Shameless Self Expression

An island of flightless, talking birds are visited by a tribe of green pigs…and one of the birds (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) thinks the seemingly benevolent visitors (whose leader is voiced by Bill Hader) are up to no good.   If you’re a fan of the game, you might get more out of this 2016 animated film from co-directors Clay Kaytis (an animator) and Fergal Reilly (storyboard artist) than I did. I found myself completely at a loss to understand exactly what I was watching. The basic idea to me sounded like the kind of family movie that adults would get to understand a level of, and kids another. The themes might seem somewhat mature, and in a way it’s kind of gross and edgy at times. However, for the most part the film plays very much like the other kind of family film: The pure kiddie flick, destined to be enjoyed by no one over the age of about 13, I would think. It’s very, very pat stuff. Perhaps it’s in an awkward in-between state of the two kinds of family picture. At any rate,

Anton Diffring stars as an 1890s Parisian surgeon who is also a keen sculptor (!), whose medical interests are on the subject of the rejuvenatory merits of parathyroid glands. Hazel Court plays a young lady who was a former flame of Diffring’s, much to the polite displeasure of her gentlemanly suitor Christopher Lee. Meanwhile, people are getting murdered by a Ripper-like killer with quite precise execution. Surgical precision, even. Local Scotland Yard copper Francis de Wolff investigates the grisly case. Arnold Marle plays Diffring’s elderly medical mentor, now stricken with poor health. Delphi Lawrence plays Diffring’s jealous lover.   ***** SPOILER-HEAVY REVIEW, PROCEED WITH CAUTION *****   With a cold, aristocratic pale-eyed look and clipped accent, German character actor Anton Diffring was probably best-known for playing various villainous Nazi characters in a plethora of war movies and TV shows (even uncredited in “Operation Crossbow” he played an SS soldier). Every now

Anthony Quinn plays a Basque shepherd during WWII living a humble life until asked by Resistance agents to escort a Jewish-American family (James Mason, Patricia Neal, Kay Lenz, and Paul Clemens) out of Nazi danger in France and to safety in Spain. Tracking them down is a sadistic Capt. Von Berkow (Malcolm McDowell), a particularly cruel and doggedly determined SS man. Michael Lonsdale plays one of the Resistance members, Christopher Lee plays ‘The Gypsy’, Peter Arne plays a French mountain guard, and Roger Moore’s boss at HMSS Robert Brown turns up briefly at the end as a German Major.   The uneven J. Lee Thompson is at the helm, a man responsible for the original “Cape Fear” but also several turds for The Cannon Group ( “Firewalker” and “King Solomon’s Mines” , for instance). It’s set in snow, with co-star James Mason   quoted as saying ‘All films that are predominantly in thick snow are a flop at the box-office’ (This was before “The Empire Strikes Back” , mind you). The film

Well, there’s a NASA communications guy (Kirk Scott) who discovers some strange transmissions. And uh, there’s a priest skulking about (Christopher Lee). And some natural disasters. There’s those too. As to the rest…I’ve got nothing. Sue Lyon plays Scott’s wife, Dean Jagger is a colleague, Macdonald Carey a security guard, and Lew Ayres plays some guy who is only in one scene and has little to do with anything.   When you work for as long and make as many films as Christopher Lee did in his prolific career, there’s gonna be some turds in there. Presenting this 1977 science-fiction snoozer from schlock filmmaker John Hayes (classy-sounding softcore ventures like “ Heterosexualis” and “Jailbait Babysitter” ), screenwriter Frank Ray Perilli (Michael Pataki’s softcore “Cinderella” , Albert Band’s awful “Zoltan – Hound of Dracula” , and the infamous “Laserblast” ), and uber B-movie studio head/producer Charles Band ( “Laserblast” , the watchable and cheesy “Puppet Master” series). Acc