Just watched Monsters: Dark Continent (Green, 2014), the sequel to Gareth Edwards’ Monsters (2010). Alas, it was rubbish IMHO. The monsters - when you actually get to see them - are absolutely spectacular, like something out of a Lovecraftian nightmare. Unfortunately, they’re almost always W A A A Y off in the background, superfluous to their own movie. This was largely true of the first feature too but front and centre that time was an interesting piece of intimate human drama. This time it’s a cliche-ridden, barely-comprehensible and frankly boring tale of a bunch of US troops intermittently sparring with local civilians and insurgents upset at the occupation of their unspecified land while US forces deal with the the monsters. Quite how they’re dealing with them seems unclear; occasionally hitting them them with air strikes, I think, and then maybe shooting them to bits if a monster happens to be a) small enough and b) getting too near. Which isn’t often at all. Anyway, these US troops - The Tiger Sharks - are deeply unlikeable from the off. We follow three of the squad’s rookies from their home in Detroit where they are one-dimensional, misogynistic and enlist it seems because it beats dealing crack. We then spend far too long listening to these horrible people talk smack to one another and generally “HOO-AAH!” a lot the way soldiers in these “US Troops On Tour” movies tend to do. Eventually, almost halfway into the picture, the squad is tasked with moving deep into “Infected Zone” territory to extract four missing soldiers and from here, the movie homes in on two men: Michael Parkes, one of the rookies from Detroit, and Noah Frater, his war-crazed sergeant, on his eighth tour and losing his mind as the movie wears inextricably on. It’s almost exclusively with these two that we spend the last three quarters of an hour or so of the picture as they stumble about the desert, lost, dying and still trying to complete their mission. The titular monsters make one or two fleeting appearances and when they do, they’re great, but they must take up less than ten minutes of the total screen time.
I’m making it sound a lot more action-packed than it is, it’s deeply disappointing. It’s not monster-packed enough to be a decent creature feature, but it’s not the Iraq/Afghan invasion US war film it’s mostly trying to be either. Even by contemporary war movie standards it’s overly earnest and introspective but it loses the credibility to be either of those things with the enormous alien creatures in the miles-away background; and even if it could’ve pulled that off, it was just f*cking dull. I spent the last half-hour agitatedly waiting for the thing to end. Those monsters… they looked incredible. They deserved to be in a better movie.
An unofficial sequel to Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron. It’s a German-British co-production, directed by an American*, featuring an British-German-American cast). Wow. Since I’ve never been a true fan of the original movie I had always avoided this one, but when I stumbled upon it (on You Tube) I decided to give it a chance. I wish I hadn’t. I had low expectations but wasn’t prepared for this dross.
Richard Burton takes over from James Coburn as sergeant Steiner, while Steiner’s arch enemy Stransky is now played by German actor Helmut Griem. Robert Mitchum is a wise American officer, Curd Jürgens his German Counterpart. The presence of all these good actors only make the whole thing look more laughable. Burton was 54 by this time, but looks at least ten years older (a bottle of whiskey a day, does not keep the doctor away).
The story is about Steiner’s unit being ordered to cross enemy lines and break the news that a select group of German officers is willing to surrender and have planned to assassinate Hitler. Almost a complete waste of time and money, but gets one point (out of five) for a couple of decent action moments near the end.
1/5
I never realized this, but McLaglen was a Brit (born in London); he lived and worked in de US for most of his life.
The film is unlike Cross of Iron now set on the western front, because Cross of Iron was very successful in Europe, but failed to attract an audience in the USA. I think I read that despite all the stars the sequel was barely released in the USA. In Germany it made the usual cash sequels were able to earn for only putting a “part 2” on the title.
An Italian war movie (‘Macaroni Combat’), made on a shoestring, without any real star power, but a lot better than the top heavy Breakthrough stuff I watched the day before. It’s the story of two officers, one German, the other American, who must cooperate after a bloody tank battle in 1943 North Africa in order to survive the merciless desert. When they finally reach safety, they decide to split and forget about each other (and what happened), but of course they’re destined to meet again. They finally do, one year later, under completely different circumstances, in occupied France, when the American is sent on a mission to liberate an officer who was captured by the Germans.
The Italian war movies never had the appeal of their spaghetti westerns, but they seem to have developed a small but loyal cult following. They either took the form of a survival plot (after a tank battle in North Africa) or a men-on-a-mission plot (modeled after Hollywood movies like The Guns of Navarone or The Dirty Dozen). What sets War Devils apart, is that it combines both prototypes.
The first half, set in North-Africa, is the more spectacular of the two seperate parts, but it uses footage from other war movies (notably Giorgio Ferroni’s La Battaglia di El Alamein). There are no great surprises, but the film scores with an arresting story-line and a couple of well-drawn characters, in particular the German officer, played by Venantino Venatini, best known to western fans as the nasty villain who crippled Enrico Salerno in Massimo Dallamano’s Bandidos (1967). Many other spaghetti western regulars make their appearance: Guy Madison, Ricky Boid, Frank Braña, Massimo Righi, etc. The French farmer’s daughter (asked to keep the German guards busy so the heroes can do their rescue job) is played by Pascale Petit, the widow from Find a Place to Die (Giuliano Carnimeo, 1968).
The movie is available on You Tube, but it’s a fullscreen version with mediocre image quality.
Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery (1994) - I’m of that breed who’ll watch Allen in anything, but I’m not blind to the fact that this is certainly one of his minor films. The central trio of Allen, Keaton and Alda are all good and have an easy chemistry but this is dramatically light and not even that funny despite a few moments here and there. The nod to The Lady from Shanghai at its climax is nice but doesn’t add too much and once it ends, the film leaves little in the way of an imprint. It would be overly harsh to dub it a “misfire”, especially with such a glorious and barbed performance from Angelica Huston, but this is an occasion where the “film a year” approach doesn’t produce much.
Same breed, but I thought this was a good runner-up in Woody’s body of work. Not top, but certainly above (his) average. What surprised me, was the fact that the thriller aspects worked so well, he really seemed to have studied the genre characteristics.
Woody actually had plans for this movie in the Seventies, but then thought that a murder mystery was a little below him. He therefore started working on Annie Hall with co-author Marshall Brickman. When he finally decided to do the movie, twenty years later, he contacted Brickman again and both finished the unfinished script. What lifts MMM above several other things Woody had done in the previous decade, is the presence of Diane Keaton. The part was originally written for Mia Farrow. I’m not a real Diane Keaton fan, but in Woody’s films she always seems to rise above herself as an actress. I can’t imagine Mia farrow in this role.
Did not know this - although I agree the mystery element work quite well, for a comedy thriller there simply isn’t enough sharp humour to fully sustain the film.
I’m with Scherp on this one. MMM is not out of Woody’s top draw but his double act with Keaton is always a pleasure and I’d rate this as a solid mid table Allen effort. Always enjoy a rewatch although haven’t seen for a while as it is one of the few pre 90s Allen films I don’t own.
Fascinating look at the embryonic stage of the career of one of the greatest and most iconic directors in the history cinema. Many elements and themes that Martin Scorsese will continue to develop and constantly return to in his later movies are already here: the dialogue, the (use of) music, streets of New York, Catholic guilt, streetwise characters and virtuosic camera moves. Moves that may be flashy and flamboyant, but you never get the feeling that the director doesn’t know what he is doing. Almost equally interesting is to watch breakthrough performance of Robert De Niro and great performance by young Harvey Keitel who made sure it was still his movie. It may be true that it is more interesting to watch what Scorsese was doing and to look at the movie through this retrospective lenses, than to follow actual story of the movie, but even the way the story is handled still feels fresh and very in line with today’s trend of realistic cinema. You can spot the seeds of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull or Godfellas in this movie.
It’s been a long time, but finally found time to re-watch this gritty and intense 80’s film. What makes it great for me, is the performance of Wings Hauser as a lunatic/brutal pimp who somehow escaped jail and now goes wild roaming the mean streets of Hollywood tracking down the cu**/hooker ( a good looking Season Hubley) that the cops had her set him up. Good stuff, a B+ for me.
This was better than I expected, even though there’s some elements here from similar films and it’s a little predictable, but overall I thought it was well done and it gets pretty tense through out the films time. B-
Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films - Horrible if you’re a fan of Cannon films… loved Mark Hartley’s previous 2 documentaries but this one is so negative against the films, it exploits Cannon, really… and its very short so they don’t mention half the films… a couple of funny stories, but just a depressing experience overall
A war-adventure movie (a very popular genre in Dutch literature & cinema, it was actually based on a novel) aimed at younger audiences. It tells the story of two 12-year old boys, Tuur & Lambert, who are best friends even though their parents have different sympathies: Lambert’s father and older brother sympathize with the German oppressor, Tuur’s father and older brother are part of a resistance group. Things change with the arrival of a new classmate, a girl called Maartje. Both boys have special feelings for her, and when Lambert discovers that Maartje & Tuur are dating (sort of), he tells his father that Maartje’s grand parents are hiding a little piggie in their barn. This little piggie is not the only secret they were hiding for the outside world …
War Secrets is not a bad war-adventure movie, but adults might find it a bit too predictable. The war-adventure story is to Dutch culture what the western is to Americans: a genre concerned with history and themes like bravery, cowardice, community, duty, redemption, etc. War secrets has all the familiar (maybe over-familiar) ingredients, but the performances (and presence) of the three young actors help a lot.
A taut little thriller that was an unexpected success for Halle Berry, who hadn’t had a hit in years. She’s a 9-1-1 operator who makes a fatal mistake when she’s trying to help a girl who’s being stalked by a serial killer; her intervention causes the death of the girl, and she seriously considers leaving the job, but then gets the chance to redeem herself when another girl is abducted by the same killer.
This combination of Silence on the Lambs and Speed (the girl spends most of time in the trunk of a car, using an overlooked cellphone to contact 911) is so hectic and frantic that you hardly have a second to think about any possible implausibilities (and yes, there are quite a few). Halle’s still not a great actress but she’s more than adequate here, delivering her lines as an operator convincingly and both Abegail Breslin and Michael Eklund are very effective as, respectively, the victim and the mad killer. Right on target nearly all the way, but almost kills itself with a blown-up, ridiculous finale, meant to satisfy our feelings of revenge.
Weird experience. It was really interesting.[/quote]
Only Allen film I didn’t like so far. I have actually noticed that many people who don’t like Allen that much love this film.
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