Reviews

A film sensitive to the plight of Mexican immigrants coming to the US for a better life.

Savalas plays a border agent with a compassionate heart. Savalas is really great in this role, and the production/writing nearly rises to his level. When he's not on-screen, the film is two dimensional. The other agents are hateful Americans, the immigrants are sentimentalized heroes. I like the heartfelt understanding, but I wish it wasn't so "good guy/bad guy".

Savalas somehow makes it all credible, but he's not always the focus. When he is, good flick.

Directorial Debut of Rich Riedel is a winner. A minuscule budget doesn't hamper the fun as a group of friends head out to the woods for a little r & r and run into the unexpected. Yeah, we've seen this type of story played out before in the action and horror genres (this one , strictly action), but Riedel's version puts a fresh twist on it. He keeps you guessing as the woods seem to be more populated with friends turned enemies turned friends then one would imagine.

For a group of unknowns, the actors deliver believable performances. The camera is always in the right place and Riedel ratchets up the tension effectively.

It seems like these type of straight ahead action pieces are a thing of the past, what with everyone trying to blend genres and "Tarantino" the story lines and dialog (often with unwatchable results). In many ways, Target Practice is a valentine to the action films of yore. He doesn't try to reshape the genre, he just hits all the right beats at the right times. A blast.

This early talkie (so early I understand there was a silent version shot simultaneously) introduced me to the actor Lowell Sherman. Sherman plays drunken cad/best friend to leading man Ralph Graves, who portrays a rich artist. Barbara Stanwyck plays a roaring twenties-esque party girl who ends up modeling for Graves.

Stanwyck is excellent and captivating. This was early in her career, and it must've been clear that she was destined to become a star after this film came out. Ralph Graves, on the other hand, turns in one of the worst performances I've ever seen. Stiff, wooden, he almost sinks the picture. He doesn't connect emotionally with his own character or anyone else's. His career seemed to tank after this film. No surprise there.

Lloyd Sherman plays your proto-typical cad, and he's the best thing in the movie. He's a scoundrel, overtly trying to get down Stanwyck's pants while still maintaining his charm. Though you're supposed to root against him, you kind of like this ne'er do well. He fully embodies the role, and as far as talkies are concerned, I'd say he invented the drunken cad, the inebriated sophisticate. Actors as disparate as William Powell (think Thin Man) to Dudley Moore (think Arthur) owe Sherman a debt of gratitude.

Like Ralph Graves, Sherman is kind of forgotten today. It's not because, like Graves, he didn't have the goods to last and make his mark. It's because Sherman died a few years later, of pneumonia. At the time of his death, he was just starting to direct as well. If you love charming movie scoundrels, raise a glass in Mr. Sherman's honor. He would approve.

I'm writing a review to a film I just couldn't finish. It was too painful.

I like films about those lovable losers who end up as winners. Happy Gilmore succeeded at being that. So did the darkly hilarious Kingpin. But this film sucked at that for a couple reasons. The big one is the script just isn't that funny. One humiliating thing after another happens to James' Mall Cop, and he's just incapable of defending himself. I don't get it, the character would be a cop, should be a cop, if it wasn't for the blood sugar issue. But when the lowly pen salesman verbally bashes him, Blart takes it like a puss. It just doesn't add up. It's just poor writing. If he showed even the smallest flash of cajones, instead of being a two dimensional human doormat, this would be a funnier movie. The entire drunken melt down at the bar hurts to watch. It should be a comic centerpiece, but it's not. I'm sorry, but having Kevin James' brother as some kind of bald karaoke dude doesn't save it. By far.

Instead of creating comedy and tension, the script relies too much on Kevin James doing his thing, being the over the top fat guy with a ton of personality. I liked King of Queens, but watching Mall Cop gave me a new respect for Leah Remini and the rest of the show's cast. James needs either a real script, or he needs to surround himself with funny actors.

That Jon Favreau is full of surprises. He directs a hilarious Santa Clause movie, a success that wasn't easy to predict. Now he turns his attention to the superhero genre with even more impressive results.

Unlike most superhero flicks, this one is just as entertaining when the costume isn't on. Of course, when Downey, Jr. ( a brilliant casting choice) is the lead, that's not a shock. His Tony Stark is a spoiled, wise cracking boy wonder who is due for a rude awakening.

It's a great cast all around. Paltrow as his assistant may not have a lot to do, but she does it very well. I thought Jeff Bridges was a wise choice as the baddie. He gives his smiling arms dealer a goofy, affable Lebowski air. I've always liked Jeff Bridges. He never disappoints.

This may not be as good as the first couple Spider Man flicks, but those are hard to live up to. It does beat the Fantastic Four films, just by being smarter and having an incredible cast.

When I saw the ad for Bottle Shock, I was led to believe it would be a quirky indie about a British wine snob (Alan Rickman) who travels the '70s Napa Valley in search of vino that could challenge the French. He's the main figure on the DVD cover, too. The movie starts out that way, but turns into a tale of family angst centering on a Napa vintner (Bill Pullman) who works out his inner demons by pushing around his hippie son(Chris Pine). There's also Gustavo (Freddy Rodriguez), a wine maker wanna-be who falls for the intern at the Pullman winery.

This movie tries to be so many things and track so many characters, I didn't know who it was about or what it was trying say. It starts out as Rickman's story, then it's Pullman's, then it's Pine's, and so on. I think if the writer/director (Randall Miller) would've just picked a main story and gone with it (the Rickman in Napa, fish-out-of-water story is the best candidate, I think), this could've been an outstanding movie. But because the script is all over the place, the big wine challenge at the end is sadly anticlimactic.

Rickman is good, as always, and so is a pre-Capt Kirk Chris Pine. The real star is the beautiful wine country itself, wonderfully captured by DP Richard Pagano.

For a movie that is really about the characters, Bottle Shock is distractingly cuttie. I didn't understand why some scenes, like the one when Rickman is trying to board the plane with the wine, kept cutting away. Gotta blame Miller for this, since he gives himself an editor credit. Maybe this is why the film doesn't make the hard choice of picking a storyline and going with it. Someone who hadn't written the script maybe could have molded it better.

Miller does capture what life may have been like in Napa in the '70s. There's sweetness, as well as the story's tension of plying a trade while going unnoticed by the world. Not a bad film, but it could have been so much more. Six stars for Rickman, Pine, and the Napa Valley. One more star for the few scenes with Rickman and Dennis Farina, which are exceptionally charming.

Morgan J. Freeman delivers a heartfelt road movie about twenty yr old small time criminal Daniel (Mark Webber) who drives a 6 yr. old orphan (Antonio Ortiz) across country to reunite the boy with his sister.

Daniel works as a janitor at an elementary school, doing his 240 hrs of community service painting over graffiti and reading to the kids. A bond forms between Daniel and young Boone, a fatherless boy who is about to lose his mom. When Boone is taken to an orphanage, Daniel takes matters into his own hands and drives Boone from NY to FLA, where Boone's sister lives. The pleasures are simple as Daniel and Boone enjoy life on the road. The film has a sweet, dappled 70's vibe as the two camp out, go shopping, and jump on hotel beds. The characters are honestly drawn and memorably portrayed. Webber is especially likable as a young man at the crossroads.

Morgan's previous film, Piggy Banks, is also a road movie, although much different in tone. It's about two young brothers who happen to be serial killers. It's an incredible, tense, enlightening film about a much different kind of life on the road. Freeman has really hit his stride with these two road movies.

My favorite part of Zodiac was watching the facts about the case, accumulated by cops, reporters, and an intrepid cartoonist, slowly coalesce into a clear picture of the killer. When it's finally apparent who did it, over a decade later, it's satisfying. It's just a shame the script itself is so scattered. No where is this more apparent then in the Gyllenhaal character.

Gyllenhaal plays a cartoonist who becomes obsessed with finding the identity of the Zodiac. No clues are given as to why this straight laced Eagle Scout would shun family and job to take such a dark journey. Fincher goes to extremes to show what a loving, single father he is at first. But later, he is holed up in his apartment, surrounded by the detritus of his investigation, looking like a mad hermit. His wife comes to check up on him, but he refuses to give up the chase and resume his role as father and husband. It's not clear why this change has taken place. Ruffalo's cop pursues the killer because it's his job. It's the job of Paul Avery (Downey, Jr.) as well. But Gyllenhaal's motives are unclear.

There are whole passages of time where main characters drop out sight. Sometimes it's Gyllenhaal's movie, sometimes Ruffalo's. When the film follows Ruffalo, along side partner Anthony Edwards, the movie works best. They're continually vexed by the technological limitations of their time, yet they somehow keep plodding through. Unlike Gyllenhaal's cartoonist, they have motives for what they do. They're cops. They solve crimes.

And Paul Avery's descent into alcoholism and houseboat isolation? No reasons given. Hey, that's the way it happened in real life, so why try to give the character motives.

If this was fiction, the vague character arcs wouldn't fly, and this film would be shorter and tighter. But under the true crime rubric, the fuzzy writing and slavish adherence to the book are forgiven by many. But when the smoke clears, this is just an over-long, under-motivated paean to a certain place and time. Evocative? Yes. Good storytelling? No way.

The best episodes of The Rockford Files are often like mini Chandler novels. Sure, Jimmy is too big of a con artist to be confused with the knight errant Marlowe, but when a destitute old buddy or an endangered past love needs his help, he sometimes becomes almost knight-like. This show is basically a Long Goodbye scenario, in which Jim must solve a tangled mystery to see if he is being duped by a past love (Susan Strasburg) who came to him for help. Is he saving her, or is she using him? The dialogue crackles here, and that, plus Garner, is why this show was so often the best thing to ever be on the tube.

Back in the 70's, some of the craftsmen behind TV shows like this had long histories working in their positions. Between the Director Jerry London, the DP Andrew Jackson, and the Editor George Rohrs, you had credits that ranged from Hawaiian Eye to Dragnet to Rockford to Harry- O. These guys worked all the time, and they were a testament to the true professionalism of the times. I'm sure back then, they thought they were just cranking 'em out, but their efforts still shine. You have to go to HBO to find stuff this good these days.

I think this was shot in the Phillipines, and that some of the cast and crew were drugged out ex- pats who had worked on Apocalypse Now and never made it home. Many of the same also show up in American Kickboxer 2, including the producer, the star, and one of the editors. But whatever they were on, it somehow works. This film has weird, sometimes funny dialogue, and the action sequences are violent and effective. Everything gels, though it's often teetering on the edge of bad. There's even a fight that crashes through a movie set. It's wild.

Dale "Apollo" Cook is the star. He's sort of forgotten in kick boxing movie lore, hidden in the shadows of even Cynthia Rothrock, but he's not bad at all. His character really does seem like a Yank stuck in some horrible, mosquito infested no-man's land who has to fight his way out. That was probably his experience working on the film, too. I'm not recommending this for just anyone. I think you need to watch it late at night, while in the middle of some crazy binge, and you're experiencing intense clarity about life, and you just can't be bothered by any phony baloney pretentious BS.

Lonely B-movie addicts seeking jag-off material, yet too timid to rent porn, should probably skip this title. There's hardly any sex or violence, and no used up Scream Queens. It does have three cute, working class girls on the lam from gangsters, red-neck chauvinists, and Eddie Deezen, beating a trail to Mexico. This sure sounds like Thelma and Louise, and there are scenes Thelma shamelessly lifted right out of Bimbos. Considering Bimbos probably had the same total budget as Ridley Scott had for cafe lattes, you have to admire this spunky little movie's quirky feminist ethos and originality. Elizabeth Kaiten is adorable. Three mariachis pretend to play instruments that have no bearing on the music, just like the Monkees. A blast.