Movie Reviews: The Whistle Blower

The Whistle Blower

directed by Simon Langton

This is a mid 80s British spy thriller that is carried by a powerful but understated performance by Michael Caine. It is a truism that until people experience something horrible they may lack the perspective to be empathetic to previous sufferers. People often accuse their political opponents of having this trait and of thereby being, well, sinful. 

I think that this is a human trait, and not one that is by amazing coincidence only found among people you loathe. 

There are many stories where the protagonist discovers that his own organization, corporation, group, people, or race, whose immorality he was happy to ignore or even profit from, has harmed or even killed the protagonist's loved one--someone in the in-group.

Movie Reviews: Leave Her To Heaven

Leave Her To Heaven
John Stahl 

Leave Her To Heaven was an unusual film noir. The male lead was a placeholder and oft passive observer. Leave Her To Heaven was shot in technicolor (initially I thought it had been colorized). It lacks the light and shadow mix which defines much noir. Many scenes are shot outside and during the day. There's a lack of cynicism. The male lead usually takes people at face value.

The movie makes one major concession to the noir genre in that it features a gorgeous femme fatale with some questionable morals, psychology, and sexuality. 

Mores and customs have changed so much since 1945 that were this film remade today I think the femme fatale would be portrayed more sympathetically. I can't call it. There's a thin line between adoring attention and obsessive possessiveness. The lead actress demonstrates this in obvious and subtle ways.

Movie Reviews: Busting

Busting
directed by Peter Hymans

This was a 1974 neo-noir movie with all the seventies moral and visual murkiness that I enjoy so much. Although the film is set in sunny LA, it really feels as if it's occurring in such east coast environments such as New York's Times Square or Boston's Combat Zone. Both places have long since been gentrified but to a man of a certain age like myself those areas still invoke a certain grittiness, squalor, and over the top sleaze. 

Older people tell me that is what they were like in the seventies. Los Angeles had its own "bad side of town" but it's difficult to overexaggerate how much Busting eschews the sunny expansive cinematic view of Los Angeles.

This movie shares some DNA with such series as Death Wish or Dirty Harry in that men hemmed in by what they see as society's unfair rules strike out against criminals. Busting is different because it doesn't laud the guys breaking the rules. 

The Burmese Python Invades Florida

With the advent of the modern world--say after 1492 or so- and the many resultant  migrations, exiles, conquests, immigrations, colonializations, enslavements, and easier travel, there are many animals and plants that are now found in places that they shouldn't be. Well maybe, "shouldn't" is the wrong word. But sometimes flora and fauna pop up in regions where they have no place in the food chain or no natural predators. 

These organisms, intent on survival, make their own niche, which invariably causes problems for local flora and fauna. We've heard urban fairy tales of people flushing crocodiles down the toilet only to have said crocodiles survive to become deadly predators hungry for human flesh. I think I've seen a few low budget movies with that premise.

Anyway it's not a fantasy that in the Florida Everglades, people have accidentally, purposely, and almost always stupidly released animals into the environment that have destroyed much of the other flora and fauna, thus worsening the area for everyone. The latest example of this is the Burmese python. 

A team searching under dense vegetation in the pine flatwoods of the Everglades late last year came upon a slithering sight, the likes of which no one had found before in those parts: 215 pounds of snake. It was the largest Burmese python ever found in Florida, breaking a record set by the invasive species in 2016 at 140 pounds, according to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.

Supreme Court Decisions

The Supreme Court issued two critical rulings. Although I am liberal I have always been pro-life and believed in self-defense. In the Bruen case the Supreme Court ruled that: 

"New York’s proper-cause requirement for obtaining an unrestricted license to carry a concealed firearm violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms."

If you wanted to conceal carry a firearm in New York--most notoriously New York City--the authorities could require that you proved "proper cause."  

If the state didn't like guns, didn't think people of a certain race should have guns, or just didn't like you, then the state could deny you a concealed carry permit. The Court decision changes the "may issue" standard to a "shall issue" standard. New York must have objective criteria for concealed carry. People who dislike guns claim this decision will result in greater carnage. 

Most other states including my own have "shall issue" standards. Legally armed conceal carry people are not the people murdering folks. 

Movie Reviews: The Mob

The Mob
directed by Robert Parrish

This 1951 film is more crime film than noir. The leading man, Broderick Crawford, was a tad overweight, had a drinking problem, and wasn't handsome or dashing. Crawford was however a fine actor who, despite being in B-films or secondary roles for much of his career, won the Oscar for Best Actor in the 1949 movie, All The King's Men, where he played a thinly veiled fictionalized version of Louisiana governor Huey Long. 

Crawford brought energy and intelligence to his roles. Crawford's hangdog looks could evoke audience sympathy, even when he was playing bad guys.

In The Mob , Crawford is Johnny Damico, a homicide detective in an unnamed city, who wants his jeweler to lower the price for a engagement ring for Johnny's fiancee, Mary (Betty Buehler). The jeweler is initially unmoved by Johnny's pleas but finally gives Johnny a slight discount for Mary's sake. 

Movie Reviews: Tales From The Hood

Tales From The Hood
directed by Rusty Cundieff

This older horror/thriller movie anthology comes from the older Tales From The Crypt movie/series which itself was inspired by the old EC comic of the same name which in turn gave ideas to such creatives as Stephen King.

It's not my original idea but Black American history is similar to a horror novel plot. 

Being robbed of your culture, name and religion, being kidnapped from your own nation, being beaten, tortured, raped, and enslaved for a quarter of a millennia and being successfully taught to hate yourself is horrific. Tales From The Hood  is a decent non-explicit horror film, though by modern standards the 1995 special effects are horribly dated.