Reviews

I saw Angels in the Outfield only because I was in it. Well, in the crowd scenes anyway when it was being filmed at the Oakland Coliseum. As a movie, it has a certain charm, though more of a family film than a "baseball movie." It's a remake of the 1951 original, but doesn't have that gritty baseball feel to it. Good performances by Danny Glover and Tony Danza, though it was disconcerting to see the location keep switching from Anaheim Stadium to the Oakland Coliseum.

Dead Man has that surreal quality that pulls you in to its world, much like other atmospheric movies like Blade Runner, it exists in a world all its own. And it is filled with quirky, unusual characters. Johnny Depp is appropriate for the role of William Blake, a greenhorn from Cleveland who comes out west to fill an accounting position he believes is reserved for him. The train ride in the beginning sets the tone of the movie, which is a journey from civilization to the chaos that awaits him. With each sequence in that opening scene, the train ride becomes more surreal, as the passengers become more and more untamed. When he gets to the end-of-the-line, he discovers that his job has been filled, and in a nightmarish chain of events, he finds himself on the run for murder, with a bullet in him. He is found by an Indian named Nobody, who believes he is the poet William Blake. He becomes his guide in an hallucinating journey towards death. The ending of the movie can be seen as puzzling or unresolved, but it's not so much the conclusion as the point, but in the journey itself. Not everyone will get this movie, because it remains surreal throughout the journey, but it is filled with an enjoyable collection of characters, with lots of cameos by many good actors.

When I saw this as a kid, I thought it was cool, because it had creepy monsters and a theme song that sounded like Andy Williams in some lounge. A group of forlorn passengers on board an unseaworthy steamship, which happens to be carrying high explosives, set sail for South America. They get caught in a hurricane, the crew mutinies, they get in a lifeboat, man-eating seaweed tries to eat the captain, then they find their ship again and go back on board. that's when the fun begins. The evil seaweed pulls the ship into the Sargasso Sea, where it is chow-time for all the creepy sea creatures that attack and devour the ship's passengers. Also on hand are a bunch of Spaniards who think it's the 1500's. They have managed to peacefully co-exist with these slimy creatures. They are ruled by a petulant boy-king who tries to seize the ship and it's supplies. Our heroes must battle the Spaniards and the monsters and get home.

I read somewhere that as a young boy, Gene Roddenberry would sit in a cardboard box and pretend it was a mighty starship, with a crew of hundreds, going on bold adventures all over the galaxy. Who would have thought this would end up as a new mythology, with unforgettable characters known by just about everyone in the world. This is my favorite among all the Trek incarnations, not just because it was the first, but because it was the best written and had the most memorable characters. I was only about 6 when it first aired, but I remember the ritual of coming home after school to watch the syndicated reruns. By the time I got to college, Star Trek TOS was already deeply ingrained in our cultural psyches. We used to play a game of who could guess the episode by watching only the first few seconds of it.

I have seen both versions of Blade Runner and I can't decide which one I like better, though I'm leaning more toward the Director's Cut if only for the ending. The studio bosses wanted a more upbeat ending and thought audiences wouldn't "get it." Maybe they were right, but in any case, I thought it was a wonderful atmospheric film about a rather pessimistic, some say realistic, look into the future. The Los Angeles of 2019 is dark and depressing, with requisite technical advances, but a society that is fragmented and marginalized. Ridley Scott is great at affecting these atmospheric moods in his films. With Blade Runner he outdoes himself. Harrison Ford is a sort of bounty hunter of renegade androids, and he must hunt down 4 Replicants at large in LA who have come to seek extended life. The reason I like this one is because it pulls the viewer in to its world, and the characters and performances hold you there. Especially Rutger Hauer who steals the show.

There are so many ways to look at 2001. From a technical standpoint, it is almost flawless, especially for its time. The sequences aboard Discovery accurately portray life in space; silent, monotonous, tedious, and visually stunning. The overall arc of the story is profound, about man's place in the universe, starting from the Dawn of Man, as we see the first steps in man's evolution. Watch as Moonwatcher, the lead ape, uses a tool for the first time. And after he uses it as a weapon, he is STANDING ERECT. After the flash-forward of about a million years, man has become a space-faring species. Again the mysterious Monolith has reappeared to steer mankind to another level of evolution. For me, the most interesting, and complex, character is HAL. His motivations and behaviour are the focal point of the movie. He goes haywire, but for what reason? Computers are supposed to be logical, but HAL is not. There are subtle scenes involving HAL, like the scene in which he expressed doubts and uncertainties about the mission to Jupiter. When Dave asks if he is doing a crew psychology report, HAL pauses before answering the question. It's only for a few seconds, but for a computer, that's an eternity. He has to "think" before answering. And when Dave re-enters Discovery, after HAL had locked him out, he puts on his space suit, presumably as a precaution in case HAL lets the air out of the ship. Why didn't HAL depressurize the ship BEFORE Dave got back in? These are fascinating details that still leave me guessing after dozens of viewings. 2001 is a landmark film.

I can't remember a louder, more cacophonous assault on the senses since Batman Returns. An asteroid the size of Texas is heading for Earth, so out of all the geologists and astrophysicists in the world, the leaders of NASA and the free world pick Bruce Willis and a bunch of alcoholics and assorted losers to go into space on a highly specialized mission to blow up the asteroid. Hey, makes sense to me...So they are brought together, Seven Samurai style, and sent to train for the mission. Meanwhile Bruce, who was shooting at his future son-in-law with a rifle, though no assault charges were filed, gets him along too. Liv Tyler is the daughter and love interest, but she just hangs around, all lopey-dopey. And she's always allowed onto highly restricted areas even though she has no direct involvement with the project. They finally blast off in two souped-up shuttles, and that's when all the noise and commotion starts. They land on the asteroid while being constantly bombarded by asteroid fragments in the most annoying quick-cuts and camera jostling I've ever experienced. As they walk around on the asteroid their weight is normal, like on earth, but when it comes time to jump a yawning chasm, that's when gravity goes away. By this time all the noise was giving me a headache, so I forgot whether they blew up the asteroid and made it out alive. I guess they probably did, but I'm not sure.

I guess the dilemma with these disaster movies is that the film makers have to come up with a storyline to frame these disasters, and characters to insert in the disaster, so that we root for them to survive. Usually the opposite happens when the characters are so bland or annoying, that we just as soon see them get buried in molten lava or whatever. In Dante's Peak, we have a small town in the shadow of an active volcano, rather unconvincingly super-imposed on a location shoot. Pierce Brosnan, between jobs as 007, plays a geologist who comes to town to assess the volcano. Linda Hamilton as the widow mayor. These two are likeable enough, and they have their obligatory romance. But we also have her annoying kids, the grandma, the dog, and another "merry band" of scientists who are all class clown types. These merry bands can be found in other disaster films. Anyway, the volcano finally blows, with so/so pyroclastic flows and lava fountains. We see a pickup truck that can drive underwater, a truck that can drive on top of molten lava, a stubborn grandma who won't leave her cabin even though lava is flowing thru it, and a man drowning in a river as his colleagues stand and watch with their arms folded. So yeah, I guess it's entertaining after all.

The one thing ID4 has going for it are the special effects. I must admit, when I first saw the trailers for this in the theaters, we all went "wow". But, when I finally saw it, it was more like "eh." The f/x are done quite well. New York and LA getting blown to smithereens was a nice touch. But there are so many ridiculously acted and cartoonish scenes I don't know where to begin. I think Will Smith as the gung-ho pilot punching the alien is right up there. Also, I was looking forward to the Area 51 scenes, but it was more like a Holiday Inn lobby, complete with a concierge/host with a cheerful "Welcome to Area 51!" In the long run, I think we will look back on this twenty or thirty years from now, like we look back on all those cheesy sci-fi movies made in the fifties, like Earth vs. The Flying Saucers, with snickering derision, but with a certain affection.

As a fan of science fiction and war films, this one is a treat, because it combines both genres in an entertaining way. The carrier USS Nimitz, with all her nuclear might, gets transported back in time to 1941, just before the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. Sure, the timing is an incredible coincidence, but hey, it's a movie...Anyway, Kirk Douglas as the captain is faced with a dilemma; does he unleash his superior weaponry against the Japanese, thus altering history? Or does he allow them to bomb Pearl Harbor, preserving history as we know it? Meanwhile, we do see F-14s engaging some Zeroes, and some taut, well acted scenes by Charles Durning, James Farentino, Martin Sheen, and one of my favorite character actors as the Japanese pilot, Soon Teck-Oh. The climax, and all the time paradoxes are wrapped up nicely, maybe a little too tidy, but overall it's fun to watch.

The Great Escape is definitely one of my favorite movies. I remember seeing it at the drive-in when I was about 6. My parents always brought me a blanket so I could sleep in the back seat, but I stayed up for this one. The cast is excellent, with many memorable characters. Steve McQueen is at his peak, along with James Garner and Richard Attenborough. Based on a true story, a group of POWs from many allied nations plan a daring tunnel escape from a German camp. We see them plan, prepare, and dig the tunnels (3) as they elude detection from their captors. I have only one issue; the conditions of the camp are presented as a little too pristine, not dirty or squalid as in other POW movies like Stalag 17 or Von Ryan's Express. The prisoners here are always well fed and well groomed, with cleaned and pressed uniforms. But that can be overlooked because overall, the movie is excellent. The actual escape is filled with suspense, and the last hour of the movie we see them on the run, by plane, train, on foot, and in McQueen's case, by motorcycle. By this time, we are rooting for each character as they all try to make it out of Germany. All in all, a WW2 epic.

Twister is fine if you like lots of big loud special effects, or are a natural disaster fan. This movie has plenty of good effects, which are best viewed on DVD with a good sound system. But it's couched in a rather bland plot, with lots of annoying characters. There seems to be a trend in action movies lately that feature a "merry band" of meteorologists, geologists, astronauts, what-have-you. These merry bands, also found in movies like Dante's Peak and Armageddon, usually consist of very obnoxious and annoying people who joke around and bicker among themselves, as they go about doing whatever it is they do. In Twister, our merry band goes around chasing tornadoes and exchanging witty asides to one another. There is also Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as the estranged couple who are on the verge of a divorce, but must first survive being swept away a few times by killer tornadoes.

When I rented the Sea Hawk the other night I was horrified to discover that this was a colorized version. It probably would have been better looking had it been filmed in color originally, given the lavish sets. But computer colorization is a ham-fisted attempt by film technicians who don't have a clue artistically, to add what they think looks good to an otherwise finished image. Would they colorize the beginning of The Wizard of Oz? Anyway, I had to turn the color all the way down on my TV. After that, I was able to enjoy the movie as it was intended. My favorite is Flora Hobson as Elizabeth I. She is outstanding, exuding leadership and strength, while still retaining vulnerability, and a sense of humor. Flynn is at his peak, playing the charming rogue, probably based on the privateers of the time, like Francis Drake. The Spaniards are portrayed as creepy villains, complete with face-paint, except of course for Brenda Marshall.

The House on Haunted Hill was one of the better, and scarier, movies shown on "Creature Features" on Saturday nights back in the early seventies. It's a classic Vincent Price horror movie, in which he invites 5 guests to spend the night in his "haunted house" for ten grand. Most of it's pretty campy, but there are a few scenes that jump out at you and can still be scary. And the twists and turns are pretty fun too. Interestingly, it was filmed on location at the Ennis House, a Frank Lloyd Wright designed house that was also a location shoot for Blade Runner, seen as Harrison Ford's apartment.

I always like to watch these comedies that take place in the 70's because that's when I was a teenager. Some get it right, others fall short of the mark. Dazed and Confused is the most vivid 70's movie I've seen. This one is entertaining in its own silly way, but doesn't quite get it right in some areas. In the 70's, many of us considered KISS to be a joke, and those kids who were into KISS were basically dweebs who were trying to be cool...most of the kids who really wanted to rock liked Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Nugent, UFO, etc. And who could forget Van Halen's debut album. But that aside, this movie is not so much about KISS, but about rock fans in that era, and the excitement of going to one of their concerts, whoever the band might be. The film does capture that goofy excitement, like pulling up to the concert hall and seeing the marquee outside, and the crowds, like one big party. The story is basically of four friends trying to score tickets to get in the show, who have comical, but far-fetched experiences in trying to obtain them. One other thing the movie does touch on, and it was a big 70's thing, was the rock and roll vs. disco scene. I remember me and my friends HATING disco, and those guys hated us, but we didn't care.

Having been a fan of the original series, I waited for this release with much anticipation. What a letdown. The whole movie jumped from one special effects scene to the next, with a plot that meandered, or rather bounced like a pinball, from environmental crisis to a dysfunctional family in space to sabotage to romance to time paradoxes to who knows what. It was like being in a dream in which you have no control, but can only sit back and witness the strange proceedings. The special effects were done well, but that's all there was to it. Bewildering is the word that best describes it.

One thing I've always appreciated in British films is that the actors look like Real People. I don't mean unattractive, but just normal everyday looking, unlike Hollywood actors who are exceedingly pretty with perfect teeth and stylish clothes, and unlimited bank accounts, no matter what their occupation. In this film, a group of unemployed steelworkers decide to put on an amateur strip show to make ends meet. It is presented as a comedy, but it does have some very moving moments, as it shows the despair and desolation of unemployment. And it subtly displays the economic conditions of Thatcher's England, where entire industries were shut down, taking jobs and local economies along with them. As in other British films, the characters seem real, like people we would know if we lived in their town. I can picture having a pint down at the local pub with Gaz and Gerald more than, say, Tom Cruise.

When Close Encounters of the Third kind was first released, I, along with many others, thought it was a wonderful film. Up until then, most movies involving aliens from outer space, with the exception of 2001, usually portrayed them as sinister beings intent on taking over Earth. Usually in a schlocky way. This was the first time extraterrestrials were looked upon with wonder, and the notion that they may really be out there, and this is how we would meet them. However, upon repeated viewings, the movie has begun to seem dated. Not so much the special effects, which are still remarkable, but the storytelling. It is filled with Spielburgian cliche's that attempt to be funny, but fall flat. And while the events in the film take us on a convoluted course to its climax, I realized there should have been a bigger payoff. And there's one scene that bugs me more and more every time I see it; when Richard Dreyfuss is in the truck, stopped in the middle of the road, he waves on the motorist behind him, and gets yelled at. He responds by saying, "can you tell me how to get to route 31?...TURKEY!" Now who really says that? It is soooo stupid.

Having grown up in the 60's, I have fond memories of those Irwin Allen adventure series; Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants, and of course The Time Tunnel. Here we have Tony and Doug, trapped in endless time travel, as they tumble week to week to a new adventure, which always happened to be a key moment in history. Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, the Titanic, Jericho, you name it. Meanwhile, the hapless scientists back at the base are constantly turning dials to bring them home, saying, "I'm trying to get a fix on them..." I always liked the vivid theme music, and of course you could see that those blinking computer props were recycled from the aforementioned series.

Of all the science fiction movies made in the 50's, only a handful stand out as exceptionally well made. The Incredible Shrinking Man is one of them. In a clever twist, instead of growing to monsterous proportions after being exposed to radiation, this man Shrinks to miniature size...and keeps on shrinking. There are many memorable scenes using a creative display of props and special effects. The scene where his size ideally fits inside a doll house (a very well-appointed doll house!) and the cat is trying to get at him, is a great one. And the spider scene is indeed scary. I was most impressed by the ending, which takes on an almost spiritual tone.

Them! is one of the better sci-fi movies to come out of the 50's, and there were lots of 'em. It's not quite up there with War of the Worlds, but it's up there. The premise is standard: atomic testing causes a certain species of insect or mammal to grow to monsterous size, which then threatens to take over the entire world. It is then up to the US Army to mobilize its tanks and troops to blast them out of existence. In this case it's giant ants. Now, we've had giant spiders, mantises, lizards, men, women, rats, roaches... ad infinitum. But what makes this picture stand out is the cast, which include many good actors who went on to become big stars. The writing, witty and intelligent, and the pacing. The silly giant ant head props can be forgiven.

If you allow the fact that this excellent sci-fi film is a very *loosely based* adaptation of the novel, then you can appreciate this well-crafted movie. It's a cut above the usually cheesy sci-fi films from the 50's, though it can't help but contain a few things that seem silly and dated nowadays. As in The Day the Earth Stood Still, and countless other movies, as soon as the Aliens land, it's the Army to the rescue, who surround it with tanks and artillery, only to get disintegrated by far superior weaponry. Indeed, in this movie, Les Tremayne as General Mann does a dead-on impersonation of Eisenhower. Some of the dialog is pretty corny, like when Gene Barry and the girl are holed up in an abandoned house, enjoying their fried eggs, he says, "...you've just been in a plane crash and slept in a ditch, but you still look great!" or something like that. It's hard not to laugh. But aside from that, the George Pal special effects are way ahead of its time, the attacking vessels are incredible in their shape and design, with their heat rays and sound effects. And the sense of panic and destruction towards the end lends a seriousness and despair to the film which is usually not found in these sci-fi movies.

I watched Journey to the Center of the Earth with an Icelandic friend of mine, and when the Hans character began to speak what is supposedly Icelandic, she said, "what's he saying? it's just gibberish.." So that's the main memory of this movie. The best thing going for it is James Mason, as the delightfully condescending Professor Lindenbrook. Pat Boone was a teen idol at the time, so I guess they felt the need to include him in the cast. He even sings a little number in the slow-moving first hour, which can be fast-forwarded through, without losing much of the impact of the film. Some of the sets were colorful and interesting, others were pretty flimsy. The use of marine iguanas as giant reptiles was not very convincing, perhaps stop-motion could have been used. In fact, if there was ever a movie to be remade, using modern film techniques, and a good script in which REAL Icelandic is spoken, this should be it. Because it is a fascinating tale, after all. But it should NOT be remade in the same vein as some of the very bad 70's and 80's versions. Or in that recent made-for-tv silliness.

Groundhog Day is a very well made comedy with an original and unique premise. Bill Murray is perfectly cast as a cynical, embittered weatherman who has a Twilight Zone kind of experience in which he re-lives the same day over and over again. I saw this movie during a very difficult period in my own life, and it was an amazing uplifting experience to watch it. So for me, personally, this is one of my favorite movies. Phil's (Murray) character gradually evolves from cynicism, despair, and selfishness to altruism. This change must come from within. And also, after seeing it for the third or fourth time, I realized what a metaphor it was for reincarnation, the belief that we come back lifetime after lifetime, gradually attaining a more enlightened state.

Here I thought Men In Black would be a serious look into all the UFOology, the cover-ups, the abductions, Area 51, you know, X-Files kind of stuff. Instead, we get what is nothing more than a Saturday morning cartoon. Oh, it was entertaining all right, with some funny scenes, and goofy aliens, but it was too much like Ghostbusters or even Independence Day in its lightweightedness. It was like eating cotton candy when I wanted a steak.