Shutter Island

Handsome, imaginative production is undermined by tone-deaf script and anemic sense of drama. It would be better off as a special feature on Inception DVD: Missing Middle Act cut for time.

Colt .45 (aka Thundercloud)

Stupendously inept in almost every way but plenty of fun. Too many gaffes in front and behind the camera to even start to list.

Spencer's Mountain

Wholly inferior first stab at Hamner stories. Not even a journeyman cast of family-movie troupers can overcome numerous debilities. Redeeming trivia: Wally Cox was discovered to voice Underdog via this dreck.
UPDATE: DVD extras include press tour interviews with Henry Fonda who is either exhausted, distracted by some calamity or just bored out his ever-loving skull delivering loopy yet cutting remarks about the movie.

Man of the Year

Unwatchable train wreck that has all of Wag the Dog's flaws plus lots of new ones. Christopher Walken's character, created in spite of his dialogue rather than through it, is the sole redeeming characteristic. I actually started skimming at about 45 minutes, which, if you know me, I don't do. I didn't skim Kristin Lavransdatter, for example.

Town Without Pity

Ham-handed (no offense to pigs) would-be polemic (ditto polems) is of interest for its semi-exotic (well, anti-exotic, anyway) setting in "What Cold War" Germany and perhaps as an incompetent porting of High Noon via The Nuremberg Trials. Kirk's scene-chewing bits are watchable but the story such as it is, is repeatedly torpedoed by pointless narration. The equally clumsy score cannot possibly be the responsibility of Dmitri Tiomkin, the director has to take the fall for that disaster. The lighting is bad and the screen ratio is all screwy.

Zodiac

At some point I watched David Fincher's Zodiac and I liked it. I wish i could remember when that was. About a year ago, I guess.

Last Days of Pompeii

Rollicking spectacle of the first water. Basil Rathbone is the slickest and most dignified Pontius Pilate ever and in a crowded field, too.

Anne of the Thousand Days

Richard Burton is all self-doubt and rage which I think was not his intent. Excellent costumes but the whole thing is lit at a ridiculously high level. John Colicos gives a supremely wicked Cromwell and Genevieve Bujold suitably spirited as Anne Boleyn. Irene Papas cast as Catherine of Aragon which was sheer genius.
I think I must be done with the Tudors for a while.

I Confess

I didn't like I Confess when I saw it years ago and I still find it a hard nut to crack. Its virtues are easy enough to see: elegant compositions, beautiful photography, interesting performances ... but it does not gel. The entirely weird flashback sequence is probably brilliant but is lost on me and I was thoroughly distracted. I do have a new appreciation for the performance of the part of the bad guy. His weakness, greed and general subhuman behaviors are so blatant that they are almost charming, Bush q.v. His cheerful, frightened bleating is almost worthy of pity. But even Bilbo would have stabbed him, unlike Clift Montgomery's character who beats Christ by a mile on the martyr scale.

I'll Be Seeing You

I'll Be Seeing You isn't very much like the Lord of the Rings except our hero (Joseph Cotten) is stabbed in the shoulder which manifests its effects as shaking sweats and fainting, his love interest (Ginger Rogers) cries a lot and their affair is almost ruined by a stunted and twisted monster (teen Shirley Temple).

Les Enfants du Paradis

The French Gone With the Wind is set in and around a pantomime theater.
True Love took a beating in Heaven Can Wait just in time to be gutted by Les Enfants du Paradis.
Fun but mildly spoilerish intro from Terry Gilliam.

Charly

This is a mixed bag. There is the touching movie about the relations between people which works well, there is the clunky perfunctory science drama which does not and then there is the cynical and dreary polemic which is just awful.
Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom give restrained thoughtful performances where possible but do not (or can not) retrieve the bad material. I find it unlikely that Stirling Silliphant is responsible for the worst of these offenses. There re several directorial indulgences which miss the mark but at least liven up the pace a little. A trippy montage however is just laughable, though.
Based on TV play The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon which is based on the novel Flowers for Algernon. Charming but amateurishly spotted score by Ravi Shankar.

Heaven Can Wait

Charming philanderer (Don Ameche) dies and goes to Hell. Brightly polished comedy has dark, burnished interior wherein the consequences of Love Conquers All and Love Is Blind are presented. His lack of accomplishments are signal, his relationships are strained but ultimately satisfactory but not even Satan (the great and tragic Laird Cregar) can hold him because people loved him. Happily for him, those people are not in Hell. The same phenomenon was on display in COPS when the clearly abused party would cries out for her lover/assailant, "Don't arrest him! I love you, baby!" The difference being that in Heaven Can Wait, the crimes are those of ommission, mostly.
The growing up sequence is a highlight. Gene Tierney's hair in later sequences is distracting.
Not to be confused with Warren Beatty's 1978 movie, Heaven Can Wait, which is a remake of Here Comes Mr Jordan.

Golden Voyage of Sinbad

One goes to see Harryhausen but stays for Caroline Munro. Tom Baker's villain is sympathetic and only a little evil.

Videodrome

Documentary about Canadian health care.

Mary, Queen of Scots.

I don't know the story behind Glenda Jackson playing Elizabeth again. Not as good as Elizabeth R, although the depiction of Mary's personality is skillfully shaded and the production values are magnitudes plushier. Several risible bits that presage Holy Grail. I now think that John Cleese was in fact parodying the portrtayal of John Knox from this movie. There are also ground-to-parapet conversations that may have been shot at the same castle. Patrick McGoohan has a slithery role.

Ikiru

Middle aged middle manager faces death. Then he finds out he has cancer. Then he dies. Then the story kicks in. Devastating and probably inspiring. It's a lot of movie, weak souls may be evaporated during screening.

Scaramouche

One of the spiritual godfathers of Star Wars. Stewart Granger looks the part but he has absolutely no depth, not even enough for light-weight stuff like this. Mel Ferrer, no relation to Jose Ferrer, makes quite a bit more of his villain than Granger does of his swashbuckler. Great fencing duels and gorgeous, if too glamorous (Stewart's tights, q.v.), studio, Technicolor presentation. A sort of a counterbalance to Cyrano de Bergerac.

There Was a Crooked Man

Thematically consistent but brutally unsubtle message movie. Production is much too good for sophomoric material. Comedy score may have actually undercut the effect completely; straight score might have allowed the blackness of the comedy to be discovered instead of shoving it in our face. Uneven tone also contributes: a Benny Hill-style chase is right next door to a brutal stabbing by Warren Oates. Who, by the way, does a fine job. All the performances were solid, which just makes the end result that much more puzzling.

Heavy Metal

I have never had much use for pop music of any sort and the music in Heavy Metal, Elmer Bernstein's score excluded, makes me grind my teeth. I would have sneered at this even as a teenager and now I am just rolling my eyes. There are several bits that are funny but the overall effect is just taxing. The main benefit is that 1,000 animators had work in 1980.