Movie Review

(On TV, September 1998) Right after watching this cine-biography of boxer Jake LaMotta, I felt indifferent. Shot in stark black-and-white, with unsympathetic characters and an episodic structure, Raging Bull is not a movie that lets itself being instinctively liked. But as the days passed, I kept thinking at the movie and as the cliché goes, it grew on me: the skill of director Martin Scorsese and actors Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci is obvious, some images and lines of dialogue stay in mind and the result is nothing short of the classic movie that Raging Bull is. Not bad. Not bad at all.

(On TV, September 1998) It’s no mean feat for a courtroom drama to sustain interest when any sufficiently intelligent viewer can guess the major plot twists coming around at least one good half-hour before they happen. Usually, I try to go along with the game, but Primal Fear didn’t help out by revealing its oh-so-clever premise in the opening line (“What do you do when you know your client is guilty?” Duuuh! What do you think will happen, now??) The usage of standard thriller gimmicks (the sex videotape; oh, how shocking!) also lets the plot being comfortably predictable. Yet, Primal Fear is not a complete waste of time, mostly due to the good acting by Richard Gere, Laura Linney and Edward Norton. It’s also nicely directed, and the script (despite its predictability) is entertaining. Catch it on TV.

(On TV, September 1998) Once upon a while comes a movie so radically different from a visual viewpoint that it transcends its own weaknesses and becomes something of a gem. La Cité des Enfants Perdus is such a movie. Story, script, characters: Okay, but could have been better. But the visuals, however, probably can’t be improved. The vision is “steampunk”, a dark and grimy fantasy world of high-tech concepts executed with Victorian-era technology made of glass and brass. None of director Jeunet’s characters are beautiful; most are grotesque. The film is packed with delightful visual inventions. It is not enough to see it once. A very worthy video rental.

(In theaters, September 1998) Delightfully bad. Not only from an acting standpoint (Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rob Schneider… duh?) but also from the technical angle, where almost every possible camera trick is used in the first fifteen minutes. Knock Off is a study in how to mishandle an action sequence: Stuff that would have been incredible in John Woo’s hands (eg; the supermarket fight) ends up tepid here. Granted, Knock Off makes more sense when considered as a Hong Kong action movie that happens to star van Damme, but that doesn’t really excuse it. On the plus side, however, Lela Rochon is quite watcheable and the movie is simply great for the late-night party-with-friends type of watching. It’s bad… but in a way that won’t make you angry.

(On TV, September 1998) I don’t usually watch children movies, and that’s probably why I expected more from this Tarzan knock-off that I got. Granted, some of the comedy is clever (everything absurd and/or involving either the narrator or the native carriers was hilarious, for instance) but the remainder is just unbearably tedious. George Of The Jungle seems like the aftermath of a demented screenwriter’s half-hour of rewrite fun with a below-grade children film script. Too bad they didn’t let him play around with it longer.

(On TV, September 1998) Standard made-for-TV Science FIction, which is to say garbage! Really, this more-than-obvious futuristic sports drama is enjoyable as long as you don’t expect it to be any good. Unusually well-know performers: Vanessa Williams provides a reason for watching everything, Wesley Snipes had an interesting screen presence and Dean Cain is solid. The multiracial casting was great. Some special effects were nice. (For some reason, I also kind of liked the design of the head-mounted newscameras.) It gets awfully silly when they decided to rescue the love interest, though… Out-of-the-screenwriting-manual plotting, bad dialogue, half-baked concepts not fully explored (Pi ratings, anyone?)… what else did you expect?

(On TV, September 1998) Twenty-five years ago, The French Connection stood its ground as an intense action movie. Today, however, this tale of cops-against-drug-dealers seems tepid. The much-lauded car chase is interesting but not much more. The garage and subway sequences, however, are unexpectedly involving. I didn’t like the abrupt conclusion, which seemed to do its best to deny the audience a satisfying finale. With its bland villains, relatively low stakes, grim conclusion and ambiguous heroes, The French Connection seems more “realistic” than the average police drama but suffers a lot from historical perspective.

(On TV, September 1998) Unfortunately, due to the movie’s reputation, I already knew every frame of the film even before seeing it. A first belated viewing was curiously familiar and strange. Not a bad movie, but clunky at times–despite what film lovers say. Peter Sellers is pretty good, but the script seems half-poised between intense seriousness and wacky slapstick: Some say this is what makes this film great, but I just found it inconsistent. Still, a great movie-seeing experience, and the finale goes where few other movies have gone before (or since). Dark fun.

(In theaters, September 1998) Given that this campus comedy was trashed by the critics, I went in with low expectations, and consequently came out of it with a certain satisfaction. The premise is based on a popular urban legend: If your roommate commits suicide, certain colleges consider that your mental anguish will be unbearable, and consequently you’re allowed an automatic A+ for the session. Now, what if you’re smart, but failing in such a way that it’s mathematically impossible to make a passing grade? Dead Man On Campus takes the premise and jogs with it. The two protagonist are sympathetic, the antics are amusing and the conclusion brings a goofy, satisfied smile to everyone. What more can you ask? Just make sure you’re either in college, or recently graduated.

(In theaters, September 1998) The traditional cliché about cheap (or Canadian, which this movie is) Science-Fiction is that due to budget restrictions, you usually end up with a few actors, fewer sets and even fewer special effects. Cube ends up exemplifying this by having seven actors, less that two sets and a Very Big Light. (It was shot for $300,000 in twenty days in a Toronto warehouse) Even more surprising, it almost works. The script is pretty bad (ordinary dialogue, stock characters do stupid things for unknown reasons, lousy logic, unlikely coincidences, etc…) but the film is well-done, and starts off with an intriguing premise. Unfortunately, it belongs to the dark-and-dreary school of pseudo-artistic SF, so don’t expect to be uplifted by this. Not entirely unpleasant, no, but far from being very good. Spoiler – Avoid – Spoiler: I really hate it when the idiot survives and the only sympathetic characters in the cast all die just as the Happy Ending is dangled in front of our nose. “and then they all die” is not artistically superior to a happy ending. Cripes.

(On TV, September 1998) Above-average B-movie if it wasn’t for the ending, which is one incredible downer. The paranoid view of government agencies doesn’t help either. Still, if the science is complete nonsense, the themes explored in Carnosaur are unusually chilling. The means, however, aren’t very convincing. To its credit, Carnosaur goes much further beyond the usual “monster-eats-people” film. Part of it may be because it’s adapted from a novel. Indifferent performances, save for the mad scientist and the Clint Howard semi-cameo. Not really recommended, since in my view, good B-Movies let the lead couple survive. Trivia: The mad scientist is played by Diane Ladd, who’s the real-life mother of Laura Dern… who also played the scientist in 1993’s other dino-flick Jurassic Park!

(On TV, September 1998) Of mainly historical interest, American Graffiti is false nostalgia, presenting an idealized view of the early sixties. Seen from 1998, the nostalgia appears more pitiful than justified. Still, it has its moment, especially near the end. (If nothing else, the soundtrack is superb, bringing together many hits from that period.) Otherwise, watch it to see younger versions of Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford and director Ron Howard in a starring role. Most importantly; American Graffiti was George Lucas’ second movie, just before Star Wars. THX-1138‘s grimness is on the way out, and the willingness to be accessible is in…

(On TV, September 1998) Anyone who claims that “Spawn was the worst movie ever!” or that “All summer blockbusters suck!” should be forced to watch this atrocity and finally learn the true meaning of a bad movie. Abraxas starts off with a monologue containing the following gem “We Guardians renew our vows every hundred years. I have renewed mine ninety times. That’s right: I am nearly ten thousand year old.” The following scenes show burly guys with dinky guns running around in a forest while cheap-looking explosions appear beside them (we’re supposed to figure out that the dinky guns cause the explosions, but it’s a testimony to the ultra-cheap special effects that we’re not convinced). The bad Guardian then impregnates a girl with a wave of his magic hand (don’t ask) and three minutes later the girl gives birth to a baby, in the snow in the middle of the forest. She then picks up the baby and goes home, where she’s thrown out by her parents. Folks, the movie doesn’t get any better than this afterward. Subsequent howlers include the line “Parsecs aren’t appropriate Earth Time Units!” and a mild-mannered policeman pulling an Uzi from under his jacket and firing at the alien. (The alien’s comment? “Interesting, but inefficient”.) It’s a movie so bad it’s bad. James Belushi has a thirty-second cameo as a school director (Belushi: “Your child is strange. We want him to go away. Bullies are picking up on him.” Mother: “Have you thought about telling them to stop beating my child?” Belushi: “Uh, no.”) Don’t bother even to look at it; this review contains all the fun parts. I don’t plan on ever looking at this again, except on MST3K.