Recommend a movie

[Vultural]

Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?) - 2010 - 8/10

Who indeed?
Insightful biography of Nilsson, songwriting shooting star of the 70s.
He penned a string of monster hits (“One,” “Without Her,”  “Coconut,” “Jump Into The Fire,”  “My And My Arrow”) though he also punched the charts with huge cover versions (“Everybody’s Talkin’ “ and “Without You”).
Beloved by numerous musicians, including The Beatles, he reveled in success and excess.
A drinking problem and public bad behaviour landed him in tabloid headlines and an early grave.
Old footage, interspersed with reminisces by wives, relatives, peers (eg:  Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb, Richard Perry, Brian Wilson ...).
As with similar tales, rousing to watch an artist succeed with their talents, sad to view self-destruction.

[Vultural]

Cafe Society - 2016 - 6/10

Waste of superb cinematography and choice cast.
Woody Allen re-explores the past again, this time 1930s Hollywood and Gotham.
Young man tries and fails to make his mark in Tinsel Town - career and romance.
Parallel story of his mobster brother building a more lucrative, if dubiously successful, criminal path.
There was an excellent film in here, I’m convinced, but this ended up muddled.
The two storylines do not connect well, and there is no character development.
Final half of film ran out of steam.
OK Allen film.  Not his best, not his worst.  Disappointing for me.

[Vultural]

The Young Marrieds - 1972 - 4/10

Playboy husband lunches as strip clubs, bangs bunnies in the woods, goes home to uptight wife.
How uptight?  Well, they certainly do “everything” as far as sex-dial positions go.
He just wants her to be more outgoing, exhibitionist.
An omniscient narrator dispenses dime store psychology throughout in this hard core, moral tale.
Only reason curious souls (such as I) still investigate this is because this was the last film from the prince of bad films - Ed Wood Jr.
Vintage porn.  Slow, dreadful acting, cheap looking in every way.
To be fair, the look (clothes, hair, interiors) was fairly spot on.  Crappy dune buggys were a rage, too.
Music was instrumental rock at the club, lounge for thrusting.
Sleazy junk - Wood aficionados will need to seek this out.

[Vultural]

99.9 - 1997 - 4/10

Spanish film about paranormal radio host whose boyfriend goes to a ghost village.
One minute he's naked, running for his life, then dead.
Of course the female host packs her suitcase, hits the village, and begins questioning everyone in sight.
The title refers to the station's radio dial, though if you are cute you could invert those numbers and get ... OH NO!
There were gaping loose ends and inconsistencies that ruined a pretty fair horror flick.
I docked this movie because, at the Toronto Film Festival, the director confessed there were aspects of the narrative that didn't interest him, so he dropped them.
Another wannabe Lynch, Suzuki, or Goddard (take your pick) who delivered a half baked film to viewers.
For gore hounds, mayhem was largely offscreen.
Though there was a sequence near the end, with the three females, the pit and the blood ... Ah, if only.

[Vultural]

War Of The Robots - 1978 - 4/10

One of the most ridiculous SciFi movies, and an absolute gem!
There must be 47 plots that careen wildly, launch from nowhere, dead end, so I’ll try to pick the main threads.
Brainy, old man scientist gets kidnapped by robots wearing blonde Prince Valiant style wigs.
No idea why he is snatched, but Space Command reckons he needs rescuing!
There are dumpy space battles - imagine the old arcade fave, Asteroids.
The Earth force arrives on some planet to engage in more battles with the blonde robots (who have knockoff light sabers), and ultimately aid a slave rebellion!

Add an alien empress - human, of course, betrayals, quest for immortality, plastic spacesuits.
Music is cheesy, the camera crops everyone, pisspoor dubbing.
There is a final space battle that goes on for what feels like five hours.
Clearly, film producers wanted to create a grandiose space opera to hop the Star Wars bandwagon, only they were utterly clueless and used the same tropes from sword and sandal epics.
Cannot stress how indescribably awful this is.  Normal viewers - beware.  Trash connoisseurs - whee!
Oh, if only this was available as a deluxe DVD with commentaries.

[Vultural]

Vipère au Poing - 2004 - 6/10
AKA - Viper In The Fist

The boys live with grandma at the family chateau, unaware of their impoverished gentility.
Grandmama dies, however, and the parents grudgingly return from Vietnam.
Mother removes stoves from the boys’ rooms, decides they only need one blanket, cuts meals.
Removes them from boarding school, confiscates their toys, stabs hands when one speaks at the table.
She is determined to destroy their spirits.
The boys try to rebel, call their mother-from-hell “Freakso” behind her back, but they are so young.
Middle son is the strongest and the film becomes a battle of powerful wills.
Supposedly a watered-down version of Hervé Bazin’s novel of the same name.

[Vultural]

The Big Steal - 1949 - 6/10

Confusing Noir set in sunny Mexico.
A military detective hounds Robert Mitchum, thinking he stole a military payroll.
Mitchum teams with Jane Greer, and the pair pursue con-man / ex-boyfriend who actually did the theft.
Film roars across the desert with high speed chases, fistfights, and treacherous alliances.
Logic disappears at times, but Mitchum’s nonchalance makes this enjoyable.

Audio commentary was by historian Richard Jewell is dry with frequent lulls.
Most of it details the troubled production, such as ---
- Howard Hughes had taken over RKO (which he would run into the ground).
- Robert Mitchum was busted for reefer and served 60 days during filming.
- Actresses declined to work with him, fearing their careers would be tainted.

[Vultural]

Paris - 2008 - 5/10

Text on the box referenced Woody Allen's Manhattan.
Not even close, this was more like one of Altman's ensemble works.
I wanted to like this, but it was an unsatisfying meal.
Multiple plots, many characters, scant narrative advancement, limited resolutions.
As always with these type of films, certain stories vanish, while others (including the less interesting ones) unfold.
Excellent photography of Paris.
Perhaps a date flick. Over two hours.

[Vultural]

Satan’s Triangle - 1975 - 6/10

Good title for erotic witchcraft exploitation, except this a Bermuda Triangle yarn.
Coast Guard helicopter responds to S-O-S distress from schooner out in the Sargasso.
Soon as the copilot drops onto deck, a freak storm appears and the chopper flies off.
Passengers and crew are dead, save for a companion B-girl (Kim Novak).
While she and copilot drink and drink, she relates how everyone aboard was slaughtered.
And reminds the copilot,  “We’re going to die, too.”
May prove scary for the timid or easily frightened, otherwise fair at best.

[Vultural]

About Elly - 2009 - 7/10
AKA - Darbareye Elly

Exasperating thriller from Iran might have you hurling items at your screen.
Some ten years after their college days, friends decide to weekend together at the Caspian Sea.
One of the guys is recently divorced, so one woman invites a single female as marriage bait.
Pressure is immediate and uncomfortable.
Twenty minutes in, Elly (marriage bait), who has turned reluctant, disappears.
Kidnapped?  Walked away on her own?  Murdered?  Eaten by a bear?  Who knows.
Authorities arrive - questions - turns out none of the friends even know Elly’s last name!
The focus pinpoints on Sepideh, the wife who invited her.
Sepideh is a nest of white lies, deception, manipulation.
Because of the constant lying, even explanations are untrustworthy and you want to scream.

Note to onlookers:  Opening credits show money going into an alms box, supposedly to grant safe travel.
Someone’s money gets stuck, foreshadowing later events.

[Vultural]

Frozen - 2010 - 7/10

No, this ain’t the sing-along kiddie film.
Three college friends spend all Sunday skiing.
Evening, the hill is closing because of approaching storms. They beg for one last lift ride ...
Things go wrong.
These are not "slasher" teenagers that you want dead.
All are real, funny even, but unwise to the notion that there are consequences to risky decisions.
A clinic on how to make a great thriller using a lift chair. A 50 foot drop. Freezing sleet. Frostbite. 3 degrees. And the realization that the mountain is only open on weekends and that Friday is a long way off.
After all that, events go quite dark for our characters.

[Vultural]

Vampyres - 2015 - 5/10

Faithful remake of Larraz’s 1974 “classic.”
Two female vampires hunt desolate woods and forlorn highway for fresh meat.
The “older” female lures a man to her bed and keeps him as sex pole / plasma bag.
As in the original, there is copious nudity, debauched romping, streams of red.
Slow going, however, with only the breath of a plot.  The interiors are austere.
The 1974 was “Hammer”  Horror (though it was not a Hammer film.
This 2015 is Euro Horror (ie:  arthouse).  While it does boast a third act, less is explained.
Acting is hit n miss, as are the characters themselves, meaning no one is memorable.
Female predators in both versions are a mix of carnivore and succubus, and in the latter version - torturer.

[Vultural]

Sex And The Swastika - 1999 - 5/10

Tenuous documentary lacks hard facts to be compelling.
British set up radio station airing music, German news, and scurrilous rumours.
Propaganda of sexual peculiarities or appetites of leaders.
Objective - ridicule command and undermine Wehrmacht  morale.
Unfortunately, no tapes exist, only scripts.
Millions of slanderous, pornographic leaflets were created and distributed.
After the war - evidence was ordered destroyed.
Second thread - Americans assign a psychiatrist to profile Hitler.
He interviews ex-party officials with axes to grind, his conclusions are wide spectrum and outrageous.
Do Allies utilize his analysis?  No.
Titillating title, little else.

[Vultural]

Bluebeard - 2009 - 7/10
AKA - Barbe Bleue

French film by Catherine Breillat.
Two young sisters climb into the attic and begin reading the Perrault fairy tale.
In a secondary narrative, the tale comes to life, and two sisters are kicked from the convent after their father dies.
The sisters return home and watch as creditors reclaim family possessions.
One realizes their powerful neighbor, Bluebeard, is rich beyond measure.
The neighbor also has a thing for young - very young - brides.
A beautiful film, but chilly in tone, with a dark undercurrent.  Both narratives move into dark territory.

 

[Vultural]

What We Do In The Shadows - 2014 - 7/10

Four older guys share a flat in Wellington.
They bicker about chores (dirty dishes a particular problem), have meetings, find activities.
For them, the day begins around 6:00 PM.  Oh yeah, they are vampires.

Hilarious documentary follows the gents as they go clubbing, heckle werewolves, invite humans to dinner.
All are chatty - well - Petyr, 8000 years old, is more reserved.
Inventive, droll, good-natured.   Reminded me of This Is Spinal Tap.
Though like Tap, tails a bit in the final twenty minutes.

[Vultural]

Sherpa - 2015 - 7/10

Revealing documentary on the Everest pack mules, the sherpas.
Unstated, but clearly evident, is the disparity between the privileged and the impoverished.
A staggering amount of tourists now insist on “conquering” Everest.
Most carry nothing.  Sherpas shoulder massive packs and set up ladders for them.
Tourists need WiFi, hot meals, and an ease unimaginable a generation earlier.
Of course, fees start at $100,000.
Good companion to 2015‘s Everest.
For those who have Everest on their bucket list, global warming is on the rise, as are climbing deaths.

[Vultural]

The Last Legion - 2007 - 5/10

I saw this on the shelf, and it looked lame, but I grabbed it anyway.
Colin Firth terribly miscast as a Roman commander assigned to protect the last Caesar.
Visigoths overrun Rome, so Firth and companions (Indian warrior maiden, huge guy in dreadlocks, et al) set off for Britain.
Ben Kingsley also participates in this "intimate epic."  That is the film-makers phrase, meaning not enough budget for cast of thousands.  Intimate - cheap.
Firth can’t wield a sword for shit.  How come all those different nationalities speak and understand English?  Where do they dine on this long trek? Caesar’s Chicken?
Mindless nonsense.

[Vultural]

Rich Hall’s Presidential Grudge Match - 2016 - 7/10

Sick of politics already?  Well, too bad.
Rich Hall is an American ex-pat living in Britain.
He hosts comedy specials, trying to explain the nuances of American life.
Such as, in this one, the glorious history of US presidential campaigns
This is a.topic ripe for skewering, slashing and bludgeoning.
Mercilessly funny, unless your are still gloating or raging.

[Vultural]

Ice Sharks - 2016 - 5/10

Polar outpost, studying global warming, finds itself besieged by thawed out prehistoric Greenland Sharks.
Less campy than most SyFy shark chompers, though viewers can guess who will bite it.
Characters often chat in shorthand jargon, so you don’t always know what they are discussing.
Like you care - - sharks ahoy!
Hey, and did the writers and director forget about pegleg Sammy?

[Vultural]

Monsters - 2010 - 5/10

Earth gets invaded by aliens.
Rather, Mexico gets invaded by walking octopuses (octopi - octopods) about five stories high.
The US erects a mammoth wall to keep aliens in Mexico. Is this symbolism?
Octopi wreck some buildings, yet far more damage is wrought by fighter jets.
Two unlikeable US citizens journey through the "Infected Zone" toward the homeland.
Not a Horror film, not SciFi, not a Romance, but an old-fashioned Road movie.
Hardly any budget, sparsely plotted, the only "actors" were the two leads. Solid use of scenery, music, and unease.
A cadre of geeks swooned over this film, trumpeting what the director created with only $15,000.
I still felt like a carnivore inside the vegan cafe.