Shameless Self Expression

A film depicting events and personalities surrounding the 2016 removal of Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) as head of the Fox News Channel, after accusations of sexual harassment towards several Fox News employees. Chief among those were long-time TV hosts Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) and Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman). Margot Robbie plays naïve religious Conservative Fox staffer Kayla, a fictional composite character, whilst Kate McKinnon plays another fictionalised character, Kayla’s closeted lesbian co-worker and roommate. Connie Britton turns up as Ailes’ loyal wife, Malcolm McDowell plays magnate Rupert Murdoch, whilst Aussie brothers Ben and Josh Lawson play Rupert’s sons Lachlan and James.   Upfront I’ll tell you that because this film deals with the polarising and politically-fuelled Fox News Network, I’ll probably be offering opinions here that aren’t necessarily relevant to the film being discussed. It’s Fox, I’ve got views about them, and if you’ve read my reviews befor...

  As recounted by his faithful companion Dr. Watson (Colin Blakely), famed detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Stephens) assists a mystery woman (Genevieve Page) suffering from a case of amnesia. She doesn’t know who she is or where she is from, but nonetheless knows that her engineer husband is missing. The investigation takes Holmes and Watson to Scotland, and even encountering The Loch Ness Monster! Before all of that, there’s some business with a Russian ballerina (Tamara Toumanova) and her manager (Clive Revill), in which Holmes has to pretend to be homosexual to avoid a sticky situation. Christopher Lee plays Sherlock’s straight-laced, balding older brother Mycroft. He’s a member of the British Secret Service and representative of the Diogenes gentleman’s club, who warns Sherlock to drop the case of the missing engineer. The plot thickens. Stanley Holloway has a cameo as a gravedigger, whilst Irene Handl plays the housekeeper of our protagonists.   I’ll never be take...

Set in Australia, failed heavy metal musician Alexander England has recently moved in with his sister (Kat Stewart) and her young son (Diesel La Torraca) after his girlfriend (Nadia Townsend) cheats on him. England becomes sweet on the kid’s sweet teacher Miss Caroline (Lupita Nyong’o) and somehow wrangles his way into replacing a substitute teacher on a field trip to the zoo. Once there, England, Miss Caroline, and the children are set upon by raging zombies that have been born out of some kind of experiments at a local facility run by the US military. Josh Gad plays a craven, out-of-control American children’s TV host visiting Australia and appearing at the zoo.  No, not the flat “Beetlejuice” rip-off with Fred Savage and Howie Mandel. This is yet another zombie comedy, when I was already zom-com’d out in about 2010. I didn’t even like “Shaun of the Dead” , and hell I was pretty well sick of zombies in general by about the end of the second season of “The Walking Dead” (I haven’...

Before “Three Kings” transplanted the basic idea onto the Gulf War, there was “Kelly’s Heroes” and WWII. The Pvt. Kelly of the films’ title (played by Clint Eastwood) learns of some hidden Nazi gold behind enemy lines worth around $16 million. He decides to wrangle together a small-ish platoon to enact the heist, whilst the war rages and bombs go off all around them. Telly Savalas is ‘Big Joe’ the gruff commanding officer of Kelly’s platoon, who thinks the whole idea is cockamamie and dangerous as hell. Donald Sutherland plays a displaced hippie named Oddball, whose Sherman tanks are essential to pulling off the heist. The rest of the platoon is filled out with familiar faces like Stuart Margolin, Don Rickles, Jeff Morris, Harry Dean Stanton, and Gavin MacLeod (as one of Oddball’s kooks). Carroll O’Connor plays the clueless, tempestuous General who has absolutely no idea what’s going on at any time.   Directed by Brian G. Hutton ( “Where Eagles Dare” , “The First Deadly Sin” ...

Four cash-strapped friends (James Brolin, Bruce Davison, Cleavon Little, and Chick Vennera – zero chemistry between them) with zero experience in violent activities attempt to carry out a robbery on the abode of a South American drug lord named Serrano (James Coburn). They also find themselves tangling with bandits, led by the blustery Mariano (Anthony Quinn). Lindsay Wagner turns up as a prisoner in a Colombian jail, Ernest Borgnine plays a friendly arms dealer named Clint.   Writer-director Stewart Raffill (whose “The Philadelphia Experiment” was pretty good) has himself a pretty damn good cast to work with on this 1981 flop. Unfortunately the majority of the actors are miscast and the film alternates between stupid and sluggish, as someone thought the world needed a somewhat light-hearted mixture of “Deliverance” and a heist/caper film. What on Earth was going on here? It’s the kind of flop filmed somewhere exotic (Mexico standing in for Colombia) that you just know the ...