1970’s

[4] In this Sinbad adventure, the famed sailor is trying to wed a princess (imagine that), but can’t get her brother’s blessing until he reverses an evil spell that turned the brother into a baboon. The story isn’t much, but at least it throws in several new Ray Harryhausen stop-motion creations, including a saber-toothed tiger, a giant walrus, and some banshees. I enjoyed disparate parts …

[5] Robert Shaw and Edward Fox reprise the roles originated by Gregory Peck and David Niven in The Guns of Navarone for this matinee adventure sequel. Shaw and Fox are led by Harrison Ford as a U.S. Colonel and joined by Carl Weathers (Rocky) as an arrested army sergeant on the run. Together, the team must complete two separate, secret missions — to kill a …

[8] Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke’s romantic but combative relationship fuels this road-trip action/adventure also directed by Eastwood. He’s a cop trying to transfer her from one jail to another, but both the mob and the cops want her dead, and no one cares if he dies with her.  The movie’s climax pits the two of them against the world, as Eastwood drives an iron-plated …

[6] I don’t normally like bad movies. I don’t usually subscribe to the “so bad, it’s good” mentality. Bad is just bad. But there are rare exceptions and Airport 1975 is one them. First of all, the Airport franchise is ridiculous. I mean, they made four of these things, and it’s the same story every time: a plane full of celebrities falls into jeopardy and …

[4] Alan J. Pakula (Sophie’s Choice, The Pelican Brief) directs the big-screen story of how Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein cracked the Watergate scandal that lead to President Nixon’s resignation. I love Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman enough to get through any movie, but this is not a cinematic story. Every other scene is a phone conversation. And the nature of Woodward …

[8] Director Sidney Lumet showcases a true story ripped from the headlines, about two amateur bank robbers who started a media sensation that exploded further when the public learned of their unusual circumstances. Al Pacino stars as the master-mind of the heist plan that goes to hell and Charles Durning costars as the police captain who tries to manage the 24-hour siege. What’s most remarkable …

[6] Mel Brooks sends up Alfred Hitchcock in High Anxiety, a spoof centered around a psychiatrist who uncovers shenanigans at ‘The Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, VERY Nervous’.  Brooks plays the shrink, a man who must cope with his own ‘high anxiety’ while getting to the bottom of a murder mystery before the Institute’s nefarious head nurse and former administrator order him killed! Cloris Leachman …

[5] Three charlatan filmmakers try to save a studio from corporate takeover by uniting all of Hollywood’s biggest stars into one big movie — a silent one! And the title of this Mel Brooks yuk fest isn’t an empty boast — Silent Movie is indeed devoid of dialogue, though not without plenty of whacky sound effects and an energetic score by John Morris. At first, …

[5] A light, fluffy, inconsequential comedy about a man who dies and is given the opportunity to return to life in another man’s body. The movie works best during it’s ‘fish out of water’ scenes, where Warren Beatty interacts with the people in his affluent host-body’s life, including some charming house servants, a duplicitous wife, and her murderous lover. For all the Oscar attention this …

[6] An Englishman finds himself prisoner on an island where a mad doctor is mixing human and animal DNA. The fine line between what is human and what is animal is one of my favorite subjects, so I love the original novella by H.G. Wells, and I enjoy all the film versions of the story — including the 1933’s Island of Lost Souls and 1996’s …

1 11 12 13 14 15 17