W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975)

Director: John G. Avildsen

Starring: Burt Reynolds, Cony Van Dyke, Jerry Reed, Ned Beatty, James Hampton, Don Williams, Rick Hurst, Mel Tillis, Furry Lewis, Art Carney

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Back in 1957, sweet-talking W.W. lived in a '55 Olds, loved bubble gum, Errol Flynn, country music, fried chicken, robbing filling stations, and a girl named Dixie. Not necessarily in that order.

Plot: W.W. is a happy-go-lucky crook who makes his living robbing gas stations through the drive-up windows. The Dixie Dancekings are a country music band trying to get their first big break. W.W. crosses paths with the Dixie Dancekings when he hijacks their car (and them) to help him rob a bank. At first, the band resists. However, when they discover how much money they make, they begin helping out voluntarily in order to finance their big break. At the same time, W.W. takes a liking to them and uses his natural charm and smooth-talking ways to help them start down the road to stardom.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

Back in the late 70s Burt Reynolds was THE MAN! You can tell he's really close to nailing that Burt charm in this picture. Too bad it's not all that great. I liked it OK but there's something about it that's just not sitting right with me. I can't explain it but it doesn't work for me. The acting is fine. It's neat seeing Burt's future BANDIT co-star, Jerry Reed, in his debut role and there are a few familiar character actor faces in the mix. Art Carney brings a little fun to the picture but not nearly as much as there could have been. WW is a misfire of a Southern crime comedy that should have been better. I'm looking at you, John G. "ROCKY (1976)" Avildsen.

The Man in the Glass Booth (1975)

Director: Arthur Hiller

Starring: Maximilian Schell, Lois Nettleton, Lawrence Pressman, Luther Adler, Lloyd Bochner, Robert H. Harris

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The kidnapping . . . . The masquerade . . . The murder trial . . . . Perhaps the most suspenseful shocker of our time.

Plot: Arthur Goldman is a rich Jewish industrialist, living in luxury in a Manhattan high-rise. He banters with his assistant Charlie, often shocking Charlie with his outrageousness and irreverence about aspects of Jewish life. Nonetheless, Charlie is astonished when, one day, Israeli secret agents burst in and arrest Goldman for being not a Jewish businessman but a Nazi war criminal. Whisked to Israel for trial, Goldman forces his accusers to face not only his presumed guilt--but their own.

DO NOT WATCH THIS TRAILER IF YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE THE MAXIMUM EFFECT OF THIS FILM!

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? It's worth it but probably not.

I'm a HUGE fan of Schell's. What a fantastic actor! This is essentially his show. He's in every scene (nearly two full hours of them) and he's as eccentric as can be. For the first hour his strange behavior kept me wondering where they were going with it until "it" happens and then the film takes a tonal shift that makes all the sense in the world. That's when Schell's "Arthur Goldman" really kicks into high gear and he becomes VERY interesting...and fun. Then the final few minutes reveal something else that gives this picture the weight it's been building up to and it's a great, albeit tragic, payoff. Schell is brilliant. This might not be the picture you slap in just for the hell of it but you'll be glad you saw it. I am, at least. I knew absolutely nothing about this picture going in and I'm glad as hell I didn't so much as see the trailer. It was more effective that way.

Top of the Heap (1972)

Director: Christopher St. John

Starring: Christopher St. John, Paula Kelly, Florence St. Peter, Leonard Kuras, John Alderson, Patrick McVey, Allen Garfield

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Justice shall be swift and deadly!

Plot: Officer George Lattimer (St. John) is caught between racist white cops and low-life black scum. White cops who see him on the street hassle him and don’t believe he’s a cop, while the criminals he busts don’t take him seriously. His home life is a shambles, and his mistress is whacked-out on god knows what. George fills his hellish life with ridiculous fantasies/flashbacks/flash forwards of life as an astronaut, a jungles dweller, and more.

My rating? 7/10

Will I watch it again? It's not necessary but I'm really glad I saw it.

This is the most surreal Blaxploitation picture I've ever seen...and it makes sense. St. John pulls off a doosey as writer/director/producer/star of this picture but the standout performance (for my money) is Florence St. Peter as George's (St. John) mistress. She's terrific. The scenes are all over the place but they go a long way into getting you inside George's head as he struggles with the world immediately around him from his work as a street cop to a husband, father and lover. Everything is coming together for a perfect storm ready to take down his mind and his ability to control anything. I'm really impressed. You're best bet in finding this is looking in the corners of the web. The best you'll find is a fullscreen VHS rip but it's worth seeking out and try out one of the most (if not the most) cerebral Blaxploitation pictures ever made.

Project Grizzly (1996)

Director: Peter Lynch

Starring: Troy Hurtubise

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Whenever I have that dream... something bad happens.

Plot: A documentary follows a Canadian fellow working on his dream: building a suit of armor so he can observe grizzly bears from a close distance.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

While I give this only a 6.5 (still a good score), PROJECT GRIZZLY falls short in the final twenty minutes for what it doesn't do. If not, it could have easily been an 8. I love watching passionate people regardless of their intellect or where their passions lie (there are exceptions) - like Mark Borchardt in AMERICAN MOVIE (1999). Troy Hurtubise in PROJECT GRIZZLY is a lot like Mark, well, more like an accomplished Mark. Troy has an admirable goal but his reason for pursuing that dream isn't conventional. He also spent nearly $100,000 making the suit that will protect him from a grizzly attack. The build-up is well done and very humorous. Mark is a likable guy and his enthusiasm causes him to say some ridiculous things but it's forgivable. He means well. My disappointment is with him never getting to use the suit for its intended purpose after spending a week in the wilderness searching for "The Old Man", the name he respectfully calls the bear who confronted him many years before. Talk about taking the wind out of the sails. Everything leads to seeing the suit in action (we get to see plenty of hilarious trials and tests early on) in the field and then it just fizzles. Oh well, them's the breaks. Troy is a well-meaning man with a dream and I'm not going to piss on it.

Blood Voyage (1976)

Director: Frank Mitchell

Starring: Warren Farlow, Jonathan Goldsmith, John Hart, Douglas Hume, Pete Kellett, Midori, Mara Modair, Jim Patton, Laurie Rose, Fred Stromsoe, Gene Tyburn

More info: IMDb

Tagline: One is a Killer.. The rest is going to die..!

Plot: What is meant to be a pleasure cruise becomes a nightmare as murder follows murder on a small ship. With tension mounting, passengers and the crew turn on each other in a desperate attempt to identify the killer.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?

S0-so horror/thriller cruise movie that's not all that bad considering it's low budget. One thing that makes this interesting is this is an early prototype slasher made a few years before that type of film was in style. Just a few years later and this would have been a little different and probably a little more enjoyable. That's not to say there's nothing worth seeing here. The cast is better than expected and I liked the surprise ending.

7 Kocali (1979)

Director: ???

Starring: Zerrin Egeliler, Tarik Simsek, Tugay Toksoz

More info: ???

Plot: A woman, who is married to 7 husbands (unbeknownst to them) for financial reasons, entertains each one only one day a week...that is until they discover they aren't the only ones.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again? No.

This Turkish 70s exploitation picture had one thing going for it, the reason I watched it...Zerrin Egeliler.


It doesn't really matter that this picture has no English dub or subtitles and that the picture quality is shit. There's very little to this sub-60 minute 'comedy'. The music is sometimes cool (I dig those Turkish beats, man) and seeing Egeliler topless throughout most of it is nice but the comedy bits are really broad and unfunny.


Fans for Zerrin Egeliler only.

Bugsy (1991)

Director: Barry Levinson

Starring: Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, Elliott Gould, Joe Mantegna, Richard C. Sarafian, Bebe Neuwirth

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Glamour Was The Disguise.

Plot: New York gangster Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womaniser with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.

My rating: 8.5/10

Will I watch it again? Oh, yeah.

I digs me some gangster pictures and especially those that take place during the first half of the 20th century. BUGSY is a really good movie across the board. Ennio Morricone's score is hauntingly poignant and fateful. Yeah, there are hints of his score from THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987) but that's forgivable since he's got some beautiful themes here. The casting is equally good with Bening as the standout. She's amazing. I can see how Beatty could fall for a broad like that. She's not just a pretty, I mean GORGEOUS, woman but she's smart and a damn fine actress. What a performance!!! Then there's Beatty. I REALLY dig him but in this picture he's playing Bugsy the same way he's played many other characters to where I get the impression that he's really like that in real life. I love his optimism and drive and Beatty is the kind of actor that can deliver that in spades but here he's not bringing much to the character but Warren Beatty and, in the end, I'm perfectly OK with that. Nobody does Beatty like Beatty. The extras on the DVD are well worth the time. There's a section on how important a good DP is and demonstrated that by how Allen Daviau made one minor adjustment that didn't need to be there but it transformed the scene into art. Damn, I love the movies.