'DUNE'......WORMS OF ENDEARMENT.....

 Dune (2021)   Once again, I pride myself on being the very last person on planet Earth to see a huge, talked about movie and becoming the very last person on planet Earth to post a review of it.....

            The advantage of waiting this long.......wasting little or no time scribbling out plot details, since you've probably already absorbed 5000 reviews and/or pieces of internet news about  'Dune'.

             I'm aware this movie owes its existence to the fact that everybody agreed, including David Lynch, that Lynch's 1984 version of Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic sucked to high heaven.........for reasons too countless and boring to bother describing here. 

             Writer-director Denis Villaneuve solved one major problem right away......not trying to cram all of the Herbert book into one movie and only filming the first two thirds of it. 

             So for Act III of this story, we all have to wait for Dune 2......whoopa-dee-doo.

             And Villaneuve doesn't worry too much about setting up 'Dune's storyline and its cast of characters. First above storytelling, he's all about the world-building, which this film does with a vengeance. 

            You want world building?  Endless, lengthy CGI infused landscapes of the desert planet Arrakis?  And with images pumped up by Hans Zimmer's expansive Middle-East wailing 'n bagpiping score? You got it. 

             Oh right, there is stuff going on here. Two big galactic royal clans vying for control of the planet, which features city-sized worms who produce some sparkly stuff called 'spice',  which everyone in the Dune' universe uses as an energy source or a drug, or for all we know, cooking oil.  

             Good guys - the Atreides bunch, a handsome, stalwart group. Yay.  Bad guys - Harkonnens, big fat and bald evil bastards. Booooooooo..........

              Bad guys, who used to manage the planet before the good guys moved in, plan a comeback. This doesn't bode well for the good guys except their young heir Paul (Timothee Chalamet) and his mysterious mom (Rebecca Ferguson). Mom's part of a weird quasi-religious female cult who can sort of Jedi mind trick people by shouting at them extra loud. 

               Paul and mom, cast out into the desert during all the chaos, have to dodge those worms, who pop up like vacuum cleaner nozzles the size of aircraft carriers. Lucky they fall into the hands of the planet's hardy indigenous natives, the Fremen.....even luckier for Paul, that gang  also includes Chani (Zendaya), the fierce warrior babe he's been psychically dreaming about. 

             And that's as far as the film's 155 minutes takes you.......we'll all just have to wait a couple years to watch Paul and Chani galvanize the Fremen and go out and kick some fat, bald Harkonnen asses.  Woopadee-doo. 

             While I deeply admire Denis Villaneuve's dedication and artistry to meticulously evoke the Dune universe, the problem is we've seen all this before in various forms.  That's because other filmmakers like George Lucas, James Cameron  and a host of lesser talents used chunks of the "Dune" books as inspiration for their own assorted sci-fi.fantasy visions.  

              By the time David Lynch rolled out his blighted, star-crossed film version of 'Dune', it just resembled stale leftovers of tropes, characters and good-vs-evil struggles we'd already watched in the first three 'Star Wars' episodes. (and their many imitators)

             But for all sci-fi-ers, the stunning visuals, matched by the equally powerful Zimmer score make  'Dune'  essential viewing. (We've hardly mentioned the cast, fine actors all......but you know from the start that this is no movie to allow actors to impress, except maybe for Jason Momoa, who enjoys a bit of swashbuckling swagger in his battle scenes.)

              I was leaning toward a 2 & 1/2 star rating, but any movie featuring a worm that looks like it could inhale Manhattan and still have room to suck in Staten Island for dessert is an automatic 3 stars (***).  May the worms be with you.

              

 

            

             

            

'THE GRASSHOPPER'......WHEN COMEDY GUYS ATTEMPTED DRAMA.....

 The Grasshopper (1970)     While it never hangs together as a coherent effort, movies like this exemplify why cinema buffs still celebrate the 1970's as a golden era for groundbreaking, memorable films......

             Because when you scroll through the 70's films, it looks like anybody would take shot at making any film.....not matter how unlikely, odd, ridiculous, or just plain nuts.......

             So here's a film that aspired to be an Americanized version of  'new cinema' European movies that served up unflinching, cold-eyed views of less than sympathetic characters.....and unafraid to hand out abrupt, downbeat endings for them. 

             In true 1970's upside-down-ness, "The Grasshopper" came from a three writer-directors who spent a lifetime crafting comedies.......Jerry Paris (the film's director) and its writers Gary Marshall (yes, that Gary Marshall) and Jerry Belson. 

               In this story of a restless young girl who quests for a happily-ever-after in all the wrong places  and with all the wrong men, Paris, Marshall and Belson couldn't resist peppering their movie with one line gags and funny bits they couldn't fit into their various other sitcoms and movies. 

              And yet they still want us to pay serious attention to the never ending plights of  Christine Adams (Jacqueline Bisset) who leaves her Canadian small town to hopefully marry her boyhood boytoy, a Los Angeles bank teller who's struggling to climb up the corporate ladder. 

              Our enterprising comedy triumvirate no doubt scored a casting coup in securing Bisset, enjoying her reign as Hollywood's "It" Girl after starring as Steve McQueen's girlfriend in the 1968 blockbuster "Bullitt".

               Oh yes, Bisset was drop dead gorgeous and your eyes went nowhere else whenever she appeared on film. 

                And that's basically all she brought to the party.......as an actress, she had little or no range.....other than to stand there and be drop dead gorgeous.  Which nobody minded all that much.

                Marshall and Belson's script asks us to believe that Christine possesses an anarchic penchant for sudden goofy pranks, but there's nothing in Bisset's unexceptional, monotone delivery that make these bursts of mischief plausible.  (This role desperately required an actress with some devilment in her eyes and soul....and some real acting chops as well....Tuesday Weld would've been perfect)

                Since the bank teller/boytoy dream falls apart, Christine lands in Las Vegas and a job as a showgirl. And in Vegas she navigates her way through a host of crude, cruel men, dripping with insincerity as they salivate over her at the same time.  

                Christine's brief doomed love affair and marriage with gentle hearted ex NFL star Tommy Marcott (Jim Brown) provides the heart of the story..  And here's where film stays a little ahead of its time......in its telling depiction of the couple's suffering through bigotry and objectification. In Vegas, a town fueled by money and flesh, Christine and Tommy find themselves either sneered at by racists or pawed over and prized like pieces of meat, Things don't go well.......

                From there, the plot bounces through Christine's fling as a potential trophy wife for an aging CEO (a wasted Joseph Cotton) and a rock-bottom turn as a hooker for her failed rock musician boyfriend turned pimp.

              Paris, Marshall and Belson obviously still wanted some big yoks and what they'd consider a striking, up-to-the-minute ironic, not to mention cinematic fade-out They serve up a final, pointless, anarchic act of defiance for Christine......her vivid declaration of "who cares".......and a perfect example of how many 1970's movies frequently closed out this way.....after an arresting, pretentious, unresolved climax, came the inevitable freeze frame. 

               The comedy boys went back to what they do best....Bisset went to more roles displaying her stunning beauty.  And 20 years later in 1990, Gary Marshall in the midst of a long successful directing career, made "Pretty Woman", in which he found Julia Roberts, the kind of live wire, talented actress who could energize a comedy-drama and make both those genres work simultaneously.

              To put it bluntly, the kind of actress that "The Grasshopper" so desperately needed but didn't get, making it at best, a moderately interesting piece of 70's nostalgia. 2 stars (**)

               

             

              

'MEN'.....A TORMENTED WOMAN BESET BY MEN BEHAVING BADLY.....(OR MAYBE ONE GUY WHO'S ALL OF THEM)

 Men (2022)    Been some time since I came across what I'd consider an honest-to-God, genuine "What the ****!!" movie........

               You know the kind I mean. A film that makes everyone who lays eyes on it post reviews that start out with....."What the **** did I just watch??"\

               The kind of movie that generates heated discussions about what it all meant. 

                I couldn't look to the writer-director Alex Garland for any help in that regard. During the "Making of"""  documentary that's on the DVD, he states he has his own idea as to what the film was saying.  But he wouldn't speak it out loud because his interpretation might be 360 degrees off of what you or I got out of the film. 

               "Men kicks off like it's some kind of moody, reflective psychological thriller.

                 A young woman (the always terrific Jessie Buckley) hopes to recover from the trauma of witnessing the grisly suicide of her mentally ill husband whom she'd just threatened to divorce. 

                 In the greenery of the remote English countryside, she leases a huge mansion to spend some quiet time for emotional recovery.  But starting with the home's overly jolly and mildly creepy owner (Rory Kinnear), she suffers a series of weird disturbing encounters with whatever men  she comes across out there in the middle of nowhere. 

               In the first of the two startling, what-the-**** concepts the film offers, Rory Kinnear does bravura work playing all of these men   (with the help of makeup and CGI.)    If you've only seen this actor playing Bill Tanner,  the MI6 official in the Bond films, his work here truly astounds.....)

                These various 'Kinnear-ians' include a scary nude stalker  a condescending, Vicar, an obnoxious, bratty child, and all the lugs and thugs chug-a-lugging their pints at the local pub.  In one way or another, they seem  function (and I'm guessing here) as eternal symbols of  men's mistreatment of women. 

                 And then, for 'Men's  second, jaw-dropping, final  wowzer, Alex Garland unleashes a spectacular display of special effects body horror that makes those similar nauseating moments in David Cronenberg's movies look like 'Sesame Street' episodes. 

                Let's simply describe it as things you'll never unsee.......

                 So what's it all mean?

                 A deep meditation on the universal struggle of men and women?   A  bold sexual  statement?  A bold political statement?  All of the above? None of the above?

                 My response?  The same as the guy who wrote and directed this. 

                  Don't ask me. You decide. You figure it out.

                  Here's what I can say.  Jessie Buckley's never anything less than a wonder to watch, so for BQ, any film gifted with her in it qualifies as a 'can't miss'.  And I wouldn't dream of missing out on the amusing but unsettling spectacle of the multiple Rory Kinnears.

                  The film itself?  Well, if you've sampled some of the other so called 'elevated' horrors, the arthouse, film festival scare-a-thons like "The Witch", "Hereditary" and "Midsommar", then bump this one to the top of your 'must see' list. 

                   No, I don't know what the **** I just watched either, but I'm pretty sure I watched a 3 star (***) can't-take-your-eyes-off-it grabber........but don't say I didn't warn you about the finale.......

                   

                

                 

NEED A HOT NEW MONSTROUS READ? 'THE SANDY QUILL' HAS THE SCOOP FOR YOU.

                 If you want a wild new reading experience, breaking news awaits you on one of the best book review blogs ever.....The Sandy Quill......only a click away at thesandyquill.blogspot.com.

                 Crave giant monsters? Action? Sharp witty dialogue to keep you riveted to the pages?  Then check out The Sandy Quill's review of "The Kaiju Preservation Society" by John Scalzi.  You may not have heard about it, but SQ did......and waiting to clue you in on all the fun.

                  And after you stop for the "Kaiju" dish, enjoy touring SQ for more reviews of books that ought to race to the top of your TBR pile.....(and a few to avoid, too....)

                   See you there for some monster mania.......the sandyquill.blogspot.com.........

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL TOTALLY UN-REDACTED EDITION!

 Democrats optimistic as they face a host of Trump-endorsed looney toons in the mid term elections......local GOP organizations  plan to help these problematic candidates by supplying crayons on election day for voters to come out to choose Republican candidates......

Woman voters across the country preparing to send the GOP a message about the overturning of Roe and trigger anti-abortion laws......GOP immediately claims that 90 per cent of women's votes in the upcoming election will be fake ballots imported from Argentina and should be disqualified

Lindsay Graham continues his desperate efforts to avoid  testifying in the Georgia election investigation......Graham announces that if he loses another court challenge to avoid testifying, he will flee fo Mar-A-Lago to beg for political asylum.

Republicans vow to investigate Dr. Fauci after he retires........they're demanding to know under what authority did Fauci cancel Trump's emergency order to fill COVID patients' ventilator tubes with bleach and lysol

'THE BLACK PHONE'.....A KING-IAN HORROR STALKS 70'S SUBURBIA.....

he Black Phone (2021)     There's a simple reason this visually arresting creepfest is drenched with the atmosphere of Stephen King's mixture of horror, nostalgia and childhood.....as in "It".

             Director Scott Derrickson adapted the film from a short story by King's son, Joe Hill. 

             And Hill's a chip off the old shock. He knows what scares you. So does Derrickson, who chilled everyone to the bone with 2012's "Sinister", which also starred Ethan Hawke, whose presence guarantees to lift this film into above average status. 

             Like many a Stephen King story, we're back in a bygone suburb, where teen boy Finney (Mason Thames) navigates a boyhood afflicted with violent bullies. (These King-like bullies are particularly heinous here, drawing much blood.)

             Finney's life takes an even worse turn when he's abducted by "The Grabber"  (Ethan Hawke), a serial killer who's already racked up a body count of five other neighborhood boys. 

             Hawke, grotesquely masked for the entirety of the film, assaults, drugs and imprisons Finney in his filthy basement lair, which curiously features a broken wall phone, its wiring long torn away. 

              In between the Grabber's sporadic basement appearances, bearing food and soda, the phone manages to ring. On the other end of the line float the ghostly tortured voices of the fiend's dead and buried victims, giving a desperate Finney tips on escaping captivity before it's his time to die. 

               The poor souls, calling from a netherworld purgatory where they can no longer remember their own names, rely on Finney to remind them who they were.....one of movie's great touches, both horrific and sad at the same time.

              Away from the basement horrors, Finney's kid sister Gwen (Madeline McGraw) has clairvoyant dreams of her brother's plight, a supernatural gift she inherited from  their late mother. This ability both enrages and torments her abusive, alcoholic father (Jeremy Davies) who brutally whips her with a belt. (And in a few of film's brief but telling moments, it's clear that Gwen, when provoked, also inherited her father's explosive hair trigger temper)

                But back in that dank, miserable basement is where the film's expected main event unfolds - Finney's ferocious battle for survival against the implacable, monstrous Grabber. And once again, you can see how much of Stephen King's work deeply influenced his son's story. 

               I can hardly keep up with the constant flow of horror movies these days, but "The Black Phone", which rolled off the Blumhouse scare-factory assembly line stands out among the crowd. Scott Derrickson brings a vivid visual style to everywhere in the story, whether in that accursed basement or in the skillfully recreated soft-focus visions of 1970's suburbia.

                Rising to the challenge of playing a role with his face hidden, Ethan Hawke, a born actor's actor, employs a childish sing song voice and snake-like body movements to bring to life an all new horror movie monster. And he's right up there with Freddy Kreuger and Michael Myers.  (Don't be surprised if you see a Grabber origins story come next.....)

               If you dip your toe in horror every so often, this one's worth a watch. And if you're a horror movie fan, dial up "The Black Phone" right away. 3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)

'THE PINK JUNGLE'.....A PIT STOP ON THE UNIVERSAL STUDIOS TOUR......

The Pink Jungle (1968)        While other movie studios in the 1960's were commencing their inexorable, slow march into the tar pits of bankruptcy and corporate takeovers,  I couldn't help but admire the old school tenacity of Universal.

               They continued pumping out machine-tooled, backlot movies that looked no different from their TV shows......flat, bright lighting, the phoniest, cheapest sets, mechanical scripts and direction......I could swear these movies were never touched by human hands........

               If you stuck around the end credits, the last thing you'd see is colorful painted postcard of a tourist tram car, reminding you..."when in California visit Universal Studios"

                Before big theme park rides dominated, the studio would ferry the rubes around on those tram cars, through those plywood backlot replicas of cities, towns and Old West streets.......the same ones that popped up in all the Universal TV shows and movies.

                 Chances are, the trams rolled past the shooting of "The Pink Jungle", an all too typical example of spam-in-a-can movies Universal was rolling off their assembly line.

               The intention here (at least through the first half of the film) is a light-hearted romantic comedy action-adventure......think of it a primitive stab at a genre that fully flower with films like "Romancing The Stone".

                Arriving via seaplane in the backwater of a mythical seedy South American country, come our leading couple - a photographer (James Garner) and an international model (Eva Renzi) he's assigned to pose seductively in the jungle....for a lipstick ad. 

                 Garner sputters and Renzi's bemused as the local Army commander thinks they're CIA agents and their pile of lipstick samples filled with secret stuff.

                 What passes for the script then latches on to the semi-clever idea of Garner and Renzi amusing themselves by imagining they've stumbled on to a typical B-movie in the making......complete with shady, nefarious characters who behave like refugees from "Casablanca".

                  Since they're a tad slow on the uptake, it takes a bit until they figure out these guys are all for real in their scramble for a lost diamond mine..........including a wild man, American soldier-of-fortune (George Kennedy, and an equally dangerous, untrustworthy Australian (Nigel Greene) 

                 The movie sprinkles the dialogue with some not-half-bad zingers, so the first half of the film almost qualifies as moderately entertaining. And I should credit those reliable pros Garner and Kennedy who bravely met the challenge of working  with Renzi, a notorious, temperamental diva famous for aggravating her co-stars and directors. 

                 Then, sorry to report, the second half happens, in which Garner, Renzi Kennedy and Greene, in search of diamonds,  take  a long, long tedious trek through desert landscapes  Any humor and wit takes a hike, the pace slows to a crawl.......and that's where I began to deeply regret wasting any time watching this at all.

                  The movie does make a very last gasp attempt to redeem itself with a final big plot twist....so anyone who plans to stay awake for the entire thing might enjoy this hail-mary touchdown attempt to leave the audience smiling. (And who'd want to miss the you-can't-unsee-this sight of George Kennedy throwing himself into an energetic bossa nova with Renzi)

                  But we doubt anyone who stumbled upon "The Pink Jungle" in a theater ever stuck around to see the reveal........or remind themselves to visit the Universal tram tour. 1 star (*) 

MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS MADNESS.....A MERCIFULLY BRIEF TOUR......

                 I promise brevity will reign here. Just thinking about Marvel Studios plunge into their so called 'Multiverse' gives me a splitting headache......let alone writing about it. 

                  Always remember this......no matter how ridiculously complex these Marvel projects are becoming, it will always, always, always end up the same way.

                   Someone in a Halloween Shop costume will pound on someone else in a Halloween Shop costume.....usually picking them up and hurling them across long distances......until they crash into a building, car, wall or something else destructible. 

                   Rinse, repeat, rinse repeat, rinse repeat. 

                  Below, the latest roundup.

                  Ms. Marvel (2022)  Teen angst, mass quantities of Muslim culture, multiverses and a heavy load of history on the wrenching, bloody India-Pakistan Partition.....way, way too much stuff to pile on top of a dopey superhero series.   Slapdash, cartoonish superpowers .abysmal editing and cornball Disney-fying.  An exhaustive chore to sit through even for the rabid fans. 1 star(*)

                   Moon Knight (2022)  Oscar Issac throws himself  fully into a double role, to the point where I couldn't help wishing that talent wasn't wasted on this overly, confounding, pretentious mish-mash of theology, alternate timelines and Halloween Shop costume-ery. Did love the Hippo goddess, though....she's the one who deserves a series.  1 star(*) and that's for the Hippo.

                     She-Hulk Attorney At Law (2022)  We can only weigh in on the first episode. Jokey and meta to the max. Tatiana Maslany workin' even harder than when she played 10,000 clones in 'Orphan Black'.   Hulk-ified Tatiana and Hulk-ified Mark Ruffalo spend the required amount of time hurling each other across football length distances.  Heartbreaking dramatic moment: one of their roughhouses demolishes Mark's self contructed Tiki Bar. We wept for him. 1 star(*) 

'NOT OKAY'....A SOCIAL MEDIA MORON UNDONE BY HER VIRAL SCAM....

 Not Okay ( Hulu-2022)   This movie thinks its up-the-the-minute, unforgiving gaze at an  addled 20-something mass media striver justifies sitting through it. 

             And does 'Not Okay' accomplish that? Not really.

              I've already viewed a few films and read a few novels that take satiric aim at instagrammers, tweeters, tik-tokkers, youtube influencers and the global audience of cyber-trolls who dote on their every word and images.

                None of these people should feel flattered, since they're mostly depicted as narcissistic, calculating dopes, sociopathic psychotics and/or outright idiots hungering for undeserved fame.  (Check out BQ's 2/7/18 post on the 2017 indie "Ingrid Goes West" with Elizabeth Olsen and Aubrey Plaza)

                 Danni (Zoey Deutch) is no exception, since she possesses all those woeful character traits. She's a photo-editor for a trendy pop culture website but she aspires to write groundbreaking social commentary.  Her self declared mental instability and desperate need for affirming attention render her toxic and  friendless among her co-workers.

                  (It's a tribute to Zoey Deutch's innate comic timing and adorability that you'd tolerate this character for the entire length of the movie.....)

                A sudden brainstorm inspires Danni to fill her instagram account with phony selfies inserted into postcard images of famous, beloved Parisian landmarks.......thereby posting a fake but click-worthy glamorous vacation for herself, guaranteed to make her a social media star. 

                Which does indeed happen, since her bogus Audrey Hepburn-like excursion goes wildly viral moments before actual terrorist bombings occur at all the sites she supposedly visited. Further seizing her 15 minutes of fame, Danni basks in the instant celebrity bestowed upon her for surviving a catastrophic event.

                And this completely unaccomplished feat puts her in the path and friendship of the emotionally traumatized Rowan (Mia Issac) a real, genuine survivor of a horrendous school shooting.

                Even if you're mildly entertained by Deutch's natural charisma and the film's frequent stabs at the current social media-verse, it's overall an ugly, unpleasant journey from start to finish. It's a given that Danni's deception will be uncovered, assuring her utter crushing humiliation and shame.

               But by the time she gets around to making her obligatory attempts at redemption, I really wondered if this was worth 100 minutes of my time.....or anybody else's.  Just think of all those youtube videos of piano-playing cats I could've watched instead.....or of supermodels giving tutorials on how to fold towels.  For Zoey Deutch alone, 1 star (*)....as for rest of it.....far ,far from okay.

                

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL "DECLASSIFIED BECAUSE I SAID SO" EDITION

Baby Orange claims top secret documents he took to Mar-A-Lago were declassified because he declared that anything he read was automatically declassified.....Trump, for reporters' benefit, demonstrated how he accomplished this, by waving over the documents with a souvenir wand he bought at Universal theme park's "Wizarding World Of Harry Potter"

GOP senators claim thousands of IRS agents, armed with AR-15s, are coming to middle class homes to demand payments......in related news, Paramount Pictures announced a new action-adventure project with Vin Diesel, "Tax Hard With A Vengeance". Diesel will play two-fisted IRS agent Gimme DeBucks, hunting down a Ft.Lauderdale McDonald's employee who improperly declared 59,000 fries as "gifts".

Mitch McConnel worried that the GOP might lose the Senate because of Trump-endorsed loony toon candidates......muttered the senator privately, "We thought we made an agreement with the ex-President that any candidate he backed would require an I.Q. above vegetable status.  He's clearly gone back on his word...."

Conservative pundit predicts a massive power struggle within the GOP after Trump finally dies, comparing it to Russian leaders carving each other up after the death of Stalin.....prompting director-actor Mel Gibson to offer rebuilding the set of 'Beyond Thunderdome' for GOP politicians to fight each other to the death for supremecy.......

'THE CONTRACTOR'.....WORN OUT BOURNE....

The Contractor (2022)    Lately, I'm given to much musing when semi-dozing through a worthless, throwaway movie like this one......

               Why does this movie even exist?  Who even wanted it made? And why?  

                How did the producers scrape together enough money to finance it?  A tax dodge?   A money laundering scheme?  

                 Who, besides the immediate families of the cast and crew who worked on it, did anyone think would care enough to sit through it?  (Minus, of course, we hardy film bloggers)

                 Just wondering.......

                 I suppose the screenwriter (whose name isn't worth including here) thought he came up with a crackerjack idea.  Take a typical flashback sequence from a Jason Bourne movie (or any other Black Ops commando thing) - the clandestine raid gone bloodily awry - and make an entire movie out of it, stretched out to a full length 103 minutes.

                 To pad out the running time, this script first drags out our hero's depressing backstory to the point where you wonder if it's a slow-as-molasses family drama instead of an action movie.....

                  James Harper (Chris Pine), a battle-worn Army Ranger is kicked out of the military for treating his combat damaged knee with too many unauthorized pain killers. A fellow ex-Ranger (Ben Foster) offers him the opportunity to to join him as part of a highly paid unofficial mercenary force.

                 The leader of these secret soldiers (Kiefer Sutherland) supposedly answers only the highest government authority, sending out his team to...uh....neutralize threats to National Security across the globe. But to Pine, he makes it sound like all they do is babysit corporate bigwigs.

                  Then, at long last, we come the movie's main reason for existence - the "Clandestine Raid Gone Bloodily Awry".

                 Nothing transpires that you haven't seen in literally a hundred other movies in this genre. And since "The Contractor" contains nothing else to offer and nowhere else to go, the perpetual gun duels serve the same purpose as showing Pine's protracted, sad family life - to interminably squeeze out the running time to feature film length. 

                  What a complete and utter waste of Pine, Foster, Sutherland and the two other talented cast members here -  Gillian Jacobs as Pine's long suffering wife and Eddie Marson as a weary safe-house operative. 

                   Not to mention a total waste of time for anyone who stumbles upon this movie. I still can't explain why this movie exists, and the best thing do......pretend it doesn't. Zero stars (0).

 

                 

'DUEL AT DIABLO'.....BRUTAL, BLOODY.....WITH A BOUNCY THEME...

 Duel At Diablo (1966)     I don't think there's a genre that director Ralph Nelson missed. This guy dabbled in every type of film imaginable......heartwarming dramas, thrillers, quirky comedies.....he even took a swipe at science-fiction. 

                 But anyone with a passing familiarity with his previous films, couldn't ever predict he'd direct a western as uncompromisingly brutal and fatalistic as "Duel At Diablo".

                  In its single-minded devotion to carnage nihilism and prolonged torture, you could almost mistake this film for a homage to spaghetti westerns......except that the film arrived one full year before the American release of the first in the Clint Eastwood-Sergio Leone 'Dollars' trilogy, "A Fistful Of Dollars".

                  So you can consider Nelson's film a prescient preview of coming attractions, not just of the Spaghetti onslaught, but of the hyper-violent, gritty 'revisionist' westerns that would dominate that genre throughout the 1970's.   Like some of  those latter films, "Duel At Diablo" touched on the corrosive, shameful treatment of Native American tribes......which Nelson would go on to depict four years later in his equally disturbing and gore-soaked "Soldier Blue" (see our post on 6/29/19)

                   Right from its first minutes, 'Diablo' makes itself instantly memorable as composer Neal Hefti's catchy main theme, bounces into action. The music puts a deadly serious melody to an insistent, propulsive beat......it promises that nothing good will happen to these characters, even while you nod your head to the beat.

                    And nothing good does befall this  full array of tortured souls. An enraged, grief-stricken Cavalry scout (James Garner) searches for the killer of his Apache wife. A desperate woman  (Bibi Andersson) has escaped from Apache captivity with her infant son, fathered by the son of the tribe's chief. Rescued by Garner, she's now shunned by the townsfolk, including her merchant husband (Dennis Weaver)

                     Somehow these tormented souls end up on a trek back into Apache territory, headed by the obstinate Lt. McAllister (Bill Travers) and a company of barely trained young cavalry recruits. Also along for trip to continue breaking in the equally untrained horses is Toller, (Sidney Poitier), a cool-as-ice former soldier himself.....and nobody to mess with.

                    (In one of the film's most remarkable and unique ideas, absolutely nobody in the cast ever makes any reference whatsoever to Poitier being black.  You just know his character is so steely and potentially lethal, nobody would dare bring up the subject....)

                    Fleeing the reservation, the Apache warriors launch a series of punishing, bloody attacks on our wayward group.......and by the time the film concludes, not many of them are left standing. 

                    If you like your westerns tough, tense, and right to the point, then you need to put this one on a "Can't Miss" list.  And prepare to hear that one-of-a-kind Neal Hefti theme ricocheting around in your head for years to come. 4 stars (****)

                  

BQ VISITORS! DON'T FORGET TO STOP IN TO THE SANDY QUILL FOR BOOK REVIEWS!

              

              If you love losing yourself in a book, you do NOT want to miss visiting The Sandy Quill.  I've been constantly loading up the new blog with all the scoop on some the hottest new books out there, as well as hidden gems, golden oldies, and book-to-movie comparisons.

                 Don't miss checking out The Sandy Quill to discover some up-all-night reads you may never have heard of, but might become your favorite reads!

                  And as always, feel free to chime in with your own opinions and thoughts!  See you by the shelves and keep some bookmarks handy......you'll find the SQ at thesandyquill.blogspot.com.      

'THE BURGLARS'....A CROOK AND A COP WITH CHARISMA TO SPARE......

The Burglars (1971)     If you've stopped into BQ often, then you know of my great love affair with the Euro-Trashy international co-productions that flourished throughout the 1960's, the prime, glorious era for such movies.

             Stars from every country on the globe, screenplays cobbled together by whole platoons of writers and the soundtrack post-synched so it sounded like the entire cast was stuck in a phone booth together.  (And if you're really lucky, an Ennio Morricone score to top it off....)

              Almost always, the were either James Bond rip-offs or caper films featuring elaborate heists.

             And oh my, I couldn't get enough of 'em.

             Here's one of my faves, which arrived at the start of the 1970's, when the true glory days of the international co-productions were sadly reaching their twilight.   (Grungy, gritty nihilistic crime-on-the-streets stuff began to take their place on the Euro-Trash scene, along with the hyper-violent, 'Giallo' slasher mysteries...)

              In sunny Athens, a true clash of the titans unfolds, more than delivering on the action and fun it promises.  

               Two cinema icons, Jean Paul Belmondo and Omar Sharif, square off against each other. Master thief and coolest-guy-in-the-room Azad (Belmondo),along with two cohorts, swipes a load of emeralds from a rich guy's safe. 

             When their escape via ship is delayed, Azad and his gang find themselves in the cross-hairs of lethally corrupt cop Abel Zacharia (Sharif.), who's out to nail Azad and stuff his own pockets with the jewels. 

             The cat-and-mouse game between the cop 'n crook plays out all over town, including a wild, lengthy car chase that threatens to become its own separate movie, complete with laughs and thrills. The hair-raising stunts, of course, come from the master orchestrator of  such vehicular mayhem, Remy Junienne and driving team.

             The veteran French director Henri Verneuil moves all this along at an unhurried, relaxed pace. He gives Belmondo and Sharif some prime moments to wittily parry with each other in between the elaborate chases. (There's a great dinner scene where Zacharia subtly threatens Azad while treating him to a gourmet array of Greek delicacies.)

              Sharif's Zacharia affects smooth, affable charm, but you can tell he's someone to reckon with - especially in a tense scene where he takes potshots at one of Azad's gang while deliberately getting himself drunk to test his aim.

              The film also makes time for Azad to dally with an American beauty (Dyan Cannon, sporting her infectious laugh) and make a spectacular escape from Zacharia  by hanging from the side of a bus  And yessir, that's the fearless Belmondo himself performing those incredibly dangerous stunts. 

               There's even a bonus fight scene thrown in with nothing whatsoever to do with main plot - where Azad and some random young stud engage in an epic knockdown punchout. (Apparently the poor shmuck was hanging out with the girl to whom Azad functions as a big brother....)

               And for those of us lovers of international co-productions, the film adds what amounts to the perfect whipped cream topping for this layer cake......a pulsating, bouncy Ennio Morricone main title theme that you'll never get out of your head. 

                Come on, what more could you ask for? Belmondo, Sharif, Dyan Cannon, Morricone, car chases, jewel heists, big fights.....a loads of Greek food. For BQ, that's a 4 star recipe. (****).