The Stop Button Posted by on December 9, 2013

For a while it seems like the third act of Garden of Evil will make up for the rest of the film’s problems. Or at least give it somewhere to excel. Sadly, director Hathaway and screenwriter Frank Fention inexplicably tack on a terrible coda–tying into the title no less–and effecti   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on December 6, 2013

I went into The Monster Walks with what I consider reasonable expectations. I thought it would be bad. I thought it would be a bad, low budget, rainy night in a mansion with a killer ape loose movie. It is all of those things, but it’s also awful. Director Strayer...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on December 4, 2013

Before it stumbles through its third act, I Walked with a Zombie’s biggest problem is the pacing. It’s exceedingly boring during the second act. Its second biggest problem is it’s too short. The second act plays so poorly because there’s not enough going on, there’s ju   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on December 2, 2013

What’s the funniest thing in Caddyshack? Bill Murray is a good first choice, Rodney Dangerfield, even Ted Knight is hilarious, but Chevy Chase actually wins out. He doesn’t have as many awesome scenes as Murray, but Murray’s got a couple mundane ones. Chase–who opens the mov   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on November 29, 2013

Bedlam is about a third of a good picture. It’s like writers Val Lewton and (director too) Robson didn’t quite know how to make it work, what with having to have Boris Karloff in it. Karloff’s the villain, the head of a mental institute in the eighteenth century. Karloff’s s   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on November 26, 2013

The Storybook Review consists of four nursery rhymes told in stop motion animation. Director and animator Ray Harryhausen has a varying degree of success with the four, usually due to storytelling. For example, the Mother Hubbard entry goes on way too long even though it’s shortened from the   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on November 20, 2013

It might be too easy just to call The Terror terrible or to go into the various puns one could make with “terrible” and the title. It’s not a surprisingly bad film at all. It’s an expectedly bad film, given it opens with a pointless scare attempt. Boris Karloff shows...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on November 15, 2013

The first half of Dementia 13 is surprisingly good. From the first scene–pre-titles even–Coppola establishes some great angles to his composition. He keeps it up throughout with close-ups jump cutting to different close-ups; excellent photography from Charles Hannawalt makes it all work   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on November 6, 2013

Until the unfortunate deus ex machina finish, A Bucket of Blood is a small wonder. Even with the finish, the film manages to succeed; the performances are just too strong. Dick Miller plays a simple, well-meaning bus boy–who also takes drink orders, apparently for no tips–at an art café   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on November 1, 2013

Boomerang! is a mess. The first half of the film is a misfired docudrama, the second half (or so) is a fantastic courtroom drama. Richard Murphy’s script is such a plotting disaster not even beautifully written scenes and wonderful performances can make up for its problems. And director Kazan   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on October 31, 2013

The big problem with Nightshift, an episode of “The Hitchhiker,” is how William Darrid’s teleplay handles the protagonist. Margot Kidder plays a retirement home nurse who preys on her charges–little mean stuff, stealing their jewelry. The script isn’t playful with its   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on October 30, 2013

The Curse of the Cat People is apparently Kent Smith. Well, him and writer DeWitt Bodeen. Smith and Jane Randolph return from the first film, this one set over six years later. They have a daughter–Ann Carter in an almost perfect performance–who’s a lonely child. She eventually im   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on October 25, 2013

Red’s Dream sure is depressing. It’s wonderfully depressing, actually, since the second act is so profoundly upsetting one almost hopes for the happy ending. The short is only four minutes, so I think the first act basically consists of the tracking shot through the bike shop. The titul   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on October 23, 2013

One of the best parts of Bunco–and there’s actually a lot of good stuff in it–is how director Signer composes his shots of “leads” Robert Urich and Tom Selleck. Even though Urich’s top-billed and has a little more to do, Singer makes sure to get both men in each   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on October 18, 2013

Best Seller either isn’t sleazy enough or it isn’t glitzy enough. Larry Cohen’s script about a cop who writes true crime books teaming up with a hitman desperate to be the subject of such a book needs something distinctive about it. Leads Brian Dennehy and James Woods are okay, bu   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on October 16, 2013

When the politics of a murder mystery are more interesting than the mystery, there’s a bit of a problem. The Phantom of Crestwood involves a woman of the world (Karen Morley) blackmailing her former lovers so she can get out of the professional mistress life. Why’s it so easy to...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on October 15, 2013

Well, What Do You Think? is one bland short film. There are some definite strengths to it. Tourneur’s direction of the actors is outstanding, especially at the beginning at a Hollywood party, when he’s cutting between various actors. All of Think is told in narration (from Carey Wilson)   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on October 14, 2013

I’ve probably seen Diner ten times but I still don’t know where to start with it. Barry Levinson sets the present action between Christmas and New Year’s, so one probably could sit down and chart out what happens on each day. There’s a big basketball bet driving some of the   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on October 11, 2013

Smile is the story of the week of a regional beauty pageant in a northern California town. It’s not exactly the story of the pageant, though it does look at some of the contestants, but it also looks at how the event affects the locals. Bruce Dern gets top billing...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on October 9, 2013

For the first few scenes, Alex North definitely composes The Passover Plot like a big Biblical epic of the fifties. It’s not, of course, and not just because Plot’s from the seventies. It’s cheap and director Campus uses that reduced budget interestingly. Maybe not well, but defin   read more