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2007 Spring Video Roundup, Vol. I

4/24/07

"Touch of Evil"

If you can get past the fact that Charlton Heston is playing a Mexican named Ramon Miguel Vargas (ahh, early Hollywood racism...fantastic!), you will love "Touch of Evil", a cinematic gem from 50 years ago, thanks to both a great script and a style from writer/director Orson Welles that is as cool and noirish then as it is today.  The version of the film that Netflix sent to me was the 1998 recut version of the film, one that takes advantage of notes that Welles sent to Universal after the studio fired Welles after he completed the picture and they took over the editing themselves.  Having not seen the original theatrical version, I'm glad that this is the one that will stick with me--a dark, brooding film, shoot at angles that always look great given the light and a black-and-white print...just a great film.  Welles is great as a dirty American cop and Janet Leigh (pre-"Psycho") is also fantastic as the wife of Mr. Vargas.

Rating:  Opening Weekend

"The Girl Next Door"

Elisha Cuthbert has done surprisingly little given her cult hottie status after appearing in a couple of seasons as Jack Bauer's daughter on "24"; here, in this lowbrow comedy, she plays The Girl Next Door, a out-of-school teenager housesitting for the woman who lives next to Georgetown freshman-to-be Matt (Emile Hirsch, the star of the upcoming "Speed Racer").  That Girl has a past that is a little risqué--that's right, she's a porn star!  As silly as this set-up is, the movie is surprisingly funny throughout, thanks mainly to the performance of nearly all of the side characters, but mostly Matt's two buddies Eli and Klitz (Chris Marquette and Paul Dano, from "Little Miss Sunshine") and the porn star's former manager Kelly (Timothy Olyphant), who seem to realize they are in what SHOULD be a piece of shit so they just let it all hang out, to positive effect.  I don't know how much more T&A you get in this version (the "unrated" cut) versus the one that aired in theaters, but that doesn't really matter much--the best bits come with everyone's clothes on, anyway.

Rating:  Matinee

"The Bicycle Thief"

Given that my version had some of the worst subtitling issues ever, "The Bicycle Thief" was still a great film.  This 1948 Italian film won an honorary Oscar for best foreign film (the Best Foreign Film Oscar had not made it onto the scene yet), and the filmmaking even today is very effective; we get to watch as down-on-his luck laborer Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) finally gets lucky and gets a job as a poster man for the city of Rome, but to take the job, he has to recover funds to get his bike from a pawn shop downtown.  On his first day of work, while putting up a poster, his bike gets jacked by a young punk and Antonio--accompanied by his young son Bruno (Enzo Staiola)--spends the rest of the day looking for his bicycle, in the hopes that he can find it and keep his job.  You get caught up in the struggle because of how much Antonio loves his family; you also get caught up in the struggle because you can imagine (and then, get to visualize through this film) how tough it would be to find a bike in a city with 100,000 other bikes floating around.

Rating:  Opening Weekend

"The Rules of the Game" (1939)

Jean Renoir's classic French film that covers the lives of rich playboy-types at the dawn of World War II wasn't all that classic to me, mainly because our assumption at the start of the film that everybody loves everybody and that's okay with everybody EXCEPT foreigners just didn't feel right to me (of course, I'm not French).  Featuring a pilot who just completed a trans-Atlantic flight for a woman who is cheating on him with...uh, her HUSBAND, who in turn is cheating on that lady with another woman, in addition to that first woman's maid-servant having amorous feelings for anyone who enters the freakin' room...boy, there's a lot going on here, but billing itself as a "dramatic fantasy" makes life a little easier on the filmmakers as they push their film's agenda.  I just thought that the farce wasn't that funny and the take on rich kid life wasn't all that great, either...and, hey, films were just different back in 1939, but this chatty Kathy scores some points for occasionally witty dialogue that has stood the test of time.

Rating:  Rental

"Blast"

Another one of those straight-to-tape flicks where I never saw the preview, "Blast" is bad from nearly every angle you can think of; ripping off the "Die Hard"-on-a-blank premise, the filmmakers give us a former Navy officer turned tugboat captain (Eddie Griffin, SO wrong for this part) who just happens to be on an oil rig when eco-terrorists led by a long-haired crazy man (Vinnie Jones) take over the rig and attempt to launch an EMP bomb over San Diego (think shades of "The Rock") to jack a ton of money from local banks.  Too bad they didn't know they had a badass tugboat captain on board!  Many, many terrorists die bad deaths, while we in the audience suffer from shockingly poor casting (Breckin Meyer?), almost no laughs, the always-bad kid-in-danger subplot with a bad kid actor, and a mole on the cop/FBI side who must be caught.  Shit, some of these movies suck!

Rating:  Hard Vice

 

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.)