Intimate Agony - 1983

Intimate Agony has a plot that, when written sounds like the Jaws of STD outbreaks. Small beach community, buncha random middle age stars, and a politician that doesn't want word of the news spreading for the ensuing "bad reputation / lack of money" reasons.

Talking: The Movie. That's the uncredited alternate name to this bland drama. Who CARES???! I'm 20 minutes in. I don't know if I'll make it.

26 minutes in a kid is getting an ear infection. The main character looks like Kenny G, and is a doctor, and he's hitting on flock-haired 80s mom. Random dude is a STD-haver and he therefore won't fuck his pregnant wife. Drama! Doesn't he know some peeps (yours truly) would kill to fuck a pregnant woman?!

Robert Vaughn is the Jaws mayor who didn't want to have people knowing about the shark. I guess this was made because of the aids epidemic and because it was hot and new. How much money...will I bet this was made for tv... how much? When did girls start shaving their armpits anyways?

Toby McTeague - 1986

I went ahead and put on the dog racing movie I referred to on the last blog entry.  I meant to put this on at a time when I was in a "I don't fucking care" type of mood.  Because realistically, this is the kind of movie where you won't care.

Toby McTeague is a movie and a character in the movie.  He is a teenager, living in like Alaska or North Canada or Antarctica or some place like that.  One of those snow covered, wintery places where people live in log cabins and things happen.

When I was a kid, we owned the movie Iron Will.  Iron Will was some VHS gifted to us by some random ass person.  Iron Will was a dog racing movie, about a dude named Will who enters a dog race and it's brutal and crazy and eventually he somehow wins.  It was somewhat dark though, for sure a little offbeat and under the radar.  This movie, Toby McTeague was like Iron Will without those dark qualities.

Toby's dad is a dog racing champ and single father of two boys.  All they have is the dogs and the sleds, and when father and Toby get in a argument that results in Toby leaving the home, father comes to the rescue and ends up crashing a plane (...oh, uh, I guess they had a plane too) during his landing.  Father is hurt and so that means he's out of the race.  But the race pays $6000 and that could perhaps just be enough to save the family. Could Toby do it?

That's actually the plot up to the hour mark, or maybe even after.  It's all what you expect, straight forward as hell.  I thought the strangest thing about it was probably where it was filmed, I'm guessing Canada, but I don't really know.  (It was Canada, that's two points for me)  Whatever, it's irrelevant, the movie is extremely easy to guess what'll happen and it's your average 1, 1.5 star experience.

One minute of research shows me that Iron Will and Toby McTeague share a writer!  No wonder it reminded me of Iron Will.  Djordje Milicevic wrote on both movies.

Scandal Sheet - 1985

Didn't have to guess the year on this one, they said it in the movie.  And for some reason, I'm inclined to believe they stated the current year.  I also played this movie on accident.  I meant to play the dog racing drama and for some reason selected this movie anyways.

Burt Lancaster and Frances McDormand join the ranks of known stars on the 80s boxset in this feelingly made-for-TV type drama.  I guess I'll go out on a limb and say possibly made for TV anyways.  (it was!  score 1 for me)

Scandal Sheet is the story of a young, charming writer in New York who so happens to be friends with an actress who is married to a struggling actor named Ben Rowan.  Rowan has been in the news lately for his alcoholic antics, and has since given up alcohol.  When the three of them are all seen together, the local version of US Weekly wines and dines the writer with the intention of putting her on a piece about Rowan.

And this was a solid, fine, decent movie.  It hits all the right dramatic moments, has clarity and simplicity.  Burt Lancaster as the boss of US Weekly brings gravitas and importance to his role.  Frances McDormand plays the wife of Ben Rowan, and yeah....I don't know who played the main character.

I really hoped this was 90 minutes and not longer.  I will say, there is a major plot hole near the end, and there was also the feeling that it could have gone easily another 10, 15, 20 minutes even.  Thankfully no.  This was no Callie and Son.  92 minutes and 3, 3.5 stars even?  I enjoyed this more than a lot of the films on here I'd seen recently, that's for fucking sure.

Callie and Son - 1981

Callie and Son starts like it's going to be a girl-gave-her-kid-up-for-adoption drama.  In the first few minutes, we meet Callie who is giving birth to a son, a son from a never-mentioned father, and when she gives birth she signs papers and gives him away legally.

What spins out from this beginning was unexpected, not entirely in a good or bad way.  Reason number one is that it is 2 hours and 15 minutes.  I'm going to guess right now that this was based on a book.  A long, long book.

Where to start with this?  It's a relatively simple story actually.  Callie goes through hardships as a single woman rebuilding her life, puts herself into school, meets a newspaper mogul and eventually marries him, gets reunited with her son when he is probably about 7 or so, her husband dies, life changes, her son grows up, her son experiences difficulty with jobs, writes a scathing article about politics which gets him into politics, he gets married to arguably the wrong girl, problems are had, and eventually the last few moments of the movie are about what end up happening with the relationship.

Spoilers I guess, just for completion sake.  Callie's son Randall had married this girl who seduced him.  Callie herself doesn't "approve" of this girl, especially when it turns out the girl has a troubled past involving pornography and blackmail.  Eventually when she's really drunk, the new wife unleashes her rage on Callie.  New wife has a gun, which Callie wrestles away from her, and shoots the girl in the face!  What the fuck!  Then, we have a courtroom drama in the last 25 minutes as the son, Randall, goes on trial for murder.

I really did not see the plot of this one coming at all, and I have to say it was both really good at times, and incredibly tedious at others.  The movie suffers from a TON of story, and at times the part you're watching truly won't matter.  However, if you look at it through the lens of a dramatic "life story" type of movie, well then it needs to have all those parts.

The only thing I wished was, with the end, they had a tacked on a rather confusing little bit where it seems Callie adopts another boy?  I was confused and frankly irritated at that.  Also, a strange and rather uncomfortable possible incest angle that I didn't need.

All in all though, wow.  What the fuck.  Giant, sprawling epics was never something I would have wanted or guessed the boxset had.  I really hope there's no more of these.  A couple of the remaining 7-8 movies sound like real slogs, which is why I've slowed down, and I don't know if I can manage another over 2 hour epic.  Aw god.  Either way, this is pretty good, despite my complaining, and I give it a 2.5.

We Think the World of You - 1988

Gary Oldman has a tiny role in this gay dog drama movie on this stupid boxset.

I say gay dog drama, and it is that.  Gary Oldman is a married man, having an affair with another man.  He gets sent to jail for a year and soon his gay lover is hanging out with Oldman's parents when he sees Oldman's dog Evie.  Soon enough the movie becomes a story about the man and dog bonding and the eventual fight that becomes.

But I wanted to start this review as I watched it because it features one of the ugliest babies of all time.  Male looking, further uglying itself with food stains and mouth breathing, this thing is fucking relentlessly ugly.  It's ugly as sin, and I just wanted to write this now versus forgetting about it.


Then the movie drags and drags. Its over 90 minutes and feels every brutal second of it. The parts with just the character and the dog I fast forwarded. Who cares, they can't further the plot. Eventually I fast forwarded other parts too.

 Completionism. It haunts me. I should just stop. Just give up. Not watch the rest. There's about 10 movies left. And oh boy did I save the worst (sounding) for last.

The Cold War Killers - 1986

Lets just keep this train a movin' with Cold War Killers.  A movie which read in the description like another action flick perfect for a short attention span, but was rather a political intrigue thriller similar to...  that other movie on the set I forget the name of.

Terence Stamp stars in Cold War Killers.  He's a good actor, and he's not alone, in a cast of stuffy British old guys that talk about the plot A LOT.  You see, there is this case of a mystery airplane and it's mystery cargo.  It seems the Russians and the Germans are both after this planes contents and Terence Stamp is the one that closest to the truth behind the whole thing, and that's when they start coming after him...

But, that all said, it's slow.  As in, slow slow slow.  Slow as shit really.  It's a lot of talking, and a lot of British guys in suits drinking sherry and talking about chess.  The romance partner they pair Stamp with is a whip smart woman, and soon enough she's dragged into the plot as well.

I don't mean to make it sound that bad, cause it wasn't.  It was above average really, especially for this set.  Cold War Killers is the type of thing you put on if you want espionage, mystery intrigue.  It's the perfect movie for TV, and like a lot of things on this set it was clearly taken from a copy that was shown on TV, with commercial breaks, although I don't think this one was made for TV.  Too high budget looking.

I like it a decent amount, I'll say it was above average.  3, 3.5 maybe?

Night of the Living Dead - 1968

I just finished watching this movie...  Obviously seen before, but you know what?  It's not obvious.  Because I watched it with someone only a few years younger than me, and they had not seen it before.

Night of the Living Dead is of course essential.  I was watching this with several different "horror glasses" on as I saw it.  Number one I listen to Paul Sheer and Amy Nicholson's podcast Unspooled, which is reviewing the AFI top 100 films.  I like that they grade them, in part, on how innovative, imitated, and newness the movies on there brought to the proverbial table.  And holy shit, did this bring a lot to the table, the table being horror as a genre.

Black main character, black sole survivor, nudity, blood and guts, squibs, dialogue, the entire zombie genre as we know it.  Zombies that not only ran and walked and were intelligent, but ate flesh and spread the disease through biting.  This movie invented an entire lore, and straight out of the gate nailed it. Not only that, it invented an entire sub genre of movie.  Also, the handheld camera work, the character driven plotline and the minimalism in setting and idea.  The list is too long to name.

This movie would be good no matter what genre it was in, and be that it's horror, it really pushes the envelope.  There is so many things to talk about, whether it's the strongly defined and strongly acted main character, or the use of silence as a tool for fear, or the lack of explanation as to the "reason" this is happening.  Whether it's the real human interaction that defines the characters, or their realistically failing most of their attempts to do anything.  I think there was a ton here that was so insanely realistic, that in a way that itself was innovative.

George A. Romero became a somewhat household name, horror got thousands of movies and TV shows and books and ideas, and in 2020, 28 year old Rashida Ali saw it for the first time and enjoyed it, everything except the acting from some people which was theatrical and didn't age well.  Duane Jones though, is awesome.

It's movies like this that make me wish I rarely had used the five star rating in this blog.  I wonder how many 5 star reviews I've given out anyways.  And then, what is my most common review?  Anyways, movies like this deserve so much more than a simple five star rating.  This deserves to be in the AFI top 100.  The top innovative movies of all time.  Best independent movies ever.  Best horror movies list, naturally.  Either way.... 5 stars.

Reborn - 1981

I am still on the disc I deemed as the "best" and I read the description to Reborn.  Reborn billed itself as a religious thriller of sorts from the description, and I went into it not knowing what to expect.

Reborn stars Dennis Hopper and Michael Moriarty, and I got excited from the onset.  Dennis Hopper is playing the villain, which is always great casting for him.  He is a strange evangelical priest of a congregation and he is also being broadcast across the world on TV. Michael Moriarty is a random guy who I thought was connected to Hopper at first, and I'm still not sure exactly if he was or not.

Anywho, there are fake miracles going on with Dennis Hopper's church, and they're passing them off like they're real.  It so happens that in Italy, a young woman named Mary is beginning to have real life stigmata, and when Hopper hears of this, he books her a first class ticket to come be in his church.  Mary meets and sleeps with Michael Moriarty along the way, and she falls in love with him and brings him along with her.

Reborn is elevated by awesome music, great acting from all involved, a strange mystic atmosphere and good cinematography.  It's a very strange movie to be sure, but everything here is working in the benefit of the atmosphere and it really becomes a different type of experience entirely.

The ending 15 or so minutes did drag a tiny bit, and the end was very odd, but this is legit a 5 star movie that I thoroughly loved.  Very unique.

With internet, research turns up nothing, which I think is not too disappointing.  I'm glad this isn't some hugely known movie with stories and the like attached to it.  There's barely any information on the net about it, nary a review to be found.  The director seems to be somewhat known, people like him, and I'll have to do some research on him.

Hard Knox - 1984

The big question...  was this before or after Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  In retrospect I should have guessed before.

I'm fucking forgetting that I watched so many of these. And this is perhaps my most productive month ever.

Hard Knox starts like a rip off of top gun and eventually shifts into the story of the usual misfits ending up in a military training facility. They're all there, and by all I mean the two or so actual written characters, rebel Alan Ruck and female student whatshername. 

The rest are vague stereotypes and they're all gonna find out that despite doubt they do all have a place in the military academy. 

Hard Knox had some likable parts though and I didn't mind it. Better than it might sound, but far from great.

Shaker Run - 1985

I put on what I took to be "the most exciting disc left" on the 80s set.

4 movies and I was at least a little excited about each one. I put this on and it's another action movie, continuing this sets legacy. 

Some bland racecar driver gets enlisted early on by a mystery woman and a mystery job, all she tells him is to drive and not where or why. Soon enough they're being pursued by evil government agents. Could it be the strange case she's holding? 

And it's fine. Very average. Action is had, cars race, guns fire. I don't remember much really happening, but if you like a average ass action flick you're all set.

Tomboy - 1985

Some NASCAR driver lady and thorough tomboy struggles with being herself, and her sexual and relationship desires especially after meeting her driving idol.

Decent acting, tons of nudity, bad comedy. The very basics of this movie is ok, but it's very bland in entertainment, it's slow, and we all know exactly how it's going to go. Two stars? Nah. 1 ish. Mostly for the nudity.

I will say this has a repetitive, annoying song that got stuck in my head for days afterwards.