My Robert Mitchum film fest continues with this classic. There are some great, surreal visuals and Mitchum’s character is definitely memorable, but he is not as scary as the film wants him to be. He kinda comes across as a goof. It doesn’t help that he get a few stealth musical numbers in there.
Classic thriller that, for a film of that time, was surprising brutal in both its themes and some of the violence depicted on screen. It’s very strange how quickly the do-gooder hero of the film was willing to put his principals aside to protect his family. But, then again, Mitchum’s character was just so ruthlessly evil he’s almost a cartoon by the end.
I wanted to see what a post-Hong Kong Cynthia Rothrock movie would be like, and it’s pretty bad. Her talents are completely underutilized as most of the story is focused on the male lead played by Chad McQueen. David Carradine plays the main villain and he at least gives it all he’s got (which isn’t much). There is a genuine attempt at character development and story here but, unfortunately, this is supposed to be a karate movie and the fights are flat and un-energetic.
I was a victim of false advertising on this one. The Amazon backdrop to this clearly shows Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock back in form for a sequel to Yes, Madam! But this is a completely different story with different actors. The only through-line here is the lady cop who saves the day. There is still a healthy dose of over-the-top Hong Kong gunfights here but it doesn’t live up to Part IIand has some serious tonal issues.
A typical young-adult sci-fi tale from Heinlein. If there are deep themes here I missed them. This is mostly the story of a young man who, because he was born in spaceflight, is caught in the middle of an interplanetary war. Lots of , “Golly, aw shucks!” dialogue, but the plot moves along at a good pace.
Not as good as Knives Out but it’s fairly entertaining. I wasn’t a fan of the hyper-unrealistic setting and it, again, is not much of a mystery, but weird characters abound and there’s much more focus on Detective Blanc and his thinking.
I’ve finally gotten around to watching this and it’s pretty good. It’s a murder mystery where you know very early on who the real killer is, but then something is off. Detective Blanc is a decent character without the weird super-sleuth quirks of Monk or Perot. In fact, he comes off as a little bumbling at times. The mystery isn’t the real focus, it’s all the strange characters that surround the victim.
A perfectly serviceable Charlie Chan movie that’s less goofy than the last one I watched. There is a pretty neat seance sequence with some spooky visuals. Not much else to say.
Gordon Liu bamboozles two petty crooks into helping him track down the “housekeeper” who stole his family treasure. This housekeeper also happens to be a master of disguise and Kung-Fu expert. What follows is several loosely tied together capers that always result in the wrong target. Most of this is cringey attempts at comedy but there are a couple of fights that are reminiscent of Dirty Ho as they are played more for novelty than action.
This was a 1945 Charlie Chan movie whose plot revolves a bank and several mysterious deaths of bank employees. I don’t really understand why Charlie Chan was selected as the man for this case; something about a failed arrest of a Shanghai criminal. The plot and the solution to the mystery revolves around a video jukebox thing in which you talk to a live representative who can see the patron on a video screen. I highly doubt this was possible in 1945.
I never realized how much of Charlie Chan movies were actually played for comedy. Some of the humor comes from the obviously culturally insensitive stereotypes, but there is a lot of genuine slapstick gags and Number Three Son and Birmingham get an ample amount of important screen time (played by actual ethnic minorities!).
I don’t know the actor who is playing Charlie in this installment, but he is (of course) an elderly white man who talks in a not-really Chinese accent. It’s more of the Tonto, Tarzan and Frankenstein variety.
