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JakeStevens Blog

  • Two Unsinkable Actors On The Titanic Of Westerns

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    While certainly not one of Eastwood's better Westerns, I still mostly enjoyed this film thanks to Shirley MacLaine's not-quite-believeable performance as a nun of questionable habits (no pun intended). She floats by on her indefatigable charm, and Eastwood yet again plays the "man with no name" character to somewhat diminishing effect, but through it all the story barely stays glued together due to their personality conflicts. Not for everybody, but truth be told, I'll give this another spin at some point.


  • Early Uncharacteristic Drama From Hitchcock, But Better Than That Sounds

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    The Skin Game  (1931)

    Hitch is still learning his craft here, and one would be hard pressed to be convinced he had a hand in this production were it not for the opening credits acknowledging his involvement. In his defense, "sound" was a new filmic "trick", and in several scenes the distance from the actors to the hidden microphone is quite noticable as their voices are echoey and distant, that is, until they move closer to the mic. The acting is a tad stagey, even for this era, but the story is fairly solid, even though a straight dramatic film is uncharacteristic of Hitchcock's style, which soon hereafter he would begin to hone. There are several moments of the Hitchcock we would all come to know and love, but for the most part, the camera work is staid and typical for this era. Regardless of all this, I enjoyed it more than I had anticipated, perhaps to its noteriety as one of Hitch's least-successful experiments, and I suppose I would spin this DVD on a rainy day at some point in the future.


  • Jumbled. A Mess. Could Have Been.

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    The Chamber  (1996)

    All of the phrases mentioned above were floating through my head as I watched this film. Gene Hackman, as usual, pulls in a fine performance, even with the drivel he is given to work with. Surprisingly, Chris O'Donnell mostly holds his own with Hackman and Dunaway, and has some honest chemistry with Lela Rochon. But therein begins the problems. The racism presented here in the film seems to be a plot device for other topics such as family disfunction and alcoholism. Is this ethically or morally proper for James Foley (whose work I generally enjoy) to subject us to such racism and hate, which the story could have been focused on, for a tawdry and run-of-the-mill story? I don't think so, and as the story came to its conclusion, I felt cheapen and lead-on by this film's exploitative tactics. Sorry folks...this one is for Hackman, Foley or Dunaway completists ONLY.


 

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