Movie review - "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) ***1/2

 Where does this sit with audiences today? Gorgeously directed. A lot of standing around open jawed in wonder. Very sweet. Teri Garr excellent and Richard Dreyfuss amiable.

Movie review - "Major League" (1989) **1/2

 Amiable crowd pleaser. The subplot where Tom Berenger stalks Rene Russo is of its time and probab ly encouraged a lot of similar behaviour IRL. Berenger is ideally cast as is Corbin Bernsen, Charlie Sheen, Wesley Snipes (wish he'd do more comedy). 

It was dumb in the original script to have the showgirl villain be revealed to be doing it to motivate them. That was silly. Cheapens the stakes. Better to change.

I love that it's about a Cleveland team that's very charming. 

I'm not sure if the dates for this work out but the movie feels influenced by Bull Durham. 

Movie review - "Two Years Later" (2026) **

 Feels like a decent feature rom com dragged out over eight eps - instead of subplots it adds banter. Also feels like a Melbourne show, with its lockdown trauma. Nice photography and a genuine sense of catharsasis at the end. No chemistry between the leads who seem bored.

Movie review - "Some Like It Hot" (1959) ***** (re-watching)

 Just fun. Sexy. Cynical. Broad. Marilyn worth the hassle. Tony Curtis should've worked with Wilder again.

Movie review - "Black Sunday" (1977) ****

 The suits thought this was going to be bigger than Jaws and the public didn't come, at least not in the numbers they expected. Maybe audiences were awkward with an Israeli hero - driven Robert Shaw, given a scene of backstory where he explains his wife and sons are dead, after terrorist Marthe Keller, who also has a scene of backstory (raised in camps, etc).

It moves at a decent pace, there's plenty of story. Bruce Dern has a high old time as Keller's associate, Keller is very effective. They have a fascinating relationship - manipulative, doomed, twisted.

The bomb - steel projectiles - is genuinely terrifying.

Some great terrorism movie heads like Steven Keats (Shaw's offsider), Fritz Weaver (FBI man), Bekhim Femui (Keller's boss). Movie maybe lacks someone with a little warmth who is a goodie - a Roy Scheider in Jaws type. The warmest characters are Dern and Keller.

Maybe too much football stuff. But fun, rollicking movie. 

Simon Wincer Top Ten

 1) Lonesome Dove (1989)

2) Free Willy (1993)

3) Snapshot (1979)

4) Phar Lap (1983)

5) DARYL (1985)

6) The Last Frontier (1986)

7) Against the Wind (1978)

8) The Lighthorsemen (1987)

9) Harlequin (1980)

10) Into thr West (2005) 

Robert Lippert Top Ten

 1) I Shot Jesse James (1948)

2) The Fly (1958)

3) The Baron of Arizona (1949)

4) The Steel Helmet (1950) 

5) The Last Page (1952) 

6) Witchcraft (1964)

7) The Last Man on Earth (1964)

8) It Happened in Athens (1962)

9)Five Gates to Hell (1959)

10) Battle of Bloody Beach (1961) 

Movie review - "Booksmart" (2019) ***** (re-watching)

 Warm, funny, bright, stunningly well cast and put together, the cameos work, so does the sense of insanity. Olivia Wilde directors superbly the script is a dream. 

It's a love letter to theatre in a way as well. 

Movie review - "Midnight Run" (1988) ***** (re-watching)

 Just perfect. Astonishingly great script full of strong characters, revearsals, logic, bits of business. Everyone is allowed to be smart. Also dumb. But dumbness is motiviated. Perfect score. Perfect casting - all the little roles (people in diners, etc). Heartbreaking moments like the stuff with the daughter and the ending.

Yaphet Kotto Top Ten

 A great actor

1) Midnight Run (1988)

2) Alien (1979)

3) Blue Collar (1978)

4) Truck Turner (1974)

5) Live and Let Die (1973)

6) Across 110th Street (1972)

7) The Running Man (1988)

8) Raid on Entebbe (1976)

9) Fighting Back (1982)

10) Bone (1971) 

Movie review - "Backrooms" (2026) ***1/2

 Solid horror. Creepy setting (rooms adjacent to furniture store), excellent actors, logically developed. Slow burn but big bang in the middle. Very confident. 

Movie review - "Big Trouble in Little China" (1986) ****1/2 (re-watching)

 Fun. So Howard Hawks. Wonderful teams. Engaging. Can't believe it wasn't a hit. Kim Catrall so funny. Ditto Kurt Russell. Everyone.

Movie review - "Let's Make Love" (1960) **

 The dud credit for Marilyn Monroe among her latter movies - this actually had some decent people on it, like Norman Krasna and George Cukor, not to mention marilyn, but it's a vehicle for Yves Montand, who struggles with English.

I don't like this movie. Don't believe Yves Montand as a millionaire, don't enjoy him, or his deception - a Frenchman in America is fish out of water enough. In Norman Krasna's defence he said he wrote the script for someone like Charlton Heston or Gregory Peck. There's no sense of Montand's world - Wilfrid Hyde White and Tony Randall don't feel like they come from it.

It's not a bad idea but there's not much development. No sense of why doing this deception will help make him a better person. Or why he likes Marilyn. Montand doesn't deserve his money.

I remember the awkwardness of scenes like a gag writer attacking Montand. 

It has studio production values, and Marilyn, who clearly doesn't want to be there but it the best thing about it. There's novelty of an off Broadway musical but too much Frankie Vaughan.  

The film is packed with people having an off day - Montand, Monroe, Krasna, Cukor. 

Maybe it would've worked had Montand be surrounded by French and it had been about the French falling in love with America. That would've worked. 

Movie review - "Letter from an Unknown Woman" (1948) ****1/2

 Beautifully made by Max Ophuls and producer John Houseman and writer Howard Koch. Joan Fontaine just gets in under the wire age-wise as a young girl infatuated with pianist Louis Jourdan (the quintessential Louis Jourdan role).

I'm not always wild about old Vienna tales but it's done very well. Heartbreaking in that the kid dies of typhus and she dies, having wasted a lot of potential. I like the husband character who avenges the woman.  

Gene Wilder Top Ten

 

1) Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

2) The Producers (1967)

3) Blazing Saddles (1974)

4) Young Frankenstein (1974)

5) Silver Streak (1976)

6) Stir Crazy (1976)

7) Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (1972)

8 ) Thursday's Game (1974) (TV movoe)

9) The Woman in Red (1984)

10) okay, alright... Willy Wonka (1971)