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sanborneo
Reviews
Freezer Burn (2007)
a rarity in today's cinematic crap-storm...
i watched this under a friend's recommendation, & my only problem was, given the title, the obviously low budget, & the fact it involved scientists working in a cheapo lab, i naturally assumed it was going to morph into some sort of sci-fi (that's right, we still spell it that way, SyFy!!) horror film--the Rampage of the Hideous Freezer Demon, or something. but once i got past that, & settled into the film's rhythms, i was pleasantly surprised. i won't bother w/a plot synopsis, but suffice-to-say, it's a very original product, a light but dark anti-romantic comedy. sure, you can laugh that the petri dishes they use in their "lab" are in fact tin-foil take-out containers, but as a veteran of many even LOWER budget productions than this, i can tell you that the level of direction, writing, acting & the consistency of tone they achieve is extremely difficult under those circumstances, & all the more impressive for it. keep your mind open, look past the obvious short-comings, & you'll have a good time most Hollywood dreck can't provide...
77 Sunset Strip (1958)
"strangers on a train", TV style
It didn't take long for me to realize the episode, "One False Step" was an adaption of "Strangers on a Train" by Patricia Highsmith, with eventual series' regular Richard Long guest-starring as a very convincingly smooth sociopath.
I particularly loved the POV shot of Long's character seeing himself reflected in his victims' eyeglasses: VERY Hitchcockian, and as far as a technical shot goes, above and beyond the call of '50's Television.
I also happened to notice Raymond Chandler got a co-writers' credit for this episode based on the Highsmith novel, & that led me to finding out he worked on the '51 screenplay for Hitchcock.