Top class acting by Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay, although at times it feels that they are a bit overacting (specially Courtenay's last scene). The script is also very well written.
This is another proof that Albert Finney is way due for an oscar.
I had a mostly positive reaction to this, though I am a bit concerned that the film offers a primer on stalking as Jason Ritter's movie rental store clerk stalks porn film renter Palka (the writer-director) until she succumbs to his charms. Though classified as a comedy it veers pretty close to tragedy at times. Charles Durning, looking like death warmed over, has a cameo as an elderly widower who rents his late wife's favorite film every year on on their anniversary.
Split Second (Dick Powell, 1953) 6/10
Unusual 50s noir in which an escaped killer (Stephen McNally) holds a group of people (including Alexis Smith, Jan Sterling, Keith Andes, Arthur Hunnicut and Richard Egan) captive in a town scheduled to be blown up in the morning as it is just a couple of miles from the government's Nevada nuclear bomb testing site. Doubly chilling when you consider Powell and others connected with his next film, The Conqueror, including John Wayne, Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead died from cancer within twenty years linked to filming in the same location.
The Money Trap (Burt Kennedy, 1966) 6/10
Better than I expected crime yarn with Glenn Ford and Ricardo Montalban as cops who turn bad when confronted with an easy get rich quick opportunity to steal from nefarious doctor Joseph Cotten. Ford has little chemistry with Elke Sommer playing his wife but more than makes up for it with frequent co-star Rita Hayworth as his boozy ex-girlfriend. Hayworth all but steals the film in her few brief scenes.
Drive, He Said (Jack Nicholson, 1971) 2/10
Nicholson's self-indulgent directorial debut focuses on his favorite sport, basketball. Of all the actors, only Bruce Dern who won a National Society of Film Critics award as the coach, comes anywhere close to resembling a real human being. William Tepper as the star player, Michael Margotta as his radical roommate, Karen Black as the professor's wife who has an affair with Tepper and Robert Towne (yes, that Robert Towne) as the professor are all dreadful.
Best thing about the film is Philip Seymour Hoffman's voice work.
Gunman's Walk (1958) Phil Karlson 7/10
I Dreamt Under the Water (2008) Hormoz 5/10
The D.I. (1957) Jack Webb 4/10
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
Thanks to Turner Classic Movies, I caught two films this weekend I had never heard of, but that have their hidden charms:
So Long at the Fair (1950) - A neat little thriller with great performances from Jean Simmons and Dirk Bogarde. Simmons is a young woman in Paris for the first time whose brother mysteriously disappears. No one will believe her that he came, and it quickly turns into a Lady Vanishes-esque film, but contains an interesting twist at the end. Worth seeing.
Those Lips, Those Eyes (1980) - A wonderful little film about the wonders of the theatre (a personal favorite) with a fantastic leading performance by Frank Langella. Langella plays the leading man at an Ohio summer stock, with Tom Hulce as the neophyte prop boy who has his eyes opened. It is a little cliche-ridden, but the script is charming enough and the performers all wonderful.
"Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good."
- Minor Myers, Jr.
I like Daa Vee Dee, but I hate their website. It's so slow and overly sensitive. If you don't click on the arrows to take you to the next page just so,it brings up a synopsis of a film you have no interest in and slows the process even further.
I was under the impression this film hadn't been shown anywhere since its initial theatrical run in 1971.
I bought is from DaaVeeDee. It's a Spainish disc. Full screen print in pretty good condition with removable Spainish subtitles.
Wow. I just checked Daa Vee Dee. They just added this title on 4/16. Your international mail service is quicker than my domestic service.
I ordered it 3 weeks ago. I think they sold out and got more in stock. I check their site every couple of days.
I have the latest Grennaway and the Norwegian film Junk Mail on their way presently.
Edited By Big Magilla on 1241577373
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)