Movie review - "Navy vs Night Monsters" (1966) **

An absolutely decent low budget knock off of The Thing which I saw with very low expectations (a director with few credits, Mamie Van Doren, silly title). And while it certainly had dumb moments - it's about killer trees - I enjoyed it a lot. There is some strong acting, good by-play among the characters. I didn't even mind the human drama of the love triangle involving Van Doren - the characters at times felt real, which is rare for this sort of movie.

It doesn't work that the island has communication with the mainland - this robs the piece of its suspense - but I'm aware it was added without the original director's consent. This is no classic, but I am sympathetic as to why the director is annoyed it was tampered with - this could have been a genuine little gem as opposed to a more campy cult fave.

Jon Hall did some second unit filming.

TV review - "Spyforce" Ep 2 Death Railway (1971) **1/2

Jack Thompson and Peter Sumner are sent to blow up a railway being built by Allied POWs - hello Bridge on the River Kwai knock off, complete with John Meillon doing a very good take on the Alec Guiness role of an Allied quisling - an engineer who is helping the Japanese. Lorraine Bayley plays his wife back at home who chats to Redmond Phillips in what is an undeveloped subplot.

At one stage Katy Wild scolds Phillips for the ruthlessness of his plan which involves having Sumner and Thompson be deliberately captured so as to wind up in the camp. It doesn't make sense - far too risky and silly; the cynicism of Spyforce never sat easily next to its outlandish plots.

Movie review - "Footsteps in the Dark" (1941) **1/2 (another viewing)

I thought I'd give this movie another go - it's a sweet, amiable enough B movie which gave Errol Flynn a change of pace. He goes at the comedy boots and all, and is full of energy and spark - he even tries a Southern accent. He's not entirely comfortable as a comic actor but it's very endearing, and he has that charisma and charm.

It's a B but a Warners B which means decent production values and cast - Alan Hale (I wish his part had been bigger), Allen Jenkins, Lee Patrick, Ralph Bellamy as a dentist who you presume is the killer otherwise why is he in the film (I love the scene in the dental surgery where he and Flynn smoke cigareets).

It could have done with some more spooks and shocks a la Cat and the Canary because those bits it has along those lines are quite effective (Turhan Bey pops up). There's also some songs and a particularly bland performance by Brenda Marshall as Flynn's dim wife.

Movie review - "The Rewrite" (2014) **

There aren't many great films about screenwriters, and this doesn't add to the list, but it passes the time well enough if you like Hugh Grant - even if for most of the time I kept hoping he'd turn into his character from Bridget Jones' Diary. Daniel Cleaver would surely have had more fun than Grant here - they kind of go there, with him boozing a little bit and sleeping with one student (the very attractive Bella Heathcoate) and insulting Alison Janney... but far too often the film errs on the side of "nice".

Supporting bits which should have been gold aren't - Chris Elliot seems just sad as a fellow academic; JK Simmons always looks as though he's going to say something funny as the Dean but we never get there; I think some of the students were meant to be funnier than they are - the gothic-ish girl, the creepy Star Wars loving guy; there's not even any decent satire of Hollywood types.

 I did love the gossipy Jewish girl, she was fun, and the small town atmosphere is sweet (though probably would have been better had the film been more sticks-ville). Marisa Tomei is sweet as the single mother student, although the film gyps us out of a big love scene between her and Grant. Indeed, it's remarkable how many moments the film skips - there's no reunion with his son, no big finale, no great tension, we never meet JK Simmons' much talked about daughters.

The movie is also surprisingly harsh to women - whether it's Janney's bitter Jane Austen-loving antagonist, Simmons' daughters and wife who boss him around, manipulative younger female students, the Hollywood requests for a kick-ass female sidekick (as if that's a bad thing), the fact that the one student Grant really champions is a boy.

TV review - "The Terrific Adventures of the Terrible Ten" Episode - "Help the Police" (1959) **

A kids show from the late 50s and early 60s, a rare local drama production at the time. It's about the adventures of some kids - this one has them go to Melbourne for the day and come across kids. While the message of "always tell the police" is emphasised the kids have plenty of scope themselves to get up to mischief. Cute and fun.

Movie review - "The Unsuspected" (1947) ***

This wasn't terribly highly regarded when it came out but over 50 years later it holds up very well, in part because it offers pleasures that were taken for granted at the time, but which nowadays we simply don't have any more: Claude Rains, Michael Curtiz direction, beautiful late 40s black and white photography, Warner Bros studio sheen, tropes famliar from other movies (amnesia, battles over a will, mysterious husband, murder).

There's a bunch of different protagonists - the mystery man (Ted North, who I'd never heard of but was quite good) of a niece of Claude Rains, radio star Claude Rains, the niece who turns up without a memory (Joan Caulfield).

Caulfield is a pretty, good girl so we can guess she'll survive - she has a bitchy cousin (Audrey Trotter) with a wastrel husband (Hurd Hatfield) so both those two look like they might die and we're not sure about North (the fact he wasn't famous adds to the suspense) or Jack Lambert as a dodgy associate of Rains or Constance Bennett as a radio producer. The film probably would have been cleaner had it been told entirely from the POV of amnesiac Caulfield - to give the audience someone to hook into.

It's spooky and entertaining - it has bits like the villain conning a heroine to write a suicide note to help him kill her later, which I thought was invented in A Kiss Before Dying.

Movie review - "Unforgiven" (1992) ****

A superior Western, of course, but one can't help get the feeling it was over praised. Had it been made in the 1970s when originally written I think people would have gone "oh good movie" but it wouldn't have earned all those Oscars. Or maybe not - who knows?

It's lovingly shot and designed, and was made with a lot of care - Clint really tried with this one. Like all Clint Eastwood films it feels over long. I kind of know why the Richard Harris sequence was in there (it all tied in with myth of the West and so on) but it could have been cut.

I felt many of the things people liked about it were gimmicky reversals or not really that different - the braggart kid (Jaimz Woolvett, who was discovered in this movie and then seemed to disappear) turns out to have never killed anyone and be short sighted (you can kind of see that coming from the moment he says "I've killed heaps of people"... it's not that much fresher than James Caan in El Dorado); the wise side kick (Morgan Freeman) is black and has an Indian wife and... that's kind of about it, he's still pretty much a stock noble black sidekick (he's wise, decent and dies); Clint Eastwood rolling around in the pig sty at the beginning and not being able to ride a horse, but by the end of the film is still the same super human hard arse we've always had. The device of a journalist reporting on events isn't that fresh.

I also felt it didn't really deconstruct the myth of the west as much as people seemed to think it did - hookers still have hearts of gold. the vengeance becomes personal. We hear a lot about how Clint and Freeman used to get drunk and kill women and children back in the day, but we never see it here - every single person Eastwood and his pals kill deserve to die. It would have been a different movie if at the end while on his killing spree Eastwood did shoot some innocents such as the prostitutes - it wouldn't have been the hit it became but that would have been deconstructing myth.

But I did like the actual story - there's something primeval about prostitutes being ignored by the law and banding funds to pay for an assassin. I loved how the killers of the old west are depicted as being drunk and mean most of the time. And some touches did feel fresh, like Gene Hackman working on his porch, and a cowboy taking ages to die from a bullet wound in the hot sun, and the friend of the slashing cowboy providing the injured prostitute with a horse. The characters have great names and there's fantastic dialogue, and the final shoot out gave me chills down my spine.

Movie review - "Death Wish 3" (1985) *

Charles Bronson and Michael Winner struggled to make successful films which didn't involve vigilante action so they got back in the saddle again for a not particularly wanted sequel. Bronson is back in New York and those gangs refuse to leave him alone, beating up an old friend of his to death. Charlie moves in to his friend's apartment complex and takes on some gang members.

Now that's actually a pretty good idea for a Death Wish movie - use The Magnificent Seven as a template, and have Bronson teach some poor downtrodden victims how to fight back. And there's definitely some of that in the film - teaching a little old Jewish couple how to boobtrap their apartment and so on. And the movie has one or two other decent ideas for a vigilante film - a brutal cop (Ed Lauter) tries to enlist Bronson's help, Bronson falls for a public defender, Deborah Raffin. Plus Gavan O'Herlihy is genuinely chilling as the main baddy.

But exploiting these good ideas proves too hard for the filmmakers. Basically Bronson just walks around blowing away gang members, who are dressed in brightly coloured clothing that makes them look like they've walked off the set of Electric Boogaloo. There is some appeal in Charles Bronson shooting muggers dead - one memorable moment he gets bag snatched, pulls out a massive pistol, shoots the guy dead on a crowded street... and hardly anyone seems to notice. And the over the top nature of the finale, with an all in battle and Bronson killing O'Herlihy with a rocket launcher, is actually kind of fun for sheer stupidity.

But it's too nasty to be enjoyable on a cartoon level. Pretty much everyone Bronson tries to help out winds up dead - the Jewish couple have their throats cut and are shot, Martin Balsam is thrown off a building, a nice hispanic lady is raped (director Michael Winner makes sure we get full frontal nudity) and killed, Deborah Raffin (who I felt for sure was going to defend one of the baddies) is killed. Sure Bronson helps wipe out a lot of the gang, including the leader, but there are still plenty left at the end - and only a few residents. Instead of having the finale involve a whole bunch of residents, there's only one or two - and is mostly Bronson and Ed Lauter, who we don't care about.

Movi review - "Aloha" (2015) **

Not the worst movie ever made but Cameron Crowe's worst. It has pleasing tunes, gorgeous scenery and likeable movie stars but is needlessly confusing. I'm guessing Crowe wanted to rip off Local Hero - if that was the case it's easy to see how you do it: military man Bradley Cooper is in disgrace for accepting bribes in Afghanistan, his connections with Hawaii mean he is sent to Hawaii to negotiate a deal on a military base with the locals, he falls for Emma Stone who believes the sky belongs to us all, and catches up with old flame Rachel McAdams who is the one who got away, Hawaii gets under his skin, he realises his military mission is dodgy and takes the side of the Good over the Evil, and earns the love of Emma Stone and gets redemption.

That I could follow. But this is confusing. Cooper works for an independent contractor, not the military, but still works a lot for the military; it's never really clear exactly how much disgrace he's in for what happened in Afghanistan (is it public? is he up on criminal charges?) or why he has so much sway and esteem in Hawaii or who is in charge; Emma Stone is meant to be a truth telling free spirit shocked at nuclear weapons in a satellite... and she's a fighter pilot? And its needlessly confusing - surely Crowe was more interested in the characters and Hawaii and love instead of his story, but his story is so muddled you can't focus on the other stuff. Surely they could have fixed it all up with an opening scene that set everything up clearly.

Or not. Because I think on another level the movie is simply miscast - the supporting characters are fine and Rachel McAdams is lovely as always but Emma Stone too college girl and lightweight to be a believable fighter pilot (it needed someone like Reese Witherspoon, someone you can believe who would study intently and could fire missiles). Bradley Cooper seems like a nice guy rather than someone tormented.

Some pleasing moments such as Stone and Murray dancing to 'I Can't  Go For That' by Hall and Oates and it looks good.

TV review - "Spyforce" ep 22 - "The Doctor" (1972) **1/2

Different sort of ep, being set in Sydney and spreading the heroism - Jack Thompson and especially Peter Sumner have relatively minor roles, the action also being driven by Redmond Philips and Bill Hunter. German agents have abducted the wife of a doctor to force him to sabotage penicillin.  There's a lot of running around the city and a few punch ups on ferries.

There's a scene where an enemy agent gets shot dead and because she's a young woman Bill Hunter goes into ethical conniptions about it eg "I didn't join the army to do this" and so on.  This sot of ethical angsting was common in spy stories in the late 60s and early 70s - the influence of Le Carre and shows like Callan, people seemed to think it was more "realistic". It never really worked in Spyforce though because the show's stories were so essentially silly.

TV review - "Number 96 - episode 7-8" (1972)

Ep 7 - Rose and Adolpho go at it over her sleeping around - apart from his concern over her virginity the scenes between these two are quite well done. A mystery person is moving in downstairs - Chris Haywood pops up as a tradie. Bettina Welch pops up as an even campier woman. There's a fun scene where the whining Pom guy is watching Matlock and his wife points out it's an Aussie show - there are even jokes about Mr Crawford.

Ep 8 - is written by Eleanor Witcombe. I enjoyed a scene where Horrie was watching a Manly Sea Eagles league game and the commentator was talking about Bob Fulton. Abigail continues to get dressed and undressed in the living room a lot and winds up getting almost raped at the climax.

Ep 9 is written by Bob Caswell. Abigail - you guessed it - gets changed in her living room, the lecherous producer dates the actress, the Poms have a troublesome daughter, Vera's stalker appears.

Ep 10 - Vera's stalker is her ex Norman Yemm who rapes her but she lets it go and we see Yemm's naked arse.

TV review - "Number 96 - Ep 6"

The baby is dead but we never see the mum or go to the hospital. There is some good acting involving Martin and Rose - even though both are physical types very different from what we get today (balding Martin and Rose with her odd nose). Bev/Abigail sets about flirting with Joe, which is fun, despite some showbix dialogue. The whineging poms whinge.

TV review - "Number 96 - episode 5" (1972)

I really don't know how much longer I can do individual entries for each ep but it is fun to analyse the first eps of a classic show. There are a few parties here - the guy who had the baby has one (Mark), plus Abigail and her flatmate double date with two lecherous old men. The third main story involves Adolpho setting up his daughter Rose. Due to cheapness of the show, we don't see any scenes between Mark and his wife in hospital (no hospital set). But the cliffy of the baby being dead is effective. It's only ep 5 and we've had adultery and a dead baby.

TV review - "Number 96 - episode 4" (1972)

Four stories really - a "D" strand where Joe and his flatmate are in trouble for causing noise, a "C" one where Lucy goes to work at the laundrette (was she and her husband really popular? there is some interesting whining from her husband about how Australia doesn't like migrants), Vera gets phantom phone calls, Abigail's actress flatmate wonders if she should put out to a producer. David Sale's camp dialogue occasionally is over indulged - references to Elsa Maxwell, lecherous producers, etc.

TV review - "Number 96 - Episode 3" (1972)

For all Number 96's legendary campness there is solid conflict at the heart of this ep - Adolpho and his potentially wayward daughter, who has slept with a married man - they have some great scenes together. The love triangle actually doesn't get much of a run. The other two main stories involve Abigail (getting changed in the living room) and her actress flatmate (the latter doesn't want to put out to producers but Abigail is all for it); and the whingeing Pom couple who feel like they were culled out of Coronation Street and dropped on to this show. Maybe they were because the script editor was Johnny Whyte, Corrie veteran, who played a major part in making the show work.

It's interesting how the big names from the show, Pat McDonald and Abigail, actually didn't carry many of the stories but made their presence felt. Some of the dialogue is extremely, extremely camp and explains why David Sale found things harder going after this series ended.

TV review - "Number 96" episode 2 (1972)

There's an old soap saying, "there's nothing wrong with a show that a love triangle and a stalker can't fix". Ep two of the soon-to-be-classic show has both - the triangle between pregnant Briony Behets, her horny husband and the hornier teenage daughter of the greengrocer (who are all, it should be said, sympathetically portrayed); plus Elaine Lee getting mysterious calls.

I think this was the episode with the first topless woman on Australian TV - Vivienne Garrett - but it's cut out of this one (Behets busts her and the husband in bed together). Ends with a fall down the stairs too! The third plot involves Abigail flouncing around in a bra. She would say in later years that she wasn't ever nude but she ran it pretty close to the bone.

TV review - "Spyforce" ep 21 "The Courier" (1971) **1/2

Gloriously over the top episode with Jack Thompson and Katy Wild escorting a Japanese courier and some top secret plans back from Darwin only to discover their pilot is a German secret agent. He abandons them in the desert but for some reasons I couldn't remember doesn't fly away - he lands to go and shoot some poor bit part player and then takes part in a brilliantly dopey North by Northweest-esque finale with the agent firing a machine gun from the air while Thompson is on horseback firing a rifle.

It's great to see an episode set in the Australian desert rather than the Pacific jungle and for Wild to go on an adventure - although I was disappointed she didn't have more to do (why couldn't she help capture the agent at the end instead of just watching behind a tree? why not have more of a romance between her and Jack Thompson?) There's no Peter Sumner in this episode.

TV review - "Number 96" - episode 1 (1972) ***

The first episode of Australia's most notorious soap is in black and white and looks as cheap as anything, but the picture is crisp and clear, its extremely well cast, and all the ingredients that made it such a success are already there - you've got vaudeville comedy from Pat McDonald and Ron Shand as the gossips; there is multiculturalism with the Greek running the store downstairs; inter-generational conflict (a daughter wants to move out); there's a new arrival with a dash of sex - pregnant Briony Behets won't sleep with her husband so he makes eyes at the grocer's daughter (Vivienne Garrett); Abigail wears racy outfits and goes off to a dodgy photo shoot which involves wearing a sea through top; Elaine Lee has a dodgy past; there are two whiny Poms elsewhere.

It moves at a fast pace and there are some people with genuine charisma - Abigail is a terrific soap actress; McDonald and Shand are great. I'm surprised how English it is - most of the cast talk in posh accents. Some of the dialogue is overly expositional but the plotting is fine and this held up pretty well.

TV review - "Spyforce" Ep 1 - The General (1971) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

The first episode of the cult TV series is set immediately after the Japanese sub attack on Sydney Harbour. New Guinea planter Jack Thompson is dragged from a pub to Spyforce, where Col Cato orders him on a convoluted mission - apparently the Germans want Australian troops out of Africa to help Rommel's campaign so want to give the impression that the Japanese are going to attack the Australians again when they aren't (hmmm... wonder what the soldiers in New Guinea had to say about that), and Thompson needs to go find proof. This involves him being teamed up with a fellow former planter who Thompson knows and hates, German Peter Sumner (they fought over a girl way back when). Thompson and Sumner bicker as they're sent back to New Ireland - it gets worse when it seems Sumner is a traitor but actually he's only pretending and they manage to get to safety.

There's a subplot about Cato interrogating a sexy German agent in Australia - this involves her being tortured by a member of Spyforce played by Max Cullen, who is clearly mad, and results in the Spyforce secretary (Katy Wild) being disgusted... Which is surprisingly dark, and reflects one supposes on the influence on bleaker spy shows like Callan. It doesn't quite work for Spyforce because Spyfore is basically silly; this nasty side kind of ruins the fun.

The adventures  in New Guinea are entertaining, if you overlook the illogical nature of the story (fighting the Japanese to hurt Rommel, the quick way they jet around the Pacific).

Movie review - "Into the Night" (1985) ***

After a run of successes at the box office, John Landis stumbled with this thriller. No doubt at the time people blamed The Twilight Zone accident or its then-relatively-unknown stars (Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer) - but I think the problems were more in the script and tone.

Landis seems to be going for a Hitchcock type thriller full of off beat touches - there's a Macguffin (diamonds from the Shah of Iran), various assassins after the lead couple (some Iranians including Landis himself, plus some black dudes working for a Frenchman, David Bowie), matriarchs (Vera Miles, Irene Papas), dodgy rich people, a mysterious blonde, an innocent man who gets caught up in mayhem.  And there's no reason a modern day Hitchcock couldn't work - look at Silver Streak and Foul Play.

But Hitchcock (and his successful imitators) always made sure his heroes were front and center - they were driving the action, had big stakes (normally by being falsely accused of some crime). Goldblum here is basically a passenger - the real hero is Pfeiffer, Goldblum just goes along for the ride. It's like telling The 39 Steps from Madeleine Carroll's viewpoint - only you couldn't really cut Carroll out of that movie but you could cut Goldblum out of this which isn't a good idea when he's the star. The balance of the movie is thrown out because he still gets the bulk of screen time but he's kind of hanging around.

Tonally it doesn't quite work. Landis mixed tones successfully in An American Werewolf in London but less so here - he allows the Iranian assassins (in particular the one played by himself) to be too comic at times (a little but is amusing, but the guy is a killer and it reduces the threat); also the scene where the killers drown Kathryn Harrold, who is guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, just felt mean.

This sounds like I didn't like the movie, but actually I did. You never quite know what's going to happen; Goldblum is likeable and Pfeiffer a perfect Hitchcockian blonde; I enjoyed all the director cameos (Roger Vadim makes a fine villain); there are some excellent support performances from people like Richard Farnsworth, and David Bowie (Vera Miles admittedly goes over the top); some scenes are classic, such as Goldblum discovering dead bodies while Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein plays on TV (Landis makes sure Bud, Lou, Bela and Lon are all credited!) It's a true original. I just wish it had aped its Hitchcock models better.

Movie review - "Brewster's Millions" (1985) **

48 Hours made Eddie Murphy a star which is presumably the main reason why Universal thought that Walter Hill, of all people, would be an appropriate choice to direct Richard Pryor in this umpteenth version of the famous classic farce. Hill himself admits the film was an "aberration in the career line", and I'm not sure why he made it - maybe he wanted to try something completely different after the personal project of Streets of Fire.

It starts off as a "Walter Hill" film at least - there's a Ry Cooder music score, Pryor is a baseball player and participates in a well-shot bar-room brawl within the first ten minutes. Then things move into broader, more typical 80s comedy territory, with Hume Cronyn as Pryor's grandfather leaving a message from beyond the grave, villainous lawyers in three piece suits, a wacky support cast (including John Candy as Pryor's best friend), and an underdeveloped, sexless love interest.

It's not terribly funny. I remember thinking this was okay as a kid but it hasn't aged well. Maybe the central concept is flawed (I haven't seen other versions) - maybe the new script writers didn't come up with many fresh variations. I mean, the gimmick is outlandish, right - the fun comes from seeing ways Brewster can waste money. Here he hires a lot of advisers, a hotel room, gets an interior designer to change a room lots of times, mails some precious stamps, pays for his baseball team to play the Yankees, and runs for mayor. That's all... alright. I guess I was looking for more "oh my goodness" or "oh yeah that's real wish fulfillment" moments.

The movie is actually more effective in its serious moments - when Pryor realises he just doesn't make the cut as a baseball player, the last few moments where all his old friends desert him. I wish they'd developed Pryor's love story more and fleshed out (if you forgive the pun) John Candy's part. Rick Moranis pops up in a small role and Pat Hingle does wonders with the part of a kindly old lawyer who wants to help Brewster.

Movie review - "Pink Cadillac" (1989) **

Clint Eastwood was always partial to a road movie - this is probably the among the least well known as it was made during that late 80s period when he was on the nose commercially, the public not really embracing anything he did, whether arty (White Hunter, Black Heart) or more obviously mainstream (The Rookie, The Dead Pool, this).

It's an odd kind of film, mostly made one guesses because Clint decided to ham it up. He plays a bounty hunter, which means he dons a variety of disguises - a redneck, a flamboyant promoter, a radio deejay - to catch his charges. It's kind of fun to see Clint having fun doing a feature film version of sketch comedy but if truth be told he's not that good - he doesn't have the broadest range in the world.

The female lead is played by Bernadette Peters, in "the Sondra Locke role" had not Clint and Locke broken up. She offers a different sort of presence to a normal Clint film - I wasn't entirely convinced of her chemistry with Clint, but maybe the role was undercooked. I certainly didn't think much of her mothering skills, she spent a lot of time apart from her baby even before the baby was abducted. So no breast feeding or cuddles? And the baby being abducted is stressful - maybe that's because I have a baby but I kept thinking "who is changing the nappy?", "who is feeding it?", "so no breast milk it's all formula?"

Frances Farmer plays her sister and always seems to be trying to get in shot. The white supremacist villains are a cartoonish threat, like the bikers in Every Which Way But Loose, the Clint movie I feel this tried to emulate, but that had a better support cast, country music, and a chimpanzee as well. It's super lightweight but there's no real reason for it to exist.

TV review - "Spyforce" Ep 20 - "Reilly's Army" (1971) *** (warning: spoilers)

After the death of a coastwatcher in the opening sequence, Jack Thompson and Peter Sumner (whose German accent feels more pronounced here) are sent to New Guinea to force another coastwatcher to come home. He's played by Chips Rafferty in his last role - filmed after Wake in Fright, apparently - and it's a magnificent part: an old planter gone troppo in the sun, leading his native army (a couple of extras really). When he refuses to come home, the guys are sent to blow up a fuel dump. There's a subplot about Rafferty's wife giving information accidentally to an enemy agent.

This is an entertaining episode, surprisingly cynical - Cato basically engineers the mission to force Reilly to come home, to such a degree that he encourages Reilly's "army" to be wiped out... though he claims its the fault of Thompson and Sumner.

It's a decent script from Peter Schreck, based a little of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. I was hoping for more of that, seeing Raffety go ga-ga, but he's relatively sane just a bit slack. It's great to see Rafferty acting up a storm and Schreck gives moments to support characters so their deaths actually mean something.

Movie review - "THX-1138" (1971) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

George Lucas' debut feature as director is a stunning visual achievement with many striking moments but is ultimately unsatisfactory. The set up is fine - its a dystopian future, 1984/Brave New World style, where everyone has a shaved head and wears white and lives these soul-less lives manufacturing something or other; rommates Robert Duvall and Maggie McOmie start a sexual relationship - basically she seduces him to have a baby. The authorities crack down and arrest them; the only option is escape.

Now that's actually a great idea - everyone can hiss at the authoritarian government, it's extremely relatable that two people want a Better Tomorrow, there's great themes of fighting injustice and wanting to escape. Duvall is always good and McOmie is a real find, with her big sad eyes she's instantly sympathetic. And the opening 15 minutes are brilliant - Lucas and his team create a genuinely powerful, evocative "world".

But the Lucas makes a massive mistake not making McOmie the protagonist. She starts off as such, being the one who goes off her drugs and seduces Duvall and clearly wants more - she's the one who gets pregnant. But then she gets carted off and killed off screen and her fetus gets shoved in a jar. Which is admittedly probably the most moving part of the film - but it means we're stuck with just Duvall. Duvall goes on to escape for the last third of the movie, but who cares? His woman and baby are gone. If McOmie had been alive and Duvall could have busted her pregnant arse out of jail I think you would have had a hit.

Or maybe not - because throughout the film Lucas displays a tendency to cut away from anything emotionally involving. We never see McOmie die, we don't see the fate of Donald Pleasance, we never get too excited during the final car chase scene, there are view point of view shots, the editing feels generally unsettling. So the viewer is disconnected. Lucas learned his lesson and then some on later movies.

Movie review - "Death Wish II" (1981) **

An early success for the Cannon Group, who would go on to make many more vigilante films starring Charles Bronson. This is a genuine sequel to the original, in that it takes pleasing notice to series continuity - Bronson's character is still an architect, only living in Los Angeles; his daughter is still in shell shock from the attack in the first film; we get a return performance from Victor Gardenia as the detective.

The structure is similar too - hoodlums get a hold of Bronson's address and decide to attack his house, when two women are home, including his daughter. Bronson has a new girlfriend, Jill Ireland, but she's not the other woman - the role of first-person-killed-by-hoodlums is given to Bronson's maid, who is raped and dies, but not before showing some nudity. Then Bronson's daughter is kidnapped, taken away to a warehouse, is raped, then escapes but trips over and is impaled - but again not before director Michael Winner gives the audience a shot of full frontal nudity of the daughter after being raped. I was surprised they didn't bring back the character of Bronson's son in law - he strikes me as someone who would have been useful in terms of drama, either to be killed or to push some liberal viewpoint.

I kept expecting Jill Ireland's character to be threatened, but she never is - maybe because she was Bronson's wife in real life and Bronson didn't want her have to go through the ordeal that the actresses playing rape/murder victims had too. She does have a function in that she is anti death penalty, which is a good idea, but its hampered by poor character development and Ireland's terrible performance.

Bronson's character has changed - there's no point where he has doubts about what he's doing, not really, or considers another mode of action. When his daughter is found raped and impaled, Bronson doesn't seem that sad - he sort of shrugs and goes "well I guess I'd better go back to killing people again". This time he doesn't kill random muggers/criminals - he goes after the people responsible for his maid's and daughter's deaths (they include Laurence Fishburne). And in doing so Bronson becomes more superheroic before and pretty much a psycho - in the final sequence he disguises himself as a doctor to get into a mental hospital to kill an attacker; he shoves the guy's hand in a shock machine too (the influence of slasher movies?)

It would have been better drama had maybe he held back at Ireland's insistence and let the courts do their thing, then seen them get off. The courts do let one person off - well, send him to a mental hospital - but only because the cops get him before Bronson does.

Another flaw is that Los Angeles never feels as scary as New York does in the first time. I'm sure it is a lot more dangerous, it just doesn't feel so in this movie - too sunny and spacious, people are in their cars more and thus able to drive away easier, there's less walking past dark alleys and on subways. Also the baddies are so, so cartoonish here. (I will say that the actors playing them completely commit.)

Movie review - "The Warriors" (1979) **** (re-viewing)

The cartoonish, fantastical depiction of street gangs means this has actually dated very well. The gangs in their outlandish costumes certainly feel more real today than say the more time-accurate gear worn by the kids coming back from the formal on the train at the end.

This has one of the best opening sequences in a film I've ever seen - the spinning wheel at Coney Island, the Warriors debriefing in the dark, the cutting back and forward between the gang talking about what's going on and gang members getting on trains while the pulsating music plays and the credits pop up, cutting to the big stadium, Cyrus' speech and assassination, the ensuing panic.

Truth be told the movie never hits those heights again and at times feels positively anti-climactic - especially at the end on Coney Island Beach when you want a big brawl or something and Michael Beck just shoves a knife in David Patrick Kelly's wrist. Also the occasional stabs at "significance" drag a little - Beck talking about the emptiness of his life and so on.

But there are great sequences - the initial escape on to the train with the gang on the bus, the fight in the park, the scene were some Warriors go hang out with a girl gang and we sense they're about to be trapped (it's a shame Hill had to include a beat at the end of the girls going "aw gee we didn't get them we're hopeless" it undermines their threat... I wish they'd killed one Warrior to give them teeth), the final big brawl in the toilets, the mystery gang member appearing on roller skates and looking as creepy as hell, beating up the Baseball Furies, the bickering relationship between Michael Beck and Deborah Valkenberg (Beck's charisma blows Tom Waits - who was to have had the relationship with her - off the screen and even if Waites hadn't been a pain in the neck it was clearly the right choice to give the romance to Beck).

The cast hold up very well - you wonder why James Remar didn't have more of a career, being so impressive as the meathead Ajax, homophobic and only interested in fighting and sex; Dorsey Wright is a true leader, smart and idealistic; David Harris has a great "Native Indian' look; Tom McKitterick is one of the whimpier Warriors, never that imposing a fighter and running out of puff in the park; Tom Waites is the scout, who at least has a brain if not Beck's charisma; Marcelino Sanchez makes a great impression as the fuzzy haired artist (is he Wright's boyfriend? he's the only one not interested in the girls at the party); Brian Tyler is effective as a good fighter member of the gang; Terry Michos has an engaging honest face and is likeable as a particular dim member. They all seem like individuals. Roger Hill and David Patrick Kelly are sensational in their roles.

It's not a complete masterpiece but it simply works - the tone, the all night feel, the stylised action. I wonder why Walter Hill never made a film in this tone and manner again.

Movie review - "The Walking Dead" (1936) **

This sounds as if it's going to be great: Boris Karloff is executed for a crime he didn't commit, is revived from the dead and sets about getting revenge on the people responsible for framing him. Throw in Michael Curtiz as director, the great title, the Frankenstein trope, and Edmund Gwenn and Ricardo Cortez in the support cast and I'm thinking "how come this isn't better known?"

The answer: because it's not very good - more specifically, it whimps out. It gets off to a confusing start, with someone other than Karloff sentenced to jail, then Karloff coming along having been sentenced to jail, then getting accused of the crime he didn't commit. He gets executed because our romantic lead couple are too scared to testify until the last minute, which makes them extremely unsympathetic. Doctor Edmund Gwenn isn't a mad scientist, he's conscientious and doing his bit for Good, which is disappointing (if only they'd cast Bela Lugosi! Or written Gwenn as a Lugosi type!)

Then, most crushingly of all, Karloff doesn't actually kill the people responsible for him winding up dead, he just sort of is responsible for them dying but invoking their guilt - and it's their guilt that kills them. Zzzzzzzz. I assume this is for censorship but it results in a horror film with no balls. 

TV review - "Spyforce" ep 18 "The Samurai" (1971) **

A guilty pleasure - the sort of TV show I would have loved, loved as a kid, and while historically extremely dodgy, and extremely, extremely cheesy, is important for nationalistic myth because it does have some basis in truth, and reminds everyone that the Americans did not win the Pacific War on their own.

The series was about "spyforce" an Australian reconnaissance unit along the lines of the SRD, M Special Unit or Z Special Unit, who would do missions behind enemy lines. Every week they would zip in and out of locations that in reality would take weeks/months to get to and engage in plots that felt awfully familiar. The South Pacific settings looked very Sydney and the silliness quotient was high.

And yet... these missions did take place, they were dangerous. The series was in colour, had plenty of action. Jack Thompson was a terrific hero - handsome, cocky, brave - the best on screen handsome leading man in Australia since Grant Taylor. (Rod Taylor and Peter Finch didn't get a chance to strut their leading man stuff in Australia.)

This episode is about Thompson and sidekick Peter Sumner travelling to an island to assassinate a Japanese officer (played by clearly a Maori actor) who thinks he's a reincarnation of an 11th century samurai. That's not a bad idea for a character and I was looking forward to a battle of wills, really exploiting the samurai angle, but writer Ron McLean instead rips off The Most Dangerous Game by having the officer hunt Allied officers for fun (which again is a decent enough idea but more could have been made of it). Thompson takes time out to have a bath with the officer's mistresses.

It's silly but great fun if you're in the right mood.

Movie review - "Air Force" (1943) **1/2

Disappointing Howard Hawks film - I was looking forward to seeing it because I loved the radio adaptation version done by Lux and it has this great story: a bomber flies from San Francisco to Hawaii only to arrive slap bang into the attack on Pearl Harbour, then goes on to Wake Island and Clarke Field. And the central idea seems to intrinsically Hawksian i.e. a tight knit group of professionals being graceful under pressure and talking great slangy dialogue.

But what made a tight action-packed hour is dragged out over two hours, with the action time padded out by lots of unconvincing model work (I'm happy to tolerate some 1940s model work, I get that it wasn't easy to make films around this time, but they pour it on), not particularly interesting action sequences (especially at the end with the bombers dropping bombs on the Japanese fleet), and endless scenes of Americans talking about Japanese treachery, and Japanese traitors, and if only it had been a fair fight we would have won.

On a sociological/historical level this is fascinating - I've seen a few American films about the early months of the Pacific War (They Were Expendable, Bataan, Wake Island), which form their own sub-genre, the Cinema of American Defeat... The Allies basically got their butts kicked for six months, there were no victories, so Hollywood was forced to make inspirational war films about Americans losing - something it did not like to do. (And still doesn't. Once the Allies started regularly winning, Hollywood focused on those battles instead and you rarely see that initial period looked at anymore... even Pearl Harbour ended with the Doolittle Raid).

I don't recall any movie though with so many characters making excuses for America's performance in the first few months of the Pacific War - there are Japanese American quislings on Hawaii taking pot shots at the plane while it lands, claims that we could easily beat the Japanese when outnumbered a bit but not this much, more treachery, even more treachery. After a while it's like "alright, already, there's no shame with getting beaten by Asians, you just needed six months or so for America's superior military might to kick in and that's what happened".

Historically speaking I wasn't wild either about ending the plane flight participating in a big American naval victory, since none was happening around this time. I recognise the need for some sort of triumph, I just wish they'd limited themselves to say sinking one Japanese ship.

There are some effective moments - John Garfield's transformation from reluctant soldier to committed hero is hokey but works; there's a moving scene where Harry Carey discovers his son has died at Clarke Field and when the pilot dies; a scene where a fighter pilot banters with bomber pilots about bombers vs fighters is classic Hawks and very entertaining. No women - I felt for sure a nurse could have been brought on board.

There's a great film inside this, and part of me wondered if it wasn't ripe for remake, just trimmed down and with the whingeing and excuse making cut out.

Movie review - "Spy" (2015) ****1/2

Brilliantly constructed star vehicle for Melissa McCarthy which has a strong, high concept that is superbly executed. It's basically Miss Moneypenny becomes a spy after her James Bond (Jude Law) is killed with Alison Janney as M, Jason Statham as the fellow agent, Rose Byrne as the femme fetale and Tommy Cannavale as Goldfinger plus Miranda Hart as McCarthy's sidekick.

On a plain old spy movie level this is is pretty good anyway - something crucial for a spoof movie, it should work as drama even without the gags (eg Flying High vs Top Secret). There's good stakes, strong villains and a healthy amount of double crosses, plus some very well shot action sequences. At times this is genuinely exciting and moving as well as funny.

Expectations are subverted - McCarthy has a violent streak, Statham is a moron meat head, Byrne isn't as smart as she thinks her is. I loved the modern office touches to the CIA - Janney rebuking Statham for his language, the cake delivered at work when McCarthy is trying to help Law through a fight, the whingeing about secret identities assigned to agents. It's a superb comedy.

Book review - "Hollywood Animal" by Joe Eszterhas (2004)

Eszterhas hasn't really mattered as a screenwriter in the 21st century, but his memoirs are among the most entertaining of any Hollywood writer - I'd rank it up there with the works of William Goldman (whom Eszterhas admits to being jealous of and to be honest so he should be).

Eszterhas is appalling on many levels - his rampant ego, constant bragging about script sales and marching in civil rights demonstrations, the endless, endless talk about his sex life, the appalling way he treated his first wife, he and his not particularly nice sounding second wife (they quote her diary from the time she met and fell in love with Eszterhas despite him being married).

But it's got to be said he goes hard on himself, is self deprecating enough times about his ego, writes about his first wife with great sympathy (she comes out of this book very well) and it's extremely well written - it's a real page turner that completely gripped me.

He does have a fantastic story to tell- a refugee from Hungary; teen life in Cleveland; a journalist father who he idolised who turned out to be an anti-Semite propagandist during the war; a mother who went mad; working on Rolling Stone in the glory days; getting into Hollywood via writing FIST and learning how to navigate the Hollywood jungle; becoming a highly regarded writer with few actual credits, then breaking through with Flashdance and Jagged Edge and becoming a superstar with Basic Instinct; a highly publicised battle with Michael Ovitz; leaving his wife for his best friend's wife who had just been dumped by said best friend for Sharon Stone; writing screenplays for large fees that were either not filmed, ruined, or turned into crap (Showgirls); discovering he had throat cancer and becoming a militant anti smoker.

Eszterhas' talents as a screenwriter were limited - he was really only good at one type of film, the sexy thriller, and he would frequently reuse the same plot (person falls in love with someone who they think is a crazy killer, comes to believe they're innocent, then realises they're guilty). You look at his credits and there's nothing like say All the Presidents Men on it. But he wrote some great scripts, and he is a first rate memoirist and this is a lot of fun.

Movie review - "Pret a Porter" (1994) **

Much publicised at the time during production - you had Robert Altman making like his 27th comeback after the success of The Player and Short Cuts, an all star cast including some genuine stars (Julia Roberts) and icons (Sophia Loren), the setting in the world of fashion, which in the early 90s was huge (in a time where there weren't many female stars, the supermodels filled the tabloid void), including many cameos of famous designers, artists and models.

But it's not a very good movie. I wish Altman had gotten a top writer to do the script instead of getting his own grubby hands on it. There are some bright lines, and one or two memorable moments but too much of it seems crap - literally there's a painfully unfunny recurring gag about people stepping on dog crap, plus plot lines and moments cribbed from Nashville (a Greek Chorus reporter, a womanising star who has three women panting over him), MASH (Sally Kellerman humiliated while nude).

Some good moments: I liked the vignette of Julia Roberts and Tim Robbins holed up in a hotel room, having an affair which she over-invests in, and reporting the news by copying from the TV; there are some funny scenes, such as two adulterous couples cheating at the same time and the same location, and the reveal of Danny Aiello in a dress; there is plenty of colour and movement, including music and clothes, and the finale of the all naked models is a good way to wrap it up.

But so much of it is tired: the dog crap gag, Marcello Mastroianni running around and hamming it up in sunglasses, that smug pregnant model walking around (she pays off at the end by walking naked but it's not much of a pay off).

There's also so little drama: we think Sophia Loren's husband was murdered (which would have given the film some weight) but it turns out he just choked to death; Mastroianni goes to seduce Loren but can't go through with it; Aiello is a cross dresser and Lily Taylor takes photos of him and he's upset and.... that's it; Rupert Everett has an affair and gets busted and that's it; Lauren Bacall does nothing.I think Nashville is over-rated but at least it has some heavier stuff going on - Keenan Wynn's wife dying, the assignation, Ronnee Blakely having a breakdown.

An indulgent movie, mainly for completist fans of the director and it's cast, and/or 90s fashion.

Script review - "Unfinished Business" by Bob Ellis (1985) (warning: spoilers)

This film remains bewilderingly hard to find - not even Ellis, a notorious self promoter, pushes its case that often these days. I haven't seen it but the superb Oz Movies website has put up a transcript of the film so you can enjoy the screenplay and it's highly enjoyable. I think writing it under a pressing deadline was good for Ellis, and he has a decent idea - two former lovers run into each other and have sex, then she asks if he will impregnate her, her current partner being sterile.

It's full of warmth, sex, and Ellis humour - if you're not a fan you won't like it, but I am and I loved it. It's not super heavy on story, and does feel as though it lacks a third act - act one they meet and she makes the offer, act two they go away together and have frequent sex.... and that's pretty much it. I guess act three is seeing that it's been successful. Maybe the husband needed to turn up or something. But I still feel it's one of the best things he's ever done.

Movie review - "The Angry Hills" (1959) **

Robert Aldrich once said he felt this film was disappointing not because it wasn't good but because it could have been good. He's dead right too - this has a simple basic idea that should have worked like a snap, but it's completely muffed: American journalist Robert Mitchum arrives in Athens before the German attack in 1941, gets a list of local resistance leaders to pass on to British intelligence, and spends the rest of the film trying to get it to safety.

That's a solid idea - a strong Macguffin, with a clear goal (get the list to safety), various people helping/hindering (local resistance, Gestapo agents, traitors, mistresses). Robert Mitchum's character is stock but effective - a selfish man who learns humanity. And there's some seemingly sure fire human interest such as the Germans executing Greek villagers who won't give up Mitchum, Mitchum falling in love with a Greek girl (Gia Scala) who dies, a double agent who's doing it all for her kids, a German with a conscience, some lively dodgy types who may or may not be on Mitchum's side (Sebastian Cabot, Theodore Bikel), plus location filming in Greece.

What went wrong? Well we never get much progression in Mitchum's character - he turns up in uniform so it's not clear he's a journalist, he doesn't seem that uncommitted at any phase. The macguffin keeps getting forgotten - Mitchum goes off on tangents like helping the Greek resistance in a raid on the Germans instead of getting the information to safety. It's never clear when the Germans come and occupy Greece (i.e. when the actual invasion has taken place and is completed). He spends this time on a romance with Gia Scala, which we invest in, then she's taken away and the second half of the film he has this relationship with Elisabeth Mueller, which we're meant to invest in as well. We hear Scala has been tortured and killed off screen; Mueller has these kids she loves but only see at the end.

Mueller and Stanley Baker have this potentially interesting relationship but in the final scene at the end when Baker lets her live, both are wearing stripy pajamas which are very distracting. The business of the list of Greek leaders is missed and indeed downplayed at times. And it's in black and white so the location photography isn't that effective. It's all a bit of a mess and it shouldn't have been.

Movie review - "Curse of Frankenstein" (1957) *** (another viewing)

This screened on TCM and I can never resist the chance to re-watch Hammer horror. The print wasn't the best - or maybe the colour photography for the first Hammer horror simply wasn't that great. The art direction remains impressive.

I was struck by how inherently inexpensive the film has been constructed - screenwriter Jimmy Sangster was a production manager and used to be able to budget his scripts himself down to the last cent (or pence, rather). Most of the action is two handers or three handers - Robert Urquhart and the young Frankenstein, Urquhart and Cushing, Cushing and Hazel Court, Cushing and Lee, etc. It also mostly takes place indoors

A lot of it is also like a play, or TV play - scenes of people sitting/standing around talking. There are some staircases and entrances and exits to keep it a bit lively and Terence Fisher does an okay job - but it only gets up and moving at certain times. (I think this is budget more than Fisher because in other films such as Dracula - Prince of Darkness things are very cinematic.)

Peter Cushing's performance looks better over the years - intense, glowering, dynamic. Christopher Lee's monster remains spectacularly unimpressive - a very mediocre turn (anyone could have played this, really - no sympathy). Hazel Court is wasted in a nothing part but Valerie Gaunt gets a flashy role as the maid seduced by Frankenstein (Gaunt is fine just not as charismatic or sexy as Court - I wish they'd swapped roles). Urquhart does his best in what is a terrible role really, as Frankenstein's friend, who has to help him, then get offended. (I always struggle with this part in Frankenstein movies - it's better if Frankenstein's assistant is fully committed.)

Movie review - "Death Wish" (1974) ***

This film has the reputation as the serious one in the series, but really its just as comic book-y in its way, despite the respected Wendell Mayes writing the script. That's not to say it's not effective - this movie has one of the all-time great concepts, a Western updated for the modern day: Charles Bronson is a liberal, peace loving architect until some hoods attack his wife and daughter, killing the wife and raping the daughter, leaving her in a comatose state. A business trip to Tuscon goes so well that creepy client Stuart Margolin gives him a gun - which Bronson then uses on New York streets.

Bronson's first killing results in him throwing up in shock but that's as complex as the film gets. All the people who try to mug him deserve to die, really - they giggle and hoot and pull out switchblades; there are no scared kids, or clearly wacked out on drug types; Bronson never accidentally shoots an innocent bystander, or inspires vigilantism which kills innocents. He just gets the crime rate down and inspires little old black ladies to stand up for themselves. The film is an add for vigilantism.

Having said that, part of me did enjoy seeing Bronson blow away these over acting muggers - it's wish fulfillment. The attack sequence on his family is genuinely shocking (a young Jeff Goldblum among the attackers... randomly spraying paint on the daughter's arse)... and it felt real that Bronson never gets to wreck vengeance against them. It's got a great grimy 70s New York feel, a superior cast (including Hope Lange as the poor wife).

The thing I remember most from it - Bronson's son in law calling him "dad" all the time. Bronson is effective in the role - he actually could act, he did all the time in the 60s, it's just he got out of the habit; but it works in the early part of the film when he plays "everyman".

Movie review - "Driven" (2001) **

Odd kind of a movie - although written by Sylvester Stallone and starring him, it was directed by someone else (Renny Harlin) and isn't really a Sly star vehicle - I mean he is the lead but there's plenty of other parts as well. Maybe it would have been better as a star movie.

There's lots of colour and movement and cars driving around the track and montages and shots of people watching the track action wearing headphones and commentators talking and tough, terse dialogue among drivers and their girls. And it's actually not bad if you're watching it on the couch on a Sunday afternoon.

But there's not much point to it. Or if there was it got buried under subplots and poor character development. Kip Pardue is a young up and coming driver who is having trouble handling fame so manager Burt Reynolds hires former champ Sly Stallone to mentor him. Pardue pinches Estella Warren, recently dumped girlfriend of his rival Til Schweiger; Pardue's also got a greedy brother manager Robert Sean Leonard. And in case this isn't enough we've got Stallone's ex Gina Gershon who is married to Pardue's driving partner Cristian de la Fuente.

Stallone isn't known for writing ensemble pieces and he struggles to give weight to all the characters. When it comes to Pardue, Reynolds and Stallone he's on sure ground - the pressure of fame, the importance of doing things for the love of it, lost regrets, etc... this is all solid stuff, feels very much in the Rocky vein, good characterisations.

It's less good elsewhere. Estella Warren's character confused me - she's played tough and independent but really is just a girlfriend, right? And when Schweiger dumps her she becomes Pardue's "friend" (we don't see them kiss)... but still goes on the circuit with him and watches races, is that right? But then goes back to Schweiger? Stallone accuses Pardue of deliberately pinching Warren in order to get up Schweiger's nose, which actually is an interesting story but never backed up by what we see on screen (Warren and Pardue don't kiss) or in Pardue's bland performance - he's a pretty boy with shiny skin and that's about it.

Also disappointing is Gina Gershon, who comes on looking fantastic with this intriguing relationship with Stallone, but nothing is done with her. Her husband turns up and smiles and gets injured and that's about it for him. And her. And Stacy Edwards is in the film as this kind of love interest for Stallone but she feels undercooked too. And Robert Sean Leonard looks around gamely for point to his character (although he's got more to do than the women).

I got the impression at times Stallone was going for a Howard Hawks vibe here - a bunch of men in love with each other, really, with macho women who match them, and being cool under pressure.They didn't get there.

The car racing scenes are well done enough but suffer from the same problem of all car racing movies - you go around and around in circles, you know the star isn't going to die. The one terrific sequence was when Stallone heads off after an upset Pardue driving racing cars through Toronto streets at night - this was exciting. I also enjoyed seeing the children's creche at the race course where all the drivers took their kids. Schweiger looks like a racing car driver - no one else does, really.

Movie review - "Let's Be Cops" (2014) **

A simple concept featuring two stars from New Girl playing characters who could be their characters on New Girl - indeed, for most of the time the concept feels like a "B" strand from an episode, and it would have been done better. Yet this became a surprise hit - in part because of the likeability of the leads, but also due to the lack of comedies around at the moment.

The second half this moves into buddy action comedy territory and it would have been a better movie with more action - shoot outs and car chases and what not. I get the feeling maybe that's what the filmmakers wanted to do but they couldn't afford it - it's not original but does make it seem less like an episode of New Girl.

Nina Dobrev is a pretty female lead and Rob Riggle is always fun - although I kept feeling his role should have been played by a girl to give some romance for Jake Johnson (the deception would have had more emotional stakes too). Not bad, but pretty darn light.

Movie review - "The Babadook" (2014) ****

First rate horror film which has a simple, but effective idea - traumatised single widowed mother goes bonkers when possessed by malevolent spirit - throws in some new twists - a pop up book - and some excellent acting and atmosphere.

Essie Davis is terrific in what is a fantastic role - you get to be a mum, go mad, be grief stricken. Who says you don't have to act in horror movies? It reminded me of those tour de force parts Bette Davis used to play in her old psycho thrillers.  Noah Wiseman is also amazing as her son. At heart the film is a love story between mother and son and these two really make that work. (I got teary in the bit where he stroked her face. I don't mean to be too PC about this but would a male writer/director have included that moment.)

There are some iffy acting in the smaller roles - a downside of filming in Adelaide no doubt. The house is creepy and the production work first rate.

Movie review - "Finian's Rainbow" (1969) ***

No one ever seems to have much good to say about this musical, not even fans of musicals and/or its director Francis Ford Coppola, who seem to usually regard it as an aberration in the career line, to paraphrase Walter Hill - but I didn't mind it.

It doesn't quite work but I feel that's not Coppola's fault - the material is such that adapting it for cinema would be tricky. Maybe it needed to have been shot soon after it's debut on Broadway, shot on the never never land of some studio backdrop - and the older the film was the easier it might have been to take, say, Keenan Wynn in blackface, and the mute dancing girl, and all the tobacco picking. Louis B Mayer had the film rights in the 1950s and probably that's as late as it should have been made. Or not - who knows?

But looking at it now - I really enjoyed the songs, they are quite captivating and lovely. Petula Clark is bright and pretty as the main girl, and it's always fun to see Fred Astaire, even if he never really gets to dance. Tommy Steele can be irritating, and I'd heard he was particularly so in this film - but admit I didn't find that to be the case; yes he's got those massive teeth and all that "bounce" but his part actually isn't very big (at least not here) and he has energy.

I was surprised by the importance of the role played by Don Francks, who romances Clarke's character and is the leader of the locals. (In strict story terms his character should be black, and they combine his character with that of Howard/Al Freeman Jnr... I do recognise that would have been very, very tricky). I'd never heard of Francks and didn't know he was in the film - he sings well, and has a decent presence, though it would have been better with more of a star.

Barbara Hancock is the dancing mute girl, Wynn is always reliable, and the climax does attempt to tackle race, so this has an undercurrent. Maybe I'm over praising this, but the movie has unfairly copped it, I feel.