Change Your Image
escalera-2
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Mesmerized (1985)
There's a Good Movie in Here Somewhere
My Letter to George, a.k.a., Mesmerized, has all the right parts for a very good movie. As it is, it only confounded this viewer.
The performers are well cast and all very good in their roles. The music, the sets and costuming along with the stars all seem committed to relating a very interesting tale based on actual events. In my opinion, it is the ham-fisted editing that sinks the movie. It is possible that the script was not working and a last ditch effort to save the movie in the editing room leaves us with the convoluted release.
We find Oliver Thompson (John Lithgow), to be a man comfortable only in the universe he created for himself and seems to have invited his child-bride, Jodie Foster's Victoria, into that plan only to emulate his domineering father with the child she was to bear.
In this version, Oliver's younger brother George Thompson (Dan Shor) comes off as a lesser character. With more time on screen for development we might we might be able to see what attracts Victoria to him other than merely being a seemingly better option to her circumstance.
There have been some negative comments about the grainy cinematography however I should think that was a deliberate decision on the part of the filmmaker to keep the setting from looking romantic which would have worked against the story. The Jodie Foster character was living in a world that was hardly kind to women. A pretty countryside, nice clothes and home did not make it a wonderful life for Victoria.
Worth a look and should be of interest to students of film.
War of the Colossal Beast (1958)
Wow. That's huge.
A friend of mine said that War of the Colossal Beast(1958) was made only to make money and NO ONE cared if it made sense or not or even if it was any good. He referred to it as an "insipid time waster" and "a pitiful movie". Now if that sounds harsh, maybe it is but he was being honest about it. And I'm not sure how I will come off to you either.
As for me, well, I like a Sci-Fi potboiler as much as the next guy (except my friend in this case) and I even enjoy many of them. I don't expect much most of the time but War of the Colossal Beast was trying to get away with murder.
It features most of the hackneyed conventions of movies of this ilk and so I don't think there is anyone out there that could not guess the elements. I don't know how anyone could "spoil" this kind of movie but I'll declare this anyway:
*** SPOILERS AHEAD!***
The story doesn't go anywhere: Guys walking around, driving around, woman looking worried, Beast growling, guys setting up equipment, soldiers playing tug o' war with the big guy (I presume that is the "War" mentioned in the title), a string of cost-cutting flashbacks, a couple of escapes and then kilowatt city for the Colonel (insert "fried" joke here).
Someone on the IMDb page suggests his disappearance at the end meant that a third installment was in mind. Interesting to think that the self-inflicted electrical charge knocked him into another dimension. As intriguing as that sounds, I think that even Bert I. Gordon knew the theme had run out of gas and meant to just bump the guy off.
It seems as if the script was written at a toy store with the writer picking up some neat looking trucks and posing in the aisle but he had no where to go with it really. His pitch was pretty much, "...and, and, and, and then he dies at the end!"
And while I'm on the subject of guys getting bumped off, a couple of the deaths along the way seemed a bit rushed, too. The savvy Mexican policeman who figures out how to bait the Beast apparently gets crushed but nothing is really said about it and no Wilheim Scream to indicate that he really did get smashed or if he just had one hairy close call. Then later, we get the news via a telephone conversation that some military doctor had been kilt OFF SCREEN. ("Here you go. Here's your check. Now get out.")
Let's not forget the typical budding romance between the titular Beast's sister and take-charge guy, Major Mark Baird -- the type of role usually played by Hugh Marlowe -- because to do so would be wrong and most guys promised their dates some romantic interaction between a nice couple thrown together surrounded by danger!
Well, THAT goes nowhere.
Until I saw it recently on TV, I did not know that the Colonel's suicide was shot in color. Spiffy, a bit of a shock. Yes, if you have seen this title, take the pun.
I hadn't seen this picture since the 60's (ABC Channel 7's The Six O'clock Movie in Los Angeles and back then on a B&W set).
(I must say that it is always fun for me to see familiar hometown landmarks in the background such as the famous Griffith Observatory but even that comes to nothing)
Actually, there are a couple interesting aspects to the story but they were not really fleshed out, such as the short scene where the Government plays Hot Potato with the big fella because no one is willing to pick up the tab for his room and board, and another throw-away where the Red Cross wants to stop the flow of blood because, after escaping and his recovery brings him some new, unseen injury, they say that he's using too much of the available supply.
But, no point is ever developed. Too bad. It would have been an opportunity for some interesting commentary.
Well, you'll get to see the late L.A. veteran KTLA TV 5 news reporter Stan Chambers standing around and catch a glimpse of those big as a V-8 engine TV cameras from back then.
And maybe that's the best way to view this movie, as a relic of the days when Drive-in theaters were big. Maybe even colossal.
War of the Satellites (1958)
An entertaining sci-fi potboiler with fine acting.
In October, 1957, the Soviet Union surprised everyone with the first successful launch and orbit of a spacecraft, a satellite dubbed "Sputnik". That name and the term "satellite" was on front pages of every newspaper in America.
"War of the Satellites" was produced by Roger Corman because he knew he could get a deal (funding) from his distributor by promising a film with the then hot buzz-word, "satellite", on the marquee. His plan worked and the film was rushed together. By then, Corman had a number of capable people he could count on to pull it off. Discount the war-surplus and junkyard props and and the hardly scientific premise and "War of the Satellites" turns out to be fun and a rather credible popcorn epic. It was released on a double bill and the title brought in the expected crowd.