Movies

The Island (2005) Now I know what "A Michael Bay Film" means. This is like Logans' Run only they are clones and when they Win the Lottery and get to go to The Island it means they are really going to be harvested. Then they escape from the city and find out that everything they thought was true isn't really true at all!!!! The Good Guys, three year old clones educated to the level of a fifteen year old is what they say in the movie, can evade the most highly trained hunter-killers on earth, get shot at a million times and fall off a 70 story building and only get a little scratch on the forehead. If you like to see people running while yelling GO GO GO!! and lots of "really cool" car crashes, lots of stuff getting blown up and crashing down and people yelling RUN, RUN!! and hitting other people with wrenches and lots and lots of shooting from helicopters and cars and trucks and jet bikes, and you like a movie that half of it is just a video game with a permanent techno drum solo soundtrack and every other shot is a tracking orbiting crane shot then you will like this movie and you are an idiot. 4/10 and that's just because about 40 percent of it was actually kind of cool, just the other 60 percent was for teenage boys. Stupid ones. Another director for my shit list.

Movies

The Long Good Friday (1980) Bob Hoskins plays a "legitimate businessman" about to put over a huge real-estate development deal when members of his "corporation" start getting stabbed to death and blown up. Maintains the sort of quiet tension that makes you feel that something terrible is about to happen and often it does. An outstanding depiction of a man at the peak of power whose support is crumbling away and a top classic modern gangster film. Super extra bonus is the visit to a British DEMOLITION DERBY, in which the winner is driven around the track on a bright yellow batmobile. 9/10

Battle in Outer Space (1959) Toho's grand space spectacle - flying saucers are attacking the Earth and two spaceships are sent to destroy their lunar base. First class model work - the prominent destruction of a Cinerama theatre by the alien anti-gravity ray made me wonder/laugh - it was filmed in Tohoscope, but this print was cropped for TV. Considering the time period, and in comparison to US science fiction film of that year, this is way over the top. Plot is quite predictable, but the bright colors and moving shapes kept me riveted. 8/10

Movies

I've Got Your Number (1934) Joan Blondell in telephone-related activities. Pat O'Brien is the obnoxious jerk who won't give up until he saves her from the gangsters and wins her "hand." Allen Jenkins and Eugene Pallette support. Good opening montage, interesting to see the entirely mechanical workings of the telephone system with banks of clicking relays. Nothing really outstanding except the unbelievably cute Blondell. I'd watch anything with her in it from this period. 6/10

Movies

Mickey One (1965) Donna wanted to see this because her grandmother's second husband is the cafeteria owner who has two lines. A modernistic kind of thing that is not so much about the story as about something else. Elliptical dialog, strange things to see. I did enjoy seeing one of Tinguely's self-destroying art machines in action, and the big car crushing machinery. I guess if you think about it there is a lot going on in this movie underneath the vagueness and inconclusive events. Kind of the same deal as a Cassavetes film. If I watched it two or three more times I would probably become a bug on the subject and be talking about Mickey One all the time and telling everybody they HAVE to see it and it is the greatest movie ever made. I just have all kinds of space monster movies I need to get watched. 6/10

Movies

Eolomea (1972) East German science fiction. Spaceships are disappearing and it doesn't add up. Top scientist seems to know more than he is telling. Determined effort to make an intelligent and realistic space movie - interesting but never exciting. Imaginary and flashback sequences abruptly appear, as well as short bursts of abstract spacey blob effects which seem like a bit of an afterthought, which make it a bit more challenging to follow. Obligatory malfunctioning robot. One area in which the socialist states were more advanced than the Free World was in gender and racial equity, at least in film - the protagonist is female and she is never forced into submission by threats of a good spanking, and numerous people of color appear albeit in tertiary roles. A good try. 5/10

Movies

Trouble In Store (1953) Stockroom clerk Norman Wisdom creates havoc in the department store, smashing crockery in a display window, setting himself on fire at a company banquet, singing two sentimental melodies, foiling a robbery and getting the girl. There is a prolonged chase on roller skates, and bicycles are crushed by large trucks. Apparently they thought that simply having him do something stupid and then riotously laugh about it would be funny enough. I don't think he had hit his stride yet. 6/10

Movies

Children of the Damned (1964) Disconnected sequel to Village of the Damned, a more thoughtful contemporary political allegory. It loses much of the power and clarity of the original by adding moral ambiguity, and sympathy for the powerful mutant children. Strangely, it doesn't try to make any kind of connection with the story of the previous film. Though it suffers by comparison it is still fairly good on its own. 6/10