THE KID BROTHER (1927) *** ½

Harold Lloyd stars as the youngest, scrawniest son of a burly sheriff.  He gets himself into a predicament when he falls in love with a pretty dancer (Jobyna Ralston) from a medicine show, who mistakes him for his father.  When dear old dad is accused of theft, it’s then up to Harold to clear his name and bring the real crooks to justice.  

The Kid Brother typifies what made Harold Lloyd so beloved.  The big physical comedy routines contain a lot of laughs, but it’s the little character moments that really make the audience root for him.  It’s amazing how with the minimum of effort, he creates a likeable underdog character that you can automatically love.  

There are some great set pieces, like when Lloyd tries to fetch his father’s best shirt from the clothesline.  Heck, even some of the throwaway bits (like his ingenious method of doing the dishes) are a marvel of comedic mastery.  Of course, his physicality is second to none, which is wonderfully portrayed during the awesome moment where Lloyd scales (and subsequently fall from) a large tree just to get a glimpse of Ralston as she’s walking away.  

While The Kid Brother has some fun stretches, not all the sequences yield big laughs.  The scene where Lloyd’s brothers try to keep out of sight from Ralston while she’s staying in their home goes on a bit too long and is a little repetitive.  There are also some unfunny shenanigans involving a comic relief monkey that could’ve easily been scrapped.   

These ho-hum bits don’t really detract from the overall sense of fun.  Besides, the great character work that Lloyd does throughout the film more than make up for its assorted shortcomings.  The ending where Harold mans up and does the right thing against nearly impossible odds is quite rousing and will have you grinning from ear to ear.  Also, the chemistry between Lloyd and Ralston (who was also his leading lady in Girl Shy) is winning, and their final moments together ends the film on a pitch perfect note.  

STORM OF THE CENTURY (1999) ***

With Storm of the Century, Craig R. Baxley directed one of the better Stephen King TV mini-series.  It’s not perfect, as it’s a little slow to start (it played better when it was strewn over three nights when it originally ran on television as opposed to trying to watch it on home video in one sitting), but there are some legitimately great moments here.  The ending is rather terrific, too.  It just takes a while to get there.

Storm of the Century is similar in many ways to King’s less successful Needful Things.  It’s set in another little Maine town where gossip gets around at lightning speed.  A stranger then waltzes into town who somehow knows everybody’s secrets and uses it against them, causing mistrust, chaos, and eventually death.

Colm Feore is the mysterious stranger, Andre Linoge, who arrives just ahead of a big snowstorm.  His first order of business is to murder an old woman.  As he’s being arrested, he tells constable Mike (Tim Daly), “Give me what I want, and I’ll go away”.  He takes him into custody and soon, Linoge begins manipulating the townsfolk into committing suicide and/or murdering their loved ones.  Finally, Linoge reveals his purpose, and much to Mike's horror, the town is all too eager to go along with it.

King’s screenplay might’ve worked better as a two-parter than a three-parter.  That said, when it cooks it really cooks.  There are passages that unfold like one of King’s novels (the script was written directly for television).  He always saw himself as a “putter-inner” than a “taker-outer”, so even though some of these stretches are a little on the slow side, most of them have their moments and/or payoffs.  Sure, there are some eye-rolling sequences here and there (like when Linoge is flying around the clouds with the town’s children like a cross between Superman and the Pied Piper), but then again, so do a lot of the King mini-series from the era.  Whenever Feore is front and center and turning the screws to the hapless citizens, it’s some damned fine stuff.

Daly (whose Wings’ co-star Steven Weber was in another King TV adaptation, The Shining) is quite good.  He gives one of his best performances, and capably holds down the fort whenever things threaten to spin out of control.  It’s Colm Feore who steals the movie as the icy cold evil entity who holds the town hostage and demanding a sacrifice.  He also gets all the best lines, and while his catchphrase “Born in sin?  Come on in!” is a bit repetitive, it’s a lot of fun to watch him chew the scenery.

Sure, some of the CGI effects have aged poorly.  Sure, there are some lulls in the action.  However, the final half-hour is about as good as King TV gets.  It may be a little wonky here and there, but Storm of the Century’s final act contains some truly chilling stuff.

ACT OF VENGEANCE (1986) ** ½

Charles Bronson stars as a union worker who represents coal miners in this made for HBO drama based on a true story.   When eighty men lose their lives in a mining accident, the union president (Wilford Brimley) doesn’t do a damned thing to help.  Bronson gets fed up with his bullshit and decides to run against him in the next election.  Brimley knows everyone is going to vote for Chuck, so he rigs the election.  Bronson finds out and sets out to expose Wilford, who then puts a hit out on Chuck and his family. 

Chuck doesn’t have his trademark mustache in this one, which is the tip-off he’s really acting in a serious movie.  Because of that, Act of Vengeance lacks the fun of a Death Wish 3 or a 10 to Midnight.  Despite that, the strong supporting cast keeps you watching.  In addition to Brimley, who plays a solid heavy, we have Ellen Burstyn (as Bronson’s faithful wife), Hoyt Axton (Brimley’s crooked cohort), Ellen Barkin (Axton’s daughter), and a young Keanu Reeves (whose name is misspelled in the credits).  It’s pretty amusing seeing Reeves in this, mostly because his Bill and Ted co-star, Alex Winter starred alongside Bronson in Death Wish 3 the year before.   

Director John Mackenzie is best known for The Long Good Friday, but he’s a legend to me for directing Apaches, a demented PSA about the dangers of children playing on abandoned farm equipment.  I readily admit that union dramas aren’t my cup of tea.  Usually, the only way to get me to watch one of these is if you have someone like Stallone (F.I.S.T.), Nicholson (Hoffa), or DeNiro (The Irishman) in them.  Luckily for me, the presence of Charles Bronson made it worth a look.   

Act of Vengeance is watchable for the most part.  Bronson’s compelling performance keeps you invested for an act and a half.  However, things start to slide once the focus shifts to the gunmen Brimley hires to take out Bronson.  These sections just aren’t as dramatically involving and feel more like a cheap true crime reenactment than anything.  On the other hand, this movie answers the age-old question:  Who would win in a contest between Paul Kersey and John Wick?  Because of that, it gets a marginal recommendation. 

Brimley gets the best line of the movie when he says, “I don’t care who you pray to or if you’re a Catholic, Methodist, or a Republican!”   

AKA:  Local 323.  AKA:  Act of Vengeance… A True Story.

MOONSHINE COUNTY EXPRESS (1977) ** ½

An old moonshiner is murdered, and his still is blown sky-high.  In his will, he leaves his daughters (Susan Howard, Claudia Jennings, and Maureen McCormick) his secret stash of Prohibition Era whiskey.  It’s then up to the ladies to sell off the lucrative hooch before their greedy competitor (William Conrad), who also happens to be the one who murdered their pappy, gets wind of it.  They then turn to a hotshot race car driver (John Saxon) to help run the shine, avoid the cops, and get revenge. 

Moonshine County Express is a moderately effective hicksploitation drive-in flick that features a couple of decent car chases and/or wrecks.  It’s really nothing more than an assemblage of the genre’s usual action beats and cliches, but it at least has the benefit of a great cast.  Saxon is cool as a cucumber as the likeable Good Ol’ Boy romancing the foxy Howard.  Conrad makes for a suitable villain for this sort of thing, and in the film’s most bizarre scene, he hires a prostitute to help him explore his fisherman fetish.  While the quality overall is a bit spotty, I still maintain that any movie in which Claudia Jennings and Maureen McCormick play sexy white trash sisters is A-OK in my book. 

Though directed with assurance by Gus (The Sidehackers) Trikonis, Moonshine County Express feels like a first draft in search of a polished screenplay.  Someone really needed to punch up the weak one-liners and define the characters a little more sharply.  While the finale is fine, it pales next to the likes of the classics of the genre.  That said, I’m a sucker for a good moonshine running movie, and this one gets the job done, albeit in unremarkable fashion.  If you’re like me, and you’re a fan of the genre and/or cast (there are bits by Dub Taylor, Jeff Corey, and Candice Rialson), you’ll certainly take a shine to it.

Jennings and Saxon later appeared together in David Cronenberg’s Fast Company.

AKA:  Shine.  AKA:  County Express.  AKA:  Moonshine Express.  AKA:  Blood Whiskey.

THE BEST OF DORIS WISHMAN (2021) ***

The Best of Doris Wishman is a celebration of the smut movie pioneer’s work.  It is a hodgepodge of movie trailers (Hideout in the Sun, Nude on the Moon, Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls, Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, The Sex Perils of Paulette, Bad Girls Go to Hell, Another Day, Another Man, My Brother’s Wife, A Taste of Flesh, Indecent Desires, Too Much Too Often, The Amazing Transplant, Love Toy, Keyholes are for Peeping, Deadly Weapons, Double Agent 73, and The Immoral Three) and musical interludes from her films (such as Diary of a Nudist, Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, Indecent Desires, and Deadly Weapons) that almost play like mini-music videos.  In addition to the DVD, there’s also a bonus CD, which is essentially just an audio version of the DVD.  It’s not exactly a must-have, but I’m glad that Something Weird and Modern Harmonic is really taking up the cause to preserve music from old exploitation movies.  Some of these rarities would be forgotten if it hadn’t been for their efforts, and for that, we should be thankful. 

The Best of Doris Wishman offers a nice sampling of her work.  Most of the eras of her career are touched upon, from nudie movies to roughies to her gonzo exploitation films.  I just wish it had been a bit more exhaustive as there’s no mention of her magnum opus, Let Me Die a Woman or her attempt at an ‘80s slasher, A Night to Dismember.   

The DVD runs seventy-six minutes, but strangely, only forty are devoted to Wishman.  The rest of the time is spent on ads for Modern Harmonic’s other vinyl releases like Something Weird’s Greatest Hits CD (which in itself is highly recommended), The Doll Squad, Mr. Peter’s Pets, Pacific Northwest Fuzz Box, Missile to the Moon, She Demons, Psychedelicsex Kicks, Pacific Northwest Jukebox, Girl in Gold Boots, The Party Girls, It’s a Revolution Mother, Dracula (The Dirty Old Man), and Something Weird’s Spookshow Spectacular a Go-Go.  I’m not knocking it as I have enjoyed every CD I’ve bought from Modern Harmonic.  However, I kind of wish the DVD was a wall-to-wall trailer compilation.  The musical interludes are fine (as is the rare audio of Wishman on the set), but I was kind of hoping the DVD would be more than a mere visual accompaniment to the CD.  Even with my reservations, this is still a treat for Wishman fans.  

RESISTANCE (2003) **

Bill Paxton stars as an American fighter pilot whose plane is shot down over Belgium during WWII.  A boy finds him and brings him to the home of Julia Ormond, whose husband (Philippe Volter) is part of the Belgian resistance against the Nazis.  While hiding him from the clutches of the Germans, she and Paxton grow close and eventually fall in love.  Naturally, her jealous husband learns about her betrayal and sells them out to the Nazis.

Resistance is an unapologetically schmaltzy and well-intentioned period drama.  Just as U-571 was a throwback to the old Men on a Mission actioners, this is a retooling of the war-torn romance films of the Golden Age of Hollywood.  (The resistance leaders are so cliche that they would look right at home in Top Secret!)  All of this is relatively low key, predictable, and a tad forgettable, but at least it moves at an agreeable pace and doesn’t get bogged down with a lot of unnecessary subplots like a lot of similar romance dramas. 

In fact, the pacing is a bit too fast as the film enters the homestretch.  The ending is so rushed that it almost feels like it was the victim of reshoots.  The fact that major plot points are delivered via exposition by two minor supporting characters at the very end is especially odd and ends the movie on an unsatisfying note.  

I guess the main stumbling block is that there isn’t a whole lot of sparks between Ormond and Paxton.  In their separate scenes with other actors they are quite good.  However, their romantic sequences are lacking passion and kind of fizzle out before they can even gather any momentum.  Plus, the kid who acts as a surrogate son to the couple will grate on your nerves pretty quick.  It’s enough to make Resistance awfully resistible.  

U-571 (2000) ***

U-571 is a good, old-fashioned throwback to the WWII “Men on a Mission” movies that used to play non-stop on TBS back in the day.  It was also riding the coattails of a couple of then-current trends.  It’s a submarine movie like Crimson Tide, a boat-sinking movie starring Bill Paxton like Titanic, and the stuff with the seasoned veteran of the team being killed off halfway through is a lot like Executive Decision.   

During WWII, the Americans intercept a transmission that a German U-Boat is left off the coast in less than ship shape condition.  Paxton leads a team of men to intercept the ship posing as German mechanics so they can steal an Enigma coding device onboard the vessel which may be the key to turning the tide of the war.  Things do not go as planned and the men find themselves stranded aboard an enemy vessel fighting for their lives. 

The cast is solid, through and through.  We have Matthew McConaughey as the wet-behind-the-ears officer who isn’t ready to lead his men, Paxton as his hardass mentor, and Harvey Keitel as his trusty right-hand man.  As good as McConaughey and Paxton are, it’s Keitel who gets the best scene where he gives McConaughey a much-needed pep talk.  Heck, even Jon Bon Jovi is pretty good in this.   

The action and suspense is handled with efficiency by journeyman director Jonathan Mostow.  It’s not as good as his other films like Breakdown and Terminator 3, but it's an absorbing and entertaining war thriller all the same.  While it never quite kicks into overdrive, it has a number of effective sequences.  There are also more submarine movie cliches than you can shake a stick at, so fans of WWII sub action will be sure to enjoy it. 

The movie got a lot of flack at the time of release because it was in fact the English who recovered the Enigma coding device and not us Americans.  If you are a stickler for history, you might find all this hard to swallow.  If, however, you just want a gripping, entertaining war flick with a reliable cast, U-571 will fit the bill.