The Deep (1977, Peter Yates)
The Stop Button Posted by on Sep 3, 2009
I’m a little surprised Donna Summer did the theme song for The Deep, seeing as how she’s black and, according to The Deep, every black person is a villain of some kind or another. Even with his blond locks, I’ve never thought of Nick Nolte as particularly aryan (maybe because his read more
Lethal Weapon (1987, Richard Donner)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 29, 2009
One of the more impressive things about Lethal Weapon is Danny Glover convincingly playing a fifty year-old at, approximately, the age of forty. It’s never a problem in a film rife with problems. First, Lethal Weapon‘s plot doesn’t really make any sense. There are huge jumps in lo read more
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989, Richard Donner)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 29, 2009
Lethal Weapon 2 opens with the Looney Tunes music. It’s appropriate. I don’t think any other film series has so successfully adapted the sitcom to the big screen. The whole point of Lethal Weapon 2 is not to think–maybe as a ten year-old, I believed the South Africans could get aw read more
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, Wes Craven)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 7, 2009
The best thing about A Nightmare on Elm Street is the font in the opening titles. It’s something sans serif and it’s slightly off and it looks good. To be fair to the movie’s reputation, I did jump twice, both times at the end; maybe because it was waking me up. As opposed to enco read more
Humanoids from the Deep (1980, Barbara Peters)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 3, 2009
Maybe it’s James Horner’s score–which is solid, if a little too Jaws inspired–but if you squint your eyes and turn off your brain, Humanoids from the Deep almost seems like a real movie. It’s not, of course, it’s a New World picture. It’s got to be hard for read more
Central Airport (1933, William A. Wellman)
The Stop Button Posted by on Aug 2, 2009
Maybe the film should have been called The Lecher, the Floozie and the Rube, because Central Airport doesn’t have anything to do with the plot. I kept waiting for it to turn into a Grand Hotel at an airport, but it’s really a soaper about pilot Richard Barthelmess who romances air show read more
Mid summer movie quiz
The Stop Button Posted by on Jul 30, 2009
From Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. I read about the quiz at Tommy Salami’s Pluck You, Too! read more
Three Days of the Condor (1975, Sydney Pollack)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jul 26, 2009
The espionage genre has gotten so stupid over the last couple decades, it’s hard to even imagine how a mediocre entry could be good. Now, it’s watching the least worst. Three Days of the Condor is such a peculiar film, even though it’s wholly commercial–I mean, Dino De Laure read more
The Mummy’s Tomb (1942, Harold Young)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 14, 2009
The Mummy’s Tomb is better than its predecessor, without a doubt. Harold Young’s direction is strong. It’s not quite scary, but he’s at least going for scary. It’s sort of like an episode of “Cheers;” it takes place in small town Massachusetts and thereR read more
The Vampire Bat (1933, Frank R. Strayer)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 14, 2009
It’s hard not to be, at least, somewhat impressed with The Vampire Bat, if only because it came out in 1933 as a knockoff Universal horror pictures. Except at this point, there’d only been Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy. The Vampire Bat brilliantly resembles a Universal horror pict read more
The Mummy’s Hand (1940, Christy Cabanne)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 7, 2009
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this film. There’s no discernible reason for it to be called The Mummy’s Hand. I can only guess it has to do with the way they cut the trailer, maybe having the hand come out as a shocker. It’s not a traditional Universal horror fi read more
The Saint Strikes Back (1939, John Farrow)
The Stop Button Posted by on Jun 7, 2009
The Saint Strikes Back is George Sanders’s first Saint film. It’s strong, even though John Farrow might not be the right director for it. The script’s great, playing to Sanders’s strengths of being the charming cad, but Farrow’s close-ups are poorly conceived and some read more
Badge 373 (1973, Howard W. Koch)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 31, 2009
Badge 373 sounded good because it’s seventies Robert Duvall (before he was eighties and nineties Robert Duvall). My high hopes were quickly dashed. It’s poorly written, with lousy direction. It’s amateurish, far beneath Duvall’s abilities. I thought Howard W. Koch was somebo read more
You Only Live Twice (1967, Lewis Gilbert)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 31, 2009
My wife walked out on You Only Live Twice. She got up and left about forty minutes in. I finished it because I figured forty minutes was halfway and I could make it. It was tough. The film’s memorable because of the beginning, where James Bond dies. It’s an interesting scene, even thoug read more
The Oklahoman (1957, Francis D. Lyon)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 14, 2009
The Oklahoman is–well, I don’t want to sell it short because its discussion of racism and prejudice are rather straightforward and singular for pictures of its era–but at its core, the film’s a love triangle between fifty-two year-old Joel McCrea, thirty-five year-old Barbar read more
Days of Heaven (1978, Terrence Malick)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 13, 2009
According to John Travolta (who was originally cast and probably wasn’t just making it up–as it was pre-Battlefield Earth and he was still somewhat legitimate), when ABC wouldn’t let him out of his “Welcome Back, Kotter” contract, Malick was forced to cast Richard Gere read more
Viva la Résistance
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 3, 2009
I’m breaking my diet/workout regime and having a martini for this post. The Stop Button isn’t closing. Not exactly. It’s just not going to be updated daily and I’m not going to focus on developing its library of film responses. This week, which missed a day already, wasnR read more
The Long Voyage Home (1940, John Ford)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 2, 2009
John Wayne gets first billing in The Long Voyage Home, but the picture really belongs to Thomas Mitchell, Ward Bond and Ian Hunter. The film’s a combination slash adaptation of four one-act plays–which is somewhat clear from the rather lengthy sequences tied together with shorter joinin read more
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985, Danny Steinmann) (1)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 25, 2009
Directed by Danny Steinmann; screenplay by Martin Kitrosser, David Cohen and Steinmann, based on a story by Kitrosser and Cohen and characters created by Victor Miller; director of photography, Stephen L. Posey; edited by Bruce Green; music by Harry Manfredini; production designer, Robert Howland; read more
The Killing (1956, Stanley Kubrick)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 24, 2009
I first saw The Killing when I was in high school. I had a great video store and one of the employees–lots of the employees were film school students–recommended the film to me, raving about Kubrick’s use of fractured narrative. He didn’t call it a fractured narrative, I don read more