Jane of Troy. Well, we’ve got to give it points for excess epicness. It can’t be easy to scare up a cast of thousands and get them all to walk in one direction at the same time. We’re talking planning maximus. Unfortunately, HELEN OF TROY comes off as all planning, no maximus. Sexyboy Paris of Troy (Jack Sernas) steals away … Read More
SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME
The Passion of the Goombah. If you can get past Paul Newman‘s insufferable “schoolyard Italian” SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME is… well, it’s still pretty mediocre. It’s a tribute to boxing legend Rocky Graziano, his street youth, his thug life, his Army AWOL, his boxing career under the name “Graziano” (real name Thomas Rocco Barbella), his insipid love life with … Read More
THE HAUNTING
Once Upon a Scary Spinster… If you can get past the theatrical acting and the melodrama and the distracting voiceover, THE HAUNTING is a reasonably good horror movie. Scary? In places. Silly? In more places. Still, this may be one of the first True Horror movies, utilizing the audience’s imagination to create its scares. From the novel by Shirley Jackson … Read More
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE
Attack of The Motionless Picture. I read Kirk’s book. Laden with anecdotes from the making of seven STAR TREK movies, William Shatner’s Star Trek Movie Memories (co-author, Chris Kenski), is – alas – light years more entertaining than the movies it describes. Shatner’s candor and dry wit propels Movie Memories like the warp drive on his vaunted Enterprise chariot. Alas, … Read More
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
The Film that Moved the Earth. In 1951, in the shadow of the Cold War, in the grip of McCarthyism, as America slid into the Atomic Age, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL was just another stanky B-Movie science fiction thriller with a sanctimonious message of the human race on the edge of doom. Somehow, it rose above the engine … Read More