August 2011
5 posts
6 tags
Falling Skies Season One Finale
(much delayed due to computer issues, sorry)
I’m a bit late to comment on this, so I’ll be brief. Falling Skies wrapped up its first season with a satisfying, solid B+ pair of episodes. I liked that even though the planned attack on the alien headquarters fell through, Noah Wyle’s Tom Mason got off one impressive RPG shot that caused enough damage to be an effective symbol of the resistance, a...
2 tags
INXS - INXS (1980) and Underneath the Colours...
INXS was never my favorite band, but I liked them a lot, and for a long time. The funny thing is, I’d never heard these two albums before. I came on board with their third, and reviews and friends at the time told me not to bother with these.
It turns out they were right, although for the fan I certainly wouldn’t say don’t get the 2011 remaster box set of their first ten cds because of it. INXS...
4 tags
Passion Play (2010)
Starring Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox, Bill Murray
Written/Directed by Mitch Glazer
I had no idea this movie existed. I didn’t think Megan Fox made straight-to-video stuff, but I guess it happens. It’s a goofy one. Former bigtime sax player and ex-junkie Rourke escapes death in the desert and winds up at a carnival, where he finds the lovely Fox, sporting a pair of real wings. Rourke is...
4 tags
Odd Man Out (1947)
Starring James Mason
Directed by Carol Reed.
I’ve long felt that most of the best art was produced within strictures and limitations. Odd Man Out is a British film about the IRA that never calls them the IRA, and takes great pains not to identify with their cause. Instead, Reed presents what is largely a crime story that just happens to take place in Northern Ireland. Mason plays Johnny...
4 tags
Five Steps to Danger (1957)
Starring Ruth Roman, Sterling Hayden
Written by Henry S. Kesler, Turnley Walker
Directed by Henry S. Kesler
This is a preposterous but enjoyable Cold War thriller in which Hayden, a man of apparently no fixed address or regular job whose car has broken down, accepts an arrangement with Ruth Roman in which they’ll take turns driving nonstop to New Mexico, as she has an unspecified need to get there...
