keihan Reviews

The Bourne Identity (2002)

A 1970's throwback...well done

[17 February 2003]

For starters, let me say that I have partially read the novel that this movie is based on (published in the 1980's) and found it a sometimes tough, boring slog. The only reason I picked it up to begin with is because I saw the TV Movie in 1988 with Richard Chamberlain. It was the beginning of my understanding that books and movies, by their very natures, are completely different animals. As for this version of "The Bourne Identity"...well, I wasn't expecting much (though I was intrigued by certain ivory-tower critics who gave this film a second look when it hit DVD and decided that maybe it wasn't so bad). If I was moderately entertained, I'd have called it a success. But I was suprised.

For all its occassional hi-tech trappings, this film reminded me, more than anything, of 1975's "Three Days of the Condor" with Robert Redford and Max Von Sydow (anyone who liked "The Bourne Identity" needs to see it immediately if they haven't already). It's geared to entertaining the over-18 crowd as opposed to the usual adolescent thrill-seekers most modern action films pander to. There's gunplay, but nothing so overblown as ten thousand bullets for one shoot-out (the cat-and-mouse game outside the farmhouse comes to mind). There's martial-arts (a lesser-known style called Kali), but no wire-fu for once. And, lest we forget, there's one of the best car-chase sequences in recent memory through Paris (who'd have thunk that a Yugo could make such a good getaway vehicle?).

But these are general elements. Specific details that brought back "Condor" memories are as follows:

--Matt Damon as Jason Bourne. Like Redford's low-level researcher, he plays a man stuck in a situation that he has no idea how he got into and even less of an idea of who's aiming the bullets at him. But it's not quite one-for-one. Redford didn't have anything to fall back on aside from his experience in the Army and Ma Bell. His ignorance is based on his rank in the CIA hiearchy. Bourne, on the other hand, speaks multiple languages, has formidible fighting skills, and is one of the brightest tacticians I've ever seen on the silver screen. But he has absolutely no clue as to how he is able to do what he does. It's all just instinct and reaction. The frustrating conundrum for him (a fact that is made very clear in the initial sequences when his skills come into play) is that, in spite of these advantages, the unknown past may have already doomed his future.

--Franka Potente as Marie Kruetz. Potente's role is more of a bohemian version of Faye Dunaway's character in "Condor" than anything else. But again, there are key differences. Redford forced Dunaway to cooperate at gunpoint, only coming over to his side with great reluctance. Kruetz is made of sterner stuff, as one would expect from a lifetime on the road. Bourne uses that other great persuader, money, to get what he needs from Kruetz and actually gives her the option of getting out while the getting is still good. Their eventual sleeping together even feels a bit less forced than the similar setup in "Condor" (a particularly novel touch about the inevitable morning after scene is the fact that Bourne is already up, dressed, and has wiped every surface in the room). The relationship is really the heart of the movie. Without it, most of the story is just not there.

--Clive Owen as the Professor. While I'm a trifle disappointed that Owen didn't get more to do with this role (unlike most folks, who discovered his obvious talent in "Croupier", I first saw him prove his acting chops in the video clips for the old adventure game, "Privateer 2: The Darkening"), his smoky, grey presence brings to mind Max Von Sydow's cultured assasin in "Condor"(even the "Professor" moniker seems to hint at such a connection). Like Bourne, he's a killing machine, as impersonal and scary as a fully loaded AK-47 to the head (the scene where he pops into pick up his info from Julia Stiles illustrates this beautifully). The only real difference between him and Bourne is the fact that he knows the answers to the questions Bourne has been asking. That he doesn't mind answering them after being bested calls to mind Von Sydow's killing of Redford's quarry and then politely suggesting an extended vacation in Europe when they both walk outside. A baddie who isn't really a baddie...what a concept, huh?

Without giving too much away, I thought that the final twist on what put Bourne out in the middle of the Mediterranean to be both logical and even believable, given everything that came before. This would seem to suggest the influence of John Woo (but only in the arena of character development, something particularly stressed in "The Killer" and the "A Better Tomorrow" films). It's basic plot logic: set up the story in such a way that, when the final suprise twist comes through, it doesn't feel like a deus ex machina so much as a reasonable conclusion.

I honestly hope that this film is the start of a trend in the action genre. Just because most action movies are the cinematic equivalent of junk food doesn't mean they have to be. What's wrong with a little fillet mignon?

Romeo Must Die (2000)

A solid US entry for Jet Li...

[17 February 2003]

Like a good many American filmgoers, I first became acquainted with Jet Li through the unholy debacle that was "Lethal Weapon 4" (that he was the best thing in the film also didn't hurt my memory any). I got curious enough from this to want go see "Romeo Must Die", a film that, for all its flaws, felt like a breath of fresh air after LW4. I thought that they stopped making action films like this in the mid-1980s.

Because I want to end on some high notes, let's get what didn't work out of the way. First, the ridiculous wire-fu on display. In and of itself, I don't have a problem with it as long as there's a rationale for why someone is able to do these feats (it's the inside of a computer program, the fighters have been enhanced with super powers, etc.). Any self-respecting martial artist could study most of the sequences in this film and tell you how about 40 to 60 percent is wire-fu enhanced. This actually a disservice to not only Li's skills, but also those of Russell Wong in the final battle. Second, one-sided development. The O'Day camp is fully realized in terms of dynamics, characterizations, and relationships, something noticably lacking on the Chu side of the block. The closest thing to any of the preceding elements mentioned is when Chu has his final meeting with the Collective. Finally, the X-Ray CGI. I'm a bit more forgiving on this one, as it is a bit of an experimental approach. But it still boils down to a case of "nice try, but without this stuff, we'd still get the idea". End of rant.

Now, what I did like about this film...first off, Jet Li. I remember a Cinescape review coming just short of accusing Li of having the non-acting skills of Van Damme (obviously, the reviewer needed to rewatch Van Damme's filmography to realize their error). He may not, to paraphrase from the aforementioned reviewer, have the goofy charm of Jackie Chan (what charm?) or the cool charisma of Chow Yun Fat (a close second in my HK actor list), but he has his own brand of quiet dignity, bringing to mind Bruce Lee and the early Clint Eastwood. His English is just barely passable, but he makes up for it with his expressions, his eyes, and, of course, his combat. That Li has been careful with picking which movies he wants to be involved with since this film, plus the above, will probably ensure a long life in the action genre.

Second, the O'Day side of the equation. The late Aaliyah as willful Trish O'Day is an extremely pleasant suprise, maintaining excellent chemistry with Li throughout and even getting involved in the combat in a novel fashion (to be described later). Delroy Lindo is in top form as Issac O'Day, an original gangster trying to cash in his chips before the game gets ugly...too late. Finally Isaiah Washington, as the ruthless Mac, brings just the right hint of danger to the proceedings that makes you suspect him from word one.

Finally, there are the fight sequences, some of the most original setups I have ever seen on any martial arts film. Anyone who feels like they've seen it all with the usual chop-sokey needs to see Li fight five guys upside down, use improvised weaponry and his impressive agility in a stairway/alleyway fight, play one of the funniest games of football ever put on film, dance a mambo of kung fu with Aaliyah (all because he can't hit a girl, mind you), and use a fire hose in a way that no action hero outside of Hong Kong has ever thought of. The only place where it breaks down is in his final fight with Wong, which relies too much on the wire-fu gimmickry. But nobody's perfect.

All in all, thinking about this film is making me anxious to see what he'll be doing with DMX in "Cradle 2 the Grave".

Hard Target (1993)

A "doughnut" movie...

[17 February 2003]

I've loved John Woo's films ever since I took a chance and bought my subtitled copy of "The Killer" for VHS (no bad dubbing jobs for me, thank you very much). The blood flew pretty close to what it probably does in real life, all actions had consequences, and nearly no one was a cardboard cutout. For years, I've been listening to folk grouse about "Hard Target" being a misfire, a mistake, or just simply not worthy of what came before (one of the most irritating examples they love to throw up is "Hard Boiled", a good, solid HK movie, but not up to the hype too many folks have given it). Curiousity finally got the better of me and I decided about four months ago to see for myself. What I came away with was the belief that this is a "doughnut" film, weak to non-existent center surrounded by strong elements all around (the original "Under Siege" is a similar such film).

But, before I go into the single biggest defect in this film, let's start with what the film got right. Chuck Pfarrar's script isn't too original (going back to that short story classic, "The Most Dangerous Game", in concept), but it carries the premise solidly and believably enough. The real New Orleans is a city of complicated and crooked political crosscurrents, which, with its surrounding bayous, makes it the ideal manhunting ground. Woo's direction captures the sense of the place very well, making it as much a character in the story as the human players (one could argue that he did the same for Hong Kong in his earlier films). Genre veteran Lance Hendrickson brings his patented smoky, suave menace to bear on the twisted "game warden" who's been organizing and making a killing, so to speak, off his inhuman enterprise. Not that he's without human qualities (his piano playing sequence and small smile of admiration for Roper's decision to take it from the front are the best examples), but definitely not a guy one invites to dinner. Arnold Vosloo, as his sociopathic second-in-command, Van Cleef, seems to relish the role, playing him as a svelte animal whose only joy in life comes from inflicting death, the messier the better. Future Witchblade Yancy Butler is a little too believably naive and helpless as the woman looking for her father and later his killers. That said, she does redeem herself with one memorable event towards the end that brings to mind a similar scene in "Hard Boiled". Finally, Wilford Brimley is a treat as the old Cajun moonshiner out to help his nephew at any cost. You gotta respect a guy who's willing to blow his own place up just to get the bad guys.

Perceptive readers may have already guessed where I've been going with this, but I'll say it anyway. The single biggest flaw in this film is its star, Jean-Claude Van Damme You All. This could have been the best film of his career...if he actually had any acting talent to begin with. It's a meaty role, a Cajun merchant marine who did time in the Marine Recon and now needs the cash of finding Butler's dad to get back to work. As written, he's tough, he's clever, he's likable. As played by Van Damme...well, let's just say that Woo did not get the Belgian equivalent of Chow Yun Fat. His accent, for once, isn't a problem, but his line readings are. He could have been reading a prescription bottle for all the emotion he put into them. Plus, he never manages to convince me that he's actually smart enough to come up with any of the very clever ways of offing the hunters that come into play. It makes his reported clashs with Woo over the film look even more petty than they already are (Woo probably found the MPAA more reasonable, by contrast). In short, he is the hole in the doughnut for this film.

It's really kind of sad that, but for one major flaw, this film could have become a classic of the action genre. Sadly, as things stand, it can only be called a missed opportunity.

Hellsing (2001–2002)

Paint the screen red...

[9 February 2003]

I've noticed a peculiar discrepancy in my taste for vampiric fare. Though I constantly claim that I find the archetype of the vampire rather repulsive and boring, I'm nevertheless drawn to stories dealing with vampires. There is, however, one concrete ground rule: they must not be romanticized as completely misunderstood victims. Generally speaking, the nastier the depiction of vamps, the better. Which, I suppose, ultimately accounts for my reaction to "Hellsing".

Overall, I loved the series for many reasons: strong characterizations, a twisty (albeit mostly unresolved) plot, a refusal to sugarcoat the nastiness factor, and an awesome soundtrack that sounded like something that just bubbled out of the Louisiana bayous. But the thing that grabbed my attention the most was the method of vampiric infection used: a small microchip that induces the same results that the real thing can.

The one everybody remembers from this series is Alucard, a grinning, fanged spector of the night that, with his crimson riverboat gambler duds, John Lennon glasses, and Zorro hat, looks like he just stepped off the drawing board of comic artist Tim Truman. While he does have a few points of honor here and there (I doubt that he'd be one of the "good guys" otherwise), he's mostly a vicious engine of destruction who lives for nothing more than a good fight. The more carnage he can cause on a worthy opponent, the happier he is. His contempt for "trash vampires" is mainly based on the fact that he considers them not worth his time and trouble, to say nothing of the fact that they can't really command full vampiric abilities. One can't help but feel just a little uneasy about him. You thank God he's on your side, but you also wonder what would be the right circumstances for him to be playing for the opposing team.

His "daughter-in-darkness" (to borrow Ian Eddington's phrase for a converted vamp's relation to the one who turned them), Seras Victoria, is really the series' main protagonist when one thinks about it. Alucard is flashier and more violence-inclined, but "Police Girl", as he affectionately calls her, is the one who changes the most over the course of the story...and not just because she goes from life to undeath. In the beginning, she's D-11's "baby kitty", a girl in her twenties who hasn't really matured all that much. Ironically, it's not until after she's been turned that she starts to grow up. By the final episode, she's become a take-charge, take-no-prisoners fighter on the order of Sarah Connor. She may never quite come to terms with what she is, but she has truly become her own person.

*Spoiler Alert* One thing I found supremely frustrating about the series was the fact that the biggest mystery--who was behind the manufactured vamps?--is never answered directly. Oh, the hints are there from the first episode on, but the fact that the story never turns over its cards and says "This is who done it" is a minor annoyance that took away from the final, rock-em-sock-em finale. Maybe we can see this resolved in a sequel? One can only hope. That aside, this is primo stuff for the vampirically inclined.

The City of the Dead (1960)

H.P. Lovecraft by way of "Psycho"

[28 July 2002]

"Because of all we've seen/Because of all we've said/We are the dead."

--David Bowie, "We Are The Dead"

"That is not dead which can eternal lie/And in strange eons, even death may die."

--H.P. Lovecraft, "The Nameless City"

I came upon "Horror Hotel" strictly by accident. Since acquiring my new DVD player, I've been obsessed with building a library to complement it. Being an economy shopper, I was immediately intrigued by some of the cheap, double-bill DVDs of low-budget horror movies. My real goal was the companion piece for "Horror Hotel", "Carnival of Souls"...but I realized that I had acquired something incredibly special when I played "Horror Hotel" first.

The earliest scene that leaves the deepest impression is Christopher Lee's college professor screaming out his lecture to his students, "Burn, witch, burn, witch, burn!" The punctuating statement of a long dissertation on the local New England witchs, it impresses one of his students deeply enough for her to investigate a little deeper. She returns to the village where it all happened, a place so steeped in Lovecraftian darkness and fog that even Cthulu would think twice before entering. But the poor girl can't seem to help herself in probing just a little deeper, whereupon she finds...well, that would be telling, wouldn't it? Suffice to say, she winds up finding a whole lot more than she bargains for at the local inn...with DEADLY consequences.

The only real flaw with this movie is its public domain horror characters. Anyone looking for someone along the lines of Norman Bates, Ash, or Freddy Krueger is going to be supremely disappointed; no character here is quite that singular. But so what? Like any truly well-made Frankenstein monster, its whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. Thanks to the two essential factors that shine--acting and staging--this film lives and breathes like a Ray Harryhausen monstrosity, pitiless and cold in its intent on building the atmos-fear to fever pitch. From the initial burning of the witch Elizabeth to the disappearing familiar who marks his mistress' victims to the grisly fate of our initial heroine at the hour of thirteen to the desperate struggle for survival in the cemetary to the black irony of the last scene...simply put, this film should be shown to anyone who ever questioned Neil Gaiman's assertion that the genre we call Horror is not a place that a traveler should walk alone.

A final note: there is a supreme irony in the movie's resemblance to another, more revered black and white horror gem: Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". The stories are different enough for the most dim-witted audience member never to be confused as to which was which, but the arc of the story follow the same threads: (minor spoiler alert) girl goes to far-out-of-the-way place, girl checks into hotel with slightly creepy owner/operator, girl is brutally murdered, focus switchs to boyfriend and another girl as protagonists, boyfriend and other girl throw down on the bad guy's @$$. Though both movies were made in the same year, 1960, I can't help but wonder if this was one of the films that Hitch was looking over when he saw how its mostly tacky brethren were turning a considerable profit. A master craftsman such as he could not have possibly missed the resemblance to his own film, one that is light-years more sophisticated than our current subject. But that is another review for another day...

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

The Greatest Film Stanley Kubrick Never Made...

[20 June 2002]

"The mind can make substance,/And people planets of its own with beings brighter than have been,/And give a breath to forms which outlive all flesh."--George Gordon, Lord Byron

The above quotation is what I found written on my calender the night I watched "A.I." for the first time on May the 30th. After I had watched the film, I turned the calender over to the new month to find that bit of Byron's verse waiting for me. I couldn't help but think to myself how appropriate a quotation it was in regards to the film's protagonist, David, and the film's grandfather and father, Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielburg, respectively.

I see very, very little of Spielburg in this movie, in spite of his having written the script (which, in fairness, was made from Ian Wilson's treatment for Kubrick and was in turn based on Brian Aldiss' "Supertoys Last All Summer". One of Spielburg's greatest acts of creative kindness is the onscreen credit of all script-related parties.). Though Kubrick didn't direct one frame of this film, it's through his worldview that I see this incredibly unique story that all GREAT science fiction is supposed to be about: the development of technology and how that technology affects the human race that created it.

In some ways, "A.I." almost harkens back to the technological subtext of "Blade Runner". That said, this world is a kinder, gentler dystopia than Ridley Scott's dark future, where the true problems of mankind simmer beneath a surface security and comfort. Humans have now managed to do miraculous things with their mechanical children, but their true nature hasn't really changed. The ugly parts of it are still crouching in the shadows, squirming for expression (which may have been the point of the "Flesh Fair" sequence, about which I will only say this slight spoiler: think the unplugging of HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey" with fireworks). By staying with David after his introduction into the film, I didn't just see this world, I FELT it in my gut. All the grandeur, the depravity, the ingenuity, the decadence, the highest hopes, and the dashed dreams came through with the same amount of force that it did to David.

I find it interesting that David, the most Spielburgian character in this film, was mostly developed by Kubrick and that supporting character Gigolo Joe, a Kubrickian entity if ever I saw one, was mainly developed by Spielburg from Kubrick's notes. To me, they are the most vital parts in the machinery of this film. Perhaps even more so than David's ongoing quest (about which, I will say nothing), their evolving relationship is the central core of about a third of the film. Each winds up learning something of value from the other, though those lessons do not seem to profit them by much.

While I am not a Kubrick fanatic, I have seen roughly half his films in the course of my life ("Paths of Glory", "Spartacus", "Dr. Strangelove", "A Clockwork Orange", "2001", "Full Metal Jacket"). Though hardly a prolific filmmaker, he was widely acknowledged by many, myself included, as one of the greatest. More than just a great film, "A.I." deserves to be remembered as a monument to this cinematic master, carved with loving and able care by a devoted and compentant friend...a monument that may very well "outlive all flesh".

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Outshines your average good movie the way a supernova outshines a star...

[5 March 2002]

**SPOILERS**"Three rings for the Elven kings under the sky/Seven for the dwarf lords in their halls of stone/Nine for mortal men doomed to die/One for the Dark Lord on his Dark Throne. In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie/One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them/One Ring to bring them all and, in the darkness, bind them/In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie."

--J.R.R. Tolkein, Opening poem for all three books of The Lord of The Rings trilogy

I made a point of memorizing the above verse back when I was in high school, just as I made a point to read the trilogy and its prelude, "The Hobbit". That said, I could not and shall not claim to be a true Tolkeinite. I don't religiously follow the books the way some have, but I do think that they are some of the finest gifts that the nation of England has ever given to the world, right up there with the complete works of William Shakespeare. When I first heard about the adaptation of these books coming to pass, I was neither suspicious nor prepared to scream blasphemy. I've seen enough film adaptations to know that some things would inevitably be changed (the merit of such changes, I leave to more die-hard fanatics and anal-retentive scholars than myself). Indeed, just before "Fellowship of The Ring" came out, Sir Ian McKellan addressed that very issue in an interview I saw in Newsweek, referring to how he always had issues with film adaptations of the work of Charles Dickens, but also said that this was intended to be a tribute to Tolkein, not a crass commercialization that too much of Hollywood indulges in. So I had hope. When I finally saw it...my hopes were surpassed by a VERY large margin (considering how high they were, no mean feat).

Yes, there are changes to the story. Even my vague recollection of the tale showed several parts that had been rearranged and/or excised from the film (though I've been given to understand that some of the scrapped bits shall reappear on DVD release). When all's said and done, I can live with that. It takes nothing away from the film itself, which follows the main storyline closely enough to where only the most die-hard Tolkeinite would be displeased.

Also, too many people have complained about the CGI in the cinematography, almost as if there was something ignoble about it. I simply see CGI as a tool, one that, while often misused, is capable of being an important partner to a film and not just the only reason to see a film. Inevitably, there were certain parts of Tolkein's universe that could not be duplicated any other way in the real world, ergo CGI was the only way to achieve the desired effect. About the only other director who has been able to use CGI as well as Jackson does here is George Lucas (which, I suppose, is a no-brainer).

The acting company involved included many of my favorite supporting players: Sir Ian McKellan (one of the most well-deserved Oscar nominations in the history of the academy), Ian Holm, Sean Bean, John Rhys-Davies, Hugo Weaving, and last, but certainly not least, Christopher Lee (who, even at this late date, has lost none of the menace and majesty that made him Hammer Studios' version of Count Dracula). I never thought that I'd actually see them all in one movie together, but, as I know myself, Tolkein's epic story has that kind of pull on people. Why should the acting fraternity be any different?

One personal benefit that the movie has given to me is helping me see the roots of Tolkein's saga more clearly. Odd that they never occurred to me while I was reading the books, but does now that I've seen it on screen. While Tolkein always bristled at the suggestion that it had anything to do with what went down in the real world (I doubt that he would have been persuaded by the late Dr. Issac Asimov's assessment on the subject), I wonder if he would have agreed with what I saw as references to classic legends and mythology:

The One True Ring--This corresponds with the Ring of the Niebelung, an accursed ring in Germanic myth forged by Alberich of the dwarves (who has counterparts in both Gollum and Sauron) that caused nothing but calamity by all those who wound up possessing it.

Strider's shattered sword--Suggested perhaps by the legend of Siegmund and Siegfried Volsung (whose lives played a major part in Wagner's "Ring of The Niebelung" cycle). Siegmund's invincible sword was shattered on the god Odin's magical spear, to be reforged by his son Siegfried.

Strider--He seems a throwback to King Arthur, who, it will be recalled, was raised by a far different father than his royal sire before taking his rightful place on the throne.

Boromir's betrayal--This also seems to follow the Arthur model, making Boromir the Sir Lancelot figure of the fellowship. The only noticable difference between the two is that Lancelot betrayed his king for love of his queen and Boromir betrayed Frodo and the others for want of the Ring's power.

Boromir's death--It wasn't until Boromir blew the horn of Gondor that I realized that it paralleled the title character's death in "The Song of Roland". Roland, too proud to call for reinforcements before it was too late, blew his horn just in time for his uncle and lord Charlemagne to find his dead body.

If there is any one reason why I cannot help but think of this as my favorite movie of all time, it comes down to this: it's the fantasy film I've been wanting to see all my life. No other fantasy movie I have seen--not "Dungeons and Dragons: The Movie", not "Willow", not even, to some degree, "Clash of The Titans"--wove the slow but sure spell that this movie did when all was said and done. Rare is the movie that runs for three hours plus and still leaves you wanting more. While I applaud the wisdom on the part of the filmmakers to break the saga up into three seperate films, I cannot deny that there is a gnawing frustration in the bottom of my soul for the next two parts. Without question, I have no fears that the next two films will wind up being a couple of the best Christmas presents I have ever received.

Memento (2000)

Perhaps this generation's "Point Blank"...

[13 November 2001]

"Everyone complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgement."--Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, "Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims", 1678

The above is a very good quotation to keep in mind as one watches "Memento". Believe me, it all makes sense in the final context.

My main attraction to this movie was Guy Pierce (whom I became acquainted with via "L.A. Confidential") and the nature of the story. Having heard a little of short term memory impairment via a "20/20" show long, long ago (as I recall, I believe the particular instances cited were the result of a disease transmitted by eating mussels), I thought that it would be interesting to see how a mystery was being investigated by a man with the same problem. My reaction was the same that I got from watching "The Limey". It was NOTHING like I was expecting.

The opening sequence sets the tone straight away, up the hill backwards, to borrow a phrase from David Bowie. Like a surreal slideshow, we flash backward and forward from the beginning and end points of Lenny's week(?) to figure out basically what the hell is going on (one of Nolan's smartest moves was to film the earliest sequences in black and white and the time just prior to the opening in color to reduce audience confusion). At first, I believed Lenny because he seemed so calm, rational, and assured in spite of his obvious handicap. SURELY he'd know what he's talking about. (bitter chuckle) More the fool me.

The whole of his world is constricted to five minutes at a time. Five minutes where every incident, every insult, every indignity that is heaped on him is flensed from his mind like a stain exposed to bleach unless he considers it important enough to write down. How could one possibly trust such a man who's forgotten why he's running away from a man with a gun (indeed, forgotten that he's being chased and not chasing), that his wife was called a whore by a woman who is supposedly helping him, or that said woman spat into a tankard that he then thoughtlessly drinks from...all of it instantly forgotten at the end of his memory cutoff? Nolan deserves additional credit for not letting Lenny off the hook at the end. Yeah, we can see that he's been used by a few folks, but he's no innocent himself.

In a weird way, it reminds me of "Point Blank", another one-of-its-kind crime film with some very unorthodox storytelling methods. It had the same sort of flat characterizations (not necessarily a fault, to my mind; watch one of the many versions of "Hamlet" if you want characters), the feeling of being unstuck in time, and a protagonist with rigid but flawed moral compass. But there are important differences. "Point Blank" was like living someone's life the same way Kurt Vonnegut wrote "Slaughterhouse Five". "Memento" is like watching a couple of cars start at opposite ends of a long street and end up hitting each other in a head-on collision. The resulting smash-up, as well as that last, casual line, will haunt me for the weeks the way "Sunset Boulevard" did. Watch it and see if it doesn't do the same for you.

Unbreakable (2000)

Sheer cinematic magic...

[5 July 2001]

"I'm not a prophet or a stone age man,/Just a mortal with potential of a superman,/I'm living on/I'm tethered to the logic of Homo Sapien,/Can't take my eyes from the great salvation/of bulls**t faith"

--David Bowie "Quicksand"

When I first heard about "Unbreakable", I got the feeling that I usually get off present-day movies that look like they might be worth investigating; I call this feeling "a grave disturbance in the Force". Of course, the Kubrickian approach to the marketing helped immensely. No one outside the people who have seen the film, to this date, have any idea what it's all about. Such silence I will keep as best I can throughout this review. The last thing I wish to be known as is a spoilsport.

I suppose that the best place to start is with the film's director/writer/producer, M. Night Shyamalan. It is good to see that there is finally someone in the movie industry who rewards his audience for having an attention span longer than five seconds. To truly be able to appreciate "Unbreakable", an audience member has to watch every frame of what goes down, no matter how out there it is. The most significant achievement Shyamalan makes with this movie is his perfect blend of images and words (which, considering the film's comic book subtext, is extremely appropriate). The problem with most films is their habit of focusing too much on imagery, none of it very imaginative (i.e. big explosions, ripped limbs, guns going off by the thousand). On the other hand, there are films in our current day and age that swing the other way, way too much pointless chatter to make up for the fact that the films themselves have inadequate plots, stories, or sense to go with it ("Pulp Fiction", anyone?). No such problems here; Shyamalan's dialogue is as spare and economical as that of Dashiell Hammett or James M. Cain and his imagery speaks a thousand words. One image in particular comes to mind: the immediate aftermath of the train wreck (the only plot element that has been publicly released), as David Dunn steps into the ER waiting room surrounded by all the families of his fellow passengers. In that one sequence, Dunn's relationship with his son, wife, and the world at large are summed up magnificently.

The acting is definitely no problem. Bruce Willis gives the most restrained performance that I have seen in any film of his as David Dunn. He conveys the sense of a man lost in the world he lives in but not knowing where he belongs. How many people go through their life like he does, trying so hard to fit in that he denies what he truly is? As for Samuel L. Jackson (one of the few good things to come out of "Pulp Fiction"), he gives yet another superior performance as comic art dealer, Elijah Price. As played by Jackson, he is a man consumed with a quest, one which he considers nothing less than his life mission. By the end, he lives up to the nickname of his biblical namesake: the Weeping Prophet.

Now, as to the ending, maybe it's because I have an easier time believing that such things come to pass, but I had no problem with it whatsoever. Yes, it was a shocker. Yes, I did not see it coming. BUT it was the ultimate revelation that had been built up from frame one. I fail to understand why people have such a hard time with it. My only thought is that they think that it is very improbable. To this I say improbable does not mean impossible. If one is willing to accept everything fantastical that has gone before, it would seem to me as though this would have been EASIER to believe than anything else in the script.

It will be very interesting to see where Mr. Shyamalan goes from here. So far, he's delivered two films that outtrumps most anything else in the cineplex. Here's hoping the next suprise up his sleeve is just as compelling as this one.

Blade Runner (1982)

Style only carries a film so far; this one has substance...

[16 February 2001]

As a fledgling writer, I'm always in pursuit of a good story that can, in turn, inspire me with my own visions. However, most movies I tend go after are usually the relatively unknowns (such as "Hangmen Also Die!", "Dark City", and "The Professionals"). In doing so, I usually pass the ones everyone else has seen a hundred times already. Up until two days ago, "Blade Runner" was part of that group. I'd seen a little bit of it back when I was a kid, chopped up on TV by some stupid telethon, but this is the first time that I've seen it all the way through (with the letterboxed director's cut, thankfully; never trust a studio to edit a film right).

Once I got over my annoyance at no onscreen credit for the writers (at least for the opening credits and the tape case; like most people, I don't stick around for the end credits), I realized how much I actually enjoyed this movie. I look at this L. A. in a 2019 that I hope never comes and I see a world that is the logical updating of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis": dehumanized, dreary, and rotting from the inside. There can be no better representation of this world than the replicants, synthetic human beings who surpass the average human in intelligience, speed, and agility, but who only have four years to enjoy them however they can. Is it truly any wonder, therefore, that the Nexus 6 models rebelled the way they did? Four years isn't very long, so what's the point of toiling under masters you can live without? No wonder the corporations want them dead.

Deckard (as played by Harrison Ford) has been called many things: a 21st century Sam Spade, an anti-Han Solo, and even a replicant himself. To me, the true answer is none of the above. Deckard is Deckard, that is all. Unlike Sam Spade, he doesn't enjoy the job he has to do or really even tolerates it. It's obvious that it makes him sick to have to gun down people whose only crime is wanting to choose their own destiny. Deckard doesn't have that luxury and every downed replicant seems to kill another piece of his soul.

From this, it's been suggested that Deckard is a replicant himself. Again, I don't think so. Such an assertion is too easy an answer for Deckard's revulsion for the profession he quit once already. Besides, infiltration is something that his employers have undoubtably considered and so probably make a point of screening potential candidates. Add all this to the fact that Deckard can't roll with the replicant's superpowered punchs any better than the rest of the general population and all you have left is a man who is deeply troubled by the trap his life has become.

Rutger Haeur's Roy is no less complicated himself. Granted, thanks to the lack of emotional maturity that he was engineered with, he has no qualms about such things as wantonly taking life and serious injury. Yet, for all that, all he truly wants is to live a little longer than what's already been built into him. The whole point of the final cat-and-mouse chase through the Bradbury (also used for "The Outer Limits" episode, "Demon With A Glass Hand", and the TV movie, "The Night Strangler") was not so much kill or be killed as it was to make Deckard understand what it feels like to be a replicant.

While there is no denying Scott's impeccable style on display here (any lover of German Expressionism or film noir would appreciate it), the story development involved is not given nearly enough credit. It's almost as if the public wants to forget that someone (in this case, the legendary Phillip K. Dick, who wrote the film's basis, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and Hampton Fancher, who adapted it to screen) had to actually sit down, plot things out, and bang the story into shape. But without the efforts of Messers. Dick and Fancher, there would be no "Blade Runner" or if there were, it would not be nearly as good. Not even a director of Scott's obvious ability can make up for such a fundamental component (don't believe me? Try watching "1492" without falling asleep or throwing up). So, in spite of the efforts of whoever decided to omit the writing credits, kindly remember the aforementioned gentlemen who did the job. Because of them, "Blade Runner" will still be talked about another twenty years, I think.

The Limey (1999)

The REAL successor of "Point Blank"...

[8 February 2001]

Because it is based on the same novel, "Payback" has been held up as the (gag) remake of "Point Blank". Anyone who has seen "The Limey", as I have, could definitely tell you different. Though the style of the film obviously comes from John Boorman's sometimes forgotten masterpiece, Soderbergh deserves credit for expanding on that style and giving it some touchs that make it even better.

"Point Blank" had a hopscotch method to it's storyline, randomly jumping around from past to present to future and back again at the drop of hat (suggesting that it's main character, Walker, was actually dead). Soderbergh goes further, giving a voice-over to some of the final words in the film, and running through several possible futures at the dinner party. All adrenline junkies should definitely stay away from this film on account of that fact; nothing about how things develop is straightforward or typical of the action genre. That said, it's everything that someone with an appreciation for a damn good film of any genre could want. Another interesting item of note is the fact that both films take place in L.A. and have leads with only a last name with a W (in this case, Wilson).

This is probably the best role that I've ever seen Terence Stamp play, a hard-edged ex-con with a vicious streak the size of Santa Monica Boulevard. He's not an especially likable bloke, but he gradually becomes someone you can sympathize with. Peter Fonda, to my mind, was a natural for the music producer, a shallow, vain sellout who has made a fortune out of other people's talent. He has everything that the market teachs us that we could want, yet you get the sense that for Fonda, it's a hollow victory, made even more hollow by Stamp's vendetta.

The film's greatest strength to me is that absolutely NOTHING winds up the way that the viewer thinks it should. That may be a bit offputting for some, but it truly helps make "The Limey" stand out from the rest of the all-too-predictable landscape of cinema. Watch it and see for yourself.

The Outer Limits (1963–1965)

Definitely nothing wrong with my television set...

[8 February 2001]

The first glimmer I ever had of the importance of "The Outer Limits" was in Stephen King's "Danse Macabre", where he stated unequivocally that it was the better anthology series of the '60s. At the time, I viewed it as sacrilege. Some nothing series without the immortal Rod Serling better than "Twilight Zone"? Ridiculous. One "Twilight Zone" marathon later, I began to see what King was talking about. As King himself pointed out, there were plenty of good shows, but they groaned under the weight of the bad ones. That's when I decided to investigate "The Outer Limits". I've not regretted it since.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that "The Outer Limits" produced more quality shows in two seasons than "Twilight Zone" did in three. Even with the drop in quality in the second season, it still did outdid Serling's baby on average. Why is this so? Some reasons come to mind:

1)Good writers. TZ had three acknowledged masters of the art of writing (Serling, Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson), but "The Outer Limits" attracted several different writers that added to the variety: Harlan Ellison (of course), Robert Towne, and several others who, sadly, did not become better known from their work on the series (though, in some cases, as with "Specimen: Unknown" and "ZZZZZ", maybe that's not such a bad thing). Also, let us not forget series creator and first year producer Joseph Stephano, who made a name for himself by adapting Hitchcock's "Psycho" to the screen. His contributions ("Nightmare", "Fun and Games", "Form of Things Unknown") are a close second to Ellison's equally laudable episodes ("Demon with A Glass Hand", "The Soldier") for their claustrophobic feel, uncertainities, and richly drawn, highly tormented characters.

2)Excellent actors. The thing that consistently amazed me about the series was how many people who went on to hit it big wound up on screen. The list is staggering to my mind: Martin Landau ("The Man Who Was Never Born"), Robert Duvall ("The Chameleon", "The Inheritors"), Donald Pleasance ("The Man With The Power"), Carrol O'Connor ("Controlled Experiment"), David McCallum ("The Sixth Finger", "Form Of Things Unknown"), Leonard Nimoy ("I, Robot"), Robert Culp ("The Architects of Fear", "Demon With A Glass Hand") and on and on. Writing definitely made this show possible, but the star wattage is a nice bonus that enhances the experience.

3)A questioning tone. Too many people in this day and age ascribe the term "thought-provoking" to material that, while entertaining, is about as full of intellectual content as the Yellow Pages ("X-Files" comes to mind). Not so with this series; it did what any true science fiction story SHOULD do: reflect on the perils of man's place in the universe. Whether it's the horrible cost of idealism and love ("The Man Who Was Never Born"), the dangers of the tormented subconscious ("The Man With The Power"), the chilling lengths that man will go to to prepare for war ("Nightmare"), the equally terrible measures used to create peace ("The Architects of Fear"), the eventual end of the evolutionary ladder ("The Sixth Finger"), or the price of duty ("Demon With A Glass Hand"), the show's best moments always came from giving its viewers the often-unpleasant answers to these questions. Though the "bears" (as OL's monsters were called) drew the viewer in, the REAL monsters were often human beings who look no different than you or I...a far more frightening prospect.

James Van Hise once stated that no other science fiction series has ever come close to the aims and accomplishments of "The Outer Limits". No argument from this quarter; long after so many vapid sci-fi serieses have gone down the drain, "The Outer Limits" will still be standing as solidly as ever.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)

A quiet action movie...

[25 January 2001]

This particular little gem is in serious danger of being forgotten...though, when one watches the film, it's understandable why. It's too violent for the serious drama, too literary for the (insert vomiting sound to the point of dry heaves) Tarintino crowd of faux crime, and way, way too little action for the testerone junkies who watch appalling, shoddily made action films for the cool explosions instead of the non-existent plotlines.

So, having established what "Ghost Dog: Way of the Samuri" is not, what exactly is it? When it comes to thumbnails, only one brief descriptor comes to mind: a quiet action film. There are, of course, some serious differences between it and your standard action film. They are as follows:

1)Fewer targets. Adding up the body count of your average action flick would probably result in the approximate population of a small city. Here, there are only a few aging thugs still trying to pretend that all is well with Cosa Nostra (Italian for "Our Thing"; watching these sad relics makes me think of Andrew Vachss only unpublished novel, "A Bomb Built In Hell", written in 1972. One of the major characters, a mobster doing a life sentence says something to the effect of "Our thing is dead. It used to be a blood thing, now it's just criminals."). Still, they are menacing enough to make the viewer miss the real danger to Ghost Dog.

2)A moral center. The only ethos of your average action film (important exceptions being the Hong Kong films of John Woo) is "whoever has the most ammunition wins". Every now and again here, we are given passages from the Way of the Samauri, which add heft and meaning to the cold and final actions of a master assasin.

3)No real love interest. I don't think I need to explain that those have been de rijour since at least the Golden Age of James Bond, if not further back. Not so here. The only one that comes close is the mobster daughter we meet in the beginning and things don't play out like you would think.

4)The violence. John Woo still did it better back in Hong Kong, but the violence here is a close second. Here, it is vicious, cold, and final. No second chances. It almost makes one realize what it takes to commit such acts...not something to contemplate comfortably.

5)A vulnerable hero. Granted, Ghost Dog pulls off all his kills without a hitch, but it must not be forgotten that how he came to be in this business was based on a moment when he was helpless. The only reason all his kills go down so smooth is that he is better prepared than his targets. This is true even in the movie's ending, when the circle of blood closes.

This will be a movie, like "This Gun For Hire", "The Limey", and "Point Blank", that will stay with me for a long time, regardless of how it is ultimately remembered. The wisest words of all usually come in whispers.

This Gun for Hire (1942)

Digging below the surface...

[25 January 2001]

My first glimpse of this film was in "L. A. Confidential", where Kim Basinger, a Veronica Lake look-alike hooker (I'm totally in agreement with Russell Crowe's character when he comments that Basinger looks better than Veronica Lake), has the movie playing in the background during the train scene. Having finally watched the whole thing, I can easily see why Curtis Hansen and Brian Helgaland gave "This Gun For Hire" that respectful tip of the hat.

It is obvious that this was made during WWII from its references to the overseas menace, but I personally wouldn't let such politics get in the way of enjoying and understanding this movie. To do that, one must focus on the character of Raven (as played by Alan Ladd), a vicious, detached hitman with a soft spot for kids and cats...but no friends. He doesn't kill because it's fun for him; it's just a job. He does live by his own code, a major tenet of which is never to doublecross him. One thing that seems to sail right over people's heads is the fact that Raven is the product of an abused childhood. That such a defining bit made it to the screen (and that the abuser was female) should tell one how little audiences paid attention to such things, in spite of the fact that such were not and are still not isolated incidents.

Patriotism does not motivate Raven in the slightest, just his own self interest. The reason he eventually does what he does has more to do with Veronica Lake, probably the only friend he has ever truly had. I almost wonder if, in her, he sees the mother that he never truly had...but one can also write that one off as Freudian BS so make of it what you will. One thing that shouldn't be ignored, on the other hand, is the fact that, but for a lucky distraction, he would have plugged her to leave less of a trail. It's only when she refuses to hand him over to his enemies that their strange friendship really begins. All this makes Raven one of the most unromantic, unglamourous hard-boiled protagonists that have made it to screen.

Now, as to Ms. Lake, the thing that struck me about her was how unglamourous SHE was here. I don't mean that as an insult, mind, just that she seemed to share a characteristic with Kathrine Hepburn in that comparing her with the other sex goddesses of the time would be like comparing the moon to the sun. As is fitting with the story, she strikes one as being more motherly rather than gun moll material. Not that she can't bring the house down; her opening song-and-magic routine is one of the great all-time showstoppers. In fact, the only time I really had cause to hate her is when she gets into the arms of her cop fiancee and says "Hold me." at the end, but it's a minor complaint. Had there been a more radiant actress, the whole thing would have fallen apart. As it is, she fits perfectly.

Don't let the overt mobilization messages distract you. "This Gun For Hire" has a lot more on its mind that's still with us today.

Ed Wood (1994)

A first-rate film about a tenth-rate director and the insanities of film making...

[19 December 2000]

Well, what is there left to say after the justly deserved accolades laid at the feet of Tim Burton's direction (particularly his inspired decision to shoot in black and white), Johnny Depp's quirky but on-target performance (the real Ed Wood, from what I've read, truly did believe that he was making films of importance), and, of course, Martin Landau's career-best performance as Bela Lugosi (anyone who likes him here should check out his work in the old "Outer Limits" episode, "The Man Who Was Never Born")? Well, how about Burton's subtext about the headaches of getting a movie made?

You see it practically every step of the way. Wood trying to find positives in a decidedly negative review of his play. His trying to convince a producer that only he and he alone can film the story of a transsexual. His infuriating said producer twice, first by changing the story to that of a transvetite, then by making it so badly that the producer will never have anything to do with him again. His pitch session with David O. Selznick, which he had to sell an idea off-the-cuff as it were (I imagine Burton has had to go through similar aggrevation with studio suits, whom Harlan Ellison once described as less literate than a dyslexic). His trying to keep his actors happy with their dialogue, parts, etc. so that they keep working. His never-ending struggle to find financing for his films. His duking it out with his financiers (a Baptist church, no less!) over what his vision of the movie should be. I sincerely believe that there is not a director on the planet who could not relate to at least one of these instances, if not several. The scene where Wood meets his idol, Orson Welles (another director who had to swim upstream for his entire career in film), just underscores many of the points made here.

Not that anything else that's been squeezed into this picture doesn't help make it great. But that little facet of this gem of a film has never been alluded to and I thought that it would be best if it were. I wonder what the real Edward D. Wood Jr. would make of this representation of his life story?

Pitch Black (2000)

Paint it "Black"....

[17 October 2000]

As I've scanned through here, with varying takes on how good or bad "Pitch Black" is, it never seems to have occurred to anyone that the kind of story that this movie tells is what science-fiction is SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT. Despite what the tagline would have you believe, it was never truly intended to be a horror piece ala' "Aliens" per se (though the design for these unnamed beasties are definitely ripped off from H.R. Giger's original design). Like many of the best episodes of "The Outer Limits" (where a story of this sort would have fit perfectly, I might add), it's just old-fashioned science fiction in the fashion of "The Day the Earth Stood Still"...that is, dubious science but believable human interaction.

Much of the film's power comes from Vin Diesel as ice-cold, convicted murderer Riddick. His opening voice-over sets the tone quite well. Plenty of time for things to go wrong, indeed. How they go wrong is, in much the same way the dubious scientific mechanics of the eclipse are handled, unimportant. What IS important is how the survivors react to them and each other. While Riddick is about the last person one would want to be stranded on a rock crawling with insects, he ultimately turns out to be the only one who knows how to survive...which isn't to say that he's not willing to leave the rest of them behind. It takes the guilt-ridden acting Captain of the ship to get him to follow through. He's more intrigued by her attitude than moved, I felt. It's not until she comes back to save his bacon that he begins to change (and not that much, considering how he says "Good night" to the aliens). Add a junkie merc with a badge who becomes the party's biggest liability and the most important components of the story are in place. Practically everything else, by itself, would not have been able to sustain the movie.

All right, so "Pitch Black" is no more "The Matrix" than it is "evil vs. evil" (more like "alien nature vs. human sociopath"). That still does not make it any less a small gem in the all-too barren wasteland of sci-fi.

The Big Sleep (1946)

Better than the novel ever was...

[21 September 2000]

As the above title should indicate, I do not overly care much for Raymond Chandler. "The Big Sleep" is the only novel of his that I have been able to make it through and even that was an uphill struggle against crippling boredom. The effect was not unlike what I would imagine being pumped full of tranquilizers and being made to run the New York Marathon would be like. A big sleep, indeed...

Thankfully, because Howard Hawks did take the time to listen to his audience before releasing the version known best to later generations, he managed to hammer the movie version into something that never gets dull, not for a minute. Granted, you're not sure who's who, what just happened, or when the next dead body is going to hit the ground (this particular mystery has the highest body count of any I've seen in recent memory outside of "L.A. Confidential"), but the razor-sharp dialogue keeps things entertaining throughout.

Bogie could call himself Phil Marlowe, Sam Spade, Rick Blaine, or Howdy Doody for that matter, but Chandler, when asked about his performance in "The Big Sleep", probably said it best, "Bogart is always superb playing Bogart." Here, he plays that role probably the best that I have ever seen him do it. He takes more of a beating this time out than usual, worked over a couple of times and none too gently, either. The sense one gets is that he's a man trying to get a handle on a situation that keeps threatening to spin out of control. The miracle is that Bogie is able to keep track of the plotline better than the audience (including myself).

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention a certain lady by the professional name of Lauren Bacall. She provides the film with it's other stable axis. She comes off as mysterious, tough, over her head in trouble, and head over heels in love. The moment where she and Bogie clicked into place for me was the phone "conversation" with the police line they dialed up. I get the impression that she didn't want Bogie to probe any deeper because she knew that he'd land in the spot she was in. Of course, getting info from her is like trying to pry open Fort Knox with a crowbar. She keeps her cards as close to her chest, if not closer, than Bogie. You never know where she's going to pop up next, but you know it's going to be interesting.

Now, to answer the all-important question of who killed Regan,...watch the movie again. Failing that, read the novel (if you can). The answer to that burning question IS there, but, like everything else in this film, it's tossed out so fast that if you blink, you miss it. Failing that, just enjoy it, I say. Bogie and Bacall pairings don't get any better than this.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

This generation's "Chinatown"...

[13 September 2000]

"Come to Los Angelos...it's Paradise on Earth. Hahaha...that's what they tell ya anyway." Danny Devito's opening voiceover sets the mood for the one of the moodiest and best film noirs ever released from the dream factory that is Hollywood. I first heard about "L.A. Confidential", appropiately enough, from looking at the ad for it on the back of a tabloid. While I'd not heard of Ellroy prior to this film's release, I was shocked to find out that one of his first novels, "Blood on the Moon", served as the basis for one of the most foul-mouthed, brutal, and, to my mind, underrated films on the market, "Cop". No matter; my subsequent reading of Ellroy's work proves to me that the man is at his best by using the known facts of history as a prybar for showing the rot underneath the veneer.

Curtis Hanson remarked, in a documentary about the film, that as he read the book and was introduced to the three main guys (Bud White, Jack Vincenes, and Edmond Exley), he found that he didn't like them. That would seem to parallel my own reactions to them. Bud White scared the hell out of me. Jack Vincenes, for all his smooth charm, disgusted me. Ed Exley, with his wimpy exterior, reminded me a little too much of the kid I used to be. Every one of these cops are corrupt to various extents. But all that changes with the Nightowl Massacre.

At roughly the halfway point of the film, when the whole business of the Nightowl killings have been "resolved", all three of these guys come to the exact same conclusion: this isn't what it's supposed to be all about. It winds up putting them on a collision course for the real culprits behind the crime and for two of these guys, the price of defiance turns out to be astronomical.

What fascinated me the most about this film was it's use of actual history, be it Mickey Cohen, Johnny Stompanato, Lana Turner, the opening night of "Worlds Collide", or the beginning of the construction of the Santa Monica Boulevard. These bits of historical grounding act as a wall that the story bounces off of like a racquet ball. Like "Chinatown", Hanson and Helgelund (and, of course, Ellroy before them) make no bones about the fact that the official histories of 1950's L.A. are just sanitized versions of the real thing. Unlike "Chinatown", however, the movie doesn't end on a note of hopelessness, though not in the traditional "justice has been served" wrap-up, either.

It struck me, especially considering Hanson's comments on the naturalistic lighting scheme employed by Dante Spinotti, that this piece could almost be considered anti-noir. By that, I mean, it uses the noir conventions that date back to Hollywood's "Golden Age", but in a way that sets a somewhat different tone. It's not hopelessness, as I've pointed out, but it's not the uplifting feel-good kind of mood, either. It is its own thing. It will be interesting to see if a movie that follows that sort of pattern is made within the next few years.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

The best cinematic meditation on greed since "Treasure of the Sierra Madre"...

[26 August 2000]

Belfast-based comics writer Garth Ennis said it best: "There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend...those who dig Clint Eastwood movies...and dweebs." While I have to admit that my heart belongs to the opening act of "The Man With No Name" trilogy, "A Fistful of Dollars", there is no denial in my mind that "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" is actually the better film. Many directors have tried imitating it's style (including Don Siegel's substandard "Hang 'Em High" and Eastwood's own first Western offering as star/director in "High Plains Drifter"), but none have truly come close to the eccentricities on display here.

I have a suspicion that the storyline is actually based on historical fact. Consider this account from Joel Rose's "The Big Book of Thugs" under the entry of "The Reynolds Gang": They were organized in 1863 by Texans Jim and John Reynolds. They were briefly interned in a Civil War prison camp for Confederate sympathizers and after being released, began making robberies that, according to Jim Reynolds, were to help out Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy. The loot was buried somewhere in the area of Handcart Gulch and Spanish Peaks in Colarado Territory and later, after Jim Reynolds and four members of his gang had been executed by Colonel John M. Chivington of the Union Army, John Reynolds, dying from a fatal wound during a holdup, supposedly whispered out the location of his old gang's ill gotten loot. Unlike the movie version, it was never found.

Regardless of whether or not this was the actual basis for TGTBATU, it is nevertheless a film more grounded in history than a lot of it's comtemparies and, indeed, more than a few of it's successors. The Civil War is part of the backdrop, but it does so on a forgotten front of that war, the Western theater. Most high-school history classes would have us believe that nothing happened out West, but plenty did. In fact, the last skirmish of the war, if I'm not mistaken, was in New Mexico and, ironically enough, a Confederate victory.

The central of this film is greed. You don't just see it in the quest for the Confederate gold by Blondie, Angel Eyes, and Tuco. There are signs of it everywhere; in the hotel manager talking about how he'll be glad to get the Northerners in town for the money they'll bring in, Bill Carson appealing to Tuco's greed for a single sip of water, the gang of cutthroats who are systematically robbing the Confederate prisoners of their goods. Set up against the harsh desert backdrop, it exposes the ultimate folly of that greed (the best symbol of it perhaps being the cemetary where the gold is buried). A little over a decade before the Reagan era of "Greed is healthy, greed is good", this film provides the ultimate rebuttal to that argument. Greed has gotten just as many men killed, if not more, than patriotism ever did. Such a subtext makes "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" the cinematic child of John Huston's "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and the precursor to Oliver Stone's "Wall Street".

As great as Leone, Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Wallach are, there is one member of this team that pushs this film into the status of greatness: score writer Ennio Morricone. Not only does he manage to write one of the most recognized theme tunes on the planet, he also adds the extra tension needed to convey the drama with the necessary oomph, the best examples being in Blondie's torturous walk across the desert, Tuco's frantic search through the cemetary (my personal favorite and so good that Lucasarts did a slowed-down version of it for their western shooter, "Outlaws"), and, of course, the final three way shoot-out. He still composes scores for many other films to this day, I've been told. A good example of his most recent work would be the 1990 version of "Hamlet" starring Mel Gibson and directed by Franco Zefferelli. But I truly doubt that he'll ever be able to top the legendary work he did here.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Not a film about war, but about humanity...

[10/10 · 17 August 2000]

"I am the way to the city of woe/I am the way to a forsaken people/I am the way to eternal sorrow./Sacred justice moved my architect/I was raised here by divine omnipotence, primordial love, and ultimate intellect./Only those elements time cannot wear/Were made before me and beyond time I stand/Abandon all hope ye who enter here."--Dante, "The Divine Comedy Part I: Inferno", Canto 3, Verse 1-3

Nothing could have prepared me for that opening scene: fade in on a jungle backdrop. Distorted swishing sounds coming through the soundtrack, getting slightly louder as an army copter comes by. Smoke begins to rise as a tinkly bell sounds, seguing into a haunting tune. All the while, like a leitmotif in a Wagner opera, the swishing continues, getting slightly louder as yet another copter goes by. The jungle explodes with fire as Jim Morrison begins singing the first lines of the only Doors tune that I can truly say that I have ever liked: "The End".

It wasn't until those first few moments that I understood what Harlan Ellison was talking about when he named Francis Ford Coppola as one of the greatest directors in the world (other notables on that list included Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, and Luis Buenel). I'd already heard a little about the background behind this film; Martin Sheen wrote an article about it a few years back. Having seen the finished product of "Apocalypse Now", I have no trouble believing whatsoever that every calamity that befell the production actually happened. The kind of chaos and darkness that wound up on the screen wouldn't be near as convincing if it hadn't been a reflection of what was really happening on the set.

As the POV character on this modern interpretation of Dante's Inferno (yes, I realize this is based on Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", but Dante's version of Hell served as a nice reference guide for reasons I will explain later), Martin Sheen as Capt. Willard is human enough to make the viewer sympathize with him a little and INhuman enough to make said viewer feel repulsed by the depths he winds up sinking to...which is, actually, straight down to the bottom. He's given a seemingly simple mission: kill an insane colonel who's become a law unto himself. But once things get rolling, the simplicity goes right out the window.

First we meet Col. Kilgore (a great, memorable performance from Robert Duvall), who actually isn't too dissimilar to Kurtz in that he's doing what he think will wind up winning the war (when he's not busy thinking about surfing; such an attitude would qualify him for the first circle of Hell, Virtuous Pagans). Then we see things escalate, little by little: the riot at the USO show (Lust), the massacre of the tampan crew(Pride), the endless battle of keeping one lousy bridge in operation(Wrath). Along the way, we get to know more about Kurtz's background, which makes him look a little less insane and more rational than the mess he's in. The lines begin to blur.

How could I not think of Cocytus, the very last level of the Inferno, when we finally get to meet Col. Walter E. Kurtz? In Dante's conception, the devil stands at it's center, mindlessly flapping it's wings and freezing souls over in the process. It's a fair description what Kurtz has managed to do to all his followers. After all, isn't man his own ultimate devil? The only one who doesn't seem to be too affected (though he's definitely touched in the head by the rest of the insanity) is Dennis Hopper's riddle-talking photojournalist. Kurtz himself (played with great and underacknowledged aplomb by Marlon Brando) is a little harder to figure out. He goes off on bizarre tangents in any conversation, will chop off the head of anyone who threatens him and then seems to regret it, talks seeming nonsense into Army radio frequencies, reads poetry aloud to anyone who'll listen (the choice of T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" is no coincidence; it actually contains a quote from "Hearts of Darkness": "Mister Kurtz, he dead.")but one doesn't get the feeling that he's actually insane (my theory is that those who say that he is have given up trying to figure him out). There's a lot of pain involved with what he's become, but even that doesn't sum him up. Brando's Kurtz is like quicksilver; just when you think you've got a handle on him, he slips through your fingers.

Could his end really have come any other way? Eliot said it himself in "The Hollow Men": "This is the way the world ends/This is the way the world ends/This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang, but with a whimper." But it coming from Brando, what a whimper: "the horror...the horror". The horror he's talking about is what human beings can allow themselves to become. Not just in war, but any great disaster that strikes at and breaks the foundations of any person's view of the world. That is why this movie is ultimately NOT about Vietnam; it's about what happens to Everyman when he learns dark truths that can not be rationalized and can not be denied. The Vietnam War was Kurtz's catalyst...who can say what ours could be?

Duel (1971 TV Movie)

The ultimate car chase movie...

[9 August 2000]

Leave it to prosemaster extraordinaire, Richard Matheson (a favorite of mine and the man Stephen King acknowledges as being his biggest influence), to come up a premise so simple yet so believable and terrifying that the viewer will never look at an eighteen-wheeler the same way ever again...and leave it to cinematic wunderkind, Stephen Spielburg, to do right by Matheson's script and win acclaim in the bargain.

Though some may argue that "Bullit", "Vanishing Point", or maybe even the original "Gone in 60 Seconds" could be called the ultimate car chase movie, "Duel" deserves this designation better because it does something none of the above films can claim. The story literally starts on the road and ends on the road. No location in the entire film is ever out of sight of the highway and, in spite of the brief conversation with the wife, virtually nothing else happens outside the highway. For David Mann (played adequately enough by Dennis Weaver) and the monster truck he's trying to get away from, the road and everything alongside it is their entire universe. Nothing else of importance exists outside of it.

Though it's never mentioned in the film, this would seem to take place on the California highways. When I went out there about eight years ago, I went down roads that seemed to be not too dissimiliar to the ones shown here. They seemed to stretch on forever, no vestiges of civilization in sight for miles. Spielburg uses this setting to great advantage. Being in your car in a crowded city intersection is one thing, but on those highways with nothing but your car and a homicidal maniac in a diesel for miles? The isolation factor that cars naturally produce jumps up a thousand percent. The radiator hose problem made me think of many other times that I had similar troubles with cars I've had. Of course, I never had someone trying to kill me at the time, but...

Anyone looking for drama, character development, or all the other elements that pseudo-critics point out as the mark of cinematic excellence are liable to be disappointed by "Duel". It's what King described in "Danse Macabre" as a Tale of the Hook. It's only purpose is to scare the hell out of you. Damn if it doesn't work. THAT'S the mark of a classic.

The Matrix (1999)

"Metropolis" meets "Star Wars"...

[1 August 2000]

I have not seen "The Matrix" since it's initial release in theaters in 1999 (I, in fact, saw it twice, a very rare occurence for me). The reason I haven't written a review for it before now is that I wanted time to think about it. The reason I haven't watched it on videocassette is because I'm still waiting on the widescreen edition.

While I am sure most would recognize the second film above (is there anyone on this planet who COULDN'T?), the first may seem unfamiliar. "Metropolis" is widely regarded as the first science-fiction film, dealing mainly in the themes of the dehumanization brought on by the rise of the eras of Industrial Revolution and Big Business. "The Matrix" can be seen as the ultimate updating of that concept, where the fruits of those revolutions have contributed to much of what "Metropolis" foresaw. What is the difference between being a factory worker and an office worker in our day and age? Both require two things that Stephen King in "Danse Macabre" said are the only qualification to be a Hollywood screenwriter: a low-alpha wave pattern and the soul of a drone. Most corporations simply don't care if you live or die. If you don't play the game according to their rules, well, you can always be replaced, rather like a cog in a fine Swiss watch. This is the reality of our age because too many people DON'T want to or can't try some other way.

Which leads me to the real problem in "The Matrix". It isn't, as so many of the short-sighted have said, the machines, it's the people. Morpheus points out that most of the people who aren't clued in to what the REAL situation is simply couldn't withstand the shock. To quote Hamlet's most famous speech, they would rather "bear those ills they have rather than fly to others that they know not of." That doesn't make them evil or stupid. It's simply human nature. Neo himself is not immune to this hard blow to his world, as his initial enlightenment session ends rather badly. That's why most dictatorships on this planet stay in place for longer periods than most Americans sometimes expect. People prefer the devil they do know to the devil they don't know.

Mixing into this basic core is the mythic elements pinpointed by Carl Jung that, while, on the surface, may seem preposterous, actually have a logical explaination. My pet theory is that the Oracle is actually not a human being, but a computer program. The prophecy mentioned could easily be just the end result of a mathematical probability equation, not unlike the psychohistory concept put forth in Issac Asimov's "Foundation" novels. If someone like the One could exist once, it is logical to assume that, with the right combination of genetic factors, such a being would come into existence again. When the Oracle was touching Neo's hand, it was, no doubt, scanning for those factors and found them. Still, it didn't tell him that he was the One; it told him what he needed to know to realize his full potential. After all, the prophecy she told Neo DID come true.

Of course, it helps that this film combined with it's message some of the most impressive action this side of "Terminator". John Woo is the usual one cited in the scenes of slo-mo gunplay, but even Woo owes a debt to the late great Sam Peckinpah, who took the ballet and carnage of violence to new heights while not losing track of the story. The kung-fu sequences are probably the best done in an American film since "Enter The Dragon". Top them off with some of the most amazing SFX in years and you have a truly unique experience.

Characterization, usually given short shrift in most action films of recent years, is central to the plot. Whether you're talking about Reeves' hesistant savior, Fishbourne's wise mentor (easily the best performance in the film), Moss' tough-as-nails Trinity, Pantoliano's weary traitor, or Weaving's chillingly malicious Agent Smith (the most scary machine character since HAL 9000), I never got the impression I was watching cardboard cutouts, but real characters with real questions and struggles. Without this last element, "The Matrix" would have been an empty exercise for me. With it, it's a "Metropolis" for the 90's.

X-Men (2000)

The next step in the evolution of the action film

[1 August 2000]

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face--forever."--George Orwell

I think the above quote suggests that the esteemed Mr. Orwell may very well have been able to appreciate "X-Men". Human bigotry, after all, is as old as human existence. Though the trappings seem to border on the preposterous, can one really say that the film's premise is as outrageous as at first glance?

I'll be frank. I wasn't expecting anything from this film. Though I am a long-time comic collector, I've learned to hate all things X-Men as time rolls on. There were so many times and so many moments were the film seemed to be on the edge of going down the toilet. Heh...guess I should have had more faith. What I've seen this night is the next step in the action-film revolution begun by "The Matrix".

Though the X-Men were created in America, the storyline, science fiction elements, characterizations, and outrageous action actually have their roots in both Japanese anime and the German Expressionist film movement of the 1910's and 1920's. These two seperate schools began to merge in the live action arena with the underacknowledged gem "Dark City". The neophyte movement finally began to hit overdrive with "The Matrix" and, with "X-Men", has finally begun to hit it's stride. I'm not sure what one could call this movement in film (Roger Ebert's term of "visionary filmmaking" is way too vague to be considered definitive), but hopefully, it will define the action genre for the 21st century.

Granted, none of this would mean a thing if the acting or writing weren't top-notch. David Hayter's script is notable for it's lack of verbosity. Taking a cue from the German Expressionist movement, most of the drama is conveyed in images (the shattered gates in Poland, the ominous floating guns during the train station stand-off, Logan holding Maria tight in the hopes of keeping her alive). The dialogue can only be described as adequate. One is not likely to find that many memorable one-liners, but it never becomes so terrible that one winces as he occasionally had to during some of the clunkier lines of "Star Wars Episode One". That said, there are at least a couple of good jokes in the script and Logan sticking out his center claw after setting off (and "turning off") the metal detector is probably the best visual joke. While the plot sets things up for a potential sequel by leaving more than a few loose ends, it doesn't feel forced. Real life is a very messy proposition, after all, and not every square peg is going to fit in the round holes.

There's nothing wrong in the acting department by a large margin. Patrick Stewart's Charles Xavier is every bit as commanding as his Capt. Picard ever was. It's a credit to the man's presense that his impression on screen remains formidable even if he is bound in a wheelchair. Sir Ian McKellen offers a believably chilling Magneto, a man burning with old hatreds and the need to do something about them. But the central figure of this saga is undoubtably Hugh Jackman's Wolverine/Logan. He plays the role like a hunted animal, barely civilised and totally reliant on his instincts. Close to him in this center is Anna Paguin's Rogue, a frightened young girl with a power she can't control or understand. Her purpose is to reaffirm the humanity in Logan that he hasn't realized he's been missing. The others make less of an impression, mainly because they're restricted to the use of their powers and their interactions with Logan. Still, James Marsden's Cyclops makes a nice verbal sparring partner for Logan and Famke Janssen's Dr. Jean Grey sets the stage for a potential romantic triangle down the line.

I never thought that I would say this, but I now do hope for a sequel to this film...only, of course, if they can follow up with the same high level of quality displayed here. I X-pect no less.

The Thief of Bagdad (1924)

The beginning point of the modern action-adventure film...

[1 August 2000]

"The Thief of Bagdad" was my first introduction to Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and, as first impressions go, I've not been this impressed with an old-time film star since I watched Fairbanks' cinematic successor, Errol Flynn, begin creating his own legend in "Captain Blood".

The imagination and power of the visual design of the sets by Raoul Walsh make a nice complement for Fairbanks' script. Having read some of the original material from Sir Richard Burton's unexpurgiated translation of the Arabian Nights (that is, the uncensored, unwatered-down version that most of the general public is familiar with), I can honestly say that, while this story is in none of the tales I read, it would have been a perfect fit within Scherazade's many fantastic tales of moral instruction. The language, the situations, the magical artifacts, the transformation of a callow youth into a great (if still wily and underhanded) hero...they all so accurately reflect the atmosphere of those wondrous tales that I have read and enjoyed.

As for Fairbanks himself, well...is there any red-blooded American boy who HASN'T wanted to be like him? Maybe the boys of today wouldn't recognize the name, but five bucks says that they would definitely recognize the attitude and the style. Charming, smart, irresistable to women, tough enough to take on the bad guys, gifted with a physique that borders on the unbelievable...he's every boy's greatest heroic fantasy come true.

All that said, another reason "The Thief of Bagdad" is important AND fun is because it really marks the starting point for the modern genre of action-adventure films. The use of humor is extensive (my favorite bit being Fairbank's method of "touching" a particular bush), helping keep things from becoming TOO serious for it's own good. Then there's the use of special effects, some very hokey by today's standards, but probably state-of-the-art for it's time and still very impressive, considering the time period this film was made. There's also the touch of romance that helps sweeten the tone. Though subsequent offerings have not had as deft a touch as this film does, this would be a logical beginning to that tradition. Finally, there's the final confrontation between the protagonist and antagonist, but I truly doubt that anyone has ever come up with a showdown that relied more on brains than brawn as this one.

Don't let the age of this film offput you. Like it's inspiration, it weaves Scherazade's song with a melody that has yet to be outdone (though it has been matched during subsequent decades).

The Guns of Navarone (1961)

The original Commando team movie...

[31 July 2000]

"The Dirty Dozen" may have updated the film's premise for the cynical late '60's, but as much as I love that old hard-boiled film, even I have to admit that it doesn't hold a candle to "The Guns of Navarone". Though it may be hard to remember now that the premise has been used so much, the impossible mission theme was NOT a common staple in action films until this movie. The question of whether or not the team is going to pull it off is, for once, not as simple as many other simple-minded movies have made it. There are moments where the mission is endangered by just about everything imaginable: the CO being critically wounded, suspicious enemies, personality conflicts, wrenching moral dillemas, a traitor in the ranks, being captured by the enemy. The storyline plays out like the most extreme manifestation of Murphy's Law: everything that can go wrong DOES go wrong.

The team put together here couldn't be more incongruent with each other. Gregory Peck's world-class mountain climber who becomes the team's reluctant CO, David Niven's hot-tempered, authority-defying sapper, Anthony Quinn's Greek ex-Colonel who has promised to kill Peck at war's end, Stanley Baker's weary soldier who's tired of the unending slaughter, a young Greek national who wants more and more of it...the real miracle is that they manage to get as far and as well as they do. For every step forward, they wind up paying for it. Be it in blood, moral anguish, or pain, no one comes out of this mission unchanged or unscathed. I honestly feel that it is this theme of sacrifice that is the key to the greatness of "The Guns of Navarone".