Alley Cat

Los Angeles has a lot of rapists and a stunningly inept justice system. That was my takeaway from this low-budget exploitation item that weaves elements from DEATH WISH and VIGILANTE into the shapely form of star Karin Mani.

A troubled production that saw three different directors putting their hands into it (the “Edward Victor” directing credit is a pseudonym for Filipino filmmaker Ed Palmos, RUNAWAY NIGHTMARE co-star Al Valletta, and ALLEY CAT producer Victor Ordonez), the Film Ventures International release offers enough skin, fighting, and silly dialogue to leave drive-in audiences in joy.

The music score is canned library tracks, some of which were heard in BARNABY JONES episodes. Actors blow lines and look into the camera, plot points are forgotten, and coincidences substitute for drama. I wouldn’t want ALLEY CAT any different. Trouble seems to find poor Billie Clark (Mani) everywhere. First, she puts a beatdown on two dirtbags stealing the tires off her car parked in her driveway. They whine to their boss Phil (Michael Wayne, not the son of The Duke) about getting their butts kicked by a girl, so the three of them assault Billie’s grandparents outside a grocery store.

With her grandmother in the hospital, Billie goes jogging and stumbles upon those same two dirtbags raping a woman. She kicks their asses again, but her cop boyfriend’s corrupt partner tosses Billie in jail for trespassing and carrying a concealed weapon. She gets out of the clink, goes jogging again, and gets accosted by another rapist. She beats his ass too. After a corrupt judge sentences Billie for contempt while setting the rapists free, she is molested by her cellmate (spoiler: Billie beats her up). When Billie gets out of the joint because her boyfriend blackmailed the judge, she runs around the city beating up more rapists, including a fat, stupid drunk.

At least Billie is having tons of sex with Johnny (Robert Torti), the aforementioned ineffectual cop boyfriend, in between beating up bad guys and training for her black belt. Mani appears nude in many scenes, including what may be the longest and dumbest shower scene ever. Mani had a shortlived career in pictures (she had a decent supporting role in AVENGING ANGEL) before marrying a producer of rock videos and giving up the biz. She’s not great at either acting or fighting, but she’s good enough. It’s also a novelty to see an Asian woman beating up white guys in an American production.

Trapped (1949)

Tight Eagle-Lion crime drama from the director of ARMORED CAR ROBBERY, FOLLOW ME QUIETLY, and THE NARROW MARGIN. Former Universal contract star Barbara Payton and a pre-SEA HUNT Lloyd Bridges are the romantic leads in 1949's TRAPPED, though you have to sit through a logy, talky Treasury Department educational film before you get to anything resembling romance. Or drama or excitement, for that matter.

Hard to believe the assured Payton was only 21 when she shot TRAPPED, but then youths grew up faster then. Bridges is top-billed bad guy Tris Stewart, a convicted forger recruited by the feds to lead them to counterfeiter using his old plates. To protect his cover, the agents stage a fake prison escape, but then Stewart doublecrosses them by punching out Agent Foreman (Robert Karnes) and escaping for real.

But — surprise! — that’s a fake too, set up by the Treasury agents to ensure Stewart leads them to L.A., where he hooks up with his old gal Meg Dixon (Payton). Keeping an eye on things is Agent John Downey (John Hoyt), undercover as a hood who ingratiates himself with Meg.

Crafty plotting by George Zuckerman (BORDER INCIDENT) and Earl Felton (20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA) and solid but not flashy direction by Richard Fleischer keep the actors plugging right along. Interesting to see screen heavy Hoyt playing a good guy and heroic Bridges as the hood. The two men (and their stunt doubles) perform a brutal seaside fight, and Fleischer stages the climactic shootout in a visually exciting trolley barn.

The G.I. Executioner aka Dragon Lady aka Wit's End

You may be better off knowing no G.I. executioner appears in the Troma release titled THE G.I. EXECUTIONER, but I doubt it really matters. An American production proudly shot in Singapore (as the opening titles state) by the director of BLOODSUCKING FREAKS, Joel M. Reed’s weird action picture has lots of female nudity, including from its three main actresses, and an unlikable and unlikely hero played by the balding Tom Keena.

Dave Dearborn (Keena) is a retired war correspondent running a nightclub on a Singapore junk. The film goes to great ends to show Dearborn as a stud, always sleeping with or being propositioned by some nubile bit actress. This could be to counter one of the film’s offbeat story points — that he once pretended to be gay and seduced a man to get a story.

Speaking of story, G.I. EXECUTIONER’s seems crazy complicated, but it may just be that Reed tells it in a confusing manner. That old girlfriend, Mai Lee Foon (Victoria Racimo, who advanced to a solid Hollywood career playing Latinas and Native Americans), is now dating a local mobster, who appears to be involved with a defecting Red Chinese scientist that the local authorities would like Dearborn to find. Why him, I don’t know. Dearborn’s earlier gay affair turns out to be an important plot element, ensuring that the film, as bad as it is, is not like any other spy adventure you’ve seen.

In addition to Racimo and some anonymous one-line amateurs, Janet Wood (Russ Meyer’s UP!) as Dearborn’s clingy lover and Angelique Pettyjohn (best known as green-haired Amazon Shahna in STAR TREK’s “The Gamesters of Triskelion”) as an enthusiastic stripper perform nude. This is relevant because the most interesting thing that happens in G.I. EXECUTIONER is Pettyjohn shooting a bad guy while starkers.

THE G.I. EXECUTIONER is the title Troma bestowed upon Reed’s film sometime after the New York-based Lloyd Kaufman-Michael Herz studio picked it up. It was first released in 1971 as both WIT’S END (also the title of the decent garage rock song by The Jason Garfield that opens the picture) and KISS KISS BANG BANG. It also played in the United States throughout the 1970s as DRAGON LADY, and was seen under the Troma label in theaters as late as 1980 or 1981 as WILD DRAGON LADY starring “Bruce Dragon-Lee” and “Jacky ‘Black Belt’ Chang.” I don't know who would have been more pissed off about this film playing ten years later: someone buying a ticket to WILD DRAGON LADY and getting this film or Victoria Racimo, then a regular on TV's THE CHISHOLMS.

Under any title, it’s a thoroughly inept film, but at least unusually so and not dull.

Note: thank you to Chris Poggiali of Temple of Schlock for THE G.I. EXECUTIONER's complex release information.

Bells aka Murder By Phone aka The Calling

New World Pictures cut about fifteen minutes out of this Canadian horror movie before releasing it in the United States in 1982 as THE CALLING and then MURDER BY PHONE. Shot in Toronto in 1980, BELLS didn’t play theaters in its native country and is one of the rare horror movies of the 1980s to have no cult following, despite its name director and stars.

BELLS relies on a silly gimmick that probably looked less outrageous during the horror boom of the early 1980s. A madman murders people by calling them on the telephone and using an electronic doohickey to send an electrical charge over the phone line. His victim shivers and shakes, blood pours from his eyes and ears, and the receiver explodes, flinging its holder through the air into a conveniently placed wall, window, or glass cabinet. Similar to the deaths in (the also Canadian) SCANNERS, except their heads don’t explore.

The murder scenes as directed by Michael Anderson (LOGAN’S RUN) are pretty cool. Repetitive, certainly, but cool. Richard Chamberlain (KING SOLOMON’S MINES) and John Houseman (THE PAPER CHASE), as well as composer John Barry (THUNDERBALL), provide class to the low-rent premise concocted by five different writers, including the team of Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack, who also wrote THE CAR, THE GAUNTLET, and CODE OF SILENCE. The story is more mystery than horror and mixes an anti-corporate message with the murder scenes, which wouldn’t be out of place in a slasher flick.

What an odd change of pace for Chamberlain, who was just coming off the Emmy-winning hit SHOGUN (he reportedly signed on to BELLS to finance his house’s remodeling). He plays Nat Bridger, an ecology professor who turns gumshoe after a former student becomes the maniac’s first kill. Bridger is in Toronto for an environmentalist symposium — it’s nice to see a Canadian film actually set in that country — and Houseman plays Sidney Markowitz, Bridger’s former mentor, a consultant for the phone company.

Barry Morse (SPACE: 1999) is a “guest star,” as the billing goes, and fans of Canadian cult cinema will recognize Robin Gammill (RITUALS), Sara Botsford (DEADLY EYES), Gary Reineke (THE KIDNAPPING OF THE PRESIDENT), and Lenore Zann (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME). Botsford, playing an artist who becomes romantically involved with Bridger, has nice chemistry with Chamberlain. In a change of pace, her character doesn’t exist solely to be kidnapped or threatened by the killer.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN is much too good of a title not to reuse, so here it is labeling a film that’s part sequel, part remake, and all better-than-you-might-expect.

Like the 1976 AIP release, which was directed by Charles B. Pierce and written by Earl E. Smith, this SUNDOWN is loosely based on the real-life Moonlight Murders, which plagued Texarkana for a few months in 1946. The serial killer, who was dubbed the Phantom Killer, was never caught, and Pierce made him the sack-headed villain of his tense thriller.

Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and his screenwriter Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, both from the TV series GLEE (as is the film’s producer, AMERICAN HORROR STORY’s Ryan Murphy), tackle the same story by making Pierce’s film part of the narrative — Texarkana natives watch it at the drive-in every Halloween to commemorate the 1946 murders (which they really do). It’s now seventy years since the original murders, but Gomez-Rejon is also influenced by slasher movies, which didn’t exist when Pierce made his film.

The 2014 SUNDOWN isn’t about the 1946 murders, but a copycat killer who first strikes against teenager Jami (Addison Timlin, an assured Final GIrl) and her date Corey (Spencer Treat Clark) on Lovers Lane. The killer (Andy Abele), who wears a bag over his head, stabs Corey to death in a rage, but spares Jami.

More murders occur (including a restaging of the notorious “trombone kill” in the Pierce film), and Jami and an old classmate, Nick (Travis Tope), investigate, while the local sheriff (THE LONGEST YARD’s Ed Lauter), his deputy (Gary Cole, A SIMPLE PLAN), and Texas Ranger Lone Wolf Morales (BLACK-ISH star Anthony Anderson, basically playing the Ben Johnson role) more or less spin their wheels.

As is de rigueur these days, Gomez-Rejon ups the gore factor of the murders, which, in this case, doesn’t make them more horrifying than Pierce’s, but they are definitely brutal and well staged for maximum shock value and black humor. Two of them are set in a bizarre sign graveyard, two others seem to be influenced by the MY BLOODY VALENTINE remake, and the first demonstrates that Gomez-Rejon has definitely seen ZODIAC.

Lady In Cement

Old Blue Eyes’ sequel to TONY ROME hits many of the same beats, including an opening title sequence of Tony on his yacht, a script by Marvin H. Albert (who created the character in his novels), and a raven-haired leading lady (Raquel Welch in for Jill St. John). But LADY IN CEMENT isn’t exactly the same film. After all, Frank Sinatra didn’t fight a school of sharks in TONY ROME.

Sharks aren’t all Rome finds on his underwater search for sunken treasure. He also discovers the titular blonde, naked, feet wrapped in a concrete block, and a knife wound in her back. Rome reports the corpse to his cop pal Santini (Richard Conte, also returning from TONY ROME), but that isn’t the end of it. A menacing giant in a too-tight suit named Waldo Gronsky (Dan Blocker, seen watching BONANZA on TV in one shot) hires Rome to track down his missing lady friend. I wonder if the two women are connected.

LADY IN CEMENT takes itself less seriously than TONY ROME did, and the latter film wasn’t heavy drama. Sinatra’s wisecracks are pretty good (Albert was a terrific crime novelist), though most of the humor generates from Blocker, who has nice timing and knows how to use his size to great effect. Director Gordon Douglas (who worked with Frank on THE DETECTIVE and TONY ROME) shot the film in Miami Beach, but plods through it, failing to get the most out of his locations or his star. Sinatra was, of course, a fine actor when he wanted to be, but he didn’t want it as often as his fans wished.

The film’s portrayal of gay characters is typical for the era — uncomplimentary and mocking. What makes it worthy of note is Sinatra’s previous film, THE DETECTIVE, which was considered progressive in 1968 in its views of homosexuals. So it’s somewhat surprising to see Douglas and Sinatra take a step backwards in this regard.

Tony Rome

Nancy Sinatra belts the title tune penned by Lee Hazlewood, and Billy May delivers the jazzy score in TONY ROME, a cool-baby-cool private eye flick from 20th Century Fox.

Based on Marvin Albert’s paperback original MIAMI MAYHEM, Richard Breen’s screenplay puts private eye Rome (Frank Sinatra) on a Florida houseboat, where he’s pretty laidback about the cases he takes. Sounds a lot like John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee, and I was surprised to learn Albert created Tony Rome four years before the first McGee novel was published.

A favor for his old partner (Bob Wilke, who lost that memorable knife fight with James Coburn in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN) embroils Rome in a search for a missing brooch that fell off — or was taken from — its owner, Diana Pines (LOLITA's Sue Lyon), during a night that ended with her drunk and unconscious in a hotel room.

Mysterious strangers with chloroform also want the brooch, and so does an unknown gunman who shoots Wilke dead. More bodies fall and so do some of the red herrings, who include Diana’s wealthy father (PSYCHO's Simon Oakland), her stepmother (Gena Rowlands), her real mother (Jeanne Cooper), and her hotsy-totsy friend Ann Archer (Jill St. John).

Sinatra, who played cops or dicks in four of his last five movies (including the sequel, LADY IN CEMENT), plays it mostly straight in this somewhat square 1940s throwback to movies where private eyes talked tough, drank liquor, smoked too much, and caught passes thrown by gorgeous dames. He has good chemistry with both the knee-weakening St. John and Richard Conte (THE VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS) as Rome’s ally on the Miami Beach police force. Gordon Douglas directs with not style exactly, but he kept the cameras rolling in the right direction and got Frank off the set by 5:00 pm. Shooting in the Sunshine State and away from the Fox lot helps with the visuals.

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers

One of director Fred Olen Ray’s most notorious movies, probably on the basis of its title (suggested by his Camp Motion Pictures bosses) and its inclusion on MAXIM’s list of Top 20 B-Movies, HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS is not as much fun as you hope.

Shot in fewer than six days on short ends and about $50,000, its thin plot loses steam less than an hour in. Since the whole thing runs only about 75 minutes, this is not as deadly a detriment as it seems, but the film never is as funny or clever as you’d like. All actresses, besides Ray’s then-wife Dawn Wildsmith, pop their tops (or more), and the watery blood looks just fake enough to give the gore scenes a properly light tone.

Co-writer T.L. Lankford (ARMED RESPONSE) gave the screenplay a noir flavor with Jay Richardson, a light leading man in a Bruce Campbell mode, essaying a seedy private eye named Jack Chandler, who is hired to find a runaway teen from Oxnard. He eventually finds her, Samantha (scream queen Linnea Quigley), stripping in a Hollywood bar, where sexy hookers Michelle Bauer and Esther Elise are picking up johns and cutting them apart with chainsaws. It’s all in service of their Aztec/Mayan/who-the-hell-knows God, who demands chainsaw sacrifices at the urging of The Master (TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE’s Gunnar Hansen).

Don’t bother keeping track of the story. HOOKERS is about moments, whether it’s Bauer’s enthusiastic nude butchering of a client (but not before covering her Elvis painting with a plastic cover to keep the gore off of it), Quigley’s famous Virgin Dance of the Double Chainsaws (which is not as sexy as it sounds), or Richardson’s constant wisecracks in the face of mortal danger. B-queens Bauer and Quigley were at the top of their fame at the time, and the late ‘80s was Ray’s best period too. Available on a Retromedia 20th Anniversary DVD with interviews, a trailer, a commentary (by Lankford and Ray, who does some of the industry’s more informative and entertaining), and other goodies, HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS is worth seeing to find out what the fuss is all about, but don’t expect any kind of classic.

Kelly's Heroes

It’s ragged and overlong, but adventure movies rarely come more entertaining than KELLY’S HEROES.

Clint Eastwood reunited with his WHERE EAGLES DARE director Brian G. Hutton to star in this action-packed World War II romp that’s a little bit M*A*S*H (which came out a couple of months earlier) and a little bit THE DIRTY DOZEN. Nearly two-and-a-half hours long, Hutton’s caper flick, written by Troy Kennedy Martin (THE ITALIAN JOB), offers an engaging cast of character actors, spectacular scenery shot in Yugoslavia, breezy pacing, and a terrific sense of humor.

Clint is Kelly, a former lieutenant and now private who learns about $16 million in Nazi gold stashed away in a French bank behind enemy lines. With three unchaperoned days looming while the C.O. takes his newly confiscated yacht to Paris, Kelly assembles a squad of misfits and plans the heist. Most of them are played by reliable “hey, that guy” character actors with bigger roles taken by Telly Savalas (fantastic and funny as gruff platoon leader Big Joe), Donald Sutherland (also in M*A*S*H) as anachronistic hippie Oddball, and standup comic Don Rickles as wisecracking scrounger Crapgame.

The irreverence sometimes falls flat—an awkward sequence of Sutherland’s Sherman tanks wiping out a village of German soldiers while blasting Hank Williams Jr. comes to mind—but Hutton generally creates a nice balance of humor and action. And what setpieces—real airplanes, real Jeeps, real explosions, and hundreds of real extras create a real sense of scale. The big heist is engineered by Hutton and second unit director Andrew Marton (BEN-HUR) like a Swiss watch, and the battle sequence that opens the picture would serve as the climax to most war pictures.

Carroll O’Connor hams it up while testing out some Archie Bunker mannerisms with Gavin MacLeod (THE LOVE BOAT), Stuart Margolin (THE ROCKFORD FILES), Jeff Morris (THE BLUES BROTHERS), George Savalas (KOJAK), Harry Dean Stanton (REPO MAN), Dick Davalos (EAST OF EDEN), Hal Buckley, Perry Lopez (CHINATOWN), Dick Balduzzi, Len Lesser (SEINFELD), and Tom Troupe adding support. Lalo Schifrin composed the score (which spoofs Morricone at one point to play off of Eastwood’s recent fame in Leone westerns), though he might like to forget the flowers-in-your-hair theme “Burning Bridges” he penned with Mike Curb.

The Bold Ones: The New Doctors, "In Dreams They Run"

THE BOLD ONES: THE NEW DOCTORS
“In Dreams They Run”
December 13, 1970
Starring E.G. Marshall, David Hartman, John Saxon
Guest-Starring Joanne Linville, Arch Johnson, Lincoln Kilpatrick, Ella Edwards, Jason Karpf, Robbie MacDonald, Del Moore, Anne Whitfield, Kathleen Freeman, Eve Brent, Cecile Ozorio, Alyscia Maxwell, Christine Nelson
Theme: Dave Grusin
Executive Producer: Cy Chermak
Producer: Joel Rogosin
Associate Producer: Jay Benson
Creators: Richard Landau, Paul Mason, and Steven Bochco
Teleplay: Don Tait and Sandy Stern
Story: Don Tait
Director: Jerry Lewis

THE BOLD ONES was something of a bold innovation in network television when it debuted on NBC in 1969. It was actually three separate drama series that rotated in the same timeslot: THE NEW DOCTORS, THE LAWYERS, and THE PROTECTORS, all broadcast under the umbrella title of THE BOLD ONES. The Universal production was successful with viewers (though THE PROTECTORS lasted just one season and was replaced by the brilliant THE SENATOR, the most critically acclaimed of all the BOLD ONES shows), and spawned imitations, such as FOUR-IN-ONE, THE MEN, and most famously THE NBC SUNDAY MYSTERY MOVIE.

THE NEW DOCTORS was the only BOLD ONES series to last all four seasons; in fact, it was the only BOLD ONES series in its fourth season. It starred E.G. Marshall (THE DEFENDERS) as Dr. David Craig, the owner and administrator of the state-of-the-art David Craig Institute of New Medicine located in Southern California. Co-starring with Marshall were lanky David Hartman, who was coming off one season on THE VIRGINIAN, as Dr. Paul Hunter and busy film and television actor John Saxon in his first and only regular series role as Dr. Ted Stuart, Craig’s chief surgeon.

“In Dreams They Run,” the fifth of eight episodes aired during THE NEW DOCTORS’ second season, is significant because it was directed by Jerry Lewis. It was only the second time Lewis had directed a television episode and the first one in which he didn’t appear (Lewis guest-starred in and directed a 1965 BEN CASEY). It comes as no surprise the plot of “In Dreams They Run” involves muscular dystrophy, a disease Lewis had been passionate about since the 1950s (the first national telethon was in 1966).

As you might expect, Lewis pours on the schmaltz in certain scenes, particularly one in which two boys with MS agree to be friends with each other after sharing the physical feats they can no longer do. The boy, Davey Sorenson (Jason Karpf, presumably a real victim of MS), is the son of blue-collar parents played by Arch Johnson and Joanne Linville, who are having trouble coming to grips with their son’s disease. A parallel plot finds Gil Dodds (Lincoln Kilpatrick), a golf pro friend of Stuart’s, afflicted with a muscular ailment that could keep him from competing in the Masters.

Written by veteran television writer Don Tait (THE VIRGINIAN) and neophyte Sandy Stern (IRONSIDE) with some sensitivity, the episode concentrates on its guest stars with Saxon, Hartman, and Marshall as supporting actors in their own show. Which is as it should be, since the drama is about how Dodds’ and Davey’s bodies are failing them, not how it affects their doctors. Lewis does a masterful job coaxing strong performances from everyone, even the young, inexperienced ones.

Samson And The 7 Miracles Of The World

Maciste fights Mongols in 13th century China, although he’s called Samson in the cut released by American International Pictures in the United States as SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD.

How could a distinctly Roman character suddenly appear in China? Because producers Luigi Carpentieri and Ermanno Donati had just made MARCO POLO (starring Rory Calhoun) and figured it would be financially prudent to recycle the sets, costumes, extras, and Japanese-born leading lady Yoko Tani for another picture, and, hey, Gordon Scott was already in town finishing up what would be known in the U.S. as GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES. European actors play most of the main Asian characters, but in for a penny, in for a pound, sayeth the viewer.

We first see Samson jogging along and discovering a teenage boy trapped in a tiger pit. After killing the Mongols who put the boy there (he shakes the tree they’re hiding in) and a (stuffed, glassy-eyed) tiger, Samson brings the boy (Chu Lai Chit), actually Prince Tai Sung, back to a monastery that also acts as a base of operations for the rebels fighting against Great Khan Garak (Leonardo Severini) and his moll Liu Tai (Helene Chanel). Samson agrees to help the rebels by teaching them to fight. And, yes, obviously a beautiful princess (Tani) is involved.

Scott acquitted himself as an actor fairly well in his six Tarzan adventures, and he’s pretty good as Samson too. His voice is dubbed by someone else (New York’s Titra Studios dubbed many of AIP’s Italian pickups), but he looks good in his costume of red shorts and sandals, and he handles the action and stunts perfectly. Samson gets to do some cool feats, including stopping a chariot pulled by six powerful horses and causing an earthquake to escape from an underground tomb. Riccardo Freda (THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK) directs with precision with Mario Bava (BLACK SUNDAY) chipping in with photography and special effects.

Star Trek Into Darkness

J.J. Abrams’ 2009 version of STAR TREK, featuring hot young actors in the iconic roles previously essayed by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, etc., quickly became the highest-grossing TREK movie of all time, even with box office adjusted for inflation (believe it or not, the maligned STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE is second on the list). So of course Paramount commissioned a sequel and rehired the main cast, Abrams, and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, along with Damon Lindelof, who worked with Abrams on LOST.

STAR TREK 2009, a brash shoot-’em-up that barely resembled STAR TREK (it’s no surprise Disney tabbed Abrams to direct its first STAR WARS movie), managed to be a fun space opera, due mostly to its dedicated cast and a reverence for its ancestor. STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, on the other hand, is neither fun nor operatic, and kicks the original series right in the teeth by bringing back one of its most famous villains without understanding what it is about him that makes him such a beloved figure in TREK lore.

I’m so angry with this movie, I can barely write about it. So this will be short. STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (whatever that means) is an abomination beginning with the absurd opening sequence (the Enterprise flies underwater?) to the embarrassing aping of STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN’s emotional climax and the remarkable news that Dr. McCoy has created a cure for death that earned him an unwanted five-year mission into outer space. The plot makes zero sense, insults both its iconic characters (why did the writers turn Uhura into a nagging girlfriend?) and the loyal audience, and presents no new ideas in, literally, a universe full of them.

In spite of the awful script and inept direction (Abrams lens-flares the shit out of this movie), the cast mostly comes off looking good. If I learned Karl Urban, who plays McCoy, was the illegitimate son of DeForest Kelley, I’d believe it. Quinto’s Spock is grossly out of character, but the actor maintains some dignity. Pine is let down by a script that rehashes James Kirk’s character arc from STAR TREK. Benedict Cumberbatch is front and center in one of the film’s worst moments — when he reveals his name is Khan — which Abrams holds for a beat as if it’s Moses delivering the Commandments, just to cut to Kirk not giving a shit because he doesn’t know who Khan is. Sure, we do, but Abrams is messing with the sanctity of the narrative just to get a rise out the audience (to whom the revelation is no big shakes anyway).

The plot basically has Kirk trying to avenge the murder of his mentor, Christopher Pike (Greenwood, again turning in good work as the character), by chasing Khan to the Klingon homeworld (why is Khan there? Who knows?) and discovering a plot by renegade right-wing Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) to start an interplanetary war because...ah, because J.J. Abrams, that’s why. It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS has no big ideas, no hope, no originality, and no joy. It does have nice sets and colorful costumes. It has good actors who have squeezed into their characters quite snugly (though I wish Simon Pegg’s Scotty were less of a buffoon). It also signifies no future for this franchise, not so long as Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman, and Lindelof are involved.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Chris Pine (STAR TREK’s new Captain Kirk) follows Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck as the fourth actor to play Tom Clancy’s right-wing book hero Jack Ryan on the big screen. Paramount had little faith in it, burying it with a January release that opened in fourth place at the box office. Perhaps the studio thought the plot was too complicated (it may explain why they placed a “New York City” caption over an establishing shot of the Statue of Liberty) or maybe it questioned the size of Pine’s or Ryan’s fanbase.

As far as his friends, bosses, colleagues, and girlfriend Cathy (Keira Knightly) know, young Jack Ryan, a Ph.D. in Economics who was wounded while serving as a U.S. Marine in Afghanistan, works a steady but dull analyst job on Wall Street. As only his handler Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner) knows, Ryan is also working for the CIA, keeping an eye on financial transactions around the world that could indicate terrorist activity.

One red flag is Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh), a Russian broker who Ryan believes may be planning to sink the U.S. dollar in anticipation of a terrorist attack on American soil. Frankly, the whats and the whys of the story by Adam Cozad and David Koepp (SPIDER-MAN) went over my head, and I didn’t really care. I did care about some of the dumber moments, such as the response by Cathy, whom Knightly plays as needy and a little crazy, to Ryan’s admission of his CIA job.

Pine is good, convincing as an intellect, a nervous amateur thrust into an extraordinary situation, and an athletic man of action. Even better is Costner, whose natural charisma has aged into gravitas that has allowed him to settle into mentor roles. England substitutes nicely for everywhere from Moscow to Michigan, and the direction by Branagh (THOR) is as solid as his performance as the baddie, even if Russian bad guys were played out as action-movie foes long ago. On that note, JACK RYAN’s action beats and setpieces are by the book, right down to Cathy’s inevitable kidnapping — hardly a spoiler for a movie like this.

Tightrope

Clint Eastwood gives Dirty Harry a kinky twist in TIGHTROPE, an underrated psychological thriller that forced critics to reevaluate his acting skills. While Eastwood was no stranger to films with unusual sexual relationships (see PLAY MISTY FOR ME or THE BEGUILED, for instance), TIGHTROPE places his Wes Block into some of New Orleans’ seediest settings — not as an outsider investigating a case, but as an active participant in the S&M trade.

Although TIGHTROPE, written by Richard Tuggle (ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ), who also directed (or maybe “directed” — I’ll get to that) the film, probably seemed risky to Warner Brothers, as long as Clint was playing a cop, his fans didn’t care. TIGHTROPE opened at number one at the box office in August 1984 and stayed there for four weeks. Except for SUDDEN IMPACT and ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN, it was Eastwood’s biggest hit of the 1980s.

So Block is investigating a series of strangulation murders where the victims are beautiful prostitutes. The twist is that the victims are not exactly unknown to Block, who frequently uses their services after his two young daughters are in snug and asleep in their beds. Worse for Wes is that the killer seems to be aware of his penchant for kinky sex in the French Quarter and targeting the hookers Block has been with. Occasionally, Tuggle drops hints that Block may even be the killer, but it’s a weak red herring.

Speaking of Tuggle, he’s more or less a director in name only on TIGHTROPE. Eastwood, who was also a producer of the film, grew disenchanted with the rookie director after the first day. He liked Tuggle and liked Tuggle’s script, so he worked out an agreement where Tuggle would be on the set and call “Action,” but Clint was calling the shots. TIGHTROPE is a police procedural — not an action picture like the Dirty Harrys — but the murder plot, as suspenseful as it is, is secondary to the character study of a cop trying to compartmentalize his family, his job, and his sexual peccadilloes and seeing the lines blur.

Eastwood is terrific, particularly in scenes with Genevieve Bujold (COMA), also very good as an assertive, intelligent rape counselor who Block gets involved with. Having grown comfortable with anonymous kinky sex with strangers, Block seems flummoxed at entering a relationship with a well-rounded, strong woman. Rebecca Perle (SAVAGE STREETS), Jamie Rose (LADE BLUE), Randi Brooks, Margaret Howell, and Regina Richardson play victims. The killer is Marco St. John (TREME), a New Orleans native still active in films and television thirty years after TIGHTROPE played to packed houses.

Savage Streets

Linda Blair, then 25 and at the height of her career in drive-in movies, is Brenda, a high school delinquent who smokes, curses, shows her principal (John Vernon, who is hilarious in a small role) disrespect, and gets into a fight with a bitchy cheerleader. She’s really a good kid, even though she’s the leader of a girl gang called the Satins, and she dotes on her deafmute younger sister Heather (Linnea Quigley, who’s actually a year older than Blair).

Also roaming the high school are the Scars, a quartet of dope-dealing thugs led by Jake (Robert Dryer, possibly a replacement for THE WARRIORS’ Michael Beck), who wears a razor blade as an earring. To retaliate for the Satins’ stealing their convertible as a prank, the Scars rape Heather and leave her lying in a coma on the locker room floor. As if the assault itself wasn’t brutal enough, director Danny Steinmann (FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING) stacks the deck higher by shooting it as graphically as he can and still pull an R rating and directing Quigley to play the character as the world’s sweetest, most innocent young girl.

Steinmann’s feature-film career is short — just four, including the horror movie THE UNSEEN and the hardcore HIGH RISE — but all his movies are interesting. One reason is his dedication in pushing the subject matter as far as he could; his FRIDAY THE 13TH features the series’ highest body count and most graphic sexual content. His movies are also consistent in the amount of backstrage drama surrounding them. Steinmann took his name off THE UNSEEN, and SAVAGE STREETS suffered starts and stops in production, including the replacement of original director Tom DeSimone (HELL NIGHT). Producer John Strong fired Steinmann during post-production of SAVAGE STREETS and handled the film’s scoring and reshoots himself.

Although their film is a sleazier, rougher, lower budgeted clone of DEATH WISH, Steinmann and co-writer Norman Yonemoto (Strong apparently did a lot of rewriting on the set) aim high, fleshing out the warm relationship between Brenda and Heather, giving one of the Scars a guilt complex, and showing Brenda sympathetically in scenes with her mother and with her English teacher. So when the violence ramps up and Brenda takes her revenge (armed with a crossbow and a fetching skintight leather outfit), our sympathies are clearly with her.

Vernon (DIRTY HARRY) nearly steals the picture as a foul-mouthed and perpetually angry principal (“You’re a tough little bitch, aren’t ya? I like that.”), but it’s Dryer’s repulsive, convincing psycho and Blair’s tough-talking girl of action who are SAVAGE STREETS’ yin and yang. The bloody, fiery climax involving them is a sure crowdpleaser and offers some of the film’s crudest and most quotable dialogue. Debra Blee (THE BEACH GIRLS) plays one of the Satins (who disappears during the film after Blee had to leave during a production delay), and Rebecca Perle, who played a sympathetic hooker opposite Clint Eastwood in TIGHTROPE, engages Blair in some entertaining catfights.

Journey To The Seventh Planet

Scandinavian space opera from REPTILICUS producer/director Sid Pink, who also rewrote Dane Ib Melchoir’s original script (and probably not for the better).

Filmed entirely on a soundstage in Denmark, partially with funds from American co-producer AIP, JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET has a few good ideas in its 76 minutes, but almost none of them are expressed with anything approaching imagination or awe. AIP rejected almost all of the Danish crew’s special effects, and replaced them with stock footage from EARTH VS. THE SPIDER (tinted blue), the Pink/Melchior production THE ANGRY RED PLANET, and a new stop-motion one-eyed monster built and animated by Wah Chang and Jim Danforth (later dialogue indicates it’s supposed to be a rat, but it doesn’t look like one).

All the trouble and budget overruns are for a film not worth the extra effort. Four horny astronauts and their commander (Carl Ottosen) journey to Uranus (wisely pronounced with a short “a” to limit the comic effect) to find life there. They land in an area inhabited by pine trees and breathable air that’s surrounded by a solid gray force field. When they reminisce about their lives back on Earth (mostly women), their thoughts materialize on Uranus. One cool effect is Ottosen describing his family farm while it appears in stages over his shoulder. Astronaut John Agar (this is one of his worst films, and that’s saying something) gets to have conversations with former Miss Denmark Greta Thyssen, playing movie star Greta Thyssen.

The astronauts’ investigation turns up an ice cave with green goo, “quicksnow,” the afore-mentioned Danforth/Chang creature, and ultimately a giant one-eyed brain that is using its massive mental abilities to create all the illusions. It wants to conquer the Earth, but why it wants to or how are questions Pink never gets around to tackling. As mentioned above, JOURNEY occasionally presents an interesting image or idea, but it’s mostly hokey, cheap pulp without the directorial skill or the budget (the sets are extremely small) to exploit them to their full potential. And, oh mercy, that song that’s sung over the end titles. Oof.

The Outcasts, "Three Ways to Die"

THE OUTCASTS
“Three Ways to Die”
October 7, 1968
Starring Don Murray and Otis Young
Guest-starring James Gregory, Paul Langton, Dub Taylor, Christopher Stone, Bill Quinn, Stuart Nisbet, Todd Martin, Gene Tyburn, Gene Dynarski
Music by Hugo Montenegro
Created by Ben Brady and Leon Tokatyan
Executive-produced by Leon Benson
Produced by Jon Epstein
Written by Edward J. Lakso
Directed by Josef Leytes

THE OUTCASTS is virtually forgotten today despite the fact that it holds an important historical distinction in network television. It was the first western series to co-star a black leading man, three years after Bill Cosby became TV’s first black leading man in a dramatic series in I SPY. (Note: Raymond St. Jacques was a regular on RAWHIDE in the 1965-66 season, but in a small supporting role — not the lead.)

Otis Young was 36 years old with some television guest shots, a couple of insignificant movies, and several Broadway shows under his belt when he landed the role of Jemal David opposite white Don Murray (BUS STOP) in THE OUTCASTS. Young is better known for starring opposite Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid in the excellent 1973 film THE LAST DETAIL, which didn’t give his screen career the boost it deserved.

In the pilot for THE OUTCASTS, imaginatively titled “The Outcasts,” Young’s Jemal David is a former slave turned bounty hunter who encounters Murray’s Earl Corey, an angry ex-Confederate soldier who lost his Virginia plantation to his Union-fighting brother. On foot and without a job, he (very) reluctantly teams with David to capture a fugitive who has infiltrated a Union wagon train commanded by a corrupt lieutenant (Burr DeBenning). Calling each other “boy” and “boss,” Corey and David don’t like each other much, but they do come to respect each other, and they end the episode riding off together.

“Three Ways to Die” finds David and Corey riding into Spanish Wells, where the dying wind informs them they’re in serious need of a bath. A skirmish in the barbershop with young Tom Jeremy (Christopher Stone) lands David in the jail of sheriff John Giles (James Gregory), a self-righteous man with a secret in his past that Jeremy seems to know. Jeremy is beaten to death during the night, and Giles’ story is that David did it during a card game. We know David was slugged while he slept, and with Corey’s help, the two escape across the burning desert to face the sun, snakes, not enough water, and a pursuing posse.

I don’t know what the three ways to die are — not the only confusing element of Edward J. Lakso’s teleplay — but as an action piece, the episode is strong. Gregory is fantastic as the obsessed lawman chasing his white (and black) whales, and director Josef Leytes found a properly desolate stretch of sand in which to film. Hugo Montenegro’s score is unusually jazzy for a western, but it sounds as though he was going for a Morricone feel (he, in fact, had a hit single with Morricone’s theme to THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY).

THE OUTCASTS would seem to have had a tough enough row to hoe, thanks to its controversial subject matter, but ABC did the show no favors by slotting it in a very competitive Monday timeslot. CBS owned Mondays that season, and opposite the one-two comic punch of the tame but popular MAYBERRY R.F.D. and FAMILY AFFAIR, not to mention NBC MONDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES, THE OUTCASTS was not a success. Citing the show’s violence, ABC cancelled THE OUTCASTS at the end of its first season after 26 episodes.

760 TV Shows

760. That’s the number of television episodes I watched in 2014. That’s way up from last year’s 672, maybe because of the 168 episodes of THE PRACTICE I watched in the fall. In 2013, I binge-watched TAXI and in 2012, it was MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.

295 episodes I watched as AVI files, which I streamed through my Xbox 360 or (later) my Roku 3 to my HDTV.
Amazon Prime: 1 (the BOSCH pilot, and where the hell is the rest of the show, Amazon?)
Blu-ray: 1 (THE PRISONER)
DVD: 107
HDTV: 123
Hulu Plus: 130
Netflix: 49 (mostly LOUIE, STAR TREK, and THE ROCKFORD FILES)
SDTV: 44
Warner Archive: 5
YouTube: 5

First episode of 2014: PARENTHOOD, “Feelings”
Last episode of 2014: LAW & ORDER: TRIAL BY JURY, “The Abominable Showman”

From the 1950s: 48 (mostly SEA HUNT)
1960s: 60
1970s: 127
1980s: 41
1990s: 80
2000–2013: 131
2013: 273

Genres:
Action/Adventure: 74
Cartoon: 1 (JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS)
Comedy: 11
Crime Drama: 157
Documentary: 1 (30 FOR 30’s “Brian and the Boz”)
Drama: 226
Game: 1 (PASSWORD)
Horror: 1 (QUINN MARTIN’S TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED)
Science Fiction: 15
Sitcom: 266
Talk/Variety: 6
Western: 1 (THE REBEL)

Classic Television Series I Watched for the First Time:
THE ABBOTT AND COSTELLO SHOW
THE ALASKANS
THE AMERICANS (1961)
BIFF BAKER, U.S.A.
CHOPPER ONE
CODE 3
CORONADO 9
DELTA HOUSE
FRIENDS & LOVERS
HARBOR COMMAND
HARDBALL (1989)
HUNTER (1975)
MAKE ROOM FOR GRANDDADDY
MY LIVING DOLL
THE PARTNERS (1971)
QUINN MARTIN’S TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED
THE REBEL
THE SNOOP SISTERS
SNOOPS
SURFSIDE 6
TERRY AND THE PIRATES
THIS MAN DAWSON
TIGHTROPE!
TIME EXPRESS

Series I Watched Only One Episode Of:
30 FOR 30
ADAM-12
THE ALASKANS
THE AMERICANS
ARROW
BEYOND WESTWORLD
BIFF BAKER, U.S.A.
BONNIE
BOSCH
BRONK
BUNCO (unsold pilot)
CAR 54 WHERE ARE YOU?
CHOPPER ONE
CODE 3
DEADLINE (2000)
DELTA HOUSE
DOBIE GILLIS
DONNY AND MARIE
FRIENDS & LOVERS
HARDBALL (1989)
HAWAII FIVE-0 (1968)
HOGAN’S HEROES
HOT IN CLEVELAND
HUNTER (1975)
THE INVADERS
IRONSIDE (1968)
ISIS
JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS
KRAFT SUSPENSE THEATER
LAW & ORDER: TRIAL BY JURY
M SQUAD
MAKE ROOM FOR GRANDDADDY
MICHAEL SHAYNE
MY LIVING DOLL
THE NAME OF THE GAME
OWEN MARSHALL, COUNSELOR AT LAW
THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY
PASSWORD
PETER GUNN
THE PRACTICE (1976)
THE RAT PATROL
THE REBEL
SCORPION
THE SEINFELD CHRONICLES (technicality)
THE SNOOP SISTERS
SNOOPS
SURFSIDE 6
TERRY AND THE PIRATES
THIS MAN DAWSON
TIGHTROPE!
TIME EXPRESS
TOMORROW (Tom Snyder)
WELCOME TO SWEDEN

Episodes directed by actors:
Adam Arkin, JUSTIFIED, “Shot All to Hell” and “Restitution”
Adam Scott, PARKS AND RECREATION, “Farmer’s Market”
Danny DeVito, TAXI, “Jim’s Mario’s”
Danny Thomas, MAKE ROOM FOR GRANDDADDY, “A Hamburger for Frank”
David Hemmings, HARDBALL, “Every Dog Has Its Day”
Dylan McDermott, THE PRACTICE, “Infected”
Fred Savage, MARRY ME, “Bruges Me” and MODERN FAMILY, “Marco Polo” and “Strangers in the Night”
Griffin Dunne, THE GOOD WIFE, “A Material World”
Ivan Dixon, ROOM 222, “Half Way” and THE ROCKFORD FILES, “The Real Easy Red Dog”
Jason Priestly, WORKING THE ENGELS, “Jenna’s Friend”
Jerry Lewis, THE BOLD ONES: THE NEW DOCTORS, “In Dreams They Run”
Joan Darling, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, “Chuckles Bites the Dust”
Josh Charles, THE GOOD WIFE, “Tying the Knot”
Kelli Williams, THE PRACTICE, “In Good Conscience”
LisaGay Hamilton, THE PRACTICE, “Heroes and Villains”
Lou Antonio, THE ROCKFORD FILES, “The Aaron Ironwood School of Success”
Louis C.K., LOUIE, multiple episodes
Mariska Hargitay, LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, “Criminal Stories”
Nick Offerman, PARKS AND RECREATION, “Flu: Season 2”
Peter Bonerz, THE TONY RANDALL SHOW, “Case: Franklin vs. Reubner and Reubner” and THE BOB NEWHART SHOW, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do”
Peter Krause, PARENTHOOD, “A Potpourri of Freaks”
Peter Weller, LONGMIRE, “Wanted Man”
Roxann Dawson, STALKER, “Phobia”
Simon Baker, THE MENTALIST, “The Silver Briefcase”
Stuart Margolin, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, “The Seminar”

Most different series by one director:
Ken Whittingham, 5 (PARENTHOOD, PARKS AND RECREATION, BROOKLYN NINE-NINE, SURVIVING JACK, THE MINDY PROJECT)
Jay Sandrich, 5 (THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, THE STOCKARD CHANNING SHOW, THE ODD COUPLE, THE TONY RANDALL SHOW, THE BOB NEWHART SHOW)
Michael Zinberg, 4 (THE BOB NEWHART SHOW, THE TONY RANDALL SHOW, THE PRACTICE, THE GOOD WIFE)

Episodes titled “Pilot”:
THE BOB NEWHART SHOW (actually “P.I.L.O.T.”)
BOSCH
CHOPPER ONE
DEADLINE
ENLISTED
THE FLASH (2014)
HUNTER (1975)
LOUIE
MARRY ME
MCCLAIN’S LAW
MULANEY
THE PRACTICE (1976)
THE PRACTICE (1997)
SCORPION
SNOOPS
STALKER
SURVIVING JACK
THE TONY RANDALL SHOW
WORKING THE ENGELS

How many TV shows did you watch this year?

66 Books

I read 66 books this year, well below last year’s total of 134.

First book of 2014: BRONSON’S LOOSE!: THE MAKING OF THE DEATH WISH FILMS by Paul Talbot
Last book of 2014: THE OATH by John Lescroart

Of the 66, 51 of them were first-time reads.

Hardcover: 14
iPad: 4
Paperback: 40
Trade paperback: 8

Counting by genre:

Fiction: 47
Action/Adventure: 6
Comic Books: 1
Crime Drama: 7
Horror: 1
Mystery/Thriller: 28
Science Fiction: 2
Western: 2

Non-Fiction: 19
Comic Books: 7
Film: 5
Television: 6
True Crime: 1

From the 1930s: 3
1950s: 3
1960s: 10
1970s: 7
1980s: 3
1990s: 14
2000–2013: 19
2014: 7

Series:
Dismas Hardy by John Lescroart: 9
Perry Mason by Erle Stanley Gardner: 3
Doc Savage by Lester Dent: 2
Alex Delaware by Jonathan Kellerman: 2
Jack Reacher by Lee Child: 2
Jim Rockford by Stuart Kaminsky: 2
Virgil Tibbs by John Ball: 2

Other authors read more than once:
Roy Thomas: 4
John Wells: 2
Marc Cushman: 2
Michael Avallone: 2

Five recommendations:
FAVORITE SON by Steve Sohmer
DISASTER ARTIST: MY LIFE INSIDE THE ROOM, THE GREATEST BAD MOVIE EVER by Greg Sestero
THE GLASS INFERNO by Thomas N. Scortia & Frank M. Robinson
THE GOLDEN AGE OF DC COMICS: 1935-1956 by Paul Levitz
HOMICIDE: A YEAR ON THE KILLING STREETS by David Simon

How many books did you read this year?

322 Movies

322. That's the number of movies I watched in 2014. That’s well below my all-time record of 588 in 2004, and 21 below off last year’s total of 343.

Of the 322 movies I saw, I watched 157 of them for the first time. Here are my rules. As far as the count goes, only feature films count, no matter whether I saw them in a theater, DVD, VHS, Netflix, or on TV. This also includes complete features on YouTube or as AVI files.

• TV shows don't count, unless they were presented in a format resembling a feature film (for instance, the pilot episodes of MAN FROM ATLANTIS, which aired as full-length made-for-TV movies)
• Made-for-TV movies count
• Documentaries count
• I didn't count short subjects or feature-length making-of documentaries included as DVD extras
• Movie serials and TV miniseries count as one long feature
• Multiple viewings each count as a separate movie

These are my rules. Your mileage may vary.

Amazon Prime: 8
AVI: 5
Blu-ray: 45
DVD: 154
HDTV: 3
Hulu Plus: 1 (REWIND THIS!)
Netflix Instant: 25
On Demand: 2
SDTV: 2
Theater: 59 (more than double last year and the most in several years)
Vimeo: 1
Warner Instant: 15
YouTube: 2

This is probably the first year since my family first bought a VCR that I didn’t watch even a single film on VHS.

First film of 2014: ROBOCOP
Last film of 2014: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS

From the 1920s: 1 (THE KID)
1930s: 3 (BELOW THE DEADLINE, MR. MOTO TAKES A CHANCE, CODE OF THE SECRET SERVICE)
1940s: 5
1950s: 28
1960s: 44
1970s: 63
1980s: 77
1990s: 48
2000–2013: 29
2013: 24

Genres:
Action/Adventure: 101
Comedy: 39
Crime Drama: 30
Documentary: 5
Drama: 19
Horror: 31
Musical: 2
Mystery: 10
Science Fiction: 34
Sexploitation: 2
Thriller: 39
Western: 10

Countries of origin:
Australia: 1
Canada: 5
Denmark: 1
France: 1
Great Britain: 9
Hong Kong: 3
Italy: 22
Mexico: 1
New Zealand: 1
Philippines: 4
South Korea: 1
Spain: 2
Thailand: 1
United States of America: 267
West Germany: 3

Favorite films seen in a theater:
NORTH BY NORTHWEST (terrific-looking digital print of my favorite Hitchcock)
NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE (35mm print not ruined by the fat superfan behind me reciting the dialogue a second before the on-screen actors)
CADDYSHACK (35mm)
CLASS OF 1984 (pink, scratchy 35mm print, perhaps an original from 1982)
HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (DCP and I met star Tracey Nelkin that night)
YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE (DVD screening went over gangbusters at B-Fest)
THE KID (caught a free 35mm screening at the AFI Silver)

Most in one month:
January: 46
Least in one month:
April: 7

Films I saw more than once in 2013:
RAW FORCE (new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray)
THE ROCKETEER
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (including a horrendous DVD screening at the AFI Silver)

Two versions of the same movie:
FAVORITE SON (TV miniseries)
TARGET: FAVORITE SON (cut-down VHS version)

The most films in any one 24-hour period:
11, when I attended Northwestern University's annual B-Fest January 24–25

The Best Films I Saw for the First Time in 2014:
AGENT 505: DEATH TRAP BEIRUT
ARGO
ASPEN
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
COLD IN JULY
DJANGO UNCHAINED
DRAFT DAY
DRUNKEN TAI CHI
DUEL OF THE TITANS
ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS
FAST FIVE
FAVORITE SON
GODZILLA (2014)
GONE GIRL
INTERSTELLAR
KILL THEM ALL AND COME BACK ALONE
MACHETE KILLS
NINJA: SHADOW OF A TEAR
OSS 117: MISSION FOR A KILLER
PANIC ROOM
PHANTOM SOLDIERS
REFLECTIONS OF MURDER
SARGE: THE BADGE OR THE CROSS
SKATETOWN, U.S.A.
SNOWPIERCER
STRIKE FORCE (1981)
THE BATTERED BASTARDS OF BASEBALL
THE MASK OF SATAN
THE NOVEMBER MAN
THE SCARLET CLAW
THE SPIDER WOMAN
THE TRAIN

Some sequels:
BREAKIN’ 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
DEATH WISH 3
NINJA: SHADOW OF A TEAR
BEVERLY HILLS COP and BEVERLY HILLS COP III
LETHAL WEAPON 3
LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER and LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER, and STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2
ROCKY IV
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and ESCAPE FROM L.A.
MANIAC COP, MANIAC COP 2, and MANIAC COP 3
YOUNG GUNS and YOUNG GUNS II
UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY
INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM
KING SOLOMON’S MINES and ALLAN QUATERMAIN AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD
THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS, FAST & FURIOUS, FAST FIVE, and FURIOUS 6
BLOODFIST VI: GROUND ZERO
ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES
THE GUNS OF NAVARONE and FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE
HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH
HOT SHOTS! and HOT SHOTS! PART DEUX
ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS
MACHETE KILLS
HARD TICKET TO HAWAII

RIP James Garner
THE ROCKFORD FILES: I STILL LOVE L.A.
THE ROCKFORD FILES: A BLESSING IN DISGUISE
THE ROCKFORD FILES: IF THE FRAME FITS…
THE ROCKFORD FILES: GODFATHER KNOWS BEST
MAVERICK
TANK

5 Stars:
48 HRS.
AIRPLANE!
ARGO
AVENGING FORCE
BLOW OUT
CADDYSHACK
CLASS OF 1984
DEATH WISH 3
DJANGO UNCHAINED
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
FAVORITE SON
FIRST BLOOD
THE GUNS OF NAVARONE
HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH
NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
RAW FORCE
ROBOCOP
THE ROCKETEER
STUNT ROCK
SWITCHBLADE SISTERS
TARZAN’S GREATEST ADVENTURE
YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE
ZODIAC

1 Star:
2 FAST 2 FURIOUS
AIRBORNE
ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES
ASTEROID VS. EARTH
ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS
ESCAPE FROM L.A.
FROZEN ALIVE
THE GAS HOUSE KIDS “IN HOLLYWOOD”
JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET
MISS NYMPHET’S ZAP-IN
MISSION MARS
THE MUMMY AND THE CURSE OF THE JACKALS
THE NEANDERTHAL MAN
NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN
THE NIGHT THE BRIDGE FELL DOWN
STORM
THE STUFF’LL KILL YA!
TRIAL BY TERROR
VULCAN, SON OF JUPITER
WHEN HELL BROKE LOOSE
WITCHERY
YOUNG DRACULA

Recent Direct-to-Video or Barely Released Films You Haven’t Heard Of, But You Should See:
CHEF
SNOWPIERCER
THE BATTERED BASTARDS OF BASEBALL
ENEMIES CLOSER
COLD IN JULY
ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS
NINJA: SHADOW OF A TEAR

Most Films by Director:
Mario Bava: 6
Antonio Margheriti: 4
David Fincher: 4
Andy Sidaris: 3
Jim Abrahams: 3
John Landis: 3
Justin Lin: 3
Richard Donner: 3
William Lustig: 3

Most Films by Star:
Wild Bill Elliott: 7
Sylvester Stallone: 7
James Garner: 6
William Shatner: 6
Paul Walker: 5
Vin Diesel: 4
Charlie Sheen: 4
John Saxon: 4
Robert Forster: 4
Leonard Nimoy: 4
Chuck Connors: 3
Cameron Mitchell: 3
Frederick Stafford: 3
George Kennedy: 3
Gordon Scott: 3
Kurt Russell: 3
Mel Gibson: 3
Rock Hudson: 3

Bowery Boys movies:
BLONDE DYNAMITE

Tarzan movies:
TARZAN’S GREATEST ADVENTURE
TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT
TARZAN GOES TO INDIA

Sherlock Holmes movies:
THE SPIDER WOMAN
THE SCARLET CLAW

They Exist, and I Watched Them:
-30-
AMERICAN PIE PRESENTS BAND CAMP
ASTEROID VS. EARTH
THE BATTERED BASTARDS OF BASEBALL
THE BEASTS ARE ON THE STREETS
CHEERLEADER CAMP
DEATH IS NIMBLE, DEATH IS QUICK
THE GAS HOUSE KIDS “IN HOLLYWOOD”
HARPER VALLEY P.T.A.
KILL THEM ALL AND COME BACK ALONE
MISS NYMPHET’S ZAP-IN
MS. .45
THE MUMMY AND THE CURSE OF THE JACKALS
SAMSON AND THE 7 MIRACLES OF THE WORLD
SEX TAPE
THE SNORKEL
UNDERCOVER WITH THE KKK
WEREWOLF WOMAN

My Top Five of 2014:
GONE GIRL
COLD IN JULY
INTERSTELLAR
SNOWPIERCER
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

My Bottom Five of 2014:
ASTEROID VS. EARTH
HORNS
NEIGHBORS
SEX TAPE
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

2014 Releases in Order of Preference:
GONE GIRL
COLD IN JULY
INTERSTELLAR
SNOWPIERCER
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS
THE BATTERED BASTARDS OF BASEBALL
THE NOVEMBER MAN
GODZILLA
DRAFT DAY
ENEMIES CLOSER
A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES
BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE)
CHEF
THE JUDGE
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
ANTARCTICA: A YEAR ON ICE
THE LEGO MOVIE
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2
SEX TAPE
NEIGHBORS
HORNS
ASTEROID VS. EARTH

How many movies did you watch this year?