THE BIG YEAR: a bird in the hand or anywhere else is worthless

Really?
Someone in a position of authority at a Hollywood studio thought it was worth investing millions of dollars into this tale of three men spending a year running around the USA spotting birds?
Really?

Someone in a position of authority at a Hollywood studio allowed themselves to be convinced that the actors most perfectly suited to play these men are comedians best known for their physical comedy?
Really?
And having cast these three expensive comedic talents in this twitching tale the same important Hollywood suit approved the plan to make the story a drama?
Really?
It's almost impossible to discern the logic that supposedly went into this project. THE BIG YEAR is neither funny nor dramatic and it's most definitely not interesting.
I know Americans are a competitive people and the desire to be the best is bred into their DNA but, really, how much genuine interest is there among non-twitchers in watching Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Steve Martin each dashing back and forth across the country trying to spot more species of bird in a year than the other two?
It's not as if there's even anything in this for nature lovers. The film imposes on 'birding' the same American obsession with statistics in sport that dominates football and is more concerned with racking up the numbers than actually showing more than a few token birds.
The three stars go through the motions without exerting, endearing or embarrassing themselves but we have a right to expect a little more out of them than that. At the end of it all the overwhelming sensation was 'so what' and, really, that's not a worthwhile return on my investment.

LOOSE IN LONDON: it's the cure for what ails you

If you've ever dreamed of discovering a device which would delay the imminent arrival of something particularly unpleasant - such as a tax bill, major surgery, a weekend with the in-laws or death - I have the answer to your dreams.

62 minutes has never passed as slowly as it did watching this 1953 abomination from the Bowery Boys. It literally refused to reach the end, and checking the on-screen timer (as I did on several occasions just to ensure I wasn't going mad) only seemed to further retard forward motion.
I wasn't expecting great art. This is, after all, a poverty row production made on a threadbare shoestring by 'talents' well past their prime but I was still struck by just how awful and pointless this film is. It's difficult to discern the rationale for its existence, since it is neither entertaining nor interesting and is not trashy enough to be enjoyable as camp or kitsch.
The Bowery Boys had started their cinematic life some 16 years earlier as The Dead End Kids in the 1937 crime drama 'Dead End' starring Humphrey Bogart, Sylvia Sidney and Joel McCrea. They were a bunch of tough, cocky slum kids with a healthy disrespect for authority and an unhealthy admiration for criminals. The Dead End Kids made 7 films in the late 1930s, and a further 21 as the East Side Kids in the mid 1940s. By 1946 with the cast rapidly approaching thirty they wisely chose to rename themselves as the more age appropriate The Bowery Boys, under which moniker they churned out a further 41 increasingly cheap films over the next ten years.
What truly amazed me is that LOOSE IN LONDON was not the movie that finally brought down the curtain on their cinematic career. Despite its terribleness someone ponied up the cash to make a further 10 of these 'adventures' before calling it a day!
By 1953 only Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall remained from the gang of teenage toughs who'd made such a positive impression in 'Dead  End' so two other nameless, faceless actors were drafted in to give the impression of a gang. It was a thankless task as their sole purpose was to stand mute in every scene, looking stupid while Gorcey and Hall hogged the limelight with painfully unfunny comedy routines reminiscent of a really bad Three Stooges short.
The film is an embarrassment to everyone involved. The acting, script and direction are uniformly dreadful and the stock footage of London inserted to give the impression the Boys have actually crossed the Atlantic is 20 years out of date. It may be 1953 in New York but in England the clock stopped in 1933 according to this film.
Maybe that explains why LOOSE IN LONDON seemed to never want to end. But on the bright side, after 62 minutes of this, death, taxes and major surgery don't appear so bad after all.

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS: a comedy that's cocky and crappy

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS is one of those irritating films that wants to have it's cake and eat it too.
It's a rom-com that spends its first half offering a snarky faux-cool 21st century take on the genre, mocking its cliches and tired conventions, and the second half exploiting almost all of them to the max.

Does director Will Gluck ('Easy A') not realise his film is falling into the very trap he professes to despise, or is he trying to make the point that the stereotypes of the traditional Hollywood rom-com actually reflect the reality of young love? Is he skilfully and amusingly telling us that rom coms peddle these cliches for a reason and the reason is 'cos they're true?! Or did he just run out of ideas?
Not being privy to the inner workings of Mr Gluck's mind or the endless development meetings which preceded shooting I can't say with certainty which of these possibilities is the correct one, but I can assert with a high degree of confidence that FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS is tedious, derivative and unengaging.
There's nothing to like about self-aware smart-aleks Dylan Harper (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie Rellis (Mila Kunis) as they play-out this tired storyline desperately trying to convince themselves and us that they're doing something fresh and new. Maybe they thought they were being ironic but that would require a level of sophistication this film simply doesn't possess. Timberlake and Kunis actually acquit themselves pretty well, but they're working with material that stinks.
I'm similarly at a loss to understand why Hollywood has gone on something of an anti-romantic comedy bender recently, inflicting on us not only FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS but also 'No Strings Attached' and 'What's Your Number,' each worse than the one before, and that's includes starting from a very low baseline.
If you set out to mock one of Hollywood's most cherished genres, one that has withstood world wars, the Great Depression, numerous recessions and enormous social and cultural upheavals, you better make damn sure you've got a story that is so absolutely brilliant in every respect that potential critics are stunned into awed silence. FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS is not that film.

HOUSE OF BAMBOO: these sticks left me feeling stoned

Robert Ryan was one of post war Hollywood's finest, most talented actors. He graced more than 70 films over a 30 year career, always giving his best in a quietly professional way regardless of the subject matter. When he died in 1973 film critic Paul Zimmerman paid a wonderful tribute, describing him as a man who "left behind a lifetime of roles too small for his talent."
I like to think Zimmerman had HOUSE OF BAMBOO in mind when he wrote that line.

Not to be confused with the catchy Andy Williams song of the same name, this 1955 crime thriller is considerably less memorable and surprisingly tedious and disappointing despite Ryan's presence.

Co-written and directed by cult favorite Samuel Fuller this film promises much but delivers little. The combination of star, director, setting (a post World War 2 Tokyo still under American control) and story is intriguing but there's too much talk, too little action and too much attention paid to the (admittedly) beautifully designed and constructed interiors of Japanese houses where most of the aforementioned talking takes place.

As the increasingly psychotic boss of a crime syndicate, Ryan is magnificent, effortlessly dominating every scene he's in and playing the part with not a hint of artifice or acting. From his very first appearance, sitting on the corner of a table with his feet dangling just above the floor as he issues orders to his henchmen, it's clear he is going to own this movie. But as the story unfolds it becomes obvious that it's not worthy of his talents. It's slow, wordy and unengaging, provoking a sense of drowsiness which can rapidly overwhelm the viewer if seated in a comfy chair. 

Co-star Robert Stack does nothing to help matters. His performance is more wooden than the titular bamboo, and his insistence on barking every line like the voice-over for a late night infommercial merely reduces his character's credibility even further.

Fuller almost redeems himself with a climactic and impressively stylish shoot-out on a giant revolving globe perched a-top a city center high rise but it's not enough to absolve the dirge which has gone before. As the final credits rolled I was left with an overwhelming sense of disappointment at what could have been if only Fuller had focused more on entertaining the audience and less on indulging his own whims.