Saturday, January 20, 2018
The Nice Guys (2016)
In 1970s Los Angeles, a mismatched pair of private eyes investigate a missing girl and the mysterious death of a porn star.
Entertaining, but superficial reimagination of a 70s buddy comedy thriller works well with period detail and Crowe and Gosling surprisingly are up to the task, but the plot is incoherent and not too interesting; Angourie Rice is the true star of the movie playing Gosling's astute daughter.
Toys From My Childhood
Sliding Puzzle
The oldest type of sliding puzzle is the fifteen puzzle, invented by Noyes Chapman in 1880; Sam Loyd is often wrongly credited with making sliding puzzles popular based on his false claim that he invented the fifteen puzzle. Chapman's invention initiated a puzzle craze in the early 1880s. From the 1950s through the 1980s sliding puzzles employing letters to form words were very popular. These sorts of puzzles have several possible solutions...
First Lines: Nicholas Monsarrat - The Cruel Sea
Lieutenant-Commander George Eastwood Ericson, R.N.R., sat in a stone-cold, draughty, corrugated-iron hut beside the fitting-out dock of Fleming's Shipyard on the River Clyde.
Friday, January 19, 2018
Wild (2016)
An young woman breaks the tacit contract with civilization and fearlessly decides on a life without hypocrisy or an obligatory safety net.
Clinical study of an inexorable descent into animalism, including some unsavory scenes; Lilith Stangenberg's performance is remarkable.
La La Land (2016)
While navigating their careers in Los Angeles, a pianist and an actress fall in love while attempting to reconcile their aspirations for the future.
Meticulously and beautifully crafted reconstruction of a classic Hollywood musical - together with its hollowness, the romance never shows any spark; that said, Damien Chazelle obviously has a serious problem understanding what jazz is.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
First Lines: Nevil Shute - A Town Like Alice
James MacFadden died in March 1905 when he was forty-seven years old; he was riding in the Driffield Point-to-Point.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
The Awakening (1980)
An archeologist discovers his daughter is possessed by the spirit of an Egyptian queen and, to save mankind, he must destroy her.
Tedious and lacklustre mummy nonsense; lots of talent wasted in this overlong B-movie with a budget.
Halliwell (no star): "Unpersuasive and humourless mumbo jumbo from the same intractably complex novel that provided the basis for Blood From the Mummy's Tomb."
Maltin*1/2
Michael Weldon/Psychotronic: "A fairly dull big-budget production..."
Play Dirty (1969)
During the Desert War in North Africa, a group of British commandos disguised in Italian soldiers must travel behind enemy lines and destroy a vital Nazi oil depot.
Standard war actioner is well-made and offers some cynical twists.
Halliwell*: "Small-scale Dirty Dozen with would-be ironic twists; well made entertainment for the stout-hearted."
Maltin***: "...film invites comparisons with THE DIRTY DOZEN and holds its own quite well."
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