The Unforgiven (1960)

Director: John Huston

Writers: Ben Maddow, Alan Le May

Composer: Dimitri Tiomkin

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Audie Murphy, John Saxon, Charles Bickford, Lillian Gish, Albert Salmi, Joseph Wiseman, June Walker, Kipp Hamilton, Arnold Merritt, Doug McClure, Carlos Rivas

More info: IMDb

Tagline: A Breed Apart..Unashamed..Unforgettable!

Plot: The neighbors of a frontier family turn on them when it is suspected that their adopted daughter was stolen from the local Kiowa tribe.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

Burt Lancaster is one of the manliest actors to grace the screen.  He probably didn't even have to try much but just stand there and look like he could take on the rest of the cast single handed.  I watched this not too long ago and it frightens me how little of it I remember.  That doesn't reflect on the film, I just think I'm losin' it. The cast is great.  It's neat seeing folks like Saxon and McClure in some early roles before they became famous.  It's a well made picture all around except for one area and that's Tiomkin's score.  It feels outdated even for a 1960 film.  For a few years the Western was growing up but I guess for some the scores would take a few more years before they caught up.   Boy, this picture could've used a good Goldsmith or even an Alex North score.  The story plays along OK for a while and then the shit starts hitting the fan.  Then the movie gets darker and darker still.  A LOT of people died for stubbornness.  Everyone has blood on their hands and it's the kind of fuckedupness that makes this better than you'd think.  Was Ben (Lancaster) right in doing what he did?  I guess but the alternative would be to give up Rachel to the Indians.  Man, this is messed up and pretty darn heavy.  The MGM DVD has a great anamporphic widescreen print with only a trailer (non-anamorphic widescreen) for an extra.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)

Director: Alex Gibney

Writers: Alex Gibney, Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind

Composer: Matthew Hauser

Starring: Assholes and the good guys who went after these assholes.

More info: IMDb

Tagline: It's just business.

Plot: A documentary about the Enron corporation, its faulty and corrupt business practices, and how they led to its fall.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

Man, if you want to watch a documentary that will piss you off (because of the assholes its about), this is a good one.  I remember when this whole scandal went down but I didn't follow it to where I could go into any sort of details past the surface.  This near two hour documentary gives you those details from the people involved.  You'll seethe at the bad guys and your heart will go out to the innocent employees who lost a hell of a lot more than their jobs.  It's revolting what these executives did.  The filmmakers do a top notch job at presenting the facts, from the beginnings of the execs' crimes to the end when they bailed, taking hundreds of millions of dollars with them and leaving the company bankrupt and the subsequent investigation and trials.  I'm a financial/numbers doofus and I found this easy to follow and understand and not dry in the least.  It's an engaging film so don't let the subject deter you.  It's on Netflix.

Contamination (1980)

Director: Luigi Cozzi

Writers: Luigi Cozzi, Erich Tomek

Composer: Goblin (Agostino Marangolo, Antonio Marangolo, Fabio Pignatelli)

Starring: Ian McCulloch, Louise Marleau, Marino Mase, Siegfried Rauch, Gisela Hahn, Carlo De Mejo, Carlo Monni

More info: IMDb

Tagline: They Invade Your Body ... Control Your Mind ... Blow You Apart!

Plot: A former astronaut helps a government agent and a police detective track the source of mysterious alien pod spores, filled with lethal flesh-dissolving acid, to a South American coffee plantation controlled by alien pod clones.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

This so-so Italian sci-fi/horror isn't as bad as you'd think but it's not even a minor classic.  There are a few things going for it that might make it worth your while.  The eggs look cool and it's always cool seeing people exploding.  You can't go too wrong with that, plus the sound they make is neat and kind of spooky.  It's rather a slow go for the first hour.  It begins stateside and it's all about the discovery of these strange eggs, what they do and where they came from.  This leads our heroes to South America.  YES!  That's a nice change of scenery except it takes another twenty or so minutes before we see any jungle and as you might can tell, I loves me some movie jungle action.  Sadly, there's next to no jungle action.  The plot isn't so bad and it gets better once we know who's behind all this mess and what they're plans are.  Oh, and you find this stuff out from the cliched villain explaining his mad plans to his captives.  That part shouldn't bother you because this isn't high art that falls back on silly, over-used cliches.  Goblin's score isn't nearly as good as their stuff for the horror pictures from around this time.  It teeters from not bad to cues that sound like they're from another, unrelated movie.  The art direction is good for what this is.  There are some nice shots and neatly lit scenes.  The big egg-laying alien at the end is kind of silly but then a lot of the goofiness is masked with shadows, rays of light and smoke.  If you're familiar with Italian genre films in this era, and you tend to like them, then you'll probably like this one, too.  The Blue Underground DVD has a great looking anamorphic widescreen print and extras in an interview with Cozzi (18 minutes), a making of featurette (23 minutes), the English theatrical trailer (anamorphic widescreen), conceptual drawings and the graphic novel.  Blue Underground did a fantastic job on this release.

Don Juan DeMarco (1994)

Director: Jeremy Leven

Writer: Jeremy Leven

Composers:  Michael Kamen, Robert John Lange

Starring: Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, Geraldine Paihas, Bob Dishy, Rachel Ticotin, Talisa Soto, Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, Selena

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The story of the man who thought he was the greatest lover in the world... and the people who tried to cure him of it!

Plot: A psychiatrist must cure a young patient that presents himself as Don Juan, the greatest lover in the world.

My rating: 8.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes, and again, and again, and again...

I adore this movie. It's funny, tender, romantic and special.  The three leads nailed it.  It's my favorite Depp performance and Brando and Dunaway make such an adorable couple.   It's a modern fairy tale of sorts and it really doesn't matter if Don DeMarco's (Depp) story is true or not or if he really believes it's real.  It's real enough and it inspires others which is OK by me.  The score is gorgeous.  I've probably listened to the soundtrack a few hundred times over the past twenty something years.  This is one of those pictures that gets me all choked up and stuff which means I've mostly ever seen it alone.  It's not that I'm ashamed, I'm not, but like HEAVEN CAN WAIT (1978), it's one of those movies I prefer to watch alone to allow myself as much uninterrupted immersion as possible.  The New Line DVD is a flipper disc with the fullscreen version on one side and the non-anamorphic widescreen version on the other.  Extras-wise you get the Bryan Adams music video, the theatrical and international trailers (both fullscreen) and the isolated music score. 

Flyboys (2006)

Director: Tony Bill

Writers: Phil Sears, Blake T. Evans, David S. Ward

Composer: Trevor Rabin

Starring: James Franco, Scott Hazell, Mac McDonald, Philip Winchester, Todd Boyce, Karen Ford, Ruth Bradley, Abdul Salis, Jean-Philippe Ecoffey, Tim Pigott-Smith, Tyler Labine, Gail Downey, David Ellison, Jean Reno

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  Inspired by a true story

Plot:  The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

The aerial dogfights elevate this by the numbers, war cliche of a film.  It feels like a throwback to the films of the second world war but those at least have some charm when viewing them today.  Taking that vibe and dropping it into a contemporary film, albeit one set a hundred years ago, is difficult to pull off and FLYBOYS doesn't make it work.  They tried.  The romance stuff fares poorer than the rest of the film with the plane fights taking the cake for the best parts of the film.  Fortunately there are a lot of aerial scenes.  Some actors can pull off corny, cliche'd dialogue and some can't.  You'll find mostly the latter in this picture.  It's a shame that there are so few WWI action movies from the past hundred years.  The MGM DVD has a nice anamorphic widescreen image and the only extras are a commentary with the director Tony Bill and producer Dean Devlin and four trailers for films that aren't this one.

Naked Youth (1961)

AKA: Wild Youth

Director: John F. Schreyer

Writers: Robert J. Black Jr., Lester Wm. Berke, Dean Romano, Gary Judis

Composer: Richard LaSalle

Starring: Carol Ohmart, Robert Hutton, Steve Rowland, Jan Brooks, Robert Arthur, Clancy Cooper, Anton von Stralen, Charles Keane, Lloyd Nelson, Steve Sarras, John Goddard

More info: IMDb

Tagline: What is their latest kick ?? You'll SEE...in Wild Youth

Plot: Three teenage criminals break out of juvenile prison and head south to Mexico.

My rating:

Will I watch it again?

Fun flick.  It's fast paced, snappy and well executed.  You usually don't find low budget B-movies like this as enjoyable.  The acting is pretty good, too.  And how about Richard LaSalle's punchy, jazzy score?  It's great and it's a major reason why I like this so much.  There's one theme that's an obvious sound alike to Bernard Herrmann's main theme from VERTIGO (1958) but I don't mind it.  It works well with the picture.  Another thing I dig is that most of this flick if filmed outdoors and in and around the desert.  I've already seen this twice so I might not give it another chance for a very long time.  You can watch it on YouTube (above).  The Arcanum DVD presents the picture in its original format.  It's not a great print as there are constant artifacts but it's not going to hurt anyone's enjoyment in watching it.  I'd say a dirty print on movies like this helps.  The only extras on the disc is a 50 minute string of vintage teenage movie trailers, which is horrendously billed as a full length feature called TEEN MANIA, and a 12 minute school film called TEENAGE CRUSADE.  

Hatari! (1962)

Director: Howard Hawks

Writers: Leigh Brackett, Harry Kurnitz

Composer: Harry Mancini

Starring: John Wayne, Hardy Kruger, Elsa Martinelli, Red Buttons, Gerard Blaine, Bruce Cabot, Michele Girardon, Valentin de Vargas, Eduard Franz, Wueenie Leonard

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Fun! Adventure! Romance! Thrills! For People Of All Ages! A Wonderful New World Of Entertainment!

Plot: A group of men trap wild animals in Africa and sell them to zoos before the arrival of a female wildlife photographer threatens to change their ways.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Probably not.

I didn't think I was going to dig this one as much as I did and I don't know why.  It was fun.  Most of the cast were a blast.  I haven't seen a bad performance from Hardy Kruger yet and I'd like to see more of his work sooner than later.  Red Buttons was there for the comic relief and he did a great job.  Valentin de Vargas was a lot of fun, too.  All of the guys (and Brandy, played by Michele Girardon) that were part of John Wayne's crew had a nice camaraderie about them that played very well.  The location shooting in Africa was neat.  It reminded me a lot of the Ron Ely TARZAN TV show from the mid sixties.  I watched the hell out of that when I was a little kid.  I'm certain I knew this but forgot that this was the picture Mancini wrote "Baby Elephant Walk" for.  You'll recognize it almost immediately.

This track is used when a baby elephant escapes the compound and wanders into the nearby town causing problems.  On one level it's kind of cute (kids and families probably ate this stuff up back then) but at the same time it's over the top and silly.  I didn't care for that.  That also extends to some of the other 'humorous' moments in the picture, mostly from Red Buttons.  There are times when he doesn't know when to hold back.  It's one thing when you're trying to funny to get the attention of another character but he does things for laughs that only small children would like.  The point is, it's sometimes too much.  Prepare some snacks when you see it, it's over two and a half hours long.  I probably see this again if it were in a theater.  Seeing this as a grand spectacle would help a lot.  The Paramount DVD sports a great looking anamorphic widescreen print with the sole extra in the theatrical trailer, also anamorphic widescreen.