Shameless Self Expression

American adventurer Forrest Tucker joins scientist Peter Cushing on an expedition in the Himalayas to find the Abominable Snowman, AKA Yeti. The American sees dollar signs in capturing the creature and putting it on show for the curious, paying customer. They need to survive first, and capture it second. Maureen Connell is Cushing’s main squeeze, with Brit actor Robert Brown playing Tucker’s fellow American, and Richard Wattis playing Cushing’s learned colleague.   Released the same year as the profitable “The Curse of Frankenstein” , this 1957 film from director Val Guest ( “Hell is a City” , “The Day the Earth Caught Fire” , “Killer Force” ) and writer Nigel Kneale ( “Quatermass and the Pit” ), was one of Hammer Studios’ earliest genre pictures. More “King Kong” -style adventure/expedition flick than horror film, it’s not one of Hammer’s more well-known films. It might seem a bit more American B-movie than Hammer film at times, but it’s nonetheless a perfectly solid, enjoyab...

Recently released con Don Cheadle is paired up with Benicio Del Toro and somewhat unhinged Keiran Culkin for a supposedly simple ‘babysitting’ job. While Culkin accompanies spineless GM accountant (David Harbour) to his place of work to retrieve some very important documents from his employer’s work safe, the other two men hold the rest of Harbour’s family (Noah Jupe and Amy Seimetz) hostage. Unsurprisingly, shit goes sideways, blood is spilled, and now Cheadle and Del Toro realise they were set up and need to figure out what to do next. Ray Liotta plays a volatile mafioso, a gigantic Brendan Fraser plays a mafia middleman/recruiter, Jon Hamm plays a police detective, Bill Duke plays an African-American gangster, and an uncredited Matt Damon turns up at the climax to play an important figure in the grand scheme of things.   Steven Soderbergh ( “Erin Brockovich” , “Ocean’s Eleven” ) and I just don’t get along very often. I’ve tried. I’ve really tried. Even his best films aren’t ...