Review – The American Nightmare

The interviews that form the meat of this documentary about seventies-era low-budget horror movies are downright fascinating (for the most part). But given that many of the subjects either haven’t worked at all or haven’t done anything substantial for many a year, perhaps they didn’t have much better to do than sit down and give good interviews. Romero, Carpenter, Hooper, Craven, and Cronenberg all had interesting things to say about the early days of indie horror. I found Tom Savini’s remarks about the connections between his work and the real-life horrors he experienced in Vietnam especially compelling. However, a fair amount of screen time also ends up squandered on commentary from academics (not the end of the world, but not as good as chat from the guys who were really responsible for the sub-genre) and montages of footage of nuclear explosions, Vietnamese casualties, race riots and so on. Result: anecdotal information is great, but attempts to prove some bigger point from it all come across as more than a little heavy-handed. Mildly amusing

Review – Throne of Blood

Toshiro Mifune is at his overacting best in Akira Kurosawa’s samurai twist on the Macbeth tale. I’m a big Kurosawa fan, and the source play is one of the few Shakespeare creations I genuinely enjoy. So I was pretty much set up from the outset to love this movie. That notwithstanding, even folks who aren’t fans should still be able to appreciate the artistry that went into adapting a feudal English classic into a feudal Japanese setting (not to mention the director’s usual flare for visuals and the lead actor’s usual flare for characters). Buy the disc

Review – Secret Window

I’ve reached the point where I can’t tell why I find movies like this trite and predictable. Is it because I read the source story years ago and my subconscious still recalls the experience? Is it because I’ve read and seen so many of these things over the years that they all start to blend together after awhile? Or is it just that every twist and every turn is so laboriously telegraphed that even someone completely new to the is-he-paranoid-or-is-someone-really-out-to-get-him genre would still see the end coming like a giant balloon trucking down Broadway in the Thanksgiving parade? The money they spent on the cast and production values helps a little (though the brutal death of a cute dog undid some of the good will the movie might otherwise have enjoyed), but at its heart this is still a mediocre thriller at best. If Hollywood’s goal is to eventually make movies out of everything Stephen King has ever written, at least they got this one out of the way so we won’t have to worry about it in the future. See if desperate

Review – The Punisher

The problem with most revenge-centered action movies is that the revenge almost never seems adequate. The bad guys torment the hero throughout the picture, destroying or spoiling all he loves, thrashing him over and over, and generally making his life a living hell. Sure, he triumphs in the end. But the wrongdoers don’t get anywhere near what they dished out. They’re beaten, sometimes even killed. Still, more often than not it comes up short. Not so in this case. Marvel’s vigilante anti-hero translates well to the big screen, especially after being mercifully stripped of his stretchy superhero suit and white boots. Thomas Jane does better than I thought he would as Frank Castle. He isn’t quite the guy from the comic books, but then he isn’t supposed to be. I suppose it’s likely that I got more of a kick out of this than I should have because I’m a longtime fan of the comic-book hero and his dime-novel counterpart, The Executioner. However, anyone who likes to see a monomaniacal protagonist triumph against the odds in the most vicious manner possible should get a real bang out of this. Worth seeing

Review – Looney Tunes Back in Action

If anyone but Joe Dante had directed this, it would probably have turned out to be an unwatchable stinker unsuitable even for the most moronic pre-teens. The plot is goofy and meandering even by cartoon standards, and the live-action actors have almost all done better work elsewhere. But there’s so much going on in the background here that the foreground becomes little more than an annoying excuse to keep the clever inside jokes coming. Fans of Warner Brothers cartoons and genre movies should get a real kick out of all the sub-references, typical Dante only even more so. Worth seeing

Review – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Two sequels and now two remakes later I’m still left wondering what it was about the original that merited all this attention. Sure, it’s a classic of low-budget movie-making and a seminal moment in the history of the slasher flick, but beyond that I just don’t see much potential in the whole Texas Chainsaw thing. This latest round yet again proves my point. There are some new tricks here and there (though I was surprised at how much worse the gore was in this comparatively more expensive production). The acting’s maybe a little better. But overall this is nothing more than another poorly-paced romp in the dark corners of city-dwelling psyches where savage country bumpkins lie waiting for unsuspecting teens to fall into their cannibalistic clutches. And at this late date the meat’s so old and rotten even Ed Gein himself would have had trouble swallowing it. See if desperate

Review – Capturing the Friedmans

Here’s an interesting new twist: a crime documentary in which the criminals (or maybe “alleged criminals” would be better) actually document themselves. There seems little doubt that elderly, nerdy Arnold Friedman was a fan of child pornography. But once he was busted for kiddie porn, things swiftly went from bad to worse. Before the dust settled, Arnold and his youngest son were both sent to prison for molesting students in Arnold’s home computer classes, the ol’ man killed himself, and his whole family turned into a dysfunctional mess (not that it was a long drive for them to begin with). The story itself is sad and icky but not much more. The real fascination here lies in the obsession Arnold and his eldest son had with filming, audio- and videotaping almost every aspect of their family’s life, particularly the domestic discord that appears to grow worse and worse as the case progresses. An uplifting commentary on the essential nobility of the human spirit this ain’t, but it nonetheless probably bears a look. Mildly amusing