THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE HELICOPTER SPIES (1968)

Early in U.N.C.L.E.’s four-year run (especially after it switched to color), when its popular appeal seemed bulletproof, their M-G-M masters figured they could spin the occasional two-part episodes into eight ready-made  theatrical features simply by ‘letterboxing’ tv’s 1.33 to 1 Academy Ratio frame into standard ‘flat’ (1.85 to 1) for that big screen flavor.  Regularly done for international sales, here they also played Stateside under new titles.  What M-G-M didn’t count on was the show cooling off as fast as it did.*)  This seventh release seems representative of the lot.  Not necessarily a good thing as, with the notable exception of agent Robert Vaughn/Napoleon Solo’s trim worsted suits, and agent David McCallum/Illya Kuryakin’s floppy flaxen locks, not much held up then . . . or now.  Director Boris Sagal does pull off a tricky train hijacking (a NASA rocket stolen by the bad guys), but what’s crucial in these ‘60s Spy-vs-Spy near spoofs is setting & holding tone.  Here, all over the place with some aiming for fun, some aiming for funny, others playing straight, and a few going full tv BATMAN camp.  The silly plot has Bradford Dillman tricking Solo & Kuryakin into helping him steal mad inventor John Dehner’s deadly Thermal Prism.  With it, he and his religious cult gals can control the world . . . IF they can launch it into space.  Maybe if they’d left the commercials in we’d have some real, as opposed to guyed, period flavor.  Instead, it now seems neither fish nor fowl; just spoiled.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  IMDb viewer ratings give the two-part original tv version (THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS AFFAIR/’67) a 7.5 whereas the one-part movie release earns a mere 5.7.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *A failed spin-off, THE GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E./’66, sapped mojo from the original series, which never quite recovered its early buzz.

COUP DE CHANCE (2023)

While a combination of age, scattershot quality, cancel culture, artistic exile and sagging box-office has reduced Woody Allen’s former release pattern (one a year for five decades; his last truly popular success MIDNIGHT IN PARIS/’11), this most recent film (after a three year break) shows revived filmmaking chops, and more interest in design, character and content than he has offered in years.  Working with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro in Paris no doubt helps.  As does shooting in French, a language Allen ain’t idiomatic in.  But as his last few films featured English that might have been written and spoken by foreigners, perhaps lack of fluency is an advantage.  (As blindness was to Allen’s director in HOLLYWOOD ENDING.)  Seriously old-fashioned melodrama: infidelity, murder, accidental retribution; only a period setting goes missing.  Pity.  But still amusingly mean-spirited within Allen’s typical upper-crust milieu.  Lou de Laâge plays distracted wife to Melvil Poupaud’s shady/controlling personal money manager for the rich & striving.  Accidentally bumping into former classmate Niels Schneider, de Laâge falls into a casual affair that turns serious.*  But when M. Cuckold inevitably sniffs it out, he quickly decides to snuff it out . . .  permanently.  Later, when his visiting MIL hears her daughter’s confession, she puts two-and two together before placing herself in harm’s way deer hunting with the son-in-law.  (Really, Woody?  Deer hunting?)  More society gossip anecdote than developed story, Allen smartly skates over the plot in the manner of French masters Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol.  (Probably more like Hollywood loving Chabrol who adored the ‘40s fare this apes.*)  All told, good late Allen.  And an encouraging sign for his next, now filming in Spain.  Hopefully in Spanish!

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Note the use of his signature jaunty jazz at even the darkest parts of the film, playing against story tone. 

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *If this had been a real 1940s Hollywood pic, there’d be a late second act reveal on how there was nothing accidental about the meeting.  It was all a plan by her former schoolmate.  As for our Chabrol wet dream suggestion, he’d definitely have been thinking of 20th/Fox as the studio; and holding out for Gene Tierney, Tyrone Power and George Sanders.  But the MIL gets a sex change with either Edmund Gwenn or Clifton Webb taking over.  I’d watch that in a minute!

OPERA (1987)

Four & a quarter centuries after its premiere, Shakespeare’s HAMLET is again inspiring the year’s most moving film.  Last year, HAMNET/’25 (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2026/03/hamnet-2025.html), this year, uncontrollable sobbing likely to come from ELSINORE/’26, the true story of how CHARIOTS OF FIRE actor Ian Charleson took a leap of faith, stepping in to play Hamlet in spite of rapid physical decline from AIDS, taking over the part on short-notice when Daniel Day Lewis ankled mid-performance.  A ‘can’t miss’ idea if there ever was one.  Only that wasn’t the original idea.  Most of the creatives (producers, writers, lead Andrew Scott) initially got behind this project when it was being developed as a ‘behind-the-scenes’ film on the making of this Italian giallo.  (Giallo: those stylishly gory, color-saturated, tits & terror Italian horror films.)  Giallo master Dario Argento, past his ‘70s prime by ‘87, but still up for big, bloody set pieces between his near random notions of drama.  (Argento never much for ‘leg-bone-connected-to-the-thigh-bone’ story construction.)  Charleson co-stars, playing a high-concept film and opera director taking on Verdi’s MACBETH when his Lady Macbeth ankles the high-flying tessitura and her replacement is young, willowy, much pursued Cristina Marsillach.  Argento tosses in a bit of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in some skulduggery to get her on stage in the role, but the main plot involves murder attempts, Charleson’s role as off-stage protector and a handsome police detective as rival.  The big climax typically has little bearing on the plot as an ‘unkindness’ of ravens is released in the opera house where they attack a well-heeled crowd of music lovers.  (Hitchcock’s Bodega Bay Elementary School in THE BIRDS has nothing to fear.)  And while the film is reasonable Argento, it’s hard to see what the ELSINORE crew were planning to develop out of it.  (Though Charleson does recite a couple of lines from Hamlet's 'To be or not to be' speech in here for no particular reason.)

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  This was Charleson’s last feature film, dying at 40 in 1990, six weeks after he completed his run as Hamlet.

LEBANON (2009)

And you thought DAS BOOT/’81 was claustrophobic.  Award-winning film from Israeli writer/director Samuel Maoz takes a near abstract look at war, following (in tight close-up) a single tank carrying five hardened fighters and one barely trained newbie as they cross into Southern Lebanon during the 1982 war,  part of an ill-defined mission to destroy PLO bases and launching sites.*  Without a specific goal, their job merely to reach a designated contact point so they can pick up orders for the next designated contact point.  Between man and machine, things quickly begin to break down: misread oncoming vehicles (friend or foe?); planned and unplanned attacks; a comrade lost; banned weapons renamed so they can be ’legally’ used; a chaotic village assault where enemy Arabs use civilian women & children as ‘living’ shields, encouraging collateral (and non-collateral) damage by Israelis; that tank newbie unable to pull the trigger (literally) having previously shot at nothing more dangerous than empty barrels; all while the tank turns into a abattoir of human filth and rotting offal, their view becoming ever more restricted to a tank POV.  No heroes or heroics, but with opportunistic ‘Phalangist’ warriors grabbing the prize for worst-of-the-worst.  Fortunately, the mission, which opens & closes on the same ironic shot, reduced on screen to only 90 minutes of horror.  But you’ll not forget a searing minute in this brilliantly shot and acted journey thru some of Dante’s darkest circles of Hell.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *For a bigger picture on the war, the remarkable animated documentary WALTZ WITH BASHIR/’08.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/08/waltz-with-bashir-2008.html

SIGNAL ONE (2026)

If you’re going to make yet another First Alien Contact movie (think THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL/’51 & 08; CLOSE ENCOUNTERS/’77; ARRIVAL/’16; many more*), especially if you’re on a lowball Canadian budget, you better have imaginative filmmaking chops and a fresh concept.  But the only fresh thing in writer/director Jonathan Sobol’s assault on the subject is Dennis Quaid’s face.  Even that, less fresh than unnaturally refreshened.  Quaid’s the billionaire visionary searching the heavens from his private island, built up to receive Alien Contact signals and staffed with space research geniuses leading the hunt.  Borderline psycho David Thewlis; college wiz Isabelle Fuhrman; never laid Josh Hutcherson.  The twist is that Thewlis crosses protocol and SENDS rather than only RECEIVES the coded calls and the beings respond in ways that scare the planet into a panic.  Hours later, the island is invaded by overbearing military types who don’t understand the nuances of alien call-and-response etiquette.  Will they take the whole operation down before friendly relations are established?  Dull, dull, dull.  And Sobol’s eccentric idea of even simple reaction shots less communicative than 'Gort' was in STOOD STILL.*

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Sobol does have one stylistic quirk to watch out for.  Though shot 1.85 : 1, he stages shots for a wider anamorphic frame with severe left/right positions that leave the middle empty.  But since he places the conversations for two within a ‘flat’ frame ratio, the backs of some heads are out of frame.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT:  *Simpler & more effective (also really funny/really scary), less pretentious and far more emotionally affecting, Robert Wise’s ‘51 STOOD STILL still stands ahead of the pack.

AGATHA (1979)

Decently reviewed and reasonably popular, this speculative fiction on the true eleven-day disappearance of mystery writer Agatha Christie in the 1920s probably looks better now, when Mid-List ‘civilized’ entertainments no longer grace the big screen, than it must have on release.  Worked up by Kathleen Tynan (wife of top stage critic Kenneth, it's her sole film credit), and directed in comfy fashion by Michael Apted, the film is consistently fun & clever (Tynan just managing to layer in a bit of suspense* ), but mostly posh slumming for a cast of high wattage stars enjoying a period field trip while handing out narrative l’amuse-bouche.  Vanessa Redgrave is Christie, ennobled by height, beauty, ‘20s couture and Vittorio Storaro’s creamy lens stylings.  (The real Christie tall but horsey.)  Undone when Timothy Dalton’s husband (channeling the chilly Laurence Olivier of REBECCA/’40) asks for a divorce, she has a meltdown before hiding out in the very spa town used by his mistress.  Waiting to do mischief?  Enter American-in-the U.K. reporter Dustin Hoffman, groomed, dressed and polished as never before or since; if still a half foot shorter than his target.  With the whole country looking for the missing Queen of Whodunits, can he get a scoop before word leaks out . . . or Agatha does something stupid?  One of the last films made by First Artists (a briefly functioning Streisand, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Hoffman outfit), you have to presume Hoffman had more than usual input, gently fashioning one of the least self-regarding films on his C.V.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/SPOILERS:  *A bigger mystery is how no one, then or now, caught on to Tynan using ROMAN HOLIDAY/’53 (William Wyler/Gregory Peck/Audrey Hepburn) as template.  Runaway celeb hiding in plain sight under a false name; reporter finding/befriending her, also under an assumed identity; mutual, but deflected romantic feelings; inevitable split with the reporter nobly burying his exclusive.  At least Tynan knew to steal from the best.

THE UPRISING (2026)

Between misleadingly advertizing promising a proto-Robin Hood foundation tale (more grime/more gore/more ‘realism’) and a strong back-wind from Peter Watkins’ monumental (and monumentally over-praised) ‘you-were-there’ LA COMMUNE (PARIS, 1871), Peter Greengrass’s downbeat take on Britain’s doomed 14th Century ‘Peasant Rebellion.’ equally crippled by an inadequate budget making do with Revell® model towns & river ships, never had a chance.  A pity as the history is fascinating and little known outside the U.K.  Basically a tale of overreach by the rich & titled, now underfunded after the Great Plague, and how they went back to pillage villages once too often, arousing revolt in the South and up to London; the Peasant Rebellion.  Unsustainable, but not before churches were looted and upper-crusts killed, along with many innocents.  Andrew Garfield is intensely touching as the bereaved farmer who becomes figurehead to the movement, but Greengrass can’t structure the chaos that outran the noble ideas.*  Once we reach the final betrayal  and epilogue (which finally brings in the Robin Hood angle), he’s lost touch with cast & audience.  So, in an ironic twist, it’s King Richard II, switching sides & allegiances like a weather vane, who becomes (by default?) the guy we’re interested in.  Barely 14 at the time (late puberty in those days, you wonder if his voice had even changed*), his assumption and use of his power over subjects and Council, the sudden growth as political/military strategist is the thru line Greengrass misses.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Richard II, ten when crowned, at his most impressive in his teens.  Shakespeare’s RICHARD II focuses on later decline and dethronement.  See this Richard in the opening segment of THE HOLLOW CROWN/’16.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-hollow-crown-2016.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Here spoken in modern Mid-Atlantic English at a time when Chaucer, later patronized by Richard II, was writing.  (You still can't understand a word.  Subtitles suggested.)

COYOTE VS. ACME (2026)

Few things regularly fall as short of expectations as seeing some previously lost film you’ve waited years (decades?) for.  A legendary silent miraculously found in some Russian film archive turns out to be a formula programmer by a famous director on autopilot.  A print of some Early Talkie discovered in a dusty studio vault reunited with synch-sound discs found in the Seattle attic of a deceased private collector, where the pristine visual element turns out to be the alternate silent release.  An acknowledged masterpiece (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA/’62?) brutally trimmed from its original 22 reels down to 19 for a ‘70s re-release, finally restored to its original length, sent off to theaters with two reels printed in reverse.  Yikes!  So, when Warner Bros. opted to take a thirty-mill tax write off in 2023 and effectively erase the completed negative of this Live-Action/Animated mash-up (based on Ian Frazier’s dry/witty New Yorker piece on how Wile E. Coyote sued ACME Industries for years of malfunctioning products), you knew to keep your hopes down when Ketchup Entertainment came to the rescue with a Buy-Out/Theatrical release offer.  Surprise!  The film is a 1'43" ear-to-ear grin, studded with legit guffaws every couple of minutes.  (Including slapstick toppers topping the toppers on gags.)  This time, your wish is fulfilled.  Having previously spent much of his time doing big budget visual effects, director Dave Green segues smoothly into integrated visuals (CGI animation coaxed toward a hand-drawn æsthetic) and has consistent fun rug-pulling the narrative line with perfect pacing, pitch-perfect comedic acting (from animated humans and animators) that mesh seamlessly.  (Extra points to Tweety & John Cena!)  And shout outs to Will Forte for not attempting to compete with the Zanies, but letting his Personal Damages Attorney get his laughs playing straight man (Rowen to a gaggle of Martins).  And to Merry Melodies copycat vocalist Eric Bauza repeating from THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP/’24.*

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Remarkably for a pick-up, ACME grossed more than six times what BLEW UP made for the same releasing company.  That one’s all animated, so perhaps the better second feature might be WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT/’88.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-day-earth-blew-up-looney-tunes.html    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/12/who-framed-roger-rabbot-1988.html

CREEPY / KURÎPÎ: ITSUWARI NO RINJIN (2016)

Slow-burn horror from writer/director Kiyoshi Kurosawa is aptly titled, but ultimately a near miss, mostly from its hard-to-swallow third act.  It certainly starts well with a prologue that traps a psychopathic serial killer after his brief escape from a holding cell in a police office building.  With no way out, the murderer still manages to make his point to the detective who’d been conducting the interview.  The film then jumps ahead a few years as the detective, now retired from the force and teaching college, keeps one foot in the game by investigating a cold case disappearance that happened near his new home six years ago.  Clues point to his odd duck of a neighbor whose personality runs hot and cold*, yet forms an unlikely friendship with the ex-detective’s discontented wife.  And that’s when you start to pick up on how this story is developing into a fool-me-once/fool-me-twice suspense thriller built from lessons not learned in that gruesome prologue.  But Kurosawa gets sloppy, unable to convince us of the creep’s powers of persuasion over his ‘assistants,’ while police forensics go untried on that cold case and putative victims seem to lose peripheral vision so they can be easily attacked.  The whole third act hobbled with implausible story beats and too many shrink-wrapped bodies to dispose of.  Or is it the film that's been shrink-wrapped?

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Film composer Yuri Habuka often sounds like she’s channeling Bernard Herrmann.  Effective, but giving this suspenser Htchcockian overtones Kurosawa may not have been looking for.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Japan’s social conventions and physical restraint can look nearly as ‘off’ as the behavior of the film’s creepy villain.  Which doesn’t hurt, as you might expect, but adds an extra note of complexity.