Review – Arlington Road

Is terrorism expert Jeff Bridges being driven mad by the death of his wife and/or the class he teaches at George Washington University, or are his Cleaver-esque neighbors – Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack – really secretly part of a cabal of mad bombers? Although just about everyone in this movie has done quality work in the past, somehow this particular effort never quite manages to come together. The plot is at best mildly intriguing and at worst meandering and dumb. The sound is a particularly glaring example of the recent trend toward whispering half the dialogue and shrieking the other half amid over-wrought car chases and gun battles. Any film that involves extensive reference to both Washington D.C. and Kansas really has to work to get out of my good graces, but this one pulled it off. Mildly amusing

Review – In Cold Blood

Robert Blake’s “Little Rascals” face makes him all the more chilling as psychopath Perry Smith in this screen adaptation of Truman Capote’s famous non-fiction novel about the Clutter murders. When trying to get a real feel for the setting and the times, it may help to be from Kansas or at least be familiar with the landscape and its inhabitants. The print I saw was also extremely dark and the sound somewhat inconsistent, though I’m not sure if that was a problem with the film itself or just the copy I saw. And though some of the techniques are a little dated, it’s still nice to see a movie that assumes the audience has at least a little brain power. Worth seeing

Review – The Unnamable

The Unwatchable is more like it. Here’s yet another bad monster movie that loosely bases its action on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft. And as usual for films in this sub-genre, the film-makers manage to capture the ridiculous gothic conceits of Lovecraft’s stories, weave in some cheap nudity, and ignore most of what made the author’s work worthwhile. The makeup effects are under-utilized, which is probably for the best because they’re pretty cheap. I guess if you’ve got a craving for a run-of-the-mill college-student-croak-a-rama, you could do worse. Of course, on the other hand you could do better. See if desperate

Review – An Officer and a Gentleman

Every once in awhile Hollywood comes up with a fairy tale so sappy that it actually kinda works. This is one of those occasions rare. Richard Gere stars as a rugged, individualistic Prince Charming of humble origins. Our hero is trying – as are most of the other characters in the film – to subdue a fire-breathing reptile in the form of drill sergeant Lou Gossett Jr. Cinderella Debra Winger rounds out the cast. The romance here is of the most sexist variety, with pretty women working dead-end jobs in a dead-end town until their officer candidate beaux take a break from machismo contests long enough to sweep them off their feet. Though the plot journeys nearly as far from politically correct as it’s possible to get, the film is nonetheless an entertaining bit of brain candy. Mildly amusing

Review – Practical Magic

Sisterhood is beautiful. Sisterhood is powerful. And apparently sisterhood is even more beautiful and powerful if it can help you get rid of an abusive jerk and find the man of your dreams. Amazing how women with a genetic gift that allows them to actually perform feats of magic can’t find a spell powerful enough to make their lives complete without men, abusive or otherwise. This film will no doubt end up standing a lonely vigil in the “romcoms with a feminist slant” section of the video store. See if desperate

Review – Dr. No

Here’s the one that started it all: the very first James Bond movie. It’s almost hard to believe that Sean Connery was ever this young. It’s also amazing how many staples of the series aren’t present; particularly noteworthy is the absence of exploding briefcases, ejector-seat cars or any other kind of super-spy gadget. It’s also interesting to note just how bad the production values were back in the early 60s; this film features some of the cheapest effects and worst day-for-night ever preserved on celluloid. Sadly, the sexism and racism endemic to Bond movies is also here in full force. So if you like Bond movies, this one’s a must-see as a historical curiosity if nothing else. Mildly amusing

Review – The Siege

Here’s a busy little film. We’ve got all kinds of things going on here: international terrorism, civil rights violations, racism, inter-agency conflicts in the U.S. intelligence community, crosses, double-crosses, and triple-crosses until you can barely keep track of it all. The result, not surprisingly, is a muddled mess of a movie. Though I agree with the film’s overall message (to the extent that it could be discerned), I thought it was a bit heavy-handed. Further, the characters’ motivations were frequently less than clear, particularly among the supporting cast. For example, it’s never made completely clear whether the sinister general played by Bruce Willis is engaged in a deliberate plot to subvert the Constitution or whether he merely takes advantage of a bad situation. Overall this isn’t a terrible film, but it probably would have been better with a little less ambition. Mildly amusing

Review – The Last Emperor

If you don’t have a big screen to watch this one on, you can pretty much forget it. It’s mildly interesting as a history of China during the turbulent first half of the 20th century. The script’s not too bad, at least giving some good Asian actors the chance to play something besides waiters, martial artists and gang members. It gets a little sentimental in spots (especially toward the end), but for the most part it works well as a portrait of the decline and fall of the Chinese monarchy. But as with many films of this length and budget, the real attractions here are the costume pageantry and the sweeping vistas of the cinematography. It functions just fine as a movie, but it works much better as a pretty picture. Mildly amusing

Review – Commando

I kinda like this lesser-known Schwarzenegger flick, if for no other reason than Arnold’s sheer implacability. For example, early on the bad guys kidnap his daughter. One of the goons stays behind to negotiate, saying something like “So now you have to do what we want, right?” In most movies, this would lead to a mammoth macho-posturing negotiation session worthy of a pair of Park Avenue tax attorneys. Arnold merely replies “Wrong,” shoots the bad guy and goes after the rest of the kidnappers. The whole film is full of such direct, single-minded responses to problems of all kinds. Of course the movie also has some weak spots, such as the pudgy Australian arch-nemesis and Rae Dawn Chong as the love interest. But if you want an hour and a half of mindless violence, this cup is mostly Coke and not a lot of ice. Mildly amusing

Review – Porky’s

This movie is probably best known for its famous girls’ locker room scene and similar juvenile high jinks. And while certainly the main thrust of the production is a festival of adolescent male sexuality, there are surprising undercurrents of more serious commentary on issues like racism, anti-Semitism and child abuse. The serious themes probably aren’t well-developed enough to justify sitting through a seemingly endless parade of condom jokes. But if you do end up trapped into watching it, keep an eye out for the odd occasional thought-provoking moment. See if desperate

Review – Universal Soldier

If this wasn’t a comic book before it became a movie, then it should have been. Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren duke it out as respectively good and evil escapees from a top secret government program to reanimate the corpses of Vietnam veterans and use them as over-muscled, zombified pawns in a crack commando unit. Though every once in a rare while the script manages an occasional amusing moment, for the most part it’s an excuse – and a weak one at that – for a lengthy parade of sweat-drenched martial arts and big explosions. See if desperate

Review – Cobra

Apparently crime is a disease, and apparently Sylvester Stallone is the cure. Perhaps once he’s cured crime he can turn his vast arsenal on cancer patients. Here we have an offensive little relic from the Reagan 80s about how much easier cops would have it if they could just wantonly kill criminals rather than bothering with nuisances like arrests and trials. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Bram Stoker’s The Mummy

Here’s a mummy movie almost as boring as spending three or four millennia imprisoned in a sarcophagus. The script, effects and acting are in a race to see which can be worse. The plot is the usual parade of grave-robbing, creepy curses and bandaged bad guys. You have to really go out of your way to disenchant me with a mummy movie, but this sad offering manages to do the trick. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Last Days of Disco

How sad it must be to have no greater ambition than to be the next Bret Easton Ellis. Sadder still it must be to not even rise to this relatively humble aspiration. Set against the pseudo-Babylon backdrop of the New York club scene in the early eighties, our drama here consists of little more than vapid yuppies engaging in endless dialogue about their meaningless, flailing lives. Sure, you get some disco era clichés stirred in, like cocaine and herpes (or is it AIDS? It’s kinda hard to tell). Indeed, one of the film’s high points is the injection of news coverage of the anti-disco protest riot in Chicago edited in such a way as to suggest the helicopters taking off from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon. But for the most part the entertainment level rarely rises above the amusement value of an extended conversation about the sexual politics of Lady and the Tramp, and more often than not doesn’t even attain this relatively humble plateau. See if desperate

Review – Forces of Nature

This combination road picture and date movie has got to be one of the oddest romantic comedies I’ve ever seen. The characters are pretty run-of-the-mill, and the dialogue is nothing remarkable. But after spending the whole film setting the Ben Afleck character up to abandon his fiancee and run off into the sunset with the Sandra Bullock character, well ... I won’t ruin the ending, but it was just odd. The part of the film shot at famous roadside landmark South of the Border was kinda cute, but the rest of it was missable. See if desperate

Review – The Nutty Professor

This semi-remake of the famous Jerry Lewis movie is primarily an Eddie Murphy vehicle. That aside, it has a couple of amusing moments. When first released, the hype was heavy on a couple of scenes in which Murphy plays not only the title character but almost his entire family (five characters in all) at once, dysfunctional dinner courtesy the magic of Hollywood. The other high point is a little more subtle: this is one of the few movies ever to come out of Tinseltown that treats fat people like they have any feelings at all. Murphy actually does a reasonably good job playing our rotund hero, thanks at least in part to some fairly convincing makeup by Rick Baker. Mildly amusing

Review – Milo

Okay, I admit that sometimes kids have proven effective as stars of horror movies. The Omen demonstrates the potential of the evil child. But a 12-year-old supernatural psycho-killer? A sort of a Freddy Krueger in miniature? Except in rare and isolated scenes, it just doesn’t work. And when you stir in a bunch of muddled stuff about how the villain is actually the work of an evil abortionist who somehow managed to bring an aborted fetus to life and raise it as his own child, well ... let’s just say that the whole thing was just too dumb for words. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Francis Ford Coppola serves us a muddled mess of a film suited primarily for the goth crowd. Minor kudos for some of the dramatic effects, in particular the creepy shadows that behave differently from the characters ostensibly casting them. If this had been a little less obtrusive, a little more subtle, it would have been much better. But subtlety is not the strong suit of this particular flick. Instead we are bombarded by the histrionics of a cast (Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins in particular) chewing the scenery with as much gusto as they chew each other. But even a less “earnest” group of thespians would have been sorely challenged to eke anything from the script besides a seamy stew of stunted sexuality. See if desperate

Review – Uncommon Valor

Uncommon stupidity is more like it. As I recall, this was a fairly high quality action movie when it came out back in the mid-80s. It even includes some fairly big-name talent, ranging from Gene Hackman to the then-relatively-unknown Patrick Swayze. However, the plot focuses on a group of Vietnam War veterans on a mission to return to Southeast Asia and rescue American POWs. While this cheap attempt to rewrite the war with a US victory at the end fit well with the zeitgeist of the Reagan 80s, in retrospect a lot of it seems cumbersome and at points even a little silly. If you like your shoot-em-ups with a heapin’ helpin’ of macho posturing and combat zen, this one’s for you. See if desperate

Review – Clue

The original trick when this movie was in theaters was that there were three separate endings, so if you wanted to see all three of them you had to pay to get in three times (usually in three different locations, unless you went to a fairly good-sized multiplex). Video renters have it a little easier, because all three endings are included on one tape. This work also enjoys the rare distinction of being one of the few films ever based on a board game. I suppose that would have put the Academy at quite a quandary trying to decide between a best original and best adapted screenplay Oscar; fortunately, there wasn’t much danger of the issue arising. It’s a humorous little bit of fluff with an impressive cast of character actors, but not much more. Mildly amusing

Review – 54

This is like some kind of bad, made-for-TV version of Boogie Nights. Here we have the same sort of tired tale of a handsome youth corrupted by the decadence of a Babylon-esque society. If anything, one would expect this film to be at least a bit more brutal, based as it ostensibly is on the actual decline and fall of the legendary discotheque Studio 54. Instead we get the childish pageantry of Fame-like youngsters dreaming of glory while working the bar and the coat check room, with the protagonist and his soap star love interest concluding that beneath all the glamour they are both “Jersey” at heart. Please. See if desperate

Review – A Clockwork Orange

Here’s one of the best from Stanley Kubrick, who was himself one of the best (can you tell I’m writing this not long after his unexpected death?). This science fiction classic is an excellent adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ novel about the real cost and value of free will. The view of the future was considerably different in 1971, but the art direction is still stunning. Likewise, Wendy Carlos’ Moog synthesizer adaptations of Beethoven, however dated, still captivate. And it’s hard to believe that Malcolm McDowell was ever young enough to play a teenager. One thing that isn’t dated is the violence, which is still unnerving stuff even by today’s standards. However, if you’ve got the stomach to take the frank and unflinching treatment of unpleasant themes, you’ll find this a thoughtful and compelling commentary on the evils of mindless anarchy and the even greater evils of authoritarian mind control. Buy the tape

Review – Sid and Nancy

Alex (Repo Man) Cox’s homage to the punk decadence of Sid Vicious and his ill-fated girlfriend stays fairly true to its subjects. If you really want to sit through an hour and a half of Gary Oldman flopping around in a feigned substance-induced stupor while his bottle blond sidekick whines at him, then this is the flick for you. Seriously, this is an interesting portrait of a time and place in music history (not to mention a bit-part appearance by Courtney Love), but you’ve really got to be in the mood for it. Mildly amusing

Review – Nosferatu (1979)

What a grim, Germanic retelling of the Dracula story. Unlike its silent predecessor, at least this version openly embraces the trappings of Stoker’s novel rather than changing details in hope of avoiding royalty payments and/or copyright trouble. But it does at least a fair amount of homage to the earlier film; for example, Klaus Kinski’s rat-like makeup is based on the vampire styling of the original. Judged strictly on its own merits, however, this movie is a slow-paced adaptation with much posturing and speechifying and very little drama. Some of the visuals are eye-catching, and the association between vampires, rats and the plague is an element missing from most of the sex-obsessed American and British versions of the story. But otherwise the work is too ponderous by far. Mildly amusing

Review – Antz

Here we’ve got yet another big budget animation that keeps rolling mostly with the force of the guess-the-celebrity-voice game. I suppose they must have spent a tremendous amount on all the complex computer animation, especially since they apparently had to make all the bugs physically resemble the celebrities on the soundtrack. The plot’s pretty cliché, but on occasion it borders on entertaining. Mildly amusing

Review – Annie Hall

By all rights I should hate this film. I’m not wild about Woody Allen, especially when he gets going on his sexual hang-ups (which as near as I can tell is most of the time). I don’t really identify with the 70s-era idle intellectuals and their sad little personal problems. The dialogue strikes me as artificial, and the plot (to the extent that there is one) doesn’t seem to go much of anywhere. But still, there’s just something about this movie that I like. I can’t really explain it. So if you have to sit through one Allen film, I’d say go for this one. Worth watching

Review – Poltergeist 3

It’s just Heather “They’re here!” O’Rourke’s bad luck that the ghosts that chased her through the first two have caught up with her again. It’s her further bad luck that the evil spirits have easy access to our dimension via reflective surfaces, and our pint-sized heroine happens to have moved to a high-rise decorated primarily with mirrors. The capper was that O’Rourke fell victim to the so-called “Poltergeist curse” not long after making this boring stinker. See if desperate

Review – Strange Invaders

Here we’ve got a peculiar movie along the lines of the X-Files (which it precedes by around a decade). The rubber aliens are none too convincing, and the plot tends to meander. You’ll recognize a few of the faces our protagonist encounters during his struggle to keep his daughter (who’s half human, half alien) from being taken back to the home world; this film is notable as a festival of minor celebrities (Wallace Shawn, for example), but not much else. See if desperate

Review – Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde

Imagine the Robert Louis Stevenson classic reworked as a silly situation comedy about sexism in the workplace, and you can pretty much picture what’s in store for you here. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Storm of the Century

As I think I noted somewhere else, my usual habit is not to review made-for-TV movies. Of course, my usual habit is not to watch made-for-TV movies to begin with, so this is a rarity in any event. Further, I did watch all six hours of the series, and I did pay attention to almost all of it. So I’m going to go ahead and count this one, policy or not. Besides, I figure it will come out on video sooner or later, and that will make the review at least sort of legit. Here we have Stephen King writing an original teleplay. His pacing is a bit off, with some parts dragging on far longer than necessary and others flying by without proper development. He also steals liberally from his own prior works (a mysterious stranger who knows everyone’s darkest secrets suddenly shows up in a small Maine town ... Needful Things anyone?), as well as “borrowing” from other sources (I know William Peter Blatty doesn’t exactly hold the IP rights to the Bible, but the whole “I am Legion, for we are many” thing should really be considered co-opted). As with many other King projects, it’s not bad but probably could have been a good deal shorter and still achieved the same effect. Mildly amusing

Review – Dick

Imagine the Watergate scandal as an extended Saturday Night Live sketch. And we’re talking the new SNL cast (several of whom are actually in the movie, including Jim “Goat Boy” Breuer as John Dean and Will “Cheerleader Bit” Ferrell as Bob Woodward). The kind of sketch they usually run in the last half hour. Throw in prime miscasting like Harry Shearer as G. Gordon Liddy and Dave Foley as Bob Haldeman, and you can pretty much see where this is going. The basic premise is that two ditzy blonde teenagers (Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams) become disenchanted with Richard Nixon, eschew their jobs as official Checkers walkers, and jointly become Deep Throat. The resulting parade of witless plot twists and dick jokes is almost completely charmless, the upshot apparently being that Tricky Dick was a kindly old guy who was betrayed by stupid advisors, even more stupid journalists, and a couple of conniving airheads. The young protagonists are vaguely likable, but they just aren’t anywhere near enough to carry the rest of the movie. See if desperate

Review – Five Million Years to Earth

This entry in the Quatermass series seems like the sort of film John Carpenter is endlessly trying to make. And like most of Carpenter’s efforts, it’s more wind-up than delivery. The premise is interesting: subway workers in a London suburb called Hobbs End (Mouth of Madness, anyone?) discover a buried alien spacecraft surrounded by deformed skeletons of primitive hominids. Though the giant insect occupants of the ship appear to be long dead, some psychic leftovers linger on powerfully enough to possess the minds of several Londoners and eventually lead to a violence-rich finale. Some of the effects are a little weak; for example, the video of the Martians’ racial memory looks like a grainy, black and white Orkin commercial directed by Kenneth Anger. But the plot and characters more than make up for the technical problems. Worth seeing

Review – I Love You to Death

The opening credits indicate that this film is based on a true story. Of course, true stories about wives who pay inept hit men to kill their cheating husbands probably aren’t all that hard to come by. Even stories where the cheating husband lives, decides to repent of his wayfaring ways and declines to press charges aren’t completely unheard of. So this film derives what charm it has not so much from the originality of the plot nor from the often awkward script but from the acting, particularly the wronged spouse, played by Tracey Ullman (doing something besides the “Tracey Ullman Show” for a change), and the two bumbling trigger men, played by William Hurt and Keanu Reeves. Mildly amusing

Review – Firestorm

Backdraft takes to the back woods, complete with Scott Glenn as the fireman gone bad. Oops, sorry if I just spoiled the closest thing this hackneyed effort has to a surprise twist. Actually, the biggest surprise this picture has to offer is that anyone thought former football player Howie Long would be able to act his way out of a burning paper bag. See if desperate

Review – The Last Action Hero

I never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d write this, but this Arnold Schwarzenegger movie has too much plot. It works reasonably well as a parody of action movies. The problem is that it’s too clever by half for the average action movie fan, but nowhere near clever enough for much of anyone else. Result: a film with a lot of really expensive stunt work that never managed to appeal to any particular audience. Aside from the novelty value that accompanies flops of this magnitude, the movie offers little beyond an odd witty scene or two. Mildly amusing