Billion Dollar Brain - 1967

Scrolling through Tubi, I came across this movie. The title intrigued me, and I was ready for some excitement. Spy movie! Harry Palmer (our main character) is from a series of books by Len Deighton.

Harry (Michael Caine) comes home with his Corn Flakes and finds his previous employer, the Colonel, searching his home. The government wants him back for an important case, but Harry isn't interested. Right after the man leaves, Harry gets a call from a robot telling him he's received a key and 200 pounds. All he has to do is deliver a package. Harry agrees, and he's off to deliver eggs to Finland.

The plot of this movie is crazy. After Harry delivers the eggs to his naked friend, he finds a dead body and takes the job with the government. A man is trying to wage war on communism by starting a war between Russia and Latvia. Or something. The second half of the film, from when Harry goes to Texas until the end, is basically the crazy Texas oilman and his invasion.

I'm curious if Palmer is as useless in the book as he is in this movie. Basically, he doesn't serve a purpose. He doesn't collect the eggs for his government, he gets captured all the time, and he isn't even responsible for stopping Crazy Texas Man. I did like he was left out on the ice at the end of the movie. It seemed fitting.

The other thing I want to mention is the opening credits. They are so cringey. James Bond's first movie was in 1962, and I'm guessing these were supposed to mimic those. But they were awful. I don't know what they were thinking, but they should've done something different.

Overall, this movie started out ok, but it got boring pretty fast. Maybe the other movies in the series had some of the humor I saw glimpses of, but I was just confused. Palmer was the worst spy ever. My favorite character was the Russian Colonel Stok (Oskar Homolka). He was funny and crafty. Props to him helping me get to the end of the film.

The Devil's Party - 1938

I saw this movie when we were scrolling the other day, and I wanted to watch it. I had some time this morning, so I put it on. It's based on the book Hell's Kitchen Has a Pantry by Borden Chase.

Marty leads a gang of young criminals who meet in the basement of a building. When a robbery goes wrong, he takes the wrap and refuses to give up the names of the other kids who were with him.

Fast forward many years. Marty owns a business, but he's a bit ruthless. He has enforcers he sends out when a man won't pay his debts. The man dies, and one of the other friends, Joe, suspects foul play. Marty isn't happy about the crossover of his personal and professional affairs and tries to separate them. Unfortunately, Joe ends up dead, and his brother feels the need to avenge the death.

The whole dynamic between the friends fractures eventually, which is to be expected. The end also was pretty much what I expected. There wasn't anything spectacular that stood out to me, and I think the best part was the closed captioning. It was one of those times when I needed it since the audio wasn't super clear. The things that would pop up on the screen at time were amusing, so I had more fun with that than the movie itself. DEATH TO SQUEALERS!

A Nanny for Christmas - 2010

It's been a while since we've played Hallmark Bingo, so we picked this movie and got ready to play! Since Dean Cain was in this one, Mom wanted to see what he looked like. Unfortunately, that led us to the next hour and a half.

Okay, so a woman loses her job at an advertising firm, because she didn't know their client was left at the altar. Dean Cain has a hissy fit and keeps repeating, "MY WEDDING?!" fifteen times before storming out of the office. Weird. So, Ally asks her friend to see if she can hook her up with a job at this other lady's company. Due to some weird mix-up, she ends up being hired as a nanny. Instead of clearing things up, she goes with it. She promises to follow the weird, strict rules of the woman's house, but then proceeds to break literally all of them. She also wraps up the kids in her life of lying...

Ah, the lies. They start for no reason and continue for the same. She meets "raspberry scone man" AKA Justin, and immediately lies about who she is. Instead of just telling him she's the nanny, she says she works for the New York office for the husband. But...WHY?! She claims (later) she thought being a nanny wouldn't be enough for a bigtime executive, but she didn't know who he was when she met him. Garbage. This man deserves better for sure. For some reason, everyone forgives Ally at the end of the movie after her half-hearted apologies, which made me angry. And can we discuss the dad for just two seconds? This man doesn't care when the kids are upset he won't be there for Christmas, but an email from someone he's never met gets him on a plane home? And he shows up with a puppy he's trying to suffocate in a plastic tub?! You know they make carriers for those?! Or at least put some air holes in there...GAH!

And the icing on the crap cake that is this movie. When I went to find the cover, I found this travesty. Justin isn't even on the cover!!! I know they didn't even introduce an element of romance until after 1/3 of the way through the movie, but still. Give the man some respect. They put the kids on the cover! They put Dean Cain on the cover! And he was a strange Danny Donner chocolate man with a quick temper who showed up at the other company's Christmas party!

I wish Ally had left for Ohio before anyone called her. I love Ohio, and the state didn't deserve her, but Justin definitely deserves better! This movie was terrible. It should have been accidentally lost before anyone released it, and I wish the best for Justin. Everyone else in the movie is terrible and should leave him alone. Trash movie!

PS - No Bingos with this one...not even close.

The Man Who Walked Alone - 1945

This was a blind pick for movie night. I was excited to see Captain Midnight, Dave O'Brien, in the cast list.

Marion is on his way to the city. He's got his uniform in his suitcase, but he doesn't seem to want anyone to know who he is. A woman picks him up on her way to the city in a stolen car, and they end up getting caught. A quick call clears up that mess, but then they get arrested again when she convinces him to break into her "employer's home."

It soon comes out that Willie is actually Wilhelmina Hammond, a rich young woman running away from a marriage to a political candidate. Willie has seen the uniform and assumed he was a deserter, an assumption others will also make later on.

This movie was pretty good, but Willie was something of a weird one. She keeps telling everyone she's not getting married, and they just tell her okay, sure, and proceed to ignore her. She doesn't really stand her ground very well, so in my mind, she doesn't really deserve Marion. BUT, she's what he wants, so more power to him I suppose.

Anyway, there were some elements of a few movies in here. I was reminded of Bringing Up Baby (stolen car - the sheriff), The Philadelphia Story (oddball younger sister) and It Happened One Night (wealthy socialite fleeing marriage). All together, I suppose this one was okay, but I don't think I would go out of my way to watch it again. On top of the irritating Willie (who started out ok but got worse as the movie went on), I don't think I would've understood anything if we didn't have the closed captioning on. Middle of the road for me.

Argoman the Fantastic Superman - 1967

I was hunting for a new superhero to add to our universe, so I turned on Tubi and searched for superheroes. This movie popped up, and I felt like it might be a candidate.

 A man has "superpowers" and uses them to do things. I spent an hour and a half watching this, and I'm not entirely sure what I saw. I'll try to explain the plot. The Queen of the World steals the Royal Crown as a show of her power. Scotland Yard tries to hire our guy to hunt down the woman. Little do they know, he's already "seen" her. Eventually, he tracks her down and defeats her. 

This movie is wild. At first, I was a bit worried. He has the strangest house where a good chunk of the furniture is hanging from the ceiling. While that looks fun, it's just weird. He also wanders around in his robe. I understood why when he put on his "I'm at home" clothes. He had on a really awful ascot. It was just a hint of his taste in clothes, however.

Argoman has questionable morals. He steals things, crashes people's cars and is kind of a putz. He's sleazy to women, and he has a dude just hanging out next to a car behind a door in his house. When he changes into Argoman, his "superpowers" are not amazing. He wears a cape, but he can only leap about so I'm not sure what the point of it is. He also moves around in just a strange way, and sometimes he'll just laugh, "ha HA!"

The costumes in this movie are insane, and after the first half hour, it was pretty good. Up to that point, it was still interesting, but I'm not sure it would meet our high standards. The other thing is, this man definitely doesn't meet the qualifications for our heroes. At best he's an antihero, but I'm leaning toward villain. I need more input on that. But regarding the movie itself, I think it was pretty fun. I mean, when you start out with the knowledge that when this guy has sex he loses his superpowers for six hours, I immediately have questions. I think he'll be in the universe - we just have to find the right place for him. Good Movie!

Song of the South - 1946

This is one of the few older Disney movies I've never seen. I thought I had, but after watching it, the only thing I know is "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah."

A little boy is visiting his grandmother's plantation when he makes a couple new friends. He also finds a couple bullies. To deal with his problems, Uncle Remus tells Johnny stories of Br'er Rabbit. Johnny's mom thinks these are bad for him, but they are actually helpful. 

I liked this movie. I have to say I was more fond of the live action parts than the Br'er stories. I can't really narrow down why, I just was more involved with the relationships going on with Johnny, Uncle Remus, Toby, and Ginny. And Teenchy. I loved Teenchy. Uncle Remus (James Baskett) did a wonderful job on screen. He sang and acted really well, and I was always looking forward to scenes with him in it.

I'll briefly address the controversy about the movie itself. The portrayal of African Americans in this movie has caused a lot of tension over the years. The setting was a plantation for a reason. Uncle Remus is a character that tells stories from that era, and he is a freedman. What I saw was a kind older man helping a lonely boy. Johnny also found friends his own age from the area that could have been seen as questionable at the time, but no mention was made of who Johnny played with. It didn't matter if they were black or white, rich or poor. It was just kids playing together. 

Overall, I thought the story was sweet. Yes, there is child acting in this. I don't know how old Johnny's actor was, but sometimes he could pull off crying, and other times not so much. I enjoyed James Baskett the most in this movie (if we ignore the puppy). He really stole the show! Good Movie!

Murder by Death - 1976

I saw an article about this movie, saw some of the cast, and immediately tracked it down.

This movie is poking fun at 5 of the most famous detectives of fiction. Represented are Nick and Nora (David Niven and Maggie Smith), Charlie Chan (Peter Sellers), Sam Spade (Peter Falk), Miss Marple (Elsa Lanchester), and Hercule Poirot (James Coco). I'm not as familiar with the last two actors as I am with the others.

Truman Capote also appears in this, and there's a blind butler that brings a physical comedy to the movie that hits and misses. The whole movie is full of those to be honest. Looking at the movie through today's eyes, there's a lot people could get offended by (Peter Sellers playing the Chinese/Hawaiian detective for instance). BUT, if you're familiar with the detectives, you could get a few chuckles out of this movie. I did.

I liked the movie. Did all the jokes hit? No. But I was familiar with most of the detectives, so the pokes at them were funny. The only one I wasn't super familiar with was Sam Spade, but I knew a bit about him. He's the age of noir, and you can tell. The end was pretty funny, even though the cackling went on a bit too long. I'm giving it a Good Movie! review, but if you aren't familiar with the detectives being spoofed, I'm not sure you'd agree with me.

Skyscraper - 2018

My husband and I settled in to watch this movie. I knew a little bit about it, but he hadn't seen it.

A skyscraper (!) is making sure their safety procedures are adequate so they can be insured. They've hired the small company The Rock runs (because that's what happens), and they give him all access to the digital security measures. The tablet that runs everything is connected to facial recognition, so when the betrayal by his "brother" happens, they just have to shove the tablet in his face and viola! 

Screwing with the bad guys' plans are Rock's family. They were supposed to be seeing the pandas, but Timmy (I can't remember his name) ate a "weird candy," and so they're back early. Bad guys set a fire on the floor below the family's, turn off fire suppression and CHAOS!

There were so many crazy things that happened in this movie. It reminded me of San Andreas on the reality scale (meaning there's very little reality). I think the end cracked me up the most. This man, who through the entire movie has worked with little to nothing to solve problems, decides to sit on the floor, rocking back and forth and burn to death. Never mind the dead guys with frickin' parachutes or anything. I guess he ran out of duct tape...

Movie is pretty ridiculous, but it wasn't boring. I'm not going to give it a good review, for the sole purpose that I really didn't care about anyone, and I kept waiting for Timmy to fall into the fire (which he technically should have done a few times). I mean, the weak child (character, not actor) could sometimes barely breathe and other times was fine. Then he had the superhuman ability to hold onto his mom's back as she slowly (I think molasses moves faster) tightroped her way across that bridge and then tripped. I did learn the valuable life lesson of whenever something isn't working, all you have to do is turn it off and turn it back on - works every time!

 

Elysium - 2013

My husband and I were searching for something to watch together. He's not into movies without color, and he doesn't appreciate movies that are bad in a good way. We scrolled for a while until we came across this movie. We had no idea what to expect when we put it on.

In the future, the world is gross. It's polluted, overpopulated and all the poor people live on it. The rich people are floating on a huge space station (Elysium), which actually looks pretty cool. It's also able to be seen from Earth. Max is trying to work and keep his head down when an accident gives him five days to live. With nothing left to lose, he risks it all to get on Elysium where he can be healed. They have these things where people can lay in them and magically be healed. The poor people on Earth are just out of luck.

I thought the movie was pretty good for being a blind pick. There were a few things that I didn't understand, but whatever. I think of the weirdest stuff. Like when Max got the "armor," I was stuck on the fact he was stuck wearing that shirt forever now. The end was supposed to be happy I guess, but I think they just made the overpopulation problem worse. But woohoo! People are healed!! Anyway, if I don't stare at the plot too closely, I'll give this one a Good Movie! review for entertainment value.

The Spirit - 1987

I was on the hunt for more superheroes to add to our theoretical cinematic universe, and I noticed this movie. I put it on and waited to make my final decision. So far, we have The Pumaman and Supersonic Man.

A man's friend gets blown up and wants to be avenged. He thinks he's found a lead, but then he gets shot and falls in some water at the docks. He raises like a zombie at the weirdest cemetery I've ever seen and scares some kids. He takes one under his wing as his "Robin." After he recovers (which he did quickly - good job invisible doctor!), he pulls a tiny mask out of a drawer, and The Spirit is born.

This movie was weird. And I'm not talking about weird in a good way. The beginning was strong. Spirit's friend was dead, got blown up, then he stumbled out of the house to talk to his friend before dying again. The tone of the movie struck me as intentionally campy, which is the worst kind. I did get a couple of chuckles out of the movie, but all my joy was coming from the police commissioner. And he wasn't in it near enough to save this movie.

The Spirit doesn't make the cut. We have high standards for our cinematic universe!

Midnight Lace - 1960

This movie came on my radar partly due to the subject and partly due to the actors. I'm a fan of Rex Harrison, so I looked forward to watching it.

Kit Preston is a recently married American heiress living in London. In a thick fog, she hears a strange voice threatening to kill her. She rushes home and tells her husband, who brushes it off as a prank. When it happens again, it isn't something she's ready to push aside, but it's becoming hard for people to believe her. The inspector at Scotland Yard thinks it's a scheme by a neglected wife, and no one else has ever heard the voice.

There were hints early on that my man Rex was going to be a nefarious soul. The main one was that they introduced a character I would consider an alternate love interest. I just didn't want it to be Rex. Oh well. We can't have everything. Doris Day played the wife, and she irritated me a bit. I know he was messing with her mind, but for goodness' sake, if you're in the apartment alone (or watching a struggle), pick up a fireplace poker or something.

I suppose if I didn't like Rex so much, I would've enjoyed it more. If I try to put that aside, I guess the twists were well done. The "other man" was a bit shoehorned in there and a bit unnecessary. If he hadn't been in there, I don't think I would've figured things out as much as I did. Admittedly, I never had some of the details figured out ahead of time, so the movie gets credit for that. I'll give it a Good Movie! review for the enjoyment factor, but I'm so sad Rex was a villain...

Supersonic Man - 1979

This little gem has been watched a few times, but I shared it with the family over the weekend.

Speedo man is flying through space when he's told the earth needs him. He gets an epic sparkly outfit and proceeds to fly to earth (to the best theme song ever). When he gets there, he protects a woman who has the personality of a sheet of paper. When needed, he talks to his watch and turns into Supersonic Man. This superhero has TONS of neat little powers. The more you watch, the more you discover. 

Paper woman's father has been abducted for some reason, and Supersonic Man has to save the day. Honestly, I'm not really sure what the main McGuffin was in this one, I was just having fun watching things explode. The end is weird, but what else did I expect?

This movie made me want a crossover or a cinematic universe with Supersonic Man and Pumaman. And the craziest part? The Pumaman is actually mentioned on the Wikipedia page for Supersonic Man as similar! That cracked me up. Some of the family thought this one was better than Pumaman, but I think they each have their own charm. I think my youngest probably would lean towards Pumaman, only because she would cringe every time the theme song began to play. As a trumpet player, the music was giving her physical pain.

I would definitely watch this again. The ineptness of the men in the car tailing the daughter - hilarious. My favorite part is when Supersonic Man saves the daughter as she's being chased. But there are so many good parts, I can't list them all. If you liked Pumaman, I think you'd like this one. If they both sound insane and they never should've been made, you might want to pass. If you do want to watch it, I recommend watching it with friends. Laughing is more fun when you do it with friends! Good Movie!

Point Blank - 1967

I saw an article about this movie a while back and finally got the chance to watch it last night. It stars Lee Marvin, an actor I've seen around a fair bit, and is based on a novel called The Hunter.

Alcatraz is the location of a heist where Walker (Marvin) and his partner take some money from criminals. Then, Walker is betrayed, and his partner shoots him and leaves him to die. Later, Walker somehow makes it back and tracks down his wife and eventually the partner. Walker wants his money. He's not really concerned about who he uses and takes down in the meantime. There's also a man offering to assist Walker in his revenge murder spree.

There are a few things in this movie that struck me. Our "hero" wasn't a nice guy, so rooting for him wasn't really an option. I hated the way he used his wife's sister, and I'm not sure why she was putting up with it. The flashbacks were strange and confusing. When naked man fell off the roof, that was pretty hilarious.

The end was irritating. So, we ended up at Alcatraz to get Walker his dang money, but he just stands in the shadows. There was a twist to the plot, but it didn't hit me. I didn't care about Walker or his money. And then it just ended. What about Chris? Apparently, we don't care. And that's where we leave it. And that's where I'm going to leave this review. I was glad when this hour and a half was over. I still like Lee Marvin, I think he did a good job, he just wasn't a nice character.