Recommend a movie

[Vultural]

Albert Nobbs - 2012 - 6/10

Men cross dress as women:  Tootsie, Mrs Doubtfire, Some Like It Hot, Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert . . .
Funny.  Comedy.
Women cross dress as men:  Yentl, Boys Don't Cry, M Butterfly, not so funny.
Yes, I'm being selective.
So too, Albert Nobbs.   Stuffy costumer, where G Close passes for a butler. Probably to earn better wages.
Whole movie was a murky cipher.  Nobbs has increasing fantasies about what he/she will spend savings on.
There was no there to the character.
Nice looking, but at the end, shrug.

[Vultural]

White Lightnin' - 2009 - 2/10

What a piece of shooo.
Opening credits read "Inspired by Jesco White."
First third, maybe, though I think the filmmakers exaggerated.
From there, the story diverges straight into hillbilly nightmare.
Not following the Jesco's well documented life at all.
In other words, one more ghoul exploiting Jesse White.
I have probably watched Dancing Outlaw a hundred times.
Fun - funny - hopeful.
This film is a mess. Exteriors don't even look like Appalachia.

Carrie Fisher as Pris (~Norma) was truly inspired casting, however.

[Vultural]

The Queen Of Versailles - 2012 - 7/10

Billionaire time-share mogul, David Siegel, begins construction on a gargantuan manor house during the height of the financial housing bubble.  In 2008, the bubble burst and banks everywhere looked to fail.  No loans for nobody.  Work on the dream house stopped.
Now, it's up for sale.  Unfinished.  Asking a reasonable $75 mil.  90,000 square feet.  Fixxer-upper.
Highly entertaining documentary follows trophy wife Jackie, herding eight kids, navigating their spiraling circumstances.
The American Dream with big cars, big homes, big swank, crumbling to monumental failures.
Despite all, Jackie remains likeable, and stays positive.

[Vultural]

Amalfi: Rewards Of The Goddess - 2009 - 6/10
AKA - Amarufi: Megami no hôshû / アマルフィ 女神の報酬

Touristy thriller follows Japanese diplomat Kuroda as he helps prepare for G8 summit in Italy.
He gets sidetracked when a small girl is kidnaped.  Distractingly so.  The mother, who was shopping instead of watching her daughter is over emotional, antagonistic, and irresponsible.
I pity the diplomat and kept thinking,  “She wants to go it alone, let her.”
The film cannot escape its television roots, despite spectacular photography.  It feels like a two part series.
First hour pursues the kidnapping, the second broadens into conspiracy.
The photography, by the way, is stunning.  Picture postcard of Italy - minus those pesky tourists.
When did they film?  5:00 - 6:00 AM?
Enjoyable, though lightweight.
I never figured out what the “goddess" of the translated title meant.
There were no Greco Roman deities, no plus sized women.
Events occurred during the Christmas season, so this might be an alternative for jaded holiday viewers.
Oh yeah - Sarah Brightman alert.  “Time To Say Goodbye” . . . twice.

[Vultural]

Der Samurai - 2014 - 4/10

Can’t say I wasn’t warned.
Low-budget horror film from Germany earned scathing reviews ... except ... from pretentious arthouse types.
In whose ranks I probably belong.
Apparently I am not pretentious enough, however.
Local police officer deals with problem wolf by feeding it in the woods.
“What are you trying to do?”  everyone asks.  “Feeding it won’t get rid of it!”
Chasing a lead, he enters an abandoned house and finds a homeless squatter.
Male - wearing a dress - applying makeup - wielding a samurai sword.
Lots of speculative arguments follow, along with foot chases.
Is the guy a werewolf?  Or an escapee of sorts in a dress?
Film - shot almost exclusively at night - suffers from limited costs.  No plot and no effects.
Dull - boring - offscreen gore - no sex - no nudity - scant violence.
Wine n cheese crowd might enjoy better, indie horror flick connoisseurs that they are.

[Vultural]

The Bridge - 2006 - 8/10

Documentary about San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.
Focusing on the pedestrians.  Specifically, the ones who climb over the guardrail and step into the next world.
Worldwide, Golden Gate Bridge is the most popular destination for suicides.
Lonely people, forgotten souls, neighbors and coworkers who have lost their self esteem and fallen into despair.
Excellent long range photography. haunting score.
Mostly interviews with friends and family, trying to explain why someone chose to jump.
Many scenes are of the long view of the bridge . . . and the quiet splash.
Several individuals are only seen for seconds, yet they linger in your memory for weeks.
I seem to re-watch this every year, and gradually raise my original score.

[Vultural]

The Words - 2012 - 6/10

Oft visited premise of struggling young writer discovering an unpublished manuscript.
Then submitting as his own, receiving acclaim and awards.
Film guises plot with device of storyline within another storyline.
Nice looking - completely predictable.

[Vultural]

Supermensch - 2013 - 7/10

Eye raising factually, but highly entertaining documentary on Shep Gordon.
Manager to Alice Cooper, Blondie, Teddy Pendergrass, Pink Floyd (for barely a week), Luther Vandross,
Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse, Groucho Marx, King Sunny Ade, Gipsy Kings, Jean Luc Ponty,
Rick James, Pointer Sisters, Raquel Welch . . .
Stories are all funny and genuinely amazing, though the overall tone is one of endless backslapping.
Gordon was married to a Playboy model (not interviewed), dated Sharon Stone for years (not interviewed).
He was a tough businessman, none of his rivals were interviewed.
One gets the impression he remains a serial womanizer, which might explain why so few females appear.
Score is purely for entertainment value.  Dock a couple points if shadows and darker honesty is your preference.

[Vultural]

Lucky Bastard - 2013 - 5/10

“Found footage” movie suffers from the usual “found footage” flaw - dead air grinding momentum to a halt.
Film in this production was assembled from a porn shoot that turned bloody.
Ah, porn and violence,  the unwary are already lured.
Premise is that one random fan of paid porn website gets to bang pornstar.  The lucky bastard.
The starlet has veto power, and her intuition warns her about one particular guy.
Still, guess who gets selected?

Despite the genre, no penetration, no money shots.  Gratuitous nudity aplenty, though.
Decent casting in this, with several familiar actors.
Script is laced with inside jokes, dark humor, stretches of boredom, and the creepy build.
If the concept sounds familiar, Boogie Nights had the sequence where Rollergirl filmed sex with winners in Jack’s limousine, which didn’t go so well.
Likewise for most in this film.

[Vultural]

Cockneys Vs Zombies - 2012 - 6/10

Guess the title says it all.
East End construction crew finds underground vault sealed in 1666.
Hmmm ... let's open it!
Next thing you know, a gang of bank robbers are fighting the undead who have surrounded an old-aged pensioners home.
Features Alan Ford, Richard Briers, Honor Blackman (!).
Also the very catchy pub song,

" ... We're going head to head
With the undead.
You can fill 'em full of lead
But they won't stay dead."

[Vultural]

Wrong Turn - 5 - 2012 - 3/10

Five college teens are going to some mountain man festival in West Virginia.
First day, they cross paths with in-bred, sadistic, giggling, hillbilly, mental escapees.
Predictably, the teens decide to remain in the vicinity.
Many creative demises follow.

[Vultural]

Kafka - 1991 - 7/10

Non-descript insurance clerk (and part time writer), Franz Kafka, finds himself entangled with revolutionaries, secret police, anarchists, spies, and the imperious palisade known as The Castle.
Highly stylized film by Soderbergh is part Noir, part Gothic.
Unsettling narrative steeped in paranoia and anxiety.
Third act “Castle” sequence borrows heavily from Brazil.  The same black humour abides, though in Kafka it is more brittle, less fatalistic.
Dialogue often conveyed multiple meanings so one has to keep alert.
Outstanding set design (Prague) of empty streets, endless midnight.
Kafka’s works, like Orwell’s, grow disturbingly relevant to our era.

[Vultural]

Battle In Outer Space - 1958 - 5/10
AKA - Uchû daisensô / 宇宙大戦争

Earth’s space station gets attacked and destroyed by alien spacecraft.
World leaders assemble and scientists explain the invaders (the Natal) have a base on the Moon.
Fortunately, Japan reveals they have already constructed two rocket ships.  And a ray gun.
Small scale war ensues.
The Moon parts are fine, decent sets, good models, inventive special effects.
Lunar explorer pods are amusingly suggestive.

The pint-sized Natal are clearly children, though.  Earth cosmonaut costumes most unstylish.
In many regards, this is refried Mysterians from 1957, an altogether superior film which boasted a finer score.
Even the saucers look like the Natal jacked them from Mysterian.
OK enough, but not the first choice for vintage Toho SciFi.

[Vultural]

This Is Spinal Tap - 1984 - 11/10

First and finest of the Rockumentary - Mockumentary genre.
One brilliant moment after another.
"This goes to 11."

[Vultural]

Linda Ronstadt - Live Hollywood - 1980 - 6/10

Linda so dominated the airwaves in the late 70s.  This show caught her just after she passed the peak.
Manager Peter Asher had shifted musical gears on her again, moving her into "Modern Rock."
Trouble is, Linda was never a full bore rocker.  She did not have the voice for it.
When she pours on the volume, her tone narrows and becomes strident.
Other songs, such as the haunting "Faithless Heart," she vanishes into the poetry of the lyrics.
By and large, she has disowned that era, when she fronted a wall of guitars.

 

http://ronstadt-linda.com/artrs95.html

Her voice disturbed me, so I dug out other concert videos - 1974 - 1976, where her voice was still spectacular. Below is a snip from the 1980 show.  A nice bit.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3wapH7H00I

[Vultural]

Atomic Submarine - 1959 - 5/10

My brother phones me yesterday, asking me to identify a film.
(My brother is the only guy I know who does not have Internet, let alone a computer.)
“It’s black n white.  Late 50s.  SciFi.  Four guys enter an alien spaceship.  One by one they get picked off.  One guy was trying to squeeze through the closing doors when ...”
I knew the scene, knew the movie.  Told him I would mail him a copy, then decided to watch.

Arctic undersea shipping routes are being disrupted by mysterious force.
Couple dozen cargo vessels and shipping submarines (!) have vanished.
US Navy sends their best hunter sub to investigate.
It encounters a UFO, hiding in the Arctic ocean, scouting the Earth for colonization.
Trick lighting and almost black sets disguise minuscule budget.

Dry, over-talky, with monotone voiceovers, and a lethargic two thirds don’t help matters.
Several familiar B-movie faces in the cast, though no one a casual viewer would recognize.
Audio commentary on DVD is actually more enjoyable.

[Vultural]

Lambert And Stamp - 2014 - 6/10

Somewhat bipolar documentary of duo who managed The Who, detailing the calculated rise followed by litigation.
Doc can be divided into “before Tommy” and “after Tommy.”
Meaning it is entertaining and absorbing up to that point, as the group struggles to strike maximum success.
Mostly talking head interviews, clippings, old footage, usual documentary material.
After Tommy hurls the group into Rock’s upper echelon, the narrative begins to skip over details.
There was a falling out, that is not clearly explored nor explained.
At one point the pair were discharged for “mismanagment,” though Stamp loudly protested.
Little Google research indicates Mr Lambert had been skimming royalties for a substance problem.
Embezzlement?
The whole second half is filled with unanswered questions.  When did Lambert die?  Where?  What causes?
In one scene, why did Daltrey refuse to talk with Stamp in the garden?
Stamp also died in 2012 - no mention is made of that.
Hardcore Who fans will likely enjoy this more than average viewers.
Bear in mind, this is a documentary about the managers, not the group itself.

[Vultural]

Charlie Is My Darling - 1965 - 6/10

Recently discovered, never shown documentary on early Stones.
Often blurry, rapid pans, pixelated images.
Worthwhile to see a very young band still playing halls and clubs.
Less than an hour long.  Great for fans.
Mick and Keith before they became the Toxic Twins.

[Vultural]

Wanted For Murder - 1946 - 6/10

Nice British thriller set in post WWI London.
Eric Portman plays the rich swell with a slight strangling issue.
Good police procedural as the inspectors focus their gaze on him, and the small errors he makes.
Many, many scenes of London add to the appeal of this one.
Great film for a wet weekend.

[Vultural]

West Of Zanzibar - 1928 - 7/10

A “friend" tells shocked husband that his wife is leaving with him.
When the husband protests, the friend pushes him off a balcony.  He falls and breaks his back.
Permanently paralyzed.
Later the wife returns, only to die, leaving hubby with an illegitimate daughter to raise.
The husband vows revenge against the man who stole his wife, and against the brat.
Eventually he tracks his rival to Zanzibar.  He plots revenge, using the daughter who he had raised in a brothel.

One of the most sordid and unpleasant of all Silent films, Tod Browning's Zanzibar still packs a wallop.
Lon Chaney amazing as embittered man, consumed by revenge.  Lionel Barrymore his slippery rival.
The opening, which I described above, takes about five minutes, and the plot moves like brushfire.
Ignore sappy ending which was likely pegged on to appease censors.
A wonderfully ugly film.