Hollywood Homicide (2003)

Director: Ron Shelton

Writers: Robert Souza, Ron Shelton

Composer: Alex Wurman

Starring:  Harrison Ford, Josh Hartnett, Lena Olin, Bruce Greenwood, Isaiah Washington, Lolita Davidovich, Keith David, Master P, Gladys Knight, Lou Diamond Phillips, Meredith Scott Lynn, Tom Todoroff, James MacDonald, Kurupt, Adre Benjamin, Alan Dale, Clyde Kusatsu, Dwight Yoakam, Martin Landau, Eric Idle, Frank Sinatra Jr., Robert Wagner, Johnny Grant, Smokey Robinson

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  In Hollywood, no one is who they really want to be.

Plot:  Two LAPD detectives who moonlight in other fields investigate the murder of an up-and-coming rap group.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Here's a film I've heard nothing but crap about.  It's not THAT bad but it's a ways from being all that good.  Harrison Ford is fun.  I really enjoyed his performance.  It felt like he was having fun.  The rest of the cast does a fine job, too, but it was Ford that made the picture for me.  The story is OK.  It's entertaining but there's way too much stuff going on.  I mean seriously, Calden (Hartnett) is a detective who has time to teach yoga classes and he's able to work on getting his acting career started.  There's so much attention paid to his non-cop activities that you'd think he didn't have time for catching bad guys.  It's as if being a cop was only a 20 hour a week gig.  There's also the subplot of his cop pop getting popped years ago and never knowing why or by whom.  It gets resolved but it's clumsy and weak.  When you have a movie called Hollywood Homicide you shouldn't expect anything but a stupid Hollywood movie so I'm not all that surprised.  However, Ford makes it more fun than most actors would and overall it's an entertaining flick, even when it goes into dipshit, dumb as fuck mode.  It is a comedy after all.  This was on a Columbia Blu-ray that also came with HUDSON HAWK (1991) and zero extras.

Summer School Teachers (1974)

Director: Barbara Peeters

Writer: Barbara Peeters

Composer: J.J. Jackson

Starring: Candice Rialson, Pat Anderson, Rhonda Leigh Hopkins, Will Carney, Grainger Hines, Christopher Barrett, Dick Miller, Vince Barnett, Norman Bartold, Michael Greer

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The Student Body Always Scores with Summer School Teachers

Plot: A trio of naive, but eager young Midwestern women go to California to teach summer school classes at Regency High School: Perky and willful Terry starts up and coaches an all-female football team, stuffy chemistry teacher Sally Hanson manages to loosen up after she falls hard for a surly juvenile delinquent student, and pert and liberated photography instructor Denise becomes involved with both a two-faced male chauvinist jerk and a more decent and understanding guy.

My rating: 4.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Loud, obnoxious at times, silly (and stupid) and a mixed bag of what this wants to be.  The script probably started out being a decent piece of social commentary but the producer (Roger Corman) said it needed more bad gags and good boobs.  Ms. Peeters delivered.  The result is a movie that only works as a drive-in time waster.  It's not really funny.  The cartoony music is obnoxious.  Then there's the exploitation-y aspect with the nudity...

There's not much more than this and that's a damn shame.  Outside of that, it's middle of the road fare all the way down the line.  This picture would've been better served (but made less money) if it were divided into two TV after school specials; one dealing with the troubled teen involved in a car theft ring and the other with the girls football team and school authority corruption.  The ideas are there but there's not much done with them, EVEN when it comes to the much less forgiving genre of exploitation.  This should have been funnier and sleazier or treated seriously.  As it stands, it's just dull and not all that entertaining....unless, of course, mediocrity is your bag.  

Criminal (2016)

Director: Ariel Vromen

Writers: Douglas Cook, David Weisberg

Composers: Brian Tyler, Keith Power

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Alice Eve, Kevin Costner, Antje Traue, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Scott Adkins, Michael Pitt, Colin Salmon, Natalie Burn, Robert Davi

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  The CIA's last hope is in the mind of a criminal

Plot: The memories & skills of a deceased CIA agent are implanted into an unpredictable and dangerous convict.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

I just got back from seeing an advance screening of this courtesy of Carmike Theaters (free tickets, yay!).  I didn't know anything about it except seeing the top cast list.  The premise sounds silly (and now that I read the plot and tagline on IMDb it looks REALLY ridiculous) but they do a quick and good enough job in giving an explanation on how it's possible.  In reality it's a bunch of horseshit but it works well enough in the film to not tax your suspension of disbelief.  To help that along, the cast is great.  I REALLY dig Costner in this.  It's great seeing him as a psycho killer but he's more of a soon-to-be-reformed psycho killer.  He's really a lot of fun and he's got the only moments of humor in the picture.  Tommy Lee Jones is always a hoot but he doesn't get as much screen time as you'd like.  The same can be said for Ryan Reynolds and Gary Oldman.  I finally got to see Gal Godot in something for more than five minutes and she does a fine job.  It's almost entirely filmed in London and they do a nice job of taking us all around the city.  There's plenty of action and tension to keep things going until the very end.  I can totally see how people will think the last scene could be bullshit but if you think about what Jericho has done, it makes it a lot easier to digest.  Costner fans are going to have a blast with this picture.  Mrs. Scorethefilm and I were very pleasantly surprised at how good it was all the way through.  This comes out in a couple of weeks and I fear that it'll get buried by some blockbusters.  It deserves better.  It's a good picture and if you like the cast, I think you should see it.  It probably won't make anyone's future classic list but it's a fine film with fine performances and a sense of fun that makes this an entertaining 113 minutes (which FLEW by).

Dodge City (1939)

Director: Michael Curtiz

Writer: Robert Buckner

Composer: Max Steiner

Starring:  Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Sheridan, Bruce Cabot, Frank McHugh, Alan Hale, John Litel, Henry Travers, Henry O'Neill, Victor Jory, Ward Bond, Bobs Watson

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  West of Chicago there was no law!

Plot:  A Texas cattle agent witnesses first hand, the brutal lawlessness of Dodge City and takes the job of sheriff to clean the town up.

My rating; 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

Fun flick!  Errol Flynn brings the gorgeous, smooth, charismatic goods even if it feels a bit off that he's in a Western.  The bar room brawl is probably the best I've seen.  It's busy as hell, well-choreographed and genuine as all get out.  The supporting cast is great, too.  And Bobs Watson as the little kid that Wade (Flynn) befriends is adorable as hell and he brightens up the film a whole bunch.  That kid was a natural actor.  What a performance!  You might not like the movie but you can't fault the fast pace that's maintained from the start.  They pack in an awful lot Western stuff from cows to trains.  Pretty much everything but Indians and Soldiers.  Alan Hale, a regular Flynn sidekick, is back with the comic relief and he strikes the right balance between fun and too much.  I love that guy.  Watching this reminded me that it's been far too long since I watched a Flynn picture and I need to do more of it.  It's funny how few films I watch from my most favorite actors.  The Warner Bros. DVD sports a great Technicolor transfer and it's loaded with extras. 

Vegas Vacation (1997)

Director: Stephen Kessler

Writers: Elisa Bell, Bob Ducsay

Composer:  Joel McNeely

Starring: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, Ethan Embry, Marisol Nichols, Miriam Flynn, Shae D'lyn, Wayne Newton, Siegfried Fischbacher, Roy Horn, Wallace Shawn, Sid Caesar, Sly Smith, Julia Sweeney, Christie Brinkley

More info: IMDb

Tagline: This time the Griswolds are on a roll.

Plot: In the fourth outing for the vacation franchise, the Griswolds have to survive Vegas fever when they go to Las Vegas for a fun family vacation.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Probably.

Man, did this get trashed when it came out.  I saw it in the theater way back when but I didn't think it was THAT bad.  There are some slow spots like spending a little too much time with Siegfried and Roy but it's not exactly a pace killer.  There are some great gags mixed throughout.  The stuff with Wallace Shawn as the luckiest blackjack dealer is great and it's mostly because of what he brings to the table.  Ahahahahahahahaha.  The casino with the alternative games is hilarious and Wayne Newton has a gas poking fun at himself, but the absolute best part of the film is near the end with Sid Caesar.  He brings all of the heart of the picture and puts it into that one moment.  He's funny and touching and it just goes to show how much talent he had.  Looking at his credits from that time it's a damn shame he wasn't in more pictures, a damn shame.  Overall I enjoyed the film.  It's goofy fun and there are enough truly funny moments to make it worthwhile.  I don't think I've ever seen the first one all the way through, I sort of liked parts of the second and CHRISTMAS VACATION was hilarious.  The Warner Bros. DVD has the film in anamorphic widescreen and the only extra (besides text bios) is the theatrical trailer (also anamorphic widescreen).  I'm shocked that there's not a Blu-ray set of all the films or even a DVD set.

The 6th Day (2000)

Director: Roger Spottiswoode

Writers: Cormac Wibberley, Marianne Wibberley

Composer: Trevor Rabin

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Rapaport, Tony Goldwyn, Michael Rooker, Sarah Wynter, Wendy Crewson, Rodney Rowland, Terry Crews, Ken Pogue, Colin Cunningham, Robert Duvall, Wanda Cannon, Taylor Anne Reid, Jennifer Gareis

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Are you who you think you are?

Plot:  Futuristic action about a man who meets a clone of himself and stumbles into a grand conspiracy about clones taking over the world.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

Like most movies I watch, I know little-to-nothing about then and that includes not seeing the trailer.  One thing I like about this is how little it feels like an Arnold Schwarzenegger picture in that it's not loaded with one-liners and the types of things you typically get with his films.  Plus he does a fine job.  Despite the genre aspects, he's great at being more of a regular guy which is saying something.  It's really tough to not get a TOTAL RECALL (1990) vibe from this but that only lasts so long.  Once Adam (Schwarzenegger) discovers his identity, that's where the major similarity ends and the real fun begins.  This film doesn't up the game or change it or anything close to it but it is a fun movie and I had a good time with it.  Maybe it was starting college in the late 80s that curbed my theater-going and saw very few Schwarzenegger films for a while but I'm making up for it now (like I've been doing with Stallone for a few years) and I'm having a good time seeing a lot of the movies I've never seen from cats I dig.  The Columbia DVD looks great and it's a 2-disc set with lots of extras, too many to list.  It's a fun ride and it's definitely worth a look. 

No Escape (1994)

Director: Martin Campbell

Writers: Richard Herley, Michael Gaylin, Joel Gross

Composer: Graeme Revell

Starring: Ray Liotta, Lance Henriksen, Stuart Wilson, Kevin Dillon, Kevin J. O'Connor, Don Henderson, Ian McNeice, Jack Shepherd, Michael Lerner, Ernie Hudson, David Wenham

More info: IMDb

Tagline: No guards. No walls. No escape.

Plot: A soldier convicted for murdering his commanding officer is dumped and left to die on a prison island inhabited by two camps of convicts.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Does anyone know if Ray Liotta did this to pay alimony or something?  He just doesn't look like he's into this role sometimes.  I'm not big into the post-apocalyptic stuff like this but it's got a good cast and the beginning of a good story (again, not a fan of P-A flicks but I'm not opposed to them).  It's an OK movie with a few decent action scenes.  The location shooting in Australia was nice.  Hell, Stuart Wilson playing the leader of the violent tribe was great.  Maybe it's the MAD MAX vibe with the evil tribe versus the plainly dressed pacifists lead by Lance Henriksen that doesn't work for me.  It's not a bad film but I didn't find it all that entertaining.  The HBO DVD has the film in non-anamorphic widescreen.   The extras you get are the theatrical trailer (non-anamorphic widescreen), a making of featurette (6 min) and TV trailers.