The Magic Sword and Jack the Giant Killer (both 1962) I didn't do a damn thing today, just sat on my butt and watched a fairy tale double feature on TV. Both quite colorful, and fairly enjoyable as such things go. Not Gorky Film Studio, but pretty good for American fairy tale films. The Magic Sword was more poverty-stricken, created by Bert I. Gordon, famous for other cheap movies featuring superimposed giant things and people. The second movie was more mainstream, budgetwise, with imaginative combinations of animated effects, camera tricks, and stop-motion characters. I immediately spotted props common to both movies - gargoyles, a distinctive door, and the titular sword of the first was used early on in the second to confer knighthood on Jack. I guess there are worse things to do with an afternoon. 6/10
And then I watched ANOTHER movie!
Freeway (1996) Reese Witherspoon gives the greatest performance of her career as an illiterate, conscienceless 16 year old with a history of theft, arson and prostitution who shoots Kiefer Sutherland multiple times, leaving him for dead, and mercilessly taunts him in court for being deformed and crippled as a result. And she's the good guy, who turns out to be quite admirable. A really twisted movie with lots of profanity (most of it screamed by Witherspoon while holding a gun to someone's head), violence and blood; kind of horrible and kind of brilliant. A feel-good movie in spite of its dreadfulness. 8.5/10
