I guess unlike the other B-Masters, I specialize in family films. Anyway… despite a few good things, Charlie’s Ghost: The Secret Of Coronado is too downbeat of a family movie for both adults and their children.
Archive for category New Reviews
Not high spirited enough
May 17
The year 1960 gave us a pair of disaster movies that could hardly be more different; yet each in its own way is ridiculously enjoyable:
I have copied over The Last Voyage, a shipboard disaster movie with the highest disaster-to-running-time ratio I’ve yet encountered, plus the most realistic special effects, to boot…as they should be, inasmuch as a real ocean liner was destroyed for our edification.
And I have reviewed The Crowded Sky, an airborne disaster movie which has one of the lowest disaster-to-running-time ratios I’ve yet encountered, plus some of the dodgiest model-work ever to emanate from a major studio.
Liz Kingsley is the insane genius behind And You Call Yourself a Scientist!
It just doesn’t fly
May 8
While A Breed Apart tries to be an action movie with something important to say, it ultimately doesn’t succeed at either of those things.
I do, however, have the other half of my entries for the previous one:
Evil Dead II (1987), in which surviving the night in a demon-haunted cabin doesn’t actually improve one’s situation much…
Goodbye, Emmanuelle (1977), in which our heroine starts to wonder whether this “free love” thing is all it’s cracked up to be…
and…
Martin (1977), in which George Romero gives us a much more satisfying answer to the riddle, “When is a vampire movie not a vampire movie?” than Val Lewton managed to.
I also reviewed some stuff which I somewhat arbitrarily deemed not to make the cut for the roundtable:
American Rickshaw (1989), in which Donald Pleasence predictably makes a quite serviceable sleazoid preacher, but Mitch Gaylord is somehow no Kurt Thomas…
The Flesh and Blood Show (1972), in which experimental theater proves every bit as dangerous as any summer camp…
Frightmare (1974), in which Jackie’s old mum gets into something even more troublesome than Fox News…
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), in which Moustapha Akkad can’t be faulted for not understanding what his audience wants…
and…
She (1983), in which it’s hard to tell what poor H. Rider Haggard is going to need more– a couple aspirin or a tumbler of Scotch.
El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.
Not the ordinary kind
Apr 28
The drama Joe remains a compelling exercise even more than 40 years later.
Not much here to purse-ue
Apr 18
Supposedly a comedy, The Gun In Betty Lou’s Handbag often forgets to be funny, and isn’t funny when it remembers it’s supposed to be a comedy.
I defend this movie
Apr 7
Sometimes funny, sometimes touching, My Bodyguard is a family movie that will entertain both kids and adults.Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.
The horror thriller Squirm takes a very unlikely horror premise and makes it surprisingly entertaining.Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.
I have gas pains
Mar 18
Donald Sutherland reportedly agreed to appear in Gas strictly for the money. Though you shouldn’t watch the end results even if someone offers to pay you handsomely for doing it.
It seemed everyone was making a slasher movie in the early 1980s, and The Dorm That Dripped Blood is one of the absolute worst efforts from this period.