Tuesday, 9 July 2019
101
Hell's Angels - A Howard Hughes Production (1930) -A silent at heart.
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) - I don't get movie Tarzan.
Sullivan's Travels (1941 - B/W)- Sturges forgets to focus on some of his own jokes, i.e. a hanging corpse cameo.
Public Enemy (1931), Little Caesar (1931), Petrified Forest (1936), Angels with Dirty Faces (1937), Guncrazy (1949), White Heat (1949), The Asphalt Jungle (1950) - all noir. Admired bits, but not my thing.
Elephant Boy (1937 - B/W)- Pioneering but cruel-to-animals travelogue.
The Inspector General (1949) - Danny Kaye period bafflement though the ghost number is memorable.
THE ADVENTURES OF JANE (1949 - B/W)- Mild cheesecake with the original comic's model, Christabel Leighton-Porter, now middle-aged.
The Tattooed Stranger (1950 - B/W) - Middling NY noir.
The Inspector (1962) - Turgid post-Exodus melodramawith Stephen Boyd,Sr.Dolores Hart and Arab Harry Andrews.
The Ugly American (1963)- Idiotic Brando preachiness in not-Nam.
Naked Kiss (1964- B/W)- Fuller does softporn.
The System (1964 - B/W) - Finally finished this. Basically the Damned without the nuke-children, but Reed is brilliant as always. Basically given a followup by Winner as the messy I'll Never Forget Whats'isname (1967)
Ensign Pulver (1964) - Who thought Robert Walker Jr.'d be a star?
Flight of the Phoenix (1965)- Submerged in its own length.
The Boy Cried Murder (1966)- Cheap, sub-ITC/CFF Clemensia. Baffling end.
The Last of the Secret Agents? (1966) - Dire sub-Elvis spy spoof starring sub-crooner Steve Rossi and Marty Morrissey-alike Marty Allen Ok.ru.
Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967) - Scorsese B/W sub-porn art-twaddle.
The Caper of the Golden Bulls (1967)- Idiotic Stephen Boyd caper.
Tony Rome (1967) - Telly-like Sinatra nepotism heavy actioner.
Rocket to the Moon (1967)- Lush by Towers standards but basic comedy. Rocket doesn't even leave Earth.
Kill a Dragon (1967) - Hong Kong based DocSavagery with Jack Palance. One of the worst post-Bond actioners. Ok.ru
Madigan's Millions (1967)- Sub-Shadows-Soundtracked Eurospy "comedy". You'd never know Dustin Hoffman'd be a star.
Hot Rods to Hell (1967) - Desperate attempt to combine heart-searing family melodrama and juvenile delinquency.
Head (1968)- Surreal bollocks, nice music.
Only When I Larf (1968) - Obnoxious nutty hijack. Ok.ru
The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969) -Overlong Italian flimsy whimsy.
Take the Money and Run (1969) - Televisual, but it was made by ABC.
Riot (1969) - Depressing Jim Brown prison flick. Gene Hackman and Brown reunited from
The Split (1968) - Workmanlike Westlake adap with an insane cast by Gordon Flemyng, the man behind ze Dalek films. Ok.ru
Pendulum (1969)- Dull Peppardsploitation. Ok.ru-Tried the very-TV like P.J. (1968), which felt outdated yet trying to be hip and sexist, and the Harold Robbins-esque The Third Day (1965)
Generation (1969)- Idiotic David Janssen gap-com.
Alice's Restaurant (1970) - Beckinsale-alike Arlo Guthrie cooks up a plate of hippie shite.
Something for Everyone (1970) - Airless Michael York/Angela Lansbury juvenile Austrocaper.
The Angel Levine (1971) - Preachy ecumenical psychedelia. Free US holiday for Milo O'Shea.
The Christian Licorice Store (1971)- Post-Love Story tennis tosh.
See also Your Three Minutes Are Up (1973).
The Sandpit Generals (1971) - AIP South American youth rally.
Suppose They Gave a War an Nobody Came? (1971) - Dreadful Tony Curtis saggy M*A*S*H.
Pulp (1972) - Never knows what it is, despite Caine at his coolest.
X, Y and Zee (1972) - Caine and Taylor in domestic hell.
Le Grand Blond Avec Une Chaussure Noire (1972)- A key title in baffling French comedy.Rewatch
I Want What I Want (1972) - Early transgender film, tawdry and confused. 40-odd Anne Heywood cast as a twentysomething MTF, in her pre-transition form looks like the Freak from Prisoner Cell Block H.
Play It As It Lays (1972) -Overarty exploit/exploration of Tuesday Weld.
Hit! (1973)- Lushly produced but tedious Billy Dee Williams/Richard Pryor. Who wants a 2 1/2 hour blaxploitation?
Save the Tiger (1973)- Probably too young to get such a middle-age tale.
Steelyard Blues (1973)- All-star mess.
Crazy Joe (1974) - DeLaurentiis true-life schlock, Peter Boyle as a Mafioso. Fred Williamson wears a hairnet. New York shot by Italians looks like Italy.
Bank Shot (1974) -George C. Scott tries goofball comedy and fails. A semi-sequel to ze smug The Hot Rock (1972)
Busting (1974)/Freebie and the Bean (1974)- Dopey, obnoxious copshows. Ok.ru
Mame (1974) - Sheesh,just an excuse for Lucy's wigs.
Tough (1974) - Preachy African-American Christian Children's Film Foundation.
The Wrestler (1974) - A half-hearted Ed Asner docudrama produced by Dave Friedman.
NEWMAN'S LAW (1974)- Why was this faux-blaxploitation Peppardier released in cinemas?
Return to Macon County (1975)- Sub-American Graffiti non-sequel.
Uptown Saturday night (1974)/LETS DO IT AGAIN (1975)/ A Piece Of The Action (1977) - Samey Cosby/Potter sub-Sting.An all-star lineup of black talent from Harold Nicholas and Billy Eckstine to Johnny Sekka and Calvin Lockhart. Was Roscoe Lee Browne the black Freddie Jones?
Lady Snowblood II (1974)- The pseudo-Victorian setting adds something to a typical samuraier.
Mussolini: The Last Act (1975) - Slow, meandering, despite Steiger, Nero, Fonda as a cardinal.
Friday Foster (1975) - Dull Pam Grier comic strip.
Mahogany (1975) - Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams in a blaxploitation take on Susann-Robbins-Sheldon pornographic muzak. The worst film my uncle Gibby has ever seen.
Give 'em Hell, Harry! (1975) - Was this devised to feel like a Saturday Live sketch?
That Lady from Peking (1975) - Rough Aussie spy thing made in 1969, understandably delayed, by which time bit-parter Jack Thompson had become one of Australia's biggest stars.
Funeral for an Assassin (1975) - Apartheid actioner. Vic Morrow probably assumed blacking up in disguise would be the worst thing to happen to him in front of camera. Sadly, he was wrong.
Whiffs (1975) - EejityElliot Gould military-com. Ok.ru.
Ebony, Ivory & Jade (1976)- Dull faux-Hong Kong Olympic prison girls gash.
A Small Town In Texas (1976) - AIP hillbilly tosh.
The Passover Plot (1976)- Cannon presents the Bible via conspiracy theory. Despite strong British character support, Zalman King maybe the worst Jesus, portrayed as an Elvis/Diana/Andy Kaufman figure. Ok.ru
Black Oak Conspiracy (1977) - Yokel action fluff.
The Black Pearl (1977) - Juvenile adventure nonsense padded out by undersea footage. Ok.ru.
World's Greatest Lover (1977) - Trite Gene Wilder vehicle.
Nunzio (1978) - Sweetly twee fable of a special needs Superman, with Joe Spinell as friendly neighbour.
Who'll Stop the Rain (1978) - Kitchen sink dirgirisation of Vietnam vigilantesploitation. Ok.ru
The One and Only (1978) - Carl Reiner tries and fails to turn Henry Winkler into Steve Martin.
Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979) - Exactly what it says on the tin.
A Touch of the Sun (1979) - A NASA-themed British-Zambian sexcom, starring Oliver Reed, PeterCushing, Keenan Wynn, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Bruce Boa, and Melvyn Hayes as a camp Tarzan? So awful it never got a proper release.
Buffet Froid (1979)-Attractively shot but rather languid Depardieu gangster pic. Ok.ru
Portrait of a Hitman (1979) - Dumpy actioner that never got a proper release despite an insane cast (Jack Palance, Rod Steiger , Richard Roundtree). Ann Turkel plays Palance's art-model/strange-lover. It gets confusing, as Herb Jeffries, the Duke Ellington Band singer/Bronze Buckaroo appears, and looks like Steiger with a tan (Jeffries was half-Sicilian, with some distant Arab/Ethiopian blood, but because Sicilians had been under Jim Crow laws due to "one drop" complications amongst various other matters, Jeffries became the first black singing cowboy).
Radio On (1979- B/W)- Accurately captures the despair of a UK roadtrip.
Used Cars (1980) - Did Zemeckis intend to make a Hal Needham fan-film?
Rollover (1981)- Dreadful Arab-financial nonsense with Kris Kristofferson miscast as a NYC establishment pre-yuppie businessman. Ok.ru
Buddy Buddy (1981)-Idiotic quasiFrench Billy Wilder swansong.
King Of The Mountain (1981) - Nothingy LA racer.
Ladies and Gentlemen: The Fabulous Stains (1981) - Wellmade but obnoxious Canadian punk odyssey with Diane Lane, Laura Dern and Ray Winstone.
Missing (1982) - Soft-focus preaching against Pinochet. Ok.ru
The Naked Face (1983) - Godawful, beige Cannon-Sydney Sheldon-Bryan Forbes thriller.Has Roger Moore shouting "Bastards!".
Compromising Positions (1985)- Very TVM-like Susan Sarandon vehicle.
Shaker Run (1985) -Beigey NZ chaser-actioner with Cliff Robertson,Lisa Harrow, Leif Garrett and Shane Briant.
Jakarta (1988)- Middling Troma Indonesian actioner.
Firehead (1991) - Rubbishy faux-Soviet action.
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I know your ambition is to watch every film ever made, but you would be forgiven for skipping Mame. Unless you wanted to find out if Bea Arthur's singing voice was even deeper and more gravelly than Lucille Ball's (it's a tie).
ReplyDeleteKevin Hart would kill to have a scene as funny as the out of control car bit in Mahogany in one of his films.