Shameless Self Expression

James Coburn stars as an economics professor soon to be handed a gig as economics advisor to the President of the United States. He’s informed this by a friend and colleague named Mr. Farnsworth (Keenan Wynn, well-cast), who suggests he ties up any loose ends before starting the job, as he will need to be closely vetted beforehand. This does prove to be a pickle, because our economics professor is in reality a spy who has been involved in espionage activities while stationed in Britain. He will need to silence a group of four operatives who have been working for him in order to properly leave his old life for a new one. So he devises an intricate plan to make sure they’re all dead and that no connection to himself is left behind. There’s research scientist Michael Jayston, who is working on a high-tech device that produces deadly sound waves. Alcoholic and diabetic civil servant Ian Hendry (whose own alcoholism likely led to his passing before he reached 60), naïve woman-hating masseus...

Tilda Swinton is a parent at the end of her tether dealing with her out of control son Kevin, a problem from an early age. A problem that no one else around her seems to want to take seriously. However, as Kevin (played as a teenager by Ezra Miller) gets older, his violent, sociopathic behaviour will become outright dangerous and deadly. John C. Reilly plays Kevin’s ineffectual, somewhat mild-mannered father, who doesn’t seem to want to see a problem with his son.   I get it. No one’s talking about Kevin except Tilda Swinton’s character and that’s the chief problem/subject matter outlined in this 2011 adaptation of the Lionel Shriver novel by director Lynne Ramsay and co-writer Rory Kinnear (the actor son of the late, great Roy Kinnear). Someone needed to talk about Kevin a long time ago before he went and did something horrible. So it’s not like I don’t understand the point of the film, I certainly do. The problem for me (or one of them) is that the filmmakers ultimately don’t...

Since the events of “Unbreakable” years ago, David Dunn (Bruce Willis) has used his powers to act as a vigilante doing good in Philadelphia. His now-grown son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) even helps out as kind of a hi-tech lookout. He has located Kevin (James McAvoy), the creep with multiple personalities from “Split” , who is still abducting girls (The film’s events take place mere weeks after the events of “Split” ). Before David can put a stop to Kevin, they are captured by unknown persons. They wake up in a psychiatric facility run by Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) who tries to convince David that his superpowers are a mere delusion. Meanwhile, Kevin (and his other personas) stumble upon another patient of the facility, Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), the wheelchair-bound man from “Unbreakable” whom David previously encountered. Elijah is initially seen in a comatose state, but it is just a ruse, as he tries to make nice with Kevin (or whoever he’s talking to at the time) in...

A year after his gossip columnist wife Sheila (Yvonne Romain of “Curse of the Werewolf” in her final role before switching careers) was killed in a hit-and-run at a party, rich movie producer Clinton (James Coburn) invites six of his industry acquaintances to for a French Riviera cruise on his yacht for a week. Clinton is fond of elaborate parlour games, and has devised the perfect one for his colleagues in a game to be played in honour of his beloved Sheila. Each person is assigned an identity card that points to an embarrassing bit of gossip (Homosexual, child molester, shoplifter etc. Just a bit of pretend fun, according to a gleeful Clinton. The object is to protect your own secret and guess everyone else’s through a treasure hunt-style series of clues. Unfortunately when a dead body shows up, the remaining people start to suspect that this game and those gossipy identity cards are very much not to a particular someone’s amusement. Richard Benjamin and Joan Hackett play a screenwri...

Brain surgeon Boris Karloff is so dedicated to scientific/medical breakthrough that he accepts a large sum of money from dying mobster Stanley Ridges to save him. Save him how, you ask? By transplanting the mobster’s brain into the body of a dead professor friend of Karloff’s (also played by Ridges), that’s how. In order to get his promised money, Karloff tries to jog the mobster’s memory to find out where the money is. This proves to be a pickle. Somehow both men’s personalities and memories are existing inside the same body (?!), so we get scenes of the two very different personas fighting for dominance over the same head and body. Unfortunately for Karloff, the dangerous gangster’s personality proves far too fixated on taking out revenge on the mobster rivals who wronged him in the first place. Bela Lugosi plays one such rival gangster (and sadly doesn’t share any scenes with Karloff).   Despite once again pairing Bela Lugosi up with Boris Karloff, this 1940 gangster fantas...