B-Movie Gazette: TOM HANKS AND MELANIE GRIFFITH ACCIDENTALLY RUN OVER A GUY IN THE BRONX AND THEN COVER IT UP IN BRIAN DE PALMA'S "BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES" (1990)

B-MOVIE OF THE MONTH - WITHOUT WARNING (1980)

Greetings All - It would be cool to do a post one time called the ten most essential B-flicks, sort of a B-Movie 101 thing. If that ever happened I would have to include this sci-fi horror classic from Graydon Clark (Black Shampoo, Satan's Cheerleaders.) This one's a don't pass go and don't collect $200 folks, just see it, Or watch it again. I'm not even going to begin to explain the plot except you have these flying disc things that attach themselves to people, in this case campers on an outing and kill and feed on them. Eventually these discs are tied to an alien, a hungry alien. A forerunner to 1987's Predator sort to speak and with a flat-out goofy cast. Jack Palance and Martin Landau, say what? And looking drugged out I might add but the real surprise here is veteran character actor Larry Storch, from the '60's, a guy who knew 150 dialects and here he is in this as a boy scout leader lol. Also known as It Came Without Warning, this gem is streaming free now only on Plex. 2.75 stars/2.75

Thursday, May 5, 2022

TOM HANKS AND MELANIE GRIFFITH ACCIDENTALLY RUN OVER A GUY IN THE BRONX AND THEN COVER IT UP IN BRIAN DE PALMA'S "BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES" (1990)

Firmly implanted in the miss column of Brian De Palma's filmography, a masterful novel by the late Tom Wolfe goes amiss and fails to translate properly to the screen. This thanks to a clusterf*ck of miscasting although I will point out some of the better performances. There's a strong racial element to the story and film which I'm not going to go into 'cause quite frankly that stuff doesn't interest me. The basic fun and suspense is the main character, a rich white man is involved in a hit and run and then covers it up, will he get caught or not?

The fact that the movie opens with a drunken Bruce Willis flinging salmon all over the place probably doesn't help things. The scene with the hit and run soon follows and the movie gets interesting for a bit with that scene before quickly descending into it's moral, racial dynamics, chiefly, that a rich white couple ran over a black kid in the Bronx.

One of the movie's few saving graces is Melanie Griffith who just rocks her part and dress for that matter. Legendary character actor F Murray Abraham who went uncredited due to a post-production dispute also rocks his part as a politician and it's nice to see him with lots of lines. After it's all said and done this one unfortunately deserves the moniker "skip the movie, read the book." 2.5 stars/5

And speaking of Tom Wolfe books, I highly recommend Man In Full, an understated masterpiece that hopefully one day will get a film version. Well, maybe not.