My Week In Movies - Beyond Vegas

In addition to the Las Vegas movies, I also saw:

The Swinger (1966) After watching Viva Las Vegas earlier in the week, I got on a bit of an Ann-Margret kick and ended up finding this little gem on Netflix Instant. What a great film! Ann-Margret plays a writer desperate to get her work published. When she submits her work to a Playboy-esque magazine they tell her it's too tame and not in touch with what people want to read. So Ann-Margret reinvents herself as a phony hedonistic sex kitten and then things really start to take off in her career. The plot actually fades away halfway through the movie but there's so much wacky hi jinks, funky 60's psychedelic camera work and editing plus great singing that it doesn't matter. This movie came out at a time right before the ratings system when films were pushing the envelope with how much mature content they could sneak into a film. Imagine a very soft PG rated comedy about porn and sex...that's what you've got here. (Check out Don Knott's The Love God for a G rated movie about porn.) There's a fantastic opening credits montage that's more entertaining than all of the last 25 years of Hollywood's output. A very fun film that's not out on DVD, but you can find it on Netflix Instant.

Spider-Man 3 (2007) Over the course of the last three Friday nights my boys and I watched the entire Spider-Man trilogy. Overall, it's a very solid trio of films. #3 is a little long, as there are lots of loose ends to tie up from the whole sage. There's a few too many bad guys. Spidey battles Sandman, Venom and New Goblin all in one film. But it's all fun and the most impressive thing about all three films is the sense of humor that is maintained throughout. There are scenes of pure comic joy in all these films that I find refreshing for a superhero franchise. Of course after watching this, Saturday morning my kids dug out all their Spider-Man 3 Happy Meal toys from Burger King and played with them all day.

Blondie Goes To College (1942) On to the 10th Blondie film and the last of the series which is available currently on DVD. Dagwood enrolls in college and drags an unenthusiastic Blondie along with him. Wacky shenanigans arise when Dagwood tries to keep his marriage status a secret so they can better fit into the college scene. It's a nifty look at campus life back in the 40's. This instalment also has a surprisingly emotional ending which stands out from some of the other Blondie films I've seen recently. The five Blondie movies that I've watched over the last few weeks are all on a cheapo DVD release Blondie Vol. 2. Netflix is currently missing their copy of Blondie Vol. 1 and it seems that the remaining 18 films in the series are only out on old VHS releases. I'll have to do a little video detective work in order to enjoy anymore entries in this silly cinema series. (I'm up for the challenge!)

My Week In Movies - The Wrath of Blogger

Blogger had some maintenance issues this week and in the process they seemed to have yanked down my latest "My Week in Movies" post and then lost the final draft in my dashboard. I don't feel like rewriting, I'm pretty sure it was up for a day or so. Anywho, here's what I still have for posterity sake and we'll pick back up with the feature next week!

Duel (1971) The other night I was trying to decide what to watch for my evening movie and I thought to myself - I should watch something really good...for a change. So I decided on Steven Spielberg's film debut, a really tight story about a guy driving a car and a truck that's out to kill him. There's not much of a backstory here, or much in the way of characters. It's a simple game of cat and mouse that is perfectly laid out and extremely intense and creepy. A really good movie which was actually a TV-movie and then expanded into a theatrical feature. Good stuff!

Ghost Story (1981) I actually remember when this came out, I was 8 years old. I didn't see it. I'm sure I had no interest in it. I just remember seeing this poster at the movie theatre way back then. I've wanted to see it in recent years because it is the final screen credit of Fred Astaire. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't expect to find full frontal male nudity in Fred Astaire's last picture. It's not 81 year old Astaire who we see in his birthday suit, but it was still surprising. The story involves four old friends who share a deep dark secret. It starts off really slow and confusing at first, but the movie picks up and was quite entertaining. There's still a few good scares left in this 30 year old horror movie. It's available on Netflix streaming.


Revenge of the Cheerleaders (1976) I'm a huge fan of the 1973 film The Cheerleaders which might just be one of the silliest movies ever committed to film. Surprisingly, I've never seen it's sequel which sadly takes itself a little more seriously.

I also saw:



Blondie Goes Latin (1941)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
American Raspberry (1977)
Blondie In Society (1941)

My Week In Movies - I Like Horse Movies More Than Actual Horses

Secretariat (2010) Let's face it - there are only so many stories you can tell involving a horse and if the horse doesn't talk that just cuts your storytelling possibilities in half. There's just about nothing new on display here in this Disney biopic about the Triple Crown winning horse and his owner. Every scene and plot device has been seen before in one horsey movie or another. It's a well made film and it gets by on it's charm, thanks mostly to John Malkovich as an eccentric horse trainer, but in the end it offers nothing new. They could have tightened the film up a bit by chopping off 20 - 30 minutes too. As Disney films go, this sits in that weird position of being too fluffy for most adults yet too sophisticated for most children. Rated PG for some mild language.

George of the Jungle (1997) As far as cartoon-to-live action movie translations go, George of the Jungle is at the top of the heap. The original source material is treated with respect and faithfully reproduced with real people in the real world...that's the most you should ask from a movie based on a cartoon show. I remember seeing this in the theatre when it came out and thinking it was absolutely wonderful and hilarious. Perhaps it's another sign of getting older and grumpier but watching it for the first time in at least 10 years it wasn't as funny as I remember it. It's still a good movie, I just don't know if I would consider it the comedy masterpiece I did when I was 24. Relatively inoffensive, this is however a good choice for a family movie night. My kids enjoyed it. Rated PG for poop jokes and elephant urination.

The Giant Claw (1957) Thanks to the same neighborhood kid who got my son hooked on Godzilla, we had to watch this camp classic sci-fi film about a giant bird that terrorizes the planet. The first half of the film is spent watching the characters try to figure out what some mysterious UFO is. Since going into this picture, the audience already knows it's a giant bird there's not much tension built up. When they do discover that it's a giant bird, it's hard to take any of it seriously when the creature is constantly referred to as "The Big Bird." What's worse, Sesame Street's Big Bird is a more realistic bird than the creature in this movie. The wires on the flying creature are clearly visible in almost every shot and the thing flops around on screen like a marionette operated by a drunk guy. My youngest son fell asleep about 15 minutes in while the older one lapped up every second of it. Not rated, typical 50's sci-fi with little to scare the most timid of viewers.

Spring Break (1983) Four guys spend a week in Ft. Lauderdale looking for girls in this T&A comedy classic. The bad news: at 104 minutes, this teenage sex comedy is way too long. These sort of affairs should never exceed 85 minutes. The good news: along with the usual spring break hi jinks on display there is also a super silly subplot involving corrupt politicians. I love it when these type of movies fell they need to have a "real story." Also, somebody gets a pie in the face - that's always good for a laugh. However, the verdict is still out on the wet t-shirt contest scene that literally eats up 20 minutes of this film's run time. Guess what? It's rated R for language and nudity.

Blondie Has Servant Trouble (1940) Let's talk about the Blondie films for just a second. This is the 6th of 28 movies based on Chic Young's very popular comic strip about the Bumstead family; Blondie (played by Penny Singleton who later went on to play the voice of Jane Jetson,) her ditsy husband Dagwood, their son Baby Dumpling and family dog Daisy. Yes, I said there were 28 movies in this franchise - all produced between 1938 and 1950. How awesome is that!? As much as Hollywood loves sequels, we hardly ever go above a part 4 nowadays. The Blondie movies are silly slapstick with simple situations, light laughs and good hearted fun. In this 6th instalment, Blondie and Dagwood end up spending a weekend in a haunted house - for reasons I didn't quite pick up. At the mansion there are met by two servants who turn out to be no-so-good guys. This is classic haunted house stuff here with eyes peeking through pictures on the wall, hidden doorways and people covered with bedsheets mistaken as ghosts. The Bumsteads also meet Horatio Jones, a black character who reminds you just how different racial attitudes were in the 1940's. Although not meant to be offensive, Horatio runs around the haunted house bug eyed, screaming for help speaking in an exaggerated style closely resembling a caricature of a slave. He's even referred to as "the colored guy" several times - not out of hate, which is just the oddest thing in the world to see. Keeping in context that the culture was completely different back then, this is a fun little movie.

Blondie Plays Cupid (1940) One of the more famous/popular of the Blondie films because it features legendary actor Glenn Ford in one of his earliest performances. In Blondie #7, the Bumsteads decide to vacation in the country for the 4th of July weekend because Blondie doesn't want Dagwood and Baby Dumpling to blow their heads off with firecrackers. After Dagwood gets his hand stuck to a freshly painted chair the family hop aboard a train for the country. It's one crazy mishap after another until Baby Dumpling is at the wheel of a runaway car. Can you imagine the hilarity?! Another fun instalment in this vintage series.