[3] In this TV movie from producer Irwin Allen (The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno), several inhabitants of a small fishing town debate whether or not their dam is about to break after several weeks of rain. The mayor refuses to believe the town is in danger until the flood waters are upon them. In typical Irwin Allen fashion, we get an all-star (B-level, since …
[7] Maybe I crave Bigfoot movies and the innocence of the 1970s so much that I give half-way decent ‘Squatch flicks more credit than I should, but I was impressed with Creature from Black Lake, a low-budget film with production values that exceeded my expectations. John David Carson and Dennis Fimple star as a pair of Chicago college students traveling to rural Arkansas to investigate …
[6] This faux-documentary about seven men who travel deep into the Pacific Northwest to find Bigfoot was one of the first movies I ever saw. So nostalgia no doubt colors my opinion of it. But re-watching it recently, I can honestly say it’s not without its merits — especially as a product of its time. Unlike the later Blair Witch Project, Sasquatch The Legend of …
[6] Sam Elliott plays an L.A. beach lifeguard who begins to question, at the age of thirty-two, if it might finally be time to put on a shirt and get a ‘real’ job. There’s no question that Sam Elliott has charisma and can carry a movie, and that’s probably the only reason this flick has had any shelf life at all. Lifeguard is decidedly a …
[6] After the world saw its first bona-fide blockbuster, 1975’s Jaws, daring Italian movie mogul Dino De Laurentiis decided he needed to go down in history for producing the second one. He settled on a remake of 1933’s King Kong and hired John Guillerman (The Towering Inferno) to direct. The screenplay is faithful to the original film in its broad strokes: A boat seeks passage …
[7] The Pom Pom Girls stands out from the grindhouse pack for me. The title is actually a misnomer, as there are precious few moments with any cheerleaders. The movie is really about two high-school boys and their girlfriends making love, participating in pranks, and enjoying the last year of their lives together before graduation. The only thing driving a conventional plot is a big …
[8] Jack Weston stars in this gay-themed screwball comedy based on a stage play by Terrence McNally (Love! Valour! Compassion!). Weston plays a frumpy, middle-aged man hiding out in a New York bath house from a brother (Jerry Stiller) who plans to kill him so he won’t inherit the family business. At the bath house, Weston meets a handful of bizarre characters who end up …
[5] With a script by Neil Simon and an incredible all-star cast, I expected more from this spoof of murder mysteries. Most of the ensemble are confined to playing the same note throughout the film, including Peter Sellers as a simile-spewing Charlie Chan and Alec Guinness as the blind butler. The squeaky-clean humor is in dire need of some double-entrendres or naughty subtext. Still, it’s kinda …
[6] Robert Altman uses the circus-like atmosphere of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show for a commentary on racism and the whitewashing of American history. It’s actually a pretty light-hearted film built around Buffalo Bill’s contentious relationship with Sitting Bull. Paul Newman is reliably good as the exasperated Bill, pushed to his wits’ end by a stubborn but commercially valuable Indian who quietly challenges his authority …
[7] The skeleton crew of an isolated police precinct battle a vengeful street gang that lay siege to the building. John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) writes and directs this simple, straight-forward, solidly executed action/thriller, imbuing it with his love of westerns. Carpenter creates likable characters here, particularly in the stalwart police lieutenant (Austin Stoker) and the wise-cracking prisoner (Darwin Joston), the latter of which is …
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