There’s no preamble to this plot: Sam Rockwell stomps straight through the doors of a busy diner at the one minute mark, loaded for bear in the most crackpot homemade science fiction maniac costume one can imagine, and lays it all out for us. Hey gang, I’m from the future and I’m here to recruit a squad of nobodies to help save the world. Oh, and also, I’ve made this speech, to this room, more than a hundred times already. We haven’t managed to get it right just yet. Cue the police sirens and the first of many frantic escape sequences. It’s a goofy premise that acknowledges as much. Perhaps too much, if I’m being completely honest... there’s a *lot* of conspicuous winking going on. And while the narrative toys with all sorts of pointed, valid, high-tech phobias en route to its explosive finale - AI, VR, engagement algorithms, school shootings, drones, clones, pervasive gamification - for me, that inauthentic weirdness calls its intent into question. Is this just a cheap effort to use our societal disarray for fake depth, or does it actually have something to say? The first act seems to imply one answer, but the balance flips as we wade deeper into the conceptual weeds. By the climax, I was beginning to feel annoyed. Are we going to crap here, or are we just going to hang around on the pot for a couple hours? As the journey proceeds, we cut away to document each supporting character’s immediate origins. How their day was going before they entered the restaurant. In each case, not so good. Without exception, these play like a procession of sugared-up Black Mirror episodes. In a few cases, I think their concepts are actually lifted directly from the show, watered down and over-saturated in the name of broader entertainment value, then plugged back into the machine. The first example, a treatise on inattentive teens and shell-shocked teachers, is amusing but light, and the returns diminish from there. These sidetracks offer a lot of color and wacky ideas, but never resolve. Even as their subjects are summarily killed off. On a strictly superficial level, Good Luck is abstract fun in the same vein as Everything Everywhere All at Once, but it lacks that film’s conviction and often gets hung up on proving it’s half as clever as it thinks it is. Loudly insecure, I think, is the right way to put it. A big, erratic caper with wild ideas and eccentric performances, but it’s so focused on gaining our approval that it forgets to follow through on its promises.
The Coens try their hands at slapstick in the wild and lonesome southwest. Nic Cage plays this story’s instigator, a trashy repeat convict with zero impulse control. That key trait has led him astray for most of his life, primarily due to a fixation on robbing one particular convenience store, but eventually plants him on the path to redemption when he spontaneously ties the knot with a smitten female cop. When the new couple learns they can’t have children, though, and a high-profile set of quintuplets are delivered on the other side of town, those old temptations rise up once again. With that many kids, they’ll never miss just one... As the writing and directing duo’s second feature film, Raising Arizona represents a significant departure from their first (the serpentine Blood Simple) and a good indication of the unpredictable career they’d share over the ensuing decades. Despite the anxious subject matter, this is a very light, silly film that leans hard into its peculiarities. Cage is a wonderful wacko, as always, but there's fierce competition for our attention with Holly Hunter (his somewhat cracked lady love), Randall “Tex” Cobb (the grimy, flat-snouted bounty hunter who steps over from a completely different film) and John Goodman (the odious, dumbass, manipulative prison buddy) on-hand. And those are just the most focally-positioned examples. Without exception, everyone’s turned their personality up to eleven in Raising Arizona. Sometimes that can be too much - there are definitely spots where this just feels like a bunch of weird characters running around being weird characters - but heaping helpings of eccentricity are an essential part of the film’s DNA. These zany, dreamy kooks are the fuel that powers the engine. And besides, it’s stupidly fun to just sit back and watch what they’ll say (or do) next. Sometimes the silliness goes too far (the baby abduction scene is the wrong kind of screwball, like a mini Baby’s Day Out) and I’m not sure what its purpose really was, but I enjoyed this all the same. It’s been forty years now and I don’t think anyone, Coens included, has produced anything even remotely similar. That’s gotta count for something.
A young musician, struggling to find his voice, backs into a gig as spot keyboard player for an eclectic art rock band whose lead singer wears a large papier-mâché mask at all times. Though his first performance is a disaster, the fresh recruit is invited to join the group in an open-ended rehearsal / recording session / retreat somewhere in remote Ireland. There, the close quarters and limited social opportunities force them to hone their sound and face the tumult of adding a new member. Having played with a number of bands myself, I can recognize and relate with Frank’s depiction of a dysfunctional group creative process. Getting any number of smart, devoted, protective artistic types to agree on a direction can be an exercise in futility, especially without someone decisive and commanding at the helm. Frank, he of the big fake head, is a musical savant who can pick the most savory bits from an idea, adapting and expanding their essence into something rich and meaningful. An essential component of any successful group, but not necessarily what you need in a leader. That hasn’t been a problem for these guys so far, because they’re content to live in a van and essentially play music for themselves. When the new guy pushes them towards a broader audience, Frank’s thrilled, but the rest of the crew is skeptical. Doubly so when someone mentions toning down their sound. Are we trying to be radio-friendly now? I didn’t sign on for that. Building a great band is hard. It takes a lot of stale repetition. Personalities will rub wrong. There will be jealousy and gatekeeping as ideas are overlooked or discarded. And, even if you get over those humps, there’s no guarantee you’ll find the right ears or that your tenuous private alliance will survive the spotlight. Most of Frank’s band is damaged goods. Frank is damaged goods. Their faults feed the music, but for some that’s not a healthy loop. We see that in full effect during the film’s third act, where everyone’s cracks and faults are stressed and stretched, and suddenly it’s not such a fun ride. Delightfully obtuse at its best, I much preferred Frank’s first hour, where the band is fighting to create and not simply fighting. Its latter explorations of mental illness and social misunderstanding can be poignant, but very drab. After sixty minutes of fraught color, it's difficult to appreciate something so bleak.
Calm, pleasant, even-handed Destry (James Stewart) rolls into a rowdy western town to help its new sheriff clamp down on disorder. The resident lawman once worked with Destry Senior, a famous gunslinger, and expects a similar no-nonsense, no-prisoners demeanor from the son. Instead, he gets a pacifist who’d rather smooth feathers than ruffle them. Stewart is magnetic in that role, the rare genuine guy in a roomful of lowdown dirty scoundrels, and his dedication to straight talk proves the breath of fresh air this town (and the film) really needed. Though he’s ridiculed for stepping off the stagecoach unarmed, a casual demonstration in his first week proves that’s a choice made of principal, not inexperience, and earns him a measure of growing respect from most observers. Not so for Kent, the saloon owner who always gets his way, or Frenchy, his singin’, drinkin’, brawlin’ live-in burlesque girl. In addition to a well-suited starring vehicle for Stewart, Destry Rides Again serves as a comeback opportunity for Marlene Dietrich. Following a string of flops and a salty industry designation as “box office poison,” Dietrich accepted the role of Frenchy to prove she could play against type as a nasty, fresh, short-tempered sort. Plenty of opportunity for that, between the bawdy musical performances, flirty acts of manipulation and dirty extended cat fight with a justifiably furious housewife. I made it about thirty seconds into her opening tune before realizing who she reminded me of: Frenchy was parodied/paid homage, thirty years later, in Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles. I spent the rest of the film waiting her to belt out a version of “I’m Tired.” I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed this. It’s offbeat but earnest, grinningly upending the well-trod stereotypes that had already settled in on the western genre (before John Wayne and company would bring ‘em all back again) while still managing a few good meanings and messages along the way. Stewart is always in command of a situation, even when he’s at a social disadvantage, and always ready with the right quip to turn the tide. Dietrich is suitably loud, a whole lot to handle until she’s caught flat-footed by Destry’s sincere character and kinda-sorta sees the light. And, in the end, everybody gets what they’ve got coming. Ninety-odd minutes well spent.
Vengeance comes knocking for a wealthy attorney when a paroled ex-client discovers holes in his defense, long after the fact, and makes a daily creeping nuisance of himself. The viewer might not blame Nick Nolte’s withholding evidence for moral reasons, but in the eyes of the state (not to mention those of his disgruntled patron), a lawyer’s job is to set aside personal feelings in the name of fair representation. This leaves Nolte’s character out in the cold, so to speak, as the stalker’s threats and actions grow bolder while his own legal protections fall into question. This is Martin Scorsese chasing a mainstream hit with an uncomplicated plot, loud treatments and superfluous camera angles, not unlike Francis Ford Coppola’s efforts toward the same end in Bram Stoker’s Dracula the following year. Scorsese credits Alfred Hitchcock as his chief influence here, a tip of the cap that’s made doubly-obvious by his use of a Bernard Herrman score and Saul Bass title sequence, but Scorsese missed an important element of Hitch’s craft: subtlety. Cape Fear has no sense of chill whatsoever. If it’s at all relevant to the plot, you’re going to see it, in extreme close-up, with all the important words underlined. Not every Hitchcock film was perfect in this respect, but the best certainly were. They’re almost as interesting for what they hint or imply than for what they spell right out. Scorsese’s camera choices skip the nuance and move in for the kill straight away. Likewise, his cast may as well string character archetypes around their necks. Hi, I’m the adolescent daughter. I have daddy issues. Did you know the antagonist was convicted of **** a girl exactly my age? He’s cute! So the stylings are a bit excessive, and the story’s a bit spelled-out, and the running time is a bit long, and the climax is a bit convenient... but what’s it got going for it? Robert De Niro. Robert De Niro chomping scenery and flexing a shredded, tatted physique under the guise of greasy hair, gross wardrobe choices and an atrocious southern drawl. He’s forced and fake, just like the others, but it’s fun to watch Big Bobby D going way, way over the top in this kind of lightly campy villainous role. I’m flummoxed he took home an Oscar for it, though. Maybe I needed to see it in the context of 1991. It's *very* of its time.
A curious blend of hard edges and soft emotions from writer/director Luc Besson, who would apply a similar mix of antithetical senses in his 1994 international breakthrough, Léon: The Professional. Nikita (the “Femme” was added after its French release) is the story of a strung-out punk rock junkie, whisked away after a deadly police shootout and unwillingly trained to be a secret government assassin. If that sounds like a huge leap, it is, and the reason for her selection is never really explained beyond the weirdly passive handler who “sees something in her.” But regardless, she gets into the program, overcomes her addiction, ruffles feathers with her gruff demeanor, eventually faces facts and graduates into a cushy life as an on-call killer. Many of these developments feel abrupt or confusing due to the film’s tendency to skip weeks, months or years in a flash. In just a few minutes of screen time, she kicks her anti-authority ethos to the curb and reclines into a sort of submissive acceptance. If we pay attention, the film leaves plenty of hints that she’s been through a rigorous psychological indoctrination, but those details are mostly left to our imagination. Weird to skip the sordid transformation scenes like that, but also refreshing. That reprogramming isn’t a point of emphasis for Besson, so he doesn’t obsess over it. Instead, we spend a lot of time watching Nikita enjoy the fruits of her new life. We don’t know how she wound up in such a dark place to begin with, smash-and-grabbing drug stores with a crew of grungy criminals, but we can see her enthusiasm about making the most of a fresh start. Left to her own devices between jobs (another risky call from her superiors), she immediately sets to building a happy, comfortable, quiet life with the friendly cashier of a local grocery store. It’s great cover for a part-time executioner, and the awkward balancing act doesn’t seem to upset things all that much. Not until a job finally goes wrong and suddenly she’s in deep water without a buoy. Both sides of this cinematic contradiction are well-developed. The action is bright and loud, an exciting relic of mid-budget ‘80s blowouts on VHS, while the playful romance develops into something warm and effervescent. The whole third act is a chaotic riot, a spike of difficulty and consequence that’s driven by a single-minded Jean Reno, and while I wasn’t satisfied with its resolution, I was wrapped up by the young love affair while it lasted. A loose, ambitious, free-spirited film that leans on both its star’s unusual brands of feminine allure (Anne Parillaud isn’t your traditional badass bombshell) and its director’s unique sensibilities.
The final film of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s sensitive, loosely-connected Colors trilogy involves overlapped lives in the heart of a busy European metro. The odd, unexpected rapport that develops between once-strangers Valentine and Joseph (a warm, restrained young woman and a cold, cynical older man) soaks up most of the screen time, but we’ll encounter a number of other individuals, equally tangled in the messy web, before it’s all said and done. Near-misses and unconscious influences that cause ripples in each other’s days, overlooked or unregistered by the characters but lain bare for the audience. A sort of butterfly effect for French romantics. There’s a tasty contradiction at the heart of Valentine and Joseph’s unlikely friendship, both in their ethical outlooks and their personalities. His prime years have tapered off, leaving nothing but spite, regret and bad memories. Her adulthood is just beginning, pregnant with wonder and promise, but she’s allowed a possessive partner to cage her spirit. Joseph repulses her, both for his sour nature and his voyeuristic habit of eavesdropping on neighbors’ telephone conversations. Valentine intrigues him, both for her compassionate optimism and her youthful naïveté. They challenge each other, push each other, demand defense of the principles which make them who they are. And, shockingly, they each listen, grow from the debate, and nurture a strong mutual respect. Ideological rivals needn’t necessarily be incompatible dinner partners. Watching this relationship develop is a beautiful thing. So is the lead actress. A returning veteran from Kieślowski’s international breakthrough, The Double Life of Veronique, Irène Jacob is just as stunning, lightly perturbed and melancholy in this role. Her nuanced emotions carry a lot of weight here, and so do her unique physical charms. She’s the ideal vehicle for Red’s moods and meanings: simultaneously certain and uncertain, confident enough to stand up for her beliefs but also willing to be disproven and convinced. C’est la vie. Or at least, it should be. A deep, lovely, thoughtful film. My favorite of the three.
I’m of two minds when it comes to F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu. Its lasting impressions, the items that stick in our memory banks, are the stuff of legend. That dense, pervasive atmosphere, impossibly effective given the constraints of age, location and budget. The powerful compositions and creepy special effects that transform a crumbling between-wars German village into a steep, shadowy nightmare landscape. The unsettling monster, effectively eight feet tall, whose buck-toothed fangs, delicate fingertips and bulging eyes mock the human figure. In these senses and more, Nosferatu has proven a weighty, lasting influence for generations of fans and filmmakers alike. It sure leaves a great aftertaste. But this time, the film’s less-than-stellar elements, those which fade with time, caught me unprepared. It’d been a good quarter century since I last sat for a viewing, and my own recollections had been reduced to playful tricks of light and Count Orlok’s unmistakable visage. I remembered this as an all-killer, no-filler smash of creativity. I’d forgotten the leisurely, repetitive story, stuffed with long-winded inter-titles and endless retreads. The extreme overacting (even by silent film standards) which frequently threatens to spoil the mood with misplaced comedy. The nonsensical explanations and ruthlessly simple characters. Basically everything preceding that first encounter with the night creature, and the short epilogue after he’s been dispatched, serves as a reminder that yes, this film is more than a century old and no, we hadn’t quite cracked the medium’s code just yet. At least, this particular group of DIY German sorta-plagiarist moviemakers hadn’t done so. In the end, we’re left with two polar extremes. One set of dull, over-hammed, excessively overwrought bookends, with a single, distinctly unforgettable act smashed in the middle. That’s where its legacy derives: on the stiff, bony shoulders of a peculiar man and the backs of an inspired art department. After a hundred-plus years, it still offers excellent artistry, with an incredible central performance and... a whole lot of space on either side. The best parts will knock your socks off. The worst will knock you unconscious.
There are few things more miserable than a zany screwball comedy that doesn’t work. Sorry to say it, but I found the new Naked Gun thin, try-hard and utterly excruciating. It waves its wackiness under our noses, somehow carries things further over the top than the original films, and winks, gratingly, after every weak punchline. Felt like I was being constantly elbowed in the ribs here. I got the joke, thanks, I just didn’t think it was very funny. Repeat that about two hundred times. Upon reflection, there were precisely two ideas that hit me right and drew a laugh, and those were quick one-offs that disappeared faster than a flash in the pan. Otherwise? Pandering, repetitive, lowbrow nonsense. The first Naked Gun was lowbrow, too, and equally hit-or-miss, but it never felt like a **** and its well of ideas was damn near bottomless. And it had a far more versatile, expressive star in the driver’s seat. At first glance, casting Liam Neeson in that primary role seems like a daring choice; a good sign that the new producers aren’t afraid to take a few risks and differentiate their take from the franchise’s earlier installments. Neeson isn’t known for his comedy chops, but that idea was mined to tremendous effect in a short segment on the Ricky Gervais series, Life’s Too Short, back in 2011. Then, as now, Neeson was only regarded as a stern, gravel-voiced action star and Gervais leaned into it, using the star’s severe demeanor and one-minded focus on dark subjects to deliver a fabulously unsettling series of improv takes. We try the same thing here, but his edges are softer, the setups are more transparently scripted and he’s more brazenly self-aware. He also appears positively geriatric. Leslie Nielsen never looked so pained in his action scenes, but then, Leslie was also a decade younger, despite what outward appearances might lead us to believe. Maybe this caught me on a bad night. Maybe I’ll find a few more reasons to chuckle if I lighten up and settle in for a re-watch alongside a more receptive audience. Maybe I’ll owe Neeson (and supporting star Pamela Anderson, who bored me to tears) a big apology. Or maybe this just ****.
Darren Aronofsky sets aside his usual dark, distressing fare for something a little more superficial and exciting. The guy who made Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan has directed a quirky homage to the late ‘90s crime caper? That idea gave me a moment's pause, too. Rest assured, this is *not* oppressive and soul-crushing like Aronofsky’s other stuff. There are dark hints and dangerous turns, no doubt, but it’s primarily an example of a director leaning deep into his inspirations and doing them a service. His appreciation of Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and its ilk waves like a flag in the wind. The setup is pretty simple: a failed baseball phenom slips into his neighbor’s mess when he agrees to do a bit of weekend pet-sitting. Cue the missing mob money, bad actors, lead pipes, short fuses... you get the picture. Our ballpark reject isn’t much of a fighter, especially when outnumbered and caught by surprise, but he trusts his reads and can outrun just about anyone in the city. Those instincts serve him well and make him something of a novelty in the modern action scene. We’ve all seen Jason Statham, Liam Neeson or Keanu Reeves square up and walk through waves of opposition in the past ten or fifteen years; it’s refreshing to see this handsome lead take a whupping and lose a kidney along the way. Austin Butler fills that role well, charismatic enough to remain appealing despite his personal failings, but he’s just the plot’s pilot. Like the classic Ritchie riots of a quarter-century back, much of Caught Stealing’s flavor is derived from its wealth of colorful supporting characters. Most noteworthy among these are Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Hasidic hitmen and Matt Smith’s carelessly connected British punk. Butler gets down and dirty with the lot of them, deepening his hole with every tooth-skinned getaway, and we all benefit from the increasingly spiked stakes. It’s a wild ride, absolutely stuffed with big personalities and melting pot eccentricities, that still left me wanting more. This one really hit the mark.
Blaming conspiracies and secret societies for what they perceive as the orchestrated collapse of fair society, a Dollar Store Charles Manson (Jesse Plemons) and his neurodivergent cousin/acolyte (Aidan Delbis, making his feature film debut) clumsily kidnap the high-profile CEO of a major pharmaceutical company (Emma Stone). They’re sure she’s an incognito extraterrestrial, their ticket to an audience with Adromedan royalty, and subject her to all manner of bizarre tinfoil-hat tortures to prove as much. The socio-political parallels are pretty clear here, with both ideological extremes mocked and stereotyped in similar fashion. Stone’s cold, callous capitalist is every bit the loathsome mogul type, Jeff Bezos in pumps, splashing on ultra-chic trappings while grinding the working class beneath her heel. A face for our corporate distrust that’s remarkably easy to objectify and hate... right up until she’s shaved bald and left shivering in a dark, dingy basement cell. Her captors, meanwhile, are eccentric hayseeds, the type of grassroots wackjobs who call late night talk radio shows to debate ESP and crop circles. We can relate with their pain and frustration, recognize their impotence as helpless cogs in a gigantic machine, while still blanching at the lengths of their violent recourse. Whether purposeful or not, this setup almost exactly mirrors the Luigi Mangione killing and once I recognized that, I couldn’t stop seeing the overlaps. I get it, I don’t like being abused by the big players either, but I’m not quite ready to start gunning down board members in the street. Or lathering them with lotion and strapping them to a car battery, as it were. If that makes Bugonia sound like a total drag, commentary with a hint of plot, then I’ve given the wrong impression. There’s rich, dark humor in the absurdity of all this, doled out with patience and efficiency. High-pressure tension, too, as both parties try to meet in the middle and cracks show in the captor-captive veneer. Plemons and Stone flash a great rapport as contradictory mouthpieces with an equally passionate faith in their beliefs. It kept me on the hook throughout, vibrant metaphors for societal disarray and crazy, twisting head games alike. And holy crap, what an ending! Faced with a resolution that might have favored one party or the other, Bugonia determines that we’re all wrong. And right. And brilliant in our misguided stupidity. I love that it went there.
MTV Films produces a live-action version of their cult cyberpunk cartoon, and the network’s buzz-enamored influence is hard to overlook. Back in the early ‘90s, Æon Flux was a foggy, sleazy highlight of Liquid Television, the channel’s experimental half-hour animation showcase. Her bite-sized adventures (only a few minutes long, and she usually died at the climax) were quirky, creative and memorable enough to merit three seasons of a standalone series. This film represents another step up, but also an extra layer of studio influence. Creator/showrunner Peter Chung was said to be humiliated by what it became, and I can’t blame him. Both iterations of the animated series were fundamentally edgy and challenging, not just in what they said or did but in how they looked. By contrast, this is about as soft and watery as it gets. Charlize Theron looks good in black - we’re provided ample opportunity to appreciate her curves - but she doesn’t resemble the character from the show. TV Æon was erotic but not always sexy, if that makes sense, while Charlize is every bit the traditional bottled beauty. She wasn’t hired for her stunt work, let’s put it that way, although it’s virtually impossible to tell where she ends and her double begins. This editing is so hyperactive, I felt like I’d been mainlining Jolt Cola for a month. Action scenes flicker like fluorescent bulbs, trying to cover for bad practical effects with a flood of obtrusive camera angles. Fights average around three cut-aways per punch. It’s downright epileptic. I guess the filmmakers sought that additional sizzle to make up for their narrow, boring vision of a dystopian future society. In a city of five million, last bastion of humanity after a near-extinction event, everyone speaks in the same dull, faux-cool monotone and nothing matters. Not even the female ninja with a set of surgically enhanced hand-feet has a scrap of personality. Don’t waste your time with this. Revisit the animated versions instead.
Leaning into his typecast as a crusty, grimy, over-liquored lowlife, Billy Bob Thornton stuffs the holiday season with all manner of withering glares, acidic snipes and piss-puddle pass-outs. Thornton isn’t just a bad Santa, he’s a bad human being... though not quite so bad as the others in his orbit. In the midst of a decade-long bender, he’s barely functional enough to pull off the annual Christmas Eve robberies that fund his sad, hedonistic lifestyle. Does anyone really expect him to fill out his cover story as a picturesque, compassionate, attentive mall stand-in? He’d just as soon drown these kids as hear about their dreams or pose for their mothers’ **** Santa really only has one note: watch its stars behave like a crew of misanthropic ogres, then contrast the rotten mood with a dash of childish innocence. Slimy people doing slimy things in inappropriate locations. Ad nauseam. That repetition grows even more pronounced when a young bullying victim gives the pathetic, red-suited wretch a swanky place to lay his head. This kid’s already been abused and abandoned by his peers and parents; seems like as good a place as any to pile on. Thornton wastes no time, barely registering his host as more than a nuisance. He doesn’t even offer a hint of changing his ways until the film has about five minutes left in its running time. Why bother with a character arc when we can keep hammering the same crass, unimaginative jokes and phone it in at the finish line?Pointlessly mean-spirited and not even particularly amusing, this makes a better low-concept movie poster than it does a ninety-minute comedy. Thornton wetting himself on Santa’s throne is the enduring image, and for good reason. His apathy and meandering listlessness runs parallel to the film’s. I couldn’t wait for it to end.
How’s that for a descriptive title? Every year, fifty boys line up on a desolate stretch of highway and commence marching until only one remains. Slow down or stop for too long, you’re dead. Leave the path, you’re dead. Outlast the others, though, and you’ll score wealth beyond your wildest dreams. Riches and the fulfillment of a personal favor. No matter where they finish, then, these young adults’ lives will be forever altered. Despite the simplistic premise, The Long Walk’s execution is shaky. As these games have been running for quite some time now, the participants should have no illusions about what they’re in for. And yet, each has plans for his future, win or lose. One kid plans to write a tell-all book about the experience. Another says he’s here to make friends. Are they expecting a different set of rules? As the road extends, we catch little peeks at the faded American flag behind all the misery - quick flashbacks that float ideas of civil unrest and fascist thought police - but these are thin and dopey. Tough guys bully artists. Kids are sent into the meat grinder for some sort of vague national entertainment, then saluted for their naïveté. The ideas seem pertinent, especially in the modern political climate, but they don’t yield much to closer inspection. Along the same lines, I didn’t really connect with any of the characters, because each can be boiled down to one or two basic traits. Here’s the native kid with a grumpy attitude. Here’s the kid with a Walkman (even the main characters struggle to remember his name). This kid might be too young for the competition. This kid chews gum. The actors do a good job of conveying their youthful optimism, and the eventual thousand-yard-stare of their attrition, but when it comes to meaningful development, there’s not much to go around. Even the more substantial backstories just feel like they’re checking boxes on a registration sheet. Apparently recognizing this, the editor lathers on an extra helping of weepy, drawn-out, emotionally manipulative music to help us understand what we should be feeling. It’s unbelievably heavy handed, like an after-school special. By the time we hit the home stretch, and its ridiculous string of final eliminations (essentially a back-to-back-to-back set of “I don’t deserve this as much as you guys, so I’m giving up”), my patience had reached its limit. The Long Walk has some good ideas. It features some memorable performances, particularly from Mark Hamill, who hams it up in his best Hank Williams Jr., all hat and aviator glasses and goateed accent. It’s well-produced and evenly paced. But it doesn’t make for good cinema.
Hate to say it, but here’s more proof that father time is undefeated. It’s been forty years since This is Spinal Tap so wickedly illustrated the less-glamorous aspects of arena rock ****, and like the group’s throngs of jean-jacketed supporters, the magic has long since dissipated. The reality of Guest, McKean and Shearer’s screen reunion mirrors that of their dim-witted alter egos on the lighted stage. Three aging former sparkplugs, brought back together after decades apart, who can’t find the fire that once fueled their notoriety. They go through the motions, play the hits, try to fake it, but there’s no denying the truth. This ship sailed **** ago, for characters and comedians alike. The long-awaited Spinal Tap sequel isn’t completely devoid of wit. I found a few chuckles, but never once flirted with hysterics like I did (and still do) so steadily in the first film. As I feared, many of the best punchlines are in the trailer, and it wasn’t even a very good trailer. The scant plot is weighted down with cameos, including two distinguished members of rock royalty who look even older than the band does, but a vast majority of these guest shots are simple coast jobs. Famous somebodies who pop up and smile for the camera, confident that their mere presence will be enough to prop up an otherwise mediocre scene. Most returning members of the original supporting cast also fall into this category. It was nice to see Fran Drescher again, if only for a few moments, but couldn’t they have given her a laugh or two? I guess those are in short enough supply as it is. This is mighty soft stuff. Soft, unnecessary and a little sad. Hobbled by age and complacency, the stars muster no energy at all, not even when they’ve reached the stage of their big comeback show and perform a medley of favorite old tunes. Not even in the shadow of a correctly-sized Stonehenge prop. Like most belated comedy sequels (see Anchorman 2 or Zoolander 2), I couldn’t find it in me to skip this one, but now kinda wish I had.
In the late nineteenth century, Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson are stranded on a secluded lighthouse island. Their shift is scheduled for four weeks, but then ugly weather intervenes and patience runs thin. As do inhibitions, wits, stories and supplies of alcohol. While they’re fairly well-behaved for their scheduled stay, the drinking gets out of control during the pair’s interminable wait for relief. That leads to arguments, fights, songs, speeches, twisted hallucinations and a general sense of unsteady mania. Imagine Eraserhead were penned by Herman Melville. Writer/director Robert Eggers uses every tool in his box to emphasize the tandem’s turmoil and loss of reason amidst trying circumstances. His choice of an extremely narrow, boxy aspect ratio makes the screen feel crowded and claustrophobic. Sharp, high-contrast photography matches the actors' dark demeanor and allows the fabulous camerawork and visual artistry to sweep us away. Intense moods and thick, liquor-bleached hallucinations pepper the narrative, bending reality until it’s almost indistinguishable from delusion. If you look deeply enough, or know the stories well enough, you’ll find a wealth of mythological references to reinforce The Lighthouse’s messaging. It’s a complex work, a deep one, that takes no half-measures. At times, it can be intimidating, dominating, smothering, but that’s kind of the point. The guys up on the screen are feeling the same way and reacting in kind. With the assistance of some seriously mood-altering intoxicants. Dafoe crushes his role as a ranting, raving, whip-cracking old graybeard, while Pattinson meets him in the middle as the rankled apprentice whose will is tested and ultimately loses his grip on reality. They're both excellent performances, rousing portrayals of lunatics at the end of their ropes, but Dafoe is downright magnetic. I dare you to tear your eyes away from his harrowing, unblinking two-minute monologue, the impetus of a wild, violent climax. The pair’s thick accents, uncertain language and slurred speech may render some dialogue unintelligible, but we get enough hints from their expressions and body language to figure it out for ourselves. Not like they’re talking a lot of sense by that point anyway. A tough watch, a rich watch, an enlightening watch, and not a watch I’m in a great hurry to repeat.
Frank Capra had been perfecting this formula for more than a decade before It’s a Wonderful Life. Earnest, uplifting stories that emphasize a few recurring points: the importance of family and community, the scummy presence of bad actors at the top of the food chain and the imperative for the former to oppose the latter at every opportunity. Don’t settle for the fatcat’s scraps, in other words, and don’t let him box you into living, acting or doing business the way he deems most appropriate. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town brought us the same type of naïve protagonist, thrown into deep financial waters against his will. You Can’t Take it With You portrayed a similar big-bucks property grab and popular backlash. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington showed us the power of one staunch, convincing voice against corruption. All three featured a plucky, likable cast with quaint little quirks and a stern sense of resolve. We get all of the above, plus a heavy dose of snowy holiday feelings and a loose **** adaptation, in It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey (James Stewart) is an admirable young man, the rare banker-with-a-heart, who takes a personal interest in the character of his little town. Despite private hardships and economic downturns, he maintains a steady ship, convincing neighbors to chip in, do their part and strive together for a better tomorrow. His is a wonderfully optimistic ideal, especially in uncertain political or economic times. See the best in people and they’ll also see it in themselves. Do the opposite and, well... you know the rest. There’s a visible dichotomy between his crew, who believe that a rising tide lifts all boats, and that of the embittered opposition, threatened by the possibility of the next guy getting a better deal. They’re both anxious, worried about the future, but one side builds and sacrifices while the other hoards and divides. Some disputes are timeless. So is the concept of a well-intentioned doormat. Poor George is so caught up in the idea of improving his neighbors’ lives that he neglects his own. When a run of bad luck calls his precarious position into doubt, he responds like I suspect most would. He bares his frustrated side, his resentful side, his human side. Nobody’s perfect, after all, and George has his share of faults. I love that this film takes the time to demonstrate those, to rebuff the model of a perfect man and note the cracks in his facade. I’m less impressed by how easily that dilemma is resolved. The happy ending vibes are lathered on awfully thick and the heavy-handed religious metaphors may as well have been wedged in with a crowbar. Light and dreamy, the climax stands in stark contrast to the vivid, realistic moral fiber of the first two acts. I didn’t want to see George lose everything here, but Capra and company put in the work to get us this far. Why the easy exit? That’s a minor gripe, anyway, and one I know I don’t share with most viewers. And I’ll admit, the sudden rush of optimism plays well with the expected seasonal emotions. Despite the tagged-on feeling of that home stretch, I can recognize that the good of the preceding two hours far outweighs my own private ****. A great picture, and a justified holiday classic, that lands a step or two below the director's other cornerstones.
A scant, observational documentary about various breeds of insect and the unusual ways they go about their business. Produced in tandem by several international film companies, Microcosmos skirts the language barrier by opting for almost no narration - just a short, poetic introduction and a bookended farewell blurb - which leaves plenty of room for the audience to add their own. That’s the way I took it, watching on the couch with family over the Thanksgiving holiday and marveling at how little we know about the tiny worlds beneath our gaze. It's excellent curiosity fodder / conversation starter. I don’t need my hand held for this kind of material. Limited-narrative films like Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi are on my all-timer list. I’ve happily devoured a majority of David Attenborough’s catalog, including at least a dozen viewings of Planet Earth. By comparison, Microcosmos is like aimlessly leafing through a glossy nature magazine. Its sharp, detailed visuals are mesmerizing, but that’s pretty much all it has to offer. There’s no segue between subjects or loosely-overlapped chapters, no knowledge or general enlightenment beyond what we can see and surmise for ourselves. In the blink of an eye, it’ll absently bounce from watching a freshly-born butterfly dry its wings to tailing a tumbling dung beetle through the desert. No rhyme, no reason, just pure fickle distraction. This makes for very light, relaxed (if vacant) viewing. Hey gang, let’s go stare at the pretty pictures for a while. Even with the sometimes-ugly subject matter, it’s good for at least that much. Extreme close-ups and careful time-lapses speckle the screen; expert photography that nears the level of those top-notch docus I mentioned above. You’ll get a great idea of what it looks like when a wasp larva seals itself up before undergoing its metamorphosis, but not how or why that change occurs. It just does.
I didn’t have kind memories of this one. A cheap, light comedy with a softball concept, reliant upon a very specific time and place, starring Pauly Shore? Brendan Fraser as a mostly nonverbal caveman in sunglasses and jam shorts? Lord have mercy. Imagine my surprise upon discovering it was halfway decent. Make no mistake, Encino Man is no landmark of cinema. It’s easy laughs and transparent setups, all the way. Even a cro-magnon could predict where the plot’s going. One visual punchline is so absurdly stupid, it’s become a lasting meme (imagine the single worst dusted white boy flattop of all time). But there’s also a unique charm to it, a loose sense of humor that just does its thing and hits its notes without worrying about what any outsiders might think. Encino Man was Shore’s first big shot after catching eyes and ears on MTV, so it’s hardly surprising that he lathers it with as much Totally Pauly valley boy attitude as he can muster. Keep riding the horse that got you to the race, right? That character wouldn’t have a very long shelf life - he’d nurture full go-away heat within the year - but as a herald of the ‘80s hangover, the ultimate affable SoCal stoner, his act actually sort of... works? Maybe because I hadn’t seen it in a long, long while and ninety minutes wasn’t enough for it to beat me over the head. He’s certainly the fuel behind this fire, lording over the high school arena and dusting it with a certain sense of skunky authenticity. Surrounded by so much outlandish culture and fashion (almost every scene includes at least one ensemble garish enough to elicit gasps and snickers) he seems right at home. He’s often a little above the melee, actually, snickering and cajoling like a slim, pink-headbanded pixie. Is this going to move you? No. Will it give you cause to roll your eyes? More than a few times. It did popularize the phrase “weazin’ the juice,” after all. Will it bore you, insult you, drive you to verbal violence? Nah. It’s silly but harmless, a mindless dose of inoffensive entertainment with more quality laughs than you might expect. Victims of Pauly Shore overload who are still coming to terms with their PTSD should steer clear, however: he’s everywhere, and he’s exactly how you remembered.
In the summer of ’98, the idea of an absolute nobody becoming a celebrity, living his whole average life under a camera’s eye, seemed a little far-out and scary. Flash forward thirty years and the one-two punch of social media and influencer culture has made this a dream occupation. Of course, the difference is Truman didn’t realize he was under constant surveillance, his emotions mined and manipulated for maximum dramatic effect, but otherwise the parallels are pretty shocking. The difference in perception is also rather telling. When Truman discovers the truth, appalled at the idea of what he’s been subject to, he panics and bolts. Society (both in the viewing audience and in their twisted cinematic mirror image) cheers his escape; the orchestra swells; the vibes are good. The little man is resisting a truth that’s been imposed by external forces. I wonder how many modern viewers smile and switch off the television, then reach for their phone and check their favorite livestream without registering the irony. Peter Weir’s direction really emphasizes the uncanny and off-putting aspects of Truman’s existence. The brow-furrowing moments that threaten to shatter the illusion, like the best buddy who expertly positions a beer label before making a toast. The hip checks and shoulder blocks that physically redirect a too-polite nice guy away from his heart’s desire and into the arms of the woman producers have already cast as his designated love interest. These little beats are crucial in deconstructing the lie. He might not think much of them at the time - that was a little weird but whatever - but once he’s been given a legitimate reason to doubt the fantasy, they all come flooding back in a rush. In that leading role, Jim Carrey first exudes a great cheeseball suburban white guy attitude, then visibly cracks and spirals into conspiracy-induced mania. Everyone watching at home knows he’s in the right, but we also recognize how impossible it must have felt to earnestly believe one thing and hear something different from everyone who’s ever meant anything to him on a personal level. That’s good philosophy fodder, a debate about the meeting point of free-will and social expectation. What are the limits of the cage we compose around ourselves? The Truman Show doesn’t delve too terribly deep into these weeds - this is a big-budget summer movie, after all - but it gives its audience enough to get dirty if they’re so inclined. Pretty impressive that it can work just as well on that front as it does a broader, pop-friendly, crowd-pleasing one.
Steve Carell’s first major starring vehicle is just as profane and improv-happy as any other jam by Apatow's crew, but the serious beats have a little extra heart. Carell is picture perfect as the über-tentative introvert for whom “it just never happened,” plucking exactly the right notes of social awkwardness and apprehension without casting any shade or drawing any simplistic conclusions. Here’s a guy who marches to his own beat, maybe a little autistic, who’s carved a happy little life for himself without caving to society’s pressure to pair off and settle down. His coworkers at a big box electronics store poke and tease him over it, but this is just how their little bro circle operates and, once he’s had time to recognize that the jeering is their way of welcoming him into the fold, he embraces it. I was working at Circuit City when The 40-Year-Old Virgin hit theaters, and it’s an incredibly accurate rendition of the locker room kinship I experienced, spending shifts with that kind of job in that time and place. As is often the case with this sort of drive-by ensemble comedy, not every joke lands. Plenty do, though, and the bigger set pieces, rife with visual humor, excel. Carell’s chest waxing scene, which he underwent for real, is still an absolute riot, both for the patently absurd things he says and for the inimitable way he shrieks and contorts as the hair comes off. With a cavalcade of about-to-be-big comedy names in the background - Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Jane Lynch, Mindy Kaling, Kevin Hart and about two dozen contemporaries - the star doesn’t need to do quite so much heavy-lifting and can focus on adding a little pathos to his punchlines. He’d make a pretty good career of that in the ensuing years, and I’d argue this is the role that showed he had such versatility within him. There’s real sweetness in his rapport with a middle-aged love interest, Catherine Keener, and her nearly-grown daughter. Something with a little more complexity than “I love lamp.” This isn’t an upper-tier comedy, but it’s an easy watch that shouts a good message. Its heart’s in the right place, even if it phrases its thoughts in obscene, juvenile ways.
Given the sensitive, politically-charged subject matter - a full classroom of children disappearing overnight - I expected another heavy “horror as social commentary” type of film here. Spoiler warning: it’s not that. Weapons is horror in the same vein as an eerie fairy tale. Kids are always being stolen and/or eaten in those stories, in equally puzzling ways and for equally crazy reasons. Once I recognized that, I was able to exhale and relax a little bit, to better enjoy the ride as something a little more traditional, with less stress on my metaphorical tripwire sensors. Suburban neighborhoods aren’t an original setting for this type of movie, but this example is loaded with cold, modern familiarity. The closeness of American society has decayed in the past few decades; we keep to ourselves more and trust our neighbors less. In an era of always-watching smart doorbells, closed social circles and parent-teacher shouting matches, it’s much easier to believe a community could turn upon itself like this. In the aftermath of the mass disappearance, misplaced blame abounds, with desperate parents openly baring their prejudices to muster their own boogeymen. That's an effective note, reinforced at several points, which provides a more uncomfortable type of chill. Something a little closer to home. This is where the film is really at its best; creepy and unsettling, but firmly planted in reality. Eventually, though, those more nuanced ideas get left behind, relegated to accents and afterthoughts by a more colorful, typical baddie. The finale is a blood-soaked bonanza, a cruel and creepy climax that balances grim outcomes with a few well-timed doses of dark humor, but it doesn’t suit the setup. The answers are too forthcoming; the payoff is underwhelming and a little cheap. Once its hand finally tips, Weapons pivots from an enveloping, suspenseful mystery into a simple supernatural screamer. It’s an interesting story, told in an interesting way, with an effective setting and a number of memorable performances, but that too-easy resolution left me hanging.
Why are so many mafia movies so good? Is it the intrinsic drama of a hard-and-fast way of life? That potent mix of secret dealings and violent repercussions? The allure of big spending, exorbitant lifestyles and loud personalities? The mere wish fulfillment of doing something selfish, swinging your balls around and getting away with it? Whatever the reason, the organized crime subgenre has a disproportionate number of bangers. Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese’s fast-paced take on the rise to riches and fall from grace of a real-life crook, slots in right alongside the greats. I might even say it’s better than The Godfather, although it almost certainly wouldn’t have been the same film without Coppola’s influence. In some ways, it’s almost a counter-point to that 1972 standard-bearer. Where The Godfather immerses itself in the machinations of running a criminal empire, the necessary maneuvers and backstabs behind the curtain, Goodfellas leans more into the superficial, gratifying image the families present to the public. It’s most interested in exploring the seductive power of the mafia lifestyle, all the showy fringe benefits that would make a kid in 1950s New York gaze out his greasy bedroom window and proclaim “I wanna be a gangster.” We’re swept away by the romance of that dreamland, led on a swirling tour of VIP entrances and private tables and first-name relationships with celebrities; living the high life while also being taught the pecking order that makes it possible. If you want to spend big, we can definitely make that possible, but you’ve also got to earn big. And honor a rigid code of conduct. Scorsese essentially wraps his arm around the viewer’s shoulder and takes us into that fold. We meet all the big players, a blur of names and faces, but settle down with an ambitious trio of go-getters. Jimmy (Robert De Niro, whose notoriety and connections make them viable), Tommy (Joe Pesci, a thin-skinned instigator whose impulsive nature pushes them forward) and Henry (Ray Liotta, the never-enough protagonist who balances the others’ fire and ice) form a tight-knit bond, spend most every waking moment together and work the ladder for all it’s worth. As time passes in big, colorful chunks, we stick to these guys and see how their game changes to match the world around it. The rewards increase, but so do the risks, and that’s not necessarily such a great thing as success goes to their heads and their unsightly little tics blossom in the spotlight. These guys never met a pair of britches they didn’t think they could fit. The director once said he shot Goodfellas to play like “a two-and-a-half-hour trailer,” and that’s exactly how it’s paced. Everything is a rich, quick peek through the window: a busy city childhood; a lavish stay in the clink; workplace disagreements; fence-swinging scores; unrecognized mutual tailspins. Like a life quickly lived, the plot races past in a string of highlights, but that’s not to say it lacks for depth or substance. Scorsese delivers those, too, equally saturated and at a breakneck pace. An easy ten out of ten.
The title sets the stage for this, another twisty, **** pickle. On a long rail commute into the city, two men make small talk and casually hatch a hypothetical double-murder plot. At least, one thinks it’s just speculation, laughing off the whole conversation and disembarking without a second thought. The other sees it more like permission and sets to holding up his end of the bargain. Both have human obstacles in their lives, people that would serve them much better in the morgue, so why not scratch each other’s back? Why not exchange that messy work? The more reluctant conspirator is a tennis hotshot (Farley Granger, in an appropriately stiff, polite performance), while the other’s a roguish cad (Robert Walker, who plays his role like a barely-closeted queen), quite accustomed to pushing and pestering until he gets his way. As soon as he’s shoveled dirt over his new buddy’s estranged wife, Walker makes a big nuisance of himself, regularly interrupting and imposing upon the befuddled athlete’s private life. It’s tough not to hold our breath each time this irritating busybody inserts himself on the scene, smiling proudly as his flustered cohort tries to explain his presence away. Hitchcock plays that suspense in his typical fashion, cranking up the heat until things reach an unbearable boil at the beginning of the third act. There’s a great back-and-forth sequence here, both men hurrying to finish an obligation before dark, that merits a spot on the director’s extended highlight reel. Strangers on a Train has its share of moments where Lord Alfred overplays his hand, pursuing daring visuals at the expense of good mechanics, but not here. This one’s a masterful display of tension, delivered with the director’s customary panache. While the suspense works, the noir-influenced cinematography is delicious and the story’s grim novelty is appreciable, this film’s reliance upon coincidence and bad judgment quickly wears thin and things go completely off the rails at the end. There, everything suddenly explodes in a loud cacophony that’s so contrived, I couldn’t help laughing. C’mon, Alfred, surely you can do better than that!
Recruited in secret, an international team of mercenaries plots to swipe an extremely well-protected briefcase from a French motorcade. In other words, your standard action/heist setup, albeit one that’s spiced by some rock-solid direction, flavorful locations and top-shelf casting. And if that doesn’t catch your eye, might I interest you in two GREAT high-speed car chases and a toe-curling backroom bullet extraction scene? Directed by a motivated John Frankenheimer and starring Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgård and a mess of “that guys,” Ronin is loaded with talent, but ultimately boils down to a one-man show. De Niro does almost everything, the fabled master of all trades, and while he does absorb his share of scuffs and dings (he dictates his own surgery in the aforementioned post-gunshot-wound spectacle), it does begin to feel like he’s descended from gods or something. When there’s an ambush coming, he’ll sense it and immediately spot the hidden snipers. When it’s time to do recon, he’ll take the lead, guiding his clueless boss through the art of hiding in plain sight. After the crap hits the fan, he settles into a repetitive pattern of spot-on hunch-chasing. Even when he doesn’t know what to do next, De Niro knows what to do. He’s a likable character and his budding friendship with Reno is as cool and masculine as one might expect, but his broad capabilities do stretch credibility. I like more flaws in my protagonists. While the action is excellent, this is a film with an identity crisis. One that strains and struggles to mean something more than powerful cars, quick triggers and a high body count. Its frequent references to The Tale of the 47 Ronin don’t exactly fit, even after a minor supporting character spells everything out for us with tiny samurai miniatures. Fleeting connections to the IRA and last days of The Troubles fare no better; we’re reminded that these things are going on nearby, and the group’s handlers speak in a Northern Irish accent, but Ronin’s plot is only vaguely connected. Such labored efforts give the impression that it’s ashamed of itself, eager to transcend into a genre we might consider more respectable. Which is a bummer, because I was enjoying its proficiency at those big, mindless blockbuster thrills. Why fight it, when you’ve already got a good thing going?
This seminal zombie movie was also a chance to learn on the job for the debuting independent director George A. Romero. From a critical perspective, it’s easy to point out the mistakes in Night of the Living Dead: gradual pace, weak acting, clumsy production, iffy effects... the list is pretty lengthy. None of the women amount to more than hysterical obstacles. Its efforts to establish a set of zombie ground rules are inconsistent and contradictory. But despite all that, there’s an admirable sense of self-assured determination at play here; the thrill of tackling a challenge head-on and bending a few rules to get it done. Romero’s moaning, simmering, flesh-eating character piece really shouldn’t work at all, but somehow, the finished product greatly surpasses the sum of its parts. Foresight is a big part of the reason. This thing is *way* ahead of its time; thematically, intellectually and culturally. In an age where most horror movies were aimed at immature audiences, Night of the Living Dead had the balls to take itself seriously. Its evaluation of humanity, as a fundamentally paranoid flock of sheep, is cynical but sincere. I could see most of us landing in this situation: holed up, cowering behind poorly-boarded windows, waiting for the TV to tell us what we should do next. At the mercy of the two alpha males locking horns in the dining room. Romero’s constant use of handheld cameras in close quarters includes us in the claustrophobia of these desperate moments, both during the persistent zombie raids and the raging human conflict. His casting of a black actor (the eloquent, Poitier-esque Duane Jones) as the de-facto protagonist, a strong voice of reason, is noteworthy for its even-handedness. He wears his blemishes, just like the rest. The racial undertones are there if you want to look for them, but they’re not emphasized. Jones is just one more frantic body, trying to find its way out of a horrendous bind. Near the fall of society, maybe we've finally begun to realize that everyone looks the same on the inside. And, no two ways about it, this is utterly bleak and hopeless. Even for a proto-zombie movie. Grim, dire, nihilistic, pick your adjective. It’s speckled with dashes of fire and stumbling mayhem, but most of the action is cerebral. I didn’t care for it in my twenties, but now that I’m a bit more seasoned, I can see why it’s become such a genre cornerstone. Crude, but impressive.
Dark, twisted and meaningful, like the best fairy tales, Pan’s Labyrinth mixes elements of dream, fantasy, history and horror in a single, simmering vat. At its center is Ofelia, a young girl struggling to retain innocence in the aftermath of an ugly civil war. Though the conflict is officially over, resistance outfits still dot the countryside, disrupting the fascist transition with guerrilla raids and ambushes. As the adopted daughter of an occupying officer, Ofelia’s caught in the middle and uses her imagination to escape as often as she can. In the wilds of 1940s Spain, there’s plenty of room to indulge those whims. Amidst the split trees and stone monuments, she finds an overlap between fact and fable, where strange creatures roam the shadowy overgrowth and fill little heads with ripe delusions. Ofelia doesn’t always know who to trust, and neither do we. In these unstable political times, the right secret in the wrong ears can be fatal. Thus, everyone in town is extremely guarded and suspicious, and the mythical creatures in the girl’s fantasies follow suit. Tangible fears color her invisible fancies. Like the rebels she admires, though, and the pregnant mother she adores, Ofelia endures and persists. In both worlds. I’m not sure which side of the story is most unsettling. The dreams are certainly more vivid, which makes them more memorable. Writer/director Guillermo Del Toro sends this sweet young thing into all sorts of terrifying nightmare scenarios, dim and musky corridors of ancient evil with unsightly guardians. This is all incredibly realized, a genuinely disturbing realm of ornate uglies that borrows from and iterates upon the director’s preceding work in Hellboy. I fell into the mental trap of expecting less from a foreign-language film and was bowled over by the top-notch costume and atmospheric effects. Pan’s Labyrinth delivers on the premise and then some, lending an air of strange possibility to its fiction. This looks good enough to believe in. There’s ample heart to go with that imagination, too. Heavy heart, with a lot of looking-through-our-fingers moments, but heart all the same. It’s not easy to marry reverie with reality, to tangle the two until they reach a cloudy, extra middle ground, but Del Toro has managed it. The grandness of this drama, and the bittersweet nature of its twin conclusions, is a crooked parable on par with the Brothers Grimm.
Obey! Conform! Marry and Reproduce! These are the demands of an oppressive ruling class, pasted in secret script behind the billboards and TV commercials consumed by LA’s blue-collar working stiffs. The addled, harassed population can’t see those hidden messages, but they certainly feel their effects, ineffectually shaking their heads and rubbing their eyes until the ideas sink in and they resume a mindless pursuit of phony happiness. There’s almost no shred of subtlety to John Carpenter’s wacky, hallucinatory They Live, which peels back the cover of that secret, authoritarian society after discovering a set of magical Ray-Bans. These special shades cut through the noise and reveal the truth, baring both the curt, black-and-white commands plastered everywhere and the grotesque alien monsters profiting from our compliance. Carpenter’s metaphor is almost as blunt as the bad guys’ mandates: a loud, frustrated call to arms against rampant materialism and the soulless fatcats who hoard its spoils. It was a me-first world in 1988, and almost nobody seemed immune to the attraction of bigger homes and shinier jewelry. Wish I could say that idea’s gone out of fashion in the ensuing forty years. Roddy Piper plays the face of the resistance, a serene drifter who’s happy to earn an honest paycheck until those specs change his outlook. He’s in for a wild ride, but not always a cohesive one. His stroll through the gates of subliminal insanity is a happenstance affair, a constant case of arbitrarily bumping into the next plot development, which makes the story feel flat and aimless. Carpenter visualizes a lot of crazy ideas, and Piper delivers his own unique blend of cool, confident and charismatic, but the puzzle pieces don’t always fit together. A supremely fun concept with great meme material, several hilarious curveballs and a pertinent underlying message, it’s not exactly satisfying as a finished picture. The message gets lost in the shuffle, and that ending sequence might be the most taped-together gob of afterthought nonsense I’ve ever seen.
George Romero returns to the zombie subgenre, ten years after Night of the Living Dead, to up the ante with this edgy, very ‘70s horror classic. Right from the get-go, Romero lets us know what kind of ride it’s going to be, hitting the audience with a big, wet exploding head at the eight minute mark. He may as well have held up a blinking neon sign: “If you’re squeamish, it’s not too late to pick a different movie!” As advertised, this is a total gore-fest, depraved in the most hilariously creative ways, and while that’s a point of emphasis, it’s not the only thing Dawn of the Dead is about. Alongside the snuff, we catch short glimpses of a wider post-societal mayhem. Two of our protagonists escape from a crowded TV studio, where the crew noisily broadcasts whatever unsubstantiated rumors and frenzied opinions they can find before locking up, hunkering down and going off the air. The other two refugees are delivered straight from a vicious, aimless SWAT raid that seems to serve no purpose beyond shotgunning frightened minorities. Later, on their helicopter-powered flight from the city, that quartet spies a crowd of rural rednecks, merrily slamming beers and hunting zombies for sport. Amidst a clear lack of order, the law of chaos has settled right in. Having seen all this, our group agrees that isolation sounds pretty good. They’re fortunate to land on the roof of a swarmed shopping mall, holing up in a hidden administrative office while steadily feeding hordes of undead to the proverbial meat grinder. That dirty work gradually clears showrooms and opens up the empty-toy-store setting of a lavish shoppers’ paradise, back in an era when that still meant something. Thirty years ago, I never would’ve expected something like this to hit my nostalgia buttons so hard. Romero finds opportunities for social commentary here, too, portraying the zombies as a sort of shopping dead and opining that they were drawn to this spot because the mall was an “important place” in their previous lives. Imagine being so wrapped up by window displays and Orange Julius that your body still yearns for those comforts after you’ve reached the afterlife. Man, that’s sad. So there’s more to this than just a feast of chunky, hyper-exaggerated blood and guts. I mean, there’s a lot of that. A *lot* a lot, enough that budding effects guru Tom Savini could build a long and storied career around this specific demo reel. In addition to the carnage, and the surprisingly complex characters, and the all-time great setting, and the underrated world-building, and the general sense that literally nothing is out of bounds, it’s got some intelligent things to say. Sure, the production values are loose and trashy. The blood looks like paint and you can see all the seams if you advance the video frame-by-frame. I’d argue those are fond hallmarks for this age of horror. That it still manages to do all the rest is what separates it from the pack. Either way, Dawn of the Dead is a genuine genre cornerstone.
A whole mishmash of cherry-picked folklore inspired this furry member of the Universal Monsters family. In this first installment (four sequels would swiftly follow), we’re introduced to the ground rules of lycanthropy, aka werewolfism: toothy infection, midnight transformation, thirst for unprotected jugulars, aversion to silver... the basics. Most of these strict guidelines are proclaimed by an astute gang of roving fortune-tellers, particularly their ominous matriarch, whose son suffers from the same condition. Unfortunately for the locals (and for the grieving mother), that original wolf managed to pass along his curse before falling beneath a heavy, silver-handled cane. That’s how affluent local son Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) gets into this mess. Trying to impress a disinterested girl with bravery and valor, he suffers a grave chest wound while dispensing the night-stalking creature. Before becoming part beast, Larry just seemed creepy and desperate. An expert stargazer, he fixes up his father’s telescope and immediately angles it to more terrestrial subjects. The family observatory, he’s pleased to discover, offers an unobstructed view of the town beauty’s bedroom window. After satisfying his urge to peep, Talbot then hoofs straight down to introduce himself, using detailed knowledge of her private chambers in a misguided pickup attempt. Is that the moral of this story? That chasing the affections of the right (wrong?) woman can turn even the most sophisticated gentleman into a dog? Either way, the story isn’t the main draw, no matter how stubbornly it’s emphasized. I’ve gotta imagine most folks are here for the spooky aura, and that’s one thing The Wolf Man has in spades. It boasts a wonderful old-school haunted house atmosphere, complete with foggy marshes and gothic European architecture. This corner of the world is dark and nutty; a skittish, gossipy little community that’s packed with shadows and secrets, quaint spooks and misty moods. Chaney’s famous slow-fade transformations are memorable, too, but not nearly as spellbinding. Maybe that would’ve been a different story eighty-plus years ago. Not the best Universal ghost story, certainly not the worst. That particular brand of monster mayhem had grown awfully derivative by this point, but there was still enough ambiance left in the tank for a solid evening’s entertainment.
Richard Donner helms this small-stakes fantasy plot that mixes a plucky thief with a set of cursed lovers, a remorseful monk and a conniving bishop. Matthew Broderick overplays that first role, winking at the camera like Ferris Bueller while he slips through secret passages and swipes gold from unwary guards. He’s way too much, an annoying sorta-protagonist that was meant to be appealing, but as he’s the film’s only sense of light-hearted relief, he stubbornly sticks like the crap under our boot. Broderick’s over-the-top comedy act serves as hard contrast to the grim, funereal roles played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Rutger Hauer. They’re sweethearts of the star-crossed sort, doomed to spend half the day as wild animals, but not the same half. Said monk applied this hex and his commander, the bishop, gave the order, which accounts for each of our major players. Pfeiffer is sweet but restrained, appearing more often as a hawk than a human, while Hauer is cut from the stoic, hard-headed warrior mold. He makes a lot of speeches about family honor and doesn’t gladly take advice. I needed three sittings to get through this. Just couldn’t keep my eyes open. The story dwells and plods, squeezing its revelations for more than they’re worth, and indulges in a lot of quiet, reflective spells. Such breaks are often beautifully shot, adding mood and color to a film that’s limited in both respects, but this viewer could only tolerate so many brooding sunset panoramas before unwillingly finding one or two of his own. Flat action and dated special effects don’t help matters. Rutger Hauer cuts a mean figure, but he’s handcuffed by the unwieldy, gem-studded claymore his character drags everywhere. And, as he’s at the heart of every fight scene, the important melees mostly consist of lightly-armed men standing around, waiting to be slashed. Or shoulder-blocked by his giant, twitchy black horse. Special negative points for the mismatched score, a bouncy synth-fest by Alan Parsons Project member Andrew Powell (Parsons himself produced) that would be more appropriate in an aerobics class than a grim, medieval fantasy tale. Famously terrible, this schlocky assortment of Casio demo tracks reliably zapped me out of every moment. I suspect Donner and company came to the same realization during editing, as the peppy muzak tunes mysteriously disappear somewhere in the third act.
Firing this up with no expectations beyond the cover art, I had no idea what I was in for. Repo Man may give the impression of a typical ‘80s goofball comedy, and it definitely shares a few of those elements, but its chaotic sensibilities move in different, wilder directions. Its story follows the career of Otto (Emilio Estevez), a cocky punk rocker, who walks away from a lifeless grind stocking grocery shelves to go his own way. This mostly involves slam dancing in an alley with his buddies, cohabitating a noisy, trashy apartment with the same, and aimlessly perusing the classified ads. Fate soon hooks him up with Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a scuzzy middle-aged repo man, who convinces the youngster to look past the job’s crummy reputation and shows him the ropes. From there, things get weird. There’s a loose, restless energy at play in the first two acts, where Otto rides along with Bud and his crew of equally slimy (and equally beer-named) characters. Nihilistic and spontaneous, the film waves its sarcastic crosshairs everywhere and deems everything meritless. In a world this selfish, a game this rigged, you’ve gotta take your kicks where you can find them. Even (especially?) if they come at the expense of others. This might as well be the repo gang’s motto. And while they’re most definitely mean in spirit, those on-the-job training excursions are also wickedly hilarious, a thirsty lifeblood that pumps with directionless anger. Repo Man just doesn’t give a crap about anything. Its capability for random chaos and blunt, scathing commentary knows no bounds. Society’s fringes are where the loonies always seem to congregate, and when Otto runs into that element, the plot gets dicey. For a while, these eccentric types fold neatly into the tapestry; just one more target for satire. Later, the story takes a special interest in their activities and things become confused. I won’t lie, I was completely lost by the home stretch. Something about alien corpses, a secret government agent with one robotic hand (never used for anything) and a glowing Chevy Malibu. Even the online plot summaries have a hard time making sense of this. While it’s bumping along, focused on doing its own thing, this is a helluva ride. Unconventional and happenstance, its fiery attitude and disdain for authority are punk rock through and through. To say nothing of the soundtrack, which gathered Iggy Pop, Black Flag, The Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies and a few more off-radio influencers in the height of the early ‘80s hardcore punk explosion. The act’s legit. That the closing scenes veer so far into inanity is part of its charm, but also its greatest drawback. A great cult pick, regardless.
Trapped in a loveless marriage and a dead-end job, a pensive young woman (Mia Farrow) finds escape in cinema. Though the Great Depression is raging, and her no-good husband isn’t working, she still squirrels away enough loose change to attend weekly shows at the theater across the street. There, ninety minutes at a time, she lives vicariously through all the eccentric types on-screen, marveling at the wonders that seem to never grace her own life. That is, until a supporting character in the latest release (Jeff Daniels) meets her gaze, recognizes their kinship, steps through the screen and sweeps her off her feet. That sudden, fantastical twist opens The Purple Rose of Cairo to all sorts of interesting possibilities. Farrow and Daniels connect right away, sharing a sweet demeanor and warm, whimsical spirit that’s easy to fall for. Theirs is a puppy sort of love, charming and pure, and it’s a delight to see them together. Their connection, however, leaves conundrums in its wake. As abandoned cast mates fret and complain on the big screen, puzzling audiences while they listlessly await their prodigal son's return, the associated Hollywood brass worries over negative publicity. Things get especially tangled when the actor behind the role jets into town, trying his very best to convince his wayward counterpart to get back to work for the sake of career prospects. There are everyday quandaries, too, like the prop dollars in the fictional man’s wallet or his surprise at the lack of an orchestral swell and transitional fade-out when the kissing and petting gets heavy. Little notes that quickly remind us how surreal and unfamiliar this moment is, for everyone involved. Writer/director Woody Allen works this idea for plenty of humor - well-timed, thoughtful goofs - but also a heaping helping of heart. Allen’s punchlines don’t stretch or push; they arise organically, deliver their sting and retreat before overstaying their welcome. His metaphors, likewise, aren’t difficult to spot, but that doesn’t make them any less meaningful. We’re constantly reminded that cinematic realities are naïve and insincere, emotional manipulations that are always too good to be true, but we keep believing this one might just endure. That’s the beauty **** film: a special kind of magic that can fill our heart and help us forget whatever was troubling us before the curtains split. Alas, all films have fixed running times, and in the end we’re always let back out into the world’s harsh light, squinting and stiff but maybe a little different inside. This is a beautiful film from any perspective. As a simple, far-out love story, it clicks and moves. As a silly, conceptual fit of fancy, it amuses and surprises. And, as an allegory for its own medium’s seductive lure, it hits the nail right on the head. I wasn't prepared to love this like I did. Allen anticipates, and surpasses, the themes that were a little more celebrated in 1988's Cinema Paradiso.
This twisted tale of ladder climbing and soul searching in a call center is like Severance meets Atlanta, with a big helping of Everything Everywhere All at Once. It’s got the clinical fluorescence of Severance, ever-so-slightly skewing a cubical farmers' work environment into something darker. Call it team-building with a creepy ulterior air. It shares a cynical, world-weary gallows humor with Atlanta, complete with a dejected, self-loathing protagonist who glumly accepts life’s absurdities to pay this month’s bills. Donald Glover was actually cast in that role before agreeing to portray Lando in Solo: A Star Wars Story. And as for EEAaO? Well, let’s just say it gets weird. Aggressively, garishly, grotesquely weird. Of course, Sorry to Bother You predates two of the above references, which means those influences probably point in the opposite direction. Still, the common DNA is tough to ignore. These stories all share a jaded, angry view of the world and use noisy, ridiculous metaphors to voice their concerns. Here, we’re talking about class division. In this (not so?) alternate near-future, there’s never been a broader gap between the haves and the have-nots. You’re either living in opulence on the top floor or you’re contemplating a form of widely-advertised indentured servitude. In that atmosphere, the lure of being plucked from squalor can be pretty seductive. Maybe even tempting enough to resign your ethos and chase the bag at all costs. Cassius Green (subtle symbolism there) is our protagonist, a black, sleepwalking stiff who hits paydirt when he starts faking a white voice to make cold calls. Soon, he’s promoted to a mysterious elite level, where gilded elevators compliment his virility and his only coworker also uses a put-on accent. There, the party keeps rolling until he suddenly finds himself in too deep, with a measure of scornful public notoriety to boot. I loved this setup, loved the execution and groaned when it lost the plot in the third act. So long as it remains a quirky, focused story about a faded American Dream and the pathetic rat race it’s inspired, this is sharp, witty, fiery social satire with a distinct voice. As the running time extends, though, the plot bloats and spreads until it becomes something completely different. It’s like the crew realized they’d made one strong point and then decided to make twenty more while they were at it. The humor is good (David Cross and Patton Oswalt, as the dubbed white guy voices, are absolutely perfect), the ideas are good, the acting and directing and effects are good; it’s just messy and tries to do too much. To force-feed every allegory until all its problems with modern society have been redressed, all at once. Pretty ambitious for 112 minutes.
Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy (in his first big-screen role) play the yin to each other’s yang; opposites in most every way, but with a common enemy. This is the prototypical buddy cop movie, except these two are far from buddies and one of them isn’t even a cop. Nolte plays the hulking, grizzled a-hole gumshoe, a slovenly old-school stereotype who grunts and barks any time he’s caught between cheap cigarettes. Murphy, on the flip side, nails the part of a slick, diminutive, smooth-talking convict with his own set of ulterior motives. This odd couple really can’t stand to be near each other - they even trade late-night haymakers on a San Francisco street - but a tough case and a snug deadline force them to pull their act together and cooperate. As it stands, Nolte could only check Murphy out of prison on a forged weekend pass. 48 Hrs. is an interesting one. Its plot is competent, but not special. Angry bad guys are busting out of prison and killing former associates in search of a lost cash stockpile. Equally angry authority figures chase leads, crack skulls, make noise and close in on their quarry. Doubt and suspicion between mismatched partners eventually melts into trust and respect. The factors that most set this apart are its atmosphere, its personality and its willingness to go places and say things that are normally taboo. Director Walter Hill had just helmed The Warriors a few years prior, and knowing that, it’s easy to see the parallels. His rendition of the SF alleys and slums is dark and seedy, populated by all sorts of segregated bars and severe characters. I didn’t spot any baseball-themed gang members in clown makeup, but I’m sure we could find a few if we waited around. The film’s liberal use of slurs and racially charged dialogue is its most brow-raising quality. This ugly discourse goes both ways, paints its cast with an extra dash of reality and gives the whole picture a little more bite than your usual ‘80s police action flick. These bits aren’t aggrandized or embraced, they’re just presented as a fact of life. I believe that these guys would speak and act this way in 1982. It’s grounding that they don’t try to pretend otherwise. I think it’s pretty clear that Nolte was brought on board as a failsafe, to salvage something release-worthy if Murphy (or whichever black actor the producers selected) couldn’t hang. Fortunately, Eddie hits the ground running. He’s a natural, making most of the comedy work, but also holding his own in the heavier scenes and enthusiastically returning fire when his counterpart punches below the belt. That even footing and give-get-give attitude is a crucial factor, and a large part of the film’s success. The whole band would get back together for a belated sequel, eight years later, but by then, the world (on-screen and off) had changed drastically and the act had already grown tired.
One of Ghibli’s lighter films, The Cat Returns is a cute, but strained, Whisper of the Heart spinoff. Originally pitched as a breezy short to promote a cat-themed amusement park, it was expanded to a seventy-odd minute feature film when their client canceled the project. In this longer form, it explores the personalities and livelihoods of two minor characters from the first film: Muta, the super-heavyweight stray feline with an expert knowledge of urban shortcuts, and Baron, a sharply-dressed anthropomorphic cat statue that sometimes springs to life. These two were the subjects of a creative writing segment in Whisper of the Heart, a very short flight of imaginary fancy, but here they’re lent more credence and a firmer standing in reality. A reality with opulent kitty kings and bejeweled processions of kitty attendants, yes, but a reality nonetheless. All the best bits are in the first act, where the absurdity of the cat kingdom exists alongside the traffic patterns and schoolyard vexations of a more familiar setting. There, the film freely giggles at all the silly prospect of this almost-imaginary side world. Grateful cats going overboard with unwanted (and sometimes disgusting) gifts. Wobbly cats struggling to walk upright, thrown off-balance by their ridiculously elongated torsos. Black-suited bodyguard cats, racing to keep the riffraff out of a spontaneous parade and away from their plump, fluffy liege. There’s great charm and cleverness to these little scenes; I loved the chance to grin, gape and let their ideas carry me away. That’s left behind when the plot really gets to business and our gaze shifts to a private kitty-only landscape. Here, I was less enamored with the king’s transparent manipulations and less amused by the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the skewed society. It’s not as much fun when we’re exclusively in their world! Without the contrast of a recognizable city life, the narrative relaxes into light fairy tale fodder and coasts to an easy finish. The animation is good, as always, and I loved the basic premise. By the end of that short running time, however, its roots as a genial, but conceptually limited, short story are made clear. There’s more than twenty minutes of material here, but not enough to fill an hour-plus.
The residents of a small desert town debate the cost of tranquility in Fred Zinnemann’s moody, simmering western. In it, we find an illusory peace: while the sleepy community goes about its business, a haggard old marshal, newly married, prepares to lay down his badge and pursue retirement. An out-of-town pardon spoils the impending honeymoon, and rumors of the freed scoundrel’s imminent return trigger a sense of duty in the old lawman. This fresh parolee was his signature conviction, a low-down scoundrel who once ruled the town, and it’d taken the aid of its whole population to get the job done. Seeking similar support now, he’s flummoxed by the people’s complacency. Many seem too comfortable to remember the bad times, while still others are eager to get back to the more exciting, dramatic (and, sometimes, profitable) ways of old. Urged to cut his losses and go, resented for his dull manner and determined adherence to the rules, he refuses to walk the easier path and chooses instead to face the music. One man’s obstinacy against the void. Interesting to see an older cowboy flick that doesn’t rely on dust, mesas and gunsmoke. We get little slices of each, and of course there’s no way that final confrontation will go down without a few whizzing bullets, but the primary focus is on the town’s guilty conscience. They know they’re doing their marshal dirty, hanging him out to dry, and while he’s earned his share of opponents over the years, he’s also widely acknowledged as the main reason life is now clean and safe in this little burg. Their answers were different when life was harder, with the promise of a brighter tomorrow more enviable and worthier of a fight. Now, though? Actually living in that peaceful future and being asked to risk life, limb and security to stare down a less demonstrable threat? That’s a tougher argument, especially when muddied by other, unrelated quibbles. Their Rome is facing the torch, but these folks are willing to risk it all because they’re still sore about the equivalent of a parking ticket. Zinnemann does a fine job of exploring that mood. Dwelling in the arguments, the chatter and the gossip, he shows us all manner of heroism and cowardice, flawed saviors and justified antagonists. The casting of towering former star Gary Cooper helps immeasurably. As the determined old marshal, Cooper projects proud determination and puzzled vulnerability. A relic who can’t comprehend the changing attitudes around him, his raging inner conflict is only barely restrained. We see the evidence in his posture, his pained squint and his furrowed brow. Cooper may look old enough to be the father of his new bride (Grace Kelly), but that’s more a critique of her casting than his. And besides, significant age discrepancies weren’t exactly unheard-of in those days. High Noon is a darn good western, but also a practical example of the American dilemma, one that’s as applicable today as it was in the ’50s. Screenwriter Carl Foreman, a target of HUAC who refused to name names, would be blacklisted after this film. How much comfort would the viewer be willing to sacrifice in the name of liberty?
It’s fitting that the Heavy Metal movie should be an anthology, given that its source (an extremely long-running European comic mag) largely focused on short, disconnected stories. Also fitting that the film would tap many of the comic’s most noteworthy creators to adapt their concepts to the screen. Heavy Metal ’81 features work from underground luminaries like Richard Corben, Bernie Wrightson and Mœbius, and if those names don’t ring any bells, I’d encourage some homework! Befitting its title, the production also splurged on an all-star licensed soundtrack, featuring crunchy, powerful riffs from the likes of Cheap Trick, Nazareth, Black Sabbath and Journey. These really emphasize the dark, dank ‘70s laser-show aura of the whole affair. The Don Felder tune, appropriately titled “Heavy Metal,” is probably the best of the bunch. I can almost smell those musty fog machines. Atmosphere is one thing this movie has in spades. Proficiency? Accuracy? Those are more fleeting. It’s easier to hide the seams in a great comic book, where pesky nuisances like proportion and perspective can shift between panels. On the screen, in a fully-animated format with no blinks or breaks, consistency is more important. Production times (and, perhaps, technological limitations) also demanded a much flatter, less textured animation style. For artists like Mœbius, who already work a simplistic, gestural style, that’s not such a big deal. Others, specifically Corben, are crippled by the loss of depth and tonality. Imagine flattening a Frank Frazetta! It’s a ludicrous idea. For what I’d imagine are similar reasons, the animators relied on obvious rotoscoping to streamline their work. That may have given them a steadier artistic baseline, but the ensuing motion is a little uncanny and lacks the sense of exaggeration that’s so exciting in the printed artwork. Identifiable voice acting is another problem for Heavy Metal. This was a Canadian production and several well-known SCTV cast members pop up in the credits. Eugene Levy and Harold Ramis are here. John Candy plays three unrelated roles, including a sex-starved robot. If that sounds odd and a little off-putting, that’s because it is. This material is unabashedly thirsty, for **** and violence alike, and it’s weird to hear a friendly, instantly identifiable voice like Candy’s in such contexts. I consider this a highly ambitious miss. The scenes that work really, really work, but they’re all-too brief and outnumbered by the instances of laughably bad taste and/or execution. The final product is close, but not close enough to merit a cigar. Here’s an example: a few weeks ago, I happened across a fan re-edit that put this movie back into my head. It transplanted the aforementioned Felder song to a different scene, stripping the score and dialogue while tightening the edit to better match the new soundtrack. This version is head and shoulders above the one that actually made it into the movie. There’s just no comparison; by further emphasizing the risqué themes, flavorful artwork and pumping rock music, the whole package feels more potent. It may have lost a spoken line or two, reducing the narrative to visual cues, but the enhanced mood makes that a worthwhile sacrifice. It’s strange to say this about a film so bawdy, lewd and titillating, but Heavy Metal didn’t push the envelope hard enough.
Who’s the villain in A Clockwork Orange? Alex and his little gang of fashionably synchronized miscreants are certainly no heroes, satisfying their urges at the expense of anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. They’re reprehensible, but they’ve been reared that way, failed by a crooked society and limp-wristed parental tolerance. Prison reflects the chaos outside; a noisy cesspool of would-be rapists and impotent, power-hungry jailers that only confirms the offender’s worst instincts. The state seems content to chase quick fixes, exposing restless convicts to a form of psychological torture that reduces some urges while enhancing others. Thus traumatized and released, Alex is summarily manipulated by both sides of the political balance for dubious ends. Even the victims aren’t blameless, as tortured survivors hatch vengeful plots that show they’re no less depraved than the assailants. Everybody ****, basically, in their own way. That lack of morality makes for an awfully bleak picture, one that’s difficult to watch at points. Still, Stanley Kubrick ensures we don’t avert our eyes. He keeps A Clockwork Orange flush with stunning frames and ingenious angles, pairing a unique set of visual instincts with a dark, stinging sense of ironic humor. I didn’t expect to laugh as often as I did, but great comedy often springs from the most desperate of circumstances and the disruptions are certainly welcome. One scene, in particular, stands out as something that would be monstrous in print, yet plays for great laughs on-screen because the murder weapon is so outrageous, not to mention omnipresent. Kubrick teases us with it, literally dancing in the corner of the screen, until its lure proves irresistible for both observer and participant. He pulls a superb performance out of Malcolm McDowell, too; a tremendously versatile outing that bounces the star from cocky arrogance to abject terror and everywhere in between. Kubrick once said he’d have quit the film altogether if McDowell hadn’t been available, and I understand why. Malcolm lives in this role, providing just the mix of edge and vulnerability it demanded, and that glare! That judging, confident, unbroken glare, complete with a wicked sneer, tells us he’s already decided what he wants to do with us. Or to us. There’s no answer to the quandaries A Clockwork Orange poses. It’s cold, mean and uncompromising; its laughs belong at the gallows. I think I slightly preferred the book (and not for its more optimistic ending, which was missing from American copies), but the film is an impressively faithful adaptation, told with style and conviction. Nihilistic as all get-out though.
It’s tough to fairly critique a movie so widely lauded as one of the greats. How does one watch The Godfather with an open mind after fifty years of critical pressure? That goes double for Citizen Kane, given its additional age and notoriety. Older movies can be hard to contextualize, even for those already well-versed in the era’s cinematic language. In 1941, Hollywood had only been making talkies for a few years. For Kane, though, I actually see this elder status as a benefit: it does more than just hold up, it holds its own. Eight decades later, Orson Welles’s ambitious debut remains engaging and easy to watch, even by modern standards. There’s just something about a well-crafted story, told with care and conviction, that never goes out of style. Its plot is colorful and alluring, stuffed with dynamic, rounded characters. Its artistry is sharp and daring, richly designed and strikingly photographed. Each frame is deeply considered and imbued with meaning. There’s similar fire and passion in nearly every element. The big cast of stage veterans, eager to prove their worth on the screen. The iconography, expertly crafted and larger than life. The lingering mystery of “Rosebud,” befuddling and powerful as a story mover and rewarding as a final revelation. Welles has lined everything up just-so, an intricate web of large acts and small tells that come together to weave an irresistible saga. Citizen Kane’s framing device works extraordinarily well, dispensing a street-smart journalist to puzzle over a magnate’s last words while sifting through the spoken record to paint an outline of his life. He segues from one interview to another, capturing snippets of the man’s character from all angles, before finally arriving at the conclusion that no single word, no matter how enigmatic, could possibly explain a life so thoroughly lived. He’s completely wrong on that count. “Rosebud” speaks volumes about this man: his desperation to be admired and loved; his refusal to really open himself up in pursuit of those goals; his tireless efforts to meet an impossible expectation; his sharp dismissal of anyone who dares challenge his ideals. Unfortunately for our weary newsman, no living soul remains to express these nuances, nor to connect them to the word in question. Without that context, its origins mean nothing. Charles Foster Kane left plenty of observers in his wake - spurned comrades, embittered lovers, jaded employees, jealous observers - but the man they describe is only a projection. The image he wished the world to see, not the one which dwelt beneath the steely shell. That’s a relatively simple story, really. The man who seemingly has everything, overcompensating to satisfy an urge that most of us would take for granted. Welles adds cinematic flourishes, draws magnificent performances from his cast (including himself) and spices it with a tantalizing secret, but this wouldn’t be recognized as such a landmark achievement if that main arc weren’t so well-realized, recognizable and effective. Put it all together? Yeah, that’s deserving of all-timer status. A masterpiece of film.
Top Gun gets a belated parody treatment, five years after the fact, from the writer of Airplane!, Top Secret! and The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, Jim Abrahams. Later, he’d also direct Mafia! What can I say, the man likes a good exclamation point. With Charlie Sheen and Cary Elwes in the primary roles of not-Maverick and not-Iceman, plus colorful supporting parts for Lloyd Bridges and Jon Cryer, the cast is pretty well funded. These guys happily lean into the film’s status as a shameless joke farm, one with zero sense of tact or humility, but it sure feels like they all know they’re slumming. Not that Airplane! was highbrow entertainment, but it does seem Abrahams and company’s standards have lowered in the ensuing decade. Truly, no stone is left unturned in this quest to take the fullest possible amount of piss. Those throw-everything-at-the-wall comic stylings aren’t without merit. The Hot Shots! brand of humor may be forced and primitive, but I still found plenty to laugh at. Primarily Sheen’s fierce determination to deliver line after line of insanely crude dialogue with a stone cold bad boy scowl. Bridges is great, too, working a further-inflated variation of the frazzled, brain-dead commander role he embodied in Airplane!, this time in military colors. Beyond that, expect plenty of basic sight gags, dollar store puns and forced plot beats. While most simple comedies consider the story to be a secondary concern, in this case it might be fifth or sixth in the pecking order; it merely exists to carry us on to the next cheap set of props and punchlines. And even then, only after both barrels have been well and truly emptied. Having said all that, it does hold up better than I remembered. I winced when the family asked me to put this on for movie night, then surprised myself by snorting on a pretty regular basis. The good bits are still funny, but its enthusiasm for laying crosshairs on the easiest possible target is excessive at best. It’s like a PG-13 Looney Tunes in the skies above Iraq.
If Koyaanisqatsi translates to “Life out of balance,” this could’ve been called “life.” Maybe “life elsewhere,” but I guess that would depend upon where the viewer is situated. Instead, naturalist filmmaker Godfrey Reggio has opted for Powaqqatsi, which is a little trickier. The film’s end card defines this as a sort of parasitic life, but promotional materials have opted for the more pleasing “life in transformation” or “life in transition.” That all seems unnecessary, though, as any hint of parasites, transformation or transition are only loosely implied. Even more loosely than the themes in Koyaanisqatsi, and most of those are already left to the viewer. Besides the two short-lived cutaways to mashed up TV commercial footage, which are strange and out-of-place, our primary focus is on the day-to-day of third worlders. We see them at work, at play, at worship and on their commutes. Our gaze shifts from Asia to Africa, urban slum to fishing village, arid expanse to lush mountaintop garden. These people don’t live alike, but from a western perspective, they live differently. It can be a grounding experience to step back and recognize that. This single thought quickly grows repetitive, though. Where the original film was very well-paced, gently transitioning between complicated themes with grace and confidence, Powaqqatsi seems reluctant to move off its first talking point. Or anti-talking point, as it were, since there’s no dialogue or narration in these films. The cinematography is sharper, with better equipment allowing for longer exposures from greater distances, but it’s less inspired. I could count a dozen different shots that took my breath away in the first Qatsi. Here, there might be one or two. Likewise, the music is less powerful and influential. I was surprised to discover it was still composed by Philip Glass, because it’s so starkly different. Where Koyaanisqatsi is a vast feast for thought and senses, Powaqqatsi is just a morsel. Waiter, I think you forgot the rest of my order.
After being booted from the lowest rung of the Hollywood ladder on the eve of her fiftieth birthday, a faded starlet gets desperate. Swayed by a shady viral marketing campaign, she injects herself with a goopy green mystery drug and cannonballs off the conceptual diving board. We know trouble’s brewing when she cracks open that slick little welcome kit to find a series of single-use injectors and two packs of intravenous food, then decides to proceed anyway. The ensuing chaos completely blew past my expectations. The Substance is a wild and crazy, metaphor-rich body horror experiment that crashes through boundaries and stomps all over the presumed lines of decency. Explicit and uncompromisingly weird, with similar energy to Everything Everywhere All at Once, it hits dark notes with heavy hands and extends well beyond the most obvious analogies. Yes, there’s plenty of meta chatter about the uncomfortable consume-and-churn lifespan of a star actress. That’s a touchy subject which merits inspection, even if it takes a bonkers, high-concept horror movie to get our brains tuned in. I expected that; the rest of the commentary, including a smart parody of dumb public taste and several notes about our younger selves doing things we’ll regret when we’re older, caught me by surprise and gave me a whole lot more to chew on. It’s rare for something this loud and grotesque to also have more than one interesting thing to say. Demi Moore’s lead casting is perfect, not to mention crucial. As a discarded hot ticket herself, she’s exactly the right kind of spokesperson to deliver these messages. Her credibility no doubt brought distribution power (and eyeballs) to the project that might have otherwise gone missing. Still bold and defiant, even at sixty-plus years of age, her name makes this something worth noticing, and her performance validates the extra attention. This production asks a lot of her and she’s often game to take it a step further. Her famous makeup scene in the mirror will be this film’s most resonant, lasting image, but it’s far from her only standout moment. I do feel that, eventually, The Substance writes itself into a corner and can’t find a way out. The ending suits its identity as a horror picture - that’s where it does some of its nastiest work - but doesn’t match the thoughtful undercurrents that made the rest of it so intoxicating. I groaned and laughed, grossed out, but only for superficial reasons. Still, 90% of a home run is enough to score points with me. Potent stuff, even with the somewhat underwhelming climax.
Forty years later (yikes, really?), this quintessentially ‘80s supernatural comedy still holds its own. Dwelling somewhere between parody and homage, it enjoys the sarcastic winks of the former and the enchanting conceptual leaps of the latter. The focus is a small group of paranormal hobbyists who go into business for themselves, pouring their hearts and savings into chasing ghosts when they’re fired from their cushy professorial positions. Cue the low-rent TV commercials, city-wide spectral invasion, rampant uptick in business and overnight celebrity. Their industry may be silly and impossible, but the idea of a business materializing from nowhere to fill a need nobody realized they had, that’s earthy and relatable. Ghostbusters makes hay in bridging the gap between those two extremes, of tying its more ridiculous conceits to the practicality of billing an outraged hotel manager or training an overwhelmed new hire. The paradox is a crucial ingredient to its humor. So is the cast, a dynamite mix of SNL and SCTV alums that quakes with chummy, off-cuff hilarity. There’s so much laser-focused humor in this film that its matching narrative successes seem impossible. How was there time to tell a story, given so many goofs and asides? Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis are the straight men, vital geeks who wire gizmos and remain blissfully unaware of appearances; perfect castings for both. Egon (Ramis) is the no-nonsense eccentric, absolutely convinced about the scientific merits of drilling a hole in his head, while Ray (Aykroyd) is cut from a more curious, excitable cloth. If you’ve spent any amount of time hanging around with the pocket protector crowd, you’ll probably recognize and appreciate both personality types. Bill Murray, meanwhile, basically exists outside the film’s reality, riffing on the absurdity of the premise like an ironic observer. They all get great lines, but Murray’s are the best, and from all indications they were almost completely improvised. He’s a live-action Statler and/or Waldorf in a proton pack. Some of the effects haven’t held up so well - better resolution scans have made the mattes obvious and some of the stop motion work is downright tacky - but again, those play into the ruse and can be written off as friendly nods to the past. And even that generalization isn’t true across the board. The famous Stay-Puft march through Manhattan still looks convincing, the superimposed ghosts are simple but effective and the practical effects (like the guys’ heavy-duty hardware) look great. That’s still a pretty high batting average for visually-ambitious films of this vintage. Most importantly, everything hits just right, from the punchy humor and subdued soundtrack cuts to the broader nostalgia for a world that would accept and endorse such colorful, fallible heroes. If there’s a Mount Rushmore for sharp, expertly-paced sci-fi ensemble comedies (that seems awfully specific), this is on it. I grinned the whole way through.
Back in the ‘80s, it was new and exciting to follow comics about grim and gritty anti-heroes. Most popular titles featured clean-cut, whitewashed do-gooders like Captain America’s Avengers and Superman’s Justice League, which made the darker, more complex scenarios in The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen doubly effective. It can be a pretty dirty world out there, after all, and seeing that ugliness reflected in the funny pages was refreshing. For a while - quite a while - the balance tipped in the opposite direction, elbowing optimism out of the way to embrace a meaner, angrier breed of vigilante. It took Hollywood a few decades to catch up, with both the gloomier heroes and their point of over-saturation, but we’ve finally arrived. Both this film and its preceding competition, Superman, represent an intentional step in the opposite direction. A counterpoint to the smothering flood of unhappy supers in controversial worlds, and a reminder that not everything goes wrong for everyone all the time. That their combined tone seems so fresh and different is evidence of how pervasive the problem has become, and might even represent an effort to address corresponding trends in greater society. All that to say, it’s nice to spend some time with an upstanding hero archetype again, figures who aren’t defined by their flaws and actually enjoy spending time with an adoring public. The new Fantastic Four has to take some evasive action to get us there - setting its story in both another reality and another age - but the shift is effective, not to mention welcome. By placing us way back in 1964, on an Earth that’s embraced and pursued its wildest scientific whimsies, this MCU reboot reminds us of the prevailing attitudes that spawned this team, and the greater Marvel Age, in the first place. A shimmering, chromium flashback to the days when it actually felt like there were adults behind the wheel and, with faith and hard work, everything could really work itself out. First Steps skips all the establishing work to let the audience savor its realization. We enter a world that’s already accepted the F4, absorbed their essences into pop culture, followed their dreamiest urges and emerged with a whole new bag of toys. This rendition of New York City seems like a wonderful place to live, a bonafide utopia that furnishes its denizens with innumerable reasons to look up, both literally and metaphorically. The amount of care and thought dedicated to fleshing out this familiar/unfamiliar reality is obvious; I could hang out in this place for years, soaking it all in and appreciating its kitschy blend of form and fashion. It’s a retro-futurist’s dream come true. The character work is really good, too. Sue is every bit the den mother she needs to be: a confident public voice that could believably unite most of the modern world, but not a cold, impassive diplomat. Reed is demonstrably brilliant, perhaps the most convincing genius we’ve ever seen in a major superhero movie, but lacks social awareness and spends a lot of time in his own head. Ben and Johnny are two sides of the same coin, chummy adoptive brothers who might be each other’s loudest critic but also their biggest fan. They act and operate as a household, a thoroughly stress-tested unit that can make mistakes and disagree without falling apart, united by a radiant love, chemistry and respect for one another. A true “first family.” Those are most of the positives: tone, setting, character, appearance. Well, most of the appearance. The city looks incredible and there’s a tremendous high-concept chase scene on the outskirts of a collapsing star that’s probably the most intense pursuit of the entire MCU. But Thing’s CG looks startlingly bad in some cases - primarily when he’s wearing clothes - and the digital seams show on baby Franklin more often than not. Johnny’s torch act is fuzzy and Galactus looks like a big Transformer. All things I was hoping they’d get right this time around. There’s also a decided lack of enthusiasm or danger, even when we’re told the world or team is in peril. It’s great to see Reed fall back to a plan B and/or improvise after things don’t go right, that’s part of what makes him so bright, but his visible lack of concern is contagious. Most of the third act is similarly nonchalant; just another day at the office for folks who’ve already saved the planet a dozen times before. Tough to get up for a climactic fight scene when the ones doing the fighting can’t do the same. That conclusive battle is messy and antithetical, too, with the family splintering into a loose collection of solo acts when push comes to shove. I was hoping for a more satisfying climax to the Galactus conundrum, a smarter way around the impossible situation, but instead it becomes just another action-rich set piece smorgasbord.
Swindles and duels abound in this eighteenth-century historical drama from Stanley Kubrick. Adapting film from literature was nothing new for the idiosyncratic director, who’d already bent Paths of Glory, Lolita and A Clockwork Orange to meet his will, but this is his first production to really show its roots. Barry Lyndon is divided into two distinct, themed books - one for the title character’s rise and another for his fall - and its framing, pacing and dialogue also feel distinctly literary. We really take the time to soak up this world’s details, from the magnificent green landscapes to the dim, painterly interiors, and to dwell in the nuance of each character’s reaction after a weighty act or conversation. I could almost hear the author’s voice describing these scenes; if a picture’s worth a thousand words, that manuscript must’ve been the size of a phone book. Set in an age of powdered wigs and petticoats, the plot celebrates the era’s opulence while acknowledging the dirty, desperate lives of its serving class. Our protagonist comes from such lowly means, but he’s too proud to grind out an existence on the bottom rung and hastily sets to climbing the social ladder by any means necessary. Usually by working a con on those less-wary than he, after being taken for a demonstrative ride by equally canny crooks early in life. It’s like Amadeus meets Catch Me if You Can, with Barry stabbing every back and burning every bridge as he claws ever-closer to the peak of baroque notoriety. Of course, the problem with gaining renown in this way is there’s always going to be a bigger a-hole, with fewer scruples, and eventually your paths are going to cross. Near his goal, Barry gets stuck, and so does the story. A rogue’s best ability is agility, his sense of when to cut losses and move on, and Lyndon makes a fatal mistake in planting roots. Now settled in for the long haul, he’s decreasingly successful in forcing his will and he’s a far less interesting focal point. Much of the third act is burnt on malaise. The story regroups in time for an intense finale, a riveting private face-off between affronted lowlifes that shows off Kubrick’s mastery of suspense, but the sharp preceding decline in tempo and emotion cast a damper over the moment. The energy has already left the room. Technically masterful and captivating while on the upswing, but the home stretch is a drag.
In this thirty-years-later sequel to a classic ‘90s comedy, aggro golfer Happy Gilmore loudly addresses a number of age-related topics. Now retired from the sport, Happy struggles to look after his kids, pay his bills, curtail his drinking and relate to a shift in the golf landscape. When an upstart league is launched to challenge the boring PGA style with an extreme, ADHD-friendly version of the game, Happy is one of their first recruits. He snubs the offer, turns his nose up at the very idea, and vows a return to the tee, just to show these young wannabes how the game is meant to be played. This seems like a great chance to riff on the grumpy old-timer types who prefer things their way, using an over-saturated version the real life Saudi LIV Golf league as motivation, but instead, puzzlingly, it backs the establishment. Happy Gilmore as a spokesman for the respectful rules and regs of the olden days. Who would’ve thought? That subject’s only a vehicle in the end, anyway. A means to get Gilmore back in the game, shake up the status quo and give him a troupe of foils who can lift the ball every bit as far as he can. And that’s fine, really; I don’t want or need a lot of introspection from a Happy Madison comedy. I do want fresh, wacky antics, caffeine-spiked energy and spontaneous leftfield humor, though, and for Happy Gilmore 2, the well looks awfully dry in these respects. This is a sequel that’s completely enveloped by the shadow of its predecessor, aping the same old gags and then screening an exhaustive number of recycled clips to make sure we all understood the reference. That leads to a funny bit at the beginning of the film, as Happy and his now-wife Virginia (a still-stunning Julie Bowen) have a serious conversation against the backdrop of her lingerie-clad, beer-toting younger self, but mostly just reminds us how much weaker the new model is by comparison. There’s a looseness to the ’96 footage that’s missing from the new material, an impish spirit and profane delight that now seems tired and obligated. It also suffers from major cameo-itis, with a Sandler buddy, pop culture celebrity or social media influencer wriggling their way into every scene. Bad Bunny and the IRL PGA pros are all pretty great, and John Daly threatens to steal every scene he’s in (there are quite a few), but most feel forced and a little desperate. I don’t really want to rain on the parade here. I was holding my breath during the promo tour, hoping the trailers were saving the best stuff for the screen and it wasn’t just the meek, “guess it’s time” cash-in that it seemed. There are moments where we catch sight of that old fire, but they grow shorter and rarer as the act tumbles on. Middle age Happy just doesn’t have much to say, nor enough spirit to do the speaking. His comeback tour is good for a bogey at best.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck broke out as overnight darlings with this challenging take on love, maturity, happiness and responsibility. While Affleck dwells in the background as his book-dumb/emotionally-intelligent blue collar pal, Damon tackles the tough focal role: Will Hunting, world-class math genius with a deeply troubled past. Will’s a confused kid, paralyzed by the choice between what he wants to do (fool around with his buddies, getting drunk and starting fights) and what he feels he must (use his gifts to make something of his life). He bristles when push comes to shove and he’s forced to make a decision, but an empathetic therapist pulls him back to reality, walks him through the haze and teaches him the important, worthwhile parts of being an adult. When they finally hook up (roughly half an hour into the tailspin), Damon and Robin Williams brew intense magic as a turbulent doctor-patient combo. They trade hats repeatedly during a series of heavy conversations, pushing and challenging and even threatening one another en route to finally acknowledging their problems, both to themselves and to each other. These sessions are rich and powerful, both as an indirect route to healing and as the first steps of a charged friendship; entrancing enough that most of the scenes outside Williams’s little jam-packed office can feel like an extended waiting game. How long until we can get these two back together again? Damon’s tricky romance with Minnie Driver, a bright and attractive English girl who loves and accepts him, also emits sparks, but it’s the guys' relationship that fuels everything. Good Will Hunting is a complex story about complex people, but it’s not smothering or sentimental. It knows when we need a break and it’s not afraid to take risks, showing the less-flattering side of many sympathetic characters in the name of honesty. Will’s no saint, nor is the professor who sponsors him or the psychologist who shows him the light. They’re each well-rounded individuals, with their own desires, hangups and shortcomings. That’s an impressive feat for any film, but it’s incredible to see from first-time screenwriters. There’s such raw feeling and emotion to this script... no doubt, plenty of that was brought forward and enhanced by a very capable cast, but it’s not like the stars were improvising every line or setting their own stages. What do you get when you pair a number of great performances with a great story and an experienced director? A great movie. This one may not be perfect, but it’s awfully close.
Hollywood’s first big-budget martial arts movie, and Bruce Lee’s official western coming out party, is a sort of mashup between the era’s noisy Golden Harvest fighting flicks and its hip James Bond action/thrillers, with a hint of blaxploitation thrown in for good measure. Its narrative is split between three perspectives: the grizzled Shaolin fighter (Lee), the traditional suave leading man (John Saxon) and the vain, politically conscious firebrand (karate champ Jim Kelly), with some thematic crossover between roles. They’ve congregated on a small, private island for an invite-only combat tournament to determine the hardest man on the planet, but each has a secret ulterior motive hidden up their sleeve. As does the event’s organizer. Enter the Dragon is a good step-up for the genre, adding a touch of cinematic grandeur and legitimacy to the mix without losing any of its charm. There’s a looseness here that’s pure Hong Kong, an irresistible silliness that almost becomes plausible because it’s played so straight. You’ll snicker at the villain who wields an array of screw-on deadly weapons in lieu of a hand, but you’ll also believe his threat is genuine. We get a few western-isms - the casting of a hand-holdy white hero is the most obvious - but these fit into the tapestry better than expected. There’s overlap between John Saxon’s character and Bruce Lee’s, but neither feels like a second fiddle. This is no replay of Kato in The Green Hornet, where the more electric, adept character is unjustly overshadowed. Enter the Dragon’s leads are presented as equals, with similar goals and unique strengths. Lee dazzles in the action scenes and does the tricky, acrobatic infiltration act, while his counterpart gets chummy with the evil genius and holds his own in the ring. Saxon would probably look pretty adept under normal circumstances - he was partially cast because he holds legit black belts in judo and karate - but alongside an all-world competitive fighter and a bonafide legend, he seems downright clumsy, so it’s a smart idea that his fights depend more on cunning than technique. Without Lee, though, this gamble would’ve been a misfire and who knows how the kung fu landscape would look today. The intimidating power of his personality, and the snap fury of his skirmishes, elevates the whole premise from a simple proto-Mortal Kombat into something more engaging and spellbinding. The Dragon's character arc is a little puzzling - despite a tranquil, poetic introduction, he resorts to a murderous blood rage by the climax - but no one can doubt his conviction, nor his magnetism. The same is true for much of the film; it’s stylish, fiery and nimble, if not always sensible. A fun ride, with an engrossing, sleazy ‘70s underworld vibe and a rousing climactic mirror-room fight... just don’t fret the details.
Tony Scott’s big-league directorial debut looks and feels like the work of a talented artist who hadn’t quite cracked the secrets of the medium. It starts off with a bang, portraying an enthusiastic Bauhaus concert in a trendy goth club that’s entirely populated by tall, pale, awkward-looking gloom cookies. The type of forever-trench-coated folk who haven’t seen the sun in years, now feeling relaxed and at home amidst a mess of chains, cages, fog and like-minded peers. David Bowie is there, coolly observing from the darkest parts of the shadows! David Bowie is taking an attractive young woman back to his place! David Bowie is going to score! That’s pretty much the climax, as The Hunger’s mood, style and story all begin to spiral and fade afterwards. Bowie turns out to be a vampire, held in thrall of a much older woman (as in, older than Christ), but his version of everlasting life carries a snag. When he begins rapidly aging, growing a couple hundred years’ worth of wrinkles over breakfast, he seeks help from a specialist (Susan Sarandon) who dismisses him as a crazy before falling into the same trap herself. This is all conveyed via a cryptic series of somber chats and quick-hit flashbacks, so hollow and spacious I had to flip on the subtitles to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. Nope; the juice of this plot is often merely implied, on those occasions where it’s provided at all. Very little of the third act makes any sense, no matter how hard you’ve been paying attention. That means, for the most part, The Hunger is a lot of flash and a lack of substance, although not even those stylish, attractive surface elements last until the end. While the visual getting’s good, it represents a nice melding of film noir compositions and gothic themes. A ball lifted from the stiff fingers of Murnau and Wagner’s Nosferatu, dribbled for an hour and then meekly cast aside. There were messages worth pursuing here, ideas that could’ve moved the genre in exciting new directions. Instead, it manages little more than vague shapes and disregarded possibility. Not even a steamy lesbian love scene can compensate for that.
