Monthly Roundup – December 2016

31 Saturday Dec 2016

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50's sci-fi movie, A Perfect Man, Action, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Ana Girardot, Barry Sonnenfeld, Cameron Mitchell, Cat, Cell, Chandler Riggs, Christopher Walken, Comedy, David Tomlinson, Devil's Crag, Diana Dors, Drama, Edward Kemmer, Eliminators (2016), Flight to Mars, Frances O'Connor, Giant from the Unknown, Hard Target 2, Horror, Hostile takeover, Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary, James Bobin, James Nunn, Jennifer Garner, John Cusack, Johnny Depp, Kevin Spacey, Lesley Selander, Literary adaptation, Marguerite Chapman, Mars, Maurice Elvey, Mercy (2014), Mia Wasikowska, Murder, Myanmar, Nine Lives, Peter Cornwell, Pierre Niney, Reviews, Rhona Mitra, Richard E. Cunha, Robert Knepper, Roel Reiné, Sally Fraser, Samuel L. Jackson, Scott Adkins, Sequel, Shirley Knight, Stephen King, The Mad Hatter, The Red Queen, Thriller, Tod Williams, Vargas, Wade Barrett, Wonderland, WWE Films, Yann Gozlan

Cell (2016) / D: Tod Williams / 98m

Cast: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Isabelle Fuhrman, Clark Sarullo, Ethan Andrew Casto, Owen Teague, Stacy Keach, Joshua Mikel

Rating: 4/10 – a mysterious cell phone signal turns people into crazed, zombie-like creatures, but one man (Cusack) is determined to find his son while society disintegrates around him; a Stephen King adaptation (and co-scripted by him), Cell is another reminder that his work rarely translates well to the screen, and this is no exception, being dramatically incoherent, a waste of its talented cast, and lumbered with an ending that makes absolutely no sense at all.

A Perfect Man (2015) / D: Yann Gozlan / 104m

Original title: Un homme idéal

Cast: Pierre Niney, Ana Girardot, André Marcon, Valéria Cavalli, Thibault Vinçon, Marc Barbé, Sacha Mijovic

Rating: 7/10 – aspiring author Mathieu Vasseur (Niney) isn’t getting anywhere until he finds an unpublished novel and claims it as his own, a move that leads to fame, fortune, blackmail, and ultimately, murder; a clever, twisty thriller that benefits from a splendidly nervous, anxious performance from Niney, A Perfect Man may have many familiar elements, but it’s a movie with a great deal of style, and it holds the attention in such a way that there are times when you won’t realise you’re holding your breath.

Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary (1953) / D: Maurice Elvey / 80m

Cast: David Tomlinson, Diana Dors, Bonar Colleano, Sidney James, Diana Decker, Audrey Freeman, MacDonald Parke

Rating: 5/10 – returning to the UK with his new bride (Decker), US soldier Laurie Vining (Colleano) is horrified to learn that he may still be married to his first wife, glamour girl Candy (Dors), a situation that leads to his desperately trying to avoid his new bride – or anyone else – from finding out; a bedroom farce based on a successful stage play, Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary has dated somewhat, but for fans of the cast and this type of Fifties UK comedy, there’s much to enjoy, from the frantic mugging of Colleano and Tomlinson, Elvey’s efficient direction, and a surprisingly nuanced performance from Dors.

Eliminators (2016) / D: James Nunn / 94m

Cast: Scott Adkins, Wade Barrett, Daniel Caltagirone, James Cosmo, Ty Glaser, Olivia Mace, Lily Ann Stubbs

Rating: 3/10 – when a home invasion means his Witness Protection identity is compromised, ex-Federal Agent Martin Parker (Adkins) finds himself the target of a hitman (Barrett) and forced to go on the run; a WWE Films production shot on location in and around London, Eliminators is a bog-standard actioner that stretches credulity, invites disbelief, and warrants avoidance as it does its best to cram in as many dull action scenes as it can in ninety minutes, and serves as yet another reminder that being a WWE superstar doesn’t mean you can act.

Giant from the Unknown (1958) / D: Richard E. Cunha / 77m

aka The Diablo Giant; Giant from Devil’s Crag; Giant from Diablo Point

Cast: Edward Kemmer, Sally Fraser, Bob Steele, Morris Ankrum, Buddy Baer, Jolene Brand, Gary Crutcher, Billy Dix

Rating: 4/10 – animal mutilations and murder plague a small town – and that’s before a giant Spanish conquistador is released from suspended animation by a lightning bolt, and threatens both the town’s inhabitants and the research team trying to ascertain if the legend about him is true; not the best example of a Fifties “creature feature”, Giant from the Unknown takes so long to get going that it’s nearly over before it’s begun, features a raft of irritating performances, and is so flatly directed by Cunha that once the Giant is awakened, you can’t help but pray that he’s the first victim.

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) / D: James Bobin / 113m

Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Rhys Ifans, Matt Lucas, Lindsay Duncan, Leo Bill, Ed Speelers, Geraldine James, Andrew Scott, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, Barbara Windsor, Timothy Spall, Matt Vogel, Paul Whitehouse

Rating: 5/10 – Alice (Wasikowska) returns to Wonderland to save the Mad Hatter (Depp) from suicidal depression(!) and the attentions of Time (Cohen) and the Red Queen (Carter) who are working in tandem and holding the Hatter’s family hostage for no convincing reason you can think of; another sequel no one asked for (and nowhere near as successful as its predecessor), Alice Through the Looking Glass is ravishing to look at, boasts some fine visual effects, and a great performance by Cohen, but everything else is a mess: bloated, derivative, witless, and with yet another wasteful performance from Depp (who clearly can’t be bothered).

Hard Target 2 (2016) / D: Roel Reiné / 104m

Cast: Scott Adkins, Robert Knepper, Rhona Mitra, Temuera Morrison, Ann Truong, Adam Saunders, Jamie Timony, Peter Hardy

Rating: 4/10 – ex-MMA fighter Wes Baylor (Adkins) finds himself in Myanmar with one simple objective: reach the Thai border while he’s pursued by a motley group of “hunters” who are out to kill him; a movie that definitely comes under the heading of “another sequel no one asked for”, Hard Target 2 is betrayed by its low budget origins, a script that lurches from one unmemorable action scene to another, and Knepper’s one-note portrayal of the villain.

Nine Lives (2016) / D: Barry Sonnenfeld / 87m

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Garner, Christopher Walken, Robbie Amell, Malina Weissman, Cheryl Hines, Mark Consuelos, Talitha Bateman

Rating: 3/10 – businessman Tom Brand (Spacey) has no time for his wife (Garner) and daughter (Weissman), so what better way for him to learn the value of family (and some humility in the process) than by stranding his mind in the body of a cat?; the kind of inane, superficial comedy that Hollywood churns out with mindless regularity, Nine Lives gives Garfield 2 (2006) a run for its money in the stupid stakes, and hammers another nail into the coffin of Barry Sonnenfeld’s once-glorious career.

Flight to Mars (1951) / D: Lesley Selander / 72m

Cast: Marguerite Chapman, Cameron Mitchell, Arthur Franz, Virginia Huston, John Litel, Morris Ankrum, Richard Gaines, Lucille Barkley, Robert Barrat

Rating: 5/10 – the first manned flight to Mars gets there safely only to learn that the planet is inhabited, and by a human-like race that may or may not have an ulterior motive for helping them return to Earth; early-Fifties sci-fi hokum that throws in a tepid romance and some very, very short skirts for the female cast, Flight to Mars retains an odd charm – perhaps because of its naïve approach – that helps alleviate some of the more daffy moments the script insists on doling out.

Mercy (2014) / D: Peter Cornwell / 79m

Cast: Frances O’Connor, Shirley Knight, Chandler Riggs, Joel Courtney, Mark Duplass, Dylan McDermott, Amanda Walsh, Hana Hayes, Pepper Binkley

Rating: 4/10 – after a spell in a nursing home, Grandma Mercy (Knight) comes home to be looked after by her family – daughter Rebecca (O’Connor) and grandsons George (Riggs) and Buddy (Courtney) – but soon exhibits strange behaviour, behaviour that includes warning George that a supernatural force is coming to get him; adapted from the short story Gramma by Stephen King (yes, him again), Mercy aims for creepy and menacing, yet succeeds instead in being confused and uninspired, and with laboured direction and performances, a situation that devotees of King adaptations will appreciate, having been there many times before.

Poster of the Week – The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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50's sci-fi movie, Comic strip, Giant spider, Movie poster, Poster of the week, Tag line, The Incredible Shrinking Man

The first in a (hopefully) regular series, Poster of the Week is an idea borne out of my searching for movie posters to add to each of my reviews. I often try and root out some of the more unusual versions that are out there, and often I see other posters that look great but which I’ve never seen before. So… I thought I’d share some of those posters with everyone. Feel free to make requests, and I’ll endeavour to include them as often as I can.

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

I like this poster for many reasons. First there’s the comic strip approach that, while giving away most of the story, also piques the interest quite a bit: if all this is in the movie just how well is it going to be done? (And who wouldn’t want to see a little man fight a giant spider?) And then there’s the couple in the bottom left hand corner who seem to be looking up at the comic strip in amazement – one of them has to be saying, “Honey, we’ve gotta go see this movie!” The type face in the top left corner is great too, with the words getting smaller and smaller at first and then getting bigger to show how exciting it’s going to be. In these days of simple tag lines that often need to be clever at the same time – e.g. There Is No Plan B, The A-Team (2010) – it’s good to see a poster that’s really trying to sell the movie rather than just make you smile. And then there’s the colour scheme, a selection of muted pastel colours that shouldn’t work, especially the blue, but somehow does, and it doesn’t “hurt” the eye to look at it.

Most movie posters these days have a single image with the ubiquitous tag line added, so it’s nice to see a poster that tries to cram as much in as possible. I like these old posters, they always try to make the movie sound like a major event, even if it’s a studio ‘B’ movie. They’re a bit of a lost art now, though, which I think is sad. True, times have moved on, and we may like to think that movie posters are more sophisticated now, but for me there’s a special attraction in a poster that gives you so much to look at and take in.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know.

Killers from Space (1954)

25 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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50's sci-fi movie, Alien threat, Aliens, Atom bomb, Drama, Peter Graves, Review, Sci-fi, Thriller, W. Lee Wilder

killers-from-space_39ecf069

D: W. Lee Wilder / 71m

Cast: Peter Graves, James Seay, Steve Pendleton, Frank Gerstle, John Frederick (as John Merrick), Barbara Bestar, Shepard Menken

Following an A-bomb test, scientist Dr Doug Martin (Graves) goes missing when the plane he was in collating data about the blast, crash lands, killing the pilot. A while later he returns to the base where he works overseeing the bomb tests. He can’t remember what has happened to him after the plane went into a nose-dive, or how he got a surgical scar on his chest that he didn’t have before. Given an initially clean bill-of-health by both the military – represented by Colonel Banks (Seay) and medic Major Clift (Menken), as well as FBI agent Briggs (Pendleton) – Martin is sent home with his wife, Ellen (Bestar) to recuperate. Instead, Martin becomes anxious about being able to work on the next bomb test, and attempts to get himself back on the team. Still considered a security risk by Colonel Banks and Briggs, Martin resorts to breaking into the safe where his colleague Dr Kruger (Gerstle) keeps the test data – well, he doesn’t exactly break in, as he knows the combination; as a perceived security risk, you’d have thought someone would have changed it straight away to avoid such a thing happening.

Martin then takes the information – on a scrap of paper, no less – out into the desert where he is surprised by Briggs. Following a short sequence where Martin tries to evade everyone looking for him, he is taken back to the base and given sodium amytal in an attempt to find out what happened to him after the plane crash. What Martin reveals is the presence of aliens on Earth, aliens with a plan to take over our planet, and who are hiding in the caves near the test site; they need the energy from the atomic tests to further their plans. Even after this, Martin isn’t believed. Can he save the day and thwart the aliens?

The answer is obvious; this is a 50’s sci-fi movie after all. And yes, it is as laughable as it sounds, and yes, the acting and the script and the direction and the photography and the sets and the dodgy rear projection and the aliens themselves – bug-eyed men who do become unsettling the more you look at them – all border on the dire, but Killers from Space, like the majority of 50’s sci-fi movies, plays everything straight, no matter how absurd or loony it looks and sounds. There’s no irony involved, no campy humour (such as began creeping in in the 60’s), and no attempt to make any more of its basic premise than it does. In short, it’s not aiming to be profound.

It’s fitfully entertaining, suffers from an extended sequence where Martin, trying to escape from the caves where the aliens are hiding out, encounters all manner of giant insects and lizards and tries to look suitably horrified (but fails), and has too many scenes that are stretched to ensure the movie doesn’t run at least fifteen minutes shorter (Martin, while hiding in his office until Kruger leaves, opens the door so many times to look out that you almost wish someone would see him, just to put an end to it all). As noted, the acting is borderline dire with only Pendleton and Graves showing any aptitude for the material, though not consistently. The ultra-low budget scuppers any attempt at making the movie look halfway professional, and Wilder’s direction proves that that his younger brother Billy definitely inherited the talent gene.

Rating: 3/10 – woeful, woeful, woeful, why fore art thou woeful? KIllers from Space wouldn’t have turned out quite so bad if anyone on the production side had had any idea of what they were doing; alas, they didn’t, and while Peter Graves and 50’s sci-fi completists should track it down, there’s nothing here for pretty much everyone else, even if you treat it as an unintentional comedy.

Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962)

01 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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50's sci-fi movie, Army privates, B-movie, Bruno VeSota, Caves, Crater, Frankie Ray, Gloria Victor, Nuclear test, Review, Robert Ball, Sci-fi, Vege-Men

D: Bruno VeSota / 70m

Cast: Robert Ball, Frankie Ray, Gloria Victor, Dolores Reed, Trustin Howard, Mark Ferris

Made on what looks like a shoestring budget (that didn’t include the shoe), Invasion of the Star Creatures tells the story of two privates in the Army, Philbrick (Ball) and Penn (Ray), who yearn for duties more adventurous than garbage disposal. Following a nuclear test carried out nearby, they are ordered to investigate the crater that has been left behind. Led by their sergeant, Glory, a fast-talking hipster with all the groovy catchphrases of the time, Philbrick and Penn join three other privates on the mission, and discover more adventure than they ever could have expected.

The crater proves to be the hideout of two aliens from the planet Callar in the Belfar star system, Dr Tanga (Victor) and her assistant Dr Puna (Reed). They have been on Earth for ten years, learning about mankind until they have enough information about us to enable them to return to their home planet and organise an invasion force. To help them they are assisted by slaves called Vege-Men. Philbrick and Penn risk being lobotomised, then imprisonment before escaping and attempting to bring help before saving the day by themselves… with a little help from the concept of love.

An Impossible Picture presented by R.I. Diculous, Invasion of the Star Creatures never rises above its low-budget origins, but it does move along at a decent pace, aside from the sequence where our hapless heroes encounter a group of less-than-helpful American Indians. Ball and Ray, while they appear to be a comedy double act who’ve worked together in the past, are appearing together for the first and only time, and have obviously modelled their performances on Abbott and Costello, Ball in particular adopting many of Costello’s mannerisms. Ray brings some impressions to the mix (Peter Lorre, James Cagney, Bela Lugosi, Edward G. Robinson), and acts as the straight man. Together they’re not a bad team and while the script by Jonathan Haze gives them enough corny lines to choke a horse, they’re amusing in an old vaudeville kind of way.

As the improbably named aliens, Victor and Reed (now that sounds like a double act) are perfectly cast as statuesque Amazonians, although when called upon to act, let the side down badly (this was Reed’s third and last movie). Of course, the acting level is that of very broad comedy and Victor and Reed are required to be serious, but the moment when Victor looks to camera and raises her eyebrows sums things up perfectly.

Director VeSota – who also directed the 1958 cult classic The Brain Eaters – does his best but is hamstrung by the limitations of both the script and the budget (he also appears as a passing motorist who gets knocked out by Philbrick in a fantasy sequence). The sets are typically minimal: one depicts a series of cave paths that the characters use to go backwards and forwards several times in their efforts to leave the aliens’ lair; it’s a static shot that involves the cast appearing from left or right at will. Several sequences are shot outdoors and as you may have guessed already, the crater never appears; the aliens are hiding out in a cave instead.

The Vege-Men are worth a mention. They’re created by the aliens and have sackcloth heads with twigs and grasses sticking out of them. They’re absurd and laughable at the same time and serve, as if further proof were needed, of the paucity of the budget. They’re even worse than the creature in 1953’s Robot Monster.

On the whole, Invasion of the Star Creatures is pretty bad. But it does have a certain charm and if you go into it accepting it’s a (very) low budget production and does the best it can then it’s actually quite enjoyable. Ball and Ray make for an entertaining double act, while Victor and Reed look appropriately attractive in their silver outfits. If the movie gets incredibly silly – and it does on several occasions – then it’s a reflection on the time it was made, and what audiences were used to.

Rating: 4/10 – laughable in all the wrong ways at times but still worth a look despite the often wince-inducing humour.