DailyView: Day 125, Movie 198

So I went to Starz tonight for the DailyView and pulled a film from the mid 1980s called Peggy Sue Got Married. It was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, of which I had no idea. It featured the acting skills of Nicolas Cage and Kathleen Turner, again, which I did not know. It was a time travel-type film. However, I have to say, I was not thrilled with the movie. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I disliked the movie.

Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner) went with her daughter (Helen Hunt) to her high school reunion despite recently separating from her husband Charlie (Nic Cage), whom she had been with since high school. When she was announced as the queen of the reunion, she passed out. When she awoke, she was back in time, just before her 18th birthday with all her memories and the baggage that she had.

The performances were fine, but Nicolas Cage was using the strangest, most annoying voice and I did not understand why. It made me not care about his character.

Kathleen Turner was fine, but her character, Peggy Sue, was all over the place. I had a difficult time following the swings her character was taking. She was the most inconsistent character of the film. I never got an idea of what she wanted and her motives and desires were a total mishmash.

Some of the side characters are interesting, but underdeveloped. We get a short look at a young Jim Carrey, but his role is basically nothing. There is more to do for Barry Miller as Richard, as the only person Peggy Sue tells about the future. Not much else happens with this pairing. There is the inclusion in Kevin J. O’Connor as the mysterious Michael Fitzsimmons as a character that has zero reason for being included.

This was disappointing. Rotten Tomatoes score was high, but Peggy Sue Got Married was not for me.

DailyView: Day 124, Movie 197

I have said multiple times that I was never a fan of slasher movies so I rarely watched them when I was younger. So while I was aware of the A Nightmare on Elm Street series of films, I have actually seen very few. I have seen the original film and I have seen the Dream Warriors (Part 3). Tonight I put on A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge. The Rotten Tomatoes scores were pretty poor (critic 41%, audience 33%) and, because of that, my expectations were fairly low.

Freddy Krueger(Robert Englund) returned to Elm Street and possessed new student Jesse (Mark Patton) by haunting his dreams. Freddy looked to use Jesse to be his anchor in the real world and to continue Freddy’s reign of terror.

Okay, starting off, there was actually something among the premise of this movie that really worked. The idea of Freddy Krueger tormenting the dreams of a young man in order to take control of his physical form is quite interesting. The dynamics of the relationships and the potential for some deep character work is off the charts. There are some themes hidden here that are intriguing, but not developed enough.

Unfortunately, everything else here was below average to terrible. The acting was atrocious. What could have been a subtle and intense story of possession and mental illness was just over the top insanity and none of the actors invovled here were able to carry the potential of the premise.

Another issue was the dialogue. It was bad. It sounded like a middle school kid wrote it. The weakness of the acting and the dialogue was too much to get past.

The special effects were okay for a mid-1980s movie. Unfortunately, there were not enough scares connected to the special effects. In fact, there was one of the worst effects I think I have ever seen with an exploding parakeet. The falling feathers was laughable.

Freddy’s Revenge had a chance to be more than what it was. It was a chance that failed miserably.

DailyView: Day 123, Movie 196

The Suicide Squad of the sixties? The concept of the Suicide Squad is very much that of the war film that will be the DailyView for today, The Dirty Dozen.

A group of murdering and criminal soldiers, awaiting or serving their punishment in prison, are brought together to become a special forces unit during World War II with the promise that any who may survive would see a reduction in their sentence. Under the command of Major Reisman (Lee Marvin), the group of ragtag soldiers were trained and sent on a dangerous mission.

The Dirty Dozen has a huge ensemble cast. Including Lee Marvin, the film features Donald Sutherland, Telly Salavas, Ernest Borgninie, Charles Bronson, John Cassavetes, Jim Brown, George Kennedy, Robert Ryan, Robert Webber, Clint Walker, Al Mancini, Ben Carruthers, and Richard Jaeckel.

We get a look at the main members of the group during the training, going from a group looking out for number one to a group of “we.” Still, the crew is filled with so many reprobates that you are never sure when their true natures may surface.

Telly Salavas, in particular, is one of the most off-balanced characters of the movie. Named Archer Maggott, he was a religious zealot from the South who had troubles with Jim Brown’s Robert Jefferson. Though never quite a part of the group, Maggott did enough to make you think he might be willing to work with the Dozen. His uncertainty keeps the action suspenseful.

Speaking of suspenseful, the final act is just filled with it. The raid on the German meeting is intense and dramatics, with plenty of twists and turns.

The Dirty Dozen is considered a classic of cinema and you can tell why. A stressful story, strong performances and exciting action caps a very entertaining movie.

DailyView: Day 122, Movie 195

This movie proves that, no matter how many times it happens, seeing someone getting struck in the groin is funny. Every time.

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story was not a movie I expected to enjoy. I usually tie Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller into the group of comedians that I do not like (such as Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell etc.). However, I have like a few of Vaughn films during the DailyView, and Stiller has some that I like too (especially Mystery Men) so maybe I should not have categorized this film the way I did.

Dodgeball is a stupid movie. No way around it. But it was stupid funny. It is silly, fun, entertaining and downright ridiculous.

Yes, it is predictable. The story is pretty basic. There are a couple of things that happen that are stretching credibility remarkably thin. But the biggest rule in comedy movies is, it doesn’t matter how stupid a movie is, as long as it is funny. And this film is very funny.

It takes some time to develop this group of losers playing dodgeball to try and save their small, failing gym, Average Joe’s, from being taken over by the mega gym Globo Gym, run by White Goodman (Ben Stiller). The $50,000 prize money for the national dodgeball tournament would help save the day. It is just, the team fielded by Average Joe’s is les than inspiring.

There are some epic cameos in this movie, from William Shatner to Chuck Norris.

The cast is filled with some solid character actors including Justin Long, Alan Tudyk, Rip Torn, Stephen Root, Chris Williams, Gary Cole, Hank Azaria, Christine Taylor and Missi Pyle. The standout of them all was the Dodgeball tournament color commentator, Pepper Brooks, played with an amazing insanity by Jason Bateman.

The film is quickly paced at just over 90 minutes, but every minute is worthwhile. There is a post credit scene with Ben Stiller that can must be seen to be believed.

Likable characters and funny writing, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is a real surprise for me.

DailyView: Day 121, Movie 194

It is documentary day in the DailyView. This doc goes into specific about a group of childhood friends who wanted to and did film a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

In 1981, two 11-year old kids, Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala, started to work on the remake of Raiders, which took them seven years to complete. The only thing was they never were able to complete the airplane scene. Thirty years later, they reunite to finish the scene.

The documentary is more effective as a story between three people (including Jayson Lamb) and the struggles and interactions of their lives while they were attempting to make this childhood dream come true. While the parts involving the shooting of the airplane scene was interesting, the real strength of the doc is the connections.

There are so many obstacles faced by this group not only as young kids, but also as adults.

Some of the footage was so amazing. Seeing them set people on fire in their childhood home’s basement is just one of the shocking moments of the film. Chris took some bad steps leading him to a life of drugs and a betrayal of Eric and the splitting apart of the kids. It told an unbelievable story of obsession and dedication slamming into each other.

John Rhys-Davies appeared and spoke during the documentary. Rhys-Davies played Sallah in two of the Indiana Jones movies and his presence here really brought a gravitas to the doc.

I also loved the end of the doc as it brought a huge amount of tension to the film. An issue with an exploding plane made this filled with anxiety.

The only criticism I would have is that I would have liked to have seen more of the footage that they had shot from their original film interwoven in the doc. However, the comments made by family members and friends really brought a great energy to the doc. I enjoyed this documentary.

DailyView: Day 120, Movie 193

I love Alfred Hitchcock. However, when I selected the 1936 film Sabotage on HBO Max tonight for the next entry in the DailyView, I was unaware that it was directed by the master. I had read the summary on the HBO Max page and thought it sounded interesting. I saw Hitchcock’s name in the opening credits and I was immediately excited. I have not seen a lot of Hitchcock in the DailyView and this would be a treat.

Apparently, Sabotage was the final film of Hitchcock’s British movies before he came over to the States. I also discovered that the film was released in the US under the name The Woman Alone, but was not as well known among Hitchcock’s films.

Karl Verloc (Oskar Homolka) managed a little cinema in London along with his wife (Sylvia Sidney) and her teenage brother Steve (Desmond Tester). However, Mr. Verloc had a secret… he was a member of a gang of foreign saboteurs using bombs to spread their terror in London. Scotland Yard Detective Sgt. Ted Spencer (John Loder) was assigned to find out what he could about Mr. Verloc. He befriended Mrs. Verloc and Steve in an attempt to discover the connection between her husband and the espionage happening in the area.

This is another example of why Hitchcock is the master of suspense as this film is filled with it. There are some amazing sequences that build up the suspense of what the audience thinks is happening and it really works well.

The suspense is especially tense during a sequence in the film on a bus. It was a very controversial scene and, reportedly, even Hitchcock himself was unsure about it. That scene, which I will not reveal because of spoilers, is perhaps the best in the film.

Performances are solid and you do feel for Mrs. Verloc throughout the film. She is so supportive of her husband and he is just a monster. There are some satisfying moments in the third act.

It is a quick watch and, though the first part of the movie is a bit slow, Sabotage really builds up to a powerful second and third act. You can see the traits of Hitchcock’s directorial style in the movie and, if you are a fan of the director, you want to search out this film.

DailyView: Day 119, Movie 192

I was really short on time tonight, so I knew that it was time for yet another trip back into the very early days of cinema to find Charlie Chaplin once again. However, we went really short this time.

Nice and Friendly was directed by Charlie Chaplin and has the bare bones of a story. According to IMDB, the film was made only as a wedding present for Lord and Lady Mountbatten. In the film, Lady Mountbatten had an expensive pearl necklace that a group of crooks were trying to steal. The Tramp was called in to stop them. He did so with a big hammer. The unconscious crooks were lined up on the lawn afterward, next to Boy (Jackie Coogan).

There really is no reason for this. As I was looking into the background on this, it sounds as if Chaplin most likely never thought this would be shown for the public. I’m sure he never dreamed that it would find a home on HBO Max streaming for the world to see. It is not very funny and Chaplin barely appears in the 11-minute short.

If you are a huge fan of Charlie Chaplin and you want to be completist, you can watch this. Otherwise, you should only watch it if you have a very limited amount of time available to fulfill a movie viewing challenge.

DailyView: Day 118, Movie 191

Going through Shudder to try and find a good movie for the DailyView tonight and I stumbled across the thumbnail with a picture of the awesome Roddy Piper on it. It was a movie called “Hell Comes to Frogtown,” a film I had never heard of before. It was released in 1988, which was the same year that Piper starred in John Carpenter’s They Live. Quite the year for Hot Rod.

After a worldwide nuclear war, 68% of the male population was wiped out and most of the surviving men had become sterile. A virile man was rare. Sam Hell (Roddy Piper) turned out to be extremely virile and was recruited by the government to become a breeder. Along with Spangle (Sandahl Bergman), a government agent out to make sure he followed the instructions, Sam went into Frogtown to attempt a rescue of a group of fertile women from the clutches of the humanized frogs.

What a silly movie this is. You could tell what it was going to be when we found out that the government had placed a booby trap on Sam Hell’s crotch, a device that would send a shock through him if he got too far away from Spangle. It was triggered by the earrings she wore. I, of course, would have chopped off her head and took it with me so I would not have to worry about it again, but that is just me.

Roddy Piper is easily the best part of this movie. He is extremely charming and has a pretty good screen presence. He is not the greatest actor around, but he does have qualities that make him entertaining to watch.

The story is ridiculous and the humanized frogs are funny, which, I am guessing, they are not supposed to be.

This is full of cheesy action and silly dialogue, but the charisma of Piper and Bergman help make this at least engaging. Probably a guilty pleasure.

DailyView: Day 117, Movie 190

One of the iconic Marx Brothers movies was A Night at the Opera, the 1935 slapstick classic, which was the first film from the Marx Brothers after some major changes. First, they went from Paramount Pictures to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and second, this was the first film since Zeppo left the act. Zeppo was very much a straight man in the act and was the lesser known of the quartet and, here, gets replaced with Alan Jones, a talented singer, in the basic role that would have been Zeppo’s.

In the film, Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho Marx) meets aspiring opera singer Ricardo (Allan Jones) and attempts to get him a job. Ricardo is determined to gain the love of singer Rosa (Kitty Carlisle). Otis is helped by Fiorello (Chico Marx) and Tomasso (Harpo Marx). Chaos ensued.

The slapstick of the Marx Brothers was on clear display throughout the movie. There are some absolute amazing bits of comedy from the group, including the moving of beds between rooms to avoid capture by a policeman. The entire scene at the opera in the third act of this movie with Harpo swinging from the ropes above the stage was totally hilarious.

Is the story simple? Yes, but you are not watching Marx Brothers movies for deep, intricate plots. The interactions between Groucho and Chico are brilliantly scripted. They feel very much ad-libbed and are smooth as can be.

There are some great scenes of both Harpo and Chico showing off their musical skills. I can only assume that this is actually them performing. I know Harpo could play the harp, but Chico and his piano work was very impressive.

A Night at the Opera is a lot of fun and any fan of the Marx Brothers needs to see it.

DailyView: Day 116, Movie 189

This is the last day of the Showtime channel that I got real cheap on Prime Day a couple of months ago and I figured that watching one more movie on the channel would be a good choice. Going through the list, I found the 2015 film starring Charlize Theron called Dark Places.

Libby Day (Charlize Theron) was the sole survivor of a massacre at her family’s home when she was 8 years old. Her testimony helped to convict her brother Ben (played as a youth by Tye Sheridan and later as an adult by Corey Stoll) for the murder.

Years later, Libby was approached by Lyle Wirth (Nicholas Hoult), a member of a club that investigates true crime cases, who believed Ben was innocent of the murders and wanted Libby to help them prove it. Of course, this opened several old wounds for Libby as she recounted the night her mother (Christina Hendricks) and two sisters died.

This one was a mixed bag of a movie. There were several bits that I really liked, and several bits that bother me. Starting with what I liked, Charlize Theron is great. I believed her as a traumatized adult who had gone through hell as a child and just wanted to be left alone. She had capitalized on the infamy of the case, which did not make her look like a good person, but she was clearly still being tortured by the memories of that night. Sterling Jerins, who played young Libby, was just a solid in the flashback scenes of Libby’s childhood.

I enjoyed the mystery of what exactly happened on the night in question, as Ben’s guilt had been questioned by Lyle and his Kill Club and their obsession with the case (however, the one woman in the club, Magda, played by Lori Cordova was a horribly cruel person and I did not like her immediately). Again, Theron is excellent here as she is just never quite sure what she remembered from that night.

Chloe Grace Moretz played Ben’s girlfriend in the flashbacks and she is a bit of a contradiction. I’m not sure how I am expected to feel about this character. Moretz is always a solid actor and she does a good job here too. I just wish her character was better written.

However, the way the movie revealed the story was very odd. It jumped around from point of view throughout the plot, sometimes showing us memories from Libby, sometimes showing us times when Libby was nowhere to be seen. Libby did a voice over during some of it, but they revealed scenes of flashbacks that Libby could not have known. The POV was so confused and inconsistent that it really messed with the story, which could have been told in a much more useful manner.

This movie was based on Gillian Flynn’s 2009 novel of the same name and it feels as if some of the important details were left out. At times the movie felt rushed, and could have allowed more time for scenes to breathe.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and the performances more than I disliked the structure of the filmmaking. I had seen the low Rotten Tomatoes score on this before I had started it (23%) so my expectations were low, which always seems to help when watching a movie. This was passable for me.

DailyView: Day 115, Movie 188

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

One of the most iconic quotes from any movie, it is from the classic dance movie of the 1980s, Dirty Dancing.

In the Catskills, “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) spends the summer at a resort with her family. This year, she winds up taking the place of one of the dancers in a performance with dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze). Through their dancing, Baby and Johnny fall in love.

Another film that I never was interested in seeing. The rom com type dance flick never appealed to me. Yet, after watching it today for the first time, it was a decent watch. I liked the simplistic story, the development of the relationship between Johnny and Baby.

Both Swayze and Grey do a great job with the dance routines and the practice sessions, which is as fun as the finished product. The practice scenes with them in the outdoors were so much fun. The dancing on the fallen tree was impressive.

There are some excellent actors in supporting roles too, led by the late Jerry Orbach. The film also includes Cynthia Rhodes, Jack Weston, Jane Brucker, Wayne Knight, and Kelly Bishop.

Dirty Dancing is a fun movie with some great music and dance routines.