All Fall Down (1962)

This is a movie I wanted to watch for a long while mainly to see an early performance by Beatty (3rd movie) and the other performances. It has a great cast with Angela Lansbury, Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint and Brandon de Wilde (the main character, though not top-billed).

It's an OK movie. Not exceptional, but still has good performances. 

deWilde plays a teenager (age 16) and plays the part pretty well--he's naive, idolizes his older brother (Beatty), and then slowly becomes disillusioned as the movie progresses. 

I know what it's like to idolize a relative like that, and then realize he's not so perfect and not right all the time, so I liked that aspect of the film. I also think Lansbury does a great job showing how overbearing and manipulative her character is. 

Lansbury and Malden play characters with differing political and religious opinions (he's liberal, she's conservative....he's a socialist and she's capitalist....she's a churchgoer, he's not....). I found alot of their interactions to be really interesting. In one sequence, Malen invites some homeless men over for a Christmas dinner. Lansbury wants them out of the house so she pays each of them ten dollars to get out.

There's an interesting scene where deWilde chops up some vegetables and mixes them together in a blender to make a healthy smoothie; I can't remember the last time a character in a film did that so that was a cool part. 

I read somewhere that when this movie was being filmed in 1961, Beatty's first two movies had not yet been released (Splendor in the Grass & Roman Spring of Ms Stone). He had only been known for television work, for dating Natalie Wood, and for being Shirley Maclaine's brother.

I liked the scenes with the two brothers together; I felt convinced that they were related and that deWilde idolized him. In the movie, deWilde is constantly writing in his journal, and I wondered if that indicated he would be a writer in the future, and if the writer of the original novel - James Leo Herlihy - based the character on himself. 

After watching this movie I was intrigued by the entire making-of process.  I wondered how faithful it was to the original book, and was curious about John Houseman producing it and that whole process.

If only DVD commentaries and special features were around in 1962.

Regarding the title, I think it should be called "Berry-Berry", since everyone says it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.  

1983 interview with critics Siskel, Ebert, and Simon on Star Wars

While on YouTube, I stumbled upon this interview clip from 1983's NightLine program, where film critics Siskel, Ebert, and John Simon were being asked about 1983's Return Of the Jedi and the Star Wars films in general.

It's really interesting to hear some serious negative criticism about Star Wars, now a cultural phenomenon. I wasn't very familiar with John Simon before, but apparently I learned that he has had a reputation of being a harsh critic of beloved films and the actors in them.

Though I don't agree with him about the early Star Wars films, I guess I feel the same as he does about many/most of the superhero movies of the last two decades or so.

The Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949)

This is not a very good film, in my opinion. I watched it on a very poor-quality DVD and the picture looked grainy and the editing very choppy. I read somewhere that this was the first (and last) movie directed by Burgess Meredith. This might be acceptable for a film student, but I would expect better from a film set in Paris with an international cast like Charles Laughton, who plays an inspector who walks around town with a pipe in his mouth like a cartoon character. The villain is played by Franchot Tone and there are only two scenes in the Eiffel Tower, so the title is even misleading. I was disappointed in this movie. This seems like a movie that had high ambitions, but failed miserably along the way.

Miracle Mile (1988)

I did not like this movie, despite the cast (Mare Winningham, Robert DoQui, Mykelti Williamson) and premise - a nuclear war/apocalyptic film set in the modern day (late 80s). At the film screening I watched it at, the programmer described this film as a movie that "put an exclamation point" on all cold-war era films, since this was pretty much the last movie that touched the subject of nuclear hysterics. The director only made a couple of other low-budget movies like this one, but this one has a number of effects and stunts that might normally be found in a slighter higher budget film.

I felt as if I was constantly being asked by this movie to suspend my disbelief, and I gave up about a quarter into the movie. The movie starts out as a cute John Hughes-esque romantic comedy (the director has admitted this) but about a quarter into the film, the main character Anthony Edwards learns about an coming nuclear attack and everyone around him panics, which spreads. I liked the scenes in the cafe/diner and was hoping the entire movie would take place there with just those characters and their lives we focus on.

That might have made for a good movie.

But instead, it becomes a horror/thriller/action film. The worst part is when Edwards runs into a gym at 5 AM and asks random people, "does anyone know how to fly a helicopter"? I suppose that could be funny, but come on. If the end of the world is nigh, wouldn't you try to call your family and friends? Maybe he didn't have any.

Bell Book and Candle (1958)

This was on TCM last night and I watched it, but I did not like it overall.

The only part I really liked was when Jimmy Stewart goes to the older sorcerer to get the spell reversed; I liked the talking parrot. And I liked any scenes with the cat, especially when it runs away.

I like James Stewart, but mainly the 1930s and 40s Stewart, and some of his later westerns. In some of these '50 movies, I just don't find him believable with the younger female lead. Every time I saw him with Kim Novak it seemed like she was hugging and kissing her father. With censorship still being applied to American movies at the time I'm surprised this movie got a pass.

What they should have done is switch the parts around ---

- put Jack Lemmon in the lead opposite Novak
- put Ernie Kovacs in Lemmon's part as the brother
- put James Stewart in Kovacs' role as the author.

That would have been better!

But Stewart was such a huge box office star that time, him in a supporting role would never have happened.

Another take on this film from the blog Flickers in Time here