I was eager to dive into the next film in the Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, because I hadn’t seen the movie in many years. In fact, my first exposure to it was in a condensed, film-strip form in elementary school.
You remember those—still photos with audio clips from the film, plus additional narration to tie the summarized snippets together.
When I finally saw the full movie a few years later, I realized that I actually didn’t miss much in terms of major plot points, but that a film strip really drains a lot of the magic out of things like Gene Wilder’s performance as the (clearly insane) Willy Wonka.
This is a weird movie, but much of the weirdness stems from elements of Roald Dahl’s book (he also wrote the screenplay, although parts were rewritten when he missed deadlines, causing Dahl to disown the film). Among the odd elements are: Continue reading
Bullitt, the next film in the 
For about 25 minutes, there’s not a single line of dialogue in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
With my renewed, pandemic-commitment to reviewing the 
I thought there could be no better time to resume my on-again, off-again relationship with the 
About six minutes in, Paul, the primary player on this particular episode, stumbles across what appears to be a large present, complete with ribbon and bow. As a giant, Mode-7-ified question mark displays on screen, Paul, Nick, and Josh shriek in anticipation . . . before Plok suddenly reappears in a hunter’s outfit, carrying a large gun.
The Axis of Ego 
Untimely Movie Review: Dirty Harry
But Clint Eastwood’s signature performance was next up in the Warner Brothers 50 Film Collection. Like Bullitt, this is a movie about police officers in San Francisco. Unlike Bullitt, this is a much more in-your-face, blood-and-guts cop flick, complete with wildly unrealistic criminal and procedural scenarios.
If you’re looking for nuance, this isn’t the movie for you.
The movie pits Eastwood’s gruff, rogue Callahan up against Andy Robinson’s “Scorpio,” a wild-haired, wilder-eyed cartoon character of a serial killer.
This is one of those examples of a movie that works better if you turn your brain off. Well, maybe not off, but at least down.
The film, and Eastwood’s character, serves as a counter-counter-culture piece, at a time (and in a place) in which things seemed to be swinging too far in one direction for much of the country’s tastes. Debauchery, criminality, and a justice system that seemed to be realigning to help criminals combine to form the backdrop of Harry Callahan’s San Francisco, much darker and more dangerous even than Bullitt‘s San Francisco of just three years prior.
As I said, the plot doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny. The biggest issue is the notion that Scorpio would somehow get off scot free because Callahan beats a confession out of him while frantically searching for a girl who’s been buried alive. The DA and an appellate judge(!) both conclude that Scorpio has to be set free, even though the girl has been found dead, with the DA admonishing Callahan and saying that he couldn’t even get a conviction “for spitting on the sidewalk” in light of the illegal search and interrogation.
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