Change Your Image
skybar20-1
Reviews
Even Money (2006)
We Are Responsible for Our Actions
I'm always fascinated by any film that can provoke an array of feelings towards it as this films appears to have done. I am in the "liked it very much" camp. Perhaps if one avoids seeing it as a slice of life screenplay, it can be appreciated much better. I saw it as an exercise in watching people proceed to ruin their lives....we're generally responsible for what choices we make. Kelsey Grammar was very good in his role, but I could have done without the false nose, etc. Tim Roth is one of those actors who is never boring regardless of how good or poor the particular film may be. While I can appreciate why some people hate this film, I just approached it from a different angle, took it for what it was and didn't look at my watch once during its run.
Lost Continent (1951)
Best Part Is the Dialogue
I hold great nostalgic affection for this film. Yes, it is no "King Kong" regarding its special effects and story, but the film's real strength is in the characters' clever bantering throughout. Some of the banter is not PC (calling women "dames", cracks about marriage, much smoking as if a cigarette company bankrolled the film) but it's still great fun. The dinosaurs don't come off well in ways more than movement. They look like cute toys. Possible SPOILER*** here. To all wondering about the missing scene with Sid Melton, it is intact in the DVD version with Cesar Romero and Hugh Beaumont sharing the cover with two battling triceratops in the background. The cover is also green. This is a great film to watch on a lazy weekend afternoon especially if the weather is bad.
Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929)
A Very Sad Loss
I recently purchased the newly released 3-disc DVD set of Al Jolson's "The Jazz Singer." One of the extras was of found excerpts of the otherwise lost "Gold Diggers of Broadway." I had seen other musicals from 1929/30 era which all had a cumbersome, boring execution in style and musical presentation before the snap of Busby Berkeley breathed life into the musical. I fully expected the cumbersome quality in this excerpt. I was stunned at how wonderfully entertaining the number was....how talented these different dancers were to say nothing of the energy involved including the delivery in the available bits of dialog. Everyone seemed to be having genuine fun. I also enjoyed the ballet sequence although my guess is that fewer people might appreciate that sequence. The female ballet dancers were very beautiful in it. The quality of these excerpts adds to the tragedy of "Gold Diggers of Broadway" being a lost film. Other lost films have been found. We can only hope that will be the case here.
Crime Wave (1953)
Superb Film Noir
Like so many movies in the great B film noir genre, "Crime Wave" is no exception. It's cut to the bone (no fat usually in the form of "star" turns). The larger A productions often get bogged down in romantic moments. At the time of their release, these films may have starred actors who were very popular and who were given romantic scenes to satisfy the audiences of their day. They are less embraced today so these moments tend to slow up the narrative. The B films just tell an exciting story. Sterling Hayden is made for the genre. One reviewer mentioned Phyllis Kirk's classical beauty. I just shrugged and said "yes, she's cute." Boy was I ever wrong and he right. I fell in love with her. She's a lot of guys' dream of the girl next door....the one you want as a wife. The rest of the cast perfectly executes their roles. This is a terrific film and now available on DVD in a great print.
Dracula (1931)
The First Half Makes it a Ten
Yes "Dracula" becomes stage bound when the action is transported to England. The opening half of the film is so loaded with eerie and dreaded mood however that it's enough for me to give it the perfect 10. The silence accompanying the rising vampires (much of it comprised, off camera, of coffin lids falling) brings an absolute terror to the mood. Lugosi's Dracula is perfection. Even his brides are otherworldly and terrifying. What is unfortunate is that over the years, Lugosi's performance has been watered down for many (not me) by the countless imitations of Lugosi's delivery including mostly humorous ones (remember "Count Chocula"?). Try to look past all that and watch his performance in this initial film. There is just no equal.
Viva Villa! (1934)
Deleted scenes exist
In various venues, I've read some film writers' claims that the whipping of Fay Wray's character, while she laughs, was deleted due to the newly enforced production code at the time of this film's release. This claim is not accurate. The current TCM copy doesn't show this scene, however, the full whipping scene was regularly shown, in the 1960s, on either NYC station WNEW 5 or WCBS 2 whenever "Viva Villa" was aired. Another now-deleted scene showed Leo Carillo's character lining up captured federal soldiers, three at a time, front to back, and executing them with one bullet in order to save ammunition. I remember thinking how violent this film was for its time.