Since this ABC Movie of the Week uses an exclamation mark in its title, it’s safe to assume that this is no ordinary heatwave. If it was your routine heatwave, people would simply be sweating, short tempered, whining about their air conditioning not working and moaning about water restrictions. In short, it would be summer. Assigning the heatwave the dreaded Category 5 of punctuation though takes things to next level sizzle! Continue reading “Heatwave! (1974)”
Category: Drama
The Suns of Easter Island (1972)
Well that’s something else I can cross off my bucket list. After slogging through ninety minutes of what is mostly a painfully dull pseudo documentary/travelogue and only sporadically a science fiction movie, I really have no desire anymore to visit Easter Island.
Watching a group of seven people wander around the island aimlessly for a half hour really drove home the point that after you’ve stared at those giant stone heads for about five minutes, you’re kind of screwed for anything else to do. When does the next 4 and half hour flight back to Santiago, Chili leave? Continue reading “The Suns of Easter Island (1972)”
The Last Child (1971)
Much like other long since faded fads like pet rocks, mood rings, pogs and Sniglets, doom and gloom scams come and go with the amazing regularity that only obsessive anti-freedom big government advocates can muster.
Acid rain, nuclear winter, crop failure, Y2K, 2012, asteroids, dirty bombs, pandemics, mega quakes, super volcanoes, smog, global warming, global cooling and every temperature in between are all trotted out from time to time as an excuse to trample on the rights of regular people and increase the power of a highly centralized authority. With such an ever evolving Chicken Little laundry list, it’s tough to keep up with what we are supposed to be scared of in any given month.
Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973)
Imagine Psycho, but if instead of running a motel, Norman Bates was a sculptor, his mother was still alive and a raging alcoholic and Marion Crane didn’t take that shower, but performed light housekeeping duties and was an art student who had a crush on Norman. By the time the denouement finally occurs, it’s clear that at best Scream, Pretty Peggy was heavily influenced by that earlier, far superior film and the only suspense is whether it really is going to blatantly rip off Psycho. (For fans of homely guys in drag, it happily does!) Continue reading “Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973)”
Runaway! (1973)
A train full of skiing revelers on the way down the mountain! But engineer Holly Gibson (Ben Johnson) has never seen it this cold before! But by tomorrow it won’t even matter because Holly is just one day from retirement! (The savvy traveler never takes public transportation piloted by a guy who is just trying to get through his last shift! It’s in all the guidebooks!) Continue reading “Runaway! (1973)”
Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972)
A couple of years spent in a tiger cage, only the memories of his idyllic childhood in small town Vermont to cling to in attempt to keep him and his buddy sane, it is perhaps inevitable that when Johnny Bristol finally comes marching home again (his buddy doesn’t make it), that he’s going to have issues. But is Johnny going crazy, suffering from PTSD? Or the victim of a government conspiracy? Or maybe he’s just gone full Jacob’s Ladder on us and never really made out of Vietnam at all? Continue reading “Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972)”
Dead Men Tell No Tales (1971)
Literally starting off with a bang, Dead Men Tell No Tales squanders that explosive beginning (and most likely its entire budget) as it places our hero, who’s on the lam from a pack of ruthless killers, into a building slated for demolition for much of the movie, senselessly turning him from a man on the run to a man sitting on his ass in some rubble. Continue reading “Dead Men Tell No Tales (1971)”