HAPPY THANKSGIVING

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2024.

HAVE A GREAT DAY (AND DON'T EAT TOO MUCH) !

B MOVIE NIGHTMARE WILL RETURN IN TWO WEEKS WITH MORE NEW REVIEWS! 

LONGLEGS

Dakota Daulby and Maika Monroe

LONGLEGS (2024). Written and directed by Osgood Perkins.

FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is assigned to the case of a weirdo named Longlegs (Nicolas Cage) who somehow gets men to murder their families and then off themselves. As Lee and her boss, Carter (Blair Underwood), investigate further, Lee discovers that Longlegs' accomplice may be much closer to home than she realized. And what about that strange lifelike doll that's found under the floorboards in an abandoned home?

Nicolas Cage in another bad movie

The vastly overpraised and illogical Longlegs is almost like a travesty of a serial killer movie. It's hard to imagine that someone as nervous and neurotic as Lee Harker would ever have been made an FBI agent. Even if one accepts that Lee is a strange, moody person, it doesn't excuse the wretched and dull performance given by Ms. Monroe. Nicolas Cage -- yes, this is yet another lousy movie that the actor is in -- offers a perfectly okay stunt performance aided by tons of spooky make up. 

How did I get in this crap? Alicia Witt 

Alicia Witt, who once starred in slasher films like Urban Legend, is also okay as Lee's weird mother.  Although Blair Underwood from L.A. Law is now middle-aged, he still seems cute and baby-faced, but his performance is -- again -- okay. There are so many holes and implausible moments in the story that it's almost laughable, and the movie isn't good enough to enable the viewer to suspend disbelief. Osgood Perkins, the son of Anthony Psycho Perkins, does not betray much skill as either a writer or a director: the movie has no energy. The film's only saving grace is the atmospheric cinematography by Andres Arochi. Elvis Perkins' score has its moments as well. 

Verdict: For heaven's sake if Nicolas Cage is in the cast find another movie! *1/2. 

GODZILLA MINUS ONE

Godzilla

GODZILLA MINUS ONE (2024). Director: Takashi Yamasaki. 

At the very end of WW2 Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a Japanese kamikaze pilot who hasn't quite got the stuff. Landing on Odo Island where there is a regiment of mechanics, he and the others encounter Godzilla. Koichi is too scared to use his plane's arms to fire at the monster, and everyone but him and engineer Sosaku (Munetaka Aoki) dies. Returning to civilization and a shattered Japan, he hooks up with a young woman, Noriko (Minami Hamabe), who has rescued a little orphaned baby. Wracked with guilt over his cowardice, Koichi resists having a real relationship with Noriko, but they have much bigger problems when Godzilla -- now grown even larger and with an atomic-irradiated body that can shoot out devasting heat beams -- stomps through Tokyo. With no aid coming from any other country and a shattered government, survivors band together to come up with a way to destroy the monster, a plan in which Koichi will play a major role. 

Ryunosuke Kamiki

The original Godzilla film -- the 1954 Gojira -- was much more serious than the almost comical films featuring the monster that followed. This film follows in that tradition, and creates a host of interesting and generally well-developed characters for the viewer to get involved with. The film is too long, unfortunately, and the scenes with these characters may make some people impatient to see Godzilla in action. There aren't enough sequences starring the big guy but they are fairly exciting. This movie uses some of the martial music from the original film as well as Godzilla's classic metallic roar. 

Godzilla on the move!

Godzilla Minus One isn't campy like the American Godzilla with Matthew Broderick, but that film, despite its many flaws, was more entertaining and thrilling, with better FX work. (The FX for Godzilla Minus One won an Oscar!) Godzilla himself looks a little lumpy at times. Still, I have to agree that this flick is probably the best Godzilla film in years and is a vast improvement over a more recent American version and the dreadful Shin Godzilla. The movie also tackles Japanese attitudes towards death and dying. Oddly, the ending when certain principals are reunited may leave a lump in your throat!

Verdict: By reimagining the original Gojira, they have come up with something different. **3/4.  

TOO MUCH BEEF

Rex Bell

TOO MUCH BEEF (1936). Director: Robert F. Hill.

Rocky Brown (Forrest Taylor) owns the Wagon Wheels ranch and lives with his sister, Ruth (Constance Bergen). He realizes that steers which aren't part of his herd are being branded and placed with his own cattle. As Rocky was once falsely jailed for rustling, he is anxious to get to the bottom of this. To that end comes Johnny Argyle (Rex Bell) calling himself "Tucson Smith" as he investigates. Johnny romances Ruth as he interviews Rocky's gal pal Sheila (Marjorie O'Connell), drunk Tracy Paine (George Ball), Rocky's foreman Shorty (Jimmy Aubrey), railroad man George Thompson (John Cowell), and others. When a fellow named Dynamite (Lloyd Ingraham) is murdered, Rocky is framed for it -- Johnny goes into action and saves the day!

Constance Bergen and Forrest Taylor

In his day Rex Bell was a big western movie star, but he was probably more famous for being the husband of "It" girl Clara Bow. He is good-looking, with some charm, and a bare minimum of acting ability, at least in this very standard oater. The other cast members are a little more impressive, but the direction for this is slow, and except for one fist fight and some gun shots in the climactic courtroom scene, this is not too memorable a picture. Bell appeared in forty-three films, wrapping up his career with an uncredited bit in The Misfits in 1961. He and Bow were married for over thirty years until his death, which occurred when he was running for governor of Nevada. Forrest Taylor appeared in several serials, including the wonderful Manhunt of Mystery Island.     

Verdict: Rex is appealing in his way but the movie doesn't amount to much. *1/2. 

TOMORROW WE LIVE

Jean Parker, Rose Anne Stevens, Emmett Lynn

TOMORROW WE LIVE (1942). Director: Edgar G. Ulmer. 

Julie Bronson (Jean Parker of Lady in the Death House) comes home to her father, "Pop" Bronson (Emmett Lynn), who runs a cafe but is actually working for a gangster known as The Ghost (Ricardo Cortez). When the Ghost meets Julie he instantly decides that he must have her, but although she gets a little weak in the knees, she is in love with handsome Lieutenant Bob Lord (William Marshall), who has just enlisted. Besides dealing with competition for Julie's affections, the Ghost -- so-called because he's managed to cheat death more than once -- also must contend with a rival, Big Charlie, who we never actually see because he sends his henchmen to do his dirty work. Bob proposes to Julie, but there's a hiccup when she learns that the Ghost has something on her father that could send him back to prison.

William Marshall

Although released in 1942, Tomorrow We Live comes off like a movie made ten years earlier. It's not just that it's a cheap PRC production that was probably shot in two days with a budget of 10 cents, but that its script is creaky and the musical score hokey as hell. Aside from Parker and Rose Anne Stevens as waitress Melba, the acting is so perfunctory that it's as if the performers were handed their scripts right before they stood in front of the cameras. Both Cortez and Marshall have given much better accounts of themselves, such as in the film they teamed for five years later, Blackmail. Director Edgar G. Ulmer, who has also done much better work, films a lengthy fist fight entirely in long shot! Ultimately this is pretty dull.

Verdict: One of Ulmer's worst movies. *.  

THE STRANGE COUNTESS

Brigitte Grothum, Lil Dagover, and Eddi Arent

THE STRANGE COUNTESS (aka Sie seltsame Grafin/1961). Directors: Josef von Baky; Jurgen Roland; Ottokar Runze.

Margaret (Brigitte Grothum) receives menacing phone calls from a strange man (Klaus Kinski), is nearly killed on more than one occasion, and decides to accept a job offer from Countess Luana Moran (Lil Dagover) to become her new secretary. Margaret had previously worked for the countess' lawyer, Shaddle (Fritz Rasp), who importunes Inspector Dorn (Joachim Fuchsberger) to watch out for her as he feels she's in danger. This proves true even when Margaret arrives at the countess' imposing castle, and meets her son, Selwyn (Eddi Arent), the strange Dr. Tappan (Rudolf Fernau), and the oily Chesney Praye (Richard Haussler), among others. If a near-death incident on a collapsing balcony weren't enough, Margaret learns that Mary Pinder (Marianne Hoppe), a woman who served twenty years for poisoning someone, is her biological mother and is coming to work at the castle! Time to seek new employment, perhaps? 

Grothum with Joachim Fuchsberger

This is another West German thriller based on a novel by Edgar Wallace. With mysterious countesses and castles, sinister psychiatric clinics, and a hero who doesn't clue the heroine in as to what's going on and therefore manages to frighten her as much as the bad guys, Strange Countess betrays its thirties origins. While you may develop some interest as to why Margaret is on somebody's hit list, the movie never becomes gripping, although the actors are certainly game. Lil Dagover was a German actress who had a very long career and who appeared in the original silent Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. 

Verdict: Despite a dozen or so people running around in all directions this never becomes that interesting. **.