Tag: Now Watching

Now Watching: No Way Out (1987)

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No Way Out (1987)
Directed by: Roger Donaldson
Starring: Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Sean Young, Will Patton

Synopsis: Navy Lt. Tom Farrell meets a young woman, Susan Atwell, and they share a passionate fling. Farrell then finds out that his superior, Defense Secretary David Brice, is also romantically involved with Atwell. When the young woman turns up dead, Farrell is put in charge of the murder investigation. He begins to uncover shocking clues about the case, but when details of his encounter with Susan surface, he becomes a suspect as well.

Rating: 8/10

My little experiment to get more readers was a total bust. Turns out I’m terrible at posting regularly. I just don’t have it in me to be that guy, and the little extra I did post saw no improvement in my numbers.

Maybe they would if I pushed a little harder and did it for a little longer. I don’t know. I don’t really care. I’ll spend some more time thinking about what comes next. It seems logical to do more reviewing on Letterboxed or writing for Cinema Sentries, as that would definitely get me more eyeballs. But I love this little site, and it is hard to let that go. So, I’m gonna write when I want to write, post when I want to post. If people read it, great, and if not, well, that’s their loss.

Based on the novel The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing (which was also the basis of a pretty terrific little film noir of the same name made in 1948), No Way Out turns it into a political thriller with some neo-noir/erotic thriller tendencies.

Kevin Costner and Sean Young’s scenes together are steamy and playful, and you think the film is going to go one way, and then it goes another. Once she is out of the picture, it turns from its noir background to more of a straightforward thriller. There are a surprising number of scenes of just Costner walking angrily about the Pentagon, trying to keep everyone from knowing that the man they are looking for is actually him. And it totally works.

Hackman’s character has a lot more nuance than these things usually allow, making Will Patton’s lackey to Hackman’s Secretary of Defense character the true villain.

There are a couple of good chase scenes, and a lot of ridiculous techno nonsense (a large part of the plot revolves around them taking a nearly destroyed Polaroid photo negative and using computers to slowly render it into a readable image). The actors are all good, and I found it quite thrilling.


Now Watching: The Wild Geese (1978)

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The Wild Geese (1978)
Directed by: Andrew V. McLaglen
Starring: Richard Burton, Roger Moore, and Richard Harris

Synopsis: A British multinational company seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of (largely aged) mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader, who is also critically ill and due for execution. Just when the team has performed a perfect rescue, the multinational does a deal with the vicious dictator, leaving the mercenary band to escape under their own steam and exact revenge.

Rating: 1/10

Well, as yesterday goes to show, I’m really not cut out for this idea of posting several things per day. I just don’t have that much to say. Or maybe sometimes I’m just too tired. Or lazy. I’ll keep trying this week, but thus far, my numbers aren’t improving either. But I’m really not ready to give this site up, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do.

For now, I’m gonna keep writing when the spirit moves me.

I even forgot to mention that this month’s theme is War Movies in June.

The Wild Geese is a men assembled to do a mission movie in the vein of something like Where Eagles Dare or The Dirty Dozen. It has a great cast, but fails to be even a little bit interesting. It doesn’t help that the white mercenaries’ in Africa plot is steeped in colonialism and racism.

The film does acknowledge this somewhat with a brief scene in which the super-duper racist white guy has a five-minute chat with the sainted black politician (who is vaulted as this amazing human but is only given a handful of lines to speak) and changes his racist ways.

But honestly, you expect that sort of thing in this sort of film. What you don’t expect is action scenes that are poorly staged, poorly directed, and rather dull.

Now Watching: Captain Blood (1935)

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As I just mentioned, I’m gonna try to do a better job of posting around here. Again, I’ll have more to say about that in a day or two, but as part of that plan, I’m starting a new series I’m calling Now Watching.

Quite a lot of folks do that on social media. They will mention what they are currently watching, or reading, or listening to, and maybe say just a few words about it. So, I thought I’d turn that into a full-on blog post.

The idea won’t be to do full reviews, but to just mention what I’m currently watching (and maybe listening to or reading) and to say a few words about it. Later on, I might do full reviews of some of these things, but maybe not.

Tonight I watched:

Captain Blood (1935)
Directed by Michael Curtis
Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Lionel Atwill, and Basil Rathbone

Synopsis: After treating a Monmouth rebel against King James II in 1680s England, a young Irish doctor is exiled as a slave to Jamaica, where he captures a Spanish galleon and becomes the most feared pirate of the Caribbean.

Rating: 7/10

Thoughts: Me and the wife wanted something fun to watch tonight, and she suggested a pirate movie (she was aiming for the Muppet pirate movie, but we landed on this).

It takes an awfully long time to get to the piracy. Captain Blood starts out as an ordinary citizen, minding his own business. But when he applies his physician’s trade to a rebel fighter, he’s arrested and sold into slavery. Yada, yada, yada, an hour later, he finally becomes a pirate. There is a romance subplot with Olivia De Havilland and Basil Rathbone shows up for a couple of scenes as a rival pirate.

All of that is okay, not great, but watchable. It is the last half hour where things pick up, and the final battle is pretty terrific.