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There are some pretty broad depictions of literary and artistic figures form history, but I think that's the point, in portraying them as more modern mythologising of them has bequeathed them to us as merely ideas, and icons, and the whole movie is about romanticising the past and dealing with the nostalgia for a time you never personally knew, in order to escape the realities of a less than satisfactory present.
Quite magical, charming, and warm, and is quite easy on the "Woody Allen-ness", which gives it a nice light wit.
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(It gives me pause to reflect on how many movies I like deal with mental illness: The Fisher King, Benny And Joon, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, As Good As It Gets....etc. Purely coincidental, I'm sure! (twitch twitch :)
When I watched it first time round, all those years ago, I remember feeling it was a bit of a vanity project... indulgence, and vehicle / excuse to shoehorn Kevin Spacey onto our screens, off the back of a plethora of memorable performances elsewhere, and I remember it feeling a very...slight movie - a little too economical, sparse, and cold feeling. I think the production design has a lot to do with, as it looks a little less than cinematic, and more like TV... like an episode of NCIS or something, with that kind of aesthetic.
Watching again now, a lot of that hasn't changed for me, but I do find I've warmed to the story a characters a little more, and the cool look and feel is appreciated in how it conveys a sense of the ethereal, and otherworldly, consistent with the theme of a man (Spacey) who apparently arrives from out of thin air, declares himself to be from another planet, and is immediately taken to a psychiatric ward of the hospital, to be investigated and assessed by Jeff Bridges' psychiatrist.
Prot(e) (Spacey) begins to rub off on, and have an effect on, not only the other patients, but the doctors, and Bridges himself, due to the enduring enigma the movie works off of:
Is he actually nuts, or is he really from another planet?!?
>Your Kevin Spacey joke here<
(...er, or perhaps... best not!)
It is, despite it's economy, and fragile surface beauty, actually quite a touching, tragic, yet warm and engaging movie nevertheless, and still worth watching.
2 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
This neon-drenched, quasi-serial killer, semi-skin-flick feels like a bleed over from the seventies, as in both look and feel, if you didn't know the date of release, you'd swear it was a seventies movie.
Although, more accurately, this feels like a 30s to 50's film-noir packed inside the clothes of the seventies, an presented in the eighties.
(The only thing that gave it away is a scene in the street with a telephone box, where a cinema in the background is showing: Blue Thunder, An Officer And a Gentleman, and Flashdance!)
It reeks of a kind of pulp noir novel that might have been bought back in the day from a cigarette stand: Lonesome ex-boxer, haunted by his last fight, in which he killed his opponent, now runs an agency for strip club dancers, who suddenly start getting serially attacked in the street by pre-Se7en style nut job, and the boxer's mob connections, as well as the hard-bitten, no-nonsense (and slightly shady) Detective who is always getting his face are all over him to try and bring the nutter to book.
It's great as just that... A piece of pulpy schlock, but there are a couple of gripes for me:
Firstly, it seems there is precisely zero detective work going on in the entire movie regarding catching this guy, which, although the movie's centre is about the effect on the people it's happening to, rather than who is doing it, the "serial killer" is essentially a tacked on plot device, and is only wrapped up conveniently at the end.
Then there is the odd choice of having the serial killer be a puritanical Martial arts obsessive, which in real world situations seems a little bit whacky, and goofy... but I put this down to the attempt to make the movie appeal to the popularity of martial arts movies of the time.
And finally, it's the fact that the only people who seem to be in the titular "fear" are the characters in the movie, as opposed to laying a palpable blanket of fear over an entire city,in the manner of, say: Summer of Sam, or Zodiac killers... so a bit of misnomer.
But otherwise pretty groovy, with a strong performance by Tom Berenger, and plenty of scenes of a nude Melanie Griffith
(See, I knew that'd get your attention! :) .... and so did the film-makers, I suspect.)
2 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
1hr, 24mins.
And after the opening scene, which seems to just drop you straight into the action from the off, it threatens to slow down to a crawl, and I wondered how it was going to pack a whole movie into the time remaining... but in the end, it does pretty good job.
It's one of those that is generally not well regarded, and I think it's because of this absence of character establishment / exposition form the off, which is a little bemusing, and made me wonder for a few more minutes than I'd liked: What the hell is going on!
...But that's because it's also one of those that just drops little bits of key info and back-story as it goes, rather than swamp you with story from the outset.
Basic plot:
Cop kills cirme boss' son, so crime boss wants hired killer to kill cop's son... he can't so now hired killer needs to get the FO.O.D in order to escape crime boss coming after him, which he attempts to do with the help of passport forger, who then gets embroiled in the whole thing.
This has more than a whiff of Leon about it, especially in the score, and reminded me a lot of the later Kiss Of The Dragon (which I like a lot)... And while this has has some truly stunning photography / cinematography, which is beautifully lit, and shot, I can see where the criticism of it over the years as being more style than substance. But given how enjoyable it is, and how short, I think this can be forgiven.
A couple of other facts which may serve to both explain it, and perhaps recommend it:
Produced by (among others): John Woo.
Mira Sorvino does a pretty damn impressive job as not only turning out to be pretty bad ass, but fairly hard ass when she wants to be, and on the strength of this, makes me wonder why she didn't do more of this kind of thing in her career - she seems to have an untapped talent for it!
It has Michael Rooker.
...........It has Danny Trejo.
Legends both.
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(That isn't Enter The Dragon... as I know that one by heart, having seen it over and over since I was a small weeble)
...Turns out, I'd not.
But it's pretty darn good, albeit a bit shonky in places, and what with the very strong anti-Japanese theme throughout, a blacked-up Chinese actor as an Indian (with turban), and the generally broad depictions of anyone who isn't heroic, yet victimised Chinese... But hey, everyone did this kind of thing at sometime or other didn't they?
>"It was a different time then!!!"<
(chuckle)
...Nevertheless, although it's a pretty stock revenge movie, whereby "hero" has to and wade through stacks of minions to kick bog boss' ass, it does a great job in telling that story, and does some subtlety and nuance to the plot, in that it seems to proceed from the principle that s%&t gets out of hand very quickly when you pursue this kind of revenge thing, and in the end, nobody really wins.
But let's park our brains for a moment here... It's a Bruce Lee kung-fu movie, and that's all you want it to be, and it is.
Opening title cards and music very suggestive of Sergio Leone Scetti westerns, and the finale is in the pantheon of ultimate iconic kung-fu scenes, and includes the beyond iconic shot of Bruce's slow-mo mutli-exposure, hypnotising mutli-trance-arms.
Only real gripe is that at least half the people in the fight scenes don't really seem to have much of a clue about kung-fu (about as much as I do!) I can only imagine what Bruce himself thought of some of them gently waving their arms about aimlessly, which is only highlighted by the other half, who clearly do know something! The problem here is that a lot of main bad guys fall into this fist category - being somewhat portly middle aged chaps which I'm fairly sure even I could take.
Bruce looks like another species of human entirely in the face of these guys... which doesn't help to sell the idea that he'd have any problem whatsoever with them.
There is also a great sort of James Bond theme going, where Bruce has to go to ground, and by means of disguises and such, infiltrate the bad guys, which added something to the movie.
Enter The Dragon, it ain't, but certainly heading in that direction impressively.
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This is an odd movie, which now I see why it has all the mixed reviews.
The reason being, essentially, that what with all the day-glo / neon / fluorescence going on, and the premise, of a a load of assassins on the titular bullet train, you go into this expecting something along the lines of a whacky, coked up, high octane John Wick style movie, but it's actually more dialogue driven... for the first hour at least.
..."Witty" banter and lightly comedic dialogue, only punctuated by the odd smidge of "action".
This presents itself, and indeed, tries to be a kind of ultra-neon, modernist Guy Ritchie / Lock Stock etc. affair, set against a Keyser Söze (ripped off!) style unseen devil mythology, where someone is pulling the strings in the background.
These plot devices are pretty clunky and contrived, and the whole movie is basically absurd, whacky, and cartoonish... perhaps trying a little too hard to be cool, and too clever for it's own good (and too clever for it's own ability).
So if you expect an adrenalin rush straight out of the gate, you will be disappointed on that score, and see all the visual aspects as mere window dressing to cover up that fact.
(Half a dozen gratuitous cameos don't rescue it either, and don't really add anything, seeing as they have precisely no bearing on the plot whatsoever - just twenty second jobs for acting chums!)
That said, if you don't mind it not being what you thought it was, it is quite fun, goofy nonsense, albeit a wasted opportunity, I feel... a bit like those Shane Black movies I've seen recently: Nice Guys and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.
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What a feast for the eyes and ears, this totally blew me away and the three-hour run-time passed in minutes. From the incredible opening scene to the heart-wrenching denouement, this had me enthralled.
The above could have been written for this or the original but it applies equally. However, it turned out I am not as familiar with the 50s version as I thought. The set pieces in this one were great but I couldn't mentally compare them with the other. The acting and singing, by all combatants (as that is what they are), are amazing.
Anyway, they stand alone, as far as I am concerned, as terrific moments in cinema. I hope it is as revered by people in the future as the first version is now!
10/10 :happy:
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Not seen this since I was about 12, when pretty much every year before that it seemed to be on tv, and I used to watch it every time... I thought it was great back then, but in the intervening years, if you'd asked me what the point of the whole movie was - the plot - I'd struggle to say anything more than a bunch of truckers decide to make a, well, convoy, and the cops don't like it.
(And that, upon rewatch, is still basically the plot :)
...However, since then, I now know who Sam Peckinpah is, and what he is known for as a director, including the overly highlighted violent scenes (occasional ultra slow-motion shots of a punch, or a shot, or other dramatic moment), and I get the whole metaphorical subtext etc.
But it still is fun, and very enjoyable, and sits alongside those kind of movies of the time like Any Which Way But Loose and Cannonball Run, being a kind of working class rebel outlaw movie in the style of a western set in a modern world.
It's sits tonally between Smokey And The Bandit, though not as goofy, and consistently light-hearted... And Vanishing Point, though not as serious and straight faced.
Not bad for a movie based on a song!
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A pretty creepy and haunting analogy for human behaviour as a result of despair in the face of unknowable terror... Although the story was written some years back, the movie was doubtlessly produced to be timely in the wake of 911.
...Still, perhaps even more applicable than ever.
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Not anywhere near as good as the first, but that's because, I think, that one will have a broader appeal age wise, in evoking a lot of "stuff" for older audiences about their youngest years... In a more poetic, and heart-breaking way, whereas this will probably mean more to an audience specifically contemporary to the age of the lead character Riley.
This moves a lot quicker, and is more busy.
Very good though.
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It's a short movie, running at only an hour and a half...
(A full two minutes of which, are occupied at the start by the seemingly endless production company idents... seriously, I think there's at least eight!)
...And it's a pastiche / homage to both the kind of late night seventies talk shows that felt a bit ropey, and a bit dodgy and dangerous, as well as the several attempts at live TV broadcasting of "spooky" goings on at Halloween over the years, where they pretend that it's all actually happening, but much to the consternation of those making the show, it actually is.
So it's a desperate gambit of a show gone wrong, framed as a kind of "found footage" horror, where we are supposedly witnessing the original master-tape of the original live broadcast...
...Except I think this has actually exceeded the now traditional, and perhaps worn trope of the found footage thing, and is perhaps better thought of as a kind of stage play.
In fact, my abiding thoughts at the end were exactly that: "This would make truly brilliant stage show!" - Broadway or West End adaptation anyone?!?
So fading talk show host invites a supposedly intermittently possessed girl on as a guest, with her rescuer / carer, in order to try and coax the devil out for the benefit of live TV (and therefore, good ratings), along with a now professional sceptic / debunker, and a psychic medium, all infront of a live television audience... what could go wrong? :)
It feels very stagey throughout the first half, but I think, done with a wry smile, albeit, played brilliantly deadpan... and I do think it might have been more effective without the "special" effects, later on, which feel a bit too "Ghostbusters" CGI, and does kill the immersion a little, but the finale really redeems it, with the "In The Mouth Of Madness" surreal, horrific mind bending sequence, which takes it up to another level of weird.
All cast are excellent, primarily David Dastmalchian, of course, who, finally given a chance at a lead role, knocks t clean out of the park, as we always knew he could, and it's nice to see Ian Bliss (Bane in: Matrix Reloaded) again - need to see more of this dude! - as the debunker, and especially praise goes to Ingrid Torelli as a truly creepy kid!
A great, short, late night horror watch, and as I said, an absolute potential gold mine for a possible stage play adaptation!
(Has anyone ever done a genuine horror movie on the stage before)
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Really quite good actually.
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Yup, it's that one... heavily, not only influencing, but in many ways informing, if not actively helping create Sleepless In Seattle - The whole: Empire State Building scenario and so forth.
But it's a pretty odd movie, as much as it is a classic romance movie, in that the first half is pretty tedious, and dull, not only due to the limited expressive capabilities of Cary Grant (better at the comic stuff than the dramatic I feel), but also the rather empty "banter" and back and forth between him and Deborah Kerr, who has quite a stiff, school-matronly thing going on here, which mostly feels flat, and not quite as crackling as they were perhaps aiming for... Not good in a dialogue driven, two person focused movie; Especially when the lack of musical score for much of this makes it seem like you're on set, without all the production added, so it seems odd. In addition, many of these individual shots go on way too long, making it feel all the more awkward, like they should have cut to something else several seconds previous.
(There'a one scene in a small chapel where they are both praying silently to themselves, where I'm not entirely sure if she's reciting a prayer to herself, or the whole bloody bible!).
All of this is not a good mix, and as well as highlighting the dull clunky feel of it all, is apt to make you nod off.
And from this alone, I would have scored this a 5 out of 10 (5 being my baseline score of: "meh" - less than this represents a negative score in my book)
...Oh, and their respective "others", whom they are in relationships with, seem to be taking they news that they each love another in an altogether nonchalant, bordering on indifferent manner, which does lessen the dramatic stakes considerably .
But...
...Then, something remarkable happens, as the last half hour picks it up a couple of points for me, and makes the whole thing more worthy of it's "Classic" status... And better than this, the final five minutes (literally the last five minutes) are truly exceptional, even brilliant.
That final scene is probably one of the most inspired, and brilliant pieces of screenwriting in any romance movie, using the genius device of having him apologise to her for something she (apparently) has done to him, until she gets the point and the subtext is apparent to all of us in the audience. Masterfully done.
So this last scene is probably a 9 out of 10 (pushing towards a 10) and redeems the whole thing somewhat, and is worth watching for that alone.
One odd little thing that stuck in my head after the movie was over, was that it occurred to me that they meet on a boat when kerr's character finds his lost cigarette case....I'm pretty sure he doesn't smoke a single cigarette in the whole movie!
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Vinyl Albums : Live Music : 78 RPM : CD Albums : CD Singles : 12" Singles : 7" Singles : Tape Media : Classical Music : Music Memorabilia : Cinema : TV Series : DVD & Blu-ray : Magazines : Books : Video Games : Create Your Own World
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