A lesser known Gene Hackman film from the golden box office year of 1977, THE DOMINO PRINCIPLE is pretty silly and occasionally a lot of fun. Hackman plays a Vietnam war vet in prison for murder. His sentence is even worse because his cell mate is Mickey Rooney as a motor-mouth that loves to tell stories all day. Rooney is so bizarre here, spewing f-bombs and playing hardened criminal, which isnt easy to do when you're like 4' tall. Hackman starts getting visits in jail from a mysterious wing of the government that would like him to do them a favor. In return, they will spring him from jail. The breakout is undeniably suspenseful, with Director Stanley Kramer (Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Guess Whose Coming To Dinner) clearly having a good time in the spy genre. Richard Widmark (Coma, Against All Odds) is a perfect foil as the head of the shady company, Edward Albert is hilariously oily as his muscle and Eli Wallach (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) is pitch perfect. Only Candace Bergen seems over her head as Hackman's wife. The job they hire Hackman for is way more complicated than he anticipates, setting up plenty of crosses and double crosses as he is forced to execute a very high profile assassination. It's all very seventies, but the action scenes are first rate. The prison scenes were shot with real inmates at San Quentin and they're not bad either. Gene Hackman turned down roles in "Jaws" , " One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest ", " Close Encounters of the Third Kind ", and "Apocalypse Now" to appear in this film. Perhaps its why he's often said in interviews that he's not very happy with his performance. Even pedestrian Hackman is better than most. We'll give DOMINO PRINCIPLE a B-.

Testing the film theory that even pedestrian Brian De Palma movies are better than most thrillers, 2019's DOMINO has a game cast, several suspenseful scenes and an under developed plot. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jamie Lanister on Game of Thrones) is Christian, a Copenhagen police officer, paired with his older, sloppy partner Lars (Soren Mailing). Before you can settle into an odd couple cop story, they are dragged deep into a terrorist plot that crosses several countries. Carice van Houten (Melisandra on GOT) is a fellow detective with strong ties to the story and Guy Pearce (LA Confidential) brandishes his best Texas accent as a CIA operative whose personal mission directly conflicts with Christian's. De Palma doesn't shy away from graphic violence, unleashing several be-headings and terrorist bombings. But he does avoid some of his best visual tools that he loves to employ like complicated camera moves and split screens. This feels like De Palma light. He had said that producers took control of the film after a very troubled financial shoot in which they were constantly running out of money. The story does feel half done and could have used a longer running time to flesh out more of the conspiracy and plotting. The finale in a packed bullfighting ring borders on classic De Palma until its very final moments betray harsh editing and budget cuts. The long, nearly dialogue-free scene is superb for over ten minutes until its lackluster payoff. Even De Palma's long time music composer Pino Donaggio, who chilled all of us with his music for "Dressed to Kill" and "Carrie" seems to be phoning it in here, with a generic score that's barely memorable after the credits. Falling somewhere closer to "Snake Eyes" on the De Palma scale than "Blow Out", DOMINO lands with a C-.

In the long history of Stephen King novels adapted for the screen, few have a better pedigree than 1995's terrific drama, DOLORES CLAIBORNE. Kathy Bates is VERY good as our title character, an eccentric, strong and lonely woman accused of murdering a wealthy woman for whom she's cared for decades. Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight) is also terrific as Dolores estranged daughter, a reporter in NYC who has no desire to come back to New England and her mother's problems. But Dolores has a past. Many years before, during a full eclipse, her abusive husband (David Strathairn) died in an apparent, but convenient accident. King's original book was a departure into straight psychological drama with no supernatural or horror elements, unless you count the verbal and physical abuse that Dolores endures from the people in her life. Screenwriter Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, Nightcrawler, Star Wars:Rogue One) does a hell of a job adapting King's novel. King's flair for character dialogue remains intact, with Bates perfectly interpreting every "New Englandah" barb to perfection. Director Taylor Hackford (An Officer and a Gentleman, Against All Odds) crafts a thriller with deep dramatic roots, flashing back and forth between the nineties and the fateful summer of 1975. It draws you in almost immediately and then pulls you along, introducing an aggressive, mean-spirited detective (Christopher Plummer) determined to take another crack at Dolores. We meet the arrogant, rich woman who becomes Dolores's employer Vera, powerfully played by Judy Parfitt (Ever After) as a multi-layered woman who finds unexpected common ground with Dolores. Stephen King wrote the novel with Kathy Bates in mind after he met her on the set of "Misery". It's one of Bates best performances. These are unhappy people, beaten down by life, but there's much more to Dolores and her daughter than there might appear. The women of this film are a powerful bunch, while the featured men, with the exception of young constable Frank (played by a very young John C. Reilly) are a miserable bunch of bastards. The cast is fantastic from top to bottom. If you think King is all horror and bump in the night, you'll soon discover that human behavior can be just as terrifying as any killer clown or rabid dog. DOLORES CLAIBORNE is a terrific King adaption that plays very well more than 20 years after its release. It gets an A.

Writer/Director Richard Brooks was one of the most eclectic filmmakers of the 50's, 60's and 70's. With classic dramas like "In Cold Blood" and "Elmer Gantry", westerns like "Bite the Bullet" and classics like "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof", Brooks delivered hit after hit. One of his strangest but endearing crime thrillers was the offbeat 1971 comedy/drama $ (Dollars). Warren Beatty is bank security specialist Joe Collins, inventor of a sophisticated audio/video surveillance system at the massive Hamburg bank run by Gert Frobe (Goldfinger). The only problem is that Joe knows exactly how to thread the very fine hidden windows in security needed to rob the safe deposit boxes within the time-locked vault. Brooks devises a very clever caper, with precise timing down to the second, three different sets of bad guys with dirty money ripe for the stealing and an escape route that grows very complicated. Goldie Hawn is a lot of fun as Joe's high-price hooker girlfriend, who leads him to all of his marks. Robert Webber (10, SOB) is a Vegas business man depositing plenty of graft and Scott Brady (The Night Strangler) is a military man playing both sides of the fence. Daniel Craig look alike Arthur Brass (Victory) is one hell of a menacing bad guy, the "Candy Man" who seems everywhere at once, always brandishing a gun and intimidation. Beatty is at his cool best as a thief with a conscious, only taking money obtained illegally. But he's not exactly Robin Hood as he's keeping it for himself. The first 45 minutes of the film are hard to get through, fractured into many segments that feel forced and disjointed, featuring different music that makes them feel uncomfortably cobbled together. Only at the 45 minute mark do you start to see Brooks complicated construction as those pieces come together into a very clever caper. Once the heist unfolds in real time, Beatty and Hawn are off and running in several directions, leading the bad guys on a chase that lasts over 30 minutes, right up to its clever conclusion that keeps you guessing. Quincy Jones music score (like his score for Steve McQueen's "The Getaway" two years later is cool & fun. Bathed in early 70's nonchalance toward sex, drugs and violence, $ is worth its weight in gold, or at least that one very pivotal gold bar. It gets a B.

Flaunting a $175 million budget, Robert Downey's attempt to launch a new franchise, DOLITTLE is a beautiful, visually spectacular mess. Sporting the worst accent since Kevin Costner butchered the Queen's English in "Robin Hood", Downey mumbles and sputters his lines throughout. He might be funny, I couldn't understand enough of his dialogue to really make a judgement. The simply animated opening is one of the best moments of the film, letting us know that Dolittle can speak with the animals and lost the love of his life when she went on a great adventure of her own. It's quiet, well told and touching. But that's only the first two minutes of the film. It moves into a beautiful, digitally rendered "real world" complete with the biggest, most spectacular menagerie of creatures since "Life of Pi". We can hear the Doctor speaking to his animals and all their dialogue as well. A who's who of actors provide the voices. Emma Thompson is loyal parrot sidekick Polynesia. Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody) is the timid, funny gorilla Chee Chee. John Cena is a polar bear, Kumal Nanjiani, Tom Holland, Octavia Spencer & Ralph Fiennes all bring personality to the animals. They're all sent off on a grand adventure to find a legendary island and a single tree that can provide an antidote for a dying queen. On paper, the adventure is fine, the pieces look interesting, but it all seems more like a collection of random nonsense that's beautiful to look at but completely lacking any kind of momentum. Writer/Director Stephen Gaghan has made some incredible dramas like "Syriana" and "Traffic", but what he doing mounting a massive family film? It's not a good fit. There are a couple actors that deliver and escape no worse for wear. Antonio Banderas is menacing fun as King Rassouli, the father of John's lost love. Michael Sheen (Prodigal Son)steals the movie as a rival Doctor determined to defeat Dolittle's quest. He has a ton of great one liners and he delivers the only real laughs in the movie, gnashing the scenery and nailing every punchline. I think when a pivotal moment of the finale hinges on a giant dragon fart that blasts Dolittle in the face for ten seconds, you might have a problem with your story structure. That being said, Downey's expression during that event was mirrored on my own as this bloated, lumbering extravaganza noisily chattered forward. My grandson Jonah got bored and left halfway through to go play video games in the other room. Smart kid. I'll prescribe the Doctor a D.

This film by Jay and Mark Duplass is a mildly entertaining look at two VERY competitive brothers. As teenagers, they created their own competition of 25 events (including holding your breath underwater, air hockey, long jump and laser tag). As adults (at least physically) Jeremy decides to surprise his brother Mark on his birthday at their mom's house. It isn't long until they have decided the entire weekend will be their DO-DECA-PENTATHLON. Steve Zissis and Mark Kelly are very good as the brothers, as is the supporting cast of no-name actors. As they compete and damn near kill each other over 25 events, there are a few laughs (especially the laser tag scene) but to say this movie is "slight" is an understatement. It's paper thin with a couple of laughs. The Duplass brothers have gone on to make "Cyrus" and "Jeff Who Lives at Home" and I am looking forward to seeing them and hoping there is just a bit more to them than this DO-DECA-dud that gets a C medal from me.

One of the trippiest, out-of-the-box Marvel movies yet, DOCTOR STRANGE is an action-filled but cerebral mind-bender. Benedict Cumberbatch is terrific (when isn’t he?) as our title Neurosurgeon. Arrogant, extravagant and talented, he’s the best in the business. He won’t even consider operating on everyday patients, limiting his work to the nearly impossible cases that he’s determined to win on every level. Early in the film, while driving his perfect car in his perfect clothes on the perfect seaside highway, Strange is distracted and has a horrific car accident, damaging his hands and body nearly beyond repair. When he’s spent every dollar he has to repair them, he begins a more spiritual quest for a fix, where he is drawn into a very different dimension parallel to our own. Tilda Swinton is excellent as The Ancient One, leading Strange on his path to awareness. Chiwetel Ejiofor is her right hand man Mordo and Benedict Wong (The Martian, Prometheus) delivers a lot of humor as a very serious librarian guarding some galaxy shaking secrets in his volumes. As Strange delves deeper into the mystic realms between worlds, we are taken on a visual journey that at time rivals the “Jupiter” sequence in 2001. It’s that big of a trip and a superb, modern-day take on our expectations of what’s possible in visual storytelling and digital effects. By the time Manhattan was folding into and out of itself again in some “Inception” like meeting of the dimensions, with fighters on both sides battling on every surface regardless of gravity, I was pulled quickly into the story and Strange’s new role in the Marvel universe. What Marvel does so well with their films that DC films only even began to hint at with “Suicide Squad” is the merging of multiple characters within the Marvel Universe. It’s the consistency of story telling and style that they do so well. In a long shot of Manhattan, you can clearly see Stark’s AVENGERS tower in mid-town, looming near the new World Trade tower. Subtle and obvious links to many other films appear throughout. Cumberbatch is a welcome add to the Marvel mix, bringing real dramatic weight and very well executed humor as well. His one-liners in the library are delivered perfectly in that subtle Connery Bond style that makes you laugh without distracting you from the character. By its conclusion, the battle become a bit repetitive and a tad predictable in their outcome, but not enough to take away from a well executed mystery/action thriller. Visually stunning in every day, it’s STRANGE in all the right ways and gets a B. As always, stay tuned through the credits for some telling “sneaks” at what’s next (and some damn funny interactions with Thor).

If you are a film buff, you've got to read Mark Harris' superb book PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION; Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood. It's a fascinating look at five films of 1967. "The Graduate", "Bonnie and Clyde", "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner", 'In The Heat of the Night" and lastly this film. 20th Century Fox, on the brink of financial disaster, wagered all its chips on a famliy-friendly musical, DOCTOR DOLITTLE. Well chronicled for its almost unbelievable string of missteps on the way to the screen, this monster was a legendary flop. As 1968 neared, Vietnam dominated the news and films like "Cool Hand Luke", "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Dirty Dozen" dominated the box office. Fox was sure audiences were still hungry for the next "Sound of Music". How do you make sure your musical will flop? 1. Cast Rex Harrison in the lead and make sure he drinks every day on set and hates his co-star Anthony Newley. Harrison refused to sing a note, called the songs by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley "unsingable garbage" and insisted on talking all the lyrics instead of singing them. 2. Spend a fortune on sets and costumes but make sure they look like they came from the 50's, so everything looks tired before it even gets filmed. 3. Cast an unknown that can't sing in the main female role, Samantha Eggar. She made only a couple more films before going back to TV. Poor Samantha, she's well dubbed by Marni Nixon but left with a goofy role and some very bad hats. 4. Make the story creak along at a snail's pace and ignore all the great Hugh Lofting's children's stories available. 5. Put Richard Fleisher in place as director, hot off of Fox's "Fantastic Voyage". Poor Fleisher would nearly bankrupt the studio again in 1971 with the massive-budget, last gasp war film "Tora! Tora! Tora" which I liked a lot, but it was tone deaf for anti-war audiences in the early seventies, excited about "M*A*S*H". Richard Attenborough (Jurassic Park) is terrific as a circus owner in his brief 8 minutes on screen, breathing some life into this big old dinosaur, but that's about it. WC Fields famously said to never work with animals or children. OOPS. At 152 minutes long, its one long ride with the Doctor that gets a D. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... But read that book, its fascinating as a study of old guard vs change, arrogance v. vision and behind the scenes at studios during a trans-formative year in the film industry.

Back in 1983, Dan Aykroyd made his first film without John Belushi, DOCTOR DETROIT. Meant to kickoff a film series, it bombed hard at the box office, but became a hit on VHS (remember those tapes??). Aykroyd stars as eccentric, quiet College professor who spends his days teaching romance in literature, while never experiencing any of his own. His morning speedwalk through Chicago crosses paths with pimp Smooth Walker (Howard Hesseman from WKRP) and his quartet of gorgeous girls. That squad includes Fran Drescher (The Nanny) and Donna Dixon (Spies Like Us). When Smooth finds himself $80k under water to HIS boss Mom (Kate Murtagh) he tells her that he's getting forced out by the NEW, brutal pimp in town Doctor Detroit. Now he needs to CREATE the Doctor. Where could he possible find a stooge to set up as the Doctor? Anyone that's seen a Jerry Lewis movie knows that our quiet professor is about to become the Doctor. But what you're probably not ready for is just how FAR Aykroyd will go in creating the alter ego he's forced to become. Donning a blonde fright wig and a crazy voice that makes Christopher Walken's speech patterns seem dull, Aykroyd is hilarious, turning Detroit into an iron-fisted man of action. It's all very predictable in an 80's sitcom fashion, but still delivers some solid laughs especially in the conclusion, when Aykroyd's mild mannered Clifford the college professor must MC a University dinner for a major donor at the same time the "Pimp Ball" is taking place across the hallway in the other ballroom. For an R-rated 80's comedy, its the most G rated vision of prostitution in film history. TK Carter (The Thing, Seems Like Old Times) is hilarious as Smooth's driver who quickly becomes Clifford's guide into the underworld. Stealing the entire movie EVERY time he's on camera is George Furth (Blazing Saddles, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) as Clifford's dad. Furth nails every line and expression and lands every joke to perfection, he's hilarious. The film's conclusion announces in Star Trek font that "DOCTOR DETROIT II: THE WRATH OF MOM" will soon hit theatres. As the film was about to open, Aykroyd was already writing the sequel. But the film bombed hard, barely earning back it's budget in theatres before fading fast in the early summer of 1983. You can't blame Aykroyd, who invests in both characters down to the smallest tics, showing off the same mad comic chops he so often displayed in the early years of SNL. Dated, quirky and as perfectly "early 80's" as the pastel costumes and big old stretch Lincoln limos, DOCTOR DETROIT gets a B-. Its longest lasting legacy is Aykroyd and Dixon's 35 year marriage, they wed shortly after meeting on the film! Any movie with a title song by Devo and a live performance by James Brown has my attention....

Incredible. Over the top. Best written film of the year. Quentin Tarantino lives up to my very, very high expectations with the brilliant DJANGO UNCHAINED. He has talked about wanting to make a western for quite some time and whatever gestation period this film had in his mind served it well, as its one of the most exciting, fast moving nearly 3 hour films I've ever seen. Cristoph Waltz stars as Dr. King Schultz, a bounty hunter in Texas masquerading as a dentist, who meets up with Django, a slave with more than one score to settle. Waltz is just as great here as he was in Inglorious Basterds, but there is more humor and joy in this character, allowing him to really shine in his best role to date. The dialogue is spectacular. It's adult, its plastered with profanity and racial epithets, but it's brilliant. No one spins a scene that relies solely on dialogue for suspense the way that QT does and his dinner scene at Candieland (don't worry, you'll get it when you see it) equals the basement bar scene in Basterds for suspense, clever words and delivery. Django is in pursuit of the men who whipped, stole and sold his wife Broomhilda and Waltz soon discovers that he has found a "natural bounty hunter" in Django. Jamie Foxx is really great in the film, baring more than his soul for Tarantino in some brutal scenes, while playing the quiet ones just as deftly. He's damn funny too. Leonardo DiCaprio is the best screen villain in ages, Calvin Candie who is as witty as he is depraved and dangerous. Samuel L. Jackson rounds out the cast in my all time favorite Jackson role as house slave Stephen, who may be much sharper than he appears and delivers more laughs than you can count in the last hour of the film. This is one violent, adult movie. It revels in blood and every shot spouts geysers of plasma in an obvious and highly stylized tribute to the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone. Tarantino even borrows Leone's favorite composer, Ennio Morricone, to score this film, along with the likes of James Brown, 2 Pac and John Legend. It's beautifully photographed, quickly paced and fun as hell. An early scene with the KKK debating the style of their hoods packs more laughs than most 90 minute comedies, Don Johnson is hilarious as Big Daddy and James Remar, Franco Nero (the original Django!) Tom Wopat and Jonah Hill all shine in small roles. As always with Tarantino, if you are easily offended by extreme violence, profanity, bold nudity, DON'T GO. If you are thrilled by smart dialogue, great heroes, horrible bad guys, explosive action sequences and suspense with a generous splash of laugh out loud comedy, run, don't walk to see DJANGO. It's one of Tarantino's best, one of my 3 favorite films of 2012 and easily in my all-time Top 100. A+

I've long been interested in the cult midnight "so bad it's good" movie, "The Room". After seeing James Franco's terrific behind the scenes look at how it was made, I HAVE to seek it out. Like a modern day Ed Wood, Tommy Wiseau seems to have unlimited funds and virtually no talent in his pursuit of Hollywood success. When Tommy meets barely employed model and dull aspiring actor Greg Sistero (Dave Franco), he finds a best friend and a muse that inspires him to write and direct his own film. Both Franco boys are terrific in their roles. James BECOMES Tommy, in all his mumbling, bizarre, eccentric and unique glory. He's also nearly unrecognizable, which works well for him. Dave is great too, the more human of the two, torn between his good friend, ambition and desire. We watch as Tommy drops millions of dollars on a horrible script, taking a turkey on the page and layering it in horrible acting and staging. Tommy likes to say that we're on his planet when watching the film. Based on his script, the people on his planet do not display any normal human emotions. At times hilarious and surprisingly touching in moments, an all-star comedy cast brings tons of laughs as they try to survive on one of the most offensive, off-kilter movie sets of all time. Seth Rogan, Alison Brie, Josh Hutcherson (how old is that kid anyway?-haha) and Megan Mullally are all damn funny. It's all Franco all the time, with James directing the film as well. Anything but a disaster, it's a telling look at a very mysterious man and his Citizen Kane of strange that still plays to sold out midnight movie houses today. I gotta see it..... I'd say it cant possibly be as bad as its reputation, but after seeing this, I think its far worse, hilariously so. Franco's staging and acting during the finale of the film, "The Room"'s big Hollywood premiere is exceptional. There are a lot of moods in the last 20 minutes and they work together perfectly, not an easy task. THE DISASTER ARTIST is a fascinating portrait of a Wiseau and his legacy. It gets a B+.

1974's Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is a classic 70's car chase flick. Peter Fonda is Larry, who robs a SaveMart grocery store with his partner Adam Roarke. His one night stand from the previous night, Mary, played by Susan George tags along as Sheriff Vic Morrow and many crashing California police cars give chase. If you are looking for great film making, look elsewhere, but for early 70's action on a very low budget, with lots of bad dialogue, overacting and laughs along with crashing vehicles, this is a fun guilty pleasure (especially to me when I was 13 and seeing this with my Dad!) A hard driving, metal crunching B-.