austex23 Reviews

Dragonfly (2002)

Wretched waste of film

[4/10 · 31 July 2002]

I can find something to like in nearly any movie, but this one left me wishing for two hours of my life back. Costner's terrible performance drags down everyone else in the film, so that even Kathy Bates ends up looking like a bad community theater actress. I guessed the ending, and everything leading up to it, very early on, but could not imagine how they hoped to make it believable. They didn't. Scene after scene strains the audience's credulity while insulting their intelligence. Direction by the numbers, with absolutely no wit or imagination, and an overblown sense of self-importance that would be hilarious if it did not involve the actual expenditure of time to watch. The parrot gave the best performance in the film.

The Scarlet Claw (1944)

The best of the series

[6/10 · 22 August 2001]

Atmospheric, well-cast and much different from its brethren, The Scarlet Claw looks and feels more like a classic late Universal horror film than any of the other Holmes movies. Spoilers follow.

The concept of a murder mystery where the killer turns out to be one person behind many faces is always entertaining and it is well-done here. This film is interesting too because, more than any other Holmes film I know in any series, Holmes fails repeatedly -- to stop the killer and even to apprehend him at the end. It is far different in that respect from the traditional Holmes tale, where Holmes is always at least one step ahead of his adversary. Finally, the years have lent the story a touch of unintended, grim humor. One of the elements the story uses to divert suspicion away from the killer's main identity is the idea that no one would ever suspect a postman of violent crime. Times change.

The Others (2001)

Finally a good film in a summer of stale, stupid movies.

[8/10 · 18 August 2001]

After most of this summer's films, I left the theater feeling like I had contributed money toward the intellectual decline of America. The Others was a refreshing change in this sad trend. Comparisons to the Sixth Sense will inevitably be made by folks who have had their sensibilities atrophied by too many lame thrillers, but -- except for the most obvious and shallow of plot points -- there really is no basis for comparison between The Others and The Sixth Sense. Both are fine films with entirely different agendas. The Others joins a very small list of authentic film ghost stories, descendants of the rarefied and poetic fiction of the late Victorian era. Wiser comparisons would be to the original version of the Haunting, The Changeling, or the obscure 1989 TV film The Woman in Black -- films about the places, dramatic and metaphoric, our world touches the world beyond death, but also about the philosophical implications of such contact. The Others will be too slow for viewers more accustomed to recent fare like the remakes of the Haunting and House on Haunted Hill, but for people who like their chills a bit more subtle, it is a rare and very fine treat. With superior performances, atmospheric sets, and an allegorical content that will be lost on many viewers, The Others may be the best film I have seen this year.

Planet of the Apes (2001)

A painfully contrived, good-looking mess

[3/10 · 28 July 2001]

2001 may well be memorable as the prime year for really stupid movies. Tim Burton's ambitious attempt to remake a dubious classic is certainly not the worst offender of the summer, but it may be the one that wastes the most potential. In trying to avoid the pitfalls of most remakes, Burton and his scripters have tortured logic to contravene the "surprise" ending of the original to the point that their story makes little dramatic or logical sense. With decent make-up (the lady apes are a little silly-looking), cool sets, and impressive stunt-actor acrobatics, the movie has great visual appeal, but the story veers between an allegory of man's inhumanity to man-like beings and an epic action film without ever managing to be entertaining. See coincidence stretched once again to the breaking point, lame one-liners that no one laughs at, meaningless characters who serve no dramatic or thematic purpose, all in the service of a story with no real point. Have to applaud the hilarious scene where perennial NRA pimp Charlton Heston as a dying father ape reveals that the secret family treasure is a hand-gun, and some of the ape cultural touches (loved the way they mounted horses) are really neat, but generally this movie left me feeling like I had wasted over two hours of my life and several points of my IQ. And after this summer, I don't have much left. Easily Tim Burton's worst movie.

The Comedy of Terrors (1963)

Strangest of the AIP "Poe" films

[6/10 · 28 July 2001]

No, it's not by Poe, but it looks and feels like the rest of the studio's output from the period and the same themes pervade it. A spiritual sequel to The Raven, Comedy of Terrors is a strange film. Given its cast and crew, it should be one of the greatest horror films ever made, and it certainly falls short of that distinction. From the director of Curse of the Demon, the author of Hell House, with the best cast of aging horror stars AIP ever assembled for a single film, yet CoT is uneven at best. Great sets and wonderful performances by Karloff, Lorre and Rathbone don't quite overcome the reliance on unfunny slapstick and Price's hammy delivery of lines that are not very funny. Time has also dimmed some of this movie's oddness. In 1963, humor about death was much scarcer than it has become and the shocking, even sacriligeous nature of some of the dialogue is much less effective than it was in a gentler age. Watching the MGM reissue of this film on tape, I would swear a line had been changed and am curious if anyone else's memory matches mine. In the scene where Karloff spoils everyone else's dinner with a recital of gruesome historical burial rites, I distinctly remember the line "Ancient Egyptians used to hook out their brains through their noses," yet this line is missing in this otherwise nicely restored print. An odd omission . . ..

Jurassic Park III (2001)

Pretty paint-by-number dinosaurs

[5/10 · 22 July 2001]

Everything one would expect from a second sequel to JP -- formulaic story, zero wit, and state-of-the-art dinos. Few films in the history of cinema have relied more on idiotic coincidence than JP3 does, the surest sign of braindead, lazy scripting. Two-dimensional characters, walkthrough performances, and an entire plot that can be described in 10 words. What a mess, by any standard of filmmaking. Beautiful dinosaurs though and that's why people will see this film, why I saw it. It's just a shame that a movie with a real budget can't do better with the other elements that make a film.

The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack (2000)

Story of an American son through the eyes of an abandoned daughter.

[8/10 · 22 May 2001]

Ramblin' Jack's story is in many ways the story of American music in the 20th Century, and this documentary tells that story with vitality from the unique perspective of a daughter trying to come to terms with her father's family-excluding career. As such, it may be a tad too ambitious, but the result is certainly entertaining and as personal and powerful a picture of an artist as I can remember seeing. Largely without pretension and careful to get a variety of perspectives, the film provides a faceted view of an evasive subject. The historic documents - a shot of young Zimmerman in the crowd at a Ramblin' Jack show, rare film of roots artists, home movies - are just amazing, and the interviews with the Guthrie clan and other survivors of the 50s folkie era are illuminating. The film's secondary story - the daughter's quest for understanding of her dad - may not be everyone's cup of coffee, but it worked for me, putting a human frame around an epic life.

Mostly, the film awakened for me that sense of endless possibility in mid-20th Century America, before the mass packaging of culture crushed so much of the country's promise. Folk was a musical movement born in backwaters and the public squares of melting pot cities, of the fusion of cultures - black and rural, diverse and rich as the world - into the raw stuff of entertainment. Jack's life echoes Kerouac and the Beats in his quest for experience, and his role as Woody Guthrie's heir-designate puts him square in the heart of American radical politics, though those politics largely seem to have evaded Jack's attention. Jack's identification and fascination with cowboy music establishes a link to American myth and the dreams of a decade that yearned for the freedom of boundless frontiers while established powers did their best to suppress cultural deviance. Jack's life, his persistence today, and the small but vital subculture of his heirs - guys like Tom Russell and Steve Earle - attest to the ornery survival of essential difference in a world that punishes nonconformity

The Dunwich Horror (1970)

Beach Blanket Cthulhu!

[5/10 · 17 May 2001]

There are no good film adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft's stories. Maybe the ornate literary style, odd plots, and unspeakable horrors just don't translate well to the screen, though I would guess somebody could design one hell of a cgi Cthulhu. My favorite moment in The Dunwich Horror is the psychadelic encounter between Donna Baccala and Wilbur Whateley's brother, flashing lights and writhing tentacles and teeth, implied eldritch violation in state-of the-art special effects for its time. The Dunwich Horror was the second HPL adaptation by director Daniel Haller and is probably the most earnest attempt to bring the old gentleman from Providence's work to the screen. The flashback to Wilbur's birth and one or two other scenes are taken directly from the short story and the movie gets points for such arcana as the soul-catching birds, but the film also has interesting, almost disturbing echoes of late 60s California witchiness. Dean Stockwell (at about the time he must have been writing the screenplay that inspired Neil Young's After the Goldrush) plays Wilbur as a slick young devil worshipper, a recognizable type in the decade that inspired Anton LaVey and the Process.

Sandra Dee's dreams echo Manson family acid craziness. The essence of Lovecraft's work – never a contest between good and evil, but between chaos and mankind's attempt to make sense of it – is completely lost in the post-Rosemary's Baby mentality that animates this story. Still, the film is fun and a worthy member of the late Corman AIP canon. Maybe someday, someone will do it right.

Return of the Secaucus Seven (1980)

John Sayles' home movie of 1980 America

[6/10 · 15 May 2001]

Overshadowed by its loud, shallow and uncredited remake (The Big Chill) Sayles' first film is a very slight effort that manages to capture a time and place with quiet brilliance. The actors -- first roles for most of them and only roles for some -- are sometimes painfully amateurish and the duration and self-indulgence of some of the scenes make the viewer long for chainsaw intervention, but the film as a whole does a wonderful job of showing a generation of aging idealists on the eve of Reagan's America. Unlike The Big Chill, where everyone is pretty and successful and the dialogue is crisp and full of what passes for wit on prime time TV, Sayles' characters are almost too low-key, their banter sometimes clumsy and their jokes not terribly funny. The unfortunate side effect of his conscientious effort to keep things "real" is that the film sometimes fails to entertain or engage and most of the characters end up outside the viewers' sphere of caring, like someone else's friends in a third-hand story. Still, a very impressive first film and influential on many other 80s movies besides its gaudy imitator.

Thunder Road (1958)

Forget Gone With the Wind; Thunder Road is THE Southern Classic

[7/10 · 9 May 2001]

Thunder Road has a kind of raw vitality that overcomes its indifferent direction and uneven performances. Mitchum is wonderful as always, and this film must have meant a lot to him -- he wrote the story and starred, as well as co-writing and singing the radio hit that came out of it. A major drive-in film -- it was more or less in continuous release from 1958 to the early 70s -- Thunder Road embodied an attitude that prevailed in the little Texas towns I grew up in, and that is still a part of America's strange outlaw subcultures. Lucas Doolin and his kin are folks being oppressed on all sides by the forces of conformity that characterize so much of America's culture in the Eisenhower era. On one side, the emotionless forces of the government, on the other, the institutionalized criminals of "the big city," two poles remarkably alike in their indifference to the traditional regional values of the Harlan County shine runners. Despite Pa Doolin's talk of changing ways to meet changing times, the independent diversity of these folks cannot exist among the increasingly limited world of modern America. Ironically, the trappings of outlaw culture most visible in this film, fast cars, jukeboxes, even the drive-in screens the film was projected onto, are a part of the forces of conformity that transformed regional lifestyles into today's homogenous pop culture. Like Doolin says in one of the film's best scenes, the ghosts of the old backwoods are out on the highways now.

A Bucket of Blood (1959)

The fun art of murder.

[7/10 · 28 April 2001]

Last night, I saw Dario Argento's The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. Tonight I watched Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood. Good thing I saw the Argento film first, because after Corman's skewed, but hilarious take on art, fashion, society and murder, I would have had trouble taking Bird seriously. Playing with the cliches of 50s hipster noir, Corman and his cast had a ball with this story of a nobody -- played by Dick Miller in the defining role of his career -- who becomes a renowned bohemian artist. Shot in an absurdly short time (3 days according to legend) on a budget that wouldn't have bought dinner for a major studio's crew, the movie is consistently engaging and funny. Always witty, with inspired, goofy beatnik poetry, a cast of eccentrics, and those great exterior shots that characterize Corman's black and white movies, Bucket is drive-in cinema at its finest. Is art murder? Are art dealers accomplices? Is this movie art? Well, no, but it's not murder either.

Destiny (1921)

Fables told in shadows

[7/10 · 21 February 2001]

Wonderfully haunting in its images, this early Lang film has recently been reissued on DVD under the title Destiny. A title I have heard about for years, it is a pleasure to see it in a finely restored format that does justice to its beauty. The film is made up of four stories, a framing sequence and three historical vignettes, related by the central theme of a woman trying to defy Death to save her lover. While the plots are simple, the telling is astonishing in vision and execution and each of the four stories has a distinctive, entertaining tone -- the brooding expressionistic framing piece, a tale of Arabian adventure, a Renaissance romance, and a comic Chinese fantasy. I found the Chinese segment especially entertaining and some of the images -- such as the old magician transformed into a cactus -- are incredibly surreal and surprising 80 years after they were filmed. Interesting as the film that made Lang famous and very entertaining in its own right, I would recommend this film to anyone who likes cinema of the imagination.

Caligula (1979)

Outsider Cinema with a Big Budget

[5/10 · 17 February 2001]

Further proof that the line between inept and visionary is sometimes invisible. Having heard about Caligula since it was first released, I took advantage of the DvD issue to see it. Neither as good nor as bad as its reputation, I found the film to be one of those movies that is hard to compare to traditional films. The reviewer here who compared it to Plan 9 is right -- not because Caligula is as bad a movie, but because, like Plan 9, it discards nearly all the conventional ideas about filmmaking and strikes out boldly, even foolishly, on its own. The unrated version is far more graphic in its sex scenes than I was expecting, and adds to the sense of the film's resolute difference from other movies. A mish-mash of directorial styles -- from trite to frenetically bizarre -- Caligula lurches from predictable to surprising, sometimes within the same scene. Nearly every element of the film is eccentric, from the script to the lighting, whether through design or mistake is beyond my ability to judge. For fans of outsider cinema, with a tolerance for porn and an ability to forgive silly costumes, strained dialogue, and a moral stance that can only be summed up as deranged, Caligula is well worth seeing.

Eat the Document (1972)

An interesting mess

[4/10 · 14 February 2001]

Absolutely for fans only, this is a documentary of a Dylan tour made by a camera held in a very shaky hand. Eat the Document would make a good, but probably unwatchable, triple feature with Neil Young's Journey Through the Past and The Stones' Cocksucker Blues, a sixties triptych painted on broken windowpanes after a night of very bad drugs. Dylan's attempt at deconstructing or subverting or whatever he was trying to do to his own myth here says a lot about the era and leaves the artist as enigmatic as he ever has been, with the usual alternation between sublime poetry and clunking misfires. Still, there are some fine moments -- the droning duet with Johnny Cash, as two generations of bad boys create an otherworldly disharmony, the glimpses of the Band at the peak of their magic, the faces of the young Brits waiting in line for the shows, desperate to be at a scene they were determined not to dig. The tape I saw was followed by a harrowing ten minute outtake of Dylan and John Lennon riding in the back of a limo, the camera focused unflinching (and often unfocused) on them as they mumble their way through a thick purple haze -- sure proof that no one is as clever as he thinks he is on drugs.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

A masterpiece.

[9/10 · 6 February 2001]

A film good in so many ways, one hardly knows where to start. When this film was made, Hollywood studios competed to see who could do the worst job of adapting good books to the screen, often ripping the vitals out of the books they adapted, removing every trace of realism and intelligence from them. Huston made Traven's book with style and faith to the author's sense of irony beyond tragedy. With incredible performances and that wonderful visual style that characterizes all Huston's films, Sierra Madre only falls short for me in a couple of places. As much as I love Max Steiner's scores, I'm not sure he was the best choice for this film, and the occasional taint of Hollywood schmaltz creeps into the script, but for the most part the movie transcends its era. A metaphor for every endeavor men (and women) undertake together, a study in the way things fall apart around the imperfect center of human souls, and a great adventure, Sierra Madre is a narrative masterpiece.

Metropolis (1927)

A work of genius showing its age.

[6/10 · 4 February 2001]

Metropolis is a troublesome film for me. I appreciate its vision, the intricacies and prescience of its social commentary, and the sheer beauty of some of its scenes. The robot is an icon for retro-futurist design. A film impossible not to admire. Yet each time I have seen it -- four now I think -- I always find myself bored. The visionary sequences are too few and the melodrama grows too heavy far too often. Scenes like Maria's flight from Rotwang become overwrought at once and then drag on long enough to be comical. My most recent viewing was the Hollywood Classics DvD. With so many restored versions of Metropolis around, the quality of this release was terribly disappointing. I love silent German film, but each time I have seen Metropolis, I come away feeling it is an over-rated film.

How a Mosquito Operates (1912)

Beautiful, weird and funny

[8/10 · 30 January 2001]

Like all of Winsor McKay's cartoons, this little mosquito fable uses his incredible artistic talent to its fullest and contains a surprising amount of wit for such a simple, short subject. Like his newspaper cartoons, McKay's animated films are distinctive in their art and humor, but the animated films are especially interesting because they lie at the very root of cartoons. Gags that are still being used today appear in this little gem. The collected works that contains Mosquito provides an amazing insight into a brand new art form that had unbounded possibilities in the early 1900s, possibilities that arguably are still unfolding today.

The Golem (1920)

A different kind of German silent horror film.

[8/10 · 26 January 2001]

At the beginning of the DvD's "scrapbook", there is a quote from Paul Wegener that says he never thought the Golem was an expressionist film. Watching it right after seeing Nosferatu, that statement becomes believable. Despite amazing sets that would have been at home in Caligari, in story, in acting, and in overall tone, The Golem is a much more naturalistic film. Watching it with my son, who is 16, he was struck by its uncomfortable prefiguring of Jewish persecution. I was impressed by the the scarcity of romantic cliches in the story. The golem itself is clearly the ancestor of the Frankenstein monster. Full of wonderful images and interesting as a predecessor of the Universal monster films, The Golem is also very entertaining as a story and as a piece of dramatic film making. Highly recommended.

Targets (1968)

Way ahead of its time . . .

[7/10 · 20 January 2001]

Not a great film, but a very interesting one. I don't know of many movies that even attempt to talk about the relation between fictionalized film terror and real life horrors, but Targets tackles this difficult topic without overstating its point of view. Karloff as an aging horror actor gives one of the best performances of his career. It's also interesting to see a film with ambitions shot in "Corman time." Many of the shots appear to be single takes with actors slightly blowing their lines, camera cues almost accidental, and sets practically nil in their design. This adds to the sense of documentary that pervades the film. Use of sound is very effective and prefigures later films by people like Altman -- background voices and noise are used to great effect. PatheColor has never looked better -- its garish intensities add to the sense of a true 20th Century wasteland that can produce a casual killer like the film's smiling protagonist. Addressing issues that are more powerful today than when the film was made, Targets is a wildly ambitious take on modern life, a great coda to Karloff's career, and a vital interface between B movies and independent cinema.

Unearthly Stranger (1963)

An almost lost film that deserves much better

[7/10 · 17 December 2000]

There are a handful of fine films that have never been released on tape or disk. Sometimes they show up on the few independent TV stations around the country that still have access to the old collections of movies that used to circulate in the days before cable. Nearly lost films, except in the memories of people who saw them at drive-ins or on TV before the current age of homogenous viewing. Unearthly Stranger is a perfect example of this kind of film. Not the masterpiece that Invasion of the Body Snatchers is, Unearthly Stranger is still a wonderful science fiction story with trappings of the paranoia that characterizes Body Snatchers, I Married a Monster, and other, earlier, SF films. Stranger was a throwback when it was new, and that may be why it was pretty much ignored when it was released. With DVD releases of an awful lot of true garbage, there really is no excuse for the continued neglect of this stylish, almost lost movie.

Curse of the Demon (1957)

A thinking person's horror film.

[10/10 · 3 October 2000]

There are so many great things to say about this film, and most of them have been said in other comments. What to add? It is perhaps the most literary horror film ever made, full of the kinds of elements most movies don't take time to develop -- the bar of music found in worldwide songs associated with devil worship is one striking example. Curse of the Demon rewards multiple viewings more than any other horror film I know. Subtleties of characterization (especially Karswell), visual details, and minor dialogue all change in significance on the second or third viewing. The demon itself -- it's there and there really isn't much point in debating whether it should be -- looks great in the long shots.

This movie was the basis for a popular party game with a circle of friends years ago -- passing the runes. The host would create a set of runes at the outset of the party and give them to a guest, announcing the time allowed -- usually midnight. The rules were simple after that. The runes had to be passed hand-to-hand (didn't count if someone picked up a rune-packed object someone else had laid down)and as soon as someone received them, the passer had to tell the person they were now the rune-holder. The person holding the runes at the time allowed "loses." In the absence of a real demon, suitable penalties can be devised. A great game for breeding distrust and hilarious paranoia in any group.

Barbarella (1968)

Sexy comic book SF spins out of control

[6/10 · 29 September 2000]

This adaptation of the French 60s comic strip has its moments, and young Jane provides the best of them. It has neat sets and costumes and that groovy sense of challenging conventions that characterizes so many films of the late 60s, but those things don't change the fact the movie is fundamentally stupid. Characterization and plot are not really the point here, so it's hard to fault its failings in those areas, but when Vadim tries to express any kind of meaning, his ineptness becomes embarrassing. "An angel is love," delivered like the most meaningful line in all of cinema, makes the viewer cringe. Over-long and overblown, this film is best watched with a forgiving heart.

The Legend of Hillbilly John (1972)

Nice try at filming a folk fantasy.

[6/10 · 27 September 2000]

Hampered by a tiny budget and a lack of subtlety, Hillbilly John does an earnest job of bringing Manly Wade Wellman's silver-stringed guitar hero's adventures to the screen. Nice use of music by Hoyt Axton and some effective moments in two of the stories directly adapted from Wellman's fantasies. The last third of the film departs from its source material and grows tiresome. Definitely good enough to justify someone releasing it on DVD.

Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)

Decent drive-in surrealism.

[6/10 · 27 September 2000]

This is a film without any concept of quality. It makes a mockery of character, place, and plot, casually and thoroughly, almost subversive in its contempt for form and content. Have fun watching and thinking about the two or three days the cast and crew spent filming this and wondering exactly what they thought they were doing. Though it has slow moments, I have enjoyed this film all three times I've seen it. Underrated for sheer strangeness.