FILMS I JUST COULDN'T FINISH ROUND SIX

FILMS I JUST COULDN'T FINISH ROUND SIX. 

As noted previously, these are not reviews, per se, but notes on films that I watched or suffered through until I just gave up on them for one reason or another. Sometimes I skipped to different sections just to get a sense of what was going on or to see if the film became more entertaining. Not all of these pictures are necessarily bad, they just didn't hold my attention. If you see one on the list that you think deserves another look, let me know.

We're Rich Again (1934) deals with a once-wealthy family who are nearly bankrupt because of an upcoming wedding, with a process server camping outside the front door. I had high hopes for this allegedly screwball comedy but even the presence of Edna May Oliver and Billie Burke couldn't wring out any real laughs from this. Buster Crabbe spends most of his time in the swimming pool

The Hardy Boys in the Mystery of Ghost Farm (1957) was actually a serial that appeared on The Mickey Mouse Club. When I saw this on youtube I thought it was a real find, but I wasn't into it very long when I realized that this had little to do with the books I had loved, that the Hardy Boys (Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk) in the serial were borderline obnoxious, and the story was pretty silly and tedious. Although Frank and Joe Hardy already had girlfriends in the classic books, in this Frank has just discovered girls to Joe's dismay -- he just wants to solve mysteries.  If only!  

Edge of Fury (1958) concerns a psychopathic young man who gets involved in the lives of a woman and her two daughters at their beach domicile. This movie had its points of interests but it's one of those low-budget independent pictures that either grabs you or just turns out to be a waste of time. I gave it about forty minutes and gave up. 

Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules (1962) was actually an Italian peplum flick originally titled Maciste sontrol i mostri. Several of these dubbed flicks were turned into "Son of Hercules" features with a terrible pop tune playing over the credits. Our hero battles a silly-looking sea monster that has rolling eyes. Even I couldn't stand that much of this! 

The Caretaker (1963), also known as The Guest, is adapted from Harold Pinter's play by Pinter himself. I was impressed by the fine acting of Donald Pleasance and Robert Shaw during the first half hour, but then Alan Bates walked in and started stinking everything up with his obnoxious performance of an odious character (as he did in Butley). Pinter and Bates? I could abide no more! 

Five Golden Dragons (1967), produced by Harry Alan Towers, concerns an American (Bob Cummings) in Hong Kong who gets involved with the titular criminal cult. In his last film, Cummings -- still playing the aging epicene bumbling playboy like he did in Love That Bob! -- is completely out of place in a kind of dull euro-thriller that fails to hold the attention. The "dragons" are played by Chris Lee, George Raft, Dan Duryea, and Brian Dunlevy in unnecessary cameos that at least netted  them a trip to Hong Kong. Terrible! 

Leaving Las Vegas (1995). I had wanted to see this for years, but after about half an hour I was already bored with the lives of these pathetic losers. I don't like spending time with people like this in real life, so why should I spend over two hours with them in a movie? Yes, I know the film is acclaimed and Nicolas Cage won an Oscar, and I'm certainly not saying that it's bad, but with so many other choices to watch this just didn't grip my attention.  

Perry Mason: The Case of the Jealous Jokester (1995 telefilm). After Raymond Burr's death, the producers of the TV movies decided to continue the franchise with Hal Holbrook playing not Perry Mason, but a lawyer known as Wild Bill McKenzie who was a friend of Mason's. This is the second and last of two films featuring Holbrook. Burr's absence makes the entire enterprise seem pointless but while I did try to get into this, I found it tedious. 

Antlers (2021) starts out promisingly and has a classy look, but this story of odd doings in a mine and a strange creature that haunts a young boy is so slow-paced and has such little energy that after awhile I skipped to the finale and found it to be just more of the same in monster flick terms. Very disappointing, although there is some decent acting and slick cinematography. 

Death on the Nile (2022). Although I enjoyed Kenneth Branagh's remake of Murder on the Orient Express, I was less impressed with this rather plodding remake of Death on the Nile. Part of the problem, for me at least, is my familiarity with the storyline and the various twists created by Agatha Christie. But while the cinematography is first-rate I found this production to be somewhat listless. Once the main murder occurred, I knew what was coming and I wasn't sufficiently energized to see how Branagh would handle the very same events. Maybe there were differences in this version, I don't know and I just didn't care. For some reason the whole thing reminded me of a 1930's musical. The prologue relating how and why Poirot grew his famous mustache is unnecessary, to say the least.  

PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED

Kathleen Turner and Nicolas Cage

PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED  (1986). 

Director: Francis (Ford) Coppola. 

Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner) is separated from her husband, high school sweetheart Charlie (Nicolas Cage of Ghost Rider), due to his adultery. She has mixed emotions about going to her 25-year high school reunion, but her daughter, Beth (Helen Hunt), importunes her to attend. After being crowned queen, Peggy Sue passes out and wakes up a quarter century in the past. She has an adult mind in a teenager's body! Trying to figure out if she's dead or simply going crazy, she has to determine if she wants to make the same mistakes -- such as marrying Charlie -- that she made before. 

Nicolas Cage

The basic premise of Peggy Sue, while not especially original, is compelling. Unfortunately, what the screenwriters have come up with doesn't do nearly enough with the material. Peggy Sue boasts some fine acting -- Turner and Cage are especially good if imperfect -- Jordan Cronenweth's photography is first-rate, and whenever the film seems emotionally moving it's undoubtedly due to John Barry's evocative scoring. The movie is a typical Hollywood "concept" picture which does as little with the concept as it possibly can. What could have been an especially affecting sequence when Peggy Sue goes to see her long-dead grandparents is turned into a weird bit of nonsense involving the old man's lodge brothers. (We never learn if her parents were still alive 25 years later.) It's as if the movie was merely a sequence of bits thrown together in the hopes it will turn into a cohesive whole. By the ending, nothing is really resolved. Peggy Sue is right back where she started. The whole time travel business is handled too prosaically anyway. 

Barbara Harris

A disturbing aspect of the picture is that more than once Peggy Sue mentions how much she loves and misses her two children (we only see one). This begs the question: how can she not marry Charlie when it means her beloved children (at least one of them) will no  longer exist -- but this never seems to occur to her. The superficial script doesn't wrestle with metaphysical issues in any case. So we're left with some interesting casting: Barbara Harris [Family Plot] as Peggy Sue's mother; Leon Ames and Maureen O'Sullivan as her grandparents; Barry Miller as the high school geek who makes good; John Carradine as a lodge member; and Kevin J. O'Connor [Deep Rising] as the romantic, mysterious school poet. While Barry's score adds a lot to the movie, it is not as good as his work on Somewhere in Time or Out of Africa. 

Verdict: Well-acted and reasonably entertaining, this is still a perfect example of how Hollywood can screw up fantasy-type movies. **1/4. 

AGE OF CAGE

AGE OF CAGE: Four Decades of Hollywood Through One Singular Career. Keith Phipps. Henry Holt; 2022. 

Author Phipps makes it clear right from the beginning that this is not a biography of actor Nicolas Cage. Certainly there is plenty of material in both the man's career and occasionally chaotic private life to turn out a full bio, but instead Phipps has chosen to do a career study, describing the changes in Hollywood and the film industry over the years that impacted on Cage's career, and when he went with the flow or bucked the trends. Whatever you think of Cage -- nowadays many people see him as a name to avoid when it's listed in the cast -- he had some major successes, an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas, made some odd but forthright choices (such as the voice he affected in Peggy Sue Got Married), and is generally considered an intense and talented thespian who has given some very interesting performances. Cage's marriages, divorces, and tax and financial troubles are briefly mentioned, but not covered in detail, as the book focuses exclusively on the work. Phipps examines all of Cage's output, from major films to direct-to-video releases, and discusses which ones are worth your attention. Cage is the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, but he changed his name when charges of nepotism got too frenzied (the name change hardly worked). Cage is a big comic book fan who wanted to play Superman, but for multiple reasons it never happened. 

Verdict: Whether you're a fan of Cage or not, this is a breezy, entertaining and well-written look at the ups and downs of an interesting Hollywood career. ***. 

THE WICKER MAN (2006)

Nicolas Cage in a --what else? --  tense moment

THE WICKER MAN (2006).Writer/ director: Neil LaBute. Based on a screenplay by Anthony Shaffer.

A cop named Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) gets a letter from an ex-fiancee, Willow (Kate Beahan) who tells him that her daughter, Rowan, is missing. He travels to an island in Washington where Willow lives and where she has joined an odd matriarchal and religious society that has an upcoming celebration. The islanders try to convince Malus that the missing child doesn't exist, and even Willow acts strangely, finally confessing that Rowan is also Malus' daughter. Malus fears that the girl is to be used in a horrifying ritual, but on that point he may be slightly mistaken ... This remake of the 1974 British cult film The Wicker Man transplants the action to the U.S. and for some reason does away with all the free-spirited sexuality of the islanders, even as there are some hints that this is essentially a Sapphic society, giving the film a [perhaps unwarranted] homophobic cast-- at one point Cage punches out a stereotypically butch female tavern owner. Instead of Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle, we get Ellen Burstyn as Sister Summerisle, and instead of people breaking out into song we get a lot of bees buzzing about a hero who's allergic to them [but somehow survives]. This version of The Wicker Man may be intriguing (as well as confusing) to viewers who've never seen the original film, as the basic storyline is still absorbing. LaBute has cooked up a more modern-type post script for the film. Cage is not bad, but this is not a "great" performance a la Edward Woodward's in the original. Paul Sarossy's cinematography is a plus.

Verdict: The perfect film version of this story has yet to be made, but the original is better. **1/2.

GHOST RIDER

Nicolas Cage

GHOST RIDER (2007). Director/writer: Mark Steven Johnson.

"I feel much better now that I know I'm the devil's bounty hunter."

Stunt rider Johnny Blaze (Matt Long) makes a deal with a weird character who turns out to be Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) when he discovers that his father (Brett Cullen) is dying of cancer: his soul in exchange for his father's cure. The Devil does indeed make the elder Blaze healthy, but he still dies the next day -- after all the trickster only promised he'd cure him of his cancer, which he did. About twenty years go by and Johnny -- now played by a middle-aged Nicolas Cage -- discovers that he can transform into a character with a fiery skull riding on a sleek, high-concept motorcycle and is supposed to collect souls of evil men and send them to Satan. Trouble is, Mephistopheles' son Blackheart (Wes Bentley) is taking on dear old dad and wants Blaze to work for him, and he's got a posse of demons in long black coats and with lots of attitude to help him [although everyone's motivations seem kind of foggy.]

When Marvel's Ghost Rider comic book debuted in the 1970's Johnny was a confused twenty-something struggling with the cosmic concepts he was embroiled in and hating and conflicted by his night life as a demonic force of nature. Making the character much older doesn't make much sense -- why would Satan wait twenty years for one thing? --  especially as actor Matt Long [a "heart throb" who can also act] would have been perfect for the role, but, alas, he hasn't as bankable a name as Cage's. Cage seems to be stoned through much of the movie, and the audience may wish it was, because Ghost Rider -- despite some good effects  and design work -- is pretty much a bore with both script and direction lacking that certain veracity and elan. Eva Mendes is along for the ride as Johnny's supposed girlfriend, Roxanne. Fonda is okay as the devil, as is Wes Bentley as his son; Brett Cullen is fine as Johnny's father. Sam Elliott of Frogs fame shows up as a mystical "caretaker" and former Ghost Rider. Followed by a sequel that was even more disliked by the fans.

Verdict: A ride you need not take. *.