The Descent answers the question: How tough can a woman be? Director Neil Marshall chose to make this movie with an all-female cast. The women depicted are brave to the point of being foolhardy nutcases, but that’s only my opinion.

The movie starts with three friends having fun while whitewater rafting in Scotland. Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) is host and her husband and daughter are along on the trip. On the way home in the car, her husband seems distracted while driving, and suddenly there’s a horrifying accident that kills the husband and daughter. Sarah wakes up in the hospital, traumatized for life. Still, after some recovery time, she decides to visit America where her friend Juno (Natalie Mendoza) has an all-woman adventure planned in the Appalachian Mountains.

What do Sarah, Juno, Beth, Rebecca, Sam and Holly all have in common? They are all athletic, adventurous women ready to have an exciting cave exploration weekend. Juno leads, and the five others are misled into believing they’re exploring a well-known cave system in the National Park. Juno decided, alone and on her own, to take them instead to an unexplored cave so they can have the honor of naming it.

They rappel into a huge open pit chamber, then make their way deep inside the earth. While crawling through a narrow passageway, Sarah gets stuck but Juno talks her out of her terror and rescues her just as there’s a cave-in. By this time the movie viewer is on edge. I was literally ready to pack up and run because horror movies that put me on edge are far from my favorites. My significant other, “The Mystic”, talked me out of it.

I’m glad I stuck around to see the beautiful cave painting that was in the next room they passed through. I’m one who appreciates great artwork, including movie-art, by the way. But when Sarah saw a strange white creature lurking in the distance I felt sure their troubles would multiply.

The main thing I got out of the film was the impression that some women are tougher than others. They have mental prowess, irrepressible bravery, quick instincts, and the guts to do the necessary things to survive. Others melt in the heat of battle, in varying degrees. The women who survived longer did so because they had those special qualities that belong to the toughest, bravest, most-courageous of all.

The Mystic was favorably impressed with this film - especially the acting talents of the women involved. They looked  sincerely traumatized, claustrophobic, and frightened. The directing was flawless and I’ll admit the women were very talented.

If you like sitting on the edge of your chair, frightened half out of your skull, this is an excellent film. If however you are like me and prefer sweet love stories, this is not going to be your cup of tea.

The cast included Shauna Macdonald (Sarah); Natalie Mendoza (Juno); Alex Reid (Beth); Saskia Mulder (Rebecca); MyAnna Buring (Sam); Nora-Jane Noone (Holly); Oliver Milburn (Paul); Molly Kayll (Jessica) and Craig Conway (the underground creature).

A pregnant woman who doesn’t want to be a mother; a husband who doesn’t know how to care about his wife, two ditzy waitresses, a handsome doctor, and a sweet little old man. These are a few of the characters in the odd but intriguing chick flick melodrama, Waitress.

Keri Russell  stars as Jenna, a young woman whose fantasies take the form of creative pie recipes. She works as a waitress at Joe’s Pie Diner, along with two other waitresses, Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (Adrienne Shelly). Though she is miserable when she finds out she’s pregnant with her abusive husband’s child, her co-workers give her a baby diary in which she writes letters to her unborn child.

Unable to restrain herself, she passionately throws herself at her handsome obstetrician, Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion) and he gladly engages with her in a torrid extramarital affair. This sets the scene for a roller-coaster pregnancy and plenty of soul searching.

This is a cute movie with plenty of depth as Jenna feels her way through her distress. It brings up ethical issues when she involves herself in the illicit affair, and many will find themselves disgusted with the doctor-patient relationship. Still Jenna redeems herself and the beauty of the film triumphs over the confusion and pathetic attempts at finding happiness.

I enjoyed the creativity of this movie - it definitely wasn’t your ordinary chick flick comedy though there were many amusing moments. For example, when Jenna finds out she’s pregnant she imagines a new pie recipe and names it “I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie” - shortened to “Bad Baby Pie”. She sees a mother with a tyrant of a boy-child in the restaurant and though you don’t hear her say a word, you know what she’s thinking. And Dawn’s first reaction to her odd, persistent new boyfriend is understandable - he’s quite a dweeb.

A regular customer at the restaurant is Joe (Andy Griffith) who claims to own Joe’s Pie Diner. He warms to Jenna, occasionally extending his old-age wisdom and advice. I loved Andy’s performance - he was perfect in every way.

At the official website you can name your own life-inspired pie.

Note: Adrienne Shelly was the writer and director of this unusual chick flick. She also played the role of Dawn. A tragedy occurred, and a great talent left us. This amazing, creative woman was murdered in November 2006 in New York during a failed robbery, leaving her husband and two-year-old daughter, both of whom had bit parts in the movie. The 19-year-old murderer was sentenced to 25 years without parole in March 2008.

Waitress has its own official blog with interviews, news, reviews, and more.

If you want to see a gorgeous horse, watch The Appaloosa. The horse is silky black in front with the brightest, most intelligent looking eyes. I was mesmerized by this horse and didn’t get to see enough of him. He kept getting kidnapped, which is what made the story move. The rear of this horse was white with black spots. He really was outstanding - and you can see why the evil Mexican ranchero, Chuy (John Saxon,) wanted to take him away from good-guy Mateo (Marlon Brando.)

Mateo was adopted as a very young homeless child by a Mexican family somewhere in the Southwest. At the beginning of the movie Mateo returns from the war and a wayward life, to his hometown, Ojo Prieto. He wants to be forgiven by God, and wants to settle down and help his adopted brother, Paco, start a horse ranch. The Appaloosa is expected to be the father of all the horses Mateo wants to raise there.

Unfortunately he runs into Chuy’s wife, Trini, who is the first to kidnap the Appaloosa in an attempt to run away from her husband. She’s quickly apprehended and returned to Chuy, but at that point Chuy becomes obsessed with owning the Appaloosa. He is a cruel man, and as the movie unfolded I was appalled by some of the misery-making I witnessed.

Marlon Brando looked awesome at the beginning of the movie - all scruffy, unshaven, with long hair. It is a shame he had to clean up and shave. Others might think differently, but I liked the wild and natural look on him.

This movie hasn’t gotten any great reviews over at Netflix: The Appaloosa at Netflix, but it has nearly five stars. I gave it 4, but that was mostly because I thought Brando was cute before he shaved, and the horse was drop-dead gorgeous. Speaking of dropping dead, a lot of people did just that in this film… something I’m not a big fan of.

This cult classic from 1971 explores the mystic relationship between man and car. Sixties singing sensation, James Taylor, and Beach Boy, Dennis Wilson, starred in the film. They joined Warren Oates and Laurie Bird in this masterpiece of odd cinema.

My boyfriend ordered this one from Netflix. Thanks, O Mystical One! He said it is one of his favorite movies of all time. He ogled the ‘55 Chevy, salivated over some of the other cars (sorry, I can’t remember what they were - he would be SO disappointed in me.)

The film shows a drifter-girl (Laurie Bird) getting into a car with two guys she doesn’t know. They accept her graciously, and ignore her almost totally. Their affection is only for their car, and street racing. She is incidental, at first. She manages to sleep with both young men during the course of the next few days. They meet up with another racer (Warren Oates) and decide to have a little competition. They drive furiously toward Washington DC. The winner will get the other person’s car. High stakes!

None of the people in the movie have names. They are “the girl,” “the driver,” etc. Anyhow, the Oates character gets mushy about the girl and wants to take her away from the young men in the other car. Weird as he is, he has more heart than either of the guys… well, I should say the guys have heart for their car and racing, but for relationships? Nah. They’re just not fit for that. The girl is not impressed with their lack of concern for her and that influences her final decision.

Anyhow, you will find this movie odd whether you have a passion for cars or not. I rate it as worth seeing.

One more thing - one of the oddest things about this movie is that neither James Taylor or Dennis Wilson provide any music. However we get to hear Laurie Bird singing off-key throughout. Strange, don’t you think?

It seems fitting that this DVD should be the first to be featured in this blog. This review is the firstborn for Mystic Movie Reviews… and this incredible movie, Tower of the Firstborn, was so bad it will always set a standard for the worst of the worst in cinematography. Incredible - because few would believe what we just sat through for three hours and ten minutes. Yes, you read that right. Over THREE HOURS of terrible directing and horrible acting.

The movie bordered on comedy with stilted dialog and an airplane used as a desert-boat with a French flag being used as a sail. Kissing scenes that were beyond silly plagued the production, which, by the way, was a product of Italy. I’m not sure what the director had in mind here. Maybe I just don’t understand what Italian movie viewers want, but three hours and ten minutes of this? We honestly were concerned that perhaps the movie would never end and that we’d been eternally consigned to bad-movie-hell. The laughter kept me awake… as well as a bit of trepidation as the movie dragged on and on and on.

But enough of this … I’ve got to tell you a bit about the plot.

In 1919 during the Franco-Turkish war, two brothers shared the dream of finding a Middle Eastern relic called the Tower of the Firstborn. Arabian legends told that the tower contained something that would turn the desert into a paradise of greenery, as it had been in ancient times.

The brothers, John Shannon (Peter Weller) and Michael Shannon (Ben Cross), both loved the same woman, Elizabeth, who by this time is dead. Michael was deeply in love with her but he frightened her, so she married John. Passionate enmity raging from Michael toward John permeated the entire film. Michael, who had re-named himself Zadik, made an unrelenting, black-hearted, black-clothed villain one wouldn’t want to be anywhere near unless you were the kind and steadfast brother John who never gave up on the concept of brotherly love.

Meanwhile an Arabian seeker found the huge golden door to the mysterious tower. He told his beautiful daughter, Adriel, to wait for him as he rushed in only to be confronted with a light so bright it blinded him. They retreated, and when the father was killed, Adriel tried to run for safety but fell and developed amnesia. At this time we’re also introduced to the handsome Arabian prince, Rashid, The Lion of the Desert, who is in love with Dr. Diane Shannon, the daughter of John and Elizabeth. Diane is an archeologist whose side-kick is an outrageously clumsy Irish physicist named Neil Hogan.

Anyhow, all these people get together on the desert and cause a lot of havoc in each others’ lives until finally someone gets into the Tower of the Firstborn to discover the secrets. The ending was a big let-down. You expect to see something amazing happen, but suddenly that’s over before it begins and you’re left wondering why.

Every bad movie must have some good in it too. In Tower of the Firstborn, some of the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful. The Arabian horses were also worth seeing. Some of the actors were attractive and some even did a good bit of acting.

I noticed a few anomalies. First, when Adriel married a French soldier named Leon, the wedding rings were put on the right-hand ring fingers. Was the film backward? Do people in Italy use their right hands for their wedding rings? I just don’t know. Second, when Diane Shannon and Neil Hogan were being controlled and guarded by a Shiek’s evil Arabian servant, they plotted to hit the guard over the head with a log. But the ‘log’ Neil brought out from behind his back was only a short, thick stick. Definitely not big enough to injure the guard who was a brute with a big ugly knife in his belt and a few guns. I think the translator got the word wrong.

Honestly, I never thought I’d ever ream a movie this badly and my cheeks are burning with shame for having such negative thoughts about the creative effort of some normally talented people. I don’t know what went wrong this time but it was pretty weird. I’m putting Tower of the Firstborn into the “Wretched” category… and will also classify it as a “Shoot-em-up” because so many people got shot, beaten, stabbed, or simply maimed.

Tower of the Firstborn at Amazon
Tower of the Firstborn at Netflix