This review was originally written for French Toast Sunday as part of my USA Road Trip series.
In a few months time, the Cahulawassee River is to be flooded by a dam. Four men, only two of whom have any experience canoeing, set out to row down a stretch of the river, before it is tamed by man and gone forever. However, the river has other ideas, as do the locals who don’t think too much of these naive city folk heading down their river.
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In pre-World War 2 England, the Miniver family live a happy life. Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson) spends her days going to town and spending their money on frivolities, and feels guilty about buying an expensive new hat-type thing that I would never describe as being a hat, but her worries at what her architect husband (Walter Pidgeon) will say disappear when it is revealed that he has bought a fancy new car. They have two young children – Toby and Judy (Christopher Severn and Clare Sandars), and a 19-year old son Vincent (Richard Ney) who has just returned from Oxford and caught the eye of Carol (Teresa Wright) the granddaughter of the village aristocracy, the haughty Mrs. Beldon (Dame May Whitty), who disapproves of lowly station master Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers) entering his new rose to compete against hers in the upcoming village flower show. All these problems are thrown to the wind, however, when war breaks out, and everyone finds themselves affected.
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A Shaolin monk named Lee (Bruce Lee) is invited to a martial arts tournament being held by Mr. Han (Shih Kien), a former Shaolin monk who abused his training for personal gain. Lee intends to bring him to justice, having been recruited by British Intelligence, but is joined in the tournament by other competitors Roper (John Saxon) and Williams (Jim Kelly). It soon becomes clear that the tournament may be a cover for something more sinister.
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On a mission to re-do aerial photographs over a German base during the First World War, the plane is shot down and the two Frenchmen on board are captured by the German army and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. There, along with the men sharing their quarters, they attempt to tunnel out, but before they are able to they are shipped to an escape-proof stronghold, run by the same German officer who was the cause of them being shot down in the first place.
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Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) used to be a big shot journalist, and now just thinks he still is one. He’s been fired from more newspapers than I could name for a cornucopia of vices, and now finds himself staring at a vacant typewriter at the Albuquerque Sun Bulletin, a small town paper with very few employees and even fewer stories for them to tell. All Tatum needs is that one big break to get him noticed by the big papers again, and when a local man gets trapped in a cave-in whilst searching for trinkets to sell, Chuck sees potential, he just needs to make the story fit the headlines.
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The island of Todday, off the coast of Scotland, is 100 miles from anything close to recreation, so it’s small island community gets by on thet pastime of whisky drinking. However, due to rationing, the whisky stores dry up, and the island is suddenly devoid of alcohol. The previously cheerful, easygoing folk become irritable and distant, until one night a cargo ship wrecks out in the bay. The cargo? 50,000 crates of whisky. However, just as the locals are set to launch their boats into the water to pilfer the booze, the clock strikes midnight on the Sabbath, and any such business would be going against their religion.
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This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series over at French Toast Sunday.
Everett, Pete and Delmar (George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson) have just escaped from a chain gang in 1930s Mississippi, with the intention of recovering the loot from the burglary that resulted in Everett’s incarceration, before the area within which it is hidden becomes flooded in a few days time. The three men – at least two of whom are amongst the stupidest creations the Coen brothers have ever concocted, which is saying a great deal – have a long way to go and a short time to get there, and their journey isn’t made any easier by the lawmen on their tails and the various obstacles that must be overcome, not least of which is coping with each other’s company. Continue reading
Will Graham (William Petersen) is a profiler for the FBI who, after getting too close to his previous case, has taken a leave of absence, or possibly even retired, to recuperate and get his head back together with his wife (Kim Greist) and young son. However, his former boss Jack (Dennis Farina) has a case he can’t crack, and must pull Will out of retirement for one last job. A serial killer, dubbed the Tooth Fairy because of the bite marks he leaves behind, has so far massacred two families with several young children each, but he only strikes on the full moon. With the next one a few weeks away, time is running out for the FBI to find the guy, and with no leads to go on it is up to Will to get into the criminal mindset, and to do that he must meet with a former conquest of his, the incarcerated, highly intelligent but ruthlessly vicious mass murdered Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox).
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This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series at French Toast Sunday. I also reviewed the film recently for Blueprint: Review.
Five youths – two couples and the wheelchair-bound brother of one of the couples’ female halves – are travelling through Texas, first checking that their ancestors’ resting places haven’t been disturbed in a recent bout of grave digging, before spending some time at an abandoned house owned by the parents of the brother and sister. However, a creepy hitch-hiker and a very-much-not-abandoned house nearby put something of a damper onto their vacationing plans. Continue reading
Where do I begin with 2001: A Space Odyssey? It’s a film I’ve kind of seen once before, in the background whilst I worked on other things. I’d gleamed a few details from certain scenes, but for the most part I remembered very little, with various podcasts I’d listened to seemingly describing a film I’d clearly not paid anywhere near enough attention to. Thus, I championed it to be the latest Movie of the Month on the Lambcast. It won, I hosted the show (here’s a link to it) and, despite that relatively in depth conversation with Robert, Jess and Nick – all of whom have more experience with this film than I – I’m still a little lost as to how I feel about the film.
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Life Vs Film 