November Screenings: Best & Worst

                      November Screenings: Best & Worst

Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. If you STILL have Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge, well, you made too much food, but feel free to snack away while we recap the Best & Worst of the films screened here at Cinema Wellman in the month of November. 

Because of the holiday and the holiday travel, November was a tad light here with only 40 films screened. Even with so few choices, you know we still have some bombs and a film or two we’d like to talk about in a positive way.

As always. 

We’re pretty consistent here in the cinema.

Let’s begin at the bottom as we always do, and since we once again did not screen L’Avventura this month, we’ll start with The Terminal Man. 

The Terminal Man (1974)

PG/107 m/IMDb: 5.6/dir. Mike Hodges 

I love George Segal, and it pains me to include this film in the worst of the month since I think he was tremendously talented and has an impressive body of work.

The Terminal Man is not part of that body.

From our friends at IMDb: “Hoping to cure his violent seizures, a man agrees to a series of experimental microcomputers inserted into his brain but inadvertently discovers that violence now triggers a pleasurable response in his brain.” 

Yes. It’s as stupid as it sounds.

It was written by Michael Crichton, who was fired from writing the screenplay due to the fact that it didn’t follow the novel closely enough.

He WROTE the NOVEL!!

Stanley Kubrick loved this for some reason, but he also made Eyes Wide Shut, so… 

Speaking of Kubrick, he’s the guest in next week’s “Director’s Corner” episode as Cinema Wellman carves out their Mt. Rushmore of Kubrick movies. Please join us for that, especially if you like Kubrick!

The Terminal Man is bad science fiction, and it’s bad 70s science fiction which kind of makes it worse in a lot of ways.

George Segal was much better than this. Even his appearance in 2012 was better than this!

Next up is a movie Hollywood legend Joan Crawford said was the worst movie she ever made.

I haven’t seen all of your films, Joan, but I will agree with you after seeing…

Trog (1970)

GP/93 m/IMDb: 4.0/dir. Freddie Francis

Joan Crawford was a critically acclaimed Oscar winning actress with over 100 film and television credits to her name over the course of her career.

The last film she made was Trog in 1970. I’m sure she wished she called it quits before this mess. 

IMDb: “A sympathetic anthropologist uses drugs and surgery to try to communicate with a primitive troglodyte who is found in a local cave.”

I think the drugs weren’t only used on Trog in this one. 

This was such a low budget film that Joan Crawford had to supply her own wardrobe. 

There was a Stanley Kubrick link to The Terminal Man and there’s a Stanley Kubrick link to Trog!

The ratty-ass ape suit worn by Trog was left over from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

You cannot make this stuff up. 

Nor can you fathom why the WORST movie we watched in November was even made.

This one was a stunner. 

Money Plane (2020)

NR/82 m/IMDb: 3.2/dir. Andrew Lawrence

First of all, I have to “thank” John Oliver for this one. I had never heard of Money Plane, and it never would have shown up on my radar screen without him mentioning it on his show and describing it as one of the worst things you could ever see. 

I trust John Oliver implicitly, and after watching Money Plane, that trust has been forever cemented.

This was an abomination.

Money Plane stars…well, I don’t even know where to start.

Denise Richards is in this.

The lead is former WWE star Adam “Edge” Copeland.

Kelsey Grammar plays a villain named Darius Grouch III, a.k.a. “The Rumble.”

I AM NOT making this up!

Go ahead, IMDb…” A professional thief with a $40 million debt and his family’s life on the line must commit one final heist - rob a futuristic airborne casino filled with the world’s most dangerous criminals.”

Do you remember the Lawrence brothers? Andrew, Matthew, and Joey?

The Lawrence Brothers are ALL in this! 

Whoa!

And Andrew Lawrence directed it! 

Double Whoa!

I’ll sum this up with an actual line of dialogue spoken by Kelsey Grammar as he attempts to explain that absolutely anything can be wagered on when it comes to money plane.

And I quote, “You want to bet on a dude fucking an alligator? Money Plane.”

And…yuck.

I’m pretty sure DraftKings does NOT have that wager!

As difficult as it may seem to be to pivot from that, let’s take a look at four fine films we screened this month at Cinema Wellman. 

One is from this year, but the other three were all made way before I was born.

November was “Oldies Month” this year!

Not quite “No-New November,” but close to it.

We’ll start current and move backwards starting with friend of Cinema Wellman Jennifer Lawrence in…

No Hard Feelings (2023)

R/103 m/IMDb: 6.4/dir. Gene Stupitsky

“On the brink of losing her home, Maddie finds an intriguing job listing; helicopter parents looking for someone to bring their introverted 19-year-old son out of his shell before college.” ~IMDb

I thought Jennifer Lawrence was tremendous when I first saw her in 2010’s Winter’s Bone. She is an extremely talented actress who has been nominated for four Oscars, has won one, and I think will win others in her career.

I’ve seen just about everything she’s done, and I’ve also seen her interviewed on a few talk shows. She’s a very, very funny person, so it’s no surprise that she pulled off this raunchy comedy directed by Gene Stupitsky.

Lawrence has great comic timing, and a very expressive (and beautiful) face, both of which aid in creating quality comedy.

The story is very silly, of course. The young man is played by Andrew Barth Feldman. I had never seen him before, but he is very good in this film as a 19-year-old who somehow isn’t interested in Jennifer Lawrence.

That’s really one of the funniest bits in the movie. She throws herself at him, but it’s just not working. 

It’s JENNIFER LAWRENCE!

Feldman’s parents are played by Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick, and they are a total treat. They try to act hip and with it, but they’re really very awkward. Their initial meeting with Lawrence is especially funny.

“We want you to know that we have the utmost respect for sex workers.”

There’s also a funny bit about Lawrence’s age.

I had a feeling Jennifer Lawrence was different in her approach to what she does for a living, and she proves that and more in this movie by doing something that not many actresses or actors would do.

She has a fight scene in which she fights both women and men on a beach, and she’s totally naked. Not a stitch, and not a body double. Good for her!

It kind of removes the mystery about the body of an A-List starlet on her terms. Kind of like, “You want to see me naked? Check this out!”

I think Jennifer Lawrence has a beautiful body but seeing it in a fight scene reminded me of an episode of “Seinfeld” when Jerry’s beautiful girlfriend hung out at his apartment naked ALL THE TIME. 

She was struggling to open pickle jars, fixing a bicycle, I mean, just not things you want to see someone do nude. 

Even Jennifer Lawrence. 

I have so much respect for her, and I’m looking forward to seeing all of her movies going forward.

The last three movies on our best list for November were all made before 1947, but we are NOT ageist here at Wellman!

Let’s start with 1931’s The Cheat. 

The Cheat (1931)

UR/74 m/IMDb: 6.3/dir. George Abbott/Berthold Viertel

“A woman in debt makes an impulsive investment which doesn’t go her way.”

The woman in this pre-Hays Code movie is played by Tallulah Bankhead. Tallulah was a tad notorious and scandalous in her day with several stories making the rounds of her sexual escapades. Bankhead once claimed she was “ambisextrous,” which is an excellent way to describe what you enjoy. 

This 1931 movie was actually a REMAKE of a 1915 movie made by Cecil B. DeMille. 

So, remakes are nothing new in movies!

Bankhead’s character, Elsa, has a lot of vices. One of them is gambling, and she racks up $10k in debt which would be $200k today.

Elsa even embezzles from a charity she works with. 

Bad choices there, Elsa.

Four’s a Crowd (1938)

AP/93 m/IMDb: 6.3/dir. Michael Curtiz

“Robert will do anything to get the big account that has eluded him. His public relations business makes public angels of rich scoundrels. Jean needs someone to save the paper, and she wants Robert.”

The only reason this film caught my eye is because it was directed by Michael Curtiz. 

Michael Curtiz just happens to be the most watched director here at Cinema Wellman, and Four’s A Crowd is the 46th film we’ve screened that he directed. 

This is essentially a rom com! 

And I still liked it!

Michael Curtiz could do it all! I know that I can trust him with any genre, and I obviously do!

Erroll Flynn is excellent in this screwball comedy proving that he wasn’t only good at playing pirates and other guys with swords. 

The writing is crisp, snappy, and snarky, which typifies movies of this type during this time period. The misadventures of the quartet are quite amusing.

The butler is fantastic and reminded me of John Gielgud in Arthur. So snarky. 

While researching this movie I came across some of the PR for it, and it was amazing how they promoted movies back in the day, especially in print, which you don’t really see much anymore. Unfortunately. 

That leaves us with one oldie left as the “Best” of November here at Cinema Wellman.

And it was a doozy.

Decoy (1946)

AP/76 m/IMDb: 6.8/dir. Jack Bernhard

“A mortally wounded female gangster recounts how she and her gang revived an executed killer from the gas chamber to try and find out where he buried a fortune in cash.”

This is a true “B-movie,” and it is proof that they can be as good as the features they preceded back in the day. 

That premise is bananas! 

And the lead, played by Jean Gillie, is billed as “Miss Jean Gille” and she’s given an “Introducing” credit!

She’s ruthless and vicious! 

Gillie only made two Hollywood movies and they were pretty much filmed simultaneously in 1946.

I really enjoyed her in this, but she didn’t have much of a career at all. 

This is one of those cases where a person receiving the “Introducing” credit was given that distinction due to who they were “attached to” at the time. 

Gillie made this movie with director Jack Bernhard. Bernhard also happened to be her husband when Decoy was made. 

I think she would have had a career as a femme-fatale in film-noir movies, but she left us quite early at the age of 33 after only 20 films.

Gillie received the “Introducing” credit for this film even though it was her 19th of 20 career films.

You never know with that credit, which is one of the reasons it fascinates me.

Well, that’s a wrap for our Best & Worst Screenings of the month of November here at Cinema Wellman.

The message today is if you’re a movie fan, you owe it to yourself to seek out and watch old movies. There’s so much out there that’s worth seeing.

Don’t think that cinema was invented the year you were born.

That black and white stuff is phenomenal. 

We hope you join us next week when we continue our “Director’s Corner” series with a focus on Stanley Kubrick.

We will be presenting our “Mt. Rushmore” of movies directed by Kubrick, which means a lot of his popular/critically acclaimed movies are not going to make it! Join us to see who makes the cinematic granite quartet!

Until then, take care.