Film Reviews by sb

FILM & REVIEW Coming at the very end of the Hammer cycle - in fact the last film they made - its second the Dennis Wheatley adaptation after Devil Rides Out which was one of best films they made - this is very lacklustre in comparison. Lee is renegade priest Father Micheal who gets excommunicated for heresy and sets up to raise a child Catherine (Kinsky) when she become 18 will become a vessel for Satan. He father tries to stop this by engaging an Occult author Vernon (Widmark) to protect Catherine against Lee’s forces of darkness but he soon realises he is out of his depth. The biggest issue is that the film never really engages - it just seems to meander from scene to scene without anything really happening Lee is very good bringing his customery intensity but Widmark is there for the cheque ( and threatened to walk and go home on more that one occasion - good support from Elliot, Blackman and Valentine and nice use of the mid 70’s London locations but The Omen it ain’t . It’s also got one of lamest endings ever - it’s doesn’t end as just splutter as it runs out of steam - Should have been so much better - 3/5

FILM & REVIEW Cool stylish French gangster movie has Gabin as Max an ageing crook who pulls off one last heist before retiring. What’s interesting is that although it’s a heist movie it dispenses with the normal setup and robbery and moves straight into the third act when he has the loot (50 million franks in good bullion ) stashed away - he just has to convert it into cash. A rival gang have other plans and kidnap his partner Riton (Dary) and set up an exchange - the loot for his lifelong buddy. Of course Max isn’t going to take this lying down so enagages his own crew for the final confrontation. Gabin is excellent in the lead playing Max as the perfect gentleman with an eye ( and much success ) with the ladies and brings a world weary aura to the part. It’s a whirlwind of cafes, restaurants and night clubs shot mainly at night with a neat Gallic take on the American Gangster movie . You do have to pay attention with its large cast and complicated betrayals but once you have a sussed out who is who it’s a really great film - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW John Sayles superb multi layered drama set along the Tex-Mex border has Cooper as Sam the sheriff in a small Texan town who has spent his entire life in the shadow of his father Buddy (McConaughy in flashbacks) a previous sheriff who is a local legend. The film opens with a discovery of a skeleton in the desert and a sheriff badge nearby and it’s discovered that it’s the remains of Charley Wade (Kristofferson) an old school lawman who shot first and asked questions later and was on take from everyone, Sam begins to suspect that Buddy may have have responsible for his death and so begins to uncover the past. Meanwhile a US Army Colonel gets posted to a local base where his estranged Father runs a bar having walked out on his family years ago. Sam also hooks up with his old school sweetheart Pilar (Pena) and her difficult relationship with her mother so the film is a murder mystery wrapped in a generational conflict where the past ( both personal and historical) is as much an influence on events as the present. Superb performances throughout with Cooper superb as the laconic less is more lead and Sayles manages to keep several plot strands all going at once both from now and then without ever losing the audience - not seen it in a while and it’s a true masterpiece - 5/5

FILM & WATCHED Been on my list for a while so glad to catch it. Set over Christmas 1970 in a posh prep school for the idle rich where parents dump their kids wher they live a life of sneering privelage. Every year some kids are left over for Xmas and some unfortunate teacher has to babysit them. It falls on Hunham (Giamanti) this year who is austere, hidebound by tradition and hated by all his pupils and fellow teachers - the loathing is mutual. Due to a change in circumstances only one student Tully (Sessa ) is left along with the cook Mary (Randolph) whose son went to the school but didn’t get the grades for collage and was drafted and killed in Vietnam. On the one hand it’s the time honoured cliche of people stuck with each other who over time open up and begin to realise there is much more to them than at first appears….but it’s done so well that the writing and performances transcend all that. Giamanti is wondeful as the stuffy teacher who takes refuge in books to avoid confronting real life and if it hadn’t been for Oppenheimer would have been a shoe-in for best actor Oscar as is Randolph who did win in the supporting category. Sessa has the less showy role but again goes from privileged asshole to someone struggling to find his way. The film does skate very closely to cloying sentimentality at times but just manages to get away with it….and it’s shot and scored as if it really was made at the time. Very impressive - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW An oft-overlooked entry in the Hammer canon which is a shame as it’s rather good. Paris 1890 and Diffring plays Dr Bonnet a celebrated surgeon and sculptor who hides a dark secret. He is awaiting the arrival of Dr Weiss but who is a few weeks late - in the meantime he meets fellow surgeon Gerrard (Lee) and his girlfriend Janine (Court) the latter who had modelled for him and had fallen in love. The reason he needs Dr Weiss is to perform an operation on him and it’s revealed that although Wiess is a very old man Bonnet is even older - as students they realised that by replacing a gland every 10 years the patient never ages and is immortal . Wiess has had a stroke so Gerrad is persuaded to take over with misgivings. Obviously the gland can only come from a live person so every 10 years Bonnet vanishes along with whoever was his then model…. It’s a very literary script with nods to Dorian Gray and although Diffring was a last minute replacement for Cushing who pulled out having done 4 films back to back but is very good - a monster but a very charming one and Lee and Court are equally good - so 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Terrific modern western which opens with a Mexican ranch hand beaten to death by the Boss’s henchmen. This is witnesssed by an older hand who reports it to the local sheriff Ben Sadler (Chandler). Most people are dismissive as the victim was a wetback but Ben is a man with principles and this brings him into conflict with the local ranches boss Renchler ( a suitibly menancing Orsen Welles). He is the most powerful man in the county and has all the important townspeople in his back pocket. Ben is warned off but this just makes him more determined to get to the truth especially when he discovers that Renchler’s daughter was sweet on the murdered boy. Ben finds himself up against both Renchler and most of the town so goes into full on Gary Copper mode. The warnings get more and more dangerous and he soon finds that his own life is on the line. It fits well into a lot of films of the period dealing with small town corruption and racism with Chandler solid in the part and Welles believing there is nothing he can’t get away with - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Fairly effective late period Giallo slasher. York plays Robert a dashing and successful concert pianist whose doctor has him diagnosed with a rare genetic disease. Meanwhile someone is butchering young women with Pleasence’s copper on the case. He is convinced it’s one killer but wintness’s decribe a man of every increasing ages. It’s soon revelealed to be Robert whose body is aging at an accelerating pace - decades are added in mere weeks and this drives him insane with a rage at all things young and beautiful. What lifts the film is York’s performance with some very creepy make up - he knows what he is doing is wrong and invests a real pathos into the character. Add is some effective locations in Venice and some spectacularly baroque murders and you do have something worth a viewing - 3.5/5

FILM & REVIEW Not a Hammer movie but with Lee, Cushing and director Fisher it may as well be. In the middle of an English winter the remote island of Faro is basking in a unexplained heatwave The local hotel is run by Callum (Allen) and his real life wife (Lawson). One of the guests is mysterious scientist Hanson(Lee) is conducting secretative tests while various locals are being incinerated. It’s revealed that radio waves transmittted from earth have attracted the attention of aliens and a scouting party has been sent to see if they can make life compatable - thus the heatwave. It’s got more than a hint of Quatermass about it (which Hammer also made) and is quite effective as an under siege movie and the way the characters begin to crack in the rising tempatures works well. There is an unfortunate soapy sub plot with Merrow as a girl from Callum’s past which just gets in the way and Cushing has more of a guest cameo and budgets mean that Fisher wisely keeps the aliens as a out of shot menance until the end but overall it works pretty well - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Always been a fan of Finnish Auteur Aki Kuarasmaki and his deadpan droll films and athough this is an early work a lot of his preoccupations are here. A group of friends all called Frank decide to leave the dull superb of Helsinki and set out to travel to a mystical seaside town. To get there they break into a subway station and steal a train overpowering a guard. They make it as far as the Centre (but not before one gets shot by the guard) and find themselves in limbo with no money and no idea how to get to their goal. They split up and get into all manner of surreal occurances then meet up in cafe’s where they chain smoke and wear sunglasses indoors. They are slowly getting whittled down with more shootings and begin to realise they will never make the destination. It’s got a Homeric undercurrent with some very droll moments ( and some truly terrible 80’s hairstyles) plus they join a local punk band on stage at one point. It a really interesting early example of his unique cinematic vision - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW AKA Superbitch - wonderfully overdone Italian Cop thriller has Rassivov as Cliff who we first meet in Beruit where he assassinates a drug middleman working for Mama ( a superbly demented Patricia Hayes). Quick stop off in Rome to meet with his Drug Lord boss then off to London to hook up with Morrell who not only runs a high class escort agency that specialises in blackmail but is also major link in the drug trafficking gang. One of his girls is Joann (Beecham) and it’s soon revealed that Cliff is an undercover cop working to break the case. To complicate things he has his own agenda and isn’t relying on his Police pension in old age so organises mega massacres of rival gangs and sets up the deal so each Drug Lord will blame the other for betrayal with the invevitble consequences. It’s got car chases , beatings, stabbings , nudity and huge shootouts including one in New York warehouse with Rassimov wearing a air of cool detachment worthy of Dirty Harry and Beecham gamely spends the film in various states of undress. It’s really is a key film on the Years of Lead genre - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Working my way through the Claude Chabrol catalogue to this - one is his most fiendishly clever films as well as a particularly bleak take on the human condition. Audran plays Helen married to Charles with a young son. He suffers from mental health episodes and one morning attacks her and throws their son across the room. She subdues him beating him with a frying pan - Police and an ambulance are called but his Father (Boucher) is immensely rich and secrets his son away. Helen wants a divorce and custody but the father who always thought she was no good takes action to get custody of the boy. To further his aims he hires the destitute son of his late business partner Paul (Jean- Pierre Cassel - Vincent’s father) to dig the dirt. He pretends to be terminally ill and moves into the same boarding house across from the hospital where Helen’s son is being looked after. He finds nothing so concocts a despicable plot involving his nympho girlfriend, some Porno movies , LSD and the landlady’s mentally retarded daughter to frame Helen. Needles to say it doesn’t go to plan and things soon spiral way out of control. Audran is as always excellent and Cassel is a mixture of suave charm and slimey creepiness that centres the film and as mentioned it one of Chabrols bleakest films but very very good - 4/5

FILM & REVIEW Ok EuroCop drama - Johnnie Mills plays Bulon a narcotics policeman in Hamburg married to the much younger and vivacious Lisa (Paluzzi) who it’s implied married him in return for avoiding jail time. But he is insanely jealous suspecting her of having affairs which distracts from his work which isn’t going too well. Every time he gets someone to reveal all about the drugs kingpin they end up dead killed by contact killer Max (Hoffman) and he wonders if Lisa has left her past life behind. This time he is sure she has a lover and instead of arresting Max he makes a deal with him to kill Lisa. Max sets out with this intention but begins an affair with Lisa instead leaving Bulon helpless as he loses control of events . Although it’s not a Giallo it does have some of the tropes - Max wears a black coat,hat and gloves prefiguring the standard killer setup although this is more a betrayal movie. Mills does what he can with the role and Hoffman is all handsome charm with good use of the Hamburg locations - 3/5

FILM & REVIEW Di Leo’s complex gangster film set in Milan. Ugo (Mostin) is a small time crook just out of jail and is suspected of stealing $300k from local gangster The Americano (Stander).This sets him up in conflict with Rocco (Adorf) the boss’s psychotic right hand man. Ugo denies stealing the money but no one believes him and the Americano sets him back to work to keep an eye on him. He also hooks up with ex girlfriend Nelly (Bocho) who has done very well for herself while he has been inside. - who also suspects he has the money as well. Meanwhile someone is killing bagmen and stealing even more money which sets up a breakdown in trust between all the gangsters. Mostin is very good as the taciturn lead and it’s really brutal at times with beatings,slashings and mass shootouts with a very bleak take on the human condition. The first of a trilogy - 4/5

FILM & REWATCH Always has this down as a mid-level Scorsese - good but not top rate. Watching it again after several years and it’s just superb. Once you get over the shock of just how young Cruise looks you can see how well he plays the vain arrogant selfish prick that is Vincent. He drives Eddy to almost beyond despair with his antics and his refusal to tone it down that causes the final break with an excellent Mastrantinio trying to make him see sense. Of course the film is really about Eddie who is doing well enough for himself in the liquor business who initially sees using Vincent to get a final shot at redemption and then finally realising he can do that all by himself. Newman is just brilliant in the role - quiet , understated who has to have his pride humiliated by a younger hustler for the fire to reignite. At the time the feeling was he won the Oscar because it was felt they has better give him one sooner than later but watching it again he fully deserved it. Scorsese is at the height of his game here with some magnificent editing by his long time collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker where you are in the front row for every hammer break. Glad I screened it again as it really has gone up in my estimation - 5/5

FILM & REVIEW Occasionaly when you have a rental by post list something turns up you don’t remember adding but heck it here so let’s have a look. A truly thick slice of 80’s action cheese has Dolph as a maverick cop tracking down some drug dealers who have killed his partner . This time he is saddled with straight laced FBI man who does everything by the book but they soon discover that someone else is after the heroin….that someone else is a an alien who injects the heroin into various people and extracts some fluid that he can use to make even stronger heroin that he take back to his own planet and sell at a huge profit. If all this sound ridiculous it is….as is the terrible script , truly dreadful acting (Dolph is a real Poundshop Arnie ) with loads of car chases, explosions and every cliche in the book. But at the same time it’s rather fun in a Friday night straight to VHS rental way- it’s not a Canon film but it may well as be…so 3/5