Reviews

I had been looking forward to this movie for awhile but i found it disappointing and it was too preachy at times. Joseph L. Mankiewicz was pretty liberal and he just seems to be attacking the house Un-American activities and senator McCarthy. It might of been fine back in the early 50s but 50 years later it just doesn't work. Hume Cronyn is a doctor who hates Cary Grant and is looking through his past trying to find something bad so he can get him kicked out. Their really isn't any reasoning behind Cronyn and his motive and you really don't even know why he wants to take him down. The part with Grant marrying a patient who had shot herself because she found out she was pregnant really didn't work and it was just annoying. I really didn't buy anything in this movie and it just isn't very good.

This wasn't one of Bette Davis best films and it wasn't her best performance even though she was nominated for best actress and then lost to Vivien Leigh for gone with the wind. It was the last of the four movies she made with Humphrey Bogart and it was the least of them with Marked Woman being the best and then The Petrified Forest. This was the first film I've seen of Ronald Reagan and i guess he was all right but nothing great. Bogart and Reagan don't have much to do and Bogart seems miscast as a horse trainer. Reagan is just hanging around with a drink in his hand and doesn't do much else. The plot has something to do with Davis getting a brain tumor and the doctor doesn't want to tell her but you can find that out for yourself when you watch it.

Better than the second one but nowhere as good as the original. This one also has Anthony Perkins as a first time director and he does a pretty good job. The movie stars out with a girl who is about to become a nun loses her faith and start to scream that their is no god. She tries to kill herself but winds up killing another nun instead. She leaves and is picked up by a musician headed to L.A. and he is played by Jeff Fahey. He winds up with a job at the bates motel and she becomes friends with Norman Bates. A reporter is snooping around trying to find out about Norman and if he is still crazy. There are a lot more killings and more nudity than the second one and Anthony Perkins does a pretty good job as star and director.

They should of quit making them after 1945's The Thin Man Goes Home. This is easily the worst of the bunch and it's even worse than the first one. There were only a couple of good thin man movies and the best ones had much more humor in them. This one is just pathetic and never should of been made. You don't care about any of the characters or who was killed and they are a bunch of bad actors anyway. William Powell seems to be just going threw the motions and doesn't even seem interested. The best scenes in the movie have to deal with Dean Stockwell who plays their son but you hardly even see him. Don't waste your time with this one and just watch Another Thin Man instead, at least that one also stars Jimmy Stewart.

The 1936 version was a masterpiece or close to it and this is a pale imitator. I like David Niven and June Allyson but they suck compared to William Powell and Carole Lombard. This one stars Niven as a man hiding out because he doesn't have a passport unlike the original when Powell was just homeless. Allyson is on a scavenger hunt and takes Niven along with her and then hires him as a butler. She's in love with Niven and it turns out he had a lot of money but lost it but i don't remember and it doesn't really matter. The original was much better and you should just watch that one instead and Powell and Lombard were much better. Why did they even bother to remake this.

Sort of reminds you of Elmer Gantry with Burt Lancaster but not as good. Barbara Stanwyck stars as a precher's daughter who father has just died and she goes out and tells off the members about what they did to her father. A man in attendance hears her and thinks she would make a great phony evangelist. They set up a big tent and promises to heal people but the only people healed are fakes. They are just in it for the money but Stanwyck doesn't like it. When she finds out she stopped a blind man from committing suicide, she wants to quit but her manager won't let her and would send her to jail. It just isn't very interesting and Stanwyck does a good job but It's disappointing.

This movie starts out with a guy telling you that this movie was real and that the truth was more exciting than some fiction story. It wasn't needed and should of been cut out. It starts out in 1951 and Joanne Woodward going to see a psychiatrist played by Lee J. Cobb because she has black outs and buys things and then can't remember anything. It turns out she has a multiple personality disorder and there is nothing she can do about it. She is sent to a state hospital and after she appears to be better she is sent home. She winds up getting worse and winds up with a third personality. Her husband divorces her and the psychiatrist tries to help her. Joanne Woodward is excellent and Lee J. Cobb is all right but nothing great.

This movie has Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill and General Custer all together. Gary Cooper plays Wild Bill and Jean Arthur plays Calamity Jane and Charles Bickford plays the bad guy who sells weapons to the Indians and you can hardly recognize him. This was the first time Cecil B. DeMille and Gary Cooper worked together and the next movie the made was basically the same but set in a different time. This movie starts out with Lincoln's assassination and it also deals with an Indian war. Calamity Jane is in love with Wild Bill and Buffalo Bill has gotten married and now wants to stay home. This movie also deals with Custer's last stand and is far from accurate. Gary Cooper is good as usual and i usually don't like Jean Arthur but i liked her here.

55 days at Peking is about the boxer rebellion of 1900 in China. Charlton Heston is a marine, David Niven is a British ambassador and Ava Gardner has to get out the country since she lost her passport, or something like that. Nicholas Ray didn't do a very good job at directing and he should of ran away from this one but he did a good job of directing The Fall of the Roman Empire a year later. The plot has to do with all of the nations troops trapped inside a building that is surrounded by Boxer troops. They are outnumbered and hardly have any ammo and food. The Chinese government isn't going to do anything and they have no help coming. Charlton Heston does a pretty good job but Ava Gardner is wasted here but she was never very good actress anyway.

This was the first film I've seen of Luis Bunuel and this movie stars Pedro Armendariz as a strong guy with a lot of muscle but not a lot of brains. He his hired by a landlord to do anything to get the tenants to move out and he winds up killing an old man who was their leader. Katy Jurado is the landlord's wife and they have an affair. Pedro is chased by some of the men with weapons and hides out in the apartment of the girl who's father he killed but she doesn't know that. There isn't much else to the plot but there are several murders at the end but you can find out for yourself who is murdered. Pedro has worked with John Ford before and Katy Jurado was in High Noon and One Eyed Jacks.

I had never even heard of this before and i can see why. Apparently, this movie had been missing for many years and they actually found a print of it and too bad they did. This movie is a incomprehensible mess, you didn't even know what was going on and you didn't care. The plot has something to do with Boris Karloff having in his possession, something that will give you more life or something like that. Karloff is dying and he wants to be buried a certain way. He comes back to life and after that who knows what happens. There are several other characters in the movie but who knows what their doing. It didn't even make sense and you should stay away from this movie even if your a die hard Karloff fan.

This movie is about life in the slums in New York and nothing much happens except for a murder. The people just hang out on the front steps of their apartment building and talk and gossip. The only person i know in here was Sylvia Sidney and her mom in the movie is cheating on her husband with another man. Everybody knows about it but the husband doesn't know and he knows something is up. Nothing else really happens except the murder and I'm not going to tell you who it is but you can guess pretty easily. This was one of King Vidor's first talking films and you can tell that this movie was first a play because the characters don't go anywhere. This movie wasn't bad but i wouldn't watch it again.

This was nothing special but you can get tired of Jack Black for 90 minutes. He's better in supporting roles like High Fidelity but he can't carry a movie by himself. There isn't much of a plot just Black teaching kids in elementary school how to rock. Black's roommate is p***ed at him for not paying the rent and he wants him to get a job and stop with the music. His band kicks him out and when he gets a job as a substitute teacher, he lies about who he is and tells them he is his roommate. Most of the kids in his class are pretty talented musically and Joan Cusack is the principal. This was Richard Linklater's first mainstream film after all those independent films but Dazed and Confused really wasn't an independent film.

The 80s version of easy rider. Albert Brooks plays a man who is upset about being passed over for a promotion and his job is being sent over to New York. He doesn't want to leave L.A. so he quits his job and gets his wife, played by Julie Hagerty, to quit her job also. They make a decision to sell their house and everything they own and when they do, they find they have over one hundred and fifty grand. They buy a motor home and travel across the country just like in easy rider. When they get to vegas his wife loses almost all their money at gambling and they are screwed. They wind up getting jobs as a crossing guard and an assistant manager to a teenager. I liked the movie but it wasn't that funny.

There are not too many remakes that are better than the original but this one is. The remake of the fly was much better and so was invasion of the body snatchers but not too many people believe that. I didn't even like the original cat people and i thought the sequel Curse of the cat people was better but it really wasn't a sequel. I thought that this version went on too long and John Heard wasn't very good in here. Natasssja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell are brother and sister but they haven't seen each other since they were kids. Kinski is still a virgin and every time they have sex they turn into a leopard. This was directed by Paul Schrader and this movie has the two best scenes from the first movie included here.

Film critic Andrew Sarris said that this movie was better than Ben-Hur but i don't agree with him. There were some things i didn't like about this movie like the start of the movie was pretty bad and i didn't like Peter Ustinov, although a lot of people did, i just thought he was too over the top. Leo Genn wasn't very good and i have never really liked Robert Taylor anyway. Deborah Kerr was the best thing in the movie and the movie did get much better after a little while. The plot has to do with Ustinov being emperor of Rome and after he burns have the city, he just blames it on the Christians but the plan backfires on him. Taylor is one of his generals and Deborah Kerr is a Christian that Taylor loves.

This wasn't as good as Come Back, Little Sheba which was also directed by Daniel Mann and starring Burt Lancaster. This one stars Anna Magnani in her first English film and she won an oscar for it. It stars out with her husband being killed in a car accident and she becomes very depressed. Three years later and her daughter has started dating. They are Italian and she doesn't like her daughter dating a navy boy. She gets even more depressed when she finds out that her husband was having an affair and she has a rose tattoo just like him. She meets Burt Lancaster, a lonely truck driver who wants to date Magnani. This was written by Tennessee Williams but this wasn't one of his best plays.

This film is set right after the civil war and somebody is going around burning barns. The people are still loyal and hate the other side. Thomas Mitchell is the father who fought for the south and so did his son but the son hasn't come home yet. Janet Leigh is the daughter and Dean Stockwell is their youngest son. Van Johnson is passing by one day and he winds up staying with them. Johnson and Leigh are attracted to each other but the father wants to know what side Johnson fought on. Johnson used to be a schoolteacher before the war and he wants to open a schoolhouse. It turns out that Johnson knows something about their son and when the father finds out Johnson fought for the north, he wants to kill him. This was Janet Leigh's first film and she's only OK but i have never liked Van Johnson but he's OK here.

This movie reminds you of Boom Town, with Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy fighting each other sometimes and then being friends again. That was an "A" picture and this one is a "B" picture. This one stars John Garfield and Pat O'Brien as two oil workers, who both fall in love with Francis Farmer. Garfield is wanted for murder and running from the cops but O'Brien won't turn him in. Garfield and Farmer are always fighting with each other but it's pretty obvious that their in love. O'Brien is also in love with Farmer but he's too late. Their isn't too much else to the plot and this was one of Garfield's lesser films. Pat O'Brien is his usual self and Farmer's career went downhill after this film.

A routine John Garfield film that Garfield really didn't even want to do. It starts out with Garfield serving thirteen months in jail for a crime he didn't commit and as soon as he's back on the streets, he gets on a train with two of the dead end kids and winds up getting in a fight with Ward Bond, who is hiding out from the cops. The cops arrest all of them and Bond says Garfield helped him when he committed the crime and he's sent up again for a crime he didn't commit. He's given 90 days on a work farm and he and warden take a disliking for each other immediately. That's when he meets the warden's daughter and there is a lot more plot to the movie but you can find that out for yourself.

A pretty forgettable movie starring William Powell and Jean Harlow. The plot really doesn't really come together and seems to be just thrown together. There are a few musicals numbers but they are pretty bad and don't compare to The Great Ziegfeld. Harlow looks like she's mouthing the words and her dance scene will only shows her legs and nothing else. The plot has something to do with Powell and Harlow being in love with each other but Franchot Tone comes in and steals Harlow away before Powell makes his move. Rosalind Russell is in love with Tone but she winds up getting married to someone else. The movie just doesn't work and this was directed by the same guy who directed The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind.

The main problem i had with the film is the screenplay. It was just badly written and you didn't believe a lot of the things the characters did. The plot really doesn't come together like it should and the movie is just pretty bad. It stars out with Spencer Tracy talking some workers out of a strike that would of hurt them and he also p***es off his boss. Both Tracy and the boss are interested in Jean Harlow but Harlow only goes with the boss because, i just forget and who really cares anyway. Mickey Rooney is also in here and Spencer Tracy is a great actor but he's only OK in here. Jean Harlow does a pretty good job and you should watch Libeled Lady instead.

The first scene is pretty good when Clark Gable tries to con a guy out of 50 bucks but the movie just goes downhill from there. The guy Gable tried to con finds he's a fake and chases after him with a cop. Gable runs into an apartment building and hides in Jean Harlow's apartment. Harlow agrees to hide him out even though she doesn't know who he is. He leaves and she wants to see him again so she's always hanging out at his restaurant. They meet again and begin going out but Gable is arrested in a con gone bad and pretty soon Harlow gets arrested too. Right before Gable was arrested they were about to be married. Both Gable and Harlow are pretty good and they worked several times together.

The original Dawn of the Dead is a masterpiece and this is a piece of crap. I don't even see why Sarah Polley wasted her time with this movie. I couldn't believe all the positive reviews that this movie got like Roger Ebert giving it three stars. Ken Foree and Tom Savini should not of done cameos for this movie but at least George Romero had nothing to do with this. Even the remake of The Night of the Living Dead in 1990 sucked. I could of cared less about any of the characters and why was Matt Frewer even in here. I was hoping that the zombies would of won and the main characters all died. I didn't like anything about this movie and you should stay home and watch the 1978 version instead.