There are a variety of reasons to watch this interesting and visually off-kilter piece. As a story, it leaves a little to be desired, and Rob Lowe's performance doesn't do a lot for me. But the supporting actors are a real joy, and the real reason to watch. James Coburn is as good as ever; Joe Santos is always fun, and Jonathan Banks is superb as the bad guy who might not be as bad as he seems.
Reviews
7 Reviews
Let the Devil Wear Black
(1999)
Return to Noir
4 May 2002
This one's a real return to film noir. An updated version of Hamlet, with a positively unique spin on the now-cliched "Alas, poor Yorick" speech. Probably could've done without the "Pepto Bismol" scene, but aside from that it was a great story (of course) well told. Performances were terrific all around, but especially Jonathan Banks as "Satch."
Fired Up
(1997–1998)
It Deserved Better than it Got
5 August 2001
"Fired Up" started off slow but like many tv shows, it got better as it went along. There were some wildly funny parodies of other shows (such as "Mission Impossible"), some hilarious send-ups of movie cliches (the "High Noon" moments in the ep entitled "Mr. New York") and a lot of funny, original notions. The series deserved better than got. The acting was excellent. Special kudos, big-time, to Leah Remini as the ultra-competent secretary, and Jonathan Banks as the mysterious bartender Guy Mann. Not to mention some outlandish guest-stars like John De Lancie. I wish the series had lasted longer.
Bernard and the Genie
(1991 TV Movie)
An Unclaimed Bit of Genius
23 December 2000
Funny how this movie, which Leonard Maltin has never acknowledged, which was never publicized when it came over to this side of the pond almost 10 years ago, should be such a long-lasting favorite around my house. But it is. We watch it every Christmas and sometimes during the summer as well. Why not? It's terrific. A poor nebbish, Bernard, whose life is at an all-time low, discovers a genie in a lamp, and once he convinces it not to kill him, the two become great friends. In the process the Bernard learns a bit about history, and the genie learns about the modern world.
The acting is terrific; I wish I could see more of Lenny Henry's work as he is a true comic genius, and Alan Cummings conveys just the right amount of silliness and pathos as the poor nebbish, Bernard.
What's truly odd about this film is how it manages, with a few short toss-off sentences, to convey more about Biblical history than most multi-million dollar epics do in their 4+ hours, and how it can seem irreverent and yet still convey a sense that this is what Christianity was about! Not something you'd expect in a film today.
Ultimately we are left with an enormous load of laughter and a surprising mist over the eyes when the movie's over and we've said goodbye to Bernard and the Genie. I wish the movie had been a bit longer; I wish more people had heard about it so I could discuss it with them. But most of all, I wish I could find a Genie like the one Bernard found, who could make my wishes come true.
The acting is terrific; I wish I could see more of Lenny Henry's work as he is a true comic genius, and Alan Cummings conveys just the right amount of silliness and pathos as the poor nebbish, Bernard.
What's truly odd about this film is how it manages, with a few short toss-off sentences, to convey more about Biblical history than most multi-million dollar epics do in their 4+ hours, and how it can seem irreverent and yet still convey a sense that this is what Christianity was about! Not something you'd expect in a film today.
Ultimately we are left with an enormous load of laughter and a surprising mist over the eyes when the movie's over and we've said goodbye to Bernard and the Genie. I wish the movie had been a bit longer; I wish more people had heard about it so I could discuss it with them. But most of all, I wish I could find a Genie like the one Bernard found, who could make my wishes come true.
The Postman
(1997)
Leonard Maltin is a j***
16 July 2000
If you believe Leonard Maltin as a writer of gospel, the Postman is a misfire, it's pretentious, and it's a waste of time.
I think Maltin is a j*** I may be the only person in the United States to feel so, but there it is.
I saw the Postman when it was first released and I enjoyed it vastly -- enough to go back to see it again with my teenaged boys. Costner is not, and has never been, my favorite actor, but he turned in a good portrayal within his limits, and although the patriotism went a little overboard at times (could've done without the little girl singing "America the Beautiful") I found the movie overall to be fun, entertaining, and with some nice things to say about the SPIRIT of America.
Recently the movie has appeared on TNT and/or TBS (can't keep those two stations straight) several times, and I've watched it again for the first time in a couple of years. It's still fun, entertaining, and with some nice things to say about the SPIRIT of America. How many movies can hit you the same way after multiple viewings? Some that you really like the first time or two get washed out with repeated viewings. The Postman does not. It's long, but it's time well spent.
I think Maltin is a j*** I may be the only person in the United States to feel so, but there it is.
I saw the Postman when it was first released and I enjoyed it vastly -- enough to go back to see it again with my teenaged boys. Costner is not, and has never been, my favorite actor, but he turned in a good portrayal within his limits, and although the patriotism went a little overboard at times (could've done without the little girl singing "America the Beautiful") I found the movie overall to be fun, entertaining, and with some nice things to say about the SPIRIT of America.
Recently the movie has appeared on TNT and/or TBS (can't keep those two stations straight) several times, and I've watched it again for the first time in a couple of years. It's still fun, entertaining, and with some nice things to say about the SPIRIT of America. How many movies can hit you the same way after multiple viewings? Some that you really like the first time or two get washed out with repeated viewings. The Postman does not. It's long, but it's time well spent.
The Patriot
(2000)
I Had Such High Expectations...
4 July 2000
Warning: Spoilers
Maybe I shouldn't have. (CONTAINS SPOILERS) One can't expect every supposed epic to be one; after all, Kevin Costner did "Dances with Wolves" and then "Waterworld." But I did hope for better from Mel Gibson, who had been pretty darned good in "Braveheart." Maybe he should've directed this one, too...no, I don't think that would have helped much. It was the writing that was most at fault.
I studied about Francis Marion when I was a kid living in South Carolina, and as I knew the movie was based (however loosely) on him I had hopes in that direction too. Unfortunately I think the only thing they had in common was a residency in the state of S.C. and the last names sounded vaguely similar.
Mel Gibson has made most of his living from playing reluctant heroes, and like his character in Braveheart, this guy only wanted to raise crops and a family; like Braveheart, circumstances brought him into the war. There were other things stolen from Braveheart, too...the guys running away and leading the soldiers into a trap; stealing the uniforms and using them to fool the bad guys, etc. Of course the movie doesn't just steal from Braveheart -- I was shocked to see "the Highlander" so patently ripped off. One of Duncan MacLeod's favorite tactics is to kneel, facing away from the bad guy, and then swing around with his sword just as the bad guy steps up for the coup-de-grace. The climactical riding up with the flag looked like a cross between "Gettysburg" and "Dances with Wolves."
The movie wasn't all bad. I liked some of the minor characters, such as the preacher (played ably by Rene Auberjonois, ST:DS9's "Odo") who left his church in mid-sermon to join the militia. I just didn't like the politically correct "give the girls something to do" speech made by the teenaged girl that shamed him into it. I liked the slave who fought for his own freedom, and everyone else's -- but I didn't like the inaccuracy of having most of the blacks in the movie portrayed as freedmen working on the plantations because they earned a good living doing it...let's get real...if they'd all been freedmen, for Pete's sake, there wouldn't have been another war less than 100 years later.
But the things I didn't like outweighed the things I did. One of the things I really hated was having telegraphed punches -- for example, the boy's wedding is so darned happy that one knows quite well something really bad is going to happen. The bad guy is such a shallow, boo-hiss sort of fellow that as soon as you meet him you know he's going to die slowly and horribly at the hands of the hero. And the hero himself, a fellow with a "past" that tortures him, is a mystery to his son -- who must be brain dead not to grasp the situation after he sees his father become a raging berserker the first time. I wouldn't have wanted an explanation of the tortured past after seeing that. And good heavens, in a more modern time Benjamin Martin would've spent a fortune in counseling for the two little boys (pre-teens) who participated in the oldest son's rescue, the scene which shows what kind of character Martin is capable of being.
There's another thing...the clothing, customs (well, some...though why provide a bundling bag and then allow french kissing is beyond me...) are scrupulously recreated but the dialogue is so modern I kept expecting the people to burst into "wow, that was weird" or something. It's as if the movie didn't know what it wanted to be. It didn't want to be an epic, just a really long movie. It wasn't like "Shenandoah," about a fellow trying to hold his family together in the face of war, though there were elements of it (too many family elements to be easily kept track of for that matter: the one son acted like he'd be damaged for life but was miraculously normal by the end of the movie; the little girl hated her father and withdrew from his touch and then, with no clue of why she changed her mind --or why she hated him in the first place-- she loved him).
It got confusing -- too many fingers in too many pies. It wasn't an action movie, or a war movie, or a soap, though it had lots of action, war, and lots of soapiness ("I'm not my sister!") a really patriotic movie; even "Independence Day" had more patriotism than this one. In the motorcycle business there are things called "parts-bins bikes," which are bikes built out of leftover pieces. Some work great (the Yamaha Radian) and some don't work at all. "The Patriot" is a parts-bin movie, and it just doesn't work.
For all one would think the American Revolution would provide a wonderful subject (or even a backdrop) for any movie, the definitive Revolution epic has yet to be made. It's funny that "1776" is still the best movie about the Revolution, because that's the movie no one would want to take seriously. But its drama is more convincing, language more realistic, and characters more deep and their motivations more understandable -- even in spite of the singing and dancing -- than "the Patriot" ever could be.
I studied about Francis Marion when I was a kid living in South Carolina, and as I knew the movie was based (however loosely) on him I had hopes in that direction too. Unfortunately I think the only thing they had in common was a residency in the state of S.C. and the last names sounded vaguely similar.
Mel Gibson has made most of his living from playing reluctant heroes, and like his character in Braveheart, this guy only wanted to raise crops and a family; like Braveheart, circumstances brought him into the war. There were other things stolen from Braveheart, too...the guys running away and leading the soldiers into a trap; stealing the uniforms and using them to fool the bad guys, etc. Of course the movie doesn't just steal from Braveheart -- I was shocked to see "the Highlander" so patently ripped off. One of Duncan MacLeod's favorite tactics is to kneel, facing away from the bad guy, and then swing around with his sword just as the bad guy steps up for the coup-de-grace. The climactical riding up with the flag looked like a cross between "Gettysburg" and "Dances with Wolves."
The movie wasn't all bad. I liked some of the minor characters, such as the preacher (played ably by Rene Auberjonois, ST:DS9's "Odo") who left his church in mid-sermon to join the militia. I just didn't like the politically correct "give the girls something to do" speech made by the teenaged girl that shamed him into it. I liked the slave who fought for his own freedom, and everyone else's -- but I didn't like the inaccuracy of having most of the blacks in the movie portrayed as freedmen working on the plantations because they earned a good living doing it...let's get real...if they'd all been freedmen, for Pete's sake, there wouldn't have been another war less than 100 years later.
But the things I didn't like outweighed the things I did. One of the things I really hated was having telegraphed punches -- for example, the boy's wedding is so darned happy that one knows quite well something really bad is going to happen. The bad guy is such a shallow, boo-hiss sort of fellow that as soon as you meet him you know he's going to die slowly and horribly at the hands of the hero. And the hero himself, a fellow with a "past" that tortures him, is a mystery to his son -- who must be brain dead not to grasp the situation after he sees his father become a raging berserker the first time. I wouldn't have wanted an explanation of the tortured past after seeing that. And good heavens, in a more modern time Benjamin Martin would've spent a fortune in counseling for the two little boys (pre-teens) who participated in the oldest son's rescue, the scene which shows what kind of character Martin is capable of being.
There's another thing...the clothing, customs (well, some...though why provide a bundling bag and then allow french kissing is beyond me...) are scrupulously recreated but the dialogue is so modern I kept expecting the people to burst into "wow, that was weird" or something. It's as if the movie didn't know what it wanted to be. It didn't want to be an epic, just a really long movie. It wasn't like "Shenandoah," about a fellow trying to hold his family together in the face of war, though there were elements of it (too many family elements to be easily kept track of for that matter: the one son acted like he'd be damaged for life but was miraculously normal by the end of the movie; the little girl hated her father and withdrew from his touch and then, with no clue of why she changed her mind --or why she hated him in the first place-- she loved him).
It got confusing -- too many fingers in too many pies. It wasn't an action movie, or a war movie, or a soap, though it had lots of action, war, and lots of soapiness ("I'm not my sister!") a really patriotic movie; even "Independence Day" had more patriotism than this one. In the motorcycle business there are things called "parts-bins bikes," which are bikes built out of leftover pieces. Some work great (the Yamaha Radian) and some don't work at all. "The Patriot" is a parts-bin movie, and it just doesn't work.
For all one would think the American Revolution would provide a wonderful subject (or even a backdrop) for any movie, the definitive Revolution epic has yet to be made. It's funny that "1776" is still the best movie about the Revolution, because that's the movie no one would want to take seriously. But its drama is more convincing, language more realistic, and characters more deep and their motivations more understandable -- even in spite of the singing and dancing -- than "the Patriot" ever could be.
Watch on the Rhine
(1943)
My favorite movie!
29 June 2000
Probably my all-time favorite movie, a story of selflessness, sacrifice and dedication to a noble cause, but it's not preachy or boring. It just never gets old, despite my having seen it some 15 or more times in the last 25 years. Paul Lukas' performance brings tears to my eyes, and Bette Davis, in one of her very few truly sympathetic roles, is a delight. The kids are, as grandma says, more like "dressed-up midgets" than children, but that only makes them more fun to watch. And the mother's slow awakening to what's happening in the world and under her own roof is believable and startling. If I had a dozen thumbs, they'd all be "up" for this movie.
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