Big.

Review #2524: Big. 

Cast: 

Tom Hanks (Adult Josh Baskin; David Moscow as Joshua "Josh" Baskin), Elizabeth Perkins (Susan Lawrence), Robert Loggia (Mr. MacMillan), John Heard (Paul Davenport), Jared Rushton (William "Billy" Francis Kopecki), Jon Lovitz (Scott Brennen), Mercedes Ruehl (Mrs. Baskin), Harvey Miller (David), Debra Jo Rupp (Miss Patterson), and Josh Clark (Mr. Baskin) Directed by Penny Marshall (#1500 - A League of their Own)

Review: 

“I guess I just hide behind things, whether it’s my whining or my sense of humor. Every once in a while I’m decisive--for about a minute. For me, acting was easier, because the gun goes off and you have to go for it. With directing, I know people on movie sets want leadership, but I don’t exude that captain-of-the-ship image. I’d get on the phone with (“Big” producer) Jim Brooks and apologize all the time and say, ‘I’m no good at this. I think if he didn’t know me as well as he did, he would’ve been scared that I was running the movie.”

I had this movie on my shelf for a few years because even with a good reputation, sometimes you just kick something down the road until the time finally comes to actually talk about it, so here is a review about a movie that basically is hard not to like. To start with, Penny Marshall started as a director with the encouragement of her brother Garry while starring on the sitcom Laverne & Shirley, which saw her direct a couple of episodes. She was tapped to make her feature film debut with Peggy Sue Got Married before creative differences* saw her drop out, but she soon got hired to direct Jumpin' Jack Flash [1986] (a movie that was supposed to have Howard Zieff as director) that she basically summarized as the equivalent of "cramming four years of college into one semester." This was the first screenplay for both Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg; he had worked as a fisherman and dabbled in speechwriting she had worked for Amblin Entertainment. Various people were thought of to do the film that ranged from Steven Spielberg with Harrison Ford to eventually finding its way with Marshall, who approached various others and nearly had Robert De Niro tapped to play the title role before it fell through, which opened the door for Hanks. Released in the wake (read: a whole year) of a few films that happened to deal with age-changing with Like Father Like Son (1987), 18 Again! (1988), and Vice Versa (1988), Big was the biggest hit of the bunch, garnering Academy Award nominations for Ross, Spielberg, and Hanks; the success of the film even led to a Broadway musical adaptation. Two versions of the movie exist: the original cut was 104 minutes while you can see on home media an "extended edition" that runs at 130 minutes that basically lends more time to the young and adult characters (for more information, see here).

For a movie that basically is a fairy tale about figuring out the real joys of being a person beyond being "grown up". All childhoods come to an end, but it doesn't mean the joy (whether it involves the company of others or, well, aspirations for bigger things) has to fade away. One of the more important things that Marshall had to focus on was making sure that Hanks "had to be 12, not play at being 12." The movie basically rides on the fact that Hanks has to aim for innocence that isn't just doing a bit for the sake of doing it, particularly since you're spending time first with Moscow and Rushton before getting to the Zoltar machine (without needing too much time spent on what is, well, a wish gone right). Hanks was already pretty well-established a comedy guy (most notably with Bosom Buddies and Splash), but there is something so effective here in how vulnerable he proves himself to be here in the experience of someone who realizes there is more to life than the crushing grind of "things" that also happens to be quite funny. It works just as well for Perkins in the realization that comes in seeing a bit of warmth in the cold place of what people think of adulthood and in business (or in trying to climb up the ladder, if one wants to mechanical about would-be romances). Heard and Loggia each provide a few amusing moments in the contrast between office politics that basically do sound vacant and odd from the perspective of a kid (alternatively, there's a scene where Heard is trying to win really hard at paddleball that basically shows just how childish one can be even in front of people that also is pretty funny). You get a movie with gags about realizing the odds and ends of life through the wide-eyed curiosity of Hanks that also has time to actually have commitment to its charm and light fantasy. Much like a Walking Piano, Big is a worthwhile curiosity that can be played over and over again to find new keys to appreciate from all involved.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*as seen in this article. She was also thought of for Joy of Sex, apparently.

Invasion U.S.A. (1985)

Review #2523: Invasion U.S.A.

 

Cast: 

Chuck Norris (CIA Agent Matt Hunter), Richard Lynch (Mikhail Rostov), Melissa Prophet (Dahlia McGuire), Alexander Zale (Nikko Kador), Alex Colon (Tomas Montoya), Eddie Jones (FBI Agent-In-Charge Marvin Cassidy), Jon DeVries (FBI Agent Frank Johnston), James O'Sullivan (FBI Agent Fred Harper), Billy Drago (Mickey Seidman), Jaime Sánchez (Luis Castillo), and Dehl Berti (John Eagle) Directed by Joseph Zito (#2202 - Missing in Action)

Review: 

Admittedly, Chuck Norris and Cannon Films were a match made for the cheesy action fan in all of us. Oh sure, the Missing in Action movies (which started in 1984) didn't exactly rock the world in originality or general tone consistency, but they made some money so screw it, let's go all the way with a whole line of Norris movies with the company (in fairness, there were a few curious ones I haven't got to up to 1985, such as his work with Andrew Davis on Code of Silence). Apparently, Norris had the original idea for the film because he read an article in Reader's Digest that said hundreds of terrorists were around loose in America. Norris wrote the screenplay with James Bruner while his brother Aaron co-wrote the story with Bruner. According to Norris, he had Whoopi Goldberg (who at the time had a noted one-woman show) in mind to play the journalist role but he was overruled by Zito (Norris proceeded to never work with Zito ever again). With a budget of $12 million (which they used to do such scenes as going to the Everglades and blow-up actual neighborhoods scheduled for demolition), the movie was a solid enough hit for Cannon and company. The film at one point in time was among the highest-selling home video put out by MGM. Avenging Force (1986) was originally envisioned as a sequel before Norris turned it down, which opened the door for Michael Dudikoff to play a different "Matt Hunter". 

Well, if you can roll off the line around the same time as Rambo: First Blood Part II for Missing in Action, screw it, why not roll off the line from a different-but-totally not similar movie with Red Dawn (1984). But hey, I don't really care that much about movies that may or may not crib from adjacent movies as long as one is having fun with the material. Unfortunately, Zito hasn't really improved much, if any, from his attempts to garner drama with the aforementioned Missing film that resulted in hokey cheese, which is astounding when the film at least has the semblance of a worthy adversary this time around. The movie is the type of red meat for both people who love to see movies in the most good-vs-evil way possible and those who like to poke a few holes at the absurdity of action movies that take themselves so seriously. This is the kind of movie that shows neighborhoods in Christmastime getting blasted with rocket-launchers and people getting roughed up when trying to do cocaine only to soon get thrown into a window*. I wonder if people from Florida would regard it as "peak Florida experience" (okay the movie was also filmed in the greater Atlanta area, but still). Norris seems to only make an emotive gesture when there's a full moon, but even calling him a student of the "Clint Eastwood School of Acting" sounds a bit absurd when you consider that there aren't even that many kicks for him to do this time, mainly because he doesn't even bother with trying to have chemistry with anyone else in the film, he just maneuvers around with stunts and guns as if he really was the predecessor to Neil Breen. Lynch is charmingly hammy in a way that benefits the film more than if it was just lazy cardboard or understated, at least for a movie that has the guts to have a dream sequence of the lead characters in the first hour. You just need a bit of chaos, really. The rest of the folks (such as Prophet, who at least isn't written to try to have a romance with our wooden lead but mostly goes around with a camera saying wisecracks) are basically ho-hum for a movie that doesn't exactly present itself well in the whole "the streets are rioting because of the terrorists thing". If you know what you are getting into for 107 minutes in terms of sheer audacity, you might have a curious time with this movie. I can't give it a positive rating (that's the whole point of a 6/10), but I can't exactly hate its entertainment value in terms of what it thinks you want from action and, well, a battle of good vs. evil. What could go wrong?

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*You gotta love the special thanks note in the credits, which lists the ones you might expect, like the Georgia Army National Guard or Nissan Motors (I guess getting blown up is good business for a car company), and, um, Phyillis Diller and Merv Griffin Enterprises.

Honor Among Lovers.

Review #2522: Honor Among Lovers.

Cast:

Claudette Colbert (Julia Traynor), Fredric March (Jerry Stafford), Monroe Owsley (Philip Craig), Charles Ruggles (Monty Dunn), Ginger Rogers (Doris Brown), Avonne Taylor (Maybelle Worthington), Pat J. O'Brien (Conroy), Janet McLeary (Margaret Newton), and Ralph Morgan (Riggs) Directed by Dorothy Arzner (#1648 - Sarah and Son, #1810 - Working Girls, #1992 - The Wild Party, #2187 - Christopher Strong, #2362 - Anybody's Woman)

I suppose the best way to start talking about the film is to let Arzner's words (conducted in the 1970s) about the movie: "I collaborated in the writing of Honor Among Lovers, which I made for Paramount in New York. As audiences were ready for more sophistication, it was considered the smartest high comedy at the time. No, there was no pressure regarding the script, I had very little interference with my pictures. Sometimes there were differences in casting, sets, or costumes, but usually I had my way. You see I was not dependent on the movies for my living, so I was always ready to give the picture over to some other director if I couldn’t make it the way I saw it. Right or wrong, I believe this was why I sustained so long––twenty years." This was the 8th credited feature film for Arzner as a director, right between Anybody's Woman (1930) and Working Girls (1931). There were apparently a few working titles with "Sex in Business", "Strictly Business", and "Another Man's Wife". This was the second pairing of Colbert and March, who first appeared together in Manslaughter (1930) (they appeared again with The Sign of the Cross [1932] and Tonight is Ours [1933]).

Okay, sure, an office triangle movie with a couple of future Academy Award winning actors involved*. It sounds like a pretty casual affair, particularly with a runtime of 75 minutes that basically coasts on just how much you yearn to see how one woman's choices create so many ripples for all involved. It's the type of movie that has its own little quirks for modern audiences, of course, mainly because the boss in the film is, well, a boss trying to strike up a romance with his secretary that decides that the best course of action after she gets married is to fire her. But at least he seems normal when compared to the other man in the triangle in Owsley, who was a stock theater troupe man before he got onto film (in the last days of silent film) that acted all the way until his death...at 36 in 1937 (from a heart attack, of all things). One can enjoy a little bit of ham-handedness (especially when representing the underrated aspect of a love triangle story: a guy who isn't actually that good at wooing). One thing comes to another and boom, suddenly you have folks trying to throw their significant other down the river for their foolishness. At least the movie isn't completely judgmental over the decisions made by its one key feminine presence (because if it was, the movie probably would hit the rails into melodrama to chuckle at). Colbert and March prove fairly dependable and have a bit of chemistry together to where it at least isn't too hard to see where they would actually grow up and want the other. As a whole, it's a decent movie that comes and goes with the relative craftsmanship that Arzner had honed down in less than five years as a director that just rolls with useful sophistication and perspective for human nature.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*March won his first Academy Award with his performance in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) while Colbert won her award with It Happened One Night (1934), and if you pay attention to the supporting roles, you'll see the future winner for Kitty Foyle (1940) in Ginger Rogers

Apologies, I forgot to include a song of the day for the previous review. So enjoy two: 

belated) Song of the day

and this song of the day!

Crossing Delancey.

Review #2521: Crossing Delancey.

Cast: 

Amy Irving (Isabelle Grossman), Peter Riegert (Sam Posner), Reizl Bozyk (Bubbe "Ida" Kantor), Jeroen Krabbé (Anton Maes), Sylvia Miles (Hannah Mandelbaum), George Martin (Lionel), John Bedford Lloyd (Nick), Claudia Silver (Cecelia Monk), David Hyde Pierce (Mark), Rosemary Harris (Pauline Swift), Suzzy Roche (Marilyn Cohen), Amy Wright (Ricki), and Faye Grant (Candyce) Directed by Joan Micklin Silver (#1818 - Hester Street, #1988 - Between the Lines, #2193 - Chilly Scenes of Winter)

Review: 

“The more I’m left alone, the better I do. It isn’t that I think I’m smarter than anyone or anything like that. It’s just what whatever my instincts are, it’s better for me to be able to put those into play in my own work.”

You might call this a slam-dunk type of movie to go with, if you like the previous efforts of Joan Micklin Silver. Sure, Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979) was butchered by the studio to where it didn't even have the title it wanted until a 1982 re-edit, but she had kept busy in the meantime, doing a handful of TV movies (How to Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days and Finnegan Begin Again) along with Off-Broadway productions. Silver first heard of the Crossing Delancey play from Susan Sandler, as it started out as a five-person play that Sandler wanted Silver to see and it soon raised her interest to do a film, although there was little interest in making the film due to it apparently being "too ethnic". Steven Spielberg, who was married to Irving at the time, helped get the film to the attention of Warner Bros. and an executive willing to do the movie with Silver. Made on a budget of roughly $4 million, the movie (one where she had final cut privilege, a thing she stated was her favorite part of the experience of making the film) was a light hit with audiences. Silver made three further theatrical films, with the next being Loverboy (1989)

Whether one has heard or experienced the qualms of someone trying to play matchmaker or not, we've all had that experience of trying to figure of what we really want. Basically, it is a movie about someone who has to figure out what they really want from their life, one that is wrapped within the city life of New York and a proud Jewish rom-com identity that unwinds its 97 minute runtime to justify its love story with such charm and the knowledge to just let the story breathe in the feminine perspective. It helps that the movie has plenty of good timing with humor in the variety of characters that come through the Lower East Side (single or otherwise), honestly. There is a tension of trying to figure things out as a "modern girl" that Irving handles with such entertaining grace, mainly because she lays out what she thinks she wants with the right type of timing for a wavering mood. She sees the life (possibly non-Jewish, if you read into that) inhabited by folks such as Krabbe and thinks that is the one she wants to orbit around no matter how much you could see through him quickly (that's not to criticize Krabbe, because he is quite funny here). Incidentally, the one thing that Sandler requested for the film was that it include Peter Riegert (you might remember was in Silver's previous film with Chilly Scenes of Winter). It's easy to see why Riegert* being here is a pretty good choice when you consider the fact that he makes such a warm presence to contribute to such a curious chemistry with Irving, mainly because he plays blue-collar elegance with the type of confidence of who they are and what they like. This was the only film appearance of Reizl Bozyk, the Polish-born actress who had been involved with Yiddish stage from her youth (right up to her death in 1993 at the age of 79, she was set to tour again for Crossing Delancey on stage), and she practically comes off as a pro with how amusing and delightful she proves to those who, well, know about well-meaning old folks. The others are also pretty fascinating, mainly with the amusingly pushy Miles or the one-scene charmer with Harris. Basically, this is a movie for people who need a film to pair with Marty (1955) in terms of exploring what really matters in trying to be happy with another person and actually crossing the path to get there. Is it predictable and schmaltzy? Perhaps, but that's the whole fun of it all, because it is a movie that sees the clash of "modern" sensibilities and ones of tradition and finds hope that they can in fact co-exist hand-in-hand for a winner.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

(belated) Song of the day

*Riegert was in Animal House and The Mask, hell yeah

Point Break.

Review #2520: Point Break.

Cast: 

Keanu Reeves (FBI Agent Johnny Utah), Patrick Swayze (Bodhi), Gary Busey (FBI Agent Angelo Pappas), Lori Petty (Tyler Ann Endicott), John C. McGinley (FBI Director Ben Harp), James LeGros (Roach), John Philbin (Nathaniel), Bojesse Christopher (Grommet), Lee Tergesen (Rosie), Vincent Klyn (Lupton 'Warchild' Pittman), Chris Pedersen ('Bunker' Weiss), Dave Olson (Archbold), Anthony Kiedis (Tone), and Galyn Gorg (Margarita) Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (#1258 - K-19: The Widowmaker, #1548 - The Hurt Locker, #1820 - The Loveless, #2188 - Near Dark, #2361 - Blue Steel, #2494 - Strange Days)

Review: 

“Thrill-seeking adrenaline addicts have always fascinated me. The idea seems to be that it’s not until you risk your humanness that you feel most human. Not until you risk all awareness do you gain awareness.”

Sure, it feels right. The original idea of the film came from Rick King, who wondered about surfers who robbed banks. King had directed Prayer of the Rollerboys (1990), which was written by W. Peter Iliff, who once was waiting tables in his late twenties before becoming a screenwriter. Iliff's original screenplay (under the working title Johnny Utah) actually had bounced around for much of the late 1980s (Ridley Scott was at one point tapped before pre-production didn't go anywhere) before eventually falling into the hands of Lawrence Gordon and his company that went with Kathryn Bigelow to direct. Bigelow, alongside her then-husband James Cameron did re-writes for a production draft (one particular moment that Cameron came up with was the main character jumping out of a plane without a parachute); in short, it wasn't a movie crafted by one person but through a variety of influences (Cameron, for whatever reason, recently expressed a bit of bitterness over not getting a writer's credit). Made on a budget of $24 million, the movie was a decent enough with audiences at the time of release and it attracted enough of a following that someone made a "reality-play" parody (which premiered in Seattle in 2003) of the film that has a new unrehearsed actor play the lead role and read lines from cue-cards (various people have attended performances such as Busey, Petty, and even Bigelow). A remake was released in 2015, which was shot/directed by Ericson Core with Édgar Ramírez and Luke Bracey playing the lead roles, and a TV adaptation has been floating around for a few months.

Well, you either live for the ride, or the waves will just splash you away. The whole "initiation into a group by a cop" thing wasn't completely mined out by this point (as evidenced by say, The Fast and the Furious [2001] a decade later), but the best thing about the movie is that it just coasts on the amount of casual energy it has with its cast and action. The folks here play the whole thing as straight as you can play it even with folks being named "Johnny Utah" going from former football players to FBI agents (in fairness, Charles Tillman actually did go from former NFL player to federal agent, so there's that) to go along with people who are all in their own varying levels of inner balance*. Reeves was the one that Bigelow defended despite studio doubts, and, yeah, he makes for a good pairing with Swayze in that type of bond that basically goes past the usual cat-and-mouse game that comes with these types of movies. You've got vulnerability and the yearning to actually do something on one side with Reeves and the eclectic confidence that comes from someone who aims to be the master of their own domain (spiritually, literally, whatever). All will drift onto the other side, so why not try to aim for the ultimate thrill when doing so? The rest of the cast* are fairly charming in their aims for a film that takes things casually, whether that means a few chuckles at the strait-laced McGinley or the odd duck straight man nature of Busey (see, he doesn't always play louts or the heavy). Call it whatever you want (one label that has been floated around is "wet Western"), call it a movie about finding a soul within riding the waves of the frontier that is the sea, the important part is that it is a pretty neat thriller at the end of the day. It packs enough heat within its 122-minute runtime that coasts in the air with skydiving, on the ground with one particular chase scene and in the water for, well, various moments to try and capture the feeling of surfing (I myself can't say stuff about water besides trips to the waterpark). It even has an ending like a Western with the culmination of one perhaps finding a soul within the waves. For a movie as stimulating in its curiosity for high-octane interest as this one is, you will probably have a good time with a film that has managed to get to 35 years with relative ease.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*There are apparently people who find a homoerotic subtext to the film in the same sense that people try to do that for Top Gun. Truth be told, I wish people had half as much time to use on Strange Days, which is the far more interesting Bigelow movie of the 1990s. Seriously, go see it.

*My balance is trying to hide my desire to be wrapped up on an island with a lady just like Lori Petty's character. What a character, especially with that hair.

I Shot Andy Warhol.

Review #2519: I Shot Andy Warhol.

Cast: 

Lili Taylor (Valerie Solanas), Jared Harris (Andy Warhol), Stephen Dorff (Candy Darling), Martha Plimpton (Stevie), Lothaire Bluteau (Maurice Girodias), Anna Levine (Iris), Peter Friedman (Alan Burke), Tahnee Welch (Viva), Jamie Harrold (Jackie Curtis), Donovan Leitch (Gerard Malanga), Jim Lyons (Billy Name), Michael Imperioli (Ondine), and Reg Rogers (Paul Morrissey) Directed by Mary Harron (#1984 - American Psycho)

Review: 

"I was amazed, because, apart from saying that she shot him and she was crazy, nobody had ever talked about Valerie Solanas. So I had this idea for an anti-documentary. It was never going to be conventional. My thinking was, what if you took the most obscure person in this glamorous circle, and that most obscure, most despised pariah turned out to be the most interesting person of them all? What if you did a kind of reverse hagiography, where you take this person in the shadows and put them in the center? Now, how I was going to do that, I didn’t know. I just had this burning desire to make a film about her."

I suppose this is the best way to dip the toes into the world of Andy Warhol. Once upon a time, Mary Harron was in the punk scene and into The Velvet Underground, the rock band with a distinct influence within the underground scene that mixed right in with Warhol being their manager from 1966 to 1967. In college, Harron had written a piece about Warhol and his work for a university magazine and even spent time looking upon his movies. When she became a music writer, she was fortunate enough to have a brief interview with Warhol around his studio of The Factory (he subsequently died in 1987). A couple of years later, when working in television, she did research for a Warhol documentary and happened to come across the SCUM Manifesto (self-published in 1967 before becoming commercially published in 1968 through Maurice Girodias and his Olympia Press) in a store that interested her because for all the footage and interviews one knew of Warhol and the Factory, one name never really came up with Valerie Solanas. Her interest in doing a documentary happened to crisscross with Tom Kalin and Christine Vachon in doing something...as a film. Harron co-wrote the film with Daniel Minahan (with research by Diane Tucker along with having certain dialogue come from Jeremiah Newton's edited compilation The Letters and Diaries of Candy Darling) and the movie had funding from a variety of companies such as Killer Films and Goldwyn Films International. John Cale of the Underground wrote the music score for the film despite disagreements with Lou Reed. The movie made a bit of money and was enough of a hit with its screening at Sundance that the offer to do the script for American Psycho came right afterwards. The years that followed the release of the movie is fairly interesting. The movie was released by a company that soon went bankrupt and the rights were in murky limbo for a time to where it was barely available on DVD and it apparently was once only available online through a rip on YouTube. Solanas had crafted a play called Up Your Ass that she had given a copy to Warhol that was accidentally misplaced - in 1999, it was rediscovered and produced in 2000 in San Francisco by George Coates Performance Works*. Further information about Solanas came around with the 2014 biography Valerie Solanas: The Defiant Life of the Woman Who Wrote SCUM (and Shot Andy Warhol)*.

You might wonder what Solanas (a graduate of University of Maryland, College Park) has to offer in terms of a manifesto. Well, its opening declaration [with one word difference depending on the edition] states that women should "overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate [destroy] the men" (incidentally, there are a few moments in black-and-white that depict stuff from the manifesto being read). She sold copies in bookstores and on the streets of Greenwich Village for $1 (unless you were a guy, then it was $2) and even appeared in one Warhol film with I, a Man (1967). One person associated with Warhol once stated that life around the sphere of Warhol ended up making them "all captives of Andy's magnetism and his outlaw culture". Amidst all of that, Solanas might as well be an imp to these self-obsessed people that can't quite get the recognition they believe they deserve,and Taylor carries the film to fascinating levels of curiosity. It isn't a lament of a "tortured genius" or just a "craven nut" but instead something that teeters in the irony that comes in so many contradictions that can be tragic along with being fascinating. There is a burning, acerbic spirit to her that you can't exactly shoo away as an irrational being because damn it, there are plenty of irrational people to go around anyway, even if most don't go around shooting people and getting their own spin of a bio-drama.  Harris pulls in well with shades of vulnerability and elusiveness (without being a caricature to poke with) that you can't easily grab upon beyond the obvious that might as well reflect how one views Warhol and his art, for better or worse.  The real Solanas spent time in a prison ward and periods of evaluation over her mental state (mainly the paranoid schizophrenia) before she essentially faded into obscurity by the late 1970s and died in San Francisco in 1988 at just the age of 52. Regardless of how one might view Solanas and her view of men (as represented by, say, this exchange here or this one), there is something quite fascinating about what Herron has captured here about someone who lived by their contradictions. As such, this is a worthwhile debut in its capture of a misfit that doesn't judge or defend but instead lets the images and words speak for themselves in entertaining fashion that is a strange little gem.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day

*Apparently, Warhol was quoted in a book in the 1980s that he apparently glanced at the play and was more concerned with wondering if she was actually an undercover cop. By the way, that gunshot was brutal: he got shot in a way that had damage to his lungs, esophagus, liver, spleen, and stomach.

*For one thing, Solanas actually had children at a young age but had to give them away. 

*honestly, the fact that there was an anarchic group named "Up Against the Wall Motherfucker" in the 1960s shouldn't surprise me.

Project Hail Mary.

Review #2518: Project Hail Mary.

Cast: 

Ryan Gosling (Dr. Ryland Grace), Sandra Hüller (Eva Stratt), James Ortiz (the voice and lead puppeteer of Rocky), Lionel Boyce (Officer Carl), Ken Leung (Yáo Li-Jie), Milana Vayntrub (Olesya Ilyukhina), Priya Kansara (the voice of Mary), Liz Kingsman (Annie Shapiro), Mia Soteriou (Dr. Browne), and Orion Lee (Dr. Li) Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (#540 - The Lego Movie, #568 - 21 Jump Street, #940 - Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs)

Review: 

Sure, a space adventure worth seeing in a movie theater. You might remember that the last adaptation of an Andy Weir novel adaptation came around with The Martian back in 2015 that had Drew Goddard write the screenplay that dealt with one man trying to deal with the tough circumstances of being adrift in space (I will be honest in saying I haven't watched The Martian since that one screening). Oh, and I suppose there is plenty of science-spelunking (my word, not the words of the movie) in trying to deal with basically being a one-human show. Actually, I take that back, there are a few other differences (namely in that this film mostly spends its time adrift in space with a parallel narrative about regaining one's memory*), but it really did come to mind when hearing about this movie (I don't do "buzz heard from other people", I barely have friends to recommend movies so "screw it" is the way to go). The "hard science fiction" novel was published in 2021 with a clear interest in real science and, well, themes in isolation (for further information involving one look at what looks like science and what looks like science fiction, you can inquire here) that had rumblings of a film adaptation almost immediately. This feature (distributed by Amazon MGM Studios*) is the first film directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller since 22 Jump Street way back in 2014, having been busy in producing films. Evidently, there are a bit of differences between the novel and the film (one involves the reasoning being modified from one of biology to one of happenstance), but so it goes.

It is a decent movie, mainly when you feel that there is something worth enjoying in its odyssey. It looks upon the future and tries to present it as something to figure out rather than fear that might be worth 156 minutes of time. It isn't so much the quest for figuring out what one is going to do about star eaters and the sun because it really is a film of relationships and figuring out the how and why of things mattering. It just happens to have a bit of puppetry that also isn't too infested with fake sets (to throw you a curveball, maybe it would make a neat pairing in one-man sustainment with Cast Away [2000]). It all rests on Gosling's shoulders to basically show him finding a true friend among the stars. Well, you might say there are friendly moments on Earth, but I think the stuff between him and "Rocky" is fascinating, mainly in that slowburn of getting communication down number by number. Ortiz (as head puppeteer of a character with a handful of puppets) and his riffing with Gosling has a certain type of warmth that basically does work better than if it was Gosling interacting with a guest voice. That's not to say that the moments spent with Hüller* are ho-hum, because she does make a compelling figure of pragmatic grace before, well, having a neat little scene involving karaoke that basically makes the last we see of them and Gosling all the more compelling in where it ends up. I can't exactly tell why the movie doesn't quite reach greatness (or get around to the level of say, Interstellar [2014]), which I guess comes down to it just being an adequate crowd-pleaser over being a really involving one, particularly at a certain point when the familiarity element becomes all too apparent. To be "goofy" can be a blessing or a curse depending on what you think the word means. At least the ending is suitable enough to make the trip worth it when it comes to figuring out what actually matters in being more than just one person among the universe. As a whole, it's a pleasantly fine charmer for where it wants to go in entertainment value within sentimental commitment that leads to a few good chuckles and some hope within its adventure that will be reasonably satisfying for those who know what they are getting into.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Yes, I forgot Amazon MGM was a thing. Also, they only distributed it in America and Canada, Sony Pictures Releasing International is everywhere else.

*Not to spoil much, but, one wonders, regardless of how petty or ridiculous that this sounds, if the first thing that a person in Grace's shoes would do if they somehow managed to get back to Earth after all they went through and managed to find Stratt...to just immediately punch them in the face. What? 

*She is a licensed forklift operator. No, really.

*Audience count for my Wednesday afternoon screening: zero. Oh well.

Making Mr. Right.

Review #2517: Making Mr. Right.

Cast: 

John Malkovich (Dr. Jeff Peters/Ulysses), Ann Magnuson (Frankie Stone), Glenne Headly (Trish), Ben Masters (Steve Marcus), Laurie Metcalf (Sandra "Sandy" McCleary), Polly Bergen (Estelle Stone), Harsh Nayyar (Dr. Ramdas), Hart Bochner (Don), Susan Berman (Ivy Stone), Polly Draper (Suzy Duncan), Christian Clemenson (Bruce), Merwin Goldsmith (Moe Glickstein) Directed by Susan Seidelman (#1987 - Smithereens, #2186 - Desperately Seeking Susan)

Review: 

"I was so happy with the response to that screening, because, when a movie is a flop, people tend to not want to talk about it. I loved making “Making Mr. Right,” but people seem to not want to bring up the fact that it was a flop at the box-office or hurt my feelings. It was in theatres for such a short amount of time, and then it was never really pushed on DVD. So Metrograph was the first time I had seen it with an audience up on a big screen in thirty years. And I laughed! I always thought maybe people didn’t get the style. It’s an A.I. romantic comedy."

Admittedly, this is the kind of movie you might try out on the back end of a to-do list of movie packs and obligations. This was one of the six movies on a "6 Comedies [MGM]" collection (next to Honeymoon in Vegas, Overboard, Speechless, Baby Boom, and Real Men) that I bought many years ago, and, well, it finally dovetailed with Susan Seidelman. This was her third feature film as a director and she played some influence on the script that had been written by Floyd Byars and Laurie Frank in 1985, specifically in the shift in focus from a Frankenstein-type story to one resembling Pygmalion. For whatever reason, the main production company behind this was Barry & Enright Productions, a TV company originally formed by Jack Barry and Dan Enright in the 1940s that occasionally produced movies (most notably with Private Lessons [1981]). Distributed by Orion Pictures to minimal audience returns, Seidelman's next feature came with Cookie in 1989*; Seidelman has expressed no hard feelings about how the film went, even attending a Q&A screening for the film in recent years.

So, what's the movie about? Well, in the (presumably) near future, a scientist makes an android (which happens to look just like him) and is priming it for deep space exploration that dovetails right with a PR consultant (recently dumped) that is hired to help humanize the android for the project sponsors. It starts its attempts at capturing the vibe of someone who might fall for, say, a robot by having an opening that shows an old-fashioned dumping and shaving while going to work. For a 99-minute movie, it might wind up as light fare, but there is an earnest spirit about the movie (namely because it has a fairly neat style in terms of its setting and look that will surely inspire interest from those who know what retro-futurism is) that I like enough to at least say is at least a possible small gem as a comedy of errors. It just happens to have a bit of deference to those who might have an interest in something different from the perceived normal, particularly since most of the men in the film are, well, kooks (at least Robert Trebor* is delightfully smarmy for a small role), particularly in their feelings. So it isn't just "but is the robot fully functional?*", it's a comedy about people who really need to know what they want out of life, people, and, well, themselves. It might interest you to know that this was the one big role for Magnuson, who had dabbled in music and a few minor film roles (such as Desperately Seeking Susan). She apparently actually wanted the supporting role that ended up being cast for Headly but it seems Seidelman saw something worthwhile in her that comes out here. There is a certain type of moxie that comes through with her that I can't help but enjoy in a whimsical sense (besides, she has one line that is basically the lifeblood of the chaotic worker: "I'm always late; but, I'm worth it."). The make-or-break comes with Malkovich and his dual role as one who can't stand people and one who wants to understand things beyond what he was made for. So one side gets to play the hapless oddball and the other lumbers around with a ditzy sense of timing, and it generally works out for a few quirky moments. Whether it really is all that convincing is up to you (stranger people have fallen for stranger things), I suppose. The others in the cast have a few little moments of charm that spring for amusement in the crisscross of oddballs and Miami chic, whether that involves a brief interlude with the loopy Metcalf or the charming Headly. As a whole, Making Mr. Right just couldn't find the right audience when it really mattered for those who like some offbeat romantic comedies, suffice to say. But if you like the idea of a movie that pokes at the odd quirks that come with people that don't have everything figured out in their personal lives that happens to involve romance with a robot, you might have a hidden winner here.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

 

*Cookie had Peter Falk and Dianne Wiest, but She-Devil (1991) which paired Meryl Streep (who I'm sure other people know pretty well, but...) with, and I'm not kidding: Roseanne. 

*Hey, I imagine people are still waiting (but obviously not saying out loud, on the internet, or in conversation) for sex robots, it isn't that hard of a question to ask if you can put your ding-dongs in 'em.

*I remember Trebor well from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, where he regularly appeared as Salmoneus - he was pretty funny in that show. He passed away just last year - RIP.

Tank Girl.

Review #2516: Tank Girl.

Cast: 

Lori Petty (Tank Girl), Ice-T (T-Saint), Naomi Watts (Jet Girl), Malcolm McDowell (Kesslee), Don Harvey (Sgt. Small), Jeff Kober (Booga), Reg E. Cathey (Deetee), Scott Coffey (Donner), Stacy Linn Ramsower (Sam), Ann Cusack (Sub Girl), Brian Wimmer (Richard), Iggy Pop (Rat Face), Ann Magnuson (The Madam), Dawn Robinson (Model), Billy L. Sullivan (Max), James Hong (Che'tsai), Charles Lucia (Capt. Derouche), with Harlan Clark (Additional Ripper), Doug Jones (Ripper), Ata Scanlan (Additional Ripper), Alvarez Wortham (Additional Ripper), and Roz Witt (Dr. Nikita) Directed by Rachel Talalay (#1144 - Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare)

Review: 

"It’s such an iconic image. I think all strong women react in the same way to this outspoken crazed female icon. I was such a punk warrior. When I went in to pitch it – I mean, all you had to do was show the image. And when we sent the script out, the cover page was a comic book page. Even now when I talk to people who design for video games they say that there’s never a pitch for a female character that doesn’t include an image from Tank Girl. She’s the tough, punk warrior woman. She’s the icon of that. And every tough, interesting woman I know wants to be her."

I will admit that I had vaguely heard of this movie for years but was just lazy to see it (I first heard of this movie from the Nostalgia Critic* many years ago). Apparently, Rachel Talalay was given a Tank Girl comic to read by her stepdaughter when shooting her first film with Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991). Tank Girl first appeared in print in 1988 in Deadline (a British comic magazine) that was developed by Alan Martin and artist Jamie Hewlett; you might be interested to know that Hewlett, whose drawings were extracted for use in the title sequence of the film, later moved into a place with Blur's Damon Albarn that led to them being involved with the virtual band Gorillaz in 1998*. Talalay (the unpaid production assistant-turned-accountant-turned-producer-turned-director) got interested in doing a movie and found the Deadline publisher was already trying to find a studio. Eventually, MGM/United Artists became involved with doing the film (Talalay apparently rejected an offer from Disney, believing that they would not allow the amount of violence/sexual references required). Talalay then picked Catherine Hardwicke to be the production designer, while Tedi Sarafian wrote the screenplay. Made on a budget of $25 million in New Mexico and Arizona (mostly in an abandoned open-pit mine), there were considerable edits made by the studio that ranged from a "naked Ripper suit", edits to the torture scene, edits to one role in particular, and, naturally, the original ending where Tank Girl burps as it starts to rain. The animated sequences (as done by Mike Smith) were put in because they didn't have the money to do the action sequences (apparently the tank wasn't particularly fast). Martin and Hewlett did not like the finished product, believing in a subsequent interview that nobody could really make a successful movie of the character (as for Tank Girl, it went through a hiatus before returning for an on-and-off basis since 2007). Talalay and Petty were proud enough of the film that they did a live viewing party of the film in 2020.

Imagine: it's the year 2033 and all the water is gone. It's a freewheeling, bratty, odd little movie...and I can't help but like it. It's strange too, because a good chunk of the critiques of the film could just as easily be spun around for people (like me, only I probably won't go into detail about feminism, because, well, good luck with that*) that praise the film as a zany and free-spirited mess. There is a certain type of charm that appeals to me for most of its 104-minute runtime in its energy that is infectious. Apparently, the production team did not expect to get the services of Stan Winston but go figure, they were so enthusiastic that they cut their usual rates in half to meet the budget for the Rippers you see on screen: articulated ears and tails activated remotely and, well, no puppetry. Suffice to say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but hey, half man/kangaroo, I can roll with it for a movie that likes to lurk in a offbeat wasteland (your milage may vary over how it would've gone if the film had not been edited down to, uh, take out the prosthetic penis). Petty (cast after consideration to go with Emily Lloyd) is delightfully loony enough to make for an entertaining antihero, one who has their own kinks and interests that could turn anything to make a crack at. Far be it from a movie that asks about power or the circumstances of what a wasteland looks like, you just get an unruly movie that has time to have a music interlude of "Let's Do It". Evidently, McDowell had a few decent memories making the movie, and, yes, this seems right up his alley to play a villain that loves water so much that he stabs people with a device that sucks the water right out of their body. How could one not enjoy him here? The rest of the cast roll along with causal engagement with a movie that moves to its own beat, for better or worse. As a whole, Tank Girl is the kind of movie that clicked enough for me to have fun with, although I can understand where it didn't exactly rock the world back in 1995. Offbeat and anarchic in ways that can be off-putting to those with less patience

 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*For a time, the Critic was my jam alongside Cinemassacre. And The Cinema Snob, eventually. 

*I used to know someone in college who dug them. The friendship didn't last at all, but at least Gorillaz is pretty decent.

*There was a discussion in a book, once, about talking about what cult films were "feminist" that called this film a "real feminist cult film" while labeling films by Kathryn Bigelow and Catherine Hardwicke as "too masculine", which honestly sounds like sour grapes more than anything.

Evidently, there was a mockumentary for the film, if you love it that much: Tank Girl Documentary 1995

The Bride!

Review #2515: The Bride!

Cast: 

Jessie Buckley (Ida "The Bride" / Mary Shelley), Christian Bale ("Frank"), Annette Bening (Dr. Cornelia Euphronious), Peter Sarsgaard (Jake Wiles), Penélope Cruz (Myrna Malloy), John Magaro (Clyde), Matthew Maher (James), Zlatko Burić (Lupino), Jeannie Berlin (Greta), with Jake Gyllenhaal (Ronnie Reed), Julianne Hough (Iris / Jinx), and Louis Cancelmi (Officer Goodman) Written and Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Review: 

"Yes, there’s sexual violence. There’s violence. Because it’s a big studio movie, we tested and tested it. We had big screenings in malls, where people came to see it, which I had never been a part of as an actress or a director before. So fascinating. And one of the things that they brought up was the violence: Is it too violent? And I was talking about it with a girlfriend of mine, who said — and she wasn’t being reductive — “I wonder if you had been a man making this movie, if you would have had the same response.”

Admittedly, there was an inkling in my mind that this film could be one to pay attention to for all the wrong reasons. I vaguely remember the promos for the film but mostly I remember the totally edgy "her comes the mother f-" tagline that, believe it or not, is stated uncensored for the film at one point. I will, however, grant one nugget of praise right off the bat: this was a movie originally envisioned for Netflix (who had distributed Gyllenhaal's previous directorial effort, The Lost Daughter [2021] in the States), as it was announced as such in 2023 before Warner Bros. stepped in when there were apparent disputes  between Netflix and director Maggie Gyllenhaal over shooting in New York vs. New Jersey. Incidentally, Netflix distributed their own Frankenstein movie in 2025. Hooray for them, I guess. But hey, The Bride is a Warner Bros. movie that got released into plenty of theaters as a, well, Gothic romance movie. There were a few edits made to the film prior to its release, with one sequence apparently involving Frankenstein licking black vomit off someone's neck. So, there's that too. You might remember that when I reviewed The Bride (1985) a while ago, I made a snide note about the impending Bride film. I will now shamelessly repeat what I said: "God, could you imagine if The Bride! (made for reportedly $80 million scheduled for release 2026) is bad? If it is good, sure, cool. The trailer did not do many favors, but I would desire a tiny trainwreck if possible."

So, let's do a bit of a setup: Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus because of a suggestion to try writing a ghost story while with a group of Lord Byron and other folks in 1816 that eventually became its own novel in 1818; you might know that in the story, Frankenstein, when begged by the monster to make a female companion, elected to destroy it. Left unmentioned in The Bride is that Shelley wrote a wide variety of novels that ranged from historical in Valperga (1823) to travel books such as Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844) before she died from a tumor in 1851 at the age of 53. Any of what I just said is far more interesting than trying to make heads or tails of what it really means for the film to feature Shelley in the afterlife wanting to tell of a story to follow Frankenstein and possessing a woman in 1936 Chicago that happens to dovetail with the arrival of Frankenstein's monster (who just goes by "Frank") wanting a companion (it is also possible that putting Shelley in the narrative is a way to do a twist on how Bride of Frankenstein had a prologue with Shelley talking about more of a story to tell with Frankenstein). One thing leads to another and, well, as Slap Shot [1977] once stated, "most folk heroes started out as criminals". 

What a weird little movie this is. Aside from the 126-minute runtime, what we have here is a movie that is somehow bloated in its litany of wayward plot threads and characters to barely care about and yet also is begging for something to truly latch onto, even in an exploitative sense. If this was made on a budget of, say, a fraction of a fraction of the reported $80 million with plenty of corners to cut and straight exploitation, maybe you would get something to rival, well, Frankenhooker (1990). But you get a movie that has a proverbial stick up its ass* from the very beginning and never really cuts itself loose for anything that is actually meaningful. Even as a film trying to supposedly say something about the experience of women beyond what you could gleam from say, reading a Wikipedia article. It's pretty funny that a movie that yearns to say something about empowerment has a title character that basically spends most of the movie being misled about their name (well, first name anyway) only to just go with being "The Bride", honestly. The Bride could probably have been edited to run as a comedy and possibly be better for it, what with its bombastic energy that has a dance sequence (hey, if you have one Frankenstein-adjacent film go with the Ritz...) and the, uh, unintentional amusement of a bunch of people putting on garb to look like the title character (with a mantra of brain attack that-, no, wait, nobody will be saying that as a rallying cry, not even to enjoy ice cream) and cut tongues out. For a movie that is set in 1936, at least you will be able to enjoy the scenery every now and then, that much is true. But for all the attempts at dignity and intensity that doesn't want to be pegged as just being a wannabee Natural Born Killers (1994), Buckley and Bale can't save that sinking feeling of "I would prefer not to" when asked if they would say there is something that made you care about these folks. Every single time that Buckley goes to the Shelley Zone makes me giggle a tiny bit in the very idea that it is meant to be taken seriously as some sort of devastating blow for women. Bening* at least looks like she wants to be in a monster movie, while Sarasgaard and Cruz have little to actually do beside fight over who is more wooden. As predictable as it might seem, the movie begs for a real villain or something to root against more than just "the system" or "guy who doesn't say much but I guess it matters that he gets his due at the end" (to say nothing of Buckley's character having to be rescued from sexual assault twice). By the time the movie mashes to a conclusion of, well, something, at least you get the feeling of relief to wash over the disappointment to be had here. As fun as it would've been to call this movie a pile of garbage (hey, if you can't have fun...), I just felt that this was mostly a frustrating experience to go through. But if you like the idea of seeing what the fuss might be about a movie that believes it has something to say about people that happens to have a few people getting stomped, maybe it might be for you.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day

*oh how could I resist

*Crowd count for this movie at 10:45am: zero, which actually is not a new phenomenon for me, as it happened with Madame Web and, uh, Missing Link.

*Seriously though, am I the only one that sees her glasses as looking like Dana Carvey from Master of Disguise?

The Five Heartbeats.

Review #2514: The Five Heartbeats.

Cast: 

Robert Townsend (Donald "Duck" Matthews), Michael Wright (Eddie King, Jr), Leon (J.T. Matthews), Harry J. Lennix (Terrence "Dresser" Williams), Tico Wells (Anthony "Choirboy" Stone), Tressa Thomas (Clara), Diahann Carroll (Eleanor Potter), John Canada Terrell (Michael "Flash" Turner), Chuck Patterson (Jimmy Potter), Harold Nicholas (Ernest "Sarge" Johnson), Hawthorne James (Big Red Davis), Roy Fegan (Victor "Bird" Thomas), with John Witherspoon (Wild Rudy), and Troy Beyer (Baby Doll) Directed by Robert Townsend (#1315 - Eddie Murphy Raw, #2348 - Hollywood Shuffle)

Review: 

"The film has a big heart. It's about family; it's about faith. You follow these five men on their journey together, and when it's all said and done, it's fulfilling. I think at the core of it is faith. It has a healing message." - Robert Townsend.

You might be familiar with the soulful power of groups such as The Dells, The Temptations*, Four Tops or the singers in Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Frankie Lymon, and Sam Cooke. At any rate, the sound that came from them clearly had an effect on Robert Townsend and also Keenen Ivory Wayans, as the two wrote the film that was originally in development with the idea of having the Wayans family appear in the lead roles, but when Warner Bros. passed, the Wayans moved on to other ventures (In Living Color, namely). But Townsend persisted and found a deal with 20th Century Fox in 1990. Apparently, Townsend wanted David Ruffin and Eddie Kendrick of the Temptations to be technical advisors but 20th Century Fox vetoed it because they thought Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr could sue the studio. Instead, the Dells (as comprised of Marvin Junior, Verne Allison, Mickey McGill, Chuck Barksdale and Johnny Carter). were brought in. A variety of musicians were utilized for near dozen songs featured in the film, most notably with The Dells with songs such as "A Heart Is a House for Love" while Dee Harvey also provided a handful of songs for the actors to lip-synch to. Made on a budget of roughly $8 million, the film was not a big success with audiences (although it has a small cult following), while Townsend's next feature film came with The Meteor Man in 1993.

1965...at least when told in flashback, since it starts out with one of those "Where Are They Now?" type of magazines showing that, yes, everyone becomes a "whatever happened...?" type. Oh sure, The Five Heartbeats is a bit of a sentimental movie, and I doubt anyone is exactly going to be surprised by what goes on in a music biopic (real or imagined), but I do admire this stuff a bit in the general experience that comes with having some music just flow into you. It just so happens to be a movie that yearns to show the rise, fall, and redemption of people where flaws and mistakes can be one to survive with the right type of love and forgiveness behind it. Preachy or not, it also happens that some of the music is fairly entertaining to mostly smooth over a 122-minute runtime that would make a cynic blush. The music montages in particular make for a curious way to convey a film in some parts, but, hey, more for the rest of us. Strangely, it might be Lennix that steals the show best in the type of steely intensity that makes for a useful performer to see out there among the others, who are mostly fair in their characterizations (Townsend, suffice to say, is okay). Patterson and James make for a fascinating double-edge sword of figures to lurk behind the group in their own varying levels of motivation to be around music (the latter, spoiler alert, is basically a wolf in sheep's clothing, made clear with an excellent little scene of him threatening someone). It is the type of movie that unabashedly preaches to the choir of seeing the good and bad that arises in sudden rises (and falls) to fame that keeps a good beat and keeps a good level of intimacy around to make you believe in these folks without turning it into a riff of comedy beats or just straight drama. I enjoyed its little trek that shows a period piece for earnest enjoyment that searches for a common truth in what really matters besides the hunt for a good beat or material efforts: coming back together at the end and caring about one other. It's a nice little movie that might flow up your alley.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Once more, a song of the night

*Incidentally, when NBC did a miniseries about the Temptations in 1998, Leon was cast as David Ruffin, who by that point had passed away in 1991.

A Rage in Harlem.

Review #2513: A Rage in Harlem.

Cast: 

Forest Whitaker (Jackson), Gregory Hines (Goldy/Sherman), Robin Givens (Imabelle), Zakes Mokae (Big Kathy), Danny Glover (Easy Money), Badja Djola (Slim), John Toles-Bey (Jodie), Tyler Collins (Teena), Ron Taylor (Hank), Samm-Art Williams (Gus Parsons), Stack Pierce (Detective Ed "Coffin Ed" Johnson), Willard E. Pugh (Claude X), Helen Martin (Mrs. Canfield), Wendell Pierce (Louis), T. K. Carter (Smitty), Jalacy Hawkins (Jay "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins), Beatrice Winde (Clerk), and George Wallace (Detective "Gravedigger" Jones) Directed by Bill Duke.

Review: 

“I’m not interested in making ‘Black’ movies. I’m interested in making movies that reflect my reality as I perceive it.”

Honestly, this movie was lightly on my mind for a few years. You might remember that Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Come Back, Charleston Blue (1972) were loosely based on the works of Chester Himes involving Harlem detectives that had Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques as the stars.  But first, let's talk a bit about this being the feature film debut of Bill Duke. Born in Poughkeepsie, New York, Duke was curious about writing from a young age, mainly because he wrote a journal from a young age because in his words, he wasn't a good verbal communicator but his poems were liked by a teacher of his. He attended Dutchess Community College and was encouraged to enroll in drama that saw him want to do acting. He studied at Boston University and subsequently New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before getting a role on Broadway in 1971 with "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death.”  Duke broke into film with Car Wash (1976) before eventually coming onto the need to study film, which he did with the AFI Conservatory. Duke became a director for a variety of television shows in the 1980s that ranged from Falcon Crest to Knots Landing. Duke made his directorial debut with the made-for-PBS The Killing Floor (1984) before moving into film with this movie. William Horberg got the rights to the Himes novel and eventually got the efforts of Stephen Woolley to get the idea of doing a film sold to Miramax Films. John Toles-Bey and Bobby Crawford were credited as having written the film. Apparently, halfway through the production, Woolley claimed that the film was meant to be a comedy and that Duke disagreed with that sentiment. At any rate, the movie made roughly $10 million. Duke's next film was with Deep Cover (1992).

You've got a movie wrapped in the vibrant atmosphere of Harlem (okay it was filmed in Cincinnati but still) that has a carefully wound-up game of wits and oddball characters for a few interesting moments (and, arguably, a few chuckles, so maybe Woolley wasn't too far off). Its tale of lust and larceny isn't too far off from a B-movie or, say, those 70s movies I had mentioned earlier that makes for a decent first effort. It doesn't exactly have every plot beat down to a T, mainly because the chemistry between the characters work far better than any motivations involving gold and sheer hokum. Of course, it also is an off-kilter romance (when not dealing in clash of street/book smart) that basically lends itself to a handful of curious moments of who really is in control of their own desires and sense of self. In that sense, Whitaker and Hines make for a couple of entertaining leads to counteract each other as if one was in a hardboiled buddy film (with perhaps a bit of a coming-of-age sprinkled in, neo-noir style). This was the first prominent film role for Givens, who previously had been featured in Head of the Class for television. She makes for a quality femme fatale, one with sultry grace that manages to have the right time of timing to make the tenuous dynamic between her and Whitaker a compelling one. There are a wide variety of characters to come and go with charm to spare, whether that involves a cross-dresser played by Mokae or with heavies in Glover and Djola (or Williams, but he is only in it for a while). In general, the film is quick on its feet to make its 115-minute runtime feel like a breeze worth passing through to see it play all the way to the finish that manages to hit most of the right notes for a fairly satisfying first effort.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars. 

Another Movie Night Song of the day

Why Did I Get Married Too?

Review #2512: Why Did I Get Married Too?

Cast: 

Tyler Perry (Terry Brock), Janet Jackson (Patricia Agnew), Jill Scott (Sheila Jackson), Sharon Leal (Dianne Brock), Tasha Smith (Angela Williams), Richard T. Jones (Mike), Malik Yoba (Gavin Agnew), Lamman Rucker (Troy Jackson), Michael Jai White (Marcus Williams), with Louis Gossett Jr (Porter Jones), and Cicely Tyson (Ola Jones) Directed by Tyler Perry (#872 - A Madea Christmas, #1979 - Why Did I Get Married?)

Review: 

Admittedly, Why Did I Get Married? (2007) was perhaps destined to make money. I called it a movie that "attempts at doing pop psychology with melodrama on the level of a soap opera or an off-kilter religious movie" (ironically, Perry took out a chunk of the church scenes from adapting his play into a film). You may or may not remember how the last film: four couples went on a week-long retreat in the mountains that saw the inevitable reveal of secrets that come with, well, people, I guess. It was chock full of surprises that came as such: secret VD, blame games over who couldn't protect their son from dying, bank account draining, would-be choking out moments and believe it or not, a divorce. Now the difference is they go on a week-long trip to the Bahamas for another retreat that reunites all the folks you saw the first time around. As is usually the case, Perry wrote and produced the film, which was basically as big a hit as the original movie was with audiences. Apparently, there are rumblings of a third of these movies (Why Did I Get Married Again, but, lol, Netflix) possibly coming in the near future. 

Technically, this is a worthwhile movie, if you like stuff that really is a bunch of hokum. It retains that strange achievement of being overblown in its melodrama for 121 minutes that manages to be ridiculous and yet too hollow to actually say anything about marriage that couldn't be boiled down to a Hallmark card. It strains to be funny when its melodrama is already ridiculous enough and it never really achieves any sort of meaningful drama, particularly since it is once again a movie where Perry and Jackson are basically overshadowed by White and Smith again. Consider this for a moment - what sounds more interesting: a couple that finds about "emotional cheating" (next you'll be telling me they were...writing messages in a bottle!), a messy divorce where a psychologist isn't so perfect, seething jealousy from the new guy in the married group, or the crazed paranoia of someone who believe their husband is cheating to where they track their resting heart rate. There is just something so insane about Smith and White interact with each other that could be thought of as irresistible in a way that seems far more in sync with what audiences think about marriages than whatever twaddle Perry & Leal are trying to pull. Some might say that Jackson pulls in the most interesting performance, but the bar is, what, still Poetic Justice (1993)? The only character that maybe goes through the idea of what might be an interesting story is with Jones in the realm of understanding what it means to be divorced...of course the actual story with his character is, no I'm not joking, his sudden diagnosis of cancer (yea, the character in the middle of the film is just...going to chemotherapy). Scott and Rucker just seem lost in the shuffle and in general the movie doesn't seem to know what to do with itself.  You might remember that there was progress to all of these characters in the first film, but it basically seems like we are watching caricatures (or perhaps a template for the subsequent TV spinoff) that do not have much to say this time around. As a whole, it may be more absurd in its melodrama, but it feels less accomplished than the previous film.* In general, it just seems like a wasted venture unless one is into the Perry pulpit, which I suppose isn't up my alley this time around. But so it goes.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night - Song of the day

*Nobody can go 0-for-4 in "good" movies, right? The Married films were on a DVD four-pack with I Can Do Bad All by Myself and Madea's Witness Protection, so we will see how that goes someday.