Basket Case (1982, Frank Henenlotter)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 30, 2017
Basket Case is endlessly creative. Director Henenlotter doesn’t have the budget to execute anything, but it never stops him from trying; sometimes to mesmerizing effect. The film’s got these scenes requiring a lot of special effects and utilizes (obvious) stop motion to get them done. It’s all read more
All Is Lost (2013, J.C. Chandor)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 29, 2017
All Is Lost is the harrowing tale of an unnamed man (Robert Redford) on his damaged yacht in the Indian Ocean. The film runs 106 minutes. It’s harrowing for all of them. Director Chandor knows how to harrow. The film has a mundane reality about it. Redford has no back story, no character developmen read more
Madame X (1981, Robert Ellis Miller)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 29, 2017
Madame X never has good pacing. The movie starts with Tuesday Weld on trial, in old age makeup. She refuses to identify herself, hence the title, and won’t even assist her lawyer, Martina Deignan, in her own defense. Weld’s completely passive in the scene. Robert Hooks’s prosecuting attorney closin read more
The Curse of the Werewolf (1961, Terence Fisher)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 25, 2017
The Curse of the Werewolf has an absurd epic structure. Clifford Evans narrates; he eventually comes into the film, which means there’s no way he’d know about events he didn’t witness except everything does apparently take place in the same Spanish town. First is the story of a beggar, played read more
Hard Target (1993, John Woo), the unrated version
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 24, 2017
There’s nothing spectacularly wrong with Hard Target. It’s a competently executed early nineties action movie. There’s a lot of good stunt work and some amazing pyrotechnics. Lance Henriksen is great as the villain. Wilford Brimley is in it as a Cajun assault archer. Almost everything about it read more
Love with the Proper Stranger (1963, Robert Mulligan)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 24, 2017
Love with the Proper Stranger has a lot to resolve in its third act. There’s a somewhat sizable supporting cast, the act two cliffhanger for leads Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen’s romance is precarious–there’s a lot. So it’s striking when Proper Stranger just doesn’t do a third act. Director read more
Saw (2004, James Wan)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 23, 2017
I’m disappointed in Saw; I didn’t think I could possibly have any expectations for the movie where Farm Boy has to cut off his foot. I also didn’t know it wasn’t Danny Glover locked in the room with Cary Elwes. I wish Danny Glover had been locked in the room. He’s not. He’s a cop. And he’s read more
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000, Des McAnuff)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 22, 2017
As a musical, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle might have worked. When there’s the big Pottsylvanian national anthem scene, director McAnuff finally seems comfortable. He needs a stage; Rocky and Bullwinkle is a road movie. There aren’t any stages. The occasional set piece hints at potential read more
Hans Brinker (1969, Robert Scheerer)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 22, 2017
Hans Brinker is clumsy and charmless. It plods through its runtime. Once it becomes clear Moose Charlap’s songs aren’t going to be getting any better and there’s not going to be much expert iceskating on display, it plods even more. A lot of things would help–better writing, better acting, better read more
The Winslow Boy (1999, David Mamet)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 22, 2017
The Winslow Boy utilizes all the trappings of a stage adaptation without ever being stagy. Director Mamet opens the film with a family entering their home–there’s some muted conversation before they get completely inside, then the introductions begin. So it’s a very play structure too, at least read more
The Prison (2017, Na Hyeon)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 17, 2017
The Prison takes place in 1995. Is it because smartphones would ruin the execution of the premise? Or maybe something has changed in the South Korean prison system to no longer make the premise plausable? I don’t know. It’s a pointless and somewhat distracting detail. The premise pretends to be read more
Flash Gordon (1938, Frederick Stephani)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 16, 2017
Flash Gordon is all about its gee whiz factor. The serial goes all out to create the planet Mongo, which has come out of nowhere (in space) and is on a collision course with Earth. Only scientist Frank Shannon has a plan to save the otherwise panicked and resigned Earth–take a rocketship to the new read more
Waxwork (1988, Anthony Hickox), the unrated version
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 16, 2017
Waxwork has a distressing lack of charm. It ought to have some charm. The first act has its cast of young college students–whose college set seems to be a high school–speaking in some affected pseudo-fifties teen melodrama dialect. It ought to be sostaggeringmewhat charming. It’s not, but it ought read more
But I’m a Cheerleader (1999, Jamie Babbit)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 15, 2017
But I’m a Cheerleader is too short. It runs eighty-five minutes, which would be fine if the narrative fit into director Babbit’s affected, aspirationally camp style. But Brian Peterson’s script is front heavy. And Jules Labarthe’s cinematography is too flat. Rachel Kamerman’s production design read more
The Voice of the Turtle (1947, Irving Rapper)
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 15, 2017
The Voice of the Turtle runs an hour and forty minutes. There’s a split about forty minutes in and, in the second hour, leads Eleanor Parker and Ronald Reagan are playing slightly different characters. Screenwriter John Van Druten adapted his play (with additional dialogue from Charles Hoffman) and read more
Flash Gordon (1936, Frederick Stephani), Chapter 13: Rocketing to Earth
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 14, 2017
Rocketing to Earth starts out poorly. The cliffhanger resolution is so lazy star Buster Crabbe remarks on it; clearly someone making Flash Gordon knew they’d run out of resolves. Worse, Crabbe and the gang go right back to Charles Middleton’s palace. The past four or five chapters have just been read more
Flash Gordon (1936, Frederick Stephani), Chapter 12: Trapped in the Turret
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 13, 2017
Trapped in the Turret is the penultimate chapter of Flash Gordon, which might explain some of its inconsistencies. After a stunt person heavy resolution to the previous cliffhanger, Richard Alexander tells scheming Priscilla Lawson she might just try being nice to Buster Crabbe and Jean Rogers. So read more
Flash Gordon (1936, Frederick Stephani), Chapter 11: In the Claws of the Tigron
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 12, 2017
Once again, the title refers to a finale item. In the Claws of the Tigron doesn’t have much tigron (a Mongonian tiger), but it does have a lot of invisible Buster Crabbe causing mischief around Charles Middleton’s palace. The chapter’s a tad nonsensical–Crabbe, invisible, te read more
Flash Gordon (1936, Frederick Stephani), Chapter 10: The Unseen Peril
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 11, 2017
Once again, the chapter title doesn’t come into play until the very end–The Unseen Peril, or at least what seems like it, shows up in the last scene. The chapter skips a more dramatic cliffhanger, going on just a few seconds longer to do a puzzling one. Most of the chapter involves Priscilla Lawson read more
Flash Gordon (1936, Frederick Stephani), Chapter 9: Fighting the Fire Dragon
The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on Sep 10, 2017
This chapter’s title, Fighting the Fire Dragon, makes a big promise. There’s going to be a fire dragon and there’s doing to be a fight against said fire dragon. Only the former proves true. Any fight is, presumably, coming in a subsequent chapter. Thanks, as usual, to Priscilla Lawson’s scheming, read more