rate the last movie you saw

[Paul MacLean]

My never-ending, perhaps foolhardy quest to sit down and watch every movie ever scored by Jerry Goldsmith...

For the sake of you're sanity, don't attempt this!

Goldsmith was one of the finest film composers who ever lived -- an unimpeachable musician and dramatist, but one who inexplicably attached himself to way too many mediocre and even outright awful films. Some, like Supergirl at least had some entertaining camp value, but King Solomon's Mines --like Baby, Rent-A-Cop and Leviathan -- is one of those Goldsmith-scored films that's unappealing on every level (except for the score of course). In fact I'd say it's worse than those!

[Monterey Jack]

Some, like Supergirl at least had some entertaining camp value, but King Solomon's Mines --like Baby, Rent-A-Cop and Leviathan -- is one of those Goldsmith-scored films that's unappealing on every level (except for the score of course). In fact I'd say it's worse than those!

I rather enjoy Baby: Secret Of The Lost Legend. It's obviously not great, but as far as shameless 80's E.T. ripoffs go, it's held up better than I would have expected. Plus, it had Sean Young in skimpy jungle shorts and some sweeping John Alcott photography.

[Paul MacLean]

Outlaw King (6/10)

As it tells the story of Robert The Bruce's first real triumphs in his attempt to liberate Scotland, this could have been a superb movie. Unfortunately it is just dull time-passer. Initially, I assumed (based on the look of the opening scene) Outlaw King was a very low-rent cheapie -- until I recognized Chris Pratt, and I thought "How did they afford him?" Presumably the film cost more than it looks -- and it doesn't look bad, but it has the production value of a TV show (and relies heavily on CGI).

The biggest problem however is that the whole thing is just so unceremonious. The narrative pace and visual syntax of the movie makes no room for any emotional highs or lows. There are no "reflective" moments, no real passion in any of the scenes, no "moments of truth". Visually it all looks very familiar, and one can see (as usual) the heavy influence of Braveheart and Gladiator (especially in the climactic battle scene).

There are also far-too many supporting characters. Yes, Robert had several brothers but did the film need to include them all (especially when some of them are little more than walk-ons)? In addition, all the Scots in the film have beards. Sure, that is historically accurate, but this (combined with the excess of supporting parts) makes it hard to tell who is who much of time. The actors playing English Edward II and his younger brother also look very similar, and I was often confused as to which one was on screen. They should have been combined into one character (or one of them just written-out of the story).

[Eric Paddon]

The Nude Bomb (1980) 4 of 10

-For fans of "Get Smart!", this misguided theatrical film is akin to what "Galactica 1980" is to original series Galactica fans. It just comes off like an alien version of a beloved property, because while Don Adams is giving us the same familiar quips, there's no Barbara Feldon as 99, there's no Siegfried, and he's working for "PITS" instead of CONTROL. Throw in a very lame villain plot with a very lame villain (Vittorio Gassman in a dual role conceit that lays an egg big time), an unappealing 99 knockoff and you end up with something that largely left a bad taste in the mouth of "Get Smart" fans until thankfully they made amends with a 1989 TV-movie reunion that brought all the familiar trappings back with 99, Siegfried and Shtarker and CONTROL and the original classic theme and score ("Nude Bomb" totally misses the point by having Lalo Schifrin do a dead serious type of Bondian score with a bad Bondian style title song. That simply doesn't work).

-The only reason I found myself looking at this film again is because the Blu-Ray release gave us some interesting bells and whistles in the form of two commentary tracks and also noting how a lot of footage was added/altered for TV (the TV cut master is now lost, apparently the result of the Universal fire so they had to source it from an off-air recording to present the scenes as a supplement). The first commentary track by Adams then assistant (who later created the TV series "Sledgehammer") is VERY good and is worth the purchase price because while he's more forgiving of the film than he should be, he does acknowledge a lot of problems that crept up, and how the project spiraled from a TV-movie project through 18 scripts to a big-screen effort. He's helpful in pointing out things that were reshot and also how Eugene Roche was originally cast as the Chief but replaced by Dana Elcar after filming began because Elcar proved to be better at duplicating the timings/mannerisms of the late Ed Platt (plus he also resembled Platt more) which was more helpful to Adams' performance (Roche can still be seen in some wide shots). Unfortunately, he doesn't address why Barbara Feldon was never approached. He does note that a scene that involves Agent 22 acting all jealous over Max and Agent 36 (the luscious Pamela Hensley, who did this while she was playing Ardala on Buck Rogers) was originally written for 99 in the old TV movie draft and since Agent 22 is NOT Max's girlfriend it ultimately makes no sense. It doesn't help that Andrea Howard, who is the nominal female lead in the film despite fifth billing, is simply not very good. Her only qualification for the part was a a close association with Leonard Stern (she'd been on his short-lived series "Holmes and Yoyo"). If they were going to go the "swinging bachelor" route for Max in this film, they would have been better advised to make Hensley the true female lead of the film and we could also frankly have done without Sylvia Kristel who really doesn't add much to the film in her one scene. (Don't get me started on the boring chase scene through the Universal Studios tour, although it's amusing to see the old Battlestar Galactica ride preserved in HD and other elements of the tour that are now gone).

-As good as the first commentary track is, the second one is awful. The guy who did it seems more interesting in yapping about the career of series co-creator Buck Henry who had nothing to do with the film at all, and worse he's one of those movie snob types who don't know a damned thing about TV shows and the TV credits of actors. He doesn't know what Battlestar Galactica is when describing the tour, he gets details about Hensley's career wrong (and yes, Hensley stopped acting after "Matt Houston" ended, but everyone who was a fan of hers knows it was because she got married and she's not a case of someone who's disappeared completely since). I finally gave up on that one halfway through.

-The quality presentation is the only reason for getting this. But never watch the film itself more than once!

[Monterey Jack]

A reminder that good things did occur in 2020...

[AndyDursin]

WONDER WOMAN 1984
4/10

The controversy over Warner Bros.' decision to premiere their entire slate of 2021 theatrical features on the new HBO Max streaming service day-and-date with whatever theaters are actually open in the U.S. missed one central possibility – that even without a pandemic, duds like Christopher Nolan's “Tenet” and WONDER WOMAN 1984 could've helped to ignite a “multiplex mass-extinction” event entirely on their own.

Director Patty Jenkins' long-delayed sequel is a wretched misfire – a self-indulgent comic book affair that strives to be “lightweight” without an ounce of wit. It also ranks as, unquestionably, one of the dullest, needlessly overlong films of its kind ever produced, somehow extending itself out to 2½ hours despite only offering a small roster of new characters that quickly wear out their welcome.

It doesn't start off badly, with a quick trip back to the island of Themyscira featuring young Diana competing in a tournament (one of only two Imax shot sequences in the entire picture), followed by Wonder Woman stopping a mall heist circa 1984 (“look, it's Waldenbooks!”). Regrettably, the fun – as well as any real integration of the movie's era – stops pretty much there, as soon as Gal Godot's heroine meets the movie's two supporting character/villains: one's a slick would-be business tycoon (Pedro Pascal) trying to get his hands on a wish-fulfillment relic, the other's one of Diana's nerdy cohorts, an archaeologist (Kristen Wiig) who wants to be just like Wonder Woman herself. Ultimately, these two cross the line from being powerless and pathetic to dangerous and deadly, improbably threatening mankind's extinction and requiring Diana to utilize a returning (kind of) Steve Trevor, who's embodied in another man's form but is still seen in the familiar guise of Chris Pine.

Many things go so wrong in “Wonder Woman 1984” that the comedown between this sequel and the far superior film that preceded it is shocking. Jenkins' movie spends so much time with the Wiig and Pascal characters that you wonder when Wonder Woman is going to reappear, which she only fleetingly does in the scope of a film that somehow – given its modest amount of characters – lumbers on for 151 minutes. The real issue is that neither character feels like an actual foe for Diana, both being sad, corruptible antagonists whose audience sympathy extends only so far – making us having to spend extended time with them a chore. Neither Pascal nor Wiig (who's not even remotely funny in the spots she's supposed to be) are appealing nor are they menacing, much less make viewers feel as if they're going to put up a challenge to Wonder Woman's vast array of increasing super powers. And the less said about Wiig's ending transformation into classic DC villainess “The Cheetah,” the better (you may well have flashbacks to last year's “Cats” nightmare).

What's more, WW1984 is often boring – talky and dull, sluggishly paced and in need of some comedic material or additional supporting characters to spice things up. Pine seems uncomfortably restrained in the film, rekindling a little of his chemistry with Godot, but seeming like he's just a peripheral passenger to the action – what little there is here. That extends, regrettably, to Godot herself, who's still likeable as Diana, but whose journey isn't the focal point of a sequel that seems to have been misguided right from the conceptual stage.

The one bright spot – and the only one that's an improvement over the original – is Hans Zimmer's new score. Far more melodic, orchestral and upbeat than the score Rupert Gregson-Williams contributed to the first film, Zimmer rechannels the melodic thematic material he brought to various projects 30 years ago while offering only brief quotes of the “battle cry” motif (thankfully sans guitar) he previously wrote for the character. His new theme for Diana is rousing and energetic, and wouldn't sound out of place underscoring an Olympic competition – the kind that would be far more exciting than the plodding wreck of “Wonder Woman 1984.”

[Eric Paddon]

Superman (1978) (TV Cut)

Superman II (1981) (Personal Re-Edit)

-I sat down to watch these two films in what are basically alternate edits. First, the TV cut of the first film which was released officially by Warner Archive. I'm glad they made it available so that one doesn't have to watch a pan/scan off-air recording to see what it was like. But it's easy to see why films for the big screen need to have things tightened up and how the trend in the 70s of padding movies for two-part showings (in the days when movies on TV were "big event" things) often produced cuts that drag if they amount to lengthening scenes or putting back in material that doesn't work narrative wise. That's the case with the first film which has scenes running longer that were tighter and crisper like for instance when Otis forgets to put Luthor's robe on *after* he's out of the pool etc. But I was amused at how one "restored" scene at the climax involves the Indians who own the worthless land Luthor has bought for his scheme and its worthless because no water runs on it. When Superman stops the flow of water from the collapsed dam, it just *happens* to produce a new stream of water on the previously worthless land and we get scenes of the happy Indians enjoying the water......but if Superman then turns back time to save Lois which includes reversing the collapse of the dam, this means the land becomes worthless again for the Indians! (Of course those scenes were first shot when it wasn't planned to use the "turn back the world" ending for the first film). Next time I'll likely return to the "directors cut" version which is less expanded (that version has IMO one unnecessary scene, which is Superman going through the Luthor traps but I like the restored Brando scene after Superman shows his powers for the first time)

-My new Blu-Ray editing software that I used to create my "expanded cuts" of Battlestar Galactica episodes was put to use to make my first of what might be multiple fan-cuts of Superman II. This one was more of a "basic" expansion in which its the theatrical cut with one addition only, the Brando power restoration sequence (it results in shuffling the scenes of Luthor going to the Oval Office and the diner-bully scene to put this scene back in to make things flow). I find that by keeping York for all her earlier scenes and putting Brando in just for the "last chance" scene it works very well. Especially since I'd forgotten that when York has her scene with Reeve she too emerges to touch her son as we see Brando do in the power restoration scene. Putting both those moments in means you get to see the final farewells of both parents and because York has already done her "goodbye" it still makes narrative sense for Superman to call on his father only because only he might still have some residual power left.

-With that one scene back in, the only Lester material I might have taken out if I'd been more ambitious would have been all the uber-silly moments of the Metropolis fight involving the citizens getting blown back by the super breath. Lester lays it on way too thick with the visual gags and they clash with the action and even the humor elsewhere IMO.

[Eric Paddon]

Never Say Never Again (1983) 4 of 10

-I managed to scrounge up a used Blu-Ray of this since I realized I needed it to complete my Bond collection and I doubt we'll ever see a new Blu-Ray release. This film is simply not good. Even if being an "outlaw Bond" production that couldn't give us traditional elements like John Barry and Maurice Binder etc., the film at least could have tried to capture the basic sense of Bond style and that's largely missing. Only the scenes in France come close to hitting the proper "travelogue" sense Bond films have always been noted for.

-Lorenzo Semple's script is a mess. He gets roasted most for his "King Kong" script but I've seen more films of his that he did far worse than that and this is one of them. The film just never manages to communicate the sense of global threat the way "Thunderball" did. And the whole conceit needed to set things in motion makes no sense. How can SPECTRE get the "cornea print of the President" and transfer it to Chuck Cunningham? (The actor playing the doomed Jack Petacchi was the first of the two actors who played the forgotten Happy Days brother) That's the sort of thing that would require a whole film itself to explain. Not to mention the throwaway line from Largo that Bomb #1 was buried under the White House. Again, how did they pull that off? Semple also shows he has no flair for giving Bond good lines. The quips I heard had more of a Matt Helm/Derek Flint vibe than Bond. Indeed, the totality of NSNA was more like that of watching something in the "Our Man Flint" vein especially with LeGrand's too jazzy score.

-Basinger is boring and Carrera is way too over the top. I'd note that in general, Semple was never that good at writing female parts. His "Batman" scripts always showed a weakness when it came to good female characters and his screenplays for "Fathom" and "Sheena" (taking what should have been strong, independent female action type heroines and dumbing them down) only proved that.

[AndyDursin]

I always have reservations with NSNA but no matter how flawed it may be, I still find it fun to rewatch and has some terrific moments sprouting out from the things that don't work.

In terms of the writing I assume you have the essential BATTLE FOR BOND book, which has a lot on this movie plus Warhead in its later chapters. The movie was a terribly difficult, tension filled shoot with Connery pissed off at Talia Shires husband who was in over his head producing it. Either way Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement rewrote a large amount of the movie in the weeks leading up to filming at Connery's insistence. I'm not sure they changed major plot points but a lot of the dialogue is apparently theirs.

How much of the script is Semple's is probably debatable. Certainly was a different era back then because it was common knowledge how much of it was written by those two guys (even Varietys review at the time acknowledged them) but the writers guild seemed to side with the veterans when it came to credit and not actual work performed on the final cut.

[Eric Paddon]

Yes, I do have the "Battle For Bond" book. I even have the first edition with the documents that got recalled! I remember more the earlier parts dealing with "Thunderball" than I do NSNA though I should recheck those. If indeed a lot of that final dialogue isn't Semple's work I will stand humbly corrected, though the lines Connery gives Carrera don't strike me as particularly witty (especially the line about endorsements).

There were rumors that Connery confirmed that they thought of trying to get Moore to do a cameo for the tag where he and Basinger would be walking down a street and then someone bumps past them and they turn around and it ends up being Moore who gives Connery the line, "Never say never again!"

There's a late 82 copy of the script available from Script City that I placed an order for (you can get all kinds of great pdf copies of film and TV scripts in that format) so that will give me a further chance to check out how much it differs from the final version.

[AndyDursin]

That would be very interesting to see. I can't imagine how good the original screenplay was going in since it required so much work.

I'm not sure many people realize how close NSNA was to shutting down -- that movie's production was a mess, it was made independently by Talia Shire's husband and really had a lot of people involved who were in over their head. Even Irvin Kershner sounded ill-equipped for the movie, since again, people gave him more credit for EMPIRE STRIKES BACK than he probably deserved (it was still Lucas' show as a "hands on" producer).

Connery held the movie together in more ways than one -- off-screen, apparently, if it weren't for him, the movie may not have been completed.

Either way that book is great -- I also have the 1st edition with the scanned documents!!

[Paul MacLean]

NSNA definitely has some issues -- for me the score is one of the biggest problems. And Legrand's score isn't bad -- it's tuneful and well-written -- but it's too too fluffy and doesn't really serve the film dramatically. John Barry turned-down the offer to score it, out of loyalty to Cubby Broccoli. I always thought Henry Mancini would have been an ideal choice for the film -- really the best choice after Barry.

It also seemed that they were trying a make a "Moore movie" (with lots of silly, even preposterous moments) that happened to star Connery, rather than going back to the more serious tone of the early Connery films.

Still there are a lot of things I like about NSNA though -- in particular that this is the only film in which we see Bond dancing a tango!

[AndyDursin]

LOVE AND MONSTERS
8/10

A disarming and unpredictable “coming of age” story set against the backdrop of a monster apocalypse that's more Ray Harryhausen than “Walking Dead,” LOVE AND MONSTERS had all the ingredients to become a serious sleeper hit in any other year. Regrettably, the pandemic put the kibosh on any hopes of this picture finding a theatrical audience, but the fact we've been mostly stuck inside for months on end only makes this warm and winning movie from writers Brian Duffield and Matthew Robinson and second-time feature director Michael Matthews resonate more strongly than it may have otherwise.

Dylan O'Brien plays the film's lead – an everyday young guy named Joel who's holed up in an underground colony after giant mutated monsters appear worldwide, claiming most of the Earth's human population. Joel's place is cemented amongst this group of hard-nosed survivors – he's better at cooking soup than slaying creatures, and spends most of time writing to the girlfriend (Jessica Henwick) he left behind years before. As it turns out, “Amy” is still very much alive and in charge of another colony some 85 miles away, with Joel reaching out via shortwave radio to his lost love.

Eventually, this means of communication just isn't enough for Joel, who – against the advice of the surrogate family he's become part of – sets off on an adventure of his own across an America overridden with massive insects, mammoth-sized slugs and even flying jellyfish. Yet it's not just creatures Joel meets – he's supported in his quest by a survivalist dad (Michael Rooker) and his young daughter, not to mention a dog named Boy who seems to save Joel constantly in the nick of time.

It's rare to find a movie where you're never quite sure what direction it's going, and “Love and Monsters” refreshingly throws you curveballs throughout while sticking to its own range of emotions and overall tone. This obviously isn't a hardcore film about the apocalypse, yet the movie also has no interest in the sort of cheap jokes and gore gags that you usually associate with “horror comedies.” It treats Joel and his quest seriously enough that you really do care about him and his adventure, and the movie also manages to strike a series of effective emotional chords as it quickly flashes back to the world when it came crashing down.

The creatures and FX are likewise effective yet it's pretty clear “Love and Monsters” isn't so much a story about them – this is a picture that defies easy categorization, much to its benefit. If you like movies with giant monsters, romantic comedies and films about breaking out of your rut, this picture turns out to be fun and moving in equal measure as it speaks to our inherent need to communicate with, reach out and be connected to one another. After the last 10 months or so, it's a message that rings loud and clear, making this a surprisingly timely, sweet and wholly entertaining film that's also one of the best of the truly bizarre last year we've lived through.

[Johnmgm]

Wonder Woman 1984 1.5/4. Reconsidered from 2/4.

What an odd movie. Other than Gal Gadot and Christ Pine almost nothing works in this incredibly bloated mess.

[AndyDursin]

Dullest film of its kind ever produced IMO.

If it was directed by a man it would've been half as "fresh" on the Tomato Meter too. Kool aid drinking virtue signalers trying to keep it over 60% fresh even now.