Month: March 2022

In 1950s Saigon, undercover American agent Audie Murphy and British journalist Michael Redgrave form a romantic triangle with a young Vietnamese woman, played by Giorgia Moll. The idealistic American’s view that he can somehow find a third option in the battle between Communism and colonialism also rankles the Brit’s cynicism. I’d been wanting to watch more Audie Murphy films after Kansas Raiders and was excited to find one that wasn’t a Western. He’s again appealing in this role, though I found the story a bit unfocused and it made me want to rewatch the 2002 version of the story.  

Jeanne Bates welcomes a drifter into her house, only to have him turn her into a man-eating monster. Her adult son Mark Thomas Miller is less than happy about her new transformation. It’s a bit low budget and campy, but otherwise a solidly entertaining bit of horror. The special effects are fairly good for its apparent budget and the killings can be outright surprising. I dig films that focus all the power on an older lady.    

Having recently broken up with his girlfriend, Brian Tyree Henry mixes his house keys with her car keys and locks himself out. Having hit somewhat of a rut in life and becoming a bit of a recluse because of it, this move forces him into his neighborhood, interacting with neighbors he’s never met before. The climax is confusingly rushed and there is a nonsensical ‘mistaken identity’ attempted police arrest which pulls away from an otherwise low-key and warm film. Henry is an appealing lead who does a good job portraying his character’s reticence and growth, at least in all but that climax.

Bryan Brown is a special effects expert who agrees to help a government agency in staging the fake assassin of a well-known gangster. When he’s double-crossed, he must use his skills to evade and trap gangsters and corrupt government agents alike. I remember when F/X 2 came out wondering about the original which I had never heard of and it has stayed on my radar since. Unfortunately there’s not a whole lot of special effects seen in the film other than a pretty twisty climax, it remains a decent action film with Brian Dennehy playing a good cop working the other side of Brown to also get to the bottom of the conspiracy. 

Champion boxer turned humble cabbie John Payne’s wife Peggie Castle is having an affair with jewel thief Brad Dexter. When Dexter frames Payne for her murder, John teams up with his friend Evelyn Keyes to clear his name. Growing up watching Miracle on 34th Street, as an adult I’ve been intrigued by John Payne’s filmography and what he brings to his roles. Here he comes across as generally good guy broken by the dissolution of his chosen career due to injury and that brokenness leads to further cracks in his life, namely the relationship with his wife butting against her own expectations for her life. He has an array of friends who believe in his goodness and are willing to help him out and there’s just that twinge of hope that he and Keyes will find a way out of his predicament.    

Recently accepted to a London fashion design school, naïve and sheltered Thomasin McKenzie is also uncomfortably obsessed with the style of the 1960s. On her first night sleeping at her new bedsit, she finds herself transported to that decade and following Anya Taylor-Joy, a woman who appears to encompass all Thomasin finds attractive about the time period. She soon finds out nostalgia for a decade she didn’t live through is too often misguided. The first half of this is a fluffy, candy-colored, fish out of water story. Then out of nowhere it turns on its head and becomes a dark, shadowy ghost story involving prostitution and murder. The characters throughout are some of the most one-dimensional, cliched cutouts of actual human beings I’ve ever seen on screen. Most egregiously, the film presents the possibility that the pimp and johns that exploited the young woman are the biggest victims. 

When prince Vincent Price discovers the plague in one of his villages, he orders the village burned while kidnapping three of its residents to his castle. He invites the nobility to his castle to party and wait out the Red Death. He’s also a Satanist whose consort decides now is the best time to be inducted into his cult. The story is definitely bizarre and convoluted but Price, particularly as a villain, elevates absolutely everything he is in that I’m compelled to watch his films. The film is psychedelically colorful and there are so many expressions of the excesses of the nobility that it’s really a sight to be hold. 

Lizabeth Scott is looking for the perfect patsy to impersonate a rich couple’s lost son and finds him in Edmond O’Brien. Despite all the hard work of her and her partner Alexander Knox, their scheme does not proceed as planned. The story unfortunately throws in the distraction of Terry Moore as a ditzy cousin of the lost boy and the ending wraps up in some too convenient ways, but the bits where Scott plays the manipulative femme fatale mostly makes up for the film’s weaknesses in its short runtime.    

It’s well established I have an unnatural affection for Blaxploitation films, but here we have Glynn Turman as a New Orleans law student who becomes possessed by a murdered 1940s gangster bent on revenge and it’s glorious. Turman completely goes for full Jekyll-Hyde vibes as his mild-manner character is gradually taken over by JD’s personality. There are fun, unexpected twists during the climax that makes me somewhat recall Angel Heart and not just because of the shared location.