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. 

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.

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.

You're a fool Conrad. Those of us who understood knew in 1941 that we could never win.

   The  Battle of the Bulge is a film based on the last major German battle of The Second World War. It stars the greatest war actor of all time Henry Fonda who had already starred in Immortal Sergeant, Mr. Roberts, The Longest Day and In Harms Way.It seems like he has starred in almost every war film. It also stars Dana Andrews, Robert Shaw, James MacArthur, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas and Charles Bronson. Ryan, Savalas and Bronson would reunite in 67 to do The Dirty Dozen. Shaw is always a good choice for a villain. He was good in From Russia with Love and Taking of Pehlam 123. Good war film.

After all, murder is - or should be - an art. Not one of the 'seven lively', perhaps, but an art nevertheless. And, as such, the privilege of committing it should be reserved for those few who are really superior individuals.

A few days ago I watched The Hitchcock film Rope which was the first of three films he did with James Stewart. It involves Farley Granger and John Dall as collage students who murder a fellow student and hide the body in their home. They then throw a party inviting his dad, aunt, wife to be, former teacher and a friend. The film is said to be inspired by the murder of 14 year old boy by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. Granger over acts to much. You can tell that Stewart knows something is wrong when Granger starts freaking out about how he did not strangle a chicken. Hitchcock shot for periods lasting up to ten minutes and shot the film in just one room.Not many have done this which is one of the things that makes it good.

Earthquakes bring out the worst in some people.

I recently watched Earthquake and  it was really bad and one of the worst of the 70's disaster films. Not only is there an earthquake but they thought they needed a large flood to finish off what was left of the city of Los Angles. These disaster films always have weird casts. This one has Heston, Kennedy, Gardner and Roundtree and Walter Matuschanskayasky as a drunk which was the best part of the film the rest was bad. He was only on screen for about 5 minutes.

Y-You are the... Duke of New... New York. You're A-Number One.

Escape from New York is one of my favorite John Carpenter film's. The cast is great he teams up with Kurt Russell and a who's who of veteran actors like Lee Van Cleef, Harry Dean Stanton, Ernest Borgnine and Donald Pleasence who plays the president. The film also stars Isaac Hays as the main villain the Duke of New York who is pretty bad ass in this film. I think this has to be one of the strangest casts in a movie When Carpenter and Russell join forces you know it's going to be a good film. At the start of the film it says that in 1997 the crime rate rose 400%. So to control all of the criminals they turn the United States biggest city in one large jail. First off where would all the people of New York be re located. They don't really tell you why the crime rate is so high. One of my favorite Carpenter films and my second favorite of the Carpenter/Russell films.