Reviews

A very dated film that serves up laughs for succeeding generations of Netflix users. And while Roller Boogie can boast of about a dozen or so unintentionally hilarious lines, it really is pretty dire stuff in every way possible. And to be honest, that's about the only angle I can give this film; just watch it in order to laugh at it. That's not much of a recommendation, but I don't think very much of the film.

The dancing is terrible, but what can you expect, they're dancing with roller skates on. The acting is horrible, but what can you expect, who the hell else would agree to be in this film?

It's too bad, but for Linda Blair at the time this movie was made, her best days in Hollywood were already a thing of the past.

This film has a dozen images in it that will stay tucked away in your head long after you can remember why exactly they're clawing at you. I guess the most interesting aspect from watching this film is how I was constantly repeating to myself, "This was made in 1947?".

It is hard to believe that a film so overtly homo-erotic could find such a large audience at that time. That alone speaks to the overall impact the images from this film have on the viewer. Almost equally as amazing is that Anger was only 17 when he made this film. That's very brave, but strictly as a movie, it really didn't do much for me. Sometimes surrealistic images and their meaning can be lost on me, though there's quite a lot of this movie that is unmistakably "on the nose".

I'm not sure quite what to make of it, but I hope that Anger worked out whatever it was he was going through at that time.

Yes, this film is mesmerizing and beautifully shot, but mostly this film comes off as exploitive and morbid. I can't abide by film makers standing by with cameras rolling while people are positioning themselves to end their lives.

And while I can't hate this film entirely, I did soon grow very weary of it and I was able to realize why one of the suicide jumpers jump was being held off shown until the very end of the film. For that reason alone I should hate this film, but I am cynical enough to realize why the film was made this way and to some extent I accept it. However, that does not mean that I have to admire or like it.

I can't recommend this film, but I believe that the morbid curiosity that exists within got the better of me, but I am certainly no better now because of it.

While it is a creepy film and at times quite brilliant in capturing with shadows and stop motion photography sense of true dread, the main culprit in the undermining of Nosferatu is with it's clunky story telling and comical acting.

I will normally cut a lot of slack for the temperament of silent film theatrics, but considering the place this film holds amongst most, if not all critics, I'm going to have to judge it a little bit harder than the other classic films of its time. Again, kudos for finding and then maintaining such a great look and feel throughout the entire film, but really, I can't go any higher than a seven. There's too many questions concerning the two main characters in their haste to race back from Transylvania. Why won't Hutter take his love away from Nosferatu? He did sell him the house across the street, he had to know this scenario was going to take place.

Also, why leave it as a mystery to the character of Knock? At least with Renfield we understand why he is slave to Dracula. In Nosferatu there's not much to go on plot wise to signify any connection, other than that crazy looking home buyers document. I realized Knock was crazy, but I didn't know he was Transylvanian crazy.

This is a must see film, don't get me wrong. But other than making a note of it and moving on to other films, I can't see why this film get the love it gets from critics.

But, it is really, really creepy.

On the merits of a comedy show, this episode wouldn't rank higher than a four or five out of ten, so I understand why this episode has been rated so lowly. However, if viewed as a musical special featuring Paul Simon and selected musical guests, it could rank as a 9 or 10 out of 10.

The comedy segments come largely by way of filmed segments; there's an Albert Brooks film, we see Jerry Rubin pitching 1960's graffiti styled wallpaper, a pacemaker test parody of an old car battery commercial and a one on one basketball challenge from Connie "The Hawk" Hawkins against Paul Simon during the Weekend Update segment. The rest of Weekend Update is abbreviated to a few jokes and an on air nose picking by Chevy Chase. Besides the bevy of musical guests, the longest allotted live performance by non-musicians arrives via the misery of the Muppets.

The best parts of this episode come by way of the musical guests. Both Phoebe Snow and Randy Newman give stellar performances, Snow with her version of Billie Holiday's "No Regrets" and Randy Newman with his own "Sail Away". The host of the show, Paul Simon, performed the lion share of the music on display for the evening. He performed on his own, with the Jesse Dixon Singers and surprisingly, with Art Garfunkel. Surprisingly because the duo had split up five years earlier, only performing on stage live once before this performance. Lorne Michaels scored quite a coup by getting Simon & Garfunkel to reunite on his program as this performance turned out to be Simon & Garfunkel's first televised performance after a five-year break up. The duo sounded magnificent as they leisurely harmonized through a couple of their landmark recordings. Though the duo looked a bit like the inverse of Sonny & Cher when standing up to sing their current studio track, "My Little Town", the harmonies were still very strong after all these years.

This episode provides a stark contrast in style from what the show once was to what the show is today, not only in its comedy, but also in its musical performances. The feel is most certainly rooted in its time, but the time feels loose, non corporate, as if the host for that week or a cast member got to pick the musical guests. For that reason alone I felt a certain warmth and affection for this episode and for that golden time in television. Paul Simon may have overplayed his good graces into Lorne Michaels' company of comedians, but you can't deny that he delivered the goods when it came to providing great musical guests and performances for his week as guest host on the show. It's just too damn bad Paul Simon couldn't have somehow squeezed in 'The Sounds of Silence"…I would've preferred the sounds of silence to the Muppets.

The first episode of Saturday Night Live starts with the sound of a door opening and closing, followed by the clunky echo of a heavy booted John Belushi playing an immigrant walking down wooden stairs into a near barren living room to meet up with his "English Speaking" tutor as played by Michael O' Donoghue. The sketch has the stamp of O' Donoghue written all over it: the bizarre instruction to 'feed one's fingertips to the wolverines' and the macabre flair of a painful death used as a punch line. SNL was introducing its own brand of comedy to the world, one that hadn't ever been seen on the likes of 'Laugh-In' or 'The Carol Burnett Show'.

Although the show hadn't found its own identity quite yet, there was no mistaking that this show was unlike anything else on television at the time. In fact, the first episode feels more like a late night 'special' featuring George Carlin than what it would become only two shows later with Rob Reiner as host. Carlin did four segments of his stand up material, touching on topics ranging from 'baseball and football' to 'oxy morons and religion'. He did not appear in any sketches for the show.

The first show also had its fair share of miscues and screw-ups. Don Pardo muffed the intro by calling the cast the "Not For Ready Prime Time Players" instead of the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" and Chevy Chase had some difficulty finding the correct camera while delivering the headlines on Weekend Update.

Most of the sketches on the show were very short, especially considering the amount of time given to the Muppet segment and other filmed material. Two filmed segments (Jamitol and Triopenin) played off of one shared joke while other sketches came off as corny (Bee Hospital-Victims of Shark Bites) and another as vaguely familiar as a Second City staple (Courtroom Scene). The only sketch that closely resembles what the future SNL would be is the 'Trojan Horse Home Security' sketch that aired very late in the show. There wasn't any real stand out sketch; the most memorable segments other than 'Update' and the opening were the filmed commercials, the musical guests or the one-man show of Andy Kaufman.

Watching Kaufman do his 'Mighty Mouse' routine one feels as if watching history in the making, another new beginning in performance art comedy. It's appropriate that Kaufman is on SNL's first show laying the groundwork for redefining the definitions of comedy. The crowd loves him and gives him the biggest applause of the night, unlike Carlin who asks the crowd after a tepid response to one of his jokes if "he's told these jokes already tonight".

The show was very heavy on its musical acts. Both Janis Ian and Billy Preston were able to sing two songs. On a side note, we get to see the woman that would play a huge part in the makeup of the show to come. Jacqueline Carlin, who also found her way into two filmed segments on the first show (New Dad-Academy of Better Careers), was the woman that Chevy would leave the show for to marry after only one season. It could be said that Chevy left the show to be a 'New Husband' and to have a 'better career' on the West Coast with Jacqueline, but one has to wonder if Chevy had the chance to do it all over again would he rather fall head over heels for Jacqueline on the West Coast or fall head over ass at Studio 8H for a television show on the East Coast?

Somewhere between Minority Report and Logan's Run/Soylent Green lives Michael Bay's, 'The Island'. If you understand going into this movie that it is a 'Michael Bay' film then you won't be too disappointed in how much it sucks, but if you're not familiar with Mr.Bay's work and are expecting a slick/smart look into a modern sci-fi thriller, you'll really be angry.

On the positive side of things, there's plenty of eye candy, whether your preference is for the bursting out and beautiful Scarlett Johansson or the always steady yet geeky macho leanings of Ewan McGregor, the viewer is never more than 45 seconds away from their allotted camera time. If you like sleek angled, yet threadbare movie sets...then all is still fine in your universe of the future.

But the film goes terribly, terribly wrong when it bypasses logical thought for the sake of its many horrible action sequences. Every action scene is filmed in an extreme close up with the camera shaking so as not to let the viewer really see how lame the scene would actually look if the camera were not shaking.

I could throw in many scenes where there is a definite leap in logic, but really, take my word for it, there's too many to recount.

But to give proper credit, the eye candy is what makes this film even somewhat entertaining. Ewan and Scarlett really do seem to be trying to earn their money, they will win you back to the film from time to time. The culprit of stupid here is in its director...he has no eye for subtlety, nor does he have a gift as a story teller.

The film also features the always sweating Djimon Hounsou as a renegade navy seal or some such thing. He's a tough guy who is hired to capture Ewan and Scarlett once they break out of their virtual 'womb'. The film also has terminal second banana Sean Bean as the bad guy who wears glasses and describes himself as a doctor to appear smart.

I'm not sure I completely bought into what the Island is supposed to represent or whether or not this story is an open forum for stem cell research or cloning...I just don't know. What I do know is that there is a shell of potential here for a better movie than the one that was made...a clone, if you will.

Comedies rarely live up to high praise, for whatever the reason, so I won't go to great lengths building up how great I think this film is, although I really think this is a great film. Sure, there are inconsistencies that would be easy to point out, such as the across all borders shared language between the characters from Poland, Germany and Great Britain. Or I could banter on about how unlikely a pairing Jospeh Tura (Jack Benny) and Maria Tura (Carole Lombard) make as husband and wife. Or perhaps you just find the subject matter of the Nazi's rise to power something not to be taken into the cinema for frivolous laughs.

But really this is part of the charm of the film. The film moves between the absurd to the dramatic, though mostly to the absurd, with such ease and flair that the viewing experience becomes a joy, you forgive all of the filmic shortcomings, the suspension of belief, and yes, the arena for bad taste.

The film isn't short on its poignant moments either. The destroyed shop signs of the local merchants towards the beginning of the film help to put a real face on the destruction of war. These aren't just brick buildings being leveled, these are names. There's also the 'once in a lifetime' performance Greenberg (Felix Bressart) gives to his best friend, Bronski (Tom Dugan) who is dressed up in a ruse as Hitler to help create a diversion for escape. This scene hits the marks on a couple of levels; it speaks candidly about the lust for war and its adverse effects and it gives Greenberg his one chance to play the part he's wanted to play all of his life. And he plays it as if his life literally depends on it.

Most of the film showcases Benny having to outwit Nazi buffoons by dressing up as high ranking Gestapo agents or spies, all the while trying to get to the bottom of an affair his wife is having with a Polish Air Force Lieutenant (Robert Stack).

Lombard and Benny are great; they hold most of the film together. Most of what you see from the Nazi side is portrayed in the way that you would come to expect; the Nazi as grand buffoon. Again, this is a minor gaff in the film. The double agent Professor Siletsky (Stanley Ridges) plays his part perfectly and is not played as a buffoon.

The film has lots of running gags that are hilarious and it shouldn't disappoint. It may be cliché to say this about this movie, but it really is a minor masterpiece.

This short film is filled to the brim with overt double entendre sexuality. The viewer is never more than half a minute away from a dozen scantily clad chorus girls hanging onto a rising phallus or a suggestive song and dance number mocking the average housewife and her attempts at seducing their libidinous husbands while shopping through the Drake Women's Underwear Department.

It's difficult to find the exact moment where this short film goes over the top, perhaps it is the rising phallus, but it could be the chorus girl who is bent over awaiting the thumb fingerprint of a blindfolded husband…please, don't ask.

No reason to get bogged down in the plot of the film, just enjoy the effort put forth by everyone involved. It's a little film, but a very sexy one at that. The film is titillating and fun, but most of all it's fun. And unlike one of the best lines in the film uttered by a very big and older housewife while grabbing her husband away from one of the younger looking nymphs, "A great big sofa may give more comfort than a chair", this film is that chair, and really, you might find rocking back and forth in a chair very comforting.

Whether it's through the smoke filled rooms of a Broadway Theater or through the misty-eyed flashback memories of an insecure actor, the sight revealed in 'The Country Girl' is one of three people who share three very different and desperate needs.

Bernie Dodd (William Holden) needs to find a last minute replacement lead actor for a play. He wants Frank Elgin (Bing Crosby) for the part. Unfortunately Frank may not be up to the part, he hasn't been able to hold an acting job for some time since becoming a closet alcoholic. Against the strong wishes of his own producer, Dodd petitions hard for Elgin thinking him a perfect fit for the play.

Frank needs something, anything to take his mind off of the guilt he's felt since the accidental death of his son. Through years of guilt Frank has become unreliable, insecure and a risk in the Broadway circuit. Frank is looking for a small job, baby steps if you will, for his road to recovery.

Georgie Elgin (Grace Kelly) needs Frank to be able to respect himself again, to not blame himself for the death of their son. She needs Frank to get out of the apartment and to get a job. Since the death of their child, Georgie too has lived through a difficult transformation; she's changed herself from a beautiful 25-year-old doting mother into an unrecognizable old maid. Georgie needs other things as well, but all of that comes out towards the end of the film.

At times 'The Country Girl' falls into lapses of musical boredom (the exception being a musical number with Jacqueline Fontaine as the lounge singer), but never for very long. Most of the film centers around the three leads lying or yelling at each other, trying to give the appearance of being in control, giving ultimatums to one another. By having Holden and Kelly in the cast, the film can't help but have a strong sexual tension brimming over. Though the two characters do their best to ignore it, the sexual tension that builds up between Bernie and Georgie isn't as well hidden as Frank hiding his cough syrup.

'The Country Girl' showcases three great performances by its leads. Crosby is at times especially good. For my money, Kelly is better in Rear Window, but she's pretty damn good here, especially after her kiss with Holden.

Can Frank make good on Bernie's trust in his abilities and not succumb to the temptation of his own self loathing? Can Bernie make his belief in Frank payoff by keeping Frank from falling off the wagon? Want does Georgie really want?

How can you not like a movie where people get put to the test, come out to ultimately do the right thing?

Plodding along clumsily through themes of race and class, 'Zenobia' is the movie equivalent of a television after school special that tries desperately to force feed its audience a plate of moral fiber for digestion. This morality feeding does not go down smoothly at all, even with a spoonful of humor provided by the antics of Oliver Hardy and company. Hardy is decent, but the humor in the film is never up to his standard and the preachings of the other plot lines is just incredibly lame.

The irony of 'Zenobia' is that when it begins to preach, it comes of as comical, when it tries to be funny, it falls seriously flat. The problem I have in slamming this movie is that its heart seems to be in the right place, sort of. Besides, how can you hate an Oliver Hardy film?

I spent most of my time laughing AT THE MOVIE. Hardy, a doctor by trade, explains race to his black child servant simply as being the difference between white pills and black pills. He mentions that the Declaration of Independence is made up of black, white, red and yellow pills. When Hardy asks the child if he understands, the child answers back, "No, Suh". What does Hardy mean? Is he saying that all pills are created equal? Hardy finally appeases the child's questions by bargaining a quarter to the child if he can memorize the Declaration of Independence. Well, that settles it. Now Hardy can go to the all white party where no colored people are allowed to attend.

When Hardy gets to the party he is subjected to a bit of class-ism. Hardy squints a shade of disapproval, but is able to carry on happily enough until Zenobia the elephant crashes the party. Suddenly Hardy finds himself in a confusing lawsuit over the affections of an elephant or from an attempt to embarrass his daughter into not marrying into another family, or something, I'm not really sure.

One thing is certain, this was the first film where the comedy duo consisted of Oliver Hardy being the skinny one.

Pretty dire stuff. Stay away if you like comedy.