Archive

Genre

The Long Riders – 5 Stars

May 4, 2012
5 stars, Historical, Western
Leave a comment

Walter Hill is a workmanlike director.   He makes some decent and intriguing films (The Warriors, Southern Comfort, Geronimo), and a fair amount of bad ones (Red Heat, Last Man Standing, Extreme Prejudice) and good or bad, the pictures are little more than macho shoot ’em ups where brawn and bullets win the day.  Hill’s commercial pinnacle was probably 48 Hours, the buddy-cop film that vaulted Eddie Murphy into the stratosphere.

The Long Riders is his masterpiece.   The story of the James-Younger (and Miller) gang, Hill cast the Keaches as Frank and Jesse James, the Carradines as the three Youngers, and the Quaids as the Millers (he also throws in the Guest brothers as the duo who eventually shoot Jesse).  It comes off not in least bit gimicky.  Hill comfortably alternates the mythic and the mundane about the brothers, and there is a naturalness to the interplay between the men that makes every scene easy and true.  Brothers in life portray convincingly as brothers in film.

Hill also provides a rich facsimile of Peckinpah-style screen violence, while setting forth a keen depiction of rural tradition and family loyalty . His scenes in the Missouri woods, while the gang hides out, are well-crafted and authentic, his Texas bar fight by Bowie knife is inspired Western legend, and the Northfield, Minnesota bank debacle is unforgettably haunting.  Hill shoots high speed escape by horse interspersed with slow-motion shots of the gang being shot up, commensurate with an eerily slow-soundtrack that purports to track the actual bullet and its impact above the slooooooow distorted sounds of hoof beats, screams, horse whinnies, and thuds. The scene is bravura, a milestone in action filmmaking.

The tensions between the gang, and the brothers, are summed up in the woods outside of Northfield, where Frank and Jesse -w who can move – and the Youngers, who are too shot up to escape, say their bitter yet still faithful farewells, most of it non-verbally.

The best feature is Pamela Reed as Belle Starr.  She steals the movie from the brothers, presenting as of the time.  Reed is not beautiful by a long shot, but her strength is undeniably alluring.  Her exchanges with Robert Carradine are memorable, especially the second one, as she sits, dressed to the nines on her carriage in the street, uninvited to a Younger wedding.

I love this picture because it has one foot in the myth of the West and another in its grimy, brutal reality, it is at once entirely unsentimental and yet, through the understated depictions of the family, moving.

The Patriot – 1 Star

May 3, 2012
1 star, Historical, War
Leave a comment

1.  The Patriot‘s director, German born Roland Emmerich, is not quite a hack of Renny Harlin’s status, but his resume’ is filled with a boatload of crappy, excessive, ludicrous films such as 2012, 10,000 BC, The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla, Independence Day, and Universal Soldier.  And The Patriot.

2.  The Patriot is a revenge movie set during The Revolutionary War.  Revenge movies are fine.  But a revenge movie fails if the person upon whom revenge must be visited is blase’ about his own life or death.  In The Patriot, the villain (a British officer played by Harry Potter baddie Jason Isaacs) is a vicious killing machine with no desire to live other than to burn women and children alive.  So, short of having his skin peeled off, there can be no satisfaction in his demise.  And there is none.  Which, in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, makes this a very long, hard slog.

3.  The Patriot veers wildly from the manipulative (excess depictions of crying and/or dying children) to the sitcomish (Saving Private Ryan screenwriter Robert Rodat  uses tension-breaking quips between men-in-war and then expands them into broad cartoonish gag scenes worthy of “The Jeffersons”) to near-spoofs of beer commercials (the slow-motion as men high-five after winning the big battle is missing only the bosomy blondes and frothy pitchers of ale, and the scene where Gibson gets romantic with Joely Richardson is a replica of Corona commercials).

4.  The best part of the movie is when Gibson appears heroically, flag in hand, and all the militia scream “Huzzah!” but it sounds exactly like “Wazzzzzzzzzuuuuuuuuup!”

5.  The Patriot is predictable.  If you don’t know whose life the stoic black-man-fighting for his freedom will save; if you don’t know that the moment Gibson gives his daughter-in-law a necklace, it is proof of her death; if you don’t know the “trick” played on the Brits to gain the release of American militia; if you don’t know the fate of a warship off in the distance as the Brits live the high-life and General Cornwallis (Tom Wilkinson moans about his less-than-spectacular uniform), you are not very observant.

6  There are a few historical inaccuracies.  My favorite is the use of exploding cannonballs.  They hadn’t been invented yet, but you can just see Emmerich screaming “I vant it BIGGER!!!!!!”  And when Isaacs character burns an entire church filled with women and children, based on an incident from World War II when Nazi soldiers burned a group of French villagers alive, I’m sure Emmerich was there screaming, ‘I vant him MEANER!!!!!!”.

Finding Forrester – 2 stars

May 1, 2012
2 stars, Drama
Leave a comment

Image result for finding forrester

You can find this flick in the Scent of a Woman aisle, next to all the other “Young man taught life lessons by crippled mentor, but it looks as if the crippled mentor could learn a lesson or two as well” films.  Except, this time, nobody says “Hoo-wa!” but rather, “Punch the keys!”

Al Pacino is played by Sean Connery, who plays William Forrester, a crotchety, haunted J.D. Salingeresque recluse who befriends a gentle student.  His charge is a fresh-faced underclass kid (Rob Brown) who is attending a tony NY private school.

In both films, the nemesis is a priggish, empty-suit of an educator who does his dastardly deeds mainly out of insecurity and spite. The bad guy here (F. Murray Abraham) is actually really, really bad.  Not only does he try to railroad our hero by accusing him of plagiarism (Brown is writing under the tutelage of Connery), he actually whispers to Brown,  “Don’t ever embarrass me in front of my class again.”

In Scent of a Woman, the day is saved by the appearance of Pacino at the honors trial of poor, fresh-faced Chris O’Donnell.  In this film, Connery makes the same entrance at the school, but instead of speaking up for the boy, he (SPOILER) slits F. Murray Abraham’s throat with an unseen dagger.

Okay, Connery doesn’t do that  He pretty much does the same thing Pacino did, he just doesn’t say “Hoo-wa!”

By-the-numbers schmaltz, made just a little more bearable because director Gus Van Sant makes things visually interesting; rapper Busta’ Rhymes is around for a few yucks; and, Pacino is not in it.

Paranormal Activity 1 & 2 – 4 stars

April 30, 2012
00s, 2010, 4 stars, Scary
Leave a comment

Gore porn (Hostel, Saw, etc . . . ) has taken over the scary movie market, and in that genre, the more grisly, authentic and perverse a killing, the better. There is never any question of escape for the protagonists. Almost all (if not all ) will be sacrificed, mutilated, or both so that a potential franchise is not suffocated in the crib.

Films that truly create a creepy sense of dread are dinosaurs. In The Exorcist, for example, none of William Friedken’s visual frights happen for nearly an hour. The head spinning, pea-soup vomiting and levitating all follow a rigorous exposition on the characters, the time, Catholic theology, medical inquiry and the growing mystery that surrounds a little girl who keeps getting sicker.  There is no chance such a film in its current form would be greenlit today. The best Friedken could hope for would be an early shot of pea-soup vomiting followed by flashback.

Sue me, but I’m a fan of horror film foreplay, which explains my enthusiasm for this years’ The Woman in Black and the Paranormal Activity films (I’ve seen 1 and 2, but not the third installment). The premise is simple. Modern day characters live in homes haunted by demons. The story is recorded ala’ The Blair Witch Project (in the first Paranormal film, one of the residents starts with a handheld camera and when things get spooky, sets up a few security cameras to validate his claims of the supernatural at work; in the second film, after the house is ransacked, the owners also install internal security cameras, supplemented by a teenage daughter’s video journal).

 The effect is chilling though very little happens for awhile. A hanging pot falls. Doors swing open. Shadows appear. And curious noises emit. In both films, however, the demon is aggravated even as we learn the source of its existence, and from there, things move with alarming speed.  Adding to the fear is the use of unknown actors.  Because they look like you in a wedding video or security cam, you feel more vulnerable.

Sure, some of their decisions are questionable.  But when demons infest your house, you’re allowed a few bad decisions.

Poseidon – 0 stars

April 26, 2012
0 stars, 00s, Action/Disaster
Leave a comment

This boring, blaring, hackneyed remake of The Poseidon Adventure cost $160 million to make and made $181 million at the box office.  It was nominated for a best visual effects Oscar, but I have questions:

1.  Who casts Kurt Russell as the former mayor of New York City?  San Pedro, maybe.  But The Big Apple?  Look at this guy?

Poseidon - Publicity still of Kurt Russell & Emmy Rossum

2.  How good is Kevin Dillon?  He walks right in as Johnny Drama from HBO’s “Entourage”, says “Look at me, I’m Mr. Lucky” and then he dies.  $1 million?

3.  Fergie is the singer.  But she doesn’t sing “There’s Got to Be a Morning After.”  Huge mistake.

4.  I miss Shelly Winters.  Why couldn’t she cameo?  She died the year it was released, but still . . . .

5.  I liked Andre Braugher as the new captain.  But why he didn’t get to say “Oh My God” as the wave hit, like Leslie Neilson?

Now this was a movie!

Bounce – 1 Star

April 26, 2012
1 star, Romance
5 Comments

Bounce (2000) - IMDb

In 1998, Don Roos came out of the gate with The Opposite of Sex, one of the funnier comedies of the 1990s.  As a reward, he got to helm a big budget romance with a promising story.  A playboy gives his plane ticket to a husband/father so the husband/father can be a good Dad and the playboy can make a girl at the airport bar.  The plane goes down.  The playboy is affected and insinuates himself into the widow’s life.

First problems first.  The playboy is Ben Affleck.  Affleck has found his way as a director (Gone Baby Gone and The Town are excellent and fine, respectively). When acting, however, he is best in an ensemble – a little goes a long way.  But Bounce came out when they were trying to make Affleck a lead, which he is not.  He is a leaden, two-trick pony (the eyes welling with tears; the set jaw).  Affleck is the best friend, not the lead.  He can occasionally rise to the occasion, but he is no more than a big, good-looking light-stepper.

Paltrow, who prior to her strange incarnation as a country singer, could lead, is weighed down by a script that requires her to lament and panic at almost every turn.  She is less and less sympathetic as she veers into the territory of mentally unbalanced.  Perhaps this is because she is being stalked by Affleck, who has decided to change his debauched ways on the back of the husband’s death.  The effect is creepy and doesn’t lend itself to a love story.

Casino Royale – 4.75 stars

April 25, 2012
00s, 4 stars, James Bond
2 Comments

Clive Owen seemed such a natural choice to replace Pierce Brosnan as James Bond.  His breakout performance in the small budget Croupier even had him sporting a tuxedo in a casino.  But Owen passed, the role went to Daniel Craig, and “Bond was back!”

Except, Bond wasn’t back.  Daniel Craig and the creators of his movies turned their collective backs on a bunch of Bond movie staples.  Gone were the ridiculous gadgets, women named “Pussy” and “Goodhead”, painful puns and villains with designs to dominate and/or destroy the world.  Admittedly, Mike Myers’s Dr. Evil killed the last trope, which is a shame, because I’m less interested in villains with mere monetary designs.  But the advent of Craig signaled the death of a Bond audiences had come to know and tire of.

Instead, Craig brought us a hard, lean and rough Bond, a killer, but a smart, quick killer.  It was noteworthy that the first chase scene in Casino Royale is not by car, plane or boat, but on-foot, a dizzying, physical sequence where Bond chases down one man.  The suave and debonair is gone, as is evidenced by a drink order:

Like George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, however, Craig is introduced as a Bond who falls in love.  We see another side, briefly, and then thankfully (I prefer Bond unencumbered), we see what he will be going forward (we didn’t get that option with Lazenby, who apparently thought he had a brighter future than Bond had to offer).

Paul Haggis wrote Million Dollar Baby and Letters from Iwo Jima, and he won the Oscar for Best Screenplay for Crash.  He also wrote Casino Royale, which is interesting, well-paced and modern as opposed to cute and campy.

Also gone are the bevy of beauties, with the Bond girl being, generally, the least dumb.  Instead, we get a quick-witted Eva Green, who is a match for Bond intellectually and thankful that she lacks his innate brutality.

Best, Casino Royale brought back the gorgeous locales.  Prague, Nassau, Montenegro and Venice are featured.

Attack the Block – 3.75 Stars

April 24, 2012
2011, 3 stars, Action/Disaster, Scary, Sci-Fi
Leave a comment

EXCLUSIVE: Here's An ATTACK THE BLOCK 2 Update, Straight From Joe Cornish

An alien drops into the middle of a South London mugging (5 public housing thugs are dispossessing a young woman of her belongings).  The alien is a cross between a wolf and Gollum.  The boys chase it down and kill it.  Apparently, it was well-thought of, because shortly thereafter, a whole bunch of these things come from space for revenge.  Good, scary fun, a few good lines, and tense action sequences, not terribly marred by some unnecessary suggestions of the poor plight of London’s youth, forced to mug and terrorize by the inequities of an uncaring society.

Glory Road – 0 Stars

April 20, 2012
0 stars, Drama, Historical
1 Comment

Amazon.com: Glory Road [Italian Edition] : derek luke, jon voight, james gartner: Movies & TV

It is hard to find a worse sports movie than the hackneyed and overwrought Remember the Titans, but after Glory Road, I was almost wistful for the homespun wisdom of Denzel Washington and the beatific look on Will Patton’s face as racial understanding dawns upon him.

No matter what you may think of the delivery of Remember the Titans, and I think very little of it, with a few exceptions, it hewed however loosely to actual historical events. There was a high school football team in Alexandria, Virginia. The school was recently desegregated. The team did get a black coach and he did make the whites sit with blacks on the bus and the team did win the championship. Sure, the film exaggerated racial tensions, but that much is to be expected. It can’t be “feel good” if at first we don’t “feel bad.”

Glory Road is every bit as maudlin and formulaic as Remember the Titans (both films were produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, blast Motown, show the trading of racial culture between young men in the form of dance moves, and teach us valuable lessons about what’s “in here”) but it is also a perversion of history that goes way over the line.  Yes, 5 black men played on the 1965-66 Texas Western NCAA winning basketball team and yes, they were coached by Don Haskins.  This much is true.

But it wasn’t that big of a deal.  A decade before Texas Western won, the undefeated 1955-56 University of San Francisco team won the NCAA championship with a team that played four blacks — Bill Russell, K.C. Jones, Hal Perry and Gene Brown.  In 1958, the coaches’ All-American team was all black — Wilt Chamberlain of Kansas, Oscar Robertson of Cincinnati, Bob Boozer of Kansas State, Guy Rodgers of Temple and Elgin Baylor of Seattle.  In 1962, the University of Cincinnati started four black players when it won the NCAA championship.  Loyola University of Chicago started four when it won in 1963.

We also have the sports announcer screaming, “Who ever heard of Texas Western?”

A lot of people. Texas Western was a regional third place finisher in the 1964 NCAAs.

So, that sucks, but it gets worse.

The reason 5 black players got the start (and 7 played) was mundane – Haskins thought they were the best players.

Not so in the film.  Instead, we get some p.c. twaddle wherein Haskins tips his desire to make a statement to the team and the white players actually agree not to play so a larger societal point can be made.

How the screenwriter came to the conclusion that it was more edifying to make the achievement a gift from whites rather than earned by blacks, well . . . that’s for another day.

Wonder Boys – 4.5 stars

April 18, 2012
4 stars, Comedy, Drama
Leave a comment

I had dinner with a critic friend, David Ehrenstein, around the time this picture was released.  He said something to the effect of, “A movie about these people had not been done yet.  It was its time.”  He was right, but before getting to the film, I wanted to note that the folks who did publicity for Curtis Hanson’s follow-up to L.A. Confidential should have been lined up and shot.   The previews portrayed the movie as a screwball comedy with a bespectacled Michael Douglas playing a wise and ultimately grating character, a classier Weird Science with a bigger star.

Wonder Boys is nothing as it was presented.  Instead, it is a literate comedy of manners with the setting of higher education, and it is principally about the businesses of teaching and writing.  Douglas is a professor working on his second novel (his first, a successful work, was published seven years prior), which has ballooned to a deathless 2200 pages.  His agent (Robert Downey, Jr.) is en route to WordFest, a weekend of literary activities, to read the novel.  In the meantime, Douglas is dealing with one peculiar but gifted student (Tobey Maguire), one gorgeuous student, who also happens to rent a room in his house and who is coming on to him (Katie Holmes), and the chancellor of the department, with whom he is having an affair (Frances McDormand).  Bad thing upon bad thing happens, but within the very funny travails, Hanson develops strong relationships between the characters.  He also gives more than a glimpse into the soul of writing and teaching, and Douglas actually grows, and grows convincingly, given what could have been events offered solely for their madcap nature.

The film also makes great use of the city of Pittsburgh, which has always deserved better than —