FRANCIS GOES TO WEST POINT (1952)

"Drop dead."

After literally murdering people together in part 1 and then nearly being fitted for “cement slippers” while taking on the mob in part 2, wise ass Francis the shit-talking mule and dim-witted Peter Stirling (Donald O’Connor) appear to be living a quiet life in an unnamed city. Peter works at a factory (doing what, I have no fucking clue) while Francis goes around town ease dropping on people. One tidbit of info he hears is that some Uncle Sam haters are going to blow up the factory Peter works at. Francis tells Peter and Peter somehow saves the day, despite being a dumbfuck. As a reward, twenty-six year-old Peter is accepted into West Point military academy. Naturally, Francis shows up and becomes a school mascot, an assistant football coach and a French language tutor. He's even offered a job as a professor at one point! Along the way there’s some kind of mistaken ID bullshit going around (thanks to Peter illegally reading other people’s mail) that might cause West Point to lose the Army-Navy football game.

As far as the Francis films go, WEST POINT is alright. I enjoyed the quick pace, the interesting faces (including James Best and David Janssen as upperclassmen) and the neat old footage of the actual West Point, but once again I was depressed at how easily Francis and Peter accept leaving each other. It happened a few times in this film and really bummed me out. I was also disappointed in how cheap the whole thing looked. All of the scenes set outside on the West Point campus looked to be filmed in front of a screen. I don’t know why, but I was kinda looking forward to scenes of Peter and Francis running around the West Point grounds together. Maybe trying to solve a murder or tract down a werewolf or bust an illegal moonshine ring ran by witches! Anything. How about some illegal DVD bootleggers from the early 2000’s time travel back to West Point in order to hide their stash, but then a freshman plebe finds a copy of COOL AS ICE and starts telling everybody he’s gonna “uh, schling a schlong” and about how his homeboy’s bike is trippin. So now Francis and Peter have gotta stop being zeroes and start being heroes in order to save the day. Hyfgcv oikl [My cat, Charlie, just stepped on the keyboard while trying to get my attention, so I’m leaving that in.]

Alright, well, I do have more to say, but Charlie wants to play, so I gotta go. Nobody reads this shit anyway. But yeah, it’s a silly film. I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun to yell at the TV while watching.  I think I talked shit the entire movie.

Part 1 - Francis (1950)
Part 2 - Francis Goes to the Races (1951)
Part 4 - Francis Covers the Big Town (1953)
Part 5 - Francis Joins the WACS (1954)
Part 6 - Francis in the Navy (1955)
Part 7 - Francis in the Haunted House (1956)

TWO-MINUTE WARNING (1976)

Ehhh.  I was expecting better.  More suspense, more disaster, more Charlton Heston topless.

It's football time, so 91,000 fans pile into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on a bright sunny day to watch an exciting game between Los Angeles and Baltimore.  It's so exciting, in fact, that none of the 91,000 attendees notice the dude sitting on top of the scoreboard with a sniper rifle for nearly the entire game!!!  He's just sitting up there chilling, eating a Babe Ruth candy bar and staring down the scope of his rifle at various people.  Finally some genius on board the Goodyear blimp notices him and calls the cops.  They show up, brutalize a couple of innocent people and then eventually get around to confronting the sniper...94 minutes into the movie!!!  They do a horrible job at containing him and all Hell breaks loose.

As far as disaster films go, TWO-MINUTE WARNING is pretty weak.  The disaster (stampede) is all contained inside the stadium and if the police had done a better job of confronting the sniper nobody would have got hurt at all.  Top-billed Charlton Heston is alright as the police captain, but his role is very small.  The majority of the time is wasted showing the lives of various attendees: Jack Klugman as a idiot with a gambling problem, Walter Pidgeon as a pickpocket, David Janssen and Gena Rowlands as a couple who's relationship seems completely based on how much they can bitch at each other, Beau Bridges and Pamela Bellwood as a married couple with two children, etc.  All of their stories are boring and failed at persuaded me to care about any of them.

Mild pace, lackluster photography, soulless direction, unlikable characters, weak disaster, a man getting "butt-stroked", low body count.  Not a terrible film, just dated and meh.