tomquick

The film was not that interesting for story but completely engaging as history. It documents the allure of Reno when it was the world's casino capitol. Some of the bits and pieces:

-Harolds Club inside and out. Today the exterior mural is at the rodeo grounds between Reno and Sparks. The club itself is a vacant lot next to Harrahs. The interesting parking garage, scene of most of the final action, is also gone.

-A Harolds Club billboard is passed on the drive from Midwestern to the heist.

-University of Nevada Reno (Midwestern University in the film). Nice outdoor winter shots of buildings and Manzanita Lake.

-The Union Pacific crossing on Virginia Street. Today the tracks are 20 feet below grade and pass under. In 1955 the line was a visible connection to the real world far away. The wall of accelerating passenger coaches effectively ends the heist.

-Harold Smith. He has 2 lines and puts on his glasses to examine a slot machine while Guy Madison waits outside the vault. Smith was proud of his role in the film, and discusses it in his autobiography.

All this is well documented in postcards, stills and old 8mm tourist film from back in the day. But this is the best quality view of Reno when it was still a collection of family gambling businesses that grew beyond anyone's expectations.

Ohboy! Taylor, Ives and Newman in their prime. This was supposed to be a Netflix delight.

On paper, as a literary vehicle, maybe. On screen it was cardboard stereotypes playing small personal melodramas. Sound quality very poor, alternately too loud and too soft, and only fully intelligible at high volume. Add to that monologues delivered way too rapidly to be understood, much less comprehended. This play would do better in a small theater with good acoustics. The movie would have done better with a smaller-than-life cast, playing down to the level of the pathetic characters instead of pumping them up into cartoons.

A half hour was enough time spent sucking this bitter pill, and back in the mail whence it came.

I've never had a migraine, only had them described to me. I can't identify but I feel sympathy for the sufferer. This movie was like that, but did not provoke any sympathetic reaction.

Two hours of tedious scenery chewing. Angry yet obtuse dialogue. Gobs of irony spread thick as cake frosting. A string of contrived painful situations involving a berserk Richard Burton, Baptist church ladies, an iguana on a leash, Lolita, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

I'm sure it comes across much better on stage. But for me the filmed version came across like the description of a migraine. I had to shut it off for a while out of sheer boredom, then politely heard out the rest of the sufferer's tales.

What a quirky thing this film is, and mostly in an irritating way. Best parts first. The scenery and filming are excellent, especially the hypnotic ending with mesas receding in the background. Robert Blake is as endearing and eager here as he was playing Little Beaver in the Red Ryder films. His extended monologues are often great, and point towards his role in Baretta. But there's no sensible dialog, and the supporting cast - barfly, mentally disturbed desert wanderer, and police detective - aren't as good as Blake with their monologues. They chew a lot of scenery and are painful to watch.

The whole thing gives off a whiff of Chicago, with the Guercio score and and even band members Cetera and Kath in the cast. When the film was made in 1973 Chicago was rapidly becoming a pop hit machine. Their energetic performances from the late 60's were receding from memory as fast as the hippies/communes/psychedelia shown in the film. Easy Rider was made in the 60's and captures the feel. Compared to it Electraglide in Blue seems like a wannabe that arrived 5 years too late.

This was not easy to find, and the DVD I watched had an oddity. A stretch of 10-15 minutes repeats over during the first 1/3 of the film. Whether this is intentional, or whether it's a transfer glitch I'll never know.

Second City IS Chicago school improv comedy, and this looks like a first attempt to take it to film. 10 years later SCTV became very entertaining with Rick Moranis, John Candy and Eugene Levy involved. All the elements of good stand-up comedy are here, and it's full of great throwaway lines. Sometimes it's shockingly funny (Xavier Cugat with toy poodles?). Larry Storch is prototype John Belushi, and his limo with cheap deflector shields is a prototype of the Animal House cake-car. Odetta singing hippie songs? Everett Dirksen quoting from the Bible with a giant bronze bust behind him? Different.

But as the first SCTV efforts were sloppy and uneven, this earlier film is even more so. All the great improv comedy fails to marry with the sci-fi theme and cheap psychedelia and it ends up falling flat. I had trouble staying awake.

Boy it's been a long time since I've seen this. It's just as corny as ever. A comic book musical written as if it were designed to be drive-in filler. It's no surprise that it bombed at the box office.

But it's got class. Brightly lit, fast paced, plenty of stunts and action. Sharp cinematography. Though it plays like a B movie there's nothing cheap about it. I'd forgotten about it being a who's-who of journeymen on the way up, from Dafoe to Madigan to Robert Townsend. Ry Cooder's score was always what I liked best, and it's as good as I remember.

Chicago is still the pits under the el too.

It deserves a prize for best use of Studebakers in a motion picture.

This movie hasn't aged well. I appreciate Chris Cooper's turn as the orchid thief, but the plot is as stale as an old music video. The creative process of show biz kids is boring and tedious to start with, and this makes up 2/3 of the movie. The last 1/3 is tacked-on action, gratuitous violence and special effects. It's a junk pile of clichés using alligators, 30-06's, unusual orchid-based drugs, split personalities, internet porn, etc.

The beginning of this old Hollywood video closeout VHS tape contained trailers for 2002-2003 films similar to Adaptation which have fared even worse with age. I couldn't remember a single one of them being in a theater. They could just as well been minor films from 1986, or 1950. Given enough time maybe TMC will be able to revive them. Good luck.

I'll go out on a limb and give this one a 4. The MST3000 version raises the average. I had trouble following the wisecracks, and got more laughs reading the transcriptions on the message board afterwards.

But I'll pitch the merits of the film itself. This is more deserving of a cinematography Oscar than some verite loop like Le Mepris. It's not as pretentious in portraying sounds and sights. Desert looks like desert, complete with the near-distant haze and stark whiteness. A party is like a party with unintelligible conversations. A bar-room is a bar-room, with authentic bad murals, noise and pool ball racking. No sentiment, no emotion. Just stuff, filmed flat as can be without filters, enhanced sound or expensive music. I like this effect in Ghost World and Stranger Than Paradise, and Arizona Werewolf has the same quality.

Looping past the same gas station over and over. I like that. An open disclosure of the film's budget.

I liked the werewolves, too. Everyone knows they're not real. This film gives you the unvarnished truth about werewolves. They're fake. Why hide the fact?

This is a film I wanted to see when it came out, and thanks to Netflix I have, 36 years later. A film so prescient - reaching back into history to deliver far more than cinema does today. The 70's were not a complete movie cesspool and Hackman is one of the reasons.

I can only describe it in bits and pieces.... The relation between Hackman and Pacino is reminiscent of Hackman and Pagoda in Tenenbaums, and a reminder than Hackman played broad comedy well. Czech films like Closely Watched Trains come to mind for comparison. But also Paris Texas, and Samuel Beckett's plays.... The constant tension of a world which has no meaning at its very bottom tells mainly on Pacino. A befuddled comic brutalized mentally and physically; finally spent, sedated, and strapped to a gurney.

And the eccentric tics.... Hackman's broken lighter, multilayer wardrobe, afternoon naps and cigar stumps. Pacino's grubby gift box, telephone shtick and pirate monologues. This film is a giant collage built out of random scraps of color....

A who's who from the old B westerns was the original draw....Bob Steele and Forrest Tucker in particular. Add to that Larry (Judyjudyjudy) Storch and his tag lines that come off like rimshots in a cheesy nightclub. "Bless you child." Guest appearances by the likes of Don Rickles and Harvey Korman. Corny shtick, but surprisingly still funny. And finally Ken Berry.....

Two things. He's built like a gymnast, and his continuous pratfalls are reminiscent of Tati. But even better, he's a hilarious prototype of Mr. Rogers. That syrupy smooth in-control voice and persona.... leading to a string of utter absurdities....

I don't really know why I'm commenting on this thing, but maybe because it's not Nurse Betty is a good enough reason. Someone recommended it to me. I should have read some of the comments before renting. If my comment stops one person from renting this film I consider it a job well done.

Seeing too many plants closed for good has taken its toll on me. Watching Renee waltz into the beleaguered food processing plant wearing stiletto heels, cocktail dress, no smock, and no hair net (to the very END this bothered me) takes the story far beyond any sort of reality. The Cinderella story is even stinkier. When a company pulls the plug there's no tapioca dream ending for an old factory, only burnt toast. And making fun of the Minnesotans died of repetition at Lake Wobegon 20 years ago.

Sound quality is terrible. Up to full volume to try and understand the patois, then down to minimum when the music roars in, then back up, etc. At least 20 cycles of this over the film's 90 minute duration. If this film had had subtitles I would have muted it and saved the wear and tear on my controller.

It was not worth a dollar at redbox and it goes back promptly tomorrow AM.

I read La Bandera a year or two ago and finally hunted down the DVD. It's pretty faithful to Mac Orlan's text (Dumarchais? IMDb must be putting on airs). This adventure yarn is better than a lot of his pirate stories, but still doesn't rise much above an adolescent's fantasy of the Spanish Foreign Legion. I especially liked Gabin - young, athletic, dumb and out of control. The love story with Annabella seems tacked on and out of the blue, but it's true to the text it's taken from.

The random stupidity of racing through the desert on Model A flatbeds after phantom snipers and gun-runners rings truest. This film is not on a humanist/moralist level with La Grand Illusion or Paths of Glory. It's an existential image of war-as-it-happens. The settings are stark, bright and always exposed. Sudden death is intertwined with the boredom of the barracks.

By the 1940's the format for the 3 pals western was pretty well set, and here we have the Trailblazers. The budget values are pretty apparent, especially some stock footage of Steele at the beginning riding down a dirt road past telephone poles. The actors don't even bother with stage names.

The action is good. Battlin' Bob and Maynard each go more than a few rounds. Even Hoot Gibson does a little fighting. The shtick with him throwing lit dynamite at the villains reminds me a lot of Walter Brennan's turn in Rio Bravo. Both Hoot and Walter were getting up there in years, cackling away and neither very flexible anymore.

At 50 minutes in length, this was intended for Saturday afternoon matinée filler. It interests me how much these B westerns presage TV drama. The target audience has a short attention span, and are shocked into alertness every five minutes with some kind of a racket - shooting, galloping, fighting, whatever. These films create a mood. The plot and acting are incidental. While this one is a lot like all the rest, I think it's better than average as a mindless Saturday afternoon trip down memory lane.

Most of the Czech films I've seen follow a familiar pattern: a history lesson revolving around war or occupation, along with lots of bohemian irony and iconic images, usually of Prague. This one's different. I enjoyed Kolya, and Menzel's other films (Closely Watched Trains and I Served the King of England), but I prefer this one for leaving out the pathos.

The irony would come through more clearly if I spoke any Czech beyond "dobre den", but this film still has plenty. A tattered little town with unpaved streets, drenched by miserable summer rain the whole way through. A visit by a fleabag circus supplies a limited amount of merriment - about what the little town deserves. About all they've come to expect, too, in their sodden little corner of Bohemia.

I wouldn't have watched this film at all if I hadn't already "read" the book. Josef Capek's witty illustrations for the novel led me to a movie which is every bit as good, and which fills in the details I couldn't read between the pictures.

I spent an hour last night watching this, with a bowl of popcorn and a copy of the original mimeographed Colony shooting script in hand. Not a great film, but an educational experience. This copy of the script is signed by Don Miller - one of Ed Woods pseudonyms - and while it might not have been his, it could have served as a model for his later work.

Six Shootin Sheriff is not Shakespeare or Citizen Kane, and the cast treats the material accordingly. The film follows the script for continuity, but very few of the lines are delivered word for word. Marjorie Reynolds (better known as "that Linda Mason" in Holiday Inn) tries a little harder than the cowpokes, but no one puts forth much dramatic effort. The action sequences are better.

The budget for this film was minimal and it shows. Sets vary from 1880's mining town to 1930's living room (the chintz print sofa and cocktail dresses are nice touches). Music wraps about a minute into both ends of the film, with only dialogue and sound effects in the middle. The script has a lot of "night" scenes, which look like day scenes with a filter. My overall impression is that Grand National wasted very little money in re-shooting or cutting on this film.

Not a bad way to spend an hour, though. The action is good, and the story is interesting enough that I only slept through a couple of pages of the script.

As many have already commented, this film plays fast and loose with the details of the English civil war. But as others have commented it's the best we've got. This story deserves the treatment given to Martin Chuzzlewit, played over 10-12 hours as a mini-series. The problem with this approach is that Dickens didn't leave us a literary treatment of the Commonweath. The story is dramatic, and in my opinion it's the most important political event in the last 500 years, but it's not suited for theater. Even Hugo had the good sense to confine his play "Cromwell" to a single incident, and through that to contemplate the character of the man.

So among a sea of inaccuracies created to produce a coherent drama, the story is accurate only in the broadest sense. Visually it's sweeping and well costumed. Many of Cromwell's aphorisms are preserved, and while he is the principal character his military action is generally confined to his historical role as cavalry commander. Fairfax is notably missing as the army commander - perhaps to limit the complexity of the story?.

As I view it, the English civil war was fought mainly over the issue of money. England's prestige in the world was wilting in the face of Hapsburg wealth (ie Spanish silver). Foreign influences - primarily those of the Catholic counter-reformation - were eroding England's control of Scotland and Ireland. The movie portrays all this decently enough. Alec Guinness excellently portrays the tortured, treacherous yet dignified Charles. In calling Parliament, he opens Pandora's box, and eventually stands alone amid the chaos.

The music.... I like contemporary English choral music, but somehow it seems inappropriate here. It's too bombastic, and out of context with the costumes and cinematography. Troops singing before battle, plainsong in church - fine - otherwise overdone musically.

The chaos of Parliament was well portrayed. As befitting the complexity of the story it is very difficult to follow what is going on in the sea of black and white. The Levellers outside, scheming. Charles ever devious - yet noble to the end, unwilling to plead with the court to save his life. The Parliamentary compulsion to find an executive in the absence of a king. And without one, a final scene of utter chaos.

The movie ends abruptly with a speech. A little bit of a letdown, but maybe it's the only way to tie off the even messier story that follows. Richard Harris exudes a sense of command throughout the film, but it is clear that he has arrived at a position of leadership to a larger degree by accident, skill and common sense rather than overweening ambition. He is prototypical of any number of world leaders to come, from Hitler to Churchill to George Bush, but I don't see that Harris is playing to mimic any contemporary stereotype. Rather I think he portrays the Calvinist/Puritan type well - quick and forceful to act in accordance with the rule of law.

I found this film hard to watch and fell asleep the first time through. I thought about it, and paid much closer attention on a second viewing.

Bad puns, bad parodies, bad slapstick. This movie is a junk pile compared to Mel Brooks' earlier films, but I like the way it revels in its cheesy, predictable badness. John Candy's self effacing, apologetic Mog with tail always in the way, swatting people in the face, sticking out the back of a bloated spacesuit. Rick Moranis' little doll theater. The pigsty condition of the Winnebago spaceship, off for a road trip with $5 worth of gas in the tank, stopping at an intergalactic diner for a reprise of Alien. Not that much laugh-out-loud humor. Just cheap snickers the whole way through.

I enjoyed the sci-fi parodies Dark Star and Mars Attacks more than Spaceballs, but the cheesiness plays pretty well against the polished franchises it mimics. My mom's reaction to Star Wars when it first came out was "space cowboys", and there's a lot of truth in that. Underneath all the special effects these films are spiffed up remakes of cheesy, predictable 1930's westerns and serials.

Another one of those 4 euro VHS specials from the dusty bin, but one I was looking forward to seeing. I thought it was pleasantly passable and will watch it again. Highlights: Defunes is funny as always, squeaking and quacking like a broken duck call. To quote from one of the earlier films "Il m'epate!" he's astonishing in being able to deliver so much physical comedy. Bouncing around like a beach ball, puffed up like a banty rooster, barely able to keep his giant ego intact while being chased by peasants with pitchforks or trying to escape a bedroom peccadillo. And I love his mugging - especially the greedy glitter in his squinty eyes.

Yves Montand is surprisingly funny. The final scene where he and Defunes are stuck on the windlass as human donkeys in some nameless North African desert is hilarious. But all in all I think Bourvil did this kind of role better. Montand is suave and dumb, while Bourvil is dumb yet impossibly suave, and has a touch of human kindness. I do like Montand as Papet in the Florette films, and even more so with a cigarette hanging from his lips in Wages of Fear. I like him here, too, but he does suave and sinister best.

All in all, entertaining. But I'll watch the Corniaud several times before I watch this again.

I saw a scratchy VCR copy of this the other night. I'd heard good things about it. The black and white Provencal images are nice, but unfortunately that's about all I enjoyed. One more time Fernandel leading a draft horse....one time too many for that image as far as I'm concerned. The "slice of life" across the little town was nice, and a prelude to what I think was done better in Boulanger de Valorgue. What I really disliked about this film was its broad cruelty. Fernandel expresses shock when he comes home to find his wife hanging from a rafter, but that's it. No remorse, no emotion of any kind. Even for someone he doesn't love I would have expected something more. I don't know whether this is a reflection on the director or Fernandel's acting ability, but it gave the whole story a kind of jarring unreality. There was also a lot of needless cruelty involving the facture - a butt of jokes in many French films - but the first time I've seen one shot. Finally, the film ties up a lot of the plot's messiness at the end in a poor way, in order to generate a happy fade-out. This film was hard enough to find. It's a pity that it's even harder to recommend for viewing.

This tears the heart. We grift and stumble to survive and our children are the witnesses. What they learn from us, or their schooling, or their experiences, forms them and has to get them through. But the human spirit is stubbornly selfish. Naive. Methodical. McCandless may have shed some of his parent's superficial values (money, social climbing, prestige), but the deeper deficiencies remain. It's still all about HIM.

So here he is, struggling both to hatch into adulthood and to stay in his protective, selfish shell. In a fitting metaphor, he literally dies in that shell - cocooned in a mummy bag, inside an old bus. Yes, he is a fool, but he is our own uniquely American-made fool.

It is fitting that many of the characters in the movie save him, by feeding him and sheltering him, but all this does is delay his self-destruction. If he had survived, what stories he would have had to tell, what a life he would have had to live.

Kudos to the actors and the writers. Especially kudos for the cinematography. Ultimately it's the wide-open beauty of America that baited and lured McCandless to his doom. Finally many thanks to Ziggy in Anchorage for his excellent belt-work. The belt is a metaphor for the whole odyssey, tooled in leather, ominously becoming shorter day by day.

the worms play pinochle on your snout....

I found this at the bottom of the double closeout bin at Hollywood with a gift card to burn. Big mistake. I had anticipated something much better.

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

-This is an actors film? The cast shown on the box indicates it. But broadside views of Lily Tomlin's butt and cracked face, and Meryl Streep's boob's, and Kevin Kline's contrived pratfalls, and Tommy Lee Jones' mumbling, weren't satisfying to watch. This wasn't so much an exhibition of talent as it was a video of a talent show. Up close and personal, yes, but what you would expect to see in the out-takes. Give me the snap and dazzle of the ensemble in Nurse Betty, or Little Miss Sunshine, any day of the week.

-The music was sublimely terrible. Faux old-timey/jazz/country, with parodied versions of real hymns and folk music (Way down upon the Mississippi?). This is children's sing-song stuff, and it denigrates every genre that it touches. A second grader would have done as well. The second grader would be funnier, too, because it wouldn't sound as contrived as it does coming from the mouths of Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin and Lindsay Lohan. Oh, and then there was the awful honking of that baritone sax.

-One of my greatest expectations - the fresh, satiric edge and bite of Keillor's commentary on the midwest - went missing. At the top of his form, Keillor describes the midwest as well as Sinclair Lewis, Edgar Lee Masters or Jean Shepherd. But after the 10th repetition of the Powdermilk Biscuits song I was ready to throw a shoe through the screen. Maybe his material has been dulled by repetition, or maybe by Altman's heavy-handed directing. It comes across as same old-same old.

I gave this film a 2 rating rather than 1 on the strength of seeing Keillor's quick changes from backstage to onstage persona. This was the only part of the film that almost seemed real, rather than faked method acting. It was a mistake not to shut it off when the popcorn was gone. Begone ye to yon thrift store!

This was a video store closeout, and a remarkable find. The best part first. Having had relatives and in-laws who lived there in the time, this looks and feels real. The horse drawn harvester, to start with. The blue sky and tufts of clouds, the golden hills and pines - not fake at all - it's the northern Palouse in early fall. The attitudes of the people are just what I'd expect. Suspicious of anything new or foreign - Spokane was the IWW headquarters just prior to this period, and dangerous radicals such as Joe Hill(strom) wandered all through the basin making trouble for the established citizenry. WWI had a huge effect on Northwest labor history, and the tension between loyalty and freethinking was strong. Yet there was also the great thirst for culture, and a pre-mass media naivete, in these places - a yearning for art perhaps inspired by living in the midst of great beauty. Finally, all those stark white houses, churches and schoolhouse sitting forlornly out in the wide open. The movie gets ALL of this right.

Sadly, there isn't much of a story to complement the pictures. The problem with small town life is that it was boring, and it's hard to find a believable story with a lot of drama that fits. Focused on the relationships only, this might have been something like A River Runs Through It or Napoleon Dynamite (both of which play against similar scenic backdrops). Focused on the sports story, perhaps Hoosiers. Focused on outsiders fitting in, perhaps Days of Heaven. But muddled all together, it comes out like a string of TV episodes, like Little House on the Prairie. Very melodramatic, with all the music swells and dramatic incidents that usually precede a commercial.

Everyone has already pretty much said everything that could be said about this movie. The Leonard Maltin featurette on the DVD was also a great summary of what went into making this film. What strikes me as interesting about The Quiet Man is that it's an art film starring John Wayne (along with several other stars usually seen in popular films). I give most of the credit for pulling this off to Ford's inspired direction. To be able to take the most typecast Western actor and believably turn him into a washed up ex-pat boxer was a major feat.

It brings to mind Fernandel, who churned out mediocre comedies at about the same pace as John Wayne churned out westerns. At the time The Quiet Man was being made, Fernandel was chewing up the scenery as Don Camillo the temperamental priest. But he had played key roles in several of Pagnol's classic films in the 30's and 40's, and occasionally played well later on, under directors such as Verneuil and Autant Lara. You wonder whether Wayne could have done a few more top notch films if he had spent more time out of the saddle - roles more like what Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster were playing at the time.

This was not the greatest of films, but it's a good period piece, showing what it was like to be a tourist in late 50's Spain. It's a showcase for some great secondary actors, especially the Keatonesque Raymond Bussieres, and the ever present comediennes Paulette Dubost and Annette Poivre.

What I liked best about the film was seeing Louis de Funes in an early starring role. Many of the sketches are glimpses of things to come. The great mechanic, the smuggled diamond in a Cadillac convertable with a sticking horn, the comic stutterer - all these skits reprise in the Corniaud. And, shades of Rabbi Jacob, the man can dance. It's not pretty, but he sure can dance a mean flamenco.

Over all my years of watching movies, I'd never seen this. After visiting Old Tucson Studios I decided to watch a trilogy of movies made there: The Three Amigos, Tombstone and Rio Bravo. The preserved movie sets have more of the flavor of the first (and more recent) two, but the surrounding mountains, the blue sky and the forlorn desert are the same for all. If you're a movie fan and visiting Tucson, I'd recommend seeing this.

I have some reservations about recommending Rio Bravo, though. As Americana, as a campy experience, OK, but not as a great movie. Who wrote this thing? It seemed for a while like it could have been the Grateful Dead, but they didn't come into existence for several years after it was made. Dean Martin and Walter Brennan (aka Stumpy) are great, in a substance-abused sort of way - particularly WB's incoherent cackling and babbling. But the rest of the cast appears to be sleepwalking their way through what measures out at a little over 2-1/2 hours length. With some cutting - let's just say this could have been a lot better. But Angie Dickinson is a bit too random, and John Wayne a bit too wooden to make this great.