Shameless Self Expression

It doesn’t surprise me that Martin Scorsese is a fan of cult filmmaker Sam Fuller ( “The Big Red One” , “The Deadly Trackers” ), with this surprisingly mature 1961 crime-drama starting off a little like the early scenes in “Goodfellas” . Played as an adult by Cliff Robertson (interestingly nonchalant about his actions, but perhaps a little too All-American looking for the role), Tolly is a former street hoodlum who catches a glimpse of his father’s murderers, resorts to petty crime and is thrown in jail, where he passes the time thinking of revenge. Robert Emhardt, an undervalued character actor wonderfully portrays the Sydney Greenstreet-ish crime boss (who was not, in fact, one of the men who killed Robertson’s father) who is outwardly respectable, stealing the film. Richard Rust is positively chilling as one of Emhardt’s chief enforcers (and one of the murderers), and Beatrice Kay is top-notch as the moll/girlfriend of Robertson’s father, who looks out for him as much as she can...

A supposedly dead shark has somehow (via some kind of mystical cave!) been transformed into a ‘ghost shark’ and terrorises a nearby town due to its ability to exist in any form of water, and it starts scaring children and tearing limbs. Even though it’s a ghost. Yeah. Lucky Johnson plays the shonky local mayor, Mackenzie Rosman is one of several teens trying to survive, and Richard Moll plays a seriously cantankerous town loony who actually knows a thing or two about the shark and the cave it sprouted from.   Directed by Griff Furst, I have no idea whether this 2013 SyFy schlockfest is better or worse than the infamous “Sharknado” (and comparisons are unavoidable), but I have to admit, it’s considerably more ‘fun’. On what level that fun is, well...that’s debatable I guess, but at least the film seems a bit more self-aware than the rather more po-faced “Sharknado” .   It’s certainly a better-looking movie than “Sharknado” , as cinematographer Andrew Strahorn d...