After the "Double-0" program is suspended, James (Sean Connery) is recalled from a health spa when two nuclear missiles are hijacked by charismatic oil tycoon Maximilian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), whose unwitting mistress (Kim Basinger) is sister to the pawn used to retrieve the weapons of mass destruction. Connery's final appearance as Bond, after a 12 year hiatus, is a welcomed return and the film, an unofficial, non-Eon Studios production remake of Thunderball is a nice change of pace from the formulaic series if it is a little overlong and just as tacky. Brandauer is a great, colorful and humanized villain, Barbara Carrera a sizzling femme fatale, and Basinger ideal as a Bond girl.

*** out of ****

When Agent 009, undercover as a clown in a Russian circus, is assassinated by a pair of knife throwing twins, the trail leads Bond (Roger Moore) to a Faberge egg smuggling ring led by a beautiful maven (Maud Adams) whose cohorts have greater plans of mass murder and global subversion. Dubious, confusing, and preposterously plotted Bond outing features an awfully aged Moore, decent villains in Louis Jordan, Kabir Bedi, and Steven Berkoff and an excellent female lead in Adams. The set pieces are impressive though the finale is unending and ridiculous while bordering on laughably absurd.

** 1/2 out of ****

A broken down country singer (Robert Duvall), estranged from his work partner wife (Betty Buckley) and their 18 year old daughter (Ellen Barkin) and lost in the bottle, is shown sympathy by an angelic single mother (Tess Harper) who runs a gas station/motel in the desolate part of Texas. As the two connect and marry, the singer attempts to repair his soul while fixing old wounds and moving on with the next act of his life. From a screenplay by Horton Foote, Bruce Beresford's Tender Mercies is a rare kind of film in that it embodies quiet and good-naturedness and resolves to be always emotionally honest. Duvall, in his sole Oscar winning role, is reserved, moving, and shows an aptitude for singing, some of the songs which he wrote himself. Harper is lovely as the young widow, Buckley is strong, and Wilford Brimley is great in support playing the latter's manager in a manner only he can. Beautifully photographed by Russell Boyd.

**** out of ****

It is difficult to describe the appeal of Monty Python, the irreverent and game changing British comedic troupe, when their irreverent material is as often inane and borderline unwatchable as it is uproarious. Nevertheless the appeal of the group, which consists of members John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, and Terry Gilliam and began on the stage and continued on through television and film, is undeniable and their influence on comedy is immeasurable. Here is a brief rundown of their work:

Flying Circus ran on the BBC between 1969 and 1974 with a feature film titled with the group's favorite segue And Now for Something Completely Different sandwiched midway in its run which took the odd approach of refilming some of their greatest hits without of the presence of a studio audience, the result of which is strangely compelling. The series has many regrettable sketches and running gags, and I feel I should keep my opinion on Gilliam's animations to myself in fear of being shunned, but it is absolutely worth suffering the dreck to get to their best and most outrageous routines (or you could just watch them on YouTube---my favorite bit is Palin's bumbling Spanish Inquisitor).

The gang followed up the series with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, perhaps the most widely seen of their features and what I'd personally consider the best of the lot. This silly take on the Arthurian legend has many indelibly hysterical moments and only starts to come apart at the seams towards the very end.

The controversy generated by Life of Brian, which tells the tale of the child born a manger over from Christ, catapulted the Pythons to international superstardom, but the film offers easy and obvious satire, with belabored gags, and laughs that are few and far between (though those few present are hearty). Gilliam's direction does achieve great period look (though his influence beyond that is distracting) and Palin's Pontius Pilate is unforgettable. Casting Chapman in the lead serves as a great disappointment considering what is lost in the supporting roles.

Time Bandits is not officially a Python movie but it was directed by Gilliam who cowrote the script with Palin and features cameos from both Palin and Cleese. The fantastical and occasionally creepy children's story deals with a band of dwarves in possession of a time travel map who take a neglected youth on their marauding journey through history. The film again falls apart towards the end but the actors are likable and the proceedings are worthwhile for the hilarious cameos, which also include Ralph Richardson and Sean Connery. 

Next up was Live at the Hollywood Bowl, a live show converted to film and released theatrically which consists of old sketches and new that comes off quite well leaving you pondering if their material isn't best suited for the stage. 

Meaning of Life, which takes a surreal look into each of life's stages, is a sporadically funny feature which is hurt by dark and atypically heavy dosages of cynicism and vulgarity. The short film that opens the movie is a highlight and the "Every Sperm is Sacred" number is priceless.

In 2014, the Pythons returned for a live farewell show of sorts, Monty Python Live (Mostly), which featured an array of live performances, clips old and new, and a musical revue, all with the participation of the remaining and surprisingly capable troupe members, save Graham Chapman who is roundly toasted during the performance.

Guatemalan siblings (Zaide Silvia Guttierez and David Villalpando) evacuate their homeland and head north to the promised land after their unionizing, coffee picking father is murdered and made an example of. After finally succeeding crossing the border after several horrific attempts, it only sets the stage for the final tragedy as the sibs are manipulated and used by people of all walks. Even when preachy, mannered, or guilt inducing, Gregory Nava and Ana Thomas's El Norte is breathless, vivid, mystical, and at times heart pumping filmmaking that will either spark or reignite your passion for film. The lead actors are lovely, poignant, and heartbreaking.

**** out of ****

A modest sum of forged francs make their way around Paris until they are revealed in the possession of a shady shop owner who passes them off on the gas man and causes his tragic downfall. The last film of Robert Bresson, based on a Tolstoy short story, is in line with the rest of his extraodinary body of work: a minimalist story, a harsh worldview, and exacting filmmaking with intensive, striking results.

*** 1/2 out of ****

I attempted to rewatch Scarface, the rise and fall of Castro freed Cuban prisoner, emigre, and eventual Miami drug lord Tony Montana,  without considering its sickening cultural influences and detriment to film and audience tastes, enoying it a little more for awhile before reverting to my initial assessment. Brian De Palma's Oliver Stone Penned remake of Howard Hawks' gangster classic is overlong by about half, extremely preachy and, for a movie that celebrates excess more than any other,  is downright boring in stretches. Pacino's scree gnawing performance is really the reason to see it, but attempts to humanize his character in the end are a mistake, the film's denouement is confusing and muddled, the infamous finale is ill advised and artless. Robert Loggia and Steven Bauer are strong in support and you couldn't ask for two more irritating female performances in Michelle Pfeiffer and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.

** out of ****

In late 1793 Georges Danton (Gerard Depardieu) returns to Paris to discover his once helmed Committee of Public Safety has begun issuing death sentences by guillotine en masse at the hand of his successor and once friend Maximilien Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak). Taking on the committee with his band of loyal supporters, they soon find themselves jailed, on trial, and facing that quite decisive blade. Andrzej Wajda's Danton is fast paced, intelligent, historical retelling boasting brilliant performances from Depardieu and Pszoniak not to mention its brutal, tragic finale.

**** out of ****

An upstart (Dan Aykroyd) has everything in life a young blueblood could ask for: a managerial position at a brokerage firm, a Philadelphia town home, butler, a posh limo, and a beautiful, equally wealthy fiance. That is until he bumps into a boisterous street hustler (Eddie Murphy) who is falsely accused of robbery, which gives the executive's conniving bosses an idea for a wager: Test the heredity vs. environment theory by reigning down hell on their subordinate, taking away all his worldly possessions and offering his position and goods to the con artist. John Landis' Trading Places is an uneven although amusing comedy that, despite some mild vulgarity, still has a cinematic quality that has been virtually extinguished in modern comedies. Above all, the film is notable for a truly excellent early performance from Murphy.

*** out of ****

A acting ham and his Warsaw troupe become embroiled in a treacherous and complicated espionage plot when the Nazis invade Poland and it becomes apparent that their resistance leader is collaborating with the enemy. Mel Brooks's remake of To Be or Not to Be follows Ernst Lubitsch's exceptional classic very closely while mining familiar territory for laughs but is still a very funny film thanks to an earnest sense of humor and a spirited cast (with Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, and Christopher Lloyd standing out) even if its serious scenes don't really work.

*** out of ****

The walls of a watering hole at a Californian airbase that attracts the nation's best test pilots are adorned with the photos of the men who lost their lives seeking glory in the sky. Visiting the bar are government men seeking airmen to break the sound barrier, although their offers are roundly rejected, being too low for such a hazardous proposition. Taking them up is the stoic war hero Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) who sets the record in dazzling fashion but finds himself left in the dust when, in an effort to keep up with the Russians, the U.S. seeks out flyboys with the titular panache to lead the Mercury program as the country's first astronauts. Adapted for the screen by Philip Kaufman from Tom Wolfe's nonfiction novel, The Right Stuff is perhaps one of the funnest (and funniest) epics ever conceived. With the incredible contrast between Shepard's foreboding, almost mystical desert scenes, the jaunty antics of the training and publicity sequences of the Mercury crew, and the harrowing flight scenes, it is a supreme form of storytelling consisting of countless memorable scenes (my favorite being the incredibly moving standoff between LBJ and Mrs. John Glenn). Shepherd stands at the film's center in an assured, unforgettable performance and those comprising the Mercury squad, including Ed Harris as John Glenn, and Dennis Quaid and Fred Ward in particularly funny roles, are also tremendous.

**** out of ****

A scientist (Charles Martin Smith) is commissioned by the Canadian government to hypothesize the reason for the diminishing caribou population in the arctic. While surviving on his own in the sub-zero climate, he develops a bond with the local wolf population and learns they are not the fearsome killers as largely purported. Like Carroll Ballard's The Black Stallion, Never Cry Wolf is fantastic storytelling set against a majestic canvas and contains the capacity to take the viewer's breath away. Smith delivers a brilliant, somewhat offbeat performance and Brian Dennehy provides colorful support.
*** 1/2 out of ****

So I sat down to watch the initial Star Wars movies again and I don't think a synopsis of George Lucas' epic space saga is really necessary, so hear are my thoughts as I view the films through world-weary orbs and not those of a wide eyed preadolescent to whom they meant so much a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away: The first two films, A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, retain most of their magic, while Return of the Jedi is essentially just a corned out rehash of the second installment. As for the actors, Alec Guinness' gravitas brings much to the proceedings, Mark Hamill's earnestness shines through, Carrie Fisher is irritating (how was she the great sex symbol of the day?), Harrison Ford is lifeless, and it is amazing how sympathetic and how much of the trilogy rests on the shoulders of the two droids.  Revisiting episodes four, five, and six I had no desire to continue on with the lackluster prequels, have zero interest in the upcoming continuations, and while these original films did stir genuine feelings of nostalgia, I had to ask myself, "what am I doing, thirty years old, watching Star Wars on my couch?"

The producer of a third rate Toronto television station (James Woods) meets with his video pirate who has just intercepted a top secret wave out of Pittsburgh containing compulsively watchable snuff material he plans to air on his late night broadcasts. Soon, he realizes these are much more than cathode rays and finds his body undergoing a metamorphosis and himself a sleeper agent in a right wing conspiracy. Videodrome is an intelligent, creepy, and outlandish picture that succeeds, despite its silly premise, thanks to an excellent lead performance from Woods, state of the art, repellent Rick Baker special effects, and the commanding direction and storytelling abilities of David Cronenberg, who is at the top of his game in this relatively early career outing.

S.E. Hinton's novella detailing the lives of impoverished, small-town Oklahoma "greasers" and their struggles with the sadistic, overprivileged "socs" is a perennial favorite among young readers. When I learned that the movie had been made after an 8th grade class wrote a letter to Francis Ford Coppola urging him to do so, I decided to give the book a whirl, and kind of regretted doing so. Fortunately, however, this is one of those rare occasions where a film is better than the book, thanks largely to Coppola's visual stylings. The film is still hurt by the book's trappings and the acting is pretty atrocious, although I did enjoy Matt Dillon's performance in a cast of budding actors which includes Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, Diane Lane, Ralph Macchio, and Rob Lowe.

As tensions escalate during a conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, we are shown the tribulations of several variant Kansas residents as the respond the impending nuclear destruction. The Day After is a television movie that starts off well enough, introducing its likable characters and building suspense,  but quickly sheds its dramatic ambitions and reveals itself solely as infotainment. I remembered watching this as a kid, decided to seek it out again and first arrived at Testament, mistaking the two films due to their similar themes and having both been released in the same year. I found both films to be equally wretched, again with shock value for the sake of informing taking precedence over drama. For something that achieves that effect, I would recommend the Peter Watkins' devastating pseudo-documentary The War Game over either of these so-called "nuclear war dramas."

After safely guiding late night talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) through a racous crowd to his limo, amateur stand-up comedian Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) procures an audition which will hopefully lead to an appearance on his show and thus worldwide stardom. When it appears that Jerry was humoring him, after more than a few less than subtle hints, Rupert and his unhinged groupie crony (Sandra Bernhard) decide to kidnap the late-night host to at last attain that deeply desired appearance. The King of Comedy is an unusual film for Martin Scorsese, yet it is still one of the funniest and darkest of all his works, even if its message regarding celebrity fandom seems muted in today's culture. De Niro, himself in an atypical role, delivers a wounded and somewhat outrageous performance, one of his finest, and Jerry Lewis is excellent playing a character probably not too far removed from his own persona.

It is a normal day for the Wetherly family, as the father (William Devane) is off at work, their daughter is at school, and the mother (Jane Alexander) is at home watching their youngest, who is happily watching Sesame Street when the signal is lost and a blinding white light encompasses their entire field of vision, the result of a nuclear bomb having touchdowned in the nearby metropolis. Now with the father completely off the grid, the mother must face the increasingly dire effects of nuclear fallout and shelter her family while guiding them to what will certainly be a doomed fate. Testament is a realistic drama, miles away from the mind numbing disaster films viewers of today have grown accustomed to. While offering a likely, horrific scenario, the film lays in on awfully thick thick with a pretentious screenplay and a severely misguided performance from Alexander, who did receive an Academy Award nomination for her work.

A teacher in rural Maine (Christopher Walken) learns that, upon physical contact, he can not only only see the subject's future but alter it's outcome. After helping the local sheriff (Tom Skerrit) search for a serial killer minimizing the damage of a tragic ice rink accident, he is put to the ultimate test when he meets a shifty, ambitious U.S. Senate candidate (Martin Sheen) and sees a vision of nuclear holocaust. David Cronenberg's The Dead Zone, working from Stephen King's novel, is an example of master filmmaking drawn from an exceedingly silly screenplay, which makes the film all the more enjoyable because it is played with such seriousness (I was also given all the more amusement upon realizing it was the inspiration for South Park's "Cartman's Incredible Gift" episode). Walken is excellent in what you would call a prototypical performance and the supporting cast is likewise great including Skerrit, Herbert Lom, and Sheen, in particular. 

Shot on a shoestring budget in Cleveland, Ohio and various Ontario, Canada locations, Bob Clark's unanticipated "A Christmas Story" has become a staple of the holiday season. From the short stories featured in Jean Shepherd's In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, the film tells the story of young Ralphie and his misadventures in 1940s Hohman, Indiana as he wishes nothing more than to receive a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas. With Shepherd himself providing irreplaceable narration, the film provides us with a jumble of unforgettable vignettes such as Ralphie decoding a secret radio program message, his exuberant father receiving an erotic monstrosity as a sweepstakes prize, and an infamous dare resulting in the fire department being called in to remove his best friend's tongue from an icy flag pole. The film is perfectly cast with little known actors proving warm and memorable performances. Melinda Dillon is a delight playing the angelic mother and Darren McGavin does his best Jack Lemmon as his father. Peter Billingsley is ideally cast as the wide eyed Ralphie and Ian Petrella steals the show as his younger brother Randy. "A Christmas Story" is not only a great film because of how acutely funny it is, but also because of how it captures the nostalgic childhood scenarios.