Movie review - "Red Sonja" (1985) **1/2

 One of several films Dino de Laurentiis forced Arnie to do after the first Conan - Conan the Destroyer, this, Raw Deal. Brigitte Nielsen looks terrific in the title role - a believable athlete, she can move and fight. Her acting is limited so they should have teamed her with a top class actor for most of the running time - instead they give her Arnie, who comes and goes but who wasn't very good at this stage, and a kid.

The script was (re)written by George MacDonald Fraser and is full of action familiar to those who have read his novels - evil priests, ceremonies, swordfights, comic sidekicks, etc. But it lacks the key aspect of the best Fraser novels - memorable lead characters. They are just stoic. The movie needed a Flashman or a Thomas Blood from The Pyrates.

 Key mistakes are made - either by him or in the cut. The murder of Sonja's family, which sets up the whole film, is skipped over (compare to Conan which gave it the time it deserved), Arnold popping in and out is weird, the film seems reluctant to focus too much on Sonja.

Nicely shot and costumed. It's not very good but impossible to dislike.

Movie review - "The Grey Man" (2022) **

 Tired. A tough agent with a moral code. A female agent with a moral code. A psycho agent. A tough boss. Two tough bosses. A cute kid who is sick. Big titles indicating different locations.  Very familiar action sequences. No one has a character to play everyone is a type. Torture. Dull action scenes.  Unsatisfactory resolution.

Movie review - "Chapter 2" (1979) **

 One of Neil Simon's best plays - funny, honest, true - with Marsha Mason superb in a role inspired by her and played by her on Broadway. Joseph Bologna and Valerie Harper are fine as the BFF's - Harper looks really skinny. The film is let down by James Caan, who I normally really like. He can be funny but here he plays it low energy a man torn up with grief which I guess is legitimate but it drags the film down. Occasionally the dialogue sparks as it should and you get the vision of the film this should have been. Flabby direction.

Book review - "Hondo" by Louis L'Amour (1953)

 Apparently L'Amour's first novel, though the movie was based on a short story and this was a novelisation of the film script. I'm not going to get scholarship-y on it. There's excellent description of action - Hondo tracking and being tracked, the cavalry facing Apaches - though the stuff involving the wife and boy is less strong, more conventional. There's a lot of convenience and repetition in the plotting which feels more like the screenplay though I could be wrong - Vittoro the Apache is quite cuddly, saving Hondo and the woman and the kid and generally looking on a lot as Hondo knocks off people. We are cheated in not reading about Vittoro's death and the final battle feels abrupt. It's like this would be a better novel if the story was slimmed down more and L'Amour made more of big moments. But it was easy and entertaining to read which a lot of terrific stuff.

Movie review - "Spiderman: Far from Home" (2019) ***

 Breezy, entertaining entry at it's best when dealing with teen life as the kids head off to Europe, and also making meta comments about the story (eg a biopic of Tony Stark has been made). Less strong when it comes to action - bloated CGI scenes, not terribly thrilling. Jake Gyllenhaul's villain is fine. Tom Holland is excellent - all the kids are. I love how the joke kid character was given a little touch in that his parents sent a chauffeur to pick him up and he was disappointed. Zedaya has X factor but is basically The Girl here.

Movie review - "The Killer Elite" (1975) **

 No one's favourite Sam Peckinpah film though like all movies from that director it has interest. James Caan and Robert Duvall really seem like mates at the beginning making Duvall's betrayal have real impact. That's the best bit of the film.

The rest consists of Caan's recovering, learning karate, going back into business, teaming up with Burt Young and Bo Hopkins, learning from Mako and a comely Thai girl (who I think married co writer Stirling Silliphant - she has a decent sized part for a Peckinpah film), clashing with Duvall again (who dies too quickly) then taking part in a slow motion, unconvincing, unexciting battle at on some boats in San Francisco Bay. 

It's not an exciting film. It has two good performances from Caan and Duvall, is odd, a decent story that has any thrills sucked out of it. This film annoyed me after a while. It's even got lazy 70s scenes about how all governments are corrupt - like sitting next to some stoner at a party.

Movie review - "Games" (1967) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Curtis Harrington is a cult-y director - Night Tide and this are responsible for a great deal of that. This is an engaging thriller about some wealthy New Yorkers (Katherine Ross, James Caan) who like to play tricks. In a not terribly convincing plot move they invite Simone Signoret, a random psychic, to stay with them - maybe this would've been more effective had Signoret been younger, or more clearly a sexual threat instead of a mumsy figure, or a male. 

There's plenty of weirdness, more visual style than we commonly saw from films at Universal during this period (I think Ross, Caan and Don Stroud were under contract there). Once you realise at heart this is a good old gaslighting thriller it could have done with an extra twist/dimension. 

But it is entertaining.