xterminal Reviews

Before Night Falls (2000)

By far the finest film of 2000, and one of the 100 best ever

[10/10 · 19 February 2001]

Before Night Falls (Julian Schnabel, 2000)

Usually, I give a film five stars when it contains no flaws at all, when it's so unerringly perfect that it's impossible not to like. This time, I give a film five stars (the twenty-third film ever to get five stars, for those who are counting) despite flaws. Before Night Falls is that good.

Before Night Falls is based on the memoir of the same name by Cuban author Reynaldo Arenas, who ran away from home as an adolescent to join the rebel armies moving against Batista in 1958. Shortly thereafter, Castro came into power, and as Arenas grew up and became a writer, he was soon made to realize that there was no place for him in the world he'd helped to set up.

Javier Bardem, who plays Arenas from the writer's early twenties until his death in 1990, is a revelation. Best Actor isn't good enough to recognize and celebrate Bardem's complex and wrenching performance. He and Schnabel have the same understanding of Arenas' story, and the same desire in presenting it. While Schnabel contrasts the sere beauty of the Cuban landscape (and the even more sere beauty Arenas tries to evoke from the ugliness of New York City later in life), Bardem constantly reminds us that Arenas' life wasn't only about being oppressed, but about the simple joys of quotidian life in Cuba. The contrasts inherent in the film make the inevitable twists of the knife just a bit harder to take each time, and the cumulative effect is devastating.

There are some difficulties with the film. Many of the accents fade in and out of recognizability, to the point where the average American viewer will probably not understand what's being said in a few places, especially early on in the film. The general bent of what's being said is never lost, however. The pacing is inconsistent, as well, and the film drags ever so slightly in a couple of places. Both of these problems are forgivable within the greater framework, as Schnabel, first-time scriptwriter Cunningham O'Keefe, and Bardem come together with a spectacular ensemble cast (highlighted by Johnny Depp, once again showing up for less than five minutes in a film, this time in a double role) to create not only the best film of the year by far, but a film that, if there is any justice in the world, is destined to be remembered as one of the finest pieces of cinematic work ever committed to film. Finds a place very high up on the 100 Best list-- perhaps at the top. *****

Desperate Measures (1998)

Acting good, plot miserable

[5/10 · 19 February 2001]

Desperate Measures (Barbet Schroeder, 1998)

I'm never sure whether I'm going to like a Barbet Schroeder flick when I sit down to watch it. Half the time he pulls off amazing feats of grace under pressure (Barfly, Reversal of Fortune), and the other half of the time he crafts enjoyable if mindless fluff that stands one viewing well, two viewings passably, and pales by the third (Single White Female, Kiss of Death). Five minutes into Desperate Measures, I was convinced it was the latter; a day after watching it, I'm still not convinced it's the former, but I'm farther along the road than I was at that point.

Peter McCabe (Michael Keaton) is a highly intelligent psychopath, a less likable Hannibal Lecter, whose bone marrow happens to be a match for the dying son of Frank Conner (Andy Garcia). All Conner has to do is convince McCabe to be a donor to save his son, and keep McCabe from escaping somewhere between going out of his cell and going back into his cell. Needless to say, that doesn't work, or it would be a very, very short film.

Much of the movie's appeal rests solely on the head of Andy Garcia, one of the best actors in Hollywood right now, and one of the most underrated as well. He's not as engaging here as he is in his best roles (Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Black Rain, Dead Again, etc.), but his acting ability is enough to make the film watchable. Keaton seems constricted by his role, but one gets the impression that has more to do with the director than the actor himself. A number of decent minor roles also show up in the film (Marcia Gay Harden is especially pleasing as the doctor slated to perform the operation, who gets caught up in the whole mess).

If plot's more important to you than acting, however, don't bother with this one. Each "twist" can be seen coming a mile off, and if the ending doesn't make you want to seek Schroeder out and smack him personally, I'll eat my review. Perhaps the most predictable thing I've seen in the past five years. Oh, well, you can't have everything. ** 1/2

12 Angry Men (1997 TV Movie)

Very capable remake

[8/10 · 19 February 2001]

12 Angry Men (William Friedkin, 1997)

Friedkin's made-for-television adaptation of the classic 1957 film is surprisingly well-thought-out and executed with a style most straight-to-small-screen works lack. Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott presage their conflicts in the later made-for-TV remake Inherit the Wind as the two jurors who refuse to budge from their convictions that a murder case does and does not have reasonable doubt attached to it, respectively.

As with the original, 12 Angry Men is really an ensemble piece, the first American example of avant-garde filmmaking on a mass scale; with the exception of a few brief flashes at beginning and end, the film takes place in two adjoining rooms, a jury room and a men's room, allowing the director no scenic latitude at all and forcing him to concentrate on the actors themselves. Friedkin, as Lumet before him, gathers a mix of the well-known and the underrated from all corners of the Hollywood backlot, gives each a speech, and goes to great pains to ensure that those who espouse even the most controversial views are as charismatic as those who are warmer and fuzzier. In other words, this is an actors' movie, pure and simple, and if you enjoy watching actors do what they do, you'll get a kick out of this. ****

All the President's Men (1976)

Confusing, but it's supposed to be

[7/10 · 19 February 2001]

All the President's Men (Alan Pakula, 1976)

We have met the enemy, and they is more ours than we realized they was. Pakula's fact-based look at the way Woodward (Robert Redford) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) uncovered the story behind the Watergate break-in is a classic piece of filmmaking that's influenced almost every, if not every, piece of film and television dealing with journalism that's come since in America. Most, thankfully, are a little more coherent than this, but the confusion factor doesn't make All the President's Men any less a film.

Much of what allows All the President's Men to straddle the line between confusing mush and classic filmmaking is in that everpresent devil, the details. Want an example? The main theme of the film is that words are weapons; the unforgettable opening sequence, in which the typewriter keys strike the paper with seemingly epic force, is the result of mixing whip and shotgun sounds with the actual sounds of typewriter keys. Now that's attention to detail, folks. As well, Pakula never allows the story to stray from the straight and narrow. Woodward and Bernstein remain the focus throughout, and while some minor characters get enough screen time to be memorable (Jason Robards' performance as Ben Bradlee garnered him a very well-deserved Best Supporting Actor oscar), we don't need to know who they all are; their function in the film is solely to either funnel information to, or keep information from getting to, Woodward and Bernstein. We don't need to know anything else about them. It adds a little kick to know trivial details, such as the guy playing Frank Wills (the security guard who discovers the break-in initially) actually was the late Frank Wills, but it's not necessary to comprehend the story of what started as a routine newspaper article about a hotel burglary and ended up being a series of articles that won the Pulitzer Prize, changed the face of political reporting in America, and incidentally saved Bob Woodward's job at the Washington Post. *** 1/2

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Merhige's second not suffering from sophomore slump

[8/10 · 15 February 2001]

Shadow of the Vampire (E. Elias Merhige, 2000)

Elias Merhige's first film, Begotten, is one of Nicolas Cage's favorite movies. So when Cage started up his production company and financed his first flick, he called Merhige. He had other reasons, of course, but the rather tenuous connection has caused a number of people who have seen both movies to ask why Merhige came out of semi-retirement (and a lucrative business designing stage sets and directing creepy videos for Marilyn Manson) to work on a film that's as commercially accessible as Begotten was commercially deadly?

The obvious reason that no one seems to have come up with is that Merhige is one of only two living directors who's made a major silent film, and Mel Brooks would have been inappropriate for the material. The less obvious reason is that Merhige's favorite trope, the long repetition cut, makes itself known in this movie. It's far more subtle than it was in Begotten-- no ten-minute shots of robed figures dragging Son of Earth up a hill in this one. But as in Begotten, there are long, loving shots of landscape (and I use the term loosely; the most noticeable shot like this focuses on different parts of the train for a few minutes) with action going on around them that has nothing, really to do with the landscape whatsoever. The juxtaposition is just out-of-kilter enough to add a veneer of disturbance. With the increased action in this film, the viewer is less compelled to focus on the juxtaposition, and thus less disturbed; but for this film, in the back of the mind is enough.

Much has been made (and very rightly so) of Willem Dafoe's portrayal of Count Orlok, who takes on the persona of character actor Max Schreck through a shady deal with obsessed film director F. W. Murnau (John Malkovich). Dafoe does a fantastic job not only of playing Count Orlok as a vampire who's forced by his own greed into contact with humans he can't kill, but he also takes the silent-film exaggeration of statement and uses it in a sound film. It's unexpected, and it's wonderful. Dafoe is quite deserving of his Best Supporting Actor nomination, but if you're a betting man, remember that Dafoe was overlooked for his two finest roles (in The Last Temptation of Christ and To Live and Die in L.A.).

All the flap over Dafoe's brilliance has unfortunately eclipsed some of the minor performances in the movie which are equally as brilliant, e.g. Udo Kier as the perpetually-stressed producer Albin Grau, Catherine McCormack as the spoiled and bitchy star of the film, Eddie Izzard as her co-star, and Cary Elwes as a replacement cameraman (after the original, played by Ronan Vibert, is sent to the hospital thanks to Orlok's inability to, erm, contain himself) whose arrival on the scene is the catalyst that sets everything in motion.

Elwes' role, and the way his arrival changes the dynamic of the film set, is the one piece of this film that elevates it from an amusing, hyperbolic character sketch of a director who will go to any lengths to get his film and a piece of art. While Elwes himself is about as subtle as a cold chisel to the ear, the effects of his coming are masked by his (and those around him) aping until the final scene, when the true implications of the whole mess come to light. The final scene is so beautifully set up, and so well constructed, that the payoff would have been worth any number of errors. Fortunately, we have very few to contend with, most of which have nothing to do with the film itself (the person who composed the main title credits, for example, should be exiled from Hollywood forevermore).

As a side note, the actual scenes we see Murnau directing are quite close to the scenes in the original. Given the flights of fantasy used in other parts of the film, this is a detail that could have easily been overlooked, but it wasn't. Kudos.

While it's not Begotten-- nothing that's come out since has equaled the artistry and beauty of Begotten-- one can't say by any means that Merhige cound himself in a sophomore slump. To the contrary, the accessibility, the likability, of this film is astonishing, given the endurance-test qualities of Begotten. Very highly recommended. ****

Future Shock (1994)

More wasted potential

[5/10 · 15 February 2001]

Future Shock (Eric Parkinson et al., 1993)

This could have been a fantastic movie. It's an anthology film set around the office of a therapist who's come up with a new method of hypnotherapy. Over the course of the day, he sees three of his truly screwed-up patients, subjects them to the hypnosis, and waits. We get to watch what happens during the waiting.

The writing is just shy of good. The acting is just shy of good (save a few memorable performances, most notably from Bill Paxton, back when his contract still allowed him to play sleazy bad guys; he's as good and rowdy in here as he is in Near Dark). The production is just shy of good. Unfortunately, it all adds up to bad, albeit bad in a kind of endearing way. The potential in each of these stories tends to get in the way of the sheer, mindless enjoyment. The exception is the last story, "Mr. Petrified Forest," a shaggy-dog story about a guy having a near-death experience who can't remember how he got outside the gates of heaven.

Ah, the potential. It's worth a free viewing if it pops up on TV, but don't go out of your way. **

Soylent Green (1973)

Dangerously close to schlock... but brilliant nonetheless

[9/10 · 15 February 2001]

Soylent Green (Richard Fleischer, 1973)

So what's the difference between schlock and one of the 100 best films ever made? Sometimes, I'll admit, it's a pretty blurry line. That's the case with this gem from the Richard Fleischer stable, a tale of a New York City with a population of forty million and a food supply that comes in little squares of red, yellow, and green.

Thorn (Heston) chews scenery. Roth (Edward G. Robinson) spends his life moaning about how things were better in the seventies. (If only they knew.) The two of them try to get through their lives scavenging from the rich, like everyone else in New York. They have an edge, with Thorn being a cop who treats corruption like a comfortable pair of undershorts. A high society murder tips Thorn off that all may not be well with Soylent, the company that makes the majority of the world's food supply, and Thorn and Roth start digging deeper despite warnings from the victim's old bodyguard (Stephen Young) and Thorn's lieutanant (Brock Peters). The production values are strictly seventies, and it's great to poke fun at various things in the film ("my god, it's 2022 and they're still listening to bad lounge music?"). And yet there's something undefinable about this film that propels it from the realm of bad seventies science-fiction exploitation into the realm of true genius. What that thing is, I don't know; when I figure it out, I'll tell you. But something clicked. Heston's patented god-guns-and-guts character is perfect for the role. Robinson actually looks convincing salivating over a stick of celery. And somehow the movie's last lines are delivered convincingly. It's incredible. Whatever magic they managed to make with this one, Hollywood needs to make more of it. **** 1/2

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

Way, Way, WAY too long

[4/10 · 15 February 2001]

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1967)

There are a number of great things about this movie. The first ten minutes. The last ten minutes. The theme music, which has come to be synonymous with the American west. Lee van Cleef, who was great in every role he ever played.

And then there was the middle hundred sixty minutes.

There's an odd tendency among filmmakers to take a razor-thin plot and stretch it far too long. Such is the case here, with the plot being a race between the Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood), a hired gun named Angel Eyes (van Cleef), and the Man with No Name's on-again off-again sidekick Tuco (Eli Wallach) to find a cache of stolen gold during the Civil War. This plot meanders for two and three-quarters hours before getting on track, and that's about an hour and three-quarters too long. The subplots are never developed, nor are the characters. Tuco switches allegiances every ten minutes. After a while, it gets just plain boring.

Definitely could have used a good editor. Eastwood's westerns got better with age (his, not theirs); Unforgiven and Pale Rider are better, tighter films. **

Antitrust (2001)

Bill Gates without the geekiness

[6/10 · 22 January 2001]

Antitrust (Peter Howitt, 2001)

One reviewer, the day before this opened, called this the film where Ryan Phillippe attempts to break out of the teen-movie genre and into the big time. Okay, let's think about this for a moment. The film is directed by Peter Howitt, who made his feature film debut with a teen movie that wanted desperately to be a serious flick (Sliding Doors); his co-stars are Rachael Leigh Cook (The Babysitters Club, the upcoming live-action Josie and the Pussycats) and Claire Forlani (one word, Mallrats); the movie is based on the idea that Microsoft will take over the world. So, serious art or teen flick?

Tim Robbins plays Gary Winston, very obviously modeled on Bill Gates (check out the house!) without the geekiness that keeps Bill Gates from looking like the Overlord he really is. Winston is very interested in hiring two wunderkind programmers, Milo Hoffmann (Phillippe) and his best friend Teddy Chin (whose name is oddly not listed at IMDB). Chin is an idealist who believes all code should be open source, and turns down the offer; Hoffmann accepts, and soon finds that, of course, the Evil Empire really IS evil. Surprise, surprise.

Still, it's not a bad little flick for what it is. One expects more depth and better plot twists from Howard Franklin (The Name of the Rose, Someone to Watch Over Me), but sometimes it's fun to watch even when you can see it coming, no? It's slick, stylish, has geeks enough to satisfy most gearheads, and as an added bonus contains a bang-up performance by rising star Tyler Labine (if you're an X-Files fanatic, you'll remember him as one of the trio of stoners who followed Mulder and Scully around for a couple of seasons, meeting their demise at the jaws of the same alligator that got Queequeg). Worth a trip to the cheap seats. ***

The Skulls (2000)

Secret Societies 101: Wasted Potential

[4/10 · 22 January 2001]

The Skulls (Rob Cohen, 2000)

Cohen, the man behind Dragonheart, directs this tale of the evils of Ivy League secret societies, complete with slimy overlord (Craig T. Nelson) and angry young idealist (the underrated Hill Harper, who most recently showed up in the ill-fated TV series City of Angels) bent on exposing the inner workings of all things secret; "if it's secret and elite, it can't be good." When you spell out your theme that plainly that early in the movie, what do you have left?

Still, this flick had a whole lot of wasted potential. The main story focuses on the relationship between local-boy-made-good Luke MacNamara (teen heartthrob Joshua Jackson from Dawson's Creek) and the Evil Slimy Overlord's son, Caleb Mandrake (teen heartthrob Paul Walker, recently of Varsity Blues), with minor attention paid to how Luke's induction into the secret society affects his friendships with Harper's character and his "the audience knows they're in love but he doesn't" girlfriend Chloe (teen heartthrob Leslie Bibb, from the TV series Popular). There's enough suspense to kill an hour and a half without wanting to throw the VCR out the window, but one gets the feeling that with a slightly more capable director (I mean, come on, the guy put Sean Connery in a rubber dragon suit) and less of a focus on casting teen heartthrobs, this could have been a real killer. Wait for it to hit the specials bin, but don't go out of your way to avoid it just because the whole cast is on the WB. **

House on Haunted Hill (1999)

Capable, but not stellar, remake

[5/10 · 22 January 2001]

My first thought as the credits rolled was "I didn't just see Geoffrey Rush's name go by, did I?" But yes, there he is in all his sadistic glory. Rush, who seems to have something of an affection for playing sadists, plays "Steven H. Price" (and he even grew a Vincent-esque mustache... beautiful!), reprising Vincent Price's Frederick Loren role in the 1958 original. Bond girl Famke Janssen is his long-suffering wife.

If you haven't been in a cave since 1958, you know the drill: the seemingly evil and certainly creepy host offers a group of characters a million bucks apiece to spend the night in a supposedly haunted house... if they make it out alive. (cue swelling creepy music) Of course, the survivors will split the cash of anyone who doesn't make it, and oh, by the way, here are some things you can use to murder your fellow competitors. The twist this time: the house is a former asylum for the criminally insane, run by a doctor who should have been a patient (many-times-typecast Jeffrey Combs, the title character from Re-animator). This gives director William Malone the chance to do some wonderful things with vintage-looking atrocity footage that's truly creepy. The best parts of this movie are the all-too-brief shots of Combs and his ghostly comrades doing very nasty things, usually just off-camera, to poor innocent victims.

And here's the weird thing. This is a capable adaptation of a film that really wasn't the best thing Vincent Price ever did. It's got some wonderful scenes, a cadre of talented young actors from the Oscar-winning Rush to rising star Taye Diggs to (do I need to say it?) teen heartthrob Ali Larter (Final Destination) who turn in good performances. So what's wrong with this picture? Why is it no better than the similarly-themed The Haunting, released only a month before? Well, okay, I won't go that far-- it's better than The Haunting ever dreamed of being, and with nowhere near as high-powered a cast. But still, all the elements here don't want to gel, and the effects-laden climax is... well, think The Haunting; the story gets lost in all the million spent on ghosties, ghoulies, and long-leggetie beasties. But it doesn't happen until very late in the film this time, at least.

Oh, yeah, and it's got Max Perlich. He's only onscreen for a total of about forty-five seconds, but forty-five seconds of the thoroughly brilliant Perlich (Brody on Homicide: Life on the Street) is better than nothing. ** 1/2

Finding Forrester (2000)

Good Will Hunting 2.0

[4/10 · 22 January 2001]

Finding Forrester (Gus van Sant, 2000)

Gus Van Sant hit the big time in a big way thirteen years ago with Drugstore Cowboy, and promptly went to hell in a handbasket. I mean, come on, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues? Oh, please. He came back to some prominence with Good Will Hunting, then immediately shot himself in the foot with a frame-by-frame remake of Psycho. It took him two years to recover from that blunder, and when he came back, he retreated to better-known ground. Unfortunately, it wasn't the better-known ground of Drugstore Cowboy, one of the hundred best films ever made; it was Good Will Hunting over again.

That's not to say that Finding Forrester isn't a good film. Excellent performances abound in this movie, especially by newcomer Rob Brown, who certainly didn't have to travel far for his first acting job (the Brooklyn-born Brown plays a Bronx native). The boy is _good_. You'll be seeing more of him. F. Murray Abraham, as has been suggested, does reprise his role as Salieri, but hey, if you've got an approriate shtick, use it. Busta Rhymes turns in his second fantastic performance of the year (he was also Sam Jackson's on-again off-again sidekick in Shaft) as Brown's brother Terrell, a wannabe rapper who supervises parking attendants at Yankee Stadium.

That leaves us with Sean Connery and the oft-repeated critical remark that this is his best performance ever. Not even close. But then, in the past ten years, Connery really has done some godawful movies (First Knight, anyone? How 'bout The Avengers? Boo-yaa!), and some critics with short memories may have forgotten there was anything at all between Bond and Dragonheart. (For the record, I think Connery's finest performance was in Outland. But that's just me.)

Yes, it's true that van Sant and screenwriter Mike Rich (this is his debut, as well) went to the well of Affleck and Damon many, many times in this film. Scenes lifted straight from Good Will Hunting pop up with disturbing regularity here. But Connery is more suited to the mentor role than Williams was, and the chemistry between Brown and Connery works better. Think of Finding Forrester as Good Will Hunting 2.0 if you must, but remember that the next release of the software is almost always an improvement over the original. ***

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

Promising debut from Sofia Coppola

[7/10 · 22 January 2001]

The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 1999)

If you can't act, direct! At least, that's how Sofia Coppola's foray into the world behind the lens was widely greeted by critics before the release of The Virgin Suicides. A week later, the silence where there had once been jeers was deafening.

The Virgin Suicides is one of those rare birds like Psycho; a relatively badly-received book is turned into a movie that made a whole lot of ten-best lists. Every major performance in this movie is wonderful. Kathleen Turner let herself go to hell for this role (presaging Ellen Burstyn's academy award-worthy performance in Requiem for a Dream, perhaps?), James Woods is the very epitome of a math teacher, the hormone-laden neighborhood boys are-- well, teenage boys are teenage boys, I guess.

Like most coming-of-age films, while watching this I found myself making comparisons to the godfather of modern coming-of-age films, Birdy. Like that film, The Virgin Suicides takes a cast of relative unknowns for its stars, surrounds them with minor characters with much bigger names (Woods, Turner, Danny DeVito, Michael Pare, etc.), and just lets them come of age. There's a plot, of course, but the theme is allowed to be derived by the actors simply existing. And despite the title of the film and the main plot point (which involves the second-youngest sister, Lux-- and who names their kid Lux, anyway?-- being romanced by Cracker alum Josh Hartnett), this is a movie about four teenage boys and how they see the world. I found myself smiling many, many times at how well Coppola captured the essence of being thirteen and male (and wasn't half as embarrassed at any time during this movie as I was at Matthew Modine on prom night in Birdy, thankfully).

It's a good, solid film, but it never really rises to the level of greatness. But give Sofia Coppola some time; after all, Francis directed some real bombers before lucking onto Roger Corman and teaming up for the classic Dementia 13. This is a young director who's going places. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the younger, less-known names in the cast followed her to the heights, either. ***

Skinheads (1989)

Another Greydon groaner

[2/10 · 22 January 2001]

Greydon Clark will never learn. The man has written and directed a slew of thoroughly awful films, gaining some slight notoriety in the late seventies for Satan's Cheerleaders and The Return. Rest assured this particular piece of horse hockey is no better than the films he made at the "pinnacle" of his career.

Skinheads (I'm sure you can guess the plot, theme, and overbearing moralization from the title alone) is notable solely as a turning point-- well, okay, maybe an S-curve-- in two careers. It's one of the last films of Rifleman star Chuck Connors, as the grizzled hermit who takes a stand against the Evil Skinheads(TM), and it was the first big-screen role for Brian Brophy, who's since gone on to be a solid character actor in "serious" films (The Shawshank Redemption, White Man's Burden, et al.). Comparisons with American History X are inevitable, and will be uniformly unfavorable; where Tony Kaye gave us a band of halfway intelligent skinheads with a truly dangerous and thoughtful leader, Clark's bunch of halfwits are incapable of anything but the kind of moral posturing one might expect from a band of chimps exposed to nothing but reruns of That Girl for years on end.

The one bright spot in this film, ironically, is the late Dennis Ott as Brains, the slow-on-the-uptake skinhead who provides the group's muscle and the overwhelming majority of the film's levity. Sadly, Ott, who passed away from AIDS-related complications in 1994, never got another role this big. It's worth a free rental to watch him here. **

Man Behind the Sun (1988)

Not nearly as graphic as many make it out to be, relatively

[22 January 2001]

Men Behind the Sun (Godfrey Ho, 1987)

On November 17, 2000, a small, unassuming man in a grey pinstriped suit took the stand in District Court 103 in Tokyo, and for two hours he stunned a courtroom with details of atrocities that made the testimony at Nuremberg seem like a description of a Sunday picnic. In the days between the Sino-Japanese war and World War II, this man, Yoshio Shinozuka, was a member of the Junior Youth Corps of Unit 731, the Japanese chemical and biological warfare division headquartered in a Japanese-occupied section of northern China. Until then, many had considered the Godfrey Ho-directed trilogy of films based on the actions of Unit 731 to be equal parts sick fantasy, documentary, and pure saidsm. As it turns out, the opposite was true; even Godfrey Ho hadn't shown it all.

Ho, one of the world's few directors who can be labelled with the term "exploitation" without it being a necessarily bad thing, used a pseudonym, T. F. Mous, for directing these. Popular legend has it that he didn't want his name associated with these three films, supposedly the most extreme and brutal movies ever made. The most violent of them is said to be the second, Laboratory of the Devil. If it's the first, then the spreaders of such legends are woefully mistaken.

Men Behind the Sun (known under four different names in America: Man Behind the Sun, Men Behind the Sun, Squadron 731, and Unit 731-- spelled in English, the original title is Hei Tei Yang 731) focuses on the last days of World War II, after Unit 731 head Shiro Ishii-- demoted for corruption in 1943-- has been restored to his position as the head of the Unit, a few weeks before the bombing of Nagasaki. While the film is legendary for its scenes of gore and brutality, anyone buying this (or, if you happen to live in an area with a video store debased enough to carry it, renting this) expecting an hour-long gorefest a la Guinea Pig 2 will be disappointed. Ho uses, all in all, less than ten minutes of truly explicit fake-blood-drenched sequences, preferring to highlight the atrocity of those scenes by contrasting them with life in the Japanese army in north China in 1945, roughly akin to doing Siberian border patrols during the sixties-- incredibly boring most of the time, with short periods of extreme stress.

The movie is painfully badly dubbed, but with the amount of dialogue in here, it's nice someone tried, at least. There actually is a plot, to some extent, though it gets picked up and left off at various times; Ho seems to want to balance the story of the whole unit with the story of Ishiguro, one of the youth corps who is simultaneously a rabid nationalist who takes to the idea that the Manchurians are inhuman experimental fodder and a friend to a young local mute boy. Either of these stories would have made for a fine film in its own right; the combination of the two weakens the whole.

Much of the gross-out factor here seems to come from the commonly-held belief that some of the special effects in the movie are actually not effects (the one most commonly noted is a scene late in the film where a cat is thrown into a room full of bubonic plague-infected rats and is torn apart); rather like Guinea Pig 2, it's hard to imagine these effects are actually real, and for the same reason (the cat wouldn't have survived as long as the one does in the film, it seems to me).

It's hard to know how to rate this one. For one thing, Ho exposed what may be the worst-kept secret of World War II over a decade before Japan was willing to acknowledge it (the U.S. first found out about it in 1989. Interesting that the atrocities of 731-- which were used against American soldiers in the Korean War, which Ishii was involved in-- never got the same press as the Nazi medical experiments). For another, the documentary style of the film is surprisingly novel in the genre. Seems someone would have come up with this idea before. On the other hand, the characters are just a shade deeper than cardboard, the dialogue lapses into serious silliness at times, and the cinematography leaves something-- okay, a lot-- to be desired. But in a conscious attempt to avoid basing my rating on dashed expectations of nonstop brutality and bloodshed for all, I don't want to overrate it. I'll settle on a good, solid *** and hope that Laboratory of the Devil is the **** 1/2 massive gorefest I was hoping for.

Eat and Run (1986)

Godawful Airplane! ripoff

[22 January 2001]

Ah, the wasted potential in this Christopher Hart (a man truly well-known for his hands-- portrayer of Thing in the Addams Family films, Lefty in Quicksilver Highway, The Hands in Idle Hands... you get the idea)-directed Airplane! wannabe. Ron Silver (many, many TV films) plays a bumbling cop with a liberal-judge girlfriend (veteran soap chanteuse Sharon Schlarth) assigned to track down a serial killer of Italians who's known for leaving no traces except the buttons of the shirts of his victims. Turns out the killer is actually an alien, Murray Creature (R. L. "Pat" Ryan, best known for a brief association with Troma Films), who upon crash-landing on Earth was picked up by a sausage vendor and developed a taste for, shall we say, Italian food. Sight gags abound and there's some great wordplay between Ron Silver and his brother Robert, who plays an informant, but this movie would be immeasurably better had they at least tried to do something that hadn't already been done in a slew of Leslie Nielsen films. * 1/2

Zombie Holocaust (1980)

Death by propeller!

[22 January 2001]

Another film known by many names (eight, to be precise, that IMDB has been able to track down), Zombi Holocaust is probably best known by American cult-film devotees as Dr. Butcher, MD. I ended up picking this one up because there are a rather large number of crossovers with Lucio Fulci's brilliant splatterfest Zombie-- writer Fabrizio DeAngelis was one of the producers of Fulci's film, male lead Ian McCulloch was the lead in Zombie, character actor Dakkar plays a native guide in both, etc. (Most interesting, one of the film's actors, Walter Patriarca, was Zombie's costume designer. Go figger.)

Simple plot, which should sound familiar to anyone who's seen Fulci's film; a number of deaths occur in New York City, and Ian McCollouch, a beautiful sidekick, and two of their pals end up going to a remote Caribbean island where there's an English-speaking doctor who treats the natives. Sound familiar?

For about the first forty-five minutes of this film, I was too busy thinking that it was exactly like Zombie to be impressed. (No one, these days, is sure which film came out first, and most people also draw parallels to another classic of the genre that came out the same year, Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust.) Then Ian McCollouch disposes of a zombie with a motorboat motor, and suddenly things started getting a whole lot more fun. Rather like The Evil Dead, this is a film where there's a whole lot of setup (though Raimi pulled it off miles better), but when the gore starts, the director lays it on thick, fast, and ugly. And while death-by-propeller is probably the funniest and nastiest scene in the film, there's certainly more than enough blood flowing/spraying/dripping/being drunk/etc. to please most fans of hardcore horror. Pound for pound, though, in comparison to Zombie, the latter stands up as the better film. As one reviewer put it, "Fulci... might have had the sauce, but [he] passed on the cheese." Fulci's obsessive attention to detail, better scriptwriting, and stunning score give Fulci the edge over Girolami. But man, it's fun to be the judge. ***

The Death Squad (1974 TV Movie)

The essence of the bad '70s TV movie

[22 January 2001]

Falk, a veteran director on a number of TV series ranging from Get Smart! to The Colbys, first tried his hand at feature-length action filmmaking in 1974 with Death Squad. The box blazons "in the tradition of Magnum Force!" Tradition? Please.

Robert Forster (Alligator) plays a straight cop busted from a crooked force, re-recruited in secret to infiltrate a gang of vigilante police led by Claude Akins. (Does that seem a stretch to you, too?) Forster falls in love in record time with his ex-partner's daughter, played by Mamas and Papas alum Michelle Phillips, and complications ensue. Forster's a passable actor, but Eastwood he ain't. Phillips has gotten a lot better since 1974. And, well, Sheriff Lobo heading up a band of renegade officers is just plain too much. * 1/2

Head (1968)

A triumph for Rafelson, but still a 90-minute Monkees episode

[4/10 · 22 January 2001]

Head (Bob Rafelson, 1968)

Rafelson is to be commended for managing to make anything out of Jack Nicholson's completely incoherent script and turning Head into a ninety-minute episode of "The Monkees." History has proven Rafelson to be a fine director, and one quails at the thought of what other stock directors from the TV series might have done with this mess. With the direction issues aside, the best way to handle Head is to have fun playing spot-the-cameo. Aside from the Monkees themselves and the always wondrous Timothy Carey (the only actor, it is said, that Elia Kazan ever physically attacked), Head is chock full of brief appearances by luminaries of the time-- Rafelson, Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Frank Zappa, Annette Funicello, etc. etc. ad nauseam. The music is certainly not your usual Monkees, either, with a decidedly darker overtone than most of their oeuvre, and the humor, as well, is much darker than the show ever got. If you're a Monkees fan, you've probably already seen it; if you're a serious student of American culture, you've probably already seen it. Most others probably wouldn't want to, but it's fun, in its own thoroughly warped way. Just don't expect coherence. **

The Wicker Man (1973)

It grows on you...

[9/10 · 27 December 2000]

The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)

I have to revise my original review of this film-- though, from checking every archive I can find, I'm not sure I WROTE a review of this film after first seeing it. This could turn out to be a good thing, because my original feeling for it was "what the hell was all the fuss about," and after finding out that, yes, I had seen the original uncut version, my confusion deepened.

Well, it's been eight months or so since then, and the thing's crept into my consciousness. Repeated viewings have had exactly the same effect they had with Argento's masterpiece Suspiria, to wit:

viewing #1: what the hell was all the fuss about? viewing #2: I can see where there are some points made and subtexts in this film that would greatly appeal to the people who held this thing up in such high regard to me, and Ed Woodward and Chris Lee are very fine actors (and Britt Ekland unclothed is always worthwhile), but it's still kind of, forgive the pun, wooden. viewing #3: My god, this is a profound film. viewing #4: Why hasn't the rest of the world clued into how great this is? (Probably because it was so badly mangled in its original release that it left a bad taste in the mouths of many, from what I've been told.)

This film was the directorial debut of Robin Hardy, who has since gone on to direct only one other film and a few episodes of a TV series (read: mysterious shadowy figure). It was the brainchild of Anthony Shaffer, a name that should be well known to all film buffs (Frenzy, Sleuth, Death on the Nile, Sommersby, et al.). It stars Edward Woodward, already a veteran TV actor by the early seventies, as the uptight Sergeant Howie, a Scottish constable who decides to investigate an anonymous tip-off that a thirteen-year-old girl named Rowan Morrison has been abducted on a small island famous for its apples. Howie's nemesis, Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee looking surprisingly young, given that he was over fifty when he played this role), flits in and out of the film, dropping hints that all is not, perhaps, as it seems, but offering all the help he can given that Howie doesn't seem to understand that police procedure doesn't have to go by the book. After all, you can only offer someone so much help if he doesn't see where you're going with it.

Yes, there are a lot of things about this film, on the surface, that could have been done better. It was obviously made on a shoestring budget that didn't have room for a Steadicam or top-quality film. Unfortunately, that leads to unconscious links about other things in the film that are supposed to look primitive (the islanders' costumes for the Mayday celebration, for example), and the first-time viewer tends to knock the film for things that should be praised because of it.

As for the content of the film itself, the acting is, as one would expect from names like Woodward, Lee, and Ekland, easily above average. The plot moves along quite effortlessly, and the underlying subtext, while strongly presented, never gets in the way of a bang-up mystery (and while the ending becomes somewhat obvious about two-thirds of the way through the film, by then you've realized that the resolution to the mystery isn't what this film is about at all, and you-- or at least I-- become willing to cut Shaffer and Hardy a lot of slack). The scenery-- and no, you dirty-minded little nappers, I'm not talking about Britt Ekland's infamous naked dance-- is breathtaking, from the opening credits panning over Howie's district, to the very end. "But," you're saying, "all of these things are true about many other films that have probably been forgotten thirty years after they were made." True. And what keeps The Wicker Man firmly entrenched in the heads of so many, I'd warrant, is the gorgeous and profoundly influential soundtrack to this film. The main theme (which is untitled, but for years I've heard it referred to as "The Wicker Man Song;" Sneaker Pimps released a version of it in 1997 with the title "How Do") is rapidly becoming one of the world's most covered songs, and all the songs in the film are extremely well executed. (Also in the "mysterious shadowy figure" vein, composer Paul Giovanni never scored another film.) I've no idea whether these songs were written especially for the film or whether they're traditional, and I can't find a single Internet resource capable of telling me, but this film is worth buying simply for the music. The rest will come to you. Trust me on this. Christopher Lee-- who holds the record of having been in more films than anyone else (ever!)-- considers The Wicker Man his finest work. I haven't seen everything Christopher Lee's ever been in (I'm not sure there's a living soul aside from Lee himself who has!), but I'd have to agree with him based on what I've seen. Once The Wicker Man has you, it has you for life. **** 1/2

(Note: the film has presently been verified in release in three versions: 87 minutes, 95 minutes, and 102 minutes, with the 102 minute version considered the "uncut" version, which is selling for close to $100 in many places. Don't believe the hype-- I got mine for $12 on ebay. It is rumored that a full version of the film, which runs 122 minutes, DOES exist somewhere and has never been released.)

Boiler Room (2000)

Ben? Ben who?

[5/10 · 7 November 2000]

Boiler Room (Ben Younger, 2000)

Yeah, Ben Affleck is in this movie, but who cares? Giovanni Ribisi and Vin Diesel once again show why they're slowly replacing Affleck and perennial sidekick Matt Damon as the hottest young actors in Hollywood. Ben Younger cast this movie perfectly; unfortunately, that's about the only thing he did right.

Younger's auspicious debut focuses on Seth Davis (Ribisi, probably best known to most as "lightning boy" from a memorable X-Files episode), a college dropout running an illegal casino in his living room. Pressured by his father (Ron Rifkin), a supreme court justice to stop his illegal activity, Seth is ripe for the plucking by his childhood friend Greg (Nicky Katt, now playing the hapless sub on Boston Public), who's a senior broker at a chop-shop style stock brokerage. Davis finds out he's very good at being a salesman, and while Greg turns a seemingly inexplicable cold eye to Seth, a rival senior broker, Chris (Diesel), takes Davis under his wing. Greg and Chris are the kinds of friends who are constantly on the edge of exploding into violence with constant putdowns; not surprising in a high-stress job like this.

The whole firm is run by Jim Young (Affleck) and his pal Michael (Thom Everett Scott), and it becomes obvious to Davis as time goes on that something fishy is happening, but he finds this out while realizing that he's good at being fishy. This leads to an ethical crisis, and... well, see the movie.

Ribisi, Diesel, and the usually-laconic Scott deliver the goods here in the best of ways. Affleck is his usual self, and one wonders if he'll ever play anything else. The ensemble cast-- and despite the focus on Ribisi's character, this is as much an ensemble movie as Glengarry Glen Ross or The Big Chill-- is perfect, and many of the minor characters (Nia Long, Scott Caan, and the woefully-underutilized Jon Abrahams) deliver performances up to the same standard set by the big guns. But Younger takes a potentially explosive situation and, instead of focusing on the characters and their interactions through the whole movie, shoves that part of the dynamic to the back in the last half, opting instead for a stock plot. Perhaps Younger should have read King's book; focusing on his characters instead of plotting things out would almost certainly have resulted in a much better film, since that first hour shows he really does have a grasp of what makes humans work. Still, it's worth renting just to catch a few performances by stars who are definitely on their way to the top. ** 1/2

The Turning (1992)

She's not THAT naked

[1/10 · 7 November 2000]

The Turning (L. A. Puopolo, 1992)

If you've actually made the effort to seek out this film, you did so for one reason and one reason only. And nothing I can say will sway you from renting it. But I'll try anyway.

This film, the acting debut of Gillian Anderson, is well-known among connoiseurs as containing Ms. Anderson's only semi-nude scene. Hate to spoil your fun, but the stills you've seen online are digitally-enhanced.

And everything you've heard about how awful the movie is, aside from the thirty seconds or so in question, is completely true. Clifford Harnish, a white separatist Marine (Michael Dolan, a character actor who often plays military types, most recently in TNT's original film The Hunley), comes home after spending four years away. His girlfriend (Anderson) is working as a waitress for her father (who never liked Clifford in the first place, and likes him less so now), his parents (Raymond Barry, who plays Senator Matheson in The X-Files, and Tess Harper, who has a penchant for playing "leading man's wife" in various films) have broken up, and dad is dating the local chanteuse, Glory Lawson (Karen Allen). Everything is predictable; everything is glacial; everyone manages to turn in the worst roles of their careers (and everyone except Anderson had already turned in pretty long careers by this time). Please, for god's sake, avoid this film like the plague. By far the worst thing I've seen this year. (zero stars, of course)

Guinea Pig 5: Mermaid in the Manhole (1988 Video)

Hino gets a plot

[7/10 · 7 July 2000]

Guinea Pig III: Mermaid in a Sewer (Hideshi Hino, 1988)

Mermaid in a Sewer, one of the four Guinea Pig films directed by Hino, is the only one that rivals The Flower of Flesh and Blood in notoriety and popularity. Unlike its more graphic and brutal cousin, Mermaid in a Sewer (often translated as Mermaid in a Manhole, Mermaid in the Bathtub, or any other number of similar titles) actually has a plot to it. An artist (Shigeru Saiki), obviously modeled on Hino himself (Hino's style is unmistakable), draws his inspiration from things he sees and finds in his local sewer system. One day, what he finds among the muck and stench is... a mermaid (Mari Somei). Yes, a mermaid. A very attractive one at that (and one is forced to wonder what, exactly, would motivate an actress to play a part like this...). We find out, after the two have conversed a bit and he's done a preliminary sketch, that she is wounded. He takes her home (how he gets her there without anyone noticing is beyond me) and installs her in his bathtub in order to take care of her.

You can see where this is going, I'm sure. Wound + sewer = bad, bad things.

I'd comment on the acting, dialogue, etc. if I actually understood Japanese. Sometimes watching films in foreign languages with no subtitles is good for the soul, I guess (though anyone who happens to have a script from either 2 or 3 in English who'd be willing to send a copy my way would be remembered in my will, and not with a debt). The couple who lives downstairs from the artist (Masami Hisamoto, Tsuyoshi Toshishige) pop up every now and then to give what would seem a comic turn to the film, which only adds to the disgust and horror. If you get nightmares easily, this is not a film you ever want to see. As Joaquin Phoenix said in what was one of only a handful of lines in _8mm_ that's actually worth remembering, "there are some things you can't un-see." I could never pop this tape into the cassette player again, and certain images would remain as fresh in my mind as they are right now. It's that bad. *** 1/2

Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985 Video)

Brutal, uncompromising, plotless... and fascinating

[7/10 · 7 July 2000]

Guinea Pig II: The Flower of Flesh and Blood (Hideshi Hino, 1985)

Hideshi Hino is, simply, one of Japan's finest exports. Writer, graphic artist, rabid media critic, all-around fun guy, but for as long as civilization exists he will be best remember as the guy who drove Charlie Sheen to the FBI.

Sheen saw _Guinea Pig II: The Flower of Flesh and Blood_ in 1990 at a party he was attending, and he was convinced that it was a true snuff film, so he took the copy and gave it to the local branch of the FBI. Large-scale investigations in both American and Japan followed, culminating ultimately in (a) the finding that GP2, like all other supposed snuff films, isn't real, and (b) Hino exploding in popularity in the United States (it's not a coincidence that an American graphic arts publisher started releasing Hino books in America in 1992, all of which I recommend very highly as a fantastic glimpse into the collective subconscious of post-WW2 Japan). The darker underbelly of the investigation resulted in the banning of Guinea Pig in Japan. To date, no distributor has picked up and reprinted the films officially (though the ban has not stopped new ones from leaking out, and the series now stands at nine), and so when one finds copies of Guinea Pig films, they are often fourth- and fifth-generation dubs of questionable quality at best. I have my doubts as to whether even owning them in the United States is legal, but one assumes that if it weren't, the sellers on ebay would be arrested pretty quick... but I'm relying on supposition here. (If I disappear quickly, you know why.)

Yesterday I received a third-generation copy of II and III (see below). GP2 is the most infamous of the series. It is also the shortest, clocking in at a scant forty-two minutes. It has no plot to speak of. A woman is abducted by a man dressed as a fourteenth-century Samurai warrior and systematically dismembered. And while, if you know the basics of film composition and realize that the cut shots could not have been done in the ways they are if this were actually being filmed in real-time, there are a few points where the best thing one can do is to sit and repeat to oneself "this is not real." The effects are, quite simply, spectacular (within the framework of what's going on), and I was pleasantly-- if anything about this can possibly be said to be pleasant-- surprised by the fact that other than the differing genders of the two players in this twisted, brutal sturm und drang (and much more drang than sturm, if you translate it literally), any sexuality involved is read into it by the viewer.

Guinea Pig 2 is not something to be enjoyed; it is something to test the boundaries of one's endurance. How is it possible to rate such an experience? And do you really want something like this in your home? In my case the answer is an unqualified "yes," but then, I'm depraved. Going strictly on the quality of my copy and the shattering effectiveness of the film at what it sets out to do, I'm forced to give it *** 1/2.

Shaft (2000)

That cat's still a bad muthashutyomouth after thirty years

[8/10 · 19 June 2000]

Shaft (John Singleton, 2000)

In this movie, the fifty-two-year-old Samuel L. Jackson takes on his hardest role yet: playing the nephew of a man who was supposedly born only seven years before he was. Still, the versatile Jackson manages to handle the job pretty well, I'd say.

That aside, this is about as much a kick back and enjoy the ride film as you're likely to see this year, and rightfully earns a notch- no matter what happens in the latter half of the year, on the ten-best list. Singleton decided not to remake the original Tidyman novel/screenplay, but instead drafted him to create a whole new plot, and a whole new Shaft, the nephew of the original played by Richard Roundtree (who, it should also be noted, was born in 1942, so he really WAS twenty-nine in 1971; and having seen the original movie as many times I have, I still can't believe he was that young). This Shaft is a homicide detective who lands a case that looks suspiciously like a race-related killing. We're handed the victim, the killer, and the witness within the first ten minutes; then the victim dies, the killer is granted bail (and skips to Europe), and the witness disappears. And we got us an action film.

Jackson, his trusty sidekick Rasaan (Busta Rhymes), and a nasty organized-crime type named Peoples Hernandez (a fantastic portrayal by veteran character actor Jeffrey Wright) one-liner their way through this script beautifully. Bullets fly, people get smacked, everyone wants a piece of the killer (slimily done by Christian Bale) for their own reasons, and the audience never once gets a chance to catch its breath. Which is just as it should be.

Many of the things about the new Shaft, as compared to the old, are things that the critics are knocking Singleton for, and there may be some credence to what they say, but I'm taking a different interpretation. The original Shaft was a highly-sexualized being who seemed to want to solve cases as something to do in between trips to the sack with every woman he met; Jackson's character has one seemingly out-of-place sexual encounter, and then the sexual aspect of his character is shelved. Where Roundtree's character, upon meeting an out-and-out racist, rose to the bait and came back with double, Jackson only has time for one racist, and then only after the guy does him a favor (and the mutual respect between the two, by the end of that scene, is obvious). There are other little niggling things, but those are the two main ones. And most critics see this as a betrayal of the original character; I see it as the ways in which Tidyman and Singleton wanted to show that these are two different characters with two different agendas that are reactions to the societies around them. And, ultimately, that's what both the 1971 and 2000 models of Shaft are all about; holding a man up to a society and allowing him to reflect it back upon itself.

But who cares about the philosophy? It's time to let the bullets fly. And no one does that better than John Shaft-- either John Shaft. ****