monotone voice checklists significant events and problems of class.
Then as now, an idle, avaricious upper class oppressing the lower orders who enjoy a 12 hour work day, 7 days a week.
A wealth of historic newsreels, expertly restored, is the draw here.

 
Everyday street scenes, beach outings, parades, entertainment revues.
Hardships along with bread and circuses.

 
Of course, this period comes to a staggering, appallingly horrific halt in 1914.
Then again, as with any end of a cycle, nobody knew it at the time.

The Girl From Rio - 1969 - Germany

The Girl From Rio - 1969 - 5/10
AKA - Rio 70 // The Seven Secrets of Sumuru

 
Yeah, I knew this was going to be bad.  Still ...
This was based on Sax Rohmer’s Sumuru character and I have read those books.
Plus, ole Jess Franco directs with probably the biggest budget he ever had.
Thief escapes to Rio de Janeiro with $10M in a briefcase.
A crime syndicate headed by George Sanders ties to forcibly seize it.
Sumuru, here called Sumitra, also covets the loot to fund her female army and rule the world!
Chases, fisticuffs, nudity, a phone that still works after being underwater, outstanding location filming during Carnival.
Finally, memorable Goldfinger girl Shirley Eaton (in her final film) as blonde and brunette Sumuru.
Sadly, there is no plot, no sense of style, not even a genre to hang onto.
Fumbled cast and resources.

Sunset Strip - 2012 - USA

Sunset Strip - 2012 - 6/10

 
Glossy, shallow, but fun documentary of Sunset Strip, focusing primarily on the club scene.
Doc traces the earliest beginnings, when Sunset Blvd was a narrow lane running from Hollywood to Beverly Hills.
Then goes from nightclub era to music clubs to current Disneyfication.
Interviews with dozens and dozens of historians, musicians, movie stars, comedians, groupies ...
Film also gets the geography correct.  Less accurate docs might try to squeeze in places from Hollywood Blvd as well as Santa Monica Blvd.  Each had their own vibe.  Not only does this stick with the Strip, but it doesn’t bother with the meandering Sunset that snakes to the Pacific.
All Los Angelenos have their own version of the city.  In the doc, Hugh Hefner recalled the glitzy 50's nightclubs.  Others reminisce about the 60's - 70's - 80's or later.  Yet there has never been a “there” to LA.  It is ever a river that flows and changes.


Three Strip shorts -

The hippie chick is a couple of years older than me, and she was a bonefide teenybopper in the 60's.  Saw all the groups who were gone by the time I arrived.  Buffalo Springfield, Byrds, Love ...
She and friends were waiting in a club for the show when they saw a drunken bum stagger toward the stage.  Where is Security, they wondered.  Even more when the wino kept trying to climb the stage.  Eventually he succeeded, grabbed the microphone and started singing “Break On Through.”  The other Doors joined in, the drunk was Jim Morrison.

 
My brother visited me only once.  I gave him the whole experience.  Pink Flamingoes at the Nuart, Disneyland, Tower Records on Sunset, and a punk show at the Whisky.  The Weasels and The Dogs.
Midway through the Dogs’ set, two guys walked onstage.  One took the mic while the other dropped to the floor and started writhing in convulsions.
My brother started screaming,  “That’s Steve Jones singing!  And Paul Cook!  Sex Pistols!  The Sex Pistols!  This is the greatest moment of my life!!”

Tower on Sunset was one of my favorite record stores.  Even when I had no money, no car, I’d hitch a ride then walk.  The shop was a temple of music.  It was vast and stocked massive deep catalogue.  Current chart toppers would be stacked from the floor to waist high - 200 copies of vinyl, maybe?  One stand alone was a Beatles shrine.
Groups were always there for in-store events.  Or you’d see musicians or TV stars, just shopping.
Few people bothered them, and there was less gutter paparazzi back then.
I was pulling my MG out of the lot, this VW Karmann Ghia waiting for my space.
“Who’s that driving?”  I asked the hippie chick.
“Rod,”  she said.
“Rod Stewart?”
“No, Rod McKuen,”  she said.
“Oh.”
Rod Stewart I might have gone back into Tower to see what he was buying.  Poet Rod McKuen?
I’d seen him before.

A Certain Killer - 1967 - Japan

A Certain Killer - 1967 - 6/10
AKA - Aru Koroshi Ya  // ある殺し屋

 
Shiozawa, restaurant owner and short order cook, is actually a lethal hitman.
From time to time, yakuza gangs hire his services.  Expensive, but guaranteed.
A young prostitute attaches herself to him, then later a protégé.
Between methodical “jobs” there grows the triangle.
Money.  One who has, two who covet.
Fans of how-to assassinate films such as The Day Of The Jackal or The Mechanic (1966) will enjoy.
Mega-star Ichikawa Raizo coldly effective here, as he is in the sequel, A Killer’s Key.

The Crimean War - 1997 - UK

The Crimean War - 1997 - 7/10

 
Three-part documentary about an almost forgotten conflict.
This makes full use of photos, letters, engravings, drawings.
Talking heads are minimal - fine by me, too many speakers smack of padding.
First section deals with the causation. Russia wanting Istanbul,
Next is of the war itself, blunders, starvation or soldiers freezing.
Finally, the aftermath and the seeds laid for World War One.
Actual voices include Tennyson reading “The Charge Of The Light Brigade,” as well as one of the original buglers, playing the call to charge.

Forgotten Girls - 2007 - France

Forgotten Girls - 2007 - 6/10
AKA - Les Oubliées

 
Fifteen years after the sixth girl disappeared, another one vanishes.
The serial killer has resurfaced.
Not that murders are confirmed, for no bodies have ever been found.
Families, exhausted by despair, suspect the cold case detective is way over his limit.

 
Six part French mystery of forgotten victims and an officer who pushes himself to madness.
Directions shift throughout, rather like a lost car tackling meandering intersections.
Character study of driven individual fighting apathy, resignation and suspicion.

The Lady Vanishes - 1979 - UK

The Lady Vanishes - 1979 - 3/10

 
Another low bar.  One of the worst pieces of crap I’ve viewed in ages.
Pointless remake of the Hitchcock classic, featuring two godawful American leads, irritating music, and a wasted supporting cast.
Gabby nanny type, who may or may not be a spy, disappears from train in Nazi occupied territory.
Cybill Shepherd especially good/horrible as shrill, whining American heiress who demands to know what happened to her new English friend (underused Angela Lansbury).  I would have paid for anyone to have hurled her off the train, moving or stopped, off a bridge or into quicksand, didn’t matter.  She was painful.
A bored Elliot Gould plays the male hero.  Shepherd and Gould have the chemistry of a pair of cracked duck eggs.
The film that drove the final spike into Hammer.

Exit - 2020 - Russia

Exit - 2020 - 6/10
 

Contractors, hurrying to finish a house, discover the closet door is troublesome.
The closet is beginning to extend into a yawning, black tunnel.
What to do?
Russian short mixes the unexplained with the unresolved.
Nicely shot and acted, though I didn’t buy the “girlfriend” angle.
Her character feels like it was shoe-horned in.

Fast And Furious - 1939 - USA

Fast And Furious - 1939 - 5/10

 
Alert readers will spy the picture, then the date.
MGM might have assumed third time would be the charm for this overlooked series.
This is the weakest of the trio that includes Fast Company and Fast And Loose.
Those rare book dealers are back, but the only clue to their line of work is the office door.
Next thing, they are on their way to a beachside beauty pageant.
And - of course - murder, shifty characters, an abundance of liars.
Oh, almost forgot hundreds of stunning lovelies.
Directed by Busby Berkeley, but no dance numbers.
Forgettable fluff.  Catch the first installments before this.
Comment - Yet a third set of actors play the couple.

Fast And Loose - 1939 - USA

Fast And Loose - 1939 - 6/10

 
Breezy sequel to 1938‘s Fast Company.  Same characters, different lead actors.
Eccentric collector hires rare book dealers to buy rare Shakespeare manuscript from financially strapped tycoon.
There is also a first edition Milton that goes lost then found then lost.
Parties meet at the mansion, along with offspring, stock broker, gangsters, eventually the police.
Correcto mundo.  Killing.  For books!
Fast paced, a jumble of characters, assortment of motives, a plot that borders on gibberish.
Rosalind Russell and Robert Montgomery endearing as book hounds.
Amusing to see folks get riled up over the printed word, since so few buy actual books nowadays.

Fast Company - 1938 - USA

Fast Company - 1938 - 6/10

 
Police seem baffled!
Priceless books have been stolen.
Then a reputable dealer (ahem, the villainous George Zucco) is found dead!
Who can police turn to?
Why, a married couple who happen to be antiquarian book sellers.
Yeah, a pair of “readers."
Think Nick and Nora Charles, Thin Man, and the rest is easy.
Brisk, charming mystery that falls midway between the PreCode gangster era and Film Noir.
Dwight Frye has a decent supporting role (meaning not his typecast neurotic headcase) as forger.

Legend Of The Witches - 1970 - UK

Legend Of The Witches - 1970 - 5/10

 
Predominately nude “documentary” of history and practices of witches and covens in England.
Indoctrination, rites, magick, hand holding innocents traipsing round the bonfire.
Omniscient male narrator drones an already drowsy  experience.
Camera work, on the other hand, is excellent, given that the budget must have been a bag of tuppence.
Contrast is sharp, interesting angles throughout, effective use of shadows and firelight.
Probably quite steamy back in the day, a curio now.

Sign - 2011 - S Korea

Sign - 2011 - 5/10
AKA - Sain //  サイン

 
Exasperating K-drama that takes forever to find its groove, only to perform a cliff dive at the end.
I cannot decide whether to blame incompetent writing or wrong headed directing, probably a combination.
Episodic show occurring in and around the NFS (National Forensic Service).  Yes, the coroners.  Corpse cutters.
A new crime/mystery happens ever few weeks and wraps in a couple of episodes.  In each time, the examiners are summoned to determine what transpired.  Some are frightening, one poignant, others are mis-assumptions.
Weaving throughout the narrative is the murder of a beloved pop singer, the cover up, the destruction of evidence, the conspiracy, and the bullheaded doctor who probes remorselessly toward the truth.
The doctor is extraordinarily unlikeable, argumentative, with the manners of a pitbull.  No way, no matter how gifted, such an individual would be tolerated in any structured hierarchy.
The three assistants are complete and utter idiots.  Their main purpose seems little more than comic relief.  Any professional skills they may possess is dwarfed by their moronic behavior.
After ten episodes, the characters (and writers) find their footing and the cartoon antics subside, the stories tighten.
Still ... viewers had to endure half the series before this locked into an intense thriller.
The final episode was moving - and preposterous.  The finale seemed rushed, contrived, and unbelievable.
There were well reported production problems, but the root cause seemed to point toward the writers who apparently had written themselves into a corner.

This was one of the chilliest K-dramas I have ever watched.  Most of this was photographed in bleak winter.  It looked downright cold.  Definitely not the travel postcard for Korea tourism.
Three lead male characters boasted spiky haircuts.  Couldn’t tell if this is a fashion trend, but it was noticeable.

Broadway: Beyond The Golden Age - 2021 - USA

Broadway: Beyond The Golden Age - 2021 - 7/10

 
Love letter to Broadway, circa 1959-1983.
Performers, producers, dancers, creators.
Recollections of backstage, big career breaks, camaraderie.
Numerous clips of old shows, including, though not limited to, “Love On A Mattress,”  “Barefoot In The Park,”  “Pippin,”  “A Chorus Line.”
The latter show concludes the documentary and runs 10”.  (Marvin Hamlish never mentioned, by the way.)
1983 is when AIDS begins to have a devastating impact on the community.
Feel good documentary, to be sure, but should be essential to theatre junkies.

The Witness - 2015 - USA

The Witness - 2015 - 6/10

 
Documentary with unanswered questions may prove frustrating.
Kitty Genovese was repeatedly stabbed in 1964.  Twice.  Half hour apart.
38 people watched from windows, no one helped, no one phoned the police.
Fifty years later, her brother searches for answers.  Truth.  Closure.
Such as, why no one tried to rescue her.  Especially since there were two attacks.
Or did the press bend the story?  Was this fake news?
Cross between a study of brother Bill and a remembrance of Kitty, the person.

The Apartment - 1996 - France

The Apartment - 1996 - 7/10
AKA - L'appartement

 
High powered computer exec, Max, just about to fly to Tokyo, believes he saw his old flame, Lisa.
He rushes after her shadow, but she’s gone.  So he misses his flight, does not tell anyone, and –
Oh, did I forget to mention his marriage is imminent?
Missed connections, betrayals, lies, deceptions.
Twists and reveals galore!  Inattentive souls, stick with reality shows.
Biggest problem is Max (Vincent Cassel), who has the attention span of a kitten.
Throughout, he is easily distracted, and thrown off any trail, by any female encounter.
Still, this is a must for thriller fans.  Remade as Wicker Park - 2004.

Mr. Hoppy’s Geheimnis - 2014 - UK

Mr. Hoppy’s Geheimnis - 2014 - 5/10
AKA - Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot

 
Absurd, feel good twaddle of lonelyhearts and tortoises.
Flat neighbors, one floor apart, chat from balcony to balcony.
She obsesses over her pet tortoise.  “Will he ever grow?”
He decides to help by substituting a slightly larger creature every couple of days.
To do so, he purchases 100 tortoises of varying sizes.  (I also spied some red eared sliders, but will ignore.)
Does she notice differing shell patterns? - No -
Do neighbors notice stench from 100 turtles? - No -
Pace is killingly slow (padded).  I kept reminding myself the original story had been written for children, hence the silly, clueless characters.
No ... children would have viewed them as foolish twits, too.

Genuine - 1920 - Germany

Genuine - 1920 - 5/10
AKA - The Tales Of A Vampire

 
Think vamp, not throat leech.  Not blood, its the wick that gets drained.
Genuine, priestess of an exotic religion, is captured by a rival tribe and turned savage.
Later, she is sold by slavers to a rich eccentric who keeps her caged in his lavish basement.
Mind you, menfolk are drawn to her, and she soon turns them into drooling love slaves.
Atmospheric sets outweighed by dell arte acting and plodding direction.
The tale crawls.  One could add a gallon of lubricant and the story would still creak.
Print I watched was in excellent condition, guitar score by Larry Marotta grows tedious by the end.

That Day We Sang - 2014 - UK

That Day We Sang - 2014 - 7/10

 
Pretty good recreation of what looks like a West End musical.
Filmmakers are shooting documentary of Manchester children, now 40 years later, who sang Purcell's 'Nymphs and Shepherds' and later cut a best selling 78 of that.
Story bounces back and forth between 1929 and 1969, showing characters as children and as adults.
As adults, two main characters attempt to connect.  We glimpse their lives, hear their stories.
Of course, being a musical, tunes sally forth at the drop of a hat.
Melodies are enjoyable, though not exactly hummable.
First rate acting - plus, all leads have good voices.  Tale is thin, but - please - this is a musical.
Recommended for fans of.

Are You Listening? - 1932 - USA

Are You Listening? - 1932 - 6/10

Bleak Pre-Code title from MGM, starring Billy Haines and a confusing assortment of blondes.
Haines writes and directs (commercials, comedies, dramas) for a radio station.

 
He carries on with another writer, deals with his scold of a wife (actress Karen Morley rips this).
A cynical film, Are You Listening has a dark tone and captures the anxiety of the Depression.
The other narrative is of the three sisters trying to “make it" in the City.

 
Women chase husband material (wealthy or high earners), men grope as casual predators.
Being Pre-Code, expect negligees, easy access relationships, unscrupulous villains.
Numerous old stars and character actors in downbeat film.