Movie review - "The Blackboard Jungle" (1955) ****

 Dore Schary had mixed results at MGM but this is one of his better efforts - social realism done with flair. Works emotionally because the whole thing is about bullying - the kids bully each other and the teachers. Glenn Ford isn't much of a teacher, violent, and sulky. Anne Francis assumes a female teacher who was almost raped was asking for ti, and gets jealous of Ford and the teacher.

Ford is well cast with his constipated Einsenhower Era tension.  Sidney Poitier is electric. Vic Morrow very good. The kids are great. Anne Francis whines. I enjoyed the weaker teachers.

Movie review - "Bug" (2006) ***

 William Friedkin returns to his roots with a play adaptation - a piece by Tracy Letts about a woman (Ashley Judd) going a little mad, being smacked around by Harry Connick Jnr and forming a bond wth a war veteran (Michael Shannon).

There's a hot sex scene involving Judd's body double and she and Shannon go. The handling can't be faulted or the acting but the whole way through you just feel this would play better on stage.

Movie review - "Rules of Engagement" (2000) **

 The film starts strongly with two excellent battle sequences - one in Vietnam, then an embassy siege/massacre. William Friedkin directs with real flare. Then Samuel L Jackson is put on trial for war crimes and Tommy Lee Jones called in to defend him. 

The movie is set up to be an interesting account of what a war crime is. We saw what happened. The troops were shot at but Jackson went berserk. They fired into the crowd. There were other options.

But then slimy diplomat Bruce Greenwood orders tape suppressed that shows Arabs shooting at them and all complexity is thrown out the window. The fact that Jackson could have responded in different ways (shoot snipers, shoot over heads, etc) is barely explored.

This movie is just dumb. I think Friedkin was dumb down deep. I sense the original script you never saw the massacre which would've been interesting because you never knew what happened. But here we see it at the top of the film. So there's no suspense. No revelation.

I'm not sure Friedkin understood drama. 

Movie review - "Ensign Pulver" (1964) **

 Joshua Logan sooked a lot about the film version of Mister Roberts but got a chance to make his own version, this sequel without Roberts who died in the original. He assembled some promising names but stuffed up with Robert Walker Jnr in the lead, a gawky Jim Hutton type who isn't up to Jack Lemmon. Burl Ives seems too fat and old and not scary for a captain.

The story is dumb. Burl Ives bullies, Walker wants to be a doctor (boring), Tommy Sands' child dies so he goes a little mad, there's an interlude on an island with Millie Perkins as a nurse, Ives and Walker are on a raft. The story misses Mister Roberts but it's also not good. I did like Ives realising he's not fit for command, that's a bit different.

It's interesting to see people like Jack Nicholson, Larry Hagman and James Coco as sailors.  Walter Matthau is strong as the doctor. Pretty photography.

But the film was just annoying. Walker too. 

Movie review - "None But the Brave" (1965) ***

 Frank Sinatra's one movie as director is surprisingly gutsy - anti war, very sympathetic to the Japanese, long scenes of Japanese chatting. Some Japanese are stuck on an island - Americans crash. They fight then form a bond then fight. There's a lot of camraderie and men on opposite sides making eyes at each other.

Sinatra is in it but the biggest role goes to Clint Walker who is bland and solid. Tommy Sands is terrible - he made a choice to use a silly voice and it sinks his performance. The Japanese actors are strong. Nicely shot.

I don't think Sinatra was Charles Laughton but this impressed me. 

Movie review - "The Hunted" (2003) **1/2

 The last of William Friedkin's four Sherry Lansing movies came and went in theatres quite quickly but is a decent action thriller with Benicio del Toro going on a killing spree and his mentor Tommy Lee Jones being called in to track him down.

The movie's main problem is aching familiarity. del Toro is tormented and Jones is tormented and one chases after the other and there's Connie Nielsen as a plucky FBI agent and a couple of red shirts to be killed and some girl ni del Toro's past.

A few of the fight scenes in the bush are well done  - maybe the whole film needed to be set in the bush, but they capture del Toro and he escapes in the city.

This was fine. 

Movie review - "The Guardian" (1990) ***

Often called Friedkin's worst movie but Deal of the Century is far worse, and I enjoyed it. It's silly, of course, a druid sacrificing babies to trees, and random rapists who appear in the forests to die, and you can tell Friedkin was going through a custody dispute with its emphasis on the father, the untrustworthy nanny, etc (though it's not as divorced dad a movie as Rampage). Still it works on a certain level.

I loved the way the movie was shot, there's effective scenes of the house at night with a late night DJ talking (playing Aussie songs from The Triffids and Not Drowning Waving), and the tree is creepy. Memorable sequence with that architect character tracking Seagrove in the forest and regretting it.

I think the movie should have been more about the mum, Carey Lowell - who is required to scream and look dumb too much (though she is allowed to fight at the end). Seagrove should've seduced the husband (played by someone caled Dwier Brown) who should've died. 

Jenny Seagove has a high old time running around nude covered in much.  The climax is a lot of fun with Brown chainsawing the tree and Seagrove duking it out with Carey Lowell.

Full of plot holes and places it needed to be tightened but I had a good time.