Winchester '73 (1950)

The model 1873 Winchester rifle was one of the most successful rifles of its day, and became colloquially known as "The Gun That Won The West".  By white folk, anyway.  I imagine that Native American terms for it were less flattering.

Over 700,000 of the rifles were manufactured.  In a cunning marketing decision, the Winchester company separated their products into grades, based on the results of test-firing.  Those barrels with the tightest "grouping" (and thus the highest quality work) were given special badges and sold at a highly marked-up price.

This film revolves around one such "One in One Thousand" rifle, though it elevates the status of the brand even further: we are told that such perfect weapons are never sold, because they could have no price.  They can only be gifted to specific individuals ("President Grant has one") or won in contests of skill.  In this case, a target shooting competition at the "Dodge City Centennial Celebrations".

The man who wins this competition is Lin McAdam, who triumphs over 'Dutch' Brown in what is obviously a heated and personal grudge match between the two.  However Brown immediately steals the rifle and the hunt is on.  Or actually, the hunt continues - it emerges that McAdam was pursuing Brown even before this encounter.

Now McAdams has two reasons to chase Brown - their existing feud and the rifle - but ironically Brown loses the weapon a few days later.  The movie follows both McAdams and the rifle from this point on, with the rifle actually getting the larger share of the screen time.  A sensible decision, since "guy rides across the countryside" is not a terribly compelling concept for a film.

Winchester '73 is an old-fashioned western.  The Native American characters are there purely as adversaries (and played by white actors, of course - Rock Hudson is their chief).  The saloon gal has a heart of gold.  The bad guy even wears a black hat.  It's raised above mediocrity by its strong cast and by the playfulness the script displays in dialogue and the rifle's journey before it finally returns to McAdam.

Haunts (1977)

The use of unreliable narrators always makes me wary of a work of fiction - especially in film.  Sure, they can be used in clever and creative ways when employed by an expert (Kurosawa's Rashomon comes to mind), but more often than not they're a sign that the writer(s) weren't up to the task of creating mystery by honest means, and must instead resort to lying to the audience.

Which makes it doubly disappointing that this film goes the unreliable narrator route, because for the first hour or so it does create mystery, and everything we see is internally consistent.  Creepy and weird and a little bit "off", perhaps, but consistent.  But when they unveil the unreliability of - well, pretty much everything we've seen - that's all swept away.  I mean that both literally, in that we're flat out told that many events we saw simply did not occur, and thematically, in that the kind of story we're being told is fundamentally changed by the revelation.  And alas, not changed for the better.

The film Haunts appears to be for much of its length is more or less your standard 'masked killer stalks female protagonist while occasionally murdering other people' thing, though being released as it was before Halloween or Friday the 13th it does not conform to the slasher stereotypes.  Our female protagonist is in her 40s, for instance, rather than a nubile teenager, and the killer lacks the "style" (for want of a better word) of a Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees.  There's no distinctive costume, no signature weapon, no carefully orchestrated kill zones.  It's just a guy with a knife and a balaclava.

But like I said, it turns out that's not what this film is about after all.  What it is actually about is a far murkier question to answer, and frankly it doesn't give you enough reason to care.

Megamind (2010)

Some of you may have guessed this review was coming after last Monday.  You may have a gold star if you did.  Much like the gold stars won by superhero Metroman while he was at primary school with arch-rival Megamind.

Megamind (real name: Megamind) is an alien with an advanced intellect, sent to Earth by his parents when their own world was on the brink of destruction.  Which is also how Metroman got here.  One day, someone will do a superhero spoof and choose an origin story other than Superman's to parody, but it won't be in this film.

"Treading a familiar path" is kind of par for the course for this film.  I mean, it's right there in the very premise: from the studio that brought you Shrek, a movie that Shreks The Incredibles.  I suppose we should be grateful they didn't try to Shrek Toy Story.

If I sound down on the movie for this ... well, I am.  It's definitely a real weakness of the picture: you've seen everything that happens here many times before, often in Dreamworks' own films.  It's very unlikely anything plot or character-wise will surprise you.  Which is a shame, because the movie looks good and has some funny moments.  Also, when it does make an effort it includes some pretty cool stuff.  The use of music is pretty great, for instance: especially in the final confrontation between Megamind and new villain "Tighten".  And there are some key plot points where it does a good job of "showing, not telling".

Overall, if you don't mind that it's rather unambitious in its storytelling, this film is a pretty fun time.  I do wish it had tried to be more than it is, though.  It could have done with a bit more ambition.

Willow (1988)

By the late 80s the financial failure of films like Krull, Dragonslayer and Legend had so soured Hollywood on the fantasy genre that even George Lucas struggled to find financing for such projects (admitedly, Lucas had also done himself no favours with 1986's Howard the Duck).

I'd make the argument that the failure of the three aforementioned movies had more to do with them being deeply flawed films than with their genre (Sorry, Krull/Dragonslayer fans: I like them too, but they are deeply flawed).  The main problem with that argument is that Willow is also deeply flawed.

Let's start with the premise, which is pure Tolkein-with-the-runes-filed-off: there's a McGuffin that can bring about the downfall of the Evil Tyrant, and said McGuffin circumstantially ends up in the hands of a notHobbit from the notShire.  Lucas's innovations: the McGuffin is a baby, and the Evil Tyrant is a woman.

NotFrodo ... sorry, "Willow", sets off to find a human guardian for the baby.  Which is when notHanSolo ... sorry "Madmartigan" ... comes into the picture.  This rascal with a heart of gold will (at first very reluctantly) help Willow protect the baby, engage in one of the worst executed and problematic screen romances this side of Attack of the Clones, and generally handle all the action hero duties.

Lucas also wedges in a pair of bickering brownies as transparent droid expies, in case the recycled Star Wars-isms of the script weren't already frequent enough.  Either Lucas (who wrote the story) or his screen-writer also find time to wedge in some scatalogical humour.  It becomes ever easier to see where Jar Jar Binks came from.

The script has some other serious flaws: time management is a big one - both in terms of pacing and in terms of time clearly moving at different speeds in supposedly simultaneous events - while the defeat of the Evil Tyrant is one half clever trick (which I am okay with) and one half "convenient bolt of lightning from the sky suddenly zaps her" (which I am not okay with - and it's not a metaphorical "bolt of lightning", for the record, that's literally what happens).

Willow isn't just "not good": it doesn't even manage to be endearingly bad.

1911: Revolution (2011)

Jackie Chan is best known for light-hearted or outright comedic martial arts action films.  For his 100th role however he tried something new: a serious historical epic, charting the 1911 revolution that led to the fall of the Qing dynasty.  Props to him for taking on an ambitious change of pace.

If only I could also give him props for it being a good film.

Unfortunately, while it is clearly an earnest attempt to recount an important period in Chinese history, it's also a dull, meandering and didactic movie.  For all that it is full of Serious People Having Serious Conversations, it never manages to convey the gravity or conviction of the Historic Words.

Chan plays Huang Xing, who was the revolutionaries' military leader and would ultimately become the first commander-in-chief of the army of the Republic of China, after the Qing monarchy was overthrown.

The film tracks the military efforts of Xing, and the political efforts of Sun Yat-Sen, as they attempt to win their revolutionary struggle.  It also follows the deliberations of the Qing court, and the rise to a power-broking position of Qing "loyalist" General Yuan Shikai.  In real life, Shikai went on to overthrow this first Chinese Republic in 1913 and attempt to make himself the first Emperor of a new dynasty, but the film doesn't cover those events.

Spreading itself over these four different groups stretches the film thin, and does not help its general lack of dynamism.  Also not a help to the overall product is the one incongruous martial arts sequence that suddenly occurs about three-quarters of the way through.  It's like they suddenly thought "can't have a Jackie Chan movie without at least one fist fight!" and wedged in the sixty second fracas without a single thought for how it tonally clashes with literally every other moment of the film.

Bit of a mess this, alas.

Exit Humanity (2011)

This zombie western has a strong first act, ending in a particularly harrowing moment for its protagonist.  Thereafter however, it could probably have done with a couple more re-writes to tighten it up, as it loses some momentum during the second half.  It's still watchable - carried along by strong performances and canny production that makes it look like a more expensive movie than it is - but it doesn't quite live up to its early promise.

That said, it still earns a qualified recommendation because if you're at all a fan of the zombie milieu (and judging by the popularity of The Walking Dead, plenty of people are) then this is worth your time.  While it doesn't always gel quite as well as I would like, it's got more to say than the average misanthropic entry in the genre, and it's made by people who obviously know and understand their craft.

Exit Humanity posits a zombie outbreak in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War, and follows the experiences of a Confederate soldier named Edward when he returns home to find his wife is infected and his son is missing.  He slays and buries his wife, and sets out to find his boy.

You may find this an odd thing for a zombie movie to be, but this film is at its core a story about love - whether it be romantic, paternal, fraternal, or for one's country - and the good and bad that can come from that strong emotion.  Love is the cause of the zombie plague.  Love brings Edward to his lowest moments.  But love also motivates the positive actions of characters in the film, and it is through love that Edward is able to endure his experiences and find hope for the future.

In need of some tightening up it may be, but I'm glad I saw this film.

Naked Massacre (1976)

In 1966 Richard Speck broke into a townhouse in Chicago and systematically murdered the eight young women he found inside.  A ninth woman, whom he somehow missed or lost track of, survived by hiding under a bed.  Her description of a tattoo on his arm (reading "Born for Hell", also an alternate title of this movie) led to his eventual arrest and incarceration.  He would die in prison 25 years later.

I mention all this because - as you might have surmised from the alternate title I mention above - this is a fictionalised account of the murders.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is a fictional film heavily based on the murders.  The events of the movie take place in Belfast, for instance, so it's certainly not meant to be a literal retelling.  The protagonist - because in one of the most distasteful elements of this distasteful film, the murderer is more or less our point of view character - is also recast as a Vietnam veteran.  Or at least that's what he claims to be.  Some of the other stories he tells have inconsistencies, which is possibly a subtle hint that we shouldn't believe the things he says about his past ... or it could just be lousy writing.

Ultimately this is an 85 minute movie that dedicates more than half its running time to graphically depicting pseudo-Speck's abuse and murder of eight women.  It's deeply unpleasant to watch, not the least because it the script seems to have more sympathy for the murderer than his victims.

Yuck.