Review – Wilderness

This is one of the most interesting werewolf movies I’ve ever seen (and believe me, I’ve seen a few). For openers, the werewolf in question is a woman, and when she changes she becomes a genuine wolf, a wild animal with no lust for human flesh. Most of the action is psychological, centering on the protagonist’s struggle between her human and animal sides. And as one might suspect, it turns into an exploration of the dialectic between humanity’s tame, civilized side and our baser natures. There’s virtually no killing, and though there’s a good deal of nudity it isn’t especially sexual (though someone with a greater affection than I have for bare British butts might disagree). Needless to say, it’s not your average werewolf flick, but it is a fascinating exploration of some of the less sensational aspects of lycanthropy. Especially for a “Fangoria Presents” (which is usually more of a “Fangoria Inflicts” situation), this turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Worth seeing

Review – Air America

Once again the fun-loving frat boys of America’s military and intelligence communities use Southeast Asia as the backdrop for their wacky antics. This time around it’s the pack of pilots who formed the backbone of the CIA’s drug-smuggling operations in Laos back in the days. And just in case anyone’s uncomfortable with the morality here, the Company’s high mucky-mucks and the Lao military play the bad guys and get most of the blame pinned on them. Ethics aside, this is a reasonably entertaining action/comedy mix starring Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. Mildly amusing

Review – The Whip Hand

This odd little opus from the depths of the Cold War practically drips John Birch Society. It goes without saying that the evil Commies are the villains, here infiltrating a small Wisconsin town and turning it into a secret germ factory run by a former Nazi scientist. Unfortunately for this dastardly pack of Fifth Columnists, a reporter for a magazine that sounds suspiciously like Birch organ American Opinion accidentally stumbles into their viper’s nest. In fairly short order – and with the help of a leggy Red who’s having second thoughts – our hero manages to uncover the plot, summon help from a nameless government agency and save the day. So once again all of our precious bodily fluids are safe from Russkie viruses. Hooray. The picture was produced by Howard Hughes, whose hatred and fear of Communists and germs infects the whole show. See if desperate

Review – Tank Girl

The jump-cut-intensive editing, off-the-wall plot and characters, and frantic, quirky sense of humor in this movie combine in a way that in places turns out to be genuinely amusing. Unfortunately when the elements don’t blend, this production’s downright annoying. Lori Petty stars as the irrepressible heroine in a post-apocalyptic world where water is the most valuable commodity. Malcolm McDowell stoops to yet another how-the-mighty-art-fallen role as the evil dictator who commands the world’s water supply. The art direction doesn’t just acknowledge the picture’s comic book origins, it revels in them. That by itself wouldn’t be so bad; in fact, the brief animated vignettes are actually some of the high points of the movie. But by the time you’ve stirred in a half-dozen or so guys dressed up as giant, mutant kangaroos, the whole thing gets too weak and absurd to keep rolling on its own steam. E for effort, but a somewhat lower grade for execution. See if desperate

Review – The Fan

Here’s a member of the non-overlapping Venn diagram club: a movie aimed at fans of silver screen royalty from Hollywood’s golden age and slasher movie buffs. Even assuming you do possess some measure of both these tastes, you’ll also need a stomach strong enough to stand the hammy acting and absolutely dreadful script. The plot was less cliché back when this was first released than it is now: a middle-aged actress (Lauren Bacall later in her career) is being stalked by a deranged fan (Michael Biehn early in his). Further, I suspect that the gore and homosexuality were a lot more scandalous in the 70s than they are today. Whether this is a good movie done in by the passage of time or just a hunk of junk to begin with (and I suspect the latter), this production’s more laughable than suspenseful now. See if desperate

Review – The Ladies Man

Once again Lorne Michaels turns a vaguely entertaining Saturday Night Live skit into a thoroughly annoying 90-minute debacle. Can nothing be done to stop him? And if anything can be done, can’t we please get this guy stifled before he turns the cheerleader skit into a movie? The saddest part about this sophomoric slop is that I’m willing to bet that actor Tim Meadows actually has some talent. Nonetheless, he gets stuck playing foolish morons such as Leon Phelps, an unlikely love god and title character in this effortful effort. Every once in awhile there’s a joke that’s just so horrible that you have to laugh with embarrassment, but otherwise there’s no amusement value to be found here. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The African Queen

This movie’s worth it for the casting alone. Bogart is as perfect as the surly but good-hearted riverboat sailor as Hepburn is as the prim yet warm missionary; it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in either role. The story is simple on the surface: our heroes need to pilot a small boat down a dangerous river. But it isn’t the plot that makes this a classic as much as it’s the interactions between the characters as their relationship develops. Acting, script and direction really come together here. Buy the tape

Review – The Fall of the House of Usher

I could be wrong about this – and goodness knows we’ll never know for certain – but I like to think Edgar Allen Poe would get a real kick out of these old American International Pictures versions of his works. To be sure, they take more than a few liberties with the original stories. But even with the low production values of Roger Corman’s early years, they still manage to capture a fair amount of the gothic dreariness and morbidity that were so essential to Poe’s tales. As usual, Vincent Price heads up the cast, giving life to Richard Matheson’s script about the death-obsessed Usher family and its fiery demise. Mildly amusing

Review – The Ogre

Some folks like to sample heavy-handed political allegory with a tiny teaspoon. Others enjoy a hearty meal of heavy-handed political allegory dished up with a soup ladle. However, if you’re the sort that likes to have your jaws clamped open and get great steaming buckets of heavy-handed political allegory crammed down your throat with a toilet plunger, then boy are you in the right place. The guy who directed The Tin Drum serves us another heapin’ helpin’ of grim Germanic moping about loss of innocence in the first half of the 20th century. The plot centers around a dim-witted Frenchman (John Malkovich) who ends up working on Hermann Goering’s game preserve during World War Two. The wholesale slaughter of animals (some obviously real) and children gets to be way too much to take, even as metaphor for the age. Final nail in the coffin: boring. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Hannibal

Let me see if I can start this review by saying something nice about the movie: at least it took less time to get through than the book. There, that’s as close as I can come to a compliment for this dreadful piece of garbage. Sir Anthony Hopkins dines on co-stars and scenery with equal relish in this faulty follow-up to smash hit Silence of the Lambs. Hopkins plays the title character as a pathetic mixture of Henry Lee Lucas and Truman Capote, essentially leaving any hope the production might have in the hands of Julianne Moore (as Starling), Gary Oldman (as the makeup-coated villain) and a pack of killer pigs that definitely win the Night of the Lepus award for monsters way too cute to be scary. The movie takes a few liberties with the plot from the book – some for the better, others for the worse. But in the end neither the celluloid nor the paper version of this third “Hannibal the Cannibal” tale ever manages to rise much above the level of dull, which needless to say is a fatal flaw for a suspense thriller. See if desperate

Review – The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

Our animated heroes make the jump to real life (or at the very least computer-rendered semblance thereof) in this mostly-for-the-kids effort. I liked moose and squirrel when I was younger, so I got sort of a kick out of the film-makers’ efforts to faithfully re-create the zany stupidity of the original cartoon series. What made it all the better was the involvement of a galaxy of big Hollywood names, particularly Robert DeNiro as Fearless Leader. Pre-teens and cartoon fans will probably get more out of the dumb jokes and sight gags, though every once in awhile there’s a bit of humor that only adults will get. Overall, if you’re in the mood for something stupid but entertaining then you’ve come to the right place. Mildly amusing

Review – Bless the Child

Demons leave those kids alone. This time around Satan’s minions are after an especially blessed child who, though only six, appears to be destined for a career as a great power of good. When a demon-worshipping self-help cult tries (with varying degrees of success) to snatch the kid from her aunt (Kim Basinger), the social issues hit the stage. We get custody hassles. We get cult deprogramming issues. We get satanic crime investigation. And so on. Further, Hollywood seems to be trying to make it up to the Catholic Church for Stigmata, because the forces of good are heavily identified with organized religion. The highlights, on the other hand, include some cool CG demons and a small supporting role for Christina Ricci. Mildly amusing

Review – Coyote Ugly

Coyote Stupid would have been more like it. Here we have the usual story of a small town (New Jersey) ingenue who travels to the big city to seek fame and fortune, has faith challenged and hopes battered, but in the end makes everything come out okay. The only new wrinkle to be found here is that on her way to stardom our heroine gets a job at a nightclub where the bartenders (all supermodel sorts, as bartenders tend to be) dance lewdly on the bar and perform various other antics for the customers’ amusement. Every once in awhile one of these movies manages to inadvertently include just enough wit or charm to make all the clichés and nonsense worth sitting through. This is not such a case. See if desperate

Review – Rock n’ Roll High School

This is one of those movies that I really can’t review honestly due to my nostalgia-driven, irrational personal affection for it. But let me give it a try. Yeah, it’s a silly movie. Even as a satire of juvenile delinquent flicks, this is simple-minded fare. Production values are low. Script and acting are terrible in equal measure. And it’s very much a creature of its times; if you weren’t in your teens in the late 70s/early 80s, you may find the whole thing completely unpalatable. All that aside, however, I consider the production tremendous fun. If nothing else, the movie’s worth it for the Ramones alone (and if you don’t like the Ramones, there’s something fundamentally wrong with you). The DVD also includes a handful of bonuses. Buy the disc

Review – Octopus

Wow. Could they have crammed a couple more subplots in here someplace? We’ve got a giant monster, international intrigue, high-stakes terrorism, a nuclear sub, and around a dozen other distractions going on at once. The result appears to be a bargain basement rehash of Deep Rising with a lot of crap grafted onto it just to make it last longer. Under other circumstances, a submarine and a sea monster would be more than enough to keep me happy for the whole movie (probably due at least in part to my childhood love of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), but here the script is so terrible that it wears out the welcome I was willing to grant this picture. See if desperate

Review – Hamlet (2000)

Okay, I admit it. I don’t like this play. Maybe it’s because I’ve been told so many times that it’s the greatest work in the English language that I can’t help but be critical of its stature. Maybe it’s because the protagonist strikes me as an indecisive, neurotic jerk rather than a tortured soul. Maybe I’m just too cynical. In any event, I don’t come into any production of the play with the idea that I’m going to like it or that it will be in any way ruined by an attempt to do something new and original with it. But people please. “The soliloquy” delivered as a voice-over as the star wanders aimlessly up and down the “action” aisle of Blockbuster Video. Father’s ghost – dressed like an Italian pimp – suddenly popping up on the balcony of sonny’s mid-town condo. The “nunnery” speech delivered in part via answering machine a la “Psycho Ex-Girlfriend.” The King’s conscience captured by a wretched film-school-esque video. And don’t even get me started about what they did to the sword fight at the end. This is the worst thing that’s happened to the melancholy Dane since Gilligan’s Island. Gen-X mega-star Ethan Hawke takes the lead, heading an ensemble of actors who have almost all done better work elsewhere. By the time the MTV editing, random dialogue re-arranging, and other empty-headed nonsense is stirred in, this plays out like “The Real World: Denmark.” It left me wondering if Hamlet was dithering over killing Claudius or merely trying to get him kicked out of the house. Wretched. See if desperate

Review – When Worlds Collide

Despite the years that have passed since this sci fi classic first came out in 1951, its essential quality lives on. To be sure, it suffers from many of the weaknesses endemic to its era: poor script, cardboard characters, rampant sexism and tacit racism, and special effects that – though quite impressive for the time – leave a little to be desired by today’s standards. Despite all that, however, the thing that makes this an enduring end-of-the-world classic is the sheer implacability of the menace. From our easy chairs in the new millennium we can sit back and scoff at things like asteroids and global thermonuclear war. But the idea that another solar system might intersect with ours provides such an inescapable threat that it’s impossible to bargain with it psychologically, at least without resorting to observations about the obviously pseudo-scientific rationale behind the plot (and even then the question is not possibility or even probability as much as time frame and other astrophysical trivia). The only thing that might have made this more entertaining would have been a more cynical ending, something completely out of the question in a George Pal movie. Worth seeing

Review – Blazing Saddles

This time around Mel Brooks apparently sets out to accomplish two goals: parody the western genre and serve up a little comedic commentary on race relations in the 1970s. He accomplishes the first goal fairly well, though I imagine I probably would have appreciated the parody a little more if I enjoyed the targeted genre (or even knew much about it, which I don’t). Brooks meets and exceeds the second goal, which in a way is unfortunate because it makes this movie very much a creature of its own time and a bit hard for folks in more politically sensitive times to appreciate. Those aspects aside, this is standard Brooks fare, highly dependent on sophomoric gags, sometimes funny and other times merely lame. Mildly amusing

Review – The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas

Forrest Tucker and Peter Cushing journey high up into the mountains of Tibet in search of the legendary Yeti in this fifties-era B-movie. Cushing plays an oh-so-British scientist who reluctantly joins a climbing expedition headed by American adventurer Tucker. The good doctor doesn’t learn until it’s too late that the expedition’s goal is not to study the Yeti but to capture one dead or alive. The bulk of the movie is taken up by a lengthy parade of uninteresting plot twists – Yeti-related or not. The film-makers serve up a good vista shot or two, but for the most part this is little more than a boring mountain-climbing movie with pseudo-scientific blather and guys in rubber suits added on for good measure. Mildly amusing

Review – The Road to Wellville

Here’s a quirky little combo of history and comedy about the early days of the Kellogg cereal dynasty. John Cusack, Matthew Broderick, Bridget Fonda and Anthony Hopkins head an ensemble cast of characters connected to Kellogg’s Battle Creek health spa. Between the odd medical treatments and unusual personal relationships, the writers and actors have plenty of material to work with. Thus for the most part this movie works. The jokes are funny and the plot keeps moving fairly well. The only real weak spots are the occasional lags when the characters have to have serious problems. Other than that, this is a thoroughly enjoyable romp in the fields of turn-of-the-century diet, exercise and other quackery. Worth seeing