hampersnow-41369

The best part of this movie is Dale Dickey as "The G" because honestly, if you removed her from this movie it wouldn't be very good at all. Her performance elevates a not so great script and a kind of confusing story with a few too many twists and turns. While the other actors are all OK, no one stands out, leaving Dickey to shoulder the entire film and considering what a great actress she is, she handles it to perfection. The story is an interesting one, there is character development and she has some great lines, but at times I was just left confused. It didn't help that casting made the mistake of using two shaved head actors with beards to play parts that had me wondering what was going on until I realized it was 2 different actors in different roles. If you are a fan of Dale's this is worth watching, just don't expect anything worthy of her talent.

Cobweb had very few things going for it, it is well shot and the atmosphere created was excellent for a horror film , if a bit contrived. It seemed to be set in a small old creepy town the way such towns only exist in Hollywood movies. It had some fair suspense and a few scares, but that was about it. It was not a well done horror film because the characters seemed to be strange for no explained reason. Not only was Lizzie Caplan's acting horrendous but she seemed to be playing a caricature of a looney horror film mother. There was never any point where I thought this was a family, the movie begins and we're just kind of dropped into a story that seems to have started already. So little is explained and there is nothing subtle or realistic about the plot. Things happens and we have no idea why. A little background on what was going on would have been nice but ultimately this is just one more Hollywood failure with unappealing characters and over-acting.

Pushover is a very well done film noir crime drama but with Fred MacMurray as the star I can't help but compare it to the the best noir of all time Double Indemnity. This time we have the gorgeous Kim Novak playing the blonde MacMurray is willing to go bad for and she's very good in this, playing the bad girl to the hilt. In fact in many ways she steals the film in just the way she carries herself and she has the best lines. There's a really well done scene in a bar between Novak and a man trying to pick her up. Overall the movie is well done with some excellent shots on a rooftop and even a very questionable large shadow on a rooftop wall that had me wondering "Is that what I think it is ?" As good as the movie is, it doesn't quite make it to greatness. It's sleazy enough for noir but seemed to be missing something. Maybe the fact that they tried to counterbalance the bad characters with the saintly ones, which for me, didn't really work. Definitely worth a watch for Novak and Noir fans.