Review – Bamboozled

Yet again Spike Lee doesn’t get anywhere near the distribution he deserves. Thank goodness for DVD, I guess. Thematically this movie has much in common with Hollywood Shuffle, though Lee’s effort is a good deal more intense than Robert Townsend’s light-hearted send-up of racism in American media. Here Lee tells the tale of a network executive (Damon Wayans) who responds to pressure for a successful “Black” program by proposing a black-face minstrel show done over as a 21st-century variety series. Our hero descends further and further into his own personal heart of darkness as the network unexpectedly green-lights the concept and the program turns out to be a tremendous hit with audiences and critics alike. As long as the movie sticks to the main plot-line, it’s a masterpiece. However, somewhere after the midway point some awkward, unwelcome subplots creep in and the story gets a bit muddled. Further, Lee gets a “fails to learn his own lesson” sticker for a couple of brief treatments of Jewish characters. Problems aside, this is an outstanding piece of film-making, thought-provoking, amusing and well-crafted. Worth seeing

Review – Dumb and Dumber

Never has there been a more aptly named movie. Jim Carey does the shtick that made him famous, and Jeff Daniels does his best to keep up. The two play partners involved in a set of hi-jinks too complicated to explain. Suffice it to say that there’s an occasional joke or two that works. But the bulk of the humor is either excretion-related or otherwise designed to appeal to folks immature enough to consider toilet jokes the height of hilarity. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Gates of Hell

Despite borrowing from horror greats such as H.P. Lovecraft (the locale of most of the action is Dunwich) and Poe (there’s a brief buried-alive subplot), this is mostly pure spaghetti horror. The baddies here seem to be some kind of an odd mix of zombie (rotting, shambling) and ghost (appearing and disappearing at will). They’ve been brought back to life by the suicide of a local priest, and unless their evil scheme is thwarted before All Saints’ Day, we’re apparently going to be up to our elbows in them. Disgusting moments include a woman who pukes her own guts out, a maggot storm, and the zombies’ apparent preferred method of killing by pulling the backs of people’s heads off and letting their brains gush out of the resulting hole. Sadly, beyond the disgusting moments there isn’t a lot to recommend this odd little entry on the zombie list. Also released as City of the Living Dead. Mildly amusing

Review – Smokey and the Bandit

This immortal classic is doubtless showing on all eight screens at the Hillbilly Heaven Octoplex. So if you’re feeling a bit of nostalgia for the CB-radio-talkin’, Trans-Am-drivin’, white-trash-livin’ days of the late 1970s, this will more than scratch your itch. Burt Reynolds cements his position as the high priest of trailer dwellers everywhere, with greater talents Sally Field and Jackie Gleason along for the ride. Though I got a chuckle or two out of the viewing experience, I don’t think the film-makers really intended for their magnum opus to amuse me in quite the way it did. The kitsch value – however unintentional – is hard to ignore, and if you’re lucky enough to catch this stinker on the tube then you’re in for some of the most awkwardly-censored dialogue you’ll ever see (I wish I had a buck for every time Gleason’s Bull-Connor-esque southern sheriff calls someone a “scum-bum”). Otherwise, however, this is little more than an empty-headed, virtually plot-free blast from a fortunately vanished past. See if desperate

Review – Duets

Who would have thought that the world of semi-professional karaoke singing would feature so many opportunities to explore the true nature of the human condition? Here we have a fairly standard collection of quirky characters organized into three subplots, all of which wind together at a karaoke contest in Omaha. Of the three, my favorite was the story that featured Huey Lewis as a karaoke hustler (yeah, me neither) and Gwenyth Paltrow as his estranged daughter. So that should give you some idea of how the rest of the show went. I don’t think it’s even half as profound as the folks who made it thought it was going to be, but it does manage a few amusing moments, especially for audience members who aren’t in a particularly serious mood. Mildly amusing

Review – Bad Moon

Bad movie. This picture gets an automatic point or two from me just because it’s a werewolf flick. But then it turns right around and loses the points for placing a cute dog in jeopardy for almost the entire mercifully-short running time. The plot is tried and trite: innocent guy bitten by werewolf struggles to keep his affliction from harming his family. Only the family dog sees through uncle’s facade. As it turns out, the German Shepherd playing the “lead” has the widest range of emotions and highest talent level of any member of the cast. The film’s final flaw is that it spends way too much time dwelling on the creature effects. Every once in awhile a shot works, but for the most part the werewolf looks like a giant rubber possum with a bad case of dandruff. See if desperate

Review – Driven

I think the title of this movie is actually short for something else. Such as “Driven Mad by the Wretched Excuse for a Script and Equally Abominable Acting.” Or perhaps “Driven to Distraction by Director Renny Harlin’s Constant Abuse of the Eye-Straining, Neck-Snapping, MTV-style Editing and Music So Loud that Most of the Dialogue Is Inaudible.” Or maybe “Driven to Drink by an Extended Parade of Clichés So Old They Had Dust on Them Way Before Race Cars Were Even Invented.” But no, somewhere there are probably still theaters with marquees that would run out of letters if forced to go with any of the longer names. Besides, a more honest title might have driven audiences away. See if desperate

Review – Twice the Fear

I guess the math in the title is based on the notion that two bad, amateur shorts are somehow scarier than one long horror movie. Actually, as genuinely amateur fright pictures go, I’ve seen worse. To be sure, the production values are pretty low. The sound and score are terrible. The filmmakers seriously needed to invest in a tripod; c’mon guys, they don’t cost that much. And while we’re talking, you should probably be told that letter-boxing cheap video doesn’t really make it look less like cheap video. Otherwise, if my video production students turned this in as a final project, I’d have no problem giving them at least a B or so. Most of my disappointment in this anthology stems from the deceptive promo on the box. The description implied that this was the product of professionals, which is at best a questionable proposition. If nothing else, the claim of a 90-mintue running time is a blatant lie. Thank goodness. See if desperate

Review – Memento

Here’s something interesting: apparently running the central plot of an art movie backwards absolves the film-makers of the apparent obligation to build in no end of distracting subplots and pretentious nonsense. Aside from the reverse order of the story, this is a fairly straightforward tale of a man (Guy Pearce) seeking revenge for the rape and murder of his wife. Trouble is, our hero suffered brain damage during the attack on his wife and thus has no short-term memory. So the odd chronology seems to simulate the protagonist’s inability to recall what he’s done in the past when trying to decide what to do next. It’s a clever enough concept, and for the most part well executed. But the gag does tend to get a little old after awhile. Mildly amusing

Review – The Caine Mutiny

Humphrey Bogart’s portrayal of the villainous, unstable Captain Queeg in this tense courtroom drama is one of the greatest performances in Hollywood history. The drama starts extremely slowly, leading off with an insufferable subplot about a fresh-faced Navy officer and his girlfriend woes. Further, unless you’ve got a real fondness for military marches you may find the soundtrack music more than a little annoying. But those who stick with it despite these drawbacks will find perseverance well rewarded. The saga of men struggling to do their duty under a commander who appears to be coming mentally unglued is fascinating. Then when the officers relieve Queeg of his command and are subsequently tried for mutiny, things really get good. Jose Ferrer does a great job as the mutineers’ lawyer; his character is the kind of defense attorney I always hoped I’d be. In the end this movie is a fascinating (if fictional) portrait of conflict, cowardice and craziness under fire. Worth seeing

Review – The Pest

John Leguizamo stars in this movie that serves primarily as a showcase for the comedian’s manic sense of humor. There’s a plot here somewhere, sort of a sitcom-esque rework of the old “most dangerous game” story line. But almost all the amusement value to be found here is provided by Leguizamo’s almost constant parade of bizarre antics and the struggles of the supporting characters to keep up with him. Mildly amusing

Review – Sideshow

In the mood for Freaks, Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Funhouse but just don’t have time to watch all three? Well, as long as you don’t mind sitting through a thoroughly lobotomized version (yes, a lobotomized version of The Funhouse, no kidding), then you’re in business here. Full Moon pours its usual attention to quality and detail into this stinker about side show denizens who exact terrible and largely unmotivated revenge on empty-headed teenagers. See if desperate

Review – The Triangle

This made-for-TV movie about mysterious goings-on in everyone’s favorite mysterious-goings-on-spot is long in the promise and short in the delivery. For openers, it takes awhile to decide where it’s going. Is it a traditional tale of the Triangle? Is it a voodoo movie? By the time it settles down into a cheap rip-off of The Shining, the filmmakers have already let too much screen time elapse to reasonably hope that the plot can be saved. It doesn’t help that the characters (none of whom are especially interesting) wander more or less aimlessly around a big floating version of the Overlook Hotel until they’re snuffed in the most mundane ways imaginable. As banal TV productions go, I guess I’ve seen worse. But a better movie might have been made with the time and money squandered on this mediocre effort. See if desperate

Review – Backdraft

I guess if you need to have a movie about one of our society’s many sub-cultures of manly men, it might just as well be firemen trying to save lives. Cops and soldiers killing people right and left have their charms, but sometimes they get a little old. And apparently firemen are capable of just as much male bonding and macho posturing as their armed counterparts. For the most part this is an entertaining viewing experience, but at times it seems to be a little too ambitious for its own good. By the time the drama plays out, the audience has been treated to a love-hate brother plot (featuring Kurt Russell and William Baldwin), a murder mystery (with Baldwin and Robert DeNiro as arson investigators), political intrigue, and a host of other subplots. There’s even a taste of Silence of the Lambs courtesy Donald Sutherland as DeNiro’s old arsonist nemesis. Any one story might have worked alone, but they don’t always work together. Fortunately the rough spots in the story are smoothed over at least in part by the spectacular pyrotechnics. Mildly amusing

Review – Masters of the Universe

By the power of Grayskull! If I had the power, I would banish this turkey pot pie of a movie to another dimension. Further, I’m willing to bet that most of the cast (including Dolph Lundgren as He-Man, Frank Langela as Skeletor, and even a then-unknown Courtney Cox as the teen love interest) would gladly chip in for whatever incidental expenses we encountered along the way to committing this stinker to oblivion. The sad part is that if they’d stuck with the straight fantasy stuff, this might not have been as terrible as it turned out to be; at least it wouldn’t have been much worse than the wretched kiddie show upon which the whole shebang was based. But by the time they’ve tossed in dimension-hopping to Earth in the 1980s – complete with empty-headed 80s-era teenagers (and they’re the heroes) – well, it’s just too much stupid for one flick. The effects are okay for the era, but even this high point pales in comparison to much that came later. If you have antsy and easily-amused pre-teens on your hands, this might shut them up for at least a little while. Then again, it might not. See if desperate

Review – Traffic

Kids, just say no to stinkers like this. I’m not exactly Mr. Everybody Must Get Stoned, but if this is the alternative then it’s actually worse. Honestly, anti-drug screed this stupid hasn’t graced the silver screen since the days of Reefer Madness. Here we have four loosely-intertwined subplots all centered around the drug trade. The stories range from a mildly interesting tale of a Mexican cop (Benicio Del Toro) caught up in a web of corruption all the way down to the sad saga of a newly-appointed Drug Czar (Michael Douglas) with an addict for a daughter. Particularly in the Douglas piece, the treatment of the subject is so stupid it borders on offensive; the thesis appears to be that if rich white girls are allowed to get hooked on drugs, they become sex-crazed junkies who grant carnal favors to black guys in exchange for a fix. Even the basic film-making technique is off, heavily emphasizing amateurish gimmicks such as heavy filtration and jump cutting. Though this crud picked up four Oscars, I hope the passage of time will help make it as laughable as its predecessors from the 30s through the 60s. See if desperate

Review – The People vs. Larry Flynt

Woody Harrelson heads up a celebrity-and-cameo-studded cast (including porn king Flynt himself as the first judge to throw him behind bars for peddling smut) in this drama about the First Amendment battles waged in the name of keeping the world safe for Hustler magazine. The Hollywoodization of Flynt’s life tends to over-glamorize the toad more than a little, and to be honest I think the main point of the movie – that censorship is bad no matter how loathsome the victim might be – is lost when the anti-hero becomes too sympathetic. That notwithstanding, this is an oddly encouraging movie, especially during the scenes featuring Ed Norton as Flynt’s long-suffering lawyer. Even Courtney Love works well in her semi-cross-over role as his junkie wife. Worth seeing