Review - ffolkes

Almost every line Roger Moore utters in this action flick is a blatant case of contrast with the role that made him famous. The oddly-named protagonist here is Bond’s opposite: a cranky, openly misogynistic, Scotch-swilling jerk rather than suave, hypocritically misogynistic, wine-sipping sophisticate. However, once the action gets started, the personality issues aren’t all that big a deal one way or another. Anthony Perkins co-stars as an extortionist threatening to blow up North Sea oil rigs unless paid not to, a plot our hero must thwart despite a parade of setbacks. While the set-up and the fight scenes are okay, the production spends a lot of time mired in go-nowhere negotiation sequences. Overall this is an earnest but awkward start to the cinema of the Reagan / Thatcher 80s. Verdict: mildly amusing

Review – The Day of the Triffids

Even by movie apocalypse standards, this one’s elaborate. Not only is the earth beset by ambulatory, man-eating plants, but the same meteor shower that activated their carnivorous tendencies also manages to blind the vast majority of the human race. The concept has potential, but it’s largely squandered on a bad script, meandering story and cardboard characters. Whatever spookiness the Triffids might have packed is further undone by the poor quality of the print used to create the DVD; this thing looks like it spent the last four decades or so at the bottom of a vat of formaldehyde. Verdict: mildly amusing

Review – Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon

I know that during World War Two England expected every man to do his duty, but it still seems strange that the call would go out to a Victorian-era sleuth who by rights should have been dead for a half century. Nonetheless, the studio decided that the world’s most famous consulting detective and his faithful sidekick (played by the classic combo of Rathbone and Bruce) were needed against the forces of darkness. Here the Nazis have enlisted the aid of Holmes’ nemesis Professor Moriarty in search of the genius inventor of a hyper-accurate bomb sight. Though the actual Doyle stories are better, this one’s entertaining in a “buy bonds” sort of way. Mildly amusing

Review – Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

Apparently only semi-daunted by the mixed response to Pennies from Heaven, Steve Martin serves up this odd little send-up of film noir. Much of the production comes across as a parody along the lines of Neil Simon’s The Cheap Detective (though slightly less goofy). However, there’s a twist: some of the scenes are created by editing new footage of Martin with old clips from actual noir movies. The result is absurd conversations between our hero and Humphrey Bogart, Veronica Lake and other genre favorites. The result is clever without being exceptionally funny. Mildly amusing

Review – Babel

What is it about uncomfortable situations that make Hollywood think they’ll be fine fodder for a two-and-a-half hour movie? In the abstract the inter-weaving of four story lines from four different cultures might have seemed clever, but here it mostly just quadruples the agony of squirming through the tales of sad little people and their sad little lives. This one picks up a point or so for the technical quality of the production. Some of the acting was okay as well. But the production is ultimately undone by the weakness of the script. Mildly amusing

Review – Sherrybaby

I felt really sorry for Maggie Gyllenhaal in this effort. She’s got talent, and better yet she’s got the guts to take on roles that other big-name actresses wouldn’t touch (which no doubt is part of what she’s doing here). However, she’s largely squandered in this indie production (funded by IFC and Netflix) that appears to have no goal loftier than creating an hour and a half worth of embarrassing situations. This has the potential to be a genuinely moving story of a lower-class woman struggling to re-establish her life – particularly her relationship with her daughter – after getting out of prison. Unfortunately the rookie director complicates the narrative with no end of tense moments. As if it weren’t bad enough that the protagonist has to have some kind of sexual contact – often graphic – with every adult male speaking role in the movie (literally) except her parole officer and her brother. But watching her try to win back her daughter’s love by singing a humiliating rendition of an old Bangles tune in front of her entire family, well, it all just got to be too much. Not for the first time I found myself wondering why independent film-makers, liberated from the restrictions (such as sexual taboos) of Hollywood productions, seem to have so much trouble making skillful use of their freedom. Mildly amusing

Review – Gojira

More than 50 years after the fact, the original Godzilla is at long last released for the North American market. To be completely fair, the Japanese original isn’t radically unlike the American recut. Aside from the absence of the Raymond Burr scenes spliced in for U.S. audiences – and of course subtitles rather than dubbing – the two aren’t really all that much different. Still, I have enough “see it in its original form” left over from film school indoctrination to appreciate at least having the opportunity to experience what the director originally intended. Worth seeing