DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE (1961)

[Update 01/03/2022: Need to add some more to the end of this review. Just don't have the time to fix it right meow.]

Impoverished Italian aristocrat Marcello Mastroianni lives an idle life with his extended family in a rundown mansion. He passes his days working on crossword puzzles, sipping coffee and most importantly: trying to avoid his overbearing, annoying wife. She has more facial hair than Magnum P.I. and pesters him 25 hours a day by talking nonstop and wanting to cuddle. His life is Hell, but then things take a turn for the better when his attractive, 16-year-old cousin moves in. They make goo-goo eyes at each other and when they finally get a chance to speak and let their love for each other known, he makes it his #1 goal in life to get rid of his wife and marry his cousin!

Problem is divorce is illegal, so he has to figure out another way. He's got it! There's a law that if you find your wife in the arms of another man you can kill her in the heat of passion and only serve 3 years in prison...but how's he ever going to find somebody desperate and believable enough to want to seduce his wife?!

THE RACERS (1955)

Watchable, but overall forgettable melodrama starring Kirk Douglas as a young hotshot race car driver who falls in love with a dancer. The rest of the movie is just their trials and tribulations (car wrecks, drinking, fighting, etc.). A few of the racing scenes are exciting, but for the most part they're kinda lame cause they look very fake.  I really wish I had this on DVD so I could take screenshots.

An even bigger problem was the acting by Douglas' love interest Bella Darvi. She's terrible! So terrible I couldn't believe she was an legitimate actress, so I wasn't surprised when I read that at the time she was Darryl F. Zanuck's mistress! That explains it. The supporting cast composing of Lee J. Cobb, Cesar Romero, Katy Jurado and Gilbert Roland do a great job and somewhat ease the pain caused by Darvi.

Worth a rent or a watch on cable if you're a Douglas fan, but it's not worth buying.

SHUTTER ISLAND (2010)

Borrowing from a number of other things-aren't-quite-as-they-seem films, SHUTTER ISLAND is about a federal marshal, Angus McCootybritches, who's visiting an insane asylum to investigate a missing patient.  The asylum is located on an island and right from the very beginning things don't seem right and guess what?! They aren't.

I was really excited about this film, but as the story slowly progressed my disappointment grew. It's not a bad film by any means. The acting by McCootybritches is good and the direction by Scorsese is alright, but the story is dead on arrival and extremely predictable. Also, what's up with the lame CG effects? They were distracting in their shittiness.

It's worth watching, I guess, but I was hoping for something original.

This isn't the first time we've seen Max in an insane asylum.

THE ROAD (2009)

[Update 11/17/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

A few years after an apocalyptic event kills most of the humans and animals on Earth, a Man and his Boy are wandering around the countryside scavenging for canned goods and supplies as they make their way towards the ocean.  The places they visit are mostly uninhabited, so the majority of the film is simply the Man and the Boy walking and walking and walking.  Very exciting.

I love post-apocalyptic stories, but this one did nothing for me.  It looked good, but you've have to have something happen! The story doesn't have to be anything profound, but it has to be more than just two people wandering around. Have some cannibals steal his son and then have the Man chase after them and kick some ass...or not kick ass and they both get eaten. I would have rather seen that than these two half-dead motherfuckers walking around for two hours looking sad.

If you need me I'll be in my Y2K shelter reading Robert McCammon's "Swan Song".