Evil Under the Sun (1982)

 

EVIL UNDER THE SUN  (1982)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Guy Hamilton

    Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith, Jane Birkin,

    Roddy McDowall, Diana Rigg, James Mason,

    Denis Quilley, Colin Blakely, Nicholas Clay

Belgian (not French) detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) finds himself on a small island in the Adriatic where the center of activity is a luxury hotel run by Maggie Smith. There are other affluent guests, and it takes about half the movie before one of them gets bumped off and Poirot can put his sleuthing skills to work. A murder mystery that gets by on its cast and locations as much as its whodunit plot. The music is Cole Porter, and Ustinov mangles English and French with equal abandon. Other standouts among the suspects: Roddy McDowall as a flaming gossip writer, and Smith and Diana Ring as old theater colleagues who don't much like each other. Filmed in Majorca.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

 

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE (2024) ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Gil Kenan

    McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Kumail Nanjiani,

    Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Patton Oswalt, Logan Kim,

    Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Bill Murray, Annie Potts,

    Emily Ann Lind, James Acaster, William Atherton

Recycled ectoplasm.

Black Tuesday (1954)

 

BLACK TUESDAY  (1954)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Hugo Fregonese

    Edward G. Robinson, Peter Graves, Jean Parker,

    Milburn Stone, Sylvia Findley, Jack Kelly

Edward G. Robinson at his most vicious plays a gangster who breaks out of prison on the day he's scheduled to die in the electric chair. Peter Graves plays a fellow con who has some stolen loot stashed away, and Robinson wants that money real bad. Some of this plays like "Key Largo", with Robinson snarling abuse at a handful of hostages as the cops close in. Robinson's career was on the margins at the time, after his run-ins with the HUAC committee. Pacing his prison cell, he's literally a caged animal. It's an angry, haunted performance. 

4:44 Last Day On Earth (2011)

 

4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH  (2011)  ¢ ¢

    D: Abel Ferrara

    Willem Dafoe, Shanyn Leigh, Natasha Lyonne,

    Trung Nguyen, Pat Kiernan, Anita Pallenberg 

Two people sharing a Manhattan loft wait for the end of the world. One's an artist, one's a recovering junkie, and the end is not far off. Al Gore makes a televised appearance, which makes you wonder: Why didn't we listen to Al Gore when it still would've made a difference? 

Beau Is Afraid (2023)

 

BEAU IS AFRAID  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Ari Aster

    Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuP0ne, Amy Ryan,

    Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Kylie Rogers,

    Bill Hader, Stephen McKinley Henderson

Beau is also deeply fucked-up and racked with a truckload of crippling guilt. Beau is in a nightmare he can't escape, because the nightmare is his life. Beau is played by Joaquin Phoenix in an ambitious, surreal psychodrama that might be more compelling if it had a running time shorter than 179 minutes. The pure nightmare stuff is the best. (The first couple of reels are truly frightening.) It loses something the more it tries to explain itself. And then there's Beau's mother. And the monster in the attic. (Don't ask.) Psych majors will want to take a look.

Gold of the Amazon Women (1979)

 

GOLD OF THE AMAZON WOMEN  (1979)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Mark L. Lester

    Bo Svenson, Anita Ekberg, Donald Pleasance,

    Richard Romanus, Robert Minor, Maggie Jean Smith,

    Bond Gideon, Susan Miller, Sarita Butterfield

A square-jawed explorer played by Bo Svenson goes into the jungle looking for the Seven Cities of Gold, but an evil drug lord played by Donald Pleasance wants the gold for himself, and (of course) there's a tribe of Amazons. A sluggishly paced, low-cost adventure made in Trinidad for NBC television. Nothing to write home about, or to go into the jungle for, either. Anita Ekberg, defining the concept of statuesque, plays the queen of the Amazons. 

The 2025 Covie Awards

The Covie Awards are as bogus as climate change is real. They were created during the pandemic to recognize cinematic achievement in an ever-shifting variety of categories. If there were actual awards to hand out, and anybody cared who they got handed out to, the Movie Buzzard would recognize the following:

Picture: "Eddington" (2025)

Actress: Fernanda Torres in "I'm Still Here" (2024)

Actor: Jesse Plemmons in "Begonia" (2025)

Supporting Actress: Shirley Henderson in "I Really Hate My Job" (2007)

Supporting Actor: Bob Burrus in "Tully" (2003)

Cameo: Hugh Grant in "Glass Onion" (2022)

Ensemble: "Paris" (2008)

Couple: Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in "American Ultra" (2015)

Juvenile Performance: Giulia Salerno in "Misunderstood" (2014)

Revival: "Dogma" (1999)

Foreign Language Film: "Nouvelle Vague" (2025)

Documentary: "The American Revolution" (2025)

Short Film: "Return To Glennascaul" (1952)

Director: Ryan Coogler, "Sinners" (2025)

Cinematography: David Chambille, "Nouvelle Vague" (2025)

Musical Score: Mica Levy, "The Zone of Interest" (2024)

Production Design: "Frankenstein" (2025)

Best Villain: Juliette Lewis in "The Thicket" (2024)

Best Mad Scene: Sally Hawkins in "Bring Her Back" (2025)

Better With Age: Jenny Agutter in "Sometimes Always Never" (2018)

Final Bow: Jane Birkin in "Jane By Charlotte" (2021)

Title Sequence: "American Ultra" (2015)

Poster Art: "The Astounding She-Monster" (1957)

Sound: "Overlord" (1975)

Why Closeups Were Invented: Tilda Swinton in "The Room Next Door" (2024)

Best Performance By an Actress Playing Herself: Robin Wright in "The Congress" (2013)

Best Performance By an Actress With a Shaved Head: Emma Stone in "Bugonia" (2025)

Best Charlton Heston Performance By an Actor Who's Not Charlton Heston: Barry Sullivan in "Planet of the Vampires" (1965)

Chewing the Scenery: Charles Laughton in "Devil and the Deep" (1932)

Maynard G. Krebs Award For Beatnik Slang: The cats at the club in "The Love Statue" (1965)

Most Eye-Catching Nude Scene: Julianne Nicholson in "Flannel Pajamas" (2006)

Most Discreet Nude Scene: Claudette Colbert in "Four Frightened People" (1934)

Least Inhibited Nude Couple: Raquel Karro and Rodrigo Bolzan in "Pendular" (2017)

How To Stuff a Wild Bikini: "Raquel Welch in "Fathom" (1967)

Most Evil Juvenile Performance: Earl Rhodes in "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea" (1976)

American Tobacco Institute Award For Achievement In Smoking: Adrien Brody in "The Brutalist"(2024)

Speed Racing: "Grand Prix" (1966)

Gender Bent: "Jacky In the Kingdom of Women" (2014)

Dead Birds and Time Loops: "Triangle" (2009)

Stuck: Zeb Haradon and Robin Ballard in "Elevator Movie" (2004)

Missing a Few Teeth: Chris Cooper in "Adaptation" (2002)

Lying Down On the Job: Sandra Bernhard in "The Third Date" (2003)

Over the Top and Around the Bend: Amy Madigan in "Weapons" (2025)

Still Crazy After All These Years: Bill Lee in "Spaceman" (2006)

Best Movie To Watch Stoned (Maybe): "Else" (2024)

Hundreds of Pies: "The Battle of the Century" (1927)

There Goes Chicago: "A House of Dynamite" (2025)

All Thumbs: Uma Thurman in "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" (1993)

Best Pole-Dancing: Olivia Graves in "Hundreds of Beavers" (2022)

Wickedest Lipstick: Jessica Chastain in "Salomé" (2013)

Best Name For an Actress In a Low-Budget Nudie Flick: Tiffany Tickles in "I Was a Teenage Strangler" (1997)

Weirdest Nicolas Cage Movie: "Color Out of Space" (2019)

Mind the Age Gap: Joan Crawford and Ty Hardin in "Berserk" (1967)

Shoot the Dog: "What Just Happened" (2008)

Herman Scobie Award For Career Achievement: 

John Waters