No.214 : Walk the Dark Street (1956)

Walk the Dark Street at the IMDb

It is important that cinema history is preserved and fine sites like Open Culture are a great resource for making available films that have fallen into the public domain. That said, for every film worth saving there are plenty best forgotten about and ‘Walk the Dark Street’ certainly falls into the latter category.

The film opens with a man walking down a dark street - can fault him for not following the title! But wait!, it’s not actually dark as he’s casting a long shadow - what a swizz. The man is nervous and throws himself to the ground when a car tyre bursts. Given he’s now lying down he takes the opportunity to go into flashback mode via the classic ‘wobbly picture’ process.

He’s now in Korea fighting in the war. He’ll be OK though as all the guns and explosion are all from stock footage. He and a few men are in a fox hole and given there have been no Koreans cast they take the time to have a bitch session. Our man, Dan, has been given a battlefield promotion to Lieutenant and this has pissed off the other candidate, Tommy, who writes to his brother to say that if he dies it will be Dan’s fault. In the very next scene Tommy is indeed killed when his runs into machine gun fire - that’ll teach them to be mean with the promotions!

Back in present day Los Angeles the now demobbed Dan pays a visit on Frank who is Tommy’s brother and recipient of the poisonous letter. He acts all friendly with Dan and even treats him and us to five minutes of stock footage of animals in Africa. He explains that he is a passionate hunter but heart trouble has curtailed his animal killing.

He has a plan though! He has invented a gun that takes photos rather than firing bullets and he proposes that he and Dan hunt each other through the streets of LA and the one who confirms a ‘kill’ by way of a photograph wins the bet. Dan is a bit hesitant but when get gets 10/1 odds on a thousand dollar bet he sees a way to clear his own bills that stem from his burnt out sports shop.

They agree to start the hunt the next day but once Dan has left Frank puts a real bullet in his gun. I don’t know why he didn't just shoot him in the house if he plans to murder him anyway, especially as he has heart trouble , but I guess there’s still 45 minutes to fill.

The hunt gets under way with Frank showing all his jungle cunning by phoning round the local hotels to see where his quarry is staying. Dan meanwhile gets hit on by a waitress whom he turns down and then by a nightclub floozy whom he goes home with. Go Dan! After a small kiss the woman reveals herself to be the dead brother’s fiancée and she knows all about the plan. She doesn't like Frank as he’s a mentalist but we’d all guessed that for ourselves.

As the two men get closer a low rent denouement awaits but I just hope there wasn't a mix up at the rain coat and bullet shop!

This was certainly a ‘B’ feature and looked more like a strung out TV episode than a feature film.

The cast of half a dozen were all pretty poor with the only recognisable face being that of Chuck Connors who played Frank. He didn't convince as the unhinged, vengeance hungry brother whose heart condition appeared to only manifest itself when he thought about hunting - running about the streets was fine!

Our hero Dan was played by Don Ross who got an ‘introducing’ credit in what was a pretty big role. Alas he didn't have anything in the way of star quality and a career of bit parts and TV work were all that followed.

There wasn't really any tension involved as the pair meandered about LA and given the only bullets fired where from the stock footage you can understand why it wasn't exactly a thrill fest.

I did enjoy the slutty women trying to woo our tightly buttoned hero but apart from the curiosity value there’s no reason to shine a light over this rightly forgotten yarn.

Best Bit : Come back to my place!

‘W’ Score 8/23

No.213 : Weekender (2011)

Weekender at the IMDb

Bangin’ man - let’s have a look at this modern classic and see if it earns the whole one star that Netflix viewers have deemed it worthy of.

It’s the early 90’s and the kids are being hassled by the man. Their dreadful music can only be found on pirate radio and they have to dance in warehouses. Now I was about in the 90’s and I can clearly remember fully equipped discothèques being available and Bruno Brookes doing the Top 40 on Radio 1.

Anyway, our hero Matt thinks he can do better and with the help of his simpleton friend they track down the pirate DJ and set up their own rave in an abandoned warehouse. It is an unqualified success and Matt decides to quit when he’s ahead until he discovers all the takings are counterfeit cash. He then decides to do it again and again - can’t fault logic like that!

They start to feel the heat after those killjoys in parliament speak out against the illegal raves due to all the drugs and safety concerns - the fools! The ‘Dibble’ (the police) show up and are somehow sent away when told the rave is a private party albeit one with a voluntary entrance fee. ‘I'll be back’ says the copper before never being seen again.

With the police concerns dealt with the guys then hook up with a nice promoter from London who teams up with them for some ‘super raves’. Alas they also meet the baddies who want to take their cash and take over their raves - the swine - this is our lawbreaking activity!

As the pressure mounts schisms start to appear in the group over who had sex with who and whether it’s worth the bother any more. As the bad guys turn the screws the scene is set for some limp action in Amsterdam to see which unworthy scroat makes it out alive.

This is a really dreadful offering with nothing to recommend it apart from the ironic finger pointing at how really terrible it is. To start with you have no characters worthy of the name. They are a bunch of scuzzy drug dealers led by Donovan off ‘The Inbetweeners’ and you have no empathy for them at all. I think you are meant to see them as hero pioneers but they just come across as a bunch of dope head scofflaws.

The era is hardly evoked in the memory with an ‘Italia 90’ t-shirt the only nod towards a period setting. They also show up how insignificant the whole enterprise is when the spinning newspapers (a new innovation!) are clearly mock ups rather than the real headlines which, in truth, probably didn't exist anyway.

The short running time is padded with a few long scenes of punters dancing away and I suspect one would need a truckload of ecstasy to be drawn into these mood setting rave-ups.

The acting is uniformly awful with a lot of ‘Did you shag my bird’ exchanges cringe worthy to the extreme. The guy playing Matt seemed genuinely dense so if this was acting kudos to you sir!

Over the piece I think a morality tale was the ambition with perhaps a side of nostalgia and bravado thrown in for good measure. What was realised was a bunch of tits in shell suits jumping about and playing at being gangsters. Risible rubbish!

‘W’ Rating 5/23

Best Bit - I suppose the poolside scenes in Ibiza win by a couple of points.

No.212 : When in Rome (2010)

When in Rome at the IMDb

I’d never heard of this 2010 rom-com until it appeared on Netflix, which was a surprise given its stellar cast and the fact that I’m a sucker for formulaic rubbish like this.

The flat faced Kristen Bell stars as Beth, a museum curator who has been unlucky in love. Her more impulsive sister, played by the naked one off ‘Broken Flowers’, plans to get married in Rome after a two week romance with an Italian. This is something of an issue as Beth has a big exhibition planned but after promising her bitch boss ( a show me the cheque Anjelica Huston) that things will go smoothly, she jets off.

The wedding is a great success with the stapes of the mistranslations, comedy vicar and cultural misunderstandings all present and correct. Beth, in a dress that writes cheques her chest can’t cash, meets the lovely Nick (Josh Duhamel - remember him from ‘Win a Date with Tad Hamilton’ - No.205? ) and it seems far too predictable that the two will hook up at the end. Better put some flimsy obstacles in the way then!

With love still being resisted a drunken Beth wanders into a handy fountain that promises love to anyone who leaves a coin there and pockets a fistful of change. When I do this it’s stealing but for Beth it’s to stop people being hurt by love. Tell that to the judge. She pulls out four coins and a poker chip and immediately through some lightning flashes the five depositors immediately fall in love with Kristen.

Fortunately four out of the five appear to be American tourists so it makes it a bit simpler when the action moves back to New York. Obviously there is a bit of vagueness about the exact owners of the coins so we don’t know what is real love and what is fountain induced love.

Once back to her life Beth discovers that she’s suddenly very popular. It may be her tight running gear, but soon she has five blokes all battling for her attention. The most annoying of these is GOB off ‘Arrested Development’ who is a cheesy Italian artist with a secret - he does have a decent line in murals though. She also has Napoleon Dynamite (still with Pablo!) as a street magician and Danny DeVito as a sausage magnet who looks like he’s eaten his whole stock. Filling to roster is Dax Shepard whom we know from ‘Employee of the Month’ and ‘Idiocracy’ as a self loving athlete whom she ends up marrying in real life - lovely.

The fifth coin is a poker chip which comes from Nick and although Beth has feelings for him she can’t act as it would be immoral to use the fountain’s magic to trap him - or could it be true love?

This was a very by the numbers rom-com but it was enjoyable with lots of attractive people clearly having a good time in Rome and New York. The plot was ridiculous but everyone just got on with it and didn’t try to have the lead sectioned as she babbled on about magic fountains.

The four guys pursuing Kristen clearly didn’t have a chance but it all worked out well with a bit of redemption doled out for each. It wasn’t laugh out loud funny but there were a couple of smirks, not least when people like Don Johnson showed up for a couple of scenes and no doubt a nice holiday in Rome.

The pace was kept to a good tempo and although everything was telegraphed from the start there were a couple of well managed obstacles put in love’s path to ensure the 90 minutes run time was padded out.

Of course this was never going to be a classic but as a throwaway piece of fluff it was a good effort and an enjoyable guilty pleasure.

Best Bit : Always a sucker for a bad translation subtitles gag.
‘W’ Score 14/23

No.211 : Will Penny (1967)

Will Penny at the IMDb

According to IMDb ‘Will Penny’ is Charlton Heston’s favourite of his own movies. He must have forgotten about ‘The Omega Man’ and ‘Soylent Green’ when he said that! Still it is a great picture with lots of the components one always needs in a truly enjoyable western.

Despite only being 45 when the film was made Heston plays an ageing cowboy who is nearing the end of his usefulness in the old west. I suppose 45 was probably a good age back then but sitting here aged 44 I feel he had plenty left on the clock despite being regarded as the old timer.

Anyway, we join Charlton and the cow pokes at the end of a cattle drive. They get paid off by their boss and discuss what their options are. Chuck isn’t seen as a viable candidate for the next drive and instead he heads off with The Six Million Dollar Man and Mathias whom he would later cross swords with in ‘The Omega Man’.

After a brief scene reminiscent of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ where Steve Austin and Mathias emerge from beneath a blanket in their long johns there is a stand off with a gang of brigands who try to claim an elk they shot is rightfully theirs - the bastards! A brief shoot-out sees a bad guy killed and Mathias gut shot but we haven’t seen the last of them - well they do have Donald Pleasance and Bruce Dern in their number, and they aren't getting paid for one scene!

Charlton and his pals make it to a remote outpost where the greedy owner tries to sell them a coffin while Mathias is still hanging on - still at least there is some tightly buttoned lady action on show! The lads soon go their own ways with Chuck taking on a job that involves him occupying a remote cabin up in the hills. When he arrives he finds the cabin occupied by squatters in the shape of a gun toting woman and her snot nosed boy.

Chuck gives them a few days to move out but while he’s camping out in the wilds he gets bushwhacked by Pleasance’s gang. Using bad guy logic they leave him to die in the wilderness rather than kill him on the spot, leaving him able to return injured to the cabin in his fetching long johns. He’s nursed back to health by the thawing widow, who despite saying they aren't friends, will clearly end up in the great man’s arms.

As romance blossoms the viewer is left to wonder when the bad guys will show up again and at what cost.

This was two thirds of a great film with the middle section letting the side down. It was fair enough to have the stoic range man find a bit of happiness but the scene with him making house ran too long, so it was a merciful release when the bad guys showed up again and chucked the Christmas tree on the fire.

Heston does well as the jaded cowpoke who finds it hard to let others into his life and he handles the brief action scenes well. Joan Hackett is fine as the love interest who is maybe a bit too keen to get Heston into the bath to support her hard-bitten exterior.

The bad guys were well cast but underused - Bruce Dern hardly had a line. Their undoing was also somewhat pat with them at first fighting over the plain widow before reinforcing the stereotype that bad guys can’t shoot for toffee.

The settings were great and the costumes and characters certainly evoked a grubbier Old West than perhaps we are used to. At about 100 minutes this is a good slice of western life with maybe not enough substance to have it live long in the memory.


Best Bit : Visitors at Christmas!

'W' Score 15/23

No.210 : Welcome to Me (2014)

Welcome to Me at the IMDb

You now what they should make more films about? Yes, you guessed it - women’s issues - and if I was being greedy I’d go specifically for women with mental health issues - how can that fail to be interesting and uplifting?

To be fair, ‘Welcome to Me’ wasn’t half bad but I was a bit ‘Give it a rest Love’ long before the end.

Kristen Wiig plays the main character, Alice, who is a bit of a misfit who spends her days watching old VHS tapes of ‘Oprah’, mouthing along to the self help message bestowed in each. The rest of her day is taken up with buying her lottery ticket (remember that!) and seeing her patronising psychiatrist Daryl played, in his douche bag mode, by Tim Robbins.

We learn that Alice hasn't been taking her medication and has become estranged from her family and society in general. As unlikely plotting would have it things quickly change when she wins over $80 million on the lottery. Using her un-medicated wisdom she moves into an Indian casino with her friend and starts to watch the infomercials on TV. After visiting the set of one Alice decides to spend her fortune on making her own TV talk show with the help of Cyclops out of the X-men and his hairy brother whom she starts banging for good measure.

Alice’s show ‘Welcome to Me’ looks exceedingly dull and self absorbed but after a predictable montage it becomes an unlikely hit with the clichés of mounting Youtube hits and ‘going viral’ rolled out to suggest the show is hitting a nerve with the public - hey maybe we’re all a bit weird and are outsiders too!

With success within her grasp can Alice continue with her venture as the money starts to run out and will resuming her medication be a good idea?

I quite enjoyed this film but given the cast available I felt it fell short of my expectations. Wiig is convincing as the oddball Alice but I was never endeared to her character or her innocent outpourings of wisdom. I think we were meant to see a universal truth in what she rattled on about but I just found it all a bit tiresome.

There were some good touches like having actors act out scenes from her life on her show but others,  like a week of having animals castrated, seemed weak and unlikely to endear her to the public as was being suggested.

The cast who included the underused Joan Cusack and Jennifer Jason Leigh had little to do as Wiig took centre stage and let no one else have a look in. Still it was a brave performance and by that I mean she takes all her clothes off.

For me there weren't enough laughs to class this as a comedy and as a commentary on mental health and social inclusion it didn't convince. It’s not a complete waste of time, but like Alice’s own show it was too unfocused and half baked to be truly satisfying.


14/23 Best Bit : Where is this casino?

No.209 : Wild Tales (2014)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3011894/

Sometimes in life one’s pointless endeavours collide, as has happened here when my desire, nay need, to keep up to date with all the films on the IMDb Top 250 list produced an unseen ‘W’ film. To be honest it’s actually a ‘R’ film  as the title is ‘Relatos Salvages’ but given my meagre readership can barely understand English, never mind Spanish, I’ll go with the translation ‘Wild Tales’ as that’s what’s on the poster.

The film is from Argentina, a country you may feel is better suited to steaks and invading, but to be fair this is pretty good and was that country’s Foreign Film entry to the 2015 Oscars - didn’t win though!

Six standalone vignettes, or stories to you, make up the film and each focuses on an element of extreme behaviour, with things normally starting out in a sedate manner, before flying wildly off the tracks. You sometimes see films like ‘Happiness’ use the multiple strand format and then intertwine the stories so that the man in story one is a patient of the doctor in story three and the plumber in story two cleans the septic tank of the woman in story four, but not here. Each story stands alone with a separate cast and is about twenty minutes long, which is helpful if you need to frequently visit the toilet or fridge.

The first story concerns two passengers on a flight who, after a brief conversation, discover they have a person in common. Another passenger pitches in that she knows him too before it is quickly established that everyone on the flight has crossed paths with this one mysterious figure. Is it a cosmic coincidence or are more sinister forces in play? It’s the second one! This story only lasts a few minutes and is played out before the titles, ably setting the tone for what is to follow.

Next up a waitress encounters a rude customer whom she recognises as the man who drove her father to suicide. The female chef encourages her to lace his dinner with rat poison arguing that his death will be attributed to the food rather than poison - clearly  not a restaurant to seek out! Things are complicated when the man’s son appears and starts helping himself to the chips - is the food poisoned? and can this end well?

A familiar opening next as a driver is held up on the road by a slow moving banger. Given it's the middle of nowhere the driver giving the finger on passing can’t be a good idea and so it proves when he gets a flat and his tormentor pulls up behind. An escalating game then plays out with a nice line in being dumped upon taking centre stage. Once again things start to spiral towards an inevitable but satisfying conclusion.

By now you have an idea where the film’s mindset is and when the next character is introduced carrying out his day job as a demolition expert you know the parking attendants who blight his life would do well to leave him alone. Of course they don’t and although the pay off is the most predictable of the stories, it was well handled as was the fall out of his actions.

The penultimate story opens with a spoiled rich boy arriving home in Daddy’s bashed up car. We learn that he has hit and killed a pregnant woman and rather than leave him to take his medicine his father and his lawyer try to buy his way out of the crime by bribing the local prosecutor and by paying his handyman to take the rap. The seedy plan starts to unravel when everyone gets greedy and the wages of sin hold their usual pitfalls.

The last story is the longest and perhaps the weakest. At her wedding reception a bride discovers her husband’s infidelity and sets about evening the score by copping off with a chef and smashing up her rival. As the cake hits the deck can the marriage be pulled back from the brink?

As with any anthology some stories are stronger than others but this film does well to maintain a consistently high standard. The acting was excellent and I was willing on the often reprehensible characters. There were plenty of surprises and a few laugh out loud moments as well as plenty to ponder.

If foreign language films aren't usually your thing, give this a go. The stories are brief and demonstrate that the human foibles we possess are universal and if you don’t take to a set up or the characters there’s another story and cast just a few minutes away.

Best Bit - Incoming! 20/23

No.208 : World War Z (2013)

World War Z at the IMDb

 
Zombie films are just like the walking corpses they portray - no matter how many you put down plenty more spring up to mine the last few morsels of original concept from the genre.

‘World War Z’ isn’t anything original apart from it having Brad Pitt in the lead and a budget greater than all the Romeros put together.

Brad plays a family man who has retired from his covert military job. He’s on holiday in Glasgow, sorry Philadelphia, when all sorts of trouble kicks off. It’s not immediately apparent what’s happening and I quite liked the confusing reveal of events as that’s how it’d play if you were in that situation. Anyway Brad and family steal an RV and head away from the troubles only to find that the unrest is nationwide.

He gets called up by his former bosses to lead a taskforce to identify and cure the virus that has caused large sections of the population to turn into fast moving and homicidal zombies. He gets a young scientist to help as well as a team of gun totting marines. Alas it goes tits up early on when his genius falls at the first hurdle and none of the answers are found in the chaos that is now Korea.

Not to be disheartened Brad follows some thin leads to Israel where advance warning of the plague allowed them to build a big wall to keep the zombies out - that’ll work. With destruction in his wake Brad heads to Wales where he’s unlikely to cause any noticeable damage. Once there he and Malcolm Tucker try to find a cure that will save humanity.

I thought this was going to be a total turkey and only watched to see what the set dressed Glasgow would look like but it turned out to be half decent. Glasgow only figures in the first five minutes and it was a bit jarring to see George Square next to establishing shots of the Philadelphia skyline - I guess the audiences in Arkansas wouldn't be similarly disturbed though! The action was pretty good with the carnage in George Square only marginally worse than that on a regular Saturday night.

Brad’s family, who figure significantly in the first half hour, are quickly sidelined and that has to be a positive given he has a plain wife and two stage school kids. Once Brad starts trotting the globe the action hots up with the scenes in Jerusalem particularly impressive with the CGI zombies a million times better than those in ‘I am Legend’. It is quite lucky that Brad manages to survive several moments where all around him were killed, including a decent jumbo jet crash - still if I was paying him $20 million I’d look after him too!

The last scenes in the lab are somewhat drawn out and the solution seems a bit pat and ridiculous at the same time. Is the curse worse than the disease - very probably!

Over all the film did feel a bit padded and somewhat disjointed - the three acts were almost like snippets from separate films and although I know the source book was in a diary style it was somewhat uneven. Brad does his usual solid job but got little support from the rest of the cast who were relative unknowns. The zombies were good in the long shots but up close they didn’t seem to do a lot of damage - maybe the blood was toned down for a more favourable certificate? It’s certainly a film you won’t hate but it won’t be toppling the ‘28’ films from the top of the pile either - no matter how many zombies swarm over it.

Best Bit - Gonna Need a Bigger Wall   16/23