I’ve recently started getting into old kung fu movies again. I loved them as a kid, but then grew out of the genre for a while. But boutique Blu-ray labels such as Arrow Video and 88 Films have been releasing some really terrific sets of all the Shaw Brothers films and I am here for it. I reviewed Flying Guillotine II (also known as Palace Carnage) over at Cinema Sentries. You can read it here if you like.
I wrote a review of a pretty good french film starring two of their finest actors: Alain Delon and Simone Signoret. You can read it over at Cinema Sentries.
Hardcore (1979) stars George C. Scott as Jake VanDorn a conservative, Calvinist, businessman from Grand Rapids, Michigan. When his teenage daughter goes missing while on a trip to California he hires a sleazy private detective (Peter Doyle) to find her. The detective turns up a short pornographic reel with the daughter in it, but when he is unable to locate her Jake flies to Los Angeles to do the job himself. Once there he journeys through the seedy underbelly of the city talking to strippers, prostitutes, and porno hustlers.
It covers similar territory as the Martin Scorsese-directed Taxi Driver (1976) which Schrader also wrote. Except in that film, Travis Bickle lived in the dark spaces and seemed to thrive there. Jake VanDorn is from the midwest. He is a moral man. A good churchgoer. He is unmoved by all the sex and unseemliness. He is propositioned several times throughout the movie but only offers back a scoff. As if sex doesn’t interest him. His disgust and anger come out only when dealing with his daughter – while watching her perform sex acts on camera or dealing with someone who put her in that position.
Schrader himself was from Grand Rapids and was raised as a Calvinist. He’s on record saying that the Jake VanDorn character was modeled after his father and it is hard not to see the daughter as a symbol for himself. He did leave Grand Rapids for Los Angeles after all to make a living making movies, something his father no doubt would have abhorred. Yet it is interesting to see how the film is from the father’s perspective. We rarely see the daughter at all, nor do we get her side of the story. Make of that what you will.
Jake wanders around the seedier sections of Los Angeles. He walks into porno shops asking the clerk if he’s seen his daughter. He wanders into makeshift brothels where one can wrestle nude with a pretty young woman and negotiate with her for anything else he wants. He pays these women but all he wants is answers. He doesn’t get very many. While pornography has become essentially legalized, this world is still full of secrets, it lives by a code and Jake is clearly not part of it.
He changes tactics. He puts a classified ad in a local newspaper stating that he is a porno producer looking for male studs. He’s hoping to find the young man who was in that porno clip with his daughter. He dons a cheap wig, a cheaper mustache, and clothes that make him look like a narc with no clue as to how to blend in.
He finds the guy but only plunges deeper into this world which includes underage prostitution and snuff films. In parts, it reminded me of several Brian DePalma films. Movies like Dressed to Kill and Body Double also delve into these unseemly sides of a city, but DePalma fetishized them whereas here Schrader looks at them with a detachment. Jake digs deep into this world that he only ever feared existed but he is not part of it. He is a watcher.
George C. Scott is a fascinating choice for Jake. He’s such a square. I mean I don’t know what the actor was like in real life, but his characters are often very straight-laced, or at least unsentimental. While diving into the underside of Los Angeles and San Francisco, he walks through it as if a robot, almost emotionless. He does break down a few times, but each time it is only due to his feelings for his daughter. He meets a young hustler who says she started hooking up when she was very young. Jake is happy to take care of her while she’s helping him find his daughter, but unlike Travis Bickle, he never seems all that bothered that she’s been abused her entire life. It is almost like this is a completely different world to him, to his world back in Grand Rapids, and he’d just assume it doesn’t exist once he gets his daughter out of it.
Schrader is a director whose work I’ve almost always enjoyed. This was the second film he ever directed and the sixth film that he had written. Hardcore isn’t his best work, but it is an interesting film, and it makes for a very interesting companion piece to Taxi Driver.
As I mentioned in a previous post I have been writing Blu-ray reviews for my friend’s site called Cinema Sentries. I’ve decided that I am going to start posting those reviews here. I won’t be pasting the actual reviews here as I want to give Cinema Sentries all the traffic it deserves.
First up is my review of the Criterion Collection’s excellent release of the fantastic French film Hiroshima Mon Amour.
I know this is all new and possibly weird for my site. I’ve spent ten years posting nothing but bootlegs and suddenly it is all movie reviews, and pop culture musings. I apologize if that is annoying. I really do plan on posting more bootlegs in some capacity in the near future.
Out of curiosity though, what do you all think of me suddenly talking about movies and such like?
The local paper’s review of the Simpsons Movie stated that it was just like the show, only longer. After reading it I said to my wife, “I hope it is like the show during the early seasons, and not so much like the last few years.”
It is pretty obvious I am a fan of the show. I talk about it all the time, I quote it regularly, I’ve pretty much based my life philosophy around Homer Simpson, and I practically reviewed the entire 18th season (sorry that review is no longer available, Mat).
When the Simpsons are good, there is nothing better on television, and even when they are bad they are good for a few laughs. Unfortunately, since about season 8 they have been steadily moving towards the latter end of that statement. The show has moved from a cutting-edge satire with an underlying heart that made it not only incredibly hilarious but a rock-solid piece of storytelling. These days it hangs on by throwing a million gags out at once.
Sometimes those gags are brilliant, but all too often they make me laugh and then immediately forget them. And the show really lacks the heart it used to have. There is still a lot of cheap sentiment thrown in, but the storylines are so off the wall and jagged, that the sentiment falls flat.
Unfortunately, the movie is more like the last few seasons than the first few. Oh, I laughed and laughed heartily many a time, but nothing has really stayed with me. I didn’t walk out of the theatre repeating my favorite jokes, and now two days later, there is hardly anything memorable about it at all.
That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it. I laughed a lot and it was fun to see my favorite four-fingered cartoon characters on the big screen, it’s just that it could have been so much more. On television, every season I hope that the Simpsons will turn it around and become brilliant again. Every season I am ultimately disappointed. But I keep coming back. I keep watching.
Even though I knew the movie wouldn’t be as brilliant as it could be I kept hoping that they would bring in old writers and they would come up with something remarkable. Like the longer deadlines and the bigger budgets would somehow improve the quality.
I will say it looked beautiful. They say they used traditional animation for most of it but used some CGI for the backgrounds. Whatever they did the Simpsons looked better than they ever have before, without looking too improved or big-budgeted (like in the Halloween special, “Homer³.”)
I was slightly surprised that they didn’t go overboard with the freedom that being away from television censors allows. There were a couple of bigger curse words and a funny if inappropriate moment where Bart shows more than his famous naked tooshie. But they could have done much more yet somehow showed some surprising restraint in that front.
Lots of main characters were left out, and while I can’t blame them for not trying to throw every single character in for a one-liner, I still wish Moe and Principal Skinner had more of a presence. Using Arnold Schwarzenegger as President may be a better gag, but I think it would have been more fitting to have used Rainier Wolfcastle for the part (as he’s the Simpsons parody of Arnold anyway.)
I could go on. There are lots of things to quibble with, but mostly they are beside the point. The Simpsons are finally on the big screen. For fans this is a big deal, and they do deliver lots of laughs. For those who find themselves loving more recent seasons, this will be a real treat. For those wishing they’d stop signing contracts, you can expect some laughs, but mostly disappointment.
It’s good to be Rafael – he’s got a sweet job as manager of ladies’ wear at YeYos, he is young, healthy, wealthy, and charming. The ladies adore him and the men wish to be him. He takes what he wants from life, and lives to the fullest. All that’s left is a promotion to floor manager at the store, and his life will be perfect. To obtain that promotion he must simply beat Antonio, the men’s clothing manager, in sales for the month — a task made easy by the doting middle-aged woman whom Rafael convinces to buy an expensive fur without even trying.
Yes, life is good for Rafael. That is, until the check for the coat bounces, and he is overlooked for the promotion. In frustration, Rafael yells at the coat woman and is fired by Antonio for it. An argument ensues and Rafael accidentally kills Antonio in a changing room. To make matters worse, the body soon disappears!
Poor Rafael, his life has gone from perfect to rock bottom in a matter of hours. Luckily he has Lourdes on his side. For she is the ugliest – and therefore completely invisible to the sexist Rafael – saleswoman in the store, and she has hidden the body to protect Rafael, for a price. Lourdes wants only the eternal love of Rafael, for her help and secrecy
Having to choose life in prison, or the love of an ugly woman, Rafael wisely chooses love, but may soon regret it. The Perfect Crime is equal parts Weekend At Bernie’s, American Werewolf in London, and War of the Roses, cranked up to 1.5 speed with Spanish accents.
Lourdes is the perfect crazed lover willing to do anything for the attention of the incredibly handsome and sexist Rafael. In a scene that would make Goodfellas proud, she slices and dices the dead Antonio without batting an eye, while Rafael gets deeper and deeper away from the life he has always wanted.
None of the characters are particularly decent, and I didn’t exactly care for their fate, but the story is told with such flair that I never really cared. The pacing is His Girl Friday fast with an eye for the absurd with its often hallucinatory imagery.
Guillermo Toledo and Mónica Cervera are pitch-perfect for the leads, adding a real emotional core to characters who are completely outlandish. Álex de la Iglesia does a nice job handling all the chaotic action with a smirk and flair.
It is an absolute joy to watch, and one of the most purely comical films I’ve seen all year. And yes, I know it is only March, and I haven’t seen that many comedies this year, but still, it’s a hilariously brilliant film.
Poor Mr. Lazarescu, his wife has left him, his daughter has moved across the ocean to Canada, and his sister and brother-in-law lecture him about the money he has borrowed. He’s been having massive headaches and throwing up since morning, and the ambulance never seems to come.
And everybody chastises him for the drink.
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is billed as a comedy, but if it is such then it is so black that I couldn’t see it. Really it is just sad, very sad, possibly the saddest movie I have ever seen.
The movie starts with Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu) calling for an ambulance. We then see him call his sister, who promptly, along with her husband, yells at Lazarescu for drinking too much and asking for the return of the money he has borrowed.
Then he waits and waits for the ambulance. Eventually, he finds his way into the hall, knocking on the door of the neighbors requesting medicine.
He is chastised for the drink.
The neighbors have mercy and nurse him to the couch where he pukes up blood. They call the ambulance again and note its more serious nature. When the nurse, Mioara Avram (Luminita Gheorghiu), arrives she finds Lazarescu in the tub, where he has fallen. She takes his vitals and tries to determine what is wrong with him.
And yells at him for the drink.
They take him to the hospital, where the doctor is extremely rude.
He chastises Lazarescu for the drink. He abuses the hospital staff, Mioara, and Lazarescu mercilessly. There is no bedside manner. Lazarescu is completely belittled for not taking care of himself properly, for the drink, for everything. The diagnosis is that it is liver failure due to the drink and tests are ordered from another hospital.
Lazarescu is abumulanced to hospital number two.
He is chastised for the drink.
The doctors there are much kinder and run a series of tests which result in serious complications for Lazarescu. Because of a bus accident, this hospital is completely full and unable to perform the immediate surgery needed to keep Lazarescu alive.
He is taken to a third hospital.
He is chastised for the drink.
The staff here is worse than the staff at hospital number one. Mioara tries to explain the urgency of the situation, but the doctors want to reexamine Lazarescu and spend most of their time arguing with Mioara. They then refuse to operate because a now near comatose Lazarescu doesn’t understand he needs to sign the release forms.
He is taken to a fourth hospital.
They do not chastise him for the drink and get him ready for surgery.
It is nothing short of heartbreaking.
It is shot in a documentary style. It uses natural light and lots of handheld cameras giving the film a very realistic feel.
Though it is a Romanian film, it asks plenty of questions about the state of healthcare systems around the world. It is a film that physically angers me. When doctors are more concerned about being sued and filing the proper paperwork than about caring for the ill what has gone wrong with the world?
Even the nice doctors and nurses look haggard. Long hours and extra work due to the bus accident leave them all exhausted. I’ve never thought about tired doctors, but it makes sense, they work long, hard hours and should be exhausted by the end of their shift. The healthcare workers also spend their downtime between tests and examinations chatting about personal things as if they weren’t involved in matters of life and death. It is an intimate look into the chaos, madness, and complications of caring for people.
It is a difficult film to watch. The pacing is languid and the subject matter is dark. Despite being a “comedy” there are few if any light-hearted moments. At a 153 minutes it is a large dose to swallow. Yet it is an important look at healthcare, loneliness, growing old, and how we take care of our fellow man. One that shouldn’t be missed.
There are some films that I make no plans to watch, nor have any desire to see. Yet, sometimes, through circumstance, watch them is exactly what I do. Recently, I was invited to dinner at a friend’s house. Another invitee decided to rent this Jackie Chan vehicle. Never to be one to turn down a free movie, I watched.
I am not one of Jackie Chan’s fanboys. The action sequences in his films are generally spectacular, and often hilarious. But his film’s lack of a cohesive narrative, god-awful dialog, and horrid acting turn me off, more than any stunt can save. From time to time, I do manage to catch one of his films, even enough to notice their general degeneration of late. His earlier, non-English films, though containing worse overall production value, had more bang for your buck. His American-made films seem to be bent on adding plot and characterization to the detriment of the action. This might be commendable if the additional plotting was any good. But more often than not, it’s just a glossy version of the same old schlock. Around the World in 80 Days follows this formula.
Waiting thirty minutes into a Jackie Chan film for the first action sequence is an atrocity. When that action sequence is lame, you might as well take up the pooper scooper and walk the dog. The movie followed this pattern. Thirty minutes of mind-numbing story development followed by tame, lame action sequences.
The plot is old and rehashed. Loosely based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name, Chan plays Lau Xing masquerading as Passpartout, servant of snooty inventor Phileas Fogg (Steve Coogan). Through a bet, they impart on a journey around the world in…oh, who cares? Who watches a Jackie Chan film for the plot? And if you don’t know this story by now, stick around and I’m sure they’ll make another TV movie of it shortly.
The film is scattered with high-profile cameos. Most interesting of which is the now California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s turn as a Turkish prince. The others are mostly pointless and unfunny cameos designed to make the audience go “oh that’s Rob Schneider” and miss the fact that he’s amazingly unfunny and his character serves no particular point. The casting of Kathy Bates as the Queen seems most spectacularly ill-placed. Her British accent is appalling. Was it too hard to find a real Brit to play this role? Some of my French friends have better British accents than that.
With the exception of but a few moments, the fight scenes, few that we get, are unspectacular. The joy of Jackie Chan is in his ability to stage acrobatic action sequences while using an odd array of props. Chairs, stools, flags, and culinary devices have all served as weapons in previous pictures, yet here he is mostly intent on using his hands to fight against regular swords and blades. It’s not that the action is terrible per se, but that they pale in comparison with so many of the others he has performed.
There is really nothing to recommend this movie. It is age appropriate enough. There is little to offend the younger sensibilities (besides the acting, plot, and production values)If you have children, I suppose, they might find it silly enough to enjoy. But, with so many other quality films out there appropriate for children, I can’t make myself recommend this one to them either.
This 1948 Hitchcock film is mostly noted for its technical achievements. Hitchcock filmed this story, about two well-to-do rich kids who decide to commit a murder for the fun of it, as a play. Which, in fact, originally was, though based in London and not New York. Technical limitations did not enable his original vision of making the entire picture one continuous long shot. Instead, it is made up of several 8-minute continuous shots. This was the length of film that fit into one reel. Using some very inventive cutting techniques the film appears as if it was filmed all in one take.
This is more impressive when you see the actual size that color film cameras during this time period. They were absolutely enormous, bigger than a man standing. To move the camera in and around the small stage space, many of the set pieces were set on casters and rolled about to keep out of the way of the camera. Some of the actors were noted saying that they worried every time they sat down, that there might not be a chair for them to fall into. Another achievement of the film is in terms of lighting. The apartment that the entire film is set in has several large windows overlooking the city. As the movie is more or less uninterrupted from start to finish we see the lighting change as the sun begins to set and night falls. It is a testament to this achievement that upon first viewing you don’t really notice the effect. Yet, the filmmakers took great pains to get it to look realistic, staging numerous re-stock for the final few scenes.
Though the technical achievements are quite wonderful, it is a shame that they have overshadowed what is really a very good bit of suspense. It seems the two high society murderers have planned a dinner party just after the murder. They store the corpse in a wood box that is featured prominently in the midst of the dinner. This creates an excellent mix of suspense and macabre. Throughout the party, the murderers become more unraveled even as they are enjoying their little game.
All of the acting is quite good. The two murderers (John Dall and Farley Granger) do a fine job of playing intellectual, society playboys, with a desire for excitement. It is slightly annoying watching their excited, nervous mannerisms (especially some stuttering by Jon Dall) but it is fitting with the characters. Their former instructor, Rupert Cadell, is played magnificently by the impeccable James Stewart. This is a bit of a departure from Stewart’s typical roles. Here he is a tough, cynical intellectual. This was the first of four collaborations between Stewart and Hitchock and it is hard to imagine his role as Scottie in Vertigo without this movie.
The story unravels in typical Hitchock fashion. The suspense is built, then lessened by some well-timed comedy, and then built again to a final crescendo. Hitchcock was excellent as a technical director and allowed his actors the breathing room they needed for fine performances. In the end, I left the picture feeling more excited about the superb storytelling than any particular technical achievement. It is a testament to his craft, that Hitchock allows you to leave a picture being enamored with his story over his technical achievements. Some of the greatest effects are those you don’t notice because they seem so natural and real.
Alfred Hitchock manages a triumph of technical brilliance and suspense in Rope. Its influence in the technical realm of cinema far outshines any effect the story has on future movies. This is a shame, for the story being told is one of suspense, macabre, and excitement.
Each film in the Alien quadrilogy has differed from the other. It helps that they each had a distinctive and imaginative director. Ridley Scott created a slow, tension-filled science fiction epic. James Cameron pumped it full of adrenaline and made an action-packed masterpiece. David Fincher cut his teeth on Alien3 by turning the action into a dark, mostly muddled mess. Jean-Pierre Jeunet tried to rescue the franchise but had no story to work with. Like the Star Wars movies what we’re left with is a couple of top-notch flicks and a few others that – while showing a few moments of visual brilliance – ultimately leave the series limp.
But my review is not of the series as a whole, but on the movie that started it all. In considering the franchise it is sometimes forgotten that Alien never started out as a quadrilogy. There was only this one movie about a group of average workers sent to capture a monster. Scott does a superb job of creating suspense. It is some 30 minutes into the picture before we actually see an Alien. And even then the action is slow to evolve. For the audience, this creates a great amount of tension.
Even for those who have never seen an Alien movie, the creature has so penetrated our popular culture that everyone knows it’s not an ET kind of alien. So, while watching it we know that the it is creeping around some corner just waiting to devour the characters. And yet we hardly see it. We not only don’t get to see any alien through a third of the film, but when it does come out and begin its slaughter, we only catch glimpses of the creature itself. It is seen in the dark creeping inside a corner, or in a flash as it jumps out of the darkness to attack.
Scott, instead, uses shots of the crew to show the fear in their eyes, before their destruction, rather than show the creature in action. There are only one or two moments where the audience sees the alien in full figure, and those last only a short time. Even then the alien does not move, never allowing us to see it kill. This stroke serves to scare the audience even more. How many times have we seen a movie’s monster in action only to laugh at its poor design?
The movie oozes with atmosphere. The cinematography is dark and shadowy. The ship’s quarters are enclosed and tight, creating claustrophobic spaces in which to encounter the monster. Then there is HR Giger’s amazing design. His designs of the alien ship and the alien are absolutely perfect. The ship seems to slither and move as if it’s alive. There are curves, ridges, and smooth edges as on the alien itself. All of which create an atmosphere, and mood that stimulates the horror to come.
All of the effects shot were done in without the use of CGI. Generally, they still hold their ground. Sure, the glimpses we get of the alien standing look like a man in a rubber suit. But overall the effects look great. This is a testament to their genius of Giger. My main complaint is with MOTHER. Like other science fiction films the crew’s ship, the Nostromo has its brains in a giant computer. Here, MOTHER is housed in an inner room of the ship and only accessible by the ship’s captain. We see her captain, Dallas (Tom Skerritt) go to visit MOTHER for a “your eyes only” type deal. Why a commercial ship needs this type of security is never mentioned. Mother turns out to be a Star Trekesque computer equipped with blinking lights and a faint whirring sound. All of this is so that Dallas can sit down to a DOS prompt and ask silly questions like “What’s the story, Mother?” They should have gone with a more 2001 approach and had the crew be able to actually speak to MOTHER.
All of the characters are very well acted and fleshed out. Each character is given their own personality and is fully realized. There is a nice scene in which the crew is searching for the recently non-sucking face sucker as it has disappeared. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has left the door open and Ash (Ian Holm) moves to shut it so the alien won’t escape. The look Ash gives as he is doing this is incredible. Ash and Ripley have previously had a bit of a fight and you can see the anger and irritation at Ripley perfectly in Ash’s face.
Sigourney Weaver plays Ripley beautifully. This is a female action star that is sexy but doesn’t pander to her sexuality (though they did manage to get her in her underwear.) She is tough as nails and intelligent. And Weaver plays her perfectly.
Alien is arguably the best in one of the most successful series in film history. It is also one of the best science fiction films Hollywood has ever made.
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