rate the last movie you saw

[AndyDursin]

I bought the Matt Helm Blu-Ray box but have yet to watch them. THE SILENCERS was the best reviewed I believe of them all -- at least two of the others received outright BOMB ratings in Leonard Maltin's book.

They are low rent compared to the Flint movies which are kind of boring for me but fun for a few minutes, plus they have suave Coburn and enjoyable Jerry scores.

[Paul MacLean]

The frustrating thing is, the first ten minutes of The Silencers is actually entertaining. Silly, but entertaining. There is also a genuinely hilarious moment concerning a camera that shoots knives. But it all goes down the tubes after that. I kept waiting for the story the "get going", but it never really does. In fact, I fell asleep twice while watching it.

Still, if you want to check it out, but don't want to rent it, someone uploaded it to youtube...

[Paul MacLean]

Night of the Generals (6.5/10)

This is one of those odd examples in which a movie has everything going for it -- a very good script, a historically-interesting setting, great actors, a score by a top composer -- and yet it just isn't very compelling.

Peter O'Toole gives a a phenomenal performance as a German general who is peevish, OCD, and possibly a psychopath as well. Omar Sharif is likewise impressive as a German major investigating the murder of a prostitute (O'Toole being one of the the suspects). The backdrop of occupied Warsaw (and later Paris) ought to have added a level of dramatic tension (seeing as the days of Nazi occupation where numbered), but the movie is almost an emotional flatline. Even Maurice Jarre's score is not very inspired and among his more perfunctory. And it's not a bad movie -- it's essentially watchable -- but given the basic story, setting and talent involved, it's not an especially good movie either. The film is also a bit of a slow burn and could have used some trimming.

[AndyDursin]

I didn't care for it when I watched the Twilight Time disc. Unappealing story very slackly directed on top of it.

[AndyDursin]

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO
5/10

Edgar Wright's movies are always an interesting watch, often filled with bold visuals, offbeat humor and lots of energy – components which, regrettably, mostly elude the dour, unpleasant “Last Night in Soho.”

In Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns' original screenplay, Thomasin McKenzie plays a young, timid fashion design student who leaves her grandmother for a bustling London with a dreamy expectation of what the world may have been like back in the romanticized “mod,” swinging '60s. Once she gets there, she's hit with the cold reality of Soho itself and visions of a past involving an aspiring singer/nightclub performer (Anya-Taylor Joy), faceless, cruel men and murder – though the who, the what, and the how elude her as she's pursued by supernatural forces...and possibly some alive ones as well.

Wright's soundtrack is, expectedly, peppered with the era's tunes, appearances by great British stars like Rita Tushingham, Terence Stamp and the late Diana Rigg, and glitzy flashbacks saturated with color – but none of it can shake the banal nature of the movie's screenplay. The picture is stunningly predictable most of the way, with Wright leading the audience down a familiar path where McKenzie slowly finds out about her spectre's sad fate, saving a late-game twist for a reveal that's supposed to be shocking yet really isn't, nor does it alter the film's overall effectiveness (or lack thereof). What's more, the picture's fairly engaging first hour gives way to a genre framework that feels overly familiar, especially in its climax, which devolves into an endless bloodbath that's neither satisfying or surprising.

Along the way, Wright also misses an opportunity to really clash the present with his heroine's visions of an era that never truly existed – one could easily envision some larger-scaled musical interludes or other set-pieces here that could've injected some energy into the picture, but the mundane “Last Night in Soho” is stuck in neutral for too much of its duration, making it one of the director's few outright cinematic missteps to date.

[Paul MacLean]

Behold A Pale Horse (3/10)

This 1964 effort seemed to have everything going for it -- a tale of revenge set in the aftermath of the Spanish Revolution, a terrific cast (Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn and Omar Sharif), directed by Fed Zinneminn and capped with a score by Maurice Jarre. Unfortunately Behold A Pale Horse is a grinding bore. Peck plays an anti-Franco exile living in France, who is coaxed into returning when he gets news his mother is dying. Quinn plays a high-ranking police officer who lays a trap for Peck, rightly assuming Peck will try to see his mother one last time before she dies.

Apart from being an overlong, talky bore, neither Peck or Quinn's characters are sympathetic so the viewer has no reason to care what happens to them.

[AndyDursin]

When Paul told me he watched that movie, the title sounded familiar but I scrambled to remember anything -- and then I realized Twilight Time had put it out a few years ago. I had to Google my own review to recall a thing about it -- THAT'S how good it was

[Paul MacLean]

Threads (8.5/10)

Superb -- and unrelentingly disturbing -- 1984 British television film, which depicts the hypothetical lead-up to (and arrival of) a nuclear attack on the UK. Although similar in concept to The Day After, the writing and execution of Threads is infinitely superior to its slicker, more expensive (and less-believable) American rival. Set in Sheffield, Yorkshire (a city adjacent to a NATO airbase -- and therefor a prime target) the foreground story concerns a young couple who decide to get married as the result of an unintended pregnancy. Preoccupied with the all distractions which come with that pregnancy, they pay only half-attention to the news reports of increasing hostilities between east and west -- until one day, the bomb suddenly drops.

The film ruthlessly depicts the woeful unpreparedness of the government, police, etc. to deal with such a disaster, the slow demise of the surviving population from radiation sickness and starvation, hospitals treating the injured with no medical supplies (or anesthetics), and ultimately the complete-breakdown of civilization. Like all all British television, the film is never gratuitous, and often understated; but there are enough quick glimpses of the ghastly effects of the blast (and the ruin it creates) to get the point across.

Again, Threads is often deeply disturbing, but it is hugely effective as well (and in artistic terms, the total antithesis of the Irwin Allen-esque The Day After).

[AndyDursin]

12 ANGRY MEN (1997)
8/10



William Friedkin directed this 1997 cable-TV remake of Reginald Rose's story, previously brought to the screen as a Sidney Lumet-helmed 1957 classic as well as an hour-long TV adaptation that preceded it. Rose himself updated the material for this unnecessary and yet still effective '90s version which features a powerhouse cast: Jack Lemmon, George C. Scott, a pre-”Sopranos” James Gandolfini, Dorian Harewood and Mykelti Williamson, who's excellent here as the angriest of the title ensemble.

Friedkin's direction stays out of the way for the most part, and concludes with a gorgeously lush rendition of Kenyon Hopkins' original Lumet version theme by Charlie Haden. Kino Lorber's Blu-Ray features both 1.78 and 1.33-framed transfers of the film – surprisingly, though, even though this was produced for TV, the 1.78 version isn't cropped at all, and opens up the left and right-hand edges without losing any pictorial information on the top and bottom. The DTS MA stereo audio is also fine.

[Paul MacLean]

Reds (3/10)

I remember as kid that this 1981 "Oscar darling" got all kinds of acclaim, and it's not hard to see why. It ticks all the right boxes -- it is a beautifully-realized period piece, filled with admired actors (Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, Maureen Stapleton, et al), it's a love story, and best of all has a pro-socialist message (which was music to the ears of limousine liberals in the Reagan era).

Beatty (who also directed the film) was obviously trying to make his own "David Lean epic"; Reds, like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago is set among the strife of the first world war. Unlike Lean's films however, Reds is a three-hour and fifteen minute bore, and its "epic scope" limited to a few scenes of location shooting. The remainder of the film is mostly talky dialog scenes -- many of them shot in cramped interiors. It gets extremely tedious and claustrophobic very quickly.

Beatty plays John Reed, a socialist journalist of minor historic significance, whom Beatty would have you believe is an unsung martyr, and hero of the working class. The film also dances around the fact that Reed -- like many champions of communism -- actually came from a very rich family. Diane Keaton plays plays Louise Bryant, a feminist journalist who Reed takes under his wing (and bed sheets). Their shared "progressive" views, which prompt them to have an open relationship, are in time compromised by jealousy, and they ultimately enter into an old-fashioned monogamous marriage (but the characters of course never reflect on this rather "bourgeois" decision).

Eugene O'Neal (played by Jack Nicholson) also figures into the story, but his presence feels like a tacked-on subplot. Nicholson is phenomenal in the role (and kudos to an actor of his stature being willing to play a supporting role), but it has little relevance to the story at large. I suspect that O'Neal was included in the story to give some measure of "social credibility" to the two leading characters (who are otherwise historic non-entities). In fact, the movie is full of tangents and immaterial story elements which slow it down. I realize this is a "true story" but even true stories have to be pruned and shaped into a coherent narrative.

By all accounts the real-life John Reed was starting to sour on communism when he witnessed the corruption and dehumanizing agenda of the Soviet regime. As such, Reds could have been an interesting story if it had played-up Reed's disillusionment and given him a more compelling character arc. But of course we couldn't allow that during the Reagan era.

Also, John Reed died at the age of 32, and Beatty was in his mid-40s at the time he played the role so he doesn't come across very convincingly as a kid in his 20s.

Beatty also relies on a dramatic "framing device", consisting of interviews of a bunch of old people who knew John Reed and the other characters, which he cuts to at random intervals during the picture. But one is left wondering "Who are all these people?" (there are no subtitles explaining who they are, or their association with the characters) and it comes off as very pretentious and self-important, and an attempt to pass the film off as something of a documentary.

One thing that could have helped Reds is an epic score. Bafflingly, Beatty hired Stephen Sondheim to provide the music, and while Sondheim may be a gifted tunesmith, he is not a film composer, and the music does nothing to enhance or uplift the film dramatically. Dave Grusin provided "additional music", but the fact is there is hardly any music in the film anyway, so neither composer makes any real contribution.

The most praiseworthy thing in the film is Vilmos Zsigmond's photography, which is gorgeous, and goes a long way in making this boring film almost tolerable. But ultimately Reds is just a soapy love story concerning the on-again, off-again relationship of a naive, reckless bickering couple, set against an historic background with some ill-thought-out endorsements of the "workers paradise".

It is not surprising to me that, despite its great critical acclaim at the time, Reds is nowhere near as well-remembered today as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Chariots of Fire, Stripes, Excalibur, Superman II or a good deal of other films from 1981.

[AndyDursin]

TARGET (1985)
3/10




Sometimes you come across a movie with a big star, an accomplished director, and an esteemed set of producers and it, for whatever reason, just doesn’t connect. Few misses, though, stray off the mark as much as the ironically-titled TARGET (113 mins., 1985, R), the reunion of Gene Hackman with his “Night Moves”/”Bonnie & Clyde” director Arthur Penn that’s one of the worst films of the mid 1980s considering the talent involved in its construction. Essaying a former CIA op who brings his perplexed, college-aged son (Matt Dillon) along to Paris after his wife is kidnapped, Hackman possesses all the intensity of a hotel guest looking to hit happy hour in a performance nearly as disconnected as the rest of this unfathomable mess which might’ve made more sense as a comedy – something that you wonder might’ve been the initial intent of “Get Smart” producer Leonard Stern, who’s credited with the picture’s story.

The stone-faced nature of the end product – a Zanuck/Brown production, no less – is something movie buffs still might find fascinating for its incredible ineptness. It’s something that extends from its story through technical issues like cinematography that occasionally resembles someone holding a flood light off-camera and interior sets that look cheaper than a typical network TV episode from its era. Especially incomprehensible, though, are its narrative deficiencies: Stern’s original story, which was reportedly rewritten by Spanish filmmaker Jose Luiz Navarro (under the pseudonym Howard Berk) and Don Peterson, starts off on the wrong note with mild-mannered Texas lumberman Hackman at odds with college drop-out son Dillon, hanging out together after Mom (Gayle Hunnicutt) leaves for a Parisian vacation. Dillon was a hot commodity at the time so one can understand his casting, yet he and Hackman have no chemistry together, to degree that it’s impossible to believe they come from the same family tree.

No sooner does Hunnicutt land in France than Hackman gets a call that she’s been kidnapped. His complete nonchalance at this fact leaves the understandably confused Dillon dumbfounded but Hackman’s character, for reasons the script never makes clear, offers no resistance to him tagging along to Europe. You’d think if he’d want to keep his ex-CIA identity a secret – since they’re living in what sounds like witness protection – Hackman’s character would never allow his son to go with him in the first place, but reality is on a sabbatical in the world of “Target.” Nor does Hackman really try and stop Dillon from wandering along the streets of Paris after Dad contacts his old agency spooks – which brings me to Hackman’s entire performance here. The actor engages in his usual, good-natured mugging, but there is literally no fire, no intensity in his performance for much of the movie’s duration – so much that you wonder if the movie being such a wreck wasn’t obvious to the actor from the get-go.

Father and son’s bickering is entirely sub-network TV level stuff, and even once the action starts, the film remains wholly unconvincing – though, again, oddly compelling for its unintentional comedy. Hackman and Dillon’s ultimate rescue of Hunnicutt, strapped to a chair wired to a bomb, is near Zucker Brothers-level for its absurdity – all it needed was Leslie Nielsen subbing for Hackman – and positively shocking for the involvement of a director who was once regarded in Hollywood as an A-lister behind some of the more acclaimed films of the ’60s and ’70s.

The deficiencies of “Target”’s performances and script, with its weak, unconvincing dialogue, is further aggravated by the production’s surprising technical shoddiness. Lighting – which casts a noticeable amount of shadows behind the cast members, even in interior shots –seems to have been a challenge for cinematographer Jean Tournier, and between him and Penn, the movie also does a spectacularly poor job capturing its assorted locales (Paris, Berlin and Hamburg, not to mention Dallas) from a visceral standpoint. Even Michael Small’s heavily synthesized score is a disaster, a far cry from the composer’s trademark suspense scores from the ’70s, failing to instill any sense of excitement in the picture and coming off like a bad imitation of other electronic scores from the era.

Reportedly coming in under budget – and it shows, frankly – “Target” would be the last film for CBS’ theatrical arm and one of several duds for Penn coming at the end of his career. It’s a movie that almost needs to be seen to be believed, though for Blu-Ray owners, curiously only European markets received a 1080p (1.78) package of the movie from CBS. The AVC encoded transfer and DTS MA 2.0 stereo sound are fine, but high-def also exposes the picture’s technical shortcomings more than previous DVD and VHS releases.

[Paul MacLean]

Lost Horizon (1973 version)

As it was offered on Amazon Prime Video, I gave this movie a shot, seeing as it was based on an acclaimed book, and featured an outstanding cast -- Peter Finch, Michael York, Olivia Hussey, Liv Ullmann, John Gielgud, et at., plus it was directed by Charles Jarrott (and I am a big fan of his films Anne of the Thousand Days and Mary, Queen of Scots. and quite like The Dove as well).

I began to have doubts right from the opening scenes however. Although released in 1973, it looked and felt like a film from the 60s. The choice of Burt Bacharach as composer for this kind of subject struck me as a bit odd too. My eyebrows were really raised about 20 minutes in, in a scene were Olivia Hussey started dancing and singing for a group of dinner guests. "That was kind of a weird tangent" I thought.

Then about ten minutes later Liv Ullmann joins hands with a group of children and breaks into this song and dance routine like something out of The King and I. The realization suddenly set-in -- this is a musical! And worse, a musical imposed on a story which isn't especially suited to a musical. I tried to stick it out, but when Hussey and Sally Kellerman (!) launched into a thoroughly nutty sequence to a tune that sounded a lot like Bacharach's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", I realized I just couldn't take it anymore.

Apart from all that, the choice of locations was lame for a movie set in a faraway, exotic hidden valley -- the production lazily repurposes the old Fox ranch in Malibu, and locations that were already used in Planet of the Apes (like the waterfall and swimming hole).

I haven't affixed a rating to this movie since I gave-up halfway through. Maybe the second half of the movie is among the most brilliant cinema ever projected onto a screen. But I doubt I'll ever know...

[AndyDursin]

One of the great bad movie musicals of all-time -- a notorious bomb!

Nick released it years ago as one of the early TT discs. It's long held a rep as a camp classic from the time it was in the Medveds' GOLDEN TURKEY AWARDS book, though truthfully, it's also pretty boring.

[Eric Paddon]

By all accounts the real-life John Reed was starting to sour on communism when he witnessed the corruption and dehumanizing agenda of the Soviet regime. As such, Reds could have been an interesting story if it had played-up Reed's disillusionment and given him a more compelling character arc. But of course we couldn't allow that during the Reagan era.

Another thing this film won't tell you. Louise Bryant eventually married William Bullitt, the first ambassador to the USSR (after FDR gave the regime diplomatic recognition in 1933, this despite the fact that Stalin had just committed a Holocaust in Ukraine in excess of the one Hitler would do) and Bullitt would become a staunch anti-communist whose anti-communism would run afoul of the FDR Administration.

[Eric Paddon]

One of the great bad movie musicals of all-time -- a notorious bomb!

Nick released it years ago as one of the early TT discs. It's long held a rep as a camp classic from the time it was in the Medveds' GOLDEN TURKEY AWARDS book, though truthfully, it's also pretty boring.

I haven't seen it, but I'm amused by the fact this was the *second* attempt to musicalize the story. There'd been a flop musical on Broadway in 1956 called "Shangri-La" (which amazingly was resurrected in abbreviated form for a Hallmark Hall Of Fame episode in 1960) and Carol Lawrence, one of the stars, years later told some funny stories on the Tonight Show about what a train wreck it was. They'd replaced the leading man playing Conway during tryouts, and on his first night where his opening line is supposed to be, "Malleson, are you all right?" he instead said, "Conway, are you all right?" and then he got rattled and said, "Oh wait, that's me."

The lesson should have been that if you failed with it once before, don't try it again!