Shameless Self Expression

Most of the characters from “Every Which Way But Loose” return as bare-knuckle fighting trucker Philo (Clint Eastwood) who makes nice with singer Halsey (Sondra Locke), after their rather stormy relationship in the previous film. Philo is looking to leave the pugilist life behind him, but mobsters kidnap Halsey in order to coerce him into taking on promising fighter Jack Wilson (William Smith). Wilson and Philo mutually agree that the position they’re in is shit, and Wilson had no part in Halsey’s kidnapping. Nonetheless a showdown appears to be on the cards between the two. Clyde the Orangutan, Ruth Gordon (as Philo’s cranky mother), and Geoffrey Lewis (as Philo’s sidekick) return, as do the dopey bikers from the previous film (played by Bill McKinney, John McQuade, and Roy Jenson among others). Michael Cavanaugh, Al Ruscio, and Harry Guardino play underworld figures, and Anne and Logan Ramsey play an elderly couple.   Dumb sequel to a dumb hit film, this 1980 follow-up to th...

Despite what we learned at the end of “Black Caesar” , gangster Tommy Gibbs (Fred Williamson) is alive – barely – as his father (Julius Harris) get him medical help, whilst also getting his hands on the ledgers that detail the bribing of high-ranking city officials. The man behind the assassination attempt on Tommy is a corrupt, mafia-connected   DA named DiAngelo (a completely forgettable Gerald Gordon), with Tommy’s ex-wife Helen (Gloria Hendry) inadvertently making things worse by pleading to DiAngelo for Tommy’s life and just arresting him instead. She’s got their two kids to think about, so having their father dead wouldn’t be good for them. Once Tommy is back fighting fit, he goes about taking down all of those who wronged him, backed by two chief lieutenants, the blood-thirsty and ambitious Zach (Tony King) and surprisingly, Tommy’s formerly estranged father (Julius Harris). The latter gets to liking the taste of power and wealth that being a paid thug and shakedown man affo...

Chadwick Boseman plays a NYPD detective whose trigger-happy antics have aroused the suspicion of IA. Boseman is the lead investigator when a couple of robbers (Stephan James and Taylor Kitsch) kill some cops in the course of their attempt to grab someone else’s coke stash. J.K. Simmons is a pissed off police captain whose men were the victims in the robbery. Clearly seething with rage, he’s glad to have a cop reputed to have a ‘shoot first’ mentality when it comes to cop-killers, but nonetheless insists Boseman be partnered by one of his ‘guys’, a narcotics cop played by Sienna Miller (!). As Boseman has Manhattan shut down (including the 21 bridges of the film’s title) a manhunt begins. However, Boseman starts to suspect there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Keith David turns up briefly as a deputy police chief, Alexander Siddig plays a money launderer the thieves call upon.   Transparent plotting and a laughably miscast Sienna Miller aren’t enough to derail this 2019...

A multi-national group of mainly UN scientists are on an expedition to the title snowbound Norwegian locale to study the effects of climate change (Yep, it was a thing even then). However, it quickly becomes apparent that they are being picked off one by one, and it might have something to do with a Nazi submarine full of stashed gold. Vanessa Redgrave plays a Norwegian medic (!), Richard Widmark is the German head of the expedition, Christopher Lee plays a very serious Russian scientist, whilst Donald Sutherland and Barbara Parkins are the American/Canadian scientists. Lloyd Bridges plays Sutherland’s good pal Smithy, an all-purpose adventurer-type.   This 1979 snow-set, all-star adaptation of an Alistair MacLean novel from director Don Sharp (Hammer’s enjoyable “Rasputin the Mad Monk” , the subpar “Dark Places” ) gets a real shit-kicking from critics. I’m yet to read more than a single positive review of the film, and even that one (from Film Authority) seemed to be damning i...