Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

This 1975 film by Francois Truffaut is about Adele Hugo, the second daughter of Victor Hugo.  She is a curious subject for a film since her life is a sad one and not overly dramatic.   Sad because she suffered from a mental illness, which manifested itself as a romantic obsession with an English soldier, Lieutenant Pinson.   This obsession leads her to follow Pinson to Halifax, Nova Scotia in the 1860s, where the bulk of this film takes place. We observe her increasingly demented behaviour which culminates in her reaching a point at the end of the film where she, having followed Pinson to Barbados, is quite unable to look after herself.  Fortunately a kind woman takes her in and gets her back to her father, after which she lives the rest of her life in a mental institution. The film is by no means as depressing as this summary may make it sound, thanks to the expert direction and to an accomplished lead performance by a 20-year old Isabel Adjani, which earn...

I wasn't previously aware of this 1946 film, but upon reading that it was a film noir with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and that it starred Barbara Stanwyck, one of my favourite actors of the period, I felt I must watch it. Unfortunately it proved to be further evidence that a 100% rating is quite meaningless. My first problem with it is the persistent and loud presence of a forgettable and overly  melodramatic score which at times made the film well nigh unwatchable. Then there is the inordinate amount of screentime devoted to one of the two couples in this story, Sam (played by Van Heflin) and Toni (Lizabeth Scott), both actors not overly blessed with much personality.  The latter in particular comes across as Lauren Bacall-lite.  The fact that she and the producer Hal B. Wallis may have been in a relationship at the time may be relevant. The other couple, Martha and Walter Ivers, played by Stanwyck and Kirk Douglas (making his screen debut) is far more interesting....

As I was watching this supposed classic Western I reflected, not for the first time, upon the patience of film audiences back in the day given that there is no action of any consequence until the last reel.  Before then we get to sit through a lot of suspense - can downtrodden rancher Dan successfully get outlaw Ben on the titular train despite Ben's gang trying to stop him? It's based on a short story (by Elmore Leonard) and it does feel a mite flimsy as a feature film albeit with a running time of barely 90 minutes, which does include some padding in the early stages. Van Heflin is well cast as Dan, ably supported by a strong supporting cast, and the whole thing  is well directed by Delmer Daves, with above-average cinematography and score.  But Glenn Ford as Ben is too likeable in the role (where's Lee Marvin when you need him?), t he climactic action isn't quite good enough to justify the lengthy build-up, and we don't get to learn much of the back stories of ei...

I'm not at all familiar with the TV series and so I brought no expectations to this film, other than that I was aware that it is not highly regarded within the canon of director Michael Mann. It's visually stylish if you're happy with the look of a digital camera - I'm not sure that I am. The plot is not very interesting, involving Crockett and Tubbs (played by Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx respectively) going undercover in drug cartel.  Crockett goes so undercover that he starts an intense relationship with Isabella who is a financial adviser and lover to the cartel's kingpin.  The highlight of the film is a sequence showing Crockett and Isabella falling in love with each other, starting with a speedboat trip to Cuba.  Isabella is superbly played by Gong Li. Also making an impression is John Ortiz as Yero, the cartel's head of security who is thoroughly unpleasant throughout. The action sequences are nothing special.  It can't have helped that the climactic ...

According to Rotten Tomatoes this is a better Stephen King adaptation than ‘The Shining’. Really?! It’s a relatively simple episodic story which I had assumed was a straightforward adaptation of the novel, but the Wikipedia entry makes it clear that the final screenplay was the result of a prolonged and convoluted creative process.  David Cronenberg and Christopher Walken seem perfect and obvious choices as director and lead actor respectively so I was amused to learn that the director might have been Stanley Donen (director of ‘Singin’ in The Rain’) and the lead actor might have been Bill Murray (King’s first choice). Christopher Walker is Johnny, to whom weird things happen after a car crash leaves him in a coma for five years. The car crash occurs as he is driving home after he has turned down the opportunity to sleep with his fiancée, Sarah (Brooke Adams) for the first time, so perhaps the story is a kind of inverted morality tale? Anyway when he wakes up he learns that Sarah h...

Despite it being a long time since I first saw this 1964 Billy Wilder sex comedy/satire I had a clear recollection of the story, proving that it's a memorable film if nothing else, even if not necessarily for the right reasons. The basic plot, taken from an Italian play, is a doozy.  A guy appears to offer his wife to a lecher who might advance his career, except that he has substituted a prostitute for his wife, but unbeknownst to him his wife takes the role of the prostitute.  Complications ensue, leading to the protagonist spending the night with his 'wife' whilst his wife spends the night with the lecher. It's pretty daring stuff for a mainstream film of the period.   In 'The Apartment', Wilder's film from four years earlier, the protagonist CC Baxter lends his apartment to his superiors so that they can conduct affairs.  That seems no better behaviour than that of the protagonist here (Orville Spooner) so why was that film an outstanding success whilst ...

As a youngster I loved the original Star Trek TV series, so naturally I have a soft spot for all the subsequent films featuring that cast, even the poorer quality ones.  This one (the second) is one of the best so I was looking forward to seeing it again. Sad to report, this time around I found it flabby and slow (a bit like the aging cast I hear you say), not at all the way I remembered it. For a start Kirk is really off his game.  Early on he carelessly allows the Enterprise to be caught off-guard (despite being reminded of the relevant regulations) and then later it doesn't occur to him that Chekov might still be under Khan's mind control.  The director Nicholas Meyer has his qualities no doubt, but on the evidence of this film they don't include being able to direct exciting action sequences or to create suspense.    And I was also somewhat underwhelmed by Khan himself who doesn't really get a lot of opportunity to display his supposed superiority. The final...

This science fiction comedy was John Carpenter's directorial debut, and although it didn't do much at the box office it rapidly became a cult classic.    I saw this in my youth and loved it; inevitably I was a bit worried that it might not hold up on a rewatch (which was somewhat the case with Carpenter's second outing,  'Assault on Precinct 13') but in fact I still think this is a delightful little gem of a film. Dark Star is the name of a spaceship that travels the universe finding unstable planets to blow up so that they don't threaten colonisable planets in the vicinity. It sound like a cool job but when the film starts the crew has been doing this for quite a while and it's fair to say that whatever motivation and enthusiasm they started with has long gone. Part of the problem might be that the ship doesn't seem that well built, so that everything on board is glitching: there are  radiation leaks, there was a hull breach that destroyed the living qu...