Ben (1972)

Director: Phil Karlson

Writer: Gilbert Ralston

Composer: Walter Scharf

Starring: Lee Montgomery, Joseph Campanella, Arthur O'Connell, Rosemary Murphy, Meredith Baxter, Kaz Garas, Paul Carr, Richard Van Fleet, Kenneth Tobey, James Luisi

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Where "WILLARD" ended... BEN begins. And this time, he's not alone!

Plot: A lonely boy befriends Ben, the leader of a violent pack of killer rats.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Fucking hell!  If you have a problem with the sound of squealing rats then this will drive you batshit crazy.  It's an assault on your ears.  OK, that's the worst offense this flick committed.  The first film, WILLARD (1971), was by no means a masterpiece (the R. Lee Ermy/Crispin Glover remake was better).  It had its problems, too, but it was mostly with how the two leads were handled.  This picture is a small step down from WILLARD but it doesn't have much to recommend.  It's just OK.  The abundance of squeaks started getting on my nerves by the halfway mark and the ending was so bad I had to lower the volume.  The one bright spot is the kid.  He's great.  The last couple of minutes with him and Ben (when the title song, sung by Michael Jackson, starts) about had me in tears.  WTF?  I know!  Seeing Meredith Baxter so young is wild.  Watch the movie for the kid's performance.  Don't expect any great rat kills or anything cool like that.

Staircase (1969)

Director: Stanley Donen

Writer: Charles Dyer

Composer: Dudley Moore

Starring: Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Michael Rogers, Royston Starr, Jake Kavanagh, Dermot Kelly, Gordon Heath, Cathleen Nesbitt, Avril Angers, Neil Wilson, Shelagh Fraser, Gwen Nelson, Pat Heywood, Beatrix Lehmann, Stephen Lewis, Katya Wyeth

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Can this marriage last?

Plot: Charles Dyer and Harry Leeds are a couple that have been living together for nearly 20 years. Both earn a living as hairdressers in the West End of London and both care deeply for their mothers, but not each other as time apart takes its toll on their relationship when Harry has to care for his invalid mother who snips at him every chance she gets.

My rating: 4.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I thought having Harrison & Burton together in one movie camping it up queer eye for the Shakespeare guy style would be amusing to say the least.  Nope.  I was bored for most of the picture.  I can kind of see what would've attracted these two acting powerhouse to do this picture but it just falls flat from start to finish.  The pair have a little chemistry at times but it's mostly so harsh and bland that I wanted them to break up and see other people.  Harrison looks to be having more fun with it.  It's based on Dyer's play so there's a stagey-ness about it but that's not the problem, at least I don't think.  The pacing is slow and that's to be expected in a slice of life kind of film this is but the thing is, I didn't much care about either of these two because they didn't show much love for each other and they're just so mean-spirited.  That kind of behavior gets old and real fast.  Add to that the longish running time of 96 minutes and you're going to be one bored cat.  WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF (1966) this ain't.  You'd think watching two aging queens going at each other for an hour and a half would be fun but this picture proves it can be painful and depressing and not that fun kind of depressing, either.

Parting Shots (1998)

Director: Michael Winner

Writers: Michael Winner, Nick Mead

Composer: Les Reed

Starring: Chris Rea, Felicity Kendal, John Cleese, Bob Hoskins, Diana Rigg, Ben Kingsley, Joanna Lumley, Oliver Reed, Gareth Hunt, Nicholas Gecks, Patrick Ryecart, Peter Davison

More info: IMDb

Tagline: When Harry found out he had six weeks to live, something snapped...and it wasn't his camera.

Plot: After learning he is dying of cancer, a failed photographer illegally buys a pistol and decides to go vigilante and get his revenge on all those who have made his life a misery.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Probably not.

I'm a fan of so many of the people involved in this that it's hard for me not to like this but it is an often hilarious movie trapped in a boring one and that I can't deny.  Just look at the massive, talented cast and just pull the trigger and watch it.  Maybe fifteen minutes in you'll see what I mean.  It drags often and hard.  The cast is fantastic.  Initially I wasn't sure if non-actor/pop star Chris Rea was going to hurt the picture or help it but eventually I settled into his relaxed style and I loved him by the end of it.  It doesn't help that the always adorable and fun Felicity Kendal is with him for much of it.  Besides Winner's oddly poor pacing problems, the score has moments of being just plain bad.  Even if you're not a film score nutter like me you're likely to come to the same conclusion if you notice the music at all.  Woof, it's off.  Story-wise it's a better film than what we're left with on screen, and considering the tremendous cast and how funny they are in this, it's a damn shame that it's not an overall better picture.  With the right handling I can see this up there with the likes of A FISH CALLED WANDA (1988).

Night of the Tentacles (2013)

AKA: Heart Attack

Director: Dustin Mills

Writer: Dustin Mills

Composer: Dustin Mills

Starring: Brandon Salkil, Nicole Gerity, Melissa Blair, Michael Blair, Jackie McKown, Eugene Flynn, Dustin Mills, Josh Eal, Michael Blaie

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  Kiss your ass goodbye!

Plot: This is the Night of the Tentacles! In this obscene Faustian tale a young artists sells his soul to Satan for the new heart he so desperately needs. The only catch is that the heart is a tentacled monstrosity with a hunger for human flesh! Will Dave get the girl of his dreams? Will he run out of neighbors to feed his infernal heart? Will Delilah ever finish urinating? Find out in NIGHT OF THE TENTACLES!!!

My rating:  6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

When it comes to low budget, makin' lots of movies mother fuckers, I dig Dustin Mills...to a point.  His movies have some good and some bad (compared to a lot of filmmakers in the same situation who just churn out crap).  Usually the good can outweigh the bad and that's what happens here.  The story feels familiar but Mills has some good dialogue at times and there are the occasional jokes that land and have me laughing out loud.  Now considering this is what it is, the acting is serviceable and Salkil does a pretty good job in the lead as Dave.  Film buffs will appreciate some of the humor more than others.  There's a little bit of nudity (nice) and there are some kills and gore (nice).  The movie's only an hour and a half long but it feels longer.  Part of the problem is being stuck in Dave's apartment except for a few scant minutes of shots in another tenant's apartment.  What's worse than that is the color grading given to most of the film.  It'd be nice to see some natural light to break up the reds, greens, blues and so on.  Was that done on purpose to cover up something?  Maybe the lighting was shit from the beginning and this was a way to salvage it?  Beats me.  But the other worst thing about the flick is the voice of the heart/monster (Flynn).  It's partly a horrendous British accent by someone who thinks Crocodile Dundee is a Brit and it's partly laughable because it's so bad and the accent is all over the place from British, Australian and American (did I miss any?).  It's painful to listen to at times.  Despite all of that there is enough to like in Mills' third film to warrant checking out.  I've now seen his first four features.  I should skip ahead to something more recent.  This guy's a work horse.  He's made twenty features since 2010 with another one in post.  I don't care if his were the worst movies out there (which they are far from it)...that's impressive and I'm envious.

Double Nickels (1977)

Director:  Jack Vacek

Writers:  Patrice Schubert, Jack Vacek

Starring: Edward Abrahms, Ed Abrams, Lynn Booker, Micheal Brennan, George Cole, Michael Cole, Larry Dunn

More info: IMDb

Tagline: When you want a car repossessed hire a pro!

Plot: Two highway patrolmen think they are working on the side repossessing cars. But eventually, they realize that they have been tricked and are actually stealing the cars.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I'm not into cars so much but I'm totally into 1970s drive-in car flicks.  Jack Vacek (the cinematographer on GONE IN 60 SECONDS (1974)) wrote and directed this picture.  On movies like this the only thing you expect to be good are the car chases and stunts and he delivers.  The rest of the movie is OK, though, and not so bad that you're cringing every few minutes in between naps.  It's not a boring movie but it does drag sometimes.  The chases are pretty good and long (yay!).  There's one that has a cop chasing one of our main guys down a series of concrete stairs.  I was freaking out concerned about the muscle car not getting beat up.   I got a little into it for that scene.  It was cool.  The acting is alright, all things considered.  It kind of helped that a lot of these people weren't professional actors.  It added a little something real to the picture.  There were a bunch of these types of flicks during the decade and a lot of them get swept under the rug because they were too dumb.  This one has a decent story with all the trimmings for a fun night at the drive-in...except for nudity.  There isn't any and that's just sad. 

Ministry of Fear (1944)

Director: Fritz Lang

Writers: Seton I. Miller, Graham Greene

Composer: Victor Young

Starring: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Percy Waram, Dan Duryea, Alan Napier, Erskine Sanford

More info: IMDb


Plot:  Stephen Neale has just been released from an asylum during World War 2 in England when he stumbles on a deadly Nazi spy plot by accident, and tries to stop it.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

There's at least one thing you can count on with Fritz Lang and that's a quality product.  I'd say the same thing for Ray Milland.  He's always delivering the goods no matter how bad the picture might be.  Once Stephen is cut loose from the asylum into the war-torn world, things get interesting to say the least.  The fair scene where he sees the "psychic" and gets the cake is where the intrigue starts and it doesn't let go until the all too happy tag at the end which brings the cake back into it.  That joke was awful and it had no place in the picture.  It should've ended just before that and with ominous music.  Anyway, the acting is very good as is everything else.  It's a smaller spy intrigue picture but it works wonderfully well.  Lang does a great job delivering the suspense.  He's so good at it that I would love to see how much different this would've been if Hitchcock had directed it.  It's the kind of picture that he would've done anyway.  My only minor gripe is the lack of outdoor filming.  Everything is filmed on a set including the outdoor shots.  Being outside for a little while here and there would've added something welcome.

Horror F/X (1989)

Director: Paul McCollough

Starring: Tom Savini, Lia Savini, John Russo, Everett Burrell, Greg Funk, Jerry Gergely, Will Huff, Nancy Savini, John Vulich

More info: ???

Plot:  John Russo interviews frequent collaborator and fellow Pittsburgh horror movie maker, Tom Savini, in this low-budget shot-on-video documentary.

My rating:  7/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

This 37 minute documentary is only going to be fun for Savini fans or fans of makeup and creature effects.  Tom touches on how he got started and moments in his career showing us some behind the scenes footage of some of his pictures and test footage of his creations.  That's the neat part.  He's such an easy interview and I dig this cat's enthusiasm.  It's all too short but it's a gas spending a half hour with the guy and hearing stories behind some of his most famous work of the 80s.