I've watched a lot of stuff recently, so this will be another relatively quick list of films.
Advise & Consent
The US Senate is trying to confirm a dying President's choice for Secretary of State. Unfortunately the candidate he has chosen previously flirted with Communism and a few years back managed to piss off a stalwart senator from South Carolina. The back and forth of political intrigue, blackmail, and Congressional hearings and voting isn't realistic whatsoever, but the star power backing up the film certainly is. This was Charles Laughton's last film, and Betty White's first, thus bridging two very different eras of film, from Laughton's earliest appearances in the silent era to the modern day. They are joined by the likes of Henry Fonda, Don Murray, Walter Pidgeon, Peter Lawford, Gene Tierney(in her attempt at a comeback after being out of the industry for years), Burgess Meredith, Franchot Tone, Lew Ayres, and the cast list goes on and on. Don't worry about the plausibility, watch this for the performances and the viciousness.
Timecop
Jean Claude Van Damme is a time traveling cop from the present/future which is now the past as I watch this movie in 2015. It's the highest grossing film he put out, and it's a remarkable piece of cheese that has him jumpkicking his way through time against a corrupt senator who is illegally using time travel to steal money to fund his political ambitions to be President. Yes, it's silly. Yes, it's ridiculous. Yes, it's a lot of stupid fun. Also, you can tell the bad guys because they wear suits with ponytails and have mullets. Good times.
Hercules and the Captive Women
Reg Park plays Hercules, who accidentally finds Atlantis while sleeping and ends up fighting an invasion force of Greek Aryans from Uranus. While it's better than Hercules Goes to New York, it's still a bad Hercules movie. What's more interesting is the back story: Reg Park was a close friend and a huge influencer of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's the one who convinced Arnold to get into film and helped him get a rule in his own horrible Hercules movie. And here we get to see him make shocked faces and wear a toga. Hell yes.
Warning: that poster is huge.
The Cat and the Canary
This silent film from 1927 is an early influence on the old dark house horror subgenre that used to be pretty big back in the day. A family arrives at an old mansion twenty years after the death of the patriarch to find out who inherited the goods. It all goes to one woman, but with a rule that she must be sane by morning or else the fortune will be given to a different family member. And that family member happens to already know he's the winner. Plus there's a crazed madman on the loose! This is a comedy horror, so if you enjoy silent comedies and early horror, give this a shot as well as the remake a decade later with Bob Hope.
Gaslight
A man marries the niece of a world-famous opera singer who was murdered and then spends his time slowly driving her insane in the very house where she was killed. To say Charles Boyer's character is evil is an understatement, as he is vicious and cruel in a long game of madness, torment, and psychological abuse. I found this movie tough to sit through, watching an innocent woman be driven to paranoid insanity slowly and subtly by a swindler whom nobody doubts save for one star-struck detective who originally thinks Ingrid Bergman's character is her long dead aunt. It's very well done, but very tough to get through without cringing.
While the City Sleeps
The sleazy owner of a media company orders the three heads of his newspaper, news wire, and art departments to track down a serial killer for a promotion. In their frenzy, they call out a reporter who puts his own girlfriend on the line and in the process discovers the boss' wife is having an affair with one of the competitors. Nobody in this movie is a good person as they all do their best to one up each other and needle out what they want. It's exactly the kind of noir film I like.
The Wasp Woman
Roger Corman brings us a story of a cosmetics executive who hires a scientist working with wasps to create a de-aging formula. It just also happens to mutate people into wasp critters. This movie is silly, with cheap special effects and a silly plot, but it's still entertaining to see what Corman comes up with, even when it's not very good.
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I'm also in the midst of a fun project for TCM where I get to describe several thousand films in their vault. Woo, fun!