BLACKHAT (2015) * ½

Blackhat is your typical Michael Mann film.  Well, typical except it sucks.  It follows his usual fetishes for cops and robbers stuff.  There are lots of police procedural scenes, frantic phone calls, and cops staying frustratingly one step behind their man for most of the movie.  Instead of a bank robber or a drug dealer, the bad guy the cops are chasing is a computer hacker.  

As Dirty Harry once said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”  Now, I’m not a tech guy.  I can barely blog.  Because of that, most of the computer gobbledygook went over my head.  It doesn’t matter if half the dialogue in the movie sounded like a foreign language to me, that doesn’t excuse the lethargic pacing and insurmountable running time.

Even with my computer illiterate handicap, I’m smart enough to know that the CGI shots of a virus running through a computer looked like the half-baked stepchild of Tron:  Legacy and an HBO promo from the ‘80s.

Hemsworth is good.  The sign of a quality actor is the ability to rise above the excruciating dialogue he’s been given and coast on charm alone.  He does that in spades.

Another big detractor for me was Mann’s continued use of digital video.  Although many of the exterior shots are slick and moody, the action scenes are often grainy and use a lot of irritating shaky-cam camerawork.   Seriously, it looks like Mann filmed half the action on his phone.  And I’m not talking an iPhone either.  Mann straight up Jitterbugged that shit.  

I’m not afraid to admit I was lost throughout most of this movie.  It’s one thing to be lost because you can’t understand what the characters are talking about.  It’s another thing when the camerawork is so bad you can’t tell what the hell is going on during the action.

What’s worse is that it takes an hour-and-forty-two minutes for Hemsworth to finally put on a black hat!  What the fuck?  By that point, I was rooting for Thor to pull out his hammer and smash his laptop to pieces.

AKA:  Hacker.

SPACE PROBE-TAURUS (1965) ** ½

A rocket carrying four scientists is launched into space.  On their voyage, the crew makes contact with a ship from another world.  They board the vessel, run into an alien, and kill it within minutes of their historic meeting!  The astronauts hop back into the ship and are thrown off course by a meteor shower.  They wind up landing on a mysterious moon where they recharge their batteries.  Before they can blast off, they must tussle with some giant crabs.

This kind of sci-fi exploration movie was on its last legs when Space Probe-Taurus was released.  2001 was only three years off and after that, chintzy rocket ships and astronauts sitting in La-Z-Boy chairs would be a thing of the past.  There’s even the obligatory sexist astronaut that doesn’t think a woman should be up in space.  Also, revolvers are standard issue astronaut equipment… you know… in case you want to shoot an alien immediately after you make first contact with it.  

I have a high tolerance for these movies.  Space Probe-Taurus won’t convert any new fans to the genre, but anyone who appreciates a cheesy space exploration movie should have fun with it.  It gets points for getting the show on the road pretty quickly, although some of the relationship drama that clogs up the middle section is laughably bad.

Even though they were using the same techniques Flash Gordon used thirty years prior, the effects are still entertaining for the most part.  While the bulk of the effects are cheesy, the shots of the astronauts floating around in space are well done.  The monsters are cool too.  I especially liked the rubbery looking alien who kept frantically licking its lips.  The giant crabs, which are just regular crabs walking around an Estes rocket are also good for a laugh.  There’s also a Creature from the Black Lagoon-inspired monster that wears a long black wig and swims around.  The mask looks like it could fall off the diver at any moment, but that’s part of its charm.

AKA:  Space Monster.

THE LOOKOUT (2007) **

Chris Pratt (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, not Chris Pratt) has his sports career is cut short when he gets into a car accident that leaves him brain damaged and suffering from memory loss.  Because of his condition, the only job he can get is an after-hours janitor in a bank.  (Also, because of his condition, he thinks he’s Chris Pratt and not Joseph Gordon-Levitt).  He spends his spare time hanging out with his blind roommate/sponsor (Jeff Daniels) while pining away for a “normal life”.  (And presumably, a role in a Guardians of the Galaxy movie.)  Chris is befriended by an old schoolmate (Matthew Goode) who helps beef up his confidence, but it’s all a ploy to manipulate him into robbing the bank.

I was a big fan of writer/director Scott Frank’s A Walk Among the Tombstones, so I was curious to check this out, as it was his directorial debut.  I also immensely liked Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance in The Walk.  Because of that, I thought The Lookout couldn't miss.  Man, was I wrong.

The early scenes are the best.  Frank does a good job infusing his characters with personality. Daniels in particular excels as the blind roommate.   Once the heist kicks in, the movie oddly enough stops on a dime.  I thought there'd be a big twist or something at the end to justify the lackluster third act, but no.  This has got to be one of the least impressive heists in cinema history. 

Still, Frank does a fine job at establishing a nice atmosphere.  All the ingredients were there for a fine drama.  Frank had the marinade ready; he just forgot to bring the meat.

HAIL, CAESAR! (2016) ** ½

Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) is a fixer at a Hollywood studio who is overseeing the finishing touches on a big budget Biblical epic.  When his leading man (George Clooney) is kidnapped by Communists, he has to scramble to get him back.  He enlists the help of a cowboy star (Alden Ehrenreich) to find the mastermind behind the scheme, which could be one of the studio’s top stars.

Hail, Caesar! is the Coen brothers’ love letter to the Golden Age of cinema.  There’s probably too many side characters and subplots swirling around that prevent it from gaining any sort of momentum.  The crux of the story is involving, but the Coens seem to be having more fun with their little plot detours, character embellishments, and recreations of old movies.  

I liked how the audience is introduced to each movie star by watching them film a scene from their latest picture.  Channing Tatum has a long Gene Kelly-inspired tapdancing sequence and Scarlett Johansson gets her own Ethel Merman underwater number.  Unfortunately, most of the characters (with the exception of Brolin) are thinly sketched.

There are a few winning moments.  The scene where Ralph Fiennes tries to help Ehrenreich with his dialogue is hysterical.  This sequence alone has more laughs than what’s found in the rest of the film.

Hail, Caesar! is much too unfocused to be wholly successful, but it’s still watchable just for the performances.  Ehrenreich proves he’s a star in the making.  He looks good in a cowboy hat and bolo tie too.  If he doesn’t take off playing Han Solo, he can tide himself over with a Joe Bob Briggs biopic.  Brolin is quite good in the lead and does what he can to hold the film together.  Clooney makes do with his admittedly flimsy role, although he's seen better days.  

It’s the supporting performances that make it fun.  Most people are only on screen for two or three minutes.  No matter how scattershot it gets, it’s hard to completely hate a movie that features Clancy Brown, Christopher Lambert, and Dolph Lundgren in bit parts.  I mean where else are you going to see Channing Tatum salute Dolph Lundgren?

DEMON WIND (1990) * ½

I have fond memories of seeing the lenticular video box cover for Demon Wind on video store shelves back in the day.  I always regretted never renting it.  I mean other movies like Uncle Sam and Jack Frost had lenticular VHS boxes, and they were awesome.  There’s no reason Demon Wind shouldn’t follow suit.

As it turns out, it’s mostly terrible.

Cory (Eric Larson) is plagued by bad dreams, so he takes his girlfriend and his seemingly never-ending posse of friends to the shack where his grandparents mysteriously died years earlier.  It looks just like a burnt-out shell, but when they cross the threshold, they find themselves in the house just as it was all those years ago.  One by one, they become possessed by demons and naturally, the only one who can stop them is Cory.  

Demon Wind is a bad Evil Dead rip-off.  It’s overlong, dull, and often doesn’t make a lick of sense.  The kills quickly get repetitive as does the make-up on all the possessed people.  

There are some weird touches here that prevent it from being a total loss.  In one scene, a woman gets turned into a baby doll.  That’s not even the weird part.  The weird part is the others just sort of accept her fate and move on.  

Cory’s gaggle of friends offer some amusement, just for the sheer number of them.  Even as the movie is headed for the third act, his buddies continue to show up to become demon fodder.  My favorites were the two magician friends who irritate the jock asshole of the group by constantly performing magic tricks. 

Demon Wind was the first film by Charles Philip Moore.  He would get much better as he went on to direct the immortal Angel of Destruction four years later.  You can just tell he was itching to direct Kung Fu movies from the random scene where one of the magicians kickboxes a beer can. 

LARCENY (2017) **

I was a fan of director R. Ellis Frazier’s Rumble, so I decided to take a chance on his latest film, Larceny.  Like Rumble, it is a competently made picture.  Since it doesn’t have the same kind of bonkers twist ending, it’s kind of a forgettable affair. 

Dolph Lundgren stars as an ex-DEA agent who gets himself thrown in jail down in Mexico.  That might sound like a dumb thing for a gringo to do, but Dolph has a plan.  He knows that’s where a big drug dealer keeps all his money and Dolph and his team are planning to take it off his hands.

Larceny is a heist film, so those expecting your typical Lundgren shoot ‘em up may be a little disappointed.  The pacing is also a bit slow and nothing much happens during the middle section.  Frazier fails to get any mileage out of the admittedly novel setting.  It’s a shame too because combining the heist and prison genres seemed like a good idea.

It’s one thing for a movie to be low on action.  It’s another thing to set up a big action sequence and not deliver.  In order to make his escape, Dolph lets the prisoners loose to create a distraction.  Everything looks like it’s leading up to a big shootout, only Frazier cuts to black and flash-forwards to Dolph’s girlfriend being kidnapped after the heist.  It happens so abruptly that it made me think that the production simply ran out of money and couldn't afford to film the sequence.

Dolph is his usual charismatic self.  We also get solid support from Corbin Bernsen as Dolph's boss and Louis Mandylor as a crooked senator.  Jocelyn Osorio also does a fine job as the lone woman on Dolph’s team.  She proves she’s just as capable as the boys and holds her own in her dramatic scenes.  I wouldn’t mind seeing her in her own starring vehicle.

AKA:  Maximum Security.

THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1963) *

William Castle seemed liked the right person to remake James Whale’s classic The Old Dark House.  Castle had a knack for presenting horror with a light tongue-in-cheek touch, which made him perfectly suited to the material.  Unfortunately, his version of The Old Dark House relies way too heavily on comedy, and none of it is very funny.

Tom Poston stars as an American car salesman who comes to a decrepit mansion to deliver a car to his English roommate, played by Peter Bull.  The place is crawling with kooky relatives who inform Poston his roommate died suddenly under shady circumstances.  Poston gets mixed up in the family squabble for the will, and soon becomes the killer’s next target.

Castle’s most famous films featured gimmicks that were often more fun than the movies themselves.  The Old Dark House doesn’t have one, and it’s doubtful the wildest gimmick imaginable could’ve made it work.  It’s probably his all-time worst.  There is one memorable scene involving a death by knitting needle, but that’s about as close as Castle comes to blending horror and humor effectively.

Much of the problem has to do with Poston’s performance.  He was great on Newhart and all, but he is painfully unfunny here.  To be fair, he wasn’t given much to work with as the script mostly requires him to do a lot of double-takes and pratfalls while interacting with the oddball family.  Bull fairs slightly better playing multiple roles, although he doesn’t garner any laughs either.

The best part is the opening credits sequence, designed by Charles Addams.  His most famous creation, The Addams Family, premiered on television the next year.  At times, this almost feels like a test run for that show, but it’s nowhere near as much fun.