65 - The Joyriders

Connection To METEOR - Martin Landau.

I actually put The Joyriders on knowing nothing other then it starred Martin Landau and Shawn Hatosy and it was called The Joyriders, so it's rare I go into a film totally blind not even knowing the plot, but here goes.

The film is about a suicidal elderly man (Landau) who ends up getting "kidnapped" by three wayward teens (Hatosy, Elisabeth Moss and Heather McComb) and though I predicted the direction the film was going to go (that they would start to identify with each other, care for each other etc.) I ended up really liking it once it get, I wish it would just get there a touch sooner.

I had a problem with the "kidnapping" which I have put in quotes because the film still wants you to identify with these characters that it's really something that is out of the kids control, it kind of doesn't make sense though how they end up taking Landau, mostly because it doesn't seem in their character until it actually happens.

The 4 leads characters gelled together really well particularly Landau with Moss - the more naive, sweetheart of the trio (Hatosy more immature and McComb more live wire) and she plays the sort of character you could fall in love with simply because she is so undeniably sweet even if her life as gone to shit. There is a good smaller role for Kris Kristofferson as a friendly preacher, he's enjoyable for the time he's on screen. The sole bad casting for me was Diane Venora as Moss' mother she just didn't deliver a very good performance.

Overall, the first part is not a bad film but the second part is very good, the longer the film goes the more you start to feel for the characters and by the end you are hoping for a happy ending for everyone.

64 - Meteor

Connection To O.K. Connery - Sean's brother Neil starred in that movie, I have decided to do family connection, on only one condition, if the relative is far, far less successful and it's very likely they are involved in film at all if it wasn't for the success of said relative.

I have such affection for the disaster movies of the 1970's, especially if it has Irwin Allen's name attached to it - I am SOLD - The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno are both to me bonafide classics - I just love them putting all-star casts in the middle of something catastrophic (be it man made or nature) and other non-Allen films ended up following suit, Meteor is one of them and ended up flopping and receiving a lot of negative write-ups but I am writing this bit before watching it (and having never seen it) - I am just hoping the 70's disaster movie charm follows on for me, so fingers crossed...

Meteor actually wasn't as bad as I heard, sure there was plenty of scenes where the main characters seemed to be just stood around staring at computer screens, and random cut backs to the meteor itself just really there floating in space - I've also heard people knock the special effects which to me whilst they did come post-Star Wars they still had their charm, the destruction of Hong Kong and later part of New York (the WTC is among the building seen destroyed).

I enjoyed an whole bunch of performances, which probably is where a lot of the budget went because it's a famous cast, one of my favourite scenes is Martin Landau as the general just throwing a proper hissy fit, besides that he is actually my favourite performance of the. The two leads are Sean Connery and Natalie Wood who have decent chemistry even if the dialogue handed to them to speak isn't the best. Wood is somebody I am big of anyway so I am touch bias there.

Overall far from perfect but not as bad as it's been lead to believe, I feel like say this often but if 20 minutes or so was shaved off the film would be tighter and a better experience for it.

63 - O.K. Connery (Operation Kid Brother)

Connection To FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY - These are both inspired by/rip-offing/parodying James Bond.

The name's Connery... Neil Connery... I think it's quite apt Neil Connery stars in the movie because it almost feels like a James Bond movie but not quite, like a knock-off toy where you can see enough resemblance you could get fooled by it from a distance.

Neil Connery is the younger brother of Sean, and wasn't an actor, I mean that in the way that he had no such plans to follow into the field like his brother, he seemed to be in the plastering business before an opportune producer - Dario Sabotello - saw him and saw that he resembled his brother enough - and thus was born the eurospy movie O.K. Connery (or Operation Kid Brother) which actually brought along 2 James Bond regulars Bernard Lee (M in the Bond movies) and Lois Maxwell (Moneypenny) as well Daniela Blanchi (From Russia With Love), Adolf Celli (Thunderball) and Anthony Dawson (Dr. No/From Russia With Love), you see what I mean by those resemblances?

Neil Connery (which is the name of the character he plays) is in this film the brother of an important agent and makes little references here and there to who it possibly could be, his skills are not really as a secret agent but rather as a hypnotist but he is good at archery and kung fu. Thankfully the hypnotist scenes are to get information and there is never a icky scene where he seduces a woman into bed because of it.

The film has a pretty good Bond-soundalike score, Ennio Morricone was one of the films composers (along with Bruno Nicolai) and is one of my favourites of all time so I am biased.

Then there is a bunch of showgirls fighting a bunch of soldiers and winning and then turning the truck into something really called - The Wild Pussy Truck - it's a short scene but I loved it/ It was also fun seeing some of the Bond alumni in this, Maxwell gets more to do then she ever did in the Bond films, while Lee as Commander Cunningham might as well have been called M, but he too pops up more then he did in the Bond films.

Overall I found it an enjoyable movie. I think it's because of how much I enjoy Bond movies that it was fun seeing a film have such bare cheek of using the successful name of that franchise for it's own gain, not a good film by any stretch of the imagination though.