Movie review - "Maisie" (1939) **1/2

 Curious to see this as it sounds so fun - the adventures of showgirl Maisie (Ann Sothern). Striking in that it was so influenced by Red Dust - Maisie gets stranded somewhere exotic (here, a Western ranch), falls in love with hunky foreman (Robert Young) gets involved in a love triangle involving a married woman who is cheating on her nice husband. Only here the woman is cheating with another person not Maisie's love interest - Hays Code!

Clearly meant to be a Jean Harlow film. Sothern is fine. Young fine not terribly macho. Ian Hunter is the wet cuckold. 

There is a murder and a trial. Strong female lead - female screenwriter.  

 

Movie review - "Rising Sun" (1993) **

 Stylishly directed by Phil Kaufman, who likes a bit of female nudity in a good cause and that's on display here. Michael Crichton didn't like the changes Kaufman made to his book - I haven't read it for a while. It's a whatever mystery with some nudity and 90s silliness (Wesley Snipes shakes Japanese by escaping to the hood).

Snipes and Sean Connery bring a lot of star power. Ray Wise is entertainingly sleazy and Tia Carrere is sweet. Kevin Anderon's bouffy hair is entertaining. Cary Tagawa is always reliable.

The mystery isn't very involving. The stuff on the Japanese take over of the economy has been stripped so there's not much point. The film got dumber as it went on. It was as though Kaufman was a little too cool for school adapting this. 

I didn't really like it. Connery and Snipes are both genuine stars though. That helps. 

Book review - "Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton (1976)

 Brief, tight, fascinating, clever. I wonder if influenced by Flashman. Not good at action. Strong on atmosphere. A lot of raping. The vikings can get rooted really.

Easy to see how to adapt - make more of the characters of the Arab and a few Vikings, use the kingdom political subplot, have some women. These weren't done. 

Movie review - "Timeline" (2003) *

 Awful. Two main problems (a) an awful ensemble acting job, led by hey dude Paul Walker, and (b) completely unbelievable depiction of the medieval period. 

For (a) - there's all these talented actors running around in medieval gear going "hey hey hey" as if they've improvised. Walker plays it completely surfer dude, not that interested going back in time just looking for his dad.

For (b) the middle ages just look like... a theme park. And we're meant to go for the French? I'm sure the French did.

Michael Sheen camps it up. Frances O'Connor goes down with the ship, as does everyone really except maybe Lambert Wilson.  Billy Connolly seems absurd. So does Ethan Embry. Could they have not found a French actor to play Anna Friel's part?

Awful. 

Movie review - "Sphere" (1998) **

 The movie that kicked off Barry Levinson's cold streak which he never really got out of. It's a too faithful adaptation of Crichton's decent novel - far too much chat and chapter headings, not enough plain old spookiness and thrills.

Too much computer screen - why not make Jerry a voice? 

Everyone is trying to do a professional job. There is money spent. Production design neat. I'm glad the actors got their full fee.

But it's so dull. 

Chat, chat, chat, chat. 

Movie review - "The 13th Warrior" (1999) **1/2

 Michael Crichton's hot streak in the 1990s - which included Jurassic Park, Disclosure, The Lost World, ER, Airframe - came to a halt with this big budget flop. In hindsight they made a mistake throwing too much money at this story which didn't have to be done on a large scale.

I'm not a fan of slow movies but this one moves along too fast - for instance, it would have been ideal to spent a bit of time with Banderas in Persia before setting out on his journey (why not dramatise him shagging the married woman that led to his exile?). Him being enlisted to go on the journey with the vikings is skirted over - why not dramatise it? Why not have some variation in the characters of the vikings? Why not flesh out the character of the slave girl Banderas sleeps with? 

Decent action. Gorgeous production design. Banderas ideal.

Movie review - "Strange Intruder" (1956) **

 Based on an Australian novel (by Helen Fowler) which was about a returning POW - this one updates it to the Korean War. It confirms Edmund Purdom was too bland to be a star.  He's given a meaty role as a traumatised POW to seeks out the wife and kid of his dead mate. The role is completely beyond Purdom's abilities.

The tension comes from Purdom promising to kill his mate's kids because the mate's wife has been unfaithful. That's terrifyying , but it works if Purdom is a psycho - and he is a psycho and we need to think he's going to kill the kids.

The movie should have been told from Ida Lupino's point of view, so we play the mystery of this guy and have her fall in love with him and investigate what happened. But it's told from Purdom's point of view and we never really feel he's going to kill the kids.

Purdom is embarassingly bad. Jacques Bergerac isn't much better as Lupino's new squeeze. Lupino watches on, no doubt aware she should have played Purdom's role. They could've made the POWs some nurses in Korea.