Movie review - "Disclosure" (1994) **

 So 90s. Sexual harasment. Michael Douglas. Demi Moore. Hair. Political correctness. Big Clothes. Open plan offices. Tech that has aged badly (CD-roms!)

It's meant to be about sexual harasment but really it's corporate intrigue - the same way Airframe was about the media but really corporate intrigue. 

It has two perfectly cast stars - Douglas and Moore - doing specialised things - white man attacked by predatory female and a strong willed woman. Dylan Baker and Donald Sutherland are superb slimebags. Roma Maffia is good as Douglas' lawyer. Caroline Goodall does what she can in a hopeless part as the wife.

But it's talky and daggy. The best bit is when Demi Moore tried to seduce Douglas. There'a reference to their skanky past which sounded fun.

Generally this film sucks though. 

Movie review - "Lost World: Jurassic Park" (1997) ***

 Gets a bad wrap but I quite liked it - it's a stripped back B picture version with everyone doing it for a pay cheque. There's fast pace and excellent action movies with a last act in San Diego for Spielberg to do his Godzilla homage.

It's fun in a way to see two excellent actors, Vince Vaughan and Julianne Moore, so awkward in Spielberg world, Goldblum gets to be heroic, Richard Schiff dies gorily. we miss out on a death for Vaughan and Pete Postlethwaite.

Spielberg's Blondes Top Ten

 He has a type

1) Sugarland Express - Goldie Hawn

2) Jaws - Lorraine Gray

3) Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Teri Garr and Melinda Dillon

4) ET - Dee Wallace

5) Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom - Kate Capshaw

6) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - Alison Doody

7) Hook - Catherine Goodall

8) Jurassic Park - Laura Dern

 9) Schindler's List - Catherine Goodall

10) The Fabelmans - Michelle Williams 

Movie review - "Bad Man's River" (1971) *1/2

 In his memoirs, Bernard Gordon said this was the worst Phil Yordan production he worked on - claimed it didn't make sense, Yordan didn't care. He's not wrong - it's not very good.

Lee Van Cleef is in colourful cowboy mode as an outlaw who is conned by Gina Lollobrigida and then tries to steal some money. 

Confusing. Dull. 

Movie review - "A Master Builder" (2013) **

 This movie was so annoying. Wallace Shawn lying in a hospital bed having scenes while a machine goes beep. Everyone has strong articulation. 

 

Movie review - "The Girl from Rio" (1969) **1/2

 Harry Alan Towers kind of sequel to Sumuru with Shirley Eaton again in that role although she has a slightly different name. It's like a lot of Towers/Franco films - it looks good, has a dreamlike state, is confusing, continuity is weird. Lots of nudity.

Eaton makes a splendid villain. Sanders is looking old and only a few years away from suicide but that has its own appeal now the years have gone on.

Someone called Richard Wyler is the hero, I guess, who is kidnapped by Eaton. 

Book review - "Death of a President" by William Manchester

 Got into this reading a Vanity Fair account of its writing. I'd actually never heard of it but it's renowned as a classic of reporting, made with Kennedy involvement only they backed off.

Exhaustive, feels accurate. Powerful. So believable. I began to get angry reading it at the conspiracy theorists. Maybe that was just trauma dealing. Of course it was. The truth too uncomfortable but we see it so clearly now. Hostile press. Mad city. Anti-commie rhetoric. Incel with a gun. Trained by marines. Wants to kill someone. Hates his wife. Looking for a place in a world. Wife leaves him for another woman (I totally didn't know this.)

Very thotough.