Where the Sidewalk Ends - 1950

A 4 star masterpiece. Gene Tierney (famous actress in her day who had a long lasting affiar with JFK), Dana Andrews whom I have always liked to watch in films, Karl Malden (fine actor), and Gary Merrill (once married to Bette Davis).

This movie has everything. A cop who turns bad. Drama. Love. Humour. Suspense. Perfect ending. What more could you ask for?

The Turning Point - 1952

Just a fun little William Holden movie. Great script and some pretty good acting. Nothing fancy. 3 stars. could not find a trailer. This is about a son who is an investigator and he finds out his father (a cop) is just as dirty as the mob he is investigating.

There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)

During the Vaudville days the Donahue's performed on small stages all over the country. Eventually, Molly (Ethal Merman) and TErrance (Dan Dailey) had three children that joined their act. As a family they grew into one of the largest vaudville acts of their time. As these kids get older and start to head off in their different direction, such as dating and joining the ministry, the family must work with the changes they are facing as an act. The youngest (Donald O'Conner) boy falls in love with Vicky, played by Marilyn Monroe, much to the shagrine of his mother. In the end it all works out for the possitive for the family, but not before it takes a very sharp turn towards a negative feeling. The first two-thirds of the show were a typical musical, but than during the final thrid of the show the feeling turns negative and barely pulls it out of that feeling in the final two minutes of the show. This is not a classic musical, but it is not a terrible Marilyn Monroe show either...3 stars.

Le Manior du Diablo (1896)

This was the first horror film ever made.  It has all of the classic horror subjects in it vampires, witches, ghosts, skeletons, etc. 

The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895)

The was a 21 second film that showed a reenactment of the execution of the Queen.  This was the first live action film stoppage for trick photography.  People actually thought they sacrificed a woman to make this film.

http://www.imdb.com/video/internet-archive/vi530055705/  Watch it at this link.

Impact (1949)

What a fantastic movie. This is what I love more than anything... making my way through a few noir films and then hitting the jackpot once in awhile. A 4 star mystery which kept my interest until the end.

Actress Helen Walker was all but blacklisted by Hollywood in 1947 after being acquitted for driving drunk and killing 2 of 3 passengers in her car on new years eve- and the men who died happened to be WW2 heroes. This movie Impact was her attempt at getting back on the big screen.

Great acting by Helen Walker, Brian Donlevy and the beautiful Ella Raines. This was my first Raines movie but will not be my last. I could not find a trailer for this one.

Donlevy plays Walter Williams a successful businessman who loves his wife more than anything. His wife however does not return the sentiments. Her plot is to have her husband killed so she can run off with her lover. Many twists and turns and just a fun movie altogether.

White Collar (USA network show, now filming season 4)

After hearing from several friends and my own brother about how great this TV show is I finally decided to look into it. After reading all the reviews on NF it looked like this was a show that my wife and I could watch along with my 12 year old as it is a clean show.

We watched the first 2 episodes of season 1 this past weekend. I like it. Clean, PG, definatley and addictive series that we will continue to watch all the episodes. I read about the main actors today, intersting. The main guy plays a ladys man but in real life he is gay.

Better Off Dead (1985)

We have been doing some remodeling in our front room and dinning/kitchen area lately.  Everyone in our neighborhood can see into our house and see that we are a mess right now.  Well, one of those great neighbors saw this and invited our family over to her house for dinner.  The conversation soon turned to movies and I asked her, if you were to be stranded on an island and could only take one movie with you to watch what would it be?
Better Off Dead, was her enthusiastic answer.  I knew that the movie was from the 1980's, but I told her that I had never seen it.  She informed me that it was a John Cusack movie, so silly me thought it was going to be another great 1980s movie...Boy was I mistaken.
Lane Meyer (Cusack) is a teenager who is obsessed with his girlfriend Beth, but unbeknownst to him Beth is obsessed with the Captain of the ski team.  Across the street from Lane is a foreign exchange student from France who is obsessed with him.  Things get teenage romantically complicated, and Lane challenges the ski captain to a race to win back his girlfriend.
Well, things go from good, to bad, to worse quickly.  The only saving grace in the film were the two Asian guys who were constantly challenging Lane to a car race, while speaking like Howard Cosell (FUNNY!!)  To tell you the truth if I was stranded on the island with this neighbor, only being able to watch this movie, I would try and swim to safety.
Not a classic 80s movie, 2 stars.

The Longest Day (1962)

John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Red Buttons, Sean Connery, Richard Burton, among many others, star in this film reenacting the attack on Omaha Beach France.  This is your typical US won the war movie, which was over-simplified, but surprisingly I liked it.

Please do not get me wrong, I understand the amount of sacrifice that was made that day on the beaches.  I did not like how the film ended happy, but it was well made and fairly well acted for the time period.  4 stars for me, but it is a very simplistic view of the whole day.

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

I wanted to watch this film closer to Pearl Harbor day but forgot :(  I once took care of a man who was a sailor on the USS Arizona during the attack.   He could not swim but made it over to a pile of garbage to hang on for the rest of the battle until a boat picked him and other sailors up.

Anyway, this was a well made movie showing both sides of the battle from the Japanese perspective and the US perspective.  It had multiple directors for the Japanese side and the US side; in the end the two pieces came together well.  You know the story so I won't bore you with a recap, but there seemed to be a Japanese prejudice to this film.  The US side of the story seemed as though each of the military and political characters showed little interest in the facts pointing to an ultimate attack.

This movie was flat but had its moments of intensity.  The models used in many of the attack scenes were realistic, and many parts of this film were used in Pearl Harbor and other movies.  It is an interesting movie, but only worth about 2 stars.

By Love Possessed (1961)

I started watching this on instant because it had Jason Robards and Lana Turner in it. AFter 50 min I was wondering why I still had it on. BORING and lame altogether. Give me a break. Not even one star.

Let's Make Love (1960)

I have put off watching this MM movie because of the name of the film. After I read the reviews I decided to watch it. The name of the film comes from the theatrical show that is being put on during the movie- a show within a show.

This is one of MM's last movies she made before her suicide and she did not disappoint me.

French actor Yves Montand stars as billionaire Jean-Marc Clement, a fourth generation billionaire who like those before him inherited his money by name alone. He is a playboy and is in love with how he is. He finds out that a local off broadway theatre company is putting on a show about him - and it is not going to be kind to him. The show will expose him for the louse he is and poke fun at his romancing ways, hence the name of the movie "lets make love". The play is written to make fun of the billionaire and show New Yorkers that all he cares about is women.

Jean-Marc Clement decides to go and see a rehearsal and maybe use $ to shut down the entire operation. Instead he sees MM (who plays actress Amanda Dell) rehearsing and absolutely falls head over heels for her. He approaches her and tells her that he is in fact Jean-Marc. MM says something like "oh I like that, you are getting into character". He cannot seem to convince her that he is not an actor auditioning for the Jean-Marc role, but he is Jean-Marc himself. When MM goes on to say here is how the real Jean-Marc would act he realizes that she would never go for him because she thinks the real Jean-Marc is a jerk.

The rest of the movie is a fun musical comedy where Jean-Marc will do anything he can to win MM over. I love the fake name he choses for himself "Alexander Dumas". MM who is working on her GED says "didn't he write 3 muskateers". Funny stuff.

3 stars for me.

The Killing (1956)

A fun noir hiest film which probably cost maybe $1,000 to make in the 50's and maybe would cost $20,000 to make today. 1.5 stars just because I like noir movies.

It made me laugh when they kept using the same footage over and over in different parts of the movie. Also funny how 2 gunshots can kill 8 people.

Sterling Hayden was a fine actor in his day and he does a great job in this film as the lead Johnny Clay. The main girl in the film is an actress named Marie Windsor. I read about her on IMDB and found out she was born in a small town in Utah called Marysvale, attended BYU, and was active in the church her whole life.

The story is about a group of guys who plan on stealing $2 Million from a horse race track operation. They almost get away with it but lose in the end.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Finally we get to see Number 1's face.  He has concocted an EVIL plan to travel to space and mechanically devour US and USSR space capsules, how he does I will keep secret so as not to take from  the enjoyment of the film.  In the end Bond marries a Japanese girl, kills almost all of the bad guys, watches Dr. Evil, I mean Number 1 escape, and lives to see another day.

I think I am going to take a brief break from these movies and try and watch better films. :)

Thunderball (1964)

This movie sucks!!  All I remember is that there was a lot of underwater shots...stupid!!!  NO STARS!

Goldfinger (1964)

Alright, I have trashed this series for the first two movies, but now I must step back and take stock of the wonder of which I have now beheld in Goldfinger.  To keep with the tradition of the previous two films the acting was horrible, but the ideas brought forth in the story were incredible.  Picture a man, if you will, who has a fetish for gold.  To satisfy this addiction he has formulated a plan to break into the vaults at Fort Knox, plant a dirty nuclear bomb which he got from Chinese investors, and in return sell his non-contaminated gold to the rest of the world at ten times the current market value....Brilliant.  Finally, a three star movie for the James Bond series.  Oh, and watch for a crazy Asian man who can kill you with his hat!!

Father Goose (1964)

I had high expectations for Cary Grant's second to last film that he every made. I turned it off after 70 min- couldn't handle it anymore. Way to cheesy and I was uninterested throughout the entire movie.

Grants plays a bum who is hired by the Navy to watch for enemy Japanese warcraft. Grant is stationed on an island by himself and lives to drink alcohol and that is about it. One day he ends up with a lady and 7 children on the island with him, and the rest of the movie is about those two battling the age old battle of the sexes routine.

Enough - 2002

This is a remake of "Sleeping with the Enemy" which stared Julia Roberts. This version has JLo and my wife likes her so we ended up watching this movie. I give it 1 star. Noah Wyle from E.R. did a horrible job in this movie. The movie is about JLo getting revenge on her husband by beating on him instead of him beating on her. Pretty weak script.