Week of October 8 - 14, 2022

 

 

To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.

Brain Teasers:

Which American, who had been a "close friend" of a young Stanley Kubrick, directed a Western in Spain?

No one has answered this one yet.

Which Italian Western spoof starred Lando Buzzanca and Gloria Paul?

George Grimes, Angel Rivera and Bertrand van Wonterghem knew that it was PER QUALCHE DOLLARO IN MENO, aka FOR A FEW DOLLARS LESS.

Which Italian actor was once considered to play the lead in LE FATICHE DI ERCOLE and would go on to appear in six movies starring Steve Reeves?

George Grimes, Angel Rivera and Bertrand van Wonterghem knew that it was Mimmo Palmara.

And now for some new brain teasers:

Which Italian film director, best known for working on MONDO CANE, made one Western?

Which Italian actor appeared in Sword & Sandal films, Italian Westerns and an episode of The Andy Griffith Show?

Which Italian actor who appeared in Sword & Sandal films and Italian Westerns married and actress born in Indonesia and frequently appeared in movies with her?

Name the movies from which these images came.

George Grimes and Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's frame grab of Sydne Rome in VIVI O PREFERIBILMENTE MORTI, aka ALIVE OR PREFERABLY DEAD.

Above is a new photo.

Can you name from what movie it came?

George Grimes and Angel Rivera identified last week's frame grab of Christine Kaufmann in GLI ULTIMI GIORNI DI POMPEI, aka THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII.

Above is a new photo.

Can you name from what movie it came?

Angel Rivera identified last week's frame grab from MORGAN IL PIRATA, aka MORGAN THE PIRATE.

Above is a new photo.

Can you name from what movie it came?

George Grimes identified last week's frame grab from TWO CHAMPIONS OF SHAOLIN aka TWO CHAMPIONS OF DEATH.

Above is a new photo.

Can you name from what movie it came?

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I am interested in knowing what movies you have watched and what you enjoyed or not. So please send me an email at scinema@earthlink.net if you'd like to share. Here's what I watched last week:

Enjoyed:

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 (2017)

SPIDER-MAN HOMECOMING (2017)

SHOWA ZANKYO-DEN, aka BRUTAL TALES OF CHIVALRY (1965) - In my early teenage years, I started going to see Yakuza movies at the Japanese language theaters because I enjoyed the violence. I accepted the slow build-up of tension and rather heavy melodramatic moments knowing that finally the bad guys would push the hero too far and a final showdown would occur. BRUTAL TALES OF CHIVALRY came out before I started watching these movies, but it was such a success that Ken Takakura became a star and this film would spawn a series with eight follow-ups. Thanks to Twilight Time, I was able to see this classic film with English subtitles and a terrific interview with producer Toru Yoshida. It was to be expected that a film from 1965 wouldn't have the level of gore that I came to crave in the 1970s, but all of the elements of the genre formula were there. Takakura brought all of the soulful melancholy that made him a compelling screen presence as well as the fury needed for the finale. Many familiar faces appeared including Ryo Ikebe, Hiroki Matsukata, Michitaro Mizushima, Koji Hio and Tatsuo Umemiya.

Red Election season one episode 9 (2012)

She-Hulk Attorney At Law episode eight (2022)

Mildly enjoyed:

LOUDER THAN BOMBS (2015) - Jesse Eisenberg seems ambivalent about the baby his wife, Ruby Jerins, has just had. When he bumps into ex-girlfriend Rachel Brosnahan in the hospital as he is looking for food to bring his wife, Eisenberg doesn't tell her that he's a new father. David Strathairn is curating an exhibit of the work by combat photographer Isabelle Huppert who died in a car crash two years ago. Strathairn informs Huppert's widower, Gabriel Byrne, that he's writing an article for The New York Times which will report that Huppert committed suicide by driving headlong into an oncoming long haul truck. While son Eisenberg knows this fact, son Devin Druid was too young to tell, so Byrne decides that he has to tell Druid before the article comes out. Cutting back and forth between the different lives of Huppert's surviving family members, and their different memories of her, co-writer and director Joachim Trier creates a complicated portrait of those left behind. Unfortunately, the movie is a drag to watch because none of these people are likable. The characters we do like - Ruby Jerins, Rachel Brosnahan and Amy Ryan as an English teacher with whom High School Principal Byrne is having and affair - seem tossed to the wayside as we put up with the creeps who are the main characters. I am so tired of movies featuring morose teenage boys that act like shits and don't get punched in the face - but it's okay in the end because they hug their fathers. There is some fun to be had when the sons find a clip on the internet of their father as a young actor, and it is a scene from HELLO AGAIN with Byrne and Shelley Long. There is also a brief clip from director Dario Argento's OPERA in which Daria Nicolodi get shot through the peephole in a door.

Unsung "Women Take the Mic" (2022)

Uncnsrd "Kesha Knight Pulliam" (2022)

Did not enjoy:

THE GRASSHOPPER (1970) - Jacqueline Bisset certainly made her share of awful movies in her youth including this one co-produced and co-written by future PRETTY WOMAN director Garry Marshall. I don't know if Bisset could ever play a convincing teenager, but she certainly doesn't in this pre-SHOWGIRLS tale of a small town girl - she's from Canada to explain Bisset's accent - lured to the excitement of high living. Originally headed to join her boyfriend in Los Angeles, Bisset gets sidetracked to Las Vegas where takes up with a comedien who introduces her to an exciting party life. Wanting more, she goes to Los Angeles and finds her boyfriend. It doesn't take long before being with a bank teller proves dull, so she's back to Las Vegas where she gets work as a showgirl, smokes pot with some musicians and watches REPTILICUS on TV. Eventually she hooks up with ex-football player Jim Brown who has an executive position at a casino, and who marries her. Bisset is talked into seeing an high roller in his hotel room, who then beats and rapes her. Not surprisingly, Brown seeks out the high roller on the golf course and beats him to a pulp. Fearing retaliation, Brown and Bisset move to Los Angeles, where Brown has trouble finding a new job. It isn't too long before an hit man shoots Brown dead and Bisset nearly dies from some bad drugs given to her by some counter culture types. Back in Las Vegas, Bisset starts to work as a "party girl", where she meets Joseph Cotton who takes her back to Los Angeles to be his mistress. Not wanting to spend days waiting for Cotton in an apartment, Bisset takes up with failed rock musician Christopher Stone. She dreams that they could build a financial nest egg to buy a ranch, but then Cotton asks her to marry him. Refusing Cotton cuts her off from her money source, so Stone convinces her to become a prostitute. She is disgusted by the situtation, but is even more disgusted when she comes home from a "trick" to find that Stone has taken off with the money they saved. Promising a sky-writing pilot that they will have some fun after he takes her up in the air. Bisset gets the guy to write "Fuck It" in the Los Angeles sky, which causes her to be arrested when they land. As she is being booked, the camera gloomily zooms into an extreme close up of her eyes as she reveals that she is "22". Spending over 90 minutes with this beautiful looking idiot is a lot to ask of an audience, but Bisset had sex appeal and that's what National General Pictures was counting on to sell this flick - with a poster suggesting a nude shower scene and publicity about her doing a bed scene with Jim Brown. (This was just after 100 RIFLES was sold on Raquel Welch having a bed scene with Brown.) Former actor on The Dick Van Dyke Show, director Jerry Paris did a credible job on his previous feature film VIVA MAX!, but is unable to make anything in this movie believable or enjoyable. Having lived in Los Angeles and witnessed sky-writing, I know that what is written doesn't usually last long enough for anyone to actually read it, and even the filmmakers can't fake it long enough to see the entire phrase before the wind blew it away. Even in 1970, it is hard to believe that enough people would have seen it and had been shocked enough to faint on the street. This film was bad enough before someone got the bright idea to have Bobby Russell write and perform a number of ballads explaining the plot while it unfolds on the screen. Garry Marshall's sister Penny can be seen as a "Plaster Caster" admiring the Rock band on stage.

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Charles Gilbert watched:

THE ENFORCER (1951) B&W. Excellent noir with Humphry Bogart as D. A. Martin Ferguson searching for a witness to prosecute kingpin Albert Mendoza (Everett Sloan). Multilayer flashbacks used.

ZARAK (1956) British costumer with Kentucky born  Victor Mature as rebel desert leader against English imperialists near Afghanistan. He's also at odds with the clan for romancing one of his father's wives (Anita Eckberg). Atypical ending.

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Bertrand van Wonterghem Highly enjoyed:

Bullet train (2021, David Leitch)

Enjoyed:

Gyeolhonbaekseo / Welcome to wedding hell – season 1 – episode 7

Derry girls – season 3 – episode 5

The wrong arm of the law (1963, Cliff Owen)

Mildly enjoyed:

Misfits of science – episode « your place or mayan » (1985, Alan J. Levi)

House of the dragon – season 1 – episode 7

Gyakkyô burai Kaiji (anime) – season 1 – episodes 2 & 3

The neptune factor (1973, Daniel Petrie)

Samaritan (2021, Julius Avery)

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