Review – The Fly (1986)

With all due respect to Dead Ringers, this has got to be Cronenberg’s magnum opus of ickiness. Though the effects are occasionally a bit on the cheap side, the script’s not too bad (the “Be afraid, be very afraid” line has become legend). And hey, let’s face it: Bill-Gates-cum-giant-psychotic-insect is the role Jeff Goldblum was born to play. Mildly amusing

Review – The Fifth Element

The special effects and art direction are the highlights of this space opera. Otherwise the film limps along with an occasional quirk or amusing sight gag. But the plot’s pretty predictable, driven by equal parts crystal healing nonsense and patented Bruce Willis obnoxious shtick. See if desperate

Review – Switchback

Here’s yet another attempt to pass off a lot of unbelievable plot twists and a handful of expensive stunt work as a taut thriller. The acting’s not too bad, with Danny Glover as a deranged slasher (oops, I think that’s supposed to be a big secret) and Dennis Quaid as the hard-driven FBI agent on his trail, backed up by a reasonably believable ensemble. And for what it’s worth, some of the stunts aren’t too bad, especially the stuff on the train at the end. But really over the long (nearly two hours) haul, it doesn’t return your investment. Mildly amusing

Review – The Real Blonde

Men are shallow. Women are neurotic. Successful relationships are built on self-actualization rather than honest communication. If we feel better about ourselves, our sex lives will improve. There, now you got the whole point of this movie. The closest any of it comes to being engaging is a subplot involving one of the neighbors of the shallow yuppie protagonists, an elderly black woman whose dog is stolen (for no apparent reason) at the beginning of the movie. Wondering whether or not the dog is going to return is about the only thing that kept me watching. See if desperate

Review – In the Mouth of Madness

If John Carpenter films in general are an acquired taste, then Carpenter directing a Lovecraft pastiche must really be intended for a specialized audience. This film also suffers from weak effects work (if he wanted Rob Bottin, why didn’t he just hire Rob Bottin?) and a weak ending. As with Prince of Darkness, the film gets off to a strong start but ultimately promises more than it can deliver (though it neither starts as strong nor finishes as weak as PoD). If you enjoy the occasional Lovecraftian tale, this film will provide a chuckle or two. Otherwise you can safely stay away. Mildly amusing

Review – The Rainmaker

Matt Damon is the most insufferable Grisham hero since Tom Cruise. Honestly, must we endure legal shenanigans perpetrated by such earnest, clean-scrubbed young men? Okay, I admit that I read the book, so really I knew pretty much what I was in for. I just find lawyer movies so painful (with precious few exceptions). See if desperate

Review – Matinee

If you’re a fan of the work of sensation-meister William Castle, you’ll love Joe Dante’s homage to him. John Goodman does an excellent job playing the inventor of such devices as Percepto (sort of a joy buzzer for theater seats), and even the parade of subplots (ranging from teen romance to the Cuban missile crisis) all seem to flow together pretty well. The scene where Lawrence Woolsey (Goodman) explains the magic of exploitation films is not to be missed. Buy the tape

Review – Body Parts

This film originally hit the theaters right around the same time Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes were uncovered. Now, the film itself is a fairly uninspiring opus along the same lines as The Hands of Orloc, but for some reason the distributor decided to pull it out of Milwaukee theaters for fear of offending the public (and in anticipation of getting a lot of free publicity from such a magnanimous gesture, no doubt). Personally, I thought that if anyone should be pulling anything out of the Wisconsin market, it was Hunts Manwich. ’Cause a sandwich is a sandwich, but ... well, you know the rest. See if desperate

Review – Super Mario Brothers

Don’t ask. My only defense is that it was a slow Memorial Day weekend and this happened to be on HBO. Mojo Nixon’s ever-so-brief appearance does precious little to redeem this movie, which otherwise manages to preserve all the intellectual content of the video game. See if desperate (and I mean really desperate)

Review – The Mask of Zorro

I imagine a movie of comparable quality could have been made for a tiny fraction of the budget of this monster-sized epic wannabe. Nobody turns in a performance that they’re likely to be proud of later on, not even Antonio Banderas. Some of the action sequences are reasonably well done, but even these brief high points are largely derivative of previous swashbuckling flicks, with maybe just a little Jackie Chan-style gymnastics thrown in for good measure. And finger on the fast-forward: for an action adventure, this one occasionally goes ever so long a time between sword fights. See if desperate

Review – Quicksilver Highway

This is actually two short films bracketed by vignettes that feature Christopher Lloyd dressed as an aging leather enthusiast (honestly, he looks like an extra from one of the sex parties in Scandal). Our main attractions are based on a couple of short stories, Stephen King’s “Chattery Teeth” and Clive Barker’s “The Body Politic.” All I can say is that neither tale was its respective author’s finest moment (especially the Barker yarn, which he must have written while drunk or something), and neither ends up radically improved by the process of transformation into a movie. Hey, at least I got a film beginning with Q, helping complete my quest to see at least one movie for each letter of the alphabet within a single calendar year. See if desperate

Review – Prince of Darkness

How can a movie get off to such a strong start and end up going so wrong? The wind-up here is a potpourri of quantum physics and ancient evil, nothing real profound but a bit more intriguing than your average horror movie. Unfortunately, the terrific wind-up isn’t followed by much of a pitch. Director John Carpenter can’t deliver the ultimate evil to the screen, so instead he offers us the usual gaggle of green-goo-spitting zombies. Shut off the VCR about midway through (around the time the cynical guy turns into a big swarm of black bugs), and you may be able to convince yourself that you saw a good movie. Mildly amusing

Review – Independence Day

The wisdom we learned in film school was that films like this were by-products of the cold war, analogies of brave American resistance to alien Soviet aggression. If that was completely true, then I suppose this film would never have been made in the post-Soviet era (at least not before Islamic terrorists took the place of the Red Menace in 2001). So the wisdom we learned was (unfortunately) wrong, and apparently Hollywood makes these swaggering, the-military-is-always-right bits of paranoid fluff because people like them. Still, this one is fairly well crafted, with good special effects and an occasional entertaining moment (such as the whole Area 51 thing). Mildly amusing

Review – Primary Colors

This thinly-disguised cinema a clef tale of Bill Clinton’s side of the 1992 presidential campaign starts out strong. Unfortunately, about midway through it loses steam, and toward the end it’s dragging and preaching in equal, hearty measures. Wag the Dog wasn’t all that great an example of the cinematic art, but it has much more sarcastic bite than this sanctimonious whining. On the other hand, Emma Thompson does a good job in the Hillary Clinton role (and that’s saying something, since generally I don’t care for the characters she typically plays). And John Travolta does an even better job as Bill. Still, their good performances can’t save this bad movie. See if desperate

Review – Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein

Kenneth Branagh’s monster period piece seems to be trying to do for Shelly’s classic what Francis Ford Coppola did for (or maybe “to” is a better term) Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Somewhere in the deep melodrama there are a couple of moments, not the least of which is Robert DeNiro’s ability to bring a believable measure of psychotic menace to the Creature, a thing more frequently portrayed as a misunderstood mute. But we take ourselves oh so seriously, a problem that can probably be laid at the doorstep of Branaugh and former Merchant Ivory regular Helena Bonham Carter. See if desperate