134 - Sudden Impact

    Harry Callahan investigates a murder, and his boss gets fed up, and transfers him to San Paulo to get him out of the way.  It turns out a lady is killing off a group of people who raped her and her sister ten years prior, and Harry is caught investigating the whole thing.
    I liked this a little more than the last one, which felt pretty scattershot.  This one is much more focused, and Harry doesn't have as many side adventures.  But it does have some real weaknesses.  Mostly, it's a little dated.  It came out at the end of 1983, and it has the action music to show it.  Synth drum rolls all over the place.  The movie ends with the last bad guy falling from a great height, and being impaled on a carousel horse.  When it happens, it looks like the cheesiest action ending possible.
    There's also an effort to insert some humor into the movie.  Harry has a small bulldog that he has to take care of, which he names Meathead.  There are two instances apiece of Meathead 1) urinating on something, and 2) farting when he turns around.
    And personally, I don't like that Harry never puts Meathead on a leash.  It's pointed out to him his first time out that there are leash laws.  He just never cares about it.

    The plot is pretty much standard female revenge stuff.  Not as gory as I Spit on your Grave, but still the same basic story.  Checking the wiki article - yes, the movie was adapted from a different project into being a Dirty Harry movie.  Eastwood directed this one, and he did a good job.  There are a fair number of memorable shots.  It's understandable.  For some reason, some of the shots look like they have a soft focus, but I can't tell if that was intentional.  It usually just blurs light a bit.

    A few other things.  The victims are shot in the head.  In at least two of the instances, the person lets out a slumping moan after they collapse.
    There's a very classy sequence near the end, as the lady is hiding from her attackers on a carousel.  This is really cool - every shot is moving in several directions, the lighting is low, but just enough to see what's happening.

133 - Splitz

    Warring sorority houses go through a competition to see who has to have their house torn down to make way for a sewage treatment plant.  A three-girl band, and their manager, get mixed up in this.
    Well, it's pretty bad, and I had a hard time paying attention near the end.  I'd probably say it's a cross between H.O.T.S. and Carhops.  Sadly, it's closer to Carhops.
       There was at least one instance of breaking the fourth wall, possibly unintentionally.
    The band is interesting.  At least they let the girls sweat while they played.  The drummer looked like she was kind of drumming.  The guitarist did a better job of miming the guitar part than I expected, and it was only obvious during the solos that she couldn't be playing.  The bass/singer was barely trying.  Most of the time, she was singing toward the camera, not toward the microphone.  She kept her hand in one place on the bass, and wasn't even fretting that position nicely.
    The evil school president had a very good gag - one that I would expect to see in The Simpsons.  Instead of pulling down a chart of the campus, as intended, she pulls down a chart of the cuts of beef on a cow.
    About 45 minutes into the movie, during the wrestling competition, we get the first nudity, followed by a brief shower scene.  It's completely unremarkable.
    Then at about 47 minutes, the movie gets weird.  The band, and their manager, go into a diner, where there's sort of a non-party happening.  Some people seem to be sleeping at tables.  The girls take the band stand, which is set up with instruments for some reason.  They launch into a song.  Suddenly, everyone sleeping wakes up, and goes into a choreographed dance.  (I noticed during the opening credits that there was a choreography credit.  It stood out.)
    To make things even weirder, as the song goes on, the male dancers are suddenly topless.  Then there's a topless guy playing a sax solo.  And that's always a hilarious sight.

    Came out in 1984… but it looks like a movie from the mid-to-late 70s.
    During the ending song, the band suddenly has a synthesizer.  And suddenly, the guitarist is much worse at miming.  And the drummer suddenly has a double bass setup.  And I noticed that she doesn't know about the crashes.
    I can't recommend this to anyone.

132 - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

    An aging pair of actress sisters live together.  One of them in a wheelchair with a spinal injury, and the other one is working on killing off her sister and taking her estate.
    This movie shows up on several horror lists, and the title has something a little exploitative sounding about it.  Despite these elements, I never had much interest in seeing it.  I was under the impression that it was mostly two women arguing in an apartment.
    But it's a lot more than that.  A lot of the action takes place in other locations.  There are more characters.  Most of the movie isn't about them arguing, since one of them is clearly crazy, and the other is well in control of herself, if she's just a little too timid.
    The horror in this is pretty restrained.  There are a handful of violent moments, and they're shot carefully, and they aren't explicit at all.  Considering that Psycho came out a few years prior, it seems like they could have been a little more brutal.  The style of this violence reminds me a lot of The Haunting.
    What also stands out is the writing.  The relationship between the sisters is a little more melodramatic than it should be, but the abuse is horrible.  Stronger than I would expect.  The direction is solidly good.  And the makeup is fantastic.  There's something miserable in Bette Davis's appearance, and it brings the whole movie to life.  That isn't to say that Joan Crawford didn't do well.  While she doesn't get the same meaty part as Davis, she plays her role perfectly.

131 - Die Hard With a Vengeance

    John McClane is called in to work on a problem with a terrorist who has blown up a store, and is demanding that McClane perform a variety of tasks.  McLane gets teamed up with a civilian, played by Samuel L. Jackson.
    I think I saw this once, a long time ago.  And, like the other Die Hard movies, it's very enjoyable.  This one starts strong, and remains pretty good for most of it.  The last half hour seems like a step down.  The action picks up, but there doesn't seem to be a game to be played any more.  McClane doesn't have to outsmart the villain now, he just needs to defeat him in combat.
    There's one other thing that actually felt a little off.  The villain bombs a subway station.  And we see a henchman get sliced in half by a cable.  These seem a little too dark for the comedic tone of the movie.

130 - High Fidelity

    The romantic coming-of-adulthood for a record shop owner.
    I had never considered how strange this movie is to summarize.  I suppose it could count as a romance, but I think the romantic angle is overcome by his personal examinations.  Maybe I could just say that this is a romantic comedy for guys.
    I got heavily into this movie during college.  The wit of Nick Hornsby's book translates very well to the screen, and Cusack turns in a flawless performance for the part.  When I say that this is a movie for guys, I mean that it resonates very well with males.  Something about the language, and the frustration that Cusack shows is very meaningful.
    The comedic aspects of this haven't aged too well for me.  I still enjoy Dick, the quiet clerk, but Jack Black is just a little further over the top than I'd like.  I still like some of his bits, but his first scene seems to be trying a little too hard.
    I don't know how often I'll revisit this.  It had already been several years since last time, but I still have this soft spot for it.  I think this will continue to be important to lots of romantically conflicted guys in the future.

129 - Bereavement

    A girl goes to live with some relatives in a rural area.  She runs into a serial killer who lives nearby, and has been raising a young boy to follow in his footsteps.
    This started out pretty predictable, but by the last half hour, it gets darker than expected.
    To be honest, it was actually a little too dark for me.  It's a bleak ending, with the young boy picking up the mantle of the killer, and finishing off several victims.
    After doing a little bit of reading, it turns out that this is a prequel to a different movie, Malevolence, which I haven't seen.  This makes a bit more sense, because I suppose an origin would make this dark ending feel satisfying.
    I'm not too picky about gore, but I actually felt like it was a bit gratuitous here.  Most of the time, it wasn't anything that surprised me.  But then once the female lead dies, there seems to be a lot of blood, and the stabbing goes on longer than feels right.
    It's hard to tell how I felt about this.  I suppose it was more memorable than many of the horror movies I see, but I don't think I can say that I was a fan.

    Another small thing - I don't think the title was right.  The only reason I can think that this title makes sense is that the main character has just come out of her parents dying.  This isn't much of a plot point though.
    Also, how was this serial killer staying uncaught?  He's really sloppy!

128 - Total Recall

    Douglas Quaid, a construction worker, played by Arnold, goes in to get a memory implant of a trip to Mars.  Things get complicated, and he's left wondering who he is, but he seems to be some kind of action hero.  He goes to Mars, meets with a resistance force, and… the rest of it feels kind of like a spoiler.
    This movie came out in 1990, and I remember owning it on VHS.  I'm not sure where I bought that VHS from.  But anyway, I never bought the movie on DVD.  I'm not sure why, but I never felt like watching it.  But I picked up a more recent Blu-ray release, which has a better transfer.
    It's still a fun movie.  It's directed by Paul Verhoven, who also did Starship Troopers.  Similarly, both movies are a little too long, but they both have plenty of action.  Verhoven also has some very campy sensibilities, and it helps to make the movie both memorable, and just silly enough to be charming without being dumb.  Arnold spouts a lot of memorable lines, and his readings are broadly hilarious.  "Give these people air!" and "See you at the party, Richter!" are classics.  The rest of the cast isn't too important.  His love interest is pretty two-dimensional.
    What stands out this time through, is how ambitious the movie is.  It goes all over the place, lots of sets, lots of action, lots of extras.  And the movie is long - almost two hours.  It's impressive how much was done with the budget.  I noticed a few spots where the props and the set aren't as good as they should be, mostly when cars crash.
    Which reminds me, when the Johnny-Cab malfunctions, and starts moving forward, and Arnold gets out of the way, it crashes into a wall, and it explodes in flames.  Hilarious!
    There are also a whole lot of miniatures used in this movie.  I like this.  While miniature work has failed out of favor, since CG work can accomplish the same thing with a few greater benefits, I still enjoy the artistry of miniatures.  A carefully handled miniature can look spectacular, and it's a shame we don't see them as often.
    But the movie was still fun.  I'm not sure how often I'll come back to it though.