Passengers aboard capsized luxury liner race through ruined ship to reach bottom and possible rescue before it sinks. Solid adventure film based on Paul Gallico's novel. The savvy script by Stirling Silliphant and Wendell Mayes jettisons Gallico's introspection and focuses on the action, while the ensemble cast, led by Gene Hackman as a rah-rah reverend and Ernest Borgnine as a belligerent cop, makes it all believable. Also with Red Buttons, Shelley Winters, Roddy McDowall, Carol Lynley, and others. Remade in 2006 as Poseidon.
***
Passengers aboard capsized luxury liner race through ruined ship to reach bottom and possible rescue before it sinks. Solid adventure film based on Paul Gallico's novel. The savvy script by Stirling Silliphant and Wendell Mayes jettisons Gallico's introspection and focuses on the action, while the ensemble cast, led by Gene Hackman as a rah-rah reverend and Ernest Borgnine as a belligerent cop, makes it all believable. Also with Red Buttons, Shelley Winters, Roddy McDowall, Carol Lynley, and others. Remade in 2006 as Poseidon.
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**** Sophisticated romantic mystery narrated by three different characters, each of whom is dealing with the murder of a young woman in their own way. One of them, a police detective, has to figure out who is lying, and why -- while meanwhile unraveling a bizarre love quadrangle. Beautifully constructed, introspective and moody, with only enough nuts and bolts detective work to keep things moving. Not hardboiled, but fully on par with with other noir greats from the likes of Hammett, Chandler, and Cain. First published in 1942 as a serial in Collier's, where it ran under the Cain-inspired (yet awful) title Ring Twice for Laura. Made into a film in 1944, starring Gene Tierney. *** The best of the Rambo films, written by Stallone and James Cameron (The Terminator), is a fine action film that sees ex-Green Beret John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) pulled from prison to execute a dangerous mission to determine whether American POWs are still being held by the Vietnamese. Both Stallone and Richard Crenna, as Rambo's old commanding officer, are more comfortable in their roles, and Julia Nickson adds an attractive dash of emotional contrast to the grim proceedings. Nice to see the Russians get involved, as well. Never believable, but works anyway up until a final aerial battle that stretches credulity too far. ** Two young couples are lured to the rural mansion home of a psychotic family of torture killers. The attraction here isn't the gory story (with its many nods to other horror films), but that this is the first film written and directed by musician Rob Zombie, who comes off like a kid in a magic shop, as he fills the screen with one cinematic trick after another: odd angles, video, filters, and so on. The story just holds it down, and in fact one gets the sense Zombie simply filmed a series of thinly connected scenes along with some atmospheric filler and the real work was completed by his team of editors. Still, for all its self-conscious extravagance, it is, occasionally, stylish and imaginative. Just not scary or emotionally involving. **** Superior mystery, winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, introduces the character of Irwin Maurice Fletcher. Here, he's a hot-shot reporter working undercover to expose drug operations on a California beach when a rich industrialist makes him an offer he can't refuse: he'll pay Fletch fifty thousand dollars to kill him. Macdonald relies predominately on dialogue without adornment (James M. Cain-style) to reveal both the mystery and Fletch himself, who is funny, sarcastic, clever, and oddly romantic (a clear precursor to Nelson De Mille's John Corey). Not the "master of disguise" played so well by Chevy Chase in the movie adaptation, Fletch here is just as amusing as an accomplished manipulator of social intercourse, playing off people's expectations to get them to open up to a complete stranger. A fast and thoroughly entertaining read. Followed by Confess, Fletch. **** PI John Klute (Donald Sutherland) falls for call girl Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) who is at the center of his investigation into a friend's disappearance and possible murder. Slow-goer that is less about the crime than Bree's moody emotional awakening. That is, until the end, when the plot gets in the way. Otherwise, a fine, atmospheric film, one that, if it wasn't an inspiration for the Harrison Ford/Sean Young dynamic in Blade Runner, certainly could have been. Fonda won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. *** Solid horror film starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick as the unfortunate parents of the Anti-Christ. With Patrick Troughton as a priest and David Warner as a paparazzi who discovers dark premonitions in his photographs and tries to warn Peck. Several of its horror scenes have become iconic, including a spectacular beheading. Weakened only by the lack of a clear antagonist: Damien, the boy, behaves mostly like any other five year old kid, leaving it to the Devil himself to work his evil from off-screen. Greatly superior to the novelization, also written by David Seltzer. *** FBI trainee Clarice Starling is tapped to interview incarcerated psychiatrist-turned-serial-killer Hannibal Lecter in the hope he can shed some light on a series of murders in which women are partially skinned; Lecter obliges by doling out just enough information to keep Starling on the case. Features a better ending than its predecessor, Red Dragon, but falls short in nearly every other respect, with a less interesting killer and a bifurcated plot (the primary purpose of which is to set up Harris' next book in the series, Hannibal). Still, a satisfactory thriller, and the greenhorn Starling (though unnecessarily gorgeous) is appealing enough. Jodie Foster stars in the movie adaptation, directed by Jonathan Demme. ** Hyperactive science fiction with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Earth-bound construction worker discovering he used to be Mars-based secret agent, going up against the evil forces that wiped his memory. The set-up, on Earth, is simple and effective enough, but the pay-off, on Mars, is a cluttered and noisy mess, as screenwriters Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, and Gary Goldman burden the story with psychic mutants, alien artifacts, and an awfully convenient hologram projector to fill in the occasional gaps between bursts of gunfire. All action, no suspense. With Sharon Stone as Arnold's Earth wife, Rachel Ticotin as his Mars girlfriend, and Ronny Cox and Michael Ironside as the bad guys. Based on Philip K. Dick's story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." **** Couple takes student hitchhiker sailing. Understated Polish drama, beautifully photographed (in black and white) by Jerzy Lipman. Ought to be boring, but isn't, as Polanski artfully draws suspense by mixing the mundane with the mysterious (the unknown quantity of the hitchhiker). Builds to a satsifying and unexpected conclusion. With excellent performances by its cast of three: Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, and Zygmunt Malanowicz. Polanski's first feature length film. |
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