They Shot the Piano Player (2024)
Spanish director Fernando Truaba is one of those [...]
Archive for March, 1980
Tom Horn (1980)
The ads for Tom Horn solemnly explain that not only was he a real person, but that he “became a legend”. I might disagree. Most people have never heard of Tom Horn, he wasn’t a legend so much as a minor figure in western history, though if anyone who takes an interest might like to […]
Best Boy (1979)
Ira Wohl’s Best Boy is a prime illustration of the greatness of the documentary format. More daring than a fictional script, more personal than any news broadcast, it takes us inside of a real life – a very specific life – and lets the participants tell their own story in their own way. The Oscar […]
The Changeling (1980)
Honestly, I have no real reason to like The Changing. It’s cliched beyond words, and provides a story that encompasses element from every haunted house movie in the book. And yet, I was sort of mesmerized. For an hour and forty minutes, I was sort of wrapped up in this story. Actually, the movie is […]
When Time Ran Out . . . (1980)
Some pictures come from the heart. Others come from the marketing department. I think the latter sums up the entirety of Irwin Allen’s career. He’s the man who has made millions gathering together casts of expensive stars and plugging them into a plot designed around a disaster that can easily be exploited on a marquee. […]
Nothing Personal (1980)
Nothing Personal is a movie so wrapped up in money and union regulations that the characters and the story kind of take a back seat. It is glaringly obvious from the word ‘go’ that only reason that this movie ever got greenlit was to get Suzanne Somers into her first movie. She’s funny, she’s gorgeous […]
Little Darlings (1980)
Little Darlings is the movie that I kind of expected from Foxes, a lot of indecent behavior without the common curtesy of being a good movie. I don’t mind a raunchy comedy, but at least give me characters with an extra dimension so that I have a reason to like them. The characters in Foxes […]
Little Miss Marker (1980)
Little Miss Marker is a remake of a pretty good 1933 picture starring Shirley Temple and based on a Damon Runyon story and, almost as a knee-jerk reaction, I am inclined to dismiss it for merely being a remake. It’s cute, it’s sweet, its sentimental, it pulls at the heartstrings from time to time, but […]
Forbidden Zone (1980)
I have a colleague who regards Forbidden Zone as a twisted masterpiece. Having now seen the movie myself, I can’t say that I agree. I don’t know through what prism he was seeing this film, so I’ll just chalk it up to ‘let’s agree to disagree’. He has a specific taste. Bless his heart, I […]
