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The Poor and Hungry (2000, Craig Brewer)
So much of The Poor and Hungry is so good, one wants to forgive writer-director Brewer his excesses. First off, he shot the film on some kind of consumer video. He’s completely aware of the medium’s...
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Bedlam (1946, Mark Robson)
Bedlam is about a third of a good picture. It’s like writers Val Lewton and (director too) Robson didn’t quite know how to make it work, what with having to have Boris Karloff in it. Karloff’s the...
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I Walked with a Zombie (1943, Jacques Tourneur)
Before it stumbles through its third act, I Walked with a Zombie’s biggest problem is the pacing. It’s exceedingly boring during the second act. Its second biggest problem is it’s too short. The second...
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The Monster Walks (1932, Frank R. Strayer)
I went into The Monster Walks with what I consider reasonable expectations. I thought it would be bad. I thought it would be a bad, low budget, rainy night in a mansion with a killer ape loose movie....
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Mad Max 2 (1981, George Miller)
Mad Max 2 might be the perfect example of pure action. Besides a couple extended dialogue moments–maybe the only times Mel Gibson’s protagonist gets to talk without Brian May’s music over him or just...
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The Back of Beyond (1955, Arthur Ripley)
The Back of Beyond has perfectly good production values–it takes place in the West Indies, at a British protectorate island (it’s a Maugham adaptation, where else would it take place)–but director...
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Freiheit (1966, George Lucas)
I knew Freiheit was a student film going in–I just didn’t realize the director wasn’t a teenager. The director in question is George Lucas and I thought he was a teenager because the short is so...
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Dark Stranger (1955, Arthur Ripley)
Dark Stranger is a high concept story about a writer meeting a character out of his novel. The concept’s ambitious because the script–from Betty Ulius and Joel Murcott–is so thorough. Edmond O’Brien’s...
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Bloodlust! (1961, Ralph Brooke)
What’s startling about Bloodlust! isn’t how bad it gets–the film opens on a docked ship, with the principal cast pretending it’s moving violently so the bad is obvious straight away–but how many not...
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Dear Heart (1964, Delbert Mann)
Dear Heart starts awkwardly and ends awkwardly. At the beginning, director Mann and writer Tad Mosel are very deliberately setting up their protagonists and the setting. The awkwardness makes sense....
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