THE EXPLOSIVE REVIEW

Starring: George Lazenby, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas, Gabriele Ferzetti, Ilse Steppat, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, George Baker, Desmond Llewelyn, Angela Scoular, Catherine Schell, and Julie Ege.

Directed by: Peter R. Hunt.

Story:
This time around, James Bond faces Blofeld again, who is this time using a group of brainwashed women, known as his “angels of death”, to unveil a plague to mankind. Meanwhile, Bond falls in love with a woman whom he eventually marries, Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo.

Characters:
*James Bond (George Lazenby): The master of women, gadgets, and adventure although at the hands of a much talented newcomer actor.
*Tracy di Vincenzo (Diana Rigg): Draco’s daughter, a countess who wins over 007’s heart.
*Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas): 007’s nemesis, leader of SPECTRE.
*Marc-Ange Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti): Tracy’s father, owns a major crime syndicate called Union Corse.
*Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat): Blofeld’s number one henchwoman, straight out of Nazi camp.
*M (Bernard Lee): Head of M16 Secret Service.
*Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell): M’s secretary.
*Q (Desmond Llewelyn): Bond’s master of gadgets.

Overall:
The sixth James Bond film is the only one to star the most underrated Bond of all time, George Lazenby. After “You Only Live Twice”, Sean Connery quit playing the role and came back one more time after “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” for the follow-up, “Diamonds Are Forever”. This is the second film in what is known as The Blofeld Trilogy (”You Only Live Twice”, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, and “Diamonds Are Forever”).

The first half is a bit slow at first and involves a lot of build up - Bond meets and begins to fall for Contessa while he tracks Blofeld down to his new base/observatory located in the Swiss Alps, where he eventually goes undercover as a geneaologist. In one shocking and somewhat creepy moment, Bond’s cover is blown, leading to an action-packed second half with plenty of hair-raising moments and sequences that aren’t that over the top and are quite believable. There’s plenty of ski chases, fights in the snow, and even a jaw-dropping avalanche sequence.

James and Tracy’s (Contessa) romance is quite believable and seem like a match made in heaven, she’s no damsel in distress, she’s got as much balls as 007 himself. Once they get rid of the bad guys (or rather, just about), they get married and almost make it to a happy ending up until the final moment which delivers a huge emotional and heart-wrenching blow - Their love began as a payment and concluded with a holy sacrament, only to be killed by the conventions it opposed.

This film is an underrated and overlooked gem in the Bond franchise, mostly due to the fact that Sean Connery is nowhere to be found. George Lazenby does a realistically amazing job as 007, not only does he project the confidence that makes him who he is, but he shows us in many scenes that he can be vulnerable and jittery at times in the utmost dangerous of situations that he encounters. It’s a pity that he didn’t get a second round at the title character.

Peter R. Hunt directs this time around, whom was previously a film editor as well as a second unit director on the previous chapters. While it wasn’t as lucrative as “You Only Live Twice” at the box office, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, it did go on to gross $87 million worldwide, presenting with very positive reviews, and becoming one of the highest grossing films (worldwide) in 1969.

Rating: ****

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Carl Weathers, Burt Young, Burgess Meredith, Tony Burton, Joe Spinell, and Sylvia Meals.

Directed by: Sylvester Stallone.

Story:
The film opens with the last round of the original fight in “Rocky”, resulting in both Rocky and Apollo obtaining several devastating injuries. Apollo is announced as the winner by split decision, but retains the championship based on points. The two fighters are transported to the hospital where a mob of reporters hassle them. Meanwhile, Apollo is furious with Rocky who is the first opponent to go the distance with him in a fight, anxious for another chance to knock him out. Later that night, Rocky visits Apollo in his hospital room and asks if he gave him his best, to which Apollo responds Yeah. Rocky decides there won’t be a rematch and announces his retirement from boxing due to his medical surgery.

Released from the hospital, the story builds upon the lives of the characters that were introduced in the last film. Rocky and Adrian spend some of their wealth, buy a car, some nice clothes, they get married, and make a baby as well. Meanwhile, a recovering Apollo Creed receives a lot of disappointing fan mail degrading his role in the fight between him and Balboa. This leads to Apollo challenging Rocky for a rematch. Rocky, eventually, goes for it. But at the same time, not all is well with Adrian’s pregnancy and she slips into a coma as he trains for the rematch fight.

Characters:
*Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone): The former loan shark enforcer turned heavyweight champion thanks to an exchange of cuts and bruises from his previous fight with Apollo.
*Adrian Pennino-Balboa (Talia Shire): Rocky’s romantic interest, a shy pet store clerk, whom he marries this time around and has a baby with.
*Paulie Pennino (Burt Young): Adrian’s brother and Rocky’s best friend; works in a meat-packing plant.
*Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers): Heavyweight champion until Rocky knocked his lights out in the previous fight, now he wants a rematch.
*Mickey Goldmill (Burgess Meredith): Former bantamweight fighter from the 20s turned trainer/manager for Rocky.
*Tony ‘Duke’ Evers (Tony Burton): Apollo’s trainer.
*Mary Anne Creed (Sylvia Meals): Apollo’s wife who tries to deter him from the rematch.

Overall:
The story continues in “Rocky II” and this time the screenwriter and main actor himself directs - Sylvester Stallone. Also returning from the original is Carl Weathers as Apollo, Burgess Meredith as Mickey, Burt Young as Paulie, Talia Shire as Adrian, Joe Spinell as Gazzo, Tony Burton as Duke, and Sylvia Meals as Apollo’s wife Mary-Anne. “Rocky II” tells the story of a rematch between Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed, following ten months after the previous up to the new fight.

In “Rocky II”, the story does indeed continue as the film’s tagline tells us and the story itself can be regarded as one of the most successful and well-written sequels ever made that is certainly up-to-par with “The Godfather, Part II”, “Dawn of the Dead”, “Aliens”, and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”.

Rating: ****

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Starring: Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, and Austin Pendleton.

Directed By: Peter Bogdanovich.

Story:
Somebody with an attention span disorder (aka 90% of today’s young audience) will not be able to tolerate a clever plot like this one. There’s four identical bags - One cotains a bunch of igneous tambula rocks which belongs to Dr. Howard Banister (Ryan O’Neal), a musicologist from the Iowa Conservatory of Music, along with his very annoying and overbearing fiance, Eunice Burns (Madeline Kahn). They have arrived at San Francisco in hopes of winning a grant funded by Frederick Larrabee (Austin Pendleton). Howard’s theory revolves around how ancient man may have used rocks to create music. Challenging him for the grant is the uptight, dubiously-accented Hugh Simon (Kenneth Mars).

     The second bag belongs to Judy Maxwell (Streisand), filled with her clothes (a dictionary included). Everywhere this girl goes, trouble goes along right with her. Car accidents and confusing scenarios galore. Being a college drop out, she happens to be very intelligent and can talk herself out of just about anything she gets herself into.
Bag number three belongs to Mrs. Van Hoskins (Mabel Albertson), a rich old lady who stores her extremely valuable jewels in the bag. The fourth and last bag contains some top-secret government documents that belongs to the mysterious Mr. Smith (Michael Murphy), who has obtained them illegally with the intention of going public. Rivaling him is the mysterious Mr. Jones (Philip Roth) who happens to be a government agent who’s mission is to get those documents back to where they belong.

     Following me so far? Good. All of those people happen to check into the same San Francisco Hotel. The main catalyst for the chaos and confusion that follows is Judy Maxwell, for the most part. She lodges herself into the hotel without paying and pursues Howard whom she finds very attractive and tries to deter him from marrying that wicked witch of a fiance he has, she goes to great hilarious lengths to win the heart of her desire (i.e. posing as his fiance while securing the Grant for Howard). Meanwhile, two hotel employees (Sorrell Booke and Stefan Gierasch) are plotting to steal Mrs. Van Hoskins’s bag (the one with the jewels in it), but at the same time, Agent Jones is trying to get the government bag back from Mr. Smith. Over the course of one evening, the four different parties unwittingly take one another’s bags (i.e. Howard ends up with the jewels, Judy with the documents, Mr. Smith with Judy’s clothes, and the hotel thieves with Howard’s rocks). Things get way, way out of control in some of the most funniest situations ever imagined on film, from burning hotel rooms, a shootout, and to one of the most laugh-out loud and longest multi-car chases that scales down the hills of San Francisco, Chinatown, and into the San Francisco Bay. The film has an anti-climax which continues in a hilarious courtroom/arrest sequence and then an airport where everything gets tied up very neatly.

Characters:
*Judy Maxwell (Barbra Streisand): A big troublemaker where, no matter where she goes, trouble just happens to find her.
*Dr. Howard Bannister (Ryan O’Neal): A musicologist from the Iowa Conservatory of Music.
*Eunice Burns (Madeline Kahn): Howard’s overbearing fiancee who doesn’t know how to relax.
*Hugh Simon (Kenneth Mars): Another musicologist who wants nothing but to compete with Howard for Mr. Larrabee’s attention.
*Frederick Larrabee (Austin Pendleton): The funder behind the grant which Howard and Hugh are competing for.

Overall:
     It’s movies like “What’s Up, Doc?” that reminds us that good comedy actually exists out there amidst all of the saturated garbage. The film pays homage to the genre of screwball comedy that ran rampant mostly in the 1930s like “Laurel and Hardy”, “Bringing Up Baby”, the Bugs Bunny cartoons, among others. In fact, it is a remake (in a way) of “Bringing Up Baby”.

     As the third highest grossing film of 1972, “What’s Up, Doc?” was a huge cinematic hit that won Best Written Comedy and even made the lists of American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest Comedies (#61) and AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Passions (#68). Although the film is dated in some ways, you won’t find comedies like this in today’s mostly screwed up cinematic era. Don’t let the decade it was made in fool you, “What’s Up, Doc?” is a true comedic gem that will forever bring you to your knees laughing.

Rating: *****

Starring: Derek Mears, Jared Padalecki, Danielle Panabaker, Aaron Yoo, Amanda Righetti, Nana Visitor, Jonathon Sadowski, Ben Feldman, Nick Mennell, America Olivo, Willa Ford, Ryan Hansen, Juilianna Guill, Arien Escarpeta, and Travis Van Winkle.

Directed by: Marcus Nispel.

Story:
About 30 years ago, young Jason Voorhees witnesses the beheading of his mother by a camp counselor who was the last survivor of Mrs. Voorhees’ murderous rampage at Camp Crystal Lake. Now, in present day, a group of teens vacation nearby Crystal Lake in search of weed that was planted in the surrounding wood areas. The pack is killed by Jason, all except for Whitney, who is kept prisoner beneath the campsite due to the resemblance between her and his mother.

A month later, Whitney’s brother, Clay, has been searching endlessly for her. While searching near Camp Crystal Lake, he runs into some trouble with Trent who is driving his friends to his summer vacation cabin nearby. Jason Voorhees hunts them down one by one as Clay continues to search for his missing sister with the help of Trent’s girlfriend who is falling for him.

Characters:
*Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears): The looming and iconic hockey-mask wearing murder who needs no introduction.
*Mrs. Voorhees (Nana Visitor): Jason’s mother who makes a brief cameo at the very beginning.
*Wade (Jonathon Sadowski): A nerdy GPS-using, know-it-all geek who is very well-informed about Camp Crystal Lake.
*Richie (Ben Feldman): Wade’s buddy who doesn’t believe in the scary stories that he shares with him but does share the same desire to find weed in the woods and get rich off of it.
*Mike (Nick Mennell): A friend of Wade and Richie.
*Whitney (Amanda Righetti): Mike’s girlfriend who goes missing after her five friends get killed by Jason in the beginning.
*Amanda (America Olivo): Richie’s freaky girlfriend.
*Trent (Travis Van Winkle): Leader of the new pack of teens who are introduced after the first batch is killed. He’s the a-hole of the pack.
*Jenna (Danielle Panabaker): Trent’s far more sympathetic and caring girlfriend who seems to be more interested in Clay.
*Chewie (Aaron Yoo): An Asian dude whose nick name is the work wizard and that’s not just because he masturbates, according to him that is.
*Chelsea (Willa Ford): Nolan’s girlfriend.
*Nolan (Ryan Hansen): Trent’s best buddy and Chelsea’s boyfriend.
*Bree (Julianna Guill): A freaky white girl whom Trent cheats on Jenna with.
*Lawrence (Arlen Escarpeta): A funny, down-for-anything African-American dude whom makes his presence well-aware to everyone and is not afraid to speak the truth in a humorous way.
*Clay (Jared Padalecki): Whitney’s brother who is in search of his missing sister.

Overall:
When I first heard that this was going to be remade, rebooted, or whatever the heck you want to call it, I just wanted to smack myself in the head and say “Oh no, not again”, then I watched the trailer and thought to myself, “Typical, so sad”. But you know what? This remake totally surprised me. I think this remake could stand right up there with the new ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ films that came out in this decade, is it no wonder that they were also directed by Marcus Nispel who directed this?

If you’re looking for some new twist on the slasher genre, “Friday The 13th” doesn’t offer any of the sort, instead it accepts what it is and lets it be clearly known - Ridiculousness, death, dismemberment, teenage sex, party animals, and the like. That’s exactly what the franchise contained. This remake contains a huge amount of nostalgia and references to other films. Mind you, this is a remake of Parts I-IV in the “Friday The 13th” franchise, not just the first one.

There appears to have been some effort put into the death of the characters as many of them are quite impressive. They even put enough effort to make some of these faces in the cast stand out. The script adds a black and Asian character to keep up to date with the ‘movies of the millennium’. The plot of a brother searching for his sister is well written, executed, and adds a little more juice to this ‘Friday The 13th’ story to make it stand out.

Jason is now able to run, not as fast as the zombies from the “Dawn of the Dead” remake, but enough to make him more menacing and scary; he also has a somewhat sympathetic backstory now which doesn’t soften him in any way whatsoever. Also notable is the fact that he slowly obtains his hockey mask as the film progresses. The film has an open-ended climax, of course (what did you expect?) and, while I wasn’t left with a sense of “you’ve got to be kidding me”, I was left wondering how on Earth they plan to make one, two, five, heck even ten MORE films in this “rebooted” franchise and have them be as good as this one or the old ones?

Rating: ****

Starring: Peter Sellers, Robert Webber, Herbert Lom, Robert Loggia, Paul Stewart, and Dyan Cannon.

Directed by: Blake Edwards.

Story:
Businessman Philippe Douvier (Webber) has ties to the New York Mafia and is sealing a deal for a highly profitable drug-smuggling opeartion with them. Thinking he may be too old and therefore not up to the task, Douvier sets out to prove his worthiness by taking out Chief Inspector Clouseau (Sellers) once and for all. Douvier’s assassination attempts force Clouseau to dip into his bag of wits and tricks to thwart his new nemesis.
But when Clouseau accidentally slips out of one of Douvier’s biggest traps, he is deemed dead and his ex-boss Charles Dreyfus (Lom) is deemed sane and released from the mental asylum to be assigned to the case. Clouseau resurfaces and, with the help of Cato and Douvier’s mistress Simone, he seeks out his revenge on Douvier and attempts to sabotage his drug operation.

Characters:
*Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers): The one and only, the legendary bumbling French accented detective who survives without effort and gets into trouble almost everywhere he goes.
*Ex-Commissioner Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom): Clouseau’s ex-boss who turned villain in the last film, he is now a crazed inpatient locked up at a mental institution. But soon he becomes reinstated as Inspector after Clouseau is believed to be dead.
*Cato (Burt Kwouk): Clouseau’s long-time tormented servant returns once again for more hilarious and torturous exercises.
*Simone LeGree (Dyan Cannon): Douvier’s very, very hot sexpot Mistress.
*Philippe Douvier (Robert Webber): An insecure drug lord who is intent on taking out Clouseau by any means necessary.

Overall:
As the sixth film in the ‘Pink Panther’ series, “Revenge of the Pink Panther” marks the last appearance of Peter Sellers in the role of Clouseau before his unfortunate death in real life - MGM never experienced box office success with any other film in the franchise after this one until the 2006 remake. This is also the third film in the series that has absolutely no relation to the Pink Panther jewel from the first film.

“Revenge of the Pink Panther” isn’t as shabby and hilarious as the previous entry, “The Pink Panther Strikes Again”, but it displays enough wit and humor to keep it afloat and make it just as interesting and funny to watch. Sellers’ character never gets boring and the comedy gags can still hit all the right spots, this time they range from Clouseau being robbed at gunpoint by a transvestite who eventually falls for the trap that was set for Clouseau, Dreyfus’ many accidental encounters with Clouseau, Dovuier’s assassination attempts on Clouseau, and much more.

The villain Douvier doesn’t top Clouseau’s arch-nemesis and former boss, Charles Dreyfus, who played the main bad guy last time around. However, fortunately enough, Dreyfus is definitely in this one and plays no small role either - Due to the events of the last film, his character was locked away in an asylum, but here he is deemed sane and released to solve the Douvier case after Clouseau is believed to be dead, but the truth is he’s still alive so both Clouseau and Dreyfus are unknowingly trying to solve the same case and keep running into each other. The Pink Panther series gets its revenge here with a barrel of laughs.

Rating: ***1/2