July Films Update

Ten films I watched earlier this year

****

1. Top Secret! (1984)

Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer), an American rock’n’roll star whose hit Skeet Surfin’ has captivated the world is invited to East Germany for a cultural festival. This is a diversion; NATO's submarine fleet will be traversing the straits of Gibraltar and a secret weapon invented by Dr Paul Flammond will destroy them, allowing them to reunite Germany.

Hilary Flammond (Lucy Gutteridge), Dr Flammond’s daughter, flees the authorities, ending up in Rivers’ hotel dining room. Rivers pretends she’s his date, sings, dances, annoys the General whose plot this is. At the ballet he sees her again as she tries to meet a resistance leader; he helps her escape. He’s arrested and sent to prison, where he tells nothing (as he knows nothing) then meets Dr Flammond in his cell.

They decide he has to perform to keep up the diversion; he’s rescued by Hilary. They escape to a farm where the French Resistance is holed up and meet the leader “The Torch,” who turns out to be Nigel, Hillary’s lost love from when they lived on a remote island. Despite the relationship between Rivers and Hillary she goes back to Nigel.

They’re attacked by the Germans, escape again to a restaurant where they suspect Rivers of being a spy. He performs to prove he really is Nick Rivers. They then go to rescue Dr Flammond in an unlikely plan, with Nigel and one of the Resistance members disguised as a cow. Nigel is revealed as the traitor, but his plan is interrupted by a bull. They escape in a spectacular chase including Rivers and Nigel having an underwater fight in an Old West bar.

It's a comedy from the makers of Airplane! They are parodying rock’n’roll movies, and war movies, and spy movies, and beach movies and westerns and…

Too much maybe? The plot doesn’t hang together, Rivers is a cypher and Hillary little more. So we’re left with the jokes. Which are rapid fire and if you don’t like one another’s coming up which you probably will. Which makes this a series of comic sketches, unsatisfying as a film.

Watch This: Some really fun scenes and plenty of song and dance numbers
Don’t Watch This: You wanted this to make sense, to actually be set somewhere, or at least sit in one place long enough to subvert expectations comically

2. Monster From The Green Hell

Two American scientists, Dr Quent Brady and Dan Morgan, are launching rockets into space with animals on board to see what happens to them. One rocket loaded with wasps goes off course, crashing somewhere off the coast of Africa. In Africa (medical) Dr Lorentz and his daughter Lorna run a clinic; when a man dies mysteriously they discover he’s been killed by a massive amount of venom. Arobi, their local assistant, claims it’s from a monster in a remote region known as “Green Hell.”

When these reports get into the newspaper Brady thinks the wasps must have grown thanks to cosmic radiation; a spider crab that had a small dose grew to twice it’s normal size. They go to Libreville, then form a safari led by Mahri, an Arab guide, to travel the four hundred mile trip to the Lorentz clinic. There’s some classic African adventure stuff with drought, storms, fires, wildlife etc. Arriving they learn that Dr Lorentz went into Green Hell to look for the monster. Arobi returns, reporting Dr Lorentz died, and shows them a giant stinger.

They decide to go on though their bearers don’t want to. Lorna shames some locals into joining them, how can they call themselves men if she, a white woman, is willing to go. However when they come across a deserted village they leave too. Considering whether to go on, Brady says that the wasps could breed and overrun Africa and the world, and he’s brought some bombs to destroy the queen and nest to stop that.

They go on and have to actually fight some giant wasps, discover the nest is in a volcano, try and fail to destroy it then the volcano erupts, nature apparently fixing man’s mistake. An odd mix of the safari film, and the monster film, using a lot of stock footage of African animals and landscape, along with stop motion giant wasps.

Watch This: African adventures and monsters
Don’t Watch This: Very old-fashioned view of Africa, very silly monsters

3. The Last Man On Earth (1964)

Dr Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) wakes up every morning in 1968, three years after the end of the world. He goes out, kills vampires, burns their bodies and then goes home. They don’t like mirrors or garlic, they don’t like daylight. They seem unintelligent and unable to get in when he locks the door.

In a flashback we learn there was a plague in 1965, possibly on the wind. His daughter and wife caught it and died. Rather than burn their bodies he buried them and they came back to life and he had to stake his wife through the heart. He theorises he’s immune as he was once bitten by a vampire bat in Panama, but was unable to finish making a cure before the world ended and he was left alone.

He finds a dog; the dog dies. Depressed he then meets a woman, Ruth. Suspicious she’s infected, it turns out there is a vaccine that keeps the infection at bay. She and the people with the vaccine have heard of him, and want to find out what he’s doing, why he’s killing the vampires. On a hunch Morgan transfuses some blood which cures her. However not having heard back from Ruth the vaccinated people attack.

Based on the novel I Am Legend, this is the first of three adaptions made (The Omega Man (1971) and I Am Legend (2007) being the others). Slow paced to start with, it’s a grim, pessimistic film, mostly carried by Price narrating his own hopeless determination to carry on – until it becomes more action oriented in the final scenes.

Watch This: Price does a good job as the last man alive continuing his futile tasks
Don’t Watch This: Slow, ridiculous, depressing

4. Red Sonja

Queen Gedren (Sandhal Bergman) is rejected by Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen); taking it badly there’s a fight in which Sonja’s family is killed, she’s raped by Gedren’s soldiers; in the fight she scars Gedren’s face. Sonja survives and a spirit of revenge helps her become the greatest swordswoman in the land.

Meanwhile her sister Varna is a priestess; at the temple they are going to bury the Talisman forever in the dark. The Talisman becomes more powerful in light; it created the world and is now too powerful and may destroy it; also men can’t touch it without being destroyed. They’ve been waiting for Kalidor (Arnold Schwarzenegger) the Lord Of Hyrkania, but can’t wait any more so start the ceremony. Unfortunately no one is keeping a look out so Gedren and her men attack and seize both temple and Talisman. Wounded, Varna escapes, meets the tardy Kalidor (bridges he needed to cross were destroyed) and tells him to seek out Sonja.

He finds her, she’s hostile to him, he brings her to Varna, who tells her to destroy the Talisman before the world is destroyed and dies. She tells Kalidor to clear off this is none of hie business. He claims it is, not just because, obviously, he doesn’t want the world destroyed as he lives there, but the lords of Hyrkania have some backstory with the Talisman. She leaves him.

Sonja heads on, meets Prince Tarna and his servant Falkon in their city which has been destroyed by the Talisman. She fights various people, has to accept help from Kalidor, joins up with Tarna and Falkon. They break into Gedren’s fortress, where she’s feeding the Talisman light and earthquakes are happening. Sonja must confront Gedren, who has a wizard to give her some advantages.

Sometimes the film is sincere, sometimes it’s decided this is all a bit ridiculous really. Gedren’s wizard keeps looking at a dancing woman in his scrying mirror, he helps Gedren in a fight by having her teleport, just vanishing and popping up lounging on her throne. Tarna, a young boy whose city is in ruins and has been abandoned by all except one servant, acts with arrogance (also reckless courage). Meanwhile people threaten to rape and murder Sonja, the earthquake is destroying things, Gedren seals the surviving priestesses in the darkness forever etc. It can’t quite make those tones match up. Enjoyable but doesn’t add up to much.

Watch This: Swords, sorcery, jokes, adventure
Don’t Watch This: Violence and bad comedy

 5. The House Of The Dead (1978)

Talmudge (John Ericson) has been having an adulterous affair in a strange city; his taxi drops him off late at night in the rain, but it’s not his hotel and he doesn’t recognise the street. A stranger (Ivor Francis) invites him in out the weather. It turns out to be a mortuary, the titular house of the dead. He shows Talmudge some of the bodies and tells their stories. It’s a portmanteau horror film, with four bodies and four stories!

A school teacher who hates children and calls the police on them is attacked at home by masked children and killed. A man obsessed with photography kills women, then is caught because he filmed them and then he's executed. A British detective and an American one, rivals in being the greatest detective in the world, have a contest that leads both to die. A wealthy executive ignores a homeless man, finds himself trapped in a building with only booze, stumbles out and is ignored in turn, collapsing.

They’ve all come to a bad end after doing bad things. What then for the adulterer? The moral is a bit toned down by the zaniness of the constituent stories and the distant affect of the mortician. So we’re left with a handful of slight horrors.

Watch This: Unusual American portmanteau horror film
Don’t Watch This: Gruesome, contrived, a bit silly really

6. Beverly Hills Cop

Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is a Detroit policeman, his undercover bust goes wrong leading to a spectacular high speed chase and lots of damage. After being yelled at by his boss he goes home only to meet his childhood friend Mikey. The two had gone different ways after their misspent youth; after getting out of prison Mikey had got a job as a security guard in Los Angeles thanks to a mutual friend Jenny. He shows Axel some German bearer bonds; they’re then attacked by two men who take the bonds, knock out Axel and kill Mikey.

Not allowed on the case Axel takes some leave and goes to Beverly Hills. He talks to Jenny who manages an art gallery, goes to see her boss Victor Maitland, posing as a florist. He’s thrown out and arrested by the Beverly Hills Police. When they learn he’s a policeman from out of town they have some doubt over Maitland’s story but tell Foley to stay out of trouble, assigning Detectives Taggart and Rosewood to follow him.

He slips away by distracting them by sending out a late supper and putting bananas up the tail pipe of their car. He follows a delivery of Maitland, from his storage to a bonded warehouse, where goods that haven’t been through customs are stored. He breaks in, then posing as a customs officer gets details.

Finding Taggart and Rosewood again he apologises then takes them to a strip bar. However he spots some armed robbers and with Taggart and Rosewood’s assistance takes them down. Later he gets into Maitland’s country club and is arrested again. Although Taggert, Rosewood and their boss the lieutenant think there is something up the chief of police tells Axel to leave town or be arrested.

Axel gets Rosewood to take him to the warehouse where he finds some cocaine. Then he and Jenny are captured by Maitland; Maitland leaves with Jenny ordering Axel be killed. Rosewood enters, they have a gunfight, then they break into Maitland’s house to rescue Jenny in a big action setpiece.

What I’ve left out here is Murphy’s fast-talking often comic dialogue, his way of bamboozling people with plausible stories. It’s that performance which holds the film together. In many ways it’s a later, 90s style of film, though without the knowing irony, just a guy who talks a lot, can’t stop making wisecracks, then pulling out a gun and shooting people.

Watch This: Excellent 80s crime action film with Murphy’s charm covering a whole lot of nonsense and questionable conduct
Don’t Watch This: A lot of lies, murder and clumsy commentary on class and race

7. Thelma

Thelma (June Squibb) is 93 years old, living in Los Angeles. She’s supported by her grandson Danny, who otherwise doesn't seem to be moving on in life. A scammer calls her claiming to be Danny and to have been arrested; she sends $10,000 to a Los Angeles address before realising there’s something wrong and her daughter and son-in-law find Danny. They discuss if she can continue living alone.

Thelma refuses to accept help, decides to get her money back. She tries several friends but they have mostly died. Eventually she visits Ben (Richard Roundtree) who is in assisted living. She tries to steal his scooter, then they go together (it can take a second person). They go on an epic voyage across Los Angeles, the slow speed of the scooter letting them discuss their failures to ask for help. Ben couldn’t hear when his wife fell, after which she died. Now he has hearing aids and an app on his phone, he’s taken lessons in how to lift people who fall.

They borrow (steal) a gun from a friend with memory problems and make their way to the address. Along the way the scooter is destroyed by a car, Thelma falls and Ben picks her up. They come to an agreement. Thelma’s family try to find her, Danny annoyed with himself that looking after his grandmother is the only thing he’s good at, and now he’s bad at this. Eventually Thelma and Ben find the scammers, a father and son who run a failing lamp store and run scams because the modern world is too hard etc. another variation on the theme.

It's a comedy, about generations, about aging, about losing capacity, but unevenly. Sometimes charming, Thelma sometimes uses her age and seeming infirmity, other times does find herself incapable and needing assistance despite her wishes.

Watch This: Light-hearted comedy adventure about age and capability
Don’t Watch This: Old woman gets scammed, has to cope with incapability

8. GoodFellas

In 1955 Brooklyn teenager Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) goes to work at a cab stand across the road, a cab stand that is a front for the Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), the local boss of the mafia. In 1980 Hill is arrested for drug dealing, abandoned by Cicero, he testifies against them in return for going into witness protection. In between he’s a gangster, but they didn’t use that word, they said they were wiseguys or goodfellas.

This is a long film, interested in the details of how the criminal gangs work. Jimmy Conway (Robert DeNiro) is a hijacker, eventually specialising in thefts out of JFK airport (Idlewild when they start). Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) causes some trouble at a Tiki restaurant. Hill brokers a deal whereby Paulie goes into partnership with the owner and keeps Tommy under control. However they’re not really interested in the restaurant as an ongoing business; they use their credit and cashflow to buy goods to sell at a loss, to launder money through the books for a while, but when it’s used up they burn it down for the insurance money.

Hill courts Karen (Lorraine Bracco) and to start with it’s very glamorous, he takes her to posh places, jumps the queue, gets tables at the front, people send champagne over, he knows everyone. They get married and it starts to grind a bit. Because they’re all involved in a life of crime they can’t have outside friends, so it’s all the same people, all the time. Henry has a mistress, and runs some of his drugs business through her and her associates.

Watch This: Gritty and interesting gangster epic
Don’t Watch This: Glamourises a lot of violent nonsense

9. Fight Or Flight (2025)

A data centre is attacked in Bangkok. Brunt, running an ops room in America, realises this is the work of a notorious cyber-activist (hacktivist?). Unfortunately the team they have there has been incapacitated in the attack and the activist is heading out the country with their equipment which (it turns out) can hack anything. However there is one contact she has there, her ex, Lucas Reyes, a former secret service agent who got burned. She offers him his life back if he gets the activist so he heads to the airport, then onto the plane.

In a twist, it turns out that he’s not the only contact who has been activated, other people want the activist dead or captured. In fact it turns out that half the passengers are mercenaries and assassins of various sorts, tipped off two days ago. So Reyes has to have fights with variously themed guys, while learning more about what’s going on between each one.

In a fun twist half way through we learn that Brunt is in San Francisco, the flight destination, working for a social media company, who have heavily armed mercenaries across the world. It’s a silly film, most of which is about trying to have a fight in a plane without anyone noticing, before the big finale fight.

Watch This: Bold, bright, energetic action film
Don’t Watch This: A ludicrous plot tries to have some gravitas by referencing real world villainy

10. Nightmare Alley (2021)

In 1939 Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) buries someone under a house, burns the house, walks away, catches a bus and finds himself at a carnival. He joins them, coming under the wing of mentalist Madam Zeena (Toni Collette). She teaches him the tricks, cold-reading, a code she and her husband, Pete, now an alcoholic, used. They warn him against trying to speak to the dead. He also learns about the geek, a wild man who drinks the blood of a chicken, and how desperate men are drugged and addicted to create them. He comes up with a better act for Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara). After some adventures, Pete dies, Stan and Molly leave.

Two years later in Buffalo, New York, Stan and Molly have a successful show, though he is frustrated that she still hasn’t mastered the code and he has to cold read and improvise to cover the tracks. Dr Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), a psychologist, tries to interrupt and expose them. Stan gets the better, reading her, and also the man she’s with, Judge Kimball.

Kimball wants Stan to speak to his dead son; the loss has devastated his wife and is driving them apart. Madam Zeena, in town with some of the other performers, warns him not to, though she claims it’s the advice of the tarot. Stan goes to talk to Dr Ritter, who records her sessions, does a successful reading for Judge Kimball. He offers to split the money with Ritter, who’s not interested (her office is very posh, she’s doing okay) but does keep it for him, as he’s keeping all this from Molly.

Kimball, impressed, introduces Stan to wealthy industrialist Ezra Grimble. Ritter reluctantly gives him information on Grimble, and Stan does some research. Grimble’s haunted by the death, many years ago, of a woman who he forced to get an abortion. Stan has a plan to bring this to a conclusion by having Molly made up to look like her.

Inevitably this goes wrong, it’s a neo-noir film about tricks and cons and Stan has been warned not to speak to the dead, he’s been warned not to trust anyone. A grim film with many gorgeous moments, the tricks that work as interesting as the ones where they reveal how they’re done. All the world’s a carnival, and everyone wants to be fooled.

Watch This: Great period film of tricks, cons and performances
Don’t Watch This: Everyone is taking advantage of each other using people, destroying lives