There are a great many problems with the script by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo, thus making The Godfather Part II (1974) a near-flop.  Yet it is watchable, I think, because it is powerful.  In this it resembles Hitchcock’s films, and like Hitchcock, Coppola directed cannily.  And numerous people did some very fine acting, from Lee Strasberg to Talia Shire. 

Undeniably Part II is an imaginative movie.  TOO imaginative, but . . . strong in its way.

Cover via Amazon

Don Siegel got a bit fancy in his directing of the 1971 film, The Beguiled, and that the look is occasionally unpolished is not so bad.  All the same, the film is built on a premise which I must regard as poor:  during the Civil War, the female proprietor of a Southern boardingschool for girls (Geraldine Page) is disinclined to turn a badly wounded Union soldier (Clint Eastwood) over to Southern troops even after he is nursed back to health.  Thus she is so foolish she fails to see what a dangerous situation she is creating, and yet this woman is not supposed to be dumb.

Even beyond the premise, though, there is feeble material.  Not everything comes across convincingly (e.g., the Page character’s belief, if it exists, that the Union soldier must have his leg amputated in order to avoid gangrene).  The final years of Siegel’s career saw a decline in his movies’ quality.  But there are a couple of hard-hitting scenes here, and the performances of Eastwood, Page, Elizabeth Hartman and Pamelyn Ferdin (a youngster) are pleasurably true.

The Beguiled (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not bad but not all that good either, I’ll See You In My Dreams (2015) focuses on a widow and retired teacher, Carol Petersen (Blythe Danner).  A new film by Brett Haley, it presents the Unexpected, in various forms, intruding into the life of an aging person, but without being particularly memorable.

I have a problem with the gifted Danner in that she seems to be acting like a very old, nearly decrepit woman instead of the barely old senior that Carol in fact is (Danner must have been a mere 70 or 71 when the film began to be made).  There are a few scenes of grief which are nicely done by both Danner and director Haley, and the dialogue can be intelligent.  Other people, though, have liked this movie better than I have—it could use more character exploration—and yet, as I said, it’s not bad.

For the first hour and 15 minutes, Forbidden Planet (1956) holds up well as science fiction, then falls apart with its Id-as-monster plot device.  Oh well.  It is still a curious entertainment proffering a familiar-looking robot and those electronic tonalities on the soundtrack.  Sets are still often impressive when they are not, like the idyllic backyard woods, strikingly quaint.  Plus FP has Walter Pidgeon and Anne Francis.  Oddly, it respects religion and it respects leggy females (that is, Miss Francis).  More ambitious than Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it is nonetheless a lesser film, although . . . I wish I had seen it when in opened in Cinemascope.

Screenshot of Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis from the trailer for the film Forbidden Planet. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Again there is an absurd plot, but at least it’s fairly interesting.  However, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015) succeeds on the strength of its utterly captivating adventure set pieces.  A terrorist mastermind’s silly overkill in an opera-house assassination scheme creates some mesmerizing human doings.  A motorcycle chase is long-and-winding exhilaration.

Participating here, and elsewhere, is of course Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, but also newcomer Rebecca Ferguson, a Swedish actress using an imperfect British accent, who is practically the star of the movie.  (But not quite, Tom.)  A real action heroine she is, and she somehow looks like a secret agent.  She has a noirish look.  The acting in Rogue Nation, such as that of Simon Pegg,is winningly successful.

Christopher McQuarrie’s film knows how to cast a spell.

Have fun.