Review – Beyond the Wall of Sleep

If I was planning to make a movie out of one of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, I’m not sure “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” would top the list. And even if that tale was my target, I’m quite certain this isn’t how I’d tell it. Just for starters, this amateurish, straight-to-video hack job contains more jump cuts than I’ve ever seen in a single production. The terrible acting and even-more-dreadful script provide no distraction from the relentless editing mistakes. In the end the monster at the heart of the drama turns out to be so silly that Lovecraft fans – the only natural audience for something like this – are likely to end up alienated. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Chocolat

A mysterious woman shows up in a small French village and proceeds to introduce excitement to the townfolk’s lives by opening a chocolate shop. On one level at least this plays like a version of Mary Poppins with more sex and fewer English moppets. Even if occasionally heavy-handed, the overall point is valid; if people were a little less uptight, they might enjoy life more. It’s just that in order for the lesson to take two hours a certain amount of repetition is bound to be involved. Further, this is yet another entry in the list of movies that celebrate the beauty and power of the feminine but ultimately measure its worth in part by how effectively it nets women relationships with men. Mildly amusing

Review – The Weather Underground

Aside from the annoying soundtrack music, this is a solid documentary about the white, upper-class end of leftist political violence in America in the late 60s and early 70s. Unfortunately – though perhaps accurately – the frivolous nature of the Weathermen comes out strongly from the early hippie days right on through the petering-out of the movement at the end of the Vietnam War; typical of the naiveté was the decision to avoid bombings that kill people only after some members of the group were killed by one of their own bombs. There are interesting things going on at the periphery of the narrative (particularly the parallel history of the Black Panthers), but the Weathermen themselves just didn’t turn out to be all that interesting. Mildly amusing

Review – The Night Strangler

It worked the first time. Let’s try it again. This is The Night Stalker moved from Nevada to the Pacific Northwest. The killer is a strange twist on the vampire theme, but otherwise all the elements of the original are right here where we left them. The only noteworthy addition is an exploration of the strange underground city beneath the streets of Seattle (a backdrop I still recall from the first time watching this movie on late night TV when I was a kid). Oh, and the supporting cast features some familiar faces, so keep an eye out. Mildly amusing

Review – The Night Stalker

Though the series spawned by this production turned out to be a somewhat uneven set, the original is immense fun. It’s a parade of clichés: the wild-eyed, crusading reporter, the hard-nosed editor, the arrogant bureaucrats, and of course the dark, European vampire. But the old saws are stuck together in ways that make some fresh cuts (or at least fresh by 1973 standards). Darren McGavin stars in one of the two roles that made him famous (the other of course being the dad in A Christmas Story). Muckraker Carl Kolchak bucks the system in order to prove that a string of murders in Las Vegas are the work of something more sinister than a garden-variety serial killer. Some of the scenes are nice and spooky in an early 70s sort of way, something I might like a bit more than I should because in the early 70s I was just the right age to be spooked by stuff like this. Mildly amusing

Review – Fabulous: The Story of Queer Cinema

Though some isolated moments in some of the interviews are entertaining, this production falls well short of providing a useful history of homosexuality in film. The focus is almost exclusively on movies made by queer directors, writers, and/or actors (or at least movies that portray gays and lesbians in a favorable light). However, narrowing the range doesn’t appear to have helped much. The discussion still seems to pick and choose particular films, sometimes giving short shrift to big moments and dwelling on smaller pictures that – however influential on individuals – didn’t exactly mark crucial moments in film history. Further, just about every specimen discussed is described by at least one of the interviewees as the most important queer movie ever made. The result plays like an extended chat session between buffs, not a serious discussion intended to inform or enlighten. Mildly amusing

Review – The Assassination of Richard Nixon

Here’s an oddity: a movie about an assassination attempt that didn’t succeed. In 1974 a ne’er-do-well salesman named Sam Byck tried to kill Richard Nixon by (unsuccessfully) hijacking an airplane and plowing it into the White House. In the wake of September 11, the plot obviously takes on an immediacy it otherwise wouldn’t have had. But beyond that, all we get from this is yet another lone nut obsessed with violence against the rich and powerful. Sean Penn plays Byck (spelled “Bicke” in the movie) as a bizarre combination of Travis Bickle and Rain Man, which fits the story line but generally makes the lead character neither sympathetic nor compelling. Of course the problems here aren’t all Penn’s doing. The production would have been helped considerably by more emphasis on the protagonist’s mental illness, his delusions and his crimes. Instead the stress is mostly on his business and relationship woes. Mildly amusing