Month: December 2021

After his release from Sing Sing, Edward G. Robinson plans to go straight by purchasing a dog racing track. After the bank refuses his loan, he has no other options but to buy the next-door luggage store and dig into the bank’s vault. It’s a clever bit where Robinson’s stereotypical gangster is thrown into a relatively light-hearted comedy. Additional support is provided by a young Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, Anthony Quinn, and even Jackie Gleason as a soda jerk.     

Based on Nora Ephron’s semi-autobiographical novel about her marriage to Carl Bernstein, this film has Meryl Streep as a writer who despite her reservations marries Jack Nicholson. While pregnant with their second child, she discovers he’s been having an affair with a New York socialite. Directed by Mike Nichols, it seems like it’d be a recipe for a solid hit, but it seems that Ephron might have been writing about a subject way too close to her. It feels like she wanted to lay bare what she experienced in her marriage, but instead we have a boring of events with no chemistry between the leads, no character development or arcs, and no reason to care about any of it. There are tiny sparks with the supporting cast (Catherine O’Hara as a delightful gossip queen, couple Stockard Channing and Richard Masur, and Yakov Smirnoff as a remodeler) but they are quickly snuffed out. I did find it incredibly sweet to see Streep interacting with infant Mamie Gummer and I’ve always loved the two Carly Simon songs featured during the film.

It’s amazing how a film with this cast can be such an unfunny mess. On a train to Monte Carlo to return a dachshund to a wealthy heiress, Americans Sean Young and Richard Lewis meet up with John Candy. Also on the train are gambler Jim Belushi and his wife Cybill Shepherd. When the group reaches Monte Carlo, the heiress is discovered dead and everyone is a suspect. I had watched this film for Candy, despite seeing awful reviews, and he’s not bad in his role. Unfortunately, while watching this is a relatively harmless way to spend an hour and a half, the film itself remains so unintriguing that’s it’s also not one I’d recommend.

Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston are a pair of cattle rustlers who find their enterprise threatened when they cross paths with rich, bored rancher Clifton James who hires a stock detective to catch the bandits. It’s mostly a film about these two dudes and their adventures as they continue to clash with the wealthy rancher. The two leads gel well together and keep the story amusing and engaging. There are plenty of oddball characters at the ranch, including Slim Pickens as the detective and Harry Dean Stanton as dim-witted hand, to give the two something to play against.

Based on the film poster and stills, I went into this expecting it to be a comedy similar to Once Bitten. I could not have been more wrong on that. Nicolas Cage is a young executive who believes he has been turned into a vampire by Jennifer Beals. Cage gives a completely committed, unhinged performance, terrorizing all those around him especially his secretary María Conchita Alonso as he descends into thorough madness. It’s a thoroughly memorable performance in a career of memorable performances.

Pam Grier is glorious headlining these Blaxploitation films. Here she is the title character, a former model turned photographer who witnesses an assassination attempt on Thalmus Rasulala, the richest Black man in America. After a friend is stabbed to death, she teams up with an equally wonderful Yaphet Kotto to uncover a political conspiracy. It’s a rather fun flick that gets bonus points for including a conspiracy to bring down Black leadership in the country. It also has a great supporting cast including Ted Lange, Carl Weathers, Scatman Corothers, and the ever magnificent Eartha Kitt as an over-the-top fashion designer.