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Vikings (2013)
Model girls taming men outdoors
Began well with tough tales of the north, but drifted into wet stories of fashionably leather, metal-furred ladies chopping up enemies and ruling their wimpy men at home. Now, as of season 3, just another series about empowered 21st century females living in a Norse outdoor makeup parlor. Producer Hirst's daughter Maude may take the bland cake for everybody.
Focus (2015)
Leave it in his Will
Smith is DOA and the writers don't even know Flip in this under-cooked caper that belongs in a jar with other seldom seen condiments. Every attempt to extract any chemistry from the leads (Smith and Robbie) puts out all the heat you might expect from a post grad party at a rural casino. She may yet eek out a career, but his is shot. The mixture is just foolish. Reviews require ten lines of text. Here come four more:....... ....... ...... ...... ....... ......... ........ ........ .... ...... ......... .......... ............ ............... .......... ....... .......... ......... ........ .......... ......... .......etc.
Island of the Dead (2000)
A lot of mealworms in this movie...
McDowell has certainly come a long way since A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and CALIGULA. Here, he owns an island chocked with the graves of nameless souls who bit it in the Big Apple and have now turned into swarms of digital dots. The cast beats their heads frantically, but there's no getting away from the nits. Malcolm can't escape this, either. Playing a billionaire businessman, the old Brit seems rather like a loopy immigrant among a cast of Anglo blahs. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out - bring your swatters, it's an inexpensive special effects treat for anyone who keeps lizards or birds as pets. The flies are wide open on this low budget buzzer.
The Club (1980)
Relentlessly barbed, literary classic is 'Up There with Cazaly!'
"Everything is so awful in this movie it's funny," noted a previous review that awarded the film but one star. How right that is, but not in the sense meant...everything that happens in this splendidly rhetorical saga of a small Aussie Rules Football club is so awful that it's utterly and memorably hilarious. Never mind that sports films can be dull, that isn't the focus. A declining Melbourne footy club buys an expensive player, resented by the team, who is stoned much of the time. The club president, arrested for an assault on a stripper, is a just successful pie salesman with money who loves the game. The coach, cheated of fame when he was a player and formerly subject to alcohol problems, struggles to save his job and do it well at the same time. An ex-coaching board member wants to defeat the current coach before his own record is beaten. The business manager is concerned only with profit. The team captain is in danger of being traded. David Williamson's acerbic play reaches the screen with a dream Australian cast who fight each other in the boardroom with such verbal sting it will leave your ears red. Jack Thompson in his prime, John Howard when he was thin, Graham Kennedy at his wits' best, Frank Wilson and Alan Cassell driving verbal nails and vintage location setting exactly where the story is depicted...plus actual players from the time. THE CLUB will stay with you for life, regardless of when you see it. Seldom is a movie taken from a play so successfully transferred. The musical theme, "Up There Cazaly," a dedication to famed player Roy Cazaly, adds icing to a finely layered literary cake. Ten big ones, cobber.
Love & Mercy (2014)
Cusack is not Brian anybody!
I met Brian Wilson several times. All four stars go to Paul Dano, who tries and does well as young Brian, but no one can suspend disbelief so far as to accept John Cusack, a great actor in the right situation, as Brian anybody. It's a ridiculous stretch to begin with. Brian himself was able to sit through this film, though how, I cannot imagine. Still, Brian dances to his own imagination, so I wouldn't presume to determine his impression of it. Nothing wrong with the film's values, only that the flip-flop age approach, Dano as young Brian, Cusack as older Brian, simply doesn't work, because even a fine actor like Cusack cannot achieve any believable resemblance to Wilson or his persona - he is just the wrong choice to pull off such a huge conceit. Best turn to "Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" (1995) and let the actual man do his job. Director Bill Pohlad is no slouch, but next time, perhaps a bit more looking before taking a leap the size of this one.