Wednesday Double Feature – Pulp Adventure Parody

by on July 11, 2018 at 10:03 am
Posted In: Test

For the week’s selection, I went with films about pulp adventure, or more accurately films that parodied films like Indiana Jones and similar pulp films. 

The first film on my list was  J. Lee Thompson’s Firewalker, starring Chuck Norris, Lou Gossett Jr. and Melody Anderson. This tells the story of Max and Leo two down on their luck treasure hunters, who have had many adventures together. (We can tell because one of their arch nemesis shows up in the cold open)

They are hired by a beautiful woman named Patricia (Anderson) to help her find  Aztec gold in Central America. Can they find it before the villains do? 

This movie was unintentionally funny to the point of being a comedy in all but name. Strangely for eighties schlock, it was entertainingly charming with Norris and Gossett having good enough chemistry that I would be willing to watch a good version of it. 

The next film on my list was an intentional parody of the genre, Robert Zemeckis’s Romancing the Stone, starring Micheal Douglas and Kathleen Turner. 

Turner plays Joan Wilder a successful but introverted Romance Novelist. When she gets a call from her sister, Elaine (Mary Ellen Trainor) who has been kidnapped by two smugglers, Ira and Ralph (Zack Norman and Danny DeVito) who want a treasure a map that Elaine had mailed Joan. Soon Joan finds herself lost in the jungles of Columbia, running from someone far worse than Ira and Ralph (Manuel Ojeda as the terrifying Colonel Zolo). Here she meets a real roguish hero, Jack. Now that she’s finding herself trapped in one of her own stories can she survive?

This is another one of those films I’d been hearing about for years and this time I don’t feel particularly guilty about it. It was okay, with a couple of funny bits, but otherwise, my general reaction was… meh. 

 

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Wednesday Double Feature – Writers

by on July 4, 2018 at 9:46 am
Posted In: Test

So for this week’s them I chose movies about writers and the struggles of all writers who are fighting with the creative process. (Originally I thought I’d go with straight writer’s block but it wasn’t quite as accurate as I would have liked.

Wednesday Double Feature - Writers - Deconstructing HarryThe first film on my list, Woody Allen’s Deconstructing Harry, tells the story of writer Harry Block. He’s a bit of a jerk who has alienated most of his family by borrowing personal stories from everyone he knows as fodder for his stories.

Now he’s going to his old university to accept a reward.

It’s been a long time since I’ve watched any of Woody Allen’s film. First, because he’s been cranking them out so frequently, they become more and more ubiquitous. Also as more of Allen’s private life become’s more public, it’s doesn’t feel cool to like his work anymore.

Still this film all right. It has Woody’s usual level of wittiness with Harry as a brutal deconstruction of himself, but at the same time, it feels a little disjointed. It keeps going back and forth between Harry’s stories, the present day and flashbacks. Along with that Harry occasionally interacts with his own characters making it difficult to distinguish fantasy from reality and it’s hard to tell what the film is really about.

Wednesday Double Feature - Writers - Barton FinkThe next on my list was the Cohen’s brother’s, Barton Fink. Barton Fink (played by John Turturro) is an aspiring Broadway playwright who after his first successful playwright has been hired to write for Hollywood. Regrettably, his first assignment is to write a b rated wrestling film that is so out of his area of interest he can’t think of anything!

Barton Fink is very much John Turturo’s film. First and foremost the film is a portrait of the character and Tutor does a wonderful job of portraying Barton as an insular, obsessed hypocrite. He continues to go on about writing plays about the common man but ultimately doesn’t seem to care about them. Whenever he actually meets a “common man” he mostly ignores them.

He is supported by the Coen ensemble of eccentrics most notably John Goodman who plays Barton’s next door and confidant, who after Turturro has all of the best lines.

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Wednesday Double Feature – Holmes Parody

by on June 27, 2018 at 8:55 am
Posted In: Test

For this week’s selection I thought I’d take a break and watch something fun and lightweight, Specifically, I went with some Sherlock Holmes parodies.

Wednesday Double Feature Holmes Parodies - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Smarter BrotherThe first film on my list The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother starring Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, and Madeline Kahn, as the title says, is the story of Sherlock Holmes’ smarter brother. No, not Mycroft, his other brother Sigerson.
Holmes and Watson are on Holiday and contact Sigerson to continue the hunt for Professor Moriarty (Leo McKern) Actually they’re using him as a decoy but he doesn’t know that. From there we have a Sigerson and his partner Sgt. Orville Sacker (Feldman) going on a series of wild goose chases. Until they save the day almost by accident.
This was a fun piece of fluff with Wilder doing very well in his first leading role.

Wednesday Double Features - Holmes Parodies - The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know ItFor my next film I watched a short BBC production, The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It, starring John Cleese.
It is the present day (1977) and When a blatant caricature of Henry Kissinger is assassinated, world leaders realize that the world is threatened by a descendant of Professor Moriarty. To deal with this the leaders of the free world summon the direct descendant of Sherlock Holmes(Cleese) and Dr. Watson. Can two complete incompetents save civilization as we know it?
This was really, really stupid, but it was the good kind of stupid. It’s great to see a young Cleese hamming it up, and if you’re expecting anything resembling a coherent plot you’ve got the wrong address.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkH-ztzkuLU

 

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Wednesday Double Feature – Seven Years War

by on June 6, 2018 at 10:04 am
Posted In: Test

It may have been a bit of a  stretch, but for this week’s film selection, I watched films someway connected with the Seven Years War.

The film that inspired this selection, Christian-Jaque, parody of swashbuckling films, Fanfan la Tulipe, was a film I wanted to watch with its remake, but regrettably, the new one was only available in PAL format so I had to move on. 

Wednesday Double Feature - The Seven Year War - Fanfan La TulipeFanfan La Tulipe tells the story of the title character Fanfan (Gérard Philipe) a charming rake who joins the French army to after being caught making out with a farmer’s daughter. A fortune teller, Adeline (, Gina Lollobrigida), tells him if he joins he may marry a princess. After that a happenstance makes it seem that this prophecy may come true. 

This film was okay but not much more. What passed as a story was pretty much a way to hold together all of Christian-Jaque’s action scenes. It kind of works but again… just. 

My next film is Stanly Kubrick’s classic, Barry Lyndon. A film that as a good devout Kubrick fan I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never seen until now. (Clips at the video store don’t count)

Wednesday Double Feature - The Seven Year War - Barry LyndonBased on the Thackery novel, The Luck of Barry Lyndon, tells the story of Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal), a young Irishman, who is thrown out of his household, goes to war, deserts, gets forced into going to war again by the other side, deserts again, gambles, marries into money, wastes the money, get crippled in a duel and thrown out of England… you know… Usual stuff. 

“Like” isn’t the right word for this film. It’s beautiful and deservedly known for its amazing cinematography and amazing lighting by candlelight. It’s also one of the few period pieces that accurately shows the past as the alien world it is. I will definitely watch it again.

On the downside Kubrick’s usual coldness is magnified by the borderline sociopathy of the protagonist. This makes it difficult to watch… Definitely worth the effort though.

 

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Wednesday Double Feature – Assassination Conspiracy

by on May 30, 2018 at 11:16 am
Posted In: Test

This week I watched another batch of conspiracy theory movies. Specifically, I watched movies that dealt with the all of the paranoid fantasies involving the Kennedy Assassination or films that do their own paranoid fantasies, using the Kennedy assassination as a template.

Wednesday Double Feature - Assassination Conspiracy - The Parallex ViewThe first film on my list, Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View, starring Warren Beatty, technically starts out using the assassination of Robert Kennedy (well technically I didn’t say WHICH Kennedy assassination in the title) Three years ago a prominent Senator is assassinated during his reelection campaign in the Space Needle. The killer dies falling off the needle’s roof, but another killer slips away. 

Since then investigators and anyone else involved have been dropping like flies. Reporter Joe Frady (Beaty) has been investigating since the beginning but has been mostly silenced by the police who want to know his sources. Slowly he begins to find evidence of an organization recruiting malcontents to commit even more assassinations, but can Frady find the truth before the truth closes in on him. 

This film was… okay. It starts out all right, provided you ignore the gratuitous car chases and fight scenes. However by the second half is so heavy-handed that being paranoid is pointless. You don’t have to suspect anyone. Either they’re going to die or they’re going to betray you.

Wednesday Double Feature - Assassination Conspiracy - JFKThe next film on my list Oliver Stone’s JFK tells the story of the aftermath of the Kennedy Assassination and the investigation of New Orleans District Attorney General Jim Garrison, (played by Kevin Costner) who led the only prosecution attached to the assassination. 

I really have mixed feelings about this film. A lot of this is due to my feelings about Stone himself and my belief that he always lets his agenda get in the way of craft. The fact that I may occasionally agree with him is irrelevant here. 

JFK is no acceptation it is a rambling collection of all of Stone’s pet theories and views of the world that are so all over the place that it can’t be regarded as anything besides fiction. 

On the other hand, Stone’s at the top of his game as a filmmaker and I really liked the editing and the ensemble cast of some of my favorite actors playing against type. 

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Wednesday Double Feature – War Comedies

by on May 23, 2018 at 9:21 am
Posted In: Test

For this week’s film selection I watched some war comedies.

Wednesday Double Feature - War Comedies - How I Won The WarThe most I knew about Richard Lester’s How I Won the War is that it was the film with John Lennon in it. I had seen photographs of Lennon dressed in fatigues with a thousand-yard stare through his trademark glasses.

The film based on the book of the same name by so and so, and tells the story of Lieutenant Goodbody, played by Micheal Crawford, an optimistic proper idealistic British officer who leads his unit in North Africa to create the perfect cricket pitch. He believes he has what it takes to succeed in his mission no matter how many of his soldiers die around him.

This film, even though it was still very funny, made no sense. Most of the time it felt like a strange off-broadway avant-garde play done as a big budget film and because of this it never felt like a good fit.
Still, the theatrical bits were the best parts with all of the cast constantly breaking the fourth wall and dead soldiers represented by the actors painted bright colors silently following their comrades as if nothing happened.

Wednesday Double Feature - War Comedies - The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming!The next film on my list, Norman Jewison’s The Russians are Coming, The Russians are coming! An ensemble film featuring Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, Alan Arkin and Brian Keith, tells the story of a Soviet submarine that goes aground on a sandbar just offshore of a small New England island township. In their efforts to escape the townsfolk find out and hilarity ensues.

This is a fun comedy of errors, with hilarious slapstick scenes, that takes full advantage of the cold war paranoia going on at the time. It also does a good job showing that despite all of our differences, we’re all people… Stupid, scared, well-armed people.

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