Heliophage
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| 38 57% | The Harlem Globetrotters (1951) - May 27, 2023
"Easy-going fluff as we discover whether our protagonist can learn the importance of teamwork, teach chemistry, and marry Dorothy Dandridge all at once. And the actual team is there too, with a little bit of talking and a more generous helping of their on-court bits. The promo at the time leant heavily on Dandridge's rising star—and I can't say I blame them—though this isn't exactly a big glamor part they've given her to work with."
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| 30 41% | Tarzan of the Apes (1918) - May 26, 2023
"Just six years after the novel, and thus more preoccupied with following its plot points than many decades of adaptations to follow. Lots of things happen, though not in particularly well-planned or exciting fashion. Best mileage is gotten out of Gordon Griffith as kid Tarzan. The ape suits are amusingly awful."
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| 20 18% | All Lit Up (1920) - May 24, 2023
"Snub Pollard, net in hand, bumbles from one bit of generic slapstick violence to another for as long as it takes to fill the reel. Besides Marie Mosquini, his support includes Ernie Morrison. In these years leading into the "Our Gang" days, you can tell the whole Roach/Newmeyer/etc. circle were convinced on cute kids as a selling point, but often weren't quite sure what to have them *do* other than show up for a few seconds."
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| 36 53% | Humoresque (1920) - May 23, 2023
"The lighter, gentler sort of melodrama. The comedic first half, rosily soft-focusing on our protagonist's humble upbringing, comes together rather well and makes full use of its setting in New York's Jewish community. As much as I do appreciate Borzage's usual commitment to letting performances carry things, the latter half comes off as rather slow and generic, with exactly the sort of straight silliness at the end you know to expect in this sentimental a picture, but still without much force."
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| 37 55% | Savage (1973) - May 23, 2023
"Spielberg closes out his TV commitments with one of those TV-movie-pilots. The script feels for all the world like one of the less compelling Columbo episodes, and the formula falls kind of flat without all the customary chewing of scenery, but Spielberg's dressed it up with all the gratuitous foreshortening and constant short cuts he can muster. As it happens, the network did not pick up Martin Landau's high-flying investigative reporter who never seems to get around to the "reporting" part."
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| 32 45% | Risks and Roughnecks (1917) - May 22, 2023
"Larry Semon bumbles into a secret criminal organization; doors will revolve, spaghetti will fly, and backs will flip. To Semon's credit, he was right there driving things along at the birth of the new prop and effect heavy style, and a lot of his effects are in fact pretty neat... even if you're often left wishing you were watching someone with Buster Keaton's skill at selling and incorporating them."
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| 23 27% | Hash and Havoc (1916) - May 22, 2023
"One of countless old Larry Semon shorts that just goes with a setting (in this case a restaurant) and fills it with some loose and prop-heavy slapstick gags. And props there are, including a knife-throwing act, the eruption of a big pie fight, and the ever-unnerving sentient sausages on a string."
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| 16 10% | Walls and Wallops (1916) - May 21, 2023
"False mustaches and pointless commotion abound as some non-Keystone cops feature in a bit of decidedly minor slapstick business. One extra point for the "seeing stars" special effect."
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| 66 84% | The Secret Six (1931) - May 18, 2023
"Packed with the established and the very up-and-coming (it landed Gable and Harlow their contracts, and Bellamy debuts). It's fun, as Marion is not remotely interested in building up any kind of tragedy or myth. No, Beery's Scorpio is a simple-minded, cowardly buffoon, and everyone knows it; he's just also likely to get you shot. There's drama, shooting, comedy, and 6 suits in masks with far less to do than you'd think. Also, some characters with no business "speaking gangster" do anyway."
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| 44 65% | Something Evil (1972) - May 18, 2023
"An insubstantial bit of TV-movie-of-the-week cheese, delivering the closest you were going to see to one of the then-hot demonic possession movies on CBS on a Friday evening. But it's still Spielberg, so if you like interesting shot setups it's constantly delivering on that front, and Sandy Dennis is a far better actress than something like this particularly needs to work, so it comes together well enough. The Santa Clarita Valley, however, does not do a very convincing job being Bucks County."
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