The Stop Button Posted by on April 3, 2009

I’m breaking my diet/workout regime and having a martini for this post. The Stop Button isn’t closing. Not exactly. It’s just not going to be updated daily and I’m not going to focus on developing its library of film responses. This week, which missed a day already, wasn&#82   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on April 2, 2009

John Wayne gets first billing in The Long Voyage Home, but the picture really belongs to Thomas Mitchell, Ward Bond and Ian Hunter. The film’s a combination slash adaptation of four one-act plays–which is somewhat clear from the rather lengthy sequences tied together with shorter joinin   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 25, 2009

Directed by Danny Steinmann; screenplay by Martin Kitrosser, David Cohen and Steinmann, based on a story by Kitrosser and Cohen and characters created by Victor Miller; director of photography, Stephen L. Posey; edited by Bruce Green; music by Harry Manfredini; production designer, Robert Howland;   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 24, 2009

I first saw The Killing when I was in high school. I had a great video store and one of the employees–lots of the employees were film school students–recommended the film to me, raving about Kubrick’s use of fractured narrative. He didn’t call it a fractured narrative, I don   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 23, 2009

I wonder if the U.S. Army would like to get a movie like Tank out today. The movie’s politics are… well, they’re not hilarious, but they’re so blatant, it’s stunning. It’s a pro-Army film and an intensely anti-Georgia film. It likes Tennessee though. From Tank, a   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 19, 2009

The chase scene in Killer’s Kiss, which occupies almost the entire third act, is a marvel. From the moment Jamie Smith jumps out the window and hits the pavement, the film leaps beyond the potential Kubrick has instilled it with until that point. Before, there’s a lot of great low...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 18, 2009

The Fastest Gun Alive–to put it mildly and politely–is a turkey. I thought, given Glenn Ford in the lead, it was going to be at least a decent Western… but it’s not. Ford’s great (more on him later), but the script is atrocious. It’s rare to see a script so...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 16, 2009

Take the Money and Run kind of dangles on a line. It’s occasionally a screwball comedy–something the Marx Brothers would have done–and alternately a thought-out spoof of documentaries. The breeze moves the film’s direction and it’s hard to know where it’ll go nex   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 15, 2009

The Delta Force is… 1) the only Chuck Norris movie my mom let me watch as a kid (I think it’s the only Chuck Norris movie I’ve ever seen). 2) “the most homoerotic movie I’ve ever seen,” according to my wife. 3) somewhat interesting for the first forty-five minute   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 13, 2009

Jimmy Smits is pretty good in Running Scared. He’s a believable bad guy, intimidating even. I don’t know why I’m opening with Smits, maybe because I’m in a good mood and want to be generous with praise for an unlikely recipient. Running Scared is a delightful action comedy;   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 12, 2009

George Sanders can do no wrong in The Saint’s Double Trouble, so much so, he has the ability to smooth the film over. He’s such a joy to watch, the critical part of the brain shuts down. Eventually, as the film nears the conclusion, Sanders looses his control, letting judgments...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 9, 2009

Halloween II–if it isn’t the worst film John Carpenter ever worked on in some capacity–certainly features Carpenter’s worst script. There isn’t a single well-written conversation in the entire picture–the closest one is a couple young women talking; presumably co   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 7, 2009

I wonder, did Lew Ayres ever feel like Jimmy Kildare was a heel? I mean, he’s an unbelievably nice guy–he won’t propose to nurse Mary Lamont (Laraine Day sleepwalks through almost all of Dr. Kildare’s Strange Case, since there’s only one scene where she needs to do any   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 6, 2009

I’d heard–read, actually, but maybe heard as well–the 1981 Postman Always Rings Twice was terrible. If I knew Rafelson directed it, I’d forgotten. I did remember David Mamet wrote it. For some reason, I always thought it was an in name only remake, not at all based on the Ca   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on March 5, 2009

Every eight years or so, I watch Drums Along the Mohawk to see if it gets any better. According to my cursory notes from my last viewing, it apparently has gotten a little bit better. As the titles rolled, I was hopeful–it is John Ford after all (his first color...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on February 25, 2009

Directed by Joseph Zito; screenplay by Barney Cohen, based on a story by Bruce Hidemi Sakow and on characters created by Martin Kitrosser, Ron Kurz, Victor Miller and Carol Watson; director of photography, João Fernandes; edited by Joel Goodman; production designer, Shelton H. Bishop; produced by F   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on February 24, 2009

About half way into Five Easy Pieces, the film really hasn’t given any clue as to what it’s going to be. It’s an incredibly complex character study, both in its approach to the narrative and in terms of Jack Nicholson’s protagonist. The beginning of the film, set in the oil   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on February 23, 2009

Director Moxey has–there’s no better word for it–a compulsion for zooming. He absolutely loves it. I imagine it saved the time and money needed for additional set-ups–and I think short zooms from character to character were a 1970s TV movie standard–but it looks just t   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on February 23, 2009

Love Crazy has to be the worst film William Powell and Myrna Loy ever made together. Powell started his career in silents, so it’s possible it’s not his worst film, but I’m pretty sure it’s Loy’s. Love Crazy starts incredibly lazy. It doesn’t bother defining eith   read more

The Stop Button Posted by on February 22, 2009

Watching The Secret of Dr. Kildare is about two things–seeing Lionel Barrymore’s fantastic performance (even as he’s spouting expositional dialogue, it’s riveting) and finding out the deep dark secret of patient Helen Gilbert. It’s the third film in the series and the   read more