Reviews

Unless you catch a quick newspaper reference to the name of the principal character, Roy Greenford, you'll go through the whole picture thinking of him as The Stranger, much like Clint Eastwood in "High Plains Drifter". The elderly Joselito (José Calvo), who takes The Stranger in as a wounded escapee from a prison chain gang, continually refers to him as 'muchacho', which hardly seemed fitting, as the serious-minded gunslinger resembled nothing like a young boy. I guess it was all in the perspective. With mixed motives, The Stranger Roy proceeds to eliminate members of smarmy town boss Redfield's (Eduardo Fajardo) henchmen crew, doing the villain a favor by reducing the number of people he has to split the proceeds of his illicit gold thefts with. With the help of unwilling prostitute Jessica (Charo López), Roy manages to withstand a terrible beating after hijacking and hiding Redfield's gold, only to learn that his mentor Joselito was waterboarded to death to reveal The Stranger's location. With numerous flashbacks of The Stranger's own wartime and criminal past, perhaps the most sordid glimpse of his ruthless nature involved cutting off the foot of the man he was shackled to on the chain gang. Somewhat fortunately, his fellow prisoner was already dead.

Predating "Murder, My Sweet" by a couple years, and "Farewell, My Lovely" by more than three decades, this was the earliest take on a Raymond Chandler classic while changing the principal character's name from Philip Marlowe to Gay Lawrence. You probably wouldn't know it if you hadn't seen either of the other pictures, but character names like Moose Molloy, Jules Amthor and Velma/aka Diana Kenyon are pretty good clues as to the origins of this story. As a standalone movie it's not too bad, though George Sanders' portrayal of self-styled private detective Gay Lawrence doesn't have the same bite and witty dialog of a Robert Mitchum or Dick Powell, though if you're of a more humorous bent, you've got the offbeat antics of guys like Allen Jenkins as The Falcon's sidekick Goldy Locke, and bumbling police detective Bates (Edward Gargan). Although in this picture, you might consider that Bates' boss, Inspector Mike O'Hara (James Gleason) is even more bumbling. What starts out as a mystery involving the hulking Moose Molloy (Ward Bond) trying to track down former girlfriend Velma (Helen Gilbert) turns into a string of murders that eventually leads to a blackmail racket involving a phony psychic (Turhan Bey) in league with Velma and Swan nightclub owner Laird Burnet (Selmer Jackson), who isn't even a principal player. After the fact you might wonder about a few loose threads left hanging, like who actually shot Lindsey Marriot (Hans Conried) after Marriot took a shot at Lawrence, and perhaps even more intriguing, what ever happened to the ninety-thousand-dollar Fei Tsui Jade necklace that the Falcon and reporter Ann Riordan (Lynn Bari) were looking for?

Notwithstanding some of the more favorable reviews here for this picture, I haven't seen a dumber flick in quite a while. The idea that these four idiots would throw dice to determine who would take the rap for killing a cop is just too bizarre for me to contemplate. So, sticking together like the pals they were, they all say they were guilty of pulling the trigger, thereby insuring themselves a ten-year prison sentence each. Justified in their minds I guess, that the guilty one wouldn't have to face execution.

The story is told in good part via a series of flashbacks demonstrating the conditions that brought the four guys to the critical juncture, which occurred early in the picture. In a get rich quick scheme, the boys (none of whom are boys, by the way), decide to rob an arena box office for a few thousand dollars, but the robbery goes awry when a couple of beat cops happen by, with the guy holding the gun delivering the fatal shot. By the end of the story, we all know who did it, but in actuality, it could have been any one of them depending on how the script was written.

I was probably more entertained by the subtle indications of what things cost during the 1950's than anything else. When Eddie's (Tarry Green) mother complained how high the price of eggs were as the reason she didn't cook them every morning, I had to check - fifty-five cents a dozen in 1957!! Which didn't sound so bad to me, when you consider that Stanley's (William Hinnant) dad gave him twenty bucks to buy new shoes and a hat!

So, this is how the Falcon baton was passed from George Sanders to real life older brother Tom Conway. It's just too bad Sanders' character had to take a bullet and die in order for Tom Lawrence (Conway) to take over as the Falcon character. I think Sanders deserved better, but at least he came out a hero for helping foil a Nazi espionage plot, even if the term 'Nazi' was never mentioned in the script. For 1942, what else could it have been?

One of the things I liked here was how the story referenced a prior Gay Lawrence (Sanders) flick when Morning Gazette reporter Marcia Brooks (Jane Randolph) mentioned the Molloy case from "The Falcon Takes Over". It's those little things that keep a fan interested, a tactic that was also employed by the Charlie Chan films of the same era. The story here has Marcia teaming up with Tom Lawrence to help solve a sequence of murders after brother Gay gets sidelined by a speeding car that knocks him unconscious for a couple days. That put Tom in the spotlight as the self-styled private detective, staying a step ahead of bumbling homicide inspector Timothy Donovan (Cliff Clark) and his even more bumbling sidekick Bates (Edward Gargan). Speaking of sidekicks, I didn't really see the necessity of Tom having his brother's pal Lefty (Don Barclay) along for the ride, though he did have some comedic moments that entertained.

Well, Tom and Marcia fingered Paul Harrington (James Newill) as the murderer in question when they figured out how his 'Modern Modes Magazine' offered significant clues to the war effort on the covers of his magazines. Dates of important events were hidden in random objects on the cover of the fashion mag, something that could only have been done in retrospect, as the date of the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7th, 1941, would hardly have been known by an American citizen. Still, it made for a clever premise.

If you're paying close attention, you'll pick up on a couple of goofs in the picture. For one thing, the position of the Diane Medford (Gwili Andre) corpse changes position and location in the room in which she was murdered. Later on, when foreign agents Carmela (Amanda Varela) and Valdez (George J. Lewis) arrive to question Tom Lawrence and Miss Brooks about what they might know, they had to walk right past the dead body of Harrington's associate Savitski (André Charlot) without seeing him. Some agents!!

This was the second entry in Jim Gaffigan's 'Pale Tourist' comedy special, making it perhaps the shortest series on record. That's probably something Jim could make fun of all by itself. Performing before a local Spanish crowd, the audience here was a little more subdued than the one he did before a Canadian audience. Gaffigan attempted to circumvent the language barrier with extensive references to local words and customs, with humorous observations on siestas, flamenco dances and paella. Things seemed to get a little uncomfortable with mentions of Spanish holiday customs like 'caganer' and 'caga tio', which I won't try to explain here; you'll just have to watch the special. The running of the bulls in Pamplona got its own particular emphasis, prompting Jim to utter his funniest observation in my summary line above. You have to credit Gaffigan with the ability to come up with these humorous observations for each unique show, seeing as how the cultures of Canada and Spain are so different.

For a worldwide tour by comedian Jim Gaffigan, this one didn't take him very far from home. While skewering Canadian towns and customs going West to East, Gaffigan touches on virtually all the provinces, with particular emphasis on oddly pronounced place names like Regina (rhymes with vagina), and gets his audience to take a funny look at themselves. You would almost have to know he would home in on youth hockey teams and the proliferation of Jim Horton stores, and he takes particular delight in informing about his first-time encounter with a moose. He had close to his best line when he asked "How many people are in that moose costume?", drawing a fair amount of laughs from his audience. You have to credit Gaffigan with the ability to come up with a pointed routine after touring the country's highways and byways, and thanking Canadians for their warmth and hospitality. You can gather his feelings for Canada with the sentiment he expressed in my summary line above.

The only reason I don't rate movies like this higher is because the story of one man taking out an entire criminal organization is impossible. However, it's fun in the watching, especially when a guy like Jason Statham takes it to the bad guys and runs amok against an entire army of hapless foes. This picture utilizes a boatload of bee and hive references that make it almost seem like the existence of a super-secret, off the grid agency exists to maintain law and order in a lawless society in which the perceived authorities seem powerless to exert control. I especially liked the term they came up with to describe Adam Clay (Statham) after he got up to speed as an unstoppable killing machine - he was referred to as a 'queenslayer'. That had a nice ring to it. What didn't make sense to me though, was why FBI Special Agent Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman) didn't give our beekeeper friend more leeway going after the goons behind United Data Group and Nine Star United. You would think her mother's suicide would have tipped her in the direction of going rogue herself. The role of Jessica Danforth (Jemma Redgrave) was a little ambiguous as well, what with her son being the mastermind behind the security scam that took so may victims to the cleaners. The aftermath of this picture is something you probably wouldn't want to contemplate, since President Danforth would have had a lot of explaining to do with the demise of son Derek (Josh Hutcherson), along with the deaths of otherwise legitimate FBI and other security agents. All of which suggests that if you ever get one of those fake security alerts on your home computer, just do yourself a favor and reboot.

The one thing I don't think was ever established was the reason for the murder/suicide hit in Brussels. It was done by a crew of rogue ex-agency guys directed by Dave York (Pedro Pascal), who subsequently assassinated Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo) for getting too close to solving the dual murders. But why was that married couple killed?

Well, I guess it doesn't make too much difference, as the investigation was the springboard for Robert McCall (Melissa Leo) to spring into action to avenge his longtime friend. Recreating the murder of Susan to his satisfaction, McCall eventually realized that his old partner and friend in the agency was behind a murder for hire operation without concern for whose national security was compromised. To do so, McCall probably didn't have to reveal to York that he faked his own death and was still alive, but that just made the entire revenge mission that much more satisfying.

I watched this one out of order, having seen the original film first followed by "The Equalizer 3". Because each story pretty much stands alone, you don't really have to watch them in order to enjoy Denzel Washington's slow burn approach to sizing up his enemies before he goes brutally crazy on them. You probably have never seen limbs rearranged in such a frightening way when McCall gets going, making this an action movie fan's delight.

For a while there I thought the script was going to pull a switcheroo and have Ty Kajada (Julie Caitlin Brown) turn out to be the villain. It took a while to convince me that the undead Rao Vantika (James Harper) was behind a scheme to steal a shipment of deuridium destined for DS9, a substance that Kobliads needed to extend their lifespans. I found it interesting that Lieutenant Odo (Rene Auberjonois) objected to the use of the term 'Constable'; Commander Sisko (Avery Brooks) explained that it was a term of endearment, but I don't think Odo bought it. Odo's dispute with Federation security officer Primmin (James Lashly) got off to a real shaky start, but mellowed quite a bit when Primmin discovered a subspace crossover shunt that the very much alive Vantika placed in the station's waste removal system. Alive I should say, because Vantika was using his acquired knowledge of transplanting neural brain functions from himself to host bodies that he could take control of. You would think that some of these fantastic scientific breakthroughs would catch the interest of Federation scientists to explore more thoroughly and use to good advantage but once they were used in a script, the idea seemed to go away. Anyway, Vantika, in league with Quark (Armin Shimerman) and other alien mercenaries, attempted to steal a runabout to intercept the deuridium shipment heading to the station. However, Lieutenant Dax (Terry Farrell) hit upon an idea to send some sort of neural pulse along a tractor beam to free Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) from Vantika's mind control and capture the notorious outlaw. I might not have explained that exactly correct, but if the scriptwriters can make up stuff like this, I figure I can to.

I liked this flick about as much as I did the first in the series, allowing for the fact that it's impossible for one man to do everything Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) did in this one. Especially since we're talking the Sicilian Mafia, or Camorra as it was called in the story. I especially enjoyed Denzel's understated way of approaching the enemy, although he puts himself in harm's way a bit more than one would expect. As an example, there he was coming out to confront Vincent Quaranta (Andrea Scarduzio) right in the middle of the street where any one of Vincent's goons could have popped him from the shadows. Making Vincent swallow his own drugs was a fitting way to end the gangster's reign of terror, while honorably offering the spoils of that victory to CIA financial operative Emma Collins. I thought the role of Collins might have been somewhat miscast, Dakota Fanning didn't look that much older than a teenager, although making her the daughter of McCall's CIA connections from the first and second movie was a nice twist. The Italian town of Altamonte made for a nice backdrop to the action of the movie, so no surprise that McCall would have chosen to settle there for a life of solitude and quiet. Unless of course, he winds up seeing some other helpless person faced with an insurmountable problem.

This was a thought-provoking episode, and without Enino Tandro's (Fionnula Flanagan) testimony near the end of the story, I was leaning toward her son's argument that Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) could have been guilty of treason and murder under her previous Trill identity as Curzon Dax. Ilon Tandro's (Gregory Itzin) arguments were persuasive, just slightly stronger than Commander Sisko's (Avery Brooks) in my opinion, although the brain wave explanation by Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) was pretty strong in defense of Jadzia. The only loose string left at the end of the story was the identity of who might have sent a transmission to the enemy that revealed the route of General Ardelon Tandro twenty years earlier that got him ambushed and killed. With Curzon eliminated as a suspect, and all four others who knew his course identified, who could it have been? The hero general's wife came to mind as a possible suspect, but that didn't square with the way the story ended, seeing how she revered her husband's memory and basked in the attention of his notoriety. All in all, a pretty good episode with just that minor nit-pick bothering me as I think about the way this one ended.

This is another fun outing with Jim Gaffigan, a bit better than his 2017 special 'Cinco' and falling slightly short of 2012's 'Mr. Universe', which so far has been my favorite. Gaffigan riffs on a wide range of subjects, making even his wife's recent cancer surgery a topic of amusement if you can believe it. Lest you think that's a bit too irreverent, note that his wife Jeannie is a co-writer for these programs, so I think she approved. The gamut here runs from hospitals, genetic testing, fashion shows, and being a dad, to a weird piece of trivia that I thought was a bunch of hooey, but I looked it up. Never would I have thought that the Catholic Saint Bonaventure was the patron saint of bowel issues. More specifically, the patron saint of bowel disorders and gastrointestinal issues, relating to the saintly man's miraculous cure of a bowel ailment when he was a young child. How Gaffigan came across that bit of information in the first place is something I'd like to know, but in the interim, now you know it too. Gaffigan wraps up his set by mentioning how he opened for the Pope in Philadelphia, but for that, you'll have to catch the show.

Our old friend Q (John de Lancie), (or annoyance depending on your point of view) is back along with an appearance by another Next Generation character in the form of Vash (Jennifer Hetrick), rescued from a two year stay in the Gamma Quadrant before finding escape through the wormhole to DS9. Q seemed to be a bit more testy than usual, while Vash continues her motivation for profit, making her a natural ally to the devious Quark (Armin Shimerman). I was somewhat puzzled by Q's insistence for Vash to team up with him for future adventures, seeing as how he really doesn't need companionship being a supreme entity. So that was a little puzzling. Meanwhile, the station experiences troubling power drains to its many operational systems, as that energy is converted to a harmful graviton field. Now I'm not someone you would consider having much of a scientific mind, but I couldn't see how increasing tritium levels to one part per million is even possible (besides being entirely fictional). How do you even measure one part per million?

Anyway, I digress. In true Star Trek tradition, DS9 is saved from annihilation with only seconds to spare when Commander Sisko (Avery Brooks) ordered a make-or-break power surge, which expelled an embryonic life form from one of Vash's artifacts that no one even knew was on board. What I liked best about this episode is how the writers poked fun at themselves after years of making up a whole slew of scientific gobbledy-gook. That was when Q matter-of-factly addressed the crew trying to solve their graviton problem by stating - "Picard and his lackeys would have solved all this technobabble hours ago"!

The movie opens with a scene that might have taken inspiration from 1980's "The Long Riders", as the outlaw gang headed by Mickey Rourke's Graff character barges into a bank on horseback to thwart an awaiting ambush outside by the town's citizens. The gunfight that ensues leaves one of the bad guy bunch severely wounded, but all seven outlaws make their getaway with a hastily gathered posse ready in close pursuit. Second in command to Graff, Eustis (Dermot Mulroney) would have made a good Marine, wanting to leave no man behind as he repeatedly aids the badly wounded Loomis (Daniel Quinn) against the advice of his boss. When it becomes apparent that Graff will eliminate Loomis so he doesn't slow down their escape, Eustis turns the tables on him and shoots him at point blank range, a turning point in the story that has severe repercussions for the rest of the gang.

Though the story is seen as a revenge tale, I see Graff's motivation as equally inspired by a desire not to get arrested for the bank job, as he allies with the town's posse led by Marshal Sharp (Gavan O'Herlihy). Yet there's no love lost between Graff and Sharp, as an ambush by the gang sees Sharp take a bullet with Graff finishing him off by drowning him in a pond. One by one thereafter, Graff picks his spots to eliminate his former compatriots in a show of cunning and deceit, highlighted by his murder of banker McClintock (Richard Fancy), who only cared about retrieving the bank's stolen money.

What intrigued me was the turn in Eustis's character when he left Wills (John C. McGinley) to fend for himself after Wills' horse had to be put down. The situation was similar to that of the injured Loomis, who Eustis refused to leave behind. But now, there was no compassion for a fellow outlaw, perhaps understandable since Wills returned the stolen money in a moment of panic as the posse closed in. With events during the posse chase hardening Eustis as the gang got cut down one by one, a final showdown between Eustis and his former boss was inevitably expected. The overemphasis Graff placed on his men to count their remaining ammunition proved to be his own undoing, as a bank teller's derringer taken by Eustice proved to be a deciding factor in the story's conclusion. The only question that remained at that point was - where the heck was the rest of the posse?

This was a quite engaging episode that oddly put Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) in the spotlight as he attempted to aid a reptilian resembling fugitive that got waylaid through the wormhole some ninety thousand light years from the Gamma Quadrant. The story did a fine job of 'Oh Brien' gaining the Tosk's (Scott MacDonald) confidence while keeping the alien's mission somewhat circumspect until those hunting for him finally arrived aboard DS9. The originality of the story lay in the fact that Tosk was a species bred to be hunted by an alien race, with a strict code of honor that prepared him to die a noble death rather than be captured to face ignominy on their home planet. Commander Sisko (Avery Brooks) maintained a stoic and formidable countenance in dressing down the Chief for his aiding Tosk to evade the hunters, however the cutaway demonstrated that he was more than complicit in Tosk's escape. With a still short history of a series with this being only the sixth episode of DS9, I thought it was the best so far.

Just a thought - Could 'I am Tosk" have been the inspiration for 'I am Groot'?

"Rancho Notorious" could have been titled "Rancho Curioso" and have made as much sense. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why Vern Haskell (Arthur Kennedy), on a quest for revenge for the murder of his fiancée (Gloria Henry), would involve himself in a romance with the owner of an outlaw hideaway. That's a heck of a way to honor a dearly departed. Or was it just a ruse to gain Altar Keane's (Marlene Dietrich) trust to get information on the outlaw he was looking for who might be hiding at Keane's Chuck-a-Luck hideout? The story keeps it ambiguous, enough so that Vern's partner, Frenchy Fairmont (Mel Ferrer), becomes murderously jealous of Haskell's insinuation into the gang at Keane's place, after it appears that Vern and Keane have a yen for each other. Adding color to the eclectic proceedings in this film you'll find William Frawley as saloon owner Baldy Gunder, George Reeves on a break from his TV Superman gig as a ladies' man who's never seen with a lady, and Western genre mainstay Jack Elam before his out-of-kilter left eye became prominent. Somehow, I just didn't care much for this flick as the story's premise right out of the gate seemed flawed, and the film's theme song with music and lyrics by Ken Darby just a grating interruption to the proceedings. Marlene Dietrich's own singing voice was nearly as irritating as well, and though this was filmed in color, anytime you had a closeup of Dietrich's face, it looked like it was colorized from black and white. The picture's final touches included a myriad of painted backdrops and extensive use of a sound stage, enough so that an effective Western landscape was never in evidence.

Little did I know when I decided to DVR this film that it would turn out to be a Japanese crime drama, and a rather curious one at that. Turner Classics Movie host Eddie Muller described it as one of the sun tribe films from the Nikkatsu Studio, an early one from director Seijun Suzuki whose movies achieved cult like status in the years to come, though this one was received unenthusiastically when it came out in 1960. To say that the story here was somewhat convoluted would be an understatement, events occur rather randomly with no connection to each other, as the movie's protagonist, fresh from his suspension as a prison guard, decides to investigate the murder of two prisoners by a sniper on a transport van he was supervising. That's probably the first inkling one gets as to the questionable nature of the story, since how could Daijirô Tamon (Michitarô Mizushima) be held accountable for an unexpected attack on his watch? The story meanders from a seemingly legitimate talent agency fronting for a prostitution ring, to Tamon's search for a mysterious gangland figure calling the shots on various murders that occur throughout the picture. Most unusual was the one involving a nude prostitute shot with a bow and arrow through her breast, with flashback scenes suggesting the shooter was Yuko Hamajima (Misako Watanabe), the nominal head of the talent firm in the absence of her father. But it appears that Yuko is helping Tamon solve the murders after she falls in love with him!

Look, I'm not going to try to figure this out and neither should you. What will keep you enthralled is the masterful pace of the picture and the crisp cinematography culminating in a near escape from a potentially lethal gasoline delivery truck and finally a desperate shootout at a train station. The mystifying identity of one Akiba is revealed as Yuko's own father, after having been seen earlier in a hospital bed. All of which suggests that Suzuki's directorial method favored extravagant style over logical storytelling.

One could almost give this picture a top rating of '10' if it wasn't for the outlandish idea that a single guy could take out the entire Russian Mafia operating in Boston, and for an encore, head over to Moscow to take out the boss. Not that I'm complaining, I thought Denzel Washington gave an exciting if low key performance as the vigilante with a mysterious past, erased by a faked death. I liked the way Bob McCall (Washington) kept everything understated in his dialog with people like Ralphie (Johnny Skourtis), hooker Teri/Alina (Chloë Grace Moretz), and even the bad guys starting with Slavi (David Meunier), dirty cop Frank Masters (David Harbour), and especially fixer extraordinaire Teddy (Marton Csokas). As soon as McCall locked the door to Slavi's headquarters office, you knew that this guy would take no prisoners and the rest of the film would be an action movie fan's best idea of fun. Nowhere does Denzel disappoint, though I did like the idea that Ralphie got the first shot in on Teddy before McCall finished him off. If he were still alive, I bet Teddy would have regretted calling McCall 'dedushka'.

Oh man, not only were the two criminals a pair of idiots, but so was the main character, Jim Vanning (Aldo Ray), or whatever his name was. Collectively, they all lost a satchel containing three hundred fifty thousand dollars! I could almost believe John (Brian Keith) and Red (Rudy Bond) making a mistake by picking up the wrong bag, but there was no excuse for Vanning to lose it. Why wouldn't he have held on to it for dear life, no matter what he decided to do with it? That was just a very weak story element, and it kept bothering me the whole movie.

Besides that (a big besides!), the film was pretty good with the intrigue provided by insurance investigator Ben Fraser (James Gregory) and fashion model Marie Gardner (Anne Bancroft). That's another thing - during the bar scene that opened the picture, Gardner hits up Vanning for five bucks because she either lost or forgot her wallet. A lot of forgetting going around in this story. After the two outlaws rough up Jim about the three hundred fifty grand, he makes it back to Marie's apartment he remembered from their conversation over dinner, and she lets him in looking like he just got run over by a train! You know, if I keep at this, I might convince myself I didn't care for the movie.

The original tag line for this flick went - 'You could go to the movies every day for five years... before you'd see another picture with so many thrills and so much suspense!" I must say, that's a bit hyperbolic, as I'm sure every day for five years would come up with something a little more thrilling and suspenseful. Within just a couple of years either way of this flick you had "Dial M for Murder", "Kiss Me Deadly", "The Killing", and Number One on virtually everyone's list of favorite noirs - "Rear Window". As for me, my parting shot for the two hapless bank robbers in this picture would have been - wouldn't it be easier to just rob another bank?

Having heard about "Glen or Glenda" after so many years, I finally decided to take a look. This was nowhere near what I was expecting from the director of "Bride of the Monster" and "Plan Nine from Outer Space". Aside from the cheesy acting and cheap sets, this comes across as an almost thoughtful exploration of transvestism and the compulsion to changes one's sexual identity. I was not aware of Ed Wood's own predilection for wearing women's clothes, so seeing him here in a principal role is rather revealing in his earnestness to handle a sensitive topic. And for 1953, this was surely a sensitive topic, as noted by an opening narrative card that promised "... no punches have been pulled, no easy way out has been taken". What was truly bizarre however, was the inclusion of Bela Lugosi in the role of, what else, a mad scientist masquerading as a serious one, but uttering dialog that didn't relate to anything that was going on in the main story. More than once did he expound on talking to a green dragon eating little boys, along with puppy dog tails and big fat snails. In fact, Lugosi's presence can't be explained at all except perhaps to lend the horror icon's name to this production, because he wouldn't have been missed at all if he wasn't in the film. As regards that main story, things suddenly veer off into a bizarre sequence of female bondage scenes and one of a simulated rape, with Lugosi's leering presence just adding to the surreal nature of the project. The situations involving Glen's penchant for wearing his future wife's (Dolores Fuller) clothes and that of pseudo-hermaphrodite Allen (Tommy' Haynes) undergoing an operation to become a woman are both handled satisfactorily within the context of the picture, so that in his own tortured way, Ed Wood could posit that "maybe society should try to understand them as human beings".

For anyone interested, "Glen or Glenda" is currently playing on the Amazon Prime platform as I write this.

Should I really consider this a super-hero movie? I'm going to include it in my IMDb list of 'Comic Book Super-Hero Based Movies', even though it wasn't based on a comic book. Even so, fans of this flick won't like the result. My current list as I write this has one hundred twenty-seven titles ranked in IMDb order, and this one comes in at number one hundred twenty-three. That doesn't say much for the quality of the film, but I think most viewers know that by the time the movie is over. So, in a sense, I don't have to bash it like a lot of haters do, the viewer rating is the rating. What makes an Oscar winner like Octavia Spencer and a twice nominated Melissa McCarthy get involved in a project like this? Maybe it's their long running friendship that led to the idea that this flick might be a fun thing to do. And it probably was and I'm sure their fans found it entertaining but this became a bit of a chore to sit through. Even Jason Bateman's low-key portrayal of the villain Crab was somewhat cringeworthy. At least Pom Klementieff has some street cred as super-hero Mantis from the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' franchise, but she looked a little out of place without the antennas. For those who are wondering what the lowest rated super-hero movie is that I've seen, you can check my list, or I can save you the trouble - it's 2004's "Catwoman".

You remember the 'Peanuts' comic strip with Snoopy lying on top of his doghouse pondering the start of a new novel thinking to himself - 'It was a dark and stormy night'? I always think of that when a horror flick starts out that way, which was the case here with "Bride of the Monster". A couple of inept bozos are caught in a thunderstorm looking for shelter, and one of them falls victim to the pet octopus of Dr. Eric Vornoff (Bela Lugosi). As you watch the film, the octopus's garden (Thanks, Ringo!) transitions from a small rectangular aquarium in Vornoff's lab, to the swamp where it claims its victims, and finally to the ocean environment in which you would expect to find one. This kind of nonsense is never explained and makes for the exquisitely quirky picture you're apt to enjoy should you manage to tune in.

Director Ed Wood resurrects Bela Lugosi's hypnotic stare from the 1932 thriller "White Zombie", as the mad scientist adds a distinctive flourish with his clawlike hand to put victims to sleep. That's the case with his latest target, newspaper reporter Janet Lawton (Loretta King), on the trail for a clue to the twelve missing victims reported in the vicinity of Lake Marsh and the old Willow House. Vornoff has been perfecting a technique to turn ordinary mortals into super-human giants using atomic elements in order to conquer the world. While the film was made a few years after the end of World War II, it's still chilling to hear Lugosi's character speak of creating a master race.

With all the nonsense going on, it's easy to forget what the title of the flick was about until Miss Lawton appears in Vornoff's lab wearing a white wedding dress, about to be turned into one of those super-humans the good doctor was droning on about. It never gets that far though, as Vornoff's assistant, the hulking Tor Johnson turns on his master to protect the woman and sets her free long enough to join her fiancé, police lieutenant Dick Craig (Tony McCoy), who puts an end to Vornoff's rampage by rolling a huge boulder over the guy, who then falls into the clutches of his octopus!

With three dozen Bela Lugosi films to my credit (see my list on IMDb), I was surprised I never ran across this one until this morning on one of the streaming platforms. While nowhere near a masterpiece, this one is still better than director Ed Wood's team up of Lugosi and Tor Johnson a couple years later in "Plan Nine from Outer Space". However, if you want an even goofier programmer featuring the noted horror icon, try looking up 1952's "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla".

This was an interesting episode to view for the first time today since it calls to mind the diagnosis of aphasia for actor Bruce Willis about five years ago (as I write this). It curtailed his acting career until 2023 when his family announced he would do no more films. It's a sad thing to see in a popular actor like Willis, especially given his stature in action films like the 'Die Hard' franchise.

Symptoms of aphasia first appear in Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) in the story, and one would think that given the stress he was under running around to fix all the things wrong on Deep Space Nine, that that might have been the cause of his nonsensical speech. But then it affects Lieutenant Dax (Terry Farrell), and the virus causing it discovered by Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) begins to make its way around the entire station until more than half the population is affected. Major Kira's (Nana Visitor) investigation into the history of DS9 around the time the Cardassians took it over from the Bajorans sixteen years prior leads her to the work of a deceased renegade scientist who created the virus but never got a chance to release it against the enemy. However, his assistant, still alive, was familiar with the research but refused to help Kira until she decided to kidnap him with the threat that now he was infected with the virus as well.

Parallel to this story, Constable Odo (Rene Auberjonois) and Ferengi Quark (Armin Shimerman) verbally spar over how to rescue a cargo captain who defied Commander Sisko's (Avery Brooks) quarantine order and commandeered his ship away from DS9, only to find himself in danger of the ship blowing apart. With Quark's knowledge of running a transporter, he managed to beam Odo out to the vessel and retrieve Captain Jaheel (Jack Kehler) in the Star Trek standard nick of time with not a moment to spare.

By themselves the parallel stories seemed to be handled rather easily, and as another reviewer mentioned, it might have been more appropriate to delve into how Dr. Surmak Ren (Matthew Faison) was able to come up with the aphasia antidote. That was entirely glossed over and gave the episode's ending a rather abrupt feeling.

I've come to enjoy director Taika Waititi's quirky sense of humor in pictures like "Thor: Ragnarok" and especially the humorous vampire flick, "What We Do in the Shadows". That humor is somewhat understated in this picture, but it's still there in the relationship between troubled teen Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) and his adoptive 'Uncle' Hector (Sam Neill). Following the death of Hec's wife Bella (Rima Te Wiata), the mismatched pair find unexpected adventure in the New Zealand bush after Ricky unsuccessfully attempts to run away as the knowledgeable Hec easily tracks him down, only to wind up breaking an ankle during an attack by an angry boar. That's where the story takes a little too much for granted, as the duo suddenly have enough supplies and equipment on hand to survive a six-week stint in the wild while Hec's ankle heals. While they've gone missing, news coverage of their disappearance takes on all sorts of rumor and innuendo in what looks like what might have been a kidnapping. The story is fueled by the exaggerated account of three misfits that were bested by Hec and Ricky during a chance encounter.

The film breaks itself into ten chapters, though there doesn't seem to be any need for it as the story flows well enough without the distinctions. Repeated mentions of the 'skux life' made me curious enough to look it up, and what it boils down to is a cool, stylish attitude and outlook on life, often used to describe someone who is confident, fashionable, and daring in the way they dress and present themselves. I'm not convinced that Ricky or Hec resembled any of those descriptions, but it sounded cool enough while they were making their way through the bush and later on, trying to outrun an outsized posse of helicopters, military vehicles and police cars. The overkill made the chase seem even more surreal than it already was.

My only reservation with the story was the early passing of 'Aunt' Bella, who provided a real grounding presence for the unruly Ricky. I'm not sure that it was all that necessary for the story to proceed the way it did, as she could have been left behind at home to await the rescue and return of the wastrel pair. While on screen, Bella was the embodiment of patience and warmth for a kid that no one else wanted and who wanted no one else. It would have been nice to see the reuniting of all three.

This episode of 'Deep Space Nine' is interesting if unexceptional. An opening scene reveals that Chief O'Brien's (Colm Meaney) wife Keiko (Rosalind Chao) is aboard with their young daughter, although she expresses discouragement with her situation since she has found no usefulness there as a biologist. When the Chief offhandedly suggests she might become a teacher, she takes the idea and runs with it, after observing how Commander Sisko's (Avery Brooks) son Jake (Cirroc Lofton) got in trouble with Nog (Aron Eisenberg), the son of Cardassian Rom (Max Grodénchik). The episode's main story involves the murder of a former black marketer aboard the station whose own crimes in the past included murder. When Ibudan's (Stephen James Carver) corpse is located, it appears that the only one who could have possibly entered his sealed quarters was the shapeshifter, Constable Odo (Rene Auberjonois). While under suspicion, Odo is relieved of duty as security chief by Commander Sisko, as Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) undertakes an extensive forensic examination to determine who the killer might be. With tension rising on the space station, significantly heightened by a Bajoran named Zayra (Edward Albert), a mob mentality gives way to thoughts of an old-fashioned style lynching until Sisko calms the belligerents down long enough for Dr. Bashir to complete his work. What he discovers is that Ibudan himself, with a knowledge of molecular cloning, created a clone of himself which he murdered in order to frame the Constable. Thus exposed, Ibudan was placed under arrest and handed over to authorities. Meanwhile, Keiko got her limited classroom under way, with Jake and Rom among her first students, with an opening review of Bajoran culture.