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Reviews
Dracula's Daughter (1936)
Dark and Eerie
A wonderful performance by Gloria Holden is my reason for giving the film a ten. She's strange, dignified, lonely and isolated despite the company of Sandor, who delights in tormenting her throughout the film with barbed sarcasm. There is a love triangle involving Sandor, Dr. Garth and the Countess. However, Sandor is obsessed with her not for romance, but for the desire to have her enlist him in the ranks of the undead.
Dr. Garth, played by Otto Kruger, is a bit of a jerk. He abandons the Countess after encouraging her to 'test' her desire to be free of her cravings, but is not therre to support her. When Zeleska takes the Lily's blood at her art studio, she is still very much alive, but Garth subjects her to an arduous psychological test that saps her strength and kills her.
My problem with the climax is that Draculas's Daughter is to easily destroyed and it makes the villagers look ridiculous. Having a few foreigners waltz into town and make short work of a Dracula is just an embarrassment for the locals.
Nefarious (2023)
Tense but confining
A psychiatrist must interview a serial killer to determine if he's sane and therefore fit for execution that very night. Nefarious, the killer, is a master manipulator and the psychiatrist, Dr. James Martin, comes with so much baggage that he's tailor made for to be tormented. It's obvious in a heartbeat that this doctor never should have been chosen for the job as you'll see. Nefarious tells the doctor that he'll kill three people before he leaves the prison. I thought that meant the killings would all take place that evening, and it's a letdown when that's not the case. The script is just a lot of mumbo jumbo. The whole movie is shot in one spot, which I found tedious after awhile in spite of the good performances. I don't recommend this film.
Embrace of the Vampire (1995)
A Missed Opportunity
Centuries ago a nobleman meets his 'ladies maid' secretly in the forest every day. One day he falls asleep and three beautiful vampires take him by force and he joins the legions of the undead. Mind you, he hasn't lost his love. He's free to see her in the evenings, right? But that fact is ignored in this film. Instead, he discovers the spiritual reincarnation of his love in Charlotte, a beautiful virgin freshman at the local college well into the future. He must convince her to dump her boyfriend within three days and be his love, or he will fall asleep forever. The film is so top heavy with orgies and other erotic sequences involving a bisexual photographer that the film becomes unbalanced. Sex scenes and nudity are specialty sequences that lose their punch if you go to the well with them repeatedly. Also, they're time consuming and kill the pace of the movie. This film is just begging for a 'twist' ending, but instead with get the 'standard' hollywood finish, which is the final nail in the coffin of this tepid horror show.
The Wheel of Time (2021)
The Wheel of Mediocrity
Rosamund Pike as a powerful 'Wisdom' and sorceress is excellent as is Daniel Henney, who is perfect as her companion, but the rest of the main cast is terrible, especially the men.
The script is weak with tiresome dialogue between the big four who are accompanying Rosamund Pike. Petty arguments and endless bickering rule the day along with never ending tavern scenes with frivilous dialogue.
Stupidity is also present in abundance with the men arguing day and night over whether the sorceress can be trusted. The dialogue is on such a juvenile level, you'd swear these guys are no older than fourteen.
In episode three Pike, as the sorceress, was to ill to do much and I thought I'd die waiting for at least one character to say or do something interesting. That's when I stopped watching it for good.
The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window (2022)
Mass Hysteria
When we compare this paradoy to the brilliant parody films of Brian de Palma, we see how weak it really is. The script and plot are all cliche and have already been done to death. Anna, played by Kristen Bell, is a raving lunatic from start to finish. She's impulsive, hysterical and jumping to conclusions all the time, but what's so funny about that? The police are idiots of course and have no grounds for Anna's arrest. And of course no mother would EVER forgive her husband for leaving their nine year old daughter alone with a homicidal maniac who promptly devours the girl. I suppose that was supposed to be funny, but I just thought it was brutal.
La chica de nieve (2023)
The Copper Beeches
Have you seen 'The Copper Beeches'? Holmes Tells Watson, "If our client was staying in town I'd have no worries for her. It's the five miles of countryside to the secluded Copper Beeches that concerns me." Crime can be committed with impunity in the country.
That's the answer to, "The Snow Girl'. This is a kidnapping that the police should solve in a few weeks. The kidnappers, who kidnapped the girl impromptu, cannot hide the girl in the city. They must take the child to the country. It's raining, it's night, so how far away can they be? The police have to merely draw a forty mile circumference around the town and start investigating all the isolated houses within the circle. Who are the loners? Who is acting mysterious? Sound daunting? It isn't. The woman reponsible was a client of the girl's mother, who had been trying to become pregnant for years. The mother SAW her at the parade. She lives in the country. You extend the circle as needed, but this case is easy, especially after the banker is murdered. But it should have been solved long before the banker was blown away with a shotgun.
It is a suspenseful show, but it's mindboggling how the police muddle the whole investigation for nine straight years.
Keep Breathing (2022)
No scuba gear needed to search that plane
Keep Breathing achieves the unique goal of getting worse and worse with each passing moment. The first episode is the best and it's all down hill after that. The show is dreadfully written and directed. Liv is a lawyer who hitches a ride on a plane with a couple of drug dealers. The plane crashes into a lake somewhere in Canada and we think this is going to be a wilderness survival tale. Liv swims about eighty feet straight down to the bottom of the lake to search the plane for a couple of minutes before returning to the surface. Very impressive. From there she is haunted by a variety of ghostly visions who either thumb their noses at her chances of survival, or encourage her to persevere. The story crosscuts relentlessly between the crash site and her job and childhood memories so that the result is tedious and distracting for the viewer. What should be an exciting adventure piece is just a relentless bore.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Boring and tedious
The opening scenes are intriguing and compelling, but once the heist is successfully done the film falls apart. Faye Dunaway is miscast and sinks the movie the moment she shows up. Cocky, self important and pretenious, her methods are unconvincing and yet she quickly identifies the mastermind behind the theft, which makes the police look ridiculous since they were struggling to come up with a single clue. Thomas Crown, played by Steve McQueen. The rest of the movie is a cat and mouse romance between Dunaway and McQueen, which is flat and labored. The ending is completely predictable and the climax lands with a thud.
The Temp (1993)
An exercise in mass confusion
Peter Derns is a schnook who allows everyone to walk all over him. His new secretary, Kris Bolin, has ten times his savvy and brains and gets him out of one jam after another and even takes measures that get Peter moving forward in the cookie company. Suddenly, people start dying mysteriously and the movie switches gears and becomes a thriller. Peter of the small brain starts pouting, complaining and constantly losing his temper. He suspects Kris is the murderer and works to expose her. Meanwhile, Kris saves Peter from being fired and they are BOTH in a car on a mounain road when the brakes go. The whole murder plot is mindboggling and comes out of nowhere. The producers forced the director to change the ending, which only further buries the film in a sea of chaos. One thing is certain; the Peter Derns character is the ultimate moron whose behavior is immature, petty and snobby from start to finish.
Enchantment (1948)
How To Let Your Older Sister Walk All Over You
A brutally depressing film about a man in Victorian London who allows his older sister to bully him and lead him around by the nose at every turn. The result is he ultimately loses the love of his life; an orphan named Lark who grew up in the same house as him. The movie cross cuts over to a contemporary story taking place in World War II, but it didn't hold my interest and was just as gloomy.
The Wilds (2020)
Crazy Eight
This is a very aggravating series to watch, mainly because not a single one of these girls suspects the obvious; that they've been set up as part of an experiment. It doesn't seem odd to any of them that with one exception they survived a plane crash without a scratch. And how did the pilots, who are in the cockpit trying to maneuver a crashing plane, know all the girls 'were unconcious'. Then there's the missing body that only one girl finds odd. Along with all these loopholes, it takes over a week for this crowd to decide to build a shelter. There is no conception what so ever of these girls doing absolutely anything for days at a time to take survival steps. When there is a thunderstorm they don't even bother collecting the fresh rain water. Don't get me started on the scientists, who are pathetic starting with the blond jerk. These people are so phony, yet once again the girls can't see through them. My problem is I've already seen 'Castaway' with Tom Hanks. I mean that's a survival movie with the same contingency; a plane crash near a deserted island. The character in that movie knew what to do, while this 'Crazy Eight' bunch is just so pathetic at every turn.
The Sin of Nora Moran (1933)
One of the weirdest films of all time
The Sin of Nora Moran is a crashing bore, strange, bizarre and completely unwatchable. The script is ridiculous and the acting is pathetic. I was curious to see Zita Johann in something besides, "The Mummy". I should have known better. Her melodramatic performance in, "The Mummy" sort of fit in with her character, but she's even more 'long suffering' in this eye rolling affair then in the horror film. This is martydom taken to the ulimate degree and it's never effective. This cheap, crappy, low budget film looks like it was shot for about a hundred bucks. You're going to have to tie yourself to a chair to slug your way through all 63 minutes.
The Narrow Margin (1952)
Over rated thriller
As long as everyone is giving this film rave reviews, I may as well throw a little cold water since I'll be the only one doing it. I've got several complaints about the story. First, Charles McGraw as Dectective Brown should not be sitting down to chat with any women on this train, but there he goes talking time and again with a blond passenger with a little boy and nanny. The end result is that the bad guys finally take notice and shift their attention from Marie Windsor to the blond. That's a huge blunder on Brown's part. The other thing that ticked me off big time is that when Marie Windsor, who it turns out is a police officer, is shot to death in her cabin, not a single character in the film gives a hoot, including of course, Detective Brown. How in the world can a police officer be shot down in a film and then be completely forgotten about by all other characters. There's McGraw as Dectective Brown lamenting the whole film about his partner of six years getting killed, but he has nothing to say about the lady officer getting killed. Ridiculous
Enemy (2013)
This film is the 'Enemy'
This film is so darkly shot that half the time you can't see what's going on. And if you can't see anything then why bother sitting there watching. The main character is listless, seedy looking and dirty. Yes, he's dirty, like a flea bag. His look alike counterpart is slightly more hygienic, but still on the scurvy side. The women are pale and strange. One reviewer said he'd explain everything for you, but once that becomes necessary we're all in trouble. This is as tedious and as boring as anything I've ever seen. I forgot, a lot of the time you can't see anything.
Personal Property (1937)
Harlow bulls her way through another heavy handed performance
I was amazed at how few reviewers knew that this film was a remake of the far superior, 'Man In Possession', made in 1931 with Robert Montgomery and Irene Purcell. Reginald Owen returns as the obnoxious brother, Claude Dabney and Forrester Harvey returns as the Bailiff.
The original cast has a huge edge over this sad grouping. Robert Montgomery is way out in front of Robert Taylor in the key role of Raymond Dabney. Likewise, Irene Purcell delivers an incredibly, sexy, charming, classy and witty performance that is completely beyond anything Harlow is capable of. C Aubrey Smith is superb as the father in the original while E.E. Clive is clueless here. There's no end to it as Charlotte Greenwood mops of the floor with Una O' Connor as the maid, 'Clara'.
Jean Harlow is listless and pedestrian as Crystal Wetherby, a woman who is in danger of losing her home and possessions to the bailiff. Once the precode era was over, Harlow 'bulled' her way through many a performance, especially, 'The Girl From Missouri' where she shrieks with self righteous indignation from start to finish. Here, she's too distracted and puffy for a full fledged rampage, but gets off plenty of low-brow jabs at Robert Taylor that are weary and tiring after awhile. The situation is so bad that for those who haven't seen, 'Man In Possession', you'll be absolutely amazed how different that film comes off even though both films have the identical plot. The whole tone is different, the pace is lightning fast and Irene Purcell never ever at any time cuts the legs out from under Montgomery the way Harlow does to Taylor. For those of you who actually like this film, I suggest you see, 'Man In Possession' and your eyes will be opened.
Dunkirk (2017)
One of the most over-rated films of all time
I hated this film. Why? Don't get me started. But then again, let me get started. The whole tone of this film is all wrong. There is something 'flat' about the whole thing. First of all, there is no battle here. What we have is a series of isolated skirmishes usually involving a few planes here and a few planes there. In fact, this film has so little 'scope' in terms of battle intensity that if I didn't know better I'd say it was shot on a low budget.
The film has no star power. It's filled with a bunch of actors I never heard of. Tom Hardy is in it, but you'd never know it since he's wearing gear in his Spitfire.
The film is told exclusively from the British side and there are no German characters in it. Since the film is so dry and dull being so British, one can only speculate on whether it would have been of help to get the German perspective as the battle unfolds.
Aside from one scene with street fighting, there is no action involving tanks or infantry. All the airplane and ship stuff just get monotonous.
The film cross cuts tediously to a small boat in which an older man and two young guys are heading to Dunkirk with a sailor they picked up at sea and two young soldiers, one British and one French, who are using their wits to just get off the beach and into a boat or ship. In fact two thirds of the movie involve this small boat and these two soldiers trying to catch a ride home.
As a point of comparison, 'Fury' absolutely crushes this film and if you want to see a good world war II movie I recommend that one. "Enemy At The Gate' also had some really powerful battle scenes. I just think they could have done this much differently and much better.
The Bribe (1949)
Sweaty and dull
Robert Taylor is his usually surly self in this sluggish crime drama. Playing a federal agent, Taylor tediously supplies voice over on how he is assigned to catch smugglers stealing plane engines in South America. Part of the gang is Ava Gardner. She is legendary as a Hollywood sex goddess and I'm still waiting to see her in just one effective role as a femme fatale. She's pretty much a goody two shoes here and does little to show off her sultry assets. The pace is brutal as the film plods ahead with little or no suspense. This film is a complete waste of time despite what seems on the surface to be a decent cast. This is the bottom of the barrel where crime dramas of the 40's are concerned. Try, 'Out of The Past' with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer instead.