Naked Violence (1969)

Original title: I Ragazzi del Massacro

Director: Fernando Di Leo

Writers: Ernesto Gastaldi, Fernando Di Leo, Nino Latino, Andrea Maggiore, Marino Onorati, Giorgio Scerbanenco

Composer: Silvano Spadaccino

Starring: Pier Paolo Capponi, Nieves Navarro, Marzio Margine, Renato Lupi, Enzo Liberti, Giuliano Manetti, Danika La Loggia

More info: IMDb


Plot:  Some youngsters kill their teacher; but they won't tell their motivation. The police detective on the case feels some sinister influence behind the young murderers.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

If you start watching this, do yourself a favor and make it to the end.  The first long stretch is a slog because it's nothing but the interrogation of the students that seems to go nowhere.  The persistence of the detective, Duca (Capponi), pays off eventually but it's at the end of the film.  The performances are quite good and the English dubbing is better than usual.  I had my suspicions of who the culprit might've been but I was wrong (thankfully).  It's more of a crime thriller/whodunit with little action but it's a worthwhile watch.  The Raro Video Blu-ray I have is part of the Fernando Di Leo Italian Crime Collection Vol. 2 and the image looks great.  There are a couple of extras, one a short documentary on the film with some nice interviews of those who worked on the picture, and the other is a short piece on Di Leo's popularity in France (or previous lack of) with interviews from people involved with a film festival.  The latter isn't particularly interesting but it's nice to have been included. 

The Condemned (2007)

Director: Scott Wiper

Writers: Scott Wiper, Rob Hedden, Andy Hedden

Composer: Graeme Revell

Starring: Steve Austin, Vinnie Jones, Robert Mammone, Tory Mussett, Manu Bennett, Madeleine West, Rick Hoffman, Christopher James Baker, Sam Healy, Luke Pegler, Masa Yamaguchi, Emilia Burns

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The fight is on.

Plot:  Jack Conrad (Austin) is awaiting the death penalty in a corrupt Central American prison. He is "purchased" by a wealthy television producer and taken to a desolate island where he must fight to the death against nine other condemned killers from all corners of the world, with freedom going to the sole survivor.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  Nah.

I think this is Austin's first feature in a starring role.  You can tell he might've skipped a couple of acting classes but he's got potential.  He certainly looks the part of a supreme ass kicker.  I saw this months ago and then watched DAMAGE (2009) which, if my memory holds, he was a lot better and the movie was more fun than this one.  The story here isn't anything new, it's been told before and it's one that has lots of room for fun and great kills.  Fun and great kills is what most of us care about when settling down for a flick like this, at least that's my criteria.  Vinnie Jones isn't in this enough and he needs more screen time in everything he does.  I love that guy.  The dude that's running the show is a major dickhead from the start and you know he's going to get his comeuppance and it had better be good (it turns out to be an OK death).  The island scenery is nice and there are some fun kills and neat moments but not enough to sustain nearly two hours which is too long.  If there had been a lot more violent action two hours is awesome.  I could've done without so much hand-held shaky camera work but it's still a reasonably fun picture that doesn't really get slow and boring at any point.  The Lionsgate DVD presents the film with a nice anamorphic widescreen print and it has a bunch of extras.  You get a making of featurette (40 minutes), a look at a fighting event between Austin and Jones (4 minutes), a 2 minute piece at a Steve Austin signing event in Australia, storyboard sequences (6 minutes), the anamorphic widescreen theatrical trailer and trailers for other Lionsgate films (non-anamorphic widescreen).

Crossplot (1969)

Director: Alvin Rakoff

Writers: John Kruse, Leigh Vance

Composer: Stanley Black

Starring: Roger Moore, Martha Hyer, Alexis Kanner, Claudie Lange, Derek Francis, Ursula Howells, Bernard Lee, Francis Matthews, Dudley Sutton, David Prowse

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  This playboy has killer instincts.

Plot:  A successful London ad-exec hires a beautiful Hungarian girl to pose for some modeling shots, little realising that she has overheard an assassination plot and is now being hunted by some dangerous killers.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I'm a huge fan of Roger Moore and that's a big help in enjoying this picture.  He's fun and charismatic as hell.  It's pre-Bond, post-Saint Moore and it's all groovy.  He had four more years before his first Bond picture and this one even has his future boss, M (Bernard Lee).  This picture has moments of Bond-lite and it's set in and around London of the late 60s so the locations are fabulous and fun.  The supporting cast is fun but it's Moore's show all the way.  Forget the convoluted story.  It's disposable...really disposable but it serves its purpose of getting our players from here to there which is all that matters in this movie.  It gets silly but it's also fun in a few spots.  Lange is very easy on the eyes (her main purpose for this picture) but she also does a fine job as Finn's (Moore) partner in crime.  There are some REALLY bad rear projection shots.  One is so horribly composed that Moore's skin is grey-ish.  He's just been in a fight so his face is bloodied up, making him literally look like a zombie.  It's dumber than the dumbest Bond film but then it's not pretending to be a great movie.  It's light fare with one hell of a charismatic leading man that would soon become instantly world famous upping his spy game.  The MGM DVD presents the film in non-anamorphic widescreen with only the non-anamorphic widescreen trailer for an extra.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

Director: Stephen Norrington

Writers: Alan Moore, Kevin O'Neill, James Robinson

Composer: Trevor Jones

Starring: Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Tony Curran, Stuart Townsend, Shane West, Jason Flemyng, Richard Roxburgh, Max Ryan, Tom Goodman-Hill, David Hemmings, Terry O'Neill, Rudolf Pellar, Robert Willox

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Prepare for the Extraordinary

Plot: In an alternate Victorian Age world, a group of famous contemporary fantasy, SF and adventure characters team up on a secret mission.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I saw this in the theater and again recently.  Both times I liked it OK.  I don't have any major issue with the picture and I had a reasonably good time with the fun cast and their characters.  The story is alright.  It's not a great picture but I certainly don't see why it's so reviled and why Norrington gave up directing and Connery acting because of it.  I never read the graphic novel this was based on but it's the kind of thing that's right up my alley.  I'd probably really dig it. 

Minority Report (2002)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writers: Philip K. Dick, Scott Frank, Jon Cohen

Composer: John Williams

Starring: Tom Cruise, Max von Sydow, Steve Harris, Neal McDonough, Patrick Kilpatrick, Jessica Capshaw, Lois Smith, Tim Blake Nelson, Neal McDonough

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  What would you do if you were accused of a murder, you had not committed... yet?

Plot: In a future where a special police unit is able to arrest murderers before they commit their crimes, an officer from that unit is himself accused of a future murder.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

I haven't seen this since the theater in 2002 and it's about as I remember it.  It's good, very good.  The future tech is great, fun and scary.  The advertising everywhere you go seems frighteningly plausible.  I don't like that one bit but the look of the film is great in how it frames all of it.  I think this was probably the first Tom Cruise movie that I didn't see Tom Cruise in, if you know what I mean.  He wasn't his usual Tom Cruise-y self and I liked that.  The story is good and not overly complicated for the sake of being a complicated sci-fi thing and the ending is satisfying.  The action set pieces are good and the tension gets tight.  It's another solid piece of entertainment from Spielberg that doesn't disappoint.  The Dreamworks 2-disc DVD has an anamorphic widescreen print with LOTS of extras.  The next time I watch this will be on Blu-ray or whatever hi-def format is out in fifteen years.

The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

Director: Robert Aldrich

Writers: Lukas Heller, Trevor Dudley Smith

Composer: Frank De Vol

Starring: James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Kruger, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser, Christian Marquand, Dan Duryea, George Kennedy, Gabriele Tinti, Alex Montoya, Peter Bravos, William Aldrich, Barrie Chase, Stanley Ralph Ross

More info: IMDb

Tagline: One of the most startling twists of fate you have ever experienced in a motion picture!

Plot: After a plane crash in the Sahara, one of the survivors says he's an airplane designer and they can make a flyable plane from the wreckage.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

I love these kind of big, known cast pictures of the mid-to-late 60s.  I like the little-to-no nonsense manner of storytelling.  There's some good tension, especially when the Arabs show up...wow!, and lots of great performances from some really great actors.  I especially dug Hardy Kruger.  I like the film OK enough until one scene which was the turning point for me that suddenly made it a VERY good film and that's the moment when we all find out Dorfmann's (Kruger) profession.  The way Stewart plays out his reaction and aftermath is just incredible.  From that point on I was hooked but that also comes ate in the picture.  Still, the performances are great and the seemingly impossible situation these men are faced with make this a great picture to watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon.  Unfortunately the 20th Century Fox DVD is weak as hell.  The anamorphic widescreen print looks great and grainy but the extras are horrible.  You only get 3 trailers, one in English (non-anamorphic widescreen), Spanish and Portuguese (both in anamorphic widescreen!!!).  They're all the same length and from what I could tell, the Spanish and Portuguese were the same trailer but with different subtitles!!!  Besides, Fox couldn't be bothered with having the English trailer in anamorphic widescreen?  It's insulting.  I'll probably wait for a better release of this before I watch it again. 

Fading Gigolo (2013)

Director: John Turturro

Writer: John Turturro

Composer: ?

Starring:  John Turturro, Woody Allen, Vanessa Paradis, Liev Schreiber, Sharon Stone, Sofia Vergara, Tonya Pinkins, Aubrey Joseph, Dante Hoagland, Isaiah Clifton

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  The oldest profession just got older.

Plot:  Fioravante decides to become a professional Don Juan as a way of making money to help his cash-strapped friend, Murray. With Murray acting as his "manager", the duo quickly finds themselves caught up in the crosscurrents of love and money.

My rating:  7/10

Will I watch it again?  Nah.

Man, I am so going to write, direct and star in my own movie.  John Turturro has a three-way with Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara!!!  Hell, even Mrs. Scorethefilm is on board for this.  I'll get to work on that first thing in the morning for tonight I'll dream up some scenarios.  I can work out the blocking later.  I really enjoyed this picture.  Woody is in full on funny Woody mode and that's great.  Turturro plays Fioravante quietly.   He plays well against Woody.  Liev Schreiber does well in his small than usual role (which I liked) and Vanessa Paradis is great as the woman who inadvertently sends Fioravante on a different path.  It's a cute film but it's also funny and soothing.  Woody needs to be in front of the camera more these days.  The dude's 80 and he's still got it just like the old days.