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Sweeney 2 (1978)
Fantastic Cop Movie On Its Own
Before the fourth and final season of the popular British crime television series THE SWEENEY, there were two theatrical films that hit the big screens in succession from 1977 to 1978...
The first called SWEENEY! Centered more on John Thaw's Chief Inspector Regan in a kind of NORTH BY NORTHWEST where his young protege Sergeant Carter, played by Dennis Waterman, had such little screen-time at one point he chooses not to be seen with Regan's "wrong man" at all...
Followed by the much more series-suitable SWEENEY 2 that goes fully-charged back to Scotland Yard's Flying Squad basics in what's a cop crime investigative drama mixed with buddy action centering on a unique group of bank robbers...
All British-born criminals (and their ironically normal wives and children) living large in Malta until they sporadically need just-enough money to keep their communal lives rolling...
Their leader is STRAW DOGS villain Ken Hutchison whose Mr. Hill has various golden sawed-off Purdeys, severely pointed at bank tellers or managers only half-shocked since the gang had previously threatened these various insiders about the impending assault-like blags...
But it's not all aggressive crime as the most fun's had with Regan and Carter providing SWEENEY 2 some lightweight comedy, just as they'd combine thrills and non-deliberate laughs on the series...
One great sequence breaks from the pivotal story centering on Carter dis-mantling a bomb inside a plush hotel while Regan does his usual attempt at womanizing...
But the real suspense centers on those robbers getting more and more desperate and dangerous, and how our boys cut corners to use their experienced streetwise intellect to find out exactly who and where they are and might be next.
The Sweeney: Poppy (1975)
Helen Gill is a gorgeous unsung Sweeney Girl
Britain's THE SWEENEY is both a regular cop series and a revolving villain anthology wherein Scotland Yard's Flying Squad can sometimes merely provide peripheral exposition...
Like in POPPY, centered on classy bad guys sparked by a local London bank robber returned from Paris to bring the money back...
And James Booth, who ironically played a Flying Squad captain in Peter Yates's ROBBERY, makes POPPY (slang for money) a smooth handling of snappy dialogue involving where Booth's Vic Labbett is hiding-out, hiding the money and exactly when he plans on splitting...
With former partner John Rhys-Davies, whose future RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK booming voice is complimented by Booth, they make a great pair in the relatively few scenes shared...
Instead each has a dame on their hands: Rhys-Davies with Booth's spurned ex-wife and scene-stealer Helen Gill, a patient other-woman for our resilient blagger, who, later involved in a terrific empty airfield car chase, is both deadly-violent and dryly-humorous...
Ending on a note that could have (totally suspending disbelief) ignited a con-conning-con series all its own...
Perhaps, like throughout this episode, the crooked duo would team against genuine crooks in shifty middlemen bankers, herein providing twits and turns for SWEENEY cops John Thaw as Regan and Dennis Waterman as Carter, who seem like special guest stars on their own series, and don't seem to mind the back seat ride.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
Doesn't Go For Laughs... At All
McKenna Grace, playing Egon's equally nerdy-sciency granddaughter, is the best thing going, and the only character that really fits into the movie, or what the movie tries to be, and it spends the most energy on the buildup while the last half is a kind of rushed homage, mirroring the original almost exactly but without the humor....
Might've worked better as a teen-investigation drama entirely because the jokes weren't funny, and really didn't seem meant to be. It was all just kind of quirky and awkward, on purpose...
As for Paul Rudd... he could have easily filled Bill Murray's shoes in the sarcasm department... Instead they have him channeling another character, and by that time... the movie falls flat and becomes tired, ironically, right as it picks up. Because it just doesn't pick up the way it should... Basically, except for Grace, there's no one to carry the thing.
Harbor Lights (1963)
Maury Dexter's Balmy little Neo Noir
Director Maury Dexter's only lasting Hollywood fingerprint is having been a permanent assistant producer and sporadic director of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE...
But in the early 1960's he turned out a great number of little films with genres ranging from Westerns, Beach comedies, and, as in the case of the very obscure HARBOR LIGHTS, New Noir crime flick starring Kent Taylor, the film begins with a younger man with a similar tiny-mustache that Kent usually dons in Dexter's villainous roles - for instance, the sparse cowboy picture, WALK TALL...
And this is one of those waterfront thrillers in the style of TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT. Or any type of balmy Noir; here taking place/filmed at San Jan, Puerto Rico while not making much use of the exterior location despite the deliciously pulpy title with a dime-novel approach, most of the scenes are handed off from interior locations where guns are drawn, fists fly, last names tossed around, and in this case a treasure that Kent's intrepid pawn, Dan Crown, acts like he knows the whereabouts of despite the fact his brother (the mustached guy in the intro) is as estranged from the family as can be... being dead and all, which got the plot rolling...
And this is really a gambling picture despite only one quick scene involving Jeff Morrow's lead villain in a hotel casino where most of the interior running-around takes place. But our hero does have to desperately venture into the dusty streets lined with old stucco buildings; and he eventually winds up in an oceanic boat chase... But what makes these HARBOR LIGHTS really shine is Twentieth Century Fox's THUNDER ISLAND Spanish fox Miriam Colon as ingenue Gina Rosario...
Who'd later play Al Pacino's angry mother in SCARFACE and is more recently known within the BREAKING BAD universe as Tuco's soap opera addicted grandma on the first episode of BETTER CALL SAUL. And here, many decades earlier and quite a beauty, she starts out not trusting Taylor but winds up trying to keep him out of harm's way: in particular, from Jeff Morrow's character, simply referred to as Cardinal and who she had some kind of past with...
Perhaps she's a former gun moll, though it's never quite explained, fitting nicely with Kent's likewise mysterious anti hero in this extremely hard-to-find crime programmer that remains intriguing from beginning to end...
And it could have been much longer although the charm of these b-pictures is the short run-time: everything that needs happening happens in the amount of time of a television melodrama, made solely to entertain, liken to Dexter's Dexter's best cinematic features, RAIDERS FROM BENEATH THE SEA and AIR PATROL, that this hit-and-miss thriller needed to more closely emulate: remaining one of those rare flicks that hasn't any cult following, or a decent transfer.
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
Good Great Movie; Great Good Movie
A visual masterpiece with Film Noir elements despite being a decade shy of that particular "genre" and/or style of edgy crime thriller led by a flawed yet sympathetic hero (turned anti-hero)...
In this case it's James Allen played by Paul Muni, who, with a Noir edge, is discontented after surviving a war and winds up caught between two opposing dames: one good, one bad...
And the most Noir-esque is the Wrong Man element, falsely accused of a theft that put him into the titular CHAIN GANG to begin with (later hilariously parodied in Woody Allen's TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN: from a guard whipping what the audience can only see is a prisoner's shadow, right down to a muscular black prisoner helping loosen the shackles so our man can go free)...
His inevitable escape from the rock-breaking exterior... sprinting through the woods to breathing through swamp bamboo and then blending into the big city... has fast-paced directorial elements that would be used, intentionally-inspired or otherwise, in the following years' blockbuster KING KONG: the camera moving perfectly with the sprinting character in both a horizontal and straight-on exterior dolly track pan and, either way, I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG is a groundbreaking vehicle for, if anything else, setting the stage of the quintessential action flick...
While originally intended for James Cagney, the brooding, tragic, lanky figure of Paul Muni makes more sense, providing the swarthy SCARFACE actor (who a young Robert Forster strongly resembles) a much deeper, more fleshed-out character balancing pathos and hard-driven desperation. And perhaps the most important element involves the use of past/present-time grammar: It's I AM A FUGITIVE as opposed to I WAS A FUGITIVE...
And although a genuine classic, CHAIN GANG is far from perfect: Normal for this era of post-silent/new-talkies and the subtle, timeless Muni aside, other performances are either stiff, stagey or completely absurd...
Meanwhile, the entire premise is flimsy since the robbed diner's owner/hold-up victim witnesses the armed man barking even more threatening orders with his gun mostly pointed at Muni's Allen: then being forcing to grab the cash from the register, which in a few seconds he's caught holding onto after the real villain gets shot and killed by police. But despite this living, and thereafter absurdly forgotten witness, the judge hands our man a ten-year sentence. This is the movie we paid for, after all. And another head-shaker is when Allen decides to trust the same tyrannical brutal southern warden into leaving the lawyer-protected freedom of big city Chicago in order to...
Well that's what becomes of the movie's otherwise compelling, multi-tier second act involving the sprung captive who's so free you eventually forget he's on the run: all the while, using a different name, running a construction site from the inside/out...
Which is what he'd originally planned during the post WWI prologue (including several minutes on a returning benign battleship), getting lectured by a creepy, overacting priest while more politely manipulated by his dotting mother... to return to a safe-seat factory, stuck within the cozy yet boring confides of a limited paper-filing desk-job, staring dreamily onto the construction work-field where he'd much rather be...
After which, some of the best moments occur in quick scenarios: traveling throughout the East Coast (as a map fades in and out of the background), looking for work and finding a few short-lived gigs along the road to nowhere...
And while the entire movie works fine as a whole: like this traveling montage, it's even more interesting in spurts...
Every sequence has its own beginning, middle and end despite the literal end having no definite closure, which is where the aforementioned I AM A FUGITIVE becomes clear: For this is not a narrated, after-thought memoir, but an ongoing perdition of repose as the ultimate Film Noir lesson is to not rush things, and most of all, never tale shortcuts.
The House That Jack Built (2018)
Works Best When Not Trying So Hard
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT isn't quite sure when it's good since the good parts don't last long enough, or connect to the movie as a whole, pieced together with boring and annoying off-screen conversational narration (i.e. colorless commentary) between Matt Dillon and a mysterious, unestablished Bruno Ganz...
As a Serial Killer Movie, the most interesting scenes are the deaths, and there are five "situations" in total, warned up front by title cards. But overboard director Lars von Trier throws in so many video clips (Nazis, etc) that in trying to connect with the "ultra violence" on screen, the story and character become secondhand as opposed to second-nature for Matt Dillon's Jack, made up like someone who'd be teased about dressing like "a serial killer" including awkward glasses and uncomfortably looking "nice clothes." In fact, his first victim in Matt's BEAUTIFUL GIRLS co-star Uma Thurman literally begs to be murdered.
The next two deaths successfully wield an intentionally irritating vibe that Jack could strike at his intended victim at... any... moment...
And the very fact that (especially during the first hour) you don't want him caught during particular close calls... especially as he's moving the bodies to a privately-owned meat-packing room... is proof the movie's working i.e. you want the exploitative bloodshed to continue since... well... that's what it's about: You didn't pay for a romantic comedy...
But the violence, while seeming real enough within the movie, often feels distant and unrealized from the perspective of Dillon's character: as if we're seeing what he's fantasizing as opposed to the reality of a sick, twisted mind.
Von Tier plays his CLOCKWORK ORANGE inspired hand so close to this fictionalized psychopath that, in trying to show all this bloodshed as mundane and par-for-the-course, there's very little to be actually shocked about...
Especially as the well runs try before the overlong arthouse production is less than halfway through. For the most part, in attempting a creepy dose of deep, existentially philosophizing chills, von Trier forgets all about the killer and his kills.
The Mule (2018)
Casual Old-Clint Role; Casual-Old Clint Role
Actor/director Clint Eastwood, using very little action and suspense for a supposed crime thriller, is otherwise fun to watch as a 90-year-old makeshift and initially oblivious drug runner both underrated and untouchable like when, in one scene, a traffic cop with a sniffer dog appears out of nowhere, and another time crossing mellow paths with Clint's AMERICAN SNIPER star, Bradley Cooper...
But the DEA agent puzzled by this mysterious phantom running a myriad of successful scores could have been played by anyone, as could his partner, forced ANT-MAN comic relief Michael Pena and Laurence Fishburne as a DEA chief, sitting around within a quiet, practically vacant office building. Everything's so breezy in this Lawman B-Story it hardly matters at all. But they're at least a necessary distraction from Earl's annoying and cliché, semi-estranged family, lifted from the only contrived aspect of GRAN TORINO only this time without a house to inherit, or muscle car...
Just a new big black truck, and with every run, Clint's Earl makes more and more money and, like Robin Hood, gives it to the poor i.e. friends, family and himself...
All that aside, THE MULE is really about pace, belonging to the title character playing mind-games with a group as lethal as the Mexican Drug Cartel i.e. he's old and they're young so they care and he doesn't. At that, Eastwood the actor is a natural and his laidback performance, contagious. But as director, his movie lacks overall intrigue and urgency...
Then again, with the exception of a few Cartel patsies making threats (led passively by wannabe old-school gangster Andy Garcia), it's about Clint reminding us he's still around, above ground, and with just-enough charm to fill two hours. But since his Earl doesn't know or care about what's in those bags, driven from a tire shop to a cheap motel, it never really matters to the audience: THE MULE is about the drive, not the destination.
Il cacciatore di squali (1979)
A Fortune-Hunting Neo Noir More Than Jaws Inspired
Actually more similar to Cornel Wilde's SHARKS' TREASURE, which came out in 1975, the same year as JAWS, which is literally mentioned in Enzo G. Castellari's THE SHARK HUNTER and that he'd ingloriously rip off in THE LAST SHARK two years later...
But this is really a pulpy and hard-driven, treasure-hunting picture: Within a cavern of "resting sharks" is the tail of a plane that fell deeper than the fuselage, holding a hundred-million dollars...
So while the caper's described by our "gringo" in Mexico, Franco Nero as Mike, with a long surfer blond wig resembling vanilla seaweed glued on within a tight, omnipresent headband (and/or random scuba masks), most of the film has an array of stealthily, espionage-genre assassins trying to jump in on the action (working for a crooked millionaire), which results in tons of just that...
One chase sequence involving an avenging Nero in a small, water-landing airplane chasing a baby-faced killer (played by the director himself), zipping his speedboat through isles of what looks straight out of the Florida Keys, is a standout, and the music sounds like a porno shot on Benzedrine, with just enough techno synth and 70's funk rhythm guitar to guide the energetic pace that never lets up...
And there are intriguing characters who matter to the plot whether they yearn to work for, learn from or are simply against our hero, who we initially see literally wrestling sharks (in one scene after spotting a shark from a parasailing perspective), using almost inhuman strength...
Meanwhile, he's tethered to the only Yankee on board in the original STAR TREK Apollo, Michael Forest (who also transcribed the dialogue for all the non-Americans), and Spanish REVENGERS actor Jorge Luke plays a young, excited, comic relief sidekick. But despite the surrounding color, Nero's Mike is a rogue's rogue in this wonderfully sun-drenched Italian sharksploitation (that can be found, for the time being, on youtube).
Il cacciatore di squali (1979)
A Fortune-Hunting Neo Noir More Than Jaws Inspired
Actually more similar to Cornel Wilde's SHARKS' TREASURE, which came out in 1975, the same year as JAWS, which is literally mentioned in Enzo G. Castellari's THE SHARK HUNTER and that he'd ingloriously rip off in THE LAST SHARK two years later...
But this is really a pulpy and hard-driven, treasure-hunting picture: Within a cavern of "resting sharks" is the tail of a plane that fell deeper than the fuselage, holding a hundred-million dollars...
So while the caper's described by our "gringo" in Mexico, Franco Nero as Mike, with a long surfer blond wig resembling vanilla seaweed glued on within a tight, omnipresent headband (and/or random scuba masks), most of the film has an array of stealthily, espionage-genre assassins trying to jump in on the action (working for a crooked millionaire), which results in tons of just that...
One chase sequence involving an avenging Nero in a small, water-landing airplane chasing a baby-faced killer (played by the director himself), zipping his speedboat through isles of what looks straight out of the Florida Keys, is a standout, and the music sounds like a porno shot on Benzedrine, with just enough techno synth and 70's funk rhythm guitar to guide the energetic pace that never lets up...
And there are intriguing characters who matter to the plot whether they yearn to work for, learn from or are simply against our hero, who we initially see literally wrestling sharks (in one scene after spotting a shark from a parasailing perspective), using almost inhuman strength...
Meanwhile, he's tethered to the only Yankee on board in the original STAR TREK Apollo, Michael Forest (who also transcribed the dialogue for all the non-Americans), and Spanish REVENGERS actor Jorge Luke plays a young, excited, comic relief sidekick. But despite the surrounding color, Nero's Mike is a rogue's rogue in this wonderfully sun-drenched Italian sharksploitation (that can be found, for the time being, on youtube).
Aquaman (2018)
Surpasses Marvel's Bloated Pretentiousness
Judged upon the comic books and, for this pop culture fanatic, the Ted Knight narrated cartoon of the 1960's, the original Aquaman resembled this movie's blond-haired, war-mongering villain...
Half-brother to the "new" JUSTICE LEAGUE established, dark-haired, Hawaiian-looking Jason Momoa, whose power-hungry, utterly Caucasian little brother wants complete control of Atlantis to, of course, destroy the world...
Having been born down there, the white boy's not a "half breed," and it's very similar to the sibling rivalry between Marvel's perfect THOR verses the inferior, frustrated runt, Loki: But AQUAMAN is more precise and straightforward than Marvel's more episodic movies, also borrowing from - and taking the first name of - King Arthur's Sword in the Stone legend, and is arguably the best comic book outing since the first IRON MAN and X-MEN...
Although, with all the CGI needed to make an underwater kingdom exist, it's funny that a movie mostly taking place in the ocean probably didn't get a single drop of water on the cast and crew. But all the hidden green screen in the world can't stop this energetic AQUAMAN from hitting the right marks since it takes the viewer from one location to another (a bit like MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL), and with each step there's a new literal clue to get to the next strategic level...
All the while catching sporadic glimpses of, without being tethered to or having to tell half the story with, the Origin involving "Aquaboy" being trained by a wise mentor (Willem Defoe) that coincides while moving right alongside the present-time obstacles...
And the ocean isn't all we dive into. From beneath the Sahara desert all the way to the middle of the Earth, director James Wan keeps the viewer's gravity in check as the camera establishes where our reality begins and this movie's fantastical regions begin, remaining simple yet involving as Momoa's Aquaman, with his own pretty Scarlet Johanson type in Amber Heard's Mera, go on what's basically a scavenger hunt to find King Neptune's all-powerful Trident-pitchfork that will allow Arthur aka Aquaman to... you know... do what he was born to do.
The Spy Who Loved Me underwater Lotus... where they see the sea
The second coolest action scene occurs when our initially reluctant hero learns the importance of the mission's goal by failing without it - while the best fight plays out on an island's edge between Aquaman and Manta, who will be the sequel's lead villain, more or less a henchman here...
And in the fun and frolicking Roger Moore James Bond flicks, which is another likely inspiration... especially the underwater vehicle that zips around "down town" in this unapologetic, non-stop rollercoaster ride... the worker bees make the best villains, and tend not to... drone on like the primary ones...
Not that it's a perfect movie. Momoa and Heard's banter has a predictable "He Said/She Said" cadence, usually leading to She outwitting the physically superior He, or He surprising She with having an actual brain along with the brawn, and you might scream out "Just kiss already" after a few forced-heated moments...
Meanwhile, Atlantis resembles a bright, shiny, neon arcade cartoon (albeit nicely scored with a fitting old-school techno score) and the puffy-buff sharks look right out of SHARK TALE...
But there's always a good enough reason for our heroes to be wherever the hell they're at, and, unlike the last decade of Marvel, this is a tight action/adventure yarn for people sick of overlong, overly complicated and painfully melodramatic comic book epics. And yes, there will be a sequel. Sequels, actually. But this AQUAMAN proudly stands, and swims, by itself.
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982)
A Beautiful Break From The Routine
Upon release, Woody Allen's multi homage (Shakespeare to Bergman) A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY, was a case of The Emperor's New Clothes. Critics who adored Allen's work leading up, from the joke-a-second "older, funny" satirical films like TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN to more autobiographical, intellectually anti pseudo-intellectual comedies like MANHATTAN and with the exception of the claustrophobic drama INTERIORS or the surreal STARDUST MEMORIES, it seemed Allen could do practically no wrong...
Until this quirky and fun, jovial countryside-romping celebration of nature and sunlight that, after (a recommended) multiple viewings, alters from The Emperor being naked to his clothes clashing with his signature wardrobe. And there are similar traits of the adventurous slapstick of SLEEPER where he flies using a futuristic contraption and here, set during the 1900's, Woody's stock broker part-time inventor Andrew hits the skies again on a bicycle helicopter (after failing with a pair of makeshift Icarus wings) that, within the first five minutes, puts the viewer off-balance with a combination of science-fiction and the extremely Earthy, down-home setting...
Before this are a few character-introduced interior scenes: one during a sexed-up checkup at a doctor's office, with several punchlines intact and his familiar directorial device: A visible character speaking to an unseen one before slowly walking over as the camera follows and fixes onto both, together, finishing the conversation (or else the unseen character walking into the shot)...
Leading to the forest playground, surrounding Andrew's country home where he lives with a seemingly perfect yet mysteriously sexless wife, Adrian (Mary Steenburgen). But he loves the girl-that-got-away Mia Farrow, in her first of many Woody Allen films. She's a captivating, dreamlike ingenue (and like Diane Keaton in LOVE AND DEATH, an otherwise classy former nymphomaniac) named Ariel, engaged to a character who's as close as we get to an antagonist in Jose Ferrer's aged, pompous, pretentious yet also affable and dull-charming scientist/professor Leopold, who loathes any thought of the supernatural and has the right to be paranoid as that randy doctor, played by Tony Roberts, becomes instantly smitten with Ariel to the point of attempted suicide (which in itself is zany and humorous)...
Which makes Woody's character funny without the usual frustrated, intentionally insecure verbal daggers aimed at those who annoy or provide a comparative, competitive bulwark against his awkwardly contented rhythm and yet, at the same time, he IS frustrated and sarcastic, but the lack of pointed insults give the impression that most of his one-liners miss the target when, in reality... other than delicious one-liners going back and forth between Roberts... there aren't any real targets to begin with...
Also, the idyllic time-period gives this ironically titled SEX COMEDY a built-in innocence countering the soap operatic sexual scheming, which is more jovially risque than bluntly realistic, underlined by Julie Hagerty as Max's sweet, docile yet progressively promiscuous nurse: as if young MANHATTAN ingenue Mariel Hemingway returned from abroad a changed young lady: Which is too much a good thing to Woody's multiple movie sidekick/straight man Roberts, for once given a role equal to his director, and bearing the first name, Max, which was he and Woody's nickname for each other in ANNIE HALL, as in, "Wagner, Max!"
Meanwhile, set against the lovely-lithe forest, any attempted act of fornication is heightened for simply existing in that period and place, and becomes a sort of "punchline without delivery." At the same time, and surprisingly refreshing, the "modern themes" thrust into this delicate era feels more embraced and celebrated than belittled and parodied...
The proverbial snake in Eden has a comfortable smile instead of a knowing grin; a subtle, uncomplicated phantom within the great outdoors visually celebrated by Gordon Willis's gorgeous cinematography (unlike his usual GODFATHER dark, shadowy style, which gave him the industry moniker "Prince of Darkness"): providing several nature/creature montage sequences as existentialism goes and flows with, and not against, the surrounding territory...
So with none of the caustic (and often repetitious) "love is luck" philosophical rants, there lacks the usual edge and spontaneity of what both fans and critics had expected of a Woody Allen picture going into and walking out of the theater...
But from the opening scene within Leopold's stuffy classroom (the blackboard behind resembling a dead "empty void" within the "bleak cosmos") as his students look trapped and spooked, like deer-in-headlights...
Then to the picturesque, jovial yet frantic exterior (also influenced by Jean Renoir's RULES OF THE GAME), where six polar opposites roam and romp: This MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT SEX COMEDY reflects Woody Allen's new and unique form of whimsical yet palpable and literally magical canvas that puts emphasis more on the characters than their dialogue.
The Fugitive (1993)
Starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones (& Vice Versa)
The coolest scene of this popular and successful, multi Oscar nominated and in one case, Oscar winning big screen adaptation of the classic TV-show is when supporting actor champ Tommy Lee Jones is by himself, looking straight ahead but at nothing, really - then cutting to where Harrison Ford's title character is seeking refuge.
Jones, who was practically a veteran actor at this point, and hadn't yet reached big mainstream success, is downright fantastic here: he deserved the A-list promotion but should NOT have won the award far more deserving of Ralph Fiennes, who turned in a more difficult and less natural performance as a loathsome Nazi's Nazi in SCHINDLER'S LIST, and his was actually a Supporting Role, and not one of two equal co-leads: Which is what Ford and Jones are... In fact, the latter has even more scenes, overall input, and, obviously, dialogue...
Meaning little to Harrison Ford, doing some of what made legendarily pursued-heroes Han Solo and Indiana Jones so great: Running in a human manner, and with an off-beat cadence that's even a tad clumsy: as if he could be caught at any moment, which provides a built-in element of suspense: especially here, where running and hiding are pretty much everything UNLESS you're searching and sweating like Jones's U.S. Marshall, Samuel Gerard, who wields the same type of perfectly cast Solo/Jones sarcasm that both grounds the action and keeps it rolling...
Following the initial prison bus escape leading to perhaps the greatest train derailment scene in cinematic history, it might have been tough living up to this early a peak (of peaks): after all, it takes more than machines to carry a 130-minute motion picture...
So it's annoying and distracting when Gerard's forced comic-relief cohorts chime in every time "The Big Dog" speaks; making Ford's once-dignified surgeon Dr. Richard Kimble (with a pretty wife killed by a one-armed man) the real partner here: and that's with only one quick scene shared between them...
You can thank director (and OVER THE EDGE cinematographer) Andrew Davis for that: making THE FUGITIVE (after a somewhat rushed and melodramatic interrogation-to-courtroom prologue) the kind of action movie that flows like a glorious epic adventure, updating a simple story with precision, style and substance, and, whether he was influenced or not, Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS has similar above-ground/sky-high, slow-pan establishing shots. Proving very big things can have comparatively small and humble beginnings.
Night of the Demon (1957)
A Classic Curse Makes The Right Mistake After all
Director Jacques Tourneur, in the first of two 1950's collaborations with actor Dana Andrews followed by THE FEARMAKERS and a decade after CANYON PASSAGE - wanted the CURSE OF THE DEMON demon - resembling a grizzly bear mated with an irate buffalo - to be revealed later on instead of the first ten minutes...
During an investigation by Dana Andrews as John Holden, a scientist who debunks a powerful occult/cult leader and is simply begging to learn his lesson the hard way, it's obviously less mysterious since we know exactly what kind of monster he'll wind up dealing with, as opposed to the audience being in-the-dark along with the main character... Kind of an implied and ambiguous gumshoe Film Noir approach within a supernatural horror picture...
On the other hand, Dana's "Doubting Thomas" is more important to the story since the beast is visually out of the way...
So now the suspense relies on him finding out what we know as he catches up: So while the surprise element is deleted, taking its place is a sort of reverse mystery relying not on who or how but when the monster will eventually come around again...
The way the demon had stalked and killed its initial victim... a British professor who Dana replaces... is anticipated throughout. And now added to when is where will the same menacing nightmare occur? In that, several locations during the second and third act become the demon's potential runway... And those are, basically, wherever Professor Holden is "currently" located...
For example, about fifteen minutes in, eerie yet subtle, ominous music is heard, which turns out is only audible to Holden as he apprehensively glances down a long, spooky hotel corridor...
Without experiencing firsthand the demon's method of charging forward with the right amount of space to gain momentum, this dark, suspenseful moment wouldn't mean half as much...
Also, since the demon looks exceptionally dated and hokey, especially up close, it's not something to hinge an entire film anticipating, and, compared to modern effects, is bound to be a let-down...
But the creature returning is something else entirely, relying more on space and dimension than aesthetic. "If this world is ruled by demons and monsters," Dana's John Holden says at one point, "we might as well give up right now." And in a way, that's just it: CURSE OF THE DEMON is more about The Curse than The Demon... And our leading man wasn't talking to the wall...
Enter cute and energetic, determined ingenue in British GUN CRAZY starlet, Peggy Cummins as Joanna Harrington, fitting the role as it takes place in England, which provides a kind of doomed and grainy Baker Street vibe, counteracted by her innocence and beauty but especially an ongoing persistence... one of the reasons Dana's Holden keeps at it...
Niece of that original cursed scientist killed in the opening, she wants to find answers, and believes the best clue lies within the massive estate of an eccentric millionaire...
Who is the brilliantly subtle, classy yet underline-formidable Niall MacGinnis as Doctor Karswell: as if James Bond's rotund villain Auric Goldfinger had a brother into Black Magic...
Like he did the first scientist, Karswell's out to keep Holden from writing a negative article, and will do anything in order to hold the press so that his followers will have a place to worship without prejudice or intrusion...
One particular scene, as Karswell conjures up a wind-swept tempest during a child's party outside his mansion, feels like a subtle yet palpable, surreal dream. But Andrews still doesn't believe; and with his rich, smooth voice, always makes for confident, headstrong characters: herein a perfect clean slate going in and out of dark proverbial mazes, and this is literally one hell of a maze...
The best thing DEMON has going is creative camerawork of the brilliant director who turned CAT PEOPLE into a unique, foreboding classic... And he also directed several of the other better Val Lewton productions including I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and especially intense and memorable is THE LEOPARD MAN...
The underrated but not under-appreciated Horror-Noir auteur makes this CURSE seem all too real, moving shadows around in an eerie and meticulous, mysterious fashion with a hybrid of pulpy, Gothic images and locales, including Stonehenge...
While an unseen presence lurks around corners, stalking our overly self-assertive yet inevitably vulnerable hero, and perhaps making you forget what the pontificating antagonist had conjured up: and that he'll be unleashing again on his new target...
Originally titled NIGHT OF THE DEMON in England (which should be reviewed separately), CURSE was edited-down and with key scenes either trimmed or shuffled around: one involving a quiet, knee-jerk group of seemingly common townsfolk refusing to disclose information, feeling more tacked-on than necessary, and, while the shorter American version gets to the point quicker, the original is what was intended for audiences to see, feeling more like a cinematic page-turning novel or Hammer Films production... only better. Darker. Deeper. Scarier...
And while each version takes a slightly different path, and gets somewhat tedious and overlong in the middle, both are genuinely classic cult films and one of Dana Andrews' best latter-career vehicles.
Stars in My Crown (1950)
Prayer and Six-Shooters
The most memorable scene adorns the poster artwork: A just-arrived in a small town preacher, played by Joel McCrea as Josiah Grey, pulls out his six-shooters in a noisy saloon before reading the Bible in that same, suddenly quiet one...
This during a through-narration by an off-screen adult version of child actor Dean Stockwell, who plays the orphan son, John. And about fifteen minutes in, the town's old, dying doctor asks Josiah if he remembers what he and the audience could never forget... That should have been repeated a few times - his thing, as it were, in acquiring a captive audience at gun point...
Although as blunt as Reverend Josiah is, there's a passive, non-violent streak despite having fought through the Civil War (side-by-side with rowdy atheist Alan Hale, whose giant eldest son is future GUNSMOKE star James Arness), which gives McCrea half a dozen stories to tell within pockets of rural lakeside scenery that director Jacques Tourneur serves throughout a creative camera that enters and exits locations, along with the townspeople who, themselves, are the sole plot, or intentional lack of...
Anyone looking for shades of the action-packed WICHITA, the actor and director's third, final and greatest Western collaboration, will be disappointed (STRANGE ON HORSEBACK lies in-between). This small town's viewed with an optimistic revere of lost youth, but not without deep shades of Tourneur's signature dark and Gothic undertones...
As the darkest character is the new young doctor (son of the inevitably dead one) played by James Mitchell, who doesn't think much of McCrea's "medicine of Prayer," and has an eye for soon-to-be GUNSMOKE saloon owner Amanda "Miss Kitty" Blake as Faith (but Kitty and Marshall Dillon never share a scene)...
Eventually, in a somber and dragged-out third act, as she lies near-death from a town epidemic, STARS IN MY CROWN has some difficulty keeping the residents as interesting as the location itself...
One sequence has a traveling magician snake-oil type doing an almost ten minute show, taking far more time than any of the earlier conversations between the kid and a wise old former slave, who's being threatened to sell his small piece of land: Making this time-period drama more of a voyeuristic passage back in time than an idyllic entry into the Western genre. McCrea has sincere strength within the usual deadpan yet dependable persona. But most credit goes to Tourneur's gift of creating a melodic enchantment to what might've been a passable feature otherwise.
Packin' It In (1983)
Underrated & Unknown Fish Outta Water Tale
The husband/wife team of Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss isn't famous for what's arguably their best effort - a television movie titled PACKIN' IT IN with a non-famous Molly Ringwald whose father... like the theatrical TEMPEST... is tired of the ordinary life, moving to a rural location: not an island but in this case, the woods...
As the family ventures to a better place to raise their kids and to breath the clear air, the jokes are quick and never forced while our hero provides the weak husband out of his element with ease. In one moment, before the big shift from L.A. to Oregon (or Washington?), Molly's boyfriend, a punker named Johnny Crud, repeats how life is basically for the birds, and Benjamin replies: "Crud, get a job!"
The opening stages back home seems like its very own episode - followed by the family's luck running dry in the mountainous town that's more of a survivalist camp and that, at one point, winds up without any food or supplies. Benjamin, and comic actors like him who aren't exactly the macho type, are all reminiscent of (and inspired by) Woody Allen, so Tony Roberts, as the family's best friend and eventual foil, fits right in...
Meanwhile, Paula Prentiss is her usual tomboyish, independent pretty, smart and clever gal; Molly and AIRPLANE child actor David Hollander are suburb brats and only annoying to their parents, not the audience...
And the passive yet fully effective scene stealer is the monotone son of Kenneth McMillan's survivalist a--hole, played by Sam Whipple. PACKIN' is a nearly perfect adventure, and you'll feel right there, out there, in the comedic nightmare of "bad things constantly happening to nice people" i.e. "a nice person,"which is basically a sub-genre in itself.
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)
You Buried The Horror But Not The Supernatural Garbage!!!
Shockingly worse than the more maligned, infamous POLTERGEIST III, but a lot more entertaining than EXORCIST II, this first sequel of the haunted house classic suffers the same futile, completely unnecessary attempt at explaining the origins of the initial ghostly infestation...
Vapid Indian spells with extremely bad special effects, killer tequila worms, the son's braces becoming monsters, and contrived dialogue from characters so wonderfully natural the first time around, and in a house that's not even their own: Craig T. Nelson is particularly hammy while JoBeth Williams means little to nothing. Along with a barrage of flashbacks from Steven Spielberg's classic, POLTERGEIST, we're reminded of what should've been untouched, and unburdened...
As the real burden's on Heather O'Rourke's Carol Anne: the pivotal victim before now holds silly magical powers to the OTHER SIDE run by nefarious Julien Beck as "Reverend Kane", a creepy old man providing the only real chills...
Before and after him, it's all flash and zero substance. Although our tall, wise Indian, Will Sampson from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (who literally inhales a celestial slipstream), is noted by the family patriarch as having (probably) escaped from an insane asylum. Well old Will should've stayed put because this crap is embarrassing. Even ORCA's a step up.
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
John Hurt Memorial Review of 1984
Having grown up part of the original STAR WARS generation, it's impossible to not connect that story with even the most popular of classic futuristic novels that, in this case, proceeded the science-fiction phenom by decades. The question is: Would The Dark Side consider themselves The Dark Side? In their minds, they're right, not wrong... Right? Pure Light, not the absence of light...
In the 1984 version of the George Orwell adaptation of 1984, despite being purposefully overboard to capture the essence of symbolism, it's difficult to find anything lucrative about this particular totalitarian government in which most of the people are forcefully, methodically content...
The dilapidated streets resemble bombarded post-War Germany, and on giant movie screens is the image of a man that looks like Adolf Hitler, somewhat, and there's no turning off the repetitious propaganda ranging from battle front updates to how much chocolate will cost "next week." Meanwhile, the people confess their "sins" to the leader and to "Big Brother," especially those who have read a book by a man named Goldstein (no, he doesn't play basketball at Carver High): his philosophy attempts to delete this horrendous future with no value whatsoever. Hell, there's not even a cool red lightsaber.
The movie, though, does have value, especially in the inspired casting of John Hurt as a man who looks part of the decaying exterior but with a subtle hope within a glimmer of his pale, baggy eyes, but that only we notice upfront, and yet, in the crowd, he blends right into the ragged woodwork...
On a personal basis, relating to the character, by keeping a diary and having an affair with a beautiful young woman, he's more an independent thinker than he should be, or that he has the right to be in this New World Order. And writing this review in belated memorial of John Hurt's January 2017 passing, 1984 was, at the time, Richard Burton's last role before his death following the film's release. His part mostly takes place during the third act when Hurt's Winston Smith is tortured until he sees what he's supposed to see, not what he really sees...
This part of the movie is rather slow, which is probably intentional. While we get a bellyful of the kind of propaganda citizens are force-fed with those screens that never turn off, the "Big Brother is watching you" aspect isn't as played out... at least not up front... to gain momentum and suspense. Rather, it's an ingrown "vibe" throughout...
What's mainly centered on for the story's metronomic buildup is Winston's job inside a large gray office building: he rewrites history to suit the constant, word-spoken headlines. Like Phillip Kaufman showed the inside-out of how the Pods take over the world, in his own remake of a 1950's sci-fi thriller, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, director Michael Radford effectively shows the mechanics of this particular society to follow the monotonous chore of the leading character. Through John Hurt's Winston we learn everything about the masses. Or, more fitting, the mass.
The best scenes take place during this first half where the scenery resembles a post apocalyptic yarn where a loner wanders around and, through grainy perspective, the audience can firsthand witness the ruins of a dead society gasping for breath...
Reportedly, on set, Burton could hardly remember his lines. In fact, his mental state was already known during pre-production, so the director initially didn't want him on board at all. If he was, in real life, somewhat "out of it," it wound up alright since the character has been programmed enough to be robotic by his own standards - despite the fact he does have an bit of intellectual, serpentine charm. Burton is known for his voice, and he's indeed The Voice here, providing an 11th hour exposition that derails the only break the film offers to the ongoing slow-burn punishment of the senses...
That being Winston's affair with Julia, played by Suzanna Hamilton, bringing a surge of life to both the leading character and to an audience that, after a while, starts feeling completely part of the purgatory of this dilapidated, false utopia: In that... despite the sporadic use of shortcut arthouse imagery, and a diary narration serving those who read and reread the novel., 1984 The Movie succeeds and yet, between the lines, somewhat fails to stand completely on its own.
Poltergeist III (1988)
Actually Had Some (Ultimately Wasted) Potential
There are actually some good things about the maligned POLTERGEIST III including a capable director; a cool, ominous soundtrack; and a decent rudimentary story-line that makes the build-up... of the iconic little blonde girl Carol Anne now living in a glass-structured Chicago high-rise with her aunt and uncle... work for and against itself since, as the movie progresses into manic delirium, it's more of a letdown than a horrible experience from start to finish...
By the technically-important forty-five minute mark (the same time it takes KING KONG to reveal himself), a lot has happened, and it's somewhat interesting. Aunt and Uncle, who also work for the building they reside in, are at a downstairs party full of spooky-looking art pieces; the cute teenage daughter sneaked herself and her friends into the building's off-grounds swimming pool for a beer party; the late Heather O'Rourke's Carol Anne just started to get really scared of the impending ghosts... And that last example - important and inevitable as it is - is also the problem...
Imagine having difficult yet challenging obstacles to cross and climb to get across half a field to then merely/simply run like hell to the other side. POLTERGEIST III goes from intriguing and suspenseful to a redundant and annoying chase scene between the family and the ghosts, led by an ancient, white-haired Reverend Kane...
Which is even more blasphemous to the flawed yet entertaining POLTERGEIST II, by having another actor deliberately made-up to resemble the late great Julian Beck, than the new guy's voice shouting "We're Back!" to counter Carol Anne's legendary "We're Here" from the classic and timeless original. But there's another pro to this 80% con of a sequel's sequel: Heather O'Rourke, who died not long after production wrapped (that shows with overly puffy facial features) turns in a pretty great performance, having to mentally react to what she remembers as opposed to what's actually happening: the latter being more exciting to the viewer and easier for the actor: especially a really young child actor, who's often deliberately manipulated for a more effective performance...
This occurs at a school for "really smart" children, another initial location with wasted potential that includes a shrink-in-denial played by Richard Kind, wielding a novice style of contrived, atrocious delivery that makes bad horror movies so fun to bag on...
Whether that aspect was intentional or not, Kind's phony-kind Dr. Seaton is the real villain here, and even he's lost in the frenzied shuffle (along with a glorified cameo by the Columbo of ghost whisperers, Zelda Rubinstein's Tangina) where the otherwise talented VICE SQUAD and DEAD & BURIED director Gary Sherman is overcome within an ominous, neat-looking corner of purgatory that, with so much going on, he and the cast couldn't possibly paint their way out of.
Silver Bullet (1985)
Intentional B-Werewolf Picture
Stephen King famously hates Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING because it's not Kubrick's... despite the fact it is very much his movie based on if very loosely adapted from King's novel...
The author especially loathed the casting of Jack Nicholson, being a too-obvious choice for a man going crazy since being crazy's his forte; but perhaps it was also the dialogue...
Without characters spouting such lines as "Are you gonna make lemonade in your pants?" THE SHINING stands out from (most of the) other King adaptations during the 1980's... King's cinematic tastes were more along the lines of MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE and SILVER BULLET, where other awful and downright embarrassing comments are uttered by equally banal characters...
But SILVER BULLET is, surprisingly enough, an otherwise solid, entertaining werewolf picture, despite the screenplay where Megan Follows as the jealous big sister of crippled, wheelchair-bound Corey Haim, provides a cornball adult narration that, while perfect for STAND BY ME, has absolutely no place here...
Gary Busey as their fun-drunk uncle makes up for many of the cliché small-town townspeople. As does our man Lawrence Tierney, a tough-talking bartender with a baseball bat straight outta WALKING TALL bearing the words, "The Peacemaker" carved along the side... Which is later used by the initially unseen werewolf to kill Tierney's Owen (named after King's son) during a fog-shrouded local posse vs serial killer hunt: one of several darkly comedic scenes that almost gives SILVER BULLET cult status...
The werewolf's reveal occurs at a tempered pace, particularly in the eyes of Haim's Marty Coslaw during one of two personal confrontations while his sister, Megan Follows' Jane, investigates on her own...
And while the first act takes a little time to flow, the story eventually narrows tightly into brother, sister and uncle verses "Reverend Werewolf" Everette McGill, making an ambiguous balance of good, evil, and somewhere in-between: Along with a suspenseful body count exploitation/drive-in vibe, often more implied than overly violent but are extremely severe, and mean business at the same time.
The Don Is Dead (1973)
TV-Movie Looking Movie Rides The Godfather Wave
How could a movie starring Anthony Quinn, Robert Forster, Frederic Forrest, Al Lettieri, directed by Richard Fleischer and centering on cutthroat mobsters slightly miss the mark, or, not be an incredible masterpiece?
Probably because there's not much of a target to begin with, and yet, that's not such a bad thing since the breezy undertone provides a cushion of what feels like actor improvisation under the edgy, multi-plotted schemes going on... And on and on...
The story, or one of many stories, centers on a brash climber, played by Forster, who, using a somewhat contrived Brooklyn accent and not seeming as natural and genuine as usual... along with two hired guns, The Fargo Brothers played by Forrest and Letteri... are a collected trio of goons with an ambitious attempt to overthrow a newly-made don, Anthony Quinn, playing white knight to Forster's beautiful, and abused, girlfriend (cult starlet Angel Tompkins): a victim who dreams of being a famous singer.
Lightweight melodrama befitting a TV movie-of-the-week makes a lot of whistling in the cemetery - but with a catchy tune...
There are so many twists (everyone wants to kill everyone) you may need a scorecard after a while, or instructions: Although Robert Forster goes from a temperamental wild card to a downright awful bully that the audience winds up rooting against, he's much more likable than Quinn, a brooding know-it-all who, alas, is the sole DON IS DEAD hero since, well, he's Anthony Quinn...
And despite too much talk and not enough action, there are some decent gunfights between exposition and so, with all the twists and turns, pay attention and you may just follow this jigsaw puzzle that works better incomplete than when it attempts an 11th hour resolution...
What makes it fit slightly within the Noir category despite following more of a "Modern" Classic Gangster template is that the good guys and the bad are all in the mafia i.e. where there's a moral compass in a school of sharks, it's usually within a Film Noir shoreline.
Death Proof (2007)
Vanessa Ferlito's Butterfly Entrances An Otherwise QT Clunker
Like there are two movies in GRINDHOUSE, there are also two in the second feature, written, directed and photographed by Quentin Tarantino titled DEATH PROOF: story one is eerie, torturous, dark, bizarre, perverse, shoddy and dodgy-looking while the second looks far more professionally filmed but is overall, unbearably awful...
The device of DEATH PROOF and Robert Rodriquez's co-feature, PLANET TERROR, are an abundance of contrived aesthetic flaws: a tribute to b-movies that played so many times in low-rent "grindhouse" theaters, they wound up tarnished and with entire reels missing. In the two-parts of DEATH PROOF... which can be broken up into Nighttime since story one's in Texas, indoors at night, and the second, Daylight, occurs under a bright and rural Tennessee sun... it's one man, Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike, who connects each...
As does Quentin Tarantino's dialogue, spoken by the two groups of pretty young girls: the first with a local billboard-famous leader (while the next group actually work in show biz)...
Especially pop culture savvy is this self-promoting Sydney Poitier as the Austin, Texas morning disc jockey, Jungle Julia. And while Tarantino's no stranger at placing characters inside a contained, often claustrophobic setting, from RESERVOIR DOGS to FROM DUSK TILL DAWN to THE HATEFUL EIGHT, there were reasons to be there, and basically, no way out as opposed to merely harboring spontaneous, incessant chatter. Meanwhile, the buried lead and most interesting overall, is sexy, full-lipped Vanessa Ferlito as Butterfly, who Jungle Julia sets up on what can only be described as a "blind date lap-dance..."
Which is just about the only thing resembling an actual plot-point or plot-driven device, and the significance involves who eventually gets that dance...
Enter Kurt Russell's weathered and leathery, facially-scarred stalker, who's somehow intriguing to these hot young girls, especially lone "skinny hippie" fox Rose McGowan, who fatefully needs a ride home. The fact she'd trust an old man with a DEATH PROOF vehicle that includes a working driver's side while the passenger area, separated by Plexiglas, has only a removable metallic bicycle seat, is farfetched and ludicrous...
But horror/slasher victims are usually way too gullible; here resulting in the only truly nightmarish death as the following "four birds with one stone" slaying occurs much too quick, and after the amount of time spent with these girls, is downright anti-climatic...
Leading to the second story headed by real life Uma Thurman KILL BILL stand-in Zoë Bell, who, while doing her own stunts, isn't very interesting, attractive or talented as an actress/character. Then again, her more legitimately trained on-screen cohorts, including Rosario Dawson, are equally dull and forgettable...
So to really get off on what's intended as a b-movie exploitation tour-de-force, the first story is terribly flawed but after several viewings can be extremely addictive, and effective...
With layers thinly disguised and partially revealed at the primary rainy-night location: a BBQ tavern where Tarantino himself plays Warren, a movie-geek owner and bartender: as director and especially as cinematographer, some of the best shots are of what's actually his own jukebox that, as usual in QT cinema, plays awesomely obscure, vintage tracks...
As other subtle and ultimately futile plot-points include Julia's desperate and lonely attempts to connect with a famous filmmaker on her cell phone, when she's not trying to score pot with a dealer/friend as the otherwise annoying, parenthetical stoner chick camaraderie becomes more worthwhile and edgy once Kurt Russell is introduced, in the flesh and outside his formidably foreboding car: an example of Alfred Hitchcock's theory of how an otherwise mundane, superfluous dinner conversation becomes genuinely suspenseful when a time bomb's revealed under the table: shown only to the audience. And this guy's definitely ticking...
Alas, while Russell's potentially iconic Stuntman Mike becomes one of cinema's most pathetic horror movie antagonists by the atrociously obvious, politically-correct "Girl Power" finale, he starts out an effectively mysterious, Neo Western loner... a hybrid of Burt Reynolds (including a 4th wall-breaking grin) and Norman Bates... and he may or may not even be an actual stuntman...
Strangely enough, an 11th hour rural Daylight car chase (with a strap-grabbing roof-ride ala TEEN WOLF) pales to the Nighttime group of empty souls drinking, smoking pot and otherwise doing and discussing absolutely nothing. As if Quentin Tarantino's meantime vices/hobbies were put on camera but with girls: Along with the usual pop culture references, he's writing what he knows, and in other films is beyond capable of writing females...
But in the beginning of part two, a girl talks about how she loves when a dude kisses with "mushy lips." Ugh!!! Whether that's a chick thing or not, it's downright banal and embarrassing dialogue, intentional or otherwise...
Thankfully, Quentin didn't give that line to movie-stealer Vanessa Ferlito (who reluctantly allowed her own kisses to one of several barroom losers, all the while seeming to harbor an interest/attraction for Rose McGowan's Pam). Arlene aka Butterfly was the one and only girl who really called the shots. Unfortunately, her only mistake was simply going along for the ride.
Bad Timing (1980)
The Late Nicolas Roeg's Obscure Sexually-Driven Thriller
From slap-happy, smitten Film Noir dicks onward, the cinematic equivalent of a girl that's just no good or a "no good dame" is usually one who's simply too good to be true. And when a loose, liberal young lady from America - in the usually idyllic dreamland of Vienna - hooks up with a loose yet intellectual American professor who thinks he's more liberal-minded than he actually is, things go from... well in this case, worse to better to pretty bad to pretty good to downright awful... for her, that is...
Initially taking place at a hospital emergency room where Theresa Russell's Milena is being frantically kept alive by desperate surgeons, BAD TIMING consists of flashbacks concerning her doomed romance with leading man Art Garfunkel as Alex...
The most intriguing aspect of Nicolas Roeg's comparably obscure motion picture is how a dying Milena is edited into sporadic bouts of love-making, laughter, arguments, more love-making, tantrums, aspersions, more tantrums, wandering through Vienna and even a quick road trip along desert terrain, like where the late auteur shaped his future assisting David Lean on a little excursion titled LAWRENCE OF ARABIA before carving-out his own desolate territory for WALKABOUT...
Harvey Keitel has a determined, steady, sharp yet peripheral and thankless role as a detective investigating whatever's been left behind of Alex and Milena's relationship, which isn't much but empty rooms. It's from the cold, off-putting indifference of Garfunkel's Alex that made Keitel's Inspector Netusil suspicious - more or less an intriguing distraction in an altogether glorious hybrid of direction and editing: a semi-surreal, sometimes sluggish and thoroughly offbeat template grounded and narrowed by an otherwise typical, inevitable device: the green dragon jealousy with its siamese twin, obsession: She's not only too good to be true, she's too good for you, buddy...
Making Art Garfunkel's reactions rise slightly above and beyond a somewhat bland performance: Injecting random bursts of wry energy throughout Nicolas Roeg's intentionally washed-out, dull-beige and in one scene, blurred photography... And as usual, his creative camerawork literally makes the movie while the actors merely follow along...
Save for an exceptional Theresa Russell's sexually riddled femme fatale, who's also an oblivious victim of what makes this feature ultimately daring, and controversial. Like STRAW DOGS and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE before, BAD TIMING is an example of otherwise "progressive" critics mixing up and/or blending together a fictional character's cruel actions with an avant garde director ambiguously pulling the strings, and without taking sides.
The Shining (1980)
Was Jack Nicholson's Crazy Jack Torrance Actually Crazy Enough
Thanks to the DVD artwork showing our favorite grimacing madman, it seems THE SHINING, a Stephen King novel turned into a suspenseful horror masterpiece by director Stanley Kubrick, would be nothing more than a fiendish Jack Nicholson running around with an axe. The sinister "Here's Johnny!" line is as over-quoted as the TAXI DRIVER "you talkin' to me?" scene... Yet there's more to THE SHINING than a crazy antagonist.
It's sad that audiences, whether returning fans or youngsters wanting to be scared, are mislead into a deliberately slow-paced cerebral/surreal journey that takes time to encompass the film's true villain, The Overlook Hotel.
We learn of the Hotel's backstory from the expository-driven interview scene with Barry Nelson's Stuart Ullman, leading to the interior tour that ends with Scatman Crothers' Mr. Hallorann and his personal conversation with Jack's son, Danny. Through this extensive set-up, making up an entire first act, we're brought into this sinister place where Jack Torrance is merely a pawn.
Stephen King didn't like the usually offbeat Nicholson for the lead role... But Kubrick saw fit to hire the man he had possibly slated to play Napoleon in a biopic that never took flight...
Instead, following A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, the eclectic auteur directed another time period epic, BARRY LYNDON, faring well with Kubrick fanatics but the long run time and unsympathetic title character confused mainstream audiences...
Even the once-adoring art house critics were perplexed: Thus THE SHINING, which remains Kubrick's most commercial venture, was a perfect choice for the man to step into a more conventional spotlight.
Back to Stephen King's anti-Nicholson stance: he felt that Jack Torrance, a would-be novelist/teacher hired to take care of the immense Hotel during an isolated winter, needed a progressive changeling... Wherein Nicholson seemed crazy right off the bat (ironically, author Ken Kesey said, during a private phone call in the mid-90's, he was against Jack's casting in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, although he claimed to have never seen the film)...
A Michael Moriarty or Jon Voight would have been more subtle for the lead role, in Stephen King's eyes, and he does have a point... But let's look into a theory that maybe Jack Torrance was never quite crazy enough...
Even hardcore Nicholson and/or SHINING fanatics have felt that Jack goes sporadically over the top in the role... When he speaks to Joe Turkel's Lloyd the Bartender, or any of his famous triads against Wendy, the put-upon wife played by Shelley Duvall... These moments are often viewed as hammy, or, as Kubrick's friend Steven Spielberg stated, something out of Kabuki Theater...
But here's a theory to consider: The Hotel ghosts overseeing Jack's violent task, something former caretaker Delbert Grady pulled off (most likely) with ease, might have realized they picked the wrong man for the job...
"Mr. Torrance, I see you can hardly have taken care of the business we discussed," Grady's voice speaks through the storage room door, where Wendy locked Jack inside following his stair-climbing tirade... A failed attempt halted by a swinging baseball bat. "I and others have come to believe that your heart is not in this."
That particular dialogue is very telling... And Jack's over-the-top performance might not be an intense actor playing a lunatic - but rather a character trying desperately to be crazy-enough to muster the energy to do such a horrendous thing... "Your heart is not in this," Grady had said. Thus Jack Torrance, not Jack Nicholson, is seeking the right motivation to get into the part of a cold-blooded killer.
If you view Jack Torrance as a failed madman rather than the poster-child for a trademark horror film heavy, certain aspects become clearer and Nicholson's performance is that much more intriguing... Also keep in mind that Delbert Grady - played by a mesmerizing Philip Stone, the other three-time Kubrick actor besides Joe Turkel - probably didn't have a child with the ability to "Shine" through the ominous location... At least not successfully.
In the role of Danny Torrance, young Danny Lloyd possesses a natural childlike finesse that keeps the entire movie in check... Whether riding his Big Wheel through the semi-carpeted hallways, being mentally tackled by nightmare visions of a bloody elevator lobby or two ghost girls perfectly suited for a demonic doll house, THE SHINING is his special power... Or curse.
Another Stephen King gripe was that his peripheral hero, Mr. Hallorann, winds up being killed... And with so much post-tour time spent with the likable side-character, from lying on his bed in Florida... to traveling on a plane... to driving down long snowy Colorado roads... resulting in such a quick and bloody demise... Does a character with so much buildup and importance deserve this sudden fate?
Well in a suspense-driven movie finally harboring a fully-realized axe-wielding killer, especially when played by an unshaved, goblin-jawed Jack Nicholson, there needs to be at least one slaughter! Torrance might have been a failure, ultimately... but he had to get something accomplished: After all, there's a bloodthirsty horror-genre audience to consider!
We can go on and on into other SHINING avenues, but this particular essay merely centers on the mental state of Jack Torrance, and the possibility he wasn't loony enough, thus making for a vicarious psycho trying desperately to find his path...
So the next time you watch this iconic 1980 Kubrick classic, keep in mind that perhaps Mr. Torrance may be battling those demons more than heeding their call... It makes for a much more interesting ride.
Neon Maniacs (1986)
Intentionally Unpredictable Different Kinda Horror Flick
Right when you think the low budget 1986 horror flick NEON MANIACS is about one thing, it goes in another direction. Which is good and bad: The bad is it's an awkward and uneven film, dragging at times. The good is pretty much everything else, starting with a nighttime vanful of partying high schools students, which includes a gorgeous blonde who isn't an uptight virgin like the cliché potential sole survivor...
That's because this isn't one of those body count slashers where kids randomly perish along the way. And her shallow girlfriends and jerky guy-friends wind up quickly massacred by the title monsters that resemble creations from a comic book addict's daydream, and there's a combination of nightmarish monstrosities rolled into this lethal gang including tribal warriors and mutant samurais...
Enter the film's second ingenue; although she's probably not supposed to be. Usually the young horror movie buff within a horror movie is a boy (Lance Kerwin in SALEM'S LOT, etc)... Here it's a short-haired, cute-as-a-button geek-girl named Paula played by Donna Locke, and it blows the mind she wasn't in anything else because she's absolutely brilliant here...
Even upstaging our blonde beauty Leilani Sarelle, who'd later play Sharon Stone's lesbian lover in BASIC INSTINCT and here, just for remaining alive twenty-minutes in, she's a marked woman: venomously sought after in what are the coolest scenes: From her swimming pool, all alone, to a pivotal subway station chase and nighttime bus ride with her newly acquired boyfriend, Clyde Hayes as Steven, introduced as an awkward dweeb till becoming miraculously cooler later on (after her friends, who had goaded him, are all dead)...
Not easy to predict, NEON MANIACS is a hybrid of several genres including horror, police procedural-noir and Supernatural... Like in THE WILD BUNCH, after the rudimentary mass-slaughter set-up, the story plays out as if you're reading along, and that makes the cute horror aficionado the best and most important ingredient...
Despite the way Donna Locke's Paula dresses, not only annoying but foreshadowing god-awful fashion trends in the years to come including a sideways baseball cap. But she's more than just a curious kid, investigating the creatures in the day-lit aftermath within the park at the foot of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge where they (reportedly) dwell in the bridge's tower.
When the Steven Spielberg produced/inspired J.J. Abrams' SUPER 8 came out, centering on a group of GONNIES style kids filming their own horror movie while something palpable emerges from their fictional fantasies, NEON MANIACS wasn't mentioned or even regarded, nor was Paula, who's shooting a vampire flick at the same deadly location...
And by the time the three main characters join up to destroy the eclectic monstrosities, the movie's almost done. They talk about what's about to happen and it does, albeit at a sluggish pace: Laura the movie buff, having learned, first hand, that the beasts die from simply having water poured on them (perhaps THE WIZARD OF OZ was a childhood favorite), spearheads an 11th hour plan to have all the students at the school's Halloween party show up with squirt guns, and... well...
At this point the best parts have already long played out, and they did so with enough suspense to make NEON MANIACS more thriller than horror... Yet it still fits the spooky bill as the creature-makeup looks absolutely sublime, and is most likely where most of the money went, and it shows...
But for a low budget picture directed by an otherwise legit/mainstream cinematographer, Joseph Mangine, it flows with style and precision, and, with an ambiguous ending, was obviously gnashing and thrashing for a sequel, or sequels: If anything else to give Donna Locke a few more credits. She'd have been the PHANTASM Reggie Bannister of NEON MANIACS. Only with more hair, and a lot cuter.
The Wild Ride (1960)
Early Jack Nicholson Hot Rod Exploitation
Before the term "Speed Kills" referred to drugs it was for souped-up fast cars: There weren't any protests under the influence of psychedelia just yet; the 1950's and early 1960's were about hot rods and youth and the latter's misuse was the subject of many films, mostly cautionary tales but this one's a bit more ambiguous and peripheral...
THE WILD RIDE stars a young Jack Nicholson as Johnny Varron. He's mostly alone and, with a jovially jazzy soundtrack, every now and then grooving smoothly into a vibe-laden skeletal strut, he's cool to watch driving along a rural road, somewhere in California. Having caused the death of a cop by driving too fast, and winning at "chicken," if more money went into the already anemic budget there'd at least be some urgency involved...
Especially as a cop appears at random youthful hangouts, from burger joint patios to backyard parties (to the longest scene at a lakeside rocky-terrain locale), where Johnny wastes time with his friends: who don't like him very much... but nothing really scares or matters to this kid...
The other characters matter very little, to him or the audience, but there are a few: Johnny with his put-upon, uptight crony Dave's even more uptight girlfriend, Nancy, played by conservatively cute Georgianna Carter, take up most of the dialogue, which doesn't include very much exposition since very little happens overall...
Other than Johnny preparing for a big race, or breaking up with (as we never see him spending lustful time or hooking up with) a married thirty-something suburbanite, THE WILD RIDE is best known for and works best as a visual vehicle of a young Jack Nicholson at the crest of a decade under Roger Corman (LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, THE TERROR, THE RAVEN, THE ST. VALENTINE'S MASSACRE), Richard Rush (HELLS ANGELS ON WHEELS, PSYCH-OUT) or Monte Hellman's direction (BACK DOOR TO HELL, THE SHOOTING and RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND), until accidentally "being discovered" in Dennis Hopper's EASY RIDER...
It's too bad Rush or this film's co-editor, Hellman, didn't helm this picture, that does look pretty neat as these screen captures, resembling portraits of a sparse, antique, faded-grain tinted yesteryear, proves. Just beware of a 1990's patchwork titled VELOCITY with edited-in scenes of an old Jack Nicholson imitator thinking back upon this movie's present time as a flashback.