Movie review - "Android" (1982) ***

 Roger Corman helped finance but didn't want to distribute. I can see why, it lacks nudity, pace and gore he would've liked, but it's a shame. This is smart, well acted, made by people who care. A little lackadasical. I think Corman would've preferred the main android to be female - there is a female but she doesn't come in until the end. Also Don Keith Appor maybe isn't handsome enough for a leading man. Good actor though. I really liked Brie Howard.

Klaus Kinski adds some class. Really solid movie. 

Movie review - Fast#9 - "F9" (2019) ***

 Slick, fast, Justin Ling directed. This is the one where they go into outerspace. That's sort of tossed away - it's very easy. Lucas Black is back, briefly. Er... yay? I do like the continuity.

The key plot has Vin Diesel clashing with brother John Cena. This does give it some emotional undercurrent. They do try to give Jordana Breswter something to do. They do try.

Big and loud. Feels tired. Han coming back is... um, yeah, yay? Natalie Emmanuel is given stuff to do but isn't much. Michelle Rodriguez and Charlize Theron needed to be given more to do. Helen Mirren is fun.

Look, there's a lot going on. 

TV review - "Playhouse 90 - For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1958) ***

 Hemingway's novel adapts quite well to the small screen because you can focus on relationships and use close ups - Jason Robards and Maria Schell (the earth moves! quite frank!), Maureen Stapleton and Eli Wallach, Stapleton and Roberts, Wallach and Robarts.

Very serious in that style. Intense.  

Movie review - "Ronin" (1997) ***1/2

 Not a huge hit but much admired - slick script, John Frankenheimer in fine form, a genuine "look", European action movie, with some stars in excellent form: Robert de Niro before these parts became caricatures, Nathsha McEllrone so beautiful and perfect for the world, Jean Reno, Sean Bean. Jonathan Pryce maybe not a scary villain.

I enjoy these cramped European action movies. 

Movie review - "Wrong is Right" (1982) **1/2

 Charles McGarry was a spy novelist in the 1970s - this is one of his books which got a satirical treatment from Richard Brooks, not known as king of comedy but full of outrage and spirit.

Connery is a swashbuckling journalist who  gets involved in some terrorists who steal nukes. The guts of the story is a procedural - who killed Katherine Ross - but the movie is mostly done in a Strangelove style that doesn't quite work. Brooks displayed little flair for comedy in his career. 

Connery commits - it's the sort of movie you can imagine he enjoyed making because it's so random. George Grizzard is the president, Leslie Nielsen a nutbag politician, Robert Conrad a nutbag general, John Saxon a nutbag CIA op, Hardy Kruger an arms seller, Rosalind Cash the vice president, Jennifer Jason Leigh as a girl in a reality TV show who wants to kill her parents.

The movie takes a big swing though. Not dumb. Would've been better played straight I think though.

TV review - "Playhouse 90 The Last Tycoon" (1957) ***1/2

 F Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel at one stage meant for Humphrey Bogart and Bacall but he died so they wound up with Jack Palance and Lee Remick. Palance's performance is fascinating - intense, empathetic, strong.

Support cast is amazing - Peter Lorre as a burnt out director, Keenan Wynn is an exec, achingly pretty Lee Remick is a nubile thing hot for Palance (shock).

Story ambles and kind of ends - I think he dies at the end. But then the novel was unfinished. Has that late 50s TV seriousness. 

Movie review - "Forbidden World" (1982) **1/2 (re-watching)

 Enjoyable trashy Alien knock off with Jesse Vint as a stud pilot, June Chadwick hamming it up perfectly, Dawn Dunlap having a nude sauna which I'm assuming was written by Jim Wynorski, decent pacing and violence, production values high.

Movie review - "Looking for Mr Goodbar" (1977) ****1/2

 A final hit for Richard Brooks - it had a perfect star (Diane Keaton) and subject (woman murdered for having too much sex).

This was a surprise - Brooks' direction is energetic, smart, and empathetic. His script is excellent - full of nuance, humour and taste. Keaton is outstanding. Superb support from Richard Gere (fboi), William Atherton (perfect guy who is controlling), Tuesday Weld (hot mess sister), the deaf kids, William Berenger.

The film is structured around various relationships - Keaton and her dad, Keaton and her sister, Keaton and Gere, Keaton and  Atherthon.

The ending is shocking, powerful, exploitative, effective. 

TV review - "Days of Wine and Roses" (1958) ****

 Legendary television script from JP Miller, turned into a film by Blake Edwards, here directed by John Frankenheimer. This was a landmark in the careers of Frankenheimer, Piper Laurie and Cliff Robertson. Laurie and Frankenheimer had an affair before and during filming which she writes about in her memoir - a lot of high brow melodrama. Resulted in some great acting.

Laurie is terrific - Robertson matches her. Charles Bickford also strong as Laurie's dad. 

Movie review - "The Young Savages" (1961) **

 Feels like it should be a TV play - some hoods in New York kill another hood. They're teens so it's West Side Story without songs, as someone commented. The story isn't involving. The hoods kill someone in the opening scene, so we know who did it so there's no mystery. Lancaster is a prosecutor, so he's just putting people in prison.

It's kind of interesting he's downtown and his wife Dina Merill is uptown. But nothing much is done with that - he should have slept with ex Shelley Winters, mother of one of the accused. That would've been drama. Or the mother of the dead kid. I kept waiting for Lancaster's daughter to be threatened. Didn't happen. 

John Frankenheimer directs his backside off though. It's gloriously shot, well acted - Telly Savalas is in it, Shelley Winters. He didn't want Dina Merill but accepted her as a trade off to not have Paul Anka! Sydney Pollack was dialogue director and impressed Burt Lancaster so much the actor helped Pollack's career.

Frankenheimer wanted to make the best film he could. But it's just not interesting.

The gang members are irritating. Well acted but still stock types - cocky or secretly disabled. 

Movie review - "There was a Crooked Man..." (1970) **

 Joseph Mankiewicz's comedy heist Western with some old stars (Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda) and new writers (Robert Benton, David Newman). He's not a director particularly associaated with Westerns - the movie was originally written for Don Siegel which makes more sense.

I glimpsed this as a child and always remember Michael Blodgett having sex with the girl on the pool table (female parts not amazing in this). 

It's not much of a movie. Douglas wears glasses which is novel but he's mostly smug. There's a lot of prison tropes - riots, some gays, people hot for Blodgett, cross and double cross.

The characters aren't that compelling. There are introduced in interesting ways but then gets bogged down. Henry Fonda is dogged. Him turning crook at end feels unmotiavted. Douglas is one note.

I think maybe if had been a woman's prison, maybe it would've had more life.  

The cast is special - there's Burgess Meredith, Warren Oates, Lee Grant, etc.

But I didn't like it. The music is awful - those stings. Why did Westerns use these? 

Movie review - "Cape Forlorn" (1931) **

 Frank Harvey play adapted into a film with Harvey in the lead. He's an old soak whose wife is havin it off with one man, then another (skinny Ian Hunter). EA Dupont directed. He throws in some funky visuals every now and then - tracking shots, dissolves - but the acting is stagy.

Movie review - "Sleuth" (1972) ***1/2

 Entertaining version of the famous play. The surprises are harder to pull off on film but they do well enough. It has splendid leads both willing to go full ham, with the young bull and old bull. Mankewicz is an ideal director with his love of literature. The set is amazing.

A little long and would be better on stage. 

Movie review - "Showgirl's Luck" (1931) **

 Not good. Erratic acting. Dodgy scripting. Fascinating. Musical about putting on a musical only there's hardly any songs. They were too ambitious.

Play review - "After the Fall" (1964) by Arthur Miller

 A recording of the 1964 New York production from Elia Kazan, who directed a character based on him played by Ralph Meeker. It's got Jason Robards and Barbara Loden and Faye Dunaway. Fascinating.

Kazan only liked the Marilyn Monroe stuff. He was right. It's the strongest. The informing friend could have worked - needed to connect him with the Marilyn part, made it a love triangle. The first wife - dull, cheated on - is dull. Ditto the third wife - concentration camp and all. it's wife two, Marilyn, that makes this worth watching.

The making of this play would be a great movie/play. 

Book review - "The Andromeda Strain" by Michael Crichton

 Admire it. Never been huge fan. Great opening - the town wiped out - and ending - ticking clock. In between it's a medical drama, trying to figure out what caused the illness. Tremendous sense of realism though. You can see why it was a sensation.

Movie review - "The Big Heat" (1953) ****

 Everything clicked for Fritz Lang - Glenn Ford in a great performance, a strong story, very good script from Sydney Boehm. Simple story - Ford investigates murder of cop - has punch from the all to believable depiction of corruption in society particularly the higher up cos who are always encouraging people to give up.

Ford's wife is sappy and the kid an annoying boomer but the wife's death has real kic and the minor parts are superb - the slimy bar owner, the mob boss, the sad hooker. Most of all there is Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame - who I was surprised to see don't really appear much til the last act. 

But the relationship between Grahame and Ford is powerful and I loved how Ford's army veteran mates helped. 

Movie review - "I Walk the Line" (1970) **

 One of that trilogy of Tuesday Weld films she made when she turned down Bonnie and Clyde etc.

This should be good. Greg Peck as a sheriff in the south tempted by hot little Tuesday Weld, whose family are moonshiners. That's easy to grasp - it needs to be about his temptation, corruption, fall.

But it doesn't quite work. There's no sex. Weld's got plenty but not Peck - he's too solid. It needs to be about the temptation and corruption of a man. Needs more sleaze and crime.

Ralph Meeker brings it, as her dad. Ditto Charles Durning. They know what movie they're in. But Estelle Parsons is too white trash as the wife - the only contrast is she's old and less attractive, when it really needed to be she was lady like. Peck is never believable as someone new to town. They should have rewritten the movie for him - played it as an out of town liberal snob who gets seduced, wrecks his life.

The film really needed to be made in the late 1950s when it would've been properly sleazy.  Also Peck needed to have his life destroyed more at the end - to die, or go to prison or something. The movie pulls its punches.

Weld is good but she'd been playing these roles for too long and was getting older. The film could've been more rejigged for their ages and personas. 

Book review - "Roddy McDowall" by Samuel Bernstein

 Bernstein does another very good biography of an underrated queer actor Roddy McDowall, on top of the one he did for Caesar Romero. The two actors had many things in common - foreigners who flourised in Hollywood, seem like genuinely nice people, hugely long careers, Batman villains. McDowall had more long term romances and possibly better luck with movies - every decade he managed to appear in a classic. How Green Was My Valley, Compulsion, Camelot, Cleopatra, Planet of the Apes, The Poseidon Adventure. It's incredible. 

Worthy book for a person who deserved it. 

Book review - "Cesar Romero: The Joker Is Wild" by Sam Bernstein

 Loving look at a man who sounds like a genuinely terrific person - underrated actor, handsome, polite, hard working. Never seems to have been linked to a romantic relationship, although something may have happened with Tyrone Power. Well researched, fun - half the book is the filmography!

Movie review - "A Private's Affair" (1959) **

 I didn't realise Mardi Gras went so well that 20th Century Fox decided to do another three-boys film about chaps in the army. This is set up to be a musical - the three men are enlisted to appear in a show - and would've seemed a natural for Pat Boone, Elvis, Fabian, Tommy Sands. But instead they've got Sal Mineo, Gary Crosby and Barry Coe. The women are Christine Carere, Barbara Eden and Terry Moore. Raoul Walsh directed.

The plot has politician Jessie Royce Landis marry Coe under anasthetic so she can adopt a Dutch girl for surgery. WTF.  This is the core issue. That's not a bad story if Landis is a genuine romantic threat - but they don't play that. Terry Moore could've played this. Or Barbara Eden. Play out a lovel triangle.

Do proper songs. Cast singers.

Not rocket science.

Fun to see Mineo in this. Coe isn't bad. 

Why did they make it? 

Movie review - "The Amusement Park" (1975) **

 "Lost" Romero movie - an industrial film about elder abuse. A lot of imaginative flair. Interesting. But it's an industrial film. Only 50 mins. For completionists.

Movie review - "Play It As It Lays" (1972) **

 One of those movies that you watch and go "the novel on which is based is probably quite good". I haven't read the book but since Joan Didion co wrote the script with her husband whose brother producer it's probably faithful. Tuesday Weld is outstanding in the role as is Tony Perkins. Confusing. Smart. I didn't get into it at all.

Movie review - "A Safe Place" (1971) **

 Henry Jaglom's best known movie because it features Tuesday Weld, Orson Welles and Jack Nicholson. All bring their considerable charisma - Weld has rarely been more gorgeous or captivating. But there's no story here not even a short film's worth. There's a lot of hanging around Weld and Orson Welles hangs around Central Park and the Zoo, Weld and Philip Proctor hanging around, all the while songs play on the soundtrack. The best bits are Weld and Nicholson.

This was once a play. A play! JFC.  There's no story.

Weld is beautiful. Nicholson has charisma. So does Orson Welles. I would have preferred 90 minutes of them just talkign.

The photography is nice. 

Movie review - "Money Shines" (1988) **1/2

 Interesting rather than gripping. Paralysed man has a pet monkey who becomes homicidal. The cast don't feel quite up to it - Jason Beghe as the guy, Kate McNeil as the sexy nurse, Jon Pankiw as a mad scientist (Stanley Tucci  should have played this role).

Monkey acting strong.  But the core relationship between the monkey and Beghe isn't there.

I wonder if maybe it should've been told through the POV of McNeil as Jane Eyre instead of chronoligcally.  Romero's directing not quite up to it here.

A lot of future famous people like Tucci, Stephen Root, Janine Turner (going nude). 

Movie review - "Multiple Maniacs" (1970) ***

 Overshadowed by Pink Flamingos but the vision was fully formed by this one - John Waters freaky friends causing chaos, lots of bitchy lines and insane encounters, melodrama with a twist. Goes too long - really this should be a tight 30 minutes. But it's fun to hang out with Waters and his mates - Mink Stole, Divine, David L, Cookie, Edie. You feel like you're over at their house as they play dress ups.

Movie review - "Bruiser" (2001) ***

 Thoughtful. Interesting. Jason Flemyng maybe too handsome in the lead - could have used a real whimp. Attractive women - Romero liked a bit of toplessness. Peter Stomare hams it up. The mask is wonderfully effective. The big flaw-  lacks a central love story. Phantom of the Opera had that. A person for us to identify with who's not a killer. Like Martin we spend a lot of time identifying with a killer

Confidently directed. 

Script review - "Female Trouble/Desperate Living" by John Waters

 Getting through these audio readings by Waters of his scripts. Both are crime-ish melodramas - like most of these early Waters films he takes a series of wacky characters and haves some way-out exchanges. For me Desperate Living worked better - the insults felt funnier, an "innocent" in a trash town, though Female Trouble is fun too

Movie review - "Survival of the Dead" (2009) **

 George Romero's last feature. It looks ugly, shot in bland digital, the acting isn't much, the encounters tiresome. It's about some National Guardsman who stumble on a feud. Lots of Irish accents and people being shot in the head. There's a decent amount of action and no character I cared about or found interesting.

Movie review - "The Dark Half" (1992) **1/2

 Solid. Steven King wrote an interesting book based on his own work as Richard Bachman, and the voices in his head. Tim Hutton isn't convicing as a writer. A really great star would've made this sing. Amy Madigan must be so sick of playing wives. Michael Rooker solid as a cop.

Not sure they got the POV of this right. Maybe better via Rooker? Or be upfront about Hutton? 

Good story though. 

Movie review - "Day of the Dead" (1985) ****

 Tight. Music propels it. Well acted. Tries to be different. They're studying zombies, in a bunker. Builds logically. Enjoyable crazies. I liked it. Solid gore. Love that it's on film.

Script review - "Pink Flamingo" / "Forever Flamingo" by John Waters

 I listened to Waters do an audio version of these. They have similar structure. I enjoyed the first more than the movie - Waters is so fun doing the voices. The second was fine, just repetitious. The cast would've made it work.

Movie review - "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" (1974) ****

 Really fun. Smart. Funny. New York-y. The four robbers have different personalities. Walter Matthau and Jerry Stiller are hugely entertaining. Shows how it's done.

Movie review - "Robocop" (1987) *****

 Just a wonderful film - tough, violent, gutsy, political, well acted (right down to the bottom). Ronny Cox, Peter Weller, Kurtwood Smith... all so good. Nancy Allen a little dull.

Book review - "Disclosure" by Michael Crichton

 I appreciate all the research that went into creating the computer program and it's not Crichton's fault it was about CD Roms which became obsolete. But I hated all the characters. 

Also Meredith the baddy - I get she wanted to bring Sanders on side. But she's a psycho - to try to seduce him then assault him. Here she's seducing him for leverage but she also does it at other firms, is that right.

I'm not sure middle aged white men who've been divorced a bunch of times and are multi millionaires shouldn't write books about sexual harassment. 

The book does hold as a story, just a regular corporate melodrama. It's long - a lot of the interrogations, cross examinations and editing could have been trimmed. As per the editorial about how tough it is men can't pick up kids in the bath. 

Script review - "Hairpray" by John Waters

 Audio version of the script read by Waters himself. Lots of fun, he's an engaging performer, the dialogue is bright. The story of thing is stronger. All Waters' work is political, this is more accessibly political (with integration). But very enjoyable.

Movie review - "Masters of the Universe" (2026) **

 I can see what they were going for - tongue in cheek a la Guardians of the Galaxy. But there's no heart here and the actors aren't up to it at least not the leads. 

Movie review - "Last Night in Soho" (2021) ***

 Edgar Wright's love letter (well, a letter) to swinging sixties Britain has some wonderful moments and a mangetic lead in Anya Taylor Jones (who is so perfect) plus a charismatic Matt James. Thomasin McKenzie is a little dull. Slow start but satisfying at the end.

Movie review - "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" (2018) **1/2

 Look, not a great movie - as pointed out by Honest Trailers it copies the structure of The Lost World, continually references back to film #1 (and the Alien franchise), and the characters are just types. Also it's not as fun to see dinosaurs running amok in a mansion as opposed to an island or a city.

But the action is well staged and consistent; it doesn't pause. I found the subplot about the girl realising she was cloned quite effective. 

I wish they'd kill some of these raptors with poisoned eggs, like in the book. 

Book review - "Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton (1990)

 Crichton's masterpiece. It's got everything - a big concept, a world that is well thought out (he fleshes out the theme park more than he could do in Westworld), fantastic sequences. Crichton's description of action wasn't always the best in his novels but it is here - it must be because he wrote it first as a screenplay. The initial attack of the T Rex, the aviary sequence, Grant poisoning eggs to kill raptors...

The violence is quick, brutal, terrifying. The films were so jokey in comparison.  I wish they'd do a film with the violence and terror of this, and the intelligence. You can't aruge with success though.

Movie review - "China Passage" (1937) **

 I only watched this because it starred Jocelyn Howarth, here retitled Constance Worth. 

It's a not bad B from RKO about shenanigans on a boat from China, searching for a missing jewel. It's a great part for Worth - she seems to be a shady lady but is revealed to be an agent, and has to bust the mystery with the lead guy Vinton Haworth. She gets to round up the suspects at the end and be active.

He's a little dull. Worth isn't that amazing it must be admitted. She's fine. You can see why she couldn't get out of B pictures. 

There's a drunk character who keeps thinking the boat is going to Sydney. That has novelty. 

Movie review - "Jurassic World" (2015) **1/2 (rewatching)

 I respect the money this film made. It passes the time. Decent effects. But it's silly. So light. Dinosaurs on a rampage and no one seems to care. Chris Pratt camps it up as does Bryce Dallas Howard. Lauren Lupkus and Jake Johnson play it too light. That kid Nick Robinson is a sulky teen.

I just didn't like it. 

Good to have the park up and running though. 

Movie revie - "The Nice Guys" (2017) ***1/2

 Fun, easy, loved the period detail. Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling in fine form, ditto Angourie Rice. Maybe it would've been more popular had Crowe and Gosling been more different - they are both tough guys.

Movie review - "Project Hail Mary" (2026) ****

 Warm, clever, fun, positive. Lord and Miller really have the goods. Ryan Gosling is fine. Love a sci fi movie that doesn't talk down to its audience but is still broad appeal.

Movie review - "Desperately Seeking Susan" (1985) ****

 Wonderful movie. A tight script from a mysterious writer Leora Barish (what happened to her) directed with life, joy and flavour by Susan Seidelman. New York is a wonderland, full of colour and characters - magicians and their sidekicks, hunky cinema operators, MCs, blonde assassins. The macguffin is Egyptian artefacts - how cool is that?

Many talented people at the beginning of their careers including Steven Wright, Will Patton and Jon Turturro. Aidan Quinn is the perfect male romantic lead, Rosanna Arquette was never better as the innocent wife, Madonna is electric in the perfect role.

Movie review - "There's Always Vanilla" (1971) **

 Romero's least known film? A story of an fboi (Raymond Laine) who drifts around post-army, trying different jobs, annoying his dad, sleeping around, writing. He sleeps with Judith Laine, who is lovely (she was in Night of the Living Dead); she gets pregnant, he's tempted to sell out, can't do it.

This wasn't bad. It's the sort of movie that might play with a super charismatic star - Laine doesn't have that, he's not good looking enough for Laine.  

The movie has an intelligence, talks about big issues. It's indulgent but not terrible. It just lacks a charismatic star.