The Descent: Part 2 (2009)

Neil Marshall was the executive producer on The Descent: Part 2 which (like this review) picks up right after The Descent (depending on which of the two endings you saw). Although this story about the rescuers who enter the cave system to find the original spelunkers often strains credulity and mires in some broad characterizations, it is still claustrophobic and pretty scary. Krysten Cummings and Anna Skellern (new to the story) deserve special recognition for outstanding acting but anymore information than that would ruin the unexpected.

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The Descent (2005)

In The Descent, six women go spelunking in an uncharted cave system and find physical (and emotional) horrors heretofore unknown. The story is first rate and the six actresses (Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, MyAnna Buring and Nora Jane Noone) are bad-ass. Director Neil Marshall has created a bloody and claustrophobic (really claustrophobic) exercise in terror that never lets up.

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Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2004)

Mayor of the Sunset Strip is a sad documentary. Despite the fascinating life he has lived, Rodney Bingenheimer reveals through his filmed interactions that although he has been to paradise, he has never been to me (quoting singer Charlene). When you learn of the amount of people this unsung hero of the music industry has helped and touched, it hurts that no one has really done the same for him...until this movie...which showcases how sad he seemingly is.

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The Bad Seed (1956)

Thematically, The Bad Seed is the antithesis of an American film from the 50s as it asks us to ponder whether a blonde, white child with pigtails can commit murder? Quaint as the story is, there are a few unforeseen twists that keep everything moving along. The play from which this film was adapted is broad - characters, story, performances (Eileen Heckart, Patty McCormack and Nancy Kelly all Tony AND Oscar-nominated) and even an ending tagged on to the film because of the Production Code is broad - but for historical reasons, that's a good thing.

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A Wedding (1978)

A Wedding displays lesser quality Robert Altman as the camera meanders through the titular ceremony and dinner while contrived and uninteresting situations happen to all involved - typical Altman minus the contrived and uninteresting. It's not as absorbing as Nashville or as funny as M.A.S.H. but the large and evolving cast did catch my eye with Carol Burnett, Vittorio Gassman, Geraldine Chaplin, Dina Merrill, Lillian Gish (luminescent even as a corpse), Pat McCormick and Mia Farrow standing out. But if you're not a real fan of bland familial scenes and happenstance, best be moving along.

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Inception (2010)

Complication does not equal sophistication in Christopher Nolan's way-overrated dream film, Inception. Nolan changes his own rules to propel the story forward without regard to the laws of physics or the intelligence of the viewer. Some good effects wrap this one in the idea of smarts without the actual work to get them.

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Soylent Green (1973)

Soylent Green is the final film in the Last Man Standing science fiction trilogy that Charlton Heston made in the late 60s/early 70s and it manages to be creepily interesting despite his presence. The movie takes place in 2022 (via 1973), it's tense, has an edgy story, and some far out scenes (including the scooper and Edward G. Robinson's final scene). Once you've seen it, you'll never EVER forget what Soylent Green is.

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The Oh in Ohio (2006)

Parker Posey fans will drool over her performance as Priscilla, ice queen of Cleveland in The Oh In Ohio. Despite the iciness, Posey is charming and likable in this seldom funny but somewhat endearing comedy about a woman who learns to have an orgasm. Liza Minnelli as a masturbation therapist, Heather Graham as a sex shop clerk, Danny DeVito as the pool guy, Paul Rudd as Posey's husband and Mischa Barton (?) as the high school student all rise to Posey's crescendo nicely but the whole is worth less than its (private) parts.

My Sister Eileen (1942)

My Sister Eileen is stagy, stodgy and stale but Rosalind Russell is a revelation yet again as the unsung, untried and inexperienced writer from Ohio who moves to New York with her blond sibling. A mundane type of hilarity ensues but Russell's mannerisms, delivery and double takes are classic film comedy. Russell is ably supported by a cast that includes Janet Blair and Elizabeth Mrs. Trumbull Patterson so it's unfortunate the story just has no spark or relevance.

• Read 3 Lines About My Sister Eileen, the 1955 screen musical.
• Read a write-up of the various stage and screen versions of the source newspaper column, My Sister Eileen - a precursor to Sex And The City?

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Goodbye Mr. Chips (1969)

This 1969 musical version of Goodbye Mr. Chips was unconventional for its time in that the songs are, for the most part, sung as narration in the minds of the characters - similar to how the Academy Award winning film Chicago dealt with its score almost forty years later. Peter O'Toole and Petula Clark are both excellent and appealing as the titular professor in an all boys school and the woman with whom he falls in love. Although O'Toole's singing is not much better here than it was four years later in Man Of La Mancha AND it's a very long movie, the star chemistry, some tuneful Leslie Bricusse songs (with lyrics that mention Las Vegas and rock musician in 1924 England) and thankfully an intermission made it an enjoyable movie-going experience.

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The Hearst and Davies Affair (1985)

The Hearst and Davies Affair is a decent enough TV movie about the relationship between William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies. Virginia Madsen is spot-on as the actress/mistress of Robert Mitchum's millionaire newspaperman - who seems to be sleep walking through his role. The script plays a little with some of the truth but Madsen's youth and artistry is very involving and worth the watch.

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Love Me Or Leave Me (1955)

Doris Day and James Cagney as torch singer Ruth Etting and her gangster husband are nothing short of electric in Love Me Or Leave Me, the artistically and commercially successful biography film from 1955. Cagney is pathetically empathetic in a role he's played before but it is Day who leaps out of her ingenue comfort zone and slinks her way to the heart of the woman. The musical numbers - covers of Etting's hits of the 20s along with the Oscar-nominated original I'll Never Stop Loving You - are bright and vivacious in a film that's fascinating from Day's first appearance accepting 10 cents for a dance to her final performance of the title tune.

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It's Complicated (2009)

In It's Complicated, Meryl Streep plays a divorcee who runs an extremely successful pastry business, raises three wonderful children (one of whom is enfianced to an adorable John Krasinski), buys her own beautiful 2000 square foot home to which she is now adding 1000 square feet of kitchen and living space and begins an affair with the (now) re-married husband that had left her for a younger woman. On top of the incredulity of her life, the story tries too hard and the script is so hackneyed and mundane that I wonder why seemingly intelligent actors like Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin would agree to make this clinker. It must be complicated.

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Stephen King's Pet Sematary (1989)

Over the years, I thought Stephen King's Pet Sematary (directed by Mary Lambert of American Psycho fame) might have been a good movie that fell through my movie-going crack so I bought the DVD and sat down to enjoy. After about ten minutes, I noticed Fred Gwynne (Of The Munsters fame) was the only star (unless you count the bland Denise Crosby of granddad Bing Crosby fame), it had some similarities in story to Pumpkinhead, and the pet cemetery is not the film's MacGuffin - the Indian burial ground over the ridge from the pet cemetery is the MacGuffin. I guess it would've been a mouthful to call it Stephen King's Indian Burial Ground Over the Ridge from the Pet Sematary; at least with that title I wouldn't have wondered all these years if the film was any good.

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Huge (2010)

Huge just completed its first season and I was completely enthralled with the stories created around Camp Victory, a summer camp for fat teens. Intelligent writing, multi-layered characters and excellent performances (Nikki Blonsky, Hayley Hasselhoff, Raven Goodwin, Ari Stidham, Ashley Holliday, Harvey Guillen, Paul Dooley, and Gina Torres to name a few of the actors) make this series more of a microcosm for anyone with issues of self-confidence than the one trick pony it could've been. It is a bit strange that the season ended mid-summer and now fans have to wait all winter for the second season end of summer but that's a small price to pay for quality.

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For Me And My Gal (1942)

Gene Kelly took a risk playing an unsympathetic, draft-dodging song and dance man for his screen debut but he pulls it off in For Me And My Gal, a dramatic musical vaudeville set during World War I but made during World War II. Judy Garland is heart-breaking and endearing as the distaff half of the team; on stage and off she exudes the stuff that dreams are made of. Black and white photography and an adult script make this grittier than the usual 40s musical but the many classic songs and dances with direction by Busby Berkeley are fun and involving and it all works together.

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The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009)

Fifteen minutes into The Girl Who Played With Fire I knew I was in trouble: the plot was obvious, the action moved slowly, and everything was so simplistic - do you really get the location of a villain by mailing to a post office box a you win $100,000 letter to which the villain will respond with their address to collect the money? Is it that easy? An hour into this more than two hour movie I had already opened my phone to check the time twice, and I was screaming (internally) to leave the theatre but, I had history with these characters (having enjoyed the first film) so I stayed until the bitter end none the worse for...ahhh who are we kidding, it sucked.

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Claudine (1974)

Claudine is still as delightful a romantic comedy as they come. The story of a mother of six (played with subtlety and nuance by Academy Award nominee Diahann Carroll) being romanced by a garbage man (a smoking James Earl Jones showing off his hiney!) has aged amazingly well: the look of the film is not dated, the issues it confronts are relevant, and the script's heart stands front and center. Add an incredible score by Curtis Mayfield with Gladys Knight and the Pips and you get a real classic with heart and soul - can you dig it?

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Myra Breckinridge (1970)

Raquel Welch (looking breathtaking and showing some real acting chops as a transsexualvestite) and Mae West (hootworthy, singing songs and vamping with Tom Selleck) are the reasons to see Myra Breckinridge. A lot of other names show up as actors (John Huston, Farrah Fawcett, Rex Reed, John Carradine) and icons in black and white film clips (Judy Garland, Laurel & Hardy) and there's male rape, lesbian seduction, dirty medicine and a whole bunch more that, though interesting to see in a historical context, just doesn't add up to a good movie. What made the thing watchable is knowing that no major Hollywod studio would ever make a film like this again; it's a moment in time.

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Escape from Sobibor (1987)

Escape from Sobibor is a triumphant mini-series that tells the story of the only prisoners (both Jewish and non) to escape from a Nazi death camp during WW2. Alan Arkin and Rutger Hauer are excellent as the conspirators and the film itself, though undoubtedly too pretty to be a real document of a concentration camp, still manages to create a horrific picture of the situation. Even in its violence, the denouement is uplifting and well-documented by this British television production.

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This Property is Condemned (1966)

Natalie Wood and Robert Redford steam up the screen (as they say) in This Property is Condemned, the story of a small Depression-era town that is losing its sole source of revenue - the railroad. The film is based on a Tennessee Williams one act (and reportedly dissed by him upon its release) but is elevated by the star performances and cinematographer James Wong Howe. Kate Reid, Charles Bronson, Robert Blake and Mary Badham (she of To Kill A Mockingbird/Scout fame) offer excellent support but it's the star romance that makes this one so involving.

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The Box (2009)

Richard Kelly directed Donnie Darko, a four star piece of esoterica as well as The Box, a little less successful but still an interesting watch. After a shaky start with a weird accent, Cameron Diaz settles in as a woman who, with James Marsden as her husband, pushes a button on Frank Langella's box for one million dollars. It takes some interesting turns and can be a bit confusing but it kept me until the end...twice.

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All About Steve (2009)

I enjoy watching Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper but I did not enjoy watching their comedy, All About Steve. It wasn't funny or involving, the leads had no chemistry, and the script is ridiculous. The movie poster is better than this movie - and look how horrible the poster is.

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A Raisin in the Sun (1961)

A Raisin in the Sun is one of the best films of the 60s based on one of the best plays of the 50s that is still as relevant today as it was almost fifty years ago. The emotional resonance in the story of an African-American family that comes into a large sum of money also offers incredible and indelible performances by Sidney Poitier, Claudia MacNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands and Louis Gosset, Jr. (in his film debut). Don't let the black and white cinematography steer you away from this magnificent film that looks and feels as if it was released yesterday.

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With Six You Get Eggroll (1968)

A surprisingly robust drama is molded to fit the fabric of a Doris Day comedy in With Six You Get Eggroll. Set in the real swinging sixties (with an appearance from The Grass Roots), it tells a relatively honest tale of two people who marry quickly and must then merge their respective families (including a teenaged Barbara Hershey in her film debut). The story moves along despite the circumstances that always stop short of an onscreen shtup between Ms. Day and her co-star, Brian Keith but it's a sweet film that is a fitting cap to Ms. Day's illustrious career (to date, this is her last film).

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