Change Your Image
neil-591
Reviews
Breaking Away (1979)
Go Out And Get It
Most coming of age films can't come close to this masterpiece.
The story is fun and engaging right from the first minute. It's about four friends just out of high school avoiding life in general (and especially jobs). The funny part is, they are convinced that it's the cool thing to do. Or are they?
It centers mostly on one young man who has a talent and a passion for bicycle racing. Especially Italian bicycle racing. So much so that he adopts a fake Italian accent much to the chagrin of his father. He's a smart, athletic young kid who knows what he should do, but tries to pretend he doesn't.
Well, like most films, you know where it will go from there. Naturally, it comes down to a big bicycle race and our heroes the Cutters enter against overwhelming odds. However, what sets this one apart from most is that even though I knew what was going to happen, I felt just a little sad when it did because the movie was over.
10 out of 10. And you can watch it with your kids.
Re-Animator (1985)
Re-Animated My Interest In Horror
I believe that horror films are dead, like so many victims shown in the movies themselves, horror movies have been killed off in a violent fashion. It's true, I can assure you. True horror films have been dead for some time. They died when 'Scream' made them self aware.
Nowadays, horror movies are made with cookie cutters and specific ingredients. They are a collection of make-up artists trying to out-gore each other and idiotic characters who are so poorly written that you just know that the real thing the writers were working on was how to get the required nudity into the script so that somebody might produce it.
But, a long time ago...
There was 'Re-Animator'! Gore! Zombies! Mad scientists! And, of course, nudity! But there was also something that I haven't seen in some time... a story. In the old days, they had a thing called a story and the other thing they had was characters who do things as a part of that story.
You see, horror films are often ridiculous. Sometimes they try to hide that fact. Sometimes it works, like, 'The Sixth Sense' which was so engaging I forgot it was essentially a horror movie. Most of the time it doesn't work, like 'Cabin Fever' or 'Descent' or well, forget it. It just doesn't work and we'll leave it at that.
But 'Re-Animator' works. On every level. I think it's because it knows that it's ridiculous but it just plows on through anyway. If you are going to make a movie about talking severed heads, mad scientists and zombies you have to know that the Academy is very likely to overlook you. But why not go for it? Every scene, every moment, they go for it! And Jeffrey Combs? He steals every second of every scene he is in, even when there is a beautiful naked woman there, you just can't stop watching him. He's nuts, man. It's fantastic!
10 out of 10. No winking at the audience on this one.
Cabin Fever (2002)
Pancakes... pancakes.... why pancakes???
This is a comedy film. Which is unfortunate because people call it a horror movie. They are wrong. It is one of the funniest movies you will ever see. If you are looking for a laugh, look no further. If you are looking for horror or suspense, you had better not see this. The film centers around five friends who are celebrating the fact that they have finished finals by going to a remote cabin to party. They apparently drive very far from their college because it is spring in the college town and either fall or winter by the time they get to the cabin. The town, as is required by Hollywood law, is inhabited by simpletons who have lots of guns and make weird faces and seemingly racist remarks at the college kids, one of the young locals even goes so far as to bite people who come near him.
Meanwhile, a man who lives in the woods (?) sees a very, very dead dog but decides to poke it and prod it in an attempt to wake it up. The dog, as near as I can tell, died from a reaction to the squirtgun it swallowed which was full of fake red blood which shoots the man in the face and makes him sick with Icky Dead Dog Skin Virus. So, then we see the Hot Brunette Chick's breasts and we learn that the nerdy kid has a crush on the blonde girl who plays the part of the Hot Chick Whose Breasts We Don't Get To See. The Kid With The Green Hat finds a rifle and shoots at a man whom he mistakes for a squirrel. Seriously, I'm not kidding, he thought the man was a squirrel. The man, as it turns out, happens to have Icky Dead Dog Skin Virus and asks for help. Like all people, The Kid With The Green Hat just pretends it didn't happen and goes back to the cabin to party some more. A random stoner kid shows up and he has an old dog with a stupid name. Then he leaves and never comes back, but, the way I see it, he fell in the Fountain Of Youth and subsequently died but his dog got younger and became vicious as a result.
For the rest of the movie, when it gets too boring the dog comes back and they shoot at it but somehow miss. Other times, when it is too boring, the Hot Brunette Chick shows her breasts again. After awhile, they get sick from drinking the water - not from being exposed to blood, mind you - but drinking the water. Which I think is weird because the first guy got Icky Dead Dog Skin Virus from the blood. In case the audience starts to ask questions, like, for example, why aren't they getting Icky Dead Dog Skin Virus the way the first guy did? the nerdy kid runs through the woods yelling "it's the water' 'it's the water'.
Now, at this point, the movie starts to make no sense and the characters start doing increasingly dumber things.
This was a film that cost 1.5 million dollars to make and made over 40 million dollars in it's domestic theatrical run alone. That fact alone says that we, as a country, need electroshock treatment. It also shows that if you have nice breasts in a film, it really doesn't matter what the movie is about. As near as I can tell, about halfway through the screenplay, the writers decided to just make it a comedy. Once they ran out of excuses for the Hot Brunette Chick to show her breasts (four times total, BTW) they opted to go for straight up comedy. Consider the scene in which the Kid Who Bites People screams 'pancakes' and then performs a kind of kung-fu/dance routine... before biting someone. Also, the seemingly racist man is revealed to not be racist in what I imagine the writers considered an M. Night Shamalan-ish "twist." They also, as is required by Hollywood law, added a bumbling simpleton deputy but they had the common sense not to name him 'Dewey'. My feeling is that if the Hot Chick Whose Breasts We Don't Get To See actually showed her breasts that this movie would have made 80 million dollars.
In conclusion, the film gets a '2' because it had two breasts in it.
Sonata (2004)
Stylish Non-traditional Horror/Thriller
This film has some great moments in it. Recall that it is a first film from writer/director Boris Undorf. It has style and is not nearly the bore that one reviewer claimed. In fact, it's far more worthy of attention than most of the garbage that I've seen in theaters or on DVD lately.
I refer to it as horror/thriller only because I don't know how else it could be categorized. It has a great use of color and has unnerving scenes that make you squirm - most notably the mother's insistence that her daughter strip for her and another scene in which the mother's lover "makes a pass" at the young girl. I felt increasingly uncomfortable as I watched the main character, wondering how she could stay sane at all in her nightmare-fairytale world.
It's a shame that more people can't give this movie a try. These days, "horror" cinema seems to be made up of films about topless airheads who are tortured to death or psycho killers who go from one cliché to the next until it seems that the only things that have been changed are the names in the same tired old story.
If you are looking for horror clichés like "the sheriff who just can't help because there's no proof" or "let's go check out that weird noise but first we should have sex" then you aren't going to like this film. But if you are looking for an actual story with a set-up and a fresh character piece then this is worth a look.
Love Liza (2002)
90 Minutes on the Road To Nowhere
This film was recommended to me as a study in grief. I have had sudden tragedy in my own life as many of us have or will have. I watched this movie and wanted to like it, oh how I desperately wanted to like it. But maybe that was the point? You are not supposed to like Wilson. Certainly his life is tragic. That automatically makes us feel bad for him, yet halfway through the movie I realized I was watching a movie and further realized that that is not supposed to happen in a good movie.
At about the 40 minute to 45 minute point of 'Love Liza' it occurred to me that I had no idea where the story was going. And not in a good way. It vaguely resembled 'Leaving Las Vegas' in that you got the sense that something terrible was up ahead, but in the case of Hoffman's Wilson, I just didn't care. I was sick of him and his sad faces and his random acts and his bizarre gas sniffing habit.
Also, I am not an expert at storytelling. I have read McKee's book. I've read Syd Field's book, too. I'm pretty sure a story needs to have a beginning, middle and end. At least in the traditional sense. Otherwise, it's not a movie, it's more of a Bunch Of Stuff That Happened, which usually works better (if at all) in a documentary.
So, 'Love Liza' started in the middle, stayed in the middle and ended in the middle of a story. The beginning is conspicuously gone and the ending has also been very noticeably left out. Stories for me have a way of making me feel like I went on a journey with the main character and then at the end we part ways and I spend some time thinking or talking about the story I just experienced. In this case, I feel very ripped off because I found myself talking only about what wasn't there and how many things were started that went nowhere. Maybe if there is a prequel and a sequel it will make more sense as a trilogy.
Then again, I'm probably not advanced enough for this film.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
Verisimilitude Destroyed
I got this as part of a boxed set of all four of the original Superman films. I have to say Superman: The Movie is as great now as it was then, nearly brought tears to my eyes and made me nostalgic for the good old days.
Then there was Superman II (the Lester version). I remember liking it as a child, but as an adult I scratched my head and wondered exactly what had gone wrong. The... what is the word? The verisimilitude was gone along with the thrill. And was that recycled footage at the end? I wanted for it it to be the same or better than the first one. It wasn't.
Then there was Superman III. Lester in all his glory. All I can say is: skiing down the side of a skyscraper? Superman can get drunk? You can make oil go back into an oil rig like that? And was that recycled footage at the end? Are you kidding me?
But Superman IV. Dear God, Superman IV. Well, that is an atrocity of epic proportions. At its heart, somewhere deep, deep down (very deep) it had a somewhat good concept. Superman rids the world of nuclear weapons. Apparently, the whole "it is forbidden for you to interfere with their destiny" is right out the window. Superman says "hand 'em over" and the world goes "no problem". Then Lex Luthor, in his brilliance, comes up with an idea no one else would have in the whole world. He's going to get better than nuclear weapons. In his genius he has come up with a nuclear man. Guess what the "greatest criminal mind of all time" comes up with for a name? Nuclear Man! And Nuclear Man has bizarre abilities the script doesn't have time to explain like electric fire eyes that sparkle and... I guess that's all. Plus, even though he is made up of Superman's DNA, he has Lex Luthor's voice (Lex must have used his "criminal intellect" to do that). Also he can fly and break stuff and, for no apparent reason, he likes Clark Kent's love interest (?). Perhaps his reason is that she can go into space and not die! Seriously, man. Then there's the mysterious scratch that Nuclear Man gives Superman, which makes him have the flu. To which he reacts like a complete wimp. This movie also reveals the secret to Superman's flying: wires! The special effects people must have been saying, "Slash my budget, will you? Well, I'll kill the Superman franchise good, that'll learn you to mess with me." And kill it they did because it took nineteen years for Superman to Return. There's so much more to rank on with this cautionary tale of How Not To Make A Movie but I'm sure I made my point.
And was that recycled footage at the end?
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (1980)
Verisimilitude Returns!
It must be noted that The Richard Donner cut of Superman II is not actually the Richard Donner Cut of Superman II - but rather is a close approximation to what his cut might have looked like.
For more info, one need not go far to research the story. For this review, I'd like to say that the cut, while not complete, does satisfy. It shows, as best as it can, what Donner's film would have been like.
Most notably, the tone of the film more closely matches the first film. With comic book films, there is always a tendency to admit the joke and try to have fun with it... at the expense of the story, but Superman: The Movie's success rested on it's ability to bring in humor without camp and always take the material seriously.
The restoration of Marlon Brando's scenes is worth a viewing. There are also a number of scenes that have been restored which makes the film seem "new" even though you may have seen it many times before. The best addition is the overall feel of the film which has been changed back to the more "serious" feel of part one.
Worth the money. You may kneel before Zod once again... for the first time.