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2002 Summer Video Roundup, Vol. II

7/26/02

Movies, flicks, films...oh my!

"Breakfast at Tiffany’s"

Hey, it can’t all be bad Michael Dudikoff movies on HBO3, you know?  This classic features Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, a jetsetter living in New York City that loves to just tool around all day.  When a writer (George Peppard) enters her life as a neighbor in her tony apartment building, she brings him into her in-crowd world with style to spare.  Hepburn gives an amazing performance and although she was nominated for five Oscars over the span of her career, this still remains her signature role and you can see why from the second she appears onscreen.  Laura and I watched this one at home and she loved it; I thought the second half of the film faltered a bit as Holly runs through man after man in failed romances that lead to a couple instances of plain-ol’ 60’s melodrama.  Also, Andy Rooney’s performance as a Japanese landlord (???) offended more than enlightened me.  But, Peppard gives an inspired performance and since I only know him as “the old guy from ‘The A-Team’”, I had no idea that the guy could act!!

Rating:  $9.50 Show

"The Pride of the Yankees"

As a Yankees fan, I am sometimes ashamed that prior to July, I had never seen this film.  So, in a new effort to catch up with the classics, I finally saw this retelling of the Lou Gehrig story.  Gehrig, afflicted with a rare disease that is now commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, died just after finishing 16 years in the major leagues playing for the New York Yankees.  Gary Cooper stars as Gehrig and he plays the stoic first baseman like everyone knew him to be—just a guy that showed up to work every day and came home to a loving wife (played here with classic 40’s romance style by Oscar-nominated Teresa Wright) every night, compiling a record 2,130 consecutive games played streak that was broken a few years back by Cal Ripken.  Many of the players from the Yankees’ late 20’s and early 30’s teams make cameos in the movie, including Babe Ruth.  Man, they don’t make movies like this anymore, and after a long summer of “Scooby-Doo” and “Minority Report” and “Star Wars”-like special effects, it’s nice to see only one consistent special effect in “The Pride of the Yankees”:  director Sam Wood “mirrored” the shots of Cooper swinging at a baseball because he could only convincingly swing a bat right-handed.  The real Gehrig was a lefty.

Rating:  Opening Weekend

"Jungle Fever"

As some of you know, I am trying to see all of Spike Lee’s films and I’m catching up on the ones that I haven’t seen yet.  “Jungle Fever” made a lot of waves when it was released in 1991, but it didn’t make huge cash—while the topic was intriguing to a lot of people, it didn’t actually draw them into theaters.  Wesley Snipes stars as Flipper, an architect who works in New York City, is happily married and contemplating a bright future in his hometown of Harlem.  Soon after we meet him, his supervisors assign him a new assistant, Bensonhurst resident Angela Tucci (Annabella Sciorra), who happens to be white.  Soon after they meet, they have an affair that sets the rest of the movie’s plot in motion.  The main plot is one thing, but the subplots in “Jungle Fever” could damn near make another movie.  Samuel L. Jackson, Halle Berry, John Turturro, Anthony Quinn, Nick Turturro, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Tim Robbins, Michael Badalucco and Lee himself have multiple scenes in this film, and I thought that Lee used these people too much in the film, so much that Snipes and Sciorra don’t have any scenes for about 30 minutes of the film at one point.  But, the topic is interesting and it is still relevant, and save for Lee’s penchant for violent endings, this film is pretty good.

Rating:  $9.50 Show

"Bullitt"

What a movie.  “Bullitt” might feature the best car chase sequence of all time, its ode to San Francisco streets taking up a whopping ten minutes of screen time.  The scene took three weeks to film and with only four stunt cars to use for the sequence, it is amazing that it looks this good.  The movie around this chase is pretty good, too—SFPD Lieutenant Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) is asked to babysit a witness for 40 hours leading up to a trial that will shed some light on corrupt police work in the city.  When that witness is murdered halfway through the shift, Bullitt must make quick work to find out who killed said witness before the trial begins.  The 1968 film, based on the novel “Mute Witness”, doesn’t look a day over 1980, and it features a great score by Lalo Schifrin; in the same year, Schifrin won a Grammy for his now-legendary theme song for the “Mission: Impossible” series.  Supporting turns by Robert Duvall, Robert Vaughan (who used to always ham it up whenever he appeared on “The A-Team”) and Norman Fell (Mr. Roper!) are good; Jacqueline Bisset is wasted in a useless love interest role that burns up five minutes of otherwise-useful film.  Despite her performance, this film is "all good."

Rating:  Opening Weekend

"Zatoichi and the Fugitives (The Blind Swordsman and the Fugitives)"

This 1968 classic has “ridiculous Japanese legend” written all over it; in it, a blind guy named Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu) spends his time being blind until some rogue fugitives stumble through his town.  At this point, he breaks out his seeing-eye cane and—voila!—it’s actually got a sword in its sheath, and Zatoichi wields this weapon with an accuracy that almost can’t be believed.  I loved the way that director Kimiyoshi Yasuda filmed the action scenes for this film, because he sticks to fast action over long swordfights and really convinces the viewer that this blind guy might actually have some talent.  “Zatoichi and the Fugitives” also has two of the worst songs ever featured in a blind swordsman movie, with lyrics so hilarious bad that you might just stand up and applaud their absurdity.  But, it’s a quality rent and at 85 minutes, is over about as fast as it starts.  Judging from the number of Zatoichi films being shown on IFC right now, there are at least five other Blind Swordsman films, so I’m not sure if this is the first, third, or last one in the series.  I AM sure that he kills a lot of people in all of them, though!

Rating:  $9.50 Show

"Donnie Darko"

Sadly, for all of those people that loved this movie, I regret to inform you that I am not one of them.  The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Donnie, a high school teen that’s really only got one problem—he’s crazy!  His delusions power the film’s psychological-thriller angle, concerning a guy in a rabbit suit named Frank that keeps telling Donnie to commit crimes without telling Donnie why.  To tell you more would give things away, but the performance by Gyllenhaal makes one wonder how he possibly starred in the utter failure “Bubble Boy”, because the kid has got major talent.  Turns by Jena Malone as Donnie’s girlfriend and Mary McDonnell—who I don’t believe has been in anything since “Dances with Wolves”—are solid, too.  But, a ridiculous performance by executive producer Drew Barrymore brings a couple of scenes down, and the script is not as exciting when not dealing with Donnie’s character; small inconsistencies like a Chinese girl that can’t say “shut up” in correct English in one scene, then can read it fluently in another, made me question the editing.  The film’s score is haunting and the scenes are very well shot, but I just didn’t get too caught up in the story or the “nail-biting” finale (according to the video box description).  I also loved the box description of the “original” ideas in the film; time travel and delusions are nothing new, and even that little rabbit costume looked something like the creatures in “Mulholland Drive” and “Sexy Beast.”  But, there are plenty of intriguing ideas bandied about, and I would love to see what writer/director Richard Kelly does next.

Rating:  Matinee

"Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her"

This 2000 Showtime Original motion picture was on recently, so Laura and I gave it a peek.  Featuring an incredible cast including Glenn Close, Amy Brenneman, Holly Hunter and Cameron Diaz, the film is made up of five vignettes on random women living out their lives in Los Angeles.  The segments are all related in some way, and writer/director Rodrigo Garcia gets good performances out of these talented people.  I loved the way Garcia washes out so much of the color in his shots—although these scenes happen at various times throughout the day, it always seemed like it was about 7:30 at night, around dusk but not quite.  And, for throwing in two scenes where a woman named Rose (Kathy Baker, “Picket Fences”) unintentionally makes fun of a midget named Albert (Danny Woodburn), this movie gets bumped up one Bellview grade automatically.  Just wrong!

Rating:  $9.50 Show

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"

I finally caught up with this western classic, and it was pretty damned good.  I TiVo’ed this last month, when AMC was doing Much More Movie, a “Pop-Up Video”-style way to show classic films by giving fast facts on the production during the broadcast.  I loved this, as the gang at AMC put together a cool list of tidbits on the movie, its incredible casting process (the movie was going to star Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, but McQueen backed out when he learned that Newman would get top billing), the score, the locations and various lines from the film.  The movie itself is a classic, and it made Robert Redford a star; hell, the guy named the Sundance Film Festival for his role in the film.  I felt the film lagged a bit as the famous bank robbers outrun a posse of hired guns from the Midwest to Bolivia (the posse pursuit is made up, I learned as well), but the chemistry between the leads screams “buddy cop film” and I loved the end sequence.  Plus, it’s got Burt Bacharach’s Oscar-winning song “Raindrops”!!!

Rating:  $9.50 Show

"The Conversation"

Francis Ford Coppola made two Best Picture nominees in 1974:  “The Godfather, Part II” (the eventual winner), and this film, which stars Gene Hackman as eccentric wiretapper Harry Caul.  Caul finishes a job for a mysterious client that raises his suspicions about the intentions of the assignment.  Rarely do films go in-depth with wiretapping; typically, it is just cops bugging a phone, or a movie like “Stakeout” that plays the thing for laughs.  Coppola, who wrote the script six years before making the film, clearly spent some time doing homework on the topic, even sending us to a surveillance conference where Harry does research on the industry.  The performances by Hackman and Harrison Ford, as shady assistant Martin Stett, are great, and an uncredited cameo by a Francis Ford Coppola regular lends the film extra weight.  That, and the typically beautiful San Francisco locations, as the film was completely shot downtown.  A slow section in the middle involving a wiretapping rival to Hackman’s character slows the film down, but otherwise, I liked the film a bunch.

Rating:  $9.50 Show

"Highlander: Endgame"

This piece of fucking shit is such a bad film, I am not even going to write a full review of it.  I watched it to say that I had seen the last “Highlander” film...now, I’m sorry that I watched it!!

Rating:  Hard Vice

"Re-Animator"

Finally, I got my hands on the cult classic, since it was on IFC recently; while it is a bad film, it does have some good, nasty fun in the form of some of the bloodiest horror scenes I have ever witnessed.  Jeffrey Combs stars as the Re-Animator, a mad scientist that has developed a re-agent that brings the dead back to life.  His re-agent is not quite perfect, though, so his experiments to bring people back from the dead has horrific results.  In what might be the worst idea of all time, a third film in the series (there was a sequel, “Bride of Re-Animator”, in 1990) is slated for release next year.  This film has all the good things a cult horror film needs—bad acting, bad blood effects, logistical nightmares and screaming...lots of screaming.  But, lead performances by Combs and Bruce Abbott as unwilling sidekick Dr. Dan Cain are hammy, to say the least.  And, that ending was so damned bloody!

Rating:  Matinee

"Apocalypse Now Redux"

I refused to see this last year mostly because I couldn’t stand the idea of watching a three-and-a-half-hour film in theaters.  Since it was on Showtime last week, I TiVo’ed it and watched it in two parts—man, what a film.  I don’t think I’ve seen the original film in over ten years, because I couldn’t even remember which parts of the Redux are new...but, what is here is quite impressive.  Sure, there is the rousing sequence over “The Ride of the Valkyries” with Robert Duvall’s Lt. Kilgore making a sweeping helicopter attack on a village hideaway.  Sure, there are half a dozen famous lines scattered throughout the film—“Terminate, with extreme prejudice”, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning...smelled like...victory”, “The horror!”, and “Saigon...shit”, to name a few.  And of course, Marlon Brando’s performance as insane renegade Special Forces soldier Colonel Kurtz still resonates.  But, the Redux is way, way too long.  In this version, a long sequence at the French plantation where Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard spends a couple of days feels way too long, and because we don’t even meet Kurtz until the 150-minute mark, director Francis Ford Coppola makes us wait too long for the film’s most intriguing asset.  (The original film was 153 minutes long...TOTAL.)  However, if you are a fan of the original, you have to see this film—its story, setting and incredible cinematography draw you right back into the nightmare.  And, with Brando, Sheen, Duvall, Harrison Ford, Larry (now, Laurence) Fishburne, and half the Coppola family (including Francis in an uncredited cameo—you have to know what he looks like to catch him for his three seconds of screen time) in the cast, can you really go wrong?

"Apocalypse Now" Rating:  Opening Weekend
"Apocalypse Now Redux" Rating:  $9.50 Show

 

Comments?  Drop me a line at justin@bellviewmovies.com.

 

Bellview Rating System:

"Opening Weekend":  This is the highest rating a movie can receive.  Reserved for movies that exhibit the highest level of acting, plot, character development, setting...or Salma Hayek.  Not necessarily in that order. 

"$X.XX Show":  This price changes each year due to the inflation of movie prices; currently, it is the $9.50 Show.  While not technically perfect, this is a movie that will still entertain you at a very high level.  "Undercover Brother" falls into this category; it's no "Casablanca", but you'll have a great time watching.  The $9.50 Show won't win any Oscars, but you'll be quoting lines from the thing for ages (see "Office Space"). 

"Matinee":  An average movie that merits no more than a $6.50 viewing at your local theater.  Seeing it for less than $9.50 will make you feel a lot better about yourself.  A movie like "Blue Crush" fits this category; you leave the theater saying "That wasn't too bad...man, did you see that Lakers game last night?" 

"Rental":  This rating indicates a movie that you see in the previews and say to your friend, "I'll be sure to miss that one."  Mostly forgettable, you couldn't lose too much by going to Hollywood Video and paying $3 to watch it with your sig other, but you would only do that if the video store was out of copies of "Ronin."  If you can, see this movie for free.  This is what your TV Guide would give "one and a half stars." 

"Hard Vice":  This rating is the bottom of the barrel.  A movie that only six other human beings have witnessed, this is the worst movie I have ever seen.  A Shannon Tweed "thriller," it is so bad as to be funny during almost every one of its 84 minutes, and includes the worst ending ever put into a movie.  Marginally worse than "Cabin Boy", "The Avengers" or "Leonard, Part 6", this rating means that you should avoid this movie at all costs, or no costs, EVEN IF YOU CAN SEE IT FOR FREE!  (Warning:  strong profanity will be used in all reviews of "Hard Vice"-rated movies.)