Navy Film Review #1: Alice In The Navy (1961, dir. Alekos Sakellarios)

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Recently, Michelle of Michelle, Books and Movies Addict nominated me for one of those blogging awards. I’ve blogged off and on since 2008 so I’ve done blogging awards, blogging associations, blogathons, etc. That’s why I really like writing here cause I don’t have to deal with any of that. I can just write. However, I told Michelle that I would review 10 Navy related movies. I thought that would be fun given that she was once in the Navy. So of course that means I start with this 1961 Greek comedy. How was I so lucky to come across this as the first movie?

It’s about a girl who falls in love with a sailor, follows him aboard ship, and needs to be hidden as a male sailor from her father who captains the ship. I know this doesn’t sound very realistic, but Michelle has assured me this once happened on a ship she was aboard (sarcasm). The difference was by the time she was in the Navy sailors had stopped breaking into random and pointless musical numbers. Speaking of musical numbers, this is one of those foreign musicals that doesn’t bother to subtitle the singing. They dub the dialogue, but I have no idea what they are singing. Can you imagine watching Singin’ In The Rain (1952) without knowing what they are singing about? Anyways, the movie opens up on a beach ball in the water.

Then we see a ship come along and pick it up. This ticks off a girl in another boat. This is Alice or Aliki (Aliki Vougiouklaki) depending on which version you are watching.

As you can see, she’s not happy about having her ball taken by the other ship. She jumps in the water and swims to the other ship. The guy there decides to play a pirate since she’s already called him one. But really, was it necessary to nearly bonk the guy on the head with the boom mic?

The boom mic has been dropping in a lot of the movies I’ve watched lately. However, to be fair, none of them have beaten The Explosive Generation (1961) in that department.

And that boom mic moves from the upper right to the center of the classroom, then droops down even further. But back to Alice In The Navy because it’s time for Alice to sing while riding a donkey.

I have no idea why, but then again I didn’t know why there needed to be music in the Bollywood remake of Switch (1991) called Mr. Ya Miss (2005), but there is. And more importantly, why have I seen it? It was bad.

Well, a large portion of this movie can be summed up like this.

Actress Aliki Vougiouklaki parades around in cute outfits.

Alice and sailor boy keep looking for each other and occasionally do find each other.

And the movie pads itself out with shots that don’t need to exist.

Wanna take a guess when the movie finally has Alice aboard the ship dressed as a sailor?

It happens 60 minutes into this 90 minute movie. Not since I watched Programmed To Kill has a movie taken that long to finally get to the point. And once it does, it doesn’t matter because the remainder is music, trying to hide her by pretending one of the male sailors can do a natural female voice (which his superior buys he can do), and the boys trying to get her a dress to leave the boat wearing.

This is all highly inaccurate. I can buy that male Greek sailors break out into song in Greek and speak dubbed English, but I can’t accept that any of them have done voice training to speak with female voices just for kicks.

Of course the father finally catches on and they get punished. By punished, I mean they get married.

This movie was bad. It just seems to drag on forever before getting to the it’s main plot point where it does a little music and a little unfunny comedy before just ending. It felt like just an excuse to say: Hey! We got hot blonde girls here in Greece too! Take that France and that Bardot woman of yours.

There’s no reason to sit through this. I’m sure there must be better movies with Aliki Vougiouklaki in them. Apparently, she was quite popular in Greece.

Film Review: Mom’s Outta Sight (1998, dir. Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

For those of you keeping track, this is now the third movie with invisibility that I’ve reviewed for this site. Invisible Centerfolds was a late night cable movie. Invisible Sister was a Disney Channel Original Movie that for some reason included a scene of a girls pep squad giving each other massages (yes, I know that actually happens, but it shouldn’t have been in the movie). And now we have Mom’s Outta Sight directed by Peter Stewart. Yeah, you can even put a fake bio for that fake name on the DVD Fred Olen Ray…

but we know it’s you. What is with this guy and making parents invisible? He also directed Invisible Mom (1996), Invisible Mom II (1999), and Invisible Dad (1998). In recent years he must have decided that it was enough with invisible parents so now pets must be invisible with Abner, the Invisible Dog (2013). Now he seems to have latched onto the Christmas movie craze. Given his roughly decade long commitment to making every movie possible with “Bikni” in the title, I guess Invisible Santa In A Teenie Weenie Bikini is just around the corner for Fred Olen Ray.

Mom’s Outta Sight is what happens when a king of the cash-in genre decides to cash in on the 90s family entertainment craze. That’s the same kind of thing that brought us those two stupid Skateboard Kid movies. Too bad I can’t write reviews that short anymore. So, here we go.

The movie opens up and who cares what happens there. The movie revolves around this machine called the Triton. What does it do? Apparently, whatever is convenient for the movie. Seriously, one minute it’s transporting things from one place to another. Then it can rearrange someone’s molecules to turn them into another person, animal, or anything else. Suddenly, it can also turn someone invisible. This is a very handy device for screenwriters.

The guy on the left is a scientist that is being payed off to help some bad guys get the Triton. The girl in the middle is working with him and will be transformed into the guy (Hannes Jaenicke) on the right to help steal the plans for the Triton. So wait, Invisible Sister turned out to be a body swap comedy in disguise and this one is largely a gender body swap comedy. At least with this one, when she becomes him and acts like a female stereotype, she was already a female stereotype before the switch occurred.

There are some kids and other people, but who cares. The only other person of consequence is Mom (Mary Elizabeth McGlynn).

The bad guys plan is to turn that one lady into the Dad so that they can steal the Triton, blame it on the Dad, and get the plans at the same time. In other words, it’s this movie’s excuse for why the girl scientist needs to become a man instead of simply replacing the mom since she needs to become invisible and all. Well, she spends a bunch of time making an ass of herself as the Dad before people really catch on. Thank god Mom has that degree in fiber optics! No seriously. There’s a scene early in this movie where the Dad bitches about the fact that she’s chosen to spend her time raising the kids instead of also putting her degree she worked for to use. Also, they drop in that she was once a biker. Anyways, Mom knows what to do!

That’s right! Make sure to screw it up so that she ends up invisible. Now Mom is on a mission! A mission that takes her past this.

This actor gives the worst fake sneeze I have ever heard in a movie. While I’m talking about sound in this movie, throughout this thing it plays some of the most stock family friendly movie music I’ve heard in a while. I thought I was watching A Talking Cat!?! (2013). And if you haven’t suffered through that movie yet. Here’s the best of A Talking Cat!?!

Oh, and there’s a second one called A Talking Pony!?! David DeCoteau’s feminine side called Mary Crawford apparently likes making really bad animal movies. But getting back to this bad movie. Things come to a head pretty quick. All you need to know is that this giant rat…

still looks better than CGI Splinter in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014). And it all ends like we expect. Well, yes, the movie does reference The Invisible Man with Claude Rains, Mom’s biker friends show up, and the bad guys are caught, but I mean this.

That’s right! Mom turns the family into human cats.

Ugh, this was bad. Really bad. Stay away from this one. Now I’m going to have to review those other Fred Olen Ray movies with invisibility in them, aren’t I? Life sucks!

Children’s Horror: R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: Don’t Think About It (2007, dir. Alex Zamm)

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Then the mask turns a little more to reveal the subtitle “Don’t Think About It”. It’s hard not to think about the fact that Emily Osment is one of the Disney Channel stars who sings when you have her do it over the ending credits.

I watched the three other R.L. Stine movies for October. Not sure why I wound up going in reverse chronological order, but I did. This one really should be called R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour: How Many Other Movies Can We Reference?

The movie opens up with this kid in his room scared that something is in his closet. But really, this kid should be more frightened by the fact that his pillow changes between cuts. It was like this before he got up.

Then as he moves closer to the closet, it changes back. As for the supposed monster in the closet, Major Payne (1995) taught us what to do about that.

Of course that can’t happen here because his sister Cassie played by Emily Osment is in there. That would make for a really short movie. But while shenanigans are going on inside, this guy is outside kindly posing to reference the poster for The Exorcist (1973), and maybe trying to look like El Topo from El Topo (1971)

Now we go to The Knoxville Jr. High School and get a good look at Cassie.

Yes, Cassie is every 90s Goth girl rolled into one except she’s missing the Nine Inch Nails T-Shirt.

And that’s Priscilla (Brittany Curran) in the middle and a friend of her’s on the right who apparently could go as actress Stacey Farber for Halloween. I’m not exactly sure what she’s looking up at, but I’m guessing it’s what shows up from the top of the screen a little later.

After we find out that Cassie has no idea how to deal with Priscilla, She-Devil of Knoxville Junior High to get the attention of blondie boy toy Sean (Cody Linley), we meet the stranger from the street. Cassie finds him in a Halloween Store tucked away in a tiny alleyway. He’s played by Tobin Bell who proves once more that once you’re captured by the Hallmark/Lifetime/Disney/ABC/Nickelodeon net, you never escape. And he appears to be selling a copy of the Necronomicon.

It’s been awhile since I saw Army Of Darkness (1992) or Evil Dead II (1987), but I’m sure there’s a scene where Ash sells it to this guy. Of course Cassie buys it, opens it, and reads from it even though it says “Do Not Read Aloud”. This of course brings about evil things immediately such as the boom mic popping in from over this kid’s head.

Funny, considering this came out the same year as Twitches Too where the boom mic also popped down into the frame. Hmmm… the kid is black and there’s the boom mic. This must be young Dolemite. Well, Cassie should have no problem with monsters now. Just make friends with this kid. If he’s Dolemite, then he doesn’t even have to touch you to hurt you.

It also leads to the parents playing a really stupid game involving squirrels and popcorn with XBOX 360 controllers.

Now the movie just becomes a series of references to other movies.

Priscilla gets the Carrie treatment with roaches.

I’m guessing this kid is Captain Jack Sparrow if he were a vampire and had the Rocky Horror lips.

One of several times this movie will reference Jurassic Park (1993). This is when the monster Cassie unleashed takes away a Papa Johns pizza delivery boy. They really do have the tastiest delivery boys. Dominos has the tastiest delivery girls. Actually, it will turn out that the monster is taking people in order to create a scene that references the Alien movies.

This isn’t a reference, but kudos this movie for reminding me of how kids like to pad out writing assignments.

There’s also a scene here with ectoplasm. After that Scared Topless movie, I can never enjoy a movie with ectoplasm again. Thanks a lot, Dave Zani!!!

While Cassie’s younger brother is attacked by more Jurassic Park references in his room we get what appears to be a reference to the creepy monkey from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977).

All of this leads up to a scene where Cassie and blondie need to go and save delivery boy, her younger brother, and apparently also Priscilla. This scene references Alien and what I’m assuming must be Shivers (1975) and/or Slugs: The Movie (1988) after monster babies break out of eggs and slither across the floor. Of course we all knew this reference was coming.

Yep, the scene from Say Anything… (1989) where John Cusack held up a boom box to lure the monster out of the house in order to kill it. It’s probably been about 15 years since I saw that movie, but my memory never fails!

After they vanquish the monster and the pizza boy hits on Priscilla, the movie takes the opportunity to reference The Lord Of The Rings when they go to burn The Evil Thing. The book is saved from destruction and ends up in the hands of the parents who proceed to read from the book. Then Emily Osment starts singing over the credits. Can’t say I knew that Dave Mustaine was her producer.

All jokes aside, this movie and The Cabinet Of Souls are the best of the four R.L. Stine movies I’ve watched so far. I recommend The Cabinet Of Souls first, then this one.

Late Night Cable Movie Review: Carnal Wishes (2015, dir. Jon Taylor)

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

This is one of the movies in the Cinemax app so I didn’t expect much. However, it’s rather ambitious for one of these. It’s like a version of Double Indemnity (1944). Well, maybe a little more like the remake of Double Indemnity called Body Heat (1981). It has the spider woman, the detective, the husband who has to die, and what was sorely missing from Double Indemnity and Body Heat: lesbians. Let’s talk about this movie.

The movie opens up with Rachel (Jayden Cole) shooting a man who we find out was her husband (Ryan Driller). He dies and falls into a pool. Since he isn’t William Holden, the movie plays the opening credits, then takes us back a week instead of him narrating the story. Of course by taking us back a week, I mean to a sex scene between Rachel and her husband. This is where I’d like to note that the sex actually has a purpose and is integrated into the story. Heck, this movie does something I never expected to see. Several times two people enter a room and don’t proceed to have sex with each other. That’s a rarity in the ones I’ve watched. In this one, for whatever reason, they basically tried to make a low budget film noir that happens to have sex prominently featured in it.

After they finish, he pops up, checks his phone, finds he has a meeting to attend at night, and basically just leaves. The next morning Rachel moans and groans about her husband to a female friend of hers named Daphne (India Summer). Kudos to this film for that not leading to a sex scene. It wouldn’t make sense here, so they don’t. That really was surprising coming off a movie like Scared Topless where three girls entering a house together means they all go to do a shower scene.

Now we meet the detective (Sean Juergens) and his friend with benefits who wants to get into the PI business. Of course we meet them when they are having sex. But like all of the sex scenes in the movie, it has a purpose. It establishes that the detective is an easily manipulated person. He kind of reminds me of actor John Heard in this movie. As for those two statues behind him, I’m assuming those are in case of premature ejaculation since The Joy Of Sex album no longer comes equipped with Big Jim Slade.

Now Daphne introduces Rachel to the detective since Rachel thinks her husband might be cheating on her. I mean he keeps leaving in the middle of the night for business meetings and is a little on the cold side when he’s with her.

Then comes a sex scene that I would say they messed up. Not in terms of it having a reason to exist. In this movie, when a girl is with a girl, it’s not because like most of these that just expect you to believe that all men are straight and all girls are bisexual. Here, when we see Daphne with a girl, it’s to establish she’s into girls and foreshadows the ending of the movie, which I will reveal since it’s very easy to figure out given this movie is a film noir. The reason I say it’s messed up is because it’s the only one that really feels like it’s just an act. It’s like buying that the Seyranyan sisters actually enjoy hanging out contorted into a small cube together rather than something they are doing for your enjoyment as a performance.

The detective returns to tell Rachel about his findings. He found out that as weird as it seems, the husband actually is going out to business meetings at these really odd hours. They have sex here after she tells him a sob story about her unhappy relationship with her husband. Now you’d think that screenshot is from before the sex scene when he tells her the news she didn’t want to hear, but it’s not. They cut to that after the sex. You’d think he just told her that he found her father raped and murdered on the side of the road, but they actually just had sex.

Then I went hiking. It’s really pretty out there when you’re not racing to get back to your car in a thunderstorm. But seeing as I’ve only once come across two people making out on the trail, let’s get back to the movie.

After the detective briefly texts with the girl from earlier, Rachel returns to lay it on this movie’s Fred MacMurray a little more. This time that her husband might be abusing her. They have sex again. Then we get a scene that honestly while it does serve another purpose, it’s almost there just to say this isn’t one of those movies folks because two girls enter a room and don’t go at it. The way it’s setup, they would in any other one of these, but they don’t here. Now the movie starts to speed to it’s conclusion as we immediately cut to her shooting her husband as we saw at the beginning of the film. After reporting the possible abuse to an actual cop with Rachel by his side, we get like a quick version of the end of Blowup (1966) or Blow Out (1981). By that, I mean that it all seems in place for him, but then it all slips through his fingers leaving him with nothing.

That’s right! Rachel’s friend is more than a friend. Same ending as you would expect, but it’s another girl she runs off with, rather than another guy. That’s it! I think Erotic Ink is still the best of these I’ve watched so far. But if you’re looking at the one’s available through Cinemax, then this is probably the best I’ve come across so far. It’s not perfect by any means, but they seemed to put an effort into this one. An actual movie that happens to have sex in it instead of a bunch of sex scenes hung on a clothesline.

Film Review: Smithereens (1982, directed by Susan Seidelman)

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Jedadiah Leland

Shot guerilla-style during the waning days of New York City’s original punk scene, Smithereens tells the story of Wren (Susan Berman). Wren is a Jersey girl who, after being cut off by her family, comes to New York City. She moves into a run-down apartment, get a job making photocopies at a xerox store, and tries to break into the New York punk scene, despite having no talent or connections. The only thing that Wren does have is a lot of determination. When we first meet Wren, she is stealing another woman’s sunglasses and posting flyers of herself around New York City. Written under Wren’s picture: “Do you know me?”

Throughout the film, Wren bounces back and forth between two men. Paul (Brad Rinn) is a naive artist who has just arrived from Montana. He lives in a psychedelic-painted van that he parks in an abandoned lot. Paul first spots Wren while she is covering a subway car with her pictures and he is immediately infatuated with her. Wren hangs out with Paul until she meets Eric (played by punk icon Richard Hell), a sleazy musician who has recorded one semi-successful album and who is trying to come up with enough money to leave New York for Los Angeles. After Wren gets kicked out of her apartment, she moves in with Paul while continuing to sleep with Eric until she is finally forced to choose between the two men.

Susan Berman and Richard Hell

When Susan Berman was cast in the role of Wren, director Susan Seidelman told her to research her role by watching Nights of Cabiria and Smithereens does feel like a New York punk version of the Fellini classic. Like Cabiria, Wren remains hopeful despite the ugliness around her. Unlike Cabiria, Wren is not a very likable character. She uses everyone that she meets and is then shocked when people hold it against her. Despite that, she is so determined that it is hard not to root for her. What is interesting is that Wren is not a malicious character. She feels that she is destined to be famous and lacks the self-awareness to understand why other people are not as into her as she is. If Smithereens were made today, Wren would be trying to get on American Idol or The Voice. Sadly, Wren was just born too early to win a spot in the Jersey Shore house.

Susan Seidelman filmed on the streets of city and much of Smithereens is a documentary of life in New York City before the Giuliani/Bloomberg administrations cleaned everything up and turned Times Square into an urban Disney World. Along with being one of the first independent American films to ever compete at the Cannes Film Festival, Smithereens was also the scriptwriting debut for future Oscar-nominated screenwriter Ron Nyswaner. Keep an eye out for actor Chris Noth, making his film debut as a cross-dressing prostitute.

Susan Berman in Smithereens

Film Review: China 9, Liberty 37 (1978, directed by Monte Hellman)

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Jedadiah Leland

c9l37 Directed by the legendary Monte Hellman, China 9, Liberty 37 is a revisionist take on the western genre. Fabio Testi plays Clayton Drumm, a legendary gunslinger who is about to be hung for murder. At the last minute, men from the railroad company show up and arrange for Clayton be released. They want him to kill a rancher who is refusing to sell his land. Clayton agrees but, before he leaves for his mission, he gives a brief interview to a writer from “out East.” Cleverly, the writer is played by director Sam Peckinpah, to whose films China 9, Liberty 37 clearly owes a huge debt.

After telling the writer that his eastern readers have no idea what the west is truly like, Clayton rides out to the ranch. Along the way, he gets directions from a nude lady (Jenny Agutter) who is swimming in a nearby stream. When Clayton reaches the ranch, he meets his target. Matthew Sebanek (Warren Oates) is himself a former gunslinger who used to kill people for the railroads. From the minute they meet, Matthew knows who Clayton is and why he is there. Both Clayton and Matthew have grown weary of killing and, instead of having the expected gunfight, they instead become fast friends. Matthew allows Clayton to stay at the ranch and introduces him to his wife, Catherine, who it turns out was the same woman who Clayton talked to earlier.

China9Liberty37-02 Catherine loves Matthew but resents his rough ways and feels that he treats her like property. One night, she and Clayton go for a nude swim and then make love. When Matthew finds out, he strikes his wife and, in self-defense, she stabs him in the back. Believing Matthew to be dead, she and Clayton go on the run.

Matthew is not dead and, once he’s recovered from being stabbed, he and his brothers set off to track down the two lovers. While Matthew chases after Clayton, he is being pursued by Zeb (Romano Puppo), another gunslinger who has been hired by the railroad to kill both Matthew and Clayton.

As a western, China 9, Liberty 37 is more interested in its characters than in the usual gunfights. There are no traditional heroes or villains and Monte Hellman emphasizes characterization over action. Even while he is relentlessly pursuing Clayton and Catherine, Matthew admits that he does not blame Catherine for leaving him. As for Clayton and Catherine, they are both consumed by guilt over their affair. This is one of the few westerns where the main character often refuses to fire his gun.

As Clayton, Fabio Testi is stiff and inexpressive, but Jenny Agutter and Warren Oates are terrific. Though their films were never as critically or financial successful, Warren Oates and Monte Hellman had as strong of a director/actor partnership as Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. China 9, Liberty 37 was the fourth and final movie that Monte Hellman and Warren Oates made together. It was also Oates’s last western before his untimely death in 1982.

china 9 oates Director Monte Hellman is as well-known for the films he did not get to make as for the ones he actually did make. (Originally, Quentin Tarantino wanted Hellman to director Reservoir Dogs. When Tarantino changed his mind and decided to direct it himself, Hellman was relegated to serving as executive producer. A lot of recent film history would be very different if Tarantino and Hellman had stuck to the original plan.) Like a lot of the films that Hellman actually did get to make, China 9, Liberty 37 was only given a sparse theatrical release and was often shown in a heavily edited version. It has only been recently that the full version of China 9, Liberty 37 has started to show up on TCM. It is an interesting revisionist take on the western genre and must see for fans of Monte Hellman, Jenny Agutter, and Warren Oates.

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Insomnia File #9: Born Killers (dir by Morgan J. Freeman)

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were suffering insomnia at around 2:30 this morning, you could have turned over to ActionMax and watched the 2005 film Born Killers.

Now, probably the first thing that you noticed about this film is that the director is named Morgan J. Freeman. That J is there for a reason. In no way is Morgan J. Freeman the director related to Morgan Freeman the actor. Instead, Morgan J. Freeman is a director who has done a few indie films and who will probably never live down the fact that he directed American Psycho II: All-American Girl. According to the imdb, Freeman is also an executive producer on Teen Mom.

In other words, Morgan J. Freeman has been involved with a lot of crap.

However, Born Killers is actually a fairly good film. It’s certainly far better than anything you would expect to see from the director of American Psycho II.

Born Killers tells the story of two brothers, John (Jake Muxworthy) and Michael (Gabriel Mann). John and Michael are both killers. They call other human beings “piggy banks” and they spend all of their time murdering innocent people and then robbing them. For the wild and unpredictable Michael, it’s fun. For the coolly calculating John, it’s strictly business. They’re both sociopaths but, as quickly becomes apparent, Michael is the only one who is having any fun.

Through flashbacks, we discover that Michael and John never really had a chance to be anything other than what they eventually became. From an early age, their father (Tom Sizemore, who is absolutely chilling) taught them how to kill and steal. After their father’s violent death, John and Michael go on their own killing spree.

And everything seems to be going well for them, until John ends up shooting Michael. Why did John kill him? Even though John is narrating the story, he doesn’t seem to be sure. He admits that his memory may be fooling him. He thinks that it might have something to do with a woman named Archer (Kelli Garner), who the brothers reluctantly murdered.

With his brother now dead, John tracks down his half-sister, Gertle (Lauren German). John hasn’t seen Gertle in years and, when he first approaches her, he pretends to be a Mormon missionary. Gertle responds by leading him into her house and, after they have sex, she tells him that she knows that he is her half-brother.

Though John was originally planning on murdering her, he instead finds himself falling in love with her and even feeling that maybe his love for her would redeem him for all of his past crimes. When she tries to warn him that she has issues of her own, John replies that he knows they are meant to be together. He begs her to take a chance on him.

But Gertle, as you’ve probably guessed, has secrets of her own…

At first, I wasn’t expecting much from Born Killers. And, for the first 30 minutes or so, it plays out like your typical serial killer road film. I kept watching because of the performances but I didn’t think much of the story. However, as soon as John tracks down his sister, the entire movie changes direction and it actually starts to catch you off guard. Suddenly, you’re no longer sure just what exactly is going to happen or how it’s going to end. During the final half of the film, Lauren German and Jake Muxworthy give such good and compelling performances that you forget about the shaky first half. Even if the film’s ending is a little bit too twisted for its own good, it’s still an interesting journey.

All in all, Born Killers is not at all bad for a low-budget serial killer film airing on Cinemax at two in the morning!

Previous Insomnia Files:

Film Review: Crooks and Coronets (1969, directed by Jim O’Connolly)

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Jedadiah Leland

After taking off the month of October, I am now back on my Warren Oates kick. The latest Oates film that I watched was Crooks and Coronets, a heist comedy that stars Oates and Telly Savalas as two career criminals plotting a robbery in England.

Crooks and Coronets starts with Herbie Haseler (Telly Savalas) getting released from prison. Waiting for him is his partner-in-crime, Marty Miller (Warren Oates). Because Herbie wants to go straight and doesn’t want to do any more time, he is not happy to learn that Marty stole a car just so he could pick Herbie up from prison. Leaving the car behind, Herbie and Marty walk to a meeting with their old boss, New York gangster Nick Marco (Cesar Romero). Nick reminds Herbie and Marty that they owe him money and tells them that they can not go straight until they pay him back. Nick sends them to England to rob the estate of Lady Sophie Fitzmore (Edith Evans).

Crooks Coronets 03 After arriving in the UK and meeting with Nick’s English counterpart, Frank Finley (Harry H. Corbett), Herbie and Marty infiltrate the Fitzmore estate. Marty pretends to be a security expect while Herbie says that he is a librarian who is interested in cataloguing the Fitzmore library. However, once they meet the kindly and eccentric Lady Sophie, neither one of them can bring themselves to rob her. Instead, Marty helps Sophie fly an old World War I airplane while Herbie turns Fitzmore mansion into a tourist attraction. When Nick and Frank show up and demand to know what the hold up is, Herbie and Marty have to find a way to stop the robbery.

Crooks and Coronets is never exactly memorable but it is amusing throughout. The main reason to watch it is for the performances of Edith Evans, Telly Savalas and Warren Oates. Though this is not one of Warren’s better-known films, it was a personally significant one for him. It was while filming Crooks and Coronets that Oates met British actress Vickery Turner. Turner played the role of Annie, a tour guide who helps to protect the mansion from Nick and Harry. She did not have a big role but she did look great in a miniskirt. She and Warren Oates were married in 1969 and, after they were divorced in 1974, she went on to have a very successful career as a novelist.

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Hallmark Review: Christmas Magic (2011, dir. John Bradshaw)

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I wanted to like this movie. I kind of do, but it’s really bogged down with problems. Let’s talk about it.

That woman is Carrie Blackford played by Lindy Booth and if there’s one thing I can’t complain about in this movie, it’s her looks. She’s quite an attractive woman in this movie. In fact, the whole movie is rather attractive. By and large, it looks good from the actors to the sets. It just has a litany of other problems.

Carrie is at a gas station where she meets the attendant named Henry (Derek McGrath). Henry is a nice guy. She of course gives the Hallmark standard speech about how she doesn’t like Christmas. Henry is nice and just tells her that she should be careful on the dangerous roads and should stay off her cellphone while driving. This is where the movie goofs a little. The whole movie is supposed to take place in New York City, but they make the mistake of showing her cellphone screen.

Rogers is a Canadian cellphone company. It’s a really stupid little mistake that could have been solved so easily. Make the call to the phone. Take a screenshot of it coming in as it is shown above. Edit the image so that the provider is missing. Then for the shot in the movie, have her look down at the screenshot on her phone. Problem solved.

Well, since she obviously did use her cellphone against Henry’s advice, she gets into a car accident. This is where I have to give the movie major credit. I have had issues with my cable signal tiling over the years, but I never thought of actually sticking it in the movie as sort of a replacement for tilting the camera to tell us something is off.

Actually, it was just a weird quirk that occurred at the beginning of this movie. When I watch these I have it playing on the TV for my Dad to watch while I stream it to my iPad where I can take screenshots, and I keep the two in sync. For some reason it decided to tile like crazy only on my iPad mostly at this exact moment in the movie. Odd. Anyways, just before she dies she was having a little argument with a business rival named Lynette (Tricia Braun).

Course Henry turns out to be an angel and now she is too. He even has an assignment all ready for her. She is to go help this guy whose restaurant is having trouble. Given that she was an event planner in real life, it makes sense that she would have some experience that could prove useful. Of course there’s a few conditions. The only one that really is important is that she can’t have contact with anyone from when she was alive. Keep that in mind because that’s where one of the problems with the film is.

She is assigned to Scott Walker played by Paul McGillion of Stargate: Atlantis fame. And this is where the film shows that yes, she’s beautiful and so are the sets even if they don’t really make sense.

Somebody is a fan of Ali: Fear Eats The Soul (1974), and that person is me, because this restaurant made me think of the bar from that movie.

By the way, if you haven’t seen Ali: Fear Eats The Soul, then stop reading this review right now and go watch it. It’s one of my all time favorite movies and I almost came to tears just capturing those two screenshots.

Back to this movie. You see the size of the restaurant. Realistically this set can’t hold more than a couple of customers. Also, he says the regulars keep him afloat, but you will only see a couple of people actually eat at his place. Luckily, they kind of work around it. It still is a sign that this was done on the cheap.

Of course he has a daughter from a previous marriage, and that wife is dead. I was quite surprised that the daughter wasn’t played by Sierra McCormick. This actress certainly made me think of her, appearance wise. Scott agrees to let her help promote his business and help with his kid in the process. Where does she go since she can’t go home. It never says. She just leaves and sometimes goes to talk with Henry. Although, she does spot her father on the street and hides. I’ll come back to him at the end of this movie.

Oh, and the daughter some how knows she is a real angel. It happens really fast as if she has been around for a long time, but they just met. Also, they never explain this. All they had to do was throw in a couple of lines where Carrie asks Henry how she knows and Henry responds that it has something to do with the innocence of children. Hey, it worked to explain how children could see Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap no matter whose aura surrounded him, so why not here?

Well, the reason his restaurant isn’t doing well is because his food isn’t very good. Apparently, he took over from someone else and promised the regulars he wouldn’t change the menu. Doesn’t mean he’s a bad cook, but he’s afraid to try something new since the regulars are the few customers that keep him in business and they are adamant about sticking with what they like.

Luckily, there’s a local guy who looks crazy in that screenshot giving an art exhibit. Carrie goes to see him. This scene seems to come out of nowhere and goes on for quite a while before it ties itself back into the actual plot of the film. She convinces him that, among other things, he needs a caterer.

The event goes well and that’s Lynette from the beginning of the movie. Now I know what you’re thinking. This means that Carrie now has competition for the heart of Scott and someone she’s not allowed to come in contact with. So of course Henry comes to have a conversation with her about it.

Well, you’d think Henry has come to have a conversation with her about not coming into contact with Lynette, but he hasn’t. It doesn’t make any sense, but he’s there to remind her that she can’t come in contact with her father. A guy who has barely been in the movie and will hardly be in the movie at all. This conversation just comes out of nowhere. But then just to confuse matters more, it’s immediately followed by a scene where Lynette shows up at the restaurant forcing Carrie to duck out. After Carrie and Henry have a little heart to heart, this happens.

This is Scott singing and playing a piano. He is badly dubbed here and it comes around to bite this film in the butt at the end. I don’t know why they had to dub him. Even if he has a terrible voice I can fix that without dubbing him. During this scene Carrie comes up behind him and they talk a little about him giving up playing. All they had to do was have her say he sounded great to her. He says he knows he sounds bad, but that his wife would always say what she said, and he can tell she means it just like his wife did. Then he doesn’t have to be dubbed for the final scene of this movie because it’s not whether he sounds good to the viewer, but that it establishes a connection he had with his wife, and now has with Carrie. The movie winds down pretty quick now. It turns out Carrie isn’t dead, but in a coma. She has a chance to come back and Scott goes to her side.

He goes to her side, sings badly dubbed, she wakes up, and that’s the end. However, this is when the father shows back up. He barely is onscreen for a couple of minutes and only has a couple of lines, but he delivers a more genuine performance without saying a word then I see in most of these Hallmark movies. I didn’t think this guy was in the credits, but for some reason he is credited as a character named Jefferson. I don’t remember him having a name in the movie. The actor’s name is Don Allison. He appears to be some sort of character actor. He nearly saves this ending scene that is largely ruined by the totally unnecessary and bad dubbing.

I really can’t recommend this movie for the reasons I mentioned, and others I didn’t. I really wanted to like this, but it’s bogged down by so many problems. Won’t kill ya, but I don’t recommend it.

Because anything this divisive gets my attention. So, I also watched The Leisure Class…

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

First off, I have never watched that TV Show, and based off of Lisa’s description in her review of this film, I’m glad I don’t. It sounds like a seasons worth of footage of that dog from Godard’s Goodbye To Language (2014) pooping. In other words, I had no vested interest in this movie developed by watching the show. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

The movie opens with that title card which would make you think you’re about to watch something like Last Year At Marienbad (1961). Then we cut to a party and meet some of our characters.

That’s William (Ed Weeks) and Fiona (Bridget Regan). One thing that stuck with me from Lisa’s review about the production of this is that it was shot on film, and it shows. I don’t know if it comes through in that screen shot, but it feels like it’s trying to remind me of Merchant Ivory Productions from the 70s and 80s.

That’s Edward (Bruce Davison) and Charlotte (Brenda Strong). This is a party the family is having to celebrate the wedding of William and Fiona that is going to take place the next day. William is marrying into this wealthy political family.

This is Carolyn (Melanie Zanetti) who is Fiona’s sister. She’s the short horny sister whose character is abandoned rather quickly and seems to exist only to give the next character who shows up a foothold in this whole setup.

Then this guy shows up at the party. He is William’s brother and is about to throw a wrench into William’s plan to marry into this family. William is actually a conman. A lousy conman cause this movie already starts telegraphing the ending of the film to you at this point. Now the brother does have a name in the movie, but let’s call him what he is. He’s Withnail (Tom Bell), minus any lines people will be quoting decades from now. William tells Withnail to leave the party, but of course he doesn’t even for money. He latches on to Carolyn and generally begins acting like a jackass.

Since night is upon them, they move inside. Then what I can only assume is the boom mic pops in from the upper left hand corner.

But enough of that little technical goof because we need more characters. We have the parents who seem to be basically oblivious at this point. Fiona is basically the same way at this point. Carolyn wants With to Nail her. And of course there’s our conman William. Naturally that’s why the movie needs a detective character. That comes in the form of another sister named Allison (Scottie Thompson). She tends to stay away from the family and is a lawyer.

And you can tell she doesn’t like him because of that I just met you, but I already know your kind very well look on her face.

Well, after William tries to get some.

And so does take me now Carolyn.

Withnail decides to round up some booze and people to go off to a party!

Now take a good look at Fiona’s hair here. I’ll bring that up later. Now a couple of them, including Fiona jump in a pool.

Oh, did I say a pool. I meant a plot device to clearly establish that Carolyn is drunk, Fiona is her own woman, and William is in over his head. Well, seeing as Carolyn is drunk and something needs to bring things to a head, we get a car accident.

You see the look on Fiona’s face. That’s the look of the audience when they realize this scene only works if William has never seen a movie where rich people get away with things like car accidents they are at fault for. I hate when movies depend on their characters existing in a world where movies don’t exist that have covered situations they’re in. But again, they are trying to foreshadow the ending of this movie some more here.

This is when you need to take another look at Fiona’s hair. I have taken physics before so I’m aware of how hair works when it comes to hydrogen and disulfide bonds, but something tells me being in a pool for all of a couple of minutes doesn’t transform hair from looking perfectly straight to looking like you just had it curled at a salon. I’ll have to ask the lady who does my hair, but this struck me as a continuity error. A minor error like the boom mic, but my only guess is that it was left in to make her character appear more vulnerable and less hoity toity so that we would see her come full circle back to the way she was at the beginning, but worse.

Anyways, this is when Edward decides to give William a good talking to. So he pulls out a report that apparently shows all sorts of inconsistencies in William’s story. Hmmm…and why he didn’t pull this report out I don’t know… prior to the night before the wedding? The movie never really says. The best explanation we are given is in a scene coming up when Edward makes it clear that he wanted a son to carry on his name, but he only seems to produce girls. Perhaps we are expected to believe that Edward was willing to turn a blind eye to this report that he clearly had before because it meant he would have a son-in-law. Fiona also gets a talking to about how the wedding could affect his and her political careers. But who cares about that because we need another character…apparently…for reasons?

This is Carla the prostitute played by Christine Lakin. I actually know who she is since she played Jackie on Melissa & Joey. The girl who wanted Joey’s sperm to impregnate her one way or another. Here she plays a pointless character thrown in so that Withnail won’t leave the movie alone. At least I hope that’s the reason because otherwise she’s just a character who brings Fifty Shades Of Grey (2015) into this movie by bringing up nipple clamps. I know what you are thinking. This movie needs a scene that looks like it belongs in a Tarantino movie or something like Funny Games. And it comes next.

This is when Edward just flips out on the boys and his family. He pulls out a gun, he strips and whips Withnail, and probably give the best performance in this whole movie. Even if it is a bit much.

Cut to the next morning and Edward with two penises drawn on his face makes his daughter and Withnail offers they can’t refuse. Much to the dismay of William who at this point probably figured he and Fiona would be riding off into the sunset having told her the truth about himself and that he truly does love her. At least Carla leaves the bride with a wedding present.

Then a little wedding stuff before the movie ends on this shot.

And that’s The Leisure Class. Why did this movie stir up so much crap over Lisa’s review? It’s a movie with it’s fair share of problems, but those are a dime a dozen. Director Jason Mann tried something probably a little too ambitious for the conditions he was working under, and it never really came together. It happens. It’s his first film. What were people hoping for here? I don’t know. I just know what the finished product is. A forgettable movie that amounts to Withnail Crashes A Wedding.

As for some of the nasty comments that came Lisa’s way. I don’t mind the down votes. That’s what they’re for, but if you only want to hear what you have to think about something then don’t read other people’s reviews of things. You don’t need anyone else’s validation to have an opinion about something.

Well, I’m moving on with my life now.