There has been a lot of discussion lately involving Clint Eastwood’s new film, “American Sniper”. But Eastwood has had a couple brushes in the past with sniper related elements in his movies. “Dirty Harry” featured a psycho killer who dispatches a lovely swimming in a pool from long range with a sniper rifle. “Joe Kidd” contained a character who uses a high powered rifle with a scope in the Old West to pick off victims. “The Enforcer” was the third picture in the “Dirty Harry” series. It ends up that Eastwood’s unorthodox cop, Harry Callahan, resorts to utilizing a laz rocket to annihilate another psycho villain who has kidnapped the mayor of San Francisco. The dilapidated prison setting of Alcatraz is where the “hit” goes down. We get the sniper’s point of view as Callahan sights in his prey and blows him to smithereens. For what it’s worth.
A disquieting tale of the destruction of a remote research station by unknown forces. The culprits are right under our noses but we don’t find out until the very end of the movie. Dread and paranoia in abundance as Robert Culp and Eli Wallach attempt to put a halt to the rapid erosion of the human community at a snowbound scientific research center. Will they find a solution in time? Similar surroundings and situation to “The Thing” but without an other worldly threat. An ABC Movie of the Week entry.
A motorcycle is destroyed during the course of this short film. Take it on good faith that the destroyed machine really was on its last legs. Now to haul it away….Can’t remember how that was accomplished.
A different approach to mastering your musical instrument is demonstrated here. Not the most cost effective way….but, a way. Strongly influenced by The Who and their auto destruction phase.
The Americans’ air defense system blows a gasket and a group of six bomb carrying jets is instructed to drop their payloads on Moscow. It is all a computer mistake but one that the US cannot put a stop to. The President’s solution to appease the Russians is far fetched and more than a bit absurd. Suspenseful and tense though the majority of the film making may be, I can’t buy the ending.
An oceanic mining team is coming to an end of a long tour of deep water duty. It is their misfortune to stumble upon a sunken Soviet ship close to their base of operations. Seems that there were dubious genetic experiments taking place aboard the Russian ship that led to its being sunk my the mother country. Our ever resourceful American divers are able to “tap” in to the remnants of the experiment and find that a couple of their crew members become infected with a nasty gene altering material. It isn’t long before it is a battle between humans and decidedly non-human, monstrous offshoots. “Leviathan” was a movie that appeared in the late 1980’s along with “The Abyss” and “Deepstar Six” to form a mini cycle of sea monster movies that found their inspiration from “Alien”. Peter Weller leads the ragtag cast of actors who make a last stand against a rampaging monster while their evil conglomerate sponsors topside delay any efforts at rescuing their hapless charges. Sounds a little like “Alien” to me.
“Below” is a nifty, submarine, World War II, ghost story all rolled into one. A submarine on search and destroy patrol in the Atlantic Ocean seems to be itself a cursed, doomed vehicle. Creepy events unfold and ghostly ambience abounds as the submarine meets with one disaster after another. I’ve watched it a couple of times at night and creeped myself out! Nice performance from Bruce Greenwood as the “new” captain of the boat.
Tensions between America and the Eastern Bloc escalate into a devastating nuclear exchange. We see the bleak results unleashed on one of our large cities and its populace.
There is an extended sequence in this made for television movie, “The Day After”, detailing a very harrowing nuclear missile attack on Kansas City, USA. It is an interesting collage of actual documentary footage detailing the effects on structures and the landscape by the detonation of atomic weapons, sound effects, and newly created film effects of buildings and bodies vaporizing in the flash heat fires which accompany nuclear blasts. Awful.
Pretty harrowing moviefare as a man and his son wander a wasteland attempting to survive a post apocalyptic North American landscape. The cause of the cataclysm is never fully divulged. We do know that most plant and animal life has been wiped out and resources such as food and water are in short supply. Based on Cormac McCarthy’s book of the same name.
“Beneath the Planet of the Apes” is my favorite sequel in the ape picture cycle. Charlton Heston, “Taylor” and his companion, “Nova”, continue on their quest to find an Eden on the scorched planet away from the dominant species apes they have more than had their fill of following the telling of the first Ape movie, “Planet of the Apes”. The two end up being imprisioned by a mutant race of humans living among the nuclear war shattered ruins of New York city. The mutants worship a doomsday bomb that comes in to play later on in the movie. Enter James Franciscus as “Brent”, the only surviving astrounaut of a resue mission to find out what happened to Taylor and his crew who were lost to Earth after their space mission left them stranded on the Planet of the Apes. Well, needless to say things get a little wild as an ape expedition is mounted to explore the “Forbidden Zone”, a squalid, desert landscape which was more than likely one of the ground zero landing locations for nuclear missles in some far distant war. Let’s just say that the apes, the mutants and the remaining astronauts are not playing on the same page so conflict ensues. End of the World? You’ll find out.
Lifeforce has always been an enjoyable viewing experience for me. Directed by Tobe Hooper of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame, this flick straddles the line between falling into either the science fiction or horror movie camps. It ends up having elements of both in its delivery. An international space crew observing Halley’s Comet become aware of an unidentified object hidden within the comet’s tail. The crew decides to investigate the object up close and then things start to get really interesting. I think the first thirty minutes of this movie are brilliantly paced. I love that portion of the movie but the subsequent pursuing of the wayward alien is less interesting to me. Judge for yourself. Nice supporting work from Frank Finlay and Steve Railsback is appropriately twitchy as the last surviving astronaut from the international space crew. A pre-Picard Patrick Stewart is also onboard for this Cosmic Horror tale. Oh. Did I mention that this movie seriously courts the notion of the end of the world?
Creepy interpretation by Roger Corman of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum. Richard Matheson scripted this adaptation. Vincent Price adds his diabolical presence. Love the creaking of the pendulum as it winds its way down toward the intended victim. Part of Corman’s Poe cycle of film adaptations. Nice 60’s horror atmosphere.
A varied collection of unusual movie and music video clips.
