Review – Nine to Five

Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton star in one of the great classics of mainstream feminist cinema. I almost died laughing at the sequence in which our three downtrodden, office-working heroines fantasize about killing their monster boss (my particular favorite is Tomlin’s, a nasty little spoof at the expense of syrupy Disney cartoons). Some of the sentiments and most of the outfits look more than a little dated now, but the script and acting still hold up. If you can endure some of the silly, screwball comedy moments, you’ll find the rest a fine example of the lighter side of social commentary. Worth seeing

Review – Firefox

Wow, does this film ever put you through the ringer before it finally gets to the point. Here we’ve got a fairly simple plot about an American scheme to steal a super jet from the Soviets using a PTS case (played by Clint Eastwood) who gets picked for the job because he’s a best-of-the-best pilot and can think in Russian (a prerequisite for flying a plane whose guns are controlled by telepathy). Toward the end you get a whole mess of stolen jet action sequences that are kinda cool in a guys-love-fast-planes sort of way. But preceding that you have to wade through what feels like hours of Eastwood wearing disguises and otherwise evading the KGB, suspense that’s nowhere near as suspenseful as it must have been intended to be. If you want to get the most out of this film in the smallest amount of time, fast-forward through all the cold war crap and start watching right after Eastwood finally gets around to climbing into the plane and taking off. See if desperate

Review – The Hunt for Red October

At the outset I admit that I’m a sucker for a good submarine movie. And this one has got to be the granddaddy of them all, at least as far as the nuclear sub-genre goes. Every once in awhile the effects fall a little short, such as at the end when Alec Baldwin’s hair become transparent during a cheap blue-screen shot. But for the most part the studio (in obvious cooperation with the Navy) spent the money to create a really top-notch production. At this point in world history the plot loses more than a little immediacy in the post-cold-war era, but most of the drama still holds up. I don’t know that anyone who doesn’t like this kind of film would enjoy this particular effort, but if you’re in the mood then this is a must-see. Worth seeing

Review – The Final Conflict

This is the final chapter in the Omen series (unless you count the attempt to resurrect the whole mess with a girl in the lead role), and it doesn’t even come close to the first one (or the second one either, for that matter). Sam Neill plays the grown-up Damien, battling a cabal of priests trying to assassinate him before he can seize control of the world in the name of Satan. I guess they’re giving it the old college try, but it just simply lacks the creepiness that was such an essential ingredient of the original. See if desperate

Review – Steel Sharks

The blurb in the newspaper’s TV section made it sound like this was a nuclear submarine drama along Hunt for Red October lines. Okay, I guess there were submarines in it, and the plot did include some minor underwater skirmishing. But for the most part what you get here is that cheap sort of action movie unique to the wee hours on pay channels and the dusty back shelves at video stores. Gary Busey and Billy Dee Williams prove themselves desperate for cash, and expensive they must have been as it looks like the filmmakers didn’t spend an awful lot on any other aspect of the production. See if desperate

Review – 10 Things I Hate About You

Ten things that surprised me about this film: It remained reasonably close to the story line from The Taming of the Shrew. Despite its distinctly un-politically-correct source, it managed to present a very 90s picture of adolescent relations between the sexes. The characters were well developed, some even interesting. The script was well written. The jokes worked. The drama worked. It was a reasonably genuine recreation of the high school experience, though in a caricature sort of a way. Newcomer Heath Ledger does a really good impression of Val Kilmer circa 1984. The soundtrack had some really great stuff on it. And the real shocker: despite having no particular affection for Shakespeare or teen-centered comedies, I genuinely liked this movie. Worth seeing

Review – Shocker

Wes Craven tries his best to get a new series started along the same lines as his mega-successful Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Though he follows his own formula fairly closely, this one somehow comes up short. Here the evil spirit’s magic power is the ability to move around using power lines and/or body contact, a trick he learned via a combination of supernatural ritual and electrocution. It’s not all that bad a concept, and it’s not all that bad a movie. It just never quite seems to take off, and thus it never quite managed to catch on. Mildly amusing

Review – Twilight Zone: The Movie

Though probably best known as the film that killed Vic Morrow, this movie does have a couple of other notable points. Directors John “See You Next Wednesday” Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante and George Miller serve up four reheated versions of old episodes from the famous Rod Serling series, led off with a vignette featuring Dan Akroyd and Albert Brooks. My personal favorite was the remake of the episode where Billy Mumy (who has a cameo in the movie version) held a town in terror with his psychic powers, augmented in the big screed adaptation by child-spawned nightmare effects created by Rob Bottin. Also featured are the episode where a guy (William Shatner on TV, John Lithgow here) sees a gremlin on the wing of an airplane, the overly-sentimental “Kick the Can” episode, and the tale of a bigot dropped into a time-hopping tour of racist hell (featuring Morrow’s final performance). Mildly amusing

Review – The Hunger

If any horror movie captures the zeitgeist of the early 1980’s, this is it. Working with a plot from a book by outré novelist Whitley Strieber, director Tony Scott tosses in heavy doses of the dramatic lighting, framing and editing that were such an important part of the early days of MTV. Exotic actress Catherine Deneuve and glam rocker David Bowie play oh-too-beautiful and ever-so-wealthy vampires who begin the drama by feasting on a pair of punk-rock swingers. After Bowie disintegrates into a Ronald Reagan wannabe, Deneuve attempts to replace him with Rocky Horror Picture Show alum Susan Sarandon. How much more 80’s can you possibly get? Worth seeing

Review – And the Band Played On

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that this made-for-HBO movie falls into some of the same holes as the book of the same name by Randy Shilts. The problems and solutions are too simple (such as laying such a large chunk of it at Gaetan Dugas’ doorstep) and the issues all too black and white (for example, Robert Gallo probably isn’t as big a villain as he’s made out to be here). But it’s still a fairly compelling drama, especially by TV movie standards. My opinion may be a little colored by a childhood interest in epidemiology, but I do still like a good movie about fatal diseases. Mildly amusing

Review – Star Wars Episode Six: Return of the Jedi

Here we have the final chapter in the first set of Star Wars movies. Although the second one (“Episode Five”) remains my favorite, this one’s not too bad. Some of the characters appear to have lost some dimensions (particularly Carrie Fisher’s role, which appears to have been reduced to a much more subordinate position), my favorite character dies early on, and the Ewoks are just too insufferable for words. But the effects are outstanding, and even the ones that didn’t work so well (like the singing muppets) in the original release have been replaced by slick new computerized sequences for the new edition. Worth seeing

Review – Star Wars Episode Five: The Empire Strikes Back

This is my favorite of the first three Star Wars films (and the second three as well, for that matter). I’ve always had a weak spot in my heart for a really good villain, and here the bad guys triumph, however temporarily in the bigger scheme of things. Serving as a transition between the relatively unsophisticated original and the grandiose conclusion, this sequel hits just the right balance of effects and plot for my taste. The characters are becoming a little less two-dimensional. Clearly a lot of time and money have gone into the visuals, particularly in the Hoth battle sequence (one of my favorite moments in sci-fi film history). After the overwhelming success of Star Wars, George Lucas apparently had little trouble getting the money to pay for most everything he wanted to include in the sequel, so the special edition version includes only relatively minor changes. The biggest fault here is the somewhat uneven pace, but even that might just be a question of personal likes and dislikes; I don’t like all the Yoda-related pseudo-theology, so in my opinion the scenes that dwell on the Force kill the overall pace of the movie. Other than that, however, I found the film thoroughly entertaining. Buy the tape

Review – Star Wars Episode Four: A New Hope

This movie is almost impossible to review, mostly because after it first came out it swiftly became a cultural phenomenon rather than just another cheap sci-fi flick. Furthermore, in 1977 I was at the perfect age to fall for it lock, stock and barrel. Of course I’m much older now, many years past the height of my science fiction phase. But even my older, more jaded self can still get a kick out of watching it over again on video (not to mention remembering more of the lines than I really care to admit). I also note that some of my students, who weren’t even born when this film first came out, are just as enthralled by it and its sequels as I was at their age. And to be completely fair, this wasn’t just a trip down memory lane for me, either. I hadn’t seen the new release with the cleaned-up prints and extra added computer effects. I can’t honestly say that the new stuff added much to the overall drama, but it was kinda cute. Oh, and it took me until 2005 to finally break down and use George Lucas’s new naming system. Before that this was just plain ol’ Star Wars. Buy the tape

Review – A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: Freddy’s Dead, The Final Nightmare

Wow, does this film have enough titles? At least it more or less makes good on its promise; except for the non-teen-oriented Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, this was in fact the last Freddy Krueger movie. [Except then he shows up again in … oh, never mind.] For anyone who watched this on video and didn’t quite get what all the shenanigans with the 3-D glasses were about, that was the cue for theater audiences to put their own 3-D glasses on in order to fully appreciate “Freddy Vision.” Gimmicks aside, the final chapter offers little besides yet another horrible under-casting for Yaphet Kotto, a lot of grim child and pet murder, and the usual parade of teenagers slaughtered more-or-less (stress on the less) creatively in their dreams. RIP indeed, with emphasis on the R (as in give us a rest). Finally, the DVD version (or at least the one that comes with the Elm Street box set) includes the 3-D crap and the glasses to view it with. See if desperate

Review – A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

Having sacrificed any claim Freddy Krueger may at one time have had to genuine scariness, the film-makers now turn elsewhere for their shocks. Sure, Freddy still stalks a gaggle of nubile teens, but this time to make it interesting our heroes’ weaknesses are based on serious adolescent problems ranging from teen pregnancy and bulimia down to unhealthy obsessions with comic books and athletics. Other than this somewhat new twist, the conventions of the Elm Street series have become so thoroughly codified at this point that the rest of the plot cruises along on auto-pilot. See if desperate

Review – A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

By this point in our sad saga the notorious Freddy Krueger has become a wise-cracking, cartoonish parody of himself (or at least the shadowy, creepy Freddy we came to know and love in the first two). Now, technically I think the transformation actually took place in the third one, but that outing had the return of Heather Langencamp and the famous “origin of Freddy” speech to distract us. This one lacks even such relative merits. Even the teenage victims are comic book characters, each with his or her own “special powers” that are inherited by the heroine as Freddie croaks them off and she progresses along the path to becoming the Dream Master. And like number three, this one’s been slightly recut (an unintentional crotch shot from the original release has been removed in this print). See if desperate

Review – A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge

The parade of adolescent sexuality continues in this first sequel. Here Freddy is at his height as crude symbol of the rampaging teenage id, as he uses a repressed youth’s secret hates and passions as a window into the real world. Though not quite up to the snuff of the original, Krueger still retains a fair amount of ghoulish menace, not yet quite the cartoon character that he would become in the later sequels. Some pet murder, but otherwise another standard slasher movie. Mildly amusing

Review – The Devil’s Own

This film has the worst time trying to decide if it wants to be a political thriller, a macho-cop buddy movie, or a message piece. The amazing thing is that it does an okay job at each. But just okay: the political stuff comes off as cartoonish, the cop stuff is underdeveloped and the message is a bit weak (though certainly better than Patriot Games, another Harrison Ford action vehicle with Irish themes). Mildly amusing

Review – Star Trek: Insurrection

This film represents the final triumph of the “Next Generation”-ization of the whole Star Trek thing, even though it’s the third one to feature the cast from the newer series; the first one with the new people was a joint venture that also included the original cast, and the second one still employed enough of the old tricks of the trade to keep it interesting. But by this point the charm of the original series has completely petered out, almost entirely replaced by the smarmy new-age nonsense that infected much of the new programs. The plot meanders through a touchy-feely story about an Eden-esque planet threatened by evil bad-skin people led by F. Murray Abraham. The occasional spaceship battles and other effects-intensive bits aren’t too bad, but the rest of it appears to be heavily driven by Scientology and director Jonathan Frakes’ ego. See if desperate

Review – Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan

Of all the Star Trek movies, this is the only one with a plot that directly depends on one of the episodes of the original TV series. Ricardo “Mr. Rourke” Montalban’s superman character returns to seek revenge on Captain Kirk for stranding him on a dying planet many years earlier. Though the effects are a little primitive by today’s standards, much of it still holds up; a particular crowd favorite is the earwig sequence. Of course it’s amazing that between Montalban and William Shatner there’s any scenery left at the end of the picture. And the whole subplot with the Genesis thing and Kirk’s son just goes nowhere and detracts from the more interesting dramatic points. All that notwithstanding, there have been plenty worse Star Trek movies. Mildly amusing

Review – Clear and Present Danger

Further proof (as if Patriot Games wasn’t enough) that the demise of the Soviet Union hasn’t put Tom Clancy out of business. Here Jack Ryan, our intrepid hero, is taking on Colombian drug cartels and rouge national security advisors. Full of the usual batch of sanctimonious patriotism and hardware pornography. I liked some of the D.C. backdrops, but Clancy can keep the rest of it. See if desperate

Review – Nighthawks

Sylvester Stallone and Rutger Hauer go after each other in this classic disco-era crime drama. Despite being packed to the brim with action movie clichés, the plot keeps moving and even features an occasional interesting twist. Sure, it’s not exactly the most insightful film ever made about the thorny topic of international terrorism. But if you’re in the mood for entertainment rather than education, you could do a lot worse. Mildly amusing

Review – Analyze This

Mafia comedies seldom seem to work for me, and despite Robert DeNiro’s typically workmanlike performance this one just never seems to come together. The juxtaposition of DeNiro as a mob boss and Billy Crystal’s stand-up-esque portrayal of a psychiatrist serves as the source for most of the laughs, but sadly most of the intended quirkiness was awkward rather than entertaining. The situation comedy has a couple of moments, such as Crystal’s nightmare with Godfather overtones (and DeNiro’s subsequent “I was Fredo? I don’t think so”). But for the most part the funniest gags were in the ads for the movie. And to top it all off, the triumph of feel-good psycho-babble is what passes for a happy ending. See if desperate

Review – Night of the Living Dead

Here’s the film that started it all, the great-granddaddy of the flesh-eating zombie genre. Production values are pretty much nonexistent; the whole thing is drastically over-exposed and must have been done exclusively using sound-on-film (aside from occasional soundtrack music). Despite all that, it’s still a must-see for fans of horror movies in general and zombie flicks in specific. Truth be told, Dawn of the Dead is probably a better film, but that does nothing to diminish the importance of its predecessor in the Dead series. Even those who don’t care for horror might still find this interesting as an example of the ability of then-independent director George Romero to create a film with almost no budget and still have it go on to become a cult classic. Buy the tape

Review – Fight Club

First rule of Fight Club: consider avoiding Fight Club. Second rule of Fight Club: if you do see Fight Club, consider leaving after the first hour and a half or so. This film begins with Ed Norton and Brad Pitt turning in fine performances as two men expressing their dissatisfaction with modern life. Even Helena Bonham Carter plays a tolerable character for a change. Though a little over-laden with testosterone, the script manages to be witty, sometimes even clever. The plot keeps moving, and the characters are engaging. Then suddenly – I can’t tell you precisely when without giving away part of the plot – the film takes a radical turn for the stupid. The final product is a muddled mess of men’s movement machismo mixed with a hearty helping of PCP-esque paranoid hallucinations. Mildly amusing

Review – The Hudsucker Proxy

For a Coen brothers movie, this film is surprisingly unoriginal. Though functioning largely as a lampoon of 30s-era screwball comedies, it also borrows heavily from Modern Times and The Producers. External sources notwithstanding, however, this is another fine example of the Coens’ own special brand of oddball comedy. Tim Robbins plays a mail room clerk promoted to CEO of a large corporation by stockholders (led by Paul Newman) trying to devalue the company so they can buy it up cheap. Jennifer Jason Leigh does a wonderful job as a fast-talking, Front Page style reporter who seeks to expose the scheme but ends up falling for Robbins in the finest Capra-corn style. Though not exactly the Coens’ finest hour, it’s still a solid picture. Worth seeing

Review – Lake Placid

As previously noted, I’ve got a relatively low tolerance for animal violence, and this offering was rife with it. Gruesome, graphic bear death, cow death and crocodile death are in the offing, with precious little to justify the ordeal. Unless, that is, you happen to enjoy muddled pageants in which all the characters deliver the same soupy brand of sarcastic jabs and act in accordance with motives that are at best poorly developed and at worst completely absent. In addition to the animal stuff, I guess I also felt a little cheated by the hype; the early, pre-release promos made it sound like this was going to be a movie about a lake monster, and all it ended up delivering was a giant, plastic and/or computer animated crocodile (and don’t bother to wonder how a 30-foot Asian croc managed to end up in a cold Maine lake). Further, somebody seriously needs to pass the word to screenwriters that dotty old ladies (in this case Betty White) who swear like sailors have no inherent amusement value. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Devil’s Advocate

Satan walks the earth. He looks like Al Pacino, and he’s the senior partner at a big law firm in New York. Apparently the only person surprised by this is the young rube lawyer (played by Keanu Reeves) new to the firm and fresh for some tawdry corrupting. The end result: a whole lot of morally bankrupt attorneys, a whole lot of cheap sex, and a whole lot of bad morphing effects. This picture’s good for an occasional chill, but otherwise most audience members will probably find it sophomoric and predictable. See if desperate

Review – The Amityville Horror

By now most folks are familiar with the story behind this sensation from the 70s: a family going through some economic hard times decides to write a book about how their house was possessed by the nondescript forces of darkness. It was a big scandal when the truth came out about this supposed work of nonfiction and the movie based thereupon. But in retrospect, it makes the film all the more intriguing. The careful viewer can strive to sort the elements that accurately depict a small businessman turning to alcohol as his business goes down the tubes from the parts that are shamelessly stolen from The Exorcist. Happy hunting! Mildly amusing

Review – The Devils

Director Ken Russell has the most amazing visual sense. Some of the art direction and camerawork in this movie is downright impressive. Unfortunately, it also features some pretty intense misogyny and more Oliver Reed than anyone should be forced to endure. Mildly amusing

Review – American Pie

Thank goodness these film-makers have thoughtfully provided the new generation of teenagers with their very own version of Porky’s. Otherwise there might be a whole crop of adolescents who might grow up without this sort of stunted, boy-centered view of human sexuality. The plot, to the extent that there is one, centers around four high school seniors who form a virginity-losing pact. The sappy ending does little to excuse the extensive parade of disgusting humor, including a now-semi-legendary scene in which one of our protagonists gets caught masturbating using an apple pie. See if desperate

Review – She-Devil

Once upon a time, there were people called feminists. They thought that women should have the same rights as men. Some men didn’t want the feminists to have any rights. In turn, some feminists reached the conclusion that all men were scum who lived only to victimize the women in their lives. Guess who came up with the plot for this particular film? Despite its somewhat heavy-handed nature, the plot is clever and the characters well-acted (particularly considering that Roseanne Barr-Arnold-Just-Rosanne plays the lead). Mildly amusing

Review – Night Game

If the drama in this movie didn’t loosely relate to the late 1980s Houston Astros, it would be little more than just another tiresome serial killer movie. Even with the baseball thrown in, it’s still pretty heavy on the he-man woman hating thing. Roy Scheider plays a hard-boiled detective on the trail of a hook killer who slaughters skinny blondes every time a certain pitcher gets a win. I liked a lot of the footage from Galveston and the Astrodome, but other than that there are plenty of better thrillers out there. Mildly amusing

Review – Mighty Joe Young (1998)

Well, at least it’s not quite as bad as the de Laurentiis Kong. This tear-jerking message piece about the immorality of animal exploitation is a pale, Disney-ized shadow of the original. I guess it’s good that the studio would make a film that attempts to impress its largely youthful audience with the importance of conservation efforts. Still, I can’t help wishing that they could find some way to make this particular point without coming up with a cute (if sometimes excessively effect-y) protagonist who spends almost the entire film in some sort of nail-biting jeopardy. See if desperate

Review – The Truman Show

This has got to be every child’s favorite paranoid fantasy: the whole world is nothing but a big TV studio, and everyone besides him or her is an actor in some kind of gigantic, sick experiment. Further, it looks like Jim Carrey’s using this bit of Peter Weirdness to make a bid for the ranks of serious actors. I guess this is supposed to be some kind of profound commentary on the pervasiveness of television, though frankly you can turn on the real television just about any time of day and find programming that makes even 24/7 coverage of a hapless if unwitting subject seem innocent by comparison. That notwithstanding, parts of the movie do come off as at least a little clever. Further, Weir should get some major points just for getting Jim Carrey to drop his ridiculous mugging and contortions, however briefly. Oh, and a quick side-note to soundtrack composer Phillip Glass: don’t think nobody noticed that you lifted a big chunk of the score for this one from the work you did on Mishima. Mildly amusing