(On TV, August 1998) Almost a bore. What happens when you’ve got a horror movie that’s not horrific? You begin to laugh. What if there’s nothing to laugh about? You start to wish you were watching another movie. Fortunately, the finale is a bit better than the rest -and Babylon-5 fans will appreciate seeing a lot of Patricia Tallman- but there are far better choices than this for a B-Movie night.
Berkley, 1989, 288 pages, C$5.75 mmpb, ISBN 0-425-12304-9
With a title like that, you can bet it’s not a book about fluffy rabbits.
No, King of the Killing Zone is definitely a book for the intellectually macho guys among us, the ones who also devour Hustler magazine for the military hardware articles, who buy Tom Clancy novels in hardcover, who don’t quite think that an obsession about military hardware is somehow unhealthy.
(Am I describing myself? Ahem…)
King of the Killing Zone is definitely a dream come true for military buffs among us.
(Which reminds me of the old saying: The difference between a fan and a buff is that the buff in interested in stuff where dying is involved. Witness Military buffs, WWII buffs, history buffs, etc… Are there Spice Girls buffs? There you go.)
There is a special magic in the creation of an expensive machine. The process leading up to the design, debugging and manufacture of your car is sufficiently fascinating in itself. Now imagine the whole story behind the introduction of a completely new tank in the U.S. Army. That’s the subject of King of the Killing Zone.
During your reading, you will not only learn about the M-1, but also about tanks in general, major figures in the U.S. Army since WWII, the military equipment acquisition process, intelligence work, tanks warfare strategy and hundreds of small details that you wouldn’t necessarily associate with tanks at first glance.
This could have been a long, dry read. The drudgery of military administration can be terribly annoying if you’re outside the system. Fortunately, author Orr Kelly has mastered the none-too-obvious trick of writing a densely packed, yet easily readable prose. He obviously knows his subject, and the notes on sources are very complete. A useful index completes an already-great non-fiction account. As a result, King of the Killing Zone moves briskly, yet satisfies the reader.
Among the highlights of this book are the incredible tale of Chobham armour, the competition between GM and Chrysler to decide who would build the tank, the tactics revolution brought by the M-1’s speed, quiet and manoeuvrability, the man who made “all the right decisions for the wrong reasons”, the debugging of the tank’s most obscure flaws…
Behind the whole book, though, stands the question: Is the M-1 Abrahms a good tank? To that, Orr answers with a cautious optimism. The publication date (1989) of the book is ironic, coming two years before one of the most significant military event of the late twentieth century. The Gulf War proved to sceptics that the M-1 could deliver what had been promised. Despite heavy use of fuel and problems due to the infiltration of sand in machinery, the M-1 swept the battlefield and erased most doubts concerning the tank’s worth in combat. It would be interesting to see a post-1991 revision of King of the Killing Zone.
It is only too rare to find a book that lucidly and knowledgeably explains the steps by which new weapons systems are developed, tested and put into service. In an age where the easy 30-second clip on the evening news can weigh more heavily than a thoughtful report, King of the Killing Zone demystifies the process and takes the time to explain. A must-read for techno-thriller fans, and military hardware buffs.
(In theaters, August 1998) Surprisingly good entry in the cop genre, The Negotiator would have floundered without the effective, spare direction of newcomer F. Gary Gray and the superlative acting talents of Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey. A friend of mine is fond of saying that Spacey (The Usual Suspects, Se7en, L.A. Confidential) has never been in a bad film; she’s still right. The setup is a bit unbelievable (cops do have an esprit-de-corps, y’know?), some of the dialogue is awful (though the delivery’s perfect!), many of the technical details are flat-out wrong (especially when computer-related) and the ending may seem an anti-climax to those expecting something else. Still, once the movie gets going, it’s an engrossing, fascinating movie that’s well worth your time.
(Second viewing, on TV, August 1998) Interestingly, the first time I saw that movie, shortly after its video release, I thought it amusing, but not that funny mostly due to timing problems. At my great surprise, I found myself laughing a lot more than expected during this second viewing. Part of this may have been caused by the increasing awfulness of the latest “satire”-type movies, or being much more familiar with the Lethal Weapon series that Loaded Weapon 1 is so obviously parodying. Whatever the reason, I can only say that this movie’s funny. Try not to miss it.
(On TV, August 1998) Far less impressive than it is reputed to be. College comedies have to be really good to succeed, and this one suffers a lot from its bad script and its muddy cinematography. (Sound’s often incomprehensible too) John Belushi is okay, as is Babylon-5 star Stephen Furst. It seems like every single female in the movie takes off her clothes at some point. Of historical value, mostly because it’s the prototype for the much-better The Blues Brothers.
(On TV, August 1998) Adapted from the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon, this movie is amazingly faithful to the source material, up to the end where the book’s lackluster ending is replaced by a gunfight. Good idea, but it’s so ineptly shot that it takes away a lot of the movie’s previous impact. Still, a better-than-average thriller. Harmed considerably by the inclusion of a god-awful early-eighties electro-synth soundtrack. Of historical interest; Written and Directed by Michael Mann (Heat, The Last Of The Mohicans).
(Second viewing, On DVD, October 2002) Now that Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon has been re-adapted by Brett Ratner et al., Michael Mann’s first take on the material can be re-examined with a better critical eye. Certainly, certain aspects haven’t aged well: Underlit tables and antiseptic sets irremediably brand Mann’s Eighties aesthetics style. The awful electro-synth soundtrack is simply unbearable now. Certain plot developments come out of nowhere and don’t make much sense if you haven’t read the original novel (The discovery of the toilet-paper message isn’t very well explained, for instance) Finally, the film’s low budget must have ran out at the last minute, because the rushed ending ruins what would have otherwise been a pretty good thriller. It’s not as if the film is bad, though, even now. The urgency, personal toll and sacrifices required of the lead Will Graham protagonist (played by a too-intense William Petersen) are well-shown, and the film contains a narrative energy that only flags in the third quarter. It’s a solid thriller, too stylish for its own good but worth a look even now, though more as a comparison point between it and 2002’s superior Red Dragon.
Boca Publications, 1997, 191 pages, C$9.95 mmpb, ISBN 0-9659583-0-2
Nowadays, it seems like every two-bit celebrity has a biography on bookstores’ shelves. Even being a celebrity isn’t a requirement any more; just being a megastar’s ex-girlfriend can now net you a fat publishing contract. But as ever, there are two very different kinds of biographies. Authorized, and not-so-authorized ones.
Authorized biographies are written by the celebrity, or most likely by a writer with bills to pay and the celebrity’s cooperation. However “honest” they claim to be, it’s no surprise that these authorized biographies end up painting a rather positive portrait of the star.
On the other hand, unauthorized biographies are usually perceived as being written by malicious, talentless money-grubbing hack without any ethics, scruples or restraints. Many fans, pundits and managers are quick to characterize unauthorized biographies as unmitigated lies on paper, and readers of these putrid pages as only slightly below unicellular slime.
They fail to mention that these biographies are much more interesting.
Céline Dion is, like me, a French-Canadian. It would be a common error to assume that given this shocking similarity, I would be a die-hard Dion fan.
Not quite. From a musical standpoint, Dion mostly sings ballads, which are definitely not my favourite kind of music. Furthermore, most importantly, I’ve never been too impressed by… ahem, let’s stay polite… the cognitive abilities of Miss Dion. As female signers so, I have much more respect for Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow or Lisa Loeb (who compose, write and sing, not to mention can hold their end of a conversation) that for the pretty voice that is Céline Dion. Dion is a pleasantly packaged set of vocal chords. Nothing more.
[Unrelated anecdote: There was a TITANIC special on French-Canadian TV at the end of 1997, where Dion and ditzy talk-show host Julie Snyder were interviewing an expert on the Titanic disaster. It was a lot like watching the protagonists of DUMB & DUMBER interviewing Einstein.]
The fascination of my fellow French-Canadians for “le clan Dion” is nothing short of mystifying for me. Why glorify a not-especially-pretty woman whose only talent is to sing? The gushing acceptance of her marriage to slimy manager René Angelil (almost thirty years his senior) still manages to creep me out. Is this how we want the world to perceive French-Canadians?
Now that I’ve come clean both on the subject of Céline Dion and unauthorized biographies, let me be honest enough to say that if you like going through trash, you will love Behind the Fairytale. It’s a collection of gossip, just-this-side-of-libelous assertion and veiled half-truths mixed with saucy innuendoes. I could have lived a few more years without knowing about Dion’s suicide attempts, anorexia, unhappy marriage, nervous breakdowns and raging nymphomania.
One the other hand, it’s a breath of fresh air compared to the holier-than-church portrait of Dion that is spoon-fed to and by the media. I believe that there is more truth in this book, warts and all, than the official story. Halperin doesn’t quite establish himself as a credible journalist (he did co-author a book on the “assassination” of Kurt Cobain), but does not shies away from revealing his disgruntled sources, his personal favorable opinion of Dion (in the foreword) and that, in his opinion, the true villain of Dion’s life is manager/husband Angelil.
It is very unlikely that any fan of Dion will agree with Behind the Fairytale (just read the vitriolic comments on Amazon’s web site if you’re not convinced), so this biography will probably please most those readers not -yet- converted by the massive Sony/Angelil publicity machine. This is worth a look at the library (I couldn’t manage to buy such a book), if only to be able to see Behind the Fairytale.
Just remember: Trash can be fun, but at the end it’s still trash.
(Third viewing, On TV, August 1998) An amazing movie, and what may be my third viewing proves it: Even despite being familiar with most elements, the movie fells as fresh and exciting as the first time. The timing is impeccable, the set-pieces are fabulous, and the level of humor doesn’t flag down. Excellent fun.
(Fourth viewing, On TV, September 2016) Taken on its own, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a better-than-average adventure: Directed with Steven Spielberg’s usual skill, it’s got original action set pieces that impress even today, genuinely funny moments, wide-screen vistas, Harrison Ford’s charm and great pacing. It’s well worth watching still. But when you set it against its predecessor or its sequel, that’s when this second Indiana Jones adventure comes in for a harsher assessment. It’s not as accomplished. There isn’t much character development. Kate Capshaw’s Willie is nowhere near as interesting as the first film’s Marion. (Heck, at times she’s straight-up irritating.) The stereotypes and jokey racism grate. There’s a much grimmer tone that doesn’t quite work as well as the alternative. There’s a five-minute stretch of possessed-Indiana that can’t end soon enough. Nazis aren’t there to be punched in the face. For all sorts of reasons, that makes Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom a significantly lesser movie than the first or third films in the series. If you want to watch it, do it separately from the other instalments, otherwise the comparison won’t be kind.
(On TV, August 1998) A weak successor to the original film. Part of it may be that it tries to deal with racial issues directly rather than just making a fun movie where the characters happen to be black, like in the first film. Unfortunately, the characters also seem diluted, and the dance numbers are less energetic. The bizarre romantic subplot also annoys more than it entertains. A disappointment.
(On TV, August 1998) “Shut up and drive!” would be my only recommendation to the scriptwriter (The quasi-legendary Robert Towne) of this moderately enjoyable sport thriller. Simply put, Days Of Thunder is more interesting when our stock-car-driving hero (played by Tom Cruise) is on the circuit driving. Everything else feels like filler, up to and including the romance with the pretty neurologist (Nicole Kidman, now Cruise’s wife). Otherwise, it’s another movie from the Simpson / Bruckheimer team. Consciously made to appeal to the blue-collar crowd. Works well.
(On TV, August 1998) Far from being as good as the other humans-and-toons comedy Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but at least has the merit to try for a more adult approach. I say “try”, because ultimately the adult potential of the movie (and there is a lot of it), seems diluted in atrociously unfunny adolescent antics that end up cheapening the rest. A considerable disappointment. This movie should have been re-written for a hard-R rating.
Simon & Schuster, 1998, 506 pages, C$35.00 hc, ISBN 0-684-80996-6
In the classic Brave New World, Aldous Huxley took a certain pleasure is describing the inane entertainment (“feelies”) perpetrated by Hollywood in his imagined future. It was obviously intended to be a parody of the lousy movies of the thirties, with its simplistic plot, stereotyped characters, obvious racism and happy expected ending.
Fast forward half a century: We’re still being fed pap by Hollywood. From a storytelling standpoint, cinema is the mentally retarded cousin of prose fiction. Most of the time, it does simplistic things, only to be applauded when it does something decent. The average novel on any shelf -including romance- is a better story than the average movie.
And yet, for a brief time in the seventies, it seemed as if Hollywood was re-inventing itself. Young film-makers like Hopper, Coppola, Friedkin, Bogdanovich, Scorsese were making challenging movies like EASY RIDER, APOCALYPSE NOW, THE GODFATHER, THE EXORCIST, RAGING BULL… But then came JAWS and STAR WARS, and the blockbuster mentality that now prevails.
At least, that’s the history that Easy Riders, Raging Bulls tries to tell. A fairly fat book, this non-fiction account remains unusually readable while also being formidably well-researched. (There is an excellent 23-pages index, as well as 35 pages of notes, most of them referring to personal interviews between Biskind and the people concerned.)
There is a lot of dirt in this book. The Seventies are described by Biskind as an era of unbridled hedonism, where everyone slept with almost everyone else, drugs were supplied by the bowls and rock’n’roll defined a generation. Biskind spares no punches in describing the descent through hell of most of the film-makers of this era, their troubled love lives and their constant flirting with auto-destruction. This should be a source book for anyone trying to portray South California as the modern Babylon.
Most of the book is in the details. It’s a shock to read about the behaviour of some now-quite-conservative personalities. This accumulation of anecdotes helps to sustain our interest in a book that could otherwise be stuffy. This is one great book for party anecdotes: “Did you know that Coppola once said to…”
Beyond the dirt and the shocking stories, though, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls fares less well at convincing the reader that there was indeed a “New Hollywood” in the seventies. A look at the most popular movies of the time probably reveals a bunch of movies that were neither superior, nor particularly innovative. We remember THE GODFATHER and THE EXORCIST… but the rest? If drugs, sex and rock’n’roll were necessary for better movies, was the price worth it? Or was the “New Hollywood” of the seventies only an new extension of the general climate of revolution that swept through the sixties?
It is ironic, though, to find out that the main perpetrators of the blockbuster mentality (Spielberg, Lucas, Don Simpson) were encouraged -even nurtured- by the “New Hollywood”. Biskind’s chapters about the success of JAWS and STAR WARS take on a bittersweet quality that’s well developped.
On the other hand, Biskind’s conscious silence about some latter work is surprising and self-defeating: Why not mention that of all these film-makers, only Spielberg and Lucas have managed to take control of film-making means (Lucas with ILM, Spielberg with Dreamworks)? Why conveniently forget Spielberg’s brilliant and artistic SCHINDLER’S LIST? Why not mention Coppola’s THE GODFATHER III? Or the good movies of the eighties and nineties? Or the bad movies of the seventies?
You could say that Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is a book to read for all the wrong reasons: For the dirt and the scandals; for an unbiased history of STAR WARS; for the self-destructive paths of a few brilliant film-makers… An interesting book in its own right, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls nevertheless fails to convince that the “Sex, Drugs and rock’n’roll generation saved Hollywood.”
Imagine that.
(On TV, August 1998) Now, why are people calling this Mel Brook’s greatest movie? It’s amusing, but not funny. It has its moments, but doesn’t sustain them. Some bits are fun, but most aren’t. Even Spaceballs was better. Seems to me that the western genre is ripe for another send-off. (Although, to be fair, the pacing of modern comedies is so much more frantic that it probably spoils what must have been hilarious twenty-five years ago.)
(In theaters, August 1998) This is the movie that Spawn tried to be. A very cool comic-book-inspired action-fest starring a bigger than-life superhero against a conspiracy of evil creatures (in this case; vampires). Blade begins with one of the most gripping introduction possible (I won’t spoil it), and if it doesn’t quite maintain this level of energy all throughout the movie, it finishes on an adequately action-packed finale. The direction is kinetic, and the little over-the-top stylistic touches push Blade in the realm of the really cool movies. Wesley Snipes is great, the girls are cute, the hardware is mouth-watering and the villain does a creditable job. It’s not only a B-movie, it’s a B+-movie!
(Second viewing, On DVD, May 2002) Most dynamic vampire-hunting film ever? Well, not since the sequel came out, but the original Blade still kicks a lot of blood-sucking butt, and the DVD is still one of the best collector’s editions out there. Not only does it include the requisite making-of, but it also features a half-finished alternate ending, plus plenty of discussion about how and why they settled on the finished product. The best thing about the disc, though, is the commentary track, which features snippets from various crew and cast members. Wesley Snipes seems arrogant and silly; Stephen Dorf sounds a bit sloshed and star-stuck. There is a cinematographer that can’t stop bitching about the compromises he must make in his work. A considerable amount of time is spent discussing rejected concepts and alternate sequences. (One of which, the “baby vampire” seems cruelly absent, though the “body freeze” answers one huge logical howler I’d noted in a previous review.) In sum, a very good track that takes some time to deliver, but which really does hold our interest. The filmmakers always knew what kind of movie they wanted to deliver, and the result is there in its full DVD glory. A must-buy if you’re a fan of the film.
(In theaters, August 1998) For a reason I cannot fathom, Baseketball flopped badly, pulling in less than $5M on its opening weekend to finish 11th at the box office tally. It was at our local dollar-theatre its second week. For $2.75C., it couldn’t be much of a disappointment, and wasn’t. Baseketball is funny. Not a classic, not a very good comedy, but a relatively satisfying one. Moments of cleverness lurk behind the remainder of this enjoyably silly movie. I predict a certain cult-status among late-night movie fans. Give or take a star whether you like cheerleaders in tight black leather underwear or not. It’s that kind of movie.
(Second viewing, On DVD, August 2002) I was one of the few supporters of the film when it was first released (and then promptly sank at the box-office), but a look at the film four years later only confirms my moderate enthusiasm. Hey, I still think it’s one of the most solid spoofs of the late nineties, but I’m not quite as taken by the (relatively modest, given its latter contemporaries) degree of gross-out humor or the often-inconsistent pacing. The film sets itself in a familiar narrative structure that’s very comfortable but doesn’t do much to spoof itself. It’s too bad that the film’s tone never equals its brilliant first two minutes about the decline of professional sports. There are several lulls, and a lack of background gags but there are also a few good moments and the two lead actors pull their own. Give it a try if you still haven’t seen it. The DVD contains a perfunctory making-of, but not much more.