Memphis Belle (1990)

 

MEMPHIS BELLE  (1990)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Michael Caton-Jones

    Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz, Tate Donovan,

    D.B.Sweeney, Billy Zane, Sean Astin,

    Harry Connick Jr., Reed Diamond, Neil Giuntoli,

    David Strathairn, John Lithgow, Jane Horrocks

The eight members of a B-17 bomber crew take off on their 25th combat mission, their last before they go home. Things do not go according to plan. This movie gets a couple of things right that a lot of World War Two movies don't. The haircuts fit the period and the flyers are young - barely older than kids - and the bickering banter between them sounds real. Once they get in the air, it's a white-knuckle flight all the way. Buckle up. 

Pennies From Heaven (1936)

 

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN  (1936)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Norman Z. McLeod

    Bing Crosby, Edith Fellows, Madge Evans,

    Louis Armstrong, Donald Meek, George Chandler

A wandering minstrel from Mukilteo, Washington, finds his carefree life being disrupted by a young girl, her grandfather and the caseworker who could have the girl sent to an orphanage. Louis Armstrong gets a song and Bing gets several, in what's either not much of a movie, or just enough, depending on your point of view. 

Violated (1953)

 

VIOLATED  (1953)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Walter Strate

    William Holland, Lili Dawn, Vicki Carlson,

    Mitchell Kowell, Fred Lambert, Jason Niles

A maniac is going around stabbing women with a pair of scissors and cutting off their hair. A pretty young model gets a job posing for a fashion photographer. A psychiatrist has a conversation with a guy who has a habit of stalking and molesting young women but says he won't do that anymore. The photographer comes on to a stripper who gives him the brush, but that might not be a good idea. The cops are questioning the usual suspects, and the psychiatrist will share his patients' confidential files with just about anybody. Connect the dots. 

Yesterday (2019)

YESTERDAY  (2019)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Danny Boyle

    Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon,

    Joel Fry, Ed Sheeran, Robert Carlyle

A tuneful musical fantasy about a struggling singer/songwriter named Jack Malik (Himesh Partel) who gets knocked cold in a traffic accident at the moment the power goes out all over the world. He comes to in a world where nobody's heard of cigarettes, Coca-Cola, Harry Potter, or (most significantly) the Beatles. Seizing an opportunity, he cribs the Beatles' music and lyrics and soon finds himself being hailed as the greatest rock-&-roll artist of all time. There are complications. Another reminder of how amazing and timeless the Beatles' songs are, and a good choice to go on a double bill with Julie Taymor's "Across the Universe". Robert Carlyle has an uncredited cameo, delivering some sage advice that helps Jack navigate a tricky situation toward the end of the film. You won't recognize Carlyle, but you'll know who he's playing immediately. 

They Made Me a Criminal (1939)

 

THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL  (1939)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Busby Berkeley

    John Garfield, Gloria Dickson, Claude Rains, 

    Ann Sheridan, May Robson, Billy Halop,

    Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall,

    Frank Riggi, John Ridgley, Ward Bond

In his second feature film, John Garfield plays a prizefighter who goes on the lam when he's framed for a murder and ends up on an Arizona date farm where the Dead End Kids are cracking wise and cooling their heels. Claude Rains steps out of character as a hard-boiled police detective determined to track Garfield down. The studio was Warner Bros. (of course). 

Trapped Ashes (2006)

 

TRAPPED ASHES  (2006)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Joe Dante, Monte Hellman, Ken Russell,

    John Gaeta, Sean S. Cunningham

    C: Henry Gibson, Rachel Veltri, Lara Harris,

    John Saxon, Scott Lowell, Joyce Bartok,

    Michèle Barbara Pelletier, Dick Miller

When six people on an exclusive studio tour find themselves trapped in a backlot haunted house, the tour guide suggests they follow the plot of a famous movie that was shot there and try to escape by telling each other horror stories. In one of the stories, a woman has a sexual encounter with a Japanese ghoul. In another, a screenwriter's life takes a twisted turn when a friend sets him up with his girlfriend. In a third, a woman's twin is a tapeworm. In the fourth (actually the first), an actress faces dire consequences when she has breast enhancement surgery (yuck!) and her boobs turn into vampires. And there's still the matter of how these people are going to get out of that house. Nothing that happens in this is all that exciting, and the movie's too goofy to be really scary - or maybe it's not goofy enough - but you could do worse than to put yourself in the hands of these filmmakers. Flash back to an earlier time, and it wouldn't be hard to imagine Boris Karloff or Vincent Price in the Henry Gibson role. 

Rampage (1963)

RAMPAGE  (1963)  ¢ ¢

    D: Phil Karlson

    Robert Mitchum, Jack Hawkins, Elsa Martinelli, Sabu

Robert Mitchum plays a guy who traps wild animals for zoos. Jack Hawkins plays a guy who shoots wild animals for his trophy room. Machismo boils over when Elsa Martinelli comes between them. Also, some real big cats.