Tuesday, August 16, 2011

What's bullshit Mr. Quaid? Afraid to admit that you're having a schizo paranoid episode, or are you really an invincible secret agent from Mars, who is in the middle of an interplanetary conspiracy to make him think that he's a lonley construction worker.


Total Recall is a Sci-Fi film directed by Paul Verhoeven who also directed Starship Troopers and RoboCop. It is kind of like The 6th Day where villains do an operation on him and appear to be his friend but then double cross him. He has the same corny lines like Well, Cohaagen. I've got to hand it to you. It's the best mind-fuck yet. Ronny Cox plays the main villain. I would have enjoyed the film more if Ronny and Arnold would have played Dueling Banjos just like when Cox did it in Deliverance. The things it has going for it are the great score by Mr. Goldsmith a very sexy Sharon Stone and some cool special effects. It is one of my favorite Jerry Goldsmith scores. I have also heard the bad news that there is a remake of the film. The remake stars Colin Farrell, Bryan Cranston, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel and Ethan Hawke. I don't think a remake was necessary it is not one of Arnold's best but also not his worst, that title goes to End of Days. 

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Everyone has somebody that they want to put out of the way. Oh now surely, Madam, you're not going to tell me that there hasn't been a time that you didn't want to dispose of someone. Your husband, for instance?



Strangers on a Train is my new favorite by the Master of Suspense. It is the second of two films he did with Farley Granger. It is one of his best. The music is Robert Walker plays Bruno Anthony a man hungry for Murder. Walker is one of the best and creepiest Hitchcock villains after Perkins of course.  Walker is creepy during the tennis match when everyone turns their heads to watch the ball and his head is still. Also when he is stocking and killing Mariam.Here is the glasses scene on the left. And above that is the opening scene. Below it some man carries a cello case onto a train. Here is the script from the killing.

We see Bruno's gloved hands dart quickly to Miriam's throat.
 The lighter falls down out of picture, and as Bruno's hands
 grip her throat, his head moves slightly to blot out Miriam's
 face. His head moves a bit farther until Miriam's face is
 nearly uncovered at the other side of the screen, and we see
 her glasses fall off.
 
 CLOSE SHOT
 
 Miriam's glasses hit the ground. The shadows of their
 struggling figures over the shot.
 
 CLOSE UP
 The screen is filled with one of the lenses of the glasses.
 They are of the diminishing type. Against the moonlit sky
 we see reflected, the elongated struggling figures, as though
 we were shooting up at them. Suddenly one of the figures
 falls forward.
 
 CLOSE UP
 
 Miriam's head drops into the picture by the glasses.
 
 Bruno's hand comes into the picture and picks up the glasses.
 One of the lenses has been broken by Miriam's fall.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Give 'em hell Pike!


One day in Hollywood directors Sam Peckinpah and John Woo were talking about idea's for new films. You know Sam I am sick of all these cop films I have always wanted to make a western. What about you? Ever since Bonnie and Clyde came out I have wanted to make a film like that with the slow motion death scenes and lots of blood. You mean  like The Magnificent 7 but with  bloody slow motion shootouts.  Ya kind of like that.  You know what that does not sound bad. And this turned into the wild bunch. A Bloody western starring William Holden, Ben Johnson, Warren Otes, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan and Edmond O'brien who are all great in the film. I thought the opening seen with the scorpion and the ants was good and it set the tone for the whole movie. In a way it is kind of like the Magnificent seven because they are fighting a group of bad guys who are robbing from a small Mexican town. And there is a final shootout in which all of the gang dies except for a few. It is one of the best westerns ever made.