Movie Review - "Tough Guys"

Movie review 21

PLOT

This movie stars Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas as two crooks who were the last great train robbers of the USA and spent 30 years in prison for it! On their release, they're met at the prison guards by their (very young!) Probation officer who wrote his university thesis all about them!

They're told that, after 30 years sharing a prison cell, they're not allowed to "associate" and Kirk gets a room in a welfare roach infested hotel and Burt gets a room in a retirement home! The movie then shows how they try and cope with 1980's USA when they last saw it as 1950's USA!!!

Eventually they get sick and tired of trying to fit in and hear that the train the were jailed for robbing is having one last journey before being decommissioned and they decide to rob it again and escape to Mexico!!!!

RECOMENDED

Hell yeah! This is brilliant!

SCORE

9 squeaks out of 10!

SCOOBY SNACKS

Frozen yogurt with jellybeans M&M's (no peanuts) and caramel sauce toppings.

Movie review - "Lust for Life"

Movie review number18

PLOT

This movie stars Kirk Douglas as the Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh and also stars Anthony Quinn as French artist Paul Gauguin.  The movie starts with Vincent wanting to enter the clergy but they don't want him.  But they change their mind after a passioned plea from Vincent and send him to a tiny mining village in Belgium, full of mud, potatoes and poverty.  This is where Vincent starts painting and drawing very dark and almost depressing pictures.  Vincent then gets kicked out of the job and moves back in with his parents in Holland and falls in love with a cousin whose husband recenlty died.  That causes more problems..... and he then moves to France to learn to paint.  He then meets the Impressionists in Paris and that's when he starts using bright colours in his paintings!!!  

Vincent then moves to the south of France and tries to set up an Artists colony, and shares a house with Gauguin but they get on each other nerves and start arguing.  Later, they have a HUGE row, Gauguin stomps off and Vincent cuts his ear off!!!!  Gauguin moves on, and Vincent goes into an Assylum.

He keeps painting though, and eventually is released from the Assylum and moves to Auvers sur Oise just north of Paris ...... he stays in the Auberge de Ravoux and continues painting...... until he dies - in the movie that's portrayed as an epileptic seizure.  You're obviously not paying attention....!!!  We checked, and in the movie Vincent dies by gunshot in the cornfields!!!  (oops!)

Ed's note - I've been to Auvers sur Oise, trains leave from Gare du Nord in Paris.  The scene in the movie where Vincent walks down some old steps (away from the church) - the graveyard is opposite that church which is where Vincent and his brother Theo are buried with a cypress tree at the foot of the graves, and on the other side of the wall are the cornfields that he painted.

RECOMMENDED
This is a lovely movie!!!

SCORE 

Beanie says 9 squeaks out of 10!!

RECOMMENDED SCOOBY SNACKS
Corn on the cob with lots of butter!

Movie Review - "The Vikings"

Movie review number 15

PLOT

This movie stars Janet Leigh as an English Princess, and Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas and Ernest Borgnine as Maurauding Vikings!!
Ernest is "Dad" and TC and KD are - unknowingly - half brothers.  It starts with a Viking raid on northern England, leaving the King dead and the Queen raped by the Viking Chief, Ernest.  The Kings nearest relative takes over the Kingdom, not knowing that the Queen is pregnant.  Nine months later, the baby is put on a ship bound for Italy with monks to keep him safe - the baby is given a stone from the handle of the King's Sword, on a piece of cord worn as a necklace.
Many years later, in the Viking fjords....... Ernest Borgnine, the Chief and Kirk Douglas, Chief's son, plan a raid on England.  One of the English lords has been banished to Norway after annoying the new King  and helps draw maps of England for the raid.   KD shows him round the Viking village and then shows off his "Killer Attack Bird" - which turns out to be a bit of a wimp.  They then see another "Killer Attack Bird" that really DOES attack and kill, and it belongs to Tony Curtis.  KD accuses TC of stealing the bird, so TC has the bird attack KD and it takes one of his eyes out!  TC is then sentenced to death.  During sentencing, TC's necklace is ripped off and the English Lord recognises the stone as coming from the English King's sword.... and realises who TC really is!!!  TC is then sentenced to death by drowning, except the wind starts up and the tide changes so he doesn't drown at all!!!
 Anyway, the Raid On England is planned to kidnap Princess Janet Leigh, who is about to be married off to the horrid new English King.  KD takes a boat over and does a successful kidnapping of Princess Janet and brings her back to the Viking village.... and then both he and TC fall in love with Princess Janet!  TC then plans a reverse kidnapping and takes Princess Janet back to England...... but Kirk D discovers the escape and there's a big chase across the sea!  King Ernest's boat crashes in the fog, but TC drags him out of the sea and takes him to England, where he's pushed into a pit of hungry wolves and eaten alive.  Tony C has his arm cut off by the king for giving King Ernest a sword so he can die like a true Viking.
Meanwhile back at the Viking village, everyone thinks King Ernest drowned.  Kirk D wants to do another raid on England but nobody will go with him.  All of a sudden, Tony Curtis arrives back at the Viking village and tells them what really happened, and then everyone joins the new raid on England to kill the english King that killed the Viking King.
Meanwhile back in England, Princess Janet is told who Tony C really is - half brother to Kirk D and heir to the English Throne!!!  When the maurauding Vikings arrive back at the castle, Kirk decides to go get the Princess and tells her he's madly in love with her.  Princess says I'm in love with Tony C and actually he's your brother.  Kirk and Tony have a sword fight at the end on top of the castle - but who will win the Princess???!

RECOMMENDED
Yeah, this is a really good yarn!! (that means it's a really good story!!)

SCORE 
Beanie gives this 7 squeaks out of 10!

RECOMMENDED SCOOBY SNACKS
Boiled eggs and soldiers.
(those are toasted bread, with butter on top and then cut into "fingers"!!)

Movie Review - "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea"

This is Movie Review number four!  This isn't one of the new DVDVDVDDs we recently bought, but one that we got as a Christmas present last December!

PLOT

This one is set in we think Victorian times Europe (vaguely 1880s), starting off in a fishing/naval port.  It stars Kirk Douglas as a seaman-for-hire and a French chap as a professory type and James Mason as The Mad Evil Guy.  It's about stories of a seamonster that attacks and sink ships that start circulating around the sea ports and start scaring people.  The French Professor wants to go to sea to see if it really exists and tries to find a ship and seamen to take him. He eventually does (that's how he meets Kirk Douglas!) and they head off towards the USA.  Or it might be based in the USA and they head off towards the Pacific, we're not sure.  But anyway, eventually, they get attacked by this seamonster and the ship sinks, BUT the French Professor, his assistant and Kirk Douglas escape in a life boat.  They they get rescued by the seamonster that actually turns out to be The World's First Submarine!!!!  (I think, since the story is set in the 1880s, it must be a steampunk submarine!!!)  Anyway, the story then goes on about life underwater, what they eat, how they farm for food, and electricity, and escaping maurauding cannibals off a desert island - and THEN ends up on a Prison Island called Rura Pentay (and that idea was later pinched for an alien prison planet with the same name in one of the Star Trek movies!!!) which is when the French professor, his assistant and Kirk Douglas decide to try and escape!!  But I won't ruin the plot by telling you how!!

RECOMMENDED??

Actually, this is quite a fun story!!  It's quite a long movie -  made by Disney probably around the 1950s ..... but it's a good yarn with some funny bits in it as well as some scarey bits!!!

SCORE

Beanie gives it 7 squeaks out of 10!!!

RECOMMENDED SCOOBY SNACKS
Sushi, with squid's ink dip.