FILM FRENZY

The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee; A Feast at Midnight; Arabian Adventure (Photos: Severin)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K, and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

CUTTER’S WAY (1981). Cutter and Bone opened to weak reviews and nonexistent box office, but a second wave of critical evaluations — a positive batch this time — led to a title change, a theatrical rerelease, and, if not financial riches, the start of a sustained standing as a cult flick. Cutter’s Way is at once an American film of its time and for all ensuing times, an ugly-truth endeavor examining a nation in which the rich and powerful literally get away with murder while the poor and pitiful barely exist at all. So when slacker and part-time gigolo Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) suspects that the filthy-rich industrialist J.J. Cord (Stephen Elliott) was the man he saw cramming a teenage cheerleader’s corpse into a dumpster, his best friend, damaged Vietnam vet Alex Cutter (John Heard), decides that enough is enough. Bone has major reservations about the scheme concocted by Cutter, while Cutter’s wife, the long-suffering Mo (Lisa Eichhorn), is simply tired of his shenanigans. What follows is a three-pronged character study about down-and-outers who are by turns cynical, moral, unlikable, tragic, philosophical, shallow, and, ultimately, heroic. Heard is excellent in the showiest role, while Eichhorn matches him with a lived-in performance that’s often painful to watch. As for Bridges, he doubtless saw how much fun Heard had playing an eyepatch-wearing, raspy-voiced outsider sporting his own brand of justice — maybe that’s why, decades later, he accepted the role of Rooster Cogburn in the Coens’ True Grit remake?

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition (limited to 5,000 copies) include audio commentary by executive producer / first assistant director Larry Franco and unit production manager Barrie M. Osborne; a discussion of the film’s legacy; an audio introduction by Bridges; and an interview with Eichhorn. An 80-page book is also included.

Movie: ★★★½

DOUBLE IMPACT (1991). It’s double the Van Damme-age with Double Impact, which finds martial arts star Jean-Claude Van Damme tackling the time-honored cinematic tradition also essayed by the likes of Bette Davis, Bette Midler, Jeremy Irons, and Leonardo DiCaprio. In other words — and in the words of Tony Roberts in Annie Hall — “Twins, Max!” Van Damme attempts to show off his (limited) range as Chad and Alex Wagner, who were separated at the age of 6 months when their parents were gunned down by scores of Hong Kong assassins under orders from Dad’s duplicitous business partner (Alan Scarfe) and a local crime kingpin (Philip Chan). Cut to 25 years later and Chad has been raised in California by the family’s former bodyguard, Frank Avery (Geoffrey Lewis), while Alex grew up in Hong Kong. The main difference between them is that Chad, a physical instructor, wears pink pants while Alex, a black-market operative, chomps on a cigar — otherwise, both are quick with the quips and with the martial arts moves. And both are reunited by Frank in an effort to finally take revenge on the men responsible for their parents’ deaths. This is packed with the sort of material one would expect from a middling JCVD programmer: some decent hand-to-hand (or, rather, foot-to-foot) combat, too many dull shootouts, and dopey dialogue that sounds even dopier coming from Van Damme. The actor would again tackle dual roles in 1996’s Maximum Risk and 2001’s Replicant.

Blu-ray extras include a two-hour retrospective making-of documentary; deleted and extended scenes; a vintage behind-the-scenes featurette; vintage cast & crew interview clips; and the theatrical trailer. A mini-poster is also included.

Movie: ★★

THE EUROCRYPT OF CHRISTOPHER LEE: COLLECTION 3 (1960-2024). The quote on the outer box of this intriguing set couldn’t have been better chosen. It was uttered by Christopher Lee, and it reads: “People sometimes come up to me and say, ‘Mr, Lee, I’ve seen all your films.’ And I say, ‘Oh no you haven’t.’” With approximately 250 movie credits to his name, the man speaks the truth, and even Christopher Lee likely hadn’t seen every Christopher Lee film before he passed away in 2015 at the age of 93. This glorious series of box sets from the Severin label lends a helping hand to wannabe completists, serving up many of the obscure pictures he made throughout Europe. The first collection debuted in 2021 and housed a total of five films on Blu-ray, including 1964’s Castle of the Living Dead and 1967’s The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism, as well as the 24 episodes from Theatre Macabre, a Polish TV anthology series he hosted, a soundtrack CD for Castle of the Living Dead, and an 88-page book by Lee biographer Jonathan Rigby. Collection 2 was released in 2022 and offered six more movies on Blu — seven if one counts the 1976 director’s cut and the butchered 1979 U.S. version of Dracula and Son as two films — along with the CD soundtrack for Dracula and Son, and a 100-page book by Rigby. This brings us to Collection 3, which serves up six flicks on Blu-ray, one of those six titles also in 4K, and a 142-page book by Rigby.

There are two elements that make this set different from its predecessors. First is the realization that, whereas Lee was the star in many of the features in the other sets, he only appears in supporting roles in the five fictional films included here, even the pair on which he receives top billing. That’s hardly a debit, though, since he gooses the proceedings in all of the pictures. More important is the fact that, whereas practically all of the preceding sets’ pictures belonged to the horror genre, with an occasional murder-mystery or psychological thriller thrown into the mix, this collection offers a far wider range of genres, from fantasy yarn to family flick to documentary. And first up is an unexpected category: the teen exploitation pic. Beat Girl (1960), retitled Wild for Kicks for its stateside run, stars Gillian Hills as 16-year-old Jennifer Linden, a perpetual pouter incensed at the fact that her middle-aged dad (David Farrar) has married a 24-year-old Frenchwoman (Noëlle Adams). Her acts of rebellion include hanging out at a Soho strip club, where she’s wooed by the venue’s sleazy owner (Lee). One of the more interesting and comparatively polished entries in what’s often tagged a disreputable genre, Beat Girl offers early peeks at emerging talent: Future five-time Oscar winner John Barry (Dances With Wolves) provides the music while Oliver Reed appears as the most rambunctious of the rebels without a clue. This set offers both the 88-minute theatrical cut of the film and a 92-minute extended cut.

The Hands of Orlac (1960), aka Hands of the Strangler, was the third screen adaptation of Maurice Renard’s 1920 novel Les Mains d’Orlac, following the 1924 Austrian silent film The Hands of Orlac, starring Conrad Veidt, and the 1935 Hollywood version Mad Love, with Peter Lorre. Mel Ferrer plays Stephen Orlac, a famous pianist whose hands are damaged in an airplane crash. An operation performed by the brilliant Professor Volcheff (Donald Wolfit) provides Orlac with replacement hands, but, given his newfound violent tendencies, the musician suspects that his appendages came from the body of a prisoner executed that same day for murder. A drab performance from Ferrer helps makes this easily the weakest of the three versions, but the picture receives a shot in the hand, er, arm, with the introduction of Lee’s character. The actor essays the role of Nero, a casually cruel stage magician who abuses his assistant Li-Lang (Dany Carrel) and attempts to blackmail Orlac. Lee performs this role with glee, turning Nero into a particularly nasty villain. The Hands of Orlac was filmed in English (95 minutes) and in French (104 minutes) — it helped that Lee and Ferrer spoke both languages, thus providing the voices for both versions — and this collection includes the two cuts.

Employing the same leading man (Georges Rivière), the same composer, the same cinematographer, and the same editor, and using the same shooting location, director Antonio Margheriti filmed The Virgin of Nuremberg (1963), aka Horror Castle, and Danza Macabre (1963), aka Castle of Blood back-to-back. Danza Macabre (reviewed here) is the better bet, but The Virgin of Nuremberg is worth a glance, particularly for those who enjoy their Italian horror on the grisly side. The title refers to a torture device found in the castle of a former general who was facially disfigured during Nazi experiments and who was believed to have perished. But a mysterious, murderous figure now prowls the grounds. Is it the general’s son (Rivière)? The general’s mute right-hand man (Lee)? Or is the general actually still alive? Gruesomeness can be found in every shadow of this moody yet erratic thriller, with one notable sequence involving a young captive outfitted with an Orwellian rat cage. This collection provides The Virgin of Nuremberg on both Blu-ray and 4K UHD discs.

Lee and Peter Cushing both have roles in Arabian Adventure (1979), but it wouldn’t be accurate to tag this as one of the countless Cushing-Lee collaborations. The close friends have no scenes together, and only Lee has a substantial role — he receives top billing while Cushing shares “Special Guest Appearance” status with Mickey Rooney and Capucine. It’s in the grand tradition of films like The Thief of Bagdad and Arabian Nights, and many of its prime components are borrowed from the Aladdin folk tale and its various adaptations: a plucky orphan boy, a mischievous monkey, a beautiful princess, a genie in a lamp, and a flying carpet. Lee plays the evil Caliph Alquazar, who seeks a mystical rose that, in his hands, would give him infinite power and that, in his enemies’ hands, could defeat him. Armed with good hearts and good intentions, a young prince (Oliver Tobias) and a street urchin (Puneet Sira) set out to retrieve the rose, but they must contend with a murderous genie (needless to say, a far cry from Robin Williams or Will Smith), fire-breathing dragons, and Alquazar’s duplicitous minions (including a pre-Cheers/pre-Pixar John Ratzenberger, improbably cast as Achmed). Emma Samms co-stars as the beautiful princess, Cushing turns up as a political prisoner, and Rooney plays a bumbling madcap inventor … and in the process reminds us that a little of him often goes a loooong way. Veteran fantasy director Kevin Connor keeps the film moving, and the effects aren’t always convincing but are always entertaining to behold.

(As a personal aside, I briefly toiled under Arabian Adventure director Connor when he came to Kenya to direct the 1984 TV miniseries Master of the Game, based on the Sidney Sheldon bestseller and starring Ian Charleson and Donald Pleasence. I — along with other International School of Kenya students — worked for six days as an extra on the production; Connor was startled that my teenage film-buff self actually recognized his name from such previous credits as The Land That Time Forgot and At the Earth’s Core. Read the whole story here. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

A Feast at Midnight (1994) might be the most surprising inclusion in this collection — it also happens to be one of the best. A film for the whole family to enjoy, this unfolds at a boys’ prep school where new student Magnus Gove (Freddie Findlay) feels lonely and bullied. The bright lad, who had acquired an interest in gastronomy from his father (Edward Fox), employs his culinary skills in the service of making new friends; he succeeds, but he still remains mindful of the school’s biggest bully (Stuart Hawley). A Feast at Midnight is a sweet and sentimental movie — quite lovely in spots — but, as was usually the case, it’s up to Lee to elevate it to another level. He’s wonderful as Longfellow, an imposing teacher nicknamed “Raptor” by the students (don’t miss the brilliant visual shout-out to Jurassic Park). The most complicated character in the picture, Longfellow is a humorless disciplinarian whose gentler qualities are rarely allowed to surface — and when they do, he’s unsure of how to deal with them, particularly in his relationship with his grown daughter (Lisa Faulkner). The director and co-writer of A Feast at Midnight is Justin Hardy, whose father Robin Hardy was the director of what Lee always considered his favorite of his own films, 1973’s The Wicker Man.

A Feast at Midnight is a winner, yet the best movie in the set is The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee (2024). This excellent documentary throws everything into the pot — talking heads, film clips, animated sequences (including some Monty Python-esque bits), archival photographs — and manages to shape it all into a comprehensive study of the personal and professional triumphs and travails of the legendary actor. It’s all here: his impressive lineage (an opera singer, an explorer, various royal figures, plus James Bond creator Ian Fleming as a cousin); his standing as a horror legend, a designation he would shun later in life; his work in England, the U.S., and throughout Europe; his late blooming as a heavy metal musician (he’s the oldest person to place in the Billboard Top 20). Directors Joe Dante, Peter Jackson, and John Landis, horror star (and Stella Star) Caroline Munro, and stage and screen actress (and Lee’s niece) Harriet Walter are among those contributing choice tidbits (to his credit, Jackson addresses his unfortunate decision to cut Lee out of the final Lord of the Rings flick). It’s heartwarming watching footage of Lee and Cushing interact, and it’s heartbreaking watching Lee almost in tears when, following being knighted in 2009, a TV reporter labels him “the king of horror” and he protests what he considered a limiting title (“I haven’t made a horror film in 34 years!”).

Extras on Beat Girl include audio commentary by Rigby and Hammer historian Kevin Lyons; an interview with Hills; and the video essay London After Dark: The Sinful Soho of the Sixties. Extras on The Hands of Orlac include audio commentary by Rigby and Lyons; a piece on Renard; and a look at the shooting locations then and now. Extras on The Virgin of Nuremberg include film historian audio commentary; an interview with Margheriti; and an interview with co-scripter Ernesto Gastaldi. Extras on Arabian Adventure include audio commentary by Connor, moderated by Severin Films’ David Gregory; a virtual Zoom reunion between Connor, Samms, and Sira; and the 1996 documentary The Many Faces of Christopher Lee. Extras on A Feast at Midnight consists of audio commentary by Hardy and co-writer/producer Yoshi Nishio, and the trailer. Extras on The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee include audio commentary by director Jon Spira and producer Hank Starrs; a BFI Q&A with Spira, Starrs, and Rigby; and extended interviews with Dante, Jackson, Landis, and others.

Collection: ★★★½

NETWORK (1976). “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” One generation’s satire is another’s reality, meaning that the outrageous antics on view in Network would hardly be out of place in a TV landscape that in the modern era has housed Bill Reilly, Howard Stern, and Fear Factor. Directed by Sidney Lumet and written by Paddy Chayefsky, this blistering black comedy about the ruthlessness of network television casts Peter Finch as Howard Beale, a broken-down news anchor whose revelation that he will kill himself on the air lifts his station from fourth to first place in the ratings. Faye Dunaway has one of her last great roles as the all-work-no-play programmer Diana Christensen, while William Holden is excellent as Max Schumacher, Beale’s boss and the only person with a modicum of decency. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Actor (Holden), Supporting Actor (Ned Beatty in one powerful scene as an icy company chairman), and Director, this earned four: Best Actor (Finch, winning posthumously), Actress (Dunaway), Supporting Actress (Beatrice Straight in a tiny role as Schumacher’s wife), and Original Screenplay. The roles played by Straight and Beatty occupy so little screen time that she still holds the record for the shortest performance to ever win an Oscar (5 minutes) while he still holds the record for the shortest performance by an actor to ever be nominated for an Oscar (6 minutes).

Blu-ray extras consist of audio commentary by Lumet; a feature-length making-of documentary; the 2025 documentary Paddy Chayefsky: Collector of Words; and the theatrical trailer. Alas, not included are two extras that graced Warner’s 2011 Blu-ray edition of Network: the TCM Private Screening episode on Lumet and Chayefsky’s appearance on a 1977 episode of Dinah!

Movie: ★★★½

PIRANHA (1978). The years following the gargantuan success of 1975’s Jaws found studios releasing an endless stream of copycat flicks of the “When Nature Strikes!” variety — rip-offs included 1976’s Grizzly (dubbed both Claws and Paws by industry wags), 1978’s Barracuda, and the X-rated 1976 spoof Gums (where the Richard Dreyfuss character was renamed Sy Smegma, complete with, eww, definition). It’s generally agreed, though, that producer Roger Corman’s Piranha remains the best of the bunch; even Jaws director Steven Spielberg counts himself among the film’s fans. The first screenwriting credit for John Sayles as well as an early assignment for director Joe Dante, Piranha sports a sense of humor to go along with the grisly critter attacks, as a boozy woodsman (Bradford Dillman) and a private investigator (Heather Menzies) stumble across a crazed scientist (Kevin McCarthy) who’s experimenting on a pool full of mutated piranha; along the way, the couple accidentally release the ferocious fish into a nearby river. Trivia note: The in-name-only sequel, 1981’s dismal Piranha Part Two: The Spawning, marked the directorial debut of no less than James Cameron. Piranha was remade in 2010; other variances in recent times include Piranha 3DD, MegaPiranha, Piranhaconda, and Piranha-Man Vs. WereWolf-Man: Howl of the Piranha.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray Steelbook edition include audio commentary by Corman; audio commentary by Dante and producer Jon Davison; a making-of featurette; an interview with Dante; behind-the-scenes footage; additional scenes from the TV version; and bloopers.

Movie: ★★★

RAY (2004). Just how good is Jamie Foxx’s central performance in Ray? Let’s just say that without him, this biopic about music legend Ray Charles wouldn’t be half as memorable. Writer-director Taylor Hackford, who has rarely met a movie he can’t stretch past two hours, and co-scripter James L. White waste an awful amount of screen time going over variations on the same themes: Throughout the first part of his adult life, Ray (blind since age seven) alternates between taking drugs, cheating on his wife (sympathetically played by Kerry Washington), and — oh, yeah — emerging as a musical genius. Despite an occasional sameness to these scenes — not to mention a choppy structure that shortchanges many of the supporting players — the film skips along thanks to the inherent drama in many of the presented conflicts. Yet shouldn’t a movie named Ray give us a complete portrait of the man? Just as Ray is learning to tame his demons, the movie ends, cheating us of what we wanted to see: the musician as humanitarian, as elder statesman, as soulful survivor. Instead, the movie mimics The Doors in that it spends so much time (speaking of Jim Morrison) wallowing in the mire. Still, it’s easy to overlook the flaws in the storytelling with Foxx commanding our attention in virtually every scene. Much more than, say, Will Smith as Ali or Anthony Hopkins as Nixon, the actor loses himself so thoroughly in the role that it’s impossible to tell where Ray Charles ends and Jamie Foxx begins. It’s a real barn burner of a performance, mesmerizing enough to keep Ray on my mind. Nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture and Director, it won for Best Actor and Sound Mixing.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include audio commentary by Hackford; an introduction by Hackford; a pair of making-of pieces; deleted scenes; and a jam session between Charles and Foxx.

Movie: ★★★

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990). Due to director Joe Dante’s initial reluctance to return to helm a sequel to his 1984 hit Gremlins, Gremlins 2: The New Batch didn’t appear until six years later (rather than the usual three-year difference), which might help explain why it was a flop compared to its predecessor ($41 million to the original’s $148 million). This time, the title terrors create a ruckus inside a New York City skyscraper owned by a Ted Turner-like media mogul (John Glover). Gremlins stars Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, and Dick Miller all return, but it would be unfair to dismiss this follow-up as more of the same — instead, in addition to being peppered with savvy in-jokes (most obscure: I Am a Camera), the movie itself plays like one long in-joke, with unexpected appearances by the Looney Tunes gang, film critic Leonard Maltin on hand to bash the original Gremlins until attacked by gremlins himself (shamelessly, he gave this sequel three stars in his annual Movie Guide, as opposed to two stars for the first flick), and the film appearing to break due to the creatures’ shenanigans. Any movie with former Dracula Christopher Lee as a scientist who creates a gremlin-bat can’t be all bad — indeed, there are some bright gags scattered throughout the random bits of mayhem — but there’s a reason we’ve had to wait 37 years for Gremlins 3 (and that’s assuming it hits its 2027 release date).

Movie: ★★½

PAN (2015). With altered origin stories all the rage these years (Cruella, Maleficent, Oz the Great and Powerful, etc.), here’s one inspired by J.M. Barrie’s beloved Peter Pan. It introduces Peter (Levi Miller) as an orphan who’s kidnapped (along with other boys) and taken to Neverland, where he’s expected to toil in the mines under the order of the pirate Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman). There, Peter meets a young man named Hook (Garrett Hedlund), a cocky devil-may-care sort who becomes the boy’s unlikely buddy. Peter learns he can fly, Blackbeard fears that the lad is the one prophesied to lead the insurgence against him, and Hook falls for a local known as Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara). It’s all broadly played and only intermittently engaging, and there’s little here to deepen our understanding of all these familiar characters. As Blackbeard, Jackman is enjoying his own antics far more than any viewer would, and as Hook, Hedlund is under the impression that he’s Harrison Ford playing Han Solo in the original Star Wars. Wendy, meanwhile, is nowhere to be found — presumably, she was going to be introduced in a sequel that never happened, given the dismal grosses — and the fairies (including Tinkerbell) are merely twinkly special effects who speak with the voices of Alvin and his infernal chipmunks. But hey, it could be worse. It could be Spielberg’s Hook.

Movie: ★★

RED RIVER (1948). A magnificent picture from first frame to last, director Howard Hawks’ Red River features a performance by John Wayne that’s so remarkable, it led to John Ford (who had already directed the star in several films, including Stagecoach) cracking, “I never knew the son of a bitch could act!” Far from a clean-cut hero, Wayne’s Thomas Dunson is a rancher who becomes more stubborn, violent, and vindictive as the years pass; during the grueling cattle drive that takes up most of the running time, his surly attitude finally places him in conflict with his adopted son Matt Garth (Montgomery Clift, a beautiful, blinding light in his first year in film), a sensitive cowboy respected for his more progressive views. The movie is packed with exquisite set-pieces: the terrifying cattle stampede; the Freudian-friendly bit where Matt and fellow sharpshooter Cherry Valance (John Ireland) fondle each other’s guns; Dunson’s stirring speech about beef, so passionate that I’m surprised the “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner” folks never incorporated it into their advertising; the tense face-offs between Dunson and those underlings who dare oppose him; and the shenanigans of Walter Brennan’s toothless coot Groot. This earned Oscar nominations for Best Motion Picture Story (Borden Chase, adapting his own story “Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail”) and Best Film Editing (Christian Nyby), while Clift landed a Best Actor nod for his other 1948 release, The Search.

Movie: ★★★★

WISE BLOOD (1979). There’s something to say — and it’s not pretty — about an industry that occasionally films works by Bret Easton Ellis but goes out of its way to avoid the output of Flannery O’Connor. Then again, that’s perhaps for the best, as it would be no easy task bringing this formidable writer’s stories to the screen. Yet here’s John Huston bucking the odds as he often did over the course of his remarkable career, helming the only major O’Connor screen adaptation to date and making sure it’s a twisted beauty. Based on O’Connor’s 1952 novel, this stars Brad Dourif as Hazel Motes, a wide-eyed Southerner whose religious upbringing (under a fire-and-brimstone preacher played by Huston himself) has led to all sorts of knotty feelings involving God. Unable to come to grips with his own emotions and disgusted by the crass commercialism of Christianity, he elects to form the Church of Truth Without Jesus Christ Crucified. This in turn puts him into contact with all manner of religious posers, including blind street preacher Asa Hawks (Harry Dean Stanton), Asa’s nymphomaniac daughter Sabbath Lily (Amy Wright), guitar-strumming con man Hoover Shoates (Ned Beatty), and an ill-fated stranger hired by Shoates to serve as a rival prophet (the wonderful William Hickey, who would later be Oscar-nominated for Huston’s Prizzi’s Honor). Huston, scripters Benedict and Michael Fitzgerald, and a superlative cast don’t make a single wrong move with this one-of-a-kind viewing experience.

Movie: ★★★½

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER (2010). Easily Woody Allen’s raunchiest film, 1972’s hilarious Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) features such outrageous — and outrageously original — gags as a gigantic, Kafka-by-way-of-Roth female breast terrorizing the countryside, and a sperm (played by Allen) afraid that his host body’s masturbatory ways might result in his ending up on the ceiling. In You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, what passes for Allen’s idea of an innovative sex gag? Anthony Hopkins’ doddering character Alfie counting down the minutes until the Viagra tablet takes effect. Alfie isn’t the only one who has trouble getting it up. One of Allen’s worst films, Stranger is a flaccid piece that offers nothing in the way of stimulating drama or stirring comedy. A dour, ugly movie, it centers on a group of insufferable people making each other miserable in London. Alfie has left his grating wife Helena (Gemma Jones) to marry a young prostitute (Lucy Punch), while their daughter Sally (Naomi Watts) contemplates an affair with her boss (Antonio Banderas) at the art gallery even as her novelist hubby (Josh Brolin) eyes the cutie (Freida Pinto) living in the neighboring building. Allen used to display enormous amounts of warmth toward his characters, but here he holds them all in contempt. As a result, the humor tastes like curdled milk, while all notions of romance have been replaced with aggravating heartburn.

Movie: ★½