drystyx

Jack Lord (Hawaii 5-0, God's Little Acre) plays a 20th century prospector in a gritty and realistic story about a man up against the elements and rivals.

He makes a partner of his wife's brother, played by Andre Prine, and they have high hopes. The elements have already beaten down Lord a bit, and he puts up with a lot of disrespect from their landlord so that he can have a last "Ha ha ha" on him.

They are given a hard time by their landlord, played by Broderick Crawford (Highway Patrol, Last of the Comanches), who shows the hard working prospectors no respect, and makes a move on Lord's wife, but doesn't push it.

The prospectors finally find something good, and an assayer tells them it's good. They make the mistake of telling their landlord.

Of course the landlord will do some conniving claim jump, and do it legally.

It's the characters and the drama that follow that makes this perhaps the best and most credible story ever on any anthology series. The story combines action with drama with theatrics with reality that is very unusual, althugh it was more usual in this era before about 1970.

This isn't one for the Beavis crowd, but it is a superior story for the more mature viewer.

This had to be embarrassing for the actors. Not only were Rooney, Caan, and Dern excellent in their roles, but so was everyone else. The performances are excellent.

The trouble is the screenplay.

It's no secret that this is a "Most Dangerous Game" story. I won't spoil it by saying who wins, although you can guess easily, with Caan playing the beloved surfer, and from New York to boot, and what screenplay ever showed a New York boy get killed? Will this be the first one?

The story line is in a day and age when perhaps somewhere a sheriff might actually play the most dangerous game, but it really wasn't possible after about 1975, and this was well before that.

However, the sheriff is very blatant about it, and the script is a perfect example of "expository" and "contrived".

The real problem is the character played by Caan. He doesn't play a "survivor". He plays a moron who stick his nose in where no survivor would ever stick his nose into.

A bit of cockiness does count to survival, but not being an outright moron. Yet, when he is hunted, he turns into a thinking person and tries not to "break jail", which his character isn't savvy enough to think about the dangers, and he also thinks of ways to beat the scent that the dogs follow. Again, one would think that some of the seven people who were killed before his hunt would have thought of that before a moron like this arrogant, superior minded character would think of it.

The ending is also contrived. This truly is the worst of the most dangerous game stories, saved only by excellent acting from top to bottom.

Director Bare, and writers Gordon and Wormser, combine for a very underwhelming story.

Brian Keith and the other actors do their best to sell this story, but it's just full of hate, and unmotivated characters.

An ex officer has a job for one of the secret services to transport a boy genius several hundred miles in the Southwest, beginning in LA. A woman who appears to be a social worker accompanies them.

They are followed by a car on the way.

The car breaks down, and that's not explained whether it's part of a conspiracy or not, but it helps the people following them.

While the car is broken down, a young woman helps them. They go to a diner, where a beautiful Native American girl waits on them. The boy is allowed to go to a party with her.

The girl is beaten up badly, and for the rest of the story lies unconscious in a hospital. Her father is a lawman who winds up assisting the "good guy" played by Brian Ketih.

Throughout all of this, the story has no real motivation, and no one but the father seems to care one whit about the beautiful girl who is hurt so badly.

None of this makes any sense, and there is no payoff. It's a sick story about sick people with no motivation. In fact, the boy genius, who is supposed to be the disturbed one, is the only one who seems to have any motivation at all.

Some lamer brains think there is a message here against the death penalty for human monsters.

If so, the writer failed miserably.

A judge who has no compunction for issuing a death penalty to men who have abused their gifts and talents and abilities and resources in murdering people whom they look down upon as inferior beings, is kidnapped by a man whose life has been a blessing, with a gorgeous wife and healthy body, who once murdered a man whom he felt was beneath his dignity to let live.

This murderer gets a reprieve from the death sentence, and he wants to make the judge suffer the agony of a death sentence.

This bit of nonsense tries to be deep and meaningful or satirical or something, and even tries to be some avant garde sci-fi, but whatever it tries to do, it fails miserably in any category, and there's nothing "fresh" about it either. There's no way to stay awake through a full one sitting of this movie.

It's pretty much just actors deciding to act out roles, with dialog that sounds like it was written on paper. You will never rmeet anyone who speaks anything like a single character in this movie.

Now, that could work in a satire, but this doesn't appear to be satire. It's just people in certain locations saying words. It's as though the people just stopped in certain places and decided to shoot some sloppy scenes.

There's a hero and heroine. The heroine is smoking hot, and much hotter than the plain Jane that the guy is married to, so the one thing that makes sense in this movie is his attraction to her.

However, she's very shallow. None of the characters are interesting, and there's not one character that you could probably relate to or care about.

You have to read the program to have any idea what is going on in this dull collection of dull images.

It begins with one of the worst and undeniably one of the dullest opening scenes. Some guys in a car making noise, looking like they are robbing something, but they just make noise in a car.

If you can stay awake through that, you won't be able to stay awake through any of the subsequent scenes which are just.dizzy.

You can't understand most of what is being said, especially from what is apparently the lead character.

The scenery is the dullest that director can find. Motor vehicles, city streets, bars, the dull things that only the biggest dorks on Earth can watch without falling asleep while watching.

Whatever action takes place is just mindless boggle.

What's it about? Who knows? Who cares? It does cure Insomnia. Still, this is obviously a training film for "how not to make a movie".

I wasn't aware that this was going to be a horror comedy, but it doesn't take long before the director/writer team makes it quite obvious.

A lot of dark comedies don't go far enough into the comedy, but this one is almost Monty Python. Not quite Monty Python, but it comes close.

Sharks swim in the sand to eat people in this movie.

At first, two bikers meet the sand sharks. It comes across like the typical horror shark formula for a few minutes.

Then, it all comes out. The dumb dialog is there for a purpose, totally for laughs. The writer isn't trying to be deep or convincing.

The writer just writes for the humor, and that's how you make a dark comedy, or a horror comedy. There is no attempt to be serious here. It's all parody. There are the usual asshole characters, the usual hot babes, the usual dorks who think the assholes are okay, and the realists who are sort of the straight men and women here.

And it works. Personally, I'd rather see even more of a Monty Python approach, but perhaps that would have called for a bit bigger budget.

This is more like Svengoolie cornball comedy, but still a good parody. It's easily the best of the modern day "monster movies with dark humor". It's not easy to keep dark humor fresh, but it isn't that hard when one considers that its competition has been so dull.

But this is a solid 7/10.

This is a satiric Western, much like "Blazing Saddles", although this still ranks second to that classic.

There is a great and funny land and money grabbing Western villain who is one of many who try to steal the show. Andy Griffith plays the Harvey Korman character here, and he's excellent in a more "deadpan" mode as opposed to Korman's total slapstick mode.

And it works. The production team was wise enough not to totally copy the spoofs of "Saddles", and tries to live on its own merits. A good idea.

In fact, everything here is a good idea. It's just hard to top a giant accomplishment like "Blazing Saddles".

The best line in the movie, the one you don't want to miss, is when Andy Griffith, in his deadpan way, tells one of his men to toss a log on the fire. Well, in so many words.

Vincent Price plays the tycoon who invites 5 people to spend one night locked inside a haunted house for 10,000 each. A lot of money in 1959.

His young, greedy wife is also invited to the "party".

It's a fun ride for all, and you can tell that the actors are having a good time, too. Sticking out with the juiciest parts are Vincent Price as the tycoon and scene stealing Elisha Cook Jr. As the "kooky guest".

The "hero" is a pilot played by Big Valley's eldest son, Richard Long. He doesn't get to have as much fun as Vincent and Elisha here, but he is a brave and noble hero.

This doesn't have the look of a giant budget one expects from Hollywood, but it has atmosphere, and it's a super fun ride. It's everyone involved that makes this a top film, but it's Elisha who makes this a classic.

This is a formula film of formula films of sci-fi.

I'll try to describe it without a spoiler, but the whole movie is pretty much a spoiler. It's just a formula movie of stock horror scenes, all very predictable, with the only unpredictable thing being that it doesn't dare to deviate from predictability.

A man writes a book, and supposedly he's a godlike being and everyone worships the book. It sounds like Stephen King in a fit of superiority complex dementia.

The hero, played by Sam Neill, visits a town that isn't there, with a woman who might be there, in a car that might be wrecked. If it isn't wrecked, it's a miracle, considering the way he was driving while continuously looking at everything but the road.

There just isn't any "inspiration" to this movie. It's just ho hum horror over and over, with every trite message you can come up with.

It's doubtful that you will stay awake through the entire movie. How bad is it? Well, not so bad as it is just uninspired and uninspiring, and predictable.

This episode features a handyman in a neighborhood that is set by macho rules, and that is a problem.

The handyman "helps" a lot of women. I guess you can make whatever you want out of that, but one thing for sure is that the neighborhood mores are mores of "macho".

The handyman's favorite woman takes up with a man who is very brutal. The "favorite woman" has a son who is prison, and that son later returns. Meanwhile, the handyman gets in good with another woman, and both are dog lovers.

From here on, it seems that the two men (not the son yet) just go out of their way with macho bull to upset each other. It's easy to blame them, but maybe the blame goes to the mores that they live with. Those mores have to change.

One man gets dozens of dogs and can't keep his yard clean, of course. The other man jokes about poisoning this man's dogs. Well, this is part of the macho stuff that leads to trouble.

New mores are needed by people living in such areas.

These people live in the frontier, and should get along.

It's a common myth that there are "always two sides" to a story.

Sure, there are "two sides", except that more often than not, one side is an innocent person and the other side is a terrorist.

One way to know is to find when one person is alone against many. No matter what the liars of the world say, it isn't possible for one person to bully six people.

Here, a man stands alone against an entire neighborhood of bullies, with one family in particular, just terrorizing him for the sake of pure demonic hate.

So, they push him over the edge, and he revolts. Fear will only petrify a terrorist's victim for a while, before the victim figures out that there is no release from those who are adamant and unyielding in destroying him.

I won't spoil it by saying who is killed, but you already knew someone gets killed. In this case, it is because of a terrorist getting the result of the fear he instilled in someone else. It's unfortunate that his victim had to suffer as well.

Big stars abound in this story, beginning with Robert Vaughn of Uncle and Mag 7, in an office, where it looks like the men are just normal businessmen.

However, upwardly mobile Vaughn is told he can move up with an assassination against a rogue number 2 in the organization. #2 is out to assassinate #1. Now how would it look for Largo to assassinate Blowhard (I don't know how to spell the famous Bond villain's name)?

So, the boss gives Vaughn a gun and a location. There he meets none other than wisecracking Walter Mattheau before he was a grumpy old man, before he was part of an odd couple.

Mattheau offers Vaughn a deal to be part of a new organization and really step up as the new number 2. Can he get away with it?

You probably won't see this switch coming.

How to do this without a spoiler?

Well, I'll go into the atmosphere. An elderly, congenial man approaches a real estate agent in a Mayberry RFD sort of town.

This man looks like he could be the mayor of Mayberry, but he isn't the mayor here. He's a visitor, and he tells the real estate agent that he is looking for a certain kind of house, and one really caught his eye.

It's for sale, but at a price over ten times the market price.

Not a bit dissuaded, this congenial man approaches the owner who won't budge a bit on her price.

He tries to win her over, but she remains cold to his smiles.

She has an affection for the house. Her wayward son was killed there long ago by his partner in crime. She tells a story to the visitor, treating him as a guest, but never bending a bit in her price for the house.

There's more to the story, but, well, that's the "twist". Very well written and very well thought out.

An old man has a son who appears to have no ability to do anything of value.

How did it come to this? Some people have no gifts.

For this, the son, who is now pretty old himself, is demonized by every other character in the story. He becomes a sort of "Frank Burns", but we never really know why.

The son has expensive tastes, so he is roguish, and the father forces him into a corner. The father tells the son he will not get one penny from him, even in inheritance.

The father tells the son to make it on his own. The son has no abilities and no capabilities to get an ability. He is in love with a cheap showgirl for some reason, and this showgirl is hateful to him.

I don't know if the son is masochistic, or if he really feels he is in a corner. This is not a well written piece.

The father tells the son that he doesn't care how the son makes money, so long as he becomes a success. Gee, real morality there, Dad. Lol. So, the son turns in a man accused of a crime for the reward.

The man accused of a crime is his dad's friend, and hiding in his dad's house. When the son turns the man in, even the policeman is hostile to the son, and that's unprovoked, even after the son's information does lead to the fugitive's capture. Bear in mind that the policeman doesn't know the fugitive is innocent, but the policeman also demonizes the son.

Whatever the writer wanted to convey here, the writer truly failed. We have a pitiful character thrown to the wolves and pushed into a corner, and not one character has any credible motivation.

A very evil man, played by Bronson, murders a gas station worker during a robbery, and seems to do it for fun instead of necessity.

Not planning his getaway, and honestly the criminal element is usually this stupid, he grabs the first woman who comes to the gas station.

He kidnaps the woman, and she begs for her life, so he lets her live just long enough to be of some use.

This is the day of wild country land and woods, before every square foot of America became part of a city, or so it seems.

So, there is a lot of seclusion in these days, on the road while driving.

However, a gang of tough kids make the scene, and instead of escaping into a bit more merciful hands, the woman helps the killer.

I did figure out the switch ending from the beginning, but it isn't what one would call "obvious", even today.

Three, well actually four, characters deal with a magic camera of the Polaroid sort, which sends out pictures, but instead of the photos being what is there in the present, shows what will appear in about five minutes or so afterwards.

The characters, all being fairly likable rogues, go through a dark comedy with this camera. Being a horseman, I know what they will do first, lol.

It's what they do afterwards that makes for the fun. It isn't a "deep" story. This is a "fun story".

Being a fun story, the acting gears towards the roguish fun that comes with a story like this.

The fourth character is the only drawback to this one. He seems a bit forced into the show, but it's still a hoot.

This episode has Warden playing a prisoner on an asteroid. No fences or guards, because it's empty space.

He's wrongly accused of a crime, and dealt with harshly, so Dehner, who brings him supplies on a space ship from Earth every now and then, treats him well. The two other workers who come with Dehner aren't so benevolent. Well, they see Warden as a man who is justly punished.

Dehner, knowing the loneliness, brings him a "gift", a female android.

What transpires next is mostly character driven theater. We wonder if the android really has feelings.

No spoilers from me. It's a character study piece, and I think it's pretty well done. It's very watchable.

This episode features Bikel doing an amazing performance as a crazy man who couldn't possibly exist in real life, but is entertaining as a villain on the screen.

He's a McCarthy character who makes McCarthy look like a teddy bear. He has files on people, and calls their employers to get these people fired. He begins by calling them "communists", and proceeds on to calling them "evil people". Where does he get these files? What does he do for a living to pay the rent? Well, even in 1962, this was a poorly written piece that doesn't explain any of this. But McCarthyism was a big topic, and that sold this story.

Bikels madman character has an imaginary plan to turn all "evil people" into midgets at four O Clock. Lol, by magical will from his mind.

Well, no need for a spoiler. This was predictable even in 1962. It would have been predictable in 1962 BC.

The performance by Bikel makes this worthwhile, but the story is very goofy. The character is even goofier. It's a sort of "Frank Burns" character, or "Dr. Smith", someone who doesn't really exist, but whom some people want to believe exist.

Which makes this very ironic. Had this character been written by a right wing fanatic, he would be a ridiculous hippie who helped a Charles Manson type escape prison and would have been the next victim of the Manson character.

In other words, these characters are just contrived bits of convenience. They're characters that nut jobs much like this character would believe do exist. And that is ironic, but don't look for a real person to be like this. That would make you just like this character.

However, it is very watchable. For that, I credit Bikel.

This bizarre story of a lone man fighting Nazis in his homeland of Scandinavia is done "cult classic" style, and obviously with "style over substance".

You shouldn't look for "realism" here, but instead for a spiritual story. The hero is actually a composite of all the good men struggling against evil. He's more of a personification, but that doesn't detract from the story.

Personifications rarely happen in American movies. WE see it in some Oriental movies such as "The Four Assassins" and "Zu Warriors of the Magic Mountain".

Which helps to understand the lack of reality here.

But the production team makes no pretense of it being otherwise. Everything is surreal, with unbelievable escapades and bits of survival from our hero.

An interesting bit is that our hero isn't like most modern day heroes of Western culture, which are based on ancient Greek heroes who "look for trouble".

Instead, our hero never looks for trouble. He just plays the hand dealt to him. If you want to run away from him, he'll let you run away.

Also, as opposed to Western culture movies, being evil doesn't merit you immortality. It's a huge swing from Western moves.

Which makes this totally iconoclastic.

This comedy slasher is better than most.

Two groups of people clash in the woods.

One group is two rustic guys who look like backwoods people bought a cabin in the woods. The more intelligent of the two is named Tucker. He's pretty much the straight man in the movie, although a girl in the other group, named Allison, is the straight person in the other group, most of the time.

Dale is not exactly "dumb", but he's very insecure. He's apparently younger than Tucker, or at least less experienced, and he wants to meet an attractive girl.

The second group is a group of college kids. I'd like to say they're atypical of college kids, and they probably aren't "typical" of all college kids, but they are "typical" of many college kids. In fact, too much so, which does make this movie a very good idea. Just not the best execution. Not the worst by any means, though.

Some of those kids are fairly normal in the beginning, but two of them are very sick in the head. One is especially insane. And I'm not sure his prejudices are unique. There is a wave of ignorant prejudice and feeling of superiority actually being taught to college kids.

The kids who are sick in the head soon turn all the "straight" college kids into believing Tucker and Dale are some kind of movie villains. That's the part that really makes this movie better than most horror movies. Most of the kids begin with a lot less prejudice, and the crazy kid actually brainwashes them, thanks to some very strange mishaps.

This is not the best screenplay, but it is nowhere near the worst, and if one compares it to movies prior to about 1970, it is very poorly written, but if one compares it to movies made since about 1990, the bar is so much lower that it stands out as one of the best of modern horror movies.

The actors really had some tough roles to play, except for the one playing Tucker, since that was the straight man. They did as well as they could. There have been much worse screenplays, and this one is easily one of the better modern ones, but still subpar to what it should be.

The comic timing is off, and that goes towards editing and directing.

All in all, though, it is watchable. And unfortunately it is credible to an extent.

Goldstein and Keavney managed to do it, make a totally Hollywood formula movie that combines every depressing Hollywood cliche they can think of.

So, I'm not considering that a spoiler, because I won't say what the cliches are.

We have a movie that tries to be sleek, and that only makes it worse, by wasting special effects, the proper scenery, and resources for not only a poor story, not only a predictable story, not only a ridiculous story, but worse than that, a contrived story, the bane of writing.

A small team inside a silo gets orders to send out a nuke, and they try to verify the orders.

Not one character is even remotely credible in this story, not one. Thos who have seen this movie may try to find one, and maybe there are some who have one or two lines, but overall, this is "non credible characters in credible circumstance", the opposite of what a good story is to be.

I only struggle through it to see if the writing would surprise me by making something other than the usual formula, and to critique it. I was ready to give this one every chance, and it blew every chance.

This story of a "nobody" hired by thugs who think they're "somebody" isn't out of the ordinary in real life. There are people like the thugs, who are totally unmotivated save for their desire to satisfy sadistic cravings.

And that's what it boils down to here. The thugs hire a "nobody" to do some nonsense job, and then refuse to pay him and try to kill him.

The entire deal is just like real thugs. Real thugs are dull sadists, who don't have a real reason to do what they do.

Real thugs are dumb. They will spend thousands of total work hours, squandering thousands of dollars, to make a thousand dollars for a negative net profit.

Everything they do is for the sheer desire to be sadistic.

And that's realistic. People from the hood have seen it.

However, it makes for a dull movie. Sadists are dull people. None of the reactions are realistic, particularly from the character they are abusing. Of course he is young and naive enough to think these sadists have motivations besides sheer demonic pleasure, so we buy into that, but it's just a dull story.

This season of Twilight Zone is easily the weakest of all the seasons.

Here, we have potential of a nice episode. It's something that probably half of all fiction writers since the invention of papyrus had in mind. The stopping of time.

Here, there is a stopwatch that halts time.

It's a good theme, and probably written better by every writer who preceded this writer.

We have a "boorish character", but not a bad one, just one with likable faults, who finds the stopwatch.

He isn't half as smart as he thinks he is, and for some reason the writer and director thinks that makes him worthy of being despised.

Too many Twilight Zone episodes had this "hate factor" of writers and directors who felt themselves worthy of being gods, and they were unworthy.

With most of Hollywood movies and TV being depressing stories being thrust upon audiences, this episode has to be called the "formula episode", the cliche, and there isn't any saving grace to it.

This episode gets by on the "iconic factor" more than anything.

Shatner was a favorite of Serling and others to play "likable ordinary men".

Here, he plays a man who is coming off a nervous breakdown, and boards a plane with his wife.

He looks out the window and sees a gremlin on the plane's wing.

So, what transpires is what appears to be another breakdown from him, which apparently is why the gremlin allows this character to see him.

There is a lot of thrill to this one, though not much suspense or mystery.

The events are a bit too contrived to really satisfy most viewers, but like I said, this episode relies on the chills and thrills, and even when it was made, it's obvious there was an attempt to make an iconic scene or two.

There's not much of a payoff at the end. At least not one that makes sense, but it is watchable.