My dad took me to see it when I was a kid. We laughed and had a good time. Watched it with my daughter when she was younger and we laughed and had a good time. So, not the best movie comedy of the '60s, but a fun movie with a lot of familiar faces from '60s TV like Sargent, Skip Homier, Lurene Tuttle and Robert Cornthwaite (see also the movie, The Thing (From Another World! and, much later, the TV show, Picket Fences).
The Old Man & the Gun (2018; dir. David Lowry; starring Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek, Casey Affleck, Danny Glover, Tom Waits)
Enjoyable movie about an aging bank robber who's into it less for the money than for the thrill of robbing. He's a charming codger who is pretty much ignored on entering and badly described by those who see him (with the exception of one teller). Casey Affleck is a detective facing a mid-life crisis of not really liking his work any more, but somehow while chasing down the old codger, regains his own sense of purpose. Their one meeting is very brief and surprisingly likable. Redford and Spacek work well together, too, two people engaging one another and enjoying the results. It's a little sad near the end, but oddly upbeat, too. There's the implied moral, do what you love.
Dr. No (1960; dir. Terrence Young; starring Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, Jack Lord)
I'd forgotten how quick this film is, coming in under 2 hours, while still covering a full plot. Later Bonds seem to want to rush from action scene to action scene, the older ones let the action evolve from the story, and this one takes that time without seeming dragged out. The fight between Bond and Dr. No is rather perfunctory, but the getting there is still enjoyable, not least because the set design for Dr. No's living spaces and labs are still really cool, though the equipment is clunky and now looks as antiquated as the lab set in the Karloff Frankenstein. Well directed, well acted by Connery, Lord, and Wiseman -- another entry in Hollywood's resistance to casting Asian actors as Asian characters -- and not so much by anyone else, with lush scenery which includes Ursula Andress (first in a series of women not given the material to show whether or not they can act), it's still a fun adventure movie though not lacking in '50s-'60s attitudes toward women and sex which some viewers will find distasteful if not enraging.
From the same mad genius who brought you Godmonster of Indian Flats. Would you believe that this one is much weirder? Two minutes of off-screen narration give us our insane back story. It seems that a female scientist named Doctor Caligula (!), working for Hitler, went to India to meet with Carter the Great, the world's leading stage magician. Carter had a hashish-like substance; when injected into the human body via acupuncture, it somehow allows one to rule the world. Mind you, our movie hasn't even really started yet. Things get going when a guy named Alabama, who works as a stage manager at a theater where a band plays Dixieland music (including the title song!) runs a forklift into a basement wall. Lo and behold, he finds the costumes and equipment of the late Carter the Great. A note tells whoever finds it to contact Carter's sister. Alabama does so, and she agrees to let him do Carter's act. We soon find out that the elderly "sister" is actually a male vampire in drag (!), and he intends to use the hashish-like stuff to destroy civilization for the benefit of his fellow bloodsuckers. With the help of a rock promoter with a fake Scottish accent, Alabama somehow becomes a smash hit. We get some typical stage magic, along with rock music and go-go dancers. Some of the acts go badly, and the ghost of Carter shows up, warning Alabama in vague terms. (I guess Carter is "Alabama's ghost," in some sense.) Alabama runs (literally, he runs) back home to Mama and undergoes a voodoo ceremony to protect him in some way. It all leads up to a big outdoor concert in the desert, where Alabama is going to make an elephant disappear and then reveal how the trick is done, which is an important plot point in some way which escapes me. Meanwhile, Doctor Caligula shows up and makes a robot duplicate of Alabama. The vampires place some of Alabama's hippie groupies on what can only be described as an assembly line to suck their blood. There's a big riot at the end, where the elephant kills the leader of the vampires, and either Alabama or the robot duplicate (I'd lost track by this time) shoots the motorcycle-riding vampires attacking the crowd at the concert. The vampires disappear into thin air, and the weird little gizmo the vampire leader was using to somehow take over the world blows up. The movie makes much less sense than I've indicated, and I've probably got a lot of the plot mixed up. A truly surreal experience.
TCM is running Bond movies this month Every Thursday; at the early stage anyway, chronological order and nothing skipped.
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You only Live Twice
The latter film seemed just a wee bit beyond believable. Actually, more like a comic book. Far too implausible, but all were very much fun to watch. Only the 1st 3 had Ben Mankiewicz giving intros and follow-up, and I initially intended to watch those comments while ffwding through the films. I am glad I watched them all, though. Without having viewed the rest recently, I think that Donald Pleasence is the creepiest and best Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
I suppose I will watch all of them, those TCM shows, anyway. I will need to look elsewhere for SC's 7th appearance as JB, as it does not seem to be in the lineup of films TCM will show.
I have heard the opinion that only SC had the physique that allowed JB to overpower his foes, as he does. Some of the other actors are just too lightweight, etc. I agree, though I know next to nothing about hand-to-hand combat.
Connery also had done some boxing while in the military. According to stunt men, I've heard, it didn't hurt if Roger Moore accidentally landed a punch, but it did when Connery landed.
I'll probably watch From Russia with Love and maybe Goldfinger, but I didn't record the other two. Mostly I was interested in how they were introduced.
Not a good film at all, really, but oddly compelling because of its truly twisted plot. We start with an unseen somebody killing a man and woman in bed with the claw end of a hammer, then setting the place on fire. Cut to a young woman sitting up and screaming, the way people do when waking up from a nightmare. It seems that this is the daughter of the murdered woman, a prostitute. (The man was one of her clients.) She gets moved from the hospital where she's staying to the world's worst orphanage. The first we see of this house of horrors is a kid trying to run away, and the handyman chasing after him, throwing a meat cleaver at him, and cutting his hand off. The kid manages to stumble off for a while before collapsing, and the handyman stuffs the hand into the suitcase the kid dropped. It's not much later that we see that the woman who runs the orphanage has one girl locked in the attic for days, dying of thirst, and the dead bodies of two kids who tried to run away in the meat freezer, along with the dead body of her husband, because she expects that science will someday find a way to revive him. Eventually somebody with a hammer shows up, stalking the new arrival. It all leads up to people getting killed left and right, and our Shocking Twist Ending:
The guy with the hammer is actually a police detective in disguise, managing to uncover the stuff going on at the orphanage, as well as find the killer we saw at the start. It turns out that the daughter of the prostitute, our heroine, killed her mother and her client. The detective says he won't turn her in, to face the death penalty or life in prison if she marries him. At the very end, he reveals that he was the first person to make love to her mother, implying that he is going to marry his own daughter.
The woman who runs the orphanage is played by noted actress Gloria Grahame, now a bit faded from her prime, and giving a strong performance. Most of the actors playing minor roles as the orphans are pretty bad. The movie has a really lousy musical soundtrack, consisting of bombastic music more suited to a pirate adventure, alternating with electronic bleeps. The whole thing has a weird feeling because so many faces very familiar from TV show up. Heck, the main character is played by Wrangle Jane from F Troop!
CRAWL 2019---- natural disaster, hurricane, huge flood, Dad's not answering phone, champ swimmer daughter risks life to check house- dog locates Dad in crawlspace under house. The sappy dad/daughter thing is overdone in this, but so are the gators. Which is sort of okay if you're watching a giant gator movie, Not super-giant but quite believably very large gators. Anyway, fast-forward to the end and yes - spoiler - the dog is still alive and well. Better off than the humans in fact, which may be appropriate since the dog was the only one smart enough to stay out of gator hell, in this gory Sam Raimi hack at claustrophobic terror and gators.
The Godfather 2 (1974) - like the first one, a very good film, but one from a different era that tells its story in a slightly odd way. The jumps back and forth between Michael Corleone's present and his father Vito's past are fine and not hard to follow, although they do give it a slightly episodic quality that might work better as a TV programme. Like quite a few old films, nobody tells you what's really happening, and you often have to deduce it from the events. At times things just seem to happen to give the plot something more to do. But it's still very well acted and looks superb, and the ending is very strong indeed.
Loro (2018) – An Italian movie which portrays the decadence of a flamboyant man. The subject is Silvio Berlusconi, played by one of the best Italian actors, Toni Servillo.
T-34 (2019) I was a tank enthusiast since childhood, not so much now, though. Still, I was rather pleased to see some details here that few, other than enthusiasts know about. For instance, the commander of the German Panzer III communicates with his crew by throat transducer, rather than microphone. That is, two pickups on each side of his Adams Apple, which he presses against it, when speaking. Keeps all the noise of the battlefield out, and makes communication certain. The Soviet tanks had no such system, and would be like comparing Ford Pintos to Mercedes. While the Germans talked to other tank commanders via radio, the Soviets had to use hand signals. Only the unit command tanks might have radios. I do not recall if the film depicted otherwise. Inside the tanks they would need to yell as loud as possible to be heard.
The film did show the goings-on inside the T-34, but not much inside the Panzers. I would have liked to see both. During my tank model days, I would love to have a model with even a partial interior! The German tanks, from the Panzer III and up, have crews of 5. 3 in the turret: Commander, loader, and Gunner. Each was trained for his specific task. As such, they could maintain a rather high rate of fire from the main gun. Having been humiliated by the loss in WWI, the Germans were not about to start a rematch without having made sure they could win. The French tanks had 1 man in the turret, who had to command the tank, load the main gun, rotate the turret, and fire. He would be overworked and such a tank would be at a huge disadvantage when confronted by the Panzers (no French tanks in this film). The nearly worldwide doctrine for tanks was that they were to support the infantry, which was thought to be the Queen of Battle. Lessons learned by experience in WWI were quickly forgotten. The T-34 had a 2 man turret crew, commander and loader/gunner. I believe that the turret rotation was by way of a hand crank, while the Germans used electric motors, with hand cranks as reserves.
The element of the T-34 commander counting to 4 to time the next firing of the Panzer's main gun is new to me. I would not think a Panzer commander would act in such a predictable way, though. But, in this film, the T-34 was able to maneuver quickly enough to deflect the enemy's anti-tank weapons, which barely grazed it. Seems a bit much, though. Because the T-34s have sloped armor, the Panzers already had a tough time defeating them, and the 50mm main gun of the Mark III Panzer would be inadequate against the frontal armor in any case.
So, the plot is the Germans intend to use a captured T-34 and cobble together a crew of POWs as target practice for their own tank cadets. They would have the POWs in a working T-34, with no ammunition, maneuvering out there while inexperienced cadets in German tanks actually fire upon it.
The Germans are depicted as sadists, just about a nasty as they could be. But, given their attitudes toward the Soviets, it is likely more accurate, than fantastic. So, they haul in a largely intact T-34 on a flatbed trailer, with its dead crew still inside. They demand that the POWs remove the corpses, clean out the guts, make any repairs, and drive the T-34 out into the woods to give the cadets live-fire training.
One problem arises, which is that underneath the corpses, there is some main gun live ammunition. just six rounds of it; a mix of armor-piercing and high explosive. I think this is just a bit of a stretch, but what do I know? The bulk of the plot depends upon the Soviets concealing the ammunition, and retrieving it, before going out to be the target of a shooting gallery.
The Soviet tanks use diesel fuel while the Germans' use gasoline. There is very little fuel in the T-34, intentionally so. Though the Germans are almost expecting trouble from their captives, they were taken by surprise by the live ammunition. I would have made certain the main gun was useless, just to be on the safe side, but what do I know.
Sorry, not much here! After escaping from the training camp, the Soviets head for town, hoping to find fuel there. They skipped the refueling scene, and continued on their way. I do not know if the Germans even used diesel fuel in any vehicles during that time, but it seems unlikely that the POWs would have had enough in the 1st place to find more, before exhausting what little they had.
There was one scene in which the track should (perhaps 'might' is better) have snapped because the tank came down upon the pavement sideways at an angle. Oh well, so much for nit-picking!
As far as WWII movies go, this one is well worth watching.
Tanks for Stalin (2018) The fictionalized account of the designer of the T-34 driving his prototype cross country to Moscow to show it to Stalin. It seems he designed and built it in his spare time, while working in the factory.
Ralph Byrd as the title hero, with BORIS KARLOFF as he Bad Guy!
This one lacked all the wonderful gadgets, but did a fine job mixing the seriousness and campiness! It was also a fine example how, lacking Special Effects/CGI, chase scenes, fights and other action scenes can be so much more realistic!
If this one were in color - and I could get you to go see it - I think even the most ardent FX fans would love it.
Even without most of the futuristic gadgets, it still had a touch of the Sci-Fi - a 'time bomb' that suspended time!
Stan and Ollie. Steve Coogan and John Reilly are brilliant as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Coogan especially played Stan wonderfully. It was funny with a touch of sadness as a look at the last days of the duo's careers. If you are familiar with Oliver and Hardy at all you should watch this film. I don't think people who never watched their films will enjoy it quite the same way.
I haven't seen any Laurel & Hardy since I was a kid (though I intend to). I thought Stan and Ollie was a very touching film about friendship. Both leads were indeed fantastic, as was Nina Arianda as Ida Kitaeva Laurel. I even ended up liking her character
and it was great to see her and Hardy's wife as friends at the end!
The best and the meh of the films I've seen recently:
Black Swan (2010). Incredible acting from Natalie Portman. I didn't know this was a psychological thriller/horror, and Portman helped make it a very good one.
The Boy and the Beast (2015). A good anime with a touching ending.
Green Book (2018). Viggo Mortenson and Mahershala Ali were great in the leads as an unlikely friendship developed between the characters (working class bouncer and black classical pianist in 1960s US). Would make a good alternative Christmas film.
The Big Short (2015). I didn't think a film about banking could be so entertaining. There is a lot of jargon and I didn't quite understand everything.
BlacKkKlansman (2018). Could have been much more hard-hitting if it wasn't so stylish. It was good though, and the true story of a black police officer infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan was interesting.
Kick-Ass (2010). Decent enough. I thought Nic Cage's character and Hit-Girl were much more entertaining than the main character.
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019). Self-indulgent. Would've been better with at least half an hour cut. A scene with Brad Pitt towards the end is fantastic, if not unnecessarily violent.
Moonlight (2016). I think this won the best picture Oscar? Not Oscar-worthy, but it was good. The first two thirds were better than the final third.
Redline (2009). In-your-face futuristic racing anime with an attention-grabbing opening I loved. I lost interest though, so the film was just okay in the end.
A Ghost Story (2017). Yawn. A 10-minute scene of someone slowly eating a pie? I really wanted to like this, and there were good aspects. Overall, I felt it was a waste of 90 minutes.
Sorry to Bother You (2018). Surreal fantasy/sci-fi comedy that started promisingly then failed to keep me engaged. I found one scene absolutely hilarious, though.
Just watched All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) for the very first time. Then had to watch every single one of the Blu Ray extras, some of which are as fascinating as the film itself. I'm bowled over.
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