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.

The Karate Kid Part III.

Review #2526: The Karate Kid Part III.

Cast: 

Ralph Macchio (Daniel LaRusso), Pat Morita (Mr. Miyagi), Thomas Ian Griffith (Terry Silver), Robyn Lively (Jessica Andrews), Sean Kanan (Mike Barnes), William Christopher Ford (Dennis de Guzman), Jonathan Avildsen (Snake), Martin Kove (John Kreese), with Randee Heller (Lucille LaRusso), Pat E. Johnson (Referee), Rick Hurst (Announcer), and Frances Bay (Mrs. Milo) Directed by John G. Avildsen (#003 - Rocky, #895 - Rocky V, #1689 - W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, #1759 - The Karate Kid, #2203 - The Karate Kid Part II)

Review: 

I suppose The Karate Kid could only go so long. You might remember that the second movie was a moderately entertaining movie, albeit one that basically only worked on the thinnest of ideas: exploring Mr. Miyagi and why anybody would want to depart Okinawa Island (okay and Miyagi defended himself against Kreese before giving him a honk on the nose) that was made purely for crowd-pleasing. You might remember Robert Mark Kamen had written the first two films and was totally fine with writing a third film...albeit with a twist. He actually envisioned a film that would be set as a flashback (read: a dream) to "16th century China" that basically would've aimed to be a Hong Kong kung fu movie, complete with wanting a woman cast as the lead. But the producers did not want to do this, and Kamen initially rejected writing the script. However, when the producers couldn't find people to do a proper draft, Kamen was lured into doing it for a boatload of money. The plans to focus on Kove's character went down the tubes because Kove was busy with the TV show Hard Time on Planet Earth, which necessitated the character of Silver. With a middling script but with a mostly intact crew* that included John G. Avildsen directing and serving as co-editor again, the movie was a moderate success with audiences but not nearly as much as the last two films for everyone involved, with Avildsen later calling it a "horrible imitation of the original" (ironic coming from the director of Rocky V, no?). Truly, there were never any more Karate Kid movies again. Until they did a "Next" one in 1994 with just Morita returning. Or a remake in 2010. Or whatever the hell "Cobra Kai" was in 2018*. Or a "Legends" movie in 2025 with Macchio. But hey.

The real disappointment is that the movie is 111 minutes long. The best parts of the movie don't come from its lead actors, the best parts come from laughing at the sheer ridiculousness that is displayed on screen. The dynamic between Lively and Macchio basically was dynamited from the get-go of the fact that Macchio was, well, 27 at the time of filming and that Lively was, well, eleven years younger (incidentally, Macchio is four months older than Griffith, who is meant to be a buddy of Kove's character...from the Vietnam War). You might say, hey, a platonic relationship might be interesting to explore besides the usual fare of action dramas. Unfortunately, neither look like they want to be anywhere near each other, as if one was watching mannequins. Macchio looks like he is ready to be on the beach or anywhere else besides doing karate, but I will say that Morita has the more thankless role of basically getting nothing to grab onto besides the same song-and-dance of defending himself in karate situations. The old man you see at the supermarket probably is more invested in what he is doing than Morita, arguably. Griffith basically gets the chance to ham it up and accelerates it to levels you could only dream to do, which unfortunately doesn't help when you realize that Kanan doesn't really make for a suitable force to face Macchio (all they can think of is to have the character straight up commit crimes like to hold him hostage on a cliff). You've got a lead that basically talks like he attended the Rocky Balboa School of Dialogue to go along with basically nothing for Morita to do besides talking in platitudes and then Griffith shows up to ham up the screen. It's not enough that Griffith is playing the buddy of Kove (sent to Tahiti), he comes up with the most ridiculously complicated scheme to get revenge for his compadre*: He gets Daniel to want to compete at the All-Valley Tournament (remember that this is set one year after the first film) by hiring a dude to go around harassing Daniel into wanting to fight while Miyagi is focused on the bonsai shop (don't ask). Then he ingratiates himself with Daniel in order to train him that basically leads to him torturing Daniel in the regimen. Finally, after revealing his ruse when Daniel wises up...that is when Miyagi decides to help train Daniel at the tournament all along (conveniently, the "defending champion" only has to do one match). Did I mention that Silver's character is also an evil businessman? At least you know what is going to happen in the end, but the karate is just what you saw before, although I will say it is amusing that the movie straight up just ends after the final match, as if they knew that there was nowhere to go up or down from. As a whole, you get a movie that satisfies nobody, does nothing particularly interesting, and satisfies only the most bored of completionist people imaginable. It's a middle of the road movie in the most insulting of ways possible.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

song of the day!

 

*Cinematographer James Crabe, who shot the last two films, had to withdraw due to being severely ill due to AIDS, which he passed away from in 1989.

*I heard that Cobra Kai has Kreese and Silver get into a fight to the death? What?

*Go Padres?

Violent Cop (1989).

Review #2502: Violent Cop.

Cast: 

Takeshi Kitano (Azuma), Maiko Kawakami (Akari), Makoto Ashikawa (Kikuchi), Shirō Sano (Yoshinari), Sei Hiraizumi (Iwaki), Mikiko Otonashi (Iwaki's wife), Hakuryu (Kiyohiro), Ittoku Kishibe (Nito), Ken Yoshizawa (Shinkai), Nobuyuki Katsube (Deputy Police Chief Higuchi), and Akira Hamada (Chief Detective Araki) Directed by Takeshi Kitano.

Review: 

"My advice is: trust nobody. Don't listen to what anybody has to say, just stick to your guns and trust your instincts. If you start to listen to people and put their ideas in your first movie, then you'll have to compromise more on your second, and it will just get worse and worse from there. You can always listen to advice on your third or fourth film, but on your first, stick to your guns. Just be prepared to be labeled a "box office unfriendly" director, like I used to be, if you do this."

Tell me if this sounds familiar: actor-turned-filmmaker. Okay, that's a simplification, but how else does one start talking about Takeshi Kitano? Born in Adachi, Tokyo, Kitano actually started his studies at Meiji University for engineering before he dropped out, finding his first path as a comedian. He became a theater MC and later formed a comedy duo as "Beat Takeshi" with Niro "Beat" Kaneko (hence the duo name of Two Beat). Eventually, he struck out on his own to do appearances on television (such as the game show Takeshi's Castle and, I'm not kidding, designing a video game) and then tried to branch out into film with Nagisa Ōshima's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983). When he went to a screening and heard people burst out laughing, he found himself devastated but also determined to continue to play serious characters in film and TV. In a filmmaking career of over three decades, Violent Cop, his debut film as a director, is the only film he did not have a writing credit for and one of just two where he did not serve as editor, which has seen films such as the comedy Getting Any? (1995), the crime drama Hana-bi (1997), the one-time American production with Brother (2000), the lyrical drama Dolls (2002), the action film Zatōichi (2003), and his most recent film, Broken Rage (2024) to go along with his continued work in television (he has been quoted as stating that doing shows helped in his filmmaking in terms of the pursuit of knowledge).

Apparently, the original plans were to make a movie adaptation of a non-fiction novel (about insurance fraud) called Travelers of the Southern Cross with Kinji Fukasaku* as director and Kitano as one of the leading roles. Apparently, an incident involving Kitano storming a scandal magazine spurred curiosity to have Kitano not just be in the film but play a detective once delays from the fallout of, well, stumbling onto a building with a "gang" because a gossip magazine wrote about them. Fukasaku's disagreements with the producer over the scheduling and tone led to the idea of Kitano doing both direction and starring, complete with freedom to do what he could, complete with doing re-writes on the original script (as done by Hisashi Nozawa, who later took his original script and turned it into a novel). Kitano has been quoted saying that he wanted to show violence as the horrifying thing that it is rather than say, as one to be glamorized or depicted as inevitable. Basically, you get a movie from someone who is making their first steps of a worldview involving bleak surroundings, long takes that leave the viewer in a sort of a stasis for what they are seeing and a generally resigned nature to what will end up on screen in terms of violence that is as swift as it is startling. It might not exactly be a great movie, but it does manage to have enough to make the 103 minutes manage to work in the stone-faced chaos that ensues from people that essentially has no qualms about having no heroes. The violence that comes out from Kitano paired with the middling amount of resistance from the authority around him (consider how he mostly writes apology notes) is there because that's just how the wind blows in "life going on". It isnt exactly the Japanese Dirty Harry, you know. One minute you could be at the theater with a friend and the next minute, a mishap leaves someone splattered onto the floor. You get a chase scene with a bit of jazz poured in to go along with plenty of running for a movie that really could only end one way in the circle of violence. People live, people die, and the cop machine (vice or otherwise) moves on. As a whole, Violent Cop is a shaky but curiously enjoyable experience that is worth seeing further with Kitano as a filmmaker in looking upon violence and the people that inhabit that world. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*You might wonder, hey, is Kinji Fukasaku part of New Directors Month? Surprisingly, he actually has been covered before because he directed Message from Space (1978) that we covered years ago. But there are films one (i.e., me) should probably check out such as Battle Royale (2000) or the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series of films (1973-1976). Incidentally, Kitano ended up working with Fukasaku on Battle Royale.

Slipstream (1989).

Review #2379: Slipstream (1989).

Cast: 

Mark Hamill (Will Tasker), Kitty Aldridge (Belitski), Bill Paxton (Matt Owens), Bob Peck (Byron), Eleanor David (Ariel), with Robbie Coltrane (Montclaire), Ben Kingsley (Avatar), and F. Murray Abraham (Cornelius) Directed by Steven Lisberger (#098 - Tron)

Review:

"It’s hackneyed to say this but I liked SLIPSTREAM because it was character oriented. And so few films can find a balance between character and effects. Great directors like Peter Yates say "I'll show them how to do it properly,’ and KRULL is the result! 1 can’t get excited over WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT for the same reason in terms of its special effects breakthroughs.”

What's in a name? You may or may not wonder just what exactly this movie is, particularly with a poster that bills itself as from the "producer of Star Wars and the director of Tron". Famously, Gary Kurtz had worked with George Lucas on American Graffiti (1973), Star Wars (1977), and The Empire Strikes Back (1980) before he split with Lucas to do his own ventures. He served as co-producer alongside Jim Henson on The Dark Crystal (1982), which was a mild hit with audiences. He got involved for a time in producing the American production side of trying to make a film of Little Nemo in Slumberland that he left after it went nowhere, but Kurtz served as an executive producer with Return to Oz (1985), a movie considered a flop at the time*. And then there was this movie. Apparently, the original script was written by Charles Edward Pogue in the wake of the success of Mad Max (1979). Kurtz liked the basic idea but found it "far too violent" and "heavily exploitation oriented". Enter Steven Lisberger. Fresh off Animalympics, a sports comedy TV movie that spoofed the Olympics but with animals that came out in 1980, Lisberger followed that with Tron (1982), an idea he had developed for years. The movie received better notices in the years to come, and Lisberger would return to direct five years later with Hot Pursuit (1987), a movie that came and went with, well, some money made? He was hired in Autumn of 1987 to help reshape the script, which he described as: "based on an outline from another producer’s ramblings back in the early ’80s. Pogue worked from a Huckleberry Finn travelogue base—a 14-year-old’s encounter with an android as he journeyed in the future, a coming-of-age saga mixed with sci-fi. But Mark Twain’s brand of narrative sarcasm was missing.” Lisberger called it in simple terms as "a futuristic western". Tony Kayden was hired to shore up the script and apparently had issues getting the script through the demands of both producers and Kurtz, who seemed to tussle over what they wanted in the script. Apparently, the movie was supposed to be more violent to help make the movie more coherent, but these scenes were not shot. Bill Bauer was credited for "based on story material" while Pogue either asked for or did not receive credit. Made for a budget of $15 million for "Entertainment Film" in February 1989...no one saw the movie. It received a brief release in the United Kingdom and Australia while managing the dubious distinction of having name actors for a movie that never was released in the USA and leading Kurtz to apparently go bankrupt; he produced two other movies in his lifetime that are even more obscure than this one. Lisberger has never directed another movie since this one (but you can read scripts of his on the Internet), which you can apparently find anywhere on the Web, along with a "making of video".**

Let's be real here: This is not a cult movie. There is no trumpeting for this movie to be re-discovered as some sort of sneaky good movie or one that has scenes worth looking into again. This is the kind of movie you find at the bottom of the barrel with nothing better to do that just happens to have a couple of familiar names involved...and man, that is sad. Really sad. The biggest sin of this movie is that for all the tropes the movie aims for as a wannabee sci-fi movie that might as well have cribbed elements of the Western while they are churning in desperation...it is boring. Sure, there are bits and pieces that are interesting to see in its execution (good or bad), but as a whole, there is not enough here to make one want to see it again or even show it to others. It died a quiet death in theaters because nobody could justify saying more than 50 words on why you would want to show it to a group of people. Lisberger can say the movie grows complex with the whole "android goes to Christ figure" thing, but it seems to be more a movie that you would only like if you have never seen a plane in your life. Slipstream doesn't even sound like a sci-fi title, it sounds like a name you would reject for a minor league team. The territory never feels tough enough to justify the tension, and you might as well call it a precursor to a bigger budgeted flop of the future in wannabee post apocalyptic films such as Waterworld. 

Now, let's get this out of the way: I like Bill Paxton, he was a good character presence in a handful of movies people love now and then...he gets the short stick here. Sure, it is nice to see his attempts at charm in a role that might as well have been ripped out of the dime-store Han Solo / Jack Burton playbook, but there is not nearly enough here to justify the eventual road set out by the climax. It just isn't as involving as it sounds to follow him in a movie that yearns to be a road movie but meanders. Feasible or not, it just seems like the role was meant for someone younger, but then maybe I just have, say, A Boy and His Dog on the mind. Peck was actually best known for his work in television such as Edge of Darkness (1985). And to be fair, his performance here is fairly interesting enough to make things watchable beyond just calling it a wannabee wanderer type. There are flashes of curiosity and yearning for someone who is adrift and, well, the movie really does have you thinking he is an android before it wants too. At least you can say Hamill tried. Hell, he apparently believed that if the movie was a hit, he could use it to play a Bond villain rather than doing stuff that was basically a take on Luke Skywalker. Ironically, Hamill ended up playing more noted villains in the form of voiceover work than stuff like this, and I can see why: it just isn't an interesting role to chew on. Sure, a good villain can involve folks that believe they are in the right, and we have a self-righteous person that wouldn't be too off from The Searchers, but, well, it just isn't a compelling threat to really watch. Its a pursuit movie where he just shows up and then boom, he's off for a bit. The climax screws him over. One minute he and Peck are in the plane fighting over control of it, then he's trying to quote the works of Byron to, well, the guy mistakenly referred to as Byron, then he seems to be hopeful the plane can make it out of turbulence, and then, boom, he's dead. Hell, Byron I guess is just one of those "explosion-proof androids", so he just moseys on out, as if barely anything's happened. Aldridge and David equally have little to really do to make anyone want to go forward with adventuring, suffice to say; rounding it out, the cameos from Coltrane (and two Academy Award winners with Abraham and Kingsley!) are, well, short and not exactly helpful for a film bereft of actual edge. As a whole, Slipstream aimed to be an adventure, but instead it flounders to the ground with a whimper. You might find something here with the names involved or just groan at the missed opportunities. 

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*Well, if you want to call a movie "too dark", you might need a head check. Hell, they apparently said that (in lighter numbers) with The Dark Crystal, but eh, people like that movie too.

**https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67WdIRsBks8

Sweetie (1989).

Review #2364: Sweetie (1989).

Cast: 

Geneviève Lemon (Dawn / "Sweetie"), Karen Colston (Kay), Tom Lycos (Louis), Jon Darling (Gordon), Dorothy Barry (Flo), Michael Lake (Bob), Andre Pataczek (Clayton), Jean Hadgraft (Mrs. Schneller), and Paul Livingston (Teddy Schneller) Directed by Jane Campion.

Review: 

I suppose I could cover a few more New Zealanders in their vision of filmmaking, so why not Jane Campion? She was born to parents that actually had founded a theater group. She actually studied anthropology in university, but it was her studies with visual arts that helped shape an interest in filmmaking, specifically because she apparently came to a dissatisfaction with the limitations of filmmaking. She directed her first short with Tissues in 1980 and began studying at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and made more short films. Peel (1986) won the Short Film Palme d'Or. The attention that Campion received for her short films got her to develop a feature, one that would be to "do something modern and something that pursued the interests of my own film generation". Choosing to do this over something she came up called "The Piano Lesson", the eventual movie was written by her and Gerald Lee that had its script developed in spurts over three months in 1987. The movie made a bit of money in its native Australia, and Campion obviously was encouraged to make further feature films, with An Angel at My Table (1990) being among the first of her seven subsequent features in her career.

Calling the movie as one that is revolves around family dysfunction is probably a bit too simple to go with, although the name of the movie sure has one thinking of it in their lives. Of course, the thing with these sisters is that one can gleam that really, they could be thought of as two sides of the "nut" coin. But nothing is what it seems on the surface for its 97-minute runtime that can range from curious to meandering, as if there isn't really one total take to peg the movie, although each of its sisters certainly show their own way of being starved of affection and all-around intimacy (there are those who interpret the movie as having dysfunction that really revolves around sexual abuse, but I mostly saw it as a family of people that simply refuse to accept true reality). Lemon and Colston make for a compelling double act when you look at what lurks at these people beyond the physical viewing, mainly because the movie is more about the unsaid than anything, which can lead to a bit of dark amusement (or haunted expression, but it's a give-and-go). Lemon (who had considerable experience in the theater and Australian TV in what was her second film role) plays this creature of wayward pleas and quixotic aims that we can see even in the smallest way in people we might know* to worthwhile conviction that is just as tragic as it is pathetic to see her towering presence. Heck, you see her first with a boyfriend and you barely even notice when he basically disappears from the picture, that's how much she takes the movie and rolls along in chaos that is very raw and yet is one you can see is the cog that gets things moving in the cycle of enabling and rejection. Colston has the tough task of playing a role that is filled with superstitions and hang-ups that come with a relationship that we only see in bits and parts (specifically one goes from the set-up to "months later"). She does fine enough with playing the uptight nature that comes with another side of chasing something that is hard to define in affection (Lycos merely is the normal one, at least for a guy who has a hang-up about a misplaced tree), suffice to say. Darling and Barry sell the key pieces that come with fractured people and misplaced visions that don't lend to easy resolutions. The stories crash in and out in a way that comes and goes for observations that you just have to look for yourselves when it comes to how people really are beyond words and images, which might hurt just as much as it makes for dark amusement. Ultimately, the movie is whatever you want to believe it is about: family drama, black comedy, or voyage into the strangeness that comes with people and isolation. It makes for a curious experiment for a feature debut that might just work for you, whether you know what lurks beneath the surface.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*I had a half-brother who was an annoying drunk and a less tolerable person when "sober". He was a miserable person that at a point in time that could even make a crack about how someone walked in their own house. Things can get better, although it didn't occur like this film where they fell from a tree and died, no, it was slightly funnier.

The Phantom of the Opera (1989).

Review #2291: The Phantom of the Opera.

Cast: 

Robert Englund (Erik Destler, The Phantom of the Opera/Mr. Foster), Jill Schoelen (Christine Day; Nancy Fontana as the singing voice), Alex Hyde-White (Richard Dutton), Bill Nighy (Martin Barton), Stephanie Lawrence (La Carlotta), Molly Shannon (Meg [New York]), Emma Rawson (Meg [London]), Terence Harvey (Inspector Hawkins), Nathan Lewis (Davies), Peter Clapham (Harrison), Yehuda Efroni (The Rat Catcher), and Terence Beesley (Joseph Buquet) Directed by Dwight H. Little (#471 - Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers)

Review: 

The original Phantom of the Opera, if you remember, was originally serialized from 1909 to 1910 by French author Gaston Leroux. The 1925 Universal film is still the most famous adaptation of the novel in film form, even with further renditions in 1943 and 1962 to go along with ones with elements cobbled together (such as say, Phantom of the Paradise [1974]); people have made multiple renditions of turning the novel into a musical, most notably the 1986 attempt by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Really, this popped onto my radar only just this month, much to my amusement. How could I resist the urge to not cover a strange pairing: a rendition of Phantom of the Opera with a few elements of the slasher as played by Robert Englund. You might remember that he became a horror icon with the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and its subsequent sequels. The movie was a production of 21st Century Film Corporation, which at that time had just seen Menahem Golan (from Cannon Films) become its CEO; the credits do indeed call it a Golan production, one made for roughly $4 million. Gerry O'Hara was behind the script of the film in practice, as his original intent was to have it set all in 1881 England. However, Duke Sandefur was brought in to write segments that would be set in the current day that start and end the film. Amusingly, this wasn't even the only film loosely based on the novel released in 1989, as Richard Friedman's slasher Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge came out in the fall of 1989. The Phantom of the Opera was not a big hit with audiences (who barely had less than a month to even see it!). 21st Century had planned to do a follow-up film called "Terror of Manhattan" (hence the Sandefur-penned elements, and somehow the sequel would've set itself in subterrain New York). While that did not come to pass, they apparently re-worked it for Englund to just star in the direct-to-video slasher Dance Macabre (1992).

So, you get a little bit of singing and a killer among the underground of 19th century England. Little and Englund really wanted to make a "saturated color homage" to the Hammer Phantom of the Opera film and ended up with a muddled mess of a movie that really needed polish. It may be cheap, it may be garish, it may honor something from the Hammer films, but it sure isn't enough to be a winner all the way around the corner. That framing device involving the lines of present-day and 1882 London is clunky in pretty much every way you would expect, particularly since the movie somehow this was going to be one of times where people would clamor for sequels. Either go for the present-day or go for 1882, it just doesn't work to try a bit of both. Schoelen just can't carry the film too particularly well (especially since she doesn't even sing anyway). Sure, you probably couldn't remember who starred opposite Lon Chaney in the 1925 film (Mary Philbin), but there just isn't much to really say about her when it comes to distinct mannerisms beyond puppet and "oh, I guess they don't get the guy". To say nothing of Hyde-White and others is not exactly a compliment. Englund is the one highlight because he does manage to evoke considerable curiosity over what his character is meant to be, since it goes for the "sold his soul to the Devil" angle when it comes to disfigurement (i.e. more slasher and less "Romantic"), complete with having to destroy his music. The phantom has a mask made out of flesh that he likes to adjust from time to time, which is probably the one defining feature besides music for this film, aside from attempts at quips and a bit of slasher stuff. But it never really rises above average for 93 minutes because it never seems to actually commit to something worthy enough for us to latch onto. Englund doesn't have much of a cast to really latch onto, and the opera elements don't really latch onto the viewer as a whole. In total, it is thoroughly mediocre in ways that can't quite win with its aims but you might find something worth looking into if one can look beyond the cheap but endearing aspects of it all.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man.

Review #2288: Tetsuo: The Iron Man.

Cast: 

Tomorowo Taguchi (the Salaryman), Kei Fujiwara (the Salaryman's girlfriend), Nobu Kanaoka (Woman in glasses), Shinya Tsukamoto (Young Metal Fetishist), Naomasa Musaka (Doctor), and Renji Ishibashi (Tramp) Written, Produced and Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto.

Review: 

Okay, this might be an odd one to choose when it comes to strange horror choices, what with its aspects of sci-fi and a runtime of just over an hour that doesn't exactly have a straight plot. But if you told someone that it seemed right at home with a David Lynch film, your curiosity is right there for the taking. Shinya Tsukamoto wrote, directed, edited, and co-shot the film. Born in Tokyo, he has cited a variety of influences for being a director that ranged from Akira Kurosawa to David Lynch, and he started shooting his own films at a young age; he also looked up to Gakuryū Ishii (formerly known as Sogo Ishii), who had managed to get his thesis film Crazy Thunder Road sold and released into theaters. He formed his own theatre group that included a few actors that would appear in Tetsuo, which became his debut feature after years spent in advertising, in an attempt to get access to film equipment by directing commercials. The production was rough enough that only Tsukamoto and Taguchi ended up making it to the end of shooting. Since this film, Tsukamoto has continued to direct (along with act in) his own films for over three decades. In 1992, he directed Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, which is considered more a companion piece to the original. Tetsuo: The Bullet Man was released in 2009.

The human body and the city might not seem like an interesting theme for a horror film until you realize what you are in for with a movie that has a robot penis and clanging noise that batters one's senses at times that might remind one of say, Eraserhead (1977). It basically is a horror film of the mind that literally rips right into you with the metal representing the claws of life that just beat you down into the ground until only a puddle of flesh is left to writhe and squirm. It is essentially a movie that is ripped into a time different from our own that might as well be decades forward and behind what we think films are. People come, people go, but metal (in this case, scrap metal and small electronic appliance parts) is forever. Visceral and kinetic in the most hellish of ways, one can't look away at what they see in crisp black-and-white photography that goes right in with the occasional stop-motion use. It sure as hell isn't for everyone (paying attention helps but be ready), but you really have to see it to believe yourself when it comes to a dream that basically grinds and moans at you. For all of the things you can say about it being, say, ultra-violent, more can be wondered aloud about just what it means to see a life go by the wayside. You really do have to just go with the flow with this film, which doesn't have too much dialogue in the first place; you might say the actors are playing it to heights that come in crazed horror (this is to say about on point for a film made on a stealthy budget where the art is the goal). The way to get people to wake up about the chaos of modern life is to essentially shake at them, you might say. As a whole, it manages to have plenty of curiosity in the horrific realities of metal and flesh running hell on each other. As a debut feature, it serves as damn good way to make an impression on the curious in distinct filmmaking that assaults the senses in the most determined of ways.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Meet the Feebles.

Review #2259: Meet the Feebles.

Cast: 

Donna Akersten (Lucille the Dog / Samantha the Cat / Dorothy the Sheep / Female Rabbit #1 / Chorus Girl #2 / Fitness Tape Voice), Stuart Devenie (Sebastian the Fox / Daisy the Cow / Sandy the Chicken / Cedric the Warthog / Eight Ball the Frog / Seymour the Elechicken / Female Rabbit #2 / Chorus Girl #1), Mark Hadlow (Robert the Hedgehog / Heidi the Hippo / Barry the Bulldog / Chorus Girl #3), Ross Jolly (Harry the Rabbit / Dennis the Aardvark / Abi Bargwan the Contortionist / Mr. Big the Whale / Pekingese / Crab 2 / Vietnamese Gophers 2), Peter Vere-Jones (Bletch the Walrus / Arthur the Worm / The Baker / Newspaper Mouse / The Announcer), Brian Sergent (Wynyard the Frog / Trevor the Rat / F. W. Fly the Fly / Dr. Quack the Duck / Jim the Frog / Chuck the Frog / The Spider / Vietnamese Gophers), and Mark Wright (Sid the Elephant / The Masked Masochist / Louie the Dog / Guppy the Fish / Poodle / Snake bartender / Crab 1 / Chorus Girl #4) Directed by Peter Jackson (#1486 - Bad Taste, #1507 - Heavenly Creatures, #1540 - King Kong [2005])

Review: 

"You know, I do want to make the sort of films I like watching, so what I had to try and do with the Feebles is make the sort of puppet film that I would like to watch. That if I had to go down and watch a puppet film for an hour-and-a-half - what would I like to see?"

It is very strange to be so interested in the early years of a director rather than the stuff they are best known for. And yet, here we are with Peter Jackson, who had made five feature films in his native New Zealand prior to being hired for some sort of "Lord of the Rings" adaptation. If you thought Bad Taste (1987) was a weird little film, well, here's a fun curveball for you. The movie evolved from being thought of as something that could be its own little TV series into feature-length because of potential interest from Japanese investors; funding also came from the New Zealand Film Commission, although they were not particularly big on the film by the end to where they didn't even put themselves on the credits. The film was written by Peter Jackson. Danny Mulheron, Fran Walsh, and Stephen Sinclair. All the dialogue tracks were recorded prior to shooting, with Jackson personally being the one operating the camera. There were a handful of people responsible for the puppeteering, such as Mulheron also serving as the in-suit performer for Heidi the Hippo to with supervision of the puppeteering by Jonathon Acorn and Ramon Aguilar (for more clarification on how they did the puppet-work, one could click here or here). While it wasn't a big hit with audiences (making less than half of its reported $750,000 budget), it eventually attracted a cult following; the next film Jackson got to make was with Braindead (1992), which actually was planned to be done after Bad Taste but was postponed because of funding stepped out at the last second. The film later served as an inspiration for the script of another puppet-related film with The Happytime Murders (2018).

I'm sure you know the story: a behind-the-scenes look at a variety theatre troupe ready to put on a show who are wracked with affairs, drug-pushing, pornographic filmmaking, and more....it just happens to involve puppets. So yes, it is a bit off the road from something like The Muppet Show. It is delightfully vile in the ways that appeal greatly to my interests when it comes to executing amusement from committed voices and gags that are hit-and-miss in the nicest of ways. Oh sure, there are moments that are totally ridiculous to go along with a few slow moments, and I do get why some folks (read: the ones who aren't wimpy about gross stuff by default) won't be big on it, but I found it to be a pretty good 97 minutes to spend some time in the grime of it all. It throws the whole wall of cliches you could find in a backstage film about show business and runs with it, whether that involves a star potentially dying of a disease trying to go on (the punchline is one to run for), a guy trying to do his act while wracked with PTSD (complete with a homage to The Deer Hunter!), a somewhat there love story, and to top it all off, efforts to get a song into the show...about sodomy. Well, that and what you might see on the cover involving a gun, but the less said, the better. It probably goes without saying that the voices are pretty good for making an atmosphere of plenty come out through just a handful of people, particularly with Hadlow, who gets to play a melodramatic hippo and a cliche-bland hedgehog all in one. Sergent probably gets the best stuff to do, since the fly he voices cracks me up each time with its craven sound that goes right in with a do-anything journalist, and to say nothing of the Peter Lorre impersonation with a pervert rat, that is pretty silly. In general, calling it crude doesn't even feel like a critique, because it might as well be a badge of honor to make such a ridiculous movie work so well in terms of mayhem and the occasional effective gag. Jackson did not stumble much for his second film effort here, and I salute having made time to see it for myself, and if you are fine with a hodgepodge of weird humor here and there, you might be for it too.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Exit stage right and enter the world of October.

The Return of the Musketeers.

Review #2200: The Return of the Musketeers.

Cast: 

Michael York (d'Artagnan), Oliver Reed (Athos), Frank Finlay (Porthos), Richard Chamberlain (Aramis), C. Thomas Howell (Raoul), Geraldine Chaplin (Anne of Austria), Kim Cattrall (Justine de Winter), Philippe Noiret (Cardinal Mazarin), Christopher Lee (the Comte de Rochefort), Roy Kinnear (Planchet), Eusebio Lázaro (the Duke of Beaufort), Jean-Pierre Cassel (Cyrano de Bergerac), Alan Howard (Oliver Cromwell), David Birkin (Louis XIV), and Bill Paterson (Charles I) Directed by Richard Lester (#541 - A Hard Day's Night, #594 - A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, #785 - Superman II, #786 - Superman III, #972 - The Three Musketeers, #976 - The Four Musketeers, and #1939 - Help!)

Review: 

“I really won’t talk about The Return of the Musketeers, I never have and I won’t now. But I think you can draw your own conclusions.”

On April 19, 1989, The Return of the Musketeers was released into European theaters. Let us refresh ourselves by going back a few years. In 1844, the adventure novel The Three Musketeers [Les Trois Mousquetaires] was first serialized, as written by Alexandre Dumas and his collaborator Auguste Maquet, which was the first of three Musketeer novels between 1844 and 1847 (Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later); Dumas had been inspired by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras and his memoirs of Charles de Batz de Castelmore d'Artagnan, an actual captain of the Musketeers of the Guard in the 1600s. Films have been done of the Musketeers since the early days of film, albeit mostly of the first book. At any rate, the Salkinds (Alexander and Ilya) had an initial idea of getting the Beatles to play the roles of the Musketeers for a film. Years went by (and, well, no Beatles to play the roles) before the Salkinds asked Richard Lester to do the film, who had not directed a film since The Bed Sitting Room (1969); noted novelist George MacDonald Fraser was hired to do the script. The Three Musketeers (1973) was filmed so heavily, that, well, clearly the Salkinds thought to pull a quick one and eventually tell the actors of the impending The Four Musketeers (1974) rather than having to strain hard to make one long film. So, now in 1989, was a return for Lester after his previous film had been Finders Keepers (1984). The Salkinds were not behind the production (in fact, they wouldn't let any old footage be used here), but Pierre Spengler, a producer involved with the previous two films, was there to produce this one; Fraser returned to do the script and a handful of cast members from the previous two films were there (even William Hobbs, who was behind the stage combat for the previous two films, returned). Lester has not been particularly keen on talking about the film too much in the 35 years since the release of this film, one that was both a trying production along with one that did not even get a proper American release (it was put on cable in 1991 for the States). Lester did one more project as a director with the 1991 concert film Get Back before essentially retiring (this was also the last screenplay written by Fraser).

The nature of Twenty Years Later basically entails that you won't really see all of the core of York, Reed, Finlay, and Chamberlain at once (the latter is credited as "special appearance by") all together at once. In fact, this was the last film to feature Kinnear, also returning from the previous two films (alongside Lee, Chaplin, and Cassel). On September 19, 1988, he suffered a horrific accident while on a horse that saw him fall off that saw him fracture his pelvis (while also having internal bleeding). The next day, he died from a heart attack while in the hospital. As such, seeing what a mix of him alongside stand-in shots (and a soundalike in parts) will probably be a bit jarring. The whole film is a jumble when it all comes down to assessment, but I would venture to say that a decent romp of yesteryear is more ideal to sit through once than not at all. They may be aged and may not be as big in star power as they were fifteen years ago, but it is hard to resist the qualities that come through most in York (if someone is compelled to do a voiceover, might as well be him) and Reed (when he is on, he is right there...), although at least Howell and Cattrall make for adequate newcomers to the smile game of adventure (one can't match Faye Dunaway exactly, but Cattrall at least seems to to be having fun trying). Finlay may be tired, but at least he has bits and pieces to contribute that go further than the "here is a scene there and here is one for the climax because I can" of Chamberlain or particularly Chaplin (you might say Lee is all too brief, but we* adore Lee being there at all). I particularly like the sequence involving a litany of traps within a rough-and-tumble fight that sees it go all the way to the foundation (literally). The clash of trying to play faithfulness to the source material goes to a point (for one thing, the threat was actually de Winter's illegitimate son, but even if this was a hit, would you have expected, say, another of these films where the Musketeers all die?), because there are moments where the strain of trying to keep up with its structure makes it nearly crash into pieces. As a whole, the 102-minute runtime makes for a fairly sustainable feature that deserved better than to be shuffled away as just a lower-release film or Lester's last hurrah, if only because there is something worth seeing with that spark of familiar wonder and chuckles. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*"we" being me, myself, and I

Wired.

Review #2145: Wired.

Cast: 

Michael Chiklis (John Belushi), Ray Sharkey (Angel Velasquez), J. T. Walsh (Bob Woodward), Patti D'Arbanville (Cathy Smith), Lucinda Jenney (Judy Belushi), Alex Rocco (Arnie Fromson), Gary Groomes (Dan Aykroyd), Jere Burns (Lou Connors), and Clyde Kusatsu (Coroner) Directed by Larry Peerce.

Review: 

Why don't we get this out of the way early: the 1984 book that the film is based on is pretty much thought to be a load of crap. The story goes that Bob Woodward was approached to write a biography of John Belushi because he happened to be raised in Wheaton, Illinois, the same place that Belushi had been raised in. Several people were interviewed for the book such as Judith Belushi Pisano, Dan Aykroyd, and James Belushi, but the end result was thought by several friends and associates of Belushi to be exploitative, particularly since a handful of the anecdotes are presented with little to no context (for example, a moment of Belushi being nervous about doing a love scene that saw him stall by coming up with various funny names for a certain body part is written by Woodward as just being an "inappropriate prelude"). Fun fact: this is the only Woodward book that doesn't involve political figures in any shape or form. Pisano wrote her own book about her life with Belushi in 1990 called Samurai Widow and then co-wrote the biography Belushi: A Biography with Tanner Colby in 2005. Anyway, back to the garbage process of novel-to-film. Woodward wanted to sell the rights to the book for film as fast as 1984 but apparently ran into trouble because he claimed nobody in Hollywood wanted to do it because it had "too much truth in it." Years later, Edward S. Feldman and Charles R. Meeker bought the rights for roughly $300,000 before putting money into funding the project to go with a New Zealand conglomerate named Lion Nathan. Woodward served as a technical advisor behind the scenes while Earl Mac Rauch wrote the screenplay in his fourth and final screenplay, with the most noted one probably being his adaptation of his 1984 novel Buckaroo Banzai. The film was directed by Larry Peerce, who directed a handful of television and features, whether that was Goodbye, Columbus (1969) or a handful of historical works such as Elvis and Me (1988, TV) or A Woman Named Jackie (1991, TV). This is currently the last feature film directed by Peerce.

The film has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray, and the only way one could see the film on home media was a videocassette was released by International Video Entertainment. Whether you could consider me lucky or demented, I did find a bootleg copy on the Internet to view this film that looks, well, let's just say that when Plan 9 from Outer Space has been given more attention for detailing, you really made a bad movie. For a film that was made for $13 million, the box office returns in its release (which took a year from finishing production due to lack of interest from distributors, which may have been influenced by a certain agent in the Creative Artists Agency) was monumentally terrible and incredibly predictable. I suppose Dan Aykroyd really did put a curse on the film. For 112 minutes, you get a film that is incredibly terrible in all the ways that matter most, because it honestly feels like someone thought they were being really clever in trying to make a "surreal" sort of biopic without understanding anything that made the subject matter interesting to begin with. Never does one hear about Belushi's work for The National Lampoon Radio Hour. Never does one really see how Belushi met Aykroyd (the film just shows them together just like that). Never does one really get a feel that Belushi had that many friends to begin with (Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, just to drop a few). Chiklis apparently went through dozens of auditions before being cast, and he really thought this would be a big thing for him. Instead, he had to deal with questions of "am I going to not find work after this?" The fact that he actually went to Jim Belushi years later to apologize speaks volumes about just where all things rest when it comes to regrets and ideas. At least Chiklis managed to eventually carve a career out of the ashes, which included lead roles in TV such as The Commish and The Shield (the former saw him play a character ten years older than he really was).  It's easy to say he has the best performance of the film, but it really isn't that good to begin with. It has that strange cadence that seems a bit too puffed in scenes that should have emotional weight and also seems a bit too out-of-depth when it comes to the "sketch recreations". But when you are paired with such vaunted efforts like a guardian angel character played by Sharkey (best known for TV's Wiseguy), the bar is low because no one pulls in a useful performance. I can't fathom going with a guardian angel angle for a biopic that was made by someone who probably thought a mugging was needed for It's a Wonderful Life. Sharkey has no range to do anything with this role beyond the obvious. Walsh meanders through the film asking questions that make a curious experiment to see someone play the author of the book that is being adapted when one knows the book reeks of slime. I can't tell who comes off worse, Walsh or Bernstein (the irony is that because he was in this film, Aykroyd got Walsh fired from Loose Cannons (1990), a movie with its own odious reputation). The movie is flat in every way even when it comes to its attempts at an anti-drug angle, and this is a movie that features Belushi rise from the morgue table to go along with another scene of people trying to fit the casket into a plane and failing. This is cinematic excrement, one that fails at telling a story of its subject in any sort of coherent matter. The tragedy of John Belushi is that he was covered for a book and film that didn't treat him or the people around him with any sort of respect, and time has only made the film and novel relegated into the obscure-bin where it belongs.

Overall, I give it 1 out of 10 stars.

Next: Breen awaits.

Born on the Fourth of July.

Review #2031: Born on the Fourth of July.

Cast: 

Tom Cruise (Sergeant Ron Kovic; Bryan Larkin as Young Ron), Willem Dafoe (Charlie), Kyra Sedgwick (Donna; Jessica Prunell as Young Donna), Raymond J. Barry (Mr. Kovic), Jerry Levine (Steve Boyer), Frank Whaley (Timmy), Caroline Kava (Mrs. Kovic), Cordelia Gonzalez (Maria Elena - Villa Dulce), Ed Lauter (Legion Commander), John Getz (Marine Major - Vietnam), Beau Starr (Man #2 - Arthur's Bar), and Michael Wincott (Vet #3 - Villa Dulce) Directed by Oliver Stone (#095 - Wall Street, #1090 - Platoon, #1265 - Natural Born Killers, #1523 - Any Given Sunday, and #1595 - Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps)

Review: 

“I’m puzzled by life, horrified by the daily newspaper. The only sane response is re-creation, drama . . . an ordered series of events that arouse pity and terror, to paraphrase Aristotle. Making movies is my way of exorcising demons, of creating an ethos, a philosophy of life. I’d go crazy without fantasy.”

Every so often, I am reminded that my father was a war veteran. I don't have many memories of him talking about his service in Vietnam, aside from once seeing his dog tags and remembering his burial a couple of years ago at a cemetery for veterans. But men are not defined only by if they served for their country or not, they are served by who they are for those who end up alive to talk about it. One such man who found meaning in the (difficult) time that came after his service was Ron Kovic. After he graduated from Massapequa High School in New York (where he was raised to a family of Croatian & Irish ancestry), he quickly volunteered to serve in Vietnam in 1965. He was a member of the United States Marines, for which he made two tours of duty. It was on January 20, 1968, that he was shot and severely wounded that resulted in him being paralyzed from the waist down. After intensive recovery led to his arrival back home, Kovic found curiosity within peace demonstrations, starting in 1970. This happened not long after the events of May 1970 that had seen numerous student protests in universities such as Kent State University and Jackson State University, for which each saw anti-war demonstrators killed (the former by Ohio National Guard, the latter by local patrolmen). Kovic wrote Born on the Fourth of July in the span of over a month in 1974 that was published in 1976 that he stated was written to show people about the "hospitals and the enema room, about why I had become opposed to the war, why I had grown more and more committed to peace and nonviolence." Not long after, Kovic gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention, four years after him and other members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War had protested the Republican Convention (the war did not end until 1975). Even now, with his 77th birthday, Kovic serves as a constant anti-war presence. Cruise, Stone, and Kovic were each nominated for Academy Awards that year for this film (Best Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Picture), with Stone winning for his efforts in direction (don't ask who won Best Picture). Stone would do one further film in what was later called his trilogy of Vietnam War films with Heaven & Earth (1993).

Relating to all of this is the production struggle to get things moving, as there had been interest in doing a film from the very moment Kovic spoke at the DNC, specifically Al Pacino. Oliver Stone, who had served in the United States Army with service from 1967-68, was brought in to try and write for the screenplay in 1977. Incidentally, Kovic served as a consultant on Coming Home (1978), a film involving a disillusioned Vietnam War veteran left in a wheelchair. It was not until the success of Platoon (1986) that Stone could get the chance to write (alongside Kovic) and direct this film. With Platoon, one would find that it argued most that the first casualty in war was innocence. With this film, now one finds how it goes for those who have arrived home after said innocence was lost, not to a hero's welcome but a state of indifference. The illusion of going off to a just war to fight for your country has been shattered into one of unimaginable agony, one where a love of country is warped by some into the idea that they somehow don't love it just because they want to speak up (of course, there are many perspectives when it comes to returning home from war that would shudder at folks who seem to toil in "self-pity" or other characteristics, but that is a different can of worms). As Kovic once said, you aren't meant to avoid conflict and pain in life but instead shape it into something beneficial. So, one minute you may be on the side of wanting to yell folks to "love it or leave it" and the next you may find yourself looking along with Abbie Hoffman (he appears in the film for a moment in a film released months after his suicide at the age of 52). This is conveyed in a mostly factual tale (the character played by Sedgwick is a composite, for example) that is carried near wholesale by the performance of Cruise. The 145-minute runtime is his to carry alone in the odyssey from idealism to the road back from hell, one that requires an actor who can convey the gravity of the situation, and he does a tremendous job here, never striking a false note in those human moments. The burrowing of idealism is handled with honesty with such commitment that Kovic gave Cruise his Bronze Star Medal after filming. The rest of the cast do reasonably well in support from the bits and pieces that arise from before and after time of war, whether that involves protest in Sedgwick or familiarity with Whaley and vulnerable parenting in Barry and Kava. Dafoe actually doesn't show up in the film until the last third of the film (set in Mexico with prostitutes), but he is on point in those moments of animus that only he could bring in a scene where he and Cruise are bickering on a dirt road. As a whole, the movie is a general triumph in communicating what it means to see a person go through the fight of their lives in terms of withering innocence and conscience for what it all means when back home and not "out there". There is no one solution fit for all, but a level of understanding for who one is a virtue that all people can see as worthwhile, American or not. As such, it is a tough sit for audiences in the ways that matter, thanks to the efforts of Cruise, Stone & Kovic.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Happy Independence Day, folks.

Jesus of Montreal.

Review #2028: Jesus of Montreal.

Cast: 

Lothaire Bluteau (Daniel Coulombe), Catherine Wilkening (Mireille), Johanne-Marie Tremblay (Constance), Rémy Girard (Martin), Robert Lepage (Rene), Gilles Pelletier (Father Leclerc), Roy Dupuis (Marcel Brochu), Yves Jacques (Richard Cardinal), Cédric Noël (Pascal Berger), and Denys Arcand (The Judge) Written and Directed by Denys Arcand.

Review: 

Here we are on another Canada Day, 10 years to the day of an offbeat decision by Movie Night (read: me) to review films that touched upon the spirit of Canada on the occasion of the nation's most significant holiday. Although I have not done a film review on the day for each of the past ten years, I find it to be an interesting experience to see just what the folks north of the border have to offer in cinema, no matter what province or language that involves. Enjoy.

"You can't live with Jesus's principles today and expect to come out alive. Something horrible would happen to him, like it did 2,000 years ago." - Denys Arcand.

I am not religious, but I do know there is one key thing to remember when it comes to films: if you are having some sort of fun while seeing it, that is all that matters in the end. Denys Arcand was born in Deschambault in Quebec to a devout Roman Catholic family whose mother was once a Carmelite nun. He studied at the Université de Montréal in history and was interested in filmmaking. While in school in 1962, he collaborated with Denis Héroux and Stéphane Venne on a docufiction film with Alone or with Others, which notably had future Direct Cinema pioneer Michel Brault as cinematographer. Despite this, he did not initially believe he would make a living doing so in Canada, owing to the National Film Board of Canada not really hiring at the time of the 1960s. However, he happened to have luck on his side when he tried applying for a summer job and found the NFB needed work on a series on the history of the country for schools. This included such material such as Cotton Mill, Treadmill, a documentary about the conditions of workers in the textile industry in Quebec that was so controversial that it was delayed from its filming in 1970 for release only in 1976 (it wasn't even kept clean, but the uncut version does exist in boxset form now). At any rate, Réjeanne Padovani (1973), his second feature and first as both writer and director, ended up being screened at the Cannes Film Festival that he called an early thrill. However, the next decade would see him struggle to get films onto the screen the way he wanted, which saw him do one feature, a couple of documentaries, a TV series, and a unique venture with The Crime of Ovide Plouffe (1984) that involved it being connected with a TV miniseries that was released two years after the film. However, it was his next film with the sex comedy-drama The Decline of the American Empire (1986) that made his biggest impact. He used the 1980 Quebec referendum and My Dinner with Andre (1981) as inspiration, which resulted in the then-biggest hit in Quebec history that included a nomination for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and a sequel with The Barbarian Invasions in 2003.

Jesus of Montreal (known in French as Jésus de Montréal) had probably the most interesting timing to come out, as it was released one year after The Last Temptation of Christ, a controversial film in its own right involving, well, you know. At the time of filming, Arcand described himself as an atheist, one who left religion and discovered sex and drugs at 15 but also noted that the teachings would stay with him for his life. The basis for the film came with auditions from his previous film, which saw one actor come to read while apologizing for his beard due to being playing Jesus in a "Passion Play". Arcand seems to feel that in the thousands of years since the Biblical times, one really has only learned that the story of the Passion is a "metaphor of an artist and his struggles and temptations". Like in the film, Arcand underwent research within Christ and scholars that found that a great deal of mystery still existed within (as such, the debate in the historical and theological sense about Jesus is reflected within the play, which even features the a noted soliloquy from Hamlet). As such, what we have here is a fascinating satire, because the argument that is presented here comes from what happens when the New Testament really does become a matter of art imitating life. As such, the characters become one with numerous figures, such as with Bluteau's character seemingly becoming Jesus (Girard's character, a parallel to Saint Peter, is playing an actor recruited while being seen doing recording for a pornographic film, for example). With a runtime of 118 minutes (with a primary language of French with small bits of English), it makes a curious film to view in the lens of both spirituality and within humanity. It posits that if there was a man like Jesus here on the Earth now, they would likely find hypocrisy within the ranks of religious teaching and oppressors just as one had found before. Overall, one finds a journey that goes from recruiting apostles (actors) to the ultimate act of a redeemer. Bluteau proves to be an excellent figure to capture the essence of one who may very well have become more than just a child of God, one who thinks that there has to be more to life than just quietly waiting for death, and he exudes an earthy confidence to make it matter more than just being a subdued allegory. Far from blasphemy, he really does make for a spiritual center to cross everything together as a man who die for one's sins, whether that involves artistic integrity or something more. Wilkening and Tremblay make up the two sides of allegory of Mary (one being Magdalene and the other being the "Mother of Jesus"). They arise from the recruitment of Bluteau for actors of all walks of life to be in a revised "Passion Play", and they are each effective here, most significantly with Wilkening and her knowing qualities that are apparent from her first scenes spent finding why doing the play is far more important than being gawked at for a commercial. Girard and Lepage make for entertaining pieces as the other key part of the apostle actors recruited to deal with the teachings beyond just playing bits for relief (the latter is found narrating about the vastness of space and where life will be in millions of years...with a script that is said later to be valid today but possibly change later). Pelletier may be the Judas figure, but all he really is a man trapped between the line of where he wants to rest within religion (in authorities vs. reason), which is more than can be said for Jacques, who is basically thought to be a corporate Devil. As a whole, no matter how much one is into religion, there will be something for everyone within this film in how it establishes just what matters most in a world where hope is thought to be the most irrational and unyielding of emotions that makes life bearable when you search for a path to salvation, and this works well as film of both the theater and theology, so take that for what it is worth.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Tongues Untied.

Review #1977: Tongues Untied.

Cast: 

Featuring Marlon T. Riggs, Essex Hemphill, Brian Freeman, among others. Directed and Produced by Marlon Riggs.

Review: 

"Tongues, for me, was a catharsis. It was a release of a lot of decades-old, pent-up emotion, rage, guilt, feelings of impotence in the face of some of my experiences as a youth. So in that sense, the documentary was therapy for me."

The story of Marlon Riggs, much like the films he made, should not be forgotten. He was born in Fort Worth, Texas but the nature of his family (civilian employees of the military) meant that he moved around for a good deal of his childhood, living in both Texas and Georgia; his family moved to West Germany when Riggs was 11, where he would live until he moved back to the States to attend college. He attended Harvard University with study in history and graduated with honors; it was here where he realized his sexuality as a gay man and also found his calling in filmmaking through the study of history in American racism and homophobia. He found a partner in Jack Vincent in Oakland, who he lived with to the day he died. He studied further at University of California, Berkeley in journalism and documentary film within graduate school. After that, he became a film assistant, editor, and/or post-production supervisor on indie documentary productions. His first professional documentary as a director came with Ethnic Notions in 1987, which aired on numerous public television stations that dealt with memorabilia involving black stereotypes. In late 1988, Riggs was told that he was HIV-positive after he had suffered kidney failure. Along with a couple of short films, Riggs directed two further feature-length documentaries after Tongues Untied with Color Adjustment (aired in 1992 which dealt with prime-time TV entertainment in terms of representation of African Americans) and Black is... Black Ain't (aired in 1995 that aimed to show the comprehensive commentary of the Black experience by showing its diversity beyond saying what it means "to be Black). Riggs died in 1994 at the age of 37 from AIDS.

The movie is a way for people like Riggs to let go, one to express the emotions felt about how they view themselves in the community of being both Black and gay, which for him was rage at the treatment that he called "as a pariah". For Riggs, what matters most in terms of revolutionary acts is learning to love oneself and others. Within a runtime of roughly 55 minutes, it includes poetry along with plenty to say about identity with Riggs leading the way as one of the various voices seen in the film. Of course, what is also remembered about the film is the controversy that came after it had made its run on the festival circuit. It was scheduled to be shown on PBS on the television series POV. Both the show and the film had received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts (in the case of Riggs, it came from a Regional Arts Fund that was funded by the NEA). The film received scrutiny from exactly who you would think would complain in the name of family values (in my opinion, when people like Pat Buchanan are leading the charge, its a clear sign to probably align with the opposing opinion; incidentally, he made an political ad about "values" by illegally using footage from the film). It is a time capsule movie, one that is still relevant to the very nature of identity and breaking the silences that may never go away among us. There were various writers for the film alongside Riggs, such as Donald Woods, Alan Miller, Steve Langely, Reginald Jackson, Essex Hemphill, Chris Harris, and Joseph Beam. The movie is candid in both somber and warm words about being someone that loves the touch of someone that is the same sex as they are that cannot stand oppression of any kind, whether that involves members of the gay community or Black folk. It presents this through various little stories such as the presentation of one's experiences growing up being hated by both blacks and whites (with various slurs recited). There are many words one could use to describe the film, but it is never boring in its singular pursuit of showing one particular way of life in all of its bare truths to realize just how much identity means to them without becoming a leap of lethargic loquaciousness. In the end, the legacy of the film is one to consider for all films: what it leaves behind for us to think and care about. Three decades have not softened the release of pent-up emotion that came with this film, which is a fascinating documentary in perspective and release in emotion.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: New Jack City. 

Interrogation.

Review #1958: Interrogation.

Cast: 

Krystyna Janda (Antonina 'Tonia' Dziwisz), Adam Ferency (Lieutenant Tadeusz Morawski), Janusz Gajos (Major Zawada "Kapielowy"), Agnieszka Holland (Communist Witkowska), Anna Romantowska (Miroslawa "Mira" Szejnert), Bożena Dykiel (Honorata), and Olgierd Łukaszewicz (Konstanty Dziwisz) Directed by Ryszard Bugajski.

Review: 

"Studying philosophy provided me with many useful skills: it taught me logical thinking and rigorous discipline. When I write a script or when I work on set I still have the habits of a disciplined philosophy student."

Every so often, I have to remember that films aren't always made in a vacuum in terms of being made and released as quickly as possible. There are films that have odd release years just as much as the moon revolves around the Earth. Various countries had "New Waves", Poland had a "Cinema of moral anxiety", which basically portrayed the crisis that came with Communist Poland. So yes, it was time to do a film that could not easily find release in the Polish People's Republic until right before the end of its era as a satellite state of the Soviet Union in 1989. Anyway, let's start at the beginning. In 1972, Poland asked Andrzej Wajda, a noted director at the time (The Promised Land (1975) and The Maids of Wilko (1979), for example), to serve as artistic director for a film studio in the country (as was the idea for esteemed directors of the time in the country). Beginning on December 13, 1981, the government of the Polish People's Republic installed martial law, which lasted for over 19 months, which saw the arrest of thousands of activists dedicated to fighting the oppressive Communist state.  Zespół Filmowy X would end up making a handful of films for a decade until its closure in 1983, when the country shut down the studio due to their political positions that manifested in their films. One of those films was Przesłuchanie (Interrogation), which was a film about false imprisonment under the Stalinist era (which lasted until 1956, three years after Stalin died) of the Republic. Filmed in 1981 for release in 1982, the original version had included scenes set in contemporary times and dealt with a general statement about the past regime that seemed to the Ministry Arts and Culture to tie into the current regime. Almost lost in the discussion is the director responsible for the film in Ryszard Bugajski, who co-wrote it with Janusz Dymek. He was born in Warsaw in 1943, a year before an uprising began in the city that saw countless people die. His family was slated to die by firing squad, but a bomb fell before the wall where they were lined up that saw the firing squad die instead. They lived in Choszczowka as a hiding place until the end of the war. He had numerous interests leading up to him graduating high school, such as his first interest in being a musician, but he also dabbled in drawing, painting, and writer. He even attended Warsaw University with the intent of studying philosophy. However, when he accidentally went to the movie theater (in his words) and saw 8½, he realized that he wanted to become a filmmaker. Three years of philosophy was now right down the tube as he tried to apply for film school; he first attended Lodz Film School in 1969. A couple of television shorts followed before he directed his first feature with Kobieta i kobieta (1979), but more important to the discussion is how he kept Interrogation alive. When the film was rejected, he made a 35mm copy and hid it from the authorities while later making video copies to distribute underground, which would see private screenings in basements for years. He moved from Poland to Canada in 1985 and worked in film and television before returning to the country in 1995, six years after the film was granted release when the country experienced revolution in 1989 in ways similar to the other satellite states of the Soviet Union. A director of a number of films and television, he died at the age of 76 in 2019.

Janda cited the lives of two women in Tonia Lechmann and Wanda Podgórska as the inspiration for the story in the film, with the latter having spent six years in prison and serving as consultant to Janda on the film. She told her what would make sense in the do's and don'ts in terms of impudence and playfulness that could still be tolerated. The result is a film that will work best for those who know exactly what they are looking for in terms of harrowing experience, one that maintains 118 minutes of useful perspective on the horrors of brutality and the people who have to react to it in their own ways. It is no surprise that it was called "the most anti-Communist film in the history of Polish People's Republic", because this is a triumph of resolve and dedication by all involved to make a film that doesn't shy away from the horrors of the past in order to make a film that strikes at the horrors of the present (and all that could be yet to come). It is a reminder that anyone can be a target for torture or interrogation, and that the best way forward is courage and open resistance rather than betrayal or static refusal. In other words, it isn't just a movie where people with torture such as flooding the cell with water or seeing rats everywhere or trying to play people against each other in betrayal. There are plenty of harrowing scenes, such as its opening sequences that go from innocent exchanges of marital disputes to drunken kidnapping or one involving people accepting death only to find deception instead. Janda pulls off a tremendous performance, a spirit that is mulched into the ground by an unyielding system of terrors that only have the guts of trickery and force at their hand but not the strength to stop unyielding resistance. Her fragility is put out there in raw detail from blank sheet to awareness in a wholly absorbing manner that is one of the most captivating experiences of acting seen in a film. Gajos and Ferency are the two visible men behind the shameful force of brutality, each with their own sense of conviction about what they actually believe. Holland is actually known for her work as a director and writer on a handful of features, both in and outside Poland, which she first left in late 1981 before the country imposed martial law. She and the other prisoners of fate do pretty well, interacting with Janda with weary timing that endures in the foreground. It is a movie that runs so consistently on edge, one without a shred of false tricks in its depiction of tyranny and despair for the decisions made by humanity against other humans in the clearest sense possible. The movie runs the course of misery and the highs and lows of human spirit with its own perspective of where it can all lead to in its swift ending that make it a fascinating piece of world cinema, one that could not be denied in its status as a Polish classic made by the Polish.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: A co-production between New Zealand, South Africa, and America...