Redux: Aliens.

Review #574: Aliens.

Cast: 

Sigourney Weaver (Ellen Ripley), Michael Biehn (Dwayne Hicks), Paul Reiser (Carter J. Burke), Lance Henriksen (Bishop), Carrie Henn (Rebecca "Newt" Jorden), Bill Paxton (Private Hudson), William Hope (Lieutenant Gorman), Jenette Goldstein (Private Vasquez), Al Matthews (Sergeant Apone), Mark Rolston (Private Drake), Ricco Ross (Private Frost), Colette Hiller (Corporal Ferro), Daniel Kash (Private Spunkmeyer), Cynthia Dale Scott (Corporal Dietrich), Tip Tipping (Private Crowe), Trevor Steedman (Private Wierzbowski), and Paul Maxwell (Van Leuwen) Directed by James Cameron (#001 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day, #063 - The Terminator, #388 - Avatar)

Review: 

“What I remember about that night is not my reaction to the movie [Alien] but my reaction to the audience. I thought to myself, ‘If I can do that, if I can even come close to doing that,,," - James Cameron (1986)

You might remember that Alien (1979) was originally devised by Dan O'Bannon into subsequent collaboration with Ronald Shusett (pitched as "Jaws in space") that had further influence from David Giler and Walter Hill (it was they who came up with the android character of Ash) and, well, all the folks leading right down to Ridley Scott (and, well, maybe a little bit of positive executive influence, because they groused at Scott's original ending idea). Between the inspiration of films such as The Thing from Another World [1951] in O'Bannon and Shusett's screenplay, the creature design by H. R. Giger* to Scott's drive to make "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre of science fiction" resulted in a movie where terror inflicted the average Joes in space and, well, was pretty damn cool. After years of 20th Century Fox refusing to go along with actually making a sequel (which namely involved trying to screw over the producers in declaring the movie a financial loss), it eventually started development around 1983, and a search for writers led to curiosity over James Cameron's The Terminator script. Cameron (who once described the original as "almost the perfect movie") was hired to do a treatment that had advice from David Giler and Walter Hill that basically honed down to "Ripley and soldiers", which he submitted after three days of writing in the fall of 1983, although it didn't generate true interest (the studio thought it was just filled with horror) until after the release of The Terminator (in turn, Cameron, who didn't expect the movie to be a hit, had worked on an Alien script in his free time*²). Cameron, Giler, and Hill were each credited for the story.  The movie was released at 137 minutes due to an array of cuts that actually could've been a bit more substantial if Fox had gotten their way to make it barely over two hours. Nowadays, you can see the Director's Cut, which is 157 minutes long (with differences being noted here alongside cut scenes that aren't in either version). On July 18, 1986, the movie was released in theaters to tremendous success (plus, Scott seemed to have liked it). The movie was such a hit that 20th Century Fox was really interested in doing a third movie with no hesitation, although delays (namely in not being able to actually settle on a finished script*) resulted in it being released in 1992 that was thought to be considerably inferior to the previous two films and hated by its own director.

If the first film was akin to a fright house, the second film really does merit the comparison (made by Cameron) of aiming to be a roller-coaster ride, and yes, I did this re-review mainly to assert how damn great it is, mainly because the first time I reviewed it, I barely gave any type of insight the first time around in 2014, which basically saw wonderful interactions, a mood shift from "bravado to outright fear" and really good effects. But honestly, the obvious shining point of what basically became the be-all and end-all of the series is with Weaver. Cameron and company wanted Weaver from the jump, with no studio reluctance getting in the way (yes, the studio that was sued by producers into financing the development of the film thought saving money on a cheaper star was a good idea). The first film saw her slowly but surely take charge in the presence of all-encompassing terror that we all could see in ourselves. After confronting the terror of people breaking down in front of them (figuratively or literally) and being trapped in nothingness only to find a world colder than when she left it, Weaver proves up to the challenge of making this character a true wonder in take-charge charm with vulnerability that we still hold up as an icon that Weaver described as an "everyperson". She is trapped in the hell of what she experienced and the idea that of being right in the present of the worst possible thing: being on another crew considered expendable. With the director's cut reminding you of just what she lost the first time around (because again, you only see that photo in that version), it makes the journey back from isolation with Henn all the more rewarding. And then of course there is the wonderful interactions with such a confident supporting cast that view themselves as on the road to conquest with such gallantry only to find themselves in a mirroring of the Vietnam War. Sure, Biehn is tremendously entertaining (cast after James Remar backed out), but it really is the credit of Paxton and Goldstein* to really sell the journey through hell and back (to a point, anyway) with kickass enthusiasm. Rounding out as the odd-man is with Reiser, who actually does prove exquisite in showing that comedians really can play a scummy toad and make it look so easy. Doubly so for Henn and her brave performance filled with soulful qualities (incidentally, she became a teacher) and Henriksen as an android that really is just one of the guys (which he once said basically meant playing him as an innocent). Yes, the movie looks great with what is seen and what isn't seen from the miniatures/wires, and yes, the James Horner music is worthwhile to hear*, but it really does all come down to how much we end up loving to see these characters go through the ride with us (this can be as something as small as seeing Hope's pencil-neck character try to tell the squad to not use a particular weapon - that's an easy one to say "been there, done that") in chaos. If Alien strikes at the terror of being trapped in a place with little escape, Aliens strikes at the terror of actually having something to lose besides the soul. 

 

It's interesting to compare this film to say, the "crowd-pleaser" aim from the most modern film of the series with Alien: Romulus (2024), which aimed to go for "wonder and terror" feel in being set between the two great movies that mostly reminded me of how hard it is to really make a worthwhile ride that isn't merely derivative (to say nothing of one particular reference from Aliens that comes out in Romulus). Jokingly or not, I said that Aliens was better than Alien by a "Xenomorph egg". I have to believe in my heart of hearts that this statement holds water today, but I do admit that I have made it a habit to watch Alien each night of May 25. It's interesting that both movies basically end in the same manner: expelling the final creature into space before Ripley enters stasis for a return to Earth. At any rate, Alien, Aliens, you can't go wrong with the entertainment presented in the terrors of beasts that comes from dark corridors, beasts of acid, and the showing of what it really means to be alive. It was timeless before being a 40-year-old movie, that much is for sure. It is self-contained show of excellence from Cameron and company that stands on its own. 

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Theme of the day

*I should give full credit to the list of people who won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for Alien: H. R. Giger, Carlo Rambaldi, Brian Johnson, Nick Allder, and Dennis Ayling. There are further inspirations listed that would clog up the opening paragraph: Planet of the Vampires (1965) - specifically the giant skeleton, It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), Clifford D. Simak's short story "Junkyard", Star Wars (1977) specifically in Scott's aim to be its "antithesis", the aesthetic of illustrator Moebius and possibly even H. P. Lovecraft (Giger found the initial storyline to be in the vein of the famed writer and listed him as one of his greatest sources of inspiration.). By the way, did you know that Scott...wanted Ridley to die at the end of Alien? No, really.

*² It should be noted that Cameron had done a spec script in 1980 (as seen with the link here: The Risk Always Lives: Words to Live by On the Set of James Cameron’s ‘Aliens’ • Cinephilia & Beyond) that dealt with trying to keep a young creature alive that dealt with a mother queen type creature and a climax with a power-loader. Incidentally, Cameron wrote a draft for Rambo: First Blood Part II around the same time as the Alien II script.

*See, I should see Alien 3 again, mainly to bring up that Fox and company went through a litany of ideas such as: a two-part story where Biehn would be the protagonist for the third film before an epic battle for a fourth movie (no chance of getting Ridley Scott, he was busy), a William Gibson script that he once jokingly described as "Space commies hijack alien eggs—big problem in Mallworld" (this was later adapted into an audio drama), a "wooden planet" with all-male monks...before settling on a cobbled together script that wasn't even finished when filming started. Don't get me started on what happens in the introductory scene of Alien 3. What the fuck? Game over, man! Game over! Yes, even in a notes section, I managed to get that reference in.

  

*Is it really good acting if you don't recognize that Goldstein isn't actually Mexican? (enjoy an interview detailing experiences making the film - Interview with Jenette Goldstein, 1987 | Strange Shapes). Incidentally, she actually owns a bra chain store company.

*Sure, the James Horner soundtrack has a few parts that sound like, say, his stuff from Star Trek II. But who cares? Incidentally, an un-used part of the soundtrack was later used in the climax of Die Hard.

Cannonball.

Review #2559: Cannonball.

Cast: 

David Carradine (Coy "Cannonball" Buckman), Bill McKinney (Cade Redman), Veronica Hamel (Linda Maxwell), Gerrit Graham (Perman Waters), Robert Carradine (Jim Crandell), Belinda Balaski (Maryann), Mary Woronov (Sandy Harris), Diane Lee Hart (Wendy), Glynn Rubin (Ginny), James Keach (Wolf Messer), Dick Miller (Bennie Buckman), Paul Bartel (Lester Marks), Stanley Bennett Clay (Beutell Morris), Judy Canova (Sharma Capri), Archie Hahn (Zippo), and Carl Gottlieb (Terry McMillan) Directed by Paul Bartel (#955 - Eating Raoul, #2231 - Death Race 2000, #2440 - Private Parts)

Review: 

Yes, the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash inspired quite a few movies. Once upon a time, in the 1970s, a couple of people got together and wanted to go cross-country across the United States really really fast. It was devised by car magazine writer/auto racer Brock Yates and Car and Driver editor Steve Smith that ran a couple of times in the 1970s (1971, 1972, 1975, 1979) that liked to celebrate the interstate highway and protest against traffic laws.* Various things came about involving speed limits and car rallies (One Lap of America and Gumball 3000, specifically). Believe it or not, Yates actually was planning to do a movie screenplay but was instead beaten to the punch by Samuel W. Gelfman, a producer who hired Paul Bartel and David Carradine (fresh off Death Race 2000 [1975]) to make a movie that would be distributed by Roger Corman's New World Pictures. The resulting script was cobbled together from Paul Bartel and Donald C. Simpson (this was Simpson's only credited screenplay, as the following year saw him named vice president of production at Paramount). Released in July, it was released one month before The Gumball Rally from Warner Bros. (the car race movie with Michael Sarrazin as star). Bartel later stated that while he was never interested in cars or racing, he decided loading the film with cameos and gimmicks that interested him would work out for him (which included a scene of Bartel playing the piano, naturally). The movie (which includes a gauntlet of cameos from Roger Corman to Sylvester Stallone) was not as big a success as Death Race 2000. Yates did get his screenplay made into a film, albeit with an all-star ensemble cast in Hal Needham's The Cannonball Run (1981), complete with a cameo appearance. Coincidentally, both movies had funding from Hong Kong companies: Cannonball had the involvement of Shaw Brothers Studio while The Cannonball Run had the involvement of Golden Harvest (and even the involvement of Jackie Chan as one of the stars).

It's a movie with a very macho Carradine that goes around driving through the mayhem that comes from exploding cars, mid-wit brothers, cars piling onto themselves, and good ol' scrappy fun. Sure, it does plod along at 93 minutes with an array of jokes and action set-pieces that are pretty hit and miss. But I enjoy the general enthusiasm that comes through to say that it is at least curious to sit through once, perhaps as part of a double-header with Death Race 2000 (or, to see the comparison of familiar faces, The Cannonball Run, a movie my dad surely liked enough to have on DVD). If you like Carradine and cars, this is somehow second of a sort-of-trilogy of Carradine, cars, and New World distribution. In 1978, Carradine happened to do another vehicle-related car movie with Deathsport (1978) for New World (with Allan Arkush and Nicholas Niciphor as director). It's the usual type of understated macho performance from Carradine that coasts through the experience with a few kicks and the same number of expressions as say, Clint Eastwood (in other words: fine?). McKinney and his loosely defined adversary position is at least interesting to see play off Carradine here and there, but it mostly is a film for bits and pieces of things (most significantly with Miller, the "that guy!" king). Hell, he probably is almost outshone by R.Carradine and Balaski taking the time in doing the race (which even sees them take a competitor to the hospital). It's a movie built for theatrics: guys playing country songs in a fast car will eventually go by the wayside for a stunt jump over an unfinished bridge (which is cool). Strangely enough, this and Cannonball Run share the same type of conclusion: the lead doesn't actually win the race because a last-second snafu (okay it's a bit dourer in this film as compared to the other one, but still) with its own type of punchline in bringing the wreck back home. It's a movie where you either go "cool", "eh", or "nope", pure and simple. As a whole, it certainly is a step down from Death Race 2000 (1975) in terms of entertainment with the second and last collaboration between Bartel and Carradine, but it still is worth a watch for those who like offbeat movies on the road that is sometimes funny but generally involving to see to the end.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*In a movie, it's whatever, but here's an easy take: follow traffic laws. People shouldn't die because some pissant had to go 100 on a 75 or because some moron doesn't use their turn signals. 

Godzilla vs. Megalon.

Review #2558: Godzilla vs. Megalon.

Cast: 

Katsuhiko Sasaki (Inventor Goro Ibuki), Hiroyuki Kawase (Rokuro Ibuki), Yutaka Hayashi (Hiroshi Jinkawa), Robert Dunham (Emperor Antonio of Seatopia, Seatopian agent on motorcycle; Gorō Naya as Japanese voice of Antonio), Kotaro Tomita (Lead Seatopian Agent), Wolf Ohtsuki (Seatopian Agent), Gentaro Nakajima (Truck Driver), Sakyo Mikami (Truck Driver's Assistant), with Tsugutoshi Komada (Jet Jaguar), Shinji Takagi (Godzilla), Hideto Date (Megalon), and Kenpachiro Satsuma (Gigan) Directed by Jun Fukuda (#1668 - Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, #2070 - Son of Godzilla, #2525 - Godzilla vs. Gigan)

Review: 

Oh, poor Jun Fukuda. It's not easy making four Godzilla movies where the highlight is either a mediocre Son of Godzilla or one brimming with mockery amidst the use of stock footage. With this film, the 13th Godzilla movie, you've got a clash of ideas and ambitions all bubbling to the surface: All Monsters Attack (1969)'s original villain was going to be a giant mole cricket before a series of reworkings (one involving pairing it with other monsters under the command of hostile alien invaders) led to, well, a giant beetle. Now, you might wonder what the hell "Jet Jaguar" plays into it. Togo had a contest for kids in late 1972 that apparently resulted in a robot called Red Arone (apparently, it looked something like this). Shinichi Sekizawa did a few story ideas but did not have time to actually write a script, which fell to Fukuda to write the screenplay for a film that reportedly took just three weeks to shoot. As you probably would guess, extensive stock footage is utilized, whether that is films from nearly ten years ago with Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) to others such as Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) and Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972). In some ways, this movie has been credited as giving the perception of kaiju movies as being a bit campy or comedic, with the 1976 American release by Cinema Shares having a poster featuring Godzilla and Megalon...fighting on the World Trade Center (because if one is going to straight up "spoof" the King Kong (1976) poster, you might as well go all the way, even if it reeks of hackery). It was also featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000). It even had a primetime broadcast on NBC in 1977, albeit in a form that was cut to less than an hour. Thankfully, with the modern age, you can just watch the damn movie with subtitles like a normal person (Criterion or otherwise) *. Fukuda got one more Godzilla movie to do with Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974). 

I first saw footage of the film in what else but James Rolfe's "Godzilla-a-thon" years ago (the one that briefly recapped each movie up to 2004*), so I had an inkling of what was going to come. It sure is a shame about the "camp" label, mainly because that label always seems to be used for a tired argument very now and then about movies they want to find a longwinded way of just saying "silly"*. You'll never believe this: it's an 81 minute Godzilla movie with a few silly moments, a few familiar things, fairly forgettable humans (with one exception?) and a pretty bog-standard quality that reminds you that there are better movies out there. Look. you get to see a flying two-feet karate kick from Godzilla and a goofy robot that doesn't even change its expression with Jet Jaguar, a suddenly sentient being that can grow really really tall (I'm sure there is a measurement in feet or "meters", but Movie Night does not recognize the latter). The irony is that for all the interesting visuals (the bits not from 1970, anyway), I could not find one interesting thing to say about Saskai, Kawase, or Hiyashi (you think modern Godzilla movies have dodgy human characters? Watch this movie and get back to me). They are there, they show up, they remind you that even robots have more to really say than kid actors, and so on and so forth. It is delightfully preposterous in ways that are entirely easy to see coming: dudes wearing what appear to be a toga (Dunham, complete with some chest hair) dealing with an underground kingdom that send monsters rather than negotiate (we are past the part the military not mattering) and Godzilla (don't ask about the suit, at least they tried making it seem freshly new) basically taking longer than a superhero to show up in the film. But when it does get moving, there are some amusing parts that remind you that even a bad Godzilla movie (with one Emmerich-sized exception) can at least be an amusing time. Not a movie for serious analysis or fans of good films, but if you like watching Godzilla or. monster mashes, maybe you'll have a time worth noting.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

(Jet Jaguar's) song of the day!

*No, I will not budge on subtitles over dubs. I didn't give a shit who was doing the English dub of, say, The Boy and the Heron, so it is either original dub or nothing. You can also bookmark this and call me an idiot if I pull a hypocritical move.

*I love the old Cinemassacre. No comment on the AVGN Movie though.

*Unrelated, probably. You can call it a conspiracy theory, but I firmly believe that a good deal of critiques of horror movies with "misogyny!" is actually just folks looking for an easy punching bag because they don't have anything better to do with their time. And there is no "campy" horror, that's just "comedy-horror", so stop it!

For the purposes of having a reference of previous Godzilla movies, inquire here: 

The original 1954 classic and its decent 1955 sequel

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) - Godzilla fights King Kong to a relative draw.

Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) - Mothra joins the mash!

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) - A monster so important it made the title

Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) - Nick Adams in: Spaceman's Adventure

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966) - Terrorists, lobsters, and more.

Son of Godzilla (1967) - A real family drama

Destroy All Monsters (1968) - Mash like it's 1999 in Monsterland

All Monsters Attack (1969) - Children and Minilla have to fight their own battles instead of Godzilla

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) - Trippy environmentally hip fun for the whole family

Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) - Godzilla towers and a clip show all in one

Team America: World Police.

Review #2557: Team America: World Police.

Cast: 

Trey Parker (Gary Johnston/Joe Smith/Carson/Kim Jong Il/Hans Blix/Matt Damon/Tim Robbins/Sean Penn/Michael Moore/Helen Hunt/Peter Jennings/Susan Sarandon/Drunk in Bar/Liv Tyler/Janeane Garofalo/Additional voices), Matt Stone (Chris Roth/George Clooney/Danny Glover/Ethan Hawke/Martin Sheen/Additional voices), Kristen Miller (Lisa Jones), Masasa Moyo (Sarah Wong), Daran Norris (Spottswoode), Phil Hendrie (I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E./Chechen terrorist), Maurice LaMarche (Alec Baldwin), Chelsea Marguerite (French mother), Jeremy Shada (Jean Francois), Fred Tatasciore (Samuel L. Jackson), and Greg Ballora, Scott Land, Seb Hartman & Tony Urbano (Lead puppeteers) Directed by Trey Parker (#2226 - South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut)

Review: 

"It's funny when someone responds with, “Oh, well they think this is funny?” No, we just think that everything's funny. We think that “funny” is a great thing and “funny” is a great way to think about things and deal with things. People who don't have great senses of humor think that comedy is that you just think something's trite and stupid and you don't care about it. [They think] if you're laughing, it's because what you think you're laughing at is stupid — because that's about as far as their sense of humor goes. People don't realize that it can be something a lot deeper than that." - Trey Parker

Sure, let's talk about the movie with puppets and American spirit for the 4th of July. The production of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999) was a pain in the ass for Trey Parker and Matt Stone (particularly with the ratings board), but it was a successful pain in the ass, and eventually the two of them came up with something they thought would be funny to do for a film. They landed upon the Thunderbirds (as originally created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson from 1964-1966), which they vaguely remembered watching as reruns when they were bored and found it "so expository and slow" for a show that took itself really seriously involving the Tracy family and a few vehicles (when production was rounding the corner to finish, Parker and Stone jokingly called Anderson "absolutely insane"*). Of course, it also helps to be a "send-up" of the Jerry Bruckheimer productions of the time (most notably Pearl Harbor [2001], although non-Bruckheimer films like Megaforce [1982] also proved an inspiration). Parker and Stone wrote the film with longtime writing partner Pam Brady. The Chiodo Brothers helped create the hundreds of puppet characters, with Parker and Stone soon realizing during filming that the comic tone to them came from the marionettes trying to drama rather than just having "puppets doing jokes". Trying to capture every stunt live on film and making the deadline of late September 2004 took a toll on the filmmakers, who also had to battle with the MPAA for the rating because, and I'm not kidding, a puppet sex scene (but the violence, well...), but they got the job in time for release in theaters in October, which happened to be less than four months after the live-action adaptation of Thunderbirds. 

Team America: World Police was a fair hit with audiences at the time; various filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Edgar Wright have called it among their favorite films of this particular generation. The biggest compliment is that the movie is clearly more entertaining than the two Thunderbirds movies. With a film that was about American optimism that basically has kept Americans looking forward regardless of how naive it all sounds. Stone and Parker clearly enjoy dealing in humor when it comes to the world that gets construed for nihilism because they favor the middle ground and what sounds funny in common sense. It just so happens that there are a few folks worth making fun of (visually/audibly) to go with a rhythm of four-letter colorful words (including a climax involving the nature of what can be construed as "collateral damage, am I right?"). It freewheels for 98 minutes on a loose plot involving looming terror, a horde of film actors guild (get it?) members and the Bruckheimer spirit of entertainment at all costs in chaos that is pretty funny for what actually gets on screen beyond (obviously) the wires. Beneath the tension (in the "I think America will win, but unless....") is a few silly moments on the side that ranges from the hang-ups of "actors" and whatever goofy stuff you spot in the staging of puppets trying to maneuver around the environment. Parker and Stone are perfectly comfortable with the voices they want to put on (Norris probably hones it in the best for the not-Jeff Tracy from) and the movie rolls along with its tongue-in-cheek ra-ra spirit that, naturally, has a rip-roaring "America" song (the one that goes "fuck yeah", yeah, yeah, yeah). You see a few neat-looking vehicles to house the puppets and staging that works with the scenarios. It ribs at wannabee global dictators and wannabee do-gooders with enough conviction in actually having fun (well, unless you're Sean Penn*). As a whole, Team America is packed with enough goofy moments in the audacity of going nuts with puppets going on an adventure ends up being a bit more than just being swears and strings. 

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Apparently, Gerry Anderson was quoted as stating "there are good, fun parts [in the film] but the language wasn't to [his] liking".

*Bro really sent them a letter being mad that Parker and Stone said there was "no shame in not voting" and closed it with "All best, and a sincere fuck you".

Independence Day: Resurgence.

Review #2556: Independence Day: Resurgence.

Cast: 

Liam Hemsworth (Jake Morrison), Jeff Goldblum (David Levinson), Bill Pullman (President Thomas J. Whitmore), Maika Monroe (Patricia Whitmore), Jessie T. Usher (Dylan Hiller), Travis Tope (Charlie Miller), William Fichtner (General Joshua T. Adams), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Dr. Catherine Marceaux), Judd Hirsch (Julius Levinson), Brent Spiner (Dr. Brackish Okun), Sela Ward (President Elizabeth Lanford), Angelababy (Rain Lao), with Joey King (Sam Blackwell), Vivica A. Fox (Dr. Jasmine Dubrow-Hiller), Robert Loggia (General William Grey), Nicolas Wright (Floyd Rosenberg), DeObia Oparei (Dikembe Umbutu), and Chin Han (Jiang Lao)

Directed by Roland Emmerich (#193 - Independence Day, #413 - The Patriot, #2161 - Godzilla [1998])

Review: 

Hey, remember Independence Day? Apparently, the impetus for the original film was a question posed to Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin when they were promoting Stargate (1994) about believing in aliens building the pyramids that saw them ask, well, what if there were "14-mile-wide spaceships covering the sky?" Sure, Mars Attacks! (1996) loomed on the calendar, but Emmerich and Devlin aimed to make their movie anyway, which saw them basically write (in three weeks) a disaster movie akin to the 70s disaster flicks such as The Towering Inferno (1974) and Meteor (1979). When it came out in July 1996 to plenty of hype and fanfare, it actually was the highest-grossing film of that year (beating out poor Mars Attacks!. which sucks because that movie was probably better in actual quality). Cool, now do you remember Independence Day: Resurgence? As early as 2001, Emmerich and Devlin thought about doing a sequel, but they had curtailed those plans the first time in 2004 because they couldn't figure out the story. By 2011, there were rumblings again about doing not one, but two sequels. Through re-writes and various drafts (mainly because of the omission of one certain actor before filming), four people were credited with the story: Emmerich, Devlin, James A. Woods, and Nicolas Wright, while James Vanderbilt was credited along with the four for the screenplay. Made on a budget of $165 million and released in June 2016, the movie was not a major hit for anyone involved, with Emmerich and Devlin both stating that there was little chance of doing a third film.

Is it a quality defense when the director says he should've stopped making the movie? As early as 2019, three years after the release of Resurgence, Emmerich stated, yes, he "should have just said no" once Will Smith wasn't going to be in the film, which happened as a result of scheduling and salary demands. It is almost amazing to have five total writers and have little to nothing come out of the characters to actually root for beyond "the bare minimum". As I remember, the characters in the original were basically cardboard, but you could at least say there was a sense of interest in seeing what was under the curtain for a surprise (which in this case was, are you shocked, alien stuff in "Area 51" and a computer virus to start the process of telling the aliens to permanently go to sleep). Corny as the movie was, you at least felt there was some semblance of dignity in depicting folks all coming together (on the 4th of July you see) and being ready to kick ass (okay, maybe non-Americans didn't go ra-ra for it, but well, "Murica, baby!"). Twenty years later, with the presentation of "world peace" and a space defense program with alien technology....there is just a weird feeling that one is watching a film with nowhere to actually go. You see the designs of the (reverse-engineered) tech and a spiffier Washington and you wonder if they really thought people would be fine looking at something that reminded them of a video game cutscene. The aliens still look at forgettable as ever, and the Sphere (the "virtual intelligence") reminds me of someone trying to make a smaller version of Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). 

The attempt at mixing in people from the original (ranging from Goldblum/Pullman/Hirsch/Spiner to basically cameos from Fox and Loggia*) with a new generation (Hemsworth, Monroe, Usher, and to a lesser extent, Topo and Angelababy) that each have had their lives shaped by one horrific week all leads to the least compelling and least interesting drama imaginable. This film feels ten years too late to actually say anything of note (once you destroy the White House, what is there left to move around for the sequel), so it instead just aims to be paid half-attention to by people on their phones. I probably care less for Goldblum than I did in the last film, and that's saying something for what was basically a wannabee Dr. Ian Malcolm in the first place, even with the addition of Gainsbourg (who ...is given nothing to do). Hemsworth and Usher might actually be competing for who achieves less with less: what the hell was Smith going to do in this film that changed the script so much to basically focus on the youth (meanwhile, Monroe, cast to replace Mae Whitman from the original, is given, wait for it, nothing to do). I can't tell who has the more unceremonious exit: Fox, who can't get off a falling building in time (after getting, what, 4 lines?) or Ward (as Madame President) goes the way of the dodo in a murky-looking scene. Probably the only people who look like they like having some work is Pullman or Spiner, and that sure says something when the latter has a scene where they gallivant around a bit in a barely contained hospital gown*. You get a few chuckles beneath basically a boring movie. For a movie that is two hours long (25 minutes shorter than the original, in one of the stranger cases when a sequel is shorter), it always seems to be two steps behind in actually going anywhere: it dangles an idea that some African war lord spent ten years fighting aliens in hand-to-hand combat, but his son is given the job of being the straight man to a middling subplot about a nerd wanting to get into combat. Hive minds and "Harvesters" and drilling to the Earth's core (with a timer) while buildings get thrown around just seems like a movie that either was postmarked "2006" or simply didn't have enthusiasm to actually make it worth looking further.  It just reeks of trying to make a franchise without actually focusing on spectacle and believing they had enough in the tank to bait people into hearing more, complete with an ending that sequel baits with probably the least amount of conviction possible. If the original film was "dumb fun" that the viewer either enjoyed or disliked with the clear flaws (dialogue, design, general Emmerich weaknesses), the sequel film manages the honor of just being dumb with middling return value for all involved. 

Overall, I give it 4 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

Happy 4th...

*Loggia died on December 4, 2015, six months before the film was released. At least he was cool in the first film.

*Okay, so Spiner's character is apparently gay and spends most of the action with his partner, who I guess loved giving out flowers in the hospital ward for years. Honestly, I forgot if they were partners before 1996 or if this guy just fell for a dude in a coma that had long hair.

The Grey Fox.

Review #2555: The Grey Fox.

Cast: 

Richard Farnsworth (Bill Miner / George Edwards), Jackie Burroughs (Katherine 'Kate' Flynn), Ken Pogue (Jack Budd), Wayne Robson (Shorty (William) Dunn), Timothy Webber (Sergeant Fernie), Gary Reineke (Pinkerton Detective Seavy), and Sean Sullivan (Newspaper Editor) Directed by Phillip Borsos.

Review: 

"If I had the time, all this attention would be very heady. I suppose I enjoy the wheeling and dealing more than most film-makers. It's a charge but [it] can't compare with being behind the camera." - Phillip Borsos

It seemed prudent to try and make an effort at celebrating a Canadian movie to start out July because there are little gems of curiosity that came around from the country up north. Phillip Borsos was born in Australia to a Hungarian sculptor and English nurse that moved to British Columbia in Canada when he was five years old. With an early interest in filming from a young age, he studied at the Vancouver School of Art. Borsos made a handful of commercials and documentaries, with Nails (1979) getting enough attention to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.  He was first interested in doing this film when he saw picture of Bill Miner in a restaurant. He credited Jan Troell with giving him the confidence to do a feature film himself. Production started in early 1980 with getting casting, unit selling (selling for thousands of dollars each) and the script (done by John Hunter) ready. Richard Farnsworth was cast in the title role when Harry Dean Stanton dropped out due to wanting to be in One from the Heart. For taking Stanton from under them, American Zoetrope allowed them the use of support facilities. Film was done in the winter before going through extensive editing in 1981 (at one point, the editor fell ill for months) without even having a distributor, although United Artists Classics eventually got the bid. Released in the winter of 1982 in its native Canada before a March 1983 release in the States, the movie was a mild hit with audiences at the time. He ultimately would do four more feature films of varying quality: the American thriller The Mean Season (1985), the Canada/US One Magic Christmas (1985), the biodrama Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1990), and Far from Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog (1995), which was released shortly before his death from leukemia in 1995 at the age of 41. The Toronto International Film Festival rated The Grey Fox as among the best Canadian films of all time for their lists in 1984 and 1993). In 2004, the Whistler Film Festival named their main awards Competition program for Canadian films after Borsos. In recent years, it was restored and given a proper release on home media*.   

The real Bill Miner was a curiosity unto himself. The Michigan native served time in jail by the time he was 20 years old and eventually did enough stagecoach robberies to get him into San Quentin, where he did in fact stay until 1901, when he moved to the province of British Columbia, now 55 years old, which is where the film starts its story of the man associated with the first train robbery in the province. With the role falling to Richard Farnsworth, what you get here is a lovely Western filled with a rich look at the B.C. frontier and a look at a man out of time as a bandit in the new century. You won't see much bloodshed on this frontier, but you will still see a landscape of emotional relevance that studies a man who lives the way he knows best: an offbeat bandit. Farnsworth had appeared in countless movies over the past few decades as a stuntman-turned-actor, and it is his confident spirit that you see in his eyes and demeanor that make you understand the nature of being in his shoes, a man warped in time that sees the moving picture and regains the vigor to be what he desires most: a sly fox in a land of hens. We're enchanted by a gentleman who happens to love robbing things. Playfully fiddling with history (who says he didn't encounter a woman as free-spirited as Burroughs) as an elegy for a proud and vulnerable rascal that doesn't even move a muscle when he, well, knows when he is beat. In the real story, the wrong car of a train got robbed in 1904 that saw him make off with little money and kidney pills before he and his gang were subject to a successful manhunt and conviction. Miner did in fact escape the penitentiary in 1907 and never did get captured in Canada, although his attempts in robberies in the States eventually led to him going to prison (and escaping, twice). While back in jail in 1913, he died from gastritis from drinking bad water; he was 66 years old. But the film closes on him in the best place possible: adrift and, most importantly, free. At 92 minutes with a lovely Canadian landscape to gaze at and plenty of spirit to carry the way, there's a little bit of everything worth watching for all involved to encounter.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Happy Canada Day. I know I've skipped a Canada Day or two in the past few years, but I felt it was a good time to get one in and spotlight a worthwhile Canadian movie because I care about you folks. See you soon.

Song of the day!

Interview for the film: Canadian Radio Sanctuary: Richard Farnsworth and Phillip Borsos on their 1982 movie The Grey Fox.

*As late as 2014 apparently, this movie wasn't on DVD and only on iTunes and VHS, as evidenced by this - O Canada Blogathon: The Grey Fox (1982) – MOON IN GEMINI

The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Review #2554: The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Cast: 

Clint Eastwood (Josey Wales), Chief Dan George (Lone Watie), Sondra Locke (Laura Lee Turner), Bill McKinney (Captain Terrill), John Vernon (Fletcher), Paula Trueman (Grandma Sarah Turner), Sam Bottoms (Jamie), Geraldine Keams (Little Moonlight), Woodrow Parfrey (Percy Long), Joyce Jameson (Rose), Sheb Wooley (Travis Cobb), Royal Dano (Ten Spot), Matt Clark (Kelly), John Verros (Chato), Will Sampson (Ten Bears), William O'Connell (Sim Carstairs), Madeleine Taylor Holmes (Grannie Hawkins), John Quade (Ciril E. Forebaugh), Frank Schofield (Senator James Henry Lane), Buck Kartalian (Shopkeeper), Len Lesser (Abe), and Doug McGrath (Lige)

Directed by Clint Eastwood (#1252 - Space Cowboys, #1310 - Million Dollar Baby, #1476 - Pale Rider, #1501 - Unforgiven, #1550 - Gran Torino, #1638 - Bird, #1757 - Sudden Impact, #1831 - High Plains Drifter, #2487 - The Rookie)

Review: 

"When people stop me in the street, it tends to be about Josey Wales. They seem to like that one. I rented it recently, it still holds up."

As we approach the Semiquincentennial of America, I suppose it only makes sense to cover a film that came across in the dawn of the Bicentennial fifty years ago. The movie was based on a book called The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales (titled Gone to Texas in later editions), which was published in 1973 with the writer being listed as Forrest Carter. He had sent the book unsolicited to Eastwood's office with a letter talking about "Eastwood's kind eyes", and go figure, producer Robert Daley felt it looked like a good idea to approach it to Eastwood, who soon agreed to work with optioning Carter's book. When Philip Kaufman looked at the book for the first time, he thought, well, that it was written by a "crude fascist". He co-wrote the screenplay with Sonia Chernus, which included the characters of Terrill and Fletcher that was not previously included in the book. It didn't help with filming, as disagreements with Eastwood in the shooting led to Kaufman's firing in favor of Eastwood, which he once said was "the worst moment of my life"*. It was his fifth film as a director, after the release of The Eiger Sanction (1975). The resulting film made over eight times its $3 million budget back with audiences when released (premiering in late June for a festival before going into release in July and August). As for Carter, he actually was born Asa Earl Carter, an Alabama-born segregationist who for whatever reason decided to try and rebrand himself as a writer with Cherokee background that lived in Abilene, Texas. Sure, there were rumbling questions about who Carter really as early as 1975 (only a few years prior, he ran a failed campaign for governor of Alabama), but Carter kept the facade on long enough to have written three further books, one of which was The Education of Little Tree (which was adapted into a film in 1997). He died at the age of 53, which apparently came after choking on his own vomit after a fight with his son. Plans to do a movie based on his second novel with the Wales character in The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales (1976) did not come to pass with Eastwood involved. In 1986, Michael Parks directed and starred in The Return of Josey Wales, which dealt with confronting corrupt lawmen in Mexico.

Sure, you might wonder how it goes to make a movie about an ex-Confederate guerilla (incidentally, Jesse James was one of them), particularly with a person that believed that the "values of a civilization never died so long as they’re kept alive in legend.” Simply put, there are people who really thought there was a lost cause to a group of losers who never won a war, never deserved a monument to being traitors, and never did anything meaningful for the United States of America besides dying, because goddamn it, you should know the war was fought over slavery before you leave high school*. But, and this is the important part, it is such a worthwhile movie to see a tale of a man at war with himself that becomes whole again (besides, some people called Dirty Harry "fascist", it didn't stop them from making four more of those movies), or at least much as possible when the iron in his words is akin to the iron of a pistol. All he wants to do is move on and pick up what was broken in him from the war and move on. As Eastwood once said, man becomes his most creative in war, so you can only do so much to clean the blood stain from the tapestry. It isn't even that much of a revenge tale, because McKinney (and to a lesser extent in adversarial nature, Vernon) is not present in the movie as much as, say, George is for the 135-minute runtime, as if to suggest that it matters to see the frontier for what it really is beyond the cliches matters more than if one is going to rattle the sabre right into a man's heart, which, well, yes. It's a violent movie that also has plenty of offbeat moments, such as the moment where one says that hell is coming to breakfast. Everything collides for a reckoning of the soul, whether that's Eastwood and his ambivalence, George and his straightforward nature or otherwise. New order, old order, we thrive on the myths and tales we tell for ourselves, regardless of where they may spring from. As a whole, The Outlaw Josey Wales freewheels history and the usual conventions of the Western for a pretty solid result in offbeat entertainment that is expertly filmed and executed by Eastwood and company for a movie that reckons with community and what really matters to live or die on the frontier.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*If one goes by this interview, Kaufman has never seen the film: Philip Kaufman: The Hollywood Interview | The Hollywood Interview

*If I remember correctly, my dad had a license plate cover of the Confederate battle flag. And yet, I turned out the way I did. 

Next of Kin.

Review #2553: Next of Kin.

Cast: 

Patrick Swayze (Detective Truman Gates), Liam Neeson (Briar Gates), Adam Baldwin (Joey Rosselini), Helen Hunt (Jessie Gates), Andreas Katsulas (Johnny "Papa John" Isabella), Bill Paxton (Gerald Gates), Ben Stiller (Lawrence Isabella), Michael J. Pollard (Harold), Ted Levine (Willy Simpson), Del Close (Frank), Valentino Cimo (Rhino), Paul Greco (Leo), Vincent Guastaferro (Paulie), and Paul Herman (Lieutenant Tony Antonelli) Directed by John Irvin (#1591 - Hamburger Hill)

Review: 

Sure, you probably saw this on a DVD pack sometime or maybe your dad had the film on the shelf (this is a case where both applies, because it lurks on both the bottom of the film shelf and also on an "action multi-pack" with stuff such as The Last Boy Scout). You might say this is a case of a movie being so mediocre that I have to strain to find words to talk about it. This was the seventh film of John Irvin, who had moved over from his native England (where he did documentaries, TV adaptations such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) to do feature films, with a few of his first being a mix of British and American productions, such as The Dogs of War (1980) and Raw Deal (1986), respectively. The years after this film saw him do a varied amount of films and TV work afterwards, mostly outside the States. The movie was written by Michael Jenning in his only film credit (the only other credit is writing for a TV movie called "Spot Marks the X"). Made on a budget of roughly $12 million and released a few months after audiences could see Swayze in, say, Road House, the movie was not a major success with audiences.

Admittedly, I wanted to like the movie. You've got young promising talent with Neeson, Hunt and Stiller (one of these people won an Academy Award, and somehow it wasn't Neeson) to go along with ideas of interest with Baldwin and Katsulas and a semi-game Swayze for a movie...that never really goes that far. It lumbers for 108 minutes with what can only be described as "the bare minimum" in generic nature that will work for some and make others shrug when it ends and leaves the memory bank just as quickly. It's a revenge tale that has an idea in mind: a tale serving revenge "country style" (no, I will not use the word "hillbilly") that you would imagine would sound like someone trying to drunkenly combine Deliverance and The Godfather. But no, it basically just meanders around Chicago with Swayze trying to corral Neeson from blazing a path fierier than Sherman's March to the Sea*, complete with one stunt about jumping onto a train. It is an aimless movie that only really commits to having a battle between country style folks and gangsters for the ending, which naturally has to be at night, with arrows being involved (somehow, there's a scene of preparing lunch for the travelling country boys that amuses me in its placement). There are flashes of lunacy from Baldwin to be compelling, but it mostly feels like moving the chairs on the deck waiting to see if something really comes into play beyond neutral gear. Swayze basically has the movie stolen from him by Neeson, who just has the offbeat energy to be more compelling in a misguided quest (and accent, because if you have the shot to cast a Northern Irishman to play a man from Kentucky, you take it) than whatever is supposed to be the case with an ordinary family dynamic between Swayze and Hunt. Obviously one character has to go at minimum to advance the plot, but it sure is a shame to see Paxton go so early, but it almost seems necessary to do so with Stiller in a nepo baby role that basically screams "move along". It all is just a long-winded revenge tale where you find yourself entranced at the stuff you've seen before in these type of movies or just check your watch. At least the climax tries to present something different in resolving the wounds of a blood feud, corny as it can be. As a whole, Next of Kin might as well be the Ink blot test of action movies: you see what you see and go from there in either liking the experience or forgetting it just as quickly as you saw it.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Stretching a reference, sure. But fuck the Confederacy.

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.

Review #2552: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.

Cast: 

Steven Seagal (Lieutenant Casey Ryback), Eric Bogosian (Travis Dane), Everett McGill (Marcus Penn), Katherine Heigl (Sarah Ryback), Morris Chestnut (Bobby Zachs), Nick Mancuso (Tom Breaker), Brenda Bakke (Captain Linda Gilder), Peter Greene (Mercenary #1), Patrick Kilpatrick (Mercenary #2), Scott Sowers (Mercenary #3), Afifi Alaouie (Fatima), Andy Romano (Admiral Bates), Dale Dye (Captain Nick Garza), Kurtwood Smith (Major General Stanley Cooper), and David Gianopoulos (Captain David Trilling) Directed by Geoff Murphy.

Review: 

"Films have a mind of their own, they are living entities. You discover them. I made a [Steven] Seagal film [Under Siege 2: Dark Territory] in America. It was a very dreary process and very highly contentious at the time - lots of arguments and stuff. There was a point during the editing where I observed this incredibly high energy beast emerging, and I didn't know where it had come from, because there wasn't any of that energy on the set. It seemed to grow out of the editing process. Whereas others, if you finish a shoot and think 'we've just shot a real beauty', then you're probably in trouble. Because they can jump up and bite you."

Yes, there was a second Under Siege movie. This was the seventh film with Steven Seagal as a star but the first one to come out after the ridiculously overblown On Deadly Ground (1994). You remember Under Siege (1992), right? The original script had been done by Matt Reeves and his college friend Richard Hatem, as they wanted to break into the market of spec scripts with action, with the script (with a working title of "Dark Territory", since, well, it refers to running track not controlled by signals) being described as "meant to be very much like a Die Hard movie". The market crashed for scripts, but it eventually was optioned and converted to what you see, with various script doctors such as Brian Helgeland delivering un-credited work. According to Chestnut, a good deal of the film was improvised, specifically when Seagal was on screen, which basically went, “Okay, this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to say this, I’m going to say this, then I’m going to do that and then you’re going to do that.” This was the last major production for its director Geoff Murphy, who had moved to Hollywood filmmaking after making films in his native New Zealand such as Goodbye Pork Pie (1981), Utu (1983) and The Quiet Earth (1985) that resulted in films such as Young Guns II (1990), Freejack (1992), and, well, this. He kept a busy profile with work in TV, smaller-scale stuff such as Race Against Time (2000) along with second-unit work on The Lord of the Rings. He died in 2018 at the age of 80. Made on a budget of $60 million (double the original), the movie was a mild box office hit, albeit not on the level of the original. Seagal's* next two films the following year were Executive Decision (a supporting role where he took a backseat plane ride to Kurt Russell) and The Glimmer Man. 

Is it unnecessary? Maybe. Is it not as good as the previous Under Siege? Mostly, yea. Is it worth it? Well, you know, I think so. I suppose this is where the apex of Seagal as a "star" has hit, complete with using a Apple Newton MessagePad 100 to really make this a high-tech thriller. But hey, a movie based in tension about trying to take a top-secret weapon looming in space with a hacker and multiple keyboards? This happened to be released a few months before Goldeneye, by the way. Sure, this is a movie that doesn't have the magic of two villains like before with Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey, but Bogosian, combined with the company of a cast that clearly is acting around Seagal, does hold the movie up enough to at least make the movie worth a check. Seagal, well, he mainly is there to lumber around and kick, with ounces of fun only really coming from seeing this guy seemingly try to hide the urge to say/do insane stuff when not engaged in the concentration of being the one-man army (okay, not always one-man, because Chestnut is there at times). He outruns a train crash, for God's sake. Bogosian saw Alan Rickman play a villain in Die Hard (1988) and decided, no I'm not kidding, that he wanted to play "a big, old fat villain in a big action movie". Sure, the end result had a bit of silliness due to the encouragement of Murphy to do so, but he apparently is quite satisfied with how it turned out with a crazed hacker wanting plenty of $ that quotes Louis Pasteur. And I agree with him! He is delightfully fun in this movie, managing to evoke menace with a jagged edge of wit. Then you have folks like McGill (a few years removed from being warmly cool in Twin Peaks*) trying to act tough (as one does when not being foiled by pepper spray) that amuses me greatly in his stature and the eventual result (nobody gets a long fight in this dojo). Chestnut provides a few chuckles as basically the Argyle equivalent that gets to trek across a train and throw people off helicopters while Heigl, well, there's always room to be a character in a different movie. It's an efficient movie for 100 minutes that fiddles in the ride of knowing what you are getting into with goofy scenarios (dropping people off helicopters, big ticking clocks) that you either appreciate or dismiss when it concludes. I liked it fine, and I'll accept the confusion over saying a movie with a middling lead does in fact work enough with the support under him to make it one to recommend. 

 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

song of the day!

*If one goes by what Heigl said or Jenny McCarthy said about auditioning (link here), it was definitely a strange experience being around Seagal.

*I'm still in the second season. We shall see about the movie. Also, he ruled in Licence to Kill.

The Desperate Hours.

Review #2551: The Desperate Hours.

Cast: 

Humphrey Bogart (Glenn Griffin), Fredric March (Daniel C. Hilliard), Arthur Kennedy (Deputy Sheriff Jesse Bard), Martha Scott (Ellie Hilliard), Dewey Martin (Hal Griffin), Gig Young (Chuck Wright), Mary Murphy (Cindy Hilliard), Richard Eyer (Ralphy Hilliard), Robert Middleton (Samuel Kobish), Walter Baldwin (George Patterson), Whit Bissell (FBI Agent Carson), Ray Teal (State Police Lieutenant), and Ray Collins (Sheriff Masters) Directed by William Wyler (#509 - Roman Holiday, #1022 - Jezebel, #1360 - Mrs. Miniver, #1368 - The Best Years of Our Lives)

Review:  

In 1952, there was a family in Whitemarsh Township, Pennsylvania that encountered three escaped convicts (Joseph and Ballard Nolen, Elmer Schuer) that held them hostage for 19 hours. The Hill family did not receive harm, and the convicts were soon apprehended (read: two of them died in a shootout in New York while the other got years in jail) after leaving the house. Influenced by the ordeal, Joseph Hayes wrote a novel in 1953 called The Desperate Hours that soon saw a theater production in 1955 (set in Indianapolis*), which saw Robert Montgomery stage it while featuring Karl Malden & Nancy Coleman as the parents opposite the convict leader played by Paul Newman. For the film, they wanted Spencer Tracy to play the second role opposite Bogart, but neither wanted to yield top billing, so you get Fredric March instead. You might say this is Bogart coming full circle, as his turn in The Petrified Forest (1934 play and 1936 film) as a gangster on the run was the one that catapulted him into public attention (of course, months before this film was released, Bogart starred in a televised production of that play); diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 1956, this was his penultimate role prior to his death the following year. This was the fourth of seven movies in the 1950s for Wyler, sandwiched between Best Picture nominee films Roman Holiday [1953] and Friendly Persuasion [1956]. Hayes wrote the screenplay for the film (various others have been listed as doing contributions, although this might not be correct). Made on a reported budget of over $2 million, the movie was not exactly a hit with audiences. In later years, it was adapted into a TV film in 1967, a film for India with 36 Ghante [1974] and a 1990 American remake with Desperate Hours that had Michael Cimino as director.

Sure, it probably doesn't hit as well as other thrillers, particularly since it strains a bit of credibility at a certain point in its housebound trappings, but you'll get a few interesting performances to make a decent time regardless with the Hilli(ard) family. It's a thriller not so much about when the cops get into the picture but instead a thriller about if that would actually turn out well for the family at all. It mainly rests on the shoulders of Bogart to make it all work with such an unsettling nature that basically sets the tension on the same level as cutting through butter, doing so with such smoothness that you can't take your eyes off him and his weary eyes, regardless of how movies like this were inevitably going to go back then. March does hold it together in a different type of intensity that wants to hold it all together for the sake of his family that is fairly palpable to where you probably can see him working fine over if it had been Tracy instead. It's a bout of men trying to assert who is the bigger man that happens to involve spectators that could get in harm's way (well, in a movie made a few decades later, probably more so for "harm", but still). Scott and others are more just ordinary, although there is a few moments of sophistication from Young* to go with piggishness from Middleton. It's a big house to set a film in, which is why there are moments spent away from the house because, well, you can only go so far with tension unless you set in the workplace (or, in one instance, the dispatching of one of the criminals). By the time it closes out its 113-minute runtime, you've closed the book on a movie that is fairly solid in lean suspense involving the threat of those with the supposed power and strength to hold you down in your place of residence before the inevitable hit of reality (for a movie at least) steps in. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

song of the day!

*For whatever reason, Life magazine published an article about the doubt of the Broadway show and had pictures of the actors in the house that the family lived in when they were held hostage and called the play a "reenactment". The Hills decided to sue them for violating the privacy law in New York. It eventually wound up in the Supreme Court, where Richard Nixon actually argued for the Hills. Narrowly, in 1967, the court found in favor of Time, Inc.

*The play hasn't been on Broadway since. Incidentally, Sammy Davis Jr did do a run of it for a playhouse a few times: Sammy Davis, Jr. - Theatre - “The Desperate Hours”

*This is the first time I've covered a movie with Gig Young in it. Young, a future Academy Award winner, was plagued by alcoholism in the later years of his life. In 1978, he murdered his wife and killed himself at the age of 64.

White Lightning.

Review #2550: White Lightning.

Cast: 

Burt Reynolds (Bobby "Gator" McKlusky), Jennifer Billingsley (Lou), Ned Beatty (Sheriff J. C. Connors), Bo Hopkins (Roy "Rebel Roy" Boone), Matt Clark ("Dude" Watson), Louise Latham (Martha Culpepper), Diane Ladd (Maggie), R. G. Armstrong ("Big Bear"), Conlan Carter (Deputy), Dabbs Greer (Pa McKlusky), Lincoln Demyan (Warden Sims), and John Steadman ("Skeeter") Directed by Joseph Sargent (#557 - Jaws: The Revenge)

Review: 

I imagine that no summer really starts unless you pick a movie with either good ol' boys or a star you are fond of. Burt Reynolds* had slummed around in television for several years (which included lead roles on Gunsmoke and Dan August) and a few movies of varying quality (100 Rifles [1969], Sam Whiskey [1969]), but it was his talk-show appearances that really got him noted attention before, well, Deliverance [1972] rocketed him into a name for film. Gradually, the films would rise in stature as a leading guy, with 1973 seeing him star in Shamus, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, and this movie, which he had worked with the producers previously with Sam Whiskey [1969] (incidentally, that film and Lightning had the same writer with William W. Norton). And yes, this is the movie that Steven Spielberg almost directed. As noted in a 2001 interview, he spent over two months on the film, scouted locations and was on the cusp of doing casting but he came to the realization that he "didn't want to start my career as a hard-hat, journeyman director", instead wanting something a bit more personal. He instead made a play for doing The Sugarland Express, which he ultimately made in 1974. It instead fell to Joseph Sargent (more of a regular TV director than a film director). It might have been his most noted film of the 1970s if it wasn't for his subsequent direction of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974). In 1976, Reynolds returned for Gator, which retained Norton as writer but with a twist: Reynolds as director (Norton was a character unto himself: he later became a would-be gun runner to the Irish National Liberation Army in the 1980s and shot an intruder in his home).

It's a match made in heaven for those who love a Southern tale of 101 minutes filled with a few car chases and a relatively game Reynolds in the reeds of a decent cast that holds it together for a pretty sobering time. Because, yea, it's a movie about getting one over the law, but don't forget that it starts with two guys getting shot on a boat (which is actually captured pretty well for a movie that basically makes one feel the sweat every now and then). It's a bout of obsession and hokum in trying to dodge both the sheriffs and those who don't like the idea of someone working as an informant (in this case the Department of the Treasury), and it is fun even if it meanders along for what could've really been a devious time, but hey, it is a good hellraiser movie. Before you got the Smokey and the Bandit rendition* of Reynolds, you get the inner workings of someone who was homing in gritty charm without straining in credibility of being a man of single-minded determination that is compelling and fun to see him crack through the conman stuff (it isn't easy playing friend and in one case, seducer). Beatty doesn't get as much time as you might think around Reynolds, but he makes for a quality adversary in the vein of a sundown town chief that clearly believes they are the knight of a community and that nobody deserves to be in their way: it's the kind of jagged confidence that is worth respecting from someone like him. The rest of the cast is fairly decent, rounding out the edges of small-town folks who play the line of swindler and swindled to varying effect. It's the kind of movie where the stunts of folks such as Hal Needham (a long-time friend of Reynolds, he first met him during production of Riverboat years prior) shine best, mostly with one particular car stunt in the film: the jump onto a moving barge. It isn't a great movie by any means, but it always end up doing something curious every now and then to make it worth a look, particularly on a warm summer day looking for familiar faces. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*I probably give Reynolds a bit of leeway when it comes to what I want to see from him. Hell, City Heat and Striptease have been on the shortlist for months!

*Lest we forget the hair, which was still natural around Deliverance: Burt Reynolds On Toupees, Trump, and Why He’d Never Work with Paul Tho | GQ. Also, if you look hard enough, you'll see Diane Ladd (spelled "Diane Lad" in the credits) and her daughter, Laura Dern, in this film.