Movie Reviews
Our Man Flint
There was a rash of spy spoof films shortly after James Bond became such a huge hit. They stretch right down to the present day, with the Austin Powers franchise. Most of them were pretty lame, such as the awful Dean Martin “Matt Helm” movies. Most of them concentrated on exaggerating the whole Bond girl gadget-ridden double-O shaken-not-stirred paradigm of the Bond movies.
This ... Read more »
Jack Reacher
Lee Child is the author of 17 very popular books featuring the ultimate loner, Jack Reacher. JR is a former Army MP, and now he is a drifter. There is nothing in his pockets but a folding toothbrush, money, an expired passport (to avoid police hassles for carrying no ID), and an ATM card. No driving license, no keys to anything. No backpack or suitcase … Read more »
Parker
There have been several of Donald E. Westlake’s (writing as Richard Stark) books about No-first-name Parker made into movies. Always before the name has been changed. Many of them are unsatisfying. Even some of the good ones, like Point Blank in 1967, starring Lee Marvin, aren’t really all that close to the excellent books they are based on. Read more »
Sammie in Siberia
Harold Lloyd one-reeler. Harold is part of the infamous US Army detachment that went to Vladivostok and Archkangelsk, Siberia, after the Bolshevik revolution to try to put a stop to it. They stayed two years, and didn’t accomplish shit except to earn resentment of the US that persists to this day.
The Bolshies here are shown as the bad guys, plundering and raping the peasants. ... Read more »
Bashful
Harold Lloyd one-reeler. This one is very primitive, and has hardly any plot at all. Though I am a big Harold Lloyd fan, the little bits of physical business in this one don’t even justify the ten-minute running time.
The Outfit
Between 1962 and 1974 Donald E. Westlake writing as “Richard Stark” wrote 16 terrific novels featuring Parker (no first name), a relentless, unstoppable, remorseless robber. He laid off the character for a while, then in 1997 he started in again and wrote eight more. (The first five were titled Comeback, Backflash, Flashfire, Firebreak, and Read more »
Riverworld
Riverworld (2010) Philip Jose Farmer’s novel To Your Scattered Bodies Go won the Hugo award in 1972. I read it, and was not greatly impressed. Later there was The Fabulous Riverboat, set in the same puzzling world. I was even less impressed. When the third one came out I didn’t bother. The series went on for five books and several short ... Read more »
Gas-s-s-s
Also known as Gas! or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It. The honor of being named Worst Movie Ever Made has always been a hotly contested one. So much so that I’ve found it necessary to break it down into categories. Like, was any real money spent on this bow-wow, or was it financed by a loan from your uncle, like Kubrick’s Read more »
Hyde Park on Hudson
It is known that FDR had a romantic affair with Marguerite “Missy” Lehand, his private secretary. Whether it was sexual or not is still debated. It is also known that he had a previous affair, before his polio, and that was the reason Eleanor cut him off and remained his wife in name only. Much, much later a cache of letters and diaries from Margaret Suckley, his fifth cousin, was ... Read more »
Midnight Cowboy
The first and probably only X-Rated film to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Nobody’s making them anymore, because no theater chain will show them. And it’s hard to see where the X came from. (It was changed to an R in 1971, without any changes being made.) We see movies more hardcore than this every day in the 21st century. But, we must remember, this was pretty damn ground-breaking at the ... Read more »