The Brasher Doubloon (1947)

"A coin. A rare gold coin called the Brasher Doubloon.", 21 September 2018

The Brasher Doubloon plays a lot like a cross between another Marlowe adventure, The Big Sleep, and The Maltese Falcon.  It’s nowhere near as good as either of these movies, but the similarities are unmistakable. My pithy plot summary goes something like this:  Philip Marlowe (George Montgomery) is hired by an eccentric old woman to find a missing coin known as the Brasher Doubloon. Marlowe’s client is less than forthcoming and he doesn’t have a lot to go on.  Between the old woman, her mysterious secretary, her spoiled son, and the dead bodies that start piling up as he investigates, Marlowe’s got a lot to figure out.

As should be obvious from my rating (6/10), I enjoyed The Brasher Doubloon.  However, I’m going to spend the rest of my ramblings discussing a couple of things that I didn’t like about the film.  First, George Montgomery makes for a pretty poor Marlowe. He’s not as tough talking or acting as he should be. He’s also got something of a slight build to him that doesn’t work.  He’s so . . . well, he’s so blah that it’s hard to take him serious. In short, he’s no Humphrey Bogart.

Second, The Brasher Doubloon feels terribly rushed.  The runtime of less than 75 minutes really hurts the film.  The plot never has enough time to live and breath. There’s not enough time for interesting plot developments or red herrings that go nowhere.  Take The Big Sleep as a comparison. The Big Sleep takes its sweet time with twists and turns that create a more interesting world for the mystery to unfold.  It’s much more than A leads to B which leads to C - wrap it up, mystery solved. Heck, Marlowe finds the coin before the movie’s half over. It took Sam Spade a lot longer than 75 minutes to get his hands on the black bird.

I guess that what I’m trying to say is that given more time and a better lead, The Brasher Doubloon could have been a real winner.  The rest of the elements are in place - an above average director in John Brahm, a nice supporting cast, solid cinematography, and interesting writing.  Overall, a good film, but a wasted opportunity.

6/10

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994)

"Somebody kill me, please!",  20 September 2018

After prom, four friends end up lost in the middle of nowhere Texas.  They crash their car and are forced to set off on foot to look for help.  Unfortunately for our heroes, they’re stranded in the wrong place. They’ll spend the night fighting for their lives against a crazed family of killers.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (TCM:TNG) is another of those movies that I really, really want to like (I’ve got something of a man-crush on Matthew McConaughey).  Until last night, I hadn’t seen the movie in at least 10 years. I sat down hoping I was wrong and it would work this time. If anything, TCM:TNG is worse than I remembered.

There are scores of problems I could write about, but the main one is the film’s plot - or more precisely, the lack of a plot.  There’s really not much here that resembles a coherent story. It’s a mish-mash of recycled ideas, attempts at humor, story elements involving a secret governmental-whatever that come out of nowhere, and generally poor filmmaking.  Add it all up and it’s one big disaster. It’s amazing to sit and watch a film with the words Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the title and not find one scary or suspenseful moment. Take McConaughey’s introduction as Vilmer as an example.  The movie sees fit to leave the viewer in suspense about Vilmer’s intentions for no more than 10 seconds before he’s revealed to be a bad guy. Why not let the character be something of a mystery for a while so that when he makes his murderous tendencies known, it’s a surprise?  But no, that might have made for an interesting plot twist and you can’t have anything like that in TCM:TNG.

A well deserved 3/10 from me.  

3/10

Jason X (2001)

"Oh, this sucks on so many levels!", 19 September 2018

I’ll start this with my extremely short plot summary (not that it matters much):  400 years in the future, Jason finds himself aboard a spacecraft where he (surprise, surprise) starts butchering everyone in sight.

Until last night, the only other time I’d seen Jason X was about 15 years ago.  I hated it. For reasons I cannot explain, I decided to give it another go to see if my opinion had changed any at all.  The short answer is: No - I still hate it. I’m a huge fan of the Friday the 13th series, but I cannot stomach Jason X. You might think that by taking Jason into space, you’d come up with some new, original ideas.  Well, you’d be wrong. There’s very little new in Jason X that we haven’t seen before. The lack of imagination is staggering. And the few things that are new (like Uber Jason) are so ridiculous, it’s insulting. Stupid characters played by bad actors, bottom-of-the-barrel special effects, a complete lack of tension or suspense - it’s all so bad that my 2/10 rating feels generous.

A few very random thoughts:
- Are there any lights on this spaceship?  Why would you go looking for a hulking killer in the dark?  

- Who could have imagined that female scientists in the future would dress like today’s highschool girls?  And who knew that scientists in 2455 would act just like over-sexed 1980s-era teenagers?
- The “space marines” are beyond useless.  Here’s an idea - why not split up while searching for Jason?  It makes it easier for him to kill you one at a time.
- Like a lot of other people, I did enjoy the Holodeck scene.  It’s the only clever thing in the whole movie.
- Finally, I’m just guessing, but I can only assume the Jason X screenwriters watched Aliens and Terminator one too many times.

2/10

Wicked Woman (1953)

A trashy, good time, 18 September 2018

Wicked Woman doesn’t waste any time getting started.  Billie Nash (Beverly Michaels) blows into town, finds a room to rent, meets her creepy neighbor, takes a job serving drinks in a bar, and sets her sights on Matt Bannister (Richard Egan), the bar’s owner and her key to money and Mexico.  That’s the basic set-up - the rest is a trashy, good time.

Wicked Woman is a perfect example of making an entertaining film with no money.  Everything looks cheap, but it hardly matters. In fact, the cheap look only adds to the overall tone and tawdry feeling.  Director Russell Rouse and screenwriter Clarence Greene really get a lot of the $1.95 budget they had to work with. Beverly Michaels is a revelation.  Her Billie, with that super slo-mo sashay, is perfect as the titular Wicked Woman. She oozes cheap sensuality. And, you’d have little difficulty believing she’d easily do away with Bannister’s wife if it meant she gets what she wants.  The rest of the cast is just as good with Egan, Percy Helton, and Evelyn Scott all giving nice performances.

My biggest complaint with Wicked Woman is the film’s ending.  I really wanted to see everything blow-up spectacularly in Billie’s face.  Billie never really gets what she deserves. And the way Bannister’s wife so easily forgives him doesn’t ring true.  Bannister should also have suffered more. Still, these are minor quibbles. In the end, Wicked Woman is a rock solid little trashy B-noir that I easily recommend.

7/10

The Avengers (1998)

"I often think of 6 impossible things before breakfast." 14 September 2018

Disclaimer:  I’m a HUGE fan of the original The Avengers television series (well, at least the Emma Peel era).  It’s brilliant. With great anticipation, I went to see this film in the theater back in 1998. It had a lot to live up to, but I tried to be fair with my assessment.  Unfortunately, the movie failed on almost every level. I rewatched The Avengers last night for the first time in 20 years. I wondered if time had been any kinder to the film.

The short answer is no - The Avengers is still (and will always be) a steaming pile of dung.  The movie is a bloated, boring, and often confusing mess. There are so many problems I have with this one that I could quite literally write pages.  However, for brevity’s sake, I’ll limit my discussion to two of the most obvious issues:

1. The relationship between Steel and Mrs Peel was one of the main things that always made The Avengers special.  It was the soul of the entire series. In the movie, it never works. To begin with, Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman have nothing that resembles real chemistry.  They never click and it all feels forced. The relationship in the original was always flirtatious, but never went much further than a knowing look. Having Steed and Mrs Peel engage in a real relationship as pictured here destroys all the mystery.

2. The plot is a complete disaster.  You can read about how the movie originally ran much longer but was gutted after comments form test audiences.  The resulting mess is full of plot holes, events with no explanation, and an apparent lack of logic. Not that I think these missing minutes would have helped that much, however.  If you put the cut footage back in, you’d probably only add to the films utter dullness. I was bored to tears.

I could go on about the acting, the ridiculous special effects, the poor editing, the invisible Patrick Macnee, or the fact that so much of the movie feels random simply for the sake of being random.  But really, why bother? With a movie this bad, the time I’ve already spent on The Avengers is more than it deserves. While I rate the original series a 9/10, I’m being generous with the 2/10 I’m giving the movie.  

2/10

The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971)

"Uh, my neck hurts.", 13 September 2018

Attach the head of a deranged psycho-killer to the body of a hulking man-child - what could go wrong?  Well, in the case of The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, the answer is just about everything.

Before I sat down with The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant last night, if you had asked me, I would have sworn I’d seen it before.  Easy mistake as I’ve watched the movie The Thing with Two Heads a couple of times and the similarities are numerous. Both feature a similar ridiculous plot device, bad “special” effects, AIP, generally poor acting, and a name actor or two slumming it.  I think my confusion is understandable. And while neither is very good, I remember enjoying The Thing with Two Heads much more than The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant. I remember having a certain amount of fun with the former, while the latter is a joyless, mean-spirited exercise in filmmaking.  Take the treatment of Pat Priest’s character. She spends most of the film drugged, gagged, and locked in a cage. NIce, huh? What could and should have been a cheesy good time never so much as brought a smile to my face. Overall, it’s a wretched experience.

The lone bright spot is Bruce Dern.  Despite the dreck around him, he’s pretty good.  Admittedly, there a times where his professionalism is misplaced, but you can see the quality.  Take the scene where Dern is internally debating the ethics of the surgery he’s about to perform.  The consternation he’s experiencing comes through on-screen. Like I said, it’s misplaced, but it’s there.  

2/10

Subterfuge (1968)

Joan Collins is easily the best thing Subterfuge has going for it., 12 September 2018

Very briefly, Subterfuge’s plot goes something like this:  U.S. spy MIchael Donovan (Gene Barry) is enlisted by his British counterparts to ferret out a mole hiding in their midst.  Donovan decides to use the marital difficulties facing one of his suspects to his advantage. Donovan cosies up to Anne Langley (Joan Collins) to gain information on his target.  As you might have guessed, things get complicated when Donovan ends up falling for Anne

Subterfuge should have worked on me.  It’s got a lot of what I normally enjoy:  spy shenanigans, interesting locations, kidnappings, double-agents, double crosses, chase scenes, fight scenes, and Joan Collins.  The problem is that the movie doesn’t have much of a plot - at least one that’s interesting. Subterfuge is deathly dull. I’ll admit that the last act does get a bit interesting, but by that point, I was really struggling to stay awake.  The baddies are boring, the plot is confusing, and Gene Barry isn’t very exciting. That’s not much of a recipe for success. Joan Collins is easily the best thing Subterfuge has going for it. She shines in every instance she appears on-screen.  Unfortunately, though, she’s stuck with Barry. Their relationship and chemistry is as lacking as the plot. Overall, there’s not much here to recommend. A generous 4/10 from me.

4/10