Month: September 2021

Directed by Martin Bell, starring Jeff Bridges, and set in Seattle, I really wanted to check this out. Bridges is an ex-convict trying to put his life back together while being saddled with a recently un-estranged teenage son. Indeed, the scenes with the teens on the streets feels a lot like they are attempting to be a fictionalized version of Streetwise. Unfortunately they feel extremely manufactured, the actors aren’t as charismatic as the kids of the documentary, and they are all brought down by a lackluster, whiny Edward Furlong performance. Bridges is unsurprisingly the best part of the movie and the reason why I stuck with it.

Vincent Price is a successful horror movie actor whose young wife is murdered and he may be the murderer. More murdering ensues in this fairly by-the-book horror flick with the twists and turns being projected a mile away. But it has Vincent Price and his over-the-top look of horror whenever he discovers a body is worth the watch. It’s very similar to his turn on The Snoop Sisters and like that episode, there’s a bit of his older film footage to be seen interspersed in this film. 

Like The Bicycle Thief, this film has you questioning to whom the titular character is referring. Evelyn Keyes is a woman who gets more than she bargained for when she calls the police after seeing a prowler outsider her bathroom window. The story takes some interesting twists and turns from Los Angeles to an old abandoned mining town. There’s also a rather creepy Van Heflin as one of the officers who arrive to investigate the prowling. Unfortunately, Keyes’s character is a bit of a dope whose motivations don’t make a whole lot of sense which brings the intrigue down a notch.

This really feels like a vanity project for Sean Connery playing a police harboring his own dark predilections who brutally attacks a suspected child molester under his watch. It’s a very bare bones production, set almost entirely in an interrogation room, and relies wholly on Connery’s performance. It’s very dark and difficult to watch. It’s also rather talky, as many stage adaptations are, which makes it a little less riveting than I’d hope, but Connery does give his all in his portrayal with a depth that isn’t seen in many of his later films.

A fairly recently discovered love for Lesley Manville and really enjoying Secrets & Lies, my last Mike Leigh film, made me want to check this out when I saw that it was leaving Amazon Prime this month. This is a completely dreary story of British three working class who interact and drudge through life together. It’s tiring to watch as it seems none of these characters will ever find any joy and are just destined to grind through their days until the end, from one generation to the next. It is well acted, with Timothy Spall as Manville’s cab driving husband giving a particularly wearied performance.