13 Ghosts (1960) – DVD

September 15, 2001Posted in1960s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Mystery

*½/**** Image A Sound C Extras C
starring Charles Herbert, Jo Morrow, Martin Milner, Rosemary De Camp
screenplay by Robb White
directed by William Castle

by Walter Chaw 13 Ghosts, showman director William Castle’s gimmicky follow-up to his most infamous film The Tingler, is slow-paced hokum that gives lie to the belief that the horror movies of yesteryear are very much better than those of today. Between awful acting, a terrible screenplay by celebrated kiddie author and long-time Castle collaborator Robb White, and direction from Castle that alternates between plodding and ridiculous, 13 Ghosts is a good deal of fun in spite of itself. It is a prime candidate for a “Mystery Science Theater” treatment and best enjoyed with the quick-witted or the inebriated.

The Goonies (1985) – DVD

September 13, 2001Posted in1980s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Family, Spielberg

*/**** Image A Sound A Extras B-
starring Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Corey Feldman, Kerri Green
screenplay by Chris Columbus
directed by Richard Donner

by Walter Chaw I went to see The Goonies at the age of twelve because I was a Cyndi Lauper fan. As co-star Ke Huy-Quan (now “Jonathan Ke Quan”) hammed it up, I glimpsed the torments of my upcoming sixth-grade year. See, Quan in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom doomed me to being called “Short Round” for several months, accompanied by Pidgin English recreations of choice line readings (“You caw heem Meesta Jones, Doll!”)–which was admittedly better than the “Wassa happenin’ hot stuff?” jibes inspired by Gedde Watanabe’s legendary act of race betrayal as Long Duk Dong in John Hughes’s execrable Sixteen Candles.

Halloween II (1981) [Widescreen] – DVD

September 5, 2001Posted in1980s, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Horror

**/**** Image A Sound B+
starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer
screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
directed by Rick Rosenthal

by Bill Chambers Halloween II picks up exactly where Halloween left off, although a seam would show if you pasted the two films together, and that seam goes by the name of Rick Rosenthal. Director John Carpenter's handpicked replacement (Carpenter came on board as co-writer, co-producer, and co-composer), Rosenthal tries for the slow-burn intensity that the original had and achieves mere slowness. The film may feel even logier now because it helped consecrate the formula for the slasher movie, then in its infancy but now old hat. That's not exactly Halloween II's fault, but saying this doesn't make it any more palatable 20 years later.

Link (1986) – DVD

August 28, 2001Posted in1980s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Thriller, UK, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image C+ Sound D+
starring Elisabeth Shue, Terence Stamp, Steven Pinner, Richard Garnett
screenplay by Everett De Roche
directed by Richard Franklin

by Walter Chaw A movie about a murderous orangutan and its bimbo prey being thrust together in a series of increasingly moronic scenarios, Richard Franklin’s excruciating Link is defined by a shot of a computer monitor testing the ability of chimpanzees–and Elisabeth Shue–to identify coloured shapes. (Shue wins, but barely.) The monitor reads: “IQ 43.” I’m afraid that of the three (Franklin, Shue, and the monkey), the only one to whom this number is not being generous is the chimp.

Memento (2001) – DVD

August 28, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Directors: Christopher Nolan, DVD, Esoterica, Mystery, Thriller

***/**** Image A Sound A Extras B-
starring Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano
screenplay by Christopher Nolan, based on the short story by Jonathan Nolan
directed by Christopher Nolan

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Initially, I thought I had died and gone to indie hell: the first forty minutes of the highly-touted Memento lulled me into a false sense of security about the nature of its hero's problem; there was the familiar revenge plot (he must avenge his wife's death!), and the predictably unpredictable barrier to his goal (he has no short-term memory!), both of which led me to conclude that this was going to be one more shallow off-Hollywood neo-noir with a superficial twist. As the film soldiered on, I was rolling my eyes at the hero's frantic need to re-assert his maleness. Wounded as he was by the loss of his largely decorative wife and destabilized by his confusing affliction, it seemed as though his ability to walk tall as a man was what was at stake. This led me to assume that the remainder of the film would wallow in the tragic poignancy of a once-proud man robbed of the things that made him a credit to the patriarchy, and not only was this ideologically suspect, it was boring as hell. As the blandly-photographed images washed over me, I prepared myself to endure the repetition of this masculine panic until the lights came up.

15 Minutes (2001) [Infinifilm] – DVD

August 26, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Germany, Thriller

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A-
starring Robert De Niro, Edward Burns, Kelsey Grammer, Avery Brooks
written and directed by John Herzfeld

by Walter Chaw There’s a thing that happens about an hour into John Herzfeld’s 15 Minutes that is as bald and shameless a foreshadowing device as any in the tired pantheon of movie-groaners. It’s as bad as telling someone that you’ll marry them just as soon as you get back from this trip to Africa; as bad as showing the guys a picture of your corn-fed sweetie right before you charge that machine gun embankment. It is a moment of stunning conventionality in the middle of a film that is otherwise engaging and, for a moment or two, even shocking and provocative. 15 Minutes is defined by this scene in a great many ways: It’s a Hollywood film struggling with a controversial topic that finds a comfort zone in a script that tries to soften some images by obfuscation and others by a timidity that ultimately undermines its subject. The last time a big-budget picture tried to tackle a media culture involved in exploitation of the darkest crannies of the human heart was Joel Schumacher’s reprehensible and simpering 8MM. Sharing that film’s ignominious demise at the box office, it can be no real surprise that 15 Minutes is almost as repugnantly apple-polishing an experience.

The Last Warrior (2000) – DVD

August 26, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Sci-Fi, Thriller

The Last Patrol
½*/**** Image B Sound C-
starring Dolph Lundgren, Sherri Alexander, Joe Michael Burke, Rebecca Cross
screenplay by Stephen J. Brackely and Pamela K. Long
directed by Sheldon Lettich

by Walter Chaw I thought I was following along with The Last Warrior pretty well until star Dolph Lundgren met up with a school bus full of “Fat Albert” extras, led by the mystical shaman cum flower child, Rainbow (Brook Susan Parker). Set in a post-a-quake-alyptic California, where the Golden state is an island hemmed in by ocean and crawling with loonies and mutants, our story follows a small band of military types who have established some sort of refuge in the desert. When Captain Nick Preston (Lundgren) reminisces about the before-time, in the long, long ago when he befriended Rainbow the hippie and her cute-costumed tribe of Cosby-style moppets, The Last Warrior goes from being an incomprehensible and dull bit of cheap-o nonsense to an incomprehensible and dull bit of cheap-o new age psychobabble nonsense. I consoled myself with the supposition that the flashback is meant to provide a Lilies in the Field moment of uplift and an “in” to the inevitable pyrotechnics of the final act, but when Rainbow reappears from nowhere at the conclusion and makes it rain by gibbering incoherently and dancing in a circle, I sort of gave up.

Extreme Limits (2001) – DVD

August 26, 2001Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD

Crash Point Zero
½*/**** Image D Sound C Extras B
starring Treat Williams, Hannes Jaenicke, John Beck, Susan Blakely
screenplay by Steve Latshaw
directed by Jay Andrews

by Walter Chaw Beginning with stock footage of mountain climbing and a wholly unexpected (and unwelcome) reference to Hudson Hawk, Extreme Limits (formerly Crash Point Zero) is a micro-budgeted neo-Corman knock-off that boasts of an admirably irresponsible body count and a script so ludicrous that, once it’s deadened your senses (after about five minutes), it actually gets sort of funny. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I’ve laughed as long and as well as when a man gets mauled by a grizzly that is obviously some poor schmo in a bear suit, pinwheeling his arms when he gets struck by a flashlight.

Skeletons in the Closet (2001) – DVD

August 25, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Thriller

**/**** Image A Sound B Extras B
starring Treat Williams, Linda Hamilton, Jonathan Jackson, Gordon Clapp
screenplay by Donna Powers & Wayne Powers
directed by Wayne Powers

by Walter Chaw An example of the sort of generational paranoia film that cropped up following the flower-power strangeness of the late-Sixties, Skeletons in the Closet is a definite product of the post-Columbine cinematic zeitgeist: it all but demands a re-examination of our relationships with our disenfranchised youth. In a very real way, it plays as an interesting companion piece to McGehee and Siegel’s arthouse thriller The Deep End. Both are interested in how single parents deal with criminal delinquency (real or imagined) in their confused children, and both are showcases for actors who are either relatively unknown (Tilda Swinton in The Deep End), or sadly marginalized (Treat Williams).

Get Over It! (2001) – DVD

August 24, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, DVD, Romance, Teen

Get Over It
*½/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B
starring Kirsten Dunst, Ben Foster, Melissa Sagemiller, Sisqó
screenplay by R. Lee Fleming, Jr.
directed by Tommy O'Haver

by Bill Chambers One not-so-magic Christmas, I gave a girl on whom I had a crush a box of Frosted Flakes. I attached a lovey-dovey card that looked more suited to a wedding present and went all out with the tissue paper and ribbons. The girl's best friend was at the unveiling and later said something I'd never heard before but have quoted many times since: "Well-wrapped garbage is still garbage." Get Over It director Tommy O'Haver has embellished a dire teen-movie script with Broadway stylings and widescreen lensing–but well-wrapped garbage is still garbage. This isn't failed filmmaking so much as failed sleight-of-hand.

When Dinosaurs Roamed America (2001) – DVD

August 23, 2001Posted in2000s, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Documentary, DVD, Television

***/**** Image A Sound B+ Extras C-
narrated by John Goodman
written by Georgann Kane
directed by Pierre de Lespinois

by Walter Chaw A co-production of the Discovery Channel that originally aired there, When Dinosaurs Roamed America is a computer-generated simulation of dinosaurs in their habitat, interacting like lions and elephants on an African savannah. It is narrated with homey warmth by John Goodman and interrupted now and again by paleontologists, who present the most recent information available on the beasts portrayed. A hi-tech bit of necromancy, When Dinosaurs Roamed America is consistently fascinating; the fact that all of the information and images presented are highly theoretical and possibly already outdated only distracts a little from the overall impact of the piece.

Hannibal (2001) [Special Edition] – DVD

August 21, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Crime, Directors: Ridley Scott, Drama, DVD, Thriller, UK

**/**** Image A Sound A- Extras A-
starring Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Ray Liotta, Frankie R. Faison
screenplay by David Mamet and Steven Zaillian, based on the novel by Thomas Harris
directed by Ridley Scott

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover It is perhaps unfair to compare a sequel to its predecessor, especially one with as tenuous a connection to its predecessor as Hannibal has. With most of the original The Silence of the Lambs personnel having refused to sign on due to various creative differences, the sequel's total stylistic disconnection from its beloved 1991 precursor was probably inevitable. Couple that with the fact that the novel on which it draws can be charitably described as a desperate grasp for royalties and you have a no-win situation that would confound the most dedicated adaptor. Eager though he or she might be to remain faithful to the original's spirit, our hypothetical filmmakers would be forced to define something perfectly contrary to the parent film, something that would be its own picture–a rare enough commodity in the best of times.

Dead Simple (2000) – DVD

August 20, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, Music

Viva Las Nowhere
**/**** Image B+ Sound B Extras B
starring Daniel Stern, Patricia Richardson, Lacey Kohl, Sherry Stringfield
screenplay by Richard Uhlig and Steven Seitz
directed by Jason Bloom

by Walter Chaw A bizarre cross between Psycho, Something Wild and Tender Mercies, Jason Bloom’s Dead Simple is one of those derivatively named direct-to-video productions that attempts the black comedy genre with a reasonable amount of aplomb and wide-eyed enthusiasm. It’s a Very Bad Things farce of escalating atrocities, and though Dead Simple never achieves the kind of sustained comic brilliance and continual nastiness of that movie, it does manage a few edged moments and keen performances from a cast that includes legendary bug-eyed hambones Daniel Stern and James Caan.

The Trumpet of the Swan (2001) – DVD

August 20, 2001Posted in2000s, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Family, India, Musical, South Korea

½*/**** Image C Sound C Extras C
starring Jason Alexander, Mary Steenburgen, Reese Witherspoon, Seth Green
screenplay by Judy Rothman Rofe, based on the book by E.B. White
directed by Richard Rich, Terry L. Noss

by Walter Chaw Gracelessly-animated, unevenly voice-acted, and so carelessly told that it’s often unintentionally disturbing (our human hero fries eggs for breakfast when he meets our swan hero), Rich-Crest Animation’s The Trumpet of the Swan is an embarrassing cut-rate cartoon based on E.B. White’s melancholy 1970 novel. It strips White’s wonderful prose to its base essentials, inserts vulgar slapstick involving a skunk, a jive-turkey squirrel, and an aborted Graduate intrigue, and opens with an off-putting and borderline tasteless Lamaze egg-birthing prologue. Its catalogue of atrocity is so variegated and pungent that to list them all would be more effort than has in fact gone into the film’s production. Absolutely the only saving grace for this slack entertainment is its modest length–which, at a brisk 75 minutes, still plays like a film twice as long.

The Black Cat (1981) – DVD

August 16, 2001Posted in1980s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Italy

Gatto nero
*/**** Image C+ Sound B
starring Patrick Magee, Mimsy Farmer, David Warbeck, Al Cliver
screenplay by Lucio Fulci, Biagio Proietti, Sergio Salvati
directed by Lucio Fulci

by Walter Chaw Ostensibly based on Edgar Allan Poe’s short story of the same name, Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat is actually more akin to John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos (brought to film twice under the name Village of the Damned), with the titular feline taking the place of the telepathic tykes of Wyndham’s apocalyptic fable. Like the children of Wyndham’s tale, the evil cat is a physical by-product of the Freudian id, in this case a creature/familiar that, predictably, runs amuck. Fans of the “Godfather of Gore,” Lucio Fulci, and the Italian horror genre (and specifically the giallo sub-genre of the same) will doubtless be disappointed in what amounts to be a staid amalgam of lurid Hammer Studios plots and settings. Patrick Magee’s performance as the human counterpart to the evil pussycat constitutes the best reason to see an otherwise lifeless gothic horror film. A role Vincent Price or Christopher Plummer would have played once, Magee is appropriately fervent and pitched to campy perfection.

Ordinary People (1980) – DVD

August 15, 2001Posted in1980s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Best Picture (Academy Awards), Drama, DVD

***½/**** Image B- Sound C+
starring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch, Timothy Hutton
screenplay by Alvin Sargent, based on the novel by Judith Guest
directed by Robert Redford

by Bill Chambers It’s not a fashionable thing to say, but here goes: I don’t mind that Robert Redford’s Ordinary People beat out Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull for Best Picture at the 1981 Academy Awards. I was irate when Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves trumped Scorsese’s Goodfellas at the 1991 ceremony (and to have twice lost Best Director to actors-turned-first-time helmers is an especially salty twist of fate for Scorsese), but cinephiles–and yes, I consider myself one–tend to be a little stubborn about Raging Bull, a movie in grave danger of becoming a designated classic, a default selection on Top 10 lists everywhere. Although Ordinary People went home with Oscar, history ultimately swapped its place with Raging Bull as the black sheep of that infamous race.*

Second Skin (2000) – DVD

August 13, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, DVD, Mystery, South Africa, Thriller, UK

**½/**** Image B+ Sound C
starring Natasha Henstridge, Angus MacFadyen, Liam Waite, Peter Fonda
screenplay by John Lau
directed by Darrell James Roodt

by Bill Chambers Second Skin is centred in and around a used bookshop where owner Sam Kane (Angus MacFadyen) cares more about indulging in the dog-eared pulp than making a living. Crystal (Natasha Henstridge) wanders in looking for a job, though, and while Sam doesn’t get enough customers to warrant an employee, he could use a tall blonde woman in his life, and tentatively hires her. Satisfied, she walks backwards out the door, bidding adieu, and is thwacked by a car in a hit-and-run. When Crystal comes to, in a hospital bed, she’s amnesiac. In what must be a rare act of altruism for him, Sam volunteers to assist Crystal in a rummage for her forgotten past.

Mimic 2 (2001) – DVD

August 8, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+
starring Alix Koromzay, Bruno Campos, Jon Polito, Edward Albert
screenplay by Joel Soisson
directed by Jean De Segonzac

by Walter Chaw The direct-to-video Mimic 2 abandons the B-movie brilliance of its predecessor in favour of such lacklustre slasher movie conventions as an inexorable monster and a cast of disposable victims. It introduces an inexplicable sexual punishment/revenge theme, a resourceful scream queen, the “surprise” ability of the villain to withstand bullets/beheading/burning for one last scare, and a closed environment consisting all of ill-lit halls and basements. Consequently, as Mimic 2 reveals itself to be more of a slasher flick than a monster movie, it honours repetition-honed slasher sequel conventions: the body count escalates, the gore and blood increases, the time the creatures spend on-screen mounts, and the characteristics of the bad guy/s evolve. Sadly, the only things this film really has in common with the original are similar creature effects and the return of the least memorable supporting character, now in the lead role.

The Wicker Man (1973) [Limited Edition] – DVD

August 7, 2001Posted in1970s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Mystery, UK

Anthony Shaffer’s The Wicker Man
***½/**** Image B+ (Theatrical)/C (Extended) Sound C Extras A
starring Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento, Britt Ekland
screenplay by Anthony Shaffer
directed by Robin Hardy

by Walter Chaw Early in The Wicker Man, poor Sergeant Howie of the West Highland Police shows the picture of a missing lass to a gaggle of locals on remote Summerisle Island. As he turns away, having received no information of value, the camera crops his head off. Later, during a pagan May Day festival, Sergeant Howie nearly gets his head cut off again, this time by six swords forming an interlaced sun symbol. The loss of the head represents castration (Sergeant Howie is shown to be impotent from the start), one of literally dozens of symbols both overt and subtle employed in this unique and brilliant genre film.

Sweet November (2001) – DVD

August 6, 2001Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Romance, ZERO STARS

Sweetnovember

ZERO STARS/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras D
starring Keanu Reeves, Charlize Theron, Jason Isaacs, Greg Germann
screenplay by Kurt Voelker, based on the 1968 screenplay by Herman Raucher
directed by Pat O’Connor

by Walter Chaw After Sara Deever (Charlize Theron) and the horribly named Nelson Moss (Keanu Reeves) meet-cute during a test at the DMV, Nelson offers to pay all of Sara’s expenses for a month to compensate for his part in her failure to have her license renewed. Indignant, Sara wonders aloud if Nelson treats all women like hookers. Hippie chick Sara, by the way, has no visible means of support, lives in a giant apartment in San Francisco, and bangs a different rich man for a month every month in some kind of Bull Durham sexual scholarship lottery arrangement. I can only assume that Sara’s specious offense at Norman’s innocuous “implication” is that she’s amazed that it shows.