Let It Ride (1989, Joe Pytka)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 8, 2011
I wonder how Let It Ride would play if it were competently made. Pytka’s not a terrible director, but he’s not any good either. His mediocre composition is undone by the absolutely atrocious song choices for the soundtrack. The film would probably be better with no changes other than that track read more
The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (1975, Gene Wilder)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 1, 2011
I didn’t know what to expect from The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, other than some of the principals of Young Frankenstein to reunite. As it turns out, Smarter Brother is Frankenstein’s younger brother. For his first directorial outing, Wilder basically just mimics Brooks’s read more
Silver Blaze (1977, John Davies)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 31, 2011
Christopher Plummer makes a strange Sherlock Holmes—he’s almost too much of a movie star to play him. Plummer has a great time, creating a mildly mischievous Holmes who willfully appears eccentric. It’s too bad he’s the only interesting thing about Silver Blaze. I suppose some of Davies’s read more
The Frisco Kid (1979, Robert Aldrich)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 30, 2011
The Frisco Kid is a Western, but it doesn’t open like one. It opens more like a seventies Gene Wilder theme comedy (composer Frank De Vol starts out like it’s Young Frankenstein, but quickly gets bad… especially at the end). The film takes a little while to ground itself. Before Harrison Ford read more
Thank You Mask Man (1971, Jeff Hale)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 24, 2011
I’m not even sure how to describe Thank You Mask Man. It’s a Lenny Bruce routine animated—it’s about the Lone Ranger and Tonto, which isn’t completely clear at the beginning. At the beginning, it’s more about the idea of a hero and the problem with him not accepting thanks for his actions. read more
Hardware Wars (1978, Ernie Fosselius)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 17, 2011
The best thing about Hardware Wars, in terms of actual quality and imaginative creative impulse, is recasting Chewbacca as a brown version of the Cookie Monster (except here it’s the Wookie Monster). Director Fosselius introduces it sort of as a gag, but then develops it. The puppet gives costar Bo read more
Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967, George Lucas)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 15, 2011
Okay, why didn’t anyone tell me about Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB? I mean, I knew of it, but no one ever sat me down and told me it was startlingly brilliant. From the opening second, the film is absolutely astounding. The entire film is a chase sequence, though the protagonist (played by Dan read more
O.S.S. (1946, Irving Pichel)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 11, 2011
Pichel does such a good job with the majority of O.S.S., it’s a surprise how ineptly he handles the jingoistic last scene. It’s a WWII patriotism picture (is there a proper term for this genre?), so that last scene is requisite, but Pichel could have at least made it work. Instead, he h read more
Winston (1987, Steven Soderbergh)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 10, 2011
Watching Soderbergh’s first film, Winston, it’s interesting to see what he continued developing and what didn’t exactly make it. There’s some lovely ambient music here, as Soderbergh opens the film gently, with his two protagonists on the steps of some building at a university. Most of the film read more
Captain Carey, U.S.A. (1950, Mitchell Leisen)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 9, 2011
Either Alan Ladd was in a bunch of makeup or he’d just had his eyes done because the way his eyebrows don’t move is disturbing. There are a few scenes where Liesen, presumably in an attempt to keep down the expository dialogue, has Ladd try to communicate with his eyes. They fail. Those read more
Very Nice, Very Nice (1961, Arthur Lipsett)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 8, 2011
Very Nice, Very Nice is a collage of sound clips and photographs where Lipsett discusses the vapidity of an uninformed, disinterested populace. Of course, Lipsett made the film in 1961 and in Canada, but it’s just as relevant today as it was then… in fact, it’s probably timeless. As an artifact, read more
The Haunting (1963, Robert Wise)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 7, 2011
What makes The Haunting so good–besides Wise’s wondrous Panavision composition–is the characters. Yes, it succeeds as a horror film, with great internal dialogue (Julie Harris’s character’s thoughts drive the first twenty minutes alone and the device never feels awkwar read more
An American Werewolf in London (1981, John Landis)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 4, 2011
There’s a lot of good stuff about An American Werewolf in London–for example, Landis doesn’t have a single joke fall flat–but something about it just doesn’t work. Something Landis doesn’t do, as a director. I can’t quite put a label on it, since he does so read more
Spies Like Us (1985, John Landis)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 2, 2011
Spies Like Us ought to be better. The problem is the length. Well, the main problem is the length. Donna Dixon having a big role is another problem. The movie’s just too short. At 100 minutes, it actually should be just the right length, but there’s a lot Landis skirts over because he d read more
Bachelor Mother (1939, Garson Kanin)
The Stop Button Posted by on Feb 25, 2011
I’ve seen Bachelor Mother at least twice before but didn’t remember the most salient feature of the film. I even forgot what a big part Donald Duck plays in it (though I did remember David Niven’s watching the clock to wait to say “good afternoon” as opposed to “ read more
Death on the Nile (1978, John Guillermin)
The Stop Button Posted by on Feb 23, 2011
I’d forgotten John Guillermin directed Death on the Nile. The opening credits, a static shot of the river, suggest a much different experience then the film delivers–between Guillermin directing, Jack Cardiff shooting it and Anthony Shaffer handling the adaptation. I suppose I should ha read more
Star in the Night (1945, Don Siegel)
The Stop Button Posted by on Feb 22, 2011
Star in the Night opens with cowboys, but it’s not a cowboy story. It’s a nativity told at a roadside motel. The dialogue for the cowboys is so bad, one has to wonder if they’re just cowboy impersonators and that detail got cut. The film proper begins when J. Carrol Naish meets up with angel-in-dis read more
Murder on the Orient Express (1974, Sidney Lumet)
The Stop Button Posted by on Feb 21, 2011
There are two significant problems with Murder on the Orient Express. Unfortunately, both of them are aspects of the film’s genre. Well, one of them is an aspect of the genre and the other is related to the film’s extremely high quality acting. So, neither of them are “problems” in the traditional read more
Vincent (1982, Tim Burton)
The Stop Button Posted by on Feb 15, 2011
I’ve probably known of Vincent since Batman but I’ve never seen it. It also turns out I didn’t know much about it–I though Vincent Price starred in it (he narrates) and I thought it was live action (it’s stop-motion). Price reading Burton’s narration–it’s a beautiful bit of rhyming, read more
Over the Edge (1979, Jonathan Kaplan)
The Stop Button Posted by on Feb 11, 2011
Over the Edge is explosive. Sorry, maybe that statement is a little glib–but it is literally explosive. More cars blow up in Over the Edge than a season of “The A-Team.” I think Kaplan was going for dramatic effect, but it’s hard to say. Kaplan’s actually the least int read more