In 1969, there was no actress more beautiful or more popular than Raquel Welch. Her assets are on fine display in the dated, silly thriller from that year, FLARE UP. Raquel plays an independent woman and go-go dancer named Michelle. In the films opening scenes, she is meeting one of her closest friends for lunch. When her friend is gunned down by her jealous husband Alan, he soon turns his gun toward Michelle before escaping. The opening scenes are shot at Caesars Palace Las Vegas in all its 1969 glory and it's incredible to see that there is literally NOTHING north of Caesars on the strip. It's desert! All the location filming in Vegas is terrific and adds some nostalgic fun to the film's first twenty minutes. When it looks like the crazy husband is still coming after her, Michelle moves her act to Los Angeles, when she decides to dance at "The Losers" Go-Go club. She falls in love with a very bland parking lot attendant/doorman Joe (James Stacy giving every male viewer the thought, "man-maybe if Raquel can fall for that guy, she could fall for me too!".....nope.) The cops are fairly slow on the draw, the dancing is only adult enough to earn an M rating (now a PG-13 or light R) and the story never rises above an average episode of "The Streets of San Francisco", but Raquel is beautiful whether she's riding a horse on the beach, her sporty convertible or the stage. The location shots of late sixties LA are a lot of fun, but the editing and directing are pretty bad and you feel like everything was printed on the first take. The chemistry between Welch and Stacy is vapor thin and blows in and out like the fog. The bad guy is so one-note it grows boring and the chase through the zoo at the end seems about three times longer than it needs to be. Check out the last three minutes: Michelle is an independent woman, strong the entire film. But is that how she acts in the closing scene? It feels like MGM wanted a more Hollywood ending slapped on at the last second. It's like Welch's weaker twin just showed up for the last act. There will never be another Raquel. Love her. The movie? Meh, gets a D.

There are those films from your childhood that collapse when you see them again and there are those that still are a hell of a lot of fun. FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH is a great example of the latter species. My brother and I first saw it on TV as an afternoon horror flick in the early seventies and luckily its been preserved by Anchor Bay on DVD as part of their Hammer Films collection under its original UK title, "Quartermass and the Pit". Quartermass is a legendary character in the UK, with TV series and movies around his adventures spanning the mid 50's to 2015 in Europe. In this installment, a London subway project discovers a massive object and prehistoric bones, and our otherworldly/space expert (think early X-Files) Professor Quartermass digs deeper and realizes the object is not from Earth. With a low budget but very clever writing and good direction from Roy Ward Baker (A Night To Remember) there's plenty of spooky suspense and building dread as the object's contents are revealed. Andrew Keir (Cleopatra, Rob Roy) is a great Quartermass and Julian Glover (For Your Eyes Only, The Empire Strikes Back) is terrific as a Colonel with no interest in the supernatural. By the time locust like creatures and demonic overtones take hold of London, I realized this sixties Hammer classic is probably a big reason that I loved Tobe Hooper's bizarre "Lifeforce" in 1985. Its very close to the same story, with 100 times the budget, much better special effects but 1/100 the story clarity. This is a fun & nostalgic trip back to a time when the scares were less graphic but no less suspenseful and good storytelling could make up for a lack of dollars. Turn off the lights and fire up the nostalgia. FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH gets an appreciative B.

A fascinating three-hour documentary now available on Netflix, FIVE CAME BACK details the unbelievably true story of five major film directors of the early 1940's that all enlisted to film World War II. The intriguing angle of the doc is that five of today's most talented directors detail the five famous directors of the past, each of them telling the complete story of one of their careers and war experience. William Wyler's story is presented by Steven Spielberg. Frank Capra's story is told by Guillermo Del Toro, George Stevens told by Lawrence Kasdan, John Ford by Paul Greengrass and John Huston's story by Francis Ford Coppola. For film buffs, its fantastic, as these powerful filmmakers of today detail not only the famous films of these legendary directors, but the effect of their War experience on their post-war films. History buffs will be equally overwhelmed by the amount of exclusive footage shown that was shot by these famous men immersed in the middle of battle. Scenes of the liberation of the concentration camps, mid-air battles between bombers and fighters and the invasion of Normandy are as startling today as they were in the news reels of yesteryear. I learned a lot from this three part effort, including our head shaking refusal to enter the war as Europe fell to Hitler and the Nazis. I dont think I ever realized how long we sat in silence as countries fell, only entering the frey when we were attacked in Pearl Harbor. As fascinating as any war film, loaded with never before seen footage, FIVE CAME BACK brilliantly tells the story of these five men who showed the war to Americans for the first time. FIVE CAME BACK gets an A.

The first (and least) of Clint Eastwood's Sergio Leone Spaghetti western trilogy, 1964's A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS is still intriguing fun. Eastwood is the fast-draw, pancho wearing Man With No Name who wanders into a very deadly town. It's ruled by two warring families, the Baxters and the Rojos, who control the citizens with deadly justice while they battle between each other for superiority. Eastwood arrives and immediately begins pitting them against each other, much to the delight of the locals. Leone has been transparent that he lifted the plot from Kurosawa's 1961 masterpiece "Yojimbo" and dropped it wholesale into an 1800's western. For the most part, it works. Eastwood brings a great deal of quiet, violent humor to the role, just as he did to "Dirty Harry" less than a decade later. Gian Maria Volonte is perfect as Ramon Rojo, his background at the National Dramatic Arts Academy in Rome serving him well. He goes toe-to-toe with Eastwood and they're a great pair. German actor Wolfgang Lukschy is also good as John Baxter, whose family is growing extinct around him. Watching Eastwood demand four of the Baxter gang apologize to his horse, gun down a crowd of bad guys or just squint harshly into the camera as he gets ready to draw his weapon, you can understand why this film kicked off an entire genre and blasted Clint into superstardom. Leone uses every bit of his widescreen to tell the story, whatever you do, DON'T watch a pan and scan version of the movie, you're missing half of it. Filmed in 1964, Eastwood didnt record his dialogue until 1967 when the film was already a massive sensation in Europe and was being prepared for US release. One of Tarantino's all-time favorite films, it's fascinating to watch how Eastwood and Leone inspired DiCaprio's Rick Dalton character in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood". Eastwood earned just $15,000 for this, his first movie role. He wears the same boots he brought from the set of TV's "Rawhide"! Nowhere near as good as it's sequel "For A Few Dollars More", it's still a fist full of good humor, widescreen shootouts and galloping horses and saddles up a B-.

Sylvester Stallone's follow up movie to his film debut in "Rocky", F*I*S*T is a well written, big budget drama that still entertains. Stallone plays Johnny Kovak, a 1930's dock worker who watches his fellow fellow team members get unfairly punished while battling for fair wages against company owners. Joining the teamsters, Kovak rises through the ranks due to his popularity among the men. While his motives are pure, he finds his methods becoming more and more tainted by violence and those around him. When Kovak becomes President of the powerful Trucking Federation Union, he comes under the ruthless investigation of a Senator determined to prove Johnny's ties to the mob. With Joe Ezterhaus (Basic Instinct) doing the writing and renowned over actor Rod Steiger playing Senator Madison and Stallone stretching himself dramatically, you can imagine there is nothing subtle about FIST. That being said, the film has a great cast, an epic size storyline, an excellent music score by Bill Conti (following up his legendary Rocky score) and nice support from Peter Boyle, Melinda Dillon and Tony Lo Bianco. It's nice to experience Stallone before he became the bigger than life action star of the eighties. We'll give FIST a thumbs up and a solid B.

I've always been a fan of Paul Schrader's films. His incredible screenplays for "Taxi Driver", "Blue Collar", "Raging Bull" were dark, gritty and at the top of cinema in the 70's and 80's. As a writer/director in "Hardcore" and "American Gigolo", Schrader explored the darkest sides of humanity and sexuality, unflinching in pulling back the curtains on our worst behaviors. This year's FIRST REFORMED is Scharder's best film in decades, taking the viewer on a disturbing, immersive trip into one man's troubled experience. That man is Reverend Ernst Toller, played in the performance of his career by Ethan Hawke (Boyhood, Before Sunset, The Magnificent Seven). Toller is the pastor of a small church in upstate New York. With a handful of congregants and more business through the historical gift shop than the Sunday services, Toller lives a solitary life. Recovering from a family tragedy, divorced from his wife and alone, Toller's health is suspect, his drinking is heavy and his loneliness is oppressive. As the film opens, Toller narrates a daily journal that he hopes to keep for a year. Schrader's dialogue is painfully authentic as we hear Toller speak the words he writes, looking for some light in his narrowing solitude. When a young woman named Mary (Amanda Seyfried of "Les Miserables" and "Mamma Mia") stops Reverend Toller after services, she asks him to meet with her husband Michael the next day. Michael is troubled and sees Mary's pregnancy as a gift he can't accept, not wanting to bring a baby into what he sees as our rapidly declining planet and society. Michael (newcomer Philip Ettinger) provides Toller the most excitement and engagement that the Reverend has felt in years, going toe-to-toe with a religious argument for every global-warming, Earth failing argument that Michael puts forth. Michael's long speech to Toller is classic Schrader, baiting you to feel one way while driving you in another direction. There's a tipping point between Toller and Michael that's almost palpable. With all of Toller's traditional religious beliefs brilliantly spoken and left in the air, mixing with Michael's numbers-driven statistics on the planet dying, you feel the men slowly moving in different directions. But to where? To say more would take away from your experience watching the film. The supporting cast is excellent, including Cedric The Entertainer in a great dramatic turn as Reverend Jeffers, the charismatic leader of the mega-church next door to First Reformed. Jeffers has given Toller his current job and chance at redemption and is Toller's personal counselor. My friend Bill Hoag (Orange is the New Black) is excellent (you rock, Bill!) as John Elder, staff member/Organist of the church, who sees all too closely the inner struggles of Toller. Victoria Hill is affecting as Esther, a churchgoer with deep feelings for Toller and Michael Gaston (24, Bridge of Spies) is a local mega-industrialist whose factories are the direct opposite of Earth-friendly. FIRST REFORMED is a fantastic return to form for Schrader. Remember "Taxi Driver". Recall 'The Last Temptation of Christ" and be prepared for Schrader to take you on an unflinching, dark ride into depression, loneliness, mental illness, desparation and destiny. Hawke has been great before; he's a rock solid performer in everything he does. But he's GREAT here. I hope he gets some recognition from the Academy for his performance as Toller. From the quiet beginning to the terrifying, twisted & suspenseful conclusion, we watch Toller BECOME something/someone wholly different. Schrader spent the first 18 years of his life in a strict Calvinist upbringing. The effect of that has always been visible in Schrader's work, from his take on the Gospels in Scorsese's "Last Tempation" to the tortured father George C. Scott played in his 1979 film "Hardcore". Scott spent the film trying to hold onto his strict religious beliefs while chasing his runaway daughter into the depths of the seventies porn scene in California. Scott's struggles echo here, with Reverend Toller trying to balance his faith with the unrelenting emotional devastation of his own life. "Who can know the mind of God?" is a recurring theme and a timeless challenge for people of faith who experience tragedy. FIRST REFORMED doesn't offer easy answers, nor does it actually offer any resolution, but its a brilliant, jet-black voyage into some very disturbing places. I'm always along for the ride with Schrader. I'm never sure where I'm going, but its always a trip worth taking. The final moments left my jaw dropped well after the credits started rolling, protesting at the screen. I'll be thinking about this one for many days ahead. FIRST REFORMED gets an A+.

Director Damien Chazelle has delivered some of my favorite films the past few years, from his brutal, searing character study "Whiplash" to his modern take on the MGM Musical "La La Land", he's blazed a trail through different genres. He continues that path with his new biography of Neil Armstrong and the space program, FIRST MAN. A distant film brother of Philip Kaufman's rah-rah "The Right Stuff", its focus is a much more complicated man, whose life has somehow delivered him to be the right man for the first lunar mission. Ryan Gosling (Drive, La La Land) has his most reserved role as Armstrong. We meet him as a young, happy civilian engineer, in love with his wife Janet and a new young family. Janet's really well played in the showier of the two roles by Claire Foy (The Crown). Their relationship is strained when their young daughter battles cancer and Armstrong finds respite in the space program, more at home at in a capsule than he is at the kitchen table. The film pops fairly quickly through time, showing the very early days of the space program, the initial voyages of the Mercury program and eventually the Apollo missions. The film is half quiet character study and half suspenseful action film as Armstrong and the NASA team forge new ground in their quest to reach the moon. These guys have incredible courage and bravery and Chazelle never pulls back from showing their patriotism, their passion and commitment. Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty, Chappaquiddick) is terrific as Ed White, Pablo Schreiber (Den of Thieves) is a great Ed Lovell, Corey Stoll (The Strain) is hilarious as the brash, loud motormouth Buzz Aldrin and Kyle Chandler (Super 8, Friday Night Lights) is Deke Slayton, the man everyone wants at the helm at Mission Control. The special effects are perfect and the sound design steals the show. Chazelle is determined to show you space in the most realistic light since Kubrick's "2001" 50 years ago. The silence of space is almost as deafening in its power as the massive thrusters that lift the rockets off the launch pad. Chazelle has said that he wanted the scenes on the moon to be like the moment Dorothy opens the door in OZ, with that film's pop from black and white box screen to wide screen color. He and sound designers led by Phil Barrie (Max Max:Fury Road, Passengers) have created that same moment, dropping you onto a lunar landscape that you'll remember from all that grainy live black and white footage, but rendered down to the simplest grain. FIRST MAN made me want to do what all great biographies do, read more about this quiet, complicated American hero who wanted no part of personal fame. Gosling's Armstrong has two quiet moments near the end of the film, one on the moon and one upon his return, that probably tell you more about him that any dialogue could. Chazelle's choice to close the movie with these quiet moments, versus the bombast and triumph of "The Right Stuff"s final moments or "Apollo 13"s celebratory conclusion feels right for Armstrong and the story that precedes it. Thoughtful, suspenseful, loaded with great acting and special effects, FIRST MAN is a great character study masquerading as a thriller. Chazelle nails it again and gets an A-.

A strange thriller that probably seemed old even when it was released in 1980, THE FIRST DEADLY SIN wastes some talented actors in a predictable, boring cop drama. Frank Sinatra stars as Private Investigator Ed Delaney, wired with the cops and winding down his final months before retirement. Faye Dunaway plays his wife Barbara, who is battling a mystery illness and spends 3/4 of the film literally pretending to be in and out of a coma in a hospital bed. Delaney is tracking down a serial killer randomly and violently killing folks in Manhattan with a hammer. Some interesting actors like Brenda Vaccaro and Anthony Zerbe circle the mystery, but Director Brian G. Hutton, who has made good films like "Where Eagles Dare" and "Kelly's Heroes" makes some very strange choices here. The opening murder is interspersed with a graphic surgery and its stomach turning and disjointed instead of tension filled. Frank Sinatra can be a charming, funny and realistic action star on film (see Tony Rome for a perfect example) but he is saddled with a sad role and little to do. Of course, he is given plenty to do compared to Dunaway, who would continue her poor job choices the next year with "Mommie Dearest". Poor Frank followed this with "Cannonball Run II"...ouch. The biggest sin of the film is its just a dull D.

You know those movies from the 80's that were so good at the time and then you watch them on HBO late at night and wonder "what the hell was I thinking in 1984 when I thought this was good?" LOL. What a bad movie. The only thing that saves it from an F grade from me is a cool 80's music score by Tangerine Dream (To Live and Die in LA, Sorcerer) and the last 5 minutes when Drew blows the crap out of everything in sight with fireballs the size of bowling balls.......five minutes worth watching...haha Fizzles out with a D.

One of my 80's Eastwood faves (from 1982) FIREFOX is a fun, exciting action movie with nearly all of its action loaded in the last 45 minutes. The Russians have a new MIG fighter that Clint must sneak into Russia and steal. Some fun intrigue along the way and a solid performance/direction from Clint make this a winner. A CRAZY over the top performance from Freddie Jones seems like its from another movie (perhaps he and his eyebrows wondered in from 'Dune", where he was similarly crazy?) but this one is a fun diversion. Firefox blasts its way to a B.

Some films have such a clever or intriguing premise that you immediately get excited about the possibilities ahead of you. THE FINAL COUNTDOWN certainly qualifies on that score. Kirk Douglas is the Captain of the nuclear carrier USS Nimitz, on a routine trip a couple hundred miles from Hawaii. Martin Sheen is aboard as Lasky, a civilian observer and James Farentino is Cmdr Owens, who also happens to be a Pearl Harbor historian. That knowledge is likely to come in handy after the ship and all its fighters are transported through a very strange storm/wormhole that takes them back in time to Dec 6th, 1941, the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The possibilities are endless of where the story will go. Will Douglas muster all the might of modern American weaponry and destroy the massive Japanese air attack before it begins? What will the consequences be if they are seen by the 1941 people of Hawaii? What effect will stopping that attack have on history around the world? And that's where the movie really disappoints. As a detailed exploration of how the carrier works, life aboard its decks, the mechanics of takeoff and landing, its really well done, even entertaining. But as a thriller, it never really goes down any roads you want it to. There is an engagement between a couple planes, there is a high altitude recon of the Japanese fleet, there's even a capture of a Japanese pilot, well played by Soon-Tek Oh (The Man With the Golden Gun). Charles Durning (The Fury, The Sting) is a blustery US Senator and Katherine Ross (Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, The Graduate) is his assistant, but both are kind of wasted in a subplot confined to the ship. I sat there waiting for the movie to breakout and really become more than a ship bound Twilight Zone episode. Douglas's decisions in the final ten minutes dont seem that rational, the final moments that are supposed to be a major twist dont pack much of a punch. It's a shame that such a cool premise never really goes anywhere. It's kind of cool that the storm/time wormhole was created for the film by Maurice Binder, who did all the James Bond title sequences from the 60's through the 80's. However, it's the same exact effect that was used in 1979's "Dracula" when the vampire seduced Mina. Hey, maybe they should have met Dracula in that wormhole and had him running around the ship. That would have been more entertaining than the commercial for the Navy that unspools here for almost two slow hours. THE FINAL COUNTDOWN takes an A+ premise but only manages a C in execution.

In 1986, Richard Gere and Kim Basinger generated serious on-screen heat handcuffed together running through the swamps of Louisiana in "No Mercy". Six years later, they were simply handcuffed by a predictable screenplay in FINAL ANALYSIS. Gere seems to be calling it in a bit as psychiatrist Issac Barr, perhaps the least self-aware analyst in California. One of his patients is Diana, played nicely by a very young Uma Thurman. She suggests that Issac meet her sister Heather, saying that she might be able to shed some additional light on Diana's problems. Heather (Kim Basinger, better than the rest of the cast) enters like a prowling panther, seducing Issac into breaking ethics rules by sleeping with her. Suddenly Issac is drawn into a confusing and messy murder and inheritance scheme that's supposed to seem clever, but it just serves to remind you of much better movies like "Body Heat" or "Double Indemnity". It's so blatant in its attempts to ripoff the locations, look and feel of Hitchcock's masterpiece "Vertigo" that it grown tiresome. It's offensive to even reference Hitch's best work when you're bringing nothing new to the party. Eric Roberts appears in one of his "didn't he always kind of play the same part in the 90's" bad guy roles, but at least he manages to squeeze in some intensity. It is fun for "CSI" fans to see Paul Guilfoyle, who played serious Jim Brass on that show for many years, display a lot more humor (and hair!) than he ever did investigating crimes in Las Vegas. One of the key pieces of the plot is so obvious that it couldn't have been more obvious if you had a flashing arrow on it pointing at the evidence. In the final analysis, there's not much mystery here, just a lot of wasted talent and a ho-hum tale. We'll give it and its "now what the hell is that supposed to mean?" final scene a dull C.