THE NAKED SPUR (1953)

I have a theory that every movie where Millard Mitchell has a substantial role is going to be an excellent film. So far my theory has held up - SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, THIEVES' HIGHWAY, WINCHESTER '73 - and now THE NAKED SPUR.

Jimmy Stewart is on the trail of a killer (Robert Ryan). He's tracked him to Colorado and with the help of two strangers (Ralph Meeker and Millard Mitchell) he captures the killer and his girlfriend (Janet Leigh). The killer quickly figures out that Stewart didn't tell the others about the $5,000 reward so he spills the beans in order to create a rift between his captors. The two want their part of the reward, so now these three armed men, one vicious killer and one confused female set off from the Rocky Mountains to Kansas.

The direction by Anthony Mann is great and the cinematography by William C. Mellor (A PLACE IN THE SUN, GIANT) is beautiful. Nothing life changing, but still a highly entertaining Western.  Double-feature with ALONG THE GREAT DIVIDE.

Mann - Stewart westerns:

WINCHESTER '73 (1950)
BEND OF THE RIVER (1952)
THE FAR COUNTRY (1954)
THE MAN FROM LARAMIE (1955)

PANDORUM (2009)

As with the majority of sci-fi survival/horror movies since ALIEN/ ALIENS the first 30 minutes of PANDORUM was exciting, cool and full of possibilities, but then the story sets in and it's just your standard running around the spaceship while being chased by some goofy looking humanoid creatures that you know are evil cause they twitch a lot and they always have their heads tilted sideways.

Hundreds of years from now Earth is all f'ed up so humans pack their shit on a huge spaceship and head out to distant Earth-like planet. While everybody hypersleeps there's just three people left aboard to take care of the entire ship (sounds like a good idea). One of the three goes nuts and kills the other two, then he, well I can't tell you, but everybody is asleep for a long, long time and when our hero wakes up at the beginning of the movie he doesn't know shit. That's pretty exciting and I really enjoyed the first 20 minutes, but soon it settles into your standard human vs. creatures on a spaceship story.

Worth watching, but there was zero gore, very little character development, no tension, zero tits and a lot of the action scenes had that superfast editing technique going on to where you have a some trouble figuring out what's going on. Also, the whole mental illness aspect was done in the same way that most movies do it with the twitching head and the backwards sound effects. Yawn.

SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANANCE (2002)

Ehh, kinda boring. There's a few exciting moments, but I could easily trim off 20 minutes of filler. So you got this deaf mute dude who has a sick sister. She's on the waiting list for a kidney, but she's sick as fuck, so being a little simple, he goes to an organ dealer. They take his money he's saved up for his sister's surgery, steal his kidney and leave him naked in an abandoned building. That's pretty shitty, but the real bad luck happens next when he gets a frantic message from the hospital saying they have a donor kidney and all they need is the money for the surgery within few days. He flips out and with his Communist girlfriend they kidnap a wealthy dude's daughter. At first, things are going according to plan, but soon everything goes to shit and here's where the vengeance comes in.

Overall it's kinda entertaining, but I felt zero connection to any of the main characters so I really didn't give a f what happened to any of them.  Also why would they even sew him up?  Why not just harvest all of his organs? The most interesting thing for me was the look of the movie. Chan-wook Park is definitely talented and lucky for us he seems to get better with each film he makes.

Not a bad movie by any means. I just think it should have been shorter with better character development. Good performances by everybody. Worth watching once.

Part 2 - Oldboy (2003)
Part 3 - Lady Vengeance (2005)