Recommend a movie

[Vultural]

Concussion - 2015 - 7/10

Pittsburgh coroner realizes connection between gridiron head injuries and cognitive impairment.
Whereas the average soul will ponder ten seconds,  “Bang your skull, brain damage - duh,"
the NFL (National Football League), is not exactly thrilled.
They react much as Big Tobacco did when confronted with evidence equating smoking with cancer.
Will Smith disappears into a multilayered role of embattled, idealistic soul, dealing with
frightening, rabid football fans.  “What!!  You wanna take away our football!!”
Trifle overlong, yet never dull or boring.  Not preachy, either.
A tone of elegy shrouds most of the film, nevertheless.

[Vultural]

Control - 2007 - 7/10

" ... your confusion, my illusion ... "
Sam Riley astounds as Ian Curtis, frontman of Joy Division.
Pressures and health problems push him to the edge of the rope.
Filmed in stark black and white, with evocative soundtrack.
Essential for fans.
Pairs well with 24 Hour Party People afterward.

[Vultural]

Alphaville - 1965 - 7/10
AKA - Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution

Secret agent Lemmy Caution arrives in the center of the galaxy, Alphaville, from the Outland.
His mission involves a earlier agent, an Outland scientist, and the calculating Alpha 60.
Though science fiction, and using phrases like inter-galactic, the style is full Noir.
Agent Caution drives up in a Mustang, lights cigarettes with his Zippo, packs a gun, carries a pocket camera.
Men wear trenchcoats or lab coats.  Females have numbers tattooed on their neck and most are classified as seductress third class.

Sets are crappy fleabags or sleek, “futuristic” 60s offices.  It is forever night.
Alpha 60, a computer that controls and rules Alphaville, would be HAL 9000‘s wet dream.  ( Surely Kubrick saw this film.)
If you enjoy poetry readings, boy, are you in for a treat!
Assassinations by swimming pool with synchronized swimmers - check.
If you appreciate extensive talkly passages dealing with identity, conformity, ideas, conscience, this is for you!
Noir swerves headlong into Experimental Theatre.  SciFi on a mouse allowance.
Biting satire of films detective - spy - thriller - scifi - romance.  Great mix from Godard.

[Vultural]

Deep Crimson - 1996 - 7/10
AKA - Profundo Carmesí

Mexican retelling of the “Lonely Hearts Killers.” *
Low level con man romances widows and spinsters. Steals money, jewels, silver, then slips away.
Most are too embarrassed to report him, so he operates for years.
Until he encounters the large, needy woman.  They link up, cruise Sonora, turn murderous.
Film really captures the abandoned wastelands of the Mexican scrub.
The pair share a sexual passion, exclusive and claustrophobic.
Faithful retelling, though the ending is off.

* Lonely Hearts Killers:  Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Fernandez_and_Martha_Beck

[Vultural]

Beautiful Lies - 2010 - 4/10
AKA - De vrais mensonges

Forced, unfunny comedy.  Clichéd, gauche.
Male employee writes an anonymous mash letter to his female boss.
She round-files it, only to retrieve it later, copy it word for word, and post to her lovesick mother.
Complications ensue, along with lies, false assumptions, and emotional outbursts.
French misfire that stumbles on many levels.
For a comedy of errors, the pace plods like a drunken penguin.
Main characters are unpleasant and immature.
I could never decide if the director had no respect for women, or none for his audience.
Advertising equates this with Amélie - don’t believe that.

[Vultural]

A Film Unfinished - 2010 - 7/10

Nazi film from inside the Warsaw Ghetto for an unfinished propaganda piece.
Sidewalks littered with rich citizens and corpses.  Not necessarily.
Reels discovered years later indicate filmmakers set up situations, and did multiple takes.
“Rich" were actually coerced victims.
Chilling reminder that images have always been manipulated for dark agendas.

[Vultural]

Dough - 2015 - 6/10

Contrived British comedy of Jewish bakery losing clients to relocation and the Reaper.
The Conservative baker has just lost his assistant to an expanding chain.
In desperation, he hires a young Muslim from Darfur as his apprentice.

Dynamics of old - young, Jewish - Muslim, small shop - big chain. mixed with calculated design.
The apprentice is also a low-level weed dealer who starts adding leaf to the dough.
The sleepy shop revives, though the old guy never notices green flecks in his bagels?!!
Pleasant, feel-good film, lacks believability.  Shot - not in London - but Budapest.
(Includes an intriguing trailer for a doc of Streit’s Matzos which went on my find-list.)

[Vultural]

Mr. Hulot's Holiday - 1953 - 8/10

I try to watch this French classic every year once Summer begins to fade.
Mister Hulot goes to the coast for a week, and has a series of misadventures.
Gags, too numerous to mention, include the shark boat, the tennis match, the white horse with a grudge.
Almost completely wordless comedy, in the best tradition of Chaplin and Keaton.
Tati's best film.

*

[Vultural]

To The Ends Of The Earth - 1948 - 6/10

Dick Powell stars as Federal narcotics agent trailing human traffickers and opium smugglers.
From San Francisco to Shanghai to Cairo to Havana, coordinating with local authorities.
Stock footage for exotic exteriors are OK if you can suspend disbelief.
There is no main villain here, only shifting hydra heads per location.
Dry, exposition driven narrative, similar to T-Men, FBI Story, and The House On 92nd Street.
Better for those who appreciate starchy doc-dramas.

[Vultural]

In The Deep - 2016 - 6/10

Loca turista story.
Two sisters get talked into shark dive.
Get lowered into infested waters while safely protected inside a steel cage.
Sounds like fun!  What could go wrong?
The trip is cash only, the boat is a rust bucket, the winching mechanism is aged.
The crewmen illegally chum the waters and down our girls go.
Docked a point because one sister is an irritating whine and their reasons for doing this are wrong.
Given a point because the photography is imaginative and the plot plays out in real time.

[Vultural]

The History Boys - 2006 - 7/10

Talky adaptation of popular play.
Graduating class of Sheffield grammar school qualifies for Cambridge and Oxford.
Merely qualifying doesn't guarantee entry.
There are interviews to hurdle.
A young teacher is hired on to hone skills, to show the lads can learn and think independently.
Despite a mis-inspired end twist, a satisfying movie, chock flash with of history nuggets, wordplay, poetry and song (including George Formby!).
A powerful tonic against defeatists and yob worship.

[Vultural]

Kill Command - 2016 - 6/10

Not bad actioner, if cobbled together and derived from familiar templates.
Soldiers are dropped on remote island for another training session against robotic targets.
An engineered human accompanies them, as observer for the defense contractor.
As on previous missions, the robots make mindless sitting targets.
(The combat droids resemble something dad assembled from a Popular Mechanics kit.)
Except this time, the units start to learn from mistakes.
Imagine the Colonial Marines from Aliens assaulting a Skynet secret facility.
No kids - no juvenile comedy - no romance.  Yay!
Hardly original, but a no-nonsense “hunter-hunted” genre flick.
Others might score this higher.

[Vultural]

Truth - 2015 - 6/10

Well acted, over earnest retelling of TV news story gone awry.
Back when Bush vs Kerry was ongoing, CBS aired a report about Bush’s guard duty.
For those blissfully unaware, Kerry served in Vietnam, Bush enlisted in National Guard.
Before fully vetting the facts, the story goes out.
Redford plays reporter Dan Rather, though the film is about the producer, played by Cate Blanchett.
Underlying theme is of business commercializing news.
Everyone tries hard in overlong, deadly serious fare.
Broccoli film of fading era.  News?  Most no longer trust it, and their prime source is Facebook.

[Vultural]

The Eclipse - 2009 - 7/10

Irish ghost story for adults. Ciarin Hinds character cares for his two children, the mother has died.
He has begun glimpsing shadows down the staircase, hearing noises in the closet.
Meanwhile, he shepherds writers for an annual literary fair. One has written about ghosts.
Winner of many awards, this was a good film to view with lowered lights.
Be advised this was not a blood soaked, screamfest.
No dead teenagers, no dead wet girls.
Troubled souls encountering shadows. Somber, melancholy film.

[Vultural]

Looker - 1998 - 5/10

Two men and a woman share a three-way in a grungy alley.
Soon as the strokin’ and gropin’ climax, she finishes them with a straight razor.
The detective assigned the case tells his partner this happened twenty years earlier.
His father was the investigator, and he was murdered.
Is it the same killer?  Is she still alive? Hunting?
Bipolar flick.  Hardcore porn sequences, yet the police narrative is full Noir.
Groaning and foaming to crappy synth score.  Noir parts have sharp shadows, bluesy score, black n white flashbacks.
Perhaps inspired by the Neo Noir surge of the 90s.  More likely a rip of Basic Instinct.
Looker still better (and wetter) than most B-grade “erotic thrillers" of the 90s.

[Vultural]

Love & Friendship - 2016 - 6/10

Flawed, yet enjoyable adaptation of obscure Jane Austen novella.
The movie is based on Lady Susan, written when Austen was 18, and not Love and Freindship (misspelling correct) which was penned four years earlier.
Lady Susan, an unscrupulous widow sets out to find rich, easy to control husbands for herself and her daughter.
She flirts, conducts affairs, oppresses her daughter, imposes on her relations.
A right piece of work.
Costumes, set design, photography are all excellent.  Acting, top rate.
The pacing if off, however.  Too modern.  The story rushes at top speed throughout.
Numerous characters introduced, yet several are underutilized.  Stephen Fry = 2 brief scenes.
More air, a longer cut would help immeasurably.
An amusing film, nevertheless, and Austen fans will find this irresistible.

[Vultural]

Mongolian Death Worm - 2010 - 3/10

I found a bad movie in the aisles.
Seconds later, I saw Mongolian Death Worm, easily one of the most ridiculous titles ever.  Choose me, it whispered.
Terrible film, poorly acted, the worms were closer to giant grubs who dined on innocent humans and gangsters.
As always, gun shooting bad boys can't hit creatures as big as a truck.
There was a subplot revolving around Genghis Khan's treasure straight outta Romancing The Stone.
Where I was, within fifteen minutes everyone hit the exits other than me. And the cat. The cat fell asleep.
I would have given it less points, except there were lots of grubworms and they ate lots of meals.
In my book, any movie with carnivorous monsters ought to chomp dozens of humans like they were eating a sack of Long Pork Nuggets.

[Vultural]

The Spook Who Sat By The Door - 1973 - 7/10

Ordered to integrate, the CIA recruits a company of black males and begins training.
All wash out, save one candidate who becomes the token Negro in the Agency.
He learns combat, bomb making, guerrilla tactics, yet after five years he resigns to do social work in Chicago.
Once in the Windy City, he sets out to radicalize the hood, creating a militant commando force.
Groundwork laid, an hour into the film, the Cobras strike!
Wow, what a neat little film.  Part Blaxploitation, total righteous anger.
There are stereotypes, to be sure, as well as conversational debates.
Issues of race, class, money, power are voiced throughout, often using humor or satire.
While B-film limitations are evident, this has a lot of heart and the rage resonates today.
Deemed too inflammatory and yanked soon after its release.
Score by Herbie Hancock, directed by Ivan Dixon of Hogan’s Heroes fame.

[Vultural]

Swerve - 2011 - 6/10

Man driving through Australian oblivion witnesses spectacular car smash.
One driver is injured, the other is pieces parts.  There is also a briefcase, stuffed with money.

Boyscout to the core, the man turns in the cash to authorities in Neverest.
Turns out several parties are interested in those banknotes.  The body count begins to rise.
Neo Noir under blinding sun has double crosses, femme fatale, missing characters, slippery histories.
Oh, and a mini-convention of local police marching bands.  Twists vie with formula.
During one sequence by midnight pool, I predicted,  “Prepare for nude swimming.”
SPOILER - Prediction was correct. - SPOILER
Acceptable thriller if one does not dwell on a couple unexplained mysteries.

[Vultural]

Blind Date - 2015 - 6/10
AKA - Un Peu Beaucoup Aveuglément

Rather old-fashioned French romantic comedy.
Two individuals share an apartment floor, separated by non-insulated, thin wall.
They can easily hear each other, whether in the kitchen or in the shower.
Attraction grows, yet they have established boundaries, such as no physical contact.
Apparently, each has been burned one too many times in real relationships.
Set construction seem stagebound, and the basic plot is a retread.
Neither character is a social network slave, and both use their phones sparingly.
That strikes me as old-fashioned.
Fine date movie.