Posts

Showing posts from December 10, 2023

Review: The Horror of Frankenstein

Ralph Bates is the arrogant, amoral but highly intelligent young Dr. Frankenstein, who finds his university studies most tiresome. What he’s really interested in is reanimating the dead and creating life. He enlists the help of sloshed grave robber Dennis Price and his wife Joan Rice in digging up enough corpses to use as body parts in his experiments. David Prowse, as The Monster, is the result of these experiments, and naturally he’s not a very co-operative subject. Veronica Carlson is the gorgeous local girl whom Bates never shows much romantic interest in, despite her obvious interest in him. But then, when you murder a girl’s father just to acquire his brain for your fiendish experiments, you probably have a hard time looking the innocent lass in the face, I guess. Kate O’Mara is the family maid and former lover of Frankenstein’s father, whose ‘services’ the young doctor also enlists from time to time. Jon Finch is Lieutenant Henry Becker, an acquaintance of Frankenstein’s, who be...

Review: The Public

On the coldest night of the year, well-meaning Ohio librarian Emilio Estevez gets involved in a sticky situation when a group of homeless people (ostensibly lead by Michael K. Williams) refuse to leave the premises after closing time. Jena Malone is Estevez’s faithful assistant, Jeffrey Wright is Estevez’s conflicted superior, Taylor Schilling plays Estevez’s neighbour, Alec Baldwin is a rational police negotiator, Gabrielle Union plays a soulless reporter, whilst Christian Slater plays a smarmy, self-serving lawyer-turning-politician.   Look, I’ll happily defend “Men at Work” any day, but let’s be honest: Emilio Estevez is not a terribly good filmmaker or storyteller. He’s a guy with a bleeding heart and a lot of well-known friends. Here he takes on both directing and screenwriting duties and wastes a pretty damn good cast and a good message. A preachy, message movie version of “Mad City” , Estevez’s heart is in the right place but he’s not good enough of a writer or director...